Hi everyone! Here is the whole chapter list for The Saturated Iris, a F/Reader x Medicine Seller Fic!
Any chapters with the * symbol are NSFW, but each chapter has its own warnings. Please check them before reading for your comfort.
Also I noticed while making this, I forgot to upload a whole ass chapter. Chapter 27 has the AO3 link instead of tumblr, im too lazy to upload it now. Apologies.
Links are embedded in the chapter numbers. Have fun, lovelies <3
Act 1: The Oarfish
Chapter 1: The Typhoon
Chapter 2: The First Rain
Chapter 3: Lantern Oil
Chapter 4: The Catalyst
Chapter 5: Bruised Palms
Chapter 6: Bare Bones
Chapter 7: Form, Truth, and Reason
Chapter 8: Into the Abyss
Chapter 9: The Pit
Chapter 10: Truth
Act 2: Threading Hairs
Chapter 11: The Mountain Pass
Chapter 12: A test of Patience
Chapter 13: Distractions
Chapter 14: Night Terrors
Chapter 15: Breaking Points*
Chapter 16: Frustrations
Chapter 17: Malevolence
Chapter 18: Purification/Corruption
Chapter 19: Ten Wings
Chapter 20: Shared Breath*
Chapter 21: The Man In the Wall
Chapter 22: Pale Water
Act 3: The Ventriloquist
Chapter 23: Investigation
Chapter 24: Moonlight*
Chapter 25: The Witness
Chapter 26: Reunited*
Chapter 27: The Curtain Rises, We Fall
Chapter 28: Sins of the Past
Chapter 29: The Final Lie
Chapter 30: What Lingers
Act Four: The Phoenix
Chapter 31: Balancing Act
Chapter 32: Contract Work
Chapter 33: The Ghosts
Chapter 34: The Yearly Festival
Chapter 35: Gasoline and Matches
Chapter 36: Scorcher
Chapter 37: Have You Been Waiting Long For Me?
Chapter 38: Drift With Me
Chapter 39: Euclid
Chapter 40: Home
Thank you all for sticking with this fic, and for being so wonderful along the way. And to any new readers, I hope you enjoy your time with my writing! It brought me a lot of joy to create. Happy Holidays, my loves!
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The Mortifying Ordeal Of Spiraling Over Your Husband’s Terrible (In)Experience With Women
It was the same thing every time they came over for game night, and yet, Ilya always took a minute to just…breathe it in. It was entering a home with cookies in the oven; that scrumptious, sweet scent that warmed every corner. It was the aroma of bonfire on their clothes after they were outside at the cottage. It was that distinct Shane smell when he woke up first thing in the morning and barely opened his eyes.
Ilya set the table earlier while Shane helped Yuna finish the salad. David made everyone some sort of whiskey drink he read about in the New York Times. Anya was curled up in front of the TV on the little bed Yuna had bought her, chewing on a toy.
Tonight, they would be playing Codenames. It would be Shane and Ilya vs. David and Yuna. A few weeks ago, they played Euchre and it had been Ilya and David against Yuna and Shane.
They started consistent game nights once Shane moved back to Ottawa. It had to be one of Ilya’s favorite ways to spend time together. He’d never had game nights growing up and when they had the first one back when they started dating, Ilya was a little confused by it. What was so fun about sitting around playing a board game? Especially when there were too many rules and were so over the top, it was easy to lose interest before they even started.
But by the end of that first night as the four of them played Yahtzee, Ilya had his answer.
Sitting with them as they argued over the rules, David introducing them to some new fancy drink, Yuna getting a little too into the game, Shane’s confused and angry kitten expressions when he didn’t understand the goal of the game, like so much of his life now, Ilya’s not sure how he lived without it.
This was his family.
“So what’s new?” Yuna asked as they sat down to dinner. She dished out wild rice to everyone’s plates while David cut up the salmon.
“We went to farmer’s market and ran into Shane’s ex-girlfriend,” Ilya announced before Shane could cut in.
Shane was pouring sparkling water with lemon into Ilya’s glass and spilled it. He hurriedly cleaned it up with stray napkins, sputtering apologies.
“I couldn’t not tell them,” Ilya said with a little shrug. “Yuna asked what was new.”
“We tried a new miso salmon recipe! That’s new! You’re working on perfecting a new skill on the ice, that’s new! Anya did—”
“Yes, yes, but this is important. I want to hear what your parents think of your ex-girlfriend.”
Shane frowned and it wasn’t his little angry kitten frown, but the concerned one, so Ilya quickly turned back to Yuna who was still dishing out wild rice as if nothing they said held any real interest to her. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe they didn’t even know about—
“Which one?” Yuna asked. “I hope it wasn’t that Carrie. I ran into her mother a few years ago and—”
“Carrie?” Ilya raised an eyebrow at Shane. He had never heard of this Carrie just like he had never heard of this Katie.
“Shane’s first girlfriend,” David supplied.
“Why are we talking about this? Again? It was such a long time ago.”
“Because,” Ilya said. He wanted to say something snarky, but the words were sticky and bitter on his tongue. How could he explain the churning in his stomach? How could he explain the discomfort when that woman looked at his Shane like that? How could he explain the predatory urge crawling through his body because he couldn’t claim every part of Shane?
“So how is Katie?” Yuna asked.
“Still in love with Shane. She picked her husband out to look like Walmart version of him,” Ilya explained as nonchalantly as he could. He took a bite of wild rice, which he usually loved, but it was hard and tasteless in his mouth.
Yuna and David laughed as Shane glared.
“That’s not true. She’s not— she’s married! And has kids!”
“You did break up with her so suddenly. I guess I can see why she always held a candle for you,” David said.
“Well now she makes candles. Maybe you are the reason for that too,” Ilya mused.
“That’s not—you’re being ridiculous.”
“How am I being ridiculous?” Ilya demanded. “I am just curious about my husband’s dating life.
Lucanis came to his senses standing in the middle of the dining hall with his mouth tasting as if he had chewed on - and swallowed - wet hay, introducing him to a previously unexplored level of disgust. There was a Tevinter curse which, as he'd once heard, roughly translated to "You shit on my tongue". Very precise.
"Mierda. Spite, what did you—?"
The demon didn't show himself, content with silently giggling somewhere out of sight and leaving his host to deal with the consequences of his mischief.
Lucanis sighed quietly and turned to the only other person present, both dreading and awaiting an explanation on what Spite had been up to.
What warmed his heart was Rook's face smiling at him shyly and a bit guiltily. Not an ounce of fear in those open features. Her eyes, blue as the sky he'd been dreaming of for a year, gazed back at him. She was holding a cup of... Of course. Tea.
"Spite didn't do anything," Rook said after a short bout of silence, trying and failing to stop smiling.
He loved when she did that. Loved it no less than her genuine wide smiles, and the tight-lipped ones she sent him every time he quipped something dry and witty that chagrined the others yet unexpectedly delighted her, and the ones that showed her teeth, and the dangerous "I'm about to make your day a lot worse" grins reserved for their enemies, and...
"Is that so?" He couldn't stop himself from practically purring in response and felt Spite do the same in the back of his mind. "Then what is this... unique flavour that I am currently suffering?"
Her smile became smaller, guilt more pronounced. She glanced to the side.
"Spite wondered what I'm drinking. He wanted a taste."
Lucanis snorted, barely catching himself in time. It was no matter of his that on occasion she made herself his least favourite beverage in all of Thedas, foregoing the cioccolata calda supply he'd stocked specially for her. He should have anticipated Spite to leap at the opportunity to try something edible, unlike those wax candles, for no other reason than Lucanis strongly disliking it.
"...Sorry," Rook muttered, her smile gone at the lack of a verbal answer. "I shouldn't have, but I thought it would be no harm."
You. Upset. Rook! Spite cackled at him gleefully, swimming into vision in a splotch of purple, taunting him with a wide wicked grin.
Mierda. He'd go insane with those two.
"It is no trouble. It's not as if he drank poison."
The sky-blue eyes went wide before she caught the (slightly dubious) joke. She coughed awkwardly and took a sip from her cup, but Lucanis saw the corners of her lips curling up behind it.
"Good thing we're not at the Cantori Diamond then. Teia once mentioned that if I wanted to drink something there, the beverage would need to be checked first. Not sure Spite would wait long enough for that."
Rook would never. Poison us.
Of course she wouldn't, Lucanis thought back, exasperated.
The thought caught him off guard. Not that he suspected anyone at the Lighthouse was out to get him, other than to put the abomination down for good, but he'd never expected it from Rook in spite of all of his training and common sense.
"What was his verdict?" He chose to backtrack before he could say something unflattering about Viago's habits and sour the mood further.
Rook chuckled. A sound he found endearing, too.
"Spite drank the whole cup then said he doesn't understand it."
Why. So many. Tastes! Why. All. The fuss! Spite grumbled.
Strange. He never said that about Lucanis making a new pot of coffee or cooking with many ingredients despite it being a daily occurrence. Yet the demon seemed transfixed by the liquid in the cup, looking into it over Rook's shoulder, as if trying to unravel its mysteries.
Rook shook her head, oblivious to their inner turmoil.
"Either he shares your palate, or it's just not..."
Lucanis groaned.
"Don't you dare finish that sentence."
She lifted the cup to her lips and took a long sip, eyes twinkling with mischief, as if she was physically keeping herself from tormenting him with another terrible pun.
He didn't even have it in him to feel angry when she slightly lowered the cup so he could read her lips mouthing the accursed words:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Title: An Incurable Affliction
Rating: Teen and Up
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Word count: 4600 words
Warnings: None
Summary:
When Gaius has to go away for a week, Merlin is left in charge of the castle infirmary—cleaning the leech tank, mixing the potions and caring for patients all by himself. The only bright side is that it means he gets to have a break from Arthur, which he hopes will give him time to get over his inconvenient crush on the unattainable prat prince once and for all. Unfortunately for Merlin, however, it turns out that Arthur has no intention of doing without him for so long.
Excerpt:
‘Help’ in Arthur’s world obviously meant something different than it did in Merlin’s; it was possible he had confused the term with ‘be as much of a condescending prat as possible.’ Taking a deep breath, Merlin said as evenly as he could,
“Arthur. Sir Olwin always drinks his potion all in one go—he’s blind as a bat and never listens to directions, so Gaius has given up trying to make him. We always give him a diluted version of the purgative to be on the safe side. He would have been fine without your ‘help’.”
“Oh.” For a second, Arthur only blinked at him, looking—of all things—almost disappointed. Then he shrugged. “Well, at least someone has the good sense to plan for these things, I suppose. But so long as I’m here, I might as well supervise you anyway. Lord knows what you might get up to if I left you to your own devices.”
He smirked at Merlin then, clearly daring him to argue, and Merlin wondered darkly how Arthur would feel about being turned into a fish. At the very least, not being able to breathe above water might shut him up for a while, and Merlin was bound to have far less desire to kiss him if he were all wet and scaly.
“That really isn’t necessary, sire,” he said, with as little inflection as he could manage. “I wouldn’t want to take you away from your duties.”
“Don’t be silly, Merlin.” Arthur, still smiling, clapped him heartily on the back. “A good ruler should take the time to understand everything that goes on in his kingdom. Even the mundane, inconsequential parts.”
At the Penteverall, Occtis Tachonis dreams of the time that his family had sent their most expendable child to ride with Royce's Wild Hunt, only he cannot seem to remember whether he was the child or the fox charging through the twilit forest.
All the sundered houses are incredibly dangerous and I think Royce at the height of their power were equally so. Here's an exploration of how that danger could have manifested through Occtis' childhood eyes. Yes, Julien Davinos does make a sex joke and yes Aranessa is a little terrifying. Please come and play in the space with me
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Shane tried again. He went even lighter, and slowly, as soft as butter, the bike began to roll forward. The engine roared as he worked through it, and then, while it moved forward, he began to turn the handlebars to the right.
Now he was moving in a circle around Ilya. It was stop-and-go, and sometimes he’d jolt a little out of formation, but by the third rotation he was able to keep a consistent pace.
“Look at you go, malysh!” Ilya beamed, his eyes still watching protectively, but a smile broke across his face as he moved his body with Shane’s circles. He made sure his back was never to Shane, and Shane was moving at a slow enough pace that wasn’t getting dizzy.
At the praise, Shane went a little faster. Ilya was still smiling, but stopped following Shane with his body. Instead, he stood still and watched with only his eyes. Shane enjoyed seeing the flash of the Harley-Davidson logo on his back, or the look Ilya would give when they met eyes over his shoulder.
Captive in Angband, Maedhros finds himself in a very odd situation; A plaything for Melkor's moods, used by every denizen of the fortress for their own ploys, and unwittingly part of a lovers spat between the Dark Lords. There is no way for him to escape unscathed or for Angband to be left unchanged.
They looked up at him as Maglor entered the sick room, Fingon beside Maedhros, as always, though he was carefully not touching any part of their bodies together and the blankets bunched thickly between them.
Maglor set the bowl of warm broth down on the table beside the bed, with a plain spoon, rounded and undecorated and unable to hurt anyone. Maedhros did not often use the spoon, clumsy as he was with his left hand and unused to holding anything.
He went to the window and drew the curtains, shrouding the room in shadows. He was always drawing them for Maedhros’s comfort, and Fingon was always opening them to ‘let in some of the sun’s healing rays’.
Fingon stood, awkwardly eyeing Maglor in that way that told him there would be a long discussion of his brother’s progress soon to follow. At least he still took his cue to leave them to it, and shut the door behind him. Maedhros had told him it was hard to eat with him watching.
