#author builds things up halfway to a point that it could get so juicy and interesting and then just drops the ball- chucks it over their sho

[greatshell-rider]

re: my own tags on a previous post i am too lazy to paste them here but needletail’s talk with violetshine is so shoddily done and i am offended on their behalf. first off it’s in alderheart’s point of view and like. that’s nice that he and needletail got to talk too, they deserved to have that, but COME ON. this whole book (well. some of it sigh) you have needletail’s ghost trying to track violetshine down, violetshine has awful dreams in which needletail disdains her, you have violetshine begging for forgiveness and understanding and reassurance that her one closest friend in ALL HER LIFE still cares for her and doesn’t regret sacrificing her life to save her, doesn’t blame her for anything- and in this scene where they finally talk, it is two lines. two pages before the end of the book. and in alderheart’s point of view

THROWS UP MY HANDS CMON

[truthofherdreams]

softest hearts (#2)

also on ao3

“Harvey, would you be a dear and grab those jars?”

Harvey immediately stands up from his seat at the kitchen table, textbooks and papers scattered all over it, to help Aunt Hilda with her jam making. He barely has to rise on his tiptoes to grab said jars, and delicately put them down on the kitchen counter with a smile toward Aunt Hilda.

She replies in kind, and squeezes his chin between two fingers. “It’s so nice having someone tall to help around the house.”

“Hey, I’m tall!” Ambrose protests. He sits in a corner, feet on a side table as he peels an apple with a blunt knife.

“Tall and willing to help.”

He points the knife at Hilda with a wink. “You got me there.”

Harvey snorts a laugh even as he grabs another set of jars, then closes the cupboard’s door. He shares an amused glance with Sabrina, before she focuses back on her history homework. The essay is due next week, but it’s never a bad thing to wrap things up early.

She does keep an eye of Harvey though, a habit grown during the past year and a half of him living with the Spellmans. Her aunts got a lot better very quickly at adapting their language in front of him, but one is never too far from the eventual slip up.

“Thank you for you help, by the way,” Harvey grins down at Aunt Hilda. “Got a A+ on my essay about Emily Bronte!”

“Oh my dear, that’s wonderful!”

“What is?”

Aunt Zelda appears from downstairs, Sabrina and Harvey pulling twin grimaces of disgust at the apron and matching gloves she still wears. She rips one off her hand and makes for grabbing a cigarette, before she glances at Harvey and thinks better of it.

“Got a good grade on my essay about Bronte,” Harvey explains.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Aunt Hilda adds.

Aunt Zelda makes a face. “Bronte? That righteous bi–brilliant author. Great. Well done.”

Ambrose crunches on his apple to muffle his chuckle, while Sabrina finds her history essay suddenly more fascinating than it was a mere ten seconds ago. Motherhood and appreciation have never come easy to Zelda, but it is particularly obvious every time she interacts with Harvey. She is trying, which is more than anyone else was expecting at first, but it always comes out as cold and distant. Thankfully Harvey doesn’t notice, or care all that much. Or perhaps he’s too polite to point out Zelda’s behaviour toward him, too grateful the woman took him in to be picky about the way she doesn’t seem to warm up to him.

Or maybe he’s even more pure than Sabrina believes, because he sits back at the table, by her side, with a proud smile. When she raises an eyebrow to him in a silent question, he leans forward as to whisper, “She gave me a compliment!”

Sabrina’s heart melts, just a little.

…

Freshman year only serves to highlight how unconventional Sabrina’s friendship with Harvey is – if one could even use such a word to describe what transpires between the two of them. If nobody was really caring about the situation when they were in middle school, accepting Harvey’s presence in the Spellmans’ household without much questioning, high school is an entire story altogether.

It was to be expected, of course. Teenagers are nosy creatures, running on gossip and juicy stories, and theirs is offered on a silver platter. The two of them arriving at school and leaving together, always sitting next to each other at lunch, sharing some AP classes and group projects. Even Susie and Roz as buffers in their group of friends doesn’t change one simple fact: a boy and a girl live together, and it’s making people talk.

Sabrina stops counting the number of times other girls come and ask her if they have a shot at asking Harvey out, if he’s taken, if they are dating. Sabrina denies everything, as it is the truth. Harvey never asked her out, or even showed any kind of interest in her, at home or otherwise. He is her best friend, and it’s fair game for other girls to be flirty at him and try their luck.

She wouldn’t be upset if he started dating another girl.

Nope. Not at all. She’d be fine.

Really.

Which makes David Anderson asking her out for the Winter Wonderland all the more surprising, because Sabrina was so focused on the idea of Amelia Cooper asking Harvey that. Well. It didn’t even cross her mind that anyone could or would be asking her.

It leaves her staring at David, mouth agape despite no sound coming out of it as she fails to find a way out of the situation. She doesn’t like David – hell, she doesn’t even know him – and she’s planned on going with Susie and Roz as friends anyway. No pressure of not finding a date, just a fun night out with her friends and a pretty dress.

“Huh – I – I mean,” she stammers.

Nobody ever told her how to reject a boy, mainly because Zelda is above that, Hilda is not the biggest catch, and Ambrose would never reject anyone. She has no idea what to do in that situation. How to react. What to say.

“Hey Brina,” comes Harvey’s voice by her side, his arm solid as it wraps around her shoulders. “We still on for a study session at Cerberus tonight?”

David’s eyes travel between her and Harvey several time, and she wonders what he sees. What so many people see when Harvey casual hangs out next to her locker or walks her to class even if his room is halfway across the building, or gets the last bag of vinegar chips because they’re her favourites. Everything that she dismisses as Harvey just being a good friend, but can be interpreted so differently.

“Spanish test tomorrow, remember?” Harvey adds when she doesn’t answer. Then, as if only now noticing she isn’t alone, “Hey Anderson, what’s up?”

It’s David’s turn to stammer a little. “Huh – not much – meeting with Mr Peterson in a bit, better keep going.”

He doesn’t quite run away, but it’s a close thing. Sabrina waits until he’s disappeared around the corner to slap Harvey’s chest as hard as she can with the back of her hand. He finally lets go of her, if only to rub the spot theatrically.

“What was that for?”

“You know why!”

“I really don’t!”

And she believes him, almost. Perhaps it’s easier if she believes him, if she convinces herself that Harvey really doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing or the message he sends other boys when he stands too close to her, when he looks at her with his kind, sad eyes, when he leans as close as possible to whisper a joke in her ear. Maybe he doesn’t know, for real.

Except.

Except there’s the ghost of a smirk on his lips.

It sends her heart racing.

…

“We need Harvey out of the house.”

Zelda’s statement is met by stunned silence from the other three Spellmans. Not even Hilda, Harvey’s number one supporter in the house, seems to be able to come to the boy’s defense.

It is only after long seconds of lack of reaction that Zelda looks up from the cigarette she’s lighting, only to meet three wide pairs of eyes.

“Oh, will you quit it already! The High Priest is coming for dinner on Saturday, and the boy can’t be here, is all.”

Sabrina deflates like a balloon as she lets out a long sigh, and it’s as if everyone in the room is breathing properly again. Some of the tension remains – as always when the High Priest is involved or mentionned – but it is not as awkward as a few seconds ago.

“You need to stop doing that, Aunt Z,” Ambrose comments.

“As if I would get rid of the boy! He’s the only one standing between us and those dreadful Mormons.”

Sabrina can’t help but snort, just a little. For years now a pair of Mormons have been visiting them, showing up out of nowhere every two months like clockwork. Despite Zelda’s – and Ambrose’s – best effort, they never ran away or were put off by the Spellman household.

And then Harvey decided on a new tactic. They couldn’t open their mouth to deliver their well-rehearsed speech without him singing something out of the musical that was inspired by their religion, louder than them. They would quiet down and so would he, only to start singing again every time they opened their mouth.

It’s been over eight months now and they are yet to show their faces again. Even Zelda was silently impressed.

“But why is the High Priest visiting us, sister?” Hilda asks.

Sabrina points in her direction with a nod of the head, a silent agreement to her aunt’s question. As far as she remembers, she’s only ever met the High Priest once a year, during the Feast of Feasts. He never bothers visiting, especially not the Spellmans. There is a reason why they are not active in the coven’s social life, after all. For him to visit is a pretty big deal.

Zelda sighs as she sits at her end of the kitchen table, before she takes a long drag of her cigarette.

“Sabrina’s Dark Baptism is almost a year away, as we all know. He wants to make sure her education is not lacking, despite her not attending the Academy, so that she will not fall behind once her sixteenth birthday has come. It’s nothing more than a homeschool check, really.” Another drag of her cigarette, before she looks at Sabrina. “I want you to work on your spells as much as possible until Saturday evening, so that you will not put us to shame. And we need Harvey out of the house, obviously. We can’t have the High Priest question why we are keeping a human pet.”

Ambrose hides his snort of laughter behind a magazine, while Sabrina doesn’t quite manage to hide her own expression of surprise. But it is, as often, Hilda who replies to her sister. “Once again, he’s a guest, not a pet,” she singsongs.

“We feed him and house him without expecting anything in return. The three of you even show affection to him. That’s a pet.”

Sabrina can’t help but turn toward her cousin, a faux air of outrage on her face as she folds her arms on her chest. “You show affection to him?” she accuses him, while her aunts are busy with a bickering of their own beside her.

Ambrose inspects his nails carefully, theatrically pretending to be nonchalant about it. “Well, I’m only taking care of him because you aren’t.”

Her gasp of indignation isn’t so fake this time. Ambrose challenges her with a raise of his eyebrows, tongue poking between his teeth. It doesn’t take much more for Sabrina to throw herself at him with a growl. He’s faster of course, running away from her with a laugh that only grows louder when she runs after him; first through the living room, them up the stairs to his bedroom.

She chases him around the room before he dashes away and starts pouncing on Harvey’s door. It’s only a few seconds before Harvey opens, headphones still on his ears and an expression of surprise on his face when Ambrose throws himself behind him with a loud “Save me!”

Harvey is such a good sport, Sabrina will give him that, as he puts his hands on each side of the doorframe to prevent her from entering his bedroom, an easy smile on his lips. It clashes painfully with Ambrose’s own smirk of victory, which makes the sight in front of her all the more entertaining.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t stop you.”

Oh, she has so many.

But only a handful she can say out loud without dying of embarrassment, looking at Harvey in the eyes, with Ambrose watching. In the end, she settles on a happy middle, stepping closer to Harvey with a sweet smile. His eyes drop to her lips, just for a second, and he swallows; Sabrina’s own heart beats faster in reply.

“I’ll buy you fries at the cafeteria tomorrow.”

He hesitates.

Just for a second.

“Yeah, he’s all yours,” he announces as he steps aside.

Ambrose is so offended Sabrina has to laugh. “Traitor!” he throws at Harvey, before he pushes past Sabrina and runs away. She entertains the idea to run after him once more, only for a few seconds, before she gives up and instead leans against Harvey’s door frame.

He grins at her, that cute dopey smile that never fails to make her light-headed. Sometimes she wonders, if he knows how deadly that smile is, if he’s aware of the effect he has on her by just before so soft all the time. She’s never understood Hollywood’s thing with bad boys, when boys like Harvey can melt her heart in an instant.

“What was that even about?” he asks.

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to remember what even started it all, until Ambrose’s words of silliness come back to her mind. She shrugs then, both because it is not that important all things considered, and because there is no way she could explain Harvey. “Doesn’t matter, really.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “What are you working on?”

He’s been gathering quite the collection of art supplies through the past few months, all of them piling up on his desk. He’s got some drawings on the walls as well as in folders, character designs and landscape sketches and quick doodles of a hand, a flurry of fabric, a light reflection. Sabrina didn’t know someone could have so much talent, until Harvey started showing her his notebooks.

“Oh, just cleaning some designs, really,” he tells her as he moves closer to his desk. Sabrina follows him in, closing the door behind her as a second thought, wave of the hand behind her back. Zelda did tell her to practice, after all. “I need to practice with ink a little bit more, my shading isn’t quite there yet.”

“It looks amazing,” she breathes out.

It really does, the drawing of a werewolf almost jumping at you out of the page. The details of the fur, and the teeth, really are what is catching Sabrina’s attention. And maybe she should worry, that he watches so many horror movies with Ambrose and always draws about monsters, vampires and other supernatural themes. But it all looks too great to question.

“You think so?”

“Yes, of course!”

He grins once more, bumping his shoulder against her to hide how awkward he is every time she pays him a compliment. Aunt Zelda explained it to her once, that it’s normal for people who grew up in difficult environment to accept compliments, because all they expect is criticism, and it broke Sabrina’s heart. She doesn’t know how to make it clear to Harvey, how amazing she thinks he is.

“Maybe you should do a portrait of me,” she teases instead.

He snorts, a little louder than usual. “Yeah, no.”

She turns toward him, and has to look up to meet his eyes, even as he looks away. “And why’s that?”

He’s blushing now, red high on his cheeks and the tip of his ears, still refusing to look at her. “Because it’s harder, when the model is pretty. More chances to mess it up.”

It takes Sabrina a few seconds to really understand what he means, before she’s blushing furiously too. In all of her years of being friend with Harvey, and the past few months of seeing him as potentially-more-than-friends, she doesn’t remember a single instance of a compliment that was casual but flirty, no theatrics, no joke to cover it under. Just a compliment, raw and heartfelt.

She’s the one to look away then, under the pretence of shuffling some of the papers around so she can look at his other drawings. Her ears play tricks on her, because she swears Harvey sighs a little before he takes a step back, then another until he sits on his bed. She still won’t look at him, not until her face isn’t on fire anymore and her heart doesn’t race like she just ran a marathon.

“Hey so, fun fact,” Harvey breaks the silence between them after a couple of minutes. “Dr Cee is going to his comics convention this weekend, and he wants me to come with him.”

Dr Cerberus is the reason why Harvey started drawing so much. Hours spent at the bookstore, reading comics and sipping milkshakes, have made Harvey quite friendly with the quirky owner. Dr Cee even promised Harvey a part-time job, once he will be old enough, and told him he would gladly see some sketches ideas for new posters around the store.

He’s also, though unknowingly, the perfect excuse for Sabrina to have Harvey out.

“Oh, you should definitely go!” she exclaims, finally turning to face him.

Harvey seems taken aback by her sudden burst of cheerfulness, not that she can blame him for it. It’s quite the whiplash from a few seconds ago.

“You think?”

“Definitely.” She goes to sit next to him, one leg under her so she can face him, close without being intimate. “You could even take a few drawings with you to show around. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to art school?”

“I mean, yeah, but like when you say you want to be an astronaut. It would be cool, but it’s not entirely doable.”

“Why not? You’re talented and hard-working, and you want it so badly. You can do whatever you want.”

The sky is his limit, whereas Sabrina’s path was chosen for her before she was even born. A few years of human high school, followed by a witchy diploma at the Academy, followed by years in the coven where everyone says she belongs. No choice but to follow in her father’s footsteps, to hide in the shadow of his greatness.

She envies Harvey’s freedom to do as he wants, to have the liberty to make mistakes and try again. As the daughter of Edward Spellman, she will never be granted that chance.

“Maybe you’re right,” Harvey says after a while. “Will you help me pick my best drawings?”

“Sure!” she beams. “How about some tea to get us started?”

He nods, before he grabs one of his folders, and Sabrina takes it as her cue to go downstairs. Only Aunt Zelda is in the kitchen, smoking and reading a book. If she listens carefully, she can hear Hilda in the living room and Ambrose downstairs, tending to their latest client.

She grabs a couple of mugs, dropping twin bags of tea in the before she turns the kettle on. No need to look behind her shoulder to feel the weight of Zelda’s stare on her.

“He’ll be gone, don’t worry.”

“Good,” is all her aunt’s answer.

…

Sabrina wants the record to state that she doesn’t have a date for the Winter Wonderland. Susie, Roz, Harvey and she all agreed to go together, as friends. It just so happens that Harvey and she arrived together because, well, they do live together so it wouldn’t be logical for them to arrive at different times. And she dances with all three of them; sometimes together as a group, screaming the lyrics of an old song or messing a choreography so badly from laughing too much. Roz forces her into a duet when an old Beyoncé song starts playing, and she spends some quality time with Susie in a corner, since Susie doesn’t like dancing all that much.

If she so happens to dance a couple of songs with Harvey too, well.

They did come together. As a group. As friends.

It’s not weird for friends to have fun together, right? It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything, and it’s not as if other guys are lining up to ask her to dance, or other girls are taking Harvey aside to flirt with him. Everyone else is busy doing their own thing, which is fine. Sabrina only needs her group of friends to enjoy herself anyway.

And then the Bruno Mars song she was dancing to with Harvey turns into a slow balad by Adele, and she isn’t so certain anymore. Harvey’s arms fall back at his sides, before he swings them back and forth then clasps his hands in front of him with a little pout.

Sabrina is certain he’s trying to find a polite way out, which makes it all the more surprising when he softly asks, “Wanna dance, Brina?”

Her smile splits up her face, so much so that she can only nod in reply as she takes a step closer to him. One of her hands hands on his shoulder, while he puts his on her hips, and for a moment she’s thrown off-balance by the unfamiliarity of this all. But then he’s pulling her closer, and her other hand find the back of his neck as they sway to the music.

She presses her cheek against his collarbone, eye closing, a sigh on her lips. This is nice. Better than nice, even, because Harvey is warm and solid against her, his hands anchoring her to the here and there. In his arms, she can almost forget the High Priest wants her to start at the Academy in January, a good nine months before her Dark Baptism.

They want her to start her education as early as possible, to put her on the path to greatness, but Sabrina isn’t ready to say goodbye to her human life yet. Her high school, her friends, her teachers. Harvey. They are yet to discuss what will happen to him, once she no longer goes to Baxter High. Once they will no longer be able to hide the truth from him.

“This is nice,” she whispers.

She isn’t sure he heard her, but then he’s pulling her closer, arms crossed against her back, so maybe he did. Maybe he’s feeling the same. Maybe this is it, finally.

The song ends with fading notes on a piano, replacing by something equally soft and romantic that Sabrina doesn’t recognise. She doesn’t care, not when Harvey is still holding her close, his cheek pressed against the top of her head and his heart beating against her ear. She wants to stay in that moment forever, him and her and beautiful music. Nothing else.

“Do you want to go home?” he asks her when a third song comes to an end and they still haven’t stopped.

She looks up at him, soft smile and even softer eyes, a look of wonder on his face. His hand moves up to cup her face, his thumb barely more than a caress on her cheek. He doesn’t do anything else, anything more, so she nods her approval and lets him guide her outside the school’s gym hall.

She catches Susie’s eyes on the way out, her friend brandishing two happy thumbs up at her before she disappears into the crowd. Everything is silent and cold outside, winter settling in on Greendale. Harvey shrugs off his jacket, so he can put it on her shoulders, keeping his arm here too so he can pull her against him.

That’s how they make their way back home, walking side by side and sharing body heat, Harvey pointing constellations out at her and telling her what they mean. The icy ground scrunches under their feet, an owl hooting quietly in the background. Peaceful. Perfect.

Finally making it home is a bit of a relief, if only because the warmth of inside bites at her cold cheeks and brings some life back to her legs. Harvey tells her to go and change, that he will be up with hot chocolates in five minutes, so she does just that.

Runs to her room and wipes the makeup off her face, slips off her dress and puts on warm, comfortable PJs instead. She’s waiting for Harvey by the door, which makes it all the more surprising when there is a knock on her window.

They figured out quickly enough that they could sneak through their windows to sit on the roof together, and have done so multiple times since Harvey moved in. Mostly at night, when one of them is kept awake by nightmares and needs company. A knock at the window when he dreams of his father, when her nights are nothing but blood and ash, and here they are. Comfort in the dead of the night.

Here he is tonight, twin mugs of hot chocolate in one hand as he helps her out the window and onto the roof. He waits until she’s seated to do the same, and to hand her the drink. The burning mug is soothing against her cold fingers, and she scoots closer to Harvey so he will keep her warm.

“Tonight was fun,” she comments softly.

“Yeah, it was nice.” He pauses, then, “We should do it more often.”

“Have fun? Damn, Harvey, and here I thought we had fun all the time.”

His chuckle is low and awkward, and he looks away from her. There is another moment of silence, before he squares his shoulders against her, as if preparing himself for battle. An intake of breath, before he says, “No, I mean. Dancing. Going out. We should do – do that again. Together if – if you want.”

Her cheeks might hurt from smiling too much, her heart painful where it drums against her ribcage. She can barely speaks through her grin when she asks, “Are you asking me out?”

He still won’t look at her, this gentle, beautiful, awkward boy. “May–maybe? I know it’s not – like that between us and – you can definitely say no but – you know…”

“Yes,” she whispers. His head turns so fast she’s afraid he hurt himself, his eyes so wide it makes her laugh. “Yes, Harvey, I’ll go out with you.”

“For… for real?”

She’s really laughing now, one of her hand letting go of the mug so she can cup his face, angle it so he will look into her eyes. There is more incredule wonder than anything else on his features, which makes the situation all the more delightfully ridiculous. Here she was, thinking Harvey would never look at her in a romantic light, unaware that he thought the exact same thing about her.

Here they are now, on the precipice of something new and utterly terrifying.

“Yeah, for real.”

He nods, to himself more than anything else, and licks his lips. It’s another moment of nothing, of just staring into each other’s eyes – her smiling and him looking determined – before he says, “I’m going to kiss you now.”

And, by Satan, he does.