Hello everyone! Sorry for the late post. I got some questions about whether we were doing it this year, well here we are! Here are our prompts! All forms of media are welcome for the week (Ex: Fanfic, fanart, aesthetics, playlists, HCs, etc.), we're just happy to see people celebrate Grace and Christopher. This year we're going to try prompts instead of different forms of content like we did the last two (2022), (2023) years. Please tag your posts #gracetopherweek 2024 and or #gracetopherweek. Here are the prompts!
Day 1: Free Day
As an apology for not posting the prompts pretty late and not giving everyone a lot of time to prepare. Have an open first day to get started <3
(Feel free to use prompts during this day, though.)
Day 2: Christopher Lives
I think we all know he deserved better. This week we're pretending he and Grace lived happily ever after post CoT.
Day 3: Teaching/Learning
Doesn't necessarily have to be a skill of any kind, they could also just be learning different things from one another, whether it's general knowledge or character growth of some kind.
Day 4: Night ________
Sort of a fill in the blank prompt. Some examples: Night patrol, nightmare/night terror, night time, night out, etc.
Day 5: First
They didn't get enough moments together. Give them some classics! First dance, first kiss, first date, first "I love you". If you're a smut writer you know what I'm going to say. Be creative! Lots of relationships have firsts, including friendships, which gracetopher has a great foundation for (you could say they have chemistry). Have fun with this one!
Day 6: Grief
Doesn't have to be Christopher, just to clarify. This can be interpreted as a hurt/comfort prompt as well. Be as angsty or un-angsty(?) as you want. Have fun!
Day 7: New Beginnings
After Chain of Thorns, there's so much opportunity for these two. There are so many ways they could have had a future together. They're both obviously quite new to relationships too, so don't be afraid to make that part of this prompt too. Moving in together, making a discovery of some sort, creating their first invention, or even getting married, etc. are some examples for this prompt if you're confused. Have fun!
Please tag us @gracetopher-week in your posts so we can reblog them here! And don't forget to tag #gracetopherweek 2024 and #gracetopherweek! All forms of content are allowed. We're so excited to see what you make. Feel free to leave any questions or comments in our ask box. See you all again on the tenth!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Written for @gracetopher-week Day 4: Night.
“Here,” Kit said, handing a star-shaped earbob off to Grace. “It fell as you were ascending the ladder.”
“Oh. I did not notice.”
“Quite alright,” Christopher said. “Angel, I am glad that Shadowhunters do not exchange rings. We would both lose ours in a heartbeat.”
“We would, at that,” Grace said. “But it is of no consequence now. We have the stars at our fingertips!”
“That is true.” Kit smiled, his lavender eyes alight. “Do you wish to go first?”
“It would be chivalrous of you to allow me the first glimpse,” Grace teased.
-
Or, Grace and Christopher travel to California to experience stars at the newly-opened Mount Wilson Observatory.
tsc taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @staywildefairchild @sourlemons262 @belle-keys @drunkonimagination @alastaircarstairsismybff @vwritesaus @claritywithclary @luciehercndale @what-ho-christopher-put-in @life-through-the-eyes-of @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @bluewrite @lulusofis @oursoulstheyplay @tessherongraystairs @athearaej @faithfromanewperspective @vwritesaus @imabitchforjemcarstairs @emmalovesfitzloved @daisymydaisycarstairs @fangirlghost-19 @angeldaisies @celias @hanelizabeth @fangirlghost-19 @tiredandoptimistic
Hello :) I wasn't sure I would make it for this event, but then I remembered about this draft and saw it fit some of the prompts, so I tried to finish writing it before the GC week would end.
@gracetopher-week Day 5: First
Grace and Christopher have their first date at the theatre.
Words: 881
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I've never really written for TSC or TLH, but after how strongly Chain of Thorns hit me, when I heard there was a Gracetopher week going on I couldn't really resist doing something for it. I kinda wrote this in a rush over the past few days - apologies for any errors! It's also a kind of dual submission for yesterday's prompts and today's. Partially because I didn't have it done yesterday (whoops!).
Anyway! Hope you enjoy. 😊
<><><>
When all is said and done, Christopher comes back to them.
After Belial disappeared into the heavens in a swirl of bright light, after Lilith was cast out, there was a moment of stillness in the abbey, and outside. It felt as though time was suspended, being held in place. Grace didn’t understand it, until she heard an ethereal voice in her head. Like the Silent Brothers, but… different.
What do you desire?
Afterwards, when trying to describe this moment to others, no one was really able to articulate how they understood what was happening. Only that they knew, deep down, they were being granted a very special, nearly impossible gift. It seemed the only ones truly aware of this phenomenon were their core group, scattered though they were.
Grace only had one thought. And she was certain she wasn’t the only one to think it; Anna, Thomas, James, they all recounted their own experience in a hushed sort of voice that spoke of hardly daring to hope. No one said what they’d wished for, but it was clear nevertheless.
Christopher.
The moment came to an end. The sky returned to normal, the sounds of the city and the aftermath of a battle returned. The doors to Westminster Abbey were thrown open, and the members of the Clave rushed in with a distressed clamor.
Grace exchanged dazed looks with Lucie. Jesse came over and touched her shoulder; there was a moment where he hesitated, and Grace didn’t know what to make of it.
They were swiftly bundled up by parents and aunts and uncles and brought back to the Institute. James especially was transported with care, Cordelia’s hand firmly clasped in his and Matthew trailing resolutely behind. It made Grace’s chest twinge.
Now, back in a packed Institute, Grace stands alone. Some of her friends – can she really call them friends, she wonders? Now that they are no longer bound by a bigger fight? – like Ari and Lucie take some steps toward her, but they’re intercepted by adults eager to check on them and ask a million questions. Jesse is in a cluster with Thomas, Alastair, and Thomas’ parents. Grace knows Gideon and Sophie are Jesse’s family. Technically, they should be hers too, but she has a feeling they won’t see it that way. And truthfully, the Blackthorn name hasn’t hung right on her for a long time now.
Feeling out of place and uncomfortable, Grace slips away. She has no idea where she’ll go now; with James’ parents back and likely to learn the truth of what she did to him, they probably won’t want her to stay at the Institute. Jesse might attempt to vouch for her, but she couldn’t say she was especially confident in that these days, no matter how well they worked together while London was under Belial’s control.
Until she’s kicked out, though, she has a room she can escape to. The raucous bustle of everyone downstairs gets quieter with each step she takes, though there’s a moment when the volume seems to pitch even higher, Shadowhunters yelling and crying out. It catches her, makes her freeze in place until she realizes they are sounds of joy rather than fear or pain. It truly is over this time, it seems.
Grace shuts her door firmly behind herself and leans back against it. There’s an emptiness in her chest that, while she’s always felt its existence, is sharper now. More prominent. She supposes it doesn’t take a genius to see why.
The war is over. Good prevailed over evil, and now the rebuilding can begin. But while others might see hope in the future, Grace still sees shadows that have yet to solidify into anything real. Her mother – as much of a mother as Tatiana was – is gone. She has no other family save Jesse, and he’s already made more headway in building a proper life for himself than she has. She’s barely had any training, most of the Enclave hates her, and the one true friend she seemed to gain, the one person who practically offered her a future, is dead.
A sob bubbles up in Grace’s chest at the thought of Christopher. She presses her shaking hand to her mouth, trying and failing to suppress it.
“Ave atque vale, Christopher,” she whispers to herself. She barely knows the Shadowhunter traditions, but she knows that much. And she knows he was robbed of the chance to be properly mourned, what with everything else that had been going on. He deserved so much more than he had been given.
Sometime later, after Grace moved to her bed, a knock on the door makes her sit up. She expects it’s Jesse, come to check on her and possibly offer some food. He’d been very vigilant at getting her to eat when she was working on the fire messages, and that habit likely isn’t going to go away.
She stands on unsteady feet and crosses to the door. When she opens it, though, she’s met with lavender eyes instead of green.
Christopher offers her a bright, crooked grin. “Hullo, Grace.”
Grace thinks that if she hadn’t grown up in a literal house of nightmares, she might scream. Because while Christopher isn’t a nightmare – could never be that – it isn’t right for him to be standing there before her. And she checks – he is standing, and not floating like a ghost. He looks as solid as ever, as solid as Grace herself.
(She checks that too, glancing at her hands and down at her torn, stained dress.)
“You’re -” she says, and stops. Her eyes are filling with tears, and her breaths come in rapid pants. It seems her body has caught up with what her mind cannot process, not yet.
Christopher seems unbothered by her inability to speak, though somewhat alarmed by the sudden appearance of tears. “I know it’s a shock,” he says. “I think I gave everyone the worst fright downstairs when I walked in. Anna held me so tight she might’ve bruised my ribs, and Tom nearly fainted. I know that I went away for a while, but I must say, I didn’t really expect that kind of reception upon my –”
Grace cuts him off by throwing her arms around him and pressing her face to his neck. Christopher sputters a moment in surprise before quieting and pulling her close, arms snug around her waist.
“I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “Jesse warned me that you might be startled by my appearance, but – I wanted to see you.”
Grace only hugs him tighter. A thousand emotions are racing through her right now: Disbelief, joy, grief. It is hard to reconcile the memory of his death, still so fresh, with him standing before her, once again flesh and blood.
“Are,” Christopher tentatively says. “Are you going to say anything?”
Grace takes a deep breath and pulls back only enough to properly look at him. At his spectacles, already sitting crooked on his nose, and his surprisingly delicate features.
“I missed you more than I can say,” she confesses.
Christopher smiles then, and Grace thinks she’s never seen anything quite so beautiful.
“I missed you too,” he says. “I think. It’s hard to say what happened after – well.”
Grace knows this isn’t the end of it all. Regardless of how he is now, Christopher died, and that can’t be easy for someone to come to terms with. Even now, with a sweet smile on his face, she senses some unease within him.
But that’s when Grace makes a vow to herself. As long as he wants her around, she silently vows to help him get through whatever demons he now faces (this includes the literal ones, she decides; Jesse can start her training again). He won’t have to face anything alone.
“Christopher?”
He hasn’t let go of her yet, and vice versa. She won’t be the first to pull away, propriety be damned.
“Yes, Grace?”
“If I offered my services to your lab, as a partner of sorts, what would you say?”
For a moment, that unease fades in Christopher as he lights up, his eyes shining with happiness.
Notes: Finished it just in time for the last day of gracetopher week! This isn’t canon compliant at all, and I have no idea how vampires work
—
When Christopher woke up after he died, he was thirsty. It was unlike any kind of thirst he had known in his life prior, and he knew he had to sate it as soon as possible.
He groaned as he pushed himself into an upright position and off the bed, nearly falling over when he did. The world spun under his feet and grayed at the edges, and he took a moment to steady himself against the bedside table, squeezing his eyes shut.
When he had recovered, Christopher stepped towards the door, crossing in front of the window as he did so. As soon as the first ray of sunshine hit his skin, he yelped in pain and slinked back into the shadows of the small room. He held up his hand to see the blisters that had blossomed on the portion of skin that had been exposed to the light.
What in the angel’s name had happened to him?
Well, logically, he could put the pieces together in his mind, but what he failed to figure out was how such a thing had happened. And, quite honestly, he didn’t know what to do now.
Normally, one in his position was to turn to another of his kind for help. But, since all the downworlders were frozen in place—all but him, notably— that course of action was impossible.
A silent brother could help him, Christopher thought, before he remembered that they were all in Idris, and surely he couldn’t go there anymore.
So he did the only thing he could do: he waited until nightfall, hoping nobody would see him lurking around in the institute, and as soon as the sun dipped behind the horizon, Christopher snuck out and rushed to the lab at his aunt Charlotte’s house.
He arrived in record time, and he was halfway down the cobblestone stairs when he heard a soft voice echo off of the walls, unmistakable to his keen ears.
“…and I only wish I could have told you—that I care about you, Christopher. And I did not think that kind of feeling to be real. I thought it was a conceit of novels and plays, that one could… could want the happiness of another beyond even their own, beyond anything else. I wish I had understood it more when you were… when you were still alive.”
It was the kind of thing that normally would have made his heart seize, and it made him acutely aware that his heart wasn’t beating at all. He wasn’t breathing, either. How had he not realized until now?
“So if you are here,” said Grace, breaking him from his thoughts, “please. I’m so close, with the fire-messages. I’ve gone beyond where you were, but I haven’t found the solution yet. I need your help. The world needs your help. Please.”
He rushed down the remaining stairs and closed the distance between them, lightly putting a hand on her shoulder. “Grace,” he said, wincing at how hoarse his voice was.
He heard her breath catch as she turned around, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “Christopher? How are you—“
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, offering her what he hoped to be a comforting grin. “You invented ever-burning Valium, Grace! Well done!”
She nodded, but her delicate features were twisted in some sort of unpleasant emotion that Christopher couldn’t quite place. She was staring at his mouth, he realized, and he became painstakingly aware of the sharp fangs that had protruded from his teeth.
He closed his mouth at once, but her gaze never faltered from him. “A vampire,” she muttered. “How curious.”
Christopher forced himself to turn away from her and towards the desk. “So. The fire messages.”
Grace cleared her throat, seemingly broken from her reverie. “Yes. Do you have any ideas?”
“Do you?”
“Well, you’re the scientist, aren’t you?”
“And you think that you aren’t?” He made a sweeping gesture in the direction of all of the scattered papers. “Look at what you’ve accomplished, Grace. You have gotten so much farther than I ever could. You only need to believe that you can solve it. And you can. You are a natural scientist, and a solver of puzzles. All you have to do is silence the voice in your head that says you aren’t good enough, that you don’t know enough.”
While he spoke, Grace had begun to rummage through the notes, carefully examining each page as if trying to find the missing piece of the puzzle in her hands. She stopped abruptly, turning to Christopher with a new light in her eyes. “It’s not the runes. It’s not the chemicals, either. It’s the steles.”
“It makes sense. As they are now, the steles themselves are unable to perform the task we need.”
“But if we added a communication rune, they could.”
Christopher grinned. “See? I knew you could do it.”
But his smile faded as a new wave of nausea crashed over him, his vision blurring as he struggled to maintain his balance. He reached out for something, anything, and Grace caught him, leading him to a chair.
“How long has it been since you woke up?” She asked, her eyebrows furrowed in something akin to concern.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Six hours, perhaps?”
“Have you had any… er…. sustenance?”
“No. I’m still trying to figure out what to do, in that department.” He didn’t tell her how desperately he needed something to ease the constant burning in his throat, how he had grown physically weaker with every passing minute that he denied himself, how his head felt as though it had been pumped full of helium.
She must have known, somehow, because she wordlessly offered him her wrist, giving him a slight nod. An invitation.
And as much as every part of his body wanted him to jump at the opportunity while he had the chance, he forced himself to take a step away from her, shaking his head. He wouldn’t let himself take advantage of her like that, he told himself, no matter how desperate he was. He wouldn’t hurt her.
“Grace, no, I couldn’t possibly—“
“Well, you’ll die if you don’t, and I won’t let that happen. Not after I just got you back.”
Christopher knew that he should have protested again, but he also knew that she was right. He was becoming weaker and more lightheaded by the moment, and here she was, offering him the cure to all of his ailments. Who was he to deny her?
“You can take as much as you need,” she said, and that was the only invitation Christopher needed.
As gently as he could, he took hold of her arm and lifted the pale skin of her forearm to his mouth, sinking his teeth into her flesh and drinking.
He faintly registered a light cry of pain as the relief washed over his body. He pushed himself away from her as soon as his nausea subsided, unwilling to take more than the absolute bare minimum. He averted his gave from her, unwilling to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She shrugged, moving past him to grab a handkerchief. She pressed it to the new found to stop the bleeding “It’s fine. It barely even hurt. Vampire saliva acts as an anesthetic, remember?”
“I’m still drinking your blood. Which, might I add, is a whole issue in and of itself. I should be dead. Logistically speaking, I shouldn’t even be a vampire, and yet somehow, I am. I don’t understand it. I never went through a fledgling phase, I was never buried, but still, for all intents and purposes, I’ve become a vampire.”
“Maybe it was the poison that triggered the transformation.”
“But that wouldn’t have made me a fully-fledged vampire. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t need to. Not everything has an answer, you know.”
“That’s because no one has found one, yet.
“Then we’ll find one,” said Grace. “Look, I understand your curiosity, and your need to have all the answers, and it’s admirable, but right now, the sun is about to rise. You probably ought to go, so you’re not trapped here until sunset.”
“Well, I don’t exactly have anywhere to go.”
“What about the Hell Ruelle? At least until all the downworlders aren’t frozen anymore, you can stay there undetected.” She paused. “Wait, how aren’t you frozen? If you’re a vampire now—“
“I don’t know,” Christopher said. “I don’t— I don’t know much of anything, anymore.” He stopped, forcing a smile onto his face. “But, hey, at least we got the fire messages issue solved, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Have a good night, Grace. Or, er, a good morning.”
“You should come back tonight,” said Grace. “So that we can finish the fire-messages, I mean.”
So, I imagine Kit and Grace in canon as leaving London because, if we imagine a version of ChoT where actions have consequences, the rest of Kit’s friends wouldn’t accept their relationship easily.
(Same with Alastair and Thomas. It's not a critique to Alastair himself, but to the double standard the characters have. I find it wild to have to explain this, but apparently it's necessary).
They would go to live a quiet life in Scotland, and they would open a lab together. Probably they would specialize in different fields, but without ignoring their Shadowhunters duties. They would be in contact mostly with Christopher's family and have a good relationship with them.
Rated R, still unfinished, set in the The Last Flowers universe after Chrisanthemum
The point is, Grace doesn’t actually know how to have sex.
Giving her history, she should. She really should. But she’s never been an active participant: in the past, with her... clients―she has to stop calling them that―she just... lay there, closed her eyes, and thought of England. Occasionally, which meant nine times out of ten, she also suffered like a dog.
Nothing more.
By now, though, she’s come to understand that her firsthand knowledge of sex has nothing to do with how sex is usually experienced; even less, with how sex should be experienced. She was too young, for starters, which is something Cecily, and Cordelia, and Anna, and everyone worth their salt never seem to stop blabbering about; moreover, she’s been sold, trafficked, stripped of her every right. She’s never had a choice.
And, maybe most importantly, she’s never truly wanted it.
Well, not until this moment, at least.
She wants it. She does, she really does, she’s ready to swear it on the Angel if need be.
She’s just not sure what she wants, exactly.
Which is why they’ve ended up here. She and Kit, that is. Sprawled on the bed in her room at the Institute, laying on their sides, kissing.
The kissing is... good. Nice. They’ve done it before, of course; as a matter of fact, they’ve never done more than that. It’s been a couple of months since Kit kissed her for the first time, and that was a good ten days after her trial, when she’d been cleared of all involvement with the whole Belial-and-Tatiana-related mess and could finally start making her peace with it―start making her amends to those she’d hurt, either willingly or not.
Kit liking her, kissing her, opening his heart up to her, hasn’t been much of a surprise.
Everything that’s happened since...
Yeah.
She should stop overthinking it. She should just do what Kit told her to, last week, and get this over with already.
Problem is, that’s a thing she has no idea how to do. To tell the truth, it’s the very reason why they’re on this bed and Kit’s hand is slowly, so slowly, making its way between her legs.
Listen...
She tried, alright?
If anything, she knows what it’s supposed to feel like. It isn’t as though she’s never come before: statistically speaking, it just had to happen, sooner or later. Mere physical stimulation can, and sometimes will, be enough. And some of her cl―abusers prided themselves on being able to bring their women to orgasm, and had a penchant for rubbing her like they were hacking at a particularly persistent stain on their fancy church clothes.
So, she has experienced climax.
And she’s never failed to hate herself for it.
She’s perfectly aware that that’s the problem. And, as she’s told Kit half an hour ago, the only solution is for him to―quite literally, as it turns out―take the matter into his own hands.
She knows he’s an overthinker, just like her. She knows there’s a fat chance neither of them is going to get anything out of this. But she’s used to yielding control, she’s done it all her life, and she isn’t―yet―able to function in any other way.
The silver lining is that Kit has already had her remove her undergarments, which is a step further than where she’s taken this when she made her failed attempt. She’s still got her dress on: he doesn’t want her to be naked in front of him, not when it could be uncomfortable for her. Besides, with the fire having wilted down to embers hours ago, the room is chilly.
The goosebumps starting to show on her skin have nothing to do with the chill.
Kit’s lips are a kiss away from hers. His eyes are half-closed, as though he’s squinting to be able to look at her. (He doesn’t have his glasses on; she removed them as soon as he came into her room. But he’s near-sighted, so his vision should be good).
He’s staring at his hand on her inner thigh, she realizes. She’s willing to bet he’s as tense as she is over what they are about to do. What he is about to do.
“Kit,” she whispers, not even knowing why she spoke in the first place. Maybe it’s because she wants to reassure him. Or maybe it’s because she wants to reassure herself.
“Grace,” Kit echoes, the tips of his fingers drawing circles on her skin, his free arm sliding underneath the pillow on which both their heads are resting. “What do you want me to do to you?”
She lets out another, “Kit,” and it’s halfway between a scoff and a plea. “If I knew that, I would have succeeded in doing this myself.”
They make eye contact. Kit’s pupils are dilated, the violet of his irises reduced to little more than a ring around ever-growing black. He wets his lips, opens his mouth, inhales... and stays silent.
He’s at a loss for words.
Her third, “Kit,” is barely a breath. Soft. Acknowledging his worry, his unease, his feeling of being inadequate. “Whatever you do, I’m going to like it.”
She wants to eat her words the very second they leave her mouth. It was the wrong thing to say.
And indeed, a shadow falling on his handsome, boyish face, Kit replies, “How can you be so sure?”
“Kit.” She can’t get enough of saying his name, tonight. It grounds her, reminds her of who she’s with. “I chose this. I chose you.”
The title, Night-blooming Jasmine, refers to a work of the same name by Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli, which you can find here in the original Italian and a pretty good English translation. Pascoli wrote it for the wedding of a good friend of his, and it's obvious from the text that the poet thinks of sex as something violent, not gentle, something that crushes the petals of the flower ("si chiudono i petali un poco gualciti").
My co-author @zoyalannister learned to hate this poem in school (it's taught, at the very least, during the last year of high school), but I think it's a perfect metaphor for Grace's past and her journey in The Last Flowers.
Come check out the series if you hate yourself and want to suffer!
