#good things follow this angsty excerpt

[randomkidstarfic]

🌧️Share something angsty from your WIP.

I'm not sure if this is means share an excerpt, or just talk about a scene or an element, but this whole fic I'm answering these questions with is straight angst and hurt/comfort. So everything about it is a little angsty, lol.

I guess I'll post an excerpt. (What turns out to be a long excerpt)

--The room seemed quieter with Blackstar’s absence. Kid remained seated in the bed. Every time he thought about removing himself, his limbs objected, claiming they were not capable of movement. He stared at the open door and wished it were closed. In his head he repeated it - close the door, close the door, close the door - but didn’t get up. 

Kid didn’t know how long he was sitting there before his body gave him permission to move. He shifted from the bed and shuffled to the desk. He grabbed his pen and opened the folder, and started reading the first report. He read absently, and often got lost and had to start reading again. It took him far too long to make it through one report, and it ended up just being the same drivel as always. A meister and weapon succeeded in collecting a kishin egg. 

A weapon and meister had succeeded in collecting a kishin egg. 

A weapon and meister had succeeded in collecting a kishin egg. 

A weapon and meister had succeeded in collecting a kishin egg. A weapon and meister had succeeded in collecting a kishin egg. 

But before getting to the foregone conclusion, he was forced to read everything that occurred beforehand. Where the mission had taken place, how large of a threat it had been, the supposed body count of said Kishin egg, and the meister and weapon’s personal account of the fight. He was then forced to read the professors’ evaluation of the students’ performance, and whether or not said students needed remedial lessons, could be put into an advanced course, or were good to stay on the path they were on. 

Kid hung his head in his palm and read the third report in over an hour. It was all the same. There was a seering anger pooling in his chest at the prospect that anyone found this monotony necessary. He reached a point halfway through the document when one more sentence would make him go ballistic. He dropped the paper back to the desk, skipped all the way to the last page and signed off on it, no comments or suggestions. 

He did the same with the next dozen reports, and eventually his signature became more of a scribble than anything even resembling his name. This horrendous state of writing made the seering anger burst into rage. His hands were smudged with black ink, the reports were skewed all over the desk. Kid’s muscles clenched. He signed a report with so much force it tore the paper. He grabbed a handful of the reports and tore them in half, threw everything off the desk and banged his fists against the wood. 

He laid his face flat on the desk, then started hitting his head against it. He hit his head over and over and over again, even when his forehead actually started to hurt, he kept going. He suddenly wondered if he could knock himself out, how much force that would take, and how, if he was a human, such force could potentially kill him after so many strikes beforehand. 

But killing him wasn’t so easy. He didn’t even know how to kill himself. Not that he wanted to die, but maybe disappear for a while. The mere thought of not existing was a relief. How easy it would be to skip such a long portion of his life. 

Blackstar probably wouldn’t miss him. 

Kid suddenly lifted his head. Of course Blackstar would miss him, he was his husband, they’d been together for seven years, married for one. If Blackstar hadn’t left him through all of the trials and breakdowns, tiffs and times, he was unlikely to leave now. 

Or perhaps all of those times had simply been a challenge to him. Blackstar wasn’t about to lose or give up so he endured being with such a terrible partner. --

Hope you all enjoyed that, thanks for the ask!

[pygmi-cygni]

WRITING TIP: grammar. good god.

just because it's tumblr doesn't mean you can throw grammar and spelling out the window.

COMMON MISTAKES:

Not indenting for paragraphs. I know tumblr doesn't have the 'tab' function, but at least do a paragraph break. When?

If someone new is speaking

If the setting/action has changed

a new thought

think of it like the camera angle changing in a movie. Would the camera break to another room? or would you watch five minutes of bouncing and spinning while the camera moves to the right location. (Hint: it's the first one)

Big blocks of text make me homicidal. Knock it off.

Apostrophes!

It's: it is

Its: belongs to 'it'. We think it can also be it's, but it's not (see what I did there huh huh hee hee hooo boy)

Possession: Jenna's, Jess', The Twins'. NOT Jennas', Jess's, The Twin's. If there is a group, put the apostrophe after the plural 's'. PLURALS DO NOT HAVE APOSTROPHES IF I SEE THAT AGAIN I WILL REVOKE YOUR LITERATURE LICENSE AAAAAH.

Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks. "Like this." "Not this".

Dialogue punctuation.

"If you're talking and something happens," she said, dodging past a car, "you'd punctuate with a comma and lowercase." See how I didn't capitalize the bold word, or put a period after 'happens?'

Don't do this:

"If you're talking and something happens." She said, dodging past a car, "You'd punctuate with a comma and lowercase."

bad. wrong. booo.

MISUSING SEMICOLONS.

; this baby. makes a cute face ;) but is also useful!

it explains a clause, like so (an excerpt from my drabble 'Deal With It, pls read xoxoxo): "it was cozy; you'd pulled a blanket over your head and your music played gently." I said something was cozy, and then I explained how after a semicolon. It's not just a fancy comma. Don't use it like a fancy comma. it's like commentary of the actual writing. Professional parentheses.

PARENTHESES.

Don't use them. It doesn't make any fucking sense. use a semicolon or a colon or a comma or hyphens or literally anything else. underscores, even. just not parentheses. it's so weird.

WRITING STYLISTICALLY

Bold, italic, all lowercase, that stuff. use it consistently! you don't have to follow the rules if you make it seem intentional and consistent.

Bold.

emphasis, intense, eye-catching. good for a groundbreaking revelation. not the strongest choice for anger. has a staccato feel to it. punctual, concise.

Italic

wistfulness, pause, contemplation, haunting emphasis. good for flashbacks, whispering, angsty emphasis. If you overuse it, it'll feel kinda weird. i know we love her but give her some space. Otherwise it feels like pumping the gas and slamming the breaks really fast during the sentence.

all lowercase.

she's cute, she's aesthetic, she can get confusing sometimes. we need Capitals so that we can identify the Important Things. names, places, proper nouns, I know you know 'em. if you wanna start ur sentence lowercase, okay sure, but it gets muddy if you do it everywhere.

ok byeee xox

[katiefrog217]

Good Omens Fic + Poetry | Personal Recommendation Masterlist

I said I'd do it, so I'm doing it. For both myself, and so others can enjoy! I'll try to tag the original authors and link any secondaries/people who recommended me the stories!

If you feel so inclined, you may read my own (very long, very angsty) fic or it's companion piece:

Dubious Excerpts from the Chonicles of a Demon (Retired) | Post-Season 2 / Crowley comes back to the bookshop / Seriously, its a lot of angst/ Self-Contained Meta

From the Confidential Journals of A.Z Fell | Crowley found Azi's journals woops / Mostly Fluff / Ties in to previous Fic / Can be read Standalone

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

To clarify: this list is going to be a collection of stuff I've personally read/been recommended. I'll try to make sure to tag everyone who owns the fics (if they have a Tumblr) and the people who recommended them to me (if at all). I'll update this list as I go, and might start sorting things into their own posts if it starts to get too long. I'm not going to be able to tag all warnings, so PLEASE HEED the A03 tags!

This list is not meant to play favorites! If I read it and enjoyed it, it will be going on this list. That means the quality may vary, but I think everyone should have a chance to have their work seen! Inevitably though, I will have my favorites, and if I ABSOLUTELY think you should read one, I'll mark in in Green. Everything else will be in Orange for visibility. Anything with NSFW Content will be marked with a (!!!).

If you would like to recommend me a fic (self-promotes welcome and encouraged!), feel free to drop a recommendation here, DM me, or send me an ask if you want to remain anonymous! If you don't see your's here, I haven't gotten to it yet!

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

Poetry

@lickthecowhappy does a LOT of poetry for GO, and they have a masterlist on their own blog for their stuff, but my personal favorite is Pour Hot Water Into A Pot With Leaves

This Black Out Poem | Written by @crowleys-bentley-and-plants

Questions (Sonnet No. 2) | Written by @aziraphalesdiaries

This Two Part Poem | Written by @knifeforkspooncup

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

Short n' Sweet

Literally anything written by the account @meanwhile-at-the-cottage (Seriously follow them they make my day)

Nada | Written and Recommended by @gabapunk (Pining/Season 3 where you at??)

This One-shot | Written by @bloodashre (Post season 2/ The world is ending but their love is not).

Hazel Storms and Gentle Ormes | Written by @ardentlake and beta read by thatskindarough (Short chapters but cute, Crown Prince Crowley)

His World In Her Hands | Written by @nik-knight to an art post by Camilleflyingrotten (I was genuinely unwell after this one| Azi got hurt and Crowley begs)

Rain In Avalon | Written by SnowFilly1 and recommended by GoodOmensDuh (Long One-shot, Arthurian Times, Intimacy eluded to but nothing explicit)

Cozy Preening | Written by @canadiankazz and recommended by GoodOmensDuh (Not much plot BUT OMG SO CUTE/ Wing preening fluff)

Lord Knows it Would be the First Time | Written and recommended by @knifeforkspooncup (Angst/ But also Fluff / I want these idiots to be ok)

This Silly Story about Unicorns | Written by @brightwanderer (seriously just read it/I cackled really hard/ Crowley can be a dummy and I love that about him)

Starmaker and Starlight | Written by NohaIjiachi and recommended by thatskindarough (Super cute/ pre-fall Aziracrow / You already know exactly how it ends / but read it anyway/ this lives rent free in my head now)

Divine Interventions (!!!) | Written by @ineffable-roh (AKA Rohese_Purrs) and recommended by Knifeforkspooncup (Norse Deities do a little matchmaking / Fluffy NSFW / Male Crowley with lady bits)

Time Folding in On Itself | Written by Chernozemm (AKA black_earth) (Post season 2 / Aziracrow get to the point/ these two really need to talk)

Impromptu Collab (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat (Human Streamer AU / Indulgent NSFW / Plot what Plot / Please Mind the Tags)

Free | Written by @eviebane for Flawless (Small, cute, please read Flawless first for context)

A More Gentle Touch | Written by Nik-Knight for ME?? (I'm 100% Biased here / Creature Omens AU / IDC if you don't give a fuck about my au, this is cute AF please read it / Pure FLUFF / Dove Aziraphale and Snake Crowley my beloveds)

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

Long Fics

This Is Who You Are | Written and Recommended by @azeutreciathewicked (Medium Length / Post Season 2 / RAPHAEL AGAIN HELLO / If you really love creative explainations for Heaven you'll LOVE this / A seriously interesting concept behind Azi and Crowley's relationship/ Snake Crowley and Bird Aziraphale my beloveds)

Instructions Not Included | Written by @brightwanderer (AKA Atalan) and recommended by DoomedLemur (Post Season 1 / Aziracrow run a detective agency for the supernatural / Hello Raphael (this time a different person) / Heavenly lore / There is some weird shit going on / WINGS)

And They Were Streamers | Written by @mrghostrat and recommended by HaeMey (Ongoing /Streamer Au / Its got art / KICKING MY FEET I LOVE THEM)

If We've Got Nothing (We've Got Us) | Written by @kedreeva, recommended by someone on Patreon (God POV / Grey Feathers / Medium Length / Old but Good)

Big Name Feelings (!!!) | Written by mrghostrat (Completed / Au/ Skippable NSFW/ Ace Crowley / I've never felt more seen and called out wtf/ I stayed up until 4 am reading it)

The Many Venomed Earth + sequel Such Rebel Blood | Written by @fremulon (AKA Curtaincall) and recommended by HaeMey (Human Au / Murder Mysteries / Crowley gets framed for a murder in the first one oh no / DETECTIVE (not really) AZI ON THE CASE / mutual pining / eventual payoff)

Mon Horrible Chéri (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat and recommended by TheCommonMold (Completed/ Human Teachers AU / literal enemies to lovers / ONLY ONE ROOM OH NO--)

Flawless (!!!) | Written by MrGhostRat and @chernozemm (AKA black_earth) (Huamn AU /Cheating Azi / very painful / seriously there is some angst here / happy ending tho TRUST)

Not Light, No Light | Written and recommended by PolarisVega (Their first fic / Season 3 headcanons / Fun Crowley Headcanons)

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach | Written by mouseonamoose (aka Nnm) and recommended by lickthecowhappy and GoodOmensDuh (Crowley Goes to Therapy / Old but still REALLY good / Pre-season 2 / Super long chapters but very worth)

Angel-Centered Therapy Through A Multicultural Lens: An Integrative Approach | Written by @mouseonamoose (Same as the previous, but Azi this time / Unfinished by nearly done / my poor baby Azi)

Factory Settings | Written by Anonymous (I don't remember how I found this one/ swear I must have seen it on Tumblr/ 60 chapters!! / Read carefully it can get a little confusing / Timey Whimey BS / RAPHAEL??/ Post Season 2 shenanigans with a good ending)

Telling Tall Tales (!!!) | Written by @siobhans-world (Human Aziracrow/ Azi is gay AF but lonely / Pretends to be Maggie's Bf (accidentally) / oh no hot cousin alert/ Not done but almost/ mutual pining)

Time Marches Forward | Written and Recommended by @bellisima-writes (Post Season 2 / Starts a little rocky BUT OMG? / FIRST FIC? / I dedicated my entire day to it / Adam is such a good character holy shit / I think about this fic all the time / wish a few more things were flushed out bUT THATS OK/ lots of angst/ someone save my boy Azi)

How Do We Turn on the Light? (!!!) | Written by @moonyinpisces (Post Season 2/I had insomnia and this was my companion / read all the chapters in a few hours and I'm FROTHING AT THE MOUTH / I swear to anybody I'm hanging off their every word / Still Updating / Super Long, Super good / full of angst and love and AAA/ light NSFW content/ they keep getting cockblocked)

[theperfectawful]

Blind Item / Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Malibu Rating: Mature

Chapter Summary: You check in to rehab and run into a familiar face.

Word Count: 11.1k

Content/Warnings: Descriptions of drug use/overdose, detoxing/coming down, talk of sex, Hollywood misogyny, angsty angst.

Notes: Hello! Thank you guys again for the warm reception to Chapter 1, it was very encouraging. If you're not familiar with what a blind item is, it is a gossip column with any major identifying details about the subject removed. Every now and then this story will be broken up by excerpts of blind items and other gossip columns about Dieter and our reader. Enjoy! Sorry it's so long!

You felt like you slept for an hour and a half. If that. Your head was pounding when you woke up, the muscles behind your eyes searing red hot when they opened. You snapped them closed again right away, the room blindingly white, bathed in the early morning sun.

To your left, you could hear a soft beeping and the murmur of muffled voices. Your mouth felt as dry as a bone as you propped yourself up on your elbows, blinking your eyes open and squinting to look around the room. Instantly, recognition flooded in. 

With a jolt, you sat upright, the pace of the beeps increasing as you grabbed at the tube attached to your arm in confusion. Your eyes darted around the hospital room, looking for any indication of where you were or how you got there. The hum of a news show on tv drew your attention to the upper corner of the room. 

“She’s now upped the ante from alcohol to alcohol and cocaine and accelerated, uh, frequency of incidents. Alleged– Allegedly, uh, alcohol and cocaine. This isn’t her first drug related incident and the judges in Los Angeles won’t look favorably on a DUI like this. This is not the atmosphere, after Paris, after Lindsay’s, uh, debacle, to be playing with these judges. They have a strict no-nonsense policy for these little starlets and she’s going to be looking at 30 to 60 days, at least, minimum in jail, and three to six months in a drug rehab.”

On the screen, footage of you and Natalie running frantically into the intersection after your car played on a loop. You, snarling at the camera. You, spinning around. You, hauling ass towards Sunset and Fairfax. This was a dream. This wasn’t happening.

You felt it first in your jaw, a blood-draining feeling, spreading and burning hot across your face. Your heart was pounding, panic surging through your nervous system and tightening in your chest.

“Hello?!” Your voice cracked as you called out, unsure who you were even looking for. Your fluorescent dress and your shoes from the night before were in a plastic bag on the chair across from your bed. The voices in the hallway quieted for a moment and then started up again, the conversation quickly wrapping up.

The door opened and a woman in scrubs entered, greeting you with a smile that felt fucking inappropriate, all things considered.

“Well, good morning!” The nurse loudly greeted you, rolling a stool in from the doorway.

“Why am I here?” You answered harshly. “Sorry, I… Hello. How did I get here? Is anyone here with me?”

“You’re at Cedars,” She answered, her tone still a little too casual for your liking. “And you’re lucky. If that young lady hadn’t brought you in when she did, you could’ve been in a lot of trouble.”

You’d kill that bitch Natalie. She freaked out and called 911, no wonder it was already on the news. Corinne must be somewhere having an aneurysm. A wave of nausea washed over you and you swallowed hard, desperately trying to calm your racing heartbeat. You should’ve just left without her.

A reporter on TV used your name and you looked back up, the nurse following your gaze and chuckling. On the screen, you were a spectacle, struggling to climb back into your car, limbs and glittery heels flailing out the door as you clumsily clamored into the driver’s seat.

“Look at that. Boy, imagine ending up on the news on a night like that,” she remarked, her hand on her hip as she watched. “The whole world seeing it...”

You shot her a glare as she turned off the TV, recognition dawning on her face when she looked back at you, chuckling once more.

“Ha! Well, I suppose you don’t have to imagine it, do you?”

This was unbelievable. This was a joke. It had to be. You were being Punk’d. Incredulously, you began looking around the room for hidden cameras.

“Well, now that you’re up,” She says, sitting down on the stool she brought in and rolling towards your bedside. “Can you recount your night for me? Where’d all the fun begin?”

Your brow furrowed, your attention suddenly snapping back to the nurse. You squinted as you looked at her standing with the window behind her - this room was way too bright.

“I don’t know.” You mumbled, pinching the skin between your eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Give me the highlights.” She said. She was peeling off and replacing a piece of tape keeping a tube fixed to your arm.

After a long pause, you recounted the evening to her as you tried to remember it. Don Antonios. God, you were there forever, your table was completely packed with people you barely knew. It was always like that in LA - an exponential group of people attached themselves to you and everyone just shrugged when you asked who someone was.

One of the guys who showed up kept insisting you try all these different flavors of some vodka company he worked with. Cherry, Grape, Caramel. The nauseating memory of a shot of Blue Raspberry chased by a shot of Peppermint bubbled up in your throat and you choked down a dry swallow.

“Caramel vodka and tacos?” She prodded. “What sommelier came up with that pairing?”

Jesus, what is this lady, a comedian? You glared at her to keep from rolling your eyes. 

“Had you taken anything at that point?”

“What?”

“Any pills, marijuana, cocaine…”

You mustered your best offended expression.

“I don’t know. No. I just take the stuff I’m prescribed.” You answered defensively. This was none of her business. Were you seriously here all alone?

“How much had you been you drinking?”

“Not much. Only a little.”

She hummed, not satisfied. “Was that everything?”

You let the question hang. “Yes.”

You really didn’t remember. You remembered texting Andy. You remembered him never fucking answering. There were shots at Don Antonios. That girl gave you some Xanax, which did nothing. You didn’t even drink that much at Lush, just some champagne and tequila and…

Oh, shit. And Dieter Bravo. What the hell had he given you? You knew it was something, but the night was a blur after you got up from his booth. You went to the bathroom with him and… oh, my god, wait, did you have sex with him? Please say you didn’t fuck Dieter Bravo in the bathroom at Lush. Corinne might literally, actually kill you if anyone finds out that happened.

The nurse cleared her throat and you blinked and looked up, feeling her scrutinizing gaze.

“I don’t remember. That was it. I don’t do drugs.”

“At all?” She was so condescending with her stupid clipboard.

“No, not at all,” - bitch, you continued in your head. Impatience now replaced the panic in your voice. “Hey, listen, is anyone here with me now? Like, is there someone in a waiting room somewhere? I really don’t feel like talking to you about this.”

She stopped writing, making a big deal of clipping her pen and putting down the clipboard and looking at you with her lips pursed, her lingering stare irritating you even further. You hated when people did that - nothing closed you off faster than someone trying to make a big show of how serious they are about getting information out of you.

“Did you deliberately try to kill yourself last night?”

What the fuck? Was this bitch serious?

“Excuse me?”

“We ran tests and pumped out the contents of your stomach last night. We found a combination of opioids and amphetamines in your system. That, in addition to the alcohol, is a very dangerous combination.”

“No, I did not try to kill myself.” You spat, your voice much louder. “I was out with friends and I messed up. Someone gave me something and I had a reaction. I don’t know. I’m not suicidal. That’s insane.”

You had to get out of here. You needed to figure out who the hell dropped you off at the hospital and then went home. You shuffled in the hospital bed, weakly trying to remove whatever tubes were attached to your body.

There were two quick knocks at the door, followed by Corinne hurrying into the tiny hospital room, concern pulling at her Botox-frozen forehead.

“Oh, god, honey,” she said, sitting at the edge of your bed. “Thank god you’re alright.”

Oh, this was too much. It was just a night out. You may have blacked out but it wasn’t the end of the world, Natalie must have just freaked out and brought you here. Why was everyone acting like you almost died?

You rolled your eyes, frustrated with all the fuss and the concerned act Corinne was putting on for the hospital staff. Your voice softened and heightened in pitch. "I'm fine, Corinne. I just want to go home. Please tell them to let me go."

Corinne paused, grabbing your hand and looking into your eyes.

“Honey…” she started, cupping your hand with both of hers. She looked over at the nurse, who was still staring at you with that stupid, serious expression.

“Could you give us a moment, please?” Corinne asked. The nurse obliged, seemingly just now realizing that she wasn’t part of this conversation. She quickly gathered her things and left the room.

Once she was gone, Corinne’s face fell immediately, her tone shifting to something much angrier.

“Are you out of your mind?” she began, whispering harshly. “Do you remember a single thing about last night?”

“Oh, my god, what?! What does everyone want to know about last night?! I went out with Natalie. We danced. I drank a little and I guess I blacked out. It’s that stupid antidepressant they put me on.”

“You don’t remember driving home?”

“I didn’t drive, Natalie drove”

“Oh,” Corinne scoffed, her patience with you clearly nonexistent. “Oh, you drove. You drove your car through three red lights and straight into a BMW.”

She was fully whisper-yelling now, recounting the evening for you. The runaway car, the speeding, the swerving, the driving with your eyes closed. Your stomach sank, Corinne successful in jogging your memory. 

She explained how you passed out on your bathroom floor and Natalie couldn’t wake you up, how she went to wake up Rhea and Rhea had to drive you to the hospital at four in the morning. You waited for her to bring up your hooking up with a notorious movie star at least ten years your senior in the bathroom, but, somehow, it didn't come up. 

Her Blackberry was vibrating near-constantly, and she quickly glanced down to silence it before looking back at you. The Botox in her forehead was dissolving in real-time, a crescent-shaped wrinkle emerging between her eyebrows.

“Thank God Rhea called me and told me what was happening or you might be in jail right now instead of here.”

Your face sunk, horror washing over you remembered what you’d just heard on TV.

“Corrine, they’re not going to arrest me, right?”

She sighed, the look on her face not inspiring reassurance in you.

“I’ve been on the phone with the chief of the LAPD since 5 trying to work this out for you.” Corinne explained. “You apparently totaled that car, although I’m not sure how a car with no driver is even capable of that. The owner has already gone to the press saying they’re going to press charges.”

She craned her head to the side to confirm that the door to your room was shut, then her voice sank even lower as she leaned in closer to you and whispered. “The police searched your car and found a gram of cocaine in the cupholder.”

Oh my god, Dieter’s cocaine.

“That wasn’t mine!” You blurted out. The cliche felt pathetic on your tongue. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But it wasn’t! I don’t even do coke anymore! They can test me!”

Now, why the fuck would you say that?

“It was in your car. Your car that you drove, that you sent careening into an intersection. It doesn’t matter whose it was, honey.”

You covered your face with your hands, your headache intensifying. This wasn’t fucking happening.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You felt like you were going to cry. “I messed up, Corinne, I’m sorry. Tell them to let me go home and work and I’ll be fine. I’ll focus on the reboot and I won’t go out.”

She didn’t speak right away, and you couldn’t get a read on whether she was furious with you or scared shitless.

“You’re not going back to work,” She finally explained. “Production has told me that they can’t take the risk on you. This is already out. We can’t even say for sure yet that we’ve avoided jail time here.”

The room was spinning. Your stomach felt like a brick. You rolled your eyes - a reflex you immediately regretted - and blinked over and over as fearful tears rolled down your cheeks.

“It’ll be fine, Corinne, we can talk to them. We can renegotiate,” you offered, your voice breaking despite your attempt to remain stoic. “I can be good.”

“The studio won’t take the risk. I’m sorry, honey.”

Tears streamed down your cheeks, hot and shameful, blurring the room around you. This would be the second production you’d been fired from this year. 

It felt like a testament to your failure. You, weak and out of control, sobbing in bed like a pathetic child.

The world would love you like this. Defeated, ashamed, exhausted. A cautionary tale, a trainwreck. You could already hear the chorus of “I told you so”’s, of “stupid girl”’s. Any hope you had of establishing yourself as a serious actress was crumbling right there in front of you - no, you were tearing it apart with your bare hands.

A disheveled Dieter Bravo checked himself into rehab Tuesday morning, looking solemn and despondent following a life-threatening overdose over the weekend.  The veteran actor reclined in the passenger seat of his vehicle on the drive to Malibu, sporting dark sunglasses and his signature messy mop of curls. LAPD responded to a call from his housekeeper on Saturday morning. The actor was found unresponsive in his Hollywood home, and was quickly attended to by emergency services. “I respectfully ask that the media allow me to receive care and heal in private during this difficult time,” the Cliff Beasts star said in a statement released by his representative. Bravo, who won an Academy Award for his performance in 2004’s Fragile Bonds, has recently been plagued by personal and professional struggles, including a failing marriage to actress Heidi Alcott and an arrest for a violent altercation earlier this year. This will be his third stay in a rehab facility since 2005.  Hours before the overdose, the actor was rumored to have been forcibly removed from Hollywood’s Lush nightclub, allegedly ejected by the club’s owner for canoodling and using drugs with another young actress in a staff restroom. Dieter will spend 90 days at Promises Malibu, a swanky rehab facility where daily activities include yoga, meditation, horseback riding and acupuncture.

The next week was exactly as bad as you’d feared it’d be.

You were arrested in the hospital, which you didn’t even realize was possible. That same, horrible nurse took your blood pressure again and again as two police officers read you your rights. Hospital staff lingered in the hallway outside of your room, just far away enough for them to think you wouldn’t notice, their murmurs were complemented by the cops’ walkie talkies, staticky voices discussing what to do with you.

Corinne wasn’t allowed to come with you for processing. You traded your hospital gown for the dress you’d worn the night before along with a hoodie Corinne gave you, slipping your stupid, clunky heels back on to follow the cops into the parking garage. Corinne used the contents of the makeup bag she’d brought with her, wiping mascara smudges from your cheeks and tapping powder under your eyes to try and make you look somewhat presentable for your mugshot. She walked with you to the police van, all the while assuring you that she’d arrange representation, that this would all be over as soon as it possibly could be.

Faces and cameras pressed to the windows of the car and didn’t let up for the entire drive to the station. You squeezed your eyes shut at red lights, letting the tears run down your face and sinking as far as you could into the back seat.

Fluttering camera clicks and flashing lights surrounded you on all sides as you were led up the stairs of the police station. You were processed, fingerprinted and booked. People gawked at you from holding cells. A security guard asked for an autograph for his daughter. Your bail had been posted by the time you’d taken your mugshot.

You were allowed to go home and detox while you awaited next steps, but, as Chateau staff had politely requested you not return for the time being, Corinne insisted that you stay with her. You spent the next week in Corinne’s guest bedroom, sleeping through headaches and shakes and waking up to change the channel when your name came up on late-night talk shows.

The come-down from amphetamines was not for the weak. You cried and cried for days. Any time you were conscious, you were sobbing. You’d had a taste of this before, long weekends leading up to busy weeks with minimal opportunity to refill prescriptions, but nothing like this. Never this uncomfortable. Never this helpless.

After a couple days, Natalie called. She told you she was sorry. She wouldn’t say for what. Tears tore from your eyes, burning hot and angry down your cheeks. When you hung up she didn’t call back.

You tried to talk to Corinne, but all that came out was a tearful slew of apologies for what you’d dragged her into. You soaked in her giant bathtub, running the water scalding hot and trying to focus on anything but the fear tearing at your mind. 

Her home was perfect - a shiny, ultramodern thing tucked in the hills of Beachwood Canyon. Her guest bedroom looked like something out of Architectural Digest. Your place in it was chaotic, your belongings haphazardly packed up by Chateau staff and now piled in a corner of the otherwise extremely chic bedroom. Club dresses, hair straighteners, bedazzled clutches. You, in her bed, sobbing until your face was puffy, dripping tears and snot onto her 800 thread count sheets. You and the wreckage you carried with you were out of place in a home like this.

When your body wouldn’t let you sleep anymore and your tears slowed down, you stared at the ceiling, clammy and anxious. You peeked out the windows, watching conspicuous vans circle Corinne’s home, big camera lenses perched and waiting for a glimpse of you. You tried to sleep. You rifled through your things, organizing and reorganizing clothes and accessories. You were going nuts.

Rhea spent a lot of time with you - when your schedule was wiped clean, hers was, too. She sat next to you in bed while you watched her play her Nintendo DS for hours.

“You’re all they’ve been talking about on The View for three days,” she told you one morning as she made her Animal Crossing character catch fish over and over. “Joy Behar is veeeerrrry concerned about you.”

“Is she?” You asked. “That’s so nice.”

“Mmhm,” Rhea replied. She cast her line, reeling it in too soon and spooking the fish. “Damn.”

Silence hung between you for a moment as she made her character walk up and down the beach.

“Can you give me something, Rhea, please?” You looked up at her, pleading softly. "No," she answered immediately. “Please, Rhea. I can’t sleep. I’m going insane. I think even just an extra antidepressant would work.”

She put the device down in her lap and gave you a look that told you you should know better. It had always been a not-so-secret secret that Rhea was the one who brought you drugs when you couldn’t get them yourself. She was still in college when you hired her and seemed to know how to get her hands on whatever you wanted.

Corinne was never supportive of your drug use, per se, but she was aware of how your engine ran, and you were certain that she knew Rhea supplied them to you. Under her extremely watchful eye since you’d been discharged from the hospital, you figured Rhea’d been instructed to cut that shit out, but it was worth a try. Plus, she was kind of your friend.

“I’m allowed to give you melatonin,” She answered. “And it wouldn’t, by the way.”

You sighed, defeated. “I was prescribed Xanax before.”

“You were prescribed a lot of things before.” 

She wasn’t wrong. You picked at the skin around your thumb nail, rolling onto your back and staring up at the ceiling, watching the fan spin.

“You know, people die this way.”

She scoffed, looking back at her game.

You weren’t dying. You were just excruciatingly bored. More bored than you’d been in years. Maybe in your entire life. The hours were unbearable, but soon they turned to days, then a week. You weren’t in a good mood, but you could at least say you’d gone from negative to zero. 

The ache didn’t go away, but you got used to it being there. You wanted drugs - hard ones. You fantasized about them when Corinne would wake you up at 6am to go on neighborhood walks with her. As you laced up the running shoes she let you borrow, you reminisced on doing angel dust at warehouse parties in Miami and about the time some rock star from the 80s showed up at your 20th birthday party and showed you and your friends how to freebase heroin. You’d spent the morning after that throwing up and had vowed to never touch it again, but even that morning sounded preferable to wearing lycra leggings and enduring the big, goofy smiles Corinne’s neighbors gave you as they jogged by.

You woke up early one morning to the sound of Corinne’s excited, unusually high voice outside your door. In her usual fashion, she knocked quickly, opening the door without waiting for an answer. She held a finger up to you as she wrapped up her call.

“Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay,” she looked at you, lifting her finger up slightly higher in response to your questioning expression. “Oh, I can’t tell you how great this is. We’re so excited. Uh huh. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Bye, now.”

“What’s happening?” You asked as she hung up.

“This is a best case scenario,” She answered. “This is fantastic.”

You sat up straight in bed. “Is the show back on?!”

Corinne’s smile faltered as she settled on the bed. “Oh, honey, no.”

You deflated slightly. “Then what?”

“You’re not going to jail.”

“Yaaaay,” you cheered weakly.

“That’s a miracle, by the way.”

“Yay! I mean it.” You tried again, a little more convincingly this time.

Her phone buzzed, and she quickly glanced at the name on the screen and silenced the ring. She sighed again, her demeanor turning serious.

“You’re going to rehab.” She continued. “You’re going to the best facility, it’s the Four Seasons of rehab centers, it’s going to–”

“Excuse me?” you interjected, disbelief in your voice. There was that feeling again, the same one you got at the hospital. Tingly jaw, burning hot cheeks.

“Rehab,” she repeated. “You’ve been given the option to complete 90 days in rehab and avoid all jail time. Most people do not get that choice. You should be thanking me right now.”

She paused, presumably expecting you to stand up and start doing cartwheels. The lid of your coffin was in place - it had been for days now - so you should have expected the nails. 

“Where?” You asked after a moment.

“Promises - it’s in Malibu. You’ll do yoga and meet with lifestyle coaches who can help us figure out what you need to get everything back on track. It’s going to be great, honey. It’s where Lindsay went!”

You groaned, throwing yourself backwards onto your pillow.

Which fading starlet is trading red carpets and VIP sections for rehab? This former child star recently checked into a luxurious Malibu facility, not for a rejuvenating spa weekend, but as part of a plea deal to dodge jail time. At least she's in good company! Perhaps she and a fellow famous patient at the swanky rehab facility will find solace in ‘growing together’ during their time in recovery. Hopefully, this stint helps her avoid following in the footsteps of fellow socialites.

Promises was impressive. You could give Corinne that. You told her as much when she dropped you off at intake. 

“You’re going to be okay,” she told you, giving you a tight hug in the entryway. “I’ll call you soon.”

It was a huge, sprawling property with a big Spanish-revival monstrosity smack-dab in the middle of it. You’re sure she was thoroughly impressed by the tennis courts and meditation studios and panoramic ocean views.

Intake was less glamorous. You were instructed to remove your clothes and put on a paper gown, and then to open your suitcase and put it on this big, metal table at the back of an office. The woman checking you in gave you a full pat-down, making you bend over and cough to check for contraband before giving you an outfit to change back into. It occurred to you that you should have been humiliated by this whole ordeal, but at this point, you were so beyond that. Humiliation was for the version of you from a week ago. This was just your life now. She then proceeded to take a TSA-level look at all of your belongings.

“We’re a strictly cell phone-free facility,” she explained, removing your Sidekick from your purse. “If you’re caught with a cell phone in your room, we’ll do a full search of your property - if you’re caught again, you’ll be discharged. Phone calls can be made at the booths in the hallway.”

You nodded, not having the willpower to argue with their stupid policies at the moment. You crossed your legs and tried to warm yourself by rubbing your hands up and down your arms.

“Can’t bring these in,” she said as she took three bras out of your suitcase. “Underwire. You’ll get them back when you leave.”

Sure. Whatever.

“You’ll have to hand these over, too,” she held up a pack of cigarettes. “Smoke-free facility.”

“Wait,” you started, interrupted by another staff member entering the office.

“Well, well!” He said, his voice booming in the tiny room, glimmer-white smile beaming at you. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Todd.” He paused, taking a long moment to stare deeply, creepily, into your eyes. “I’m so happy you’re here to grow with us.”

You limply shook his hand. 

“Hi.”

“Hi. I know it’s been quite a journey getting here. I’m sure you’re ready to relax,” he replied, his giant smile not faltering for a second. He broke his unblinking gaze and looked over at the woman zipping up your suitcase. “If you’re finished, I’d like to show our movie star to her room.”

“Oh, another movie star,” she said dryly as she zipped up your suitcase and put her hands up, finished.

“Yes, yes,” Todd said, still smiling like a maniac. He looked like he had more teeth than a normal person, and for a moment you tried to count them before he turned back to face you. You flinched slightly at the intensity of his expression. “Shall we?”

The entire facility was co-ed - a detail that Todd told you repeatedly, each time with a slightly more discernible degree of warning in his voice, like he was a parent instructing you not to throw any parties when they left for the weekend. He walked you across the property, pointing out various amenities to you on the way to your room.

The gym, the pool, the zen garden, the library. The various meeting rooms - men’s meetings, women's meetings, family meetings. The kitchen, the internet cafe. The saltwater pool. It was like a resort, except that there wasn’t any alcohol, and there were copies of The 12 Steps & 12 Traditions all over the place.

“You’ll attend workshops here,” he said, gesturing to the deck on the far end of the swimming pool. “Journaling, vision boarding, knitting. Anything you want. We’re even doing an acting workshop this month - maybe you could help us with that. We have some fantastic facilitators - just fantastic.”

“Juuust fantastic…” you repeated. 

You followed him back inside, walking through a long corridor towards your room.

“Ah, this’ll be our noon men’s meeting,” he explained as you approached an open door to your left. He took a look at the oversized silver watch on his wrist. “They should just be getting started now.”

Peeking into the room, you observed the setup - a classroom-like setting with a whiteboard, low, tan carpeting, and a circle of wicker chairs. Men milled about, chatting as they waited for the meeting to begin.

Just as you started to turn your head away from the door, you caught a glimpse that made you snap back immediately. In a fraction of a second, even though they were hidden halfway behind dark wayfarers, you instantly recognized the deep, brown eyes that locked with your own. You slowed down slightly to confirm your suspicion, but quickly looked away when he craned his neck to follow you.

No way.

There was no way.

You sped up, now walking in step with Todd.

"Hey, Todd?" you interjected, cutting off his explanation of the gym or the pickleball court or whatever it was. "Did the lady at intake mention another actor being here?"

“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled. “Lucky us!”

Your eyes darted to the ground, then back and forth as you tried to process what was happening.

“Who is it?”

“Sorry,” he answered, his smile faltering into something more serious for the first time since you’d met him. “I can’t share that with you. But we’re a friendly bunch here - I’m sure you’ll run into each other soon enough. Here we are!”

You’d arrived at your room, the last door at the end of the corridor.

“I’ll give you some time to settle in, but please don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything you need,” he said, smiling and staring unblinkingly. His spray-tan was extra orange around the corners of his mouth. “We’re so glad you’re here.”

You broke his intense eye-contact to look back down the hallway towards the meeting room. An arm extended from the doorway, pulling the door shut as the meeting began. You bit the skin on your bottom lip, looking back at your door.

“Yeah, thanks,” you mumbled, quickly shuffling into your bedroom and shutting the door behind you.

It probably wasn’t Dieter. I mean, most likely, it wasn’t him, right?

It wasn’t like he was the only wannabe-bohemian, homeless-looking, disheveled-just-so actor in this town, let alone the only one who’d end up in rehab.

It probably wasn’t him.

And even if it was him, what were the odds he remembered you, anyway? A guy like him slept with so many people, it had to just be a huge blur for him. You probably weren’t even the only one fucked that night.

It wasn’t him. You laughed to yourself as you unpacked, feeling silly for getting so worried.

You shoved your clothes into the dresser that stood across from your bed. Your room was nice, and only reaffirmed your feeling that this was more resort than rehab. The bed was huge, an actual bed with crisp white sheets and big pillows. When you sat in it, you had a beautiful view of the pacific ocean from your window. You also got it to yourself, one of the only single bedrooms in the entire facility. You’d have to remember to thank Corinne for that. 

On top of the dresser was a schedule detailing the week’s activities:

10/03/07 - WEDNESDAY

6AM - SUNRISE HORSEBACK RIDE - EAST HILL

6AM - SUNRISE YOGA - SALTWATER POOL DECK

7AM - OPEN GYM

8:30AM - WOMEN’S MEETING - ROOM A

9AM - SPEAKER SERIES - WE DO RECOVER! - ROOM C … But what if it was him?

Rehab was not like detox at Corinne’s. Here, you were expected to be up early, to follow a strict schedule of meetings and activities, to act like a functional adult. It felt kind of like summer camp, if at summer camp you were constantly under surveillance and forced to confront your deepest insecurities instead of making friendship bracelets.

You thought that you'd have a late start on your first morning at Promises. You figured you’d sleep in, go get breakfast at the cafe, then maybe hit up the 11am meditation session. Instead, you were woken up at 7 sharp by a cheerful staff member gently knocking on your door, reminding you that you were to be in the cafeteria no later than 8, and that a nurse would be in shortly to take your vitals.

After groggily going through the motions of having your blood pressure taken and your heart rate checked, you threw on an outfit and headed down the hall to get breakfast.

You were excited. That was one thing about being sober - you actually had an appetite for the first time in forever, and you were constantly hungry. As you made your way towards the cafeteria, you began to fantasize about omelets and bagels and pancakes and…

“Morning!” A voice called out to you as you padded down the hallway. Emerging from the room next to yours was a woman who looked to be slightly older than you. She had a cute, cropped pixie cut and was wearing a stack of bangles all the way up her arms.

“Morning,” you replied, smiling at her.

She introduced herself as Sadie. She’d been at Promises for a month already, so she practically owned the place. You had a lot in common - including what brought you here.

“God, I’m obsessed with Adderall,” she said, stabbing her fork into the fruit salad on her plate. She popped a piece of cantaloupe in her mouth and kept talking. “There’s just nothing better for getting shit done. Did you know it’s literally meth? Methamphetamine! And they give it to kids.” “Really?” You asked. Honestly, this was how you knew you didn’t belong here. You didn’t know anything about drugs. You liked adderall, too, but these people were drug addicts.

She nodded.

“God, no wonder.”

“I was a writer. Am a writer,” She continued on. “In the real world.”

“Right,” you laughed. “I’m an actor in the real world.”

“I’ve seen you in things,” she nodded. “The 80s show with, uh… Bob Saget?”

“That’s Full House. I was on Growing Together.”

“That’s it!” She snapped her fingers and pointed at you. “Hey, so do you know Dieter?”

Your cheeks went hot, stopping mid-chew when she mentioned his name. You were having so much fun with Sadie that you’d almost forgotten all about yesterday.

“Dieter Bravo?” You asked, mouth full of food.

“Yeah, him. He’s been here for, like, a week now,” she confirmed. “You know him?”

“He’s here?”

She nodded, giving you a funny look.

“No, not really.” You answered. Which was true.

She hummed in response, moving on quickly to tell you more about the magazine she wrote for, but you fully stopped listening. Oh, shit, it was him. You scanned the faces gathered around the tables throughout the room, looking for him, suddenly paranoid that he’d be watching you from somewhere. You weren’t all on the same schedule here, right?

You couldn’t avoid him. Todd said there were something like 30 residents here right now. There was no shot. You tried to tune back into what Sadie was saying - something about Hearst, something about a blog - and immediately dropped her again. 

You could avoid him. You could stick to womens meetings. God, why was seeing him making you this anxious? This was so unlike you.

The idea of running into anyone you encountered in the state you were in that evening was humiliating. Maybe that was it. How were you supposed to get a fresh start if there was a reminder of the worst night of your life creeping around the halls here? It was unsettling. Corinne and Rhea were practically family, so that didn’t matter, but the idea of even seeing Natalie at this point made your stomach turn. You needed one of those things from Men In Black to zap everyone who was at Lush that night and make them forget that they’d even seen you.

“Sadie,” you interrupted. “Sorry. Do you see him around a lot? Dieter?” She thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. He’s all over the place, if that’s what you mean. I think he’s been here before. He's like the mayor.”

You scoffed, leaning back in your seat. Of course this is no big deal to someone like him. It probably didn’t even get reported on.

“And you said he’s been here for a week?”

“Mmhm,” she nodded.

That meant he’d checked in here right after that night at Lush. He seemed fine that night, though - he was at least with it enough to hook up with you. He wasn’t even really partying - you remembered him sitting alone in that chair when you noticed him. He looked bored. Why would he even need to come here?

All morning, you looked for him in the corner of your eye. You peeked around during your yoga class, scanning the room through your legs during downward dog.

Your first full day was consumed with resident onboarding tasks, which, fortunately, gave you a lot of opportunities to hide. You tried your best to forget about him during your first one-on-one meeting with your counselor.

Jane, your counselor, was nice enough. She at least seemed more normal than Todd - she smiled less, anyway - so it was reassuring to know that not everyone here was straight out of The Twilight Zone. You went through your story with her - how you got started, what happened that led you here. Blah, blah, blah.

“Growing up in Hollywood, that must have been challenging. Were your parents supportive?”

“I guess so. My mom was really into the whole acting thing,” you told her. “Maybe too into it.”

“Tell me more,” she encouraged.

You shrugged. “I don’t know. She liked that I was good at it. It was all we really talked about.”

She nodded, clearly expecting you to tell her more. Suddenly, you really didn’t want to talk about your mom.

“I don’t know. The usual stage mom stuff. That’s all.” You paused, shifting uncomfortably in your seat. "It's not like it matters now anyway." She nodded again, jotting something down. "It's okay if you're not ready to talk about it. We can focus on what's happening in the present and how we can support you moving forward."

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you mumbled.

Fortunately, she let it go, taking a few more notes.

“When did you know you were an addict?” Your eyebrows shot up, shock rippling through you at the audacity of her question. A drug addict?

“I am not a drug addict. That’s insane. I’m twenty-two years old.”

She eyed you skeptically, which only made you angrier.

“You can’t just call people that,” you continued.

“It’s not my intention to offend you,” she replied calmly. “And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It's important for us to address the behaviors and patterns that led you here.”

You crossed your arms in front of you defensively, looking out the window at the ocean. Several moments dragged by, Jane patiently waiting for you to break your stubborn silence. 

“You could start by not calling me names,” you finally said.

“I apologize,” she said. She talked like a robot. You were wrong, everyone here was a freak.

Despite your best efforts, tears were beginning to roll down your cheeks. Your eyes darted up at the clock for the hundredth time since this meeting began.

“That’s time.”

Dieter recognized you right away, too.

It didn’t take long for confirmation - word about you checking in traveled very quickly. Suddenly, he was no longer the most famous person in rehab. Shame.

The story was that you’d had a bad night after you’d crossed paths at Lush - something that only made him feel worse about his role in the whole thing. He had a lot of time on his hands to feel guilty these days, and he spent most of it reflecting on that evening.

He was sure you didn’t remember him. At least, he hoped you didn’t. 

That night had been a low point for him. The realization struck on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after his intake process, when that post-overdose glow had finally worn off and he slowly readjusted to reality. With each passing day, the picture of what he’d done only grew clearer.

He had no business pursuing you that night. He may have been pretty far gone himself, but the image in his memory of him attempting to shake you awake so he could try to fuck you was something that made him feel a kind of shame he hadn’t felt in years.

He remembered waiting for you for a while after you’d both been kicked out of the bathroom, lingering around your table trying to figure out where you went. It wasn’t long, though, before Clint was urging him to leave. Apparently the owner of the club was not happy with the commotion he’d caused and wanted him out. Not that it was a major disappointment - he’d been ready to go since he’d arrived.

Following the lead of Clint and the two models from his table, Dieter climbed into the backseat of the SUV parked outside and promptly pulled a tab of acid from his pocket, slipping it onto his tongue when no one was looking. During the drive home, he remembered the black-haired model climbing onto his lap, her whispers in his ear barely registering through the haze he was in. He wasn't in the mood for any of it. He peeled her off of him once they arrived in his driveway, climbing out of the car and saying goodnight without any invitation to keep the party going.

He was restless. The coke, the alcohol, the acid - none of it made any difference. He shuffled around the house - the enormous, Spanish-style place he’d bought when he was still a bachelor. Or, the last time he was a bachelor, he supposed. It felt so empty, so staged, like it was perpetually about to be put on the market. The feeling that he didn’t belong here anymore gnawed at him. Maybe it was time to go back to New York for a while.

He decided to go to bed, at that point completely uninterested in trying to get anything else out of the evening. Sifting through the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, he mixed up a cocktail of Valium and Percocet and climbed into his empty bed, his curtains wide open to watch the city lights swim as he waited for the curtain to fall. 

The next thing he remembered was waking up with a gasp that rattled his entire chest, coming to life to see his bedroom full of paramedics. There was a crust on his cheek and pillow and he was drenched in sweat. His housekeeper stood in the corner, clearly shaken, clutching her hands to her chest.

And now, here he was, back in rehab. It marked his second stint at Promises, returning to confront the shitshow that his life had become through the routine of Pilates classes, group therapy sessions and journaling. Kumbaya.

His agent wasn’t happy with him. This little holiday of his interrupted production of Cliff Beasts 4, the project he was currently working on. He was set to begin shooting in a week - that date now pushed back indefinitely. 

Dollar amounts were something that was discussed in meetings he didn’t care to go to, but he figured this interruption cost some producer somewhere a pretty penny. Good. Fuck those guys. It wasn’t that he wanted to make a habit out of nearly killing himself, but he’d be lying if he said the idea of making one of those suits sweat didn’t bring a smile to his face.

So, here he was. His afternoon yoga class was ending. He decided to skip out during shavasana, looking to avoid any post-vinyasa mingling. He returned his mat and block to the table by the door and headed inside. Pushing the door open with a huff through his teeth, he headed straight towards his room, needing a shower before taking on the rest of his day. When he heard the door at the end of the hall thrown open, he looked up to see you storming out, tears running down your cheeks. Shit.

You both stopped when you noticed one another, frozen in an unexpected moment of mutual recognition. You definitely remembered him, he quickly realized. Dieter’s gaze lingered on you, caught off guard by your emotional state. Why were you crying? He hesitated, unsure of what to say or do, while you stood across the hall and debated whether to say something or retreat to the safety of your room.

Finally, Dieter managed a tentative nod in your direction, attempting to break the ice. You blinked rapidly, hastily wiping tears from your eyes. Before he could utter a word, though, you abruptly turned and hurried away, disappearing around the corner without another glance back.

He sighed, continuing down the hallway towards his room. The message from God or the universe or whatever all-powerful being was orchestrating this mess was clear - he hadn’t just fucked up his own life this time. He’d managed to drag you down with him.

“I’m glad it’s working out, honey,” Corinne said, her voice coming in staticky through the receiver.

“It is…” you tentatively agreed before putting on your best sales-pitch voice. “I think I’m going to do well. I might not even need to stay three whole months.”

“Nice try.” Worth a shot.

“Have you talked to the producers at all?” You asked, tapping a pen on the desk.

“I’m going to meet with Kevin on Friday,” she said, uncertainty in her voice. “Let’s not get our hopes up about Growing Together, honey, but if this doesn’t work out I do think another series down the line might be a good path out of this. I think the–” “I just don’t understand how they think they’re going to make it without me,” you interrupted, your voice growing louder and attracting the attention of a group of residents at a nearby table. Embarrassed, you turned your head away from them, scooting in closer to the desk. “It doesn’t make any sense. How are they going to write off their daughter?” You continued, voice lowering. 

“They don’t like the optics of the reboot drawing any negative attention. It’s not what they had in mind,” she explained. “We’ll discuss it.”

“I mean, Jesus, it’s not like I’m the first actor in the history of the world to get a DUI,” you continued, your tone hushed. “I’m not even the first actor on Growing Together with a DUI! What about Peter?”

Peter Moinihan played your uncle Bobby on the show. The man had a reputation that put yours to shame before you were even born. He was constantly partying and constantly hungover, which was a running joke among the cast and crew that you didn’t understand until you were much older. 

During the show’s run, he went from hiding his weed-smoking from you, to sneaking you weed, to smoking with you, to, by the final season, asking you where to buy it. Last you heard, he was a cast member on The Surreal Life. Despite all of that, there seemingly wasn’t any question about whether or not he’d be returning for the reboot. So why were they making such a big deal about having you back?

“Believe me, I’ll be bringing that up. You know I’ll fight for you, honey,” Corinne said. “So you fight for you too, alright?”

“Okaaay,” you agreed, rolling your eyes.

“I know you just rolled your eyes. Are you sick of all the Hallmark-ism’s yet?” She asked with a smile in her voice.

“I think if I can’t get any more work, I’ll have a promising career in motivational posters…” you laughed. 

After a pause, Corinne’s tone got all serious and sincere. “Are you okay, honey?” You thought about it. No, I’m not. I’m unemployed, I’m a national punchline, and I have to spend the next three months airing my most vulnerable secrets with a guy I had an awkward one-night-stand with a week ago. I’m stuck in this place with a bunch of drug addicts and therapists from Stepford. I want to snort a line of cocaine the size of my middle finger. I want to drink a bottle of Grey Goose alone in my bed. No, I’m not fucking okay.

“I’m fine,” you answered. “Really.”

“Good.” She said.

With a promise to be good, you hung up the phone. Your face fell quickly, though, the absence of Corinne’s voice reminding you where you were and how much longer you had left in this place.

Optimistically, after a couple of days of successfully avoiding him, you found yourself believing that the people in charge here might’ve actually had the sense to keep you and Dieter apart. Surely, having to celebrities in an AA meeting together would be too much of a distraction - they had to keep you apart somehow.

You were wrong. When you and Sadie walked into your Sunday afternoon meeting, there he was. He sat in a chair at one end of the room, in a thick, hole-y wool sweater, nursing a paper cup of coffee and wearing those stupid dark sunglasses indoors like always. God, everything about him was so typical Hollywood bro-hemian. He probably lived in Venice.

Still, when your eyes fell to his lips, you flashed on a memory of how good they felt peppering kisses along your neck, how his hands felt on your thighs. The way the flashing lights accentuated his hooded gaze as it drank you in when you were in his lap. You snapped yourself out of it, shaking your head and focusing on pouring yourself a cup of coffee before sitting down as far away from him as you possibly could, directly across the room.

Truthfully, you zoned out for the first half of the meeting. The loosely defined topic of the afternoon - fear - was, frankly, not something you were interested in diving into at the moment. 

You fidgeted with the hem of your shirt, agitated. Inevitably, your mind wandered back to your career, to the reboot you didn’t even care to be associated with a week ago. How could they even consider making it without you? You had poured years of your life into playing Courtney, your entire childhood. The show was practically synonymous with you and your character. It was ridiculous. What, were they just going to say Courtney died or something? They wouldn’t replace you, would they?

“I feel like my family is disappointed… not so much in the behavior, in me being an alcoholic, but… in the way I’ve hidden, the way I’ve had to hide everything from them,” a man to your left shared. You managed a sympathetic nod.

If they wrote you off, it wasn’t like you’d just disappear. People would know why you weren’t there, and if they didn’t know, they’d look for the reason why. Their wholesome little reboot was tarnished whether they liked it or not, so they might as well have you back.

The room went silent as the guy to your left finished up his share. You crossed your legs and picked at the distressing on your jeans. Across the room, Dieter cleared his throat. You snapped your head up immediately, then looked back at your pants, trying to play it off.

“Hi, my name is Dieter Bravo, and I’m an addict,” he recited.

“Hi, Dieter,” the room answered back.

“Uh, yeah, fear,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fear has kind of, uh, been in charge here for a while now, I think. I’m afraid of a lot of things. Afraid of failing, of losing what little I have left. I think I’ve spent the majority of the last, I don’t know, twenty years, just afraid – scared shitless – and operating from that place.”

You glanced up, surprised by the vulnerability. He leaned forward, his forearms settling on his thighs. As his head tilted down you could see his eyes behind his glasses, fixed on the ground in front of him.

“I know it’s me, you know, making the decisions, ultimately,” he continued, his voice unsteady. “But the filter that every thought and every decision is going through is just afraid. Before I came here, I was working on a project, a project that a lot of people are counting on, people who have been very good to me. And now I think I've fucked that up.”

You perked up. That sounded like you. For a minute, you forgot who was speaking, instead caught up in hearing your own experience validated. 

“And when I think about how I’ve messed that up now, how I’ve delayed that project indefinitely, it’s tempting to get caught up in the guilt… like, feeling guilty is, I guess, easier than admitting I was afraid. I can – uh, I’ve gotten very good at figuring out how to treat guilt, if you know what I mean.”

He tapped the side of his nose, eliciting a few knowing chuckles from around the circle. Wait – ‘delayed indefinitely’? As in, ‘resuming eventually’?

“Anyway, that production is very upset with me, and knowing that I’m holding that up puts the pressure on me to find something that works. So I now have the next three months to do something, anything, other than reacting in fear. I think–”

“You’re going back to work?” You interrupted. Heads around the room turned in unison to look at you.

“No cross-talk, please,” the meeting facilitator said.

“Yes, I am.” Dieter answered, his brows raising, eyes meeting yours and lingering there for a moment before continuing. “I think - I hope, that I’m in a position this time around to do something differently, and that maybe examining those, uh, fearful reactions will help me do that. But even saying that kind of makes me worry. In the last few years, I’ve become an tolerated eccentric at best, and a liability at worst. I almost feel like I’ll let people down if I take away the behavior they’ve grown accustomed to disapproving of.”

Unbelievable. He was going back to work. Here you were begging to be allowed back onto a stupid reunion special and he had a production waiting for him when he got out of here. A movie, too, probably - he didn’t do TV. You huffed quietly, crossing your arms and leaning back in your chair. Sadie tapped your knee with hers, giving you a questioning look. You shook your head and turned your attention back in front of you.

“I was sober for months when I was married - really, for a long time, longer than I’d ever been off anything. This summer we started shooting, everything was going great, then I got home and… I just imploded. I don’t know what happened. Even I wanted to stop. It was like I was on a plane that was fuckin’ nosediving and I had no idea who was in the cockpit."

You snorted. You couldn’t hold it in anymore. This was unbelievable.

Dieter, along with everyone else in the room, turned his head to look at you. He was leaning forward in his chair with his forearms on his thighs, raising his eyebrows at you inquisitively as his glasses rode down his nose.

This was interesting, he thought. It wasn’t ideal, but he liked that you were finally talking to him. His instincts told him to push.

“Something funny?” He asked.

“So, what is this, a vacation to you?” You spat. “I mean, what, you’ve been to rehab, like, 6 times now, right? You summer in Ibiza and winter in Aspen and spend a few weeks somewhere like this whenever you need a little damage control, then it’s back to work.”

Aspen? You thought he was an Aspen guy?

“It isn’t exactly that simple.”

“Guys,” the facilitator attempted, unsuccessfully.

“But you go back to work, right? Everyone on that project is just waiting for you to finish up here?” The resentment was spilling out of you.

Fuck, you were mad at him. He raised his palms outward slightly, half-shrugging.

“It doesn’t even matter to them that you’re in rehab and that everyone knows?”

“It’s a project I’ve worked on before,” he clarified. “A sequel. So I guess they’re being easy on me.”

“Unbelievable,” you scoffed again, shaking your head. “That’s not fair.”

A woman seated to your left chuckled, and you whipped your head around to glare at her.

“What?” You snapped.

“You’re one to talk, princess.” She replied coolly. “You know, most of us ‘little people’ would’ve been arrested for a DUI, not in a luxury rehab.”

You froze, jaw dropping open as you stared back at her.

"Alright, everyone, let's settle down," the facilitator interjected, trying to regain control of the room. "We're all here with the same goal, remember? ‘Restoring ourselves to sanity’?"

You slumped back in your chair, pulling your knees up to your chest, while she continued. Dieter adjusted his glasses to cover his eyes but maintained his posture, watching you for the remainder of the meeting.

The veneer of Promises had worn off quickly. You were frustrated, you were restless, but now more than anything, you were humiliated. If they didn’t have the sense to keep you and Dieter separated before, hopefully they did now.

It didn’t help that the main thing that occupied your time here was a nonactivity - not doing drugs, not drinking alcohol. That’s what you did in rehab: not drugs, not drinking. So on a night like tonight, after a day like today, during which you normally would’ve called someone up and took shots until you blacked out, all you could do was ruminate on what happened.

You snuck out the meeting early, sulked through a therapy session and then immediately headed to the gym to get on the treadmill and run for as long as you could - which admittedly, wasn’t very long. Turns out long-term drug use affects your stamina. Who knew.

You slowed down to a walk, huffing and bracing yourself on the arms of the machine.

You regretted snapping at him, but still - it wasn’t fair. It was bad enough that he was here. You felt embarrassed even being in the same room as him, knowing the condition he saw you in the last time you met. There was no way you were going to be able to reap any of the benefits of rehab because there was no fucking way you were going to share anything personal with a dude you hooked up with when you were wasted. Now he had to rub his flourishing career in your face, too?

How was it so much easier for him? What was he doing differently? Dieter was as famous as you were, you figured, if not more. He was a bona-fide movie star. Why wasn’t it a massive scandal that he was here? That it wasn’t even the first time?

You slowed to a stop, stepping off the treadmill and wiping the sweat from your face. The gym was quiet at night, which you liked. You wiped down the machine and threw on your robe, heading back towards your bedroom to shower and turn in.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, this entire facility had a 10pm curfew. You stared at your feet as you walked, counting tiles aimlessly. You had to get out of here. In your head, you devised various plans to escape. Jumping out the window and making a run for it wasn’t totally off the table, but you might need to get more creative. 

You could call Corinne in the morning and tell her about Dieter. It’d be embarrassing, but you could explain what happened at Lush, tell her that he’s a reminder of your past that’s hindering your recovery. Some bullshit like that.

It’d been almost a week, anyway. That was an eternity in a place like this. Maybe if you really sold it she’d even let you off the hook and you wouldn’t have to go to another rehab, either - you could just go back to ‘house arrest’ at her place until someone decided to hire you again. It could work.

You rounded the corner, looking up and immediately stopping short. Dieter was headed down the hallway in the opposite direction, his gray t-shirt, thick cardigan, and soft pajama pants complemented by a pair of Crocs that squeaked on the linoleum. When your eyes met his, he looked weary, like he had just been roused from sleep for the last nightly check-in, but the glimmer when he saw you was unmistakable. 

You furrowed your brow, shifting your gaze back down to the ground and shuffling past him quickly.

“Hey,” he called after you. “Wait a minute.”

He followed you, footsteps growing closer behind you as he rounded the corner, and just before he could put his hand on your shoulder, you turned around to face him.

“What do you want?” You asked, your tone sharp.

He stopped just short of where you stood. When your eyes darted at his outstretched hand he pulled it away, raising both hands up before shoving them into the pockets of his sweater.

“Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me,” he began, exasperated. “You don’t have to. Really. But we’re both here for the next ninety days, and as–”

“Eighty-four,” you corrected.

“Eighty-four,” he repeated. “As long as we’re both here, I think it’s gonna make things easier if we can at least be friendly. You can hate me, that’s fine, but in the interest of making this worthwhile, and, uh, step 9, I just want to apologize to you.”

You lifted an eyebrow, your arms crossed at your chest inside the oversized terry cloth sleeves of your robe. He did?

“You do?”

“I do.”

“For what?”

“For…” He hesitated, confusion apparent in the tilt of his head. “For the last time I saw you. For taking advantage of you at Lush.”

He paused for a moment, trying to get a read on your expression.

“Oh, man, if you were too drunk to even remember meeting me, I really have to beg for your–”

“I remember,” you interrupted, shaking your head. “I wasn’t that fucked up.” Three-quarters of a lie.

He nods. “Anyway, I’m sorry for taking advantage of you like that. I know better,” he pauses. “It was, uh… a dark time.”

You let it sit for a moment. He really seemed sorry - or at least he looked it. Big brown eyes finally free of dark sunglasses and looking into yours, searching for your mercy. It was strange. It hadn’t even occurred to you to be upset with him for that - you were just embarrassed. Most of the hook-ups you’d experienced as an adult had taken place under the influence to some extent, and nobody had ever apologized to you afterwards.

“It’s okay. Thanks.” You finally said. “Although, really, I guess we can just call it even.”

His eyebrow cocked upwards, the shadow of a smirk and tilt of his head silently requesting an explanation. 

“I stole a bag of your coke that night, that's what I was after when I went to your table,” you explained, amusement growing on his face at the confession. “If it makes you feel better, I got a DUI that night, and when the police searched my car they found it. That’s why I’m here. If it hadn’t been for that, I probably could have just spent the weekend in the hospital being treated for ‘exhaustion’ and been back to work Monday morning. So, I guess I took advantage of you, too.”

“Yeah, well, it’s what we do,” he laughed, vaguely gesturing at the hallway before planting his hand on the wall behind you.

Only now did you realize that he had subtly cornered your body into a doorway. He smelled the same as you remembered, minus the alcohol, and the way his broad frame was caging yours felt familiar and comforting. You caught yourself staring as you let the silence hang, taking in the lines around his dark, soft eyes, and you fought the urge to drag your thumb along the patch in his beard. God, he was handsome. You might not have been completely out of your mind that night.

Encouraged by your big, beautiful eyes gazing up at him and against his better judgment, he leaned down to purr lowly in your ear.

“I was disappointed that you didn’t come find me, though,” his said, the hair on his chin barely grazing your cheek and sending goosebumps down your spine. “I should be apologizing for not finishing the job.”

On a reflex, you giggled, but then the thought caught up to you.

“Wait a minute,” you put your hands to his chest and pushed away slightly to look him in the eye. “You mean we didn’t…”

He shook his head. “No, we didn’t.”

“Oh, my god, thank god!” You exclaimed, throwing your head back, unable to contain your laughter. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, relief that you hadn’t slept with this man (who you, admittedly, really wanted to sleep with) flooding through you. Tentatively, he hugged you back, wide palms going flat at the small of your back. 

“Sorry, not ‘thank god,’ no offense, just… that wasn’t exactly my finest hour,” you explained as you pulled away.

“Yeah, I heard,” he started to respond, but he’s cut off by a staff member at the end of the hallway.

“To your rooms, please,” she ordered, firmly.

He turned to acknowledge her, then back to you, following as you made your way toward your bedroom.

“So, we’re okay?” He asked as you reached your door. “Promise you’re not going to yell at me at any more meetings?”

“I promise.”

“Good. ‘Cause I think people are starting to choose sides, and I’m not sure I stand a chance against you.”

“Yeah, right, they hate me,” you said, dipping your head to laugh. The two of you stood there in your doorway for another moment, hand lingering on the door as you stood inches from one another.

“Goodnight, Dieter,” you finally said, all low and decisive.

“Goodnight.”

You peeked out at him until the door shut completely. When it did, you folded against it, clutching your hands at your chest and smiling wider than you had in weeks.

[arecaceae175]

for the pride month prompts:

trans sky.

he can't breathe? maybe he should take off his binder and stretch? has he got cramps? does he wanna sleep? the chain just supporting him. mentions of t4t groozelink?

twilight cheering him up and showing off top surgery scars???

HI HELLO I WENT BONKERS WITH THIS ONE

Summary: Twilight and Legend notice Sky struggling with his binder, then Sky grapples with jealousy. 2.2k words, angst and hurt/comfort.

I hope this is ok! It's a bit more angsty than I intended, but oh well. I fit quite a few of the prompts in here. And it also got way longer than intended, but that's a good thing lol.

Warnings for lots of dysphoria and discussion of unsafe binding practices.

Excerpt under the cut :D

"Sit," Legend commanded, then plopped onto the ground herself. Twilight followed, concern still clearly displayed on his face. Sky grimaced as he sat, his binder pinching one of the rolls in his skin. He kept his eyes on the trees so he wouldn't have to see the way his body settled. It was always worse sitting. He couldn't easily adjust the tight fabric of his binder underneath his layers of tunics and chainmail, so he wiggled until the pinching stopped.

"Everything okay?" Warriors asked.

"I'll holler if we need anything," Twilight said. Sky appreciated the lack of audience as he sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Ew," Legend mumbled. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and threw it at Sky. Sky caught it with a wet laugh and used it to wipe the snot and tears off his face, though they weren't quite finished yet.

His chest ached. Crying always made the pain worse.

"Can you tell us what's going on?" Twilight asked.

Sky turned his head away. There was a bug hopping across the forest floor. He followed it with his eyes as a hand absentmindedly rose to rub his ribs.

"Shit. When was the last time you took off your binder?" Legend asked.

"Oh," Twilight hummed in realization. "I knew you looked out of breath after the battle this morning." 

Sky choked on a sob. He knew he wasn't supposed to wear his bonder during exercise. With the speed Warriors was leading the group with, the hiking itself qualified, and he was already overworked and out of breath after the run-in with monsters. Sky had thought for a long time about whether or not to wear the binder when he got dressed that morning, but one look at his reflection in the clear lake water and his decision was made for him.

"I'm sorry," Sky mumbled. His head dipped forward, chin resting against his chest. He desperately wanted to curl into a ball, but the fabric of his binder was digging into his skin enough just sitting upright.

"Don't apologize," Twilight said softly. "It's okay."

"I don't even know why I'm crying," Sky said through his tears.

"Do you want to change out of your binder for a break?" Twilight asked.

Sky shook his head as another sob broke through. He winced and a hand flew to his ribs. They were already bruised, and the crying hurt.

"Twilight was trying to be nice about it, but you don’t actually have a choice. You need a break." Legend's voice was harsh, but not unkind.

Twilight leaned forward and put his hand right in front of Sky's leg, as close to physical comfort as he could get. "Bodies are bodies, nothing more. Yours has carried you this far, so it deserves a break, yeah?"

Sky sniffed and nodded, reluctantly. He knew he was well over the recommended wearing time, and that was not counting the exertion of the day. Plus, Sky admitted to himself, his binder was really hurting. "Yeah."

[tiffanyvampiremama]

Who I am and what I write.

I've had a lot of new followers lately, and I haven't really introduced myself yet. I'm Tiffany and I write fanfiction under the username Vampiremama (Or Readingmama on FF.net but I'm moving away from posting there) I have several GO fics of varying length right now. I have included some info below if you are interested in checking any of them out. I am working on a new very angsty AU that will post after my current one, so if you like dark and gritty with a HEA, stay tuned for that one as well. My Current WIP (Is finished being written and posts every Monday) Hidden Canvases : Rated E AU, Human. Enemies to lovers. Excerpt: (Aziraphale POV) Of course, a man like that would also be gifted with talent. Just another example of the world giving all the best things to the wrong people. Aziraphale tried to be a good person; he wanted to be kind and gracious. And he was. But it didn’t come naturally. It was a learned skill, and people like Crowley reminded him just how much of an effort it really was sometimes. But being kind didn’t mean being a doormat or to watch his friends be abused by callous, big-city men. Sometimes, the kindest thing he could do was to just avoid a situation. Besides, he would only have to see Crowley on Saturday mornings at his class. And even that was limited. He was only there for the summer. And maybe he wouldn’t come back.  Cake by the Ocean. A Guess the Author Prompt from the Soft Omens Discord group. 500 word limit, the prompt: Cake. Rated General Audience. Aziraphale Crowley has been hiding something from him. A Dirty Dive Bar. A very naughty one shot. A tryst in a dirty dive bar leaves our ineffables very satisfied. Rated E Excerpt:

As soon as Crowley was through the door, Aziraphale pushed him back against it. He reached and clicked the lock in place even as his lips made their way to Crowley’s. Crowley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale, his surprise at the sudden change of events only throwing him off guard for a moment, and he plunged his tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth. And, oh, was his tongue a revelation. Such wicked things he could do, Aziraphale thought.

Aziraphale felt his heart hammering in his chest as he broke the kiss, his hands going to Crowley’s belt.

“I thought I was the one seducing you,” Crowley said, panting, as he watched his trousers be pulled open.

“Consider me seduced, “ Aziraphale retorted with a wave of his hand as he slid down to his knees. “Although, I’m a little embarrassed at myself, those pick up lines were horrendous.” The Lies I Would Tell for You: My second Season 2 fix it. This one is longer and more angst filled compared to Mistakes Were Made. Different plot ideas, and HEA outcome. Rated E Excerpt:

Crowley sat staring at the wine glass on the table. It seemed like a right shame to water down the wine, but he needed the look of the wine to calm his nerves, trick his brain. Steady his nerves. Had it really only been a month since he and Aziraphale had started the bottle. It felt like ages ago, but every minute since Aziraphale left with The Metatron had felt like an eternity. He thought maybe after a day, Aziraphale would come to his senses. Deep down, Crowley knew that the angel would put his duty above all else. Together, they had found ways to cut the corners, but now that he was alone, Aziraphale would be by the book. It wouldn't take him long to forget. Six thousand years wasn't all that much time in the scheme of forever. 

He picked up the thermos. It hadn't been hard to get Muriel to fetch him more. They were a much easier mark than Aziraphale had been. But also less fun. He was so clever but also so curious. He was perfect. 

Crowley thought about what his existence would look like now. No Hell; he was free of that. He had Earth, and he did truly love Earth, but it was tainted now. His love of Earth was wrapped up with his love of his angel. It weaved through his life in what once felt like a beautiful vine and was now a type of cancer, eating away at everything inside of him. 

He unscrewed the lid off the thermos and topped his glass off. Steeling his nerves, he lifted his glass, his eyes swung heavenward, and he cheered.

"To the world." The Cuddle Cafe: A warm hug in fic form.(One Shot) Set during the years where they took care of Warlock. Crowley is so touch starved he stumbles into a professional cuddle cafe. Rated T Excerpt:

Like a beacon, a neon light caught his eye from a building across the street. The sign read Cuddle Cafe. Crowley stopped and stared, and then looked around him to see if anyone was staring at him staring.

It wasn’t like he could go to Aziraphale and ask for a hug. Angels didn’t hug. Hell, demons didn’t either, but here he was, feeling the need for a kind touch. He could just walk across the street and go in, get what he needed, and get out. He could even smile at the human just so they wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable.

No, it was ridiculous, Crowley thought as he found himself walking through the door.

Mistakes were Made: Rate T. A quick Season 2 fix it fic. Excerpt:

“You don’t understand. I need to speak with God,” Aziraphale demanded, but his voice went too high and it sounded more like begging. Which was probably closer to the truth.

“Do you have an appointment?” the angel asked, looking up at him from behind her desk.

“An appointment? With God? Is that a thing I can do? In that case I would like to make an appointment as soon as possible.”

“You can’t make an appointment with God,” she looked at him like he was daft. “God makes an appointment with you. Of course She hasn’t made any appointments with anyone yet, but I’ll let you know if that changes.”

[bilightningwhumper]

Mangst 2024- Day 2

<<First . Masterlist . Next>>

Forever Prey (Red Riding Hood) Masterlist

"If you can't trust yourself right now, trust me."

Summary:

Sienna's going into heat and Rae's there to help Potential spoiler excerpt from "Forever Prey"

Notes:

Not much of any warnings for this one. It's a bit angsty, but ended up more hurt/comfort fluff. Didn't mean for it to be this long, but you know, the characters do what they want to do, lol. Characters: Sienna- Red Riding Hood Rae- "Huntsman"

Sienna’s POV

Her skin was burning. Not overwhelmingly or painful yet, but she could feel it boiling under the surface. Tucking her head between her legs, she curled up more into herself on the couch.

Bad omegas didn't deserve a nest. Didn't deserve comfort. Didn't, didn't, didn't-

She stayed where she was when the door opened. Rae must have come home. How stupid did she have to be, staying out of her room like this? She should have been hidden away. Rae shouldn't have to deal with her right now. Stupid, stupid, stupid-

A hand on her shoulder made her flinch. The hand immediately left, so Sienna finally looked up to see Rae frowning at her.

"Did you hear me at all?"

Flinching again, Sienna should her head, stuttering, "S-sorry. I- I was, I mean..." Fog clouded her mind, the heat slowly becoming more unbearable. What had she been saying?

Cool hands rested on her forehead and the side of her neck. Her eyes fluttered closed at the feeling, leaning into the touch.

"I was asking why you weren't in your nest." Rae sounded concerned? Upset? "Your hear is coming on really fast. Why didn't you call me? I'd have come home early."

Sienna just shrugged, the foggy feeling taking over as Rae's scent surrounded her. She smelled like sea salt and sunshine.

"Come on, let's get you to your nest. It'll be more comfortable than the couch, yeah?"

Sienna tensed. "But I've been a bad Omega. The kitchen still needs to be cleaned and-"

"Chores can wait." Rae interrupted firmly. "Your comfort comes first right now."

Reluctantly, Sienna let herself be coaxed from the couch. They made it to the doorway of her room before she froze up. She waited for Rae to say something, but she just rested a hand against Sienna's back, waiting.

She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to think through the fog. "It's not that good. And kind of a mess. Maybe too small?"

Rae's soft chuckle followed by her scent surrounding Sienna in a cloud made her relax, leaning more into her hand and chest.

"If it's comfortable and makes you happy, then it's perfect, hun." Rae rumbled in her ear.

Sienna couldn't tell if the burning feeling was the heat setting in or her face flushing. She opened the door, tentatively pulling Rae to where she’s made her nest in the corner of her room. It was small, but big enough to be cozy for the two of them. She wanted more blankets and pillows, but there was only so much she could do without taking from Rae’s bed too.

“Are you happy with it?”

“… Yeah.”

Rae put her chin on Sienna’s shoulder. “That wasn’t a very convincing yes. What’s missing, hun?”

“I mean,” She cleared her throat. “Would it be okay if, well,” Her face burned more. “Could I take some of your things? Blankets, pillows, and stuff?”

A kiss on the side of her neck did not help the increasing burning feeling in her face. Or the feeling of slick starting to build up between her legs.

“Of course. It’s not like I’ll be in my bed since I’ll be here with you.” She moved to turn Sienna’s face towards her. “Do you want to get them, or stay here while I get things for you?”

Sienna rested her forehead against Rae’s, the fogginess coning back again. It was tiring, swinging from feeling to feeling.

“Can you?” she murmured, eyes closing.

“I can.”

Rae’s hands on either side of her face was the only warning she had before feeling lips on hers. Inhaling sharply, she melted into it, fingers twisting into Rae’s shirt. A purr started deep in her chest. She wanted her closer… closer….

Then Rae was backing away. “I’ll be right back,” she rumbled, her own face flushed as well as she traced her fingers along Sienna’s jaw with her fingertips. “You should get settled… Omega.”

Sienna’s knees weakened again as she let out a small whimper.

Rae giggled at her, kissing her nose before leaving to get the blankets for the nest.

Letting out a shaky sigh, Sienna rubbed at her eyes. It’d been so long since she’d had a proper heat like this. Was she supposed to be this muddled? Even in pre-heat?

She plopped down in her nest, pushing things around to prepare for the additional materials. Everything had to be perfect for her alpha.

A gentle clucking sound announced Rae’s return with an armful of blankets and pillows.

“You’re stressing again, hun. Is something wrong?” Rae asked as she put everything down at the edge of the nest.

Sienna grabbed the pillows first, setting up more of a frame for the sides. “It’s nothing.” she said, smiling over at Rae while she worked.

All she got was an unconvinced look in return.

“I just-” She pushed back at her hair. When had she started sweating? “My head feels like static and I’m nervous that this isn’t normal and I’m not good enough for you and…” She gasped for air, tears brimming in her eyes. “I can’t think and I don’t know how to be a good omega anymore.”

Sienna couldn’t bring herself to look up in the silence after her outburst. Her heat had barely started and she’d already fucked it up.

“Sienna, may I come into your nest?”

Something in Rae’s tone made her shiver. She nodded, sitting back so Rae could sit beside her. Once Rae got settled, Sienna leaned into her immediately, resting her burning forehead against Rae’s shoulder.

“Hun, you don’t need to be perfect to me.” Rae said, rubbing Sienna’s back. “Your heats are going to be weird to get used to for a while, especially now that you’re somewhere where you feel safe. And besides, life is messy. I’d chose being a mess with you over perfection with someone else any day.” She gently lifted Sienna’s chin up to meet her eyes. “If you’re willing for me to be your Alpha, I’d be honored to have you as my Omega. Even if you weren’t my soulmate.”

Nuzzling into Rae’s shoulder, Sienna couldn’t help but smile. “Sap.” Then heat hit her like a wave and she shuttered, clutching the blankets between them. She could feel the slick starting to leak through her shorts. As much as she tried, she couldn’t hold back a whine.

“You okay?”

She nodded, taking slow breaths. “I think pre-heat is just about done.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Groaning, Sienna sat back. “Well, clothing hinders things. I mean-” she blushed for what felt like that for the thousandth time. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it so bluntly.”

Rae just shook her head, smiling again as she took her shirt off. “It’s okay, you’re on a one track mind at the moment. Kind of nice to see you letting your guard down like this.”

It was very hard not to stare at Rae… Her arms. Her tan skin. Her chest. So soft, smooth….

“Sienna,” Rae took hold of her chin again, amusement twinkling in her eyes. “Heat really muddles your brain, huh?”

Even though she knew Rae was only kidding, that made a chill run down Sienna’s spine.

“I, um,” She drew back, even though every instinct at her screamed to go the other way, into Rae’s arms. “Maybe this is too soon. I might take things too far. Or convince you to do something we don’t want, or-”

Rae cut her off again, cupping her face in her hands. “Sienna, you trust me, right?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Then if you can’t trust yourself right now, trust me. Trust me to keep things like we agreed before. You’ve been taking your meds, right?”

Sienna nodded again.

“And I have protection with me too. There’s very little chance we’ll have kids since I’m only knotting you once for the bonding mark. Then we have all the other toys and things to lessen the chance of me knotting you again. Okay?”

Little by little, Sienna relaxed again, leaning into Rae’s hands heavily. “Your hands feel nice.” she mumbled.

Rae pulled her into another kiss and Sienna responded eagerly, her own shirt joining Rae’s on the edge of the nest. Skin, hands, heat, scents mingling, gasping, moaning. Rae took control as Sienna felt herself devolve into her heat.

Her alpha would take care of her.

[coco-bean-1218]

ahhhhhh hello my friend :) for the writing prompt, how about "now look what you have done" for claire and roe?

Hello! Thank you for the ask!!

I must admit this one was tricky. I know it was supposed to be an angsty sentence because it was from 'In the moment', but it ended up being kinda fluff instead. I hope you don't mind! Claire and Roe have a relationship/friendship where they never fight, and things are always good with them. They understand each other more than anyone else in the company. Which intimidates her other love interests because of the expectations they have to live up to.

This is also a following scene for the excerpt I wrote with subsequent with Claire and Grant

---

Claire stared at her bandaged ankle and whinced at each sharp pain that shot through her foot.

She heard footsteps come up behind her and was relieved to see Roe back with more gauze for the gauge in her shoulder.

He sat down next to her and began unrolling the bandages, "Radios finally work again. Winters is on it talking to Speirs."

"Oh, yeah?" she said flatly.

"Yeah," Eugene confirmed. "Now, look what you've done. You've sent the whole battalion into an uproar. HQ will be thrilled to hear about this." His words were laced with sarcasm, and Claire couldn't help but smile.

"I like to keep everyone on their toes, you know?" she said, a hint of pride in her voice. "You never know what I'm gonna do next."

Eugene couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, that's for sure," he muttered.

Claire playfully punched him in the arm and feigned offense. He laughed, the sound filling the air.

"Alright, lemme take a look at that shoulder," he said, all seriousness now.

[crispyjenkins]

geraskefer "crispy has lost control of their life again" celebration sneak peek

this fic is really really heavy, in ways none of my other works are, so please read the following warnings closely even though i don't actually talk about any of those heavy things in this excerpt this is, however, a story that's very near and dear to me and i really love the world building i've done with it so far, and am actually almost done writing it but it's over 40,000 words and just wanna talk about it 😭

inspired by of music and motion and love (and it’s companion piece) by writethroughthenight on ao3.

warnings/tags: implied/referenced/off-screen sexual assault, canon-typical violence (non-sexual tho), stregobor-typical human experimentation, implied and canon-typical fantastical racism, implied/referenced torture (like it’s not really torture but it’s not NOT torture y'feel?), jaskier whump, no post-mountain geralt vilification, poly-heavy like this is very much a poly fic, minor mind/body control but no outright possession, good valdo marx, jaskier is the sandpiper, angsty but very much with a HAPPY ENDING

 She sighs and lets him kiss his cheek before ushering their strange little party out the door and down a servants’ passageway to the stables. To his relief, it’s just their means of escape, and they don’t actually have to deal with smuggling a horse or two; despite knowing she’ll be back the next time Geralt buys a chestnut mare, Jaskier still mourns whatever current Roach Geralt had to have left behind somewhere between Cintra and Temeria. 

  Also in their favour is the fact that everyone here is quite used to sneaking and hiding for their lives, so it’s quick work to move through Wyzima’s dark streets towards Dandelion. Any time Jaskier has to do something Geralt or Yennefer don’t expect (paying off a watchman here, steering them around patrols there, and even whistling a short code to one of the side business’ other Birds to allow them through a locked gate to cut through someone’s garden), Jaskier feels their curious and considering stares at his back, Yennefer’s with grudging admiration, and Geralt’s with slightly-accusatory guilt. 

  Whatever, Jaskier doesn’t owe Geralt anything, least of all an explanation for his unexplainable skills.

  Luckily, he only has to kill one person during the trek, one of Foltest’s soldiers that recognises Geralt as they pass, and Jaskier doesn’t have time to hesitate, flicking a terribly-thin throwing dagger from his left sleeve with enough force to stick it through the soldier’s throat to the hilt. After he retrieves his dagger, Geralt is back to not looking at him at all.

  They reach Dandelion in just over an hour thanks to shortcuts and an old smuggling tunnel, arriving at a small two-storey cottage in a relatively nice area of the city, with no distinguishing features except a single paper Dandelion in a vase in the curtained front window. Jaskier leads them around to the back (the front doors of all the safehouses are sealed and barred, with magic and wooden slats both), and uses a small burst of his own magic to unlock the door to the cellar.

  He makes sure everyone enters ahead of him, closing and relocking everything with the same touch of chaos that has Yennefer’s nose twitching, then ushers Destiny’s Trio up into the cottage properly.

  It’s sparsely decorated, it’s not exactly meant to house anyone for more than a night at most, but the warm wood furniture and whitewashed walls are actually quite cozy, if Jaskier says so himself. Amused, he watches understanding dawn on everyone’s faces when they see the collection of paper dandelions tied together on the kitchen table.

  Yennefer turns to Jaskier. “Dandelion is the safehouse?”

  “Of course, my dear witch!” Flouncing into the kitchen, he quickly —though not quite painlessly— unslings his satchel to drop it onto the table next to the dandelions. “So are Buttercup, and Chamomile, though in your defense Poppy is very much a person.”

  “Jaskier.”

  He winces, taking a deep breath before finally meeting Geralt’s golden eyes for the first time since he’d burst into Triss’ infirmary. Do Cirilla and Yennefer realise just how much emotion their stoic witcher is showing right then? Pain in the clench of his jaw, confusion and the fear of that confusion held in the tension of his shoulders, worry in the lines of his pursed lips?

  Fuck, this is why Jaskier never wanted to see Geralt again, because he remembers when Geralt used to look at him with that much emotion all the time, back before Yennefer fucked her way into both their lives, back before Geralt had lost them both.

  “Geralt,” he murmurs tiredly, sagging to lean on the back of the chair.  “Why do you have multiple safehouses?” The ‘Why do you need multiple safehouses?’ goes unsaid.

-

[bewitchingbooktours]

Marked Under the Midnight Sun by Susanna Strom #PNR #Shifter #FatedMates

Marked Under the Midnight Sun

Black Rock Guardians 

Book Three

Susanna Strom

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Cougar Creek Publishing, LLC

Date of Publication: May 21, 2024

ISBN: 9781960382092

ASIN: B0CKKXFYFC

Cover Artist: Lori Jackson 

Tagline: He was loaded for bear. And he still wasn’t ready for her… 

Book Description:

Viggo

I do jobs no one else in my pack can do. Dirty jobs.

Like kidnapping Liv Hagen.

I didn’t want to do it. I was just following my alpha’s orders.

I never thought my bear would think she’s ours.

But there’s no way I can keep her. The consequences are too dire.

So, when the time comes, I’ll have no choice but to surrender her to fate.

Even if it kills me…

Liv

Kidnapped, held captive, and used as a bargaining chip against the Black Rock Guardians.

Yeah. Seems about right for my luck.

But if the big, bad bear shifter thinks I’m going to submit to his—or anyone’s—will, he’s got another thing coming.

Which is why I’ll just have to ignore my attraction to the sexy jerk. It’s probably Stockholm syndrome, anyway.

I mean, it’s not like he’s my fated mate or anything… right?

Marked Under the Midnight Sun, Book 3 in the Black Rock Guardians Series, is a lightly angsty, enemies to lovers paranormal romance with plenty of spice and tense moments, and just the right amount of suspense, action, and adventure. Download today and get ready for the supernatural romance you didn’t know you needed.

Amazon     Kobo     Apple     BN     Books2Read      

Excerpt:

Liv huddled next to the campfire, a flimsy Mylar sleeping bag wrapped around her shoulders. Soaking wet, her cheeks flushed scarlet from the frigid air, the human was in trouble. The sun had dipped below the horizon and the temperature was plummeting.

I glanced at my shivering captive. “Gimme your coat, dress, and boots.”

“What?” she sputtered. “Dude, I’m not stripping in front of you.”

My lip quirked. Nobody but this feisty, gotta-be-freezing-her-ass-off woman would dare call me dude. Most pack mates cringed in my presence, and referred to me as Mr. Creed, or sir. Not Liv.

“You’ll never warm up if you spend the night in wet clothes.” I pointed at the sticks wedged into the ground next to the campfire. “I’ll put your things close to the flames to dry out.”

“Forget it.” She yanked the emergency sleeping bag up to her ears.

I bit the inside of my cheek. I never got a good look at her body underneath the sodden down parka, but her legs were shapely and I bet her figure matched.

What the hell am I doing?

Was there any thing more pointless, more self-destructive than being attracted to the woman I’m turning over to my heartless alpha?

Time to shut this shit down.

I stepped toward her and deliberately shaped my features into an intimidating scowl.

“You telling me you’d rather freeze to death than take off your wet clothes?”

She didn’t answer, probably realizing how foolish she’d sound if she said yes.

“My orders are to bring you safe and sound to Medved. I can’t let you get hypothermia.”

“And a flunky like you doesn’t dare disappoint his alpha, right?” Scorn dripped from her voice.

“That’s right.” No point in taking offense when she spoke the truth. I lowered my chin and put command into my voice. “So either you strip or I’ll do it for you.”

Color returned to her cheeks in an angry flush. “Try it, buddy, and you’ll lose a hand.” I could easily overpower the mouthy woman and peel her clothes off. Grizzly shifter versus human? Hell, no contest. Liv wasn’t stupid. She had to realize how powerless and vulnerable she was. Still, she jutted out her chin, and her pretty brown eyes shot sparks.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I debated how to handle the insolent human. I’d ripped her away from everybody and everything she knew. Her next few days were bound to be rough, especially if she shot off her mouth in front of Medved. Why not cut her some slack? If she saw me as a reasonable man, she might be more willing to listen when I warned her to mind her manners in front of my alpha.

“How about I turn around and look the other way while you undress?” I proposed.

The fingers clutching the top of the sleeping bag had turned bone white, and she trembled from the cold. “Fine,” she said reluctantly. “Do it.”

I put my back to her. “Just don’t get any crazy ideas about picking up a branch and clobbering me.”

She snorted. “We’re in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.” I heard rustling as she dropped the sleeping bag and shed her wet clothes. My imagination filled in the details as I imagined her naked behind me. “Even if I managed to knock you out, where would I go?”

About the Author:

Susanna loves to read―and write―stories full of complex characters who find love, hope, and connection while navigating through an exciting and dangerous world. Susanna lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband and two very spoiled cats.

Website: https://susannastrom.com/

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/h6WRRb

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susannastrom.author/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/susanna-strom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susannastromauthor

Susanna’s Stormers, Facebook Readers Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1572291033136914 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20463245.Susanna_Strom

[androxys]

Ranking my WIPs based on how likely they are to ever get finished (ft. what they're actually called in my Drive)

Very Likely:

Ghost Dragon: VERY likely. Is actually likely to be a chapter or two longer than I thought, because I just keep writing it.

Firecrackers: I only have one vignette left for this story, but it's the hardest one so far. Still, I don't foresee myself not finishing it.

Hello Baby, Hello World: My love letter to Stephanie Brown, taking the world tour though her life. I can't wait to get to this one.

Ken and Barbie: The sequel to Can't Prove it. I know how it starts, and I know how it ends, and I even know some of the twists and turns in the meantime. I just need to flesh out the middle.

Morality Bug: Jean-Paul Valley vs. the Religion of Crime on a boat. Need I say more?

Oracle Year One: My love letter to Barbara Gordon. I plotted out her first year recovering and becoming Oracle, and am folding in a blend of Earth-One, New Earth, and Infinite Frontier elements.

The Word as Heard: A reworking of Final Crisis to make it less... like that. Now with more New Gods!

Timber Rename: The explicit third part of Couldn't Look Away (Even If I Wanted). Tim and Bernard's first time having sex together. Still trying to work out a good title.

Tim and Dick Puberty Fic: Tim goes to Dick as his "trusted adult" after health class. Dick does not feel like an adult, nor should he be Tim's trusted one. Brother acquisition ensues.

Okay this got long so the less certain WIPs are all under the cut

Maybe Someday:

0 For More Options: I'd like to get back to this one, honestly, but don't know when. This was an OC-centric fic about a guy who works for an emergency assistance fund in Gotham, based on my own experience working in nonprofits.

Cui Bono: A Checkmate story! I'd like to get back into this one, honestly. Sasha and the gang goes up against a meta whose power is to open any lock. I would say I'm probably going to write it someday, I just need more practice drafting political thrillers.

Bodyodyodyody: This title was not final. A Timber date.

Educations from Cinema: Another Timber date fic. Probably won't return to this one either--there was no plot, just them being cute. This one and Body were both very important to the process of learning how to write What Does the Fourth of July Mean to You, to be fair.

JLA Year One: My take on a JLA Year One story, combining some of my favorite elements from the different Years One.

Shaggy Dogs: I don't write Joker stories. I haven't figured out how to do one that seems interesting to me. This was Bruce and Robin!Dick when a woman is killed with all the trademarks of the Joker... but the man himself is in Arkham. As I review it now, I realize how Devil's Advocate it is.

Stupid Games, Stupid Prizes: A DickBabs fic where Barbara goes toe to toe with the City Council. Focused on civilian heroics and the power of local government.

Sweater Weather: Bernard finds out about Tim. Tim takes it badly and flees to the beach. Bernard follows. I can definitely see how working on this primed me for Fourth of July. I may go back if I want to practice more angsty style writing.

Tim's Day Off: I'd like to return here, but I don't know what to make him do. Maybe the plot will be people forcing him to actually take it easy on his day off. Or things keep coming up.

JLA Charity Gala: My Met Gala for the Justice League. I want to write gala shenanigans. I want to write a paragraph long description of a dress. I just don't know when I'll have time.

Graveyard Darlings:

(Cat)Walking Wayne Manor: On the other hand, very unlikely, unless I post just an excerpt. This one was supposed to be my architecture tour of Wayne Manor with a Selina POV, but it kept not working. On the plus side, though, it helped me refine my Manor floorplan.

April is the Cruelest Month: This one needs to go to the graveyard--it was an attempt for me to write 100 words for every day in April, with a Dick POV. I definitely didn't do that, but the idea behind this fic found its way into the DNA for my Oracle Year One WIP

Christmas in June: This fic taught me that I'm not meant for angst fic as a genre. This one was supposed to be about the first dinner party Barbara throws after getting out of the hospital, but Bruce not coming because he's too caught up trying to stop DitF. It just didn't come together, and won't.

Coffee Shop AU: This one was just Steph being a college student. Never going to write more than the one paragraph, but it was good practice for Steph's voice.

Delphi on Rooftops: This was the last conversation Dick and Barbara had before Dick moved to New York and Barbara retired Batgirl. I couldn't make it long enough to feel like it went anywhere, but it may find life as a flashback sequence in another, longer fic.

Mark the Spot: A Red X vs. the Titans fic. I have a specific headcanon of Red X as a sort of mantle passed down thief to thief, because I wanted Dick and Tim to go up against two generations of Red X with their respective generations of Titans. This idea may still come back, but not from this fic.

Red and Redder: See above. Same deal, Red X fic, wasn't working.

Grief: A fic about Tim after Bruce's not-funeral. Would potentially tie into the Lazarus Civil War idea I had, but I didn't get more than a sentence into it.

Water Lilies: Tim and Barbara go swimming, talk about life. Was set just before War Games, but I couldn't get any of it to feel natural.

[earthblooded]

Wip Wednesday

Been a looooong time since I've done one of these but it's also been a long time since I've written anything.

This is for my ongoing story illicit affair on ao3, and the beginning of chapter 3 is under the cut.

Link to the first two chapters are heeeeere

Rating is M to be safe

This fic was supposed to be fairly lighthearted but I accidentally made this excerpt angsty. Oops.

Rayla watched as the clock in the corner of her monitor changed to 18:00 and she sighed as she tidied away some papers and shut down the computer. She rubbed her eyes, leaning back in her chair, while she often stayed late, her reasoning today differed to the usual deadlines.

Her avoidance of the world outside her office extended to lunch and coffee breaks too, so her back ached from sitting in the same position, her eyes were strained, and crumbs still speckled her desk from her working lunch despite the many attempts to clear them all.

She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, but she just needed that space today to think it all through. Though, instead of strategies to put this to bed, her mind often wandered to other details, namely those in bed. Her mind was hazy that morning, but it took little time for it all to come flooding back, his heavy breath in her ear, strong hands at her waist, lips touching every inch of her.

Shuddering as she stood, she chastised herself for the umpteenth time that day. It was precisely those thoughts that she needed to avoid if they were going to get past this. She needed sleep, or coffee, or a slap across the face to pull herself together. Regardless, tomorrow would be better, she was determined for it to be.

She grabbed her coat and shouldered her bag as she closed her office door, almost walking straight into-

“Callum!” He stepped back suddenly, as if burned, and clambered to apologise. Rayla waved a hand, indicating her forgiveness, and smoothed her hair while she waited for her nerves to settle enough to speak “You’re still here? That’s dedication.”

“Oh, uh... I was just leaving,” he rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her gaze. “I just prefer to finish what I started, better jumping off point for the next day, you know?”

“Nothing wrong with that." It was a philosophy she followed herself, sometimes to her detriment, she remembered, so added “don't make a habit of staying late though, you don’t want burnout in your first week here.”

He nodded but said nothing, and Rayla chewed her lip.

“How was your first day?” She asked.

“Good, thanks.” He shifted uncomfortably, still looking everywhere but at her.

“Good. Any problems at all?”

“Nope.”

The conversation was strained, a stark contrast to the flow they had the night before. It was a natural progression, all things considered, a necessary evil, given the way they started and the power imbalance in play now. Still, Rayla struggled with the knowledge of how easy it could be, if things were different.

“Look, this will be difficult, but only at first. Once our feelings have died down, the awkwardness will go with it.”

He looked at her for the first time since they officially met, he eyebrow cocked and a teasing smile playing on his lips. “Oh, you have feelings for me then?”

Heat rose in her cheeks, as she realised her mistake. She'd never intended on admitting any feelings, but she was hard pressed to deny them now. “I’m not a robot.”

“Could have fooled me.”

Her mind went back to that morning in her office. The hurt she saw in him was hard to ignore, but what else could she do?

“It’s just difficult. I worked to gain respect here so it’s hard for me to just switch off work-mode when I’m here,” she said, gesturing around them at the empty office. “The last thing I need is a scandal.” A quiet settled between them for a moment, not an awkward silence, but a contemplative quiet as they stared at one another.

“I kicked myself this morning when I realised I didn’t have your number, didn’t even have your name.” She knew she shouldn’t say it, knew that it served nothing other than further difficulties for the both of them, but she needed him to know how she really felt. “I memorised your address though, you were going to be something special and I was going to… I don’t know. Corny romantic gesture or something”

“I would have liked that.” His voice was hollow and he looked at her with what looked like pain, and something else she couldn’t quite place. Whatever it was, it made her chest ache.

“Maybe in another lifetime.” She whispered.

[zainclaw]

Hello. I am a new symbrock shipper and i really appreciate your posts of the excerpts from the comics. But i was wondering which part of the comic people said the writer (the cates one) erased some kind of part about the eddie & venom? It gets me curious somehow and was wondering if you knew about this.

...I’ve actually been expecting someone to ask me about this, sooner or later. Kinda been dreading it, tbh XD But here goes.

(This is quite a long and serious answer, and I totally get if not everyone wanna read this, but as more and more people are becoming interested in the Venom comics, I do think this is an important thing to address.)

This is also a conversation about fandom.

*deep breath*

First of all. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and just like some people might be upset with the writers of a tv-show when things take a turn they don't agree with, some people are upset with the changes Donny Cates did when he took over the Venom comics after Mike Costa. Yes.

But here’s the thing:

The Venom comics have had many writers (and artists) over the years. I mean, jesus christ, the Venom symbiote’s very first appearance was back in 1988. That’s over 30 fucking years ago, people. At this point, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the feel of the story to be the same under every single writer that comes on. I just don’t.

In 1996 Len Kaminski gave us Eddie and his symbiote holding hands and giving each other chocolate gifts with love hearts and the line “it’s not human, but it’s given me things no girlfriend ever could” in The Hunger. Then, 20 years later, in 2017-2018, we had Mike Costa give us Eddie calling the symbiote ‘my love’ and ‘dear’ and ‘darling’ and refer to their partnership as a relationship and finally made them have a baby together in First Host.

(I strongly recommend using my masterlist of comics excerpts as a timeline here to understand what the hell I’m talking about.)

Sure, Cates hasn’t had Eddie calling the symbiote ‘my love’ or ‘darling’ since he took over. I guess you could say he “removed” that. Do I miss that part? Yeah. Of course. But as far as I know, no one had Eddie and the symbiote hold hands again in the 20 years following The Hunger, either. Different writers have told different stories, chose to focus on different things.

Cates chose to go down a very angsty route. To, for example, bring back the topic of the Venom symbiote having a past with Flash Thompson, of sometimes wanting to be with him more than Eddie, and feeling torn about who to choose, and Eddie’s pain and jealousy over that. This is something Mike Costa barely touched on during his run. Costa wanted domestic bliss, so that’s what he did. But that doesn’t remove past canon. Not for him, or anyone else.

I’ve said this before - have basically warned people who’ve come to me saying they wanna start reading the comics because of my excerpts - but the comics are fucking angsty. There’s a reason I’ve made a point of posting Symbrock highlights from the comics, rather than just say “read the comics, they’re just never-ending domestic Symbrock bliss” because they’re not.

Eddie Brock is not a happy man, and his relationship with the Venom symbiote has been obsessive, possessive and unhealthy at times. They have grown a lot and come a long way over the years, but this has always been a part of their canon. Eddie’s fear of being alone, of being the symbiote’s second choice.

This side of them is part of why I, personally, find their relationship so intriguing. How they can’t stay away from each other, even though they're both so flawed and not always good “people”, and don’t really know how to keep their relationship healthy.

And I think Cates must have felt the same way, because he’s chose to dive into Eddie as his own person. He’s made Eddie face his demons, his past, deal with his fear of being alone and do a lot of growing in ways I haven’t seen him do in any previous comics. He wanted to tell the story of Eddie Brock, to perhaps let him become a better person than he was, in order to make the relationship between him and the Venom symbiote better. And in my personal opinion, he’s doing a great job of that.

I’m very much against the “fandom hive mind” thing, and the thought of new people entering the Venom/Symbrock fandom and simply adopting the “we hate Donny Cates, he ruined the comics” mentality because they see so many other shippers feel that way, is so upsetting to me. I don’t like how entitled fans can become at times.

(I don’t know how many people who still follow me from my Teen Wolf days, but, damn, I’m embarrassed about a lot of stuff that went down between that fandom and the show runners/actors. It was a silly teenage show on MTV, and yet so many adults (myself included) thought they should have a say in where the story went, and not. It took me a long time to realize that, but there it is.)

Donny Cates did NOT deserve the hate he got from so many Symbrock shippers back in 2018. He’s NOT unfaithful to the story of Venom as a whole, and has NOT ignored previous canon. He openly spoke to and supported the Symbrock shippers on Twitter, before they tore him to pieces for not being Mike Costa. For, in their opinion, completely ignoring the loving nature of their relationship.

But like?

Cates is the one who gave us the Venom symbiote’s first “I love you, Eddie”. Cates is the one who gave us Eddie getting phantom limb syndrome from being apart from the symbiote. Cates is the only one, in my opinion, who’s given us SO many beautifully heartbreaking inner dialogues from Eddie like that about love and loss and longing, all referring to the Venom symbiote. Cates is the one who gave us the exchange “You found me” / “Always” that I’m still crying about.

My point being: I don’t think it’s fair at all to say that Cates has ignored the intimate relationship between Eddie and the symbiote. Because he hasn’t.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if, one day, when the Venom comics get a writer who actually doesn’t treat Eddie and the symbiote like romantic partners, people will look back on previous runs and say “wow I miss what Cates did.”

But,

I’m not here to convince anyone that Cates’ run is better than, or even as good as, Costa’s. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to love every Venom comic that’s come out in the past 30 years written by several different writers. That’s unrealistic. You’re allowed to have a favorite Venom writer. You’re allowed to think that where Mike Costa’s comics ended, Eddie and the Venom symbiote’s story ended, for you. You’re also allowed to, like me, enjoy the angsty and slow burn story currently being told by Donny Cates.

You don’t have to hate Cates just because you’re a Symbrock shipper.

That’s all I wanted to say, more or less.

[enchantzz]

Fic recs 4

These are the fics that I have enjoyed reading since my last fic rec list. The list is quite long, since I’ve read a lot :-) Check them out and give the writers some love.

If you are reading any of the stories, please consider leaving a comment and consider reblogging. This helps spread the visibility of the wonderful stories, which are written by these amazing writers. If you are too shy, please consider leaving a message in an ask. You can do this anonymously if you like.

Enjoy reading !

Master list Fic Recs

Middle Earth and Middle Earth AU fics

The Hobbit Advent Calendar - Day 17: How do you shop for a king? By @lathalea

A lovely imagine on getting a gift for the King under the Mountain

Business & Pleasure by @linasofia

A hot fic that makes you want this to happen to you for real when you land that perfect job

Thorin Oakenshield x Fem!Reader (Modern AU)

Cruelty of Time by @laurfilijames

A beautifully written angsty Fili fic. Fili is recovering from the battle, but progress is slow and he is hurting.

Heirloom by @welcome-to-writers-haven

A lovely drabble about Kili giving you a necklace that’s been in his family for generations.

The Crown - by @guardianofrivendell

A lovely short story about @guardianofrivendell’s OC Tullaina and gossip about the King under the Mountain. Very amusing.

Other reads

The Man From Rome (book and upcoming tv show with Richard Armitage)

Penance - by @linasofia

Warnings: ⚠️ 18+ only and Please don’t read this if the thought of a priest breaking his vow of celibacy might offend you.

Father Quart fic. After avoiding church for a year, reader is returning for her first confession with the unattainable Father Quart.

This is a story unlike anything I have read. The writing is so beautiful and the stories are hot. Please heed the warnings.

The Man from Rome is about the handsome Father Quart, of the church's Institute of External Affairs, an arm of the Vatican intelligence, who investigates a message sent by a hacker of the Vatican.

The Last Kingdom (TV show)

Family Life with Finan - by @destinyisall-tlk

A wonderful imagine what family life would be like with Finan. It is spot on. It’s such a lovely imagine. I enjoyed this very much

The Last Kingdom, based on the Saxon Stories novels of Bernard Cornwell, re-tells the history of King Alfred the Great and his desire to unite the many separate kingdoms into what would become England. It’s also very much the story of Uthred and his band of brothers, who fight in the name of the King, while trying to find their own place in the world.

Damaged Goods - by @middleearthpixie

Stay Close (TV show with Richard Armitage)

There are 3 installments already in this story. The writing is so easy going, the dialogue is so good. Reading this felt like watching a movie in my head.

Following the events of Stay Close, Ray Levine has come to the US to begin a new life and is staying with Theo Bailey, the friend of a friend, who is quickly becoming his best friend and Ray is starting to wonder if there isn’t something more there between them.

Stay close is about dark secrets from the past that come to the surface years later. Richard Armitage plays Ray, a once-promising documentary photographer, who is now stuck in a dead-end job because of the things that happened in the past.

And a little self promotion

Mitchell’s Diary - Amy - @enchantzz

I’ve started writing new one-shots related to the series Arts and Vampires. They are excerpts from Mitchell’s diary. His thoughts, memories, drabbles. The first one is about how he met Amy, his current love of his life.

Art & Vampires is mainly about the relationship and developments around Mitchell, a vampire and Amy, a human. It’s about the vampire world, the supernatural, but also about history, cities around the world, art, antiques and adventures. Face claims include Aidan Turner, Richard Armitage, Mila Kunis, Bianca Lawson, Jaime Murray and Ben Barnes.

Divider by @firefly-graphics

[fuchstastisch]

So many interesting ones!

I’d like to hear more about „How to bring someone back from the dead“ and „Two days after Heiji dreamt of the apocalypse“ (sounds kinda angsty but fun 😂💕)

Oh and the Plotbunny-Farm :3

Thanks for the asks. :D

I will do separate posts for the storys so that they don't become too long.

"How to bring someone back from the dead" is actually based on this post by @hgk477 with the same name. It's a guide and I thought it would be good practice to write about Heiji following it because I liked the atmosphere it created. 

Here's an excerpt:

His breath rose in little puffs of smoke in front of him, but he paid no attention to the fleeting curls. In the past he would have enjoyed them, but not today. The leaves crunched under his boots as he struggled on and on through the undergrowth. He didn't know how far he had to run, or where, but he was sure of one thing: he wasn't there yet.

He had to keep going, to hang on longer. At least until the sun set. However, he could only guess how much longer that would take. The treetops in front of him towered meters into the sky, so that it was completely swallowed up by them. Further, simply further.

As it gradually became dark, he walked more slowly. He took each step carefully so that he would not stumble and fall. If he fell down, he would miss the glow afterwards and he didn't want that at any price.

The further he got, the darker it became. He didn't falter in front of the figures that the shadows played for him. Nor before the trees, which stretched out their long gnarled fingers after him. He had a goal and it was slowly taking shape before his eyes.

Not far from him, he had spotted the glowing light. It was burning his retina, blinding him for the first few seconds, but then he had become accustomed to the brightness. Now he approached it cautiously and closed his eyes.

"Kazuha," he called to himself. Kazuha was the name of the one he wanted to bring back. "I miss you so much," he whispered. "I need you. Now. Always."

He had almost reached the white light, and as he took the last step, it went out in the same moment. It didn't come as a surprise, he had known that, and yet it still gave him a slight stab in the heart. Now, with clammy fingers, he rummaged the flashlight out of his backpack to settle down on the ground under its protection. He had to sleep now, that was the condition, but that didn't made it any easier.

That he still somehow managed to fall asleep, did he realize when he woke up the next morning. Well, he couldn't really tell if it was morning, since the sky was still covered by the trees, but the forest seemed brighter and that was enough for him. He turned off the flashlight before rising.

He was now standing, just as he had been told, at the edge of a circle of mushrooms. Whether it had been there before, or had shot out of the ground overnight, could not be determined. But this was of secondary importance anyway. The main thing was that it was there, the fairy circle, and confirmed his hopes.

Very carefully, as if one wrong move could ruin everything, he pulled a bottle of water and a sandwich out of his luggage. He took a sip or two, took a quick bite of the bread - he didn't really have an appetite, but was afraid to deviate even a millimeter from the instructions - and set the rest down at his feet. Only then did he step into the circle. Placing the requested quarter on the ground with the head down, he told Kazuha that he was coming for her now. It helped, even if she didn't hear him.

When the coin had sunk completely into the ground, he put on a cloak and closed his eyes. He now felt his feet slowly sinking in as well, or at least imagined it. In any case, he didn't open his eyes until a smoky smell hit his nose and made its wings quiver. It smelled of rot and ... death.

Ignoring that fact as best he could, he stuffed the spare batteries into the handle of his flashlight and shined it into the tunnel ahead. It was long; he would have to hurry.

As he walked, the cold crept up under his skin. He had read that this was normal, but it didn't feel normal. He knew it, of course, the feeling when the wind whistled through your clothes, when even the thick layers of undershirt, T-shirt and sweater weren’t enough, but this was something else. It was as if the cold came from inside and nothing helped. But since he had a goal, he kept walking.

<<<>>>

List with all WIPs

[wangxianficrecs]

Tempo Rubato by Spodumene

Tempo Rubato

by Spodumene

E, 108k, wangxian

Summary:  Tempo Rubato: Italian; Stolen Time; The musical practice of diverging from the unrelenting and gradual rhythm for a short period of time in a piece, allowing for solo freedom.

Lan Wangji starts high school in perfect step with the rhythm of his uncle's expectations and his duty to his family.

He doesn't quite stay that way.

My comments:  In which lwj and wwx giddily fall for each other in high school, and that joy lasts for half the story before lan qiren clues in and ruthlessly separates them by some 5k miles. This results in utterly tasty, angsty shock for lan wangji, who is shipped off willy nilly to his brother in London, who, while sympathetic, still enforces lan qiren's desire that he never get in touch with wwx at all or else he'll be disowned. Lwj gets drunk and hurts himself, but then later gives up and becomes the automaton his family insists that he be. Which is how wwx finds him 13 years later when he returns from the US to charge an exorbitant amount from the Lan Academy for cyber security. Slowly the pair works out their issues (with many false starts and misunderstandings), and there's a happy ending.

This is a Persuasion au, which is a Jane Austen story I'm not familiar with, and didn't need to be, so that's good.

Excerpt:  from a conversation lwj overhears after the 13 year interval (did I say angst?):

Wei Wuxian lets out a short, sharp laugh. “Are you kidding me? It’s surreal. I barely recognised him.”

“Really?” Jiang Cheng asks. “He doesn’t look that different to me.”

“I swear, I almost didn’t know it was him,” Wei Wuxian insists. “I’ve never seen anyone so altered. He just looked so… dull. Pale and dull.”

Jiang Cheng snorts. “He’s always pale.”

Wei Wuxian shakes his head. “Not like that. More like, washed out. Washed up, really,” he says derisively. “It’s like he got small.”

“He’s still taller than you,” Jiang Cheng points out.

Wei Wuxian swirls his whiskey, ignoring his brother and looking thoughtful.

“I used to think he’d outshine us all, you know?” Wei Wuxian’s voice is quiet now. “He used to shine so brightly he was hard to look at. And now, well.” He takes a swig of his drink. “I told him once to go into music, but I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t. You need a lot of passion for that,” he almost sneers.

“No doubt,” Jiang Cheng agrees. “Can’t say I’d ever associate the word ‘passion’ with Lan Wangji.”

“Hm,” Wei Wuxian nods. “Me neither.”

Lan Wangji holds his breath and tries to feel anything besides the torturous clenching of his heart. He brings his right hand up to press against his chest, sliding it underneath his suit jacket, hoping to ease the ache. But all he feels is the perfect ridge of scar tissue underneath the thin fabric of his shirt, and it sears a line of shame across his palm.

“Come on,” Jiang Cheng says. “I need another drink.”

Wei Wuxian tosses back the rest of his whiskey and turns to follow his brother back to the bar, leaving Lan Wangji alone once more.

He shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks. What had Wei Wuxian said that he doesn’t deserve? Lan Wangji is a small person, with a small life. He has his work. He has his family. But he has no friends, and he definitely has no passion. And yet, the words still sting. They strike at something old and wounded and desolate at the very heart of him, and Lan Wangji is almost paralyzed by the pain.

If he’d felt the stirrings of an unbearable hope earlier tonight, reality is now rushing back to crush it into dust. Foolish, he thinks. Shameful.

modern au, high school au (first half, and then it’s 13 years later), crushes, drunkenness and self harm, POV lan wangji, dutiful and sad lan wangji, Persuasion au (Jane Austin), pining, misunderstandings, reconciliation, dom/sub undertones, top lan wangji, bottom wei wuxian, so much angst, separations, involuntary separations, loneliness, skin hunger, touch starved lan wangji, rough sex, (just the way they like it), happy ending, @spodumene

(You may wish to REBLOG as a signal boost for this author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)