#i have like. three or four rotting in my drafts

[likeadevils]

I remember people speculating that TS5 would have something to do with roses. Around a decade later, the 1989 vault tracks ended up confirming their theory.

personally i will not be satisfied until she releases a song called roses BUT ugh this reminds me back when i would regularly make edits i had this series were i would mock up fan theories and do like a new album cover about it and i had the front cover for roses done but i just could not fucking think of a back cover so i just let the front cover rot for like 8 fucking months until i was finally like fuck it piece of paper against a black background good enough let’s go. anyway long way to say i miss editing i need to get back to that

[livwritesstuff]

Do Steve and Eddie make Easter baskets for the kids as they get older? I was just talking to my mom about how she used to hide our baskets along with the eggs and they were impossible to find. And it made me think about Eddie being devious with his hiding spots.

istg you and i are on the same wavelength bc i was literally drafting an easter drabble when this notif came in.

Yeah, they absolutely do the whole Easter thing - just for the memories and tradition of it all. Their kids don't even really know what Easter is about other than the bunny and eggs and all that - Steve is pretty sure Hazel thinks it's to celebrate all the new baby animals and he's not really interested in taking that away from her.

It starts the Saturday before Easter when the girls dye hard-boiled eggs (which typically goes about as well as any extremely messy arts and craft project with three young kids). They argue throughout the entire process, and to an outsider they all probably look pretty miserable, but when Steve says, "If I hear another word about who's allowed to use which colors, I'm packing all this up and we'll be done," he gets a united chorus of protests in response.

(And Eddie is no help whatsoever because he's too busy coming up with the most intricate egg design possible).

When all the eggs are dyed (and the girls are done arguing over whose were ultimately whose), they put them in their little Easter baskets with the fake grass and leave them outside their bedroom doors.

Overnight, Steve and Eddie the Easter Bunny swaps out the eggs for candy and little toys and things like that, and hides the eggs around the house.

Eddie is an absolute rat bastard about how he hides those eggs. He does not care that Hazel is only four, and barely three feet tall. He absolutely will be hiding her sticker-covered mess of an egg on top of the tallest bookshelf in the living room.

"If she's smart, she'll realize she can see it when she stands on stairs," he says gleefully.

"Okay, and then what?" is Steve's question, "Is she levitating up there?"

The girls love it. They have the best time going on a wild goose chase for all the eggs, and the tradition lasts a lot longer than it probably would have otherwise for that exact reason.

An honorable Harrington family Easter mention is when Eddie does such a good job hiding one particular egg that no one can find it.

Steve: If I have to be stuck with a rotting egg lost in my house I will go insane and die

It takes Eddie three hours to find it (inside a spare roll of toilet paper - Steve comments, “No wonder none of you freeloaders could find it”) and he misses the Easter morning cinnamon rolls.

[sequencefairy]

I've started writing this post like, four times already, and I keep discarding the drafts instead of continuing because it's too close, still. But i know i need to unpack this instead of just letting it live inside of me to fester and rot and make me bitter, which will just mean that the haters won, because it's their fault the joy is gone.

Something happened this weekend here on tumblr and elsewhere in other fanspaces and across the wider internet. Something horrible. I've been through fandom implosions before, I was in the trenches with VLD, I walked through the end of Bleach, but this was orders of magnitude worse.

The meanness. The cruelty. The way so many people forgot that the people on their TV, laptop and phone screens are people. That the words they're gleefully typing into their little comment boxes and their posts are being seen by real people, and not just the people at which they are directed.

This fandom has long had a problem with passive, and also less passive, racism. This fandom has long had a problem with boundaries between ourselves and the people we are fans of. I think these two things combined into a horrid creature that was beyond the imagining of anyone.

I slept very little this weekend. I have been more anxious the last three days than I have ever been in my life. I worried every time I opened the tumblr app what thing I might find in my inbox or as a reply on one of my posts. I worried about friends in the fandom, who were dealing not only with the barrage of vitriol not directed at them, but also who were receiving it themselves for daring to be supportive of the general plan.

I am lucky. I have spaces to retreat to. I have friends who are both in and not in this fandom, who have checked in with me to make sure I'm doing okay. My partner has shouldered the bulk of managing the house this weekend because I couldn't. It was too much to think about how to deal with that when all this was going on inside my phone and my laptop. I am also lucky because I am not a person of colour.

Watching folks in this fandom who I know to be folks of colour wade into the fray and knowing that they are seeing the same takes that I was seeing about Steven and about Ryan, makes my heart want to shrivel up in my chest. It hurt me to watch people turn on Watcher this weekend, but I cannot imagine how much it hurt my friends, who might have been watching people they used to trust or enjoy or feel like they knew, spew racist and hateful rhetoric over a business decision they didn't agree with.

I'm not going to litigate whether things could have been done differently, because it really doesn't matter to me, but I am going to say that a level of trust has been shattered here in this fandom space. I can't have fun with people about Watcher content when I have to check and make sure they weren't among the people who were calling for violence against a man whose crime was poorly communicating a business decision to a fandom they used to extoll as kind and generous. If my trust in the wider fandom has been broken then I have to assume our fandom friends of colour's trust has also been shredded.

This has fundamentally changed how I want to engage with and in fandom, and not for the better. I don't have an answer for what this means for me going forward, but I am just so sad. I am so sad that a place of great joy has been sapped of that feeling and I don't know how I'm going to get it back.

I don't know if I want to.

[heartthrobin]

making merry, oh my little fairy (2)

sam winchester x fairy!reader

wc: 5.3k

warnings: soulmate!au (partners share scars), fem!reader, implied age gap (reader is early 20's), hella pining, tooth-rotting fluff, destiel is canon, town being mean to reader, some shaky police jargon, references to thick reader (everyone cheered) but can be ignored, dean being dean, canon-typical warnings (child kidnapping, violence ect.)

an: part 2 of my little fairy series! it's been sitting in my drafts for weeks and part 1 was pretty unpopular so i've been hesitant to post it but then i realized i write for myself and not for recognition! so enjoyyyyy. remember to comment and repost to support your favourite writers :)

summary: you flew around Sam's mind with your pretty little wings all night and all day, it doesn't help that you're popping up around every corner of this case. he's trying not to think about it.

part one part three part four

They'd sat in the car parked out front maybe longer than they should have. Sam noticed you peak through the curtain at the twenty minute mark, he only noticed because he could feel your curious gaze.

It disturbed him enough to allow Dean to fly down the neighbourhood road noisily at too many miles an hour.

Naturally, sleep became a stranger.

Dean was long passed out on the questionably lumpy motel bed and Sam was still at the desk. The white light off his laptop made his eyes itch.

A dryad is a tree nymph, commonly inhabiting oak trees, and generally born into the form of beautiful women. Many dryads were considered to be originally human or children of the nature Gods and it is widely believed that they take on the physical characteristics of the trees they protect.

Your eyes returned to him again, if not for the hundredth time that day. The way the greenery reflected off of them at him. The strength of your legs, how they were wide and grounding like the tree that engulfed your house. Your movements, your walk, how you floated like how the leaves shivered in the forest beyond your garden walls.

Sam had given considerable thought to his soulmate, as most people did.

He was turning thirty-one in a few months time and it had occurred to him that maybe you were on the other side of the world. Maybe you were dead. But people had warned him that he'd know if that were true. He'd feel it, like a gaping wound in his soul.

Castiel had appeared to Dean in a flash of light. In a heroic swoop of love, and Sam thought maybe that could happen to him too.

His thumb was warm where it ran over the scar down his arm.

He wondered if you thought the same.

If you dreamed of his arrival the way he'd dreamed of yours.

It was a silly thing, to dream of meeting your true love. Far too trivial in the life of someone like Sam Winchester when the fate of the world, of good versus evil and heaven versus hell was always in the palm of his hand.

But your figure was burned into his corneas like a blinding torch.

It scared him. Not an easy feat for the man who'd seen it all.

Sam had asked Dean a few years back.

Can someone live without their soulmate?

Dean had shrugged. "Sure, plenty of people do."

Sam had sunk back another sip of his beer at the time, they were somewhere in Florida.

"What if they'd already met them? Can they decide that they don't want to be with them?"

Dean chuckled at that. "I doubt that works out very often."

It was already long after Dean had met Castiel. Long after he'd survived his "my soulmate is an angel and a man what the fuck--" stage.

"What makes you say that? I'm sure some people have a strong enough willpower."

Dean had answered him by referencing some movie, one that Sam knew he loved and it took a bit of pestering for Dean to admit he knew the quote by heart.

He'd blushed nearly red and shrugged, accompanying it by another long slug of his beer.

"It's like at the end of the movie--" When Harry Met Sally, specifically, "When they're at that New Years party and Billy Crystal goes up to Meg Ryan and gives that whole speech, and he says that line."

Sam was grinning by then. "What line?"

Like he hadn't seen the movie enough times to know.

"You know, he when says ... when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Sam had long made peace with the fact that even if you did ever come around, that it would be better to leave you be. To leave you in the safety of a life different to his own.

At least he had.

In the slim hours since leaving your doorstep he'd found himself choking over the thought of never seeing you again. Of his eyes never laying again on your face that gazed so happily up into his own, like you felt his warmth in a cold winter.

He was plagued, possessed, by the thought of never knowing more.

Never knowing the way you liked your tea, how you looked first thing in the morning, or worse, how your lips would feel slow and warm against his own.

He wanted to know your favourite song, and your worst fear. He wanted to know where you came from, how you found Fernglade, Washington. What's your favourite book, do you like to read? Would you like it if he read to you instead? Maybe you would, you'd be tucked against his side in bed and he'd tell you about his favourites. His favourite movies and the way he drinks his coffee and the shampoo he used. Maybe you'd play with his hair, braiding little flowers into the ends--

Sam groaned. His face fell into his hands.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. Not now.

But he supposed there would never be an adequate time for your arrival.

And god, you weren't even human.

Cross species soulmates weren't impossible - improbable, sure (about as much as being hit by lightening) - but not impossible.

It was only Sam's luck, the Winchester's luck, that they'd both been struck.

Castiel was an angel, but the concept seemed to fade off Dean quickly at the time.

Dean himself had been little help on the matter during the blurry drive back to the motel. "Hey. I mean, all things considered, fairy sex must be crazy."

Sam closed the tab on Dryads: A Modern Day Delve into Greek Mythology. Another page blinked up at him.

When the sun was still setting and Dean was still seated across from him, he had managed to do some work.

It distracted him, barely, but he managed to somewhat narrow the list of potential suspects.

The filters helped. Creatures that steal children. Creatures that live in the woods.

In all the webpages and in some text from John's journal he'd found a common thread. A thinly veiled one, but a lead regardless.

Goblins are generally found living in communities in burrows of forests across Western America. They are known to be mischievous and malignant spirits which often feed on small animals or easy prey and hunt during the warmer months before hibernating in Winter.

Children are easy prey, Sam thought.

Some subspecies were believed to be able to shift into the form of naughty children and sneak into nearby villages to prey on young humans.

It was the last thing his eyes ran over before he slipped the laptop shut. He crawled to the bed, wishing more than anything that his mind would cut him a break, before sliding under the sheets: seeking respite from the crisp autumn Washington

-

"Rise and shine, Sammy."

The hangers reeled noisily against the rod where Dean had ripped open the curtains and the stark light brought Sam to gasping consciousness.

Sam pulled the pillow up over his face, grumbling into it.

He made out the sound of Dean setting a coffee mug on the side table.

"What time did you get to sleep?"

Answered by another indiscernible whine, Dean sunk into the chair at the tiny table in the room. "Fine, fine ... but did you find anything helpful? Besides fairy porn probably."

It earned him a well-aimed smack in the face with a pillow.

Dean laughed jovially, "Okay, okay."

Sam rose up into a sitting position with a moan. He ran a hand over his face, the other grappling for the already cooling coffee mug on the table.

"Goblins." He muttered around the rim.

Dean paused his own sip, face falling into incredulity.

"Did you just say "goblins"?"

Sam nodded. He didn't elaborate.

"Listen, I know it's a conversation you probably don't wanna have ... but are you sure we're ruling out your little garden fairy from this equation? I mean, it really doesn't look good for her--"

"You're right. I don't want to have this conversation."

Dean shrugged. He fiddled with the coffee mug against his hand.

"It's not her." Sam added quietly.

Nodding slowly, Dean watched his brother with tentative eyes. "Have you thought about that? What you're gonna do?"

Sam rose from the bed, stripping off his shirt. "I don't know man. I don't even think she knows."

It had been a thought that occurred to him at some point in the previous night, that you didn't know. That it was probably selfish to keep it to himself.

"Right, well anyway," Dean reached into the tupperware you'd gifted them the previous afternoon. He'd already cleared out his own and was starting on a pastry from Sam's box. "I was thinking we should go speak to the third vic's mom. Kelly Williams. We haven't spoken to them yet and maybe they can tell us more."

Sam nodded. "Sure. You got an address?"

"No, but she's working a stall at..." Dean picked up a leaflet from the table that Sam assumed he'd found on his coffee run before he was up, "The Fernglade Sunday Market. We can find her there."

"Fine."

He disappeared into the bathroom, Dean heard the shower turn on.

"And you can tell me about this goblins story on the way there!" He called after him.

The door slammed shut.

-

"So you think goblins are coming into town and stealing kids out their back yards?"

The morning was warm and the market made it more so. It was out on a farm a couple roads down from the boys' motel.

There were little set-up stalls as far as he could see over lush green grass, selling cakes and jewellery and home-made soaps. Couples strolled hand-in-hand and children chased their parent's ankles.

Sam shrugged. "I mean yeah, it makes sense. Dad mentioned about the trees, Y/n mentioned about the forest too."

Dean nodded, his eyes rolling over the scenery. "Sure, but goblins? I've never heard of that anywhere, I mean, how do you even kill it?"

"Them." Sam corrected. "They live in groups."

Dean sighed. "Well that's gonna be fun."

Somewhere down the row, a man was singing behind a set up microphone with a guitar in his lap. A small crowd had formed to watch him.

Sam's stomach had begun churning with that feeling that made his organs feel like jelly again. He shrugged against the collar of his shirt.

"Right, well, there's Kelly Williams' stall." Dean glanced again down at the pamphlet, "Rings and Things ... how creative--"

But Sam's eyes had found on another stall. One further down from Kelly Williams', a little set-up of vases and stain glass sculptures. Rather ... they found the woman standing in front of it.

Of course it was you.

Standing against the breeze in another, unsurprisingly, light green dress. It was ruffled and shimmering and glittery and short. It made Sam's airways tighten to a shut.

You seemed intent on avoiding wearing anything that draped any further than just over the curve of your ass, and Sam prayed to anyone listening that it would stay that way.

"Sammy?"

Dean's face shrunk in confusion, he followed his brother's line of sight. He began to laugh, clearly finding you, and jostled Sam with a hand on his shoulder. "Well, isn't this just your luck."

Sam was sucking in deep breaths again. Dean shoved him in the side.

"Go talk to her, I'll speak to Mrs Williams."

Jumping back into semi-consciousness, Sam shook his head, "No, no, it's fine. We'll go--"

"Stop being a baby, Sam." Dean shrugged him off. "You're gonna have to talk to her eventually. And I hope you do a better job than you did yesterday, because that was a train-wreck."

"Thanks."

But Dean's figure was already retreating.

"Asshole." Sam muttered under his breath.

Eyes found you again, they strained against the sunlight. He could make out your face from where he stood: it was twisting, falling into a creased brow that Sam didn't like the look of.

His legs began moving before he had chance to instruct them and it only took a couple paces of his long structure to find your side, heart thumping violently in his ears.

Your eyes lifted from the table, there was an elderly lady sitting in the shade of the cover and looking unimpressed.

"Sam." You smiled up at him and he swore in that second he could listen to you saying his name forever on repeat and never grow bored. "What a pleasant surprise."

"Hey." He sighed, it was louder than he anticipated and he could feel his cheeks growing warmer. "W-What are you doing here?"

You stuttered, "Well, I was just looking at this cute little crocodile--"

His eyes found where your hand was motioning over the woman's table. He was unsurprised to find it littered with stained-glass sculptures of animals. Lions and fish and elephants among others.

But the woman interrupted before you could find the end of your sentence.

"I don't sell to kidnappers."

Her elderly face was curled up in disgust. Sam was taken aback by her directness.

He was more taken aback by your polite smile at her.

"That's fine. I'll be on my way." You nodded kindly, looking back up to Sam. "Wanna take a walk?"

Sam's bones had begun aching with fury in the small seconds since he'd arrived. His brow-bone was heavy set against his eyes.

He glanced over at the crocodile you'd referenced. It was about the size of a shoebox, glassy in bottle green tones and grinning a mouthful of sharp teeth up at him. He could already see it sitting happily on a spot between your books and photo frames, maybe up on the mantle above your fireplace.

Brushing softly against your elbow with his hand, a movement that sent a stone cold shiver up his whole body, he shook his head. "Just one sec--"

He turned to the woman, sticking his finger in the direction of the lifeless creature.

"I'd like to buy that crocodile please."

"Oh, Sam, you don't have to--"

But the woman was unmoved, "No. I'm not selling anything to anyone associated with her."

She stuck a shaking finger in your direction and Sam suddenly wanted to rip the stall to pieces.

"We should just go..." Your voice was small and he fought hard against pulling your frame into his side.

Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket for his FBI identification: flipping it out into the daylight for the woman to see. Her eyes widened behind thinly framed spectacles.

"I said I'd like to buy that crocodile." His voice was stern, heavy laden with his trembling aggravation. "How much is it?"

The woman's face flickered between emotions, before settling on vexation. "Forty dollars." She mumbled.

"I'm sorry?"

"Forty dollars." She replied more clearly, face turning red in embarrassment.

Sam slipped away his badge and dug for his wallet in his pocket, he flipped between the notes and handed her two twenty dollar bills. The woman was quiet while she wrapped the creature, avoiding your and Sam's eyes in the process.

She handed it over with a scathing, "Get away from my stall."

"With pleasure." He turned to you, your face was a cherry red shade. "I'll take you up on that walk."

You stepped away, offering a small sheepish "thanks" to the woman scowling at your and Sam's retreating figures.

"Here." He handed you the crocodile gently, and you took it with tentative hands. "Get a lot of that?"

But you shrugged off his question, grabbing for your purse. "You really didn't need to do this, Sam. Let me just pay you--"

Sam stopped, taking your forearm into his hand - the tingle it sent up his body again didn't go amiss - and he huffed. "Please, please. Don't. It's a gift."

The sun was shining off your dress and it made your face seem lighter. "Sam, really, I can't ask you to--"

"Please?"

You paused, lashes blinking carefully up at him and god he could really kiss you right there--

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Smiling again, easing the tightness in Sam's chest, you nodded. "Fine."

You held the crocodile up to your face, "What are we gonna name him?"

"We?" Sam laughed and you laughed back at him.

"Sure, he's ours now." You tucked it under your arm again.

Ours. He was fragmentally taken away with the thought of something belonging to them, to us. A house, a couch, a dog (or a fox if that's what you wanted)--

"Anyways, where's the other one?"

Sam was brought back to the conversation.

"Oh, uh, Dean?" his eyes grazed over the stalls, pointing over to where Dean was talking with the tall Kelly Williams behind a tray of seashell necklaces. "Talking to one of the victims."

"Right, I almost forgot." You fiddled with your bag over your shoulder. "He decided whether he's killing me yet?"

His mouth tilted teasingly. "What makes you think that I've decided I'm not here to kill you?"

You shrugged, teeth flashing in a gut-wrenchingly beautiful smile. "Well, you bought me this, and ... you don't seem the type."

"The type?"

"Nah, you're too sweet on me already."

Sam's stomach did a somersault in his chest. "I--"

"Besides, you couldn't do it here. Too much blood, too many witnesses ..."

Sam's hair flicked over his shoulder where he tossed his head back to laugh. "Right. You've thought about the logistics already."

"Sure have." You nodded. "Any headway on the kids?"

"Some." He shrugged. "There's this fairy--"

"Dryad."

"--living in this petting zoo in this cottage on the outskirts of town..."

"Fine." You conceded. "I won't ask."

"No, but we have--"

"Ah, look at you two. Getting along like a house on fire."

Sam hadn't noticed his brother's approaching footsteps. Dean clapped a jolly hand over his brother's arm.

You smiled in greeting. "Good morning Dean."

He nodded. "'Morning Tinkerbell."

"Dean."

Chuckling you nodded. "Good one. Haven't heard that before."

The sun was hot on Sam's shoulders, Dean was making it hotter with his conspicuous side eye.

"What's that you got there?" He motioned over the figure under your arm.

You lifted it up proudly, "It's my crocodile. Sam got it for me. The lady wouldn't sell it to me."

"Oh, Sam got it for you, huh?" Dean smirked, relishing in the admission.

"Yep."

The glitter in your eye was making Sam's knees buckle.

"W-We should get going ..." He shifted from his one leg to the other. "Work to do ... and stuff."

"Right," you agreed, fixing the strap over your shoulder again. "I should also head home, not very welcome 'round here anyways."

Confusion glazed briefly over Dean's face but he said nothing on it.

"Yeah, stuff to do." He nodded.

You began your walk past them, finding Sam's gaze. "Thanks again, Sam. I'll see you boys around."

His eyes followed you where your crystals were clinking around your neck. "Yeah. No problem."

Barely out of your earshot, Dean turned to Sam. "A crocodile, huh?"

"Shut up."

-

It wasn't another two days before Sam saw you again.

The boys dove head first back into research, Mrs Kelly Washington hadn't much more to add beyond the fact that she heard another child's voice in the moments before her daughter's disappearance.

"I mean, there was some mention in the lore about goblins being able to turn into kids. Naughty ones at that."

Dean sighed over his bar-top lunch. He took another swig of beer.

"Okay, so what, these ... goblins are coming into town as children and grabbing the kids from their yards? Maybe they'd met somewhere before then, at school or the park?"

Sam shifted the salad around his plate, bored. "Yeah, maybe."

There was a depressingly thin amount of information in John's journal on goblins and the website lore was too broad to even begin sifting through it before another child was taken.

"Well we know that eight kids are taken each time, right?"

Nodding, Sam took an unenthusiastic bite of tomato.

"That means there's still two kids to be taken. I mean, there's only been six victims and autumn is two weeks away from ending, if the story is true that they hunt before winter."

The boy's didn't have to wait long. They were less than an hour clear of the dilapidated bar they'd stopped in for lunch when the call came over the police monitor in the car.

"Units, this is dispatch. We have a suspected 134 at 98 Calvary, requesting assistance."

Code 134. Kidnapping.

Dean found Sam's eye across the front seat before taking a screeching turn into the next street.

Cavalry road was just a few streets down and the scene was as they'd expected. Burning red and blue cop cars littered the street and Dean pulled the Impala into a space between them.

There was a scuffle of officers, in the corner of the driveway a man holding a sobbing woman to his chest. The parents.

Dean and Sam flashed their badges at the nearest deputy.

"What's the situation?"

The officer huffed, tightening his grip on either side of his belt. "We think the kid was taken, Frankie Moore. Disappeared about two hours ago, the parents only called in the last twenty minutes. They thought he'd just run off."

Dean nodded and Sam watched over the scene around him.

"Any witnesses?"

The cop shook his head, Taylor, his badge read. "None. Right out the backyard, just like the others."

"Did the parents see anything, hear anything?" Sam pressed.

"Not from what we can gather from them right now, they're pretty out of shape." Taylor motioned back to where the Mrs Moore was desperately pushing out sentencing between racking sobs. "But we've got a suspect, they're out fetching them right now."

Dean glanced over the officer, "A suspect?"

Sam's hands were starting to itch. He twisted them against his the cuffs of his sleeve.

"Yeah, neighbour saw them out in the forest about an hour ago. Called it into dispatch. They never took it seriously until this call came in."

Somewhere behind them a short siren yelped from one of the cars.

"Did they have the kid or what?" Dean's face was laden with confusion, the story twisting around his brain.

"No, but they've been taken in on suspicion. Talk of the town and such." Taylor responded and Sam's heart sunk to his knees.

There was a click over the officer's radio. "Suspect is in custody."

He pulled it closer to his mouth, "Copy that."

Sam tugged up on the end of his sleeve, revealing his wrists in the afternoon light. They were turning a pinkish red. Handcuffs.

"Dean."

Dean's back stiffened at his brother's tone, eyes finding his wrists. He sighed. "You've got to be kidding me."

Sam's brain was turning muddy. "The suspect, is she a woman?"

Taylor nodded. "As far as I know, yes."

-

There was nothing else said.

Sam fled the scene as if the perpetrator himself. He flew into the passenger's seat with the force of an attacking bear.

Dean chased after him, slotting the key into the ignition: setting the car alight.

"Sam, I know what you're thinking--"

Houses flew past the car, streets and pedestrians, but Sam had no space to consider them.

"You don't know what I'm thinking."

But Dean was persistent, knuckles white around the wheel. "She's your ... your soulmate, I get that, but our leads are thin. Have you considered that she could really be doing this?"

The station came into view at the end of the road. Lights from the cars were flashing in Sam's eyes. His head spun.

"She's not a monster, Dean."

"But she is, Sam! She is! She's not a human."

Dean pushed down on the brake in front of the sheriff's station and Sam was out the car before it had fully pulled to a stop.

He threw the doors open. Officers were flocking around like seagulls over an abandoned hot dog.

Sam grabbed the arm of the nearest one, firm in his grip.

"The suspect, where is she?"

"Uh, they've just moved her to--"

The doors swung open again behind him and the rumbling of the station was overpowered by a loud low whine. It was followed by an equally distressed yelp.

Sam turned to find a row of officers, leading one after the other like ducks, each with a rattling metal cage of a different animal. Your animals.

Goose was yipping wildly in the confines of the box. A woman holding Lydia followed him. They come in procession: the rabbits, the ferrets, the ducks, the budgies.

"What the fuck!" An officer close to the door jumped out the way where Lydia hissed angrily at him from between the bars.

"No, please!"

Sam spun on his heel. His hands felt heavy with helplessness. It was your voice, echoing across the station and reverberating in his brain.

"Please, just leave them! They're not gonna hurt anyone. I haven't done anything--"

His feet chased after the sound. Sam found a long corridor near the back of the room, there were two officers tugging on either of your arms. Your eyes were bouncing wildly between each of the officers where they disappeared into the evidence room with your pets.

Your gaze found his own. "Sam!"

"Y/n." He was bounding down the corridor, long stretches of leg, but the officers were adamant in their grip.

"Sam, I promise I didn't-- it wasn't me. I swear--"

There was a loud huff and a heave and you stumbled backwards into a closed holding cell. Your hands wrapped between the bars.

"I know," Sam was breathless. "I know you didn't--"

Suddenly there was hands on his chest. "Sir, you need to get out of here."

"I need to speak with her--"

"Sir you can't do that. You need to speak to the sheriff."

Sam's chest was rumbling with a frenzied desperation. He couldn't pull his eyes off the fragments of your figure behind the bars.

The officers shoved him again. "Sir--"

He ripped himself off their grip, hair flushed back against his reddening face and he turned back down the corridor.

Dean was already at the sheriff's desk.

"--suspicious behaviour--"

"What the hell is going on?" Sam's voice rumbled across the room. "On what basis are you holding her?"

The sheriff was a small man and he looked smaller under Sam's furious stature.

"It's like I was telling your partner here, agent," He was patting a handkerchief over his balding head. "Y/n Y/l/n is being held on the basis of suspicious activity."

"What exactly is your definition of suspicious activity?"

The sheriff shrugged, "Well we got a call in of her roaming around the forest--"

Sam could feel his fists tightening at his sides, "What are people not allowed to go into the forest in this town or does that make them all kidnappers? You have no evidence--"

"Sammy, calm down." Dean's hand found Sam's chest but he shrugged him off.

"Release her. Right now."

But the sheriff shook his head. "Unfortunately, not even FBI have the power to do that. State's laws say she can be detained for 12 hours pending investigative procedures."

"Investigative procedures--?"

By then, Dean had him by the arm. "Okay, okay. Let's go cool off--"

He tugged Sam towards the door, surprising both himself and Dean by allowing him to do so successfully.

The cool dusk air rushed over his face. Sam took a deep breath.

"They have no evidence, Dean--"

"I get that, but you need to calm down. You're not helping the situation by threatening the sheriff."

An officer passed them with another cage. Three hedgehogs.

Sam ran a hand over his face. He took a deep breath.

"You don't even believe she's innocent, Dean."

There was quiet for a long moment.

Sam fell into a bench bolted against the side of the building. His hands found his face again. After a moment, Dean crouched into the spot beside him.

"Look." He sighed. "If you believe her, I believe you. Alright?"

Sam's eyes were watching his shoes. He nodded, only half believing his brother's claim.

They sat like that for nearly an hour with evening settling over Fernglade around them and the autumn crisp seeping into their suits.

After a long resounding silence, one that had stretched on past Dean's wide yawn, Dean rose to his feet.

"Sammy, we should go home. Get some headway on this goblins angle."

At that, Sam shook his head. "I'm gonna stay."

"What, until she's out?"

"Yeah."

Dean's eyes were dripping in pity and it made Sam's blood boil.

"That's--" he raised his watch into his eyeline, "She's still got another ten hours. It's only six o' clock now."

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"Sam--"

"Dean."

Another cold silence.

Sam pressed his hair back with a wide hand, conceding. "Look, I'm sorry. But I'm gonna stay. You head back to the motel, do some work and get some sleep. I'll be fine."

Dean considered him, but he made no further argument and Sam thought momentarily it was maybe because he knew he couldn't budge him in the same argument with Cas.

"Alright. Fine." Dean nodded, tugging his jacket closer against the cold. "I'll see you in the morning."

Sam watched his brother's retreating figure all the way until the Impala had disappeared down the next street before going to stand.

The doors swung open with a whine, the station had cooled to a quieter buzz than when he'd first burst in. The sheriff had disappeared into an office off in the corner of the room.

Finding the nearest officer, Johnson, behind a short wooden desk, Sam approached him.

Officer Johnson glanced warily up at him from the papers he'd been filling out. He'd probably been witness to his first outburst.

"Uhm," Sam cooled his voice to a deferential timber. "The animals at the back, what's gonna happen to them?"

The officer set his pen down, "Well I'm doing the paperwork on them now. They'll be released if and when she does."

"If?"

He shrugged, "Yeah, if they don't find anything they'll let her go. Only got twelve hours."

Sam shifted his weight, running his eyes over the station. Somehow it was colder inside than the bench he'd just abandoned.

"Right."

The image returned to him again of your tiny green dress, the satin sleeves that reached down over your arms - he wondered for a moment if you wore them to cover all his scars - and the shiny ends that left your legs a prize for the bite of the freezing air that nipped at him even through all his layers.

He dug his hands into his coat pocket, pulling out his badge and his wallet and his phone to slip them into his pant pockets. Then he shrugged out the jacket.

Sam held it out to the officer. "Would you mind giving this to her?"

The officer took it with tentative hands, he gave it a glance over but made no move to stand.

"There's nothing in it." Sam huffed. "It's freezing in here, and unless you want her to die of hypothermia before morning, I suggest you do what I've asked."

He was considering it, Sam could tell by how his eyes flickered over the office door behind which the sheriff was hiding, but eventually elected to stand.

"Fine."

-

comment and repost if you enjoyed <3

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[sharkneto]

hi!!!! I was rereading the shifting mirrors and holding it together since you finished joining together recently (it’s SO good, it’s so so SO good, your writing is always so well done and flows so well) and I had a couple questions. Sorry if this is weird - if you don’t want to answer them feel free to ignore this ask, I’m just curious!

1.) did you start writing joining together while you were still posting holding it together? a lot of the details I noticed in HIT were referenced in JT, and I was just kind of like ‘that’s a LOT of details to remember’ so I was wondering if you were working backwards !!

2.) have you ever thought about what happens at the end of HIT? do you think they would actually end up stopping the apocalypse, or would the commission try to come and correct them? I thought that was interesting - that the commission said they were done with five, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done with the offshoot timeline ; if they hadn’t interfered prior, that would mean they were still on track for an apocalypse, right ? I like to speculate about this. with sheer strength of will I think that five would probably end up stopping it, mostly because he knows how to work through his rage rather than act on impulse again - and now he has the knowledge to try and connect the others so that viktor doesn’t feel so isolated.

3.) what was your favorite part of writing the story / what kept you motivated to keep it going ? I’ve started a couple chaptered fics, and then I get three or four chapters in and lose it completely.

I love, love, love the world youve created - I love the characters youve built and the personalities behind them. the dedication youve held on to to keep the series going is admirable; I can barely write 20k, much less hundreds of thousands of words. I was actually thinking of asking your permission to maybe write an offshoot of your offshoot (it might be the thing that gets me back into writing for tua) but idk if I’d have the imagination or creativity to make it nearly as compelling and fun as yours. Congratulations and great work on finishing it !! <333

this got long - feel free to ignore it if it’s overstepping or weird, lol !! I hope you’re doing well - have a great night, shark :)

Hey Toby! Glad you enjoyed it all so much and thanks for the kind words! It's a little surreal to have it done, JT has been a WIP almost as long as I've been into TUA.

I started writing JT before HIT. This whole series was supposed to be a Just For Me Fun Project while I rotted alone during the pandemic that I ended up sharing with permission from orsumfenix and encouragement from friends. I was a bit into JT, I think, when I started thinking about how fun it would be to get more siblings in here, and those musing became HIT. HIT got posted first because it had a lower barrier for entry, with more focus on the Hargreeves we know instead of OCs. So, because the stories were written more-or-less simultaneously, it was easy to reference one or set up something for the other. Working forwards and backwards, with the end of JT already written (in a rough draft) when I was writing HIT, so I knew where Rob, Sarah, and Number were coming off of at that point. (The tiny detail I'm most fond of is Allison in HIT noting that Number broke his nose at some point, and then in JT we get to see the stupid scenario in which he broke his nose.)

(rest under a readmore because I ramble)

I do have thoughts on what happens after HIT! More of a time jump, to Number's Apocalypse Week, and I've got words in a WIP started about that (and a few snips shared in my snip tag, although some I think I've changed some of the details, now). It goes... less smoothly than it should, for a guy who has (almost) all the details he needs. If motivation continues, I'll share that eventually. If it doesn't, I'll word-vomit an outline so at least people who are interested can know how it goes down. I don't see the Commission coming back - the people obsessed with Five are dead, and the organization is done with him. They don't have the resources to spare to keep going after him, so at least in Five and Number's timelines, they're out of the Commission's scope.

What kept me going was a combo of things. 2020-2022ish, I had a fuckton of time. I only worked three days a week because of covid protocols, I couldn't go anywhere because of covid, and I couldn't see anyone because of covid. I had four days a week to fill, and a lot of that time got filled with writing - all of HIT and the first draft of JT happened during this time, plus all the other fics I published throughout that time. What kept me going is that I was having a ton of fun writing and fun interacting with other people about my fics. Love, love, love talking about them (so never apologize for an ask like this, every fic writer is begging for an excuse to ramble like this). I liked thinking about the characters, thinking about Number doing mundane things I was doing made them more interesting, I liked thinking about Rob and Sarah's little romcom life, and I'm fascinated by Five's whole deal. My favorite part of writing these is Five (both versions of him) - thinking about him and how he'd react to x or y, how others react to him. I love that, at his core, he's kind of a loser. I love what an incredible vehicle for grief he is. He's a character of all time for me.

How to keep going, I don't have an easy answer for it. Some people outline, so they have the skeleton of what they're doing and where they're going. I'm not one of those people, I have an idea of the general shape and trajectory of the story and go from there, splitting up chapters as needed. I think it's important to not force it, or the writer's block gets worse and then you're stressed about writing instead of having fun with it, and that's no good - the point is to have fun. If you run out of steam, you run out of steam and you have to take a six-month hiatus until life calms down and you have words again (as a hypothetical example). Don't be afraid to poke at other ideas even if you have a giant fic unfinished. For having 25 fics on AO3, I have 35 other WIP files on my computer. Some of them have a couple hundred words, some have tens of thousands of words, some of them I'll come back to finish, some of them I won't. Such is life - some ideas have legs, others don't. I don't set out thinking "Oh this fic is going to be 50k words with 10 chapters". I just write until it feels done; sometimes that's 2k words, sometimes it's almost 200k words. The point I'm trying to make, here, is that we're all just fucking around having fun, and words flow easier when I'm remembering that and not stressing about being done or trying to finish for a self-imposed deadline. You've got it :)

Feel free to write in my little world! Would love to see what others are thinking about, what stuck with them. Just give me (and orsumfenix, if you use Number) a shoutout if you share it! And don't sell yourself short - I'm sure you've got great ideas and the chops to write them out. Don't compare yourself to me; you might write in a world I helped shape, but you've got your own voice and style to give it. I, for one (if you end up writing and sharing it), would love to hear your version of it all :)

[camaro-and-smokes]

Snowfall on the Sahara

Notes: When I started to think what to write for @harringrovelovefest 2024 I remembered that I had a draft for this laying around and @lovebillyhargrove wanted to know what happened to the boys after Snow on the Beach. So, here it is. Lovefest prompt would be 'Being crazy in love' 💜 Title from the song 'Snowfall On The Sahara' by Natalie Cole.

Rating: Mature (tagged this as such just in case even though there's really nothing like that) Warnings: No Warnings Characters: Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley Tags: Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Boys Kissing, Boys In Love, Steve Harrington and Billy Hargrove have a crush on each other, POV Steve Harrington, Love Confessions

Read on AO3 >>

Summary: It's hard to be with Billy, yes, the world isn't ready for them. But still Steve had been with him since that one night at the quarry when Steve saw everything anew. He's been wanting to say the three little words ever since, but has been afraid to. What if Billy gets scared and runs away? What if he doesn't feel the same?

But... what if...what if he does feel the same?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

“Oh, for fuck's sake!” Steve shouts when he accidentally nudges the pile of film posters on the backroom table of Family Video, making every one of them, except Mad Max, spill on the floor.

He's collecting the pile when Robin peeks into the room. “Hey, we could hear you all the way from the counter. The four of us,” she says. “Me and the mother and her twins, who I just rented Bambi for the tenth time. I am not sure if there will be eleventh time or if there is, she'll complain about our language through it.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I'm sorry. I was about to leave and I nudged the pile and... I just...” He sighs. “I have a date, I wasn't even supposed to be working today, and now I'm late.”

Robin's eyes bulge from her eye sockets and she walks into the room, closing the door behind her. “You have a date? An actual date with a living, breathing girl?”

Steve's not in a mood for her sarcasm and just glares up at her as he keeps collecting the posters into a pile next to him.

She squints as she leans to the door and crosses her arms over her chest. “You haven't told me anything about any girls. For a very long time, I might add. Which is kinda odd, but let's not get into that now. Who is she?”

“None of your business,” Steve retorts, and winces immediately. He looks up. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. It's just... Uh... err... Her, umm, dad doesn't know and he really wouldn't like it, so we'd like to keep it like that. It's a secret. No one can know.” Steve shakes his head vigorously. “Honestly. No. One.”

“Secret? Steve, hello, it's me. There is no secret you couldn't tell me. I'm supposed to be the one who's afraid of you accidentally spilling the beans on my secrets, not the other way around.”

Steve stands up, places the posters on the table and leans his back to it, looking ashamed. “Yeah, well, I never knew before there could be secrets like this. Secrets that...” he couldn't end the sentence. He swallowed. “Secrets that could get someone killed,” he whispered.

Robin stares at Steve blankly for a while. “Okay,” she says slowly, “the dad really doesn't like you.”

Steve plays with his car keys and shakes his head. “It's a double-sided dagger, the whole thing.”

When he looks back up, Robin is looking back at him, concerned. After a while, a smile tries to force its way on her face. “Has to be one hell of a girl if you're willing to go that extra mile.”

Steve snorts. “Not just one but several, trust me,” he replies, amused. He feels his cheeks heating, and he looks down. “Yeah, it's worth it.”

“Okay, Casanova,” Robin smiles, “you go to your mystery date. Tell her I said hi and that your secret is safe. Because I don't even know who she is.”

“Sure, I'll tell...her,” Steve chuckles as he walks out through the backdoor.

Steve drives out from the parking lot and speeds towards the Lover's lake. He is late, he's already supposed to be there, and he's not sure if Billy will wait for him to show up this time.

Once Steve was five minutes late and Billy didn’t speak with him for a week because he thought Steve was punishing him for something by being late. Another time Billy left in the middle of their date because Steve had looked at him funnily, as if he was trash–Billy's exact words.

On some nights, Steve stared at the ceiling and wondered if it all was worth it. The hiding, being super careful of not accidentally revealing anything to anyone, making sure no one knew who he was meeting with and where. Not being able to tell everyone that he was in love with Billy and shout it from the rooftops.

It wasn't what he had dreamed of.

But then he thought of Billy listening to him talking about being lonely and being forced to live alone most of the time, not even his parents really caring about him. How he had nothing to wait for in the future. He sure as hell wouldn't get into college, and he had no idea what he could or wanted to be or do when he grew up.

And Billy understood what he meant, the feeling of being lost and alone, feeling like no one cared. Later, Billy had quietly whispered how he feared his dad and that if he ever found out about him and Steve, he'd surely beat him to death, if not both of them.

Them sharing their deepest fears, trusting each other with truths that they shared with no one else, couldn't share.

And then he thought about Billy's laughter and a smile spread across his face. Not the mean one he let out on the basketball court, but the other one. The one that bubbled out from his throat effortlessly into the air when he felt safe.

Steve had heard it for the first time when he'd taught Billy new pool tricks in their basement–because playing pool was one of the few things Steve was actually really good at and his parents supported it by buying him a real pool table. Anyway, Billy had known the basics, but Steve had given him some pointers, and when Billy had cleaned the table for the first time, he'd laughed that laughter.

It was like a fucking siren song. Something had shifted inside Steve at that moment, never to be the same again.

Since then, he'd done all he could to make Billy laugh like that.

One of the ways to do that was to make out with him on the couch until they both were rock hard and desperate for each other, almost on the brink of coming. Either would take the other's hand, pull him to the stairs, and no matter which one it was, Billy would always laugh and giggle all the way to Steve's room.

And so Steve thought of Billy in bed, underneath him or riding him, so so pretty and so willing, so ready just for him. His lips parted, panting hot and heavy in the rhythm of Steve hitting his prostate. Repeating Steve's name straight into his ear, said out loud just for him, whispered like it was a plea or a prayer. The way Billy's eyes fluttered close just before he came so Steve could always tell when he was close, how he moaned and groaned out loud shamelessly as he rode through his orgasm, a blissful expression on his face. How in the aftermath Billy always wanted to be the small spoon, how he wanted and needed to be held, kept safe even if for five brief minutes before he had to go.

And how Steve wanted nothing more but to do that, how he needed to. To support Billy, to stand by him, to love him, to keep him safe.

Yes. It was all worth it. It wasn't their fault that the world wasn't ready for their love. And they sure as hell wouldn't let the world stop them from loving each other, even if they had to keep it a secret.

Steve parks the Beemer behind Billy’s Camaro on the side of the road where it’s shortest walk to their spot by the Lover’s Lake. At least Billy hasn’t left yet, which is a good thing.

Steve doesn’t just walk but runs through the forest to the lake and then walks swiftly the tiny trail that leads to the small cove they found a while back.

It was incredible that something like it had gone unnoticed, the sand there was untouched when they found it. It had become their safe haven, even though they had to still be careful.

It's still warm even though fall is already reminding of itself by having turned leaves yellow here and there. Steve rolls up his jeans to his knees, and the water is up halfway to his shins when he passes the cliff that shelters the cove.

Steve sees Billy there, sitting by the shore and blowing out smoke rings. He lets out a relieved breath and can't help smiling as he walks out from the water to Billy and sits down next to him.

They're quiet for a while, until Billy asks, "What took you so long?"

There's hurt and insecurity hidden underneath the words.

“Fucking Keith got sick in the middle of the day and I had to cover for him. I would've called if I... I'm sorry.”

Billy looks away and wipes something from his cheek quickly.

An expecting silence falls between them. Steve knows by now not to rush whatever Billy is about to say, letting him say what he needs to say.

Finally, Billy turns to look back straight ahead to the other side of the lake. “I thought you'd forgotten,” he mumbles.

Something warm and fuzzy takes flight in Steve's chest and flutters its wings tentatively. He smiles, leaning towards Billy, nudges his shoulder with his and whispers, “I couldn’t forget you. And I'd never leave you hanging on purpose, gorgeous.”

Billy’s cheeks turn pink and he looks down while a tiny smile forces its way onto his face. He glances at Steve. “Gorgeous, huh?”

Steve wants to kiss Billy so badly. They’re so close, he could just lean in a bit and if Billy turned his face right then... but Steve just smiles. “Yeah. That.”

“Careful,” Billy says, tries to make the word sound like a warning, but it falls flat.

There's nothing Steve has to be careful about and he knows it. He grins. They play this same game each time they meet before they can get into the meat of things. Billy trying to keep up his defenses, his walls, and Steve softly and gently demolishing both one brick at a time. He knows it’s not easy for Billy to let his guard down, so he plays along. “Don’t lie, you like it,” he says, leaving out when I call you that. He'd say it out loud if they were alone in his room, but here out in the open it goes unsaid.

The rosy shade on Billy’s cheek deepens a notch, confirming that Steve is right.

Fuck it. Steve’s tired and doesn’t want to go through the whole nine yards today. “Wanna take a swim?” he asks.

Billy shrugs. “Well, if you want to get your ass kicked in a race to the sunken rock. Again,” he replies. He tries to sound indifferent, but he’s also already taking his boots off, so.

Steve doesn't bother rushing, he knows what's coming. So, he looks around and when he sees no one on the lake he leans back in his hands and unashamedly watches Billy undressing.

Billy is taking off his socks when he stops and looks at Steve, frowning. “Are we doing this or...?”

Steve smiles smugly. “Oh, we're doing it. But there's no harm in looking at first, is there?”

Billy scrunches his nose, but the redness on his cheeks turns darker.

Steve can't help but to laugh a little.

“Asshole,” Billy mutters with a small smile and pulls off his left sock.

“But I’m your asshole,” Steve whispers, making Billy smile wider as he gets up.

Billy throws the sock at Steve, making him yelp. “Come on, pretty boy, I’m going to win at this pace before you even get off the shore,” Billy says and pulls off his shirt.

Steve gets on his feet before Billy has taken barely a step towards the water. He grabs the waistband of Billy’s jeans with both hands and pulls Billy against him. “Not so fast,” he says, wrapping his arms around Billy's waist.

Billy giggles as he tries to pull away, using the damn siren song on Steve to cloud his mind and making his hug looser than he planned. Steve’s readying himself for Billy retaliating by tickling Steve, maybe - that’s Billy’s go-to weapon. But when Billy turns around, he just smiles and lets Steve to pull their bodies together.

Billy's smile and eyes still sparkle with mischief and Steve is not sure what’s it about. “You threw your stinking sock on me,” Steve says, trying to sound hurt.

Billy turns the corners of his mouth downwards, lowers his chin and looks down to the ground for a while like a kicked puppy. Then he turns his gaze back up, opening his eyes huge and fluttering his long lashes while pursing his lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispers huskily. “What can I do to make it better?”

Steve’s insides melt while his lower body forgets the things we don’t do in public -rule. He didn’t know Billy could do that. Look so innocent while promising all the sins Steve's mother always warned him about, all at once. “I, uh...can think...um...uh...” he replies, feeling his own cheeks heating and his mouth being suddenly very dry.

“Can you, now? Think?” Billy asks and his tongue slowly wanders from the corner of his mouth towards the sharp cupid’s bow.

Steve’s eyes lock onto the motion, and he swallows. He’s totally lost for words.

Billy leans closer, raises his chin and tilts his head, ready to kiss Steve.

And Steve leans in and closes his eyes, already feeling Billy’s breath on his skin.

“Race ya,” Billy whispers, pushes Steve just enough to get Steve to let go, and runs towards the waterline, laughing and stopping just for a few seconds to pull off his jeans before running into the water. He’s almost waist-deep before Steve even realizes what happened.

“Not fair!” Steve shouts and starts undressing as fast as he can.

“Snooze it and lose it,” Billy cackles before he dives under the sparkling surface and starts to swim with long, strong strokes towards the underwater rock that’s halfway to the middle of the lake.

Steve has already lost this one, he knows, but it doesn’t matter. He knows what awaits him by the rock.

When Steve finally gets by the rock, Billy already sits on it, water up to his hips. It’s a big rock, and Steve hoists himself up to sit next to his boyfriend.

“You should really work on your concentration. Performance like that...” Billy tsks, “is not gonna fly in a long run.”

Steve leans into Billy’s space. “I’ll show you a performance,” he whispers into Billy’s ear and licks the outer side of his earlobe. When Billy turns to look at Steve, his lips parted and ready for a kiss, eyes on Steve's mouth, Steve pushes him off the rock.

Billy falls off with a yelp. When he comes back on the surface, he pulls his hair away from his face and glares up at Steve. for a moment Steve is the tiniest bit worried that he accidentally made Billy lose his mood altogether.

But then Billy laughs and splashes water on Steve. “Is that all you got?” he taunts playfully, and Steve’s worry melts away. Billy pulls himself back onto the rock and sits next to Steve, closer this time, close enough so that their thighs are touching.

“I’m really sorry I was late,” Steve says. In the water, underneath the surface, he takes Billy’s hand in his and laces their fingers together.

Billy nods.

The shy gesture would be so out of character for Billy if he was anywhere else but here alone with Steve. When the cocky armor he wears melts away, he looks so young, like the eighteen-year-old he is. Uncertain of the world ahead, hoping for the best and truly fearing for the worst–the latter for a good reason.

Steve's happy that he's not the only one who’s lost. He leans to Billy’s shoulder. “What was that you did back there on the beach?” he asks.

Billy looks down and smiles shyly. Crinkles form into the corners of his eyes and he’s blushing again.

Steve can’t help smiling either. “I liked it,” he whispers.

Billy glances at him. “You did?”

Steve nods, smirking. “It was weird. But also hot.”

Billy smiles a wide smile as he lays down on the rock on his back and is almost engulfed by the water. “Want more?”

Steve leans his elbow on the rock, trying not to forget that it’s slippery, and looks at Billy, who looks back with the widest grin. Suddenly, Steve feels stupid. Stupid as in how seeing his boyfriend happy makes him forget every smooth one-liner he planned and practiced, and just stare - probably with a goofy grin.

And it all suddenly tucks Steve's heart in a way he didn’t know was possible. The fuzzy thing in his chest spreads its wings and the wings are so big that it’s a miracle that he's not floating in the air by now. That’s how high he is from the mere sight of the boy he loves. Loves. Who hopefully loves him back. A little. Maybe?

Steve leans down, whispers, “You're hot,” and kisses Billy.

Billy smiles against Steve's lips and lifts his hands to run his fingers through Steve's hair. When they have to stop to breathe, he whispers, “You're not so bad yourself, pretty boy.”

Steve sets his thigh between Billy's legs and his other arm around Billy's torso, hugging him tightly as they continue kissing.

It doesn't even matter that the wind has picked up a little and the water splashes on their faces from time to time in small waves. The water is warm, the sunlight on their skin is even warmer, their insides burning as they breathe through each other.

Until the rock reminds them that, indeed, it's underwater, full time, and slippery.

Steve fixes his position just a little to get even closer to Billy, but the arm he's leaning onto slips just a little and he falls on his side, and the only thing he can try to hold on to is Billy.

They hit the water at the same time.

They both emerge from the water and Steve is immediately on Billy, trying to look for signs of any scratches.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, concerned. “I’m so sorry, I forgot the stone is...”

Billy looks at his arm and rubs it. “I might have a tiny scratch. Nothin’s broken.” He raises his gaze back to Steve and grins. “But you can show me how sorry you are.”

Steve smiles. Had it been any girl he would be endlessly apologizing to get out of the doghouse. With Billy, instead, it's just nah, it’s just a scratch. Now kiss me.

So easy. So right.

Steve pulls Billy against him, wrapping his arms around Billy's waist, and looks at the sparkling blue eyes and the lips that are already slightly parted, ready for devouring. He wants to say I could spend the rest of my life looking at you, but decides that it's probably still too early for that. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and kisses Billy.

Billy’s lips are soft, they always are. Warm, too. Kissing with Billy is always a rush this time, too. Steve smiles against Billy’s lips. It's been just a month since they first kissed at the quarry and he is so head over heels that it might’ve been embarrassing if it was anyone else. He wants to tell Billy, but whenever he looks at him in the eyes, determined to say the words, he gets this icy dread inside him. What if Billy runs away when I say how I feel?

Billy pulls back from the kiss slowly, leaving Steve chasing after him until he realizes Billy is looking at him with that tiny smile on his face he always has when they're laying in bed and coming down from their orgasms.

Yeah, he had the cocky, wide grin on his face many times too, making it blatantly clear that there was going to be a round two or three and Steve had nothing to say to it but to endure. But this small one always promises something else: that Billy has something intimate to say, just for Steve to hear.

“I love you.”

The words are barely a whisper, but Steve can read them from Billy’s lips. He blinks a few times, feeling his jaw going slack of the surprise of hearing the words before saying them himself. He's so stunned that Billy apparently takes it as a rejection, because his face turns pale and his eyes dart back and forth in Steve’s, probably thinking that he’s done the worst mistake of his life.

Billy is already pulling away from Steve when Steve finally manages to remind his brain of how to work.

“Hey,” Steve gasps and smiles. “I love you, too.” Now that he's not the first one to say the words, they fall out of his mouth so easily.

Billy looks at him warily. “You do?”

Steve smiles a bit wider, because now he can free the overwhelming emotion from its cage inside his chest where it's been trapped until now, letting is soar to the open sky. “Yeah. I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you, but it never felt right to say it because I was afraid that...that-that you wouldn’t feel the same.”

An impossibly wide smile lights up Billy’s entire face and he lets out a soft laugh. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in this fucking sorry excuse of a town ever since we moved here. Of course, I feel the same.”

“I've felt like this ever since I saw you at the quarry, smoking in the evening sun.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You'd been a definite asshole until then, and you're that a little still,” Steve says grinning, “but you were so beautiful, standing there in the sunlight... I stood no chance. I was done for right there and then.”

Billy goes red – his entire face, tips of his ears and all the way down his neck – and he looks down bashfully. After a while he looks back at Steve, that wide smile on his face the traps his tongue between his teeth. “That's... uh... That's the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, feeling his own cheeks heating, too.

The expression on Billy's face changes and he bites his lower lip. Steve knows that look. He knows it so well, the promise, the yearn in it, and he lets out an involuntary breath.

“Wanna say it again?” Billy asks huskily.

Steve's eyes go wide. “Yeah,” he says, with conviction.

He lets go off Billy and the moment he does Billy is already swimming towards the shore, leaving Steve to catch up.

“Snooze it and lose it,” Billy shouts after him.

"Asshole!" Steve shouts and starts swimming.

[theycallmeratt]

Raaaatt I wanted to ask sooner but I kept typing your Ao3 name instead and not finding you.

I see you've answered a lot but I think not these 3:

18. 27. 28.

18 share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a fic

I have so many of these! I keep all of it so I don't feel bad deleting them in the first place haha. And to reuse them, maybe!

---

"Good. Rub my orbuculum and I'll give you good fortune." (from wizard smut, of course)

---

(Talking about his time in Avernus)

Rolan even—don't tell Lia and Cal—left a few times on his own and talked himself up to any devil who would listen, taking the lessons they offered solely because they thought it was funny to indulge mortal pride.

---

(this is from an earlier version of Three/Four, when Lakrissa was really nihilistic. This is also a rough draft but I did like like "doesn't mean I want to start now")

"When I do, I'll rot. Every part of me, everything I did, who I really am, dissolves into the void. I return to what I was before I was born: nothing. This means I can do anything. No one will remember my successes, no one will remember my mistakes. I can even do nothing."

Alfira was listening, arms crossed.

Lips dry, Lakrissa continued, "Just because I believe what I do doesn't mean I want the rot to start now, while I'm still alive. There's still dinner to cook. There's still your music. Besides, I want to read Silfy's next newsletter. When nothing matters in 1,000 years, it makes me want to focus on the next five. Years, days, sometimes it's only hours. But I want, and I care."

---

(This one I'll probably reuse but at this exact moment it's deleted)

According to the woman running a con out front (at least until she tried to sell Olly a glass ring and found herself on the wrong end of two Zhentarim blades and one Zhentarim magic hand) the way to trick their mark was to have the room set up already. Don't approach her; have her approach them.

The con artist was kind enough to suggest a layout, and only after a few friendly smacks. Nice to meet another professional.

---

OK that's enough, sorry, I get excited.

27) favorite part of the writing process

I like the part where it's all flowing like ink, and there's a feedback loop between thinking and writing and putting down words just hypes me up for the next words. I get dizzy and amped up.

I also like when a story is waiting on me to figure out one key thing, and it all feels like it's pieces of separate fabric held together by loose thread, and then I find the missing thing and the thread pulls tight and it comes together. I don't get this on very often, but when I do it's incredibly satisfying

28) least favorite part

The slog of writing all the parts that aren't fun. Sometimes I wish I could write AND THEN TIME PASSED and we all just pretend the appropriate character development/plot/whatever happened, haha.

I also hate when I have something I like and realize I misread or misunderstood some lore or missed a plot hole that's a huge plot hole. Or bad pacing. Pacing is probably my weakest bit, I take 3 sentences to say the same thing over and over and sometimes I spend all day writing and only get a few hundred usable words.

[ritzy-reminiscence]

─♣️─ Lackadaisy : Shut-Eye

⸝⸝ tl;dr : some sleeping (not that type) headcanons for Rocky, Freckle, and Ivy! ⸝⸝ note : i found the unfinished version of this rotting at the bottom of my drafts, so i decided to dredge it up from the shadows and give it a proper rebirth, hope u enjoy :DD

🥞 Roark "Rocky" Rickaby

Sleep ? What's that ?

Nah, but on the off-chance that he does manage to get some shut-eye, he does it either a) sitting down on the driver's seat of the car, or b) on his side in the back seats, with the windows ever so slightly open. Granted, it's not very comfortable (especially with that cactus "friend" staring into his soul the entire night).

He does have a blanket, but it's so ragged and torn that it might as well be a piece of cloth he could wipe the car down with. Regardless, he still uses it anyways, even if it means that half his lower body sticks out and is prone to being snatched by the boogeyman under the car seats.

Needless to say, he doesn't get much sleep (sobs). He weaves in and out of consciousness, and doesn't get more than three or four hours each night. It doesn't help that the space totally regular coffee he infuses with pancake syrup gives him enough energy to last into the next decade --

•☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾• ₊° ♣️ °₊ •☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾•

🥪 Calvin "Freckle" McMurray

On the nights when he's not haunted by his atrocious sins, he normally gets a decent seven to eight hours in.

If otherwise, however, he's just like Rocky ! They are cousins, after all. The only difference between him and Rocky is that Freckle tosses and turns for an absurd amount of time before finally falling asleep.

And on the topic of tossing and turning -- I also see Freckle as a "read books before going to bed" type of guy. I'd go into detail about what books he read, but that's for another time because I don't want this post to be too long lolz (and totally not because I haven't the faintest idea at all-)

Freckle sleeps on his side, curled up under the covers. He enjoys it especially during winter when being under the covers feel warm and toasty. The same can't be said for summer, however :skull:

I feel like he'd also be the type that, once asleep, would be so hard to wake up. He sleeps like a log, and the only thing waking him up is either his alarm clock, Nina gently knocking on his door to wake him up, or Rocky throwing rocks pebbles at his window.

•☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾• ₊° ♣️ °₊ •☽────✧ ‧˚₊ ° ♣️ ° ₊˚‧✧────☾•

🩰 Ivy Pepper

Psshh, you know this gal gets her full eight hours; after all, who wouldn't after performing a thirty-minute meditation session in a room filled with vased flowers and the scent of her dormmates' perfume wafting from their vanity tables? Ivy Pepper gets her eight hours, all the time.

Or, at least, that's what she tells herself and others --

In reality, Ivy stays up late due to either a) some juicy gossip's been spreading around the dorms, b) she's got her paws on the latest edition of Vogue and she's just gotta finish it !! or c) she's mulling over her own problems regarding her involvement with the less than legal actions of the Lackadaisy Speakeasy. Especially after her conversation w/ Elsa at the Arbogasts' funeral home; in the daytime she manages to keep such thoughts at bay, but once everything starts to quiet down it begins to scratch, talon-like, at her conscience.

When she does get herself to sleep, however, she prefers the room cold. Like, freezing cold. It's because, like Freckes, she likes to snuggle under the covers (I mean, who doesn't?). Unlike Freckles, however, she sleeps on her back, with one of those frilly sleeping masks on. She's read in a magazine somewhere that sleeping on your back reduces the amount of puffiness your face gets when she woke up, so she does exactly that.

[unolvrs]

UPCOMING WORKS? PLEASE? IF THERE AREN'T ANY, IT'S OKAY TOO!

uhh, there are both upcoming works and upcoming updates! i have sneak peeks for each one! but here they are:

少年A　（jjk ft. male!reader; possibly megumi/reader）

In a remote village in Sapporo, a thirteen-year-old first year student in an unnamed junior high school allegedly killed three classmates known to bully his best friend who they had driven to suicide. (Or, none of that is true.)

少年A (or: Boy A) was initially made as an OC out of nowhere. i shared him to a few friends before i realized that the set-up of him being nameless and just being called 'Boy A' was perfect for a reader-insert. and before i knew it, i was already writing everything down and it was really, really fun. the term 「少年A」 is something akin to 'John Doe' and it's mostly a name used to minors involved in a crime. there are lots of criminal 「少年A」 in japan so if you want to read about them, i'd give you a big trigger warning because the most well-known 「少年A」 was involved a horrific case.

2. among dawn flowers (the face of god), an extra chapter

i always get notifications about comments concerning dawn flowers and i've read all of them. thank you for your very kind words! they make me feel very happy every time i read them :D i'll be replying to them soon. but the most common comment is about gojō's... well, reaction to everything and what he truly felt for the main character, and there were a couple of misunderstandings in the comments too. i would normally just leave the misunderstandings be to let people have their own interpretation but i've been getting lots of comments and DMs about dawn flowers all the time, so this extra chapter happened. it has the following AUs too:

zen'in naoya marries tengai-san instead

tengai-san survives

tōji snatches up tengai-san (not at all romantic but a found family of sorts because their dynamics are really interesting! because they're the people who neither needs the least!)

and idk, maybe some more? i'll be reading through the comments again!

3. kirigakure-centric naruto fic

“Kirigakure didn’t need help. They needed salvation.”  No one knows anything about the Mizukage. Only that she’s kind. She likes to smile. She likes seafood like every other Mizu-born. And that there’s something inexplicably wrong with her. There’s something wrong with the Mizukage whom the Kiri-nin call a ‘god’. —or, Wataru Wataru was never really a powerhouse, in this life or the last, but she’s resourceful. She knows cults, pyramid schemes, and corrupt politicians like the back of her hand, so of course, she becomes the Mizukage and becomes a god along the way.

it's highlighted because it's undergoing editing... but yes, the mizukage cultist fic that i was talking about a month ago. it currently has four chapters in my drafts. i'm testing the waters on whether or not i can maintain it. so far, i have everything planned... like the timeline... it's too detailed.

4. shintō pjo fic

Beyond the eastern seas, Sen'no Hyōran wages a one-man war. (Or, if all she needs is the Golden Fleece, if all she needs is to steal that damned thing, then she will. Those Greeks standing in her way or not.)

YES IT'S HAPPENING OK!

of course, there's also the writing of kill the goose (3 chapters in my drafts now!), rain on my parade (a very slow rewriting), sunday without god (i wrote the next chapter and it was too long like 8k words and i'm not even halfway done so i'm stuck)! and posting some comm'd works that have been rotting in my drive for months!

some possible fics but no promises:

floating blue (nanami/reader)

Aoi's josei romance manga life starts when she's saved by Nanami Kento after almost falling down the train tracks! (Or, it turns out that Aoi is the main character of a supernatural josei manga! She's so excited!)

starts off as a cliché josei manga set-up bc aoi is a josei manga protagonist! then turns deep :D might become a reader-insert instead but without the [name] insert things. just second pov. this was really meant to be a rom-com than a sudden "omg! i'm in a supernatural josei manga!" might write bc it's a cute concept.

the prostitution of learning (jjk & male!oc)

There is no other main character but Kikuchi Eita. (Or, defeating enemies, exorcizing Curses, facing conservative higher-ups, there’s no adversity that Kikuchi Eita cannot push through because Kikuchi Eita is the main character. That is until Itadori Yūji.)

i made this guy before 少年A and while eita is my favorite oc i've ever created in jjk, 少年A's story is easier to write. but the prostitution of learning is a bit more complicated even just with eita's planned CT and while i'd love nothing more than to write this one, idk if i'd have the time but i really want to!

willow diaries / 柳日記 (kakashi/oc)

Kakashi gets a nobleman's concubine pregnant. Whoops. (Or, I no Yanagihaya's honorable brother-in-law said to surprise him. She did.)

first of all, it's not cheating or infidelity. said nobleman is dead. anyway, i think this is the most likely to be written bc i've written the first chapter a hundred times but couldn't get satisfied. anyway, this one's fun. and i love civilian ocs! especially writing nobility. the research was a pain but i loooove this one.

pls... don't ask me about frog in a well :"") i'm working on it! idk, froggie's become that weird cousin idk if i wanna talk to or not. it's awkward between the two of us right now bc ik i could start writing the chapter anytime and get it done and over it quickly but i've been lazy and focusing on other stuff hehe &lt;3

[fancyfeathers]

Society of Protection (Yandere Bungo Stray Dogs x reader x original characters) (normalized yandere au)

Prologue and oc intro Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four Chapter five Chapter six Chapter seven, part one Chapter seven, part two Chapter eight Chapter nine Chapter ten Chapter eleven Chapter twelve Chapter thirteen

Sketches of characters and notes for future scenes and arcs, this got posted on my discord first so they got to see it there first and now y’all are seeing it

And you all get a little bit of sneak peaks from my notes of dialogue and little paragraphs that may or may not make it into the final drafts of chapters (the ideas will still be there but the wording may change)

MC- between the end of Sky Casino Arc to mid Vampire Infection Arc (time still up in the air)

Your steps through the catacombs echoed against the stone walls, it felt like every click of your boots was setting off alarms for all of Paris to hear. You didn’t have long, you had to find Gaston before it was to late. You got away from the Sky Casino with your life, but just barely, one wrong step and it would have been easy work for the Hunting Dogs to detain you in whatever witness protection they called it, you didn’t buy that though. 

You shook away the thought, but a thousand others remained. Since the framing of the Armed Detective Agency you barely had time to even sleep. You had to push on, if you didn’t you had no idea what could happen, you still had no idea what could happen. Then…

You heard it…

Footsteps…

From down the corridor…

You dropped the lantern you held, the glass shattering on the ground. You turn to run, sprinting full speed down the hall. You didn’t are it far before you saw from the corner of your eye a faint golden glow and hands grabbing you scarf, nearly making you choke.

“Found you.”

Dr. Stevenson- Perfect Crime Arc

“Get away from me!” A gunshot rang through the room, piercing the male figure in front of her. The doctor’s hands shook as she held the gun, her face horrified  at what she did. Blood, so much blood… did she just do this? 

The gun fell down to the floor with a heavy clunk of the the metal against the wood. The doctor had shot her own flesh and blood, her mother. A mother who did experiment on her, who made Stevenson a lab rat more than a daughter. Robbie slammed her first against the wall as she fell to ground. She knew who exactly who did this, it wasn’t her, it was her ability if you call even call it that. She gritted her teeth and called out to no one visible in the room, as if yelling at a ghost. “Damn you! I don't need you to survive like you need me. I'll become whole again as you dance with death and I'll rejoice as you breathe your final breath.”

Out of the shadows at her final word a hand wrapped around her throat, pinning the doctor to the wall. It looked like a darker version of the prim and proper doctor, wild hair, red eyes, pale skin that made her look like death. The ability made figure leaded forward to that her face was mere inches from the doctor’s. “I'll live inside you forever! You can't control me, I live deep inside you, each day you'll feel me devour your soul.” 

The doctor began choking as the shadow like figure yelled at her. Her hands struggling to reach the gun on the ground that she dropped. Just as black dots began forming in her vision she grabbed the gun and raised it to her ability’s head and…

“Take all your evil deeds and rot in Hell.”

“I'll see you there, Doctor!”

BANG

Jane Austen- Kamui Revelation Arc

classified

[bayofwolves]

Having some thoughts about the Great Battle, the one to end the First Devourer War.

I like the idea that Kovo, Gerathon and the Four Fallen were so massive that they couldn't help but destroy some of their own allies amidst the fighting. Especially the two traitors, because we know their soldiers were disposable to them, but the Four Fallen as well. As Uraza tangles with Gerathon, her claws rake through scores of Greencloaks. As Briggan and Kovo lunge for each other's throats, Greencloak and Conqueror and animal alike are crushed into oblivion beneath the two giants' feet. Adding to the senseless horror of it all.

I wish the Four Fallen had grievously wounded Kovo or Gerathon (or perhaps both), in such a way that the results are visible in the time of the Second Devourer War and strike fear in the hearts of their soldiers. I just think it would be cool if the two traitors, despite having survived the event that eliminated the Four, are permanently disfigured and only dull echoes of their former glory. Can you imagine if Gerathon's hood was torn to shreds by Uraza, her once beautiful scales marred by claw wounds that Tellun cursed to fester and rot? Or if part of Kovo's face was mutilated by Briggan's fangs and covered in scar tissue, with Essix's talon marks stretching across his shoulders, bare where the fur never grew back? They lived, but at the cost of being forever marked by the brethren they slew.

It would have been awesome if a Great Beast can only be killed by another Great Beast and they explained the Fall of the Four this way. Gerathon killed Uraza and Jhi with her venomous bite, Kovo ripped Briggan and Essix apart with his bare hands. No human blade could have felled them -- it was going against two of their own that resulted in their downfall. The fact it came to this is a great tragedy. Once, Briggan, Uraza, Jhi and Essix lived peacefully, even happily, with Kovo and Gerathon. They were brethren, forged by the same catastrophe; survivors who found comfort in one another (or so I like to believe). They would have walked beside each other for eons. They should never have met in battle. And when they did, they discovered they could destroy one another. This could be one reason as to why the remaining Great Beasts retreated into isolation and did not commune for hundreds of years -- perhaps, for the first time, they were afraid of each other.

In The Book of Shane, Shane reveals that Feliandor's grave is only symbolic because "when the Greencloaks had finished with him, there hadn't been enough left of him to bury". This might be one of the most haunting sentences in the series. In my canon, they dismembered him and paraded his head around, then burned him to ash. Some say Tembo kept the skull and hid it somewhere in the newly built Greenhaven, but Tembo himself denied these claims. (Meilin once searched the castle for the skull, to no avail.)

I personally would have liked to know more about the genocide of Stetriol (if it truly happened) and who took over as ruler after Feliandor. All my thinking about it led me to draft some plans for a short special edition, set in the universe of my rewrite, about Feliandor's successor and what happened in Stetriol after the defeat of the Conquerors. His name is Lysander. He is the cousin of Feliandor and the direct ancestor of the present-day royal family, including Shane. I'm still figuring him out, but I think y'all will like him.

I also think now would be the proper time to mention that in my rewrite of Tales of the Great Beasts, Essix gets a longer chapter where she bonds with a human like the other three. I haven't decided on the boy's name, but he is Amayan and has a jackrabbit spirit animal. He is bright, spirited and adventurous. The eldest son of the chief, but all of 16 at the war's end, he successfully convinces Essix to fight on the side of the Marked resistance. He is full of wonder and respect for nature, Essix most of all, and she finds herself warming up to him. She likes him enough to let him ride on her back and see the world he so loves from miles above, delighting in the way he spreads his arms and whoops into the wind. Essix, who is able to read souls, looks at him and sees something special in him. He is destined to do great things. This future of his is dashed when he dies in the Great Battle, though, cut down by some nameless soldier, just a boy with all the life and hope gone out of his eyes as Essix cradles him in her talons. She mourns him for a moment, then steels her heart and renews the charge.

[seijorhi]

Have you ever had an alternative ending to one of your fics that you didn't like? And is it cool to ask if you could share any of them? I can only imagine how many drafts/hours you put into making these mini-thrillers so good

The only one that comes to mind rn is Glitter and Rot, I had four(ish) different versions bouncing around in my head before I decided on going the route I ended up with.

If I remember it was:

Atsumu gets too pushy and essentially noncons the reader, only for Osamu to come home and join the party

Atsumu 'convinces' her that she was the one cheating, having an affair with him for years (therefore you would all assume that rather than both of them being sus and lying to her, it was solely Atsumu who was doing the bad thing)

The reader sees a news report about her disappearance & Suna's murder and tries to run it does not end well

The reader never finds out. The twins convince her she was always with the both of them, little Suna's silenced (take that how you will), and all the reader's doubts about her marriage and the relationship between the three of them are laid to rest… mostly.

[whimsyswastry]

You wanna know something I really wish wasn't true about my brain? I can't outline my first draft. I have to discovery write 60-80% of the entire story, then pinpoint the weaknesses (almost always character agency or character growth), and THEN start over and outline the second draft. But it's not done, I still need to proofread and tweak, so that's three drafts. Before my beta even sees it!!!

So all said and done, it's about four drafts before I even feel comfortable to post it.

Except that's not the worst part. I inevitably get frustrated by how long it takes to write and think "you know what would motivate me to write more? Kudos and comments." So I post my FIRST DRAFT....until I realize the characters are really weak. Then they just kinda stagnate for YEARS while I clean them up behind the scenes.

Now I'm left with my first draft for three stories that are posted on AO3 rotting away like they're in some kind of graveyard. Knowing FULL WELL I won't update them until the story is completed. Which, by the way, I complete a story about once every 10 years.

[aceforwhatevenisthis]

Band of Brothers - A Good Omens Fic

Summary: “I have no intention of fighting in any war.”

But that’s now.

Then, in the midst of the cracking bombshells and the ringing bullets? War didn’t -- and will never -- care about your intentions, whether human, angel, or demon.

(World War I AU?)

Word count: 7.9k

Tags: World War I, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Angst and Hurt/Comfort except the comfort is really minimal, Military, Not Beta Read, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Author's philosophical musings, Demons, Switching perspectives constantly, Hell is Terrible, Heaven is just as bad but more distant, Serious Injuries

Author's Notes: I dug this up from my old drafts and it was close enough to being done so I did. Apologies if the history and/or medical stuff is outrageously wrong; I am trying my best and this was written for fun. Also, general disclaimer that a lot of the things said/done here are not reflective of my views on war (I despise the principle of it, I am very much a pacifist) but are necessary for the environment/plot of the story.

Be warned that people do die and there might be some triggering incidents (please tell me if you want something specifically tagged). Generally, warnings for: violence, chemical weapons, death, medical injuries (not described in too much detail but yeah).

Anyways, enjoy

Also on AO3!

Aziraphale had been called to service, almost entirely because he seemed able-bodied enough for the French government to draft into the army. He was in no written records but a couple of weeks or so into the start of the fighting, Aziraphale would get the strangest of glances from older men in the streets of Paris, so he decided to sign up for the MHS where they took one look at him and thought him a capable-enough physician. It took Aziraphale some amount of effort to convince himself that his new military service was not because he had received an inked letter from Heaven a few days prior. 

So off he went, riding in the back of a crowded truck, fitted in a bright blue coat and a pair of blue trousers — a stark contrast to his preferred palette. It was, however, somewhat refreshing to wear such colorful clothings again after so many years since his last grand ball. 

A sharp whistle called him to attention and the truck stopped. Aziraphale could see the gleam of eagerness and pride in the eyes of the young men around him. To die for your country, serving with dignity and courage, that was the greatest honor any young man could earn. Aziraphale had seen many wars in his time on Earth — had partaken in many as well, this was no different — and every time he couldn’t help but send a quick prayer for the men he encountered. 

But as they left the truck, joyous chatter among the newly-deployed soldiers, Aziraphale frowned at the sight of men digging — trenches? Never in his years of military service had he ever seen soldiers having to dig into the battlefield like such. Aziraphale shook his head, warring off his worry. Perhaps just a simple evolution of warfare, as it tends to happen with humans. The medical tents were but a stroll away from the trenches and so Aziraphale slipped away and got to work. Already there were soldiers in need of attention and there wasn’t a moment to waste.

-----------------

Three weeks later and the trenches were miles along, eventually running throughout all of Europe. 

A month and the stench became unbearable. One week later and the soldier’s boots were sogged all the way through. It didn’t take long for their feet to rot away. 

Nearly four months and Aziraphale thought he could get used to the sight of corpses littered along the battlefield, in the trenches, in the medical tents. But the men weren’t smiling anymore and Aziraphale considered himself lucky that he wasn’t on the frontlines. The men who came back alive from there were the ones who at first wouldn’t cry, but at night Aziraphale saw them scream into the night void and curl in on themselves. Those were the ones he prayed for the most.

It was nearly three in the morning when Aziraphale paused from washing dirty rags and saw one of the men from the frontlines kick at a tree and then slide his back down the trunk, his head between his shaking knees. The young soldier stayed like that until the sun rose over the horizon, lighting up the dark patches of blood blanketing the destroyed ground around all of them. The next time he saw the young soldier, a mere two days later, Aziraphale was helping the stretcher-bearers support the weight of the soldier’s cold body. 

The wrong end of a German machine gun was the last thing the young soldier saw. Aziraphale made sure to personally pass the news to the soldier’s secret lover, who was recovering in a hospital cot from a delicate amputation. 

“Sir Doctor,” the lover choked out in French, reaching for Aziraphale’s sleeve. “Please tell me he went quickly.”

Aziraphale fought the urge to grit his teeth. With a warm plastic smile he’s come to perfect in his months reassuring dying soldiers, he said, “Yes, he did.” 

The lover nodded and clutched a small green diary to his chest. Aziraphale resigned quietly and sought out other patients in need in the tent. 

Within two weeks, the secret lover would be sent home. Nearly fifty years later, Aziraphale would see him again, guiding his hand as they wrote a memoir for the young soldier and his secret lover, a green diary nearby that was in near perfect condition. It would take nearly another fifty years for the memoir to reach the public. It was the one of the only books Aziraphale ever bought various copies of to sell in his bookshop, because it would be after the war that he made sure no soldier would be forgotten to the harsh desert sands of time. 

But that’s later, and this is now.

-----------------

Crowley lounged atop his bed in the barracks, surrounded by his fellow soldiers. He smiled as he placed down his cards on his rough mattress. “I believe that,” he pointed to the pile of makeshift tokens on the ground, “is mine, boys.” 

Hans threw down his cards and nearly banged his head on the wooden ceiling. “You cheated!” he shouted in German. 

“I absolutely did not,” Crowley answered with feigned outrage. He looked down at the bed beneath his own. “Did I, Erich?”

Erich snorted, gathering some cards and shuffling them. “You always do, Crowley. I don’t know why anyone’s surprised anymore.” 

“Rematch!” called out Hans. He then promptly cringed when some half-asleep soldiers at the other side of the bunker glared at him. More quietly, he said, “I’ll keep an eye on you this time.”

Crowley laughed and resettled back into his mattress. “Yeah, I think I’m done for the day, boys.”

“I’ll wager my portion of tomorrow’s breakfast.” Crowley could feel the smirk on Hans’ face. 

The demon let out a deep breath and shifted, rubbing his eyes. “Erich, you think they’ll give out something good for breakfast tomorrow?”

Erich put the cards away and tucked the tokens under his mattress. “I think Crowley’s saying ‘no,’ Hans.” 

“Bullcrap! You’d never give up a wager, would you, Crowley?”

“Contrary to popular belief,” Crowley said while pulling his hat down his face, “I do have some form of self-control.” He lifted the hat a little to give Hans a once-over. “Unlike some people.”

“Hey!”

“Honestly, Hans, get some sleep,” muttered Erich as he rolled over on his mattress. “Save it for the frontlines.” 

Hans looked at Erich and then at Crowley, before deciding to look at the ceiling and lay down properly on his bed. “What do you think they’re like? The frontlines?”

Erich shrugged. “Didn’t you just get off from the frontlines, Crowley?”

“They’re not worth it. Not one bit. Just a death sentence, really.” 

“Isn’t that the point of it? To die for your country?” asked Hans. Crowley looked at him and only saw curiosity in the young man’s dark eyes; a genuine interest in debate. 

“Could be. But then again, I’ve always chosen to save my own skin.” And I’ve chosen the angel. Only him. 

Hans hummed. “If I die, would it hurt?”

Erich sat up in his bed. “I’d imagine it does, don’t it?”

“You wouldn’t like it. What comes after I mean. Don’t get your hopes up,” said Crowley, pulling his hat further down his face. He imagined that judging by the quietness that the conversation was decidedly over. 

Still, Crowley didn’t make any move to remove his hat from his face. From under his darkened glasses, his eyes shut as he tried to chase the peacefulness and emptiness of sleep. After a while, Erich and (eventually) Hans drifted off to slumber. 

Come morning, Hans would be sent off to the frontlines and a new soldier would take his bed. Johann was a pleasant young man — the textbook definition of beautiful German youth — but there was the way in which he saluted his commanders, as if he’s putting his entire body behind every salute. Whenever a commanding officer would speak to him, he’d seem like he was hyperfocusing his entire attention to that one conversation, like nothing else mattered. They’d tell him to run at the daily exercises and he wouldn’t question anything; he’d just run until he’s told to stop. 

-----------------

Erich threw a small rock at Johann’s bed. “Hey schön, what’re you always smiling for?”

Johann lightly threw the rock back. “Piss off! Go to sleep.”

“If you’re looking for a medal, I don’t think the General would ever give you one. You talk too much for his liking.” Erich shook his head and continued to stack a pile of rocks next to his mattress. 

“What medal? You can’t get one without coming back from the frontlines.”

“Well, there’s nothing else worth smiling over. Not in this bloodbath.” 

Johann considered this for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Crowley, why do you think I smile?”

Crowley did his best to look uninterested, picking at his dirt-filled nails. “For my money, I’d say you’ve got a nice partner at home.” 

Johann laughed and nearly fell off his bed. “I wish!”

“Alright, now you’ve got to tell us,” said Erich, restarting his rock pile, this time adding in the extra challenge of making one vertical pile upwards. 

Johann put a finger to his lips and his eyes smiled at them conspiratorially. He beckoned both of them to lean closer. “I’ve got word from a friend in the third division that we’ve got those Russian bastards on the run at the Eastern front.” 

“Spectacular,” said Crowley mockingly, rolling his yellow eyes.

“The Deutschland is going to win this war and we can all go home, celebrated as war veterans who defended their country with pride.” Johann punched the air near Crowley, as if reaching for his arm. “Surely you’ve got your own nice German girl back home to impress, Crowley.” 

Johann was posed as he waited for any reaction, unbearingly proud of himself for divulging this information. Crowley scoffed. “Bullshit.” 

“I’m sorry?” asked Johann, clearly deflating. 

“That’s bullshit. If we were winning,” Crowley looked at Johann, “they wouldn’t need anymore soldiers at the frontlines, would they? But they keep transferring more and more, while less and less come back.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go on all you like with your terrible rumors. It doesn’t change what’s going on. Don’t slack off because you think it’s over. You’d just get yourself killed.”

“Didn’t—” Erich started, hesitantly, “Didn’t you sign up voluntarily, Crowley?”

Crowley frowned and lazily stretched in his bed. “Nah. I’ve got orders. You think anyone would want to sign up for this mess?”

“Well, why don’t you just leave then?” Johann asked with a defensive tone, tensing his shoulders. “Clearly you’ve got no interest in defending your country!”

Crowley smiled. Just by Johann’s normal behavior Crowley could tell the soldier was a ready model. The carefree attitude, the free spirited mentality, the “patriotism,” all of it was perfect. He just needed to push a couple of buttons. “I could just leave, can’t I? I mean, the easiest way to go is through the frontlines, though. Not sure I’d call that a pleasant departure.” 

Erich was eerily silent (though Crowley could definitely see the smile in his eyes) and Johann’s mouth had dropped. It was late in the night and while most soldiers were sleeping in the barracks, no one was in a deep slumber. Everyone could hear Crowley, and that was a dangerous thing to hear. 

Erich was the first to break the silence. “You’re right.”

“What?” Johann sputtered. Crowley craned his neck to stare at Erich. 

“Crowley’s right. Why do we need to die for a country that’s losing the war we’re dying for?” Erich was smiling, as if amused. Crowley couldn’t help but think that it’s not right for kids their age to be so at peace with death. It’s okay for him, he’s thousands of years old, but human kids with their whole life ahead of them? Out of the question. 

“Hold on a second! You volunteered too!” Johann pointed at Erich. 

“Yeah, because I’m stupid kid.” 

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well,” Erich shrugged, “You can join us, if you’d like.”

Johann blanched and Crowley eyed Erich questionably. “ Us? ”

“Yeah, you, me, and Johann here. Three men, not like they would miss us. I mean, they already replaced Hans. And don’t act like you’re not ready to leave too, Crowley.”

“Absolutely not!” Johann shouted. A couple of men besides them were further roused from their sleep. “We’d be a disgrace. Traitors! The Deutschland would fall to the hands of those French and English bastards!”

Erich shrugged again and laid back on his bed. “Do what you want, then. I bet you’d be glad if you end up in the frontlines. Hell, I bet you’d beg for the promotion . You can get yourself a nice shiny medal, if you really tried.” 

Johann growled but didn’t move. Instead, he rolled over, his back to them. 

Crowley spent the rest of the night trying to convince himself that this was just a simple temptation, that he was most definitely not trying to convince kids to commit treason, that Hell ordered him to do it. He was a demon, and demons don’t help pathetic human kids cheat death. That would be Nice. Crowley was not Nice. 

-----------------

It was a pleasant day, well into a graciously warm April, and Aziraphale mindlessly redressed a soldier’s wounds. The wounds themselves weren’t far too grave (not anymore) and so the task was simple enough after sufficient practice, going through the motions. Aziraphale hummed as his hands cleaned the rags, tying off loose ends. The soldier looked at him with curious brown eyes. 

“Why aren’t you out there? In the frontlines?” said the soldier. “I’ve seen you carry other men. You’re incredibly strong.” 

“Ah, well,” said Aziraphale as he cleaned the dirt off the soldier’s recovering leg, barely brushing over the sore wounds. The soldier hissed. Aziraphale continued, “I’ve never been much of a fighter, in all honesty.” Not lately. He was once. That was a long time ago. 

The soldier nodded. “That’s respectable. I think lots of boys here quickly realized they aren’t much of a fighter.” He chuckled darkly and pointed to his hurt leg. “Then they end up like me.”

Boys — that’s what they were. Simple teenagers expected not to run away or give in when a gun is pointed at their heads, held by a cruel hand ready to shoot, only because if they don’t then they’d end up with a bullet in their own head. Aziraphale remembered how simple warfare used to be, with honor and dignity and respect for the opposing side, split by a green battlefield where you can see clearly who it is you are shooting at. Even farther back, when knights would duel for the sake of their king or their honor, commending each other for the courage of carrying out a duel. Aziraphale remembered when the military was a respectable path of life, honored by the people and by the nobles. But down in the trenches, with the explosive crackling sounds of machine guns and tanks firing overhead, the boys weren’t anything but the same as the rats in the city sewers. All while the commanding officers refused to have their hands dirty, itching for a proper fight for the sake of violence. 

In retrospect, not much was different from the trenches than the army camps of old. The technology was different, sure, but the hierarchy was the same. It’s actually not too different from Hea--

Don’t.

Aziraphale patted the leg of the soldier he was working on and pretended like he didn’t hear anything. “All better. Do try to keep it clean, dear. God bless you.” 

The soldier nodded and limped away, back to the trenches, back to that insufferable inferno, back to hell. 

Aziraphale set a mental reminder to ask Crowley about that when he next sees him; the comparisons of Hell and the trenches (at least, about how the humans see it). He wondered if Crowley even knew what was going on. He had to, didn’t he? Hell loves it whenever humans go to war, especially on this scale. 

Then again, so did Heaven. But of course, Heaven had divine justifications; all in part of the Great Plan and thwarting the enemy, guiding humans down the path of good and virtue. 

Good. Keep that up. 

Believe it. 

Never forget it. 

The thought of Crowley troubled him. Oh, he did hope the demon was taking care of himself. Their last argument in St. James Park was not ideal, per say, and they haven’t spoken in decades, much less seen each other. 

A few hours later, at the crack of dawn, the sound of a whistle was heard and French soldiers were sent off in waves, running across no man’s land, hearts thumping louder than the gunshots. Some time after that, the noise died down and Aziraphale was sent to help collect the bodies from the waste and the debris. He managed to locate an older soldier (around his early thirties) whose right arm was stuck in barbed wire and his rotted feet had gotten sunken into the crater full of water. Aziraphale ran up to him and the startled soldier’s free hand went immediately to his bayonet. It was a miracle that the bullet missed and Aziraphale was able to drag the soldier back to the medical tents, heaving him up to the hospital cot and ripping off his uniform sleeves, exposing his infected arm. 

The wound wasn’t as deep as Aziraphale feared and some minutes later, the arm was cleaned thoroughly. The feet, however, were in such a terrible condition that Aziraphale might just have to recommend the soldier be taken off duty. 

(It never works. Aziraphale has tried before. But the French high command is dedicated to keeping as many soldiers on the battlefield as possible, not letting any get off easily. It reminded Aziraphale of— Don’t. )

  A nurse came by as Aziraphale finished up with the soldier. He looked around himself, at the crowded tent with no hospital cots to spare. Some men had to recover on the dirty mud of the floor and it pained Aziraphale to think that he could be doing more, more miracles, more something. 

But Orders are Orders. It will all work out for the best in the end. It has to. 

Right? 

-----------------

The night was beginning to set in as Aziraphale sat down at the entrance to his assigned tent, overlooking the sleeping soldiers. Most were sleeping, though some were busy in their own hobbies: writing, painting, some were even reciting plays to the people next to them. It made Aziraphale think of the orphanages he would visit occasionally, how pleasantly delighted he would be to usually find Crowley there, and the angel smiled fondly. The demon never talked about it but after millennia of always being able to find him near one, Aziraphale had his own suspicions. 

It was a quiet night so far, even with the muffled laughter where some men would recite lines from famous plays. The braver few would indulge in singing their favorite operas. Aziraphale made sure to place soldiers whom he knew had an affinity for instruments next to the singers. It warmed his heart to listen to the confident singers and the resourceful musicians (who more often than not recreated their preferred instruments with nearby objects or their voices). It made this whole mess almost seem normal, if only for a little bit, when the warfare outside has quieted down enough to forget where you are. 

There was some shuffling outside, however. Aziraphale could hear it but thought nothing of it. It was typical. The cover of night helped the soldiers do things they normally weren’t allowed to do, like sing or fool around. Be normal young men. If only for some fleeting minutes. 

Aziraphale smelled it before he noticed anything else. It was potent and irritating, stronger than anything he’s smelled before. He put down his book and took a breath in, trying to place the smell. Aziraphale gagged immediately, covering his mouth. It was most decidedly not something he would like to experience, thank you very much. Luckily, he didn’t need to breathe, and so he turned off his respiratory system. It was most likely some foul smell from the blood and the rotting flesh around the trenches. Maybe even mixed with gunpowder or the sweat of so many dirty people (who unfortunately haven’t been able to bathe properly in months ). 

Then the shouting started and the peaceful ambience of the medical tent vanished as if it never existed. Sleeping soldiers jolted awake and some tried to stand to attention before realizing the pain in their bodies was more overwhelming than awaiting orders. Aziraphale rushed out of his wooden chair and exited the tent with a hurrying pace. Red, blazing flares went up in certain spots along the long trenches, illuminating the green sky. 

No, that wasn’t right. The angel pushed his way to the nearby frontlines, searching— There! The sound of a cannon and somewhere down the line of the trench, a metal canister lodged itself between the ground and the sandbags of the trench barrier. Then, like a firework, it popped open, releasing nothing. Aziraphale stared at it, trying to make out any details in the extremely dim light and from such far a distance. But nothing came out of the canister. 

The officers closest to his stretch of the trenches shook their heads. The eldest one spoke up. “It was a malfunction of their cannons. Tell the men not to panic but to be ready if needed.” 

The officers dispersed and the eldest remained by Aziraphale’s side. He looked at the angel and sniffed. “What do you think of it?”

“Pardon?” asked Aziraphale. “Is it not a failed explosive?”

The officer scoffed. “That’s only to not raise more alarm than is needed, Sir Doctor. The Germans have been too resilient to send in failed explosives and not back it up with something more reliant.” 

“Then, and forgive me for asking, but why ask me? ” 

“Why ever not?” His pale eyes glared into Aziraphale’s. “I like having second opinions given to me. You are a respectable doctor. My men have said so.”

Aziraphale glanced back at the faraway canister. He frowned and tried to pull some miracle to be able to see it more clearly. It was a long moment before his blue eyes caught something unusual. “If you look closely, the area surrounding it is close to a green color.” 

The officer nodded. “Most strange. I will advise the men not to touch it then.” 

Then, more shouting erupted, more noise, the sound of help! down the opposite end of the trenches in the area. More emergency flares were sent up, accompanied by a faint green smoke, and Aziraphale paled. The officer must have noticed it too because his war-hardened eyes were full of fear. 

The men returning from that side of the trenches were coughing, doubling over as they gasped for breath. 

They would cough, and then they would fall, and they would cough again, liquid spilling out from their lungs until their bodies stilled. Paramedics arrived, would inspect the men, shake their heads to each other, before also having coughing fits. They too would promptly fall on the ground and convulse until they stilled. 

The officer was the first of the two of them to move. “Damn!” he shouted as he raced to the first soldier he could grab hold of. 

“Don’t let anyone get near the canisters!” he hollered to the nearby men. 

Aziraphale flew past all of them. The officer called after him (“Are you out of your damn mind!”) but to no avail. His attention went back to commanding the soldiers around him. In the dense haze of the green gas, the angel could see closely how it affected the soldiers: extremely intense coughing, spasms, faints. The more you inhaled, the more you coughed, but the more air you’d need, and so the cycle continued. Aziraphale was quick to carry as many men as he could, tripping over himself multiple times, until he could deposit them into the farthest medical tents. The nurses and other volunteer physicians set to work immediately and Aziraphale made his way back to the trenches. 

The sun was starting to rise when Aziraphale was able to sit down. He panted and ran his hands through his dirty hair, having spent many miracles to help where he could. The green fog was still dense by the time the sun fully rose and the once blue sky was a terrible green. Not so much because of the color but because there was no wind to disperse the gas somewhere else and so it all concentrated in the immediate area. The wet and damp atmosphere made it immensely worse, as the gas ate through and corroded the metal equipment in the trenches. 

The next day, Aziraphale was given the casualties report. More than a thousand dead in an area of a few square miles. And those were only the registered soldiers. The doctors and nurses that cared for the poisoned soldiers were not recorded yet and it filled Aziraphale with dread. 

The Germans did not start any attack for the rest of the week nor for the week after that. The eldest commanding officer was now a stout man with a full beard and stone-cold eyes. He did not meet the eyes of any of his subordinates nor of the doctors. He gave orders and expected someone to execute them. He was nothing like the officer before him. 

“Those bastards will get what they deserve,” he would say often, and those around him would nod solemnly. If he heard laughter or saw smiles, he would roar. If he heard music or chatter, he would threaten to put the offending person on the frontlines as shooting practice.

Aziraphale hated him. 

By then, it was well into a hot summer. Aziraphale was moved from the medical tents to the barracks, because the stout commanding officer decided that he looked strong enough to hold a gun and strong enough to face down the enemy. There were soldiers in Aziraphale’s barracks that he recognized from their stay in the medical tents. They looked at him and shook their heads in defeat, wondering how he ended up here and knowing the exact answer to why: the French needed more men. They were losing the war and they weren’t afraid to repurpose.

----------------- 

“Put some backbone into it, men!” shouted one of the officers. He shook his fist in the air and the soldiers were drenched in sweat as they banded together to lift the fallen tree. It was blocking the transport line and any more delay would make the trucks late as they rolled their way to the trenches. After the tree was finally moved, the soldiers clambered over to the back of the army trucks. Crowley huffed as he got himself comfortable on the bench. 

Hell was more rigorous with appearances this time around and Crowley could only guess why. The war has only been going on for about a year and already so many humans are dismissing belief in God, feeling as though She has abandoned them entirely. So many souls ripe for the picking. Temptations naturally come more easily, as was the logic of Hell, and thus Crowley did not need so many miracles, seeing as any display of the supernatural will equate to divine power in the eyes of the humans. 

It was about the most creative thing that the Dark Council has ever come up with, like they were finally taking Crowley up on his advice of getting an imagination. And so, they’d sent him to ensure that the most amount of destruction was made possible, predicting that with Germany’s industrialization, if the Germans were to be only a little more ahead, then the vengeful nature of France and the imperial attitudes of England and Russia would maximize the tragedy. 

As much as Crowley hated to admit it, it was working so far, and Hell was even keeping a closer eye on him. They’d even interrupted his depressive nap, claiming he’s done enough slothing about, and ordering him to fulfill his new mission with the utmost efficiency. 

Crowley wondered if Aziraphale was caught up in this bloody war as well. He probably was; Heaven loved it when humans went to war. He tried to imagine Aziraphale with firearms and shuddered, feeling suddenly fearful of the soft angel he’s known for millennia. A sword was one thing, but a gun? Divine justice to the extreme, enough to make any demon cower in fear.

“—about that, Crowley?” asked Erich, snapping the demon out of his thoughts. 

“What?” said the demon elegantly.

“The gas,” said Johann, as if that explained anything. “They just deployed it on the Western front. I think it’s a coward’s weapon. You don’t even face your opponent! And what’s it even going to do to the Allies? Absolutely nothing, I tell you.”

“I think it’s only good enough to shake up the Allies. But we aren’t any closer to going home.” Erich tapped the butt of his gun on the floor of the truck, fiddling with it. 

“Sure. Yeah. Gas.” Crowley crossed his arms and laid his back against the wall of the truck. He crossed his leg over the other and fixed his gaze on the disappearing road as the truck carried on. 

“You know,” said Johann in that same conspiratorial voice, “I heard that the French have an angel on their side. He came out completely unaffected by the gas.”

Crowley sat up in interest.

Erich groaned in annoyance. “An angel? As if. We wouldn’t be here if God was actually benevolent. We’re all God-fearing Christians. Why do we need to die like this?” 

Johann scoffed. “Again with that, Erich?”

Erich opened his mouth to retort but Crowley put a hand on his shoulder and turned to Johann. He’s a violent boy. Exploit that. “If you want to argue, wait until we’re out of this truck. You’ll have more space for a proper fight.”

Johann snorted. “I always think you’re too old for this job, Crowley. You sound like my father.” 

“What, are you scared of a little scuffle?” Erich smiled. 

“N-No!” Johann sputtered. “I just think that I should save my energy for some pathetic Allied bastard. Be able to enjoy it with all my strength at the ready.” 

Erich made a disgusted face and gave Crowley a side glance. Crowley shook his head. “Very honorable,” he said with as much sarcasm as the demon could muster. 

“Well, it’s what they deserve for trying to ignore Germany and her might. They won’t ignore us after this.”

“Is that what they tell you?” Crowley asked, in absolute pure disbelief. He shouldn’t be surprised, however, especially coming from Johann. 

“Is it not true, oh wise old man?” 

“Definitely not,” said Erich. “Do you even read the news?”

“The news from where? English papers and their lies?”

“ German papers and their reports. Do you even know what happened last summer? Or are you just that thick?” 

Johann’s argument was interrupted by the truck lurching to a stop and the soldiers next to the trio filtering out. They’ve arrived at the newly built trench with a restock of supplies for the Eastern front. Johann got out first, Erich stuck his middle finger at him, and Crowley rolled his eyes. Honestly, Johann was too easy of a Temptation and Crowley hasn’t even done anything yet. 

The trucks were unloaded quickly. While the other soldiers, including Johann, went ahead, Erich grabbed Crowley by his sleeve and pulled him back. 

“What do you want?” hissed Crowley. 

“We could leave. Right now.” Erich had a determined look in his eyes.

“Are you insane?” The poor boy would be shot immediately. At least he’d go quickly. Still, Crowley was not up to watch kids die. 

“Come on! You want to leave too!”

“They’ll kill you,” Crowley said with a growl, yanking his arm free from Erich’s grasp. 

“We’d die anyways if we stay.” 

Crowley sighed and slung his gun around his shoulder, resting it on his back. 

-----------------

“Shoot those bastards down!”

“We’re on our last bullets!”

“Crowley, look out!”

“Run!”

. . . 

“It was him! It was all him! He made us do it! He’s the devil!”

“Shut it!”

“Please, Johann-!”

“ Shut it! Kill this one too.”

“But-!”

“Do you traitors have anything to say for yourselves?” 

“...go to hell.”

. . . 

“What shall we do with the Brit?”

“Leave him here. The rats will have him soon enough. The general requested us on the Eastern front.”

-----------------

“And why would saving the lives of these humans guarantee souls for our Master, demon Crowley?”

“Well, you’ve got all these humans ignoring orders, rebelling, ya know? And you’ve got 50 million people pissed off at their leader. They’re willing to do anything at this point. And it’s not really saving their lives, innit? We’d have them later in their lifespans.”

“...I see. Then you have your orders, Crowley. We will send a group of other demons to cover all of Europe.”

“...how many demons?”

“Does it matter? Enough to claim all of humanity’s souls.” 

“Right. Okay. Yeah. Teamwork. Wahoo.” 

-----------------

“Hail Satan,” greeted the demons with toothy smiles. 

Crowley strolled up to them and gave a half wave. “Right, Satan. Er, what do you want?”

“To coordinate. Beelzebub wishes a smooth victory for Hell,” said the one with a head full of gray horns instead of hair.

“Right. Well, I’m pretty good here— er, bad— well, you get it.” Crowley stuffed his hands into the pockets of his uniform jacket. “You can do as you please. I’ve got this front covered.”

One of the demons frowned with what was left of their rotten, misshapen face. They sniffed the air and growled. “I smell humans.”

Another demon, much shorter, jumped up to hit their companion over the head. “We’re on Earth, moron. Of course there’s bloody humans!”

“No, not like that.” They thought for a moment and cringed, scowling. “I smell virtuous humans. Untainted by us.” 

“Listen, I’ve already said I’ve got it under control here. You can move along and go tempt some other poor sods—”

“Shut it, Crawly—”

“ Crowley. ”

“—you’ve got explaining. Why are there good humans here? Where are they?”

Crowley shifted on his feet slightly. Just a few miles away, back towards the south, along a path he had hiked along, was a farm that had been abandoned at some point in the war. The family had left in a hurry when the war came their way and so the animals and some commodities were still there. Lounging just outside the main barn were Erich and his friends, gathered around a small fire and looking up at the unpolluted, untouched night sky. 

Crowley gritted his teeth. “It’s a bit of a harder job than usual.”

The short demon jumped up repeatedly to reach Crowley’s eye level. “Let us introduce ourselves then!” 

“Surely a demon would have no reason to object to the help of other denizens of Hell?” said the very first demon with his head of horns. It smirked cruelly. There were multiple reasons to object to the help of other demons. Many of which were fairly obvious, thought Crowley, and he was glad once again for the protection his glasses gave him as he tried for a pleasant smile. 

“Oh, they’re already on the brink. It won’t be too long for them to give in.” His hands twitched in his pockets. “Got them to rebel, desert, see? Highest sin: disobedience. Especially in these times.” 

The demon with hardly a face grunted, the short demon eyed the red-head suspiciously, and the horn-headed seemed satisfied with Crowley’s answer. “Very well.”

“Eh?”

“Carry on, Serpent of Eden,” said the demon mockingly. “But we’ll be here, in case you find it too hard to handle.”

The other two demons seemed to want to protest, eyes wide, but the horn-headed demon grabbed both of them and dragged them away, finally vanishing into the maze of branches and bushes beyond. 

Crowley swallowed. “Right. That was a thing.” 

He turned back in the direction of the farm. Upon arrival, he found the soldiers exactly where he left them, even if half of them were asleep or drowsy. Erich was one of the few still wide awake. He grinned at Crowley as the demon sat down next to him. 

“Any news to report, Captain?” said another soldier.

Crowley was not a captain but the young man seemed intent on calling him as such. In fact, most of the soldiers here either called him “sir” or “captain.” The few who called him Crowley were the ones he respected the most. 

“Ngh,” answered Crowley. “Just the occasional rabbit. More snow. Nothing much.”

Erich laughed. “Did you even try to patrol?”

Crowley smacked him in the arm. “If all of you end up dead, so do I. Not patrolling seems a bit of a conflict of interest, innit?”

The other soldiers hummed in agreement. Some even laughed as well. Erich just laughed harder. One particular soldier just glared at Crowley. The demon racked his brain for a name — nothing came up. That boy was more quiet than the rest and he always seemed reluctant to have joined their group. Back in the trenches, he was almost left behind while the group joined Erich and he had to run to catch up to them. 

After a while, as the fire died down, most of the soldiers had drifted off to sleep. Erich was just about ready to turn in for the night, standing up to claim a spot inside the warm barn with the itchy hay. It was a harsh winter but with what all of these boys had seen in the trenches, it wasn’t so bad. It just took some getting used to. There were some sheep in the fields of the farm as well. One of the soldiers used to watch his mother knit and another used to live on a farm, although he only ever worked with the pigs. Together, they had managed to strip the sheep of some of their wool and make something that could count as blankets for the rest of the group. 

Crowley stayed near the dying fire, acting as guard. He tucked his knees in and focused his eyes into the dark forest surrounding them. That quiet boy was staring at him with a blank face. It would be unnerving if Crowley wasn’t so used to it already.

Only a mere year into the war and already there were thousands — if not millions — dead, most on the Allied side only because the Centrals decided to play defensive and it seemed to be working. No one was prepared for this though, but it was coming, and Crowley hated that. That’s the thing with free will: humans do this to themselves. Crowley usually just has to open certain doors and they’ll walk right through. Same with angels, in a way. They hold the door open but the path is troublesome and Heaven likes to pride itself in the journey to virtue instead of the virtue itself. In reality, though, Blessings and Temptations are just two sides of the same coin. Free will is the one who flips it and decides which no matter what the result was. 

At some point, deep into the night, the fire had died out. Crowley still refused to rest and he could already see just a sliver of sunlight peak over the dark horizon. But it was also the middle of winter and while the fire’s light would be useless in a few hours, its warmth was still valuable. Thus, Crowley got up to search for more wood.

Unfortunately for him, good branches for the fire were further into the forest. The big ones high in the trees were a bit difficult to break off and the ones on the forest floor were hidden by a fresh layer of glistening snow, not to mention wet as well. Frowning, Crowley resolved to snap off the smaller branches: the ones closer to the ground and the ones on the very ends of the bigger ones. Not too great to keep a fire going but okay enough for kindle, if only for a little while. Maybe he could use a miracle to keep the flames going more than they should. Shouldn’t be too big a miracle that Hell would notice, right? Damn their new restrictions for this mission.

Crowley reached towards a small tree, on the edge of a cliff. He stepped around it a bit, mindful of the sudden drop behind him as he found footing. His arms were full of dry branches and he quickly snapped another one off the tree. He stepped again, in the fresh snow this time, then—

The ground gave out from under him. 

Crowley fell. 

-----------------

Aziraphale always seemed to find looking at his surroundings much more stimulating than focusing on the monotonous marching of soldiers, even if he was marching too. That being said, it’s not like his surroundings were much more interesting. The open valley was the same landscape they’ve been in for the past week and other than some small game here and there, not much would happen. The most comfort they’d had was a small farmhouse they had spent part of the night in and had just left that early morning. The soldiers’ morale was at an all time low as well; anyone could tell you that. The winter was depressing and long and far too cold and Aziraphale had no idea what the actual status of the war was—

Wait. What the heavens was that? 

Something fell from the valley walls around them. Aziraphale and the other soldiers near the back stopped and turned. A few of them already armed their guns, pointing in that general direction. But nothing moved so neither did they, except for Aziraphale, unarmed due to his position, who cautiously approached the area. And imagine his surprise when he saw a lanky figure with fiery red hair, stilled, deep in the snow. 

“What is it, doctor?” one of the soldiers called, slinging his gun over his arm. 

“Nothing, just a rabbit,” Aziraphale called back. “Nothing to worry about.”

The soldier nodded and signaled to the others to resume their marching. Aziraphale waved his hand quickly — a simple miracle to force the soldiers’ indifference — and got to work getting Crowley somewhere else. The farmhouse in the valley wasn’t too far and frankly, Crowley looked like he was in no condition to get there by himself.

-----------------

“What the hell are you doing, Aziraphale?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Crowley? It’s not exactly very discreet.” Aziraphale gently wrapped Crowley’s leg with gauze. He said sternly, “Stay still.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes and growled. “Thought you had other people to fraternize with.”

“I still refuse to give you a suicide pill. I thought I made that clear half a century ago.” The angel propped a wooden board against Crowley’s leg and began tying the two together. 

“That’s not—!” Crowley winced when Aziraphale tied his leg harsher than he probably should’ve. “Fine. Have it your way then.” 

Crowley settled himself against a bundle of hay near the back wall. The splint was expertly made. After a moment, he looked at Aziraphale’s blue uniform, the red cross on the angel’s sleeve, and asked, “Why France?”

“Heaven’s instructions. They had caught me in the middle of lunch. Give me your arm. Why Germany?”

The demon extended his mangled left arm as best as he could. Aziraphale doused it with clean water and started wrapping it in gauze. Crowley said, “Hell’s orders. They caught me in the middle of my nap. Didn’t even know what was going on ‘til I walked out of Hell in a uniform.” 

“Seems as though we are canceling each other out,” said the angel, teasingly. 

Crowley didn’t smile. “Not this time, angel.”

Aziraphale stopped dressing the rest of Crowley’s wounds and sat down on the hay beside him, looking at him intently. “What happened, Crowley?”

The demon looked away.

-----------------

Crowley buried his face into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck and wrapped himself around his soft angel. They were comfortably in bed and the world was, gratefully, not destroyed. Aziraphale held him in his strong arms, one hand stroking gently through the demon’s fire hair, murmuring sweet nothings. At one point, Aziraphale spoke up, as a thought occurred to him. “Dear? “Hm?”

“Do you ever wonder about your platoon’s families? From the Great War?”

Crowley squeezed him a little harder, sleep still in his voice. “‘Ey weren’t m’ platoon, angel, they were m’ friends. Far as I know, their families had the recession to worry about. No time for grieving.”

“Yes, but…”

Crowley shifted. “What’s wrong, angel? Talk to me.”

Aziraphale pulled his lips together and hummed in thought. “I was wondering… what with the relative life-spans of humans… and the fright we had at the beginning of the 20th century…”

Crowley pulled a face. “Oh, don’t start with this again, angel.”

“No, no, my dear. It’s not that. Though that discussion was certainly interesting—”

“You mean depressing.”

“—I was just wondering how they, the humans, put such blind trust in each other. We’ve been friends for six thousand years, but they only get a maximum of about a hundred. It’s so short in comparison.”

Crowley nodded, trying blinking the sleep in his tired eyes away as Aziraphale continued to run his hand through his hair. “It’s a miracle, innit?”

“It’s certainly heartwarming. I must say, they truly had it in the 1960s. Do you remember the 1960s, dear?”

“Bright as day, angel.”

“Oh, that was a terrible time. So much fighting, like a repeated cycle. But they made it out, to your night canvas.”

Crowley smiled fondly. “I remember your face when I forced you to sit through the recording of the moon landing. Do you really mean to tell me you hadn’t used a telly yet before that?”

“Oh, hush you fiend.” A moment passed in comfortable silence. “They really do love each other, don’t they, my dear? Like a family.”

“Pretty big family. Billions of distant cousins.”

Aziraphale smiled. “I’m very glad this all isn’t, how did you put it, ‘a pile of boiling goo?’”

“A big messy ball of boiling goo.”

“Yes, that.” 

Crowley yawned. “A big soft pillow too. G’night, angel.”

“Good night, my beloved.” 

Because even with all its flaws, humanity is not a species or a grand family; it’s a celebration of life and kindness. Because even in the end-that-wasn’t, through the sheer kindness of an 11-year-old boy with his dog and his friends, the earth continued to spin. Because even though terrible things have happened, whole cities destroyed, whole continents mercilessly bombed, whole lives with so much future potential lost, life finds a way. And an angel and a demon can stand testimony for it, because they’ve seen it all, through the good and the bad. And that’s beautiful, in its own complicated way. The unsung heroes of everyday life that you don’t notice, the newborn crying as their mother holds them tight to her chest and promises to protect them forever, the friend you lost but will never forget; they’re all beautiful. 

They’re all worth it. 

And that’s beautiful.

-----------------

More Author's Notes:

If this story made no sense, just pretend it did. I also initially wrote this during quarantine so do with that information what you will.

Historical notes: 1. The year 1915 was the year with the most fighting on the Western Front. It was also the deadliest year for the French forces, with 349,000 deaths.

2. In 1915, the Germans were also focusing on the Eastern front with Russia. On April 22 of that same year, the Germans unleashed chlorine gas on the Western front but that was the only battle they instigated that year, as an experiment for the gas. However, they didn’t think the gas would be effective at all so this allotted nothing other than further death and destruction.

3. The MHS (Military Health Services) was made up of volunteer doctors and nurses willing to put their life on the line to set up hospitals and medical tents wherever the fighting went. However, they were constantly overwhelmed with the amount of deaths per day on either side of the fighting. It was apparently common for civilians to see dozens of hospital trains and hundreds of ambulances pass through cities on the daily. According to German writer Leonhard Frank, these were a representation of the war as they quite literally brought home the horrors of the trenches, regardless of the side.

[amor-immortalem]

Of Horrible Parenting and Stubborn Teenagers

A/N: So this has been kinda just rotting in my drafts for the better part of a year and I don’t have anything better to post so why not. Also this was written before I got the idea for Max’s traitor arc.

Word count: 6.8k

Warning: bad parenting, self-harm, intrusive thoughts, Cerberus attacks, serious injury

“The answer is no.” Azalea huffs as she goes back to her texting conversation.

“C’mon, ‘Zay, ya know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have any other options available.” Mammon would do almost anything to get his daughter to agree to this right now.

“Okay??? And?? You asked ‘n I said no. You don’t pester and hound Cyrus or Aurelius if they tell you no.”

“Because they’re willing to help us out when we need it, unlike you.”

“I’m not the one who wanted him to exist! I made it clear the day you ‘n Mum brought that brat home from the hospital that I didn’t want no part in helpin’ with him. I tolerate him just so it makes everythin’ at home easier for y’all. Don’t mistake that for me actually giving a damn about him, old man.” She stands, heading for her room.

“I don’t get what the big deal is Azalea. I’m just asking for you to watch Mahlon for three hours on Saturday afternoon while your Ma ‘n I are in the meeting with your uncles and Lord Diavolo.”

“And I said no. I got plans that day and I ain’t cancellin’ for some snot-nosed brat that I don’t even like.”

“Ya don’t anymore. You’re grounded and you’re babysitting. End of story.” Mammon says as he lets out a huff.

“Grounded?!” The freckled half-demon squawks in disbelief, “I didn’t even do anything wrong this time, why am I grounded?”

“Because you’re being a brat and I’m your father and I can ground ya for any reason I see fit. You need ta start helpin’ out with your brother more whether that’s willingly or unwillingly, I don’t care.”

“That’s fuckin’ ridiculous and way beyond unfair.” Azalea has to bite her cheek to keep from screaming at her father and making things worse. “You know, those three hours are going to cost me big time.”

“Oh please,” The demon rolls his eyes, “Ya spend all day with yer head buried in those damn textbooks, and your grades are already at a perfect 100 percent. I get that advanced courses are a lot of work but three hours not spent studyin’ ain’t gonna hurt ya none.”

“I’m not-! Yeah, sure whatever. I’ll watch the li’l shit since I don’t have anything else ta do now. I’m goin’ back ta the dorm. I hate you.” Azalea turns away and starts to make her way back to the House of Lamentation.

“Yeah, well I aint your biggest fan right now either,” Mammon calls after her, unaware of what he’d just cost his second eldest.

*******************************

“You know this is going to cost you your spot on the team, right?” Azalea’s track coach asks her as she gives her a disbelieving look. “You promised to be there to run the high jump and the 3,000-meter sprint. Without you there, the team will have to forfeit those events.”

“Yeah, Coach...” The white-and-black-haired half-demon frowns. “I’m well aware but something came up that I can’t get out of. I’ll turn my uniform in tomorrow.”

“Alright,” The older demoness frowns, “I’m sorry to lose you though. Even after you lost your eye, your speed alone makes you one of my best runners- not to mention all of that work you did to make up for your lack of depth perception so that you could get back to running the high jump… oh well. Maybe next year you’ll be able to join us again.”

Wouldn’t bet on it, Azalea thinks to herself. If things go my way, I won’t even be in the Devildom after tomorrow night.

“Thank you for the opportunity to run with you guys though,” Azalea smiles as she gives a bow before turning to leave.

*******************************

“Maaaaaaxxxxx,” Azalea calls in a sing-song voice as her girlfriend picks up the phone later that day.

“Good morning to you too, Sunshine.” The human chuckles softly at the greeting, “What can I do for you at four in the morning?”

“Four in the- ah shit sorry. Forgot about the time difference. Anyway, will ya summon me up to the human world with ya? Pretty please. I miss you.” Azalea has other motives for wanting to go up to the human world.

“You can’t just wait for me to come home back to the Devildom this weekend?” Max feels like something isn’t quite right here.

“Nooooo. I miss ya ‘n I wanna see ya now.”

“You can be patient besides I’m pretty sure if you just up and disappeared again all of the adults in your family would up and have a heart attack and I’d rather not be responsible for the deaths of Lord Diavolo’s entire cabinet.

“Awwww,” the half-demon pouts, “Yer so mean.”

“Babe, if you miss me that much, why don’t we video chat for a little bit? You don’t seem like you’re not in a good place right now.”

“Me? Nah, I’m fine, but I won’t turn down a video chat.”

“Alright, give me five minutes to wash my face and I’ll call you,” the human sighed rubbing a hand over her icy-blue eyes. “Slept in my makeup last night because I was so exhausted from training for my trials to gain my sorcerer’s license so I’m sure I look like a hot mess.”

“Alright, I’m setting a timer. If ya don’t call back in five minutes exactly, I’m calling you whether yer ready or not.” Azalea hangs up quickly and Max can only stare at her phone.

“That has to be a sign that something is wrong,” she mumbles under her breath while rolling out of bed, “she’s never that demanding of my attention…”

*******************************

The video chat was going great but Max can see there was something wrong with her girlfriend. She was just a bit too hyper, too loud, too… much...

“So how has staying on track with your meds been going?” it’s an innocuous question- one Max asks frequently since Azalea has a habit of not medicating regularly after concluding that she was feeling better so she didn’t need them anymore.

“It's been good- sometimes I forget them in the mornings though but I only when I wake up late ‘n gotta run out the house super quick.”

“That’s good. You haven’t been missing any lately right? Like within the past couple of days?”

“No. My parents have really been on my case about it- apparently, Aurelius ratted me out for not takin’ ‘em the last time I forgot. Oh! Oh! Also, I have to cancel our date for the Saturday you come back… I’m kind of grounded at the moment.”

“What? Why? Your parents know there’s a huge meet that day and if you don’t show up you’ll lose your spot on the team for the year, right?”

“It was a whole thing I got into with Dad- ‘pparently I’m s’possed to help out with Mahlon even though I’ve made it clear I ain’t want a damn thing ta do with him… anyway the old man said that I was babysitting whether I wanted to or not and then promptly grounded me…”

“You never told him did you?”

“What’s it matter anyway?” Azalea scoffs, “If I ain’t in any danger, my business is my own. My old man’s not entitled to know what’s going on in my life anymore. He’s shown me enough times he clearly favors his sons and doesn’t even care enough to find out what I’m up to nowadays anyway. Besides… he can’t disappoint me by not showin’ up ta things if he don’t know about it… It’s not like it really matters all that much anyway…”

“Is that really what you want though, Hon?” Max frowns. “Being on the track team is everything to you and I’m sure if at least your mother knew, she’d overrule his decision and unground you so you could go.”

“Oh please,” the white-and-black-haired girl laughs, “neither of my mothers have ever once gone against Dad when it comes to parenting issues. Both Mum and Mama Thirteen won’t go against him this time either… I’ll just have ta eat the loss. In fact, if any member of my family’s parental unit found out I was still runnin’ track, they’d probably tell me ta cut it out. That it’s too dangerous for me or some shit like that. All three of ‘em would probably be happier if I just lived in a bubble for the rest of my life and never did anything ever like a little pet canary in a cage.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, babe. Your parents love you and I’m sure they wouldn’t do that to you when they know you love it so much.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say,” the half-demon sighs, “it’s getting late here, I’m gonna go to bed now ‘n sleep off this bad mood. I’ll see ya Friday. Love ya.”

“Love you too, Sunshine,” Max smiles as she blows a kiss at the phone, “See you Friday.”

And with that, the girls end their video chat.

*******************************

“So when we get to the House of Lamentation,” Mammon begins as he makes the final turn towards the house, “please- for the love of all things unholy- be on your best behavior. Your sister already ain’t happy about havin’ ta watch ya so don’t give her a reason to take anything out on you.”

“Okay,” Mahlon chirps from his car seat in the back. “How long do I have to stay with her for?”

“Just for three hours. If Mama or I run any later than that, one of your brothers will come to get you since they’ll both be off from their jobs by then, ‘kay?”

“Okay.” The black-haired half-demon nods as he pulls out a folded-up paper from his backpack. “Do you think she’ll like the picture I made her?”

“I hope so, Kiddo.” Mammon smiles as the car comes to a stop, “I sure hope so.”

*******************************

Azalea is in the shower, relaxing under the hot water, enjoying the last little bit of her free time before she had to play babysitter. It hasn’t been a good day. Logging into Devilgram triggered it- the empty feeling she had now that she wasn’t on the track team anymore from looking at her teammates' stories and then it spiraled into intrusive thoughts.

What if you got rid of the problem altogether? a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Your parents already hate you so why not just nail your own coffin closed and get rid of the brat? He’s powerless or at the very least a late bloomer- you could easily dispose of him. The only one who’d know what you did would be Max. You could let Cerberus eat the body to get rid of the evidence.

“Hey, Azalea, your dad just pulled up.” Max is there to interrupt the train of thoughts, “You want me to get the door, or are you almost done?”

“Can you get the door, please? I’m... gonna be a minute.” Azalea says as she leans her head back against the cool tiles of the wall behind her hoping to lock away the intrusive thoughts deep in her mind.

“Alright,” Max says, “I’ll come check on you in a few more minutes- are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’M FINE,” the half-demon yells. “JUST-” She stops, taking a deep breath, “Just go downstairs and get the door.”

“Oh... okay,” Max hurries and closes the door before going downstairs just as Mammon and Mahlon are walking into the entrance hall.

“Where’s ‘Zay?” The demon asks as he notices his daughter is nowhere to be seen.

“She’s finishing up in the shower,” The human sighs, “it’s not a good day, Sir.”

“What do you mean by that? She in a mood or somethin’?” Mammon frowns as Max nods quickly.

“It’s... It’s a bad one.”

“What set it off?”

And now Max has a choice to make. She can tell Mammon the truth about the track meet and how Azalea lost her spot on the team or she can lie and say she doesn’t know and then deal with trying to keep things peaceful for the day as much as she can. Against her better judgment, the human chooses the latter as she shrugs.

“If it gets any worse, text me or Arella and one of us will leave to come get Mahlon then.” Mammon looks up toward the top of the stairs. “I have to go, though,” He turns to his son. “Alright kiddo, make sure you’re super good for your sister when she gets out of the shower and-”

He stops as the scent of blood crosses his nose. His blue-to-gold eyes look up to the top of the stairs.

“I’m gonna check on Azalea before I go.” And with that, he’s up the stairs.

*******************************

Shit, shit, shit! I cut too deep! Azalea scrambles around the bathroom for the first aid kit as she holds the towel over her side where she had dug into it with a razor blade. Damnit all, me ‘n my shitty timing. What an amateur move! Dad’s gonna smell the blood and think I hurt myself and then he’s not gonna leave me alone for the rest of the damn day!

Just as she finds the kit and starts placing gauze over the cuts, Mammon knocks on the door. Good thing she’d locked the door before she started cutting just to avoid Max walking in on her.

“Go away! I’m fine!” She shouts before her father can get a word out. “I was shaving my legs and accidentally cut myself! It’s no big deal.” She takes the razor blade and makes a deep gash in her leg before hiding the blade so her lie is convincing- it actually feels good.

“That smells like a lot of blood though. Do you need stitches?”

“Fuck,” She mouths to herself before answering, “Nope I’m good. It’ll heal on its own as long as I bandage it up really good.”

“Okay,” the demon sighs in relief- the cut, while deep, sounded like it would heal on its own. “You worry me sometimes, kid. Anyway, I’ll get going now. Be nice to your brother. If Mom and I run late, one of your brothers will come get him so you’re not watchin’ him longer than I’m asking of ya. After that, you can do whatever you want.”

“Sure fine.”

“Alright, everything is fine.” The demon announced as he came down the stairs. “I’ll get going now,”

“Okay,” Max and Mahlon nod before they head off to the common room.

*******************************

“And at school, we had to make a report about someone in our family that we’re super proud of and make a picture book to go with it,” Mahlon starts to search his backpack for the various things he’d been talking about. “I wanna show it to Azalea once she gets out of the shower, but do you wanna see it now?”

“I’d love to!” Max nods, “I bet you did a good job. Who did you choose? Was it one of your parents or your brothers?”

“No, it was Azalea- that's why I wanna show it to her. The teacher said I did a really good job at it so I thought she might like to see it.”

“Aww, isn’t that sweet of you,” The black-haired human smiles softly.

“Ain’t what sweet?” Azalea interrupts as joins the pair.

“Sis!” Mahlon hops off the couch and runs over to give her a hug.

Azalea side-steps the four-year-old. “Don’t touch me, pipsqueak, now what were the two of ya talkin’ about?”

“Azalea,” Max warned.

“What? I jus’ don’t wanna be touched right now, that okay?”

“It’s okay! That’s okay! Here,” The black-haired boy runs back over to his backpack and finally grabs out the little booklet he’d made. “I made this at school. It’s about you.”

“About me?” For a moment there’s a look of surprise and confusion before it’s replaced with the usual scowl she keeps on her face as she takes the booklet and flips through it.

It was generally well made for something a four-year-old could make but there was one problem with it. It was filled with things that had previously been kept within the family- things kept behind closed doors to make things appear not as bad as what they really were.

“Mahlon, do Mum and Dad know what’s in here? Did they say you could put all this stuff in this booklet?”

“N-no… did I do something bad?” The freckled boy asks, his expression shifting into one of worry. “Do you not like it? Are you mad at me?”

“Huh? No, I ain’t mad it’s just- some of this stuff is private information that shouldn’t be public knowledge because it's family stuff. Actually, I like it a lot ‘n yer teach was right when they said ya did a really good job with it.”

At his sister’s words, Mahlon’s eyes widened. “Really?!” A wide smile finds its way onto his face, so excited that his big sister gave him a compliment that he didn’t hear the first part of what she said.

“I… yeah? Wouldn’ta said it if I didn’t mean it… well, whatever let’s just find ya somethin’ ta do. I assume Dad already had ya eat lunch- ya don’t still take naps at this age do ya?”

“I had one earlier, can we play a video game together?”

“I mean we can but ya gotta be more specific than just a video game,” Azalea hums, “what kinda genre do you wanna play? Action/adventure, RPG, fighting?”

Mahlon thinks for a moment before answering, “A fighting game!” He takes a hold of Azalea’s hand and starts to pull her toward her room.

“What are you doin’? Game systems here in the common room.”

“I wanna play in your room.”

“Nope, Max ‘n I moved all that stuff out here for the day cuz I don’t want ya in there. I got too much stuff you could mess up.” The older half-demon grabs the remote and flips on the tv before popping a fighting game into the game console and grabbing the two wireless controllers. She takes a seat on the couch next to her girlfriend who was just surfing Devilgram for the time being.

“What’s the word, Babe? Anything new?”

“Not really, Zulima’s live from the second layer right now and Aurelius just posted a selfie from the set of his latest shoot but other than that, it’s quiet.” The human looks over at her and smiles before leaning her head against Azalea’s shoulder.

“When isn’t she live streaming? Anyway, Mahlon, come on. Ya gonna come join or do I gotta play a two-player game alone?”

“No, I wanna play too!” The four-year-old hops up on the couch seated right next to his sister and she hands him a controller.

*******************************

It didn’t take Mammon long to get up to R.A.D. however, finding a parking spot proved to be arduously time-consuming.

“Why in the world is the lot so packed?” The demon grumbles to himself as he heads inside. “‘S almost like there’s some kinda school function or somethin’…”

As he makes his way up to the Student Council room where they had arranged to have the meeting, he spots Arella having a conversation with Beelzebub.

“Hey guys,” Mammon says as he wraps his arms around his wife’s shoulders. “How was the human world, Babe?

“Not much different than it’s always been,” Arella hums as she leans back against his chest. “How’re the kids? Is everything alright? Where’s Mahlon? I know the boys are busy today and Azalea had a track meet today so even if she was feeling charitable, she wouldn’t have been able to watch him.”

“She… she had a track meet today?” Mammon pales, “I…um… I didn’t know that…”

“So that’s why she quit the team,” Beel says, “so she could babysit. That’s not something I expected from her.”

“She quit the team?” Both Mammon and Arella are surprised at the Avatar of Gluttony’s revelation.

“Well, more like she was kicked off the team for not being able to come to the meet today but still… same difference. It just sounds better to say one quit than it is to say they got kicked off it.”

“That’s a bit extreme,” Arella says, “Is that normal, Beel?”

The ginger-haired demon nods, “Attending meets is a requirement no matter who you are if you want to stay on the team. The coach was upset but she said she couldn’t give Azalea any special treatment or else the whole team might start blowing off the meets. It applies to every sports team at R.A.D. That’s the reason why Lucifer always tried to have Lord Diavolo schedule our Student Council meetings outside of my games so I wouldn’t lose my place on the team.”

“And Azalea did this of her own volition?” Arella can hardly believe it as Beel nods and out of the corner of her eye, Arella catches Mammon shifting nervously. Suddenly, she’s not so sure Azalea ever agreed to babysit in the first place.

“I see… well I guess there’s always next season then. We’ll just have to make sure it never happens again.” The human looks up and her husband with a smile, “Right, Love?”

“Yeah, totally,” the white-haired demon lets out a nervous laugh- one he lets out when he knows he’s done something wrong- almost like he was subconsciously confirming her theory, “Well, I’m gonna go take my seat now,”

“Oh no you don’t,” she says as she holds onto his jacket sleeve, “you’re going to stay right here and we’re going to have a little chat about this. Beel, could you give us a moment, please? Let Lucifer know we’ll be in shortly. I know we’re still waiting on Belphegor before we can actually start but still, just let him know we’re here.

“Sure thing,” the sixth-born smiles before turning to his older brother, “rest in peace, Mammon, I’ll have Satan write your eulogy.”

Once Beelzebub has gone, Arella turns to Mammon with an unamused look.

“You forced Azalea to watch Mahlon today, didn’t you?”

“So, in my defense, I didn’t know there was a track meet today,” the Avatar of Greed starts.

“And yet you knew our sons’ schedules well enough to know that they were unavailable to watch their brother today? Don’t you think that’s a little unfair? And what do you mean you didn’t know? It’s been on the family calendar in my home office for months now. I even sent you a list via text so you could put it in your phone’s calendar at the start of the season- You went to the last one with me! Track is the most important thing to our daughter right now, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know but… c’mon ‘Rella, constantly asking the boys to change their schedules for us is unfair to them too.”

“I get that, Mammon, but that’s why you should have just brought Mahlon with you! Honey, we’ve done so much work with Azalea just to even get her to the point of being able to tolerate him over these last couple of years. Why in all the three realms would you throw that away by just forcing her to babysit when she doesn’t want to?”

“Because there’s no reason she can’t babysit every now and again- and it's not like I just dumped him on her for the whole day. It was just these three hours- less if Cyrus or Aurelius get done at work early. Don’t you think we should give her a little push now and again?”

“Yes, but not with this, Mammon. If we push too hard, she’s just going to resent him even more. Things like this are tricky. You remember what it felt like when Lucifer just forced looking after me onto you, don’t you? You hated it at the start- and I know you did because you made sure to tell me at every opportunity you got.”

“Yeah, I know, but like once I got over it, I didn’t hate it and that’s what I was goin’ for. Ya always say Azalea is the most like me so why not use a strategy that I know has worked in the past? Watch, by the time we get done here, she might’ve found that she enjoys babysittin’ and might want to do it again sometime.”

“I’ll give you points for logic, Love, but you better pray to the Demon King that this actually works out the way you want it to. If we get to the House of Lamentation and our youngest is completely traumatized by an older sister that didn’t want to babysit, you’re going to be in a hell of a lot more trouble with me than you already are.”

And with that Arella walks into the old Student Council room.

*******************************

“God-fucking-Damnit, where did he go? It can’t be that hard to find a fucking powerless four-year-old brat.” Azalea curses as she checks under Zulima’s bed for the sixth time.

She, Max, and Mahlon were all playing a game of hide-and-seek and so far, Azalea was losing. How she could fail to find her youngest brother was beyond her. She’d searched everywhere for the kid but he wasn’t anywhere she could think of. The entire House was game except for the underground tomb where Cerberus still resided. “Motherfucker, he wouldn’t have-“

The sound of a frightened scream causes her to turn her head so fast that Azalea nearly gets whiplash. A second later, she’s bolting down toward the underground tomb- Max isn’t far behind her. When they get there, the behemoth of a dog is towering over Mahlon who is cowering in fear. Almost in slow motion, Azalea watches as the animal lowers its head, preparing to swallow her brother whole. She leaps down the stairs running full speed and she closes the distance just in time to get Mahlon out of the way but her leg is caught in the dog’s mouth and she’s lifted into the air.

“Cerberus!” Max yells as she grabs a hold of Mahlon and pushes him back toward the stairs, “Let Azalea go!”

To that, the monstrous canine only growls until Azalea rears back and kicks him in the muzzle with as much strength as she can muster. She goes crashing to the hard stone floor below landing on her back as Cerberus lets out a yelp.

“Yeah, that fuckin’ hurt dinnit!? Go lay down!” The freckled half-demon yells as she sits up and points over to the area near Lilith’s tomb. “Damn oversized mutt,” she grumbles as she stands and hobbles over to her girlfriend and brother, every pain receptor in her leg tingling like she was walking on pins and needles before she just loses feeling in it all together..

“Are you crazy!?” The blue-eyed human gives Azalea a horrified look, “Why’re you walking on that- your leg’s broken!”

“No, it ain’t. I’m fine, just a puncture wound from where his teeth got me.”

“The bone in your leg is sticking out…” Mahlon replied as his sister follows his gaze.

“Well shit, guess it is… I should probably do something about that, huh? Max can you-?”

“I’m not using healing magic to fix that- I’m not good with healing spells and I don’t want to mend your leg improperly. We’re going to the hospital and you can have it dealt with professionally.”

“God, you’re so dramatic.” Azalea sighs, “I’ll do it on myself then. Once I sit down, all you have to do is-“

“I’m not being dramatic, I-“

While Max and Azalea are fighting, Mahlon sneaks back up the stairs and gets a hold of his sister’s phone. Thankfully, it was unlocked. He scrolls through Azalea’s contacts and selects Mammon’s number out of the very small list.

It doesn’t take long for Mammon to answer seeing as they just happened to finish up the meeting.

“What’s up, ‘Zay? We just got done here so Mom and I’re gonna be on our way-“

“Daddy…”

“Mahlon? Bud, where’s your sister and why do you have her phone?”

“Th-there was an accident… she got bit by Cerberus and now she and Max are fighting cuz she doesn’t want to go to the hospital…”

“Alright, Mom and I are comin’ to get you guys. How badly did she get bit and where?” As the demon gets up, he attracts the attention of his brothers, his wife, and Lord Diavolo who were all giving him curious looks.

“Azalea got bit on the leg pretty badly by Cerberus..” the demon explains, “Okay, I’m gonna hang up now so I can focus on driving. Tell her we’re on our way and tell Max to make sure Azalea doesn’t walk on her leg.” After a brief exchange of goodbyes, the white-haired demon hangs up the phone before turning to face the rest of the group. “Luce, you’re probably gonna wanna go check on your dog, I don’t know what state he’s in right now.”

The Avatar of Pride only lets out a long, tired sigh as he stands and both Mammon and Arella take their leave.

“There’s never a dull moment in this family…”

*******************************

“Did I or did I not tell ya you weren’t supposed to hide in the underground tomb?” Azalea asks pointedly as she half-heartedly glares at Mahlon.

“You did…” Mahlon says as he looks away, “I’m sorry… thank you for saving me…”

“I didn’t do it for you… Mum and Dad would kill me if I let that mutt eat you. I was just looking out for myself so don’t go gettin’ the wrong idea.”

“Azalea!” Max looks up from her spot on the floor where she was attempting to bandage up the open puncture wounds and the half-demon’s leg where the bone wasn’t protruding.

“What? It’s true! He’s gotta hear it sometime.”

The young boy only climbs up next to his sister.

“Did ya have fun at least?”

“H-huh?”

“I said did ya have fun? For the first little bit, that is…”

Mahlon nods carefully but otherwise doesn’t say anything so Azalea abruptly stands.

“Well I’m glad ya had fun, we won’t be doin’ this again,” she says as stumbles and Max pushes her back onto the couch.

“Azalea, do not move. I’m serious. You’re going to make things worse for yourself.” The human huffs, her hands on her hips as she looks at the half-demon expectantly.

“Babe, I’m fine. Sure, the bone’s stickin’ out but only a little. Just let me cast a healin’ spell on myself ‘n I’ll be good as new. I’m the master at bone mendin’ spells.”

“For my sanity,” Max starts with a sigh, “I’m going to ignore that you’re implying to me that you’ve broken your bones so many times that you’ve gotten that good at fixing them. Also, I love you, but you’re a horrible spell caster.”

“It’s just a simple spell. I’ve done it a million times already.”

Before Max could say anything else, the front door opened and Arella walked in. Azalea quickly threw a blanket over her lap and outstretched leg.

“You’re not being sneaky, Sweetheart,” Arella says as she approached the couch. “Let me see your leg, please. Mahlon go get the bag you brought with you and go wait with your father in the car.”

“It’s fine, Mum. I don’t need to go to the hospital.” The black-and-white-haired teenager grumbles. “All I need is for someone to push the bone back into place and I can mend it myself.”

“Why can’t you just go to the hospital?” Max asks, “Why’re you so afraid to ask for help?”

“I ain’t scared of askin’ for help! And I sure as hell don’t need it! Why can’t any of y’all fuckin’ see that!” Azalea stands but her mother stops her.

“You have a bone sticking out of your leg, Darling. You need medical attention and this isn’t something you can take care of yourself.” The green-eyed human’s voice is stern. “You’re going to hospital whether you like it or not. Now, you have two choices, you can let Max and me help you out to the car or I can teleport us there directly, which will it be?”

The tanned half-demon stubbornly doesn’t reply as she waits for her mother out.

“Don’t make me start counting, Azalea,” Arella says sternly while she crosses her arm. “3…. 2…. 1….” The human takes a hold of her child’s wrist and casts the teleportation spell as the two disappear in the blink of an eye, landing in front of the car.

Arella opens the door for her and Azalea puts up a struggle in getting in. After about five minutes of this, Mammon gets out from the driver's side and has to lift the half-demon to even get her into the backseat, sliding in behind her so she wouldn’t attempt to open the door and roll out of the car. Arella hops in behind the wheel and adjusts the seat before taking off for the hospital.

*******************************

After a short but very hectic car ride where their daughter fought and struggled, Mammon was able to drag Azalea inside and she was taken back shortly after checking in. Unsure of how long the wait would be, Arella just took Mahlon home and would drive back down to get them once she got word that they were done. The examination and casting procedure was short and quick but Azalea turning combative meant she had to be strapped down for the process until she was calm enough to be released.

“This is stupid.” The seventeen-year-old growls. “They coulda at least let me go once they were done with me.”

“Well, ya know what they say: play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” Mammon says bluntly, not looking up from his phone. “Ain’t none of ‘em tryin’ to get punched or kicked in the face. Does your leg hurt?”

“No,” she told a half-truth- her leg didn’t hurt, but it also didn’t feel normal at the same time, “‘m fine.”

“Are ya lyin’ to me to appear tough?”

“No.” This time a blatant lie, “Everyone overreacted anyway. I coulda dealt with this myself.”

“No, you couldn’t have. Do you know how much bacteria is in that mutt’s mouth? The bite marks woulda got infected in no time.”

Azalea only rolled her eyes and scoffed, thinking about how much she liked it when it felt like he didn’t care, “Coulda dealt with that on my own too. I’da just gone to the doctor’s on my own if it got too bad. Why do you still treat me like I’m still some little kid? I don’t know what you ‘n Mum think but y’all ain’t gonna be around forever- you’ll kick the bucket at some point. I gotta learn ta take care of myself ‘n be self-sufficient.”

“‘Cuz you’re our daughter and despite how much you raise our blood pressure, we love you and don’t wanna see you hurt.”

Azalea is quiet. She doesn’t know what to say that won’t sound insensitive.

“Also, I owe you an apology for earlier this week. There’s no excuse for me not knowing that ya had a track meet this afternoon. Your Ma gave me an earful about it already..”

“I won’t forgive you. Not now, not ever… but for what it's worth, watchin’ the kid wasn’t that bad. He says he had fun. Don’t expect me ta do this again, I’m just sayin’ that it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was gonna be.”

Mammon’s eyes widened as he finally looked up from his phone, “Huh? Can you repeat that- I don’t think I heard ya right the first time?”

“Not on your life,” she huffs, “clean the wax outta your damn ears next time.”

Just as Mammon’s about to speak, there’s a knock on the door and a nurse appears.

“Miss Morningstar, have you calmed down enough for us to release you from the restraints?”

“I ain’t gonna punch or kick ya if that’s what ya mean…”

“Azalea be nice, she’s only asking you a question..”

“Oh, no, it’s okay sir, I’ve had far more combative and belligerent patients than your daughter.” The female demon reassures him that she’s taken no offense to the half-demon’s words. “We’ll go ahead and unrestrain you then,” the nurse makes quick work of the binding, and Azalea pops up like a daisy in the springtime.

“That’s better,” the teen sighs as she rubs her wrists. “Can I go now? I wanna go home and sleep this off.”

“That’s fine, there’s not much else we can do for you. We filled a prescription for you for pain management. We gave you some medicine earlier but it should be wearing off shortly.”

“Huh,” she says, “‘s that why my leg feels numb right now?” And then she realizes too late that she shouldn’t have said that.

Both Mammon and the nurse’s eyes widened at that little tidbit Azalea had just dropped on them.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a tic, your leg is numb?” The white-haired demon arches a brow. “Why the hell are ya just dropping this on us now?”

“Okay, maybe numb isn’t the right word,” she backpedaled, “more like it’s tingling like my leg’s fallen asleep and I’ve got that weird feeling of pins or needles. I’m sure it’ll wear off eventually. Let’s just go home. I’m tired.”

“Numbness or lack of feeling in the leg could be a result of nerve damage from the bite,” the nurse mutters to herself as she turns to Mammon. “She’ll have to see a neurologist about that, unfortunately. We have one that we work with that I can give you a referral to.”

“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you! I said I was fine. I don’t need no stupid neurologist, there’s no nerve damage in my leg, everything is fine.” When she doesn’t get a response from either adult, the teen slides her way off the table and tries to sneak her way out.

“‘Zalea, what do you think you’re doing?” Mammon just happens to catch her movements out of his peripheral vision. “Do not walk on your leg. How hard is that to understand?” He getting fed up with the way she’s been acting.

“Well, how else am I s’pposed to get out of here? I just wanna go home.”

“We’re gonna go home after we get the referral just sit here,” he sat her down in the chair he had just been occupying, “and hold your horses. We’ll get ya a wheelchair in a minute.”

The half-demon grumbles something unintelligible as the adults continue their conversation.

You had such a great opportunity, why did you waste it? The thoughts that don’t feel like her own are back, You could have let Cerberus eat him and then gone about your day. It wouldn’t have been your fault. You did tell him not to go down into the underground tomb and he went down there anyway. He didn’t listen to you. Your parents wouldn’t have faulted you.

Azalea’s brought back to the present by a couple taps on the shoulder.

“You alright? Yer spacin’ out…”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” she shrugs and Mammon gives her a disbelieving look, “Look, I told ya I was tired, so of course, Imma be spacin’ out. I just wanna go home, okay?”

“Alright, Alright. Yeesh,” Mammon pulls the wheelchair over to his daughter and offers her a hand but she knocks it away.

“I can do it myself- don’t baby me.”

“Fine, do it yourself,” the demon steps back as he lets out a sigh, and Azalea is able to situate herself in the wheelchair and rolls herself out toward the entrance with Mammon following close behind her. Arella was waiting for them.

“So good news” she starts as the pair arrive, “I did some rummaging around at home and I was able to find my adjustable crutches from that time I fell down the stairs at R.A.D. and broke my ankle. The bad news-if you can even call it that, is that I wasn’t sure which notch to set it up to but we can always play with the settings and see what works best for you. Now, do you want help getting into the car or would you like to attempt it yourself?”

“Finally, someone who’ll let me do something on my own,” Azalea lets out a sigh of relief. “Yes, I want to try on my own.”

“Alright,” the human nods as she stands aside as her daughter gets herself into the car without much difficulty. “Are you all buckled in, Dear? Can I shut the door?”

Azalea only gives her a thumbs up and Arella closes the door as she and Mammon get in and head home.

*******************************

End

[laracrofted]

5 and 20 for end of year asks 💗

hello hello anna ✨ love these selections, hope you’re having a wonderful day!

this ran a bit long, so answers under the cut to spare you all the scroll!

question 5: favorite tv show of the year?

my ultimate TV show of the year was the bear on hulu. i think i’ve watched it like three or four times, i loved it so much!

also the “worth it” line in and so it goes is directly inspired by the below tweet about jeremy allen white… in all his line cook hotness.

everyone gave such outstanding performances and i’m honestly so disappointed not to see ayo edebiri get a golden globe nom (robbed!!).

i could talk about this show for like a thousand years, but this monologue !!! jeremy allen white you will always be famous… (i always thought my brother was my best friend… except everybody thought he was their best friend)

question 20: what’s something you learned this year?

i’m wracking my brain for like a flippant fun fact to answer this, but i have such a bad memory, so i’ll go the sappy route.

i learned i still love writing !!!

i’ve written so so much this year and even though, more of it is rotting as unused drafts and snippets, finding my way back to a love of creation has become super fulfilling (even when i stare at blank documents for hours on end without a thought).

anyway, sorry for writing you a novel, thank you for the questions, babe ♥️