Title: Contrasting Colors
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17
Fandom: The Vantablack Feud between Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor. If you haven't heard of this (extremely hilarious) war going on in the art world, this article explains it pretty well.
Notes: My Yuletide fic! :D


Summary: Stuart Semple and Anish Kapoor have extremely different views on the idea of sharing Vantablack with the wider artistic community. But this time, Vantablack isn't a color; it's a spell. Their rivalry, however, might just be disguised sexual tension.

4831 words. On AO3.

Title: Light As Air
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17 for explicit f/m sex, breathplay
Fandom: The Benjamin January mysteries by Barbara Hambly
Pairings: Rose/Hannibal
Notes: This is the reason I've been so busy lately – managing to get this story finished before the deadline. This is a treat I wrote for Nary for the Seeing Color exchange, though it's actually based on prompts from the Smut Swap exchange a few months ago. I started it then, but didn't manage to finish it in time, and luckily had a second chance to write it.


Summary: Rose conducts an experiment on Hannibal, which leads to unexpected places. (Set during Good Man Friday.)

7216 words. Also available on AO3.

( Light As Air )

Title: Once Upon a Time in India
Ratings/Warnings: G
Fandom: Fairy tales. Specifically, the story of The 12 Dancing Princesses.
Notes: I wrote this story months ago, but it just occured to me that I forgot to make a post about it, and so here we are!

Written as a treat in Yuletide 2015 for lalalalalawhy, because her letter asked for a Bhangra AU, and that was too cool to pass up. I wrote this at the very last minute – in a few hours on Christmas Eve – and made it into the archive with only minutes to spare, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

Summary: The twelve dancing princesses aren't going to a castle with princes. They have an entirely different destination.

3515 words. Also available on AO3.



( Once Upon a Time in India )

Title: Learning the Rules
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: G
Notes: Written as a treat in Yuletide 2014, for the wonderful egelantier. Many thanks to LeaperSonata for excellent last minute betaing! The Goblin Emperor is a very lovely high fantasy novel by Katherine Addison, and if you haven't read it, you should check it out.

Summary: Maia is still adjusting to the ways of Court, but now he has some help.

1,478 words. Also available on AO3.


( Learning the Rules )

Title: And When Resisted, Cruel
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: R. This is a sex pollen story. Though the sex itself is about as consensual as it's possible for sex pollen!sex to be, this is still a story explicitly about consent issues.
Disclaimer: The Benjamin January mysteries are by Barbara Hambly.
Notes: Written for hc_bingo's May Challenge. My prompt was "sex pollen".

Summary: “A drug. It was in that drink,” she said, and swore, remembering its bitter taste.
Rose gets dosed with sex pollen.
(Set around the same time as A Free Man of Color.)

3,093 words. Also available on AO3.



( And When Resisted, Cruel )

Title: So Many Are the Crossings and the Roads
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: PG/T. Some slight references to violence.
Disclaimer: The Benjamin January mysteries are by Barbara Hambly.
Notes: OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I LITERALLY WROTE THIS WHOLE THING IN A WEEK.
A million thanks to somebraveapollo, for very last-minute beta duty.
Written for hc_bingo for the prompts: dungeons, hypoglycemia/low blood sugar, nervous breakdown, and homesickness (wild card).
Summary: A Medieval Europe AU, set in the 12th-century Holy Roman Empire. Ben has been captured in battle and imprisoned in a dungeon. If he wants to get back to his home and Ayasha, he'll need to break out, get help, and walk across half of Europe. (This can be read without canon knowledge, but you should totally read the books and then squee about them with me.)

9,821 words. Also available on AO3



( So Many Are the Crossings and the Roads )

Fandom snowflake!

Day 7: In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something.

Stealing a meme for this from egelantier and somebraveapollo: I've randomized 10 songs and chose lyrics from each - your job is to pick a number and a character (or ship) (or friendship) (or assortment of characters) and receive a ficlet!

1. A dangerous daughter in a leopard print skirt / A Polaroid camera recording the dirt (Suede: Attitude) Fill: Jessica Campion for just_ann_now

2. Down the stairs the lady came thinking no harm / Lankin he stood ready to catch her in his arm (Steeleye Span: Long Lankin) Fill: Jude/Kit for egelantier

3. Momma once told me / You're already home where you feel loved (The Head and the Heart: Lost in My Mind) Fill: Gabriel Corbier for somebraveapollo

4. Steal home before sunset, cover up my tracks / Drive home with old dreams at play in my mind and the wind at my back (The Mountain Goats: Genesis 3:23)

5. Does it matter that our anchors / Couldn't even reach the bottom / Of a bath tub? (Regina Spektor: Sailor Song) Fill: Hisoka/Tatsumi/Tsuzuki for ranalore

6. I love you, I swear it, I would never lie / But I fear for our lives and I fear your closed eyes (Wakey!Wakey!: War Sweater) Fill: Night Vale for lady_ganesh

7. And even if the morning never comes / My hands are blessed to have touched the sun (Local Natives: Sun Hands) Fill: Hannibal/Ben/Rose for egelantier

8. Ever since you left I've thought of nothing else / Been a man possessed by the way your touch felt (Simone White: What the Devil Brings) Fill: Richard/Alec for just_ann_now

9. Now the hard times are behind us / So let's not be alone (Cherry Poppin' Daddies: Hi & Lo) Fill: Hakkai/Gojyo for veleda_k

10. Wind out of Oklahoma this morning smelled like blood and smoke (The Mountain Goats: Pink and Blue) Fill: The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug/Benjamin January mysteries crossover for lynndyre

Title: Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, non-graphic violence, references to murder
Summary: Cora and Polly and Willie, and how stories turn in to songs.

Cora was tough as nails and could shoot with a dead-eyed accuracy that put down whatever she aimed at. He’d seen her shoot a man with the same coolness she used to shoot squirrels, and she could handle any sort of gun, from a pistol to that ancient shotgun she kept behind the cabin’s door, long and narrow as Cora herself. It seemed easier to believe she might have acquaintance with ghosts than that she was some sort of secret poet.

Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013, for Lady Anne Boleyn. So much love and gratitude to my betas, threewalls and somebraveapollo! And thank you to Silver Queen for a very inspiring prompt.

This story is a crossover between the songs "Pretty Polly" and "Darling Cora" (though you can also read it without canon knowledge!). As with all folk songs, there are approximately a million versions of each. Here are some of my favorites, if you'd like a soundtrack for this story:
Pretty Polly: Ralph Stanley & Patty Loveless | Bert Jansch | Hillbilly Gypsies
Darling Cora: Appaloosas | The Church Sisters | Ed Hicks and Aaron Jonah Lewis

4401 words. Also available on AO3



( Ain't Gonna Waste My Pleasures )

Author notes in Part One.

( Nothing Better or More Delightful )

Title: With the Help of Your Good Hands
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: NC-17, breathplay of an extremely consensual sort
Summary: Hannibal asks a favor of Ben, who enjoys it more than he expected to. Ben/Hannibal
Disclaimer: The Benjamin January mysteries are by Barbara Hambly, and you should all read them.
Notes: A million, million thank yous to my betas, silverflight8 and somebraveapollo, who valiantly dealt with multiple drafts. Also this whole thing was somebraveapollo's idea.

Set just after Graveyard Dust.

3,875 words. Also available on AO3.



( With the Help of Your Good Hands )