Flam Gush
by Kaitrin is a Slayers fic that delves deeply into the dark pasts of Lina and Gourry before they met.
It begins with a usual mercenary job, a round of extremely boring guard duty for a local lord. But not only do the two of them finally get their acts together and realize their feelings, but there are sinister characters from both their pasts waiting for a chance at revenge...
Flam Gush contains examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: Lina still suffers it, and Gourry assuring her that he doesn’t care is a big thing for her.
- An Arm and a Leg: Gourry takes off Garik’s sword arm when he tries an unwise lunge.
- Arranged Marriage: Lina was in one until her fiancé’s brother raped her, at which point both sets of parents told their kids that the other one wanted to break it off.
- As You Know: Nope. Lina and Gourry both run into people from their pasts who think that they know most, if not all, of the gruesome stories. When they each talk to these old associates alone, Lina and Gourry both avoid summarizing, and mostly make oblique references.
- Bad Boss: Garik.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. By the end of it Lina is frighteningly skeletal and running on rage, and Gourry isn’t much better.
- Blue Blood: After his father’s death, Gourry is technically the Lord Baron Gabriev.
- Character Check: Lina invokes this on herself as a reminder that she is not the frightened girl she’s been acting like recently. Not anymore.
- Coitus Uninterruptus: Lina in the first chapter catches the man she's guarding with a pretty blonde. This sharp awareness of physicality plays a part in her and Gourry getting their acts together.
- Continuity Nod: Erik interrogated several of Lina’s old traveling associates for information on her, and Lina recognizes several of the listed names.
- Contrived Coincidence: In a town they’ve never been to before, the first person Gourry asks for help after Lina is poisoned is a childhood friend of hers. And the healer they get taken to once helped Gourry’s mother.
- Convenient Miscarriage: There is one, but it's actually not convenient at all. Lina doesn’t find out until after the fact that she was pregnant, and while she can deal with the knowledge, it unsettles her.
- Creepy Uncle: The blonde Lina catches her employer with in the first chapter is actually the man's niece.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Surprisingly short on the ground given how strong Lina and Gourry are. There is one mentioned in the past, though, where Gourry dueled a man who was beating a camp follower. Gourry won almost faster than the guy could realize, and when Garik tried throwing dust in Gourry’s face and pulled a boot knife Gourry ended up gouging his eye out.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Gourry resolves to do this to Erik, but someone else gets there first.
- Darker and Edgier: The story is darker than canon Slayers, dealing with rape among other things, but a fantastic story all the same.
- Dark Secret: Gourry’s family was nobility, and then was murdered horrendously. Lina has one so secret that even she doesn’t consciously remember it: she was raped by Erik.
- Defiled Forever: Mostly Averted. Lina's rape is treated as a horrendous and traumatic experience, and Gourry shows her nothing but compassion. However, it’s implied that this may have been part of the reason her and Ryan’s parents broke the engagement and encouraged Lina to go adventuring.
- Denied Food as Punishment: The servants have heard all the rumors about Lina and try to do this to her.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Lina and Gourry both are until they finaly break the UST.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Completely averted. What Lucilla does to Ryan makes him want to vomit and she's treated as a monster for what she did to Gourry while he was delirious.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Erik's is when he first shows up, having arranged a dramatic confrontation with Lina but keeping her from fighting by holding Gourry's mother hostage. When Lina agrees to a hostage exchange, he first binds her magic, and then has Gourry's mother knock him out. It shows how ruthless, thorough, and terrifying he can be, while also pointing out through absence that he is only mediocre in a fight.
- We don't actually meet Lucilla until later, but her two moments are first when Lina sees her with her uncle, and then when she fakes her death to sic the townspeople on Lina and Gourry.
- Evil Versus Evil: Erik fights Gisella. In fact, the entire story is because of Erik, Gisella, and Lucilla working together at cross purposes.
- Eye Scream: What Gourry did to Garik when they were both working as mercenaries. Also, Rezo did this to the clone of Gourry's mother.
- Fingore: Gourry loses two fingers by the end, but Lina says Sylphiel should be able to regrow them.
- Foreshadowing:
- Lina's internal commentary on how she knows about quick flings in the first chapter reads a lot more darkly by the end of the story.
- The tapestry from Gourry’s old home carries a very nasty story with it.
- When Lina hears about Erik's death, she wonders if she didn't already know for some reason.
- For Want Of A Nail: Lina points out that if Erik had never raped her, and their parents broken off her and Ryanls engagement, then she would be a housewife or running a shop instead of adventuring.
- Genre Blind: Lucilla just can’t see that Erik is using her and doesn’t care for her at all, nor will killing Lina change that.
- Gold Digger: Deconstructed. Monara badgered her rich brother to buy his way into the nobility, married a rich noble, and when that didn’t end well she both badgered him into marrying an exiled lady and arranged a marriage for her step-daughter. But not only did her first marriage end in a coup against her, but her later actions are what gave the villains their chance to act.
- Good Is Not Soft: Gourry is likely the nicest person we see, but he helps Lina hunt bandits for living and cuts his way through several enemies when they threaten her.
- Handicapped Badass: Even while missing some fingers, Gourry is head and shoulders above everyone else in the story with a sword.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Gourry, despite his troubled past.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Lucilla, given who she obsesses over and what she’s willing to do to get him.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: It’s revealed that due to starting at such a young age, Lina has actually been misusing her magical abilities for years. When she gets it right (her channels are more developed now that she’s grown) she manages to cast Ragna Blade without any boosts.
- If I Can't Have You…: Erik is obsessed with possessing Lina, whom he raped while she was set to marry her fiance, who's his brother.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Gourry's family suffered this as part of their torture.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ironically, the lord on whose territory this all happens couldn't be bothered to intervene as long as he has his books and pretty girls in his bed. But when Lina is recovering and they meet in the library, they establish a rapport over a love of research, and he ends up helping her figure out the ritual that will get her back in good shape.
- Karma Houdini: Lady Monara is the one whose activities opened up the chance for the villains to act, and in the end all she's really lost is some of her servants and her step-daughter.
- Karmic Jackpot: Lina saved a girl named Elaina from Garik's rape attempt early in the story. Elaina would later return the favor by helping Lina escape Garik's clutches.
- Malicious Slander: Gisella tells everyone that Lina Inverse is responsible for sacking the Gabriev Keep.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Lucilla first forces Lina and Gourry into a retreat by using a potion and make-up to fake her own death. Her timing and planning mean that Lina and Gourry are forced to flee from two-dozen peasants and a concealed archer.
- Despite months of grueling training Lina believes that the single most terrifying thing Luna has ever done is break down crying.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: The two most active villains, Lucilla and Erik both try this. The irony is that each of them are trying to murder the one the other obsesses over while trying to work together.
- Oh, Crap!: Lina realizes while held prisoner that her time of the month is coming, which will leave her without any magic and vulnerable.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Gourry considers Lina cowering like a scared child to be this. Ryan, on the other hand, is used to it from their childhood, and he only gets how serious the situation is when Lina pulls a knife on him.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: The servants try to pull this on a recovering Lina by giving her small portions when she needs the calories and jostling her in the halls.
- Poisoned Weapons: Lina gets cut buy a knife that is not only poisoned, but dipped in a cesspool. The idea is that when someone tries to heal the wound, the magic also strengthens the infection.
- Poor Communication Kills: Justified, for once. Both Lina's rape and the slaughter of Gourry's family are horrible, traumatizing events that they have tried to move past and forget, so of course they really don’t want to talk about them.
- Posthumous Character: Rezo the Red Priest is responsible for more than half of the story's conflict, and he's been dead for a while.
- Rape as Drama: Lina was raped by her fiance's brother prior to becoming an adventuring sorceress and meeting Gourry. It's treated exactly as traumatic as it is in life, and is what kicked off the entire plot.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: The biggest harm Gourry suffers is the result of poisoning from badly made rye-bread. This condition occurs in real life, and is believed to have played a part in the Salem witch trials.
- Red Herring: Lina sees Zelgadis hanging around the town but he keeps avoiding them.
- Rich Bitch: Lucilla.
- Running Gag: Gourry does something spacey in response to Lina trying to impress him.Lina: Have I ever told you that is the most annoying habit I have ever seen in my entire life?!
Gourry: Maybe. I forgot. - Slut-Shaming: Gourry completely averts this with Lina, who was raped by her fiance's brother. But a lot of people do it with Lucilla, because she actually manages to deserve it.
- Spanner in the Works: Lina would never have escaped if it weren't for Elaina, the girl she saved from Garik's rape attempt early in the story.
- Title Drop: Flam Gush is the wind spell Lina uses to kill Lucilla after escaping her bonds.
- Torture Technician: Zeil.
- Underestimating Badassery: Ryan only knew Lina from before she became the Enemy Of All Who Live and didn't think she could save Gourry until she pulled a knife on him when he tried to stop her.
- Wham Line:
- Gourry: My mother's name is Lisielle. I have no idea who this 'Gisella' is supposed to be."
