#augh oh my this au is so perfect it hasn’t left my head

[eeblouissant]

!!! @queenofquestions & I chatted briefly about a Tudor period au of sorts for the girls, & naturally I got to doodling lol!!

[garden-ghoul]

Aubrey is married to every single member of the Six, and also Samot. Let’s boogie.

Notes: This is some kind of used-the-right-fucking-knife AU I guess? Doesn’t matter, the point is Samothes is still alive but Aubrey also lives with Samot.

“Aubrey!” Samot’s voice comes floating in from somewhere in the main house. “You should come inside, we have to get ready.”

Aubrey is halfway up the side of her enormous printing press, which is presently gutted, trying to reach a bolt she’s tightening while maintaining her footing. “Just a second!” she calls. “I’ve got to—augh!” She catches herself on one of the bars that’s almost too far to reach and stands there, leaning precariously sideways. She tries to prevent her tail from switching in frustration, because it’s going to unbalance her, but it’s difficult to concentrate on how to get out of this while she’s working so hard to keep still.

She hears footsteps coming into the workshop, and sags in relief. Unfortunately, this means she falls. She hits her elbow on a jutting corner and braces for impact, but it’s Samot’s arms she lands in. When she cracks an eye open he’s straightening up—she can tell because the floor is much further away than normal—saying, “You really should be more careful. And honestly, what is that thing? I know you’re no mechanic…”

“It’s a surprise,” says Aubrey. “You’ll like it.” She hopes he’ll like it, the amount of time she’s spent nursing bruises and scrubbing machine oil off her scales.

“I like almost everything you make. I just think that maybe you could use a stepladder.” He still hasn’t put her down, and is instead carrying her into the house. Held against his chest, she can’t help but think of Sige.

 --

 (She never had to worry about getting Sige greasy, or what it meant when he held her. Well, maybe that last one wasn’t quite true. She used to think all he felt for her was protectiveness. She remembers the day when she figured it out. She was curled into his chest around the notes they’d stolen, securely held by a hand as big as her torso. She could feel it when Sige turned suddenly and swung; she could feel through his bones the wet crunch when his fist connected; she could smell blood.

On top of singed flesh. Sige had already taken a few nasty wounds from the Fontmen’s canes, and she could tell he was slowing down. She peeked just in time to see all the hair burned off the arm that was holding her. Sige growled in pain and fell back. Aubrey was beginning to think they were going to lose, which was honestly unacceptable. She spent a tense thirty seconds fumbling with her vials, trying to find the right one, and wasn’t quick enough to stop the Fontman from putting a hole in Sige’s side. But she was quick enough to save him from death, that was something.

They ran while the Fontman lay choking on the ground, because Sige didn’t want to risk kicking him. Ten minutes later found Sige slumped against the wall in one of the safehouses no-one knew about, panting. His breath hitched every so often in pain, and he still hadn’t let go of her. At the time she thought he had forgotten, and carefully extricated herself, trying not to step on any of his wounds. His hand seemed to cling to her until it fell back onto his chest. “The notes didn’t get damaged,” she said, quavering. She cleared her throat as she checked the labels of her vials, and tried for a steadier voice. “You’re hurt.”

“But you’re not,” he muttered. His eyes were still closed, and she could tell he was keeping his breathing even only through force of will.

“You’re right, I’m not, so stop worrying about me! That’s what almost got you killed in the first place. Oh, look at this, this is awful.” She started applying ointment to the wound in his side, a burn that was already blistering.

He was silent for a while except for small noises of pain, and then suddenly he said, “I’ll never be sorry I protected you.”

Aubrey’s face flushed, and she glanced up at him from under her brows. He looked kind of sleepy, and his face was still tight with pain, but he was smiling softly at her. He lifted a hand to cradle her head, folding her ears forward a little. One of them flicked automatically as he disturbed the hairs inside, and her face burned even hotter. That was when she realized.)

 --

 “What are you working on?” she asks Samot, thinking that maybe being carried will be a little less awkward if she makes conversation. “I’ve hardly seen you these past few weeks.”

He lets out a little breath of a laugh. “That’s as much your fault as mine. Whenever I go looking for you you’re inside that thing’s guts, or in the stillery.”

“It’ll be ready soon,” she says. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Deep magic,” he says. “I hardly have time for anything else these days. I’m worried…” he sighs, and she knows that it’s the Heat and the Dark on his mind again.

To distract him, she says, “I can walk on my own, you know.” It’s a peculiar mixture of pleasant and humiliating to be carried. She knew where she stood with Sige, at least. On his shoulders, normally. Well, Samot stops and sets her down with probably unnecessary gentleness, and she has to walk a little too fast to keep up with him. “Remind me why I need to go to this party with you?”

“You don’t need to. I gave you the opportunity to say no. But it would be rude to change your mind now, since you’re already on the guest list.” He glances down at her, and there’s something particular in his smile. “It won’t be so terrible, will it?”

His smile reminds her of someone, too.

 --

 (It’s the smile Ethan used to give her sometimes. That’s one of the ways she could tell him from his brother: Ethan gave her that smile, but when she smiled at Edmund he just blushed. He never seemed to figure out that he was so easy to read, but nobody else seemed to notice either. Then again, the rest of the Six probably thought Captain Hitchcock was just kind of an inconsistent person.

Today Aubrey was copying her notes (though it pained her to write neatly, literally, her wrist was killing her), leaning against Frank’s warm side. In the next room Sige was probably having tea, and the atmosphere was so nice it was easy to forget they were three stories underground. Hitchcock came in, sheened with sweat, and she computed the probabilities: tonight was a dueling class, so it was Ethan, unless Edmund had been running away from something. To test her theory she gave him a wide-eyed smile, and he grinned back. “What are you up to, Aubrey?” he said, and came to peer over her shoulder. “Nice to see a friendly face after class. Today’s youth are hell.” Frank gave a soft snort and looked toward the other room, disinterested, and three data points made a convincing argument.

“It’s nice to see you too, Ethan,” she said, though she couldn’t at the moment. He was kneeling behind her too look at her notebook, so she held it up for him. “It’s probably not very interesting to you, though.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” said Ethan. She could hear he was still smiling. “But I’m glad you do.” He leaned closer to look at her notes, so his shoulder brushed hers, and pretended to try to decipher the formulas she’d written out for far longer than he needed to.

Compare to his brother:

The day before, Aubrey had found him practicing dueling forms in the studio as she went out, and nearly called him Ethan. But when she waved at him as she passed he stumbled over his feet trying to bow. She put a hand over her mouth to conceal the fact that she was almost laughing, and said, “Your form is so good I thought you were Ethan.”

Edmund turned faintly pink and smiled back. “Well, well, thank you, I suppose that’s quite a compliment. We did both serve in the military, though.”

“I sort of assumed you had an arrangement where Ethan did all the swordwork,” said Aubrey, climbing up onto a stool.

Edmund began to look more affronted than flustered, which had been the goal. “We did not. I’ll have you know I’m the one who defeated Thackeray. Almost certainly.”

“Almost certainly?”

“You know how it is,” Edmund mumbled. “Sometimes when you hear a story enough times you start to think you were there.”

“Well, do you mind if I watch you practice?” Aubrey asked. “I’ll be quiet.”

Edmund brought his blade up in front of his face and bowed to her, and then started practicing again. He didn’t do so well this time, since he kept glancing over at her.)

 --

 “I’ve left your clothes on your bed. We’re supposed to be leaving in half an hour, but it shouldn’t take you that long.” He raises a hand and walks toward his own room, leaving Aubrey to go inside and look at what he left. It’s at least simple, although only after she puts it on does she identify the moss-green item as a tailcoat. It actually, she thinks, looking in the mirror, makes her look almost dashing. She twirls a little, and the tails fan out behind her. Now she just needs to figure out whether to wear the pale yellow skirt with it, or the dark trousers. She does the skirt first, on the grounds that it’s the easiest to take off, and twirls a little more. She does like to twirl, and she certainly likes the look of skirts. But when she tries on the trousers she can’t bring herself to take them off. She looks a bit like some intimidating secret agent, she thinks, like a Fontman.

When she emerges Samot is sitting in the hall, pinning his hair back with the aid of a system of mirrors she rigged up for him a while ago. He looks up and gives her that smile again, says, “You look good.” He leans forward as she comes closer to fix her collar. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but he likes things to be just so. That would be why he looks so good, sharp and soft and perfect, as beautiful as only a god can be. She stands still under his hands, looking embarrassedly in the mirrors at the gold ornaments on back of his head. It feels familiar.

 --

 (Castille did just the same thing once. That day Aubrey was sitting in her apartment, watching her try on clothes for the new season. Castille was so stylish, and really just, very very pretty, and Aubrey loved to look at her. Castille spun around, making her blue dress flare out around her. She looked toward Aubrey, laughing, and it was all Aubrey good do to keep her voice steady—to say nothing of keeping the starstruck expression off her face. “It’s really good,” she said faintly.

“You say that about all of them!”

“You look good in everything! When you, you know, when you put on something that doesn’t look good I promise I’ll let you know.”

“You’re too sweet.” Castille smiled warmly at her, and her heart thudded twice. “For now I think I’ll go with winter colors. Maybe a dark hat this season…”

Aubrey watched her swish around the room for the hats she’d left lying everywhere, listened to her bare feet clacking on the tiles. She was almost too glamorous to be a criminal, but then, probably no-one wanted a pala-din at their society balls.

Castille bent down in front of Aubrey to peer at her face. “I can see you don’t have an opinion on the hat either. That’s all right. Buuut… I think you should dress up too!”

“I, I doubt you have anything in my size,” Aubrey stammered.

“As it happens, I do.” Castille whooshed over to open her wardrobe and emerged with a pile of folded clothing, which Aubrey saw on closer inspection was cobbin-sized. “I stole all of these from the Office of Lost Materials. Try them on! I promise, I only picked cute ones.”

Obligingly Castille turned around and started looking at some small detail of a patterned jacket, so Aubrey retreated behind a screen and put on the easiest thing she could find, a yellow sundress of some light, floaty material. Thinking of Castille, she put on the broad-brimmed hat with ear holes, and came out. She’d never worn a skirt before that day, and her ears were pushed back in embarrassment, but Castille took one look at her and clapped her hands in delight.

“Oh, you look just as cute as I thought you would! Twirl for me?” Feeling  a little silly, Aubrey did, but her reward was Castille’s beaming smile, so it was all right. “What do you think of the skirt?”

“Um… it’s a little… breezy?”

“Oh, right, not really your style. I also got a really smart waistcoat. Oh! And I think I got a cravat too. You should do those! I probably put in a pair of black slacks. Don’t know why a cobbin had those made, to be honest. Go on, go on!”

Aubrey felt a lot better wearing trousers again, and when she came back out she felt practically confident. Castille’s face lit up. “Oh, I think that’s even more you. One of your lapels is stuck though, let me fix it.” She gently tugged some part of the shirt out of some part of the vest, and smoothed it down. Smiled at Aubrey for a moment, and then continued fussing with it. Her fingers lingered on Aubrey’s shoulders; the knuckle of her thumb skimmed Aubrey’s cheek, brushed her whiskers.

The clothes had made Aubrey feel rather dashing, and bold indeed. She put her hand on Castille’s, keeping it on her face. Something seemed to light up in Castille’s blank white eyes, and she smiled, leaning forward. Neither of them really knew the mechanics of kissing, but they had a go at it anyway. Castille’s lips were hard but not cold, with the sun streaming into her apartment, and she went so gently that they almost seemed soft. Dazed, Aubrey sat down hard on the floor.

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” she said.

Castille, backlit, was radiant. “We can try again, if you want. We might get better at it.”)

 --

 “Aubrey, are you all right?”

Aubrey’s eyes briefly land on his face before she looks hurriedly away again. She’s not sure, really, how to ask if he’s flirting. It seems awfully presumptuous to think a god has any interest in her, and although she’s never seen him like this with anyone else maybe that’s just what it looks like when he’s friends with someone!

“Fine,” she says, after way too long. She’s blushing, and irritated with herself for it. “I just maybe… sort of wondered… why you’d want to take me to a party like this.” He doesn’t answer for a moment, so she panics and tries to fill the silence. “Since, you know, you could get absolutely anyone to go with you! Everyone likes you! Not to say that no-one likes me, but, you know, I’m not exactly the god of knowledge and wine and being beautiful.”

When she glances at his face again it’s a strange mixture of confused, bemused, and reassuring. “As if none of those is your domain?” he asks, totally failing to address any of what she said. Irresponsible. “Do you think I asked you because I pity you?” She shakes her head, hesitant. “Do you think I wouldn’t want to show off the most brilliant friend I have? Looking dashing in tails?” He grins for a moment, and then gets his face under control again. “At a party where my husband will be, almost certainly taking his aunt as a date?”

A little incredulous laugh escapes Aubrey, and she claps her hands over her mouth. She gaps her fingers slightly to mumble, “Are you saying you wanted me to make Samothes jealous?”

For the first time he looks away. He’s frowning slightly. “It was terribly rude of me not to ask,” he says at last. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have… perhaps galas aren’t what you would choose.”

“If we’re going on a date I’d much prefer something simple,” says Aubrey. A moment later she realizes what she said and tightens her fingers again over her mouth, trying to get around Samot to burrow into the wall.

“Next time we will do something simple,” he says, catching her gently by the shoulders. “You can choose.”

She can’t look at him, but she manages to headbutt him in the chest, which is her compromise. “Me and my big mouth,” she says into his coat.

“Don’t be too hard on your mouth,” he says. “It got you a second date with the god of wine and books and being beautiful. And the first one hasn’t even started.”

 --

 (In the end it isn’t clear if Samothes is jealous or not, but Aubrey is so nervous she drinks three glasses of wine and kisses Samot, which, no matter how mortifying, makes the evening not a total loss.)