#like the book on paper. there's a dryness . you can imagine it being kind of distanced in time

[harveylembecks]

jeremy irons lolita audiobook. it's so good i'm killing myself

[tiliamericana]

Muay Thai: 1.09

Nairi double checked the address Linden had texted her and looked back up at the set of buildings. They were squat and stuck together, looking kind of like a demountable set up someone had made permanent as best they could. The foundation was brickwork that looked more recent than the dirty siding, and about halfway up the wall it was all old windows, half of which were propped open.

The number she was looking for was around the side and about halfway down, and Nairi could smell cleaning supplies and cooking food, and hear discordant music as she walked up the ramp towards the door she was looking for. It was propped open a couple of inches by a worn paint can filled with concrete, a little angry face painted on it in red. She knocked on the window panel in the door. “Linden?”

The door swung all the way open, and Linden poked her head out, smiling at her. “There you are! Found it okay?”

She was completely bare faced for the first time since Nairi had met her, and while the denim cut offs were a familiar part of her wardrobe rotation, the oversize grey t-shirt was new, shapeless and paint spattered. There was also paint all along her forearms, some of which had managed to get onto her legs as well.

“Yeah,” said Nairi, holding up the paper bag. “And I brought lunch, as requested.”

“Oh, I’ll have to keep you around,” said Linden, grinning as she stepped back and opened the door properly to let Nairi in. She took the bag as Nairi stepped past her, digging in to retrieve her enchilada with a pleased noise.

“Having a… productive Tuesday?” asked Nairi as Linden let the door fall back into the paint can with a muffled clang.

Even with all of the windows propped open and the extractor fan wheezing loudly, the room still stunk of turpentine, paint, and something else chemical and sweet that she couldn’t quite identify. There was an unfinished counter running along one side of the room, cluttered with tubs of paint and half-filled bottles of oil, dirty jars and mugs, with an industrial sink at the end with an old microwaved plugged in next to it. One of its hinges was held on with electrical tape. The shelves under the counter had a lot of plastic tubs filling the space, labelled in masking tape and marker.

Linden crossed the room to a section where the floor was covered by an old bedsheet, sitting down on a wheeled office chair with the back broken off in front of an easel holding a canvas that was mostly pale green. She nodded as she picked up a tall ceramic mug with a lid, and she drank deeply from it, gesturing at a ratty couch under the windows on the wall. The mug had a strip of masking tape wrapped around it, ‘NO TURPS >:|’ scrawled on it in thick marker.

“Yeah, I got my wash layer down for the base of this bad boy,” said Linden, setting the mug back down and jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the canvas. “I spent a good chunk of last week fucking around with thumbnails, but your housewarming gift is officially on the way as of now.”

Nairi, sat on the couch. A strut creaked under her, threatening to crack. “You don’t have to—”

Linden waved her off. “I told you, your walls are too bare, and this is literally my area of expertise. How was your morning anyway?”

Nairi shrugged. “Okay, I guess? I really only got out of bed when you texted me.”

“Nice for some,” said Linden, grinning at her. “Layabout! How do you and Aggy get anything scheduled? She’s up by six and in bed by ten sharp.”

Nairi shrugged, unwrapping her own lunch and shifting uncomfortably on the terrible couch. “I guess we’ll find out; I’m having dinner at her apartment tonight.”

“Co-sy,” said Linden sarcastically, setting her enchilada on the folding table next to her ‘not turpentine’ and a clear jar filled with what was presumably turpentine. She picked up a flat paintbrush and dabbed it at her palette, rolling her chair forward and making a couple of light, decisive strokes on the green. “You two are enjoying yourselves, then?”

“I think so,” said Nairi, not entirely certain if she’d messed something up or was missing something. “Have you got plans for the night then? Or are you working?”

“Both,” said Linden promptly. “Got a hot date with a cool hook up, and then a much hotter date with the rest of next month’s rent check. Can I ask you a favour?”

“Sure,” said Nairi, chewing slowly. “For your cool hook up or next month’s rent?”

Linden turned her head and bounced her eyebrows at Nairi. “Next month’s rent check. Si’s kind of a dickhead, but he’s only dangerous if you don’t like T.S. Eliot or are allergic to, like, papercuts, or lignin, or something. I need a safety check in for when I finish my job. I have a couple of people I’d usually ask, but the one I normally go to during the week has a daughter in hospital for her appendix, and Flo takes melatonin to keep her schedule, like, regulated during semester so asking her to wait up on a school night is a no-go.”

“I should be able to do that,” said Nairi, nodding, partially because her only other option was asking what the hell ‘lignin’ was. “What do you need for it?”

“It’s just waiting for me to call when I’m finished with my job, or calling to check in, just to make sure I haven’t been murdered or whatever,” said Linden, leaning back a little to scan the lines she’d marked out on the canvas. “I’m booked for eleven, so I should be done before one. I’ll like, send you the address and the number for my work phone and stuff.”

Nairi nodded again. “Okay, sounds easy. So, if I can’t reach you by one, what do I need to do?”

“I’d tell you to call Nick, but he’d only call the cops so you can probably just cut him out of the equation and go straight to them. I’d like, rather not with them, like at all, ever,” she emphasised this with a slashing motion of her paintbrush, “but if it comes to that, then tell them like, I’m on a first date with a guy my dad thinks is creepy and I promised to check in or something, I don’t know.”

If she had the address, then… well. “Why would Nicholas call the cops if he knows you’d hate it?”

Linden rolled her eyes extravagantly and set her brush down, going for her enchilada again. “Because he believes in the power of the system, doesn’t approve of my job, is convinced that one day cops will magically stop being shitty to me, and also he apparently still thinks I’m sixteen.”

“Right,” said Nairi, slowly balling up the foil and paper of her lunch. “He uh, cares a lot about you, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s an old friend of my dad’s,” said Linden, nodding and swallowing. “Looked out for me when I was a teenager, you know? He’s still convinced that every time he turns around I’m gonna run off and nearly get myself killed again, it’s a real pain in the ass.”

“Again?”

A rueful smile flickered across Linden’s face. “Yeah, I ran away from home when I was about fifteen. Jim’s the one who found me and got me off the streets at first, but Edie and Nick were the ones who really made sure I got on my feet.”

“Right,” said Nairi, and she hesitated. “Jim’s a friend of theirs?”

“Was, yeah,” said Linden, glancing down at her lap to brush off an invisible crumb. “He died when I was about nineteen. Lung cancer, you know. It happens.”

“Damn,” said Nairi, not sure what to say in the face of that. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too, sometimes,” said Linden, her smile a little lopsided as she looked up. “It was a long time ago, though—water under the bridge and all that.”

“Yeah,” said Nairi, glancing at her hands briefly. “So what, Nicholas is worried that you’ll end up in a gutter?”

“Street corner, more like,” said Linden, dryness creeping back into her tone as she popped the last piece of her enchilada into her mouth, shaking her head. “He was pretty pissed off when I got out of college and went straight back to hooking.”

Nairi snorted. “Yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d ‘approve’ of that.”

“Real stick up his ass, yeah,” said Linden, nodding again. “Edithwas the fun one when I was a teenager, so you can imagine what a downer life was back then.”

“A little, yeah,” said Nairi, her mouth twitching. “I didn’t know anyone like that as a teenager, maybe it would’ve helped me out some.”

“Oh, I know that feeling,” said Linden with a laugh, giving Nairi a carefully measured side-eye. “He’s very useful to have around sometimes—my taxes get filed on time every year and all that.”

Nairi laughed. “Nothing shows you care like robust budgeting, huh?”

Linden cackled with laughter, a loud, startled noise. “Yes! Exactly—god, you should have seen him when I got my first apartment. He came with me to sign the lease and he interrogated my landlord, did his own goddamn tour, took his own photos of the place when I moved in and hunted the guy down to sign that he’d seen them, made copies of my bond payment, and thenhe was on me every single month to make sure I had a receipt for my rent.”

“Ferocious,” said Nairi, grinning at her.

“And wildly disappointed in me the first time I got evicted,” said Linden, grinning back at her.

Nairi laughed without expecting it, the lines around her eyes creasing. “You’re a menace, then?”

Linden was smiling with bright eyes; head tilted a little. “Damn right I am. Nick’s been putting up with my shit for ten years, I really thought he’d’ve clued in by now.”

“Maybe he thinks you can be better than shit?” suggested Nairi.

Linden’s smile softened a little as she picked up the paintbrush again. “No, he’s a little better at managing his expectations than that. I mean, he sticks up for me with dad, but it’s not like I get away scot free when I fuck up!”

“Your dad’s not a fan of the hooking I take it?”

Linden made a wheezing sort of noise as she went for her paint again. “Oh god, no, my dad doesn’t know about the hooking, he’s an attorney, he’d kill me. That’s part of why Nick fucking hates it, he doesn’t like lying for anything, least of all my sorry ass.”

Nairi nodded again. “Okay, so, your dad’s just kind of a dick, huh?”

Linden paused and turned her head to look at Nairi, giving her an annoyed look. “No, he’s fine. We don’t get along that well, is all. And that whole thing where I was a missing teenager for four years and then came back queer and punk didn’t exactly help things either. We’re fine, I’m going up for dinner with him in a couple of weeks, actually.”

“Right, sorry,” said Nairi, holding up a hand. “I never met my parents, I don’t know what’s like, normal or whatever.”

“It’s fine,” said Linden, shrugging at her. “People get the wrong impression sometimes, is all.”

Somehow Nairi wasn’t shocked by this. “Will I hit another pothole if I ask about your mom?” she said instead.

Linden laughed. “I never knew her. I asked about her a bunch when I was a kid, but my dad was kind of really evasive and I stopped asking—I sort of got the impression she died when I was extra small or something. Edie reckons that whoever she was they were never really, like ‘together’, ‘cause apparently I was a surprise baby for everyone who knew him.”

“Oh, I don’t think kids work well as surprises,” said Nairi with a wince.

“Definitely not,” said Linden, grinning widely. “He did okay, though.”

Nairi shifted uncomfortably on the couch again. “You turned out okay, so he must have.”

Linden snorted.

Nairi’s phone chirped in her back pocket and she tugged it out to check the message. The couch creaked ominously as she shifted again, and she paused, glancing down at it. “Just out of curiosity, how much did you pay for this couch?”

“I didn’t, I nicked it from a guy who was throwing it out,” said Linden, taking a drink of not turps as Nairi’s phone chirped again. “Who’s texting?”

Nairi glanced down at her screen, tapping open the messaging inbox. “Agatha. She’s just checking that we’re still on for tonight.”

“You’re not gonna disappoint her, are you?” teased Linden.

Nairi looked up at her, not sure what to make of the way her tone had dipped. “No?”

Linden hummed, her mouth twitching. “Well, don’t party too hard then,” she said in the same tone again, and she turned her attention back to her canvas.

[damienthepious]

😘🦎💕

A Little Remedy

[ao3]

[companion piece to Toss and Turn In Undertow, and Keep Your Head Above The Blue]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Sleep Deprivation, brief blood mention, Arguing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday

Summary:  Rilla can be a little cruel when she hasn’t gotten enough sleep, and recently she’s been finding herself exhausted much more often than usual.

Notes: Rilla is not exactly the MOST patient person, y'know? And I feel like Treacherous Heart specifically showed that keeping her from sleep is the best way to bring out her cruel side… anyway this happened and I’m tired and Hey! I finished the H/C trio. FINALLY. Title taken from the song To Noise Making (Sing), by Hozier. ]

~

Rilla needs to finish this experiment. She needs to. She’s so close to cracking the potency on a new form of pain salve she’s been trying to finalize for weeks now, trying to make it so the product is stable. Every previous attempt has lost efficacy increasingly from the moment it’s mixed together, a quickly lost battle with time that just leaves an inert gray goop by the end of the hour. If she can just figure out the right additive, if she can just get it to maintain potency for even a little longer, this could really make a difference in treating pain in long-term injuries and arthritic diseases.

She’s been digging through old herbalist tomes for hours now, trying to find a substance that will theoretically stabilize the mixture without interfering with the pain reduction, and it takes longer than it should for her to realize that she’s been reading and rereading the same entry over and over again without actually absorbing the information. She sighs, scrubs a hand down her face roughly and blinks a few times to try to clear the dryness of her eyes.

“C’mon, Rilla, just a little more,” she mutters to herself. “The sooner you find it…”

The letters on the page wobble and shift, and Rilla roughly knuckles her eye to try to make them stay still.

A little voice in the back of her head (one that sounds suspiciously like Damien) murmurs that her eyes are only going to grow more tired the longer she tries to work, that she’ll make better progress if her mind is rested, settled, but she scowls and hunches further over the book and forces herself to power through the last dozen or so pages.

“Research log, entry four four eight five,” she mutters into her recorder, glaring down at the offending paper. “Turns out the botanical survey from up near the Terminus was completely useless for the purposes of this project, so not only did I not find a binding agent, but I wasted hours going through the damn thing to try to find one. Not exactly back to square one, and it should at least rule out other surveys and guides from the area, but this is important and I can’t afford to be wasting time.” She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment. “Side note that there is a subspecies of aloe from this region that might have other utility, specifically in advanced burn treatment, since it appears to have been enhanced magically in some way, but this is neither here nor there for the purposes of my current project. Research log concluded.”

She rubs her eyes again, shoving the book to the side and leaning her head back for a long moment, and sighs as she drags her hands down her face.

- thousand pointed claws - a mouth, no, maw, no, endless void - enormity beyond comprehension - clicking/biting/scratching - Damien, crushed, screaming - Arum, running and hunted and caught - Damien, and so much blood - fear fear fear - formless black torn at the edges, bleeding out - home, the Citadel, burning - home, her hut, burning - home, the Keep, burning -

Rilla wakes with a start, realizes belatedly that her head is slumped backward to rest on the back of the chair, her neck strained from the angle. She has to center herself, remember where she is. Safe, safe at home in her hut. Damien is asleep in the bedroom. She is safe. She is home. She is safe.

She exhales a shaking breath, shakes her head, and scowls at herself. “C’mon, Rilla,” she says again, and then she fights through a vicious sort of yawn, the kind that almost hurts her jaw and sets her eyes watering. “C’mon. Work to be doing, now. You can- you can try to rest when it’s done with.”

“And when, precisely, will that be, Amaryllis?”

Rilla jumps again, somewhat more violently this time, her chair scooting back a screaming inch across her wood floors, and when she whips her head to the side she sees the offending party standing beside the vague glow of the Keep’s portal. She hadn’t even noticed that when she’d come awake again. “Fuck, Arum, you scared me- how long have you been there?”

“Long enough to know that you are overworking yourself.” He stares at her, tilting his head to the side critically as the portal sinks and fades. “Yet again.”

“I’m fine, Arum. I’m almost done. As soon as I find this binding agent, then I can-”

“And will you find it before sunrise, do you think?”

She glares. “I’m close, Arum, I’ll find it and then I’ll-”

“And then you will find another angle upon which to focus.” He slinks a little closer and lets his eyes drift from her, scanning over her research. “Then you will decide you must turn immediately to the next step of your puzzle, and you will delay sleep for another night.”

“I… am… fine… Arum,” she bites out through her teeth.

“It is already near morning, Amaryllis,” he says, and thanks to the grayish light slipping around the edge of her curtains, she realizes that he is correct. Not that she’s going to admit that. “You did not sleep last night either, takatakataka.”

“I slept a litt-”

“A little,” he interrupts, and then he shrugs dismissively. “A ‘little’ sleep is a nap, Amaryllis, and that is insufficient for how long you have been awake. You know as well as I do, how detrimental a lack of sleep can be.”

“What, are you trying to nanny me now?” She scowls, crossing her arms over her chest. She notes with a strange sort of amusement that her anger actually seems to be waking her up more effectively than anything else so far. “As if you’re some great example of taking care of yourself.”

Arum, surprisingly, doesn’t rise to the bait. He stares at her for a long moment, and his eyes slowly narrow. “I hope that you do not attempt to antagonize the poet in such a way when he confronts you. I cannot imagine that cruel words would glance from him without doing at least some damage.”

“Don’t- don’t bring Damien into this,” Rilla says with a scoff. “We weren’t talking about him.”

“We were not talking about my habits either, Amaryllis, until you brought them up.”

He’s right, again, and Rilla is furious about it. She narrows her eyes, standing from her chair and staring the lizard down. “Fine,” she says, voice icy. “Is this conversation over, then? Maybe if you actually let me do my work then I’ll be able to get to bed sometime tonight.”

He lets her words sit for another few moments, and her anger simmers as he stares. “I very much doubt you will sleep if I leave you now, Amaryllis,” he says.

“I can’t just abandon my experiments because I’m a little-”

“I very much doubt, also, that this is entirely to do with your work,” he interrupts. “This is because of the nightmares. Is it not?”

Rilla’s spine stiffens, and she takes the two short steps required to poke Arum in the chest, glaring up into his violet eyes. “That has nothing to do with this,” she bites out, one word at a time. “They’re just dreams, Arum, and I’m not a child.”

“I did not imply that you were, Amaryllis.” Arum stares down at her, neither stepping back nor appearing to grow irritated. “But they are not just dreams. It took some time for me to see the signs, but… I am perfectly capable of recognizing my own handiwork.”

“What…” That assertion is actually confusing enough that Rilla’s anger is somewhat defanged. “What are you talking about?”

“These dreams, Amaryllis. Did they, perhaps, only begin to manifest after the battle at Fort Terminus?” He pauses, watching her reactions carefully. “After your encounter with the… fear monster?”

That clicks into Rilla’s head like two gears finally catching together, and Rilla realizes that Arum is correct about this as well. The connection hasn’t occurred to her before, she hasn’t noticed that the timeline matches up so damn well. Mostly, she hasn’t noticed because the dreams started small, unobtrusive, easy to brush aside and dismiss, and have only become a problem by degrees. “What exactly are you trying to imply, Arum?”

“Not an implication,” he says. “An observation. The Keep confirmed for me that you slept much more soundly - when you deigned to sleep - during your initial stay within it.”

“You’re having the Keep- keep tabs on me?” Rilla says in a low, unpleasant voice.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arum says. “You insist on calling it my mother, Amaryllis, and I know that a part of your insistence on that front is because you are aware of how it frets over me. That attention and care extends to both yourself and Damien now, obviously. It has been worried for you.”

Rilla blinks in shock, then quickly tries to brush aside the pleased surprise she feels at the idea of the Keep caring about her, because- “Hang on. Don’t- don’t try to distract me. You’re saying that the nightmares are from the damned fear bug? It’s long dead, Arum, how does that even make sense?”

“If I remember Damien’s telling of the story correctly, you bore the brunt of the creature’s ire at least once, did you not?”

“They’re just nightmares, Arum,” she says, and it isn’t enough of a denial to keep him from smiling grimly.

“Then why are they growing worse, Amaryllis?”

“I don’t know, Arum,” she says, and she realizes just barely too late that she’s halfway to yelling, and she can’t actually tell how loud she’s being as she continues. “But apparently you have an idea you’re just desperate to share, huh? Fine. You think this is the fear monster? Go ahead and explain how the fuck a dead bug is keeping me from sleeping. I’m sure you’ve got everything figured out.”

Arum’s smile fades, and he sighs. “It was in your head, Amaryllis,” he says gently, and she snorts out an angry laugh.

“It was in all of our heads, Arum.”

“It was in your head,” he repeats, voice flat. “The creature was made to act subtly at first, and incrementally increase the fear response it created. What it did to you and your knights… that was not how it was intended to attack. That was brute force from a lockpick, Amaryllis, and from what I have observed in you lately, I believe it left wounds in your mind that have been festering rather than healing.”

“I would know if I was injured, Arum.” Rilla’s heart is hammering with her anger. She feels nearly lightheaded from it. “I am a doctor. I would know.”

“Rilla?” Damien is in the doorway of the bedroom now, sleep muddled and wearing a vague frown. “What… my darling flowers, whatever is the matter?”

“Great,” Rilla says without inflection, turning away from the door. “Fantastic.”

Arum’s expression softens, and he crosses the room to run his claws carefully through Damien’s pillow-mussed hair. “Nothing to concern yourself over, honeysuckle,” he says. “You should return to bed.”

“But-” Damien leans into Arum’s hand, overcome momentarily by a yawn. “But- there was shouting. What-”

“It’s nothing, Damien,” Rilla says, leaning over her worktable and glaring at the useless remains of the latest trial of her salve. “Go back to bed. Arum was just about to leave, and then it should actually be quiet enough for you to sleep. And for me to finish my work.”

Arum’s mouth presses into an even thinner line, and he gives Rilla an unimpressed look as Damien frowns in earnest. “Are- are the two of you- arguing?”

“Damien-” Rilla cuts herself off, just barely below a volume that could be called yelling, and presses her hands flat to the table. “Please go back to bed.”

With Arum’s arm slowly curling around his shoulder, Damien stares at her, his expression blooming from confusion into worry. “But… it’s nearly dawn already, my love,” he says.

Rilla’s eyes flick to the windows again, to the light growing brighter around the edges of the curtains, and she huffs out a furious breath as she pulls one of her books across the table towards her, trying to engross herself (pretending to engross herself) back into the research. “Okay. Okay. Fine. Then you should go do your exercises,” she says dismissively. “Either way I need to get back to work.”

“Did you not come to bed at all tonight, my flower?” Damien asks softly behind her, and Rilla clenches her jaw to keep from snapping in response. “I was… I was quite sorry to wake without you beside me.”

Five or six possible responses flit through her mind, all of them unreasonably cruel after the softness Damien is offering. She grits her teeth against them all, because Rilla is exhausted and frustrated and unfocused, but she’s spent far too much time in the effort to convince Damien’s anxious mind of how much she loves him, and she’s not going to jeopardize that with careless verbal sniping just because she’s not operating at full capacity tonight. Or- this morning, rather. Ignoring him isn’t exactly kind either, but she can’t think of any way to respond that isn’t unnecessarily cutting.

“Her nightmares are interrupting her slumber again,” Arum says, and his voice is casual though his eyes fix to hers in a determined way when she whips her head back to glare at the lizard. “She is attempting to outrun them by avoiding sleep entirely until she injures herself.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Rilla says with a scowl. “That’s not what I’m doing. I already told you, I can’t just put my work aside because I’m a little bit tired. This has nothing to do with dreams I might be having.”

Rilla… does not lie often. This particular one feels sour on her tongue, but if she can just get them to leave her alone then she can finish her work and figure out a solution for sleep on her own. She can handle this; there’s no reason for them to get all worked up about it.

“When… when did you last sleep, my love?” Damien asks, gripping Arum’s hand in a nervous sort of way.

“Yesterday,” Rilla says dismissively, turning back to her book. “I’ll be fine, Damien.”

“She slept for twenty minutes and woke herself by thrashing out of a nightmare,” Arum says. “The night before that, she managed perhaps an hour and a half before she gasped awake and slipped from bed, thinking I would not notice.”

“Rilla-”

“I can manage my own sleep just fine without interfering lizards keeping a running tally of my daily schedule, thanks very much,” Rilla hisses, gamely not looking at the pair of them and arbitrarily flipping pages without reading a single word upon them. “Really goddamn rich, honestly, the pair of you trying to micro-manage my- honestly. Honestly.”

“You do seem… rather exhausted, Rilla,” Damien says, his tone still confused and gentle. “Can you not just… come rest, just for a while, and find the solutions you seek with a refreshed mind?”

“I would rather find my solutions now, thanks.”

“Your book is upside-down, Amaryllis,” Arum says blandly.

Rilla growls under her breath and slams the book closed, spinning to face them again. Arum still has an arm encircling Damien’s shoulder, and another of his hands is clasped with Damien’s, and the both of them are staring at her. Damien flinches when she turns, his expression verging on distraught, and Arum is still holding his steady, observant gaze upon her.

“Okay,” she snarls, “I think that’s enough. I don’t need the nervous nag and the self-care hypocrite creeping over my shoulder and making it even harder for me to make any progress. I would go to bed a hell of a lot faster if the both of you would just leave me alone instead of arguing about my sleep habits.”

Arum’s expression finally hardens, and she sees his fingers squeeze Damien’s shoulder. “Enough… enough is right, Amaryllis. You need to sleep. You are not yourself, and we cannot discuss these nightmares until you are thinking more clearly.”

“I really don’t think you’re in a position to be ordering me around about the way I’m handling this, Arum, considering these damn nightmares are apparently your fault in the first place, you monster-”

“Rilla.” Damien clutches Arum’s arm, looking at her aghast. “You don’t truly-”

“No,” she says, the instant, instant regret making her shoulders sag, making the dull buzzing in her head all the more intense. She hugs her arms around her chest, exhaling an unsteady breath. “I know. I know. That wasn’t fair. I didn’t mean- I don’t actually-”

Even worse: the way Arum is looking at her. The way he seems unbothered, unsurprised by having the blame laid upon him. The way he doesn’t even flinch.

“I didn’t mean that, Arum.”

“I am well aware, Amaryllis,” Arum says evenly, his eyes never leaving her.

“I just- you’re both-”

“Trying very hard to help you, despite how stubbornly you are insisting on this attempt to drive us away so you may continue to suffer alone.” Arum sighs, then lifts a hand towards her, and she only barely catches the edge of desperation in his expression. “Please. Come away from your work. Just for a moment. I believe I can speak for Damien as well when I say that I have no desire to fight with you.”

Damien nods, and his hand raises on the other side, his expression open and distraught.

Rilla knows that if she lets the both of them hold her, she’ll be done for. She won’t be able to make herself go back to her work after that. Hell, she’s not sure she’ll be able to keep her damned eyes open if she lets them wrap her up in their arms.

She edges a step towards them, then glances at the disaster of research strewn across her table, still stubbornly refusing to present her with a solution.

“Please,” Arum says again, and Rilla breaks.

She stumbles the last couple feet towards them, and they fold her into their embrace as easily as… as easily as a metaphor she’s sure Damien would be able to produce in an instant, even if he were as tired as she is right now. She realizes how tightly she’s been holding herself as she leans into them, as her muscles relax one by one under their hands.

“My lovely flower,” Damien whispers, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Oh, why did you not say anything? I know how strong you are, but you need not bear such pain alone merely because-”

“I’m not- it’s not like I’m doing this because I want to,” she says, because she wants them to understand. She’s never been a good liar, and the only reason it’s taken this long for this to come out is because she’s been doing her best to avoid thinking about it at all when she’s around them. “It’s just that- it’s easier to sleep through them if I’m exhausted first.”

Damien makes a soft, sympathetic noise, clinging tightly to her. “Sleep through them? So you still have them, you just-”

“Look, I don’t even know how much of it I remember, you know? But- if I wear myself out really well, I can at least sleep all the way through the night. Or- well, you know. I can at least get five uninterrupted hours. Six if I’m lucky.”

“So it has been that frequent, Amaryllis? That intrusive?” Arum’s tone is carefully controlled, but she can feel how he stiffens, thanks to the way he’s wrapped around her.

“It… yeah. Sometimes. It’s been getting… worse, but it comes and goes, I guess. Lately… I don’t know.” She sighs, not exactly pleased to admit this. “Yeah. It’s been bad. I didn’t want to worry either of you,” she continues quickly. “I know you’ve both got your own- I just didn’t want to add to the pile, you know? I can handle this. I can handle my own- whatever.”

Arum tightens his grip on her for a heartbeat, nuzzling his snout into her hair before he pulls back enough to meet her eyes. “You once told me, Amaryllis, that telling the both of you when I was in distress was the only way to ensure that I would be helped.”

Rilla flushes, a little taken aback that Arum remembers her words so specifically. “But- but it’s not like either of you can do anything about this. It’s just dreams, Arum, it’s not like either of you can-”

“I believe I can help you, Amaryllis.” Arum gives her a wry smile as she jolts in his arms, looking up at him incredulously. “The nightmares stem from the fear monster. The monster that I helped create, as you so helpfully pointed out not terribly long ago.”

“Arum, I-”

“I take no offense,” he says, tone soft. “I am well aware of the ills I caused. If you had informed me of the severity of the problem sooner, I could have eased the effects before it progressed this far.”

“You…” Rilla stares up at him, the buzzing in her head and the softness of the embrace making it hard for her thoughts to coalesce into anything that makes sense. “You could?”

“The fear monster was primarily tested upon myself,” he explains, “as I do not typically keep sentient test subjects on hand. I always found that too distasteful a business, and more of a hassle than it was worth.” He glances aside, visibly uncomfortable. “So, obviously it would not do, if I did not have a way to mitigate the damage done to myself in the testing process.”

“Damage…” Damien tightens his grip around Rilla, and she assumes he’s hugging Arum tighter as well. “Not… not permanent damage…?”

“No, honeysuckle.” Arum sighs and smiles in the same moment, and draws a hand through Damien’s hair to soothe his distress. “Not permanent. The condition has been exacerbating itself in our herbalist because of her sleep deprivation and because it is going untreated, but it is reversible.” He wriggles himself back an inch or two away from the pair of them, just enough that he can reach into the folds of his clothes and pull out a small vial of wine-red liquid.

Rilla raises an eyebrow at him, her irritation bleeding back for a moment. “You just had that on you?”

“I have been growing more suspicious that my handiwork was the cause of your lack of sleep for some time now, Amaryllis. I became sure of it within the last two days, and when I came here tonight I had only just finished…” he tips the vial back and forth for a moment. “I was hoping to find you sleeping, and when you woke I intended to broach the subject with you.” He stares down at her, something vulnerable just barely slipping past the careful blankness of his reptilian face. “It would go down easier with a meal, but… you may take the treatment now, if you like.”

Ordinarily, Rilla would probably insist on knowing exactly what was in that vial, on knowing how he made it. Hell, she’d probably insist on making the treatment from scratch herself, just to be sure that she understood exactly what it was and how it worked. Now, though, her head is already foggily swimming, and the idea of trying to muddle through some sort of serum synthesis in this state makes her feel even more exhausted, if that’s at all possible.

She sticks a hand out, and Arum drops the treatment into her palm. She pulls out the cork and downs it in a single swig, and the alcohol burn almost overpowers the vague taste of limeflower that lingers under her tongue. She hisses out a breath, wrinkling her nose against the aftertaste as she hands the vial back.

“Single application, or will this require multiple treatments?” she asks reflexively, watching as he tucks the vial away again.

“If you sleep properly, your mind should begin to heal itself. If the dreams become difficult again I can provide another dose.”

“Hm.” Rilla squints up at him. “You’re gonna show me how you made that.”

“If you would like,” he agrees, unbothered, “but not right now. Now, you should let us bring you to bed, I think,” Arum says, his tone balanced quite carefully between soft and stubborn, and Rilla finds that she has no defenses left.

She sighs, dropping her head until she can rest her cheek against Arum’s shoulder. “Clearly I’m not going to get anything else done tonight,” she admits under her breath, and as Arum adjusts his grip to swing her up into his arms her surprised gasp devolves into a barking laugh. “You are so ridiculous,” she says, voice still threatening to bubble over with laughter. “Can’t keep your claws off us for a moment, can you?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking down over his snout at her with false haughtiness. “Why should I deny myself?”

“Ah, for once I am not the one manhandled - rather, monsterhandled,” Damien mock-whispers, but the levity leaves his face rather quickly, and then he leans closer to press his forehead against her own. “I… I am sorry, my flower. I should have seen that you were in pain so much sooner-”

“To be fair, Damien,” she says with a self-deprecating smile, her eyes already trying to slip closed, “I was trying pretty hard to keep you from noticing. Sorry.”

“My brave, brilliant herbalist,” he murmurs, and then he kisses her gently. “Brave and brilliant… and perhaps, occasionally, just the littlest bit headstrong.”

Rilla laughs and swats at the knight halfheartedly, and Arum chuckles lightly above her. He leans down and indulgently lets Damien press a kiss to his cheek as well, and then Arum turns and carries Rilla into the bedroom, Damien following in their wake.

Arum moves the sheets aside with one set of arms and then sets her down, nestled among the pillows. He slips onto the bed himself, then, wrapping his long body entirely around her before he pulls the blankets up over the both of them, a muted, subtle purr already starting in his chest.

“Ah, such a tempting tableau,” Damien sighs, leaning down to stroke his hand through Rilla’s hair. “I have only recently risen from these very sheets and yet I could be counted content to curl by your sides for hours longer. For the whole rest of the day, even-”

“You’ll be furious with yourself if you neglect your duties,” Arum reminds him wryly. “There isn’t any cause to worry now, honeysuckle. She will sleep soundly. She’s practically unconscious already.”

“Practically,” Rilla mutters, poking Arum in the side with her eyes still closed. “He’s right, though, Damien. Go start your day. According to the expert here, I should sleep just fine, and you can berate me for being headstrong over dinner tonight. Okay?”

Damien pauses, then sighs. Rilla, somewhere in her sleep-muddled brain, suspects that her lovers have just made significant eye contact over her head, but she can’t really bring herself to care. “Alright, my love,” Damien says eventually, and then he leans down to kiss Arum, and then to press a soft kiss against her temple. “I love you,” he says, his lips still brushing her skin. “Rest well, my most lovely flowers. May Saint Damien still the troubled waters of your mind until I return to you.”

“Love you too,” Rilla says, and she smiles as Arum echoes their words, though she can’t quite muster the effort to open her eyes to watch Damien leave. She hears his footsteps hesitate in the doorway - she imagines him turning to give the pair of them another lingering, dramatic look - and then he’s gone, leaving Rilla safe and warm with her heart feeling full and heavy in her chest, too tired now to do anything but sigh, settling even deeper into Arum’s embrace.

Arum nuzzles against the back of her neck, humming tunelessly.

“Sorry,” Rilla breathes. “I know… I know that I…”

“I already told you, Amaryllis. I took no offense.”

“Why?” she asks, curious more than distressed. “You have every right to be furious with me-”

“Amaryllis…” he shifts, drawing her closer, shielding her from the world with his body. “Have I not snapped at you and Damien often enough in vain bids to hide my own vulnerabilities?” He laughs softly behind her. “I could not possibly hold it against you, if you are guilty of the same strategies under duress.”

“But…”

“Amaryllis, your words are in no way the worst consequence that sleep deprivation in a creature I care about has had upon me.”

Rilla snorts out a laugh despite herself, mostly because he’s completely correct. And- she could keep questioning Arum, could try again to apologize in a way that feels right, but… it’s getting harder and harder to resist the pull of sleep. Harder and harder to resist the soothing pressure of his arms around her, the calming background noise of his purring.

She falls unconscious somewhere between when she decides she should thank him and when the words actually reach her lips, and Arum only smiles at her wordless sleeping murmur.

Sometime close to sunset, Rilla will wake with a yelp and the sudden realization that she can just store the two components of her salve separately, and only combine them immediately before use, negating the need for a binding agent at all, and she will feel more than a little bit foolish. About that, and about everything else.

For now, though, Rilla sleeps. She sleeps, and her monster curls careful and protective around her, drawing his fingers through her hair when even a hint of worry crosses her sleeping face, her head pillowed on his gently rumbling chest.

For the first time in weeks, under the vigilant watch of a monster, with the blessing of a saint left with the kiss upon her brow, not a single nightmare dares to trouble her sleep.

[angstymarshmallow]

sick day [bryce x mc]

[A little note: this started off really fluffy, with a prompt in mind and ended up being super long. I’m not quite satisfied with it - but it’s Friday and I’ll be away most of the weekend so I wanted to finish this instead of dwelling on it for another three days]

[summary: when Maci is stuck at home sick, she craves more than a few good books and Netflix to keep her company. She craves the attention that only one doctor can give her].

[words counted: 4205]

The weather wasn’t getting better anytime soon and neither was Maci’s health as she rolled lazily across her sheets in an unmade bed from the night before. A sneeze escaped before her hands found solace with another tissue paper from the kleenex box still perched at the edge of her bed.

She groaned before slumping back in defeat.

This is getting ridiculous.

Sighing, Maci waited a beat before grabbing it a second later. Another sneeze threatened to tickle her throat. In mild irritation, she clutched the delicate tissue paper to her nose and waited. 

It wasn’t often she was sick, and when she was - she remembered how much she viciously detested it. Even as a child, she could vividly remember avoiding people that had as much as sneezed in her general direction. She understood how dangerous and infectious they could be and why her friends were currently doing the same. They didn’t want the risk.

She blew her nose.

Ugh, of all the days to be sick. 

She was bed-ridden since Monday and three days later, she was still feeling feverish enough for Sienna to turn her right back around, when she spotted her leaving for work.

“You’d be putting a lot of people at risk.” Sienna had reminded, promptly reprimanding Maci for not making what were  - usually better decisions when it came to other people.

And truthfully, Maci hadn’t been thinking straight. She felt worn, stretched thin from all the coughs and flares in her temperature. She was tired of her own company and selfishly wanted something else to do other than sifting through medical journals in order to pass the time. Mostly, she was simply restless. She had never enjoyed the feeling of being stuck; unable to push herself forward. She thrived on challenges and treated her stubborn cold as such until today. 

Thankfully, as Maci slid into her slippers and strode down the hall; there was no one home to stop her now. At least for a walk. At least for her to smell something other than pinesol and lemon tea. She could manage now that her headaches seemed to have subsided.

And craving the fresh air anyway, she was anxious to leave. Something other than Netflix or her own company would do a world of good. 

Unfastening her robe, Maci draped it across the bathroom door before swiftly undressing for a shower. The steam comforted her senses and the hot water pelting against her skin, gave some momentary relief. She collected her thoughts underneath the shower head, mulling through a series of would-bes on hopefully what was to be her last miserable sick day.

She thought about heading out for groceries; there were a few things she could pick-up for their home. They were out of milk for instance and a surprisingly amount of chips had disappeared since Monday. She thought about taking a stroll to the park - it would be filled at this time of day with dog-walkers and families, and she could probably settle a bench with a book tucked under her arm.

And yet, her thoughts came to a sudden stop when they lead to him. Maci paused, bristling – affronted by the intrusion before shaking her head vehemently.

She wouldn’t invite Bryce. He was too much of a distraction. 

But there had to be an in-between, her mind insisted. She tried to reason with herself; to poke holes within her stout judgment. It wouldn’t be long till his shift was over and the urge to reach out to him was almost too tempting to pass up. Regrettably, she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off him – not when all he had to do was smirk at her and make bedroom eyes at her. 

Biting her lower lip, Maci stepped out of the shower and blindly reached for a towel. If she couldn’t behave and he couldn’t behave then it simply made no sense. Still, the thought was there - it lingered even as she began humming as some barely feasible way of as she drifted down the hall.

She wanted to invite him, more than that - she was surprised by how much it felt like a need, instead of a simple want she was used to pushing aside. He was taking too much of her thoughts, she decided. There couldn’t be any other suitable explanation why an image of him clung inside her head.

She slung her towel across her bedroom door, shaking her head free as she begun dressing for the day.

Still the thought persisted.

It wouldn’t hurt to bring him along. She imagined if they were at least in public, it would deter any and all possibilities that were currently fueling her imagination. 

Shrugging into her jacket, Maci hid a smile as she checked the time on her phone. His shift was ending soon anyway.

-

When Bryce greeted Maci later that day, his relief at seeing her up and moving again was nearly palpable across his handsome and wholesome features. He had been worried about her, especially as Wednesday rolled around and there was still wasn’t any sign of her returning to Edenbrook Hospital.

Sienna had been forthcoming about the stubborn virus she had, and he managed to find some time to call her and check in on her in between his breaks. Still, he tried to swallow back his relief; to saunter toward with his usually carefree smirk while trying to convince himself aimlessly, it was because he wanted to hear her voice rather than admitting he missed her. Missed her more knowing she was halfway across town.

He would scowl himself later at how ridiculous it was. There were countless of other pressing matters to constantly sift through at work. And yet, the second he had a moment, he found himself thinking of her.

“It’s good to see you.” He murmured, pulling her into a warm hug. He felt her relax almost instantly in his arms, before twisting away to stare at him.

Her nose was a little red, and her cheeks a bit puffy. She tugged at her ponytail at his greeting and seemed otherwise preoccupied until he remained within her field of vision.

Blinking, she raised her eyebrows at him. “You aren’t going to make a smart comment about how crappy I look today?” She gestured to the bags below her eyes and slight wrinkles to her clothes; which was unorthodox for someone quite so usually organized. 

Still, she hadn’t look worse for wear. At least not to Bryce, Maci had always had a certain quality, that he couldn’t explain. To him, he she could manage looking nothing short of distracting no matter what she wore. Grinning impishly though, he shook his head. “I figured there was no sense of kicking a puppy when it’s down.”

He was rewarded with her laugh, a sound he quite often enjoyed hearing as she shoved his shoulder playfully. 

“Well this puppy, really needs to pick up some stuff at the grocery store.” Still snickering, she gave him a look of reproach before he could make another teasing remark. “This puppy also hasn’t gotten her coffee for the day.” She reminded him, her voice dripping with caution.

He lifted a singular eyebrow. “I hadn’t realized that this is what constitutes as a date nowadays.” That earned him another shove and this time he was the one left laughing. “Okay.” Clucking his tongue, he offered her an arm to which she grinned and accepted without hesitance. “Lead the way.” 

-

“Do you need that many chips?”

“Will that salsa still be there next week for game night?”

“Are you going to tell me why there’s five different cereals in your cart?”

Maci raised a finger to shush Bryce as she grabbed another package of popcorn. “You’re asking a lot of questions for someone that’s supposed to be tagging along.”

“I enjoy a good ride as the next one,” Bryce drawled, never taking his eyes off her.

How he managed to do keep a smolder to his gaze and gather five bags of Cheetos at the same time she’ll never know, but at least she found it easy to keep up with pace of their conversation while they idlily ticked off items from her list.

“But,” Bryce kept going, depositing them quietly inside her cart. “It’s a lot.” As though to drive his point home, he poked a finger at the several oranges and pears at the front of the cart and then back to her list. “I totally expect full brownie points for this.”

“Full points?” She echoed, arching an eyebrow when he gestured to the food again. “Funny, I wasn’t under the impression that we were keeping score.” If she had, she was certain she’d have more than him by now. Or maybe they’d still be tied – toying and edging the line of friendship.

“You know me, I thrive off of things like this.” His teasing was always endless. “I only meant, I should have some kind of reward.”

“Reward, huh?” She repeated. Shaking her head, she angled her chin to the side. “Okay, I’ll bite. What kind of reward?” She dropped her gaze meaningfully down the length of his tall and muscular frame. She had to admit, her stomach had quivered in anticipation when he said those words and she lowered her gaze to try and mask her eagerness.

“I get to pick the theme for game night next time.”

She paused for a moment, raising her eyes from her list and back into the full-force of his smirk. “You’ll never get enough brownie points for that.” She said a matter-of-factly, then as promptly rolled up her sheet of paper.

“Aww, I’m hurt.”

The sight of his pout, itched the corner of Maci’s lips to turn into a smile. “Besides, there’s a system.” She insisted, despite him stepping closer. Her heart skipped a beat as he bent forward, his gaze fully affixed on her. “We take turns –” she continued, swallowing past the sudden dryness of her throat. “I think it’s Elijah’s this month.” Her nose tickled and she made an insufferable sigh, as she stepped past him.

“Sorry, it’s just the rules.”

He knew the effect he had on her, especially like this when all she wanted to do was kiss him in a store full of people. It was distracting to have him this close. “It’s kind of just….a roommate thing.” She muttered.

“I think you’re forgetting something, Maci. Rules were meant to be broken.” He was crowding her field of vision again, making it harder for her to pull away – to want to pull away.

As though some invisible force had deemed it necessary, important to stay in his orbit, she wanted to sink into him. And in more ways than one as she stared up at him. “I think we have very different definitions about the functionality of rules.” She tried to keep her voice light, teasing.

Then her smile suddenly faltered and she stepped away. She needed the space to think. “Without them – there’d be chaos.” She emphasized the last few words, letting him know that rules were the only thing that kept them both safe. Kept her heart safe when it came to tittering on the edge of whatever their friendship was.

“Maci,” He said her name so seriously that her eyes widened in alarm and there was an abrupt edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. “What’s wrong with a little bit of chaos? A little bit of unpredictably every now and then?”

She understood and accepted that was a part of him. A part of his allure since nearly the moment they met.  His spontaneity had drawn her in and held her captivated even no.

When she felt his touch gently traveling across the back of her hand, she allowed herself to be pulled closer until her nose tickled again. Shoot. Almost frantically, she spun away in time to cover her face with a corner of her cardigan. “Achooo!”

The sneeze was loud enough to catch several on-lookers off-guard and Bryce shifted uneasily on his feet.

“Ugh.”

“I almost forgot you were sick.”

She pointedly gestured to her puffy cheeks. “I didn’t.”

“I gathered as much yes.” His lips twitched.

An insufferable sigh left her lips. “I just can’t wait for this to be over.”

“Aww you poor thing.” He cooed. His brows dropped to mirror his mock-concern.

She pointed a finger at him, narrowing her eyes into slits. “Did you just baby me? Don’t baby me.” She hadn’t been babied in a long time and the thought of him doing so was downright mortifying.

“But you’re so adorable.” He assessed, running his fingers through his hair. “Seriously – the flushed cheeks, the slightly red nose? Adorable.” His grin widened a fraction more as her mouth flew open to speak but had ended up grabbing a hand of tissues to mask a sudden coughing fit instead.

He shifted forward in concern even as she tried to ward him away with her hand. “Are you okay?”

“Mhm.” She cleared her throat. “Let’s just get out of here.” She began pushing her cart towards the entrance.

“I think we’re missing the part where you buy me dinner first before you demand that of me.” He pretended to look wounded, abruptly clutching the folds of his shirt and his brow.

Maci gave him a droll stare. “I think we’ve past that point.” Just thinking about the last time they were alone made her cheeks flush in a way that had nothing to do with her cold. “Besides, I thought you liked fast.” She added and deliberately, she raked him  with a once-over that had enough heat for him to pause in mid-sentence.

Bryce recovered quickly. His eyes shone with a mischievous glint as he draped an arm casually around her shoulders. “Hard and fast,” he squeezed. “It’s one way to hold my attention.” His gaze lingered on her face.

She licked her lips and felt a shiver of excitement as his eyes followed the motion. “But you like to draw it out too,” she leaned closer. “You like the torture, like the build-up until it’s almost too much. Until there’s not enough air to fill your lungs to even get close to how badly you wat it.” There was no doubting the double entendre to her words, not when she made them quite obvious with the exaggerated biting of her lip.

Bryce’s eyes hadn’t flickered away. Instead he slid the arm to loosely grip her waist. But it was his voice which remained as cool as cucumber when he answered. “I like to keep things interesting.”

She closed the rest of the distance between them, tipping forward slightly to brush her lips by his ear. “I know.”

Before Bryce could say anything else, Maci retreated away again – long enough for a series of coughs to rattle her chest.

“Geez, how is it that you’re getting worse?” He asked in dismay. Shaking his head and ignoring her protests, he pulled her lightly to his side and peered down at her. “You should wait in the car, at least let me finish for you.”

“No way, we’re almost at the front of line.”

“Good point, but I’m afraid you’re going to cough out your lung before we get there.”

“Hah.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

His look of reproach was brief as he cupped her cheeks. “Don’t be stubborn, you can always pay me back later.” His eyes searched hers’. “I’m…worried about you.”

Her heart leapt at his words, but Maci kept her face impassive.

“And that you won’t make it to fifty if you keep hacking away like that.”

“Alright, alright.” She relinquished her cart to him, stepping aside only after hesitantly brushing a swift kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His face softened, “now go before I change my mind.”

“Someone’s feeling bossy today,” she grumbled but acquiesces with a parting smile. She stepped close enough to be an inch away and her hands openly travel down his sides. She could feel the tension in his lower abdomen as her hands innocently brush past his muscles and she sucked in a breath when they tense underneath her touch. She had meant to tease him hadn’t anticipated her own response being quite so visible. Swallowing, she met his arched stare with another wry grin before her fingers found the front pocket of his keys. “Thanks.”

Stepping away, Maci felt his eyes on her back as she smoothly crossed the cashier line and headed towards the exit.

-

The ride up the elevator shaft later that evening had been filled with undeniable tension between them. She hadn’t known how to quite describe it, only that the moment the doors slid close the atmosphere between them had changed. Every nerve in her body was aware of him, down to the slightest of movements he made.

She shifted on her feet. Her fingers itched to reach and touch him.  He was too close. Far too close for her not to catch the scent of his overwhelming cologne and for her stomach to flip as her eyes slid and met his every once in a while.

Her breath caught when she caught him staring – caught the dark flash of desire in his eyes that only drew her closer to him. She didn’t want there to be any physical distance between them, heck if she was being honest with herself, she wanted him to press her against the wall and hook her legs around him while he devoured her –

She shook her head.

God, why did elevator rides have to be so long?

She shifted on her feet again, cursing inwardly to herself at the untimely length of time that transpired between them.

She wasn’t sure how much longer she could take any of this.

When the doors opened, Maci uttered a sigh of relief. It was as though a life boat that had been out at sea was finally close enough for her to grasp and Maci jumped. She stepped out first; gripping two plastic bags tightly while Bryce bundled the last remaining three inside his arms.

Together, they strode down the hall where Maci managed to keep herself distracted with small talk. It wasn’t until they reached the front door that their conversation had almost turned into a stand-still.

She hesitated at the thought of inviting him in.

It was a terrible idea. For a number of different reasons, Maci knew that inviting Bryce would be giving him the wrong intentions. And what is it that you want? She didn’t have the slightest answer to her question, she only knew she craved more than just the ice cream waiting for inside.

Turning back to him, she angled her chin and jerked her head to the door. “You want to come in?”

His grin was back in full force, filling Maci’s insides with an unfamiliar feeling. “So, you are trying to get me alone, huh?” He gave her his most outlandish wink. “I see right through you Maci Lawson.”

Maci laughed, shaking her head. “If you saw right through me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She said a matter-of-factly before returning her attention back to the front door. She twisted the keys quickly before holding the door open for him.

Bryce murmured a thank you as he ambled his way in, keeping his focus affixed on finding the kitchen before dumping them unceremoniously across a counter. “I still think this is an absurd number of chips.” He tapped his fingers lightly against the bag as Maci deposited the rest of the groceries beside him.

“You seriously don’t get how many chips we go through a week.” She responded with a snort. “It’s a little crazy actually.”

“I’ll say.” Bryce leaned against the counter, scrutinizing her. “Well, what did you want to do with the rest of our –”He made a motion with his fingers in air quotations,  ‘not date’.”

Rolling her eyes, Maci bumped his hip before gesturing to the living room. “The only date I have on weeknights are with Netflix – feel free to join me, but it’s Netflix that has a hard time sharing me.” She took some cough medicine by a cabinet before settling into the sofa, and dragged along with her one of her favourite blankets with her.

“Guess I’ve just got to beat the competition.” He sat beside her, draping an arm casually across the couch as she snuggled into his side.

“You are so warm,” Maci mumbles as she picked up the remote. She hadn’t realized how much being outside had taken out of her until her eyes started dropping while Bryce sifted through her list.

“You’re re-watching the Grey’s Anatomy?”

“Guilty. I caught up and I got bored of waiting on Netflix so yeah, I started it all over again.” Before he could make a smart retort, Maci poke his sides and added. “You know it’s a good show.”

“It’s more of a soap opera than anything else.”

“Hey! Just because they’ve got the most realistic relationships –”

“They don’t –”

She placed a finger up to stop him. “I don’t judge you for the shows you watch.” Although she really should. Some of them were very questionable.

He laughed. “Point taken.” He responded, smiling ruefully down at her.

She felt his fingers run absently across her hair as she smiled back at him. Her fingers were itching again to do more than simply stare; it wasn’t her fault – everything about Bryce Lahela was too damn kissable, down to the way he gazed at her.

Keeping her hands off of him shouldn’t be this hard.

Then she felt his fingers, softly touching the side of her face imploring her to snuggle impossibly closer. There was a warning on her lips that had never left her lips as he bent forward – nearly an inch away before.

Maci sneezed. Regrettably, she hadn’t the chance to completely moved away and had buried her face into the folds of his shirt in her last-ditch attempt to not completely become mortified at the thought of sneezing directly at him.

He stilled beside her, and she was muttering a string of apologies as she reached for tissue paper. Shit, she completely made it ten times worse and yet, she couldn’t stop muttering apologies until he gripped her hand.

He took them from her and wiped his shirt before deciding better of it and yanking it off himself altogether.

The expanse of his broad chest did crazy things to heart; made it stutter and thump thump – wildly inside her chest, before Maci managed to find composure again. “That was your plan all along.” She lifted a finger at his bare chest but thought better of it at the last second. He was good at being tempting, too good. But hadn’t she wanted that?

Bryce smirked, delighting in Maci’s flustering a few moments ago. It was rare for him to see that side of her. He leaned his back against the softness of the sofa. There was no use denying. He often had ulterior motives for getting Maci alone. He made it a point of doing so at every opportunity. “You’re the one who sneezed on me, from where I’m standing – technically sitting, it was your plan all along. You wanted my shirt off.” He tried to smooth his features into a mock-seriousness. “This is really your fault.”

Maci shook her head, a grin toying at the edge of her lips as she glanced away. It wasn’t as though she had never entertained the idea. She’d seen Bryce shirtless a few times but never this up close and personal. This was different. This was bringing sexy all too another intimate level as her gaze lingered on his skin. “You’re impossible.” It was the only thing she could think of.

“I prefer the term irresistible.”

“Impossible. Irresistible. Maybe they’re both two sides of the same coin.” Maci leaned back then and twisted the blanket tighter around herself to mask how much she wanted to reach out and touch him until he tugged at the other side of it.

He wrapped the blanket around them both, closing the distance again as if daring her to make the first move. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m only like that when you’re around.” The last of his words had almost been too low for her to hear and Maci glanced at him in surprise.

He looked almost serious, sitting as close as he was and studying her as she was studying him. He hadn’t moved to touch her but his eyes, his eyes were imploring how much he wanted to. They were two shades of midnight that watched her with the same intensity that her eyes were watching him.

She couldn’t breathe.

There wasn’t enough air to fill past the tension between them, how the air practically sizzled around them as her fingers splayed across his naked chest and the rhythm of his heart matched her own.

The sound of a barrage of loud voices had startled them and the tension in the air seemed to snap in half, forcing their attention towards the present – forcing them away from each other.

Maci sat a little straighter as she retrieved her hand and Bryce cleared his throat, focusing his eyes at the television set despite her being next to him. He wanted to take her back into his arms, wanted to steal back that moment that had been taken from them. But as fleeting as moments such as those were, they weren’t something he could simply will back. They were moments for a reason. “So, how many episodes are we watching today?” Her responding grin made him realize his mistake at asking.

“Episodes? Oh Lahela, we’re at least watching the first entire season.”

-

[reddieforlove-archive-blog]

college au

The first time Eddie saw Richie Tozier, he was laughing.

For a boy whose body and soul still ached from the chains of a childhood spent sheltered from the world, it was like seeing a specter. Something that he didn’t even believe existed until now. Eddie could only stare from where he sat under a tree in the expansive university courtyard, his legs carefully folded beneath him. 

He wore shorts, defying the old rules he had to follow as he felt grass poking at his skin. I’m not allergic, he said determinedly in his head when he first sat down. Eddie pushed himself more and more each day. Baby steps. That’s how he was going to heal. But as Eddie sat there watching, he felt the strange desire to take a leap into the unknown.

The focus of his attention was straddling a bench, talking animatedly with a redheaded girl, hands waving wildly when they weren’t adjusting his constantly slipping glasses or uselessly trying to tame his unruly curls. Eddie could see the sun glinting off of the silver ring in his ear and the dark ink of a tattoo peeking out of his rolled up sleeves. Everything about him screamed of a careless freedom.

His knuckles were scraped and bruised and Eddie could have sworn that there was a healing cut just over his eyebrow. His laughter carried across the quad, loud and abrasive and lacking in any sort of caution or shame. He didn’t feel the stares or he didn’t care. Or maybe Eddie was the only one staring. No one else seemed to notice him, another impossible thing.

Eddie couldn’t imagine not watching. It was all that he could do, longing unfurling in his chest like a beast waking from a long rest. But then that head turned and those eyes darted around, settling directly on Eddie as if the enigmatic stranger finally felt the weight of his gaze. Eddie looked away quickly, cheeks warming at being caught as he gathered his things.

He didn’t know why he ran, his heart pounding and his lungs protesting. He sprinted across campus all the way back to his dorm, digging through his bag to find his inhaler as soon as he staggered through the door, grateful to see that his roommate wasn’t there. Eddie took three full puffs before collapsing onto his small mattress.

Tears stung at his eyes and he didn’t know why.

All he knew was that the longing feeling didn’t fade away.

The day that Eddie learned his name, he was squished into the corner of a booth that was never made to fit five people. It was easy to slip into his roommate’s social circle. Mike was the kind of person that brought people together with warm smiles and endless kindness. Eddie didn’t think he’d met someone that exuded quite the feeling of welcome that Mike Hanlon did.

They were in a diner near the campus, half-eaten dinners scattered across the table and conversation filling the air around them. Bill told them about a writing course he wanted to take next semester while Ben showed some of his architecture sketches to Mike. Stan slipped in and out of the conversation with his eyes on the door.

Eddie picked halfheartedly at his plate and debated getting a milkshake. The bell over the door dinged behind them. Stan looked satisfied, finally focusing on them as he settled further into the booth. Eddie heard that laugh behind him and a cold feeling twisted in his stomach. Then the scrape of a chair across the floor reached his ears.

“What’s up, fuckers?” the same heedless spirit knocked the chair against the end of the table before straddling it backwards, folding his arms over the back of the chair.

A beanie pressed his curls low over his forehead and there was an open grin on his face.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Stan sighed.

After raising his middle finger into the air, Richie stole a fry from Bill’s plate and popped it into his mouth. The redhead girl slipped into the bench beside Stan and smacked Richie’s hand, muttering about his manners. Eddie watched it all, his heart racing in his chest as he swallowed around the suddenly dryness of his mouth and throat.

Those dark, shining eyes scanned the table, holding a hidden amusement that Eddie suspected was always there. Then they settled on him and Eddie bit down hard on his lower lip, looking away as his breath seized in his throat. He prayed that his breathing wouldn’t grow labored as he curled his hands into fists underneath the table.

Eddie was leaving his inhaler back in his dorm more and more often, no longer wanting to use it as a crutch for asthma that he didn’t actually have. Breathe in, breathe out, he told himself silently, staring down at the food that was no longer appetizing in the slightest. Eddie felt the urge deep in his chest to look, to watch, almost as if his subconscious mind knew something he didn’t.

“I’m Beverly Marsh,” he heard the girl introduce herself.

He lifted his head, fixing his gaze on her and offering a wan smile and a nod. She looked a little bit concerned, a small crease forming between her brows.

“Eddie?” Mike said, sounding worried too.

“I’m fine,” he said in answer to a question that no one asked.

Eddie’s voice sounded strange to his own ears. He looked over at Mike. Or at least that’s what he intended to do. But those eyes were still fixed on him and he couldn’t help but stare back, feeling drawn in like a moth to the flame. His control slipped and his chest grew tight. Eddie felt like he was in a free fall just by looking into the other boy’s eyes.

“I need air,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

Mike and Ben didn’t hesitate to slide out so that he could do the same. Eddie tried not to focus on the brush of his hand against Richie’s knee as he stood clumsily.

“Want me to come with you?” Mike asked, his hand touching Eddie’s shoulder as he passed.

“No,” Eddie said with a shake of his head, not wanting to ruin anyone’s night because of his own fear. “I’ll be fine.”

He pushed his way out into the cool night air without looking back. He found himself leaning against the brick wall of the building, taking measured breaths, in and out, until he felt like his feet were back on the ground again. Then the door opened to his right and he knew without looking. Eddie didn’t know how, but he just knew.

Eddie turned his head and watched Richie walk closer to the street, his face briefly illuminated by a lighter’s flame as he held it over the end of a cigarette that was held between his lips. Eddie didn’t move a muscle, watching as Richie dropped the hot pink lighter into the pocket of his jacket. Eddie hated the very idea of cigarettes but he couldn’t help but stare.

There was something entrancing about Richie right now. The way his lips closed around the cigarette and how his eyes shut when he inhaled. Eddie’s eyes followed the smoke as it curled into the air before fading into nothing. Richie flicked the ashes away with his thumb, looking up at a flickering street lamp that offered very little light.

“I know I’m a gorgeous specimen but I’m gonna have to charge rent if you keep staring like that.”

He didn’t even look around as he spoke but Eddie jerked with surprise, not expecting the spell of the quiet moment to be broken.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, wondering if the words even carried over to where Richie stood.

But then he was turning his head and grinning at him.

“I was just joking, cutie. Stare all you want,” he said with a wink.

Eddie swallowed hard, looking away from him. It was Richie’s turn to stare. Eddie felt his gaze as he stared down at the cracked and dirty pavement beneath his feet. He briefly wondered what Richie saw but chased the thought away. There was very little to see about Eddie.

“So what is it about me that makes you run like the devil’s on your ass when you see me?” Richie asked bluntly.

Eddie’s eyes darted up to him and his lips parted in surprise. Richie must have remembered him from the quad. The idea of it only brought more color to his face.

“I-I don’t-” he cut off, unsure of what to say.

“It’s hard not to notice,” Richie said, though he didn’t look offended.

Eddie clasped his hands to keep them from fidgeting.

“It’s me,” he said, looking anywhere but at Richie. “Not you. I’m… scared.”

The last word left his lips in a rush and Eddie wasn’t even sure he meant to say it. Richie snorted as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Of me?”

“Of everything,” Eddie said, wondering what it was about Richie that made him so honest. “Are you scared of anything?”

Richie let out a laugh, that same loud, bright laugh that drew Eddie to him in the first place.

“Absolutely nothing,” he said before taking a drag from his cigarette.

Eddie glanced at him, wondering if that was even possible.

“Can you teach me?”

Richie gave him a look of surprise and uncertainty. Eddie didn’t blame him. He didn’t even really know what he was asking so he wouldn’t blame Richie for being confused. But then the other boy tossed his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it before speaking.

“Want to get out of here?” Richie asked, holding a hand out.

It was Eddie’s turn to be taken off-guard by a question. He glanced into the diner at their friends who were talking and laughing. It was safe in there. Nothing outside of Eddie’s comfort zone existed within the walls of the restaurant. But then his eyes darted back to Richie, who hadn’t wavered with his hand still outstretched. This was far beyond his usual “baby steps” approach but somehow, the decision was far easier than Eddie expected.

He took Richie’s hand.

Eddie eyed the object in Richie’s hand warily, unsure of what exactly to do with it. They were in Richie’s apartment, lounging on the floor. Richie had his back to his bed while Eddie was perched up on his knees. There were band and movie posters hung on the wall haphazardly, books, papers, and records covering the floor near their outstretched feet, the barest traces of sunlight filtering through the open windows, and soft music coming from the turntable on Richie’s dresser.

“It’s easy,” Richie said, pressing one end of the joint between his lips. “You just gotta take it slow, inhale, and breathe it out.”

He did it all slowly, showing Eddie before holding the joint out to him.

“I-I don’t think I can…” Eddie trailed off, shaking his head.

Richie stared at him for a long moment.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Eds.”

Eddie looked from his intense gaze to the joint and back. Those words had basically been Richie’s mantra for the past week, ever since they formally met that night at the diner. When they snuck into the university pool and took turns shoving each other into the water, swallowing more than they should have when laughter took over.

When they climbed the water tower just outside of town and looked down at all the twinkling lights beneath them. Richie hung over the railing with a grin as Eddie screeched and pulled at his shirt, trying to tug him back to safety. Eddie thought he’d never stop shaking once they climbed down but he did, eventually, warmed by the heaters in Richie’s old, comfortable truck with worn leather seats.

“What if I choke?” Eddie asked.

It was always something. What if we get caught? What if we drown? What if we fall? Richie always responded with a casual shrug of his shoulders. Life ain’t worth living until you actually live it, Spaghetti Man. But he didn’t say that this time. Instead he tilted his head to the side just a little bit as if he was considering something.

“Want me to help you?” he offered.

“How?” Eddie asked.

Richie didn’t answer, pressing the joint between his lips once more. Eddie watched him take a drag, pull the joint away, inhale, and hold it. Then he was placing the joint in the ash tray and turning to face Eddie, who remained perfectly still with wide eyes as Richie’s hands settled on his cheeks. It wasn’t until he leaned in that Eddie realized his intention and exhaled sharply, his lips parting just enough.

It wasn’t a kiss. Not really. Richie’s lips barely brushed over his as he exhaled into Eddie’s mouth. He shuddered and his chest started to seize up a little until Richie spoke in a low murmur, his face still hovering close to Eddie’s as he told him to inhale. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and did just that, letting the smoke flood his lungs. As he let it all out, Richie pulled away just a little bit more without moving his hands.

“Good?” he said.

Eddie considered it for a moment, his head feeling just a little bit lighter.

“Yeah,” he breathed out.

Richie grinned and, before Eddie could really react, he leaned in again and brushed a soft, real kiss over his lips. Then he was gone before Eddie could so much as twitch, leaning back against the bed again to take another drag.

“Can we do that again?” Eddie asked in a quiet voice.

He didn’t really know for sure whether he meant the smoke exchange or the kiss. Both would be nice but Eddie wasn’t particularly choosy at the moment. Richie’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he exhaled yet again.

“In a minute,” he said, patting the spot next to him. “You gotta take it slow, short stack.”

Eddie glowered at him, though he settled against the bed next to Richie, their arms brushing as little shocks of warmth ran through him and every muscle in his body seemed to relax, tension bleeding from his limbs slowly but surely. When Richie offered the joint to Eddie a little over two minutes later after taking another hit, he shook his head and sealed his lips over Richie’s, inhaling the smoke with more confidence this time.

It was hard to be afraid with Richie around.

Eddie liked that.

“I’m not strong.”

They were in the courtyard again. Eddie was leaning against the same tree as before, wearing the same shorts as before. It was just the two of them, the late hour driving everyone else inside for either studying or partying. Richie was perched on a tree branch above him, one long leg swinging back and forth.

“Says who?” he asked, his voice floating down to Eddie.

“Everyone,” Eddie said, tilting his head back to look up at Richie. “They don’t have to say it out loud, though. They just know.”

There was no weed in his system tonight. Nothing to drive him into a confession he didn’t want to make. Eddie was just voicing the consistent thoughts that ran through his head.

“My mom didn’t think so. She told me I was weak, sick… loaded me up with medicine all the time. It was all bullshit but I let it go on. I took the medicine and I went to the doctor because… I guess everyone’s right. I’m not strong.”

There was nothing but silence from above him for a while and Eddie wondered if Richie stopped listening.

“Who got you out of there?” he finally asked.

“What?”

Richie swung out of the tree without responding, landing on the ground with an ungraceful thud before bending down to meet Eddie’s gaze, his hair falling into his eyes.

“Who got you out of there?” Richie said.

“I don’t…uh…no one?” Eddie said, feeling confused.

He smirked, giving Eddie a teasing look.

“So you magically materialized on campus? Eddie Spaghetti accidentally learned the ways of teleportation?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Eddie huffed, kicking out at Richie’s ankle without actually meeting his mark. “I guess I, um… I did it.”

“You got yourself out?” Richie clarified.

Eddie shrugged, looking down to pick at a loose string on his shorts. But Richie was taking his chin gently and lifting his head, his smirk turning to a soft smile that made Eddie’s stomach flutter.

“Sounds pretty strong to me,” he said.

Then, before Eddie could react, he was knocking a hand into his shoulder.

“You’re it!” Richie yelled as he darted away.

Eddie watched him go with wide eyes before his mind caught up with what was happening.

“Are you five?” he shouted back.

Richie turned around, jogging backwards dangerously since there was no way of knowing what his gangly legs would trip over.

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna back down,” he said.

Eddie narrowed his eyes and tried not to fall for the bait. But then he was pushing himself to his feet and rushing forward.

“Jokes on you, I started jogging every morning three months ago!” Eddie called out to him.

“And yet your cute little legs just can’t keep up!” Richie mocked over his shoulder.

“Fuck you! You have smoker’s lungs!”

Despite Richie’s trash talking, Eddie claimed victory when he practically leapt onto his back. They went down into the grass in a tangle of limbs and laughter, Richie taking the brunt of the fall as Eddie collapsed on top of him, sitting up only to pump his fist into the air triumphantly.

“Loser,” he said, pointing into Richie’s face.

“I let you win,” he said with an easy shrug, his hands falling to Eddie’s hips.

That’s when Eddie realized that, in this position, he was basically straddling Richie. His heart skipped a beat and he felt breathless for an entirely different reason as he reached down, pressing his palm over Richie’s quickly beating heart.

“You make me brave,” Eddie whispered after a long stretch of silence, looking into his eyes.

Richie stared up at him with a strange glint in his eyes, like he couldn’t quite understand the words.

“Nah,” he said, his thumb slipping beneath Eddie’s shirt to sweep lightly over his skin. “I’m nothing, Eds. You do that yourself.”

Eddie shook his head, reaching up to brush his thumb over Richie’s jaw.

“You’re not nothing.”

He bent down, pressing a kiss to Richie’s lips as his mind finished for him.

You’re everything.

Eddie didn’t really know when it happened. Richie was everywhere and then suddenly he was nowhere. Fear began leeching back in, choking him, telling him that he messed up. No one had answers. Bev looked at him with sympathy and Stan had the vaguest air of annoyance, maybe directed at Eddie, maybe at Richie. Ben assured him that Richie was probably just busy and Bill got a fire in his eyes when he saw Eddie trying to fight back his terror.

Richie was everywhere.

Then he was nowhere.

Then he was there.

Eddie was in a bookshop downtown trying to find a gift for Bill’s birthday when he saw the faded black paint and heard the familiar rumbling engine go by. He darted out without a second thought, leaving the books behind as he watched the truck make its way further down the street. He might have been able to outrun Richie but never a car.

But then hope sparked when Richie pulled into an empty spot.

Eddie took off before he could think, weaving through people and darting around obstacles until he found himself standing on the sidewalk next to the truck with his chest rising and falling quickly and Richie’s wide, shocked eyes staring back into his. He opened his mouth to speak but Eddie sent him a look and something about it made Richie close it again.

“Why?”

The word hovered between them. Richie looked at a loss for words and Eddie had too many words. He wanted to scream and shout but more than anything, he wanted to know why.

“Cause I was wrong,” Richie finally said, looking defeated. “You were wrong.”

Eddie watched him walk by, knowing that Richie wanted it to end there. But he wasn’t particularly concerned with what Richie wanted right now.

“If you didn’t think I was enough, why didn’t you say it sooner?” he demanded from the other boy’s retreating back.

As Richie stopped in place and turned around slowly, Eddie wiped away hot tears that he didn’t even know had fallen.

“You are more than enough,” Richie said, walking back towards him. “You’re more than I could-”

He cut off, stilling in place just a few short feet away. Eddie closed some of the distance, staring up into his eyes furiously.

“I get it,” he said, his tone scathing. “I’m not strong. I’m weak little Eddie and it’s too much for you to deal with. But the least you can fucking do is say it to my face instead of pulling this shitty disappearing act.”

Richie stepped back, running his hands through his hair as he took a deep breath.

“That is not why,” he gritted out.

“Bullshit,” Eddie spat, turning away.

“You’re not the fucking weak one here!” Richie burst out, drawing Eddie back around.

Like a moth to the flame.

“You…” Richie breathed, approaching him slowly. “You’re so fucking strong, Eds. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to pick yourself back up after everything that’s happened but you do it every goddamn day and you call yourself weak which is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. Cause I’m not strong, baby. I’m not anything like you. You deserve better and I can’t hold you back just cause I want you.”

Eddie stared up at him with wide eyes.

“You said you weren’t afraid of anything,” he whispered.

Richie let out a laugh and his hands coming up as if he would cup Eddie’s cheeks. But then he stopped.

“I lied,” he said simply, letting his hands drop. “I’ve got fears just like everyone else. I’m afraid of being overlooked and I’m afraid of being forgotten. I’m afraid that one day, my words won’t matter anymore and no one will want to listen. I’m afraid. But I had this gorgeous boy looking at me like I was some sort of fucking miracle and I wanted to live up to that cause guys like me usually aren’t looked at like that. I’m not fearless, Eds. I’m just me.”

Eddie let the words sink in, finally realizing how they’d both brought themselves to this point. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, reaching out to weave his fingers through Richie’s.

“Maybe we don’t need to be fearless,” he said, looking up at him. “Maybe we just need to be us.”

Richie didn’t look convinced even as he swept his thumb in soft circles over the back of Eddie’s hand.

“I keep telling you-”

“Shut up,” Eddie said, reaching up with his other hand to cup the back of his neck.

Richie didn’t resist when he pressed their foreheads together, breathing each other in for the first time in weeks.

“You don’t need to be a flame or a miracle, Richie,” Eddie whispered, the words for him alone. “Just be you. That’s what I need.”

Richie’s body slowly relaxed and he slid his arm around Eddie’s waist, pulling him in closer as he tilted his head down, capturing Eddie’s lips in a gentle kiss. When he pulled away, Eddie’s eyes fluttered open and he looked up at him to see uncertainty and fear mingling in those dark eyes. He didn’t know how he never saw it before.

“I don’t wanna lose you,” Richie said honestly.

“Then don’t,” Eddie said, simple as that. “And Rich?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep making me laugh, okay?”

The corner of Richie’s mouth ticked upwards and he nodded his head.

“That I can do.”

[juleskelleybooks]

TIPS #2 - Back That Dump Truck Up

Providing background is one of the areas where writing original fiction varies greatly from writing fanfiction. Most of the time in fanfiction, your readers are coming to the story with the same knowledge of the background that you, yourself, have. They know the mechanics of the universe. They know the character arcs. You don’t have to explain anything. You can just go on your merry little way and trust your readers to keep up with you. (If you’re writing a really ambitious AU, you might have to do a little more worldbuilding, but that starts treading the line of original fiction anyway so stick with me on this one.)

But if you’re writing original fiction, all that information in your head? Your readers don’t know it. And it might be tempting to tell them everything all at once so that they can get on the same page as you, but the thing is, almost nobody reads fiction to learn things, and after about two sentences, their eyes are going to glaze over.

So how do you provide the information you need the readers to know without boring them? You bake a cake.

Writing and baking are both a little bit like alchemy. You take small parts, raw ingredients (ideas, words, eggs, flour, etc.) and you mix them together in such a way that they become something bigger than the sum of their parts. And I don’t know if you’ve ever baked anything, but it turns out there’s a big difference between slowly adding one ingredient to another and just…dumping the whole thing together. The same is true for writing.

And the thing is, your book might be all right with a few info-dumps in it, but it’s kind of like biting into a cake and finding a little pocket of flour that didn’t get mixed with the other ingredients very well—it might not ruin the whole cake, but it’s an unpleasant bit of dryness that you honestly could have just done without.

So here are some simple do’s and don’ts to help you gently stir all that dry information smoothly into your other ingredients.

Don’t: Explain your world up front. In books with a contemporary setting, this isn’t as big of a deal as it is in fantasy or sci-fi, but it can still be a problem. I really, really don’t want to spend the first two paragraphs hearing about how your main character lives in a penthouse in San Francisco that he bought with the inheritance his great-grandpappy left him, or how the ancient kingdom was once peaceful and technologically advanced but now it’s war-torn and in ruins.

Do: Sprinkle little details here and there that paint a picture. Give them a purpose. Make them a part of the story. Use contrast to make them stand out. For the San Francisco penthouse, have him stress about the ever-rising property taxes. Have him examine the seams of his shirts to be sure they’re going to last until his next paycheck. Contrast this with a breathtaking view of the bay or the bridge or Market Street or whatever. Something doesn’t line up here; there’s a glaring mis-match between someone who is running out of money and someone who lives in a sleek apartment in San Francisco (because let me tell you how expensive SF is). Let that mis-match intrigue your reader. Let it pull them along. They’ll want to know why.

For the war-torn kingdom, have your main character come into conflict with leftover souvenirs of the peacetime technology that doesn’t work anymore. A state-of-the-art glass elevator is now just an empty cage blocking a shaft that could have been used for stairs. The railroad tracks are a great place for a horse to break a leg, now that all the coal is being used to make weapons instead of fuel train engines. Show the gap between two areas of contrast, but don’t explain how things got from Point A to Point D. Discovering what B and C are is going to be what pulls your reader in.

Don’t: Give me your character’s entire life story right up front. “I was born in a cabin in the woods to loving parents blah blah blah snore snore,” to borrow a quote. Nobody cares. Only people who consider themselves self-important think that anyone cares about hearing the minutiae of their lives, and it’s because only people who are self-important spend that much time thinking about themselves in that much detail! Your novel is not an interview with a biographer (probably…I mean, you could make that format work if you tried really hard). Your novel is a peek into a character’s thoughts and personality and daily life, and most people just do not think about themselves in that much detail on a daily basis. They think about the things they’re in conflict with. They think about the things that give them problems. And you know when they think about them? When they come into conflict with them.

Do: Just get right to it. Jump into the action of their lives. Give me the point of your story right up front. Maybe not the main point. Maybe just a teaser. What’s your main conflict? Your main conflict is an ancient race of sentient machines invading to harvest all organic life? (Listen, just go with it, I love those stupid games.) Don’t tell me about the damn machines. Tell me about the day they found something those machines left behind last time they were here. Why did they find it? Were they on an archaelogical dig? (Then I can surmise your character is an archaeologist.) Did they find it because they responded to a distress call from someone whose computer got fried by it? Etc.  You don’t have to tell me on the first page that your character is an N7 commander or what that means. You can sprinkle that in somewhere along the way. “Commander Shepard! Dammit. Those N7 marines, always running off ahead of everybody else.”

Don’t: Stop the action to explain something. Please. Please do not. I mean, maybe, if you’re really good at prose, if you’re freaking Douglas Adams and you’re playing it this way on purpose, you might can get away with it. But let me tell you about the time I had to read “A Barn Burning” by William Faulkner in one of my English classes and write a “reaction paper” to it. And let me tell you about how my entire reaction was just how fucking angry I was about the stupid paragraph where Faulkner interrupted the pivotal moment, where Sarty is racing up the hill, lungs bursting, legs seizing—to tell me about how the fucking cows in the fucking barn remind him of his fucking sisters. I promise you I still want to murder William Faulkner over this moment and he’s been dead for years. (My English teacher found my paper hilarious and gave me the only perfect grade she handed out to anyone the entire semester. But Faulkner is still on my shitlist.)

Do: Bring up relevant details to remind the reader of something that might be easily forgotten. Make sure it’s something you’ve explained earlier in the story so that you don’t HAVE to stop and explain. Does your pivotal moment hinge on your main character being able to hit a small object very hard with a big stick? (Look, I don’t know why it would, you’re the one writing this story.) Don’t pick that moment to spend a paragraph on how hard she practiced to try out for the hockey team when she was a kid. Tell me about that earlier, and choose the pivotal moment to just mention it, briefly, in passing. Bring up one or two relevant details that bring it to mind.  

Don’t: Overexplain.

Do: Let the reader infer some things. I don’t need to know what a womp rat looks like, their evolutionary development, or their life cycle to get the gist of Luke Skywalker saying, “I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home.”  But does referencing a “womp rat” that’s “not much bigger than two meters” add some richness to the story? You bet it does. It also sure as hell tells me a lot about what a redneck Luke Skywalker was growing up without having to spend any time on that particular bit of background.

TL;DR – Make your background details a treasure hunt, scattered through your book. Use contrast and conflict to make them stand out when they’re important. Leave some things to the imagination. Readers like filling in a few blanks here and there. It’s engaging.

And most of all, do not pull a Faulkner and make me come kick your shit-I-need-to-make-my-wordcount ass.

This post was brought to you by my supporters on Patreon. Want to become a supporter and be part of live Q&A sessions, help decide what topics I cover, and get early access to TIPS posts? Check it out here.Thanks for reading!

[johnhardinsawyer]

People, Get Ready

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

9 / 6 / 20

Exodus 12:1-14

Psalm 149

“People, Get Ready”

(Into the Unknown – Part 1)

How many of you feel like we are in uncharted territory?  A once-in-a-century pandemic, combined with the very public exposure of racial discord and injustice, combined with economic upheaval, combined with having to reinvent work and school on the fly, combined with a presidential election, combined with hurricanes and wildfires brought on by a changing climate – and it all seems to be happening at the same time.  To make things even more complex, everyone’s anxiety about all-of-the-above makes everything seem urgent – life or death – from real life and death to conspiracy theories about life and death.  And this anxiety has everyone’s fight-or-flight impulses on high alert in such a widespread way that just about everyone is on edge when it comes to one thing or another.  And, there’s so much that remains unresolved – unknown. . .

Have any of us ever lived through such a time as this?  I’m thinking that most of us would say “No, we haven’t.”  We are in uncharted territory – culturally and historically.  And, even though we are six months into the Covid-19 pandemic, I’m willing to guess that not very many of us were prepared for all that has unfolded – not ready, at all.

I don’t know how ready the people of Israel were in the land of Egypt on the night of the first Passover.  Oh, they were ready to leave – to get out from under the oppressive slave-labor and terrible conditions they had been forced to endure at the hands of the Egyptians – but I don’t know how many of them were actually prepared to leave. . .  whether their bags were packed or not.  And yet, in today’s story from the Book of Exodus, Moses tells the people to get ready, because they are going to be leaving very soon.  They might not be sure where they’re going, exactly, but they are getting out, so they need to get ready.

This is a strange story that starts with instructions for going out and buying a lamb, painting blood on the doorpost, cooking the lamb in a certain way, and eating it all in a hurry – dressed for travel – but not until God passes through the land and kills a lot of people.  This strange story is actually the culmination of a series of strange stories – nine stories, to be exact – about the various ways that Moses, and the God of Israel, try to convince the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to let the people of Israel go.  Moses, fresh off of his visit with the burning bush in the wilderness, returns to Egypt – the country of his birth, the country that had kicked him out a few years earlier – to encourage, cajole, and convince the king to free the Israelite slaves. . .  Moses’ people. . . God’s people.  

“Let my people go,” Moses tells the king, over and over again.  And, the king says “No,” over and over again.  So God sends these plagues:  a poisoned river, millions of frogs, a lot of gnats and flies, the livestock get sick, everyone gets gross boils on their skin, there is thunder, and hail, and locusts, and darkness that doesn’t go away.  It’s basically like the year 2020.  No, as crazy as this year has been, the Egyptians have it way worse.  Anyway, after every plague, Moses returns to the king and says, “Let my people go” and the king – whose hard heart gets more and more unyielding with every plague – says, “No.  No.  No.”

Finally, Moses offers this last threat from the Lord:  

Thus says the Lord:  About midnight I will go out through Egypt.  Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock.  Then there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again.  (Exodus 11:4-6)

Woah!  That’s quite a threat!  But it falls on deaf ears.  As the scripture tells us, “The Lord [hardens] Pharaoh’s heart, and he [does] not let the people of Israel go out of his land.”  (11:10)  Pharaoh either doesn’t think that it will happen OR maybe he doesn’t understand the full scope of what will occur if it does happen.  Pharaoh is familiar with the Nile – the river that runs through Egypt – but he also seems to be very familiar with denial – the refusal to admit the truth[1] about what is going to happen.  He is not the first person in history to live in denial.  He’s not the last, either.  Moses knows the truth about what God is going to do, though.  God has told him as much[2] and Moses has seen as much in the nine previous plagues.  And, so, Moses gives his people a plan to protect themselves.

Could we pause for a moment and talk about the elephant in the room – about the whole God-threatening-and-killing-a-bunch-of-people-thing?  I mean, I’m the first born child of two first-born children and, if I were just some regular Egyptian, living my life in the time of Moses, this story would not turn out well for me – or for a lot of people.  

It’s stories like this that can cause a lot of people to get hung up on the Bible, especially when they read the Old Testament.  Richard Dawkins, a biologist and prominent atheist, writes, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.”[3]  Now, this is not the God that I see when I read the Old Testament, but I can see how a selective and literal reading of the Bible could lead someone to believe that God is unpleasant.  As Old Testament scholar Brent Strawn writes, though, “Knowing little bits here and there simply won’t do.  Snippets definitely don’t count as the full language [of the Bible].  They also can’t count as serious criticism [from Dawkins or anyone else].”[4]  Besides, the real heart of today’s story is God’s love and protection for God’s people and the way that God frees the oppressed by defeating the oppressors.  Some might say that God is unpleasant, but ultimately, God is on the side of the lowly, and the downtrodden, and the helpless.  This is the God we see at work in today’s story.

On the first Passover, the people of Israel share a meal – huddled together, sheltering in place – as God passes through the land and passes over their blood-painted doorframes.  The people eat a special meal – a simple meal, the kind of meal that can be cooked without too much preparation – because they need to be ready to go.  Moses instructs the people to eat their dinner with their traveling clothes on, shoes on their feet, and walking sticks in their hands[5] – ready to leave, at a moment’s notice.

Imagine if you had to suddenly leave the only home you have ever known, taking only the things that you could carry.  What might you decide to take with you or leave behind – not knowing exactly where you are going, but leaving the past and stepping out on faith, into the unknown?

In so many ways, I think this is where we find ourselves in this uncertain moment.  After the initial rush of hoarding all of the toilet paper and bread flour that we could find back in March, this time of physical distancing, and sheltering in place, and masks in the grocery store, and at school, and no in-person worship at church leaves us wondering what will come next.  When will it end?  How will it end?  How will our world be changed, permanently?  Because, clearly, things have changed.

It is no small thing that today’s text begins with a kind of proclamation from God to Moses, “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.”  (12:2)  This moment – the moment that I am freeing you – is the moment that defines everything that comes after it.  As one commentator writes, “[L]iberation is . . . the foundational act for [God’s people].”[6]  It is no small thing that for Christians, the liberation from sin and death that we celebrate on Easter is built on the foundation of Passover – the time that God freed Israel from the land of Egypt.  The sacrifice of those Passover lambs in Egypt foreshadows the sacrifice that Jesus gives for the sake of the whole world – for all who came before and all who would come afterward.

I am starting to see the year 2020 as kind of a watershed moment – a turning point in the life of the world – in your life, and mine.  Just as the ancient Hebrew people are told that this moment – the moment of the Passover – is to be the moment that defines everything that comes after it, I imagine that many of us will think of this year as marking the moment BP and AP – Before Pandemic and After Pandemic; Before Mask and After Mask; Before and After too much death from Covid-19 and other things; Before and After Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake. . . and Kyle Rittenhouse; Before and After whoever gets elected in November; maybe, prayerfully, Before and After a vaccine and not being able to gather together in-person as a church family. . .

Whatever is in the past. . . well. . . that was before.  And whatever is coming next. . . well. . . that is unknown.  So, if we know we’re going into the unknown, I wonder what it might look like if we tried to get ready.  And, no, I’m not talking about going to the store to buy all of the paper towels we can find.  I am talking about our own spiritual readiness to encounter whatever the unknown brings our way.

I’m thinking that maybe, if we’re heading into the unknown, it might be good to hear some stories about people who have been there and who made it through, with God’s help.  So, over the next few weeks, we are going to be traveling into the unknown with Moses and his people.  And I hope that we can find some encouragement for where we are and where we’re going.  And I hope – I hope – we know that wherever we go, we are not alone.

Because we – like our ancient Hebrew spiritual ancestors – can rely on God to go with us, God to lead the way, God to feed us and give us water in times of dryness, God to turn us back to the things that are important, God to encourage us when we are afraid, and God to bring us, at last, to a good place.  

Between now and then, though, we are heading into the unknown.  And before we go, it would be good to stop for a moment – as we will be doing this morning – around a table to eat and drink and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  So, let us prepare for that meal – make ourselves ready for the grace that God provides, the grace that feeds us, and embraces us, and goes with us into the unknown.

Let’s get ready. . .

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] Frederick C. Mish, ed.  Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield:  Merriam-Webster Publishers, 1988) 339.

[2] See Exodus 4:23.

[3] Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, by way of Brent A. Strawn, The Old Testament is Dying:  A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment (Grand Rapids:  Baker Academic, 2017) 84.

[4] Strawn, 91-92.

[5] See Exodus 12:11.

[6] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2004) 376, n. 2.