#barpurplewrites

Well, as far as plans go, I thought I might cook dinner and then we could eat it.  I’ve prepared everything, so it shouldn’t take long to put together.  I’m making fillet steak with a red wine sauce, and I’ve already cooked the sauce and prepared the vegetables, so it’ll just need finishing off when we’re ready to eat.  I made a chocolate and rum terrine for dessert, which is pretty good, if I do say so myself.  It’s been awhile since I enjoyed cooking so much.  Hopefully we won’t be short on conversation.

So what if I changed the sheets?  That doesn’t mean anything.  I’m certainly not expecting us to be - uh - using them.  It’s a first date, after all, so I wouldn’t dream of ever presuming...

I finally got around to getting to this on the list! I hope you don’t mind it’s more “Mal/Inara” than crew, but I’ve noticed I tend to write post-Serenity fic mostly and I like focusing on those two. But please enjoy!

Our Home (An “In So Few Words” Story) - Inara convinces Mal to settle a bit.

Read @ AO3 | Series Page | Help Me Survive? | Commission Me?

“I don’t reckon I’ve seen this much green in one place since...” Mal trailed off and then thought for a moment. “Ariel.”

Inara nodded, content, for the moment, to have Mal’s arms wrapped around her. The evening was chilly even on this lush planet, and the warmth kept her wanting to stay right here, with the bay doors open and watching the others. Simon was patiently waiting for Kaylee and River to put flower crowns on his head, lopsided chains made with yellow and white flowers and green stems. Zoe was walking around, her blessing of a babe in her arms, cooing to the child as she walked barefoot in the grass.

It almost reminded her of a slice of paradise, and it seemed, maybe, a good place to settle down. The job had been profitable enough for her to abandon being a Companion for a long, long while and the others to pay and barter for what they needed as opposed to steal and lie. And knowing what she knew, it could very well be a good place for her and Mal to settle for this future together they’d been skirting around for far too long.

She turned and rested her cheek against his chest. “Why don’t we stay? We can settle here, it’s not too far from a settlement and I think Kaylee’s going to want to have a proper place to settle for her little surprise for Simon. And I know you. She’s like your little ray of sunshine sister and if she wants to settle, you will too.”

Mal blinked for a moment and then looked down at Inara. “She’s preggers?”

Inara smiled and nodded against his chest. “She realized it before he has, if he even knows. There’s going to be more children on the ship if we keep flying but here...here we can continue Book’s work, maybe.”

“Reckon that could be a good thing, but without the preacher, would it be the same?” he asked.

“We could find someone like Book who needs a family,” she said, lifting her head up. “You’re good at attracting a found family, Mal. It happens to be one of my favorite things about you.”

“Is that so?” he asked, giving her a lopsided smile. “And how do you feel about other attributes?”

“Look at you, throwing out an impressive word,” she said with a laugh. “I like your other attributes just fine. I can even tell you more about which ones I find particularly interesting if you’ll consider staying. Making another Haven.” She reached over and took his hand in hers, threading her fingers in between his and looking up at him. “Maybe even making a home of some sort.”

“A rapscallion and a Companion, settling down in the lush frontier?” he asked, squeezing her hand. “Who would have thought?”

“Another one of those big words,” she said as he pulled her close again, tipping her head up. “I love you, Mal. You don’t need to impress me.”

“Maybe I just like to,” he murmured before he kissed her, and then it hit her: this place would be home...for him, for her, for all of them.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

RCIJ 2017 Gift for @barpurplewrites​.

My very dear BarPurple!

It is still technically the 23rd in my time zone but it is later than I wish it was. To that end I don’t want you to have to wait a single second more to see your gift so I’m going to post the link so you can see the first chapter while I upload the rest of it.

I have loved being your Santa!!! I really hope you’ll enjoy this humble little experiment I am calling a fic. I’m more than a bit nervous because when I told you I colored outside the lines, that was no joke. I wasn’t joking about it being a monster either. It nearly ate me! This is quite AU and I drew from a multitude of places... you’ll see Rush references in here because I couldn’t tell myself no, for example.

Without further ado, but with much trepidation I present:

The Politician’s Heart

Trapped under the weight of an unearned reputation, Belle French scrambles to adapt when the mayor hires a new librarian without her input. An AU role-reversal in which we meet a YoungSpinner!Rumple Mr. Gold and an older Belle in our world.

Prologue:

"Listen sis, you are not gonna believe the new librarian."

Belle perked up out of her book where she sat at the other end of Granny's lunch counter. Regina had wasted no time on this, in fact, she must have hired the very first applicant she received. This was the opening salvo in response to Belle's triumph in persuading the city council that, with a generous donation toward the necessary repairs and upgrades, it was in the best interest of Storybrooke to reopen its library over Regina's objections that the money would be better spent elsewhere.

Belle hoped that Regina's success in thwarting Belle's efforts to find a both qualified and sympathetic candidate backfired horribly. A backfire that could and would be helped along if she had anything to say about it. The mayor may have gotten the drop on her this time, but these occasional digs were all Ms. Mills could ever really muster.

They both knew where the power roosted in this town, and it was not in the mayor's office but rather in the little pawn and antiquities shop, just across from the soon-to-open library.

Belle listened pretending to become very attentive to her drink and the novel open in front of her.

"He says he's twenty-four, but his face is so fresh I wonder if he even has to shave every day!" Regina was all but giggling, disgusting, but she was going on, "And he brought his infant son to the interview! That adorable accent! All apologetic about not knowing the town yet having just arrived," the mayor practically gasped for breath trying to get it out too quickly, "and did I mind terribly? He would find a reliable babysitter as soon as possible. Oh the poor boy! I of course told him that I am a single parent myself, and that his plight was completely understandable. I gave him the number for the local daycare. I can't believe what a find he is!"

"Scottish you say?" Zelena was kicking a foot and chewing her straw, all but drooling in rapt interest. An utterly nauseating display. Zelena was Belle's age, for gods' sakes and drooling over a mere boy. Regina's encouragement did nothing to help. "Sophisticated or provincial? The Scottish can have such a charm about them, in either case."

"Sophisticated enough to be educated, but I would say rustically charming with roots in poverty, a definite boot-strapper." Regina took a bite of her lasagna and delicately licked a bit of excess sauce from her lip. "I offered him the apartment above the library for now, but I'll need to find more suitable accommodations because of his disability. That elevator only goes to the basement, who would design a building that way? I can't bear the thought of him carrying his baby up and down with that cane for long. The housing market in Storybrooke is so tight these days."

Belle knew that for the bald faced lie it was. More like, there were few available rental properties that Belle herself did not own. Precisely none, in fact. So the mayor wanted to be certain that her bonny young Scotsman did not become Belle's tenant. That was her way in. The Mayor may have managed to squeak a candidate into the position before Belle could, but that did not mean that he had to become, or remain, the mayor's pet. He could be hers.

Belle smirked. The poor mayor was trying for any leverage she could weasel since her resounding defeat over the library initiative. Yes, the bonny young Scotsman would be hers.

1) Describe yourself how you would describe a character you’re introducing

Oh, fuck. UUUUUUH. I don’t fucking know. uM. WHILE I WAS ANSWERING THIS @lumiereandpenumbra  ASKED ME THE SAME THING FUCK. God this is pathetic and says way more about my self-image than I would like. Oh well. It is TMI Tuesday.

I glanced up, and caught a sudden glimpse of myself in the shop window opposite. I was struck with one of those odd out-of-body moments, suddenly hyperaware of myself, my breathing, the image I presented in the minds of those walking by. They saw what I now did: a tall young woman (probably a little too tall, and too wide at the hips), her long hair loose around her shoulders and mussed by the wind (the blonde at the ends growing out, a tidemark around her ears), bangs falling in her eyes behind thick black glasses perched on a prominent nose. She was hunched over a book in a pose familiar since childhood; the books changed but the fanatical devotion never did. It was second-nature now for her to be comfortable while reading, and only consider now, confronted with the aesthetics, how graceless it was to hunch the shoulders that way, and how her thighs spread when sat that way. Her dark eyes blinked back at me. I wondered why she always pursed her lips when she was thinking, and flattened them out. It didn’t help. 

So I’ve been wracking my brains and I guess my favorite five fics that I’ve written are (in no particular order):

Torn (BBC Sherlock Mirror!verse fic) 

Parva Victoriis  (BBC Sherlock Domme!Molly/Roman Empire AU)

Blood Ties (Classic Dr. Who, 5th Doctor/Tegan, vampire AU)

Arranged (BBC Sherlock Regency Omegaverse)