theoldguardkinkmeme | Fills Post #2

Fills Post #2

This is where your fills go!

Remember:

Fills can but don't need to be anonymous.

Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.

In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to your prompt in the body of the text.

Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").

Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").

If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.

Fills on Pinboard: For a list of filled prompts on Pinboard, go here.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Fill: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32393140

so i've been playing with this fic since i last posted! the fic is pretty much done and just needs some light editing, fact checking, and poetry confidence. I'm also open to suggestions on how to make the Comments section sound more Internet-y. :)

*

Comments

FrenchToastDaCat: holy shit is that Nicolò?????

ReggieInGlasses: Nicolò knows who Yusuf the Poet is, omg

RainbowBlerd: I ship it

Marcoxx96: is it me, or is it getting hot in here?

NekoDeOro: He! Put! His! Hand! There!

LovelyLeslie: *my body is ready gif*

DawnTreader: ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

TheFutureIsQueer: I’m a lesbian, but I would 100% bang the both of them

MonaeMarryMe: I had to double check I was on Youtube and not YouPorn

AshworthFord4: OMFG, the eyefucking, how did the crew not spontaneously combust? 🥵🥵🥵

*

Interviews

Ursula Butler, writer: What did Fistful of Trouble mean to me? Oh, man, it was an awakening.

Titty Simone, drag queen: You know that story about how Dolly Parton saw the town tramp and thought, I wanna be her when I grow up? That’s how I felt when I saw that vid.

Jia Hong, cultural critic: Oh my God, do you remember what a media storm it was when it got released? People lost their fucking shit over it. Like, how dare two men be hot, wear lipstick, and love on each other. It wasn’t obscene like some of the media said; it was punch-to-your-gut lust, and a fistful of trouble straight to my heart.

Max Seal, performer: It’s sexy, no doubt, but it brought a lot of love into the world too. It was a doorway to loving ourselves, and others. How many of us made out on the dance floor to it? That’s how I met my partners in fact. It was only fitting then we played it at our wedding too.

The rest of the fic is now posted in full on ao3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32501455/

Prompt:
https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/10263.html?thread=3510807#cmt3510807

Fill: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32464594

Prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/5552.html?thread=1864880#cmt1864880

Who gave him this nickname? And why? And how does he live up to it?

And what is in his vast collection besides a 1st edition of Don Quixote? And how extreme is his bibliophile personality?

And what is the craziest thing he’s done to get a book he really wanted? Or how much did he pay for it?

And which book means the most to him?

Did his wife use to ship him books while he was in the army?

Is there one that he reads alone when he misses his family? Both past and present?

Did someone gift him ‘everyone poops’ as a joke?

Did Nile send him ‘go to fuck to sleep’ while he’s in exile?

We’re 11 prompt pages in. I want some answers.

*

A/N: i've been trying to only post completed fills, but i am shamelessly posting this here in hopes of receiving comments/encouragement because i know a team gen fic isn't going to get as much of that.

0. prologue

“Why are you drinking? demanded the little prince.

"So that I may forget," replied the tippler.

"Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who was already sorry for him.

"Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head.

"Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.

"Ashamed of drinking!”

--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince

He has one hundred years of penance, and he wastes the initial part of it drunk as a fish. This is unfunny according to Quỳnh.

“You had what I wanted and you wasted it,” she says in disappointment.

And Jesus, he hadn’t even known her long, and she’s already laying on the guilt. “You think if I could, I wouldn’t have swapped places with you?”

“You say that, but you wouldn’t. You just want to be miserable, instead of living the one life you’ve been given.”

“One life?”

She shrugs in her fine clothing. Despite being away for so long, she dresses better than he does. “So it’s a long one.”

Later, as he downs a different vintage, a different appellation, he asks, “Why are you here, and not with them?”

Her face grows pensive, lost. She takes a sip of her mint tea, then says, “Because you and I have both been set adrift. I don’t know if I am ready to …” She shakes her head, sets her tea down, and then throws him into the bathtub.

From then on, every time he drinks, she douses him in water: dumps water on him, shoots very accurately with a water gun, water balloons, and of course, the damn bathtub. It also has the unexpected result of him finally taking off his shoes inside the house, since wet shoes are miserable.

“Haven’t you have enough?” he shouts in the tepid shower.

“Haven’t you?” she says in turn, and then returns to reading her book out loud to him from where she’s perched on the counter.

“Jesus, woman, couldn’t you just… monologue at me instead of ignoring me by reading?”

Quỳnh fucking chortles. “You think I would give a villainous speech?”

Yes, yes he did. “How do you even know about those?” He needs a shower anyway, so he turns the knob for more hot water, and strips his clothes.

“You,” she replies. “I’ve had nothing but water, and your memories for years.” She takes a sip of her chrysanthemum tea. “And now the woman too. Andy,” the name still sits funny in her mouth, “likes her.”

“Nile shot her.”

“Good,” Quỳnh smiles. “Keep her on her toes, since I’m not there.”

“Not good. Andy doesn’t heal anymore.”

Quynh draws figures in the fogged up mirror. “Hmm.”

Booker stills, looking at her in her matching pajamas. “Do you... do you know if she can become immortal again?”

“The same way fairy tales solve problems: kindness, blood, and true love’s kiss.”

And Booker knows then she’s fucking with him. He picks up his wet shirt and throws it at her. She catches it, and tosses it to the floor. “Then why are you here and not with her?” he grouses.

She closes her book, and looks at him. “You and I are alike, drowning. I need time to ... reconnect with the world, and you need time to come to your senses.”

“I’ve come to my fucking senses. I fucked up. I fucked up. And now they’re all… I’m all...”

“Alone. Yes. You think so little of family,” she says a little sadly. “We will be alone together until we find our land legs.”

He and Quỳnh stay in Paris. When you’re lost, you’re supposed to wait where you are, right?

His apartment grows furnished now that Quỳnh’s here. Since she’s filling his (their?) apartment with things, cutlery that matches, an organizer for the closet, a shoe rack by the door, he figures he can fill the bookshelf that’s been serving as an over-sized recycle bin for his empty bottles. Eventually he starts reading again. It’s unoriginal, he knows.

His shelves fill with books he loved, books he hopes to read, and books he’s finished. He often thinks of the team (“The family,” Quỳnh corrects), who would like what book. What they would talk about. He has these books, and he can’t send them to them, because it would be intrusive. They exiled him, they don’t want his gifts. But he collects books, a shelf for each of them, books he wants to share with them, say I thought of you when I read this or I think you’d like this.

His shelves are full of unspoken wishes, regrets. And even as he misses them fiercely, wondering what they are doing, how are Andy’s joints doing, is she still insisting on going in first despite her mortality? What stupid bets are Joe and Nicky making? Who does Joe watch football with now? How is Nile settling into her new life? So he keeps reading, dreaming of them in his own way, and fills his shelves.

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”

--Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose the Time War

I forgot to post this earlier, but we have a chapter for Lykon now!! Also I'm doing a chapter for each character now, not just 5! I might try to reorder the chapters at some point so they're in chronological order again...

The Macedonian army had been besieging the city for over a month by now, and Lykon slipped past one of the bronze-armored guards at the city wall with a few loaves of bread hidden in a sack under his cloak. He had convinced both Andromache and Quinctilia (which they often conveniently shortened to Quin) to help the Athenian citizens as much as possible during this siege, and bringing food to them seemed to be the best way to boost their morale and help them.

He slipped through the hidden tunnel under the wall, and Andromache and Quinctilia met him on the other side.

“We’re going to need to find a new place to sneak in,” Andromache murmured to Lykon and Quin. “I think one of those guards saw you.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28694625/chapters/80613073

Edited 2021-07-13 05:59 (UTC)

Cleaned this up, added some backstory and an ending, and posted to ao3.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32547664

YES!!!! MORE TEAM FIC!!!!

This is SO BEAUTIFUL. I love it!!

So excited to see this being filled. It’s my prompt and I love a good introspective Booker so I’m very excited 😁😁😁😁

Beautiful prologue. I love Quynh’s way of helping with the water. Very annoying sister vibes and it works just like annoying siblings do ❤️

ooooh! this is so sweet! i love how you approached the prompt from his exile like we get to learn about his books through the lense of him where is is now as opposed to where he's been! Please x post to AO3 soon!!! i'd love to be able to bookmark this <3

Another reader absolutely here for this. Beautiful start.

Prompt is here: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/8201.html?thread=2910985&posted=1#cmt4050441

Insp by a one of line in the scorching ongoing fill, Booker spends a day using Nile to keep his dick hot and wet cuz he can.

IDC who fills this and to Hard Dom Anon- plz feel no pressure to fill, i'm sure you're hard at work <3

And fill is here:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/32734618

Prompt https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/10860.html?thread=3761004&posted=1#cmt4052844
Fill: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32750821

Wow!! Hot!!

This was scorching haha. I’m with Andy 😂

I had this prompt in mind for a long time!

Prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/6403.html?thread=2344707#cmt2344707

Fill:

The first time it happened was certainly a surprise. They had only been together for a few weeks so everything was still fresh and new, and Booker stifled a quiet gasp when Nile sank to her knees one lazy afternoon in between missions and unzipped his jeans, because they definitely hadn’t done this yet. Nile grinned up at him, pulling his cock out and stroking it slowly as it fattened in her hand. “You always take such good care of me,” she explained, because he did—she had never seen a guy who liked going down on her so much. “I want to make you feel good too,” she murmured, and then her lips sealed around his cockhead, suckling softly at him.

She was, admittedly, putting a real effort into blowing him—her hand was toying with his balls while her mouth worked him over, and she had a trick with her tongue that he had made a mental note to ask her about later—but even so, it was a surprise to her how quickly he became desperate. She had only had her lips on him for a minute or so when his hips started erratically jerking, his dick leaking on her tongue, and when she looked up at him, he looked truly wrecked. His face was flushed, his head thrown back as he panted for air, his nails digging little red moons into his palms. He was moaning loudly enough to wake the neighbourhood and cursing in French. If Nile didn’t know better, she would have thought he was already on the edge, but surely, she told herself, he couldn’t be—she didn’t have that high confidence in her blowjob skills.

“Nile, Nile,” he kept chanting, his hand cupping her face worshipfully as he clearly fought not to give into the urge to thrust deeper into her mouth. “Merde, Nile, darling, that’s so good, oh fuck—fuck—“ his eyes went wide, his fingers trembled minutely against her chin, and that was all the warning she had before his cock was twitching against her tongue, spilling spurt after spurt.

She swallowed it down, continuing to work him over until he started to soften and his moans of ecstasy were tinged with pain, and then she looked up at him. His cheeks were flushed with both exertion and embarrassment, and he was rubbing his eyes like he wanted to hide, and she couldn’t have that. “Hey, Book,” she said gently, clearing her throat and standing up. “You good?”

He sighed shakily, and she pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry I—I came so fast,” he mumbled, the flush on his cheeks deepening. “It felt so good, Nile, and I just want you so badly, you’re so good to me, I couldn’t help it,” he babbled, and she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “All I care about is making you feel good, Book,” she reminded him. “Kind of hot, too,” she admitted. “I liked that you enjoyed it so much, that you wanted me so much,” she whispered into his ear, and he shivered violently, his hands tightening on her shoulders before he dropped to his knees to return the favour.

It took them a little while, to work out what was likely to set Booker off like a shot and how to make it work for both of them. Blowjobs got him every single time, he could never last more than a few minutes if Nile used her mouth on him. They saved those, then, either for quickies—it was actually quite practical when they didn’t have much time anyway—or for when they were relaxing watching a football match Nile didn’t care that much about anyway, and she could get him off in no time and then just sit there, keeping his cock warm in her mouth until he hardened again. He could last the longest with handjobs, but he could hold out for a little while when he was fucking her—unless she was riding him, and then he really couldn’t, because “I just love seeing you on top, taking what you want,” he confessed.

With some trial and error, they worked out quite a satisfying system, and so it was no surprise to either of them one muggy afternoon in a Brazilian safe house, when Booker’s hand tightened on Nile’s shoulder a few minutes after she had begun lazily riding him. “I’m close, Nile,” he warned her, “oh, that’s it, just a little more,” and she leaned down to kiss him, her fingers cheekily pinching one of his nipples. “Enjoy it, baby,” she encouraged him. “Come on, want you to fill me up,” she urged. “Make me wet,” she whispered, low and urgent in his ear, and that did it—he came with a groan, his hands running up and down her sides as she kept riding him through his orgasm.

She paused to let him catch his breath, but didn’t pull off of him, holding him inside even as he softened and kissing him messily. “Love how much you want me,” she reminded him, catching one of his hands in hers and bringing it to her breast. “Touch me a bit,” she encouraged him, and he was quick to obey, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger the way he knew she liked, toying with the small silver ball she had gotten there for her second anniversary with the Guard. “Oh that’s good, Book,” she murmured, rolling her hips slowly, in tight little circles, careful with how sensitive he was. “I love how much you like this pussy,” she remarked, casually filthy. “Love that it pushes you over the edge so quickly, love that I know you’re not done, that you can fill me up again and again.” His cock gave a weak twitch, and she grinned. “Love how quickly you can get hard again,” she encouraged, because yes, Booker might come in a flash, but his immortality also meant that he could recover remarkably quickly. (Nile had awkwardly asked Joe, one time after one too many margaritas, if it was the same for he and Nicky, and Joe just grinned like the cat who got the cream.) She could already feel Booker stiffening, and she grinned, rolling her hips a little faster to draw a whimper of oversensitivity from him. “Come on, baby,” she murmured, arching her back as his fingers tweaked her nipple in just the right way. “I got you off, now I need you to fuck me good, as soon as you’re ready,” she prompted, and with a groan he flipped them, bracketing her body with his own and starting to fuck her properly.

As she lay back, her arms crossed over her head as she relaxed into his thrusts, she reflected that this was quite possibly her favourite phase of having sex with him. Since he’d just come, he could last long enough for her to really enjoy the fuck, and every time he pressed into her, the obscene slick sounds just reminded her that he had already come once, that he had been so overwhelmed by her riding him that he had ejaculated in less than two minutes.

She loved that she didn’t have to do any of the work, that she could just lay back and get properly railed, that she had time to savour the feeling before his hands tightened on her hips again and he got that familiar desperate look on his face. “You’re going to come again, aren’t you?” she asked, reaching down to tease one of her own nipples. “Can’t—can’t help it,” he admitted in between shaky breaths, because he had learned how that got them both going, and she wrapped her legs around him, squeezing tightly. “Come on, then,” she encouraged. “If you can’t hold it any more,” she added with a grin, because he had told her that she could tease him about it, had shyly admitted that he liked it when she did. “Can’t,” he admitted, his whole face screwed up with pleasure, and she loved this part too, the way his thrusts lost any sense of rhythm as he gave into the heat building in his gut, the little hitching gasps he let slip, as if he couldn’t believe how good it felt, as if it was a surprise every time. She could always tell when he was right on the edge, because his fingers would tighten on her skin, gripping hard enough to bruise if they weren’t immortal, and he would give a long drawn-out groan, and then she felt the pulses of warmth as he spilled inside her again.

“Was that good, baby?” She whispered in his ear, reaching down to rub at her clit to take a little of the edge off, because feeling him come inside her twice never failed to get her worked up. “So good, Nile,” he enthused, and he tried to pull out, but she just squeezed her legs around his, keeping him in place. “Ah, ah,” she warned. “I’m not done with you yet.”

He whined as she clenched around him impatiently. “I’m s-sensitive, Nile,” he warned, shivering as she rolled her hips against him, the friction a sweet agony. “I just came twice, fuck—“ He nearly sobbed as she rolled them so that she was on top of him, careful not to let him slip out. “I know you can give me more,” she encouraged him, rocking her hips just enough to stop him from going fully soft, and he whimpered, a low animal sound because it felt so good, she was so warm and slick around him and the thought that part of that slickness was because his oversensitive cockhead was sliding through two loads of his own come just got him going more, and yet it also hurt because it was way too soon to be getting hard again and yet he couldn’t help it, he never could with her, not when he could look up and see her there straddling his hips, his goddess who had brought the joy back to his life.

“Nile, fuck, fuck, I can’t,” he pleaded, actually tearing up, and yet he wasn’t saying the word to make it all stop and they both knew it. “You can,” she told him confidently, snapping her hips faster as she felt him hardening again. “You think you can’t now, but you’ll be coming again in just a minute or so,” she assured him, casual, and he sobbed at the reminder that he wouldn’t be able to last long, even after he had already come twice.

She shifted on his dick until she found an angle that made her throw her head back in bliss, and he was helpless to do anything but lay there and let her take her pleasure from him. She had given up the tight rolls of her hips and had started really moving on him, rising almost all the way off of his cock, letting it tease her folds, and then slamming back down with a groan. His erection had started to really ache, so that every time she sank down on it, it was simultaneously a relief to be enveloped in that wet warmth and an agony to feel her walls clenching around him. “Don’t come yet, Book,” she warned him, panting as she brought one hand to where they were joined, sliding her fingers between her folds and toying with her clit. “I’m so close, hang in there for me, just let me come first, fuck that’s good, oh fuck yes, yes—“

He managed to hold out for a few seconds more, before the combination of the look of ecstasy on her face and the tight clenching around him drove him over the edge. He actually sobbed, tears rolling down his cheeks as his cock pulsed weakly, spilling whatever come he had left, because it hurt, the third time, even though the relief was still there.

She brought her fingers to his cheeks, wiping gently at the tears there, which of course only made him tear up more because she was so kind to him and he still wasn’t sure how he had gotten so lucky. She pulled off of him as gently as she could and curled up to his side, grinning up at him playfully. “God, I love it when I can get you to come three times in me,” she admitted, taking one of his hands and bringing it down between his legs, guiding him to feel between her folds, where his release was still pooling. “Feel what a mess you made of me?” She asked, and his cock twitched painfully, as if he might, impossibly, get hard again if she kept talking about it.

“Well,” he replied with a grin, his fingers teasing her folds, “if I made a mess, I should clean it up, shouldn’t I?” He pressed a kiss to her collarbone, then trailed down to the curve of her breast. “After all,” he added with a wink. “I owe you at least two orgasms, my love.”

A/N: Wow! I did not expect that many comments for a gen fic! I cherish each of them, and will reply! In the meanwhile...

*

1. Andy

“Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; Death is the fifth and master of all.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

As it turns out, Booker should’ve had more faith in Andy, because a phone arrives in his mail one day, along with a note reading:

You left this behind. -Boss

Quỳnh peers over Booker’s shoulder. “Did you finally find a job?” she asks.

He shakes his head and turns the phone on and thumbs through the address book. He recognizes the four sets of numbers, and texts the one ending in -1341, the year King Tut was born (“You’re older than King Tut,” they’d often snicker. “So are you!” Andy’d yell at Joe and Nicky.)

👋 he types. Immediately, his phone buzzes, and a 👍 appears over his text, followed by a message consisting solely of 🖕.

He doesn’t dislodge Quỳnh. This must be the first time she’s seen Andy even as indirectly as a live text message. “Would you like to talk to her?” he offers.

She shakes her head. “No. But, ask her what her favorite brand of fish sauce is. I want to know if she still has a taste for anything other than the baklava I saw in your dreams.”

It takes him a week to decide to text Andy, and then another to finally do it. In the meanwhile, Quỳnh proceeds to try Andy’s fish sauce of choice and declares that it passes muster.

“You’re as nervous as if you’re asking out your first girlfriend,” Quỳnh notes.

“Close enough,” Booker mumbles.

“Are you going to do it, or am I going to have to do it for you?”

And so he finally does, sending Andy a cover of the book he’s reading. Thought of you when I read this, tough broad who survives her world ending multiple times. Quỳnh pats him on the head, and they have Indian food in celebration.

It becomes easier. He sends her another picture of a book, this one’s about a lesbian destroying the empire that crushed her people, except she uses economics as her weapon. Quỳnh thinks that sounds promising, so she picks the book up when Booker’s done. She gets its sequel before him, and pesters him until he reads about it as well.

(“I relate to Tain Hu,” Quỳnh brazenly declares. “My presence was felt even while I was a ghost.”

Booker chokes on his juice, both because she’s joking about her imprisonment and because he expected her to relate to Baru and her dreams of burning it all down.)

Andy doesn’t reply, but Booker doesn’t worry about that. He’s texted her; she’ll either reply or she won’t, but it’s out of his hands now.

One day, Booker opens the door, and Andy is on the other side.

“The fuck,” he says.

“Hello the fuck to you too, Book,” she declares and then she comes inside.

He’s suddenly glad he’s come out the worst of his bender, because Andy sees an apartment that’s actually in habitable if not outright-homey condition. He clears the cups from the kitchen table and shuffles the newspapers to one side.

“Company?” she asks with an amused arch of her eyebrow.

“You have no idea,” he mutters.

Her gaze softens, her imagination on a totally different page than hers. “Company’s good, Book. Just because you’re away from the group doesn’t mean you have to be devoid of all human connection.” He waves his hand in agreement as he puts the kettle on.

“So, what brings you here, boss?”

Andy pulls a chair out for herself, but doesn’t sit. “I came because I wanted to check on you after you sent me those two books.” And of course, she wouldn’t leave it to second-hand reports from Copley, she’d come to see him herself. That’s the kind of leader she is, why they all orbit her like the sun.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m drinking less, reading more.”

“That’s good. Gotta say, the apartment, and you, are in better shape than I thought. I take it the company’s good?” she teases.

“You’ve no idea,” he says dryly.

She laughs, then asks, “So, what do you have to drink?” She opens the fridge and raises her eye at the kombucha. “Really?”

“Gotta be good to my stomach; maybe my liver too?” They laugh.

“So,” Booker ventures, “you read them?”

“Of course I did, I have nothing but time on my hands now that the rest of them bench me for the fun stuff. They won’t let me pull a London 2019.” She sounds miffed, but he knows she’s not really. “Book, those are both books about people living through terrible things outside of their control. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a cry for help.”

“I admit, Baru does make some poor choices…”

“Poor girl would be in a better mood if she just fucked around some more.”

“Is that a hint?”

“I’m not fucking you,” Andy quips. “I can’t risk anymore injuries.”

“That’s a terrible joke, and you know it. Besides I was the who get injured.”

She rolls her eyes. “Just go to the south of France, look at the sea, read a book. Relax, Book, because I would not call The Fifth Season or The Traitor Baru Cormorant a beach read.”

The kettle whistles, and he pours two cups of hojicha. They both take a seat at the small two-seater kitchen table. As the tea steeps, he stares at the water slowly changing color. “I wasn’t looking to relax,” he says. “I figured… I figured if I was going to be alone, then finding all of you in books was as good a way as any to be less alone. In Essun, I see a woman who’s lived many lives and survived them all, like you. And in Baru, I see a woman determined to make the world a better place, even if she cuts herself in the doing.”

Andy sets the tea strainer to the side. “Are you sure they’re not books about living and dying?” Booker tenses. He wouldn’t have said it like that, but… “What you said is true,” Andy continues, “but I’m trying to believe in something more. I meant it when I said we were doing a shit job of living. Baru finds that out in the second book, and for all the strife Essun goes through, there are still beautiful moments. We can’t stop living just because the bad is easier to remember.

“Books help keep our minds open to different things, see things differently. I think we both need that. Is Essun’s magic and Baru’s genius a curse or a gift? Is their dogged survival a curse or a gift? It’s what they do with it that matters. Things grow after death. We don’t have to let all the years stop us from living, or from tasting its joys. Take it from me,” she adds dryly, “drinking feels different when you can get hung over. I drink less, so I can remember everything else: Nile finding her footing, and Nicky insisting Joe be little spoon, and Joe talking back at the movies we watch.

“So, reread the books, or their sequels, and we can talk about the good in them too. Let me know when you do. I can come by again, and you can have baklava for me along with the tea.”

Booker’s heart squeezes. “It’s a plan, Andy.”

They drink their tea, kicking their feet against one another, comfortable in the silence. At last, Andy quietly says, “I thought of Quỳnh when I read Baru. She would do something like this, hone herself so sharp to destroy something she cuts herself.”

“I thought so too, but maybe we think too little of her,” Booker ventures. “Since we’re trying to imagine something better, we can imagine better for her too.”

Andy is pensive. “You’re right. That also brings me to the other reason I came here: Nile says Quỳnh’s out. She hasn’t come to any of us, and I wasn’t sure if you’d had the same dreams or if you…”

“...were drinking it all away? Yes, I am aware she’s on land these days.”

“Good,” is all she says. “One last thing before I go then.”

“You don’t have to go,” he says quickly, not caring how that sounds.

“Don’t worry, Book, I’ll be back.” She leaves her dishes on the table and shrugs her jacket back on. “I think you should text the others; I put their numbers in there for a reason. I hear books are a good conversation starter.”

“Not football?”

She rolls her eyes. “You want to mend fences, not bash them.”

“It’s not my fault Joe has shit taste in football teams.” It’s a rote response, really. He and Joe flip a coin to decide what teams they’ll root for every season.

“You tell him that, then,” Andy snorts.

“Andy was here,” Booker says when Quỳnh returns. Unphased, she continues hanging up her scarf. “I thought you’d be more…” she does not fill in the rest of the sentence for him “...excited?”

“I knew she was coming,” Quỳnh notes. “Why do you think I moved my house slippers to under the bed?”

Booker is thankful Andy didn’t snoop in his (their?) bedroom. It’s a one bedroom apartment, and once he realized Quỳnh had moved in, he’d suggested getting a two bedroom. She’d refused. “I like the small space,” she’d said, “it feels more familiar for now.”

Their sleeping arrangements are chaotic. Sometimes they share the bed, sometimes one of them will sleep on the pull-out couch, and other times they share the pull-out couch. This is the longest he’s shared his literal bed with someone in a long time. Something about it feels right though: what is family, even the estranged ones, for if not sticking together through hard times?

“She also knows you’re no longer underwater,” Booker ventures.

“Good.”

Booker waits for her to say more on the topic of her return: if they know, why haven’t they searched for her? Why had they given up searching for her? Quỳnh hasn’t asked any of those questions to Booker, instead asking about wi-fi, the events that had passed, the memories she’d missed. Booker knows better than to ask what Quỳnh’s plans are. She’s grown used to the palace of her own thoughts, and will share them when she’s ready.

What Quỳnh does ask is, “So, tell me about your little book club. What did you talk about? What did Andy think of the books? Did she see me in Tain Hu?”

“Ah… we didn’t get to discussing the minutiae of the plot really…”

“What! Tain Hu is glorious and magnificent! And Baru so smart and yet dumb!”

“We mostly talked about the big themes…”

“Empire?”

“Uh… death…”

“Ugh, the titular Fifth Season. Well, did you at least talk about all the miniature deaths people go through in that book...”

And so they talked long into the night, about the books, about what Andy had said, and what new thoughts came after.

“It’s a gift if it makes us better. It’s a curse if we let it destroy us.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

This is somehow my first team fic! 🙀

Thank you!!

*steeples fingers* yes, excellent, once more i fake my way into knowing anything about having siblings. XDDD

Also thanks for commenting OP!!

Eeee, thank you! Cross-posting to ao3 is gonna take awhile. The plan is to finish the fic, do some edits (for example: prologue is going to mention Quynh is reading The Little Prince out loud, and the mention of Baru Cormorant in Andy's chapter might change depending on if I'm able to follow through with a chapter 7 idea), and then I'll post to ao3.

(Then again it has historically taken me forever to x-post to ao3 so, uh, no promises 😬😅 but knowing someone wants to bookmark it is definitely motivation!!)

*happy dances* Thank you! I really am so pleasantly surprised there are this many people reading this!

I’m so amused that Booker is caught in like a book Club Triangle and seems to be the only one nervous about it.

Prompt: https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/11729.html?thread=3930065

Joe's best friend is going to marry. And for his bachelor party his groomsmen take him to a gay stip club. The groom is not excited at first but the music is good, the drinks tasty and he doesn't want to chicken out in front of his groomsmen, so... well.. fuck it, they stay there.

So, Joe's with them and he's actually the only of them who's gay (or bisexual) and he immensely enjoy's the show, the dances and all that.

But then there's this pole dancer and Joe stares open mouthed. The man is beautiful, has a body to die for and boy, can he dance. Joe's pants are more than a little tight :D

Fill: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926851/chapters/82170862

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 49 of 53

Fills Post #2

Fill: Days of Sun, Joe/Nicky, Never-Ending One Night Stand

FILL-ish: Joe/Nicky - rapper & singer collab 3

FILL-ish: Joe/Nicky - rapper & singer collab, ao3 link

FILL: Booker/Nile, recognising him from the abs

Books for Booker 1/7

Re: FILL: Team, 5 normal people helped/saved them through the centuries (4/7)

Re: FILL: Nicky/Others, dubcon, long lost childhood friend (1/3)

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

FILL: Sub Nile and Hard Dom Booker, cockwarming

Touch and Go, Nicky & Nile, platonic massage leads to unexpected orgasm

Re: Touch and Go, Nicky & Nile, platonic massage leads to unexpected orgasm

Re: FILL: Sub Nile and Hard Dom Booker, cockwarming

Fill: Booker has a hair trigger, Nile likes it

Books for Booker 2/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 1/7

Re: Books for Booker 2/7

Fill: Joe/Nicky - Nicky is a pole dancer