Snow? Never heard of it! - 2. Chapter 2: Stuck

The roads were worse than Liam feared. Cars moved in slow, shuddering lines. A truck ahead spun its wheels and went nowhere, an enormous beast trapped by physics.

Liam pressed the nonexistent brake pedal and glared at Rick. Rick grabbed the steering wheel with both hands just to make Liam feel better.

“Holding your backpack hard will not help in an accident, or pressing the ‘air’ brake,” Rick said.

“I’m doing all I can, unlike you” Liam snapped.

Rick laughed softly. “Thanks for the mental support.”

Liam glared at the windshield. Snowflakes splattered and smeared. The wipers squeaked in protest. Every sound in the car felt amplified by his tension. He tried to focus on something else, letting his mind run through his day like a checklist: samples, device booking, measurements, protocol template, samples… “Holy lord of failed experiments, I have forgotten the samples. I have to go to my office first.”

Rick looked at him questioningly. “The parking slots there are definitely full of snow. Maybe you should park the car on the main street.”

Liam argued. “You don't expect me to carry the charged batteries around, right? If I fall down, they might explode—thermal runaway and things like that.”

Rick’s eyes flicked to him. “I didn't know you were a Tesla.”

“I’m more than a Tesla,” Liam said and stuck his tongue out.

Traffic thickened as they reached the main road. Cars were at a standstill. Liam felt his jaw tighten.

“What are they doing? Aren’t the schools still closed? Why are there so many people on the road?” Liam hissed.

Rick looked out at the line of vehicles ahead. “Existing. Poorly. On your way to civilization.”

Liam played with the radio as a distraction. “Nobody is ready for snow. Every year, snow arrives, and society behaves like it’s an unexpected visitor who wasn’t on the guest list.”

Rick leaned back. “You expect too much from society.”

They reached Rick’s office building after what felt like a century but was probably thirty minutes. Rick unbuckled and paused before getting out; Liam was outside before him.

He leaned in and kissed Liam again. This one lingered half a second longer. It wasn’t sentimental. It was practical. A small reinforcement: we’re still us, even if the world is a mess.

Rick pulled back and said, “Text me when you arrive.”

“Ok, ok. Just go,” Liam said. “I gotta drive.”

Rick grinned. “Drive carefully.”

Then he pulled his collar up against the snow and walked into the gray morning like a man going into battle with spreadsheets.

Liam watched him go and felt the familiar tug of affection and irritation. Rick could handle the unexpected. Rick belonged in chaos. Liam spent his life trying to force systems—machines, materials, people—into behaving consistently, and he was always surprised when they did not.

He drove toward the office.

The campus roads were partially cleared, which meant someone had done something, but not enough. Liam parked with a careful precision that bordered on prayer and hurried inside to grab the samples before driving again.

In the parking lot of the testing hall, there was so much snow that he didn't know where to park. He stopped, got out, and realized why everyone was looking at him as if he were an alien.

He had practically parked in the middle of the street. After a few tries, he finally went to the lab building, which smelled of chemicals that should have been banned. The air felt dry. Liam’s shoulders loosened a fraction.

He swiped in, boots leaving wet prints on the floor, and went to the lab area. His colleagues were already there, tapping wildly on their laptops, having already accepted that suffering was part of the job.

“Morning,” someone called.

Liam managed a tight smile. “Sorry for being late. Let’s start.” He was hoping he could steal the parameters without arguments, just by acting nice.

In reality, the colleague had unwillingly volunteered to help him, after Liam knocked ten times on her door asking different questions.

Jana got up to join him. "By the way, Liam, the mixer doesn't function well.'

“What do you mean?” Liam stared at her.

"It just pushes the material to one corner and stops working. We can make it work, but I'm not sure what really comes out."

For a few seconds, he felt nothing. Then he felt everything at once: anger, disappointment, the urge to lie down on the floor and become part of the crack.

He exhaled slowly, the way he did when an experiment went wrong and he was trying not to become dramatic in front of instruments.

Liam’s mind raced. He could postpone the run and spend the next week rebooking time slots like a man trying to catch fish with bare hands.

He thought of the snow outside, the canceled train, the five-kilometer walk, the traffic. He thought of Rick’s calm face and the way Rick had kissed him like a promise.

Liam swallowed.

“Better half than nothing,” he said, then added, “I hate everything, but I’m monogamous with this project.”

Jana made a face as if given too much private information. " I'll prepare the screening."

Liam set up his station. Samples lined up and labeled. Liam’s handwriting was almost aggressive in its chaos.

He fed the first batch of material into the mill. The machine whined, then settled into a steady mechanical roar. Liam waited until he could watch the fragments collect—fine particles where solid chunks had been. There was something perversely satisfying about it. A controlled destruction he could call science.

Another colleague walked by and shouted over the machine, “You look happy.” The happiness didn't last long. The second batch jammed.

The mill’s pitch changed, a strained whine, and then it stopped abruptly. Silence rushed in like water in a flood. Liam’s stomach dropped.

He stared at the machine as if it had betrayed him personally—which it had.

He turned the power off, because he was not a complete idiot, and opened the chamber. A part of the housing was stuck between the rotors.

Liam stared considering whether to throw something at it or write a formal complaint to the concept of friction.

Instead, he took a deep breath and looked for the toolbox. He scraped. He cleaned. He swore under his breath with quiet creativity.

Jana, the colleague, passed again and offered, “Want help?”

Liam’s pride flared. His exhaustion flared too. He hesitated, then nodded once. “Yes. Before I commit an act of violence against stainless steel.”

They worked together in silence, the kind of silence that only exists among people who have all been humbled by equipment. When the chamber was clean again, Liam resumed abusing the cells.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He stopped the mill, pulled his glove off, then pulled the phone out, and saw Rick’s text:

'Made it? You alive?"

Liam stared at the message. He had forgotten to text.

"Alive. Sorry, forgot to write. Not everything working. I’m staying home tomorrow."

Rick replied almost immediately:

"Proud of you, anyway."

Liam stared at the screen. He could hear Rick’s voice in his head, dry and amused.

Liam tucked the phone away and returned to the mill. The machine roared. The particles fell. Outside the lab window, snow continued to fall with the persistence of an enemy.

Hours passed in a blur of procedure and interruption. By early afternoon, he was done. He could go home and let Rick fight his way home, or head to the office and analyze the results so he could kill time.

Outside, the snow on the road was gone, everything was cleaned.

Liam drove toward his office, started his laptop, and sat calmly to negotiate with the data. At some point, his phone buzzed with Rick asking when he picked him up.

Liam shut everything down and drove. Some time later, Rick was driving again. It was easier to let Rick drive so he couldn't complain about his driving style.

Rick looked around at the lines of cars, the red brake lights stretching into the distance like a warning. “Ah,” he said. “The evening ritual.”

Then glanced at Liam. “How was the lab?”

Liam’s jaw tightened. “One of the devices I booked was out of service.”

Rick winced. “Of course it was.”

“I got half of the things done, so not bad. How was your day? ” Liam asked.

Rick’s expression softened. “So, it worked. I had lots of paperwork, discussed a few cases with colleagues, nothing interesting." He paused before asking again, "What's the plan for this afternoon? The promised hot sex?”

“I have to return the books, then we eat,” Liam answered, pretending he didn't hear Rick's last words.

Rick smiled gently. “Sounds like enough time before sleeping.”

The drive home was uneventful. Everything was fine until Liam punched in the code and opened the door. The clean apartment from the morning was replaced with a scene from hell. Coats, gloves, scarves, bags, dirty shoes half covered in sand were scattered meticulously everywhere. Liam bit his lip, cursed about them never learning to follow their list before grabbing the bag with the books. “I'll be back in ten minutes. Make sure things are back to normal,” he said, and disappeared into the elevator.

Twenty minutes later, when he got back, nothing had changed except that Rick sat on the sofa reading something on his phone, two boxes of frozen food waiting for him on the kitchen island.

Rick greeted Liam without looking.

Liam frowned and let his anger take over. “You did nothing? They haven't cleaned up their mess, you haven't even cooked rice? Why should I do everything? Feeding the cats, going for a walk with the dog, cleaning up, cooking… And you just sit on the sofa?”

Rick glared. “Stop complaining. We have neither cats nor dogs. I could have returned the books, too, if you asked. And you didn't say what you wanted to eat.”

Liam ignored Rick, grabbed a pot, and started cooking.

Rick didn't get up to help. “You could have set the table. Made the sauce warm. Cut the bread. Cleaned up the mess on the floor. But you just sit on the sofa.”

“Do you want to eat dinner,” Rick asked, “or do you want to complain until your world collapses?”

Liam felt like complaining some more, considered for too long, forgetting about the cooking rice until it turned into a problem.

“Fuck my life,” Liam said, trying to stop the water from running down the hob.

Rick was there in no time, holding a towel, doing damage control.

“I was tired and needed a break. You also took forever to come back. Let's move to the parallel world where things are fine and there's nothing to do except making out.”

Liam stared, then sighed. “Ok. I might be sorry too. For complaining.”

Rick laughed and threw the wet towel at Liam.

Outside, the snow fell quietly. Inside, the apartment held their routines, their arguments, their small, stubborn intimacy. The world could do what it wanted.