(no subject)

[chelicerae]

Comments here!

Comments

Frankie and Eden; something I can never have

[chelicerae]

Every morning when he wakes up he makes a list inside his head of the things he wants, like a prayer. It’s a cruel god; the list is short and very focused, almost myopic in nature. He stares at Eden; her eyes are sleepy and closing a bit - she was never really a morning person - and reviews.

What he wants: to be able to kiss her, affectionately and without any pretense, to touch her without thinking about it, to absently run his hand over the back of her neck, right where one of her most prominent scars peeks over the back of her shirt, to whisper good morning into the dark mess of her hair, to untangle her from himself, to bite pinprick bruises into her collarbone and be ashamed and pleased at the same time, to complain about the sweatiness of July mornings, to kiss her with purpose and with intention.

“You’re doing it again,” she says, and he realizes he’s been staring.

Just as he is about to open his mouth Moore stumbles, fingers tangled in his curls and his trousers slung low against his hips and steals her tea, takes a drink. She smiles up at him with a fondness that Frankie does not see directed at him. “Busy today?” she asks, and Moore responds in his thick, indecipherable accent, something muttering and low and Frankie adds that to his list. To be able to take her tea and feel the heat of her mouth. To have her smile at him. To speak in code to her.

They had a code, once. Frankie gave that code up for a brother who is still alive, somewhere, and a death that is adequate punishment for leaving her, he thinks. They had a code when she was his wife and not someone else’s girlfriend, a girl who doesn’t remember the magic she etched onto his skin and onto her soul.

But then Moore leaves, and she looks at Frankie. “Hospital today,” she says, and he nods.

“I’ll walk you there.”

This is what Frankie has: the sunlight on his skin, the air in his lungs, the press of his heartbeat, and the morning walks with a girl who he loves but can’t remember him. He traded the night away for this. He thinks he would do it again to see her, every time.

Nic and Saya; The hunter becomes the hunted

[chelicerae]

If someone were to ask her what she wanted to do with her summer, Saya’s response would likely have something to do with lying on the beach and enjoying the sand and the heat.

Instead of being in the Namibian summer, though, she was here, in Sheremetevo Airport, bundled against the cold, feeling the closest thing she could to hate. The worst part of this wasn’t that she had to go to Russia in January. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure why she was in Russia in January. But the fact was that there was something itching in the back of her head, making her feel something like she owed someone something.

The first werewolf she smelled was twenty minutes after she landed. The second one was ten minutes after that. And now, almost three hours later, she couldn’t get the smell out of her nose.

She split up, then, infecting Moscow with brown recluse spiders, but even then she couldn’t shake them. She holed herself up in her hotel room, and they found their way to her. She was about to go into the umbra, to flee that way, when she heard someone outside her room. “You’re all idiots if you think she doesn’t know you’re here,” she heard, in gutteral Russian. Saya’s Russian was good enough to know that, although she wasn’t sure she could produce it.

But the voice-

She remembered that voice, from somewhere. She went to the door, flung it open, and immediately spit, venom flying. The man in front of her moved out of the way, knowing too well that it was coming. It landed on the wall, and the caustic venom left a stain that would never come out. “You haven’t changed,” he said.

“Your majesty,” she said.

“You’re taller. And curvier,” Nic said, and one of the other werewolves with him stared at her. She was still beautiful, even though she was a spider. It’s not always enough for knowledge to overpower hormones. “And your eyes are brown. What the hell happened to you?”

“You smell,” she replied, simply.

He grinned. “It’s good to see you too.”

There’s a growl behind him, and she just looked over. “I’ll bite, dog,” she said, and the growl got louder until Nic snapped and it stopped. “You could have called on the phone, you know,” she said. “I don’t appreciate the spiritual invitation.”

“And made it comfortable? Don’t be absurd,” Nic laughed, and he touched her like he wasn’t afraid, and it was different, but there was something pleasant about it.

If she understood things like pleasure.

Billy and Erik, Disneyland

[chelicerae]

“I am not going on that,” Erik said, arms crossed over his chest.

Billy just looked up at his grandfather, somewhat pleased. He hadn’t actually thought they would have a good time. Erik had a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on his head, forced by his favorite grandson (well, the only grandson he knew, unlike the version back home, and Billy is pretty sure that Tommy is actually the favorite grandson) with a sad look and a pout.

Now they were standing in front of a roller coaster.

“I think you’re saying that because it’s wood,” Billy replied, pleased.

Erik looked distinctly unimpressed. “There’s more metal on it than you think,” he said, and shook his head. “I don’t scream.”

“You don’t have to scream,” Billy pointed out. “You don’t even have to laugh,” he added, with a grin.

“No.”

“Please?” Billy actually pouted, and Erik tried not to laugh, tried to not smile. He didn’t actually manage. “Please?”

Erik finally laughed. “Is that all you want?”

“I wanted a pony but you weren’t around when I was six so this will have to do,” Billy replied, and grabbed his grandfather’s hand. The looked more like father and son, but that was okay.

The roller coaster was fun, even though Erik lost his Mickey Mouse ears, and Billy’s hair was windswept and huge. “Was that a memory made?” Erik asked after, and Billy grinned at him.

“Yeah. That was a memory made."

Billy and Gansey; shippy shit

[chelicerae]

When he got the phone call, it was almost a whole month ago. He was running his stupid magic business in New York, which was to say he was broke as hell, still running rare books in and out of the city, and occasionally making bad choices about magic. And Tommy was doing the business end of things because their mom was still missing.

But then he got the call from Gansey, who at the time was just a weird rich kid who was the son of the politician, and he wanted to hire his mom, which meant he knew that his mom’s magic (and his own) was the real thing, because only real magic knew about them. Billy managed to convince Gansey to hire him to do this weird leyline tracking, and that ended up with him in Henrietta.

Henrietta is a hot, swilling pit, and Billy grew up in New York City which was basically the photo next to hot, swilling pit in the dictionary. The past month was three things: frustrating because the magic in the place grated in the back of Billy’s teeth but he still couldn’t focus at all, frustrating because Gansey’s friends were all insanely codependent, and frustrating because Gansey was everything that wasn’t usually Billy’s type, but every conversation they had, every interaction they had, every time they looked at each other, Billy felt a boiling in the back of his stomach, just under his ribs, and probably inside the bad decision organ in Billy’s heart.

Never fall for straight boys, that was the first rule.

But it was a fucking perfect night. They were sitting on the edge of the road, Gansey’s terrorist car behind them, the city laid out under their feet, the fireflies rising up and cheap hot dogs from a seemingly never ending supply, and Gansey’s absurd accent droning on about Iolo Goch.

Billy’s leaving in two days.

And he doesn’t want to.

He rubs his eyes a bit, because he doesn’t want to go home to New York. At least, he doesn’t want to go home unless Gansey is with him, and Gansey won’t be with him. Gansey stops talking for a minute. “Are you okay?” he asks?

“Oh, yeah, I mean, I just-“ Billy says, careful. “I’m going to miss it.”

“It’s a strange place, isn’t it?” Gansey asks, incredibly fond, looking over Henrietta. “It tugs you here.”

Billy doesn’t know if he agrees with that, but he reaches for another hot dog and pauses halfway there. “I think it’s the company, really,” he says. “If you were in New York-“

“I’d visit your shop all the time,” Gansey says, and puts his hand on Billy’s, and Billy does everything he can not to snatch it away. It’s fond. It’s platonic. It’s not anything. There’s a spark, then, a literal one, blue magic flaring between them. “You’re incredible,” Gansey tells him, fondly, like he hasn’t said it a hundred times in the past month, because he has. Gansey loves his magic.

“An incredible creature, I know,” Billy replies, and Gansey leans forward a bit. He looks almost surprised, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Billy goes very still. “What are you doing?” he asks, but he doesn’t move. He feels like he’s under glass.

“Um.” The reply is the most inarticulate that Gansey’s been the entire time Billy’s known him. “I think I was going to kiss you.”

“….you’re straight,” Billy argues.

“Am I?” Gansey asks, and Billy stares. “I don’t think I ever said that,” he elaborates.

“…you’re…in love with Adam?”

“Not in love,” Gansey says, and they’re still in this strange tableau.

“You’re…”

“Please say I can,” Gansey asks, softly, and Billy nods. The kiss is soft at first, and when they move apart Gansey’s mouth is slightly open. There’s a spark of a firefly between them. Or it might be a blue light of magic. At the moment, it doesn’t really matter, because Gansey is smiling in the haze of the light, and Billy will remember that.

Maybe Henrietta is a little less of a swilling pit, after that.

Kel and Lucy; jeggings

[chelicerae]

It's really not their fault.

Lucy wears breeches only when it cannot be helped, and so she almost never buys them, and Kel should have realized that when she asked Lucy to help her buy some new ones, because the ones from home were wearing out and she was in desperate need of new clothes. Clearly the dresses were not going to cut it; and Lucy was wandering from store to store, overwhelmed. Athos, in what was probably a move of self-preservation, heard shopping and entrusted Lucy's care to Kel's capable hands.

And so.

Here they are.

"Are they meant to be worn outside?" Lucy asks, as Kel waits outside of the dressing room. She had not meant to buy anything. She had, in fact, meant to not even try anything on. But they saw these and Kel said they might be good for riding, and Lucy made a face, but agreed to try.

"Where else would you wear them?" Kel asked. "Are you going to come out?" she said, wondering if that was rude. To be honest, generally, rudeness was fine, but with Lucy- "....my lady?" she added after a moment. Sometimes, with Lucy, it was hard to remember. She was not another girl, or one of Kel's friends. She was a queen. A laid back one, one who reminded her, perhaps, too strongly of her own royals, but truly, a queen.

Lucy was quiet for a moment. "You should not laugh," she said, her voice very small, and she opened the door.

Kel, to her credit, did not laugh.

But that might have been from the slight tug of panic in her.

Lucy was short, naturally, and Kel had seen her in breeches before, but these were so tight. Her legs were not long, but they were legs, and she could feel the blood rushing to her face. Lucy was, fortunately, a bit too distracted with tugging her shirt down to notice. "No, I think, this is too much, even for me-"

"Ah, you look," Kel tried at the same time, but then Lucy turned around and Kel sat, heavily, and that was a mistake too because Lucy's shirt was not very long. Her curves were very curvy. "My lady," she tried, clearing her throat. Manners, she thought.

"My royal brothers would be most unhappy," Lucy said, "And Athos," she added. Kel considered someone looking at Lucy like this and felt a pang of solidarity. And displeasure with herself for thinking that way. And something else. Jealousy? She didn't want to examine that too closely.

But then Lucy was back in the changing room, and out a moment later, her skirts back on, done up, looking like nothing but herself, and maybe that was worse.

Declan and Ronan; sunday mornings

[chelicerae]

Maybe it was the black eye that did it.

Or maybe this was something that had been building for a while. Declan was in no mood to be kind, lately; he was furious with Ronan, furious that one day the home nurse called him and said your mother is missing with a panic that almost made Declan drive back to the Barns to check himself, as if his mother - turned off, switched off, put into storage - had rolled under a bed or into a closet without anyone noticing. And then, during the panicked hour of phone calls to Ronan and the police and the consideration of calling Matthew, the lawyer called with they found another will and suddenly the panic was replaced with bottomless, unfathomable rage.

Ronan had done it. Ronan had figured out the secret tics and the secret realities of their father's secrets, the coded messages left for him. Niall had left all this to Ronan, bequeathed him a mystery and a legacy and everything else, and had left Declan as the gatekeeper to it. As the sole thing keeping Ronan from breaking the rules to his game too soon.

He had thought he had wasted all his rage at his father and his brother, but he was wrong, because he was still furious, for days, for weeks.

The only thing that kept him civil was Matthew, Matthew who had been through too much, Matthew who would sit in church and hold his head up and occasionally nap a little, and Matthew who held Declan's hand a little more tightly than usual before Ronan arrived, usually a couple of minutes late and looking like a thug.

But then one morning Ronan was later than usual, and Matthew was asleep more heavily than usual, and suddenly Declan felt a twinge of fear strike through him; two years of possibilities suddenly catching up, his father's game no longer funny, his damaged younger brother suddenly the broken thing that could spiral the few good things in Declan's life completely out of his reach. It was easy to say he was no one's favorite, but Matthew never treated him that way.

Ronan showed up and the fear had eased but the anger had not, and it culminated in a fight, this one more verbal than anything. "You have to stop fighting, you're going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere," Declan had said, snarling it.

Ronan's laugh wasn't really a laugh. Ronan didn't laugh at Declan, Ronan made a noise like a raven, a threat and a promise all at once. A war-cry. Something that should have been brittle but in Ronan's mouth was harsh, and sludgy. "Fuck you," was the reply, unsurprising, honest. "Go back to D.C. and fuck off," he growled, "I didn't ask you to come back."

The funny thing is that those words weren't the most toxic thing that Ronan had ever said to Declan before. They weren't even the nastiest things he said this month, but for some reason, with the mystery of his mother riding high in between his ears and the terror of Matthew, asleep in the pew in a way that shouldn't have scared him but did, and the sheer exhaustion of watching his brother get everything and still be a surly asshole about it, Declan did it. "If you end up dead in a ditch somewhere, Matthew's gone, you asshole," he said, and he saw Ronan freeze then, suddenly, and the thrill of landing a real blow was almost as good as the look on Ronan's face, scared and shocked.

"What the hell are you talking about," Ronan asked, because it was as if in the mountain of lies that Declan told, this was the moment of truth. It was like Ronan understood. But then they had a deal. They didn't bring Matthew into things. They didn't fuck around where Matthew was concerned. Declan didn't reply and Ronan surged forward, all muscle, pushing Declan against a wall. The bricks were harsh against the fabric of Declan's suit, but he could buy a new one. Ronan's face was a millimeter away, and there was nothing familiar in it now. They were made from the same mold, the two older Lynch brothers. Sons of a dreamer and sons of his favorite dream. Built for violence, and that was all that was left in Ronan's face. "What the fuck are you talking about?" Ronan demanded.

"Did you think Dad was the only one who would pull things out of dreams?" Declan said, and Ronan let go, and looked at Declan like he had never before.

He looked at Declan like maybe Declan had betrayed him in a way he hadn't expected. "How long have you known about that?" Ronan asked, like suddenly didn't want to touch him. Like there was poison between them.

Declan didn't reply right away. "If you die, Matthew goes too, so you have to stop," he replied, when that wasn't an answer. Maybe Declan didn't want to give him one. Because he didn't have answers, either. Because the words she's my mom, too, where is she wouldn't mean a thing to Ronan, because Ronan didn't have a heart where Declan was concerned.

If they were another family, a different pair of brothers, it would have ended differently. If they were those people, when Declan walked past Ronan to get to his Volvo, Ronan may have said wait. When Declan got in, he may have opened his window and explained it better. But they weren't those people, so when Declan did those things, all he did was drive away. This wasn't his father's game.

But then, Declan had never wanted to be the one holding the pieces.

Kel and Lucy; kiss

[chelicerae]

Maybe this would have happened in some other way. She should have, it is likely, kissed this girl when Kel was saving her from something, with Kel's hands on her hips and her own hands in Kel's short hair. That's how it is in romances; the grand ones, anyway. The knight saves his (her) lady fair, and they kiss, dramatically.

But there is no dramatic moment. They are on a picnic, and it is quiet, and Lucy is reading something, although she has been reading the same five words for the last ten minutes and she could not recite them back to anyone. Kel is close-eyed and not sleeping, but doing that peaceful thing between wake and sleep, with the sun on her skin and a smile on her lips. It is just cool enough to make this day bearable, but warm enough to make it pleasant.

And it's the pleasure that makes Lucy set down her book, carefully, and lean over. Her hair has slipped out of her crown of braids, and it brushes Kel on the cheek, making the other girl open her eyes. "My lady, what are you doing?" she asks, and her eyes are wide.

She looks as though she thinks that maybe she's dreaming.

But she isn't dreaming. Lucy leans over a little more and presses her mouth to Kel's, softly and sweetly and as gentle as she is able, and then brushes her thumb along Kel's cheekbone. "You may have asked me," Lucy said, "and I would have done it sooner."

Kel breathes in as though she has never tasted air, and rises up, to chase that kiss with another.

Satya and Kavinsky; boys will be boys

[chelicerae]

The blood is everywhere; on the ground, over the dumpster, on the hood of the white Mitsubishi, on Saya's teeth. Her power can't prevent blood from getting on her (him, at the moment) - it prevents it from sticking, so it's dripping off his suit jacket. There's a thing that at some point might have been a person.

There's a boy who is watching this with something between humor and horror; Saya is bad at gauging the difference between those emotions (it can make things very awkward) and when he crosses the front of the car to lean down, Kavinsky looks up. Saya knows he's attractive. He knows it because he's been told, because he's not stupid or blind, because he's confident and secure. "That's a shit ton of blood," Kavinsky says, and his voice is perfectly neutral.

"You hit him with your car," Saya points out.

Kavinsky shrugs. What just happened here was strange, and Kavinsky is rolling - intensely - on something that Saya doesn't know. "You look familiar," he says, "have we fucked here before?"

Saya just feels some vague amusement. "Are you asking me for a ride?"

"If you want to get on my cock and roll after seeing that crap, shit, you're more fucked up than I am," Kavinsky says, "but whatever, I like my princesses fucked up."

Saya laughs, then, and runs a hand through Kavinsky's hair. They look like a john and a hooker, with Saya leaning in his window. He leans down and licks a stripe against Kavinsky's cheekbone, and a pale pink line of blood and saliva color it. K snarls, and he kisses him on the mouth. It's a filthy sort of kiss, two boys open mouthed and warring tongues, sharing the taste of blood and venom between them. Both are poisonous in their own way.

"Get in," K mutters, and Saya slips around the front, opens the door, gets in the car, and smiles.

Ronan and Noah | windows

[chelicerae]

Ronan is absolutely not doing this for any reason except to make Noah stop whining at him.

Because really, Ronan is not doing this to avoid confronting his feelings about a certain mechanic, and how lately those feelings have turned from something like seething jealousy of him to seething jealousy of everyone around him, and how he wakes up with a hot and heavy pain in his stomach (and occasionally other places) when he thinks about this.

But lately Noah, being Noah, has been whining about I'm dead, I'm dead, because my best friend killed me and so Ronan slammed down his hands and snarled, "What the hell can I do to make you stop griping, Jesus Christ?"

Noah seemed to consider this. "I never got to kiss a boy."

"Go kiss Gansey," Ronan snarled automatically, because what the hell.

"Gansey doesn't want to kiss boys," Noah argued, and Ronan glared, and Noah said, "It's so sad I died in the-"

Ronan cut it off with a kiss. A fierce kiss, a fight kiss, a shut up kiss. Ronan had never kissed anyone on the mouth before, and Noah was cold and dead, so Ronan decided it didn't count as a first kiss. More like a warm up for the main event. Ronan wondered if Adam would kiss this way.

Noah stared, wide-eyed. "I didn't think you would actually do it," he said. "You could have not thought about A-"

"Now shut up," Ronan interrupted, "or the next kiss you get is from my first in your face."

There was silence. And then Noah said, "You know I kissed Blue, too," and Ronan grabbed him, and threw him out the window.

[chelicerae]

The fight has lasted almost a week, and Gansey is exhausted. In most situations Ronan's stubbornness lasts only long enough for him to let the sum of his protests be known, and after the dying thing, Ronan was remarkable pliable. Which, of course, meant that it couldn't last.

The fight has been about school - Gansey told him about Monmouth and Ronan was affronted to the point of not being able to talk to Gansey, and he immediately disappeared. To add insult to injury, Adam's been cagey too, trying not to get involved, except that Gansey wants him involved, because this is important.

The fight lasted almost a week, but then it was Monday, and it was early, and Ronan was there, his tie sloppy, his head freshly shaved, his hands in Adam's hair, and they were kissing, out in the open, in the parking lot. Gansey stared for a long time, because he knew, in his head, that his best friends were doing this but he had never seen it, and in his heart he had always-

-well, that was a selfish thought and Gansey pushed it away. Ronan kissed Adam like it was physically painful to stop, and Adam, methodical, careful, controlled, looked like he finally found some measure of peace. The only thing that gave his desire away (besides the kissing) was the white-knuckled, crushing grip he had on Ronan's shirt. They looked like how Gansey felt about Blue, impossibly caught up in one another, impossibly meant to be together.

And then Ronan stopped and laid his head on Adam's shoulder and Adam's kisses turned to whatever skin he could find, and Gansey turned to go to class, late.

Later, Adam sat next to him in Econ. "He's staying," he said.

And that was it. He's staying. Gansey waited for the feeling of something akin to betrayal to hit him, but it never did. Monmouth wasn't enough.

Adam was enough.

Nic and Saya; what the hell

[chelicerae]

This hunt was going very badly.

To begin with, Saya had let Nic do the hunt - again - and the vampire had slipped into a club, unaware of the wolf and the spider on his tail. Nic kept insisting it was better if he do the kill, and she was always comfortable in letting him.

But today this was a bad idea. Nic was not dressed for this club and he didn't have any merit in charming the bouncer. Saya was watching from nearby, and every moment that Nic argued the chances of him getting in diminished. At least, getting in without knocking the bouncer out.

So Saya crossed the street and came up to the front of the line. "Nicolas," she started, and he looked her. His face was starting to do something she couldn't name - an emotion, maybe, or a shift, either way it was unfathomable - "here, he's with me."

The bouncer looked at her. And then at Nic. And Saya could tell what was happening in his head - he was judging her way out of Nicolas' league, which was true, and deciding he wasn't buying it, which was fair, and so Saya took Nic by the arm and kissed him on the mouth, which was repellant, and released enough of her attraction pheromone for him to notice, which made him pull her in tighter, which was worse.

Later he would yell at her - manipulative, foul, how could you - but at the moment the bouncer scoffed and opened the velvet rope, and Nic followed her.

She wondered if his tail was wagging.