straightforwardly | 222 | We Die Like Fic Recs

Some recs from the WDLF3 collection! As always, this is a top favorites list, not everything I liked. There was a lot of great stuff in this exchange! The Scum Villain section in particular was very, very good—literally every fic I read was excellent.

The Ritual and What Came of It (Crossover - Narnia/GoT, Peter Pevensie/Sansa Stark, 4.5K)
If he had to be honest, he would say he was terrified of the ritual, but as he had nobody to be honest with, he looked very much like every other man who had come to Winterfell for the first day of the month: eyes guarded, face clean, shoulders broad. Every one of them some breed of either arrogant or desperate. Peter wondered which he was. Perhaps both.

That was faith, wasn’t it? Its own arrogance, its own desperation.

*

The Edge of the World (Final Fantasy VII, Aerith & Red XIII, <1K)
Aerith and Nanaki and a Cosmo Canyon sunrise.

*

deep enough to drown (Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, 2.1K)
Most people seem to assume Ron's fellow Slytherins will all fall in behind You-Know-Who without a murmur.

Ron doesn't. And he doesn't plan on letting them go without a fight.

*

foregone conclusion (Naruto, Kisame/Itachi, <1K)
Eventually, Kisame looks at him. "If I went back, I'd probably just end up here again," he says. "But without you."

Impurrfections (Naruto, Kisame/Sakura, 4.4K)
Sakura's mission goes from bad to worse when a dead man steps through the door.

Worth Keeping (Naruto, Kisame/Itachi, 1.1K)
Kisame was the sort of person who could handle himself. He was strong, he was smart, he was experienced, he was adaptable, and he was extremely good at what he did. It made it all the more embarrassing that someone had gotten the drop on him, even if that someone was one of the Sannin. That same Sannin had gotten his ass kicked by a teenager when he broke with the Akatsuki and tried to take an Itachi-shaped severance package. Surely Kisame could have put up a fight.

you cannot unlearn the feeling (Naruto, Gaara & Naruto, <1K)
He has the scroll. Mizuki is being worse than ever. Iruka is hurt and everything is terrible and Mizuki asks, "Don't you want to know why you could never bond with anyone? Why it's impossible for you?"

*

Pretending (Original Works, Ambitious Outcast at Magic School/Gifted and Popular Prefect, 2.2K)
The first time, they had a good reason. Well, Agnes had a good reason, and Carla had the impetus of carefully gathered blackmail leveraged against her. Agnes needed a boost in popularity for very particular purposes. Carla was the most popular prefect Callow Hall had had in twenty years according to the ghost that lived on the third floor. If they were girlfriends or at least put up a good enough front to fool everyone, then some of that popularity would rub off. Literally, if Carla wanted to.

*

and promises upon promises to keep (Peerless, Feng Xiao/Cui Buqu, 3.8K)
“You do know I’m not going to break if you fuck me, right?”

Feng Xiao makes a promise he has to keep.

*

Five Times Shen Qingqiu Does Something Nice for Luo Binghe (Scum Villain, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu, 2.6K)
Or at least makes his best effort.

In retrospect, Shen Qingqiu could admit that he had not thought this through.

I know what you dream of (I dream of it too) (Scum Villain, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu, 2.3K)
When Xiu Ya comes for him again, Luo Binghe holds still for the blade. He hadn't dodged before, thinking Shen Qingqiu wouldn't really do it. He won't dodge now, thinking that he deserves it.

He knows that he's dreaming, anyway — he might as well let the memory go on.

A Political Match (Scum Villain, Mobei-Jun/Shang Qinghua, 4.1K)
It was the day of Shang Qinghua’s wedding, and he was going to be sick.

unplanned (Scum Villain, Mobei-Jun/Shang Qinghua, <1K)
Shang Qinghua doesn't mean to do it.

Okay, okay, from the outside he totally gets how it looks purposeful. Definitely! It definitely looks like he planned it really carefully! Like, you can't just slip and whoops break someone out of Huan Hua Palace's Water Prison, you know?

While the Leafless Branches Whispered (Scum Villain, Liu Qingge/Shen Jiu, WIP)
Instead of writing a harem novel, Airplane made a lighthearted otome game.

Well, that's what he did in one reality. In another he made a horror game.

When otome protagonist Shen Qingqiu wakes up from yet another qi deviation, it doesn't take him long to figure out that something is very wrong with Qing Jing.

worked over (Scum Villain, Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu, <1K)
He calls to his blood that runs through Shen Qingqiu’s veins, a part of him that can always be with Shizun even when they are apart. Now, though, he leans in to murmur against Shizun’s chest, damp with sweat and the remnants of their other rounds. “I’ll help Shizun this time, okay?”

*

Kidnapping (TGCF, Hua Cheng/Xie Lian, <1K)
They met again during a botched kidnapping. As it was not his highness's kidnapping, this detail was unimportant.