You never know when the good you do may come back around

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER | 3.12 "Helpless"

BONUS:

Someone else from Leverage: We could embarass/scare/trick them.

I just want to catch spelling errors and accidental double spaces and repeated phrases and whenever I use the wrong too/to or affect/effect and shit. But no. They've shoved AI up the ass of every grammar checking software out there and now they all fucking suck and make the most random, obnoxious, nonsensical suggestions.

I get why people keep saying this (and other versions of it like "Use Adobe alternatives" and "Use Google product alternatives."). But here's the problem: I do not create in isolation. Even my own 100% personal projects are getting sent to other people whether it's editors or printers or beta readers and unless every single person in that train is using the same products, things can get wonky.

Libre Office and Word handle formatting differently on the back end, which can completely break documents if you move them back and forth between the two. So if I write in Libre Office but my beta readers are still using Word, when I send them a manuscript for review there's a good chance things won't look right and my beta reader will not actually be reviewing what I sent them.

:| :| :|

The first of my two contributions to the Reverse Big Bang by @deadbangdetectives is here, featuring this beautiful art by @meips-battteries-are-low! You can read the first scene below, or the whole thing here on AO3.

Relationships: Edwin/Charles; minor Crystal/Niko; past Edwin/Simon

Rating: M

Warnings: major character injury; past unhealthy relationships (not between Payneland); miscommunication

Summary: Three years after the fight that ended their friendship, Charles gets a call that Edwin has been hit by a car and is in the hospital with a badly broken leg and a concussion. With no one else to take care of Edwin during his recovery, Charles has no choice but to step up. In the days that follow, old feelings come bubbling to the surface, and it turns out neither of them are as ready to let go as they thought.

***

When the shrill ring of his phone cuts through his flat, Charles is still half-asleep, lazing in bed with his face buried in his pillow. He snuggles deeper under the covers, waiting for the ringing to stop, because he can’t think of a single person who should be calling him right now. Crystal and Niko know not to call him before noon in the mornings after he works late at the pub. He just talked to his mum the other day, and she usually calls at night, well after his dad is in bed. It’s probably someone trying to sell him something or a wrong number, and Charles isn’t getting out of bed for that. The phone stops ringing and Charles enjoys a moment of quiet before the answering machine kicks on.

“Hello,” a woman’s crisp voice says. “My name is Vera and I’m calling from St. Vincent’s Hospital—”

“You don’t want to go in there,” Crystal said, not bothering to open her eyes. Crystal was starting to get more open about how much she picked up psychically, hiding it less. Niko was proud of her, and tried not to be nervous about it, because if people like Charles and Edwin could be fine about someone constantly feeling at their emotions then Niko definitely could too.

Crystal picked her head up from where it was thunked back against the wall, to look at Niko. “Edwin’s having a crash-out, Charles is dealing with it.” She looked sideways at the door. “Thank god for all the wards and shit or you’d be hearing a lot of yelling.”

Niko nodded and slid down the wall to sit next to Crystal. Edwin’s “crash-outs” - as Crystal had started calling them, and even though Charles had already had a name for them, Crystal’s word stuck - weren’t all that common, maybe once a month if that, but enough for even Niko, fairly freshly back from Elsewhere, to have a pretty good idea of the shape of it. According to Charles, they were a lot rarer before, well, everything, at least for the last couple decades. But Niko thought it was pretty fair for… everything… to leave you wound up for a while, and for a while to be years, if you were immortal. Or undead.

“What’s it about?”

“He bolted when we were fighting the Greenwitch last night. I think she reminded him of Esther and Hell at the same time and he freaked. I’m fine, and Charles is fine, and we beat her, but, whatever, he’s pissed at himself about it. Last thing I heard before Charles shoved me out the door was him calling himself ‘a fucking coward‘. There was something about why we put our safety in his hands when he’s broken, or something. You know. Bullshit.”

Niko nodded again, sagely. “Crash-outs usually are. But they let you see where the truth is, sometimes.”

Crystal grunted. “For example, Edwin definitely hates himself even more than he hates me. No idea how I didn’t see that a lot earlier.”

Niko reached out and poked Crystal with a lavender-painted nail. “You know he doesn’t hate you.”

“Sure.” A bit of a yell managed to get past the muting built into the office’s wards, which was impressive. Edwin must be putting a bit of magic into it as well as volume. Crystal raised an eyebrow at the closed door. “Thank fuck for Charles’s eardrums being dead. No idea how a guy that tall can get that shrill.”

Niko shrugged. She wriggled her shoulders against the wall to get comfortable; it was pretty clear she and Crystal would be waiting for a while. It’d be fine, though. Edwin always calmed down in the end, and Charles would take care of him when he did. She pulled a deck of cards out of her pocket.

“Gin Rummy?”

THE L WORD (2004 - 2009)

Happy Pride to the Jackal and Our Girl!