Exacting Justice

God help and forgive me, I’m in love with Will Roland

Yooooooo if there’s anyone still around from the TDG fandom on here hit me up

Aaaand that feeling when you work on chapters for months only for them to get practically no views/comments

So, since You Will Be Found Part 2 is taking for-freaking ever and is turning out super long, I’ve decided that I’m going to split it into three parts. Expect an update tonight, folks. Save your strength and stay alive.

Dance show was cancelled, uni is closed, my home city is a ghost town, we’re all miserable, You Will Be Found Part 2 is almost as long as Part 1 and it’s probably gonna be even long when it’s finished, have an extract.
          
          
          "That's not the same thing and you know it," Barrett retorted firmly, before softening. "Ryan ... I'm sorry you've had it rough. To be completely candid, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better for you, but I don't own a magic wand and I'm pretty sure none of us here do. Just answer me this - what kind of life do you want? What kind of life would you want to have and not want it to end?”
           
          Ryan winced. The question of what-might-have-been was one that he’d been toying with for far too long. It was an exhaustingly painful game to play, one that left him curled up and shedding silent tears into his knees every time he did, trying to ride out the stinging wave of unforgiving loneliness and futility. But it was too much effort to stay away from, like an insect bite you couldn't stop scratching.
           
          He sniffed. “I want... I wish everything was different,” he admitted. 

In a world that's ending thanks to COVID-19 and everything is being closed/cancelled except for my uni dance show (hopefully), have some extracts:
          
          You Will Be Found Part 2: 
          
          “Okay, I didn’t marry a lawyer, or join the police, but Barrett and I both changed our names and went to college out of town.” She looked pensive again. “What happened there was ... we just had to erase ourselves from the narrative."
           
          "And yet it's unacceptable for me to erase myself from the narrative?" Ryan parroted, raising an eyebrow.
           
          "That's not the same thing and you know it," Barrett retorted firmly, before softening. "Ryan ... I'm sorry you've had it rough. To be completely candid, I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better for you, but I don't own a magic wand and I'm pretty sure none of us here do. Just answer me this - what kind of life do you want? What kind of life would you want to have and not want it to end?"
           
           
          "Sometimes, instead of erasing yourself from the narrative, maybe try ... writing your way out of it."
          
          ASTT Chapter 27:
          
          "Thank you," Finley whispered, his voice trembling, "for being here, with me, right now."
          
          Ryan returned the hug, clenching his torso firmly. Despite Finley being older and a couple of inches taller than even Ryan's statue, the feel of his spindly frame suddenly made him seem so very small and vulnerable. It sharply reminded him that Finley wasn't as un-damaged as Ryan typically perceived him, even in relation to himself. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be," he assured him.
          
          "Me too," Finley agreed.
          
          Stay safe, my friends. I love you all.
          
          Justice

It’s been ages, I have a timed essay tomorrow, my ED has taken a nosedive for the umpteenth time, have some extracts:
          
          You Will Be Found Part 2:
          
          Ryan sat, unblinking, in the car seat, his hand still held by Sophia’s. Her words had sent shivers through every fibre of his being - after all, what she had said about constantly being on edge, too frightened to budge an inch out of place lest you lose what is familiar and comfortable to you ... was that not what he’d been doing for much of his life?
          
          He didn't know whether to find her understanding comforting or disconcerting.
          
          ASTT Chapter 27:
          
          "How the hell do you deal with it all?"
          
          "Same way you've dealt with your whole life in care," Finley pointed out. "I mean, think about it. From a young age, you've been treated differently. You didn't have things other people did, had trouble fitting in, all for reasons that weren't your fault and were beyond your control. You've endured that for years, and yet here you are, still here. How do you think you did that?"
          
          "Yeah, but, I'm ..." Ryan hesitated, "... damaged. I mean, we both are, but you're not beyond repair, surely."
          
          “You don’t know,” Finley admitted, looking down, his eyes finding considerable interest in a patch of dandelions growing near them, their fluffy pappi absently floating away in the breeze.
          
          “I probably do,” Ryan replied, taking his hand and squeezing his gently. “C’mon, Fin, you know that I’m the last person in the world to judge you on this stuff.”

I wish I could've published before going back to University, but it's exam season and I’m studying 8+ hours every day because my lazy ass didn't cover more during the rest of the Christmas hols.
          
          In the meantime, please enjoy some extracts:
          
          You Will Be Found Part 2:
          
          The sun was streaming in, shining on his face. 
          
          Maybe, if everything would've stayed that way for forever, he could've been alright.
          
          But this was only the eye of the hurricane. A moment was never as long as you wanted it to be.
          
          He'd lost Chloe. It was as if their mother had taken her with her after she died. Away from him for good. It was the lack of Chloe's light that had made his world go dark, not his mother's.
          
          Maybe in hindsight, it should've been a sign. Much like the scorpion destined to sting, no matter how much he wanted to believe, however much he tried not to see what was really there, there was no hiding who he was.
          
          Chapter 27 of ASTT:
          
          
          "So what would you like to do when you leave school?" Ryan asked.
          
          "Don't know," Finley shrugged. "I didn't plan that far ahead. Never thought I'd live long enough to see my A-Levels."
          
          "Shut up," Ryan teased, ignoring the chill that crept down his defective spinal cord at the mention of Finley not living. "You must have something."
          
          Finley paused. "Okay, there is one thing," he admitted, "but ... you have to promise not to laugh."
          
          "Now I'll probably laugh no matter what."
          
          "Of course you will," Finley sighed in mock frustration. "Fine, I want to be ...”

*sighs* I wish I could rewrite You Will Be Found. I would write Sylvester quite differently i.e. an actual good suicide hotline worker. But the follow up has been too long coming and I have neither the time nor the energy to rewrite a ~6000 word story at this point. I guess it's fitting I gave Sylvester a chance at some sort of redemption at the end of last chapter.
          
          Hope you guys are fans of musicals because they're my special interest right now and you bet your arse I'm gonna be cramming them in to the point where my sentences border on senseless.

So, quick little poll.
          
          I wanna write. Should I write the next chapter of ASTT or the follow up to You Will Be Found with even more Dear Evan Hansen references?
          
          Comment below, let me know!