To all things housed in her silence, nature offers a violence
Paddy Mayne/Eoin McGonigal
Est. word count: 35-40K
Summary: Paddy is no stranger to anger or violence. Yet his world is turned upside down when he has to accept something darker lurks inside of him, a beast much more dangerous than anything he's ever faced before - but no less fond of Eoin than Paddy himself.
Every night, without fault, Eoin saunters over to Paddy's side of the tent, heedless to the lurch Paddy's heart gives every time and unaware of the danger he puts himself in every time he chooses Paddy's company. Every time Paddy fails to warn him.
More than once during the week he's opened his mouth, intent on asking Eoin to bunk with someone else for the foreseeable future, but then Eoin will turn to him, lips already curled in that bright smile of his — "Should we head to the shooting range, Paddy?"—, and Paddy can never find the strength to do it.
The readiness with which he bends to Eoin's will should frighten him. Yet, Paddy's blood runs cold for another reason; it is fond of Eoin, too. More than that, it craves Eoin's company with such primal need it drives Paddy mad, a pull stronger than gravity urging him to get ever closer to Eoin. Sitting next to him isn't enough, not when Paddy's mind buzzes with the need to bury his face in Eoin's neck, or when his fingers twitch to touch pale skin, and wipe the beads of sweat at Eoin's temple. Listening to him talk is torture when all Paddy can think of is how Eoin's words would feel against his skin.
Any semblance of distance is felt like a privation of something that the beast cannot live without — but the sensation of lack is so strong and runs so deep, Paddy cannot tell if it is it or him that suffers most from Eoin's absence.
Featuring art and concept by @davidstirlings and fic by @hisbelfastboy , to all things housed in silence, nature offers a violence will be revealed on Sunday, December 28
Here's the next creation for my @fanartfrenzy bingo card, filling the prompts, "Write out your favorite quote from a fic in your fanciest handwriting" and "Create art for any fic using pen".
I choose To all the things housed in her silence, nature offers a violence by @hisbelfastboy (with art and concept by @davidstirlings). Even though I haven't read the whole fic yet, I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. Ali's writing is beautiful, full of poetry and mystery. One thing is certain, I am never let down when I read a fic by Ali (quite the opposite, in fact).
Four weeks ago, that’s what Paddy would have said, gruff and avoiding Eoin’s gaze. Perhaps it is this answer that Eoin seeks, honesty wrapped in barbed words because Paddy has never known how to bare his heart without baring his teeth too.
Title: To all the things housed in her silence, nature offers a violence
Author: Thetrystingtre/ @hisbelfastboy
Fandom: SAS: Rogue Heroes (TV)
Ship(s): Paddy Mayne/Eoin McGonigal, Paddy Mayne & David Stirling
Summary: Paddy is no stranger to anger or violence. Yet his world is turned upside down when he has to accept something darker lurks inside of him, a beast much more dangerous than anything he's ever faced before - but no less fond of Eoin than Paddy himself. Can Paddy reign in this beast or will he lose himself trying?
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The readiness with which he bends to Eoin's will should frighten him. Yet, Paddy's blood runs cold for another reason; it is fond of Eoin, too. More than that, it craves Eoin's company with such primal need it drives Paddy mad, a pull stronger than gravity urging him to get ever closer to Eoin. Sitting next to him isn't enough, not when Paddy's mind buzzes with the need to bury his face in Eoin's neck, or when his fingers twitch to touch pale skin, and wipe the beads of sweat at Eoin's temple. Listening to him talk is torture when all Paddy can think of is how Eoin's words would feel against his skin.
Any semblance of distance is felt like a privation of something that the beast cannot live without — but the sensation of lack is so strong and runs so deep, Paddy cannot tell if it is it or him that suffers most from Eoin's absence.
Content warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Oooh what about "Love Me Anyway" for a made-up fic title? <3
@hisbelfastboy Thank you!! Have finally found time to work through these, and honestly can't resist a PaddyEoin origin story! Hope you like :)
~~~~~
December, Belfast, 1939.
December was Eoin’s favourite month for many reasons. First: Christmas, for all the obvious reasons (presents, mince pies, carols and the multiple glasses of brandy he would swig before his parents caught on) and then: his birthday, also for the obvious reasons: his favourite dinner, the present Paddy would gift him, getting his own way.
He was nineteen now, officially more than a newly minted adult, no longer called the family baby (well, his ma still does, but that’s what they do). One term of university and the taste of independence under his belt and Eoin was feeling every inch a grown-up. Not just in life experience, though. These last months, he had finally grown into his height, gangly limbs broadening out and baby face slowly melting away.
He still felt like a kid, though, now, eagerly waiting for Paddy to walk through the doors of the pub. Resisting the urge to swing his feet as he sipped his second pint. It had been months since he’d last seen him, and their letters weren’t just cutting it anymore. The ache in Eoin’s chest had slowly been building all day, desperate to see the man he’s been in love with for the last three years, anticipating bubbling through him like whiskey. Maybe today, on a random Thursday night, would be the day Eoin finally acts on it. He was feeling brave enough, too; certainly, one and a half pints usually gave him enough courage for reckless acts.
He made an extra effort to dress nicely, like a proper little grown-up: curls slicked and held firmly in place, pressed shirt, new cologne that Paddy mentioned once in passing he liked. Ambrose teased him when he came down the stairs, whooping and asking who Eoin was trying to impress.
He fudged through an answer, not wanting to tell his brother about meeting up with Paddy. He only felt slightly bad about it; they were good friends after all. But Eoin knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had Paddy to himself for a while. Plus, he could never carry out Operation Seduce Childhood Crush with his brother about.
He took another gulp as he peered through the frosted windowpane, spotting the honey-blond of Paddy’s hair as he ducked into the pub, hearing without turning the deep, rich tones of his voice. Already goosebumps were beginning to snake up his arm, and he hadn’t even seen the man yet. He sent a quick prayer up to the rafters, please, please let him love me, despite the fact that he was a man, despite his being Catholic, despite the six years between them.
As Paddy came closer, Eoin finished his drink, needing all the liquid courage he could drain from the glass tonight.
~~~~
Inbox still open for the Fake Fic Title Game, if anyone wants to zip one over!
Boy, You Gotta Love Your Man by Thetrystingtree, @hisbelfastboy [Fic, 21k, Gale "Buck" Cleven/John "Bucky" Egan] “Buck.”
There’s something about the way John says it that doesn’t make Gale’s shoulders hunch to his ears like when he hears it from others. A respite rather than a duty, and Gale turns his head to look at John without a second thought.
“I’m still betting on us.”
Maybe it’s the earnest way John says it, like this is the only truth that matters in the world, maybe it’s the look in John’s eyes, soft and reassuring like it would be ridiculous to think he would not do that for even one second, or maybe it’s the memory of long gone days. Whatever it is, it has Gale’s throat locking up fast enough he chokes wetly on his next inhale.
---
The first few months in the Stalag are rough on Gale.
Distracted as he is by his thoughts, he's caught off guard when Blair twists around from where he has a hold of him and sinks his teeth into his forearm; not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough that it sends a jolt of pleasure-pain through his entire body.
He knows that Blair bites when he's fighting dirty, he's seen it a thousand times before, he's just never been on the receiving end of it before. Honestly, he's not confident that the idea of Blair biting him won't feature in his dreams for the rest of his life. He's definitely thought about it once or twice before, Blair biting him on the throat, on the shoulder, on his hipbone.
for every "🌹" received in my inbox i'll post one random sentence of a random WIP i'm currently writing
As promised I am going to answer this as chaotically as possible.
(For those of you out of the loop, I promised that I'd answer this as one long snippet with no markers of where it switches between WIPs, in the order that the emojis appear in this ask. I also wrote them in this order. I have been suffering. I do not recommend reading this monstrosity).
Enjoy (this is a threat).
Josephine, affectionately known as Dodi, was John’s on-again-off-again girlfriend from the end of freshman year through the summer after their junior year of college. Gale thought that she was nice enough, and they still follow each other on Instagram.
“We did, we do, but we knew you didn’t,” Virginia sounds very matter-of-fact as she nudges her brother’s leg, in a way that rustles John’s feathers just a little bit more.
“You’re worried,” Buck shrugged, picking up the book himself. “You’re worried, I’m worried, Doc is worried. Nothin’ we can do, though.”
“Doc is worried?” John inquired. The last he heard, Buck hadn’t made it seem like Doc was all that concerned about the situation.
“I think we can all still feel ‘em, Croz,” Joey tries to reason, but he just doesn’t get it. “When you lose someone like that, they don’t just go away.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about!” Harry exclaims.
“I might have initially… understated Doc’s reaction. Didn’t want you to worry,” He ran his thumb over the edge of a photograph that Bucky couldn’t see. “Guess that didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to.”
“Yeah, I’d say so,” They sat for a moment and watched a group pass by the propped-open door, listening to their laughter. “How worried is he, Buck?”
The other man sighed deeply before responding.
“That’s not true, of course I loved her,” He snips, not trying at all to hide the hurt in his voice. Virginia rolls her eyes.
“No, I think you two kept getting back together because you thought you should love each other,” She points out, and Gale thinks that’s a fair assessment of the situation, having been the one with a front row seat to their numerous breakups and makeups.
Joey looks shocked – he doesn’t remember Harry ever getting this tone with him before. “I know everyone misses them, I know everyone remembers them, but I’m walking around base and seeing, seeing Biddick, and Schmalenbach, and people I didn’t even get to learn the names of, walking around, following what’s left of their old crews around, still here.”
He tries to keep his voice down, doesn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to this crisis that he is on the verge of, but even if his voice doesn’t raise in volume, it continues raising in pitch.
“I wasn’t lying when he said that all he could do here was give me some pills,” He fidgeted with the corner of the notebook page open in front of him. “But I pretty much had to beg him not to ground me from flying home. He wanted me to stay longer and see some doctor he knows in London.”
“Christ, Buck.”
Gale also thinks that John wouldn’t be getting so defensive about it if he didn’t know it was true.
“Obviously it didn’t matter in the end, your mutual pining got you here in the end.” She continues. Gale scoffs.
“There wasn’t any pining happening,” Gale assures. She gives him a flat, unimpressed look that he knows he’s seen a thousand times on her brother’s face.
Joey puts his other hand on Harry’s other shoulder, and grips them tightly, shaking him just a little.
“Harry,” He tries to cut off his friend’s spiraling. “Harry, I think you need to go lay down.”
He feels a little bit like his strings have been cut, like he’s deflating and soon he’ll be nothing but a puddle on the ground. Of course he doesn’t believe me.
“Yeah, Joey. Maybe I just need some sleep.” He turns, Joey’s hand sliding off first one of his shoulders then the next. “It’s been a long week.”
A long month. A long year.
“I’m sure you believe that. I’m sure you both believe that – But from an outsider’s perspective, it was gross and mushy. You were buying each other flowers for fuck’s sake. Every week. For years.”
Gale and John make uneasy eye contact for a moment.
“Maybe… Maybe that wasn’t really fair to Dodi.”
“That might be the most sensible thing you’ve said all night.”
In the coming weeks, Harry can feel the entire base struggle to get into the holiday spirit. Back home, their families are prepping for economical Thanksgivings, rationed Christmases and downsized Chanukahs. Jean and his parents tell him all about the gifts they’re buying, making, and bartering for, and always make sure to tell him that the most treasured gift they can get from him is the continued knowledge that he is alive and well.
It feels deeply unfair that these are the letters he’s receiving from home, when there are so many souls tethered to this base that will never have another Christmas with their loved ones.
In November, Harry gets a long, heartfelt letter from Curt’s family, thanking him for the treasures he sent them from their dearly missed boy. He leaves the sheets of paper out in a near row on his rack on a quiet day, and gives Curt privacy to read them as many times as he wishes.
If he perhaps sees Curt trace his fingers over his mother’s writing, or the spots on the pages dotted with what could only be tears, well, no one will ever hear about it from Harry.
“It hasn’t been so bad lately, besides the headaches,” he tried to reassure Bucky. He gestures slightly with the book. “This has been kinda therapeutic, too. Maybe I’ll use this to write a book one day - about all of my boys.”
The day that John asks Curt to be his best man, he is bewildered when Curt tries to negotiate with him.
“Well y’see, I always thought I’d be the flower girl at your wedding. If you ever had one, that is.”
And John thinks he’s joking. Hopes he’s joking. Until he laughs and Curt looks genuinely hurt. He knew he shouldn’t have started this conversation when Curt was smoking.
At some point in the last few months, many of the men around base have taken up hobbies to keep their hands busy in the down time between missions.
Ev Blakely has been knitting scarves as quickly as his needles will let him, and the one Harry received is surprisingly comforting to have. There are other projects that he squirrels away to work on when no one’s around, and he imagines they’re designated Christmas gifts.
“Curt, you… you can’t be the flower girl at my wedding.”
“Well, who else is there to do it?” He argues.
“Well, for starters, my niece.” Ginia was getting to be just about big enough to toddle around on her own without falling over too much, which seemed perfect for an “aww”-factor for the ceremony.
“Who, Virginia Junior? But I’ve known you longer than she has.”
“Because she hadn’t been born yet, Curtis. That isn’t her fault.”
They’re having this conversation over FaceTime, and John thinks that it probably would have gone over a little better if they had been able to meet up in person. If only because Curt wouldn’t have been quite as high.
Rosie Rosenthal, Nash’s Rosie, had taken up doing tiny little watercolor paintings in his free time. On quiet evenings, he could be found listening to the radio in the Officer’s club, jazz playing quietly as he makes careful brushstrokes to delicate landscape paintings. Nash sits with him sometimes, just across the table or on the next barstool, and sometimes Rosie looks up in his direction like he can feel that someone is sitting there.
“Besides,” John continues, “as the best man you’d be entitled to give a speech. A really long, maybe even embarrassing, speech.”
This catches Curt’s interest.
“How embarrassing are we talking, here?”
Harry has noticed that, when not trailing Rosie or one of the Red Cross girls, Nash spends his time alone. Sulking by himself in solitary areas of the base, ignoring Harry unless he really needs something. Curt, who seems to be friendly with a majority of the other spirits, still avoids him if at all possible.
“He’s just... Weird. He doesn’t want to talk to any of us, be near any of us. He acts like we’re all his enemy or something.”
Bucky liked that idea, a little. Their boys were good, brave men — those who made it back and those who didn’t. If Buck could do something to honor them all like that, he knew it would all be meaningful.
Miraculously, somehow, they make it home. They’re delayed a day or so in Greenland when Buck woke up with a headache so bad that Bucky had to play guard dog to keep the boys from seeing him cry. It wasn’t the first time he had had to do that — the Stalag was hard on everyone. But here, so close to home?
Harry was the only one that Bucky trusted enough to let anywhere close until Buck’s painkillers kicked in. They weren’t doing as much as they used to, Bucky could tell without Buck saying anything.
“He going to make it home okay?” Is all that he asked.
“Has to.” Is all Bucky could think to respond. Because it’s true - Gale had to make it home okay.
John regrets phrasing it that way. Curt knows far too much, about both he and Gale.
“It needs to be reasonable. If you wouldn’t say it in front of a group of medically frail elderly people, maybe don’t include it in your speech.”
Harry really doesn’t know what to tell him — and in all honesty, he’s a little afraid of Nash anyways. As far as he could tell, Nash could manipulate physical objects far more easily than any of the other spirits could. Harry has seen doors slam shut, drink glasses shatter, and books fall off tables — people around have finally started considering that the base might be haunted.
Augustin faintly remembers being pushed into a cot, Eoin’s body curling around him while a canteen of water was sent his way.
And Eoin’s breath, hot against his ear as he swallowed, murmuring something he was too tired to translate.
His hands were large and heavy as they roved over his chest, over his heart. Checking. Reassuring.
It's not just his sexual fantasies that feature Blair, though, which he actually finds to be more of a problem. Blair has this way of smiling at him sometimes; soft, tender, as though it's a secret that's been passed between the two of them. It never fails to make him a little bit weak in the knees.
Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in
