Pining Exchange letter

Hello! I go by sara, and am sombregods here, on tumblr, and on ao3. I'm incredibly excited for this exchange — pining is one of my absolute favourite tropes, and I am already looking forward to reading your work! :D

DNWs: infidelity, extreme underage, love triangles, scat/watersports, permanent character deaths unless otherwise indicated.

Narrative likes: 

• loyalty kink 5ever. I particularly enjoy stories featuring shows of devotion, oath-swearing (think verbal oaths, but also hand-kissing, sword-kissing, boot-kissing oh my god), absolute shows of trust, kneeling, abnegation, apparent betrayals in which the traitor is playing a long game, etc.
• friends to lovers to the point of codependency. I love it best when the relationship isn't necessarily a healthy one—give me obsessive best friends who would literally die for each other!
• conversely, enemies to lovers, but keep the codependent and obsessive relationship—they used to be friends/lovers, they have a political or social history, they disagree on some profound level that sets them apart as much as it keeps them connected, they're deeply protective in a "no one can hurt/kill you but me" way. Also, hatesex. 
• villains in love!!
• depiction of heavy societal demands or restraints that keep the characters from acting on their attraction to each other: religion, homophobia, classism, etc.
• second chances & exes reuniting, being forced to work in cohesion, especially if their relationship was a secret to everybody else. Lingering resentment and unspoken feelings, touches that mean a lot more than others might think, conversations full of double meanings.
• soulbonds! feel free to go for a strong sensory/emotional/sensual connection — they might share thoughts and sensations, or get flashes of each other's vision, or feel an intense emotional resonance in moments of distress.
• competence kink! give me characters who're scary good at what they do, whether what they do is fighting, keen engineering skills, astute political machinations, scholarly ambitions, detective work, thieving ... and show me how that affects the person pining.
• "I thought you were dead!" angst. Seriously, I love this. Give me every variation of it.
• forced intimacy, in which the pining characters are sharing a bed, a bath, a train compartment, a prison cell...
• falls from grace/becoming the villain, especially if there's some seduction to the dark side happening to the pined-for character.
• hurt/comfort, especially in the fever/wounds category; I love a good bedside vigil. And if the character who's been hurt is delirious to the point of fever confessions, or the character who's pining is terrified they're going to lose them, all the better!
• worlds or societies in which being oneself (gender, sexuality, race, religion, social status) is repressed by the powers that be, and all the internalized shame, entanglements, and complications that result from that oppression. 
• social etiquette respected to the letter but concealing subtler messages.
• costume porn! :D
• heavy responsibilities resting on the shoulders of one, or few persons.
• social class divides.
• anything that has to do with religion and how it affects the characters is fascinating to me. in the context of pining, I always like it when a character is promised to a god, and has to live with their own desires as being incoherent with their faith, or with a vow of chastity, or with a life of sober belief as opposed to passion. Heresy and sacrilege are a+.
• sex that relies heavily on power dynamics without there being a formal kink negotiation underway. I love d/s and/or dubcon in these contexts.
• kissing! heavy makeouts or passing smooches, meaningful kisses goodbye or thankful kisses hello, kissing to distract an outsider, kissing to avoid talking, kissing in the middle of sex ...
• rituals related to monarchy or hierarchy.
• misunderstandings that drive the characters apart, provided they're not too far-fetched.
• tenderness & violence intermingled.
• conversations with double meanings, secret communication, unstated desires being expressed in different contexts.

Fandoms (note: all of my requests fall under the "feelings eventually requited" group tag.)

Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle

Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (Holmes pining), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (Watson pining), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (both pining)

Tags: Character pines for someone they think is dead; Mutual Pining; Pining while in a Friends with Benefits arrangement; pining because character(s) worries about ruining their friendship; Undercover as a Couple While Pining; Trying to express their feelings through gift-giving; Pining while tending someone's wounds; Pining while sharing a bed; Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc); Pining because of internalized homophobia; Period-Typical Homophobia; epistolary pining; Hurt/Comfort; Grief/Mourning; Guilt over enjoying friendly hugs/physical closeness too much; Character pines for someone who thinks nothing of undressing casually in front of them; Character will follow the object of their pining into danger or towards certain death

Prompts: 

• I love H/W casefic leading to first time getting together, especially if the case they're working puts them in a prime pining position — undercover as a couple (in the most exclusive of "gentlemen's clubs" :D), turkish baths visits, being forced to share intimate quarters/a bed, etc. Anything with a focus on physicality would be a bonus: I love that Watson's narration so often focuses on Holmes' body, his hands, his sitting positions, and so on. 
• one of them is hurt; the other tends to him, and bedside vigils and feverish confessions ensue. I adore any variation on this scenario. 
• canon divergence circa. FINA through EMPT — I love stories that showcase Watson's grief, and his shock when he comes across Holmes again, in whatever circumstances. Don't be afraid of making Watson angry, to the point that Holmes has to win him back!
• epistolary fic would also be great; maybe letters that span the length of years? conversations with double meanings, intimate confessions they would not dare speak aloud, letters sent or kept unsent during the Hiatus ...

The Penumbra Podcast

Pairings: Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev (both pining), Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev (Nureyev pining), Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev (Juno pining)

Tags: Pining after breaking up; Accidental soulbond while pining; Character discovers the one they're pining for suffered past trauma; Cooking as an expression of affection; A ended the relationship with B but still pines for them; Hurt/Comfort; Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc.); Pining character doused with truth serum; pining for someone after bad personal history between them; Mutual Pining; Fake Dating — mutual pining

Prompts: 

• you can decide to go for the canon S2 finale route (and everything that can happen after!) as well as imagine a canon divergence in which the reunion takes place differently; I would love both equally. That being said, I would prefer for there to be a real rift between them — I don't think they are going to reunite easily, and I would imagine Peter is very, very angry indeed, and feels conflicted about still being in love with Juno.
• if you go for domestic life on board the ship, focus on how difficult their interactions must be, and how complicated any kind of kindness or physical touch would become between them! feel free to show them from an outside POV (everyone on board that ship has such distinct personalities that any of them would be amazing in that role), or to focus on how keenly Juno or Peter are feeling guilt, affection, regret, or blame. long, lingering looks, double conversations, moments of intimacy ...
• I would love some outside influence to force them to interact — a truth serum would be great, as well as a good reason to go undercover as a couple, with all the awkwardness and strained feelings between them as you can add! I'd love it if Peter had no idea what exactly had gone down in Hyperion City, with Ramses/Jack and THEIA, and was to find out unexpectedly everything Juno had had to go through.

Hannibal 

Pairings: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal pining), Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (both pining)

Tags: Alliance is or might be temporary; Alternate Universe; channelling pining into violence; Hurt/Comfort; Character A is bathed by Character B while pining; in denial about their attraction to the character they are pining for; Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc.); pining for hated character; Pining while having wound tende; Pining while imprisoned; Cooking as an expression of affection; Trying to express their feelings through gift-giving

Prompts: 

• I would love a Hannibal POV in a "giving gifts as a seduction tactic" scenario here — post-series, or set in S1 or S2, whatever goes — cooking for Will, and taking him in at night, and gifting him books or fish hooks, and so on. Hannibal is such an acutely sensory person in the show, and I'd love something that focuses on how much he feels Will's body too: how he smells, how he tastes, the coarse fabric of his shirt, the tone of his voice ...
• this can go the other way, too — have Will intensely aware of everything Hannibal is and does.
• canon divergences in general!! my favourites are S2- and S3-based divergences — Will escapes with Hannibal and Abigail in the S2 finale, goes completely down the dark side earlier on in S2, or catches up to Hannibal early in S3. How do they cope with being together in such a setting? Does Will's corruption into Hannibal's brand of evil happen all at once, or slowly? or does he resist — try to force Hannibal to temper his own actions? 
• anything related to food and cooking as the medium through which pining is expressed would be lovely.

Original Work

Pairings: Arrogant Empress in Exile/Her Female Secretary (both pining); Corrupt Edwardian Politician/Working-Class Revolutionary (both pining); Fantasy Librarian/Arrogant Royal (both pining); Rich Male Aristocrat/Lower Class Husband forced into Marrying Him (both pining); Female Regency Rake/Sweet Ingenue with Hidden Depths (rake pining) 

Tags: Alliance is or might be temporary; Hurt/Comfort; Character pines for someone they think is dead; Arranged Marriage - mutual pining between spouses; Former Lovers pine for each other; Pining while sharing a bed; Power Imbalance Doesn't Let Them Be Together; Social Class Divide; Pining because of internalized homophobia; A pines for B while thinking B hates them; Codependency; Character pines for someone who thinks nothing of undressing casually in front of them; Conversations with Double Meanings; Guilt over enjoying friendly hugs/physical closeness too much; Obsessive Love; A pines for B while B swears fealty to A; A pining after betraying B; Starcrossed Lovers; pining while in a friends with benefits arrangement

• Arrogant Empress in Exile/Her Female Secretary: I love this idea. Why is the Empress in exile? Was she deposed after a coup, and sent away with nothing but a companion? Is the Secretary a shy, devoted girl who has no idea what she's in for, or a loyal second-in-command who gets her hands dirty, or a bodyguard in disguise doing her job? Are they traveling together, forced to share quarters (or a bed!), or finding a new home in some foreign country? Is the class difference a big deal? Do they have some sort of history they have to deal with?
• Corrupt Edwardian Politician/Working-Class Revolutionary: I would love some focus on the class difference and the starcrossed-lovers tension in this one, all the more so if they are both, in their own way, quite ruthless and dedicated to winning the small wars they wager. Are they old friends, from way back when they were children? Do they meet in the Revolutionary's place of work, and hate each other as much as they are attracted to each other? Do they have a enemies-with-benefits arrangement and both think they're alone in their pining?
• Fantasy Librarian/Arrogant Royal: I am imagining clashes over accounting records and library shelving, ngl, but feel free to go wild on the dynamics between them! longtime friends who've been pining for years, enemies clashing over some minor administrative detail, loyalty kink, identity porn, epistolary pining ... anything goes, so long as the Librarian obeys the rule of Librarians in fiction, and is therefore sexy as fuck. ;)
• Rich Male Aristocrat/Lower Class Husband forced into Marrying Him: I love the idea of spouses pining for each other — maybe even having sex, but still being unable to front up to their feelings. Why was the Husband forced to marry the Aristocrat? money? social status? family feuds? how long has it been since they were married? did they like each other beforehand, and then the forced marriage threw a spanner in the way of their attraction? or did they detest each other at first? do they share a bed? do they get jealous over friends?
• Female Regency Rake/Sweet Ingenue with Hidden Depths: (I love this kind of pairing so so much. <3) In this particular case, I would like to see this jaded Rake pine and pine for the Ingenue, who remains (at first!) blissfully unaware of the affections she's awakening. Feel free to go for all the jealousy, possessiveness, exceptional tenderness the Rake might feel — and to show how the Ingenue might conceal some sharper aspects of her personality. Since this is the Regency, think helping each other dress/undress, dancing together at a ball, small gestures having a depth of meaning...

Whatever you choose to write, I hope you have fun! <3