#excerpt from my WIP

[gryfferin-gaybies]

"Just give me a chance, Draco. We can start over like I'm someone you've just met. It'll be like—"

"But you're not!" Draco interrupted him. His voice was louder than what would've been considered appropriate for his work place and laced with urgency; he was practically begging Harry to understand. "You're not someone I just met! You're someone I know inside and out and yet still not at all. Looking at you still gives me that same I-can-do-absolutely-anything feeling like no time has passed whatsoever. You have no idea what just being around you does to me!" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his tone was lower and lacked the borderline hysteria he was feeling. "I don't want to take the time to relearn you, Potter, because it would be too easy and I couldn't handle having to try to forget you again."

[writeblrfantasy]

EXCERPT FROM DAYBREAKERS: katirina volonov

Meredith bows her head, arms clasped behind her back. “Ladies, may I present Lady Katirina Volonov, royal cursebreaker and personal agent to the king.”

“Holy shit, you insane son of a bitch. You actually managed to do it.” Evelin manages a laugh. “I have to congratulate you, Mer. I did not think even you could pull that off.”

Meredith crosses her arms, tosses her hair. “I know. You said so. Numerous times.”

Evelin sighs. “Nice moment over. so, she’s with us.”

“She can speak for herself,” Katirina says, confirming Evelin’s assessment that she doesn’t like to hide behind anyone else. “I, on highly specific conditions, have agreed to work with your crew for the duration of your mission, and agreed to look the other way when I report back to His Majesty of any illegalities I may have observed in your company. And for a high price.”

“What did you promise her?” Ruth is the first to ask, beating Evelin to it. Meredith is more shrewd than she seems to some, smarter and wiser than they give her credit for as just their handler.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now,” Meredith replies breezily, conveying silently that none of them except perhaps Nell will get an answer out of her on that front, and they shouldn’t try. Evelin knows not to waste her breath.

“Ruth,” comes Bath’s voice, “I do not trust her.”

“Neither do I,” Ruth utters back, not making the effort to lower her voice.

Katirina raises blue painted nails to point at Bath’s form, hovering above Ruth like a silent companion. “Is—is that a demon? Bonded to you? Do you have a permit for possession and subservience of that creature? Where are its chains?”

“That thing happens to be my boyfriend, and he is a free agent, no chains necessary,” Ruth growls, hands clenching into fists. Bath does not glow with anger as he does whenever someone is foolish enough to insult Ruth, although he almost never needs to actually step in on her behalf. Either Ruth handles them herself, or his presence scares silly any would be attackers who don’t know to keep their mouths shut.

The only time Evelin’s ever seen him fight for Ruth alone was when Ruth lay bleeding on the ground, drifting between consciousness and something darker. Where Ruth goes, Bath likes to follow, and they’ve always handily dodged the question Neither of them want to find out.

“You signed on,” Meredith reminds her, casting her a raised eyebrow. “Magical contract and all.”

“Contract?” Evelin snaps. “I don’t like legalities.”

“Then you made a mistake bringing a royal cursebreaker on,” Katirina says.

“Legalities that leave a paper trail,” Evelin clarifies. “I’ll have you know I run a perfectly legitimate tailoring and designing shop on the shore back south, and you’ll never find a file off or a mistake in my taxes in your endless royal file archives. It’s things like this, things that require discretion, where I like to keep stamps and notaries and signatures out of it.”

“She wouldn’t sign on without the reassurance that her ass was safe in our company, and after as well,” Meredith says with a shrug.

Nell laughs, reminding them of her presence and speaking for the first time since Katirina walked in. “You’re a fool if you think a piece of paper will keep my wife from taking whatever revenge she might need to take on you.”

Katirina swallows, visibly unsettled for the first time. Evelin eases up a little at that, the sight that this stiff crown rat can be unshaken indeed. Yes, everyone has a weakness, but to see one instead of having to go hunting for it is always nice. Evelin doesn’t dare hope something on this damned mission will be easy, but perhaps the cursebreaker will be the least of their worries.

That thought isn’t as comforting as she first thought.

Ruth rolls her eyes. “Well, I’ll leave the stuffy upper crust assholes to each other. I have better things to do.” Bath melting back into her, she beckons Nell and Meredith out, Summer sleeping gods know where, peaceful. Evelin envies her for the moment.

Best get this trust bonding exercise over with sooner than later. Evelin stifles a sigh and pats the seat right next to her, deliberately sprawling out comfortably if only to see the discomfort on Katirina’s face. Evelin remembers all those dinners as a kid, the stiffness in her back and the certainty that her shoulders would never be anything but square again. Now, it makes her torso ache just to see such posture. “Park it here. Let’s talk.”

daybreakers taglist: @magic-is-something-we-create @chayscribbles @antique-symbolism @mallthologist @ihernglass @memento-morri-writes @indigocastor

[adhd-merlin]

my lying blorbo 💕

[lfm-writes]

Excerpt from Ch. I-don't-know-what

Flashback - 9 years ago

The weight of Ward's arms around her waist did little to anchor her to the reality unfolding before her. Her mind screamed at her to move. To do something, anything. She couldn't. She was frozen. And it didn't matter anyway.

Alaric's eyes stared up at the sky. Empty. Blood leaked from the wound in his unmoving chest. Her senses bottomed out, her mind desperately clawing at itself, frantically trying to be anywhere but here. All she could hear was a dull roar that seemed to grow in time with her blurring vision and weakening knees.

She was trembling too. Or maybe it was Ward, she couldn't be sure. Her cheeks were soaked in her own tears. They mingled with the mist that hung in the air like the silence that now surrounded them. The black sand of the desert yawned out in front of her, swallowing everything, everyone.

She slowly looked up to meet Elliott's gaze, his features twisted into a smug snarl.

"Monster," Teddy managed to whisper.

His nostrils flared as though he'd heard her, but he said nothing. He turned and murmured something to his second-in-command, a hulking yellow-haired man whose responding sneer sent a shiver of warning down her spine. She looked around and met Galen's gaze from across the training yard. He shook his head once, his normally jovial features coated in a mask of fear. The others from Blue Ribbon had already disappeared -- to where, she wasn't sure. A second rendezvous point she was unaware of. Her attention was drawn back to the yellow-haired man as he stalked toward Teddy and Ward. She watched as Elliott wordlessly mounted his snow white steed and took off, a host of Belham guards following in his sandy wake. Ward whipped Teddy behind him, her head lolling from the sudden, aggressive movement.

Elliott's man had reached them in a few long strides, his momentum not slowing. "You can't take her," Ward said, his voice miraculously camouflaging his fear. The yellow-haired man laughed and drew back a metal-clad hand, smacking Ward across the face with enough force to send him flying into the sand.

Teddy couldn't stop the scream that ripped from her throat. Ward was on his feet in a heartbeat, blood coursing from his now-broken nose. He wiped it on his sleeve, eyes not leaving Teddy. They exchanged a glance -- one that he was using to tell her something, though she was in no state to decipher his meaning. Her mind was splintered, its fragments spread before her like pieces of a broken mirror, reflecting back to her every mistake that had led to this moment.

"Evening, princess," the yellow-haired man taunted, his voice a surprisingly nasal tenor that didn't match his imposing appearance. She took a small step backward and blindly fumbled for the blades she normally kept strapped to her thighs. They were in the barn -- freshly polished.

Before she could say or do anything, Ward was leaping onto the man's back, a warrior's screech echoing through the yard. "Teddy, get out of here!"

She took another step back. "No, no, no," she mumbled through sobs. The yellow-haired man had pinned Ward in a matter of seconds. Teddy was a statue -- her terror betraying all of her training.

"Please, Teddy, go!"

Teddy had never hated anything or anyone more than herself the moment she turned and ran into those endless obsidian dunes.

[dss1101]

"Jason is smart, okay? Though that may not exactly be the first word that comes to mind when most people think of the Red Hood. Words like brute, violent, and crazy, sure, those are words he expects. It’s not like they’re untrue, and he worked hard to cultivate that image of himself, thank you very much. But being Robin’s a tough gig, you don’t survive being Robin if you aren’t smart. 

Huh, maybe he’s not as smart as he thinks."

I love writing Jason because he's an overflowing container of a backstory worthy of dark humor. Ugh he's the best

[bbcphile]

WIP Wednesday (MLC longfic again!)

Now that my amnesia fic is posted, it's time for more of my MLC longfic! At long last, LLH is awake again . . . and not doing that well.

(You can find earlier excerpts here.)

CW/TW: Panic attack, bicha flare, suicidal ideation

Something was different. The pain was there as always, waiting to devour him whole once he acknowledged it, but there was something else, something blanketing it, muting it somehow.

Li Lianhua stretched out his senses like a limb and tried to make sense of it.

Ah. Warmth. That was the strange sensation. Warmth–heat, even–all around him–his back, his chest, his legs, even his fingers, which had been more like blocks of ice than flesh and blood these last few months.

He leaned back, pushing into the banked heat behind him. The solid core of warmth tucked against his front from navel to neck twitched, then pressed against him more securely, as though it could make a home for itself inside his sternum, ribs, and spine and heat him from within.

He felt warm everywhere.

Well, almost everywhere.

He rolled forward slightly, wiggled further down on the bed, and tugged the core of warmth up higher. He curled his arms and shoulders around it and nestled the bit in his hand between his face and the pillow until it cradled his cheek. 

Much better.

He smiled into his new, warmer pillow and let himself start to relax back into sleep.

“Xiangyi?”

The warmth against his face gradually took shape as his skin and mind began to wake. That was a finger–no, several fingers. A hand. A large hand. And those calluses–how could he not know them when they had clashed steel with him, choked him, clinked brimming cups of wedding wine with him, even been inside him, taking him apart with a gentleness he hadn’t known they could profess.

He let his awareness spread throughout his body, setting aside the pain, and yes, that was a-Fei’s chest he had pressed himself against, like Huli Jing requesting head scritches, and those were a-Fei’s legs, tangled with his, and that was a-Fei’s breath rustling his hair–less now than it had been a moment ago–and that was indeed a-Fei’s arm he was clutching like a child would a favorite toy. 

But a-Fei had been holding him first.

Why was a-Fei holding him? It was one thing to wake up in each others’ arms in the newly wed room, after their  . . . exertions. Before a-Fei knew that any real dream of a future was doomed to fail.

But to hold him now? After he’d given away the wangchuan flower and left a-Fei behind, left their promise behind? To hold him like he still mattered. Like he wasn’t a curse who killed everyone he’d ever cared about. Like he was some sort of treasure . . .

Treasure . . . 

Cabinets stained in blood, Xiaobao’s blood–

“Xiaobao,” he gasped, flinging himself free and to his feet. Where was Xiaobao? He had to find him, had to heal him, before it was too late–

“Xiangyi! Sit down!” A-Fei caught him as his legs buckled and lowered him back onto the bed. 

Why wasn’t Xiaobao here? Had he killed him, too, just like he killed everyone he cared about? 

“Duobing,” a-Fei roared. “Get in here. Now!” Callused fingers cupped both sides of his face, turning it gently but firmly toward him. “Xiangyi, look at me. He’s alright. He’s on his way.” 

“How could he be alright?” Li Lianhua gasped, clutching at his shoulders, the already blurry world turning more hazy. “I saw the blood!”

“I healed him. He’s safe,” a-Fei said, cradling his head as though he could hold the shattering pieces of his mind together. “Now breathe.” 

Li Lianhua choked on an inhale, his lungs spasming, only managing to draw in a desperate wheeze.

A-Fei cursed and dropped to his knees by the bed, pressing one hand to Li Lianhua’s back and the other to his chest, filling both with a familiar warmth that began to break apart the iron bands strangling his throat and lungs. “Try again. Feel my hands. Press against them when you inhale.”

The next breath shook and spluttered like a dying candle but some air squeaked through nonetheless.

“Good.” A-Fei gave his back a short supportive pat. “Again.”

Lotus Tower shook as footsteps pounded toward the bed. “What’s wrong?” panted a beautifully familiar, impossible voice. “Xiaohua’er?”

“Bicha,” a-Fei growled, rising from the floor to kneel on the bed at his side, his hands still bracketing him on either side. “He thinks you’re dead. Show him the scab.”

“Shit,” the Xiaobao-shaped hallucination cursed. It seemed especially cruel of hallucinations to now match the blurriness of their surroundings. It made them seem far too real.

The hallucination knelt at his feet and took his hands. “It’s me, Xiaohua’er,” it said, tears in its eyes and voice. “I’m alright. A-Fei healed me. See?” It brought his hand up to a spot on the back of his skull and pressed his fingers to a crusted, raised line on its scalp. “I’m right here and I’m alright. Do you believe me?”

He could feel it. Why could he feel it? His fingers had always passed through hallucinations before. And even when he’d dreamt of Xiaobao, or of a-Fei, of holding them again, it hadn’t felt as real as this. His fingers traced the ridges of the scab–a perfectly neat seam–then the silk curtain of hair that covered it. 

This was Xiaobao’s hair. The texture, the thickness, what he could see of the color–no hallucination could do justice to this. 

This was his Xiaobao.

He was alive.

“Xiaobao,” he cried, turning his head this way and that to make sure it was the only injury. “You’re alright!”

Xiaobao’s bright smile shone through despite the haze his eyes imposed on everything. “Told you. No harm done. So focus on taking care of yourself, ok, lao huli?”

Li Lianhua huffed out a wet attempt at a scoff and bopped the side of his head. “No harm? What do you call this?”

Xiaobao captured his hands with his and brought them down from his head to rest between them. “Less serious than a Bicha attack. How are you feeling?”

Li Lianhua blinked. A Bicha attack? He turned his attention inward to his qi, and–

Ah. There was a-Fei’s Beifeng Baiyang, somehow wrapped around his Yangzhouman and pushing the last of the poison back into the recesses where it would lie in wait, coiled and ready for the next attack. The black tinge was almost gone from his veins.

He had been so worried about Xiaobao that he hadn’t even realized.

A-Fei had probably saved his life. Again. 

He shouldn’t have bothered.

[allianettemie5]

Tay: Ever since they made up, they've become unbearable. I really hope they don't start fucking around from now on.

Skadj: Ew, Tay! Now I can't get the picture out of my head!

Cheesy: Oh my god, my dads are fucking each other, Kara, you've been replaced.

Kara: Shut up, Cheesy, your father and I are in a healthy relationship.

Jeremy: I'm wondering who's the top in their relationship...

*Chilled and Ze enter the room.*

[aintgonnatakethis]

Last Line Tag/WIP Excerpt

Thank you to @wyked-ao3 for the tag! 😄

Am adding the excerpt tag in here because I feel like this needs to be read in one lump to do justice to itself. Content warning for trauma due to racism, homophobia, and child abuse. I love Telford but I am not kind to him.

"How long?!" Telford hisses. "How long have you been doing this to me?!" He sounds deranged, drops of spittle flying wildly from his mouth and landing on Everett's face, but it isn't anger driving him anymore. He can't put a name to the emotion, beyond comparing it to being a child and he had done something the details of he can't even recall now and bad things had happened and afterwards he remembers with startling clarity wishing he could go back to before he had misbehaved so he could make it work out differently because things were never going to be the same again because to a child every time something like that happens to you it's the end of the world all over again. "David…" Everett says, and they are no longer children, Telford knows, though it weighs on him like a heavy cloak he is carrying across his shoulders and he has been carrying it for so long he doesn't even try to escape its hold anymore. In this moment he is not First Lieutenant David Telford. He is five and he already knows why the white children treat him differently. He is eight and he shoots a gun for the first time and he feels it. He is twelve and terrified of this thing growing inside him. He is fourteen and standing humiliated and defiant as his mother finds his gay porn magazine and proudly presents it to his father. I always knew, she had said. There was always something wrong with him. With his type there always is. His father's reaction had been disinterest - as was his most common reaction to anything involving Telford - which had made it worse. If his father had been angry it would have meant he cared, if he had tried to dish out a beating Telford could have fought back; but what was he to do when his mother took a belt to him? It wasn't as if he could raise his hand to her. "David?" Everett's voice sounds very far away, even though Telford realises he is pressing his face into the man's shoulder. He is shaking. He is shaking because he is crying. He cannot remember the last time he cried. Everett's arms are around him and Telford wants to punch him. He can't let anyone see this in him. It's poison. If he lets it out it will consume until there's nothing left.

Tagging: @fortunatetragedy @the-golden-comet @lancedoncrimsonwings @finickyfelix @gioiaalbanoart + OPEN

[gaslightgirlsummer]

so i think i might have accidentally manifested something here

[artemx746]

It was safe to say that he would be sleeping with one eye open (at least that was something Nakamura didn’t have the luxury of).

Apollo in book 1 and 2 is such a little bitch and he's so fun to write

[cc-writes-stuff]

Heads Up Seven Up!

Thanks @frostedlemonwriter for the tag! Here’s seven lines from chapter nine of away from hallowed ground!

Paya frowns, but leans forward and takes it. Flips it around. The frown on her face gets deeper.

“Is that cursive?” She asks, handing the notebook to Camilla. Scowls at Theodore. “I can’t read that shit.”

Camilla, too, frowns at it. “This is… hmm…”

Theodore sighs. “Here, let me.”

Not too much action, just the gang trying to read Theodore’s fancy-ass handwriting lol.

Tagging the following people if they want to join! @tracle0 @ryns-ramblings @notwritinganyflufftoday @daisywords @aurumni-writes and anyone who wants to join in!

[ninichii-xcix]

“No matter how badly he hurt and scarred me, he is — and always will be — my better half. My soulmate. I loved him then when I was young and hopeful and quite naive, and I will continue to love him until the end of my days when I’m old and slow and wise enough to know better.”

[therealsophiependragon]

“Well, I’m not the strategist,” Zuko pointed out - a bit crabbily, by Azula's judgement.

“Nah, you’re just the sole ruler of the Fire Nation,” Toph returned dryly. “No overlap there.”

[landwriter]

Throwing vague Hobrinthian inspiration your way. You'd write them so deliciously.

Thank you!! Back in January I wrote 8K of them - I think it's honestly my favourite thing I've written or close to it <3 Just Like Love. The Corinthian comes across Hob in a hotel bar after he's stood up in 1989. Things don't go as planned.

Here's an excerpt from the continuation of that 'verse:

---

Hob Gadling isn’t his boyfriend. Hob is better. He’s a soldier, a hunter, a haunted man, and it makes every grain of the Corinthian sing to know that one of the ghosts rattling around in there is him. Of course it is. He’s memorable. Doesn’t change how good it feels, though, to have been followed across the Atlantic by something almost as hungry as him.

Hob is holding a plastic bag, and the Corinthian can smell the meat from here.

“Fresh from Lancashire,” he says, all fucking casual-like.

The Corinthian walks over, hooks a finger into the bag and pulls it open to see what it is. Black pudding, he thinks. He’s standing close to Hob, close enough to feel how Hob notices it, how his pulse quickens a little. He still smells like airports. He thinks Hob will wrap an arm around him, pull him in. Kiss him filthy right here in his kitchen. Hob doesn’t do anything but let him inspect his gift. He looks up, and pretends he’s disappointed about the offering instead. He should be.

“I’m not a fucking reptile in a terrarium. You don’t need to buy me crickets.”

“Well. Thought this was more on the mice side of the scale.” And then his face does that hideous English thing, where he’s obviously hurt but smiles and pretends he isn’t, which isn’t half as fun when it’s just his feelings. “But you don’t have to-” he starts, all fake cheer, and the Corinthian grits his eyeteeth.

“Stop making that face,” he says, and snatches the bag away. Sees too late Hob smiling a little, and realizes he was playing at being injured, just to get him to come closer. He sets it on the counter, and feels Hob close right up behind him. There’s warm breath on the back of his neck for a moment before Hob speaks.

“You sure? Maybe it’s a bit like feeding wild foxes. Shouldn’t do that.”

The Corinthian turns and uses his height to bully Hob against the fridge, presses him there, then murmurs into Hob’s ear, threatening, just the way he likes. “You think I’ll forget how to feed myself?”

Hob is already hard against his thigh and he tilts his head up, to kiss the side of his neck. His heart is thumping so steady and strong the Corinthian wonders if he’s got a bigger heart working in there, one to power all his hunger. A horse heart, crushed into his ribcage.

“Maybe I’d like it if you forgot,” Hob says. “Maybe I’d like to spoil you. Maybe I’d like you to try eating out of my hand. See if you don’t like it better, to be fed by another.” He says it flirtatiously, covering up the tenderness there with hunger, because he knows the Corinthian’s mother tongue. But he hears the tenderness in it still, and it ripples over his instincts like a different kind of threat. A different kind of snare. Still wire-sharp. He knows he’d draw blood if he struggled in it, even if Hob would let him go the moment he really did. That’s why he stills, he figures. That’s why he goes all limp, submissive.

Hob feels it. Hob knows exactly what he’s done, and he runs a soft hand over the back of his neck, like he’s tamed him. The Corinthian finally twitches away roughly.

“Kinky.” He grabs the forgotten sausage and starts slicing it to be fried. And Hob just laughs, like it was the joke they were making together all along.

---

Twenty minutes later, he’s kneeling on the floor, still wearing his apron that says #1 Grill Dad, and Hob is feeding a cut-up piece of fried black pudding to him. It’s overcooked. They’d gotten distracted. He licks a stripe across Hob’s palm and feels the small muscles twitch under his tongue. Hob’s hand withdraws, and comes back a moment later to stroke the back of his head, dull nails scraping invisible tracks along him. It feels good. He hates it, he thinks.

He leans forward, and nuzzles against Hob’s crotch. The denim chafes his cheeks. Hob groans and ruts into him, his idle hand on his head turned greedy, knotting into his hair. Hob pulls him off, and he looks up, mouth hanging open.

“You going to bite it off if I let you?” he asks.

“Will it grow back?”

Hob sucks in air through his teeth and pretends like he’s considering it too. “You want to take the chance and find out that it doesn’t?”

“Nah,” he says, and Hob laughs and unbuttons his jeans.

---

He blames it on being fucked stupid for the first time in weeks. He blames it on being dark in the room. He blames it on Hob wrapped around him from behind, possessive. “You’d really care for me, huh?”

Hob scoffs, then seems to realize he’s not fucking around. His hand comes around and finds the Corinthian’s throat, and he strokes a line along where his pulse should be. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘course I would.”

“You can’t save me, Hob,” he says.

Hob huffs a laugh against his shoulder blades. “Well, then you won’t mind me trying, will you?”

[lfm-writes]

Excerpt from Ch. 2

She thought her eyes were open but it was impossible to tell. She might as well have been swimming in a pot of ink, though that, at least, would've likely made noise. She stayed very still, hoping that one of her senses would pick up on something -- anything. Suddenly, a scene began to unfold silently before her. The images were grainy and black-and-white, but she could make out that she appeared to be watching herself. The Teddy that she could see -- black-and-white Teddy -- was frantically unlocking the door to a hovercraft that did not belong to her. Black-and-white Teddy kept looking back over her shoulders, as though she were worried that she was being followed. A figure sat in the driver's seat of the hovercraft -- a girl, it looked like. Small and feminine. Black-and-white Teddy finally unlocked the passenger's door and slid into the seat, slamming the door shut behind her. She found herself fumbling for the craft's lock in the door panel. As the doors clicked closed, Teddy realized that she was no longer watching the scene unfold from afar -- she was in it. She turned to the girl to say something, but whatever it had been died in her throat. For it was no girl that stared back at her. An opaque figure, featureless save for two white, glowing orbs where its eyes should be, looked at her from its place in the driver's seat. It faced her fully, crouched in the seat like an animal. It reached one long arm in her direction, gently touching her where her neck met her collarbone, its fingers ice cold. She felt her heart stutter and then stop.

[dss1101]

" “I was on a mission to take out the chandeliers in the foyer, but construction on the gym finished before I could get them all.” 

“There’s only one chandelier in the foyer.” 

“Exactly.” "

Dick Grayson the man that you are. Baby Dick Grayson was on a mission to cause as much destruction as possible and honestly I respect it.