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Entry tags:
September [OTP23]
Title: The Visitors
Fandom: Temeraire
Characters/Ship: Laurence/Tharkay, Laurence & Temeraire & Tharkay
Word count: ~1k words
Summary: Modern with dragons AU. In most cases, meeting the human family members is probably less terrifying than meeting the dragon ones. This is not most cases.
Notes: In retrospect, it's not that I fell off the bandwagon that's surprising, it's that it took me until September to crash and burn. But, hey, the year's not over yet! Here's September, and I have another short, silly offering for October drafted and nearly ready to post, so just two more fics to go, and four weeks left in the year! The prompts for September: high school/college sweethearts | hurt/comfort | meeting the family | "i wrote this for you" | flood | shifter AU.
Will met Tenzing in Macau in the heat of August, with the sea in the air and stones weighing in his stomach. Will was standing at the docks, watching as his summer of travelling through China faded farther away with every grain of sand tugged by the waves, and in that moment, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than the future that awaited him at home in England.
He was so caught up in his misery that he didn’t even notice that he wasn’t alone until the other boy spoke. “Dramatic, aren’t you?”
Will’s head snapped up to see dark eyes taking him in with dry amusement. “Would you believe that it’s unseasonably cold today?” the boy continued, gesturing to Will’s sweat-soaked hair and discarded jacket. “I wonder how you’d handle real heat.”
For several stressful weeks of self-discovery near the end of sixth form, those words would play in Will’s head on repeat as he shivered his way through different layers of nuance and different, novel directions the conversation could have taken from there.
At the time, though, any innuendo was lost on him as he stiffened in offence. “I assure you, I’m perfectly well acclimated. I’ve been here for months.”
The other boy tilted his head to the side in a cascade of long, black hair. “Missing home, then?”
“No,” said Will shortly.
The other boy’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah.”
They sat there together in silence until the boy evidently decided he needed to go, though there had been no signal, no buzzing alarm or dinging calendar notification, or even a quick check of the time. He simply stood and said, “There’s always uni. You could go somewhere too far for them to visit.”
Will didn’t ask how he knew it was a them problem rather than a there problem. “And where would that be?”
The boy looked down at him solemnly. “I’m trying for the University of New South Wales. If that’s not far enough, I guess my only option is Antarctica.”
Will laughed, and the boy left. They didn’t exchange numbers, or handles, or even names. Really, nothing groundbreaking had occurred. It was just one short afternoon together spent nearly entirely in silence.
But it stayed in Will’s mind as he finally received the text telling him that Temeraire had left his lessons and was able to receive human guests, and it stayed in Will’s mind as he stared out the window of his long flight to Heathrow, and it stayed in Will’s mind through school, and A-levels, and his arrival in Sydney.
He had felt this before, this sensation of fingers gently guiding his fate to form a different shape. Then, he had met Temeraire, and so he wasn’t surprised when he opened the doors of the library and nearly ran directly into a face that shouldn’t be so familiar years later.
He wondered if he should play at not remembering, but then the boy said, “Oh, it’s you.”
Will smiled at him. “I took your advice,” he said. He let himself look at the other boy, and it still felt strangely gratifying to finally understand why he was suddenly growing so warm, why he was suddenly so aware of the sound of his own breathing, why his stomach was suddenly twisting itself into knots. “I hope it really is far away enough.”
The boy had noticed him looking, and his eyebrows had raised, but he wasn’t drawing back. “No unwanted visitors so far.”
Coyness was a rather unexplored social affect for Will, but the statement had seemed like approbation. The problem was, he didn’t know what to do next. “That’s good,” he said awkwardly.
The boy’s lips finally twitched into a tiny smile. “I agree.” He did draw back then, but only to let Will over the threshold. “Why don’t I show you around?” he suggested as the library doors clanged shut behind them. “It’s easy to get lost in the stacks, and I’m an excellent guide.”
The advantage of his sunburn was that it was probably hiding his blush.
This time, they did get around to introductions. Eventually.
Will told Temeraire about Tenzing right away, but that hardly counted as a confession. Since their fateful meeting long ago, there had always been a total and unfiltered line of communication between them, and having already told Temeraire about his interest in genders other than female, it wasn’t such a huge thing to share that he had a… well, a boyfriend. That’s what they were. They had discussed it and come to a consensus that that’s what they were, so… Will had a boyfriend. Regardless, telling Temeraire hadn’t been a big deal, despite Temeraire proceeding to nearly cause an international incident—again—when he insisted on meeting Tenzing straight away.
Will told his parents on his graduation day, four years into their relationship. He didn’t want to, and he hadn’t intended to at all, but they kept talking over him about their plans for his future until he snapped.
(“Well,” said Temeraire, later, “It’s probably good that you told them now rather than right before the wedding.”
“Or,” added Tenzing with his trademark sardonic smirk, “after the wedding.”
“Wedding?” asked Will, blinking rapidly.)
“I won’t be returning to England,” he told his parents firmly. “I’ll be staying in Australia to be near my boyfriend.”
Will had expected yelling. Instead, he received a long silence. He waited it out grimly.
“I am certain I misheard you,” said his father, the dark warning in his tone making it clear that he was quite certain that he hadn’t misheard, but he was willing to pretend that he had.
“My apologies,” said Will insincerely. “In that case, I shall repeat myself louder.”
He didn’t get the chance to make good on that promise, however, as his mother then spoke. “Will… It’s not Temeraire, is it?”
For a moment, Will was too stunned to speak. His silence was taken as confirmation, and his mother breathed out shakily as his father got on with the much anticipated yelling.
“He is a dragon. A giant, flying lizard. And you—you—surely you can see that this is absurd?”
It was, really, though likely the source of his bewilderment was different from his father’s. Will loved Temeraire with the endless depth of the oceans, but even setting aside certain concerns of sexual incompatibility, Will’s love for Temeraire had a different texture to it than his love for Tenzing.
Will’s mother had a tentative, shaky tone to it when she finally spoke again. “I didn’t realise that Temeraire was in Australia.”
Will decided to simply ignore his father for the moment. “Just for graduation,” he confirmed. “He’ll be going back to China after. We’ve discussed following along, but for now, I’ve gotten a job with a shipping company here, and Tenzing—my boyfriend—is attending postgraduate school at the University of Sydney.”
This statement was followed by another period of silence, though it was shorter and less tense than the previous one.
“And this Tenzing is human, is he?”
“I honestly haven’t asked,” Will told his father irritably.
“Boy—”
“Perhaps the two of you can come visit sometime soon,” interrupted his mother. “It would be lovely to meet him.” She hesitated for just a moment. “That is, I assume you’re serious about one another?”
“Very.” He added, slightly begrudgingly, “And of course we’ll try to find a time to visit, if you’ll have us.”
“Always,” said his mother firmly.
After what must have been a substantial prod from his mother, his father mumbled, “Yes, fine,” and then, “This is meant to be your home, after all,” managing with his typical dexterity to turn a promise of open doors into an accusation of malingering.
Overall, the conversation had gone better than he’d been expecting, and certainly better than he’d feared during all those nights that Tenzing had held him silently as he shook himself apart.
It was nearly a full year and many polite inquiries from his mother later that they finally booked their flights to Heathrow.
“Well, that’s one family down,” said Will as he entered the dates into their calendar. “Should we take a train up to Scotland to see your cousins as well?”
“Go ahead, if you wish, but you’ll be going alone,” said Tenzing from where he was reclining on the bed, watching Will.
“Once you’ve met my father, you’ll realise your cousins aren’t so bad after all,” Will told him, smiling despite himself.
Tenzing hummed distractedly. “It’s more likely to be the other way around. Your father seems rather direct in his dislike, at least. You’ll find my cousins to be much more two-faced.”
“Will I?” asked Will. “Then you’ve decided to go after all?”
Tenzing tossed a pillow at him lazily. “Don’t try to trick me using grammar—I’m better at it than you are.”
He was, but that didn’t mean Will was going down without a fight.
(They did go up to Scotland. Tenzing’s cousins were as awful as promised.)
Will married Tenzing in Macau in the heat of August, with the sea in the air and stones weighing in his heart.
“I still can’t believe everyone came,” said Tenzing darkly, holding Will’s hand as they watched their guests dancing across their rented ballroom. “I told you we should have gone to Antarctica.”
When Will didn’t reply, Tenzing looked over at him, frowning. After a moment of studying Will’s face, Tenzing’s brow cleared, and he gave one of his tiny smiles. “You’re being dramatic again, aren’t you?”
“No,” lied Will, his voice a little raspy from holding back tears.
Tenzing pulled Will into him, and they stood there together, swaying in each other’s arms. “Missing home, are you?” asked Tenzing softly.
Will shook his head, the movement making his nose brush against Tenzing’s soft hair. “I’m already there.”
Fandom: Temeraire
Characters/Ship: Laurence/Tharkay, Laurence & Temeraire & Tharkay
Word count: ~1k words
Summary: Modern with dragons AU. In most cases, meeting the human family members is probably less terrifying than meeting the dragon ones. This is not most cases.
Notes: In retrospect, it's not that I fell off the bandwagon that's surprising, it's that it took me until September to crash and burn. But, hey, the year's not over yet! Here's September, and I have another short, silly offering for October drafted and nearly ready to post, so just two more fics to go, and four weeks left in the year! The prompts for September: high school/college sweethearts | hurt/comfort | meeting the family | "i wrote this for you" | flood | shifter AU.
Will met Tenzing in Macau in the heat of August, with the sea in the air and stones weighing in his stomach. Will was standing at the docks, watching as his summer of travelling through China faded farther away with every grain of sand tugged by the waves, and in that moment, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than the future that awaited him at home in England.
He was so caught up in his misery that he didn’t even notice that he wasn’t alone until the other boy spoke. “Dramatic, aren’t you?”
Will’s head snapped up to see dark eyes taking him in with dry amusement. “Would you believe that it’s unseasonably cold today?” the boy continued, gesturing to Will’s sweat-soaked hair and discarded jacket. “I wonder how you’d handle real heat.”
For several stressful weeks of self-discovery near the end of sixth form, those words would play in Will’s head on repeat as he shivered his way through different layers of nuance and different, novel directions the conversation could have taken from there.
At the time, though, any innuendo was lost on him as he stiffened in offence. “I assure you, I’m perfectly well acclimated. I’ve been here for months.”
The other boy tilted his head to the side in a cascade of long, black hair. “Missing home, then?”
“No,” said Will shortly.
The other boy’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah.”
They sat there together in silence until the boy evidently decided he needed to go, though there had been no signal, no buzzing alarm or dinging calendar notification, or even a quick check of the time. He simply stood and said, “There’s always uni. You could go somewhere too far for them to visit.”
Will didn’t ask how he knew it was a them problem rather than a there problem. “And where would that be?”
The boy looked down at him solemnly. “I’m trying for the University of New South Wales. If that’s not far enough, I guess my only option is Antarctica.”
Will laughed, and the boy left. They didn’t exchange numbers, or handles, or even names. Really, nothing groundbreaking had occurred. It was just one short afternoon together spent nearly entirely in silence.
But it stayed in Will’s mind as he finally received the text telling him that Temeraire had left his lessons and was able to receive human guests, and it stayed in Will’s mind as he stared out the window of his long flight to Heathrow, and it stayed in Will’s mind through school, and A-levels, and his arrival in Sydney.
He had felt this before, this sensation of fingers gently guiding his fate to form a different shape. Then, he had met Temeraire, and so he wasn’t surprised when he opened the doors of the library and nearly ran directly into a face that shouldn’t be so familiar years later.
He wondered if he should play at not remembering, but then the boy said, “Oh, it’s you.”
Will smiled at him. “I took your advice,” he said. He let himself look at the other boy, and it still felt strangely gratifying to finally understand why he was suddenly growing so warm, why he was suddenly so aware of the sound of his own breathing, why his stomach was suddenly twisting itself into knots. “I hope it really is far away enough.”
The boy had noticed him looking, and his eyebrows had raised, but he wasn’t drawing back. “No unwanted visitors so far.”
Coyness was a rather unexplored social affect for Will, but the statement had seemed like approbation. The problem was, he didn’t know what to do next. “That’s good,” he said awkwardly.
The boy’s lips finally twitched into a tiny smile. “I agree.” He did draw back then, but only to let Will over the threshold. “Why don’t I show you around?” he suggested as the library doors clanged shut behind them. “It’s easy to get lost in the stacks, and I’m an excellent guide.”
The advantage of his sunburn was that it was probably hiding his blush.
This time, they did get around to introductions. Eventually.
Will told Temeraire about Tenzing right away, but that hardly counted as a confession. Since their fateful meeting long ago, there had always been a total and unfiltered line of communication between them, and having already told Temeraire about his interest in genders other than female, it wasn’t such a huge thing to share that he had a… well, a boyfriend. That’s what they were. They had discussed it and come to a consensus that that’s what they were, so… Will had a boyfriend. Regardless, telling Temeraire hadn’t been a big deal, despite Temeraire proceeding to nearly cause an international incident—again—when he insisted on meeting Tenzing straight away.
Will told his parents on his graduation day, four years into their relationship. He didn’t want to, and he hadn’t intended to at all, but they kept talking over him about their plans for his future until he snapped.
(“Well,” said Temeraire, later, “It’s probably good that you told them now rather than right before the wedding.”
“Or,” added Tenzing with his trademark sardonic smirk, “after the wedding.”
“Wedding?” asked Will, blinking rapidly.)
“I won’t be returning to England,” he told his parents firmly. “I’ll be staying in Australia to be near my boyfriend.”
Will had expected yelling. Instead, he received a long silence. He waited it out grimly.
“I am certain I misheard you,” said his father, the dark warning in his tone making it clear that he was quite certain that he hadn’t misheard, but he was willing to pretend that he had.
“My apologies,” said Will insincerely. “In that case, I shall repeat myself louder.”
He didn’t get the chance to make good on that promise, however, as his mother then spoke. “Will… It’s not Temeraire, is it?”
For a moment, Will was too stunned to speak. His silence was taken as confirmation, and his mother breathed out shakily as his father got on with the much anticipated yelling.
“He is a dragon. A giant, flying lizard. And you—you—surely you can see that this is absurd?”
It was, really, though likely the source of his bewilderment was different from his father’s. Will loved Temeraire with the endless depth of the oceans, but even setting aside certain concerns of sexual incompatibility, Will’s love for Temeraire had a different texture to it than his love for Tenzing.
Will’s mother had a tentative, shaky tone to it when she finally spoke again. “I didn’t realise that Temeraire was in Australia.”
Will decided to simply ignore his father for the moment. “Just for graduation,” he confirmed. “He’ll be going back to China after. We’ve discussed following along, but for now, I’ve gotten a job with a shipping company here, and Tenzing—my boyfriend—is attending postgraduate school at the University of Sydney.”
This statement was followed by another period of silence, though it was shorter and less tense than the previous one.
“And this Tenzing is human, is he?”
“I honestly haven’t asked,” Will told his father irritably.
“Boy—”
“Perhaps the two of you can come visit sometime soon,” interrupted his mother. “It would be lovely to meet him.” She hesitated for just a moment. “That is, I assume you’re serious about one another?”
“Very.” He added, slightly begrudgingly, “And of course we’ll try to find a time to visit, if you’ll have us.”
“Always,” said his mother firmly.
After what must have been a substantial prod from his mother, his father mumbled, “Yes, fine,” and then, “This is meant to be your home, after all,” managing with his typical dexterity to turn a promise of open doors into an accusation of malingering.
Overall, the conversation had gone better than he’d been expecting, and certainly better than he’d feared during all those nights that Tenzing had held him silently as he shook himself apart.
It was nearly a full year and many polite inquiries from his mother later that they finally booked their flights to Heathrow.
“Well, that’s one family down,” said Will as he entered the dates into their calendar. “Should we take a train up to Scotland to see your cousins as well?”
“Go ahead, if you wish, but you’ll be going alone,” said Tenzing from where he was reclining on the bed, watching Will.
“Once you’ve met my father, you’ll realise your cousins aren’t so bad after all,” Will told him, smiling despite himself.
Tenzing hummed distractedly. “It’s more likely to be the other way around. Your father seems rather direct in his dislike, at least. You’ll find my cousins to be much more two-faced.”
“Will I?” asked Will. “Then you’ve decided to go after all?”
Tenzing tossed a pillow at him lazily. “Don’t try to trick me using grammar—I’m better at it than you are.”
He was, but that didn’t mean Will was going down without a fight.
(They did go up to Scotland. Tenzing’s cousins were as awful as promised.)
Will married Tenzing in Macau in the heat of August, with the sea in the air and stones weighing in his heart.
“I still can’t believe everyone came,” said Tenzing darkly, holding Will’s hand as they watched their guests dancing across their rented ballroom. “I told you we should have gone to Antarctica.”
When Will didn’t reply, Tenzing looked over at him, frowning. After a moment of studying Will’s face, Tenzing’s brow cleared, and he gave one of his tiny smiles. “You’re being dramatic again, aren’t you?”
“No,” lied Will, his voice a little raspy from holding back tears.
Tenzing pulled Will into him, and they stood there together, swaying in each other’s arms. “Missing home, are you?” asked Tenzing softly.
Will shook his head, the movement making his nose brush against Tenzing’s soft hair. “I’m already there.”