2017 in writing

[necessarian]

a new year, the same old questionnaire! i'm doing monthly excerpts, too, and i've updated the word count table on my formal journal. (this is the one where i do all the talking.) so let's get started!


fandoms written in: harry potter, yuri!!! on ice, merlin, other minor

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?
just a little bit more! i was aiming for 350k for getyourwordsout, and ended up with around 375k. it's over my total last year! i'm lowering my gywo pledge for next year to 250k so i can focus more on my academic writing, so i'm really glad i managed to write so much this year. it's been so rewarding, and i know i've improved a whole lot.

what’s your own favourite story of the year?
for some reason this has been really hard to answer this year. the stories i mention in later questions and the ones included in my monthly excerpts, are all favourites for various reasons, but there's been no single stand-out from the pack. i think the truest answer to this is the original novel i started writing, which is ~75k strong and counting, and of which i am incredibly fond. if i were to pick one fanfic, i would go for do something pretty (while you can), a yoi clueless au. this is sort of cheating, as i wrote it chiefly in december 2016, but it went through three rounds of edits in 2017 and that's when i posted it, so shh, it totally counts. it's one of my funniest and most emotional fics and it will always hold a special place in my heart.

did you take any writing risks this year?
yeah, oh my gosh. so many. where do i even start? late in 2016, i got into yuri!!! on ice, but for a variety of reasons i didn't want to post any of my fic for it on my main account, so i made a new ao3. it started life as "truelovewaits," after the radiohead song, but then my first longfic there (Impostor Syndrome) was enjoying moderate success and googled myself and found that "true love waits" is associated with some kind of abstinence lobby group. so after seven changes in one night, early in the new year, i settled on "renaissance." i even posted smut for the first time. the next big risk of the year was moving all my yoi fic over to my original ao3 account, changing the username there to renaissance, and deleting the intervening account. there are a lot of reasons why i did this in the end. one of them was because for last year's questionnaire, in response to the question below i said, "i want to be unapologetic about my own self-fulfilment." so i just went for it. i am unashamed of my yoi fic, so, it's out there. then, i started writing an original novel, realised i wanted to publish it, and resolved to delete my writing blog and twitter upon the new year. i can't even begin to say how cathartic this is going to be, and i haven't even done it yet. i'm still in fandom, but my engagement with it is no longer about pleasing other people. just me. this year really has been my renaissance :)

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?
i would really like to finish my novel and start looking for an agent. as for my fic goals... it's clearing out my wip backlog instead of starting new things. i have a looooot of harry potter wips, including my 100k-to-be slow burn big bang fic (A Colder War), and of course i'd like to get back to long for this world, my first merlin fic in a long time. i posted the first chapter of it to try to trick myself into continuing it, and naturally i failed at that, having only written a little bit of chapter 2. oh well. all in good time. i also started a raven cycle fic again, for the first time in ages. maybe i'll finish that too. i'll be getting through this backlog by trying consciously to pare back my fics, writing only what's necessary. short scenes will be the name of the game. quantity over quality and editing later has got me 75k into my novel so far...

best story of the year?
i think my real achievement this year was the side effects series, a yoi canon div/role reversal au. well, it's not really a series—just one longfic with three side stories. i wrote the entire thing in about three months, forced myself to post once a week (with minimal breaks), and most importantly, proved to myself that i could churn out a novel. it was a huge turning point for me. that "i can do anything!" feeling still hasn't worn off. when you do something like that, in such a short timeframe, you really level up. not to be dramatic, but side effects made me not only a better and more disciplined writer, but a stronger person, too.

most popular story of the year?
without a doubt, Impostor Syndrome was the breakout success of the year. nobody had written viktuuri fake dating longfic yet. someone had to bite the bullet. i guess that was me and if i'm being quite honest i hope i'll go down in history for it. the fic was rushed a bit, much of it written on my phone while i travelled, and barely edited, barely planned—this was around the time that i began to accept that i'm a pantser and learnt to work around it—but for some reason heaps of people were on board with it. i guess because i started posting it in late 2016, while the series was still airing and traffic was high? god, after episode 10 i had to rethink my entire life. but i totally called that yuuri is a messy drunk. i'm still so proud of that.

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:
i don't care if anyone reads my fics anymore, i'm just here to have fun. that said, if you would like to stroke my ego, please have a gander at do something pretty (while you can) :)

most fun story to write:
towards the latter half of the year i got back into hp and really indulged my id by writing a fifth year anthony/zacharias fic, using their one canonical interaction in the books as my starting point. the fic is called the finest luck that you'll charm and it's disastrously self-indulgent, as all good fics should be. a very close second goes to cancel your reservations, which was the fortuitous combination of an idea i'd been nursing for ages and a similar prompt suddenly popping into my purview, and which i hammered out entirely in one night. i was on such a roll.

story with the single sexiest moment:
uh, the smut-with-plot fic i wrote, i feel like i win when i lose. yeah. it was also a bit of a success, kudos-wise. it got critiqued on an anon meme and i felt like i'd made it.

most sweet story:
i did the rare ships on ice exchange, and wrote if she wants me. it's everything i always want to read but barely ever write, a treatise on enduring friendships between women. creating a friendship backstory for hiroko and minako was so much fun, even if i did tinge it with angst. my recipient loved it, though, and that was the sweetest part of all: that i had created something serendipitously special for someone else, and something which had a lot of meaning to me, too.

"holy crap, thats wrong, even for you!” story:
i was going to say i didn't have one of these this year, but actually i did, only it's is still in my drafts, unlikely ever to be finished. basically it's the ultimate fic that no-one is going to read: a hufflepuff+ravenclaw trio era boys grand tour au, entirely in epistolary form and based on byron's letters, and michael corner was going to have an affair with his half-sister à la lord byron himself. maybe one day.

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:
well, doing the role reversal in side effects really made me examine yuuri and viktor's characters with a fine comb, especially viktor. other than that, i don't think i took any real risks with characterisation this year. it wasn't what i was focusing on improving, and that's fine!

most unintentionally telling story:
this is always an odd question and i don't think any of my fics this year were unintentionally telling about much, because all the weirdest crap i wrote hasn't been published (yet).

hardest story to write:

definitely the time when you were mine. committing to the rs_games was a big call at a busy time of year, and this fic was a tough one. it didn't help that i'd chosen a challenging concept for the fic: a sequence of sixty drabbles, each one spanning a minute in an hour, told in part as chatfic, in part as stream of consciousness. it was a struggle to finish it, but gosh i'm pleased with the final product. i got a lot of really lovely feedback on it, too, which made all the stress so worth it :')

biggest disappointment:
ah... so i saw this hilarious headcanon post on tumblr about young yakov, and i was so inspired by it that i asked the OP if i could write a fic based on it. this seemed like a good idea, but as i started writing and researching i realised that i would have to take some serious liberties with historical fact to make the fic work, which is not something i like to do. that kind of soured the whole writing experience for me, but i'd committed to it, so i saw it through to the end. i'm not happy with the final product. it's on ao3 anyway: come on baby, let's do the twist!

biggest surprise:
i had just met the inimitable aji, ao3 user reginar, when the yuri!!! on stage drama happened, and the fandom was going wild over the slow trickle of translations. aji and i were chatting about it, and i mentioned wanting to write a fic about it. aji mentioned wanting to draw it. this quickly became a collaboration: Overcome Chihoko. we created and posted it all while the translations were still coming out, and there were details missing. so, technically it's not entirely "canon" compliant. but it was first on the scene, which was pretty iconic, and it was received accordingly well. this fic cemented our truly #iconique friendship—we're still collaborating to this day. sometimes you find these things when you're least expecting them.

month by month...


JANUARY | from Impostor Syndrome

“It was a close thing,” Viktor says. “I can count the number of people I’ve been with on one hand. Five fingers. I’ve never—oh, wow, this is harder to say than I thought it would be.”

 

“I’ve only kissed four people,” Yuuri blurts. “So you’re winning.”

 

Viktor holds out his hand, palm to Yuuri in the international hand signal for stop. It’s a moment later that Yuuri realises what he means—five fingers. Tentative, Yuuri reaches out and pushes Viktor’s thumb against his palm.

 

“Number one,” Viktor says, “a boy at a summer camp. I never found out his name. He doesn’t skate competitively anymore.”

 

Yuuri lowers Viktor’s index finger next. This gets a different response—Viktor laughs, and if Yuuri thought that Viktor was capable of embarrassment he’d swear blind that it was a nervous laugh.

 

Viktor says, “Christophe Giacometti, European Championships, 2008. Now you owe me one.”

 

“Yuuko,” Yuuri says. “I—it was before she was going out with Takeshi. I was fourteen. She let me kiss her for practice. Just once, no tongue.”

 

He debates whether or not he should tell Viktor that Yuuko had said, “Pretend I’m Viktor! Then it’ll be easy!” He decides against it.

 

Viktor tells Yuuri about the other two—both one-night stands, no substance and nothing “too raunchy,” as Viktor puts it, which leads Yuuri to conclude that Viktor is only marginally more experienced than him, and he’s not sure how he feels about that. In turn, Yuuri tells Viktor about the boy in Detroit, someone in his college, who he’d kissed drunk at a party and never spoken to again. He tells Viktor about Phichit—more an experiment in intimacy than anything else, and one they hadn’t needed to continue.

 

They don’t need to articulate the last item on each of their lists. Instead, when Yuuri turns down the last of Viktor’s fingers, Viktor takes his hand and kisses him—part three of numbers four and five.

 

FEBRUARY | from i feel like i win when i lose

Phichit trails off, his gaze drifting. “I don’t want to make this weird but, uh, you know there’s a dildo on your desk, right?”

 

Without looking behind him, Yuuri sticks his arm straight out and swats right where he knows the dildo is. His hand connects, and the offending object falls to the carpet with a dull thud.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

 

“Oh my god, Yuuri.” Phichit pauses to cackle. “You really don’t strike me as the sort to leave these things lying around.”

 

“Yeah, well, you gave me short notice,” Yuuri says, and if Phichit has any more questions about why the desk, of all places, he doesn’t ask.

 

“Moving right along… Viktor’s theme. Take a guess.”

 

“How would I know,” Yuuri says. “Is it really something so shocking?”

 

“Sort of,” Phichit says. “It’s love. Everyone is speculating that the last of the famous international playboys has found someone and settled down at last.”

 

The thing, Yuri knows, is that Viktor has found someone, and settled down too, after a fashion. Yuuri believes Viktor when he says that he cares about Yuuri and that he doesn’t want to be with anyone else. But love? That seems a bit much. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.

 

“Maybe he’s referring to his family,” Yuuri says, after a moment.

 

That’s all it takes. Phichit jumps on his hesitation all too keenly. “Oh my god, Yuuri, you know something I don’t know, don’t you?”

 

“Um,” Yuuri says.

 

“You do, you do!” Phichit claps his hands together in excitement. “You have to tell me! How did you get this information? Was it on a fansite? Are there photos? Who’s Viktor dating?”

 

Phichit pauses.

 

“Yuuri. Why exactly was there a dildo on your desk?”

 

MARCH | from whenever, wherever

Christophe keeps promising that Viktor will show up soon. “He’s on his way,” he says.

 

“That’s what you said ten minutes ago,” Yuuri says. “Chris—Christophe—if Viktor isn’t here soon I… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

 

He doesn’t know when he stopped dreading this meeting and started anticipating it. Somewhere between his fifth shot and his second beer, probably.

 

“I’m certain this time,” Christophe says. “He texted me.”

 

“I’ll believe it when I—”

 

He’s interrupted by Christophe getting to his feet, waving across the bar. “Over here, Viktor!”

 

Yuuri’s confidence is all ups and downs. This is a down. His shirt is still damp and he’s pretty sure his hair is all over the place. And of course Viktor arrives in front of him looking impeccable. Yuuri sucks in a breath and stands up straighter.

 

There’s a moment.

 

They make eye contact and the entire world stands still. The loud music pumping through the bar falls away leaving only a shuddering bass ostinato, low and compelling. Or maybe that’s just Yuuri’s heartbeat echoing in his ears as all the blood rushes to his head.

 

“Wow,” Viktor says.

 

Yuuri’s not sure if it’s a good wow or a bad wow, but the way Viktor says it makes him feel like a gold medal winner. Viktor’s gaze flutters downward for just a beat. Yuuri licks his lips. His confidence is all ups and downs. This is an up.

 

Christophe clears his throat. “Yuuri, this is Viktor Nikiforov. Viktor, this is—”

 

Yuuri stands on his toes and cups his hands either side of Viktor’s face, kissing him on the mouth.

 

APRIL | from Impostor Syndrome

Christophe goes quiet. “I wonder. I’ve been thinking about it, you know. Go out on a high. I missed Swiss Nationals for this. All that’s left of the season is Euros, and Worlds, and then…”

 

Yuuri remembers hearing something similar from Phichit. “You’re really retiring, then?”

 

“Well, it has to happen eventually,” Christophe says. “I’m a married man now. I don’t want to spend all my time training anymore—I want to spend it with my husband and our cats.”

 

“Oh, are there more cats now?” Viktor asks.

 

“There will be,” Christophe says. He sighs. “Once I’m gone, it’ll really be a change of the guard. All these top skaters… they’re so young. I could do a triple axel before Yuri Plisetsky was even born.”

 

Viktor throws an arm around Yuuri’s shoulder and pulls him close. “Not quite! There’ll still be Yuuri!”

 

“Don’t say that,” Yuuri says, “I won’t be the oldest.”

 

“You’ll be the oldest in the top ten, maybe even the top twenty,” Viktor says. He leans in even closer and whispers in Yuuri’s ear, “Twenty-five is practically ancient.”

 

“Thanks,” Yuuri says, his shoulders slumping forwards. There’s not much else he can say to something like that.

 

“That’s true, though,” Christophe says. “The last of the old guard. You were always one of our generation, Yuuri.”

 

Their generation—Viktor is nodding vigorously, and who would’ve predicted that the very skaters Yuuri spent his youth looking up to would ever consider him one of them? They’re right, too; he’s making his second debut, so it feels new, but most of these young skaters only made their first debuts a year or two ago. He is one of the old guard.

 

That at was all he’d ever wanted, to skate on an even playing field with Viktor. Maybe he’d been there all along.

 

MAY | from it's the side effects that save us

“How much do you trust me, Yuuri?”

 

“What kind of a question is that?” Yuuri splutters halfway through a sip from his water bottle. “I—of course I trust you, Viktor.”

 

Viktor puts a finger to his lips. “Do you trust me to spin you mid-air?” Yuuri looks like he’s about to start panicking, so Viktor hastily adds, “Just half a rotation! So that when you land, you’re facing me.”

 

Yuuri takes his time to answer, which Viktor would never begrudge him. “The least we can do is try.”

 

The first few times, they don’t manage the spin. Yuuri is holding back, and Viktor is trying to figure out where his hands should go, because all he really wants is for them to be everywhere at once. It would be easier on the ice, if they were going somewhere rather than staying in the same spot. But when it finally does happen it’s like the last piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Viktor gives Yuuri just the right amount of momentum for him to spin mid-air. Instead of landing on his feet, though, Yuuri falls forward, and Viktor lurches backwards, catching him just in time.

 

Viktor’s ears are ringing. It’s very quiet in the studio all of a sudden. Is it getting warmer too? They stay like that, a paused freeze-frame, Yuuri’s legs wrapped around Viktor’s waist and crossed over themselves behind. Viktor can see it in the mirror along the opposite wall. He can see his arms too, clasped around the small of Yuuri’s back, clinging on for dear life, and Yuuri’s arms flung over his shoulders. Not that he’s looking that way for long. He and Yuuri are face-to-face, their noses a millimetre from brushing, and it wouldn’t take much to fashion that distance into nothing at all and kiss Yuuri senseless.

 

It almost happens, too.

 

The door to the studio swings open. Viktor snaps his neck around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. He can feel the way Yuuri twists his whole body to look, but. They’re still standing like that.

 

JUNE | from cancel your reservations

Later, Viktor drapes himself over Yuuri, still completely naked, and says, “I have a favour to ask of you.”

 

Yuuri would do just about anything for Viktor when he’s naked. The only reason he’s not naked too is because someone had to go out and pick up the pizza delivery. That, at least, keeps his inhibitions at their normal level—or as normal as they could ever be around Viktor—and he holds himself back from agreeing outright. “What is it?”

 

“I have a work event next week,” Viktor says. “It’s a film screening. Very boring, but you know how these things are. I want you to be my date.”

 

“Of course,” Yuuri says. “Is that it? You sound worried.”

 

“I am worried,” Viktor says, and he sounds sincere, but the string of cheese hanging from the corner of his mouth isn’t helping his case. “I’ve met your friends, but you’ve never met any of my—well, colleagues. Not so much friends. Still… it’ll be very public. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

 

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Viktor, I know we’ve only been together for two months, but you mean the world to me. If you want me to meet your colleagues, I will. I’m not that jealous.”

 

He’s aiming for a joke. Viktor doesn’t laugh. “Wow,” he says. “I think I’m a little bit in love with you.”

 

Yuuri lifts his hand to wipe the cheese away from Viktor’s mouth.

 

“A lot in love,” Viktor amends.

 

JULY | from first base

In between the katsudon dinners, Viktor learns to use his tongue by chewing gum and blowing bubbles, curling the gum into different shapes and sticking his tongue out to present his latest creation to Yuuri. It’s gross—it’s beyond gross, really—but Yuuri begins to memorise the pattern to Viktor’s tongue, the shape of his mouth.

 

“I’ve heard stories about people who can tie knots in cherry stems with their tongues,” Yuuri says. “But I don’t know. It seems like an urban legend.”

 

Viktor, not to be deterred, takes Yuuri’s hand and announces, “We’re going to the supermarket!”

 

They sit on the beach with a bag of gummy snakes and a punnet of cherries between them. The lid of the punnet quickly fills up with cherry pips, and Viktor has no success on the cherry stems, but he does a little better with the gummy snakes. The sight of him sitting there, sunlight catching the metallic frame of his sunglasses, with the head of a gummy snake hanging out of his mouth, makes Yuuri want to lean across the cherry pip graveyard and cleanly decapitate that snake, and kiss Viktor too, for good measure.

 

But, no—not until Viktor’s lessons are complete, fulfilling this perverse pact of mutually assured delayed gratification. Viktor seems to be doing very well with the tension. Yuuri’s not sure how much longer he can hold out.

 

While Viktor gets better at eating rice with only his lips, to the point that Yuuri is now letting him hold the chopsticks on his own, blowing bubbles and tying knots in gummy snakes, Yuuri comes up with other lesson plans. He thinks about all the good kisses he’s had and all the worst—including the one in China—and pieces together the details, what made them good, what made them bad. In the end, he decides that beyond the mouth, it really comes down to coordination.

 

AUGUST | from A Colder War, unfinished and unpublished. i had awful writer's block in august!

“It’s Padfoot’s fault,” Remus said. Sirius jerked his head up, looking like he might be about to argue the point, so Remus added, “I’m not judging you. It’s objectively your fault.”
 

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “Not my fault he was stupid enough to fall for it.”
 

“Tell Black there wasn’t anything to fall for,” James said, “since he told Snape the truth.”
 

“Don’t be petty,” Remus said, nudging James. He turned back to Peter. “Padfoot told Snape about the knot in the Willow and that he should go there last night. So he did, and—”
 

Peter let out a snort; Remus paused, shocked.
 

“And Snape would’ve died in the Shack, if James hadn’t found him halfway down the passage and fished him out—”
 

Remus tried to go on, but it was no use, because Peter was still chuckling, covering his mouth with his hand and snickering into his palm. Sirius elbowed him, but he was smirking too, and that only made Peter laugh harder.
 

“Tell Black and Pettigrew to shut the fuck up,” James snapped. “This isn’t funny!”
 

“Easy, mate,” Peter said, wiping at the corners of his eyes. “It’s only Snivellus.”
 

“That’s not the point,” Remus said. He could feel his patience fraying at the edges, and lifted up one hand to touch his Prefect badge, remind himself that he was the responsible one here. “It doesn’t matter who Sirius told—or even why—just that a student could’ve been killed—”
 

“Stop it,” James said.
 

To Remus’ surprise, James was looking at him. “I thought you were on my side.”
 

James grimaced. “You—stop talking in the passive voice.” He turned back to Sirius and Peter. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t about Snape. Black—you—”
 

“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” Sirius said, raising one eyebrow and the corners of his mouth to match.

 

 

SEPTEMBER | from the finest luck that you'll charm, this part written in september, the rest finished and published in november

It seemed like Zacharias Smith was a veritable magnet for odd things, little inexplicable curiosities that followed him around and altered his behaviour in near-imperceptible ways.

 

Luckily, Anthony had always been a very observant person.

 

In the second meeting of Dumbledore’s Army—“Stupid name,” Zacharias had said, catching up to Anthony and the others as they walked to the Room of Requirement, “so bloody self-congratulatory,”—the two of them ended up working together again, practising Impedimenta. Anthony wasn’t overly fond of the idea of being forced to slow down—he thought it might be a bit like walking through the middling end of a swimming pool but filled with honey instead of water—so he volunteered to go first this time.

 

The problem was, Zacharias didn’t seem to be able to perform the spell at all. He opened his mouth and stuttered out the jinx and haphazardly waved his wand. It was amateurish, sloppy. There was no way Zacharias would’ve made it to fifth year without being able to cast a simple jinx.

 

“Is everything alright?” Anthony asked. He often prided himself on his delicacy, but when Zacharias didn’t answer, he decided to push it a bit, talk to Zacharias in the way he was supposed to talk to other people. “You’re casting like a fucking first year.”

 

At least Zacharias cracked a smile at that. It faded fast, though. “Leave off. I’ll get there.”

 

“Are you—oh, someone isn’t performing it on you, are they? Not again. I bet it’s the bloody Weasley twins.”

 

“No, I’m—”

 

In hindsight, it was so obvious. “I’ll find them,” Anthony says. “This behaviour is so distracting, and quite frankly a—”

 

“Impedimenta!”

 

Everything stalled at once; Anthony’s limbs slowed to a crawl, and he tried to move forward but something sticky and excruciating was holding him back. It was every bit as unpleasant as he’d imagined it being.

 

“Actually,” Zacharias mumbled, “I’m bloody good at jinxes.”

 

OCTOBER | from the time when you were mine

4:10

 

Now Sirius is off North and onto York Way—there’s something about seeing these main streets at night, quiet but for the odd person stumbling about, cars blinking past like apparitions, and when Sirius turns they’re gone and he can’t even remember what colour they’d been when they were right in his vision. There’d been a night like this, the first night of summer the year after he’d been off to uni—and although Sirius and James had been together, their wildly different degrees meant wildly different timetables, as well as James finally pulling his head out of his arse and getting with Lily. Remus had still been at Cambridge then, which felt so far away, even if they were still in the group chat whenever they could be. Peter—he’d stayed in London.

 

When they all came back it was, You’ve no idea how much better this city is now I don’t have parents forcing a curfew on me, and they’d gone out drinking that very night in Soho, and stumbled back to the tube pissed beyond belief. It was Remus who’d had the most to drink, didn’t care how it mixed with his meds.

 

“This is the best I’ve felt all year,” he said, and stepped into the road just as a car came past.

 

It was fine. It had been fine. Sirius had pulled him out of the way right before the car could hit him, and it had gone skidding past like nothing had happened, leaving only a tailwind to indicate it had been there, or that could just have been the weather turning. It had rained the next day, Sirius remembered.

 

[ MARAUDERS ]

 

WANKER: Who dares me to do something reckless

onthebeatpete.mp3: what sort of rckless

loopin: Please arrive in one piece

jamez: Arrive where

WANKER: Im a man on a mission james

WANKER: A mission of none of your concern

jamez: I’m team captain everything is my concern

onthebeatpete.mp3: yeah rugby team captain oooh james pass us the ball will u

jamez: Have you ever played rugby in your life Peter

[ James Potter ]

 

James: Also how are we going to meet up if you get yourself killed first

 

 

4:11

 

And Sirius had said to him, “Remus—are you alright?”

 

“Yeah.” Remus had been smiling. “I told you, I’ve never been better.”

 

NOVEMBER | from Dissonance, published in december

“Want some gum?” Remus asked, flicking the packet out of his shorts’ pocket.

 

Sirius looked down his nose at him, which was an impressive feat given that Sirius was an inch or so shorter than Remus. But he did not respond, so Remus held out the pack of gum in one hand and used his thumb to push one of the sticks forward.

 

“Why are you dressed like that?” Sirius said instead.

 

He had failed the test, but passed one unspoken. Remus was wearing a singlet and fairly minimal running shorts, and he was not stupid about the amount of leg he was showing.

 

“Why do you think?”

 

“God, could you two stop communicating in questions,” James said.

 

“Running?” Sirius said. “I’ll come too,”

 

“See you down there,” Remus said, and went on ahead. He wasn’t about to wait around for Sirius. He was not doing that anymore. It was a long way from their dormitory to the forest and the weather was just right for running, now. Remus would take advantage of that the way Sirius was no longer taking advantage of him.

 

But by the time he made it out of the castle and onto the vast lawn between stone and wood, the rain had started up again, a steady downpour if not a particularly intense one. Remus stood on the castle’s front steps and held his hands out. He shrugged, and set off.

 

Alarmingly soon after, Sirius joined him. Remus was not a slow runner, but Sirius was fast. He had changed into shorts too, although he wore his cricket jumper, and he had headphones dangling around his neck. Remus stood by the forest’s edge watching Sirius approach, watching how the thick rubber soles of his expensive trainers set off mudslides in the grass. Sirius wore his hair slightly longer than regulation; it was a dark brown but the rain made it his namesake, streaming behind him in the wind. His socks came up to his knees. Remus so keenly wanted to be him. He would settle for the second-hand experience.

 

DECEMBER | from sternitur arcadiae proles

It’s winter and sleet falls outside. These are Charles’ quarters. Sebastian can hardly bear to be left to his own; it is too much like confinement, and he has long since stopped caring how he keeps the rooms. Charles is self-consciously tidy. This is one corner of the world where Sebastian will never fully be able to impose his presence. His clothes lie wherever they happen to fall and he brings his drink too, or makes Charles hide it for him, but this is only the dressing to a scene.

 

They lie entangled, centre-stage, under the blue-grey light through the dirty glass windowpane. This, too, has lost its joy—but neither would Sebastian prefer a life of celibacy. He dozes, drifting between the twin lands of dream and wakefulness, although he does not dream, just sees the walls whitewashed and the bed surrounded by canvas stretched to screens and the scene stripped back to its barest bones, and Charles—Charles is gone.

 

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” Sebastian says.

 

Charles props himself up on one elbow, his short hair damp with sweat and falling over his eyes. “Pardon?”

 

“You must pay proper attention to me at all times, Charles. I was saying—” What had he been saying? “I was saying that we ought to meet again tomorrow. We can go down to the river.”

 

“In this weather?” Charles has a low-pitched laugh; it makes Sebastian’s heart stutter.

 

“It will be sunny tomorrow,” Sebastian says. “I am certain of it.”

 

Charles looks at Sebastian curiously. It is a familiar expression—a demand, in many ways, that all the emotional labour of their relationship be performed for him. He must know that Sebastian is weak. Sebastian will not bear the burden of being the first to speak it, nor would he bear it with grace were it foist upon him as Charles seems so intent upon doing. Charles might not know his own feelings, but he certainly knows Sebastian’s. It is easy for Sebastian to tell Charles, however obliquely, that he is an object of much adoration and worship, and perhaps easier still for Charles to convince himself that this is the case—he is a creature who needs to be loved.

 

Sebastian has waited, and waited. He waits for the day that Charles will let himself love in return. He is afraid that it will never come, and that is one of the many reasons why he drinks.