#and frankly i like it that way

[landwriter]

Dirty Work | Corinthian/Hob | 1.6K | T fake marriage, true love, gardening, domestic curtainfic with an unsolicited side of angst, retired!corinthian, the corinthian loves rural england because he’s the hottest piece of ass for miles, hob loves rural england because the corinthian is safe with him there (and also the stars are lovely at night)

for Domaystic Drabbles, Day 5: Learning Something New

---

“What-” asked Hob. He paused, took a sensibly calming breath, and found himself feeling not much more calm for it. Onward, then. “-the fuck are you doing?”

The Corinthian smiled winningly up at him from under the brim of Hob’s favourite tilly hat.

“The fuck does it look like?” he drawled.

“Gardening.” Having a nervous breakdown, he thought, loudly and uncharitably. It was early. Not these-days early. Fourteenth century early. Lauds early. The robins weren’t even out yet. The sky was still a deep and restive blue. He was irritable. Owing less to the hour, and more to waking up to a cold, husbandless bed, to an instinctive panic crawling up his throat that saw him search through an empty house with increasing dread, before he finally looked out the back window and saw a nightmare. Turn of speech, of course.

It looked like a giant vole had been through. A giant, ruthlessly handsome vole, who remained at the scene of the crime wearing nothing but silk pyjama bottoms, now stained with vegetal viscera. The damage was extensive. And apparently not quite complete. He was still extracting a stubborn bit of Reynoutria japonica. The Corinthian grunted, muscles jumping in his arms, prised the cane loose, and then rocked back on his heels with a little huff of satisfaction. He paused to wipe invisible sweat off his face with the back of his hand, in a move, Hob was cooly certain, designed to attractively smear a bit of dirt across his forehead. The Corinthian abhorred a mess. Unless he’d made it himself. He caught the expression on Hob’s face and preened.

Hob made himself scowl again. On principle, if nothing else. “You’ve dug up most of the flowers, too.”

“Seen better.”

“It’s half four. You can see nowt and fuckall.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” His voice was perfectly casual, which meant it had been a truly awful night. I’m sorry, Hob wanted to say. It’s not fair. It was just supposed to be. But that’s not the sort of thing the Corinthian wanted to hear from him. Not a thing he could bear hearing, really.

“Should’ve woken me,” he said, in lieu of what he couldn’t, and walked over and took his mouth in a hungry kiss to say the rest of it properly. The Corinthian softened into him, making pleased sounds and sliding a hand under his shirt, but Hob could still feel it, all the coiled-tight misery. It practically twanged through the air. Sometimes, he thought it was nothing less than cruelty, what Dream had done to him and named a mercy. But he wouldn’t say that either. They didn’t talk about it. Not like that. “Jesus. You’re like a puppy,” he said, laughing, when the Corinthian finally let them pause to catch their breath. “Can’t be left alone or you’ll get bored and chew up all my socks.”

The Corinthian blinked at him, pupils blown wide in the morning dim. It was still a weird sight. Wrong. “They were shitty socks, Robbie.”

Hob snorted and turned around to take inventory of his garden. The spreading clump of invasive knotweed he’d really been meaning to get around to at the weekend (so he said every Monday) had been surgically obliterated and lay in a tidy pile. The overgrown nettle and bramble was gone. It had gotten a little wild, sure. But Hob had thought it pretty, in a tangled sort of way. And the entire bed of begonias he’d inherited with the cottage was uprooted. He’d never liked those, at least.

“They were passable socks,” he decided, and left it at that. “You’re getting me new ones.”

“The best,” agreed the Corinthian. “We’re starting over. Making something better.”

“As pretty as you?” Hob asked, just to watch him squirm a bit.

“You’re disgusting,” said the Corinthian.

“Wrong answer,” said Hob, singsong. “Nothing could be as pretty as you.”

“You’re messed up in the head, Hob, you know that?”

“’Course I do. It’s why you married me.”

“Pretty sure it was for the sex.”

Hob grinned. “Come inside, then, Mr. Gadling. The garden can wait.”

They weren’t married, of course. They were just strange and scandalous enough for the village already, without living in sin. More and more often, Hob found himself forgetting it had started as a joke. That when the Corinthian said ‘my life partner’ he was winking at Hob. But he said mine in other ways, ways he trusted and knew better, and so Hob didn’t mind much at all. Not that he’d mind it being real, either. He wouldn’t. He wanted to cling to the Corinthian. Keep him safe. And maybe it was old-fashioned of him, but being his husband, swearing an oath to cherish and protect, it would mean he could.

They went inside, and left the garden as it was, turned up and nearly unrecognizable. Like an open wound. All the dangerous and unsightly parts torn out. Scoured clean. Hob tried not think about how it felt so familiar. He was pretty sure the Corinthian already had. Had, in fact, done it exactly because of that. Because he’d wanted to know what Dream had felt, doing it to him.

---

Hob stood in his garden. “What the fuck,” he said again. In three months, it had been transformed. There was a new riot of colour and texture, brought only to heel with perfectly sculpted boxwoods and a cobbled path that undulated through the garden in a way, Hob felt confident, that was actually mathematically significant. The perfumed air fairly buzzed with insect life. In his periphery, a group of swallows darted through an immaculately pruned apple tree he hadn’t known he had, and then skimmed low over the bergamot, calling out to one another. It wasn’t a tame garden. It was the sort you wanted to watch all day, breath caught in your throat.

“It’s a start,” said the Corinthian mildly.

“It’s the bloody grand finale, is what it is.”

“Just did a bit of pruning and bought a few bedding plants. Nothing special. Was hoping you’d like it.”

Hob looked sidelong at him. The Corinthian wore a small, modest smile. He made a noise of disgust. “Cut that out.”

“Aw,” said the Corinthian. He thought it was terribly funny to pretend to be English and see how long before Hob noticed and begged him to stop. He didn’t do an accent. He just wore it. It made Hob want to crawl out of his skin, which in turn made the Corinthian mercilessly hone his impression. Dark mirror of humanity, indeed. Old habits die hard. Hob was sure he didn’t sound like that. Most of the time.

“You’ve done this before,” said Hob, staring accusingly at splendour of it all.

“Nah,” said the Corinthian, looking so proudly out on his work that Hob knew he was telling the truth. “Didn’t know jack about gardening. But I’ve learned,” he said, and meant so much more than gardening. He turned, grinning at Hob in his perfect garden with his perfect teeth. Except, Hob noticed, one of his incisors snagged a little on his bottom lip. He felt his heart lurch in his chest, another beating step further into smote devotion. The Corinthian looked back at the garden. “Good thing the fucker made me so damn curious, huh?”

He was fucked.

---

“It’s dirty work,” his supposed husband was loudly saying, despite being perfectly clean and unblemished. “But somebody’s got to do it.”

Hob rolled his eyes from where he was hanging the washing in their own garden, then looked into the neighbour’s anyways.

“Bless you, Ian,” said Mildred, beaming up at him. She bustled inside and reappeared with a fresh lemon loaf. The Corinthian grinned at Hob across the fence as Mrs. Martin hugged him goodbye. As if it would make him jealous. She was eighty-four. Far too young for either of them.

Five minutes later, Hob was viciously stabbing a slice of lemon loaf. “This has gotten out of hand. You’re being a do-gooder.”

The Corinthian pulled a hurt face. “It would’ve spread back to our garden.”

“I can’t believe she felt up your biceps. Like you’re a choice cut of meat.”

He smirked in a way that said I am, aren’t I? “You threatened by her, Hob?”

“No,” said Hob, and then chewed. “Fuck. Maybe a little. This is incredible.”

---

In October, the garden was named a runner-up in Kent Life magazine’s Amateur Garden of the Year, 1990. Mrs. Martin patted Hob’s husband consolingly on the shoulder and announced the Appledore Ladies Baking Club was unsubscribing in solidarity. All twelve of them.

The entire village, Hob slowly realized, had become besotted with the Corinthian. He was a Yank, but he was their Yank now. He’d endeared himself by sharing his dahlia tubers, lending out his wickedly-sharp secateurs, and most of all, smilingly dismissing any praise about his prodigious gardening abilities by saying, in his syrupy drawl, “I guess I just like pretty things.” Then he’d wink and say, “That’s why I married Hob, you know.” And whoever he was talking to would smile in spite of themselves, and tell Hob he was very lucky indeed.

He was. He’d just never felt guilty for his luck before.

That night, Hob murmured it into the back of his neck, soft and human-warm. “I think I hate him for it. Still. Even now. I didn’t know I even could.”

It was the first time he’d said it aloud. It felt like scurvy. Like a mended bone breaking again, in the silence of the little bedroom. But in his arms, the Corinthian only snorted.

“Of course you can. It’s the most normal thing about you.” Hob smiled into his nape. The Corinthian rolled over, and traced a hand across Hob’s sternum, landing, as he always did, on one particular puckered scar between his ribs. “You know what’s fucked?”

“What?”

“Sometimes, I think I don’t.”

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[ale-arro]

been going a little bit insane about this sentence from Ace by Angela Chen for the past week

[aeide-thea]

on principle opposed to describing art i dislike as 'masturbatory' because even though it's an alluringly contemptuous word to sneer it's impossible to reconcile with my pro-masturbation stance

[knifearo]

this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...

[royalarchivist]

undefined

For those who missed it, here’s Phil slam-dunking Quackity’s face into his birthday cake LMFAO, I love their friendship dynamic

[ruporas]

invisible scars (referenced previous talk here)

[ID: A colourless, digital Trigun comic of Vash and Wolfwood talking about Wolfwood's scars. They're both laying in bed and topless. Vash lays on top of Wolfwood, playing with the rosary around his neck. Then, Vash kisses a spot on Wolfwood's chest. Wolfwood asks, "What are you doing?" Vash smiles sadly, "You got shot here. In the last town we visited. You didn't even bother moving."

Vash props himself up over Wolfwood, who frowns slightly. Wolfwood is quiet for a moment before he says, "You remember that, huh?" Vash grabs Wolfwood's left wrist and brings it to his face. "And here." He kisses another spot there. "When you helped free the hostages from that robber..." Wolfwood dismissively says, looking away, "Was a lucky shot." Vash huffs, “Don’t brag. Jeez.”

Half of Wolfwood's expression is shown, eyes returning to Vash who is now sitting up, continuing to say, "And..." Vash goes on and kiss Wolfwood's right palm. "You got cut here, even though that girl was aiming at me." A moment from the past flashes, of Wolfwood grabbing a knife aimed at Vash, his hand bleeding.

At present, Vash moves down and puts another kiss on Wolfwood's right shoulder. "And here, from watching my back." Another memory flashes of Wolfwood and Vash back to back. Vash looks back as Wolfwood grins while holding Punisher, bleeding from multiple gunshots in his shoulder.

"And," Vash combs up Wolfwood's hair to reveal his forehead, "Here." A final memory shows Wolfwood with a regeneration vial in his mouth while getting shot on his temple. The next panel is framed in blood with Vash at the center, eyes wide and stunned in horror. The next panel is a closed up shot of Wolfwood's eye, locked on Vash's face.

Back to present, Vash’s head is bowed down as Wolfwood raises a hand to his nape and says, “Spikey.”

Wolfwood looks serious and frowns as he says, "We talked about this. Those were my decisions. They're not there anymore. Forget about them." Vash looks very sad before he smiles ruefully and says, "I still see them. All the time." He leans down so they touch foreheads. Wolfwood’s sorrowful expression can be seen as Vash says, "You protect so much. I could never forget what you've done to me. And many others..."

In the last image, they're drawn more cartoonishly. Wolfwood sweats and asks, "You don't actually remember every wound, right?" Vash points at a spot on his chest. "Kuroneko left a scratch here 7 times." Wolfwood, startled, says, "Why the hell are you keeping count—" End ID]

Credits for ID here and here

[egophiliac]

With the best of your writing or drawing ability, how do you sum up Twisted Wonderland Book 1 till Book 6?

I'm so sorry to make you wait so long for such a stupid joke

[vanhelsingapologist]

Publishing has always been a fucking nightmare, but now it’s a layer of hell. It’s not enough that writers be good at what they do. Writers have to maintain an active social media presence and cultivate a following. Be available.

They have to be conventionally attractive enough to look good enough to see on a screen, aesthetically pleasing, kind, funny, up-to-date on trends, socially aware but not so controversial that they turn off a brand from California from slapping their discount code on a video promoting a book.

They have to do all of this with no media training, with little help from the companies that are supposed to be doing this for them.

Of course, a lot of this isn't possible for say, the 40-something mother of two who teaches English at a school and writes on the side. She’s boxed out of an already complex industry that already has enough walls.

On some level, I think authors have always marketed themselves a little, but we’ve reached such a crazy point where we’re demanding the author become the influencer. Accessibility in publishing has narrowed from an inch to a sliver. And that inch was hard enough to get in as is.

[laurents-secret-diary]

touched up one of the other sketches ( ´ ꒳ ` )

[samglyph]

Ghost Hunter Au Part 1/2

Next

This is my entry for the Malevolent “write in your style event”, @malevolent-monthly!

I wasn’t initially planning on participating since this is a writing event and not an illustration one, but the prompt immediately inspired me so I got the go ahead to make a little comic! Part two out soon.

ID in Alt text provided by @shadow0haven

If you like what I do and want to see more, consider donating to my ko-fi!

[quiddie]

Actual footage of Suvi and the fox attempting to cook in her tower’s surprise kitchen

[yaralulu]

I desperately need a scene where the IC are having dinner and the topic of tamlin gets brought up and they start talking shit about him and going on about how he deserves everything thats happening to him and lucien’s just sitting there gripping his fork,jaw twitching,eyes simmering,hands shaking with rage as he tries so hard to keep his mouth shut because now is not the time to say something stupid—but they just keep talking and talking and talking until eventually he has enough and gives everybody a vanserra style telling off 😁.

[freaky-flawless]

Headless Headmistress Bloodgood redesign!

I've been wanting to redesign her for a while, in a way that would marry the aspects from each of her designs that I like. I'm pretty happy with how she turned out!

At some point I would like to design some more Monster High teachers and staff, because no matter what gen, that school is struggling.

[sharkcove]

i love the gay puppets

[royalarchivist]

Pac's reaction to Fit threatening Baghera for him.