19 Works by zerodignity
Listing Works
-
most faithful by zerodignity
Fandoms: Poirot - Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV), Agatha Christie - Peril at End House
20 Jun 2025
Tags
Summary
“It’s really entirely deserted,” I added. “Even in daylight hours, we didn’t pass a single soul along the way.”
Challenger didn't answer for a moment. He was sizing up the path down, I guessed, although I somehow had the impression that he had not drawn his attention away from me. “Sounds dangerous,” he replied eventually.
“Oh, absolutely,” I agreed. “It’s a funny thing, though, isn't it? After a night like this, I find that one hardly feels afraid of anything.”
I again had the sense that Challenger was looking at me intently, as if I had said something quite strange. But naturally a man like him would grasp my meaning. He was, after all, a sailor; he could be no stranger to the wave of fearlessness, of reckless abandon, that sometimes comes in the wake of a close brush with death.
“Better lead the way, then,” Challenger said, giving a wry grin, and opened the gate to gesture me through.
━━━━━━━━━━
Shared drinks after fireworks. A brief, inadvisable tryst. Hastings gets his heart broken, and Poirot is there to help him pick up the pieces.
A missing chapter from Peril At End House, and an exploration of the unspoken loyalties and intimacies of the Poirot/Hastings relationship.
Series
- Part 2 of devotions
-
Tags
Summary
On nights when he woke drenched in sweat, disoriented, Will recalled only the tone and flavor of his dreams, not the substance. Clinging to him thick, heavy as syrup, and sweet: dreams of transformation, dreams of annihilation, dreams of being unmade.
He did not know what it meant, or what he should do about it. Only that he was by some definition, in some diagnostic criteria, unwell.
But even back then, there was a primal part of him that somehow grasped that those dreams were connected to Dr. Lecter. That sensed, as if by instinct, in the hairs of his arms and the valving of his pulse, that if annihilation was what he dreamt of, then Hannibal was the one who could give it to him.
━━━━━━━━━━
A brief character study tracing Will’s ambivalent attraction to Hannibal through seasons 1 and 2.
-
a ritual, an order, a daily habit by zerodignity
Fandoms: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
21 Mar 2025
Tags
Summary
It began with a slow unwinding. Shedding her armored carapace to expose a fragile shape, held together in whorls of cloth and thread. Peeling away bandages in stages, jaw clenched against the sting of fabric lifting from flesh, raw sinew bared to open air.
She laid her bandages to soak in a basin of water, ointments, herbs, disinfectants. Sponged herself down, scrubbed vigorously around her nails. Applied balm to the empty socket of her eye. Washed and oiled her hair.
A solitary practice, yet nothing within it was hers alone. This was a shared science, built from borrowed materials, sustained on scavenged supplies passed hand to hand; this was the collective wisdom of those she had come to call her kin.
━━━━━━━━━━
A short exploration of caring for one's body and finding one's community while living amid a slow-rolling apocalypse. Originally published in A Chaotic Cataloging: A Seasons of Hieron Fanzine.
-
à la fin comme au commencement by zerodignity
Fandoms: Poirot - Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV), Curtain: Poirot's Last Case - Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
14 Jan 2025
Tags
Summary
Poirot hesitated, releasing a little sigh. He smoothed a wrinkle from the surface of the blanket covering his lap. “I would like, Hastings," he said, "for you to examine with me a different set of facts.”
“Yes?” Hastings responded, immediately attentive. Unable, as he had always been, to resist such an invitation; though Poirot noted that there was already a furrow of unease creasing his brow.
“Consider, for example,” Poirot continued carefully, “for how many years you have remained my dearest friend and companion. How often, in that time, I have remarked upon your exceedingly beautiful nature, unlike that of any other person I have known. Consider my great and visible joy at your arrival, which I have scarcely endeavored to conceal from you; or how I have taken such pride in your Judith’s strong will and intelligence, as much as I might in my own child —” He broke off, then glanced up and added gravely, “Is it not evident, Hastings, what you have meant in my life?”
━━━━━━━━━━
A retelling of the events of the novel Curtain: Poirot's Last Case from Poirot's point of view, with a scene that Arthur Hastings omitted from his own telling.
Series
- Part 1 of devotions
-
throw the world from its axis by zerodignity
Fandoms: Бесы - Фёдор Достоевский | Demons - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Бесы | Demons (TV 2014)
14 Jul 2024
Tags
Summary
“Perhaps I am simply waiting for the right moment,” Stavrogin mused, with a contemplative air, as though he could only guess at his own motives. “Perhaps I will throw you out, or call for help, the instant you have compromised yourself.”
“You might,” Verkhovensky agreed enthusiastically. “You might wait until I have kissed not only your hand but also your thigh, until I’ve crawled between your knees to lay my head in your lap, and call for help then. You might do it, even if doing so would ruin your life, as well.”
“Yet knowing all that, you've come to me anyway.”
“Of course,” Verkhovensky answered, beginning to lose his breath, “because I wish very much to find out what you will do next; and if your decision is to tear down your own life alongside mine, to wed us together in disgrace, then — I could hardly be disappointed with that, could I?”
━━━━━━━━━━
Fleeing on a train toward Switzerland, Verkhovensky reunites with Stavrogin, and finally gets exactly what he asks for.
Set in the space between the novel’s final chapter and epilogue.
-
Tags
Summary
Coming home to Cloud Recesses meant many things, and now it also meant this: a need to take care with his affections. To think twice about reaching for that comfort which could otherwise come to him so easily.
━━━━━━━━━━
A series of loosely connected vignettes, exploring Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian's relationship in the final episode and post-canon: navigating societal queerphobia, working through grief and intimacy, and discovering new ways of being together once the crisis has passed. Individual summaries are provided at the start of each chapter.
Series
-
rungs of the ladder by zerodignity for evilmageclub
Fandoms: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
28 Jan 2024
Tags
Summary
“Are you here to help,” Red Jack called up to him on the shore, as he clambered, dripping, back onto the pier, “or just watch?”
Samothes weighed the question, and briefly considered taking offense. The transparent note of challenge in it. Presumptuous, almost rude.
Yet the grin Red Jack shot up at him bore no trace of hostility. Only a kind of open invitation. A dare. A calculation, perhaps, that the best way to draw Samothes out from behind his veil of reticence was by provoking him.
Something familiar, in that. An echo. The flash of a smile, sharp enough to draw blood, the strange relief of being mocked, laughed at by that playful, predatory being —
Samothes hesitated only a few moments more. Then he stripped to the waist, casting his robe to one side against the sandy soil of the beach, and strode down to the pier to set to work.
━━━━━━━━━━
In the early days of Aubade, Samothes and Red Jack find in one another a mirror, a challenge, and a comfort.
-
any steep and blue water by zerodignity
Fandoms: Andor (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types
22 Aug 2023
Tags
Summary
It was true that Kino rarely dreamt of the outside anymore. But once, a handful of years ago, he had dreamt of the touch of sun on his skin. Of light scattered and softened by branches overhead. Of air that tasted of upturned soil instead of chlorine and filtration systems.
The dream had been so vivid that when he woke the sensation had lingered for a few moments - two, three, before he lost hold of it - and he had nearly wept.
Girgo was like that. A small hitch in the monotony - an opening that stood in for a larger absence. Both welcome and irritating, like the days when they gave you your food with flavor but no texture.
Not the possibility of a different life - not the promise of it. Only the reminder. Only the ache.
━━━━━━━━━━
A retelling of the Narkina arc from Kino's perspective, focusing on radicalization, hope, queer desire, and the places where they overlap.
-
we are not traitors but the lights go out by zerodignity
Fandoms: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
29 Jun 2023
Tags
Summary
The deception was too haphazard, too inconsistent - the way Xue Yang held some secrets close, poured others out negligently into Xiao Xingchen's lap.
Like this: He never offered so much as a false name, but he spoke openly about his childhood. The pain of it. The cruelties done to him. Intimating, disclosing, grasping for Xiao Xingchen's sympathy.
Or this: He might rest his hand atop Xiao Xingchen's as he passed a basket to him, fingers tracing a slow circle along the knuckles. But only his right hand, never his left.
One tell hidden, clumsily, behind another. Almost as if begging to be found out. Holding the ruse together just enough to prolong the game, to encourage the pursuit.
And it was strange, Xiao Xingchen thought, how ordinary that felt. How much like courtship.
━━━━━━━━━━
In which Xiao Xingchen quickly sees through Xue Yang’s deception, and chooses to remain with him anyway.
-
here is a map with your name for a capital by zerodignity
Fandoms: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
17 Jun 2023
Tags
Summary
This impossible, unsayable thing. Two rabbits, two roosters. This desire his mind could not fully connect - what if - the two of us - together - the sentence like dark magic, a terrifying invocation for which he, mercifully, lacked the requisite words.
The least Wei Ying owed him, he thought, was not to make light of it. Not to make it more painful than it was, than it must be.
━━━━━━━━━━
After their eventful night at the Qiting Tavern, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian take a few stumbling steps toward honesty, toward saying aloud what has remained unspoken between them for sixteen years.
An exploration of gender, consent, honesty, and mutual vulnerability.
Series
-
fragments from a broken vessel by zerodignity for nextyear
Fandoms: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
01 Mar 2023
Tags
Summary
In lieu of a family album, they have this. The footage held in the archives of the Golden Demarchy, a public record of the empire’s fall, of House Pelagios’s slow dissolution.
━━━━━━━━━━
Some excerpts from thirty years of rivalry, bonding, and eventual reconciliation among the three siblings of House Pelagios.
-
his hands keep turning to birds and flying away from him (him being you) by zerodignity
Fandoms: 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
22 Dec 2022
Tags
Summary
Lan Zhan was chaste, and unshakeable, and held tight to the reins of his emotions, it was true. But he did, on occasion, look at Wei Wuxian as though he could strip him down to sinew and bone with his eyes alone. As though he might like to devour him whole with his gaze. And that was, in spite of everything, a relief.
Not being wanted. Being wanted felt both too easy and too dangerous, a razor-sharp blade hidden beneath his own skin. Being seen.
━━━━━━━━━━
Weathering a bad hangover, Wei Wuxian's thoughts turn on identity, and visibility, and the one person who sees him more clearly than any other.
Series
-
Tags
Summary
He wanders the woods, books clasped to his chest, and dreams about this man, Samol's son. He repeats aloud the words of his writings, as if he could feel that other voice carried on his own breath. He touches a stone, or the bark of a tree, or the handle of a tool, and imagines Samothes's hand resting in the same place.
And all of this - his too-eager study, his growing infatuation - he hides from Samol, because he knows what this is. A predatory instinct. Something covetous and voracious in him, desiring to swallow what is stronger. The thing that Samol has always feared from him.
━━━━━━━━━━
After the word-eater Samot returns Severea's name to her, he is granted a body by Samol, and wakes up in Hieron.
A history of Samot leading up to the events in Marielda.
-
Tags
Summary
This is not the first time Kim has had to be careful. Not the first time he's deployed subterfuge when arranging an encounter with a man in a hotel room.
But this is different. Because Harry is an officer of the RCM. Because Kim has already been more careless, more public, with his emotions than he can really afford. Because this is the first time he's opened himself up to this kind of risk, capable of collapsing the foundations he’s built his life upon for twenty years.
Kim flattens down the tremor that passes through him at the thought. Makes an effort to recalibrate, to return himself to baseline.
Better not to think of it that way, he tells himself. Think of it, instead, as one of many such arranged encounters. One of many calculated risks you have taken in your life.
Set your expectations accordingly. Just enough relief, just enough connection to make the risk worthwhile. No more than that.
━━━━━━━━━━
The last night in Martinaise. A post-canon epilogue to burn alone like a star.
Series
- Part 2 of burn alone like a star
-
Tags
Summary
Kim is frustrated to admit that, when it comes down to it, what all this draws out in him is not exasperation, not really, but something protective. Almost warm, at moments.
He does not like this part of himself, the one that pulls toward the woundedness in others. This is why he no longer works with children.
It makes him worse at his job. It makes it harder to work the puzzle box of the case, and harder not to care what will happen after it finally clicks open.
Series
- Part 1 of burn alone like a star
-
Tags
Summary
Part of Hadrian had expected jealousy, but this is not that. There is something covetous, proprietary, in the way Samothes looks at him, it is true. But no bitterness, no anger.
Samothes is studying him, he realizes, as though he were himself an article of clothing that Samot has tried on, worn, and discarded. Still just as Samot so recently left him. A thing he has handled affectionately, held close, left redolent with the scent of his skin.
Hadrian can read in Samothes's gaze an urge to bury his face against him and inhale deeply. To search him for whatever traces of his husband might remain.
━━━━━━━━━━
That bit from Spring in Hieron where they joke about Hadrian cosplaying as Samot in Aubade, but make it 5000 words of porn.
-
Tags
Summary
Tender had told him to imagine a life he wanted to go back to. Something worth fighting for. They had talked about Tuesday mornings, and breakfast foods, and sleep detachment, and how everyone he had known back on Earth was now dead.
If he had to answer that same question now, Morning's thought, it would be easy.
A life worth fighting for meant being back at The Brink. Serving food, joking with the regulars. And maybe, once in a while, glimpsing Grand stretched out behind a table, knit cap, flannel, beer in hand. Seeing him relaxed there, natural in conversation with the other haulers, even while he never lost that princely look in his eye that said none of this would ever be good enough for him.
━━━━━━━━━━
On a mission to sell a milk-based building material and prevent two assassinations, Morning's Observation has a chance to spend some quality (?) time with Grand Magnificent. Things go south, Morning's saves Grand's life, and Grand decides this isn't fun anymore.
-
Tags
Summary
Adaire noticed herself watching Hella's face intently as the realization dawned - too intently. Watching the thought creep across her features, shock in the eyes, anger in the mouth, betrayal and confusion in the brows.
And this was the first moment when Adaire doubted herself, because what she felt as she watched that expression was - warm - thrilling - a bubbling sense of pleasure climbing up from the pit of her stomach - and this was unlike her.
It was unlike her to return to the scene of her crime and revel in the destruction she had caused. She had been called a thief in her life, true, and a con artist. But she was careful, and self-interested, and she did not seek out thrills.
This, though - it was thrilling, to be exposed like this.
━━━━━━━━━━
Adaire in Aubade, doing her best to ruin what seems too good to be true.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,237
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 12
- Hits:
- 41
-
Tags
Summary
You've really made a mess of things, you know, Anders thought with annoyance.
(Is it so unusual to enjoy another in this way? Justice wondered. You allow yourself to notice him as well, I think - though for you it is shoulders, arms, grace of movement, the way light strikes the collarbone or side of the face -)
That's exactly the point, Anders interrupted, doing his best to drive away the thoughts Justice had evoked. I'm supposed to be the one who falls for dangerous strangers. I'm supposed to be the one who wants things that are bad for me. You're supposed to be the responsible one.
━━━━━━━━━━
Hawke is busy with her own affairs, Anders and Fenris have to learn to rely on each other, and Justice tries to convince them they have more in common than they think.