#anyway red is all that remains of the OG draft and then blue i rewrote entirely as purely a romance novel. it's COMPLETELY different

[sarah-sandwich-writes]

Ok I lied, I also desperately want more about VLTD because I'm FERAL for it... *please*?? I'll take any little snippets you're willing to offer <3 - @fieldsofview

@fieldsofview god okay so Violet is coming a bit slow. I got 6k into it and realized I was already bored with the story. It just wasn't doing it for me, so I put it back in the percolator to stew some more and NOW I think I have the right setting for it. Originally I wanted to send them to Alaska bc of Nash's little throwaway thought about being brother of the year by buying Jo a plane ticket, but that's just not working for me creatively. Tennessee is where it's at, you know?

SO INSTEAD, he's going to buy her the ticket not knowing the reason she's been down in the dumps lately is because she misses when it was just the two of them. She's going to have a bit of a breakdown bc she's feeling all that and now he's trying to send her away?? But she still doesn't want to say it's him and Teddy that are the problem bc he's literally never been this happy before and she won't be the one to ruin it. So instead she confesses she misses her friends, which she does but also there's drama between her and Bella because of her moving away so it's a bit of a nasty surprise when she finds out that instead of Alaska Nash has arranged for her friends to stay with them for a week.

So now she has to deal with even less one-on-one time with her brother and also all the drama she thought was safely sequestered in Buford Hills.

So I'm going to have to cut most of what I have written (*sob*) but the intro is good enough to keep so here you go!

Here there be spoilers for Blue, like don't forget about me!

There’s an art to picking a hotel cheap enough that living out of it for three weeks won’t bankrupt you, but nice enough you won’t need to worry about bugs. In Jo’s opinion, it all comes down to the desk.

Hotel rooms follow a basic formula: bed (obviously), mini fridge (to store stress pudding), shitty single-brew coffee maker (always the same), a microwave (always different), an armchair in the corner (to sit in whilst eating pudding), and a desk. A good look at the desk and you’ll know whether you’ve made a mistake.

Too squat or wobbly—clearly not intended to be used—you’re in a cheap hotel meant for a single night stay and expected to be gone by breakfast. But a nice desk with a matching chair in a room that doesn’t make you feel like a dirty street urchin means you have successfully walked the line between frugality and indulgence.

Careful not to topple the precarious stack of client notes, Jo scoots the hard four-legged chair closer to the desk that’s too low to fit her thighs under despite being all of 5’4” in her derby skates. She sticks her plastic pudding spoon between her teeth and moves the stack away from the edge while creamy chocolate warms on her tongue. The sleeve of her favorite sweater, an ancient thing with a brown stain over her left breast that looks like a fatal stab wound (pudding incident of 2022), catches on the sharp corner but tears free without trouble thanks to the tattered state of the hems.

“When’re you gonna be home?”

She picks up her phone to see the familiar worry line between her brother’s eyebrows. Nash’s hair is overgrown again—beachy curls inching over his ears and peeping around the sides of his neck. He looks tired, but he always looks tired. More important is the aura of peace that he’s carried like a favorite blankie since they moved to their little mountain.

She swallows and slips the spoon from between her lips. “Thursday.” She points her spoon at the mini fridge where three pudding cups remain—one for each remaining day. “Think you can get the place baby sister proofed by then?”

The stress lines framing his mouth flex. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

She sticks her spoon into her pudding and leaves it there as she prepares to dig for whatever he isn’t saying, but, for once, he beats her to it.

He casts a surreptitious look over his shoulder then hunches forward and says, “Teddy’s got napkin swatches all over the front room.”

Ah, and they’re talking about Teddy again. It was a fun novelty for the first two months—she’s never seen her brother fall all over himself like he did for Teddy—but it’s been three years and she’s over it.

“I don’t understand why swatches. Why not just give us one of each napkin? It don’t make sense.”

“Uh, yeah I guess it’s kind of weird. Why napkins?”

His expression turns dour. “He wants me to pick one for the reception.”

“Alright, so pick.”

They were supposed to get married in February (fucked up, unnatural time for a wedding but nobody asked her), but then Teddy freaked out acting like a little backyard shindig wouldn’t be good enough and now they’re shelling out actual cash money to stand around in a swanky lodge for six hours and eat overpriced chicken.

Downright foolish, but again, nobody asked her.

“I tried but he said he could tell I was just trying to get out of it.” Steel gray eyes stare into hers. “Jo, I don’t care about napkins.”

“I don’t think anybody cares about napkins.”

“That’s what I—!” He lowers his voice. “That’s what I said.”

“But Teddy cares about—,”

“That’s the thing,” Nash interrupts, eyes wide, animated in his exasperation. “He doesn’t care either.”

“Then why—,”

“He thinks—,” He wrinkles his nose, then confesses, “He thinks it’s one of those things where maybe I do care, I just haven’t thought about it enough to know.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I know.”

“They’re napkins.”

“I know.”

It takes another five minutes to talk Nash around into telling Teddy that he’s put in enough due thought to determine he very much doesn’t care what people wipe their hands and face on at their wedding, but he turns down Jo’s suggestion that they stick a paper towel roll on each table so he must care at least a little bit.

When they hang up the pit of missing home hasn’t filled an inch. Even worse, her pudding is room temperature.