#character: danny hislop

[theartistknownaslymond]

As yet untitled Jerott/Danny...something. Flungst? Angff?

Still not writing anything anyone actually asked me for smh...

Setting: post-Checkmate by four or five years, so early-mid-'90s

Characters: Jerott Blyth, Danny Hislop

Background (for more on the characters in the band AU, see notes at the end of the fic): During his relationship with Peder, Jerott got accustomed to travelling to Denmark via Paris - it made the journey longer but it was an opportunity to see his mum and to catch up with Danny. Danny helped him navigate his first openly queer relationship and was there to try and help Jerott not relapse too badly when he broke up with Peder. Even though Jerott doesn't need to go to Paris so often now, he still does - just for a few days every couple of months - so he can see his mother and see Danny and maybe record some music with Danny or play a couple of gigs. The vibe is Married and they just don't know it - but Jerott always seems to have some pretty young thing he's dating after meeting them at a movie premier or something, so Danny figures they just don't stand a chance. It's really just never occurred to Jerott that Danny would be interested in him because surely Danny is far too wordly and experienced to think of Jerott like that.

They do not get together in this fic, but the idea is that it can't be too long afterwards tbh.

CWs: reference to severe weight loss from illness; references to the AIDS pandemic and deaths, plus associated horrors (families not letting friends grieve, doctors not wanting to touch patients, general relentless misery of losing so many people/worrying about the obituaries). Also gratuitous descriptions of food.

---

Outside the metro station, Jerott slung an arm over Danny's shoulder and pressed his friend close for a hug. As he turned his face to present each cheek for Danny's kisses and suppressed a cough at the cloud of Chanel he was greeted with, he noticed the difference in the body beneath his hold.

"Alright - Jesus you're skinny, Danny!" he pulled back and let his hand remain on the shoulder of his friend's jacket, squeezing gently to confirm the contours he'd felt - bone and sinew far closer to the surface than he remembered.

Danny tossed their chin and twitched an eyebrow, grey eyes dark and hooded. "Oh, merci, he's in early with the compliments this time. What have you done now, doudou?"

Jerott studied Danny more closely: they were immaculately styled as always, but the silk blouse and the corduroy waistcoat beneath Danny's jacket hung unevenly against their body, implying a rumpled and gappy silhouette beneath the folds of the Burberry trenchcoat. The lines around the top of their voluminous trousers hinted at a belt cinched tighter than the fabric had been tailored for. Danny's face was sharper than Jerott remembered, too: the jaw almost uncompromisingly square, cheeks a little hollow beneath a subtle hint of pink blush.

"It wasn't a compliment..." Jerott said with the frankness that Danny expected of him. "You look like shit. What's up?"

Danny's brows shot up at Jerott's pronouncement and they looked down at him with a half-vexed smirk. "I look like shit?"

"You look like shit," Jerott nodded.

It was guaranteed to get a rise, and thus guaranteed to provoke some measure of honesty. Besides, even if it wasn't entirely true - Danny could have styled a Saturday morning midden outside a chip shop into something quirky and compelling - it was still true that Jerott preferred to see Danny with softer edges, more of a curious, assessing twinkle in their eye, more warmth beneath the pale tones of their skin. In general - healthier. It was a natural way to feel about one's friend, Jerott supposed.

Danny's eyes narrowed and their shoulder moved a little beneath Jerott's touch. Their lips - a natural pink that looked too pale, especially when one was used to Danny's array of neon-bright lipsticks - pursed a little and finally, shortly, Danny replied, "I've been ill. I'm fine now, thank you for your concern."

Jerott's hand tightened on Danny's shoulder again and his jaw shifted. He didn't manage to get a word out before Danny added, "It's not that. It's not. I've had so much blood taken for tests I don't think I'd feed a midge. I'm fine now, really Jerott."

Jerott noted that his heart had quickened anyway - he'd heard from Francis that Turkey had recently taken a turn for the worse as the weather cooled; he'd had Dagbladet Børsen delivered to his newsagent in Glasgow for several years now and he read the obituaries in a state of suppressed terror once a week, faithful to people he no longer knew, sometimes catching himself praying to distant gods that he wouldn't read a name he recognised there. He regretted the scientific understanding that had almost led him into a different career and now called him to spend sleepless nights poring over articles in medical journals, because it was that or give in to the whiskey again.

He swallowed and made himself take a deep breath - he'd not realised how much worry he attached to Danny and their defiant, flamboyant Marais lifestyle in the present context. But there, for a moment, he'd felt like the street had opened up beneath his feet and the air had turned to hot ash in his lungs.

"Ok. Good. What was it then?"

Danny's eyes had widened again and light seemed to have returned to their pale irises. They smiled crookedly, but it was more fond than defensive now. "Believe me, doudou, you don't want the details. Just some bug." Danny turned away and began walking down the pavement, strolling slowly enough that Jerott had time to light a cigarette and catch up.

"Some bug?" he repeated in a mutter around his filter, making a show of returning his fags and his lighter to his jacket pockets and wondering whether Danny had noticed how worried he'd been, or if he'd managed to hide it.

"Mm," Danny agreed, gazing performatively up at the rooftops of the buildings they passed and ignoring the odd cry of recognition from passers by. "Not helped, of course, by the fact that half the people I know do have it. I'm so bored of funerals, Jerott. Stressed and tired and literally sick of them."

Jerott took an involuntarily sharp inhalation and coughed at the way the smoke prickled in his throat. He grimaced and glared at the pavement, and decided, savagely, that he needed to do something about this - he'd never once in the years they'd known each other heard Danny's voice thrum with such brittle rage.

"You know what, Danny? Screw the market. There's a place yemma and I always eat at not far from here. I'm taking you there to get some proper food in you."

Danny stopped walking and blinked at him with limpid eyes. "Excuse me?"

"Algerian. Tagine, couscous, dips, bread?"

Danny still looked like they were trying to figure something out, but Jerott's brows rose and he pointed at the front of their waistcoat. A distinct growl had emerged from that flat belly at the mention of bread. "I heard that. Come on - we can go to the market afterwards."

Danny's frown deepened and they pressed their lips together, but then they nodded and shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah ok, lead on." Their voice sounded somewhat strangled to Jerott, like there was some undefined emotion trying to escape Danny's fearsome, formidable control over it.

Two silent streets later, when Jerott had finished his cigarette, Danny sounded more like themselves again: "So, will I finally get to meet dear yemma there?"

"No," Jerott eyed Danny and smiled knowingly. "Kahina doesn't just...hang around in cafés, Danny. We eat here together when she's visiting family in the dixneuvième."

"Ugh, then what's the point?" Danny exclaimed dramatically. "You want me to believe you sprang fully formed from the brutalist architecture, doudou, but the woman who made you what you are exists somewhere in Paris, and one day I will meet her!"

Jerott smirked tolerantly and stepped into the entrance of a building to hold the door open for his friend. "The point is -"

He didn't need to finish, as Danny's hands were clasped against their chest and they were already exclaiming rapturously as they walked into the restaurant: "Oh, do you smell that?"

The owner, recognising Jerott, approached to make small talk about his mother, and Danny listened thirstily, totally unconcerned by the proprietor's less-than-subtle attempts to suss out their identity. They introduced themself with a shark-like grin and shook the owner's hand: «Danny. I'm Jerott's friend.»

Jerott closed his eyes briefly and sighed at the effortless way Danny fudged the pronunciation of the word ami(e), so that it might even have been any one of several similar terms meaning lover or darling. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers and smiled stiffly at the owner. «Danny's in the band I play in. Danny knows Lymond and played in Russia with him.»

The owner nodded and attempted his own, reassured, smile, and he did not flinch from Danny's enthusiastic handshake. «Another...» he had been about to say 'musician' Jerott supposed, but ran instantly into another question of conjugation. His moustache twitched. «You play an instrument, like Sidi Blyth. How nice. What do you play?»

«All sorts,» Danny chirped happily. «I like synthesisers, but woodwind is my first love.» Their eyes roved over the decor of the restaurant, past rugs and lamps to seek out the guitars and percussion instruments the owners had salvaged when fleeing their home and now displayed in pride of place. «You don't have woodwind instruments here?» Danny gestured to the wall.

«No,» the owner answered with some relief. He showed them to the table upstairs that Jerott usually shared with his mother.

Over mint tea, as they waited for the selection of dishes Jerott had ordered, Jerott watched Danny gaze out of the window to the other side of the street, their long, freckled fingers tapping on the tablecloth in time with the frantic beat of the music playing from a cassette deck in the corner of the room. The midday autumn light was drawn to the crystal pendant of Danny's earring, and faint spots of rainbow colour were cast in fragments across Danny's cheek. It occurred to Jerott all over again how tiresome it was that anyone bothered trying to define Danny - once he'd learned a way of speaking around the need for masculine or feminine conjugations, Jerott had soon forgotten how clunky he'd found it to begin with. He'd simply become used to Danny as a singular aspect of the world - language rearranged itself around Danny, and Jerott saw no reason why it shouldn't.

Generally, though, Danny didn't care what pronouns strangers used. Danny had made their resilience and self-awareness key aspects of their personality, and Jerott reminded himself that Danny was steely enough to have survived being perceived - in whatever way they had been perceived - by Soviet Russia.

But sometimes, Jerott had begun to realise, the carefully constructed armoury of Danny's identity grew heavy in the face of others' engagement with it. And now Danny did look drawn - bruised by recent sadnesses, nervy about what might come next, both younger and older than Jerott had seen them look.

"Have you had Algerian before, Danny?" Jerott asked, summoning Danny's attention away from the flock of pigeons on the opposite building's roof.

Danny smiled fleetingly and took a sip of tea, then paused to look Jerott over with a more customary, lascivious flick of their lashes. "Not for want of trying..."

Jerott rolled his eyes. "How have you lived in Paris for over a decade and never tried Algerian food?"

"Maybe I've just been waiting for a recommendation from an expert," Danny said snippily. "You always did curries back when we were recording Checkmate. You could have made...this..."

Danny's eyes lit on the food that was arriving and between them, Jerott and the restaurateur explained the dishes as they filled the surface of the table.

"I didn't have much experience cooking Algerian then," Jerott said, helping himself to bread and pickled vegetables. "Curry in Glasgow, curry in Pune, curry in Nevada - with so little seasoning it might as well have been rice pudding..." he trailed off, muttering imprecations in Urdu.

Danny folded their arms and watched him. "So which one of these innocent-looking beauties is going to blow my poor Ashkenazi ass off?"

Jerott pulled a face and bit on a pickled chilli. "They're not hot, Danny, they just have flavour." He pointed out the dishes he knew how to make and explained what was in them and Danny dutifully helped themselves to some of each. Danny loved to make a show of bitching, but they were also eager to express their appreciation: every first bite was accompanied by a moan of delight or some other sound that made Jerott want to kick them under the table. Eventually he gave into the desire and prodded Danny's leg with the toe of his sneaker.

"All right, Meg Ryan - you can just tell the restaurant owner you like it..."

Danny wiped a drizzle of paprika-red oil from the corner of their lips and pulled an exaggeratedly lusty face at Jerott before kicking him back. Then Danny sat back and chewed pitta, watching Jerott's expression and preparing their review.

"It's good, Maeve. Like some of Adam's funky Georgian dishes but..."

"Less walnut?"

"Less walnut," Danny agreed, sipping tea. "It's not as rich as I thought, either. Good choice of comfort food, doudou," Danny surveyed the bowls again and dove in for more helpings of a few select items.

Jerott watched Danny load their plate up and smirked with satisfaction. "Just because it has more seasoning than chicken soup..."

Danny held a finger up. "You do not get to insult Jewish penicillin, no matter how delicious your fancy beans are."

Jerott giggled into his bite of borek and repeated, "Fancy beans..." so that Danny kicked him again.

When the owner had taken away the empty starter bowls and refilled the tea, Jerott looked again at Danny's face in the shifting afternoon light. It seemed to have taken on a new colour - their lips looked redder again, their cheeks brighter, their eyes less like the washed-out grey of the few low clouds outside.

Jerott raised his glass of tea in a salute. "Well, the fancy beans seem to have done more for you in one sitting than however many weeks of chicken soup you've been living off..."

Instead of a filthy rejoinder, Danny pressed their mouth shut and looked away. "Mm."

"Danny, I was just -" Jerott began to apologise, surprised by the frown on his friend's face.

"I know, I know," Danny attempted a breathy chuckle. "It's fine. It...would be fine, only -" they looked down at the exuberantly patterned table covering and traced the patterns on its surface with one short, un-painted fingernail. When they looked up at Jerott the deep, serious pain on their face was such that Jerott hadn't seen since Francis' near-fatal encounter with the river.

"I'm the one who makes the soup," Danny said. The attempt at levity in their voice made Jerott's chest tighten more than if Danny had just let themselves speak bitterly. Instead, the lightness in their voice faltered and stumbled, and Danny swallowed. "Ok, Diamme - you remember, from the cabaret? - Diamme brought me soup and pletzls from the deli when I first got ill, but he shouldn't have been outside himself. Diamme's funeral was last week. The rest of us couldn't attend - the family wouldn't have any of it. They gave him a good Catholic burial. So we're holding our own wake next week and I need to cook for it. I promised I would."

Danny's arm was shaking a little on the table, their fist clenched. They looked down at it and moved it beneath the table, letting out a tut of disgust.

Jerott sat in silence, his arms folded and jaw locked, remembering again all the horror of that moment when he'd imagined that Danny had the illness. The only illness that mattered those days. Anything else was trivial, wasn't it?

"I haven't cooked for myself in months, Jerott," Danny let their eyes fall blankly to the tablecloth. "I'm a catering service for wakes and funerals. Meals on wheels for people who used to be..." nothing seemed to change about Danny's expression or the tone of their voice, but an invisible barrier blocked any more words from emerging.

"Why didn't you say something?" Jerott murmured, sitting as still as Danny, noting that he could barely hear his own words over the hammering beat of his heart. "How many times have we spoken on the phone since you got ill?"

Danny looked up and met his eyes, and, glassy and wide-pupilled, their own grey gaze made Jerott shiver. A bleak laugh made it past their lips. "What, you'd deliver from Glasgow?"

Jerott didn't understand how talking with Danny could so often make him want to laugh and weep at the same time, but he gave Danny a perplexed smile all the same. "Sure. I'm serious though, Danny - you could have told me. It's no hassle to come to Paris and help you cook."

Danny bit their lip and looked down again, wresting with a smile or a grimace - Jerott couldn't say which.

When the restaurant owner returned to their silence he looked alarmed and Jerott tried to smile in reassurance as the man set down hot dishes of stewed aubergine and tomatoes, chicken, olives and dumplings.

«Is everything ok?»

«M'sieur it's perfect,» Danny looked up swiftly, their throat white as a swan's, drawing Jerott's troubled gaze as Danny swallowed down their grief again and smiled for the owner. «My first time trying Algerian food and it's better than I could have imagined. Restorative and delicious.»

The owner left again, somewhat mollified, and Danny turned a wonky smile on Jerott. "Do you think he believes me, Maeve? Have I ruined it for when you come back here with yemma?"

Jerott shook his head. "He believes you. Nothing ruined."

Danny sighed and leaned forwards on the table to survey the new dishes.

"Danny," Jerott was thinking about the way Danny's demeanour had switched for the restaurant owner. About the performative body language and cheerful lilt to their voice. About the things Danny was used to hiding. "You didn't even tell me you were ill. Why didn't you say anything?"

Danny was slowly pulling apart one of the chicken wings they'd plucked from the top of the tagine, their mouth pressed into a sharp line, the look they shot Jerott an attempt to make him back off that was half-hearted at best. "I didn't think I'd be ill that long. Do you tell me every time you get the sniffles, doudou?"

Danny didn't let him reply - they rolled their eyes and swept a hand through the air. "Yes, yes, you do, I know...always complaining about something..."

Jerott ignored the toothless attack and waited.

Danny spooned a heap of olives and dumplings onto their plate and gathered some bread before looking up at Jerott again.

"I didn't want to tell you because it's been miserable here, doudou." Danny's fist clenched on the table beside their plate. "I feel...responsible? When you were with Peder and you started telling me things, I was...I felt like your guide to this wonderful world where anything was possible, anyone was welcome, and if we all just talked it out and understood each other things would be ok. Better than ok, they'd be mind-blowing. Amazing. Earth-shattering."

Danny rolled their eyes at their own words, and Jerott contrasted their pale, pinched expression now with the way they used to lean across café tables and excitedly demand details of the Copenhagen queer scene. They way they'd grab Jerott's hand and shamelessly reel off advice filled with clinically precise vocabulary that had made Jerott's mind reel with possibilities he'd never even imagined. Their smile - proud, filthy - when Jerott chose to report back on a weekend spent with Peder, and the way they'd regale him in turn with tales of leather daddies and kink clubs that left Jerott speechless and perched on the edge of his seat.

Danny shook their head and the gems dangling from their ears swung and twinkled in the sun again. "I feel like I sold you a lie, doudou. We've talked it out here so much and none of us have anything to say any more. We can't talk our way out of death. There's no understanding it, or making meaning of it. It's unfair, and it just is."

Jerott held Danny's gaze, and felt something icy and uncomfortable squirm in his chest. Danny didn't even look on the verge of tears now, their expression was suffused with frosty, brittle fury, something that wasn't nearly as hopeless as the image they were trying to conjure. Hopeless people, in Jerott's experience, weren't near as angry as Danny clearly was.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "Ok. I mean, I don't regret...what did you call it? Joining this 'wonderful world' - and I'd have shagged Peder with or without your advice Danny, no offence."

Danny's jaw twitched and a startled flush of colour spread over their neck above the collar of their blouse.

Jerott pressed on, unable to offer any answer to the bigger questions, but still stung by the idea of Danny forcing themself to suffer stoically in case actually saying anything about how bad things were frightened Jerott off. "Do you regret it? Would you go back to...where were you when you found your people, London? Edinburgh? Would you leave them, go back to Glasgow and put a suit on and do what your dad wanted you to do? If you'd known about AIDS?"

A flash of annoyance passed over Danny's face again - maybe at the mention of their father, maybe at the mention of the disease by name, maybe at the realisation that they'd shared quite so much about their past with Jerott over the years - enough to allow Jerott to ask a question like that.

"I can't regret what I just am, Jerott," Danny said curtly.

"So why do you think I would, if you'd told me how bad things had got here?"

Danny hissed, drawing a sharp breath in over their teeth. Now there was a glossy sheen over their eyes, and they tried very hard not to blink. "M'sorry," they murmured after a moment.

"Yeah. I know," Jerott said gruffly and broke their stare, looking down at the dishes cooling between them and giving Danny the privacy of a moment to flick away the water gathering at the bottom of their eyes. He explained the tagines again and then helped himself to some of each before letting out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and raising his eyes again.

Danny had returned to pulling apart the piece of chicken and they sighed deeply before saying, resentfully, "I can't believe you used my own tricks on me. I've taught you too well."

"I can't believe you 'talked it out' with everyone except me, you asshole," Jerott grumbled, but he smiled ruefully at his dish as he dunked bread in the sauce.

"To be fair, I also didn't tell Francis," Danny said in a voice more like their own, and Jerott had to snort with laughter. "Can you imagine? He'd have set up a Michelin-starred restaurant for my little crowd of queers and misfits. BDSM and brunch bar. Kink and croissants. Attached to an empty hospital building where the infected can get treated by all the experts we can find who are willing to touch our dirty, dirty bodies..."

Again, there was that lurching sensation, when Jerott didn't know whether he should be laughing along with Danny's smirk or weeping with fury at the image they painted. He grimaced.

"Would that be so bad though? Letting Francis help?"

"Perhaps not," Danny conceded. "I do still have some pride though. And I know he's already donating an unsustainable amount to research."

Jerott made a sound of agreement between bites of food, and was soothed somewhat by the sight of Danny voraciously attacking what was on their own plate.

"So what do we need to prepare for next week? When's the wake?"

Danny didn't miss Jerott's phrasing and looked up sharply. "We?"

He shrugged. "If you think my cooking's up to your standards..."

Danny narrowed their eyes. "It could be...if you can follow orders better than you used to..."

"And do you want company at the wake? I'm here to make up numbers, isn't that what playing second guitar to Lymond is all about?"

"Are you asking to be my date at a wake, Jerott?" Danny's eyebrow arched delightedly.

"Not a date, but a friend who isn't about to fuck off just because life's tough, puce."

Danny ran their eyes distastefully over him and  pointedly pushed an olive stone out from between their pursed lips. They took it and deposited it on a side plate with careful deliberation. "Hmm, yes, and how is your lovely girlfriend? Kelly is it? The teenager?"

Jerott sat back and folded his arms. "She's twenty-three, Danny. And no gossip until you agree to my help."

Danny glared at him. "That's rude."

Jerott shrugged again.

Outside the restaurant, above the slate grey rooves, the autumn breeze nudged aside a cloud and the anaemic sun shone through, speckling the grubby window-pane with glitter. Abruptly, Danny let the act drop - just for a moment - and smiled warmly at Jerott.

It was agreed.

Jerott laughed in relief to see Danny relax.

---

Notes

doudou - teddy bear; puce - flea (because what kind of Married would they be without absurd nicknames for each other)

yemma - mother (Arabic)

Jerott Blyth

Band AU Jerott's mum is Algerian, a refugee who arrived in France during the war of independence, and his paternal grandmother was from pre-partition Lahore. He was born in Paris, where his dad met his mum while taking art classes between shifts on placement for medical school. His dad was a surgeon and his mother worked in an art gallery, but has always painted for herself too. Both his parents encouraged his musicality from a young age and he started classical guitar lessons as soon as he could hold a guitar. His parents divorced when he was around eleven and he lived with his dad in Glasgow - his dad's home city - until his dad died of cancer when Jerott was 18. Instead of joining Francis Crawford, who he met at the Solway Moss battle of the bands just before his dad's death, Jerott turned away from music to be a doctor like his father. He went to stay with his mother in Paris while studying and through her met a charismatic older man (Graham Reid Malett) and went off to find himself at an ashram in India instead. The medical degree was forgotten and he learned sitar, Ayurvedic massage, yoga, and some Hindi and Urdu at the ashram run by Rajneesh. He spent a few years in Rajneesh's cult and moved to a new ashram in Nevada with GRM - and none of it did his self-acceptance as a bisexual man any good. Having made a pass at GRM and been rebuffed, he later revealed his crush on Francis during a therapy session with GRM, who began to become obsessed with Francis through Jerott's recollection of him and through his music. GRM engineered a way for them to join Francis' new recording collective, St Mary's, and Jerott gradually realised the extent of the problems with the movement he was in, and with GRM particularly. He reaffirmed his loyalty to Francis, but GRM did him lasting damage that drove him to self-destructive alcoholism. He nevertheless tried to help Francis undo the mess GRM had done and in the process met Marthe - who it was easier to admit to being in love with than Francis. She needed a European visa and the potential for a passport, as well as a boost to her career, so she married him despite knowing she wasn't attracted to men. They had a deeply unhappy marriage and lived in France, using properties Marthe was able to inherit from a relative once she was resident in the EU. Jerott had a drunken one night stand with a Danish guy called Peder at a low point in his marriage, and then he ran into Peder again at another vulnerable moment (the end of Checkmate). He and Peder had a couple of good years together but it didn't work out. Since Peder, Jerott's seen some guys and some girls but hasn't really had anything long-term or meaningful - but at least he always had his best friend Danny to go to for advice!

Danny Hislop

Band AU Danny was born with PAIS and is intersex. The oldest child born to Rabbi Hislop in Glasgow, they were amab and given surgery to make their physical body allign with this assignation. While they were raised as a boy, they knew this wasn't right for them, and the bar mitzvah really cemented that feeling. Danny's family didn't understand their nonbinary identification (NB I know not all intersex people are nonbinary, but Danny is) and Danny left home at 14 with a clarinet and a grade 6 piano qualification and went to stay with a blue-collar, union-stalwart great uncle in Edinburgh. The great uncle helped Danny reconcile their faith with their identity somewhat - the discussions around tumtum (people of unidentified sex) taking place in rabbinic communities came a little late for Danny, but at least they became aware of the term through their uncle. At sixteen they made their way to London in search of a community that matched how they felt about themselves - they became bat mitzvah as well by choice, partly as a way of reclaiming what they felt was forced on them incorrectly by their father. They lived in squats and it wasn't initially a great time to be young and of indeterminate gender in a big city - it took a while to find the right people and they experimented with some stuff they regret. Then they found a healthier community, moved on again to Paris with a friend, became an apprentice in a kitchen and played saxophone and clarinet at jazz clubs. They settled in the Marais - which is both the Jewish and the queer quarter. When Lymond called for auditions to join his experiment in Russia, Danny submitted a klesmer cover of Lymond's song 'Crisco Disco', along with evidence of their fluent French and passable Russian (Danny tries to learn something from everyone they meet, and Paris has a big Russian expat community). They proved themselves resilient enough to travel the USSR with Lymond - though they probably had to deal with a lot of fuckery regarding pronouns and people's perception - and they remained a valued member of St Mary's afterwards, though they still live in the Marais near their drag cabaret friends. They've kind of been in love with Jerott Blyth since seeing him cover for Francis by playing a guitar solo that should have been impossible sober, while so drunk that he also shouldn't have been able to stand up. They are not proud of this fact. They also strongly believe that Jerott will never see them as anything more than a kooky friend who's into far kinkier shit than Jerott could stomach.

[venndaai]

I finished Checkmate recently, which means I can finally go ahead and write a very important post!

Lymond Characters Ranked By Their Degree Of Transgender Swag*

Danny Hislop: listen to me. Listen. I 100%, no joke, believe that Daniel Hislop is canonically AFAB. There is zero evidence to contradict this and considerable evidence for it, if you count up every time Danny's small stature and beardlessness is pointedly mentioned, and also if you just look at how much swag he has.

Oonagh O'Dwyer: canonically was happy for exactly one afternoon in her whole life, and that was because she was passing as a boy during it. I am just saying.

Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny: canonically extremely good at drag. Is God's specialest princess. Is apparently physically nearly identical to his half-sister, including their voices. High levels of transgender swag.

Robin Stewart: is canonically not trans, but a lot of his issues would be even worse if he was, nice, and he is also my favorite poor little meow meow so I'm claiming him.

Marthe: already has Gender Trouble up the wazoo, why not add a bit more. Is apparently physically nearly identical to her half-brother, including their voices.

Mikal: is already fem, bisexual, and the swaggiest character on this list. He could be anything he wants to be baby.

Adam: soft gentle bisexual artist who can also Murder. Decent amount of transgender swag.

Christian Stewart: pretty sure she's a cis lesbian and that's why marriage feels like death to her, but it could absolutely be because she's an egg!

Will Scott: again, very much a cis gay man, but AU transgender Will would be delightful.

Archie: I feel like Archie transcends gender, tbh.

Philippa Somerville: no trans swag but she'd definitely be an Ally.

Jerott: he's already confused about enough, let's not make it worse.

Margaret Lennox: my favorite failgirl villainess has zero swag of any kind.

Richard Crawford: always and forever the token cishet. Transgender swag levels terminally in the negative.

(*obligatory "just, like, my opinion, man" disclaimer goes here)

[thecrenellations]

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis?"

In 60 years of the Lymond Chronicles, I'd bet that many others have compiled this exact thing, but here is a list of who calls Lymond by his first name! Marthe draws our attention to the question near the end of Pawn in Frankincense, but it's clear throughout the series how deliberately Dunnett chooses what to call the characters in narration and dialogue - the choice can reflect who Francis Crawford (for example) is to others as well as to himself, at any moment. I love it, and Meaningful Naming is a feature of most of my favorite stories.

Characters are listed with the book in which they first call him Francis in dialogue. Italics indicate they call him that when he isn't present. If they directly Francis him later, they’ve been added to the list for that book, too.

I've also noted to whom he's just Francis in the narration - it's always someone who thinks of him like that, and it always makes me feel a lot.

If you notice something I left out, or if you know where to find similar analysis, let me know! Let us all be scholars of Francis.

Lists below! Plus some thoughts and quantitative stuff. (many, many spoilers)

The Game of Kings

Sybilla Semple (see, I have to decide what to call all of these characters, too!)

Margaret Lennox

Christian Stewart (to Sybilla, and I'm sure she called him Francis in their childhood)

Richard Crawford 

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Queens’ Play

Tom Erskine

Jenny Fleming

Margaret Erskine

Martine

Oonagh O’Dwyer

Phelim O’LiamRoe

George Douglas

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard, Margaret Erskine

The Disorderly Knights

Will Scott

Kate Somerville 

Graham Reid Malett

Adam Blacklock

Janet Beaton

Jerott Blyth (I'm also sure Jerott called him Francis in the old days, but he doesn't return to it until the scene with Evangelista Donati at Midculter)

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard, Tom, Kate, Sybilla

Pawn in Frankincense

Jerott Blyth

Dame de Doubtance 

Marthe

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott

The Ringed Castle

Alec Guthrie

the Abbess/Sybilla's sister

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Checkmate

Philippa Somerville

Marguerite de St. Andre

Catherine d’Albon (to Philippa)

Nicholas Applegarth (also to Philippa)

Danny Hislop

Fergie Hoddim

Piero Strozzi

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott, Philippa, Richard, Sybilla, Adam

Observations

Aaaaah!

Richard's monopoly on the narration Francises in the first two books kills me, I love it. The first, of course, is "God, Francis had screamed."

As a reader, I started calling him Francis, sometimes, somewhere in the middle of Queen's Play and stopped overthinking it by the beginning of the next book.

I didn't count, but I'd bet that Jerott says and thinks it the most. He's there more than probable runners-up Gabriel (shut up, Gabriel) and Richard (ily Richard) are, and Philippa goes on her own ... journey before thinking of him that way and allowing herself to think of him that way.

Adam is unique for making the list in his first book, specifically not calling Lymond Francis in The Ringed Castle, and then putting himself back on the list through address and narration in Checkmate. But that's The Ringed Castle for you 😬. And their entire relationship - there's a chapter or so in which Adam's narration calls him de Sevigny.

Who even calls him Francis in RC? Just Alec, Richard, and Margaret, I think. ("Do you call her Slata or Baba?" Thank you, Philippa.)

I would teach myself tarocco and play for at least a few hours to learn when Will started calling him Francis. Also the Erskines! They're all so genuinely close in the years after Game of Kings.

Notable Absences

Güzel - well, that feels meaningful. They were together for years. If she did, we didn't see, and I would also believe that she didn't.

Archie - will he ever? Who can say. Either way, he's the best. Also, see here.

Mariotta - I bet she does, after the first book, we just haven't been there.

Fergie, probably?

Piero Strozzi - Francesco? My petit François? I don't remember any Francises, though!

Ivan (and others?) - I'm not counting Frangike, either

Robin Stewart - I mean, I'm sure he would have if he'd known his boyfriend's real name before ... all of that went down.

Diccon Chancellor - probably not? I'd also put this down to the Ringed Castle state of mind. As meaningful as their friendship was, it makes sense for the book to continue to distance the reader, at the very least, in that way.

Does Francis call himself Francis?

No.

He doesn't, really! He's never that from his own point of view, but we do see him sign a few letters with his first name. These are to:

Kate (Pawn in Frankincense)

Catherine d'Albon (Checkmate)

Philippa (Checkmate)

All of this is not to say that “Francis” represents who he truly is; it certainly shows intimacy and usually vulnerability, but I feel that Lymond and Francis Crawford can be just as definitive when deployed, and that Lymond has a certain neutrality. There's also something really interesting that happens when the characters are stripped of names and become just "he" or "she," from their own perspective or others.

And then we get things like "Mistress Philippa's decorative husband," which really deserve their own list.

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis? Three? Or perhaps four?"

18 of the 25 Francis-ers on my list are living at the end of the series, and when Marthe, who is not one of them, asks that question at the end of PiF, it's 12 (out of 18 total).

18 out of 25 is a 72% survival rate! Great!

2 of the 18 are pretty awful (Margaret Lennox and the Abbess)

4 of the 18 live in France, which he's currently exiled from

1 of the 18 lives in Ireland, but I think they should still hang out!

2 of the 18 may be departing for Malta, apparently

7 of the 18 are people he probably sees or keeps in touch with regularly, 9 if I count Janet Beaton and Margaret Erskine, because I like them and they're not very far away.

As much as I wish that many of the others hadn't died, I think he's doing pretty well.

[notasapleasure]

Soap, soup and salvation (Lymond fic, the Band AU)

Setting: The Band AU, Checkmate, Spring 1989 Characters: Adam Blacklock, Danny Hislop, Jerott Blyth, Kate Somerville. Relationships: Danny & Adam & Jerott, Adam/Kate, if you want it, the Jerott/Danny is there and waiting Rating: G (like...I don’t think there’s even much swearing in this one? It’s very wholesome) Wordcount: 6,166

Summary: Adam Blacklock never learned to cook, but he wants to impress - and to bring comfort to - the widow Kate Somerville. While Francis Crawford's band records an album in Paris, it seems the perfect opportunity to get lessons from Danny Hislop. Adam's first lesson is chicken soup: comfort food staple and Jewish cure-all.

A character study, essentially, with background on Danny and Adam in the AU and mild hints at broader angst concerning Francis and also Jerott. On the whole extremely fluffy though.

Notes (more at the end): From a prompt by @erinaceina-blog​ for Jewish characters cooking together. HUGE thanks to Katherine for the advice and tips and recipes <3 Usual disclaimer that Hamal = Kuzúm. Also: I am not Jewish, non-binary, disabled or of Pakistani heritage. I have tried to be entirely respectful and avoid harmful stereotypes - if you think anything is amiss I welcome constructive criticism and questions, particularly if you know of particular resources you think I should be using. If any 'he/hims' crept in for Danny I can but apologise and ask that you kindly point them out :)

[Also on Ao3 if you prefer]

-

All ill-fated sorts Who sleep on doorways and in alleyways Take a stumble to the corner There's heavenly music played No more taking recreation With your dark defeated friend They who seek the consolation of the bottle Never win Soap, soup and salvation Tired hearts sing in jubilation [Lone Justice - Soap, Soup and Salvation, 1985]

"Kneidlach," Danny Hislop sighed. "Are in certain ways like gender. People think there are two simple offerings: floaters or sinkers. But in actual fact there is a whole world of options. You bring yourself to the mix, and you pick and choose the elements that speak to you."

Adam Blacklock rubbed his sleep-starved face patiently. "Danny. It's too early for this. What gender of dumpling do I want?"

"N-no, wait," Adam corrected himself. "What kind?"

Danny's pale, plump lips curled with satisfaction and the keyboardist - whose gender was as mysterious to Adam as the intricacies of Jewish home cooking - plucked a jar of schmaltz from the supermarket shelf. "Accept no substitutes," instructed Danny, placing the chicken fat into the basket. "We should be making our own but I don't want you in my flat overnight, I have other guests to entertain." Danny flipped their fine hair back from their freckled forehead and glided ahead of Adam towards the next aisle.

Adam stifled a yawn. It was ten in the morning, but it seemed a personal affront to have to be awake before midday. He made himself shuffle afterwards, grateful for Danny's expertise even if it was a struggle to show it. It was humbling, Adam had realised, to find oneself over thirty and incapable in the kitchen: not least when one was hoping to attract the attentions of a kindly, capable, wonderful single mother. Adam emphatically did not want to give the impression that it was Kate Somerville's domestic faculties that drew him to her, not when he saw how hard she worked to lift others up, how she worried about those she loved, and how no one else ever sat her down and treated her to a home-cooked meal and an evening off.

When he was back at his parents' home - a little pocket of Georgia nestled among grey Dundee terraces - Adam was used to the finest meals his ancestors had to offer. His mother took the task of feeding him seriously, because no matter what she did he remained rake-thin and struck through with an aspect of hungry misery. It was an aesthetic completed by the new pink scar across his features and the polio-damaged leg he limped on, although anyone who knew Adam at all found him to be a content and genial person beneath the veneer of gothic melancholy.

Nevertheless, his mother's cloying affection - born out of enduring concern for her sickly child - meant that Adam had never successfully learned the secrets of the Jewish kitchen. That was why he needed Danny's lessons: cast out of the family home at a young and feral age, Danny had learned how to really cook, and had gathered their Bubbe's recipes through a broad-minded great-uncle. Danny said that once one could cook, one never wanted for a place to stay, and had agreed to teach Adam the basics of their shared cultural heritage.

Yet much of what Danny termed essential Jewish cooking left Adam baffled - and much of what Adam expected to purchase was met with equal confusion by Danny. Danny's estranged parents and extended family were Ashkenazim through and through (bar a single, Dunedian, Presbyterian grandparent called Hislop), while Adam - born Adam Baluashvili in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic - had grown up with a mishmash of influences that remained decidedly Gruzini in their leanings. This being the case, a fifteen-minute argument about kishke at the deli counter dissolved into the kind of one-upmanship that could only be settled by a flurry of impulse buys.

Laden with chicken, flour, fat, herbs and vegetables; with latkes, halva and blood-red squares of cotignac; pickled walnuts, lavash and chebureki, and bickering companionably about the merits of pomegranate seeds in cooking, they returned to Danny's garret lodgings on La Rue Pavée and made their way ponderously up the creaking wooden steps.

Danny beckoned down at Adam with a free hand and Adam sighed and handed the shopping he'd been carrying up to his friend.

"You had to choose the at-attic rooms, didn't you?" Adam gasped, his stammer heightened by the ache in his leg and his shortness of breath.

"Well how was I to know you'd want to treat me as your own personal Delia Smith?"

Adam grunted, steadying his bad leg with one hand and gripping the flaking bannister with the other. "We could have used my flat."

"I've seen that sorry excuse for a kitchen. No thank you," Danny sniffed. Then they paused and looked down at Adam. "Are you ok though?"

Steadying his breathing, Adam managed to look up with a smile. "Y-yeah. I bet - I bet the views are worth it."

Danny grinned. "They are pretty good."

The little garret was bright as an artist's studio, white-washed and tidy, decorated with a tasteful minimalism that served to highlight Danny's own flamboyance. The band had been recording in Paris for a matter of weeks, but Danny had personalised the space with ruthless speed: navy blue rag-rugs formed paths across the white floorboards and gauzy grey pashminas divided the sleeping area from the sitting room of the tiny flat.

The views from the floor-to-ceiling windows were as promised: at the end of the street was the elegant, pale face of the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue, and beyond it the arching top of l'Église Saint-Gervais peeked up above a hazy stretch of lead-blue rooftops. Away to the south-east loured the towering, Baroque columns of Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, uncharacteristically dark beneath the low sky. With a little imagination, from among the distant greys of tower blocks, one might even glimpse the cathedral on the river. Citywide, the views were dotted with fresh sprigs of green, and white window frames glowed when scudding clouds moved aside.

Adam smiled. "I'm going to have to come back and paint that."

Around him, Danny flitted between the kitchen and sitting areas in acid-wash jeans and a blouse that, had he been pressed to describe it, Adam would have said was designed to evoke the idea of unicorn vomit. Even for the brief shopping trip, Danny had managed to apply their customary vibrant make-up: mint green and pink clouds of eye-shadow had been chosen to match the blouse, and tacky plastic stars glittered and swung from Danny's earrings with every toss of their chin or extravagant gesture.

"Sit, sit," Danny ushered Adam into one of the woodworm-pocked chairs at the little kitchen table. "You can take notes for the first steps. I'll make tea."

Adam dutifully sat and rummaged in a pocket of his jacket for the notebook he used for song-writing. At the front were scraps of lyrics shared by Lymond with the band, sketches and scrawled suggestions of melodies, and questions Adam intended to put to bandmates when they became relevant. At the back of little pad, written in bold, cursive letters, were the words 'Flaw Valleys - landline' and an English telephone number that Adam had already memorised. He smiled at the promise of what Danny was teaching him and turned the page to write out the recipe title.

Danny fussed and arranged the ingredients, clattered the kettle and teapot around, got out a collection of thin, chipped plates, and furnished the tiny table with their deli purchases and a pot of Wissotzky.

Turning back to the kitchen, Danny retrieved a garish pink pinny that Adam recognised from a Moscow flea market. Danny tied an impeccable bow in the small of their neat back and checked that Adam was attentive.

"Chicken in pot," Danny demonstrated. "You're going to have to buy a pot," they added flatly as Adam scribbled. "Add water to cover..." Danny continued to describe the steps as Adam wrote them down, until the stock came to a rolling boil and Adam joined Danny at the counter to chop vegetables.

The little flat filled with the savoury smell of chicken and the tall windows misted up, smudging the bright spring light. Adam prepared the carrots, celery, onion and herbs while Danny skimmed the froth and scum from the boiling pot and hummed Frère Jacques. Within a handful of minutes, the vegetables had been submerged in the clear broth, the lid was on the pot, and they were back at the table, sitting down to raspberry tea and fresh deli treats. Danny added a homemade paté and a jar of rollmops to the spread and hung the pink pinny up.

"And then we leave it for a couple of hours? That wasn't so hard," Adam mused.

"You're making the dumplings, mon ami," Danny said warningly and pointed towards the pinny. "Chef's apron, too."

Adam sighed. With Danny it was best to argue only as and when it was necessary. For now, he was hungry from the smells of the broth and the morning's unaccustomed activity.

Danny saw Adam's gaze rove over the food and grinned.

"Okay, first round: lavash with chicken liver paté and pickled walnuts, versus latkes and rollmops. I'll give you a free victory on the chebureki, they smell delectable," Danny moved with swift, precise gestures to share out the savouries and tutted as Adam fished a walnut direct from the jar with his long fingers.

Gesturing with a wedge of lavash, Adam surveyed what was before him. "It's not fair smothering this in your home-made paté, Danny. It should be served with badrijani nigvzit."

Danny stared, dead-pan, at Adam and waited for an elaboration.

"Aubergine and spinach dip."

"Does it involve walnuts?"

"Y-yes, but - "

"Why does all your food involve walnuts?" Danny wailed, a look of playful satisfaction adorning their features behind the lavash they held.

"You like walnuts," Adam rose to the provocation.

Danny's lips twisted in a smirk, and they tore a strip of lavash off to scoop up a dollop of fragrant paté. "I like your Mam's walnuts."

"Shut up, Danny, that doesn't even mean anything."

Danny chewed and grinned. "Your Mam loves me. I'm going to get all her recipes, just you watch."

"Good, maybe then you'll t-teach them to me - she won't," Adam snorted, pouring the tea into the two battered cup-a-soup mugs.

"Oh, we'll make a Barefoot Contessa of you yet, young master Blacklock. And all I ask in return..."

"Ahh, here it comes."

"All I ask in return, is that you help me figure out the sound for the new track his lordship dropped on us."

Adam rolled his grey eyes. "Oh, not that..." He helped himself to another pickle and met Danny's candid stare. Adam shook his head and glared, while Danny simply raised exquisitely painted brows in response. "How do you make a song about en-environmental des-destruction into a radio-friendly pop-rock hit?"

Danny shrugged. "The question of the hour! What does poisonous incinerator waste sound like, Adam?"

Balancing a rollmop on his latke, Adam sighed. After devouring the potato pancake in two enormous bites, he leafed through his notebook and pulled out a folded A4 photocopy. "Haiti Says Philadelphia Garbage Was Dumped By Ship On Its Beach," he read out. "It's disgusting, of course, but does he think that even he can get k-kids dancing to a song about the Khian Sea disaster?"

Danny, tucking into the beef chebureki with glee, flipped their wispy ginger curls back again. "Ours is not to reason why..."

Adam re-read the article Lymond had photocopied for the band members. He re-read the lyrics copied tidily on the back of the paper in Lymond's regular, controlled hand: they spoke from the point of view of the cargo ship, drifting, wandering around the ocean in search of a place to unburden itself, mournful that it would mean spreading the pain it carried to a new and untouched land. It was a sad and angry song, which was fitting, but Adam found it opaque even by Lymond's standards. Perhaps, Adam thought, the lyrics only seemed angry when you knew what Lymond's anger could be like: cold and distant, reigned in and resigned. Most of their audience would probably just hear another ballad.

He nibbled his own half of chebureki thoughtfully. "Do you have the K-Korg here?"

"It's in the studio. I've only got the Emulator."

Adam pulled a thoughtful face and scratched at the scar on his chin. "That may be better. Do you have samples from the Black Sea?"

Danny, licking herring juice and vinegar from fingers that ended in garish pink nail polish, made a sound like a character in a Carry On film. "Seagulls, Maeve? Wind and waves?"

"Exactly," Adam grinned wickedly.

The two of them tidied the table and poured out the last of the tea before decamping to the living space: a cramped area tucked beneath a steeply sloped ceiling, lit by more enormous, curtain-free windows. Danny crumpled onto a battered couch, whose great age was barely concealed by the huge, faded flag of the Azerbaijan SSR that was draped over it. Danny picked up a shoebox and rifled through the floppy discs inside it, searching for the coastal samples.

Adam pulled up one of the kitchen chairs so that he did not find himself stuck forever on the monstrously low item of furniture that Danny was settled on. He helped himself to Danny's acoustic guitar and checked the tuning, strumming some chords speculatively – but he was not sure what he was looking for until he heard what Danny's samples sounded like.

Danny laid the synthesiser across the knees of their acid-washed jeans and after a pause, they had it programmed so that they could switch between various atmospheric scales. With a few adjustments some hauntingly weird sounds could be created, and Danny and Adam's eyes met with cheerful mischief as the keening, electronically twisted cry of a gull rang out when Danny dropped a finger onto the keys.

Time passed too quickly with this new inspiration, and Adam had to peel Danny from the couch in order to continue the lesson in the kitchen. Pleased by the morning's sound experiments, Adam consented cheerfully enough to the inevitable, and bowed his bouffant head of hair so that Danny could drop the pink apron over him and tie it tight around his black t-shirt.

He blitzed matzo crackers in the food processor - "You'll need to get one of those, too," Danny quipped.

"I could just buy the meal from the store," smirked Adam.

Aghast, one elegant freckled hand to the centre of their chest, Danny inhaled. "Don't you dare." Then they waved the hand and peered at Adam's work. "It's fine, you can do that. But you want it really fine, blitz it some more..."

Adam pressed the switch on the processor again and saw Danny staring thoughtfully at it.

"Stop! Hang on, hang on. I'll be back, just wait."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Danny, you're not thinking..." But Danny was already gone, digging in the bottom of a wonky chest of drawers and pulling out a mic and extension cable with neatly tied wiring. Half tripping over the cables in their effort to unreel them and get to Adam before Adam lost patience and started to blitz the matzo meal again, Danny scrambled like a journalist in the front row. Adam held his own hands up and shook his head, promising not to touch anything until Danny was there, mic in hand, synthesiser balanced on a chair, business end of the mic angled towards the food processor.

Danny ejected the Black Sea disc and put a blank in and then nodded at Adam, one finger poised over the record button.

The food processor whined, the matzo meal rattled and hissed like a gritty tornado inside it and Danny's smile broadened as Adam mimed and bopped to the sound. They recorded the bubbling stock next and a screaming, boiling kettle; cutlery on glass and metal, knives whipping through the stems of herbs and dishes knocking together in a full sink. Engrossed, they paid no attention to the steps outside the flat, nor to the hand that pushed the open door inwards.

"Am I early?" Jerott Blyth asked when he was certain Danny had switched the recording off and was not about to pounce on any other unsuspecting utensils.

With unruffled insouciance, Danny turned, not bothering to hide their delight. Adam looked up with bemused apology and nodded at Jerott, who stood, arms folded, leaning against the door, a resigned expression on his dark face.

"Ma tronche de céleri! Ma figure de poulpe! Mon petit, petit chou," Danny exclaimed, spreading their arms wide and gliding forwards.

"Va te faire cuire le cul, Danny." Jerott did not move as Danny approached.

Danny cackled. "Si je fait ça, tu ne pourrais pas supporter ma chaleur..." The ugly fabric of Danny's blouse wrapped around Jerott's stiff form, encircling him in floaty sleeves and vine-strong arms, while Jerott lifted his chin away from impact with Danny's sharp shoulder and failed to repress the smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Danny leaned their face against Jerott's cable-knit jumper and leather jacket and sighed. "Je t'aime, doudou."

Jerott rolled his eyes and did not unfold his arms, but allowed Danny to snuggle against him. "Je sais, puce."

Danny gave the impression they might have stayed there all day, if only Jerott had not sneezed with a violence that nearly shook Danny free on its own. The sneezing fit continued as Danny stepped back and Jerott took out a tissue - while, at a safe distance, Adam seized the opportunity to finish mixing the ingredients for the matzo balls.

"You see, that's why he's in such a foul mood with me," Danny explained dreamily to Adam as Jerott continued to sniffle and splutter. "Poor thing's infected. And your soup is going to cure him."

Adam, whose own French was limited to a very average O-level grade, still understood enough about Danny and Jerott's interactions to translate friendly insults when he heard them. He shook his head and tolerated it as Danny reached up to push his fringe back from his eyes while he mixed the dough. "Infected with what?"

Danny eyed Jerott with a wicked look in those clear blue eyes. "It doesn't matter, Maeve: Jewish penicillin is a cure-all."

Jerott was peering dubiously into the stock pot. He used the cuff of a sleeve to cover his hand and rattled the glass lid to see past the condensation. "I can't smell a thing," he said thickly. "How is this supposed to help?"

"Through the magic of love and you not being a little bitch - sit down and stay out of the way. There are artists at work." Danny shoved Jerott aside and instructed Adam to put the dough in the fridge and gather plates and bowls for straining the broth.

Jerott took the seat he was ordered into and stifled a cough behind his hand. He shivered and did not remove his jacket, but toyed awkwardly with a plastic Bic lighter, tapping it against the chipped veneer of the table. He watched Adam and Danny bustle, each carefully stepping around the chair with the synthesiser on it. "What on earth were you recording?"

Adam, forgetting he was clad in a pink apron and large floral oven gloves, threw his hands up. "The Khian Sea song. We were looking for inspiration."

Beneath the table, Jerott's knee bounced compulsively. He frowned at Adam and then at Danny and the synthesiser and again at Adam until Adam lowered his padded hands and shrugged.

"What does poisonous incinerator waste sound like?" Adam repeated Danny's earlier question.

Jerott covered another hacking cough that exacerbated his own perplexed expression. "Chicken soup, apparently?"

"Chicken soup and seagulls," Danny agreed. "Do you want anything, Jerott? Snacks, tea, water, wine?"

"I take it I can't smoke in here?"

"Snacks, tea, water, wine," Danny repeated.

Jerott sighed. "Oh, whatever. It's all wasted on me with this cold."

"Oh, don't, you'll make me take pity on you," Danny said dramatically, and retrieved three cloudy old wineglasses from a cupboard behind Adam's shoulder. Danny poured three half-measures of a pale and weak white wine and handed then out.

With Danny's help, Adam fished the chicken and the vegetables out of the broth, strained the liquid and set aside that which would be needed later from that which would not. While they worked, Jerott reached for the ukulele that hung on the wall by the doorway by a tatty piece of string and began to strum a melancholy ballad that Danny knew the French lyrics to.

Adam was part-way through rolling the chilled dough into a vast collection of dumplings, when a thought occurred to him through Danny's singing and the plucking of the ukulele. "Jerott, do you know that Bobby Darin song? Somewhere, beyond the sea..."

Jerott raised a dark brow and adjusted his fingering to strum the opening chords, light and soft on the short strings.

Danny eyed Adam with admiration. "You sly dog. We can use it as the intro - no, outro?"

"It's got the key changes," Jerott demonstrated, barring the fret and moving his hand up the neck of the instrument. "Open with one key, play the outro in another? Switch it 'round?" He tried to hum along as he played but had to give up and succumb to a coughing fit that was only eased by a swig of the thin wine Danny had served.

"You know..." Adam smiled as Danny fretted impatiently about, searching for a pen to write the chords down with. "We'll get it all planned out, just perfect, the w-whole track ready to go - and in the studio he'll tell us he's written another ten verses, or changed what it's about, or doesn't want to include it anymore..."

Jerott tried to laugh through his cough and Danny let out a howl of despair and shook Adam by the shoulders. "Don't say that, Maeve! We won't let him! Or...we'll just have to release it ourselves as an instrumental. The world is just crying out for a new genre: seagull synth. Kitchen kitsch. Bobby Darin covers played on a stove-top."

"No, I've definitely seen those alongside the Tijuana Beatles vinyl at the market in Montmartre," Jerott shook his head. Danny and Adam shuddered.

Leaving the dumplings to cook in a pot of stock, with the chicken broth strained and waiting, the meat shredded and prepared, they took themselves and the synthesiser back into the sitting area. Jerott sprawled on the low couch with his eyes closed, head back against its misshapen cushions, and Danny sat next to him, an admiring smile playing on their soft lips.

"I'm starving," Jerott grumbled. "Are you following a British 'boil it to shit' recipe?"

Danny punched him in the arm. "Manners. We're feeding you the best cure in the world, and the British have nothing to do with it. Though in case anything does go wrong, actually, Adam is feeding you."

"Yeah, but until you host us in return you can't complain, Jerott. Or I might poison yours deliberately," Adam arranged himself on the chair by the window and folded his arms.

Jerott made a miserable sound. "Can't where I'm staying."

Danny and Adam exchanged a glance and Adam grimaced.

"Doesn't your Mam live in Paris, Jerott?" With calculated self-consciousness, Danny brightened, leaning one elbow on the back of the sofa to gaze at Jerott's profile.

"Danny, stop trying to seduce people's Mums," Adam rolled his eyes.

With a grin, Danny shrugged. "Mams love me! Except for my own, of course. Her loss."

Jerott cracked one eye open and sniffed self-piteously. "I'm not inflicting you on my mother, nor her on you. You'll get your five course Pakistani feast when we've finished with this album."

"Oh!" Jerott started, sitting up a little and rummaging in a pocket of his leather jacket. "I did bring these though." He passed a crumpled plastic bag to Danny, who accepted the offering with reserved curiosity and peered inside.

"Chandrakala." Jerott explained. "They're vegan ones - coconut and raisins I think, from dixième. And some macarons. When in Paris..."

"Ooh, tiny, adorable dessert pasties? Maeve, sounds delicious! I'll add them to the desserts..."

Danny shimmied away to the kitchen and returned with the bottle of wine and a jug of water. The three of them chatted and finished the wine as the dumplings continued to cook, and at Adam's prompting Danny remembered to transfer the song notes from the ink-smudged back of their hand to Adam's notebook.

At the little table in the steam-filled kitchen, they tried not to bump elbows and knees as they leaned over their soup bowls. Jerott even removed his jacket and inhaled the humid air appreciatively, conceding that he could, at last, smell something - and that it smelled delicious.

Danny repeated the pronouncement they had made earlier on the matzo balls, enthusing about the consistency and texture of Adam's achievement. "Of course, our dear leader learned to cook his in New York, so they float - I thought I'd won him 'round in Russia, but you know how hard it is to get praise from the maestro..."

"Anything is forgivable, but taking the incorrect approach to dumplings..." Jerott said wryly over a spoonful of broth.

"See, he does understand!" Danny beamed at Adam, who munched proudly on one of the satisfyingly chewy creations.

"And what do you think, Adam? Will your lonely widow be bowled over by your culinary skills?"

Adam smiled shyly at his bowl. "Maybe not quite yet. But I can make a start, now."

Jerott looked at Adam with a piercing, thirsty expression. "What's this?"

Danny covered their mouth in exaggerated embarrassment. "Whoops," they said, and stood up on the pretence of getting a refill of soup.

"Isn't it enough to want to learn to cook because you're thirty-two and it's about time you learned?" Adam sighed and rolled his eyes, but Jerott's interest did not waver. "And, yes, okay, also so I can offer to cook next time Kate is over here."

"Philippa Somerville's mother?" Jerott's eyes were wide.

"Her name is Kate," Adam said snippily, finishing his soup.

It was Jerott's turn to exchange a look with Danny, and Danny smirked shamelessly while ladling more soup out into everyone's bowls.

Jerott smiled. "That's really sweet, Adam. She's known Francis for so long it will be a novelty to find a man who's capable of acting like a gentleman."

Danny snorted and clattered the ladle against the pot. Adam glared.

"What-what's that meant to mean?"

Jerott shrugged and looked about vaguely. "Nothing! Just that you're a gentleman."

"K-Kate and Francis aren't an item. Never have been," said Adam, sitting up rigidly and staring Jerott down.

Danny glanced at each of their expressions and relished the strange tension at the table.

"Are you sure?" Jerott frowned. "What about at St Mary's-"

"Nope," Adam shook his head. He settled his thin arms on the edge of the table in front of him and Danny leaned forwards, elbows joining Adam’s on the table, settling in for a ringside view of the finishing blow Adam was clearly about to deliver. "You thought everyone at Saint Mary's was sleeping with everyone else, just because you weren't getting any."

Jerott's jaw dropped and his eyebrows shot up. Adam scooped an entire dumpling into his mouth and finished his soup in defiant silence.

"Well that was savage," Danny sucked the remaining herbs and grease from their spoon. "Adam, you realise you have clean up when you commit murder in my kitchen?"

Jerott blinked and opened his mouth again to object while Adam matched his gaze innocently. After a moment, incredulous, Jerott asked: "So, Francis isn't in love with Kate Somerville?"

"Where did you get that idea from?" Danny sipped their wine and eyed Jerott dubiously.

Jerott shrugged and finally looked down at his plate. "Sorry man," he muttered at Adam. "I thought Philippa said something like that when they were round at the summerhouse in Brittany." His cheeks had reddened and he finally concentrated on his soup, ignoring the knowing look that Danny and Adam exchanged yet again. They finished the course in silence.

Danny stood and gathered the empty bowls before laying a hand on Jerott's black hair, which Jerott shook off with a habitual scowl. "Well stop making me feel sorry for you, piteous thing," Danny tutted.

"I don't need your pity, I'm fine," Jerott sniffed, folded his arms and glowered, then unfolded them and picked at a chip in the table lacquer.

"You have a hotel room now?" Adam studied him.

Jerott bit his lip like he was desperate for a cigarette and focussed with hope on the platter loaded with chandrakala, macarons, halva and cotignac that Danny lowered before them. "Yeah."

"Don't go back to that flat," Danny said warningly. "Leave her be."

Jerott grunted and busied himself at the task of devouring the sweets Danny had set out.

Adam shook his head and delicately lifted a slice of pistachio halva from the plate. His voice turned steely and defensive on Jerott's behalf. "She should go and stay in the summerhouse. It's not like she needs to be in Paris right now!"

His mouth full of cotignac, Jerott said nothing but rolled his eyes.

"Really," Adam muttered. "What's her game?"

Danny languidly pulled a flaking half-moon of a chandrakala in half. "Pity isn't absolution, Adam. I'll feed you, doudou, and you can use my kitchen, but stay away from that woman. She's better off without you."

Jerott picked a crumbly chunk of halva apart to get at a pistachio and gave Adam a grateful half-smile, but he addressed Danny. "It's ok, there's nothing to take me back there. Let her have it all."

Danny tilted their head. "Hmm, we can probably work towards something more amicable than that."

Adopting a breezy tone and shaking their head so the star-covered earrings shivered and sparkled, Danny flipped their hand through the air to dismiss the awkward mood. "Ok, Jerott, which is the better dessert? Help us decide.".

"You chose the c-cotignac and the halva," Adam looked up in complaint.

Danny waved another dismissive hand. "Well you got two savoury options."

"You served the lavash with liver paté!"

"We couldn't get any of the dips you wanted and you don't know how to make them!"

Jerott stared at each of them in turn as though one of the three of them had finally cracked and he wasn't sure which it was. His plate was empty and so was his wine glass. "I thought they were both nice."

"Ah-ha!" Danny smirked at Adam, who shooed his fingers at the emptiness of Danny's triumph.

"I still prefer macarons," Jerott shrugged, picking up one of the latter from the serving dish. "Something about eating something I'm too lazy to make for myself. But the soup was really good, Adam. I could actually taste it."

Danny stood and gazed down at Jerott with disdain. "I don't know what I expected. Goyishe Apikoros. You'll just have to eat some more, until we've changed your mind."

Adam sucked the crumbs of halva from his fingers thoughtfully. "I don't know, I'm enjoying the illusion that the soup has actually cured him. Maybe we should leave before he starts coughing again, Danny."

"Adam." Danny bristled. "It has cured him."

With vindictive glee, Danny returned laden with all the remaining sweets. Three plates were piled high with delicacies, a bottle of schnapps was laid on the table, and talk drifted to less important subjects.

When, several hours later, Adam obligingly hoovered up the last remaining crumbs of sugar from the cotignac plate, Jerott snored softly on the ancient couch and Danny sang softly over the washing up, it was as peaceful, as content an atmosphere as Adam recalled from Shabbat afternoons at home. He let out a long breath and knocked the last of his schnapps back, its fire racing to combat the full feeling in his stomach.

The flat was cooling as the afternoon wore on beneath a clear sky. Outside the window the city was the same soft pastel colour as the macarons Jerott had brought. "Didn't you say you had other people coming ‘round?" Adam leaned back in his chair to eye Danny, his head upside down and thick hair flopping wildly.

Danny smirked over one shoulder of the pink pinny. "I said at night, Adam. Let him sleep - I'll make sure he's gone before the Marais crowd come up and offend his delicate sensibilities."

Adam stretched and slowly got to his feet, massaging his hip. He took his notebook out again and flicked through the music they'd made that day and the recipe he had learned.

"You should go and call her," Danny watched Adam, their wiry, compact body twisted away from the sink.

Adam laughed nervously and felt his cheeks grow warm. "Oh, n-no. I haven't seen Philippa much this week." He raked a hand through his hair and his gaze lingered on the phone number. "I said I'd call if I had any news about her or Lymond. Neither of them tells Kate anything these days."

Danny made a sound that demonstrated how unconvincing Adam's words were. "I think if I were stuck at home childminding the kid of a fifteen-year-old drug addict because the kid's adoptive parents were too busy playing some high profile game of 'will-they-won't-they' in the French tabloids, I would want to talk to someone about something else, now and again."

Adam's fingers traced the words Flaw Valleys and he thought of Kate Somerville's smiling brown eyes, her ringing, easy laughter and the gentle way time had run its hands through her dark hair, gilding her with silver. "Yeah, maybe," he conceded.

"Then quit smiling like a goof in my flat and go call her!"

Shrugging on his jacket and tucking the notebook away, Adam thanked Danny as he near-bounded out of the door. He paused, swinging on the hinge with a huge grin. "Same time next week?"

"Aye, aye," Danny waved a hand up from the sink. "You'll be making your own kugel from scratch before you know it."

Adam left, hobbling downstairs with speed and intent. He travelled on the Métro in a well-fed, dreamy daze and fell upon the phone booth outside his apartment building like it was a lover.

"Hello?" Kate's voice sounded crackly down the line, but its warmth reached Adam's body instantly.

"Hi. It's Adam - t-there's nothing wrong! They're fine! I just thought. I thought you might want to talk. That is. If you're free," he winced at his own gabbling and dropped his forehead, hard, against the plastic phone box. "Sorry," he mumbled.

The sound of her laughter and the sound of her breath mingled in a burst like static, like a whisper in his ear. "Adam!" He heard a sound in the background like a teaspoon clinking on a mug. The line hissed again and he imagined her cradling the receiver between her soft, round cheek and her shoulder. "This is a really lovely surprise. Especially so, if you say there's no news this week," Kate chuckled ruefully.

Adam's face was starting to feel stiff from the grin he wore. It was a chilly night and he nuzzled his way into a corner of the booth, his hands in his armpits and the plastic receiver cold on his hot skin. "No, none. I just. I guess I thought maybe you'd want someone to talk to. About your week, or. Or whatever."

"Oh yes," Kate's voice fell into that mocking seriousness that made her eyes sparkle when she spoke. "Hamal is sick to death of me telling him about which chickens laid the biggest eggs and which of the dogs rolled in the smelliest patch of mud."

Adam giggled. "But that's terribly important business. I hope he takes it seriously?"

"Absolutely not. Today he flicked mashed potato in my hair and threw broccoli on the collie." When Adam's laughter faded out, breathless, his ribs aching with joy, she added: "Tell me, Adam, you must have been having a more interesting time in Paris. What was your day like?"

"I, ah," Adam looked down bashfully rather than meeting his own eyes in the reflection in the phone booth plastic. "I made chicken soup. With matzo dumplings."

He thought he heard the sound of Kate sipping her tea, then she sighed like she was letting long-held strains slip from her shoulders. "That sounds wonderful."

"I'd like to cook it for you. Sometime," Adam stood up in shock at letting the admission out and caught the receiver as it slipped from his shoulder. He had replaced it against his burning ear - if he had not quite recovered his composure - in time to hear the end of Kate's reply.

"...I'd like that very much."

-

Notes: 

-The recipe, with sinking kneidlach, that I was using as a reference, thanks to Erinaceina -I'm not sure what Georgian Jewish cuisine would be available in Parisian markets in the '80s. I put lavash and chebureki in so Adam had something to recommend alongside Danny's tastes. -Delia Smith and the Barefoot Contessa would have been known celebrity chefs in the 1980s -The Khian Sea disaster -Danny and Jerott's French is insults and terms of endearment all mixed up. Danny calls him a stick of celery and octopus-face, then Danny's little cabbage. Jerott tells Danny to go cook their ass. Danny explains that if they did that, Jerott wouldn't be able to handle the heat. Danny calls Jerott a teddy bear and says they love him, Jerott calls Danny a flea and says he knows. -Tijuana Beatles is a real thing and you can probably find one in any charity shop vinyl collection -Character in a 'Carry On' film -Le Marais, the 4e arrondissement, where Danny's flat is, is both the Jewish quarter and the gay quarter -Jerott's been shopping in the 10e arrondissement, which is where the Pakistani community set up in the '70s [for Jerott's family history I can but direct you to 'Music is a made-up thing like myth' the prequel I really need to get back to working on...basically he has a Hindu Pakistani grandparent and his mother is from the Levant, details tbd] -Danny calls Jerott a 'Goyishe Apikoros', which is Yiddish for 'non-Jewish Epicurean/cynic'. I think it can be a pun in the context of food? That's the intention, anyway. -All the food is real, look it up and get as hungry as writing this made me...

[bloody-wonder]

the game of kings: a queer reading

hello, tiny fandom! i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me :D but nooo i have been quietly re-reading gok once again which brings the total amount of the times i’ve read it to an impressive 3.5 (0.5 is bc this last time i read it in russian but then re-read all the lymond scenes additionally in english bc i couldn’t help myself🙈). i have also read laura caine ramsey’s guide as well as every piece of secondary literature on the lymond chronicles i could get my hands on which makes me a nerd an expert and today i decided to grace you with a kind of post i honestly wish someone with a degree in literature and queer studies would have written instead but since such a person hasn’t volonteered so far we’ll have to make do with what i’ve scribbled in here. this post was inspired by my irl friend who has been buddy reading gok with me almost entirely out of free will and who informed me that she “doesn’t see the homoerotic subtext”. we then had an enlightening conversation that revealed differences in understanding of what subtext actually means and provoked many thoughts which i just had to write down somewhere. i’m fully aware that by posting this on tumblr i’m preaching to the choir but please bear with me, especially given that i’ll be talking not only about lymond’s relationship with one pathetic maladroit nincompoop but with mixt and subtle christian as well.

i tried to keep this spoiler free for the rest of the series but one or two vague things might have slipped through. also, i couldn’t be concise if my life depended upon it so it’s basically a whole treatise, you have been warned😬

sooooo i do hope it is a truth universally acknowledged that lymond cronicle gay. but in what way is it gay exactly? especially the first book which doesn’t have robin stewart, gabriel, jerott and marthe, not even danny hislop, and is very subdued in its references to same-sex love and desire in comparison to the later installments - where does it store its queer subtext? in this essay i will undertake the noble mission of finding out :D

a couple of introductory remarks before we start: first of all, i’m fully aware that assigning modern labels to historical personalities and fictional characters in historical settings is Bad and so i tried to refrain from it as much as i could, except in cases where i do it for comedic effect. but secondly, i do hope you will grant me some licence since i’m not doing historical research but instead something more akin to literary analysis (the horny kind). in that sense, while we can’t assign a label to lymond since those didn’t exist in his time and the very understanding of what we call queerness was entirely different, we can however compare him to a number of similar fictional heroes and see that some of his behaviors are far from typical, they are pretty queer in the broadest sense of the word, and to me this quality constitutes a very important part of lymond’s appeal. which is why when i say stuff like “a straight man would never do that” i am only half joking😏

part one: will scott and gay subtext 

fine so let’s read queer, let’s look at the textual Evidence. firstly, one of the most entertaining things about lymond in the earlier books is his flirtiness and in gok will is his primary target

sure lymond does it in order to tease and provoke but one doesn't prevent the other. besides, flirting and pointing out will’s good looks including his red hair (for which lymond clearly has a thing and you can’t convince me otherwise) as a teasing strategy is. a choice. not to mention all the petnicknames and terms of endearment with various levels of innuendo which are so manifold and suggestive i had to compile them into a separate post

secondly, there are some. ambiguous scenes and phrases, such as

this is right after lymond figuratively brought will to his knees after the hume caste mission and maybe it’s just bc i find power dynamics hot but i think that this passage is worded in a *certain* way and once you see it you can’t unsee it. i admit this one is a bit of a stretch but the other ones are absolutely not.

for example, the famous scene at the ostrich is brilliant bc you can interpret it either way - will expects to have sex either with one of the girls OR with lymond (or both? does our boy willy expect an orgy? do i underestimate his kinkiness?), the ironclad arguments in favor of the latter being 1) it’s much more fun and juicy and 2) i don’t think will’s a virgin at this point (he just came back from his study sojourn in paris and i doubt all he did there was study) and his inner monologue in this scene indicates he’s about to do something new and exciting such as gay sex with a man he has an angry crush on. in any case, his disappointment at not getting laid is cute and lymond’s sarcastic reaction is hilarious bc he clearly can read will like an open book and so he intentionally pranked him bc toying with people is his love language.

another example of "dunnett didn’t have to write it like this but she did bc she wanted us to ship them and who am i to disagree” comes up during their fight after the margaret lennox fiasco

interesting... why did you need to stress that, lymond? once again, you can interpret it as lymond being self-deprecating and ironic (”i’m such a lousy cavalier that i only fight women bc they’re the only ones i can hope to win against”) OR you can look at this sentence in the context of the scene in which he and will are quarelling like an old married couple and lymond even draws a parallel between how his bitter ex margaret gets on his nerves and will’s bitching AND lymond explicitly points out that will’s “admirably pretty” for the umpteenth time (in his defence, he’s as drunk as a sailor) - in which case the meaning of the phrase may be something along the lines of “i get involved only with women” - which would sound like a confirmation of lymond’s heterosexuality if it weren’t pointed out so entirely unprompted and in such defensive a manner. the gentleman doth protest too much

and that, my children, how subtext feeds on ambiguity. but i’m not done

bc sometimes the carefully composed subtext can in a way become text if the characters acknowledge it in-universe. the way this happens in gok is characters drawing parallels between will scott and all the women lymond allegedly seduced. richard does it

lauder & co do it multiple times during lymond’s trial accusing him of cultivating “associations both natural and unnatural”, “enticing” and “corrupting” will in the same manner as they believe he did with christian and mariotta and forcing lymond to defend will by describing him as “a normal, lively youngster” (lol i wish will had been there to hear this insightful assessment of character)

hell, even will himself does it after lymond is captured and brought to threave castle and christian reveals their acquaintance in an attempt to save him - and in such a petulant manner too

stop being jealous, will! the master has two hands! 

this Evidence is already vast even without me going into will’s complicated and ever-evolving feelings towards lymond, including but not limited to admiration, hero worship and desire to surpass, envy and frustration, anger and disappointment, mistrust, lots of confusion, remorse, and finally, in their last scene together, “enslaved eagerness” and delight (big Gay). lymond dismisses all of it as a kind of teenage idolization which will is going to outgrow (although the readers who continued with the series know that that’s not true) bc lymond firmly believes himself unworthy of love and interprets every kind of love people show him as some other convoluted emotion. as for myself, i think this intricacy, this ambiguity and openness to interpretation are qualities dunnett put there on purpose and they are meant to intrigue and invite us to make connections. if gok had been written today it would’ve definitely been accused of queerbaiting of some sort, but since it wasn’t we can just live in peace and enjoy the homoerotic subtext. speaking of which.

the aforementioned friend said that in her opinion lymond has nothing but “fatherly feelings” towards will which led me to believe she must think my gushing about the homoerotic subtext of gok must mean that i think lymond lusts after will or smth. and like, no? i mean i do ship them bc dunnett left me no choice but. this is not what subtext is about?

are will and lymond gay / bi? was lymond attracted to will sexually or romantically? did will want to have sex with lymond? these questions miss the point bc they are too direct and the beauty of subtext lies in its subtlety - the art we’ve started to lose in recent years as queer rep far too often takes the shape of throwing around labels but not depicting experiences they’re meant to represent with any subtance or nuance - which is why dynamics that can’t be described in one word like that of will and lymond are fascinating to me and i think the liminality of this relationship, its inherent ambiguity and resistance to being defined are part of the appeal. if you don’t reduce the queer aspect to the surface-level observation that their tension didn’t result in anything explicit (which like, people in general and these two people specifically have many reasons not have sex even if the attraction is there) thereby proving them to be straight once and for all, you can interpret what they had in any way you like and that’s what makes it compelling and fraught with meaning and queer - as in “peculiar” but also potentially as in “if lymond didn’t automatically friendzone everyone who might develop feelings for him he and will totally would’ve banged” or “i don’t wanna assign modern labels to fictional people in historical settings however not in a million years would i believe lymond isn’t queer”. in conclusion: it’s about the vibes👌

that being said, despite the possibility to interpret lymond and will’s relationship any way you like which is sufficiently provided in the text, the interpretation depends entirely on who’s doing it. like, i’m sure my esteemed colleagues on tumblr caught each and every nugget of gay subtext dunnett wrote or alluded to or thought about briefly in the summer of 1960 but my friend, my mom, some (many?) og lymond fans just don’t see it or choose not to. this is not the case with lymond and christian’s relationship which is universally understood as romantic - on the one hand, bc we live in a heteronormative society and have been taught by media to think that any relationship between the opposite sexes must be romantic by default and any woman in a male-dominated story can only occupy the role of the love interest, and on the other hand, bc dunnett did rely on certain tropes that date back as far as chivalric romances and the very invocation of those tropes signals to us the presence of a romantic relationship regardless of whether it’s actually there or not. all this to say, i personally believe dunnett only invokes those tropes to subvert them.

part two: christian stewart and platonic love

during lymond’s trial harry lauder sums up his and christian’s relationship in the following way: “an honest, gentle and virtuous girl, a young girl of open and innocent years, betrothed to a fine man, who fell into the power of a practiced and powerful seducer, appearing to her in a guise both insinuating and irresistibly romantic”. now, the readers know that this can’t be further from the truth bc christian isn’t naive or excitable and lymond is a gentleman, but what i’m interested in specifically is how jarring the difference is between what lymond stands accused of and what his and christian’s relationship actually was like - as compared to the case of will who after all was, in a sense, led astray, who did display that “emotional instability” bishop reid describes so vividly, who, even if he wasn’t seduced and driven to anything “unnatural”, still in the broadest sense corresponds to the narrative the prosecutors present in court. christian however doesn’t bc her and lymond’s relationship wasn’t anywhere near what people are led to imagine when they find out about the manner in which their secret meetings took place.

by virtue of being a relationship between two people of opposite sexes set in the 16th century lymond and christian’s interactions are much more ceremonialized and less casual than, say, between lymond and his brothers in arms. at the same time, since lymond believes christian doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t feel as much need to perform a certain identity in front of her which leads to a much more honest and genuine relationship - one that is entirely chaste, devoid of innuendo and filled with banter which, while not lacking in intensity compared to lymond’s banter with will scott, is much more amicable but definitely less passionate. an affair of minds, if you will.

in a different story our romantic leads would’ve fallen in love as soon as they met but in this case there are few indications that they develop anything resembling romantic feelings towards each other at all. we aren’t privy to lymond’s true thoughts or feelings but even from outsider pov he doesn’t strike me as a lovestruck man. there’s no pursuing the lady in order to have the pleasure of her company nor are there any melodramatic love confessions at the deathbed - a trope that one could expect these characters to engage in in a different story.

does lymond flirt in a similar equivocal way he does with will or maybe even make advances? in fact, there’s only a handful of times in all of their dialogues where romance is touched upon at all. the most evident of these few instances in my opinion is the following exchange after agnes herries’ wedding which is obviously conducted in a humorous tone

the rest are mostly implications of the poetry lymond quotes - and very subtle implications at that. for example, this is how the author of nowyouhavedunnett blog interprets lymond quoting a single line from the clown's courtship to christian during their inchmahome meeting

The whole poem is a proposal of marriage. Francis would not have lightly chosen to quote this poem at this moment. He is the clown, the fool, as he says, and this is as close to courtship as he can allow himself to come. He is telling Christian, obliquely, that if he were free to come every day to woo and win her, he would. But he cannot and he will not. (x)

and this is how they interpret lymond referring to himself as a "joyless jeweller” during christian’s death scene

Lymond is in full self-flagellation mode, saying he has been a "joyless jeweller up to the last, exquisite drop from the crucible." The phrase "joyless jeweller" comes from a medieval English poem, Pearl. It expresses the deep despair of a man who lives while the one he loves resides "glad and bright/In Paradise, of strife unstrained...." (x)

while i wouldn’t presume to contradict any of these interpretations, i have to say that last time i read gok along with ramsey’s guide and even then i could hardly understand the connections. do you see what we’re required to do here? we’re invited to interpret the romance into lymond and christian’s relationship (if it’s something we’re interested in doing, that is) much in the same manner as we’re invited to do it in will’s case (although i must admit the stuff lymond quotes to will is much more explicitly flirty and doesn’t require an encyclopedia to comprehend). the romantic hints are there but they are buried deep under all the references and require lots of rigorous interpreting. the difference between will and christain in this respect is that with will the romantic subtext is much more obvious but, depending on the reader, much more readily ignored, whereas with christian it’s hidden very deep and yet we still view lymond and christian as lovers by default bc of all the reasons i’ve cited above. i would argue however that the subversive value of gok lies in the fact that there’s plenty of room for them not to be viewed as such.

during the trial lymond says that there was nothing but friendship between him and christian (whereas his line of defense in will’s case is “this youngster is entirely normal and not gay at all”) and that it was enough for him to be ready to sacrifice his life in exchange for her freedom, no matter how ludicrous it may seem to lauder. obviously, lymond would never claim anything else publicly bc christian’s virtue is at stake, but even so i don’t think he’s lying. it’s said multiple times that christian would go to the same length for any of her friends as she did for lymond and it’s stated at least once that lymond would give himself up in exchange for any of his men should they be captured bc of him (to say nothing of friends and family). i think this allows for a much more noble understanding of their charactes than if either of them did what they did just bc they were in love.

as lymond remarks, lauder and the jury might find ludicrous the fact that his actions were inspired exclusively by friendship - and that is ofc bc the society we live in is not only heteronormative but amatonormative as well, which means that in the hierarchy of human relationships romance is placed at the top and all the most profound and overwhelming feelings and noblest gestures are associated with romance. many people subscribe to this view, either consciously or not, and i, for one, firmly believe that we should strive to deconstruct it in any way we can. christian indeed has feelings towards lymond and the more their relationship develops the more intense those feelings get - but the thing is, intense feelings aren’t always romantic in nature. as an aroace person i can assure you that you can experience all the spectrum of what christian felt towards her mysterious friend without being in (romantic) love with him. her emotions could very well reside in the realm of agape and philia - a kind of heavenly, altruistic love that becomes more and more personal as she gets to know lymond better. and i think ascribing a romantic sense to lymond calling christian “a woman with a familiar spirit” would be very limiting.

that’s what i find alluring about their relationship - it is a High Romance but not as in “a tale of romantic love” and instead as in “a fascinating story about a marvellous adventure” that happens to be centered on friends instead of lovers and elevates friendship in that imaginary false hierarchy of relationships by being just as grand and dramatic, sweeping and beautiful as often only romances get to be. 

so. can lymond and christian’s relationship be described as a romantic involvement? would they have married if christian had survived? just as in the previous case, these questions miss the point in my opinion bc they try to force what they had into a box - specifically into a heteronormative one - whereas their actual relationship is much more undetermined and ambiguous and, if you look at it through the aspec lens, queer.

this ofc is not to say that there’s not enough evidence to interpret their relationship as a good old traditional romance and to answer those questions positively, but merely to draw your attention to the fact that dunnett wrote these relationships in gok in such a way that, once you think about them outside of the  constraints of gender roles and sexuality norms, leaves plenty of room for interpretation and queer reading - not just in the case of lymond and will scott but also, despite it not seeming as intuitive, in the case of lymond and christian.

i’d hate to end this on a serious note so here are some selected suggestive quotes from the one and only prosecutor for the crown

if wishes were buttercakes, mr. lauder, beggars might bite :)

[boatcats]

Lymond, Danny Hislop, Sam Vimes

Yesssss. Excellent. OMG, Vimes. Vimes has been an emotional support character for years for me.

[gurguliare]

Go on, do Dunnett.

twitch. I’m doing just Lymond thanks

the character I least understand: LEMONS

interactions I enjoyed the most: Crawford family camping trip; Crawford family treason trial; probably something with Robin Stewart that I’ve blocked out, for the loosest imaginable sense of ‘enjoy’; Richard visiting Lymond’s dumb alcohol-poisoning sickbed in France; when the men of St. Mary’s put Lymond back in the stocks because they can’t figure out what else to do with him and his back is grossing them out; she had weasels, instead; Marthe and Lymond singalong; Philippa and Lymond co-incapacitate Austin Grey

the character who scares me the most: Dorothy Dunnett

the character who is mostly like me: Philippa comparisons are very flattering, but probably inaccurate. Danny Hislop?

hottest looks character: Sybillaaaaaaaaa

one thing I dislike about my fave character: I don’t… dislike… anything about Philippa except her Checkmate plotline.

one thing I like about my hated character: I DON’T LIKE ANYTHING ABOUT JEROTT no uh, sometimes I laughed at his misfortune, or like, [implied back muscles montage]

a quote or scene that haunts me: Not in the sense the question is asking, but the scene where Lymond interrogates baby Philippa is more or less intact in my memory, compared to most plot blur.

a death that left me indifferent: ………truthfully, Will Scott

a character I wish died but didn’t: JEROTT, I almost forgot that Jerott didn’t die. Wait, did Jerott die? Fuck.

my ship that never sailed: Oonagh/being in a different series

[theartistknownaslymond]

Gotta have some faith in the sound / (You got to give what you take)

Sorry it's Them again! Jerott/Danny post-canon (mid-90s ish) post-finally-getting-together fluffy, happy smut! Body positivity all the way for intersex Danny, who is into sensation play and who now has a boyfriend who knows how to give both good massages and good head. Jerott is just so happy to be there with someone who wants him and gets him, and if Danny decides to praise him along the way, well, he might just learn something about himself :')

Happy non-denominational smutmas to all my followers 🙃

thank you as ever @stripedroseandsketchpads for your enthusiasm, encouragement, researching, fannishness and for this excellent prompt:

holding hands making love prompt? 👀

---

Jerott closed his eyes and inhaled the sickly floral scent of the oil, rubbing it between his palms meditatively.  "Jasmine isn't a traditional Ayurvedic oil, Danny," he said with a smile.

Danny made a sound of pleasure and amusement, and Jerott heard the bedcovers rustle as Danny's body shifted against them.

"This isn't an Ayurvedic massage, remember?" Danny purred.

Jerott let out a laugh of acknowledgement. He looked down and felt his heartbeat skip to a quicker signature. His lover was lying on their bed, naked from the wispy puff of strawberry blonde hair on top of their head to the painted toenails at the end of their feet. In Danny's eyes was something of the wry challenge that was their customary way with new experiences, but these days Jerott found he could also read the anticipation in Danny's mien: the pale, freckle-dusted skin was flushed red in patches. On Danny's cheeks and neck there were blotches of colour like poppies painted in aquarelle: they bloomed out from Danny's sternum, filling the valley between the soft rises of their breasts and colouring the tops of their thighs as though Jerott's hands had already manipulated that flesh as he intended to.

This was not an Ayurvedic massage. If it had been, Jerott wouldn't have been totally naked himself - his body's appreciative response to the sight of Danny's body wouldn't have been visible, and Danny wouldn't now be biting their plump bottom lip with rakish glee, eyeing him up in return.

Jerott ran his gaze over Danny again, feeling spoilt for choice, uncertain where to begin. He would have happily fallen to the bed and smothered Danny with his kisses, with his body, with the desperate, disorderly wandering of his hands - but he'd been the one to offer the massage when he'd seen the way his touch could make Danny shiver with unexpected, honest delight.

The techniques he'd learned came from the ashram at Pune. They'd been honed on a body he didn't care to think of - broader than Danny's, muscled and infused with the scent of ground spice and patchouli. Then he'd used his skills professionally on the ashram in Nevada - he'd seen all kinds of bodies with these hands, unknotting muscles, rebalancing energies and loosening purse strings as he worked on behalf of Rajneesh's great message.

For years afterwards, he'd done his best to forget the lessons of the ashrams - the cod psychology, the smug anti-conformism, shallow in the face of the leader's demands. The massages had seemed like just another trick thought up by Rajneesh, exploited by Geetesh, designed to win them rich backers. But when he'd finally returned to the Indian subcontinent on his own terms, when he'd reached the country of his father's birth, he'd let himself rediscover things that had existed - oblivious to the manipulative gloss put on them by one movement or another - for spans of time beyond the reckoning of someone as small and petty as Graham Reid Malett. What was one megalomaniac to such a deep-rooted, enduring culture? Jerott had seen his former master's power atomised in the face of an ancient and indifferent spirituality and realised he was free.

He drew a deep breath and sent thoughts of his past out of his mind. This wasn't an Ayurvedic massage - not like he'd given to clients at the Nevada ashram, not like he'd given to Peder and his friends in Denmark when he'd come back with a renewed confidence in himself. This was something new - between him and the person he was deeply, terrifyingly in love with.

Jerott climbed onto the bed and straddled Danny's hips and Danny whimpered in anticipation.

"Shh," Jerott murmured habitually, smirking down at Danny's torso, still working his hands together to warm them to the temperature of the oil.

Danny's hips twitched provocatively beneath Jerott's seat and he began by running a teasingly light touch up the centre of Danny's body, fingertips tracing the line of the chakras... No. Tracing the sensitive skin from Danny's navel up to their throat, out over their shoulders and arms. Jerott drew the pads of his fingers along Danny's skin, echoing the feeling of a silk blouse being pulled down and away from Danny's body, like he was opening up the layers of the person lying beneath him.

If he were doing an Ayurvedic massage he'd start at the head - so Jerott shifted his seat a little and rubbed his thumbs over Danny's hips instead, making circular motions, now soft, now increasing in pressure, thumbs now sliding inwards, following the line of the pelvis down, bringing heat and colour to the surface of Danny's skin.

He watched his own brown fingers work, the gloss of oil on them transferring to Danny's body. It was as though, beneath his touch, he was bringing each muscle and sinew to life - glowing and eager. He ran his hands over Danny's belly, feeling soft flesh yield, feeling the hardness of muscle beneath puppyish fat. He didn't tell Danny to relax - he didn't need to. His fingers furrowed the land of Danny's body, unpicking tension, even undoing Danny's tightly wound anticipation, freeing Danny from the control they were used to maintaining.

In answer, Danny sighed and arched their back a little against the bed as Jerott's hands worked up, his touch again feather light at first, caressing inwards around Danny's ribs, his thumbs tracing the undersides of Danny's flat breasts, gently building until the strokes of his digits squeezed as they circled, until Danny's nipples had become hardened points that Jerott's thumb-pads could pass over as softly as the shadow of something on the wing.

Danny moaned at the hint of touch and watched, open-mouthed, as Jerott's thumbs scudded over the pink peaks again.

Jerott circled his thumbs this time, applying a little more pressure and eliciting another sound of pleasure that made his own stomach flip and his cock start with interest. Helpfully, Danny rolled their hips up against him and Jerott let out a breathy laugh of appreciation.

He dipped his fingers in the cup of oil at the bedside again and ran his palms up the planes of Danny's pecs, reaching for Danny's shoulders with clever, squeezing caresses as he shifted and bowed down to lick and suck at the nipples he'd just been teasing with his thumbs. The jasmine oil didn't taste great, he'd be the first to admit, but what did it matter when he felt Danny's whole body shudder beneath him, and that witty tongue, normally so ready with a snappy remark, was reduced to supporting the gasps and moans of Danny's undoing.

Jerott's hands massaged Danny's shoulders, upper arms, shoulders again and neck, and Jerott felt Danny melt in his hold, whimpering some inarticulate command as Jerott's teeth grazed sensitive, puckered skin and his thumbs moved in patterns of pressure up and down the vulnerable contours of Danny's neck. Then he swapped his gestures, stroking down over Danny's chest, gripping each small breast and palming muscle and flesh as he leaned in to suck hard on Danny's earlobe.

Danny's voice slipped into a higher pitch and they shivered and moaned again beneath Jerott's mantling body. Jerott shifted his weight and nudged one knee between Danny's legs, drawing ferociously on the soft flesh of Danny's earlobe with his lips and tongue as he did and eliciting his own name as a desperate plea from Danny's throat.

"Mm?" Jerott answered, pausing to nuzzle kisses into the hot skin behind Danny's ear.

"Don't stop," Danny said in a strangled voice, so Jerott nudged Danny's head the other way on the pillow with his nose and took the second earlobe in his mouth as he worked his other leg between Danny's knees and rolled his hips and hard cock against Danny's body.

It was enough to break down another part of Danny's control: they could no longer lie beneath Jerott pretending to be a passive recipient of such devoted attention. Their hands came to Jerott's back, smoothing up his spine and pulling him close - and it was enough to remind Jerott that he was meant to be delivering a massage, not plunging straight into sex, no matter what his nerves seemed to demand.

He released Danny's ear and kissed Danny's mouth instead, and rubbed Danny's earlobes between his thumbs and forefingers, feeling the little specks of scar tissue where Danny's piercings were. He had to stop and refresh the oil on his hands again, and then he fingered the hot cartilage of Danny's ears and worked his touch slowly, meticulously - soft and then hard and then soft again - down Danny's oil-glistened body until his hands were at Danny's hips and he was left kneeling, poised between Danny's legs.

Danny's hands remained on his back, his shoulders and arms, until Jerott was too far away to reach, and then, reluctantly, they returned to the sheets, gripping and twisting the cotton each time Danny let out an appreciative sound.

Mostly, Danny's eyes were closed - it was easier that way to sink into the sensations of Jerott's touch, and Jerott didn't begrudge himself the opportunity to stare back openly at Danny's rose-gold lashes, to watch the way their nostrils flared as they breathed deeply through the pleasure, to note the severe line of their jaw, which wasn't usually visible but now, from the angle Jerott saw it, rose like a peak at the top of the bed as Danny's head pressed back into the pillow.

Jerott ran his hands lightly over the skin of Danny's thighs, down not halfway to Danny's knees and then back up again to the pale drifts of hip bones lying beneath fat. He swallowed and licked his lips, but made himself wait as he made Danny wait, moving his hands down - smoothing hairs so fine and sparse they were invisible - and up again - ruffling nerve endings and heightening the anticipation of his next stroke - down, smoothing, soft as silk, light as soap washing off Danny's body.

He continued the movement as he finally lowered his mouth to Danny's cock, taking the firm stub of tissue in his mouth and sucking, drawing his tongue up the base in broad strokes that covered over the line of scar tissue where some part of Danny had been sewn shut by a doctor desperate to recreate normality.

Fuck normality, Jerott thought with savage glee, grasping Danny's hips and flicking his tongue from side to side over the soft, silken texture held in his mouth.

He ran his hands down Danny's thighs again, his grip firmer this time, his thumbs caressing the marshmallow-white flesh on the inside of Danny's legs, rubbing in circular motions up to the apex of Danny's thighs, his digits competing with his own face for access to Danny's most sensitive areas.

Danny whimpered and then cursed in French and, to Jerott's delight, in Yiddish. He'd never made that happen before so he repeated what he'd done and Danny's pelvis arched off the bed, pushing back against Jerott's mouth.

Jerott sucked the nub of Danny's cock and then laughed into the damp, downy tuft of hair above it. "Vraiment bien, puce?"

"Vraiment," Danny said from between clenched teeth. "Now come up here, I have something for you."

Jerott cocked a black brow at the head on the pillow but didn't immediately obey. He let his thumbs repeat their massage of the inside of Danny's thighs and he met Danny's tousled expression with an arrogant smirk.

Danny groaned and their legs shivered under Jerott's touch.

"Come here..." they repeated, with a new edge of despair in their voice.

Jerott came slowly, his hands and mouth retracing their way up Danny's body, now guided and tugged at by Danny's impatient touch on his shoulders, back and arse.

When Jerott reached Danny's lips Danny squeezed his arse cheeks vindictively and pulled Jerott's body flush against theirs. Jerott let out a gasp inside Danny's mouth, rolled his hips desperately against Danny's body, and ran his palms down over Danny's nipples again.

Danny's fingers covered Jerott's, pressing his touch down on Danny's chest, and then Danny took Jerott's hands in theirs and sat up, pushing him back with insistent kisses until he was half kneeling, half sitting. Clasping Jerott's hands in theirs, Danny guided his touch around to the small of their back as they leaned, chest first, against Jerott.

"You have something for me, hm?" Jerott asked between kisses, speaking into the softness at the corner of Danny's lips.

"Yes," Danny smirked, their cheek curving beneath Jerott's mouth. They held Jerott's hands in place behind their back and shuffled closer, leaning into Jerott until Jerott shifted his legs out from under him and sat with them splayed to either side of Danny. Danny wasted no time in moving into the space between and wrapping their thighs tight around Jerott's hips.

"What is it?" Jerott tested Danny's grip gently, attempting to run his hands round Danny's waist only to find that his lover's tight hold arrested the movement, keeping him close in their embrace.

Danny pushed their body closer, closer to Jerott's until Jerott felt the unmistakeable demand to lie back and let Danny straddle him, as he had earlier straddled Danny.

He let himself sink down to the sheets and Danny allowed his hands to move around to rest on their hips. They looked down at Jerott with a regal air: chest puffed out, streaked and glistening with jasmine oil like it was war paint, eyelids low over a gaze sparkling with lust. Flushed red lips, a body drawn in indistinct outlines that were as remarkable as any work of art Jerott had seen - Jerott's cock twitched insistently, trapped as it was  beneath Danny's warm arse cheeks.

Danny's smirk was devastating. "What do I have for you?"

They shuffled, one knee then the other, holding Jerott's hands to their hips, up Jerott's torso until they only needed to lift their legs over Jerott's arms and they'd be poised to sit on his face.

"Me, of course," Danny said in silken tones. The certainty, the pride and confidence in those words made a sound rise in Jerott's throat. He swallowed and licked his lips and ran his eyes over the body above his, hungry to taste Danny in his mouth again.

Danny beamed down at him and released his hands so that they could shift their legs and position Jerott's head between them.

Jerott groaned happily as Danny lowered themself to his mouth. He ran his freed hands up Danny's arse and lower back, rubbing and massaging flesh as he went until Danny's hands grasped his again.

Danny threaded their fingers through Jerott's and held his hands against their arse as they ground their body down against Jerott's open mouth.

When Danny did this it never felt suffocating or uncomfortable: Danny paid attention to the way Jerott responded and moaned encouragements that made Jerott's skin prickle. He could hold all of Danny's small cock in his mouth without his jaw aching or feeling like he was about to choke when Danny rolled their hips down. He could find his way around the rest of Danny's anatomy with his tongue, running it softly at first over places that could either be painfully sensitive or dulled to touch by old scar tissue - he worked carefully, like he would do with his hands during the massage - working out what felt good to his lover and what didn't.

And Danny was always happy to help him find the right spot, moving their body and delivering gasped instructions.

All it took was for Danny to breathe an honest "Oy...you're good at this," and Jerott felt his nipples harden and his hips squirm against the bed, his cock responding instantly to the praise. He made a grateful sound against Danny's body and Danny whined and rocked against his mouth.

They tightened their grip on Jerott's hands and then guided his right one away from their arse. Danny reached behind themself, arching above Jerott to draw Jerott's hand away from their body. Danny stretched back, pushing Jerott's fingers towards his cock, and Jerott felt how smooth his own hand was, softened by jasmine oil and hot from the use he'd put it to.

"Don't forget about yourself," Danny purred, looking directly into Jerott's eyes. They released the hand they'd guided to Jerott's cock and sat forward again, reaching down to gently sweep the hair off Jerott's face.

"Ok?" Danny checked. "I'm not smothering you?"

They clocked Jerott's mischievous expression immediately and let out a low laugh. "Careful how you answer that, doudou..."

Jerott, who had no interest in occupying his mouth with mere words when he had other means at his disposal, dipped his chin a little and sucked pointedly at the smooth, domed head of Danny's cock, pressung his tongue up against it.

Danny laughed shakily again and groaned. "...Good answer," they conceded, and Jerott knew that when they opened their eyes again and looked down at him they'd see the satisfaction, the smirk in his expression.

His arms were pinned beneath Danny's body still, but he didn't need to move much to jerk himself off, not when he was already this hard. His right hand moved rhythmically up and down his cock even as Danny held his left hand still, their fingers knotted together behind Danny's back.

Jerott didn't let any of it affect the attention he gave Danny - his own pleasure wasn't a distraction or a splitting of his goals, rather it was like singing while playing guitar, or even just using two hands on the one instrument to make the perfect music. He did what felt good to Danny, Danny told him how good it was, and Jerott's hand quickened with pride, his blood rushed with the thrill of knowing he was making Danny feel that way too.

It could take time and patience to make Danny come, and Jerott enjoyed the challenge - besides, even if Danny didn't get there, Jerott wanted to be certain he'd made them feel exquisite in any case. So long as he was occupied with Danny's pleasure, time stopped and pure sensation ruled: Danny's soft thighs squeezing his cheeks; the warm, wet air Jerott breathed that tasted of the mingling of their bodies; Danny's fingers gently combing through his hair, squeezing his hand tightly behind their back; the feeling of his cock against his palm, as eager for Danny's release as its own.

When his neck felt stiff he shifted and kissed the insides of Danny's thighs, applying pressure with his tongue or plunging his teeth into yielding flesh to leave bruises that made Danny yelp with delight.

Another exclamation in Yiddish - Jerott grinned and nipped Danny's leg playfully. He took another mouthful of skin and sucked, like he'd suck on Danny's cock, and Danny whimpered, their hips bucking, their arse cheeks clenching. French insults mingled with Yiddish; an agonised "hob rachmones!"; a litany of evocative terms that made heat gather in Jerott's groin, spoken as they were with such awe.

He was on the edge now, and he took Danny's cock in his mouth again in case they were too. He tasted their anticipation, and rubbed his tongue against the underside of the head, and as they said, "That's it, that's it, you're an artist!" he felt himself lose the vestiges of his own control as thought and sense and intent all suddenly rushed down to his groin and left the rest of his body flushed empty of all but a ringing pleasure.

Danny's unashamed cry harmonised with the singing of his nerves and Jerott gasped as he let his head fall back to the mattress, satiated and exhausted and fizzing with a vital glee he didn't think he'd felt in years.

Danny released his hand and climbed off him, and Jerott lay in a state of near shavasana, his eyes closed and a smile on his lips. He waited, knowing Danny was coming to him, which Danny did, stretching out alongside his body and stroking his hair back around his ear with the utmost tenderness. They kissed him slowly and deeply and Jerott murmured happily into it.

"You're a treasure, doudou," Danny said against his lips.

Jerott smiled and heard Danny tut immediately. "But don't let it go to that pretty head of yours. You'd be insufferable if you knew..."

Jerott blinked and looked at Danny in sleepy puzzlement, wondering why they'd stopped mid-sentence.

They were staring at him intently, thoughtfully, more seriously than he'd expected. Their lips were red and their cheeks blotched pink; their hair was a disordered, sweaty mess. Without make-up they still looked vulnerable and new to Jerott - beautiful but often wary, a warrior without their armour on.

"If I knew...?" Jerott prompted, lifting a heavy arm from the bed to stroke Danny's chin with his thumb.

Danny's lips moved, and a puckered, vexed smirk fought its way onto them. "You'd be insufferable if you knew how much I love you."

The words still made Jerott's body blush with sensation - instant heat, instant gratification making his skin prickle. He offered the bravest, lopsided grin he could. "Lucky I have you to keep me humble, hm?"

Danny smiled toothily and kissed him. Jerott accepted the insult that followed in all its fondness.

[theartistknownaslymond]

You will like my sense of humor You will be addicted to my smile Laughing all the while And I will end each conversation I will leave the room with upper hand And you will understand You will find my scent attractive You will like my real, engaging eyes And playful, childlike smile You will find my style appealing I will overpower you with wits And I will be a hit If only you'd run to me If only you'd come to me If only you'd relax upon your rules And dare to be love's fool If only you'd come for me If only you'd run to me If only you'd relax upon those rules And dare to be love's fool Waking up from a coma (tossing, turning) Sweat has covered my body (my mouth felt dry) My life flashing before me (nothing much to say) Still it was so boring (did you hear me sing?) Only I could adore you (the wind through the trees) Silently barking orders (rushing up to me) This is only beginning (don't anger the sea) Oh, the wave's crashing higher and higher on me Crash, crash, crash, crash If only you'd relax upon your rules And dare to be love's fool If only you'd run to me All the blinking lights, noise of eternity (if only you'd come to me) All the sentences swirling inside of me (you will like my sense of humor) Inside of me (and dare to be love's fool) (If only you'd come to me) I have censored my eyes, I get drawn through my ears (if only you'd run to me) Redirected desire now It comes out as tears (you will like my sense of humor) You know, it comes out as tears (and dare to be love's fool) You will like my sense of humor You will like my sense of humor

[theartistknownaslymond]

Ooh could I get a Jerott/Danny playlist

You most surely can, Kay!! I loved this so much I never wanted to finish it.

A twinge of approval

A playlist for realising you've fallen in love with your idiot best friend and bandmate

George Michael - Faith Tim Curry - Sweet Transvestite Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street Talking Heads - I'm Not in Love Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark Barbra Streisand - The Way He Makes Me Feel Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band - Saposhkelekh The Kinks - Lola Leonard Cohen - Lover Lover Lover Sapho - Globo Night R.E.M. - Crush With Eyeliner Kishore Kumar - Chhu Kar Mere Manko Marcel Dadi - La Madrugada Klezmatics - Di Zun Vet Aruntergeyn David Bowie - Changes Queen - You're My Best Friend Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the Middle With You

No, really, I think I enjoyed this most of all because of the way it came together. Surprisingly good!!! Just like the ship. Wholesome. I made this playlist as tender as I could and it genuinely fucks me up, so I hope you like it too!

FCs: random sax and keytar players from image search and Carl Barat, plus Viveik Kalra and Hanne Gaby Odiele (yes I pretty much use a different FC for Danny each time because while I have a clear idea of NB Danny in my head, it’s not based on any one person. But Hanne Gaby is intersex like Danny, so yay for that).

1) Jerott. I find it strange to think I grew up in a time when people apparently didn’t know George Michael was gay, but do have memories of the whole sordid uncomfortable circus around him being outed. Jerott wouldn’t realise George Michael was gay, even while emulating the Faith style - leathers, blue jeans, white t-shirt, aviators, acoustic guitar. And the song is a perfect fit for Jerott at the end of Checkmate, needing a little space to himself.

Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body I know not everybody has got a body like you But I gotta think twice before I give my heart away And I know all the games you play because I played them too Oh, but I need some time off from that emotion Time to pick my heart up off the floor

2) Danny isn’t a transexual or a transvestite, but I believe the composer Richard O’Brian is non-binary, and Danny is most certainly a fan of RHPS. Danny has a big show-tunes voice that surprises everyone because usually they’re just rocking out with their sax.

3) THIS. THIS IS THE PERFECT SHIP SONG FOR THEM. Iconic sax!! Iconic guitar solo!! Scottish mega-hit!! And then there’s the wistfulness of the lyrics, Danny probably figuring Jerott’s never going to be interested...

Way down the street there's a light in his place He opens the door he's got that look on his face And he asks you where you've been You tell him who you've seen and you talk about anything He's got this dream about buyin' some land He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands And then he'll settle down, in some quiet little town And forget about everything

4) I’m trying to weave through consistent influences for all the characters too, to give an idea of what brings them together as well as what their unique tastes are. Talking Heads are beloved by all at St Mary’s, and Danny is very good at claiming not to be in love.

5) Jerott again, it’s that...double-denims/blue jeans and white vest man’s man(?) vibe with the side of snogging your bandmate on stage.

Stay on the streets of this town And they'll be carving you up all right They say, "You gotta stay hungry" Hey, baby, I'm just about starving tonight I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting around here trying to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now, baby, give me just one look

6) A big Jewish show tune for Danny! And it’s from Yentl. So all the feelings about gender and faith and being torn between thinking you’re better off alone or going with the one you love.

I feel as if I'm falling Every time I close my eyes And flowing through my body Is a river of surprise Feelings are awakening I hardly recognize as mine 

7) As far as I gather, beyond even a ‘revival’ of something, the ‘80s saw the first proper emergence of klezmer as the genre we’d recognise now. Danny is very into this. And Saposhkele is perfect for Danny giving into their feelings and realising they’re in it for good.

[I sell my boots and go with you on a coach just to be with you as you are a handleless door without me my sweet little bird I will sell handkerchieves at the railroad station just to be with you as you are a handleless door without me]

8) Danny’s still not trans, but this is a period-appropriate song for a period-appropriate playlist :))) And Jerott would get very into playing it and singing it for Danny, once he realised he was more than fine with being in love with Danny because Danny’s amazing.

I pushed her away I walked to the door I fell to the floor I got down on my knees Well, I looked at her, and she at me

Well, that's the way that I want it to stay And I always want it to be that way for my Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world Except for Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

9) This was always on my Jerott playlists anyway for the lyrics and the struggle between god/faith/physicality/love, but add in the fact that it’s an incredibly Jewish take on those things and it’s perfect for this playlist.

He said, "I locked you in this body I meant it as a kind of trial You can use it for a weapon Or to make some woman smile."

10) Mainly I just think this is a bop, and I think Jerott and Danny would bond in dark Parisian discos to music by a French-Moroccan Jew (band AU Jerott’s mum is French-Algerian)

11) Another one to tie playlists together - St Mary’s as a whole are fans of R.E.M. Nonsensical Michael Stipe lyrics, but themes of self-invention and unusual/individual fashions

I am smitten I'm the real thing (I'm the real thing) We all invent ourselves And you know me

12) I chose this song because I’d already had Kishore Kumar on Jerott playlists, and this one is thematically about feeling a change when touched by another person’s mind, wanting to incorporate them into music and song.

13) More French-Jewish music for bonding over, but Jerott can serenade Danny on guitar with this one.

14) Featuring the golden peacock, a recurring image in Yiddish folk music, ‘The peacock here is a mediator, helping the singer to find what s/he is yearning for and, possibly, possessing a messianic, redemptive ability to cross over the boundaries of impossible distance.’ [source] I like the idea of this relationship as something kind of redemptive for both of them, and it’s also a union of influences that are incredibly disparate but still converge on a Glasgow childhood in the ‘60s (not that they knew each other as kids).

[The sun will be setting behind the mountain, In silence approaching then love will come softly; In silence approaching then love will come softly To sorrow, that sits on a golden stone And weeps for itself all alone.]

15) Oh you know. Facing up to the fact they’re idiots in love and it’s a good thing.

I watch the ripples change their size But never leave the stream of warm impermanence and So the days float through my eyes But still the days seem the same And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They're quite aware of what they're going through

16) Would it be a Jerott playlist without some Queen? And they’re best friends, doncha know? :’)

17) Gerry Rafferty’s band, just a fun little bop to finish things off with.

[theartistknownaslymond]

“rolling over in bed, switching positions during a kiss” for Danny/Jerott? 👀

Danny was accustomed to getting up early when there was a lover sleeping the night off in their bed. The kitchen was always well stocked to suit Danny's schedule - if there hadn't been time for a run on fresh food there would be homemade latkes in the freezer, good long-life cheese in the fridge, tins of tomatoes and ready-made spice mixes for a shakshuka to suit anyone's palate. Danny didn't mind getting up early to cook - it had become a habit. Or, more accurately, something that was a conscious, cultivated part of the experience Danny liked to offer to anyone deemed worthy enough of spending the night in their company.

This morning, Danny was not going anywhere though. Danny's lover had woken first, and when Danny came to he was there, his nose touching Danny's nose, one of his talented hands softly stroking the skin of Danny's arm and back.

Jerott smiled, and Danny couldn't quite believe that finally, after so many years of hopeless pining, of believing Jerott would never be able to see Danny as anything more than a quirky friend, Jerott was here, and, evidently, happy to be here.

Jerott's gently wandering hand smoothed over Danny's skin, moving up to cup Danny's cheek. He kissed Danny with deep, unhurried passion. He smelled of tobacco and toasted cumin, his lips were hot and softer than Danny had even dreamed of - and Danny had dreamed of them a lot. His fingers moved through the fuzz of the short hair at the side and back of Danny's head and up to tousle the curls that grew longer on top.

Without breaking his single-minded focus on kissing Danny better than Danny had ever been kissed before, Jerott levered himself up on his elbow and rolled Danny gently onto their back. Jerott's body shuffled closer, his hip nudged up against Danny's hip and he leaned over Danny to deepen the kiss.

Danny sighed with pleasure and let sleepy, languid hands trace points of Jerott's body - his collarbones rising to skin as he pushed into the kiss, the black hairs that grew over his chest and down in a line past his navel.

Jerott moved a hand to stroke the curls off Danny's face and broke the kiss gently, with a hint of wistful reluctance.

Danny blinked at him, wondering where on earth the ready archive of clever retorts Danny possessed had got to. There was no chance of being witty with Jerott looking down at them like that: his face was framed by a soft fall of black hair, his mouth was still open a little, a stunned smile curving the edge, and his dark eyes, this close, looked endless with possibilities that made Danny shiver.

Jerott's smile grew as he gazed at Danny and then he let out a chuckle. "Hey..."

Danny heard the inane reply, "Hey..." emerge from their own lips and observed that Jerott had already dragged Danny down to his intellectual level. But Danny was grinning like a fool, their skin prickled with excitement as Jerott looked at them like that, and frankly not even the satisfaction of the perfect clever comment compared with that feeling.

"You want breakfast?" Jerott asked, and his eyebrows flew up at Danny's ecstatic response.

Danny had thought the morning had begun perfectly already, and yet there was Jerott, piling pleasure upon pleasure. "I want you, in my kitchen, wearing nothing but my Soviet pinny and working your magic on my shakshuka, yes."

Jerott's smirk was only somewhat bemused. He bit his lip and said with measured innocence, "Whatever you want to call it, Danny..."

[theartistknownaslymond]

Cheek kisses for D/J

The small kitchen table was piled so high with food Danny could barely see Jerott sitting behind it all.

"Are you in hiding, doudou?"

Jerott's dark eyes, wide with trepidation, peered at them over the stacks of bagels and samosas. "Are you in disguise?"

Danny put mock-offended hands on their hips. Hips that were enclosed in a slinky black cotton dress, showing the soft curve of belly and braless, fleabite breasts. The dress was long enough to cover Danny's knees and accessorised with new, floral Docs, tasteful silver jewellery, and maroon dark lipstick. Even the eyeshadow was restrained - by Danny's standards - a pale smoky haze that didn't take away from the pout. A sensible grey mohair cardigan was draped over one arm, but Danny couldn't quite bring themselves to put that on yet.

"Excuse me? I look perfect."

Danny dropped the cardigan with a flourish over the chairback in front of them.

Jerott tried, but he couldn't stop his eyes from dropping to check every line of the dress. He didn't disagree, Danny saw.

Danny loved to see this expression on his face - a bit flushed, a bit lost, a bit smitten. It made Danny's heart race every time.

"You don't need to pretend for her..." Jerott said eventually, chewing his lower lip as he checked Danny's expression, worry still a shadow in his eyes.

Danny smirked and dropped a hand to the back of the chair opposite Jerott's. The fine chains on their arm tumbled elegantly over their shapely wrist. "Pretend what?"

Jerott's eyes narrowed. He was too well practiced in such leading questions now, and sat back, turning his attention to the immaculate, symmetrical tower of cream cheese bagels.

"That you're not a filthy jazz animal with an addiction to pickled herring and cotignac?" Jerott surveyed the spread of food they'd spent all weekend preparing, and all of a sudden Danny could read his wicked intentions plainly.

"Jazz animal!" Danny exclaimed, delighted and committed to not showing it. "Wait - filthy?"

A slinky dress called for a slinky step, and Danny rounded the table, eyes watching Jerott like he was an untrustworthy pet at a buffet table. "Doudou, don't you dare..."

"Hmm?" Jerott raised a hand to flutter his fingers threateningly over the snacks.

"Jerott, I spent an age getting that tower of bagels even, you can't take one now!" A note of alarm entered Danny's voice.

"My mum won't even notice, Danny, don't worry..."

This was his way of distracting himself from his own unease at the first meeting, Danny knew. But stacking the bagels had been Danny's way of dealing with it, and now Jerott was interfering with the carefully curated image Danny wished to present to la formidable Madame Bensaïd.

Jerott grabbed a bagel and Danny lunged to stop him. But half the damned bagel was in his mouth even with Danny's hand on his wrist and Danny yelping out, "I'm the animal?!"

Jerott laughed, tried not to choke, and chewed on the too-large bite with difficulty, leaning away from Danny as Danny loomed over his chair.

That remorseless smirk, the dimple that was at war with the bulging cheek full of bagel turned out to be too tempting a target.

Danny grabbed his jaw and planted the biggest, poutiest kiss that could be achieved on Jerott's face.

Jerott protested around the bagel, feeling the waxy residue that remained on his skin. A near perfect red smear formed an 'o' on his cheek.

Danny folded their arms to look down at their handiwork. "You deserve it."

But Jerott was standing, a new mischief in his eyes that Danny understood too late.

"Oh, no!"

Jerott shoved the other half of the bagel into his mouth as messily as he could. There was cream cheese everywhere and Danny hesitated, transfixed with horror for a second too long.

Jerott grabbed Danny around the waist and smacked his own cheesy kiss on Danny's cheek as Danny gave a shriek of thrilled disgust.

"Quequette! Crotte de bordel!" Danny squirmed in Jerott's hold, dissolving into appalled peals of laughter and pretending to fight as Jerott left more bagely kisses on Danny's cheek and Danny no longer knew whether Jerott was depositing cheese with each touch of his lips or kissing it off Danny's skin.

They only stopped scrambling with one another when a polite cough interrupted them, and Danny opened their eyes to see la formidable herself, Jerott's mysterious mother, standing in the kitchen doorway.

She held her designer handbag before her a little like a shield, her eyes round - they're just like Jerott's! Danny thought hysterically - her outfit as immaculately chic as Danny had predicted it would be.

«I heard shouting, and the door was open,» Kahina gestured behind her.

Jerott's grip on Danny tightened before it loosened. He straightened, holding onto Danny's waist with one hand and using the other to hide his own cough and to wipe the remnants of bagel from his mouth.

"Yemma," he said with a measure of contrition.

Danny was torn between the sight of Kahina - in flowing silk scarf, black blouse, white Chanel trousers, with exquisitely blow-dried and styled black hair - and the messy red mark on Jerott's cheek that he seemed to have forgotten about.

Kahina looked puzzled and concerned, but she smiled. "T'es Danny?"

Danny summoned the fortitude necessary to nod and agree that that was, indeed, who they were.

Kahina's smile remained warm, and she fished in her handbag and handed a tissue to each of them.

«It's good to meet you at last,» she said, composed now as though she were about to be seated at a Michelin restaurant. «I would apologise for my son,» she said, which was the kind of introduction Jerott had promised she would give him, and which made Danny's heart ache a little with protectiveness. «But I see you understand already how to deal with him,» Kahina added. The shy twinkle of fun she said it with left Danny with a stupefied grin and a twinge of emotional whiplash.

Kahina turned to the spread of food and grasped a bagel of her own without preamble, letting out a purr of joy as she raised it to her red lips.

«Ah, my god! You can't get them this good outside Le Marais!»

Clearly she had no interest in the even stacking of the tower either, and Danny let out a laugh of relief and received an equally relieved grin from Jerott. «Well, I did live there for a few years...» Danny said, pulling a chair out for Jerott's mother.

Now she was here and the anticipatory worrying was passed, Danny felt confident that they would get on famously.

[theartistknownaslymond]

[theartistknownaslymond]

@erinaceina is 100% correct that '80s Danny would rewrite this Yiddish ballad about the 1916 flu for the AIDS crisis

[theartistknownaslymond]

Danny and Adam having fun with Jewish/Yiddish folk (and possibly some Georgian for Adam)?

Playlist 1  -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-  Playlist 2

....this got out of hand.

Playlist 1 is packed full of Jewish protest songs, folk from the Caucasus, and Theremin takes on the classics. Potential TW: it’s been reported that Spotify’s autoplay algorithm has followed this playlist up with Bettina Wegner’s song in memory of those killed in camps during the Shoah. If you want to avoid Spotify triggering you with its helpful suggestions, make sure you switch off Autoplay (link gives a how to).

Playlist 2 is founded on Jewish musicians, but includes other things that are just Vibes for these characters. It’s perhaps a bit easier to listen to if you just want background bops.

I’ll pop a bit of context under the cut, but feel like I’ve probably done enough here. 🤐

FCs are: Billy Mackenzie (from the Dundee band The Associates) and Jonathan Richman, Adam 1 & 2 respectively; actors Freddie Fox and Maya Hawke, Danny 1 & 2, respectively.

For anyone reading this who’s new to the AU, Adam’s family are Jewish emigres from Soviet Georgia, and Danny is a runaway non-binary Rabbi’s child.

By and large, these are ‘period-appropriate’, though I snuck a few mid-’90s things in, notably Tofa’ah (1), because it’s such catchy Jewish pop and, well, you can talk of the ‘long 1980s’ in terms of style, right...? The Divine Comedy (2) is really a QP vibe, but wasn’t released until the early ‘90s, and Neil Hannon’s archness fits Adam and Danny well too.

A lot of the Yiddish folk on 1 has probably been done in a more palatable-to-modern-ears style by people like Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird, but this playlist proves there were compilations available by the 1980s! The Anon tracks are from a compilation of music of the Caucasian Mountain Jews released in Israel, so not strictly from the Georgian Jewish community in Mtskheta, but the musical style is probably pretty similar, it has enough in common with Georgian folk already.

While Danny has some Yiddish, and both have some Hebrew, I think the music in 1 is mostly stuff that has formed the background to who they are - they can belt out the big songs at family gatherings, are delighted when they find any overlap in what they know, but by and large it’s not what they play. Again, except for Adam at family gatherings, when it’s insisted upon.

Yes, Playlist 2 starts with a Joy Division track. Musically, I think Adam is a big fan, though if he’s playing covers he probably goes out of his way to have a bit of very Jewish patter with Danny first, for the audience’s sake, just to put the music in context (among a number of ‘80s bands, Joy Division made use of N*zi aesthetics, and, well there’s that band name). But I think Adam and Danny are the kind of people who would see some naive kids mucking about with ‘edgy’ imagery like that and go ‘yoink! We’re having your music then!’

Golden Brown (2), not Jewish, but Adam does have that history of drug abuse. There’s a fair bit from French Jewish artists on 2 as well: Barbara, Sapho, Marcel Dadi and Jean-Jacques Goldman, all of which will be Danny favourites (Danny worked in kitchens in Paris at some point while playing woodwind in various jazz cafés). T’Pau is also there for Danny - I was reminded that it’s actually a song about Frankenstein (no, really), and I thought that might resonate with Danny and creating their own identity on leaving home. Aquarium is for Adam though - the band got in trouble at Tbilisi rock festival in the early ‘80s for making lewd moves with their instruments.