#torn between dark green and WIP finishing

[sustainably-du-mortain]

9 people you want to get to know better

thanks @hypnostanatos for the tag!!

tagging: @grapecaseschoices @brother-genitivi @cigarettesandinevitablebetrayal @finalgirl-horatio @itsren-again @sealriously-sealrious @serenpedac (I know you've already been tagged so feel free to ignore this)

favourite colour: yellow, green & ochre. my bedroom walls are painted ochre and I love how cozy and warm it feels.

currently reading: I just finished reading Tales from the Cafe, a sequel to Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Loved it, can't wait for the third one to be translated in French, so I can get it.

Now I'm torn between starting The Unbroken by C.L. Clark or waiting for my book order to arrive so I can finally read Babel by R.F. Kuang.

last song: Garden gate by Mon Rovîa. Recently discovered this song and I'm obsessed with it.

last series: Just watched the S02 finale of The first responders last night. I liked it as much as season 1, and I'm hoping we get a third season because we got amazing new characters this season and I need to see more of them.

sweet, savoury or spicy?: Savoury, 100%. I don't have that much of a sweet tooth, except for orange flavoured dark chocolate and dark chocolate pies, so give me cheese, garlic bread, chips and I'm a happy person. I'd love to say spicy, but my white self can't handle too many spice.

currently working on: I'm working on a revamp of my fic Lucky Escape. I've been wanting to change a few stuff about it for a little while, so I'm working on that.

Also trying to finish a prompt request for Côme and Felix that has been sitting in my wips for a little while.

[kikis-writing-world]

29. “You’re not alone anymore.” from the prompt list with Din please? 🥺

Thank you for the prompt! I hope you like it! I have a few shitty WIPs for Din, but this is my first time actually posting anything for him. Yay for new things!

Pairing: Din Djarin x GN!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of blood, descriptions of wounds. Nothing in terribly gory detail, but they’re there.

You awaken with a start, hearing something moving around the Razer Crest. Your chest tightens in panic for a moment, wondering who could have gotten into the ship. You thought back, knowing you had double checked the ramp was closed and the ground security was set before you had retired for the night. That meant one of two things: whatever or whoever was in the ship was strong enough, smart enough, powerful enough to break in and you were already as good as dead…

Or the Mandalorian had returned.

You sat up in the meager bunk, looking down at the little pile of blankets next to you. The kid snuffled in his sleep but didn’t wake at the racket outside the room, nor from your movement. He usually slept in his carriage or in Mando’s bunk, but you brought him into your bunk with you anytime the two of you were left alone. You made sure the blankets were covering him, both to keep him comfortable in his sleep and to keep him hidden for the worst-case scenario. You hadn’t decided if the noises echoing through the ship were friend or foe yet.

You listened for the telltale hiss of carbonite, the sound of a successful hunt ending with a captured bounty, but it didn’t come. Instead uncoordinated footsteps and the clanking of metal on metal reverberated through the hull. You took a deep breath before opening the hatch to your bunk, scurrying out and closing it behind you - again, thinking of the safety of the little green child inside. 

You swallowed the nervous lump in your throat, calling out. “Mando?”

The noises stopped for a moment, a mumbled swear in that familiar robotic voice had your muscles sag in relief. You padded towards the source of the noises, bare feet slapping against the cold metal floor. You should have grabbed shoes, or at the very least socks, but you were too sleepy to head back only to turn around.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” His voice reached you as you grew closer. Even through the helmet, it sounded strained. “Go back to bed.”

You didn’t listen, your brain too groggy to rationalize he might be sending you away for your own good. Hell, your brain had hardly processed the words before you finally saw him.

Rusty red liquid was rolling down the silver beskar of his chest. For a sleepy second, you wondered if he was dripping some kind of coolant or oil like a machine. The stream of red was smeared across his chest and on his hands. It pooled in the duraweave underlayer of his armor, leaving a growing dark stain on his right shoulder.

Finally, your brain caught up. That’s blood.

“Oh my god, what happened?” You gasped, rushing forward.

“Nothing. I’m fine.” He grunted, tearing a rag apart to press a piece of it high on his shoulder.

“You’re bleeding.” You scoffed, weaving around the mess of the hold to get to where he was sitting on a crate. You pushed his hand away to see the wound. The fabric was torn, showing the injury beneath. An angry looking cut, the skin surrounding it shredded harshly. The second the pressure let up, blood started pouring again.

“It’s nothing.” He argued, pressing the rag to his shoulder once more.

You rolled your eyes, once again weaving through the various boxes and crates. You finally got to the storage where the medkit was housed. You made a mental note that the two of you should tidy up in here, everything was everywhere. It was a wonder you hadn’t lost the kid in the mess yet.

“I can handle it.” He told you as you made your way back to him.

“Just… shut up and let me help you.” You grumbled, growing annoyed with his stubbornness.

An agitated sigh crackled in the vocoder, but he didn’t physically stop you from removing his hand. You applied bacta to the gash, focusing instead on the task at hand and not the way he winced anytime you touched the tender, torn skin. He was otherwise silent as you bandaged him, covering the wound to avoid infection or further injury.

“Anywhere else?” You asked, hand on your hip as you levelled him with a stare that you hoped read as ‘don’t argue this time.’

He sighed, looking down as he extended his left leg. You saw the tear in the fabric as he moved it, two long cuts running up the outside of his thigh. They weren’t bleeding as badly as the cut on his shoulder. These cuts were clean and even, about a foot long each. You pulled away the fabric that was sticking to the drying blood., causing new rivulets to drip down his thigh.

You kneeled in front of him, dutifully applying the bacta. He didn’t flinch this time, which you hoped meant these cuts weren’t as painful as the one on his shoulder.

“I had it handled.” He grumbled as you finished with the bandaging.

“I’m sure you did,” you sighed. “But you’re allowed to ask for help, you know.”

He didn’t respond as you stood, repacking the med kit for next time - between him and the kid, there was always a next time - and gathering up the blood soaked rags.

His gloved hand wrapped around your arm, stopping you in your task to pull you closer. He pulled you to stand between his legs, your brows furrowing in confusion as you silently followed his lead. He leaned forward, pressing his helmet against your forehead. You closed your eyes, feeling too shy to stare blindly into the visor, not knowing what his facial expression was underneath. The metal was warmer against your skin than you would have expected.

“Thank you.” He murmured, the words distorted strangely with how quietly he had said it.

“You’re not alone anymore.” You reminded him, blinking your eyes open to level him with another ‘don’t argue’ stare, although this one held much more fondness than the previous one.

He squeezed your arm lightly, the gesture exuding gratitude. His hand dropped from your arm and he leaned back, the metal gone from your skin. You resumed your task of cleaning up while he limped to the fresher, neither of you feeling the need to add any words to the moment that had just passed.

[dragonswithjetpacks]

Tagged by @noire-pandora! Thank you for the tag!

5 Favorite Writing Bits - I’m just going to include some stuff from 2020. Because 2021 has been a lot of Astarion and Ferelith so far. So from oldest to newest, here we go!

1. WIP from Voices of the Fade - I swear I’m going to get to this one day. So help me. This is actually what made me want to write this series. It was the first thing I wrote for it. And it made me just incredibly heart broken.

There was something about the way the sunlight hit... She was naturally pale, so her ivory skin was glowing against her cheekbones. They defined the side of her face, giving the soft shape of her profile a hint sharpness. Her nose was so small. And so were her lips, despite how pouty the bottom one was. But it was the way the sunlight hit her face that made him stare in awe. When her eyes opened, he shifted hoping it was not his gaze that woke her. She blinked up at him as if in disbelief. He brushed a strand from the corner of her mouth as she came to.

"Where are we?" she whispered.

"Home," he answered.

The stone walls of the fortress were the color of dark sand. It kept the rooms cool from the scorching sun. The windows were thick and tinted, as well, preventing any sort of breeze from intruding. The smells of the Anderfels were not always pleasant. And the birds were always hungry. Nevertheless, the mountains were massive and a wonder to look at. Like green giants plastered against a forever grey wall. And Weishaupt was it's gem. A place of honor of protection. A place of fragrant foods and quiet murmurs. And a place where the clashing of swords and explosions of magic echoed through the grounds. It was everything he had imagined.

"This is nice," she said quietly.

"Yeah," he heaved a happy sigh.

"Shame this isn't what really happened, though."

It was too confusing to mutter a response. Not that he could as a lump swelled in the depths of his throat. His mouth refused to open. And he watched as her face burned under the sunlight, a bright hot light that sizzled into ash, the same color as her hair. He reached out for her, his hands burning. It was too late.

2. From the first chapter of A Dame’s Tale (Claira Trevelyan’s origin story) - This was super personal for me. My mother was emotionally abusive and my dad was always working so he couldn’t always be there for me. And this was really just something I drew from that.

"Do proper ladies raise their hand?"

"No," the tears began to swell.

"Are you a proper lady, Claira?"

"Yes, Mother. I am," her voice cracked.

"I don't think you are."

"I promise I'll do better."

"You promised last time."

"Please, Mother, I promise. For real this time."

The tears were now little streams dripping down the side of her face. Her voice cracked as she wailed a plea for her mother's forgiveness. Her mother was silent, her eyes scanning over her youngest child as she stood sobbing in front of her. This little girl- her knuckles and cheek bruised, her lip bloodied, her dress torn with patches of dirt, her dark hair a tangled mess, and her face wet with tears- this was not the daughter she had prayed for.

"Go with your father. He'll take you to your room."

Claira struggled to catch her breath between cries and a warm hand on her shoulder didn't help. She let out the tears she had been holding back and she fought to keep her eyes open. Although blurry, she could see the back of her mother's dress swaying as she strode to the other side of the room to the balcony door. She did not see the rest as her father had reached down to clutch her hand.

3. Some super serious Aeva x Solas angst. I have feelings about eluvians. This is from Whispers in the Garden.

For a moment she saw a cliff side outlined with trees adorning flowers that was quickly obscured by a tall figure, shrouding her view. She stepped back further, feeling the air from the other side chill her entire body. Aeva became overwhelmed with the thought that this could be real and she stepped backward even further to take in the familiar shape. The mirror's image closed, making a small sound like shutters closing quickly against wind. And now the only light in the room was from the moon shining down through a window above. It made his face look pale. But other than that, it was just as she remembered.

His hands were folded behind him with his shoulders back and his chin held up proudly. His face was the same, but he was still different. It was nothing like he used to be. He wasn't the mage with the rugged tunic. He was a soldier. No... a commander in gleaming metal armor. The anger came rushing back to her as she remembered the last time he walked through a mirror. The way he used her for his own gain. Disappointment replaced her distraught and she felt ever foolish for wishing to see him. Her fist curled tightly against her and she drew in a deep breath through gritted teeth. But before she could yell, he was on her, his gloved hand pressed tightly over her mouth.

"Shhhh," he said softly into her ear.

With her only hand, she tried to push him away. She didn't want to see him. And she affirmed that by closing her eyes tightly. She hit him in the shoulder over and over until her hand hurt. Until her knuckles felt raw. Until she felt the skin punctured.

"Vhenan," he whispered.

The sound of the name he used to call her on his lips just made things worse. She pushed him one last time, feeling her arm go weak. Her knees began to shake and they buckled. Tears pushed past her eyelids, crashing down as she began to yell into the palm of his hand. He waited until she had exhausted herself. He held her at her waste and loosened his grip the moment he felt her muscles were no long tense. He removed his hand from her mouth, lifting her chin to look at her face. Her eyes were hooded and she still refused to look at him. But he could tell that she was beyond tired. Her body seemed lighter than before. Her skin had lost it's sun touched glow. Her lips were cracked.

"Enough," she felt her mouth make the shape, but was unsure if the sound came out.

He kept hold of her in fear that she would collapse.

"You can't keep doing this," she went on, finally hearing the raspy tone in her voice.

Her eyes finally opened and he could see now they were still piercing green. The yellow flecks inside were illuminating her eyes like they were on fire. They brought a flutter of fear into his chest, like the moment before being struck suddenly by fangs. But it quickly faded as she brought her hand to his face. It felt like the same man. The same smooth skin with a sharp jawline and faint smile. It sounded just like him too. Looked at her the same. But it wasn't.

"You can't come into my dreams anymore," she said. "I can't take it."

4. So I did a thing where I combined Aeva’s fear of drowning with the fear of what she lost with Solas. And because she connects fear with anger, it all just combines into a huge mess of emotion. This was the first time I really was able to portray that. An expert from Chapter 7 of Strange Fates.

Aeva walked to edge of the cliff, looking down at the waves swelling beneath her. There was the strange feeling again. The fear of the nothing beyond the sea. It was a larger feeling than what she felt at the barge. It was like the all the other times... like the first time...

The first time she saw waves this large...

The first time she sat on the coast...

(memory) The rain came down heavy and she looked outside her tent. It wasn't letting up any time soon. She paced, rubbing her hands on her face. If she didn't act soon, the trail would grow cold and she would never find the Grey Wardens. The flap to her tent lifted without any announcement of arrival. And he stood, a look of concern on his face. He offered her a warm drink. They sat across from each other on her cot. He made her laugh. He took her hand, but it was for research. His fingertip traced in the inside of her palm. She snatched it back...

"Aeva?" Fenris jumped down from the wagon. "You're looking at the sea strangely again."

"Yes..." she shook her head. "Yes I am."

"Ferguson is setting up camp if you-"

There was a drifting silence between them as she brushed by. Her movements seemed slow and her eyes looked blank. Almost as if she were in some sort trance. It had been a long night. And upon further inspection, he could see spurts of blood across her armor. Still, for her not to respond at all was odd.

"... want to take some time to rest," he finished his sentence, watching the back of her disappear around the wagon.

The tents were nothing like she used when traveling with the Inquisition. These were much smaller. Large enough for a cot and maybe a table if you angled it correctly. Her tent was in the northernmost corner and the closest to the fire, which Ferguson had already prepared. It was still small and clinging onto the wood from the blowing wind, but he stoked it carefully so it did not catch flame to the pine needles below. Iris sat nearby peeling potatoes and whistling softly. They looked as Aeva came through, but said nothing.

The fear from the waves was not going away. And the more she thought about a way to be rid of it, the worse it got. Aeva did not handle fear well. It simmered in her chest, tightening her lungs and making her heart race. When it began to boil, she burst with rage. And she couldn't let that happen. Not in front of the camp. There was only one thing she could do. She reached into her pack, looking for a specific vial. And it was there bundled in the center of strange looking leaves. It was a black mixture with floating powder. In most cases, she would use it as a bomb to subdue her enemies. But mixed with the liquid, it became a sleep aid in small doses. She shook it up, causing it swirl slowly. The small cork made a small pop as she opened it. And with a wrinkled nose, she took one drink of it as if it were a shot of the strongest ale. There was a bit of a gag, but then she swallowed hard a second time to try and be rid of the taste. The cork went back into the vial, between the leaves, and bound with string once again before she placed it back in her pack. The affects were almost instant. And she barely had enough time to lay her head on the pillow. It was her escape... for a time...

5. THIS piece of dialogue from The Quiet Closet. I was so proud of this. It was the first piece of smut I not only wrote seriously but posted. And this dialogue to me is just... oof. Um NSFW by the way.

"You," she growled. "You make me weak."

"You like it," he whispered teasingly, his finger massaging her below.

"I hate it. I despise it. I despise you."

Asatrion laughed, slipping a second finger over her. She attempted to sink down again to feel his knee, but found his grasp on her wrists were far too tight. She looked up at them helpless, leaving her neck open for his taking. He caressed over it, licking it to taste her flesh and biting slightly over her throat, thoughts tempting his darker nature. But he had sworn it wouldn't happen again. No matter how much he wanted her, no matter the circumstances, he would only take what she gave. Ferelith may have enjoyed losing control in that moment, but that didn't change her need to command other things. It seemed a bit odd to his taste, but all the same fascinating. And he wanted to explore it further.

"Tell me more," he demanded. "Tell me how much you hate me."

She dropped when he loosened his grips, her back relaxing down the wall. With a gentle nudge, his knee rose up to meet her and he felt her hips sway against him. He moved his fingers in motion, straightening them as she came in like a rolling tide.

"I hate how charming I find you," her eyes closed and her voice sound as if she were in a trance. "I hate that you make me laugh."

She inhaled quickly as he pressed harder into her core, her head hitting the wall as she reared back. He felt her body tighten and urged her forward with his knee.

"Go on," he said, baring witness to the moments of joy on her face.

"I hate the sound of your voice," she lowered her brow with concentration. "I hate how attracted I am to you."

The heat from her body was making him crave her, now, and he could feel himself growing excited at the quickness of her breath. Her spite made it all the better. The more anger she released, the stronger her movements became, and the longer his strokes became. It became difficult to hold onto her and her hands slipped through his grasp as he tried to ground himself, his hand slamming onto the wall.

"I hate this constant desire I have for you..."

Her hands dug into his hair, feeling the back of his skull. The sensation of her nails scratching against his scalp brought him closer. His hand skipped up the wall as he faltered for a moment, his face buried in her hair. The fragrance she gave was enticing, as it always was.

"... this desire to feel you. Next to me. Against me. Inside me..."

Slowly, her hands slid down to his shoulders. One remained, gripping tightly. While the other slithered up his neck, her fingers finding their grasp on either side of his face. He did not fight her pull to bring him to her gaze.

"Still... If I believe for one second you'll betray me..." she said through heavy pants, "I'll kill you."

And uh yeah... 2020 was a pretty productive year. I think I really got back into fanfiction and posting things and being more active here on Tumblr. And I’ve met some really cool people because of it. Now I’m dabbling in other fandoms and everyone has been so supportive and amazing. It’s just really wonderful. Thank you guys! And I look forward to reading more stuff from everyone.

[gumnut-logic]

The Prince Who Would Not Be King

Okay, I cracked and wrote the scene. It is an approximation of what appeared in my brain upon awakening. It is weird as this is the first time I have ever removed a set of characters completely out of their world and slapped them into another.

It is just a scene and I don’t know if I will develop it any further as I reeeeallly shouldn’t as I have far too many WiPs anyway and I neeeeed to finish something for a change. Things are a little out of control.

But I hope you enjoy the glimpse my brain offered this afternoon.

Many thanks to @scribbles97 for the read through and thanks to @its-lovelyhappycollection @faerie-dancer and @fictivekaleidoscope for the egging on :D

-o-o-o-

Sal was old and weary. Tired of the waiting, the dread, the not knowing if her loved ones would be returning and the doubt echoing throughout the halls of her home. Each year her body ached more with age. Each year she missed those she had lost more.

She knew her time was fading, but she could not leave. She was needed.

Her bodice was tight as she stood waiting on the dais. As always she took her place to the left of the great empty chair that stood looming in the middle. Above it, in all its majestic awe hung the gilt Thunderbird crest, its great wings flourished and defiant. Fire shone in its jewelled eyes and the crystal sword of justice clutched in its talons sparkled with the cause.

The cause that was so broken.

The bells at the gates rung furiously, followed not long after by the deep resonance of the central bell tower.

She held her breath.

At least one of her grandsons had made it home.

Her spirit was anxious to flee the room and find her grandchildren to reassure herself that they had all come home, that her family had not lost more to this holocaust, but there was more than her to consider here. There was the people, the desperate souls looking to their ruling class to save them from the menace.

So she held her position.

And waited.

It was not long, but forever, before the great doors at the end of the hall opened with a clatter and her littlest, Alan, just sixteen, burst through. He wore his state baldric, his accent as ruby as the great firebird the stars had foretold at his birth, his expression one of fury.

He had been forbidden to set out with his brothers, despite his aptitudes, and he had been angry the entire month they had been gone. Kay had attempted to reassure him, but he refused to listen. Worry for his brothers and frustration at not being accepted as a full Lance had him storming the halls late at night.

None of her words had been enough.

She prayed her grandsons had all come home whole.

“They have returned, Grand Mother.” His voice rung clear throughout the Great Hall as he strode hurriedly towards her, and the gathered nobility murmured words of relief and expectation. His stride was still growing, and she found herself so grateful for his youthful presence. He stopped at the ceremonial line and executed a perfect bow to the empty chair, before turning to her.

His startling blue eyes flashed hope and he bowed in deference to her before crossing the line and taking his place on her left.

The chancellor stood off to her left and his single clap echoed throughout the Hall. She straightened instinctively as the drums started up their entrance beat and her old heart kicked up and echoed them, their thrum powerful yet ominous.

The trumpets heralded the entrance of her eldest grandson.

For a moment, all was well and her heart lifted. Four young men entered the room, their baldrics lauding their identities, followed by the chaperone force of twenty lances. But the trumpets faltered as realisation set in.

The room fell silent as Scott limped his way down the aisle, his silver baldric stained with something dark. Sal drew in a breath, but behind him Virgil was staggering. His weight seemed almost all on young Gordon. The Warder’s robes were singed, torn and bloody, his head bowed and his green baldric barely hanging onto his body.

Gordon was wearing his armour, his yellow baldric dulled with dirt, his cape torn. It was obvious he had channeled recently, his eyes still shining red-gold. There was a story there between the two of them, between the fire and the water.

The only one standing entirely upright was her middle grandson. He brought up the rear, his tall, lithe form fluid as he walked. As always, his red hair was startling against his golden baldric. His eyes tracked around the room, his expression cool and controlled, but as his grandmother, she could see the tells of worry and exhaustion.

The great silver form of Eos sat on his arm preening her feathers. Every so often, the hawk would pause and survey the room, just like her bearer, her startling red eyes catching everything. Sal would never understand that relationship, but it had saved her family more than once and she was grateful, if still wary.

Their procession up the aisle was slow and the room silent in horror. Scott defied tradition several times to turn and check his brothers’ progress. An incomprehensible sound issued from Virgil and he stumbled, but Gordon caught him and they continued their silent journey to the dais.

The moment Scott reached the line, he bowed to the Great Chair, and in echo of his littlest brother moments before, he bowed to his Grand Mother and then dipped his head to Alan.

Sal’s voice was dry as the wind from the north when she spoke. “Speak.”

“Grand Mother.” Scott’s voice was commanding as always, blue eyes flickering. “The mission was a failure.”

The room erupted into loud murmuring.

“Silence.” She still had enough strength in her old body to command that at least. She turned to Scott once more. “Tell me.”

He opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a groan behind him as Virgil collapsed against Gordon and the young lance was hard put to hold his older brother up.

Eos took flight, her great wings spreading with an angry squawk as she leapt into the air. John stepped in to catch the teetering Warder. Between them, Gordon and his older brother kept Virgil upright and prevented him from meeting the polished stone floor.

“Please, Grand Mother, Warder Virgil saved our party at his own expense. He held the wards to enable us to escape, but was unable to escape uninjured himself. If it wasn’t for Lance Gordon, we would have lost him.

Sal’s heart crawled into her throat.

“Please, he needs attention.”

Eos circled in a tight ring above them, her stark calls taunting. The crowd grew nervous, eyes darting up and shoulders hunching.

The situation was a poor one. Tradition dictated a full report before the nobility, but it was obvious her grandson could not comply. Virgil appeared to have lost consciousness.

“You are excused.”

The room erupted in an uproar.

“SILENCE!”

And there was, shocked and scared. She glared at her subjects, daring any of them to contradict her order. Since the loss of her son, rule had fallen to her. Scott refused to believe his father was dead. Taken from them in a ball of fire it appeared obvious that he no longer lived, but Scott refused to step up and take his place as king. So Sal stood regent.

Their rule grew more fragile by the year and she feared if Scott did not face reality soon, all would be lost.

The shock in the room was shattered by footsteps on the stone floor as a figure pushed her way through the chaperone force behind her grandsons. Kay emerged, dressed in her leathers and worry on her face. As always she ignored tradition and hurried up to the boys, her hands immediately reaching out to the Warder hanging limp between her brothers.

The crowd did not appreciate the lack of decorum.

But to be honest, Sal didn’t care. “Take Warder Virgil to the healers. We will discuss the situation at a gathering tomorrow.”

Scott dipped his head. “Yes, Grand Mother.” And the boys, along with Kay, were hustling their injured sibling out of the Hall. The chaperone force split down the middle and then followed them out.

The crowd was not happy, but a defiant squawk from Eos far above silenced them once more. Sal’s lips thinned as the great bird dipped beneath the door’s lintel to follow her grandsons from the room.

“I do not know how you allow such conduct, Grand Mother.” The chancellor approached from her left, his long robes whispering over the floor.

“The man was injured, Belah.”

“Tradition must be observed. It keeps law and people in their place.”

She rounded on him, the ire of the day and her long standing discomfort of the bald and devious politician coming to the fore. “I rule here, Chancellor, not you.”

His eyes flickered at her, startlingly yellow in the dim light. “Yes, Grand Mother.”

-o-o-o-

TBC?

[eiirisworkshop]

Untitled Shameless Fanfic

For Good Intentions WIP Fest, details of which can be found @goodintentionswipfest

This is from when I first started watching Shameless (US) and is set during season 1.  I’ve abandoned the story because the set up has been OBE as I watched more, I just really wanted good things for Ian.

It ends pretty abruptly, but at a point that probably would have been a scene or chapter break.

***

Fiona was yelling at Carl, Lip and Debs were yelling at each other, Liam had decided to join the squawking.  Ian looked around at his siblings, ears ringing, and decided to go for a goddamn walk.  A couple blocks from home he saw Frank passed out in a lawn chair in a front yard, a still mostly full bottle of Jäger under his arm.  Ian watched a dribble of drool drip onto Frank's shirt, then grabbed the bottle and kept walking.  He wandered to the lake front without much thinking about it—seemed like everyone just wound up there to daydream, to freak out, to sulk, to rage at the universe, which someone seemed to be doing right now.  There were tire tracks in the snow leading to a red Jaguar SUV.  Footprints lead away from the driver's side door to a man standing on the ice in a blue peacoat, throwing hunks of compacted snow and ice at the edge of the water, screaming at the sky.

“You think I fucking wanted this?!” he shouted, throwing a handful of ice.  “I didn't!  Nobody asked me!  I'm so fucking sorry I'm an embarrassment!” he said, voice dripping with malicious sarcasm.  He kicked at a snowbank.  “Jesus fucking bullshit.”

“You okay, man?” Ian called from a few yards away.

“Fuck you,” the driver of the red SUV spat.  “Fuck you, fuck my parents, fuck Reverend Arnold, fuck my stupid fucking bitch of a sister, fuck that backstabbing whore, fuck the office of the bursar, and fuck it's cold!”  He kicked at more snow.

“Dude, it's March in Chicago, of course it's cold,” Ian said.  He'd picked his way across the snow and ice while the man was ranting.  He held out the bottle of Jäger. “I think you need this more than my dad does.”

The man eyed him skeptically.  Damn, he was cute—dark wavy hair, warm tan skin with barely there freckles, complicated green-brown eyes.  He grabbed the bottle and took a swig.  “God's got one hell of a sense of humor,” he muttered darkly.  “Of fucking course some pretty boy shows up when that is the last fucking thing I want to think about.”  He turned back to the water and gestured broadly at Ian.  “It's shit like this that landed me here in the first place!”

Ian arched an eyebrow.  “I'm pretty?”

“Fuck you, you look like a Gaelic-American wetdream,” he spat. “Could probably make a killing in porn, there's gotta be overlap in the audiences for ginger and twink.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ian snarled, stepping forward to give the jackass in the peacoat a shove.

“Fucking make me.”  He shoved Ian back.  So, since there was no one around, Ian kissed him.  Hard.  And didn't immediately get punched out, so that was a good thing.  Even better, jackass kissed him back.  When they broke apart for air, he gave Ian a shove toward the SUV.  “In the car.”

Ian stood panting, his breath turning to mist in the cold air while his new favorite stranger opened the hatchback, shoved some duffle bags and other things out of the way, and folded the rear seats flat.  He grabbed Ian by the sleeve, dragged him up into the car, reached up to yank the hatch shut, then resumed kissing him roughly.  It didn't take long for their jackets to be shoved haphazardly into the next row of seats, pants down around their knees.  Ian's fingers found their way to his fling's ass, but he got Ian by the wrist. “Oh, I don't think so, buddy.”

“I do,” Ian breathed.

“My car.”

“My Jäger.”

“Thought you said it was your dad's.”

Ian paused then gave a recalcitrant shrug.  “Okay, fair.”

He pushed Ian onto his back, stretched across the seats to open the glovebox where he had a stash of condoms and lube—apparently this was not his first rodeo—then he was on Ian and his boxers were not.

He had a dense black and white and red tattoo over one hip and down along his thigh, puzzle pieces and celtic knots and feathers and spiderwebs all blending one into the other and somehow forming a bouquet of roses bound with a ribbon.  Ian didn't get as long of a look at it as he would have liked, but then he really didn't care because holy fuck this guy was good.

Afterward, Ian watched a cloud drift across the moon through the tinted rear window.  “I get the feeling you wouldn't appreciate it if I smoked in your car.”

“I'd throw your naked ass out in the snow,” the stranger said.  It made Ian smirk. The stranger was sitting up against the sidewall of the SUV, head tipped back against the window, eyes closed, legs tangled with Ian's, the bottle of Jäger in one hand.  “What'd you say your name was again?”

“I didn't.”

“I know.”  He opened his eyes.  “So what is it?”

“Ian.”

“Ian, huh?”  He fiddled with the label.  “I'm Dallas.”

Ian nodded.  He grabbed his boxers, then his jeans.

“You're leaving?” Dallas asked quietly.

Ian shrugged.  “Gonna smoke then go home. Not about to stay the night in the back of a stranger's car.  No offense.”

“None taken.”  Dallas watched him dress then fight for a minute figuring out how to open the hatch from the inside.  He had stepped out and was just about to shut it when Dallas said, “Hey, you live around here?”

Ian nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Maybe I'll see you around then.”

“Maybe.” Ian shrugged and felt his expression soften.  “Maybe, yeah.”  He closed the hatch.

“Where have you been?”  Fiona was waiting up for him when Ian got home, sitting on the washing machine in the dark, ready to ambush him.  “I was this close to putting together a search party for you.”

“I went for a walk,” Ian said, deftly sidestepping her with his still lit cigarette.  “I wasn't even gone that long, gimme a break.”

“No one knew where you went!” she hissed.  The younger kids must have been in bed already.  “And we have talked about smoking in the house.”

“Not in common areas, I know, I know.”  He held up his hands, backing up the stairs.  “I'm going to my room.”

The lights were all out upstairs, but once Ian had the bedroom door shut, Lip's groggy voice asked from just above and to his right, “Dude, where'd you go?”

Ian felt himself grin.  “Went for a walk, did the most amazingly stupid thing,” he said quietly.  He didn't want to wake Carl.  He did not want to deal with Carl.  Not right now.

The bunkbeds creaked slightly as Lip sat up.  “Shit, did you hire a hooker?”  He paused.  “Why is that the first thing I thought of? Are there even guy hookers?  I know in theory they exist but I don't think I've ever seen one.”

“I did not hire a hooker, male or female.”  Ian dropped onto his bed, took a drag on his cigarette, and let it out slowly.  

“So what did you do?”

“I fucked a total stranger in the back of his car.”

“Shit, Ian,” Lip breathed.  He sounded like he was torn between adulation and horror.  “Please tell me you wrapped it.”

“He did.”

“He did?  I thought you usually—”

“Usually, yeah.”  He nudged the window open just far enough to tap his ashes outside.  

“Damn. Why'd you do it?”

“I dunno.”  Ian exhaled.  “Just wanted to.”

“Fair enough, man, fair enough.”  Lip was quiet for a moment, then, “How was it?”

“Good. It was good.”

“That's good.”

“Yeah.” Ian finished his cigarette, flicked the butt out into the snow, and pulled the window closed.

The first Friday in April, Ian was walking home from school with Lip and Karen in all his ROTC gear—usually he only had to wear it on Thursdays, but there had been an assembly—when he spotted a red Jaguar SUV with quite a few dings and scratches and the front badge ripped off the grill parked in an overgrown empty lot on the corner. Ian stopped walking.  “Oh, that's not good.”

“Huh?” Lip asked.

“You remember that amazingly stupid thing I did?”

“Yeah?”

“That's the car.”

“Oh.” Lip eyed the Jag.  “Was it that banged up before?”

“No.”

“Oh. Fuck.”

“What's this about?” Karen asked.

“Don't worry about it,” Lip said as Ian picked through the slush and weeds.

He couldn't see through the tinted windows, so he rapped his knuckles on the glass of the rear driver's side door. “Dallas?”

There was some rustling from inside, then the door opened.  It was Dallas, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, his hair unkempt.  He blinked at Ian.

“Oh, good.  You're not dead,” Ian said with genuine relief.

A smile tugged at Dallas's mouth.  “No, I'm not dead.  Look at you, all in uni—” he spotted Lip and Karen behind Ian and his face fell, “form….”

“What happened to your car?”

“Hooligans.” Dallas nodded around Ian.  “Who are they?”

“Oh, my brother and his...”  Ian turned to Lip and Karen, arms open questioningly, “his friend who's a girl who he fucks on a regular basis and cares deeply about, but is definitely not dating?”

“Sounds about right,” Lip said.

Karen nodded.

Dallas gave Ian a searching look he understood all too well: Do they know?

Ian shrugged.  “My brother's cool.”  He glanced behind Dallas—the same duffle bags were there, unzipped, clothes and books strewn around the back of the SUV on spread out blankets, all the seats folded flat.  “Are you living here?”

“So what if I am?” Dallas asked defensively.

Ian shrugged again.  “Hey, Lip, you go on home, okay?  I'll catch up.”

Lip arched an eyebrow, glanced at Karen, looped his arm through hers, and kept walking.  Dallas watched them go then his eyes flicked up to Ian's face.  “What are you doing?”

“Hey, you're the one who was hoping you'd see me around,” Ian pointed out.  

“I was having the worst day of my life when I said that,” Dallas said quickly.  “Wasn't exactly thinking clearly.  Which is probably why anything happened at all.  I don't do things like that.  And I'm letting all the cold in leaving the door open to talk to you, so—”

“If you let me in you could close the door.”

Dallas eyed him warily then moved back so Ian could climb in then pulled the door shut. “Why do you care?”

“I don't do things like that either,” Ian said simply, folding his long camo-clad legs under himself.  “I might have been sappily worrying about you the past couple weeks.”

“Really?”

“No.” Ian took off his hat.  “But I kinda wish I had been.”

“If you're trying to be cute, it's not working.”  He grabbed one of the open books from behind him, propped it on his knee, and started reading.

Ian twisted to try to look at the paige.  “What's that?”

“Psychology.” He sighed.  “I have a test Monday.”

“You're living out of your car and still going to...college?” Ian asked.

“Not gonna drop out mid-semester just because I got disowned.”

Ian straightened up.  “You got disowned?”

“Yeah, I got disowned.  Why the fuck else would I be living out of my car on the south side?” Dallas spat.

“Good point.”

Dallas huffed, snapped the book shut, and tossed it into the front seat. “Why are you here?  Why are you talking to me?  Why did you even stop?”

“Saw your car all banged up, first thought was something bad happened to you, and I'm not enough of an asshole not to give a shit,” Ian said.  “And now I might actually be hoping something else might happen.”

Dallas snorted.  “You don't seem desperate at all.”

“My options are limited around here,” Ian countered.  “In fact, I have two—one of them's married and the other one's in jail.  So, yeah.”

Dallas stared at him for a few seconds, then said,”Fuck it,” grabbed him by his jacket, and pulled him in for a kiss.  

After a few minutes, they weren't fucking again like Ian thought they might be; he wasn't getting another look at that complicated tattoo.  No, Dallas was crying.  Ian pulled back, eyes wide, unsure what to do. “Um.”

Dallas shook his head and wiped his eyes.  “Sorry.”  He sniffed and shook his head again.  “I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“I don't think—”

Dallas cut him off, “Maybe you should go home.”

“I can—”

“You should go home,” Dallas said again, firmer.

Ian bit his lip, looked away, and nodded once.  “Right.  Well, I live a couple blocks down and one over.”  He put his hat back on.  “Little blue house from the thirties, old orange Minibus outside.  You can't miss it.”  He hesitated, brushed a tear from Dallas's cheek, kissed where it had been, let himself out, slammed the door behind him, and cursed under his breath all the way home.

Lip cornered him almost as soon as he'd gotten into the house. “So?” he whispered, glancing around to make sure none of their siblings were paying attention.  “Did you have another go?”

“No.” Ian shrugged his brother off and trudged up the stairs.  Lip followed him.  Ian slammed their bedroom door in his face.  Lip followed him in anyway.  Ian rolled his eyes and started changing out his uniform.  “We made out a little but then he started crying and told me to leave.” He crossed his arms and looked at Lip.  “He got disowned, he lives in that Jag.”

Lip's eyebrows shot up.  “Shit, man.  Disowned for being gay?”

Ian shrugged.  “I assume so.”

“Shit.” Lip looked him over.  “But you've got a crush, don't you?”

“Shut the fuck up, Lip.”

He couldn't stop thinking about Dallas.  It was three in the morning, it had been more than a week since he'd seen the guy he'd spoken to exactly twice, but there he was, lying awake, thinking about him. He'd cared less after they'd fucked than after they'd just kissed. He didn't want to think about that.

He rolled over toward the window, away from his brothers, one thumb hooked in the waistband of his boxers.  He wanted to see more of that tattoo—it hurt his brain, he couldn't quite remember what it looked like, just an impression of puzzle pieces and roses was left in his head.  He wondered if Dallas's dark-on-dark freckles were only across his cheekbones and nose or if they were everywhere else like his own—he hadn't had a chance to really look, and with the low contrast in the dim light he couldn't tell.  He wanted to know what the hell Dallas was to be the color he was—he wasn't black, his hair and features made that much clear, but he sure as hell wasn't white either.  Dallas had mentioned a sister when he was screaming at the sky.  Ian wondered if she were older or younger, if she was the only sibling Dallas had.  He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd seen Dallas had earring holes.  He wanted to know if he was right, and if he was, he wanted to see him with jewelry in.  He wanted to taste Dallas's skin again, sink his teeth into one cafe-au-lait shoulder just enough to hurt, watch the expression in those green-brown eyes as he took him.

He really wanted to not share his room with his brothers right now.

He got up and locked himself in the bathroom.  He sat on the toilet with the lid down, eyes closed, head back as he touched himself, biting his lip to keep himself quiet.  He remembered the soft, uncalloused hands on his neck, his chest; long fingers in his hair, inside him; warm mouth on his, at his pulse; those eyes, those eyes….

His head swam.  He cursed quietly and just sat there.  He hadn't obsessed like this since—well, ever.  Brad Pitt didn't count.  Brad Pitt wasn't a real person.  Not really.  More like an idea of person.

He cleaned himself up, tucked himself back into his shorts, and went back to bed.  He still didn't sleep.

His lust-induced insomnia—because, fuck it, that's what it was—didn't get any better as days then weeks passed with no sign of the red Jag or its looker of an owner.  If anything, it got worse.

Fiona caught him by the arm as he stepped around her while she did laundry. “Hey, are you doing okay?  You don't look so good.  You been sleepin'?”

He sighed and closed his eyes.  He could lie, say he was fine, but she would know.  Fiona always knew.  “Not really, no.”

“What's a matter?” she asked with the kind of gruff tenderness she reserved for when she was really concerned.

He shrugged and looked around, more out of habit than anything else.  He knew no one else but Liam was home.  Even so, he lowered his voice.  “There's a guy.”

Fiona blinked.  “Oh.  Fuck.  Okay.”

Ian shook his head.  “I can't think about anything else and it's keeping me up and I just want, so bad, I don't know, to see him?  To fuck him?  Anything.”

“Shit, you've got it bad.”

Ian nodded, eyes on the floor.

“So,” Fiona crossed her arms and settled her weight into one hip, “who is this guy?  D'you know him from school or something?”

“I, uh,” Ian cringed, “I've only talked to him twice.”

“Oh, fuck,” Fiona sighed.  “Must have been quite the couple of conversations.”

“Yeah….”

“Does this guy have a name or do you not know?”

“Dallas.”

“Any lastname?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, a first name is better than no name.”  She chewed on her lip.  “Not too great that you're losing sleep over a guy you hardly know, though.”

“I can't help it,” Ian said, tone more desperate that he'd've liked it to be.

“I know,” Fiona breathed.  She clapped his shoulder and rubbed.  “Been there.”

Ian took a deep breath and huffed.  “Boys suck.”

Fiona snorted.  “Oh, I know.  I have four little brothers, remember?”

He grinned.  She laughed.  He laughed too.

She punched his shoulder and gave him a gentle shove.  “Why don't you take some NyQuil and try to get in a nap while the house is quiet for once.”

“That,” he sighed, “is a good idea.”

He scrounged in the cabinets for the NyQuil and took a shot of it. Fiona swatted him on the ass with a dirty T-shirt as he passed on his way to the stairs.  “Get some sleep.”

Almost a month later, with the snow mostly melted but the weather not yet warmed up, there was a knock at the front door.  Fiona extricated herself from the gaggle of Gallaghers in front of the TV to answer the door.  She opened it just enough to face whoever had knocked without looking too rude. There was a boy standing on the porch, dark hair, dark skin, darker freckles, and a nice buttonfront shirt that looked like it had seen better days.  He fidgeted a little.  “Hey, uh, does Ian live here?”

“Yeah,” Fiona said slowly, eyeing him skeptically.  “Who's looking for him?”

“I'm Dallas.”  The boy bounced on the balls of his feet.  “We, uh, we've hung out a few times.”

“Right.” Fiona stepped back, half closing the door, and called, “Ian! Door!”

She waited for Ian to be just a step away before vacating the doorway herself.  Ian didn't take the last step to the door, just stared. “Dallas?”

“Hey,” Dallas said, not making eye contact.  “Can we talk?”

“Yeah,” Ian said cautiously.  He stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind him.

“Look,” Dallas said, “I'm sorry for being all weird, last time we saw each other.”

“That was more than a month ago,” Ian pointed out sharply.

“I know.”  Dallas crammed his hands in his pockets.  “I've been really busy, with finals, so I've pretty much been living in the school library or crashing on classmates' couches studying.”

“Right.”

“But finals are over now,” Dallas said, sounding like he was trying to suppress an edge of panic in his voice.  “And I'm here.  So, uh, you wanna go for a walk?”

Ian glanced at the beat up Jaguar parked on the street.  “You're gonna leave that here?”

“Unless you don't think it'd be safe?” Dallas hedged.

Ian snorted, went to the door, stuck his head in, and called, “Hey, don't let anybody steal the red SUV out here!”  A chorus of agreements responded from the couch.  He yanked the door back shut and trotted down the steps without looking at Dallas.  “Let's go for a walk.”

Dallas followed, falling into stride a half step behind Ian, hands still shoved in his pockets.  Ian led them around a few blocks without speaking, ending up in a secluded cove under a railway bridge where he pressed Dallas up against a pillar and kissed him.  Dallas kissed back briefly, his hands on Ian's muscular chest, but then he pushed him away—not hard, but enough for Ian to get the idea and step back.  “Sorry,” Dallas breathed.  “I, uh, I'm really not in the best place mentally or emotionally to be screwing around.”  He closed his eyes and took a breath.  “Sorry.”

Ian groaned in frustration, paced away, and kicked an empty beer can.  “I haven't been able to sleep because I keep thinking about you and your stupid tattoo.”

“I haven't been able to sleep because I am homeless, broke, and now that my semester over and my dining hall privileges are up, I don't know where my next meal is coming from, so excuse my lack of sympathy,” Dallas shot back.

Ian snorted. “I've pretty much never known for sure if there was going to be food on the table the next day, so—” He shrugged.

Dallas sighed.  “Look, I'm not used to this.  It's scary and it sucks.”

Ian nodded quietly.  “Then why show back up?”

“Wanted to see you, wanted to apologize, wanted to talk.”  Dallas swallowed.  “I mean, I do like you.  Call me old-fashioned, though, but I'm generally a fan of the whole courtship thing.”

Ian smirked at him.  “You're old-fashioned.”

“Is that okay?”

Ian considered him a moment, then nodded.  “Yeah.”

Dallas smiled.  “I'm glad.”

“So, uh, since we're dating,” Ian said, leaning against the next pillar over and waggling his eyebrows suggestively, “wanna talk about your feelings or some shit?”

“Pretty much all different layers of stress,” Dallas said with a snort. “Need money, need a job, need to apply to scholarships cuz I am not going to be able to pay for next semester—I'm on academic hold.  If I can get the money together I can resume next spring, otherwise I'm out.”  He sighed, shrugged, and looked at Ian.  “You got plans for college or…?”

“Heh. Hoping to get into Westpoint,” Ian said with a little smile.  He shrugged one shoulder.  “Not sure my family is too thrilled, but it's more of a plan than any of them have.”

“Military, huh?”

Ian nodded.  “Marines.”

“Guess you haven't heard back yet?”

“Well, I haven't applied yet, so no.”

Dallas frowned.  “You haven't applied?”

“I'm not graduating yet.”

“You're not?”  Dallas's frown deepened and his forehead crinkled.  “Next year then?  You're a junior?”

“Actually,” Ian said carefully, shifting his weight, “I'm a sophomore.”

The color drained slowly from Dallas's face.  “How old are you?”

Ian rubbed the back of his leg with the toe of his sneaker.  “I'll be sixteen on the eleventh.”

Dallas put out a hand to steady himself against the pillar.  “You're fifteen?!”

Ian pursed his lips and nodded.

Dallas ran a hand over his face.  “You're, what, six foot tall?  And you look like you could bench a Fiat!  You cannot be fifteen.”

“I'm fifteen,” Ian said quietly, not looking at Dallas.

“I feel sick.”  Dallas turned and walked a few paces away, both hands over his face.  “I fucked a fifteen year old,” he mumbled to himself. “I'm so screwed.”

“Hey, it's really not that big a deal,” Ian objected.

“It's illegal!”  Dallas turned to face him.  “That's rape!”

“What are you talking about?”  Ian laughed in disbelief.  “I definitely did not tell you no.”

“You're underage!” Dallas said—he really did look like he might be sick, shit.  “It doesn't matter what you said, you're too young to give consent.”

“I knew what I was doing!”

“The law doesn't care!”

“The law doesn't need to know!” Ian snapped. “No one needs to know.”

Dallas slumped against the pillar, slid down it, and hid his head in his knees.  “I'm a child molester….”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.”  Ian stomped over and hauled Dallas up by the back of his shirt.  “Do I look like a child to you?”  He kissed him roughly, briefly pressing their bodies against one another.  “Do I feel like a child to you?”  He let go and took a step back.  “You seem to have plenty of actual bullshit to worry about, don't invent another problem for yourself, you dumbass.  No one, fucking no one, is going to charge you with rape.  What the fuck, man?”

Dallas shook his head.  “I can't do this.”

“You already did.”

“I know!”  He sucked in a sharp breath then gagged.  He braced himself against the pillar to retch.

“Jesus Christ.”  Ian reached out to rub his back but Dallas swatted his hand away.

“Please don't touch me,” he whispered, voice flat.

Ian took a step back.  “Dallas….”

“Don't touch me.”

“I'll be sixteen next week,” Ian said with desperate exasperation.

“And you'll still be underage,” Dallas said, clearly still distressed.

“Nobody cares.”  Ian held out his arms and shook his head.  “Do you realize what neighborhood you're in?  By thirteen, fourteen pretty much all of us drink, pretty much all of us smoke, and pretty much all of have had sex.  You grow up fast when you grow up poor. Anybody found out we fucked, we might get our asses kicked for being fags depending on who it was, but no one around here would even think about how old I am.  So chill out.”

Dallas leaned with his back to the pillar again, closed his eyes, dug his hands through his hair, and took a deep breath.

Ian walked deliberately over to him, letting his footsteps crunch in the gravel, gently disengaged Dallas's hands from his dark hair, twined their fingers, and pressed their foreheads together.  “Chill out, okay?”

Dallas took another breath, nodded best he could against Ian's forehead, bit his lip, and sniffed, tears starting to roll down his cheeks.  Ian sighed and hugged him.

“Sorry,” Dallas mumbled into Ian's shoulder.

“Shut up,” Ian said gently.  He leaned his cheek against Dallas's hair. Dallas's shoulders shook and Ian tightened his arms around him.

“My sister told them,” Dallas blurted after a while.

“Huh?” Ian pulled back enough to look at him.

Dallas wiped his eyes.  “My younger sister, she told my parents about me. We were all yelling at each other—me, my parents, both my sisters—fighting about everything and nothing, and my father said something to Indiana about her dressing like a slut—which is kind of true—and she said 'at least I don't go around sucking guys off in the back of my car like Dallas does.'”  He gave a cold, thin smile.  “Within an hour, they'd thrown me out of the house.”

“Shit,” Ian said.

“Yeah.” Dallas nodded and scrubbed his hand across his eyes again.  “Sorry for dumping that on you.  I just, hadn't actually told anyone what happened.”

“No, that's fine, but, dude, you've gotta stop apologizing so much.”

“S—”

“If you say you're sorry I sweat to God I'm gonna punch you,” Ian threatened, smiling.

Dallas snorted.  “Okay.”

Ian grinned and kissed him quickly.  “That's better.”

Once Dallas's eyes were a little less red, he and Ian walked back to the Gallagher house, elbowing each other along the way, a certain weight lifted between them.  They stopped next to Dallas's Jag.  He bounced on his toes.  “I have a meeting with the financial aid office early tomorrow, so I should probably go back to campus.”

Ian nodded.  “Right.  But, you'll be around, right?”

“Yeah.” Dallas flashed a little smile, touched Ian's arm, let himself into his car, and drove away.

Ian stood on the curb, watched until the beat up SUV was out of sight, then sighed.  For a moment, he was alone, then Fiona walked out to stand with him, Liam on her hip.  “So,” she said, “that's your guy?”

“Yeah,” Ian breathed.

“He's cute,” she observed, shifting her hold on Liam, who was chewing on his own fist.

“Yeah,” Ian agreed.

Fiona nodded slowly.  “So, is he black or what?”

“You know,” Ian said, “I have no idea.”

Her eyebrows ticked up.  “Interesting.”

“Yeah.”

The next Wednesday was the eleventh.  Ian came downstairs to find a slightly lopsided cake that Debs had gotten up at four that morning to make.

“You only get chocolate cake for breakfast because she insists,” Fiona said as she handed him a slice.  “Happy birthday.”

Ian grinned.  “Thanks.”

Lip smacked him in the back of the head.  “Happy spawning day, loser.”

Ian grinned.  “Thanks.”

He got wished happy birthday a couple dozen times at school, one of his teachers decided the whole class should sing to him, Mandy made a show of kissing him in front of everyone at lunch, but it was really a pretty dull day after the cake.  At least, it was until he and Lip turned onto their street after school to find the red SUV parked on the curb and Dallas sitting on the steps of the porch, a parcel wrapped in newspaper balanced on his knees.  Dallas stood as soon as he spotted them.

“You know what,” Lip said, clapping his hands once and rubbing them together, “Fiona's at work, Debs and Carl are still at school, V's got Liam, and I just realized I owe Karen a visit.  Guess you'll be home alone for a while,” he said with overwrought regretfulness. “I sure hope you won't be too lonely.”  He clapped Ian on the shoulder, turned, and walked off.

Ian opened his mouth to yell something after his brother, but he glanced at the house and Dallas standing in front of it, shut his mouth, squared his shoulders, and walked up to the porch.  “Hey.”

“Hey,” Dallas said.  He held out the newsprint parcel.  “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.” Ian took the package.  It was slim, rectangular, fairly heavy for its size, and felt solid.  “Uh, here.”  He unlocked the door and let them inside.  “You really didn't have to get me anything,” he said as he re-locked the door behind them.

“I know,” Dallas said absently, looking around the room.  He shrugged. “I wanted to.”

Ian grinned a little.  He tore the paper off, his mouth fell open, he glanced at Dallas in profound astonishment, and turned the iPad over in his hands.  “What the fuck happened to you being homeless and broke?”

Dallas grinned and shrugged.  “I went to the unclaimed baggage store near the airport—paid thirty bucks for a suitcase with a seized up zipper and everything inside it.  Got really lucky.”

Ian set the iPad aside, grabbed Dallas, and pulled him into a kiss.  “You are insane.”  He kissed him again.  “Thank you. Holy shit.”

Dallas laughed, stumbling slightly from being grabbed.  “I'm glad you like it.”

“Are you kidding?”  Ian laughed incredulously.  “My entire family shares a fucking flip phone.  I can't believe this.”

Dallas smiled warmly.  

Ian went to the table, touched the iPad adoringly, then looked up.  “Hang on, thirty dollars is at least a week of food and you spent it on a suitcase.  When's the last time you ate?”

Dallas held up his hands.  “I needed clothes for warmer weather so I bought a suitcase, took all the clothes from it, and traded them in at Plato's Closet.  It worked out.  Sold the case and most of the jewelry I found in it.  Kept the iPad and the charger for it—sorry I didn't wrap that bit, it's in the car.  Also kept the bottle of wine and, uh,” he blushed hard enough for it to stand out against his freckles, “and the glass dildo.”

Ian stared at him then laughed.  “Holy fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, though, when's the last time you ate?”

“Uh. Yesterday morning,” Dallas admitted.

Ian went to grab a bag of pizza bites out of the freezer.  “What kind of wine?”

“Red.” Dallas shrugged.  “I've never seen it before, it's called Velvet. Haven't opened it.”

“Huh.” He tossed a plate of pizza bites in the microwave.  “...have you used the dildo?”

“Fuck no.  I don't know where that thing's been.” Dallas crossed his arms.  “I'm not touching it until I've boiled it within an inch of its life.”

Ian arched an eyebrow at him and pulled a pot out from under the counter, stuck it under the faucet, and turned the water on, all without breaking eye contact.  Dallas glanced at the pot wide eyed.  Ian got down two plastic goblets, still without looking away from Dallas.  Dallas nodded once slowly, fished his car keys out of his pocket, and went to unlock the front door.

“Bring the jewelry you kept, too.”

Dallas looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Okay.”

He came back in with the iPad charger wrapped around his hand, the bottle of wine tucked in a mateless knee-high sock Plato's Closet hadn't wanted, the jewelry in his pocket, and the dildo bundled in a T-shirt he'd ruined at the laundromat.  He dumped everything but the jewelry on the kitchen table. Ian handed him the plate of pizza bites, snagged one for himself and ate it.  He'd set the pot on the stove.  “So,” he said, carefully tugging at a loose corner of the T-shirt, “this is it?”  

“Yup,” Dallas said through a mouthful of pizza bites.

Ian gave the shirt a sharper tug and it unbundled, rolling its contents halfway across the table.  Ian blinked at it and swallowed, trying to keep his face from turning the same color as his hair.  “That, is a big glass dick.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Prettier than any real dick I've ever seen.”

“Same.”

Ian used the T-shirt to grab the nine-odd inches of clear and purple glass and drop it into the pot on the stove.  “Wine?” he asked, grabbing a corkscrew from a drawer.  Dallas handed the bottle to him. “What jewelry did you keep?”

Dallas reached in his pocket and pulled out four pairs of stud earrings, which he held out in his palm for Ian to see as he poured the wine. One pair was white opals, one simple little silver balls, one kind of spiky black stars, and the last one tiny gold Deathly Hallows.

“So you do have pierced ears,” Ian said with a grin, handing Dallas one of the goblets.

“Mhm.” Dallas pocketed the earrings and sipped the wine.  “Oh, hey, this is good.”

Ian took a sip of his own and blinked.  “Tastes expensive.”

Dallas shrugged.  “No idea how much it is but it's good.”

“Yeah,” Ian chuckled.  He took another drink.  “Why don't you wear earrings?”

“Parents hate it.”  Dallas paused.  “Guess that doesn't really matter now.”

“Not really.”

Dallas frowned, set down his wine, reached into his pocket, pulled out the opals, and put them in.  He shrugged and looked to Ian.  “Whatcha think?”

“I think I just realized I like boys with jewelry.”  He downed the rest of his wine, came around the counter, and stepped up to Dallas. He touched his ear with the back of a knuckle then bent to kiss him. Dallas curled his fingers in the front of Ian's shirt, kissed him back, then pulled away.  Ian sighed a little.  “Still no?”

Dallas looked away, lay his hand on the base of his goblet, twisted it, then looked back up at Ian.  “Lemme finish my wine and we'll see.”

“Fair enough.”

By the time the bottle of wine was empty, the iPad had been set up, complete with shiny new Apple I.D. for Ian, Dallas was glaring intensely at a free chess game they'd downloaded, and Ian had pot holders on both hands, fiddling with the dildo they'd recently decided was safe now.

“I took three years of chess lessons,” Dallas mumbled.  “Can't tell if they were useless, or if wine and chess just don't mix.”  Ian poked him in the ribs with the dildo.  He glowered at Ian, who grinned.  Dallas rolled his eyes.

Ian turned the dildo over in his hands.  “Why'd you keep this?”

“Right now,” Dallas said slowly, setting the iPad down, “I can't afford to, like, by myself shit.  I mean, sex toys don't count as essentials.  I wasn't really hoping to find a dildo.”  He shrugged, the slight flush he had from the wine darkening to an actual blush. “But if I didn't keep it and then I changed my mind and decided I did want one, I wouldn't be able to get one.  So I kept it.”

Ian eyed him.  “So, you'd actually use this thing?”

“Yeah,” Dallas said slowly.

“On yourself?”

Dallas nodded.  “Well, yeah.”

“Weird.”

“It's not weird.”  Dallas shoved his shoulder.

Ian laughed and shook his head.  “You touch yourself like that?”

“Yeah. Don't you?”

“No.”

“Really?” Dallas asked, taken aback.

“Really,” Ian said.  “I have never stuck anything up my own ass.”

“Never?”

“Never. Well, once,” Ian corrected himself.  “But I don't think that time really counts cuz it was more just to see if I could, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Dallas tucked his feet up under himself and turned more toward Ian. “Why not though?”

Ian shrugged and made a face.  “I don't really like it.”

“Oh.” Dallas's face fell.  “I didn't—I thought, I mean you seemed to, seemed to like it, I mean, when we—”

“Oh, yeah, no,” Ian said quickly.  “I did.  That's different.  Kinda weird still—I'm usually top—but definitely not bad.  Good, actually.  It was good.”

“Oh, good,” Dallas breathed.

Ian cocked his head, frowning.  “If you like stuff up the ass, why'd you insist I bottom?”

Dallas shrugged.  “I wanted to fuck you and that's how I usually do that, so, yeah.”

“We both usually top.”

“Sounds like it.”

Ian chuckled.  “Well, that's gonna be interesting.”

“Yeah,” Dallas agreed.  He settled against the couch cushions.  “Lemme guess, you're weird about having stuff stuck into you, so I bet you don't give head, either.”

“No, I do.”  Ian crossed his arms.  “Not a lot, but I do.”

“Prefer to get it than give it?”

“Uh, actually,” Ian scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “the only hummer I've ever gotten was from a girl and, uh, it wasn't great.”

Dallas blinked at him.  “You've never been blown by a guy?”

“Nope.”

“Well, we've got to fix that,” Dallas said, sliding off the couch to the floor.

“It's okay,” Ian said, watching him, “you don't have to.”

“I want to.”  Dallas flashed Ian a grin and started undoing his belt. “I actually like, you know,” he shrugged bashfully, “sucking dick.  Call it another birthday present.”

“Uh, okay,” Ian said, letting Dallas tug his jeans and boxers down.  No way he was going to argue with that.  Dallas settled comfortably between his knees, stroked him a couple times, pressed his lips to the shaft in a kiss, then gave a long slow savoring lick.  Ian cursed and balled his fists, a shiver running up his spine.

Dallas glanced up at him.  “You can grab my hair if you want,” he said before giving another lick.  He grinned a little.  “I know it's weird to figure out what to do with your hands.”

Ian sucked in a sharp breath as Dallas mouthed at him wetly, hesitated, then dug his fingers into Dallas's thick, black hair.  It was soft and getting long—he probably hadn't gotten his hair cut since they'd met.  He grit his teeth and gave a soft tug as Dallas took him into his mouth. Dallas's eyes flicked up and met Ian's and Ian was struck again by the green and brown complexity.  He shut his eyes.  “Fucking hell.”

Dallas lay one hand on Ian's hip, his other fingers curled in the loose fabric of one of Ian's pantlegs.  He hummed happily and did something absolutely unspeakable with his tongue that made Ian gasp.  It didn't take long for Ian reach the edge and go over, yanking at Dallas's hair harder than he really meant to, cursing, and groaning. Panting, he let go of Dallas's hair and opened in eyes just in time to see Dallas lick his lips, wipe his mouth with the back of a hand, and smile up at him.  Dallas bit his lower lip adorably.  “Was that good?”

Ian nodded.  “Oh yeah.  Real good.”

Grinning, Dallas climbed back up onto the couch next to him. “I'm glad.”

“You actually really do enjoy that, don't you?”

“Mhm.” Dallas was still chewing his lip cutely.

Ian shook his head. “Why?”

Dallas shrugged.  “I dunno; it's just fun for me.”

“Okay,” Ian breathed.  He took a few more breaths then said, “You seem way less worried about my age now.”

“I decided 'm just not gonna think about that,” Dallas said, holding up one hand.

“Okay.” Ian took another deep breath and fixed his pants.  He slumped back against the cushions.  “Wow.  Yeah. Fuck.”  He glanced at Dallas.  “And you just swallow like it's nothing.”

Dallas shut his eyes and bowed his head in embarrassment.  “I kinda like how it tastes—I know that's really weird.”

“You're a freak,” Ian said, “and it's amazing.”

Dallas laughed and looked up at him.

“What color are your eyes?” Ian asked suddenly.

“Huh?” Dallas blinked a couple times.

“Like, are they brown or green?”

“Oh. Yeah, they're both.  I mean, they're brown, but I've got green, like, starburst things around the irises, so, yeah, both.”

“That's different,” Ian said.  “I like it.”  Dallas looked down bashfully.  Ian tilted his chin back up, studied him, then kissed him, not sure how he felt about tasting himself on Dallas's tongue. When he pulled back, he asked, “Do, uh, do you wanme to do you now?”

“Um. I mean,” Dallas said haltingly, “how much longer d'you think we have before your family gets home?”

“Oh, right, fuck.”  Ian ran a hand over his face and through his hair. “I don't know.”

“Then, uh, no,” Dallas said.  “I mean, quickies are fine, but they're more frustrating than fun, really, and I'd rather be able to, y'know, take my time?  And I'd really rather not get walked in on.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”  Ian sighed.

Dallas leaned in to kiss his cheek.  “I'll go.”

“If I didn't have school tomorrow, I'd go with you,” Ian said softly.

Dallas smiled as he got up.  “Maybe if you wanna hang out this weekend?”

“Yeah.” Ian nodded.  “Let's do that.”

“Okay.” Dallas got his things together and gave Ian one last sweet, soft kiss before leaving.

The next two days of school were among the longest of Ian's life.  Friday night, with Lip and Carl asleep, he pulled the iPad out from where he had it hidden with his porn, hid with it under the covers, and prayed it would connect to nearby wifi.  It did.  He grinned, opened Messages to the one contact he had, and typed: Dallas u up?

A few minutes passed and Ian had just about given up on getting a response when one came through: Yeah & lucky for you I have wifi.  What's up?

Nm. Just thinking about you

Aw you're cute :P

We hanging out tomorrow?

Yeah I can pick you up?

Sure

When?

Morning? I'm not doing anything else

Works for me

Where u parked tonight?

Behind the school library That's how I have wifi

Cool

Ian heard Carl mumble in his sleep and he quickly locked the iPad, clutched to his chest, and peaked out from under the covers to make sure his little brother really was still asleep.  He took a deep breath and ducked back under his blanket.

U use that dildo yet?

……..maybe Why d'you ask?

Just curious ;)

Just curious my ass

Exactly

You suck

Didn't get a chance to yet I take that maybe as a yes

Okay yes but your sex puns are horrible

Not sure those were puns But so you did?

I did You're trying to get me to write you porn

Maybe

That's a yes

It's a yes

There's not much to tell Tab A goes in slot B You know how it works Only tab A is purple and made of glass

Cmon Did u like it?

Yeah Thought about you

Really?

Yeah

Ian chewed on the inside of his cheek and curled tighter around the iPad.

Please tell me

I imagined it was you That you were kissing and touching me

I want to

I know you do Tomorrow

That a promise?

Maybe ;)

[mnemonicmadness-blog]

The lovely @vindicatedtruth tagged me to post the beginnings of my WiPs (thank you for the tag!).

To be completely honest, I have a shitload of abandoned WiPs, so I’ll only post the ones I still intend to work on (except for the Firefly AU, I’m definitely still working on that, but you might’ve already read it anyway).

I’m too lazy to tag and most of the people I would tag probably have already been tagged, so whoever wants to do this, please do so and tag me in it :) I’m curious what youse are working on!

1. A POI Star Trek AU, though not with the usual TOS/AOS configuration, Rinch with Borg!Harold

Screaming. Screams, everywhere around him and in him, from him. He was the one screaming and he was the one listening to the screams, unbearably loud even as he was wrapped in the impenetrable silence of space, the only thing separating him from nothing was a vaguely green forcefield, the only thing preventing his destruction. It glowed bright and steady around him and at the same time it flickered and died. He stood safely inside a ship and watched as outside, his blood began to boil.

He felt his flesh being torn and knitting itself together, faulty implants removed and new ones installed. He was repairing and being repaired, killing and being killed. Fresh blood ran over thousands of his hands, slippery and slick, and he felt its dried flakes falling off a thousand others.

At once, he was stationary and flying at unimaginable speeds through the slipstream pathways. The universe was wrapped around him and he watched it with ten billion eyes, listened to it with a trillion ears.

2. Also a POI AU, Mirrorverse with Ex-CIA!Harold and Billionaire!John

By the time night fell over Ordos, the biting cold of the clear, Chinese winter night had seeped through the CIA-issued winter coat and settled deeply into the very marrow of Harold's bones. The air was humid but so clear it almost felt cutting like shards of glass. Every now and then, shivers shook his body, sharpening the ache of the deep scars that littered his skin. The entire place was wrapped into an unnatural stillness, the only thing breaking the silence was the crinkling of the package of his partner's ration pack and the beating of his own heart. It was too cold even for flies to feast on the many bodies in and around the compound. With a shudder that for once was unrelated to the cold, he pushed the thought of them aside and reached for the emotional detachment he wore like a bespoke suit these days. Compartmentalisation was essential to survival in this line of work, even more so for someone who hadn't chosen it voluntarily.

Next to him, his partner climbed to her feet, movements stiff with cold like his own. He watched quietly as she stepped over to her backpack and took a sip from her water bottle before pulling out the infra-red chem-lights. She didn't see him reach for his gun.

3. More POI, a one-shot of pure Rinch fluff

Upon arrival, Harold was relieved to find that at least in terms of ambience, the promising online reviews of this place were accurate. The little Brazilian restaurant tucked in a corner the between skyscrapers downtown had an air of comfort to it, picturesque in a rustic way. Beside him, John threw him a small but genuine smile.

“Looks nice.”

“It is quite charming, isn't it?”

4. Another POI one-shot, post-finale

“Where're you headed?”

“Laurel Hill Boulevard, Cavalry Cemetery.”

Thankfully, the cabdriver merely glanced at the small but tasteful arrangement of white lilies, chrysanthemums, and a single, blood-red rose balanced in his arm and chose to forego any unnecessary small talk. The taxi set in motion right away, pulling out of the international terminal of Newark and turning north towards Jersey and the city. He had held out some hope that the rhythmic jog of a car might pull him into a light doze, but every time a bigger pothole jostled him, throbbing pain raced up his spine and even if that hadn't been the case Harold found himself as wide awake as he had been for the past 54 hours. A part of him was glad for it. These days, insomnia was almost preferable. At least it didn't hold any nightmares.

5. Hannibal, post-TWOTL Murder Husbands, but it’s a low-priority WiP

The sun is slowly sinking over the city, soon to dip behind the mountain, painting Monaco's brilliantly blue summer sky a fiery orange that is darkening into red by the minute and setting the predominantly white and cream coloured façades of the city aglow in a multitude of warm hues. Reflections of the sky on the small waves glitter like rubies, a bright contrast to the turquoise of the sea, interrupted ever so often by one of the overpriced yachts that are so common here. A place of luxury and excess. The McLaren Hannibal rented for the duration of their stay here draws no special attention, lacking distinction among the abundance of expensive cars.

6. My oldest and most frustrating WiP. I stopped working on it because my computer broke, I lost almost a whole chapter and all my notes and that frustrated me into a 2-year hiatus, but I still work on it occasionally and hope I’ll finish it some day. It’s an AOS Star Trek Tarsus IV fic, so very dark, violent and gritty and it’s already posted on AO3.

As he sat on the small observation deck of the Amber, a bottom-of-the-line civilian transport ship, and watched the stars pass by outside of the warp channel (surprisingly, this ship could reach warp 5), Jimmy Kirk, genius and fuck-up extraordinaire, was perfectly content. That is, if he ignored the way his cracked ribs ached with every breath he took. At least his eye wasn't swollen shut anymore and after a week the headache had faded as well. Maybe he'd even had a concussion this time.

Had his mother bothered to come home before sending him away with less than a week's notice, she might have taken him to a doctor. Or not, considering how furious she had been over him causing Frank trouble. Even thinking the name caused an unpleasant feeling to run up and down his spine. Jimmy resolved not to think of him again, it wouldn't do for that arsehole to ruin his good mood while being light years away.

However his life on Tarsus might turn out, at least the planet didn't have Frank on it. So it could only get better from here on, right? He pointedly ignored the voice in the back of his head that whispered he shouldn't expect anything good because since when do good things happen to you? and decided that some optimism wouldn't kill him. Probably.

[pantstomatch]

I think you should help me finish this HP romance novel...

so deep in the archives of my WIPs I found this unfinished Harry Potter AU gem from 2005 (yes, 2005!) that’s got all my favorite tropes: adventure, hurt/comfort, angst, childhood trauma (tw for mentions of abuse), found family, guns, threats of bodily harm, good guys masquerading as bad guys, an obvious plot set up to have Seamus Finnigan swoon into Theodore Nott’s manly arms, idek guys, but NEVILLE. The truly tragic thing, as I was bemoaning to @lissadiane , is that I have NO IDEA where I was going with this. Absolutely none, except for end-game Seamus/Theodore, and add that on top of the fact that it’s proven I am TERRIBLE at writing straight-up harlequin romance, you all should probably tell me EXACTLY, with bullet points and possibly an outline, how you think this should end. And then who knows maybe I can cross is off my WIP list (twelve years, guys. TWELVE.)

Seamus cursed under his breath. Even through the heavy sheets of rain he recognized the black barrels of the guns, and he was probably imagining the resonating clicks of them cocking, levelly trained, since the cascading water was a muted roar in his ears, but. He slowly lifted his hands out and away from his body. “Hands up, Nev,” he said to the man standing next to him, frozen in palpable nervous fear. “This is not a good day to die.” “Is there ever one?” Nev joked weakly. The guns seemed to be getting closer, and Seamus blinked rapidly to keep his gaze relatively clear, the rain drowning his skin, plastering his canvas clothing to his body. They’d only been out there for three days, and Seamus was so unprepared and so terminally wet that he felt like his pores would break open and he’d melt into the black, rich soil. Shit. If by some freakish chance they got out of there alive, Snape was going to kill them. The first thing he noticed was the man’s cold scowl. All right, honestly, the first thing he noticed was the man’s clinging black t-shirt, but the second thing he noticed was the man’s scowl, and the reflection of it in his eerie green eyes. “Dr. Neville Longbottom?” he growled. “Yes,” Seamus said hastily, ignoring the sharp look Nev sent him and resisting the urge to send a commiserating one right back at him. Way to be obvious. The man’s gaze narrowed, flicking between the two muddy, bedraggled men, and in that moment Seamus knew he didn’t believe him, wouldn’t have believed him even if he was the best liar in the world. “Dr. Longbottom,” the man said again, more firmly, turning towards Nev. “Come with me.” Another cold glance toward him told Seamus that they didn’t really care about him. No way was he about to leave Nev alone, though, even if he thought he could make it through the forest by himself. Which he held no illusions about. Nev was the one who knew all the flora and fauna. Seamus was just a useless mouth and steady support. “Seamus,” Nev whispered hoarsely, eyes wide and dark on the rigid… soldier? in front of them. He groped toward him with an open hand and Seamus caught his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Not leaving you, Nev,” he said fiercely, because damn it. Nev was the closest thing to family he had.

***

Seamus had been a skinny preteen when he left Ireland and his father’s heavy fists, and a scruffy, lean-hungry teenager when Nev had found him curled up in his Gran’s shed. He snapped when Nev pet him, a wary, shivering mess of hurt and loneliness and bone-weary fear. But Nev was persistent, if fidgety with nerves, and Nev’s Gran was a force of pure stubborn energy, and Seamus didn’t stand a chance. He was clean, dry and well-fed within the space of mere hours. And within days he was tamed and in love with a seventy-year-old woman and a plump boy with a hiccupy stutter and a tendency to weather his peers’ taunts with all the bend and sway of a young sapling. So Seamus, more brain than brawn—and even that was debatable, according to Gran—fought back for Nev with his tongue, lashed out unashamedly and more often than not got beat to a bloody pulp for it, but Nev’s rueful smile was worth everything; every bruise, every cut lip, every pinch-mouthed tsk from Gran. They were brothers in every way except blood. ***

“Seamus?”

“It’s all right, Nev,” Seamus assured him, walking as close as he could to him as they stumbled after the men with the guns, conscious of even more men with guns stalking behind them. “Everything’ll be fine.” Of course, he didn’t know that. And Nev knew that he didn’t know that, that he was talking out of his arse—like usual—but it didn’t matter. Nev wasn’t asking for the truth. Seamus curled his fingers over Nev’s wrist and held on tightly. *** Gran’s death had been like a kick in the teeth, because neither of them had been expecting it. Seventy-nine and still flashing her ankles at all the bachelors in town, still mowing the lawn behind Seamus’ back, still cooking and driving and laughing and doing all the sorts of things that were supposed to stop first. Stop before her heart gave out, stop before she grew cold in her sleep, stop and give them some sort of warning, sign, anything. Seamus didn’t cry at the funeral, but Nev did. Hard, frame-wracking tears that were plentiful enough for both of them. Gran had left them the house jointly and they sold it along with her ancient rabbit auto, and then they got the hell out of town. Nev took a laboratory job in Brazil, head botanist for an experimental firm, and Seamus didn’t hesitate to go with him. He held his own degree in journalism, squeaked by at uni, and he was relatively good with languages, so Dr. Severus Snape—a hook-nosed, dark-eyed man that Seamus didn’t trust as far as he could spit—agreed to give him a chance in research. Seamus was willing to do almost anything to keep close to Nev. But they shouldn’t have been out in the rain forest. They shouldn’t have stepped out of the lab, even though Nev had been openly hurting and raw and shocked. Seamus hadn’t been. What else could they have been doing, secretive and covert in a lab no one knew existed? Biological warfare or something very nearly like it. It’d torn Nev up inside, and though Seamus didn’t particularly care one way or the other, he’d followed Nev blindly out into the lush tangle of lianas, out into the unforgiving, dense and deadly landscape. And now they were caught, well and good, and even if the men weren’t drug runners or guerillas, even if they weren’t mercenaries sent out by Snape, they had guns and knew who Nev was, and the outcome wasn’t likely to be pretty. *** Nev and Seamus had been wandering around for days, packs heavy and minds weighted with dread, so it didn’t surprise them that the men made them stop just before nightfall. They set up camp, efficiently, silently, and Seamus stood next to a shaking Nev until the first man, the man with the cold scowl, came up and forced them apart. It was a smart move, Seamus acknowledged. Neither of them would try to escape without the other. The man was looking at him speculatively now, probably because he knew it’d been worth it to let him tag along. Worth it to keep Nev in line. Briefly, Seamus wondered if it would’ve been better to have hung back, swooping in and snagging Nev from under their noses during the night. He doubted, though, that he could’ve gotten in and out of the camp alive. Seamus was loud, not stealthy. He was brash and lively and was possibly the worst person to have near in a crisis. He vibrated with the effort of holding his tongue. Nev needed him whole and thinking, and that was just about the only thing that could ever shut Seamus up. “You’re Seamus Finnigan,” he said, and his voice was smooth, cultured, English. A shiver spiked up Seamus’ spine, because that probably meant Snape, and Snape was not going to be happy with his little rogue scientist and comedic side-kick. “Yes,” he answered thickly, trying to swallow his heart back down his throat. The man lifted a long-fingered hand and skimmed it over Seamus’ left brow, over the curve of his cheek, the scar at the corner of his lower lip he’d had since he was eight, and the gentle exploration belied the impassive set of his mouth and the ever-present coldness in his eyes. “We’ve been looking for you.” Seamus blinked. “You. What?” Weird turn. Utterly odd turn. Hadn’t they wanted Neville? The man cleared his throat, dropped his hand abruptly and said, “Seamus Daniel Finnigan, son of Cara Elizabeth Bannon Finnigan and Daniel Joseph Finnigan of Kenmare, Ireland.” “I don’t.” Seamus paused, eyes darting around, instinctively trying to search out Nev. “Finnigan,” the man barked, and Seamus’ gaze flew back to his face, something jittery and panicked rabbiting about his stomach, “we’re taking you home.” If Seamus had eaten anything at all substantial in the past three days, he would’ve vomited all over his boots.

“You’re shitting me,” Seamus breathed, words spewing out instead of bile, stomach clenching with dry heaves. “I’m. You,” he stammered, unable to line up his thoughts properly with his words. “Did they—No.” There was no way, no fucking way Seamus was going back to Ireland. He was twenty-five for gods’ sake. A grown man. No one could make him do anything. The guns were really persuasive, of course, but short of killing him and dragging his dead carcass onto an overseas flight, Seamus wasn’t going anywhere near Ireland. The man had the gall to look almost apologetic. “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” “You’re afraid?” He was shaking, deep down inside if not outwardly, and Seamus knew about being afraid. Scared shitless and helpless, and the idea of the cold bastard in front of him ever feeling anything remotely like that was laughable. “I’m not going back,” he said, choking on his rising panic. The man’s mouth tightened, but he just grabbed Seamus’ arm and tugged him further into camp, past men setting down arms to take up tent pegs, a man unfolding a small cooking stove and a communal pot, and Seamus dug his heels in stubbornly, gaze skimming over everyone and everything, looking for Nev. He stumbled and caught himself, stumbled and caught, stumbled and caught until the man brought him up short with a wordless snarl, and for a moment Seamus thought he was going to toss him over his shoulder. “They didn’t say I couldn’t hurt you,” he warned in a low voice. Seamus tipped his chin up, because it didn’t matter. Nothing did, if the result was going ‘home.’ A dangerous gleam flickered over the man’s eyes and he leaned in, nose pushing close to Seamus’, and rasped with perverse satisfaction, “And they didn’t say anything at all about your little science friend.” Pure anger flashed through Seamus, tinting his gaze and pooling hotly around his heart. “You harm one hair on his head and I will kill you.” “I could give him back to Snape, couldn’t I?” the man went on, dismissing Seamus’ threat, batting it away like an inconsequential gnat. “You don’t believe me?” Seamus growled, hands clenched. “The point, Finnigan,” the man said tightly, “is not what I believe, but what you believe.” And the point, Seamus realized, was that they had Nev, and as long as they had Nev Seamus would do whatever he needed to do to keep him safe. *** Seamus figured they wouldn’t have caught them at all if they hadn’t left the relative safety of the laboratory and compound. There was no way they could’ve gotten inside and gotten Seamus out cleanly. No, that wasn’t right; they could’ve gotten inside easily. They had gotten inside easily, slipped in far enough to slide an unmarked manila envelope under Nev’s door, far enough to know what kind of man Nev was and what kind of man Seamus was. Because they only had to lure him out, and what better way to do that than to use the horrible truth? Nev couldn’t stay where his work was possibly being used to harm others, and they’d played right into these men’s hands, whoever the hell they were. Seamus still wasn’t sure. He picked at the small bowl of stew they gave him, barely eating, chest tight. It was raining again, a steady pour, when the man made him get on his knees and crawl into a small, sodden tent. Then he crawled in after him, and there was barely enough room for him to crisscross his legs, large, menacing-looking gun lying across his lap, eyes sharply focused on Seamus even in the darkness. “Sleep,” he growled, and Seamus curled up on his side, determined to keep awake just for spite. His body was exhausted, though, and he didn’t last five minutes once his head touched the ground. *** When he was six, Seamus’ father gave him his first pony and his first broken arm. He’d been mouthy from the womb, a trait his mother told him he’d gotten from his grandfather, a cheerfully mischievous man that Seamus only vaguely recollected. He remembered the sweet tobacco smell of his pipe and his booming laugh and his lilting, teasing tone when he weaved stories, but he’d died before Seamus reached five years and, in retrospect, he knew that’s when everything had gone to shit. Seamus always thought the comparison to his grandfather was a good thing, great even, until his father knocked him into the doorframe for sassing him and left four finger bruises on the backs of each of his stick-thin arms. He was small like his mum, fine boned at the wrists and quick as lightning on his feet, so he’d learned to hide until his father learned to starve him out, and nothing went right for Seamus from then on. He started hating his mother a little bit more every time she turned away. *** Seamus jerked awake, a hoarse yell caught in his throat, a warm hand holding him down, grip tightening on his shoulder as he tried to squirm away. He breathed out, “Stop, stop,” harshly, and tears pricked his eyes as he twisted onto his side and puked up what little he’d gotten down at supper. *** Seamus was fine by the time morning rolled around—absolutely fine—and he forced down breakfast and tried not to make his breath of relief too audible when they let him near Nev again. Seamus was sure there’d be plenty of opportunities to dodge the men with guns once they were out of the rainforest, once he could get his bearings on more familiar land. Seamus was downright cheery. “What’s going on?” Nev asked in a tense whisper as they were herded side-by-side over the lush growth on the rainforest floor. “Nothing,” he lied, and his forced grin felt more like a grimace. Nev looked at him askance, like he’d lost his mind. “Nothing? We’re not headed back toward the compound, so do you—do you think they’ll ransom us?” “No.” Seamus took a deep, bracing breath, then said in a rush, “They’re from my father, Nev.” “Your…?” Nev paused mid-step, staring at him incredulously, and then one of the men prodded him sharply in the back with the tip of his gun, spitting a terse, “Move it,” in German. Seamus automatically flipped him off, and the man, large and ham-fisted, down-turned mouth seemingly carved from granite, pushed Nev forward again and grabbed Seamus’ arm. “Have anything to say to that?” he demanded in heavily-accented English. Seamus squirmed and the man tightened his grasp, biting into his pale skin, and that was familiar. He knew how that worked. “Seamus,” Nev said nervously in his patented don’t-taunt-the-bear tone, worried brown eyes bouncing between them. Seamus ignored him, grinning up at the German. “You don’t touch him anymore, and we’ll be just fine.” Thick brows furrowed to a point over his nose. “Are you telling me what to do?” “I’m merely suggesting,” Seamus went on blithely, “that you not touch him.” His amiable tone seemed to confuse the man, but his menacing stance didn’t change. “Suggesting,” he echoed, like he couldn’t quite believe his captive’s sheer stupidity. Seamus gave him a purposefully lazy half-shrug. “Advising.” “And what would you be able to do about it?” the man sneered. “Oh, I can be creative,” he assured him, nodding, a small, cheeky grin gracing his face. The man growled, yanking Seamus up on his tiptoes, but then a voice cut through the thick, muffled jungle and he abruptly dropped him. Seamus barely caught his balance when the man with the cold scowl and moss-green eyes strode up, the tops of his cheeks red from anger that was strangely not directed at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Krum?” Ah, Krum. The German meathead had a name. Seamus waited patiently for Krum to fling out the other man’s alias, because he was honestly getting tired of calling him the man with the cold scowl in his head, although he supposed he could’ve just made up a name. Like Lou. Louis. He darted his eyes to Nev, who was gazing at him oddly and yeah. Seamus was well aware he was on his way to hysteria-land. He had a first class ticket. “What does it matter?” Krum snarled. “You damage the merchandise,” the man said simply and with deadly calm, “you don’t get paid.” He jerked his head toward the men in front. “Go on. I’ll stay back here with them.” “So now I can’t be damaged?” Seamus said recklessly, pushing because he always pushed. “What about before? You said they wouldn’t care if I was hurt.” The man studied him, scrutinized him with intense, hard eyes that gave nothing away, and he slipped off his army-green cap, running a hand roughly through his damp, straggly blond hair before firming the hat back on decisively. Finally, he said with almost whisper-soft threat, “If you measure it right, Finnigan, pain doesn’t have to leave any visible marks.”

***

A twitchy bloke with fine brown hair and pale eyes shook Neville awake, but the night was still dark and heavy when he crawled out of the tent and blinked up at the man who’d been guarding Seamus so closely. Nott, he thought his name was, just as he knew they called the twitchy bloke Mouse and that one of the smaller ‘men’ was actually a woman. Neville had always been more observant than Seamus under stress. Nott had his gun slung over one shoulder and his scowl was more pinched than cold in the low-lantern light. “Dr. Longbottom,” he said, and Neville was struck, not for the first time, by how polite they’d all been to him. Waving guns, yes. And okay, sure, pointed threats were tossed about more than once, but. Besides the large German, no one seemed very intent on harming them, mentally or physically. “What’s wrong?” Neville asked, and Nott nodded across the camp to where a tall, gangly man called Boot was shifting drowsily on his feet. He yawned wide. Neville could practically hear the pop and grind of his jaw, and he rubbed his eyes in commiserating sympathy, swiping away the last of his interrupted sleep. And then he heard a low keening sound and snapped his gaze back to Nott, who visibly flinched, chased by a fleeting grimace before his face went stone-quiet again. All right. Neville knew what was wrong. Unsteadily, he stood up, keeping a wary eye on Nott as he crossed the camp and dropped to his knees again at the opening of Seamus’ tent. The flap was open, golden lamplight dimly outlining his restless form. Seamus was curled up on his side, arms tucked between his drawn up legs and his chest, and in the semi-darkness he looked exactly as he had as a boy, shivering cold no matter how many blankets he had, whimpers slipping past his lips no matter how tight his teeth were clenched. It’d broken Neville then, when they were barely thirteen, and it broke him now, seeing the dark jacket—Nott’s?—tucked over him, and the uncontrollable shivers that always grew more pronounced when his mind crawled desperately back toward consciousness. He knew what to look for in the moments before Seamus was going to wake up, the rapid shift of his eyes under thin-skinned lids, the panting breaths, a yell readying in the back of his mouth, but he never knew how to help. Neville sat on his heels and watched, hands fisted on his thighs. Nott was behind him, hovering. Neville felt his warmth at his back, his agitated movements, and finally Nott pressed against his side in the cramped tent and hissed, “Well? Do something.”

At Neville’s continued silence, he went to move past him, one hand already reaching out toward Seamus, and Neville caught hold of his forearm, clamping down hard with thick fingers. He shook his head slowly, mouth and lips and throat dry, making his voice just above a rasp when he said, “Touching him only makes it worse.” *** Seamus had been all bones and snarl when Neville first found him, skin pale and jaundiced under layered filth. Strangely confident, Neville had approached him exactly how he would a starving dog, palm out and up, unintelligible soothing nonsense spilling softly out his mouth, and Seamus had sat stone-still, growls dried up in his throat, large eyes watery, shoulders slumped in defeat. Neville had figured the boy thought he was going to toss him out on his rear, and it was pouring, a damp chill permeating the clapboard box. Neville could see all the hurt and acceptance and fear wrapped up in his dark hazel eyes. Gran made everything better, of course, because Gran had been stubborn and kindly firm from the first. She had Seamus doing chores by the end of the week. His eyes were bright, color a high rose, and he didn’t talk about the nightmares that stalked his sleep, the ones that kept Neville awake and helpless in the twin across their room. No, as soon as the sun hit the horizon, Seamus was… Seamus. Loud and laughing, with a flash-pan temper that was never once, in all their years as family, directed at Neville or Gran. And Seamus never, ever learned to shut up. He never learned control, never learned moderation, and it frankly terrified Neville to think of what would’ve happened if Seamus hadn’t run away, hadn’t curled up in a tense ball in Gran’s shed. There were so many infinitesimal ways Seamus’ life could’ve gone horribly worse than it had, and Neville… Neville felt guilty sometimes, because deep down he was selfishly glad that Seamus’ father had been so big a bastard. He couldn’t imagine living without him. *** Neville wasn’t stupid. Obviously. Twelve years was a long time to waste searching for a recalcitrant son, and by the look of things… these guys were professionals—efficient, spare, smart. They worked well together, worked good together. He eyed up his choices and finally approached Boot, long-limbed and shaggy with an easy grin that looked practiced, dangerous, but was a least overtly friendly…