heya! i love your writing so much, could I ask for a snippet of whatever you’re working on right now?
Okay! I love sharing snippets. I’ll give you a smorgasboard of nonsense I’ve been posting to Patreon lately. Maybe y’all can help me focus on the ones I should prioritize next!
ANOTHER SOULMATE THING (Varric/Hawke Voiceverse AU):
Varric Tethras was fifteen the first time The Madness came over him.
That’s how he thought of it, at least, at first: capital T, capital M, italics all the way through. The Madness, like some creeping gothic hyperbole out of one of his earliest scribblings. It felt like going mad, anyway. One moment he was bunking down for the night with a worn book curled in the crook of his arm, and the next he was…
…bloody well somewhere else, wasn’t he?
He turned with a startled yell, both hands lifting as if he could ward off whatever weird magic shit had taken him with a good one-two swipe. His hair was a sleep-snarled mess about his face and he was in his nightshirt and bare feet: hardly the most dignified way to meet his end. Maker’s balls, was he even wearing smallclothes?
Huh. Hm. Nope. Yeah, this was going to be a real fun way to die.
PRETTY WHEN YOU CRY (Hawke/Anders):
He didn’t like to think where his life may have gone if Hawke hadn’t come along. He’d been worn to the bone, back then—Maker, but it already felt like so long ago, as if it’d happened to a different man in a different age. Now? Here?
Well, he still worked harder than most two men combined, but he also had moments like this: sprawled bare-ass-naked across freshly laundered sheets, feeling the sun leaving hot stripes against his skin. His arse was sore—hole stretched deliciously around the flared base of a carved stone plug that had gone in cold and now felt weighty and hot—and he felt like five kinds of sin combined.
It was glorious.
“Mmm,” Anders purred contentedly, stretching across the big mattress. He heard the soft laugh and splash of water, but he didn’t crane his neck to see, despite the show he knew would be waiting for him. Some things needed to be savored—that was something he’d known way back in the Circle, and a point which Justice had never managed to understand. “I think you’re going to need to pour me in a bucket and carry me down to the clinic today. My legs aren’t going to hold me.”
“That,” Hawke said, and from the sound Anders could so easily imagine water pouring across yards of scarred muscles and into their hip-bath, “or you could stay in bed all day. Just like that.”
He had to cant his hip in response, letting his back arch to show himself off to his best effect: a long, sinuous line of pale skin marred by the occasional welcome bruise where Hawke’s mouth had been, his teeth, his iron grip. The movement pulled at the stone plug, dragging it deep inside him—not enough to bring him back to hardness (Maker alone knew he didn’t have it in him right now for another go), but more than enough to send liquid sunlight rushing through him. His nipples felt tight and sore, and he had to hide a smile against Hawke’s pillow at the low rumble of approval.
Look at me. Watch me. Love me.
BY ANY OTHER NAME (Dorian/Inquisitor):
He almost said the words aloud…but no, no, he hadn’t fallen into hackneyed Navarran romantic clichés yet. Instead, he bit his nails into Taran’s shoulders and deliberately lifted up onto his knees—bracketing Taran’s thighs, keeping him trapped beneath him even as his whole body shivered with the knowledge that his lover was more than strong enough to use all those glorious muscles to flip him over any which way he chose at any moment he chose. He stayed there for a few moments, rising over Taran for once; the kiss broke, Taran’s breaths panting hot against Dorian’s parted mouth. He was looking up at him, eyes dazed and adoring, lips slick, and Maker, he wanted to despoil this boy.
He wanted to absolutely ruin him.
Annnd another BY ANY ONE NAME:
C’mon, boss, Bull thought, letting the shared laughter mellow into something pure gold. It was that feeling he got hanging with the Chargers after a battle well-won. Muscles sore, wounds stinging, adrenaline cradling back into something less red-tinged. Leaning against a barrel and cradling a mug of some swill or the other, watching as Krem clucked like a worried hen over their flock of misfits.
Family. Taran was family. And as Bull mentally coaxed the boy some saw as the savior of all Thedas-kind (the boy others saw as the greatest heretic to walk the path Andraste once tread) to let the comfortable silence settle like a blanket over them both, he couldn’t help but look down at him and realized…void, but he loved the kid something fierce. Maybe as much as he loved the Chargers. Maybe as much as he—
“I wanted to ask you something,” Taran said before that terrible, painful thought could swing down between them. “About soulmates.”
ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (Billy/Teddy AU):
The mattress depressed under Teddy’s weight, springs creaking once he let go of the ledge and settled firmly on the bed. Billy bit his lip, looking up at his secret boyfriend’s shadowed face, hand impulsively sliding under the hem of his (regulation) sleep pants to feel the crinkle of blonde leg hair against his palm.
Funny how that little bit of illicit contact made his whole body thrum with a new sort of lightning.
Teddy glanced down and over his shoulder, already smiling in welcome. His hair had been buzzed just as short as Billy’s, and the earrings he’d worn on the shuttle out to Jump Zero (the whole lot of them new recruits and blissfully unaware of what was waiting for them here) were long gone. He was a little less bulky than he’d been then, the last of the puppy fat melted away to carefully sculpted muscle. A regular roughneck, one of the instructors liked to say, watching Teddy and the other boys built like him running through their grueling paces. He’ll be N-7 if the training doesn’t kill him first.
Ha. Big fucking if.
DRAGONS OF BROOKLYN (Billy/Teddy AU):
Summer should have been spent sprawled in the park reading comic books, but instead he was here just as long as he could get away with it, fiddling with his ipod or sketching like a madman and trying not to stare at the door. He sat in the same seat at the same table as often as he could, feeling like the biggest loser in the world and somehow completely unable to help himself.
He wanted to see Teddy again. No, he needed to see Teddy again, with a quiet sort of mania he wasn’t sure he should have been encouraging. It felt like too much, this silent fixation yawning open inside of him, making him stare at his ceiling at night and practically trip over himself to get to the tea shop just in time for opening every morning.
Of course, after the first week, the baristas began to notice.
“Big fan of oolong, huh?” one of them joked, handing over a charmingly chipped yellow mug with a smile.
Billy did his best to smile back. “Oh yeah,” he said, thinking of surprisingly blue eyes. “I stan for a good cup o’…cup o’ crushed leaves and…um.” And unmitigated disaster.
MEET CUTE (Billy/Teddy):
They slid to a stop, Billy sitting on his ass less than a foot from the edge of the road, his savior half-kneeling, braced on a (surely bloody) hand, half-covering him like the world’s best blanket. Radiating heat and shaken breaths, a long sweep of blond bangs falling across his eyes, bisecting a face that was—oh, hey—really unfairly attractive.
Like. Probably a figment of his imagination attractive.
“Um!” Billy gasped, brain stumbling to catch up with the rest of him.
The boy looked up, jerking his chin once to flip back his bangs, and everything inside Billy lit up like a barrel of fireworks. Just bang bang bang rioting inside him as his whole body came alight with shocked awareness.
He was—
He—
He—
…he was really uncomfortably attractive, blue eyes framed by a fan of blond lashes, slightly darker brows arched in obvious surprise, the faintest dusting of freckles scattered like a careless handful of sand across a ridiculously pretty face. The boy’s shoulders were, yes, unfairly broad, and his body cast such intense heat that Billy felt, all at once, as if the sun had turned to peer down at him.
He could actually feel his thoughts derailing in response.
“Oh God,” the boy said, voice just as perfect as that face. Deep, but not too deep, with the faintest hint of Brooklyn charm. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Jeez.”
He had a cupid’s bow mouth. Silver earrings marching up the outer shell of his ears. A letterman jacket despite the warm summer day, and Billy was 100% done. He was ready to go swooning back against the sizzling pavement, because there was no way this kid was for real.
Right?
The boy was frowning, a faint line darkening between his brows. One hand (one big, big hand) touched Billy’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “can you hear me?”
Billy shook his head, not really answering—not really processing yet. An absurdly attractive boy had literally man-handled him away from the edge of death and was now crouching over him close enough that Billy could smell the faint puff of mint with every breath. There was no way this was reality; he’d hit his head, obviously. Either that or his powers had somehow zapped him into an alternate reality made up of wonderful CW teen drama clichés.
“I’m going to call for help,” the boy said, beginning to sit back on his heels, drawing just far enough out of Billy’s orbit that a few of his brain cells began firing sluggishly again. They were sitting in the middle of one of the New York’s busiest sidewalks, life blooming riotously all around them—and yet, of course, no one was paying them any mind. Foot traffic simply diverted around the little island they made, everyone too freaking busy to notice or care.
Which wasn’t the point right now, was it? “Wait!” Billy said, lurching forward to grab at the boy’s arm as he lifted his phone. His fingers tangled in the black leather (pleather?) sleeve of his letterman jacket, holding him still. Startled blue eyes met his again. “Wait, wait, sorry. No, you don’t need to call for help; I’m fine.”
The boy slowly lowered his phone. “You don’t look fine,” he said. “You look pretty awful, actually.”
Ouch. “Thanks,” Billy said, dry.
THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (Billy/Teddy and Tommy/David):
“I can’t,” he said, fumbling for his communicator. David ripped it off, hating himself even as he made his choice. Was this how Tommy had felt, all those years ago? Was he sick to the stomach, weak with it, yet certain in his decision even as the consequences ate him alive? “Here. You have command.”
“David,” she said again, aghast, but he was already pushing past her, leaving her and the rest of his team to fend off the shimmering hoard on their own. They’d manage; they were Avengers. But oh Christ the cost would be…
You can’t think about that, he told himself firmly, bootheels ringing against metal as he strode out of the mobile base. He could hear the rumbling crash of rocks and energy beams discharging. Battle raging so close every instinct in him was alive in response. His gut churned and his heart ached, but he didn’t look back as he hurried to one of the transport vehicles waiting patiently a safe distance away.
The door whirred open quietly before he could reach out, dark cavern waiting for him. The console was already alight.
Jarvis.
“You’re already back online,” he said, sliding into his seat. The door shut and the engines hummed, Jarvis lifting them off before David could even input the first command. Instinctively, David glanced toward the nav system—but no, of course, Jarvis already knew where they were going. In a situation like this, there was only one place to go. “I thought you might be out for the next hour or more.”
“Kate needs me,” Jarvis said simply.
True enough.
The transport smoothly lifted up and away, slicing through the warm afternoon air. The sounds of desperate battled were distant, muffled, and the console began to blink frantically with an incoming message. “It’s the commander,” Jarvis said, meaning Molly.
David hesitated, then closed his eyes. Made his decision. “Drop the call and block all communications,” he said, hands beginning to move smoothly over the console. The light flashed one more time in recrimination before blinking out, and David refused to let himself look back as his exhausted friends—teammates—family—fought off the shining wave.
Instead, he powered up stealth and took the transport higher, toward the cloaking safety of the cloudline. Getting to where they needed to go would take some doing, but luckily…luckily, he and Loki had been sort-of-friends once. That friendship came with promises—with secrets—with a back door into Asgard that only the trickster god and a select chosen few knew how to exploit.
In all the years since they’d known each other, David had never once been tempted to discover whether this final olive branch had been more than a lie.
“Do you trust this Loki?” Jarvis asked, seeming to sense his thoughts again.
David laughed once, harsh. “Never,” he said, and curled his hands into fists. If he was being smart (and when had he ever been anything but?), he would turn back around before it was too late. He would think this through, come up with a plan, realize that what he and Jarvis were setting out to do was nothing less than a suicide run. He’d turned his back on everything and everyone for a man who’d once turned his back on him.
And yet he didn’t turn back around. He couldn’t. He’d made his choice.
“Let’s hope Loki didn’t change the locks,” David said, nails biting hard into his palms—and gave the order that would take them to Asgard and beyond the point of no return.
OUT OF CHARACTER (Billy/Teddy):
Oh, yes, please.
Every other thought—every other worry—dissipated in a puff of surprised breath. In a swirl of shock and awe and joy thrilling through him. Here he was, at last, standing beneath the dappled sunlight of the trees he loved so much, being kissed by Hulkling.
No, Billy thought, swaying into the soft-soft-soft brush of mouths with a surge of elation so strong it was almost painful, being kissed by Teddy.
He had no idea how he could tell the difference, but he could. He could read the shift from IC to OOC as indelibly as ink on paper. He could sense it in the way Teddy held himself, could trace each tensing muscle and know: this is real. This is real, and it’s happening to me, and nothing can ever take it away again.
This moment, this memory, was his. Forever.
