FIC: Dark Magic AU, part something
Jan. 5th, 2005 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emonyAnd then there's this..
*
Warren is lying against the ceiling, staring down at himself lying in Tucker's arms on a dirty mattress in a room that was a kitchen once. A few empty cabinets run along two of the walls, and an old pine chair, lined with damp, sits in one corner.
Tucker is sitting upright, leaning back against the stained wall and stroking Warren's hair. His lips are moving, and Warren thinks he might be whispering something - a spell maybe, or perhaps something more personal. He can't hear it, whatever it is, but up here, on the ceiling, it doesn't bother him. Nothing bothers him up here.
The whole room is under a blanket of absolute silent, like a little oasis of bloody death in the middle of a rioting crowd. He hears the commotion outside though. All the sounds of the house whisper through his ears, as loud as screams. Painful and violent and desperate.
The door swings sharply open and Tucker looks up slowly. The dancing, swirling creatures that live in the walls swim casually around the room, going from wall to wall to wall, ducking and diving to avoid the quick, snapping obstacles before them, and electricity, black and shining, flickers and crackles between Tucker's fingers.
His eyes are completely black, and Warren wishes he could fly down there and swallow him whole.
Andrew halts in the doorway, staring down at his brother and Warren. Warren on the ceiling smiles, but Warren on the floor stays utterly still.
Jonathan hovers just over Andrew's shoulder, the way he always does, and Andrew slowly steps into the room.
Their mouths move - Andrew's is fast, snappy and as furious as he can be with the brother he's still mostly just afraid of, Tucker's slow and considered as words form under the influence of the powerful magic he's tapped in to right now. Warren can't hear the words, but he feels them trickling through his blood as they pass through Tucker's mind. That's how it works, this thing they do. It's all about being connected.
Meg appears in the doorway, making Jonathan jump and shuffle quickly off to one side, out of harms way like a tiny mouse fleeing a python. She stretches an arm up against the door frame and looks up at Warren on the ceiling. He waves down at her and she smiles.
Then there's a pull, something akin to how Warren imagines it might feel to be sucked down a drain, and an overwhelming dizziness that makes him clench his eyes tight shut. When he opens them again, he's looking up at Andrew, Jonathan and Meg, and he can feel Tucker pressed up against him.
"See?" Warren hears Tucker saying with a kind of casual arrogance as Warren curls over to one side to throw up. "He's fine."
He hears Andrew cough out his disbelief at this statement, and wonders what the kid's problem is. Then he wonders when he started thinking of Andrew as ‘the kid', which has always been Tucker's term for his brother. ‘It's a deep connection,' one of them thinks, and the other agrees, although neither can say which was which.
"You.. just, just let him. We'll take him home and everything will be okay," Andrew says, his voice slightly shaky.
Tucker laughs as Warren pulls himself back up to a sitting position. "Let it go, kid. He doesn't want to leave, and you can't make him."
One of the wall-demons hovers just above Andrew's head, posing to strike. Warren thinks Meg or Tucker must be controlling them, for it to be poised just there just now.
Andrew moves, crossing the room to kneel down by Warren's side, and the demon melts back into the plasterwork.
"Warren?" he says, quietly, as if it'll stop anyone else from hearing them. "Warren, I want you to come home."
Warren smiles and reaches up tentatively, not sure his arm's still working, to pat Andrew's face. "Give up, kid," he says, surprised by how much stronger his voice sounds than he feels. "You don't always get what you want."
Andrew stands, sudden and unnaturally sharp in a place like this, and walks out of the room. Warren watches him go, watches Jonathan's little flinch of surprise, watches Meg cross the room and curl up next to Tucker.
He pulls himself to his feet and pushes past Jonathan, out into the little hallway where Andrew is leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around himself.
He walks slowly, step by step, until he can reach out and rest a hand against Andrew's back. Then another, and he traces the lines and swirls that only he can see, smiling to himself as they move and radiate.
"It won't last," Andrew says, after some indeterminate amount of time that could be days. "He'll leave again."
"They'll leave," Warren agrees, "and I'll go with them."
"No." Andrew turns now, facing Warren and watching him so intently he feels honor-bound to pay just as much attention right back to Andrew. "He'll leave, Tucker. He doesn't leave because they leave, they leave because he leaves, and he leaves because of you, to get away from you. You know that. You must know that."
Warren blinks. "No," he says, looking away, and the dark lines that criss-cross the bare floorboards begin to fade back into the wood. "No, that's not.."
"Look," Andrew reaches out and puts a hand on Warren's chest. "I wouldn't lie to you, would I."
Warren looks up at him for a few seconds before shaking his head. Andrew doesn't lie, Andrew's not like that. Andrew's the good one. Well, mostly.
"So, it's," Andrew looks around the dirty hallway, drawing his words together. "It's just delaying the inevitable, you know? Putting it off, but it's still going to happen."
Warren nods sadly. Can't argue with that. Tucker's always left before, and he knows this time won't really be any different.
Andrew tugs on Warren's shirt a little, clenched in his fist, and Warren finds himself leaning in and resting his head against Andrew's shoulder.
The taste of magic is still strong in his skin, and Warren isn't sure if he's thinking at his most or his least clear, but it all seems to make perfect, desolate sense.
"So you'll come home," Andrew says, not quite a question, in a tone he must have learned from his brother.
Warren shuts his eyes and nods against Andrew's shoulder.
*
Months of sleeping in Andrew and Jonathan's guest room melt into one big blur that Warren labels "recovery period" and immediately discounts whenever he has reason to think about it.
Andrew is at his best when he has something definite to do, and Jonathan is miserable and passive. It's painful and impossible and there's a gaping, hollow space inside that Warren knows will never ever be filled. It's only the knowledge that whatever he tried, even if he went back to them, it still wouldn't be enough that gives him the strength to keep going. That and being locked in the house for two screaming, swearing, crying months of torture.
But it's over now, done, and he's not going back. He's finally back in his own house, working again, and there are at least two hours each day when he doesn't think about Tucker, Meg and their little magical crack den.
No matter how hard he scrubs, a grey stain remains, embedded in his fingernails, and the scars from where Tucker decided to carve his name into Warren's arm are as vivid as the day he did it.
Meg's sitting on the hood of his car one morning, examining her own fingernails and shivering in the heat of the summer morning.
Warren's not surprised to see her, and briefly considers just getting in the car and driving off with her still sat there.
"We're going," she says without preamble as he reaches the car door.
"So?" Warren says, running through prime numbers and the element table to distract himself from the pull she exerts on him now.
"So," she says, looking up and smiling. "Circus is leaving town, kitten, and you're not invited."
Warren blinks. "Uh, good?" he says, turning back to the car and shaking his head. "It was great, really, but you need to learn to move on."
"Oh, we have," she says softly, almost dreamily, and Warren hates her more than ever. "I just.."
Meg pauses and slides off the hood onto the sidewalk. She looks serious for once, and Warren wonders if she's always looked so tired and he just hasn't noticed before.
"He misses you," she says, quiet and not at all like the woman Warren has come to know.
"Is this where you tell me that we have a pure and beautiful love, and to meet you by the railway tracks at midnight for a daring, last second rescue? ‘Cause, I've got to say, I'm a little busy tonight," Warren says, rushing through the words and trying not to think too hard about what Meg actually said.
"No," she says, reaching up to pat his face. "This is where I tell you that if you ever come near Tucker again, I'll snap your neck."
Warren's silent for a second. There's something in her eyes, a dark desperation that he recognizes, that says she'll do it. "And if he comes near me?" he asks, eventually.
Meg smiles. "Same applies."
Warren shakes his head. "If you don't want us together, why the whole," he waves his hand back toward the house. "That thing? With the magic? Why not just leave back then?"
Meg shrugs, not as casually as she wants to, and Warren wonders if maybe he just knows her better and can see these breaks in the façade now, or if maybe they've fallen apart too and are still trying to put themselves back together. "He needed to work through it, get you out of his system. Now you're out."
"If I'm so out," Warren says, "why are you here threatening me?"
Meg scowls. "He always left us, left us and went running back to you."
Warren holds up a hand. "No, he always left me and went running back to you."
"Whatever," Meg says, disregarding him. "He wanted us, and, God knows why, he wanted you, and at the back of his mind he always thought he could have both. Now, he knows he can't, and he had to choose." She smiles broadly. "And you lost."
"Whatever," Warren says eventually, breaking the moment and turning back to his car. "I have to go to work. Some of us have actual lives, you know." He doesn't believe her for a second. Maybe Tucker thinks he's chosen, but even Meg can't fool herself into thinking this is it. If she had, she wouldn't be here.
"I mean it," she says, a new lightness creeping into her voice. "Come near him again and I'll kill you." She gives a little laugh before turning and walking away. "See you," she calls, and a little chill runs down Warren's spine that doesn't shift until well past lunchtime.
*
*
Warren is lying against the ceiling, staring down at himself lying in Tucker's arms on a dirty mattress in a room that was a kitchen once. A few empty cabinets run along two of the walls, and an old pine chair, lined with damp, sits in one corner.
Tucker is sitting upright, leaning back against the stained wall and stroking Warren's hair. His lips are moving, and Warren thinks he might be whispering something - a spell maybe, or perhaps something more personal. He can't hear it, whatever it is, but up here, on the ceiling, it doesn't bother him. Nothing bothers him up here.
The whole room is under a blanket of absolute silent, like a little oasis of bloody death in the middle of a rioting crowd. He hears the commotion outside though. All the sounds of the house whisper through his ears, as loud as screams. Painful and violent and desperate.
The door swings sharply open and Tucker looks up slowly. The dancing, swirling creatures that live in the walls swim casually around the room, going from wall to wall to wall, ducking and diving to avoid the quick, snapping obstacles before them, and electricity, black and shining, flickers and crackles between Tucker's fingers.
His eyes are completely black, and Warren wishes he could fly down there and swallow him whole.
Andrew halts in the doorway, staring down at his brother and Warren. Warren on the ceiling smiles, but Warren on the floor stays utterly still.
Jonathan hovers just over Andrew's shoulder, the way he always does, and Andrew slowly steps into the room.
Their mouths move - Andrew's is fast, snappy and as furious as he can be with the brother he's still mostly just afraid of, Tucker's slow and considered as words form under the influence of the powerful magic he's tapped in to right now. Warren can't hear the words, but he feels them trickling through his blood as they pass through Tucker's mind. That's how it works, this thing they do. It's all about being connected.
Meg appears in the doorway, making Jonathan jump and shuffle quickly off to one side, out of harms way like a tiny mouse fleeing a python. She stretches an arm up against the door frame and looks up at Warren on the ceiling. He waves down at her and she smiles.
Then there's a pull, something akin to how Warren imagines it might feel to be sucked down a drain, and an overwhelming dizziness that makes him clench his eyes tight shut. When he opens them again, he's looking up at Andrew, Jonathan and Meg, and he can feel Tucker pressed up against him.
"See?" Warren hears Tucker saying with a kind of casual arrogance as Warren curls over to one side to throw up. "He's fine."
He hears Andrew cough out his disbelief at this statement, and wonders what the kid's problem is. Then he wonders when he started thinking of Andrew as ‘the kid', which has always been Tucker's term for his brother. ‘It's a deep connection,' one of them thinks, and the other agrees, although neither can say which was which.
"You.. just, just let him. We'll take him home and everything will be okay," Andrew says, his voice slightly shaky.
Tucker laughs as Warren pulls himself back up to a sitting position. "Let it go, kid. He doesn't want to leave, and you can't make him."
One of the wall-demons hovers just above Andrew's head, posing to strike. Warren thinks Meg or Tucker must be controlling them, for it to be poised just there just now.
Andrew moves, crossing the room to kneel down by Warren's side, and the demon melts back into the plasterwork.
"Warren?" he says, quietly, as if it'll stop anyone else from hearing them. "Warren, I want you to come home."
Warren smiles and reaches up tentatively, not sure his arm's still working, to pat Andrew's face. "Give up, kid," he says, surprised by how much stronger his voice sounds than he feels. "You don't always get what you want."
Andrew stands, sudden and unnaturally sharp in a place like this, and walks out of the room. Warren watches him go, watches Jonathan's little flinch of surprise, watches Meg cross the room and curl up next to Tucker.
He pulls himself to his feet and pushes past Jonathan, out into the little hallway where Andrew is leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around himself.
He walks slowly, step by step, until he can reach out and rest a hand against Andrew's back. Then another, and he traces the lines and swirls that only he can see, smiling to himself as they move and radiate.
"It won't last," Andrew says, after some indeterminate amount of time that could be days. "He'll leave again."
"They'll leave," Warren agrees, "and I'll go with them."
"No." Andrew turns now, facing Warren and watching him so intently he feels honor-bound to pay just as much attention right back to Andrew. "He'll leave, Tucker. He doesn't leave because they leave, they leave because he leaves, and he leaves because of you, to get away from you. You know that. You must know that."
Warren blinks. "No," he says, looking away, and the dark lines that criss-cross the bare floorboards begin to fade back into the wood. "No, that's not.."
"Look," Andrew reaches out and puts a hand on Warren's chest. "I wouldn't lie to you, would I."
Warren looks up at him for a few seconds before shaking his head. Andrew doesn't lie, Andrew's not like that. Andrew's the good one. Well, mostly.
"So, it's," Andrew looks around the dirty hallway, drawing his words together. "It's just delaying the inevitable, you know? Putting it off, but it's still going to happen."
Warren nods sadly. Can't argue with that. Tucker's always left before, and he knows this time won't really be any different.
Andrew tugs on Warren's shirt a little, clenched in his fist, and Warren finds himself leaning in and resting his head against Andrew's shoulder.
The taste of magic is still strong in his skin, and Warren isn't sure if he's thinking at his most or his least clear, but it all seems to make perfect, desolate sense.
"So you'll come home," Andrew says, not quite a question, in a tone he must have learned from his brother.
Warren shuts his eyes and nods against Andrew's shoulder.
*
Months of sleeping in Andrew and Jonathan's guest room melt into one big blur that Warren labels "recovery period" and immediately discounts whenever he has reason to think about it.
Andrew is at his best when he has something definite to do, and Jonathan is miserable and passive. It's painful and impossible and there's a gaping, hollow space inside that Warren knows will never ever be filled. It's only the knowledge that whatever he tried, even if he went back to them, it still wouldn't be enough that gives him the strength to keep going. That and being locked in the house for two screaming, swearing, crying months of torture.
But it's over now, done, and he's not going back. He's finally back in his own house, working again, and there are at least two hours each day when he doesn't think about Tucker, Meg and their little magical crack den.
No matter how hard he scrubs, a grey stain remains, embedded in his fingernails, and the scars from where Tucker decided to carve his name into Warren's arm are as vivid as the day he did it.
Meg's sitting on the hood of his car one morning, examining her own fingernails and shivering in the heat of the summer morning.
Warren's not surprised to see her, and briefly considers just getting in the car and driving off with her still sat there.
"We're going," she says without preamble as he reaches the car door.
"So?" Warren says, running through prime numbers and the element table to distract himself from the pull she exerts on him now.
"So," she says, looking up and smiling. "Circus is leaving town, kitten, and you're not invited."
Warren blinks. "Uh, good?" he says, turning back to the car and shaking his head. "It was great, really, but you need to learn to move on."
"Oh, we have," she says softly, almost dreamily, and Warren hates her more than ever. "I just.."
Meg pauses and slides off the hood onto the sidewalk. She looks serious for once, and Warren wonders if she's always looked so tired and he just hasn't noticed before.
"He misses you," she says, quiet and not at all like the woman Warren has come to know.
"Is this where you tell me that we have a pure and beautiful love, and to meet you by the railway tracks at midnight for a daring, last second rescue? ‘Cause, I've got to say, I'm a little busy tonight," Warren says, rushing through the words and trying not to think too hard about what Meg actually said.
"No," she says, reaching up to pat his face. "This is where I tell you that if you ever come near Tucker again, I'll snap your neck."
Warren's silent for a second. There's something in her eyes, a dark desperation that he recognizes, that says she'll do it. "And if he comes near me?" he asks, eventually.
Meg smiles. "Same applies."
Warren shakes his head. "If you don't want us together, why the whole," he waves his hand back toward the house. "That thing? With the magic? Why not just leave back then?"
Meg shrugs, not as casually as she wants to, and Warren wonders if maybe he just knows her better and can see these breaks in the façade now, or if maybe they've fallen apart too and are still trying to put themselves back together. "He needed to work through it, get you out of his system. Now you're out."
"If I'm so out," Warren says, "why are you here threatening me?"
Meg scowls. "He always left us, left us and went running back to you."
Warren holds up a hand. "No, he always left me and went running back to you."
"Whatever," Meg says, disregarding him. "He wanted us, and, God knows why, he wanted you, and at the back of his mind he always thought he could have both. Now, he knows he can't, and he had to choose." She smiles broadly. "And you lost."
"Whatever," Warren says eventually, breaking the moment and turning back to his car. "I have to go to work. Some of us have actual lives, you know." He doesn't believe her for a second. Maybe Tucker thinks he's chosen, but even Meg can't fool herself into thinking this is it. If she had, she wouldn't be here.
"I mean it," she says, a new lightness creeping into her voice. "Come near him again and I'll kill you." She gives a little laugh before turning and walking away. "See you," she calls, and a little chill runs down Warren's spine that doesn't shift until well past lunchtime.
*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 12:16 pm (UTC)God I hate Meg. That big taunter/gloater. Grrr.
Also, I'm really glad that Andrew was able to convince Warren and that Warren let himself be convinced. It'd be a rare thing to happen, but I think coming off a magic binge would be the time. So, nice placement in the storyline.
xoxo and hurray for Warren barfing.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 11:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-05 09:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-06 11:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-07 03:42 pm (UTC)The second part - how I hate that girl! She should bugger off and find her own boyfriend, not steal Warren's.
And I'm sorry I missed this for two whole days. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-08 11:38 am (UTC)Heh, I know. She's definitely got her own agenda, that one.
I'm sorry you missed it too, but at least you've seen it now :)