The Oracle Speaks

Fic: This One Is for Bravery (Team Fortress 2, Soldier, Teen)

atdelphi — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 19:52:26 GMT

...and the second of the impromptu Depression-era double feature.

Title: This One Is for Bravery
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Characters: Soldier
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1000
Summary: "The state of Iowa made a man out of him. This was a fact." Written for the A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words writing challenge. Prompt: Broken Mirror by Andreas Brink.
Content Info: Setting is a 1930s-40s children's state mental hospital. Contains a non-graphic scene of forced sterilization.
Notes: My thanks to cathouse_mary for beta-reading. Title is taken from "Soldier's Things" by Tom Waits.

The state of Iowa made a man out of him. This was a fact. He was a child when he arrived at the Home, and he was grown when he left. In between was a series of itchy shirts and cold baths. Corn mush served with milk for breakfast and fried for dinner. Hot dogs and baked beans on Sundays. There was a Depression on, and by God it was a great one.

Before the Home there was a white house. Green waving stalks one day and then black clouds blowing along the road. Hot dust under his bare feet. Corn was ten cents a bushel. Voices up on the porch as he hid underneath it. John, leave him be. Something ain't right with him, Edie — what the hell are we supposed to do with a feeble-minded boy? Wheat was thirty cents a bushel.

The long, rattling drive took all day. They knew how to make roads back then. None of this pansy-ass blacktop with lines painted on it, trying to tell you where to go. They knew how to make trucks back then too. Real farm trucks with wooden floors and steel bars that got hot in the sun.

He could barely see over the dash.

Dust rose up from the road and settled on his eyelashes. It got in his mouth, adding extra grit to his sugar sandwich. Stop that. Get your finger out of your nose.

All the dry dirt and crusted snot peeled off in one satisfying layer and he could breathe again. It was the same satisfaction as picking away at the paint on the metal frame of his new bed. He smiled as a big white chip flaked off under his fingernail. The Boys' Ward was noisy at night, crowded with the sounds of snoring, farting, crying, and groaning.

The night nurse played the radio. He could hear it through the door. Faint and crackling voices. The Swingtown Orchestra Players, then Detective Keen, and then the Midnight Mystery Show. He stayed awake as long as he could, straining his ears until the stories followed him into his dreams.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

It was the middle of the afternoon. One of the nurses, the nice one with the red hair, gathered them all together in the day room. She had her hand over her mouth. Boys. Boys, listen. This is important.

This was important. America was at war, and they all needed to hold the home front. They needed to be brave now. They were doing their part for the war effort. They were going without for the soldiers. The handyman and the guards and most of the doctors went away. The milk was more water than powder. The radio was on all the time.

The other nurse frowned. Turn that off, Doris. You'll get them overexcited.

He was always overexcited. Calm down or you're going in the Quiet Room. Stop that. Get your hand out of your pants. That is disgusting. What is wrong with you? He started wetting the bed again after years of dry sheets. It felt good until they caught him. Then he had to wear mittens at night. Rough wool things that made his hands sweat. Strings tied tight around his wrists. He had to take a vitamin pill with breakfast. He couldn't stay awake, no matter how hard he tried.

You're having a growth spurt. Growing up is tiring work, son.

The doctor, the old one who didn't go away to fight, brought him upstairs for a test. He was measured and weighed. There were questions. He had to memorize a long list of words. Draw the missing door on a picture of a house and the hands on a picture of a clock. Make shapes out of blocks. It was boring. He scratched his itchy back, wanting to look out the window. It was snowing, and he could hear the delivery truck coming through the gates. He frowned. Tried his best so that the doctor would tell the army he was good enough to enlist.

A pencil tapped on the clipboard. You're going to have an operation.

It was cold down in the basement where the operating room was. White tile floor and water-stained white walls. Goosebumps prickling on his arms and legs. He could see his breath. There was the sound of something dripping in the walls. A hard metal table under his back. The light from the lamp burned his eyes, even through his squeezed-shut eyelids. He couldn't cover them. His wrists were strapped down. Hush. Stop making a fuss. This is routine.

There was a smell like gasoline. The burning stopped and the room went gray and hazy. He was floating.

He would have thought getting his tonsils out would make his throat hurt, but it felt fine. His head was heavy when he woke up. There was an ache between his legs, like he had been kicked in the balls. He was alone, and everything was quiet for a long time. Footsteps out in the hall and up on the first floor. The faraway thumping from the laundry. Somewhere, someone was having a fit. The redheaded nurse came in and fed him cold, creamy banana pudding from a little white bowl.

The spoon clicked against his teeth. She scratched his itchy neck for him when he asked her to. Sharp fingernails. Warm, soft skin. Go to sleep, soldier. You were brave today.

He smiled, his eyelids growing heavy as he watched her clean up. Sharp things clunking into a bucket. Rust-stained rags. His tongue ran around the inside of his mouth, chasing down every last speck of pudding with pride.

A man had to earn his dessert in those days. There was a war on, and by God he was going to fight for his country.

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What's Making Me Happy Today: TNG Season 8

atdelphi — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 04:13:30 GMT

The Star Trek: TNG Season 8 Twitter account is a hilarious collection of episode synopses from the show's fictitious eighth season.

Highlights include:

"Worf is framed for the murder of a depraved Klingon poet. Data & Geordi panic after trapping a hornet under a cup."

"Riker protects a class of alien school kids and their attractive teacher during a lava storm. A flock of tiny, flightless birds hunt Wesley."

"Picard's production of MacBeth becomes far too real. Having torn apart the warp core, Geordi now thinks the weird noise is coming from Data."

"Troi guides a dying ensign through his final, emotional journey. Data & Geordi are trapped on a conference room table by a scary dog."

And my personal favourite:

"Q imprisons Riker in Data's debut novel, 'The Werewolf Wolf' - the tale of a wolf who's bitten by a werewolf, based on a drawing by Geordi."

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WiP Meme

atdelphi — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 01:09:19 GMT

Taken from perverse_idyll and toft:

When you see this, share 3 random lines from 3 WIPs. (Because my entire life is nothing but works-in-progress at the moment, I went with the stories that will probably at least be among the next five I finish.)

1. The mercenaries were, she had naively reasoned, all grown men; some of them were old enough to be her father, and a few had even fought in the war. She was only six months out of the Louise S. Scherzheimer Secretarial School and two weeks past replying on a whim to an advertisement in the newspaper that had promised excitement, adventure, and dental insurance in the New Mexico Badlands. Sure, she had aced three interviews and a practical exam that had involved a fresh corpse being dumped in her apartment with a note pinned to its chest stating that the police would be arriving in thirty minutes, but these men were professionals.

2. On principle, Severus felt he ought to be an atheist. The title had a certain ring to it: provocative, but respectably so. Like being a Marxist, only without the off-putting social requirement.

3. Signs flew past for little towns with names like Applebaum (Home of the Applebaum Brawlers!), New Hodunk (Three-Year County Cornhole Champions!), and Freedom Springs (Suck It, New Hodunk!). Their target was announced with much less fanfare: just faded paint on a wooden arrow (Gladys, pop. 167 1/2). Jane was leaning forward seriously as they turned onto a track so narrow that weeds brushed the sides of the car.

As ever, I use way too many semi-colons and colons in first drafts.

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What's Making Me Happy Today: TF2 Characters Dancing

atdelphi — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 02:02:40 GMT

Title: Team Fortress 2 Characters Dance
Vidder: Sabs Time (character animation by Thejazzman9475)
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Characters: Ensemble + Heavy/Medic
Rating: Teen
Songs: Clips from "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai, "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk, "Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer, "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé, "Waterflame" by Thunderzone, "Stupid MF" by Mindless Self Indulgence, and "Be My Lover (Tender Edit)" by La Bouche.
Content Info: Strong language in one of the song clips ("Stupid MF") and a fair bit of booty-slapping.

This is pretty much everything I love about this fandom right here.

This entry is also posted at http://delphi.dreamwidth.org/381841.html where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

Rainy Day Recs: 2 x Vids Set to Ellie Goulding Songs

atdelphi — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 05:03:18 GMT

Title: Lights
Vidder: Talitha78
Fandom: Person of Interest
Pairing: John Reese/Harold Finch
Rating: Teen (for live-action violence)
Song: "Lights" by Ellie Goulding
Content Info: n/a

Title: Burn
Vidder: PacoChicago
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: Mature (for cartoon violence)
Song: "Burn" by Ellie Goulding
Content Info: n/a

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Another Hoggywarty Rec!

atdelphi — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 07:35:42 GMT

hoggywartyxmas has been incredibly good to me this year, and I haven't even had a chance to check out half the works yet!

My gift, Master of My Fate, Captain of My Soul (Irma Pince, Teen, with all sorts of wonderful friendships and flirtations and burgeoning relationships), is an absolute gem. It follows the first year of employment of a beautifully believable, bookish Irma Pince - an introvert thrown in with the strong personalities of the Hogwarts staff - and while the 9000+ words of this story comes full circle in an incredibly satisfying way, I would seriously read a whole novel about her.

“I’ll assume you’re Veela then, shall I?” At Irma’s damnably reddening cheeks, the woman added, “And it shall be my personal quest to make you smile before Christmas. I’m Rolanda, but please do call me Ro.”

Irma gripped her hand at last, shook once—noting the calluses—and pulled away. “Isn’t it customary to share your name before your quest?”

“Not as customary as it is to share your name after receiving one,” Rolanda replied with a wry little smile. Her joviality was maddening, but she did have a point.

“Irma. As you know, because we’ve met.” Irma’s eyes narrowed, though she could tell it was without the bite of her customary glare. “No short-names.”

“Irma the Veela, then.”

“Then don’t get me angry.” Irma drew the feather duster from under her arm and pointed them down at Rolanda’s shoes. The woman looked down and rocked on the balls of her feet, where dirt clung to her boots. A whispered cleaning spell and the boots were set to sparkling almost as bright as Rolanda’s grin when she lifted her chin.

“I’m a professional Harpy. You can’t scare me off with your Veela temper.”

“I’ve dark hair,” Irma protested. It was difficult to argue against such buoyant banter. But that was Rolanda, apparently: she’d heard that Hooch would ‘flirt at anything with legs’.

Irma was quite aware in that moment that she had legs, and yet Rolanda’s tone was not uncomfortably suggestive as she admitted defeat with another clear flirtation: “Ah, so you have. It must have been your beauty that blinded me. I’ll return when I can better see your smile.”

Absolutely delightful. I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone with any interest in the Hogwarts staff. It's the perfect warm, witty, thoughtful story to spend a wintery afternoon with.

This entry is also posted at http://delphi.dreamwidth.org/380783.html where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

2014 Writing Year in Review

atdelphi — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 06:18:40 GMT

Total Stories: 43 (up 1 from 2013)

Total Word Count: 86,230 (down 65,331 from 2013)

10 under 1000 words (up 1 from 2013)
31 1000-5000 words (up 3 from 2013)
2 5000-10,000 words (same as 2013)
0 10,000-20,000 words (down 1 from 2013)
0 20,000+ words (down 2 from 2013)

28 The Hobbit (up 12 from 2013)
6 Harry Potter (down 10 from 2013)
5 Guardians of the Galaxy (new fandom)
4 Team Fortress 2 (new fandom)

Most Popular Pairing: Controlling for a collection of vignettes that sits halfway between a series and a single story, I'm declaring it a tie between Balin/Dori (The Hobbit) and Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta (Guardians of the Galaxy) at five stories each!

Most Popular Character: In a major upset, Severus Snape's six(?)-year reign has come to an end! 2014 was the year of Dori the dwarf, with 20 outings across five standalone stories and two series.

Hobbit Fic

Title: Chicken Soup, Part 10 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Characters: Dori, Ori
Rating: General
Summary: Dori takes the day off to tend to his sick little brother and shares with him a bit of family history.

Title: The Outing, Part 11 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Characters/Pairings: Dori, Ori (with Dori/Balin and Dori/Bofur)
Rating: Mature
Summary: Dori discovers that a day of leisure can be more tiring than it looks.

Title: Hallmarks, Part 12 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Pairing: Balin/Dori
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Mr. Balin comes to call, and Dori entertains a fanciful notion.

Title: Table Manners II, Part 13 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Pairing: Dori/Dwalin
Rating: Mature
Summary: Dwalin's second visit to the Amethyst is marginally more successful than his first; but then, it would have to be.

Title: Small Beer and Bread, Part 14 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Characters: Balin, Dwalin
Rating: Teen
Summary: Dwalin returns from his unsuccessful visit to the Amethyst, and Balin provides some sound advice.

Title: Blessing the Iron, Part 15 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Pairing: Dori/OMC
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Dori hosts an inexperienced young guardsman and has a first time of his own.

Title: Lavender Biscuits, Part 16 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Characters: Dori, Nori
Rating: General
Summary: Nori turns up like the proverbial bad penny, and Dori says more than one thing he shouldn't.

Title: Cold Rabbit, Part 17 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Characters: Dori and Family
Rating: General
Summary: Dori's last memories of Erebor are ones of smoke and flame.

Title: Table Manners III, Part 18 of Cream Tea and Sympathy
Pairing: Dori/Dwalin
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Dwalin brings his best manners to the Amethyst, and Dori tests his resolve.

Title: Untitled Hand-Holding Ficlet
Pairing: Dwalin/Thorin
Rating: General
Summary: "A warrior was meant to be fearless."

Title: I Gave My Love a Cherry, Part 2 of Which Had No Stone
Pairing: Bifur/Dwalin
Rating: Teen
Summary: There is little mercy in being the one who remembers, but what is the quest to reclaim Erebor if not a long shot at starting anew?

Title: The Empty Bellies Dining Society
Pairing: Bilbo Baggins/Dwalin/Thorin Oakenshield
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Bilbo and Dwalin have two things in common: an appreciation for good meals and a case of unrequited love for a certain oblivious king. The only sensible thing to do is form a supper club.

Title: What to Expect When a Dwarf Is Expecting, Vignette #1, Part 2 of The Affairs of Dwarves
Characters: Dori, Beorn, Nori
Rating: Mature
Summary: "It was always so simple in the stories."

Title: What to Expect When a Dwarf Is Expecting, Vignette #2, Part 2 of The Affairs of Dwarves
Characters: Dori, Ori, Balin, Thorin Oakenshield
Rating: General
Summary: "If his child was born with eight limbs—or worse, pointed ears—as a result of all the foul magic that had permeated the Mirkwood, Dori was going to bring a legal suit against Thorin Oakenshield, king or not."

Title: What to Expect When a Dwarf Is Expecting, Vignette #3, Part 2 of The Affairs of Dwarves
Pairing: Balin/Dori
Rating: General
Summary: "The chief virtue of the dwarves, in Balin's opinion, was that they were a practical people."

Title: What to Expect When a Dwarf Is Expecting, Vignette #4, Part 2 of The Affairs of Dwarves
Characters: Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield, Balin, Dori
Rating: General
Summary: "No, Bilbo decided. No. Absolutely not."

Title: What to Expect When a Dwarf Is Expecting, Vignette #5, Part 2 of The Affairs of Dwarves
Pairing: Balin/Dori
Rating: Explicit
Summary: "When all their number had been safely accounted for and the River Running was sweeping the black blood of orcs to the sea, Dori dragged his husband into a quiet corner of the armoury and proceeded to kiss him as if their lives depended upon it."

Title: Untitled Balin & Dwalin Bodyswap
Characters: Balin, Dwalin
Rating: Teen
Summary: "His first mistake was taking any interest in woodland ruins."

Title: Untitled Dwalin/Nori & Balin/Dori Bodyswap
Pairings: Dwalin/Nori, Balin/Dori
Rating: Teen
Summary: "It was probably for the best that Dori seemed to believe the cure for ensorcellment was staying in bed with a cold compress. "

Title: Untitled Balin/Dori Bodyswap
Pairing: Balin/Dori
Rating: Mature
Summary: "For all his faults, Balin was an honourable dwarf."

Title: Untitled Dáin/Dori Bed-Sharing
Pairing: Dáin/Dori
Rating: Teen
Summary: "There were few happy tales to be told about the march to Khazad-dûm, but to Dori’s dismay, Dáin found no end of mirth relating the events of their first meeting."

Title: Untitled Thorin & Dwalin Bodyswap
Characters: Thorin Oakenshield, Dwalin
Rating: General
Summary: "I wish…"

Title: Untitled Balin/Thorin Huddling for Warmth
Pairing: Balin/Thorin Oakenshield
Rating: General
Summary: "It would have been more merciful had the storm come out of nowhere, but the bitter wind and grey clouds stalked them south for hours before the snow began to fall."

Title: Untitled Dáin/Dori Caretaking
Pairing: Dáin/Dori
Rating: Teen
Summary: "Dori had an unnerving knack for telling when his leg was acting up."

Title: Untitled Balin/Dwalin
Pairing: Balin/Dwalin
Rating: Teen (Sibling Incest)
Summary: "When a long moment passed without a response, Dwalin turned coward. 'Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?'"

Title: Untitled Balin & Dwalin
Characters: Balin, Dwalin
Rating: General
Summary: "The first time he ever knocked Balin down wasn’t in the training yard, but in the kitchen."

Title: Untitled Dwalin & Mama
Characters: Dwalin, Dwalin's Mama
Rating: General
Summary: "When Dwalin is very young, he knows that his mother is the strongest dwarf in the world."

Harry Potter Fic

Title: Speak to Me, Part 4 of Snape of St. Brutal's
Pairings: Argus Filch/Severus Snape, Severus Snape/OMC
Rating: Mature (Underage, Dubious Consent, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse)
Summary: Breaking Filch is a foregone conclusion, but Severus has never let knowing the ending put him off a good story.

Title: Dreaming from the Waist, Part 5 of Snape of St. Brutal's
Pairing: Severus Snape/OMC
Rating: Explicit (Underage, Dubious Consent)
Summary: During his brief stint of freedom from St. Brutal’s, Severus discovers that buggery—while not the cure for boredom—is an acceptable stopgap measure.

Title: Counting Out Time, Part 6 of Snape of St. Brutal's
Pairings: Argus Filch/Severus Snape, Severus Snape/OMC
Rating: Mature (Underage, Dubious Consent)
Summary: Severus considers the virtue of perseverance.

Title: A Gramarye of Folk Magic
Pairing: Aberforth Dumbledore/Severus Snape
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Time moves with the seasons in Hogsmeade, and season by season the Snape boy returns to Aberforth's inn.

Title: Needs Must
Pairing: Argus Filch/Severus Snape
Rating: Explicit (Brief Underage Fantasy)
Summary: "This isn't so much an arrangement as it is...a state of affairs." A slice of life from Severus's first year teaching.

Title: [hoggywartyxmas Fic]
Pairing: [TBA]
Rating: [TBA]
Summary: [TBA]

Guardians of the Galaxy Fic

Title: Provider
Pairing: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta
Rating: Teen
Summary: Only Kraglin gets a share when the captain's been hunting.

Title: Take Your Baby Home
Pairing: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta
Rating: Explicit (Daddy Kink)
Summary: Kraglin gets jealous over all the time Yondu is spending with their Terran cargo. Yondu reminds him that he's still his daddy.

Title: Red
Pairing: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta
Rating: Mature (Implied Underage Prostitution, Implied Rape)
Summary: Eyes, skies, uniforms, and killings—instances of the colour red in the life of Kraglin Obfonteri.

Title: The Cheap Seats
Pairing: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta, Background Gamora/Peter Quill UST
Rating: Mature
Summary: Peter and Gamora break into Yondu's cabin to recover stolen goods, only to see more than they expected to.

Title: How to Dream Sweet
Pairing: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta
Rating: Mature (Vigilante Violence, Implied Child Sexual Abuse)
Summary: Yondu has his own way of dealing with Kraglin's nightmares—and the cause of them.

Team Fortress 2 Fic

Title: Sweetheart (Good Enough to Eat)
Pairing: Engineer/Pyro
Rating: Mature
Summary: Engie is a big ol’ marshmallow, and Pyro wants to toast him and eat his gooey insides. It’s only kind of a metaphor.

Title: Men of Science
Pairing: Engineer/Medic
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Roughneck or theoretical physicist, God-fearing Christian or God-loving pervert, most folks seemed to be asking "Why?" when Dell was asking "Why not?" Or, the one where Dell Conagher meets a like-minded doctor and robot handjobs ensue.

Title: Spectacular
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: Explicit
Summary: Five times Medic dreamed off showing off his Heavy, and one time he was the one with an appreciative audience.

Title: A Canvas Sky
Pairing: Engineer/Pyro
Rating: Mature
Summary: Pyro requires some careful handling, and Dell is more than happy to take things slow.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

It's about what I predicted by halfway through the year. Starting a new job and moving house took the wind out of my sails, and I knew I wasn't going to match last year's unprecedented word count. Still, not a bad tally.

Where did you publish/archive your stories?

My Hobbit and Guardians of the Galaxy fic were published only on AO3 under side pseudonyms, and everything else was published on AO3, DW, and LJ.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Team Fortress 2! I was vaguely aware of the game's existence, but I had no idea that there was a whole collection of cracktastic short films and comics about a group of dorky mercenaries and their adorable handler in an absurdist version of the late 1960s.

Then, after about the hundredth time I scrolled past jokes about teleporting bread and stern French men demanding to be seduced, I finally clicked some links and discovered all sorts of various and intriguing pairing options.

Your best story of this year?

In terms of being happy with getting what was in my head down on the page, my pick is A Gramarye of Folk Magic (Aberforth Dumbledore/Severus Snape, Harry Potter). It was written in a hurry, but I think it would have turned out much the same if I'd dithered over it longer.

In what would prove to be the final days of the war, Aberforth’s brother entrusted to his keeping a hide-bound book, a stoppered silver phial the size of a finger bone, and a 21-year-old boy of uncertain provenance. This last turned up at the Hog’s Head on a morning in early August, and Aberforth, upon examining him, rendered the same judgment he had with the book and the phial. Didn’t look like much. Obviously valuable nonetheless. Most likely dangerous.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

I remain tickled by Sweetheart (Good Enough to Eat) (Engineer/Pyro, Team Fortress 2).

I spent a lot of time uncertain about what to do with the Guro square on my Kink Bingo card. Most aspects of Guro hit some hard boundaries for me (which is kind of the point). But Pyro's canonically warped view of reality, combined with their relationship with Engineer—where Engie takes them home for Christmas and reads stories by the fire and is apparently open to the possibility of co-parenting an alien superbaby—made it work for me. Engie's caretaker role softens the sense of legitimate danger that makes me nervous when combining horror and sex, and cannibalistic fantasies are obviously sweeter when they're candy-themed.

'Might want to try just holding them close to the fire,' Engie suggested, but marshmallows only taste good when they're burnt.

You have to put them all the way into the flames. Let them catch. Watch them flare up at the end of the stick like shooting stars. Golden-brown at first, then black and bubbling. Whoosh—blow them out.

They crackle on the tongue. The charred sugar fuses to the inside of the mouth and then melts away. Insides ooze out.

The crayons rattle in the box under another examination. There should be a color for your heart feeling too big for your chest. Too much blood and not enough room to pump it. Meat pushing against bone. Another color for getting the tingles and squirming in your seat with the urge to give someone a hug. Wanting to squeeze Engie around the middle where he's marshmallow-soft under his overalls.

That's where all his sweetness has to be. The rest of him is muscle and metal. Hard things can’t make a smile like that. They can’t. Engie's voice comes up from some warm, sugary place, slow as syrup. 'Buddy,' he says, and 'partner,' and one time it was even 'darling,' the time at the barbecue when everyone else was screaming.

‘Come on, darlin'. Put down the axe, now. It's time to go home.’

Okay, NOW your most popular story?

The Empty Bellies Dining Society (Bilbo Baggins/Dwalin/Thorin Oakenshield, The Hobbit), by far. Not a big surprise given that two-thirds of the threesome make up the fandom's biggest pairing.

"Oh." Bilbo offered a wry smile in sympathy. He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "We should form a supper club."

Dwalin frowned, clearly suspicious.

"It's a joke," Bilbo said. "Or rather, it's a saying. 'We should form a supper club.' When you have something in common that you'd rather not. 'You hate your mother-in-law? Me too. We should form a supper club.'"

"What's a supper club?"

"Well," Bilbo said, rocking on his heels and trying to think of how best to explain it to someone who was not well-acquainted with cutlery. "It's when you get together with friends to have a meal, formally I mean. You need to be invited, and there's usually a theme. Some clubs are for wild game, and some are for a meal and a ramble, or for foreign food, or for dinner and cards. A proper nine courses usually do the trick, but it's the full twenty-one for special occasions."

"Hmph," Dwalin said, and Bilbo was reminded of his grudging compliments about his cooking. "You live well, hobbits, don't you?"

Bilbo sighed wistfully, thinking about the matter of breakfast and baths. "We try."

~~Story of yours most underappreciated by the universe, in your opinion?~~ Story of yours that surprised you with its popularity?

As amended last year: I know I write niche stuff, so I try not to get hung up on the first question. I was surprised when Provider (Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta, Guardians of the Galaxy) first broke a thousand hits on AO3. It isn't a pretty pairing, so colour me thrilled to have some company in my love for Peter Quill's redneck space daddies.

Yondu's a real hunter. He comes from one of those Centaurian colonies that's all wilderness outside of the spaceports. He doesn't talk about it much, but from the bits and pieces he's dropped over the years, Kraglin's cobbled together a picture of blue-green swamps and tall trees. Wading birds with sickle-sharp talons. Six-ton lizards floating around under the murky water.

Sometimes he figures it's why they make such a good team. Kraglin himself is more what you might call a forager. He was twenty before he even saw real sunlight, let alone a tree. He grew up in the pit levels of Ekron, down with the garbage and the greywater rivers. He's got a knack for sorting treasure from trash—can dig a speck of diamond out of a heap of broken glass blindfolded—but he hasn't got that long eye like his captain does.

Yondu just knows places. He gets the lay of the land the moment his feet touch down somewhere, even in a place he's never been before. No one gets the drop on him—no one. He'll take off sometimes, when they have a few hours to kill on the surface of a likely-looking planet. 'Might go see what I can find,' he'll say, and that's Kraglin's cue to fall back and leave him be. Yondu never takes anything but his arrow and a knife with him, and he never heads off in the direction Kraglin would think of going, but he also never comes back to the ship without something half-gutted and ready to cook.

Story that could have been better?

Needs Must (Argus Filch/Severus Snape, Harry Potter) really should have been much longer. I ended up cutting out a whole theme about code-switching that I liked because doing it justice would have taken me past the deadline.

The battered couch sags beneath him when he slouches down. He sighs.

If he closes his eyes, he's six years old again, bored and curious in equal measure as he infiltrates the gathering of his father's friends. Manchester City is winning, and the men are laughing, and Severus is fidgeting under a cloud of smoke, wishing they would pay attention to him. His father casually swats him out of his seat to go fetch more drinks from the kitchen.

"Ballycastle in possession—quaffle up the pitch to Whelan, now to Clery, back to Whelan—"

Filch hooks an arm around Severus's legs and pulls his feet up into his lap.

"Bugger off," Severus says, letting his knee jab awkwardly into Filch's side. "I'm trying to listen."

Most fun story to write?

I snickered to myself once or twice while writing Table Manners III (Dori/Dwalin, The Hobbit). As the title suggests, it's Dwalin's third visit to Dori's house of good repute after being kicked out twice for being a boor. I love the idea of etiquette as a weapon and the thought of these two sitting on opposite sides of the table, bringing out their best manners while gritting their teeth and silently daring the other to make a mis-step—which carries on to the verbal bondage scene that followed.

"Shall I take the cork out of that brandy?" Dori asked.

Dwalin dragged his gaze away from the bounty on the table. He licked his lips and glanced briefly at the bottle of brandy before shaking his head resolutely.

"Oh no," he declared in altogether too showy a manner to be believable. "I wouldn't dream of taking strong drink before dinner. That bottle is a gift."

Dori looked at him skeptically, certain he had more than once seen him leaving the tavern at an hour when more respectable dwarves were still at their breakfasts.

Dwalin raised his eyebrows innocently, the jut of his chin challenging Dori to slander him.

Dori refused to give him the satisfaction. "How thoughtful of you."

Story with single sweetest moment?

The fact that Yondu Udonta is 100% a dick is part of the appeal for me. Which is why, apparently, I keep writing him being kind of a sweetheart to Kraglin Obfonteri in his own terrible way. My gooiest moment of the year has to be when Kraglin, who I wrote as hailing from a subterranean ghetto and not seeing sunlight until he was grown, drunkenly realizes it's no coincidence that he's ended up in a penthouse hotel suite on the surface of his home planet years later in Red (Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta, Guardians of the Galaxy):

"Hey," Kraglin says, a thought rolling around heavily between his ears.

Yondu gives the bottle a shake, looking for the last drops, then flings the thing across the room. It lands with a shattering crash. Breakable glass—that's how you know it's the good stuff.

"Hey," he says again.

Yondu scratches his belly. "What?"

Kraglin tries to remember what he was going to say. He frowns. Then he looks up and it comes back to him.

"I used to live here."

"That so?" Yondu says. "Thought this shithole planet looked familiar."

Kraglin means to say something else, but he gets distracted eyeing up Yondu, who's always a sight when he's pleased with himself.

"What you got that stupid look on your face for, boy?"

The story ~~that made you cry~~ with the saddest moment?

Dreaming from the Waist (Severus Snape/OMC, Harry Potter): the scene where a teenage Snape comes home from doing something he wasn't ready for with a man old enough to be his father and has some gut-deep urge to be his mother's child again, but can't. He's gone too far for that.

"I don't feel well."

She looked at him again, with rather more suspicion this time. He wondered if she could smell Ray's aftershave as strongly as he could.

"Are you taking drugs?" she asked. Her tone was less angry than he thought the question warranted.

"No."

"Don't lie to me," she said.

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not."

Her expression softened. "You've probably gone and given yourself sun-stroke. Go put a cold cloth on your head and lie down until lunch."

He said nothing, closing his eyes and feeling the faint breeze from the open door stirring at his back. Maybe he should cut his hair off, he thought. Or maybe he only had a fever. He thought of his mother’s cold hand on his brow—some memory of Before when he was small and she could still stand to touch him. He wanted to lie down on the floor and listen to the telly for a while.

"Severus," his mother said tiredly, "you're either ill or you’re not.”

Sexiest story?

Take Your Baby Home (Kraglin Obfonter/Yondu Udonta, Guardians of the Galaxy). Because: ageplay, daddy kink, and dirty talk.

Yondu was tempted to hit him again, but there wouldn't have been any fairness to it. Kraglin wasn't spoiling for a fight. He wouldn't even look him in the eye. He got like that sometimes, sulky like back in the day. Kraglin had been grown, but barely, when Yondu first picked him up in a hellhole at the edge of Shi'ar space. Just a scrawny scrapper who offered to suck his cock for ten credits and then tried to cut his throat.

You didn't let a catch like that get away.

"Don't you be jealous, boy," he crooned, laying a hand on the back of Kraglin's neck. "You know I'm still your daddy."

Kraglin looked at him sideways. His shoulders were hitched up, but he didn't pull away.

Yondu tightened his grip and lowered his voice. "You know what you're gonna do?"

Kraglin shook his head.

"You're gonna run on up ahead to my cabin and fix me a drink while I finish some business. Then Daddy's gonna come home and spend some time with you."

He could feel Kraglin swallowing hard. That pretty red tongue of his darted out and wetted his lips.

"Go on," he said, letting go of Kraglin's neck and giving him a hard smack on the ass to get him moving. "Git, now."

Hardest story to write

It takes exactly as much sentence-tweaking as you might imagine to write a romance story in which the protagonist uses no pronouns whatsoever in reference to the object of his affection. But I couldn't resist it in A Canvas Sky (Engineer/Pyro, Team Fortress 2).

Half the bedding on base is currently draped over a sturdy support structure of pillows in the corner of Dell's bedroom, making a cozy bunker just big enough for two. A few emergency candles from the supply room are lined up in jars on the floor next to his mattress, along with a six-pack of beer and a bowl of potato chips. Nat King Cole is softly crooning from the record player, and there's a sentry set up outside the door in case anyone gets some damn fool idea about interrupting.

Dell is stretched out on his back, watching the shadows move on the bed-sheet roof of the fort. Pyro's cuddled up sweetly beside him, head on Dell's shoulder. They're both dressed down to t-shirts and sweatpants, which is practically naked after months of fumbling through an asbestos suit and going back and forth on his guess at what kind of equipment he was even trying to operate under there.

Easiest story to write?

How to Dream Sweet (Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta) was pretty much written all in one go. It's pure id-fic, all hurt/comfort and revenge fantasy, with lots of after-nightmare snuggling and the doing-away-with of a very unpleasant person.

Yondu lets go of him and smacks him on the chest again. "You're snoring. What'd I tell you about snoring in my bed?"

Kraglin stops trying to hit him. He's still panting, but his eyes slowly close and his knee eases down. He groans again, quieter this time.

"What'd I tell you?" Yondu prompts.

"Sleep on m'side or get'hell out," Kraglin slurs.

"That's right," Yondu says.

Kraglin tangles in the blankets when he tries to turn over, and Yondu impatiently catches him before he can roll off the bed.

"Wrong side, genius."

Kraglin tries again, clumsily kicking him as he rolls back the other way. Yondu shifts back down and pulls him into his arms. He can feel the sweat dripping down the side of Kraglin's face as it presses against his shoulder. Kraglin's breathing slows down one gulp and shuddery exhalation at a time, but he keeps on shaking.

"There you go," Yondu murmurs, holding on to him good and tight. "Hush up, now."

It's always the same. Doors that won't lock, windows that won't shut. Yondu's heard enough in bits and pieces over the years to get the idea. There's a room somewhere, and something real bad is trying to get in, and there's no keeping it out. No one would ever accuse Kraglin of being too original a thinker, but that's not what Yondu keeps him around for. It's up to the captain to have the big ideas. The first mate's there to turn ideas into done deals, and to ask the stolid questions that sometimes aren't as stupid as they sound.

Story I haven't yet ~~written~~ finished, but intend to.

Pretty much all of them, I'm afraid. I think I started much more than I finished this year. But—a new year lies ahead! 2015 won't know what hit it.

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Insta-Rec

atdelphi — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 07:47:08 GMT

Somebody loves me. They don't know that they love me, because this story was in fact written in response to kellychambliss's excellent prompts at hoggywartyxmas, but the result was nonetheless one of those rare stories that just hits every single one of my narrative and stylistic kinks.

We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet puts together three of my favourite characters - Aberforth Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, and Severus Snape - and gives them a wonderfully complex, witty, and mature arrangement. (Which also has one of the best and nuanced portrayals I've seen of Albus Dumbledore and his effect on the lives of the people he left behind.) I couldn't say enough good things about this story if I tried, so I'll let it speak for itself.

As memorials went, the one for Severus Snape was a small affair, officially only the heads of house, Hagrid, Poppy, and the Potter boy, who couldn't be kept away. Unofficially, the number had expanded to include the Malfoy boy - for reasons Aberforth neither knew nor cared to know, as it was probably more nonsense involving lost boys and surrogate fathers; it always was, where Albus was involved - and a great many of the teachers, who had drifted down from the castle.

Minerva gripped his arm tightly on the walk down the hill, until Aberforth would swear her knuckles had turned white.

"Relax, or you'll have the arm off," said Aberforth under his breath.

"I lied when I said you needn't come," Minerva whispered back. "Severus Bloody Snape. Let's get it over with."

Aberforth's brow knitted in confusion. "Always thought you got on with the boy, if anyone did," he said.

"I bloody well hope so, I slept with him for five years," muttered Minerva. "You know how well that turned out."

"Ah," said Aberforth.

"Indeed," she said. "I'm hardly accustomed to my affairs ending in murder and rampant torture."

Aberforth raised an eyebrow. "Complicated, then," he said, stroking his beard.

"Aye," said Minerva. "I'd frankly rather hex everyone here than give another damned eulogy. Especially for Severus-Complicated-Bloody-Snape."

"Chin up," said Aberforth. "Worst comes to worst, you can do what Albus always did."

Minerva looked up at him questioningly.

Aberforth nodded at the crowd ringing the memorial stone. "Make the Potter boy do the hard bits," he said.

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FIC: A Canvas Sky (Team Fortress 2, Engineer/Pyro, Mature)

atdelphi — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 05:08:02 GMT

Title: A Canvas Sky
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Engineer/Pyro
Rating: Mature
Word Count: ~1100
Kink: Tickling
Summary: Pyro requires some careful handling, and Dell is more than happy to take things slow.
Content Info: Contains elements of (teenage) ageplay between two adults.
Notes: Written for the amnesty round of kink_bingo. My thanks to cathouse_mary for beta-reading.

Insulation is key to Pyro's optimal operating conditions.

This is common sense, given how rarely Pyro can be found outside that suit, but Dell has backed it up with his share of observation, experimentation, and subsequent calculation. Pyro is a lot more...predictable when there's more than just the usual organic casing standing between an inventively wired brain and the outside world. More importantly, Pyro is a lot happier with a few extra layers taking the sharp edges off reality.

And Dell likes keeping his Sweet Pea happy.

To that end, he's piloting a few workarounds for getting closer without letting the bad in or the worse out. The blanket fort in particular is proving to be a real winner.

Half the bedding on base is currently draped over a sturdy support structure of pillows in the corner of Dell's bedroom, making a cozy bunker just big enough for two. A few emergency candles from the supply room are lined up in jars on the floor next to his mattress, along with a six-pack of beer and a bowl of potato chips. Nat King Cole is softly crooning from the record player, and there's a sentry set up outside the door in case anyone gets some damn fool idea about interrupting.

Dell is stretched out on his back, watching the shadows move on the bed-sheet roof of the fort. Pyro's cuddled up sweetly beside him, head on Dell's shoulder. They're both dressed down to t-shirts and sweatpants, which is practically naked after months of fumbling through an asbestos suit and going back and forth on his guess at what kind of equipment he was even trying to operate under there.

It's nice, though—this whole business of taking it slow. He feels like a teenager again, when holding hands was enough to get him hot and bothered. The sound of someone else breathing in his ear hatches butterflies in his stomach, and he's remembering what it was like when every touch had to be ventured on the sly. Just fooling around. Just playing.

One finger sneaks under the hem of Pyro's t-shirt. Who'd have thought that getting ready to run for second base could still be so exciting? His blood's heading south as he ventures above the drawstring waistband to a stretch of warm, smooth skin. Lord, but Pyro's soft all over: downright silky between the scars, with tiny dark freckles peppered in the least expected places. There’s hardly a sharp angle to be found from head to toe, and it’s all topped off with the bounciest mess of curly black hair Dell's ever had the pleasure of burying his nose in.

His fingertip runs lightly back and forth, and Pyro tenses up.

Dell stops. "No good?"

Pyro fidgets. "Just tickles."

It doesn't sound like a complaint, so he does it again, sketching a light circle.

"Engie!" Pyro flails, making a sound halfway between a hiccup and a giggle.

"Whoops," Dell says, venturing further up Pyro's t-shirt and tickling harder. "Looks like my hand slipped!"

Retaliation comes swift and fierce. Pyro wiggles clear of Dell's crawling fingers with a holler and then springs upright with dangerously narrowed eyes. Dell barely has a second to brace himself before he's pinned down by a hundred and seventy pounds of vengeance. The air's knocked clean out of him courtesy of a knee to his kidneys as cold fingers scurry up his sides. Dell wheezes, bucking like a bee-stung bronco.

"Dominated!" Pyro crows, straddling Dell's hips.

And that's...that's real nice.

One of the candle jars goes over in all the excitement. Dell laughs uproariously, beating out the fire one-handed as he thrashes under the onslaught of tickles.

"Uncle!” he cries.

His Sweet Pea doesn't play fair, though. No mercy is granted, not until Dell is nearly crying from laughing so hard, and coughing from the smoke too. They're rubbing up against each other, half wrestling and half doing something a little naughtier when Pyro finally stops tickling him in favour of pinning his hands down.

Dell's laughter gives way to breathlessness. He doesn't fight to free himself. Why would he when the view's just fine from down here? Pyro's all rosy cheeks and heaving chest, sharp white teeth bared in a grin of victory. There's a flicker of surprise and a head tilt when the downright perky state of Dell's dick under Pyro's backside makes itself known.

"Hi there, darlin'," Dell murmurs, holding still and letting Pyro make the call on whether to stay in the saddle.

Pyro rocks thoughtfully. "Hi."

The rub of well-worn cotton and the firm weight of a round behind is the nicest thing to happen to Dell's dick all day. The way Pyro gets a sort of dreamy look after a little more wiggling in the right place is a close second. Dell's eyelids want to droop, but he doesn't let them. It's usually best to stay alert in these situations, just in case things start to go sideways.

The grip around Dell's wrists tightens and then eases up. Pyro flops down on top of him, curls bouncing.

"Oof!"

"Hi," Pyro says again, looking at him seriously before rubbing noses with him.

A man could lose himself for days in those big brown eyes. Or at least waste a few minutes trying to get a good tally of eyelashes and freckles.

"Hi." Dell smiles and puts his hands under Pyro's t-shirt again.

He seems to remember that bare back still qualifies as second base if you're playing lawyerball, and dry humping surely counts as flying past the shortstop. He lifts his head up and steals a kiss. Pyro's lips taste like potato chip salt. They're a little chapped from getting chewed on too often, but they're warm and downright adorable as they kiss him back.

Pyro sighs against Dell's mouth, hips still sliding back and forth. "You feel good."

"So do you, darlin'." Dell runs his fingertips along Pyro's spine, nice and slow.

Tempting though it is to swing for the fences, he stops at the sweet dip right above Pyro’s tailbone. A light tickle to one side makes Pyro laugh and burrow down, breathing damp and heavy against the crook of Dell's neck as they keep on rocking together. Dell grins. The way he sees it, he's going to come in his pants like a teenage horndog tonight, or else he's going to have to follow up this date by two-timing with a bottle of hand lotion, and either one is just fine by him.

"'ngie..."

The word is muffled, mumbled sweetly against his shoulder, and all the other noises that follow are kept close and safe in a cocoon of blankets and baritone jazz.

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Hoggy Warty X-Mas!

atdelphi — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 02:27:36 GMT

I'm sure everyone is already at the party, but heads up that posting has started over at hoggywartyxmas - the premier holiday fest featuring the Hogwarts staff and their nearest and dearest!

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FIC: Spectacular (Team Fortress 2, Heavy/Medic, Explicit)

atdelphi — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 06:59:23 GMT

Title: Spectacular
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: ~3700
Kink: Exposure/Exhibitionism
Summary: Five times Medic dreamed off showing off his Heavy, and one time he was the one with an appreciative audience.
Content Info: n/a
Notes: Written for the amnesty round of kink_bingo. My thanks to cathouse_mary for beta-reading.

"Stop," Viktor finds himself saying sometimes, when Mikhail is undressing in his bedroom. "Let me look at you."

Perhaps he himself is already naked, sitting up against the headboard with the covers around his hips. Perhaps he is leaning against the wall, his glasses slightly askew and his lips swollen from a fit of hard kissing. There is a streak of sunlight sneaking through the barred and boarded window, or it is the middle of the night and there is only the sallow light of his desk lamp illuminating half the room and leaving the rest in shadow. It doesn't matter; Mikhail halts just as he is, standing bare-chested with his shirt hanging from one hand.

Viktor kneels up on the bed or pushes himself away from the wall. He puts his hands on Mikhail's shoulders and maps their incredible width.

"What a remarkable specimen you are," he murmurs, tracing the massive deltoidei and tricipites with reverence.

Mikhail stands even straighter under the praise, his chin tilting up and his chest pushing out. The movement of muscle beneath Viktor's hands is like a soft, slow landslide.

He imagines Mikhail in the bright sterility of an operating theatre—no, before the respectful, expectant hush of a lecture hall. He can almost hear the quiet scribbling of notes and anatomical drawings. He can almost feel the nimble weight of the pointer in his hand and taste his own crisp words as he discloses the wonderful discoveries he has made during his time in the private sector.

"Consider our subject. Nature has gifted him with superior size and strength, but as you will see, there is no endowment of nature that science cannot improve upon."

His palms press flat against the powerful swell of the pectoralis major. The ferocity of his arousal makes him tremble. He would spread Mikhail's ribs apart with the greatest care in front of their rapt audience, baring his marvellous thoracic cavity in the warm glow of a low-dose regeneration ray. He imagines the hint of pride gilding Mikhail's stoic silence, there in the corners of that well-beloved mouth for anyone who knew to look.

Oh, he can already hear the applause.

"You are perfect," he sighs, laying his cheek upon Mikhail's breast and listening to the mighty beating and faint electrical hum of his finest work.

Viktor's hands like to have something to do when his mind is preoccupied. They fold paper, or pull loose threads, or dismantle ballpoint pens. Sometimes they get away from him entirely. For example, he is sitting at the strategy table, tuning out Soldier's increasingly nonsensical tirade in favor of a thought experiment involving geckoes, when he realizes that his left hand has somehow ended up on Mikhail's right leg.

On his thigh, to be more precise.

He looks down to see his fingers slowly following the inner seam of Mikhail's trouser leg, wandering back and forth along a span of perhaps six inches.

Mikhail gives no sign of having noticed. He is slouched in his undersized chair, his arms crossed and his expression perfectly impassive. It is easy to mistake him for a simple creature, but as they say, still waters run deepest. Mikhail is far too self-contained to be truly oblivious, and the deliberate slowness with which he moves through life vacillates between charming and maddening.

Today, Viktor is inclined towards charming.

His fingers pause. For an instant, he is very tempted to pinch hard just to see if he can get a reaction. But that would not be very nice.

Benevolence makes him gently squeeze instead. Mikhail's gaze does not break from the far wall, and his breathing reveals nothing. His thigh is firm and warm, and Viktor idly wonders exactly how far he could venture into the delivery of a handjob before one of the others realized what he was doing.

He considers the practicalities. Drawing Mikhail's cock forth entirely would not go unnoticed. There is only so much the edge of a table can hide, and Mikhail's well-proportioned endowment is not one of them. However, he could certainly get his fingers inside Mikhail's trousers and then into the fly of his briefs. He could rub him off very slowly, with enough economy of motion not to show above the elbow. A sufficiently snug ring of thumb and forefinger and the proper application of pressure would surely be enough.

He imagines the rosy flush of vasocongestion creeping up from Mikhail's lower abdomen, to his chest and neck, finally revealing itself over the edge of his collar. Who else might notice it? In his mind's eye, Sniper glances this way, his brow briefly creasing in puzzlement over the color in Mikhail's cheeks before his attention returns to the front of the room.

Engineer would be quicker in his apprehension. His eyebrows would rise in sudden understanding. Perhaps he would throw a wink from behind his goggles and then avert his eyes like a gentleman.

Ah, but Spy would watch. There, from the seat nearest the door and from heavy-lidded eyes, he would not be able to resist admiring the leashed control of Mikhail's shoulders. He would drag overlong on his cigarette, forgetting himself, his smirk freezing on his lips as Mikhail held perfectly still. Perhaps he would be able to hear it just as well as Viktor when Mikhail's breathing finally began to deepen. He would catch sight of the faintest tremor as the muscles in Mikhail's legs locked in self-restraint and his jaw tightened—

Viktor's thoughts abruptly trip over themselves when Mikhail leans over with delicacy his size should not allow and whispers in his ear:

"Doktor is going very pink."

His throat clenches against the urge to clear itself. Ah. Right. Yes.

He removes his hand from Mikhail's thigh and places it primly atop the table.

"Jeez, you two. Get a frickin' room."

Someday, someone is going to surgically remove Scout's larynx and the world will become a slightly more harmonious place.

He and Mikhail are engaged in nothing at all unseemly. True, they are sitting rather close together, but that is unavoidable when sharing a couch barely made to fit three average men abreast. Viktor is himself broad-shouldered and no stranger to being the tallest in a room, but he might as well be a slender youth next to Mikhail.

Mikhail, for his part, seems not to have heard Scout at all. Nonetheless, he is setting down the most recent issue of Tactical Death and curling his hands together. There is a noisy crackle of popping joints.

Scout opens his mouth and then wisely decides to shut it. He settles back into his chair with a sullen glower, but after a moment, his gaze returns to the couch.

A perverse instinct makes Viktor put down his book and take hold of Mikhail's hand.

"Tsk." The breadth of his own palms and the length of his fingers only emphasize the improbable size of Mikhail's as they entwine. "You mustn't crack your knuckles, Heavy. It is bad for your grip."

"Yes, doktor." Mikhail, always the obliging patient, submits to having the back of his hand examined and his fingers straightened one by one.

"Okay, now you're just being fruits on purpose.”

Viktor ignores the boy, as there is nothing that vexes him more. Scout is a badly behaved child, but his antics are made amusing by the fact that it is obviously not disgust that leads him to fidget so. Viktor sees no reason to believe Scout's insistent claims of perfect heterosexuality any more than he would the braying boasts about martial prowess and muscular development. The boy's eyes linger on Mikhail’s hands as the magazine is picked back up. His skinny legs draw up defensively onto the chair.

Certainly, Mikhail's hands are worthy of attention. They are enormous, capable of snapping bone and tearing flesh apart. Yet Mikhail is careful with them in the way that a strong man must be careful, and he devotes them to the pursuit of making love with the same tenderness and precision with which he maintains his darling Sasha.

After a long, warm moment of consideration, Viktor marks his place in his book. Perhaps he will take Scout's advice after all. A private room suddenly seems to him a splendid idea, as is the thought of a large measure of lubricant and three of Mikhail's fingers inside him.

He smiles at Scout as he stands up. Such a pity for the little loudmouth that his acquaintanceship with Mikhail's hands will never extend beyond the occasional well-deserved cuff. If he was not so rude, Viktor might be generous enough to let him watch them at work.

Admittedly, Viktor is not quite as rigorous in inspecting his bedroom for unauthorized surveillance equipment as he is his laboratory. His work is of primary importance and sensitivity. Meanwhile, this is America, and it is 1969, and one of the principal advantages of being employed by the private sector is the corresponding privacy of his personal affairs.

There is a flicker of responsible thought amidst the violent flush of victory—a moment's curiosity as to how far that verdammt enemy spy made it into the base—and then he is shoving Mikhail down onto the bed, climbing on top of him, and detailing in a long, heated whisper exactly what he wants Mikhail to do to him.

"Rough, ja?" he adds, stripping to the waist and tossing his shirt over his shoulder. "Let's see if we can break the bed again."

Mikhail's grin flashes up at him, bright and sharp. "Whatever you want, doktor."

Hands clamp around Viktor's hips, and he is flipped onto his back hard enough to knock his breath loose. Before he can find air again, Mikhail's mouth is on his own, burning hot and pulling demandingly at him. He returns the kiss, then sinks his teeth into Mikhail's lip. He bites him on the edge of his stubbled jaw, and on his throat, and then hard enough to break the skin where his neck meets his shoulder.

He tastes blood as Mikhail laughs. He can smell it, too: dried on both of them, mingled with the perfume of sweat and burnt flesh and gunpowder. The rest of his clothes are yanked off without ceremony, and Mikhail's soon joins them on the floor. The bedside drawer is pulled clean off its rails in Mikhail's blind search for the lubricant.

"Kissing later," Viktor says when Mikhail tries to nuzzle at his cheek. "Sodomy now."

Mikhail is good enough to agree. Viktor ends up on his hands and knees, split open on slippery fingers. They're deliciously thick, twisting inside him as they spread the lubricant in deep. They move with slightly more gentleness than he would care for at the moment, but never mind that—only a few seconds later they’re pulling out and then he has what he wants.

He braces himself, a guttural sound leaving his throat as Mikhail's cock pushes into him.

It is always more than he expected, every single time. His eyes close in bliss as Mikhail begins to move. A moan escapes his open mouth. He should hope that if his bested enemies are listening, watching, that they are put to shame by the clockwork creaking of the bed and the inspiring sight of Mikhail's broad back, thick muscles flexing. Their heavy weapons man, whom Viktor had the pleasure of gutting today, is an inch and a half shorter than Mikhail, at least thirty pounds lighter, and surely not even half so virile. He has all his hair, for pity's sake, which should say enough about Mikhail's clearly superior reserves of testosterone.

They are pale imitations, the BLU mercenaries, all of them. Nothing at like his Mikhail, who puts enough strength into every single thrust to make Viktor shout and see stars. He will not flag, will not stint, will fuck Viktor all night if that is what it takes to please him, driving on until they are both wrung out and bruised and screwed out to utter senselessness.

Viktor lets himself be noisy tonight, so that anyone who cares to listen will know who has the better man.

The name Mikhail means, of course, Who is like God?

Viktor thinks of this as bloodlust and exhilaration carry him across the battlefield.

Mikhail is absolutely magnificent today, roaring like thunder amidst a hail of bullets and spent shells. Crumpled metal and limbs lie in his wake, and the sky above is draped in smoke. He is glowing, infused to glorious saturation with regenerative energy and unparalleled power. He is lightning made flesh, and he is flesh made metal. He is the titan Prometheus, bearing primordial fire down from the heavens, dooming the mortals who covet it with the promise of divine retribution.

The minigun flares, mowing down the last of BLU's resistance. Their colleagues race ahead into the clearance, and Viktor laughs aloud with unreserved joy as he follows in the craters of Mikhail's footsteps. His pack rattles on his shoulder, vibrating into the marrow of his bones, and he will feel the exhaustion of it in a lower back that is no longer so young and a head prone to aching tension--but later. In this moment, he is as invincible as Mikhail.

His creation is all he can see, filling up his field of vision with crimson light, and he wishes nothing more than to share this beauty with the rest of the world. They could keep on marching, he thinks. They could march on far beyond the petty boundaries of this desert town. They could conquer the earth, laying claim to whatever ground fell beneath their feet.

Who is like God?

It is a question that answers itself when the enemy's eyes show their whites.

And here, in the late hours, the sound of Mikhail’s sigh is startling in the quiet of the laboratory.

Viktor pauses in loosening his tie and looks up from his notes. It should not be easy to forget that Mikhail is in the room, but he does have a tendency to become absorbed in his work, and Mikhail in turn has the ability to sit silently for long periods of time. This is what makes him such good company. He reads, or drinks, or simply dozes with his eyes half shut and rarely interrupts.

At the moment, however, Mikhail is neither reading nor drinking, and the expression on his face is not remotely sleepy.

"What is it?" Viktor asks.

The corner of Mikhail's mouth hooks into something that looks like sheepishness, as if Viktor has caught him out with a thought he would rather not share. But it is gone as soon as it came. Mikhail shrugs.

"Is good look."

Viktor frowns, glancing down in incomprehension at his hand on the knot of his tie. "It is?"

Mikhail's gaze follows, dropping to Viktor’s throat. He nods.

"Is...not decent."

Reflexively, Viktor reaches towards the Russian-to-English dictionary that has taken up residency on his desk, but Mikhail is quick to shake his head.

"No, is right word. You are always wearing tie." His gaze moves next to Viktor's forearms, which are bare beneath the rolled-up cuffs of his shirt. "Always coat and vest. Many buttons."

Viktor considers that for a moment. The words are clear enough, but the sentiment leaves him mildly bewildered. He dresses plainly, like the practical, professional man he is, and it isn't as though Mikhail hasn't seen him naked too many times to count. Nonetheless, this evening's reading isn't pressing, the laboratory is locked up for the night, and he is not opposed to indulging Mikhail’s suspect definition of impropriety.

That that end, the finishes unknotting his tie and takes it off. He lays it on the desk and then looks back at Mikhail with his eyebrows raised.

“Well?” he asks. “Is that better?”

Mikhail looks him over slowly, the tip of his tongue flickering out against his lower lip for an instant. He nods.

“Anything else?” Viktor prompts, his mind already leaping ahead to both of them with their clothes off, making love on the desk. No, he amends—on the examination table. It’s bolted down.

Mikhail shifts in his seat. He purses his lips thoughtfully, as if giving the question full weight. "Stand up."

Viktor pushes his chair back and obliges him. He leans casually against the desk, feeling that standing at attention is not appropriate without a tie. Somewhere, the old schoolmaster who used to birch him for uniform infractions is turning over in his grave.

"Are you only going to look?" he asks, resisting to the urge to fidget when a few long seconds have passed.

"Shh," Mikhail says. He tilts his head in consideration. "Vest."

That, he can do. Five buttons are unfastened in measured order, and at a nod from Mikhail he takes the vest off entirely. He expects to be prompted to take off his shirt next, but to his surprise Mikhail only mimes the loosening of a collar.

"This button, here."

He unfastens the top button and wonders if Mikhail has some sort of heretofore unnoticed fetish for throats.

Mikhail leans forward, laying his hands upon his knees. "Suspenders."

He slides them off his shoulders and lets them hang, waiting to see if Mikhail will have him unbutton them too. The rumble of a low hum makes him reassess his previous hypothesis. Is there such a thing as a fetish for mild dishevelment?

Viktor does not consider himself a vain man, but there is something about the weight of Mikhail's gaze on him that makes his abdomen tighten with more than just arousal. He is not embarrassed, exactly, but he feels oddly...conspicuous. His weight shifts slightly from one foot to the other.

"Shoes off," Mikhail says.

He steps out of his loafers easily and glances down at his unremarkable black socks. It does not seem to him that he cuts a particularly enticing figure, but the expression on Mikhail's face says otherwise, as if these minor parts—shirtsleeves and gaping collar, hanging braces and stocking feet—add up to some particularly satisfying sum.

Mikhail crooks two fingers, beckoning, and Viktor is hard-pressed not to adjust the vest he's no longer wearing when he presents himself as bid. The concrete floor is cold through his socks, and the tap of his suspenders against his thighs is inordinately distracting. His trousers threaten to slide down his hips. He feels at once undressed and yet not nearly naked enough for the hot-eyed way Mikhail is looking at him.

He halts just short of climbing into Mikhail's lap. He leans over him, one knee coming to rest on the edge of the chair just between Mikhail's thighs.

"Well?" he says, waiting to be kissed.

Mikhail leans back, however, and examines him anew. His head tilted to one side, he reaches out and pushes Viktor's glasses up. He nods, seemingly satisfied with his work.

Viktor rolls his eyes. "Now you're just being ridiculous."

Mikhail shrugs, humming as if to say "Maybe so." Viktor might suspect he was being mocked, but from where he’s standing, he can see exactly how hard Mikhail has become.

"Strange man," he says, but not without a certain fondness. "What next, then?"

It is a relatively open offer, but he is going to have to insist on a change of venue if Mikhail wants his cock sucked. The laboratory floor is murder on his knees.

Mikhail runs the tip of one thick finger down the line of Viktor's shirt buttons. "Open."

He does so, unbuttoning his shirt to where it's tucked snugly into his trousers. He is quickly rewarded by the span of Mikhail's hands on his chest, the heat of them bleeding through his undershirt. They stretch across his ribs, pressing just firmly enough to make him aware of the meeting of flesh and bone, and then Mikhail's teeth are closing around his left nipple, barely blunted by cotton.

Viktor’s breath catches in his throat. He wraps one arm around the back of Mikhail’s neck and moans his encouragement. The next bite is harder, surely leaving a mark, and accompanied by an eager suck that sends a hot jolt through his nervous system. His hand slips down, palming at his swelling cock.

"Yes," Mikhail says, his voice like quiet thunder against Viktor's chest. "Do that."

His right nipple is worked to just as raw and assuredly red a state as the left before his undershirt is pushed up under his arms. He squeezes himself and then fumbles one-handed with his fly as Mikhail’s mouth delivers two more rough, smacking kisses without the barrier of damp fabric. He’s left with his hand jammed awkwardly down his trousers as Mikhail once again pulls back to examine his handiwork.

Mikhail breathes out hard and then pulls Viktor’s trousers and underwear down. "Keep going."

He must look like a fool, bared in gaps between hastily untucked shirt tails and sagging trousers, his undershirt rumpled and still half rucked up over his stomach. He can feel one sock sliding down his calf. There is some satisfaction, however, in noting that Mikhail looks just as ridiculous: poised to either tear right out of his fly or else come in his clothes just from watching. His prodigious cock is trapped against his thigh, leaving a prominent wet spot where the tip pushes against the inside of his trousers.

Viktor gives in and strokes himself openly, the tight clasp of his fingers pulling quickly. He can see Mikhail’s pupils dilate, the gaze upon him growing fixed and flatteringly intense, as if Mikhail means to consume the sight of him and burn the remains. His mouth runs dry, and he touches himself as if he is alone, without any art or artifice. He touches himself as if he is on edge and wanting Mikhail and is briskly making do without him, his hand moving with merciless efficiency as Mikhail’s grip shifts from his sides to his back and downwards, grasping at his buttock and thigh.

His eyes press shut when he comes. The rapid contraction of his muscles is unusually intense, and his body momentarily neglects to draw breath as he violently shivers through his orgasm. His semen wets his fingers, and if there is anything more indecent than opening his eyes to watch it drip down to stain the knee of his trousers, it is the unseemly satisfaction in Mikhail’s voice:

“Ah…handsome doktor.”

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Rainy Day Recs: 5 x Heavy/Medic Kisses

atdelphi — Sat, 13 Dec 2014 03:45:19 GMT

Yes, I am currently on bit of a Team Fortress 2 kick. Please bear with me. Or send help.

Title: Untitled Cheek Kiss
Artist: jannell-o
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: General
Summary: Heavy planting a sweet kiss on Medic's cheek.
Content Info: n/a

Title: Untitled Chess Kiss
Artist: tf2-daesdemona
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: General
Summary: Medic abandoning a game of chess to lay one on Heavy.
Content Info: n/a

Title: Untitled Kiss in Red
Artist: owlygem
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: General
Artist's Summary: "Men in love. *hearts in eyes*"
Content Info: n/a

Title: Untitled Kiss in Uniform
Artist: jamzenn
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: General
Artist's Summary: "These two dorks."
Content Info: n/a

Title: Untitled Movie Kiss
Artist: annalaatikko
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Heavy/Medic
Rating: General
Artist's Summary: "This is why they can't have nice things." (Heavy and Medic making out at the movies.)
Content Info: n/a

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FIC: Men of Science (Team Fortress 2, Engineer/Medic, Explicit)

atdelphi — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:24:35 GMT

Title: Men of Science
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Engineer/Medic
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: ~3700
Kink: Mechanical/Technological
Summary: Roughneck or theoretical physicist, God-fearing Christian or God-loving pervert, most folks seemed to be asking "Why?" when Dell was asking "Why not?" Or, the one where Dell Conagher meets a like-minded doctor and robot handjobs ensue.
Content Info: Contains references to a past DIY amputation.
Notes: Written for the amnesty round of kink_bingo. My thanks to cathouse_mary for beta-reading.

"There’s some things only another fella understands.”

Citation: Earl Dutton, pit watcher, Huckleberry Oil Field, 1946.

It was the kind of received wisdom a nineteen-year-old from Possum Creek would pass on to an eighteen-year-old from Bee Cave to establish that neither of them were queers before introducing him to his first handjob. Not that it mattered much to Dell. He was a practical thinker, even as a kid. All it took was Earl's hand down his pants and the resulting circuit closing between his brain and his dick for him to surmise that yeah, actually, a queer was exactly what he was.

This might not have been a welcome revelation for most young men in West Texas in the '40s, but Dell had always put more value on making sense of things than thinking conventionally. Several previously unconnected elements fell into a sequence: the picture of Captain Patriot he’d slept with under his pillow when he was twelve, his sweaty-palmed admiration for Patsy Clegg's older brother, his effortless reputation as a perfect gentleman among the girls at Bee Cave High School.

Fair enough, he thought, and decided to go with it.

Truth was, he got himself laid well and often those summers out west. You wouldn't think there was more action to be found in the oil fields than on campus, but that’s how it was. There were pretty girls in the town of College Station, even if A&M wasn't co-educational yet, so there was no need for a fella to make do, or to pretend to make do. He got his dick sucked for the first time out in Huckleberry, in the back of a truck under a big old starry night sky. He discovered that kissing really could be Fourth of July fireworks when there was someone else's stubble rasping against his chin. He was with the same man for three years running and learned about the kind of sex you had when you knew someone else's body just as well as you did your own.

But being understood was something else.

"Now what would you want to go and do a thing like that for?"

Citation: Just about everyone Dell had ever met in his forty years on this earth.

Roughneck or theoretical physicist, God-fearing Christian or God-loving pervert, most folks seemed to be asking "Why?" when Dell was asking "Why not?" He reckoned he took after his grandfather in that respect. Now there was a man who didn't think something had to be broken before you tried fixing it. A whole new world had opened up when Dell came into possession of his grandfather’s papers, and so it was fitting that TF Industries ended up being the place where he finally met a few like-minded individuals.

"On the table," the doctor said briskly. "I will require a blood sample."

The team medic was a German, with a bedside manner that plainly said researcher, not clinician. He was a tall drink of water, and good-looking in that buttoned-up, kind of prissy way that Dell had a real weakness for: round glasses, front-pew posture, not a hair out of place. There was something about how he held himself that made Dell wonder if he was gay, but this could have been wishful thinking. Everybody around here looked like they knew a thing or two about secrets.

"Sure thing, doc." Dell took a seat on the examination table and then hesitated when he saw which side the doctor was going for.

He was used to keeping the old Gunslinger covered up in mixed company. It made some folks squeamish. But on second thought, he supposed there were benefits to living on a closed base. This might have been a no-names kind of job, without even a token alias like Dell had been provided during his brief stint at the State Department, but the doctor was probably going to be seeing a lot more of him over the next year if the hazard pay in his contract was anything to go by. He ultimately shrugged and then took off his glove and rolled up his sleeve.

The doctor’s eyebrows immediately leaped up when he saw what was underneath. “What is that?”

Dell fanned his metal fingers in a little wave. “Robot hand.”

“Hn.” The doctor frowned and consulted his clipboard. “There’s no mention of amputation in your file.”

Dell lay back, offering the gently apologetic smile of a man asked about his hobbies by someone who probably didn’t want to hear about them. "Thing is, it wasn’t what you’d call a replacement. More like...an optional upgrade.”

He waited for the usual look of blank befuddlement followed by the slow blink. Folks tended to take a big step backwards when they caught on to his meaning, although he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like he had cut someone else’s hand off, and it sure as heck wasn’t like he had done a bad job of it. The Gunslinger was an efficient little number that had been designed, constructed, and maintained with love.

To his surprise, however, the doctor’s frown smoothed over.

“Wunderbar!” Little wheels rattled on the concrete as a rolling chair was dragged up to the table. “Is it your own making?”

Caught off guard, Dell could only stare for a second. The doctor was smiling—had lit right up, in fact—and damned if it wasn’t a real good look on him.

He recovered and shook his head modestly. “My grandfather drew up the first plans during the Civil War. He called it the Gunslinger. I just updated it some and worked out a few kinks.”

The doctor adjusted his glasses. His eyes were the color of blue steel and bright with interest. He was close enough that Dell could catch a whiff of his bay rum aftershave, even though a five o’clock shadow was already coming in ahead of schedule on that strong jaw. He was probably the kind of man who needed to shave twice a day.

That thought made Dell’s eyes drop to the Half Windsor knot nestled snugly at the hollow of the doctor’s throat as he wondered what his chest looked like.

“Very handsome,” the doctor said, still considering the Gunslinger with interest. “Is it grafted on?”

“Nope.” Dell couldn’t entirely keep the smugness out of his voice. He was proud of his baby. “Transistors.”

He released the catch and pulled the hand off just far enough to expose the stump underneath. His metal fingers wiggled again, still within range to respond to the signals from his ulnar nerve.

The doctor had a high voice for a big fella, but it dropped like a stone to something low and husky when he spoke more quietly. “Ah, how elegant.”

“Shucks,” Dell said, hoping the sudden case of goose bumps up his arms and down his neck would go unnoticed. The infirmary was pretty cold. “It wasn’t much. The human nervous system’s pretty much just electrical work.”

All right, now he was showing off a little. He would have been ashamed of himself, but it earned him a downright dizzy grin from the doctor that bared a whole bunch of pearly white teeth and made Dell decide he really liked him.

"We must talk later," the doctor announced, clapping him on the shoulder, "when you have not lost so much blood."

“Oh, I ain’t the delicate type...” Dell began, but his words trailed off when he took in the line of 50 ml vials the doctor was setting up along the edge of the examination table.

A rubber tourniquet was snapped around his arm, and a 14-gauge syringe was jabbed into the biggest vein at the crook of his elbow without so much as a how’d-you-do.

Dell yelped. “Jeez—and crackers!”

He turned his eyes up to the ceiling and then squinted. He could swear he saw a white bird fluttering around in the rafters. Things got a little blurry after that.

Fortunately, he bounced back from hypovolemic shock sooner than expected, which was all the better, because the job wasn’t going to wait. He and the doctor soon staked out their respective work spaces on base and then met in the middle to put their heads together on a few must-haves and some blue-sky thinking. The doctor brought a blackboard and an armful of notebooks filled with sketches and diagrams. Dell brought a coffee machine.

“This,” the doctor declared, the tip of the chalk frantically spilling chemical equations across the slate, “will obscure the boundary between life and death as Man knows it and spit in the very face of God!"

“Sounds good.” Dell jotted down a few notes and a shopping list. “Might take more than a weekend to knock out, though.”

It was nice, having real projects again.

Sharing a lab was always hit and miss, but the doctor proved to be a good partner. His enthusiasm was infectious when he went off on a tear, and you could cut diamonds with his focus when he settled in for some serious thinking. He kept his papers on his own desk, didn’t steal any of Dell’s pencils, and put himself in the running for Mr. Right by brewing a fresh pot every time he finished off the last of the coffee. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes, especially around that caffeine-saturated point in the middle of the night when the starch was off his shirt and his tie was half unknotted, and he was slouching over an open book, sucking on the end of pen.

The doctor cleared his throat. “That is very tidy work, I must say.”

It was about two o’clock in the morning, and these were the first words either of them had uttered in hours aside from the occasional mutter of number-crunching and quiet cussing. Dell paused in brushing some stray iron fillings out of the inside of the Gunslinger’s cuff. He looked first at the ferrofluid he had just mixed up and then at his hand before his gaze did a back-and-forth between the doctor and the smooth stump of his wrist.

“Why, thank you,” he said, because his mama had taught him how to accept a compliment.

“It was done professionally?”

“Nah,” he said. “Couldn’t find anyone willing to leave the wound open long enough to get the necessary hardware installed and do a little troubleshooting. I took care of it myself.”

The doctor rested his chin in one hand and smiled at him. “What did you use?”

Dell chuckled sheepishly. “Table saw. Tied off the limb until my old hand went black and then—” He mimed a spinning blade and made a whirring sound. “Might have underestimated how much mess it was going to make.”

To his everloving delight, the doctor giggled and wagged a finger at him. “Naughty boy! It serves you right, having to clean up all that blood. A table saw, honestly!”

Dell ducked his head and laughed again as he slipped the Gunslinger back on. “A man’s got to work with the tools he’s got.”

The doctor raised his coffee cup and drank to that. He then glanced at Dell sideways, looking bashful. “I don’t suppose...I could have a look at the device?”

“Yeah, sure.” Dell set down his work and moseyed on over to the doctor’s desk. He hopped up to sit on the edge of it and laid his hand on the blotter.

It wasn’t really a come-on, sitting this close. He was just putting out feelers, the way you did. His knee bumped against the doctor’s elbow. The doctor looked up at him through his eyelashes for an instant, the way you did, before taking taking Dell’s hand in both of his own.

“Ach. Much lighter than I expected.”

“Titanium alloy,” Dell said, holding still and letting him cradle the full weight of it.

The doctor hummed approvingly, tapping a fingernail against the back of the metacarpus and seeming pleased by the tone. “You are left-handed?”

“I was. Just about ambidextrous now. It always drove me crazy, having that clumsy thing just sitting there, taking up space.”

“Efficiency is to be commended.” The doctor stroked the back of his fingers. It was enough to make a fella’s heart go pitter-patter. “How is the range of motion?”

Dell demonstrated, rotating his wrist by 30-degree increments. The hand was tuned up and freshly oiled, moving smoothly and silently. He flexed his fingers forward and then bent them all the way back.

“Sensory feedback?” the doctor asked.

“Just pressure on the articulation points.” Dell laid his palm flat against the doctor’s and pushed lightly.

The very real possibility of getting lucky tonight put itself on the agenda when the doctor playfully pushed back. Each joint was subsequently tested, methodically brought to full extension in each direction. His mouth went dry, funnily enough. No one had ever actually touched that hand before, or at least not knowingly. He usually kept his glove on and let people think what they wanted to about war wounds or farm accidents.

“Have you considered other sensory modalities?” the doctor asked, curling Dell’s index finger inwards. “It would only require a minor adjustment of your posterior parietal cortex. It would be no trouble.”

Dell bit his tongue and refrained from saying that a good-looking fella like him could do whatever he liked to his posterior parts. He shook his head regretfully.

“Nah, that there’s a feature, not a bug. This hand won’t flinch, even if I stick it in a blast furnace. You can’t beat it for welding work.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose it’s a tool, not a simulacrum,” the doctor said, sounding a little disappointed nonetheless. He then perked up and unfolded Dell’s fingers, holding them barely two inches from his eyes and peering closely. “Perfectly steady, though. And very strong, I should think.”

“Sure is.” Dell gently extricated his hand from the doctor’s grasp and reached across him, stopping just short of his left arm. “May I?”

There it was again, that twenty-decibel and half-octave drop in the doctor’s voice. “Please.”

Now, a man could certainly take the point about the benefits of tactile feedback. Dell wouldn’t have minded leading with his other hand when it came to cupping a bicep that could put a college quarterback to shame. He could feel how firm the muscles were when the joints of the Gunslinger encountered resistance, but any warmth or softness was left entirely to his imagination.

“Let me know when this gets too tight,” he said, squeezing slowly.

A touch of color started spreading across the doctor’s cheeks, and his glasses slid down half an inch, but his expression was the picture of academic interest as Dell’s fingers increased their pressure. He held out longer than Dell would have expected. That could have just been pride, but the doctor didn’t seem like the type for pissing contests. Besides, Dell was close enough to see it for himself in the flaring nostrils and dilating pupils when hurting a little gave way to hurting a lot.

Finally, with a thoughtful pause for precision, the doctor said: “Hn. There.”

Dell grinned and let go. He consulted the gauge. “That’s 11% strength.”

“Mein gott, you could have crushed my humerus!” the doctor exclaimed happily.

"Bone dust and hamburger," Dell agreed.

He couldn't resist demonstrating the fine motor settings as well. He took one side of the doctor’s glasses between thumb and forefinger and nudged them back up the bridge of his nose.

There was a spark. It was a metaphorical one, but those were good too.

The doctor stared up at him for a long moment and then looked down into his lap. He made a thoughtful sound.

“Problem?” Dell asked.

“I seem to have an erection.”

Dell blinked. He paused for a polite moment and then, figuring he had permission, craned his neck and had a look. Yeah, he certainly did.

“Well,” he said calmly, “that function’s not in the Gunslinger’s official documentation, but noted.”

The doctor squared his shoulders and placed both hands on the desk. “I will persevere.”

“You could,” Dell said, glancing back at the door to make sure it was locked, “or I could help you out.”

The doctor licked his lips, looking at Dell’s hand again. “If you would be so kind.”

Dell grinned. “My pleasure.”

The doctor stood up, fussily straightening his vest, which only drew attention back to the tent in his pants. Dell hooked an ankle around his calf and reeled him in. He smelled like coffee and something sharper underneath: not aftershave this time, but rubbing alcohol, or something else in the propyl family. His ramrod posture eased right up when Dell’s knees clamped around him, and he leaned in closer with a little sigh, his palms flat on the desk and his eyelids lowered as he watched Dell’s hands start in on the dainty work of his vest buttons.

“Very dexterous,” the doctor said breathlessly.

“Honey,” Dell said, “you ain't seen nothing yet.”

He made short work of the loosened necktie and laid it neatly on the desk beside him. The tiny shirt buttons took more concentration, but he got them open one by one from the collar down, baring a few dark curls above the edge of the doctor’s undershirt. The man had the kind of chest and arms that weren't strangers to heavy lifting, but he was going a little soft around the middle. It was kind of cute.

Dell popped the button on the doctor’s pants and unfastened his fly. His fingers slipped down into the open vee between two shiny suspender clips. The doctor let out a real sweet sigh at that. Dell wouldn’t have minded leading with his left hand here either, but there was no disputing the speed with which the doctor stood to attention under the cool caress of titanium. His eyes were fixed unblinking on the sight of matte metal against the thin white cotton of his shorts.

“That feel good?” Dell asked, tracing the rising bulge.

The doctor nodded, biting his lip and pressing into Dell’s hand.

Now that was a pretty sight. Dell could feel his own temperature rising as he spread his fingers out and watched the doctor’s hips rock. His other hand set to rucking up and untucking, finding its way to bare skin.

"You’re gonna want me to warm this up." Dell took his hand out of the doctor’s pants and huffed a hot breath on it before sliding it up under the doctor’s shirt.

“Hsss!” The doctor sucked in his stomach at the touch of cold metal.

“Told you,” Dell said, rolling the Gunslinger back and forth until the worst of the chill was off it.

Both sets of fingertips dipped under the waistband of the doctor’s shorts. He got the shorts wedged down and took a measuring look. His eyebrows quirked. He wasn’t the anatomy expert in the room, but he had an appreciation for good equipment. A little mineral oil was dug out from his pocket and shaken liberally from the bottle to keep things slippery, and then his fingers curled very carefully around the stiff, rosy length.

The doctor shut his eyes and quivered. “Mein gott...”

“Still too cold?” Dell asked, fingertips pressing at barely 1% strength.

“No, das—that’s good.” The doctor bit his lip again and briefly closed his eyes. “Very good.”

Dell couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he started rubbing: 1.75% strength now, a nice smooth back and forth with a twist from the smooth fingertips. He usually jerked off with that hand himself. It felt more like someone else, and he liked the cool precision of it. So did the doctor, judging by how heavy he was breathing now and the slick clear drop beading up and dripping onto Dell’s sleeve.

“Let me know if you want me to trade off,” he said, his other hand sliding down to squeeze a real peach of a backside.

“No!” The answer came quick and heated. “No, that’s...quite all right.”

Dell took his time. If a thing was worth doing, it was worth doing well. He kept his hand moving steadily, playing Fizz Buzz in his head with long and short strokes to keep things interesting. He was tempted to steal a little kiss or two, but the doctor seemed to like watching, his heavy-lidded gaze still captured by the Gunslinger.

It was a sight worth admiring: the contrast of metal and flesh, both glinting with oil. The doctor’s heavy breathing soon gave way to quiet, high sounds from the back of his throat. The small motions of his hips grew quicker and more urgent, and then his jaw clenched and he was thrusting into the clasp of Dell’s fingers, just about fucking his hand.

“Ja...ja...ja...” The doctor fumbled clumsily in his pants pocket and pulled out a handkerchief a moment before he came. His eyes shut and his head fell forward as he shivered hard, a lock of hair drooping over his brow.

Dell whistled low in approval and let him go when his hips slowed down. His other hand moved back and forth under the doctor’s undershirt, following the line of his backbone.

“Marvelous,” the doctor said dreamily. He folded up his handkerchief with the care of a man who didn’t want his DNA getting into public circulation and tucked it away in his pocket before buttoning back up.

He then lowered himself primly to his knees, grabbed Dell’s ankles, and yanked him off the desk onto his feet. Dell leaned back obligingly, not about to complain when the doctor got into his overalls. Down came his pants and shorts. The doctor’s glasses were set on the desk, and then his mouth was pressing, burning hot, to the crease of Dell’s thigh.

Dell breathed out hard and couldn’t keep back a moan when fingers and lips did something really nice in tandem. This definitely wasn’t the doctor’s first rodeo.

“I would very much like...” the doctor said, pausing to drag his tongue along Dell’s family jewels. “...to cut open your arm and have a look at your wiring work. When we’ve finished here, of course.”

Dell laughed softly and curled his fingers fondly around the back of the doctor’s neck. He had a feeling they were going to do some great work together.

“Sure,” he said. “Why the heck not?”

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FIC: Needs Must (Argus Filch/Severus Snape, Explicit)

atdelphi — Sun, 30 Nov 2014 22:36:59 GMT

Title: Needs Must
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Argus Filch/Severus Snape
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: ~2400
Summary: This isn't so much an arrangement as it is...a state of affairs. A slice of life from Severus's first year teaching.
Content Info: Brief underage content (fantasy only).
Notes: Written for the hp_crossgenfest. My thanks to cathouse_mary for generously beta-reading.

There's a match on: Ballycastle and Cork.

Filch has a complicated silver antenna twisted into amplifying runes and suspended precariously outside his window. The resulting reception is clear and crisp enough to make Severus forget for a while that he's at Hogwarts. This is one of the few rooms in the castle that feels permanently lived in, with the smell of strong tea and tobacco ground into every worn surface. It's warmer than Severus's apartments, owing to its modest size and the unadulterated fire, built up with nothing but dry wood and lit by match to burn fast but hot.

The battered couch sags beneath him when he slouches down. He sighs.

If he closes his eyes, he's six years old again, bored and curious in equal measure as he infiltrates the gathering of his father's friends. Manchester City is winning, and the men are laughing, and Severus is fidgeting under a cloud of smoke, wishing they would pay attention to him. His father casually swats him out of his seat to go fetch more drinks from the kitchen.

"Ballycastle in possession—quaffle up the pitch to Whelan, now to Clery, back to Whelan—"

Filch hooks an arm around Severus's legs and pulls his feet up into his lap.

"Bugger off," Severus says, letting his knee jab awkwardly into Filch's side. "I'm trying to listen."

But he takes a certain novel satisfaction in being more interesting than the game, and he makes no further protest when Filch's hand settles decisively on his thigh. Over the course of the next few minutes, his robes are unbuttoned, his undershirt is pushed up, and his pants are dragged halfway down. He chews on the inside of his lip, looking at his stiffening cock in Filch's raw-knuckled grip.

This isn't so much an arrangement as it is...a state of affairs.

The fact that he keeps sleeping with Filch seems, in its own way, as arbitrary as the assignment of his apartments and the details of his class schedule. Like being a teacher, this has required nothing but recurrent inaction on his part, and the only difference is that there's pleasure to be found in letting Filch have his way with him.

Sex, he's discovered, feels better than anything else in the world.

He thought it might, given its reputation. But up until recently, he had wondered if it wasn't just one of those things, like flying or charitable giving, that the unimaginative had agreed to agree was rewarding unto itself. It really isn't. Decoupled from the agony of love and the anxiety that paralyzed his adolescent fumbling, sex is a revelation. He's left nearly breathless by the excitement in his stomach as he's turned over and buggered vigorously over the arm of the couch. His head hangs down, his hair in his eyes as Filch drives into him over and over again.

He locks his throat to keep from moaning. His own voice grates on him, but the feeling of being split open and stroked off is only enhanced by the sound of heavy breathing and grunts of effort above him. The harsh noises are percussed with the creaking of leather and the clinking of the hanging belt buckle that taps against his leg on every second stroke.

Cork lands the snitch and he misses it.

Afterwards, he stays where he is for a long while, savouring the pounding of his heart and the lingering throb in his loins as the animated commentary on the wireless breaks through the rush of coursing blood. He gives himself vertigo when he straightens up.

"Wasn't that good a match anyhow," Filch says, passing over his handkerchief.

"I wouldn't know," Severus replies sharply, wiping his spunk off the couch, "having been made to miss the best part."

Filch gestures at him—a vague threat to give him the back of his hand for cheek—but Severus only flicks the dirty handkerchief back at him and buttons up.

He never did get in the habit of taking Filch's menacing seriously. At age eleven, this set him apart from his schoolmates. Unlike the rest of the toddling first-year cohort, he arrived at Hogwarts well-accustomed to brusque, blustering men who griped and grumbled and promised to tear a strip off your hide for misbehaving. The teachers were the ones who made him nervous, with all their benign smiling and their oily-smooth way of speaking. His fellow students were little better, chattering in a language he only halfway understood.

Severus had always hoped that going to Hogwarts would be like stepping into a storybook, or the perfect, polished world of the cinema, and it was. What he had not anticipated was that he would be the only one without his lines written down for him.

Filch was reassuringly ordinary in contrast to everything else at the school, and avoiding his wrath was only common sense: don't walk over a patch of freshly mopped floor, don't shout, don't slam doors.

He tried to communicate this to his giggling classmates as they exchanged lurid tales in the common room about Filch's alleged torture chamber. He was glad to know something they didn't, even if it was only the difference between someone who would really hit you and someone who was only trying to get through the day without a headache. His explanation was met with scorn, and even though he knew he was right, he shut his mouth, afraid the others would know he didn't really belong there.

Age eleven or age twenty—it’s all the same. He finally resorted to knocking on the door of Filch's office on his second day of teaching, having wasted his entire evening rummaging through every supply cupboard in the dungeons. His robes were streaked with dust as he stood resentfully before the caretaker's desk, fingers ink-smudged from clutching his supply list in an increasingly sweaty hand.

"What's that when it's at home, then?"

Severus didn't appreciate it at the time, but this would later turn out to be the first useful question anyone had posed to him since his return to Hogwarts.

For an instant he was tempted to repeat the word "condensers" slower and louder, but he was aware even in his frazzled state that Filch was his last hope. All of his purported colleagues were waiting to see him fall on his face. He was the mad emperor's horse appointed to the senate and they knew it. His orientation had consisted of being handed a set of keys and the vague assurance that "Horace" had left some notes somewhere, and he expected his former teachers would be only too pleased to see him come crawling to them in ignorance.

Instead, gritting his teeth, he held his hands eighteen inches apart and then sketched a circumference with his thumb and finger. "A cylindrical glass tube with a smaller glass coil inside. There ought to be at least twenty of them."

Filch squinted up at the ceiling as if reviewing some mental catalogue and then nodded to himself and promptly led Severus to the third-floor cupboard where Professor Flitwick had apparently locked up everything his Ravenclaws were wont to pinch for the purpose of still-making.

"But it's Potions equipment," Severus protested, feeling the need to defend the fact that he had just spent four hours looking for the bloody things.

"Yes, sir," Filch said, taking down the box for him.

"Should it not be in the dungeons, where the Potions classroom is?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wasn't even given a key to this cupboard," he pointed out.

"Well now, sir," Filch muttered, and sniffed. "It'll be a long wait if you hold your breath for any fucking common sense around here."

Severus managed to startle himself with the sound of his own laughter, which was pitched slightly too high and sharpened to the edge of hysteria with too little sleep.

Filch snorted. His stubbled cheek twitched in a half-smile.

"Come on," he said, prying Severus's list out of his death grip. "Let's see where they went and hid the rest of your things on you."

That's how it is. "Come on," and "There you go," and "Good man."

Filch tells him about the standing account at Potage's and about the reimbursement forms, and how to keep the house-elves out of his rooms when he needs privacy. He tells him not to bother raising any concerns with Dumbledore, but to put them in writing and give them to McGonagall instead if he actually wants anything done, and he tells him how Flitwick can be counted upon to second any motion in a staff meeting if you call on him suddenly, to hide the fact that he’s been working on a crossword puzzle behind his notes and hasn’t really been listening.

The tone Filch takes with him alternates between deferential and cajoling, but his hands are always insistent, whether straightening out the collar of Severus's robes or hauling him into bed. They leave no room for error or doubt, and Severus bows to greater experience—to the push at the small of his back or on his shoulder, urging him down. He allows his hair to be pulled and fingers to curl under his chin, guiding him through the mechanics of his first attempt at fellatio.

"Go on, lad. Just a little more, now. Good at that, aren't you?"

It was the early hours of All Souls', and Severus—humiliated at having had it brought to his attention by Professor McGonagall that he could not account for the whereabouts of his students—had ended up in a bitter exchange of complaints with Filch about the idiocy and low moral character of giggling, hormone-addled students.

On the surface, it might seem the height of hypocrisy to then end up sprawled across a desk with Filch's hand shoved down his pants, but that isn't how Severus remembers it. What followed wasn't a diversion from their shared grievance but a logical conclusion. There is nothing else to do, when in the employ of children, but to indulge in what few freedoms are denied to the little bastards.

Gratifyingly, the first time left deep marks: red imprints of teeth throbbing around his nipples and a long, thin bruise where the edge of the desk dug into his thighs. More subtle but just as slow to fade was the soreness in his lower stomach, the muscles there worked to full strength for the first time in his life from screwing his hips down on Filch's cock, desperately chasing after that wrenching twist of ecstasy that rendered him barely able to speak.

"Bloody hell," Filch murmured in his ear afterwards, holding on to him, hoarse-voiced and breathing hard. "Bloody hell. D'you know how long I've wanted to do that to you?"

It makes the lateness of his education more bearable to be assured that he could have lost his virginity at least four years earlier, with little difference in the details. He thinks about that sometimes when they're together, particularly on the occasions when Filch is pressed up behind him and mouthing at the back of his neck. He imagines himself in sixth year, so perpetually randy he feared something was wrong with him—alone in some dark corner of the castle, his cheek against the cold stone and an immovable weight pinning him down.

"Shh. Don't say a word." A hand gropes between his legs. His robes are pulled up and his pants are yanked down, and he is aroused to the point of heart-pounding nausea when greased-up fingers force their way inside him. "You'll like it, you'll see. Just keep your mouth shut."

"You were a good lad," Filch insists. "Not like this lot. You were respectable, always going about with your nose in a book."

Severus was not a good lad. He's under no delusions on that front. He did far worse things in his time as a student than the everyday curfew-breakers and vandals who earn detentions under Filch's watch. But it's true that he was often reading, and he was quiet, and he did not make a mess. He remembers noticing the way Filch watched him on a few occasions, and the way it amused him to make himself look particularly studious and harmless for as long as Filch's attention was on him.

At the time, he thought of it as an investment in plausible deniability should Filch ever catch him trespassing. Now, he wonders how long he might have kept up the act if Filch had been watching him all the time—whether the dumb show of piety might somehow have stood in for piety itself, if Filch never took his eyes or his hands off him.

"Good timing, that," Filch says, his arm slung across the back of the couch as they listen to the after-match coverage. His fingertips are resting lightly on the side of Severus's neck. "Dinner's in an hour."

"I am capable of reading a clock, thank you," Severus replies.

"Got time for tea," Filch says. He rubs his thumb back and forth a few times under the edge of Severus's collar before planting his hand on the couch and pushing himself to his feet with a groan of effort.

It's the meal on offer, not a cup—and it is a statement, not a question. Severus therefore doesn't feel the need to answer him. Fucking works up an appetite, and he never quite manages to eat his fill at dinner these days. Only students take second helpings, and Severus is inevitably the first to finish at the head table, pushing around empty air with his fork while his more sedate colleagues pick daintily over a single slice of roast beef and a scoop of mash.

The Quidditch report gives way to advertisements, and he stops paying attention. With the couch to himself, he stretches out on his back and closes his eyes. Over in the little nook that serves as a kitchen, a knife saws through the crust on a loaf of bread. Water fills the kettle. He can hear the tell-tale crinkle of the cellophane sliding off the cardboard on a cheap packaged cake, the kind with vividly pink gelatinous cherries and a coffin of sickly sweet royal icing.

The skillet sizzles, and soon enough the smell of salt and fat fills up the room as the present state of affairs sees fit to bring a bacon sandwich into his life.

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FIC: Sweetheart (Team Fortress 2, Engineer/Pyro, Mature)

atdelphi — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 04:58:10 GMT

Title: Sweetheart (Good Enough to Eat)
Fandom: Team Fortress 2
Pairing: Engineer/Pyro
Rating: Mature
Word Count: ~1000
Kink: Guro
Summary: Engie is a big ol’ marshmallow, and Pyro wants to toast him and eat his gooey insides. It’s only kind of a metaphor.
Content Info: Contains fantasies of immolation and candy-themed cannibalism.
Notes: Written for the amnesty round of Kink Bingo. Songs quoted are "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" by Ohio Express and "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. Big thanks to cathouse_mary for beta-reading.

Gloves on the table. Can't color right with gloves on. It's okay. The door is locked, and Engie knows about taking your hands off and putting them back on again.

Engie's workshop is the very best place to draw. It's warm and bright inside. Smells good too, like soldering fumes. There's a brand new box of crayons, the kind with 64 different colors and a razor blade built in as a prize.

Red is the best crayon, even out of all the colors in the big box. Red always goes away first, worn down to a blunt stump, so it's important to use it quickly. Here is one friend and then another, smiling on the scrap paper. Red shirts, red gloves, red armbands. The red stripes on Scout's socks wander away across the page.

Oh well. The lines go on, twirling into candy corkscrews. Red Vines. They used to be raspberry, once upon a time, but now they're only red-flavored. That seems right. Scout is long and red and bendy and chewy-soft. He would leave gummy sugar dye all over your mouth if you ate him.

New crayon. If Scout is a Red Vine, then Spy is black licorice. Tougher and not as sweet. An acquired taste. Scout and Spy are made from the same ingredients, even if Scout pretends they're not. New crayon. Colors fly across the paper as inspiration takes hold. Purple spiral. Sniper is an all-day lollipop, soggy stick and all. Soldier is pink popping bubble gum, and Demo is sea-green saltwater taffy. New crayon. Heavy is a brick of peanut brittle, the kind you could break a tooth on. New crayon. Lemon drop yellow for Medic, sugar-dusted and mouth-puckering sour. New crayon.

And Engie—

Engie is sitting across the table, writing down little numbers and drawing straight lines with a sharp, shiny ruler. Gray pencil on white paper.

That's sad. It calls for nudging over the box of crayons.

"Want to share?"

Engie looks up. There's another line, on his forehead. Right above his goggles.

"That's all right," he says. "You keep 'em."

But he smiles. It's a really nice smile.

Everything turns into rainbows and the taste of throwing up cotton candy on the tilt-a-whirl.

Electric guitar. Drums.

Yummy, yummy, yummy

I got love in my tummy

and I feel like a-lovin' you

Engie isn't just gumdrops or jelly beans. You couldn't buy Engie for a penny at the corner store. Engie is nothing short of a toasted marshmallow.

There is nothing better in the whole wide world than toasted marshmallows. They mean fire and friends both in the same place. Being outside at night. Stars and smoke. Engie sitting on his tool box strumming cowboy songs and Sniper singing along when he's been drinking the stuff that smells like apples and gasoline.

Love

is a burning thing

'Might want to try just holding them close to the fire,' Engie suggested, but marshmallows only taste good when they're burnt.

You have to put them all the way into the flames. Let them catch. Watch them flare up at the end of the stick like shooting stars. Golden-brown at first, then black and bubbling. Whoosh—blow them out.

They crackle on the tongue. The charred sugar fuses to the inside of the mouth and then melts away. Insides ooze out.

The crayons rattle in the box under another examination. There should be a color for your heart feeling too big for your chest. Too much blood and not enough room to pump it. Meat pushing against bone. Another color for getting the tingles and squirming in your seat with the urge to give someone a hug. Wanting to squeeze Engie around the middle where he's marshmallow-soft under his overalls.

That's where all his sweetness has to be. The rest of him is muscle and metal. Hard things can’t make a smile like that. They can’t. Engie's voice comes up from some warm, sugary place, slow as syrup. 'Buddy,' he says, and 'partner,' and one time it was even 'darling', the time at the barbecue when everyone else was screaming.

‘Come on, darlin'. Put down the axe, now. It's time to go home.’

There should be a color for when your heart turns into the drumbeat of a rock and roll song and your mouth goes all wet at the thought of making someone crispy on the outside and melted on the inside. Whoosh. Blowing softly. Clothes. Skin. Gone. Crumbling into ashes. Nothing left in the way.

Yes.

A big pillowy mound of puffed sugar underneath. Fluffy white wonderful stuff giving way at the slightest touch. Hot and sticky against the fingers and all over the tongue. Gulped down until it's inside both of them. The smell of burning and the taste of ooey gooey goodness. Enough molten sweetness inside to drown in.

Yes. Yes, please.

"You all right there, buddy?"

Engie is looking at the red and black crayons, which are clutched in one sweaty hand. Back and forth they go, back and forth across the page, slowly obliterating the candy friends. Engie is looking at the lighter in the other hand. At the thumb flicking the flint wheel over and over.

"Mm-hm."

Engie tilts his head, examining what remains of the drawing. A lemon drop doctor and a lollipop holding a rifle. He chuckles.

"Getting hungry?"

"Uh-huh."

Just like magic, a candy bar appears from the bib pocket of Engie's overalls. Milky Way. That's a good one. Caramel and nougat. Engie unwraps it and lines it up against his shiny sharp ruler before slicing it in two with his utility knife.

"Here, I'll trade you," Engie says, taking the lighter and replacing it with exactly half of the candy bar.

It's okay. He always gives it back.

Their hands touch. Naked. Just for a second. Mouth open. Nozzle open. All of it in at once. Engie takes a big bite from his half and goes back to drawing straight, sure lines. New crayon. White. Dragging streaks of red and black wax. A squishy heart takes shape on top of the fiery scribbles.

Chocolate isn't quite as good as toasted marshmallows, but everything tastes better when you're smiling so wide it hurts.

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Audience Participation Meme

atdelphi — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 03:56:51 GMT

When one is too work-exhausted to write, one can at least write about writing. Or encourage other people to write about writing.

Yoinked from Tumblr:

Ask me a question about one of my fics or series. It can be absolutely anything in any project and I will tell you the honest-to-goodness answer (even on the progress/plans for next chapters of current series).

Don’t hold back. Whatever you ask, I’ll answer as truthfully and as completely as possible. You can also ask about my writing as a whole, if you like.

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Rainy Day Recs: 1 x In the Flesh

atdelphi — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 06:07:51 GMT

Okay, so out of all the young adult supernatural dramas, I have officially fallen for the one about Lancashire zombies.

Title: Illuminated
Vidder: Abby / ridethatcyclone
Fandom: In the Flesh
Pairing: Kieren Walker/Simon Monroe
Rating: Teen
Song: "Illuminated" by Hurts
Content Info: Brief references to self-harm.

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What's Making Me Happy Today: Fanart!

atdelphi — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 03:41:40 GMT

I have recced Somi's art before. I love their sketches, which are always beautifully posed and full of charming character design while still looking effortless. Any day when there's something new on their art blog is a good day, but today was an amazing surprise.

An illustration of "Sweet Violets" - one of my stories! This is little Dori, admiring a fancy teacup as he snuggles in the lap of his glamorous Uncle Vyri. Vyri is exactly how I imagined him, a properly bedecked dwarven beauty, and little Dori is just too cute for words.

This has made my month.

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What's Making Me Happy Today: "I'm Knitting You Something..." by Sparkle

atdelphi — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:24:27 GMT

"I'm knitting you something..." by asparklethatisblue (Artist's Note: "Sometimes there just needs to be a moment for everyone to stop and remember that Dori is the strongest, and has a flail as one of his weapons. Also I do like to imagine Nori not being the only scary brother...")

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Rainy Day Recs: 3 x Orphan Black Vids

atdelphi — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:54:32 GMT

Title: Pompeii
Vidder: VeritasProductions
Fandom: Orphan Black
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: Mature
Song: "Pompeii" by Bastille
Content Info: Violence

Title: Thrift Shop
Vidder: allpassionspent
Fandom: Orphan Black
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: Teen
Song: "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore
Content Info: Profanity, brief scenes of violence

Title: Seven Devils
Vidder: TheFlorence Day
Fandom: Orphan Black
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: Mature
Song: "Seven Devils" by Florence and the Machine
Content Info: Violence, self-harm

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What's Making Me Happy Today: Fanfic of My Fanfic

atdelphi — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 01:39:04 GMT

I have an ongoing Hobbit series in which a young(er) Dori is the proprietor of a cosy tea shop that offers all the comforts of a marriage home to busy bachelors. Today I posted a new instalment, Blessing the Iron, about Dori bedding a young warrior about to be deployed for the first time.

Within a few hours, Jon had written a poignant sequel called Whetstone, and besides having enjoyed the story entirely on its own merits, I am ridiculously tickled to have my story (and original character!) inspire another work.

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What's Making Me Happy Today: "Nenä" by Somi

atdelphi — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:17:14 GMT

It will come as a surprise to no one who knows me that while I'm as much a multi-shipper for The Hobbit as I am for Harry Potter, the pairing that warms the cockles of my heart features a couple of dapper older fellows. The fandom has actually been pretty great about making art of characters of all ages and sizes, but it still feels like a special occasion when I find something new featuring my favourite dwarves being mushy.

Nenä (Balin/Dori, Rated G)

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FIC: Counting Out Time (Argus Filch/Severus Snape, Mature)

atdelphi — Thu, 22 May 2014 17:08:51 GMT

Follows Schoolboy Blues, Killer, Fascination, Speak to Me, and Dreaming from the Waist.

Title: Counting Out Time
Series: Snape of St. Brutal's
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Argus Filch/Severus Snape, references to Severus Snape/OMC
Rating: Mature
Word Count: ~1900
Summary: Severus considers the virtue of perseverance.
Content Info: Attempts by a reform school student to seduce a member of staff, poor enforcement of appropriate boundaries by said member of staff, dubious consent, manipulation, Muggle AU, prostitution, underage (16+ in text, references to previous sexual encounters between an adult and young teenager)
Notes: My thanks to perverse_idyll for kindly beta-reading.

December had only just begun, but Severus was already giving thought to the reflective essay the sixth-year students had been assigned by Professor McGonagall for the Christmas holidays. The title was to be "The Most Important Lesson I Have Learned at St. Brutus's School," and the work would join such other holiday efforts as "What I Would Like to Do After Leaving St. Brutus's School," "Why I Must Show Respect for My Schoolmates," and "Town Weekends Are a Privilege and Not a Right."

'Perseverance,' he thought, would make a good topic. 'Self-Control' or 'Remorse' were too obvious and would only make Professor McGonagall read the essay more closely than she needed to. He could get at least three paragraphs out of the fact that he actually found himself being challenged as an upperclassman, not least by Professor Flitwick and Professor Vector's extra assignments, and he was now responsible for developing the optimum study habits needed to succeed at university. Onto that, he could graft some bollocks about overcoming his disappointment in his assignment as Building Monitor and taking the opportunity to learn many new skills that might prove useful in his future life, whether in owning a home or facing any unfamiliar challenge, and so on and so forth.

Outside the scope of the essay but germane in theme were his continued experiments with Filch. He had kept at it, poking cautiously at the caretaker's defences, and to his pleasure was now beginning to see some real results. He read to Filch three nights a week and on Saturday afternoons, like clockwork, having finished Great Expectations and moved on to The Woman in White. There was a hot drink provided on each of the evenings, usually milk and honey, but it had been hot chocolate on three particularly good occasions when Filch had confiscated a bar of Cadbury's from one of the fifth-year boys. A package of digestives had recently appeared in Filch's desk drawer for Saturday sessions, from which Severus had pocketed a few extra biscuits to trade.

Filch had yet to ask for anything in return besides the reading, but it was only a matter of time. He hardly looked at Severus when they were alone together, his eyes always conspicuously turned away, glancing worriedly around, or fixed to the wall, or staring glumly down at his hands. Yet Severus increasingly caught him peeping during the day: in the corridors between classes, or in the chapel on Sunday, or outside during one of the students' mandatory trudges around the yard.

It was like feeding a stray dog, Severus thought, assessing his progress. You were supposed to put the scraps down on the ground and sit some distance away, very still and very quiet, as though you didn't even care if the dog paid you any attention. Then, the next day, you put the food a little closer, and a little closer the day after that, until you had the dog eating out of your hand. Too much too quickly and you would frighten it away.

“I’ll give you a blowie if you help me with my essay about the six hundred poem,” Pettigrew whispered in his ear.

They were in the library, and Severus was finishing up some history notes and thinking idly about monitor duty. In particular, he was thinking about whether he wanted to have a wank before supper or save it up until after his evening with Filch.

"Two," Pettigrew whispered again, shifting closer to him on the bench and bringing with him a waft of nervous stink.

Severus had a feeling he could move it up to three if he let Pettigrew keep babbling, but he only sighed. “‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ essay? That was due last week.”

“Professor Flitwick gave me an extension. Lupin was supposed to help me with it, but—”

Severus held up his hand to indicate that he did not care about the details. He considered the offer. Writing two pages for Pettigrew was, in a way, more difficult than writing two pages for himself. He could write it point form and leave it to Pettigrew to mangle the spelling, but it would still take effort to come up with a believably banal and marginally incoherent thesis that could both read as Pettigrew's own work yet still achieve a passing mark. Then again, a blowjob was a blowjob. Two blowjobs were two blowjobs.

At that point, the part of Severus's brain that was thinking about Pettigrew conferred with the part of his brain still thinking about scraps.

"You room with Potter, don’t you?” he asked, tapping the end of his pencil against his lower lip thoughtfully.

Pettigrew's sweaty face creased in confusion, but he nodded.

"Does he really have a stash of dirty pictures?”

Pettigrew went pink. "How would I know that?"

He was a terrible liar, not least when telling the truth held the opportunity for attention. Pettigrew had all the hallmarks of a coward, but in Severus's experience he was so used to being beaten that you couldn't bully him into anything. He could, however, be flattered into selling his own mother. Severus merely stared at him, one eyebrow arched.

"I shouldn't say..." Pettigrew conceded, coy now.

"I want one," Severus said. "It doesn't have to be the best one. Tits will do."

Pettigrew bit his lip.

Severus shrugged. "If you don’t think you can get one…"

"I can," Pettigrew protested. "I'll get you one. Just make it a good paper."

Two days later, Severus exchanged one exquisitely mediocre paper for what proved to be a surprisingly valuable piece of pornography. He had been expecting one of the Page 3 cut-outs that had been recently circulating on the black market, attributed to Potter, but Pettigrew had nicked a full page from a naturist magazine. Not just tits, but fanny as well. The page was nearly falling apart from frequent foldings and unfoldings, and there was tell-tale crinkling attesting to its utility, but that was fine for Severus's purposes.

He brought it with him to his next curfew patrol with Filch and waited until the last lights-out bell before handing it over.

"I found this hidden inside one of the loo rolls in the second floor lavatory."

He watched Filch's face carefully as the man unfolded the picture. The prudish shock he had half hoped for didn't appear, but to his delight, Filch's gaze darted to him for an instant and then retreated to the naked woman as if she were the safer option.

"You said to bring any contraband I found to you," Severus reminded him.

Filch hurriedly folded the picture back up and put it in his shirt pocket. “Right,” he said shakily and then cleared his throat. “Good. Don’t want to be looking at mucky stuff like that.”

“Pornography is demeaning to women,” Severus said primly. He had read that in a more respectable publication.

Filch nodded uncertainly. He hesitated for a moment and then began his rounds. Severus trailed after him, giving him a minute to recover before adding, thoughtfully:

"A man offered to buy me a dirty magazine once."

Filch missed the English room lock and nearly dropped his keys. "What?"

Severus schooled his features into a mask of unconcerned obliviousness, but he savoured the words as he repeated himself more clearly. "A man offered to buy me a dirty magazine once."

"What man?" Filch asked, his frown deeper than Severus had expected.

He shrugged. "Just a man from town."

Briefly, he thought of Ray Fothergill—then settled instead on the hazier memory of the man who had first offered him a fiver for a blowjob. Severus wasn't certain he could pick him out of a crowd again; for all he knew, they had passed in the street a dozen times since. It had all happened very quickly, or it had seemed that way at the time. Brown hair. Big hands. Mustard-yellow trousers.

You’re from the borstal, aren’t you?

"Where was this?" Filch asked, and the pressing tone in his voice made Severus's fingers twitch.

"At the train station," Severus said, shrugging again, nonchalantly, despite the sudden cramp in his stomach. "In the toilets."

“What were you doing there?” Filch demanded.

Now that was interesting. Filch definitely knew what went on at the train station. A few of the other boys whom Severus suspected had earned the occasional fiver called it Queen's Cross, and from what Severus had heard it was a destination for all manner of perverts in northern Scotland. There was always at least one man hanging about on town weekends, but according to Evan Rosier, who'd had leave to travel when his mother was ill, the place was even busier when school was in.

"What do you think?" Severus said, indulging in an eye-roll for verisimilitude and wondering if Filch went down there on his days off to suck some other man's prick. "I had to use the toilet and none of the shops would let me use theirs."

Filch said nothing—only looked at him for a split-second, or at his lips maybe—before going on to the next door and locking it. He checked the doorknob once, then twice.

"I was minding my own business," Severus continued, "when this man came up and said hello. He asked what my name was, and if I went to school here, and if I wanted him to buy me a dirty magazine. That's all."

He watched with interest as Filch's jaw worked silently. He saw him swallow, his throat bobbing.

"He didn't...take any liberties, did he?"

There was something odd in Filch's voice that Severus couldn't easily identify. He looked flustered, but not really in a turned-on sort of way. He sounded as though he hadn't wanted to ask the question.

Severus paused, inclined to push but momentarily second-guessing himself. He still wanked over the memory sometimes, brief though it was. Sucking a man's prick had seemed nastier the first time, because he hadn't entirely known what was going to happen. He had already been making spunk for nearly a year then, but he still hadn't been prepared for the sudden spurt in his mouth, like a wet, salty sneeze. He thought of how big the man's prick had seemed, and the unexpected hairiness of it, and the ginger beer he had bought afterwards to chase the taste away.

He shook his head, opting to err towards caution. Patience, he thought. One scrap at a time. "I washed my hands and left."

Filch looked down at the keys sticking out of the lock on the music room door and muttered gruffly to them: "If anything like that happens again, you tell me, all right?”

A laugh threatened to bubble up in Severus's mouth, but he caught himself. His teeth clamped down on his tongue until all that escaped was a puff of air through his nose. He nodded solemnly, for all that Filch was carefully not looking at him.

"I will," he promised.

Perseverance, he mused as he shadowed Filch's steps politely on the rest of his rounds, was really about self-confidence. When you knew you were stronger than the problem you were attempting to surmount, then you could find the patience and endurance to persevere until you had beaten it.

He made note of this, intending to put it in his essay. It was good, that. Professor McGonagall would like it.

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Beta Feelers

atdelphi — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:31:09 GMT

Anyone interested in beta-reading a 2000-word Hobbit story? It's Bifur/Dwalin, rated Teen (brief references to brain injuries and attempted suicide), and is a short charity-commissioned sequel to Which Had No Stone.

I've got two more charity fics drafted that I'm looking to polish up before the end of month. One is ~5000 words of Bilbo/Dwalin/(Thorin), and the other is the first two chapters of a sequel to The Affairs of Dwarves. If any particularly generous soul wanted to call dibs on either of those instead, by all means and with gratitude.

As always, I'm happy to beta-read in return.

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Insta-Rec!

atdelphi — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 01:52:39 GMT

Opposite Ends by pauraque (HP: Aberforth Dumbledore/Millicent Bulstrode, Explicit, Underage)

This is a dirty, boozy, dimly lit sort of story about deeply damaged people. Understandably, I am in love with it.

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