#so perhaps 8-9k?

[bookwyrminspiration]

this is turning into quite a hefty epilogue. it's almost as long as the finale I swear

[ladylaviniya]

Wails of Wedded Bliss

Chapter 6 || Masterlist || Chapter 8

Chapter Summary: Upon meeting the Baroness you are enamoured by her devotion.

Pairing: Sherlock Homes x wife!reader

Chapter Warnings: 18+ Dead Dove Do Not Eat, (No Smut), typical historical misogyny and sexism, mentions and discussion on miscarriages. Implied domestic abuse and infidelity.

Word Count: 9k

Author Notes: This is an important but rather sad chapter. I beseech you all to read the warnings. The details of this chapter are important to the plot of the missing Baron Thaddeus Pennicott.

Inspiring Song: "Flightless Bird American Mouth" by Vitamin String Quartet

8:30am Wednesday 7th May 1890, Grovelands House, The Bourne, London, England. 

Sherlock tucked your arm into his side as you three entered the Groveland house foyer. The floor was made of fine marble tile and with ever step a light echo raced down the halls.

The inspector called upon a nearby dusting maid to fetch the head of the house. Who returned was a thin and tall man in a butler’s uniform with a sliver pocket watch hanging from his chest. His hair was the colour of autumn leaves and his face littered in freckles.

He bowed, “I am mister Edward Redmayne, head butler of the Groveland estate, how may I assist you?”

The inspector shook his hand and stated quickly, “We spoke on the telephone yesterday? A telegraph was sent.”

The butler smiled with a relieving gasp, “Detective Holmes?”

Lestrade sheepishly looked over his shoulder to you and your husband. He nodded. His expression wore a emotion of embarrassment mixed with annoyance. Perhaps he was jealous of your husband’s successful published case stories. You wished you could have told the constable not to fret as Sherlock was nothing short of a arrogant mule...yet again- the mark on his face...he probably already knew that.

8:42am Wednesday 7th May 1890, Grovelands House, The Bourne, London, England. 

Upon meeting the lady of the house, you stood frigid by your husband. You felt somewhat self conscious by her grey eyes that lingered over your dress. Perhaps you should’ve worn your Sunday best before meeting a woman of such a high status.

The baroness was unmistakably pregnant. Her belly was bold and rounded beneath her maternity gown. She had been sitting calmly on a resting chaise, knitting a small bonnet for her future child. Her hands were covered in fine burgundy velvet gloves to match her modest dress.

Her face was framed by a light brown curls, that appeared almost white in some places, twisted into a bum at the base of her neck. Her pale face was blotchy with pink flecks and slight acne.

“Lady Pennicott, I am Inspector Braydon Lestrade of Scotland Yard,” the British officer proclaimed as he bowed dramatically forward. You withheld a girlish giggle by how low the man had bent his head and presented himself foolishly, and from the corner of your eye you manage to catch the whisp of Sherlock’s smirk.

The inspector waved his arm behind him and moved aside, “-and with me is Detective Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mrs Holmes.”

You produced the baroness a respectable curtsy, your eyes glued down to the beautifully patterned carpet. You wondered how the servants could keep it so clean and freshly unstained by dirty guests. It must have been new.

The baroness shuffled her knitting needles and ball of woollen yarn into a Whicker basket and disposed of it beside her.

A slow stretching smile graced her thin lips as she spoke to you, “Oh, are you the little dear who solved that factory match girl incident?”

You weren’t sure how to answer her question. You weren’t entirely sure what the baroness was referencing until Sherlock stepped closer with your arm still cradled in his.

“No dear Baroness,” Sherlock pat your hand gently, “That would have been my sister Enola Holmes, she has her own detective office at present moment. My wife is here on my invitation. I wished to gift her a sight of the grand park and estate while I was here upon duty.”

The Baroness cocked her head, from her ears hung pearls that swung and hung like rain drops.

“Come forth dear,” she lifted her hand and beckoned you, “I would like to have better view of you.”

You wondered if she could smell the sweat beginning to drop down the back of your neck. You bit your tongue and tried to refrain from trembling. You were nervous. Her eyes were cold but her smile warm, two conflating details that you couldn’t understand. The last thing you needed now on top of a terrible start to your marriage was to be scrutinized by a haughty pregnant baroness.

She flickered your fingers for you to bend down to her. As you leant down, you swore you could smell copper, a metalic scent. A vein on your scalp pulsed. She scanned your face of its details. You dared to wonder what she was searching for. And then it clicked...the smell...

‘Dear god, you prayed, please don’t let her smell my blood, please let this not be my blood...’

You should have sprits on some perfume before leaving baker street.

She glanced behind you and questioned angelically, “How does it feel having such a clever husband?”

Your lips opened and closed. You resembled a fish. You were stumped to answer quickly.

‘Miserable, infuriating, torturous, pleasurable mixed with a cup of agony...’

She lifted her brows until you hurriedly blurted, “He is...formidable and righteous...” you stood up tall and took a step back, adding with a monetarism of truth, “I am very lucky to have become his bride.”

‘Lucky, while incredibly resentful.’

You reached back, Sherlock adopted your arm back into his hold once more.

Lady Pennicott rubbed her belly, her eyes started to twinkle, “And soon you will have a plethora of children that will look like him I gather.”

Your eyes fluttered. Sherlock’s hand tightened around your glove and his throat bobbed. You felt hot in the face.

Yes that’s right, that’s what normal husband and wife did isn’t it? They have children. That was your role, to be the mother of Sherlock’s offspring...

You couldn’t answer.

And there. That dear girl is when you questioned for the first time. ‘Is this what I want?’ and ‘Do I want Sherlock’s children.’ Because having a knowing of his barbarism conflated a fear in your belly...would Sherlock hurt his own children if he could easily hurt you, his wife?

When you hesitated for too long to answer her again, Sherlock said with a strained tone that was masked in a hopeful joy, “One may only hope, Baroness.”

“Lady Pennicott,” Graydon interrupted, “We have come to ask you on the whereabouts of Lord Pennicott and the evening he was last sighted.”

Her eyes narrowed at the inspector and with an annoyed twinge she muttered and wiped her hands on a nearby blanket, “I already informed the police of what I was informed of by our butler Edward.”

She glanced up next her right. Mister Redmayne observed her, looking down. The pair smiled to each other. She reached out to him. She grabbed his hand and they squeezed.

The inspector laughed nervously, “Indeed but Detective Sherlock Holmes was not presently involved in the case until yesterday.”

Her eyes flickered quickly to your husband and her face flared with confusion quickly to be matched with a impressed smile, “Of course, please sit all of you as I am near a indisposition with my child,” she gestured to the mirroring chaise and a chair beside the fireplace, “Edward, please tell Martha to bring tea and biscuits for our kind service men and Mrs Holmes.”

The butler bowed to you all and left the sitting room.

Lestrade took his place on the lone chair while Sherlock sat you beside him on the chaise. You took your time to lower yourself. Sitting on your bruises was uncomfortable while another cramp hit you. Your fingers dug into his palm.

From Lestrades breast pocket he pulled out a notebook and small pencil.

“Lady Pennicott,” Sherlock softly hummed, “Please, could you tell me what your husband is like as a person?”

The woman who you believed was in her late thirties smiled and stated softly, “My Thaddeus is a noble man, good taste in wine and very devoted to his work. He likes to go hunting and we share a passion for gardening,” she glanced up at the ceiling and paused, “He prefers to plant vegetables to donate to the church and orphans, whereas I have always loved to grow my flowers.”

The way she described him, her devotion was deep and honourable. She touched her round belly.

Sherlock looked over to the fire place behind the baroness. On the mantle was a magnificent portrait twice your height, painted on the canvas was who you recognised as Lord and Lady Pennicott. He was sitting up straight on a fine red cushioned chair with his dirty blonde hair and softened mutton chops while she stood at his right and her ringed hand on his shoulder. The similarities were there but Lady Pennicotts hair had lightened in reality perhaps from all the years that separated her likeness and her reality.

“I was informed Lord Pennicott is a father of five?” Sherlock asked.

The Baroness smiled proudly and pat her tummy softly, “Six soon.”

You couldn’t help notice something was missing from the painting, Sherlock also had a similar thought.

Where were the children in the portrait? Where was a family portrait in the house?

“Forgive me,” a breath of air escaped from him, “are the children away at school?”

“Oh,” her uncanny smile remained while her brows angled down, her throat tightened as she spoke, “I fear they are in the loving embrace of angels now. All of them were taken from us by God,” her eyes glanced to you, “They came out sleeping.”

Your heart sunk to the pit of your belly with sorrow and pity.

Five babies lost, five babies gone…five pregnancies… four and a half years of pregnancy and for what? Five angels.

A woman had one holy role in life, to bare her husband children, and when a woman was defective or produced a sickly child, it was a symbol of failure in society. But you never saw it that way...you imagined it must’ve been agony to lose so many babies. One or two was a common occurrence but five? Five was a curse to experience and relive over and over.

“Well,” you interrupted Sherlock rudely, cutting him off from his next abrasive question by squeezing his hand a little too hard.

You could see the mourning in the baroness’ face. You saw the classic look of all women made uncomfortable by something a man has said. What the hell would the detective know about a woman’s emotions after how coldly he has treated all women and yourself.

You shuffled on the opposite chaise and smile softly, “I will pray this one will come swiftly and feel the warmth of their mother.”

The baroness’ face lifted and warmed. She smiled happily and nodded, “Thankyou, oh I’m just so excited! This one really is a big one, I can feel it. I hope it’s a boy.”

Sherlock was staring at you intensely as the maid Martha finally delivered a pot of tea and poured the steaming liquid. His brows were knitted and his eyes held suspicion as he kept you in his sight. You politely nodded your head once at him before reaching for a hot cup and lifting it to your lips.

Sherlock sighed and turned back to his questioning, “You would say you liked your marriage?”

The baroness appeared offended by your husband as her face wrinkled and a sneer spread her thin lips, “Of course, any woman who doesn’t like her marriage should not be married in the first place. She is a burden to her husband if she cannot perform her duties as a wife.”

Lady Pennicott leant forward and collected her own cup of tea, she delicately pinched a biscuit and dunked it into the contents.

…you felt Sherlock drag his thumb across your fingers. You felt chilly, could he read your thoughts? Did he know truly how much you already hated him and his ideas of intimacy in your marriage? He clear his throat when both your glancing eyes caught each other.

“Can you tell me what happened,” Sherlock pressed, “The night of your husbands disappearance?”

“Well...after dinner,” the baroness sighed in thought and nibbled on her moist biscuit, “Thaddeus wanted to speak with me in his office about a spending I had made a week ago. You see, I had bought a cradle for the nursery. The one we had originally was broken and beyond repair, we disposed of it a month prior. Thaddeus was not pleased with the price and claimed it was an unnecessary purchase,” she paused and set her cup aside before she touched her belly again; rubbing in soft slow circles, she began to blushed, “He was sorely hurt by my choice. He then became very cross with me and left his office in a huff.”

She looked to the yarn, to the tea pot and then finally to the painting on the mantle, “I deemed that he would find forgiveness in his heart by the morning and brush it off. I returned back to the nursery to tidy up before I went to my rooms and went to bed to sleep in my quarters of the east wing. Thaddeus keeps himself to the west wing most nights.”

The detective nodded, “What time do you believe it was when you went to your bed, Baroness?”

She hummed softly while pursuing her lips, “A quarter to nine in the evening.”

“And how did you realise your husband was missing?” Sherlock stole a scone off the tea tray and lifted it to his lips. He paused amidst chewing it slowly.

The noble woman sighed and recollected, pragmatically, “In the morning Mr Redmayne informed me on how Thaddeus took off into the night astride Arion, our prize stallion Clydesdale. Thaddeus had not returned by the next morning and that is when concern drew near. I sent members of my staff to the factories to investigate his whereabouts and none had come upon him. I knew something had to be wrong so I alerted the authorities by the second morning.”

Your husband took a deep breath and discarded the half bitten scone, he wiped his hand unceremoniously on his jacket and throatily asked, “Do you recall if Lord Pennicott has any potential persons he might be deemed as an enemy towards?”

“Only his company competitors, Detective,” She said saccharinely with her smile, “He was a very loveable man.”

“Do you have a list of the names of staff who were working that evening here in Groveland House?”

The butler stepped forward and cleared his throat, “That would be in Lord Pennicotts office,” he pulled out a pair of keys, “I can you show you gentlemen in and where he keeps his accounts and other paraphernalia to his business if you’d like?”

Both Sherlock and Lestrade smiled and stood up.

“Baroness,” Sherlock gently requested, “Would it be overly bothersome if my beloved wife remained and kept you company while the inspector and I look in your husband’s office.”

Your heart jumped to your throat. What was Sherlock doing leaving you behind with the Baroness by yourself!?....what if you spoke out of turn or said something too presumptuous for your status!?...

“Most certainly not,” she beamed “I will gladly accept such delightful company,” She held out a hand, palm down to her right. The butler speedily stepped to her side and leant her his hand. She winced as she scooted forward on the cushioned lounge before struggling to rise to her feet.

Sherlock leant down and kissed the back of your wrist again, so scantily in front of the baroness. You tried tor refrain from loudly gasped and bringing anymore dangerous attention to yourself. Your husband left your side and followed the butler with Lestrade out of the sitting room.

So the party turned to two married women. The baroness was pleased.

She stepped closer to you and reached for your arm. You were surprised by her familiarity but you would not deny the assistance of a woman so desperately swollen and ready to birth any day.

“My dear, would you care to have a stroll with me in my garden?” She smirked and jerked her chin, “Knowing how dear Thaddie kept his space organised I suspect the gentlemen might be a while.”

You nodded and quickly made the warning assurance, “Are you in a condition to move great feets Lady Pennicott?”

“Fret not,” She giggled girlishly and waved her hand casually, “The physician told me fresh air is delightful for the health of the babe,” she tapped the top of her belly, “I have a month or so before they come.”

Your eyes widened, she looked huge enough to give birth now, surely she wasn’t a month away!! Maybe she was going to be blessed with a pair of twins. You had such a limited knowledge of pregnancy in women. Your grandmother hadn’t given birthed a child in the last forty years before your birth!!!

She pointed the way out of the main mansion to enter the garden paths. The sun was perfect today amongst the clouds. It was neither cold nor hot nor humid and dank...it was pleasant and you could smell the fresh nature of bushels and flowers.

“How long have you been known as, The Mrs Holmes?” She inquired cheerfully with her shining silver eyes.

“...Not very long,” you replied warmly before risking a white lie, “We recently finished our honeymoon.”

She grinned and waddled passed a wooden bench, she took a quick stop to rest and pat the seat for you to join her instead of standing dumbly.

“Shall I share some words of advise?,” She hummed, “From a woman that has been married for twelve years?”

“I would be ever so grateful,” you said rushed and desperate. You wouldve listened to anything she had to say. A woman of her standing must’ve held adequate wisdom.

She warmly cupped both your hands and squeezed them. And yet there was an ice creepy into her gaze. She appeared to dissociate, her voice losing its youthful lilt. Her lip wobbled slightly.

“Men are visual creatures. While you are so young and beautiful, you must become pregnant as soon as possible,” Lady Pennicott ran her palm across your waist, her eyes like razors cut across the yard to a bush of red rose buds, “It is inevitable that our husbands will stray their gazes to other women, it is in their nature,” those grey stones in her face rolled back and weighed you down, “as I said- visual creatures. The sooner you make a babe, the easier his devotion comes,” A joyous grin returned to her thin lips, she playfully tapped the tip of your nose and stated, “Trust me upon this.”

You clenched your hand behind you and strained a smile, “I thankyou for such wise words Baroness. I will endeavour to do what I must to conceive.”

At this moment in time Sherlock had proved himself a monstrous villain. Would it be possible for you to fall pregnant?

You looked out at the divine lush greenery and exhaled softly.

“Do you garden Mrs Holmes?” the baroness queried.

You chuckled softly and removed your gloves, you flashed her a sight of your palm, “I am afraid my hands have never been introduced. My grandmother preferred I focus on mastering piano and embroidery.”

The grey orbs fluttered back at you with a surprised him, “Embroidery is a lovely skill,” she pat your hand and pointed across the field, “Please help me up Mrs Holmes, let us take a look at my lilacs.”

You stood straight up and leant out your arm, she was surprisingly light for a woman her size. She leant against you and took small timid steps to her flower patches.

She stood and admired the flower patches, pointing to different types and explaining the breeds of flowers she hoped to grow in the future.

You finally bent over enough and cupped the petals of purple to hold up to your nose and took in a wiff “They smell lovely,” from the corner of your eye was a line of crimson, “I see your roses will soon be in bloom.”

She pinched a bud that was peaking to bloom soon.

“Oh yes, the soil is rich and healthy,” she giggled, “I can’t wait for Thaddeus to return, he liked the roses. He would stand here for a while and think. I know he will love the red colour. It is his favourite shade you see...” She sighed dreamily with her eyes scanning the bushes of scarlet rose buds, “I miss him terribly. I hope he’s alright. I want him to come home soon before the baby arrives.”

A fly smacked into your eye and you sputtered, battering it away. When you gracelessly composed yourself, you stood back up to your feet beside the Lady of Groveland.

You could see how her eyes puddles with droplets of mournful tears. You felt bad for any woman that did not know where her husband was. Especially if there was a rumour about him fleeing the marriage and abandoning her in her serious pregnant condition.

Taking the chance, you boldly took both your hands into yours and now squeezed them. Another buzzing from a fly sat on your shoulder.

The day was growing warmer and a bead of sweat rolled down your neck. The fly tickled your neck and suckled along your salted skin.

You tried your best to ignore the annoying creature.

“I am sure he will Lady Pennicott,” you soothed with a soft welcoming grin, “And he will be most happy when he returns.”

She sighed solemnly and glanced back at the rose bushes. You felt obligated for her happiness in that moment. Glancing back to the house you felt a opportunity come to you.

“May I visit your nursery Lady Pennicott, so I may have references for my own in the future?”

Her eyes flickered up, her face shine bright and her hand tightened over your wrists excitedly as though she was still as youthful as a school girl.

“Why of course Mrs Holmes,” she spun on her heel and wobbled a slight, she lifted her hand and called to the maid Martha still packing the china set inside, “Please inform the detective that I am taking his wife up to the nursery.”

“Yes Baroness,” she said with a humble curtsey and scurried off while Lady Pennicott took you totally inside the house and up a grand stair case from the foyer.

9:03am Wednesday 7th May 1890, Grovelands House, The Bourne, London, England. 

Up, up, up you both climbed the stairs. You noticed how the stairs didn’t bother her ladyship once, she was fit and stridden widely whereas you were breathing a little hard by the top step.

She pulled you down a hallway to a white painted door.

She excitedly opened the door wide and practically skipped inside to show you around her future child’s room.

The walls were covered in light blue and yellow paint. There were small peonies covering the trim of the room. There was no carpet but who needed one when you had a newborn.

“Welcome to the resting nest of my baby,” Lady Pennicott proudly exclaimed, spreading her arms out at the room around you.

There was a tall shelf filled with stuffed animals and teddy bears. There was a rocking horse, a doll house, spinning tops, tin cars and rubber balls all waiting, collecting dust, awaiting the arrival of a playmate. There was a permabulator by the window sill. There was a rocking chair in one corner and against the wall closest to the door- you smiled and swaggered over curiously, “Is this the cradle you bought?”

It was made of fine cream painted wood. You chewed your bottom lip in the thought. It was a lovely crib, why was Lord Pennicott so upset by such a delightful purchase? He didn’t have money issues. You put it down as that you didn’t understand the way men thought and men will never know what women think.

“Yes,” Lady Pennicott chirped, “it is from William Whitely department store in Baywater next to the Howard & Co dress department.”

The Baroness sat down into her rocking chair and slowly moved it back and forth, watching you admire the nursery she spent hours and years consistently curating.

You clenched the edge and looked over the railing down at the empty bedding. There was a teddy lamb in the corner, you pinched it’s fluffy white tail and sighed. For a brief moment you let your eyes close and your imagination wander far.

One day you’d have this...with Sherlock. An empty cradle to be filled. You caught the vision of a tiny hand squeeze around your finger and the sound of soft gurgles with the warm pressure of a hand on your waist...was that Sherlock’s hand? Was that your child?

One day you’d have a baby to care for, to provide these things that meant love...yet, was any child of Sherlock’s capable of love? He certainly wasn’t as far as you were concerned.

You bit down a shudder and opened your eyes, feeling hot tears glide down a cheek. You pushed back and sighed, “I am most confident on one thing Lady Pennicott.”

“And what is that Mrs Holmes?” she said softly, she could see the unspoken pain in your face. You swallowed hard and your face fell into a smile, you flashed her a wink.

You laughed softly, “Your child will be spoilt rotten by the love you give.”

She chuckled with you and nodded.

“Have you thought of a name?” you inquired, waltzing over to the chested drawers of baby knick knacks on display.

“Thaddeus Colin if it’s a boy,” she hummed, “or Theresa Grace if it is a girl.”

“Theresa?”

She giggled gently, “That is my name dear.”

Mrs Theresa Pennicott. It suited her. Her old soul eyes reflected her devout name.

A shine of glass pierced a ray of sun into your eyes, you pinched the glass object carefully. You touched a long black tube pulling out of it. You couldnt understand it’s purpose, your eyes narrowed at the rubber end that was shaped like a thumb or a cows udder. There was a second tube attached to the first with a rubber squeeze ball at the end.

“What is this?” you humoured.

“Oh that? It’s a fantastic invention,” The baroness said, “It’s a pump for breast milk with a tube that syphons the milk into this baby feeding bottle. When babies start to teeth they can scar your breasts. This is an effective and modern method I look forward to trying.”

Your eyes widened, scarring!? Babies teeth could scar a breast!?

You placed the bottle bump back and helped Lady Pennicott when she beckoned to stand back up from the rocking chair.

“Have you ever felt the sensations?” She suddenly, “In which they kick within?”

Your face must’ve looked idiotic as you asked plainly, “Kick?”

She giggled and nodded, “Give me your hand, perhaps you may feel them moving.”

She plucked your palm and pulled your glove off your fingers. She pressed your entire hand intimately to her belly. You felt a sense of taboo shame, she was making you touch such a beloved spot.

“Do you feel it?” she then asked.

Felt what? Confusion flooded your mind. Your hand moved around her belly slowly.

“I am afraid I don’t know what I’m meant to be feeling?”

She moved your hand and again you felt absolutely nothing.

“They are very brutal on my body,” Lady Pennicott sarcastically assured, “trust me there is a kick.”

She made a point to push your hand harder, but all you felt was the hard material of her corsetry beneath her main dressing materials.

“Baby’s kick you inside?” you marvelled with stunned horror. This was the first time you’d ever heard of such a notion of a baby beating it’s mother inside.

“Not out of malicious intent Mrs Holmes,” she reassured, “mostly it is the baby using its limbs to move their cramped bodies inside or excitement at the sound of voices, I truly believe they can hear us while still inside. Fear not, to you it will feel like a faint touch like this-”

Lady Pennicott softly tapped your wrist, “Like that.”

And there again was new knowledge you heard from a woman on matters of pregnancy. You moved your fingers around, seeking the supposed feeling of a kick...

Still nothing. You frowned, was there something wrong with you that the baby was choosing not to reveal itself.

“How interesting...”

A soft knock on wood alerted you both to glance at the door.

“Mrs Holmes,” the butler from earlier politely spoke, “the detective is requesting your return, I believe he intends to depart.”

Your face fell. You couldn’t believe it but you’d found this experience immensely enjoyable. You had surprisingly made a friend of the Baroness.

The fair lady hugged your side and sweetly exhaled, “Then I shall escort you back to your husband, Eddie fetch me my cheque book.”

He nodded and walked ahead of you both. You solemnly shut the nursery door, trying to remember every precious detail as possible. It was a innocent place to escape from the crude world.

You returned to the bottom of the foyer and smiled at your husband that stood by Lestrade at the front doors.

By the bottom step you faced the noble woman and curtsied.

“Thankyou Lady Pennicott for your kind hospitality and agreeable cooperation to the case,” you heard Sherlock’s voice float over your shoulder.

“Of course detective, please,” the Butler returned with her cheque book, “find my beloved Thaddeus.”

She scribbled speedily with a modernised ink pen, a sharp tear of paper flashed to his direction, “Here. Thirty pounds. I am sure you are busy with other clients considering your reputation, but I beseech you to seek out my husband quickly.”

Sherlock bowed his head as he deposited the cheque into his pocket, “We shall try our hardest. Good afternoon Lady Pennicott.”

Your mouth might’ve collected flies. Thirty pounds. THIRTY pounds. That was a hefty wage for a year to many men.

Sherlock was granted his coat and walking cane along with Lestrade.

He opened the front door and left slowly, glancing over your shoulder back at the heavily pregnant Baroness.

9:21am Wednesday 7th May 1890, Grovelands House, The Bourne, London, England. 

Sherlock and you walked up the gravel path in silence for sometime. You weren’t in much of a mood to speak to him despite well knowing conversation would need to spark eventually.

The three of you slowed down beside the inspectors horse cart.

Thankfully it was Sherlock who destroyed the silence with a stretched sigh. Lestrade grimly smiled at that sigh and rocked on his heels.

“Lestrade, show a useful skill,” Sherlock slapped a coin purse into his chest, “Find my wife and I a decent ride homeward. You still need to return back to the office and finish writing those reports on the Spring heeled Jack sightings....” he snickered.

The mutton chop male grumbled and left you pair alone to walk down the path into the main parklands to hail a cabriolet or another hackney carriage.

Sherlock pulled out his pipe and lit it quickly, he inhaled fast and asked curiously, “Did you learn anything else from our suspect?”

You squinted and felt a gasp pop from your lips, your hand snapped out and dug your nails into his arm with a scolding hiss, “Suspect? Look at the state she is in Sherlock. She clearly loves her husband. How could such a indisposed woman do anything to her husband?”

He smirked, “Perhaps a jealous one?”

Your brows pulled together. Jealousy wasn’t something you would’ve describe Lady Pennicott as especially with such a privileged life. Such an emotion wouldve been beneath her...but.. ‘It is inevitable that our husbands will stray their gazes to other women, it is in their nature.’

Sherlock pinched out a piece of card from his pocket, a business calling card, he flashed it through his fingers and let you carefully pluck it from his hand.

“it is no wonder Thaddeus Pennicotts name was so familiar,” Sherlocks huffed a puff of air, “He visits a like minded establishment.”

On the front of the card was a single image, a dove holding a olive leaf, and when you turned the card around there was a woman modelled in immodest clothing with text and an address in perfect hand writing.

“The Mayfair Row Dove club.”

You almost dropped the card in the mud at your feet.

He tucked the card back into his breast pocket and hooked his arm around yours, walking you closer to Lestrade waving his hands back at you both.

“I’m curious who his go to bird is there,” He chuckled.

You shook your head and scoffed in disbelief, “but she’s pregnant.”

“Men have needs,” Sherlock sighed, “I thought you’d have learnt that from last evening?”

Your nails dug harder into his arm and grit your teeth. Not everyone was as depraved as Sherlock, surely not. You couldn’t imagine Mycroft or your grandfather practicing such atrocities on women, especially women that weren’t their wives.

You noted snootily, “She said her husband liked to stand out by the roses to think. Perhaps he regretted his choice.”

Sherlock laughed cruelly and hard enough to almost drop his pipe from his lips. He plucked it out of his mouth and kissed you hard and squarely in front of Lestrade and any passing people that shook their heads in disgust at such public affection.

The taste of his tobacco filled your cheeks and floated down your throat into your chest. You could feel how his breath became your breath. Your head grew dizzy from it. His release left you trembling and collapsing against him briefly. His arm grabbed around your waist and held you totally against his chest.

“You see too much good in the worst people,” he whispered wetly into your ear.

“Not true,” you panted, you blinked your eyes hard and tried speaking again. You weakly pushed away from him back onto your own two feet. From the corner of your eyes you could see the inspector standing beside another hackney carriage.

“Not true,” you repeated and swallowed hard, “...I don’t see any good in you Sherlock.”

He grinned devilishly and walked you both to the carriage, He ignored Lestrade entirely except for retrieving his own purse.

“None at all?” Sherlock asked as he helped you step up inside of the carriage. It jostled as he plotted himself next to you instead of opposite.

You thought hard on his question for a time. You shouldn’t have ever been as petty as him. So you kept your silence before you could decide on a eloquent response. You did try to find the good in him. The trouble was you barely knew Sherlock and the side that you’d encounter was nothing short of a blagged, insufferable man that happened to be very experienced in the arts of the bedroom. So you tried to think about qualities you hadn’t seen in him but had at least heard of him.

“You help solve cases and even sometimes restitution, these deeds could be counted as decent and beneficial...perhaps good...”

He smirked until you finished hastily, “However your mistreatment and lustful addiction is nothing short of that than a person that suffers in his sin.”

A long annoyed sigh drew from his lips, however the corners jerked up.

He tug out his pipe and tapped it’s contents out the moving window, “Might I ask Mrs Holmes...” he inquired as he tucked in his pipe, and wiped his lips thoughtfully, “Do you think yourself better than me?”

The silence shared between the horses trotting along the cobblestones allowed you a chance to glare long and hard at Sherlock.

It was a jab, a jibe, a joke, a trick, a trap...

He wanted you to say yes... You could see it in his eyes the way they flicked to your lips and almost drooled with anticipation. He wanted to start a fight.

You didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at you, you turned your head away and scoffed, “You may have quick wit and a expansive knowledge Sherlock, but I at least carry myself with the fairest morals.”

And that? The reply was granted a omen of Sherlock’s sickly chuckles and his heavy warm hand to sit over your thigh, running his them over the fabric of your skirts.

“We will see how fair a baker street whore morals really are when we arrive home then shall we?”

You leant against the wall of the carriage and chose to ignore him. You closed your eyes and held Sherlock’s hand to prevent it wandering anywhere else. His thumb rubbed along the back of your gloves hands.

You couldn’t understand Sherlock. And feared you never would.

HELPLINES:

If you are a victim of sexual abuse, assault or domestic violence or know someone who is please reach out to these links that share helpline services, phone numbers or emails. Consent and respect is important in every relationship whether between friends, family or even strangers.

Australian Helpline Services

UK Helpline Services

American Helpline Services

India Helpline Services.

[suddencolds]

Foreign Home | [1/1]

hello!! I am back after 8 months of not-really-writing with an 8k word fic (which I cut down from 9k words). this is another OC fic w/ Vincent and Yves, who were introduced here!

anyways, this is very character-centric and establishes some things I wanted to establish about them / their world... I hope the little detour into character-development territory is okay.

Summary: Yves has told all of his friends that he's dating Vincent, so it's going to look increasingly suspicious if Vincent never shows up. Good thing Vincent is compellingly good at lying. Anyways, what could go wrong at a housewarming party? (ft. banter, fake dating, cat allergies)

—

Yves spends three weeks turning down invitations.

It’s lucky, he thinks, that he’s been able to stay in contact with so many friends from university—that so many of them have settled here, in New York. It’s less lucky considering his current circumstances:

Out of the people who made it to Margot’s New Year’s party, almost all of them remember Vincent. And—even more inconveniently—many of them seem set on inviting Yves and Vincent places.

Yves thinks up a dozen excuses. No, Vincent can’t join on our coffee outing—he’s got an important, un-reschedulable meeting with a client that Saturday. Sunday? His Sunday’s booked through until 5pm. I know, busy season is the worst to plan around. Or, I think Vincent’s going to be out for a business conference that weekend. The 22nd? I can check with him, but he’s taking a redeye flight the night before—I think he’ll be jet lagged.

The number of excuses he is capable of coming up with is unfortunately finite. Perhaps sorry, I think Vincent has an optometrist’s appointment that afternoon isn’t Yves’s best work, but he has to say something.

Really, it’s just more work to invite Vincent elsewhere—to explain that they’ve played their role as a couple a little too convincingly. That his friends all want to meet Vincent, now.

Back during his days of rowing crew, Yves has given out his fair share of relationship advice to the underclassmen, which has unfortunately—according to Margot—“cultivated an air of mystery about his personal love life.” It was always him and Erika, until it wasn’t. (Ex-matchmaker Yves and his mysterious, highly coveted new boyfriend, Leon says, when Yves complains, which is how Yves decides he will no longer be consulting Leon on the matter.)

“My friends really like you,” Yves says to Vincent, offhandedly, when he runs into him on the way back from lunch.

Vincent blinks at him. 

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

“They really like you,” Yves says. “They want to meet you. They think we’re an interesting couple, and they keep pestering me for double dates and inviting you out to a whole bunch of events. I’m running out of excuses as to why you can’t come.”

“Oh,” Vincent says, deadpan, but there’s a slight twitch to his lips, as if he’s trying not to laugh.

“I’m dead serious,” Yves says. “I told Nora that you couldn’t make it to dinner because of an eye appointment. Now if I want to keep this up I’ll need to photoshop you with new glasses.”

“I am a little overdue for new glasses,” Vincent says.

“Not the point. Regardless, I need to keep this up until we stage a breakup.”

“A breakup?”

“A fake breakup. To our fake relationship.”

“Is there someone else you’re interested in?”

“No,” Yves says. “But I’m preemptively saving you the stress.”

“The stress of playing your boyfriend?” Vincent says. “Last time, that just entailed going to a well-organized New Year’s party. I wouldn’t consider that exceptionally stressful.”

“That’s just the beginning. Don’t tell me you want to be dragged along to every dinner party and every downtown outing and every birthday I go to in the foreseeable future,” Yves says. “On top of working 60 hours a week, you’ll have to say goodbye to your weekends.”

“So that’s why you’re plotting our breakup.”

“Yes,” Yves says. “I’d need to explain to everyone how I dropped the ball.”

“I’m sure those new glasses must’ve been the dealbreaker.”

Yves laughs. Truthfully, Vincent could wear the most terrible, unflattering glasses in the world and still manage to look like someone whom Yves wouldn’t bat an eye at upon spotting at a photoshoot. The fact that his current glasses actually complement him very well, and the fact that he knows how to dress himself is just salt to the wound. “Yes, that’s the entire reason why I dated you in the first place. The glasses.”

“If you wanted to keep our false relationship up for a couple months,” Vincent says, “I wouldn’t mind.”

Yves—who, until now, has been walking in the opposite direction of the floor on which he works—stops walking. “Pardon?”

“I like your friends,” Vincent says. “And more importantly, I don’t think it proves a point to Erika if you’ve just gotten into a relationship you couldn’t keep. So if you wanted to keep this arrangement for a little longer, I would be fine with it.”

Yves considers this.

He’s asked more than enough of Vincent already. But Vincent is right. He’s sure Erika must have her fair share of doubts about all of this—about Vincent, about their fake relationship, about its longevity. She seemed skeptical, when he’d last seen her, that Yves could’ve moved on so quickly. The worst thing about it is that he can’t blame her for that doubt. The worst thing about it is that he’d spent so much time accounting for his future with Erika that he hadn’t seen her start to slip away, hadn’t noticed the first sign of inadequacy, the first time her gaze lingered on someone else, the first time he ceased to be all that she wanted. He hadn’t steeled himself for a future without her, and now, half the time, it feels like he’s still playing catch-up.

If he wants to commit to this fake relationship, he’ll need more than one outing to show for it.

And, despite all odds, Vincent is offering just that.

“Okay,” Yves says, before he can think about how bad of an idea this is. It is really, really inadvisable. He’s sure if he weighs his options for more than a few seconds, he will come to the conclusion that he should be shutting his mouth. “If you’re sure—and only if you’re actually sure—what are your plans after work next Tuesday evening?”

“Nothing as of now,” Vincent says. 

“Great. If you can make it, there’s a potluck. Joel’s hosting. He recently finished moving into a new apartment, so I think it’s something of a housewarming party. He lives a little North, past the stadium, so I think I’ll head there right after work—I can drive you.” 

“That works,” Vincent says. “What kind of food does he like?”

“I’m not actually too sure,” Yves says. “I think he’s a fan of spicy food. But honestly, I think he’ll be grateful if you bring anything at all—which you don’t have to, by the way. You’re the esteemed guest, here.”

“I’m sure Joel’s new apartment is technically the esteemed guest,” Vincent says. “But I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Yves says. “It’s a date. I’ll make it up to you in any way you want, by the way—if there’s ever an instance where you need me to lie for you, I’ll do it.”

“Duly noted,” Vincent says. For what Vincent would ever have to lie about, Yves can’t guess.

More importantly, he has a date for next Tuesday. Something about it is more exciting, even in its dishonesty, than it has any right to be.

—

It’s only a few moments after Yves presses the doorbell that Vincent emerges, holding a couple plates covered meticulously with aluminum foil.

“I haven’t cooked for anyone in awhile,” he says, a little sheepishly. “I hope this doesn’t make a bad impression on your friends.” “Are you kidding? It smells really good,” Yves says, and it does—from the doorway, he can make out the scent of sesame oil, roasted garlic, ginger. “They’ll definitely like it.”

Vincent looks off to the side. “We’ll see.” It takes a moment for Yves to properly parse his expression for what it is.

It never occurred to Yves that Vincent might actually be nervous. At work, it’s rare to see Vincent even remotely out of his element—he always volunteers to take on their more difficult clients, and even on the rare occasion that something falls out of his expertise, he picks things up quickly. Yves has seen him give presentations at conferences without a sweat, articulate as ever. 

If Vincent had been nervous, those times—over prestigious conferences, over negotiations with major clients, over other difficult points of contention—it hadn’t shown. Either he wasn’t nervous at all, or he was just good at hiding it. But he’s nervous now, Yves realizes, which means— 

Vincent wants to make a good impression on his friends. It won’t be his first time meeting Joel, but it’ll be his first time talking to Cherie, Joel’s fiancé, or Giselle, one of Cherie’s friends from work. Mikhail and Nora will be there too. All in all, it’s a decently sized group, but Vincent has talked to larger groups of people before without so much as a shaky voice.

Something about it—about the seriousness with which Vincent regards this whole arrangement—is strangely endearing.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Yves says, and means it in more ways than one.

—

Joel’s new apartment, as it turns out, is already decently furnished, even though Joel had sent out the invitation with the disclaimer that everything is a mess, please bear with us.

“When you said everything would be a mess,” Yves says, leaving his shoes in a line at the door, “I thought your apartment would actually be something other than spotlessly clean and well arranged.”

“It’s easy to make things look neat if you move all of the clutter into the closets,” Joel says.

“It’s just a few boxes,” Cherie says. “But it was tricky to figure out how to place things. It’s a lot more spacious than the apartment we had in college.”

“No kidding,” Yves says. “It’s a seriously nice place.” Back in their last two years of university, Joel and Cherie had gotten an apartment just a few buildings down from the apartment which Yves picked out with Mikhail—they had similar floor plans. Yves distinctly remembers the space: creaky floorboards, space heaters lined up against the walls to last them the winter; decent natural lighting, and never enough kitchen space.

Back then, he and Mikhail had had separate rooms, so their apartment became a spot in which Erika became a frequent visitor, and then, at one point, stopped visiting at all. 

But that’s not the point. The point is, the apartment Joel and Cherie have picked out is much nicer than the one they’d had in college—for one, it’s more spacious, and the entire building has nice facilities and looks newer—and Cherie’s eye for interior design has only helped their cause.

“I’m glad you were able to come!” Cherie says, turning to Vincent. “Yves is always telling me about how busy you are with work.”

“He’s the one putting out all the fires,” Yves says. 

Vincent smiles, extending a hand for her to shake. “Cherie, right? It’s nice to meet you. And you’re—” He turns to Joel, with a slight sniffle. “Joel. I think we met last time.”

Cherie squeezes his hand. Joel laughs and says, “I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“He’s good with names,” Yves says. An acquired skill from all the hours of networking, probably.

“That’s a useful skill to have, especially if you’re dating Yves,” Joel says. “I swear he knows everyone.” He goes on to tell a story about how, back in university, Yves almost accidentally got elected as vice president for a business club he’d only shown up to once.

At some point into the conversation, Yves ducks into the kitchen to help with setup. He sets out the dish he’s brought—salmon sliders with mango salsa—and the beef skewers that Vincent made earlier (he’s not sure why Vincent was worried in the first place, because the skewers look very competently made). After that, he busies himself with finding a way to keep everything temporarily covered until they eat.

Something soft and fuzzy winds around his ankles.

He looks down, and the soft and fuzzy thing looks back at him with pointy triangular ears. This is news to Yves.

“You guys have a cat?!” He shouts from the kitchen, vaguely in the direction where Joel and Cherie should still be standing. “Since when?”

“Since a month ago,” Joel shouts back.

“Her name is Gingersnap,” Cherie adds. “Gin for short.”

“Oh,” Yves says, kneeling down to scratch her behind the ears. His hands are a little calloused from all the snow he’s been shoveling lately, but Gingersnap purrs anyways, evidently unbothered. “What the hell, guys, now I’m never going to be able to leave your apartment. Consider me a permanent resident.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Cherie says.

At some point, Gingersnap gets up, mewing, and heads out of the kitchen, and Yves resumes life as an active contributor to the potluck’s success. When he finishes reheating everything up, setting the table, arranging the dishes, and filling up two pitchers with iced water, he wanders back out into the living room. Vincent is there, alone, except he’s not really alone, because…

Oh.

God.

He’s kneeling down, unmoving, speaking to Gingersnap in a soft, low voice, holding out a hand for her.

She approaches him, a little tentatively, and then nuzzles her orange head into the crook of his hand. Vincent smiles—a soft, private smile. “Hi, Gin,” he says.

There’s the low, lawnmower hum of a purr as Gingersnap rolls onto the ground to let Vincent continue petting her. It’s a heartwarming sight—Vincent, from the office, crouched down to pet a cat that’s smaller than his hand. Yves thinks he might cry.

Then Vincent withdraws his hand, reaches up with an arm to swipe at his eyes. Something jolts through his shoulders, a tremor so slight that Yves wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t already been watching—

“—nGkt-!”

Gingersnap mews at him, perplexed but undeterred. “Sorry,” Vincent says to her, quietly, “I’m not trying— to—” It’s all he can get out before he’s veering away again, this time with both hands tightly steepled over his nose for—

“hhIH’—GKKtt-!”

He sniffles softly, though the sniffle is immediately followed by a small, quiet cough. He reaches up with one hand to rub his nose. Yves watches his expression draw uneven, his eyebrows furrowing. 

“hhIH…”

Whatever sneeze he’s fighting seems terribly indecisive—but terribly irritating—for the way he rubs his nose again, his eyes squeezing shut in ticklish anticipation.

“HhIH… hh… HH-hhH-hHIHh—”

 He cups a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, and not a moment too early—

“—hIHh’iiIKKTSHh-!”His shoulders jolt forwards with the force of it, though it gives him barely a moment’s reprieve before his breath hitches again, sharply, urgently. “IiI’DSZCHuuhh-!”

“Bless you,” Yves says.

Vincent turns to blink at him. His eyes are a little red-rimmed and watering. There’s a thin flush over the bridge of his nose.

“You didn’t tell me you were allergic to cats,” Yves says, rounding the corner to close the distance between them.

“Slightly allergic,” Vincent admits, turning aside with a liquid sniffle. “It’s ndot - hhIHH-! - a big deal.”

“I didn’t know Joel and Cherie had a cat,” Yves says. “I’m sorry. I would’ve told you if they did.”

“It’s fine,” Vincent says, with a laugh. “I like her.”

“You might like her, but your body doesn’t seem to be a fan.”

“It’s a good thing that I have a consciousness, so I can codtinue petting her.” Vincent sniffles again, lifting one hand to rub his nose with his index finger. Yves does not know how to even begin to tell him what an inadvisable idea that is, but either way, he doesn’t have a chance to before Vincent’s eyes graze shut, and he turns to face away from Gingersnap before he jerks forward, catching a muffled - “Hh’GKK-t!” - into a clenched fist.

“Bless you,” Yves says. “You know, you’re really not going to make the situation any better if you keep on—”

“nNGKT-!!”

“—bless you!”

“hh—hHhih’iiKKsHHhUH!” The last sneeze is noticeably harsher than the others—it sounds loud enough to scrape against his throat, which seems to be further evidenced by the small cough that succeeds it.

“I’ll ask Joel if he has any antihistamines,” Yves says. 

“It’s fide,” Vincent says. 

“If you insist on spending time with Gingersnap, wouldn’t it be better to spend it without having to sneeze?”

“I would still have to sdeeze,” Vincent says, as if he’s already experienced in the matter—briefly, Yves wonders how many cats he inadvisably plays with on a frequent basis. “Just less.”

“That would be an improvement.”

Vincent looks away. “Antihistamines mbake me tired,” he says, after a little hesitation. 

“It’s a good time to be tired,” Yves says. “It’s not like you have any pressing work to get done.”

“I want to make a good ibpression on your friends,” Vincent says, wiping at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “That’s ndot going to happen if I fall asleep halfway through dinner.”

“If you did, I’m sure no one would fault you for it.”

“I’ll take something after we finish eating,” Vincent says. “If things haved’t improved by then. ”

“Okay,” Yves relents, and—since it doesn’t seem like Vincent is leaving anytime soon—takes a seat next to him on the rug. It’s a compromise he can accept.

—

Nora gets there next, followed by Mikhail and then Giselle. It’s Yves’s first time formally meeting Giselle, who turns out to be very tall and a little intimidating—she’s come straight from work, so she’s dressed accordingly, and she talks with the sort of quiet authority that Yves knows is usually indicative of years of experience. Right before they sit down for dinner, Vincent ducks out into the bathroom—‘I need to look at least marginally presentable,’ he’d said, seeming like he was in a rush—so Yves saves him a seat at the table. 

“Yves,” Giselle says, taking another salmon slider. “You made these entirely from scratch? This is delicious.” 

“Thanks,” Yves says. “To be honest, it was a bit of a gamble. I wasn’t sure if the sauce was going to pair well with it.”

“Yves is really good at cooking,” Mikhail says. “That’s half the reason why I roomed with him in college.”

“So what’s the other half?” Cherie says. 

“The other half is that he lets me eat his food,” Mikhail says.

Yves laughs. “For a second, I thought you’d have something nice to say about my personality.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mikhail says. 

“Yves is very good at cooking,” Vincent says, emerging from the hallway. Yves blinks at him. Whatever he’d done in the bathroom has done wonders—he looks remarkably put together. Not a strand of his hair is out of place. His eyes are dry, not red, not teary, not irritated, his collar crisply upright, his voice devoid of congestion. The only telltale sign about his ailment is the slight bit of redness to his nose, but it’s winter—that could easily be chalked up to the cold.

He slips easily into the seat next to Yves, his posture impeccable. Yves does everything in his power not to stare. 

“I think he’s responsible for some of the best hot chocolate I’ve had,” Vincent continues. That remark is surprising, too—repurposed from a memory as it is, it seems almost like something that could be genuine.

But Yves remembers how easily Vincent had lied, back on New Year’s—how easily he’d drawn the fictitious threads between them, almost thoughtlessly, as if they had always existed. 

I could make better hot chocolate, Yves thinks, before he can stop himself. I could really make the best hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted, if I just had time. It’s an absurd thought, and one that he doesn’t have much grounds for. He had been pressed for time, back then—he hadn’t known when Vincent’s ride was going to be arriving—but even if he’d really, properly tried, even if he’d succeeded in making the best hot chocolate he’s capable of making, there’s no guarantee that Vincent would’ve liked it.

He’s surprised by the pang in his chest, now, the desire to make true something that he knows to be false, to be worthy of the compliments that Vincent’s so easily spoken about.

“That’s definitely an exaggeration,” Yves says. “Technically, Mikhail didn’t even know that I knew how to cook when we signed the lease. The real reason why we roomed together is much more interesting.”

It’s a story he’s told before, though Cherie and Giselle haven’t heard it before. It’s easy to fall into it again: Mikhail and Yves met in their first year, over a group project in an intro to finance class. The two other members of their team had been dead weight, and at the time, Yves had thought—incorrectly—that Mikhail was just as bad as the rest of them.

It’s practically a comedy of errors—a series of miscommunications had led them to each finish the project independently. Yves remembers the all-nighters he’d pulled for that, nervous and over-caffeinated, until the day before the presentation, where he found that Mikhail had not—unlike the other members of their group—spent the last few weeks slacking off. 

Beside him, Vincent goes still.

When Yves chances a quick look at him, he sees: a slight, almost imperceptible ripple to his expression, before it smooths out again.

He nearly backtracks—his first thought is that perhaps something he’s said is the source of Vincent’s irritation—but then Vincent turns his face away. There’s the slightest disturbance to the line of his shoulders, and then—

“—gkT-!”

The sneeze is barely audible, stifled as it is into a half-closed palm, though the gesture is subtle, too—easily mistaken as Vincent simply looking away, resting his chin on his hand.

“I can’t believe you guys are still friends after all of that,” Nora says.

“Right,” Yves says. “I was so ready to never talk to him again. But obviously, we still had to give the presentation.”

He talks about how, in a half-asleep effort to salvage the project work, he and Mikhail had found some way to relate their findings to each other, to loosely bind the disparate subjects into a coherent thesis. Mikhail talks, too, about how they’d manipulated their presentation to get their combined work to seem sufficiently on topic.

Mikhail is halfway through his story when Yves sees Vincent jolt forward beside him.

He looks up just in time to catch the tail end of a sneeze—expertly stifled, just like the others—into a clenched fist. This one’s a little more forceful, even in its quietness—it leaves Vincent hunched over for just a moment, his shoulders slightly slumped, before he straightens again, covertly lowering his hand.

There’s a slightly hazy, distant look to his features, as if whatever’s been bothering him hasn’t begun to let up yet.

Yves nudges him with his arm. Vincent doesn’t exactly jump at the contact, but he does freeze, his shoulders stiffening.

“Hey,” Yves says, quietly enough that he doesn’t think anyone else should be able to hear. “You okay?”

Vincent nods.

“You sure you don’t want to take anything?”

Another nod. 

“I can’t tell you how little either of us proofread that paper,” Mikhail is saying.

“I reread it three months later,” Yves admits. “And he’s right. We really didn’t proofread it.” 

But it was a winning proposal, even though they’d both been too tired to realize it then. And still, Mikhail had still managed to hold a grudge against him for two long months. And then Mikhail had run into last-minute problems with his upcoming lease arrangement, and Yves had happened to find a decently priced two-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and he’d reached out half as a joke.

“You know those friends who say they can never room together?” Mikhail is saying. “Like, they hang out all the time, or they’ve been friends for years, or they trust each other with their lives, or whatever. But the second you put their living habits in close proximity, everything goes to shit? I think we were the opposite.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just because you two never had a good enough relationship to ruin in the first place?” Nora says jokingly.

She has a point. Yves is starting to think that all of the formative relationships in his life have all happened by accident.

—

Vincent and Giselle get along very well, Yves notes, listening to the two of them talk. Halfway through dinner, they get into a heated discussion about the more outward-facing expectations at work, as Joel and Cherie exchange knowing glances. Giselle talks about feeling accountable for the team she manages—for knowing that if they don’t perform, she’ll take the fall for them; for being careful not to disperse the stress from higher ups unevenly, for constantly feeling her way through how much work is reasonable to expect of them. Vincent talks about the stress of apportioning work to others—the knowledge in his own competence and the knowledge gap when it comes to how others will handle things, the desire to take on more work alone to make sure everything is accounted for.

Nora, who’d had an internship at a different firm after each year in college, weighs in too on the management styles she’d been under, to what extent the expectations from leadership affected the dynamic between her coworkers.

It’s interesting, Yves thinks, that they all have their own subset of worries, even when they come across as people who are so certain of themselves.

As the others speak, Vincent stops periodically to rub his nose with the knuckle of his index finger—an action that always seems to keep the irritation at bay, but never seems to mitigate it entirely. For a moment, his expression goes hazy, his eyes watering ever so slightly, but it always lasts only a moment.

When Mikhail cracks a joke that has the entire table laughing, Vincent takes the opportunity to cough quietly into an upheld fist. When Cherie talks about her and Joel’s extremely mathematical efforts to fit everything into the car before moving, Vincent turns aside, raising a napkin to his face with a quiet, well-contained sniffle.

It’s difficult to tell, at first. But his attempts to keep quiet, to succumb to his symptoms as inconspicuously as possible, take their toll on him. Every time he jerks forward with a near-silent stifle, Yves can tell, by Vincent’s expression when he emerges, that it’s just short of relieving.  Every sniffle seems to only add on to the mounting congestion, in the long run. It’s a slow, almost imperceptible unraveling.

And yet, when Yves asks about it—when he offers to ask the others for antihistamines, or when he offers to make the drive to a convenience store himself; when he suggests that they go out to get some fresh air—he’s always faced with the same nonanswer, the same dismissive, I’ll be fine. The same persistent, Don’t worry about it.

So Yves doesn’t worry about it, for now—at least, not outwardly.

—

At some point after dinner, they disperse. Yves talks to Joel and Cherie about the apartment, about the pains of moving in, about the other places they’d considered and about why this one had been at the top of the list. Then about the cat— “we had been talking about getting one,” Cherie says. “And then one day Joel was wandering around downtown, and one of the pet shops there was holding an adoption event, and then when I got home there was a cat in the living room.”

“He didn’t call you to come pick out a cat with him?”

“Have you ever heard of ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission?’” Joel says. 

“He texted me before he brought her home,” Cherie says, and scrolls through her phone until she finds a text that says: Would you kill me if I brought home a cat. Just asking for a friend. And hypothetically if we extended this thought experiment it would be an orange cat that’s 2 months old.

“That sounds like a text from someone who’s absolutely decided already,” Yves says. “Ask for forgiveness, huh? So how’s the forgiveness going?”

“I let her name her,” Joel says.

“He’s on litter box duty for the next six months,” Cherie says.

On the other side of the room, Mikhail and Vincent are having a conversation—it could be because Vincent is the person in the room that Mikhail has talked to least, to date, but Yves has a feeling that it’s so that Mikhail can gain embarrassing intel on what Yves has been doing for the past few months.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vincent turn away, his eyebrows drawing together, raising both his hands to his face to catch a sneeze into steepled hands. Then, not a moment later, his shoulders shudder forward with another.

“Totally off topic,” Yves says, to Joel and Cherie. “Do you guys have any antihistamines?”

“I think we have some Benadryl,” Cherie says. “It should be in the bathroom cabinet, behind the mirror.”

He does find it there, eventually—next to a box of band-aids and a small cylindrical container of cotton swabs. Perhaps he’ll hand it to Vincent, discreetly, when he’s done talking to Mikhail. Vincent had said antihistamines made him tired, but now that dinner is over, it shouldn’t be an issue—Yves suspects people will start heading out soon, and he’ll be the one driving, anyways.

When he steps out into the hallway, Mikhail and Vincent are in the middle of a conversation. It’s a conversation Yves has every intention of interrupting, and no intention of eavesdropping on, until he overhears—

“So,” Mikhail says, “When you first started dating Yves, what was it that you saw in him?”

Yves winces. That’s certainly not an easy question to answer—he and Vincent don’t know each other all that well, and any planning they have done on the basis of their fake relationship has been almost entirely centered around logistics—events, important dates, flagship moments in the relationship, trivia-worthy personal details. Not… this.

But Vincent just laughs, seemingly unfazed. “Honestly, if I told you everything I liked about Yves, you’d want to date him too.”

“That’s a tall claim,” Mikhail says. Yves is positively certain that no permutation of words in the universe could make Mikhail want to date him. “You can’t just say that and not give any examples.”

“I guess Yves is a very considerate person,” Vincent says, with a sniffle. “It actually confused me, at first. When I was growing up, after I moved here from Korea, I was brought up in the sort of environment where there was always an expectation for self-sufficiency. It didn’t matter how young I was, I guess—there were certain things I was expected to know, and certain things I was expected to teach myself.”

Something about his expression looks wistful, if not a little sad. But perhaps this is a trick of the light; perhaps his eyes are just watering from earlier. “My parents trusted me with a lot of things, but it was the kind of trust where they weren’t planning on filling in the gaps for me if I fell short.” 

“I know what you mean,” Mikhail says. “That must’ve been difficult.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Vincent says. “But I’m not telling you this because it was a burden to me, or anything. Back then, it was all that I had ever known. It was normal to me, then, because it was inevitable.”

“Yves is a very different person than I am,” Vincent says. “At times, when I was growing up, it felt like kindness was always something that had to be calculated.”

He pauses, sniffling again, before he raises his arm to his face with a forceful—

“hIhh’GKT-! Hh… hh-HHih’NGKktshH!”

“Bless you,” Mikhail says reflexively.

“Thadk you,” Vincent says, sniffling. He lowers his arm. “I was always taught that if you lend a hand to someone else, you have to make sure their success is not the thing that robs you of your spot—that sort of thing. But Yves is kind even without thinking about it. He’s kind even when there’s nothing in it for him.”

“So that was what made you develop feelings for him?” Mikhail asks.

“Eventually, yes,” Vincent says. “At first, I thought that we were irreconcilably different.”

“What changed?”

“Yves is an easy person to like, romantically or otherwise,” Vincent says. “It’s a little disarming to be on the receiving end of his type of kindness. And I think that’s ultimately what made me start liking him. He’s just the sort of selfless person you can’t help but admire, if that makes sense. It’s like—when someone does so much for you out of sheer selflessness, at some point, you start wanting to be a part of their happiness too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yves sees a small orange blur—mostly fluff, on four short white legs, with two pointy ears—bound from the kitchen into the living room.

“I get it,” Mikhail says. “That’s an interesting answer. It makes me hopeful that Yves might’ve stumbled into a relationship that will be very good for him.”

That’s a statement he’ll have to revise, Yves thinks wryly, in a few months, whenever it stops being practical for Vincent to keep up this act.

“Oh,” Vincent says, blinking. “What makes you say that?”

“When he and Erika broke up, he was—” Mikhail pauses, briefly, and Yves is thinking about the many embarrassing—but completely, verifiably true—ways he could finish off that sentence. “—he was pretty upset,” Mikhail says, instead, which Yves decides is suitably merciful.

“Look, what’s between them is between them—I’m not going to claim I know all the ins and outs of their relationship. But given that Yves was living with me for much of the time that he and Erika were dating, I’ve seen them interact more times than I can count.”

“I don’t think Erika is a bad person,” he continues. “She’s very ambitious, which I think was good for Yves back when they first started dating. But I don’t think she recognized those things about him—how much he cares for others, how much he gives people the benefit of the doubt, how much he… well, frankly, how much bullshit he’s willing to endure on his end. I think she took his kindness for granted, a little bit, and she certainly didn’t go out of her way to reciprocate.”

“What I’m saying is, I’m glad he met you,” Mikhail says. Beside him, something small and orange hops onto the couch they’re standing next to. “I can tell that what you said was sincere.” 

If even Mikhail thought he was being sincere, perhaps Vincent is a little too good of an actor.

“Obviously, it’s early for me to be saying this, so you can take it with a grain of salt,” Mikhail continues. “But I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.”

The sentence feels like a punch to the stomach.

And—well.

I’m glad he met you. I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.

Yves has really dug himself into this hole, hasn’t he?

Mikhail thinks that Vincent is good for him—Mikhail, one of Yves’s closest friends, someone who is by no means quick to express his approval over whoever Yves is seeing—which means that when they inevitably stage their breakup, Yves is never going to hear the end of it.

Is it cruel to be taking Vincent to all of these events, to be introducing him to all of his friends, when—after the impending breakup—Vincent might never see any of them again? Is it cruel that Mikhail likes Vincent enough to be hopeful that this is going to last?

Yves doesn’t have time to contemplate it more when three things happen.

One—Gingersnap, who is still perched at the very top of the couch, nudges her face against Vincent’s arm and mews softly at him.

Two—Vincent stops what he’s doing to reach out slowly, cautiously, to scratch gently at the fur under her chin. Gingersnap purrs, leaning her head into his hand.

Three—Vincent withdraws his hand, suddenly, as if he’s been burned, twisting away reflexively. He lifts his hand—the same hand he’s been petting Gingersnap with (probably inadvisably) to his face, to cover a resounding—

“hh—hiHH-hHihh’iIZSChHH-uhh! snf-!”

The sneeze sounds ticklish and barely relieving, as if he’s been holding it in all afternoon. 

It’s only a few moments later that Vincent’s jerking forward with another ticklish, wrenching, “hh… hhiHH… NgKT-!—hh’hiiIIIK’TSCHhuhH! snf-! hiIh… hIIIH-IITSCHh’yyue!”

“Oh,” Mikhail says, finally comprehending. “You’re allergic to cats?”

“Just slightly— hIh… hH- Hiih—hhH’nNGkT-!” Vincent sniffles wetly, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Sorry to - hh-! - cut our codversatiod short - hH… I… hhiHh’IiKSHhuh! Excuse mbe… hH… Hhh-! I’mb going to rund to the bathroom… hh… hhiIh… hh-HIih’iiIK’SHhUHhh!”

Yves ducks out into the kitchen before Vincent has a chance to head his way. He busies himself with removing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water, Somewhere behind him, he hears the bathroom door click shut, hears the slightly muffled sound of a sneeze, then another.

He shuts his eyes.

Vincent had said that it was fine. Should Yves have insisted? It’s Yves’s fault, again, that Vincent is in this situation, but then again, he couldn’t have known—both that Joel and Cherie would have a cat, and that Vincent would like her so much. Either way, Yves can’t help but feel partially responsible.

But would it be strange, now, to offer Vincent something to take for it, to openly acknowledge his affliction? Should he have done something earlier? Or should he wait to acknowledge it after they leave?

Against all doubt, he finds himself outside of the bathroom door.

Yves knocks.

There’s the sound of water running, inside, and then the sound of the faucet being turned to shut. Then there’s a brief pause. Yves is contemplating knocking again when the door opens just a crack.

There, Vincent stands, his eyes a little watery still, his nose just slightly redder than usual, his hair slightly out of place—he’s just washed his face, then.

“Yves,” Vincent says.

“Um,” Yves says, holding out the glass of water and, next to it, the bottle of Benadryl. “Thought you could use these.”

Vincent takes the cup, a little hesitantly, and sets it on the bathroom counter. Then he takes the bottle of allergy medicine, unscrews the cap, and removes two small pink pills.

“Thank you,” he says. Yves thinks he’s about to take a sip when he twists to the side suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut, snapping forward with a loud—

“hIIH’IIKKSHh’hUh!”

The hand he’s holding the cup with trembles a bit with the action, but the water inside doesn’t spill. 

“Bless you,” Yves says, taking the cup from him, before—

“hIHH… hh-Hhih’iISCHhh’Uhh!”

“Bless you!”

The only acknowledgment Vincent gives him is to take the cup back from him, sniffling, and down the pills in one quick, decisive sip.

“They’ll take some time to take effect,” Yves says, though he’s sure that Vincent knows that already, for the way he knew to take two, even without reading the label on the bottle. “Are you okay?”

“It’s been awhile since my last edcounter with a cat,” Vincent says, sniffling. 

“You forgot how bad it was?”

“It gets better with exposure,” he says. And worse without.

Yves says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know they’d have a cat.”

“Even if you’d known, I ndever told you I was allergic,” Vincent says. “It’s fine.”

“I should’ve thought to check. Seriously, a housewarming party—”

“I told you, snf, I like cats,” Vincent says, clearing his throat. “So it’s fine.”

Yves looks around—at the bathroom, which looks just as pristine as he’d left it earlier, except that the tissue box on the bathroom counter is a little askew. At the slight tiredness to Vincent’s posture, even as he looks off to the side, tilting his glasses up to his forehead to swipe at his eyes with his sleeve.

“Do you want to get out of here?“ Yves says.

“I cad stay,” Vincent says, as if he really is willing to, despite the side effects. “Do you want to stay longer?”

I want you to be comfortable, Yves wants to say. 

Instead, he says, “I think I’ve just about caught up with everyone. Besides, we have work tomorrow, and I think Cherie and Joel do too, so I don’t want to stay too late, you know?”

“Okay,” Vincent says. 

“I’m happy you came,” Yves says, stepping past Vincent to put the bottle of Benadryl back into its original spot, where he found it. He snags the glass from the counter on his way out.

“Your friends are a fun crowd,” Vincent says, following him out.

Yves laughs. “I think just between you and me, Mikhail has been dying to interrogate you about this relationship.”

“He did idterrogate me,” Vincent says. “How much of it did you overhear?”

“What?”

“When you were standing out in the hallway.”

Oh. Well, perhaps he hadn’t been as discreet about eavesdropping as he’d thought. Yves says, “Okay, you got me. I heard a good amount.”

“I don’t think Mikhail noticed you there, if you’re worried,” Vincent says. “In any case, it doesd’t matter if you overheard. It was just the same story.”

They step out into the hallway. Giselle has left, already, to be home in time for a cross-timezone call with a team that works somewhere halfway across the world. Yves bids everyone else a goodbye (Cherie and Joel thank him for coming, and Cherie hugs him and Vincent both on the way out; Nora asks Vincent to send her a recipe to his beef skewers, to which Vincent admits sheepishly that he stole from a cookbook, to which Nora says “making it successfully is half the work;” Mikhail says, “If you and Vincent get a place too, I want to be invited to your housewarming party.”)

On the way out, Yves grabs both of their coats off from where they’re hanging in a closet next to the front door, and hands Vincent’s coat to him. There’s never much street parking by the apartment, so the car is parked a couple blocks down, and it’s cold enough to be worth bundling up.

“You’re very good at lying,” Yves says, when he’s sure that the door is shut behind them.

Outside, it’s snowing just a little. Snow falls from the sky in thick white flakes. Vincent pulls his hood over his shoulders, sniffling a little—though whether that’s from the cold or from the allergies, Yves can’t be sure. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Definitely a compliment. I just mean, you play the part really well.”

“So instead of being a good boyfriend, I’m a good fake boyfriend,” Vincent says, lifting his sleeve to his face to muffle a cough into it. “Somehow, that seems much less impressive.”

“It’s arguably more impressive,” Yves says. “It definitely requires a different subset of skills.”

Vincent is quiet for a moment. When Yves looks over, he sees Vincent raise both hands to his face, steepling them over his nose, his eyes fluttering shut.

“hHh… hHh’iiiIKKSshh’uhh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says. 

“Ndot— hh… hHh… done — hH-hhIh’nGKKTsHuuh! hHh-hH’IIZSCHHhhuh!”

“Bless you! Cats, huh?”

Vincent hums. It’s snowed all through dinner—the snow under their feet coats the sidewalk, powdery and untouched. Their shoes sink into it while they walk.

“I didn’t know you used to live in Korea,” Yves says.

“It’s not a secret, snf-!,” Vincent says. “But I ndever found an occasion to bring it up.” 

Yves can think of a hundred things to say—how it’s strange only learning this information secondhand; it’s strange to play the part of someone who knows Vincent and knows him intimately, and to know so little about him, at the core of it. Isn’t it like that, with coworkers? The only window he has to Vincent’s life is made up of the things Vincent has chosen to share with him—over small talk in the break room, or conversationally over their outings, or during longer drives.

He knows an assortment of trivia, like Vincent’s favorite color (green) or Vincent’s birthday (March 15th) or the number of siblings Vincent has (one), or when he had his first kiss (during his first year in university) or his least favorite chore (vacuuming) or how he spends his weekends (generally at the library downtown, catching up on work or working on his personal projects). But even that was only for the sake of having something to say if his friends asked him—of having a basic understanding of his supposed partner that Vincent could later corroborate.

“Was it very different there?”

“I moved here when I was pretty young,” Vincent says. “But it was very different.”

When Yves looks over, there’s something complicated to Vincent’s expression that gives him pause. “Back then, I was young enough that everything was new to me. So the cultural shift wasn’t as pronounced for me as it was for the rest of the family. I think that’s why they moved back, eventually.”

“Did that happen recently?”

“They moved back just six years after we came here,” he says. “I was in high school at the time, so I stayed with my aunt to continue my education here.”

“Was it difficult living here on your own?”

“Is this useful to you?”

Yves blinks, taken aback. “Sorry?”

“Is this information useful to you?” Vincent says, looking over at him. His glasses have fogged up a little in the cold.  “Do you think your friends are going to ask about it?”

“It’s—not exactly useful in that sense,” Yves says, backtracking. “I just wanted to know. But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

That’s right, he reminds himself—he and Vincent are only doing this for appearances’ sake. 

“I got used to it,” Vincent says, finally, which isn’t exactly an answer. “It’s hard to say if—hold on, I— hh-!”

Yves sees him duck off to the side, raising his arm to his face.

“Bless you—!”

“hh-Hhiih’IIZSCHh’uhH!”

The sneeze is muffled slightly into his sleeve. Vincent sniffles, keeping his arm clamped to his face for a moment, in trepidation, before dropping it to his side.

“Apologies, snf-!,” he says, as if he has anything to apologize for. “It’s hard to say if things would’ve been better if I’d gone back with them to Korea. I just know things would’ve been different.”

Yves doesn’t know what to say to that. It feels like something that Vincent has thought about for years, something that Yves couldn’t even begin to comprehend—growing up here, alone. Away from his family, in a country foreign to him, with his family all the way on the other side of the Pacific ocean; staying with a stranger. To say that it had to have been difficult would be a vast understatement. 

Had he doubted himself, then? Had it been his idea to stay here, in the States? Had his parents told him it was for the best? Had he argued with them on the subject? Had they listened?

“Do you think you’re happy enough now to justify that decision?” Yves asks.

Vincent is quiet for a bit. Around them, the snow continues to fall, silent and slow, listing upwards on every updrift. “Sometimes,” he says.

—

When they get back to the car, Vincent is quiet. The car is frigid, the window panes cold enough to fog up when Yves puts his hand on them—he puts the heaters on to the highest setting. If anything, being out of the cold seems to make Vincent’s nose run even more—a fact which he carefully obscures, resting his face on the palm of his hand with a few muffled sniffles.

“Thanks again for coming,” Yves says. “I know I—and everyone else—already said that to you like a hundred times. But I mean it.”

“It’s ndo problem, snf,” Vincent says. “I’ll be sure to avoid putting you into contact with cats in the future,” Yves says.

“There’s ndo need for that.”

“While we’re at it, is there anything else you’re allergic to?”

“Not much,” Vincent says. “Unless you pland on getting rid of the entire season of spring.”

“That’s secretly why you chose an office job,” Yves says. “So you could avoid all the pollen by staying inside all day.”

“Busy season was - snf-! - idvented solely for that purpose,” Vincent says.

It’s barely a couple minutes into the drive when Vincent stifles a yawn into his fist.

“Are you tired?” Yves asks. “I mean, you did say that thing about antihistamines making you tired.”

“Wide awake,” Vincent says, before—moments later—hiding another yawn behind a cupped hand.

“Evidently,” Yves says, which earns him a quiet laugh.

“Tell me if you ndeed me,” Vincent says, leaning his head lightly on the passenger seat window. As if this is work, or something. As if Yves could have any conceivable reason to need him during the drive home.

“Not at all,” Yves says. “As a matter of fact, it’d probably be a good thing if you close your eyes. You wouldn’t have to look at all this traffic.” It’s a little past rush hour, but traffic is only just starting to clear up, and driving in the city at any hour has never been a particularly pleasant experience.

Vincent opens his eyes. “Do you wadt me to help navigate?”

“I want you to sleep,” Yves says. “I’m an expert at handling traffic.”

It’s as if all this time, Vincent was merely waiting for permission. Yves isn’t certain if he’s asleep, but he certainly looks to be—when Yves sneaks a glance at him, his eyes are shut, his shoulders slack, and his breathing has evened out. It’s an image Yves wants to thoroughly take in—the slow rise of his chest, his eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks. 

Instead, he drives. Instead, he stares hard at the rows and rows of cars before him, at every traffic light, and tries not to think about—

Vincent, at the housewarming party, kneeling down to pet a cat smaller than his hand, despite being well aware of the consequences.

Vincent, calling Yves kind even without thinking about it, talking about him—about his best qualities—with near-artful dishonesty.

Vincent, walking beside him in the snow, talking candidly about growing up here; the unspoken understanding between them about how much he must’ve given up.

That Vincent, the same Vincent from work, asleep in Yves’s passenger seat, while Yves drives him home.

Yves can’t help but think that if he caught feelings for someone like Vincent, Erika would be the least of his problems.

[soopsiesdaisies]

i mean, technically, (y)our marriage is saved - 8

Chapter summary:

Feyre has Emotions and hates them. And Rhys sure has a mouth on him… sure has…

Read on AO3 + Tumblr Chapters Overview

General warnings: Rhys' mouth, 9k

~*~

We took refuge from the harsh morning sunlight in the library soon after finishing up breakfast. The sprawling chamber with built-in bookcases at least thrice my height laid on the other side of the palace, with the large, open windows that characterised the building’s architecture facing the west. As it was early still, the horizon was painted a dark blue; Rhys had flicked his fingers after we entered and put up a myriad of tiny, flickering stars to offer additional lighting. One floated near each of our faces, bathing the papers and books in a silvery glow. 

Though I’d expected to fall back into the familiar, trusted bickering that Rhys and I had cultivated during our brief altercations the previous week, Mor’s presence ensured that we both remained relatively amicable with one another. My temper was tempered, and Rhys’ ferocious appetite for being as annoying as he possibly could be to coax reactions out of me was relaxed. How she did it, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps Mor’s general air was just strong and cheery enough to cut through my irritation like a knife through butter. Perhaps she just urged Rhys to be less of a prick by way of existing in the general vicinity of him. Whatever it was, I found myself less snarky; Rhys held his tongue and reworded whatever he drivel he emitted more often than not. Both helped immensely to keep the atmosphere somewhat pleasant.

My progress in reading, writing, and mind-shielding was the subject of our discussion. As Rhys could check the latter at any time, we’d inevitably latched onto my swiftly improving literacy: Mor, at least, seemed utterly delighted at how well I was doing. 

“It’s like you did nothing but practise,” she said cheerily, shoving the marked paper my way. I had to write the words Rhys and her dictated down and had made an almost negligible amount of mistakes. “Were your weeks in Spring that boring?” 

Not boring, per se—but I wasn’t going to tell them that. “I just found myself with a surplus of free time.” 

“Well, it paid off.” Mor grinned at me. “Leaps and bounds, Feyre. Really.” 

“Yes,” Rhys drawled. “Remarkable. I’d imagined you’d have been far too busy accepting your fiancé’s enthusiastic welcome to occupy yourself with writing lines.”

“Imagined me accepting an enthusiastic welcome often, did you?” I shot back, tone frosty. Rhys sat back with a smirk, though he did seem a touch flustered. “But no. I just had nothing better to do.”

“Nothing?” Rhys asked, at the same time that Mor said, “Ah.”

“Why on earth wouldn’t you be busy with other things?” Rhys continued, before Mor could say anything else. He ignored the sharp look she sent him with ease. “I would’ve thought you’d be swamped with doing all kinds of Lady things.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like,” he flapped a hand, “managing the household, picking out dresses, having tea parties, starting up embroidery. Those things. Ladies do those, don’t they?” 

“You sound like someone we both despise,” Mor muttered. He shoved her chair and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Just saying…”

I punched out a sigh through my nose, mouth tight and shoulders pulled up to my ears, it felt like. “Yeah, no.” 

“No?” 

“No,” I confirmed, and then I said, before I could calculate whether it was a good idea to tell them, “the wedding’s off indefinitely, so I’d wager I won’t become the Lady of Spring any time soon.” 

Mor’s mouth fell open. Rhys, for his part, didn’t show more shock than a small jump of his eyebrows. 

“I’ve decided it’s best to wait until we’ve both healed,” I said stiffly, “before we make any hasty and relatively permanent decisions like marriage.” 

“Ah,” Mor repeated. When I looked her way, her face was tight but, I thought, vaguely approving. “I understand.” 

She reached over and patted my wrist, and I pressed my mouth into a thin line and nodded. Rhys chewed absently on his lip and refrained from doing much of anything but stare at me—I personally refused to look at him directly. To an almost irrational degree, I felt frightened that he might be able to see what had occurred prior to my refusal to marry Tamlin. I didn’t know how he’d react, what he’d think; though I suspected he’d be angry for me, I had a nagging, anxious suspicion that he’d think I’d pushed Tamlin too far too soon. 

“My life so far is just a small blip for the rest of my immortality, as someone kindly reminded me,” I said regardless. “And I fear that if we were to marry now—”

I halted. Too much. Too much information. They didn’t need to know about the ins and outs of my relationship with Tamlin, all the grievances and frustrations that came with it. My intermittent coldness towards him. The bouts of apathy and compulsion for cruelty I’d feel when he was near. 

If anything, Rhys, upon realising I’d been unhappy lately, would find a loophole to keep me here. That seemed just like the kind of thing he’d do. 

“Yes?” Mor prompted. 

I cleared my throat and played with the edge of the marked sheet. “He’s a choice. We’re not—fated. I don’t want to forget that.” 

Right after I said it I bit down on my cheeks so hard that my mouth flooded with something wet and warm that had to be blood. It was odd—faerie blood didn’t taste like slightly salted copper. It tasted sweet and cloying. More like lead. 

My hands clenched and unclenched repetitively. 

None of us said anything for a moment, though Mor seemed to be searching for words. Rhys didn’t; he just stared at me with those star-flecked eyes of his, almost calculating but with a hint of vulnerability. 

He’d caused it. The revelation he’d admitted to, the gift the cauldron had offered us and he’d deemed proper to share in a drunken stupor, had made me realise I had a choice. I didn’t need to be with Tamlin just like I didn’t need to be with Rhys. 

It was like he’d yanked the wool off my eyes. 

“You know,” Mor said then, “I once—was engaged to be married.” 

I stared at her. 

“After I’d bled for the first time and my powers awakened, I was to be married off to a male I didn’t know well and into a family that would treat me as a broodmare.” Mor didn’t smile, didn’t soften. “My virginity was the highest asset in this. And because I wanted to have a choice, I lost it to a male who would become a friend.” 

I knew virginity was important in the human world. I didn’t realise it was here as well, within the faerie realms of Prythian; it seemed like such a small, dismissible thing in comparison to immortality. 

“The reaction was violent,” she said. “Rhys and his family, of course, weren’t happy about the political implications, but they all understood why I did it. My family, however,” and then she swallowed, the only tell of her discomfort, “was so furious that they tortured me when they found out. I was dumped into the Court of my betrothed with a note nailed to my stomach that I was his problem from that point onwards. A—another friend rescued me and brought me to Rhys, where he and his family nursed me back to health and allowed me to stay if I so wished.” 

“Who was your fiancé?” I asked in a whisper. 

“Eris Vanserra,” she said. “You probably saw him in that bitch’ Court. He’s the firstborn.” 

Eris. I’d seen him, yes; only shared the smallest resemblance with Lucien, but that may have been because of their hair colour alone. He was the one who’d snarled at me when I told Amarantha my name. 

My warning to Nesta before Tamlin took me away rang through my head in a dizzying echo. His father beats his wife and the sons do nothing to stop it. The Lady of Autumn seemed regal but drawn; I would’ve assumed that that came from being imprisoned under the mountain, had I not known that Beron was a horrific piece of work. 

“Good that you got away and avoided… what could’ve happened,” I said. 

“Yes.” Mor’s smile was tentative and brief. “We always have a choice, Feyre. Even when it doesn’t look like we do.” 

We continued our work after that. Rhys hadn’t spoken up to add anything to Mor’s story, nor did he pipe up with additional information afterwards. The only thing he did was go back to helping me work through difficult words with many syllables, much like Mor did as well. He did seem a bit more subdued somehow, however—like something had left him reeling. 

They coaxed me through my stumbling over difficult and long words before slowly and carefully moving on to intertextuality and the effects of word choice. I knew much of it already — I was an adult, after all, and was rather fluent in our language — but the underlying meaning woven into sentences and their structures was quite different from regular speaking language. Rhys explained how words and phrasing could affect the meaning of a text or speech, used to strengthen or weaken arguments; Mor explained the more exact examples of it, like rhetorical questions and unreliable narrators, metaphors and motifs. 

Knowing these, recognising these, was key to navigating the world of the Courts, Rhys told me. Faeries spoke in riddles and the courtly fae even more so, for their entire life was bathed in political games—I needed to be able to move past them in order to survive, or they’d eat me alive. 

“Of course,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind eating you, if you catch my drift.” 

I threw a balled-up piece of paper at his head, nailing him between the eyebrows. As he spluttered — for show, I suspected; he would’ve been able to mist it if he so wished — and Mor giggled obnoxiously, I demanded we just continue with my lesson.

As was par for the course for Rhys, he wrote down ridiculous sentences for me to read out loud before I was tasked with copying it down and explaining the word choice. Mor let him do so if only because I did a lot of eye-rolling and sighing as I completed my little tasks and continued to throw little balls of paper at his stupidly perfect face. Rhysand is in possession of a wingspan that pales all others, Rhysand will sweep you off your feet without warning, Rhysand shan’t hold back and will break Tamlin’s nose the next time that welp puts his paws anywhere near Rhysand’s person, et cetera; I could tell the self-centred nature of the sentences originated largely from his mission to annoy me as much as humanly — well, faely — possible, but that didn’t make me any less annoyed. 

If I was being honest, it was brainless work: simplicity woven with increasing difficulty in an attempt to keep me on my toes. It’s why I didn’t feel my brain make a connection until I’d copied half of the sentence ‘Rhysand shall obliterate all the pathetic enemies he will come across on the immortal battlefields spread across Prythian’—a realisation that felt so sudden I nearly broke my pen. 

“Tamlin doesn’t believe there will be a war, by the way.” 

There was an elongated beat of silence before either of the cousins blinked. 

“What,” said Mor, without any inflection. 

“I suggested I would start training,” I said, “but Tamlin vetoed it, as he believes it’ll put a target on my back and there won’t be a war for me to fight in anyway.” 

To my horror, my tone was irritable. The idea that Tamlin thought he could order me around like I was his subject, like he had any right to tell me what to do, did still annoy me. It was actually so immensely frustrating that I still saw red when I thought about it for too long. 

“I thought him being allowed to remove the masquerade mask Amarantha cursed him to wear would have made him less blind,” Rhys said sharply, “but it appears I was wrong.” 

“Rhys,” Mor chided, but it didn’t have a lot of heart behind it. “He genuinely doesn’t believe war will come, Feyre?” 

“I thought he did,” I said honestly. “He’s been pacing the perimeter of the house and often gets called out to the border. There’s been an increase in sentries too. But I think—the danger he’s seeing is in his head.” 

Mor’s stare was hard, calculating, and appallingly neutral. For a moment I felt laid bare, like she could see right down to my bones, to what I hid there and refused to say. I shifted and looked away. 

“Feyre,” she said slowly, “when you said you had time to study—”

“I had time to study,” I intoned. 

“Right.” Mor paused. “But did you have time because—”

“Mor,” Rhys snapped. 

“I’m worried,” Mor cried instantly, turning to face her cousin. “Can’t I be worried? Feyre is one of the first friends I’ve made in centuries and I want to make sure she’s—”

“She can tell you whether she is on her own time,” said Rhys, sparing me a brief, apologetic glance, “not during a round of questioning she’s not comfortable with.” 

“Like you haven’t done the exact same thing,” Mor replied. “I know you, Rhys, and I can tell when you’re brooding…”

“I’ve never brooded a day in all five hundred and thirty-six years of my life—”

“By the Gods, you’re old,” I blurted, “that’s like, twenty-one human generations.” 

Silence fell almost instantly. Against my better judgement I sank a touch the moment both immortal gazes fell upon me, fiddling with my pen. And then, after what felt like an age of tension-riddled quiet, Mor burst into loud, witch-like cackles. 

“Well,” said Rhys, tone about as dry as high land during a drought, “I can confirm you’ve managed to land a solid kick against the royal plums of my ego, Feyre, darling. Thank you.”

Mor collapsed onto the table. “Old—”

“It’s true, though,” I defended weakly. “Humans can barely reach eighty years before they die of old age—sometimes a hundred, if they’re lucky and have good teeth. Rhys, you were born when humans still practised the old religion en masse.” 

“Twenty-one generations—” Mor hiccupped. 

“Tarquin, Summer’s High Lord, is eighty,” Rhys said, “and he’s like a teenager. I’m quite certain he hasn’t even started growing pubic hair yet.” 

“How the hell would you know that?” 

“OLD!” Mor yelled, face having turned red. “Rhys—Rhys, you’re geriatric…”

“Frame of reference,” Rhys said, before he told Mor in a tight voice, “you are a year older than me, Morrigan.” 

Mor sobered within seconds and bared her teeth. I turned my lips inward and bit down on them to keep from smiling or, worse, gaping. 

“It’s impolite to reveal a lady’s age,” she snapped.  

Rhys grinned. “It’s a good thing you’re not a lady then, but a horrific harpy instead—”

He flattened himself on the table in the next moment, so quickly it would’ve been a blur for human eyes, as Mor went to whack him with a rolled up sheet of paper. What happened next was just as swift: Rhys twisted, reached up, and grabbed Mor’s wrist to prevent further whacking. Mor retaliated by bringing her leg up and kicking so hard at his chair he went sprawling with a yelped curse. 

I pressed both of my hands against my mouth, but it did very little to muffle the snort that escaped me. And as Rhys climbed back upright, frazzled, head popping up from under the table with his mouth open like a fish, the chuckles that fled my mouth could no longer be corralled and brought back. My hands fell, and I was smiling, and Rhys’ expression became laced with wonder. 

Mor snickered along in merriment, though I barely registered it. The sudden burst of laughter, a kind of mind-blowing amusement that flooded all throughout my body, was as unnerving as it was relieving; I couldn’t genuinely remember the last time I’d laughed, let alone at others. I thought my time under the mountain and my brief death had sucked that ability out of me. 

But it was here now. I shook with the force of it, the twinge in my cheeks and the pressure on my stomach stark reminders of how long it’d been. 

“I’m—I’m sorry,” I stuttered, gasping, and I felt a spark of panic at how difficult it was to stop and calm down. “I haven’t—I—”

“Don’t say sorry,” Rhys said quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.” 

He hadn’t. I’d never smiled in front of him, at least—as far as I could remember, though perhaps my nights drugged with faerie wine had urged me to. But maybe he’d thought it wasn’t real then. Ingenuine. 

As sudden as the unignorable amusement had been, it got replaced by something heavier and more painful, and the tears of joy morphed, very suddenly, in tears of grief. 

“Oh, fuck,” I choked out, and the amazed expressions on the faeries’ faces made place for concern. I took a shuddering breath. “Sorry, sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” Mor whispered. She was beside me in a blink, hands hovering before resting loosely atop mine. “It’s… been a while, hasn’t it?”

I nodded, staring resolutely at the blurred table. Tears dripped from my lashes at a frankly impressive pace, some falling on my lap but most trailing down my cheeks to my jaw, then down my neck and collarbones to be absorbed by the collar of my tunic. Every breath stuttered on both the inhale and the exhale; I couldn’t close my mouth, lest my bottom lip trembled so much it would fall open anyway. 

“This is ridiculous,” I breathed, choking on a sob. “I was just—laughing, it’s not—”

“The first time I laughed after I was tortured, I had a panic attack,” Mor said gently. “When Rhys came back after you freed him…” she paused, head twisting to look at him, before she swallowed, “—and he laughed at something one of our friends said, he threw up so violently he spat blood. It’s… normal, and understandable, to be shocked when you do something you haven’t done in a while. And it’s normal—”

I sobbed louder. Mor tucked some hair behind my ear and squeezed my hand. And then Rhys said, hoarse and quiet yet perfectly audible:

“It’s normal to grieve the person you were, and what you could do.” 

I jerked and looked at him. His jaw was tight, eyes intense, brow low. 

“We’re made up out of our experiences. Those experiences all change us, just slightly. What you went through…” he swallowed, “…is more than enough to change someone nearly beyond recognition. But when you get a sliver of your old self back it’s a shock to your system.” 

I bit down on my cheeks again, so hard my mouth flooded once more with my sweet, cloying faerie blood. 

“Don’t apologise for something you can’t help, Feyre,” Mor said firmly. “Don’t ever.” 

“Especially not,” Rhys added in a murmur, “when it’s a step towards helping you breathe.” 

~*~

It was safe to say the lesson didn’t continue after that. 

It could’ve. Rhys called for tea as I was making significant progress in calming myself down with the help of Mor, and after the teapot had been emptied, the only evidence of my sudden tears were my swollen eyes, the itching tear tracks, and that wrung-out kind of exhaustion that only followed a bout of intense emotion. 

I asked to go to my room, however, for a bath and a nap. The cousins acquiesced. Mor said that I could ask for her whenever I was ready, and she’d be there; Rhys merely guided me to my room with a steadying hand between my shoulder blades and nodded as I entered, disappearing into a far less extravagant swirl of shadow than usual. 

I could call for him whenever I wanted, I knew. He’d come. I figured it was the bond that tethered him to me so much that he couldn’t ignore my requests, which didn’t do much more than make me feel miserable—especially now that Mor had hammered down on the concept of choice so much. 

Perhaps it was different for male faeries. Or perhaps it was because the bond hadn’t snapped for me yet — I figured the word ‘snapped’ felt like a literal snap somewhere in your chest, rather than the mild, dismissible pull I usually felt around him — that I was able to ignore him, but as it had snapped for him he couldn’t ignore me. 

I was too tired to commend him for his self-control though, even to myself, and simply slunk into the bathroom to soak for a while, undoing my braid before slipping out of my clothes. The water, as always, was the perfect temperature; I shivered at the feeling. After a few seconds of letting the heat wash over me, my body relaxed carefully, in increments, lessening the ache that accompanied loosening back. 

I groaned and sunk under, scrubbed at my face to rid myself of the tears, then went back up for a breath. Poured soap into my hand and scrubbed at my hair. It smelled like bergamot and cedar this time, warm and soothing. 

Confusion and warring emotions were a constant in the Night Court, I decided. In Spring, my emotions had recently been limited to anger, sadness, numbness, and terror, but Night only made me feel confused with the comfort it brought me. And yes, of course I felt annoyance, strong and firm; I felt anger and frustration; I felt that bone-deep longing for something I wasn’t sure of as keenly as I usually did. 

But my moping was different. My emotions felt heightened, less subdued. I had a feeling I could rage as much as I wished and nobody would judge me for it. I could hurl shoes and pieces of paper at its High Lord’s head and all he would do was laugh, rather than yell. 

And, Gods—I’d called Rhys old to his face and in front of the overseer of the Court of Nightmares, and all that happened was a sulk and a cackle. I’d burst into tears and there was no panic from them. I could probably tell Rhysand I found him unappealing, and scary, and oblivious as to understanding me… and he’d probably just grin tightly, jest a little before nodding, before moving on. 

It’s like a part of me knew for certain, doubtless in its confidence, that if I asked Rhys to be better, to improve—he would do it without whining. He’d work on himself. He would give me the results I wanted to see. 

It was terrifying. 

It felt like a betrayal of the highest calibre. 

I rinsed my hair and climbed out of the bath, exhausted but head whirring. I didn’t want to think and compare and do all those things that made me feel like a horrible person, but it’s like I couldn’t stop it—the way Mor, as a friend of Rhys’, pushed back and ridiculed him at every available opportunity, but how Lucien bit his tongue more often than not, disinclined to trigger the beast that lurked below Tamlin’s skin. 

I was still dripping water as I rummaged through the armoire — my dress was still in there — for underwear and a comfortable nightshirt. When I pulled both on, the fabric darkened where the droplets still stuck to my skin; my back felt sticky where the ends of my hair dribbled moisture. 

Then I crawled into the bed, that massive, fluffy nest of a bed, kicked off a variety of decorative pillows, and curled beneath the duvet. Closed my eyes. Gripped at the pillow. Buried my nose into the fabric and inhaled the scent of the detergent, cold mountain air. 

My eyes were leaking again. I gritted my teeth against it, wanting to scream; because why was I sad, now? Why did I need to cry? 

It was fine. Everything was fine. The Spring Court was stifling and though I’d anticipated the Night Court to be worse, it was not. Nobody pressured me to act like everything was okay. Nobody told me I didn’t need to do anything because I’d already done so much. Nobody said I couldn’t leave the palace because it was unsafe to do so. I could wander wherever I wished without encountering even a single faerie; no sentries at my back, no expectations to dress a certain way.

The day was still so long, so bright. My eyelids were orange. But I burrowed deeper into the blankets and drifted away, stomach coiled into a knotted mass of writhing serpents. 

~*~

The most quizzical thing happened then, because I woke up that evening and could barely move.

It was a momentous struggle to climb out of bed and dress myself into something more appropriate for dinner; every single step I had to take up to the large, open space felt heavy and laborious, like I was walking through syrup. I could barely pay attention to Rhys’ and Mor’s light-hearted bickering during dinner either, too focused on making sure I chewed and swallowed—and I had to beg off Mor’s offer to have a glass of wine and some cheese as dessert, because I was so tired I felt like I’d fall where I stood. 

Sleeping that night didn’t help me, even with the peace and calm that the moonstone palace emanated. My energy remained low, as if sapped. The apathy was lingering on the edges of my consciousness, ready to take over. And most tellingly, I completely stopped rising to Rhys’ taunts. 

It worried him. It worried Mor too, because I ceased to react the way I’d had to her too. It was plain on their faces. I couldn’t tell them that my guilt for—for feeling relief here, that it ate away at my ability to act like myself, so drained that I could barely lift my hands to wash myself, could barely climb out of bed, could barely dress myself. I could read though, and write, even if the lessons didn’t truly register; my wall of adamant remained firm in spite of my exhaustion. 

No matter what those two threw at me — Mor’s gentle kindnesses and Rhys’ teasing flirtations, their shared banter in attempts to make me smile, the outrageously absurd sentences Rhys had me write — I was almost too weak to even speak. 

On the second day, I didn’t join them for breakfast. On the third, I only joined them for dinner. The fourth, I ceased leaving my room at all; and though they visited, together at first and then alone, I remained in the solitude of my bedroom. 

I slept a lot, of course. Better than in Spring. The architecture of the palace gave me comfort unlike anything I’d ever felt—so open, so wide; the scent of jasmine that permeated every room, the scent of snow on the breeze fluttering past the gossamer curtains, the endless sights of mountains and sky. My nightmares were easier to struggle out of, and the aftershocks had lessened in intensity. I actually slept. I slept, and I ate, and I kept things down. I breathed in fresh air and read in the sunlight and took baths that lasted hours. 

But I was still exhausted beyond belief. It shocked me, frustrated me, in spite of the apathy that had taken up residence inside of my chest. The sedentary and lonely hours prompted a discomfort that I could only equate to terrible nerves: my muscles were always a little bit tense, my heart always felt a bit constricted, and my stomach was always tight. As was my chest, for I felt some subtle kind of additional guilt whenever I hid myself away again. 

I read a lot, now. Folktales and history, and one book on mates that’d snagged my attention and I was slowly parsing through. Then, on the fifth day, or sixth, I hadn’t been counting—but at the tail-end of the week, I exited the bathroom to find Rhys on my bed once more. 

“Hi,” I greeted, and I turned to dress myself, but mainly not to see the disappointment flitting over his face at my lack of reaction. 

“I thought we could just relax today,” he said. “Mor has business in Hewn City to take care of, so we could just read. Or do other things, with this new privacy she’s so kindly afforded us.”

His tone was teasing, sounded like an insistence—play with me, come on, do it. But I just shrugged, tugging on my underwear under my towel before letting it drop.

I could hear him swallow.

Not paying him any mind, I slipped into small bodice and a sweater, then some loose, billowing trousers I remembered seeing Mor in before. The clothing, at least—getting out of the clothes I slept in helped me stay awake during the day, rather than just letting myself rot. 

I turned, blindly twisting my hair into a knot resting at the back of my head. Rhys sat staring up at me like I was some sort of apparition. 

“So you want to just sit and read?” I asked. 

He blinked, shrugged. “Like you’ve been doing anything else? Do you want to paint instead, Feyre?” 

My mouth flattened. “You’re not funny.”

“I never claimed to be,” he replied. “I’ve just been taking note of your hobbies.” 

“My hobbies,” I repeated flatly. 

“Yes, your hobbies.” He rose to his full height in one smooth moved, stuffing his hands in his pockets and sauntering closer. “The ones you’ve been so diligently performing here. Reading, sitting, sulking…”

My jaw clenched. 

“You can’t be bothered to climb a set of stairs, so you take all your meals here,” he said. “You can’t be bothered to talk to anyone, so you don’t leave this room. All you do, I’m assuming, is sit, stare out of windows, and read. Why can’t I join you in such ambitious endeavours? Hard work is always better done together.” 

His voice dripped with a mixture of vitriol and teasing. He was grasping at straws to get me to react to him the way he wanted me to. 

“Sure,” I said, tonelessly. “Okay.”

Rhys’ chin tilted up, eyes slightly wider than usual. “Okay?” 

“Okay,” I repeated, brushing past him to pick up the book I’d been working my way through. “Go ahead. Do whatever you wish.” 

He stood frozen, even when I made my way to the room’s balcony to take a seat on one of the chairs there. It was a good place to zone out and stew, I’d found. Much better than under the cover of the building. 

It took a few seconds, but eventually Rhys stalked out into the sunlight to join me. 

“You’re not even going to protest?” 

I didn’t look up from the book, despite the fact that the words on the page didn’t even register. “Should I?” 

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, you should. You ought to—I don’t know, complain that I’ve entered your room without your permission? Tell me to fuck off, maybe? Call me a prick with a bloated ego the size of Prythian?” 

“How dare you enter my room without my permission,” I intoned. “Fuck off, Rhys. You’re a prick with an ego about as big as Prythian itself.” 

Rhys snapped his teeth in frustration. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” 

“Sounded like it.”

“No,” he snapped. “No, it’s—Cauldron, Feyre, this is the problem. You laugh once and shut down? Did it shock you thatmuch? Don’t you ever laugh in Spring?” 

“What’s the Spring Court got to do with it?” I asked, heart kicking up in speed. I squeezed the book tight. “I just don’t want to do things, Rhys.”

“Like smile?” he retorted, barking out a sharp, mean laugh. “Like talk to people who care?” 

I squeezed the book harder. 

“I—Mor and I waited for you,” he said. “Every single morning, we wait for you until Nuala or Cerridwen announces you won’t be joining us. Then we wait for you to join us for lunch. Then for dinner. Feyre,” he said, insistent, “you can go anywhere you’d like in my Court, but you’ve just been staying holed up in your room—”

“I thought I was only supposed to learn how to read, write, and shield my mind,” I said quietly. 

The sound of chair legs screeching across stone told me he’d collapsed in one of the chairs. “That doesn’t mean it’s all you need to do.” 

I chewed on my lip, nostrils flared and staring resolutely, unseeingly, at the book. The upper edge of my nails had gone a pale yellow with pressure. 

“Is that it?” Rhys asked, tone awfully close to begging. “Do I need to take you somewhere? To a—to a town? Or the woods? To a peak of one of the mountains, or an Illyrian encampment, or a frozen lake?” 

I sighed harshly through my nose. “Why do you care what I want, Rhys?” 

He froze in my peripheral vision. I lifted my head, looked at him: his eyes were wide and bright, jaw tense and jutted slightly forward. Did I have him there? His frustration with my indifference had to be nothing more than the mating bond rearing its head—it was in the book I was reading, that a mated faerie felt an almost impossibly strong urge to protect and cherish. Though it was about a mutually accepted bond, I figured it wasn’t that different.

“It’s not just the bond,” he said. “Feyre, I—”

“Get out of my head,” I bit out.

“I’m not.” Rhys bared his teeth and looked away. “I just know that damned book.” 

Oh. Without bothering to mark the page, I snapped it shut. 

“So what’s it then?” I asked. “Pity for the once-human? Afraid your little toy has broken beyond repair?”

He laughed without humour, a quick, hiccupping expulsion of breath. “I just like you.” 

I felt my mouth pull into a scowl. 

“You glowered at me, and sneered, and glared,” he said. “You were scared of me but you taunted me despite it. You threw the bone that killed the Wyrm at Amarantha and walked away, even with your arm broken, even while covered head to toe in excrement and mud. You were a fox in a Court of wolves and won—”

“So I was just intriguing, then,” I concluded, oddly disappointed. I wanted to accuse him of masochism but didn’t have the energy to. “A fun little jester—”

“You reminded me of my friends.” 

My mouth closed. 

“You reminded me of Mor, and Azriel, and Cassian, and Amren,” he told me, voice hard and slowly rising in volume. He didn’t seem to have realised that I had no idea who three of those people were. “You ensnared the Middengard Wyrm like a fucking rabbit, you flipped me off, and I could see people I hadn’t seen in nearly fifty years, whose voices I’d almost forgotten, who I tucked away to protect—I could see them, standing right alongside you, throwing that bone. I like you, Feyre, as a human and as a faerie, and—”

“You liked the idea of me,” I said, mouth dry. “I’m not the idea, Rhys. I’m the whole person. And I’m not the girl I was who went under that mountain—”

“You’re being smothered,” he hissed. “Can’t you see it? The human you were, the faerie you are—by… by just letting time pass, by refusing to let yourself breathe, you’re allowing her to win.” 

The fire inside of me was cold. Freezing.

“I’ve done enough,” I breathed, though it didn’t feel true. “I’ve died.” 

“And you were granted life,” he said. “You were Made. You’re immortal—you can do anything you fucking wish, but decide to waste the days away sitting idle?” 

I stood. “I don’t need to hear this.” 

“Yes you fucking do.” Rhys stood too, footsteps announcing he was following me inside. “Do you want to give up? Feel nothing? Do nothing? Tell me you do, truthfully, and I’ll leave you alone.” 

I breathed. My grip on the book was so tight the hardcover edges were cutting into my palms. I felt cold all over. 

“I want to do nothing,” I said.

He laughed again. “That’s a lie.”

And I didn’t know what happened exactly, but all I remembered later was a surge of emotion, high and hot and cold, and me whirling around to launch the book at his awful, beautiful, infuriating face. 

He caught it, hissed, and peeled his fingers off the cover with a grimace. “Ice. Winter Court. Good job, Feyre darling.” 

“Leave,” I murmured, eyes wide. “Get out of my room.”

“No,” he replied, arching a brow. “No, I don’t think I will. Not when we’re finally having a riveting conversation again.”

“It’s one-sided,” I said, taking a few steps back. 

His smile was fanged. “You’re still replying to me.” 

“I’ve been trying to shut you down.” 

“Doing a bang-on job at that, my love,” he crooned. “Not feeling very ‘shut down’ here, actually. No, I think you do want to talk to me, but you simply think you don’t.” 

My heart was stuttering, and I briefly thought he’d gone mad with resisting the pull—or I was dreaming. And if I was dreaming, then I was lucky it wasn’t a nightmare, because it meant I was in control here. 

Wasn’t I?

“Just get out,” I whispered. “Just listen to me for once—”

“I’ve always listened,” he said. “I keep listening to you. Every emotion, every want, every fucking thought you allow to filter through your shield—I watch, and I listen. Did you know your nightmares still reach me?” 

My breath caught. 

“I can see them, I can feel them…” he snarled at nothing in particular, “so much so, so vibrantly, that I can’t tell whether it’s your nightmare or mine. Of course I fucking listen—”

“You took me away from my wedding against my will,” I whispered. 

“You asked,” he hissed. “You demanded it. You said no, three times, and you stepped back so I came and took you so I had an excuse to be there!” 

“You still took me,” I continued stubbornly, like I hadn’t been insurmountably thankful for it in the days after. “You took me when I didn’t want to go. And before—before, you twisted my broken arm to get me to agree to the bargain, you dressed me up in a dress that was more like a cobweb, you drugged me—”

“I twisted your arm,” he said heatedly, “to set the open fracture. You recall the bone was sticking out of your arm, don’t you? And the dress, the faerie wine… I explained why, because Amarantha would have simply killed you if she figured out you were more to me than just a human toy, and I was terrified the debauchery of the revels would break—if you saw what she made me do—”

“You could’ve explained it,” I snapped, anger, familiar and hot and sudden, sparking through my veins. “You could’ve been nice! You could’ve—could’ve grabbed me a day before the wedding, or a month, not as I was about to walk down the aisle!”

“Cauldron, Feyre,” he groaned, “you’re saying it as if I didn’t do you a damned favour—”

“I can’t exactly see you jumping at the chance to ‘save’ me as a favour.” My voice dripped with derision. “Weren’t you waiting for it? You said so, didn’t you? You may have tried to ignore it, but you still listened…”

Rhys stared at me, chest heaving, and he laughed incredulously for a third time. Threw out his hands, shook his head.

“All of Prythian was aware of the wedding,” he said. “Everyone—even those in—High Lord Tamlin of the Spring Court and Feyre Cursebreaker, saviours of the High Lords,” he spat, “united at long last; love that conquers all. And all I could think about was the inevitable happiness and pleasure that I’d feel because you’d feel it. I was prepared to numb myself into incoherency just for the chance I would only remember the barest hints of it the next day.”

I set my jaw and tried to glower, because I shouldn’t care. His happiness was not my responsibility. But he advanced, face dark and eyes bright, like smouldering purple coals in the remains of a hearth fire, and I forced myself to stumble back, back, back—pressed myself against the door so as to not meet him halfway. 

“Imagine my surprise,” he said quietly, “when I, having gone through fucking bottle of liquor already, barely able to stand upright, didn’t feel happiness or joy, didn’t feel pleasure, but earth-shattering terror instead.”

“The rose petals frightened me,” I replied, cursing myself when my voice didn’t come out even, but instead breathless and shaking. “I was remembering blood—”

“Yes,” said Rhys, “blood. You were getting married in the court of thorns and roses but you can’t even stand the sight of the colour red. Can’t look at a rose, can’t prick yourself on a torn. I’d wake up most nights to the feeling of you hurling your guts out after a harrowing dream of pure terror that would leave me fucking paralysed, and I couldn’t even pinpoint whether someone managed to comfort you from the horror and the pain. 

“And then I took you, and you were angry, and I thought—” he blinked rapidly, scowled, “—I thought, thank the Cauldron she’s still feeling things. Thank the Cauldron she can still be angry with me, or furious, or just frustrated. That she can talk back and slap back if she deems it necessary. Because I know,” he said, “what it’s like to freeze when the rest of the world needs you to keep moving, and I wouldn’t have put it past you to have gone numb with it all. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you were so exhausted you couldn’t even tell me to fuck off.” 

“Then why are you so angry now?” I asked, almost whispering. “Why is it—”

“Because I don’t want you to!” he hissed. “Because freezing and rotting only makes you feel even worse. I need you to feel, Feyre. Be deliriously happy, be incandescently furious, be achingly sad—Amarantha wanted to break you, so you can’t break. She wanted to break all of us, so we mustn’t. Not now that the bitch is finally dead.”

I closed my eyes and willed the tears to remain behind my lids. There was—a point, to what he was saying. I knew that. A part of me knew that like it knew the sky was blue and leaves dropped in autumn. Amarantha had wanted to break me and I couldn’t, shouldn’t let her, like I hadn’t allowed her to when she was still alive.

But I was just—

“I’m so tired of holding myself together,” I breathed, chest shuddering. My hands went up, covered my eyes. “I’m just—I don’t know what to do, what to think, who to please, and I—”

I thought that he was a good distance away from me. A few steps, enough for me to shape a gaping chasm between us that made me feel saner—like it was supposed to be, so I wouldn’t have to resist the urge to burrow myself into him while I was too exhausted to prevent that from happening. 

But then he was close. 

So close I could smell him, feel the warmth of him. His hands encircled my wrists and he pulled, gentle, until I listened; tilted my head back and swallowed through all the thick saliva gathering at the back of my throat, blinked, squinted at his face through the blur of moisture. 

“You don’t need to please anyone but yourself,” he said, voice suddenly small and emotional and desperate. “You have eternity; all I ask is that you won’t spend eternity pleasing those who don’t deserve it. All I ask is that you don’t break.” His mouth set into a thin line, and he squeezed my wrists, shook them lightly as if to hammer his point home the kindest way he knew how. “Do not break, Feyre. You’re no toy, no trophy, and you cannot shatter the way objects are wont to do.”

I wished to sway forwards and rest myself against his chest. He was solid, steady, like we were moments away from winnowing—but it wasn’t time yet, so it couldn’t be. 

“No toy,” I heard myself whisper. “No toy, no trophy, no object—” my throat bobbed, “—no subject.” 

“No-one’s subject.” He shook my wrists again, gently. “You don’t bow to anyone. Least of all those who demand it of you.” 

And I knew, actively, that this could be a manipulation. That this was a way to alienate me from Tamlin, who demanded things and commanded me like I was below him, so Rhys himself could swoop in and save me once more. A favour; there was no such concept as a faerie gifting you something. A favour to have me help the way he wanted me to. 

But if it was a manipulation—if it was, why were his words for my strength? Why did he not want me to take a knee? 

“I’m a selfish male, Feyre,” he said, as if he’d read my mind—but he couldn’t have, for my walls were still strong and glinting, impenetrable. 

He released my hands and they automatically came to rest against his chest, almost against my will but not wholly. I wanted to touch him, feel him. Something inside of me eased. 

“I’m a very selfish male,” he repeated. “I’ll be honest, I want to keep you with me forever—though I can’t, couldn’t, do that to you. But know,” he said fiercely, “please know that I’d never, ever, want you to bow for me. You are my equal in every way that matters.”

He was so close my senses were utterly overwhelmed. Nothing but sea salt, and citrus, and petrichor—the intensity of his star-flecked eyes was keeping me frozen, caught. I was caged in but nothing in me wished to rebel. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to leave. 

“Rhys,” I whispered. I didn’t know why. My hands were against his chest but they wouldn’t push him away. “Rhys, I—”

“Tell me to stop,” he said. He leaned closer, chest heaving. “You can tell me to stop. I will. I promise.” 

My traitorous hand slid up to his neck. 

One moment, we were making nothing but eye-contact, wide and so still it was as if the air itself had stopped moving. The next, his mouth was on mine. 

He tasted like tea. Not the faerie kind, with its unplaceable flavours and intoxicating smells, but simpler: human tea, the way I remembered it. Hot and earthy, bright and bold, the slightest tang of something like citrus but mostly smoked malt, caramel made on a fire. Comforting. 

Home, my mind told me. Rhys tasted like home.

My fingers tangled in his hair and my biceps curled until he was pressed against me, one hand slipping to rest on the small of my back and the other skittering, hesitant and desperate, to find the place where it belonged. It belonged on me, I knew. Somewhere.

He groaned in the back of his throat as I went up to the tips of my toes, pressing hard. I couldn’t get enough of him, of his mouth, of the taste of it. His teeth clacked against mine as I sucked at his tongue until it curled around my own. The hand that had been wandering came up to cup the back of my head with heart-stuttering softness and desperation. It was like there was nothing to it, this kiss, as natural and normal like two magnets colliding and refusing to let go. 

No sparks. No incomprehensible heat. Just comfort and warmth, Rhys’ hair between my fingers and his scent in my nose and his body against mine. I never wanted to let go again. 

And as his pinkie finger brushed the nape of my neck with a soothing press, I felt it. 

A snap. 

Like a string had been strung and strummed, I felt my side of the preliminary mating bond lock into place with a resounding twang. My heart constricted, my stomach burnt, my breathing hitched; I lost my balance and we went stumbling back against the door. He licked into my mouth with an almost reckless sort of abandon and I wanted to swallow him whole, consume him, keep him in a spot in my chest that had been carved out just for him. 

My leg lifted and curled around the back of his. Rhys lifted his mouth from mine with a rattling keen, took a steadying, gasping breath, and descended once more.

I wasn’t sure if I’d breathed in the brief time our lips had been apart, but my lungs were burning, so I inhaled sharply through my nose so as to not dislodge myself from him. He was so warm and cool at the same time, hair strong yet soft like a rabbit’s pelt. I hadn’t wanted to keep much of the prey I’d caught, but sometimes I had wanted to, when the days and nights were equally as freezing, when my fingers had gone stiff with cold. 

Just a pelt. Just one. 

I’d never kept any of them. None of us knew how to sew a coat or scarf. Nesta and Elain had only ever learnt how to embroider, and later, how to darn socks and stitch up worn fabric gone ragged with wear to reinforce it; I’d never been taught how to hold a pen, let alone a needle. 

But his hair was soft and strong, like a rabbit’s fur, and I wanted to keep him. Perhaps I could. 

He moaned as my fingers tightened their grip, pressed against me so firmly it was impossible for us to get even closer to one another. I wondered when he went to cut his hair, because even the back of it, where it was the shortest, was easy to take hold of. I wondered if he’d consider growing it out, if I asked. I wondered if he’d still be so damn irresistible with dorkily grown out hair—he probably would be. 

Then he nipped my bottom lip with sharp teeth, and my mind went blissfully blank.

I couldn’t remember if kissing Tamlin had ever felt like this. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever been kissed like this in general. All I knew was Rhys, and his mouth, and the taste of him and the smell of him and the feel of him. It swelled up inside of me and pressed against my skin, bloated and almost painful. My heart thudded and jumped.

Rhys retreated with a harsh intake of breath, clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, swayed back to press his forehead against mine. My head spun; the sudden burst of oxygen and distance was so violent, so much, that I felt dizzy—every breath was seeped with his scent, his taste. I was shaking. 

“Sorry,” he whispered, frantic, “sorry, Feyre, I’m—”

I tilted my head up and kissed him again, relishing how he groaned and slumped back onto me, pressing me against the door. We both panted with every spit-slick slide, every short time we came up for air. 

Gods. Mother. Cauldron—

Blessed, blessed contact. The barest hints of his stubble scraped against my chin, beneath my thumbs and pointer finger when the kiss he gave me was closed-mouthed and I needed to open his jaw with a simple press. And then he slipped away, kissed his way down my jaw and towards my neck. Latched on, right where the tendons began to strain as I tilted my head to the side. 

“Feyre,” he murmured, voice hoarse and trembling. “Feyre. Feyre, Feyre, Feyre—”

Like a prayer. 

Like how Tamlin had sounded—

“Rhys,” I answered him, “Rhys.”

He groaned again, shivered as I stroked my hand down the broad, clothed planes of his back. My other tightened in his hair; my eyes fell closed, head thudding against the door as I dropped it. 

I didn’t feel guilty. For once, for this brief moment, I simply didn’t. Not apathy—no, not that, not now, because I felt warm and safe, comfort zapping through me with every press of Rhys’ mouth against my neck, every scrape of his teeth. Because I knew that with one kiss, one snap inside my chest, there was no possible way I’d ever be able to let him go. 

No, I didn’t feel guilty for granting the person who was made for me a kiss. I didn’t feel apathy for Tamlin either, even if I was certain with every fibre of my being that I’d never be able to give myself to him again. It was near indifference. 

One kiss. Just the one, and I felt indifferent to the future of the male I’d died for, in favour of the touch of the male who’d crawled over broken bones to defend me as I lay dying. 

But I’d died for Tamlin—and he loved me, even now that I’d hardened for him. Even if his love was suffocating. 

He deserved closure. 

“This isn’t a good idea yet,” I whispered. 

Rhys froze. His head lifted from my neck, but not much further—merely rested against mine, cheek to cheek. 

“No?”

“Not yet,” I repeated, clutching at him so hard it would hurt when I let go. “Not now.”

Rhys said nothing at first. And I thought—I thought I’d hurt him, again. Broke something between us instead of just myself. But then his head rested heavier, and so did his body, and his forehead dropped against my shoulder; and I relaxed, because that meant he’d understood.

“The five hundred years I’ve been waiting for you felt like nothing but a single breath the first time I saw you,” he whispered thickly. I felt his eyes close, lashes tickling my skin, and I breathed him in like I’d never be able to smell him again. “If you’d ask it of me, Feyre, I’d wait for you until the sun burns out.”

[loneamaryllis]

Some recs for @hprecfest

Day 1: A favorite fic under 5k

Harriet Potter Is by setepenre_set (Gen, T, 2k)

A short fic that's packed full of feels and awesomeness. Harriet gets sorted into Slytherin and that changes everything. I love the writing style of that fic!

Day 2: A comfort fic

Succor by pluperfectsunrise (Fem!Harry/Snape, E, 40k)

One of the first Fem!Harry/Snape fics I read, and I keep coming back to it. It's a soulmates fic that spans the entirety of canon. I love the way their relationship evolves over the years, and I especially like the say the author writes the intimacy between Harriet and Snape.

Day 4: A fic with art

The Curse of Anteros by @danpuff-ao3, illustrated by @mrviran (Harry/Snape, E, 53k)

This fic is such a whirlwind of tight, exquisitely crafted writing and all the Snarry feels one could want. Plus extra hot smut! And the art is incredible. Harry and Snape have to defeat a curse while also dealing with their attraction to each other... I don't want to say more, you should definitely go read the fic!

Day 6: An unreliable narrator fic

Forget-me-not by Elffaw (Harry/Snape, M, 1,5k)

The atmosphere in this fic is so ominous. When reading, you *know* something is wrong, and you keep wondering what until you reach the end... The author did such a good job at crafting the mystery!

Day 7: A canon-compliant fic

Year of the Thestral by @perverse-idyll (McGonagall/Snape and McGonagall/Hooch, E, 115k at the moment with two more chapters planned)

Let's say canon-compliant-ish? There's nothing in canon that says it couldn't have happened... This fic is a brilliant exploration of Snape's last year, with incredible writing and the best Snape descriptions I've ever had the pleasure to read. It's dark, it's harrowing, it's funny at times, and it will twist your soul into bits and leave you wanting more.

Day 8: A canon-divergence fic

Epitaph by sheswayout (Fem!Harry/Snape, M, 22k for now with more chapters planned)

Fem!Harry so obviously canon-divergent, and then Snape lives and Harriet starts visiting him in the hospital. It's a fic that looks at what happens in the wake of war, and how Snape and Harriet can go forward and perhaps do so together. It's soft and calm and self-reflective, and I love it.

Day 9: A rare pair fic (less than 2000 fics on AO3)

A Most Unexpected Turn of Events by @hirukochan (Fem!Harry/Snape/Voldemort, E, 62k with more chapters planned)

The perfect threesome. No, you can't change my mind. Hiruko is great at writing complex characters and hot smut, and this fic is a stellar example of both!

Day 10: A fest fic

Predetermined by brightened (Snape/Harry, E, 9k)

This fic features Snape as a smut writer, and just for that you should read it. It also has excerpts of the books Snape is writing, creating a narrative within the narrative, and it's so much fun to read!

[uroboros-if]

Update Post - Week 23, March 20th, 2023

Hi guys! Again, sorry for the MASSIVE wait, if the week number is anything to go off by! I'll give you guys a good breakdown on the numbers and stats at the moment.

As of writing, word count is 28k words w/ code, 15k without, not including text in the links. There is a LOT of code, as you can see—some paragraphs are completely incomprehensible because of it!

Average playthrough length, as of now, is 8-9k words. I pretty much just clicked through the first choices and copied them down into a document to get a word count. Prologue and Chapter 1 are pretty linear, but I've riddled them with a lot of small variations according to personality, skills, attitudes you've previously stated, and more. (Don't worry, your personality can't stop you from picking an option.)

A look into how much I need to finish. As of now, I've written 138 passages in Chapter 1 (63 in the Prologue), and my estimate is that I need to write 37 more:

All semi-transparent passages are approximately what I need to write left! Of course, this is subject to change. Hopefully I can cut down on these, but I will most likely end up adding.

Based on that, that means Chapter 1 is almost 79% completed, and overall, 85% is done!

I've been keeping track of my progress throughout, and here's March.

For reasons unknown to me, I seemed to take a month long break from February to March—at least in writing. Perhaps I was busy with the visuals of the game for that time period? It's also most likely because I had so much work at the time.

If I keep consistent, I am confident that I can get this done soon. I hope you will all keep patience! Thank you <3

Also!! Thank you so much for 1k followers, that's insane ❤️ it's surreal that there are 1k people out there who are looking forward to what I'm doing! :) I will work all the harder!

[extraordinarilyextreme]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers!

tagged by @bbcphile～ thank you my dear 🫶

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

30 right now～ what a nice number!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

363,479!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

so many, lol. right now, i'm actively writing for LHL and YRZX (and a bit LZTJ), but i previously wrote a lot for QYJ, CHSSN, and DMBJ.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

may we tie our hearts together again ⚫️⚪️ QingYa

9k, red string AU, canon + post-canon

NOTICE: Seeking Marriage Partner 💙💚 PingXie

5k, post-canon

青山仍在 | as long as the green hills remain 🪷🐕 HuaFang

7k, post-canon fix-it

but ask for no regrets 💙💚 PingXie

5k, canon-compliant N+1 things

a ghost walks into a soldier's house 💙🤍 SuiTang | 🖤💚 WeiLan

16k, crossover + crack treated seriously

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try my best to, but for various reasons comments will accumulate in my inbox and i might not respond to them until even a year later. but please believe me, i do read every single one.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i write a lot of HEs... perhaps only an echo, since the entire premise of that (unfinished) series is an AU where Wu Xie isn't there to fulfill his ten-year promise with Xiaoge. rather than angsty endings, i write more angsty stories? in which case, the angstiest might be 千里自同风 | no distance too great as a canon-compliant post-canon fic that follows Fang Duobing's journey of grief. (but i don't think the ending of that is sad, tbh.) alternatively, 飞蛾扑火 | for you, i'll gladly burn is another contender given Shen Yi's big reveal in the last chapter (but also don't think the ending is sad). 红尘似水，万事入歌 | the world becomes song is pretty sad too if only because we the readers know the characters' fates in canon.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

honestly, i think most of my fics are HEs. or if not "happy," comforting for sure. most of my fics end with a promise to be together, to spend an ordinary life together, to have the chance to be in the moment together. it might not be super, like, grand or dramatic or anything - but i genuinely think all my fics have peaceful endings. so take your pick, peruse my works～

8. Do you get hate on fics?

rarely, and the few times that i have, i've simply deleted them.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope. i don't know how to, LOL

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i have a guilty pleasure of writing crossovers, lol. i think they're all kinda wild:

a ghost walks into a soldier's house

镇魂 Guardian & 成化十四年 The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

do not speak as loud as my heart

盗墓笔记 The Grave Robbers' Chronicles & 镇魂 Guardian

红尘似水，万事入歌 | the world becomes song

鬓边不是海棠红 Winter Begonia & 老九门 Mystic Nine

懷月夢 | on the summit, sun and snow

三生三世枕上书 Eternal Love of Dream & 封神演义 The Investiture of The Gods

照猫画狐 | tracing a cat to draw a fox

猎罪图鉴 Under the Skin & 无眠之境 Desire Catcher

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of. don't steal my fics.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! 此生如梦 | this life, a dream was tl'ed into Russian～

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes～ @naiwong-bao and i somehow churned out the 111k monster that was 懷月夢 | on the summit, sun and snow. to this day, i have no idea how we did that, LOL

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

impossible for me to choose～ recency bias will suggest 🦊🐼 青也, 🪷🐕 花方, and 🎨🔍 城心城翊 though～

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

my 往前走 莫回呀头 | go forward and don't look back series 🥹 i had two more parts planned originally after Xiuxiu's POV... one was Liu Sang, the other was Xiaoge. (there was an undetermined Bai Haotian POV fic too.) i also definitely won't be finishing the sound of snowfall (and don't want to LOL)

16. What are your writing strengths?

atmosphere and rhythm, i think. maybe because i used to write a lot of poetry? i also have faith in my world-building (bc i do a LOT of research) and dialogue. in terms of tropes, it must undoubtedly be hurt/comfort.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i'm not good at writing fight/action scenes (probably another reason why i literally cannot write smut). i also don't think i'm super great at description, but i think i've been improving.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

this is an interesting question because i actually write all my dialogue in Chinese first and then tl it to English since i pretty exclusively write for c-media now 😆 i like that a lot bc i think it helps me to more accurately characterize these ppl - but also it sucks tremendously when English is just the ugliest-sounding language in the world, LOL. (i always think my original Chinese dialogue is prettier and has more depth～)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

the first fandom i posted fic on AO3 for was Good Omens: i love(d) you. but in my life, it was probably like... Warriors (yes, the cats) or Shugo Chara..? idk, or maybe Case Closed (still love that series despite how insufferably long it's gotten).

20. Favorite fic you've written?

only children need to choose; adults can have everything～

tagging: @rongzhi, @elenothar, @difeisheng, @asterdust, @willowcatkinblossom, @starlitwishforu, @tunnelofdusk

[themculibrary]

Peter Parker Coming Out Masterlist

5+1 Things but it’s Peter Parker Coming Out (ao3) - hayloftt N/R, 5k

Summary: A 5+1 thing. 5 times where Peter comes out to someone and 1 time when someone comes out to him.

5 times peter parker almost came out to the avengers (ao3) - Babereflective T, 12k

Summary: (And the One Time He Did)

Peter Parker had a secret. No matter how badly he wanted to share it, he couldn’t, he knew he couldn’t. Deep down he knew it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. It was a huge deal, and sometimes he thought he would never tell anyone how he really felt.

You see, Peter Parker was a bi disaster. He told himself that he wasn’t the type of boy to stare at cute strangers too long or smile at the thought of a school yard crush, but oh boy he was. But nobody could know that. Well, nobody except Ned and MJ.

all that’s cracked (it isn’t broken) (ao3) - its_me_smol_steve steve/bucky, pepper/tony, bruce/thor T, 13k

Summary: Trans!Peter going through life (as Spider-Man!) Featuring so, so much angst (Peter is a gay disaster), some healing, and a whole lot of love from his new family.

baby, i was born this way (ao3) - haveufoundwhaturlookingfor ned/peter, steve/bucky G, 1k

Summary: Peter is ready to come out to his dad, but he’s nervous. Luckily, he has an understanding dad.

call me spider man (ao3) - AlexTheShipper peter/wade, steve/tony T, 7k

Summary: Peter didn’t mean to come out as trans to Deadpool, or to start dating him, and he certainly didn’t expect coming out to be like this. It’s nice though.

coming out to happy & pepper (ao3) - Virgil_Peters T, 1k

Summary: Peter tries to come out to Happy. When he has some difficulty, Pepper is there to help.

Five Times Tony Acts Like A Father (ao3) - buggieb peter/ned, pepper/tony T, 26k

Summary: And one time Peter acts like a son.

In which Peter, with the help of Tony, learns how to drive, survive, share, and - perhaps - how to love again. (Oh, also: he learns how to handle his liquor!)

Five Times Tony Almost Found Out (ao3) - parknerish harley/peter M, 9k

Summary: and one time he did.

or, Harley and Peter haven't told Tony that they're dating. He finds out on his own.

Genius, Billionaire, Ally, Philanthropist (ao3) - Dawg1515 pepper/tony G, 5k

Summary: A picture of him painted the larger part of the screen, decorated with a few excerpts from his online presence. The point of it all was splayed for the whole world to see at the bottom of the screen, trailing across a red banner reminiscent of a gala carpet.

TONY STARK ANNOUNCES LGBTQIA+ SUPPORT FUND AND PROGRAM, 8/26 PRESS CONFERENCE SCHEDULED

Or: Peter comes out to Tony. Tony goes Full Dad Mode.

I Guess We're All Queer (ao3) - Stony_eyed peter/harley, steve/tony, may/pepper M, 10k

Summary: Peter Parker's trying to work up the nerve to come out to his new dad, Tony Stark. When he comes unannounced to give the news, he's faced with something that makes it a lot easier to do so.

June (ao3) - peterparkr pepper/tony, steve/bucky G, 6k

Summary: Peter's struggling to come out and Tony's the complete embodiment of 'he's a little confused, but he's got the spirit'.

Takes place sometime after homecoming and the whole civil war situation was resolved somehow!

Lean on My Pride, I'm a Lion (ao3) - peterparkersbff G, 6k

Summary: The first time Peter has a crush on a boy, he throws up.

Or, Peter comes out to the people he loves (and ends up with 4 pride flags in the process)

peter: *does a kickflip* i’m gay (ao3) - Ididntsignupforthisshit (collieflower) mj/ned/peter, background steve/bucky T, 10k

Summary: Sometime during that month, Peter decided that it was time; he was going to do it.

He was going to come out to the Avengers.

| Or: the one where Peter and Harley are best friends, Tony is trying his best, the Transvengers are a #Thing and Clint forgets to turn up his hearing aids |

Project Pride (ao3) - Anonymous pepper/tony M, 24k

Summary: In hindsight, it should have been obvious. The signs were all there, unwittingly scattered by Peter like breadcrumbs for Tony to follow—the way he would fall into uncomfortable silence when the topic of dating came up, or become flustered whenever Tony teased him about the mysterious Michelle-Call-Me-MJ character Peter was constantly gushing about, or deflect Tony’s mostly-joking inquiries into whether or not they needed to be having The Talk with a hurricane of splutters and blushes.

And even without the signs, Peter was still his kid. Tony was just supposed to know these things.

So when FRIDAY pulled up Peter’s search history—‘how can i make myself not like boys,’ ‘can you force yourself to be attracted to girls,’ ‘how to stop your friends from knowing youre gay,’ and, most devastating, ‘how can i keep my parents from finding out im gay’—Tony wasn’t surprised so much as deeply, unquantifiably ashamed. Because he should have known.

project ten on ten (ao3) - htmllost pepper/tony T, 13k

Summary: “Mr. Stark, how well do you think you know me on the scale of 1-10?”

-

Aka Tony finds out he isn't as close to the kid as he thinks he is when Peter rates him a 6/10 on the closeness scale. Turns out there are four major things about Peter that he doesn't know, and he tries to be better so he can go back to being the kid's favourite again. He is competitive like that. Lots of angst and fluff with bonding.

six feet apart but definitely gay (ao3) - hvllanders ned/peter G, 2k

Summary: or

Five Times Peter and Ned Fail at Telling People They’re Dating and One Time They Don’t

Stable Core (ao3) - lostintheclouds321 peter/harley T, 13k

Summary: Living in such a small town, Peter only had two big fears: 1) he would never make it out of Rose Hill and 2) his aunt would figure out he liked boys just as much as he liked girls.

Harley loved the city, there was always something going on. But maybe he was biased, he’d been raised there after all.

OR:

A reverse AU in which Peter was raised in Tennessee and Harley in Queens, and how they find each other regardless and learn to accept themselves for all that they are (also iron dad).

wash your hands of me (i am wanted elsewhere) (ao3) - lethewren T, 8k

Summary: Sometimes, you can't predict a storm.

Sometimes, you have to take a leap of faith and hope for the best.

Sometimes, that ends with being kicked out of the only home you can remember at the tender age of fifteen, and onto the streets in the middle of a not-so-metaphorical rainstorm.

you won't have to cry (or hide in the closet) (ao3) - trixicbean maria/natasha G, 7k

Summary: peter parker really needs to start coming out to people but it's a lot harder than you think to just tell everybody 'hey, i'm a boy now'. one evening after training, though, he finds himself outside the door of the two people he knows that would probably be the most accepting. in his head he jokingly called them his lesbian aunts but they didn't know that.

aka the one where peter comes out as trans to maria and natasha

[angst-in-space]

december '23 writing progress (and yearly wrap-up!)

december progress:

words written: 19.4k

most words written in a day: 1.8k

least words written in a day: 0

yearly total: 187.2k

projects worked on:

ya sci-fi book rewrites

misc notes

works published in december:

none

december goals [i did not complete a single one of these LOLOLOL]:

write ~1k a day (except on holidays)

write like 100ish words of other projects a day (fics, planning projects, etc.)

write about 33k total (to meet my yearly wc goal of 200k)

finish…..ya sci-fi book rewrites… please….

finish editing ch 10 of sylvix dreamscape (idk if i’ll be able to post it by end of the month/year but… maybe lol)

finish edit letter for friend

january goals:

sigh. finish ya sci-fi book rewrites. please. please i'm so fuckin tired.

start working on line edits?

work on query package

errrrm maybe send out like. one query. just for funsies.

edit sylvix dreamscape fic ch 10

WRITE FANFIC!! HAVE FUN GODDAMMIT

finish edit letter for friend

maybe work on outlining adult sci-fi wip again

notes:

well uhhh uhhh i did not meet a single one of my december goals. so that's....not great! i had really hoped to finish my ya sci-fi book rewrites by end of the year but alas, i still have 9 chapters left *sob* (i thought i only had 7 but recently realized i need to add two more chapters. cool. cool cool cool coolcoolcool.) but it's fine!! it's fine!!! i rewrote about 14k of my book in december and i'm finally entering the final arc so AAAAA. IT'S HAPPENING.

that is still gonna be my main priority for january (rewriting my book, that is). i'm hoping i will FINALLY finish but then again i've said that for like the last six months so we'll see lmfao. and if i DO finish rewrites, hoping i can delve into line edits woooo!!!

i'm hoping to also start doing a bit of querying prep this month (*screams internally*) by which i mean i just wanna at least start refining my query package—i technically have one already that i used to apply to mentorships and whatnot, but it's badly outdated now so uhh need to fix that! i had told myself i'd start querying by end of this month (even if it's just like, sending out One Query for the heck of it). not feeling like that's very likely but... who knows!

but also....i've been so burnt out on my book lately, i really just wanna write at least SOME fanfic this month. i want to write things for fun again, i miss it. :(

2023 wrap up:

total words written: 187.2k most words written in a month: 25k (november) least words written in a month: 9k (october)

works published/updated:

"are we going somewhere" ch. 2

"you're a dream, i'm never waking up" ch. 9

"altea rising" ch. 15

other wips:

ya sci-fi book rewrites

adult fantasy book

sylvix pacific rim au

mathablossom bedsharing fic

red skies ch. 8

altea rising (editing ch. 16 and writing ch. 19)

planning sapphic princess/pirate book

planning adult sci-fi space western dads book

kazurei post-canon fic

2023 goals:

write every day

write at least 200k words

finish more drafts of my ya sci-fi book

send ya sci-fi book to betas

start querying ya sci-fi book

make progress on adult fantasy book (possibly try to finish a first draft)

outline another book

finish editing/posting sylvix dreamscape fic

finish editing/posting renga fic

finish writing altea rising and maybe start posting the unpublished chapters

start working on red skies again

work on sylvix pacrim au

work on at least one of my wenzhou fics

finish at least a draft of matchablossom bedsharing fic

keep working on twiyor practice kissing fic, maybe finish a first draft?

a huge maybe but perhaps start sylvix 50s/spy au if i have time/energy

notes:

*scratches head* well uhhh damn i did not really...do anything i wanted to get done this year.... LMFAO. and even the few things i checked off are things i like barely worked on/started. so, ouch 😅

in my defense... i did not foresee how much work i'd have to do with my book revisions this year. at the beginning of the year i thought i was going into line edits—but around april i realized i needed to do a full rewrite. so i essentially had to start over, and rewrote *checks notes* roughly 83k of it so!! as you can imagine...that was rather time consuming and i did not have much time to work on anything else.

but... i'm trying to look on the bright side: the reason i started over is because of how much i've learned about writing from my mentors and my critique group etc. and looking at my draft from last year vs. this year, i can see a huge improvement! there is still a lot of work to do on this book—but i do feel like in 2023, i fell more in love with the story and characters than ever before (like to the point where i essentially have brain rot for my own ocs... LOL). and i feel like after 2.5 years of hard work, i am starting to see the "real book" starting to emerge from the chaotic mess it was before. so, that's very exciting!!

which brings me to: i'm hoping to maybe....MAYBE...dip my feet into the querying trenches in 2024. i had kinda hoped to do this by end of 2023 but...once again i grossly overestimated how ready my book was at the beginning of the year lololol. but i do feel like once i finish this big rewrite, i'll have less structural/overarching things to fix and more scene-level and line-level edits which (fingers crossed) hopefully will not be quite as involved as, yaknow, rewriting my entire book word by word! SOOO i may be sorta sending out the occasional query as i work on line edit-y stuff (esp bc querying is so slow nowadays haha) so yeahhh haha *sweats profusely*

there are a few other original projects i hope to make progress on this year. firstly, i'd love to continue working on my first draft of my adult fantasy arctic monster wip (maybe...finish a draft? i kinda doubt it but maybe!!). i also hope to keep working on planning a couple other projects, including planning sapphic princess/pirate wip and space western dads wip—both of which i'm very excited about. :)

AAAAND I WANT TO WRITE FIC AGAIN!!!! i really neglected my fic writing in 2023 and i miss it terribly. 😭 i have a lot of wips i want to continue/finish—but i think main priorities will be editing/publishing the last chapter of sylvix dreamscape fic, trying to finish posting at least one of my other ongoing multichapter fics, working more on sylvix pacrim au, aaaand... finishing a draft of one of my other wips perhaps? i don't know, i'm trying to be gentler with myself since i think i had too many specific goals for 2023 and could not meet any of them haha. sooo re: fic writing the general goal is "just have fun and see what happens."

here is to more progress in 2024!!!! 🥳

2024 goals:

finish ya sci-fi book rewrites/edits

work on query package

send out at least one query

start a writing blog/newsletter

continue first draft of arctic monster wip

finish outlining space western dads outline (and start a draft?? maybe?)

continue planning sapphic princess/pirate book

post last chapter of sylvix dreamscape fic

update one of my other ongoing multichapter fics

work on other misc. fic and JUST HAVE A GOOD FUN TIME!!!!

[lumosatnight]

22 FIC RECS 2022!

There have been some fantastic fics this year. Out of the hundreds that I've read (yes, hundreds) here are some of my favorites! These are all fics that I've read and loved in 2022, although some of them are quite a few years older. Here's to another year in the wonderful HP fandom! 22 fics ordered by ship!

🌼 - fluff | 💔 - angst | 🔥 - smut

—

💫 Drarry 💫

1. help yourself and refuse to be buried by Ingi [Drarry, G, 3k] 💔 🍰 A heartfelt story about food and magical cooking! Master of Death Harry connects with his family and his Indian heritage after the war (and also with Draco ahem).

2. Romp and Circumstance by @wolfpants [Drarry, E, 36k] 🌼 🔥 If you enjoy slag Harry with a heart of gold trying to woo his way into Draco's pants, then this fic is for you. Did I mention it's regency era?

3. facedown on my bed (thinking of you) by @onbeinganangel [fem!Drarry, M, 10k] 🌼 💅 A super sweet college AU fic in which Drarry end up being unlikely roommates. They still remain in character while being genderswapped!

4. Good Boy by @lqtraintracks [Drarry, E, 15k] 🔥 🐺 HOT WEREWOLF SMUT!!! Everything you could possibly want with a fic like this. Size kink, breeding kink, scenting, knotting.... um, hell yeah!!

5. An Emerald In The Sky by @corvuscrowned [Drarry, M, 7k] 💔 ⏳ Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. Time travel fuck buddies to lovers with Unspeakable Harry. A love story for the ages. Crow, you continue to amaze me with your fics.

—

💫 Common Ships 💫

6. Industry by charlolwut [Wolfstar, G, 22k] 🌼 📷 Sirius Black is a Muggle TV producer. Remus is his editor. Secrets, misunderstandings, and hilarity ensue!

7. oops I did it again by Anonymous [Jily, E, 16k] 🌼 🔥 College AU where James and Lily are accidental fuck buddies and Lily is confused about it. Their dynamic is flirty and combative! I love James so much in this.

8. The funny thing about grief and time by @etalice [Snarry, E, 44k] 💔 🫂 This fic is flipping fantastic! The angst is glorious, the setting is gorgeous, the interactions are beautiful. Time travel and loneliness wrapped into one amazing story!

9. a mass of fools and knaves by @displayheartcode [slash!Romione, T, 2.6k] 🌼 📖 Short but sweet. Male Hermione is instantly drawn to Ron and how they grow together throughout the years. You'll be rooting for them the whole time!

—

💫 Rare Pairs 💫

10. Growing Teeth by @earlybloomingparentheses [Flonks, E, 2.6k] 💔 🔥 This is a story about growth and recovery and fucking. This is also a story about hair and cutting it all off to finally feel free. Fantastic characterization!

11. Crown Enterprises by @storyof-eden [Cissamione, E, 3k] 💔 🔥 I cannot get over this fic!! Mob boss Narcissa and assassin Hermione are the murder lesbians of my dreams.

12. Little Old Witch by @anxiousgoat-blog [Aragusta, G, 12k] 🌼 👶 This is an AU I can get behind 1000%! Augusta Longbottom finds out Harry is being abused and raises him herself. With the help of the friendly neighborhood squib :)

13. Extraordinarily Ordinary by starstruck1986 [Sirron, E, 9k] 💔 🔥 This ship came out of nowhere, but once I read this fic I couldn't unsee it. Ron is just the right amount of innocent and insecure to be taken in by Sirius's charms.

14. Courtship Rituals by @impishtubist [Cedrarry, T, 4k] 🌼 🌹 Cedric tries to court Harry, but of course he's oblivious. This is cute and hilarious!

15. Yes, Minister by iamisaac [Kingco, E, 1.5k] 🔥 👔 This is pure filthy smut between Draco and his minister boyfriend. Hop aboard the Kingsley/Draco ship where there's mind-blowing sex and that sweet sweet age difference!

16. Gyre and Gimble by eldritcher [Drarity, M, 3k] 💔 ☀️ A stunning fic from one of my hands-down favorite authors! Draco is drawn to the prisoner in the manor's basement. Charity is perhaps a little mad.

—

💫 Poly Ships 💫

17. A Life Worth Remembering by @writcraft [Snarryaco, E, 23k] 💔 🔥 Memory loss, de-aged Severus Snape, and established Drarry pulling him into the fold. This fic is such a wonderful dive into polyamory and relationships.

18. Terms and Conditions by @maraudersaffair [Linnansy, E, 8k] 🌼 🔥 Pansy can't get over her ex (Ginny) and is stuck on a trip with Ginny's new girlfriend (Luna). This fic made me laugh, swear, and sweat all in one sitting.

19. Slice of Pleasure by @misdemeanor1331 [Bleonsy, E, 5k] 🔥 🔪 Theo is obsessed with knives, Pansy is obsessed with Theo, and Blaise is just there for a good time. Knife kink and hot smut. Like very hot. Very very hot. But also sweet.

—

💫 Gen 💫

20. Nine Hundred and Twelve by @cannibalschism [Fred & George, T, 5k] 💔 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 This fic is filled to the brim with metaphors, friendship, and life lessons. I absolutely loved this take on time travel and the journey that George takes. Percy is the real MVP!

21. Where You Belong by blue_string_pudding [Severus, T, 6k] 💔 🐀 This is probably the creepiest, most unsettling thing I've ever read. I completely ADORE it. But I was definitely checking around corners after reading it.

22. Family Legacy by @thistlecatfics [The Tonks, T, 2k] 🌼 💔 Following Ted, Nymphadora, and Teddy as they navigate life and queer identity. This is a fic that is so wonderfully poignant, it leaves you in awe of all that it accomplished.

—

💫 Bonus fics! 💫

Here's a WIP I'm excited about for 2023!

One More to Love by @krethes, @theresthesnitch [Wolfstarbucks, E, 94k, WIP] 🌼 🔥 Omegaverse and surprise pregnancy! The sexual chemistry between the three is off the charts! I'm not usually into WIPs, but for this I am (im)patiently waiting for every update.

Also a cheeky self-rec because why not?

What is this, fucking Jeopardy? by @lumosatnight [Drarry, E, 20k] 🌼 ❓Cursed Draco meets Curse-Breaker Harry. Lots of misunderstandings, humor, oblivious boys in love, and talking in circles. Will Draco ever be cured? Was the author in hysterics while writing this?

—

Want more fics to read?

Try my rec tag: #lumosinthelibrary

My 2021 list, b-day oneshots, WLW Library

[you-remind-me-of-the-babe]

My first full year in fandom! Taking bits and pieces from @captain-aralias and @fatalfangirl to reflect on the past year.

My writing:

Less is More - Teen - 1k

A Role to Play - Explicit - 1.6k

A Villain of a Boy - Teen - 1.6k

A Prickly Disposition - Teen - 1.8k

(All of these were part of a tumblr ask game based on love confessions. It was a fun way to start the year!)

Relaxation Revelation - Explicit - 1.9k (another tumblr ask ficlet)

You Are My Favorite Part - Explicit - 9k (written for Erotic Gropefest)

Shield Me - Teen - 21k

Plus One - Teen - 9.8k written with @fatalfangirl for @whatevertheweather

Birthday Man - Explicit - 39k (written with the Discord server)

Trapped - Teen - 11k inspired by art by @takenabackbytuesdays and written for Carry On Reverse Bang

How to Avoid a Scandal - Teen - 20k inspired by art by xivz and written for Carry On Reverse Bang

Archery 101 - Mature - 13k written with @whatevertheweather for @fatalfangirl

Depth of Reason - Mature - 22k with art by @toonysart and written for Carry On Big Bang

Flowers, Cake and Filthy DMs - Teen - 1.8k written for @moodandmist

A Burning Hunger - Explicit - 17k written for @cutestkilla for the Secret Snowflake Exchange

Total words:

AO3 says 174k but there are several collabs on there. My estimate is roughly 120k are mine.

Themes:

5 tumblr ask ficlets, 6 collabs (3 writing collabs and 3 where someone did else did the art and I did the writing) 4 gift fics, and 5 fest fics. Shield Me is the only fic that doesn’t fall in any of these categories. I just wrote it because I wanted to!

Other trends/themes:

3 of these fics are friends to lovers (surprise, surprise) 10 are getting together, 5 established relationship, 4 AUs, 6 canon divergent, 4 canon compliant, 8 Teen rated, 7 Mature or Explicit.

Some takeaways:

Apparently I like accountability (or perhaps it’s the community piece) because there were a lot of fests/collabs/asks/gifts that sort of inherently keep you on a path to completion. I wrote some other things that are just sort of languishing in my docs and I think because they weren’t tied to any other creators or events they are still sitting there. Partly it’s because these other fics took priority because of deadlines or what have you. But maybe the motivation just fizzled out. Shield Me is the only exception to this rule! It’s also worth noting that Shield Me was my top kudos fic for a long spell, so maybe there’s something to writing what I want, when I want, and not when a ton of others are publishing at the same time for the same event. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Best first line:

From A Burning Hunger:

“You know you’re going to have to take your cock out of your trousers if we’re really going to do this,” I huff impatiently. 

I tried to write a bunch of back and forth negotiating between them but scraped it to just get to the good stuff! Lol

Runner up from Shield Me:

Simon Snow is about to go off again, and I swear it’s not my fault.

I like this one because it takes us right to the crux of what’s going on in this fic: Baz keeps making Simon go off in order to feel Simon protect him when he does.

Top 10 fics I Read From 2022:

Bound and Determined - Explicit - 52k by @fatalfangirl

The Space In Between - Mature - 101k by @whatevertheweather

Restoration Ecology - Explicit - 51k by @captain-aralias

Hopelessly Miscast - Explicit - 24k by @captain-aralias

What’s Left - Mature - 133k by @cutestkilla

Ready of Not - Explicit - 20k by @bookish-bogwitch

London Loves Us Only - Explicit - 47k by imjusthereforthefreefood

5 Days, 5 Nights All Inclusive - Teen - 24k by Roobadley

This Will All Go Down in Flames - Explicit - 77k by @facewithoutheart

Jelly Babies and other signs your roommate probably isn’t a demon - Teen - 32k by @chen-chen-chen-again-chen

Other notable fandom things:

I helped moderate two events: Carry On Reverse Bang and the Secret Snowflake Exchange for the Discord server.

I met up with fandom friends irl in Vegas!

I beta read for a TON of fics, which I love to do and expect I’ll do more of in 2023.

I cultivated many friendship and talked to or interacted with folks probably on a daily basis in 2022. Whether through DMs, fic comments, tumblr or Discord chat and interactions, etc. I have met and deepened friendship with so many lovely people. Here’s to more of that in 2023! 🎉

Goals for 2023:

Finish my two WIPs How to Avoid a Scandal and Depth of Reason, ideally before they both turn a year old. My guess is it will take me 5-6 months to finish them.

Don’t sign up for a million things and over extend myself! (See two WIPs above from May and July that still aren’t finished🙃)

Read more! Especially longer fics, seeing as all my faves fell in this category. And do more fic rec posts maybe.

Run CORB again? Maybe? Last year was the first year and it was a fun event went pretty well. I learned a lot and hopefully can make it a bit better this year. We shall see.

Beyond that, I don’t really know! Another fandom meet up would be fun!

[mypoisonedvine]

𝖙𝖜𝖎𝖈𝖊 II || professor!helmut zemo x reader

{𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 I} 

𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞 : your illicit relationship with your (former) professor forces both of you to consider if the risk is worth the reward.

𝖜𝖔𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖙 : 9k (jeeeesus)

𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 : smut (oral f and m receiving, rough sex, creampie, massive amount of dirty talk), zemo being super cocky, smoking (just zemo, not the reader), alcohol consumption (zemo and reader although the latter is moreso implied), angst (not a ton but yeah), strip chess (does this require a warning?), zemo’s friends being sorta sleazy, one mention of/implied anal, brief violence? (one punch)

part 3 coming asap!

                              You watched his eyes slowly scan the board, darting from his pieces to yours and back again.

“You’re stalling,” you accused, breaking the silence.

“I’m thinking,” he mumbled back right away, never looking away from the board as he rested his chin in his hand.

“Think faster,” you instructed with a groan, leaning back in your chair and looking out the window instead.  When you saw movement in the corner of your eye, you looked back again, but he just sighed and moved his hand back into his lap without doing anything.  “Oh my god!” you exclaimed, rolling your eyes.

“Wait, wait, I’ve got it,” he grinned, finally grabbing his knight and moving it forward.  “Check.”

You looked around the board to confirm he was right, and he cleared his throat expectantly.

“I said, ‘check’,” he reminded you.  “Stand up.”

“You’re really going to make me do this?” you pressed with a raised eyebrow.

“No, I’m not going to make you,” he smirked, “but you’re going to do it because your only alternative is to forfeit.”

With a sigh and a little smile of your own, you stood up and unbuttoned your shorts, sliding them down your legs and stepping out of them quickly.  His face was irritatingly neutral as he watched you strip, only your bra and underwear left now, but his eyes gave everything away as they examined you with even more care than they had the chess board.  

“You know, this whole ‘strip chess’ idea isn’t exactly going according to plan,” you frowned, sitting back down in the chair and crossing your legs.

“What do you mean?  Of course it is,” he grinned.  “Oh, you mean, your plan… yes, I hope my suit coat is keeping your entire outfit good company over there in the pile.”

You scoffed defensively.  “If you wanted to get me naked, you could’ve just asked.”

“I know, darling.  This was just to get you to slow down for once.”

You coughed a little, shocked by his brutal honesty.  “Damn, shots fired,” you mumbled to yourself, and he laughed.  

“Now, it’s your turn to see if you can get this tie off,” he smirked.  “And do hurry it up, so I can show you what happens when I get a checkmate.”

His apartment was, unshockingly, so much nicer than your dorm; so it wasn’t so odd that you spent most nights here each week.  Well, perhaps it was a little odd since you had practically moved in and you’d only been seeing him for a few months… but you were happy, and he was happy, and you were trying desperately not to overthink it.

Your schedule was carefully crafted so as not to include any Friday classes, but obviously as a professor his itinerary was a much more traditional 8-to-5 no matter the day of the week.  As a result, it was typical for you to lay around his place through most of the day, working on your laptop or occasionally mooching off of his HBO Max account.

You were doing just that when you heard the key in the front door, and you scrambled to turn the TV off so he wouldn’t think you were being lazy… but when he entered, you were still laying on the couch wrapped up in a blanket, so you didn’t exactly look productive either.

“Hey,” you greeted, sitting up and resting your arms on the back of the couch as he took his bag off his shoulder and hung up his jacket.

“Hey,” he mumbled in return, sounding a bit distracted and not even looking back at you.  You furrowed your brow as he sat down on the couch beside you, letting out a heavy breath and staring up at the ceiling.

“What’s on your mind?” you asked, pouting as you moved closer to straddle his lap and run your hands over his chest through his button-up.

“Well, the thing is,” he sighed, taking off his glasses with one hand to rub his eyes with the other, “tomorrow is my birthday.”

“Wh— that’s a good thing!” you scoffed.  “Let’s do something!”

“My fortieth birthday,” he clarified.  “Tomorrow, I will officially be twice your age.”

You sighed a bit.  “That really bothers you, doesn’t it…”

“Does it not bother you?  It should,” he snapped, deflating you instantly, and his tone softened.  “I’m sorry.  That was harsh… I just feel guilty, sometimes.  I wouldn’t want to take advantage—”

“I’m a grown adult, Helmut, I know I’m younger than you but I’m not a child and I can make my own choices.”

He nodded.  “You’re right.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

“I…” he paused for a moment, chewing his lip slightly as he gathered his thoughts.  “I would just hate to see you regret this.  And I think, when you’re older, you will.”

“Let me worry about that,” you frowned.  “The future can be dealt with later, we should enjoy the present while we can.”

He laughed softly.  “I think I have an idea of what you consider ‘enjoying the present’...”

You smiled as you leaned in closer, holding his face to press your lips against his.  It was pretty innocent at first, until his hands began to rest at your waist and you sighed slightly, feeling your hips shift above him.  He grinned, teeth gently nipping at your bottom lip.

“What do you know?  I was right,” he whispered.  “You’re turned on already.”

It made your cheeks burn when he called you out like that, like he was mocking you for how easily he could make you desperate, and you looked away in embarrassment.  “I can’t help it!” you defended in a pout.

“I know,” he cooed, kissing your cheek and neck softly.  “I think it’s sweet, really.”

That made your cheeks burn even more, and you looked back at him again to find his brown eyes sparkling.  “Really?”

“Really.”

You trailed your fingers over his cheeks, scratching his beard a little bit which made him scrunch up his nose.  “Well, I think you’re sweet,” you giggled.  “And you know something else?”

He raised an eyebrow and you leaned in to speak closer to his ear.

“I think it’s sexy that you’re twice my age,” you whispered.  “Well, that tomorrow you’ll be twice my age.”

“Yeah?” he pressed, fingers just barely grazing over your skin as they trailed down your legs.

“Yeah,” you nodded, moving your hands to his chest where you started to slowly unbutton his shirt as he sighed.

“That explains why you can’t seem to keep your hands off of me,” he chuckled, looking down to watch your fingers brush over the patch of hair on his chest and toy briefly with the necklace he wore.  

“Well, that’s more just because I know how good you can fuck me, and I’ll never be satisfied by anything else,” you admitted, biting your lip.

“Darling, I don’t think you’re even satisfied by me… I already made you come this morning, don’t you remember?”

“Yeah, but that was different,” you pouted, “that was your fingers and it was right before you had to leave and I was still half-asleep…”

“Whatever it is that you want, draga, just say it,” he ordered in a whisper, holding the back of your neck and pulling you closer so you had to look back at him.

It was a lot harder to say with him staring right at you, but you swallowed and did your best.  “Need you to fuck me.  Wanna feel you inside me, please.”

His only answer was a quick nod before he kissed you, rough and dominating, letting you cling onto him while he stood up and carried you to the bedroom, falling with you onto the mattress.

He made a big show of kissing his way down your body, tearing your clothes out of the way on his path, eventually leaving you in only your panties which he examined with a grin as he held your legs open.

A shiver ran up your spine when he caught the lace in his teeth and used only a playful bite to pull them down your legs.  

Once the panties were off your ankles and he had tossed them aside with a flick of his head, he held your thighs as he dove right in, lapping at you hungrily while you moaned and your back arched.

He purred against you when your fingers wove into his hair and tugged slightly, but you honestly didn’t even mean to do it: you just needed to hold onto something to keep yourself from falling back into oblivion, and it seemed like a more attractive option than the bedsheets.

His lips attaching onto you and sucking your clit hard was already overwhelming in its own rite, but then two thick fingers began to push into you and it was impossible not to cry out, your bottom lip falling from where it had been caught between your teeth.

“Fuck!” you yelped, hips shaking and trying to rock up against his face as he curled the tips of his fingers against your spot right away.

“Close already, draga?” he cooed, words muffled since he didn’t fully pull his mouth away from your body before he spoke.  “I’ve only just started.”

You could only nod and feel your face heat up even more; at this point you had no right to be embarrassed by how sensitive you were when he’d already proven to you over and over that he could bring you to the edge in minutes.  But still, apparently some little shred of shame was still left in you, and you could tell by the look in his eyes that he was determined to train it out of you.

“If you’re close then now would be the time to start begging,” he reminded you as he moved his fingers faster and teased your clit with the tip of his tongue.

"Please, Helmut," you sobbed as you writhed uncontrollably, "I'm so close— fuck me, please, I want your cock."

"So you don't want to come on my fingers, then?  You don't want me to make you come with my mouth?"

"No, I want you to fuck me, please… you know I need to come around you."

Not one to let you down when you pleaded like that, he pulled his fingers out and suddenly flipped you onto your hands and knees, chuckling when you gasped.

“This is how you want it, isn’t it?” he presumed as you heard him finishing the undressing process behind you until you finally felt the head of his cock pressing against your soaking entrance.

“Yes,” you breathed, “just fuck me, please—”

You cut yourself off with a high-pitched noise when he shoved into you, this angle giving you no relief from how deep he was filling you.  One of his hands was beside yours, keeping him balanced upright above you, and you watched it tighten into a fist while the other slid up to hold your neck in a way that was simultaneously intimidating and soothing.

When he started to move, each stroke rubbed against your swollen spot and you struggled not to fall apart right there and then.

“So perfect,” he breathed right against your ear, almost like he was saying it to himself more than you, “you feel so fucking perfect, draga.”

Of course that would make your back arch even more, pushing him deeper into you in search of not only more friction within you but more of his praise whispered to you.

Soon it was you pushing back against him more than him fucking into you, and you felt his proud smile press against the curve of your neck.  “You need it that badly, darling?”

“Need you,” you whined back, not really capable of a full sentence at this point. 

“I know,” he whispered, soothing you with kisses all over your cheek and neck and shoulder.  “I know, poor thing, you just need to come, yes?”

Your mouth fell slack as you nodded, rocking back into him faster and more desperately than ever.

“You need me to make you come?”

“Yes, fuck, please!” you cried, hoping he wouldn’t get irritated with you becoming so demanding, but thankfully he obliged and held your body tight as he really fucked you then, hard and fast and completely unforgiving— exactly how you needed it.

Every part of your body seemed to tense up in time with each other: your toes curled, your hands gripped the sheets beneath you in fists, your walls fluttered and tightened around him.  

When you opened your mouth to speak, you genuinely didn’t know if you should expect a scream or a whisper.  What came out was somewhere in the middle, slightly choked and completely fucked-out.  “Please, don’t stop…”

“Couldn’t if I wanted to, draga,” he groaned, his fingers rubbing your clit roughly as he fucked you even harder, slamming into the deepest parts of you until you were choking on your own sobs.

"I— hng, Helmut, I'm—" you tried to warn him, but you couldn't even put a few words together.

"I know, darling," he cooed, "shh, just come, go ahead and come for me."

He sucked hard on your pulse as your legs quivered and your body gave out; if it weren’t for him holding you tight against him, you would’ve fallen on your face onto the bed (and you may not have even noticed if you did, since you were suddenly going numb and tingly everywhere).

Just past the ringing in your ears you could hear him muttering curses against your skin, in a few languages you didn’t speak, before switching back to English to praise you in a growl.  “I love feeling you come around me, draga, keep going— you’re squeezing me so tight that I can barely keep it together.”

Tears streamed down your cheeks from the force of it, and his hand reached up to wipe them away— a gesture much too tender considering the way he was pounding into you like he was out for revenge.

"Fuck, I'm close, so close," he breathed, grunting with every thrust into you.

"Come in me, I want it so bad, I need it…"

His teeth sunk into your neck, his lips sealing and sucking on the delicate skin, as he let out a muffled moan and began to fill you.  The warmth of it was always indescribable, but perfect; a heavy exhale of relief sunk from your chest out your lips.

You were able to stay like that for a long moment before he let you go and you inevitably fell limply onto the bed, just barely beginning to catch your breath and come back down to reality.

“Fuck, that’ll leave a mark,” you groaned as you rubbed where he’d bitten you, but you were smiling, too.

You watched him get up and stretch briefly; you were pretty impressed he was still energetic enough to do anything but collapse onto the bed beside you, though you certainly didn’t mind the view as he walked to the window and acquired a cigarette and his lighter.

“Isn’t smoking after sex a little stereotypical?” you chuckled softly.

He smirked back at you as he placed the end between his lips.  “It’s the only time I smoke, so I’m going to blame you for how many packs I’ve been going through,” he countered, words slightly muffled from holding the cigarette.  He struck his lighter and carefully lit the end, taking a slow inhale before letting the smoke out through his nose.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t have such an… appetite, before you,” you admitted.

“You’d never had anything worth craving before,” he shrugged; how dare he be so casually cocky like that?  How dare he be so accurate?

Deciding you definitely needed a shower (though you would’ve loved to lay there catatonic for a while longer), you managed to sit up and get off the bed.  The only problem was that you severely overestimated the awakeness of your legs, and when you tried to stand on them, they buckled right away.

He dashed across the room to catch you, concerned at first but then smirking around his cigarette as he looked down at you in his arms.  "Are you alright, darling?"

"Yeah, I'm good," you nodded breathlessly, balancing on his arms as you found your footing.  "Thanks."

“You don’t need my help in the shower?” he pressed.

You rolled your eyes as you laughed, letting go of his hands.  “We both know your ‘help’ isn’t going to get me clean.”

“You’ve got me there,” he admitted, raising his hands in relent as he returned to the window while you finished your delicate trek to the bathroom and reached into the shower to turn on the stream of hot water.

Though the shower thankfully did get the sweat off of you and (most of) the come out of you, it could never wash away the feeling of his touch, the little bruises in the shape of his lips or fingertips, and thank god that it couldn’t— your heart might break if they ever faded.

Of course, that made you start wondering which made you start overthinking (a common shower pastime for you) and suddenly a pang of fearful guilt started to throb in your gut as you wondered if your feelings were becoming too strong.  

You pushed the thought away and finished up your shower, deciding now was not the time to worry where this affair was going.  Didn’t you deserve to do something fun and crazy and a little bit dangerous for once?  At least you weren’t in his class anymore so what you were doing was less ‘wrong’ and more just ‘probably a bad idea.’

But this bad idea had been going on for a few months now and sometimes it felt like you were barreling towards an inevitable breaking point.  Could any relationship that began in the way yours had find longevity?  Is that even what you wanted?

Okay, so maybe you didn’t really manage to successfully stop worrying about it, and you sighed absent-mindedly as you dried off with a borrowed towel.  If anything could soothe your racing mind, it was coming back to the bedroom to find Helmut in bed, his cigarette finished and replaced with a book and his reading glasses.

The way he smiled when he saw you was infectious, and he extended his arm out in invitation for you to join him and, well, that offer was irresistible.

You beamed as you jumped onto the mattress, which had settled from its bouncing by the time you found a comfortable spot on his shoulder and lifted your leg to drape over his.  

Your head found a place on his chest while your fingers traced over it, trailing down at one point to his stomach where you delicately traced over the scars there— the ones you’d been too afraid to ask about before now.

“What happened?” you asked softly.  “The scars…”

“A dog mauled me when I was little,” he remembered flatly as he turned a page in his book.  

“Oh no!”

“Not as bad as it sounds, I can’t even remember it now,” he shrugged.

“Anything interesting?” you asked, motioning to the book and looking up at his profile as he returned to his thoughtful reading.

“Something horrifically boring,” he answered flatly, looking over at the bedside table when his phone vibrated on top of it.  Setting the book down and grabbing the phone instead, he squinted as he looked at the bright screen.

“What is it?” you asked after a brief struggle not to be nosy.

"Another professor in the department is offering to take me out for drinks, for my birthday," he explained as he examined the message.

"That's sweet of him," you smiled.  "You should go!"

"Well, actually it's a 'her,'" he corrected.

Oh no, there it was, stirring in your stomach: jealousy, for no good reason, with no right to start stirring in your chest.  Of course in your mind, this female professor was sexy and sophisticated in a way you couldn't be, someone who could keep up with his discussions about history and politics that you barely understood, someone who could do all those things you couldn’t do. 

Including, you know, going to bars… like the one she was inviting him to now, on the night of his birthday.

“Well that’s… nice,” you mumbled.  “Is it just you and her, or…?”

He paused as he processed the question, before suddenly smirking and setting his phone down to stare back at you.  “Do you think she’s asking me on a date?”

You couldn’t parse at first if he was asking you because he thought you were being ridiculous for thinking it, or because he genuinely wanted your perspective— as if he would be happy if she was.  It made a lump form in your throat that you couldn’t quite swallow down.  “I… I don’t know, maybe?” you shrugged.  “How old is she?” you, morbid curiosity getting the better of you.

“I don’t know, 30-something?  Like I will be for the next—” he paused to puff his cheeks with a sigh and glance at his watch— “5 hours or so.”

You tried to hide your disappointment that he didn’t give a number like 60 or more.  “I don’t think you’re allowed to say 30 ‘something’ when the ‘something’ is 9,” you snorted.

“Okay, she’s in her late 30s then,” he decided.

“Well, that’s…” you trailed off. 

“What?” he pressed.

“I guess it’s probably a date, then,” you decided.

“It’s definitely not,” he shook his head.

“Does she know that?” you shot back, regretting it once you said it.

“Seriously?” he laughed.  “Do you think something is going to… happen between her and I, at this bar?”

“Well, maybe not at the bar, she’ll probably drive you to her place in her BMW or whatever,” you scoffed.

“Draga, she’s a history professor, she can’t afford a BMW,” he smirked, kissing your forehead.  

“Okay, but she has a car, and an apartment, and a job— you know, maybe she’s more ‘in your league’,” you proposed.

He laughed again.  “Yes, maybe she is.  And maybe you’re out of my league.  So I think we’ve established that it would be entirely uneconomic for me to be with her instead of you.”

You noticed the way he said ‘being with’ and not ‘date’ in reference to this.  Because you two weren’t, technically, dating, even if he did take you on what could be considered dates by most of the population.  “People do uneconomic things all the time,” you mumbled back, and he let out a little sigh as he looked down at you.

“Darling, I am entirely disinterested in pursuing another woman… as well as physically incapable.  I can barely keep up with you, how do you expect me to entertain somebody else?”

You swallowed, feeling a bit guilty for bringing it up at all.  “I’m sorry, it’s really none of my business,” you sighed, “I didn’t mean to ask you for anything, you can make your own decisions and I know we said this wasn’t—”

“Shh,” he interrupted to hug you tighter, “you’re overthinking again.  I’m not going to sleep with someone else—”

“But I’m saying you could, if you wanted to, I’d just want you to tell me since we aren’t using condoms and we would probably just call it off—”

“Baby,” he smiled, making you look up at him as he reached down to hold your face in his hand, “I just want you.”

You choked on nothing in particular, feeling so vulnerable so suddenly.  “O-okay…”

He held your head close to his chest and wrapped his arms around your shoulders, while you were still reeling from that statement; you didn’t know exactly what it meant— it certainly implied exclusivity, but not necessarily any romantic contexts, right?  To ‘want’ someone can mean a lot of things… sexual, mainly, which is what you assumed he was referring to.

And you were definitely not disappointed if he only wanted you in only that way, but you couldn’t swallow down the longing stirring inside you, the unforgettable knowledge that you wanted him in every way that could be meant.  Best of all, you wanted him all to yourself, but you were too self-conscious to bring up the exclusivity talk and you were too happy now to risk messing it all up with pesky emotions.  It was just amazing sex, between two people who thankfully managed to get along well outside the bedroom as well, and there was absolutely wrong with that.

If nothing else, you knew a lot more about history than you did a few months ago, so if it all ended tomorrow, at least you would have some fun facts about Sokovia to show for it.

When your friend Kacey told you there was a house party this weekend, you were originally going to say no… but the house in question was actually just down the block from Helmut’s apartment, so you knew if you hated it you could leave easily.  Maybe getting out would do you some good, and it was the same night that Helmut was going out with his friends for his birthday so the timing was convenient.  He encouraged you not to wait for him alone and bored all night; this seemed like the perfect way to avoid that.

And maybe if you were getting dressed up all sexy to go out to a party at the same time he was supposed to leave for the bar, you could convince him to ditch them and spend his birthday fucking you senseless.

When he caught a glimpse of you while he walked past the bathroom, he stopped suddenly and you grinned as you turned to face him.  "Whaddya think?" you asked proudly, letting him get an eyeful of your outfit.

“You look…” he trailed off, scanning the skin-tight dress with wide eyes.  “Do you always dress this way for parties?”

You shrugged.  “Most of the time, yeah.”

“Remind me to take you out more,” he nodded.  “Or never let you go out without me again.”

“You don’t think it’s too revealing, do you?” you teased, stepping closer.

“Oh no, don’t play that game with me,” he laughed.  “Don’t try to make me jealous just so I’ll get rough with you.”

You frowned, crossing your arms.  

“Does that tactic usually work on whatever boys you were seeing before me?” he smirked, and something about the way he called them boys made you feel all tingly and suddenly you were not the one in control anymore.  You nodded shyly and he stepped up to you, pulling you into a soft kiss.  You tried to deepen it but he moved back too soon, leaving you wanting more like he could do so effortlessly.  “I’ll see you tonight, have fun at your party.”

He left you with one more kiss, to your forehead this time, and you were almost more impressed than irritated at how he managed to make sure you’d be thinking only of him all night long.

Not too much later after he’d driven off, you left on foot for the party— though you definitely considered cancelling last minute and just moping around his apartment, staring forlornly out the window wondering when your husband former professor turned not-exactly boyfriend would return from the war bar.

But you had a point to prove to yourself, as well as Helmut and Kacey, and so you finished primping and found the walk rather pleasant in terms of scenery (if irritating in terms of fashion).

As far as house parties go, it wasn't quite a rager but not exactly a casual hangout either; you could hear the music from across the block, though faintly, as bass reverberated through the ground and into your platforms while your friend waved you down from the porch, calling your name.

She met you at the sidewalk just in front of the house, pulling you into a tight hug; you had been worried at first that you were overdressed (or, in a certain sense, underdressed), but her outfit was significantly more revealing than yours; a two-piece with her stomach and belly button piercing exposed.  

“You look hot,” Kacey beamed when she pulled back from the hug.

“You think so?  I’m a bit out of practice,” you admitted.

“Glad you could dust off the heels and join us,” she winked.

“Us?”

She glanced back towards the house.  “Yeah, Pia’s here— somewhere…”

Another junior in your major; as the most social girls in the computer science undergraduate stratosphere, the three of you were sort of forced to be friends, but thankfully it wasn’t for naught and you got along well.  Sometimes Kacey could be a bit… effervescent for your taste, in the sense that she was one of those bubbly outgoing types and had more energy than you knew what to do with.  Pia was more reserved but acquiescent, which meant she ended up pulled along on whatever adventures Kacey got herself into you.  And then there was you, who had been blowing them off every weekend with a list of increasingly-absurd excuses: sick dog, sick cousin, sick self (both migraines and menstrual cramps), heavy homework load— you know, the usual suspects— all in the name of hanging out with Helmut.

You considered yourself lucky that they still wanted to hang out with you, after you’d been AWOL this long, and you feared that they would understandably want an explanation.

Following Kacey inside the house, you tried not to wince at the volume of the music— a live band, it turns out, and not a very good one— and grabbed a stray drink from a table on your way to wherever you were being guided.

Pia was sitting on the arm of a couch, listening to a very stoned young man talk about the meaning of life and the universe, but she smiled when she saw you and Kacey, getting up to greet you.

“Hey, I haven’t seen you in forever!” she frowned playfully, hugging you quickly.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” you mumbled.  

“We should catch up!  How have you been?” she pressed, tilting her head.

“You’re sure you don’t wanna miss this TED talk?” you snorted, glancing over at the guy who had changed topics slightly and seemed to have confused string beans with string theory.

“I’ve heard better philosophy from the back of cereal boxes,” she laughed, but right as she said it the band finished their song and everyone glanced in your direction, including the heartbroken hippy himself.  “Uh, sorry,” she winced, and Kacey laughed as she guided the three of you away.

“I’m gonna get us some drinks, wait here,” Kacey decided once she found a new corner to lounge in, but Pia abandoned you soon afterward in search of a bathroom, leaving you to do what you did best at parties: stand around and avoid everyone’s attention.

You were surprised to hear your name from behind you, and when you whipped your head around you saw a tall guy with a wide smile looking down at you.

“Professor Zemo, right?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, and you nearly choked on your drink.

“Wh— what about him?” you stammered out.

“We had his class together,” he explained.  “I sat behind you.”

“Oh!” you smiled, relieved.  “Right, um, yeah…”

“Trey,” he finished for you.

“Trey!” you repeated, nodding.  “I knew that… hi, Trey, good to see you.”

“How’s life been treating you since you set the curve in that class?” he grinned.

“I don’t think he even graded on a curve,” you mumbled.  “But, um, good.  Just… livin’ it up,” you decided, cringing internally at your own wording.

“Yeah?  I haven’t seen you in any other history classes,” he noticed.

“Oh, I’m not a history major,” you explained quickly.  “Computer science.”

He chuckled incredulously, wrinkling his eyebrows.  “What were you doing in a history seminar?”

Fucking the professor.  “Elective,” you shrugged.  

“So you’re just a hobby history buff then?” he presumed.

“No, I actually kinda hate history, I prefer to live in the present,” you decided, “but, y’know, underwater basket-weaving didn’t have any seats left…”

He snorted out a laugh, a little too hard for the quality of the joke, and you realized this was probably flirting.  You’d never really seen it up this close, so you couldn’t be sure… and considering how he looked in his jeans with the shirt half-unbuttoned, you weren’t exactly mad about it…

But it made you feel sort of sick to your stomach.  It made you feel guilty, on behalf of Helmut but even moreso for Trey who was totally sweet and smart and deserved to be spending this energy on somebody who could appreciate it.

“Want another drink?  Looks like yours is almost empty,” he motioned to your red plastic cup.  

“Oh, um, I would but… I think my friends are coming over here,” you dismissed, hoping he would take the hint without taking it too hard.  He seemed to understand, giving you a nod and a wave before he disappeared into the crowd right as Pia grabbed your arm.

“Who was that?” she asked right away, giving you a look that you chose to ignore.

“Trey, he sat behind me in my history class last semester.”

“He’s cute,” Pia winked, leaning against the wall beside you.  “And definitely into you.”

“Well, that’s… good for him, I suppose,” you stammered.

“Are you gonna go for it?  Get his number?” she pressed.

“Uh, probably not,” you decided, “I’m gonna get another drink—”

Before you could walk away, she grabbed your wrist and pulled you back.  “Hey, what’s the deal?  You seem kinda out of it.”

“Oh, well, I just— I guess I’m not as much into the party scene as I used to be.”

“I’m using my psychology major mind-reading powers,” she warned, waving her fingers at you like she was casting some mystical spell while you leaned back and squinted.

“Um, that’s definitely not how that works—”

“You’re acting weird becaaauuuusee… you’re totally hung up on somebody else and feel guilty flirting with guys here even though you know you shouldn’t,” she announced, crossing her arms proudly when your dumbfounded expression gave away her accuracy.

“How did you—?”

“Lucky guess.  So who is it?!” she grinned.

“Uh—”

Kacey, summoned by the smell of gossip, seemed to appear from thin air at your other side.  “Who is who?” she smirked.

You glanced around at the crowded room of students and decided this was definitely not the place to talk about such an illicit affair, taking them by the hand and dragging them into a more private room of the house.  Finding a seat on a chair as the girls gathered around you (oddly reminiscent of a childhood storytime, except this story was going to be a lot more mature than those), you prepared to answer as many of their questions as you could.

As a European, Zemo was quite well-practiced at going out to bars with friends, but in America it was a very different experience.  It took him twice the alcohol to get half as drunk as his colleagues, meaning by the time he was feeling a decent buzz, everyone else had foolishly tried to keep up and ended up totally sloshed.

The person who had initially suggested this event (as well as the one you had foolishly felt some sort of jealousy for), Dr. Josten, had actually respected her own limits and left first while she was still good to drive, meaning Zemo was left only with men who couldn’t hold their liquor or their tongues.

Case in point, a bunch of his fellow professors were now trying to convince him to go up to the bar and flirt with a woman in a red dress.

“No, no way,” Zemo shook his head, “I’m not doing that.”

“You could totally take her home, just tell her it’s your birthday!” Professor Bram, from the English department, suggested with an elbow digging a bit too hard into Zemo’s side.

“Does that normally work?” he asked bewilderedly.

"I mean, not for me… but it could work for you!  Ladies love an accent."

“You’ve been teaching stateside for over a year now, Zemo, it’s time for you to experience American women,” one of them laughed.

“Who says I haven’t?” he mumbled to himself before another sip of his vodka, but unfortunately some of the others heard him as well and he got a playful punch to the shoulder.

“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!  Was it just a hook-up or what?”

“No, I… well, I’m seeing someone, I suppose is the way to put it,” he clarified.

“How long?” Kacey asked you first, right away, as she leaned in excitedly.

“Um, a few months now,” you realized.

“No, I mean how long,” she smirked, gesturing with her hands to indicate length, and you snorted.

“Jesus, I’m not telling you that!”

“Buzzkill,” she rolled her eyes.

“Plenty long enough, that’s all I’ll say,” you laughed.

“How’d you meet her?” Professor Carpenter (another history department veteran) asked.  “I mean, you’re never anywhere but work… is it someone you work with?”

“In a sense…” Zemo trailed off.

“So, is he in one of your classes?” Pia wondered aloud.

“Um, he was, last semester,” you agreed.  It wasn’t false, by any means, but definitely not the entire truth, either.

"So, another lecturer,” Professor Chen (Zemo was about 80% sure he was in the political science department) nodded thoughtfully.  

“Gotta be somebody from the Women’s Studies department,” Bram smirked proudly, despite it not being a statement to be proud of at all.

“Or is it that woman here on the visiting scholar program, the temporary lecturer in neurology?” Carpenter jumped in.

“No, he said she was American, c’mon, keep up,” Bram frowned as he slapped Carpenter on the padded shoulder.

“Delta or Sigma?” Kacey squinted, like it was an interrogation.

“Not a frat guy, some of us have standards Kace,” you scoffed.

“Hey!” Pia gasped, offended on Kacey’s behalf.

“Nah, she’s right,” Kacey soothed.

“She’s not a lecturer, okay?” Zemo hissed, tired of having basically every department of the university listed to him (including some he didn’t realize existed).  “She’s not faculty.”

“...staff?” Chen posited.

“What, you mean like the janitor?  No, not staff,” Zemo rolled his eyes.  “I shouldn’t have said anything.  It’s none of your business.”

“It doesn’t matter!  What’s with the secrecy?”

“I haven’t told anyone about it yet, and I don’t think I’ve had enough alcohol to start now,” he frowned.

“Which of your classes was he in, then?” Pia asked, shifting her line of questioning (and unfortunately looking in the right direction).

“Um, that history thing I took last semester,” you answered.

“That guy from before was in your history class!  Should we just ask him who it is?” Pia grinned mischievously.

You cursed yourself for giving away too much.

“I’ll go find him and see if he’s going to give us more to work with you than you,” Kacey decided, already standing up to walk out of the room.

“No, wait!” you yelped, pulling her back; you didn’t want to tell them anymore, but you couldn’t afford if someone like Trey found out.  Telling Kacey and Pia wasn’t ideal, but at least they could be trusted with a secret.  “I’ll tell you, okay?  Fuck, I don’t even know how to say this…”

Chen tossed up his hands in defeat.  “Alright, the only reason you could be so weird about this is if it’s somebody totally forbidden—”

Zemo’s chest tightened as he worried they would figure it out.

“Like, I don’t know, an adjunct or something.”

“An adjunct?  Are you out of your mind?” Zemo spat.

“Hey, no judgment in brainstorming,” Carpenter defended.

“You think I would be this protective about it if it was an adjunct?” Zemo continued.

“Listen, we’re not gonna think less of you, whatever it is— and we’re not gonna tattle on you,” Bram assured.  “Just get it off your chest while the liquor’s flowing, half of us aren’t even gonna remember it tomorrow anyways.”

“I’m dating a professor,” you blurted out.

“She’s a student,” he finally interjected, the entire table suddenly going dead silent.

“...a grad student?” one of them pressed, making Zemo swallow uncomfortably.

“Um, no… she’s actually… twenty,” he admitted.

“Holy shit,” Pia gasped.  “You actually did it…”

“We bow to your hoe powers,” Kacey spoke reverently, clasping her hands as if in prayer.  “We’ve all dreamed of bagging a hot professor and now you made it a reality.  Please, O Queen, teach us in your ways.”

“It’s not like that,” you defended.

“Is she at least getting a better grade out of you for it?” Carpenter joked.

“No, it’s not like that,” he dismissed, “she passed my class with flying colors quite some time ago.”

“Okay, but was that before or after you slept with her?”

“It was irrelevant to the fact that I slept with her.”

“So, after,” Chen assumed with a smirk.

“Yes, after,” Zemo finally admitted, “but she’s not my student anymore.”

“Is she your girlfriend then?”

You gnawed on the inside of your cheek.  “We… haven’t really had that conversation yet.  I keep meaning to, but then… one thing always seems to lead to another…”

“Oh really?” Pia grinned.  “So what’s he like?”

“Sensitive…” you mumbled right away, “patient, weirdly funny though I don’t think he realizes it.”

“I know I’m going to sound like every creep who ever preyed on young women, but she’s very mature for her age,” Zemo explained.  “Incredibly thoughtful.  Wise beyond her years.”

“No, no,” Johnston shook his head, “what’s she like.”

"It's nothing like how it is with guys our age,” you gushed, clutching your blanket tighter to your chest.  “He's so attentive, and sensual, and he can go for hours," you explained as your teeth sunk into your bottom lip at the memories playing on repeat in your mind.

"You must understand that she's nothing like women our age, at least not any that I've met," he nodded as his friends set down their drinks to lean in close.  He was sure this was more attention than he'd ever gotten for one of his lectures.  "She's… insatiable.  She wants to go again and again and I'm just trying to keep her from getting injured or something, poor thing."

"So she likes it rough?" one of them presumed with a toothy grin.

"She's so inexperienced she doesn't really know what she likes yet.  She's learning with me.  So we try everything."

"Everything?" one of the girls repeated as she widened her eyes.

Your face warmed up as you cleared your throat.  "I mean… yeah…"

"So, anal?"

You choked on nothing, which said more than any answer could.

"I shouldn’t talk about this with you,” he decided, shaking his head.

“Come on, you don’t have to tell us everything, just give us something to work with here,” Carpenter pleaded.  

“I don’t want to know what you mean by work with,” Zemo shuddered.

“At least tell us how you got her to sleep with you,” Chen compromised.

“Or let us do a guest lecture in your class so we can try to find our own undersexed sorority girls,” Bram added.

“Jesus, how many times do I have to say it’s not like that?” you frowned.  “I’m not turning this into some fucked up teacher-student dating service.”

“You keep saying what it isn’t like but you won’t tell us what it is,” Kacey noted.  “I mean, is it serious?”

“All I can say for sure is that I feel pretty serious about it,” Zemo tried to explain.  

“...are you in love with her?”

He cleared his throat, suddenly deciding now was the perfect time to finish his drink.

“Love?” you repeated, voice cracking.  “I don’t… know about that,” you stammered.

But the really upsetting thing was that you did know, and you hadn’t let yourself think about it until now.  It hadn’t been long enough to justify feelings like that, and the last thing you wanted to be was the naïve girl who caught feelings when all the guy was looking for was sex.

“It’s not just sex,” he announced.  “It’s something really real.   I didn’t know that I could—”

He stopped himself.

“I haven’t felt this way since—” he began, but stopped again.  “I don’t know.  Just, be careful how you talk about her.”

“Oh, you’re really whipped,” Bram chuckled.

“She’s incredible; you’d understand if you met her.”

“Then let us meet her!”

For a moment, he actually considered it; he wasn’t sure if you thought that you were at the ‘meeting friends’ stage, and considering the cultural difference it was going to be a unique one for sure.  Would you ask him to hang out with your friends?  He didn’t even know what that would look like.

“She seems like someone worth getting to know,” Bram agreed, and Zemo grimaced at the predatory look in his eyes.

“Fuck off,” he sneered, and Chen patted him on the back.

“Good move.  I’d be keeping her to myself, too… otherwise she might end up upgrading to a tenured professor like myself,” he beamed.

“Better watch out before Chen here steals your girl, Zemo,” Carpenter warned.

“She can’t be stolen,” Zemo assured.

“Yeah, you say that now…” Bram trailed off.

“Care to finish that sentence?” Zemo snarled.

“Well, think of it this way.  Most students wouldn’t fuck their professor,” Bram explained.  “But those that would, usually wouldn’t only fuck one.”

He didn’t punch him in the face because it was crude.  Sure, that was a factor, but it wasn’t the real reason.  He punched him in the face because it sounded like it actually made sense.

He punched him in the face because he couldn’t understand why it made him so angry; so what if he was just one of your exploits?  What difference did it make?  After all, you’d just said the night before that he was free to pursue others, and he couldn’t quite appreciate yet why that didn’t feel like freedom at all.

From a certain point of view, he knew he should just appreciate that you were with him at all, irrelevant to whoever else you might be with or would potentially be with in the future.  But from another, and much more salient, point of view, he wanted you all to himself.  And he hated that.

Like all good anger, his anger in that moment was born of fear, and he’d never been so afraid that he was just the lucky target of your promiscuous phase.  As selfish as it was, he wanted to think of himself as more than that.

And now that he was getting thrown out of a bar on his own birthday, contemplating the paperwork he would have to fill out tomorrow after punching a coworker tonight, he’d never thought of himself as less.

Much to your delight, he returned relatively early for a guy coming back from a bar on his birthday— 11:57 p.m., specifically— but it made sense for him being a responsible professor and all.

Well, mostly responsible.  After all, he still had his former student waiting for him when he got back, perched on the couch expectantly.  As fun as the third degree had been with Kacey and Pia, you wanted to be here when he got back— and now that they finally understood the real reason you were leaving early, they were more than supportive (perhaps a little too supportive, with their rather graphic suggestions and… hand gestures).

You didn’t stay on his couch for long, though; you got up and met him at the door as he slipped off his coat and hung it up nearby.

“How was your night out?” you asked softly, reaching up to rub his chest through his shirt.

“Um, it was good,” he nodded, “I missed you though.”

“I missed you, too,” you sighed.  “I was here all by myself thinking about the present I want to give you.”

“I told you not to get anything for me,” he remembered, gasping slightly when you pushed him back against the door.

“Just be gracious and accept your gift, okay?” you whispered, starting to kneel down and open his belt.

“O-oh,” he breathed.

You palmed his cock through his trousers, biting your lip as you felt it swelling already.  “I didn’t wrap this gift… and I forgot to get you a card to go with it.”

“Somehow I think I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you,” he chuckled, though his smile dropped when you pulled his cock out and stroked it slowly.  You had meant to tease him a bit but you found yourself sucking on the head already, too desperate for even your own plans; not that he had any issue with it, you could hear his breathing quicken as you bobbed your head slowly and stroked what your lips couldn’t reach.

He was still getting harder and the feeling of it on your tongue was so hot it was almost distracting, it made you want to reach down under your dress but you knew you were going to need your full attention on him if you were going to do this properly.

Closing your eyes, you kept taking him deeper and deeper until your lips met the base of his cock while his tip was lodged deep down your throat.

“Fffuck,” he hissed, “where did you learn how to do that?”

You pulled back and took a breath, stroking his cock as you responded.  “I’ve been practicing, all for you.”

It made his cock flex in your hand to imagine you gagging on your fingers or a toy in hopes of learning how to deepthroat him, let alone to know that it worked.

You took him in your mouth again, swirling your tongue around his slit until he reached down to grab your hair— not hard enough to guide your movements, he was still letting you set your own pace, but hard enough to tug at the roots and make you moan around him.  Slowly, you sunk down again, humming and swallowing around him, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“You’re too fucking perfect,” he sighed, watching closely as you pulled off of him even slower, running your lips and tongue over every part of him.  “You— fuck, you really don’t need to do this.”

“I want to,” you breathed, darting your tongue out to give a wide lick to his head.  “I’m already so wet just from this, Helmut… I want you to fuck my face.”

“Shit,” he cursed, gripping your hair tighter.  “You’re sure?”

You smiled and nodded.

“Then open your mouth."

Never one to turn down an instruction like that, you let your mouth fall slack and hummed a bit as he pushed his cock forward past your waiting lips.  After that it was just a matter of letting your throat relax and focusing on your limited chances to breath as he held your head and guided you.  

Whatever discomfort came from having your throat filled so deep was heavily outweighed by the incredible feeling of being used— it sounds debasing, but the way he stammered out praises made you feel anything but degraded.

“So good,” he grunted, “look up at me, darling, show me how good you look choking on me— fuck, you’re so beautiful.”

You were trying to be sexy, here on your knees in this tight dress and heels, but he had you feeling small and delicate saying things like that.

“Such a good girl,” he breathed; you had to shut your eyes then because you couldn’t hear that and look up at him or you were going to end up having to throw these panties out.

The volume of his moans was one thing, but the desperation in them was another; and both of them made it clear he was close, and you wanted to finish him off like this more than anything.

“Fuck— I’ll come,” he warned, “is that what you want?  To swallow it?”

You hummed in appreciation, hoping that would get your message across well; and it certainly seemed to, considering he bucked up into your throat more erratically than ever, moaning loudly with each thrust.

Hot come painted the back of your throat, so deep you never really got a chance to consider the taste although you imagined a night of drinking wouldn’t have done him any favors there.  Not that you minded; it was him and that was enough to make you moan with delight as he filled your mouth.

“Fuck,” he sighed, pumps of come slowing down to a stop as he relaxed against the door and caught his breath.  The moment of calm didn’t last as you started to gently suckle on his softening cock, making him tense up and suck in a sharp breath through his teeth.  “Nonono,” he chuckled breathlessly, pulling you off of him as you smiled mischievously, “it’d be a shame if I died on my birthday.”

“But what a way to go, hm?” you laughed as he helped you up from the floor.  “Not your birthday anymore anyways,” you noted, tapping on his watch, “it’s 12:02.”

“I hope you don’t think that means the party’s over,” he smirked, picking you up suddenly, making you laugh in surprise as he started to carry you to the bedroom.  “I’m officially a man in his forties with something to prove, so we’ll be going all night, draga.”

[wangxianficrecs]

Okay, this is me trying to catch up with my inbox, so here, have another deluge of 

I’m In The Mood For A Fic Where...

~*~

1.  Hiii can you help me find fics in which madam yu cherishes and loves wei ying like her own son?

some things go forward by everythingispoetry (T, 73k, wangxian, my post)

❤️in case of fire, break glass by Jenrose (T, 65k, wangxian, my bookmark)

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, wangxian, my bookmark)

all the light of the world by charsystem (G, 3k, wangxian, my post)

a different reflection by silversshadow (T, 32k, wangxian)

the thing with feathers by RoseThorne (G, 31k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

2.  hi! i’m looking for two types of fics, but id be happy for any at all. (a) sect leader jiang yanli (b) au or canon divergent where the yunmeng siblings are happy, or that wwx has a happy childhood. thank you!

where do we begin (the rubble or our sins) by KouriArashi (T, 42k, wangxian, my post)

from the other side of sorrow  by Sour_Idealist (E, 128k, wangxian, you want #3)

picking up the pieces by KouriArashi (M, 90k, wangxian, WIP)

the thing with feathers by RoseThorne (G, 31k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

3.  Do you know any fics where it's wwx taking care of lan wangji?

i don't wanna lose you (hope it never ends) by annemari (t, 21k, wangxian, my post)

Do not waste your pearls for me by moonwaif (G, 9k, wangxian, my post)

A Lot of Edges Called Perhaps by hansbekhart (E, 22k, wangxian, my post)

❤️Spellbound by Latios (T, 37k, wangxian, my post)

❤️shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 25k, wangxian, my post)

The Sun and the Storm by OnlyMeAndMyBones (T, 78k, wangxian, you want part 2)

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4.  Hello, i just wanted to say that i really appreciate all your doing here! You're blog is amazing!!! [I really appreciate that, thank you!]  Also, if it's not too much trouble I was wondering if you have any recs for fix-it fics that are wangxian centric with jiang cheng and wwx resolve their issues and nie huaisang is a little shit (but like in good way)?

Silver & Gold by beeswaxing  (E, 162k, wangxian, my post)

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5.  I (like the other tumblr) would also like some sort of recommendation or list of hurt!LWJ. Any sort of whump Lan Zhan. If possible with comfort or others being protective of him. He has suffered enough, he deserves some love and being taken care of. Thank you for all the effort you put into this blog.

Here are fics under my hurt lan wangji tag -- AO3 bookmarks b/c that always gives more results.

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6.  I saw this on twitter (it isn't mine) and I wonder if you know any fanfics like this: We always see Wwx as being the super popular kid in school, but I want the AU where he’s the social outcast bc ppl find his energy exhausting. And Lwj, the aloof accidental popular boy (who doesn’t care about popularity at all) is the only 1 to see past all of it to befriend him.

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7.  Hello! Love your blog! [Thank you!]  Do you have any mxy!lwj recs? Thanks!!

all the same reasons by aghostandchangeling (not rated, 187k, wangxian, WIP)

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8.  Any fics in which wwx is like a Robin Hood figure shoes steals from the rich and distributes it amongst the poor?

Outlaw: Guardian of Yiling by milesofheart (M, 35k, wangxian, WIP)

love goes on and on by whalerdaud  (G, 4k, wangxian)

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9.  Do you have any recommendations for long fics that have identity shenanigans? Some that I really liked were An Arrow Through Time, focal, filler, and line, true gold fears no fire , silhouettes to steal this night , coming of age, coming alive, wifi/bluetooth videogame, yiling vlogging, catfish texting, but honestly ill probs reread so rec any. im mostly looking for wwx/yilingpatriach/moxuanyu in canonish verse, but im a-okay with modern aus and any other character identities. thank you!

The Fault in Our Stars by Vamillepudding (T, 18k, wangxian, my post)

The storm comes and goes (and I keep walking) by Naamah_Beherit (M, 41k, wangxian, my post)

By Any Other Name by ShanaStoryteller (not rated, 32k, wangxian)

不忘 | Don't Forget by dragongirlG (E, 50k, wangxian, my post)

the stars in the hazy heaven tremble above you by cicer (G, 64k, wangxian)

all your life you'll dream of this by Attila (T, 22k, wangxian, my post)

Our Red String of Fate is a Wireless Connection by TheLegendOfChel (M, 15k, WIP)

Shine Brightly, That I May Glow by TheLegendOfChel (M, 34k, wangxian, WIP)

Bound Only by the Sea by levament (E, 215k, wangxian, WIP)

Different Paths to the Same Route by JustAWanderingBabbit (T, 184k, 3zun) -  WWX, reincarnated into a magically constructed body post-Siege, is wandering around incognito

Rise of the Peacock by JustAWanderingBabbit (not rated, 59k, 3zun, WIP) -  espionage, intrigue, and disguises galore

~*~

10.  Hi, do you have any recs for AU where LXC scheming to get wangxian going, maybe LZ jealous and WWX is just oblivious. It’s the best delight if it’s LWJ’s pov, explicit rating is even better, lol. Thanks a tons!

Smile for Me by kuro (T, 9k, wangxian)

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11.  Hiya! Do you happen to have a tag or any recs for fics where wwx gets his original body back? Those always seem to be interesting takes to read so I was just curious!

Thank you so much for your tagging system by the way, it makes things so easy. [Yay, I’m glad to hear that.]

Transcend by covalentbonds (not rated, 8k, wangxian, WIP)

Saw My Life in a Stranger's Face by timetoboldlygo (T, 27k, wangxian)

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12.  Hiii! This might be a bit too specific (which is why I didn't find on ao3 with my searching skills lol) but I was wondering if you or your followers know of any fic where wwx and the jiangs live in America and wwx goes to China where he meets lwj? As I said this might be a bit too specific but I really want to read something like that (I'd actually love to write it but I've tried so many times I just can't get it right fml, which is why I was like if I can't write it I might as well read it but I'm not good at searching for stuff :( ) anyways hope you can help? Thank you and thanks for the great recs as well!!! [No suggestions on this one:  I encourage you to write!!!]

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13.  Hey, do you have any fics where lwj (or lan clan) visit Yunmeng and have culture shock? How everyone is so touchy with each other and how loud it is etc...?

Summer Heat by tulirepo (M, 6k, wangxian, I THINK this fits? my post)

sweet chaos by eachandeverydimension (G, 36k, wangxian)

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14.  Hi! Do you know if there are more fics about WangXian's life as a married couple? Like fics showing their life together at cloud recess - glimpses of them doing household stuff etc? Thank u!!

midnight oil by cafecliche (G, 1k, wangxian)

In the Morning Hush by mondengel (not rated, <1k, wangxian)

As You Like It by cosmicmilktea (T, 9k, wangxian)

gravitational potential by chinxe (T, 1k, wangxian)

kiss me back to sleep by MuseofWriting (T, 3k, wangxian)

for you, a smile from heaven by jiazhen (writingpenguin) (T, 5k, wangxian)

Far away on the cold mountain by chajatta (T, 2k, wangxian)

Library Pavilion: Mo Dao Zu Shi Ficlets Collection by Shinocchi (E, 101k, wangxian, chapter 4)

~*~

15.  Hi! Before I ask my question, I just want to say that your recs make my day better. And whenever I am having a bad day I know I can come here and find a story that will make my dark day seem a little brighter. [Oh, this makes me so happy to hear!  Thank you.]  So, I was just wondering if you know of any fics where Jiang Yanli and/or Jin Zixuan come back to life. I don't mean a time travel fix it, more like they were dead for some time and then came back. -  @brokenhalo1​

where do we begin (the rubble or our sins) by KouriArashi (T, 42k, wangxian, my post)

Dream of the Gold Chamber by JustAWanderingBabbit (T, 9k, meng yao mostly?)

~*~

16.  What are your favorite 3zun fix-it fics? I’m in desperate need of this ship with happy endings.

To Fix Your Twisted Reflection by Dgcakes (ficsnfun) (E, 174k, 3zun)

JustAWanderingBabbit has earned one bookmarker’s tag #JustAWanderingBabbit’s 3Zun Repair Service; check out her works:

MDZS Work For Your Happy Ending (T, 188k, 3zun, series in progress)

Rise of the Peacock (not rated, 57k, xuanli, 3zun, wangxian, WIP)

Different Paths to the Same Route by JustAWanderingBabbit (T, 184k, jjin guangyao & lan xichen & nie mingjue, 3zun

Alliance of the Traveling Pants (G, 96k, 3zun, wangxian, WIP)

Odd Crimes and Misdemeanors by JustAWanderingBabbit (G, 56k, original work with actors) - a modern cultivation original fic in which she’s fancast Wang Yizhou, Liu Haikuan, and Zhu Zanjin.

~*~

17.  do you have any wangxian fic recommendations where they’re raising a child (or children) together. i am in desperate need of serotonin 🥺👉👈

❤️Attempting the Impossible by Ariaste (T, 36k, wangxian, my post)

so take my hand (take my whole life too) by cicer (E, 92k, wangxian, my post)

❤️The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane (E, 71k, wangxian, my post)

Blue Blood by PotterheadAvengerDemigod (T, 72k, 17 works, series in progress, my post)

❤️The Yiling Wei Clan by scifigeek14 (G, 45k, wangxian, my post)

Let's Play Pretend and Live Our Lives by Tassos (E, 51k, wangxian, my bookmark)

~*~

18.  Hello! Do you have any happy fics that focus more on Jiang cheng and Wei Wuxians brotherhood? Just fluffy he's my best friend and brother type stuff.

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, wangxian, chengqingxi, my bookmark, sweet if not super-fluffy)

By Any Other Name by ShanaStoryteller (not rated, 32k, wangxian)

~*~

19.  do you know any fics where wwx calls lwj a/his good boy cause i just need that in my life rn

Maybe You're the Reason by Clearpearls (E, 58k, wangxian, WIP)

~*~

20. Do you hav any recs where Chengqing is a side couple? @starcrossedrose​

A Bell That Tells Us to Rise and Fight by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee (T, 121k, wangxian, chengqing, my post)

And Time Is But a Paper Moon by sami (M, 139k, wangxian, chengqingxi, my bookmark)

a bow for the bad decisions by curiositykilled  (T, 154k, wangxian, chengqing, my post)

anything by Scrippio if you like modern au’s

[moss-on-a-rock-555]

Remus Lupin x Gender Neutral Reader

Request?: Nope, for @theweasleysredhair 9k writing thing

Summary: You are secretly dating Remus and your friends are trying to set you up thinking you are oblivious to the others feelings

Prompts/tropes: 5. “Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together.” 8. “Oh my god... you’re in love with him/her!” 10. secretly dating

A/n: This took forever lol and it's unedited so expect errors

Remus watched as you laughed with the twins. He thought you were so adorable when you laughed. He didn't realize how long he had been staring until Sirius elbowed him in the ribs. Remus looked over at his friend who was smirking at him.

"When are you going to ask them out?" Sirius asked

What he didn't know was Remus had asked you out months ago. You both decided to keep your relationship a secret. It was only going to be secret until you got comfortable with dating each other, but you were long past the getting comfortable stage. Now you were just enjoying the thrill of sneaking around.

"I'm not going to. I only see them as a friend." He replied

"Bullshit."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh my god, Moony. You're in love with them! It's obvious!"

You looked over at the two men when you heard Sirius' loud exclamation. You smiled at Remus before turning back to your conversation.

"Not so loud."

"It's the truth. You won't stop staring."

"They're cute. That's all."

"See. You love them."

"I find them attractive. That doesn't mean anything."

"Just ask them out. I'll lose ten galleons if you don't by tomorrow."

Remus tilted his head in confusion.

"Did you make a bet on my love life?"

"I'm not the only one who can see how you feel about them."

"There isn't anything to see."

"Tell that to Molly, Arthur, Tonks, Harry, the twins, and everyone else."

"Is the entire order in on this?"

"More or less."

Sirius saw that you had finished your conversation and decided to push his friend to make a move.

"Y/n, Moony needs to talk to ya!" He yelled over to you

You started walking towards the two men.

"What are you doing?" Remus asked him

"Helping."

You grinned at Remus as you came to stand in front of him.

"You wanted to talk to me?" You asked

"Yes. Could we go somewhere private? Like my room perhaps?" Remus replied

"Sure."

Sirius winked at Remus as you both left to go to his room. Once you got to the privacy of his room you held his hand.

"So did you actually want to talk to me or is Sirius being an arse?" You asked

"He's being an arse."

"Of course he is. I heard him yell something about you being in love with me while I was talking to the twins."

"He's noticed how I feel about you."

"You were staring at me for quite some time."

Remus blushed slightly.

"You were laughing. It was cute."

"The twins were telling me something stupid."

"What was it?"

"Well, apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together."

"Sirius mentioned that."

"Everyone bet ten galleons on when you will ask me out. Tonks and Hermione both think I will ask you out first. Fred thinks you will in another week, George says month, Sirius said by tomorrow. I'm not sure about any one else but Molly is spot on."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. Molly says we're already together and just aren't sharing our love life."

"She's smart. Should we tell them?"

"Let's just let them figure it out. No more denying our feelings, but we don't need to outright say it."

"Okay, love. I do enjoy sneaking around though."

"Me too."

You placed a soft kiss on his lips. He held you close for a moment before pulling back.

"I really do love you, Y/n."

"I love you too, Rem. Let's head back downstairs. I'm sure Sirius won't shut up about us anytime soon if we take any longer."

"He never shuts up. "

You giggled before pulling Remus out of the room. When you went back downstairs Sirius immediately came over.

"Are you two finally together now?" He asked

"Was he supposed to ask me?" You asked trying to play dumb

Sirius gave Remus an exasperated look.

"Seriously? You were upstairs alone with them and didn't ask?"

"I never said I was going to."

"I'll ask them then. Y/n, how about a date sometime?"

You smiled.

"Sorry, Sirius, but I already have a boyfriend." You told him

He stared at you in shock.

"Since when?"

"Since about six months ago."

"Who is he?"

You glanced at Remus, who wrapped his arm around your waist. You kissed his cheek.

"I'm the boyfriend." He answered for you

"No fucking way."

"Yes fucking way." You responded

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We wanted to get comfortable together first. Then we just liked sneaking around."

"I can't believe I owe Molly ten galleons because of you two."

"Sorry, Sirius."

"Don't get me wrong, I am happy for you, but I wish I won the bet."

"Next time don't bet on our love life." Remus said

"Yeah yeah. Whatever. I'll leave you two alone. I need to tell everyone they lost."

Sirius left the room to tell everyone. Remus pulled you close to him by your waist.

"I suppose we aren't secret anymore."

"I guess not, but at least everyone knows how much I love you now. And I do love you very much." You replied

Remus kissed your head.

"I love you more, darling."

[pendragyn]

Ineffable Bastards Universe

A series of Good Omens fanfics by me, Pendragyn on AO3. Works: 11. Total word count as of 5 July 21: 388,370 Complete? Ahahahaha Nope.

So, this was going to be a single short story. Ahahahahahaha. Anyway, apparently I can’t write short stories, so here’s a bunch of (mostly) long-form book-style fanfics.

In The Garden; ~45666 words, 8/8 chs. Meant to be unshared worldbuilding but then it went off the rails. Updated 16 July 2020

There were two angels sent to guard the Garden of Eden. They had never been meant to be friends, those two odd angels that didn’t quite fit in. Their bosses had expected them to be wary of one another, to even be sworn enemies one day; all part of the Great Plan. Perhaps they should have told them that. Or perhaps not.

Serpents and Ladders; ~19k words, 7/7 chs. More worldbuilding, more rails left in the dust. Updated 02 Dec 2019

The Garden of Eden is gone and Aziraphale and Crawly have been sent back to heaven and warned to forget they even met. Oddly enough, they do not listen.

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls; ~9k words. 2/2 chs. I gave myself feels and it hurts. Updated 02 Nov 2019

It all comes back to the church in 1941, and what happened and almost happened and thankfully didn’t happen after the church.

The Key; 3666 words. A stray writing prompt helps me get back on track. Posted 16 May 2021

it's 1981 and Crowley has decided to purchase a flat, but the snobby agent won't approve the application without a character reference. Who else can they call on but Aziraphale?

Stacking The Deck; ~1800 words. The world is building itself at this point. Posted 22 Sept 2019

We got to see the shuffle, but someone else decided to stack the deck. (This is a story about Harriet Dowling because moms deserve good stories too.)

Nature vs Nurture; ~29k words, 8/? chs. I think it’s pretty clear where this went in regards to worldbuilding and rails. Updated 29 Feb 2020 - updates (still) in the works

It’s all in the upbringing. But what do an angel or a demon really know about raising a (mostly) human child?

Setting Things To Rights; 2666 words. Saw a prompt on tumblr that was too spot on to not write it. Posted 22 June 2020

The night after the almost apocalypse, Adam Young gets a visit from the ghost of Agnes Nutter, and she helps him sort out a few worrisome loose ends left over from the world not ending.

The Eyes Are The Windows Of The Soul; 1443 words. Another prompted fic, this one more of the missing Sunday scene. Posted 23 May 2021

Crowley-as-Aziraphale's and Aziraphale-as-Crowley's time waiting to meet themselves in the park. 666 words for Crowley, 777 words for Aziraphale ;}

∞ Ineffable Bastards; 273k words, 42/?? chs. An ongoing opus with a lot of worldbuilding. (youdontsay.jpg) Rails highly ineffective. Send help. Ch 21 revision complete as of 5 July 2021

The world didn’t end, but everything changed, and the reformed angel and the former demon decide to forge a new path together after breaking free, and neither hell nor holy water is going to stop them now. They have their own side to look out for, and it’s a lot bigger than just the two of them. Which is good because you can’t fight heaven and hell alone. (Well you can try, but…) Along the way they make an arrangement of mutual trust with some witches and wizards and end up saving the world, and each other, again.

Wilde Card; 2666 words, a true demonic miracle. 2/2 ch. Updated 11 Nov 2019

So I had an idea about why Aziraphale had a complete set of Oscar Wilde writings. And how they had probably left a trail of infatuated and disappointed humans in their wake in all those clubs they’d gone to for intellectual stimulation and a good meal and dance lessons.

Apple Of My Eye; 413 words. Complete and utter fluffy sweet silliness inspired by a tumblr post. Posted 02 Feb 2020

Crowley comes across a pair of very novel novelty glasses and just has to show them to Aziraphale. There are a lot of puns.

...Revisions for Ineffable Bastards are in full swing (week 2 baybee!) because that's my emotional support fanfic, and that will hopefully result in more chapters getting written. Not counting the occasional interruption from stray writing prompts. 💜∞

* I will finish this and it will have a happy ending *

[mistofstars]

Uuuh I can't wait to see the last chapter finished

, you know, of my Bagginshield 30k monster

"The Outcast And The Wounded"

the thingy, which should have been 9k words, perhaps 3 chapters hahahahaha... now turned into 8 chapters. And the last chapter is *so soft* and they're so *concerned* for one another, and my emotions!! >.<

Anyway, I wrote like 2500 words today already, and the chapter is already 5k long... wish me luck, I want to finish it tonight, which would mean something like 2-3k more... I *might* be able to pull it off. Done crazier things before, lol....