#character: danny hislop

[theartistknownaslymond]

As yet untitled Jerott/Danny...something. Flungst? Angff?

Still not writing anything anyone actually asked me for smh...

Setting: post-Checkmate by four or five years, so early-mid-'90s

Characters: Jerott Blyth, Danny Hislop

Background (for more on the characters in the band AU, see notes at the end of the fic): During his relationship with Peder, Jerott got accustomed to travelling to Denmark via Paris - it made the journey longer but it was an opportunity to see his mum and to catch up with Danny. Danny helped him navigate his first openly queer relationship and was there to try and help Jerott not relapse too badly when he broke up with Peder. Even though Jerott doesn't need to go to Paris so often now, he still does - just for a few days every couple of months - so he can see his mother and see Danny and maybe record some music with Danny or play a couple of gigs. The vibe is Married and they just don't know it - but Jerott always seems to have some pretty young thing he's dating after meeting them at a movie premier or something, so Danny figures they just don't stand a chance. It's really just never occurred to Jerott that Danny would be interested in him because surely Danny is far too wordly and experienced to think of Jerott like that.

They do not get together in this fic, but the idea is that it can't be too long afterwards tbh.

CWs: reference to severe weight loss from illness; references to the AIDS pandemic and deaths, plus associated horrors (families not letting friends grieve, doctors not wanting to touch patients, general relentless misery of losing so many people/worrying about the obituaries). Also gratuitous descriptions of food.

---

Outside the metro station, Jerott slung an arm over Danny's shoulder and pressed his friend close for a hug. As he turned his face to present each cheek for Danny's kisses and suppressed a cough at the cloud of Chanel he was greeted with, he noticed the difference in the body beneath his hold.

"Alright - Jesus you're skinny, Danny!" he pulled back and let his hand remain on the shoulder of his friend's jacket, squeezing gently to confirm the contours he'd felt - bone and sinew far closer to the surface than he remembered.

Danny tossed their chin and twitched an eyebrow, grey eyes dark and hooded. "Oh, merci, he's in early with the compliments this time. What have you done now, doudou?"

Jerott studied Danny more closely: they were immaculately styled as always, but the silk blouse and the corduroy waistcoat beneath Danny's jacket hung unevenly against their body, implying a rumpled and gappy silhouette beneath the folds of the Burberry trenchcoat. The lines around the top of their voluminous trousers hinted at a belt cinched tighter than the fabric had been tailored for. Danny's face was sharper than Jerott remembered, too: the jaw almost uncompromisingly square, cheeks a little hollow beneath a subtle hint of pink blush.

"It wasn't a compliment..." Jerott said with the frankness that Danny expected of him. "You look like shit. What's up?"

Danny's brows shot up at Jerott's pronouncement and they looked down at him with a half-vexed smirk. "I look like shit?"

"You look like shit," Jerott nodded.

It was guaranteed to get a rise, and thus guaranteed to provoke some measure of honesty. Besides, even if it wasn't entirely true - Danny could have styled a Saturday morning midden outside a chip shop into something quirky and compelling - it was still true that Jerott preferred to see Danny with softer edges, more of a curious, assessing twinkle in their eye, more warmth beneath the pale tones of their skin. In general - healthier. It was a natural way to feel about one's friend, Jerott supposed.

Danny's eyes narrowed and their shoulder moved a little beneath Jerott's touch. Their lips - a natural pink that looked too pale, especially when one was used to Danny's array of neon-bright lipsticks - pursed a little and finally, shortly, Danny replied, "I've been ill. I'm fine now, thank you for your concern."

Jerott's hand tightened on Danny's shoulder again and his jaw shifted. He didn't manage to get a word out before Danny added, "It's not that. It's not. I've had so much blood taken for tests I don't think I'd feed a midge. I'm fine now, really Jerott."

Jerott noted that his heart had quickened anyway - he'd heard from Francis that Turkey had recently taken a turn for the worse as the weather cooled; he'd had Dagbladet Børsen delivered to his newsagent in Glasgow for several years now and he read the obituaries in a state of suppressed terror once a week, faithful to people he no longer knew, sometimes catching himself praying to distant gods that he wouldn't read a name he recognised there. He regretted the scientific understanding that had almost led him into a different career and now called him to spend sleepless nights poring over articles in medical journals, because it was that or give in to the whiskey again.

He swallowed and made himself take a deep breath - he'd not realised how much worry he attached to Danny and their defiant, flamboyant Marais lifestyle in the present context. But there, for a moment, he'd felt like the street had opened up beneath his feet and the air had turned to hot ash in his lungs.

"Ok. Good. What was it then?"

Danny's eyes had widened again and light seemed to have returned to their pale irises. They smiled crookedly, but it was more fond than defensive now. "Believe me, doudou, you don't want the details. Just some bug." Danny turned away and began walking down the pavement, strolling slowly enough that Jerott had time to light a cigarette and catch up.

"Some bug?" he repeated in a mutter around his filter, making a show of returning his fags and his lighter to his jacket pockets and wondering whether Danny had noticed how worried he'd been, or if he'd managed to hide it.

"Mm," Danny agreed, gazing performatively up at the rooftops of the buildings they passed and ignoring the odd cry of recognition from passers by. "Not helped, of course, by the fact that half the people I know do have it. I'm so bored of funerals, Jerott. Stressed and tired and literally sick of them."

Jerott took an involuntarily sharp inhalation and coughed at the way the smoke prickled in his throat. He grimaced and glared at the pavement, and decided, savagely, that he needed to do something about this - he'd never once in the years they'd known each other heard Danny's voice thrum with such brittle rage.

"You know what, Danny? Screw the market. There's a place yemma and I always eat at not far from here. I'm taking you there to get some proper food in you."

Danny stopped walking and blinked at him with limpid eyes. "Excuse me?"

"Algerian. Tagine, couscous, dips, bread?"

Danny still looked like they were trying to figure something out, but Jerott's brows rose and he pointed at the front of their waistcoat. A distinct growl had emerged from that flat belly at the mention of bread. "I heard that. Come on - we can go to the market afterwards."

Danny's frown deepened and they pressed their lips together, but then they nodded and shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah ok, lead on." Their voice sounded somewhat strangled to Jerott, like there was some undefined emotion trying to escape Danny's fearsome, formidable control over it.

Two silent streets later, when Jerott had finished his cigarette, Danny sounded more like themselves again: "So, will I finally get to meet dear yemma there?"

"No," Jerott eyed Danny and smiled knowingly. "Kahina doesn't just...hang around in cafés, Danny. We eat here together when she's visiting family in the dixneuvième."

"Ugh, then what's the point?" Danny exclaimed dramatically. "You want me to believe you sprang fully formed from the brutalist architecture, doudou, but the woman who made you what you are exists somewhere in Paris, and one day I will meet her!"

Jerott smirked tolerantly and stepped into the entrance of a building to hold the door open for his friend. "The point is -"

He didn't need to finish, as Danny's hands were clasped against their chest and they were already exclaiming rapturously as they walked into the restaurant: "Oh, do you smell that?"

The owner, recognising Jerott, approached to make small talk about his mother, and Danny listened thirstily, totally unconcerned by the proprietor's less-than-subtle attempts to suss out their identity. They introduced themself with a shark-like grin and shook the owner's hand: «Danny. I'm Jerott's friend.»

Jerott closed his eyes briefly and sighed at the effortless way Danny fudged the pronunciation of the word ami(e), so that it might even have been any one of several similar terms meaning lover or darling. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers and smiled stiffly at the owner. «Danny's in the band I play in. Danny knows Lymond and played in Russia with him.»

The owner nodded and attempted his own, reassured, smile, and he did not flinch from Danny's enthusiastic handshake. «Another...» he had been about to say 'musician' Jerott supposed, but ran instantly into another question of conjugation. His moustache twitched. «You play an instrument, like Sidi Blyth. How nice. What do you play?»

«All sorts,» Danny chirped happily. «I like synthesisers, but woodwind is my first love.» Their eyes roved over the decor of the restaurant, past rugs and lamps to seek out the guitars and percussion instruments the owners had salvaged when fleeing their home and now displayed in pride of place. «You don't have woodwind instruments here?» Danny gestured to the wall.

«No,» the owner answered with some relief. He showed them to the table upstairs that Jerott usually shared with his mother.

Over mint tea, as they waited for the selection of dishes Jerott had ordered, Jerott watched Danny gaze out of the window to the other side of the street, their long, freckled fingers tapping on the tablecloth in time with the frantic beat of the music playing from a cassette deck in the corner of the room. The midday autumn light was drawn to the crystal pendant of Danny's earring, and faint spots of rainbow colour were cast in fragments across Danny's cheek. It occurred to Jerott all over again how tiresome it was that anyone bothered trying to define Danny - once he'd learned a way of speaking around the need for masculine or feminine conjugations, Jerott had soon forgotten how clunky he'd found it to begin with. He'd simply become used to Danny as a singular aspect of the world - language rearranged itself around Danny, and Jerott saw no reason why it shouldn't.

Generally, though, Danny didn't care what pronouns strangers used. Danny had made their resilience and self-awareness key aspects of their personality, and Jerott reminded himself that Danny was steely enough to have survived being perceived - in whatever way they had been perceived - by Soviet Russia.

But sometimes, Jerott had begun to realise, the carefully constructed armoury of Danny's identity grew heavy in the face of others' engagement with it. And now Danny did look drawn - bruised by recent sadnesses, nervy about what might come next, both younger and older than Jerott had seen them look.

"Have you had Algerian before, Danny?" Jerott asked, summoning Danny's attention away from the flock of pigeons on the opposite building's roof.

Danny smiled fleetingly and took a sip of tea, then paused to look Jerott over with a more customary, lascivious flick of their lashes. "Not for want of trying..."

Jerott rolled his eyes. "How have you lived in Paris for over a decade and never tried Algerian food?"

"Maybe I've just been waiting for a recommendation from an expert," Danny said snippily. "You always did curries back when we were recording Checkmate. You could have made...this..."

Danny's eyes lit on the food that was arriving and between them, Jerott and the restaurateur explained the dishes as they filled the surface of the table.

"I didn't have much experience cooking Algerian then," Jerott said, helping himself to bread and pickled vegetables. "Curry in Glasgow, curry in Pune, curry in Nevada - with so little seasoning it might as well have been rice pudding..." he trailed off, muttering imprecations in Urdu.

Danny folded their arms and watched him. "So which one of these innocent-looking beauties is going to blow my poor Ashkenazi ass off?"

Jerott pulled a face and bit on a pickled chilli. "They're not hot, Danny, they just have flavour." He pointed out the dishes he knew how to make and explained what was in them and Danny dutifully helped themselves to some of each. Danny loved to make a show of bitching, but they were also eager to express their appreciation: every first bite was accompanied by a moan of delight or some other sound that made Jerott want to kick them under the table. Eventually he gave into the desire and prodded Danny's leg with the toe of his sneaker.

"All right, Meg Ryan - you can just tell the restaurant owner you like it..."

Danny wiped a drizzle of paprika-red oil from the corner of their lips and pulled an exaggeratedly lusty face at Jerott before kicking him back. Then Danny sat back and chewed pitta, watching Jerott's expression and preparing their review.

"It's good, Maeve. Like some of Adam's funky Georgian dishes but..."

"Less walnut?"

"Less walnut," Danny agreed, sipping tea. "It's not as rich as I thought, either. Good choice of comfort food, doudou," Danny surveyed the bowls again and dove in for more helpings of a few select items.

Jerott watched Danny load their plate up and smirked with satisfaction. "Just because it has more seasoning than chicken soup..."

Danny held a finger up. "You do not get to insult Jewish penicillin, no matter how delicious your fancy beans are."

Jerott giggled into his bite of borek and repeated, "Fancy beans..." so that Danny kicked him again.

When the owner had taken away the empty starter bowls and refilled the tea, Jerott looked again at Danny's face in the shifting afternoon light. It seemed to have taken on a new colour - their lips looked redder again, their cheeks brighter, their eyes less like the washed-out grey of the few low clouds outside.

Jerott raised his glass of tea in a salute. "Well, the fancy beans seem to have done more for you in one sitting than however many weeks of chicken soup you've been living off..."

Instead of a filthy rejoinder, Danny pressed their mouth shut and looked away. "Mm."

"Danny, I was just -" Jerott began to apologise, surprised by the frown on his friend's face.

"I know, I know," Danny attempted a breathy chuckle. "It's fine. It...would be fine, only -" they looked down at the exuberantly patterned table covering and traced the patterns on its surface with one short, un-painted fingernail. When they looked up at Jerott the deep, serious pain on their face was such that Jerott hadn't seen since Francis' near-fatal encounter with the river.

"I'm the one who makes the soup," Danny said. The attempt at levity in their voice made Jerott's chest tighten more than if Danny had just let themselves speak bitterly. Instead, the lightness in their voice faltered and stumbled, and Danny swallowed. "Ok, Diamme - you remember, from the cabaret? - Diamme brought me soup and pletzls from the deli when I first got ill, but he shouldn't have been outside himself. Diamme's funeral was last week. The rest of us couldn't attend - the family wouldn't have any of it. They gave him a good Catholic burial. So we're holding our own wake next week and I need to cook for it. I promised I would."

Danny's arm was shaking a little on the table, their fist clenched. They looked down at it and moved it beneath the table, letting out a tut of disgust.

Jerott sat in silence, his arms folded and jaw locked, remembering again all the horror of that moment when he'd imagined that Danny had the illness. The only illness that mattered those days. Anything else was trivial, wasn't it?

"I haven't cooked for myself in months, Jerott," Danny let their eyes fall blankly to the tablecloth. "I'm a catering service for wakes and funerals. Meals on wheels for people who used to be..." nothing seemed to change about Danny's expression or the tone of their voice, but an invisible barrier blocked any more words from emerging.

"Why didn't you say something?" Jerott murmured, sitting as still as Danny, noting that he could barely hear his own words over the hammering beat of his heart. "How many times have we spoken on the phone since you got ill?"

Danny looked up and met his eyes, and, glassy and wide-pupilled, their own grey gaze made Jerott shiver. A bleak laugh made it past their lips. "What, you'd deliver from Glasgow?"

Jerott didn't understand how talking with Danny could so often make him want to laugh and weep at the same time, but he gave Danny a perplexed smile all the same. "Sure. I'm serious though, Danny - you could have told me. It's no hassle to come to Paris and help you cook."

Danny bit their lip and looked down again, wresting with a smile or a grimace - Jerott couldn't say which.

When the restaurant owner returned to their silence he looked alarmed and Jerott tried to smile in reassurance as the man set down hot dishes of stewed aubergine and tomatoes, chicken, olives and dumplings.

«Is everything ok?»

«M'sieur it's perfect,» Danny looked up swiftly, their throat white as a swan's, drawing Jerott's troubled gaze as Danny swallowed down their grief again and smiled for the owner. «My first time trying Algerian food and it's better than I could have imagined. Restorative and delicious.»

The owner left again, somewhat mollified, and Danny turned a wonky smile on Jerott. "Do you think he believes me, Maeve? Have I ruined it for when you come back here with yemma?"

Jerott shook his head. "He believes you. Nothing ruined."

Danny sighed and leaned forwards on the table to survey the new dishes.

"Danny," Jerott was thinking about the way Danny's demeanour had switched for the restaurant owner. About the performative body language and cheerful lilt to their voice. About the things Danny was used to hiding. "You didn't even tell me you were ill. Why didn't you say anything?"

Danny was slowly pulling apart one of the chicken wings they'd plucked from the top of the tagine, their mouth pressed into a sharp line, the look they shot Jerott an attempt to make him back off that was half-hearted at best. "I didn't think I'd be ill that long. Do you tell me every time you get the sniffles, doudou?"

Danny didn't let him reply - they rolled their eyes and swept a hand through the air. "Yes, yes, you do, I know...always complaining about something..."

Jerott ignored the toothless attack and waited.

Danny spooned a heap of olives and dumplings onto their plate and gathered some bread before looking up at Jerott again.

"I didn't want to tell you because it's been miserable here, doudou." Danny's fist clenched on the table beside their plate. "I feel...responsible? When you were with Peder and you started telling me things, I was...I felt like your guide to this wonderful world where anything was possible, anyone was welcome, and if we all just talked it out and understood each other things would be ok. Better than ok, they'd be mind-blowing. Amazing. Earth-shattering."

Danny rolled their eyes at their own words, and Jerott contrasted their pale, pinched expression now with the way they used to lean across café tables and excitedly demand details of the Copenhagen queer scene. They way they'd grab Jerott's hand and shamelessly reel off advice filled with clinically precise vocabulary that had made Jerott's mind reel with possibilities he'd never even imagined. Their smile - proud, filthy - when Jerott chose to report back on a weekend spent with Peder, and the way they'd regale him in turn with tales of leather daddies and kink clubs that left Jerott speechless and perched on the edge of his seat.

Danny shook their head and the gems dangling from their ears swung and twinkled in the sun again. "I feel like I sold you a lie, doudou. We've talked it out here so much and none of us have anything to say any more. We can't talk our way out of death. There's no understanding it, or making meaning of it. It's unfair, and it just is."

Jerott held Danny's gaze, and felt something icy and uncomfortable squirm in his chest. Danny didn't even look on the verge of tears now, their expression was suffused with frosty, brittle fury, something that wasn't nearly as hopeless as the image they were trying to conjure. Hopeless people, in Jerott's experience, weren't near as angry as Danny clearly was.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "Ok. I mean, I don't regret...what did you call it? Joining this 'wonderful world' - and I'd have shagged Peder with or without your advice Danny, no offence."

Danny's jaw twitched and a startled flush of colour spread over their neck above the collar of their blouse.

Jerott pressed on, unable to offer any answer to the bigger questions, but still stung by the idea of Danny forcing themself to suffer stoically in case actually saying anything about how bad things were frightened Jerott off. "Do you regret it? Would you go back to...where were you when you found your people, London? Edinburgh? Would you leave them, go back to Glasgow and put a suit on and do what your dad wanted you to do? If you'd known about AIDS?"

A flash of annoyance passed over Danny's face again - maybe at the mention of their father, maybe at the mention of the disease by name, maybe at the realisation that they'd shared quite so much about their past with Jerott over the years - enough to allow Jerott to ask a question like that.

"I can't regret what I just am, Jerott," Danny said curtly.

"So why do you think I would, if you'd told me how bad things had got here?"

Danny hissed, drawing a sharp breath in over their teeth. Now there was a glossy sheen over their eyes, and they tried very hard not to blink. "M'sorry," they murmured after a moment.

"Yeah. I know," Jerott said gruffly and broke their stare, looking down at the dishes cooling between them and giving Danny the privacy of a moment to flick away the water gathering at the bottom of their eyes. He explained the tagines again and then helped himself to some of each before letting out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and raising his eyes again.

Danny had returned to pulling apart the piece of chicken and they sighed deeply before saying, resentfully, "I can't believe you used my own tricks on me. I've taught you too well."

"I can't believe you 'talked it out' with everyone except me, you asshole," Jerott grumbled, but he smiled ruefully at his dish as he dunked bread in the sauce.

"To be fair, I also didn't tell Francis," Danny said in a voice more like their own, and Jerott had to snort with laughter. "Can you imagine? He'd have set up a Michelin-starred restaurant for my little crowd of queers and misfits. BDSM and brunch bar. Kink and croissants. Attached to an empty hospital building where the infected can get treated by all the experts we can find who are willing to touch our dirty, dirty bodies..."

Again, there was that lurching sensation, when Jerott didn't know whether he should be laughing along with Danny's smirk or weeping with fury at the image they painted. He grimaced.

"Would that be so bad though? Letting Francis help?"

"Perhaps not," Danny conceded. "I do still have some pride though. And I know he's already donating an unsustainable amount to research."

Jerott made a sound of agreement between bites of food, and was soothed somewhat by the sight of Danny voraciously attacking what was on their own plate.

"So what do we need to prepare for next week? When's the wake?"

Danny didn't miss Jerott's phrasing and looked up sharply. "We?"

He shrugged. "If you think my cooking's up to your standards..."

Danny narrowed their eyes. "It could be...if you can follow orders better than you used to..."

"And do you want company at the wake? I'm here to make up numbers, isn't that what playing second guitar to Lymond is all about?"

"Are you asking to be my date at a wake, Jerott?" Danny's eyebrow arched delightedly.

"Not a date, but a friend who isn't about to fuck off just because life's tough, puce."

Danny ran their eyes distastefully over him and  pointedly pushed an olive stone out from between their pursed lips. They took it and deposited it on a side plate with careful deliberation. "Hmm, yes, and how is your lovely girlfriend? Kelly is it? The teenager?"

Jerott sat back and folded his arms. "She's twenty-three, Danny. And no gossip until you agree to my help."

Danny glared at him. "That's rude."

Jerott shrugged again.

Outside the restaurant, above the slate grey rooves, the autumn breeze nudged aside a cloud and the anaemic sun shone through, speckling the grubby window-pane with glitter. Abruptly, Danny let the act drop - just for a moment - and smiled warmly at Jerott.

It was agreed.

Jerott laughed in relief to see Danny relax.

---

Notes

doudou - teddy bear; puce - flea (because what kind of Married would they be without absurd nicknames for each other)

yemma - mother (Arabic)

Jerott Blyth

Band AU Jerott's mum is Algerian, a refugee who arrived in France during the war of independence, and his paternal grandmother was from pre-partition Lahore. He was born in Paris, where his dad met his mum while taking art classes between shifts on placement for medical school. His dad was a surgeon and his mother worked in an art gallery, but has always painted for herself too. Both his parents encouraged his musicality from a young age and he started classical guitar lessons as soon as he could hold a guitar. His parents divorced when he was around eleven and he lived with his dad in Glasgow - his dad's home city - until his dad died of cancer when Jerott was 18. Instead of joining Francis Crawford, who he met at the Solway Moss battle of the bands just before his dad's death, Jerott turned away from music to be a doctor like his father. He went to stay with his mother in Paris while studying and through her met a charismatic older man (Graham Reid Malett) and went off to find himself at an ashram in India instead. The medical degree was forgotten and he learned sitar, Ayurvedic massage, yoga, and some Hindi and Urdu at the ashram run by Rajneesh. He spent a few years in Rajneesh's cult and moved to a new ashram in Nevada with GRM - and none of it did his self-acceptance as a bisexual man any good. Having made a pass at GRM and been rebuffed, he later revealed his crush on Francis during a therapy session with GRM, who began to become obsessed with Francis through Jerott's recollection of him and through his music. GRM engineered a way for them to join Francis' new recording collective, St Mary's, and Jerott gradually realised the extent of the problems with the movement he was in, and with GRM particularly. He reaffirmed his loyalty to Francis, but GRM did him lasting damage that drove him to self-destructive alcoholism. He nevertheless tried to help Francis undo the mess GRM had done and in the process met Marthe - who it was easier to admit to being in love with than Francis. She needed a European visa and the potential for a passport, as well as a boost to her career, so she married him despite knowing she wasn't attracted to men. They had a deeply unhappy marriage and lived in France, using properties Marthe was able to inherit from a relative once she was resident in the EU. Jerott had a drunken one night stand with a Danish guy called Peder at a low point in his marriage, and then he ran into Peder again at another vulnerable moment (the end of Checkmate). He and Peder had a couple of good years together but it didn't work out. Since Peder, Jerott's seen some guys and some girls but hasn't really had anything long-term or meaningful - but at least he always had his best friend Danny to go to for advice!

Danny Hislop

Band AU Danny was born with PAIS and is intersex. The oldest child born to Rabbi Hislop in Glasgow, they were amab and given surgery to make their physical body allign with this assignation. While they were raised as a boy, they knew this wasn't right for them, and the bar mitzvah really cemented that feeling. Danny's family didn't understand their nonbinary identification (NB I know not all intersex people are nonbinary, but Danny is) and Danny left home at 14 with a clarinet and a grade 6 piano qualification and went to stay with a blue-collar, union-stalwart great uncle in Edinburgh. The great uncle helped Danny reconcile their faith with their identity somewhat - the discussions around tumtum (people of unidentified sex) taking place in rabbinic communities came a little late for Danny, but at least they became aware of the term through their uncle. At sixteen they made their way to London in search of a community that matched how they felt about themselves - they became bat mitzvah as well by choice, partly as a way of reclaiming what they felt was forced on them incorrectly by their father. They lived in squats and it wasn't initially a great time to be young and of indeterminate gender in a big city - it took a while to find the right people and they experimented with some stuff they regret. Then they found a healthier community, moved on again to Paris with a friend, became an apprentice in a kitchen and played saxophone and clarinet at jazz clubs. They settled in the Marais - which is both the Jewish and the queer quarter. When Lymond called for auditions to join his experiment in Russia, Danny submitted a klesmer cover of Lymond's song 'Crisco Disco', along with evidence of their fluent French and passable Russian (Danny tries to learn something from everyone they meet, and Paris has a big Russian expat community). They proved themselves resilient enough to travel the USSR with Lymond - though they probably had to deal with a lot of fuckery regarding pronouns and people's perception - and they remained a valued member of St Mary's afterwards, though they still live in the Marais near their drag cabaret friends. They've kind of been in love with Jerott Blyth since seeing him cover for Francis by playing a guitar solo that should have been impossible sober, while so drunk that he also shouldn't have been able to stand up. They are not proud of this fact. They also strongly believe that Jerott will never see them as anything more than a kooky friend who's into far kinkier shit than Jerott could stomach.

#everyday i write the book #band au: post canon #ship: a twinge of approval #character: danny hislop #character: jerott blyth #i mean it with those content warnings - i felt like that was kind of the elephant in the room in such a queer '80s au so.

[venndaai]

I finished Checkmate recently, which means I can finally go ahead and write a very important post!

Lymond Characters Ranked By Their Degree Of Transgender Swag*

Danny Hislop: listen to me. Listen. I 100%, no joke, believe that Daniel Hislop is canonically AFAB. There is zero evidence to contradict this and considerable evidence for it, if you count up every time Danny's small stature and beardlessness is pointedly mentioned, and also if you just look at how much swag he has.

Oonagh O'Dwyer: canonically was happy for exactly one afternoon in her whole life, and that was because she was passing as a boy during it. I am just saying.

Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny: canonically extremely good at drag. Is God's specialest princess. Is apparently physically nearly identical to his half-sister, including their voices. High levels of transgender swag.

Robin Stewart: is canonically not trans, but a lot of his issues would be even worse if he was, nice, and he is also my favorite poor little meow meow so I'm claiming him.

Marthe: already has Gender Trouble up the wazoo, why not add a bit more. Is apparently physically nearly identical to her half-brother, including their voices.

Mikal: is already fem, bisexual, and the swaggiest character on this list. He could be anything he wants to be baby.

Adam: soft gentle bisexual artist who can also Murder. Decent amount of transgender swag.

Christian Stewart: pretty sure she's a cis lesbian and that's why marriage feels like death to her, but it could absolutely be because she's an egg!

Will Scott: again, very much a cis gay man, but AU transgender Will would be delightful.

Archie: I feel like Archie transcends gender, tbh.

Philippa Somerville: no trans swag but she'd definitely be an Ally.

Jerott: he's already confused about enough, let's not make it worse.

Margaret Lennox: my favorite failgirl villainess has zero swag of any kind.

Richard Crawford: always and forever the token cishet. Transgender swag levels terminally in the negative.

(*obligatory "just, like, my opinion, man" disclaimer goes here)

#lymond #the lymond chronicles #hello. i have only the most highbrow contributions for this fandom. #lymond chronicles #i forget what tag i was using

[thecrenellations]

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis?"

In 60 years of the Lymond Chronicles, I'd bet that many others have compiled this exact thing, but here is a list of who calls Lymond by his first name! Marthe draws our attention to the question near the end of Pawn in Frankincense, but it's clear throughout the series how deliberately Dunnett chooses what to call the characters in narration and dialogue - the choice can reflect who Francis Crawford (for example) is to others as well as to himself, at any moment. I love it, and Meaningful Naming is a feature of most of my favorite stories.

Characters are listed with the book in which they first call him Francis in dialogue. Italics indicate they call him that when he isn't present. If they directly Francis him later, they’ve been added to the list for that book, too.

I've also noted to whom he's just Francis in the narration - it's always someone who thinks of him like that, and it always makes me feel a lot.

If you notice something I left out, or if you know where to find similar analysis, let me know! Let us all be scholars of Francis.

Lists below! Plus some thoughts and quantitative stuff. (many, many spoilers)

The Game of Kings

Sybilla Semple (see, I have to decide what to call all of these characters, too!)

Margaret Lennox

Christian Stewart (to Sybilla, and I'm sure she called him Francis in their childhood)

Richard Crawford 

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Queens’ Play

Tom Erskine

Jenny Fleming

Margaret Erskine

Martine

Oonagh O’Dwyer

Phelim O’LiamRoe

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

The Disorderly Knights

Will Scott

Kate Somerville 

Graham Reid Malett

Adam Blacklock

Janet Beaton

Jerott Blyth (I'm also sure Jerott called him Francis in the old days, but he doesn't return to it until the scene with Evangelista Donati at Midculter)

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard, Tom, Kate, Sybilla

Pawn in Frankincense

Jerott Blyth

Dame de Doubtance 

Marthe

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott

The Ringed Castle

Alec Guthrie

the Abbess/Sybilla's sister

Francis in narration from the POV of: Richard

Checkmate

Philippa Somerville

Marguerite de St. Andre

Catherine d’Albon (to Philippa)

Nicholas Applegarth (also to Philippa)

Adam Blacklock

Danny Hislop

Francis in narration from the POV of: Jerott, Philippa, Richard, Sybilla, Adam

Observations

Aaaaah!

Richard's monopoly on the narration Francises in the first two books kills me, I love it. The first, of course, is "God, Francis had screamed."

As a reader, I started calling him Francis, sometimes, somewhere in the middle of Queen's Play and stopped overthinking it by the beginning of the next book.

I didn't count, but I'd bet that Jerott says and thinks it the most. He's there more than probable runners-up Gabriel (shut up, Gabriel) and Richard (ily Richard) are, and Philippa goes on her own ... journey before thinking of him that way and allowing herself to think of him that way.

Adam is unique for making the list in his first book, specifically not calling Lymond Francis in The Ringed Castle, and then putting himself back on the list through address and narration in Checkmate. But that's The Ringed Castle for you 😬. And their entire relationship - there's a chapter or so in which Adam's narration calls him de Sevigny.

Who even calls him Francis in RC? Just Alec, Richard, and Margaret, I think. ("Do you call her Slata or Baba?" Thank you, Philippa.)

I would teach myself tarocco and play for at least a few hours to learn when Will started calling him Francis. Also the Erskines! They're all so genuinely close in the years after Game of Kings.

Notable Absences

Güzel - well, that feels meaningful. They were together for years. If she did, we didn't see, and I would also believe that she didn't.

Archie - will he ever? Who can say. Either way, he's the best. Also, see here.

Mariotta - I bet she does, after the first book, we just haven't been there.

Fergie, probably?

Piero Strozzi - Francesco? My petit François? I don't remember any Francises, though!

Ivan (and others?) - I'm not counting Frangike, either

Robin Stewart - I mean, I'm sure he would have if he'd known his boyfriend's real name before ... all of that went down.

Diccon Chancellor - probably not? I'd also put this down to the Ringed Castle state of mind. As meaningful as their friendship was, it makes sense for the book to continue to distance the reader, at the very least, in that way.

Does Francis call himself Francis?

No.

He doesn't, really! He's never that from his own point of view, but we do see him sign a few letters with his first name. These are to:

Kate (Pawn in Frankincense)

Catherine d'Albon (Checkmate)

Philippa (Checkmate)

All of this is not to say that “Francis” represents who he truly is; it certainly shows intimacy and usually vulnerability, but I feel that Lymond and Francis Crawford can be just as definitive when deployed, and that Lymond has a certain neutrality. There's also something really interesting that happens when the characters are stripped of names and become just "he" or "she," from their own perspective or others.

And then we get things like "Mistress Philippa's decorative husband," which really deserve their own list.

"How many souls on this earth call you Francis? Three? Or perhaps four?"

18 of the 25 Francis-ers on my list are living at the end of the series, and when Marthe, who is not one of them, asks that question at the end of PiF, it's 12 (out of 18 total).

18 out of 25 is a 72% survival rate! Great!

2 of the 18 are pretty awful (Margaret Lennox and the Abbess)

4 of the 18 live in France, which he's currently exiled from

1 of the 18 lives in Ireland, but I think they should still hang out!

2 of the 18 may be departing for Malta, apparently

7 of the 18 are people he probably sees or keeps in touch with regularly, 9 if I count Janet Beaton and Margaret Erskine, because I like them and they're not very far away.

As much as I wish that many of the others hadn't died, I think he's doing pretty well.

#FRANCIS CRAWFORD #lymond #lymond chronicles #checkmate #dorothy dunnett #dear lord this got long #but i had fun #and it's mostly just lists #thank you marthe for that quote #something i

[notasapleasure]

Untitled Jerott/Danny (canonverse, post-canon)

Yesterday I got myself in a tizz about Jerott, again. After wailing about it to @erinaceina I decided to channel Danny Hislop and get Jerott to face up to his issues. It turned into drunken and-there-was-only-one-bed. No, I am not normal about this character.

Notes: addresses Jerott’s potential to indulge in ‘joyless and violent encounters’ of the CM variety (i.e. discussion of not very pleasant paid sex). Also contains two instances of people being deeply ungenerous to Francis, but one is: disingenuous and drunk and two is: being disingenuous to make the other person feel better and also drunk. Neither I, nor the characters, really think these things about Lymond :P

~5,000 words. I’ll stick it on Ao3 when I come up with a title.

Eta:

The next man with a ladder

------------------------------

This was how it went every night.

They came upon a settlement or a suitable inn - it might have been earlier in the evening, or later. Under a guise of care - "It's been a long day. Your shoulder needs rest." - Jerott would call a halt to the journey and lead them to the surest source of women and wine he could identify. Often, these were the first words he spoke all day. Then he'd hand the horses over, pay whoever needed paying, go to a room without even a backwards glance at Danny, and emerge later - flushed, sweaty, wearing an expression of self-loathing, and with a thirst powerful enough to drain the wine cellar. He'd drink enough to pass out - sometimes where he sat at the table, sometimes he'd make it back to a bed - and, in an act of self-discipline that made Danny nauseous with reluctant admiration, would be up again before dawn every morning, shaved, washed, hungover, and ready to leave.

Danny had stopped trying to make small talk on the road. He'd stopped trying to make big talk, too. When he had first met Jerott off the boat from Scotland, Danny had explained everything in person, to supplement the letters he'd sent. He'd explained how he had come to follow Jerott's dead wife to Blois, how he had ended up with a knife wound in his back, how he had anticipated it - or something like it - and how the wound might have been worse if he hadn't worn some armour to the encounter. He'd tried to find out directly from Jerott himself what had happened when Marthe had turned up in the Scottish borders carrying the news that Danny had tried to contain in Blois. He'd thought to find out what Jerott knew of the information she had carried, and what he made of it. But the only response Danny had received to any of this chatter had been a sour expression and a derisory silence. Jerott acted as though if he ignored what Danny reminded him of, it might as well never have happened. He was set on some point in the past, before he'd met Marthe, before his faith had been shaken and then stripped from him and remade. Long before he'd had the privilege to encounter Daniel Hislop.

Danny had therefore stopped bothering to ask why Jerott was so adamant he wanted Danny to accompany him back to Malta.

Instead, Danny was obliged to spend day after dour day asking himself why he was there.

Something, pulled from him agonisingly, like a rotten tooth, kept Danny trailing along after the least entertaining travelling partner he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. Danny, being a clever bastard, knew just what it was, and what it could lead to, if the rot were left to set in. But still the clever bastard rode on, grimly observing the only thing that changed day to day: Danny's feelings towards the broad-shouldered rider he followed. Curiosity hadn't lasted long before giving way to pity. Pity had been given no encouragement by which to grow established, and had withered to irritation. Irritation, Danny noted clinically, was fuelled daily by the conviction that what he was watching was a waste, as surely as the death of Francis Crawford of Lymond would have been a waste. It was the conviction that Jerott didn't have to become the wretched misanthrope he was imitating daily, that he had more to offer - if he would simply let go of the shame and self-recrimination he wore like one of his fine merchants' silks.

The rot was unavoidable, sickly and sweet, spoiling Danny's excellent reflexes and long-honed attitude of mercenary indifference: Danny cared about the foolish creature he followed.

Dealing with this, and dealing with Jerott's own sensitive disposition, would likely result in a situation that Danny supposed to be akin to hedgehogs shagging in a prickle bush. Any movement was bound to result in an awful lot of squealing and discomfort, it would be hard to say who did most damage to whom, and in the end, despite any uncomfortable achievements, they'd probably go their separate ways.

Danny had watched over Jerott's sleeping form in enough roadside taverns to know that if he gave Jerott an excuse to drive him away, he'd never forgive himself for leaving him alone like this.

Danny sat by the grubby window of the latest inn and whorehouse and stared past the glass into the ruins of what had been a blissfully uncomplicated life up until his involvement with Francis Crawford and his unfortunate friend, Jerott Blyth.

So, after his magnificent mercenary career, after gathering a collection of the most gorgeous, witty mistresses an entire continent could offer, this was what his life had come to? Matron to a drunk knight, passive witness to another's crise d'amour, omniscient narrator of his own hilariously trite romantic tragedy?

Danny swilled the warm house beer around his mouth and frowned at the window. Was he really just going to let Jerott's spiral of shame consume him, too?

For fuck's sake, Maeve, Danny closed his eyes. He recognised the smell of Jerott's sweat - the specific, unique combination of horse and leather, herbs and cotton, cheap whore's perfume and wine.

As usual, Jerott clattered into the seat opposite Danny with little care. The stool screeched on the floor. His coin purse clanked under his fist. His drinking vessel thudded on the table. He let out a sigh, as though he'd been engaged in the most miserable business on earth.

Danny opened his eyes, ready to shoot Jerott a look that would tell him everything he needed to know, should he bother to pay attention to it.

Instead, Danny sat up with an exclamation.

Jerott's black hair was slicked with more than sweat this time: a corner of his forehead was swelling, red and blue and angry, and strands of hair stuck to his skin with unmistakeably red adhesive. Some of it was wine - the smell of it on him was stronger even than normal - but there were wounds to his temple and cheek, too.

"What?" he glared at Danny over his drink.

Danny bit his lip, but it was too late. The words were on their way out: "Did you pay extra for that?"

The anger that lit up those dark eyes was meant to be a warning, but it was excitement that warmed Danny's guts when Jerott looked at him like that.

Jerott, for now, stuck to his policy of silence, and shook his head in disgust. He took another vast draught of his drink, maybe hoping he'd pass out before having to engage in conversation.

All the irritation that had been growing in Danny reached a head . He wouldn't be driven away, he told himself, but he had to say something. He had to get that infuriating man talking somehow. Jerott was only letting his frustrations and his anger out on those who had no choice but to deal with it, and Danny wanted, suddenly, passionately, to receive all that Jerott could give, rather than let him waste another drop of fury on some unsuspecting prostitute.

"Have you heard of such a thing as mutual pleasure, Jerott? If they're having a good time, you might, too."

Disbelief lit the anger in Jerott's eyes this time.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. Try being nice. They might be nicer in return."

Danny was certain that if there hadn't been a table between them, Jerott would have struck him for that.

"On the other hand, if it's a beating you want, I'd be happy to oblige," Danny sipped from his beer, gazing coolly at Jerott as he did so. "My arm's still weak, but I can probably do better than a malnourished teenager."

Oh he didn't like that, did he, Maeve? Not one bit. Danny took another drink of beer to hide any compromising expression that might have reached his features.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Jerott said stiffly. He'd forgotten to empty his cup, though, and sat there with his fists bunched on the table, his cheeks pale, eyes wide with anger and fixed on Danny.

Danny blinked primly and shifted in his seat to lean forward, confidential, candid, friendly - but cold where Jerott was hot. "Actually, I have extensive experience in such matters. More, I suspect, than anyone who spent the best years of his life a celibate on an island full of pious men." Danny laced his fingers together and relished the righteous anger that Jerott had touched him with. "What you're engaged in, day after day, like an itinerant carnival of misery, is not experience, not for you. It is forgetting yourself, and leaving a trail of unhappy girls in your wake."

Danny saw the effort it took for Jerott to unwind his quivering muscles enough to sit back, moving away as Danny moved forward, to feign amusement at Danny's words.

"Defender of the defenceless, are you? They're doing a job. I pay them."

"Why?" Danny shrugged.

That made him pause. His eyes flickered away to the wine, and Danny was sorely tempted to swipe it away, fearful that his target would elude him in a drunken stupor.

But Jerott was too furious to reach for it, apparently. His fists, resting on the edge of the table, trembled a little. His knuckles were nearly as pale as Danny's milky skin. He swallowed and bit the inside of his lip hard enough that Danny winced.

Jerott forced a snort out. "I'd have thought, given your 'extensive experience', you'd have a pretty good idea of why."

It was an opening, of sorts. An appeal. Danny felt his heart begin to race - he'd gotten himself thoroughly enmeshed in the prickle bush now. The pressure was on to make sure he achieved what he'd set out to do. Carefully, quietly, mindful of Jerott's pride, but more mindful of the void in Jerott's leaderless, loverless life, Danny murmured, "Because it is pleasurable. Or it ought to be." He waited to see if Jerott would meet his eyes again, but Jerott was staring at his hands with a wild, harried look on his features. "I don't think, Jerott, that you find inflicting pain pleasurable."

"I don't hurt them!" Jerott hissed, meeting Danny's gaze with horror.

"Why did that one smash a wine jug on your head, then?"

Danny wondered, momentarily, if Jerott was going to throw up on the table. Instead, he grabbed his cup and poured most of its contents down his throat. A trickle of red liquid missed his mouth and wept from the corner of his lips to his chin. "It was fine," he said hoarsely. "Just a misunderstanding."

Not to be deterred, not now he'd forced himself this far into Jerott's sordid affairs, Danny allowed his pale brows to raise a little. "And did you have a good time?"

"That's not the point!"

Jerott sounded genuinely confused now, and Danny wondered, yet again, what he was doing here, trying to explain the pleasures he and any one of his mistresses could have been happily occupied with to a man who was intending to voluntarily give up such joys for a second time in his life. To a man who, to Danny's endless chagrin, looked like he ought to have been able to bring pleasure to anyone if he actually chose to.

The pity must have returned, and appeared plainly on his features.

"What?!" Jerott said again, his voice a little more desperate now than it had been.

"Well," Danny said. In for a prickle bush, in for a whole thicket of them… "Were you like this with Marthe?"

Ah, would you look at that, Maeve, he's angry again.

"That's none of your business!"

Danny smiled as sweetly as he could manage. This was like being engaged in combat - attack, parry, never take your mind off your opponent. Remember to breathe. "Of course you weren't. She'd have stuck you like the rutting hog you are if you'd tried."

"I loved her," Jerott said feelingly. Again, Danny was struck by the impression that the table was an essential component of the continued peace between them.

"So you're going to spend the rest of your life stooping to meet her expectations of you?"

Jerott shook his head and gaped for a moment. "I don't need to listen to your judgement, Danny." His lips a sour, flat line, he finally proclaimed: "Why are you even here? You can sod off back to Scotland, I'll go to Malta on my own."

His weight shifted, and Danny saw his move belatedly. He shot a hand out to grab Jerott's wrist to stop him from rising, and felt the full force of the other man's anger wash over him once more.

"I'm here because you asked for me. I'm judging you as your friend, Jerott," Danny said crisply. "I've come to expect more from you. Francis expects more."

Jerott's eyes narrowed and he looked down at Danny's hand. "Don't talk to me about Francis." His voice was dangerously quiet.

Well, Maeve. You got where you wanted. Now, being a clever bastard, you had a plan for what to do when you got here, didn't you?

"Why not?" asked Danny lightly. "Do you think Francis never spoke about you to the rest of us?"

Jerott shucked Danny's hand off - not as easily as he had hoped to - and sat back, his arms folded across his chest. "I don't care what gossip you all came up with," he said unconvincingly.

"He thinks more highly of you than anyone else in his command."

"Francis thinks only of himself and his position. It doesn't matter if you're in his command or if you think you're his friend - it's all the same in the end."

Danny frowned, studying the man opposite him - his shuttered expression, his tightly crossed arms, the worried look he couldn't quite hide from his eyes. Danny had seen plenty of wounded animals in the aftermath of battle - glassy-eyed, shivering, dumbly angry, and unable to explain why it was that they hurt.

"You don't believe that," Danny surmised.

"Please, tell me more about what I do and do not believe," Jerott's lip curled. "Since you're apparently an expert on my every motivation now."

A serving boy was passing the table, and Danny relented and called for more wine to be brought over. Even with wounded animals, it was kinder to administer a painkiller before delivering the coup de grace.

Jerott watched the wine arrive. He watched Danny pour two cups out and didn't move, even when Danny pushed one across the table towards him. Petulantly, he waited for Danny to drink and sigh and speak first.

"I did hear something about a…prophecy? A rather cruel bit of character analysis?"

Jerott's jaw moved thoughtfully. Something like lucidity has returned to his eyes - he was looking at Danny with more perception than he had drawn on that whole journey. He reached out and accepted his cup of wine. "Or a senile old woman stirring up trouble."

Danny sighed. "Do you know - up until Francis Crawford of Lymond, I never loved a man or a woman, and never thought I would. So you, my dear, didn't stand a chance. The old witch was certainly setting you up to fail."

Jerott's snort of laughter was more genuine this time, directed at himself. "That's a fair summary of most things I've done in my life."

Danny let himself laugh as well. "Come now, self-pity doesn't suit you, Jerott."

It wasn't strictly true. Jerott's lips were a little wine-stained - purple that complemented his dark skin generously. He brooded handsomely enough, but his smiles were rarer and made Danny feel as jealous and possessive as a courtier conducting his first affair. And it was easier to admire his eyes now that Jerott wasn't imagining murdering Danny with every word, too. Framed by thick black lashes, they were a world of rich browns, suffused with a frankly abominable capacity for deeply-held emotions - if not with the sort of quick intelligence Danny was more accustomed to appreciating.

Jerott tucked his lower lip under his teeth again and shook his head ruefully at his cup of wine. "I almost killed him, Danny. And it got her…it…" he blinked and drew an unsteady breath. "My god, her face. It would have been bad enough. It would have been enough. But to think it was almost him?"

He wore an expression you saw more commonly on green soldiers after their first melee. Jerott's hands trembled again and he took a gulp of wine.

"He forgives you," Danny didn't need to make it into a question.

To Danny's surprise, Jerott laughed. It even reached his eyes, and, unthinkingly, he licked the wine from his lips in a way that made every muscle in Danny's body clench.

"His forgiveness isn't everything," Jerott's brows quirked and he looked down at his cup as his smile faded softly from his features.

"I can't stop seeing her, Danny," he said after a pause. "And with her face…with her face like that, she could be him." He studied Danny again, and Danny matched Jerott's pace on the wine, feeling unsteady on his stool now that he'd finally won the honesty he'd made it his mission to pursue.

"It's intolerable," Jerott said blankly. "I can't sleep. Not without…" He gestured at the jug of wine, nodded his head in the direction of the stairs he'd descended earlier.

Belatedly Danny recalled that, with both of them in the prickle bush, both had to come out hurting. He shuddered and refilled his cup. "Of course it's not about pleasure, then," Danny smiled wanly. "You think there's no such thing left in the world."

Jerott's brow creased as he pondered this. "It gets me to sleep, that's all," he said, but he seemed uncertain.

"Then, as we have another long day of travel ahead of us before we reach port, I suggest we make sure of a good night's sleep," Danny announced with bravado. He leaned over the table to top up Jerott's cup and felt like he almost fell headfirst into Jerott's pained eyes as he did so.

Shakily, Danny drank nearly half his own vessel of wine in the wake of that.

"Since you don't actually want me to return to Scotland, and need someone to make sure you do, in fact, get back to your hermitage…" he checked Jerott's response carefully.

"Right…it's more effort than it's worth to get rid of you," Jerott muttered. He shuffled his stool close to the table again so he could prop his elbow on it and lean his head against his hand. The pose brought him into contact with the bruise he'd received earlier though, and he hissed angrily and swore.

Danny shuffled closer too and reached out, glancing at Jerott for confirmation that the gesture would be allowed.

Jerott sighed and set his head at an angle so that Danny could get to the bruise more easily.

With the tips of his fingers, Danny probed at swollen flesh and pushed wine-and blood-crusted strands of hair back. A bit lower and the blow might have made quite the mess of a vulnerable eye-socket or temple, but up at the hairline it was unlikely to cause much bother. Really, Danny didn't need to feel its full extent beneath his touch, didn't need to take such care to clear the hair from sticky skin.

"You'll have a swine of a headache tomorrow, but you'll live," Danny pronounced, withdrawing his hand regretfully and turning to his wine.

Jerott smiled - oh Maeve, why does he keep doing that? - "I'd accounted for that being the case anyway."

"Well, as your comrade-in-arms, I still say this is a terrible idea," Danny raised his cup to Jerott's. "But it's not a battle I'll leave you to face alone."

Jerott met the gesture with his own drinking vessel and met Danny's eyes with a combination of relief and gratitude in his expression. "Sure you don't have something better to be doing?"

Danny had heard all about the way Jerott had clung to Francis' side the whole way around the Mediterranean. He supposed it was his task now to do the same for Jerott. Was he doing it for the same reasons? Merely perpetuating a cycle of pining and self-loathing that would eat away at him until he was as bitter and confused as Jerott himself?

But Danny shook his head and affected tart indignation. "No. What joy could I have by any mistress' side while I know my poor, dear friend is out here, sober and unable to get his beauty sleep?"

"I'm a long way from sober right now, Danny…" Jerott chuckled.

Oh Maeve. Me too. Danny knocked back his wine.

-

It took a lot of wine for Danny to forget how poorly Jerott could hold a tune. Luckily for the other patrons in the tavern, the singing only began when most of them were asleep. Danny tried, and failed repeatedly, to teach Jerott the bawdiest songs he knew, and Jerott ended up leaning on his forearm, laughing uncontrollably into the table, his shoulders shaking, his cuff soaked with wine.

Danny tripped over three stools in the short journey from one side of the table to the other - he swore there had only been one other stool there, and frowned at the jumble of furniture like it had betrayed him.

He dropped a heavy hand on each of Jerott's shoulders and leaned over him. "Come on. We paid for a room. If you're going to not sleep, or pass out, or whatever, you may as well do so in the bed you paid for…" Danny stumbled where he stood and pulled at Jerott's body until the other man sat up with a groan.

Jerott fumbled for the last jug of wine and clutched it to his body as Danny waited for him to stand. Leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder, they bumped and stumbled their way between chairs, tables, walls and other obstacles. Jerott hiccupped when the tavern's resident cat scooted in front of them and Danny roared protectively as it beat its hasty retreat into the coal store.

Jerott laughed and leaned heavily against his arm. "Oh, you showed him…"

"Well, I'm here to keep an eye out for you, aren't I?" Danny leaned back into Jerott's stance, holding off using his hands to prop up his friend until he absolutely had to. Jerott stumbled, giggling, and Danny caught him under the arms. "Stairs…up the stairs…" Danny muttered the instructions for the benefit of his own legs as much as Jerott's as the two of them swayed from one side of the steps to the other, weaving their way up to the first floor.

"I don't need you to look after me, Danny…" Jerott mumbled happily.

"We're not discussing this," Danny hoisted Jerott's weight over the last step and pushed him bodily along the landing until he was confident he'd be able to stop both of them from toppling backwards down the stairs should Jerott's balance shift again. "You've had a terrible time, and you need someone who isn't…isn't going to leave you the minute they get the chance to be with the love of their life."

Jerott leaned into Danny and turned his face towards him. His breath smelled of wine, and Danny could feel it hot on his own lips. "I don't think Philippa would share him with you, anyway…" Jerott giggled at his own joke, and even through the wine, Danny felt a shiver of despair on behalf of both of them.

"Come on, you fool," Danny shoved him and Jerott stumbled forward a few steps, laughing and clutching the wine jug. It had slopped some of its contents on his top but he didn't seem bothered by it.

Jerott managed to haul himself upright enough to wobble over to a doorjamb outside one of the rooms. He turned to look at Danny with something alarmingly like a come-on in his eyes and tossed his black hair back from his face. "Seeing as you're so confident of your abilities, why don't you show me what this pleasure is all about?"

There was a challenge in Jerott's eyes. Purse in hand, he raised his hand to knock on the door he'd emerged from earlier.

Danny, reeling from the explosive impact of a number of emotions that left his nerve-endings feeling like they were on fire, lunged forwards to stop Jerott's hand. "Stop that, you're drunk, I'm drunk, and I don't think the young woman will be happy to see you again…" Danny hissed. He'd used his momentum and full body weight to turn Jerott around the doorjamb, so Jerott now stood with his back to the corridor wall, the wine jug the only shield between his body and Danny's.

Jerott grunted derisorily and looked Danny up and down. "All talk…that's what you are."

"Enough," Danny scruffed the arm of Jerott's crumpled clothes and hauled him along the corridor towards their own quarters. "You're in no fit state to enjoy even the show I could put on."

"Oh, a show, is it?"

Don't let the drunken idiot get to you, Maeve. He doesn't know what he's saying.

"What's that?" Jerott peered at Danny, reeling in Danny's grip like a flag in the wind.

"What?" Danny swore and fumbled for the room key with his spare hand.

"What you just said. 'Don't let the drunken idiot get to you'?" Jerott frowned, but a cheeky grin was playing in his lips at the same time.

"I didn't say that," Danny stopped. Shit. Maybe he had said it out loud. He was, after all, quite drunk.

Jerott laughed at him again. "You're drunk, Danny. I don't think I've ever seen you drunk."

With infuriating composure and ease, Jerott removed one hand from the wine jug, fished around in his clothing for a moment, and then brought out an iron key. It took a couple of lunges to get it in the lock, but he managed and then advanced into the room ahead of Danny.

As he closed the door behind them, Danny noticed from the corner of his eye that Jerott's balance had altered again. He leapt once more to catch him, but Danny's body wasn't able to keep up with the reflexes he'd honed in combat - Jerott tripped over his own boots, Danny misjudged the distance between them and the imbalance of weight, and the two of them ended up in an ungainly heap on one of the cots, doused with the remains of the wine Jerott had been hugging.

Jerott swore feelingly, a sopping wet, wriggling armful of muscles and ruined silk in Danny's hold.

Darry's eyes were scrunched up and prickling where the wine had got in them. His face was sticky with it, the smell of it was overwhelming - up his nose and in his hair, in his ears too, probably.

Managing to twist himself free, Jerott must have propped himself up above Danny, because the mattress shifted and sank to either side of him. A set of warm fingers pushed Danny's sodden hair back from his forehead and Danny drew in a hiss of breath in response.

"Are you ok?" Jerott asked. "Can you open your eyes? I'll get some water…"

Danny forced himself to blink and unleashed his own litany of blasphemy at the stinging sensation that followed. His surroundings were blurry and he tried to sit up, but he had evidently misjudged the distance between himself and Jerott's looming silhouette. With the full momentum of his movement behind it, Danny's forehead cracked off Jerott's jaw and they both exclaimed angrily again.

"For god's sake!" Jerott shook the wine off his cuffs and, Danny supposed, glared at him. Danny wiped the wine out of his eyelashes furiously and winced at the pain in his forehead.

"I always suspected your skull was made of granite," Jerott grumbled.

Danny squinted at him until he came into focus. He looked troubled as much as angry, and was sitting on the wine-soaked mattress, his back touching Danny's thigh unthinkingly. The empty jug of wine lay on the pillow, bleeding its last drops onto the white linen.

"And you could cut glass on that damned jaw," Danny seethed.

Jerott's eyes narrowed and then he laughed. "Maybe, but not your head, apparently." Teasingly, he reached out and pressed his thumb to the bruise welling on Danny's brow.

Danny cursed and swatted Jerott's hand away.

Jerott stood up, still chuckling, and said, "Don't worry. The skin's not broken and you won't get a scar."

Danny watched him go miserably. His leg felt cold where Jerott had been leaning against him. "So you deny me a feature of interest? A conversation topic for all future lovers? 'And how did you get this, dearest Daniel? Well, my love, I was attacked, out of nowhere, by the most fearsome knight.'"

Jerott stood in the middle of the room, swaying a little to compensate for the wine. He watched Danny perform this story, and then snorted. "Fearsome knight? Really?"

Like he knew it would be the most annoying thing to do then and there, he began to unlace his clothes and then pulled his sleeves, doublet and linen shirt off, letting them fall with a wet slap on the stones by the fire. Its warm light showed off his chest - Danny had seen that before, but god, Danny was drunk now, and primed to look in a way he'd never looked before. The bastard glistened. It was just the wine that had spilled on him, but it still drew Danny's eyes in the firelight. The line of his breastbone, the dark hairs stippling muscle, lean and powerful.

"Fearsome," Danny repeated glumly and lay back on the bed so he didn't have to watch Jerott undress further.

He heard the splash of Jerott's ablutions at the pitcher and bowl set out on the side table and remained on his back, scowling at the ceiling and cursing himself for being such a soft mark. Maybe whatever Jerott had was catching, Danny thought, and giggled to himself despite the seriousness of the thought: incorrigible romanticism. It sounded painful. Danny didn't think he'd like to come down with it. Maybe in the morning he'd see himself more clearly again, realise that he was on a fool's errand, a warden's job he didn't need to take, and he'd merrily leave Jerott to his business and ride back to Scotland - to sharper wits and a more mercurial master. To somewhere a safe distance from this melancholy speculation he found himself engaging in when he thought about the other man in the room.

"You're just going to lie there in a puddle of wine all night?" Jerott called from the other bed.

"Well, Maeve, if it's good enough for you..." Danny muttered sleepily.

Jerott grunted, apparently settling beneath the covers. "I never said it was a good night's sleep," he said. "Just that it was sleep."

Danny sighed. His back was wet, he could feel the wine spread through the fibres of his clothing. It stank, he stank, the whole bed stank - cheap, sweet red and wet horse hair was a poor combination, and Danny finally relented and sat up.

Jerott was seemingly already asleep. His face was turned towards the fireplace, his eyes closed and his expression almost peaceful. There was a small dent between his brows, like he was thinking of something elusive, and his black hair fanned out on the pillow, leaving his features highlighted by the warm light like a chiaroscuro painting.

"Can't sleep, huh?" Danny grumbled, getting to his feet stiffly and starting the process of loosening and removing his sleeves.

He arranged his clothing and Jerott's over the tiles by the fire - at least they'd be dry enough to pack by the morning - and went to splash his wine-sticky face and neck with water from the ewer.

It was while he stood there, his bare back to the room, that he first heard the noise from Jerott's thoat. He sounded like a wounded calf, making some gutteral whine, but when Danny half-turned to peer skeptically at Jerott's still form, he saw his expression hadn't changed.

Just when Danny thought he'd imagined the sound and was about to turn back to the wash basin Jerott's body shuddered, and his frown deepened. "No!" he yelped, and a limb thrashed beneath the covers.

Danny winced. You didn't like to see this in any soldier, not least one you had been expecting to fight alongside. Not least one who was your friend. Who you'd set yourself to caring for.

He shook the excess water from his hands and approached the bedside carefully.

"Jerott?" he murmured.

Jerott thrashed again. "You fool, you bloody fool!" he seethed through clenched teeth, his eyes screwed shut.

Mindful of those flailing fists, Danny elected to perch on the edge of the mattress and pin Jerott's body down with the covers. Jerott fought them, and Danny saw him grow more distressed, so he raised his voice and called Jerott again until he stilled.

He cracked his eyes open reluctantly and then started to see Danny so close, unclothed and leaning over him.

"What the fuck?!"

Danny didn't loosen the covers. He didn't want any more blows to the face, and he eyed Jerott with caution.

"Who were you talking to, Jerott?"

Anger was fading to some other mix of emotions, and Jerott drew deep breaths beneath the blanket, staring at Danny with mistrust. Finally, to Danny's surprise, he murmured: "Myself."

Danny released his grip on the bedding and sat back. "That doesn't usually happen, you know," he said in case Jerott's wounded pride was bothering him. It was true - it seemed strange to Danny that it had never once occurred on any of their previous nights travelling together.

But Jerott didn't seem surprised. He got an arm free of the covers and swept his hair back from his forehead. He shrugged one shoulder against the pillow, and Danny was vexed to find himself wondering what the soft black hair in Jerott's armpit would feel like to the touch.

"No. That's why I usually drink enough to pass out," he said hoarsely, but the corner of his mouth curved in a mirthless smile. "Mustn't have had enough tonight. You're a lightweight, Danny."

Danny frowned. "Or you just spilled it all over my mattress!"

Jerott lifted his head from the pillow to peer across the room. Danny's bed lay as they'd left it - the wine jug was on the pillow, the covers were rumpled and stained.

"Huh," Jerott agreed. "Fine," he said, and turned with a sigh towards the wall. "Get in. But you'd better not have cold feet."

Danny stared at his smooth, bare shoulder with a mixture of horror and longing. He'd never noticed the black moles dotting Jerott's skin here and there. He'd never noticed that lacy set of curls at the nape of his neck when Jerott's hair fell to the side.

"Get in Danny, for god's sake," Jerott grumbled.

Danny obeyed. He wasn't sure if his feet were cold of not. He felt like the whole of his body must have been cold compared to the heat that radiated from Jerott's form. "What if you wake me up with a wailing and a gnashing of teeth again, what then, Maeve?" Danny asked through a grimace.

Jerott turned his head minutely and, after a pause, said: "I give you permission to smother me with a pillow. Good night, Danny."

"Night, Jerott."

Danny didn't know how long he lay awake for, but Jerott made no more unexpected noises. His snoring, eventually, might have kept a sober man conscious, but by then the warmth and the rhythm of Jerott's breathing had lulled Danny to the edge of sleep, and he let himself drop off without ever having figured out what he'd do the next morning if Jerott awoke contrite and moody about all he'd admitted to that night.

He might have had a chance to work it out in the morning, because, for once, he woke before Jerott. Danny blinked at the air, hazy with woodsmoke and the smell of stale wine. His mouth felt like a nest of rats and his head throbbed where he'd hit it against Jerott's jaw. The strangest thing though, was that he couldn't feel his right arm.

Danny moved his head and drew a sharp breath.

In the night, his companion has turned around and ended up lying on Danny's arm as much as against it. Jerott's face was pressed against Danny's upper arm and his body lay possessively angled towards him. One hand held loosely onto Danny's arm lower down, the fingers tucked between Danny's arm and his body.

Danny repressed the keenly felt urge to let out a frustrated cry. Jerott would murder him in bed if he woke up thinking Danny had crawled in there to take advantage of him. There would be yelling and recriminations and really - Danny was quite hungover and could do without all that. Maybe it would be better to let Jerott kill him where he lay.

He let his eyes fall closed and drew a breath to sigh, and - woke up again god knows how much later with his arm aching but no weight holding it down any longer.

Danny turned immediately to his right and couldn't hide his shock to see Jerott lying there, still and close, his own face twisted towards Danny's and an expression of wild discomfort in his dark eyes.

"Morning," Danny said carefully. "I assume. Morning?"

"Yeah," Jerott nodded once. He was looking at Danny not just with alarm, Danny saw now, but also puzzlement.

"I assumed you'd just wake me when the horses were ready, as usual," Danny spoke slowly, trapped by Jerott's eye contact. Trapped by the feeling of the body next to him, touching in one thin warm line down the side of Danny's body.

"I only just woke up myself," Jerott replied just as cautiously.

"Oh."

Danny wondered if he should move, get out of bed, be the first to break the strange spell between them.

"How's the head?" Jerott gestured at Danny's face with a flick of his brows.

"Bruised. Hungover."

Jerott smiled, and Danny felt his heart sink. He'd never lose that image, never lose the feeling that came with it - he could have watched that smile on his pillow every morning and it would have been a wondrous way to begin the day. Of course, he felt absured for allowing such feelings to get through to him, but it didn't seem to matter so much when the corner of Jerott's eye crinkled and the line of a dimple appeared in Jerott's blackly stubbled cheek.

"You look it," Jerott smirked, mistaking lovesick nausea for an aspect of Danny's hangover.

But then he turned thoughtful again. He looked away from Danny and pondered the wooden beams above them.

"I don't feel that bad. Except where that wine jug struck," he grumbled and retrieved his left hand to prod at the bruise at his hairline.

Danny hoped Jerott didn't notice him tense as Jerott's knuckles brushed past the skin on the right side of his body.

"Well, you deserve that," Danny said flatly.

Jerott shot him a look from the corner of his eye and grunted. "Maybe," he conceded.

Then he let his arm flop down to the covers and looked at Danny with a troubled scowl again. "I slept well though. So - I suppose I should thank you."

It was like a canon had been set beneath him. Danny sat straight up and laughed - a high-pitched, silly laugh that propelled him up and out of the bed, even a few paces away to where the maid had left their belongings.

"Glad to hear it!" He chuckled, grabbing after linens and pulling them on, his back to the bed in which Jerott still lay - his back to all the temptations to offer something rash that he knew damned well Jerott wasn't interested in.

"I won't be able to share a hammock with you onboard ship, so that sleep will have to last you to Malta," Danny said with forced cheer. "And speaking of ships, we really should get on the road if we're going to make port today."

Jerott had followed him out of bed and stood nearby, bleary with sleep, unselfconscious and naked, peering at his satchel. "True..." was all he said. He frowned and sorted through his clothes, while Danny stood half-dressed, panicking about what to say in a way he'd never stopped to think twice about before.

"Jerott?"

"Mm?"

Danny hesitated, his heart holding his throat in a strangle grip.

"Put your clothes on. We're going to be late."

Jerott eyed him closely. "That's what happens when you interfere with my drinking," he muttered at his clothes. Some kind of resigned dourness settled again on his features - his mouth found its grim set and his brows were a flat, angry line. He wore his now customary hunch of pain as he left the room and went to order the horses brought up, and Danny sighed, prepared for another day's hard, silent ride.

#my fic #my writing #my wips #jerott/danny #lymond #lymond fic #post-canon #lymond spoilers

[bloody-wonder]

the game of kings: a queer reading

hello, tiny fandom! i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me :D but nooo i have been quietly re-reading gok once again which brings the total amount of the times i’ve read it to an impressive 3.5 (0.5 is bc this last time i read it in russian but then re-read all the lymond scenes additionally in english bc i couldn’t help myself🙈). i have also read laura caine ramsey’s guide as well as every piece of secondary literature on the lymond chronicles i could get my hands on which makes me a nerd an expert and today i decided to grace you with a kind of post i honestly wish someone with a degree in literature and queer studies would have written instead but since such a person hasn’t volonteered so far we’ll have to make do with what i’ve scribbled in here. this post was inspired by my irl friend who has been buddy reading gok with me almost entirely out of free will and who informed me that she “doesn’t see the homoerotic subtext”. we then had an enlightening conversation that revealed differences in understanding of what subtext actually means and provoked many thoughts which i just had to write down somewhere. i’m fully aware that by posting this on tumblr i’m preaching to the choir but please bear with me, especially given that i’ll be talking not only about lymond’s relationship with one pathetic maladroit nincompoop but with mixt and subtle christian as well.

i tried to keep this spoiler free for the rest of the series but one or two vague things might have slipped through. also, i couldn’t be concise if my life depended upon it so it’s basically a whole treatise, you have been warned😬

sooooo i do hope it is a truth universally acknowledged that lymond cronicle gay. but in what way is it gay exactly? especially the first book which doesn’t have robin stewart, gabriel, jerott and marthe, not even danny hislop, and is very subdued in its references to same-sex love and desire in comparison to the later installments - where does it store its queer subtext? in this essay i will undertake the noble mission of finding out :D

a couple of introductory remarks before we start: first of all, i’m fully aware that assigning modern labels to historical personalities and fictional characters in historical settings is Bad and so i tried to refrain from it as much as i could, except in cases where i do it for comedic effect. but secondly, i do hope you will grant me some licence since i’m not doing historical research but instead something more akin to literary analysis (the horny kind). in that sense, while we can’t assign a label to lymond since those didn’t exist in his time and the very understanding of what we call queerness was entirely different, we can however compare him to a number of similar fictional heroes and see that some of his behaviors are far from typical, they are pretty queer in the broadest sense of the word, and to me this quality constitutes a very important part of lymond’s appeal. which is why when i say stuff like “a straight man would never do that” i am only half joking😏

part one: will scott and gay subtext 

fine so let’s read queer, let’s look at the textual Evidence. firstly, one of the most entertaining things about lymond in the earlier books is his flirtiness and in gok will is his primary target

sure lymond does it in order to tease and provoke but one doesn't prevent the other. besides, flirting and pointing out will’s good looks including his red hair (for which lymond clearly has a thing and you can’t convince me otherwise) as a teasing strategy is. a choice. not to mention all the petnicknames and terms of endearment with various levels of innuendo which are so manifold and suggestive i had to compile them into a separate post

secondly, there are some. ambiguous scenes and phrases, such as

this is right after lymond figuratively brought will to his knees after the hume caste mission and maybe it’s just bc i find power dynamics hot but i think that this passage is worded in a *certain* way and once you see it you can’t unsee it. i admit this one is a bit of a stretch but the other ones are absolutely not.

for example, the famous scene at the ostrich is brilliant bc you can interpret it either way - will expects to have sex either with one of the girls OR with lymond (or both? does our boy willy expect an orgy? do i underestimate his kinkiness?), the ironclad arguments in favor of the latter being 1) it’s much more fun and juicy and 2) i don’t think will’s a virgin at this point (he just came back from his study sojourn in paris and i doubt all he did there was study) and his inner monologue in this scene indicates he’s about to do something new and exciting such as gay sex with a man he has an angry crush on. in any case, his disappointment at not getting laid is cute and lymond’s sarcastic reaction is hilarious bc he clearly can read will like an open book and so he intentionally pranked him bc toying with people is his love language.

another example of "dunnett didn’t have to write it like this but she did bc she wanted us to ship them and who am i to disagree” comes up during their fight after the margaret lennox fiasco

interesting... why did you need to stress that, lymond? once again, you can interpret it as lymond being self-deprecating and ironic (”i’m such a lousy cavalier that i only fight women bc they’re the only ones i can hope to win against”) OR you can look at this sentence in the context of the scene in which he and will are quarelling like an old married couple and lymond even draws a parallel between how his bitter ex margaret gets on his nerves and will’s bitching AND lymond explicitly points out that will’s “admirably pretty” for the umpteenth time (in his defence, he’s as drunk as a sailor) - in which case the meaning of the phrase may be something along the lines of “i get involved only with women” - which would sound like a confirmation of lymond’s heterosexuality if it weren’t pointed out so entirely unprompted and in such defensive a manner. the gentleman doth protest too much

and that, my children, how subtext feeds on ambiguity. but i’m not done

bc sometimes the carefully composed subtext can in a way become text if the characters acknowledge it in-universe. the way this happens in gok is characters drawing parallels between will scott and all the women lymond allegedly seduced. richard does it

lauder & co do it multiple times during lymond’s trial accusing him of cultivating “associations both natural and unnatural”, “enticing” and “corrupting” will in the same manner as they believe he did with christian and mariotta and forcing lymond to defend will by describing him as “a normal, lively youngster” (lol i wish will had been there to hear this insightful assessment of character)

hell, even will himself does it after lymond is captured and brought to threave castle and christian reveals their acquaintance in an attempt to save him - and in such a petulant manner too

stop being jealous, will! the master has two hands! 

this Evidence is already vast even without me going into will’s complicated and ever-evolving feelings towards lymond, including but not limited to admiration, hero worship and desire to surpass, envy and frustration, anger and disappointment, mistrust, lots of confusion, remorse, and finally, in their last scene together, “enslaved eagerness” and delight (big Gay). lymond dismisses all of it as a kind of teenage idolization which will is going to outgrow (although the readers who continued with the series know that that’s not true) bc lymond firmly believes himself unworthy of love and interprets every kind of love people show him as some other convoluted emotion. as for myself, i think this intricacy, this ambiguity and openness to interpretation are qualities dunnett put there on purpose and they are meant to intrigue and invite us to make connections. if gok had been written today it would’ve definitely been accused of queerbaiting of some sort, but since it wasn’t we can just live in peace and enjoy the homoerotic subtext. speaking of which.

the aforementioned friend said that in her opinion lymond has nothing but “fatherly feelings” towards will which led me to believe she must think my gushing about the homoerotic subtext of gok must mean that i think lymond lusts after will or smth. and like, no? i mean i do ship them bc dunnett left me no choice but. this is not what subtext is about?

are will and lymond gay / bi? was lymond attracted to will sexually or romantically? did will want to have sex with lymond? these questions miss the point bc they are too direct and the beauty of subtext lies in its subtlety - the art we’ve started to lose in recent years as queer rep far too often takes the shape of throwing around labels but not depicting experiences they’re meant to represent with any subtance or nuance - which is why dynamics that can’t be described in one word like that of will and lymond are fascinating to me and i think the liminality of this relationship, its inherent ambiguity and resistance to being defined are part of the appeal. if you don’t reduce the queer aspect to the surface-level observation that their tension didn’t result in anything explicit (which like, people in general and these two people specifically have many reasons not have sex even if the attraction is there) thereby proving them to be straight once and for all, you can interpret what they had in any way you like and that’s what makes it compelling and fraught with meaning and queer - as in “peculiar” but also potentially as in “if lymond didn’t automatically friendzone everyone who might develop feelings for him he and will totally would’ve banged” or “i don’t wanna assign modern labels to fictional people in historical settings however not in a million years would i believe lymond isn’t queer”. in conclusion: it’s about the vibes👌

that being said, despite the possibility to interpret lymond and will’s relationship any way you like which is sufficiently provided in the text, the interpretation depends entirely on who’s doing it. like, i’m sure my esteemed colleagues on tumblr caught each and every nugget of gay subtext dunnett wrote or alluded to or thought about briefly in the summer of 1960 but my friend, my mom, some (many?) og lymond fans just don’t see it or choose not to. this is not the case with lymond and christian’s relationship which is universally understood as romantic - on the one hand, bc we live in a heteronormative society and have been taught by media to think that any relationship between the opposite sexes must be romantic by default and any woman in a male-dominated story can only occupy the role of the love interest, and on the other hand, bc dunnett did rely on certain tropes that date back as far as chivalric romances and the very invocation of those tropes signals to us the presence of a romantic relationship regardless of whether it’s actually there or not. all this to say, i personally believe dunnett only invokes those tropes to subvert them.

part two: christian stewart and platonic love

during lymond’s trial harry lauder sums up his and christian’s relationship in the following way: “an honest, gentle and virtuous girl, a young girl of open and innocent years, betrothed to a fine man, who fell into the power of a practiced and powerful seducer, appearing to her in a guise both insinuating and irresistibly romantic”. now, the readers know that this can’t be further from the truth bc christian isn’t naive or excitable and lymond is a gentleman, but what i’m interested in specifically is how jarring the difference is between what lymond stands accused of and what his and christian’s relationship actually was like - as compared to the case of will who after all was, in a sense, led astray, who did display that “emotional instability” bishop reid describes so vividly, who, even if he wasn’t seduced and driven to anything “unnatural”, still in the broadest sense corresponds to the narrative the prosecutors present in court. christian however doesn’t bc her and lymond’s relationship wasn’t anywhere near what people are led to imagine when they find out about the manner in which their secret meetings took place.

by virtue of being a relationship between two people of opposite sexes set in the 16th century lymond and christian’s interactions are much more ceremonialized and less casual than, say, between lymond and his brothers in arms. at the same time, since lymond believes christian doesn’t know who he is, he doesn’t feel as much need to perform a certain identity in front of her which leads to a much more honest and genuine relationship - one that is entirely chaste, devoid of innuendo and filled with banter which, while not lacking in intensity compared to lymond’s banter with will scott, is much more amicable but definitely less passionate. an affair of minds, if you will.

in a different story our romantic leads would’ve fallen in love as soon as they met but in this case there are few indications that they develop anything resembling romantic feelings towards each other at all. we aren’t privy to lymond’s true thoughts or feelings but even from outsider pov he doesn’t strike me as a lovestruck man. there’s no pursuing the lady in order to have the pleasure of her company nor are there any melodramatic love confessions at the deathbed - a trope that one could expect these characters to engage in in a different story.

does lymond flirt in a similar equivocal way he does with will or maybe even make advances? in fact, there’s only a handful of times in all of their dialogues where romance is touched upon at all. the most evident of these few instances in my opinion is the following exchange after agnes herries’ wedding which is obviously conducted in a humorous tone

the rest are mostly implications of the poetry lymond quotes - and very subtle implications at that. for example, this is how the author of nowyouhavedunnett blog interprets lymond quoting a single line from the clown's courtship to christian during their inchmahome meeting

The whole poem is a proposal of marriage. Francis would not have lightly chosen to quote this poem at this moment. He is the clown, the fool, as he says, and this is as close to courtship as he can allow himself to come. He is telling Christian, obliquely, that if he were free to come every day to woo and win her, he would. But he cannot and he will not. (x)

and this is how they interpret lymond referring to himself as a "joyless jeweller” during christian’s death scene

Lymond is in full self-flagellation mode, saying he has been a "joyless jeweller up to the last, exquisite drop from the crucible." The phrase "joyless jeweller" comes from a medieval English poem, Pearl. It expresses the deep despair of a man who lives while the one he loves resides "glad and bright/In Paradise, of strife unstrained...." (x)

while i wouldn’t presume to contradict any of these interpretations, i have to say that last time i read gok along with ramsey’s guide and even then i could hardly understand the connections. do you see what we’re required to do here? we’re invited to interpret the romance into lymond and christian’s relationship (if it’s something we’re interested in doing, that is) much in the same manner as we’re invited to do it in will’s case (although i must admit the stuff lymond quotes to will is much more explicitly flirty and doesn’t require an encyclopedia to comprehend). the romantic hints are there but they are buried deep under all the references and require lots of rigorous interpreting. the difference between will and christain in this respect is that with will the romantic subtext is much more obvious but, depending on the reader, much more readily ignored, whereas with christian it’s hidden very deep and yet we still view lymond and christian as lovers by default bc of all the reasons i’ve cited above. i would argue however that the subversive value of gok lies in the fact that there’s plenty of room for them not to be viewed as such.

during the trial lymond says that there was nothing but friendship between him and christian (whereas his line of defense in will’s case is “this youngster is entirely normal and not gay at all”) and that it was enough for him to be ready to sacrifice his life in exchange for her freedom, no matter how ludicrous it may seem to lauder. obviously, lymond would never claim anything else publicly bc christian’s virtue is at stake, but even so i don’t think he’s lying. it’s said multiple times that christian would go to the same length for any of her friends as she did for lymond and it’s stated at least once that lymond would give himself up in exchange for any of his men should they be captured bc of him (to say nothing of friends and family). i think this allows for a much more noble understanding of their charactes than if either of them did what they did just bc they were in love.

as lymond remarks, lauder and the jury might find ludicrous the fact that his actions were inspired exclusively by friendship - and that is ofc bc the society we live in is not only heteronormative but amatonormative as well, which means that in the hierarchy of human relationships romance is placed at the top and all the most profound and overwhelming feelings and noblest gestures are associated with romance. many people subscribe to this view, either consciously or not, and i, for one, firmly believe that we should strive to deconstruct it in any way we can. christian indeed has feelings towards lymond and the more their relationship develops the more intense those feelings get - but the thing is, intense feelings aren’t always romantic in nature. as an aroace person i can assure you that you can experience all the spectrum of what christian felt towards her mysterious friend without being in (romantic) love with him. her emotions could very well reside in the realm of agape and philia - a kind of heavenly, altruistic love that becomes more and more personal as she gets to know lymond better. and i think ascribing a romantic sense to lymond calling christian “a woman with a familiar spirit” would be very limiting.

that’s what i find alluring about their relationship - it is a High Romance but not as in “a tale of romantic love” and instead as in “a fascinating story about a marvellous adventure” that happens to be centered on friends instead of lovers and elevates friendship in that imaginary false hierarchy of relationships by being just as grand and dramatic, sweeping and beautiful as often only romances get to be. 

so. can lymond and christian’s relationship be described as a romantic involvement? would they have married if christian had survived? just as in the previous case, these questions miss the point in my opinion bc they try to force what they had into a box - specifically into a heteronormative one - whereas their actual relationship is much more undetermined and ambiguous and, if you look at it through the aspec lens, queer.

this ofc is not to say that there’s not enough evidence to interpret their relationship as a good old traditional romance and to answer those questions positively, but merely to draw your attention to the fact that dunnett wrote these relationships in gok in such a way that, once you think about them outside of the  constraints of gender roles and sexuality norms, leaves plenty of room for interpretation and queer reading - not just in the case of lymond and will scott but also, despite it not seeming as intuitive, in the case of lymond and christian.

i’d hate to end this on a serious note so here are some selected suggestive quotes from the one and only prosecutor for the crown

if wishes were buttercakes, mr. lauder, beggars might bite :)

#the lymond chronicles #francis crawford of lymond #will scott #christian stewart #the game of kings #tlc mine #lemond meta #whispering gallery can contact me anytime

[notfromcold]

Lymond, Danny Hislop, Sam Vimes

Yesssss. Excellent. OMG, Vimes. Vimes has been an emotional support character for years for me.

#ask memes

[gurguliare]

Go on, do Dunnett.

twitch. I’m doing just Lymond thanks

the character I least understand: LEMONS

interactions I enjoyed the most: Crawford family camping trip; Crawford family treason trial; probably something with Robin Stewart that I’ve blocked out, for the loosest imaginable sense of ‘enjoy’; Richard visiting Lymond’s dumb alcohol-poisoning sickbed in France; when the men of St. Mary’s put Lymond back in the stocks because they can’t figure out what else to do with him and his back is grossing them out; she had weasels, instead; Marthe and Lymond singalong; Philippa and Lymond co-incapacitate Austin Grey

the character who scares me the most: Dorothy Dunnett

the character who is mostly like me: Philippa comparisons are very flattering, but probably inaccurate. Danny Hislop?

hottest looks character: Sybillaaaaaaaaa

one thing I dislike about my fave character: I don’t… dislike… anything about Philippa except her Checkmate plotline.

one thing I like about my hated character: I DON’T LIKE ANYTHING ABOUT JEROTT no uh, sometimes I laughed at his misfortune, or like, [implied back muscles montage]

a quote or scene that haunts me: Not in the sense the question is asking, but the scene where Lymond interrogates baby Philippa is more or less intact in my memory, compared to most plot blur.

a death that left me indifferent: ………truthfully, Will Scott

a character I wish died but didn’t: JEROTT, I almost forgot that Jerott didn’t die. Wait, did Jerott die? Fuck.

my ship that never sailed: Oonagh/being in a different series

#clodia-metelli #no one expects the fannish inquisition

[theartistknownaslymond]

Gotta have some faith in the sound / (You got to give what you take)

Sorry it's Them again! Jerott/Danny post-canon (mid-90s ish) post-finally-getting-together fluffy, happy smut! Body positivity all the way for intersex Danny, who is into sensation play and who now has a boyfriend who knows how to give both good massages and good head. Jerott is just so happy to be there with someone who wants him and gets him, and if Danny decides to praise him along the way, well, he might just learn something about himself :')

Happy non-denominational smutmas to all my followers 🙃

thank you as ever @stripedroseandsketchpads for your enthusiasm, encouragement, researching, fannishness and for this excellent prompt:

holding hands making love prompt? 👀

---

Jerott closed his eyes and inhaled the sickly floral scent of the oil, rubbing it between his palms meditatively.  "Jasmine isn't a traditional Ayurvedic oil, Danny," he said with a smile.

Danny made a sound of pleasure and amusement, and Jerott heard the bedcovers rustle as Danny's body shifted against them.

"This isn't an Ayurvedic massage, remember?" Danny purred.

Jerott let out a laugh of acknowledgement. He looked down and felt his heartbeat skip to a quicker signature. His lover was lying on their bed, naked from the wispy puff of strawberry blonde hair on top of their head to the painted toenails at the end of their feet. In Danny's eyes was something of the wry challenge that was their customary way with new experiences, but these days Jerott found he could also read the anticipation in Danny's mien: the pale, freckle-dusted skin was flushed red in patches. On Danny's cheeks and neck there were blotches of colour like poppies painted in aquarelle: they bloomed out from Danny's sternum, filling the valley between the soft rises of their breasts and colouring the tops of their thighs as though Jerott's hands had already manipulated that flesh as he intended to.

This was not an Ayurvedic massage. If it had been, Jerott wouldn't have been totally naked himself - his body's appreciative response to the sight of Danny's body wouldn't have been visible, and Danny wouldn't now be biting their plump bottom lip with rakish glee, eyeing him up in return.

Jerott ran his gaze over Danny again, feeling spoilt for choice, uncertain where to begin. He would have happily fallen to the bed and smothered Danny with his kisses, with his body, with the desperate, disorderly wandering of his hands - but he'd been the one to offer the massage when he'd seen the way his touch could make Danny shiver with unexpected, honest delight.

The techniques he'd learned came from the ashram at Pune. They'd been honed on a body he didn't care to think of - broader than Danny's, muscled and infused with the scent of ground spice and patchouli. Then he'd used his skills professionally on the ashram in Nevada - he'd seen all kinds of bodies with these hands, unknotting muscles, rebalancing energies and loosening purse strings as he worked on behalf of Rajneesh's great message.

For years afterwards, he'd done his best to forget the lessons of the ashrams - the cod psychology, the smug anti-conformism, shallow in the face of the leader's demands. The massages had seemed like just another trick thought up by Rajneesh, exploited by Geetesh, designed to win them rich backers. But when he'd finally returned to the Indian subcontinent on his own terms, when he'd reached the country of his father's birth, he'd let himself rediscover things that had existed - oblivious to the manipulative gloss put on them by one movement or another - for spans of time beyond the reckoning of someone as small and petty as Graham Reid Malett. What was one megalomaniac to such a deep-rooted, enduring culture? Jerott had seen his former master's power atomised in the face of an ancient and indifferent spirituality and realised he was free.

He drew a deep breath and sent thoughts of his past out of his mind. This wasn't an Ayurvedic massage - not like he'd given to clients at the Nevada ashram, not like he'd given to Peder and his friends in Denmark when he'd come back with a renewed confidence in himself. This was something new - between him and the person he was deeply, terrifyingly in love with.

Jerott climbed onto the bed and straddled Danny's hips and Danny whimpered in anticipation.

"Shh," Jerott murmured habitually, smirking down at Danny's torso, still working his hands together to warm them to the temperature of the oil.

Danny's hips twitched provocatively beneath Jerott's seat and he began by running a teasingly light touch up the centre of Danny's body, fingertips tracing the line of the chakras... No. Tracing the sensitive skin from Danny's navel up to their throat, out over their shoulders and arms. Jerott drew the pads of his fingers along Danny's skin, echoing the feeling of a silk blouse being pulled down and away from Danny's body, like he was opening up the layers of the person lying beneath him.

If he were doing an Ayurvedic massage he'd start at the head - so Jerott shifted his seat a little and rubbed his thumbs over Danny's hips instead, making circular motions, now soft, now increasing in pressure, thumbs now sliding inwards, following the line of the pelvis down, bringing heat and colour to the surface of Danny's skin.

He watched his own brown fingers work, the gloss of oil on them transferring to Danny's body. It was as though, beneath his touch, he was bringing each muscle and sinew to life - glowing and eager. He ran his hands over Danny's belly, feeling soft flesh yield, feeling the hardness of muscle beneath puppyish fat. He didn't tell Danny to relax - he didn't need to. His fingers furrowed the land of Danny's body, unpicking tension, even undoing Danny's tightly wound anticipation, freeing Danny from the control they were used to maintaining.

In answer, Danny sighed and arched their back a little against the bed as Jerott's hands worked up, his touch again feather light at first, caressing inwards around Danny's ribs, his thumbs tracing the undersides of Danny's flat breasts, gently building until the strokes of his digits squeezed as they circled, until Danny's nipples had become hardened points that Jerott's thumb-pads could pass over as softly as the shadow of something on the wing.

Danny moaned at the hint of touch and watched, open-mouthed, as Jerott's thumbs scudded over the pink peaks again.

Jerott circled his thumbs this time, applying a little more pressure and eliciting another sound of pleasure that made his own stomach flip and his cock start with interest. Helpfully, Danny rolled their hips up against him and Jerott let out a breathy laugh of appreciation.

He dipped his fingers in the cup of oil at the bedside again and ran his palms up the planes of Danny's pecs, reaching for Danny's shoulders with clever, squeezing caresses as he shifted and bowed down to lick and suck at the nipples he'd just been teasing with his thumbs. The jasmine oil didn't taste great, he'd be the first to admit, but what did it matter when he felt Danny's whole body shudder beneath him, and that witty tongue, normally so ready with a snappy remark, was reduced to supporting the gasps and moans of Danny's undoing.

Jerott's hands massaged Danny's shoulders, upper arms, shoulders again and neck, and Jerott felt Danny melt in his hold, whimpering some inarticulate command as Jerott's teeth grazed sensitive, puckered skin and his thumbs moved in patterns of pressure up and down the vulnerable contours of Danny's neck. Then he swapped his gestures, stroking down over Danny's chest, gripping each small breast and palming muscle and flesh as he leaned in to suck hard on Danny's earlobe.

Danny's voice slipped into a higher pitch and they shivered and moaned again beneath Jerott's mantling body. Jerott shifted his weight and nudged one knee between Danny's legs, drawing ferociously on the soft flesh of Danny's earlobe with his lips and tongue as he did and eliciting his own name as a desperate plea from Danny's throat.

"Mm?" Jerott answered, pausing to nuzzle kisses into the hot skin behind Danny's ear.

"Don't stop," Danny said in a strangled voice, so Jerott nudged Danny's head the other way on the pillow with his nose and took the second earlobe in his mouth as he worked his other leg between Danny's knees and rolled his hips and hard cock against Danny's body.

It was enough to break down another part of Danny's control: they could no longer lie beneath Jerott pretending to be a passive recipient of such devoted attention. Their hands came to Jerott's back, smoothing up his spine and pulling him close - and it was enough to remind Jerott that he was meant to be delivering a massage, not plunging straight into sex, no matter what his nerves seemed to demand.

He released Danny's ear and kissed Danny's mouth instead, and rubbed Danny's earlobes between his thumbs and forefingers, feeling the little specks of scar tissue where Danny's piercings were. He had to stop and refresh the oil on his hands again, and then he fingered the hot cartilage of Danny's ears and worked his touch slowly, meticulously - soft and then hard and then soft again - down Danny's oil-glistened body until his hands were at Danny's hips and he was left kneeling, poised between Danny's legs.

Danny's hands remained on his back, his shoulders and arms, until Jerott was too far away to reach, and then, reluctantly, they returned to the sheets, gripping and twisting the cotton each time Danny let out an appreciative sound.

Mostly, Danny's eyes were closed - it was easier that way to sink into the sensations of Jerott's touch, and Jerott didn't begrudge himself the opportunity to stare back openly at Danny's rose-gold lashes, to watch the way their nostrils flared as they breathed deeply through the pleasure, to note the severe line of their jaw, which wasn't usually visible but now, from the angle Jerott saw it, rose like a peak at the top of the bed as Danny's head pressed back into the pillow.

Jerott ran his hands lightly over the skin of Danny's thighs, down not halfway to Danny's knees and then back up again to the pale drifts of hip bones lying beneath fat. He swallowed and licked his lips, but made himself wait as he made Danny wait, moving his hands down - smoothing hairs so fine and sparse they were invisible - and up again - ruffling nerve endings and heightening the anticipation of his next stroke - down, smoothing, soft as silk, light as soap washing off Danny's body.

He continued the movement as he finally lowered his mouth to Danny's cock, taking the firm stub of tissue in his mouth and sucking, drawing his tongue up the base in broad strokes that covered over the line of scar tissue where some part of Danny had been sewn shut by a doctor desperate to recreate normality.

Fuck normality, Jerott thought with savage glee, grasping Danny's hips and flicking his tongue from side to side over the soft, silken texture held in his mouth.

He ran his hands down Danny's thighs again, his grip firmer this time, his thumbs caressing the marshmallow-white flesh on the inside of Danny's legs, rubbing in circular motions up to the apex of Danny's thighs, his digits competing with his own face for access to Danny's most sensitive areas.

Danny whimpered and then cursed in French and, to Jerott's delight, in Yiddish. He'd never made that happen before so he repeated what he'd done and Danny's pelvis arched off the bed, pushing back against Jerott's mouth.

Jerott sucked the nub of Danny's cock and then laughed into the damp, downy tuft of hair above it. "Vraiment bien, puce?"

"Vraiment," Danny said from between clenched teeth. "Now come up here, I have something for you."

Jerott cocked a black brow at the head on the pillow but didn't immediately obey. He let his thumbs repeat their massage of the inside of Danny's thighs and he met Danny's tousled expression with an arrogant smirk.

Danny groaned and their legs shivered under Jerott's touch.

"Come here..." they repeated, with a new edge of despair in their voice.

Jerott came slowly, his hands and mouth retracing their way up Danny's body, now guided and tugged at by Danny's impatient touch on his shoulders, back and arse.

When Jerott reached Danny's lips Danny squeezed his arse cheeks vindictively and pulled Jerott's body flush against theirs. Jerott let out a gasp inside Danny's mouth, rolled his hips desperately against Danny's body, and ran his palms down over Danny's nipples again.

Danny's fingers covered Jerott's, pressing his touch down on Danny's chest, and then Danny took Jerott's hands in theirs and sat up, pushing him back with insistent kisses until he was half kneeling, half sitting. Clasping Jerott's hands in theirs, Danny guided his touch around to the small of their back as they leaned, chest first, against Jerott.

"You have something for me, hm?" Jerott asked between kisses, speaking into the softness at the corner of Danny's lips.

"Yes," Danny smirked, their cheek curving beneath Jerott's mouth. They held Jerott's hands in place behind their back and shuffled closer, leaning into Jerott until Jerott shifted his legs out from under him and sat with them splayed to either side of Danny. Danny wasted no time in moving into the space between and wrapping their thighs tight around Jerott's hips.

"What is it?" Jerott tested Danny's grip gently, attempting to run his hands round Danny's waist only to find that his lover's tight hold arrested the movement, keeping him close in their embrace.

Danny pushed their body closer, closer to Jerott's until Jerott felt the unmistakeable demand to lie back and let Danny straddle him, as he had earlier straddled Danny.

He let himself sink down to the sheets and Danny allowed his hands to move around to rest on their hips. They looked down at Jerott with a regal air: chest puffed out, streaked and glistening with jasmine oil like it was war paint, eyelids low over a gaze sparkling with lust. Flushed red lips, a body drawn in indistinct outlines that were as remarkable as any work of art Jerott had seen - Jerott's cock twitched insistently, trapped as it was  beneath Danny's warm arse cheeks.

Danny's smirk was devastating. "What do I have for you?"

They shuffled, one knee then the other, holding Jerott's hands to their hips, up Jerott's torso until they only needed to lift their legs over Jerott's arms and they'd be poised to sit on his face.

"Me, of course," Danny said in silken tones. The certainty, the pride and confidence in those words made a sound rise in Jerott's throat. He swallowed and licked his lips and ran his eyes over the body above his, hungry to taste Danny in his mouth again.

Danny beamed down at him and released his hands so that they could shift their legs and position Jerott's head between them.

Jerott groaned happily as Danny lowered themself to his mouth. He ran his freed hands up Danny's arse and lower back, rubbing and massaging flesh as he went until Danny's hands grasped his again.

Danny threaded their fingers through Jerott's and held his hands against their arse as they ground their body down against Jerott's open mouth.

When Danny did this it never felt suffocating or uncomfortable: Danny paid attention to the way Jerott responded and moaned encouragements that made Jerott's skin prickle. He could hold all of Danny's small cock in his mouth without his jaw aching or feeling like he was about to choke when Danny rolled their hips down. He could find his way around the rest of Danny's anatomy with his tongue, running it softly at first over places that could either be painfully sensitive or dulled to touch by old scar tissue - he worked carefully, like he would do with his hands during the massage - working out what felt good to his lover and what didn't.

And Danny was always happy to help him find the right spot, moving their body and delivering gasped instructions.

All it took was for Danny to breathe an honest "Oy...you're good at this," and Jerott felt his nipples harden and his hips squirm against the bed, his cock responding instantly to the praise. He made a grateful sound against Danny's body and Danny whined and rocked against his mouth.

They tightened their grip on Jerott's hands and then guided his right one away from their arse. Danny reached behind themself, arching above Jerott to draw Jerott's hand away from their body. Danny stretched back, pushing Jerott's fingers towards his cock, and Jerott felt how smooth his own hand was, softened by jasmine oil and hot from the use he'd put it to.

"Don't forget about yourself," Danny purred, looking directly into Jerott's eyes. They released the hand they'd guided to Jerott's cock and sat forward again, reaching down to gently sweep the hair off Jerott's face.

"Ok?" Danny checked. "I'm not smothering you?"

They clocked Jerott's mischievous expression immediately and let out a low laugh. "Careful how you answer that, doudou..."

Jerott, who had no interest in occupying his mouth with mere words when he had other means at his disposal, dipped his chin a little and sucked pointedly at the smooth, domed head of Danny's cock, pressung his tongue up against it.

Danny laughed shakily again and groaned. "...Good answer," they conceded, and Jerott knew that when they opened their eyes again and looked down at him they'd see the satisfaction, the smirk in his expression.

His arms were pinned beneath Danny's body still, but he didn't need to move much to jerk himself off, not when he was already this hard. His right hand moved rhythmically up and down his cock even as Danny held his left hand still, their fingers knotted together behind Danny's back.

Jerott didn't let any of it affect the attention he gave Danny - his own pleasure wasn't a distraction or a splitting of his goals, rather it was like singing while playing guitar, or even just using two hands on the one instrument to make the perfect music. He did what felt good to Danny, Danny told him how good it was, and Jerott's hand quickened with pride, his blood rushed with the thrill of knowing he was making Danny feel that way too.

It could take time and patience to make Danny come, and Jerott enjoyed the challenge - besides, even if Danny didn't get there, Jerott wanted to be certain he'd made them feel exquisite in any case. So long as he was occupied with Danny's pleasure, time stopped and pure sensation ruled: Danny's soft thighs squeezing his cheeks; the warm, wet air Jerott breathed that tasted of the mingling of their bodies; Danny's fingers gently combing through his hair, squeezing his hand tightly behind their back; the feeling of his cock against his palm, as eager for Danny's release as its own.

When his neck felt stiff he shifted and kissed the insides of Danny's thighs, applying pressure with his tongue or plunging his teeth into yielding flesh to leave bruises that made Danny yelp with delight.

Another exclamation in Yiddish - Jerott grinned and nipped Danny's leg playfully. He took another mouthful of skin and sucked, like he'd suck on Danny's cock, and Danny whimpered, their hips bucking, their arse cheeks clenching. French insults mingled with Yiddish; an agonised "hob rachmones!"; a litany of evocative terms that made heat gather in Jerott's groin, spoken as they were with such awe.

He was on the edge now, and he took Danny's cock in his mouth again in case they were too. He tasted their anticipation, and rubbed his tongue against the underside of the head, and as they said, "That's it, that's it, you're an artist!" he felt himself lose the vestiges of his own control as thought and sense and intent all suddenly rushed down to his groin and left the rest of his body flushed empty of all but a ringing pleasure.

Danny's unashamed cry harmonised with the singing of his nerves and Jerott gasped as he let his head fall back to the mattress, satiated and exhausted and fizzing with a vital glee he didn't think he'd felt in years.

Danny released his hand and climbed off him, and Jerott lay in a state of near shavasana, his eyes closed and a smile on his lips. He waited, knowing Danny was coming to him, which Danny did, stretching out alongside his body and stroking his hair back around his ear with the utmost tenderness. They kissed him slowly and deeply and Jerott murmured happily into it.

"You're a treasure, doudou," Danny said against his lips.

Jerott smiled and heard Danny tut immediately. "But don't let it go to that pretty head of yours. You'd be insufferable if you knew..."

Jerott blinked and looked at Danny in sleepy puzzlement, wondering why they'd stopped mid-sentence.

They were staring at him intently, thoughtfully, more seriously than he'd expected. Their lips were red and their cheeks blotched pink; their hair was a disordered, sweaty mess. Without make-up they still looked vulnerable and new to Jerott - beautiful but often wary, a warrior without their armour on.

"If I knew...?" Jerott prompted, lifting a heavy arm from the bed to stroke Danny's chin with his thumb.

Danny's lips moved, and a puckered, vexed smirk fought its way onto them. "You'd be insufferable if you knew how much I love you."

The words still made Jerott's body blush with sensation - instant heat, instant gratification making his skin prickle. He offered the bravest, lopsided grin he could. "Lucky I have you to keep me humble, hm?"

Danny smiled toothily and kissed him. Jerott accepted the insult that followed in all its fondness.

#ship: a twinge of approval #character: danny hislop #character: jerott blyth #band au: post canon #setting: 1990s #title is from George Michael's Freedom! 90 of course:))) #everyday i write the book

[theartistknownaslymond]

Ooh could I get a Jerott/Danny playlist

You most surely can, Kay!! I loved this so much I never wanted to finish it.

A twinge of approval

A playlist for realising you've fallen in love with your idiot best friend and bandmate

George Michael - Faith Tim Curry - Sweet Transvestite Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street Talking Heads - I'm Not in Love Bruce Springsteen - Dancing in the Dark Barbra Streisand - The Way He Makes Me Feel Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band - Saposhkelekh The Kinks - Lola Leonard Cohen - Lover Lover Lover Sapho - Globo Night R.E.M. - Crush With Eyeliner Kishore Kumar - Chhu Kar Mere Manko Marcel Dadi - La Madrugada Klezmatics - Di Zun Vet Aruntergeyn David Bowie - Changes Queen - You're My Best Friend Stealers Wheel - Stuck in the Middle With You

No, really, I think I enjoyed this most of all because of the way it came together. Surprisingly good!!! Just like the ship. Wholesome. I made this playlist as tender as I could and it genuinely fucks me up, so I hope you like it too!

FCs: random sax and keytar players from image search and Carl Barat, plus Viveik Kalra and Hanne Gaby Odiele (yes I pretty much use a different FC for Danny each time because while I have a clear idea of NB Danny in my head, it’s not based on any one person. But Hanne Gaby is intersex like Danny, so yay for that).

1) Jerott. I find it strange to think I grew up in a time when people apparently didn’t know George Michael was gay, but do have memories of the whole sordid uncomfortable circus around him being outed. Jerott wouldn’t realise George Michael was gay, even while emulating the Faith style - leathers, blue jeans, white t-shirt, aviators, acoustic guitar. And the song is a perfect fit for Jerott at the end of Checkmate, needing a little space to himself.

Well, I guess it would be nice if I could touch your body I know not everybody has got a body like you But I gotta think twice before I give my heart away And I know all the games you play because I played them too Oh, but I need some time off from that emotion Time to pick my heart up off the floor

2) Danny isn’t a transexual or a transvestite, but I believe the composer Richard O’Brian is non-binary, and Danny is most certainly a fan of RHPS. Danny has a big show-tunes voice that surprises everyone because usually they’re just rocking out with their sax.

3) THIS. THIS IS THE PERFECT SHIP SONG FOR THEM. Iconic sax!! Iconic guitar solo!! Scottish mega-hit!! And then there’s the wistfulness of the lyrics, Danny probably figuring Jerott’s never going to be interested...

Way down the street there's a light in his place He opens the door he's got that look on his face And he asks you where you've been You tell him who you've seen and you talk about anything He's got this dream about buyin' some land He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands And then he'll settle down, in some quiet little town And forget about everything

4) I’m trying to weave through consistent influences for all the characters too, to give an idea of what brings them together as well as what their unique tastes are. Talking Heads are beloved by all at St Mary’s, and Danny is very good at claiming not to be in love.

5) Jerott again, it’s that...double-denims/blue jeans and white vest man’s man(?) vibe with the side of snogging your bandmate on stage.

Stay on the streets of this town And they'll be carving you up all right They say, "You gotta stay hungry" Hey, baby, I'm just about starving tonight I'm dying for some action I'm sick of sitting around here trying to write this book I need a love reaction Come on now, baby, give me just one look

6) A big Jewish show tune for Danny! And it’s from Yentl. So all the feelings about gender and faith and being torn between thinking you’re better off alone or going with the one you love.

I feel as if I'm falling Every time I close my eyes And flowing through my body Is a river of surprise Feelings are awakening I hardly recognize as mine 

7) As far as I gather, beyond even a ‘revival’ of something, the ‘80s saw the first proper emergence of klezmer as the genre we’d recognise now. Danny is very into this. And Saposhkele is perfect for Danny giving into their feelings and realising they’re in it for good.

[I sell my boots and go with you on a coach just to be with you as you are a handleless door without me my sweet little bird I will sell handkerchieves at the railroad station just to be with you as you are a handleless door without me]

8) Danny’s still not trans, but this is a period-appropriate song for a period-appropriate playlist :))) And Jerott would get very into playing it and singing it for Danny, once he realised he was more than fine with being in love with Danny because Danny’s amazing.

I pushed her away I walked to the door I fell to the floor I got down on my knees Well, I looked at her, and she at me

Well, that's the way that I want it to stay And I always want it to be that way for my Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world Except for Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

9) This was always on my Jerott playlists anyway for the lyrics and the struggle between god/faith/physicality/love, but add in the fact that it’s an incredibly Jewish take on those things and it’s perfect for this playlist.

He said, "I locked you in this body I meant it as a kind of trial You can use it for a weapon Or to make some woman smile."

10) Mainly I just think this is a bop, and I think Jerott and Danny would bond in dark Parisian discos to music by a French-Moroccan Jew (band AU Jerott’s mum is French-Algerian)

11) Another one to tie playlists together - St Mary’s as a whole are fans of R.E.M. Nonsensical Michael Stipe lyrics, but themes of self-invention and unusual/individual fashions

I am smitten I'm the real thing (I'm the real thing) We all invent ourselves And you know me

12) I chose this song because I’d already had Kishore Kumar on Jerott playlists, and this one is thematically about feeling a change when touched by another person’s mind, wanting to incorporate them into music and song.

13) More French-Jewish music for bonding over, but Jerott can serenade Danny on guitar with this one.

14) Featuring the golden peacock, a recurring image in Yiddish folk music, ‘The peacock here is a mediator, helping the singer to find what s/he is yearning for and, possibly, possessing a messianic, redemptive ability to cross over the boundaries of impossible distance.’ [source] I like the idea of this relationship as something kind of redemptive for both of them, and it’s also a union of influences that are incredibly disparate but still converge on a Glasgow childhood in the ‘60s (not that they knew each other as kids).

[The sun will be setting behind the mountain, In silence approaching then love will come softly; In silence approaching then love will come softly To sorrow, that sits on a golden stone And weeps for itself all alone.]

15) Oh you know. Facing up to the fact they’re idiots in love and it’s a good thing.

I watch the ripples change their size But never leave the stream of warm impermanence and So the days float through my eyes But still the days seem the same And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They're quite aware of what they're going through

16) Would it be a Jerott playlist without some Queen? And they’re best friends, doncha know? :’)

17) Gerry Rafferty’s band, just a fun little bop to finish things off with.

#playlists: period-appropriate #character: jerott blyth #character: danny hislop #ship: a twinge of approval

[theartistknownaslymond]

“rolling over in bed, switching positions during a kiss” for Danny/Jerott? 👀

Danny was accustomed to getting up early when there was a lover sleeping the night off in their bed. The kitchen was always well stocked to suit Danny's schedule - if there hadn't been time for a run on fresh food there would be homemade latkes in the freezer, good long-life cheese in the fridge, tins of tomatoes and ready-made spice mixes for a shakshuka to suit anyone's palate. Danny didn't mind getting up early to cook - it had become a habit. Or, more accurately, something that was a conscious, cultivated part of the experience Danny liked to offer to anyone deemed worthy enough of spending the night in their company.

This morning, Danny was not going anywhere though. Danny's lover had woken first, and when Danny came to he was there, his nose touching Danny's nose, one of his talented hands softly stroking the skin of Danny's arm and back.

Jerott smiled, and Danny couldn't quite believe that finally, after so many years of hopeless pining, of believing Jerott would never be able to see Danny as anything more than a quirky friend, Jerott was here, and, evidently, happy to be here.

Jerott's gently wandering hand smoothed over Danny's skin, moving up to cup Danny's cheek. He kissed Danny with deep, unhurried passion. He smelled of tobacco and toasted cumin, his lips were hot and softer than Danny had even dreamed of - and Danny had dreamed of them a lot. His fingers moved through the fuzz of the short hair at the side and back of Danny's head and up to tousle the curls that grew longer on top.

Without breaking his single-minded focus on kissing Danny better than Danny had ever been kissed before, Jerott levered himself up on his elbow and rolled Danny gently onto their back. Jerott's body shuffled closer, his hip nudged up against Danny's hip and he leaned over Danny to deepen the kiss.

Danny sighed with pleasure and let sleepy, languid hands trace points of Jerott's body - his collarbones rising to skin as he pushed into the kiss, the black hairs that grew over his chest and down in a line past his navel.

Jerott moved a hand to stroke the curls off Danny's face and broke the kiss gently, with a hint of wistful reluctance.

Danny blinked at him, wondering where on earth the ready archive of clever retorts Danny possessed had got to. There was no chance of being witty with Jerott looking down at them like that: his face was framed by a soft fall of black hair, his mouth was still open a little, a stunned smile curving the edge, and his dark eyes, this close, looked endless with possibilities that made Danny shiver.

Jerott's smile grew as he gazed at Danny and then he let out a chuckle. "Hey..."

Danny heard the inane reply, "Hey..." emerge from their own lips and observed that Jerott had already dragged Danny down to his intellectual level. But Danny was grinning like a fool, their skin prickled with excitement as Jerott looked at them like that, and frankly not even the satisfaction of the perfect clever comment compared with that feeling.

"You want breakfast?" Jerott asked, and his eyebrows flew up at Danny's ecstatic response.

Danny had thought the morning had begun perfectly already, and yet there was Jerott, piling pleasure upon pleasure. "I want you, in my kitchen, wearing nothing but my Soviet pinny and working your magic on my shakshuka, yes."

Jerott's smirk was only somewhat bemused. He bit his lip and said with measured innocence, "Whatever you want to call it, Danny..."

#i love these nerds ok #ship: a twinge of approval #character: danny hislop #character: jerott blyth #band au: post canon #ask me and i will play #every day i write the book #band au: fic #(a long overdue tag)

[theartistknownaslymond]

You will like my sense of humor You will be addicted to my smile Laughing all the while And I will end each conversation I will leave the room with upper hand And you will understand You will find my scent attractive You will like my real, engaging eyes And playful, childlike smile You will find my style appealing I will overpower you with wits And I will be a hit If only you'd run to me If only you'd come to me If only you'd relax upon your rules And dare to be love's fool If only you'd come for me If only you'd run to me If only you'd relax upon those rules And dare to be love's fool Waking up from a coma (tossing, turning) Sweat has covered my body (my mouth felt dry) My life flashing before me (nothing much to say) Still it was so boring (did you hear me sing?) Only I could adore you (the wind through the trees) Silently barking orders (rushing up to me) This is only beginning (don't anger the sea) Oh, the wave's crashing higher and higher on me Crash, crash, crash, crash If only you'd relax upon your rules And dare to be love's fool If only you'd run to me All the blinking lights, noise of eternity (if only you'd come to me) All the sentences swirling inside of me (you will like my sense of humor) Inside of me (and dare to be love's fool) (If only you'd come to me) I have censored my eyes, I get drawn through my ears (if only you'd run to me) Redirected desire now It comes out as tears (you will like my sense of humor) You know, it comes out as tears (and dare to be love's fool) You will like my sense of humor You will like my sense of humor

#character: danny hislop #pining over #character: jerott blyth #ship: a twinge of approval #ficspiration: music

[theartistknownaslymond]

Cheek kisses for D/J

The small kitchen table was piled so high with food Danny could barely see Jerott sitting behind it all.

"Are you in hiding, doudou?"

Jerott's dark eyes, wide with trepidation, peered at them over the stacks of bagels and samosas. "Are you in disguise?"

Danny put mock-offended hands on their hips. Hips that were enclosed in a slinky black cotton dress, showing the soft curve of belly and braless, fleabite breasts. The dress was long enough to cover Danny's knees and accessorised with new, floral Docs, tasteful silver jewellery, and maroon dark lipstick. Even the eyeshadow was restrained - by Danny's standards - a pale smoky haze that didn't take away from the pout. A sensible grey mohair cardigan was draped over one arm, but Danny couldn't quite bring themselves to put that on yet.

"Excuse me? I look perfect."

Danny dropped the cardigan with a flourish over the chairback in front of them.

Jerott tried, but he couldn't stop his eyes from dropping to check every line of the dress. He didn't disagree, Danny saw.

Danny loved to see this expression on his face - a bit flushed, a bit lost, a bit smitten. It made Danny's heart race every time.

"You don't need to pretend for her..." Jerott said eventually, chewing his lower lip as he checked Danny's expression, worry still a shadow in his eyes.

Danny smirked and dropped a hand to the back of the chair opposite Jerott's. The fine chains on their arm tumbled elegantly over their shapely wrist. "Pretend what?"

Jerott's eyes narrowed. He was too well practiced in such leading questions now, and sat back, turning his attention to the immaculate, symmetrical tower of cream cheese bagels.

"That you're not a filthy jazz animal with an addiction to pickled herring and cotignac?" Jerott surveyed the spread of food they'd spent all weekend preparing, and all of a sudden Danny could read his wicked intentions plainly.

"Jazz animal!" Danny exclaimed, delighted and committed to not showing it. "Wait - filthy?"

A slinky dress called for a slinky step, and Danny rounded the table, eyes watching Jerott like he was an untrustworthy pet at a buffet table. "Doudou, don't you dare..."

"Hmm?" Jerott raised a hand to flutter his fingers threateningly over the snacks.

"Jerott, I spent an age getting that tower of bagels even, you can't take one now!" A note of alarm entered Danny's voice.

"My mum won't even notice, Danny, don't worry..."

This was his way of distracting himself from his own unease at the first meeting, Danny knew. But stacking the bagels had been Danny's way of dealing with it, and now Jerott was interfering with the carefully curated image Danny wished to present to la formidable Madame Bensaïd.

Jerott grabbed a bagel and Danny lunged to stop him. But half the damned bagel was in his mouth even with Danny's hand on his wrist and Danny yelping out, "I'm the animal?!"

Jerott laughed, tried not to choke, and chewed on the too-large bite with difficulty, leaning away from Danny as Danny loomed over his chair.

That remorseless smirk, the dimple that was at war with the bulging cheek full of bagel turned out to be too tempting a target.

Danny grabbed his jaw and planted the biggest, poutiest kiss that could be achieved on Jerott's face.

Jerott protested around the bagel, feeling the waxy residue that remained on his skin. A near perfect red smear formed an 'o' on his cheek.

Danny folded their arms to look down at their handiwork. "You deserve it."

But Jerott was standing, a new mischief in his eyes that Danny understood too late.

"Oh, no!"

Jerott shoved the other half of the bagel into his mouth as messily as he could. There was cream cheese everywhere and Danny hesitated, transfixed with horror for a second too long.

Jerott grabbed Danny around the waist and smacked his own cheesy kiss on Danny's cheek as Danny gave a shriek of thrilled disgust.

"Quequette! Crotte de bordel!" Danny squirmed in Jerott's hold, dissolving into appalled peals of laughter and pretending to fight as Jerott left more bagely kisses on Danny's cheek and Danny no longer knew whether Jerott was depositing cheese with each touch of his lips or kissing it off Danny's skin.

They only stopped scrambling with one another when a polite cough interrupted them, and Danny opened their eyes to see la formidable herself, Jerott's mysterious mother, standing in the kitchen doorway.

She held her designer handbag before her a little like a shield, her eyes round - they're just like Jerott's! Danny thought hysterically - her outfit as immaculately chic as Danny had predicted it would be.

«I heard shouting, and the door was open,» Kahina gestured behind her.

Jerott's grip on Danny tightened before it loosened. He straightened, holding onto Danny's waist with one hand and using the other to hide his own cough and to wipe the remnants of bagel from his mouth.

"Yemma," he said with a measure of contrition.

Danny was torn between the sight of Kahina - in flowing silk scarf, black blouse, white Chanel trousers, with exquisitely blow-dried and styled black hair - and the messy red mark on Jerott's cheek that he seemed to have forgotten about.

Kahina looked puzzled and concerned, but she smiled. "T'es Danny?"

Danny summoned the fortitude necessary to nod and agree that that was, indeed, who they were.

Kahina's smile remained warm, and she fished in her handbag and handed a tissue to each of them.

«It's good to meet you at last,» she said, composed now as though she were about to be seated at a Michelin restaurant. «I would apologise for my son,» she said, which was the kind of introduction Jerott had promised she would give him, and which made Danny's heart ache a little with protectiveness. «But I see you understand already how to deal with him,» Kahina added. The shy twinkle of fun she said it with left Danny with a stupefied grin and a twinge of emotional whiplash.

Kahina turned to the spread of food and grasped a bagel of her own without preamble, letting out a purr of joy as she raised it to her red lips.

«Ah, my god! You can't get them this good outside Le Marais!»

Clearly she had no interest in the even stacking of the tower either, and Danny let out a laugh of relief and received an equally relieved grin from Jerott. «Well, I did live there for a few years...» Danny said, pulling a chair out for Jerott's mother.

Now she was here and the anticipatory worrying was passed, Danny felt confident that they would get on famously.

#sorry you're going to need to see the dentist after this #FLUFF #tooth rotting fluff #somewhere adam blacklock feels nauseous and he doesn't know why #i was on a kick thinking about kehina so here she is! #character: danny hislop #character: jerott blyth #ship: a twinge of approval #ask me and i will play #every day i write the book #band au: fic #band au: post canon #edit: *kahina #character: kahina bensaïd

[theartistknownaslymond]

#character: danny hislop #character: turkey mat #jazz

[theartistknownaslymond]

@erinaceina is 100% correct that '80s Danny would rewrite this Yiddish ballad about the 1916 flu for the AIDS crisis

#setting: 1980s #character: danny hislop #ficspiration: music #Youtube

[theartistknownaslymond]

Danny and Adam having fun with Jewish/Yiddish folk (and possibly some Georgian for Adam)?

Playlist 1  -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-  Playlist 2

....this got out of hand.

Playlist 1 is packed full of Jewish protest songs, folk from the Caucasus, and Theremin takes on the classics. Potential TW: it’s been reported that Spotify’s autoplay algorithm has followed this playlist up with Bettina Wegner’s song in memory of those killed in camps during the Shoah. If you want to avoid Spotify triggering you with its helpful suggestions, make sure you switch off Autoplay (link gives a how to).

Playlist 2 is founded on Jewish musicians, but includes other things that are just Vibes for these characters. It’s perhaps a bit easier to listen to if you just want background bops.

I’ll pop a bit of context under the cut, but feel like I’ve probably done enough here. 🤐

FCs are: Billy Mackenzie (from the Dundee band The Associates) and Jonathan Richman, Adam 1 & 2 respectively; actors Freddie Fox and Maya Hawke, Danny 1 & 2, respectively.

For anyone reading this who’s new to the AU, Adam’s family are Jewish emigres from Soviet Georgia, and Danny is a runaway non-binary Rabbi’s child.

By and large, these are ‘period-appropriate’, though I snuck a few mid-’90s things in, notably Tofa’ah (1), because it’s such catchy Jewish pop and, well, you can talk of the ‘long 1980s’ in terms of style, right...? The Divine Comedy (2) is really a QP vibe, but wasn’t released until the early ‘90s, and Neil Hannon’s archness fits Adam and Danny well too.

A lot of the Yiddish folk on 1 has probably been done in a more palatable-to-modern-ears style by people like Daniel Kahn & the Painted Bird, but this playlist proves there were compilations available by the 1980s! The Anon tracks are from a compilation of music of the Caucasian Mountain Jews released in Israel, so not strictly from the Georgian Jewish community in Mtskheta, but the musical style is probably pretty similar, it has enough in common with Georgian folk already.

While Danny has some Yiddish, and both have some Hebrew, I think the music in 1 is mostly stuff that has formed the background to who they are - they can belt out the big songs at family gatherings, are delighted when they find any overlap in what they know, but by and large it’s not what they play. Again, except for Adam at family gatherings, when it’s insisted upon.

Yes, Playlist 2 starts with a Joy Division track. Musically, I think Adam is a big fan, though if he’s playing covers he probably goes out of his way to have a bit of very Jewish patter with Danny first, for the audience’s sake, just to put the music in context (among a number of ‘80s bands, Joy Division made use of N*zi aesthetics, and, well there’s that band name). But I think Adam and Danny are the kind of people who would see some naive kids mucking about with ‘edgy’ imagery like that and go ‘yoink! We’re having your music then!’

Golden Brown (2), not Jewish, but Adam does have that history of drug abuse. There’s a fair bit from French Jewish artists on 2 as well: Barbara, Sapho, Marcel Dadi and Jean-Jacques Goldman, all of which will be Danny favourites (Danny worked in kitchens in Paris at some point while playing woodwind in various jazz cafés). T’Pau is also there for Danny - I was reminded that it’s actually a song about Frankenstein (no, really), and I thought that might resonate with Danny and creating their own identity on leaving home. Aquarium is for Adam though - the band got in trouble at Tbilisi rock festival in the early ‘80s for making lewd moves with their instruments.

#playlists: period-appropriate #character: adam blacklock #character: danny hislop #setting: 1980s #band au: pre-canon

[theartistknownaslymond]

#setting: 1980s #band au: the ringed castle #setting: soviet union #character: danny hislop #character: adam blacklock