#this is a gabriel de clermont appreciation life

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

your "someone sleep with him on my behalf" tag? RELATABLE

I AM NOT ALONE IN MY GABRIEL DE CLERMONT NEEDS AND I SPEAK FOR THE PEOPLE! VIVA LA THIRST!

[extasiswings]

@letmetellyouaboutmyfeels and I have spent far too many hours devoted to investigation of this extremely Scientific question and yes. Too much of a trash personality to afford being a trash lay. And yet...your honor, I love him.

Do you think Gabriel DeClermont is a good kisser? Or a bad one? I mean he had lots of experience. But he’s also rather selfish. It seems to me this is an important topic for study and discourse.

Bahaha. Gabriel would be DEEPLY insulted that you suggested he was, quelle horreur, bad at sex and/or anything related to it, i.e. kissing. (As @extasiswings put it, “he is good at fighting and he is good at sex. Those are the only two things so dammit, he will not have them besmirched.”) Aka he can and will blow up everything else in his life and have exactly zero emotional competence (remember, he’s basically Lucifer, just without the bucketloads of daddy issues) but he draws the line at any suggestion that he is a bad lover. He has a REPUTATION to maintain here. In exactly one thing. He really has too much of a trash personality to afford to be a trash lay, let’s be real. That and the very pretty face are the only reasons anyone puts up with him. It sure ain’t the Nonsense.

Anyway, Gabriel would like to kindly note to the masses that the reason he had affairs with most of known history (at least prior to 1762) is because if you’re a lady, your husband is probably a jerk and doesn’t appreciate you, and if you’re a dude, he gives not one single well-formed shit about the possibility of being hanged for sodomy and would like to see anyone try it. And he was always very careful to leave his lovers very satisfied, even if their husbands/partners/significant others, where they existed, were duly outraged. Because that is just how he rolls.

[extasiswings]

"If we meet each other in Hell, it's not Hell" for All Souls AU!Asher/Maria, if it tickles your fancy? *wails into the night*

Ahahaha. I appreciate how this is my reputation now. It took a bit to get to the Asher/Maria because the direction my brain went required wading through some general de Clermont Family Feels(TM) first, but I got there eventually? Under a cut for length. Ahem, @qqueenofhades (for reasons). 

Asher de Clermont is not in the room when his grandson dies. He is outside, on the grounds of Sept-Tours, trying to restore the peace by whatever means necessary, livid in a way he so rarely allows himself to feel at the assault on his family’s sanctuary. The night is cloudy, the moon and stars blotted out, and the only lights come from the flickering of torches casting ugly shadows over the faces of their assailants as they storm in with their vile words and silver weapons. And to think, they would have the world believe he and his family are the monsters here.

He thinks it’s almost over when a noise breaks through the sounds of fighting, a high keening cry that chills him to the bone.

Maria.

Asher doesn’t need to go inside to know what it must mean.

Across the courtyard, Gabriel goes unearthly still. Garcia’s face twists, stricken, and he takes a step towards him, stretching out a hand—

Time seems to slow then. Asher doesn’t see the hunter bleeding out on the ground gather enough strength to raise his gun again, but he hears the shout from Garcia’s captain, hears the shot—he isn’t close enough himself to stop the bullet, but he’s not the only one with a vested interest in saving the life of his son.

He doesn’t remember closing the distance or snapping the hunter’s neck, the gun twisting into a useless chunk of metal in his fist. But he comes back to himself after, viciously torn in two directions—Garcia on his knees, his lover dying in his arms, or Gabriel who still has not moved, has not breathed, as if he might shatter to pieces with the merest fraction of exertion.

He picks Gabriel.

Asher clutches his son’s face between his hands, stomach sick at the unblinking, unseeing eyes.

“Gabriel. Gabriel, can you hear me? Son, I need you to talk to me.”

Gabriel blinks slowly, his neck turning to look fully at his father like a gear that’s been rusted out and can’t quite recall how to move. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.

“Where is my son?” He croaks. “I heard—but it can’t—he can’t—”

Asher’s heart twists. “Gabriel…”

Gabriel wrenches back out of his grip, suddenly rocketing from despair to denial.

“No. No, he’s not—it was something else, it’s not—no, no. No. He’s not—”

More shouts come from further off, screams, and Asher whips around to see the flickering of another set of torches in the distance, swearing fiercely in Greek under his breath.

“Go inside,” he orders. “Go sit with your mother. I will handle this.”

He doesn’t think about what could come of leaving them alone. He doesn’t have time. It’s not until later, when he’s finally disposed of the rest of the invaders, when he hears another scream of a different sort that he realizes his folly.

“We can’t stay here,” Maria whispers into his chest in the aftermath, as they cling together in their bedroom. Asher has a bloody slash on his shoulder from getting between his sons, ironically his only real injury of the night. They don’t have much time—Cecilia and William are with Gabriel and Garcia respectively, allowing them a few moments to decide what to do, but it’s not enough. He can’t even begin to process the magnitude of it all, can’t begin to think about Christian, can’t allow himself to feel that grief right now, because he is afraid, so very afraid for what that same grief will do to his children.

“I know,” Asher replies, crushing her to him, uncaring of the way it pulls at his wound. He’s trembling, but so is Maria, so he allows it for a few moments as he holds his wife tightly before he takes a deep breath and forces steel into his spine. It is impossible, utterly impossible, but somehow he manages it.

“I’ll take Gabriel to Venice,” he says. “You should—Garcia has always been fond of London. You could go there.”

“Yes,” Maria agrees, visibly trying to regain her composure as well. “That’s—That should be fine. The sooner the better.”

She looks at him and her mask cracks all over again.

“Oh, God, Asher.” His skin grows damp as she presses her face against his neck. “What have we done? What is this—this Hell?”

To think, less than a day ago they were celebrating their anniversary in this very room. And now—

Asher swallows hard, blinking back tears of his own. He can’t quite keep them from showing in his voice though.

“If we were truly in Hell, we wouldn’t have each other. So...at least there is that.”

“Small mercies,” Maria murmurs, lifting her head to kiss him softly. She sniffs and wipes at her eyes when she pulls back.

“I love you,” she adds. “I couldn’t—if you were anyone else I don’t think I would still be standing.”

“We’ll get through this,” Asher replies, caressing her cheek. “But I think you give me too much credit, my love. For I feel entirely the same about you. You hold me up.”

“We hold each other up.” Maria looks down to his shoulder and gently fingers the edge of the torn skin. “Come now, let’s take care of this. And then—and then we’ll go see our sons.”

They leave as soon as they’re able, after burying Christian and making arrangements. It’s six months before Maria feels comfortable risking leaving Garcia alone for a night. It’s eight before Asher thinks he can leave Gabriel.

They’ve never been apart so long. There’s an itch under his skin, a soul-deep ache that only her touch can soothe, and he finally decides that not seeing her is no longer an option.

They decide on Scotland, even though it’s far closer to Maria than Asher himself. Sept-Tours would be a more equal-distance meeting place, but there are too many ghosts there still. It cannot be born. Asher leaves Cecilia in Venice, even as he wars with his own needs versus his parental duties until she all but forces him out the door. And the longer he runs, the closer he gets to his wife, the more he can breathe, the tension in his chest slowly loosening.

He reaches the house first. It is shut up and silent, but that is of no consequence. He lights a fire and sets candles all around, and he waits as thunder cracks outside and rain pours down.

Maria is soaked when she pushes through the door, her hair dripping and tangled from the wind knocking her hood back as she ran through the storm to get there.

She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“My love…” He barely gets it out when she sobs and flies across the room into his arms.

They don’t make love. Not at first. They cling to each other, Asher uncaring of the damp that seeps into his clothes from hers, and he holds her as she cries and he too lets out all the tears he’s tried not to show their son for the better part of a year. He presses his lips to her hair, to the side of her head as he holds her, and it is a glorious reprieve, the world lifting off the shoulders of Atlas for a night so he can break and rest and live.

Maria does kiss him then, and it’s an entirely different kind of relief. There’s a bed upstairs, but they don’t make it there—it’s been wretchedly long and both of them have spent so long anchoring someone else—once they start, they can’t bear to stop for anything, gripping and clawing and biting wherever they can reach. Asher takes her on the floor, on top of a mattress of their discarded clothes, and several more tears slip free as he slides inside her, feeling like coming home after far too long.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she breathes in a dozen languages, and Asher kisses and kisses and kisses her, and when she sinks her fangs into his neck, he shivers and also loses all words but love.

They do eventually move to a bed, curling up tight enough that Asher hardly knows where she ends and where he begins. It’s as it should be, the universe correcting itself, everything again in balance.

“How is he?” Maria asks, her voice breaking as Asher combs his fingers through her hair.

Asher swallows hard, for once conflicted about what to say, what to share. He does not keep secrets from his wife, and yet, the things he has seen, the things he’s learned—Gabriel��s grief seems like something that should be only his to share, not his father’s.

“He’s...alive,” he allows. “I’m not sure what else there is to hope for, really. He lost his child and his—and Garcia in one fell swoop, I think that’s the best we can ask for.”

Maria nods once and presses her lips to his jaw.

“Garcia won’t talk about it,” she sighs. “Not Christian, not Matej, not Gabriel. He just...won’t talk. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this, darling.”

Asher shakes his head and holds her tighter. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, my love. Not by force at any rate. There is—there is more at work than we could possibly account for. In this, we may have to let the chips fall where they may.”

Maria makes a derisive sound. “I can’t accept that.”

Asher strokes a hand down her spine. “Give them time,” he replies. “Give them time. That may be the only thing for this. But for tonight—”

He rolls over her and kisses her neck, making her sigh in a much better way.

“Let’s not talk of tragedy tonight,” he says, fitting his palm to the curve of her waist. “There will be time enough for that.”

“What should we talk of, then?”

“Love.”  

[qqueenofhades]

Gabriel de Clermont

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

[put a fictional character in my ask]

[qqueenofhades]

Gabriel. That’s it. That’s all I have to say here. Gabriel.

And a highly valid thing to say it is indeed, anon.

Gabriel.

[extasiswings]

Gabriel rolling into 1590 like:

Well, I usually just shout at you over on ao3 about this fic in annoying run-on sentences, but you’ve got me wondering about this quest so I’m asking an actual question for a change. What kind of quest? Is this a trails and tribulations quest? A find strength in each other quest? A let’s toy with the past quest? A fun/scary/smutty quest (ooh, I vote for a little smutty questing)? Can you tell us anything??? You’re killin me with this. Killin me! ❤️

Okay first of all, NEVER STOP your amazing rambling super long reaction comments, because I love them a whole lot and should probably not read them in public because I grin like crazy and possibly cackle maniacally and alarm passing strangers. So yes. A+, 12/10, amazing.

As far as the quest goes, I cannot say too much at this point, other than that Flynn and Lucy are going to have to figure out how to actually get to 1590 London, what all these clues about Ashmole 782 mean, how Amelie Wallis fits into this, and so forth. Plus, now they ALSO have to somehow locate an antidote for manticore venom if they don’t want Gabriel to be permanently Thanos Snapped, and figure out who they are as the red king and the white queen, and how this is going to ultimately play out. We don’t have too much further to go in TAW (2 chapters and an epilogue, I think), before book 2 starts, and I am extremely excited for it for many reasons. Whether one of those reasons involves meeting Sixteenth Century Total Elizabethan Playboy Drama Trash Diva King of the World Gabriel de Clermont before all the Tragedy hit, and Lucy getting the Full Experience (among meeting other de Clermonts, ahem), I can neither confirm nor deny.

So yes. Buckle ye up.

[qqueenofhades]

the book of dust & daybreak: chapter four

Summary: Sequel to the shadows among the stars. Garcia Flynn and Lucy Preston, having returned to the present, are in a race against time to retrieve Ashmole 782 and prepare for a supernatural war against the all-powerful David Rittenhouse and his evil allies. As the creature world is plunged into fear, suspicion, and darkness, and as they face new challenges to their relationship and their family, the odds have never been higher and the need has never been greater. Love, magic, mystery, hope, and heroism must find the way, and vampires, witches, and daemons must somehow come together to resist a common enemy and heal centuries of estrangement, as the All Souls Trilogy reaches its epic conclusion. Rating: M Status: WIP Previous: Durance Vile

Chapter 4: Collateral Damage

Rufus Carlin has been through a lot of shit in the six-odd months since he started dating Jiya de Clermont. There’s the realization that the supernatural world was real and her dad could literally chomp on him, being chased through Oxford at suspect hours by shady characters, building the TimeMaster 3000 and scanning the past in case it started to break, the terrifying adventure to rescue Anton Sokolov, the months in Paris and Venice (which would be nice under other circumstances), the constant vigilance, the preparation for a war, and now, the fact that his job is on very thin ice, which is the first godforsaken ordinary thing he’s had to worry about and in that sense, is almost nice. Not that he regrets it. He is madly in love with Jiya, and it’s a testament to that fact that he’s stuck it out through all this, but he can’t deny that he’s looking forward to a few days in Oxford. Not just to save his bacon, although that is obviously a priority, but just to have a little space from all these crazy supernaturals and their crazy problems. He feels bad for leaving Jiya, but they can’t be together every hour of the day and night, and she’s at Sept-Tours, which is a real-life fantasy video-game fortress, surrounded by her family. She’ll be fine. Hopefully.

The one snag in Rufus’s foolproof plan to pretend that this is completely normal has come in the form of his traveling companion. Jack Blackfriars is nice and all, and if Rufus was single, he’d definitely appreciate his effectiveness at drawing female attention. But he’s not, and Jack is a five-hundred-year-old vampire – courteous, serious, and old-fashioned enough that Rufus, who possesses multiple advanced degrees and lectures in astrophysics and computer science at the world’s top university, found himself compelled to explain an in-flight menu on the plane over to England. He doesn’t want to be a dick, but Jack has had a lot more time than anyone to learn about it, and if he hasn’t gotten it by now, Rufus isn’t going to serve as his personal concierge. At least Jack doesn’t seem to expect it, and hey, if Rufus was born while Elizabeth the First was queen, he’d probably trip up from time to time too. They know each other a little from all those months in Venice, and they’re cool.

The main problem with Jack, however, is not his Luddite tendencies or habit of slipping into King James English when he’s tired or worked up. It’s the fact that Jiya clearly asked him to keep a weather eye on Rufus, and while they were waiting for their luggage at Gatwick, Rufus wandered off to have a pee and found Jack having kittens when he got back. This seemed a little over the top, since Rufus definitely isn’t going to ask for permission to go to the bathroom every time, and he resents the implication that he is a helpless and fragile human who is at risk of immediate death every time he’s out of sight. He knows not to let his stupid pride or male ego get in the way, but if that was the case, he’s already fucked and there’s not much to be done about it. He’s tried to help as much as he can, he built all the tech and the TimeMaster and the setup for watching Liechtenstein while Jiya’s uncle Gabriel was playing Sleeping Beauty. But he’s conscious that he can’t fight like the rest of them, that if push comes to shove he’s going to be two hundred pounds of total deadweight, and that is… he doesn’t know what to do with that.

The drive to Oxford passes in silence except for stiltedly polite conversation, but as they sit in a long traffic queue in Headington, Rufus decides to bite the bullet. “So, man,” he remarks, as offhandedly as he can. “You planning to Bodyguard me this whole time, or – ?”

Jack shoots a confused glance at him. He shifts into gear as the cars ahead of them start moving; he’s a careful, deliberate driver who acts like he just got his license, sticking exactly to the speed limit, always using his turn signal, and waiting long enough to let someone merge that Rufus, born and bred on the fury roads of Chicago, wants to yell at him to punch it because only the strong survive. Finally he says, “Jiya did ask that I looked after you, yes.”

[read the rest on AO3]

[qqueenofhades]

LUCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Truly the most valid, anon. The MOST. God she is SUCH A QUEEN.

Yes, she did accidentally set Sept-Tours a little bit on fire by being unable to totally control her new magic, but she summoned her familiar as a FREAKING DRAGON to put it out, threw Gabriel’s sorry ass literally flat on the floor and ended that man’s entire career, saved Asher’s life nbd, talked more sense into Gabriel, helped rebuild Sept-Tours, made a freakin’ philosopher’s stone in six weeks by herself, and cast the memory spell, even as much as it hurt her, because Asher de Clermont told her that she was the most extraordinary witch he had ever known and... yes. For Lucy, who has struggled so much to believe in herself and her abilities, and who has been saving everyone else’s bacon so much this entire time and being a selfless brave queen, it was an amazing thing (and 100% deserved) for her to hear.

She is just so brave and so good and so fierce and so kind and she truly deserves to be a queen (as indeed she is) and for everyone else to appreciate her at all times. She has earned the world’s longest vacation, and the garbage man or men of her choice waiting on her hand and foot. Because really, while Past Flynn was clearly an idiot, Present Flynn charged in there like “hurr durr great idea to kill my past self,” got himself knocked out and nearly died like a twit, and was literally no use at all during the entire time Lucy was, yet again, doing all the work at Sept-Tours. He better wake up and give her at least one really good orgasm and/or a re-up of the alchemical wedding. GARCIA.

So. Yes.

[extasiswings]

In which your magical powers over OCs strike again?

Have you ever watched Supernatural? I picture the Sokolovs as a team of brothers who hunt... and they are sorta like giant Garths (definitely look him up... hes hilarious). But yeah... love those original characters and would love to see an AU of them as monster hunters! Also gabe/Garcia could def be like sam/dean.

I have…. not watched Supernatural, no. I am aware from the tumblrs that the fandom is notoriously insane and it’s been going for something like 800 years at this point, so alas, no. As a conscious internet user, however, I am also aware of the characters/general premise/etc, so there is that. I agree that Anton and Gennady would probably be very good at the job.

As for Gabriel and Garcia, I am laughing over the fact that so many of my recent asks are about Gabriel somehow?? Everyone apparently cannot get enough of him and was not expecting that, so you’re welcome. From what I know, they could definitely be like Dean and Sam, ahem.

(No but like y’all are Thirsty over Gabriel and I was not prepared for this, but I will endeavour to give the people what they want.)

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

#(dead as in HE WILL BE DEAD IF HE DON'T START MAKING SOME BETTER CHOICES PRONTO)

I cackled out loud.

Gabriel de Clermont

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

[put a fictional character in my ask]