#rather than just a marker for what to expect in the sex u know??? still not sure im making sense but

[arsenicflame]

anyway, on that note! anyone got any reccs for trans izzy fics that actually acknowledge/address izzy being trans in some way?

(doesn't have to be much, just anything that isn't just 'izzy is trans and we all already knew before the fic and its irrelevant)

[ellstersmash]

Three: Fifteen

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan (Modern!AU)

Rating: overall E for Explicit | this chapter T for Teen

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--

    [  Results were inconclusive. Again. Any last-minute suggestions?  ]

Athi reads the message from Solas, then reads it again. Is ready to send back [???] but her phone buzzes again before she has the chance.

    [  Apologies. That was not intended for you.   ]

She smirks—

no shit

—deletes her question, taps out a response.

    [  :* i miss u too   ]

    [  oop sry. wrong #   ]

    [  Ha Ha.   ]

    [  sry bout ur results :(   ]

    [  Thank you. What are you doing today?  ]

“That Solas?” Sera says, not bothering to look up from her unbroken line of yellow glitter glue. “Tell him to suck it.”

    [  arts n crafts   ]

Athi snaps a quick picture of the mess they’ve made in their living room and sends it to him.

    [  sera says suck it   ]

    [  Of course she does.  ]

“He says hi.”

Sera gags dramatically. “Thought you wanted to help with all this, not flirt with your boyfriend.”

A snotty retort itches behind Athi’s teeth but she stifles it. Rolls her eyes instead and tosses her phone aside, the device bouncing once to rest face-down on the sofa cushion. She picks up a thick black marker with pungent permanent ink, and gets back to work filling in the block letters Sera lined earlier.

Her boyfriend. Gods, but that sounds strange. Childish. Like they go on dates behind the primary school, or pretend not to be having sex in the room down the hall from someone's parents’. And yet she finds herself giddy at the thought. To be fair, it’s all she has for the moment. The thought. He's off on some adventure, and she's stuck here. Again. They'd only had that one perfect day, breakfast and window shopping and holding hands like real life lovers under trees full of dry rainbow leaves fluttering their applause. And then he took a phone call and went home to pack and left first thing in the morning.

She wonders just how often this happens.

How important could it be? Not like a bunch of ancient artifacts are going to up and wander off if he can’t go poke at them right away. A mental note to ask him later, and she moves this poster to the pile of finished ones and exchanges it for another that says “YOUR VILLAGE —> OUR CITY.” Cute, though maybe a smidge too reliant on humans knowing their history.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” Sera asks.

“That’s not—” Athi sighs. “I told you, I have work.”

“Yeah, but isn’t this more important?”

“I don’t know. Do you want rent paid?”

Sera quiets, kicking her legs back and forth as she works. Her glue bottle sputters, spits shimmer all over. A frustrated grunt and she tosses it aside, rolls onto her back.

“I’m just saying you should care is all. ‘S not going to get any better if nobody makes noise, and nobody’s making it for us.”

“Us?" Athi scoffs. "When we met, you said—and I quote—‘So glad you’re not one of those elfy elves.’”

“Yeah, well, therapy’s all right. Besides, it’s not for elves, or not just. It’s for whoever gets stepped on. That means us.”

“I didn’t know you were in therapy.” 

“Maybe I don’t tell you everything," Sera mutters. “Thought of that?”

Athi caps her marker and lays it down. It’s just a feeling, but it's nagging. Persistent. Like and yet unlike the one she still gets when her papae calls her by her full name. Isalathena Sulahnera Lavellan, come here this instant, and it’s heavy on her chest, sitting right on top of her breastbone. Guilty, but she's not.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. Throws it out there before the feeling gets stale and she decides it's something she can live with.

“Nothing.”

“Right, ok, except for it’s not, so come on. Let's get it out and over with.”

Sera sits up, blonde hair sticking out in a couple new directions. “What’s your problem?”

“You! You’ve been acting weird all week, Ser. Haven’t come in for lunch or been home at night, responded to texts—”

“If you think I want to be in the next room while you and—”

“Oh, so you have a problem with Solas? That was one—”

“No!” Sera groans in frustration. “I mean, yeah, he is kind of old, and talks about old stuff a lot, and he’s all”—she straightens her spine into an uncomfortable posture, then slouches again—“but I like him well enough.”

"Then what?"

Sera stares at her hands for a while. Then out the window. Then at the wall. Then back at her hands. Athi’s patience is thin on a good day, and it takes a lot of willpower to keep quiet as Sera opens her mouth and closes it again, false start after false start.

Finally, Sera blurts out: “I want to ask Dagna to move in.”

Athi has no idea what she was expecting, but not that. Searching for some way to relate it to her own behavior, to justify her feeling or shove it aside, she takes so long to form a response that Sera begins to fidget.

“You what?” she asks at last, thoroughly stumped.

“I want to ask Dagna—”

“Yeah, I…” Athi tries to catch up, shuffles through the past month as best as she can in the pause between. “Here?”

Sera squints at her like she's stupid, but that's fair. It was a stupid thing to say. 

“No, my mother's. Yes here!” 

“I’m sorry, I didn't realize you two were dating again. What’s it been, a year since you broke up?” 

“Yeah. You were out at your friend’s place. Better you missed the makeup sex, though, yeah? More room for fun.” 

At first Sera’s cheeky grin has Athi smiling too. It’s a relief to talk about someone else’s shit instead of her own, but then Sera glances toward the couch and—

Oh.

Oh gods, she wouldn’t have . . . would she?

Athi gets up for a glass of water, makes it two at Sera’s request. Sits cross-legged on the coffee table when she comes back. Just to be safe.

“Isn’t it a bit fast?” she asks.

“Maybe. Doesn’t feel fast, though. If you add 'em all up it's been like, a few years or something, so it sort of works out to normal. If you think about it.”

“I guess.”

Sera empties her glass in one go. “Her lease is up next month,” she says.

Athi nods. “Right. So soon, then. Um… and if it doesn’t work out?” She leaves out the again, but it’s implied.

“But that’s why I should do it! See, I keep losing her because I’m not in. She was serious about us, but I kept messing around. Don’t even know why, really.” She looks on the edge of losing her momentum, halfway to introspection, then snaps back into the room. “But therapy! So this time, like Wicked Grace, right? I’m all in and she’ll see I mean it. And then it’ll work out.”

Her logic isn’t quite flawed but it’s far from perfect. Still, friends don't tell friends to be afraid. Especially when those friends have clearly put a lot of thought into their dynamic-altering life-changing decisions. So Athi drops the questions.

“Wow,” she says instead. “I didn’t know you felt that way about her.”

Sera shifts into soft focus and smiles, a faraway look in her eyes. “Me either.”

She seems so certain. Satisfied, and happy. Really, truly happy. And it’s kind of fucking beautiful.

Feeling overcome for no good reason, Athi goes back to her task. Long thick careful black lines, then short ones. She marks a pattern with them to make it less work and more play. Not that anyone will see unless they’re trying. And as she makes the spaces solid, a thought occurs to her.

“So,” she says, bright. Like it’s no big deal. “Do you want me to move out?”

“What? No! Course not. Why would you say that?”

There’s no time to answer. After so much silence, Sera bubbles over with unused conversation. 

“I mean, do you want to move out? You’re not moving in with Solas are you? Gross. Definitely too fast for that one. Bet he wants to get married first, in a chantry and everything. Is he Andrastian, do you know? Where is he, anyway? He travels a lot for work, right? Must be nice. Wonder if his job pays for it. Is he gone now?”

Too many questions, so Athi answers the last one.

“Yeah. Flies in late tonight. He’s picking me up after work.”

Sera snorts. “What, picking you up? So you wouldn’t get up to take him in, huh? Good girl. Stay strong. Trust me, you drive him once and you're in for forever.”

“No, he didn’t even ask. Figured he’d take a cab or something, but I guess he drove himself.”

“And paid for parking? What’s he, loaded?”

Athi grins and crosses her fingers.

“Real nice. I’m serious, Ath, that’s some weird psychopath shit. Nobody drives their own self to the airport. No one who has friends, anyway.”

"I think he's just used to being alone.”

“Way to make it sad.”

"Alone doesn't mean sad."

"It kind of is though. But then, he’s got people, right? Like Varric, and, well... I don’t know. People.”

Athi shrugs. “Habits can be hard to break, especially when you’re not trying.”

“Ooh. Very wise today."

"Shut up."

"I mean it!"

She doesn’t tell Sera about the other things. The books covering all his furniture. The busted bathroom door that he removed rather than replaced. The singular coaster on his side table. The way he forgets to be hospitable, then overcorrects, asks her if she needs anything three times in a row. His house, his life, is not prepared for the presence of others. Not meant to host company or take in strays or accommodate a lover, meant for him and his needs and his convenience and no more.

And she’s honestly not sure if that makes her an exception or an intruder.

--

“Woah.”

The door slams shut behind her. Very nearly catches her in the ass but she happened to freeze just beyond its reach.

The place is gutted. Or maybe it's not? Ceiling and walls are fine and nothing she can place is missing, tables and chairs and bottles of booze all present and accounted for, but it looks fucking empty. And clean, though she can’t tell if that’s real or just the lack of tasteless decor.

“I know, right?” Tali dumps a bucket of ice in the bin with the rest. “It was like this when I showed up today.”

Athi drifts in slow, perturbed by the smell of cleaning solution and the lack of clutter. Hangs her purse on the coat rack just inside the office, her jacket on top of that. Pulls her hair back, ties her apron, washes her hands.

“Were we robbed?” she asks, only half joking.

“Technically, that would be a burglary.”

“Were we burglarized?”

“You know,” Tali says, “If someone broke in just to take those awful knick-knacks and creepy pictures Seggrit had up, I say more power to ‘em. Enjoy your ghosts, thief!"

Athi giggles. “Worst was the cabin.”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t even look at that family one. The kid’s vacant stare, blessed Andraste, I wanted to flip it around every time I walked in that door. And you know that cat had seen things. I mean, did Seggrit know them? Why were they on our wall?”

"Somebody had to keep an eye on us."

"And make sure we weren't flirting with tall handsome customers in the back alley?" Tali grins, tongue stuck out between her teeth.

"Why? You make that a habit too?"

Tali wrings out and refolds her bar towel. “Ok, sweetie. Keep your secrets. I'll get my details one day."

"Anyway." Athi gestures at the naked walls. "Change!"

"Right. It was Seggie for sure. He was here when I came in. Must have dealt with all that crap this morning, though I couldn't say what he did with all of it. Or why. Oh! And he left that.”

Tali reaches back and raps a knuckle on the fridge where a sheet of paper hangs. Athi slides it out from under the magnet. Scans its contents. Flips it writing-side-out toward Tali.

“The fuck is this?”

“A cleaning list.”

“I can see that. Seggrit made it?”

“Either that or your writer pal is moving in for real.”

“And that’s not strange to you? That he cares?”

Tali shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe he’s decided to rejuvenate this place. You know? Spruce it up, invest a little time, maybe hire some better bartenders.”

“Hey, don't sell yourself short."

"Bold of you to assume I meant myself."

“This is weird, though. Right?" She reads off the paper. "Sweep out back? Deep-clean the office? Dust the brick wall? Tali, most of these have nothing to do with anything. Where are the temp checks? Or the fucking tap lines? Or, you know, any of the shit we should actually be doing?"

“Beats me, babe. I'm just glad he's getting involved. You should’ve seen him whirling around here earlier. Something seems to have lit a fire under his rear-end.”

Another feeling, but she can't place this one. It all fits together somehow, or should. The list and the bare walls and the lack of fire hazards. Chewing on the puzzle, Athi picks a task at random, takes a spray bottle and a coffee filter to the windows. Even free of five years’ grime and in full sun, they don’t illuminate much. But that’s all right. The list says clean, and they are definitely that.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: For The Love Of Maths

Rated: T

For the Love of Maths

“So, what are you doing for Valentine’s Day?”

Belle just gave Ruby a look, because for all Ruby’s own romantic dreams, she knew that Belle’s boyfriend was the least romantic person ever and his idea of a date night was asking her to help him grade his students’ papers and think up scathing comments for the worst of them.

Ruby and Dorothy always went overboard for Valentine’s Day, with flowers and chocolates and slushy cards, the full works. Belle didn’t mind that the fourteenth of February was just another ordinary day for her. The whole thing had become so crassly commercial that celebrating it felt like pandering to Hallmark’s particular brand of emotional capitalism.

Although, that said, it would be nice to have some romance in her life. She tried to remember what it had been like when she and Nick had first started dating, before realising that they had never really dated the in traditional sense of the word.

They’d argued a lot, and they’d spent long hours puzzling out the mysteries of the cosmos together whilst consuming copious amounts of coffee, and eventually they’d started having sex as well. They’d only come onto each other’s radars when budget cuts at the university had forced them to share an office and learn that there was not enough space for both of them and all Nick’s whiteboards.

They’d also learned that neither of them were very good at compromise. At all.

There hadn’t been evenings out in restaurants or cinemas. They’d just happened, without any real attempt at courtship on either of their parts. The classic enemies to friends to lovers. Belle wondered if they would ever have got together if fate hadn’t put them in the same space. Nick certainly wasn’t the type to seek out a relationship with anything other than complex numbers.

Still, they were together now – miraculously still together over a year after they first fell into Nick’s bed. Belle was moving in with him gradually; she wondered when he would notice that she had more of her stuff in his place than in her own apartment.

“Ok, ok, I know that you think it’s all a waste of time but come on, it’s Valentine’s Day. Not even a card? Nice restaurant? Candlelit Chinese takeaway? Something, anything to convince me that there’s the faintest spark of life in your relationship.”

“There’s plenty of life in our relationship!” Belle protested.

“Belle, arguing about Nick’s terrible handwriting being the reason that his maths is off does not count.” Ruby reached across the table and patted her friend’s hand in a worryingly motherly fashion. “I just don’t want you to get stuck in a rut. You need spark! Passion! You’re a passionate soul, Belle! You need to surprise him! Lie down on his desk stark naked with a rose between your teeth. Hide that little notebook of his down your panties and make him find it.”

“Ruby, there’s nothing wrong with our sex life, I promise you. Sex and romance are two different things. We’re just… practical, rather than romantic. We don’t need all that stuff.”

“Needing it and wanting it are two different things,” Ruby said sagely. Belle just sighed.

And she wished that Ruby hadn’t put the idea of romance into her head.

What she’d said to her friend had been true – she didn’t need that kind of gesture. She knew that Nick loved her, and he showed that in his own unique way. Well, he told her often enough, and she knew that he was telling the truth. She shouldn’t expect more from him, not when she was just as bad at the whole thing as he was.

Well, it wasn’t really that so much as she had no idea what kind of romantic gestures Nick would appreciate. If any. Lingerie didn’t really seem to do anything for him; he’d certainly never made any comment when she’d showed off new stuff for him so in the end she’d decided to stop wasting her money. He wasn’t the flowers and chocolates type.

Ruby was right – Belle was a passionate soul at heart, but the only thing Nick ever really got passionate about was theoretical physics. Normally so grumpy and taciturn, he turned into a completely different person when he got onto his pet topic, his eyes bright and his words animated, bold gestures all over the place as his marker flew across the whiteboard, sketching out the equations that would solve every conundrum in the known universe, and some in the unknown universe as well.

She smiled at the memory of his last breakthrough. She’d been in the middle of cooking dinner and he’d rushed into the kitchen and dragged her into his study, explaining it all to her and making corrections as he went along. He had been so excited to share the discovery with her, and he’d been happy all evening, even though dinner had burned, and they’d had to order pizza instead.

That was how he showed her that he loved her, Belle realised. He was passionate about his subject, and he always shared that passion with her. Although their specialisms and fields of study differed – Belle was far more interested in the here and the now and the provable rather than the theoretical – he always wanted to share that things that made him happy with her. It just so happened that the thing that made him happiest was physics, so that was what he shared.

They were both complete nerds when it came down to it, but they were nerds in love, and they didn’t need Valentine’s Day to prove that love to the rest of the world. Feeling much happier and more confident in her romantic relationship, Belle set off for home. Well, for Nick’s home. Her home from home.

“Nick?” The house seemed to be empty, and Belle padded through the rooms looking for her boyfriend. “Nick, are you here?” It was ridiculous to be asking an empty house that question, but there was always the off chance that he was hiding – for what reason she couldn’t fathom – or that he was lying in a heap somewhere having broken his ankle. There was no response to her call, and Belle resigned herself to the fact that he wasn’t home yet.

It was strange, he never really went anywhere aside from his office in the university and his home. Maybe he’d just got side-tracked and was late leaving campus. It certainly wasn’t the first time, but this was late even for Nick’s standards. If he was going to pull an all-nighter up there then he could at least have told her.

She texted him to ask if he wanted dinner and went into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. Plenty of leftovers she could shove together and make something of. They were both terrible cooks, so fancy candlelit home-cooked meals were definitely off the menu for Valentine’s Day.

Her phone buzzed with the arrival of a message. Yes. Be there in 15 mins. Got held up. Left a note in the study.

Belle raised her eyebrows, because the study was the first place she’d looked for him when she began her search of the house and she hadn’t seen any note, but Nick was meticulous and if he said he’d left one, then he’d left one.

She went into the study again, looking over the paper-littered desk for something explaining his absence. Coming up short, she moved on to the post-it notes stuck all over the whiteboards reminding him to do things. Most of them had been put there by Belle herself and consisted of basic things like have you had breakfast yet, you workaholic?

Again, there was nothing new. She was about to call him and ask where his note was, but then something caught her eye at the bottom of one of the whiteboards, some tiny text packed in tightly. She bent down to read it.

If E=MC2 then U+ME=heart. I love you, Belle, please come and live with me permanently.

Belle had to sit down on the floor in shock, vaguely registering Nick’s key in the front door.

“Belle?” The study door opened, and Nick peered in. “Are you ok?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I’ll move in with you, you wonderful nerd.” She scrambled up off the floor and threw her arms around him, making him stagger back out into the hall.

“You found the note, then?”

“Yes.” Belle kissed him. “So, what held you up?”

“Oh. Yes. This.” He held out a Barnes and Noble bag. “They lost my order and had to go out the back to find it. Happy Cohabitation. This is for you.”

Belle looked inside the bag to see a hardback copy of For The Love Of Maths. She’d been talking about the new book ever since the publisher had announced it.

“You remembered.”

“I remember the things that make you happy. And it seemed fitting, given the season.”

Belle just pulled him in close and kissed him again. Who needed Valentine’s Day, anyway?