I'm gonna start quoting the Bible if you're not careful

She was Crowley unbound. Crowley in full bloom. Crowley as he might’ve been, had the world allowed him to be everything, all at once.

Miss C. grinned at the audience.

“My darlings.” she purred, voice like velvet fog — and the hall roared back.

She took the mic stand like it was a lover and leaned into it.

“What a delicious, dangerous night this is. Because tonight, we shine in the dark. We remember what they want us to forget: That love, in all its wild, beautiful forms, is holy.”

“Tonight,” she said, “we’re not shadows. We are stars, every bloody one of us.”

The crowd cheered.

Miss C reached into the rigging above her and tugged a rope.

From the ceiling, it descended — glowing, buzzing, alive.

He shouldn’t have picked them.

That was the first thought – swift, practical, rational – the instant his eyes caught the glint of red nestled in the tangle of bramble. A clutch of wild strawberries, lopsided and vivid, clung like rubies to the thorny vines, half-hidden in the green. He’d only meant to gather kindling, wandering down to the riverbend more out of duty than desire, trying to ignore the slow throb in his left knee and the faster throb of impatience with another uninspired meal ahead.

Potatoes. Again.

There were only so many ways to resurrect a root. Roasted, skewered, scorched over flame, boiled into bland oblivion. Once even mashed with what could generously be called garlic. There had been a moment – a brief, deluded moment – where he’d tried to approach them as a puzzle, trying different seasonings and textures, but it wore thin when he’d exhausted every variation he could imagine three days ago. Novelty had now become mockery, and even his imagination had grown tired.

But still, there they were.

Strawberries. Real. Untamed. Unreasonably bright against the leaves, their skins glinting like lacquered jewels in the dappled afternoon light. He stared, disbelieving, as though they were an illusion summoned just to test him. They had no business growing this late in the season. Not in this region. Not now, not here—not after a week spent chewing through defeat disguised as dinner.

It felt like a gift. Not from the gods, not even from luck—but from something. A nudge from something with a sense of humor and timing. A soft echo of a wish the world had half-overheard.

He heard her voice then, sharp and soft and so casually placed it had taken up residence in his chest without permission. They had all been by the fire, nothing remarkable about it except the rare ease in the air, when the small talk had been light enough to feel like normalcy. She’d sat beside him, just close enough that her arm brushed his now and then. Gods, how he’d kept still, like it meant nothing and it wasn’t undoing him with each accidental graze. The scent of her lingered in the air: rain, crushed leaves, and something unmistakably her. A kind of wildflower resilience. Something sun-warmed and wind-worn.

"I had a patch," she’d said, gaze caught in the flames. "Back home. They were nearly ripe when..." she’d tapped her temple with two fingers, just above the place where the tadpole now curled, a grotesque souvenir. She’d given a dry little shrug, like the memory hadn’t pressed a soft bruise across her words. "They were my favorite. I hope the deer enjoyed them."

She’d gone quiet after that. Her hands, usually restless, had folded gently in her lap, fingertips brushing as if trying to hold the shape of a memory before it dissolved. And he’d carried that moment since. It was such a small thing – a casual memory – but it had mattered to her, and she hadn’t needed to say so.

The fire crackled low, embers sighing into the night. Potatoes sizzled in the pan, browned at the edges, the same as they ever were – smelling of woodsmoke and resignation. He stirred them idly with the back of his spoon, the earthy scent lifting on the breeze.

They were all tired of the lack of variety in dinner, it wasn’t a secret. Yet Tav never complained. Not once. She ate with the careful grace of someone who knew not to waste anything – not energy, not kindness, not even appetite. Not even when the third, fourth, fifth meal in a row felt more like penance than sustenance. But he saw it — subtle, easily missed — the way her hand would hover a beat too long over the food before lifting the fork. How she’d set the bowl down a little too gently, like it might offend the effort.

The others gathered in loose, tired silence, bowls in hand. And her plate—set quietly to the side—looked just like the rest.

Except it wasn’t.

Nestled between the small roasted potatoes sat the four wild strawberries, glistening like secrets.

A gesture. That’s all it was. That’s what he told himself, at least. A simple offering for things she never owed. She hadn’t needed to help any of them. Hadn’t needed to pull him free from that rock, or help a grove of tieflings, or hand over yet another enchanted charm to soothe the orb lodged in his chest. But she had.

And if he was being honest with himself – recklessly and brutally honest – this wasn’t about gratitude any longer.

It was about her.

He didn’t even know what he hoped for when she found them. Gratitude? A glance? A smile meant only for him? No. Not even that. Just…recognition. A flicker of awareness. That she saw him. That he could still give something that meant something.

He tried to remind himself that such longing was foolish. Dangerous, even. Affections were a luxury at a time like this, and his plate was already full – twice over. The orb inside him pulsed with slow hunger, gnawing deeper and greedily with every breath, and the tadpole – that silent harbinger curled behind his eye – waited with a cruel patience.

Still – he thought of her.

Had his time of isolation softened something vital in him? Had his tower emptied him so thoroughly that now he craved the warmth of another voice, another hand, another presence?

Gods, yes.

She emerged from the trees, the exhaustion of first watch lingering in the slope of her shoulders and her hair pushed back haphazardly, strands catching on her brow. He didn’t mean to stare. But he did. Of course he did.

She reached for her plate – and paused.

Her fingers hovered, then drifted to the edge. She stared at the berries at first, as if uncertain of their existence. Her gaze then shifted to the others, subtly and cautiously scanning their plates one by one. A quiet realization settled in her features. Her eyes then lingered a heartbeat longer on the fire, then the trees, as if to puzzle the source. When she turned back to her plate, it was with the care of someone cradling a secret. She angled her body just so – a soft, instinctive shield – keeping them, for now, just for herself.

Finally, she delicately lifted one and turned it with a care customarily reserved for relics. Her thumb traced the dimpled flesh. A keepsake. A fragment of home returned to her by unseen hands.

He dared another glance.

And there it was – a quiet smile.

It was private, small, a curve of the lips that filled a hollow space and healed nothing but still made it ache less. And yet it struck him like sunlight breaking through a stormed sky. A small light, in a place that held one in far too long.

He looked away, quickly shoving a forkful of bland potato into his mouth, feigning indifference, hoping the heat in his chest wouldn’t betray him. It didn’t help. The warmth bloomed traitorously behind his ribs, stubborn and absurd.

Still, against all better judgment, he looked again. Caught her in the moment her teeth sank into the first one.

Her lips parted slowly and her eyes fluttered shut as she savored it. For a breathless instant, she looked transformed – like the taste had taken her somewhere else entirely. The red of the juice stained her mouth like wine. Her tongue flicked out, small and unthinking, to chase a drop clinging at the corner.

Gale nearly combusted.

Not from the storm of the Weave beneath his skin, but from the unbearable beauty of her in that quiet act of delight. Something so small and so devastatingly tender. He could imagine the taste of it. The warmth of her mouth. The softness. The taste of wild sugar on her tongue.

Control yourself.

He wrenched his gaze away, stabbing at his plate as if it had insulted his bloodline. The potatoes, in all their bland glory, looked more like mush now.

He remembered the one he’d allowed himself earlier – just one – under the guise of quality assurance. When he’d bitten into it, the taste had startled him. The sweetness. The burst of flavor, sharp, sun-warmed and wild. He’d closed his eyes. Let it linger. For a moment, it felt like something alive in his mouth.

Now, watching her eat them…it was like something quietly shared between them – an intimacy passed across the fire without words. As if, even though she might not know it, she was unknowingly part of a moment he had made for her. Like they had met briefly in the middle of two separate silences and found something soft waiting there. Perhaps in another lifetime, if things had been different with more time and fewer monsters, they might have sat beneath a tree somewhere, hands sticky and stained red, laughing at nothing.

He peeked at her again, once, twice, until the last berry vanished.

She never once looked up. He waited – too long – for a glance that didn’t come, and felt foolish for hoping. He truly hadn’t expected gratitude, only meant to offer something that hadn’t been ruined. He repeated it to himself, over and over, until the words lost shape.

But he’d hoped – selfishly – that she’d know. That she’d see him in the gesture.

He pressed the thought away and finished his meal in silence, the last bite of potato heavy in his mouth, though his chest still held a quiet warmth.

Later, in his tent, the doubt crept in like a silent and smothering fog.

He sat cross-legged in the hush of canvas and shadows, the familiar sprawl of an open tome resting forgotten in his lap. The pages blurred – black ink bleeding into cream, words unraveling into symbols without shape. He wasn’t reading. Couldn’t. His thoughts circled like a trapped bird.

What had he been thinking? Strawberries. Hells. As if that meant anything.

It was imprudent. Absurd. A gesture plucked from some softer place he had no right reaching for. Presumptuous. Hopelessly transparent. A gesture too tender for a world like this.

He hadn’t meant it that way—not entirely. But of course he had. He’d thought of her when he saw them. Thought of her when he picked them. Thought of her as he placed them on her plate like a secret offering he didn’t dare name.

He had been thinking of her more often lately. Too often.

Her hands, nimble and stained green at the fingertips, lifting herbs from soil with reverence. The way she tilted her head when she listened, brow drawn in that curious furrow, as if deciphering a language only she could hear – something spoken by the trees or the wind itself. The strange serenity she carried, even when the world around them fractured at the edges. Like she was made of weathered stone and wildflower – soft, but not unbreakable.

What if she’d thought it strange? Too tender. Too personal. What if it unsettled her, the way he reached with unspoken intent? Or worse – what if she understood exactly what it had meant?

His heart beat louder in his chest, each thud chasing the next like a question he couldn’t outrun.

What if she didn’t feel the same?

What if she did?

What if it had opened something he wasn’t ready to name…wasn’t brave enough to carry?

He told himself it didn’t matter. That it shouldn’t matter. Not now. Not with everything pressing in on them and the world unraveling one skirmish, one sacrifice at a time. They had more important things to worry about than half-meant gestures and the fragile ache of want.

And he was already living on borrowed time. Each breath counted by something other than years. What could he possibly offer her? A man carrying too many dooms inside him, held together by threadbare magic and worse luck.

No. It shouldn’t matter.

And then, he remembered her smile.

Small. Crooked. Private.

Not for the others. Not even for him, perhaps. But there had been something in it – something that unfolded like warmth against frost. Like a wound had stopped bleeding for the space of a breath. He held onto that thought – clung to it. Then promptly began tearing it apart again.

What if he’d imagined it all?

He exhaled a quiet curse and dropped his face into his hands. Fool. It had been a few berries, not a confession, and yet the weight of it curled in his gut, heavy and shameful. He could write it off, pretend it hadn’t happened, deny it if she asked. A small moment, easily erased.

Then something caught his eye.

A bundle, small and unassuming, tucked just inside the flap of the tent. Easy to miss, if not for the scrap of fabric wound around it.

Thin and blue. Familiar.

A strip from the scarf she wore sometimes – well-worn, sun-faded, soft from years of use. He’d seen her tie her hair with it on windier days, the ends fluttering like ribbons as she walked ahead of them on the trail.

He leaned forward, fingers cautious.

Inside was a sprig of lavender, dry and fragrant, its scent rising like memory from the folds. A smooth dark stone, the kind shaped by water and time, still faintly warm from the sun. A pressed scrap of golden moss, sweet with the smell of clean soil and green places. And last, a small wedge of honeycomb, glistening gold in the low lantern light, sticky and luminous as amber caught in time.

Beneath it all, folded once with neat, deliberate precision, a slip of parchment. The handwriting in a delicate, curling script.

Thank you.

He stared at it for a long moment, the corners of his mouth trembling toward something helplessly, stupidly hopeful once again. He knew these things. Recognized them.

The stone – he’d seen her pocket it days ago near the creek, turning it over in her palm as though listening to some private rhythm. The lavender – tucked behind her ear before returning to camp one evening, absentminded, lost in thought. The moss – he’d seen her gather it with reverent care, murmuring that it reminded her of home.

And the honeycomb. She was always searching for honeycomb. She once said it was the little things that made all the difference. That kept her from losing what made her herself.

His throat worked around a tight knot of feeling as he simply sat there, stunned by the quiet enormity of it. His fingers curled slowly around the note. The air in the tent felt suddenly warmer.

Gods, he thought. I’m done for.

Outside, the night was still.

Then – movement.

A flicker, just past his peripheral. He looked up, and through the narrow slit of his own tent, he caught it – her tent flap swaying gently closed.

Not the wind. Not an accident. She’d been watching.

A smile crept along his face, flushed and helpless and a little idiotic – the kind of smile that made him feel fifteen and foolish and entirely seen.

He rolled the stone slowly between his fingers, grounding himself in its weight, its texture, the feel of her touch still clinging faintly to its surface. As though she’d handed him a fragment of herself without words.

He tucked it into the inside pocket of his shirt – just over his heart – and closed his hand there, feeling its steady weight against his chest. And for the first time in what felt like weeks – months, or perhaps longer still – the ache in him didn’t quite feel so lonely. He allowed himself to feel. Want. Hope, for the quiet chance of something human waiting on the other side of all this ruin.