I have an ARC of a power unbound and I just finished it and I just wanted to say I’m obsessed. I was surprised when I heard it was Hawthorn & Alan but when I started reading, it caught me immediately and all I wanna do is devour more of them 😂
I am always intrigued and thrilled by people who were surprised by the pairing (exhibit a: my mother) because I feel like if you weren't expecting the antagonism to explode into romance then I have more work to do to bring you along, which is a fun challenge for a writer.
Omg these are so cute but 10. Wearing each other’s clothes for shadowgast 💕 (bc it sounds hilarious)
Prompt #10: wearing each other’s clothes (x)
A FAIR EXCHANGE (Critical Role, Shadowgast, modern AU, established relationship, 918 words)
Five more minutes, Caleb thought for the fourth time as he snoozed his alarm again.
He always set it earlier than necessary: he liked to take his time, intersperse his mornings with little things he loved, such as reading the news while sipping a coffee or giving his cat scritches.
That morning, the little thing in question mumbled drowsily as Caleb snuck his arm back under the covers and around a sleepy drow’s waist, pulling him closer. “You’re going to be late for class.”
In the milky half-light of the early morning, Caleb nuzzled the back of Essek’s neck. He smelled of lilacs and fondness and home.
“What will your students say?” Essek went on, even as he nestled closer, his hand covering Caleb’s as he intertwined their fingers. Their matching rings pressed somewhat uncomfortably into the skin, but neither of them minded.
Caleb’s breath warmed Essek’s skin as he whispered, “I’ll tell them I lost track of time.”
Close as they were, Caleb felt the subtle vibration of a laugh rather than hearing it. “Nobody would believe you and you know it. Come on, professor Widogast.” He turned in Caleb’s arms, silk nightshirt slipping like water under his husband’s fingers, and before Caleb could reply he wound his arms around his neck and kissed him slowly and thoroughly.
After a first jolt of surprise, Caleb melted into the kiss. After almost a year, one would think that the feeling of bewildered gratitude at the knowledge that this clever, intelligent and handsome man reciprocated his feelings would have subsided, but the wonder hadn’t gone anywhere. And he knew that Essek felt the same, that deep down he didn’t think he deserved this; but, just as he knew the darkness that dwelled in Caleb’s soul and chose to have him still, Caleb had seen him at his worst, taken his hand and helped him climb out of his lowest point.
He growled when sharp fangs grazed his bottom lip, taking him out of his reverie. “This doesn’t encourage me to leave this bed,” he said against well-kissed lips.
“Maybe this will, then.” Before Caleb could stop him, Essek grabbed the covers and pulled them towards himself, leaving Caleb in the cold and prodding him with a foot when he complained. “Go.”
Muttering some half-hearted complaint at his husband’s cruelty, Caleb eventually stretched and stood up, turning off the alarm just as it started to ring again. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have class today.”
A voice emerged from deep under the covers. “The pile of tests I have to grade would beg to differ.”
Caleb turned on the light and padded to the wardrobe. “Yes, but you can do it in your housecoat.”
“Mmm.” There was a short silence as Essek considered the idea for a moment. “Your housecoat. It’s warmer.”
“Stop stealing my… Oh, no.”
The covers shifted as Essek looked on, blinking. “What happened?”
“Someone fell asleep on my last clean shirt.” Caleb stood aside so Essek, propped up on his elbows, could see the cat curled up in their wardrobe.
“How does he keep doing that?” It’s far from the first time they have found Caleb’s cat sleeping in the wardrobe, no matter how well they think they close it; Frumpkin usually prefers curling up on Caleb’s knitwear, but it’s all in the hamper right now (except for the cardigan that Caleb was wearing yesterday, which ended up being tossed carelessly on a chair in their haste to get undressed).
It didn’t matter, anyway: neither of them would ever even entertain the idea of bothering the aging, sleeping animal for such a trivial reason. “I have no idea, but it leaves me with the alternative of going to work in a band t-shirt or a sweatshirt.”
Essek clicked his tongue. “Borrow one of mine.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Caleb looked at the other side of the closet, full of neatly pressed garments in dark shades of blue and purple, and sighed. Even if he was going to wear his old cardigan on top, there was no way his students wouldn’t notice the departure from his usual earth-tone palette.
When he came back to the bedroom after getting dressed, Essek was still in their bed, but he was sitting up against the headboard, reading something on his phone. Caleb allowed his tired heart to be filled with warmth at the thought that Essek felt comfortable sleeping beside him, that he was the only one who ever saw the messy hair and the sleep creases.
He bent to press a kiss on Essek’s cheek and stroke one of his ears with a fingertip as he went to retrieve his cardigan, but he stopped when a delicate hand held him by the wrist.
There was an interesting glint in Essek’s eyes as he studied Caleb’s pick, a simple black shirt with tiny silver buttons. He opened his mouth and closed it, clearly changing his mind about what he was going to say. “You know, I think this should be a fair exchange,” he suggested instead.
Caleb rolled his eyes even as he laughed. “Fine, you can have my house coat.” As if he would ever tell him no. “Please put a wash on today?”
Essek hummed noncommittally as he looked back at his phone, typing the text Caleb would read — blushing helplessly — only by the time he was on the subway: You look good in my clothes. Come back soon so I can take them off you.
Hello!! I’m very curious to hear about the original projects 😊 (if you want)
YES I love talking about my originals and I don’t actually let myself do it enough haha—right now I’ve got Hawksbane which is... about halfway done, and then an untitled sci-fi that I have a bit of that I’m planning to write later this year.
Hawksbane is the fantasy, about a magocracy and three cutthroat mages who end up in hiding together after their golden boy friend’s death during a duel. Lots of magical shenanigans and romance. I was thinking I might rewrite it in second person, but also, reading through it for excerpts, maybe I won’t. Who knows, really. It does need a decent amount of rewriting, though, in any case.
Small excerpt, because I love these assholes:
“You know,” Ari says, and sets the bottle down on the table beside Lylan’s workspace, “you’re a real bastard.”
“Thank you,” Lylan says absently, fixated on his work, the gold held between a pair of pincers, before holding it out to Ari. “Here.”
Ari stares at him, the inscrutable light in his eyes of molten gold, then lets him drop the shaving into his hand.
The moment it hits his skin, it burns to the touch, and he hisses against the pain as he drops it to the table. It smokes slightly before Lylan picks it up, calm as can be, though it has left a small burn mark on the wood of the table, smoldering just a bit before the smoke dissipates, and in the middle of his palm.
“Like you said,” Lylan grins up at him, leaning forward, the gold held quite securely in the pincers once again. “A real bastard.”
I can’t even say “my beloved” for one of them because all of them are my beloved, and the third mage isn’t even present here. (She’s also a delight though.)
The sci-fi is a much larger project which is why it has a lot less done—the heiress of an intergalactic corporation/empire smuggles her father’s human weapon off the planet to get some petty revenge.
They recruit a disgruntled genius scientist who also has beef with the head of the empire and accidentally start a revolution on their way to rescuing the twin brother of said human weapon from the front lines of a war where he’s been sent.
“Perhaps I should kill you here,” Césaire said, and there was something eerie, almost hollow, about her smile—no expression reflected from the matte black of her eyes. “A daughter and a brother are not the same, but perhaps not so different. I do not know. I have no father to compare.”
Sometimes, growing up, Lydia had felt like Césaire was more her father’s daughter than she was, but she didn’t think now was the time to reflect on that particular slight.
“Do you want revenge on Eliot?” she asked, and pulled back a step as Césaire drew closer, no perceptible change to her expression. “How about your brother? Do you want your brother back?”
“I would consume a thousand suns if it brought me my brother,” Césaire replied, and no emotion really found her voice, either. Lydia knew what kind of a tantrum this girl could throw, so she thought that calmness was probably for the best right now.
That’s what I’m working on this year! I’m hoping to have drafts of them both by the end of 2021 but lol who knows if that’ll happen.
Send me a wip title and I’ll tell you a bit about it!
Aw don’t worry Dazai! EVERYONE thinks Chuuya’s pretty and awesome! You’re NOT special for that! ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE wants to kiss Chuuya and make him smile at them and get his attention! YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE! ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER MET FEELS THIS WAY AND THEY ARE ALL THINKING ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME.
Dazai: "It's my payment for the curry!"
Chuuya: "It's half-eaten."
Chuuya: "Oi, I don't want your scraps- OI!"
Chuuya: ".. it'd be a waste to throw food away, though."
@vinvinin
Chuuya: "I'm just glad I had nothing urgent going on today.. mainly just paperwork."
Chuuya: "I hear enough in the texts from the girls Dazai talks to! He really needs to stop giving them my number.."
Chuuya: "They're always waxing poetry about how handsome he is, or how amazing he is.. ugh."
Chuuya: "I hope this doesn't mean he's planning something.."
ok ok I'm eyes fast at this cold war spies au that you've never mentioned!!! BUT I have to ask for a snippet of the antarctica fic because I'm excited about it
But WAIT there's more friends with benefits shadowgast???
(also thanks for tagging me you're too sweet 😊)
Lol you’re right, I haven’t had the time to mention the cold war spies AU because it’s literally less than 24 hours old! I talked about it here, and I posted a snippet of the Antarctica thing here! ♥
Also YOU’VE MET ME, there’s always more fwb shadowgast! :D This one’s a modern AU, mostly just a rambly, stream of consciousness-y thing that won’t probably go anywhere and that I’ve partially used for the professors AU, but here’s a bit I’m actually not unhappy with:
It's late and Caleb can taste the darkness, it spills from the night sky seeping everywhere, in the faulty street lights and the dark cabin of his shitty car, and it feels fresh and invigorating, restful. Protective.
It's not the other kind of darkness, the one that squeezes his chest like a vise and makes it hard to breathe and think.
So many things in his life are complicated. Being with Essek is easy. They haven't been an item for so long to have developed a routine, but they dance easily around each other. Though they are not 'together'-together. They haven't discussed it yet. Discussing isn't what they do, the rare nights they can enjoy each other's company.
Sometimes Caleb still worries that it's all in his head. That Essek would turn towards him with the smile he reserves to the board when they're discussing funding and tell him that there's been a mistake, he never meant to give Caleb the impression that he was interested in him, and he's very sorry Caleb has grown attached.
It doesn't happen. What happens is that Essek looks behind and around them, making sure they’re alone, then leans over and presses his lips on Caleb's, sliding a hand on the back of his neck and the other on his thigh to keep him in place, as if Caleb would dream to go anywhere.
Also paging @mintly who asked the same numbers (thank youuu ♥)
1) What’s your personal favourite thing you wrote this year?
Since there’s a separate question for the most fun thing, I’m going to go with a halcyon day, the short fic I wrote for the Good Omens AU event. I was in a very sad place when I wrote it and I think it shows, but several people, including (repeatedly) my dear, long-suffering friend @pinehutch, have told me it made them (cry and) think about love and mortality and how they inform each other. And, while I think it’s really hard to say something about love and death that hasn’t already been said, they’re also quite existential matters.
