#your honour that's a gay man in deep denial how does anything else make sense

[defectivegembrain]

We don't talk enough about how within the space of like a year Troy went from telling Abed that for guys like him chances to date only came along once in a li...while, to just straight up being confused and horrified by the idea that someone wouldn't want to date Abed. And like the only way that makes any sense is if he was only pretending not to understand what's attractive about him to begin with.

[moiraineswife]

Fic Title Game; Claws to Your Heart

Claws to Your Heart- Ooh yay this makes me think of one of my favourite dinky little ships that I haven’t talked about nearly enough so we’re going to do that now. Lucien/Andras pre-ACOTAR. ( @pterodactylichexameter understands me in this. and is at least partially to blame for…everything that’s about to follow) 

I refuse to call this AU because tbh it’s just like….semi-canon in my brain AND NOTHING CONTRADICTS ME so here we are. Andras is my very gay, very precious wolf son. He is older than Lucien and spends most of his time ‘Very Done With This Smol Fiery Idiot’ (but also feeling fond things for him too) He is quite calm, fairly reserved, unflappable, definitely the dad friend of the Spring Court sentries. Compassionate and loyal with a biiig sense of duty and responsibility….he is just a very good man okay (I love Andras don’t look at me) (also he looks like Jason Momoa in my head which is…never a bad thing) BACKGROUND OVER MOVING ON

The fic would just be lots of little connected snapshots of their relationship - Lucien meeting Andras when he is a very young bean and travels to Spring. The two of them start up a relationship, strictly physical. (ha) that consists of very hot little hook ups every time Lucien is in Spring or Andras is in Autumn (like obviously Tamlin needs an honour guard when visiting the place..Andras is suggesting this out of pure concern for his High Lord it has nothing to do with wanting to bang the hot, loud-mouthed, silver-tongued little princeling there, oh no) Lots of scenes along the lines of Andras sarkily calling Lucien ‘Prince’ and Lucien calling Andras ‘sentry’ and then making out. 

This goes on for a little while, it’s very casual, but also very not because it is Intense and they both start feeling some things that they both ignore (Andras is feeling things more so than Lucien but that is likely because Lucien is at the bottom of a deep pit of denial and Andras is slightly more self-aware at this point) There is a brief interruption for Lucien’s whole…lesser faerie mate incident. But then obviously that…works out the way it works out, ahem, and Lucien ends up in Spring. Where he has Andras to kind of sort of take care of him (ie they have very angsty sex a lot of the time and Lucien aggressively represses every emotion that he’s ever had and Andras is just Sad.) But Andras is also a proper friend who actually, truly cares about Lucien’s well-being…so that’s nice. 

Lucien and Andras do the whole ‘we’re friends who occasionally have sex with each other there is nothing going on here’ while actually falling in love with one another over the years. Neither of them is ever quite ready to go down the feelings path, Lucien is petrified after what happened to the last person he let himself love and try to be with properly. Andras understands that and is also afraid of changing things and losing what they have and they just…maintain (sorta like moriel but…with more banging…and somehow even more denial??? who knew that was possible?) 

The whole Amarantha eye stealing incident takes place and all that angst cranks up another level (this is the kind of fic/ship that just..keeps…getting….sadder. and you don’t know why you keep doing this to yourself but you do because they’re so Good)  Lucien is scared and suffering massive amounts of PTSD and Andras doesn’t know how to help so they kind of do the usual….but maybe with tentative forays into the realm of the emotional but they both just clam up and nope out of that one. 

Then the whole curse happens and things get even worse again (I’m really not selling this am I?) because now Andras (and possibly Lucien too) keep going over the wall…with the express reason of getting themselves killed by a human. And Lucien experiences this very confusing surge of frustration and fear every time Andras makes it back because…his High Lord and entire court is cursed…but also this near paralysing relief because he’s here, it wasn’t him, it’s okay, it’s okay which in turn causes even more fear and frustration because I love him, I definitely love him and this is killing me. 

Tamlin stops sending the sentries across the wall, unable to bear it and Lucien can breathe for the first time in so long. He never has to watch him leave again. He never has to face losing him again. That shouldn’t bring him the staggering amount of relief that it does but…here he is and he’s slowly, slowly getting less and less afraid of that idea…and the nights that he spends just quietly holding Andras are becoming so precious to him that he’s starting to think to hell with it all…it’s worth the risk. 

But time keeps slipping by and the curse is still there. The sentries (Andras foremost among them) urge Tamlin to send them over the wall again but he refuses over and over. Lucien is torn between anger at Andras wanting to risk himself like that and a horrible sense of self-loathing because…deep down he agrees with him. They have to do something, they can’t just sit there waiting for her to win without even trying. 

The last year of the curse comes upon them and at last the sentries and Lucien combined manage to convince Tamlin and he starts shifting them and sending them across again. The night before Andras crosses the wall, the night before he dies and everything changes, Lucien does something he’s never done before and asks him to stay. He knows, somehow, that if Andras leaves this time he won’t come back and he can’t stand it. 

But they’re out of time and everything about this conversation is coming too late, for both of them. Andras tells him that he has to go, it’s his job, his duty, and that’s always been the one that he he’s had. Lucien states that he’ll go in his stead but Andras, quietly, but firmly, in that way of his, tells him no, it has to be him. 

For Bonus Angst (not that we need it) the two of them part on a fight which Lucien regrets for the rest of his life in spite of, and in a lot of ways because of, the letter he finds from Andras later. It only becomes visible in his chambers because of Andras’s death (and this, more than anything else, is what final confirms that awful fact to Lucien. More than Tamlin’s words or Feyre’s presence - this letter seals Lucien’s fate) 

The letter is quiet, simple, patient, kind…everything Andras himself was. He doesn’t dress up the facts or sugar-coat anything, he’s simply honest. He tells Lucien how he feels and Lucien can feel the resignation in the words, the gentle acceptance of his fate- that he must die so that Lucien and the others could live- and that that was worth it for him.