#drawerfic

Terminology Thursday: Drawerfic

This Terminology Thursday we’re taking a look at drawerfics. Also known as “pass-arounds” or “underground stories” this term is used for fan fiction that is never shown to other fans, or that is only shown to a few friends.

The term refers to the idea of "keeping stories in your desk drawer” and drawerfics are rarely posted or published. Usually they are stories written primarily because it appealed to the author; maybe the author recognizes that its audience is narrow or the quality may not be high, and wrote it simply for the thrill of writing.

Have you written a story so niche you’ve only told your best friend? Or have a folder on your laptop with finished stories that you’re keeping all to yourself? Tell us about them in the comments!

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“You know what this looks like, right?” I stood there at the crest of the hill with my hands pressed to my hips. The wind was blowing, and thus, my hair billowed back over my shoulders, and I could give him something of a view as he ascended the slope behind me with his quiver slung over his shoulder. Those blue eyes gazed on back at me, and I could tell that he wanted to rest. We had been walking through the woods for some time, and I was happy that he and I had packed enough water and food as well: he looked ready to put down his things and take a nap on the grass.

Alex stood next to me for a view out to the gully down below us. There was something about the way in which the trail wound down towards the bottom and then widened out right down within our line of sight. The way the trail twisted and turned and looped back around through the trees back towards us had my mind rolling. I turned to him as he was catching his breath and showing me his tongue.

“What’s it look like?” he asked me with a clearing of his throat.

“It looks like a racetrack,” I told him, and Alex cracked a smile, that sweet little lopsided smile.

“Even now, you still think of racing, Hannah,” he chuckled.

“Hey, I can’t help it,” I teased him as I hoisted up my own quiver on my back. It would be a good excuse to put down our bows and arrows for a time, even if he and I had no cars so to speak: we could do a little triathlon together with what we had on our person. He kept his hands on his hips, and he let his well-fed little belly hang out before him ever so slightly, such that I wanted to reach over and gently pat him there: long lush black curls down to his waist, tall wiry slender body with the most toned arms and a chubby little belly, and as wily and intelligent as a fox, Alex was the warrior he never believed himself to be.

“What do you think we should do with it?” he asked me with a look in his eye that told me he knew business.

“Well… we’re both here in the woods,” I began again, that time with a hoisting of my cargo pants; “and it’ll be some time before we reunite the guys again. Let’s have a foot race of sorts. A triathlon of sorts.”

“A triathlon requires swimming,” he pointed out.

“Let’s hope there’s a pond nearby,” I suggested. “We are in Wales now. Any pond that’s nearby is bound to be a nice and clean one.”

Alex ran his long fingers through his lush curls and hooded his eyes at me. I let my eyes meander down to his beautiful little body, and I was glad that I had the ingredients to make bara brith in my pack because I knew that little belly would crave something after all that we were about to do there on the hillside.

“Shall we begin with a walk down to the bend here?” he offered.

“Please,” I declared with a little grin.

He adjusted his quiver once more, and he gave the slope before us a gentle nod.

“Ladies first,” he said, and I squinted my eyes at him. I then led the way down the slope first. The earth was soft and plush underneath my feet, but not so soft that I could fall completely flat on my back. I could hear him coming up behind me, but I was more focused on the way down to the bottom of the hill. A smooth stone at one point kept me from losing my balance, but then again, I wondered if I could hold onto him for a moment if I absolutely had to do just that. Indeed, I took a quick glimpse back at him to see him descending with his arms extended out on either side of him to hold himself steady.

I reached the bottom first, and I set my pack down on the ground right by my feet. I was about to take my quiver off, when he rejoined me, he showed me his mischievous grin once more.

“See you on the other side!” he decreed, and he took off up the trail.

“Hey!” I called out, and I chased after him. Our legs pumped as we ran together through the bushes and the trees: he may have been quite the runner himself, but he was no match for me, however. I caught up with him within time, and we were running side by side together. I made out the look of pain on his face, as if running that fast put a lot of pressure on his otherwise sinewy legs. I showed him my tongue as we reached the next corner up, to which he skidded off to the side and nearly lost his balance. I kept going, however: my quiver snug on my back and my boots kept my feet protected from the rocks and firm soil all around us. I leapt over a small bush on the ground, and I kept going.

I wasn’t going to let him win. Not this time around.

I rounded the next bend up where the trail wound its way down through the trees, and I spotted a ridge of jagged rocks off to the side.

“Waterfall! Waterfall!” he called out. Indeed, right in front of me stood a smooth clear waterfall up against the jagged rocks: I was going to run right into it. But then again, it was part of our makeshift triathlon.

I reached the waterfall first, and the thin veil of cold water cascaded over me like a curtain. I bowed my head and pressed on against the shallow pool of water before me. I had to be careful as the stones at the base of the falls could be slippery, and thus, when I slowed down, he caught up with me. Water collected in my eyes, and I ducked back away from the falls themselves so I could see him as well as the pool better. It was shallow right where we were standing away from the waters, but we could both see that it extended out into the trees.

We both wore cargo pants, and we both had quivers hoisted over our backs, and yet we both thought the exact same thing at the exact same time.

He dove first into the waters, and I followed suit. Indeed, the bed of the river was right underneath us, but we could swim forth as if we were a couple of dogs. He was the better swimmer, however, and he began to pull away in front of me once again. I was pulling back as my legs thrashed behind me, whereas he scarcely kicked his legs and feet about.

“No, dammit!” I called out, and some water splashed into my mouth all the while. But I could hear him gasping in front of me, and I could feel my quiver filling with water, but just like with the feelings and memories of the war within me, I had the strength within me, however. My arms began to burn as I caught up with him again, right as we were about to reach the edge of the water: as far as I could tell, that was the edge of the water, the shoreline and the pathway back to the hill from whence we had come from before.

He groaned out as I caught up with him, and he did it again once we reached the shore’s edge. I crawled out onto the soft mud first, and I coughed a bit from the stray droplets of water that found their way into my mouth. Alex crawled up next to me: his long lush black curls pressed against his face and the sides of his neck, to the point he resembled a merman. Out of breath, he and I inched up the soil together towards the nearest weeping willow on the grass. The trailhead extended off to the right of us into the trees, but we had to stop and catch our breath for a moment.

I climbed to my feet and ambled up the grass to the roots of the tree, but once I reached the edge of the shade, my knees buckled, and I found myself in a crawling position once again. I crawled up the slope towards the gnarled roots of the tree, and I reached the base of the trunk itself. I leaned back against the wood as Alex caught up with me: his chest heaved, and his body writhed with the rush of adrenaline through him.

“Lay with me,” I begged to him. “Please. Lay with me.” He chuckled and panted at the sight of me, and then he crawled up right next to me, completely winded. He took his spot there next to me: our chubby little bellies hung out in the open, the only bits of softness on our otherwise-toned bodies, and the only things that made us realize that we were in fact soft and fleshy.

“Shall we set up camp?” he offered me, and he put his hands behind his head and gazed up at me so sweetly.

“Here?” I gaped at him, stunned.

“No, no, over where we dropped off our things,” he replied. “I mean, we should make our way back there.”

“Once we catch our breaths, baby,” I assured him with a gentle pat of his belly. He grinned at me, and I knew that he had to be growing hungry soon enough: I certainly was feeling it.

We stayed there under the willow before I stood up again and returned to the waters before us. There was no use in clearing out my quiver of the water as it was only going to fill up once again. I began swimming in those shallow waters, and over the rush of them around my ears, I could hear him right behind me. There was a tributary that made its way off to the left of me, but I was focused on the main artery before me.

I couldn’t resist laughing as he quickly caught up with me, but I had to maintain focus, especially since I was moving my head in and out of the waters with each pass. I had to keep my strength: I needed something to eat, but I had to keep going. I had to beat him—

Alex reached the next shore up ahead first, and he quickly climbed out of there and onto the dark damp soil. With a little grin on his handsome face, he reached down to help me out of there, to which I took up his offer. Once I was out of the waters and I stood before him, I spotted the rest of the trailhead and the way it meandered through the thorny bushes right before us. The third part of our triathlon would have to consist of walking back from where we had come.

And as we walked together, we linked our fingers and kept our free hands on the straps of our quivers over our shoulders. I saw right away that it was a short walk back to the beginning of the trailhead, and all the while, I wondered as to where the rest of that river had gone off to. But on the other hand, we would have to investigate that once we had recuperated and had some food in our bellies. There was a tall oak tree off to the left, and we fetched our things and posted up there away from the trail.

“You’re like a pistol, honey pie,” he said, completely out of breath. He lay on his back with his hand up on his brow, and his tongue sprawled out from his full lips. He showed me a smile, and I suspended myself over him, just so I could look at him in the eye. He reached behind my head to feel the braid from the back of my head. I was in no mood for making love to him, however, especially when I knew that we were both hungry. Instead, I leaned down and kissed him on the lips.

“Yeah, let’s set up camp here,” I offered him. “Set up camp and we can spend some time here.”

“When in Wales, after all,” he declared with a shrug, and he leaned back on his hands and spread out his legs before him.

I opened my pack and took out my water bottle, and I took a big drink from it. Alex followed suit with his bottle, and then he took out some sheets of Gouda cheese which he had nestled inside of his flannel shirt to keep it moist and cool. He handed me some cheese, to which I followed up with some slices of the whole meal bread we had swiped from the trash bin back on the American continent.

“Kosher—Hannah, you darling girl,” he told me with a smile and a shake of his head.

“But of course!” I declared, and I added my bread and cheese with a slice of corned beef for myself.

“So, Stephen and Robert are over in Cornwall,” he followed along with his mouth full. “Richard, James, Rowena, Corinna, and Bubbles are over in Ireland. Matthew and Nathan are still back in North America, and as far as I can tell, so are Emerald and Serenity. What do you think we should do?”

“Let’s hang out here for the rest of the day and into the evening,” I offered him. “We’ve been walking since we got here to the Isles, and I can tell it’ll be some time before we find a house with an oven.”

“You can’t make bread over a fire?” he asked me, taken aback.

“I can, but we won’t have it until the morning, though,” I told him with a shrug of my shoulders, “just from the fact that it needs to prove, and it needs to ferment as well.”

“I see,” he said with a sigh. He held his bread in one hand, and he leaned back on his free hand that time, and he let his little belly hang out before him.

“So cute,” I remarked with a smile. “So strong, too. I didn’t know you were such a good swimmer.”

“I have to be,” he assured me with a raise of one eyebrow. “Gotta keep my gut full and my body even fuller.”

“I can drink to that,” I promised him with a raise of my bottle to him. We made a toast to one another, and we drank down in unison. I hoped that we would be able to find our way through that tributary again, through those clear waters and down that one pathway through the trees. If nothing else, we had to keep on exploring and challenging ourselves, especially if we wanted to survive out here in the wilderness.

The first is that I just don't know how religious early 19th century New Englanders thought and I would prefer Tallmadge to sound somewhat historically plausible rather than like an early 21st century agnostic's idea of 19th century God-botherers, especially because I like Tallmadge.

The second is that there is absolutely no way that Tallmadge would not be asking any dead person he got his hands on a ton of questions about "Did you meet Jesus? He's my fave" and I really didn't want this to turn into a theological discussion fic - either the kind where they sit around and talk about how great Jesus is or the kind where André goes, "So, not only is your wife dead, but also your entire belief system is wrong - oh, wait, I was supposed to make you feel better, wasn't I?" I just wanted excessive non-religious sentiment. (The mental image of André screaming "YOUR SKY-FATHER IS A LIE" is so out of character it's hilarious though.)

I mostly solved the second one by deciding that André has no idea about the actual afterlife because he's stuck in some in-between place until he either reaches the age he would have lived to if he hadn't been hanged or until everyone who knew him dies (or maybe forever, but that seems unnecessarily unpleasant), which is why he can come back as a ghost in the first place - probably the latter option since both his father and his brother died really young - early 50s and early 40s respectively - so possibly his "natural life span" would have ended before Tallmadge's wife died anyway. (Incidentally the year of birth given for his mother in the Ronald biography has to be wrong, because 1713 would mean that she was 47 when William Lewis was born, which I guess isn't impossible, but seems really unlikely, especially since she would have also had the last two girls at 41 and 42 and it would be weird for her to get pregnant that regularly in her 40s without modern fertility treatments......And checking find-a-grave gives her a birth year of 1722, which seems more plausible. Also this makes her several years younger than her husband, which is more common, but without the weird ages for her kids' births I would have just went, "Huh, interesting". Also a ton of people have left flowers at the find-a-grave entry for John. Also he's marked as a veteran, which I think is not really true since he didn't retire from the military, though he is technically no longer serving in it. Because he's dead.)

Of course Tallmadge is still going to be really worried about whether or not André has found Jesus and the real André could have probably wriggled out of that one gracefully, but I lack his tact, so I think this is going to be tragically exiled to Drawerfic Island. (I assume the real guy believed in some sort of vague Christianity because everyone around him did and there's no evidence to suggest that he cared enough about religion to form his own opinions, but that's not the kind of Christianity that older Tallmadge would think counted as real Christianity and I don't think André had any interest in Tallmadge's kind of Christianity. (Though there's this one girl on Goodreads who is absolutely convinced he was secretly deeply devout and just went through a phase where he threw a ton of wild parties because he was running away from his love for Jesus, and what a surprise she's going to be in for when she finally reads his biographies and finds out how little he resembles her idea of him. She's also very clearly a closeted slash writer.))

Actually I kind of feel like André would consider Tallmadge's particular brand of religiousness a little gauche and the same type of bemusing as someone who was a gentleman in every other way but kept cleaning wax out of his ears at the dinner table.

As for the first problem, I was thinking I should actually try to read early 19th century New England Protestant religious writings, not just for fanfic purposes but because I have a feeling a lot of those ideas still keep popping up in real life, and I don't mean just among religious people. I mean any time Cosmo or whoever starts talking about manifesting, I'm pretty sure that's originally from one of those weird 19th century fringe New England movements that thought you could cue cancer if you believed hard enough that you were healthy. (Also there's that one girl at work who it boggles me that she was evidently raised Catholic and now identifies as an atheist, because she has exactly the personality of someone who, if she lived in 1830s New England, would head off to the South Sea Islands to bring Jesus and pants to the poor benighted heathens because she loved them and cared about them but not in a way that involved actually taking their opinions seriously and no, I can't stand her, how can you tell?)

Drawerfic is fan fiction that is never shown to other fans, or that is only shown to a few friends (and then it may be also called a "pass-around" or "underground story").

Drawerfic is rarely later posted online or published in a zine.

faience (≈5k words) by aerialiste fandom: Ancient Egyptian RPF category: F/F rating: explicit warnings: chose not to use archive warnings relationships: Cleopatra VII of Egypt/original female character tags: femslash, Greek and Roman mythology, master/slave, Ptolemiac Egypt, ancient Egyptian literature and mythology summary: