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"The Princess graciously waved to the throngs of supporters gathered outside her country's embassy." A load of manure, that's what that was. Why couldn't they tell the real story? Her eyes were like stars. She forgot to be shy when she smiled. She moved like a dancer when not weighed down by formal gowns and jewels. She could earn her living as a cook, if only she had someone to cook for.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,184
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 13
- Kudos:
- 29
- Bookmarks:
- 3
- Hits:
- 87
Bookmarked by betts
26 Dec 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
He might know his Romantics, but he wasn't a romantic fellow, not really, not when the war had knocked the stuffing clean out of him. And yet . . . and yet, here he was, being kissed by a princess in her castle, aware to his nerve endings that this kiss was like sunlight to the candlelight of their kisses in Rome; here, without disguises, they could build a life together, if she could keep being clever and he could try to be brave.
"Joe," she murmured, but he was too busy kissing the lithe length of her throat to answer. She turned her head just enough to catch his mouth again, and he was lost once more. "Oh, you are wonderful," she said when at last she drew back.
"It's not just me," he said, besotted, and she laughed in his arms.
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Summary
“Where’re the rest?” he asked Barkovitch, who was still bent. Parker thought he saw a pearly strand of saliva extend down from beneath the rain hat and slowly reach to touch the earth, then break.
Barkovitch horked a laugh at the ground.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, man.”
—
Parker and Barkovitch live— and live.
Bookmarked by betts
06 Nov 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
He remembered the muscular lunge of putting on a burst of speed to grab up a carbine. Mowing the soldier down with a spray of bullets that leapt up easily from the nose of the gun when his finger fit naturally to the trigger. Then the second, the one perched on top of the halftrack he’d been eyeing for hours, the smug little dumb rotten kingly fuckhead. He killed him, too, fast. Red-ripped spray up his chest.
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There’s little bits of gravel in the scrape on Gary’s face. His fingers pick at the viciously stinging flesh under the stripped away layers of skin. If he moves a little to the right he could poke his eye. Get gravel and blood in there too. Or maybe just poke it right out.
———
Parker’s plan works and Gary is alive to see it.
Bookmarked by betts
05 Nov 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
"Stop making so much noise or I’ll break your leg so you can’t follow me," Parker says, voice even and calm. Like he’s talking to a dog he’s about to put down. Gary shivers, digging the spoon harder into his grapefruit leg.
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Summary
Melinoe approaches the summit like any other night on the Surface. Prometheus is there for her as always, but something is different this time. Very, very different.
Series
- Part 1 of Change of Plans
Bookmarked by betts
28 Oct 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
“I thought you were feeling impatient,” she mumbles.
“Impatient to do my part,” he says. “I want to see you fall to pieces.”
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Summary
Joe writes a book. His heroine bears a striking similarity to someone he once met, and is about to meet again.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,364
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 9
- Kudos:
- 154
- Bookmarks:
- 21
- Hits:
- 1,278
Bookmarked by betts
16 Aug 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
And maybe he didn't want to let the room on the via Margutta go, because he loved the space and where else would he go to, but the pages of his book were just everywhere. So was she. She was in the sheets on his bed and the pyjamas he'd lent her to sleep in that night.
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Summary
Anora braves her heart again. Even if he is a hunchback gopnik with a gun in his sock drawer.
Bookmarked by betts
06 Mar 2025
Bookmarker's Notes
When Ani dances at HQ, or does rare home visits to clients, she likes to imagine herself as running water, possible to reach for but never to grasp. Slipping through greedy fingers.
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Summary
Twelve years later, Roy goes to visit Alexandria at the orange grove.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,471
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 14
- Kudos:
- 71
- Bookmarks:
- 10
- Hits:
- 297
Bookmarked by betts
25 Dec 2024
Bookmarker's Notes
"It's lemonade. Except lemonade you make on an orange grove."
He had noticed the liquid looked a little orange. "So, it's orange juice."
"With lemons."
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Summary
Nadia’s walking with him and it warms him in a way the coat he’s wearing never could, the heat spreading from his chest until he can feel it in the tips of his fingers. She’s good at talking without saying anything or digging too deep and he’s been used to having her voice filling the gaps between them, but they’re three blocks out from her house and she hasn’t said a word.
Series
- Part 2 of Together Alone
Bookmarked by betts
06 Jul 2024
Bookmarker's Notes
That's all he knows how to do, all he’s good at: tending bar and, sometimes, dealing with problems that can only be solved with a gun.
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The Last Shreds of Autumn by merripestin
Fandoms: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
21 Mar 2012
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Summary
Frodo recovers in Rivendell, and Sam looks after him.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 16,546
- Chapters:
- 3/3
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 78
- Kudos:
- 1,929
- Bookmarks:
- 374
- Hits:
- 35,524
Bookmarked by betts
04 Jul 2024
Bookmarker's Notes
For the first time Elrond looked at Sam, and from that moment on Sam hadn't any hope nor despair neither, only enough will to go on doing what was needful.
*
Frodo nodded sadly. "Hold me then, Samwise. You're right, it would be terrible to be alone, and I shall have need of all the comfort I can get." It was more than he had meant to ask, but he was lonely and afraid. "Hold me as you did those nights on the road, when I was ill."
"I wasn't but trying to keep you warm, sir," Sam said uncertainly, and as if to illustrate, his neck grew warm against Frodo's face, so Frodo knew he was blushing.
"Then keep me warm, Samwise."
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The Care & Feeding of Hobbits by Baylor
Fandoms: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
16 Aug 2013
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Summary
Ruminations on the Little People, by Boromir, Man of Gondor.
Boromir learns about the hobbits as he develops friendships with them.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 20,485
- Chapters:
- 12/12
- Collections:
- 3
- Comments:
- 151
- Kudos:
- 1,627
- Bookmarks:
- 529
- Hits:
- 20,056
Bookmarked by betts
30 Jun 2024
Bookmarker's Notes
Aragorn comes over to me and hands me some supplies to affix to my pack. "If you are having trouble keeping that all straight," he whispers, "just remember -- Sam is Frodo's gardener."
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Summary
“Mm,” Toto hummed, neutrally. He took George’s head between his warm, very large hands, looking at him in the same way an owner would firmly hold their dog’s head to assess their eyes for the fever of disobedience. It had the peculiar effect of meeting his gaze while making George feel like they weren’t making eye contact at all.
“Is that alright, George? If we did?” he asked, softly. “I am, how do they say. Old school.”
“Yes,” George rasped. “Please.”Bookmarked by betts
22 Sep 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
He’d secretly decided to think of it all as noble, years back. A knight swearing fealty to his lord, kneeling before the light touch of the sword.
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Cannibals by thegoodbutter
Fandoms: Shadow and Bone (TV), The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
05 Sep 2023
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Summary
It was very brief, the affair Alina Starkov had with her father.
Or: The Father-Daughter Incest AU
Series
- Part 1 of Bean
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 35,594
- Chapters:
- 3/3
- Collections:
- 2
- Comments:
- 347
- Kudos:
- 1,517
- Bookmarks:
- 438
- Hits:
- 75,496
Bookmarked by betts
06 Aug 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
The affair isn’t ancient history, it is as fresh as a blink of an eye, it is last Tuesday, it is her best birthday, it is the first time she saw Sweeney Todd as a child. It hangs between them, a mistake so vast it is an ocean that cannot be crossed, a barrier and a shield. They can't be close the way family is supposed to be close, they robbed themselves of that — of intimacy that isn’t lecherous, of dinners out, phone calls, hugs and kisses without the underlying tension of more, give me more than what this is — what exists in its stead is a secret, an understanding between thieves
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Summary
When he was growing up, he was so afraid of scorpions he thought about them every ten seconds, every five. Started drawing them on his desk at school. Dreaming about them. Catching them under cups in the garage. He knew every fact there was to know about scorpions.
He was wearing one on his back right now, custom stitched onto his jacket. He had asked for that. Wanted it. Paid money for it.
Maybe Standard was afraid of another man fucking his wife the way he used to be afraid of scorpions.
Bookmarked by betts
31 Jul 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
“I would have.” He said it coolly into the boiling space between them, like stepping in to break up a fistfight. The right thing to do, and the truth.
He would have, if she’d ever looked at him that way. He wasn’t proud of it. But she never had–or maybe only once or twice–and that had made him love her more. She was so good, so kind. She did things right, like it mattered: separated her whites and colors, made Benicio take his vitamins, didn’t cheat on her husband. She was everything he was never going to have in his life, because he didn’t live like it was going to last.
*
“She likes that,” Standard said, sliding a palm up his back and grabbing a handful of his hair. His scalp was starting to tingle. “How do you know she likes that, huh?”
“Standard,” said Irene, breathless. “Jesus Christ. Shut up.” She was fumbling at the button of her jeans, hands shaking. He pushed them away and did it for her, like he’d carried her laundry and driven her home. He wanted to do everything for her.
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Summary
"Ignacio”, Lalo’s voice is low against his neck. “Tell me what happens now."
It's not a test, it’s not even a choice.
Still, something inside Nacho is stretched thin, so thin it might give in any second as he whispers hoarsely: "You fuck me."
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,571
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Collections:
- 1
- Comments:
- 41
- Kudos:
- 489
- Bookmarks:
- 47
- Hits:
- 6,932
Bookmarked by betts
06 Jul 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
Nacho's hands lie slack on the sheets as he gets fucked on his ridiculously expensive king-size bed, in his barren show-off house he did not furnish himself, with more money than he’ll ever need in his safe and everything he ever wanted right at his fingertips.
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Summary
“He didn’t know he could be this gentle until he met her, and now all he wants to do is kiss her tears away, warm salt on his tongue, showing her all the ways he knows she’s beautiful, but not yet. Not until she’s herself again.”
Canonical hurt, needed comfort.
Bookmarked by betts
04 Apr 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
He waits a moment, then says, “Only what you want, okay?” and it’s like something breaks open in her and she’s crashing into him. He hasn’t done much of this, for all his posturing, and he bets she’s done even less, but it doesn’t matter in the least as she kisses him hot and messy like she’s suddenly realized she’s still alive.
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tulip in a cup by lizalinka
Fandoms: House of the Dragon (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
30 Mar 2023
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Summary
Helaena meets her brother’s new girlfriend. She doesn’t like her.
Bookmarked by betts
04 Apr 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
Helaena feels that now-familiar heat build in her tummy, hyper-aware of the drippy warm place between her legs. A place that Mama told her would one day belong to her husband; a man who will take care of her and her children. A place she needed to keep safe from strange men until then.
But Alys is no man, and Aemond is no stranger.
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he says, look at your life, sucker, you're just floating. by utamakura
Fandoms: 今際の国のアリス | Imawa no Kuni no Alice | Alice in Borderland (TV)
25 Jan 2023
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Summary
Do you also feel like something inside you has become rotten?, Niragi could ask. I know you don’t like that, but I definitely do. It makes me feel like no one will ever make me feel like shit again. And if he did ask that, he would add that maybe they both had a dream where the worst parts of themselves got released into the wild and changed their own cores. And that maybe the reason why he feels such a strong annoyance towards him is because they tried to kill each other, in that dream.
[previously one-shot work that has been divided in two chapters because of ao3 issues]
Bookmarked by betts
03 Mar 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
And he wonders – he simply wonders, he knows it’s not real – if they were both real bastards in that somewhere that lingers inside him, if he feels so familiar because they did something real shitty together.
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Impossible Things by Lori_S21
Fandoms: 今際の国のアリス | Imawa no Kuni no Alice | Alice in Borderland (TV)
15 Feb 2023
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Summary
The King of Clubs meets the Cheshire Cat. Or rather, Kyūma notices Chishiya and is fascinated by the beautiful, cunning, cat-faced boy.
Finally, something real in this place...
Bookmarked by betts
02 Mar 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
It really is an impressive feat that the game designers can make running for your life whilst wearing an explosive collar in a ten foot high hedge maze so utterly banal but here they are.
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Tags
Summary
To understand what comes next, you must understand what came before.
Lalo confronts Nacho after the betrayal and must decide whether to let him live or die. The answer lies in the development of his and Nacho's relationship over the course of a few months.
Series
- Part 1 of Holding Each Other (Hostage)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 120,723
- Chapters:
- 10/10
- Comments:
- 276
- Kudos:
- 1,308
- Bookmarks:
- 243
- Hits:
- 41,665
Bookmarked by betts
16 Feb 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
On Monday he killed somebody. On Tuesday he collected money.
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Summary
Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he died when Lalo shot him in the head, and this is hell, or purgatory, or something. It would be a fitting fate for him: stuck fighting for his freedom over and over only to be trapped again; killing Salamancas again and again only to be confronted with more of them.
As far as metaphors for his life go, this is a little on-the-nose.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 18,710
- Chapters:
- 3/3
- Comments:
- 138
- Kudos:
- 1,059
- Bookmarks:
- 181
- Hits:
- 10,152
Bookmarked by betts
14 Feb 2023
Bookmarker's Notes
“Great,” Nacho says, keeping his voice flat. “So I’m trapped in Mexico because you wanted to fuck me.”
That earns a surprised laugh from Lalo. His eyebrows jump before his expression settles back into a comfortable smirk. “If it makes you feel any better, I almost got killed because I wanted to fuck you.”