#I wrote the first chapter today it was under 1300 words

[evilwickedme]

In case y'all were wondering i am already working on the sequel fics/ficlets for before and after fic

[callipraxia]

Things I Learned This Morning:

1) Using print instead of script, which would be faster but less tidy, I may hand-write not far under 1300 words per hour when things are going well. (The exact number was 1267 words)

2) My brain harbors an irrational hatred for the number 4 apparently? (I kept almost skipping it and having to go back and erase the little number above fourth words because I wrote 4 as 5, for instance, going straight from 223 to 225 before I caught myself.)

3) Taking a pencil and individually numbering every word you wrote takes a really long time.

4) Apparently my brain also cannot handle writing a series of numbers that consistently go above two digits. I transpose digits, forget the first digit, write 8 instead of 3, write 5 instead of 8, write 2 instead of 9….I made it through the first 1000 but counted the remainder in blocks of 1-100 in the interests of staying tolerably sane.

5) My print is indeed much more legible than my script, but also, oww, my elbow feels like it’s about to crack right now and my hand feels all twisted up inside, ow ow ow.

(Backstory: I’ve been stuck in a rut for a while, so I decided to say “what the heck” and try to force myself to write a rough draft of one of my fanfic ideas for NaNoWriMo. I’m printing because I am currently Resolved to write a complete rough draft and then revise it, all before posting anything. Then, in theory, I’ll post it by chapter on an actual *posting schedule*. However, since I have never managed to muster the kind of discipline needed to keep working on a project nobody has seen and praised some part of for that long in my entire life…we’ll see. Plus, it might be easy enough to make it to the word count minimum today, but I only just finished the setup phase of the first scene, getting Pacifica from “the alarm clock rang” and through “Pacifica reflects on what mornings in Northwest Manor were like compared to her new life” to the point of “Pacifica has gotten out of bed.” That kind of writing is super-easy for me, but the kinds where things actually happen can be…much slower going. Which means I’ll have to apply even *more* discipline to make quotas on some days. So basically I, a deeply scattered and undisciplined person, am basically attempting to overhaul my personality for at least a month, lol. Wish me luck, folks….

For my GF peeps, I hope that you’ll enjoy the results if this project does amount to anything, even though it is a bit of a departure from my ‘usual’ material. You see, I have a lifelong, deep-seated love for books set in schools/based around school years, and I have decided to combine that with my desire to write some post-canon material. We’re picking up very shortly after the finale, with the first day of school in Gravity Falls - the Pineses should have some involvement, here and there, but mostly via phone and Internet. I’m sufficiently addicted to the “greater scope” that I don’t think I‘ll end up with something that is purely YA or a “girls’ book,” but it will involve focusing on more girls and therefore “girl stuff” than canon/anything I have written previously - Pacifica, Wendy, and Candy are all projected to be narrators, with Grenda also at least being an important character and possibly a fourth narrator. Compare to FWJB, where the narrators consisted of ten dudes, Bill, and Mabel…and although I put him in his own category, Bill does seem to use he/him pronouns when interacting with English-speaking mortals, and so one could very reasonably argue that the narrators consisted of eleven dudes plus Mabel. Soos may well get some narrator time, but this one also seems on course to primarily focus on the kid characters. Gulp. We’ll see how it goes….)

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

But You Can Never Leave [Chapter 18: Summers In Florence] [Series Finale]

A/N: If it doesn’t end with a wedding, is it even my fic??! 😂 For those who somehow haven’t yet read Baby You Were My Picket Fence (my most popular series), you might be a tiny bit confused during this chapter. Just roll with it. 😉 Also, COVID-19 doesn’t exist. What a wonderful world. Thank you so much for sticking with me and BYCNL. I love you all. 💜

This series is a work of fiction, and is (very) loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

Song inspiration: Hotel California by The Eagles.

Chapter warnings: Language.

Chapter list (and all my writing) available HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​ @loveandbeloved29​ @maggieroseevans​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​ @im-an-adult-ish​ @queenlover05​ @someforeigntragedy​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​ @joemazzmatazz​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @namelesslosers​ @inthegardensofourminds​ @deacyblues​ @youngpastafanmug​ @sleepretreat​ @hardyshoe​ @bramblesforbreakfast​ @sevenseasofcats​ @tensecondvacation​ @queen-crue​ @jennyggggrrr​ @madeinheavxn​ @whatgoeson-itslate​ @brianssixpence​ @simonedk​ @herewegoagainniall​ @anotheronewritesthedust1​ @pomjompish​ @writerxinthedark​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​ @allauraleigh​ ​@deakydeacy @bluutac​ @johndeaconshands​ @nyxaura​

It’s May 25th, 1984, and Roger and John are in Perth, Australia to promote Queen’s eleventh album, The Works.

Interviewer, daytime television host Ronald Inglewood: “Good morning and welcome to our viewers across Australia! We’re sitting down this morning with Roger Taylor and John Deacon, respectively the drummer and bassist of Queen, who are here to talk about the band’s brand new album called—quite self-assuredly, if I may say so, gentlemen—The Works. Hello to you both.”

Roger: “Good morning, Ron!”

John: “Hello.”

Interviewer: “And this latest album has been rather well-received so far, is that right?”

Roger: “It has, yes, and we’re enormously proud of it.”

Interviewer: “Now, The Works is a very different album than Hot Space, Queen’s sort of notorious foray into disco...do you think the back-to-basics, classic rock and roll feel of The Works has been the driving force behind its success?”

Roger: “Well, you know...I think experimentation is very important. We’ve always been an experimental band. The single Bohemian Rhapsody was hugely experimental, and that’s why it was such a phenomenon. We were experimenting long before A Night At The Opera, and I suspect we’ll keep on trying new things until we run out of ideas, whenever that is! I didn’t love every song on Hot Space, I’ll be completely transparent about that, but I certainly don’t think the album was a failure or a waste of time. It was an experiment. And The Works is an experiment as well, just one that runs in a different vein, I suppose.”

John: “Some people did actually enjoy Hot Space.”

Roger: “I think I know one or two.”

Interviewer: “Of course, it did have its bright spots. Under Pressure remains one of Queen’s biggest hits, doesn’t it?”

Roger: “Yes, and John wrote the bassline for that one!”

Interviewer: “Really?!”

John: “And Roger has his own hit on The Works, at last. We’re all very happy for him.”

Roger: “Only took ten years.”

John: “Fourteen, actually.”

Roger: “I’m going to murder you as soon as we get backstage.”

John: “You’re welcome to try.”

Interviewer: “Now this hit of yours, Roger, is Radio Ga Ga. And I’m sure we’ve all seen the famous music video, the hovercraft, the futurism, the clapping...we’ve all seen it, right? Where on earth did you get the idea for that song?”

Roger: “It actually originated from something I heard my daughter Violet say.”

Interviewer: “Fascinating! And you’ve just welcomed another one recently, haven’t you?”

Roger: “Yes, last month, in fact. A little girl named Nora. “

Interviewer: “Congratulations!”

Roger: “Thanks so much, Ron. Our eldest, Violet, turned two in January, and the idea for Radio Ga Ga came about when she was first learning to talk. She would always stumble around—you know how babies do—clapping her hands and squealing the most nonsensical things, and one day she started trying out ‘radio’ and then adding random words to it, ‘radio goo goo,’ ‘radio mama,’ ‘radio dada,’ etcetera. Well ‘radio ga ga’ got stuck in my head and I started sort of lamenting how television had begun to eclipse the radio as a medium for music and entertainment. We were on vacation in California at the time, and I locked myself in a hotel room with a keyboard and a drum machine to get it written. I initially thought it might end up on one of my solo albums, but then John heard it and wrote a bassline, and Freddie really thought it could be a hit and pushed to have it on The Works...and here we are today!”

Interviewer: “That Freddie Mercury has awfully good instincts about these things, doesn’t he?”

John: “Oh, he’s a genius, no doubt about that.”

Interviewer: “And John, I understand you wrote the other single released from The Works, I Want To Break Free. Any deep philosophical messaging in that one?”  

John: “Well I suppose we’ve all been in situations that feel...rather constraining or hopeless. And then things that bring us back to life again. So this song is about a character going through that process and coming out on the other side.”

Interviewer: “Indeed.”

John: “But we wanted to keep things amusing and lighthearted in the music video, hence the dressing in drag bit. And to our absolute horror, Roger was very alluring as a schoolgirl.”

Roger: “It’s true. I have irresistible legs. I was born to wear miniskirts.”

Interviewer: “Ah, this is the music video that is beloved in Europe and here in Australia but has stirred up so much controversy over in the States. Has the hullabaloo dampened your enthusiasm for the song, or even the entire album, somewhat?”

Roger: “We’re not bothered much at all, to be honest with you. It’s like I said, Queen is always going to have fun and experiment and take creative risks. And if people don’t like it, then they’re welcome to not listen.”

Interviewer: “Yes, yes, I suppose you could say that.”

Roger: “Americans, you know, they can just be so bloody puritanical. It absolutely takes all the enjoyment out of life. All the humor. Americans these days can be very difficult for us to connect with.”

John: “Well, not all of them.”

Roger: “No, of course, not all of them.”

John: “But we’ll start touring at the end of August, and we’ll be spending several months in the States, so they have time to come around to us. We’re all really looking forward to being on the road again.”

Interviewer: “It has certainly been and will continue to be a very eventful year for Queen. And for the four of you personally. A new baby for Roger, and you’ve just gotten married, haven’t you John?”

John: “I did, yes. And Roger was in attendance! No miniskirt that day, though. Sadly.”

Roger: “The whole band was there. And my girlfriend and children too. It was quite a party.”

Interviewer: “That’s wonderful to hear, considering the...the...well, not to bring up tabloid gossip, but the complexity of the situation. It was a destination wedding, wasn’t it?”

John: “Yes, we were married in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. It’s breathtaking, the largest Franciscan church in the world, built in the 1300s. And we filled it with friends and family and live music and flowers and food...all the trappings. Took about a million photos. Celebrated until dawn.”

Roger: “It was a very sentimental occasion. Everyone really enjoyed it. John cried.”

John: “I did, it’s true.”

Roger: “He promised he wouldn’t and then he did.”

John: “Well, you don’t have to bring it up all the time!”

Roger: “It was touching, really.”

Interviewer: “It must have been a magical time. You’re positively radiant, John! Marvelous. And some much-needed good news, I imagine. I understand you’ve recently gone through an exceptionally antagonistic and protracted divorce.”

John: “Well...uh...I suppose that’s...uh...”

Roger: “How about we ask you the same thing? How was your divorce, Ron?”

Interviewer: “What?”

Roger: “You’re on your third marriage, is that right? And I think I heard that the latest Mrs. Inglewood is very young indeed, almost thirty years your junior. How did your former wife take that news? How did your adult children? How was your goddamn divorce?”

Interviewer: “That’s a rude question.”

Roger: “Yes, you’re right, it’s an extremely rude question. So you shouldn’t fucking ask it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s December 25th, 1986, and the children are tearing open presents under a fifteen-foot-tall Christmas tree in the living room of Garden Lodge.

Freddie and Jim Hutton are serving cookies and milk and clapping their hands as they tower over tiny shoulders, cheering the kids on as they litter the floor with wrapping paper and bows and scatter their new toys everywhere: Care Bears, Magic 8 Balls, My Little Ponies, Mr. Potato Heads, Barbies, Etch-A-Sketches, Transformers, miniature Lukes and Leias and Chewbaccas, View-Masters with scenes of oceans and deserts and forests and stars. With so many fragmented families, there was only one logical approach to handling major holidays: convincing everyone to celebrate together on neutral ground.

Mary and Veronica are chatting by the roaring fireplace. Phoebe, Joe Fanelli, John, and Roger are embroiled in a brutally competitive Scrabble game; Dominique, smirking stealthily, leans over Roger to read his tiles and periodically whispers ideas to him. Brian and Anita are circling the flock of giggling children—Laszlo, Anna, Teddy, Evelyn, Lena, Antoni, Violet, and Nora—and snapping photos with your Canon between long, yearning gazes at one another, wearing matching Christmas sweaters that are a deep, passionate crimson. Chrissie’s husband Denny is admiring Freddie’s extensive vinyl record collection as he sips a hot chocolate and compulsively strokes his green-and-red striped tie. Tiffany the cat rolls around between his feet and occasionally hisses or gnaws on an ankle, which Denny takes in stride, as he does most things.

Meanwhile, you and Chrissie are camped out by the wet bar, drinking mulled wine and nibbling on cookies shaped like snowmen and reindeer. You give Veronica a wide berth with the children anytime you’re in the same space; she hates you, and she’ll probably always hate you, but she loves her children too much to poison them with that reality. Their happiness is her whole life, her purpose. And that’s the only thing that finally convinced her to come to the bargaining table.

“She seems...nice,” you tell Chrissie, gesturing to where Anita is crouching to wrestle a Yoda piggy bank away from Antoni before he can lob Teddy on the head with it. To John’s children, Veronica is “mum” and you’re the distinctly more American “mama”; and no one ever really taught them that, they just started doing it somewhere along the way.

Chrissie rolls her eyes and shifts Stevie to her other hip. For two and a half years after leaving Brian, Chrissie made it her mission to date at least one man from every country in Europe. She managed to cross off Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Poland, and Greece before meeting professional archer Dennis Clarke at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. They got engaged at Christmas, eloped on New Year’s Day, and had a daughter that Chrissie named after Stevie Nicks nine months later. Stevie Clarke has adorably chubby baby legs, wide blue eyes, and blonde hair without a single spiraled ringlet.

“My therapist said I needed to cultivate a rapport with Brian for the good of the kids,” Chrissie says. “You know. Be the bigger person. Get amnesia and forget about how he made my life a living hell. Act like I don’t want to freaking decapitate him. So I, trying to be nice, trying to rise above and make polite small talk with my nauseating ex-husband, made a comment about how much I liked EastEnders. So he starts watching EastEnders. Then he begins to fancy one of the actresses. Then he meets her at a movie premier in Beverly Hills and invites her to the concert at Wembley. Then he ends up in love with the woman. What the fuck. You couldn’t write this shit.”

“Love is a roulette wheel,” you agree.

Chrissie scoffs sardonically. “Yeah. Russian roulette, maybe.”

After his marriage fell apart, Brian bounced between New Orleans and London, liberated bliss and aimless, disgraced, black depression. Whoever Peaches is as a person, she couldn’t tame Brian’s demons. You worried about him almost constantly until he started seeing Anita. She’s cheerful and magnetic and persistently hopeful in a way that reminds you of Roger. She’s good for Brian. She’s good for all of you. Well...Chrissie is still coming around to the idea.

“I do like that she wasn’t fucking my husband behind my back,” Chrissie muses. “So that’s something.”

“And she’s good with the kids.”

“True...”

“And her hair matches Brian’s.”

Chrissie laughs. Her sparkling ornament earrings jangle, and Stevie paws for them with minuscule, uncoordinated, wrinkly hands. “Okay. You win. I don’t despise her.”

“That’s the Christmas spirit.” You knock back the rest of your mulled wine. “I’m gonna go search the refrigerator for cheese cubes, you want anything?”

“Yeah, a Valium.”

“Slavic Jesus would be horrified. And on his birthday!”

Chrissie grins. “Surely drugs would be the least of our sins.”

Freddie’s sunshine-yellow refrigerator is enormous and a labyrinth of shelves and crevices without a single tray of cheese cubes in sight. You sift through jars of olives, bottles of champagne, a glazed ham waiting to be put in the oven, a sack of yams, eggnog, rising bread dough, and numerous pies—apple and cherry and lemon chiffon, naturally—swathed in aluminum foil.

“Damn,” you mutter, and then you try a mysterious drawer beneath the double doors of the refrigerator. Lo and behold, it contains a sprawling tray of cheeses. “Yaaaaassssss.” You lift the tray out, set it on the kitchen counter, and peel back the clear, clinging saran wrap. As you spear cheese cubes with a decorative toothpick—the handle is a little plastic Christmas tree—and plop them onto an appetizer plate, you hear the click of heels on the hardwood floor behind you.

You glance back. “Hi, Dom. Can I offer you any of Fred’s extremely expensive and exotic cheeses?”

“Sure,” she replies in that effortlessly elegant French accent; but that’s not why she’s here. She’s wringing her delicate hands, which are bronzed from her last holiday to Ibiza and ringless. Dom divorced the husband she had back in France—or maybe he divorced her, who knows, that’s not your business, although Roger would tell you if you ever asked—and she and Roger signed papers for the good of their daughters. But being Roger Taylor’s wife is not always such an easy thing.

“He’s getting bad again, isn’t he?” you ask softly.

Dominique nods; but you already knew.

Roger was perfect for years after they had Violet: attentive, content, startlingly domestic. He rarely popped pills. He went to physical therapy. He quit smoking six months ago at Dominique’s insistence, around the same time John quit for you. But since the Magic Tour ended in August—and with no new tour in sight, considering Freddie’s seeming reticence about scheduling another—he’s started to drink more, stay home less, disappear at night citing dinners or parties or recording sessions that Dom isn’t invited to. He’s edgy and irritable. He’s rarely home when John calls. And you can see all those immortal shadows of imperfection creeping back into him like storm clouds, like smoke.

“I’m going to tell you something,” you say. “It’s very similar to what somebody else once told me. I wasn’t ready to understand it yet, to really let myself feel it, to believe it, but you might be able to.”

She watches you with those vast oil-well eyes, biting her lower lip, waiting.

“Roger is wildfire. He’s bright, yes, he’s warm, but he’s reckless and insatiable too. He always has been. He always will be. And that has nothing at all to do with you. It’s not your fault. He’s wonderful, of course, and you already know that; he dazzles people, he makes life so exhilaratingly beautiful that you forget what it felt like without him. But he’ll always disappoint you. He’ll relapse, he’ll cheat, he’ll come home late, he won’t come home at all. And he’ll hurt you. He’ll do it as many times as you’ll let him. But here’s the thing other people won’t tell you.” You smile at her, with empathy, with sorrow, with hope. “It might still be worth it.”

Dominique blinks, not understanding.

“It might be enough for you to only ever have part of him, because that part is so incredibly brilliant. It was almost enough for me. And I would never blame you for leaving Roger. But I wouldn’t blame you for staying either.”

And then you embrace her, and she latches onto you, her long manicured nails nipping through your sweater, her Coco Chanel perfume a plume that fills the kitchen. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. You hold her until she pulls away, swiping at her tearing eyes with slim fragile fingers, sniffling, looking away to hide her heartbreak behind her shock of glossy bangs.

“Here.” You pile an appetizer plate high with cheese cubes and shove it into her hands.

Stunned, she giggles. “All my woes have vanished.”

“That’s exactly how stolen cheese works,” And then, seriously: “Don’t be sad on Christmas, Dom. There’s plenty of time for that later. And I’ll do everything I can to help him.”

“That’s why you’ll never leave the band, isn’t it? You can’t leave Roger alone. You can’t let him destroy himself.”

“I owe him,” you say simply. “Without him I never would have followed Queen to London. I never would have found this family. I never would have married John. Roger took things from me, yes, of course he did. He took until I felt empty. But he also gave me the world.”

She nods slowly, thoughtfully.

“Please, Dom. Go enjoy yourself.”

“Alright. Joyeux Noël.” She gives you a parting wave and slips back out into the living room, where Freddie is now playing the grand piano and signing Thank God It’s Christmas. Roger is assisting in an increasingly hoarse falsetto.

A moment after Dominique leaves, John strolls into the kitchen, humming merrily. He stops dead when he sees your somber face, your shining eyes. “Who do I have to fuck up?”

You chuckle and shake your head. “No one. I just heard something sad.”

“Not about you, I hope.”

“No, I don’t have many sad stories anymore.”

“Yeah, me either.”

He reaches out to take your hand. A sapphire glints on your left ring finger, and it means everything.

“You sure you don’t need me to torment anyone for you? I could get drunk and plow my Benz into their house. Or write a scathing diss track about them. Was it Brian? Please tell me it was Brian.”

You laugh and twirl a lock of his fluffy hair. “That won’t be necessary.”

“In that case, you’re needed in the living room immediately,” John says, smiling. “Antoni climbed halfway up the Christmas tree and says he won’t come down for anyone except his mama.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s November 3rd, 1999, and Roger, John, and Brian are promoting Queen’s upcoming compilation album, Greatest Hits III.

Interviewer, daytime television host Brad Chenoweth: “Today we have a very special treat for our viewers. Here with us in our London studio are the men of Queen: guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bassist John Deacon. Good morning, and thank you all so much for being here.”

Brian: “It’s our pleasure.”

Roger: “I do screams as well as drums, Brad.”

Interviewer: “Hahaha, yes, of course. Now Queen has had an extremely busy year, and this Greatest Hits album has a few new selections on it, right? Take us through that process.”

Brian: “It does have a few new tracks, that’s correct. You know, ever since Freddie...ever since we lost Freddie Mercury, I mean, you know, it’s impossible to fill a space like the one that he left in the world.”

Roger: “Yes, yes.”

Brian: “But as difficult as it was, after finally finishing Made In Heaven in 1995 and getting it just right, feeling as if we had really done Freddie justice...we were left with this distressing feeling of ‘what’s next?’ What are the three of us supposed to do with ourselves? Split up and never work together again? Retire to the seashore? Open up some corner store to putter around in until we die?”

Roger: “A clog shop, perhaps.”

Interviewer: “You were thinking, ‘well hell, we’ve got plenty of talent ourselves!’”

Roger: “Well, talent, yes, but also energy. Drive. We’ve been working at being one of the best bands in the world for almost thirty years now, Brad. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to stop.”

Brian: “None of us wanted to stop, we came to that realization. And so we’ve done a tremendous amount of benefit concerts and recording sessions with some of the best artists of our time, and I think people who listen to this album are really going to appreciate that. We’ve got a live version of Somebody to Love with George Michael, and The Show Must Go On with Elton John, he’s just lovely to work with...oh and a rap version of Another One Bites The Dust with Wyclef Jean, which John was not exactly a fan of. But we all have to learn to give and take, don’t we?”

Interviewer: “Absolutely, and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this record. Is there any chance Queen might settle on a permanent new front man one day?”

Roger: “If we can ever find somebody John likes enough!”

Interviewer: “But, truthfully...none of you wanted to quit after Freddie passed away? It was a unanimous decision to keep with it?”

Roger: “Essentially, yes. I mean I think it was an all or nothing deal, wasn’t it? If one of us left then that would throw the whole thing off. I was always adamant from very early on in the band’s lifetime that I wouldn’t be interested in continuing without John. And I couldn’t imagine him and Brian being left alone together, my god, there’d be literal bloodshed, someone’s throat would be cut within the hour, believe me.”

John: “We might have lasted a day or two. But yes, it was more or less unanimous.”

Interviewer: “Now you’ve always been known as the quiet, domestic one, John. You weren’t tempted by the thought of retirement? Not even for a moment?”

John: “Well...I think it depends on the circumstances, really. I like working, and I like touring and traveling a good part of the year. But I imagine I’d get very homesick if I was alone on the road. Fortunately, that’s not the case. So the thought of retirement didn’t appeal to me nearly as much as it might have otherwise.”

Interviewer: “That’s right, I understand that your wife has been Queen’s touring nurse for...how long now? Twenty years?”

John: “Since 1974, so that’s twenty-five years.”

Roger: “Wow. It’s been that long?!”

Brian: “Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

Interviewer: “How lucky for you, John. And look, you’re beaming!”

Roger: “Get it together, Deaks.”

John: “I’m an astronomically lucky man. It’s like having home with you anywhere in the world.”

Roger: “She’s good for curing hangovers as well, so that’s useful. And she knits everyone hats.”

Interviewer: “And you’ve got children, haven’t you John?’

John: “Four from my first marriage, yes. They’re all adults now so they come to visit us quite often, especially when we’re travelling. It worked out beautifully really, because they’re very close to their mother, of course, but my wife and I got together when they were all still fairly young, and so she’s always been there for them as they’ve grown up. My youngest especially was a rather...how would you say it diplomatically? A spirited child. But he warmed to her right away.”

Brian: “All the children are still friendly with each other as well, mine and Roger’s and John’s.”

Interviewer: “One big happy family, huh?”

Roger: “There are still a good amount of screaming matches between us dads, to be completely forthcoming.”

John: “You have to keep things interesting.”

Roger: “Exactly!”

Interviewer: “Yes, one can sense that there are still plenty of egos in this room, even after all these years! Tell me, Queen is nearly three decades old now, a worldwide phenomenon, the second-bestselling artist in the UK of all time behind the Beatles...how have you stayed together for so long when most bands last only a fraction of Queen’s lifespan?”

John: “Well I think we’ve all, you know, for the good of the band we’ve all had to grow towards each other to bridge the disagreements and keep peace. For example, I’ve had to learn to be more communicative, more open to collaboration and change. I can be someone who’s very comfortable being in the background. But then I’m resentful if people don’t see my point of view, even if I haven’t properly expressed it. So I have certainly had to work on that quite a lot.”

Brian: “Yes, John, I think that’s very true. Personally, I’ve had to learn to not get lost in the details so much. I have a bad habit of getting so fixated on something that I cause a massive row over a vanishingly small aspect of a song that no one else will ever notice. It’s just not worth the strife. So I’ve really tried to avoid that. Although, I’ll admit it, I still occasionally cause my share of drama.”

John: “Oh, sure.”

Roger: “And I’ve had to work on being less...”

John: “Annoying?”

Brian: “Combative?”

Roger: “Fiery.”

John: “That’s one word for it.”

Interviewer: “Was there ever a time when Queen’s existence was in serious jeopardy? And if so, how did you pull through?”

Brian: “Well, to be perfectly honest, as a band we went through quite a difficult time in the early 80s. And then we did again in the early 90s. And on both occasions there was a real worry that Queen might be over and we would all go our separate ways. But what kept us together through that...and feel free to disagree, Rog, John, if you have a different perspective...but what I feel kept us together was this profound sense of family. Queen predates all of our marriages, our children, our successes in the music industry or otherwise. It has become a constant place of belonging in the midst of professional and personal turmoil. And now our partners and children have been integrated into that network as well, so even if an individual relationship is strained or falls apart, the gravity of the band keeps us all in a perpetual symbiotic orbit. And I don’t see that ever ending.”

John: “Yes, well, I suppose that about sums it up, doesn’t it?”

Roger: “Bleeding christ, Brian. ‘Perpetual symbiotic orbit.’ Just say we’re friends, you pretentious twit.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s August 19th, 2020, and John’s 69th birthday party is winding down as the sun dips lazily into the rust-colored western horizon.

You’re standing on the cobblestones in the garden behind the Surrey house. You had always thought it was too extravagant, too massive; it wasn’t until Roger sold it to you and John in the spring of 1982 that you realized it was the perfect size after all. Six bedrooms meant one for each of the children, one for you and John—the one with the blue-grey wallpaper and nautical decorations, to be exact—and the last for when Chrissie and Denny or Roger and Dom stay the night, which is fairly frequently. Your vacation home, where you and John spend most of the summer when Queen isn’t on tour, is a little country cottage in the sunlit Alpine hills of Florence, Italy. John designed it himself, every last detail; right down to the white picket fence grown over with ivy.

“Look what we got in the mail.” You hold up the invitation to show your husband, grinning, raising your eyebrows. “Guess we have to buy him another toaster.”

He reads the names on the shimmering cardstock patterned with jungle ferns and dinosaur footprints. Interesting choices. “Is Ben actually going through with it this time?”

“John!”

“Wasn’t he supposed to marry some Italian heiress or something?”

“Love can be complicated, Mr. Deacon,” you remind him.

When he smiles, crinkles spring up around his eyes. “Yes, I suppose it can be.”

“Ben Hardy’s having another wedding?” Chrissie calls over from where she’s shooting arrows at the archery targets set up in the backyard. Denny periodically steps in to correct the angle of her wrist or elbow. “And Queen’s invited this time?”

“Apparently,” you reply. “You could go too if you were still married to Brian.”

“Ha!” Chrissie cackles and looses an arrow. It hits damn near the bullseye. “Not worth it.”

“I’ll bring back all the scandalous gossip I can scrounge for you.”

“You better. What do the kids call it now? Spilling the tea? Spill all the tea, bitch.”

“Oh, kettles and kettles’ worth.”

“So a teapot,” John says. “Not another toaster. Maybe decorated with...” He squints at the invitation again. “What’s the theme? What do they like? Fossils? Brontosauruses?”

“Bizarre people,” Chrissie mutters.

“I’ll figure something out,” you say. “Something special. Something old.”

“John?” Brian shouts from the doorway that leads into the kitchen. Inside the refrigerator is covered with sketches and birthday cards and photographs curling and fading around the edges. “Anita and I are heading out now, can we get a hug goodbye?”

“Ugh,” John jokes. “Well, alright.” He gives you a wink as he trots off.

The Surrey house isn’t exactly roaring—John has never been one for crowds, and incidentally neither have you—but it is alive with his children and grandchildren and life-long friends. Not just his, you correct yourself. Ours.

Veronica—once Tetzlaff, then Deacon, then Tetzlaff again, and finally Kowalski—is not in attendance. You see her only at holidays and birthday celebrations for the kids and grandchildren, and even then only in passing. She is still cold towards you, resentful, extremely Catholic...although somewhat less dogmatic since her second husband Ivan, a former priest, left the Church to marry her. When the last of her children were grown, Veronica got certified to be a doula and now primarily serves unwed mothers seeking assistance from Catholic charities in London. She mentioned to Chrissie, who later told you, that something you had once done for her had inspired her to pursue it. That’s the only nice thing you’ve heard her say about you in almost forty years.

Roger wanders over to meet you, nursing a Heineken, stroking his white beard with his free hand. He and Dominique have always been off and on—including a few years in the late 80s when he moved out of their three-story Kensington townhouse and had a daughter called Adeline with some leggy, platinum blonde supermodel—but these days they’re mostly on. He and Dom had two children after their reconciliation: a son, Blaise, and a daughter named by Freddie after the Japanese word for tiger, Tora.

You gaze out into the sunset. Half of the garden is flooded with white calla lilies, a new bouquet for every February 15th since 1978.

“You’ll be sending back an RSVP in the affirmative?” Roger asks.

“Of course! Any excuse to visit the States. And I like Ben. Although he doesn’t look anything like you.”

He groans. “Those wigs, bloody hell.”

“It’s like they produced a whole movie just to have an excuse to make fun of your atrociously crunchy bleached hair.”

“And I bet you enjoyed that.”

“You deserved it.” When Freddie’s health began to fail and Queen stopped touring, you went back to school to get a degree in physical therapy. You and Roger have sessions three times a week, provided he’s on the wagon; and he usually is, nowadays. When he’s not, John’s the one to get the call from Dominique, and he hunts Roger down, convinces him to come home, works whatever quiet, soothing magic he carries around in his deep pacific blood. But right this moment, Roger is awfully quiet himself. His large, pale eyes—like clear water, like unraveling delphiniums, like the harmony that only comes when age burns away all those last entrenched talons of bitterness, of fear—skate over the calla lilies.

“Do you think things would have been different for us?” Roger asks softly. “If she had lived.”

It took you a long time to understand why Roger was in no hurry to get a divorce, to move you out of the Surrey house. They were the only ties he thought he had to anchor you to the band, to him. They were the only cards he thought he had to play to keep you in his life in any capacity. But John fixed that dilemma. He can fix just about anything, you’ve learned.

“No,” you tell Roger. “You would have worn me down eventually. You and your drinking and drugs and late nights and interminable recklessness. It might have taken longer, but we always would have ended. And John always would have been my home. She wouldn’t have kept us together. She just would have lived. And I wouldn’t have loved her for being a part of you. I would have loved her for whoever she was, whoever she grew up to be. But now I’ll never know who that would have been. I love the children I have, Roger, I do. But I still miss her, miss the person she would have been. It’s like chasing a shadow. It’s like a page of a book written in a language I can’t read. And it’s a feeling that never quite goes away.”

He smiles at you wearily, immensely sad, full of perfect understanding. “I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s October 10th, 2020, and the reception is held under shedding autumn leaves the color of rubies and imperial topaz and amber and yellow jade. The exuberant bride and groom weave through the crowds milling about the quaint farm, which is nestled in the hills of a small town in Northern California called Zenia. It belongs to Gwilym, apparently, and he and his flame-haired girlfriend Shiloh are shuttling tirelessly this way and that making sure everything goes according to plan. They don’t speak much to Ben or his new wife directly—there’s a stiltedness there, an uncomfortable period of readjustment that reminds you of how John and Roger were for a while after all the secrets came out—but there is undeniable kinship as well. Love can be complicated, you find yourself thinking, for the innumerable time. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Making the rounds with the bride and groom is a strikingly beautiful, dark-haired boy who wears a miniature suit and a perpetual, mischievous grin. The new Mrs. Hardy almost always has her hand on his shoulder, his back, wiping cake frosting from his cheeks, ruffling his hair.

“Eli is kind of a demon kid,” Joe Mazzello warns you. “But in the best possible way.”

“Hm. I have somewhat of an affinity for demons myself.”

“Clearly,” Roger quips, sipping pink champagne. The snack table is Halloween-themed and extremely casual: Cheetos and pumpkin pie and caramel apples and dinosaur-shaped brownies. Per usual, you’re grazing through an orange paper plate stacked high with enough nibbling material to keep any undesirable small talk at bay. But strangely, in all of the times you’ve crossed his path since Bohemian Rhapsody’s filming began, you’ve never minded chatting with Joe.

“Yeah, you two were married at some point, right?” Joe asks. Then he immediately blanches. “Oh my god. That was so rude. I did not just say that. I’m so sorry. I saw it on Wikipedia. I’m gonna go drown myself in the stream now.”

“No, you’re right!” you admit in a peal of laughter. “Briefly and disastrously.”

“It wasn’t that disastrous,” Roger protests, thieving a Cheeto off your plate. He misplaced his prescription sunglasses on the flight over and is thus relatively helpless.

“Rude. Get your own. They’re over on the other end of the table.”

“I can’t see that far—!”

“Dom?” you call as she sashays over in a flowing white dress and licking a stick of orange rock candy. “Please control your husband.”

She smiles. “If I haven’t managed it yet, I don’t think there’s much hope.” She nods to Joe. “It’s so nice to see you again. Meeting you people was the only bright spot of that whole movie ordeal.”

“What, you didn’t fancy it?” Roger jests.

“At least they included you,” you tell Dom, smirking. “They ignored my existence entirely. They threw in some random woman with zero lines and called her Veronica in the credits. Whatever.”

Dom rolls her expressive umber eyes. “Yes, how flattering, I was in two scenes and one of them involved a joke about Roger cheating on me.”

“You’re a star, baby,” you say. “Deal with it.”

Dom smacks your arm playfully. She may be annoyed, but it doesn’t pain her the way it used to. She’s had decades of practice.

“The script could have been better,” Joe concedes. Then he spies John as he approaches, almost drops his caramel apple, waves frenetically. “Hi, Mr. Deacon! Hi!!”

“Wonderful job with all of this, Joe.” John shakes his hand as Joe gapes at him, starstruck. He’s always like that around John, appreciative, in awe, acutely aware of John’s legendary place in rock and roll history; and you love that someone besides you and Roger look at him that way.

“Thanks, I did it myself. Just kidding. It was 99% Gwil.”

“Well, I’ll still get you front row seats at the next Queen + Adam Lambert show.” It had taken a long time for John to find a front man he liked...a long time. He drove Roger and Brian insane. He kept saying he wanted someone who was like Freddie and yet simultaneously not trying to be Freddie, someone genuinely kind and charismatic and empathetic, an otherworldly talent, a natural performer. And then, on an unassuming spring night in 2009, they found him.  

Joe claps a palm on John’s shoulder and grins, his eyes glistening. “I’m obsessed with this little old guy! Obsessed, I tell you!”

“You want to see how old he is?” Roger teases. “Lift up that hand-knit hat and see what’s underneath. I’ll give you a hint. Not much.”

“At least I made it through the 90s without requiring hair plugs,” John counters.

“It was from all the bleaching!!”

“Hi, Rog!” Ben shouts as he rushes to embrace Roger, nearly knocking him off his feet. Mrs. Hardy is still across the field, talking to Brian, Anita, Rami, and Lucy, and trying to convince Eli not to crawl into a chocolate fountain.

Ben Hardy has always been somewhat of an enigma to you, mostly because he’s nothing at all like Roger. He’s subterranean-voiced and emerald-eyed and brooding and guarded and seems so much older than his twenty-nine years, and then every once in a while someone will come along and light him up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Unlike Roger, Ben doesn’t light up for many people. He does for his son Eli, of course, and for Joe Mazzello...and for his new wife. He lights up for her like fucking wildfire.

“Ben,” you say, holding out a bag speckled with black cats. “I have our gift for you.”

“You shouldn’t have! Thank you so much.”

“You can’t thank us until you open it,” John chastises.

So Ben does. Inside is an album of hundreds of photos you’ve taken of Queen since Roger bought you your first Canon for Christmas in 1974: pictures that have never been released publicly of the boys at the Rainbow, at the Budokan, in Rome, in Boston, in Japan, in New Orleans, at Montreal, at Madison Square Garden, at Live Aid, at the Surrey house, at Montreux. Interspersed are some of John’s sketches, the only ones you can bring yourself to part with: close-ups of a long-haired Freddie drawing on messy eyeliner, Roger adjusting his sunglasses with a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, Brian tuning his Red Special.

“Oh my god,” Ben whispers.

“Most of those are very old,” you explain. “And I heard you both like old things.”

“We definitely do.” He hugs you, suddenly and fiercely and warmly; and you catch a glimpse of what it must be like to be one of the few people that he allows to truly know him, those shadowed depths to balance Joe’s uncomplicated light.

Maybe that’s it, you realize. Maybe Joe is more like Roger and Ben like John.

The wedding playlist is exclusively classic rock songs: the Doors and Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin and Queen. As A Kind Of Magic ends, the eerie opening notes of Hotel California ripple out over the breezy autumn fields.

“Not this fucking song!” Roger cries.

Joe turns to you, confused.

“LSD,” you inform him. “1977. I would not recommend it.”

“Noted.”

Roger continues, rubbing his forehead: “It makes me think of...freaking...weird, creepy shit...like swimming at night through cold water. But I just keep swimming and can’t get anywhere.”

“It makes me think of sharks,” you say. “Maybe they’re related.”

“Freddie always said it made him think of birds,” John sighs. “And the color blue.”

The three of you pause, nodding, remembering.

Joe frowns solemnly, peering down at his shoes. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”

“He would have adored you,” you say.

“Really?”

“Are you kidding?! You would have been best friends. Always looking out for people. Always plotting the next escapade. That charming chaotic energy. The utter inability to bake anything.”

“Awwww.” Joe beams, delighted. “I fucking love you guys.”

“That’s the thing,” Roger says. “People don’t realize it. We’re more of a family than a band. We find people we take a shine to like ancient treasure, snatch them up, sand away all their rough edges, show them everything the world has to offer. And if they can survive the casualties of stardom, that trial by fire, they become permanent. They grow like roots into our blood, our bones...and perhaps we claim a part of theirs as well. They become things we can’t live without.”

“And once you’re in the family,” John tells Joe with a fond, crafty smile. “You can never leave.”

[bedlamsbard]

I’m a little hysterical right now for reasons that don’t need to be gotten into on Tumblr, but before that happened I was depressed because it’s the one year anniversary of The Thing In Rebels I Don’t Talk About and, uh, wrote the first 1300 words of Secret Project, my S4 AU.  (It really does not have a working title, which is fairly unusual for something I intend to be a chaptered fic.)  So -- since this probably will not start posting for a while now (I don’t currently consider it a WIP, since before today it didn’t have anything actually written for it), here it is:

About 1300 words after the break.

Hera tried not to waste too much time feeling sorry for herself, but after four months – nearly five – of feeling increasingly like a nuna cornered by a pack of angry gutkurrs it was hard not to.

Even in the thin, too-hazy light of early dawn smoke smudged a dark line across the horizon as Hera crept out of the caves where the other members of the rebel cell were sleeping, the woman on watch discreetly turning aside to give Hera the illusion of privacy. She went to the furthest edge of the cliffs and sank down onto a rock, pressing a hand to the rounded curve of her belly as she did so.  Stupid, she thought.  Stupid, stupid, stupid – but there was nothing she could do about it now except try to get her people through it alive as best she could.

They hadn’t even seen a Loth-wolf in weeks.  Hera half-wondered sometimes if it had all been a dream, if she would wake up and find herself back in the villa on Ryloth, a child with no conception of the galaxy’s true evil and her whole life laid out in front of her.  These days she thought that might be preferable.

The haze only deepened as the sun continued to climb.  The Empire was consuming the planet, destroying the grasslands in its relentless hunt for resources; Hera knew that it was only a matter of time until they reached the ruins where the rebels had made their camp.  It was a small miracle that they hadn’t found it already.

Kanan would have called it the will of the Force, probably.

Behind her, the rest of the camp was waking up.  Hera tightened her shoulders and didn’t turn around, wanting to wait until the last possible moment before she had to go back and pretend she had any idea how to get them all through this alive again.  She had already failed at that several times over; she couldn’t see how any of them still believed it of her now.

Wheels crunched across the rocky soil as Chopper came up behind her, along with footsteps that Hera identified as Sabine and Zeb.  Hera sighed, trying to drag her mind back to the present, to a plan, to something that might do more than harry the Empire for a few lost credits or hours.

“Hera?” Sabine said, her voice uneasy.

Hera braced her shoulders and turned around, trying to make herself smile.  The expression, half-formed, froze on her face at the sight of Sabine’s nervous look.  She was holding a datapad to her chest; Zeb had one hand on her shoulder, gripping her hard enough that his claws were scoring lines through the faded paint on her armor.

“What is it?” Hera asked.

“I –”  Sabine licked her lips, glanced at Chopper, and then looked at Hera again.  “Do you remember the Imperial spy satellite I sliced into a while back?  So we could keep an eye on the – on the temple up near the pole?”

Hera nodded.  Their attempt to sabotage the dig site hadn’t done more than slow the Empire down for a few days; after that, the archaeological work on the site had only intensified, as had the guard on it.

Sabine swallowed, started to hold out the datapad, and then seemed to change her mind.  “Chop?” she said.

Chopper warbled softly, sounding as confused and concerned as Hera had ever heard him, then activated his holoprojector.  The image was as grainy as Hera had ever expected from a satellite slice, but it was clearly the Jedi temple, or rather what was left of it; the Imperials had sliced off the top and part of the sides, leaving the inside exposed in a way that made Hera feel slightly uneasy, like she was seeing something that no one other than a Jedi was ever meant to see.  The murals of the three figures and the circle of Loth-wolves had remained relatively untouched, which surprised Hera; she had thought that those would be the first parts of the Temple to be removed once the Imperials realized their importance.

“This was about half an hour ago,” Sabine said, her voice tight.

Hera glanced up at her, confused by her tone, then movement in the hologram caught her attention. She was looking for stormtroopers or archaeological workers, living beings, before she realized that it was the Loth-wolves on the temple.  They had started running again.

She wasn’t the only person who had noticed.  Stormtroopers and civilians, already awake despite the early hour, were moving towards the temple, bursting into view on the edges of the hologram.

Hera bit her lip. This wasn’t unmeaningful, of course, but it wasn’t like they could –

The stone inside the circle of running Loth-wolves rippled.

As if in response, Hera felt the child inside her shift; she hadn’t even realized that she had one hand over her belly, as if comforting it or protecting it.  Sabine was gripping her datapad with white-knuckled intensity; Zeb’s ears had gone flat, his free hand clenched into a fist.

The stone rippled again, and spat out two figures.

They hit the ground hard enough to make Hera wince, lying there still as the dead before the smaller one began to pick himself up.  He turned towards the other figure, who was pushing himself upright with fisted hands against the rocky ground, just before the stormtroopers arrived with Minister Hydan right behind them.  Under the stormtroopers’ blasters, the two figures rose to their knees, their hands held up over their heads.  One trooper snatched the lightsaber from the smaller figure’s belt, while the other removed the blaster from the other’s holster; then their arms were roughly jerked behind their backs and cuffed.  They were dragged to their feet and marched into one of the mobile building units, out of sight.

The Loth-wolves, Hera observed, with a distinct feeling of unreality, had, unnoticed by anyone else, ran back to the main mural.

The hologram blinked out of sight.

She didn’t realize that she was sitting there with one hand on her belly and one hand over her mouth until Chopper rolled up to her and put one of his manipulators on her knee, making an earnest, frightened sound.

Zeb said, “Hera?”

She opened her mouth, not knowing what she meant to say, but no words came out.

Sabine said, “They’ll – they’ll be moving them to Capital City.  They have to.  We have to – before they’re transferred off-planet.  Thrawn won’t let them be held here.  Well, he might as a trap, but –”

“No,” Hera said.  “No, it won’t be Thrawn.  It will be the Emperor.  And Thrawn’s off-planet now anyway.”  She made herself take a shaky breath, then another, not wanting to touch the sudden surge of hope that had risen up inside her.  She didn’t want it to be real.  Or she did, but – she didn’t want it to be snatched away again.  She might be dreaming.

“I’ll get the speeders,” Zeb said.  He eyed Hera for a moment, then apparently decided against asking her anything else, like how she was feeling or if she was up for this, and left, long legs making short work of the ground between them and the cave where the speeder bikes were stored.

“We’ll get them,” Sabine promised Hera, her own voice as shaky as Hera felt. “I don’t know how, or what – I mean, it’s Ezra, I never know what he’s doing, but –”  She paused, as if she had just realized that for the first time in months she had used the present tense instead of the past.  “It’s Ezra and Kanan,” she said.  “We’ll get them.”

“We have to,” Hera said, because she had absolutely no idea what she would do if they didn’t and the Emperor won after all.

[worldismyne]

Good Intent: Chapter 1

Summary: Harv's odd feelings for his best friend have been growing stronger. He'd do anything to rid himself of them, even resort to magical means. But will Harv's own clouded disposition be his downfall?

Rated: T

Pairing Finn/Harv

Full Original Draft on FF.net

Ao3 link

Author's Note: This is the second longest fanfic in the WU fandom (the longest is the sequel). I originally wrote it in senior year of high school.

So, in honor of the fandom revival, I'm going back and revising it. This chapter alone has an additional 1300 words.

Harv sat in a small wooden chair, he glared at the feathered figure before him who matched his gaze with calm knowing eyes. He was trapped here, in an endless dimensional space, trying to walk away always just lead him back to this unfamiliar seat. Blue stretched around him as far as the eye could see. It was neither warm nor hot, the light came from no source yet felt oppressive all the same. Like he was surrounded by a stage light, on display. Other than himself, the chair, and his reluctant company; there was nothing.

'Go away.' He didn't care that there was nothing else to do here but talk to the mallard that claimed to be his spirit animal. In fact, the more his fitful dreaming tried to force him to, the more he resisted. So, night after night, he'd stare down this equally stubborn part of his subconscious and wait for it to take the hint and finally leave him be.

'I can't.' A small green duck quacked. 'You still haven't gone on your journey.' You'd think after two years, it would just give up. Or that this mind would churn out some other scenario or setting; something more imaginative than sitting in awkwardly contested silence. When it had first arrived, he had been deeply concerned; now it was just annoying. He was perfectly content with the way things were in his life. Even though it was his subconscious; he wouldn't give it the pleasure of watching him fold. There was no need for  A Magical Journey of Self Discovery when things were perfectly fine . So, he simply glared at it instead.

'Not going to happen.'

'But Harvey-'

'No.' He crossed his arms in defiance.

'You won't feel better until you do, Harvey.' The duck said sadly. Easy for a duck to say, a figment of his imagination at that, it wouldn't have to live with the consequences. Not that there was anything he'd do that would have consequences, heaven's no. He knew what was expected of him and he did that just fine. He was going to go graduate warrior school and life would be easier once he didn't have to worry about homework or how much money his parents spent on his education, or any other inconvenience in Caliburry that might drag him down. He'd fight for the king and prove his was a good warrior. Nothing was going to change that. 'It'll just get worse.'

Harv woke up with a start. It was early in the morning in the two-room farmhouse. His parents were still asleep in their bed across the room and his brothers were tangled in a heap around him. He struggled to catch his breath, mostly because Big was asleep on his chest. Groaning, he rolled out from under his younger brother, much to Rhodri's displeasure. There really was nowhere he could be alone, unless he wanted to get an early start on chores. The dreams had been more frequent in the last few months, leaving Harv to wake up irritated and exhausted more often than he'd like. 

"Get off my arm!" Rhodri hissed. Harv rolled over to let his brother up. He allowed himself a minute to collect and bury his thoughts. There was no point in fixating on something he couldn't change. This was simply a test of his will, all he had to do was try harder and be patient. It would pass, both the melancholia and the restless nights. Though the longer his predicament went on, the hollower his reasoning seemed. He shook his head, not wanting to dwell on it longer. 

He had school today.

~v~

Harv loathed driving. The emptiness of the roads in the early morning and the monotony of the task left little for his mind to do, but wander. The family cart was old and starting to splinter, held together by various ages of wood out of necessity. Those twenty minutes behind the reigns, before the sun kissed the sky in late fall, was also the only moment of silence he'd have before school began. Like every day, Harv had to go out of his way to pick up his friend before school; a task he couldn't seem to find a way out of. He still wasn't sure why Finn was his friend, as this was the source of nearly every problem that had wormed its way into Harv's peaceful life.  Finn was self-centered, obnoxious, and today; cold.

"What took you so long? It's freezing outside!" Finn shouted as Harv pulled into muddy tracks the cart had left the day before.. He slid next to Harv and shivered. The November chill had come early this year, and swiftly as well. Finn had been unprepared for this sudden change in weather, and too stubborn to wear 'old' clothes. Something Harv couldn't really fathom, given everyone in class, including him, wore things until they fell apart. Still, Finn insisted  he'd have to replan his entire wardrobe now, and force the tailors guild to work long hours on a rush order of winter wear. He received a muttered apology from Harv and the two proceed to school in the rickety cart. Finn filled the silence by cursing at the wind and his fraile constitution towards the cold, with little care towards what Harv had to say on the matter. In fact, Harv started to think Finn just talked to hear the sound of his own voice, or was allergic to silence. It was all fairly routine to him at this point. Harv was fine with it, until Finn scooted closer to him; only a fluctuating inch remained between them.

"F-Finn!" He exclaimed.

"What? I'm freezing. Do you want me to die?" Harv tried to scoot away, but there was nowhere to go other than towards Finn. His heart was racing, and he was painfully aware that Finn was looking at him and expecting a response to his question. Which shouldn't be hard, but it was hard to focus and not second guess what he should say.

"If you're that cold, you should have worn a thicker jacket." He couldn't sound more inarticulate if he tried, but mumbling was better than overreacting or having his voice crack. As it was, there were a dozen directions this conversation could go that Harv wasn't keen on. Especially ones where he'd get talked down to like a child about something ridiculously unimportant.

"With this tunic? It's pure angora Harv, I can't cover this up with one of my plain old jackets." Harv had to admit, the lavender tunic looked rather soft, regardless of its practicality. The stiff breeze ruffled the soft fur and Harv dared to wonder what the fabric would feel like under his bare hand. It was probably as soft as it looked, elastic too. Were he to touch Finn's shoulder, it wouldn't take much to slip his hand down the collar and warm the pale skin underneath? Harv immediately looked away and mentally berated himself. They hadn't even been around each other twenty minutes, and already his mind wanted to wander places it shouldn't go. It wasn't right for him to think of his friend that way, yet he found himself slipping more and more. Which trying not to think about was hard enough without Finn trying to use him to shield away the cold. Then always came the paranoia; was it obvious, did he notice? "-must be made for the sake of fashion, not that you'd know." Of course, he didn't, he hadn't even stopped talking. Which was a blessing in a way, but Finn was always bad a picking up on people's emotions, so maybe it was just Finn being Finn. And Finn wouldn't question why he finally relaxed under the touch a few minutes in only to push him away once the school came into view.

"We're here." Harv sighed. The sooner he could put distance between himself and Finn, the better off he'd be.

~v~

Lectures at Warrior U always felt longer than they actually were. Harv would keep his hands busy doodling on his desk and try his hardest to focus on the hours of mandated education only to retain a fraction of the material. Hearing someone talk about fighting wasn't as helpful as sparring in Harv's humble opinion; but the King found throwing children into battle too sad. So, a large portion of his education turned into theory.

Finn would sit next to him, equally bored and filling his notebooks with half-finished songs or diary entries; he honestly wasn't sure. Whatever it was, he wasn't allowed to look at it and they certainly weren't notes for class. Finn's grades were almost as bad as his. 

"And so ended the Epic Quest for Sherbert." The teacher bellowed. "Not all quests are quite as grand. Many of you may never go on quests at all. I, myself, ventured many times on a Quest for Water."

"BORING!" Finn groaned. "Seriously, what kind of fierce warrior would go on a stupid quest like that?" Finn 'whispered' to Harv just loud enough for the whole class to hear.

"The kind that lived." However, the teacher was too late. Finn's comment had set off a ripple of conversation through the room about quests and such. All except Harv, who buried his head in his arms. The teacher rubbed his temples. "SILENCE!" Now petrified, the student body settled back into frozen silence. "As I was saying-" Clayton noticed a calloused hand patiently raised. "Yes, Emet?"

"Aren't there any legendary whatevers in Cailburry to quest after? Cursed rivers, buried treasure, fountains of mystic... mysticalness?" Emet asked. Honestly, it didn't seem that far-fetched. Finn and Harv had been harassed by a unicorn over the last couple years and Harv's brother claimed to be burned by a phoenix. Though, those things weren't public knowledge, magic was inherently illegal. Not that Emet cared, the boisterous warrior would chase after anything if they got a good story out of it. It was only the beginning of the day and it had already started.

"Emet." Clayton said slowly for emphasis. "There's nothing like that here. The closest thing we have is the rumored wishing well in the forest, rumored. You-"

"That old thing?" Emet leaned back in their chair with a groan.

"What wishing well?" Harv perked up. 

"Just some dirty, old well." Finn dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand and went back to scribbling things in his notebook. 

"Students." Clayton moaned. Emet jumped on their desk with a mischievous grin.

"Rumor says the water was purified by unicorn magic." The made a fake horn with their fingers and leaned over Harv's desk.

"Eww," Finn cringed, "who would want to drink from a well that a filthy beast dunked its head in?"

"STUDENTS!" Clayton cleared his throat and Emet quickly returned to their seat. "Now that you're through." He turned to the board and continued his lecture.

"Does it really work?" Harv whispered.

"No one knows," Emet smirked, "no one's found it... And lived."

"That's because it's stupid and doesn't exist." Finn slammed his notebook shut, as if ready to give a long-winded speech. "Real magic is never as simple as tossing a coin-" A large desk landed inches away from Finn. The three looked up to see the teacher innocently writing on the board, distinctly deskless. "...in a well." Finn finished and promptly ducked to avoid the chair that followed.

~v~

"Do you think the wishing well grants any wish?" Harv asked on the ride home. After a day full of sunshine, Finn didn't seem as anxious to hide from the weather, instead sitting at the far opposite end of the cart. Harv shouldn't be disappointed by this.

He wasn't. 

He was just twisting the reigns around in his hands because they were talking about magic. Which he really shouldn't be asking about, but Finn didn't care.

"No, because it doesn't exist." Finn grunted. Maybe he did care? It was impossible to tell what went through the bard's head. 

"O-of course it doesn't." Harv said sheepishly. "But if it did. Would it work? Like, is that a thing that could-" Finn sighed.

"I suppose, hypothetically speaking, there could be an enchanted well. But magic's unpredictable, especially without someone telling it what to do. I highly doubt anything that powerful is just lying around, you know, granting wishes and all." He rubbed his arms in a vain attempt to shield them from the wind. "Most of those things are just non-magical things people want to believe it." Harv gleamed the general meaning from Finn's words as a yes and continued.

"And, if this nonexistent wishing well was existent; how... would you make a wish?" 

"You toss in a coin and tell it your wish... Why?" Finn scowled and looked over at Harv. "You're not thinking of looking for it are you? I don't think magic will be able to do anything about that hair." He reached out, tugging one of Harv's dreads out of his face. 

"W-what? Me?" Harv laughed nervously and tried to tilt his head away so Finn couldn't get a read on his expression. "No, I-I wouldn't do something like that."

"Good." Finn quipped, satisfied with the answer and settled back in his seat. "There's no point wasting your time and energy on children's stories. Speaking of children, mother's taking me to the palace again to visit the princess. I think it's just a ruse, because the other day-" Harv stopped listening at this point. In Cailburry, there's only one place where a unicorn would have touched anything. And he was determined to find it.

~v~

Harv cautiously ventured into the forest Finn had charmingly named "The Unicorn's Domain'. This was a stupid idea, a completely and utterly stupid idea. Harv shook his head as he walked through the forest in the middle of night. It was either now or trying to convince his family he was looking for firewood. Slipping off in the middle of the night seemed easier. One late night to get rid of thousands down the road.

As much as he'd like to believe that he could patiently endure the lead weight in his chest anytime someone brought up the future, or girls they saw in town, or why he hung out with Finn; he was getting tired of constantly dancing around the reason. Because even though it should be easy to wash his hands of their turbulent friendship, the thought of having to cut Finn out of his life burned a hole in his heart like a warning flare. Warning of a negative emotional response that would be a lot harder to hide than admitting he sometimes enjoyed Finn's company a little too much.

Definitely more than the blond would consider reciprocating. 

Finn was right, there probably was no wishing well and magic was a dangerous thing to tamper with. But if there was a chance, even a minute one, that he could make everything just go away. It would pay its weight in gold to be able to focus on the path his parents laid out for him again. 

Dead leaves littered the forest floor and curled around the soles of his boots. With batted breath, Harv wandered toward a stone column a few paces from a wide lake. The pence clenched in his hand dug into his palm, his pocket money for the month. If this didn't work, he'd be out a lot of money.

Finally, the well came into focus. Despite the threat of winder, fresh green vines coiled around the well with soft blue buds. Desire was carved in the wooden rod that supported a torn rope. Harv peeked over the wall of the well into the penetrating darkness. He could smell water, but nothing reflected the stars back to him. The well seemed mystic enough, maybe this would work after all. He took a deep breath and tossed the penny into the well. When a splash echoed back up the well, Harv fell to his knees.

"I wish I didn't have these sinful thoughts." He begged in his mind. "Please, please banish this impurity from me. I don't know how much longer I can last."

"HEY!" An angry voice shouted. "What do you think you're doing?!" Harv jolted from his spot on the ground and ran. He was gone before a very angry, very human Hevvin managed to reach the well. He looked between Harv retreating back to his farm and the well. "Stupid humans, tossing their crap in my sink." He eyed the well. "AND THESE FLOWERS ARE BACK!" He ripped the vines to revile a brass plaque. On it, the following was inscribed.

To all who have dreams that wouldn't come true,

Drop a coin in the water for hope to renew.

No reward will come from the wish your words host,

This well grants the desire you yearn for most.

Either way, Harv wouldn't have been able to read it.

Author's Note: I had only be writing for about three years, and I kinda think of if as where my writing went from cringe to somewhat decent. It's the only fanfic I wrote that had fanart made of it. It holds a special place in my heart for a lot of reasons.

I also can't help but notice that the tone's changed. I guess that's the difference between writing something in the moment of all those transitional crises and looking back on it with more experience.

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 9: Some Writing

I’m having the sort of Saturday where time ceases to have any meaning. I slept in, then spent an hour in bed watching Six Feet Under and being sad (possibly something I needed? or a poor decision? not sure). Had late breakfast and was on tumblr a bit, not doing anything really, then took a nap, then had a dinner-time lunch, and wrote. Today’s accomplishment: about 1300 words on my big bang, bringing me to 3,500 total. If I write a mere 500 tomorrow, I’ll make it to my 4,000 word goal. Bad news: I’m still on the Bellamy intro section and I feel like the first chapter alone is going to break 10,000 words and I don’t know how I’m going to finish the whole thing on time. Especially not if I want to write, like, anything else in the meantime.

And I do want to write other things. Especially non-Bellarke things as I’m feeling a bit of an overload of them.

On the other hand, I can’t complain about writing because at least I’m doing some and that feels better than not. I want to write during the work week next week but that will only be possible if it’s a better week than the previous one. If it’s not I’ll probably have some sort of breakdown and then writing will be the least of my problems lol.

Anyway I need to shower and then go to sleep so I can have some hope of getting up early enough tomorrow to spend a whole day cleaning. That would be nice.