a_bastard



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  1. Public Bookmark 16

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    A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, Three smiles, and it changes everything.

    -----

    SecUnit and Three spend a moment together alone.

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    05 Mar 2025

  2. Public Bookmark *

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    "ART loved its crew. The joy and the love and perfect clarity with what it was supposed to be, what it was supposed to do. ART couldn’t understand how someone could dislike their function - how I could. Once, I had a similar clarity of understanding with my function, then I hacked my governor module and left the company for good, and I had lost it all. It was better, now, in a lot of ways. I had my humans, and ART, and our crew. But in some ways, things were worse.
    I still wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, ever. I had made one good decision, to stay with ART, a few years ago, and I had been just making the same decision over and over again. It felt kind of like cheating."

    A 20-some year fic in which Murderbot comes to terms with what it means to have a home (or two), a found family (or several), and just what mutual administrative assistance can entail.

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    204,127
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    24/24
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    05 Mar 2025

  3. Public Bookmark *

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    Caleb had caught Essek's attention immediately.
    And ever since, this strange little neglected attraction has been bothering him. He initiates a mutually beneficial arrangement upon realizing that Caleb's interests match his own surprisingly well. A purely physical, transactional deal.

    That would be fine, if it were not for the dangerous implications and weaknesses.

    Or for those many in-betweens when Essek is far too interested in what's beyond the boundaries of their agreement...

    Language:
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    201,070
    Chapters:
    24/24
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    29 Jan 2023

  4. Public Bookmark *

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    “This is not a negotiation.” Deirta Thelyss’s voice cracked the air like a thunderclap, sharp enough that even her ever-bustling flock of attendants twitched. “You will agree to this marriage, or I will have you cast from Den Thelyss for dereliction of duty. Is that clear?”

    Essek held himself stiffly, his shoulders rising in affront. A dangerous lapse of control, considering the woman standing before him, and one he would berate himself for later in the privacy of his tower, but he couldn’t help it. To be bartered off as—as a diplomatic representative of all things. It was absurd, insulting. Was the prestige his accomplishments brought to the den not enough? The Bright Queen herself had awarded him the title of Shadowhand for the advancements he’d made to the field of dunamancy, advancements that had secured countless victories in the war. Why should he have to upend his entire life to accommodate some human he’d never even met?

    Or: A Shadowgast Arranged Marriage AU in Space~

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    17 Nov 2021

  5. Public Bookmark *

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    The last person Caleb Widogast, Professor of Modern History, expects to find as he walks in a random pub in a foreign city at the end of a long conference is Dr. Essek Thelyss, eminent Latinist and his sort-of intellectual crush.

    Things rapidly evolve from there, in rather unexpected ways.

    (Written for Essek Week 2021)

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    English
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    15 Nov 2021