#quebebarb

[araluen-arrows]

qbb chapter 18

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149032/chapters/115092364 

waking up from eternal slumber to post,,,, hi!! if anyone is still following this hill quarantine fic, i am doing another few chapters this week while i am on spring break <3

[araluen-arrows]

qbb ch 23 :DD

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24149032/chapters/58149223 

SHE’S EXACTLY 66,666 WORDS I’M SO EXCITED!!!!!! also obligatory shameless plug excerpt:

“Let’s discuss over noodles,” Alyss says after a pause, turning to grab a third bowl. “It’ll be a hard conversation, but soup eases all human pains.”

As soon as she says it, Will realizes how hungry he is. The ramen is mid-range as far as ramen goes, but it’s still a top-tier food by sheer virtue of being a soup noodle. The broth is undersalted, but it’s greatly improved by the presence of eggs, shiitake mushrooms, and bok choy. “You’ve gotten better,” he marvels. “This is delicious.”

“You missed the one where she let the water boil for twenty minutes and forgot to add noodles,” Cass says between slurps.

Alyss kicks at her shin under the table, misses, and gets Will instead. “I was doing something!”

“I know. I was something,” Cassandra retorts, perfectly deadpan.

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RA cast: modern AU

(specifically, the AU of quarantine, brownies, and belonging, aka my runaway hill slowburn, where Will, Cass, Alyss, and Horace all attend the same university, and where no one is straight and/or white)

Will: bisexual Pakistani-American, runs cross-country and distance track for the school. His major is computer science engineering, his favorite smell is sandalwood, and he’s a reformed theater kid from high school. He cooks & bakes like you would not believe. Halt is his high-school coach who got him into running and taught him to drive, since he doesn’t have the best home life.

Horace: gay Black American, throws shotput and discus and is on the track team with Will. His major is exercise science on a pre-med track and he’s like? frat-bro adjacent. Used to be a jock in high school. There’s no color in his wardrobe because he doesn’t know how to put them together and defaults to black, white, and gray. Oh, and he uses sandalwood conditioner.

Alyss: sapphic Chinese American. She attends school on a full ride scholarship and is a double major in International Relations and Computer Science. She speaks three languages (english, chinese, french), and was a marching band kid (flute) in high school. Red Bull addiction. She’s considering law as a career and only has blazers and flowy skirts in her wardrobe.

Cass: panromantic Black American. (in my head she’s also demisexual. also gender?? what is gender?? she uses she/her, for now, just because it’s convenient and she doesn’t mind it.) Majors in business with a concentration in fashion design, almost definitely has ADHD, and is the only reason Alyss has a functioning sleep schedule. She’s barely five feet tall on a good day. Will wear almost anything, always has acrylic nails except on her second and third finger.

Halt: Will’s distance running coach from high school with a Mysterious Government Job on the side. Is happily married to his husband, who is sadly not Crowley. They own a ranch and raise horses together, and Will is still not sure if Halt is just a horse girl or if the horses have to do with his top-secret second job. 

Crowley: Will’s and Alyss’s computer science professor. Aroace, puts whiskey in his coffee, is excellent friends with Pauline in the IR department. They’re working together on research about the growing technology gap in the global north and south. Always wears a jean jacket with various pride pins, and his hair is always in a topknot with a stylus stuck in it.

Pauline: the token straight, hijabi, is the first gay adult Alyss has ever met and therefore was adopted as a surrogate mom on the spot. They meet for tea every other week in her office while Alyss catches her up on everything.  

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"Will takes the pictures and thinks of Olympians, athletes and gods alike. He thinks of Greco-Roman art, of discus throwers immortalized in marble through three millennia.

He doesn’t need marble. Horace is in front of him, fully flesh and blood."

(or, in which some very drawn-out hill pining finally Results In Something)

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Horace straightens up again, working out a kink in his hair. “Go to sleep, sweetheart,” he says to Will as he picks up his car keys. “I’ll be back when you wake up.”

“Make me,” Will mumbles, looking up at him, and he enjoys Horace’s intake of breath.

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“You are one of the bravest goddamn people I’ve met.” Will lifts their joined hands. He smooths the pad of his thumb over Horace’s throwing calluses and thinks about the years of blood and sweat that wore them into his skin. He can’t believe he gets to witness the evidence of those years, to have and to hold. Carefully, almost reverently, he presses his lips to the heart of Horace’s palm. “I promise you that.”