the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
All sorts of places, honestly. I love walking and cycling around my neighbourhood, letting my mind wander and explore ideas. Ferment. I also love chatting with my fandom friends, being silly and exploring ideas. Posing questions and what ifs.
Any and all ideas I write down in a document. Some of them turn into fics. Some of them lay dormant...
30. share a fic you’re especially proud of
Hmm, the Irish in me balks at the idea of sharing something with pride but I shall try. 😅
One fic I just had a ball writing was Rumour Has It... It was super collaborative, so much fun and so silly. Shooting ideas around and then sharing work in progress. Up-dates on AO3 were a hoot to post and the comments were so lovely and funny.
It was a fic I wrote off a bolt of inspiration. One that, as usual, grew beyond the original outline, but a story I ended up loving and being so happy with.
That’s what Rayla decides once July passes without a proposal.
She can’t imagine what that reason might be, though.
It’s been implied since they were 15—what with all their jumping off of cliffs and dramatically sworn love letters—that they would eventually be married, of course. They’re side-by-side every second of every day anyway, living out of the same bedroom whether they’re in the Silvergrove, Evrkynd, or Katolis, and usually discussed as one—Callum and Rayla, Rayla and Callum…Rayllum, even, once—thanks to Soren.
Importantly: neither of them is going anywhere, any time soon—of that, she’s sure.
It’s time, and she’s thought so for a while: with Evrkynd bustling, and Ez just about as grown as they’d been at the start of all this, and, sure, Aaravos may be due back in couple of years…but shouldn’t they get to be married and happy—even happier—for a little bit first?
It feels right now, and if he’s not asking, then there’s nothing else for it:
It’s up to her.
…which is why she’d set up camp here beneath the early August full moon, on the last night of their little Moon Nexus birthday getaway.
Why shouldn’t she ask, anyway?
She’s the one who should have to ask. All Callum’s ever done wrong is love her too much. She’s the only one who ever actually fucks up bad enough to matter—
—nope.
Rayla shuts it down—just the way she knows Callum would.
She was young when she’d run away: young and scared and hurting. She still has to tell herself that, even all these years later, just like she still has to tell herself that Callum loves her—only when he’s not around to remind her himself, of course.
He loves her, and he always, always has—even then, when she’d been gone—and that’s what all this is about.
Loving him, in turn—always, forever.
Her heart approaches—with a smirky, dorky, sweet smile on his face—and her chest goes tight with the thrill of it all, while she shoos Stella to the Nexus’ banister, slipping the token she’d gotten out of her portal into a pocket.
It helps that Callum kisses her right away.
“You’re—well, beautiful, obviously—and…nervous, I think?” he says immediately—and, well, yeah, now she is! His fingertips brush an errant strand of hair behind her ear for her, though…and that helps, honestly. “What’s up?”
Rayla takes a deep breath, feeling her cheeks go flushed already at the words she’s been turning over in her head all day.
After all, what else could she offer but a heartfelt speech of her own?
The words come pouring out of her: of devotion and admiration, of fart flowers and adoraburrs, of gratitude and forgiveness, of friendship and affection and sex, the promise of a future and the comfort of family—
—and just so much love that she doesn’t even mind the way she gushes on and on.
“The point is—Callum, I want to be here, like this, with you, forever.” She steadies her breath, bringing his hands that she’s been stroking in time with her rambling to her lips, before dropping them to find the token in her pocket. “I want to promise you that: that I’ll always love you, that I’ll always be yours, that I’ll always be here. I want to be your wife, Callum, if you’ll have me. If you’ll marry me.”
She holds the two rings apart, then presses them together til they’re joined—woven together like vines of gold and silver.
“Opeli told me they’re traditional?” Rayla extends the ring into his reach, deftly separating it into its two parts. “One for each of us for now, and then—they’ll be one.”
That’s it, then. The question has been asked, and Callum is looking between her and the token with a flush of his own, his face all gooey-eyed and soft…
…he doesn’t say anything, though. He stares over her shoulder instead, past the pair of rings she’s explained, at—
The lake? The ledge?
“Callum, did you hear me? What are you—”
At…Stella?
At…a portal?
…and the pretty, gold horncuff that appears—alongside the grin on Callum’s face—is answer enough.
Valentine's vibes with an amazing Collab!
Loved working on this piece together with @tategaminu and feeling happy how it turned out! ✨
Happy Valentine's Day! 💕
(Pose reference: Albanenechi)
It’s been said of course: whispered softly in her ear under Domina’s protection, sobbed against his chest once blood and bruises and burns had been tended to, obsessively peppered between kisses the second the tent flap had fallen shut behind them both.
The words alone, though—
They’re not enough.
—which is why they’re tangled up on the ground, why they’re gasping into each other’s mouths, why their clothes are littered beside the settee.
This isn’t just need, either, though.
Need isn’t why she’d unwound the dirt-stained, blood-smeared scarf from his neck, or why he’d taken his time kissing his way over the outline of each marking on her cheek, or even why their clothes had been peeled off, slowly, layer by layer…
Well, maybe it is need, even if it’s not just sex.
She needs to see him, touch him—
—feel him.
Her heart.
His loving, slick fingers leave her center to take over with her attentions at his, coating himself in her—yeah, okay—need, in the process. It’s wordless and practiced, how they ready each other, before she sinks down, down, down against him.
What she needs is to—
Ah!
—be one.
Callum gathers her up in his arms and surges within her; her body is accustomed already to familiar heat and depth like he’s a key in a lock, and he knows it. There’s no hesitation. He sighs her name, and Rayla echoes, rolling into his lap until they both cry out at the hot, harsh friction of him bottomed out, but—
Oh.
Callum catches her jaw, holding her eyes gently to his, sending a shiver straight through to her core. His fingers sweep like feathers over her cheek, across her lips, tilting her chin…and—
He doesn’t need to say it.
The kiss is enough.
It’s clearly her cue: his hands anchor at her waist once more, her hips work his length, they both grin and hum in approval between kisses. It’s a flood of wordless pleasure after so much heartache between them, but she can’t say she’s surprised when she feels her eyes prick with tears as the momentum builds…or when Callum—her love, her heart, her very Moon and Stars, Callum—cradles her cheek once more.
It’s okay, he doesn’t need to say.
He loves her, she knows.
…and too soon, they’re frantic, crashing into each other as if distance is painful—and it is, in a way. Every downward stroke is completion that she wants again and again and again, each reprise sweeter than the last, and—
—and his twitching warmth spills.
A low groan into her neck pulls Rayla, too, to peak, trembling and desperate and glad for Callum’s arms still wound sweetly about her middle, catching both her arched pleasure and her slackened, soft afterglow.
Stupored and spent, they settle that way for a long, long time—
Callum’s ragged breathing warm over her heart.
Her lips buried in his scalp where the white begins.
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