“So what?” Felassan’s laugh drips through the door. “Solas, I’ve seen your ass more times than I’ve seen daylight. I could sketch the constellation of freckles on your left cheek from memory—remember how I used to—”
The doorknob turns.
Ellana lets out a strangled squeak. Solas has exactly half a heartbeat to act. He throws himself sideways, yanks the blanket up, and in one miraculous motion manages to cocoon her beneath the sheets. She curls up tight, silent as a hunted animal.
He grabs the nearest pillow and drops it into his lap just as the door swings open.
Felassan steps in, takes in the scene—Solas sitting stiffly upright, sweat on his brow, a pillow perched far too deliberately across his thighs—and raises one eyebrow.
A long, excruciating pause follows.
“…Are you,” Felassan asks slowly, “fucking the pillow?”
Ellana breathes out, a quiet laugh escaping her. “He has a kid, though.”
“Err… right. Heard about that.”
“It’s not his, but still—” she lowers her voice, just in case. “A kid. Seven, maybe ten.”
“Oof. That’s the age they start being little shits.”
“Shits?”
“Yeah. One of ‘em once tried to set my hair on fire. Told me I had a big nose. Said my breath stank.”
Ellana chuckles. “Did it?”
“Yeah. Garlic night. Fair.”
“They’re so honest.”
“Terrifying.”
“Yeah.”
Ellana parts her lips to change the subject, but Sera isn’t finished.
“And they know things,” she goes on. "Like, ancient things. You look away for one second and they’re gone, then behind you, holding scissors and whispering about Minecraft or taxes or some other cursed topic. Their hands are always sticky. You don’t know why. You never know why.”
She freezes. “Sticky?”
“Always sticky, yeah! And they stare. You’ll be minding your business, sipping your tea, and there’s this kid just watching you—completely silent—like they’re deciding if you’d survive a house fire.”
Her fingers worry the hem of her sleeve. “Sera, please—”
“And they lie!” Sera barrels on. “But badly. Like, ‘I didn’t eat the cookie,’ with chocolate all over their face. And you think, ‘cute,’ but then they double down. Suddenly it’s your fault for buying cookies. You start questioning reality.”
Ellana swallows. When she finally speaks, her voice is small. “I’m just—” The words catch. “What if he doesn’t like me? The kid, I mean. What if he looks at me and just… hates me?”
The silence drags, filled only by faint background noise on the line. Then Sera lets out a soft scoff. “Maker’s hairy arse, you’re hopeless. You want the kid to like you?”
Thank you @virshiral for tagging me! You offered me some Solassan, I couldn’t not return the favor.
Started working on this WIP, hoping inspiration decides to come back to me. I know first-person POV isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this one demanded it.
Also, chapter 16 of Lies is in the works, I promise. It won't be too long now (thank you for your patience 💕)
Soft-tagging @alice-dead, @theriothag, @transhades, @virshiral (more!), @tulipathy and anyone who’d like to join in!
“Test you, hmm?”
Maybe he’d have been happy. Maybe I’d have been, too.
Or maybe he’d have got himself killed—chasing some half-baked idea of redemption or justice or whatever divine bullshit he was haunted by back then.
Solas always needed a cause. He couldn’t breathe without one.
I remember one night—he kept me up till dawn talking about redemption. How much he believed in it. How much he needed it. I think that was the first time I ever saw him cry.
We were naked on the terrace of his penthouse, the city spread out below like a flipped sky—all those lights burning like trapped stars. He folded in on himself, trembling, tears running down his face. He kept staring at his hands, the stupid bastard, like he could see every face of every person he’d fucked over staring back. Like he could count the drops of blood still there.
I remember taking those hands and kissing them, slow, one knuckle at a time, until the shaking stopped. He smelled like salt and cigarettes. His hair—that ridiculous fall of auburn—kept sticking to his face, and he didn’t even bother to wipe it away. Just sat there, shuddering, small and furious and heartbreakingly human. Elf. You know what I mean.
I still dream about that sometimes. About him. About what might’ve been if we’d both been better men.
Anyway—I’m rambling. What was I saying? Ah, right: at twenty-three, Solas was an utter cunt.
And I followed him, that day. Elgar’nan had already forgotten I existed the second Solas stepped out of the room. I was nothing—just another sewer rat with a pretty face and bad tattoos, one of those kids clawing their way toward the Evanuris like they were gods instead of monsters.
Back then, Solas went by Sileal. And I needed him. Desperately. The funny thing is, I didn’t even know how much.
“It’s an honour to meet you,” I said—twice, because the first one came out like a wheeze. Long legs, that prick; keeping up with him was a fucking workout.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t even glance at me.
So I did what I always do: smiled like it didn’t matter, like rejection was a joke I’d already heard. “You’re the best at what you do,” I insisted. “I want to learn from you.”
He let out a sharp, contemptuous snort and lengthened his stride, as if the very idea of me breathing the same air offended him.
It took everything I had to sprint ahead and block his path. Chasing him was worse than running after a tease who knows she’s got you hard and helpless—and enjoys watching you squirm.
“Come on, Sileal,” I panted, “don’t make me fucking beg. Test me.”
He stopped. Looked at me properly for the first time.
Thank you @theriothag and @alice-dead for tagging me, you're an endless, treasured source of inspiration.
Tagging @virshiral, @tulipathy, @manuzillust, @elynnism, @mabelaart, @miraabellee, @luzial (no pressure of course!)
This is from Chapter 7 of Some Lies You Print. Some You Bury. (trying not to spoil too much, but if Chapter 6 was pain to fun, Chapter 7 is fun to pain. We’re flipping the rollercoaster):
Anything. Anything to escape what is rapidly turning into the worst-case scenario.
And for one insane, unfiltered second, he even considers the truth:
I don’t think it’s wise to show up in front of her holding hands with a man and a child like some picture-perfect family. Oh! And did I mention her name?
But Felassan steps closer. His expression shifts, brows drawn, head tilted, studying. He leans in. And sniffs. Loudly. Right next to Solas’s neck, who, startled, jerks back instinctively.
“Did you use my cologne?”
Solas wants to die. If the floor beneath him weren’t tile but soft, welcoming earth, he’d already be six feet under—no coffin, no ceremony. Just a quick descent into blessed obscurity.
Felassan’s eyes search his face with deadly seriousness, scanning him like he’s trying to read his soul, so close he could count every eyelash.
Solas opens his mouth, ready to let loose the most convincing, totally fictional “no” of his life—
—and his friend's phone starts to vibrate.
Felassan doesn’t look away. Not yet, he stares for a beat longer, eyes narrowed. Only when he swallows, throat dry, does the man reluctantly break eye contact. He fishes the phone from his pocket, and as soon as his eyes meet the screen, his expression changes. Fast.
Solas doesn’t move, frozen, watching the colour drain from his face.
“Who is it?” he asks, worried now.
When Felassan lifts his gaze to meet his, Solas sees it, clear as day: a cocktail of despair and resignation. He knows the answer before the name is even spoken.
Cassandra.
Chapter 6. "The Morning After" is up, and there is an asterisk. NSFW and very unhinged.
Excerpt under the cut!
All because of those insistent primary school teachers who had made him download that wretched app, claiming it was now the sole channel for all important communication. What they hadn’t mentioned was that he was walking straight into a trap. The moment they added him to Cole’s class group—mercifully, one where parents weren’t allowed to post—his number appeared in a neat little bubble, followed by those five fatal words: “Solas has entered the chat.”
And that had been the beginning of the end. Because within minutes—minutes—one of the mothers had added him to the most feared group of all: the mums’ chat.
He’d barely stepped away to go to the bathroom, and came back to 94 new messages. Most were just “lol,” or five heart-eyes emojis in a row. Endless photos of children covered in confetti or spaghetti or inexplicably in pumpkin costumes, posted without context and often with worrying captions like “look at this menace 💕💖💞😂.”
Notifications every five seconds. A thousand a day. Probably more.
He didn’t know these kids. He didn’t want to know these kids. It felt like a privacy violation on their behalf, and he often found himself wondering what those children would think ten years from now, knowing their mothers had flooded a chat of semi-strangers with timestamped photo evidence of their most undignified years—met with unsolicited commentary and the occasional, deeply unearned, “awww, such a good boy 😍😍😍.”
There were plans for picnics. Plans for birthday parties. Plans for who was bringing what to the class end-of-term breakfast (can anyone do gluten-free cupcakes??!!!).
And the birthdays. Good grief, the birthdays. They’d all chime in almost at the same time, like a cleverly planned attack, saying “happppy birthday!!!”, “sweetheart, have the best day! 🥳💖🎉🎂”, “ENJOY YOUR CAKE!!!”, and of course, he had to chime in too, if only to avoid Cole any kind of retaliation in class.
So he’d type: "Happy birthday." Grammatically correct. No emojis. No exclamation marks. Last time, he had received three private messages asking if everything was okay.
They tore down false gods. They burned an empire to ash.
Now all that remains is each other.
Felassan offers Solas one gift: a winter away. A reprieve, he promises. A season to heal, to forget, to remember.
Snow buries the cabin, and inside its walls they chase the shape of their love—tangled on a couch too small for two, kissing until the fire burns low, then slipping outside to watch the stars wheel overhead. For a while, the world falls away, and the cabin is enough.
But the past is a living thing—and when buried, it returns. Always. In stranger roots.
A story of tenderness and ruin—of two men who love each other fiercely, even as that love slips through their hands. Even as it tears them apart.
Set 7 years before the events of Some Lies You Print. Some You Bury.
Ellana Lavellan wrote the novel that shook the world: The Fall of the Evanuris, a haunting work of fiction inspired by the true story of drug lords so deluded, they named themselves after ancient gods.
It became a global phenomenon. A bestseller. A blockbuster. Then, a Nugflix smash hit. Fame, fortune, endless interviews.
She hates all of it.
Seven years later, burned out and creatively empty, Ellana retreats to her hometown in search of something real—maybe even herself.
But fate has a dark sense of humour.
Because tucked away in a quiet bookshop at the edge of the city is Solas—the man whose real-life tragedy she turned into bestselling fiction. The man she portrayed as a tragic antihero. The man who lived the betrayal, the blood, the fall.
And he is not a fan.
(Also, isn’t it a little suspicious that he runs a bookshop by day, and works in a club by night?)
Saturday night clubbing chapters, brought to you by someone currently (and happily) wearing sweatpants!
Chapter 2: The Fade
Chapter 3: Rock Bottom
Excerpt from Ch.3 under the cut.
He looks up, and there she is. The girl in the green dress. One hand rests lightly on the counter, the other still lifted—her face is turned away from him, angled toward the dancefloor, scanning the crowd. Not looking at him, not yet, but it doesn’t matter, because he sees her, and every part of him is suddenly, sharply awake.
He throws a quick glance at Felassan—thankfully, he's busy adjusting his hair in the reflection of a cocktail shaker, utterly absorbed in the angle of a loose strand. Good. Solas steps toward her. Hands on the bar. Shoulders squared. He takes a breath and tells himself that the flicker in his chest is nothing. Just curiosity. Professional alertness. A bartender doing his job.
“What can I get you?” he asks, voice low and even, as polished as the glass beneath his palms.
She turns.
And it’s as if the music softens, the lights dim, the noise slips underwater and his heart halts in his chest. Just for a second.
Because the woman in the green dress is none other than Ellana Lavellan.
Samson flicks his chin at one of his men. The thug crosses to the cabinet, pulls down a bottle of whisky, and tips it into a glass. The amber liquid sings as it pours, curling and breaking like sugared waves. For a moment too long, Felassan’s eyes follow the play of light the whisky paints across the desk.
“Care for a drink?” Samson asks, a mean smile tugging his mouth. He holds the tumbler out, fingers gripping the stem too hard. Felassan feels the blood quicken in his veins, a hot pulse hammering at his temple. He should refuse. He knows he should. But the scent hits him—strong, sharp, cheap—and his throat aches with a strangling need.
“Why not?” he says, voice smooth, casual. He takes the glass as though the steadiness of his hand could fool them both.
Samson’s brow arches. “Didn’t think you’d be so eager.”
Felassan swirls the whisky, watching the amber cling to the sides. Then he knocks it back in a single swallow, the burn searing down his throat, warmth flooding him too quickly. For a heartbeat his tongue flicks against his teeth, chasing the taste, before he reins it in. “Eager? No. Thoughtful,” he murmurs, setting the glass down gently. “A drink offered is a test, and I’d rather pass.”
Samson chortles, filling his own drink. When he brings it to his lips, his jaw bulges through the bottom of the crystal, grotesque, his whole face distorted by the curve. When the liquor is gone, he speaks almost casually.
“Then tell me—what else are you trying to pass off?”
