I really do dislike it when people make those posts of Johnny if he survived the fire and they put him in crutches
I know it’s not too serious, but in the book it said that Johnny broke his spine which caused him to be paralyzed from there, and a doctor told him he would never be able to walk again even with crutches
So why put him in crutches? I feel like a wheelchair would be more suitable, or like, anything that allows him to move that isn’t crutches?
I just find it odd that people decide to put him in crutches, is there a fact I am missing? I would love to know
since Adam returns Aziraphale’s shop back to normal after Armegedon’t but stocks it with the wrong kind of books, Aziraphale spends the next decade or so hunting down new (old) books to fill it with. Crowley helps him out in this endeavor – they travel the globe together, perusing secondhand bookstores and auctions. and since Crowley doesn’t have any qualms about stealing, it’s easy enough for him to acquire volumes that haven’t seen the public eye in centuries. museums and rich people notify police worldwide that invaluable works have gone missing from their collections, while Aziraphale obliviously (or perhaps not so obliviously) accepts the demon’s gifts with delight.
also, Aziraphale replaces his old Infamous Bible collection with more secular works – he’s had quite enough of bibles for the time being.
What do you think happened to all the boys after the book ended? like careers and families and did they stay in touch and stuff?
I posted a rant about this awhile ago here, but allow me to get even rantier and more in-depth.
Ponyboy didn’t stay in Tulsa. He went to California not long after turning 18. I refuse to believe that he wasn’t a hippie. He’d always wanted to go to college, but when the time came he just felt more right about traveling and finding himself. So he turned 18, saved up some money, bought a van (it was a fucking VW bus and he painted it don’t try to tell me otherwise) and drove out to San Francisco. He got heavy into anti-war protests (amplified by Soda getting drafted and killed) and social justice issues and he was just… I mean, picture the stereotype of a hippie and that’s Ponyboy in the late 60s/70s. He definitely wanted to escape his life in Tulsa to an extent, but he stayed in touch with Darry and Two-bit. He’d write home fairly often- he was always writing whether it was poems or letters or short stories. He met a girl through a group of friends who was soft and warm and understood everyone, and he never questioned that she was his soulmate. When he was around 25, they moved to Vermont (Ponyboy is the actual personification of Burlington, VT fight me) and he started writing more seriously and got some work published. And at some point, he heard about a little boy from New York who was in the foster care system named Austin, and figured there was no way he could ignore that kind of sign. He and his wife adopted him, and started fostering kids. He never had biological kids, and that was okay with him because the kids he took care of needed him more than even he could ever comprehend.
I can’t get past S.E. Hinton’s ideas of what happens with Sodapop after the book. He never falls in love again after Sandy, he dates a lot, and around the time he’s starting to feel like he really likes a girl enough to ask her to go steady, he gets his draft letter. And he never lets on how scared he is, because he knows Pony wouldn’t be able to handle it. He ships off for war, never complaining about it to anyone except Steve (and one breakdown in front of Darry). He writes home to them every chance he gets- always two letters. Ponyboy gets the stories about the dumb shit he and Steve pulled that nearly got them discharged, and he makes sure to remember the stories the boys in their platoon tell so he can pass them on to Ponyboy. Darry gets the letters where he swears he’s doing okay, but my god nothing prepared him for this kind of hell. Darry gets the letters where he says that even though he’s still mad at Steve for being stupid enough to enlist, he doesn’t think he’d be making it through this with his best friend. But he always promises both of them he’ll be back. And then he and Steve and two of the boys in their unit get sent on a supply drop to the nearest MASH. And they drive into an ambush. Two of them survive, Soda isn’t one of them. But he dies with Steve right there, holding onto him. And he makes Steve promise to write Darry and Pony and make sure they know he wasn’t alone. And he makes Steve promise that he’ll make it home, and he’ll live his life.
Darry proves everybody right that he’d make it. Nobody but himself ever questioned that. He’d started dating a middle-class girl before Soda left, and she pulled him through losing his brother. He’d sworn he wouldn’t ask her to marry him until Soda came home, and it took him awhile to accept that that wasn’t gonna happen. So the first time Ponyboy came home to visit after leaving for California, he proposed to her. And he did as well as everyone knew he would. He ended up owning his own construction company by the time he was 30, and he was finally able to live the life he deserved. He moved out of Tulsa, to a quieter suburb a few hours away. He had 3 kids, two girls and a boy. And his youngest girl looked and acted exactly like Sodapop, to a point where it would sometimes take him off guard a little.
Two-bit got a girl (not Kathy, they broke up when she went off to college) pregnant when he was 20. She was 19. And he was scared shitless, but he was never going to be his father. He stayed, he married her, and he was far from a perfect husband, but he was there. His drinking slowed way down after their son was born, and he stopped entirely after awhile of seeing Steve’s downward spiral. Two stayed in Tulsa, and could never provide anything great (financially) for his family, but, damnit, he stayed. And he loved his family and he was a good husband and a great father. He worked odd jobs until he got promoted a few times at a grocery store and ended up in a management position.
Okay now I’m gonna get extra long-winded because post-book Steve is sort of my everything. He finishes school, with no intention to go college- he’s happy working at the DX until he and Soda can open their own garage, that was always the plan. And despite how reckless and free Steve is, he always had a plan. He and Evie were gonna get married, they were gonna have 2 kids (per Evie’s dreams) and he and Soda were gonna open their own garage and live next door to each other. But then Soda got drafted. And after the initial anger and confusion faded away, he enlisted. He barely even realized what he was doing until he was at the recruitment office, but he never questioned it. And nobody was surprised. Soda was pissed at him, Darry told him he was the biggest idiot in the world, Evie cried… but nobody was surprised. He and Soda had always looked out for each other, that wasn’t about to stop when it was the most necessary. And even in the depths of hell, he never regretted a thing, because he couldn’t imagine Soda being there alone. And then Soda dies. And nothing in Steve is ever the same. He was there, he watched his best friend take his last breaths… and there was nothing he could do. And he didn’t let himself grieve. He carried on through the rest of his deployment- a little more ruthless than before. And he went home keeping every promise he’d made Soda in mind. But then he was home and he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t look at Pony or Darry, and being with Two-bit reminded him too much of being with Soda. So he got Tim Shepard to hook him up with a dealer and he started doing heroin. And it eventually took over his life. He was weighed down with suppressed grief and untreated PTSD, and getting high and drunk took over every part of him. Pony stopped asking about him when he wrote home. Darry stopped calling him after he moved. Two-bit stopped checking in on him. Evie begrudgingly left him. And he lived in rock bottom for awhile. And then one night the police brought him, half-unconscious to the hospital. And they didn’t want to put him back on the streets, so they asked him about family. And for some reason, Darry’s name came to his mind. So the nurses tracked him down and called him. And because it’s Darry, he got in his car and drove 2.5 hours back to Tulsa. And the next morning when Steve was as close to sober as he ever was these days, Darry (figuratively, although he wouldn’t have minded…) knocked some sense into him. He got into rehab, he got clean, and he got his shit together. He got a job at Two-bit’s store (which Two had to put his own job on the line for, given the fact that Steve had been fired from the last job he had, hadn’t worked in almost a year, and had been in and out of jail more times than he could count) and got himself back together. He put himself through school and became a drug counselor (although the idea of owning his own garage stayed in his mind). He basically went on an apology tour, and when he tracked down Evie, she couldn’t deny how much she’d missed him. They tried being friends for awhile (much to the outrage of Sylvia and Evie’s family) but they’re soulmates, and that couldn’t be denied. They got married, and she was his backbone when he needed it. He’d never seen himself doing anything remotely like what he was doing now, but now, he couldn’t imagine doing anything other than helping these kids beat their addictions. And he had a patient who was obsessed with Ponyboy’s books, but he never told her that he knew him. Until she came in for a session right after her one-year-clean mark, when he had a signed, advanced copy of Pony’s next book for her. He and Evie had 3 kids, and his only request was that if they had a boy, they named him Patrick (their first was a boy). The idea of being a father scared him shitless, until his son was actually born, and then it felt like it’s what he’d been born to do.
The only time any of them lost touch with any of the others is Steve when he was in the depths of his addiction. Darry and Pony obviously stayed in touch, but Two-bit was always included in that. After he moved to Vermont, Pony was able to make it back every Christmas (and most summers) to stay at Darry’s house. And Two-bit spent every Christmas at Darry’s. And after Steve came back around, he was there every Christmas, too. It was always hectic- Two-bit’s son was just as loud and weird as he had been, Pony always had at least 3 kids anywhere from 3-17 with him (and there was always a new kid to get to know, who would always be surprised at how readily accepted they were- some fucked up foster kid as far as they saw themselves- by everyone) and Steve’s kids were maybe even a little more wild and reckless than he’d been. But it wouldn’t have felt like a Curtis Christmas if it weren’t hectic. They never stopped being a family. Ever.
EDIT: This little monster is DONE! Here it is all in one place.
Ship: Snowbaz
Rating: T+
Summary: It’s been six years since Baz and Simon broke up, six years since Baz went off the map. For all intents and purposes, they’re out of each other’s lives. But when chance—and maybe a little bit of fate and Penelope Bunce—throws them back together again, they have to face the things that made them split up in the first place…and decide once and for all if they really are meant to be apart.
Chapter: 1/8
also here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5579635/chapters/12859927
It’s a Friday night, and so crowded I’m surprised I even hear the girl shouting at the end of my bar. But I do, and I instantly curse myself for the way my head snaps up in response. Six years. It’s been six years since I last saw him, and I still hear his name above everything else.
It’s not him—of course it’s not him, I made damn sure to go far enough away that we’d never bump into each other, and except for one little hiccup, that plan has been working out great. So has my life, honestly. Despite how it sounds. Six years since I left everything. Six years since I went so deep, even my family doesn’t know where I am. Six years since I skipped across the Atlantic without a word, six years since I started behind the bar at Kaimeera. Six years since the last time anyone anywhere held me accountable for anything. It’s been liberating, really. And, except for the occasional reminder, I don’t think about him at all.
I guess I could have gone deeper. Chicago is a far cry from London, but it’s a good place to get lost, but it’s not like it’s off the radar or anything. And Kaimeera’s not exactly a non-magical bar—Thea, the owner, is a harpy, for Crowley’s sake, and I mean that in the literal sense. It’s sort of a catch-all for wizards and other creatures. There’s plenty of regular humans, too, but they’ve got to know about it; Kaimeera was originally a Prohibition-era bar, and they’ve kept the entrance a secret to the general public. It’s just an unobtrusive door handle in a back alley. You really have to know your graffiti in order to find it.
Chicago, I’ve found, is a lot more lax about us so-called monsters than they are at home. I still keep it under wraps, but it’s more out of habit than anything—nobody would bat an eye if they knew there was a vampire behind the bar, not as long as I’m getting the job done. And maybe not even then—it’s amazing what people will forgive you for, if you’ve got the right attitude, and the right amount of scorn in your smile. It’s even easier being in America. They go nuts over here for the British accent.
But I do try to do it right, all things considered. Currently, I’ve got a martini shaker in each hand, making drinks as fast as they ring up—look how far that fancy economics degree has gotten me now (although I do help with payroll sometimes, so I guess I got something out of it). The girl at the end of the bar catches my eye, ready to order, and I jut my chin at her in my best just-a-second nod. Despite my talents, I’m drowning here. Where the hell is Gabe.
I drop off the martinis and make my way down to the end of the bar, trying to look like I’m sauntering and not rushing desperately. The girl smiles at me, and I see that she’s found her friend—a big, burly guy with close-cropped dark hair whose bears absolutely no resemblance to any Simons I may or may not have known in the past. They appear to both be just human—normal, non-magical, non-monstrous human—but these days, it’s harder to tell.
Thankfully, they both just want beer, nothing fancy. I’m rattling off the selection when I feel a hand on my ass, closely followed by a graze of teeth against my neck. Gabe’s showed up at last.
He’s just enough off to the shadows in the far corner of the bar that nobody sitting at it can see what he’s doing, and I take advantage of this to quickly pull my lip back, flashing him a snarl full of fang. Just because I let him grope me in the walk-in freezer last week, he seems to think we’ve got some sort of connection.
He gets the hint and backs up immediately, hands in the air. I don’t like that self-satisfied smirk he’s got on his face—it’s a little too Who, me?—but I’m busy enough to let it go for now. “Sorry, Ty,” he says, cocking an eyebrow at me, and I don’t dignify him with a response.
They all call me Ty here. In this entire city, exactly one person knows me by my real name, and that’s how I’ll be keeping it.
The pair at the end of the bar gives me their order, and since it’s just beer, I figure Gabe can handle it. “Buds,” I tell him, holding up two fingers. “Bottle."
He nods, and kind of meanders off to grab them. Useless. He really is a remarkably subpar bartender.
If you ask him, Gabe will tell you he’s a chimera, and the irony isn’t lost on me—actually, a lot of the time, I wonder if that’s why Thea hired him at all. Like having an actual chimera on staff will lend some credibility to the name of the bar or something. Maybe he’s our mascot. It’s certainly not his bartending skills that got him the gig.
But, please. He’s really only half a chimera, which just means that he’s basically human. The only interesting thing about him is the leathery bat wings that grow out of his shoulder blades.
Honestly, those wings are probably the only reason I hooked up with him in the first place. That, and because apparently I excel at making terrible decisions.
Someone halfway down the other side of the bar is waving at me, wanting a refill, and Gabe is obviously not going to be much of a help, so I just turn my brain off and really get into the flow of bartending: mixing cocktails, pouring drinks, schmoozing just enough to guarantee a good tip, not enough to seem like I’m pandering. There’s something satisfyingly simple about it: a line of tasks to complete. My objective laid out plainly in front of me. Nothing to doubt or second-guess.
It’s not until nearly the end of the night that the hum of activity starts to fade and I’m left with an ache deep in my bones and a restlessness I don’t think I’ll ever be rid of.
At times like this, there’s only one thing that really works to dull the pain—not completely, and not for very long, but enough to take the edge off. We’re not far from last call and the bar is already starting to empty out, but I’m scanning the room, studying every remaining face. And—there. Sitting in the corner by himself, staring down into a glass of nearly melted ice.
His hair is more yellow than bronze, his eyes a few icy shades too light and he has no freckles to speak of, but it’s enough. It’s enough.
Trailing my fingers on the wood of the bar, I move to stand in front of him. He looks up. Our eyes meet, and when he doesn’t look away, I learn forward.
“So,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “What’s your poison?”
----
Simon
My bags are packed, my boarding pass is printed, my cab’s coming in twenty minutes, and I am as ready to go as I will ever be. I just have one goodbye to say before I do.
I’ve only been in California a few weeks, but it’s been good to me. The sun and the warmth don’t remind me at all of home, which I think is probably good for me, and they’ve made a new crop of freckles appear across my nose. It feels good, even just this small physical difference. It feels like a new start.
I leave my bags at the door and trek outside, blinking in the sunlight and raising a hand to my eyes. A small dirt road runs between the house and the barn, and I cross it in a matter of steps, jogging towards a small outside paddock.
Agatha is exactly where I thought she’d be. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she’s wearing breeches and boots, but she’s on the ground, standing in the middle of the ring. She’s got a chestnut horse on a longe line, and he’s cantering loosely on a large circle around her. I pause at the gate, not wanting to interrupt, but she looks up and sees me. I watch as she shortens the lead, making the circle smaller and causing the horse to break into a trot, and then a walk. He takes a few steps towards her, his neck arched, practically prancing, and she smiles, reaching out to stroke his forehead.
“Come on in, Simon!” she calls to me, and I do. The horse shoves his head into her chest, nickering, and she pulls on one of his ears. “He’s excited today,” she says absentmindedly. “I wanted to get all the bucks out before I try and ride him.”
I mock shudder. “Still terrifying,” I say, and she looks over her shoulder and smiles at me.
“No more than anything else,” she says, and I doubt this, but don’t say it out loud.
“You seem happy,” I say instead.
She looks thoughtful. “You know, I am,” she says. “I know this wasn’t what I was supposed to do—live on a barn in California, teaching riding lessons to put myself through vet school—but I’m happy. I get to wake up every morning excited about my life. I know it’s not exactly what my parents expected, and I know they wish I could get home more…it’s not perfect or anything, but it’s what I want.”
She looks so sure of herself, so confident, and for a moment it reminds me of what drew us together in the first place, reminds me why we were together as long as we were. We were never in love—I didn’t know it at the time, not until later, when I’d had the real thing—but we were still important to each other. I feel a deep surge of affection for her rise up in my chest.
“Good,” I say, as sincerely as I can. “You should be happy.”
She twists around so she can look at me head-on, tilting her head to one side. “Thanks, Simon,” she says, then pauses, biting her lip. “Look,” she continues after a moment, “I’m really glad you came to see me. It’s been, quite honestly, way too long, and it was really, really good just having you around and catching up. But I know there were some things we didn’t talk about…that it would have been really weird for us to talk about, all things considered, and I just…are you okay? Really?”
I don’t want to talk about him, and not just because it’s to Agatha. I don’t trust myself to say his name at all. It’s been years since I’ve even let myself think it, which is crazy in and of itself—years? It’s been years, and it can still floor me like this?
But no. Only when I let it. So I shake it off and say, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Most of the time. Um, not perfect, you know, but most of the time perfectly okay. I just, well, didn’t turn out the way people expected either, you know?”
Agatha puts a hand on my elbow and says earnestly, “I think it’s amazing what you’re doing, Simon. This job is perfect for you, and it’s such a good thing.” She’s different now, then she was in school and I don’t just mean happier. There’s something softer about her now. Less pinched. Less worried. She gives my arm a squeeze, and then lets go. “Look at you. Still saving the world.”
I bark out a laugh. “Trying to, anyway,” I say. “Just a lot slower, now.”
She shakes her head. “You never needed magic, you know.”
“Oh, speaking of,” I say, and do a quick pivot. “Spell still holding?”
She inspects me quickly. “No sign of wings or tail,” she says. “And it’s been, what, a month at this point? I think you’re good.”
“I think so, too,” I say. “It’s a good spell. I just wouldn’t want them to pop out on the plane or something.”
“Oh, God,” she says, closing her eyes. She’s picked up swearing like a Normal, living out here so long. “Yeah, good luck trying to explain that one to the TSA.”
As if on cue, the cab pulls up and honks once. Agatha’s horse spooks a bit, popping his head up and dancing a few steps to the side. She tightens the lead and whispers to him and he pricks his ears forward, settling down. She turns back to me.
“Call me when you land?”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, stepping forward to give her a hug. She squeezes me hard with the arm not holding her horse, then kisses me on the cheek and steps back.
“I’ll see you at the wedding?” she says.
“Oh, the wedding!” I say, closing my eyes and laughing. “I keep forgetting. But, yes, I’ll be there.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s hard to believe they’re getting married.”
“I guess it’s about time,” I say. The cab honks again, and I look over at it. “I better go. Thanks, Agatha. For everything.”
“Of course,” she says. And then, like she really means it, “Take care of yourself, Simon.”
My throat feels suddenly tight, and I’m not sure I trust myself to speak. I nod once, lift a hand in a final farewell, and turn to jog out across the dirt road, through the sunlight, to where the cab is waiting.
I swear I spend too much time thinking about post-Nam Steve but I'm just so drawn to that kind of angst and it breaks my heart but I can't break away from that mindset. Like I feel like he tried so hard. He and Soda would have spent so many nights in Vietnam making promises to each other, they tried to pretend they weren't afraid but that wouldn't have lasted long and once they were faced with the reality I just feel like they would have made so many promises to each other. Soda would have promised to look out for Evie and make sure whoever she ended up with treated her the way she deserved to be treated. And Steve would have promised to look out for Ponyboy and not to let him and Darry fall apart. And they would have promised each other that, no matter what, they'd keep on fighting and if only one of them made it home, that one would live. And he would have tried. And for awhile it would have worked. He would have finished his tour and been a good, solid soldier. And then he got home with every intention to keep those promises. But he was home and everyone and everything reminded him of Soda. At least in Vietnam he could distract himself from his grief with a mission. Now he was home and he was back working at the DX- but Soda was supposed to be there. And he had never noticed that Darry and Soda had the same walk, or that they had the same laugh. And Pony had always looked like Soda, but he didn't just look like him anymore- he looked exactly like Soda did at 16/17. And he couldn't stand going to parties with Two-bit anymore because of the damn noise. He always liked commotion and noise and chaos- but he couldn't deal with it anymore. At the best moments, he heard laughs that should have been coming from Soda. At the worst, plates falling and glasses breaking sounded like gunfire and bombs. So he didn't go to the Curtis house anymore. Ever. And he only hung out with Two-bit one-on-one, but even that didn't feel right. There was supposed to be one other person there, causing trouble. Even being with Evie didn't feel right. They went on at least as many double dates as just the two of them, and sometimes they would go out with Sylvia and her boyfriend, or Two-bit and his girlfriend, but it was supposed to be Soda. And it never felt right. And he got another job because he couldn't stand being at that station knowing Soda wouldn't be there. And his fall was so gradual that it was only noticeable looking back. He drank more than he did before, but not all at once. He smoked pot every day, but the heroin crept in more slowly. And it wasn't until Darry and Pony and Two and Evie looked back that they realized it wasn't all of a sudden. He didn't wake up one day at rock bottom, but at e time it sure as hell felt like that. Ponyboy gave up first- after all, they'd never really been friends. He stopped asking how Steve was doing when he wrote home. Darry gave up next, he stopped checking in on Steve. He stopped trying to get him out of his apartment. But he felt like he owed it to Soda to at least ask Two-bit how he was doing. Until Two-bit gave up. He'd knock on Steve's door until he either heard the crashing of a bottle Steve threw at the door, or until he heard someone who used to be a brother telling him to get lost through the door. But those check-ins went from daily to weekly to monthly... and before long, Evie was the only one who knocked on his door anymore. And she stayed longer than she should have. Way longer. It took her at least a year to say goodbye to the boy she fell in love with. But even after she admitted the man who proposed to her and the man who came home were different people, she tried. She'd made her own promises, and she tried so damn hard. But he started threatening her. And he started throwing furniture. And when he punched a hole in the wall inches from her head, she left. And he was alone. And he lost his apartment. And none of the boys from his platoon knew how to get in touch with him. And it wasn't until years later that he woke up in Darry's house that he thought about the promises he'd made his best friend. And he realized he didn't even know Darry had moved out of Tulsa. He was always Darry's family, but he didn't even know that Darry had his own family now. And just like Two-bit had predicted before he gave up, it was Darry who finally got through to him. "If you wanna blame yourself, fine. But that means you owe me. And you owe Pony and you sure as hell owe Sodapop. So get your shit together." He'd promised Soda that he'd live his life when he got home. And it took longer than he could have ever guessed, but he could finally keep that promise. And there was no hesitation from Two-bit when he needed a place to stay after rehab. And his first day out, he visited Soda's grave for the first time. And he promised again to live his life, only this time he was sticking to that. Goddamnit I just have so many feels about Steve's addiction. It fucking destroys me.
