Is anyone else getting annoyed by the constant ânothingâ thatâs being put out by Bloomsbury? I swear to The Cauldron if I get another Instagram story which jsut sends me to Amazon to pre order Iâll Scream! They make it seem like it itâs going to be a cover release or a title release. Iâm annoyed!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 4/?
Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Elain Archeron/Lucien Vanserra, Elain Archeron & Lucien Vanserra
Characters: Elain Archeron, Lucien Vanserra, Feyre Archeron, Nesta Archeron, Azriel (A Court of Thorns and Roses), Cassian (A Court of Thorns and Roses), Vassa (A Court of Thorns and Roses)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, Sassy Lucien Vanserra, Elain Archeron/Lucien Vanserra Fluff, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending
Summary:
âYou canât truly expect me to just drop everything and fly to Austria for a weeklong ski trip just because youâve been watching the winter Olympics.â Elainâs lips thinned while she ran a hand through her curly hair. âSome of us have jobs, rent to payâŠ.,â
Elain has been dumped and her sisters have dragged her to Austria for long over due ski holiday. She decided that maybe ski lessons wouldn't be a bad idea.
Who could possibly be the ski instructor?
Writer: So They Spooned All Night And The Brooding One Allowed Themselves To Feel Vulnerable For The First Time In Years And The Chirpy One Got Some Quality Snuggles
There was only one bed and so they lay there together, only inches apart physically but it may as well have been miles for neither could muster the courage to tell the other the true depth of their feelings and so they lay there sleepless in their mutual pining
There was only one bed. A carried B to it and gently eased them down. They were both badly injured but Bâs conditions were much worse and A wouldnât rest until they knew B was going to be alright. So A sat down next to B and brushed their hair back, holding their hand as B shivered through the night, their only comfort Aâs presence by their side.
There was only one bed. This is normal. Theyâve been married for a decade and have a small child. The child has climbed in bed to snuggle with them because thunder is scary. They have their baby curled between them and they share soft, warm smiles over his sleepy head as he snores little kid snores.
Me, who just wants domestic curtains found family fic:
There was only one bed, the two characters argued and bickered begging for them not to have to share it, but they somehow are here still. They agree that there both going to pick a side and stay on it. This was going fine until in the middle of the night A woke up screaming and crying, B gets them to calm down and they end up falling asleep next to each other feeling safe
There was only one bed. A noticed Bâs exhaustion and lifted them easily. âYou donât have to carry me like a child,â B noted, despite being clearly pleased by how matters were progressing. âI think we both know thatâs not true,â A replied with a grin. The bed was warm, inviting, and yet something was missing. âIs this a private party, or can just anyone join,â C called from the doorway, clad only in their underwear and a smile. âOnly if itâs you!â A and B replied in unison as they drew the covers back.
Hey! First time reader here. I love how fast Lucien became the love of my life.
Iâm currently on acowar. Can I just say that even though I love Feyre, she almost made me stop loving her when she knowingly put Lucienâs life at risk at the start of this book. Using him to make Tamlin jealous, and then after they made their escape from Spring telling him he wouldâve been fine after what she did in/to Spring.
Feyre, I know you know thatâs not true. Tamlin has some anger issues and with everything that happened, there was a very very very high chance that he wouldâve taken that anger out on Lucien. Since he wouldâve been of the only if not the only person left in Spring.
I really liked Feyre during my first read through and while I still like her and understand that through the events of the series she was still just a 19 - 21 year old girl with a whole hell of a lot thrown her way in a short period of time, I have begun to see the flaws in some of her actions and behaviors.
Again, I understand, she's just a baby in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean she was always right in doing the things she did.
At the start of ACOWAR she learned that Ianthe had sexually harassed / coerced Lucien. At the start of ACOWAR she learned Tamlin killed the sentries who had been guarding Feyre when Mor knocked them out. K.ILLED THEM. Not demoted them, imprisoned them for something that they couldn't necessarily help considering Mor is powerful in her own right but K.ILLED them. Yet even after learning all that, she chose to use Lucien to provoke both Ianthe and Tamlin and I honestly find that pretty distasteful. Lucien may have made mistakes when it came to Feyre and Tamlin (though I do believe he was dealing with some difficult decisions as he was trying to juggle what was best for the Spring Court and all it's people during that time, it wasn't just about Feyre) but he never purposely set out to hurt Feyre. He never used her the way she used him. Lucien was between a rock and a hard place but Feyre chose to put him in a bad situation (multiple ones). That's why I'll never agree that Feyre was a better friend because Lucien never used Feyre as a pawn.
Feyre chose to target the innocent people of Spring and Lucien in order to get revenge on one person. And as a result of her actions, the NC is having problems because they now need Spring as an ally, they need it's armed forces, yet they don't have that because Feyre and Rhys did such a good job of making sure that once Tamlin was down, he stayed down.
I'm not letting Tamlin off the hook for what he did however I do think Feyre could have made the choice to keep her revenge to Tamlin and Tamlin alone rather than destroying an entire court as well as using Lucien as a pawn, setting the same two people on him that caused both Lucien and Feyre harm.
If you want to read a fabulous Elucien AU then this is it! My disgustingly talented friend @harkae wrote it. Elain has an excellent personality âșïž top tier writing!
Excellent yearning, angst and some references to sex!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
The muted thump in time to his foot pedal made the floor shake around him. Azriel tapped the pedal a few more times, establishing a rhythm before he settled his shoulders and opened his eyes. Both hands out, he waited for the rhythm to take him before he beat another layer on top of it. He could hear it clear enough through his headphones, but he couldnât hear anything else. Cassian must have been playing something because he was hunched over his bass, as there was an occasional shudder from the floor beneath Azriel that wasnât coming from him, from his arms and his legs and the thump-thump of his heart that was just a byproduct of being here, in this venue. He shut his eyes and focused on his footwork again, bass drum and cymbal. Thump, tish, thump, tish. Something was off. He opened his eyes again, but immediately lost his rhythm.
Cassian was staring at him. He stopped beating the bass drum and pulled his headphones off. The empty venue was unpleasantly echo-y without them.
âWhat?â
âI was asking you to shut the fuck up for a second,â Cassian said with no bite. He nodded to the floor in front of the stage, where Feyre stood with her arms folded and a sour expression. That wasnât unusual. Feyre was pretty, but she could stand to treat the world less like she was punishing it all for not being her own house, to not treat everybody else like they were beneath her because they werenât her sainted husband.
âWhereâs Rhys?â he asked.
Feyreâs eyes flashed. âWerenât you listening?â
âNo,â said Azriel. Cassian echoed him. Feyre looked beseechingly at Morrigan, who looked like she had been listening but also a bit like she wished she hadnât.
âI canât do anything about it,â Mor said. Azriel frowned at her. She sounded upset. He fought the instinct to get up, to walk over there, to ask her what was wrong and who he needed to beat the shit out of to make her feel better. He fought it and won. He was winning more and more these days. Cassian didnât have the years of emotional baggage he had, though, and he crossed the stage to her side.
âYou donât have to do anything,â he said. âRhys will deal with him.â
So Cassian had been listening. Azriel felt left out. âWhatâs going on?â he asked, addressing Cassian and not Feyre who would just ask him if he was listening again. âI thought we had sound check.â
âAsshole is being an asshole,â Cassian told him. âRhys is up in the office.â
Azrielâs stomach, already knotted since the moment heâd stepped foot in this place, lurched. âWhy?â
Feyre had climbed up onto the low stage and was reading something on her phone. âEris wants more buy-in from the band, or he wonât let you play,â he said. âI told him to go straight to hell and he told me,â she fashioned her fingers into air-quotes, âhe âcouldnât deal with emotional females.â What a fucking incel,â she said, rolling her eyes again. âAnyway, I canât deal with sanctimonious scenesters, so I left Rhys to set him straight.â
Azrielâs ears were ringing, and only a little bit from his chronic tinnitus. Sanctimonious scenester? âHe wants more money because itâs us?â
Cassian swore loudly and at length into the microphone over Morâs keyboard. His words rang through the room, forcing Feyre to swat at his arm.
âOne fucking record,â Mor muttered darkly. Azriel exchanged a tight smile with her. âWe made one fucking record with that label, and theyâll punish us forever for it.â He mouthed the words he wanted to ask, that he wanted to express with the hug he wouldnât give her because sheâd think she was hurting him by hugging him back. Are you okay? âYeah,â she said out loud.
Azriel stood. âIâll go,â he said. âRhys will only make things worse.â
Morrigan actually guffawed at that. âThe second time you met Eris you broke his nose.â
âAnd his ribs,â Cassian nodded.
âThat time was in a mosh pit,â Azriel muttered, setting his sticks down where nobody would slip on them. âIâll be back in a few minutes. Get warmed up.â
âBullshit. He broke Erisâs nose in my apartment,â Morrigan told Feyre, her voice ringing through the still-on mic in answer to an unheard question as Azriel let himself out the backstage door and into the service stairs. He could hear raised voices from halfway up and sighed heavily.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he followed the voices to Erisâs half-open office door. Harsh desk-lamp light spilled out of it and into the black-painted corridor, the stark contrast only doing bad things to Azrielâs mounting sense of trepidation. This place was not the place for this, for facing Eris. He was on the backfoot here and he hated being on the backfoot with Eris. Eris thought nothing of pushing when he had an advantage. When he reached the door, Azriel knocked softly. He stood outside but didnât get an invitation. He doubted heâd been heard. Apart from the raised voices, Cassianâs bass had picked up again. And somebody was sitting at his drums, padding at his bass pedal. Azriel gritted his teeth. He didnât like people touching his stuff.
âYouâll take in at least two hundred more covers tonight because of us, Eris.â
âTwo hundred covers and not a single bar receipt. Have you seen my parking lot, Rhys? Itâs full of teenagers caning cans of Red Stripe. The cops will-â Eris cool, deep voice was cut off by the bleet of a landline and he swore, his vocabulary not unlike Cassianâs. Not for the first time, Azriel thought Eris and Cassian might get along if they didnât fucking hate each other. âHello?â
Azriel took this as his cue and slipped into the office. The desk-lamp was the first thing that he saw, the bulb blowing his retinas to shit so he had to blink the afterglow out before he could make out Rhys, a vague shadow in the corner. Eris was behind the lamp, a cream-coloured handset pressed to his ear. Azriel didnât look at him.
âThey need you for soundcheck,â he said to Rhys.
âIâll be down in a minute,â Rhys said.
âNow,â Azriel said. He put some force into the word, if not some volume. Eris, clearly on the phone to the police, was turned away from them. Rhys looked like he was going to protest but then he took in Azrielâs stance, his unblinking glare. âIâll deal with this,â Azriel promised.
Rhys nodded. He smirked as he patted him on the shoulder. âGive him hell, Az,â he said, âDonât break anything too vital,â and left. Azriel sighed. He had so many responses to that and none he could vocalise. On the other side of his desk, Eris was giving the cops chapter and verse on his indemnity and the security on site, but he turned around when Rhys shut the door behind him, leaving him alone with Azriel. He went very still. So did Azriel.
âYou have a good night,â he said into the receiver, and then he dropped the phone in the cradle in front of him. Cautiously, he got to his feet. Azriel could barely see him. He reached out and moved the lamp, pointing it at the ceiling and leaving him in the shadows with Eris. He could make him out now, lean form wrapped in a skinny t-shirt that looked black in this light but was probably red or green or some other muted colour that would offset his flame-red hair. Even in this light his freckles stood out stark against his milk-pale skin. Azriel couldnât read his expression at all.
âDo you all share a wardrobe?â Eris asked, moving finally, gesturing to Azrielâs black t-shirt, almost identical to Rhysâs but undoubtedly far, far less expensive, and about twice the amount of fabric Cassian was wearing across his expansive chest right now. Admittedly, Morrigan was wearing a shirt sheâd borrowed from him, but Azriel ignored the jibe.
âWhat the fuck are you doing?â he asked.
Eris raised his eyebrows. âIâm trying to run a business,â he said coolly. Whatever momentary unmasking had occurred when heâd turned to find Azriel in his office was gone. He was the venue owner now, the hustler whoâd spent the last half hour arguing with Rhys over what could only be a fraction of what he stood to make tonight, even after the cause took its cut.
âYour business will survive a few hyperactive teenagers whoâll only drink water,â Azriel said. âWhat are you really doing? This is a benefit show. For a cause you actually care about.â He didnât add what was left unspoken there, that Eris cared about precious little else. He cared about The Mountain though. Heâd spent most of his youth there, just like everybody else. Well, except for Azriel. And Cassian. But The Mountain was such a foundational place for their scene, an arts space and venue and youth centre and sometimes shelter, Azriel was just as invested as everybody else in keeping it from demolition.Â
âI care about having the cops on the phone,â Eris said sardonically. He stepped out from behind the desk and settled himself on the edge, arms folded but facing Azriel with a challenge in his green eyes. Azriel couldnât even see his eyes in this light, but they were green. Like the forests in the real mountains, the ones heâd endured before he came here.
âEvery single one of our fans pays a door charge-â
âYour fans,â Eris mocked. âSorry rockstar. I didnât realise I was talking to an idol.â
Azriel sighed. Talking to Eris was like talking to some kind of evil forest creature, one that would talk you into a bog. âWhy are you doing this?â he asked again.
Eris grinned. âBecause I can, Az. What savvy businessman could resist the opportunity to make some purse on the faded jewels of the northern scene? What do you want from me?â He shrugged, spread his arms in a yawn or a shrug, but nothing genuine. His long fingers left spindly shadows on the ceiling like the branches of trees that had lost their leaves.
âWe want to be treated like everybody else,â Azriel said, knowing heâd said the wrong thing as soon as heâd said it.
âEverybody else didnât get a special on CourtFM. Everybody else didnât open for-â
âI wonât apologise for selling records, Eris. We have to make a living somehow.â
Eris pushed off the desk then, squaring up to Azriel. This close Azriel could see the kink in his nose where heâd broken it the night heâd called Morrigan a corporate sellout whore in front of all of her friends. Azriel had only met him once before that, but he hadnât hesitated. Heâd called him out and Eris had taken up the challenge. Neither of them were particularly good at backing down.Â
âYou live so nicely,â Eris said, voice like silk and just as slippery. âSo, whatâs another hundred off your door cut? Pay it forward. Itâs a benefit after all.â
Azriel felt his jaw clench. âA hundred?â
âJust a hundred,â Eris said. âYou pay what everybody else pays, and a little extra on top. Then you can play your shitty sellout trash on my stage.â Erisâs eyes flashed. âMake sure you play the one about the first date. I love that one. So romantic. So radio friendl-â
Azriel caught the front of Erisâs t-shrit and pushed him against the desk. Eris shut up, eyes wide. Maybe he looked a little paler, or maybe that was a bloom of red crawling up his neck, Azriel couldnât tell because heâd locked eyes with him and wasnât looking away.
âA hundred on top of our door take,â he said, âand every penny of it goes to the benefit.â He meant it. Heâd pay it himself if the others refused. Eris had a point; theyâd bring in more people tonight than the other three bands combined. âBut if you tell anybody about that,â he went on, voice dropping so he could barely hear himself over the sounds of Illyria warming up downstairs, âIâll tell everybody youâre creaming cash off the top of a benefit take whether itâs true or not. Iâll your brother youâre robbing the benefit heâs been killing himself to organise. Iâll tell the Terrasen kids, and Hunt and his guys, and theyâll all pull their sets tonight, and weâll do the benefit somewhere else. How does that sound? Do you still think you can take six hundred covers at the door if Tamlin and his acoustic guitar are the only thing you have to offer?â
Eris, to be fair to him, didnât even flinch. âAzriel, please,â he said. âThe extra hundred was always going straight to the benefit. What do you take me for? I even talked it over with Lucien.â Eris smirked and Azriel blinked.
âWhy didnât you tell Rhys that?â he asked through gritted teeth.
âHe didnât ask,â Eris said. âHe assumed the worst. He really doesnât like me.â
Azrielâs knuckles tightened in the shirt. âI donât like you,â he said.
âKeep telling yourself that, Az.â Eris tipped his chin, lips centimetres from Azrielâs. âIf you really believed it, I doubt youâd even be here tonight.âÂ
Azrielâs grip loosened, his hands splaying, and then he was gripping Eris around the waist, crowding him against the desk, forcing him up onto it until he was standing between his legs. This close, the pine and resin scent of his skin was dizzying. Azriel could never work it out, if Eris wore some sort of cologne heâd never encountered before or if this was just Eris, the olfactory upshot of being a sanctimonious environmentalist. Whatever it was, it drove Azriel wild.Â
âPlease,â he said, lips hovering over Erisâs. âPlease shut the fuck up now.â Then he caught his lips in his own, forceful and familiar, a burning intensity behind the kiss that never banked no matter how much they did this, no matter that thereâd been nobody else for Azriel for months now, not since heâd discovered that nothing and nobody else compared. He pushed his tongue against the seam of Erisâs lips and felt them part, felt the tiny moan at the back of the other manâs throat like the vibration of his drums.Â
His drums.
Somebody was playing his fucking drums. And he recognised the beat.Â
He pulled himself off of Erisâs lips. âThat fucking Danaan guy is playing my drums again,â he said. He tried to disengage, but Eris had locked his legs around him. âLet go, babe, I have to go murder somebody.âÂ
Eris, arms around his neck, forced Azriel to face him again, leaned in and purred against his lips. âI love when youâre all fired up like this.âÂ
Azriel almost let himself sink into it. He almost let himself have it, since he wasnât going to get any more tonight. The band would insist on hanging out after the show, probably with the other bands and some of the fans they knew. Rhys and Feyre would have another one of their tedious after parties at their tediously perfect townhouse, and there was maybe a better chance of hell freezing over than that they would ask Eris to come. There was less chance of him turning up of his own accord, and even if he did, then they might have to explain themselves, explain this to everybody else. And there was no explaining this. There was no way any of them could understand.Â
So, this was all Azriel was getting tonight. He gave into it for just one more minute. He gave in to the taste of Erisâs tongue in his mouth, and the silk-smoothness of the skin under his t-shirt, of the hard insistent press of him against Azrielâs leather pants. And then Ruhn Danaan crashed his high hat loud enough to hear through two walls and a stairwell, and Azriel tore himself away from his boyfriend and dove for the door.
âLet me know if you want to see me later,â Eris said, before he could disappear. Azriel let himself look back once. He didnât know how to say it, that he always wanted to see Eris. That he couldnât later, because his friends hated Eris and he couldnât even blame them for it.
âSure,â was all he said instead, and then he ran for the stairs.Â
Chapter 2 on ao3 now: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56976637/
Ok is this giving anyone else major ACOTAR vibes? Like this for Dawn court or if they were darker like navy or black they could be Night court? Oh the absolute beauty of these!!
I feel like Elain is the kind of person who would tell Lucien she'd like to name their daughter Jesminda.
And Lucien is the kind of man who would kiss Elain gently on her lips then tell her that he adores her for the suggestion but their daughter deserves a name that is unique and special to her and her alone.
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