#scarlet-gryphon

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

for the ask request: burgundy and emerald, definitely

excuse how dare y'all <3 <3 <3 i love you too Gryph <3

[eleanorfenyx]

For the ask game:

What is the perfect environment for you to write in?

Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic?

Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

What is your most underrated fic?

What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written?

♥ Thank you for sending something back! Also in order of asking (and with the numbers of the asks fixed as promised lol):

(here's the link to the askgame for anyone curious)

5: Perfect environment to write in? - I wish I could say it's something nice and healthy-sounding like at my desk with a cup of hot chocolate yada yada yada but it is, unfortunately, in the dark in the middle of the night writing furiously on my phone to get my insomnia to be quiet and let me sleep. There's just something about that perfect storm of circumstances that leads me to bang out thousands of words at a time, thumbs flying, even if I'm super stuck every time I open my laptop when I could get so much more done so much faster if my brain would cooperate. So weird!

9: AU's vs. canon divergence vs. canon-compliant? - I've written all three and I really love them all in different ways at different times, but I think my favorite right now is AU's. I've been doing ones inspired by other media as well as just straight AU's (i.e. my Pacific Rim 3zun-centric AU vs. my ensemble/multiship 90's Strip Mall AU) and they're both super fun. I really really love getting to the point where I feel like I know characters well enough that I feel like I can pluck them up out of their source material and redesign their world to something new. Plus I get a really big kick out of people commenting that my characterization still feels realistic to them even when the circumstances are so different from canon.

12: A trope I haven't written but want to? - I think I'd really like to do something with identity porn/mistaken identity/shenanigans. I'm a big fan of miscommunication (done well, not just to draw things out unnecessarily [I have noped out of so many dramas for committing this crime against my sensibilities]) and I think that identity shenanigans can play into that really well. I read a lot of them and I think they're really fun, so I think I'd enjoy doing that sometime. Either that or mind-reading stuff like Cherry Magic AU's and the like, that also seems like such a good time.

16: My most underrated fic? - Hmm it's a bit of a tough choice. I think right now I feel like my ongoing 3zun-centric Pacific Rim AU 'Soldier, Poet, King' isn't getting nearly as much attention as I'd thought it might when I first started writing it. Pacific Rim AU's used to be everywhere back in the day and people ate that shit up like it was candy, and I suppose I'd expected that same excitement to still be around because why wouldn't people be excited about giant love-powered robots fighting aliens? I also started writing it while there was still a lot of really active buzz about Xiran Jay Zhao's fantastic 'Iron Widow', so the timing felt right and I'm really proud of what I've done for it so far, but alack alas it (feels like it) is going largely ignored. (Even accounting for the fact that 3zun is a much less popular ship than Wangxian, it still feels weirdly quiet)

18: A line/scene that I'm proud of and some commentary for it? - Two years ago almost to the day, I wrote/posted some of my first fic for CQL. It's a relatively short re-imagining of the Jingshi scene in episode 43, when Wei Wuxian is realizing that if he has no one else he still has Lan Wangji, and he comes in out of the cold to sit with his zhiji. They have a brief conversation about the time Lan Wangji spent waiting for Wei Wuxian and mourning him, and have this brief exchange:

“What if I had never come back?” [Wei Ying] whispers and the quiet heartbreak that shatters through Lan Zhan’s stoic facade steals his breath straight out of his lungs.

“I would have hoped for another lifetime together to be kinder to us.”

I'm still really proud of this even though it's so simple and I've written just shy of 800k other words, according to my AO3 stats. I think it really sums up Lan Wangji and his love for Wei Wuxian. If given no other choice but to wait then that's what he'll do, and he would have done it hoping that he and Wei Wuxian would be given another chance one day, because one lifetime just was not going to be enough. Like it would have hurt and he would have been in mourning until the moment of their unknown second chance arrived - and probably after too - but he would have seen no choice but to wait and hope. I feel like I hit the core of Lan Wangji's characterization (in the ways I want to write him, anyway) so it still colors everything I do with him in it.

20: Favorite minor character I've written? - MO. XUANYU. But particularly my Mo Xuanyu from my time-travel fix-it universe that was begun in my first ever longfic and has now spiralled outward into a much bigger universe than I'd originally thought it would. So basically Mo Xuanyu in this universe had the chance to grow up in Koi Tower from a young age, but a Koi Tower in which Jin Zixuan is the Sect Leader and Jin Guangshan is already dead. So he gets a very large, loving family who supports him and loves him for his oddities and his gender fuckery - that is 100% my self-projection - based solely on the fact that he was known in canon for wearing makeup. Like I took that and RAN with it, and now in my universe he's essentially a full-time feminine cross-dresser, though he identifies as both masculine and feminine and isn't too fussed about picking one or the other. He's everything I wish my gender fuckery could be, and I love him and want all good things for him, so I'm very attached to him. The very close runner up is my Lan Jingyi, both in that universe and in a more canon-compliant setting, so I feel like it's no wonder I got it in my head that they should be together in my fix-it universe lol.

[naomiknight-17]

Scarlet Gryphon requested "Tim Loaf" and I am completely sure this is exactly what they meant

I am raising money to fix my broken oven, click here to see how you can get a doodle!

[greenmaneheart]

Jovial ~

A little icon of my mascot :D

[thegildedacorn]

November 2024 Rough Trade - Terminus (Sign-ups End on November 15)

[wolfythewitch]

Hestia commission for @scarlet-gryphon!

[shimaen]

The rescue mission is going on track

Merry Chrisler to my giftee @scarlet-gryphon !!

#MESecretSanta23 #moshang

[houseoflibra]

Saint Seiya: Dark Wing Chapter 31: The Surplice's Memories

Page 1

Eulalia: - Scarlet Needle Antares Kick!!

Page 2

Page 3

Minos: - Ghwah!!

Page 4

Minos: - (What…?) - (My consciousness…) - (…as Minos, the Celestial Noble Star Gryphon…) - (My soul is becoming unstable…?!)

Page 5

Page 6

Minos: - (At this rate,) - (it won't be just my cosmo that will disappear. My soul will too…!) - Damn you… damn you!!

Page 7

Minos: - (No!) - (I refuse to accept it!)

Eulalia: - (Is that…) - (…the Gryphon Surplice?)

Page 8

Eulalia: - What an ominous cosmo…!

Minos: - My cosmo as a specter… I can still fight, - even if all I have left is my soul! - Yes, I have the perfect solution… - I captured Pandora and Necromancer before coming here.

Page 9

Minos: - I will be fine if I take their cosmo!

Pages 10 + 11

Eulalia: - No, wait!!

Minos: - Hahahah! Yes! - Those two are indeed ready, - just waiting for me, aren't they?

Page 12

Minos: - (Oh, Lady Pandora!) - (And you, Necromancer!)

Page 13

Minos: - (Give me your cosmo!!)

Yoruhime: - Celestial Noble Star Gryphon, - so you were shamefully defeated by the Scorpio Gold Saint, weren't you?

Page 14

Minos: - Defeated?! - If I will take your cosmo and go back to that vessel, this time I won't!

Yoruhime: - This time…?

Page 15

Minos: - Whaaa?!

Charlotte: - (Sigh…) - As warriors of the gods, - our strong beliefs and loyalty afford us great cosmo.

Page 16

Charlotte: - You were defeated by a Saint, - reduced to a mere soul, - and fled so shamelessly that you possessed that surplice. - Is that really what one of the Three Judges, close aids to Lord Hades, is supposed to look like?

Minos: - Damn you… - You lowly Necromancer - dare to address me, your superior, in such a manner?!

Charlotte: - Mort Resurrection!!

Page 17

Page 18

Minos: - What?! You were able to clear my cosmo threads - with a cosmo like yours?!

Charlotte: - You are currently nothing more than an ancient soul possessing a surplice... - You are like a vengeful spirit who possesses nothing - of the noble will of the Gryphon or any loyalty to Lord Hades!

Page 19

Charlotte: - You are not my enemy!!

Minos: - Grrr!!

Yoruhime: - You miserable soul, - risen in a twisted resurrection by an abhorrent power!

Page 20

Yoruhime: - By my hand, - may you rest in peace - once more.

Page 21

Minos: - This cosmo… - Is it soothing me and showing me compassion?…

Page 22

Yoruhime: - You will eventually be awakened again by a strong will. - Until then, - slumber peacefully among dreams of the night.

Minos: - (This cosmo feels like) - (a quiet and gentle night…)

Page 23

Minos: - (Forgive me… Lady Pandora.) - (I will go back to sleep now.)

Page 24

Charlotte: - In the end, he had a gentle cosmo, didn't he?

Yoruhime: - It appears that this surplice was used - to summon the most violent and cruel memories of the Celestial Noble Star Gryphon.

Charlotte: - The surplice… - …has memories?

Page 25

Yoruhime: - Perhaps surplices and cloths alike - harbor the memories and souls of those who wear them? - Maybe… - they can even transcend space-time or dimensions.

Charlotte: - Yeah… - maybe.

Yoruhime: - But it's still too early to relax, - Charlie.

Page 26

Yoruhime: - The cosmo barrier around the school is getting stronger.

Charlotte: - Huh?! - Then that means... - ...the Gryphon wasn't behind these incidents after all…

Yoruhime: - *nod*

?: - Well done, well done!

Page 27

Seirim: - Pandora, I didn't expect you to have - a cosmo technique like that!

Yoruhime: - So you're the one who used the Gryphon's surplice - to cause these incidents?

Seirim: - Yup! - (That was me!)

Page 28

Seirim: - I am a Clown of Lord Demiurgos, - one of the Four Horsemen, the "King of Diamonds", Seirim. - I am the one who was entrusted with conducting this "story", - the "Witch".

Page 29

Yoruhime: - (She called herself a Clown of Demiurgos…) - (They're completely unknown to specters and saints alike.) - (They're a formidable enemy…!)

Charlotte: - If I defeat you, - this barrier will be lifted, right?

Page 30

Seirim: - Ohh! - Despite appearances, you're unexpectedly aggressive, huh? - *giggle giggle* - Ok, sure! - I'll let you fight me, - little Charlotte!

Page 31

Yoruhime: - (Charlie hasn't been awake for very long,) - (and her cosmo was also considerably depleted breaking free of Gryphon's threads…) - (Shoichiro and the others aren't responding either.) - (Something must have happened to them.)

Page 32

Yoruhime: - (Harpy was supposed to lead the battle but she's out too.)

Zhu: - Yaaah!! - Jeez! - It's still standing?!

Yoruhime: - (And Sphinx) - (is also being kept out by the barrier.) - (The female Gold Saint was fighting against Gryphon…)

Page 33

Yoruhime: - (As for the other Gold Saint,) - (we should assume that he was also dealt with somehow.) - (And this was all…) - (…this Witch's doing!)

Page 34

Seirim: - *giggle giggle*

To be continued…

[valevod]

I had a megaman obsession 3 years ago and decided to redraw my ocs as i was lookin thru my old sketchbooks. The one on the left is called smth like Sound Woman,also has an artistic name (Scarlet Parrbot), a DJ who despite having to be loud during work is a little awkward and quiet. On the right is smth like Tool Man or idk, a park ranger bot filled with pockets for tools. He's nasty and egocentric, ready to correct you at any time.

And some even older ocs i recently redesigned. They are all around 7 years old !

Korbin is the demon fella, Eljin is the birdman guy, Fannie is the gryphon and Azazel is the angel guy :)

[halffizzbin]

@abbylee-here @scarlet-gryphon AMAZING NEWS, found the Baby again today and did not rest until I got the angle on her big front eyes. BEHOLD:

(Formally identifying her is turning out to be rough because the females in the Habronattus genus all look the same, and people selling them as pets give them random names that don’t refer to their species at all lol but my best guess is Habronattus hirsutus)

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Page 40 Author Notes

Page 40

She culled the Karens. ;)

Also alas Imogen can’t use Mage Hand to get things off high shelves at work because some customer would complain. Probably Esther Hayes.

In Ye Olden Times when the theory of humors in disease was still prevalent (debunked with the advent of germ theory in the 1850s but the practices based on it remained in common use until the late 19th century* ) the first treatment given to a patient would be to rid them of “excess” humors by bloodletting and inducing vomiting, doubtless rendering an already miserable person even moreso. Leeches, fire cupping, or a lancet were used for the former, and mustardseed or antimonials (made with the toxic metal antimony :[ ) were used for the latter. Mustardseed was also used to make poultices for sore throats and respiratory ailments. Licorice was used for sore throats and itchy skin. Baths from epsom salts or oatmeal were (and are) used to relieve the itchiness from rash-causing diseases like the one the town is currently experiencing.** Quinine was actually mostly used for malaria so one person is confused about what’s going around. Belladonna (aka deadly nightshade), although toxic, actually had some effectiveness as a preventative for scarlet fever if taken early after exposure. And laudanum, as I have mentioned before, was used for everything. So there’s some context for all the assorted shopping lists bombarding Imogen over the first three panels.

(* which I mention because Exandria’s technological level as of C3 seems to be early Industrial Era, although my Gelvaan aesthetic also has some 1880s and 1930s elements. And magical healing seems to be reserved for the privileged, given the high cost of healing potions, how many strings the relatively-anonymous Bells Hells had to pull to get help for Laudna, and the number of people who seem genuinely surprised when FCG offers them healing out of kindness. Most people probably rely on home remedies.)

** which hasn’t been made obvious yet but it will on the next page. You can see some suggestion of the eponymous scarlet on Imogen’s neck in the bottom left panel though.

So a long time and several fandoms ago a friend used to give me a hard time about my over-reliance on melodramatic Victorian novel disease as a plot device (specifically, targeting the heroine — or her best beloved — with it) so I imposed a rule on myself that I could only deploy it once per fandom (with the assumption that I’d have a different audience every time) and it had to drive the story forward. And friends, the time has come.

But I mean, come on. I couldn’t hang that gun on the wall and not have it go off and hit one of them.

This fandom’s enthusiasm for sickfics and whump in general has relaxed my stance a bit though. Before coming here I didn’t realize it was an entire genre and moreover, one that seems to target Imogen almost exclusively. If I had I might have leaned towards the alternative I also considered where Imogen tries futilely to convince an angry mob that obviously Laudna didn’t curse the town with a plague if she has it too. But then they’d be on the run before she had a chance to recover (you know, like after she got resurrected no I’m not still salty about it*** ) which isn’t a very satisfying chapter end. But fear not, this is all reciprocated in a later chapter.

A common thread I’ve noticed in sick Imogen fics though is that Laudna always seems to be much more calm and reassuring about it than she should be, haha. Imogen is the only thing in the world she genuinely cares about and she’s already half convinced that she’s always just a few missteps away from losing her forever. She’d be panicking.

(*** this is a lie. Also you know what else I’m still mad about? That she didn’t get that lil gryphon toy!! She clearly wanted it, she went in looking for a toy because she was feeling vulnerable and childlike and wanted the comfort of something simple intended to make a child happy. (Which is even more clear now since she was in the same regressive emotional state then as she has been recently after Ashton ate the lava shard, which she coped with by making another doll.) Fearne bought it and totally forgot about it. :( We could have had another meat-named doll character this entire time!!!

[naomiknight-17]

@scarlet-gryphon requested Leon Biscuits

And I am sure that this is exactly what they meant. Also I got a bit carried away

I like cats and I like cookies, what can I say

[greenmaneheart]

New mascot!~

Her name is Jovial. She's cheerful and optimistic, hence the name.

She also has an adoptive sister, named Stellar. They’re pretty close.

I'll be posting Stella's ref very soon.

[auburnlaughter]

tagged by @adhdavinci (thank you!). I happened to be on my computer when I got tagged, so excellent timing (I have a bunch of these types of games that I was tagged in way back that I wanted to do and I just haven't gotten around to them because whenever I remember them, I'm busy).

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like).

Poul gasped, then let out a shaky breath.

Okay, eight people. Let's see. @supernovasilence @post-and-out @aparticularbandit @sourb0i @anachronismstellar @somefishycat @scarlet-gryphon @kalira

No pressure on the tagging of course. It's just if you'd find it fun

[artistsfuneral]

@scarlet-gryphon said: "Jaskier had about five minutes before Geralt returned, and he still couldn't explain the presence of the duck."

Technically the witcher had seen him in far more precarious situations, far less clothed and much more hungover than he currently found himself to be. But- but there never had been a duck before. Partially because Jaskier couldn't figure out, not even now when the damned thing was sitting on his chest, why on earth anyone would ever want a duck in the bedroom at all, partially because he was aware of Geralt's distinct fear of dislike for birds. A dislike the witcher would have to overcome one way or another, given the fact that Jaskier was bound to the bed by his hands and therefore unable to ban the feathered voyeur himself. It certainly would be an interesting morning...

Send me the first sentence to a fic and I will write the next... 5ish?

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

I Wish I Could Quit You

(Brokeback Mountain Nielan) Excerpt 1

Less than three hours after I started the document...how about 3k words of The Tent Scene?

(cut to me wailing screaming crying etc about why can't I have similar bursts of inspiration for my ONGOING WIPS?!?! anyway it's fine I'm fine it's GRAND, I'M SO COOL ABOUT IT)

anyway, @wincestielfttfwin, @scarlet-gryphon, and @wishthatiwasnessiesgirl - here you go lol

--//--

The cold comes in as bitterly as the afternoon’s hailstorm had promised.

A little over an hour after they separate to go to sleep, the wind howls through the crags of the mountains enough to rattle the tent nearly off its pegs. When it dies down again in the darkest part of the night, its howling is replaced by the sound of Mingjue’s shivering just outside.

Xichen sits up, reluctant to leave the pocket of warmth in his sleeping bag but unwilling to let Mingjue continue this ridiculous crusade of his, acting like he isn’t freezing his ass (or really any/every other body part) off out there trying to sleep alongside the dead black coals of the evening’s fire. So Xichen sits up and he shivers even before he unknots one of the ties holding the oiled canvas together and parts it enough to just make out Mingjue’s hulking figure by the light of the moon.

“Mingjue,” he calls, sleepy around the edges. The shivering and chattering cuts off abruptly, guiltily. Xichen fights not to roll his eyes. “Just get in here.”

For a long moment, it seems like Mingjue’s going to pretend not to hear him; his stubbornness has already been made painfully apparent in the month or so they’ve been up here, Xichen wouldn’t be surprised if he stuck to his guns on this one and shivered through the night just to prove some ludicrous point. But in the end, after a long silence, he shudders to his feet and drags his paltry excuse for a blanket with him, enormous shoulders huddling inwards as he accidentally kicks their water jug with a tin-can clatter on his way back around the fire. Xichen makes short work of untying the rest of the knots holding the tent flaps shut with deft flicks of his fingers, and then there’s more shuffling and jostling than the poor tent should ever really be asked to contain as Mingjue hurries into the promise of warmth.

Xichen ties the tent shut again over and around Mingjue’s bulk as the other man tries to fold himself into the too-small space, and once it’s firmly tied against the weather he lays down again to scoot a little further into the one-man shelter in an attempt to give Mingjue enough room to actually manage it. It’s clear immediately, though, that such a thing is great in theory, but the reality of their sharing the space is just inevitably going to have to be more intimate than that.

In all their shuffling, Xichen ends up turned on his side, Mingjue’s enormous bulk pressed against him from head to toe. Literally. Mingue’s cold nose is buried in his hair, chest pressed to shoulder blades (closer with every breath, still touching on every exhale); hips to ass, thighs cupping thighs and ankles knocking, boots tucked up against boots where they both have to curl up in a space never meant to accommodate even one man their height, let alone two.

Xichen’s heart thumps hard in his chest as they settle.

He can’t remember the last time he’d been held, even for something as basic as warmth.

Perhaps never.

Mingjue’s hand, he realizes after a few more rustling readjustments as Mingjue attempts to get comfortable, is on the curve of his waist, too light and uncertain a touch for Xichen to have any hope of sleeping beneath it. This is an easier decision than the one to get up and untie the tent. 

He withdraws his hand from the depths of his jacket, his sleeping bag, Mingjue’s blanket tossed over both of them, to curl his fingers around Mingjue’s ice-cold hand and drag it forward. Up.

He curls his fingers around Mingjue’s and presses the man’s hand to his chest under the open side of his jacket. If Mingjue can feel the too-hard ba-dump of his heartbeat pounding against the press of his palm, under the layers of his shirts, he says nothing of it.

Kind of him, in that quiet way Xichen is learning he has.

Mingjue’s hand warms in his slowly until it isn’t just cold skin pressed to his, it’s work calluses and blunt nails; it’s dips and valleys between the tall, craggy ridges of his knuckles that Xichen cautiously explores with a fingertip — the mountains around them in micro, held gently in his one hand and traced in reverence.

In the strange place between sleep and waking, he doesn’t fight the urge to feel them with his lips, lifting Mingjue’s hand to his mouth just to brush them with the sensitive skin. He barely applies pressure, and Mingjue’s breathing stays even and slow behind him — asleep then, in the warmth, the quiet, the safety of a shared space with him? Xichen hopes so. He wants Mingjue to feel safe with him. There’s no one out here to look out for either of them but each other, after all. They have to trust each other for the length of the summer, at the very least.

Xichen presses his lips against Mingjue’s knuckles with more intent. His skin is rough from ranching, from calf-roping, from leather reins looped over them, from the sun that beats down on him every day of his life. Xichen lets the roughness of it catch on the soft give of his lips and he closes his eyes to better feel it reaching down into his soul, this stolen intimacy.

Lips, warm now and chapped from the wind, press against the back of his neck just above the stiff fold of his collar, too firm to be anything but intentionally done.

“What are you doing?” Mingjue asks against his skin, breath tickling and slinking its way down beneath Xichen’s jacket, his shirts, to shiver down his spine. Warmth pools low in his belly, unbidden and unexpected, but not at all unfamiliar.

At the volume he’d used, Xichen can’t tell what Mingjue is feeling, what he’s thinking.

He has to trust him.

He doesn’t have a choice.

Xichen doesn’t answer with words — what is there to say? He releases Mingjue’s hand and turns onto his back with as little jostling as he can manage, and suddenly Mingjue is right here, not shivering out by the remains of their fire, not an unseen solid presence behind his back. His eyes are open, glittering in the dim light of the lantern Xichen had left burning in the corner for the spare bit of warmth it throws off, and he doesn’t look like he’d been asleep at all during Xichen’s little exploration. He looks…wary. Afraid.

Xichen doesn’t think twice about leaning up to kiss him.

For a heartstopping, breathless instant that seems to last an eternity, Mingjue does absolutely nothing about it. His mouth is still against the insistent press of Xichen’s, lips softly parted in shock but Xichen doesn’t take the opportunity to slip his tongue between them. He nips at the curve of his bottom lip, hungry for something he can’t name, and that, at least, gets Mingjue moving.

Mingjue lets his mouth fall open wider around a gasp like a sudden dousing of ice water and tries to shove him away, but Xichen knows. He knows that Mingjue is like him. It has to be true. He can feel it, the ache of it, the empty yearning of it, and so he grabs Mingjue’s shoulders, his waist, and yanks him in closer until he can roll the other man on top of him, his bulk pinning him down in the tangled mess of their blankets. He slides his hand up from behind Mingjue’s shoulder to the back of his neck to yank him in for a bruising kiss this time, all passion with no finesse, and he doesn’t allow Mingjue the space to attempt to pull away again.

Xichen’s ridden rodeo his whole life. He knows that the best way to stay on a bronco is to move with it — to know what it wants before it wants it, to expect the way that it wants to protest, and to become, very briefly, an extension of it that cannot be thrown. He’s a damn good hand at it, he wins most any competition he enters, and as Mingjue wrestles him without seeming to know what it is he even wants beyond an excuse to touch him in the only way that’s ever been acceptable — rough, violent, hungry for something unnameable — Xichen rides it out with him until the urge to fight fades, and when Mingjue tries to pull away again Xichen lets him only because he’s doing it to trail desperate, biting kisses down the column of Xichen’s throat.

“Mingjue,” he breathes around the pleasure of it, the thrill of victory entwining with the sweetness of being touched like he’s something worth savoring. “It’s alright. It’s okay, it’s…we need it, that’s all.”

Mingjue doesn’t reply, apparently too busy where he’s biting and sucking at the juncture of Xichen’s neck and shoulder to use words (not that he’s a man of many of them anyway). But then again, maybe he does reply, in his own way. Xichen flushes at the sound of jingling metal, the feeling of a broad, firm hand down between their hips muffled through their layers that in moments, he knows, won’t be a problem anymore.

Mingjue manages to unhook Xichen’s championship rodeo belt buckle he’d turned his nose up at mere days ago, and when it’s out of the way Xichen arches his back to help Mingjue in his apparent quest to get Xichen’s jeans down his thighs enough for whatever it is he wants.

The wool blanket rumpled up beneath him is rough against his ass, the tender backs of his thighs. The denim waistband of his jeans is too tight around his knees, and Xichen yanks MIngjue back up to kiss him again with hard hands in his hair, both of them gasping each other’s air and their bodies rocking together without thought (at least Xichen certainly isn’t thinking about anything beyond what it feels like to have Mingjue’s broad hands gripping his naked hips tightly enough to bruise, and he can really only hope that the same is true for Mingjue).

When Mingjue turns him over Xichen hisses for the scratch of the unconditioned wool against his cock, hard and leaking already and far too sensitive for this. Mingjue presses him down harder with an arm laid across his back, an iron band of pressure that Xichen has no interest in trying to escape from.

They don’t speak as Mingjue unbuckles his own belt, nor when he shoves his own jeans down. Mingjue ducks in to bite at his ear before he leans up to spit in his hand and use it to ease his way, Xichen’s entire existence narrowing down first to the obscene and familiar rasp of a rough hand against much more tender skin, and then to the enormous sense of weight and pressure he barely has time to brace himself for before Mingjue forces his way inside of him.

It aches, too sharp, too insistent. Xichen groans and reaches back blindly with one hand, clumsy between all their layers and the angle and the way he shudders for the intrusion somewhere he’s never felt such a thing before (well that’s not quite true, but it’s far from the same when it’s like this so it’s true enough anyway). He finds Mingjue’s hip and wastes no time in sliding his hand under the other man’s loosened jeans and around the broad plane of his pelvis until he’s got as firm of a grip as he can hope for at this angle on his ass.

A single squeeze, a gasp of Mingjue’s name, and a strangled, “Please,” is all it takes to coax Mingjue into finishing what he started.

Xichen tries to muffle himself in his sleeve, in the blankets, something, but Mingjue buries a free hand in his hair to yank his head to the side so he can lean in to kiss him as they fuck and Xichen can’t find it in himself to complain.

It’s quick, and it’s dirty, and it’s everything Xichen has never allowed himself to want.

He comes on the horrible scratchy blanket with a bitten-off shout for the way it tears something loose inside him, something he already knows even now he’ll never be able to put back exactly as it was. It’s pleasure so intense it’s more pain than anything else, and it leaves him feeling raw and exposed as Mingjue’s hips snap too hard once, twice, and then on the third he stays there as deep inside as he can get as Xichen feels his cock jerk inside him. Within moments the place where they’re joined isn’t dry enough to burn anymore.

Mingjue pants in his ear and Xichen’s eyes prick with overwhelmed tears he absolutely will not allow Mingjue to see, but the other man isn’t paying that much attention to him anyway. He doesn’t pull out as he rummages around for something beside them. When Xichen turns his head with an effort he has to bite back a smile upon realizing that it’s the blanket from outside; Mingjue tugs it clumsily over the both of them laying there spent and too tangled up with each other to bother untangling again tonight. Xichen falls asleep with chapped lips pressed to his cheek and an ache in his hips he can already tell will keep him off his horse for at least a day or two.

Morning comes early, birdsong and the peculiar damp coolness of dawn both stealing their way into the tent. The sweat (and other fluids) from last night have grown tacky and cold; Xichen shivers in the gray dawn haze and tries to huddle into Mingjue’s bulk, seeking warmth. An arm curls around his shoulders, but through their layers of cotton and denim and leather it offers little more than pressure. He presses the cold tip of his nose to the little bare patch of Mingjue’s chest exposed by the open top two buttons of his shirt, and he thinks he might receive a kiss to the forehead in return, but if so it’s too soft and his mind too sleep-fogged for him to be sure.

He wakes again properly when bright sunlight cuts across his eyes with a blast of cool, fresh air that doesn’t smell like wool and sweat and sex, and he sits up on his elbow, blinking, to watch Mingjue unfold himself from the tent into the morning and stretch. Xichen glances down at himself, alone once again, to find that his pants are still around his knees, their combined mess dried to flaking trails of white on his hips, the insides of his thighs.

He lays there for long, hazy moments contemplating how the fuck they’re going to talk about this when getting Mingjue to say anything much at all that isn’t about the sheep or the horses is such a challenge (a welcome one, but a challenge all the same). When his thoughts bring him no closer to an answer, and his stalling makes it more and more likely that Mingjue will simply leave him there at their camp to go tend to the flock for the day, Xichen shimmies his jeans back up and makes his own way out of the tent, standing with a soft, startled groan for the expected ache in his body. It radiates from navel to knees, and he finds he can’t bring himself to feel anything but pleased by it.

“Listen,” Mingjue says from where he’s focusing on saddling up his placid mare for the morning’s ride. He doesn’t look up from the girth he’s tightening. Xichen tries not to think about how he knows the shape of the calluses that other leather straps just like it, wrapped around his fingers too many times to count, have left. “I’m not queer.”

The word — dangerous, taboo, electrifying in its naked honesty — sends a jolt through his belly, though of what emotion, good or bad, he isn’t exactly sure.

“I’m not either.”

Mingjue looks up at him then, his eyes unreadable. “It’s just for the summer.”

Xichen nods, something like hope flickering in his chest though he tries not to let it show.

“I’ve got a fianceé back home, when we come down in the fall. This’s got nothin’ to do with her.”

“Of course, Mingjue.”

Mingjue nods. Tightens the girth with a final creak of leather, his mare sighing her displeasure but otherwise making no complaint. Xichen watches Mingjue check over his pack job one last time, his lunch and his canteen in a satchel hanging off the saddlehorn, the shotgun strapped behind the high crest of the saddle at the back on the patterned blanket beneath it that he tugs straight next, ensuring there are no wrinkles in it beneath the saddle. It’s his usual pre-ride check, Xichen’s seen him do it plenty of times now and he knows all the beats of it.

Mingjue stops with one foot in the stirrup, and Xichen drifts a little closer when he doesn’t actually mount up, concerned by the sudden break in routine. Before he can ask, Mingjue drops his foot to the dirt again with an irritated huff and turns around so quickly Xichen jumps. He doesn’t have time to react before Mingjue has stomped across their tiny camp to grab him by the lapels of his jacket — leverage he uses to pull Xichen in for a kiss that stings his bruised lips and curls his toes as he grips Mingjue’s collar in both hands to hold him still right there, just like that, just for a little bit longer.

“I’ll be back for dinner,” Mingjue tells him, mouths brushing together with each word. He knocks the tips of their noses together once, a gentle bump that might even be affectionate, and then he’s gone again, breaking Xichen’s tight hold easily to sling himself up onto the saddle and nudge his mare into a brisk canter without a glance back.

Xichen watches him go long past the time he’s lost sight of him between the trees.