Danny reached for the remote and hit pause. "Rozanov. And Hollander. Do you get a vibe?"
Mobius let Loki's complaints wash over him, like the droning hum of zen chants, as he flicked through the photo spread. It might have been cold and uncomfortable to shoot but the end result looked amazing: Loki at a sun-drenched beach, lightly tanned skin and the long stretch of abs, wet swimshorts clinging to his long thighs. "Looks good."
At birth, and for the next fifteen years of her life, Meng Shi enjoyed a gift of incredible good fortune. She spent the rest of her life atoning for it.
I made a thousand people love me, now I'm all alone
Meng Yao marries into the Lan. Everything changes.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runpunkrun and it's an absolute joy. Himbo!Steve and teenage make-out sessions and Steve and Robin as BFFs:As soon as Eddie gets to the counter, Steve turns to him and says, “Back me up here. Kissing is no big deal, right?”
Steve Harrington is talking about kissing. Eddie’s brain shorts out. “Uh,” he says.
As soon as Eddie gets to the counter, Steve turns to him and says, “Back me up here. Kissing is no big deal, right?”
Steve Harrington is talking about kissing. Eddie’s brain shorts out. “Uh,” he says.
The first time Vander meets Silco, Vander's been working in the mines for a little over a month. It's hard work and the days are long, but he's suited to it. It feels good to work until his muscles ache and then spend the nights laughing and drinking with friends.
He's on level three, helping with the cave-in, when someone yanks the back of his collar, pulling hard enough that he's surprised into taking a few steps backwards.
"Buffoon!" is snarled beside him – just as a cart careens past him, right where he was standing. "It wouldn't have stopped for you."
"Thanks," Vander says, turning to his saviour. He's young, like Vander. Black hair pulled under his hard hat, sharp nose, and the prettiest blue eyes Vander's ever seen.
Meng Yao's run into Mingjue's exes before: always small and slight and pretty. The kind of boys who smile sweetly up at Mingjue and bat their lashes, and say it's such a pity that they don't have a lift to the airport or how hard it is to move from an apartment in just a weekend. Smiling, Mingjue will offer to help and Meng Yao will insist they both help because he's not leaving his boyfriend alone with an ex. (Just in case. They might start reconsidering why they broke up in the first place, and Meng Yao is not allowing that to happen.) Airport runs, moving, picking up secondhand furniture, even helping someone search for a lost cat. Meng Yao's watched Mingjue do it all.
So it's not exactly a surprise that when Mingjue's high school boyfriend says he's coming to their city for a legal conference next month, Mingjue offers their place as accommodation.
Meng Yao gives his boyfriend a baleful look and Mingjue shrugs back at him. Over the speaker of his phone, a gentle voice says, "I wouldn't want to be an imposition."
Lan Xichen is in love with his very close friend, Meng Yao, who is currently working and studying and trying to gain his father's respect, and doesn't have time to date anyone. Lan Xichen is devoted and waiting, but all of his friends and family keep trying to set him up with much nicer, more respectable young men.
Podfic of A Respectable Young Man by out_there.
Armand is still sprawled on the ground. Eyes wide and blank. Concrete dust settled on his cheekbones, his forehead, caught in his dark curls. He looks impossibly young; he looks fragile and easily broken. His appearance is a lie.
Daniel sits on the sofa facing him. "Don't get me wrong. I understand how the shock of getting divorce papers can leave you feeling stuck, but at some point, you gotta keep moving."
There's no reaction but Daniel doesn't let that deter him. If there's one thing he's very good at, it's annoying people until they talk to him.
"He's finishing his residency this year," Aunt Mai says, with a conspiring glance at her neighbour, Mrs Yueng. "He's studying to become an orthopaedic surgeon."
"And he's very handsome," Mrs Yueng adds, pulling out her phone. She turns it on and hands it over. The phone background shows a young man in dark green scrubs, smiling toothily at the camera. He has a lean face with kind eyes; Xichen can imagine that would be a comforting face in a hospital.
"Very handsome. That's what I said when I saw his photo," Aunt Mai says. "I said he's very handsome, almost as handsome as my nephew who's still single, despite graduating law school second in his class. It's such a shame."
Xichen smiles and nods and tries not to crumble under the avalanche of family pressure.
***
Lan Xichen is in love with his very close friend, Meng Yao, who is currently working and studying and trying to gain his father's respect, and doesn't have time to date anyone. Lan Xichen is devoted and waiting, but all of his friends and family keep trying to set him up with much nicer, more respectable young men.
"You're not a Nie," Nie Mingjue snarls as he strides past Meng Yao. "You shouldn't wear those braids."
He's right, Meng Yao knows it. He has no right to them but they serve a purpose. It's a spiteful act of disrespect to a clan that threw him out, the kind of bitter pettiness that Wen Ruohan encourages. But the true reason is that every morning it gives him a few moments where he can pretend he isn't here. He can watch his reflection in the bronze mirror, in his robes of dark grey, and remember Nie Huaisang teaching him, being somewhere that almost felt safe. (The idea of home has always carried some danger.)
Alice and everything after.
How Could He Turn Down A Banana In Distress?
Alec Lightwood never thought that he'd become the pretend fiancé of a banana-wearing storeowner! Yet how could he refuse smouldering Magnus Bane, the man under the costume, when he kissed him so sweetly— and so thoroughly—in the spaghetti aisle of the supermarket?
His golden brown gaze implored Alec to play the role of lover to show up his ex-fiancé. But remembering the kisses they shared were supposed to be pretend became more difficult, when all Alec wanted to do was to make love to the appealing Magnus! Was the banana's proposal turning into something…real?
(Summary amended from "The Virgin's Proposal" by Shirley Jump.)
Jayne leaned over Mal in the pilot’s chair, one hand gripping the frame of the cockpit windows as he craned his neck up to get a good look at the underbelly of the ship. In barely legible lettering on the side was the ship’s name: Utopia. Jayne appreciated the irony of that, proving that he wasn’t as stupid as he liked to pretend.
"My son is overwhelmed by such flattery," Jin Guangshan says from the table. The words are friendly but Jin Guangyao can hear the rebuke in his tone, the sharp anger promising consequences should Jin Guangyao refuse.
For a moment, he longs to refuse. He could keep the secret and marry Qin Su, have his children recognised as Jin and make his mother proud. He could be part of his father's sect as she'd always dreamed for him. But his father has no intention of letting this possible alliance slip through his fingers and Jin Guangyao doesn't know if he could keep such a terrible secret; if he could bed Qin Su knowingly, if those children would ever be possible.
Marrying into the Lan will please his father. Jin Guangyao will still be a member of the gentry as his mother wanted. If he has to leave the Jin and play the subservient furen, he could choose no one better than Lan Xichen.
"You know how you said there was a storm coming in today," Casey says when Dana answers, "and I should change my flight to Saturday?"
"Did you change your flight to Saturday?"
"I did not."
***
Prompt based on Between Strangers by Linda Conrad:
Rescuing a stranded father and child from a raging blizzard hadn’t been part of Dan Rydell’s plans. Yet he couldn’t abandon Casey McCall. And ended up getting snowed in with him, tasting those fiery kisses.
zvi and forthwritten
