Snippets!

In between the desperate and humiliating exercise that is apartment hunting on a very small budget, I got some good and unexpected news. Dreamspinner has decided to accept the collection of short stories I did about Beings.

(I know! I'm kind of shocked. It's about as artsy as I get, and a bunch of short stories about magical creatures falling in love during the last century seems like a hard sell. But yay! They wanted it. So now you all get to read about the babies I've been talking about for like a year. Kazimir. Okay. Kazimir. And Rennet. And Miki. And Tank. And and and....)

Also, thanks to LJ user sunakoyue (<3) if I am settled in a place and have internet and everything by then, I will probably do some sort of chat/forum thing on Goodreads in March, around when A Beginner's Guide to Wooing Your Mate comes out.

Now. To the snippets. These are all from Tumblr a few weeks ago. There was a list of prompts and people messaged me with requests while I was trying to distract myself from real life. Gonna put them behind a cut, which might not work when this reposts to Goodreads automatically. So anyone getting a really long post on Goodreads... sorry.




Will and Charlie "coming home"

It took so much effort not to run from his car to Charlie’s apartment that Will felt weirdly lightheaded when he finally reached Charlie’s door. He hadn’t run a fucking marathon, but his heart was fast and his hands were shaking.

He didn’t get it. He’d known Charlie—been with Charlie—before when he’d gone to visit his sister. He’d missed Charlie then, even after only a week of sleeping with him. He had hurried back. He remembered that, but not this sickness. Maybe he had the flu.

He should wait then. Find somewhere else to sleep so he didn’t spread it to Charlie, even if he nearly whimpered to think of how Charlie would take care of him. Charlie would just assume Will would need his care, the way he did after a spanking, or any practically vigorous round of anything. He’d clean him up and tuck him in and feed him, and chide him for not sleeping as if every moment wasn’t something fucking special and rare and—

Sometimes Will thought about Charlie and his hands started shaking. Charlie cared for him. Will had a boyfriend who cared for him. That was a real thing. And that boyfriend was Charlie, hotter than the hottest daddy, and quiet and snarly until he wasn’t, and Will had to get in to see him. Now.

He went to knock, then remembered the hour, how he’d driven back late instead of spending another night at his sister’s. Charlie worked tomorrow—today, now—and had thought Will would be returning in the morning, so he’d given Will a key.

That was it. The reason for Will’s impatience, for his trembling hands and racing heart. He pulled his key ring from his pocket, where of course he’d already put Charlie’s spare key as if it were his to keep.

He slid it into the lock and then crept into the dark of Charlie’s apartment. A small shape crossed into the kitchen as he closed the door, then purred his ankles right as he identified it.

Sam had never purred him before. At least, not without food being involved.

Will put his bag down on the counter and followed Sam to his food bowl. He frowned a little to see it empty and glanced into the living room. The living room was empty too. The light from the window wasn’t much, but it was enough to show the books on the couch, and the coat and cane left carelessly on the floor.

Will forgot all about his plans to jump into Charlie’s bed and kiss him awake. He fed Sam, spilling some bits of cat food since his hands wouldn’t be steady, and left Sam gobbling down food to go in search of Charlie.

He found him spread across the top of his bed, still dressed, curled in a little as if something had hurt. Will assumed it had, and hurt bad, if Charlie had collapsed like this.

He came forward without thinking and put a knee on the bed in order to put a hand to Charlie’s handsome face. Charlie’s skin was hot to the touch, which probably had something to do with the bottle of pills on the floor near Charlie’s hand.

He’d had two hydrocodone left in his prescription when Will had left, now they were gone. Not that Will was keeping track, exactly. But Charlie didn’t do things like refill his prescriptions when he should, which was probably how he’d ended up hurting in the days Will had been gone. He’d let the pain get worse instead of relaxing to make it better, and then today—this.

He’d probably thought Will would never know.

He was such an asshole.

Will picked up the bottle and went to the bathroom to wash his hands and strip off his clothes. He checked Charlie’s alarm, although if Charlie felt like crap in the morning Will wasn’t letting him go anywhere. Then he put on a pair of Charlie’s ridiculous pajama pants that his sisters got him as Christmas presents and took off Charlie’s shoes.

He got his belt off before Charlie stirred, but it was only a murmured, breathless, “Will?” and then Charlie lifting his head without opening his eyes.

"You give someone else a key?" Will demanded, but he didn’t sound angry. He sounded soft and worried and if Charlie had been less stoned, he would have noticed.

Maybe he did anyway, because he scowled and shook his head. “You.”

"Just me?" Will had no idea why he was talking to someone currently out of their mind, or why he kept whispering. But Charlie shifted to let Will strip off his pants and unbutton his shirt, and when Will went for the knot in his tie, Charlie sighed.

"Will," he said again, and Will realized, with a start, that his hands were no longer shaking.

He wondered, vaguely, distractedly, if Charlie had intended for Will to keep the key, and Will had been the one assuming he was supposed to give it back. After all, Charlie wasn’t the kind of man who let just anyone take his clothes off or fetch him a small glass of water from the bathroom.

"Charlie." Will watched Charlie take a few sips, then took the glass back from him and put it on the nightstand. It would be like to him to make a gesture like that, then worry so much that this happened.

God. Will loved him so much it was frightening. This idiot, tying himself into knots over Will. Will climbed carefully over him and this time felt no surprise at all when Charlie let Will settle at his side. Charlie’s skin was hot, sweaty, but Will scooted in closer, and wrapped his arms around him.
"Will," Charlie said again, putting so much into the name that Will closed his eyes.

"Here I am," Will answered, and gave him a kiss on the ear that Charlie wouldn’t remember. "Sorry I took so long."




Jeremy and Benjamin "paradise"

The air smelled like coffee. Good coffee, the kind that costs bucks and came from that little place in Berkeley near Jeremy’s apartment. Jeremy couldn’t afford the coffee there, but one taste and Benjamin had fallen in love with it. He used a French press to make it—not every day of course. Only on special days.

Jeremy smiled and scrunched his nose into his pillow. Not to hide the smile, but to keep Benj from knowing he was awake for a while longer. For just a few more minutes, Jeremy got to lie in bed, in Benj’s comfortable bed, warm from the two of them and one cuddly cat, and not be anywhere. He had no class to run to, no work, and neither did Benj.

It was Sunday. It was Sunday and it was winter break and neither of them had anywhere else immediate to be.

Jeremy wasn’t sure what that would mean, exactly. Maybe it would be like a regular Sunday—staying over Saturday night and sleeping in and having French press coffee made just for the two of them and lingering over toast and then Jeremy remembering he had to study, or write, or work, and leaving.
Maybe it would be like that, but with no leaving.

Maybe they could go to the store, and buy something for lunch. Maybe they would go see a movie, or not go anywhere.

Or maybe Benj had some work to do. It was hard to say. But Jeremy wanted… oh, he wanted to stay. Right here, all day, doing nothing but spending time with his boyfriend like he’d never once gotten to do for a whole, single, entire day.

But Benj was whispering to Persephone as he fed her, and the coffee smelled amazing, so it couldn’t last.

He kept his face in the pillow anyway.

"There’s coffee." Benj sounded like he was in the doorway. Probably in a radiant beam of early morning sun.

Jeremy sighed and turned around. Benj was so pretty it wasn’t fair. Especially when Jeremy could barely manage to look cute in the mornings.

"Or," he suggested carefully, snuggling deeper under a ridiculously wonderful comforter, "there’s this bed. Your bed. Which I don’t want to leave."

Benj’s lips turned up at the corner. “You look good there,” he offered, after a while, making Jeremy go hot and bury his face again.
"Never leaving. Here all day." Jeremy was not at his brightest in the morning, before coffee. It didn’t help that he mumbled into the bedding.

But Benj seemed to understand. He made a thoughtful noise. “I can bring the coffee in here.”

Benj, as Jeremy had quickly learned, was only serious about rules concerning the well-being of the library—and Jeremy.

Jeremy poked his head up again, absently smoothing his hair down as he did. “And you’ll drink it with me? And we’ll be decadent and debauched and never get out of bed for the entire day, except to use the bathroom and forage for food, and when I stay out of bed too long you’ll get worried and come and find me and we’ll end up fucking in your living room. And I can plead with you to light a fire, and you’ll remember you have work to do, but it’s okay, because I can curl up on the floor with you and distract you because it wasn’t that important anyway, not on Jeremy’s first real, entire day off with his boyfriend?”

He sucked in a breath.

Benj’s eyes went wide. Then he swallowed.

And then, And then. He ducked his head and smiled. “You have the entire day off?”
His smile was, there was no other word for it, delighted.




Chris and Nicky "all the way"

(I still haven’t solidified a canon for Nick and Chris, so, yeah)


"Tell me." Nick’s voice in his ear was hard and hungry enough to clear most of the fog from Chris’s mind. Chris stopped, leaning out of bed in the dark, cell phone clutched tightly in one hand. He forgot his fumbling search for glasses or for the light switch.

He hadn’t recognized the number on the screen, but he’d known somehow. Maybe that was why he answered, even at four am in the dark, with class in the morning.

"Nick." His throat tightened so much he couldn’t manage more, but Nick’s command made his heart pound. He thought dizzily of distance and time, perhaps danger, then pulled in a breath. "Nicky, I haven’t… you haven’t… not since Thanksgiving."

His mouth felt sticky. He couldn’t say what he wanted. Hell, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted. He wanted Nick. He wanted more of him instead of this uncertainty and ache. More than kisses, adult kisses, wet and feverish, outside his mother’s house while they jacked each other. More than insisting Nicky stay the night and not fooling his mother, who must have known he’d sneak into the living room in the dead of night to curl around Nick’s back.

Nick awake, if not expecting him, and then furious. Chris could do better, he’d said, and kept saying it, while he turned and put his mouth to Chris’ throat, to his chest, and then at last around his cock. Chris could do better. Should go back to his boyfriends. Decent guys with futures. He said it all like every word stung, and Chris had writhed in pain and pushed up into his mouth and just said, “Nicky.”

It was all he’d ever been able to say. Even when he’d woken up to find Nick gone.

And then nothing. No letters, no calls, for months. He should have been furious, and he was, until Nick spoke again.

"Tell me about your first time," he rasped through the phone, agony in every word.

Nick had been there for Chris’s first time, but that wasn’t what he meant now.

Chris had told him, in a letter like everything else. But he paused. He wondered if Nick was sober. If he was alone. If he’d tried to do what he thought was best by leaving, and that had tortured himself with those letters while he’d tortured Chris with his silence.

He let out a shuddering breath. “My freshman boyfriend.” Chris wanted to be fond; Tyler had been a decent guy, as shy and awkward as he’d been. Friendly and smiling, the exact opposite of Nick. “We’d been seeing each other for a while, messed around, sucked each other off. I let him finger me.” He imagined Nick’s hands wrapped tight around the neck of a bottle and hurt more than he thought Nick ever could. He wanted Nick to feel that pain, sometimes. “It was good. So I bought some lube and condoms and invited him to my dorm when my roommates were gone.”

Normally, when Chris did things like that, bold, brave things, Nick would comment. He’d say something sarcastic and warm about Chris always being the one with guts. But he was quiet now.

Chris’s heart was beating so hard he thought he might blackout for a second.

He closed his eyes. “He took his time. It was good too. I didn’t… I didn’t come just from that, but he blew me after.”

Nick hadn’t ever fucked him. Nick, as far as Chris knew, had never fucked another man. He’d slept with one other man, but he’d never fucked him like that. Chris thought he was waiting. Chris was waiting. He was waiting so much he was sick with it.

"I liked it," he confessed, pushing to get more than short, strangled breaths from Nick. "I told you I did. I told you everything. How it hurt a little but then felt better. How sometimes it was weird, close, with him inside me and our faces like that. I told you how it didn’t hurt enough, how I wished it was you, because you’d hold me down and make me come."

"Stop." Nick spoke again at last.

Chris had mentioned all this indirectly in the letters, but never out loud before.

Chris shook his head, although Nicky couldn’t see it. “No. You called me. You should hear about the guys since then.” Chris was older now, had more confidence, and the men he attracted were the same. “They’re better. It’s better. But it’s still not you.”

"Chris, goddamn it." Again, Nicky stopped.

He hurt so much that Chris smiled. “But none since Thanksgiving.” It was the truth. He only ever spoke the truth to Nicky.

Nick took a deep breath. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

"But I am. And you like it." Chris lowered his voice. "I like it, thinking of you. But I’m getting tired of waiting, Nick."

"Chris." Nicky sounded choked. "The things I want to do to you. You shouldn’t— We ain’t nothing like what you should have."

Chris surprised himself with a laugh, light and loud enough to shut Nick up. “But that’s what I want, and you’re going to give it to me, aren’t you?” The truth was in this call. “You want me, Nick, and you love me, and you want to be my friend, and you want to hurt me too, and you think you can’t have all those things. But you want.”

It was kind of amazing. Nick wanting all of that, with him.

"Chris." Nick was trying to warn him, the idiot. As if Chris was still that kid in high school and didn’t have more experience with men and love than he did. "Chris."

"I’m tired of waiting, Nicky," Chris sighed into the dark. "Come home and you can have everything."
Nicky’s harsh breathing made him shiver. He imagined it in his ear as Nicky fucked him and thought Nicky might be doing the same. He sighed again. “Come home and take it.”

"Chris," Nicky said, warm and angry. "Chris," he repeated himself. It was a yes.




Arthur and Bertie "burn"

Arthur, in all his perplexing humanity, was a mystery Bertie had never thought to solve. He was simply an enigma to be loved, worshiped, if Bertie could get away with it. As he was, every remarkable inch of him.

Nonetheless, Bertie had assumed that after a year with his treasure, he no longer had any huge surprises in store for him.

That, he was learning, was because he had never seen Arthur drunk.

He had never seen Arthur drink, in point of fact. Nothing alcoholic at any rate, except perhaps sips of something Bertie used for cooking when he needed a tester.

He had thought, perhaps too lightly, that Arthur must have done his experimenting in his early college years, before everything. American youths seemed to accept it as part of college life.
Being a creature of magic who didn’t drink, who didn’t know about alcohol and its effects, he had forgotten about Arthur’s sister, and the constant work Arthur had already been doing to stay in school.

Arthur hadn’t done any of the playful partying that his peers had. So perhaps it hadn’t occurred to Arthur either—that only a few drinks would leave him tipsy and flushed and unsteady on his feet. Perhaps Arthur hadn’t expected the professors at this party to ply with him wine and sweet cakes.
Perhaps Arthur had never been in an environment where people sought his attention with drinks, and had accepted each offering to be polite.

There was really no one to blame but those handing him glass after glass. Those who should have known that though Arthur would soften and relax and smile—such wide, pleased smiles—under the influence, he was not there to be taken.

He was handsome. Of course they looked. He was bright and young and interested and capable of such conversation even with his mind addled and slow. He pinked from the wine, cheeks like apples, mouth shining and open, eyes growing heavy.

Of course they brought him more and sought him out. They meant no harm.

Bertie reminded himself of that, of how Arthur would react to know of his jealousy and the roar he was only just keeping inside. He reminded himself of it three times, and then watched a man touch Arthur’s hair.

He was across the room in seconds, parting the crowd with uncontrollable heat and faint trails of furious smoke.

Arthur flinched from the hand on him and then turned, looking up, and up, toward Bertie as if Bertie had grown tall.

The room seemed quiet, although Bertie’s ears were filled with the thunderous sound of his heart. And then Arthur, tipsy, but still nervous Arthur, tipsy but still wonderful Arthur, tipsy, but still Bertie’s Arthur, took a step toward him.

He said nothing as Bertie curled an arm around him, a tail, a small, leathery wing. He only tilted his head back and heaved a breath and allowed Bertie to sigh hotly over the top of his head.

"So," Arthur declared, in his final tone, the one that meant the argument was over and others—Bertie—would accept it in time. "You shouldn’t have touched me, you see. I didn’t ask you to. And--" At this he paused, and his tone became almost shy, "--I am someone else’s treasure."

"Mine." A wispy circle of smoke followed the words, and Arthur pressed against him, as if pleased.

And oh, oh of all things Bertie had never once considered, it was an Arthur who lost his shyness when drinking. He raised a hand and stroked the side of Arthur’s neck. “Mine,” Bertie said again, and Arthur shivered. He doubtless shocked the academics around him, or filled them with envy.

Bertie loved him more than he could ever say. More so a moment later.

"Bertie," Arthur murmured heavily, too drunk to be embarrassed about being owned this way, or perhaps annoyed at being touched without permission and wanting to make someone pay, just a little. "Bertie, take me home."

Bertie curled closer around his treasure, and smiled at the shocked face of the man Arthur had just saved from being eaten. “Of course, pet,” he agreed. “Whatever you say.”


:) Talk to everyone soon, I hope.