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polarisbibliotheque · 9 months

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Sorry, I saw one post and a half of yours and I'm already a fan.

I still have to scroll down your blog to see more about you, but I saw that two-post-long answer you made for an anon ask (btw, you have such poetic vibes :D your style made me smile, seriously) and I couldn't holf myself to ask:

Hm, have you ever heard of... I mean, "whump"?

If yes, what are your thouhts on it?

(you don't need to answer this, specially if it makes you unconfortable in any ways or anything else XD)

However, I hope you have a wonderful day/noon/afternoon/evening/night(?) !

Hello hello!! First things first, sorry for taking SO LONG to answer, I had a ton of health issues the last couple of months >.<

Secondly, thank you SO MUCH for being so kind!! I saw all your reblogs of that huge answer for such a tiny thing I did and thank you. I'm really happy you like my style too, that makes me smile!

Now now, about your question on whump, I'm gonna be very honest, I had to Google it to make sure we're on the same page HAHAHAHAHAHA

Jokes aside, I know it's sort of a term for hurt/comfort fanfiction - but it's not really clear to me if it's a kink thing or not.

Because you see, if you're talking about hurt and comfort, I mean, that's basically what I write HAHAHAHA writing for the Devil May Cry fandom, inevitably someone will be hurt/tortured/mentally abused somehow.

Or impaled. A lot.

(I mean, that's all this bitch has done for the past 5 games)

And also there's the whole thing with Vergil, his twin brother, being kept as a slave in Hell for 20(?) years and coming back after dragging his crumbling body out of there to find out he has a son and being the peak of cluelessness in the Universe - and me being adamant he deserves love after all that.

So I guess everything I write has a LOT of hurt - and I even put some serious warnings before the fics, 'cause everyone is traumatized in this household - but despite of that, they still can find love, happiness and somewhat soothe all that pain and trauma.

(dramatic, real, horrible, but stil comforting xD)

As a kink, though, I don't enjoy it - and I also don't enjoy putting characters I love through pain and suffering just because. That's why I have a love/hate relationship with horror media: I LOVE horror, but I HATE exploitation.

Movies that have just people being abused, hurt, dismembered and all that kind of horrible stuff happening just because without a real reason to be on the plot - meaning, torture porn - just make my blood boil. And there's a lot of that in horror.

I like when things are more psychological and actually have a REASON to be there. So, in my writing, I'll never torture a character just for the pleasure of doing so and for the pleasure of the reader, I need a point out of it.

For instance, on my cyberpunk-style story, both main characters have gone through a terrible experience together and lost someone who was really dear to them. Both of them went through a lot of physical pain, lost some limbs and needed to install cyberprosthesis, and lost everything they had worked for til that point in their lives.

Horrible, yes. But they had to go through it so I could start the story: because of all of this, the guy made an anarchist/terrorist group and just wants to burn down the city along with the people in power who allowed all that to happen to him, while the woman becomes the best killer for hire so she can get enough money to live and, eventually, retire.

All that physical and psychological pain is a very important plot point and I can't take it away from the story, or else there's no story to begin with. Meanwhile, every time I'm writing I'm thinking "how can I make this as unpleasant as I can so the reader can understand the crushing feeling of all of this?" hahahahaha

That's why I'm not into pain kink - I respect everyone who is, but I can't do it, I feel no pleasure from it.

That's my opinion, I think. For pleasure's sake, I don't like it, but for plot, I really like it. I think it has a hopeful note to it - that even after the storm, the days will shine bright again, you just have to go on. That's what I enjoy from writing things like this, the hope.

Who would've known, I'm not 100% a bitter bitch hahaha

Reading my personal original stories, I think all of them have a painful background and many unpleasant scenes. But I like it, because it's human nature and how life is: bad things will happen, we can just try to make the good ones count even more :)

I hope that was a good answer to your question hahahaha

Thank you once again, and I hope you have a lovely week ahead!! Feel free to spend some time around and ask things if you'd like! ^^

#polaris speaks #polaris answers #answered asks #asks #asks and replies #I hope I managed to explain how my thought process works regarding whump hahahaha #I mean everything I write is painful as hell #that's why I always put thousands of disclaimers around HAHAHA #but there's something of poetic about finding peace and love after so much pain #that scene where Sam monologues at Frodo that WHEN THE SUN SHINES #IT'LL SHINE EVEN BRIGHTER #and they are all dirty in the middle of the war with people dying to wraiths and Frodo just SO fraking tired while crying #and Sam grabs him by his shoulders and reminds him there's something to fight for #for all the good in the world and strawberries with cream in the summer #I LIVE FOR THIS

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sodomitecastiel · 3 years

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Do you have any recommended spn fics? To be restored is consuming all of my non fenario brainspace

This is in no way an exhaustive list - @jewishcharliebradbury is the one to go for that - but these are some favorites of mine, please always heed their tags just in case!

Putting it under a readmore because I'm a wordy bastard:

Sky Verse by starandrea: Angelic civil war! The crispest, most in-character dialogue! Vast, sprawling worldbuilding! Dean and Cas get together and are very bad at it for a long time! This series obsesses me the way other people are obsessed with dta (which I have not read for fear of commitment but fully intend to eventually).

To Be Restored by serenetyfails: You mentioned this one already but it's worth repeating - it's my favorite trans spn fic that I didn't write myself. Cas's transmasc identity is handled so carefully and so competently, Dean flips out in a way that's both in character and still kind to him, and Sam and Rowena are wonderfully fleshed out. I think many people would look at the premise and worry it's either misogynistic or fetishy, but it's neither, it's such a love letter to Cas's well-earned masculinity. Also, I'm obsessed with Rowena knowing and being buddies with a lot of trans women witches :)

Talk Therapy by shara: This is one of my favorite 'Dean is bad at asking for things' fics, it deals with his inability to want things past what he can give to others really well. I also appreciate that not everything in their relationship is fixed just because they're together, although the amount they love each other is always obvious.

Epilogue by JayneL: A weird little time travel story that is NOT a fixit for endverse, but is exceptionally kind to endverse Cas anyway. It aches very badly. I remember it being pretty trippy but also having to sit and look at the ceiling a while after reading it.

The Love Story of the Runner Up by Margo_Kim: Cas dates a normal human man with a good soul for a little while before he gets with Dean. Both of them know it isn't for forever, but they look after each other anyway. Told through the lens of story-swapping between gay friends and written with so much care & love. (You can thank @okologie for finding this one and making me read it despite my reservations.)

where the weeds take root by deathbanjo: Everyone recommends this fic but it's for a reason. Probably the best post-retirement fic there is, and definitely helped me form the neural connections to write Fenario, haha, I can't recommend this one enough. The complicated Dean and Sam issues are held with just as much weight as the Dean and Cas ones, although both are handled gently.

you and me in the war of the end times by stickthelanding (@tallahasseemp3): Alma knocked it out of the park with this one. THEE shotgunning fic. I've reread it more times than I can count, it has the loveliest atmosphere. I want to gnaw on this prose, said with love!

A Drinking Song by Balder12: Endverse snapshot. This one is mostly just bone hurting juice but it's one of my favorite characterizations of them - sometimes I find that endverse stories either make Cas way too soft or fucked up in a way I find goes too far in a direction I don't agree with, this one feels pitch perfect.

Everyone Is Trying to Get to the Bar by Balder12: All time fave angel true form fic!!! It's deliciously weird and fun, definitely a mind-melter. I only read it the once but sometimes I think about it and get a funny little shiver.

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara: This is another 'universal favorite', but also for good reason. Extraordinarily tender, it's my personal favorite Cas-grows-a-garden post canon story, especially because it manages to write a jealousy plotline that doesn't make me want to bite and kill. Dean's voice is exactly right and everything unfurls with this tender inevitability, idk how else to describe it! It also ends on a final image that's so lovely it's seared into my brain.

Dean (and Cas') Top 13 Zepp Traxx by pantheon_of_discord: Nobody does vignettes like supernatural writers. I love the way the road feels in this one, and how carefully picked each moment is. A string of pearls, this fic.

There's Only One Sure Thing That I Know by blinkiesays: Dean and Cas get trapped in the midwest by a curse that doesn't let them leave the state, and they want to break it until they don't. Being trapped gives them an excuse to want to settle down, but the route they take to get there is, of course, circuitous. This one hurts a little because it takes place while Sam is dead, but it isn't gratuitous in its sadness. Sweet and melancholy.

the taste of gravel in the mouth by deathbanjo: FAVE FAVE FAVE FAVE. I push this one at everyone I can. I'm extremely picky about 'Dean's self loathing' fics, mainly because I think it can veer easily into melodrama, but this author weaves Dean's self hatred and his anger together very seamlessly, in a way that feels real to the show. Also, Cas is perfect.

sweeter coming from my hand by perilously: A story that I liked before Nov5 and withstood the test of time!! Dean and Cas get married/soul-bound in order to both remove the Mark of Cain and fix Cas's grace. Features a formative scene for me where Cas expresses worries about if he has a soul and Dean raps knuckles on his chest, going, "knock knock, sounds like a soul in there." If you like this one, perilously has many good fics that are just as in character.

On Labor by a_good_soldier: I very nearly couldn't finish this one, but not because it's bad, haha. The premise just makes me want to tear my clothes in mourning - Dean knows Cas is in love with him, after getting him back from the Empty, and decides that he should give him what he wants without realizing that he wants it too. Dean performatively dating Cas while trying to talk himself into liking it (not knowing that he does actually like it) is exactly the kind of convoluted bullshit Dean's internalized homophobia would do to him. Nauseating and spectacular. Sticks in your brain for weeks.

canticles by 2street2car: An excellent 'weird girl best friends' fic. After striking out at the brothel, Dean decides to treat Cas to the "first date experience" himself, since the guy might die the next day. To sum it up succinctly: the rituals are intricate. And dirty dancing is referenced!

we shovel all the ashes out by xylodemon: As the author states themself, this fic is a love letter to California - it's a road trip casefic that's so rooted in place, the setting is rich and lush and the atmosphere makes me ache, and not just because it's set in my home state! I saved this one for last because this is another prolific author who has many stories I come back to again and again (Sweet Home and Love: A Retrospective are particularly good), they really don't miss. Usually when I read fic, it's a mad dash to the finish, but I took my time with this one. I highly encourage you to do the same :)

#dear god. ok. this got long #if u want more recs i mean it alie is Thee fic reccer i trust #but these are some gems i carry around w me :)#nathaniel.txt #answered #fic rec

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nesquik-arccheron · 3 years

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Post it anyway! 🥺

Fine by me!

Disclaimer: This is a rough draft that is a completely unedited snippet from a retired fic. So please excuse any spelling/grammar mistakes or pacing issues.

--------------------------------

Nesta glanced over curiously as Cassian dug into his pocket, pulling out what she had assumed at first was a hand-rolled cigarette. It became abundantly clear it was anything but as it was presented to her. She could tell from the smell exactly what it was.

"You brought weed?" She questioned, taking it and rolling the joint between her fingers, examining it. It was rolled so well she knew it had been done by skilled hands.

"Have you ever smoked?" He asked, unsure if bringing the substance out in the first place was a good idea. Nesta shook her head in reply.

"Not surprised."

"What does that mean?" She huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Cassian leaned in, "Too rightly wound."

She rolled her eyes at the remark, "Well, there is a first time for everything." She had taken it as a challenge, placing the joint back in his hand in a silent demand.

"You really haven't smoked at all before, cigarettes?" Cassian asked, pulling out a black lighter he had stolen from Azriel's bag.

Nesta shook her head again, no amount of smoke had ever passed her lips. She could come up with 100 reasons why smoking was bad, and especially why she shouldn't do this right now, but none of them seemed very important at the moment.

"If you really want to try it, shotgun it with me," he offered casually as if she should know what that meant.

"Shotgun?"

Cassian flicked the lighter a few times before a flame appeared, burning the tip of the spliff down, "I will take a hit, then blow the smoke into your mouth," he explained, watching as the end turned an angry red, the smell making her nose scrunch up.

"What's the point, can't I just do it myself?" She asked, not quite sure if what he had suggested was in any way a good idea. How close would he have to be, would their lips touch?

"You've never smoked before, it'll take the bite out of it, so your throat won't burn so much when you inevitably choke on it," he teased.

Cassian was already bringing the end of it to his mouth before she could fully process what was happening, "All you have to do is inhale once you feel my lips on yours," he instructed before taking a hit, the end of the joint producing smoke as he pulled from it. Nesta swallowed hard at his instructions, watching his mouth wrapped around the end.

She tried not to tense as he reached for her, forcing her closer by the back of the neck when she did not move and leaned in. The brush of his lips had her opening immediately without question, and Nesta tried her hardest to concentrate on the inhale then on how close he was, how she could smell his cologne, and definitely not how soft his lips were against hers as she maneuvered her body closer. Later she would convince herself it was to give herself a better advantage, to allow as much smoke to enter her lungs and not because of the promise of his warm body, pressed against hers.

It was over all too soon, and disappointment flooded her at Cassian's retreat. Her nostrils flared when he grabbed her chin in a silent demand to close her mouth, "Hold it for as long as you can," and Nesta couldn't suppress the shiver that racked her body when his calloused thumb brushed against her bottom lip.

She tried not to sputter at the new sensation in her chest, one that fluttered at his touch, or the smoke in her lungs, but she couldn't hold it in any longer and coughed out a diluted cloud, annoyed that he hadn't released it as nonchalantly as Cassian had done.

She licked her lips before blinking slowly, one, two, three times, a little dizzy after her coughing fit, eyes hazy but otherwise, she felt fine. She attributed most of her lightheadedness from holding her breath.

"I don't feel anything," she told him. Cassian shook his head and laughed at her impatience, "Give it a few minutes."

She waited, and waited and waited before she realized that the feeling in her head wasn't going away, that she was experiencing the tiniest bit of a high, and not just from the smoke, but the proximity of his body to hers, "How do you feel?" Cassian asked, much closer than she remembered him being, his breath warm against her cheek, eyes dilated.

"Good," she breathed, turning her face to mimic his, their breaths mingling together. She could smell the sweetness of his breath, the flavour of the substance mixed in with his own scent, making her world tilt completely on its axis.

Nesta let put a shaky exhale, licking her lips nervously, "Do it again." It was a demand, not a question, one made with half lid eyes and jumbled thoughts. Though, this particular thought was not a new one.

Cassian laughed and Nesta could feel the vibrations of it course through her every nerve, making every hair stand on end, "I think you've had enough, for now, wait for a moment for it to fully take effect."

Nesta looked up, finally meeting his gaze straight on, "That's not what I'm asking for."

And at that moment, she could see that she hadn't been the only one to have such thoughts.

#nesta archeron #cassian #nessian #nessian fanfic #nessian fanfiction #my fics #nesta #acosf #my nessian oneshots

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phoenixtakaramono · 3 years

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Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

#svsss #bingyuan #bingqiu #the scum villain's self saving system #luo binghe #the untold tale #phoenixtakaramono #ask #technically not an ask #but i like to categorize it there #I mainly wrote this lengthy explanation on tumblr #bc I wanted to link this as ref #anytime someone asks me in the future regarding LBH’s kids #lol it’s actually not cinnabar pills hidden in a bracelet #it’s some sort of seeds which supposedly stopped concubines from being pregnant #I discovered this when I rewatched Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace #Do you all notice you have a unique writing syntax/ style #that’s how I can identify that you’re all diff ppl in the comments #one time an anon guest wrote something for G&G #and in the comment thread as another guest anon they supposedly agreed with the prev anon #in that case it was obvious it was the same person pretending to be another guest anon #and I can tell because their writing syntax/ voice is identical #which is why I’m so pleasantly surprised to see this phenomenon in the SVSSS fandom #you all have diff writing syntaxes #seeing you all interact with each other’s comments or my comments to other comments #is just such a delight ahhhhhh #I love the SVSSS community #you guys are so warm and welcoming

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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hi, do you have some Johnlock shower sex fics (maybe bottomlock) ? thank you,love your blogs

Anonymous said to inevitably-johnlocked: Καλημέρα (or good afternoon depending where your from😁) Would you by any chance have any fics of john and sherlock like showering together? It could be smut or not, I just think that showering with your s/o is kinda cute and they would be adorable 🥺 Thank You 🥰

Anonymous said to inevitably-johnlocked: Hey, I was wondering if you have any fluffy bath-sharing fics?

Hi Nonny!

Aww, thanks, I’m glad you enjoy my blog!

AHHHH Okay so I know I have a tonne of fics with Shower Sex, but I haven’t started retagging fics until recently with this because someone asked me AGES ago with them, LOL

SHOWERING / BATHING TOGETHER

Through A Glass by Mildredandbobbin (M, 2,012 w., 1 Ch. || Voyeurism, Masturbation, First Kiss) – There is an adjoining door in the bathroom at 221B that leads into Sherlock’s bedroom. The door, from the bathroom to Sherlock’s bedroom, is made of three glass, semi-opaque panels. It has suddenly come to Sherlock’s attention that if he stands in exactly the right spot in his bedroom he can see through said panels, and more to the point, can see John.

Bathroom Accessories by Evenlodes_Friend (E, 3,324 w., 1 Ch. || Sex Toys, Butt Plug, First Kiss / Time, Romance, Horny Sherlock, John’s Patience Wears Thin, Humour, Bottomlock) – John discovers that Sherlock has been playing with some very adult toys in the bath.

Uninhibited by 221b_hound (M, 4,293 w., 1 Ch. || Bathing/Washing, Naked Cuddling, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Big Brother Mycroft, Relationship Negotiation, Massage, Sherlock Has a Low Libido, Pet Names) – Sherlock and John have been apart for the first time since Sherlock returned from the dead. Neither of them has had a good day. John's gets worse when Mycroft comes to Baker Street in Sherlock's absence to warn John Watson against disappointing his brother by expecting things to change. Mycroft has misjudged things rather badly. But finally he sods off and leaves John and Sherlock to reconnect, to give and receive comfort, and show each other that they are, indeed, perfectly matched. Part 15 of Unkissed

Linger by queenoftrivia (E, 4,879 w., 1 Ch. || Lingerie, Fluff and Smut, BJ / HJ, Switchlock, Sherlock in Lingerie, Come Play, Dirty Talk, Anal Fingering, Anal/Oral, Implied Shower Sex, Neck Kissing) – Sherlock decides to surprise John after a somewhat stressful day at work.

What Happens in Vegas (is legally binding in the United Kingdom) by moonblossom (E, 5,051 w., 1 Ch. || Accidental Marriage, Friends to Husbands to Lovers, CSI Crossover, Fluff & Porn, Bathtub Sex, Hand Jobs, First Time) – When a case sends the boys to Vegas, John comes out of it with a bit more than he bargained for. Part 19 of Prompt Fills, Remixes, Works inspired by others

The Bathing Habits of Dr. John H. Watson by scullyseviltwin (T, 5,077 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, Happy Endings, Domestics, Baths, Slice of Life Snippets) – The knocks come crisply—three raps and then a long span of quiet. Slumping down further, John makes every effort to ignore the intrusion and relaxes as best he can in the less-than-ideal space available. If he doesn’t move, maybe he’ll be left in peace. There’s a brief respite of silence and then, again, three more raps on the door, in faster succession this time, followed by, “John, it’s been an hour, how can you possibly—” “We agreed two, two hours.” There’s no room for argument; John’s tone makes that very clear.It sounds as though Sherlock’s mouth is pressed right to the door when he next speaks. “What if I need the toilet!?”

Just Like That by sussexbound (E, 8,442 w., 1 Ch. || First Time/Kiss, Frottage, Virgin Sherlock, French Kissing, Anal, Emotional Lovemaking, Enthusiastic Consent, Tenderness, Crying John, Bathing/Washing, Insecure John, Toplock) – John doesn’t want to talk anymore. He wants. Oh dear god, how he wants. For the first time in what feels like years he WANTS.

Johnlock Ficlet Collection by Irrevocably_Sherlocked (E, 11,505+ w., 16/? Ch. [WiP] | Random Ficlets, Pining, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Parentlock, AU’s, First Kiss, Character POV’s) - Just a collection of Johnlock ficlets, originally posted on my Tumblr page.

I'll Meet You in Hong Kong by alexxphoenix42 (E, 12,767 w., 5 Ch. || Freebatch RPF || Phone / Shower Sex, Infidelity, Polyamory, Bit of Angst, Cuddles) – Benedict and Martin's busy, busy schedules have them grabbing a few nights together in Hong Kong during Ben's Doctor Strange junket. They both have news to share. While this does pick up after the story "Forever 1895," you don't absolutely have to read that one to dive on in here. Part 2 of Forever Freebatch

A Hundred Thousand Ways to Say the Name John by Jberry (E, 16,825 w., 1 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Fake Marriage, POV John, Pining John, Cruise Ship, Angst & Fluff, Case Fic) – John Watson and Sherlock Holmes must solve a case on a cruise ship. To get close to the crew and passengers, they must get married for the case on the Baetica. However, their relationship hits rocky seas both due to the case and internal conflicts. Part 1 of Baetica

John Watson doesn't have a Boyfriend by naughtyspirit (E, 18,932 w., 7 Ch. || UST / URT, Fluff & Smut, Voyeurism, Masturbation) – John's date has gone very well. Sherlock requires tea. John wishes he hadn't resolved that their relationship was strictly hands off and isn't about to address it. Unless he has to. Smut, fluff and shower time for a naked John Watson.

Through the Clouds by Mazarin221b (E, 20,004 w., 6 Ch. || Retirement, Sussex, Bees, Home Improvement, First Time, Romance) – Sherlock takes a remarkably early retirement at 47, and convinces John that a change of pace would do them both good. They buy an old cottage on the South Downs, and exchange their nonstop life in Baker Street for quiet contemplation, bee studies, and book writing. They might go completely insane, but sometimes it takes stepping outside of the life you're living to find the life you want. Part 1 of Through The Clouds

The Whore of Babylon Was a Perfectly Nice Girl by out_there (E, 32,897 w., 1 Ch. || Past Drug Use, Blowjobs, Toplock, Mentions of Switching, Rough Sex, Background Cases, Sherlock’s Past, Sherlock’s Sexual History, Experienced Sherlock, Past One Night Stands, Fingering, Cuddling, Possessive Sherlock, Paris Holiday, Bed Sharing, Naked Lie-Ins, Bathing Together, Confessions, Worried Sherlock, Laying in Bed All Day, Meddling Mycroft, Naked Lazy Day) – Sherlock walks into a room and takes all the space right out of it. He does the same inside John's head.

Right Hand Man by SilentAuror (E, 42,031 w., 4 Ch. || H/C, Injury, Slow Burn) – When John's left arm becomes paralysed after a car accident, Mary asks Sherlock to take him back to Baker Street to recuperate, as she's about to give birth. Despite the fact that the search for Moriarty is ongoing, Sherlock takes John in and takes responsibility for overseeing his rehabilitation as he adjusts to the loss of his arm.

The Case of the Vanishing Pants by SwissMiss (E, 44,025 w., 6 Ch. || Five and Ones, Post-TRF, Case Fic, UST, Homophobia, Friends to Lovers, Pining John, Showering Together, Couple for a Case, Sherlock’s Bum, Fantasies, Jealous Sherlock) – Five times John and Sherlock lost their pants in the course of a case.

The Real Great Perfumers by shelleysprometheus (E, 45,355 w., 68 Ch. || Case Fic, Alternating POV, Gay Sherlock / Bi John, Canon Compliant with Divergence at TRF, Friends to Lovers, Oral / Anal, Pining, First Kiss / Time, Dev. Rel., Drugging, Body Worship, Bathing, Love Confessions, Travelling, Bottomlock, Cranky Sherlock, BJ’s, Alternating POV, Jealous John) – The case, this case. This extraordinary, fascinating, scintillating case. A house. Designed entirely by its eccentric owner, built by no less than five hundred expert tradesmen in the heart of Marrakesh. A house that had, seemingly not only driven its owner out, but also to his quite unpleasant death. And a perfumer, a chemist no less, the very thought of the secrets that house could reveal, would reveal was irresistible. Sherlock had to have this case ... and it seems, he also had to have John! Part 1 of the Forethought and Fire series

Guilty Secrets by Ellipsical (E, 55,086 w., 16 Ch. || Drumsticks, First Kiss/Time, Love Confession, Self-Sexual-Discovery, Anal, Rimming, Orgasim Denial, Butt Plugs, Cooking, Furniture Sex, Bath Sex, Rimming, Double Penetration, Prostate Massage, Anal Beads, Dancing, Romance, Tantric Edging, Internalized Homophobia, Case as Foreplay) – John has a prostate exam and discovers something surprising about himself. Experimentation follows. Sherlock wants to help. They're in love. You know the drill.

The Moonlight and the Frost by CaitlinFairchild (E, 77,289 w., 10 Ch. || Case Fic, Post-HLV, Self Harm, Virgin Sherlock, First Time, Oral/Anal/Rimming, Romance, Angst, Mary is Not Nice) – John has to somehow rebuild his life in the wake of Mary's betrayal and Sherlock's deceptions.

Not Broken, Just Bent by Schmiezi (E, 87,585 w., 43 Ch. || Pining, Love Confessions, Rape/Sexual Assault, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Villain!Mary, Suicidal Ideations, Main Character Death, Sherlock First Person POV, Parentlock, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Grief/Mourning, Emotional Love Making, Possessiveness, Depression, PTSD, Kidnapping, Virgin Sherlock, Eventual Happy Ending) – "For a second, I allow myself to remember teaching John how to waltz. There is a special room in my mind palace for it. A big one, with a proper parquet dance floor. For a second, I go there. I remember holding him, closer than the World Dance Council asks for, excusing it with the fact that we are training for a wedding, not for a competition. For a second, I feel his hand on mine again, smell his sweat, hear the song we used. For a second, I allow myself to love him deeply. For a second, only a second, that love reflects on my face." Fix-it for S3, starting at the end of TSoT. Evil Mary.

Northwest Passage by Kryptaria (E, 95,157 w., 27 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Canadian AU || BAMF!John, Canadian John, PTSD, Anal / Oral Sex, Rimming, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Drug Rehab, Falling in Love, Pining Sherlock, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Violin, Panic Attacks, Switching, Anxious / Protective Sherlock, Hugs for Comfort, Suicide Mentions, Healing Each Other) – Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes." Part 1 of Tales from the Northwest

The Wedding Garments by cwb (E, 105,390 w., 36 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Alternate Future AU || Alternate First Meeting, Dating / Arranged Marriages, Romance, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Petting, Cuddles, POV Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Dev. Rel., Nervous/Anxious Sherlock, Jealous/Cranky, Hiking, Vacation Homes / Honeymoon, Sherlock’s Family, Horny John/Sherlock, Patient John, Massages, Hand Jobs, Assassination Plots, Hand Jobs / Oral Sex, Case Fic, Emotional Love Making, Bath Time Fun) – This is the story of a young consulting detective who wants nothing to do with marriage and an army doctor who wants to find true love. It's 2020 post-Brexit England and the British government is encouraging arranged marriages. Candidates meet through state-run agencies and date in hopes of finding love (and tax benefits). Sherlock doesn't need or want a spouse, at least not until John Watson shows up. Hesitant to give in to his more carnal urges because of the way they derail his mind, how will Sherlock progress toward the more intimate aspects of a relationship? The answer lies in a very special wedding gift.

Two Two One Bravo Baker by abundantlyqueer (E, 114,574 w., 27 Ch. || Military AU || Afghanistan, War Story, Thriller, Switchlock, Rimming, Emotional Lovemaking, Lots of Sex, HJ/BJ’s) – Captain John Watson of 40 Commando, the Royal Marines, is assigned to protect and assist Sherlock Holmes as he investigates what appears to be a simple war atrocity in Afghanistan. An intense attraction ignites between the two men as they uncover a conspiracy that threatens everything they’ve ever known, but Sherlock is as much hunted as hunter, and everyone close to him is in deadly danger. Can he solve the case in time to save himself and John? Part 1 of Two Two One Bravo Baker Universe

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #showering #bathing #my fic recs #Anonymous

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eleanorfenyxwrites · 3 years

Text

((~2.4K of a much larger fic that I’ll keep posting snippets of!))

(Part 1)

———

“Father?”

“A-Yuan,” he replies as he cleans his brush and turns his head, the sharp, raw edges of his grief softening as he watches A-Yuan rub sleepily at his eyes in the soft candlelight warming the Jingshi. “What’s wrong?”

He sits still as A-Yuan crosses the room to clamber into his lap, sitting himself squarely in the hollow of his crossed legs facing him, and Wangji wraps his arms around him automatically, a concerned frown on his lips as A-Yuan collapses forward to nuzzle into his chest.

“A-Yuan?”

“I’m sad,” he replies softly and Wangji’s own grief is immediately shoved aside in favor of his son’s.

“Why? What happened?” he asks, his voice as neutral as it can be when he’s already burning inside with the desire to protect his and Wei Ying’s son from any and all harm.

“I don’t know,” A-Yuan replies and then he’s sniffling and Wangji realizes that he’s crying and he immediately curls around him, shielding him with his arms and shoulders, his unbound hair falling around them in a dark curtain. He ducks down to gently kiss A-Yuan’s bare forehead where his headband sits during the day and he strokes a hand slowly over his hair, brushing it back from his face as he lets the boy cry uninterrupted. His child will never have to mourn in lonely silence like he did, even if what he’s mourning may be trivial by an adult’s standards.

Wangji holds his crying son and lets a tear or two slip as well, his heart too fragile and raw today to stay stoic while his child hurts.

“What’s wrong A-Yuan?” he finally asks softly when the boy’s crying has subsided and he keeps stroking his hair back from his face for him even as he turns around to sit forward and face the table holding the guqin, his back and head resting on Wangji’s chest.

“I don’t know,” A-Yuan repeats, audibly pouting, and Wangji panics a bit. How can he fix it if A-Yuan can’t tell him what to fix? “I tried to sleep, but then I got sad and I wanted to cry.”

Wangji knows that the fever A-Yuan was fighting when he found him in the Burial Mounds has, perhaps in an act of divine mercy, kept him from remembering his life before he woke up properly in Cloud Recesses. But sometimes Wangji wonders if those memories are still there somewhere in his mind, and if sometimes he misses his first family, the village that raised a happy child in the midst of war and death.

“I am sad tonight as well,” Wangji confesses quietly, his barriers nonexistent around the person in his life who loves him unconditionally with the sweet trust of a child. “It is alright to be sad, even if you do not know why,” he adds as he reaches out to rest his hands on his guqin. A-Yuan immediately stretches his arms out to rest his little hands on top of Wangji’s and he relaxes just a little, thinking to himself that it’s nearly time to begin helping A-Yuan choose the instrument he’ll wish to learn for his musical cultivation.

“Close your eyes, A-Yuan. It’s time to rest,” he instructs gently and then he starts to play.

Memories of Wei Ying come flooding in as he plays the song he wrote for him. As he plays he can almost imagine the sound of a flute accompanying the strings and he sucks in a deep breath, his entire being - the very essence of himself - longing for Wei Ying.

A-Yuan dozes in his lap, his hands going limp where they still cover his own, and once he’s sure that the boy is unlikely to wake again Wangji closes his eyes and begins to channel the familiar flow of his energy. He stills the strings with his palms and then begins to pluck them delicately, listening hard.

‘Wei Ying?’ Wangji knows that it’s unlikely to work. He has to try anyway.

When there’s no answer, he pours more spiritual force into the question, sends it out further.

‘Wei Ying?’ He lifts his hands from the strings and stares at them, willing them to play Wei Ying’s response.

Nothing.

Wangji lingers for a while longer until his last glimmer of hope that Wei Ying will come to him tonight fades into nothing. A-Yuan is fast asleep in his arms so Wangji stands carefully and returns him to his bed, tucking the covers tightly around him to make sure he feels safe and warm. He extinguishes the candles in the main room with a wave of his hand and then he retires to his own bed, feeling numb. Tomorrow he will do it again, and nothing will change.

By unspoken agreement in the days following, A-Yuan begins to attend as well when Wangji practices his guqin in the evening.

It began the following night, and has continued every night since, with A-Yuan leaving the toy he was playing with to climb into his lap and rest his little hands on top of his again. Wangji can’t help but feel pleased that it seems the boy is going to want to choose to follow in his footsteps.

When he puts A-Yuan to bed after their practice has relaxed him, Wangji continues to return to the instrument and ask for Wei Ying. He knows that it’s fruitless, that there have been five years of nothing now and it’s unlikely that he remains. Even his body can’t be found, and Wangji knows that it’s entirely too possible that the resentful energies he held were too powerful to leave even a corpse or a shred of spiritual cognition once the spirits had him in their grasp.

He can’t stop searching.

Three weeks have passed since he sent his last search party out before one of the other pairs returns. He’s walking with A-Yuan around the training yard and observing the swordsmanship lesson when the husband/wife cultivation partnership he’d sent out towards Lanling approaches. He freezes in place and feels A-Yuan look up at him in confusion, but now is not the time or place to answer his questions. Wangji glances at the disciples practicing their sword forms, spots one he recognizes quickly, and he signals her to approach.

“Please take A-Yuan to play with his friends in the Children’s Hall, either myself or his uncle will retrieve him in a few hours,” he instructs.

“Hanguang Jun,” she replies with a bow and then she holds a hand out to A-Yuan and Wangji gives him a nod to reassure him as he glances back at him over his shoulder on his way around the courtyard with his new escort.

“Hanguang Jun,” the pair greets as he turns his attention to them and he returns their bow with his heart in his throat. Thankfully these are cultivators who know him reasonably well (as well as anyone outside his very small family circle can) so they know he has no interest in pleasantries.

“We flew the perimeter of Lanling, as instructed,” the husband of the pair begins. “We sensed nothing unusual and began landing in towns and cities to ask about strange occurrences, night hunting where necessary but always deferring to our fellows in the Jin Sect where possible.” Wangji is growing impatient so he’s relieved when the woman rests her hand on her husband’s arm to stop his full report.

“We see no sign of him, Hanguang Jun. Not even a whisper of the Yiling Patriarch except for idle gossip that flows like water from the mountain. We apologize for our shortcomings.” Wangji watches as the pair sketch another bow, discomfited by their nervousness to approach someone they saw as such an imposing figure with bad news.

“Do not apologize,” he replies simply around the tightness in his throat. “Rest today and return to your regular duties in the morning.” He begins to bow and then quietly murmurs, “Thank you.”

He watches them as they leave, walking almost close enough to touch and in perfect synchronicity with each other, and he aches.

For the next few weeks things go much the same way. One by one the search parties return, and one by one his hopes for news are dashed. By the time the last pair he’d sent out have returned from Yiling itself with empty hands, he’s too exhausted to continue asking others to search for Wei Ying. The waiting, the hope, and the inevitable disappointment have become too much to stomach. He wants to go himself, continue the search when he can be in control of it.

But he’s got A-Yuan to think of, and bringing him along is out of the question. The places he wants to search are dangerous and certainly no place for children, especially since Wangji wants to go by himself. He hasn’t hunted with another partner since Wei Ying and quite frankly he doesn’t ever want to, and he can’t singlehandedly fight and protect his son at the same time. But the idea of leaving A-Yuan behind now that they’ve become so bonded and such an important part of each other’s lives makes him feel physically ill.

The only thing that makes him feel worse is not looking for Wei Ying.

After his period of isolation but before he had officially taken over raising A-Yuan, Wangji had gone searching for him. He’d heard the news from Xichen that Sect Leader Jiang had been unable to find any trace of Wei Ying’s whereabouts, but he’d refused to let that discourage him. As soon as he was able, he’d gone to Nightless City to begin the search for him, only returning to Cloud Recesses when he had exhausted the potential of every possible ravine, every crevice, every dungeon, every rock. It was only the thought of A-Yuan and Wei Ying’s overwhelming love for the boy that had convinced him to return home to his duties. It’s been two years since the end of that search and the parts of him that ache for Wei Ying are yearning to return to it.

Playing the spirit communion pieces on his guqin helps curb his desire to go flying off without a word to keep looking.

‘Wei Ying?’ he asks for what feels like the thousandth time. As long as he receives no answer, he’ll never tire of sending those notes into the air. He takes comfort in them, really. In the music that communicates his soulmate’s name.

Wei Ying?

“Wangji.” The voice at the door startles him, his surprise evident only in the way his fingers twitch on the strings.

"Uncle," he greets stiffly in return. He makes no move to stand and he knows it's disrespectful but he can't quite bring himself to care. It's late and he'd expected to be alone. He wants to be alone.

"Enough of this, Wangji," Lan Qiren says with no other preamble and Wangji doesn't even deign to look up at him. He'd always hated Wei Ying, and the longer Wangji’s mourning goes on the less inclined he is to forgive the people who feel such negative things for the other. "Do you think people don't notice that you search for Wei Wuxian endlessly? Do you think they don't wonder at the reason?"

"Gossip is forbidden in Cloud Recesses," he recites dutifully, voice edging a little sharper. A warning, if Lan Qiren is willing to hear it.

"That doesn't mean they don't notice, Wangji," he retorts and only then does Wangji raise his eyes to meet the older man's. His face is as impassive as his Uncle's is twisted in anger.

Wangji meets his Uncle's glare levelly and, without breaking eye contact, gently plucks the strings again.

Wei Ying?

"WANGJI!"

"Shouting is prohibited in Cloud Recesses," Wangji replies and then adds, as an afterthought, "And in my home. A-Yuan is sleeping."

"You have duties here, Wangji," Lan Qiren replies tightly, though he's at least lowered his voice so Wangji can stop worrying that he's going to wake the boy sleeping just one room away. "You're distracted."

"Does my work displease? Xichen says nothing."

Lan Qiren is silent and Wangji stands slowly, tucking one hand behind his back and facing his uncle straight on. He used to fear him, the impact he had, the influence. He used to be so, so afraid.

His fear of the judgement of others died with Wei Ying.

"Uncle. I will continue to do my duty to my family and sect. Wei Ying is my familial duty as well. I will continue to search," he says quietly and he's fascinated to watch some unnameable emotion pass over Lan Qiren's features.

"It will only hurt."

"Even so," he murmurs, practically soundless, as he nods and keeps his eyes trained low. "I have a duty to him."

"Why?"

Wangji doesn't even dignify that question with a response. It had been asked of him before in various ways, and he is tired of answering when it seemes like it should be so obvious. Why would he stand with him? Side with him? Fight with him? Heal him? Care for him? Do his best to find him not once but twice now? Why? Why? Why?

He can't believe people are still asking him. He hates himself a little for not making his thoughts and intentions clearer, because clearly he didn't if everyone still feels the need to question his motives like this.

"Wangji. Eventually you'll have to stop."

"When I find him, I will stop."

His words are met with nothing but a long-suffering sigh and Wangji knows already that he's won this particular argument. The feeling is..almost novel, to win an argument against Lan Qiren.

"Nothing will dissuade you?"

"Nothing."

"Go, then."

Trust uncle to still find a way to surprise him and make him feel like he's on his back foot.

"Go?"

"Search for him. Xichen and I will watch Lan Yuan for you. Go find him."

Wangji freezes and thinks about the implications of his uncle offering this to him. No time limits, no rules, just an offer to care for their son so that Wangji can go find Wei Ying and bring him home. He's struck momentarily speechless and he's grateful that Lan Qiren lets him have this silence, letting him think it over in his usual ponderous way.

"I will leave in the morning after I deliver A-Yuan to the Children's Hall," he decides. It's fast, but he's been anxious to leave and search for weeks now. He feels guilt surge through his chest at the thought of leaving his son, but he knows that he, at least, will be safe and loved in Cloud Recesses, and it's Wangji who will be aching more for his own bed and his family.

"See to it. Goodnight Wangji."

"Goodnight Uncle."

#the untamed fanfic #Lan Wangji #Lan Sizhui #Lan Qiren #Wangxian #cql fanfic #a bit of grieving dad!wangji for your soft angsty needs

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beautifulterriblequeen · 4 years

Text

What if moonshadow elves lost knowledge about themselves?

Hello, hope you have a nice day ! :D

(wait, is it day, for you?) hem! Anyway.

I was analylzing Moonshadow elves again and now I’m asking myself something, wonder what you would think about it:

Remember my “epiphany about the moon arcanum”?, when I said there’s maybe another side of their arcanum Moonshadow elves don’t know about? Something more life-light related:hope.

At first I said “they don’t know about” without really thinking about it. But, what if it’s true? I mean, what if there truly is a part they don’t know about their arcanum, or maybe forgot along the years? What if the war made Moonshadow elves focus so much on death-kill and all they kinda…. lost some of their knowledge about themselves?

(I think I remember one of your old analysis (I think it was you, I can’t find it anymore), where you compared “young ethari” in the endcredits to the actual one. Where we saw him first doing jewelry, full of hope about life, and the actual one who let that aside to focus on the war)

Add to this their community is described as “really close-knit”, which means more or less isolationism and so a stagnant, unable to evolve society. A society where the same rules were applied for centuries and so inevitably lost their deep meaning with time.

I thought it was maybe exaggerated to think this way, but then I remembered the creators said there is 5000years of history in TDP. Even with longer lifespan, there’s no way elves didn’t forget some things with time. (I compare this situation to another one: some discoveries were recently made in egypt, and we learned that a few thousands years ago egyptian themselves re-discovered things they had discovered several centuries prior and forgot)

So I tried to find proof in the show and the novelization, and guess what? We have some! (or, well, it’s more my HC, but as I said, it’ just a theory)

I think this way especially because of Runaan, who was so sure there was “only one way to release”. But then, Zym came and cut Rayla’s ribbon. My personal HC on this is that only the life who was supposed to be avenged can release the assassin from the binding. It would make sense when you know Moonshadow elves “take life but they do not take it lightly”. But even if I’m mistaking, the central fact is that there is more than one way and, clearly, Moonshadow elves don’t know it (if the leader of the assassins doesn’t, then who could?)

What I find interesting here, is that Runaan recites this ritual at the beginning, about how precious life is, like a litany but the way he insists (especially in the novel) about killing Ezran even after he saw the egg, could be the proof it’s just that, a ritual. A ritual whose words lost all their sense, their deep meaning for his people.

Ok, it’s not much, but I think the combination of isolationism, stucking to rules without understanding them deeply and time, is the perfect recipe to lose your way, no?

Oh, and a crazy other point in between these two theories about “hope” and “lost knowledge” woud be: If there is another aspect of the moon, other elves more hope-related (like Ethari or Rayla), why not another form?

Like sunfire elves have heat and light-being mode, Moonshadow elves could have something else too?. It’s probably stupid, I’m only thinking this way because of how Rayla feels while in moonshadow form in the novelization. It’s not that she hates it or something, but it makes her feel dizzy, as if she wasn’t suited for this. And if not, maybe it’s because she’s suited for another form?

(sorry, I hope I’m coherent on this one, I’m a little exhausted and my thoughts are a little messy ^^’)

______________

Okay, @lily-lilou, just let me catch my breath, this whole thing is a ride and I loved it. We definitely vibing here, fam.

whew

Okay, from the top, because I’ve had a lot of these thoughts myself and I’m so stoked to see someone else independently coming up with them!

Yes 100% to Moonshadows losing a part of their own history. (And yeah, I do have a post somewhere on Ethari’s evolution. Probably called it that iirc) If we’re right about Moonshadows having lived in Katolis before the lands were divided, living right near their own Nexus as the Sunfires still do, then when they packed up and left, it’s very possible they literally couldn’t bring everything with them.

I have a quirky little hc that there are still, to this day, Moonshadow villages hiding behind ancient protection spells in Katolis, and that people wander past them every day and have no idea. But it’s one thing not to be able to pack up your actual village. It’s another to leave behind records of your people’s past, their accomplishments and dealings and discoveries.

*eyes Lujanne’s truly massive library, with its huge walls covered in runes and books* This is where the full history of the Moonshadow people probably is kept. And no one has access to it but her.

Those who headed east would only know what they carried with them, and what was handed down orally through the generations. But see, if my headcanon about the Moonshadow assassins being created at that time ends up being true, then that’s probably bad news for history and truth. When you create a whole new class within your culture, you need to bolster it with ideology. You use myth, cultural norms, and current events to make it seem important.

You tell everyone that being an assassin is the most honorable job there is. And then it’s suddenly cool to be an assassin.

If there were no Moonshadow assassins before the humans were booted out west, then everything Runaan says to Rayla, everything he believes, is pretty young compared to his people’s full history, which he may not know, at least in its true and undistorted form. It’s an illusion. Rhetoric. Propaganda meant to hold soft elves who deeply value life to the hardest task they’ll ever undertake: taking that life from another, for a cause they cannot turn away from, a purpose they are culturally indebted to. Because their people, their princess (?), was the one who asked for the humans to be spared, and so every mistake the humans make from that point on is the Moonshadow elves’ duty to handle.

Runaan was wrong about how many ways there are to release. Has Zym truly been the only victim who wasn’t actually dead, in a whole thousand years? Honestly, probably not, knowing how politics works. But see, if you have an elite squad devoted to serving Xadia, and you tell them that their hands will literally fall off and they will die if they don’t do their jobs because there is only one way to release the ribbon they’re honor-bound to wear, they will take their target or die trying. And if you maybe exaggerated reports of the victim’s death for political purposes and actually have them in a dungeon, or they fled to the human lands as a refugee, or any number of other squirrelly options that Moonshadows aren’t naturally inclined to consider, then you can literally get away with murder-by-proxy. Or containment. Or intimidation. Or whatever your purpose is in taking out a human target who may or may not even be guilty of the crime you allege against them. It might not even be Zubeia and Avizandum’s fault. Unless they can detect truth and lies, they can be deceived by someone unscrupulous with an agenda of their own.

Long paragraph long, there are a lot of problems with the existence and practical duties of Moonshadow assassins. They’re kind of like the War Doctor: born form conflict, and thus only able to serve it, instead of peace. Yes, we all want Runaan to get his happy ending, retire, go home to his soft husband. But really, the whole institution of the assassins needs to go. It was born of war, and if Xadia and the human lands make peace, truly, then the assassins should be dissolved. As I said in one of my fics, Moonshadow assassins are Xadia’s dark magic, turning death into power. It’s gotta stop on both sides.

One of my oneshots for January’s Ruthari Week played with the idea of Ethari having a moonform instead of a shadowform, because yes to elves having two kinds of forms in each culture! I would love to see that for all the elves. And if we use Sunfire elves as a kind of roadmap, with “sun” and “fire” being the heat- and light-beings, then maybe the other elves get their two forms from their names as well. Or so my headcanon went for that fic: a moon form to balance the shadow form, where the elf’s body can glow like the full moon. I didn’t really touch on what that form’s ability would be, but I suppose, logically, it would serve as a portable full moon, powering other nearby Moonshadows even when the moon was down, or new, or a small crescent.

Okay, that’s just fun. I like that idea a lot. The only time “just stand there and look pretty” can be used as a battle tactic!

I can see Rayla getting to have the rare Moonshadow power. That would make her a good balance for Callum and his unusual arcanum as a human. Part misfit, part superpower. It would also probably be a power that puts her closer to Ethari’s soft and protective attitude, no matter what the power really is, since the assassins in Moonshadow culture have clearly adopted their natural shadowy form as a mission tactic, attacking specifically on full moon nights. Literally any other kind of power is probably going to be softer, lighter, more lively and bright, in concept if not literally so. Maybe the other power kicks in on new moons? or is available at any time? I really hope we get a second Moonshadow power of some kind. I am down for all the extra worldbuilding!

Thanks once again for your thoughts! *fist bump* Moonshadow elves. You get it.

#asks #tdp speculatoin #tdp headcanons #moonshadow elves #rayla #runaan #callum #submission

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starprincecas · 4 years

Text

so it goes

15x18 spec fic (written and posted before the ep aired on how it might emotionally eviscerate us that I forgot to share here) [1.4k]. Crossposted on Ao3

“So…” Dean drawls, grabbing Cas’ attention from where he’s squinting intently at the contents of a book, still somehow hopeful of eking out some heretofore unfound information that’ll change the game in their favor. Dean’s not all that optimistic but he can’t really begrudge the guy for it. “What’re you gonna do once this is over?”

Cas cocks his head as he eyes Dean. “After defeating God you mean?”

“You got anything else on your plate I don’t know about?”

Cas looks down at the book in front of him, idly running his thumb over the edge of the pages. “Return to heaven I suppose. While there’s not much I can do, if Jack intends to use the remnants of Adam’s power to fix things up there, the least I can do is give him what support I can.”

Dean half-smiles at that ruefully. “You ever heard of retirement, buddy?”

“I have.” At Dean’s patiently amused expression, Cas straightens up. “Oh. You mean for myself.”

He’s never had a need to consider the prospect before, but now that Dean has set it before him… He ponders aloud. “Heaven’s not made for angelic retirement, so I’m not sure where I would go. I suppose I could travel again-”

“Or,” Dean cuts in, a little too loud in its nonchalance, “you could, y’know, stay here.”

Cas stares at him.

Ignoring the loud, nervous drumbeat of his heart, he meets Cas’ eyes. “I said it before, didn’t I? We’ve got enough space for a dozen of you in here with room to spare. So… stick around after. If you want.”

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” Dean grins, open and easy in a way he hasn’t for months.

Cas smiles back. “Yes.”

Dean’s busy texting Sam for updates on the survivor relocation efforts when there’s a sudden palpable shift to the room.

His head shoots up reflexively even as he reaches for the gun strapped to the underside of the table, immediately on edge, only to stop short when he realizes it’s Billie.

He forces himself to relax, if only so that he doesn’t tip her off to the fact that they’ve been clued into her master plan.

“Hey, Billie,” Dean says as nonchalantly as he can. “Wasn’t expecting-”

“That’s not Billie,” Cas interrupts, standing up abruptly and dropping into a defensive stance as his angel blade drops into his hand. “Dean get back.”

Dean obeys immediately, even as ‘Billie’ croons, “Oh, don’t worry angel, you know I’m not here for him.”

“It’s the Empty,” Cas says tightly, not looking away as he slowly backs up, knowing Dean’s doing the same.

“Whatever deal you and Billie made for Jack, he’s not-”

The Empty rolls its eyes and cuts Dean off. “I’m here for Castiel. Figured I’d hedge my bets, just in case.” At his confused expression, it snorts. “Oh that’s cute. You didn’t even tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Dean demands loudly, glancing between the Empty and Cas. Cas doesn’t look at him. “Tell me what, Cas?”

“Ask the little half-angel brat,” the Empty cuts in flatly. “I’m not staying in this stupid dimension any longer than I have to.”

It takes a step towards Cas. Dean reacts without thinking and shoots. It doesn’t so much as flinch as the bullet penetrates its shoulder, glancing at Dean with almost sardonic amusement. “You didn’t really think that would work, did you?”

Dean shrugs, plastering on a smirk. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

The Empty materializes Death’s scythe while leveling Cas with a look. “Tell your pet human to stand down or I stop playing nice.”

It taps a finger pointedly against the scythe’s handle.

Dean takes the brief moment of distraction to grab Cas’ angel blade from his lax grip and lob it right at the Empty’s chest with practiced accuracy.

Shock and anger flicker past its face as it inexpertly tries to dodge and swing the scythe at Dean.

Too slow to react, the scythe grazes Dean’s side just as the angel blade hits its target, his yell of pain louder than the Empty’s muffled grunt. Cas is there to catch him as he staggers back, dragging him hurriedly out of the library.

They hobble down the hall, Cas bearing the brunt of Dean’s weight as he struggles to walk from the pain.

“There,” Dean grunts when he notices the door to one of the storage rooms lying ajar. Cas redirects immediately. When he turns to Dean, concerned and hand stretched out to heal him, he grits his teeth and shakes his head, taking a half-step back to lean against the wall. “Block the door.”

Cas gives him a look like he wants to object but accedes, moving to push the nearest shelving unit in front of the door. It won’t do much to delay the inevitable, but Dean’s nothing if not stubborn.

“That was reckless,” Cas mutters as he focuses on healing Dean’s wound after.

Dean grunts and tries to smirk. “Have you met me?”

Cas keeps at it for a few more seconds but the pain only abates, not subsiding much. Cas’ hand falls away as he steps back, staring down at Dean’s bloodied side. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I’m not strong enough - an injury from Death’s scythe isn’t something I can heal.”

Dean waves off the apology. “Why’s the Empty after you?”

Cas doesn’t respond. His brows furrow as his gaze drops down to his feet, his bloodied hand clenches into a fist.

“Cas.”

“I made a deal,” Cas admits, the words falling heavily in the space between them. “To save Jack the first time he died.”

A yawning pit opens up inside Dean at the admission. ‘No, no, no,’ he thinks wildly, ‘not again. Please, not again.’

Cas finally looks up and meets his eyes, there’s resignation in his eyes but no regret. “I did what I had to.”

“There’s got to be some way out of this,” Dean blurts out, even as Cas shakes his head. Dean wants to reach out and grab him by the lapels of his trenchcoat and shake him till he takes it back, but the pain and panic have him rooted to the spot. “I’m not going to lie down and just let it-”

“Dean,” Cas interrupts, “there’s nothing you can do.”

“The fuck there isn’t,” Dean says heatedly. He doesn’t have a solution now, but they’ll figure out something, they always do.

Cas smiles at him then, though it wobbles. There’s the beginning of tears in his eyes and it’s a sucker punch to Dean’s gut, because he’s never seen Cas cry before.

“You’ve fought for this whole world, given up so much for it.” Cas swallows and tries smiling again. “It needs you one last time. So this is one battle I’m asking you not to fight. If there’s one last thing I can ask of you before I die -”

“Don’t,” Dean says softly, tears springing to his own eyes. He moves to physically stop whatever Cas might try to say but stumbles, the sudden movement pulling at his injury. Cas reaches out immediately, grasping at his shoulders to steady him.

“- it’s that you don’t risk your life pointlessly because of me. I don’t want that to be the last thing I see.”

Dean shakes his head harshly even as tears blur his vision. ‘It’s not pointless,’ he thinks, ‘not if you’ll survive,’ but the words don’t come out. All the things they’ve left unsaid between them all these years choke him and steal his voice. Even now they’re both cowards.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this

There’s a loud pounding at the door that has them both turning. The door and shelves rattle as it bears another hit before shattering into splinters. Dean finds himself being pulled behind Cas as they both try to shield themselves from the debris.

“Time’s up,” the Empty says, scowling.

Cas doesn’t look back at the Empty even as he pulls back from Dean. He attempts a smile, like he’s trying to convince them both that he’s at peace with what’s about to happen. Dean’s incapable of pretending the same, jaw tight as he stares back at Cas, his own expression a rictus of grief.

Large black tendrils envelop Cas at an alarming speed. Cas steadfastly ignores them, not looking away from Dean. “Thank you for-”

And then he’s gone.

#spn #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #destiel fic #becca writes fanfic #(not tagging as spoilers since this is a now jossed spec fic)

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guiltysecretpasttime · 4 years

Text

Adversity (Chapter 3)

Fic update here :)

Previous chapters here:

1 | 2

===

It was a well-known secret that the Avatar and his circle (mainly composed of today’s world leaders) had been using every occasion in their families as an excuse to get together. It also helped that they had an entire island separated from the city, away from prying eyes and away from the press.

Chief Lin Beifong’s career milestone is another one of these events. While she finished the rest of the working day in the police headquarters, her extended family (after Katara paid bail for her son and Toph who were in detention; though as courtesy to Toph, they were held in the briefing room near the Chief’s office rather than the cells) had convened in Air Temple Island to prepare.

Alcohol was freely flowing at the island when nightfall came, courtesy of the connections of the former Chief of Police (“Ha! Told you my travels would be good for something one day.”) and due to the insistent request of the Southern Water Tribe chieftain. Never mind that the actual owner of the house they were staying at did not partake in the libation.

Under the cover of darkness, the Fire Nation royal family arrived atop the Fire Lord’s dragon. Crown Princess Izumi took care to land out of view of the citizens of Republic City, conscious that they would not want another international incident regarding the sighting of Druk.

The dinner party was intimate, with Katara dismissing the Air Acolytes for the night as the family settled at the grounds which served at their backyard. Laughter and conversation floated in the night air as they partook in food and enjoyed each other’s company.

As the revelry continued, Toph found the guest of honor standing at the edge of the group. “Hey Chief.”

“Chief.” Lin furrowed a brow at her mother, silently watching their family and friends.

“Today went well, congratulations. I’m proud of you.” Toph started, unseeing eyes gazing straight ahead but very much aware of her daughter’s discomfort. “Suyin sends her regrets and her congratulations as well.”

The younger Beifong just inclined her head in acknowledgement. Lin did not feel the need to be more cordial than necessary where Suyin was concerned. She would not admit it but hearing her mother tell her that she was proud of her made her, ahem, feel things (she would realize later that these were pride, satisfaction¸ and dare she say, joy).

After a few moments of silence, the older metalbender asked. “Do you know what you’re getting into?”

“Yes, Mom,” Her daughter swirled the liquid in the glass she held, refusing to drink. “I know that this job is dangerous and potentially life-threatening.”

Toph nodded. “I know you’d do well, Badge,” She used their term of endearment, pertaining to a shortened form of badgermole as well as a nod towards being a law enforcer. “I don’t have any doubts about that. But,” She gave a careless wave towards their extended family. “Do you know what you’re getting into?”

In front of them, Bumi was being scolded by Lady Mai as her teenaged grandson looked particularly queasy after Bumi dared him to finish two shots of alcohol in succession. Sokka was attempting to placate Mai by handing a greasy piece of meat to Iroh to counter the aftereffects. Izumi and Kya were off to the side, having stood up to demonstrate and consult Suki about new combative non-bending forms.

Lin knew her mother well enough that when she was acting nonchalant, she was actually very concerned.

“He’s getting weaker.” The woman who used to be known as the Blind Bandit whispered softly.

Lin did not need to ask who she was talking about; they both felt the slowing heartbeats every time they found themselves at Air Temple Island.

Her mother prodded further as the Chief of Police remained silent. “Does Tenzin know?”

“It’s not my place.” Lin shook her head, looking over at the group at the end of the table composed of Katara, Tenzin, and Aang who remained at their seats, listening intently to Fire Lord Zuko’s update on the Fire Nation.

Toph made a sound of approval. “I’ve talked to both Twinkletoes and Sugar Queen, they will be talking to the kids soon. Just to prepare them for the inevitable.” She turned to her eldest child, who she felt was starting to close herself off. “I’d rather concern myself with my own daughters’ welfare. You never answered me – do you know what you’re getting into? With junior over there?��

Before Lin could respond or even contemplate the question, Tenzin caught her eye, beaming widely as he got up to approach the pair.

“Better start thinking of your future with junior airhead – it might be different from what you’ve planned for.”

---

Much later that night, everyone found themselves in their respective rooms in Air Temple Island. Good nights and farewells were made as it was expected for some of their visitors to leave before first light (read: Fire Nation royalty should not be sighted without the royal guard and entourage).

As the house become quiet and people started to retire, Lin found herself in Tenzin’s childhood bedroom, lying down in the covers beside the lightly snoring airbender. Even in his embrace, she found it difficult to slip into slumber.

Wondering for the nth time, did she really know what she was getting into?

(Before the sun even rose, any reflection or introspection was swept aside as it became apparent to the Avatar and the Fire Lord that the second in line of succession to the Fire Nation throne has absconded with the eldest child of the Avatar to join the United Forces.)

=====

Note: This is a bit short; split a chapter into two for clearer transition. Not sure if that kind of decision works though. 😟 Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Cross-posted in AO3 (under user toccatina)

Other chapters here:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

#lok #Lin beifong #linzin fanfic #linzin #legend of korra #tenzin #toccatina's fanfics #toccatina wip #toccatina adversity

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tanoraqui · 5 years

Text

*takes feelings about the Penric’s Demon series and a hearty dose of @asukaskerian‘s Midnight on the Demon Patrol fic and yeets them into a blender with a text post I saw like a year ago; hits puree with no idea where this is going*

“There’s nothing else for it, Vinnie. You’ll have to take Holmes.”

“Grandma, I am not inheriting your death demon!”

My great-grandmother had broken her left hipbone two days ago; she could barely hold her head off the pillows that propped her up and her eyes were clouded with cataracts and painkillers. She lifted her head to glare at me nonetheless.

“Vanessa Jean Watson, I will not hear such language from your mouth, not in my house and not anywhere. You-“

She stiffened with a sudden grimace and fell back to bed limper. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“You know better,” she finished, voice rough with pain.

“Sorry,” I said, and meant it - but mostly for the fact that I pushed one more time. “It’s just, I’m a nurse. Not a...super secret FBI agent. What am I going to do with a permanent death spirit?”

None of us really knew most of what Grandma Watson had done with her life, for work. She’d been retired for most of my life, and her stories hovered between “fanciful” and “classified beyond belief.”

“Your granddaughter is exactly right,” said Latimer - George Latimer, he’d introduced himself, when I got to my grandmother’s house and found two FBI agents in the kitchen. Director of the Spirit Crimes division. “If you’d just consider Agent Moehner - she’s one of our best, you know. Nearly a decade of experience in the field, with strong riders-”

(The other agent, currently exiled to the kitchen with a mug of coffee, while we argued in the bedroom. She was tall, dark-skinned, and looked like she could kill a man with her pinky, and I hadn’t seen her make a single facial expression when we’d been introduced.)

“Absolutely not,” Grandma snapped, with the faintly echoing undertone that meant her rider was saying it, too.

“I’m not leaving the Watsons,” she hissed - Holmes hissed, Grandma’s lips going pale as though already dead.

“And you’re it, Vanessa,” said Grandma, color returning to her face (though not much; not much at all.) “You don’t see David flying out to my bedside, much less Therese. Liz is gone, and so’s your father. And the twins are too young.”

She wasn’t wrong. Great-grandma Watson, with her snappish authority, apartment full of dead plants, and inclination to look like a corpse to let her equally haughty permanent-rider death spirit speak through her wasn’t high on everyone’s Family to Visit list, and never had been. Nana Liz had loved her, but Nana Liz passed away ten years ago. My dad had spat back her barbs just as fast and with twice the cheer, but he got shot in Syria four years ago. Mom hadn’t been in the picture since just after I was born, and my older brother Dave was busy being a suburban dad in Boston, complete with twin toddlers, a Subaru, and “Sent from my iPhone” email saying, “Heard about Grandma’s fall - give her my best!” He’d sooner discorporate the family spirit than fly across the country to take it up.

Not that I’d flown across the country. I just lived in the next city over, because there’d been a job opening in a hospital and it’d seemed like someone ought to live near the 103-year-old matriarch, rider and all. She refused any live-in help. The unspoken family vote had been me.

“And you,” she added, voice softening a little. “Stop weeping, you old fusspot. You’ve been exhausting yourself for years, keeping back the viruses and cancer and such without any proper food. This damn hip is the last straw for both of us - have a good meal of me, then go fuss over Vinnie instead. She’s a good girl, she’ll look out for you.”

Holmes shook her head, side to side against the pillow. “Jillian…”

“I’m tired, Holmes.” She closed her eyes and sighed, and for maybe the first time I realized how small she was. Short and slight to start with, and shrunken with age, pallid and wrinkled and frail. Her personality didn’t usually allow for the observation.

“Ah, Holmes,” said Latimer, “are you sure you wouldn’t consider accepting Agent Moehner as your handler? As I said, she has experience in the field, and would return to it promptly with you - as Mrs. Watson said, I’m sure you haven’t had a, ah, decent meal in a while-”

Grandma Watson’s eyes opened and snapped over to the FBI director, flat and dead.

“When Captain Watson passes away, there will be two to thirty seconds during which I am bound by little more than my own conscience,” Holmes said icily. “If I were you, sir, I should stop trying to tempt me to hunger now.”

“Captain,” he blustered, “control your spirit-“

“Not a captain,” Grandma said with a quiet smirk. “Retired. And Vinnie’s going to be a private citizen, unless you lot talk her into signing some damn thing - and if her father couldn’t, you can’t.”

She pushed herself up again, wincing, looking at me. “I am sorry, Vinnie, when you just got here - if you need to go get coffee, or break up with a girlfriend, I can…” She sank back, half-scowling at her own weakness. “I can wait. I’ll be fine.”

“I…”

I fiddled with the hem of my jacket. I hadn’t even taken it off, since coming here after work.

I thought if I left, I’d probably run and not come back.

“It’s fine, Grandma. I can- I’ll look after Holmes for you.”

“Good girl.” A bit more color returned to her cheeks as she smiled. “Too responsible for your own good.”

She closed her eyes, looking life-sized again. “Last words, last words...well let’s go with the classic. Sherlock Holmes!”

There was a tension to the air, as though something was about to break. Latimer reaches for something in his pocket. I fought the urge to step back - I knew the spirit’s name, but I’d never seen her use it in a real, summoning way. The bedroom was suddenly cold.

Grandma’s eyes stayed wearily shut, but her voice was strong. “I commend my death to thee. Make it and consume it, and as long as it sustains thee, do my will: go with my great-granddaughter Vanessa and look after her - and don’t be too much of an ass to her, because she’s not all boiled down to pure spite like I am.”

Even weary and wrinkled, her grin was a shark’s. I shivered in the cold.

“This I bid thee again, and a third time to seal it.”

And she died.

It wasn’t gruesome, but it was unmistakeable, and all at once. Her breath gasped out, her cheeks sunk, and she locked into rigor mortis - and darkness seeped out of her greying skin. It coalesced into a cloud that hovered above her, not quite shadow and not quite smoke.

It extended a wisp to brush against Grandma’s still forehead, and there was no mistaking the tenderness in the touch.

Then it lunged toward Latimer like a snapping turtle. He took a step back - but only into what looked like some sort of fighting position; his hands came up and they were traced with glowing sigils - which made sense, that the FBI Spirit Crimes guy would have a rider, too. Hurried footsteps behind me were Agent Moehner rushing into the room, talk and dark-skinned and holding a long, faintly glowing knife.

“Containment, sir?” she asked.

Latimer nodded, as the marks started floating off his hands and stretching wide and glowing toward Holmes.

But Holmes had already pulled away from him, to circle me. It was a bit like being caught in a very small, freezing cyclone. Which somehow radiated impatience.

“Oh, I…”

Grandma’s pocketknife was on her bedside table; I grabbed it and, telling myself it was just like administering a needle, sliced the back of my forearm.

“Sherlock Holmes, for blood I bid thee to my aid-” Basic words you learned in kindergarten, along with your ABCs. The difference was, it was normally for nameless wild spirits - flickers of luck or light or peace of mind that everyone called on here and there. With a name on my lips for a century-plus-old spirit, it was like wrestling a very personal thunderstorm. I could feel the chill and the stillness and the inevitability of death in my bones.

“I invite you to share my corporeality, um-” That wasn’t kindergarten, or anything outside of a more advanced class - except Grandma had spent an afternoon every (rare) visit drilling any descendant she could pin down.

“Terms and conditions!” Latimer shouted - maybe not for the first time; there was a roaring in my ears.

“-under the same terms and conditions as you had with Jillian Watson,” I extemporized at a shout.

And then I died.

Or, it really, really felt like I had, for a moment. It felt like I could easily imagine dying felt like - and considering that when I opened my eyes, there was a chill presence in the back of my mind that was unmistakeably Sherlock Holmes, a sentient manifestation of death, I don’t think I was wrong.

I’m sorry, I said silently, because I couldn’t help but feel his grief.

Go deal with the military idiot, he scoffed, and somehow turned away, crossing his arms at the back of my skull. They’ll want you to fill out some registration forms, for a Class A-1 spirit possession. Just don’t sign anything that gives them actual authority over us.

#sherlock holmes #original fic #my fic #'possession by/of a sentient manifestation of death' is halloweeny right?#fuck i have to do dishes before bed #but also wake up at 8:30 at the latest #hmm mistakes may have been made

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montocalypse · 4 years

Note

For 'If I go now, I'd look for another you': Qs 1, 4, 13, 14 and 15. And for 'Sleepless,' Qs 6 and 10. (I know these are a lot, so feel free to take your time.) Thank you!

Thank you so much for the ask @soy-celeste! As you predicted, this did take a while, what with NaNo taking most of my free time, but here we go:

If I go now...

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Story time, kiddos. Back in early 2019, I was just generally feeling miserable and missing Monto while he was frozen out of the squad, and then Alessio posted a couple of photos on his Insta from some cultural event they both attended, and it was really all the push I needed. I’d never even thought of this ship before, but once I saw it, it couldn’t be unseen. I just loved the idea of these two spending time together and maybe even being friends outside Milanello.

I’ve always been drawn to the dynamic of being queer while playing professionally - some of you might remember my first longer story also exploring that theme - and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to take a deep dive. I’d rarely written Monto as the older/more experienced party before, so that was a bit of a challenge, but it was also very fitting considering I was processing my feelings over his absence and inevitable retirement through the story.

So, I wrote like half of the first chapter back in February 2019. Then I was floored by some massive changes in my personal and professional life, and dropped the story for over half a year. When I finally came back to it in the autumn, after Monto’s retirement had put things into a new perspective, I basically rewrote the whole thing to put more depth to their relationship and drive home this generational shift that was happening in Milan, with Monto being brushed aside while Alessio climbed up to become the captain. It became much more than just a simple coming out love story: I was basically reliving the last few years on Monto’s career through the story.

So yeah, the main inspiration was definitely Monto’s retirement, even though the story begins four years earlier. All the other themes - sexuality, friendship, feeling like an outsider, emotional growth etc - all ties back to it. In short, I was feeling emotional, so I was also expressing lots of emotions I was either going through or had gone through before, in the only way I knew how.

4. What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

What a sneaky way to make me go through the story again!

It’s a tie between two very different scenes:

“Ask me why I kissed you.”

and

“Even after I met Cristina and fell in love with her, I kept expecting something to go wrong – for her to find out and leave me, for me to realize I wasn’t really into her, for someone else to come along and tell me I couldn’t be the person I wanted to be…”

First one because it packs all the unspoken feelings into one single sentence. It’s a scene I wrote in one sitting, with next to no edits even in the final version, and this line was something I knew I would use long before I actually got to do it.

The second one because I’m sick of bisexuality being swept under the rug, and this whole scene was my official ‘fuck you’ to everyone who thinks that being in a straight-passing relationship makes us any less queer.

13. What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

Sunrise Avenue has been my go-to band throughout the creation of this story, with Heartbreak Century (where the title and all subtitles come from), Somebody Like Me (Crazy), and Question Marks probably being the ones I’ve listened to the most while working this story.

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

For the longest time I’d wanted to write a story with a bisexual character where the sexual identity matters. I feel like sexual orientation - bisexuality in particular - is often unfairly ignored/forgotten in favour of Fun Gay Shit(TM) in fanfiction, and it’s always kind of bugged me even though I’ve definitely done it myself on many an occasion.

In this story I wanted to show that being bi is a valid identity that affects how people act and experience the world regardless of their relationship status, and we go through a lot of the same struggles as other LGBTQ+ individuals, as well as stuff that’s specific to us. If there’s one reader who picked that up and maybe gained a new perspective on how they view sexuality, I’d be very pleased.

15. What did you learn from writing this fic?

That sometimes it’s completely OK to take my time writing and updating a story. I think this might be the first time I haven’t felt guilty for taking months to update, because this fic started as a personal therapy project that I never expected anyone else to pick up. And honestly? Had I written and pushed it out when the idea first struck me, I don’t think the story would have turned out half as good, because only with time and numerous edits (and lots of help from @hendos) did I find the right balance and my voice as a writer.

Sleepless

6. What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

I could be cheap and just say it’s the ship because this is the only time I’ve written either Edi or Diego. However, that’d be selling it short, because this is actually one of the most personal stories I’ve ever written.

I wrote it back when I was getting ready to move to another continent, and had to cope with an end to a very short-lived summer romance I’d gone through just before - that story didn’t end there, and it ended up being much more complicated than I’d ever imagined, but back then I didn’t know that. I just knew I’d found something special and I was choosing to walk away from it because if I didn’t, I would have regretted it. And that didn’t make the relationship-that-never-happened mean any less.

Sleepless, as short and (bitter)sweet as it is, re-tells a moment from the end of that non-relationship in as much detail as I could while also keeping true to the characters and context of the fictional relationship I was writing. I’m pretty sure it’s the only one among all my fics where I’ve basically lifted stuff from my own life and written it into a story with only some relatively small changes.

10. Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

I adopted Uruguay as my secondary national team during the 2010 World Cup after Italy went out. Sad, I know, but it was also surprisingly easy to fall for them when my attention wasn’t being hogged by the Azzurri. I remember falling particularly hard for Forlán, I was just awestruck.

When it came to choosing characters/pairing for this story, I knew I needed to find players with a clear age gap (to mirror the above-mentioned irl relationship) who were also living/about to live on other sides of the world. Forlán was the obvious choice because he was leaving Europe and I was upset to say the least.

As for Cavani, he was playing in Napoli at the time, so I’d been following him through Serie A, and was intrigued by this introverted singlemindedness I could see in him. I found it very relatable. He seemed like such an interesting person, I just wanted to take a shot at writing him, even if it was only a short piece.

#see what happens when i'm asked to talk about my stories #thanks for the ask i really loved looking back at these stories #soy-celeste #asks

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thunderheadfred · 5 years

Text

æther

so, uhhh.... A) I have no idea if this ficlet will end up in the final chaptered version of Mirror, Mirror or if it’s doomed to be a permanent headcanon and B) I spent too much time to just let this sit in my WIP files for however long it takes to finish this monster of a fic because my brain is a shrivelled little acorn that requires constant validation

pairing: Asra x Julian (plague-era, post-Lazaret, AU-flavored) length: 3,750 words rating: explicit. bitter. citrus. warnings: gore, plague-related horror, trauma, unresolved angst, emotional constipation, gothic narrator syndrome, a 200-coin paid Asrian bath scene

...well. here goes nothin’...

It might be two in the morning.

Something about the tightness of my chest, the irregular, lumpy beating of my heart… tells me the night must be wearing thin. There is no other earthly way to divine the hour. No light penetrates the dungeons, and Valdemar seems to loathe timepieces; I have yet to find a single clock squirreled away in this bottomless hellhole they call a laboratory. What good would time do us, anyway? Other than to mark the endless stream of anonymous deaths, one tick after another…

tick… tick… tick…

Something drips onto my notes, running ink all over the place, ruining whatever half-lucid thought I’d been in the middle of. Useless anyway. I’m getting nowhere. I throw down my quill and drop my face into my hands. Crying does not feel good, or even bad. Like everything else in this place, it is simply draining, inevitable. Often, I seem to leak unwittingly, my body going through motions my mind has become too numb to sense.

I should sleep. I should. But the thought of that cramped bunk, at least half a foot too short, crammed against the molding, always-damp wall… It makes more sense to rot where I sit.

Outside, someone moans hoarsely. My hands turn to fists in my hair. No… not again...

Valdemar and their retinue of nameless numbered assistants have retired for the evening, leaving half a dozen “experiments” in mostly-inert pieces on various slabs to chill overnight. One of those unfortunate souls is coming back around, and it’ll only be seconds until they feel the extent of the horrors that were inflicted… Hands moving to either side of the desk, I brace myself.

Nothing prepares me. Young. Too young. Her voice, even in agony, sounds just like… I’m up and out the door before I know what I’m doing.

I lunge for her: the one writhing body amidst a pile of dissected remains. One look at her puts a clamp over the bleed in my heart: not a red hair in sight. She’s too tall, too dark, too anonymous to be my sister. But all the same, she is suddenly every bit as dear to me.

I take one of her hands, stilling her grasping, spasmodic fingers. My other hand takes up the cleanest rag I can find and mops sweat and muck from her forehead, a flimsy excuse to comfort. She’s too far gone already; all I can hope to do is ease this wretched passing. In shock, the body can act out a series of stirring autonomic reactions… or so Valdemar claims.

My tears fall freely now, because I’m still not dead enough to know better.

This girl should have died hours ago. Days ago. Should have died at home in her bed, tragically, yes… but whole. Not like this. But what Valdemar never understands—refuses to understand—is that people don’t die clean, on a schedule. It’s startling how many of these abandoned experiments wake up hours after they’ve been declared hopeless… and still go out screaming. In my own twisted way, I suppose I find their tenacity inspiring. The girl beneath me wails incomprehensibly, but I know exactly why, and I tighten my hold.

End it.

The pain of being left here, the fury of being abandoned, the indignity of being cut open for beetles and maggots and the curious field notes of a demon.

End it.

She writhes and foams and her ferocious red eyes track my every movement. Obeying her wordless commands, I grab the precious vial of contraband æther from my pocket. Keeping a firm hold on her hand, I depress the trick top of the vial and tip a few potent drops onto a rag, pocketing the bottle as quickly and secretively as I produced it.

Blackbreath Æther: the reaper’s kiss. A single whiff of the fumes is enough to dull the most extraordinary pain, and any more than that, well… Even at a distance, I can feel my own head swimming. Carefully, I hold my breath and bring the cloth to cover her nose and mouth. The æther smells warm and earthy, like fresh-tilled dirt, and the girl gulps down her own inevitable darkness, her shrieks of agony transmuted into the deepest, sweetest sighs…

Through the hole Valdemar left gaping and raw, I can see the girl’s healthy pink lungs expanding with the last breaths she’ll ever take. And just like that… she goes still, her face slackening. The way her pupils blow wide as they stare at me, gazing through me, seeing nothing and everything… fills me with hideous peace.

The silence she leaves behind knocks me off balance. Clinging to her lifeless hand, I stumble into the nearest stool, landing so hard I bruise the length of my thigh. The pain is welcome: at last, a feeling. It wakes me somewhat, and I realize that head to foot, I’m shaking.

Behind me, the door to my office creaks.

I leap from my own skin, wild with terror. No one else should be down here. The lift hasn’t returned, I would have heard it, I would have known... I can’t be that far gone…

I grab the closest, sharpest thing I can find, slashing a broken bone saw through the air. When I turn on my heel… I see Asra gaping at me, hands held up in surrender.

Inexplicably, the magician is emerging from my office. He looks coiffed and groomed, every bit the pampered palace pet he so skillfully plays at… but the moment our eyes meet, his façade flickers, words dying on his lips.

I swallow heavily, realizing I’m still clinging to the girl’s hand. “You don’t belong here,” I spit, unable to force the hostility from my voice.

As far as I know, Asra has never visited the dungeons before. He’s never so much as asked what work is done in this ever-worsening dark. No, he’s always dancing around the subject of the Plague. Always running back to his shop, or his “realms” or his god-forsaken dreams. Always pretending Vesuvia might wake up from this whole charade some day, like it was all just a terrible Masquerade-weekend hallucination.

Why should he open his eyes now? Why even bother? No one can wave a hand and vanish the apocalypse.

“Get out.” Suddenly infuriated, I brandish the bone saw in his direction, flinging at him all the bits of gore Valdemar left so carelessly behind, hoping the gesture looks as horrible as it feels.

“Blackbreath…” he whispers, voice gone ragged. “That’s why you wanted it…”

Funny. At the time, he hadn’t bothered to ask why I would beg for a vial of something so deadly, so forbidden. He’d just handed it over without so much as a ‘do not imbibe’, as if he’d give me anything I wanted… as long as I pleaded wantonly enough… as long as I spent enough time bloodying my knees for his amusement.

My stomach turns. “Thought I wanted to off myself, is that it? And you just handed it over anyway, you absolute bastard.”

Slowly, reverently, I tuck the dead girl’s hand neatly against her side… and then throw the bone saw onto a steel tray full of tools. The broken blade lands with a dull clang and a satisfying explosion of scalpels and clamps.

“You don’t know anything, do you?” I hiss, revolted by the deepening permanence of my own snarl. “What kind of magician has never sawed a person in half?”

His turns as if to leave—but how? Through my office?—and stops himself, eyes falling to the floor. He stands there silently, shoulders slumped in a noncommittal gesture: half dismissal, half acknowledgement. For a brief moment, Asra allows the expression on his face to play out naturally, a whirlwind of confusion and pain.

Good.

He holds out his hand, and my sneer falters.

I don’t move, but the mind-reading devil always seems to know what I’m thinking. His face softens into true pity and my intestines knot together.

Part of me wants to trust those watery, delicate eyes… and part of me will always be wary of snakes. As he waits for my answer, his unguarded gaze slides behind me, darting across the pile of nameless bodies. I don’t even have a shroud to cover them.

He seems unable or unwilling to hide his terror; I’ve only seen him look so lost once before. That horrible beach in the shadow of the Lazaret, where everything came apart, never to be put back together again… As if I’d spoken aloud, his jaw sets and his eyes snap back to mine. Witch.

I expect him to turn tail and run, but his hand stretches for me with redoubled insistence.

Well. He’ll never say ‘please.’ I know that.

I wish I had something else to throw at him, but I’m all that remains. Huffing out a breath, I step down from the stage and clap our hands together so hard that my palm stings. Asra doesn’t flinch, but tightens his mouth as if under better circumstances, he might owe me a smile.

He gently leads me into my office, the last place I want to be with him, with anyone. I open my mouth to protest, but in two steps he crosses the room and presses his pristine hand against the far wall. A sigil of light pulses beneath his palm, resonating with magic. Solid brick shimmers like water, opening into a portal, and he looks back at me, waiting.

I’ve seen other such passages hidden throughout the palace, but never trusted one enough to walk through it. I want to ask how long that secret escape has been there, how long he’s been waiting to taunt me with it. I have a feeling he wouldn’t answer honestly anyway, so I keep my mouth shut and square my shoulders, allowing him to pull me through.

As the portal envelops us, Asra feels so close he might as well be a part of me, as if the universe has folded us together inside a bolt of loose silk. A heartless drop, then we step unharmed into a room so bright I have to squint and cover my eyes.

He pulls me deeper into the blinding light, until carpet gives way to tile and the melodic trickle of flowing water. His guest chambers, his bath. Dimly, I realize he’s speaking to me.

“…here. You’re freezing.” He drops my hand and begins to gently lift my shirt. I flinch. He stills, but does not let go. If anything, he takes a surer grip. “Let me help,” he whispers.

My eyes finally adjust, and the room comes into focus. I didn’t realize he was standing so close… as he looks up at me, his perfumed hair tickles my chin, and his eyes seem to get caught on my mouth. I feel my breath quickening as the last shreds of equilibrium crumble out from under us.

“What do you want from me?” I didn’t mean to grunt that so pathetically. Didn’t mean to say it at all; and maybe I didn’t. Maybe he’s just in my head again. Always.

His brow crumples; his eyes glisten. “I… Nothing…”

We’re a hair’s breadth from it now, but this is as close as we’ll ever get to our apologies. We have too much to be sorry for, too many losses, too much yet to lose. Never mind the words. All this steam and closeness, he’s making it hard to even breathe. This shouldn’t be complicated. My chest hurts.

I can’t…

The first sob cracks me open like the chink in a dam, and it’s already too late. I can’t stop it. I fold over his shoulder, clinging to him, burying my face in his shield of silken scarves. Just being near him… too much. Warm and bright and blinding, like something that fell from the sky and left me smoldering in a crater of blackened glass. A dangerous star to wish upon.

He stands still and lets me weep on him. Seconds, hours, I don’t know. I don’t know. He lets me empty out.

When my eyes clear again, I see that I’ve stained one of the patterned scarves on his shoulder. A new one. A gift.

“Was that expensive?” I mumble, stupidly.

He jumps as if I’ve startled him from a dream. “What?”

I try to explain, but he pulls my shirt over my head, muffling my nonsense before it can begin. Warm hands skitter over me, and I watch, dumbstruck, as he traces countless bruises I didn’t even know were there. I shiver, finally feeling the cold of my own skin under this new and burning touch.

Healing magic moves up my chest, my neck, leaving tingling warmth in its wake. Slowly, he cups my face in his hands and forces me to meet his eyes. I feel my mind churning, and wonder if this tilting feeling is magical too… or a symptom of mutual insanity. With his fingers covering my ears, all my terror seems to ebb, all the kicking and screaming misery of the past few months reduced to the pulsing white noise of a tide. The muffling calm of deep water slips over my head… pulling me toward him… just him…

I want him so badly it hurts, but I know if I close the distance now, I’ll make a fool of myself. So I root down, standing there, waiting. Trying not to care what happens next.

He grabs the waist of my trousers. Like all of him, his hands are small but surprisingly strong. His swift, certain movements jerk me to and fro, and by the time he’s loosened my belt and unbuttoned my front, I’m rigid with need.

His eyes pass over my arousal. “Get in the bath.”

I struggle with the fastenings on my boots, distracted by the sight of him removing his own clothes and slipping gracefully into the water, like he belongs there.

The water feels painfully warm, but I force myself to submerge to the chest. I’ve gotten so accustomed to the cold, so numbed by it, that here in tepid bathwater, I feel like bones boiling in a pot, all pink marrow and jelly.

The water must be enchanted. The dirt sloughs from me in grimy clouds and then vanishes as if it never existed, just like the bruises. Too comfortable, too easy, like this is only a dream or another frivolous, expensive illusion.

Asra floats nearby, glittering and feral, watching his magic take hold, his spell forcing me into human form. Gulping, I dip my head back to wet my hair and face, scrubbing hard. My scalp burns, every inch of me burns, but I feel… I feel…

I should say it, I should tell him, but what? I don’t know. Too much. What name could I give this thing that’s been eating us both, whittling us down to salt and gnashing teeth, leaving only a bitter taste?

Just as I feel my heart tightening with panic, Asra’s hand slides over my chest. He waits for my pulse to slow, or quicken, or simply obey, then he moves up my neck, behind my head. He pulls me up by the root and all of my traitorous body throbs at that touch. The sight of him, too, is equally bewitching. Heavy wet curls falling over hooded eyes, lips moist and soft.

He’s leaning in, pressing his open mouth to my cheek, hot breath melting the path of my tears. When he pulls away, he looks feverish, and his tongue swipes across his lower lip, tasting.

Oh, Asra. That’s too much…

His eyes flash. Did I say that out loud? I don’t know. I can’t think. My head is moving back and forth—yes, no, yes—my mouth opens but my words are swallowed by the thickening steam. Asra’s lips graze over mine once… twice… again… again…

Who made that noise? I don’t know. We both vibrate, and I’m done for, my hands are on him, my mouth locks over his, the heat of his skin burning through my palms. I’m breathing too heavily, his teeth are too sharp. His kiss plucks my nerves and cuts my tongue, but I need more. This is all there is.

My back meets the edge of the pool with a painful thump, and our mouths break apart with a clack of teeth.

Asra pushes at my hips, urging me out of the bath even as he bends to lick water from my neck. Between breathless sweeps of tongue, he barely gets out one word: “…Bed.”

It rings like a command, but as I’m stumbling toward our mutual goal, I realize that it might have been a question. I trip horizontal and pull him along for the ride, our knees banging together. A lingering pause as he pushes up onto his elbows and looks down at me, his eyes wide, his chest heaving, water dripping from his face to mine.

I try to swallow, licking my lips. “Maybe…”

The thought dies as his hand closes around my cock. He watches my face, giving me a chance to stop this… but I can’t, I won’t. I pull him down and invite his ragged breath into my mouth, let him bite and steal and consume. He tightens his hand and pumps me to full hardness, his kiss deepening as he scrapes my lips with his teeth. The only indication of his own arousal is the ragged sound of his breath, the low moans he tries to mask against my tongue. Knowing that I have any effect on him at all… even this meagre sampling… I writhe greedily and Asra drags his mouth away. As if to distract himself, he tongues the sharp bend of my jaw and opens his mouth, bares his teeth… then stops, breathing deep.

No, no… he can’t quit now. At least one of us isn’t above begging; I turn my head and offer him my neck.

Asra looks at me with darkening eyes. He’s breathing hard, his face strangely tight. “Julian… I… I want to hurt you.”

I laugh on reflex, dizzy with light-headed relief. Knowing how desperate I must look, I surge my cock against his idle hand and croak out: “That makes two of us.”

The shift is immediate. Just like that, he becomes ravenously, furiously alive. His teasing hand tightens around my cock, and with a slap of fervor, his other hand meets my throat. He tightens both hands until I’m gasping.

He straddles my waist and hovers over me, his mouth wide open and inches from my own. Eyes aflame, he devours every scrap of desperate air… and just as my lungs start to burn, he releases the pressure and grants me one gulp of relief before sealing his mouth over mine, choking me with his searing tongue.

Electrified, I reach for him, my hands roving up his well-shaped thighs, squeezing greedily over his muscled rear. I feel him roll with a fleeting show of pleasure… before he yanks my hands away and throws my arms to the mattress.

Forget shame, I whine and fist my hands into the sheets. I hold on as he scrapes his teeth down my neck, bites my collarbones, stutters his chin down the heaving, bony column of my sternum…. and eases his thigh between my legs. Using both sets of nails to draw angry red lines over my ribs, he bites my nipple hard enough to bruise. I squeak as he laves the wound with his tongue, soothing just long enough so that when he bites again, the pain sings through me even more sharply.

Keening low and long, I shamelessly thrust against his thigh. Just as I’m edging close, he pulls away, extracting his leg with a cruel bump of his kneecap. I open my eyes, bleary and confused, as his dark chuckle roils in my blood. I see the sweetened plum of his grin rising over my groin and he pulls my hands into his damp ringlets.

“Hold on tight.”

There’s no further warning. His soft lips slide down around me, his luscious, infuriating mouth swallowing my cock as his otherworldly eyes stare up with the confidence of the damned, daring me to breathe. An unholy sight, one I’ve dreamed of all too often, and the sound I make is anything but human.

He laughs, his tongue pulsing, his teeth scraping just enough to keep me from shoving all the way to the back of his throat. He works me expertly, easily reading my moans, setting a confident rhythm. My eyes roll back as the room spins. I cling to his hair and match his movements: thrusting and fucking his mouth as he bobs up and down. Every few strokes he scrapes me with his teeth, threatening to bite, savoring my yelps. He seems to know exactly how much I can take until my toes curl with pain… then he opens his mouth and slathers me with a cooling dose of lewd, loud, whorish spit. There’s barely enough relief to breathe… then he starts the torture all over again until I’m cursing, begging, speaking in tongues.

I try not to think about how he might have gotten so very, very good at this… but it’s impossible to resist imagining a barrage of possibilities. Asra choking on a thousand healthy cocks, cum sliding down his throat… Asra buried between countless sticky thighs, his face drowning in mystical, hallucinatory pussy, his eyes iridescent with a rainbow of shifting, seething pleasures…

…the world tilts around those lips, spinning on that magic tongue. I’m upside-down… look at this maze, we’ll never get out… she throws her head back and moans so loud that anybody might hear… her loose curls trail into the fountain, bobbing with pleasure… she’s grown her her hair long in the Prakran style and trussed it with tiny moonblossoms… dressed like a silver moth, her skirt pulled up, her leg thrown over his narrow, muscled shoulder... oh, yes… you two are so beautiful like this… both of you… Asra, Emry, my darlings… her hips roll as she cries out his name, clings to his hair, rocks into his eager face… his tongue lavishes her to oblivion, drinking her, worshipping her, fingers pumping into her until she sparks and ignites, lost to the flames…

Asra jerks away, staring at me like a man about to die.

#asra x julian #asrian #lemon #asra #julian devorak #the arcana game #fred writes #mirror mirror #long post #it doesn't have much of a beginning or an end #because again... larger fic plans #but still #i think this stands alone fairly well #asra alnazar

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elfnerdherder · 5 years

Text

The Gunmetal Kiss: Chapter 6

[Support my Patreon] [Read on Ao3]

Well, guys, it’s here! This was a baby fic, but I’d love to thank all of you for the time and patience you’ve shown through the last couple of years of stagnant posting and random rambles of how much work sucks. I think I’ve settled into a groove of my new job now, and I’m hoping to get into a once a week update, kind of how I used to. Baby steps!

A special thanks to my patrons: @evertonem @starlit-catastrophe @kenobi-is-king @sylarana @frostylicker Duhaunt6, Mendacious Bean, Superlurk, and Cecily! You guys are the best!

Chapter 6:

May 8, 2017:

Nothing.

May 9, 2017:

Nothing.

May 10, 2017:

Nothing.

July 28, 2017:

Nothing.

October 13, 2017:

Nothing.

December 25, 2017:

Nothing.

January 1, 2018:

Nothing.

February 1, 2018:

Nothing.

March 1, 2018:

Nothing.

April 1, 2018:

Nothing.

May 1, 2018:

Nothing.

June 1, 2018:

Nothing.

July 1, 2018:

Nothing.

August 1, 2018:

Nothing.

September 1, 2018:

Nothing.

October 1, 2018:

Nothing.

November 1, 2018:

Nothing.

December 1, 2018:

Nothing.

December 31, 2018:

Nothing.

January 1, 2019:

And Time Froze.

Will Graham died often. He died often, and nothing happened. People died, and nothing happened. Sometimes, he was commended for his work. Sometimes, he had a desire to put mirror shards in the eyes of his targets.

He doesn’t, but sometimes he thinks about it.

He’d told Alana it was a mirror, but it wasn’t, was it? He became, but he could become anything, and was he truly a person when he was constantly becoming something else? He thought of how Hannibal looked at him, hungry. How he’d slid that knife so smooth.

He’d wanted to confess something about Mason Verger. Will Graham did work outside of the United States.

Time passed, and nothing happened. Nothing happened because Will Graham was not a thing to retain information, but a thing to mirror the world around him just long enough to pass the power along. Never for himself, never himself, and nothing happened as the time passed. Will Graham wasn’t truly Will Graham. He was a ghost.

Ghost Agents aren’t people. Will Graham never had feelings for Hannibal.

Dying this time wasn’t anything special. It was nothing, but he knew it’d stain his ex-lover’s eyes forever, make them cry themselves to sleep. Enough they’d never know he was alive. Enough to know they’d not pry for him.

Enough to know he’d never again exist to them.

Despite the smell, sewers were the best of exits. Most of them were scarcely occupied by humans, and it led to avenues of quick getaways. Climbing out of the gutter and sliding out of the stained and wet jacket, he tossed it in the dumpster nearby and rounded the corner, picking up his bug-out bag.

Standing poised before a bleeding sun and Will’s only escape, Hannibal Lecter’s knife glinted, reflected and nearly blinded Will. He paused for the briefest of moments, his mind reflecting, turning in on itself. He stood slowly and gripped the duffle bag tight, calculating.

He couldn’t speak. He swallowed, throat tight, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Nearly two years. Nearly two years, and Hannibal looked good.

Hannibal had a knife in his hand. Hannibal’s hand cut throats so smooth.

“You found me,” he said, hoarse.

“I never lost you,” Hannibal explained calmly. “You simply kept your head down and refused to see.”

Will held his breath just long enough to make it hurt. He exhaled slow, allowed it to burn.

“You going to stick me with that?”

“You were telling the truth the whole time, I think,” Hannibal said. “Bits and pieces, but true. I wondered, long after, if you had to doctor your own wounds most times, and that’s why they were so gruesome in the aftermath.”

“I’m not going to get into a knife fight with you. I’ll subdue you and move on.”

“I thought to throw away the hideous canvas, but it was a ship adrift at sea. It seemed somehow fitting for you.”

“Enough, Hannibal.”

“It was not enough,” Hannibal interrupted, curt. “It was not so near enough time as I’d have liked, and in truth, Will Graham, I don’t believe it was near enough time for you, either.”

He tasted Ortolan and brimstone. Will bit at a dry spot on his lip, tore hard enough bleed. His grip on his bag didn’t falter, but his breath did.

“I thought you a remarkably difficult read until I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t read you, but that you were never quite yourself to read. I miscalculated your affections, or so I supposed until I saw what it was for you to mirror someone’s affection back onto themselves. Then, I felt rather lucky in realizing I was able to experience a genuine intimacy with you.”

“You walk a fine line between arrogance and confidence.”

“You’d claim what you and I shared somehow compared to the watered-down version delivered in the coffee shop to Abigail Hobbs, whose grief and anger towards her father drew her into witness protection after your death? Or your romantic interludes with Nathanial, who could not convince you to come back to bed after you’d sufficiently pleased him?”

“If I was so unobservant I didn’t notice the third man in the room, I should retire,” said Will. It sounded far droller than he felt.

“You’re hungry for something, aren’t you?” Hannibal asked, and there it was: that look in his eye, that hungry look that made something inside of Will hungry, too.

“No,” Will rasped.

“You once wanted to get to know me,” Hannibal urged, and his voice softened. It wasn’t rough, but hesitant, something smacking of vulnerability, but Will didn’t want to think of that right now. “I had thought you’d maybe like to know me still.”

He thought about fighting the Great, Red Dragon, how Hannibal had slit his throat so smooth. How his eyes burned, and there was a set to his jaw that hinted at a protective nature, an urge to act because he wouldn’t stand the notion that Will could get hurt again.

Will stupidly thought of Alana wondering who’d first got in his head and scrambled it all up.

“We have to go,” he said, and he glanced to his watch.

“Will –”

“I’ll…I’ll talk, but we have to go.”

Hannibal looked likely to resist, but after a brief, taut second, he relaxed. “My car is less likely to be found.”

It wasn’t a lie. Will gripped his duffle bag tight, then relaxed. He gave a brief nod and gestured for Hannibal to lead the way.

There was a certain edge to be the one holding the keys to the car. It was a fucking Bentley, and Will allowed himself the luxury of melting into the leather. The last mission had been tiring, in truth.

There’d been a lot of missions that’d been tiring, if that was something he was willing to admit. Maybe not yet, not at a moment like this.

His duffle bag rested between his legs. In it held the key to a thousand identities, a thousand opportunities. He wasn’t sure if his mind was turning or reeling. “Tell me about Mason Verger.”

Hannibal held both hands on the wheel as they peeled through casual suburbs and took stop signs rather than street light intersections. Will saw the care of it, and his fingers fidgeted with the lock button.

“Mason Verger was a pedophile, and my work colleague shared it with me after a troubling day at set when she broke down crying and couldn’t continue the scene.

“I…do not have a tolerance for those that think themselves above the repercussions of harming the innocent that are in no place to protect themselves. I thought it important that I convince him of his wrongdoing, therefore I set out the careful planning of our friendship and his inevitable destruction.”

As orange, dull streetlights striped and skewered his face, it made his grim smile feral. Will liked it. It made him remember Dolarhyde dying. Will was shot, and Hannibal hadn’t hesitated in stabbing Dolarhyde so that Dolarhyde couldn’t stab back.

The scar was ugly, hidden only by a beard Will painstakingly maintained. It was difficult to blend in with a scar like that. Difficult to do your job when people kept asking questions.

“It was only one party, but it was enough. We procured drugs from his personal stash, and he didn’t notice that I mixed a potent blend of psychedelics into the powder. He took them without thought, and I’m sure you know the rest.”

“How the hell did you get a hold of something like that,”

“I have a friend in the pharmacy business. Big pharma is actually a large problem that the federal government should look into,” he chided lightly.

“Not my job.”

“No, but I’d like to know about that,” he replied, and at the next stop sign he grabbed one of Will’s fidgeting hands, letting it rest in the neutral space between them on the armrest.

“Hannibal—”

“You said you would talk.”

He did say he’d talk. Will chewed his bottom lip and nodded in approval at Hannibal’s turn of head towards the interstate. Interstates were safe at night. Safer than people thought, so long as you didn’t drive like an ass and draw attention to yourself.

He waited for a few miles before he spoke. Hannibal’s patience was fine-tuned and calm, not at all intrusive. He knew Will had no sort of idea where they were going, knew he was at the mercy of Hannibal’s need to know.

And Will had known that walking towards the car, yet he’d gotten in anyway.

“What you saw was me using my hyper-empathy disorder in order to so completely ingrain myself into the space of another person that I’m able to aptly anticipate their needs or any potential hazards of them being within my workspace and mission. I was recruited because despite that, it doesn’t hamper my ability to kill someone, should the need arise.”

Admitting that was easier than admitting to the rest of the job. Other people had scrutinized his psyche before; one more was nothing.

“You’re good at it.”

“As are you,” Will countered.

“When I care about something, Will, I will protect it at all costs. I know what it is to be unable to protect the things that I love, and I promised myself that it would never happen again.”

There was something in the way that he said ‘love’ that made Will’s breath stutter past his lips.

“You don’t know me, Hannibal. You can’t suggest you love me.”

“I know more than others, otherwise you would not be so defensive of it. Instead, you’d be cruel, as you were to the rest of your targets that now think you dead.”

“You want me to be cruel to you?” Will asked –he didn’t appreciate the sound of it being more incredulous than threatening.

“No, I’m informing you that if you didn’t want me to follow you, you should have made me think you were dead. You ensured such a thing from every target after me, which leads me to assume you wanted me to find you.”

Will was still more baffled than angry that Hannibal had found him. Of all the stupid, risky, outlandish things someone had done just to get his attention…

“That’s not unreasonable, given the evidence,” Will allowed. Begrudgingly.

“And given how good you are at disappearing, I’d promised myself should I get you in this car, Will Graham, I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight again,” he continued, amiably. “As I said, I want to get to know you. I think I’d be more than pleased with what I find.”

Will looked at their hands clasped. He thought of the boat adrift at sea, likely still on the wall of that bedroom inside of a house that was dusty and abandoned. He wondered if Jack would comb through that house and find himself standing in front of that canvas. If he did, he would more than likely think of Hannibal asking Will if he wanted it back. He’d ponder it for years after, should they get away with this. Had that been a codeword? Did Will betray the organization, and I was too stupid to see it?

The bag at his feet held enough futures to last a lifetime of over and over again. Rebirth and death. Rebirth and death.

Red Dragon had tied Hannibal in a fisherman’s knot. In his spare time, Will quite enjoyed the sport of it. Maybe he’d like to know about that? Maybe they’d find a place in the forest where no prying eyes could see?

Will smiled. “I’d like to get to know you, too.”

There was nothing but miles of road behind them. Just ahead lay every possibility.

#LiaS scribbles #hannibal #hannibal fanfic #hannigram #will graham x hannibal #hannibal au

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ramabear · 4 years

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in response to this ask meme post~ @misswarchan

since you asked abt three this might get kinda long so i’ll prob tuck this under a readmore.

13: retrograde.

once, a very long time ago, i thought it would be fun to write a ‘izuku turns into a child’ fic. and as what sometimes happens, i thought of the idea one way, had a pretty good outline in mind,,,, and then some time later thought of it again and said to myself yes, but how would this realistically happen?

combine that with one of my favorite backgrounds for inko (former high end thief) and you get this world where inko is given her once 14/15 yr old son, now 2/3 again- told he will age normally and that she has to raise him all over again and she takes one look into her sweet baby boy’s face and thinks about how his childhood went (bullied) how his middle school years went (isolated) and how he’d been in high school (in danger) and decides Fuck That Shit.

she takes shit she’s been hoarding for a rainy day, fences it, and skips town to relocate in a different city where there seem to be a lot of retired people of nefarious backgrounds. she moves in down the street from another woman, who is in almost every way also a single mother of her own fluffy haired child

and instead of izuku’s bff being baby katsuki, he bonds with the very soft, very scared little tsuna instead.

there’s SO MUCH potential for shenanigans too because inko essentially runs off with One For All right under everyone’s nose and uses her contacts plus namimori’s insular nature to hide herself, and she swears to keep izuku safe! right? so when oh, say about 12-13 years later when a baby in a black suit shows up to teach tsuna (and izuku immediately gets wrapped in it because this is his best friend and it turns out he’s Absolutely a lightning) Inko Has Words About This. i probably wont write much more than into that very introductory part- inko establishing boundaries with reborn, izuku and tsuna getting involved in mafia stuff, etc

oh yeah and theres like an 85% chance inko and nana become together and i fuckin Love That Shit

14: siblingverse

so i have about, well 5 to 8 variations of “shisui shows up in naruto canon at X age and Y time doing Z” fics. theres the one where he’s bounced off an evil!shisui timeline that’s,,, fuckin wild and theres A&A which is sorta posted and dead, there’s the one where he’s displaced and has to hide out in the village while being searched for, the one where he’s like, 12 and kakashi’s like what the Fuck and the one where he’s 13 and shows up in that month between chuunin part 1 and part 2 and ends up teaching sakura cool shit and then theres this one

16ish, jounin, with the altered timeline so wave didn’t get subsumed and his jounin sensei is kushina. he’s the medic of his otherwise all girl team (because why the fuck not lmao) and he’s dropped right into the sleepytime ambush at chuunin exams and does what every trained shinobi does at that time. he assess the damage, gets in a fight, enlists genin and sets up triage. there’s a Really funny scene where he’s talking to most of the Rookie Nine and they’re just like WHAT :O at him and he’s like “look i know im infamous, but pls, we got shit to do” lmao shisui.

im at a kinda stopping point bc, well, the inevitable happened and shisui got arrested lmao and now im not sure what i want to do next. this one is definitely my most favorite of all the drop ins (well i do have a soft spot in my heart for evil!shisui but lmao whatever)

15: my neighbor sakumo

i love sakumo. i really do. i hate how he dies in canon. i think its dumb (i think a lot of things abt canon are dumb but i particularly dislike this part) i hate how his whole clan is gone and i hate that we got to keep the fucking perverted old sage but not sakumo. its an injustice.

this fic is about a retired sakumo (for mysterious reasons~) who meets a young sakura when they both key in on some abandoned puppies (yeah i know).

he becomes at first a sorta uncle figure- he raises one of the puppies for her to come play with bc she cant have it at home- there’s some minor tension at first bc her parents are Suspicious- but it smooths out bc it turns out sakumo’s grand design is a little less of a grand design and a little more of an attempt to make sakura’s life more valuable to the village and thus keep her from being the canon fodder genin/chuunin that clanless kids often became.

he ends up formally adopting sakura into his clan, teaching her clan techniques, introducing her to clan summons, etc, and then :) she becomes a genin :) And Guess Who Is Her Jounin Sensei :) :) :) :)

i think the estimated ending for this fic is either wave arc ending or chuunin- depending on the character development. mostly im not entirely sure where i want it to end up- if i want kakashi and sakumo to reconnect, if i want sakura to end up in a different team, or various other options. so. ive got up to the genin team introduction and im waiting for the rest of the idea to develop :)

#wip ask meme answer #rama replies #misswarchan #long post #hopefully this satisfies some questions!#i dunno why it wont let me at u but whatever i guess

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