northofallmusic

[northofallmusic]

A chunk of a shengu WIP I meant to have finished and posted weeks ago. Yanhui Town, Gu Yun no homo-ing himself, sharing a bed allegedly because it's fucking cold. v lightly nsfw.

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They had recently returned from scouting, slinking back into their shut-up house in Yanhui Town late at night. It was cold, and warming one room would be enough work, and so it was natural enough that they would share a bed.

Gu Yun's vision was as clear as it got, and his hearing was passable, but he was the useless layabout Shen Shiliu just now, and so he lay sprawled on the bed and let Shen Yi light the stove all the same. Watched him. His somewhat harsh profile, his hands and their quick movements. He had good hands, both strong and precise.

"Lazy bastard," Shen Yi said, giving him a sidelong look. He didn't expect a response, and Gu Yun didn't give him one. When Shen Yi came to bed, he shoved Gu Yun over to make space with less gentleness than he might have, and without a scrap of deference.

Gu Yun laughed, and turned to lie with his front pressed to Shen Yi's sturdy back.

"Your face is like ice," Shen Yi said. Gu Yun pressed his cheek more heavily against Shen Yi's neck.

"My hands are too," he said, and slipped one of them into the folds of Shen Yi's robe to demonstrate.

Shen Yi hissed in displeasure, but let Gu Yun's hand stay there, tucked against his stomach. Warmth seeped slowly into Gu Yun's fingers.

Gu Yun thought, not for the first time: do they wonder, any of the people here? Anyone can arrive in a town where nobody knows them and say that they're brothers. His looks are nothing like mine.

But if they don't think we're really brothers, that's fine. They'll think that we're—well—

Something that would really ruin any hope of his attracting beauties here.

How absurd. How absurd—to be anything like that.

After a while, Shen Yi shifted, stretched himself out in a more proper sleeping posture. The bed was too narrow for Gu Yun to comfortably follow suit, and so he stayed against Shen Yi's side. It was convenient, also, to leave his hand on Shen Yi's stomach—and it was simple restlessness which meant his fingers wandered—

Shen Yi sighed, shifted his legs apart slightly. Gu Yun rolled half on top of him, wedged a thigh between his.

It wasn't really like sex, because Gu Yun was fairly particular about sex, about how one ought to have it, the atmosphere, the proper kinds of teasing and seduction—while whatever this was could be allowed to simply happen sometimes, in the dark, in a conveniently shared bed, or pressed together in a cramped tent.

Shen Yi's hand ghosted its way down to Gu Yun's waist, and rested there, spreading a pleasant tingling feeling up and down Gu Yun's side as they moved idly.

People lived their lives like this, in soft and accessible bodies. Shelless. They had already packed their armour away, having removed it before they came within sight of the town. A change of clothes. Gu Yun letting his hair down into a style which was more careless than relaxed.

[northofallmusic]

every time we fall (changgu, e, 5300 words)

a delayed journey; the end of the sex ban; some complicated power play. written for @vergoftowels for yuletide!

There would be no travel today either, although they had planned to begin to make their way north. In their set of rooms, isolated from the noisier parts of the inn, Gu Yun sat by partially open screen doors and watched the rain, Chang Geng's cloak draped loosely over his shoulders to compensate for the fact that he had not yet bothered to get properly dressed. The world blurred softly even seen through his eyeglass, the force of the rain creating a fine mist which clung to the ground and rendered everything indistinct. The ornamental pond in the courtyard would overflow its margins soon, he thought. It was a mild autumn in Jiangbei, but on the distant northern border the snow might have begun. The geese had already flown south. Chang Geng settled behind him, leaning his chin on Gu Yun's shoulder to see what Gu Yun was seeing. The scent of tranquilliser wrapped itself around Gu Yun. He was not immune to this closeness, or to the light touch of Chang Geng's hand against his side.

read ➢

[northofallmusic]

feel anything (lulin, e, 3200 words)

Chapter 142 missing scene fic for @cutiesubinnie for the danmei gotcha for gaza!

Post-reunion awkwardness, some melancholy, some reconnection, some lurking kinks we're trying not to notice,

The room was dark, only fragments of light filtering through the curtains. It gave Jingheng a suspended feeling, as though all that existed was the bed, and his body, and Lu Bixing. It was claustrophobic in the way sitting in a free-floating light mech could be claustrophobic: the sphere of existence so reduced, and space so vast around it. There had been a moment, very long ago, when that kind of claustrophobia had left his body entirely; there had been another, more recently, when it returned. Lu Bixing pressed his fingers into Jingheng's hips, holding him down on the bed. The small points of contact ached, and the skin around them buzzed with a different feeling. Electric. "Oh?" Jingheng murmured. "You'll imprison me?" "Yeah," Lu Bixing said.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

to take in & not let go (cangji/jinglin, e, 5700 words)

Post-wedding dragon sex: the fic!

They stumble together, still kissing, until Jinglin's back is to the wall, his head cradled safely in Cangji's palm. He arches against Cangji, wanting. Didn't it rain—another day—when Jinglin committed himself for the first time. A torrent. It's a clear day now, but Jinglin fits against his body in much the same way. He's not quite as thin. He's looser, a little easier in himself. Cangji takes a deep breath, but it only fills his nose and his lungs more thoroughly with Jinglin. The warm scent of him. It does nothing to calm him, to make him steadier in his desire. More kisses, deep and frantic. Is Jinglin crying? Perhaps the one crying is Cangji. Cangji is so happy that he can hardly contain it in this body. His joy pushes at his skin from the inside, tries to make him vast enough to hold it.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

maoer no longer being available on google play exactly when I go to buy spl s3 & qjj ADs is so homophobic tbh———

[northofallmusic]

I have one single braincell left for everything that isn't work and it's just bouncing rapidly between danmei. the only things I've written this month are a couple random snippets of cezhou porn, a single paragraph about ximang crying, and some incoherent notes about chang geng stress relief ~punishment~. help

[northofallmusic]

first line meme

tagged by @phneltwrites and I think maybe also a very long time ago by lianzi?

RULES: post the first lines of your last 10 fics/chapters posted on AO3 (if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics) and try to draw some conclusions.

The failure of the generator was what woke Zhou Zishu: the choke of it, and then the silence where the quiet buzz of electricity should be. (memory is what makes you older)

Evening falls on the city more quickly, it seems to Zhou Zishu, than it did on the high slopes of his childhood. (a light to drown in)

Wen Kexing does it like an afterthought—as though grabbing something left behind while packing, though they've already checked the hotel room twice. (the third passenger)

The compact Apostolosian ship slid across the deck, a shuddering and only half-controlled sideways skid which splintered the surface below it and brought it, at last, to a hard stop up against a tall curved pillar which, fortunately, no longer held anything up. (splinter)

Jing Beiyuan, naked, sometimes seemed less touchable than ever—but Wuxi touched him anyway. (sincerity)

Wen Kexing was sitting by the river in the sunset, warm light colouring his pale face. (fortune)

This is Gu Yun's Black Iron Battalion: new and bold and well-armed, a handful of veterans but far more people who have before this only fought in other ways with other commanders, or who have barely fought at all. (within the war)

Lin Jingheng was in the attic when Lu Bixing got home. (containment)

In a distant lifetime, Jing Beiyuan said: "No, but nobody cares that much for lying with anyone. They care for power, or for flirtation. Or for money—and such." (ember)

Shen Zechuan was still lying on the bed: an untidy but lovely sprawl of limbs, half-undone robes bunched up around his waist, hair so haphazardly tied that it might even have looked more decent were it simply entirely loose. (gorge)

thoughts:

I definitely expected more of these to be about environment and quality of light etc than actually are - it's what I think of as my default opening gambit, but it actually mostly shows up here in the zzs and wenzhou stories & not so much in pieces for other fandoms. does this mean something.

pretty broad spread here in general, I feel like. I tend to favour a reflective tone, which is complicated when it pushes up against an action sequence opening as in splinter.

to be honest, I'm kind of wandering all over the place wrt to writing, and I don't know if it particularly shows but I feel it looking at the list.

[northofallmusic]

Gorge (cezhou, e, 1700 words)

post-qudu; sex ft. overstimulation, D/s vibes and thoughts about falconry

"Had enough?" Shen Zechuan asked Xiao Chiye. It was a soft and small-voiced question, slightly pitiable, the way he only was in bed.

Xiao Chiye stroked Shen Zechuan's damp hair back from his face. He held a cup of water out, coaxing Shen Zechuan to drink.

"No," he said, when Shen Zechuan had emptied the cup.

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[northofallmusic]

c2p fic: containment (lulin, e, 2500 words)

prompt fill for lore: character sketch via sex.

post-canon lulin ft. light bondage, some shotgunning, and kinks lin jingheng hasn't really figured out that he has

There are things that Lin Jingheng wants that he can barely find the edges of, much less explain.

Or: sex after a brief separation.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

spl fic: within the war (shen yi & gu yun, gu yun/shen yi-ish, t, 1900 words

prompt fill for lianzi: shen yi and gu yun having weird charged moments in adolescence and young adulthood.

pre-canon relationship study; unexamined kinda romantic feelings which will be staying unexamined; gu yun being hard to look after.

Shen Yi and Gu Yun and the things they are to each other: four scenes from the early years of Gu Yun's command of the Black Iron Battalion.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

tyk fic: fortune (wenzhou, t, 800 words)

prompt fill for mt: zzs pining during canon

mid-canon zzs pining; some difficulty understanding the line between "flirting with" and "fucking with"; an evening by the river; hand holding

To think that Zhou Zishu, after so many dull years in which the problem had seemed to be resolved, would finally discover that his heart had never stopped being foolish.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

✨🌷🌿 prompt me!! 🌿🌷✨

crossposting this belatedly from other sites: I'd like to write some ficlets to shake some dust off my brain and you can help! give me a character/relationship + a brief prompt & I'll try to write you a small something.

fandoms: tian ya ke & qi ye, sha po lang, can ci pin, yuwu, erha, devil venerable also wants to know, tgcf

more notes on content etc below!

in general: I don't usually fill every prompt I get for things like this, and as such you're incredibly welcome to send multiple prompts; nsfw prompts yes; genderbend yes; omegaverse no. this isn't possible on other sites, but if you want to leave a prompt anonymously here via an ask you're welcome to.

on characters & relationships: you can absolutely throw me other stuff to see if it pings my brain, because we're experimenting here, but I'm generally fairly main character & relationship focused, except for qi ye, which is a bit of a free for all (my track record is mostly zzs/various), and devil venerable, where I'm also mildly obsessed w a lot of the female characters; for spl, I also like gu yun/shen yi; for tgcf, I'm also beefleaf curious!

[northofallmusic]

qi ye fic: sincerity (xiyuan, e, 2100 words)

prompt fill for wildestranger @ bsky: sex re/education

post-canon relationship exploration; learning and re-learning things about sex; trying to have an honest conversation when one of the people involved is jing beiyuan; finding ways forward

Wuxi knew almost nothing, but it still made him want to teach Beiyuan—that it could be different. He wanted to learn to please Beiyuan so well that he forgot to be pretty and became messily beautiful instead.

read on ao3 ➢

[northofallmusic]

Getting back to the routine is always hard for me, even if it’s something I like. This piece is the second approach to the bloody hands idea because with anime one I didn't express what I actually wanted. And this actually has the energy I wanted to put into it. I believe it was more than once when WKX was in some trance state after killing someone, unaware of the surroundings, only thinking of himself, the path he chose, his deeds and emotions, going deep into his thoughts, so his expression gets unreadable. So calm and unattached to what he just did, almost looks like he's smiling. Cold and unpredictable, unbothered.

[northofallmusic]

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The scene from TYK where Zhou Zishu misses his wife so much he carves one-hundred terrible flutes about it.

[northofallmusic]

what if clem just looks normal (for her) but in her attic there's a painting of her that's slowly melting

[northofallmusic]

I've been thinking about them recently, and this is one of my favourite pieces I've ever made of them. Made for Tian Ya Ke week 2022, which was a wonderful experience.