No one in their right minds would ever expect it of him, and that’s why he’s the one best-suited to the job.

“Wade and I have a tradition whenever one of us turns out not to be dead.” She smiles at Cable politely. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” “And by dinner, she means bare minimum twelve hours of the most animalistic ravaging of each others’ naughty bits that you can see outside Bangkok, big boy. Really putting the freak in fan-freaking-tastic multi-orgasmic cum-marathon.” “So what do you say?” Cable grinds his jaw for a second, but honestly, who would pass up these A-listers? “Why the hell not?”

The dead fell. The dead fell, and Gendry’s heart was racing, pounding so hard inside of his chest that he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Silence crept across the courtyard and the sound of his heart beating only got louder. Puffs of air left his lips in tiny, gasping breaths as he stared down at the mountain of bodies below. Next to him, Tormund, the ginger wildling who had somehow wound up next to him atop the heap, spun in a circle, surveying. Across the courtyard, Gendry could hear someone shout, “What is this?” “Is this a trick?” Someone else responded. “He did it,” Tormund breathed. His voice was as soft as a whisper. Gendry turned to him, his heart still pounding in his chest and his fingers still wrapped around his hammer so tightly that he could seldom tell where his skin began and the shaft ended. Tormund’s blue eyes turned to him, wide, joyous. “That bloody crow did it.” Gendry couldn’t speak.

Lan Wangji had never had call to perform the spell of silent communication before he and Wei Wuxian joined together to fight Xuanwu. He figured it was temporary. Spoiler alert: it wasn't. Or: the AU in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian psychically bond in the cave, Wei Wuxian overhears Lan Wangji thinking about the fact that he actually likes him, and after several minutes of confusion, is fully on board with this.

Shang Qinghua goes to take a self-indulgent peek at his baby protagonist son and gets a kick to the shrivelled heart for his troubles. He gave up on changing the story years ago! Yet he finds himself helping his protagonist son's adoptive mother anyway. Just this one change won't matter too much, right? One little change leads to more. Shang Qinghua never meant to care, but he becomes invested in making sure that his new family survives the looming plot. With the changes to the world cascading around him, with his position as a traitor pulling him between his sect and a certain ice demon, and with the protagonist growing up so quickly, how is one displaced author meant to ensure that everything turns out all right? A Pre-Canon to Canon Divergence story.

Not even two days later, Fox revised his opinion. This wasn’t a disaster. This was a Grade-A, first order, fresh off the hot plate fuckfest. Fox’s day had gone something like this: lay in bed. Get up. Knock back some of the sludge in the mess masquerading as caf. Go through forms. Fill out forms. Bust open a closet in which the Senators for Uyter and Kinyen had both managed to get “stuck” in. Go through more forms. Fill out more forms. Get called up to the Senate dome to tell a Senator that no, the Guard did not address noise complaints. Find that the stack of datapads on his desk had somehow tripled over the last two hours. Despair at the state of his inbox. Etcetera, etcetera. And then.