No Kill I

Originally posted on my tumblr.
 
I haven’t done one of these in ages. All right.

Number of works posted: 14. Two of these were worldbuilding appendices, and another was a podfic of one of my stories, read by people not-me. So let’s call it 11.

Fandoms: Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes-Star Trek AOS fusion, Lord of the Rings, Thor: Ragnarok, Harry Potter.

Words: 68681, again not counting the appendices. Of the 11 stories, 5 of them are over 8k words. That’s a little weird for me, because I used to write almost exclusively short fiction (sub-2k, usually sub-1k). 

Most comments: Numberless the ways, and imperceptible. Lord of the Rings, Legolas/Gimli. 

Most kudos: same as above! Next-most is on From Sweet Fellowship Comes Nectar, also Legolas/Gimli. It’s a pairing without a ton of writers but with a lot of delightful readers.

Most hits: The two above. Third-place was an infinite series of accidents, the first story in a post-S4 Sherlock series that by itself was nearly 40% of my word-output for the year. 

New territory: Almost everything I wrote this year dealt with gender issues or the asexual/aromantic spectrum, explicitly. Aside from The Silent Man (Thor: Ragnarok, Dec 2017), I’m not sure I ever dealt with these explicitly until 2018, although a queerplatonic relationship is central to all the stories in A Non-Linear Gothic Drama Hypercycle (Sherlock), the first story of which dates to 2010.

List of stories & my fav tags from them: 

(if there are no tags listed it’s because the story has boring tags!)

Ship's-night, residential deck, third corridor (Thor: Ragnarok, gen, 25 Jan 2018)

• author plays fast and loose with Norse mythology
• author plays fast and loose with Marvel canon
• i'm not interested in being polite or heterosexual
• Loki's A+ Parenting

Flaming Aground (I've Said Too Much) (Harry Potter, Harry/Ginny, 25 Jan 2018)

• Sexual Roleplay

Numberless the ways, and imperceptible. (Lord of the Rings, Legolas/Gimli, 14 Feb 2018)

• reverse pining

From Sweet Fellowship Comes Nectar (Lord of the Rings, Legolas/Gimli, 09 May 2018) 

• nonstandard pronouns
• elladan and elrohir think they're funny
• non-human reproductive biology

Where are we now? (Sherlock, gen, 29 Jul 2018)

• moral particularism
• get out of my house you reptile
• you should have stayed away from sherlock holmes

an infinite series of accidents (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 26 Sep 2018) 

• sherlock has the emotional range of a teaspoon
• emotional context
• john needs therapy
• Asexual Sherlock Holmes/Heterosexual John Watson

With Careful Hands (Sherlock Holmes-Star Trek AOS fusion, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 20 Oct 2018)

the other side of an invisible wall (14-15 October, 2025) (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 17 Nov 2018)

saturday morning, playground, coffee (22 June, 2024) (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 20 Nov 2018)

we're not free (2015) (Sherlock, Mary Morstan/John Watson, 24 Nov 2018)

that cell collided with this one (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, 07 Dec 2018)

• John Goes To Therapy

I started off by writing a ridiculously long and boring dialogue between Jim & Spock about Vulcan marriage contracts, and it devolved into a series of shorts.

Most of the marriage contract stuff ended up on the cutting room floor, sadly.

Vincent raised his hand to block out the sun, hot in an orange sky, but still the light glancing from the walls of the stone city hurt his eyes. He'd been a creature of moonlight and candlelight since birth.

"You have never been to the Goblin City," said a voice close behind him, and he turned; a tall, slim man stood on the hill with him, not even a foot away. He could not hear the man's heartbeat, and he did not smell human; he smelled of lightning and earth and a little of owl. There was no human scent on him at all, not even underneath the surface.

The man smiled, a flash of uneven teeth, longer than human, with eyeteeth drawn almost to the vicious points of Vincent's own. "I have waited long to show it to you," the man said. His silver hair blew back from his face, though there was no wind on the hill.

"Who are you?" Vincent asked.

The man ran a gloved finger down his own cheek. "Oh," he said, "someone rather less human than you are."

Vincent flicked his eyes up and down, looking the man over, and huffed out a skeptical breath. The man laughed, and a sudden flicker of the sun -- a stutter of darkness in a cloudless sky -- made his face seem to shift, as if some demon looked out from his skin. Vincent drew back, startled; the sun settled again in the sky, and the man looking at him was just a man: tall, gloved, shoulders broad beneath leather armoring, cloak drifting about his body like night.

"Yes," the man said, "we've a touch in common, haven't we?" He held out his hand. "Come with me, and be my heir. Or solve the Labyrinth, and I shall tell you whatever truths you seek, at the end of it."

Vincent looked out over the mazed city; he had solved greater labyrinths than this, alone, in the dark. "I cannot leave my world," he said. I cannot leave Catherine, even though she is lost. "And not all truths are knowable."

"Wise man," the man said. "I shall tell you two truths, then, when you find my Castle: the names of your parents, and the location of the woman you love."

Vincent thought of everything he knew of magic, every bargain that could and could not be struck with Fair Folk. "And if I do not solve your labyrinth? What price do I pay, then?"

The man tossed a glass ball lightly into the air, where it hovered, spinning. "If I cannot tell you where she is," he said, "she will die. There is no changing that part of time: you must learn of her location from me, or not at all. Is that price not terrible enough?"

See master post for headers & chapter links

These end notes contain spoilers for the story "Contamination".

( End notes )

Title: Nine Cigarettes
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Rating: 13+
Summary: How Sherlock Holmes acquired a number of Lestrade's cigarettes.
Other locations: AO3

Notes: Thanks to basingstoke for the beta, and mandragora for the Britpick & beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

( Nine Cigarettes )

Jim kicked at the floor of the cave. Six hours. Six long, boring hours before the Enterprise was back in transporter range; with any luck the angry, prison-happy Elarians wouldn't find them first. He looked over at Spock, who was leaning against the cave wall with his arms around his knees and his eyes closed. He'd been that way for two hours, and Jim was pretty sure he wasn't asleep. Right now, though, Jim felt like he needed some conversation to break up the complete boredom of being trapped in a cave.

He took two steps and tapped his boot against Spock's boot. "Hey."

"Captain," Spock answered, eyes still closed.

"So you're half-Vulcan. A hybrid."

A long pause. "You are aware of that already, Captain."

"So, are you fertile?"

Spock's eyes flew open as his eyebrows flew up. "Of course," he answered.

"Most hybrids aren't."

Spock's eyebrows climbed, if possible, even further up towards his hairline. "I'm genetically engineered, and my designers were not idiots."

Jim raised his own eyebrows, now. "I wasn't suggesting they were," he said. "Just that they might not have been able to fix that."

"I know you achieved satisfactory grades in your biology and xenobiology coursework," Spock said. "I see no reason to discuss the choices my designers made about my biology with you at this point."

Jim sat down. "Small talk. This cave is exceptionally boring, in case you failed to notice, and it's either small talk or six hours of tic-tac-toe, Mr. Spock."

"Spare me," Spock said, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall again.

Jim frowned and drummed his fingers on his thigh. "OK. Hey, do Vulcans have casual sex?"

"Is that a proposition, Captain?"

"No."

Spock opened his eyes again. "Then it depends on what you mean by 'casual sex'."

Jim waves his hands. "Sex. With someone. Without--things. Like, do Vulcans ever pick up a partner in a, a, spaceport tea shop or whatever, have sex, and never see the person again?"

"It is uncommon, but it does happen. More frequently in pornographic material than in reality."

"Vulcans have porn?"

Spock looked at him like he was insane, which: OK, every OTHER sentient species Jim could think of had pornography, so why he thought Vulcans wouldn't... "You all seem so buttoned-up," he said, by way of explanation.

"Vulcans do not have casual sexual relationships," Spock said, after a minute. "Humans often seem to have sex with their friends, for mutual pleasure, with no attachment beyond that. Vulcans do not have that form of casual sex."

"Huh. Because you don't have friends, really?"

"Captain. Vulcans are social beings. But our alliances, associations, and relationships are constrained by our telepathic abilities; casual sexual relationships with associates or friends are likely to form telepathic linkages that are...undesirable and possibly dangerous."

Jim grinned. "So, you're really serious about Uhura, then? Don't get her pregnant, please, Mr. Fertility; she'd have to go on starbase or planetside duty and then who would keep me in line?"

"Lieutenant Uhura," Spock replied -- somewhat primly, Jim thought -- "is a sensible person and it is not any of your affair what reproductive choices she and I have made about our relationship."

"Oh, good, she's got an implant."

Spock looked offended. "I did not say that, Captain."

"You didn't have to. That's what a sensible person would have."

"This is an exceedingly inappropriate conversation."

Jim drew a tic-tac-toe grid on the ground with his finger, and was gratified when Spock rolled his eyes. "Next question! Ever thought about sex with men?"

"Are you going to pursue this line of inquiry for the next five-point-seven-three hours, Captain?"

"Probably."

"Will you be at all dissuaded if I simply cease to answer?"

"Probably not."

"Perhaps I shall endeavor to find out," Spock said.

"Spoilsport. I won't tell anyone about your fantasies. Cross my heart."

Spock laid down on his side and closed his eyes. "I am going to sleep, Captain. I suggest you do the same." Jim watched as Spock's breathing deepened, then scuffed out the tic-tac-toe grid with his boot, and stretched out next to Spock, close enough to feel his warmth but not quite close enough to touch.

"Spoilsport," he muttered again, putting his hands behind his head, and feeling sleep overtake him.