I think this is my first Oxventure In The Dark Wip Wednesday, that's exciting
As usual, plain text under the cut
In a much lighter and well-kept mansion, a woman with snakes for hair slams a door shut with a shout. The snakes hiss as they twist around each other while their owner pinches the bridge of their nose, praying that her body doesn't make today even worse with the addition of a migraine. However, the fates must have a spur of the moment pang of pity as instead of a migraine, the next thing that hits her senses is a posh voice tinged with concern as he asks "Lily? Are you alright, my dear?".
She blinks her eyes open, letting them fix on the elegant, and rather tall, form in front of her, her fiancé. "No," Lilith sighs, "I loathe people.".
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Oxventure (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lilith Cappellanaga/Barnaby Fortescue III
Characters: Lilith Cappellanaga, Barnaby Fortescue III
Additional Tags: Many tiny snakes, Ghostly Japes, AU - Beginning during Ironhook's Bounty
Summary:
Set during Ironhook's Bounty.
How the party could've gone differently if Lilith hadn't managed to keep her coat.
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Hey look we’re no longer out of fanfic again! Funny how that happens
AN: This is based off of the art @randomthunk kindly created for me. :) It’s also a gift for one of my best friends and my only beta, The Historian. We had the idea that the upper class in the Blades in the Dark setting communicate via flowers . . . and then this plot bunny was formed. I hope you all enjoy!
1– Sida Fallax
It started simply enough. After her second visit to Eleanor’s Largely Legal Antiques, and her first experience stealing an anchor, Lilith had made her way back to her apartment to work on what she needed for her thesis. As she walked, she let her mind wander– to Flynt (poor man, what could have happened to him), to the gravity of what they had just done (she was in deep this time), and to her erstwhile partner in crime (none other than Barnaby Fortescue III). It was that last topic that she found herself coming back to time and time again.
Barnaby was far from her first experience with noble men– even with noble men of Volisport (she had experienced a lovely ball with some family friends)-- but there was something different about him. Yes, on the surface, he seemed to be just your typical rake– dime and dozen, a grouping of people that Lilith herself had run into countless times in her old life. But she’d yet to meet a rake who committed himself to something quite as hard as Barnaby had committed to a life of crime. And she couldn’t help but wonder about the man beneath the façade.
Lost in her musings, she barely noticed herself climbing the stairs up to her apartment. It wasn’t until she had pulled off her bag and a small, unnoticed, pink flower fell to the floor that she found herself brought out of her musings. Picking it up and smelling it, she smiled.
The language of flowers had been drilled into her time and time again growing up, and it would take more than a few months to forget what it meant.
The past few days had been full of new experiences, but thanks to Barnaby, she suddenly felt less far from home.
Hyacinthoides Non-Scripta
Lilith watched with held breath as Kas and Edvard placed Barnaby none-too-gently down in a chair. He looked bad– worse than anyone else she had seen. Although he was breathing and unbloodied, he was still– almost too still.
“We need to get him cleaned up,” Zillah said suddenly, taking charge. “Lilith, you go grab some water and some clean rags. Edvard and Kas, we need to get him out of those clothes into something looser.”
Ducking her head to hide the sudden movement of her hair at the thought of them changing Barnaby, Lilith ducked out of the room. The hallway blurred together as she rushed into the room that Kas had been using as a kitchen (it still smelled like fish) and started boiling some water while getting clean rags.
Then she found herself forced to stop and rest for the first time since they had found that Barnaby had been taken. And soon she felt the tears coming– not just from the near death experience of being eaten by a demon dog, but also from the worry that she had felt upon discovering that he was gone.
Lilith didn’t know how long she stood there, clutching a towel and tearing up, but a noise in the hallway caused her to startle.
“Lilith? Is everything okay?” Zillah’s voice echoed through the hallway and Lilith hurriedly wiped at her eyes.
“I’m fine,” she turned off the stove and started dumping the water into a cooler bowl. “The water just took a while to heat up.”
Footsteps rounded the corner and stopped. Lilith busily set to preparing the tray she had grabbed– boiled water, clean cloths, towels, and hurriedly turned around. “Okay, I’m ready to go,” she said, brushing past Zillah quickly and marching determinedly to the door.
Luckily, Barnaby was already dressed when they walked in, and they were quickly able to get him settled. Lilith found herself running scan after scan on him, but found no signs of ghosts anywhere– whatever the sisters had done to him, it didn’t appear to be supernatural in nature.
The next day when Barnaby woke up (he had a rotten hangover, and really, what was he thinking of, sleeping here when he had plenty of cozy beds at home), he found some Carpenter’s Square on the table next to him– easily the classiest thing about that place.
Lilith arrived home to some bluebells being delivered to her apartment the next day (she definitely didn’t smile upon receiving them).
Alacia
After that, flowers were exchanged on a regular basis.
After their big con with the Dimmer sisters? Barnaby found a bouquet of ‘excitement, success, friendship’ delivered to his house.
Lilith was stepping out into society? She received ‘devotion, encouragement, joy’.
Lilith was actually at the party where she stepped out into society? She was greeted by the sight of Barnaby in a nice suit, with a flower through his lapel that said “I’m here for you, in whatever way you want.” (That way turned out to be dancing several of the dances of the night in his arms.)
If she was honest, Lilith found the whole thing to be comforting, in a way. In a world where she could be called upon to commit more and more outrageous crimes at the drop of a hat, it helped to have something to look forward to– and this really helped on their most recent outing.
Eleanor had tasked the crew with tracking down a mace that was rumored to have mystical powers. Luckily for them, a local politician had recently acquired the mace at an auction. Unluckily for them, said mace was being stored in the security basement of his house.
It had all started out so well for them– Barnaby had gotten himself and Edvard in the door (Edvard was disguised as his servant). The two of them were able to get a back door open for the remaining three, and they had snuck in the house and down into the basement.
It was at this point that things went wrong.
It turned out that as part of ‘security,’ the politicians had included security guards. Security guards who packed a punch. Zillah and Kas had managed to hold their own (although Zillah was nursing some bruised ribs and Kas had a black eye), but Lilith was more used to dealing with incorporeal combatants.
The first guard had surprised her, right on the head. And if Zillah hadn’t stopped him in the moment, it would have been much worse.
When Lilith opened her eyes, she was aware of two things. The first was the blinding pain shooting through her head down to her entire body and back up again. The other was the familiar figure in the chair next to her.
“Zillah,” she mumbled as loudly as she could, and was grateful when the sleeping form jerked away. “You okay?”
“I should be asking you that!” Zillah said. “You gave us all a fright– I don’t know which of us was more beside ourselves!”
She winced. “Sorry.”
“Yeah well you will be. I don’t know if the boys will let you out of their sight again.”
Lilith made a face and looked away. As she did so, a plant with yellow flowers caught her eye.
“That showed up in the night,” Zillah spoke up. “We don’t know who dropped it off, but we thought it might make you smile when you woke up.”
Feeling her cheeks heat up, Lilith found herself unable to keep her gaze away from the flowers. “Well you were right,” she said softly, “Thanks for leaving them here.”
As soon as she got out of the hospital, she was sending Barnaby a plant herself– and this time, she wouldn’t leave any words out.
Bouquet
Silence was a gift that Lilith had long treasured, but one she had been reminded the value of ever since moving into Eleanor’s townhouse. Yes, it was nice not to have to worry about her room and board. However, she was unsure if a townhouse that always smelled of fish and sounded of explosions (both literal and figurative) was really much of an improvement.
Oh, and it was also covered in flowers. Whether they were positive– eternal love, devotion, desire– or negative– go away, leave her alone, I said ‘GO AWAY’-- flowers had become a common sight around the house.
That said, when Lilith walked into the house and heard nothing, she almost considered leaving immediately. But months spent facing down hard criminals, creepy criminals, and the law prodded her to continue into the house.
And she was glad she did. Lining the hallway were flowers– ones without conflicting meanings. They all proclaimed love, desire, and cherishment. Beautiful shades of red, purple, white, and yellow guided Lilith into the Exposition Room– one which was lit solely by the light of the fire.
Lilith blinked, hearing the door closed and able to just make out a tall figure she knew well in the front of the fireplace.
“Barnaby?” A pause. “What’s going on?”
“Lilith, darling! A pleasure to see you here today!.”
“You as well, Barnaby.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask you this question for a while,” He continued as she stepped closer. “But I wasn’t sure how– I hope the flowers help?”
“I think,” she said, meeting him in the middle of the room, “I need to hear it from you.”
“Rightly so,” he smiled. “Lilith, light of my life, I love you. I can’t imagine my life without you. I know I am not what you pictured, but I like to think that I can make this worth it.” A pause, and he dropped down to one knee. “Lilith, darling, will you marry me?”
Running into him fast enough to make him lose balance, Lilith hugged him. “Yes!” She said. “Yes, please, Barnaby!”
“No please,” he wiped a tear off her cheek and pulled her into his arms. “Oh!” He said. “I almost forgot.”
Turning her around, he wrapped his arms around her and guided her over to a table. A table with a beautiful bouquet (one specially chosen to say all of the things that he couldn’t say). “This is for you,” he murmured in her ear. “Do you like it?”
Taking the bouquet with a smile, Lilith leaned back into him. “I love it,” She said, feeling the warmth of the fire on her face and his body against her back.
Summary: “Professor Cappellanaga,” the Provost says, “may I introduce you to Baron Fortescue?”
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The ghostly japes fic is here!!!! and it is some of my BEST work and inexplicably 11.5k, when I was so sure it would be like, 7 tops, but this really got away from me, which is a lot for a pairing I didn't consider plausible until a few weeks ago. God this series, it continues to make me feel too many things.
It is part of the wider "watch me" series, but only really the previous story, (watch me) keep it together, is important, but you should get the gist without it.
Please leave me a comment if you enjoy it, I really, really love this piece and am so emotionally wrung out from it I'm not above begging.
