happy wip wednesday here's a snippet of one of my fics for xnlw midwinter >:D
“This doesn’t seem much like king’s work,” Laslow says to Xander as he scribbles down the number of oat bags they’ve got sitting in a dusty corner, glancing up between his entries.
And Xander barely gives Laslow his attention, not even turning back as he works. “You’d prefer to do this alone?”
“No,” Laslow says, “I don’t want to do it, period.” If he doesn’t get a very warm bath after this, he’s going to throw a fit. His toes are so cold, he worried for the sanctity of their place on his feet.
“Fourteen barrels of wheat,” Xander replies plainly, and then as Laslow begrudgingly writes, “You’ve gotten bolder in your complaining, recently.”
Laslow ignores the comment. “They’ll think you don’t trust them, you know,” he says, and he means that. He’s certainly trying to get out of this chilly work, but he’s got good reason to. “The guards, the merchants. You don’t have to do it all yourself, asking goes a long way.”
Which makes Xander finally turn and face Laslow, an eyebrow quirked up and his arms folded deeply into him. “Was it not you who wanted me to do my work here?”
Feeling a little caught, Laslow grins, biting his bottom lip. “Wise to my tricks?” He wasn’t really all that subtle about the fort, but sometimes Xander gives him what he wants when he’s persistent about it. “Well, yes. But I thought the problem we’d be solving was communication and trying to rectify the dissonance, rather than freezing in a storage center while my fingers turn blue.”
Laslow wiggles his gloved fingers—which are blue, and that’s the joke—at Xander, and he shakes his head, finally letting a smile give way.
