#may or may not make a fic but we'll see | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wolves-in-the-world · 7 months

Text

tags on krakenartificer's post about a leverage au where nate enters the priesthood but ends up running cons for people who come to him for help anyway:

#now i need a crossover episode of catholic priest nate who's still running leverage style shenanigans #with father brown [via @trivalentlinks]

thank you for making me stare at the wall in fascination and horror about this crossover

they'd be occasional allies occasional confidantes they'd go behind each other's backs once or twice and only kinda regret it. This nate hasn't gone through the same loss as in canon, but that wouldn't make him a whole lot softer, so he'd be fundamentally irritated with father brown - his tested and unshakeable belief and his optimism about the human condition - and father brown would be generally concerned about everyone on nate's end, and nate not the least of it. They'd play chess together and be fairly well-matched. They'd visit each other's confessionals to check in.

we'd get some interesting acknowledgement of father brown's "I'm nice and simple and harmless" grift (which I could also call power negativity) which is only kind of a grift because he really is that nice and harmless beneath, except that he uses it to get information from people.

flambeau would be utterly thrilled and (playfully?) insulted not to be father brown's only criminal associate.

the leverage crew would be correctly suspicious of flambeau, I think, but sophie would greet him by name - possibly with a kiss to the cheek, possibly eyeing him like he's a viper in their midst - and reference some very improbable occasion when they were after the same prize. He mentions she was using a different name then; he doesn't say what it was. Bonus points if he also had his eye on the dagger in the Rashomon Job but had the flu / was unexpectedly in prison / had to attend a grandmother's funeral at the time.

I have this certainty in my mind that the leverage crew would be largely dismissive of sid's abilities and he'd kind of snort and roll his eyes about it - he's at worst a common criminal and very lower class, so he's used to being understimated - and surprise them with his connections or lock-picking or holding his own in a brawl or fixing an elderly car in the quickest dirtiest way imaginable. (Parker would decide she likes him then; the others would be reassured after seeing how gentle he is when talking with her.) He'd also nope out of leverage's business at a sensible time, because father brown's rubbed off on him and he doesn't actually want that kind of danger - unless the con's personal.

(I'm not sure whether to set this in leverage time or drag it back to father brown's 1950s so I'm settling for mashing the two together and pretending it's not an issue. See also: geography.)

… father brown would have I think one harrowing conversation with eliot where they mention their time in the military, the marks that killing people and losing people leaves on a person - father brown already does this in canon, tells someone it's unfair that they're mired in trauma and alcoholism when he found his faith through trauma instead, it floored me - and after brushing on repentance and god here, he wouldn't bring it up with eliot again. (I think father brown varies on this in canon, frankly, but he often respects that kind of boundary, and I think he'd recognise a wound so sore it should be left to heal however it can.)

(yes I'm playing with fictional priests like barbie dolls but no I'm not comfortable with the conversion aspects, so apologies and bear with me while I skate on past that.)

(he'd describe eliot as a good person, once, or as someone working very hard at it. Eliot would be on edge about that for the entire con, finding a little too much uneasy satisfaction in getting to knock people out and play the bad guy - play at the simpler stuff he used to do. Sophie might catch father brown for a word about it; father brown wouldn't be that clumsy again.)

I think father brown and nate would both talk bunty out of getting involved in a joint kembleford-leverage operation except in the most innocent way possible. The problem is she actually would make a good getaway driver, and she's thrilled with the idea, but she's already had some run-ins with the press and the law and can't risk another; luckily she's better used as a distraction elsewhere.

and I'm sorry to do this, but I think lady felicia's husband would be a mark or potential mark at one point. It would be fraught.

(the main reason I haven't recommended father brown's heist episode (s7e10), aside from not having a background on the politics in it, is that it shows lady felicia as a victim and pulls the heist on her behalf. The show largely convinced me to ignore the messy reality of her and her husband's inherited wealth, but that episode made me kinda uncomfortable - which is a shame, because seeing these characters pull a heist was fucking great.)

mrs mccarthy would be used against her will or knowledge as a distraction while someone's pockets are picked. She isn't told until afterwards, and then only half by accident. She is, of course, horrified. Father brown was absolutely the one to suggest it in planning, but flambeau slips in mid-apology to smoothly take the blame.

I could in fact go on and this is in fact a problem.

—

editing to continue:

I'm actually thinking that father brown might approach eliot from an ex-military angle and not a Religious Authority angle at all - eliot was raised protestant, after all, and it's an entirely different vibe. And I have to think eliot's guarded around father brown for the very fact that he's a priest and seems to mean it in a way that nate, I feel, wouldn't. So they may avoid the topic entirely, or as close to it as they can when brushing on, well, eliot's entire moral injury situation. Which is good news for me.

bunty would admire parker for being different and capable and getting up to exciting things, though would probably fail at any attempts at friendship until she thinks to ask what parker likes doing and ends up learning to pick pockets that evening. The second those two are around buildings tall enough to rappel down she's in danger. (The second parker can slip away at night she's giving the church a go; father brown gives her a look the night before and quietly warns her about the dodgy roof.)

mrs mccarthy decides fairly quickly that hardison is a very nice young man (his nana instincts are online and functional) even if he spends far too much time on the wretched computer. She's determined to feed him and half the time he's determined to find ways to politely refuse, though the strawberry scones are actually pretty good.

she's appalled by eliot's job, and fiercely territorial of her kitchen when he offers help, even just cleaning up, but once she's seen him get in the way of trouble she's absolutely catching his arm and half hiding behind him in any crisis real or perceived. (She still doesn't approve of him.)

lady felicia sees hardison and eliot as two very different kinds of novelties and does some talking to hardison about tech (mostly listening and marveling) and some quietly ogling both of them, and especially eliot once she's seen him fighting. (Eliot unfortunately turned on his charm when he realised she sort of expected it. She doesn't get to chat with charming southern gents all that often - it's very shallow, and she's not serious about it.)

thank goodness bunty's too young for eliot so I don't have to go there. He has to tuck her out of sight in a barn at some point when trouble's headed their way; when the mess is almost cleaned up and she's grabbed a rifle from somewhere to tell the the remaining goon to clear off, with every appearance of competence, eliot takes it from her and disarms it with a smear of blood under his nose and a slightly betrayed expression.

hardison and sid get along, aside from a little initial insecurity on the parker front, and get to bitch a bit about flambeau, who hardison mistrusts from the start.

flambeau... he admires parker, from a distance - professionally and not very effusively - but after he watches her work for a while he seems to realise who she was trained by, and tells her as much. He says he was too, for a very short time, and it's unclear if he'd gain anything from making it up. Says that he and archie had a difference of opinion - and has a way of saying it that implies there might have been fire involved.

#hello. hi. sorry folks. I do in fact recommend father brown (the bbc show) SO LONG AS #you're aware of and comfortable with the fact that he IS a catholic priest.#messy show kind show I had the flu when I fell in love with it #flambeau and sophie would communicate in ways the other characters wouldn't understand and low key flirt like it's breathing #both nate and lady felicia would be jealous and have to DEAL with the fact that they're jealous #this is going to end with nate leaving the priesthood to get to know sophie and run cons with the team isn't it #with father brown's blessing-and-cautions-and-please-stay-in-touch (which he obviously does)#father brown #leverage #orig #this is a separate post to spare the previous OP because I got a bit carried away #and trivalent sorry for referencing characters you don't really know yet!! this just sort of Happened I'm as surprised as you are #can I make this make sense enough to fit one episode's worth of story. maybe.#it would in fact be concerningly plausible to write a modern day fic with a small english village that's apparently stuck in the 1950s #my head's in my hands about this country tbh #catholicism cw #christianity cw #this post may self-destruct after a while we'll see

20 notes · View notes

heymrspatel · 2 years

Text

@gallacrafts & @shamelesscreatorsnetwork collab: we make a good team! 👬👭👫 in collaboration with: @you-are-so-much-better-than-that @gallawitchxx @doodlevich @milkoviched & @mikhailoisbaby 💙

we made a CALENDAR!!! for the insanely incredible timeline @you-are-so-much-better-than-that has been building!!! these are the drawings for december 2010 - s1 eps 3-7

thank you so much @gallacrafts and @shamelesscreatorsnetwork for putting this theme together! i had the absolute best time working with this incredible team!!!

clearly, i completely (literally) lost it with this one! chrissy said make 1, maybe up to 3, drawings - and i said OK BET!

i simply love that we got to work together and meld our different styles to create this thing! thank you all for agreeing to work with us when chrissy and i were reaching out! WE LOVE YOU! and i will forever be in awe of every single one of you 💙

145 notes · View notes

throttlegainwell · 6 months

Text

There's no real need for this story (Safelight) to go so hard with the Stoncy vibes, since I didn't intend it to be shippy, and yet it is undeniably taking shape as a Stoncy fic.

#safelight wip #writing tag #you know what i think it's because this fic is so unbelievably cruel to jonathan in a particularly awful way #so i'm just like pouring on the support as hard as possible to make up for it #not to say that anyone in the byers family is having a good time in this fic #they most assuredly are not #but yeah i feel bad about what i'm putting jonathan through #tbh i'm still not sure how this plot gets resolved without just straight-up moving #i think they may have to leave hawkins in the end but i'm undecided on that point so far #we'll see whether i can clean up the mess i've made of their lives in this one

10 notes · View notes

rottencandyapp1es-writeblog · 9 months

Text

Let's kick things off with a snippet from my first ever one-shot!

(TotK) (Zelink) (SFE) (WIP)

Risen to his feet, Link stealthily crept past their nightstand and peered over the bannister to the room below, pots and pans scattered every which way, a smattering of cooking utensils slathered in batter, bowls upon bowls of wildberries covering every available surface, and, in the middle of it all, the crown princess of Hyrule coated in a fine layer of flour. The creaking of the floorboards caught Zelda's attention as she whirled around, emerald eyes meeting cornflower blue. In that moment, her scowl turned into a smile that made Link's heart skip a few beats.

"Oh Link! You're already up!"

#wip #fic wip #zelda fanfiction #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #zelink #totk zelink #zelink fanfiction #I may make art for this idk #we'll see

14 notes · View notes

eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

Text

You're Safe Here

@polyshipweek 2023 Day 2 - Missing Scene

I left a cameo of 3zun in the epilogue of 'The Sculptor' that I feel like deserves to be expanded on, so I thought I'd give y'all a few scenes of their first couple of meetings.

TW for mentions of police violence against a gay OC (it doesn't happen on-screen, but both Meng Yao and Lan Xichen recall the event and its aftermath in conversation as a significant plot point). Also, as in the main fic, this is not a perfect world without homophobia, so there's a bit of that as well (i.e. I tagged for 'Period-typical attitudes' and 'Period-typical homophobia' on ao3, though it's also only discussed and not shown outright).

It's fluffier than it sounds I swear lol, and we already know that their story also ends happily thanks to that mention in the epilogue.

--//--

Xichen meets Mingjue first.

He tells himself that it’s research.

He nearly convinces himself that it’s research.

Xichen is a well-seasoned veteran in his field. Sure, he hasn’t been a lawyer for nearly as long as many of his peers, but he’s had a robust career so far, and it’s preceded by many years of job shadowing at his Uncle’s side, first, and then years of internships throughout university – and those not just at the family firm, either, though that first round of experience had certainly helped get his foot in the door elsewhere. In the world of law he thinks it would be difficult to find anyone in his position (especially at his age) who didn’t get there at least in part through nepotism, but such is the way of things.

He's earned a good reputation for himself anyway, completely irrespective of his family name, and it’s one that he’s quite proud of even if it makes things…taxing, sometimes.

Xichen is well known for his delicate and respectful handling of particularly sensitive cases, and it’s a responsibility that he takes seriously. People of all sorts come to him to rely on his discretion, his tact, his ability to put himself in anyone’s shoes and approach their case with a sympathetic ear. His latest case had taken quite a toll, in that regard, but it had taken until it was over and won for him to realize why this victory feels sweeter than so many others.

Something about it all hit closer to home than he would have ever expected, or perhaps been willing to admit.

So.

Xichen goes to the place where his client was arrested and unjustly assaulted by police officers, and he tells himself that he only wants to get a feel for how his client had been deceived that night. (He only half-believes himself.)

“You’re new,” a gruff voice says from a cut of shadow. Xichen blinks to try to clear his eyes of the way the streetlight nearby is blinding him, but in the end it takes the man pushing off the wall and into the light for Xichen to know just where to look to address his reply.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Xichen replies to the absolute bear of a man who emerges, lit cigarette hanging from his mouth under a truly impressive mustache, his white tank top doing very little to contain his well-muscled, hair-dark chest (and, as it’s designed to do, absolutely nothing at all to contain his heavily-tattooed arms that are equally as impressive). “I’m just..having a look around?”

The man raises a brow at him and exhales smoke from his nose on a sigh.

“We don’t really take kindly to that, just so you know. Gawking’s not really the name of the game around here.”

Ah. Yes. Xichen had…been warned about that. It’s part of why his own excuse is a bit harder to buy than he’d like.

“Right…” he trails off and glances around, though if anyone else around has noticed he’s in need of some help, they’re not really showing it. There aren’t many people around to begin with, though – he’d come out on a Wednesday night, hardly ‘peak season’ as it were, but there’s enough of a crowd for him to know he’s in the right place anyway.

When he looks back at his unexpected conversational partner it’s to find the man slowly starting to grin, sharp and wicked around his cigarette glowing orange, the tiny light of it catching and cupping in a dimple nearly hidden under that mustache.

“You seem nice, so I’ll save you a bit of panic. I’m not cruising either, I’m here to keep a look out for the people who are so they can focus on what they’re doing. You can stand here and nobody’ll bother you, okay? I won’t even make a pass at you, I swear.”

Xichen flushes warm and he hopes that the yellow, monochrome glow of the street lamp hides it well enough.

“Ah…thank you, that’s very kind of you,” he says perhaps a little awkwardly. The man saves him by dusting off one massive hand on his jeans before he holds it out for Xichen to shake, which he does entirely on instinct.

“I’m Mingjue,” the man offers while Xichen is trying very hard not to think about how big and warm and rough his hand is curled around his.

“Xichen,” he offers, going still when Mingjue’s eyes narrow ever so slightly.

“Lan Xichen?”

“Ah..”

“Gotta be, can’t be many Xichens around town, and definitely not ones who’d know to come here. I’ll bet my last $10 you’re the lawyer who just won Danny Boy’s case for him.”

Xichen, wary of discussing any of his clients but particularly his most recent, can only fidget as he tries unsuccessfully to come up with a convincing lie.

Mingjue squints at him for a moment, his grin fading into something a little softer around the edges. “Hey, chill out man. I’m serious, no one’s going to hurt you around here. Danny only got nabbed because I wasn’t here that night to chase off the fuzz, and you representing him earned you a lot of favors with this crowd. Alright? You’re safe here.”

Xichen will never know exactly what it is about Mingjue that makes him believe him, but those three magic words, ‘You’re safe here’, feel like they take far more weight off his shoulders than just the fear that he’ll be caught cruising for other men (which he isn’t even here to do!).

He glances around again, for what he isn’t sure. He catches a glimpse of a couple of guys disappearing around the bend of the pedestrian path in the park across the street, a few more hanging out on the low wall around some brick building Xichen doesn’t know the purpose of, chatting and laughing. He watches a beer get passed around, sips taken between laughs like indirect kisses, mouth-bottle-mouth. There are others like Mingjue, just hanging out on their own having a cigarette or a drink, bodies casually on display with the sort of confidence Lan Xichen can only envy.

There’s a sense of…camaraderie under the edge of a sexual charge.

When he looks at Mingjue again the man’s watching him, eyes dark and thoughtful in the moment before he slips back into shadow, leaning against his wall. He takes a drag off his cigarette, the extra burn glinting for a moment off that dark, assessing gaze. A spark that fizzles into ash with his next exhale.

Xichen crosses the couple of feet of pavement between them to lean against the wall beside him, a respectful distance between his shirtsleeve and Mingjue’s bare arm.

“Want a light?” Mingjue asks, holding a fresh cigarette into the space between them.

“Ah..no, thank you though.”

Mingjue snorts and slides the cigarette up behind his ear. Now that Xichen has joined him in the shadows he’s easier to see, the streetlamp no longer blinding him. He looks perfectly at ease like this, even as Xichen spots the shine of brass knuckles on the hand he’s using to pluck his cigarette from his lips to talk.

“You’re better off that way, it’s a nasty habit. I always told my brother growing up I’d better not ever catch him smoking or I’d kill him myself, then what do I do? Let my pretty little boyfriend talk me into picking it up, the snake.”

Xichen, thoroughly out of his depth but…bemused, asks, “Did he have an easy time talking you into it?”

Mingjue snorts again, grinning in the second before he takes another drag.

“We’d just started dating, right, and I told him I don’t care if he smokes but I don’t want to, and he got it no problem, said he’d tried quitting a few times before too, but it never stuck. Then one night we’re out with some friends from around here and he looks at me – he’s got these big dark eyes and the longest lashes you’ve ever seen – and he asks me so sweetly if I’d light his cigarette off one in my mouth. Hot as fuck when you’re half-drunk and thinking this guy’s the best thing to ever happen to you, so I say yes and then it became a thing. And all he ever wanted me to do is light his, that’s it, but, well. Here I am. I still light his with mine though, so as usual: he wins.”

Xichen laughs a little and tries to imagine it, finding someone – another man, even – alluring enough to go along with such a proposition. He’s never really had a reason to think about it before, but picturing it he can see the appeal. The intimacy of it, anyway, is something he could certainly imagine himself craving. Perhaps not…quite like that. But he gets it.

“He must have quite some eyes, then,” is all he can think of to say, but it makes Mingjue laugh as he flicks his cigarette butt to the ground and snuffs it under the heel of his boot.

“Yeah he’s a keeper, damn him,” Mingjue sighs. “But come on, what’s your story then?”

Xichen blinks at that and finds his mind has suddenly gone blank. His story? Does he…have one of those? It seems so…mundane, his life so far. Surely it wouldn’t be interesting to someone like Mingjue. Someone with a boyfriend. Someone with a boyfriend he clearly cares for but who hangs out where guys go cruising anyway all night long, just to run off the cops. Someone with tattoos down his arms and a cigarette tucked behind his ear, brass knuckles on his thick fingers.

“I’m not quite sure I’ve got one,” Xichen says, because he truly doesn’t know what else to say. It seems safest to not open that door anyway. He doesn’t want to examine what might be behind it.

Mingjue turns his head to look at him, their heights perfectly matched despite the way he feels like Mingjue has a much larger presence than Xichen himself ever has. “Nah, everyone’s got something to tell. I know you do, too; doesn’t have to be your whole life, Xichen. Maybe start with what you came here looking for – everyone’s looking for something, whether they know it or not.”

Xichen swallows thickly and looks out into the street again. In the alley across the way he sees, through the shadows, a man on his knees in front of another with his head tipped back to bare his neck. They’re barely shapes in the darkness, nigh on undetectable had he not accidentally looked right at them and spotted the pattern of recognizable shapes the pair of them make. Even though it makes his entire face and neck burn he can’t seem to tear his eyes away again.

He sucks a deep breath in and says, eyes still trained on the pair in the alley, “I wanted to see what was here that was worth getting arrested for.”

Mingjue hums in what sounds like understanding. Xichen exhales shakily as he hears the scratch of a match being struck, the smell of it tickling his nose even before it’s followed up with fresh smoke from Mingjue’s next cigarette.

“I want…” He trails off into nothing.

What does he want? It’s not a question he asks himself very often, and one he answers even less so. That’s not really ever been…an option. There are things he needs. There are things he does. There aren’t many things he wants.

Mingjue takes a drag off his new cigarette and hums again, prompting.

“I want to know what else is out there,” he finally decides. “I just..I wanted to know.”

Mingjue nods and tells him, “Yeah. I get that.”

In the alley, Xichen watches the man on his knees stand up to kiss his partner like they’re the only two people in the world, and something in his chest clenches.

--//--

Xichen meets A-Yao second.

After that first night, he’d told himself he wouldn’t go back. It hadn’t been exactly pleasant, no one would think it strange if he didn’t go back. His clothes reeked of Mingjue’s cigarettes, and the balmy night had left him feeling too sticky and out-of-sorts to go to bed until he’d relented and taken a shower.

And he’d stood there under the water, and leaned back against the tile, and thought about what it might feel like to be rucked up against a wall in a dark alley with a man on his knees in front of him. Or Mingjue leaning in close enough to touch the tip of a cigarette against one in his mouth. Or sharing that single bottle of beer that he’d seen the group passing around, lips pressed to where lips had been mere moments before. Would it feel different? Would it taste different? He’s never had beer before but would he like it if other men had taken swigs of it first, left their kisses behind for him to taste?

He'd stood up straight with a jolt and spent the rest of his shower breathing carefully through the shock of cold water pouring over him to help clear his head.

So he wasn’t going to go back.

But Mingjue had told him that Wednesdays are too quiet, and if he wants to know he needs to come back at the weekend.

“Friday nights are hopping,” he’d said around midnight with a glance out of the corner of his eye. “Can’t hardly move without getting at least a look, if not an offer. You want to know what’s worth it? That’s the night to check it out.”

On Friday evening after a too-long day, Xichen turns down an invitation to go out for an evening of schmoozing and social climbing at a bar near the firm with some of the other partners and heads home instead. When he changes out of his work clothes, he reaches for the soft pajamas he always wears – and then without consciously deciding to do so, he’s striding into his closet to find anything to wear that would possibly be…interesting. Anything that might make him seem like less of an outsider.

By 10 – horribly late by his standards – he’s got his hands tucked into the pockets of jeans he hardly ever wears and he strides with a false bravado into the area ‘everyone’ knows you don’t step foot in past dusk if you know what’s good for you.

He finds Mingjue standing at the same wall, in the same shadow, cigarette glowing between his lips and brass knuckles once again on his fist.

This time, there’s a tiny Asian guy tucked under his arm, nearly hidden by Mingjue’s bulk, and when he turns his head to watch his approach Xichen thinks:

Oh. Eyes.

“Mingjue, is this your new friend?” he purrs. Something about the way he says it makes Xichen feel like he’s done…something, or maybe that’s just guilt for the fact that his dreams for the last two nights had smushed Wednesday’s snapshots together and put Mingjue on his knees with his mouth full of Xichen’s cock. He’d woken up hard as a rock.

That can’t possibly be okay.

He isn’t thinking about it.

“Xichen,” Mingjue greets, warmer than his greeting that first night but still gruff around the edges. “This is A-Yao. A-Yao, Lan Xichen, Danny’s miracle lawyer.”

“Just Xichen is fine, there’s no need for any of the rest of it,” he says with a smile as he reaches them. He doesn’t want to be ‘Lan Xichen the lawyer’ here, to them, though he isn’t thinking about why that might be, either. “Is this the infamous boyfriend who can charm one into picking up smoking?”

“Ugh,” A-Yao scoffs, turning his head to glare up at Mingjue who’s grinning around his cigarette again. “I hate that you tell that story, you make it sound like I forced you!”

“I do not! I tell it exactly like it happened!”

Xichen clears his throat delicately. “I got the impression, rather, that you didn’t pressure him at all, but that he finds you impossible to resist and so ended up falling into a habit that supports yours, simply because it’ll make you happy.”

A-Yao looks up at him again, an incredulous little smile on his lips, and this close Xichen is in a position to think:

Oh. Eyelashes.

“Mmm lawyers and your quicksilver tongues,” A-Yao smiles, “Finally, someone I can talk to properly.”

Xichen ducks his head to hide a smile of his own when Mingjue snorts and jostles A-Yao under his arm a little as he says, “Don’t be rude, A-Yao,” without any heat behind it.

“I don’t want to intrude on your evening so I’ll just – ” Xichen starts, taking a half-step back towards the curb. A car passes on the road behind him, music on and windows down as they roll far too slowly along the avenue. Xichen turns his head to investigate, only to realize that this is the actual, literal ‘cruising’ part of the slang when he spots a couple of guys leaning out of the windows, a few of the men standing around offering them long glances that promise more.

“Ohh,” A-Yao says quietly, like a dawning realization. “Come here baby, come stand with me. Mingjue said you just want to see what it’s like around here?”

Xichen, reeling from the fact that A-Yao had apparently called him ‘baby’, finds he can only nod a little helplessly.

“That’s alright,” A-Yao tells him, so soft Xichen can’t help but believe him. “You can watch if that’s all you want to do, no one’ll bother you if you’re with us. You’re not interrupting anything, we’re just watching too. Come on, don’t be shy. You’re with us for the night.”

Xichen swallows and looks at the pair of them again, tucked so comfortably out of the way. Tucked up comfortably together, so obviously a package deal. They’re both watching him with looks he isn’t going to analyze. A-Yao leans a little more into Mingjue’s space, laying his head against his boyfriend’s chest, and Mingjue plucks the cigarette from his mouth to hold it down for A-Yao to take a drag off of.

Mouth-paper-mouth.

Xichen thinks he maybe gets the appeal of smoking a little more.

He crosses the pavement to turn and stand next to them on A-Yao’s other side, and A-Yao turns fully to rest his back against Mingjue’s side, the man’s enormous arm wrapped across his chest like a sash to keep holding him close while A-Yao tips his head to the side, looking up at Xichen like he’s a puzzle to be solved.

“I’d ask you what your story is but Mingjue already warned me you don’t like that,” A-Yao says after his moment of contemplation (in which Xichen hopes he wasn’t judged too harshly). “So, just Xichen – how are you?”

He asks it so sincerely, so kindly, not like he wants a standard water cooler answer but like he wants to know. Xichen hopes the shadow they’re standing in hides the way his eyes are suddenly stinging and he can’t see more than a wobbly outline of A-Yao reaching up to steal Mingjue’s cigarette from his lips for another drag.

“I’m alright,” he manages to answer. And it’s true. He’s fine.

He’s good.

He’s alright.

“You’re a shit liar, Xichen,” Mingjue tells him, and somewhere in the middle of Xichen’s answering laugh it turns into a sob.

--//--

“Get him some water, Mingjue, will you?” A-Yao requests as the door to their third-floor walkup (just a block over from the cruising spot) slams shut behind them, making Xichen jump. “Sorry, forgot to warn you it does that,” A-Yao sighs with a pat to his arm. “You just get used to it eventually, even if you don’t ever think you will.”

“It’s alright. You really don’t need to do this –” he starts. Mingjue comes back out of the kitchen with a glass of water in hand and raises an eyebrow at A-Yao dropped to his knees on the carpet to unlace his shoes. Not his own shoes. Xichen’s.

He’s very determinedly not thinking about the men in the alley (they’d been back for a repeat performance tonight, or else someone else had had the exact same idea in the same spot).

“A-Yao don’t smother him.”

“I’m not, and you’re worried about him too so don’t give me any sass,” A-Yao tosses back over his shoulder. Xichen meets Mingjue’s eyes, pleading for help, but receives nothing more than a shrug with a sort of ‘what can you do’ look on his handsome face, bottom lip pouting out from under his mustache. “And grab him the blanket off the bed!” A-Yao adds towards Mingjue’s retreating back.

“Really, I’m fine –”

“Xichen, you just broke down crying because I asked you how you are. It’s okay, we’re just going to get you some water and a quiet spot to sit down for a while, and when you’re calmer you can go if you want to.”

Xichen blushes (the recap of what’s probably one of the most embarrassing moments of his life was wholly unnecessary) and concedes that A-Yao is going to accomplish whatever it is he wants to, and it’s probably better to just go along with it. He slips out of his shoes when he feels coaxing hands on his ankles. A-Yao sets the wingtips aside on the rack inside the door before shepherding him further into the tiny apartment.

It's a chaotic mess, dark wood paneling and strange paintings on the walls, orange carpet with a pea-soup green throw rug over most of it in the living room that seems to double as a dining room as well. The couch matches the rug, the drapes don’t match anything at all, and Xichen feels more at home in the middle of all of it than he ever has in his own apartment.

Mingjue reappears from what Xichen assumes is their bedroom with a loudly-patterned throw blanket in his hands, frowning in thought as he attempts to find the long side by spreading it corner to corner, and then again on the next side.

“Here, sit down,” A-Yao coaxes to plonk him down right in the center of the couch. The water Mingjue had fetched for him is on the coffee table (it’s also wood but not a shade that matches the wall panels at all) amongst a few scattered papers and magazines he doesn’t recognize. The second he leans forward to pick up the glass, Mingjue tosses the blanket around his shoulders for A-Yao to pull tighter around him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs after a few sips of water, feeling contrite. Mingjue sits down in an arm chair caddy-corner to the sofa (it’s mustard yellow, unlike anything else in the room) and lets A-Yao sit down in his lap with all the ease of a couple who have done so a thousand times.

Xichen’s chest clenches again and he rubs his hand over his sternum automatically, trying to relieve the ache.

He continues, “I don’t know why that…that happened. I’ll be out of your hair soon and then you can go back to your nice evening, I really don’t want to intrude.”

A-Yao watches him with those wide, dark eyes of his, assessing. Mingjue looks up at his boyfriend but says nothing, and Xichen wonders just what it is that they must think of him, showing up out of nowhere to gawk at them and their friends only to break down crying when asked how he is. He must look like a lunatic.

“You know,” A-Yao says after a long silence that’s heavy and soft as a down blanket, “Danny came back as soon as they let him out and he got things going with your firm. He went right back to chatting up the guys he likes flirting with, and when Mingjue asked him if he shouldn’t lay low for a while you know what he said?”

Xichen holds a sip of water in his mouth as he shakes his head.

“He said he didn’t have to worry about a single thing, because he’d found the best lawyer in the city who was going to look out for him, and make sure he was taken care of. He came back singing your praises, talking about how kind you are. How you really listened to him when he’d been so scared nobody would even take him seriously, let alone understand.”

Xichen fidgets with the corner of the blanket, the glass of tepid water in his hands, anything to avoid meeting that assessing gaze. Of course he’d helped. It’s his job to help. It’s his job to care, and to know exactly what he needs to know to make sure the people he protects get to see justice served. To know that they’re not alone, that someone is in their corner. He’s not special, that’s every lawyer’s job.

“I was there, Xichen, when Danny got arrested.”

Xichen looks up sharply – Mingjue had said he wasn’t, it hadn’t even occurred to him to think that A-Yao was.

“They beat him half to death while we all tried to pull them off him, and I know that there are plenty of people – the majority of people – who wouldn’t have given two shits about him, or how much having to see that hurt us all. But you cared, and you did it in a courtroom full of people. You can’t possibly ‘intrude’ on us or our community, okay? You’re Family now.”

Xichen’s next inhale catches in his chest and he tries to cover it with another sip of his water.

“Knew you’d be better at explaining it than me,” Mingjue rumbles low in his chest. “I tried to tell him the other night but I guess it didn’t stick.”

A-Yao hums and leans back to kiss Mingjue’s cheek, casual and sweet and it doesn’t even occur to Xichen to find it odd. How could he – clearly they love each other. A-Yao stands up from Mingjue’s lap then with a pat to one broad shoulder.

“Keep an eye on him, ge, I need to go call A-Sang.”

“Sure,” Mingjue agrees easily and doesn’t bother hiding that he watches A-Yao’s ass as he leaves. Xichen hides behind another sip of his water and very carefully, very slowly, relaxes back into the couch cushions with a little sigh of relief.

They sit in companionable silence for a while. Xichen feels himself calming down despite the riot of color around him. A-Yao’s talking quietly in the other room and occasionally laughing, though never loud enough to disrupt. Mingjue’s staring off into space as he brushes his fingers back and forth across the heavy metal rings still on his knuckles, and Xichen happily leaves him to whatever thoughts he’s having as he tries to get his own in order.

Finally, eventually, he sets his empty water glass down on the coffee table and without taking his eyes off of it he admits, “Danny’s case was…surprisingly important to me.”

Mingjue’s attention shifts to him, he can feel it like the press of a hand on the back of his neck, but he doesn’t look up from the coffee table to meet his gaze. If he does he isn’t sure he’ll actually find the courage to keep talking.

“All of my cases are important to me, but Danny’s was…when I heard what happened, what…what they did to him, all I could think was that no one deserved it, but especially not someone just looking for some companionship. And he was so sweet when I met with him. His eye was still swollen shut and he looked so relieved when I told him I was sorry it had happened. I didn’t…It seemed so unfair, for someone so sweet to have been excited by a new encounter only to have it go horrifically wrong.”

Xichen sucks in a breath that shudders in his chest and Mingjue levers himself up out of the chair to sit next to him on the couch instead, not quite touching but close enough that Xichen can feel the solid weight of him as if they were.

“I don’t understand what people think is so wrong about the way you all live,” he admits in a murmur. It feels like if he says it loudly enough Lan Qiren will somehow hear him, punish him for falling into degeneracy when he was raised so much ‘better’ than that. “It’s just…it’s still love, isn’t it? It’s really not so different to anyone else. Everyone just wants...someone who cares. What else matters?”

Mingjue exhales and leans back to rest more fully against the sofa, head tipped back to rest on top of the cushions. Xichen mirrors his posture, hands linked over his stomach and elbow knocking against Mingjue’s beside him.

“Well obviously A-Yao and I aren’t going to argue with you on that,” Mingjue jokes, dry as a bone. “We don’t get the big deal either, and I can guarantee you we’re about as ‘out there’ as they get, especially by most people’s standards. But it’s not like it’s anyone else’s business unless we decide that it is, so why should people care? We’re just minding our own.”

Xichen isn’t really sure what ‘out there’ means, but. Well. He has an imagination. It’s not very creative (it doesn’t have much to work with), but maybe that’s something to be examined at a later time when he’s not on Mingjue and A-Yao’s sofa and failing to prevent himself from having an identity crisis.

“I can see the appeal of it, your lifestyle,” he says next – utterly damning, by the standards he was raised with. Mingjue just snorts hard enough that Xichen feels it through the couch cushions.

“’M not surprised, if you’re really as good at understanding other people as Danny says. Anyone that good at listening would see there’s an appeal to just about anything under the right circumstances. You just have to figure out what appeals to you. If it’s your clients and your suits and your buttoned-up coworkers that’s fine, there’s a place for that. If it’s this –” Mingjue gestures expansively with one massive hand at the apartment around them, including A-Yao still chatting in the kitchen and the sound of music and laughter down in the street below “ – then obviously there’s a place for that too. Maybe it’s both, who knows?”

Both?

Xichen hums to show he’s heard but he doesn’t say anything else, too caught up in the idea of that.

Both.

His office, and the career that he finds fulfilling and satisfying even if he didn’t necessarily get to choose it for himself. He’s never resented that, not even once. He likes it. But his life could be…more. It could be…this. At night. When he’s free to do as he pleases.

Some of the pressure in his chest eases.

He doesn’t have to devote his entire life to only doing what his Uncle expects of him. He probably should, it would be unfilial not to appreciate everything Lan Qiren has given him in this life. The potential for guilt is there, waiting in the wings behind the possibilities unfolding in his mind’s eye. But he doesn’t have to. He could simply…add to it.

“Danny mentioned a…place. A club,” Xichen says, a little breathless with his daring. This isn’t research, he can’t even pretend it is. He’s seen the spot where Danny got hurt, he’s seen what it’s like for the men who go cruising. He gets it. He doesn’t need to see anymore.

“Yeah? Probably mine. A-Yao and I run the gay bar at the other end of the street, but on the weekends it’s definitely more like a club. You wanna see that too?”

Xichen turns his head to look at Mingjue beside him to find the man already peeking at him out of the corner of his eye. There’s no judgement in the look, just open and frank honesty. Does he want to see the gay club? It’s entirely up to him, and Mingjue won’t be bothered one way or the other.

“Yes. Yes I think I would. Tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“What’s tomorrow?” A-Yao asks as he comes back into the room to sit down with a sigh on Xichen’s other side. Xichen turns his head to look at him without lifting it from the back of the couch and gets the strangest thrill out of sitting with such poor posture for so long. He imagines Lan Qiren scolding him for not sitting properly on such a garish sofa in the apartment of two people so deeply important to the local queer scene and has to hold back a smile.

“I’d like to come see yours and Mingjue’s club, if I may.”

“ ‘If I may’,” A-Yao quotes back with a smile that makes twin deep dimples pop in his cheeks. “Such a gentleman. Of course you can, Xichen. We’ll need to be there tomorrow night anyway so you can come with us; no safer place to be.”

Xichen tucks that promise of safety, so similar to Mingjue’s the other night, into his heart and tells it to slow down, that he doesn’t have to be afraid. Not when they’ve got him taken care of.

‘Out there’ for A-Yao and Mingjue, he learns a few weeks later, means at least in part that he’s apparently being ‘tag-teamed’ according to Nie Huaisang, visiting from a few towns over for the weekend. And when he tumbles very happily into bed with A-Yao and Mingjue later that night (with far more leather than he would’ve ever thought the activity could involve), Xichen is thoroughly startled to realize he’s maybe a bit ‘out there’ too, and he knows he’s very lucky to have realized this whilst in such indulgent company.

#the untamed fanfic #polyshipweek23 #3zun #You're Safe Here #The Sculptor #<- universe #Lan Xichen #Nie Mingjue #Meng Yao #I put some extra headcanons that didn't make it into the fic in the end notes over on ao3 so y'all make sure to check those out!#I may bring them over here as a separate post in a few days though we'll see

22 notes · View notes

throughtrialbyfire · 2 months

Text

i think i'm gonna drop the next four revised chapters as one big chunk because they're all HEAVILY interconnected and need one another for proper continuation, then i can release the next five revisions when i get to it!

#bishop.txt #the revised chapters are uh. longer <3 #my doc for the entire fic thus far has gone from ~75k to roughly 86k #ive got 32 chapters Written and im revising the first 10 and then i need to finish editing/finally release chapter 20 #hell i may make mild edits to the entire uploaded portion of the fic to make it feel better connected. we'll see

4 notes · View notes

itsjaywalkers · 1 year

Text

which side will win.. the murderous cannibalistic violent gfs.. or the silly possessive and incapable of communicating bfs..

#ie: which one-shot will i finish first #the sequel to all the violence (pandalily)#or overprotective james (jegulus)#i finished my long essay and i only have two more weeks of class #and then i graduate in july and i'm finally done with uni!!#so i wanted to celebrate somehow #i'm gonna start posting making ghosts in may or june #but i also want to post one of these fics #hmm #we'll see #laurie rants

10 notes · View notes

todayisafridaynight · 11 months

Text

every day i thank god for the like. one or two japanese minedai artists who make mine the embodiment of 🥺 while also still making him. mine.

#snap chats #LIKE I LOVE A LOT OF MINEDAI ARTISTS DONT GET IT TWISTED at this point im very lenient because. im hungry #also a lot of the art genuinely is super perfect and amazing and Thank You God its just that theres a particular itch i get sometimes yk #its my favorite flavor..... and damn no body ever does it 😭😭#'what does it mean to be mine snap' it means he's mine. and he goes 🥺when daigos around. which is very mine but #you know what i mean. like he still does taxes and scares everyone but then daigo show up and he like :)#i never see mine dokidoki.... 'snap what the fuck does that mean' IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW i dont have to explain myself....#i must see mine be swooned more... my life depends on it..#dis a shout out to all the people who make mine dokidoki actually.... like that anon who sent the fic.... youre my hero...#like may i be so bold.... may i be so forthcoming... daigo has mine whipped yet i always see mine as the instigator...#or more forward. if i may put it safe for the eyes of babies.#im pickyyyy i knowww its why im saying my praises now 😔#in the worst twist of irony i wanna draw but not them. not rn anyway.#BLEH lemme write a bit and we'll see what happen anyway thats my minedai ramble for the month #oh god wait didnt i already do one of those. oh no the demons are gonna have my head for going over the quota

14 notes · View notes

ajdrawshq · 4 months

Text

ended up buying start again to play after i 100% isat to the best of my ability and i Also got the artbook bc the bundle is on sale for less than just the games usual price so why not. and im glad i did bc i got to see concept art of siffrin getting fucking impaled 👍

#i was just checking it out to make sure the files working without seeing too many spoilers or whatever #IT CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD TOO #like its just concept art of gameplay where instead of tears youd use spikes to loop regularly which would be . ow????#thats almost worse than the other optional one in the main game. got damn #it looks kinda funny. but its a lil awful to think abt yknow #isat #hm. should i use both the isat and sasasa tags in the future i wonder. theyre probably different enough to warrant that #also love the way sasasa sounds in my head :)#im now more mentally stable so i might be able to start doing stuff in isat again. but that may depend on external influences so we'll see #i cant remember if they said why they scrapped the spikes idea but logically itd be bc that wouldnt kill them immediately right #like thats probably Not the reason but. damn thats wild to think abt. fun fic idea

5 notes · View notes

only-in-december · 2 years

Text

Going off of this post. I wanted to make some small fanart sketches (that are barely even sketches) from fics that I love. I don't know how much I'll be doing this, but I figure I'll just make several small posts for each fandom. 🙂

Part 1:

Danny Phantom 👻

Intervention by AgentIanLegend (@agentianlegend)

👻👻👻

Unveiled by DarkNymfa (@darks-ink)

👻👻👻

Here I Sit Alone by Deaths_mortal_enemy (@deaths-true-mortal-enemy)

👻👻👻

Mutant by DP_Marvel94 (@dp-marvel94) (I am sorry that this is literally just a hand with two thumbs. But I can't draw body horror.😕)

#danny phantom #fanfic #jack fenton #danny fenton #i love these fics man #idk just wanted to give some appreciation #also #i dont really draw like this very much #only when im just messing around or making things up #but i really like them #i may go back and finish them up later #idk #we'll see

19 notes · View notes

brainrotdotorg · 11 months

Note

I am absolutely addicted to your ask the skills blog I keep refreshing my tumblr to see if you added anything there lol I love the skills sm I’m so glad someone else loves them as much as I do

thank you hehe its a fun little writing exercise and im glad people enjoy it : ))

#i had lots of fun writing the stuff too #i may make reference to it in my fics and whatnot. we'll see

4 notes · View notes

primatechnosynthpop · 11 months

Text

Currently at the stage of my creative writing class where I'm largely putting fanfic-adjacent stuff in my daybook but hiding behind plausible deniability by not using any characters' names

#not exclusively mind you. and that's only in the daybook not in the discussion prompts #where i do follow the prompts and make actually original stuff obviously #depending on what some of the prompts to come end up being i MAY take my chances and get a little silly with it #but only if the prompt is fitting for a fic-type thing i'd want to write y'know #for the most part when you're working with specific prompts just doing an original thing is actually way easier #anyway. there's at least one thing i've jotted down in my daybook that i miiight want to tidy up and post here. we'll see

2 notes · View notes

the-a-team-fic-list · 2 years

Text

Welcome to The A-Team Fic List

Hello, I’m Zero, an A-Team fan who wanted to create a more accessible list of classic A-Team fic for myself, and figured I might as well make it a public thing so everyone else can benefit from it, too.

I deeply appreciate that The A-Team Fanfic Archives still exist on the Wayback Machine, but the archived version of the site makes the search function unusable. So. I’m going through alllllllll the fics listed on the original site, one by one, and uploading links to them here.

To be clear:

I am not re-uploading any of these fics to Tumblr.

As a writer myself, I know that re-uploading other people’s works without their express consent is not okay. That’s not what this blog is about.

The fics will remain wherever they were originally posted. I’m just posting links to the fics, and providing information on each fic so people can find what they’re looking for.

I’m going to feature each fic in its own post, which will include:

Title & Author

Summary: (Copy/pasted from the author’s original summary. If there was no summary, I might add one if I’ve read the fic and believe I can summarize it adequately.)

Pairing: (If applicable. If the fic focuses on a romantic pairing, I will use “/”. If it’s a non-romantic fic but emphasizes a particular platonic relationship, I will say “Platonic” + their names together. For example, Face/Murdock vs. Platonic FaceMurdock.)

Rating: (Following the original archive’s use of G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17. Please note that some of the ratings used at the time of the original writing might not feel accurate in modern day; there are a lot of queer romance fics that got rated R or NC-17 simply for being queer.)

Warnings: (Inspired by the AO3 Archive Warnings – None, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, & Underage, plus any other specific warnings the author might have included in their summary.)

Word Count: (The exact number, plus a word count bracket for easier filtering, e.g. <1k, <5k, <10k, <20k, etc.)

Chapters: (Unfinished fics will be marked by an “x”. For example, “Chapters: 3/X”. For easier search filtering, I will list all complete fics as “CompleteFic”.)

I will also do my best to include any tropes (things that would usually be listed in the Tags section on AO3).

If you want to add a particular trope or other filtering suggestion to one of the fic links, please reply/comment/DM me about the fic in question.

Quick Disclaimer:

I’m not endorsing any of these fics. I haven’t read all of them. Some of them may be Problematic™, but I’m not leaving anything out, regardless of how I feel about each fic in question. This isn’t a collection of my personal fic recs, it’s an updated archive of classic A-Team fanfiction.

Please abide by the Don’t Like, Don’t Read philosophy and don’t @ me if you see a fic shared here that you don’t like.

Read at Your Own Risk:

I can’t guarantee that these fics were accurately summarized or given necessary Warnings on the original archive, and I’m not reading through all of them before posting the links.

I do scan each fic, and use the Find function on my browser to look for certain words that might indicate a pairing or a warning that wasn’t specified in the summary. But I might miss something.

If you find a fic that needs to be tagged for a specific pairing, Warning, or other inaccuracy in the post, please let me know!

How to Search for Fics:

Because of the way Tumblr’s search function works, I can’t really create a way for you to filter out certain content when searching through the links on this blog. You can filter out certain tags and words in your Tumblr settings overall, but going to this blog specifically will not have a way to filter out Warnings or Pairings or whathaveyou.

So, you have to search using positive terms.

For example, if I wanted a Face/Murdock fic without any Warnings that was no more than 10k words and was rated G, I would type into the blog’s search bar:

Face/Murdock 10k RatedG NoWarnings

Ratings and Warnings must be grouped into one word for the search to be effective.

Here’s another example, for a search query of platonic BA and Amy fics that are under 5k, rated R, and have a warning for graphic violence:

PlatonicAmyBA 5k RatedR GraphicViolence

Remember, only search for what you want to see. If you type “NonCon” in the search bar, that will show you fics that contain Non-Con. If you don’t want to see Non-Con, you need to filter out all Warnings by including “NoWarnings” in your search. (At present, I do not have a way to filter out only one Warning.)

Here a List of Search Terms for Filtering:

Character-Centric (if a fic centers around a specific character): AmyCentric, BACentric, FaceCentric, FrankieCentric, HannibalCentric, MurdockCentric Pairings are tagged alphabetically, so: Amy/Face rather than Face/Amy. If you’re looking for platonic pairings, take out the “/” between their names and add “Platonic” to the front of it. For example, PlatonicBAMurdock. I won’t list all the pairings here because that’d be excessive. Ratings: RatedG, RatedPG, RatedPG13, RatedR, RatedNC17 Warnings: NoWarnings, GraphicViolence, MajorCharacterDeath, NonCon, Underage Word Count (each number means the fic length will be under the specified number, unless it is only slightly above – for example, a 31k word fic will be tagged 30k, not 40k): 1k, 5k, 10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k, 70k, 80k, 90k, 100k, 200k, 300k, CompleteFic

Remember to add CompleteFic to your search if you don’t want to see incomplete fics!

Check back for updates & feel free to make suggestions!

If you can think of a better way to make this archive searchable, please send your ideas to me!

I’m also open to adding other people as co-admins for this blog so we can add the fic links quicker. Let me know if you’d like to join the team!

#the a-team #the a team #a-team fanfiction #the a-team fanfiction #please keep in mind that this blog is super new and i'm still getting it set up #if you're seeing this and the blog is virtually empty #just know that it's temporary #i'm setting out to tackle all of the archived fics from 1999 this week #we'll see how painstaking that process is and whether or not i meet my goal #but i will be slowly adding fic links after posting this and getting the blog set up a bit better #i may also be tweaking this post as i find better ways to manage the blog #so stay tuned!!#and please don't hesitate to DM me if you're interested in taking on this project with me #or if you have any ideas to make it better!#i don't bite :)#you can also find me @facedock #that's my primary a-team sideblog #notes and updates

9 notes · View notes