#space bodice ripper

[sroloc--elbisivni]

"so how's the vacation writing going" well i made progress on a couple of the Actual WIPs i have posted and then i also saw this art by @wtf-a-psychoanalysis for space leosagi with usagi in the slave leia outfit and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i blacked out and came to with 2800 words typed up on my phone in the Notes app. anyway. love to commit sexual violence against a man via application of aliens amiright. went in a different direction than jabba the hutt, this is far future in the space bodice ripper au when the guys are running around having space adventures. cw: implied sex slavery.

“Well?” Leo hissed, prodding one of Donnie’s feet.

Donnie kicked him, face intent on his wrist computer. “I’m working on it. The camera network in this place is stupid big. Are we sure this is a guy and not an AI?”

“We’re not even sure he has the thingamabob we want,” Leo said. “Hence, you, hurrying up, in our near future, please.”

“Um,” Mikey said, peering through the slats of the maintenance tube exits. “Is this a bad time to mention—“

“Probably,” Donnie said, not looking up.

“—that the guy I saw earlier is standing right there?”

“What do you mean right there?” Leo shoved him out of the way for a better look and got an eyeful of draping black cloth and white furry leg. “Oh. Right there, right there.”

“Yeah,” Mikey said, pointedly.

“Listen, guys, I got this,” Leo said, and shoved the maintenance hatch open. “Heeeeyyy, sorry to ask, but do you mind just moving down the hallway whiiiiii…”

He got about halfway through his sentence before he pried his head out to talk with this stranger and convince him that they were just a couple of maintenance guys doing very important work who should not be interrupted. This was about when he got a good look at the man—very much a man—and lost his entire train of thought.

The legs that were uh, pretty muscly actually, revealed by the drape and cling of rich black silk shot with gold, led up to a belt of gold hanging low on some shapely hips. Trim hips. Put all your weight behind a solid punch shaped hips. The torso crowned with wrapping curls of gold around the shoulders and pecs was also muscled, in that really nice dorito-shaped bulk way. Scars crisscrossed the soft-looking white fur in more than a few places—a starburst on this hip, a slash on that shoulder, a scattering of burns like a meteor shower across the torso. Leo really wanted to touch all of them.

The look on the guy’s face said if Leo did that he probably would only get to enjoy it for like. Three more seconds before his untimely demise. He was some kind of rabbit alien, ears bound on top of his head and draping down like a fancy hairdo. There was one more scar over his left eye, arcing like an extra eyebrow and lending some punch to his glare.

“While what?” he asked.

“Um,” Leo said. Words. He could do words. Eventually.

The rabbit rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall and bracing his elbows in a way that showed off his abs. “Listen. Whatever you’re up to, I don’t actually care. If you’re going to try to kill Hikiji, I’ll have to stop you, but until you’re at his throat? Not my problem.”

“We’re here to rob him, actually,” Mikey chirped, sticking his head out of the tube next to Leo’s torso.

“Great. I mean it. Please, rob the bastard blind.”

“Do I. Uh.” Leo shook his head dragging his tongue back into place. “Who are you?”

The rabbit smiled. It didn’t look like a happy smile. “These days? No one.”

“Nice to meet you, no one,” Mikey said, and Leo elbowed him back into the vent so he could pull himself up and get on eye level with the rabbit.

“So, do you maybe wanna help us?” he asked, hopefully. If they could just get this guy to come with them, a little longer, maybe he’d loosen up a little bit. He probably had a nice smile, when he was happy.

For the moment, the rabbit loosened up enough to blink and snort. “What the hell, sure. What do you want to know?”

“Where’s the vault?” Donnie yelled from inside the vent before Leo could embarrass himself by asking for this guy’s number. “This map is useless!”

“He has fake copies of the blueprints on the servers. The real ones are metal engravings in the engineer’s quarters and can’t be photographed.”

“That’s—horrifyingly impressive. I hate that.”

“So do the engineers,” the rabbit said, dry. “Which vault? There’s three, but I don’t think you want the one for alcohol.”

“Wherever he keeps the, the,” Leo snapped his fingers, trying to remember.

“The Mambrino basin,” Donnie said. “Smallish, gold, contains a code only activated when a certain fluid is poured over it?”

“Oh, that. That’s in the leeward vault. You’re about three floors too far up.” He pointed down the hallway, and Leo admired the pretty blue crystal on an elaborately wrought bracelet he was wearing. “There’s a ladder that’s been locked for the last year, but if you’re blocking the cameras, you can probably bypass that too.”

A brief squabble ensued as Mikey and Donnie both attempted to leave the vent at the same time and tangled up their limbs. Leo ignored them with long practiced and grinned charmingly at the hot rabbit, trying not to look at where the smooth arch of his hipbone jutted out beyond the edge of the skirt-thing. “Sooooooooooo…wanna come break into a leeward vault with us?”

“I’ll pass,” the rabbit said, but he looked softly amused. “You all are really going to do this, aren’t you?”

“Of course!” Leo swept a little bow. “Stealing from rich bastards is one of our specialties.” He straightened and winked at the rabbit. “Along with daring rescues, if you know anyone in the market for one?”

Oop. Wrong tactic. The rabbit gave this horrible sad little smile and looked away. “Plenty of those needed out in the galaxy, I’m sure.”

Donnie and Mikey had finally worked their way out and stumbled upright. Donnie looked the rabbit up and down and said “Your outfit is derivative and tacky, I could do better. Call me if you ever need a stylist. Where’s the ladder I’m opening?”

“I’ll—” The blue gem on his bracelet flashed three times, accompanied with three chiming tones. The rabbit straightened immediately. “Down the hall, that way, third door.” He jerked his chin, didn’t point. His pointing hand was too busy wrapping around the bracelet, which had started to blink.

Leo grabbed up the rabbit's wrist—he was clutching it like he was in pain.

This was obviously a mistake. The rabbit’s eyes flashed and he jerked back.

“Let me go,” he snarled, and Leo was startled enough to drop his grip entirely.

“I—sorry,” he blurted. The rabbit was already turning around and striding away, black cloth swishing between his legs.

Leo hated to see him leave, and somehow, he didn’t much like watching him go either.

“C’mon,” Mikey said, tugging at his elbow. “The next person who catches us out here isn’t going to be that nice.”

“Yeah,” Leo said, staring at where the stranger vanished. “Sure.”

They got all the way down the ladder before he persuaded Donnie to follow the guy on security cameras all the way back to the main throne room of this big evil villainous castle on a meteor they were infiltrating to pass the time.

The rabbit walked in from a side door, not the big front one, and headed right for the big fancy dais where a human-looking alien in black and gold and brown was sitting like he owned the place.

The rabbit walked up to him and dropped to his knees. The guy, who had to be the Lord Hikiji they’d come here to rob, waved one hand for the rabbit to approach his fancy bench throne. When he came in reach, Hikiji took his chin in one hand, possessively, and held him in a bent-forward position that looked like it would be murder on the back.

The rabbit had his someone-else’s-untimely-death look on again, but he wasn’t…doing anything. Just standing there while Hikiji was saying something they couldn’t hear.

Hikiji turned his gripping hand into a caress down the rabbit’s throat and let him go. The rabbit moved to the side of the bench and dropped to the floor, leaning his back against Hikiji’s legs and staring at the wall. HIkiji rested one hand on his head like a Bond villain stroking a cat and seemed to forget about him.

“Hey, broskis?” Leo said, staring at the tiny screen like this might be the day he developed the ability to kill things with his eyes. “Change of plans. We’re going to destroy this guy.”

[kitmon]

Get Into The Groove | Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Summary: Eddie finds you dancing while you’re home alone and, unsurprisingly, the sight has him careening into the bottomless gorge that is loving you all over again.

Pairing: Eddie Munson (Stranger Things, 2022) x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1.2k

Tags: allusions to sexy times 18+ only, no actual smut, FLUFF cuz I’m a sucka for it, established relationship, reader is explicitly referred to as “girl” and “woman”

Author’s Note: Just an itty bitty thing that came to me a while ago that I jotted down in between work and school :P hope you like it! And if you’d like to enhance the experience listen to Into the Groove by Madonna and Wango Tango by Ted Nugent!

There are few things that Eddie Munson looks forward to in life: a well-planned D&D campaign, a perfectly rolled joint— the premium shit— and getting home to you.

He whistles to himself as he skips up the steps of his trailer, chains and leather creaking with each step he takes and every key he flips in his hand. The entire day he had been anticipating this moment, just as he does every weekday, where he can come home to a warm and secluded trailer, see you and kiss you the same way he did before he left to work— deep and passionate and long enough to make you dizzy— and sink into his worn-in spot on the couch with you under his arm. He smiles at the comforting thought as he pushes the door in, humming under his breath as he steps inside. 

He drops his keys into the ceramic bowl near the door with a clink before he begins peeling his jacket and vest off. His arm is halfway in and out of his jacket as his ears perk at the music trailing down the hall from his room. He finishes shrugging his jacket off, tossing it over the La-Z-Boy before he stalks towards his room, taking care to cushion his steps. As he gets closer he can make out the faint synth and the clap of the drum machine; it’s Madonna, he realizes.

He dips his head to peek through the slit between the door and the frame, eyes glowing with mirth as a wide grin consumes his face.

Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free…

He hadn't expected to find this upon coming home. You’re usually stretched out across the sofa or his bed, mentally marking the bubbles of a quiz inside a Cosmo that Nancy let you borrow or smiling to yourself as you flip through the pages of one of your bodice ripper romances. Instead, from his vantage point, he can see you singing along to the tape that you’ve popped into his stereo, sipping a black cherry Tab as you skip around his room tidying up the cluttered space. You pick up discarded clothes from his floor, pinching that lacy number he stripped off of you that morning and dangling it over your pointer finger as you absentmindedly twirl it around before tossing it into the hamper.

Tonight I’m gonna dance with someone else…

As the song builds to its chorus you drop the clothes you're working with, take one more gulp of your soda and start bobbing your head and shaking your hips. With the way you sway, he can't help but admire how your frame fits under one of his ragged sleep shirts. Your legs are bare and enticing as you prance around with only your underwear on underneath, the reliable lilac pair that you wear flashing at him with every punctuated glide you make down your legs before flipping your hair back. 

Get into the groove,

Boy you’ve got to prove,

Your love to me…

Your voice picks up in confidence and volume. Even if you're not classically trained, you make up for the wavering notes and shifting keys with your enthusiasm as you stomp about his room, shaking your head and shifting your hair as you swivel and cock your hips in a way that has Eddie swooning against the door frame. The door kicks open wider as he watches you, tongue licking at his canine in amusement and adoration.

Your singing subdues into little mumbled harmonies and a few enunciated riffs as you drag your hands from your thighs up your rocking body, your fingers catching the hem of your shirt and lifting it over your ass to offer just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse. You writhe like a charmed snake in a wicker basket, your hands meeting over your head as you slither in mesmerizing forms.

You fall away from your dance but maintain the skip in your step and the nod in your head as you bend over and snatch a pair of Eddie's boxers from the floor. You twirl in place, boxers held to your chest as you get lost in the music, shifting your feet to twist you around, eyes closed blissfully.

“At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see— AH!”

You scream, chucking the boxers at Eddie’s head as you’re startled. He ducks as the garment soars over his head and he laughs at your reaction.

“Jesus, sweetheart! You almost took me out with my own drawers!”

“Eddie!” You scold, with wide eyes and a small crinkle between your brows, “You scared the shit out of me!”

You’re clutching your chest with one hand as your breath relaxes but your eyes screw up in mild anger at the fact that he snuck up on you.

“M’sorry! Didn’t want to interrupt the show.”

You groan, your hands crawling over your face as you wince, “You saw that?”

Eddie steps towards you, soothing your embarrassment by rubbing at your arms.

“Mm-hmm, and, if I may say so,” he leans in to whisper into your ear, “it was very sexy.”

You sputter out a giggle at him before taking your hands and pulling at the loose thread along the collar of his t-shirt— perhaps you’re the reason all of his shirts have holes along the collar.

“Of course you would find it sexy,” you tease as your fingers migrate upwards to play with the ends of his hair. “You could watch me floss my teeth and get a semi.”

“Can you blame a guy?” He laughs, wrapping his arms around your waist to draw you closer. “With a girl as smokin’ as you, it’s impossible to keep the little guy down.”

You snort, letting your head fall into his chest as he strokes your hair.

You bask in the silence for a moment, the two of you shuffling your feet and breathing each other in. The song’s ended by now and moved on to another poppy dance number that fades into the background.

“Think you can teach me some of those moves?” He questions into your hairline.

You hum, a smile coating the sound as you lean back to look into his eyes.

“I dunno, don’t think you’re limber enough to pull off some of these crazed gyrations of this rock generation.”

He smiles down at you, leaning close enough to nip at your lips, “I’ll have you know I’m a proper Johnny Castle, baby.” His smile gives way to a contemplative yet amused shape, “And did you just quote Ted Nugent to me?”

You nod your head as a wide grin splits across your face.

“Oh, you don't know what you do to me, woman!”

You squeal as he hoists you up and throws you onto his bed, your head falling back against his pillows as you laugh from the excitement of it. You fall into soft hums of laughter that slip past your throat as Eddie follows you down and climbs up your body, nipping at your calves and thighs, pushing his nose against the hem of your— well, his shirt— to reveal that worn lilac cotton that you make look like a whole Victoria’s Secret set.

“And I’ll show you dancing, I’m quite skilled at Zee Wango, Zee Tango.”

[kittenintheden]

You Can Read Me Anything - Part 1

welp, they did it, fam. @fangswbenefits and @bludazey egged me on to flesh out a one-shot based on this prompt and I have done so. this is part 1. THERE WILL BE A PART 2 I SWEAR.

Edit: PART 2 IS UP!

***

Druidic Tav grew up in a nomadic clan that recorded their history through spoken word and song rather than written text. As such, she's illiterate, and one charming-ish vampire offers to help her with reading lessons and a whole lot more. Out of the goodness of his heart, of course.

Then one night, she unwittingly brings him smut for their lesson.

Rating: E Word Count: 3500 words Content: illiterate Tav, Astarion being a shit, but also being cute, innocent Tav, suggestive dialogue, secondhand smut via fake bodice ripper

AO3 Link

"Astarion?" Tav says quietly, poking her head around the open flap of his tent. She finds him sitting cross-legged inside, his eyes scanning over the book laying open in his lap. He looks up at the inquiry and lifts his chin with a cavalier smile.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite companion," he says, voice lilting. "What can I do for you?"

Tav clears her throat and ducks inside, settling on her knees just beyond. She has a book of her own in her hands, fingers impatiently tapping against the cover. "I wondered if you might be up for giving me another reading lesson."

He hums, tipping his own tome shut and setting it aside. "Something from that broken up old temple we found today? Give it here, let's see."

Hesitantly, she holds it out for him and he accepts it, gaze scanning the binding. He lifts a brow, then flips it open and peruses a page. Then another. He snaps it shut again.

"I don't know if this is the best book for a… ah," he says, contemplating his next words. His mouth tics up on one side as he glances her up and down. "Reading lesson."

Tav frowns. "Why not? I thought you'd be interested, given the picture on the cover."

Astarion peers down at the cover and huffs. "Well. I can certainly see why you'd think so. The resemblance is... resemblant."

It's a finely-wrought etching of two people, one swooning against the other. The figure behind supports the other about the waist with one hand, the opposite pulling their hair aside to reveal their neck. The dominant figure leans toward their throat as if for a kiss, pointed teeth showing past their lips.

Tav shrugs. "Is it too advanced? Is that why?"

Astarion gives a sharp laugh and puts his fingers in front of his mouth as if he's trying to put it back. "Erm, no, dear. I think you could puzzle through it just fine."

"Okay..." Tav says, perplexed. "Then what?'

"Bleeding Hells," he mutters, rubbing a forefinger in the space between his eyes. "Why don't you try reading the title out for me? Let's start there."

Tav takes the book back and looks at the lettering on the front. It's the Common alphabet, so not too terrible to parse, though she’s still working on some of the more complex blended sounds.

"In..." she starts, running her finger beneath the words and feeling the soft leather beneath. "the... Embra... Embrace?"

Astarion is leaning on one hand and he gives a patient nod.

"In the Embrace... of... the... Nig... Nig-het..."

"Night, sweet thing," Astarion says softly. "G beside H is silent."

"Right," Tav says, looking again. "So, In the Embrace of the Night... stalker."

"Try again."

Tav studies the letters. They spot their mistake. "Nightsucker."

Astarion nods.

She looks very pleased with herself, beaming at him. "Got it! What's the problem, again?"

The vampire closes his eyes and holds his hands in prayer position in front of his lips as if he's steeling himself. He opens his scarlet eyes and moves his hands away. "Shall I read you a page or two to start? Maybe then you'll understand."

Thrilled, Tav nods and returns the tome, sitting herself more comfortably as Astarion leafs through the pages.

"Ooooh," he says, his voice lifting. "This passage looks promising." He lowers the book in front of him so Tav can scoot around and follow along as he reads, committing symbol to sound.

Astarion's carefully kept fingernails run along the text inside, showing where he's reading. In his practiced, soothing Upper City voice, he begins to read. "A creature of the night is good for only two things: destruction or seduction. Perhaps both at once, if a person is lucky. And tonight, Yolanda is very, very lucky."

Tav subconsciously nods along, feeling a little thrill of pride every time she mentally catches the word before Astarion says it aloud. Her companion continues to read about Yolanda and her new vampiric friend, until the story takes... a bit of a turn.

"Yolanda gasps rapturously as Armondo suckles at the crease of her thigh, skin flushing as his sinful tongue laps closer and closer to the place she needs it most, to her swollen secret spot, and when at last he catches it in a languid swirl, she keens out his-"

Tav puts her hands on either side of the book over Astarion's and forces him to snap it shut, her cheeks flaming. Slowly, she turns her head to find Astarion's face very, very close, a look of deep amusement in his eye and a smirk stretching his lips.

"I have to go," Tav says. "Keep the book." Her legs aren't immediately cooperative, but when she manages to get them to respond, she scrambles inelegantly for the exit. "Good night."

"Sweet dreams," Astarion calls after her, still smirking. Once she’s gone, he opens the book back up to that same passage.

"What will Armondo do next, I wonder," he whispers.

After about a minute, when he's sure Tav is safely tucked away in her own tent and likely screaming into her makeshift pillow, he clears his throat and squirms, reaching down to adjust the front of his trousers. They've gone quite tight.

That’s probably normal.

---

Tav’s washing some of her delicates out in the river the next day when the vampire she’s actively been avoiding finally finds her. She glances his way briefly then looks immediately out at the Chionthar like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.

“Hello,” she says too brightly, wadding up her soaked underthings in her hands and wringing them out.

Astarion, to his credit, is acting perfectly natural. He sets himself on a flat rock near her and tilts his face toward the afternoon sun, eyes closed as he soaks up its rays. “Hello, darling,” he lilts. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Her laugh is tinny and high. “What? No, I…”

He tips his head forward and sets his gaze on her, amusement clear on his face.

With an exasperated hiss, she gathers her delicates up and puts them into the sack she’s brought with her. She’ll hang them up to dry inside her tent. “Fine, maybe a little. I’m embarrassed.”

“Of what?” he says, head tilting just so.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Of accidentally asking you to read me porn? Of being too dense to take the hint from the cover or the title? Of needing help to read in the first place? Take your pick.”

Astarion laughs, though not in a mocking way. “You’re quite entertaining, do you know that?” He turns his body more fully toward her, tenting one leg so he can rest his forearm on his knee. “I’ve met many, many literate people who are far duller and denser than you. And they didn’t even have the excuse of growing up severed from civilized society.”

Tav sticks her tongue out at him, but she smiles nonetheless. Her nomadic druidic clan didn’t put much stock in the written word – they shared their knowledge through spoken story and song. It’s a system that served her perfectly well up until she was plucked off the face of the world by a planeshifting aberrant ship.

Why she’d chosen Astarion of all her newfound companions to be her reading tutor, she didn’t rightly know. Gale seemed the most obvious choice, or Wyll. Both would have been kind and patient teachers. But there was something about her guarded, bristly friend that she wanted to understand, like why he spent most of his free time buried in more books than even her wizard companion bothered with. Astarion had been surprisingly amicable to the idea when she’d brought it up.

And so the lessons had begun, as had the increase in his flirting.

She knows his nature, of course. The lot of them had barely been together for seventy-two hours before he’d tried to make a snack of her and she’d agreed to allow it, much to his surprise. What was a bit of blood, really, if it meant giving another being strength? She could spare it.

Without meaning to, she reaches up to brush her fingers across her neck at the site of his latest bite. The wound is gone, healed over with her own natural magic, but she remembers the icy sting.

Astarion doesn’t fail to notice, his tented leg swaying ever so slightly to and fro. “You like it, don’t you?” he says.

“Like what?” she says, grimacing at how bad she is at nonchalance.

“Don’t play coy,” he teases, leaning toward her. “I can feel it when I feed on you, you know. Your little shakes of excitement.”

“Little shakes from blood loss, you mean,” Tav snaps, clutching up her bag a bit too tightly in her hands.

Astarion raises his hands to placate her. “All right, if we insist on living in denial,” he says. “I’ll continue to play teacher.”

“Well, good,” she says, dropping her eyes to the space between them. “Because that’s what this is. Teaching.”

“Of course,” he says, mouth lifted on one side.

Tav huffs and gets to her feet. She goes six steps before she turns on her heel and walks back to him, “You know what? Fine. Another lesson tonight. Same book.”

His brows tick up. “This ought to be good,” he says. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Yes, you will,” she says, making a little jerk with her fist near her thigh. She seems to feel this is a fitting end to the interaction because she turns on her heel and stomps off, bag of wet undergarments in hand.

“Premonition of things to come?” Astarion says to himself, wriggling his shoulders and quietly laughing at his own joke. There’s a moment where he realizes he’s smiling his real smile. He pulls his lips back over his teeth and clears his throat, straightening his shirt before he gets up to occupy his time until better plans come along.

---

Astarion dramatically reads another passage of smut aloud and Tav is doing her level best to keep her thighs pressed tightly together. She can practically smell herself, so she’s fairly certain that her reading partner, who happens to be a literal predator, certainly can. Her cheeks must be scarlet.

“‘Armondo, darkness in my heart!’ Yolanda shrieks to the rafters.”

Her companion throws up his hand toward the roof of his tent, beaming down at the page he reads. They’ve both long since abandoned the finger on the text method in favor of his theatrics.

“The nightsucker crawls over his conquest like a panther.” Astarion reads from his whole chest, clearly having the time of his life. “He has claimed her once already and she remains unsatiated, mewling beneath him like a simpering kitten.”

Tav doesn’t think either of them are pretending this is an actual reading lesson anymore. At least, she isn’t. She’s too stubborn and too mortified to admit that this was a mistake. So here she sits while the prettiest man she’s ever met continues to regale her with complete filth.

Worse, she doesn’t hate it.

She squeezes her thighs together tighter.

“‘I will feed on you once more,’ Armondo purrs in his deep baritone.” Astarion drops his voice to match and Tav can’t help the giggle that bubbles up her throat, though she tries to catch it in her hand.

Astarion continues. “‘But first, I will drink of your nectar.’ His fingers roam down the hills and valleys of her skin, his mouth following, until he reaches her lush garden and the coveted rose within, his tongue seeking hidden depths-”

Tav interrupts him with a groan as she covers her eyes. “Oh gods, not again.”

The vampire takes pity on her at last and tips the book shut with one hand, placing his palm over the top of it where it rests in his lap. “You surprise me,” he says with a light laugh. “I’d have thought you’d want to hear tell of a lad with a gilded tongue who knows his way around a lady’s flower.”

She covers her entire face and screams into her hands a little. When she’s calmed, she lowers her hands to her folded knees and looks to the side. Before she can stop herself, she blurts, “Do a lot of people do that?”

Astarion, who had been reaching for a different book so he could at least give her the semblance of an actual lesson, stops mid-motion. He turns his head toward her and says, “What?”

Tav gives a rapidfire laugh and pulls her knees to her chest, rocking a bit. She glances at his face and away again so quickly it’s nearly imperceptible. “I mean, it’s common enough to be in a book, so I imagine it’s fairly common… place?” she stammers. “Seems like people enjoy it. Right?”

Astarion stares. “Tav.”

She scratches a spot behind her ear and doesn’t meet his eyes. “Hm?”

“Tav,” Astarion says again, the word harder.

She huffs and looks him in the eye, face completely flushed.

He’s still staring. "No one’s ever gone down on you?"

Tav puts her hands to her blushing cheeks and glares at him. "No. I didn't think it was something people... usually did."

He gives an incredulous laugh. Completely bewildered. "Darling, are you... are you a virgin?"

"No!" she says again with as much offense as she can muster. "I've been with people. Two. Two people."

"Well, they can't have been very good," he scoffs. "My gods. You poor, poor dear.”

“Okay, okay, stop making fun of me.” She flaps her hands at him. “I just thought it sounded… I don’t know. Nice?”

“Nice?” Astarion breathes through his disbelieving smile before he swallows his incredulity and pulls it back together. “I’m not making fun, my sweet. Only mourning on your behalf that you’ve experienced such flops. I wish you better future lovers.”

“Ugh,” she groans again, going to her hands and knees. “I’m leaving now. And I’m taking this book back.”

She goes to reach for it and he shrinks away, his palm pressing tighter to the cover. “No!”

When she startles at his outburst and looks at him, she catches the scarcest fraction of what looks like panic on his face before his features reform themselves into his usual smoldering smirk. It’s so fast she’s sure she imagined it.

“This is mine,” he purrs. “You gave it to me. No take-backsies.”

“Oh, fine,” she snaps at him before she makes her exit. He half-expects her to burst into a flurry of fur and feather in her huff, but she remains person-shaped.

When she’s gone, he blinks after her several times before he dares move the book from his lap, straightening his leg and wincing. He reaches a hand to adjust the rigid length standing out along his thigh under his trousers.

It’s been pinching for a minute.

---

He won’t leave her in peace.

Oh, he’s nice enough. Courteous enough not to be a complete scamp when the others are near, which she makes sure they are, frequently.

Unfortunately, he catches her alone on one of her daily nature walks by dropping out of a tree to block her path. She glowers at him as he bends forward, hands behind his back, and gives her his very best charmer’s smile.

“You haven’t been by my tent for the last few nights,” he says. “Whyever not?”

She rolls her eyes and steps around him, continuing down the path. He immediately follows.

“You must keep up with your studies, darling,” he says as he falls into step beside her. “Else you’ll lose all your freshly acquired skills.”

Tav sighs. “Gale’s been helping me.”

Astarion stops short and she gets several steps ahead before she bothers to look around for him.

“Gale?” he sneers. Under her gaze, he rapidly regains his composure and draws his shoulders back, giving his light laugh. “That must be terribly boring.”

She shrugs. “I figured I’d put you out enough.”

He tucks his chin. “Is that what you think? That I didn’t enjoy our time together? Because I assure you it’s very much the opposite.” He tosses his head and gives a cheeky grin. “I’ve many more lessons I could offer, if you’d like.”

Tav arches an eyebrow at him. “Like what?” she says as she turns to walk the path again.

Astarion retakes his place at her side. “Did you know I speak several languages?”

“Is that so?” she says. “I speak three. Common, druidic, and bad druidic.”

“Well, there you go,” he says. “Interested in learning more?”

To illustrate his point, he slips seamlessly into a flowing, silky language she presumes to be Elvish. From that, his words go harder and sharper. Finally, they edge into something guttural.

Despite herself, she smiles and looks sidelong at him. “Did you make that last one up?”

“Absolutely not, how dare you,” he says. “I also read shady secret code, but that’s neither here nor there, really.”

Tav contemplates. “The first one was pretty, I guess.”

“An Elvish language lesson it is, then.” He smiles wickedly. "Go on, repeat after me."

He says something in Elvish, a phrase with flowing vowels and rounded words that sound delicious on the tongue.

Tav forces herself to stop staring at his mouth as he speaks. "Say again?" she says, tucking her hair behind her ear and focusing on the ground, trying to pay closer attention to the sound of the words.

He repeats the phrase.

With a slight frown, she repeats it back almost perfectly. Years and years around a campfire learning the tales of her people prepared her for it.

"Oh," Astarion says. "Your intonation is... quite good."

She risks a look at him and finds him peering at her with eyes half-lidded, that same wicked smile on his lips.

Her frown deepens. "What did you just have me say?"

"Only that I'm beautiful and I deserve nice things," he says with a flourish of his hand. "Which is true."

Tav looks him up and down, but he seems sincere enough, so she continues on her walk and he stays in step, the air between them full of the language of his ancestry. She absorbs it as she absorbs the sun.

---

The next day, Shadowheart leads a dapple-gray mare laden with supplies through the camp. Wyll comes along to help her unload and the pair make small talk until the last sack is removed from the horse’s back and she shifts back into humanoid form.

“Appreciate the help, Tav,” Shadowheart says. “That would’ve taken several trips without you.”

Tav beams at her. “You could’ve taken Lae’zel, you know. Pretty sure she could lift me. While I’m in horse form.”

The cleric gives her a sardonic look. “Where’s your bloodsucking shadow?” she quips back.

Tav laughs. “Okay, I deserved that. I think he’s hunting.”

Shadowheart hums. “He could at least bring the body back for the rest of us once in a while.” She sets down her last crate and dusts her hands off. “That’s enough components for me to replenish our potion stock. What do you need?”

“I could use two or three more vials of Oil of Accuracy,” Tav admits. “You wouldn’t think a lioness’ claws needed to be more accurate, but you’d be wrong.”

“Done,” Shadowheart says. “I’ll have them to you by tomorrow morning.”

Tav nods her appreciation and gives Shadowheart a clap on the shoulder as she walks past. On a whim, she throws out one of the Elvish phrases Astarion taught her in thanks.

“... what did you just say to me?” Shadowheart says.

Tav turns. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you’d speak Elvish, too. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Shadowheart shakes her head. “No, no. I do speak Elvish. I want you to repeat what you just said.”

Blinking in confusion, Tav does so.

The cleric’s expression can only be called disbelieving. “Yes, that’s what I thought you said. Who taught you that?”

“Astarion,” Tav says, twisting her staff in her hands. “Gods, did I say it wrong?”

Shadowheart laughs into her hand, then sobers and clears her throat. “No, your ear is surprisingly good. Thank you for that. Mind if I teach you one to say next time you see him?”

“Really?” Tav says, thrilled. “I’d love that.”

They spend a few moments committing a new phrase to Tav’s memory and then Shadowheart sends her on her merry way, unable to drop the smile from her face.

Wyll comes up beside her, having finally emptied the last of the nearby crates. He holds a silver mug out to Shadowheart and lifts his own toward his mouth.

“What did that phrase Astarion taught her really mean?” he asks as he puts his drink to his lips.

Shadowheart holds her mug in both hands and leans in closer. “It’s not a direct translation, but… think along the lines of, ‘I will take you between my thighs until you forget your breath.’”

Wyll chokes and spits out his drink chivalrously in the direction opposite Shadowheart. He coughs and brings up an arm to wipe his mouth.

“And what did you teach her back?” he wheezes.

Shadowheart smirks. “‘If you wish to drink of my fountain, speak it with your lips to mine.’”

Wyll leans forward to put his hands on his knees and wheezes again. “Oh, that… that’s going to be a thing.”

“I hope so,” Shadowheart says, taking a draught from her own cup.

PART 2

[cuubism]

in an attempt to be more offline (absolute failure so far) i wrote the next installment of Nightingales by hand in an actual notebook. imagine that. behold, fanfic that's touched grass... or something.

Dream has taken to leaving random books on Hob's nightstand. This is no abnormal occurrence, except that these aren't from Dream's infinite collection of books he's "currently reading," but rather seem to be left there for Hob.

Hob will finish a book, and within the hour it will disappear back to the Library, miraculously replaced by another. At first this suits Hob well enough. The cafe is only getting busier, and while Hob does love trawling through the Library's endless stacks in search of a new read, he'd rather spend his free time with Dream. Perhaps Dream is only trying to facilitate that through this method, or trying to make Hob happy by applying his knowledge in the area where it's vastly broader.

But then it starts to get weirder. Whereas before, Dream's selected books had been exactly to Hob's tastes--as they usually are, it is his specialty, after all--slowly they start to diverge.

First it's an epic tome about interstellar travel. Post-apocalypse, final earth survivors traveling light years to an untamed planet, and so on. Hob likes sci-fi well enough, but this particular one is getting a little too 2001: A Space Odyssey for his tastes, a little too abstract and philosophical. Perhaps one that Dream likes that he wanted to share?

Then comes the horror novel. And what horror. A man born and raised in underground rooms, who did not realize he was bereft of the sky until an attempted rescue caved in his tunnels and nearly suffocated him. Dragged from the soil, gasping, he had to cover his head lest he go blind.

'David had read of plants that grew upwards. Instead of the deep roots he'd touched all his life, they had stems, and leaves, and these went up, into another world. Birthed into cold fear, David thought.

He was one of those plants. He stretched long fingers up through the soil, gasping for breath. Warm earth parted and air greeted him, air chill and dry as he'd never tasted it. A searing pain in his unused eyes. He did not even have a word for the brutal shine that fell upon his face.

(Light, he would later think. Sunlight.)

No matter how hard he pressed his hands to his eyes it was not blocked out. He whimpered, and the same hands that had pulled him from the collapsed earth, hands painful in their kindness, laid a blanket over him, covering his head in warm darkness again. No, not a blanket. A jacket?

Another head peeked under the collar of the jacket, letting in a sliver of brightness before it was shut out again. Oh. His rescuer. His arms were bare; it was his jacket that David was wearing over his head.

"Hey," said his rescuer. His voice was warm as the soil. "You alright?"'

Perhaps it isn't horror, Hob thinks, only afterwards.

Then there's a book of love poems, though they're strange and hyper-modern, and Hob can't shake the odd sense that he shouldn't be reading them, that Dream has, somehow, snatched them out of a time yet to be.

He finally confronts Dream when he's left a relatively straightforward, if bland, romance of the type he hadn't thought either of them particularly went for. (Even Dream wouldn't be able to pull sex inspiration from it as he likes to do with his bodice rippers, the book isn't nearly spicy enough for his tastes.)

He marches back into the bedroom one morning, after several minutes of making coffee and mulling, and holds the book up in front of Dream's face. "Dream. What."

Dream looks up from where he's reclining in Hob's bed, several books scattered around him. "Did you not like it?"

"Did you?"

Dream hums, looking down again at his own book. "It has merits."

"Why, though. You keep giving me these books. Why?"

Dream continues studiously reading his book, though he isn't turning pages. So it isn't teasing, then. Nor even some lighthearted attempt to get Hob to expand his reading horizons. It's something deeper.

"Dream," Hob says, sitting on the side of the bed by his thigh. "Come on. Talk to me. What is it?"

"Page one-fifty-two," says Dream in a quiet voice, and it takes a second for Hob to realize he means the book Hob is still holding.

Hob hasn't managed to get that far in the book. He flips through it, anxiety building, more anxiety than he thinks a light, beachy romance is ever meant to produce.

He turns to the page, about three-quarters of the way through the book.

'Lacy had calculated it once. Across her entire career, she had written two million, five hundred twenty-two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three words.'

Right. Hob remembers from the few chapters he'd managed to read that the protagonist is a writer.

'2.5 million words about romance. Who could possibly have so much to say on the topic? 2.5 million words of circling and circling the point. Not letting herself see it well enough to skewer it.

All those words came only to this: she wanted to marry him, and she didn't know what to do.'

Hob drops the book.

It tumbles to the floor in a flutter of bending pages, but he pays it no mind. He takes Dream's hands in his own, letting Dream's book fall closed on his knees. Dream looks up at him hesitantly, from under his eyelashes. You silly thing, Hob thinks, with heart-clenching fondness. I love you so.

All of it had been a message, in Dream's own oblique way. Borrowed metaphors from the vast catalog of his brain. That's how he connects: through the books that Hob knows are -- in some strange way -- a part of him.

He leans down to kiss Dream's knuckles, like he's bowing his head before a shrine. Then he looks up. Dream is watching him, expression somewhere between wary and awed.

"You don't have to know what to do about anything else," Hob says, "so long as you marry me."

Dream smiles tentatively, and tips his forehead against Hob's. He can be so strange and mysterious at times, but more often than not, when they're alone in their bedroom, he's like this: soft, wanting, just on the edge of shy, and that's the version of Dream Hob most wants to bundle up and away from the world. Even if he knows it's impossible, and not right besides; Dream can't just live in his bedroom, he has to live in his stories, and stories are out in the world. Hob can't help but want it anyway.

"I would like that," Dream says, smile soft. Hob kisses his cheek, body full of warm light.

He pulls Dream into a proper hug, tucking his face into his shoulder. He feels Dream's smile against his neck. The warm weight of him in his arms, in his bed.

So improbable to have snagged a thing such as Dream from the expanse of his existence, and cuddled him up in the cozy confines of his simple cafe. But as Dream had said. The door exists because Hob uses it. He met Dream because he went to his shop that day. He went to his shop that day because he was to meet Dream. Each improbability has a circular path.

Christ. He's thinking like that sci-fi novel Dream had given him.

Hob doesn't know what a marriage with a creature like Dream -- he still doesn't know what that is, exactly -- is meant to be like. It's uncharted space.

But he knows that he wants it. Wants Dream.

He holds his darling close and kisses the corner of his mouth. Dream's lips are sweet with happy tears.

"You will marry me, then?" he murmurs, more pleased repetition of the thought than a question.

Hob gets the book of infamous page one-fifty-two off the floor. Turns to page one-fifty-three. Finds the word he needs, swipes Dream's pen from the nightstand, circles it. Hands the book to him, open.

Dream touches the circled word with a reverent fingertip, and smiles.

[dduane]

@greggs-mistflower, this is *your* fault...! :)

Via the comments here:

I really can't justify asking her to put in effort to make a classic romance cover too. A shirtless Herewiss (with extra blacksmithing muscles) bending Freelorn backwards, about to kiss him. The title would be better as "Flaming Love".

What, you mean like this?

(adding a cut so that no one gets scandalized*)

Just an experiment, mostly about sorting out the lighting.

...Which is a bit too flat. I made the mistake of turning up the outside-the-forge light from the sky too high, and as a result lost considerable modeling on the figures. (shrug) Oh well... we learn by doing. I'll turn that down on the next pass and restore the original in-room lighting.

Also possibly make Lorn's shirt a little more diaphanous... because why not, if we've shoved him into that particular role.** (snicker) And make that bend-back deeper. ...And see about some other minor changes. For example: where the hell have their pinkies gone? I must have adjusted those four or five times. Make sure everybody's eyes are pointing in the right direction, and doublecheck their expressions. (Too often the figures in bodice-ripper poses have a tendency to look a little, well, constipated.) Mess around with the fire (which I borrowed from another set, the much-loved Red Crow Inn, and just chucked into that space to see what it would do for the lighting.)

*But see also one of the local operating principles: "Make 'em laugh. Make 'em cry. Make 'em wait." :)

**An amused comment from the background: "I am reliably informed that I am versatile. Next time I expect to be the one doing the bending-back."

[dystopicjumpsuit]

A Question of Seman-dicks

A/N: I wrote this under the influence of alcohol, edibles, and the funniest conversation in the history of Discord. Happy Friday!

Pairing: Hardcase x GN!Reader (platonic with a twist)

Rating: T

Wordcount: 960

Warnings and tags: suggestive language, terrible puns

Hardcase spotted you striding purposefully down the corridor of the Resolute, and he sped up to try to catch up with you. You turned a corner abruptly, and by the time he rounded it, you were nowhere to be found. The corridor was empty; there was nothing there but a bank of escape pods. He peered into the porthole of each one until he finally spotted you, pacing back and forth in the small space and talking animatedly. Intrigued, he opened the hatch.

You whirled to face him, guilt written plainly across your features, but when you recognized his distinctive tattoos, you relaxed.

“Oh, it’s you,” you sighed with relief. “Thank the Force.”

“What are you doing in here?” he asked curiously.

“Nothing!” you said. His expression was dubious, and you knew he wouldn’t let it drop until you told the truth. “Hiding.”

He gave you a sympathetic look. “Admiral Ice Queen?”

“I came in here to scream,” you admitted sheepishly.

“Good choice,” he said. “Conveniently close to your office, private, and most importantly, soundproof. I approve of your strategy.”

“Except I’m not supposed to be in here, and if anyone caught me, I’d be in huge trouble.”

“Someone did catch you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t rat me out,” you replied. “You’re more likely to come in and hide with me.”

“Great idea!” he said with a grin. He stepped into the pod and sealed the hatch, then flopped down on the floor and patted the spot next to him. “Tell me all about it.”

“You know there are perfectly good seats in here,” you said.

“True, but if I sat in one of those, there wouldn’t be room for you next to me, and you look like you could use a hug.”

“Good point,” you said, sitting down with a thump.

He immediately draped his arm over your shoulders, and you leaned against him. “So what did the bad-miral do this time?”

“More of the usual,” you replied. “I swear she sets me up to fail on purpose, and then she takes an evil delight in being a massive Taungsday about it.”

“Taungsday?” he asked, baffled.

“You know, a C-U-Next-Taungsday?”

“I don’t get it,” he said.

Even though nobody was around, you leaned in and whispered the explanation in his ear. He reared back in surprise.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that word,” he said.

“What word would you prefer?” you asked, amused at his reaction, but still too upset to laugh.

“Lady garden,” he replied.

You snorted. “Seriously?”

“It’s more respectful,” he said with dignity.

“I don’t want to be respectful!” you complain. “I want to call her a cu—”

“Love tunnel!” he exclaimed, interrupting you before you could get the word out.

That time, you actually laughed. “What is this, a bodice ripper? I don’t need a romantic euphemism for a—”

“Hidden treasure!” he cut you off. “Or cupcake! Those are delicious.”

You let out an inelegant cackle, and he gave you a wounded look that only made you laugh harder. 

“Hardcase, I had no idea you had so many words for a woman’s—”

“Honey pot?” he asked insouciantly. 

“You can just say—”

“Nether regions?” he offered. “I don’t like that one. It sounds spooky. Like some vast, uncharted part of space.”

You tried to stifle your laughter, but it came out as an embarrassing snort, which only made you laugh harder.

“Still, it’s better than ‘penis fly trap,’” he mused. “But not as good as flower. You know, because it has petals and is also used in reproduction. I would definitely rather put my tallywacker in a flower than in a nether region. Higher probability of survival.”

By this point, you had both hands clapped over your mouth to try to muffle your shrieks of laughter as tears streamed down your face. You couldn’t even remember why you’d hidden in the escape pod in the first place, much less why Hardcase was regaling you with a comprehensive listing of every colloquialism known to the galaxy for a—

“Notorious V.A.G.,” he said. “Whoever came up with that one had obviously never felt the touch of a woman.”

You doubled over and buried your face against his chest as you howled with laughter, so you missed his pleased smile when he realized he’d successfully distracted you from your horrible boss. Unfortunately, you’d been gone long enough that you knew your absence would soon be noted.

“I wish I could hide in here with you for the rest of the day,” you gasped once you caught your breath.

“Me, too,” he said, giving your shoulders a squeeze. “Probably ought to get back to it, though.”

You nodded and wiped away your mirthful tears, hoping that you looked at least somewhat presentable. Hardcase stood and offered you his hand, pulling you to your feet with ease, and then he opened the hatch of the escape pod. The two of you spilled out into the corridor, only to run smack-dab into Jesse and Kix.

Jesse took one look at your disheveled appearance and punched Hardcase in the shoulder with a devilish grin. 

“Nice, vod,” he said. “You finally made your move.”

Hardcase looked mortified. “That’s not— We weren’t—”

“Relax, brother, we won’t tell the Atrocious Admiral,” Kix laughed. “I’m just glad you decided to do something other than pine away after all this time.”

Hardcase stared at you with panic in his eyes as he watched understanding dawn on your face. 

“I—” he began.

On impulse, you leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. 

“Thanks for everything, big boy,” you said. “Be sure to stop by my bunk later, and I’ll show you how well I can swallow your baloney pony.”

[rhinocio]

ROTTMNT Fanfic Recommendations

Light

You Coveted This Prison by CaveDwellers (April / Donatello - Comedy / Character Study - WIP) THE April O'Neil character study. One part excruciating (for reader and supporting cast) slow burn romance, one part introspection on being true to oneself. Rated M but only for one chapter, which can be skipped. Riddled with laugh-out-loud comedy shenanigans and heartachingly tender intimacy. Hot takes all over the place because the author wrote this with very little fandom involvement, and intentionaly chose to be contrarian in as many ways as possible. April takes down her arch-rival! Raph locks her in a freezer! Casey Junior's keeping secrets! Donatello's wall of horrible fake sciencey souveniers keeps growing and it may or may not be a sign of affection -- he's going to crunch the numbers on that. An absolute blast of a fic, cannot recommend enough.

★

Tried To Grow Up Good by Sroloc_Elbisivni (No romantic focus - Character Study - Complete)

THE Casey Jones post-movie character study. Love is stored in the found family. Casey is an accidental felon. He and Cassandra are siblings now. Anatawa hitorijaNAI let's get the entire two timeline fam in here for a reunion so I can sob myself silly. Perfection. This author's constantly pumping out new fics, and often updating multiple at a time; I've read through and greatly enjoyed Tomato Maze (there is so much serotonin in the knowledge that these idiot turtle boys will do anything for watermelon), Sorrow Is An Autumn Heart (Leo/Usagi but make it a slowburn thriller-drama set in historical Japan), and The Passionate Pools of Salamandria (a post-movie Raph/Mona bodice-ripper with an amnesiac protagonist and a B-plot where the rest of the family fight space to find their missing brother). Honestly this author has the WILDEST takes and everything they write is fascinating.

★

Give Me Something That’ll Haunt Me When You’re Not Around by Taizi (Leonardo / Yuichi - Drama / Romance - Complete)

If you've decided you're finally gonna take a dive into the leosagi crossover ship and see what all the fuss is about, do it with this fic. The author has a strong grasp on how to make a character study about characters first and relationships second, and in doing so has crafted one of THE most tender romance stories I've ever read. Starts as a character study on Yuichi Usagi and the yokai perspective on the Kraang invasion, branches into an exploration of PTSD and what it means to recover, and ends with a friends-to-lovers quickburn that says, "because of you I'm learning to love myself." Leo gets a therapy dinosaur. Yuichi gets out of his head. The character nuance and showing-not-telling is godtier. Healing starts with telling the alien invaders to go fuck themselves. Do not pass this fic up, I promise you it's worth the read. It legitimately made me cry.

★

The Old College Try by Theashemarie (No romantic focus - Action / Drama - WIP)

Donatello cloaks himself human to go to college, and drags his twin brother along. This fic masquerades as a fun, comedy-heavy action adventure story, but under the surface is a really fascinating introspection on what it means to hide your true self in order to fit in. The queer subtext is off the charts! Leo babysits Baxter Stockboy. Mikey gets eaten by a bird. One of the grad certificates is definitely going to be made out to to the wrong Hamato entirely. This fic features an autistic writer writing an autistic character, and their personal experience shines through in the excellent way Donnie's awkwardness and affection are balanced. This author knows nuance; I also highly recommend The Hibernator (apocalyptic timeline and Raph's dead........ wink) and Very Thoughtful (a Donnie-centric low empathy study).

★

Aftermath by Bronte (No romantic focus - Drama - Complete)

The boys deal with the aftermath of the movie events in whatever ways they can. Donnie gets into pina coladas. Leo harasses his brother. Look at these disaster twins bonding! There's a flippancy to all the angst that keeps these lighthearted and love-focused without skipping the rough details. I'm literally never going to recover from the belly bongos scene and will probably end up making art about it. Fantastic read, made me viscerally emotional.

★

At The Bottom Of A Duck-Shaped Crater by CaveDwellers (April / Donatello - Drama / Comedy - Complete) One part worldbuilding for the apocalyptic timeline and one part heartfelt comedy from the perspective of Miyamoto Usagi. Leonardo adopts a babysitter. Casey Junior saves the war effort from collapsing under a dick-measuring competition. April may or may not be about to kill a man. CaveDwellers is among my favourite writers for several reasons, but this fic really highlights her strength in blending several different kinds of relationships in one story and building a plot that delivers achey-breaky sentiments without having to structure everything around romance. (We're also developing projects together; keep an eye out for the "next in series" button at the bottom of the AO3 page for soft apocalyptic stories of a similar nature!)

★

Superfight by Swordfright (No romantic focus - Drama / Comedy - Complete)

An easy-reading one shot! Leo comes to terms with being a teenager, Donnie calls his disability out for what it is, and everybody plays Superfight the card game. The author writes in a very Douglas Adams-y style, resulting in a wheezing-on-the-floor-funny reading experience. If you're burnt out on fandom angst and need a pick-me-up, this is 900% the fic for you. It got me cry-laughing with just the quick refresher glance I gave it to put this recommendation together.

★

Now That's What I Call A Vacation! by WayWardWatson (No romantic focus (?) - Adventure / Crossover - WIP)

This fic's a multi-feature! It's one part infodump about Japan's culture and tourist hotspots, one part study on what it means to cloak your identity to fit into the world, and one part surprise crossover with Usagi Yojimbo. I am OBSESSED with this author's takes on Splinter as a character; several chapters are dedicated to exploring his fixation on being "human again" and trying to juggle the life he once had as a star with the life he now has as a parent of mutants. Primarily this is a feel good adventure story about the Hamato brothers getting in touch with their heritage, but it comes in swinging with several different action/adventure plot points and drama beats to keep a reader invested. Legitimately have no idea where the author's taking things, which makes me all the more excited for the ride!

★

One Step Forward, Fall Forever Back by GriffinStone (No romantic focus - Action / Mystery - Complete)

This fic is one of those slight universe alteration stories that takes a one-off thought and runs with it: what if Casey Junior died on his way through the time rift, spawned into the past as a ghost, and Leo was the only person who could see him? Promise the execution is way less daunting than it sounds -- events move along at a breezy pace and characters never spend very long lamenting the whole dead boy situation. The final battle alone is so chocked full of found family ride-or-die energy between the two protagonists that it's worth the rest of the adventure playing out pretty similarly to the movie. Definitely a treat for those of you who are big on Leo-Casey interactions.

★

A Mixed Bag by MusingWordsmith (No romantic focus - Action / Comedy - WIP)

What if I told you there was a fic where the turtles of every major tv show TMNT iteration shonen anime-style battled their way through challenges in mixed teams of four in order to defeat a team of evil overlords who may or may not know what they're doing re: evillness? Trust me when I say this story is fun -- it blends comedy and drama flawlessly, and the author totally committed to the bit in keeping each version of the turtles loyal to the genre of their individual canons. The 1987 turtles are breaking the fourth wall. The Rise kids are absolute supersoliders. 2003 Michelangelo somehow ended up as the babysitter of his particular faction and is kind of having a crisis about it. I am so beyond impressed at how well this author distinguishes each character and keeps who's who from getting too confusing, which is a common issue in TMNT crossovers. Reading this fic feels like watching literally any version of the show as a kid on a Saturday morning. It is a blast.

Medium

Young Root, Old Rock by SiryyGrey (No romantic focus - Action / Thriller - WIP)  

Shortly after the Kraang invasion a mysterious file of an unreadable format shows up on Donnie's computer, and he's driven by an intense curiosity to decipher exactly what it is and means. This author goes HARD on creating tense, muscle-tensing atmosphere, which is balanced out by extremely tender character interaction. Casey knows something he's not letting on. Donnie makes himself a robo-brain. Leo blows up his brother. You ever wanted an adventure with the blorbos that was also an ARG? Cryptic messages are sprinkled throughout the chapters for readers to decipher. Mind the tags but absolutely do not pass this fic up!

★

No Rest For The Weary by Nekotsuki (No romantic focus - Action / Adventure - WIP)

Ever thought "hey what if the movie just kept going and we found out what happened to those other kraang"? Hello and let me introduce you to THE post-movie out of frying pan and into the fire fic. I have it on good authority that this author was a big name in the 2003 TMNT fic scene, and I suspect for good reason -- this story perfectly blends heart-pounding action with A+ belly laughs and solid found family energy. Donnie hacks cute animal emails and narcs on the enemy. April fights zombies back to back with Barold Draxum of downstairs neighbour fame. Raph gets tranquilizer-darted by his brother for being too emotional. 100/10 wild ride, cannot recommend highly enough.

★

I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good by Dandy (No romantic focus - Adventure / Thriller - WIP)

Several TMNT AU competitions have made this fic a household name, and for good reason -- the author's come onto the scene with a bold, fun plot premise: after a battle gone wrong, Leo finds himself alive but unable to be perceived via sight, sound, or touch. Naturally, his family assumes he's dead. While it starts on the angstier side, this story's got a lot of heart and shoves tenderness into every possible crevice; the longer it goes on, the more tears are swapped out for laughter, and anguished dialogue-heavy interaction trades place with high-octane action. Worth sticking with!

★

Creation, Haunted And Holy by Greenglowsgold (No romantic focus - Drama / Thriller - Complete)

I lied about the romance it's Donnie x Technodrome with a twist. This fic reads like fascinating poetry, and does right by its source material by taking one of the fandom's favourite angst catalysts and turning it into a demonstration of the strength of love. Looking for something wildly different? GGG's got you. Would also highly recommend their outside-POV slice of life fic Midtown Mutants!

Dark

The Lemonade Leak by TurtleSoupSwimmer (No romantic focus - Horror / Thriller - WIP)

How do you explain to your family that your twin brother's possessed when you have no evidence, aren't sure if said brother is still alive somewhere inside the zombie, and revealing you know something's wrong could get everybody killed? There is no describing how completely feral I've gone for this fic - the author's technique of starting chapters with small, raw, seemingly unrelated scenes that segue into the current plot and enhance the tone or underlying message of the story is just incredible. They've given the turtles a fascinating mutation feature that adds layers of intrigue to the plot. The character interaction is heckin' tender, we got a nice scoop of self-worth issues from Leo to deal with, and the scary scenes are grip-your-phone-and-stop-blinking scary. The author promises a happy ending but that doesn't make Lemonade Leak any less of an incredibly tense ride. This is a fic I jump on the second I get the AO3 email notification.

★

The Smoking Gun: A ROTTMNT Tactical AU by AlienMadame22 (Donatello / April - Action / Adventure - Complete)

Agent Bishop of the EPF stole four turtle mutants away from their father as children and raised them as militia; dad's gotten back in contact and intends to break them free. This author absolutely took off running with the tactical AU prompt that various visual artists started up, grabbed a handful of canon concepts to mess around with, and mcguyvered together a wild ride of a story that continues to catch me off guard. Strap in for a fic riddled with emotional complexity and character nuance, and come prepared to cry. Fear not the ship tag, as the fic is primarily non-romance-focused and the ship elements are handled in an interesting, convoluted way that works to further the plot and add comedic value. Smoking Gun is a refreshing new concept in a very busy fandom tag and I have been eating it up like candy.

★

The Dawning of the Hour (Series) by Faiakishi (No romantic focus - Horror / Drama - WIP)

Donnie is captured and brainwashed by a pre-Vegeta-arc'd Baron Draxum, who subsequently starts parenting the kid out of guilt while using his talents to fuel the canonical Mutate All Humans takeover plot. It's been often called the Donatello version of Like Father Like Son, but that does its storytelling a disservice - this series goes much deeper in the psychological and physical horror direction, has an underlying political intrigue plot, and spends a generous amount of time with the secondary cast (plus a few excellent OCs) in order to really ramp up the intensity of the premise's whole situation. The first story is very whump-heavy, but does a lot of setup for fic two: The Drax-Daddening, which gives Donnie a friend in Cassandra Jones and finds more space for affection and comedy. The author's ramped up the sources of conflict several times over in the first few chapters of the series' second fic, making rescue by the Hamato feel ever more impossible. Despite being a very complex and interesting read (grey-morality my beloved) I cannot stress enough how VERY not for kids this fic is, so proceed with extreme caution!

[blackkatmagic]

Would you ever... write a Treasure Planet AU for SW? Just nautical ships ~in space~.

Space mermaids

Eldritch horrors from the deep/dark

Regency bodice ripper vibes

PL it's like you don't even know me. All you have to do is lay it out like that and I'm already pulling up a blank Word doc.

[goblinmatriarch]

Drarry 2022 Roundup!

Just some drarry I loved in 2022.

Love to do year round-ups weeks after the year ended and with zero system or approach except scrolling back through my bookmarks and being like "aw yeah, that one! Nice!". Anyway, here are 16 drarry fics that got me through 2022.

Contretemps by @moonflower-rose (8.5k)

This was my erised gift and it's perfect! Some really fun magical lore, a perfectly fumbling bumbling Harry with a crush, and the rare oblivious Draco. It's quick and witty and sparklingly awkward.

The Unknown Door by waterwings (70k)

This fic was in a class by itself! The house magic was eerie and Draco's post-war fate was bleak, and then there is a slow, glorious healing of everyone through a community of misfits. Really imaginative magic and a lot of finding of lost ways.

The Stuff of Clouds and Skies by @myrtlefics (7.5k)

Harry with an obvious crush and ANOTHER oblivious Draco, truly 2022 was my year in that regard! And then there are the 17th century ghost bros, and Draco helplessly finding himself having to do things he thought he'd never do again to save Harry. And THEN Draco has to spend a bunch of time stumbling through an Auror investigation with a competent Ron and it's all just.....unf, so good.

Romp and Circumstance by @wolfpants (35k)

Like drinking champagne while horny. Such a sexy, fun fic, which makes sense as it's from Bodice Ripper Fest. Draco as the virginal ingenue meeting Harry's rake seduction head-on was delicious and overwhelming and full of 'technically' not crossing any sexy sexy lines, which, if you're into that, is hot as all get-out. (Spoiler: I am into that)

Eager for the Sky by @oknowkiss (35k)

Hogwarts AU that puts Harry and Draco on the same team and also makes quidditch have some level of strategy, a feat in and of itself! Harry is a confused, bumbling seducer who is so bad at it that Draco has no idea, which means......another oblivious!Draco! It's funny and insightful and poignant and well worth a read.

In Free Fall by @kbrick (81k)

Harry is an adrenaline junkie doing stunts all over the world. Draco is a big old nerd. They grow to understand each other and make space in one another's lives. This was really thoughtful and insightful about like....mm, maybe what it's like wanting things different from the standard, and I was enthralled by the way Harry shaped and reshaped his life. Honestly don't think I'm doing this one justice, just read it.

Yours Truly by @skeptiquewrites (14.5k)

Ahhh this one is so much fun! Fake dating! Fake dating! And then a furious but handsome Draco, a community of friends, some very cool magical jobs, and Drunk Hermione my love.

The Truth about Love by waterwings (52k)

Pureblood magic and rituals being dismantled! All the fun of learning about ancient, complicated snobby binding rituals AND the joy of Draco's personal growth being in dismantling them. Lots of great friendship stuff, with Pansy and Hermione especially as affectionately mocking allies.

I have not yet forgot myself to stone by @elskanellis (3k)

Absolutely haunting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind LCDrarry crossover. It's ambiguously tragic and lovely and fragile and beautiful. It takes the trope of them finding each other over and over no matter what and turns Harry's utter faith into a tragic flaw.

Welcome! Everything is Fine! by @melociraptor (12k)

A smart and funny Good Place @lcdrarry fic with pitch-perfect character voices. Truly worth a read for drarry encountering Jason Mendoza alone, and then there is EVEN MORE to love beyond that! It's sort of picaresque scenes from a year, varying between hilariously silly to startlingly poignant, and it's worth a read even if you're unfamiliar with the original work.

Our Time by @mosrael (40k)

Another fic with astonishing world-building and deeply cool magical lore. I've never seen the work it's based on (Arrival), and I did not care. The driving magical mystery was exciting, and the drarry relationship develops naturally and joyously alongside it.

Silverpoint by @tackytigerfic (8k)

I could have linked p much any tackytiger fic I've read this year buuuut this one is most recent in my bookmarks so it gets the shout-out 😂. It's a lovely, short, second-person look at Harry's observations of Draco over the years. Read it and then also the rest of tacky's fics.

Tis a Far Better Thing by @the-sinking-ship (37k)

This Clueless AU sent me on a tear through all of Sinking Ship's fics, and I stand by that choice. Draco's voice blends beautifully with Cher's, and Draco as the lost, confused fashion plate socialite discovering himself is absolutely perfect. This reclist could maybe double as an oblivious!Draco one because guess what he's here, too, and I love it.

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @dustmouth-blog (96k)

Comfort read that feels like taking a long hot bath then crawling into clean sheets for almost 100k words! Harry has some mh stuff to grapple with, and there are some gentle negotiations around sex and relationship stuff, and it's all so careful and soft and soothing.

Exposure by @margeurite (6k)

Suuuuch a hot fic omg. Draco accidentally discovers Harry's exhibitionist streak alongside Harry himself awkwardly realising oh no he is into this and it's just. Hoo boy. It's steamy.

Come as you Are by @peachpety (3.5k)

Peach is a master of texting/social media in fics, and this was the one that made me fall in love! Sweet little high school AU with awkward sexuality and a lot of fun online gossip

Potential Gravity by zeitgeistic (32k)

This one stands on its own; I can't really compare it to any other fic. Harry's lack of care for his own life is in full effect, and Draco is so angry at him for it. Some cool looks at magic and magical govt outside of England (in Beirut!) And also there is a baby manticore.

Knead, then let rise by @softlystarstruck (7k)

I guess another theme of my year is soft, gentle, soothing fics of healing. Real mystery, that, cannot even guess why that might have been 😅. Anyway, it's lovely and domestic and sweet.

And that's all, folks! Read em, don't read em, but those were my favourite fics that I read in 2022! Thanks to all the authors for making me laugh, cry, or soothe myself to sleep!

[sroloc--elbisivni]

🌹, if i'm not too late?

why not!

He hasn’t actually taken any of the lizards’ hands off until one of them went for his bandana—at least, he’s pretty sure he hasn’t, but there’s a big gap in his memories between ripping the tentacle off and Mona throwing him around the room they’ve been using as a dojo.

[in-silks-and-flesh-and-leather]

[Starship Icarus] IV

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Summary: Mills finally meets his sleepin' gal.

WC: ~5.8K

*

You woke up as if from a grumpy nap as a child. Had you been a teenager, you would have rolled over, wrapping your blanket around you like a burrito and asked for five more minutes. Followed by trying to sleep for an hour or more.

The screen rose into view as your pod tilted. Your body gradually became accustomed to weight and gravity again, in a way that made you aware of the endless vessels carrying fluids all throughout the landscape of your flesh. You shuddered at the sensation and only listened to the voice greeting you and guiding you out of stasis without opening your eyes.

“We have nearly completed the voyage from Earth to Homestead II, where you begin your exploratory mission. Homestead II is the second planet outside Earth’s solar system to be colonized and the first in the Bhakti system to be explored,” she spoke in her serene, mechanical voice and you started testing out your newly awakened body. Deep breath, balling up a fist, swallow, blink, neck pop. The pod, cracked open like an egg from which you were meant to hatch, wheeled you to the door.

“…the Icarus is on final approach. For the next four months, you’ll enjoy space travel at its most luxurious.” You huffed an unimpressed little laugh and you were satisfied your contrariness was intact after a century in deathlike-sleep.

“…let’s get you to your cabin where you can get some rest.”

*

You remained in your cabin only long enough to follow the protocol, drink some resurrection juice and receive your luggage. It was nice and spacious in there, and you were gratified your Moroccan leather pouf was already waiting. You could immediately tell you’d be taking it easy and resting for a day or two until you were feeling more like yourself. A relaxing bout of reading with your feet up on the pouf and some fragrant tea steaming in a mug sounded heavenly.

As soon as you were out of your stasis gown and dressed in your own clothes, you went out in search of the other passengers. It was a little eerie to be alone, with only holos and machines for company.

“Hello?” you called out softly, voice still croaky from disuse. “Anybody around?” you asked casually, not wanting to come across as too eager or discombobulated. Silly thing to worry about in the face of colonizing a new planet.

A figure of a tall man shimmered behind a fountain and you stopped for a moment. Still groggy, you wondered if you weren’t just seeing weird shadows. Surely, the polite thing would have been to respond if he’d seen you. “Hi?” you offered, prepared to feel silly if you’d just greeted a mechanical ficus or a waylaid coat rack.

“Hi,” he responded in a gravelly voice and finally came fully into view as you passed the fountain. You watched each other in silence for a few moments. On your end, you were trying not to give him blatant elevator eyes or burst into girlish giggles. He looked right out of superhero central casting, the kind of ruggedly good-looking that was reserved for Brawny man commercials and bodice-ripper front covers.

Gingerly, as if he might scare you off, he took a few tentative steps closer. You did the same and stopped when there was a friendly, but polite distance left between you. “Are you passenger or crew?”

“Passenger. Julian Mills,” he was looking at you without blinking. He was probably just as disoriented as you.

You gave him your name and extended a hand. Julian looked at it oddly. It felt like offering a starving man a juicy steak. When he took it, his hand large and pleasantly warm, he held it for a long moment.

“I didn’t see anyone else from my row wake up yet. What about yours?” you asked, still more sleepwalking than awake. He stopped shaking your hand, but still held it.

“Same on my end.”

Thoughts were slow to crawl through the fog of your brain. It was increasingly frustrating to feel yourself sluggishly process information that should be received instantly. “The crew is supposed to wake up a month before we do,” you observed, looking around, somehow already knowing you wouldn’t find anyone else. The reassuring sheath of his hand around yours slipped away as you twisted around.

*

God, she was quick on the uptake. It had taken Mills hours and a long bout of sleep to even get his brain working again. She was quick and smart and beautiful. And he loved her so much already.

“I haven’t seen anybody else so far,” she added, confused, but hopeful.

His heart squeezed guiltily. He knew living with his actions would be difficult, but it felt worse in ways he could not have anticipated. “The crew is still asleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive, ma’am.”

“Miss,” she corrected and he wanted to smile at that. It was the snippy tone he recognized from before and his chest melted like honey. “That makes me feel ancient.”

“Miss.”

“Um, back to the topic at hand,” she still felt loopy and it showed. “Who’s going to land the ship? We’re arriving in a few weeks.”

To make short work of it, Mills took her to the observatory. The same little panorama showing how screwed they were informed her of their whereabouts, now approximately two years closer to Homestead II than when he was there the first time.

“The others aren’t late waking up,” he said when he saw the same rejection in her expression that he felt initially. “We’re early.”

Her mind was beautifully clear and logical, so he led her down the same path he stumbled down many months before, without even needing to suggest the next steps. He battled with feeling impressed and smitten, and having to watch emerging hopelessness and panic grip the woman he loved.

The crew were in their inaccessible area, messages took decades to travel to and fro, it was impossible to break into key areas, impossible to get back into the pods.  

Finally panic set it and he let her run off, in search of her pod. He gave her time, appreciating that she would want to have whatever breakdown was to ensue privately. It was the smallest bit of decency he could afford her.

When he eventually decided he should look in on her, she was still looking for a way back in feverishly. He indulged her, letting her try to convince him there had to be a way, as desperate and incoherent as she was being. He would spend the rest of his life happily paying penance now that she was with him, indulging her until his dying breath.

He led her past the wreckage in front of her crew room, where he had been unsuccessfully trying to break in with every implement he could think of. She agreed to take a seat in and some deep breaths, a sedative if need be. He half carried her as she slumped into his side, knees wobbly from over-excitement. She paused and took in the marks of a labor than had clearly gone on for months.

“How long have you been awake?” she looked up at him and frowned. Realization sharpened her gaze and he looked for any signs of accusation, of pulling away. None yet, he was momentarily relieved.

“Close to two years.”

Her hand lifted to her lips in horror and he could swear she was about to cry.

“Come on, it’s right through here,” he secured a firm hold around the curve of her waist and directed her towards a lounging area of the Grand Concourse.

*

“You remember the facility you had to go to? Where they put you under? The procedure has to be done with special equipment, pretty much only in lab conditions. It’s multi-faceted and it takes a long time. There is no such equipment on the ship, or anyone with expertise to do it. The pods we were in are just designed to maintain stasis for a certain length of time and wake us up.”

She listened, despite all the effort it took, and Mills could see her try to stave off more fits. Her body was tightly coiled, rocking back and forth in a tiny orbit, teeth chewing anxiously on her thumbnail. She was quiet for a long time, occasionally shaking her head, in disbelief or refusal.

“I don’t want to condescend in any way, but I’ve been through what you’re feeling now. You should believe I’ve tried everything I could think of.”

“Two years…” she shook her head. Her eyes were full of pity when she looked at him again. He couldn’t stand to meet her earnest gaze for longer than a moment.

“You should sleep,” he suggested gently. “It will clear your head, I promise. You probably feel like it’s full of cotton wool now.” She wouldn’t confirm and he decided not to tell her anymore about what ‘she must be feeling’. “Drink that freaky pink stuff from the water dispenser, it’ll feel good. In the morning, you’ll… I can’t promise you’ll feel much better, but you’ll be more yourself.”

She was still too shocked to cry, as he had been at first, so she just looked defeated. Still, she stood up and opted for the correct corridor to make her way to her cabin, which was impressive.

“I can walk you to your cabin,” Mills suggested as casually as he could, even as his heart climbed into his throat and choked him. “The layout can be confusing,” he fumbled, losing confidence when she didn’t nod vigorously or give some other indication she wanted him. He should have just said I’m taking you - in fact, I’m also holding your hand. And I’ll be there first thing in the morning when you wake up.

“It’s okay, I’ll be fine,” she said out of some self-sufficient, considerate habit.

She didn’t want his company. He tried not to spiral out. Sure, she’ll want to process this unimaginable calamity. However, he would have given anything, anything at all, to have someone with him on that first day. God, that first night, how awful it was, in endless solitude. And there she was, bravely walking away, sure that she would find a way to fix it.

“Almost two years…” she repeated, this time in a sigh that made him weak. “I’m so sorry you were alone for so long. It must have been torture.”

“It was,” he choked out, wondering if his face looked as guilty as his thoughts.

She shared a convivial silence with him before surrendering to her exhaustion. “Goodnight.”

*

Mills knew he would not be getting a wink of sleep that night. His blood felt like stinging electricity in his veins, shocking as it pumped through him.

“What’ll it be, Mills?” Clyde greeted in his subdued way.

“The usual.”

“How’s yer day been?” he asked just to make conversation. Mills’ paranoid brain detected a non-existent tone of accusation.

Mills swished the bourbon for a long moment, gaze lost in some private distance. “You know I have the worst luck in the world?”

“How’s that?”

“My prom date broke her leg after I asked her out – never made it to actual prom. I once gave CPR to a guy who’d been in a car crash. He sued me for fracturing some of his ribs. The company I worked for was the only one in the colonization business, right up until I was supposed to embark on the first mission. Then they went under. The one woman I’ve been unable to get out of my head is right under in front of me, right under my nose forever… and I can’t get to her.”

Clyde countered with his own programmed backstory – how his pa lost his diamond, how his uncle Stickley was electrocuted, how his ma got sick after she got their daddy’ settlement, how his brother blew his knee out and ruined a promising sports career, how he lost his hand…

“She’s awake,” Mills interrupted the story he had heard many times before, half-compunction, half-defiance.

There was only one she Mills had mentioned in all these months, so Clyde did not need to ask for clarification. “Congratulations,” he offered and Mills stared back, face not displaying the usual markers of happiness or satisfaction around the eyes or mouth.

“That’s whatcha wanted,” Clyde prompted, as though Mills’ circuitry failed for a moment and he was trying to get it back on track.

Mills could have strangled him. For the crime of being completely right.

“Ya don’t look happy,” the bartender noted and waited for an explanation.

“Can androids keep secrets?” Mills asked, realizing he should have wondered about that much sooner.

“I dunno ’bout androids, but gentlemen can,” Clyde responded solemnly, “and I consider myself one.”

Mills nodded. “Don’t tell her.”

“Don’t tell her what?” Clyde asked back earnestly. To him, borrowing her pen and waking her out of stasis were probably on par and he needed explicit instructions as to what to keep from her.

“Don’t tell her that I woke her,” Mills hated saying it out loud. “Let me do it in my own time.”

“’Course,” Clyde agreed all too easily, blissfully bereft of morals.

*

What if she likes short blond dudes? Mills wondered as he lay sideways on his prison cot of a bed. Still wide awake, he had his hands folded behind his head, eyes staring unseeing into the creamy ceiling. Some Aryan ideal? Maybe a British accent? A long coke nail? A nipple ring? He could be as much not her type as she was perfectly his.

How long, then, before she was ready to give in? To touch him like he craved, even if she didn’t really like him at all? It seemed an inevitability, even if he hadn’t known, from the earliest memories as a boy breaking hearts on the playground, to his exploits as an adult, precisely the kind of effect he had on women. What a sick thought, and one he kept having despite himself, counting greedily down to it.

*

It had been years since you woke up crying. The last time had been from a nightmare when you were still a teen. You’d forgotten it was possible to wake up already sobbing and salty with tears.

That next morning, you’d arisen, implausibly, even more desperate and disconsolate. If it even was morning. If time was reckoned the same way out here, or reckoned at all. If it was, then it was inexorably ticking down to your death, hurtling towards you like those glittering, burning stars sprinkled around your charging ship, dragging you into oblivion and making your fleeting existence truly pointless.

*

“No hibernation pod has malfunctioned in thousands of interstellar flights,” the holo assured you.

“I’m telling you, mine has!”

“Hibernation pods are failsafe,” it responded contentedly and Julian recognized the same conversation he once had as he approached.

“And yet, I’m awake! What a conundrum, hm?” you planted your hands on your hips, as though scolding. He took in the pose and smiled sadly.

“Dumb machine,” you muttered when you realized you’d get nowhere with that piece of junk.

“Happy to help!”

You gave it the middle finger as you turned to leave and join Julian on the way to the mess hall.

*

Behind you, there was a failure with the greeter holo. Its blue light blinked erratically and powered down, the blue circles along its crescent base turning black as they died one by one. You were too frustrated to look back and Julian was too distracted by you. He walked up to your side, eyeing the small of your back and the swell of your ass under it, hand tingling with desire to rest.... on either one. He missed how the sphere flickered and shut down. Deep in the bowels of the ship, red letters flashed warnings on screens before guttering out. No burial was had and their ghosts were snatched piecemeal out of the ether by other systems, carrying on some of their work, while the other bits, both crucial and banal, stopped like broken clocks.

*

“Have you eaten?”

“No. And I could eat a horse,” she said unselfconsciously and he nodded.

“Gold class breakfast,” the dispenser announced when he was already seated. The unfamiliar pronouncement made him crane his neck curiously.

She carried over a tray laden with food and tucked into it as soon as she sat down. They ate in silence until she had to come up for air. It was then she noticed his soylent beige and black coffee. “Yeesh. I feel like a glutton,” she muffled, a big bite still filling out her cheeks.

He shrugged. He was enjoying the sight of her delighting in her meal too much to care about having the same gruel for the millionth day in a row. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just not a gold class passenger.”

“What?” she frowned and her hand shot up in front of her mouth in case some food came flying out. Mills was amused to see her eyes widen as the information soaked in. “No way! Are you kidding me? What is this wannabe class bullshit?” she was outraged and he ached at the fact that she could muster this emotion for him in the middle of all her turmoil.

He just shrugged again, trying not to grin around his spoon of bland soylent. He should have realized this revelation would incense her proletariat spirit.

“Have you been…eating just that? This whole time?” she tried to ask evenly, not to make him feel bad.

“For breakfast, yeah,” he said. It had been so long that he just couldn’t bother being upset about it anymore.

She, however, shot out of her seat. “Let me get you something! What do you want?” she entreated, flustered with the desire to do something kind for him. It was such a genuine compassionate act that guilt overwhelmed him again. What would she do if she knew, he wondered while she made her way over and examined the menu.

“Nah, I’m fine,” he protested half-heartedly. He had never been much of a fruit and veggie guy back home, but over a year in, he would take kale and rambutan and kumquat and fucking chard, just to remember how much he didn’t enjoy any of it.

She slid a tray heavy with food in front of him, from crispy bacon and hashbrowns, to scones and cut up papaya and dragon fruit, with some foamy coffee that smelled overly sweet. But he’d be damned if he didn’t down that odious concoction all the same.

He stabbed some dragon fruit with its Dalmatian dots embedded in the white flesh, chuckling at the sight.

“You like dragon fruit?” she asked, slowly recovering from her mortification.

“I hate it!” Mills proclaimed happily and popped it into his mouth.

*

During the day, and the next several ones, you kept suggesting different options. Checking out the infirmary, the cargo hold, the comms room, building your own pods…

We can’t do that, Julian would reply, or that didn’t work, I already did it, as he shot every idea down.

“You’re not even considering—” you snapped, losing the battle to frustration.

“I’ve considered all of it,” Julian assured, effortlessly patient. “I’ve tried it, I promise you. Everything you can think of, and then countless other things.”

He seemed ready to settle down and give into this trudge into the void. The mere thought of it made your pulse skyrocket and sent you hyperventilating.

“I’m not ready to give up,” you said unsteadily as your breath kept sliding out of your lungs without ever oxygenating you.

*

For the next few days, you consciously avoided Julian as you put your ideas into action. You tried and failed, just like he said you would.

Eventually, to keep yourself busy and try to make sense of some of your thoughts, you started keeping a log. Whether it would become a personal diary or a document you would try to submit in order to detail what happened to you and Julian to the company, you were not yet sure.

“Why did you do it?” you asked as you approached the desk where he tinkered with something that looked like half of a set of binoculars.

He looked up like a TV frozen on an uncanny distorted image.

“Join the mission,” you clarified as you pulled out the notes you’d been keeping for your log. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been thinking of making some notes… Not sure for what yet, but I was wondering if you’d let me interview you?”

“Sure,” he became warmer again and put down what he was working on without complaint. “But what do I have to say that would interest anyone?”

“You are the first hibernation failure in the history of space travel. The first recorded one, at least,” you added with your distrustful tone and he smiled at that. He really could be distractingly handsome and you had to consciously hold back from trying to tease out more of those rakish smiles. “That’s major news.”

“Mh,” he nodded, “I’d love to be regarded as the first and biggest failure in something,” he had a delightfully sardonic wit and you smiled for the first time in days.

“You’re not in bad company.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“The Wright Brothers,” you supplied and he leaned his head side to side, weighing your words.

“Henry Ford, Albert Einstein...”

“You’re making me blush,” he gave a coy flick of the wrist, so at odds with his classical masculinity.

“Thomas Edison,” you added the last name that usually followed on that list.

“His fortune turned, I believe, when he started stealing,” he noted with a shrewd look on his face.

“Yeah. Forget that asshole,” you conceded.

“I take your point,” he said and added in a smaller voice, “it’s very kind of you.”

You interviewed him and learned not just about his life, but the hushed up history of the mission to Homestead II. Julian relayed how he was first advised to take a demotion, and after the company was almost bought out by some deranged South African autocrat rich off his parents’ blood diamond legacy, suddenly the old crew were no longer eligible. He also detailed the many months of solitude, replete with a vacillating mental state and copious misadventures. Although he didn’t pity himself or linger on the details, he was candid and you felt comfortable asking whatever question came into your head.

“And do you think you’ve, for lack of a better word, resigned yourself to this situation?” you couldn’t look him in the eyes as you asked that. You were too conflicted and that look would surely hurt him to see.

“I’m not entirely sure. A lot can happen in a day, let alone a year or a decade. So I can’t say I’m resigned. But I understand how it can seem that way to you,” he said kindly and waited until you looked back at him. “You don’t have to accept any of this. You’ve just woken up. It must be irreconcilable and unthinkable to you now—”

You shook your head. “I’m scared of accepting it, and doing it so effortlessly. It’s actually so much easier to give in than I anticipated. I expected... I had more fight in me than that.”

He leaned in closer, moving with urgency. “It’s not ab-,” he started passionately, but then rephrased, “I don’t’ think it’s about being brave or strong. You also need to see sense and recognize reality. And you seem to be… scarily good at that.”

You gave a bitter laugh. “Reality is something I can’t wrap my head around. To be traveling, until the end of my natural lifespan – which is effectively forever – and never arriving. I’ve never… conceptualized futility on such a stark level.”

Julian let the angst hang in the air, giving it the respect it demanded. Then he sighed and tried to approach you from another angle. “A wise android once told me that you shouldn’t get so hung up on where you’d rather be and squander the chance to enjoy where you are.”

You pursed your lips and considered.

“I’m sure it sounds like a platitude now, but it’s helped me in some ways over time.” Julian didn’t press for any answer or acceptance out of you, placidly returning to his work and sitting with you in companionable silence.

“Thank you,” you said after a while.

“What for?” he scoffed, sounding amused.

“For everything,” you didn’t want to embarrass him and enumerate all the small kindnesses and comforts he had provided to you as you woke up and realized the situation you were in.

It was obvious in his expression he did not think he had helped much. You hoped to change his mind. With any luck, he wouldn’t begrudge you avoiding him earlier.

“I should meet this Clyde,” you shifted to brighter topics, “he sounds like a character.” You had yet to meet the android bartender. Drinking or sitting in some simulacrum of a bar didn’t sound very appealing before, but you might as well check out more of the ship, you reasoned.

“Let’s go for a drink tonight, then,” Julian floated the idea. You couldn’t tell if he really was as nonchalant as he seemed, or if his eyes were trained on the object in his hands strategically, to give off that appearance.

You decided he probably wasn’t thinking of it as a date, but you could still feel the intent of him, filling the space around you. His presence, heavy and commanding, even when he didn’t mean to exert it over you.

“Yeah, sounds good,” you responded, suddenly preoccupied with your pad. You thought you felt him steal a glance as you looked away and it took great effort not to smile to yourself.

*

In her absence, Mills had noticed one of the little roombas repeatedly run into a corner as he walked by it on one of those lonely days. He didn’t think much of it. Its sensor could have broken or he himself could have been fucking with it too much out of sheer boredom that it somehow malfunctioned. After pondering whether he should bother trying to repair it, he decided not to since there were enough of those critters crawling around.

As they walked towards their cabins, through one of the pod rooms, he noticed two roombas rolling on as normal and was satisfied with his earlier decision.

“So now that all of this happened, do you still think sending large numbers of people on such missions is a good idea?” she probed. He was thinking about the same thing, watching them clustered together in their life-sustaining coffins.

“I think they would say yes,” he evaded the question, “you can’t categorize people into yes’s or no’s, ones and zeroes.”

“Homestead can. Into zeroes in its account.”

“I don’t dispute that. But you can’t know all these 5,000 people and their reasons to participate. Some of them could be very good.”

“Maybe so, but I know people at large really well. And I’m good at seeing when they’re being exploited.”

“But what about who they are? What drove them to be here? This guy?” he picked out a familiar face. “Can you tell anything about him? Is he a banker, teacher, or gardener?” he asked playfully and she accepted the challenge, peering over the lid.

He looked stern, with defined, robust features, austere even in repose. “Banker,” she guessed as he thought she would.

“Gardener.”

She frowned. “Probably gardens some gnarly, mean looking plants.”

“Madison, Donna, or Lola?” he covered the information plate on another pod and cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Donna. That fits a redhead.”

“Madison.”

“No way!” she peeled his hand off and checked her name. It was true. Mills was grateful she took some time to look on, taking in her face and reading the information about her because he was still reeling from feeling her skin on his again. “Midwife,” she said wistfully and her face fell. “Right. Some babies are bound to be born up there.”

He could feel them both carefully avoid the other’s eyes. Babymaking was an unhelpful thought to linger on just then. “Another sucker selling a useful profession?” he guessed at her thoughts.

“No. I mean, yes, it’s useful. But I was just thinking… It’s silly. But it occurred to me how we probably would have been friends.”

“You think you can tell these things?” Mills asked, living and dying a hundred times in the space it took her to respond.

“Of course. You know these things instinctively. Call it what you want, intuition, ancestral wisdom, something you carry in your bones. We’re still humans, even if we’ve soared among the stars. We’d gravitate to each other,” she concluded and he felt lightheaded. “Besides, my grade school best friend was also named Madison,” she shrugged, “it would have been an easy point in her favor,” she tossed a smile over her shoulder and moved to keep going, but a glance to the pod next to Madison’s rooted her to the spot. He almost bumped into her and felt a cold sweat dew on his skin at the idea of touching so much of her body with so much of his.

“Alicia,” Mills sounded out her name. A-lee-see-a, he pronounced it in the correct Spanish way.

“I know her. She had a rather severe change of heart and wanted to stay back,” she double checked her information just to be sure.

“Why didn’t she?”

“I‘m not sure. I lobbied for her contract to be voided and for someone to be taken off the waiting list and take her place. But they decided not to for some reason.”

“Or she decided.”

“I don’t know… She seemed pretty adamant from what I’ve seen,” she huffed, still bothered by the situation. “It doesn’t seem right, you know? To make that decision for her. Force her into something she didn’t want.”

“It doesn’t,” he agreed and crossed his arms over his massive chest, determined not to fan the guilt her words ignited.

“You’d know all about that,” she muttered.

His heart stopped. “What?” he felt his shame was written plainly on his face when she turned to him.

“With your pod malfunctioning and having to deal with it alone for so long. It’s the last thing you wanted. At least she’s asleep.”

She sensed he didn’t want to talk about it, and he let her fall quiet. Then she rubbed his arms in support and he felt even worse.

*

Mills was already waiting at the bar when she came around the corner. The still unfamiliar rhythm of her steps as they approached through the Grand Concourse folded a thousand origami cranes in his gut and they all soared, pulling his heavy body with their flight as he turned to look at her.

She had on a simple outfit of black turtleneck and high-waisted checked skirt, with a pair of what his onetime fiancée would refer to as sensible heels. She was breath-taking.

He smiled as he got up to greet her, like a proper gentleman, and offered his hand to help her hop up onto the stool. “You look wonderful,” he tried not to sound licentious and make things awkward.

If she was flustered, she didn’t show it too badly. “Well, I packed this. I thought I might as well wear it.”

“Sure,” he nodded slyly. He wasn’t about to let her reject the compliment. “And you look wonderful in it.”

Finally, she relented and tried not to smile too broadly. “Thank you. You both look very handsome,” she glanced from him to Clyde with a hint of humor in her voice.

“Clyde’s a sharp dresser for sure,” Mills joined in and Clyde accepted the compliment.

For a time, Clyde was prompted to recount some of Mills’ notable misadventures over the last two years, including his nudist period, his Rasputin phase, and the mini Olympics he staged with the roombas. When the laughter died down, what swam to the surface was the awareness that all of these stories took place owing to his unfortunate circumstances. He felt both himself and his awoken girl beset with a feeling of emptiness.

Mills looked over at her and she let him look for a long moment. “I can’t think about all of this anymore, Julian,” she sighed and his name on her lips felt like a kiss as it floated to him. “I’m hitting the same walls a thousand times… It’s too sad.”

“Let’s not talk about it for a while, then?” he leapt at the suggestion and offered his hand in a deal.

She gave his eagerness a smile and took his hand. When she shook on it and squeezed, it was confident. “Just… be my neighbor,” she asked amicably.

Mills nodded to himself, considering. Still holding her hand, he leaned over the bar and Clyde came close to hear him.

The song that was playing on the jukebox scratched to a halt and after a few beats of silence, a new, familiar melody tinkled its lullaby tune on a glockenspiel. Then a marimba filled out the tinny sounds and a piano joined smoothly.

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, the song started and she bent over with a laugh.

A beautiful day for a neighbor, the sweet voice went on and Mills tugged on her hand, inviting her to dance.

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

She relented and followed him a few steps away from the bar. He placed a hand in a respectful, neighborly spot on her waist, and she did the same, on his shoulder.

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood

A neighborly day for a beauty

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

They swayed together to the melody that was equally as sad as it was sweet. It fit the mood better than anything he could have planned for in advance.

I have always wanted to have a neighbor, just, like, you, she tap-tap-tapped to the beat into his chest with her index finger and he watched her fondly.

I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you, he mouthed the line, watching from her eyes to her lips, down her neck, and then he hit the brakes, before he got too un-neighborly.

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day,

Since we're together, we might as well say,

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Won't you be my neighbor?

Even Clyde tore his eyes away from his little glass as they danced, recognizing the image before him as one of classic, universal romance.

*

@thegrislady @safarigirlsp @lumberjack00fantasies @queeniebee @vedavan @house-of-cadwyn

[thisreputable]

omega!ghost x fem!alpha!soap thoughts

bear with me plz. so, august of last year i read an omega!ben x alpha!rey fic that has lived rent free in my head ever since. ben had isolated himself, doing research that kept him far from civilization - far from alphas - until rey shows up

now, imagine. big, silent, deadly ghost who keeps to himself, begrudgingly accepts he needs to interact with the others of the 141, if only to kept things cohesive out on missions. accepts the fact he had to socialize a little. keeps it to the bare minimum, though. never volunteers anything personal: his past, family, plans for the future, designation. sometimes he'll give short, clipped answers, simple questions. tea over coffee, mystery novels (will never, ever admit, even under pain of death, his love for bodice rippers). action/adventure movies with a sprinkling of sci-fi. nothing too deep. nothing anyone could potentially use against him.

(price knows some things. more than most for sure. an unfortunate necessity as ghost's CO. not everything. not what or who ghost is under industrial strength blockers and the best suppressants money can buy. under the mask where simon lurks.)

so ghost's innermost everything is locked up tighter than america's fort knox. impenetrable. inscrutable. impossible to know beyond mere surface level. even then, the mask assures it's not something likely to happen.

enter joan "soap" mactavish, the newest member of the 141.

loud. young. offensively confident. vibrant. unafraid. alpha.

she smells like his and it terrifies him.

everything ghost has tried to steer clear of for longer than he can remember. since before he died and clawed himself out of the ground. since before betrayal, and being the last riley, and learning the taste of his own blood in his mouth. before ghost and ghoulish masks and too many scars to count.

since the shape of his father's meaty fists bloomed purple-red across a pale canvas. since useless and pathetic and omega became synonymous with simon.

she's everything he fears and hates and admires and envies and desires and covets. everything he ever wished but could never be.

he does his best to steer clear of her. does his job, of course. would never let anything keep him from completing his objectives, keep him from making sure everyone on his team made it back in one piece. wouldn't jeopardize the one good thing in his life just because an alpha has his skin prickling and his hind brain whining for something he'll never be worthy of.

soap's a force of nature unto herself, though. persistent doesn't begin to describe her. every obstacle he attempts to put in her way, she bulldozes right through them. leaves a trail of destruction in her wake with a beatific smile on her face and a manic, gleeful light in her too-blue eyes.

for whatever reason, she's set her eyes on ghost and nothing he does or says seems to sway her from getting closer to him. she seeks him out if they're ever in the same room. will lean into his personal space. will ask him question after question and stare until he gives her an answer good enough to satisfy her curiosity. will sit next to him during meals and shamelessly nab food from his tray before giving him things off of hers (he steadfastly ignores the warmth that pulses in his chest when he realizes everything she puts on his plate are things that he enjoys).

will place a steady hand on his arm or shoulder or back (the one time she touched his chest is seared into his memory). doesn't blink when he flinches. will just smile - a little smile that has too many meanings for ghost to parse - before staring him right in the eye and touching him again. like she's daring him to run away, to tell her to stop.

he never does, tongue tied and mind wiped of every thought.

he doesn't know what she wants, is the thing. to be friends? colleagues? more? less? to be the first to peel back a layer of the thing called ghost and brag to everyone else that she's succeeded where so many others have failed?

to be one soul inhabiting two separate bodies?

eventually, though, he buckles under her continued attentions. like all man made things when faced with the awesome power of nature, his defenses are washed away, eroded until nothing remains but the tender core of a man. of an omega desperate to feel wanted and desired and safe.

until all that's left in the aftermath is simon.

it's terrifying. he feels naked. scraped raw. unmasked. seen.

he expects many things once she corners him in his office and he gives in. expects condemnation. ridicule. confusion. scathing remarks as to his designation. expects to be left in tatters after she realizes that her efforts were wasted on him.

instead, she kisses him. instead, she slides a gun calloused hand to the back of his neck and pulls him down, down, down until their lips meet. instead, she steals the breath from his lungs and the thoughts from his stuttering mind and his awareness of the world beyond a flimsy door.

ghost is remade, reborn, in the seconds-hours-years they kiss. he's left gasping, knees weak and hands fisted in soap's ridiculous (stupidly attractive and absolutely against regulations) mohawk, in the aftermath. it takes more effort than he's willing to admit for his eyes to flutter open. he's met by a sight that steals his breath all over again.

soap's eyes are blown wide, pupils rimmed by the crimson of an alpha barely grasping at self-control. a delightfully fetching blush has spread from her cheeks down the column of her throat. her lips are glossy with their shared spit, swollen and tender looking. just beyond them, he can see a hint of wickedly sharp fangs.

she's the most beautiful person he's ever seen. it's almost debilitating how much he wants her. how much he wants to be hers.

"mine," she says and it takes his foggy mind an embarrassing amount of time to realize that that wasn't some kind of auditory hallucination. that she's just... staked her claim on him. just like that.

ghost is left blinking owlishly, mouth opening and closing but unable to form a comprehensive thought, much less words.

well.

"my simon." a purr underscores her claim. "my omega."

and who's ghost to tell her otherwise? how could he possibly deny her the one thing that has ever felt right in his long, wretched life?

and then something something sudden heat and rut something something reverse knotting something something claiming bites something something years later something something retirement and pups something something they lived happily ever after

...yeah. just a silly little thot 🙂

[literaryfandomangel]

The Promise - Chapter Fourteen

After a week had passed, the worst of the pain was gone. It had faded, leaving a slight discomfort or stiffness in the joint when moving in specific ways. The bruise was fading, the edges a sickening yellow/green color. After several days of icing the injury, the swelling had gone down, which was a relief. It took about six days to be able to walk up and down the stairs without excruciating pain. 

"I'm leaving," Mom yelled, walking out the front door. I sat on the porch, realizing it was nearly five in the afternoon. I felt stir-crazy after being cooped up for so long; therefore, I sat upright.

"Can I come with you?" I asked Mom, eyes wide and pleading. She hesitated for a moment, but she couldn't deny my request. Mom was working the late shift at the video store, which closed at midnight. She didn't want me to regress in my recovery. Since being in Santa Carla, I had elected to speak more, and my weight was progressing slowly. 

"Alright," Mom conceded. "Will your friends bring you home?"

I shrugged, walking into the house to grab my bag. I put in a few books, primarily classics, but I had finished Anna Karenina. Depending on what the mood was tonight, I might start North and South. I decided that I could lose myself in the bookstore. 

"Hurry up!" Mom yelled into the house. I hesitated momentarily, sprayed perfume on my wrists, and left my bedroom. When I walked outside, Mom was already in the driver's seat. 

"If I don't find them, I'll meet you after your shift," I promised Mom during the drive. She hummed, accepting that answer. 

"Make sure that if you meet up with your friends, they have you back by 2 AM!" Mom shouted before going in the opposite direction on the Boardwalk. 

I gaped at the figure of my Mom, quickly losing her in the teeming crowd. She set my curfew at 2 AM? She never agreed that I could stay out that late - usually never. I wondered what made her change her mind, but I wouldn't argue with Mom. I tucked the $10.00 bill Mom handed me in the car into my back pocket and started to peruse the Boardwalk. 

The sun's rays were still hot. Therefore, I ducked into the bookstore. I felt relief at the air-conditioned space. Even though I'm always cold, the sun in Santa Carla felt like it would burn through your clothing. 

I started looking around the bookstore, realizing this was an adventure, not a bookstore. Apparently, the owner just shelved the books in any open slot. Therefore, the store was not organized. One might find a bodice-ripper beside a textbook. It was exciting and definitely a way to keep bookworms occupied. 

I grinned as I started to make my way through the shelves, picking out a book with an exciting title. I read the back and would make my determination. I was so lost in the world of books that I didn't realize how late it was or that the sun had long since been hidden behind the horizon. 

"Hey!" I whined when suddenly a hand took the book I was interested in right from my hands. I was upset until I looked at the culprit - Paul. He had a wide grin as he dangled the book before me. 

"Hey, baby," Marko whispered, voice smooth and deeper than usual. His breath was right on the tip of my ear. I could feel the ghost of his lips and the faint touch of his teeth on my earlobe. I gasped, jumping backward into a solid body. Gloved hands came to rest on my elbows. 

"We've missed you, princess," Dwayne said, leaning down to pick up the large stack of used books by my feet. It was a mess of about ten or so books that I was planning on purchasing. He looked down, reading the spines, giving hums of interest every so often. 

"You've been away, girl," Paul smirked, his usual bundle of energy. I wondered if Paul ever was still. Probably not, even when he was sleeping. I imagined Paul to kick and roll over. "And then you ditch us to come here? I'm hurt!"

"Paul," I sighed, rolling my eyes at his dramatics. I tried to grab the book back from his hands. I took a few steps forward, away from David's body heat. My movement exposed the slight limp from my previous injuries. To the human eye, it would be imperceivable, but they were vampires and could see it. Paul's fist clenched in fury as he remembered the fear they all felt coming upon that scene. 

None of the Lost Boys ever thought they would find their mate. A mate to have, to hold, to protect, to cherish. In the vampire world, mates were the most precious thing to find. Not everyone found their mates - some wandered for centuries looking for the scent that linked their nest to their mate. Therefore, seeing their mate in any type of danger was difficult. Worse still, when the worst threat came from their mate's volition. 

Paul's eyes softened enough to cease his teasing behavior. He slowly lowered his hands, the book just out of reach of my fingers. Paul had a smirk on his face while I was getting frustrated. Every time my fingers reached out and touched the book's paper, Paul would pull it out of reach. Finally, I just stood, a pout on my lips. 

Paul stood no chance, looking at my widened, sad eyes and pouty lips. He stood awestruck for a moment before lowering his hand. I clutched the book, holding it to my chest. I hesitated for a moment before I rose onto my toes. I kissed his cheek, feeling the slight roughness of his stubble, before sinking back onto the balls of my feet. Silence surrounded the five of us. 

It was like my spur-of-the-moment action had caused a ripple in the otherwise still lake. Initiating the contact would solidify the tentative situation between the four of us. I was also nervous because I had just kissed one of the four guys, showing an apparent interest in me. I hoped this wasn't going to cause a fight or any type of rift between the four guys. 

Chapter Fifteen

[sitp-recs]

Hidden Gems: Special Edition

5 7 underrated works by @skeptiquewrites

It’s been ages since I did a Hidden Gems post so I’m probably a bit rusty but I thought this was the perfect way to celebrate our dear Tee. I’ve loved her work ever since the first fic I came across, and I am over the moon that she was the first fandom friend I was lucky to meet in person earlier this month! We immediately hit it off and had the BEST time around - dinner at a cute Vietnamese place, a walk along the canal, ice cream treats while talking fandom & life. A perfect date night that could have been pulled out from one of her fabulous summery fics if you ask me 😌

It was even harder to choose how to celebrate her birthday having met such a lovely person - after many single recs and lists I was like “what else is there???” But after some thinking with the help of my partner in crime @sweet-s0rr0w I came up with the idea of boosting some of my favourite hidden gems by Tee, fics that I don’t see recced often but deserve all the attention and buzz. They will tug at your heartstrings and make you fall even more in love - not only with Drarry but with summer aesthetics, its endless possibilities, and with Tee’s quiet, charming, elegant, wistful and seductive writing.

These are all shorts but each perfectly placed word and well executed plot contain new and unique universes. Each clever line and lush dose of mutual want - either followed by delicious smut or equally sexy doses of quiet intimacy - fill me with different but wonderful emotions. I think the banner pic translates very well one of the best feelings I experience reading her fics: how special it is to celebrate the little things, how powerful yet vulnerable we are when facing the inevitability of falling in love, how one magical second spent on summer nights, as fleeting and removed from our traditional sense of time and space as they might be, can last forever. I hope the fics and quotes I selected below give you a tiny taste of the magic contained in each one of her short, brilliant love stories. Happiest of birthdays, my dear friend! ♥️

⌛️ light that covers us (T, 117 words)

Lovers in dangerous line of work.

"Always on borrowed time," a singer croons in the background. Draco turns up the Wireless. “God, I hate that song."

🗓️ Four Seasons (M, 2k)

A romance in four seasons.

There was something lovely about being out of excuses, Harry thought. Everything was possible. "What are you in it for, then?" Harry asked as they crossed the threshold.

🌊 On The Shore (T, 3k)

Draco takes up wild swimming. Harry joins him.

Harry turns his face towards the sun and he doesn’t quite smile, but there is something content in his expression that makes Draco a little more willing to share this place.

🎸 Lights Down Low (T, 4k)

“Will we ever learn? We’ve been here before.” Recording the Hallows' fifth album with Draco brings up the past in a way Harry’s never expected.

The music’s a little wistful, haunting even with no words, recorded in the middle of the night. Harry has done this dozens of times before and for other people. There is no way he has forgotten how to write a song.

🎇 No Distance (E, 5k)

Harry doesn’t believe in resolutions, because a new year doesn’t mean feeling any different. But something feels possible, meeting Draco again in Zurich. The past is the past, but the future can be different. Sequel to Nothing Left to Burn.

“Poor thing,” Draco responds and presses his lips to the back of Harry’s hand. It's a little mocking, but Harry's heart hasn’t taken the memo.

Bonus 1: fresh out of Bodice Ripper!

🎤 The Real Thing (M, 5k)

Harry only means to cheer Draco up after a terrible breakup. He doesn't mean to fall in love.

“I don’t know that he cared what I wanted. I don’t know if he knew what I wanted.” Harry wanted to ask Draco what he wanted, the exact contours of what might please him and how.

Bonus 2: Femslash!

🧣She Was Pretty (E, 4k) - Lavender/Parvati

In the aftermath of the war, Lavender Brown rediscovers herself in a tiny flat above her Diagon Alley tea shop. Parvati helps.

Her mother offers her pity mostly, raw and cloying. But there is love there too. She clucks at her the second day Lavender is home after a month spent in hospital. “They didn’t braid your hair tight enough, Lavvy. Come here.”

[mediumsizetexart]

Unconcerned, But Not Actively Gloating

The shaking and rattling of her capsule had already diminished quite a bit, and the plasma flames on the other side of the hatch window didn’t seem quite so bright. “Copy, Horseton,” Cherry said. “But I do expect a full explanation once I’m out of the soup.”

“Roger, Twenty-two,” Chrysalis replied. “In the meantime, for today’s book reading, how do you feel about The Hamster and the Helicopter?”

Cherry blinked. That was her very favorite book by Cleverly Clearly, and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from saying so on a live mike. Instead she said, “Run out of sock-and-saddle stories down there?”

“Eh,” Chrysalis drawled, putting on her most unconcerned voice, “you read one bodice-ripper, you’ve read them all. They’re all basically the same book anyway.”

Which unsettled Cherry a little more, because she knew after a year and a half that if Chrysalis sounded unconcerned but wasn’t actively gloating, the changeling queen was seriously worried.

Yes, that’s a historically accurate Apollo Era CAPCOM console, including the misspelling, from the fanfic Changeling Space Program.

Deviantart version here.

[wolveria]

The Raven’s Hymn - Ch 19

Pairing: SCP-049 x Reader

Series Warnings (18+ only): Eventual smut, dubcon, slow burn, violence, horror, death, monsters, human experiments, dark with a happy ending

Chapter Summary: “Rest evades you,” 049’s voice carried across the dim room. “An inability to sleep indicates a chaotic mind.”

AO3

The SCP was right about one thing: you needed rest, desperately. You didn’t know what time it was, the small biomonitor strapped to your wrist like a watch didn’t tell the time, but by the heavy sluggish weight of your limbs, you could guess it was getting late.

A small meal was provided on a tray through the deposit bank in the wall. It was a light soup, along with a cup and pitcher of water, but that was more than enough for you. After not having eaten in so long, the vegetable and herb broth quickly filled you up, and you had to sip slowly so it wouldn’t come back up.

Once you returned the tray and bowl—keeping the pitcher because it made getting water from the sink easier, and if they wanted it back Leahy could damn come get it himself—you changed into what looked to be pajamas. 049 offered to go into the other chamber while you dressed, but you didn’t want to kick the SCP out of what little space it had, so you said if it wanted to just turn around that was just fine.

Honestly, you would have been more comfortable with the SCP watching you undress than that blinking camera in the corner. You were so tired that modesty with 049 wasn’t really a bother—after its hands had been on you, there wasn’t much left to be shy about, anyway—but that camera made you feel like an exhibitionist, and you wondered if you’d ever get used to it.

You located a light dimmer on the wall, definitely something that hadn’t been there before the “renovations,” and when you asked 049 if it minded the lights being lowered, it assured you it did not.

The SCP was occupied with reading, and even though there was a lamp on the small desk, it didn’t turn on the light. Maybe it could see in the dark. You turned down the overhead lights until you were just able to make out the plague doctor sitting at the desk with its book.

You knew from going over the supply logs that its bookshelf contained titles that it had once requested while at Site-19. Some of them were the classic French and English literature you’d expect, along with medical and biological texts, but the thing that perplexed you the most were the romance novels. 19th and 20th century literature had plenty of romance, but you wouldn’t have guessed an SCP with an obsession for a mysterious illness would be fond of bodice-rippers or tales of eternal pining.

Maybe it was just bored. Something as old as 049 probably read whatever grabbed its attention. It’s not as it if were capable of love or romantic feelings—

You forced yourself to lie down, pushing the wayward thoughts out of your mind. It was natural to be curious, but trying to sleep in the SCP’s bed was not the time to have such wandering questions.

It was unfortunate sleep wouldn’t come. No matter how long you laid there and tried to slow your breathing or give in to the exhaustion of your body, you remained stubbornly awake.

“Rest evades you,” 049’s voice carried across the dim room. “An inability to sleep indicates a chaotic mind.”

There was no use denying it, not when it could sense you so easily. If it could see you in the dark, maybe it could hear your breathing or heartbeat. You recalled at one point it was even able to smell you.

A startling thought occurred to you. If it could sense you so easily now, surely it would have known the kind of reactions it had caused from its examination? Those less-than clinical touches remaining somehow professional even when your heart had raced, and your muscles had trembled. It had to have known what it was doing, yet it treated you the same afterwards as it ever had.

“It’s been a difficult couple of weeks,” you said, an understatement of the century. “And it’s unlikely to get better.”

There was a quiet shuffling followed by silence. It was so quiet that when the bed dipped next to you, you flinched like you were about to be struck.

“I apologize,” it spoke from where it sat on the edge of the mattress. “It wasn’t my intention to startle you. I thought, perhaps a tale to quiet the inner workings of your mind would be welcome.”

You relaxed a little. It was only 049. This wasn’t a test, and you weren’t being subjected to an experiment.

“It’s not your fault I’m easily startled these days.”

You turned on your side toward 049, very awake but no longer in fight-or-flight mode either as you plumped up the pillow and rested your head on it.

A bedtime story, huh? You gazed up expectantly at the SCP, and 049’s expression seemed amused at your attentiveness.

“Yes, I suspect that’s why you cannot sleep. I had hoped something to take your mind off recent events would help. Perhaps, a recounting of my various travels? If you are receptive to it.”

“Yes!” you said, maybe a little too eagerly. “I would like that.”

049 made a low, pleased hum in its throat, one that sent goosebumps across your skin. You resolutely ignored your reaction.

“In that case, I shall start at the beginning.”

The SCP took a moment to gather its thoughts, or at least, you assumed that’s what it was doing as it stared off into the dark. And then, it spoke.

“My earliest memories originated in the 1300s, where my wanderings took me far and wide across Europe. Before that time, I can recall very little, and even now, I am unsure as to why that is. But the first I heard of a widespread instance of the Pestilence was from rumors of a devastating sickness, one which destroyed entire villages without mercy. I wasn’t the only one who heeded the call to Italy.”

049 huffed, displaying its disdain with a slight upturn of its beak.

“These amateur physicians had gathered to try and battle this devastating malady. It was 1348 in Avignon, and the disease was so rampant that Pope Clement VI paid these… doctors, myself included, to cure the ill.”

It paused for a moment, but you never moved, your attention rapt on its face. It may have had a chitinous mask for a face, but its eyes were so expressive, showing every flick of emotion in its words. You almost felt like you were there, seeing and feeling all the same things as 049.

“Suffice it to say, not many survived, including the other so-called physicians. All of them perished, either dying to their own stupidity or… well, as far as anyone knew, they simply vanished.” 049 let out a breath, one that wasn’t entirely happy. “They were charlatans, claiming to be healers but further spreading the Pestilence wherever they went. I made sure they would do no further harm.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened to those other doctors. And considering how difficult 049 could be to work with, you wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the doctors had turned on the SCP towards the end, to their fatal mistake.

“As I was the only surviving physician, I took what funds were given to me in payment and gave them to future patients as I met and cured them. I had very little need for monetary reward, and at most, in return for my services I would simply ask for a hot meal and a place to rest. I had no need of either, but, well… such things can be a balm to the soul. Perhaps, I’m growing sentimental in my old age.”

It gave a chuckle at that, one that warmed the pit of your stomach.

“I understand,” you offered quietly. “After being without warm meals and a soft bed, having those things again makes me feel… human.”

049 watched you, eyes softening.

“Indeed.”

You wondered about the patients it cured. To you, being “cured” by 049 meant a swift death and a grueling reanimation. It didn’t make sense that the SCP would give money to these shambling corpses. Had it actually cured people, truly cured them without resorting to death? You would have to ask at another time, for now, you wanted to learn more of its history. As far as you could tell from the records from other Sites, you were the first to get it to recall so much of its past.

It continued on, its low, mechanical voice soothing in the dark.

“For the sake of continuity, I shall skip forward 300 years to France where another instance of the Pestilence took hold of the land and its people.”

Ah, France. Montauban had been where the SCP had first appeared on the Foundation’s radar. It was interesting how it had taken so long for them to discover 049’s existence, but then again, 049 was very old compared to the somewhat young organization.

“The first known written record of myself, as far as I am aware, was in the year 1619 during the outbreak in Paris. Royal Physician Charles de Lorme, in service of King Louis XIII, followed in my footsteps as I cured the ill. He had so many prodding questions, wanting to know everything I did, even if he did not understand the finer points of it.”

049 spoke with a mixture of annoyance and fondness, recalling this man. There was a small pang of envy. Being trapped in the middle of a devastating bubonic plague would have been terrifying, but to get to observe 049 outside of these clinical walls, watch as the SCP tended to the sick—and it must have actually cured the sick, otherwise this physician would have fled—it made you oddly jealous over a man who had died hundreds of years ago.

That was why you were envious, you told yourself. Not because 049 spoke of him with warmth in its voice.

“Writers are an odd lot, curious even at the threat of their own health,” 049 mused. “But the Pestilence did not touch him, and he did not mock my methodology, so I let him be. He was a polite enough fellow, though I did not appreciate the manner in which he compared me to a ‘stooped, fastidious crow’.”

You pressed your lips together not to smile, able to pull up the imagery too well. A studious bird, perched over its work.

“The outbreak of the disease was… quite extraordinary. Monsieur de Lorme took my teachings and applied them in sometimes effective, sometimes mysterious ways…”

“How so?”

049 gave another light huff, clearly miffed about something.

“He decided part of his treatment regime should be to dress like me. Including a beaked mask, a cane, and waxed, leather robes, he insisted I wore these things to keep the Pestilence at bay. An utterly ridiculous notion from an utterly ridiculous man!”

You bit your lip hard, slowly losing the battle not to grin. 049’s offense at a 17th French physician dressed in long robes and a beaked mask was… well, it was something.

“Is that where they come from? The… plague doctors?”

Your question drew its attention, and it sat up straighter and smoothed down the front of its coat.

“Unfortunately. The monsieur even went so far as to believe lavender was a defense against foul odor and miasma simply because I sometimes took it with my tea.”

“Really? I thought lavender acted as a sedative for you.”

“Yes,” it said slowly, “and like any sedative, when taken in minute doses it can act as an enjoyable relaxant.”

Huh. It had a point there. And now you were picturing 049 in a cozy study with a flickering fireplace, a book, and a cup of lavender tea.

You hadn’t expected a story of various outbreaks of medieval plagues to end with you imagining the SCP in such an appealing setting. But, well, here you were, mind tingling with the curiosity of other ways 049 would relax.

Christ.

“Sorry,” you said. “I don’t mean to interrupt. Please, continue.”

049 was calmed from its slightly rumpled state, its gaze turning warm and drawing you in like a moth to flame.

“There’s no need to apologize, my dear. But, yes, I was the unintentional and unfortunate source of the… plague doctor phenomena.”

It let out a heavy sigh, almost dejected before it continued.

“German engraver Gerhart Altzenbach published an illustration of myself in 1656, which I did quite enjoy in its accuracy. What I did not enjoy was Paulus Fürst’s rendition of the same drawing, the nickname of “Doctor Beaky from Rome” given to the subject of the portrait. Not only was the name insulting, but the depiction of myself wearing a top hat was most inaccurate, and Fürst claimed my sole purpose was to frighten people and take their money.

“I most certainly did not,” 049 huffed. “I never took from the suffering or poor, nor would I. To compare me to those other masked charlatans is an insult, an outrage, and—… Is there something humorous, Doctor?”

“No, no. Course not.” You were unable to keep the smile from your lips this time. 049’s offense of being drawn wearing a top hat was just… too… damn cute.

049 continued to give you a cool look, eyes half-lidded in a lack of amusement, but it only made you smile more. Maybe you were getting too comfortable with the SCP—you were, after all, about to sleep in its bed—but you couldn’t help it. This was the lightest you’d felt since this whole mess began, and it was nice to just… smile about something.

The SCP’s gaze softened, and something stirred in your stomach. A trend you’d noticed happening with more frequency, but like before, you pushed it out of your thoughts. Deal with it later was becoming your motto.

It continued to speak on the various plagues that went beyond Paris, turning the tale toward those it had helped and eventually cured, and your smile faded. It was a good chance each “cure” was a life taken, though you wondered if maybe 049 had done things differently back then. There was little chance of that, SCPs didn’t generally change over time. They seemed to be stuck, chained to their nature, and 049’s history was a grim reminder of that.

When it spoke like this, low and rhythmic and soothing, it was impossible not to relax and sink into the mattress. You had begun to slip below the level of full consciousness when its voice trailed off, and there was a light brush of something soft against your temple.

The mattress shifted, the weight disappearing along with the SCP’s presence, but you didn’t want it to leave yet.

“I’m not… a doctor,” you mumbled.

“Hmm?”

“You call me Doctor,” you said, the words laden with almost-sleep. “Not a doctor. Just a junior researcher. Was… a junior researcher.”

There was the quiet scuff of a footstep and the mattress dipped again. You peeked open your eyes to find 049 returned, sitting on the edge and half-turned in your direction. Its eerie pale eyes watched you, but there was warmth there. In a way you would never admit while fully awake, you felt… safe.

“You’re inquisitive,” it said. “Observant. Wield a critical mind but do not possess a cold heart. You wish to aid those you meet, even a man like myself. You’re far more a woman of science than they could ever hope to be. No official title or academic proclamation could dictate your worth.”

Your breath caught in your throat, but you swallowed down the lump and took the compliment with a silent burning of your cheeks.

“That’s kind of you to say. Thank you.”

The SCP gave a gentle bow of its head before standing again.

“I shall let you rest. Pleasant dreams, Doctor.”

“Goodnight, 049.”

Once the SCP had retreated out of your vision, over to its desk by the sound of it, you buried your face into the pillow.

Jesus. 049 was going to be the death of you, and not in the way you’d imagined.

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