seikilos

Title: Out of Step
Fandom: The Hobbit
Genre: Pre-slash
Rating & Warnings: PG
Words: 8094
Disclaimer: I don't own the above media.
Summary: Bard has been invited to King Thranduil's halls alone, without his council. For what reason, he does not know--the Elvenking's thoughts have always been beyond Bard's ability to guess.
Author's Notes: I'm holding three people responsible for this series: bmouse, who got me thinking about this pairing in the first place; Ewebean, whose art (especially this piece) ended up birthing this story, and bendingsignpost, who is the most enabling enabler to ever enable. I hope the three of you are happy (because I sure am).

Major thanks go to Ben for a kind and excellent beta, and for Jeff, who not only betaed but became my Tolkien loremaster. While not much of his answers to the many involved questions I've lobbed his way are going to turn up in this fic, they'll definitely be important later. Any mistakes, then, in the lore are mine.

Also--I'm now on Patreon! If you'd like to support my work, why not drop a tip in my tip jar over there? More information can be found in my profile on the site.

Thank you very much and enjoy the fic! <3

( Bard had increasingly discovered Thranduil's eyes upon him when he sought his opinion on some matter, though what the Elvenking was seeing was beyond Bard's ability to guess. )

Title: 30-Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge - 15. Office Romance AU
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Pre-slash/AU
Rating & Warnings: G
Words: This part 1084, ?? overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: Ever since transferring to this particular building of Deep Space Co., Julian has had an unusual problem: he's getting along too well with one coworker in particular. Now he and Elim are facing the (hopefully metaphorical) firing squad.
Author's Notes: Er...hi. :D;; I didn't mean to go on hiatus, but it's amazing what moving 1800 km, spending two weeks in another country, and apartment hunting will do to your free time. I don't think I'm going to be right up to my usual schedule for a while yet, but I do hope to post more often from now on.

Another contributing factor to the space between updates would be that this was yet another trope that I needed to rewrite. I just wasn't happy with how it had turned out and the decisions I had made about the AU, so there was a fair bit of reworking going on. It's still not my favourite, but I like it a lot more than I did when I first started editing! :D;

( He'd never thought, before meeting Elim, that getting along well with someone could be a problem. )

Title: 30-Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge - 13. Handcuffed Together
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Pre-slash
Rating & Warnings: G
Words: This part 192, ?? overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: Julian thinks things are looking rather grim when he and Garak are captured by the Romulans. As it turns out, they aren't.
Author's Notes: This trope was made for these two and I was very amused when I got to it. (I also tried to keep this one short in reaction to the previous chapter. It worked for today's fic, then stopped working after that for the most part.)

( 'Now what? Without my combadge, we can't—Garak, what are you doing?' )

Title: 30-Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge - 10. Deserted Island
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Pre-slash/Romance
Rating & Warnings: G
Words: This part 493, ?? overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: When Garak and Julian get stranded on a remote Bajoran island, it isn't quite as much of a disaster as matters first appeared.
Author's Notes: Ever so slightly AU, so that these two can go on a trip without worrying about assassination attempts. Assume that Garak's exile included Bajor as well as Deep Space Nine. :D;;

( 'I should make a point of travelling with you more often, Garak.' )

Title: 30-Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge - 06. Spin the Bottle
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Pre-slash/Humour
Rating & Warnings: G this part (alcohol), PG-13 overall?
Words: 919 this part, ?? overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: At a slightly tipsy gathering of most of the senior staff of DS9 (plus Keiko and Garak), it's decided that they really should play an old Earth game Sisko recently read about.
Author's Notes: I had originally been intending to post something else today, but then I realized at the last minute that I had left out an important scene, and so that's been put on hold until I can, uh, actually write it.

Instead, I decided to post this, which is basically me having fun with historical mix-ups. I really enjoy the idea of people in our future getting things in the present day not quite right, because, you know, if we can mess up stuff that went on much less than a hundred years ago, expecting perfect accuracy three hundred years in the future is a bit much.

Also, I really like the idea of the senior staff (and secondary characters) socialising in large groups. We mostly saw them pair off on their downtime, which was really nice, but the occasional mildly awkward night at Quark's would have been fun to see too.

This is totally silly, so don't think much more than that about it. :Db;

( 'There's an old Earth game I was reading about recently, Spin the Bottle.' )

Title: Held
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action/Pre-slash
Rating & Warnings: PG (references to torture; panic attack; innuendo)
Betas: tinsnip and Yosie
Words: This part 3949, 16 006 overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: "...[T]he dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute." - Terry Pratchett. Approximately six weeks after The Circle's fall from power, a fragment of the organisation returns to lash out against the only Cardassian living on Deep Space Nine. What they didn't anticipate, however, was being interrupted mid-abduction. This chapter: Kira and O'Brien infiltrate The Circle's stronghold in an attempt to rescue Julian and Garak before Sisko's scheduled meeting with the leader of the cell.
Author's Notes: So this is Act 5, where Star Trek episodes tie everything up into a neat little bundle (provided they aren't multi-parters) --and consequently, that's what happens here. Thank you very much to everyone for reading! It's been a real pleasure, and the feedback I've gotten has been incredibly kind.

You'll probably be happy to know that I haven't been idle during the five weeks I've been posting this. I now have enough other fic lined up to keep posting at this rate for the next three months. I'm going to try to keep things coming at this rate for the next few weeks, although I may take a bit of a hiatus next month to get caught up on all my proofreading (there's a lot of it).

Once again, thank you for coming on this trip with me, and I hope you enjoy the conclusion. <3

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

( He took in a breath to call for him, and this time, it was Garak's hand striking out to bite his arm in a painful hold. )

Title: Held
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action/Pre-slash
Rating & Warnings: PG (references to torture; panic attack; innuendo)
Betas: tinsnip and Yosie
Words: This part 3099, approximately 16 000 overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: "...[T]he dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute." - Terry Pratchett. Approximately six weeks after The Circle's fall from power, a fragment of the organisation returns to lash out against the only Cardassian living on Deep Space Nine. What they didn't anticipate, however, was being interrupted mid-abduction. This chapter: Julian solves the mystery of Garak's strange behaviour and begins to realise just how little he can do to help.
Author's Notes: So! As was hinted at in the previous chapter and as will become extremely evident in this one, another thing I wanted to play with was what would happen if Julian learned of Garak's claustrophobia much earlier on, and what the effects would be on their relationship of dealing with it alone. Originally, I had intended to do a whole series of fic branching off from this one--but I've had so many other ideas that I haven't actually written them yet. I do intend to do write at least one or two more, but we'll see when I actually get to them.

A note about the next update: while I very much hope to have it posted on time next Friday, for personal reasons, that may not be possible. Rest assured, though, that it will turn up before the end of next weekend. ♥

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

( 'Do you honestly think you'll be able to pry a defenceless Cardassian out of the hands of a rabble of Bajoran terrorists?' )

Title: Held
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action/Pre-slash
Rating & Warnings: PG (references to torture; panic attack; innuendo)
Betas: tinsnip and Yosie
Words: This part 1406, approximately 16 000 overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: "...[T]he dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute." - Terry Pratchett. Approximately six weeks after The Circle's fall from power, a fragment of the organisation returns to lash out against the only Cardassian living on Deep Space Nine. What the terrorists didn't anticipate, however, was being interrupted mid-abduction.
Author's Notes: This fic is what I've mentally termed my Bajoran baby. I've been working on it for approximately half a year now--so actually, I suppose it counts as a long Bajoran pregnancy.

I had several goals in writing this fic, some of which won't become clear until later on. The primary one was to challenge myself to write an episode of DS9, using its format, plot structure, and some of its tropes. (Some of said tropes, however, I played around with a little.) It was a fun exercise that took me well outside my usual style, and someday, I may very well try it again.

Another reason for writing this was to tie up a few loose ends from the three-part Season 2 opening: "The Homecoming," "The Circle," and "The Siege." There were several things about those episodes that make sense from a series production point of view, such as why The Circle was never heard from again even if it's very difficult to completely wipe out a terrorist cell all in one go--especially one with that level of support. And, well, why they attacked Quark as opposed to Garak, since, you know, budgets and hiring actors, and so forth. But these weren't very satisfying to me from a storytelling point of view, and so I decided to play around with the situation.

A huge thank you goes to tinsnip, who gave me an extremely thorough beta involving just about everything and who suggested the title for the story (you don't want to know what it would have been called if I were left my own devices), and to Yosie, who's been reading my writing for thirteen years now (!) and knows where I make my mistakes. This is a hell of a lot better story thanks to them. <3

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my Bajoran baby, haha.

( And directly in front of him were three masked humanoids in burgundy robes. )