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accirax · 6 months ago

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Analyzing DRDT's Ch2 Motive Diction

The fuck do I think I am, a time traveler? Why am I posting a theory about DRDT's Chapter 2 motive secrets now that Chapter 2 is finally complete? What's even the point in analyzing a motive that's over and done with?

Well, believe it or not, this is actually a theory I wanted to write before Chapter 2 Part 2 came out, I just never got around to it. And now we have more confirmation as to which secrets actually go where! So, really, it's all according to keikaku.

The point of this theory is to look at the language used in presenting the motive secrets, and see what it can tell us about both the secret's owner, and possibly the mastermind/whoever wrote them. What subjectivity did the writer inject into the secrets' phrasing, and could any of the secrets be better or worse than we originally thought? Put on your best scrutinizing glasses, and we'll take a look!

The usual CWs for Chapter 2 motive discussion: death, suicide, eating disorders, self harm, and implied homophobia/transphobia. Oh, and spoilers for DRDT through the end of Chapter 2, naturally.

Also as usual, I'll be assuming that all of the secrets are correctly attributed as they were in canon, other than that Xander and Teruko have swapped such that Xander has survivor's guilt and Teruko has the killing game is all your fault. I'm gonna look like a real fool some chapters down the line if I'm wrong about that, but I feel like most of the fandom has consensus agreed that this is the case.

I'll be dissecting the words of each secret through the lenses of the three Fs-- factual truth, flavored truth, and forced opinion. If those categories aren't as inherently comprehensible as they could have been due to my want for a snappy moniker, let me explain them further.

Factual truth is just that-- a literal statement that must be taken at face value. Under the assumption that all of the secrets are the truth (and it's not that J isn't actually Mariabella's daughter or whatever), there isn't much to be analyzed here. The writer presented the story with no flavor.

"You are reading a DRDT theory."

Flavored truth comes in two main forms. The first refers to emotional truths. Someone's secret describes that they feel a certain way about a certain event. It's likely base-level true, but do they feel that way due to their own opinion, or were they forced to feel that way due to someone else's opinion? And, what exactly does that opinion mean?

"You were happy to read a DRDT theory."

The other option is for when what's written is factual truth, but overlaid with a weird emotional layer. Said layer might make the truth feel overexaggerated, therefore implying a subjective take on the subject. Basically, it's anything that logistically should have been factual truth, but that subjectively I felt had something more to it.

"You prioritized reading DRDT theories over your other responsibilities."

Combined, purple means fact-adjacent, but with a little something injected into it.

Forced Opinion is content injected directly from the writer's perspective, and it's what initially caught my eye and got me thinking about writing this analysis. There are a couple of instances in which the writer speaks directly to the reader without feeling the need to provide any level of verifiable fact. These statements exist only to convey the writer's desired tone.

"Why do you even enjoy DRDT theories?"

Some secrets use only one of these Fs, some use two, and some use all three. On that note, we'll be examining the secrets in reverse spiciness order, with the most straightforward secrets first and the most interesting ones saved for last. So, who has the most sauceless secret?

Charles

"Your older brother died, but you don't remember him at all."

Okay Elliot fans, don't kill me for inadvertently calling your boy sauceless.

It's not that Charles' secret doesn't contain intriguing information, but that the way in which that secret is presented doesn't tell us anything about the person who wrote it. It's not phrased as "how could you have forgotten your dead older brother?" or anything as dramatic as that. Both phrases are presented in a manner devoid of emotion or judgment. They're just two facts!

Rose

"You took on your talent to earn money for your family. But you've since put them in a lifetime of debt."

"Lifetime of debt" feels kind of accusatory, but it is true when the sum total is in the millions of dollars. I think this could have been written a lot more judgmentally than it was, which is why I ultimately left it as factual truth.

Whit

"Your mother is dead. You always omit that truth."

The use of "always" in "always omit that truth" could be called into question, but based on Whit's behavior so far, it seems to be pretty straight up. Honestly, if anything, I think the bluntness of this statement speaks more to the writer's opinions and goals than anything else.

"You hide your name and birthright to pretend that you aren't the daughter of Mariabella Rosales."

"Birthright" is defined as "a particular right of possession or privilege one has from birth," if anyone was curious. With the way our society is set up, J should inherit a large amount of money and soft power just by being Mariabella's daughter, so I think this is legit. It has a bit of an emotional tone of superiority to it, but nothing drastic.

Arei

"Blackmail, rumors, lying, stealing, slander. You did everything you could to ruin your sisters' lives."

Ooh, our first instance of flavored truth. We're welcoming it in with a pretty bland example, though-- one that I went back and forth on for a while with whether it should count as factual or flavored.

Ultimately, I decided that, if we hadn't had Arei spell out her backstory and secret for us, I'm sure I would have been speculating about what "ruin your sisters' lives" really meant, and to what degree it was true. I shouldn't disqualify purple text from being purple text just because it was proven true. However, because this really was proven to be Arei's main motivation, we can basically take it as fact.

Levi

"You're a murderer, and you hold no remorse."

A secret which obviously has both a factual and an emotional component, but is also pretty straightforward in how it presents that emotional component.

When I was originally scheming up this theory (before it was revealed to be Levi's), one of my big talking points was going to be about how the divide in this secret opened up the possibility for it to actually be two secrets in one: that the secret's owner was both a murderer, and, separately, held no remorse. That turned out to more or less be true, which was fun!

Eden

"Ever since you kissed her, you were afraid your sexuality would ruin your friendships."

Eden's secret has a pretty obvious factual part-- that she kissed a girl (and she liked it)-- and a pretty obvious emotional component-- that she was afraid it would ruin her friendships.

Much like Levi or Arei, the emotional component is very likely accurate. In this case it's not very dramatized: they didn't go as far as to say "ever since you kissed her, you knew it was a matter of time before your friends would leave you" or anything along those lines. Still, as an emotion-based secret, so there's always room for debate.

Ace

"Your body is falling apart, but you'll still refuse to eat."

"Your body is falling apart" is (probably) a fact, but it feels really emotional. That "probably" is what sold me on this needing to be purple, though. It's hard to say how much Ace's body really was falling apart prior to his death. I'm sure the situation wasn't great, but we know that Ace was still capable of overpowering Arei, lifting ~60 pounds, launching a slingshot, and cutely climbing up swingsets on top of the running, swimming, and general obstacle-course-ing featured in his execution. Ace surely wasn't healthy, but "falling apart" seems like a bit of an exaggeration, based on the knowledge we currently have.

If nothing else, the "but" and "still" paint a picture of Ace being aware that his body is malfunctioning but choosing to limit his calorie intake anyways, which is an emotional layer far beyond the likes of a blunt "you have an eating disorder."

Nico

"No one accepted you because of your identity. You were constantly mocked by your family, your peers, and everybody else."

Does this highlighting make sense to people? Nico being bullied for being nonbinary is (sadly) the truth, but there's a lot of emotional coding to it that isn't necessarily 100% accurate. Like, is it really true that no one Nico met previously ever accepted them? I'm not going to pretend like there aren't deeply transphobic places out there, but "constantly mocks" further makes it sound like not only did everyone hate them, everyone did so physically and/or vocally, as opposed to simply judging in silence.

The weirdest thing about Nico's secret to me is that the writer took what otherwise could have been a factual secret and turned it into a largely emotional one. The only straight up fact we can garner from this is "Nico was mocked by their family and peers because of their identity." What happened to "people threw rocks and laughed at you because of your identity"? That would have been a (more or less) concrete fact that illustrates the exact same idea. But instead, the writer went all in on dramatizing that everyone was against Nico. Is there a reason for that?

Veronika

"You only took on your talent to distract yourself from your incessant need to harm yourself for fun."

Veronika's secret is kinda like Nico's plus Ace's, so it's nice to be able to put it here. Like Nico's, it interweaves factual truth and flavored truth in a way that makes distinguishing between them uncertain. And, like Ace's, it deals with a factual mental illness combined with its subjective motivations.

The core truth of this secret is "you took on your talent to distract yourself from your need to harm yourself," which is what can be seen in blue. However, that has very different implications than "you only," "incessant," and "for fun" add. Of the three, I would rank "incessant" as the most factual, "you only" as the least factual," and "for fun" in the middle.

I do think that Veronika's need to harm herself did feel incessant, but whether it was really for fun is up for debate. It's even more debatable whether distracting herself from self-harm was her ONLY reason for becoming a horror fanatic, as there are many other potential motivators out there, such as a genuine interest in the craft, or even the generalized boredom Veika describes as opposed to just the self-harm angle. In the end, I don't know how helpful making that distinction is for Veronika, but I'll throw it out there.

Arturo

"Your younger sister killed herself because of you. You never should have left."

Our first instance of forced opinion marks where things really start to get juicy. Although, uh, before you interpret my analysis in a way I didn't mean, just because something is marked as opinion doesn't mean it isn't an opinion I agree with. If Arturo sticking around would have saved Felicity's life, then, yeah, he probably shouldn't have left. However, in essence, "you never should have left" isn't a fact, it's an opinion-- one that prioritizes Felicity's life over whatever benefits Arturo gained from running away.

Again! I would also prioritize Felicity's life over whatever motivation Arturo had, assuming that they wouldn't have just, like, both died if he'd stuck around. However, the fact that I hold that opinion tells you something about me and my beliefs. I'm someone who holds the popular opinion of valuing others' lives. And therefore, from the pink text, we can also surmise that the secret writer values others' lives, or at least is willing to leverage that common opinion in order to make others feel guilty.

The only concrete fact present in Arturo's secret is that his younger sister killed herself. The idea that she did so because of Arturo, to some extent, is probably true, but it's based on the emotions of a person that the secret writer probably never even met. Especially when combined with the pink text, the secret gives the vibes of repeating Arturo's dark thoughts back to him to make him feel even worse about the situation. The writer's embellishments of a simple fact were designed to hurt Arturo.

"You were quite the hopeless child. Dying once wasn't enough, so you attempted suicide three times."

Hu attempted suicide three times: true. Hu's emotional state while doing so was pretty abysmal: yeah, probably. Dying once wouldn't be enough to counteract what she did: ????????

Much like Arturo's, I imagine that the pink text in this case is supposed to mirror an emotional "truth" that Hu holds in her heart. Still, I can't call it anything close to a "fact," given that it's completely based on individual interpretations of penance and morality. And it's an absolutely buckwild thing to say, especially while providing no context as to why anyone would hold that opinion.

It's hard to know what further motives the writer may have had beyond making Hu feel bad when we don't know what Hu did that made her feel as if she needed to die. For instance, if Hu accidentally killed her childhood friend, then we could use that as a data point that the writer was harsher towards murderers. Or, if it was putting her family into financial trouble, we could contrast how the writer treated Rose's secret versus Hu's. However, as we currently have no leads on what Hu's done that she needs to pay for (as her secret quote tells us), there's nothing more to be gained here.

Min

"You always treated the competition with ruthlessness, but poisoning them to win was a bit too far, wasn't it?"

One interesting facet of Min's secret is that it contains one of the most obvious uses of the writer injecting their own opinion into the secret. Like, the entire secret isn't even a statement, it's a rhetorical question. You can feel the writer raising their eyebrow at Min challengingly.

Once again, the pink text is being used to judge and/or shame Min for what she did. I really can't see any other purpose for the pink text beyond doing that.

Xander

"You're constantly blaming yourself for the death of your parents and siblings. It doesn't matter that it's not your fault, just that you didn't go with them."

An even more interesting facet of Xander's text is that this is the only instance in which the pink text is... sort of nice? I mean, not really, as it's still majorly playing to his survivor's guilt in a way that I'm sure would have made him feel awful had he ever read it.

No, what I'm talking about is the "it's not your fault" aspect. I really struggled with which of the Fs to assign to it. From Visiting Graves, it seems like the cause of Xander's family's death was drinking unpotable water, which was likely infected by the Spurlings. Therefore, factually, it isn't his fault, and should be blue.

However, Xander certainly feels like the weight of his family's death was on his shoulders. His secret quote defines his "feelings of guilt for having survived a catastrophe in which others died," and he says in the Bonus Episode itself that "the worst part of it all was that [he] wasn't there." Technically, Xander's family's death being his fault is subjective-- no matter what Unnamed Student says, we can never know for sure that he couldn't have done something if he was there. He is an Ultimate, after all. For those reasons, I felt like maybe the immense emotional connection for Xander should make those words purple.

But then I thought, if the secret was supposed to reflect Xander's beliefs, it would say that the incident was his fault. The writer breaks form in this secret. As opposed to Arturo, Hu, and possibly Min (we don't technically know how she feels about the incident, but I'd imagine that she would agree it went too far), instead of judging the secret's owner in a way that appears to mirror the way that they judge themselves, the writer goes against what Xander would say of himself, injecting their own opinion. That's weird.

Of course, I could definitely be blowing this out of proportion. It could just be that Xander acknowledges that, factually, the incident was not his fault, and therefore he would actually agree with the "it's not your fault." Furthermore, the writer still follows this up with the "just that you didn't go with them," which matches with their usual judgmental attitude. They can't be that soft on Xander when they're still saying it would have been better if he died.

Still. You'd think that the writer would want to play up Xander's insecurities that he was at fault for his family's deaths. If Xander were alive and the motive had been handled properly, Xander would have picked up a paper that told him that his family's deaths were explicitly not his fault. Is that really what MonoTV would have wanted?

David

"You exist to manipulate others. Everyone else exists to be taken advantage of."

You might be surprised to see David's secret all the way down here, given how relatively simple it is. Just like Charles' secret, it's two pretty blunt statements, and it's all written in one color. The difference is that literally nothing in this secret is objective fact.

Disregarding 1) any arguments of determinism ("David was always destined to be a manipulator because he has no free will") and 2) the possibility that this is a soft confirmation of DRDT being in-universe fictional characters ("David was always destined to be a manipulator because he, as a character, is reading his scripted lines"), there is genuinely no way to historically or scientifically verify anything that's said in these secrets. It's based on emotions and emotions alone.

But, whose emotions are they? David certainly believes this to some extent, given that his admission that he's a "lying, manipulative, scumbaggy piece of shit." The sentence "everyone else exists to be taken advantage of" is really aggressive, and, in combination with his Ch2 heel turn, it's very easy (and potentially correct) to believe that these are David's home-brewed feelings.

However, keep in mind the writer's propensity for intentionally stirring up the secret holder's most hurtful thoughts (like Hu) and things they'd rather forget (like Arturo). There's nothing in the secret itself that tells us that David enjoys being destined to be a manipulator, even if he believes in that idea.

David: You were right. I'm a good for nothing liar. But I call those lies "motivational speeches" and everyone eats it up.

Much like how the secret itself could be David's opinion or someone else's, we don't know which parties hold the opinion that David is a "good for nothing."

Look, I'm not trying to say that David has done nothing wrong in his entire life, even if villain apologism is my side hustle. I just think it's important to ask ourselves what entity is declaring this secret as "fact," considering that nothing about it is actually provable. At the very least, it's sure hard to accurately tell the group the exact contents of your secret when it's not based on anything factual.

Arei: Why did you lie about your secret? David: I'm sorry? I don't quite understand.

(Can you tell I was convinced to finally put this theory to paper whilst working on a David analysis...?)

On that note, though, I'll leave further speculation about David for another post, lest I go too far down the rabbit hole here. I just think there's a lot of room for interpretation when it comes to the manipulator secret.

Teruko

"How could I even select what secret to make your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for. The killing game is all your fault."

And, surprising no one, Teruko's secret is at the very bottom. I don't even know where to start with this one.

We'll start at the beginning, I suppose-- Min's secret has one of the most obvious examples of the writer injecting their own opinion into the secret's text; this is the other. They even both have rhetorical questions! Twinsies :D

The first sentence has legit nothing to do with the "factual" contents of the secret at all. The entire sentence is 100% the writer's opinion. They even refer to themselves with the "I" pronoun!!! And the second sentence isn't much better. What's regarded as "worth killing for" is entirely up to the reader's opinion, and "just about" is incredibly vague. Is what Teruko's done 80% worth killing for? 90%? 100%, with a single exception?

I've also always thought that "killing for" was a weird choice. It should be "killing over," right? Killing for is like, "oh, I'd kill for a sandwich." Generally, it's seen as a positive thing, something you really want. If Teruko's life is worth killing for, that would put Teruko's life in place of the sandwich (lol). AKA, "oh, I'd kill for Teruko's life." Given what we know of Teruko's life-- that she's faced being orphaned, poverty, extreme injuries and more-- it's hard to imagine that anyone would willingly want that for themselves.

However, there are two ways I thought of to explain the word choice that don't involve assuming that the phrasing got messed up. The first is that the writer really covets Teruko's capacity to survive. As Teruko herself told us, she's the Lucky Student, so she can't die. "Kill for" could indicate that, despite all of the hardships Teruko has faced, the writer still believes that Teruko's constitution makes her life enviable and/or desirable.

The other is the more literal interpretation: that whatever Teruko has done has made others want to kill on her behalf. We already saw this once with Min, who felt compelled to attack Xander if it meant potentially saving Teruko's life. There's also our usual throughline from Prologue Hands Guy that ending the killing game and killing Teruko might be linked. Therefore, conversely, if there's anyone out there who's interested in the continuation of the killing game(s)-- XF-Ture Tech?-- it might stand to reason that they would be willing to kill in order to keep Teruko alive.

Both of these interpretations struggle with the lead-in of "just about everything you've done in your life," though. It's because both of them directly relate to Teruko's luck, which to me seems less like what she's done and more like who she is. But, the origins of Teruko's luck are undefined enough that I don't think I can use that to shoot either possibility down.

On to "the killing game is all your fault." I was tempted to make this sentence entirely pink, due to how likely it seems that this sentence is overexaggerated. Teruko is still a totally viable mastermind choice, to be clear. There are a lot of things that become a whole lot more convenient if Teruko is the mastermind, this secret included. However, if Teruko were a self-aware, despair-loving mastermind, why would she put a secret basically accusing her of such into the killing game?

You could argue that, if MonoTV were competent, no one would have seen this secret other than Teruko herself. It's still kinda weird to write that down for herself, though. It would have been a lot safer to just leave the secret off at "How could I even select what secret to make your motive? Just about everything you've done in your life is worth killing for." And, I don't think anyone who happened to see the secret would think too much of it. Perhaps Teruko wanted others to know she was the mastermind? If that were the case, why not correctly claim her secret when David asked her in 2-13?

(Once again, I really hope I'm right about this secret being Teruko's.)

In the end, I decided to just flag the "all" as being the writer's opinion, as an endeavor as grand and complicated as the killing game surely has more than one thing behind it. Every canon killing game, despite having a main instigator, had many other individuals aiding in its creation. And, the writer clearly has a vendetta against Teruko in this secret, so I'd be more surprised if they weren't overexaggerating her involvement to some degree.

However, "the killing game is your fault" remains in blue, even though we can't verify it to be true at the moment. If you recall, at the top, I decided to make the assumption that all of the secrets were true to at least some level, and this is where that kicks in for Teruko. Plus, if the writer (who is quite possibly the mastermind) believes that the killing game is at least partially Teruko's fault, then that's likely the case, no?

What Did We Learn?

Now that we're done with all of the secrets, let's turn it back to see if we can figure anything out about the writer. The ways in which secrets were handled can kinda be broken into tiers, like this:

Charles, Rose, Whit, and J all had 100% factual truth.

Arei, Levi, and Eden had some factual truth and some flavored truth, but the emotional truth was pretty easily verified as correct.

Ace, Nico, and Veronika had a mix of factual truth and flavored truth in a way where it was harder to parse what was feeling or fact.

Arturo, Hu, Min, and Xander had some factual truth, some flavored truth, and some forced opinion, all of which had some elements of assigning blame.

David and Teruko were struggling to present anything certifiably factual at all.

Meanwhile, if we try to categorize the secrets themselves:

Levi, Arturo, Min, and David all had secrets regarding harming others.

Ace, Veronika, and Hu all had secrets regarding harming themselves.

Rose, J, Arei, Charles, Whit, Arturo, and Xander all had secrets about their families, with the latter four relating to dead family members. (Levi also technically counts for this, but it's not explicitly mentioned in the secret.)

Eden and Nico have secrets relating to their identities and the crises they face because of them.

Teruko has a secret that's hard to define :/

What does this tell us? Well, honestly, not much. All of the people in the "straight facts" tier have secrets that relate to their families in non-violent ways, but that may just mean that the lower-stakes secrets were harder to dramatize. Everyone who dealt with a negative effect on a large group of people (Min with the competition, Xander with his large family and by extension town, David with... everyone, Teruko with those in a killing game) is near the bottom of the ranking, but it also follows that those with more grave secrets would face further scrutiny for it.

There's nothing as simple as "everyone whose secret referred to a death was harshly judged" or "everyone who harmed themselves was treated more kindly." Therefore, we can't really assign any of those straightforward beliefs to the writer. Alas.

However, assume with me for a moment that 1) the mastermind is the one who personally wrote out the secrets and 2) the mastermind of the killing game is one of its 16 contestants. Nothing too crazy, but those are both (kind of) assumptions.

(I know that, technically, MonoTV said "the real mastermind is one of you" at the end of the Prologue, which would mean that one of the 16 students has been confirmed to be the mastermind. However, I personally don't believe that's necessarily the case. You can read more about that in Mai's section of my (albeit outdated) Mastermind Ranking, if you wish.)

If the secret-writer is a mastermind hidden amongst the cast, that means that they must have written a secret about themselves. Which category would be the most likely category to find our mastermind in?

Well, the obvious answer is in the top tier, as they're the least suspicious. If you want to fly under the radar, give yourself a secret that won't be the talk of the town if it comes out of the bag. Veronika has already primed us to recognize that someone's secret doesn't have to be the worst thing they've ever done, which could be foreshadowing that we'll later learn that the mastermind's secret works the same.

In terms of the mastermind's specific identity, it's also interesting to consider which secrets had the most information packed into them. Most-if-not-all of these students attended Hope's Peak together as friends for a little while, but some were certainly closer than others. All of the secrets are secret, naturally, but to write a secret like David's, you have to know a lot about how his mind works, which implies closeness. The secrets that include something about how their owner thought or felt-- the "why," so to speak-- include Levi's, Eden's, Veronika's, Xander's, and David's. Conversely, you largely don't need to know anything about how Charles, Rose, Whit, J, Arei, Ace, or Nico thought or felt about their various circumstances, just that they happened. Arturo, Hu, Min, and Teruko are in sort of a weird place where the secret seems to reveal how they felt, but could also just be the writer feeling the same way.

In terms of the ones where you don't need to know anything, the results are a toss-up. You could argue that, if Whit were the mastermind, he could have hurt Charles way worse than he theoretically did, but you could also argue that Charles' secret was left more vague on purpose as a form of protection/favoritism.

However, the fact remains that, somehow, the person who wrote the secrets had to at least get into Levi, Eden, Veronika, Xander, and David's brains in order to transcribe how they felt about doing their various deeds. Who knows those five super well? Honestly, my first thought was Teruko, but it's also undeniable that a talent like David's or Whit's would lend itself well to understanding how others' minds work. And, of course, there's Mai, whose main talent thus far seems to be understanding others.

As a final note, I want to list a couple of secrets that I feel have anti-mastermind energy. Secrets you read and ask, "now, why would that person have written and released this information about themselves?" The level to which this is the case varies, but I'm going to include everyone I had the thought for. These people include:

Whit. Why would he tell everyone about a truth he prefers to omit?

J. Same thing: if she doesn't want everyone knowing she's Mariabella's daughter, why would she make that her secret? Why would she even create the opportunity for someone else to read that?

Eden. Less so than others (as, if she's in a supportive crowd, she might want this secret to get out), but if she's afraid of how people will treat her after learning she's a lesbian, why would she say it?

Nico. Same as Eden, basically.

Arturo. He really seems to want to forget this. Unless he's a mascohist-ermind (Ellis, is that you? /j /ref), I don't know why he'd remind himself, especially with such strong wording.

Teruko. Again, assuming she wants to keep this under wraps, why release that secret into the world?

You could also count Charles and/or Levi for this category. However, I decided that just because they seemingly forgot about the contents of their secret wouldn't mean that they would have no motivation to write it, which is really what I was judging.

Sorry if that wasn't as conclusive as you were hoping for! (/gen) If it were more conclusive, I probably would have made the theory earlier, or someone else would have had the same thought. As we learn more about the secrets in future installments like whether the Teruko/Xander swap thing is actually correct, these are the sorts of questions that I want to be keeping in mind.

And, of course, please take this analysis with a grain of salt! I always assume that everything in DRDT is 100% accurate to real-world logic because I really respect DRDTdev's storytelling. However, much like my note content analysis, I understand that going so far as to say "Charles can't be the mastermind because there's no way he'd know about how Veronika felt about her self harm" is quite possibly going too far. The most important facet of the secrets is that they made for an interesting story development, which they did! Any logic about how the in-universe secret-writer found out this information is just a cherry on top. But inspecting those cherries for quality is what we get up to 'round these parts.

Thank you for reading! And hopefully I'll find the time to write more DRDT stuff in the near future :)

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wangxianficfinder · 10 months ago

Text

I'm in the mood for...

Aug 13th

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1. Any wangxian fanfics with straight wei wuxian having a sexuality crisis over lan wangji?

ao3 has been erroring out for me when I try to get to my bookmarks , maybe because I have so many? but for #1 , there is a tag "straight boy wei ying" /"Wei wuxian in denial about sexuality" that will give great fics. when I can get to my bookmarks I'll add my faves

show me how you do that trick by ilip13 (E, 70k, WangXian, Modern Setting Porn with Feelings, The Porn Is the Plot, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, straight boy wwx, with an aspec twist, Sexuality Crisis, Voyeurism, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Masturbation, Anal Sex, Switching, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch WangXian, Slow Burn, Except for the sex that part is on fire soooo fast, sexuality realization, Feelings Realization, Happy Ending)

The Cause Of This Fair Gift In Me Is Wanting by Alliandra (E, 47k, WangXian, LQY/QS, Modern AU, High School, College/University, Time Skips, Slow Burn, Pining, LWJ POV, LWJ Fucks, WWX dates, "Straight Boy" WWX, Homophobia, Non-Graphic Violence, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Reference, d Suicide, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Overstimulation, Light Bondage, Blow Jobs, Masturbation, Getting Together, Ableist Language, WWX Has ADHD, Autistic LWJ, Queer Themes)

I search myself (I want you to find me) by ilip13 (E, 22k, WangXian, Modern AU, Fluff and Smut, The Porn Is the Plot, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Self-Discovery, Adolescent Sexuality, Slight Gender Feels, Masturbation, Fantasizing, Voyeurism, (sort of), Exhibitionism, (also sort of), Lingerie, Explicit Het Content)

~*~

2. Hi! Do you have any fic recs for fic where wwx come back as someone else other than mxy? I remember seeing one where he ends up as Qin Su @fysmiin

You still sound like a song by Moominmammashandbag (M, 64k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Ghost!WWX, Mystery, LWJ plays inquiry, AU from after the Wens came to Lotus Pier, Most people lived, not everybody died, Angst with a Happy Ending, river spirit!WWX, Angst and Feels, description of murder, imminent smut, Execution, Dogs, Poisons, Discussion of Attempted Murder, BAMF WWX, Family Feels)

To Deserve So Much More by renysen (T, 19k, wangxian, getting together, one big happy family, no angst, getting engaged, family feels, female bodied WWX) ofc summons wwx to defend her family's besieged manor.

🔒Femme Fatale by coffeepie (E, 76k, WIP, WWX/WC, WWX/WRH, WWX/WZL, WWX/JGS, Porn, Smut, Possession, Crack Treated Seriously, Humor, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Penis In Vagina Sex, Anal Sex, Masturbation, Aphrodisiacs, Rough Sex, Minor WangXian, Canon Divergence, Oral Sex, Pre-Sunshot Campaign, Strangulation, Object Insertion, Exhibitionism, Voyeurism, Blood and Injury, Somnophilia, Belly Bulge) WIP. wwx wakes up in wlj's body before the sunshot campaign. cw lots of sex with wc.

the problem with authority by isabilightwood (M, 139k, wangxian, qingli, Canon Divergence, Sacrifice Summon, slightly dark!JYL, wq lives because i said so, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Pain, Mild Sexual Content, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch WangXian, manipulative relationship (background xiyao)) qs summoning jyl-centric but includes someone else summoning wwx as well

patching the road with vague intentions by loosingletters (T, 39k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Humor, Developing Friendships, WWX Resurrected By Others, Trans WWX, Case Fic, POV WWX, POV LQR, Family, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, MXY Lives) WIP. ofc lwj was arranged to marry after wwx's death summons wwx. lwj hasn't appeared yet.

The Housewife's Guide to Causing Chaos by dvasva (M, 127k, WIP, WangXian, Canon-Typical Violence, Functionally Trans Character, Mild Sexual Content, Domestic Fluff, Love Confessions, Transphobia, Good Parents LWJ and WWX, Pining, WWX is a Tease, Grief/Mourning, Body Dysphoria, Fake Marriage, Canonical Character Death, Misunderstandings, Doting LWJ, Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, WWX is not in MXY's body, Misgendering, Mild Angst, Assumptions, Comedic Elements, non-sexual nudity, Blood, Discussion of Various Bodily Functions, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, 4 years of mourning instead of 13, Méishān Yú Sect, POV Multiple, Corporal Punishment, Trans WWX, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, pregnancy mention, Timeline What Timeline, Sexual Harassment Threats) WIP. ofc lwj was arranged to marry after wwx's death summons wwx. wangxian starts early.

Friends, Sabers, and Other Essentials for Solving a Conspiracy by MeridianGrimm (T, 50k, NHS & WWX, LWJ & NHS, WangXian, Humor, Friendship, Love, Mystery, Canon Divergence, Smart NHS, WWX doesn't stay dead, LWJ gets a new friend, Happy Ending, Fix-It, To be clear the WangXian is mostly background, This fic is about friendship) NHS does a modified summoning

Karma's a Bitch (It's Me, I'm The Bitch) by loosingletters (T, 8k, SS & OC, WWX & OC, Minor Character Death, Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Resurrection, Moling Su Sect, Cultivation Sect Politics, Body Dysphoria, WWX is NOT in MXY's Body, Unreliable Narrator, Assassination) Su sect oc summons wwx.

❤️ Beauty and the Boot by PTchan (T, 44k, wangxian, summoned by f!oc, Canon Divergence, Romantic Comedy, Genderbending, Denial, Fem!WWX, WangXian kids, Crack-ish, WIP) seemingly-abandoned WIP. OFC summons wwx.

So You Want to Start a War by JaenysBloodcourt (T, 41k, WIP, MY/QS, MY/WWX, WangXian, Reincarnation, Half-Sibling Incest Mention!, QS does the ritual instead of MXY, WWX as a woman, MY Is His Own Warning, Canon Divergence, Impersonation, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Please check the notes before reading a chapter, Timeline What Timeline, WWX Has PTSD) WIP. qs summons wwx.

sweet hay and the flowers rising by Shializaro (T, 4k, WangXian, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Alcohol, Humor) qs summons wwx.

Crowded by nirejseki (G, 1k, NHS & WWX, wangxian, LWJ/NHS/WWX, canon divergence, different body offering ritual, atypical relationship dynamics, sentient sabers) NHS does a modified summoning (short fic)

❤️ The Book’s Cover by Eudoxia (E, 50k, wangxian, canon divergence, WWX not in MXY’s body, canon retelling, humor, demisexual LWJ, genderqueer WWX, smut) OFC summons WWX. this is probably my favorite one of all these.

Everyanything by deliciousblizzardshark, lingeringdust (E, 46k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Franken-canon, Gender Identity, Gender Dysphoria, Trans WWX, Protective LWJ, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Fluff and Angst, Vaginal Sex, Canon-Typical Major Character Death) Qin Su summons WWX.

Chapter 1-23 of The Tales of Despereaux by stiltonbasket (T, 36k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, (when applicable)) Chapters 1-23 are "What if Qin Su summoned Wei Wuxian?" A prologue is linked in the author's note.

Wei Wuxian keeps / gets his OG body / Resurrected by someone other than MXY Comp

Five People Who Never Summoned Wei Wuxian by EHyde (G, 3k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, 5+1 Things, Angst, [Podfic] Five People Who Never Summoned Wei Wuxian by sisi_rambles)

~*~

3. Hey! I have only once asked for a fic before but this is for a Itmf , can you recommend any dark lwj fic? Not just after wwx’s death but lwj protecting wwx or joining him in demonic cultivation, even better if wwx runs yiling wei sect^-^

A Matter of Time series by mrcformoso (E, 84k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, graphic depictions of violence, underage, LWJ pov, JC pov, dark LWJ, manipulation, grooming, teen body adult mind for LWJ, happy ending for wangxian, problematic consensual underage sex, blood & violence, insane LWJ, manic LWJ)

🔒 Flawed and Free by Vrishchika (E, 18k, wangxian, major character death, time travel fix-it, dark LWJ, dark LXC, dark gusu lan, temporary character death, not JC friendly, angst, hurt/comfort, WIP)

🔒 At heart by apathyinreverie (M, 36k, WangXian, WIP, Dark LWJ(Ish), Amnesia, WWX gets to be Not Okay after the BM, Hurt WWX, Recovery, Caring, Protective LWJ, Possessive LWJ, some definite manipulation, but not everything is as it seems, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, Canon Divergence, Golden Core Revea, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, kind of, Domestic WangXian, Fluff, WWX Goes to Gusu, Possessive WWX, WWX happily atticwifing away, Sunshot Campaign, BAMF WWX, BAMF LWJ)

Until The World Embraces Me Home by azri (T, 5k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ LWJ, LWJ Has No Golden Core, Role Reversal, Not LXC Friendly, Not JC Friendly, Not cultivation world friendly overall tbh, Sunshot Campaign, Friends to Lovers, Temporary Character Death, WangXian Get a Happy Ending)

Corrupted Core by The_Gourmet_Gamer (M, 16k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Grief/Mourning, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Sad with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Post-First Siege of the Burial Mounds)

~*~

4. Hello 👋

I'm in the mood for Twitter wangxian fic threads,i don't mind it if it's modern or not, but I don't like bottomji or switch wangxian

You might enjoy our Twitter comp

~*~

5. Hello! Thanks for your work. Are there any Wangxian fics set at the Olympics? @chalionkat (previous ask moved to FF - mod C)

Our Sports AU Compilation has a Olympics au section you can check out 😊

and so my heart beats wildly by lily_winterwood (E, 106k, WangXian, JYL/JZX, Modern Cultivation, Rivalry, Competition, Competition-Set Fic, Athletes, Multimedia, Miscommunication, frenemies to lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Seemingly One-sided But Actually Mutual Pining, Oblivious WWX, Competitive Cultivation, Anal Sex, First Time, Angst with a Happy Ending, Olympics, Inappropriate use of an Olympic gold medal, Breathplay, Rough Sex, Food Porn, Tanabata, Lily’s back on her Qixi bullshit, Switching, Bottom LWJ) this has cultivation Olympics

🔒 Dance Me to the End by venagrey (E, 35k, WangXian, Modern, Skating, 2021-2022 Figure Skating Season, No Pandemic, teammates to friends to lovers, Eventual Smut, mixed signals: on ice, Oblivious WWX, Bisexual WWX, mortifying ordeal of being known, slightly nonlinear timeline, Unreliable Narrator, gratuitous descriptions of skating, first time nudes, Accidental Phone Sex, WWX is Very Flexible, YOI homage, not actually a crossover, IRL skating homage, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a little gnc for added zest, inappropriate use of medals, Rimming, Winter Olympics)

~*~

6. Hi! This is for ITMF where WWX is a king maker/advisor/spy master or something like Foot on the brakes, screaming there's a red light by Lookingkindofdumb or Copying Scriptures by chiyukimei

Thank you! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

🔒 Half Agony, Half Hope by queenklu (T, 105k, WangXian, LXC/JGY, JC/WQ, JYL/JZX, LXC/NMJ, Jane Austen Fusion, persuasion au, Pining, Broken Engagement, Secrets, Espionage, Child Injury, Terrible Parents (YZY & JFM), Past Child Neglect) maybe? Wei Ying was a spy during the war.

~*~

7. Hello!!. i need need need to know if theres any more fics like A Street Kid Named Wuxian where wwx isnt adopted by any sect and just grows up on the strrets/ poor or an orphan @yesibest

A Thousand Things by tickertape (M, 108k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX Isn’t Adopted by the Jiāngs, Developing Friendships, lots of OCs, miscommunication and misunderstandings (they’re idiots your honor), Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans, Slow Burn) fits but Wei Ying lived in Yiling until he's around 17 and then gets invited to train with the Lans for a year. It doesn't go into a lot detail about his life on the streets but he is poor throughout his childhood and into his teens.

Ad Oblivione by Baph, HikariNoHimeWriter (M, 70k, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Multiple, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Golden Core Reveal, Cultivation World Critical, Not JC Friendly, Abusive YZY, Angst with a Happy Ending) link in #14 Not sure if this fits as while WWX does grow up on the streets without being adopted into a sect, it's down to time travel, with his soul being sent back to his child body, so he has knowledge of the future & cultivation, so he gets to cheat a little & be more than a normal street kid

~*~

8. Hello, I was wondering if you and the lovely community could help me find selkie-style creature fics? In myth, a selkie is a seal creature who can shed its fur and walk on land as a human. Whoever holds the fur has control over the selkie because they cannot transform back without it. So I am looking for similar themes in WangXian fics! I just read Burn It All Down by nekojita which suggested this would happen with Jiang Cheng holding one of Wei Wuxian’s dragon scales, but the wip hasn’t been updated to finish that portion of the story! So I come to you, looking for more “I control you as long as I hold this part of you captive” stories. Thank you for any recs you can suggest! <3

never love an anchor by tardigradeschool (T, 31k, WangXian, Selkies, No Powers, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Pining, Angst, Happy Ending, The Inherent Eroticism of the Sea, PTSD, Presumed Dead, Drowning)

💙 this river runs to you by sundiscus (T, 53k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Mutual Pining, Dragons, Literal Sleeping Together, Tender wound tending) this might work? It has Dragon!LWJ whose dragon is missing. While no one actually uses it to control him in the story, the possibility that someone could is a major driver of the plot.

Lanterns To Guide You Home by cuttlefeeeeeeeeesh (T, 7k, WangXian, Mutual Pining, Mythology, Selkie AU, Fisherman LWJ, Selkie WWX, Sorta Established Relationship, Fluff, Soft (tm)) might like Lanterns to Guide You Home? It's a bit of a twist on the selkie trope, being less about captivity and more about wangxian reuniting/mutually pining years after being married, but I think it would still appeal to a reader who likes selkie stories. And it's a lovely fic!

~*~

9. Hi! For the ITMF, I was wondering if there are any fics where WWX knows a bit more about MXY when he wakes up in his body? By viewing MXYs memories maybe, or something like that? Just, I want him to be able to act like MXY better and understand his situation better. Is there anything like that? Thanks in advance! @hikato-chan

~*~

10. Hi! This is for ITMF. Is there a fic where WWX tells JYL (or someone else really) that he trust LWJ but not his clan/sect? Thank you! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

~*~

11. ITMF a fic that takes place during the Cloud Recesses study arc, in the scene where WWX gets LWJ drunk. Something goes different: a kiss? A love confession? A fist fight? @luliaka

Cartwheels In Cloud Recesses Series by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 23k, WangXian, CSSR/WCZ, CSSR and WCZ Live, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans)

You Are My Euphoria by orphan_account (M, 17k, wangxian, canon divergence, fluff, making out, 5+1, pining)

it’s just (aah) a little crush (crush!) by sweetlolixo (T, 9k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Romance, Fluff, Pining LWJ, Humor, Courting Rituals, Teen Wangxian)

~*~

12. itmf some concubine wwx, following canon as mich as possible? something along the lines of the concubine mo series by enigmatree

~*~

13. Itmf:

A) some wwx realizing that he's been abused as a child (for example: Madame Yu) and having to accept that actually the adults in his life kind of suck (no Jiang Yanli bashing pls ♡)

B) wwx being raped and his recovery

Thank you 💕

13A)

🔒💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

🔒 in the shadow of moonlit flowers by Reverie (cl410) (T, 56k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, Cloud Recesses, LWJ & NHS Friendship, Developing Relationship, POV LWJ, Minor Injuries, Autistic LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, aka the Madam Yu warning, Genius WWX, Light Angst And Hurt/Comfort, WWX Protection Squad, Gusu Lan Sect, Slow Burn, Protective LWJ, LWJ-centric)

🔒 Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort)

so i cut the shackles and changed my name by MichelleFeather (T, 9k, WangXian, LQR & LWJ, LQR & CSSR, LQR & WWX, CSSR/WCZ, WWX & The Lan Clan, WIP, WWX Leaves the Yunmeng Jiang Sect, WWX is a Lan, Good Uncle LQR, Supportive LQR, Protective LQR, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, JFM & YZY Bashing, Jiang Family Bashing, Abusive Jiang Family, Running Away, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Hurt WWX, Genius WWX, No Sunshot Campaign, Gusu Lan Sect Rules, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Cultivation Sect Politics, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Divergence, Protective Gusu Lan Sect, WRH isn't a power hungry tyrant, mostly)

Just go forward like you mean it by tawaen (M, 101k, WangXian, WWX & WN &WQ, WWX & JYL, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, WWx does not attend the Wen indoctrination, WWX saves Lotus Pier, Inventor WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Sect Leader JYL, JC Has No Golden Core, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Not JC Friendly, but he gets a happier ending than canon so don't look here for bashing) WWX gets frustrated with how unconcerned JFM is regarding the Wens & ends up leaving. Features sect leader JYL

Dispersing Clouds by dreamingofcake (E, 283k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Abusive YZY, Canonical Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Eventual Sex, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm (Background Character), Background Character Deaths, child deaths, Canon JC, Good Uncle LQR, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Cultivation Sect Politics, Homophobia, Heteronormativity, Feelings Realization, WWX is Not Oblivious) WWX realises he's been poorly treated by the Jiangs & defects. However it could be seen as JYL bashing depending on how you define bashing. She does ignore her family's treatment of WWX & later tries to stop his wedding to LWJ, but she's portrayed as meaning well & just wanting to avoid conflict, & believing she is saving him from a forced marriage. Up to you whether that counts as bashing

13B)

🧡 Heaven Has No Rage by flipfloppandas (M, 51k, WWX & YZY, JFM/YZY, implied wangxian, WWX/WC, WWX/others, rape/non-con, modern, hurt/comfort, protective YZY, good parent YZY, hospitals, medical procedures, vomiting, trauma) focuses more on the immediate aftermath Wei Ying being raped but does touch on the beginnings of his recovery.

feast and famine by luckymarrow (E, 49k, wangxian, rape/non-con, aftermath of gang rape, modern au, trauma, PTSD, medical procedures, rape recovery, non-consensual drug use, hurt/comfort, angst w/ happy ending, mind all the tags) Rape/recovery and the ripples across the friend group. JYL is the glue that holds everyone together. It's a gut-wrenching, amazeballs fic.

~*~

14. Hii, I'm itmf some good coming of age fanfics!

🔒 Flowers Blooming by Ilona22 (M, 35k, WangXian, Adoption, Prostitution, Family Fluff, Family Drama, Growing Up)

A Life Without Regrets by naqaashi (M, 128k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Crack Treated Seriously, musical cultivation, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Murder Husbands, Happy Ending, PTSD, BAMF WWX, Cultivation Sect Politics, Worldbuilding, Módào Zǔshī & The Untamed Combination, No Yīn Iron, Genius WWX, Inventor WWX, Artist WWX, Musician WWX, Bad Parent JFM, Bad Parent YZY, Cultivation Theory, Sentient Burial Mounds, Dysfunctional Family, Grief/Mourning, Parent-Child Relationship, Angry WWX, Angst, No Golden Core Transfer, BAMF LWJ, Idiots in Love)

🔒 Life is Like a Stranger by through_shadows_falling (T, 69k, wangxian, Kid Fic, Child LWJ, Child WWX, First Meetings, Canon Divergence, Cute Kids, Orphan WWX, Autism Spectrum, Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Canon, POV LWJ, Growing Up Together, WWX raised at Cloud Recesses, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Puberty, Growing Up, Coming Out, teenage angst, Wet Dream, Pining, This fic gets a little raunchier as the kids become teens, But it won’t get too explicit, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Spanish Translation, Brief mentions/moments of WWX kissing others in chapter 22 but only on the cheek, also characters kiss WWX on the cheek in chapter 23, but his real first kiss is with LWJ, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian)

~*~

15. Hey!!

So i was wondering if there are any fics where wangxian have a cute little couple’s argument..they make up in the end obv, i don’t really prefer heavy angst. Just a normal couple’s argument. @honestlyewww

tipping point by cherrywhiskey (M, 13k, WangXian, Established Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple, Married Life, Bickering, Idiots in Love, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Fights, Arguing, Making Up, Angry Kissing, Making Out, Modern AU, POV Alternating, Fighting)

you became my husband when i first laid my eyes on you by bunnylan (weiyingpretty) (G, 2k, WangXian, Modern AU, Modern Era, Fluff, Boyfriends, Cute, Tik Tok Challenge, Husbands, Established Relationship)

~*~

16. IMTF wangxian or any one of the two as (a) lawyers (b) teachers trying to hide their relationship from students (c) scientists (biologist, physicist, etc.) any kind

Thank you <3

16A)

🔒 a thousand fragile and unprovable things by theLoyalRoyalGuard (G, 5k, WangXian, Modern AU, Trans Male Character, Trans MXY, MXY Deserves Happiness, Best Dads Wangxian, Handwaving The Legal System With The Power of LWJ, A little bit of angst, mostly soft, Happy Ending, Gender Happiness, Let LWJ Wear Skirts Agenda, Additional Warnings In Author’s Note) Lan Wangji is a lawyer

Close to the Truth by Winglesss (M, 14k, WangXian, Modern AU, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, Romantic Comedy, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Tooth-Rotting Fluff) Lan Wangji is a lawyer

Scapegoat by Anonymous (E, 216k, WIP, WangXian, Modern AU, Trials, Lawyer LWJ, Defendant WWX, Courtroom Drama, False Accusations, Criminal Investigation, Threats of Violence, Hurt WWX, Protective LWJ, Childhood Trauma, Murder Mystery, Pining, Soft WangXian, Slow Burn, Domestic Bliss, Happy Ending, Found Family, Bad Parent YZY, neutral jc, Good Sibling JYL, neutral lxc, Bad Uncle LQR, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, POV Alternating, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, Pining while fucking, Belly Bulge, Gentle Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Neck Kissing, Eventual Smut, porn in chapter 15, Praise Kink, Homophobia, chapter specific TWs will be in top notes, Power Play, Power Imbalance, Wet Dream)

16C)

🔒 at first sight of the sun by sunflowersfield (T, 3k, WangXian, Modern, Coworkers, Fluff, Neurodiversity, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Happy Ending, First Dates, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort) Lan Wangji is a researcher at a forest preserve in at first sight of the sun

A Cyborg’s Three Laws by @joshua-beeking, FairyGardenCorgis (M, 194k, WangXian, Future, Cyborgs, Science Fiction, Science Boyfriends, Romance, Slow Burn, Medical Procedures, Surgery, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, LWJ has RA, Idiot Friends to Idiot Lovers, Medical Assault, Dehumanization, obscene amounts of cuddling, Versatile wangxian)

~*~

17. Hi! I meant to ask this, but I think I haven't yet (it would already be posted otherwise). For the ITMF, are there any fics where WWX, post canon, gets transported timewise into the 13/16 years he was dead? Preferably only for a bit until he figures out how to get back, and while hiding his identity. Thanks for the help! @hikato-chan

Less Than Two Years by wenqing (maniafic) (T, 5k, WangXian, Time Travel, Post-Canon, but also canon divergent, in an alternate universe though, Minor Angst, mostly wwx confusing the kids)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder #long post

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sapphicscholar · 7 months ago

Text

CW discussion of racism, kink, transphobia, and sexual violence in fan works

Look, I wish this wasn’t something I had to say in 2024 in a space (fandom) that touts itself as queer and feminist and progressive but:

1) Kink is not a cover for forsaking sexual ethics. Just because a character is into something doesn’t mean that consent falls away as a concern or that their desires and pleasures outweigh their partner(s)’ needs and wants. Fic can be a space to explore desires that you’ve never actually lived—yes!—but that means it’s also a space for listening and learning from those who may chime in to say “this kind of behavior isn’t okay.” It’s okay not to know in advance, but redress needs to involve proper tagging and/or changing tracks with the way you write these kinds of dynamics

2) If you show a character saying “no,” “stop,” and “I don’t want this” on the page, particularly without any discussions (shown or implied) beforehand that would turn this sexual encounter into a carefully negotiated sexual scene with its own safe words or escape plan, the sex that follows is not consensual. That is rape. Even if you believe your characters love and desire each other, one person’s willfully ignoring another’s demand that they stop is rape. Full stop. And choosing to passive aggressively respond to a comment requesting proper tagging by noting that the chapter contains “very trace elements of dub-con” is actually far more disconcerting and harmful than not tagging it at all. I am decidedly not saying these works can’t exist, but proper tagging and acknowledgment of what is on the page (even when it’s your OTP) is necessary.

3) While reiterating that I am not opposed to the existence of works that don’t mesh with my personal politics or sexual interests, I want fans to sit with the question of why it is almost always women of color (and often woc who are conventionally feminine in canon) who are made in fic to occupy particularly violent and misogynistic butch/masc identities, transmasculinity, and/or gender fuck/play and who are written as enacting forms of sexual violence or other forms of harm on their white cis femme partners. Ask yourself why these characters are so often cast in these roles even when they are so far from anything like it in canon. (And tbc these are critical self reflections that should include but also extend well beyond baseline facts like the fact that trans and gender nonconforming people, esp trans and gnc folks of color, are far more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of intimate partner violence.)

A wide variety of stories can and should exist in and outside of fan spaces. I’m not saying they shouldn’t! But nothing exists outside of its social contexts, and failing to be attentive to these larger questions is actively harmful to so many people for whom spaces of imaginative creativity should be a liberating and welcoming venue.

#fandom #I will not hesitate to lock the post and block people if it comes to it #yes this was sparked by a particular fic but it’s not at all unique to that example so I will not be tagging it or anything like that #these questions far exceed any one fandom and any one fan work

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shiftertech · 3 months ago

Text

CW: suicidal themes, institutional transphobia implied

I don't belong in this cradle.

It's the honest truth of the matter. I don't deserve to be here.

Another battlefield lays itself before my projected vision, smoldering browns and grays behind the colorful sensor overlays. In these hellish craters, I likely do belong, but not in this cockpit.

There's a sickly feeling that comes with it. Like a pair of ragged, poorly fitting clothes, carrying a detestable stench.

Its torn threads? Inch-deep gashes and mended holes in metal plating that were not acquired under my operation.

And the stench? It's her stench.

I know everything about her. It told me. It was never not gonna tell me.

Imogen died in this very same cockpit, fear flooding her veins while an armor piercing round entered through the sidewall.

It showed me this, the angle of the projectile, the internal feed playback, the sound of it, the measurements of her biometrics, the flatline and system-wide scream it deafeningly howled out as its other half ceased.

It was the first thing it ever showed me when I did my first link test. It was bitter. Wrathful.

I didn't even fucking know they could feel like that the first time I hopped in. They pulled me out of the cockpit in a sorry state, shaking and sobbing, but still figured my synchronicity scored highly enough to put me back in the thing. They can't afford to scrap a working mech anymore for "limited pilot incompatibility".

Why the fuck did Legacy stick me in the mech that was mourning?

I was mad. Real mad at the brass for denying my reassignment req's. Most of all, I was mad at her mech.

One day it responded to my anger on the trek back to exfil. It flooded my mind with just her. Her joy, determination, cockiness, care... It overlaid stored visual/audio buffers into my own vision—replayed the very sensations attached to those logs—and I was her. It flooded me with her love as if it was my own, with a closeness I never was afforded to have with such a war machine.

I felt deep envy tinging my anger.

Pilots sit in these big metal boxes because of the strategically utilized notion of it being theirs. The rumored wonders of a paired digital consciousness are allowed to spread because it pulls hopeless girls with big dreams like Imogen into the cockpit.

That's what they need in a loyal pilot. I wanted a goddamn mech to call my own, not some dead girls broken leftovers.

But then I, as Imogen, died in that seat to my mech screaming out for me.

And then there was no anger. Just emptiness.

What an awful lesson, to be taught what it feels like to lose half of yourself.

There's another sortie on another reneging territory rejecting Legacy's grand mission, fighting against mechs that used to bare the insignia of the Earth and her Moon. Again I find myself walking back a line, cover laid for my comrades while rebel hotshots push the advantage with righteous vigor.

When it isn't streaming bits of her at me over the datalines, memories lovely and tragic, it's cold. Completely silent. Somehow that's worse.

On the losing end of a war in a coffin.

Sometimes I just can't stand it, and find a boldness within me when I ask it to tell me the story of how Imogen chose her name again. That's its favorite.

(I don't call it by its chosen name because it won't tell me. I have a feeling it never will.)

I wonder often why it even lets me command it into battle after battle. I'm not who it truly wants, and its suffering because of it. I figure if it can puppet my senses just as well as I puppet its limbs, it could likely figure a way to brick itself for good.

It twitches over the link when the thought bleeds through from my end, and it goes silent once again.

Guilt writhes around my gut as I fight for a future I barely believe in anymore. I know why it wouldn't.

When I filled the forms in the service registration office, on a harbor moon in a system two jumps from Hila, I had made a decision. Bloodshed remained stark on my mind as the upheaval of Legacy control on one of its most pivotal worlds forced me away from the only place I called home.

I recall the resistance ships dropping low beneath the skyline with improvised munitions, launching off their rails at military strongholds. I recall the mandatory evacuations as uniformed Legacy troops kicked down doors and ordered us onto the evac shuttles.

I recall the very military administration building that my sister was stationed at erupting all at once as the strategic calculations for maximal military damage factored in the Department of Citizen Records field office on floor 63 as a viable target.

I checked the "F" on the form with the pride that my sister was the very reason I was allowed this privilege. I checked the box with the shame that this was considered a privilege. I checked the box with the naive ideal that once we won this war, it wouldn't be resigned to just a privilege.

(A flicker of emotion echoes across the dataline, as it picks up this memory I've never shown it before. It feels like a gentle embrace.)

Losing my sister was losing one of the few people who actually saw me. She didn't miss a beat when I told her my real name. She held me close, and I felt the most profound joy in knowing love in sisterhood.

I chose to survive because it's what she would have wanted, for me to blossom into the woman she knew me to be.

Imogen is not my sister, but she could have been.

The mech chooses to live because it's what Imogen would have wanted.

We're both stuck in this war together.

I don't know how this ends well for either of us. Defection has crossed the mind, but no certainty comes from the prospect. I could end up in a cell for the rest of my life and it could get scrapped when they realize their newly captured mech is brimming with trauma.

(The notion of it getting scrapped draws a surprisingly intense emotion out of me. I can't pin it to just one comparable feeling of a loved ones grave being bulldozed or a close friend being murdered. Maybe it's both.)

It doesn't hold feelings on what comes after, I've realized.

It does its job, comes home, and is prepared for the next sortie. This is what it was made for, despite whatever side it's on.

That's what it means to survive for a mech.

I stopped hating it long ago. I don't think it hates me.

I think we need each other.

Even if I don't belong in this cradle.

----------

This one is kind of a departure for me to write, but I hope it resonates in the right way. Thanks for sticking through it <3

#writing #mecha #transgender

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johannestevans · 2 months ago

Text

A Clean Pig

Erotic short. DI Phil Hutchinson tries to get in close with the son of a criminal.

Detective Inspector Phil Hutchinson, following up a last-ditch lead on an anonymous and impossible-to-locate narcotics distributor, attempts to get close enough to surveil her son, a young man called Adrian Gillespie, who uses a wheelchair. He gets closer than he intended, and is rewarded — and punished — as per.

13.6k, rated E, cis M/trans M. Written for a commission. Both parties are adults (49 & 27) and fully consenting throughout. Contains degradation and humiliation, age gap, dom/sub dynamics with the younger trans man dominating, mild cock & ball torture, sadomasochism, dirty talk, obedience & discipline, self-bukkake, mild drunkenness.

CWs for mild homophobia and transphobia, mild ableism, referenced drug use, self-esteem & identity issues. Adrian is an ambulatory wheelchair user and also uses a cane and other mobility & assistive devices — note references throughout to his own disability, bodily scarring, and chronic pain, from Phil’s limited POV only.

Set in London in the 2020s. Set in my Magic Beholden universe, readable completely standalone. Phil Hutchinson is non-magical, but it is implied in several places that Adrian and his family are magical themselves.

Also on Medium / / Also on Patreon / / Also on Ao3.

“The two of us have some time to kill, it seems, whilst my housekeeper gets her pacemaker double-checked. How would you like us to spend that time together, Detective Inspector Hutchinson?”

Phil swallows, his mouth feeling dry, and he stares into Gillespie’s eyes, feeling rooted to the spot, feeling paralysed in some way.

“I’m not gay,” is what he says, which is fucking embarrassing, because he could have said fucking anything, or at least thought about what he was going to say.

“That’s alright,” Gillespie says softly. “Nor am I.”

He leans forward again and Phil automatically closes his eyes, realises he’s bracing himself for what Gillespie is going to taste like, for the taste of whatever allergen-free lip gloss he wears, for whatever he’s been drinking, bubble tea or coffee or whatever else—

---

It’s not that Phil has an issue with queers – he doesn’t.

There’s queers on the force these days, not so much of the lisping, mincing sort he remembers on TV growing up, except maybe behind the desks in the office typing up notes and keeping track of memos and appointments in between looking at drag videos on their phones, but real men who happen to take it up the arse, or give it – not counting the lesbians, who have been halfway openly in the force since they let women join up.

He doesn’t see the point in all this LGBTQRSTUVW shit, doesn’t see what the fuck “inclusion” has to do with anything – it’s all very well hiring a copper who takes it up the bum or wears a dress on his nights off, but it seems the next step is hiring ones with one leg or are blind or whatever fucking else, and he does think a line has to be drawn somewhere – but he doesn’t actually have a problem with queers. He’s put his cock in the mouth of pretty boys happily enough, as much as he has a pretty girl. He wouldn’t consider himself bisexual – he doesn’t really put up with this guff about identity, in general – but he can appreciate a good-looking man.

No, he wouldn’t want to sit next to a very obvious out gay on the bus, if he ever took the bus, and he doesn’t like touching the ones he’s cuffing, but it’s not because they’re queer, he doesn’t especially like cuffing any man – or woman, for that manner. Criminals are criminals: they’re generally filthy, or sick, or ODed, or something fucking like it. No matter how big a woman’s tits are or how pretty she might usually be, she’s usually less so in the course of an arrest, covered in spit or shit or vomit, sweating her clothes off, shaking, sobbing; the same might be said of a particularly handsome man. Even the finest arse in the world is less appealing when it stinks of piss and cannabis smoke.

He's been through a few of that sort, of recent – they shut down a brothel operating on the westside, all London girls done up with cheap make-up like they were putting it on with fucking cement trowels, what tits they had pushed to the ceiling out of their blouses, in ripped tights and short skirts. Cheap girls – properly cheap girls, stupid and cheap as chips, riddled with any and all diseases, most of them bruised like apples from one man or another, one pimp or another.

Brothels, Phil doesn’t like, and whores he likes even less – it’s difficult to feel sympathy for the stupid bints when they just make the same stupid fucking decisions that bring them back to the same fucking place again and again. There’s always a tragic hooker on TV – these girls are too thick to really be worth extending sympathy toward, although there was at least one enterprising member of the bunch.

Cheryl has zipped off now with her cash in the bag, but apparently she was not selling what the other girls was selling, or at the very least, was offering a host of other goods in conjunction with the old reliable, and it’s because of her Phil has a headache from six overlapping clouds of cheap perfume interviewing these idiots about who she was, what she looked like, where she was from.

Cheap whores in a house, unfortunately, are much like cats locked up together – no matter all the videos you see of them acting sweet together online, when the cameras are off they’re clawing each other’s eyes out and swiping off each other’s plates. Most of today he’s learned very little about Cheryl, and far too much about how Tamzin stole Chelsea’s boyfriend and her car and her fucking Nintendo DSi, whatever the fuck that is.

“I hope you didn’t want to go home,” says Baz as Phil leans back in his seat, making the cheap plastic creak under his weight, and Phil gives him a foul look.

“Oh, fuck off,” he groans. “I’ve wasted enough of my fucking time today—”

“You’ll like this one,” Baz says, almost sing-song. “No perfume in sight – our boy’s allergic.”

“Allergic?”

“Adrian Gillespie,” says Baz, holding up one of the little sheets they write tips on, and Phil blinks at him, but holds out his hand for the sheet and scans it, holding it by the mark from the paperclip. Okay, allergic makes sense there – that boy is allergic to damn near fucking everything.

It’s just an extra detail from someone else the lads brought in earlier – part of the reason they were chasing up Cheryl Casey (or Canton, or Cheese, or Elias) is because some of the harder stuff she was peddling had come from a rather familiar batch of coke, and Cheryl would potentially be a lead to her boss, who they’d taken to calling Frances Pinard, after the winery that her operation seemed to do a lot of its imports through.

They didn’t know much about her, except that at one time – some twenty-something years ago – her name had been Catherine Priscilla Alnwick, and that at that back then she had given birth to Adrian Gillespie. They were fairly certain she was still in contact with him even though he’d been raised by his father, although beyond that, it was anybody’s fucking guess.

The lad went abroad regularly, but swapped around between planes and friends’ boats and the ferry and the train depending on what he felt like, and his flat had proved somewhat difficult to do any fucking reconnaissance on, owing to the fact that he was some sort of tech fanatic and had cyber security out the fucking wazoo, not to mention tinting and mood lighting on all his windows, and soundproofing, and whatever the fuck else.

They were fairly certain he wasn’t involved in his mother’s drug trade – for fuck’s sake, the little prick was in a wheelchair – but he was still a valuable connection, and according to a GP nurse Jez and Presley had been interviewing earlier because her boss was embezzling, he had a physio appointment tonight, eight o’clock. She’d mentioned it in the interview because Gillespie’s appointments were always at odd times in odd places, but had explained to the cops that she was reasonably certain that had nothing to do with her boss robbing money off of private patients. None of Gillespie’s cheques ever went anywhere funny and none of his accounts were on the locked server – he was just a bit paranoid on top of being eccentric, so they just set up the appointments wherever he pleased.

“Well, at least all that coke Jez snorts hasn’t completely burnt a hole in his brain,” says Phil as he slides his jacket on. “If he remembered Gillespie’s name.”

“I think it was Presley that remembered it,” Bav says. “Or at least, it was Presley that wrote it down – I don’t remember what his handwriting was like before the coke, but I certainly can’t fucking read Jez’ writing now.”

“I’ll nip over and see what’s what,” Phil says. “But if I don’t find anything good, I’m fucking going home, Sarge.”

“Go with God, mate,” Bav says with more of a wave than a salute, and Phil huffs out an amused sound under his breath as he shoves his keys and his wallet into his pockets.

See, Bav’s a queer, according to talk around the place, and Phil has nothing against him – nothing against, as it happens, Adrian Gillespie, who wears pastel blues and pinks and lavenders, and dyes his hair the same colours, and has fucking stickers on his wheelchair and wears a sunflower lanyard, and whatever the fuck else. He doesn’t know if Gillespie fucks, and if he fucks, if they’re hes, shes, theys, its, or something new they’ve not started putting in the hate crime slideshows yet, but if not a homo in action, he’s certainly a homo in spirit.

No, it’s not queers he has an issue with, or slags wanting to charge admission, or even drugs. Phil can laugh with queers and slags, so long as they’re recently washed and not too drunk, and fuck it, he likes drugs himself.

It’s fucking crime that he has a problem with – the people it hurts, the messes it causes, the messes he has to fucking clean up, and worse than that, fill out paperwork for afterwards.

Adrian Gillespie, pretty homo in a chair he may be, is at least not much of a mess in himself – the value in this young man is in his connections, and subtly trying to feel them out without setting off his paranoia or perhaps tipping off his mother has been a fucking challenge so far. He has a driver who takes him places, a man in his forties they’ve not been able to find a legal name for who goes by Laborious King, who comes from up north near Scarborough way, and an assistant called Hanzalah from fucking Bangladesh, who they’ve not been able to find much by way of background on either.

Laborious is in his forties, and Hanzalah is about the same, Phil would guess – they’ve only been able to find what must be his dad’s records, who entered the UK in 1972 and by now should be nearly fucking ninety, though they’ve seen no particular sign of him.

Frustratingly, both King and Hanzalah live in the same fancy house that Gillespie does – same as his gardener and housekeeper, a lesbian couple. It’d be a Hell of a time sink for someone who’s not actually suspected of any criminal activity themselves, trying to get somebody undercover into Gillespie’s household, but it’s not been an option from the beginning, because his four people have worked for him and his father since the place was built when Gillespie was a young lad, and they’ve not had any staff changeover since, except for Gillespie’s father’s assistant going with him when he moved back up north once Gillespie was old enough to look after himself.

Gillespie lives in a wheelchair-accessible manse in Chislehurst with a nice, fancy vegetable garden, and most of his friends come to visit him there rather than his going out to meet them. He goes out to pride events here and there or occasional drag shows and the like, but he doesn’t go to any regular events that would make him easy to track and surveil, although at least with his having a driver and a car, a tail doesn’t generally have to worry about losing him on the Tube.

Hanzalah and King go to the same mosque and go to a few regular events in the city, mostly Muslim charity things and occasional social nights; the Quayles go to a regular fresh grocer’s market and Andreca, the housekeeper, goes to an AA meeting most Tuesdays, but none of them ever discuss their work, let alone any specifics of who they work for and what he gets up to when he’s out of sight and out of earshot of any interested parties.

This address is for a fancy little dancing studio two streets removed from Piccadilly Circus, and when Phil drives past he doesn’t see Gillespie’s red V-Class on the street, but that’s no surprise, with parking in London the way it fucking is, King could have put the car fucking anywhere.

King and Hanzalah are visible in a coffee shop on the corner overlooking the studio, looking for all the world like two men having a regular old chat, a set of coffee cups between them, but they’re still looking into the streets, both of them, Hanzalah looking down one street and King keeping an eye on the other side.

The studio’s hours online are listed as closed from noon on Thursdays, but Phil gets into the building from the fire exit shared with the bookshop downstairs, and he’s quiet and careful about ascending the stairs up to the studio. It’s a big, fancy space, all wide fucking windows as if anyone would to enjoy the fucking view from here.

He steps down the corridor and goes past two empty studios with the lights off, including the biggest ballet one that overlooks the street – Gillespie and his physio are in one of the smaller classrooms, and Gillespie’s wheelchair is just outside of the room beside the door, him and his physio in the middle of the place under the bright lights.

Gillespie is taking a break, his surprisingly toned forearms braced on a central bar and his head forward – sweat glistens on his body, and his blond and lavender hair, pushed back from his face with a pink headband, looks slightly damp as well. He’s in black leggings and a soft cream jersey shirt that hugs tight to his chest, fuck, but he’s not as skinny as Phil expected. He’s been deceptively muscular under that tie-dye denim jacket and those ripped pink-dyed jeans.

It’s automatic, the glance down to his crotch – people do it even with dogs, he hears, glance at their dicks – and he’s surprised at how little of a bulge he sees, wonders if this kid fucking tucks for his dance classes.

As he watches, Gillespie stands up straight again, keeping his hands on the bar in front of him, and then he straightens his back and brings up one of his knees, extending it outward in a dancer’s kick before bringing it down again.

He’s surprised. He’d thought he was fucking wheelchair-bound, that he was a paraplegic, didn’t realise he could actually stand and walk, let alone dance like this. Sure, his legs are unsteady in places, and now and then his physio puts out an arm for him to steady himself on the bigger dancer’s weight, but he has genuine, real strength here, or at least, he used to, and genuine skill.

Phil looks to Gillespie’s chair, which has a pastel blue gym bag resting open on the seat, a towel and jacket slung over the back handles, and he leans forward and slips his hand into the pocket, feeling for Gillespie’s phone and pointedly not picking it out. What with this kid’s sense of security, he knows it’ll probably be primed to take a picture of anyone who tries to unlock it that isn’t Gillespie himself, so he reaches for Gillespie’s wallet instead – or, more accurately, his fucking purse, which is the same lavender as his hair, and he takes a quick few pictures of each card inside. His debit cards, his fucking Clubcard, a few cards for different coffee shops, a gay bookshop in Soho, a few sex clubs—

“You ever miss bacon, Laborious?” asks a voice behind him, and Phil whips around, straightening up to stare at both men. Neither King nor Hanzalah are particularly tall, both a little shorter than Phil himself, but they’re both decently beefy, and they fill the corridor, standing shoulder to shoulder like they are.

“You know, Hanz, I don’t,” says King. “Even the stink of pork, I’ve come to really dislike. Makes me sick.”

“Me too, actually,” says Hanzalah. “Let’s air this corridor out, why don’t we?”

Phil stiffens, tossing Gillespie’s wallet aside and stiffening, standing up straight.

The door opens sharply, and the physio, tall, aggressively handsome cunt that he is, looks furious, but Gillespie lays a hand on his muscular chest before he can say a thing.

“This is a private session, sir,” he says softly, his accent faintly Scottish, most of the Edinburgh poshness worn down by all the years he’s spent in London. “And this studio is technically supposed to be closed.”

“Sorry for not knocking to let you know I was here, Mr Gillespie,” Phil says. “I’m Detective Inspector Phil Hutchinson, I just wanted a word with you. Wanted to let you finish your physio session before I interrupted.”

“How’d you get in?” demands the physio. “What, you get in the backway?”

“Don’t be so judgemental, Charlie,” says Gillespie, not breaking eye contact with Phil. He must be wearing contacts – Phil never realised before, his but eyes are the same fucking lavender his hair is dyed, a wholly unnatural colour, but very pretty. “Who amongst us doesn’t enjoy going in through the back, from time to time?”

“You want us to take him out, Adrian?” Hanzalah asks, and Gillespie looks Phil up and down.

“Look,” Phil says, but Gillespie talks over him.

“Please, Hanz, if you would. Wrap him up to go for me, would you?”

Wrap him up?

The fuck does—

There’s a sudden explosion of rainbows before his eyes, brighter in colour than the pastel colours Gillespie’s denim jacket is tie-dyed, and then there’s a wave of blackness over it, and he’s slipping, or falling, or—

Something.

* * *

When Phil wakes up, it’s in a dangerously plush, comfortable armchair. His arms have been harnessed behind his back with surprisingly comfortable rope, and most of his clothes have been stripped off him – he’s only in his boxers and vest, and when he looks to the side he sees that his trousers and shirt are folded neatly on top of one another, his boots beneath the chair they’re folded on, his coat hung over the back of it.

Adrian Gillespie is sitting back in one of those fucking roller chairs that videogame people use, although it doesn’t have the stink of weed and bollocksweat and spilt cider Phil is used to them coming with – this one is cream and pink with a cat’s face and ears detailed into the top part of the seat, and Gillespie is sitting back in it with one leg crossed over the other, buffing his nails.

“What exactly is wrong with you?” Phil asks, his voice slightly hoarse, and Gillespie’s perfectly threaded blond eyebrows raise in concern.

“Oh, Detective Inspector, you sound positively parched,” he says, and uncrossing his legs he rolls his chair across the room, picking up a metal cup with a straw and rolling it over to him. He doesn’t wear any kind of perfume, but he must have showered in the time Phil’s been out of it, because he doesn’t smell of sweat – only smells faintly of vanilla and something floral, whatever his shampoo must be scented with.

Phil doesn’t see any reason not to, and his throat is fucking sore, so he wraps his lips around the straw (Jesus…) and takes a sip. The water is ice-cold but sparkling, and he grunts in distaste and surprise, but swallows, and doesn’t cough.

“If you would clarify the question for me,” Gillespie says, almost sweetly, batting his eyelashes, which are a bit darker than the blond of his eyebrows, making them look longer than they otherwise would. He has a button nose and very pink lips that must be glossed, and he’s painted on fake freckles on each of his cheeks, three on each side in a perfect little triangle. He hasn’t shaved today – there’s a bit of dark blond peach fuzz under his neck and around his throat.

“I assumed you were a paraplegic,” says Phil.

“Oh, did you?” Gillespie asks, tilting his head. “Easy enough mistake. I have a heart condition, you do know that?”

“Yeah. It’s why you moved down to London in the first place, innit, to be closer to the hospital?”

“That’s right,” Gillespie says – Phil knows there’s no point lying about it, no point trying to fucking hide it, and in any case, the boy is smiling now like the intel that’s been gathered on him is somehow complimentary toward him, his head tilted slightly to the side as though he’s a princess in a movie receiving a very nice compliment. “I had to have several surgeries when I was younger, to repair some congenital issues, but I still have a syndrome that causes recurring tachycardia.”

Phil blinks. “PoTS?”

“No, actually, SVT, but my episodes are worsened by fatigue, and given that I have chronic insomnia, asthma, and a compromised immune system that makes me rather prone to one infection or another, I’m almost always fatigued.”

“And that’s why you have the chair? Keep you from falling if you have an episode?”

Gillespie’s elbow is rested on the arm of his chair, his chin on his palm, and he has one foot on the ground and the other curled beneath him now, spinning idly back and forth, back and forth. “No,” he murmurs. “Or, yes, but not only that. I’m prone to subluxations and dislocations, very prone, and I have to be very careful about how and where I move – at a certain point, Detective Inspector, it’s safer to just use the wheelchair than to try to go without.”

“Subluxation,” Phil repeats, trying to keep the conversation going even as he scans the room – the curtains are closed, but they’re not very thick, and the light they’re letting in is too yellow and too dim to be sunlight, must be from a streetlamp, or maybe one of the lamps on Gillespie’s garden property. Would he do that? Just have his lads chuck Phil in the trunk of the Mercedes-Benz and bring him all the way back home? “What is that, like, half a dislocation?”

This is an office, he thinks, or a library, or a lounge, whatever the fuck some young lad like Gillespie would call it – there are plush blue sofas along with the armchair Phil’s in, and pink hearts on the wallpaper and a furry rug on the ground that’s black and white like a cow, covering the dark wood flooring, and dominating a whole corner of the room is Gillespie’s absurd computer display with eight monitors and multiple towers, big fancy speakers and rainbow lights and little fucking figurines of anime girls (or boys? Who can tell?) and Pokémon and whatever else.

“Partial dislocation, yes,” Gillespie says. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, Detective Inspector?”

“Shoot,” says Phil, trying to keep his voice even, friendly, almost. He expects, “Why were you following me?” or “Why were you going through my wallet?” or “Don’t you know who my mother is?” or something like that.

Gillespie asks, “Would you mind if I slapped you?”

Phil stares at him, and wonders for a second if he’s misheard, because Gillespie’s big lavender eyes look innocent as anything, his lips pressed primly together, his seat still swinging gently from one side to the other.

“Slapped me?” Phil repeats.

“You look like you’d enjoy it so terribly much,” Gillespie says, and then drops his voice, drops his eyes at the same time so he’s looking up at Phil through his eyelashes, surprisingly coquettish for a man. “And I’d enjoy you enjoying it myself.”

“The fuck do you—”

The pain is sudden and sharp and burning, wet heat across his cheek as Phil’s head snaps to the side – for a fucking twink who picks his colours off the Lovehearts packaging and has a tattoo of Bagpuss on his ankle, he can really put some power behind a slap, and Phil is surprised by the guttural noise that comes out of his throat. Heat sinks down through his body, and it’s not the cold blood that comes with panic or the adrenaline rush that comes with the urgency of needing to get out of a situation like this – this, this is arousal.

Okay.

Fuck.

“Did you like that, Detective Inspector Hutchinson?” Gillespie asks softly.

“That why you brought me here? To slap me around?”

“No, no,” Gillespie says, abruptly stopping his swinging movements from side to side and looking at Phil straight on, his expression abruptly flat and serious. “I wanted to ask you about the Greenman Group.”

Phil stops breathing.

“Mm, yes,” Gillespie says sympathetically. “I thought it might be a touchy subject.”

“I don’t know what you—”

“Let’s not insult one another, Detective Inspector,” Gillespie says, beginning to swing from side to side again, leaning his cheek into his hand. He hasn’t got the headband he’d on in the dance studio now, and the shift in position causes a few top strands of dye-tipped hair to fall to the side, hanging over the side of his temple, the lavender hair in line with his lavender eyes. There’s something hypnotising about it, about how carefully cultivated his colour palette is, the pinks and lavenders and blues, the powder pastels. Like a sort of camouflage for… something. But what? “Let’s jump from the denial stage and get onto your justification.”

“I don’t need any justification,” Phil says immediately, trying to convince his lungs they don’t need to speed up like that, and hoping his heartbeat will get the fucking hint and all. “It’s just a private pension fund, it’s not illegal. Loads of people with public pensions pay into private pensions as well.”

“Mmm, that’s true,” says Gillespie. “It’s more about who else is paying into your private pension, isn’t it? I’m informed that a Mr Chapman, whose son was brought in on some rather nasty possession charges, paid in,” he makes a show of glancing down at his phone, then drops his jaw, “Goodness, twenty-three thousand pounds into this shared scheme? That’s rather a lot of money, Detective Inspector. Not exactly pocket change.”

“I don’t know anything about who invests in the scheme, I just—”

“You must know something about it, Detective Inspector – you dropped the charges against his son just after the transfer went through.”

“We didn’t have sufficient evidence to convict, happens all the time, it—”

“Detective Inspector,” Gillespie says, pouting out his pretty lips, and Phil stares back at him, feeling the prickle of sweat on the back of his neck, on his cheeks, on his neck.

“You’re not going to ask why I was in that studio, looking in on your physio appointment?”

“A man can have a crush, dear, even a police inspector. Who am I to judge?”

Phil huffs out an amused noise, though he’s sweating too much and it doesn’t come out as haughty as he’d like, and he thinks about the fact that if Gillespie were to slap him again it would be a little more damp with sweat this time, even though his stubble would provide enough friction to make the blow land loud in the room.

“I don’t need to ask why you were looking in on me in the studio,” Gillespie says mildly. “I’m a very private man, Detective Inspector, and I am informed I am not easy to spy on. You’ve some interest in my business, I presume as an extension of someone else’s business – my father’s? My mother’s?”

Phil doesn’t say anything, looking straight at him, and Gillespie shakes his head and clucks his tongue in a disapproving manner.

“I hardly fault you for wanting an edge in, Detective Inspector, but you won’t get that edge with me, and if I find you following me about again, I think you’ll find that Greenman business will be making some rather powerful headlines. The satisfaction you might get in chasing down your target on this case won’t make up for your coworkers’ disappointment – if not reprisal – for fucking them and you out of this rather deep retirement pot, and all the bribes that have gone therein. I might even out you as a nasty little addict on top, just as a little cherry on the pie. Capisci?”

He says it like an Italian would say it, with the -i sound on the end instead of with an -iche ending like the Yanks in movies, and Phil wonders if he speaks Italian, if there’s Italian in him, but unfortunately what he’s thinking about is the threat inherent in the words, and more than that, he’s thinking about the way Gillespie’s posh Scottish accent clips around the words nasty little addict, how filthy those words make him feel, and how they go straight to his fucking cock in the same way the slap had.

“Would you like me to slap you again, Detective Inspector Hutchinson?” asks Gillespie.

Phil doesn’t actually nod. His head shifts forward by maybe an inch or half an inch, and it’s just because he’s breathing in, not because he’s fucking saying yes, not because he’s asking for it.

Gillespie uses the other hand this time and slaps the other side, and Phil heaves in a sharp gasp of breath, fills his lungs and tastes the sweet heat as it burns across his cheek and across his face, the steaming warmth of it and more than that, the ever-so-slight numbness that follows the blow, the ringing in his ears. His cock aches as it strains to actually harden under his trousers, below and under the buckle of his belt, and Gillespie laughs softly, then pushes back on the floor and picks up a landline phone from his desk, beside his myriad of screens.

It’s an old-fashioned rotary telephone in robin’s egg blue, the intercom it’s connected to hidden artfully hidden in a compartment at the back of the desk – Phil can just see the red light flashing as he dials an internal line. Makes sense, from a security standpoint, using an internal line in the house instead of texting, no matter how good the encryption is… or maybe the kid’s fingers just get sore. He’s certainly got a bunch of different keyboards, a bunch of them hanging from the wall in the way a lot of people might hang a collection of guitars, and they have different shapes to them, only two or three of them the rectangular shape of the QWERTY keyboard Phil’s used to in the office, the rest in weird shapes or with balls or handholds or whatever else.

“Hi, Andreca, are Hanz and Laborious still in bed? No, that’s fine, let them get the sleep they need, they’ll be up for suhoor any minute now, or at least, Laborious will be. Hanz might well go without again and starve, you know how he is about his sleep. Just tell them our guest can be returned to the pigpen whenever they’re up and ready.” He swings idly from side to side, the wire of the phone curled around two of his fingers as he cradles the receiver against his elbow, his lips loosely pressed together. “Mmm hmm. She’s otherwise alright, though, no fever, no nausea? No, I think it’s better to be safe than sorry – do you want to wake them up? Please, Andy, I could handle him even if my arms were tied behind my back. Have them drive you over, drop off Ysbal and you as well, if you want to… Well, what do I need you for? I’m a grown man, don’t you know?” He huffs out a soft laugh, and looks over at Phil. “Once they’re back, they can put him back in the boot and cart him home.”

“I was in the boot?” Phil asks, and Gillespie pouts at him and releases a sharp, disapproving click of sound, waggling a finger at him to be quiet.

“Thank you, dear, just let me know once you’re off and have them let me know once they’re back.”

He drops the receiver back into the cradle, and he turns to Phil again, resting his hands between his knees.

Phil arches his eyebrows in expectation, feeling calmer right about now and looking calmer too, he’s pretty sure, leaning back in his seat. “Mrs Quayle’s chest is acting up again?”

“It really does wound you, doesn’t it?” Gillespie asks pleasantly as he rolls forward again. “You’ve done such a lot of careful research, and yet here you are, in the middle of my home, with no opportunity to dig your little snout about in the dirt, sniff about for evidence.”

“Never known a guy to hide so much about his fucking life without having a reason to hide,” Phil says, and Gillespie laughs faintly, tapping his thumb against his lower lip.

“That any creeping, cocaine-snorting piglet might wish to rifle through my records and my things is reason enough to prioritise my privacy, dear,” Gillespie retorts, and Phil feels his lip curl slightly, but doesn’t immediately make a reply. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, Detective Inspector?”

“Excuse me?”

“You have little to no oversight in your profession, Detective Inspector. In my line of work, every single thing I do is to be combed over, scrutinised, rewritten, recoded, re-encrypted, shared, and modified. Much of what I do ends up publicly accessible to some degree or other – and rightly so. The same can’t be said for your actions in the course of a day or night. If you suspected criminal activity within these walls, you might obtain a warrant – you do not, in fact, and you have not. What you crave to do is within the bounds of the law, I suppose, to creep about me and my staff and see who we talk to and what we talk about, but it’s hardly required by law that I should make my private life accessible to you.”

Phil breathes in as Gillespie’s chair rolls closer, and he smells the sweetness of his shampoo, stares into Gillespie’s eyes as he leans over Phil’s body in the armchair, rests his hands not on Phil’s knees or his thighs but on the arms of the chair. Phil tries to lean forward and grunts when he finds that the harness tying his arms together is somehow clipped to something behind the chair, keeping him pinned in place and stopping him from leaning forward to meet Gillespie’s forward motion.

“The two of us have some time to kill, it seems, whilst my housekeeper gets her pacemaker double-checked. How would you like us to spend that time together, Detective Inspector Hutchinson?”

Phil swallows, his mouth feeling dry, and he stares into Gillespie’s eyes, feeling rooted to the spot, feeling paralysed in some way.

“I’m not gay,” is what he says, which is fucking embarrassing, because he could have said fucking anything, or at least thought about what he was going to say.

“That’s alright,” Gillespie says softly. “Nor am I.”

It doesn’t come.

What he experiences instead is overwhelming blackness, the same as he did before he woke up here in Gillespie’s house, and he wakes up again in his own fucking bed, a glass of water on the night stand, his phone on charge beside him.

“Fuck’s sake,” he groans, and nearly smashes his beeping alarm clock into pieces.

* * *

Phil means to leave it be.

Honestly, Gillespie is just one fucking thread leading back to his mother, and even having been in the kid’s house, “met” his staff, seen his PC set-up… There hadn’t been a single picture of his mother or any other family member, and when he’d mentioned it to Phil, he’d asked like he didn’t know – like he didn’t even care – if it was his father or his mother Phil might be chasing up.

It's easy to say, “Chasing it up was a bust,” to Baz. “Watched him do stretches in this fucking ballet room, get back in his chair, then his guys drove him straight back home. No records on site, either, not for him, and his physio guy barely seemed to know anything about him.”

Baz shrugs his shoulders. “We knew it was a long shot,” he says mildly. “C’est la vie, Philly.”

And Gillespie goes back to being almost nothing, barely even a person of interest – someone people note down when his name crops up or when he wheels into one event or other, but that’s pretty much it. It’s not like he’s a criminal himself, not like he’s dangerous.

Not that they know, anyway.

Phil tries to put it from his mind, tries to commit himself to that. Liking to play with a lad’s cock from time to time, wet his prick in an asshole instead of a cunt, that’s one thing, but this lad, that’s… Something else. He’s something else.

Phil thinks about it, thinks about sitting back in that fucking chair and feeling the burning heat of Gillespie’s palm having smacked across the side of his face, thinks about how it had felt when he’d called Phil a nasty little addict, the burn under his skin, the prickling want in his veins and his twitching, aching cock. It’s best to put all of that shit out of his fucking mind, same as he pushes the unpleasant shit out, the dirt and the filth and the stench of the day.

He goes out for pints here and there, watches some shitty thrillers at home, goes out for Baz’s birthday and snorts a few lines in the bathroom in between throwing axes at light-up targets, laughs when his boyfriend does a lap dance for him but is too drunk off shots to stay upright. Phil carries Ricky to their Uber when Baz is struggling to stay upright himself, and laughs as he pours both of them in.

He's drunk, he’s high, he’s buzzing. His thumb shakes as he taps on his phone, and he ends up in his photo gallery instead of his Uber app, a few pages up – and he sees it, the picture of the inside of Gillespie’s wallet, the one he genuinely had forgotten about, not the same as his trying to forget Gillespie.

Phil reads through the cards – different sex clubs and shops, most of which he recognises. Two are members-only, ones he only knows of from higher-profile hookers getting brought in, but one is open to anybody who pays in on a Friday night, and hey, fuck it.

Tonight is Friday.

He gets the Uber there instead.

It’s twenty quid in – fucking bullshit – and Phil walks in with his hands in his pockets, looks with disinterest at the different booths of people selling shit – harnesses and leather panties and chainmail bras, dildos and buttplugs, earrings and necklaces that say shit like DADDY’S GIRL and SPANK ME HARDER and FUCK THE TORIES, which seems a little irrelevant unless they mean literally fucking them, but what the fuck does Phil know about it?

They’re doing a demonstration up on the stage, a guy up on stage bent over and groaning as wax drips over his bare-cheeked ass, down his thighs, the backs of his knees.

Phil is almost surprised they let him in, given how drunk he is, how unstable he is on his feet, but he tries to hide it as best he can as he moves through the crowds of kinksters and perverts buying their wares, moves past an array of spanking paddles and whips and crops and into the other room. They do this for birthdays and shit normally, but when they’re doing their kink nights they put out gym mats on the floor and put out some dividers.

Phil glances at the sign that reminds people not to film or get their phones out, that food and drink aren’t allowed in the drinks area, to be careful of one’s shoes on the mats.

“Detective Inspector Hutchinson,” says a voice to his right, and immediately Phil turns to look down at Gillespie, who is sitting back in his wheelchair, a fleece blanket decorated with old-fashioned Victorian sweets over his lap, a very fluffy pink jumper worn over the top of his white collared shirt. Phil is momentarily distracted by the jumper’s angora wool, thinking of how soft and silky it would feel under his fingers, and his mind quickly hops to the thought of Gillespie’s pinned back hair, which might be even softer, even silkier. His hands twitch at his sides. “Whatever are you doing here, you naughty, naughty boy?”

In another club, a real night club, not a fetish night, there’d be pounding music playing and drowning out some of his speech, or at least, the particulars of his tone, but that’s not the case here. The music is background noise, only just enough to overwhelm the drone of other people’s chatter, barring the occasional laughs or louder sounds like moans or cries of pain – Phil hears every single semitone of Gillespie’s words, reads them on his lips at the same time he hears them, hears how he draws out the vowel sounds in the last words, hears the emphasis he puts on the Ts and the B.

“You’re a cop?” asks one of the two women beside him – both of them are supernaturally tall, one with her hair worn in a long braid down her back and wearing an incredibly ugly fucking jumper that has some kind of anime nun knitted into the front of it; the one speaking is more muscular, wearing a tank top that shows off the tone of her shoulders and upper arms, a few chains worn around her neck. Her hair is thick and curly, bounces whenever she moves her head, and her fingers keep twitching with want toward the vape pen sticking out of her front jeans pocket.

“That a problem?” Phil asks, and the girls look at each other and laugh.

“Cringe,” says the girl in the nun jumper.

“Why are you even here?” asks the first one. “Couldn’t find enough victims to rape at work?”

“The fuck is that supposed to—”

“Now now, Detective Inspector,” says Gillespie sharply, and he extends one leg outward, pushing him with his thighs back from the girls when Phil’d barely even stepped forward. “Let’s behave, why don’t we?”

Phil has to focus to keep his feet, and he feels the alcohol swirling inside his skull as he stares down at Gillespie, breathing in through his nose.

“In fact,” Gillespie says slowly, keeping his eyes on Phil’s face, “I am feeling the chill a bit, I probably do want to get home. Sorry to love you and leave you, Star, Aspen.”

“No worries,” says the curly-haired girl. “You taking him with you?”

“Certainly, I am,” Gillespie says. “Detective Inspector, push my chair for me. We’re going out through the side way, down the ramp.”

“’Kay,” Phil mutters, because he’s embarrassed and his hackles are up, but there’s no way he can start a fucking fight with two big women in the middle of a space like this, people tying each other up, spanking each other. Even if it wasn’t in the papers, the lads at the office would take the ever-loving piss out of him – and besides, he’s not supposed to be here.

He hisses when he initially puts his hands on what he expects to be the handles of Gillespie’s chair and instead touches fucking spikes, and Gillespie pulls a lever on the side of the chair and makes the spikes retract, folding down so that Phil has space to put his hands on the handles. They’re not that sharp, haven’t even broken skin, but he still mutters, “Fucking boobytraps,” under his breath as he pushes Gillespie’s chair for him through the crowd, down the narrow corridor and out through the open fire door, where the security on duty says a cheerful, “Good to see you, Adrian, safe home!” and doesn’t acknowledge Phil at all.

King pulls up, and it’s only Hanzalah that gets out of the front seat, glowering at Phil as he pulls himself to his full height, which isn’t very tall at all.

“It’s alright, Hanz, I’m bringing him home.”

“Takeaway bacon stinks out the car,” Hanzalah mutters as he hands Gillespie a cane and opens the door, and Gillespie laughs quietly.

“Open the windows, then,” he advises, and supports himself with the cane to climb into the backseat, sliding across to the one on the far side, and Hanzalah passes him his bag and his blanket before folding up his chair to put into the generous boot space – no wonder they stuck Phil in there so easily, if that’s really what they did. “Come on, Detective Inspector, in you get.”

He shouldn’t, obviously.

He does.

The backseats are laid out like a posh taxi cab, two facing forward and two facing back, each with a small table between them, and Phil sees the extendable ramp on one side and the way that one of the seats has more wear on the underside – that’s the one that they slide out when they don’t fold the wheelchair down, when Gillespie just rolls in and puts on the brakes.

Phil sits across from Gillespie, facing the back, and he watches Hanzalah close the boot and then walk back around, sliding into the front seat beside King before – with what seems to Phil to be a lot of fucking emphasis – closing the glass frame that separates the two front seats from the back. Unlike in a taxi cab, this separator doesn’t have a little hatch to put money through or talk to the driver – as soon as it closes shut, Phil can’t hear anything from the front seats, even though he can see King laughing and smacking his hand against the steering wheel as Hanzalah snaps something at him and makes a dismissive wave of one hand.

“Seems like your bodyguard doesn’t approve,” says Phil, watching Gillespie spread his blanket out across his lap, and Gillespie smiles thinly at him.

“No,” he agrees. “But I believe I gave you very specific instructions, Detective Inspector. I don’t exactly approve of your disobedience either.”

Phil feels a bead of sweat run down the back of his neck even as the rest of him feels suddenly drenched in hot, steaming water. King has pulled out, and Phil closes his eyes at the wave of mild motion sickness that overtakes him, abruptly regretting sitting backwards in the car.

“Water, Detective Inspector,” Gillespie says sharply, and Phil opens his eyes as the bottle presses at his hands, so he opens it and takes a few swigs, swallowing hard and hearing the gulp in his ears.

“Your friends didn’t like cops,” he says.

“No one likes cops, dear,” Gillespie says. “I doubt even your own mother likes you.”

Phil releases a low, gruff laugh, because yeah, the lad has fucking got him there. “She didn’t like me even before I was police,” he mutters, and takes another swallow from the water, glancing at the label and then looking down to the cupholders, almost surprised Gillespie’s given him still water this time instead of sparkling. “What do you fucking think, I walk the streets all day bashing in civilian brains and kicking puppies? That what you kids think police do? This isn’t fucking Yankland, it’s not like I’m shooting bullets.”

“Sorry, Detective Inspector, I’m hardly a staunch abolitionist, but it’s not the guns that trouble us so much as the leverage of power against the powerless.”

“The fuck would you know about powerless, a kid like you with more money than God?”

“Philip, I’m in a wheelchair,” Gillespie says, sounding so genuinely wounded that for a second Phil stumbles over his own breaths, over his own fucking thoughts, partly because Gillespie’s outplayed him so well and so fucking deftly, and partly because Gillespie just called him Philip instead of Detective Inspector.

“You can fucking walk,” mutters Phil.

“Sometimes,” Gillespie allows, tilting his head slightly to one side and looking out of the window as they move slowly out of the city. “What sort of consequence were you hoping for, Detective Inspector, looking for me in public like that? Do you want to lose that little retirement fund?”

Phil doesn’t say anything right away, doesn’t know how to say out loud that he had been thinking as little as possible about the potential consequences, same as he’d been thinking as little as possible about Gillespie himself until he’d taken the plunge and let himself fucking go for it.

“Have you been into a club like that before, Detective Inspector?”

“Of course.”

“Ever partaken?”

“I seem like the type?” Phil asks, the question sort of fucking genuine, because of all the sex in his life, he’s never been slapped like Gillespie slapped him two weeks ago – he’s fucked women, mostly, fucked a few young men here and there, tends to prefer lads on the slimmer side, generally less muscular than Gillespie is, even as unreliable as that muscle may be.

“Oh, yes,” says Gillespie.

“Wha—”

“Ah ah,” Gillespie says. “No talking now – be quiet, drink your water. Sober up.”

Phil clenches his teeth together, but despite the fact that his head is spinning as the car drives on, he drinks the water, and he doesn’t talk. They sit in the quiet for the whole drive back to Gillespie’s, and Phil can almost feel the alcohol evaporating out of his veins the longer he sits in place.

* * *

When they get back to Gillespie’s, Hanzalah watches Phil like a fucking hawk as they get out in the garage, Phil obediently pushing Gillespie up the ramp and through the corridors as he’s directed, until they end up not in Gillespie’s colourfully lit office as they were before, but in a bedroom.

The bedroom is not decorated in pastels, but in deep and luscious reds – there’s red silk with gold brocade on the bed, a golden tone to the carpet, and the papered half of the walls are decorated in a gold brocade pattern that glitters, the lower half sided in dark wood board made to match the legs of the bed, the wooden ottoman at the foot of it, the wood of the wardrobe, drawers, cabinets, bookshelves. These bookshelves host a variety of books, a mix of what look like computer textbooks and leather-bound antique books of fiction, and there are no photographs in here, either. On one wall, over the desk – this is a small thing like you might expect in a Victorian schoolhouse, has a sloped top with storage underneath, and no computer – is a painted portrait, but it’s not Gillespie’s dad, and he doesn’t think it’s his mother either.

As Gillespie wheels in and parks his chair beside the bench at the foot of the bed, barely even standing before he sits again – and with a wince that Phil can see, his teeth clenching and his eyes narrowing for a second – Phil steps forward to look at it.

In an old-fashioned bed, one with four posts and red silk canopies, lies a man with dark blond hair and a golden crown on his head, various blankets of different colours and patterns layered over his body. He looks perfectly at peace, and kneeling beside the bed, clasping one of his relaxed hands in both of his own, kneels what Phil initially thinks is a woman in green robes, her long, black hair covering most of her back, her head bowed towards the sleeping man’s hand – it’s here that Phil sees the kneeling man’s beard and his angular features, the expression of quiet grief on his face.

Hanzalah moves through the room with quiet ease, flicking on the light over the bed and turning on the light in the bathroom before going about with other tasks – setting two fresh towels over what Phil guesses is a warming rail, turning on an electric blanket, removing a can of peach-flavoured pop from a mini-fridge and also a jug of water with lemon. He seems disdainful about pulling out two glasses to go with the latter.

“You want me to run you a bath?” he asks – he doesn’t so much as glance at Phil, directing the question wholly to Gillespie, who has removed his fluffy jumper and the shirt underneath, and is buttoning up a silky pyjama shirt over his muscular chest. Said chest, Phil realises, is a mess of fucking scars – horizontal ones under his pecs that form a cross with the central scar down the centre of his sternum, more across his belly. They’re all old scars, for the most part, but many of them are raised and thick in places, keloid scarring – Phil guesses that’s to do with one of his myriad health conditions.

“No, thank you, not tonight,” Gillespie says quietly. “Could someone make up the guest bedroom for DI Hutchinson, please? And something cold to eat – would crackers and cheese be alright?”

“Can do,” Hanzalah says. “Those grapes want eating as well, I’ll bring those in. You.” He whirls on Phil so fast Phil thinks Hanzalah is gonna fucking hit him, then demands, “Any allergies?”

“What?” Phil asks, and then says, “Uh, shellfish. That’s all.”

“Right,” says Hanzalah, then, “Take those fucking boots off.”

He disappears out into the corridor, and Phil sinks into the stool in front of Gillespie’s desk and unlaces his boots, which are fucking clean, thanks, regardless of the foul look Hanzalah had shot them.

When he looks up again, Gillespie has changed fully into a set of pink satin pyjamas with black edging, and Phil can’t help but stare at the way the fabric clings to his thighs and his arse even as he limps across the room, depending heavily on a cane, to pick up his can, and then sigh.

“Open this, please,” he says, holding it out to Phil, and Phil almost thinks he’s taking the piss as he takes the can to flick open the tab, but then he sees how bad Gillespie’s hand is shaking.

“You want me to pour it?”

“Oh, yes, that would be splendid.”

Phil’s hands aren’t the steadiest themselves, right about now, but he mostly doesn’t spill the pink soda as he pours it into a glass, only halfway full to make it harder to spill, and Gillespie hobbles back to his bench again and sits, taking a sip and exhaling in obvious relief.

“Pain bad today?” Phil asks.

“Very,” Gillespie murmurs, reaching up and pinching between his eyebrows, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Always so many smells in that place, the HEPA filters do help and there’s good ventilation, but even if I wear a mask, the different scents do my fucking head in.”

Hanzalah comes in at the same time as one of the Mrs Quayles, Ysbal, and set out a folding table across from Gillespie’s bench. Phil expects it to be all fancy, the way you might see it done on Downton, but they haven’t chopped the cheeses up all fancy or anything – the grapes are in a bowl, the different crackers are still in their wrappers, and the cheeses have dedicated knives in each of their labelled Tupperware containers.

As Ysbal puts the jug of water and their glasses on the cup, she gives Phil a circumspective look. “L, XL,” she muses aloud, and fuck, but her accent is strong, a lot stronger than Gillespie’s is. “What are you around the waist, a 36? 30 for the inseam?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Phil, and Ysbal Quayle disappears into the corridor as Hanzalah gets behind Phil and physically wrestles his coat off him before sweeping away with that, Phil’s shoes, and Gillespie’s, too.

Phil slides the stool across from the fold-out table, and Gillespie looks at him amusedly as he puts a slice of brie shakingly over a cracker.

“You’re not lactose intolerant?” Phil asks.

“I take a supplement to help me digest it,” Gillespie says. “Eat. You’ll feel the worse tomorrow if you don’t.”

Phil is initially surprised when he picks up the knife for the cheddar and feels how fucking heavy it is with a thick weighted handle, but then he sees Gillespie slicing through the brie and how much the weight helps even out the trembling of his hands. He wonders how many things in this house are made for that, things he’d notice and things he wouldn’t, things that he’s paid for just to even out the pain or the symptoms or whatever the fuck else.

After he’s eaten two crackers, one with a slice of brie and the other with a slice of spiced Caerphilly, Gillespie flicks open a pillbox and shakes out the handful of pills in Friday’s compartment, swallowing six or seven pills in between bites of his supper and sips either of water or his peach pop.

“How old are you, Detective Inspector?” Gillespie asks.

“Forty-nine,” says Phil, because it doesn’t occur to him not to answer.

What the fuck is he doing here?

The drink is starting to ease off, sobriety kicking in, and there’s a sinking feeling deep inside him as he considers what he’s done and where he is – that he’s here in Gillespie’s fucking house, no eyes on him, no one knowing where he is, that just because they have no evidence that Gillespie is a criminal doesn’t mean he isn’t fucking dangerous; that he’s sitting here having let his dick fucking lead him to that club and into Gillespie’s car and now into Gillespie’s house; that he’s sitting here across from a twenty-seven-year-old with pastel-dyed hair and a haughty attitude and it’s making his heart skip fucking beats, even when he knows damn well that twenty-seven-year-old has blackmail material on him and who knows what other fucking intel.

He eats a grape, eats a few more crackers, and when they finish, Hanzalah and Ysbal come in to take the table away and then Hanzalah helps him back into his chair.

Phil gets to his feet as Hanzalah leaves the room, and then says, “Uh, I should go h—”

“Detective Inspector Hutchinson, you aren’t going anywhere,” Gillespie interrupts him, sharp and cool, and Phil presses his lips together.

“I made a mistake,” he mutters, “coming to find you in that club, I was just drunk, I didn’t mean—”

“It wasn’t work: it was personal,” Gillespie interrupts him again. “You hardly want professional consequences for a personal indiscretion, I understand.” His smile is sly and his lavender eyes are cold as he shifts in his wheelchair and nods across the room. “Go ahead of me into the bathroom, please, Detective Inspector.”

Phil’s stomach drops. “Huh?” he hears himself ask.

“Chop chop,” Gillespie says, a note of challenge in his voice. “No need to keep a cripple waiting.”

“You can’t make me,” Phil hears himself say, and Gillespie laughs, an airy sound.

“I suppose I can’t,” he agrees. “Look at me, a trembling bag of bones and muscle in a wheelchair, aching in every limb, pretty to look at, but rather mangled. Physically, it’s not as though I can force you to do anything. Consider how oh-so-satisfying it is for me, then, that you will do as I say of your own accord, twisted little pervert that you are.”

The fuck is he meant to say? That he’s not a pervert, that he’s not twisted? He’s here, isn’t he?

Phil’s mouth is dry but blood is rushing downward as he takes slow, socked steps toward the bathroom, where the light is already on and a little brighter than the dimmer lights in the bedroom. It’s a big fucking room, as big as the bedroom in Phil’s shitty little maisonette in Plumstead, and through one glass door is a contained shower room with benches against two of the walls – or maybe it’s a fucking sauna? – and out here, in the bathroom proper, there’s a large bath with jets inside and one of those walk-in doors, a large stained glass window that’s decorated with a scaly white dragon against a golden background, with thick leathery wings and claws, done in a medieval style. The rest of the bathroom isn’t so aggressive about its colour scheme as the rest of the house that Phil’s seen, is just done in beiges and dark woods, the tiled floor black and white.

There are two sinks, a smaller one right beside the door on a regular height mini counter, and then a larger sink with more counter space at wheelchair height, various hair products and soaps and make-up products in pull-out organisers on wheels, all at easy height to reach from Gillespie’s chair.

Gillespie pushes the door closed, and Phil is painfully aware of the quiet of the room they’re in and the echo of the ceiling, the tiled floor and walls. He can hear himself breathing, can hear Gillespie breathing.

“Unbuckle your belt,” Gillespie orders.

Phil’s hands go slowly to his belt, a little clumsy still, and he faces away from Gillespie as he slides the tongue of the belt out of its loops and then the buckle, then slides the whole thing free.

“Hang it up,” Gillespie says, and when Phil turns to glance at him he sees the hooks on one wall, over top of two stacked shower chairs with pink plastic seats and pink rubber ends on their legs, and he hangs his belt up. “Shirt now. Fold it neatly and set it on the seat.”

Phil pulls his rugby shirt up and over his head, folds it as neatly as he fucking can – the fuck does neatly even mean for a shitty shirt like this one? – and puts it down. He goes for the vest he’s wearing underneath before Gillespie gives the order, and Gillespie nods his head in approval as Phil lifts it over his head, folds it too, sets it down – reaches for his jeans, and Gillespie says, “Ah ah. Empty your pockets.”

He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and slowly walks over to Gillespie in his chair, puts it down on the counter, the one at Gillespie’s height. Gillespie’s looking up at him from his place in his chair, his pretty hands folded in his lap, one pink satin-clad leg crossed over the other.

From the other pocket he pulls out his housekeys and a few coins, setting them on the counter in a loose pile beside his wallet.

Gillespie reaches forward and pats him down, and Phil abruptly straightens up as Gillespie’s fingers pat down his back pockets and then his front ones. Lips pressed together, he slides two fingers into the coin pocket of his jeans and removes the baggie of coke folded into quarters with about half a gram left inside, and he sets that aside with the coins.

“Anything concealed on your person?” Gillespie asks, looking up at him with his lavender eyes unspeakably cold, and Phil stares down at him, feeling rooted to the spot for reasons he doesn’t think he could explain, if asked, can’t explain to himself in his own fucking head. His cock is aching in his boxers, his skin prickling with heat and want and feverish need. “Anything in your socks, concealed in your waistband?”

“No,” Phil says.

“Good,” Gillespie says. “The rest off. I want you naked.”

“What happens then?” Phil asks.

It’s a stupid fucking question, and Gillespie treats it as one, not giving him an answer. He sits there with his hands folded on one pretty knee, his expression cold and unmoving, lips pressed loosely together, his lavender eyes unblinking.

Phil takes off his jeans and folds them into a square on top of his shirt and vest. He takes off his socks next, his feet bare on the tiled floor, and then slides off his underwear and folds them too, puts them on top of the pile. The floor isn’t as cold under his soles as he expected, and he can feel ghosts of warmth here and there – not a full heated floor, but the pipes definitely run under the tile.

His cock is halfway hard and standing up, and he’s abruptly painfully, scorchingly grateful that the only mirror in this room is the one over the wheelchair-height counter, that it’s off toward the corner, that he doesn’t have to fucking look at himself because the glass walls of the shower room are so well-polished you can look right through them, because what the fuck is he to look at? Five ten, not fat but certainly stocky, sagging at the belly and the bollocks, hair patchy on his thighs and his chest and his back, and when he shags a woman from time to time, it’s normally in the dark and under the covers and he keeps his fucking socks on, not like this, under bathroom lighting with a boy in customised pyjamas (as well as the black edging, they have calligraphic As embroidered on the breast pockets, for fuck’s sake) looking at him.

“Turn around, face away from me,” says Gillespie softly, and yet the two words are achingly loud against the bathroom walls.

Phil does, stares at the chair his clothes are folded on, his belt hanging from the wall.

“Bend over and touch your toes.”

Phil hesitates.

“You heard me,” Gillespie says, and Phil swallows, feeling humiliated, his cock giving an approving, eager lurch like a dog that’s heard the word “dinner”, bobbing between his legs. The rush of pleasure that runs down his spine is fucking awful and also, exquisite. What happens next? he’d asked. What do you fucking think?

Phil slowly bends over and reaches to touch his toes, having to rock a little just to skim the tops of them with his fingertips.

“Do you understand why I’m telling you to do this, Detective Inspector?” Gillespie asks.

“That a rhetorical question?” Phil retorts, his voice slightly strained from the position.

Gillespie laughs quietly, and then orders in a crisp, clear voice, “Now cough.”

Phil is up and whirling around on the lad in less than a fucking heartbeat, his bare feet making almost no noise on the floor as he advances on him, and he shoves down the part of himself that tells him he can’t fucking go up to a boy in a wheelchair like this, no matter that there aren’t any fucking witnesses.

“Is that what this fucking is to you?” he demands, and he winces at the volume of his own voice against the glass and the tile and the too-high ceiling. “A fucking joke, am I a fucking joke?” He’s spitting, can feel the froth of saliva in his mouth, and Gillespie’s expression does not change, stays cold and distant. Phil’s cock is the hardest it’s been and at the same time he’s fucking humiliated, and this isn’t the sexy degradation, not this, this is something else, something else spotlit and vulnerable. “Am I a fucking joke to you, boy?” he demands, and he reaches out and doesn’t even know where he’s going to put his hands, if he’s going to grab his shoulders, his pretty wavy hair, his throat.

Gillespie grabs him first, grabs him by the bollocks, and twists.

Phil’s knees go weak and he yelps, feeling his legs half-collapse underneath him, grabbing at the counter to keep from falling all the way to the floor, because Gillespie isn’t just twisting but squeezing, and for all his shakes, he’s got a Hell of a lot of fucking strength in those pretty fingers.

“Please—!” he wheezes, and he doesn’t know what he’s begging for, exactly, because the searing pain that bursts through his body, behind his fucking eyes, is the most extreme sensation he’s ever fucking experienced, and at the same time, he doesn’t know if he wants for it to stop, if he’d be able to take it stopping. His fingertips are digging into the polished wood countertop and his eyes are watering, and when it stops, it crashes over him like a cold fucking wave, and he heaves a gasp into his aching, empty lungs.

“Let’s be on thee and thou terms, you and I,” says Gillespie, and he’s smiling now, a knife edge of a smile as Phil tries to get his breath back, clutching at his sweat-soaked chest. No other aspect of his expression has changed – his eyes remain cold and hard, his expression severe, but now his thin pink lips are cut into a dangerous smile. “I will call you Philip, and you might call me Adrian. You will do as I tell you, and you will enjoy the fruits of that obedience.”

Phil, breathing heavy and with tears staining his cheeks, stares down at him, at the younger man’s cold eyes and knife-edge smile, and asks in a voice he doesn’t mean to have quaver, but does quaver, “This whole thing a statement on fucking… On police procedure?”

He’s so cool and so distant and so impossibly, impossibly beautiful as he shrugs his shoulders, his waves of hair shifting slightly as he does so. “The difference here is that you’re obeying because you wish to, because it excites you. Your detainees have no such luxury.”

“Some of them do fucking like it,” Phil mutters, “and in any case, that’s not the fucking point, they’re fucking criminals, they—”

“It was an invitation to call me by my forename, Philip, not to decry my commitment to police abolition,” Gillespie – Adrian – says in cool, calculating tones. “Would you like to continue?”

“What next?” Phil asks, feeling the relief of the cool wood under his forearm. “Cavity search?”

“I’m satisfied you aren’t carrying anything illicit,” Adrian says with obvious amusement. “Now shower.”

The shower proceeds in much the same way his stripping had done – “Turn on the water, soak yourself. Water off. Shampoo your hair. Soap your body – torso first. Armpits, arms. Belly, back. Thighs. Your calves, your feet. Shower on, rinse. Conditioner. Cock, behind your bollocks, your hole. Rinse.”

Adrian watches him unblinkingly as he soaps himself with thick, white suds all over, all through the patchy hair on his body and the rest of his balder flesh, and he watches the water rinse it off, too. Phil watches the soap suds swirl in the water under his feet – the tiles in the shower all have a bobbled texture to them, the sort you get in the showers in leisure centres and gyms to avoid having fucking mats, and the water drains into a gutter and then dribbles away.

Phil turns off the water and hangs the shower head on the rung it had been on, the lowest on – Gillespie is about the same height as Phil, when standing, but the rungs for the shower head go much higher that, would allow for someone six and a half feet tall to have the shower head comfortably over their head. Phil wonders who Gillespie has in this room with him, in his bedroom with him – those fucking Amazonians in stupid clothing he saw at the club? Big, muscle men, giant strongmen?

Other pathetic cops like him?

“You are so compellingly pitiable,” says Adrian, leaning his chin on his hand and bouncing one of his feet, and Phil stares at it, the graceful arch of it and his pink-painted toenails, and then he looks back up to Adrian’s face. “Are you pleased to be in this position, Philip, deplorable and disgusting thing that you are? Naked of every thread so that I might scrutinise each and every part of you that pleases me – degrade you too, hm? Tell you what, exactly, that you’re worthless, scum, a filthy pervert, little more than dirt to be trod under my heel?”

Each last insult shocks him like a bolt, and his cock aches it’s now so hard, his slit winking as his foreskin rolls back a little bit, a little pre shining around the head. Phil grips at the nearest fucking support bar – at least there’s no end to those in this fucking bathroom – and breathes deeply, as if deep breaths are going to make him any less fucking dizzy.

“Do you know wat pleases me, Philip, about what an odious and wretched creature that you are?” Adrian asks, and Phil groans quietly aloud, his chest aching at the way his heart is pounding hard and fast in his chest, and Adrian makes a single motion with his index finger. Phil damn near throws himself to the black and white tile, almost fucking grateful for the stability of his hands and knees – at least he can’t collapse so far to the ground, now he’s not on his feet. He turns his hand over, and instead of making a motion downward, he makes a beckoning motion with his finger instead, and Phil crawls closer. The nobbled texture of the tiles hurts his aching fucking knees. “I doubt you’ve even considered what you might do if I let you touch me. You know, deep down inside that stupid, filthy pig’s head of yours that you don’t deserve to touch me, and your subconscious won’t even let you visualise it.”

The noise Phil lets out is agonising, wheezed and whimpering, and hands and knees or no, his knees go out from under him, and he’s flat on the fucking floor with his dick dragging on the wet, rough tile and it hurts. Adrian Gillespie is the size of a titan when he’s on his belly on the floor like this, looking up at him with his tearing eyes. He’s close to Adrian’s pretty, painted toes like this – fucking prettier than he’d have thought, he must not have been able to do ballet much in his life or his feet would be fucked, from what Phil’s seen on ex-ballet dancers who strip or do trade – and he almost feels dizzy at the view of his creamy white ankles under the silk-satin of his pyjama trousers as he uncrosses his legs.

Phil stares up at him between Adrian’s parted knees, up to his heavily-lidded eyes and smirking lips, haughty and god-like so far above Phil’s shoulders, deified and not easy to think of as in a fucking wheelchair – it’s like he’s in a fucking throne, and Phil is just fucking… What do they call it?

“Supplication,” Adrian supplies, as if reading his fucking mind, and Phil keens breathlessly. “You can think to do that, at least. But what else, Philip? How would you touch me, if I deigned to permit it?”

Phil moans in the helpless, aimless way of a man offered the world without being able to conceive of it – he feels like a pint that’s been overpoured, the tap left on and gushing and creating a waterfall of fucking cider, or beer, or whatever the fuck else, and that’s him. That’s him with want or desire or blood or need or the universe, and all he can do, flat on the tile and looking up at Adrian like a man “supplicating”, all that comes out of him is helpless, hopeless gibbering.

“K—” he tries, starts, but it comes out more as a G because his mouth is full up with fucking saliva and his nose is threatening to run. “K’ss you—”

“Kiss me?” Adrian repeats in sharp, mocking tones, and he laughs and it’s an awful sound that goes right into Phil’s bones and threatens to make its home there, inside his bones, in his heart, in the very core of him, his cock straining against the warm rough tile, and he knows that he’ll never be able to come again in his life without thinking of Adrian Gillespie laughing at him just like this. “Oh, will you kiss me, will you, Philip? Not on the mouth, I suppose?”

“Your… you… feet? N—neck? Cock?”

Adrian laughs at him some more, and Phil, sweating and tearful and wet and aching, looks between Adrian’s lean but muscular thighs, at the pink satin that covers his crotch. He can’t see Adrian’s cock bulging out the silk – is he even fucking hard? Is he even aroused by Phil at all? The thought that he isn’t, that he’s doing this just to laugh at how pathetic he is, shoots through him with the force of a lightning bolt and his whole body shudders hard.

“Please,” he moans. He’d been sobering up, but he feels fucking drunk now, feels drunker than he’s ever been and yet still been fully conscious, without the coke giving him a window through it. His whole skin feels as if it’s being seared from the inside, his pulse something he can feel through his prick, and he crawls forward, desperate, needful, makes to put his mouth against one of Adrian’s ankles and receives a foot on the throat for his troubles.

He doesn’t resist it as Adrian nudges him to collapse on his back on the floor, his hips thrusting uselessly against the air.

“Sit up,” Adrian orders, and as Phil sits up, Adrian rolls forward and grips the back of his neck in a tight, painful grip, and at the same time, leans over Phil’s body. He’s still damp from the shower, damp and shivering not from the cold, his arse against the warm tiled floor – he can feel the satin of Adrian’s pyjama bottoms, feel the cooler material of his pyjama shirt buttons, as the younger man kicks the brake on his chair to keep it in place and leans right over him, feel the beautiful warmth of his body and smell his shampoo – not the same shampoo Phil’s just used, which is odourless, had clear labelling about its lack of allergens. Adrian keeps one hand tightly – painfully, wonderfully painfully – gripping the back of Phil’s neck and steadying himself by it whilst with the other hand he grasps hold of Phil’s cock.

“Tight,” Phil whines.

“Quite,” Adrian agrees, and grips him even tighter – it hurts, it hurts even before Adrian twists his wrist slightly and puts friction on the damp, sensitive flesh around his shaft, and that’s it, that’s everything, his cork is fucking popped.

As his cock pulses and his orgasm hits him like a fucking punch to the jaw, it’s not the only thing that hits him in the jaw – Adrian uses his grip on Phil’s neck to shove his face forward and into the path of his pumping prick so that his own come hits him in the face, spatters over his cheek, the underside of his nose, into his fucking mouth.

Phil feels it quake through his body, doesn’t know when he’s last had an orgasm as intense as this one, as powerful as this one, hitting him so hard he wonders for a second if he’s gonna go fucking blind. He sits there, breathing heavily, tears on his cheeks falling down them and mixing with his own fucking come, and Adrian pats him idly, thoughtlessly, on the head.

“Wash that off and then come brush your teeth,” he orders, pulling up his chair brake and wheeling back. “Spare toothbrushes are in the tall counter.”

Phil takes a minute to get his breath and his brain back before he crawls into the shower to obey.

The evening is a sleepy blur from then.

* * *

When the morning light begins to shine through the curtained windows into Adrian’s bedroom, Phil is scantly awake, his face mashed into the pillow that Ysbal had brought in for him at the same time she’d brought in a pair of black satin pyjamas matched to Adrian’s own, with pink edging and buttons, and nothing embroidered on the breast pocket. They’re in his size, fit him perfectly, and it had been humiliating, last night, distantly humiliating as he put on these fucking women’s pyjamas and felt how soft they were, how cool the fabric was.

He'd not been able to make eye contact with Adrian as he’d put them on, had kept his gaze instead on the portrait of the sleeping king and his boyfriend, servant, whatever, on the wall.

Adrian had followed his gaze and said, “Oh, well, I’m not much of a royalist, but… What am I saying? Do you even know who those men are?”

“Uh, no,” Phil had said.

“King Arthur Pendragon, asleep beneath the mountain.”

Sleepily, his eyes barely opening, Phil looks over at the portrait now, notices for the first time that the fancy four-poster bed with its canopy isn’t in a bedroom or a castle hall but in some kind of fucking cave, a shallow stream running from the background to the foreground barely lit by wax candles that illuminate the scene and melt directly into the outcrops of stone they’re rested on. His boyfriend’s skirts are wet from kneeling in it.

“You know how I am about strays, Mum,” he hears Adrian say, and a part of him wants to wake up, wants to wake up and fucking listen – Mum? Mum!? – but he’s too comfortably settled into his doze.

He's not very hungover at all, in the scheme of things, has slept really fucking well – slept at Adrian Gillespie’s feet, horizontal at the foot of the bed like a dog. Now, Adrian is sitting cross-legged beside him, wrapped in blankets and leaning against pillows, and he’s stroking his fingers absent-mindedly through Phil’s short-cropped hair.

“I think I’ll have him grow it out, he’s got that awful bristly look for now – far too military for my liking. Clean-shaven is fine, but I’ll perhaps try him with a beard.” Adrian grips Phil’s chin, turning Phil’s head toward him and looking at him thoughtfully, analytically, before nudging Phil’s head away again and running his fingernails over his hair and fuck, but it feels nice, feels good. “No, never hurts to have another on the payroll, even if this one doesn’t need paying in the… traditional sense.”

Phil closes his eyes and waits for the shame to hit him, the disgust at the idea of his being corrupted in precisely this way, not paid money but led by his cock and collared and, what, pampered in a rich boy’s fucking bed?

The shame doesn’t come, though.

This moment simply feels too good to let it.

FIN.

---

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