Work Text:
Edgar Allan Poe had always believed that writing was a solitary act—an affair between himself, a quill, and the quiet hum of a dimly lit room. He was content with that… or so he convinced himself.
That illusion shattered the day Louisa May Alcott began assisting him.
At first, she was merely there to organise his notes: categorising clippings, pinning loose pages, and gently returning Karl’s wandering feathers back into place when the raccoon became far too invested in chewing on manuscripts. Poe never expected her to take interest in anything beyond clerical duty. She was soft-spoken, almost fragile in her stillness, and her eyes always shimmered with a thoughtful calm that Poe found strangely disarming.
But one early morning, he caught her reading.
Louisa sat at the small wooden desk in the corner of their shared office, glasses slipping down her nose, quill in hand, gaze flicking between the open manuscript and a notebook already half filled with neat handwriting. She hadn’t noticed him enter. He saw her brow knit with concentration, lips pursed, posture tight in that particular way she had when she was thinking very, very hard.
Poe froze.
She wasn’t just reading—
She was editing.
Or offering commentary, at least. There were tidy notes on symbolism, questions about character motivations, gentle suggestions on pacing. No red ink. No harsh criticism. Just quiet, earnest observation.
Louisa looked up, startled when she finally sensed his presence.
“Ah—! Mister Poe! I… I apologise. I know you didn’t ask for this, but Karl brought me this stack and then it fell, and when I went to reorganise it, I saw the section you’d been revising and I just— I thought maybe—”
She immediately lowered her head, mortified.
“I’m sorry. It was presumptuous of me.”
Poe blinked.
Presumptuous?
It was the most thorough commentary he had ever seen in his life.
“Louisa,” he said carefully, approaching the desk. “May I?”
She nodded hesitantly, and he took the notebook from her hands. As he flipped through the pages, something warm and uninvited bloomed in his chest. Her handwriting was delicate and orderly—very Louisa—but the insight was sharp. Perhaps sharper than his own self-reflections.
“You noticed all of this just by reading it once…?” he asked, genuinely astonished.
“I read quickly,” she murmured, hands twisting together. “And I think a lot. Sometimes too much.”
He stared at her for a long time before gently placing the notebook down.
“Louisa,” he said again, voice low and honest, “would you consider continuing this?”
Her eyes widened.
“You… want my opinions?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
It became a routine after that.
Every few evenings, Poe would place a freshly written chapter on Louisa’s desk with shy, almost ceremonial care. Louisa would read it with a dedication bordering on reverence, her soft hums of thought filling the room as she scribbled notes. Karl would curl up at her feet, snoring. Poe pretended to work on something else but ended up watching her more than he wrote.
She always read like she was holding something fragile.
She always commented like she was afraid she might break him.
She never did.
One night, she set down the newest chapter with a grave expression.
“Poe… may I be honest?”
“You always may,” he said immediately—too immediately, he realised, but it was too late to take it back.
She inhaled slowly.
“The protagonist’s grief feels hollow,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Not because it’s written poorly—but because you’re trying to write a pain you haven’t let yourself fully feel. You keep holding your emotion at a distance. It reads like someone describing a storm while standing safely under a roof.”
Poe swallowed.
That was… painfully accurate.
Louisa realized she might have spoken too boldly and quickly lowered her head. “I’m sorry if that sounded— harsh. I only mean that your writing is beautiful. Truly. But it could be even more breathtaking if you allowed yourself to— to be vulnerable on the page.”
Her fingers curled together nervously.
“I know vulnerability is frightening.”
Poe stared at her, a dozen responses rising in his chest and collapsing under their own weight. He had never been seen with such clarity. Not by colleagues. Not by other writers. Certainly not by anyone he considered a friend.
He cleared his throat.
“No,” he said softly. “Thank you, Louisa. I… needed to hear that.”
Louisa blinked up at him, brows lifting in relief.
After that, his writing changed—deepened. His metaphors sharpened, his emotions bled through more freely, and his characters stopped feeling like distant puppets and instead like beating, aching humans. Louisa noticed immediately.
“You’re being honest,” she said with a small, proud smile as she read one afternoon.
Poe felt that warmth again—an unfamiliar but not unwelcome sensation.
Her feedback wasn’t just improving his stories.
It was helping him understand himself.
Sometimes, in the quiet after a long day, she would sit across from him at the desk while they both worked. Their lamps glowed like twin stars, soft halos of light brushing their hands. Louisa’s quill scratched gently across paper. Poe’s thoughts flowed easier than they ever had.
She would look up, eyes bright behind her glasses.
“I think this will become one of your best works,” she would say sincerely.
And Poe—who had lived his life doubting every breath he took—found himself believing her.
Not because she praised him.
But because she told him the truth, every time.
Because she saw him.
Because she cared.
He often wondered if she realised how much she had come to mean to him.
Karl certainly did—Poe caught the raccoon deliberately carrying manuscripts to Louisa’s desk whenever Poe grew too flustered to approach her himself.
(He pretended not to notice.)
One night, Louisa slipped him a small parchment with her latest notes. On the final page, she had written:
“Your stories have grown warmer. I’m glad. It means you’re allowing more light into yourself.”
Poe folded that note carefully and kept it in the pocket of his coat.
He never told her that her presence was the light she spoke of.
But perhaps she knew.
Louisa always did have an eye for detail.