peddie_little_shotgunning fic for you, anon. <3 Exactly what it says on the tin. I am probably going to finish this one before the cute/fluffy Macca/Peddie I am writing for Tsar because I'm such a perv and I love shotgunning. Trying to get more Peddie fic out into the world, though.
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"Do you have another cigarette, doctor?" Edward is aware he's pushing decorum and manners. He's exhausted. He wants tobacco, wants to relax. The cold is numbing him and he wants to feel heat.
Peddie considers him a moment, taking another puff. He's fully bundled, barely any skin showing. His scarf his huge, pulled up high as he can while still giving his cigarette access to his mouth, his impressive facial hair covering the rest of his face. Welsh wig pulled down low, it just left his nose and cheeks exposed. He looks imposing and solid. Edward imagines he must be warm inside, like he's hollow and has built a little fire in there. He wishes he could warm his hands to it.
The doctor does not show any like or dislike for Edward. He keeps his thoughts inside. It's nice, in a way. Like and dislike is irrelevant; their entire world has shrunk down to the men trapped aboard these damned boats. Like and dislike are dangerous. They both feel too good. Edward has come to appreciate a neutral man.
At last Peddie seems to come to some conclusion. He beckons Edward forward with a single motion of his hand.
Edward goes to him, relief flooding his body. He can take some time out here, stand in silence and exhale his frustration in a cloud of smoke.
Peddie doesn't hand him a cigarette, though.
The man takes a deep inhale on his own as Edward crunches through the snow towards him. Then, when Edward is close, Peddie takes a step forward, closing the distance between them. Before Edward can react, Peddie's grabbed his coat and pulled him forward, leaning down over him. When Edward opens his mouth to complain, Peddie presses his own mouth close and exhales.
Edward freezes in shock. Then he sputters. Peddie's still got a grip on him, and he's half-glad, because he may well have fallen over just from the surprise. But what smoke he got feels… good. It starts a warm tingling burn in his mouth and nose, and it burns a quick trail through him. It smells and tastes strange, different than the tobacco he's used to.
Peddie leans slightly back, observing. Like he's curious what might happen to Edward next. Like he doesn't know.
Edward instinctively grips the arm Peddie's using to hold him, just to keep himself upright. "Sir," is all he can get out, half angry, half frightened, half something else he won't ever put to words. But whatever Peddie is smoking is already hitting Edward's system hard. "Hells," he mutters a moment later. His anger is dissipating and his hands tingle. The cold bites him less. His mind buzzes like a bee. This is interesting, he thinks.
Peddie's looking down at him- he really is quite tall- and taking his own puff. He must be used to the stuff, to be so unaffected. Or perhaps he's always affected, and that's why he's so quiet. He tilts his head as he inhales, then gestures to Edward again. The gesture is clear. More?
I wish you would write a fic with Graham/Dundy where Graham is hurt and Dundy-
Oh, right.
I mean - I wish you would write ANOTHER fic where Graham is hurt and Dundy comforts him
The world needs about 2,000 of such fics so I can only trudge forward and spread the good word about Goreconte hurt/comfort.
Since the one fic is canon-era, here is a tiny thing from an AU discussion between @westerlywayward and @nahaerya which is vaguely... office AU + silt verses inspired (not really anything to do with the Silt Verses story but using the idea of many eldrich cosmic horror gods and deities that people are doing nasty stuff with, lots of sacrifice and worship of old gods.)
The scenario: We're a totally normal, modern office, and we make all of the deity worship so easy and clean. We really want this particular god to like us. Everything is assigned by corporate to please the beast (who we just call 'the shareholders'): your weekly assignments, your schedule, who you work with, even who you're to have an office romance with. The best part: we've been grooming the perfect willing sacrifice, one brilliant Golden Boy who will make the god so happy!
But we're struggling to find a replacement for our Golden Boy. So we're doing the sacrifice part in bits and pieces. We've also been letting him have a "secret" forbidden office romance. But only because we want to have blackmail material on the guy he's with for later.
Dundy and Graham meet at a park an hour north of their offices, like they do almost every Friday evening. They make this trek on the regular- they're not supposed to be together. Nobody is supposed to be with Graham, not now. He's there for the shareholders, and he's happy to be, and he's signed up for that, and he's shot up the corporate ladder. He just didn't realize it was going to happen so soon.
In his slacks, shirt, and coat from work, Dundy looks perfectly normal in the little city park, holding an late-in-the-day coffee because he rarely gets more than a few hours of sleep anyway. Perks of the company; the better the shareholders are doing, the more benefits the employees get, of course. But he's unhappy; barely sipping his espresso, scanning the walking paths anxiously.
It takes Graham almost thirty minutes longer than usual to show up. Dundy's tense body unclenches in relief, half-convinced that today would be the day Graham doesn't show up. He makes a b-line for Graham as soon as he sees him.
Graham's bundled up like it's winter, his long winter coat over his work clothes, scarf and mittens. He's looking particularly pale, circles under his eyes (usually a sign that the shareholders are cross with you, and it's unsettling to see on their Golden Boy). He's... shivering. Usually the cool evening air isn't an issue for him. But after what he went through today-
- nice and easy, just take the last digit-
Dundy hands Graham the coffee, which Graham takes immediately, then looks a bit disappointed.
"It's cold," he says, giving Dundy his best attempt at a smirk.
"You're late," Dundy counters, taking Graham's other hand in both of his. As if he could see through the layers- mitten over glove over bandages- and see how Graham's fingers were doing. Graham flinches, but doesn't take the hand away, takes another sip.
"It's fine," Graham offers. "Let's get something hot, I'm freezing."
Dundy finally looks up into Graham's eyes. They take a beat to just stare, their customary exchange-by-way-of-expression of stressors and grievances which must go unsaid, but are still on both their minds. Usually those worries are, Franklin assigned extra paperwork, or Fitzjames wants me to work Saturday. Today it's They took off two of your fucking fingers and I'm freaking out and They were only supposed to take one of my fingers today and they did an extra one and I'm freaking out.
Dundy takes the lead tonight. Steers Graham back through the park toward the closest cafe, orders them both something hot. Graham's smile is appreciative and ungaurded, and it hurts Dundy's heart. Graham's never like this, all soft and quiet, plastering himself against the far wall while Dundy orders a box of treats. Like he's a shy, small thing, and not Graham Gore, the shareholder's golden lamb.
Dundy steers them to one more shop, since it's nearby, to buy them hot pies to take along. They'd reheat in the microwave, they've done it a dozen times before. Then they walk downtown, to George's spare flat, which they've been using every weekend for the past year. Safe, discreet, far from everything else.
Graham lets Dundy ease him onto the couch. He cranks the apartment heat up (it's unused during the week, heaven knows George is off in one of his several other family properties). He throws some blankets over him. Reheats Graham's pie and puts it on a tray. Does all of this in silence. Then gets the first aid kit, like he knows what the hell he's doing.
It doesn't matter, though. Graham's smiling up at him even through the pain as he peels off his mitten, glove, and then the bandages beneath. He likes the attention, likes Dundy scrutinizing the wounds, likes feeling those careful fingers use the alcohol wipes, examine the first wound on his pinky- half healed already, thanks to the shareholder's direct touch, a mix between cauterization and natural scarring- and the second wound on his ring finger, which the shareholders hadn't healed, they hadn't even taken the digit- and this one was sewn up, and had bled a bit in the bandage and stained Graham's glove.
Dundy is careful as hell with the alcohol wipes, and Graham does his best not to flinch, though it's blindingly painful- it's a dull throb in both fingers. But then his lover is wrapping them again, fresh clean bandages being lovingly folded over both wounds. Dundy wraps his entire hand, to discourage Graham from trying to use it.
By the time they're done Graham's managed about half his meat pie. They're both on the couch, Graham still half-burried under blankets and taking forever to warm up. Dundy is glaring at him still.
"Don't worry so much, old sport."
"Don't old sport me."
"I will until that scowl is gone."
Dundy doesn't want to talk about it, but he's still upset.
Graham takes Dundy's hand with his good one. Squeezes it, then brings it up to his own face and puts it on his cheek. He just looks at Dundy, eyes big, and tries to beam as much love and affection as he can, mind-to-mind.
"Don't puppy-dog eyes at me," Dundy says, but he has no resistance, not when Graham is so tired, still shivering under all those layers. He pulls Graham's face to his and kisses him, tastes the meat pie and coffee and Graham's shaken morale on his tongue.
Then Graham's pulling him in, reminding Dundy how strong he is, even down one hand. He pulls Dundy to him until he's practically on his lap, pulls the blanket over them, accidentally knocks his little tray and meat pie onto the floor. Graham laughs.
"You oaf," Dundy chastises, but doesn't move to get up and clean it. He lets Graham press another kiss to him.
Graham can't offer an it's gonna be okay, I'm alright, things are fine. Nothing felt fine; he was scared and couldn't say it out loud. But holding Dundy close was enough to calm him and finally start banishing the cold.
This is part of a project with @rain-fall-down based on an advent prompt that will be ready for @grahamgoreweek!
Here's a bit of hurt/comfort minus the comfort (it happens later, okay?).
Content warning for this snippet: Drugged and injured Graham has just experienced a dangerous and violent situation.
"He should be shackled-"
Sir John's voice, from further off now. That was good. The farther away he was from Sir John, the better. Graham still flinches at it, and the person who is not Stanley flinches in turn, and he nearly falls again.
"Sorry," a familiar man says from his other side. Mister Des Vouex? “Sir,” he adds a bit belatedly.
Stanley’s voice, close, returns Sir John’s volley with more calm than Graham can comprehend. Their conversation goes past him like darts thrown back and forth over his head- what must take only a few seconds feels to Graham like an hour as he struggles to understand the meaning of each sentence, each word.
"For your safety, Sir, we'll take him to Terror."
"If he's gone mad with it-"
"He'll be subdued there- you don't want to cause panic-"
“-hangeable offense, to raise a hand against-!”
“He’s your first. Think of the scandal. Morale-”
Their words overlap and blur. Trying to keep up is making Graham feel ill. Stanley's voice is a low vibration in his pounding skull. It takes him several seconds to realize he's pressing up against the doctor’s chest. He can’t seem to keep his head up or his eyes open. Des Vouex is pressing against his other side. Between them they're propping him up, hands under his arms, gripping his chest, his body a shaking lump of hot, fractured, dizzy flesh. He can smell the fabric of Stanley's shirt with every shaky inhale. It’s softer than the floorboards were against his face.
"I'll take him over.” Stanley is staying stock-still, not moving an inch. His body language is pure deference to his captain. His demeanor betrays nothing but respect for the proper order. “If you're uninjured, Sir John?"
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Happy day "3" of @terror-pissvember everyone. 😳😁
Each chapter will be a stand-alone fic. They're ordered from least amount of piss content to most, so chapter 1 is mild and fluffy, and by Friday it will get extremely nasty.
I'll update this post as more chapters are posted! :)
(Uncertain I'll have Wednesday's up by Wednesday, so I might be dropping everything a day off schedule, but I think it should all still get done by the weekend. Fingers crossed.) Womp womp.
Oh yes, fics worked on today and tomorrow due to the silly WIP poll, which resulted in a 3 way tie:
Like a Doll's Eyes: Jopson automaton, creepy fully sentient steampunk doll who has unending loyalty to Crozier, the only man to treat Jopson like a person. He has to build trust with the Terror lieuts by forcing them to help him do repairs and cleanup (aka get their hands in his body and touch his weird haunted doll semi-organic/mechanical organs). This makes them see him as slightly more human. Jops hates this but Crozier gave him an order to not be so antisocial.
Punished as a Whore: John Irving mpreg based on a very brief microfic that @nahaerya posted a bit ago, where John Irving gets miraculously pregnant due to other people on the ship having sex (lmao) and then he gets hardcore punished for it, being available as "free use" guy for anyone to fuck before the baby comes. This should lead in to a short sequel for the Terror Advent prompt "John Irving is a prostitute" where he has to finish his sentence after the baby's born, by remaining a prostitute on land for another year.
You Kiss Guys on Molly: Terror Advent Fill, Graham/Dundy modern AU. Very mild angst and kinda heavy drug use, but mostly fluff and sweetness. Maybe not the healthiest relationship, but when your kinda-friend-with-benefits Dundy throws parties and does drugs, then comes upstairs ditching his own party to have drugged drunk sex with you, you kinda want to make him cute fruit platters and protein smoothies and waffles with whipped cream for breakfast the next day to help him through the hangover. And if you do this enough times it doesn't matter how in denial you both are about being in a relationship, after more than a year of this you've gotta admit you're kind of totally fallen for each other.
Tagged by my darlings @nahaerya and @thesilliestpotato
And because I love them I will even post something nice and normal and sweet, ya? Of characters I know they like. Here's some Dundy and Graham some years after rescue, getting just a touch older now, still working, and attempting to have a normal conversation about not being sailors anymore.
I'll leave it to your imagination why Graham is on his knees.
P.S. I habitually write Dundy as "Dundy" in all my first drafts, and go back and change it later. Final draft he'll be such a sensible, respectable Henry. But for wip wednesday he's the Dunds.
(oh, I do so want to know what y'all are cooking up, so no pressure but if you have a holiday moment to spare: @ardentanchor and @grahamgored and @deathgroupie and @parhelios and @nobodysomega and @dundysoup and everyone who sees this... no holidays, only fanfic ❤️) (and happy holidays if you're celebrating anything!)
The conversation progresses as it has many times in the past, on land and at sea. Dundy tells him he'll have work with the admiralty, that it was hardly as if they wouldn't welcome another gray-haired, infirm, senile buffoon to help them keep the desk chairs warm. Graham is silent- weighs his options for the next part of the conversation, all very familiar to them both this many years in. Dundy's health, Dundy's pain, what he's owed by the Navy. All things that apply equally to Graham, which Graham is just as good at brushing off as Dundy is. Dundy seems to know what he's going to say and tells him not to bother, he's going to keep working. He wants to work until he drops, and then just shove him overboard if there's not a convenient war going on he can get himself shot in. Send his sisters and cousin all his money, as he does now anyway.
"And you save none for yourself," Graham says, still frowning, which is slightly off-script. They're supposed to keep it light, teasing. Never really push each other. But Graham's in a mood tonight. Dundy thinks he shouldn't have brought up retirement if he hadn't wanted to hear all this again, and feels indignant. He takes a sip of tea while it's still hot, knowing by the time they drop the charade and get back to it it will be terribly cold.
"If," Graham says softly, still kneeling, eyes fixed on his own hand where it rests on Henry's knee, "If you will not take care of yourself, I will be left with no choice but to marry you and keep you under lock and key myself."
Dundy goes still. "Jem made that joke once, though Graham seems more likely to carry out the threat that Jem ever was."
Graham's eyes dart up, startled at the unexpected mention of their old friend. Scared he's misstepped, that they might have drifted into rocky waters.
"I'd said Jem would make the better wife, and we both laughed because we knew that was wrong. Jem would make a terrible wife. You'd never know where she was. Halfway across the world instead of home for supper." He says it in a light tone, but he isn't smiling.
"I'm sorry." Graham feels guilt for bringing up something - someone- so painful.
Dundy shakes his head. "It's alright. It's getting easier to remember the good things." He doesn't show the pain on his face, but Graham knows him well enough to understand his tone, how he tries to convince himself what he is saying is true.
He and Graham are similar in that regard, perhaps. Neither likes to express pain, especially not in words. Dundy simply doesn't think to; the people he finds comfort in are few and far between, and he tends to seek them out whenever he wants to feel better, with neither explanation nor compunction. Graham, on the other hand, sometimes wishes he could express more, but feels so much guilt asking for help that even expressing genuine pain feels like some backhanded, sly way of begging. He holds himself as tightly as possible around everyone who isn't Dundy. Dundy's insistence on sharing his luxuries and vices is a convenient way for Graham to let himself have nice things when he hurts, which he does so more and more as the years go by.
Turns out it gets harder to hide pain with age, when your body spends so much time trying to betray you, not obeying orders like it used to. Turns out you never have complete control over it, and the pain, the joints that are both wobbly and stiff at once, the lack of circulation, none of that cares if you're trying to perform at work. Even Graham's hair is graying now, though he still never gets the compliments Dundy does. Dundy's has white in it now, starting in a lovely streak as if he styled it that way. More striking, between the two of them.
Graham's hand has not left Dundy's knee, even as both take a moment to taste their bitter regret of aging.
"It could be a practical matter, if you don't care for romance."
"Come again?" Dundy had been too caught up thinking of pain, and Jem, and the hair of old men, and hadn't caught the connective tissue of Graham's statement.
"Move in with me. You wouldn't have to pay rent, so you could send even more of your pay to your sisters. You'd only have to see me when I'm on land."
Dundy stares, taken aback. Too many different ideas conflicting in one sentence- only have to see me- wouldn't pay rent- move in? Was Graham really going to play this game, where Graham tries to be his Captain, and friend, and good citizen of the Queen's England, and somehow say less than he needs to for each, and forget the part of the conversation where they're lovers, or have been enough times over the years that they ought to be admitting that, so they are have several conversations at once that all lead nowhere?
So Dundy stares at him. Any onlooker would say Dundy's expression was neutral, but in the first second of pointed silence and direct, sharp eye contact expresses his immediate displease. Graham sees into the heart of him and scoffs, refusing to take responsibility.
"Don't look at me like that, sport. You're the one who's abandoning me to the sea."
Oh, almost forgot to post this! One of my oldest WIPs because other things get in the way, before I started compulsively writing everything in present tense. This WIP is a tense nightmare! I should simply be allowed to shift tense mid-sentence on a whim if I feel like it.
Here's Like A Doll's Eyes, my Jopson Automata AU, where our odd-eyed steward is somewhere in between a steampunk automaton, a haunted ball-jointed doll, and a cyborg with creepy semi-organic parts, encased in beautiful porcelain. This is a series of different characters having to put hands on and in Jopson because Crozier, seeing the crew mistrust his loyal battle doll maid, orders Jopson to at least try to make connections, because what if something happens to Crozier and everyone mistrusts and dislikes him? Jopson reluctantly starts roping in others to help him with basic repair and maintenance. They all have various shades of treating him like an object and not a person, while at the same time performing extremely intimate tasks inside his body, forcing him to be extremely vulnerable. This snippet is an Edward scene for the JopLittle truthers out there.
Shoutout to @ardentanchor whose excellent pre-bedtime chat involving panels, wiring and Croenberg reminded me I still have this WIP sitting and begging to be finished, thank you!
(sorry this is kind of long, but this fic is so far from being completed I figured I'd share a good sized scene.)
Jopson's cabin was small, like any of the stewards cabins, and not designed for two people. "Sit," Edward instructed as he slid the door closed, putting a hand on Jopson's shoulder and gently pushing him down to a sitting position on his bed. He obeyed.
Without asking, Edward pulled at the box he recognized as Jopson's toolbox, securely tucked in the storage space just beneath his bed.
"It's not so complicated, sir. It's just learning where pieces go, like a jigsaw-"
With no warning there were fingers on his face, gently but firmly holding him, and a cloth, dabbed with cleaning solution. "Oh," was all he managed before the fingers were cupping his jaw, holding him and angling his head just so, and then Edward was rubbing little circles across his cheek, his forehead. Jopson hadn't looked in a mirror in hours; he must have done a poor job trying to clean himself earlier.
"Still have blood on you," Edward said quietly.
Jopson knew his stares were unsettling, but he couldn't stop watching Edward's eyes. His brows were pinched in concentration, and despite the dark circles he had his eyes darted back and forth with alert clarity, seeing specks and smears no doubt, then flourishing the cloth over Jopson's face to obliterate the offending spots. Jopson made sure to hold still, letting Edward's fingers dictate to what angle and degree he needed to turn. Before he could go back into his instructions Edward was speaking again: "How do I fix your eye?"
"Oh," Jopson had almost forgotten about it, with everything else going on. His vision on that side was faulty now, almost totally obscured as the eye had been rotated around in its socket so far the pupil must be barely visible. But he worked just as well with one eye, and it was something he could fix quickly in a mirror by himself. "It's not important, sir."
"No, I should. It looks…"
"Painful?"
"Yes…"
And unsettling, Jopson was sure he wanted to say. That was fair. His eyes unsettled people even when they were set at the proper angle in his head. Well, that was why the Lieutenant was here, to learn these things. "You will need to touch it, with a clean hand. Place your hand on the side of my head, and use the pad of your thumb to rotate it back into place… use the cleaning solution there…"
Edward did as bid, rubbing the solution along his thumb and fingers, drying them with a clean cloth. Then he held Jopson's head as if about to gouge his eyes out with his thumbs. Jopson's one good eye bore into him like it could see into his soul. He briefly wondered how he got himself into such a position, hands on the head of the captain's automaton with the... man? staring directly back at him.
"Try to match it with the other, sir. It should click into place."
Grimacing slightly, Edward moved his thumb to Jopson's eye. Too gently; his clean skin slid off the white.
"More pressure, sir…"
He pressed; finally the little white globe succumbed and sunk down the slightest bit, allowing Edward's thumb to rotate it. Now Edward's gaze darted between Jopson's eyeballs, trying to align them. Jopson was careful to be still; it took a little more effort than normal to relax his own vision and allow someone else to rotate his eyes, and he had to focus to prevent himself from wresting control of the orb back from Edward. But then in a slow reverse-eclipse, vision was returning to his right eye, Edward's thumb finally getting the proper way of it and pulling the pupil back into the light.
"Very good s-" His words were just clipped by the jolt of the eye finding its notch in the back of its socket, making his words hitch.
Edward flinched, held his hands up and away. "Did I do something wrong?"
Jopson blinked several times, smoothed his hair compulsively. "No sir, it always makes a bit of a hitch when it connects."
"…So it does hurt? You feel pain?"
Jopson had no, sir on his lips and ready, but the ghostly echo of Crozier's voice swam through his head- always, it did, but this time it said Be honest with me. And he'd been asked to be better, honest, with the crew, by extension. He looked up at Edward, now his acting captain, the northern star for his sense of duty, and put on his most polite voice. "Yes, sir. I feel pain when things are damaged, or when things are pushed back into place. I don't know if it's like your pain. It doesn't affect me, I can assure you; as long as I am in working order, I can be in any amount of pain and still function."
This is super cute, the Spotify wrapped is interesting but I love applying the concept to creative stats for the year. And the manual DIY nature of the thing takes me back to an earlier time of the internet. 😅
I don't know how to pick a favorite fic, but I think I'm proudest of my big bang fic Lenore Loves Me Dead, if only for finishing something so big on such a tight deadline, so that's the one I chose for "favorite"!
Including my final AO3 count for character, relationship, and additional tags across 21 fics:
I got a little Graham Gore obsessed at the end of the year, didn't expect that! It will continue. xD
