but anyway

Have some Julian/Apprentice/Asra almost-threesome because I never got around to writing any of the spicy stuff. 

The beautiful Ashlyn for @ghostfacefun ♥ What a beautiful apprentice, I’m so happy to work on her (and with such a cute theme too!)

Rating: G Pairing: Julian + F!Apprentice Summary: A series of vignettes from the plague years. Chapter summary: In which one (1) overworked doctor takes on an apprentice.

Julian jolts awake.

No. No no no, when did he fall asleep? He can’t afford sleep, not when the city is being ravaged by plague! What sort of doctor is he?

He gazes forlornly at his journal. He’d been using it as a pillow, and the most recent pages are irreparably smudged. What was the last thing he’d written before nodding off? Damn it, he can’t remember! He might have discovered the cure, and now it’s lost forever because he couldn’t stay awake a bit longer. God, isn’t that just like him!

A loud knock interrupts his thoughts.

A patient.

Julian laughs bitterly, scrubbing at his eyes. Of all the doctors in Vesuvia, this poor soul decided to come to him.

Heaven help them.

“No. Run. Save yourself,” he mutters.

His visitor takes no heed, their knocks growing louder as he makes his way to the front door and flings it open.

A lovely young woman stands on his doorstep, her small fist poised to knock again. Her golden eyes are bright and alert, her complexion rosy, and nothing in her carriage suggests pain.

“Doctor Devorak, I presume?” Her voice is soft and clear, ruling out a number of ailments of the throat.

“At your service, Miss--?”

“Hale,” she says. She sticks out her hand. “Shayara Hale. I’ve come to help.”

Julian blinks.

She frowns slightly, letting the hand drop back to her side. “You’re treating those afflicted by the Red Plague, aren’t you? I want to help.”

“Oh. Ah… yes, I... Yes,” Julian says.

A job. She wants a job.

Well. He hadn’t been in the market for an assistant, but it couldn’t hurt to have an extra set of hands around, could it? He belatedly rakes his fingers through his unkempt curls, vaguely aware that he’s in no shape to conduct an interview. “Right, then. Languages spoken?”

“Er... just the one, I’m afraid,” Miss Hale says, her cheeks growing rosier. “Is that going to be a problem?”

It was totally irrelevant, in fact; it had just been the first question to pop into his drowsy mind. Julian opens his mouth to tell her as much, but decides to simply move on. “How many years of medical training have you had, Miss Hale?”

She looks a bit sheepish. “Oh. Well... none, actually. I’m a magician. But I’m quite skilled in potion-making and--”

Julian shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Hale. No offense, of course, I’m sure you’re absolutely marvellous at what you do, but this is a medical clinic. There’s no place for witchcraft here.”

She grasps his hand before he can close the door.

“Please,” she says, staring beseechingly up at him. “Doctor, this is my home. People I love are dying out there. I just… I can’t be useless.”

And whether it’s because Julian knows that feeling all too well, or because of how painfully his heart clenches at the sight of those big, sad eyes, he hears himself saying, “Fine,” before he quite realizes what he’s doing.

“Really?”

Apparently.

“You’ll be starting small,” he says firmly. “Learning the basics of medicine before I let you anywhere near anyone infected with plague.”

“Yes, of course, I would expect nothing less. Thank you, Doctor!”

“And I meant what I said. I’ll have none of your hocus pocus in my clinic.”

“You have my word,” Miss Hale says, crossing her heart.

Julian scrubs a hand over his face. “Right. I guess we’ll start your training, then? And I’m... going to need a lot of coffee.”

“Perfect,” Miss Hale says brightly, brushing past him in a rustle of skirts and a cloud of orange blossom perfume. “I make excellent coffee!”

So, he has an apprentice now? Is that what just happened?

Julian closes the door with a sigh and follows after her.

You know I’m in too deep when fic starts happening.

Rating: G Pairings: Current Asra x F!Apprentice, past Asra x Julian Summary: Julian just generally has a lot of feelings.

“Do you still have feelings for him?”

Julian starts, a hot flush rising in his cheeks. Of all the things he could have expected to hear from Asra’s little darling, that is perhaps the last.

Dread settles heavily in his heart as he turns to face her, but he finds no accusation in her warm golden eyes. No jealousy. No, she’s just regarding him calmly, a quizzical tilt to her pretty head, asking him an honest question.

God, he’s never been more uncomfortable in his life.

He opens his mouth, willing some clever deflection to emerge, but his tongue is lead. And his silence, it seems, is all the answer she needs.

Shayara smiles gently.

Julian wants to crawl under the floorboards and die.

“It’s alright,” she says.

It isn’t, actually. Quite the opposite, in fact: it’s The Worst, and Julian would absolutely love to tell her so provided he’s able to find his voice again before the earth swallows him whole.

“Julian,” she says softly, enfolding his hand in both of hers. “I’m glad he had you.”

He swallows hard as she rises up on her toes to kiss his burning cheek.

Julian, why are you such a goddamn joy to write?

Rating: G Pairing: Mention of F!Apprentice x Asra Summary: TFW the hardest part of your job is keeping your boss alive despite his best efforts. (Spoilers for the plague years.)

Dawn has not yet broken when Shayara lets herself in to the clinic.

Brundle, curled in her bed by the entrance, barely lifts her head in acknowledgement, and Shayara smiles wryly.

“You are an absolutely useless guard dog,” she says quietly, crouching down to scratch behind the hound’s floppy ears. Brundle thumps her tail loudly against the floor, unperturbed by the criticism.

Shayara continues deeper into the clinic, lighting the lamps as she goes. She finds Doctor Devorak in his office, already wide awake and scribbling frantically into his journal.

No, she realizes, noting his wan complexion and the purpling skin around his eyes. Already is the wrong word. He is still awake.

Shayara tuts disapprovingly as she sets her basket at the edge of his desk, but the doctor pays her no mind until she uncaps the carafe of fresh coffee she’s brought. At once, his weary grey eyes focus on her with the intensity of a bird of prey. He lets out a moan of pleasure.

“Dear girl, you are a goddess of mercy made flesh. Give it here.”

Shayara laughs, producing a pair of earthenware cups from her basket. She pours the steaming liquid--brewed double strength, just the way he likes it--into the larger, and passes it to him. She cries out in alarm as he downs the entirety one swig, but if it burns his throat he gives no indication of pain. Though perhaps, she supposes, the poor man is too exhausted to feel much of anything.

He hands the cup back to her. “More. Please,” he adds as an afterthought, looking slightly sheepish.

Shayara obliges, filling the cup once again. “I’ve brought breakfast.”

“No time for that,” Doctor Devorak says briskly, reaching for his cup. “I just need--”

“Ah!” Shayara scolds, holding the coffee aloft. “You will eat, or you will not get another drop.”

“There’s no time,” the doctor says, a whine creeping into his voice as he tries for the cup. Shayara raises it higher. “I’m so close to a breakthrough I can taste it.”

“And you’ll reach it all the faster on a full stomach.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, darling,” Doctor Devorak insists, making another half-hearted attempt for the coffee. “I’ll have you know I do all my best thinking in precisely this condition. I shall cure this plague or die trying.”

“And if you die trying--a likelier scenario by the day--who is going to carry on producing this cure you’re on to, hmm? Heaven knows I can’t read your writing.”

Doctor Devorak has no response to that.

Keeping the coffee just out of reach (it doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that he need only stand to seize it), Shayara one-handedly unpacks the hearty repast she’s brought: bite-sized egg tarts, cold meat and cheese, a loaf of bread, and butter and honey for the same. “Eat,” she says sternly. “Don’t test me.”

She lowers the cup as incentive, and Doctor Devorak accepts it gratefully, a crimson flush staining his pale cheeks.

“You... present a reasonable argument,” he mutters defeatedly, obediently selecting an egg tart from the spread.

Shayara stares him down until he’s taken a bite.

“Good man,” she says cheerfully, lowering herself into the chair in front of the desk. She pours her own coffee over a generous serving of cream, then sets about slicing the bread.

Shayara is exhausted and sore by the time she returns to the clinic in the evening. Even so, her work is not finished. There are medicines to prepare, instruments to sterilize, bandages and blankets to launder. She’ll be here well past midnight.

It’s overwhelming. All of it. The plague. The disrepair into which Vesuvia is falling. The desperation increasingly consuming every man, woman, and child. The wretched knowledge of how very little she and Doctor Devorak are really capable of against this pitiless disease.

Shayara rests her forehead against the dry plaster wall, and for a moment she allows herself to feel overwhelmed. To feel helpless. To fear for her Aunt Vee, already quarantined in the Lazaret. To miss Asra, wherever he’s gone, and wish fervently--selfishly--that she could feel his arms around her; that she could look into his sweet face and hear him tell her everything will be alright.

But only for a moment.

And when the moment has passed, Shayara plants her feet squarely on the weathered terracotta floor and makes herself breathe. In through the nose for the count of three, out through the mouth for the count of four. Her aura pulses, warm and soothing, to the rhythm of her breath, and gradually her anxiety is wicked away into the night.

When she has calmed herself suitably, she straightens. She glances at her basket, filled to the brim with soiled bedding and bandages, and hopes Doctor Devorak is in a helpful mood.

He is far from it, in fact, and Shayara must stifle a laugh when she finds the dear man fast asleep on the couch in his office (for which he is a foot too long), an enormous book clutched to his chest.

“Ah, well. You’ll be helping with the next round of washing,” Shayara whispers. She carefully prizes the tome from his long fingers, sets it on the table beside him, and fetches a clean blanket from the linen closet.

He stirs, mumbling inarticulately as she drapes the blanket over him.

“Shh,” she says, smiling as she tucks it snugly around his lean frame. His coloring has already improved, just a little. “Rest now.”

some new hair stylin for apprentice-cerise