#spoiler alert this is the whole opening scene of my follow up fic btw

[hold-on-a-little-longer-whump]

Don't mind me, just thinking about a character recovering from an illness or injury. The danger has passed, but they're still weak and exhaustion follows them like a heavy cloud. Comfort food is brought regularly. Soft clothes. Blankets. Fuzzy socks.

Particularly, the image of them sleeping on a squashy looking couch. Maybe they kicked off the blankets. Golden sunlight bathes them in warmth, and it's heavenly. Their hair is fluffed and messy.

And their companion stops themselves in the threshold of the door, not wanting to disturb this rare moment of bliss. They're carrying a tray of warm food, and the steam catches in the sun's rays just right.

They smile. Lunch can wait.

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: Where the Heart Is by Alixtii

fandom: Folgers “Home For the Holidays” Commercial

pairing: Folgercest

word count: 19k

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Is it ever

Is it endgame: Yes!!

Is it shippable: Yesssss

First off if there’s anyone who has not yet read the epic GQ Folgercest Fandom 10-year-retrospective which i still can’t believe was written by a bona fide journalist, RUN DO NOT WALK over there and do it now. I find it hard to believe there’s anyone with an internet connection who hasn’t seen it?? It’s fucking ubiquitous, there’s a finance & economics blog I follow that linked it lol.

There’s so many Folgercest stories where the tension builds & builds and I respect this one for being like NOPE here’s an explicit sex scene in the first chapter, merry christmas to MEEEEE. I thought the sex was dope but I also think it serves the important function of getting the “longing” & “pining” components out of the way so we can take seriously that the whole “go on the run & get fake married” proposition is a big ask. Luke asks Lexie to come away to Africa with him, and it takes her the seven days of Christmas + New Year’s to say “yes” (with Auld Lang Syne playing in the background)—ngl I may have emitted an actual squeeing noise when she said yes.

The setup for the New Year’s Kiss occurs as soon as Luke arrives home from Africa:

”it’ll be our first New Years after turning 21. We rented a limo and everything. Jane and her boyfriend just broke up a couple of weeks ago, though, so we have an extra ticket if you want to come."

This is pretty nearly “I accidentally-on-purpose brought my brother as a date” territory—it’s not the Most Formal of Formal Events like a wedding but it still puts her brother in a role her romantic partner would normally occupy, and we can expect either (1) lots of “is he single??” female interest or (2) fake relationship!!! Spoiler alert there wasn’t enough fake relationship to satisfy my trope-loving ass but when he let his teleconferencing coworkers assume the hot girl who wandered into camera range was his girlfriend that made me a happything.

It’s a very absorbing story with gobs of Catholic guilt thrown in but the thing that shook me most about this fic is probably that the alternative to “another round of morning sex” is “let’s build a snowman.” Like!!!! Could anything have been better calculated to push all my buttons.

Luke didn't expect to return to find her still a virgin--hell, he's not even sure she was a virgin when he left. Still, he can't help wonder how many times she's done this, with how many boys, and feels an incredible irrational, hypocritical resentment against them for defiling his sister.

This, THIS right here is what I came for. She’s still his baby sister and he can’t turn off a lifetime’s worth of protective instincts even if he’s the one defiling her now. It crops up again with his discomfort at her holding a beer he’s like is she even old enough to drink??? Lmao.

Btw I have zero complaints about the quantity of sneaking-around that occurs in this fic: They make out in their mom’s kitchen when Mom herself could pull into the driveway at any minute!! They park the car in the woods and give each other handjobs!!! Incredible. “What are we, teenagers again?” Luke wonders, and the entire point is they’re not, even if the woods are crawling with teenagers they are adults, and they’re making up for lost time. Luke made a conscious decision five years ago to leave rather than initiate a relationship with Lexie:

”I needed to get away so I could find myself. But, yeah, one of the things I needed to get away was that I couldn’t help spending every moment thinking about how much I wanted to fuck my sixteen-year old sister.”

Lexie studies him, curious. “And did that work?”

Luke shrugs. “Did I stop thinking about it? No. But at least it kept me from doing something I would regret.”

Lexie nods, thoughtful. “I’m not sixteen anymore, you know.”

“You’re still my sister,” he points out.

Oof. It’s a very different dynamic when you try to navigate these shoals as adults, instead of the scenario where you move seamlessly from platonic forehead-kisses to tongue-kisses. I appreciate Luke for attempting to do the whole courtship dance, take her out to the skating rink and the fancy French restaurant and meanwhile Lexie just wants to cuddle.

He said, “You never opened your present yesterday.” She smiles at him, a lascivious grin. “I really think I did.”

Damn but this callback to the iconic “You’re my present this year” line is unalloyed genius.

I did not expect this OC their cousin Gwen to play such a big role. She’s crushing on Luke and she ain’t subtle about it and since Luke can hardly tell his cousin “I’m not interested because I’m already fucking my sister,” the whole situation makes for comedic gold. At one point Lexie makes a quip about her and Gwen having similar taste in men and I was DYING:

“Oh, she was hitting on you hard,” agrees Lexie, “Not that I can blame her. She doesn’t know you’re already taken.” Luke puts his head in his hands. “God, this family is so fucked up.” “It could be worse,” points out Lexie. “It could have been Aunt Mary.”

That Lexie has got quite a mouth on her. The point of Gwen isn’t that Lexie feels threatened by her interest in Luke; it’s that Gwen may be a vexatious person who inserts herself where she is not wanted but she’s still family, and Luke and Lexie choose to take her wasted ass home with them rather than allow Gwen’s mother to witness her inebriated condition. Because you stick by your family. Even if it cuts into your limited one-on-one time with bae because now you have third wheel Gwen.

Side note I love that Luke is a huge nerd who’s lugged a whole roster of interesting books back from Africa, I realize this is a Folgercest fic and not a book blog but I swear my TBR just grows of its own volition. The payoff for all this geeking out on Luke’s part is, he gets a concussion and has a pretty surreal dream featuring some real, some fictional characters, and a good dollop of his own id. Later on, Lexie and Luke are quoting poetry at each other and when he casually dropped a line from’Tis Pity She’s a Whore I was legit s c r e a m i n g. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Tis Pity She’s a Whore is a Jacobean revenge tragedy prominently featuring a pair of incestuous siblings and while the genre is incompatible with happy endings, the incest is not presented at all unsympathetically. It’s worth reading even if you’re not into incest, it’s that wild of a ride.

All right folks this is how we go out with a bang:

The last five years--the last twenty-eight years, really--may have been long and difficult as he was forced to lose and find himself, but he knows they were all worth it, because they culminate in this moment. This is who he is: brother, lover, and companion, until death do them part.

they’re SOULMATES i can now die happy