A 🌹 for the wip ask. I would love to see any sentence from a slow horses fic!
using this as an excuse to share this scene i just did for 'drive the wedge' chapter two, where they have to go tell david that frank has river.
It’s the most tempting thing anyone could have said to her just then, because god Louisa does not want to be the person to break this news. She does not want to tell River’s grandfather what’s happened to him, she would rather do anything else. But she forces herself to shake her head. As much as she doesn’t want to do this, she knows that she has to.
It’s River. It’s River, and it’s River’s grandfather, and Lamb hates this man, and this is about to be the worst news the retired old spy has likely ever gotten in his life. It would destroy River to find out that someone had delivered it cruelly. Louisa has to tell him.
She says as much, forces her voice to stay steady as she informs him, “It has to be me.”
Except that Lamb stays just as still and resolute as she does, matching her stubbornness. “I mean it, Guy,” he insists. “Let me tell him. Give me some credit, I’m not gonna… whatever bullshit is making your face do that.” Along with the particular twist to his voice, he twirls his index finger in a circle, indicating her face. She jerks her head back on instinct. “I’m his… This isn’t your news to break. I’m his superior officer, I’m the one who tells the family.”
I’m the one who tells the family, like River is dead. Louisa nearly yells at Lamb for the wording, except that something else just barely edges out the desire. She has an excuse, now. There’s an out in front of her, a reason not to be the one who has to tell River’s only living family that he’s gone — not forever, not dead, but gone, at least for now. It’s not a particularly good excuse, and she would like to say that her loyalty to River will win out over anything else, but if she doesn’t have to be the one to say it… It’s a bad excuse, but she’ll take it. She’ll grab onto it with both hands.
For all else that can be said about him, for all that he’s a bastard who seems to enjoy recreational cruelty, Lamb has always taken his obligation to those who work under him more seriously than anything else. That much, at least, Louisa trusts about him, and that is what makes it okay to nod, not at all confident in the strength of her voice, and step aside.
all of your wips sound amazing! I would love to hear about the stalker frank fic :)
YES YES YES HEHEHEHEHE I AM VERYYYY >:) ABOUT THIS ONE. also tagging @remixedroses and @altschmerzes because you both asked about this one as well <3
so. as a fair warning, i have one episode left of s4 and this concept may perhaps be bungled by whatever happens in the finale. however. i am gonna do whatever i want forever! and also i thiiiiink based on what i know that it could. plausibly work lmao. anyways!
post-s4, things have. settled down, somewhat. a little. but river is... well. he's in a pretty bad place. he went through A Lot during s4, and the consequences of enduring that level of trauma, especially over such a contracted period of time, don't just. go away. so he's been struggling with not sleeping, with panic attacks, with feeling very scattered and not a part of himself or his life, with this sense of disconnection and fear. it's just. it's A LOT.
and then, one night, he gets home and is pretty sure that somebody's been inside while he was out. it's nothing... nothing obvious, nothing he can really get worked up about without seeming crazy and paranoid, but. something's off. like somebody wanted him to know they were here. but river is river and he's not going to kick up a fuss about something that's probably nothing, so he shrugs and tries to move on with his life. except. except. that may be the first time, but it's certainly not the last. it keeps happening. someone keeps entering his house and leaving behind little hints that they were there but he can never catch them. and then, suddenly, he starts getting the sense that he's being followed. on his way to slough house, on his way home, when he's going to the grocery store.... someone is Watching Him and he can't figure out who.
(he thinks frank, but immediately dismisses it. the man wouldn't come after him again so soon, would he? would he?)
(spoiler: he would.)
essentially, frank is just. trying to completely and utterly break river down until he's paranoid and out of his mind with fear, just. haunting him, perpetually. and river doesn't want to tell anyone, because he doesn't want to be any trouble, and it's probably nothing, and also he just caused everybody an immense level of grief what with all of the les arbres nonsense so. so he can handle this. it's fine.
what everybody else at slough house see: a river approximately one stiff breeze away from shattering into pieces. a river who needs their help.
so. frank's stalking continues to ramp up and up and up, and eventually culminates in him actually like. revealing himself. and telling river, point-blank, that unless he leaves his life behind and joins him, this will never end. he will live in fear for the rest of his days. and not just him, either. he can get to anyone. catherine, shirley, roddy. lamb. louisa. you understand, don't you, river? my boys aren't fucking cowards. they don't let other people take their punches.
and OF COURSE i must mention that like. there is a happy ending. slough house does eventually find out and they do help river and he gets lots and lots of hugs. but the road to get there is... a tad rough. hehehehehe >:))))
2. What’s something new you tried in a fic this year? ooh this one was difficult to think of, but I’ll say the emeto trope—I’ve included it in fics before, but never as like the centerpiece of the whump like I did in seasick (slow horses), so that was a fun new one!!
17. Share your favorite opening line. I think I’ll go with this one, from peroxide (tmfu): “They’re about thirty minutes into trudging through a swamp somewhere in central Canada when Illya says, quite conversationally and apropos of nothing, “I think I was injured. In escape.””
30. What would you like to write next year? I have a couple ideas for fics based on the slough house books which I’m hoping to write! I’d also like to write a little more consistently (aka not Just during whumptober) but we’ll see how that one goes…
Hi, thanks for the ask! This one's from my Shmi Lives AU.
“Mom?” His voice was very nearly as hoarse as hers, and just as quiet. It was like a whispered prayer, secret and precious and full of hope and fear in equal measure. Too many emotions to name swam in his too wide eyes, relief and pain all tangled together in him just as it was in her, and once again, all she could see in this strange young man was the little boy she had borne into the harsh sands of Tatooine, and who knew of its cruel kindness as well and as intimately as any child of the desert.
for every “🌹” received in my inbox i’ll post one random sentence of a random WIP i’m currently writing
Basically, Anakin is found to be Force Sensitive much younger and taken from Shmi and this actually causes something in Shmi to snap.
All she can hear is Anakin screaming, Anakin crying as he's taken away. She feels him fading -- like an ache in her very soul. A stretch and a snap and he's gone. She her silent cries -- learned at the knees of women that were not her mother, the waterless tears of a slave -- transform into screams. They echo in the halls. Shockwaves -- ripples -- pushing everyone away. She can't feel her son anymore. Her sun.
It's all she can think about -- getting him back.
Wind and sand whip around her as she reaches. She doesn't know toward what. She's never felt this way before. Fingers spark and blaze but no one around her is harmed. No slave is harmed. Only the Masters.
She blazes in the night. Seeking, searching. Slaying all the Masters that get in the way. She topples stone and turns sand to glass. Her Children walk around her, wielding weapons wrought from their chains and picked from the belts of their fallen Masters.
Together they raze Mos Espa.
Turning over every grain of sand and every brick, seeking the Sun but he cannot be found.
The next night, Mos Eisley.
One by one the cities fall in the search. In the fight. To Freedom.
And there is still no sign of the Lost Sun.
Eventual Fix-It and reunification.
Stressed™ Obi-Wan.
Tatooine Revolutions.
All in a non-chronological series because that’s what I do best.
Mace/Jar Jar? (There are some good fics about them out there lol)
Macenjar: Ship It
What made you ship it?
Don’t cite the deep magic at me, I was there when it was written- jokes aside, I really was there for the ship to be born and I 100% support it in its wonderful glory.
What are your favorite things about the ship?
How absolute crack the premise is and YET it works out. 10/10
Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?
Not enough people ship it so there’s no unpopular opinion to be had :D
“Curious.” The holo of Plo Koon looked at them thoughtfully, but Anakin thought he heard a barely contained amusement in his voice. “Why is it, when something like this happens, it's always you two?”
“Believe me, Master, I've been asking myself the exact same thing for the past thirteen years,” Obi-Wan answered dryly.
It’s from a multichapter wip, trying to finish writing some more chapters before posting :)
Edit: I KNOW it's just supposed to be ONE sentence ONLY but like... shhh I wanted to post more okay hehe
omg im absolutely obsessed with the way river is so unsure if lamb is serious or not in the last drive the wedge ask. would you be willing to share another snippet with lamb or maybe frank?
THANK YOU it's one of the things that makes me the most bonkers about this lmao is the like. the association that happens in river's mind post-rescue with frank and lamb and how it casts so much... doubt on lamb sometimes, even beyond lamb already being a cantankerous asshole. it's like he thinks in that clip - lamb has never been violent to him before but things just feel so much less certain now. how can be trust that he won't be? it's so fun to me.
as thanks for asking and also an apology for taking a couple days to answer, have TWO clips, one with lamb and one with frank :)
this is um. well. snippet. clip. this is a.......... rather long piece from river's time in captivity sldfjs and then down under that ive got a clip from after his return, from the same conversation the last clip with lamb is from. this is. well it's frank, so content warning for. frank. and generally just. violence/trauma.
drive the wedge, frank:
Frank is looking at him. His eyes are hard and cold and they don’t waver for a moment. They bore into River’s with enough intensity that it nearly makes River flinch backwards just to see them. He just barely manages to stifle the instinct — it’s a close enough call that his hand, the one gripping the arm of the chair, flexes and the chain of the cuff around his wrist rattles.
“I asked if you were allergic to anything,” Frank says, slow and clipped. “If I’m going to be feeding you for the foreseeable future, then I need to know if I’m going to kill you with what I’m putting in front of you, River. Are you. Allergic. To anything?”
There’s a dangerous tone to the question and River knows that he isn’t going to be allowed to get away with not answering it. Still, the words stick in his constricted throat and his mind practically makes an audible sound as it whirs, trying to figure out how to parse what Frank said. I need to know if I’m going to kill you with what I’m putting in front of you. That wasn’t I need to make sure I won’t kill you. Everything about River’s life, including its very continued existence, has grown very precarious these days, and it makes the need to consider whether that was meant as a threat a very pressing one.
Maybe it was a threat, maybe it wasn’t. Does he tell the truth? The debate wars on in his head, seconds ticking away at a glacial pace, all the while River is acutely aware of the strict, violent man staring at him and waiting for an answer. His body aches in steady pulses, injuries layered over one another reminding him of the consequences if he crosses wherever Frank has drawn the arbitrary line of disobedience and disrespect today.
Instinct tells him that Frank is about to speak again before the words actually leave his mouth — maybe it’s something about the pattern of his breathing or how his face shifts, but River knows that it’s coming just in time to force out an answer before he’s asked a third time and made to pay for it.
“Yes,” he says, too loud. A wince makes the bruises creeping up his jaw and splashed across his cheekbone, blacking one of his eyes, throb. It was a mistake, the way he said it. River knows that it sounded afraid, and it is always a mistake to let these fucking people see his fear.
“Yes what?”
The second question is even worse than the first had been. River hadn’t wanted to tell them whether or not he was allergic to anything, and he wants even less to give the answer that he knows is expected to this one. It’s not even so much a question as it is a demand, a reminder that he knows what he is expected to do and that it is in his best interests to comply.
River doesn’t want to fucking comply. He stares down at the surface of the table, at the partially-cleared plate he doesn’t think he can bring himself to touch again, and remains silent. His teeth grind together and his bruised jaw aches.
Out of the corner of his eye, River catches the movement a second before fingers seize hold of his hair. Pain lights up in his scalp, sharp and loud, and he barely bites back a yelp as Frank wrenches his head over, forcing eye contact. River’s eyes water and his face hurts and he just— He can’t do this. He just can’t. More than anything, more than keeping his dignity intact, more than preserving his pride, more than standing up to this monster, River just does not want to be fucking hit again. It’s happened so many times and his entire body is begging for relief, crying out for just a little bit more time without another bruise beat into his skin.
“Father,” River yelps, quick and obedient, when the grip on his hair flexes and Frank's other hand begins to lift. He’s exhausted and he hates himself more than he could possibly describe but he does what he is expected to do, repeats, “Yes, father.”
Calmly, almost casually, Frank’s fingers release their iron grip on his hair. His hand doesn’t retreat right away, though. Instead it lingers, coming down to settle lightly, gently on River’s bruised cheek and then give it a tiny pat. It doesn’t hurt at all and River flinches.
“That’s my boy,” Frank says, satisfaction so thick in his voice that River wishes he would choke on it. His hand leaves then, finally pulling away and returning to pick up a fork as if nothing has changed. As if he’s still just discussing errands at a Wednesday night dinner with his sons.
---
and now lamb:
“I said sit,” Lamb repeats, once he’s settled. His voice is firm and commanding but not angry, and River— River almost flinches.
The factors ping around the inside of River’s head, the hamster running frantically on some shitty squeaky wheel in there trying to do the desperate math and figure out what’s going to happen. He feels like he knows, but he can’t… There’s something keeping that hamster on that fucking wheel, counting things up and trying to piece them together.
Voice not angry. Expression not glaring, still just that terrible oh, I see look. Lamb is sitting down and River is still standing and there’s a desk between them and there’s no extension cord or belt in sight. And still — What do you suggest? All morning, all day, River has been a fucking terror. Something else, too, something that superimposes Frank over Lamb sometimes when River can’t quite pry them apart.
There’s an audible sigh and River just barely manages for a second time to suppress a flinch. “Look, alright, what you’re feeling right now? It is not about what’s happening here,” Lamb says, and his voice keeps that steady tone that brooks no argument but also seems to levy no threat. “Some part of you has gone back there. I need you to hear and understand that I am not Frank Harkness, and so you and me are going to sit down and you’re going to come back to here before we talk any more about your assignment today.”
