Da Qing is <strike>looking for a mom</strike> wants to find a new lover for Zhao Yunlan, who is depressed after a bad break up.

Only Zhao Yunlan won’t cooperate, so what else is a cat to do but to matchmake?


It’s been three days since Zhao Yunlan was dumped and he’s still in an awful mood. Usually Da Qing would stay with him and snark at him until he snaps out of it, but Zhao Yunlan’s temper has been so bad that not even Da Qing can take it anymore.

After the first day Zhu Hong took leave because of “personal reasons” but Da Qing rather doubts that’s actually true. She probably didn’t have the patience to deal with their Chief throwing a tantrum, not that Da Qing can blame her.

Ten thousand years before he's even born, Zhao Yunlan falls in love, all over again for the first time.

Somewhere far below, Shen Wei is counting on him, and Zhao Yunlan is so fucking useless he can't even find a way to help him. He imagines a future without Shen Wei around to complain about the state of his fridge, bully him into eating vegetables, provide his effortlessly startling insights into SID's cases, and kiss him until he's nothing but a mass of nerve endings, and the thought makes the emptiness inside expand until it begins to swallow him.

Mei Changsu prepares to leave his lord, and Lin Shu prepares to leave his friend, to the care of Liu Yuzhuang.

After Mei Changsu’s death, the Jiangzuo Alliance disappears into the Pugilist world with his body. Jingyan decides to hold a private vigil, inviting those of them who had known and loved Xiao Shu. Marquis Yan, Yujin, Jingrui, and the Grand Princess must thus come to terms with the revelation that Mei Changsu was Xiao Shu, even as they make preparations to mourn him a second time. Spoiler: The man is not quite as dead as they think, and all of them must soon unite in a desperate race to save his life, as enemy forces try to eliminate him once more.

This was written for the following prompt as part of the 2018 NIF Exchange: Post-canon, fix-it verse. | Reactions of Yan family, Jingrui and Grand Princess Liyang (any of them, not necessary all four) to guessing/learning who MCS was and subsequent conversations with him. Bonus for extra angst about family resemblance between Princess Liyang and Princess Jinyang.

The Beloved Emperor Jing, His Imperial Majesty Xiao Jingyan-

Fair Ruler of the People,
Father of the Warriors,
The Breaker of Injustice,
and All That Encompasses Good

- would duly like to present to his people, his Esteemed Empress Liu and his Treasured High Consort Mei Changsu.

((For the prompt: Consort!Mei AU; he and the Empress gets along well and together they are a force to be reckoned with in the Inner Palace.))

Jingyan misses Xiao Shu in all the ways that matter but he cannot fall apart.

Surprisingly enough, Lin Chen can relate to that.

In the end, the smallest differences make the biggest changes.

(In the end, nothing changes and everything does.)

Meng’s messages to Jinling and Jingyan are short and carefully edited. He writes about the skirmishes that lead to battles and the battles that lead to stalemates. He writes about the snow, how it drifts in the valleys and low places, how it melts beneath the sun and freezes again during the night. He writes about his generals, his lieutenants, and his captains. He writes about his strategist.

He writes, Mei Changsu is a skilled tactician. His insights have led to profitable battles with low casualty rates. He silently mouths to himself, He can no longer ride a horse. I don’t know how he will travel back to Jinling, and then writes, With Mei Changsu’s assistance, we will win this war quickly and with lower costs than anticipated.

He says to himself, “Mei Changsu is the cost,” and then covers his mouth with his hand, the scales of his gauntlet pricking at his skin.

Such a cold response comes as a shock. He'd expected impassioned pleas from her-- he had been steeling himself to endure them. Instead, he is left to consider, with a sudden sense of foreboding, how formidable Nihuang could be as an enemy.
 
Post-series, alternate ending. Lin Shu ends his engagement with Nihuang. Nihuang lets him. Jingyan finds this unacceptable.

Out of time and options, the Divine Talent chooses to back a teenage prince with a very protective older sister.

Alternatively: In which Xiao Jingyan, Princess of Da Liang, keeps happening to her brother's strategist.

When Mei Changsu suggests that they should abandon an officer of the Chiyan Army because it is the strategically smart thing to do, Jingyan is ready to cut all ties with his strategist--until Lin Chen arrives with a message from Langya Hall: Mei Changsu's illness can be cured, but only through great risk and sacrifice.

Jingyan chooses to take that risk, because it is what a man of honor would do for a friend in need.

... of fucks to give.

Aka, Obi-Wan wakes up to relive his life, again.

Do you remember that mission? he wanted to say to Qui-Gon. But Qui-Gon had a new padawan to train. Obi-Wan hadn't seen him in a long time.

A peaceful mission develops some unforeseen complications, and Qui-Gon Jinn learns something new about Obi-Wan Kenobi, and something new about himself.

"Someday he's planning to visit every star in the galaxy." Obi-Wan stated this childish goal as if it were completely reasonable. "But I only want to show him a few, while I still can."

Obi-Wan is trying to secure his padawan's future, since the healers tell him he won't be around to witness it. Anakin's just trying keep from falling apart.

An Imperial officer loses a bet and has to get Darth Vader a present for Life Day.

"Maul was my pride, my greatest accomplishment aside from the political games that have wrought me control over the Republic. Why should I take a second apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why would you be worth my time?”

“Because I fucking hate you.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi has been through physical torture, but the psychological torture Asajj Ventress subjects him to is worse than any physical pain. Trapped in silence and darkness, the only means of communication he has relies on the language of touch--a language that not everyone understands.

Flint discovers Thomas is a passenger aboard the Maria Aleyne alongside his father, and events proceed from there.

The bite of pancake is delightfully buttery, with a tang from the cheese curds. Yuuri isn't sure what his expression is like, but Victor's smile brightens, and his phone goes up.

"Say syrniki!"

That photo's going to end up on Instagram in less than a minute. Yuuri ducks, and when Victor whips his phone to follow, Yuuri grabs Victor's elbow and drags him over so they're both caught in the shot. Victor laughs, a long line of warmth mashed up against Yuuri's side. He tucks his arm around Yuuri's waist and raises his phone again.

Victor uses variations of the same caption every time: Reexploring St. Petersburg with #katsukiyuuri #oneplateatatime

"You're ridiculous," Yuuri whispers, after the camera goes off.

Victor smiles. "Ridiculous, but yours."



(Yuuri has done the transcontinental uprooting of his life twice before and it's never easy, but this time there are photos plastered all over Victor's social media, explorations into Russian cuisine, shenanigans with the Russian figure skating national team, calls and messages from friends and family, and Victor, always.

Victor, on the other hand, mostly copes by watching Yuuri adapt to life in St. Petersburg).

Water:When it finally happens, Victor has already taken off his socks. “I feel better with bare feet,” he sighs, lying across the end of the bed as Yuuri closes the door.

Yuuri believes him. Victor always seems more comfortable naked; long limbs sprawling under the water of the onsen, the twist of his supple back, his toes pointed as he stretches. His body is beautiful, inhabited, possessed. It's like Yuuri can see every graceful move Victor’s ever made, glowing in an aura around him. Of course Victor wants his socks off. Victor makes everything seem easy.

Air: Victor falls in love lightly, easily. A note of music, a scent on the air. The curve of a hip, the touch of a hand. He falls in love for as long as it lasts, a summer or a winter. Once for a year; once for an afternoon.

The first thing he falls in love with is Yuuri Katsuki’s mouth, and everything follows after that.

Fire: He shares a bed with Victor Nikiforov in St. Petersburg, and they sleep in only their underwear, bare skin touching everywhere. Outside, the city is vast and cold and complicated, and the snow drifts on the banks of the river are high and deep. There's a silver medal hanging on the bedroom wall, a memory and a goad to something more, something better.

Yuuri rolls over, onto his belly.

Earth: Victor touches Yuuri again, less delicate now. He slides the flat of his hand over Yuuri’s broad thigh and then clasps it, fingers curving around the columned muscle to tuck into the taut, warm crevice beyond. Yuuri’s skin is damp here, thin and sensitive, and Victor drums his fingertips to make Yuuri shudder once more.

“I want you to ask me for something,” Victor says.

If Victor had listed important facts about himself, he’d have started with things like, ‘bestselling fantasy author,’ ‘great hair,’ ‘extrovert,’ ‘dog lover,’ and (if nobody else was listening) ‘lonely’.

Honestly, ‘a little bit psychic’ would have come pretty low down the list, even if he’d dreamed of actually telling anyone.

Or: the one where Victor meets the ghost of a poodle.

AU in which tattoo-like images appear on people’s skin to help them choose their path in life. Very rarely, a person turns out to be Void: one without pictures. Voids are regarded with suspicion and fear, because it is thought they have no soul and no future.

When Yuuri is discovered to be Void and his home town turns against him, he escapes into the world of figure skating. On the ice he can play the role of anyone and not be restricted by what he actually is, but off the ice it's a constant battle of trying to hide his true nature from the world.

In a world where soulmates are individuals connected on a spiritual level, able to communicate with variable degrees of empathy or telepathy, there is an appropriate time and rhythm for everything, even for a soulbond.
Yuuri knows this. Viktor will learn.

Victor meets Yuuri after the World Championships in Detroit and mistakes him for a male escort. Yuuri fails to correct him. (Canon-divergent AU)

Yuri turns and brandishes a damp sock at them. “Don’t let him sweet talk you into doing porn,” he tells Yuuri. Then he grimaces and mutters to himself in Russian, “I can’t believe my life has reached the point that I have to say things like this.”

FOR THE RECORD
by Viktor Nikiforov

What it takes to craft an Olympic Champion, and what it takes to be one.

Or: Viktor Nikiforov, sports journalist and retired figure skater, interviews Olympic Champion Yuuri Katsuki for an exclusive piece.

But everything felt different here, and Yuuri was ready for something different here. He was ready for everything.

Yuuri squeezed harder around Viktor’s waist and a loud pop! sounded from the skillet.

Yuuri’s libido was going to ruin dinner.

Mark Watney never manages to make contact with Earth and NASA never realizes that he survived the storm and evacuation on Sol 6. So, needless to say, the crew of the Ares IV is incredibly surprised when they land on Mars to find a scruffy, malnourished, mentally unbalanced, but still-alive astronaut waiting for them.

Yuuri thinks about kissing Victor again and starting over from square one. But Yuuri knows that Victor’s stamina isn’t as robust as Yuuri’s own, and he doesn’t quite feel bold enough to make demands while in Victor’s bed. But now that Yuuri is getting semi-regular sex, he finds that he really can’t stop thinking about it most of the time. It is, frankly, rather embarrassing. But also exhilarating to think that, somehow, Victor wants him. That, somehow, Victor is just as enthusiastic about sleeping with Yuuri, despite Yuuri’s complete lack of experience.

Or: that one time Yuuri discovered that he really likes Victor coming on him and doesn't know how to tell him.

Despite the fact they've been competing in the same competitions for years, Victor Nikiforov doesn't meet Katsuki Yuuri until the Sochi Grand Prix Final. On the other hand, there's a boy who's been watching him for years and Victor's desperate to know his name.

In which Victor pines, everybody drinks too much, and Yakov deserves a sainthood for putting up with these idiots. Basically, it's a decade's worth of near misses, misunderstandings, and pure obliviousness.

"They don't want it to be real," Laurent says. He touches lightly, with his fingertips, where he's written LOVE WINS. "They want us to sell them a fantasy, and they want just enough reality that they can pretend it might happen to them, one day."

It’s difficult to believe that he’s inspired people like this; that children and teenagers in Japan and around the world lace up their skates or put on skates for the first time and think of Yuuri Katsuki, just like they think of or thought of Victor Nikiforov. He almost can’t take it. It’s too unbelievable. He’s just… Yuuri, after all.

Yuuri Katsuki with a stack of gold medals is still just Yuuri Katsuki.

He can imagine Victor repeating the same words back to him with his own name and how he’d argue that is absolutely not the case, and he laughs inwardly a bit at that.

(The story in which Yuuri Katsuki wins everything there is to win and retires as Japan's living legend, because he's incredible and beautiful and he deserves it. Aka 'Yuuri wins all the gold', the fic.)

Viktor is trapped in a time loop during the Sochi GPF. And, unfortunately, in his coach's body.
“I know exactly what you’re doing, I’ve done it a million times,” Viktor says, with Yakov's voice, “don’t try to pull this disappearing act on me. You heard what I said. Now wait for me to come talk to you, Vitya.”
“No, no, service is terrible in here! If it’s anything about practice, text me.”
“You—“
“Bye, Yakov!”
There’s only a dial tone.
He stares, stunned, at his own image fading from the phone screen into black. That teasingly vacant tone, that dismissal of his coach, the cheerful greeting…
In this time loop, he’ll be dealing with Viktor Nikiforov. He’ll be dealing with… himself. And, apparently, a soulmate that won't reveal his true identity.
A groundhog day/body swap soulmate AU, where you switch bodies and the universe won't let time go forward until the soulmates meet in the "right way."

“If you want, I can recommend you some security programs that you can download for free and protect your computer. That way, you won’t be at risk of losing these cute photos of your dog even when you browse websites like ‘Luscious Lonely Wives’.”

Victor gives one long ‘haa’. “I don’t browse those websites,” he says through his straining smile.

--

the 'i will break any and all electronic devices that get into my hands if it means I get to talk to the cute tech support guy' fic

Chris visits Victor and Yuuri at their home in Saint Petersburg. It's been a long time coming.

Altschmerz
n. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

Yuuri has trouble adjusting to St. Petersburg.

Victor doesn’t want to intrude on the scene. He wants to observe. He wants, now that he thinks about it, to see how far they’ll go. He wants to watch Yuuri rendered incoherent with pleasure at Chris’s touch. He wants to see Yuuri admired and treasured and adored—and he wants to be, after all that, the person that Yuuri chooses in the end.

Viktor's soulmark starts to grow when he's 25 and researching his competitors for the upcoming Grand Prix Final, and spends the Sochi Olympics trying to figure out who his soulmate is, just to get it wrong.

And then he gets it right.

Turns out, figuring out the who was just the beginning.

A photo without context, a few careless words, an embellished article.

Thus was born the idea, so patently false it would have fit better in a politician's speech, that Yuuri hated Viktor.

“Can you switch to video?” Victor asks. “I want to show you something.”

A good friend would get Yuuri some pants. A good friend would let Yuuri take a second to get dressed and compose himself after getting walked in on like that. But Phichit isn’t a good friend; Phichit is Yuuri’s best friend.

"I don't mess with the fae," Otabek says.

"I'm not asking you to mess with them," JJ flat-out lies.

Yuri's first kiss was when he was sixteen, and in any accounting of kisses except chronological order, it wouldn't even rank. It hardly counted.

Viktor’s first kiss was when he was sixteen, and it changed his life.

“The first person in the world to land the first quintuple jump is already alive.”

It’s Yuuri’s turn to surprise the world. (No, he doesn’t do that.)

AU. Before the Grand Prix Final starts in Sochi, Yuuri finds Victor's phone. He returns it--and hijinks and heavy flirtation ensue.

(Just about everything that happens at the Sochi GPF happens here, so if something that happens there might bother you, check the tags?)

~~~
Yuuri hated looking at pictures of himself. His hair had started sticking up again. And he had that horrible star-struck smile on his face. Plus, he was blushing, and blushing always made him look so young.
“Aaaaaah.” Yuuri winced. “I look so…”

Victor winked at him. “Cute!”

Before Yuuri could protest, Victor dropped the photo into Instagram and started typing a caption.

My champion! I thought I lost my phone this morning, but look who returned it? Our very own…

Yuuri watched as Victor’s agile thumbs (so agile, and no, he was not going to think about what else Victor could do with them) stopped moving. That fan-struck part of him that had been screaming mentally in the back of his mind came to a slow halt.

Victor didn’t know his name.

Back in St Petersburg, Victor attempts to combine coaching Yuuri with preparing for his own return to competition. The spirit is willing but the flesh may be weak.

Katsuki Yuuri is not a tactile man. Anyone who’s spent a minute with him can tell you that much.

Victor, however—

To say that Victor is touchy-feely is the understatement of the century.

So when Victor just stops touching Yuuri, without explanation, without reason, it makes for a painfully jarring experience.

(Alternatively titled: Five Times Victor Hugs Yuuri, and the One Time He Doesn't)

His Grace the Archduke Yuri Plisetsky wins the Ballistic Grand Tournament in his debut year, at the age of fifteen.

Things go downhill from there.

Sequel to Stargazer.

At the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri misses the podium by fractions of a point. Embroiled in a skating controversy, he tells himself he'll prove his worth in the World Championships, but there's a long time in between.

Or: Vicchan lives.

Yuri hummed. His body didn’t uncurl, but instead of pressing his face into the fold of his legs, he rested it on his crossed forearms. Tilting his face towards Otabek, he looked for the bronze metal. The colorful ribbon snuck into the folds of his jacket, hiding his prize from view. Yuri reached out, and Otabek let him pull the ribbon to bring the metal into the light.

It was beautiful. Heavy and ornate, with the front masterfully detailed. The perfect symbol of success. Yuri flipped it over, admiring Otabek’s name carved along the back.

Wait.

“Did they spell your name wrong?” he demanded, straightening. Otabek made a noise beside him.

It takes three years for Yuri to figure himself out and get his head on right. He drags everyone along for the ride. Otabek is the only one to go willingly.

It's hardly a secret that Victor Nikiforov is a massive player.

(In which Yuuri doesn't blow the Grand Prix Finals the first time round, does blow Victor, and everything changes but ends up the same.)

AU in which Yuuri still doesn’t remember the banquet, somehow doesn’t blow Japanese Nationals, runs into Victor at the World Championships, and has absolutely no idea why his idol is suddenly friendly and incredibly handsy.

Does Yuuri care about his reasons? No. It’s Victor Effing Nikiforov.

Basically this is an excuse for total fluff. And porn. Happy birthday, Victor.

~~

Victor turned back to him, supernova smile in place once more. “I really, really like you. Promise you’ll still dance with me at the banquet if you take gold this time around.”

Yuuri stared at the man. He looked at their entwined hands—he hadn’t wanted to pull away—and their thighs, pressed together despite there being plenty of room in the backseat of the cab. That scent of Victor’s cologne—just a dab, lightly applied somewhere on his neck—swirled around him. This was too real to be a dream, too physical for him to have imagined it.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said slowly. “But…have we talked before?”

“Not all soldiers see the front lines,” Mum says, a touch uselessly. “Not all State Alchemists even serve in the field.”

Ed shakes his head. “It’s war in Ishval, Mum,” he says. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Mum does not live long enough to see the truth in Edward’s words. She doesn’t live long enough to see him throw away his principles, either, though, so there’s that.

(AKA, an AU where Ed was born several years earlier than in canon, finds himself in the military under a different set of circumstances, and discovers, aged 15, just how much war changes things.)

“My name’s Eggsy—I mean, Guinevere Unwin,” she says. “I’m—I’m in Holborn Police Station and—my mum said to call—“

Every time Edward sees the circle on the back Mustang's hand, he wants to scream, wants to reach across the desk and shake him, wants to wrap his hands around the older man's throat and ask if it was worth it, if this desk and his rank is worth the screaming, crying, writhing, burning bodies of his people -

"Something to say, Fullmetal?" Mustang drawls.

Edward snaps the file shut, "Nope."

Where the loss of ignorance is more valuable than the knowledge gained, and Edward figures out the source of alchemy a lot sooner than before.

"Edward has cockroaches under his skin and leeches in his veins. He's vibrating and bursting and his body is too small, too big, doesn't fit quite right. He needs Al to know - needs to tell someone, anyone, but he will cut out his own tongue before he burdens anyone else with this knowledge."

Draco snorted. “I’m not reduced to penury. I want something considerably beyond money, and I rather think you’re the only one can give it to me.”

“You want the Invisibility Cloak,” Harry said, flatly. He’d half expected as much; it was the only thing he had that Draco could want—

“Don’t be stupid, Potter,” Draco said. “I want my reputation back.”

Since Hogwarts had opened its doors to werewolves, many Hale children had apparently come through, wary and angry, refusing to socialize with the other students. And one by one, they’d been sorted into Slytherin, obviously, with the odd Ravenclaw to mix things up.

And then along came little Derek Hale, who’d barely gotten his ass on the stool before the hat was calling out Gryffindor.

Everyone thought it was funny, even now, when Derek was in his seventh year. Stiles, though, found it fascinating.

It helped, of course, that Derek was two years older and hotter than the sun.

Mark Watney will need to buy a lot of people beers. A collection of in-world oneshots cataloging the world's reactions. From the news to social media and from regular people to NASA rover techs.

1: Fox vs. an 80 year old Bill Nye
2: John and Hank Green, Crash Course Mars
3: A NASA rover tech at Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station
4: The WatneyWatch app and how to tell your child their hero is going to die in an invisible dust storm on Mars
5: Tattoos, music, and what is likely to amount to the largest simultaneous worldwide traffic jam
6. 78 hours of vlogs are released, the Ares 3 crew returns home, and Mark goes on The Tonight Show.

Derek Hale hates libraries.

Unfortunately, not all books can be ordered on Amazon.

(Or: in which Derek is a grumpy omega writer, and Stiles is an annoyingly attractive alpha special collections librarian.)

Slytherins–- this is a group who laughs when Neville falls off a broom and breaks his wrist. And what if we had Harry there, who had always been the one laughed at, who had a nice thirst to prove himself, who had green trim on his robes instead of red? This Harry still stepped out in front of Malfoy’s best sneer and demanded Neville’s Rememberall back–- though he got a detention from it, not a Seekership.

When kids in the Slytherin Common Room tossed jeers at the pudgy feet of Millicent Bulstrode, Harry rose up to do something about it.

When Quirrell shouted “troll in the dungeons, thought you ought to know,” and Harry overheard that there was a girl in the bathroom crying, he still ran off to make sure she got out okay.

Harry did not ask Millicent to come with him; this was not a boy who asked for things. When he had asked for things, Dudley had laughed, Petunia had scowled, and Vernon had said, “no,” or just kept reading the newspaper like he hadn’t heard anything at all.

But when Harry went, Millicent bunched up her robes in her hands and followed.

Stiles is a librarian and research professional extraordinaire. So, when Derek comes in, asking for help with research for his new book, it's only natural for Stiles to offer his help. He just didn't count on late night waffle eating, or that his heart would go boom.

Stiles hadn't noticed the way the entire commissary had gone silent when the guy had approached his table, or the two military escorts that had been flanking him, looking at each other like maybe they should be intervening but weren't sure how. All he saw was someone stealing the last dessert from him and Stiles didn't think about it, he just reached across the table and snatched it back with a, "What the hell, dude?"

“You never graduated,” Stiles says, just to say it. To test it out in the open air. That's... huh.

--

Stiles spends his senior year battling troll-gremlins, taking on an unexpected tutoring job, and definitely not falling for a certain sourwolf (even though everyone else seems to think he is).

“Mikasa.” There’s a mix of fear and revulsion in Levi’s eyes that makes her take a step back the way anger or scorn in them would not. “They are not going to give you that procedure. They are going to lock you into a room until you give birth, and they are going to take... it away, and they won’t care if it has twelve fingers or three eyes or the intelligence of a sponge, and they will raise it to be a weapon against humanity. Is that what you want?”

“So… what do I do?” she croaks.

He sighs and rubs at his eyes again. “Get rid of it on your own.”

Harry Potter presents as alpha at fifteen, and it is supposed to change his life for the better. Instead, it leads him to a beautiful noble omega he cannot have, a political plot he cannot escape, and a threat on his life.

"Hale & Daughters Funeral Home," Derek says dully.

"Oh ho! And which daughter are you?"

Derek casts his eyes up to the ceiling. It's going to be one of those calls.

(In which Derek is a bored secretary, Stiles is a baker who may or may not have ulterior motives, and there are entirely too many macaroons.)

Trust is not something that can come automatically; it has to be learned. Before Eren can expect to be trusted by his teammates, he has to learn to trust himself - and Levi is determined to help him.

Shh: Eren goes into heat. Levi helps him through it.

Breathe In: Levi goes into heat. Eren helps him through it and notices something he probably shouldn't have.

The year is 1845, and there are no Titans left; only the mutations that bear their name, human beings who lose all rational thought to hunger that consumes from the inside out. Three walls divide an alleged utopia from the barren world outside, as well as its own terrified citizens from one another. Lieutenant Erwin Smith seeks out an infamous rebel leader and his three young wards in a conspiracy to unravel the mysteries at the center of their government. White knight takes black knight; pawn takes king.

Armin, Eren and Mikasa inherit a brothel. A very classy brothel, that's popular with the military. They have no idea what they're doing, but with Armin's cunning, Mikasa's ability to kick ass, and Eren's mysterious kink-discovering skills, they pull through okay. Mostly.

This is the continuation of both Backward With Purpose and The Book of Albus.

"Are you saying you want to be my sugar daddy?" Levi says.

When Mikasa was still young enough to be carried everywhere she went, her mother would clasp her tight and spin them in slow, gentle circles, while her father hummed a gentle tune that she would later forget.

When she was six, she watched her father take her mother in his arms and swing them around the garden, their legs somehow tangling without tripping, heads thrown back in laughter, and she clapped along with the rhythm of their footsteps.

And when she was nine, a boy with a knife showed her a different kind of dance altogether.

The Military Police interrogate Levi as to their favorite shifter's whereabouts.

AU where the Special Operations Squad survived the 57th Expedition.

"I have… well… she said that she thinks that I maybe have… PTSD?”

The line goes so dead that Derek almost thinks Stiles hung up on him. He waits eight very quiet seconds, and says softly, “Stiles?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Stiles says, breath whooshing back over the phone line.

“I have PTSD,” Derek says more firmly. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud, not as a question. It hasn’t really seemed real, until now. He’d spent the whole of his last session arguing that Tamara was wrong about him, and saying it out loud is like admitting it’s true. “Post-traumatic stress dis—”

“I know what it means,” Stiles interrupts, “I just didn’t think I’d heard right. Oh my God.”

Touya has always been a quiet, mature child.

After all, Stiles doesn’t mention that time Derek went grief-stricken and ran away from humanity, or the two or three times Derek has talked Stiles down from a panic attack, no big gestures or dramatics, just slow steady words until the overwhelming crushing anxiety eased some, or that time Stiles dug a bullet out of Derek’s stomach, swearing and sweating and cursing him and maybe crying a little, or that time with the evil, nasty little gnomes.

There’s a lot they don’t talk about. This is just another thing to add to the list.

OR: Derek and Stiles get kidnapped. Or more accurately, Stiles gets kidnapped and Derek gets kidnapped looking for him, although he'll never tell Stiles that. Angst and a little violence ensures.