something queer going on

The "Ed's spa day" story continues to be in progress. I had to rearrange the order of events, but there's conversation tied to those events that needs to not be rearranged, so I've been tinkering away.

This is a newly added bit, on warmth:

"Why're you so into fireplaces?" Ed asks, as Stede starts combing his hair out again. "You grew up in Barbados."

"I went to school in England. I was cold all the time that first winter. Most of the winters, in fact, though I got more accustomed to it. We were allowed a fire in the common room, and occasionally I was even able to get near enough to it to make a difference."

"Being cold's the worst." When Ed was little it always seemed to be cold and raining, even snow sometimes. The warm spot by the stove was his dad's place, when his dad was there at all and not in the warm tavern instead. But then there was the north, the sun and warmth almost year round, and a few years after that he was in the Caribbean. He hasn't been cold, not really cold, since he was a boy.

"Where did you grow up, Ed?"

"On ships, mostly."

From the Ed/Stede "spa day" story. Pedicure time has arrived; Ed has doubts.

"Have you ever really thought about feet?" Stede has a whole little setup by the footbath--some towels, a low stool to sit on, nail scissors and another oil bottle and what as far as Ed can tell is just a rough black rock.

"Pretty much never."

"We use them very hard and take very little care of them. We should be kinder to our feet."

"Mine are beyond kindness." Ed's worn heavy leather boots for thirty years, and never soaked in a foot bath with pine-smelling oil until today.

"Nonsense." Stede guides one of Ed's feet out of the bath and sets it in his towel covered lap. And it's too much, the sight of his hairy toes, thick nails, and calluses. Ed reclaims his leg and tucks his foot well back, under the chair.

Another bit from the current Izzy-centric WIP. He's about fifteen here; he's just had a promotion and is about to have a disappointment.

He lay awake most of the night in the unfamiliar company of the only other midshipman, who'd greeted him with a skeptical grunt and, later, eaten boiled eggs for supper without offering Izzy any. He'd quizzed Izzy about his family and made it clear that he was a gentleman's son. "Then why don't you behave like one?" Izzy'd asked, and in the following scuffle he'd come off much the worse, being smaller and younger. Somehow he'd expected that midshipmen might be polite, might be civil, not like filthy-minded, filthy-mouthed foremast jacks, but he'd been wrong.

I have a WIP again, so here's a bit of it. Our Flag Means Death, of course. Ed POV.

( a wedding under the cut )

I almost forgot it was Sunday. (I took a long weekend for my birthday and I keep finding myself confused about what day it is.)

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the WIP, the first draft of which is nearly done.

A bit of Buttons' past, ( under the cut )

I have a WIP again. Which, mercifully, does not look like it's going to turn huge on me.

It's Buttons + ensemble, gen in the sense that it's not primarily a pairing fic, but a lot of it's about gender and sexuality. And witchcraft.

Buttons and Stede have a little chat, ( under the cut )

I've given up estimating when the WIP will be done. I'm working on it every day!

Hoping we won't all be heartily sick of it by the time it's finished.

In today's little excerpt, set post-canon, Ed and Stede have a conversation. It does not go as planned.

( under the cut )

This may be the last one for this WIP, as it approaches being actually, finally done!

Under the cut, Ed tells Stede about his tattoos. And stuff.

( Click here )

Some sentences from my WIP. Ed and Izzy are drinking together to celebrate taking a ship full of fancy cargo.

( Under the cut )

I swear Stede really is in this fic. But not until about halfway, and I haven't gotten that far in my revisions yet. The early sections of the fic have needed a lot of work, because when I was writing them I didn't know yet where the story was going. So there've been a lot of additions, and "the tone of this needs to be different" and "this scene needs to happen earlier except for this part, which now needs to be attached to this other scene," and in one case throwing out a whole scene that didn't work emotionally and replacing it with a new one.

Current word count: 36,545. Will probably grow a bit yet.

Six Some sentences from my WIP, ( under the cut )