magic_fratboy

NOTE: takes place during Tommy's extended solo vacation earlier this year, prior to his birthday.

“What’s the weather like?”

“Completely shitty.” He declares, unable to stop from smiling as he stretches in place on the bed in his hotel room. “I’m kinda into it.”

She laughs, and he catches a vision of her in his mind. She said she was just out of the shower and he can see it: damp skin wrapped in a fluffy towel, hair swept back off her face as she huddles in on herself to ward off the chill of the too-cool room.

“How ‘bout you? What’s the weather like out there?”

“Oh, it’s…um…well, it’s LA, ya know?”

( It’s evasive, but he’s more interested in the rustle and shift on the other end of the line than what she’s actually saying... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 443
Partner: Ziyah Ambrogio (zee_ali)

“It’s a lovely sentiment, but…are you sure you want to do this?”

He could already tell she was looking for a reason to turn him away, the pretty tattoo artist that looked far too much like the mortal incarnation of Hekate for his tastes. Not that he could talk, being that two of his best friends were identical twins and totally unrelated…

“I got cash, and I ain’t askin’ for ‘The Love Butt’ tattooed across my ass.” He replied flatly. “It’s a simple design, I’ve given it plenty of thought. You gonna do it or not?”

Tommy watched her frown and stare down again at the drawing he’d brought in of a large black crown with the Latin inscription at the base.

Nunc scio quit sit amor. ‘Now I know what love is.’

“I can do it a lot smaller. Let you--”

“Hide it with a ring? No.” Tommy replied flatly. “It’s going on my left hand.”

“I know, but that’s…” The woman trailed off, regarding him thoughtfully. “What was her name?”

He swallowed hard, staring down at the drawing. “Ziyah.”

“Were you two…”

“No. And now I never will.”

She fell silent again, then finally sighed and picked up the drawing. “I’ll need about twenty minutes to stencil this...but for the record, honey? This isn’t gonna stop the hurt. It’s just gonna make it worse.”

He watched her leave, then stared down at his bare left hand…at the finger that would never bear a wedding ring. Just a scar left behind by wounds he still couldn’t feel.

“I know.” He whispered to no one. “That’s the idea.”

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 276

NOTE: Takes place shortly after Zee and Tommy's first kiss.

“I’m not even kidding. If you try to hold my hand? I’ll slug you.”

She was smiling when she said it, but there was a weight to her voice that told him she wasn’t kidding as they walked away from the coffee shop where they’d just had lunch. She was capable of being impossibly scary that way most of the time, and yet Tommy was as drawn to it as he was repelled.

Not that it revolted him, it was just…strange to him. The only softness she had shown him so far was in her lips and skin, even the eye-catching curves of her body that tortured his thoughts were sharp and solid. Her body was athletic and strong, and overwhelmingly female.

He was more than aware of how little softness there truly was in real women.

Tommy feared that rough touch, the violence and vitriol in her. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t fathom where it came from or how she still managed to be so radiant in spite of it…

Tommy reached out and took her hand. The movement stopped her dead in her tracks.

They stood there for years crammed into seconds, eyes locked. She glared at him in shock, steady and prepared to strike…but she felt it, too, he could see it in her eyes. The warmth of skin on skin, the solidity of that grip as her fingers curled into his on reflex alone. The soft sweep of his thumb over her knuckles, caressing…

His cheeks were a little red, but there was an overwhelming sense of confidence in that moment. He smirked, actually smirked at her…dared her without words to make good on her threat.

He held her hand, touched her essence, her energy…oh yeah, that was soft, too. Soft and so very strong…

As her shock and annoyance melted into something else, something more vulnerable and almost confused, he felt like he’d won something. It was a prize, an award…it was a plunge into something deep and limitless, a balancing act he was doing on a ledge he was destined to fall from.

Licking his lips nervously, he smiled and tightened his fingers around hers, lacing them together as he pulled her just a little closer and started walking again.

She didn’t make him let go of her hand as they walked back to his apartment building.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 394
Partner: Ziyah Ambrogio (zee_ali) [deceased]

Body parts are nice
I can close my eyes
And think about your lips
They quiver to the tips
Of the fingers on my hand
I am the man
With some secret plans
I need to carry out

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

NOTE: Backstory, takes place after the events of this thread.

He woke, eyes still shut, to the still and silent darkness, the comforting softness of his down comforter and the mattress his friends swore could swallow a man whole. Maybe he was crazy for enjoying his comfort, but it suited him. The too-soft bed, the dark, the cool air in the room…

…only right now, it wasn’t so cool. Especially right next to him…

Opening his eyes, he was shocked to find her face so close to his, and more than a little mortified. He wasn’t, though, in any hurry to move her. He was a deep, but restless sleeper, and he could already feel how little he’d moved.

It felt strangely right to lay there, motionless, and simply stare.

The light from under the door gave the room just enough illumination to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, to see her there in front of him in shades of grey and black. Her face was smooth and flawless, rendered beautifully human by a dusting of marks on the bridge of her nose that were either pale freckles or large pores, it was hard to tell. Her cheeks were flush with sleep and her lips parted just a little, her breath a soft brush on his face as he lay there looking his fill.

Something about having her in his bed felt like it fit…and staring at her face, peaceful in repose, made his chest tight. He barely knew this girl that had swooped in so quickly when he was in trouble…but she was unnaturally beautiful, and something had driven her into his bed. They weren’t even touching, not really, just…sleeping together.

And it felt good…good enough to reach up with one hand and lose his nerve to touch at just the last minute, letting his hand rest on the pillow between their faces instead. He could feel her breath against his knuckles there, slow, even, and warm.

It was a comforting sensation as he shut his eyes and let the rhythm of her life lull him back to sleep again.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 343

NOTE: Based on this letter received from Cinzia (inlight_ofcinz) just after Ziyah's death.

It’s all that’s left…a letter with an all too familiar coffee stain and silence ringing in his ears while he reads. The words are in her familiar busy scrawl, empty and meaningless without her voice to give them warmth and nuance.

The coffee stain means more to him than the tender words of comfort and love ever could. He can see her in his mind’s eye, cursing in Italian and moving her cup when she sees the damp ring forming on the stationary. She’d be too impatient to start over, knowing he wouldn’t care…

He wants her. It’s a sweet, fleeting need to touch her, to hear her. He can’t call out our reach out, because she’s just beyond his reach…

The pain of loss isn’t what drives him to his feet with an angry howl. It isn’t what clenches his fist around the letter and calls power to flesh, setting the note ablaze. He’s hollow, he’s aching, but it’s not grief that drives him to fling the burning wad of paper against a nearby wall with enough strength to scorch and chip the paint.

“Tommy, I heard a noise…oh my word!”

His mother’s voice is tinny and distant in his ears. Hellish red eyes just watch, brimming with tears as he watches the paper fall to the floor and burn. The words disappear as ash forms, the coffee stain the last to go as the fire consumes the last of Ziyah’s final words.

“Tom Tom?”

He hears his father, knowing he’s afraid that he’s not talking to his son. He almost wishes that the Titan god’s rage was on him, but it’s just the power of his own anguish.

“Where is she, Dad?” His own voice is strained, angry in his ears as the tears spill down his cheeks. It’s all he can do not to shout again, afraid of waking Mayilia. “Where is she?”

There aren’t any answers in the comforting circle of his father’s arms. The nonsense words of comfort don’t soothe him like they did when he was younger. This is one thing Dad can’t fix, he can’t make her last letter hold meaning or solace. He can’t help Tommy grieve.

Still, he holds on and lets the tears of frustration fall, praying to grieve. He prays to Zeus, to Elpis, to any god listening…not for comfort and not for peace.

He prays for the killing blow. He prays for pain so that her final words will mean something.

He begs the gods to let him feel her death, so that he can stop waiting for her to come home.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 436

It was only one hour ago
It was all so different then
There's nothing yet has really sunk in
Looks like it always did
This flesh and bone
Its just the way that you would tied in
Now there's no-one home

I feel like there shouldn’t be so much air. Like the oxygen should be gone, I should be having trouble breathing. When I know that tonight, her scent on the sheets will only be a memory that’ll fade with time, when I know that tomorrow I’ll wake up and we won’t be drawing on the same air…when I know that, I shouldn’t be able to breathe so easily.

It could be May, it could absolutely be May…she looks so much like her mother it’s heartbreaking. Staring down into her crib while she was napping at my mom’s, I could see it in her. I was so lost in that simple joy of realizing how much of Zee went into making her that it didn’t hit right away when I got the call.

Sure as hell hit when I saw the pictures, though. When they showed me the images of that headless corpse, the tattoos, the blood-spattered jacket I gave her for Christmas...

My daughter’s the last thing I have to live for, and I can still breathe so easily. In and out, it’s almost too simple. It should be harder when I’m breathing in this air alone.

When I know she’ll fade from this room, from the fabric and the sheets and the scenery. The city will forget her like it’s forgotten so many others.

In and out, it’s too easy. I didn’t have a lick of trouble calling Cinzia, even less calling Sal and Sizz to tell them. Some knew, some didn’t, but none of it mattered.

I can’t think…I can’t hardly leave my room, just ‘cause I can’t lug May around in all this chaos. I’m staying with my folks now while the suite’s still a crime scene.

I can’t understand this. It doesn’t make sense. How can there be so much air? How can I breathe so easily when she can’t?

How can I keep going when Ziyah’s gone still?

Why am I still alive when the woman I love is dead?

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 335

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

Tommy didn’t have a chance against the Bringer and he knew it. He knew it beyond the waves of energy crashing over him, black and noxious, forcing his heart to cave and his spirit to bend under the pressure of complete hopelessness.

He stood in a side alley, pinned to the wall by the hand of a Bringer of Despair. Fingers of ice wrapped tightly around his throat, freezing his skin and choking off his air as he was forced to stare into the noisome void of emptiness in its face. It was a living form with breath and function, but the shape had no meaning, the face no features, and in its empty, bland, and inconceivable eyes he saw the knowledge that it was nothing, that nothing was all there was.

And though it was hopeless, though he knew he would die, he still twisted in its grip. He bucked, he writhed, and he fought.

Right up until the moment that the hand fell away and fire filled his vision.

Collapsing to the ground, he coughed and hacked, looking up to see his father standing over the Bringer with a ball of fire in his palm, waiting for the creature to make a move.

“Tom Tom?”

“Fine.” He coughed. “Go!”

Gregory Karras nodded…and as Tommy watched, his father became another man.

He barely wrinkled his suit as he lobbed a fireball at the Bringer and went on the attack, throwing punches and ducking blows Tommy didn’t know he was even aware of. Knowing his father was Fraternity wasn’t the same as seeing him fight, and as he watched him resist the energy of the Bringer, saw him spit in the face of evil quite literally…Tommy realized that he’d been born to a true hero.

When the Bringer finally gave up and vanished from sight, Tommy was back on his feet again, and certain that he had a lot of work to do before he was even half the man his father was.

As Gregory walked over and helped Tommy straighten himself out, he felt a brush against his mind, thoughts that fused with his in a clumsy and awkward fashion…but in them, he felt his father’s pride and his love.

//The real hero is the man that can hold the line until the reinforcements come, bub. I got more years, but you got more heart. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?//

Grinning, Tommy reached out and embraced his father warmly. “I got it, Dad…thanks.”

Hugging him back for a moment, Gregory finally pulled away and grinned at his son. “Come on…I left your mother in the car when I felt the Bringer. Where’s your girl?”

“Zee? Left her in the casino.” Tommy replied. “Safest place, I figure…we been waiting on you and Mom, I have no idea how to get to the venue.”

“Well, let’s go collect your mother, then, and go find your girl.” Gregory laughed, draping an arm around his son’s shoulders as the two of them started heading for the main entrance to Caesars Palace. “When Caesars Magical Empire was open, it wasn’t easy to find, and it’s even harder to locate the entrance since it went underground.”

“I still don’t get it…didn’t they tear it up to make room for Celine Dion’s theater?”

“Hell no! They just hid the joint and made it Fraternity only. And believe you me, son, the performances have only gotten better for it. Your girlfriend is in for a night she’ll never forget…”

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 588

Jelly made me swear I'd post this...



We ran into her last night at the Key Club. Zee was schmoozing an investor or a DJ or something, and Jelly was hanging with her ex-boyfriend, Godzilla. Yeah, it's a nickname...she has this habit of dating really terrifying looking guys. Anyway, I tagged along with my girl, and Jelly snapped a couple pics, emailed me this one this morning.

My girl's a babe. What's that you like to say, Sass? Be jealous? Yeah, feel free. ;)

"Dude, this is not good."

"It'll get better." Tommy insisted as he emerged from the bathroom, tugging on a clean t-shirt, his wet hair slicked back from his face. He'd just come out of a test run with the wine barrel at Mike's workshop, and the 'wet-run' with the barrel full hadn't gone as well as he would have liked.

Two minutes, seven seconds.

He needed under two minutes to ensure his own safety, and two minutes exactly to avoid getting killed, because he wasn't about to fudge the escape. He never had in the past, and he wasn't about to start now.

"You can't know that." Mike insisted from his place on the couch, where he was watching a video they'd made of his day's efforts. "You can't do this stunt if you can't get the time down."

"I'll get the time down, so I'm doin' the stunt." Tommy sighed, ambling into the living room and lowering himself to the floor to stretch out. Instantly, he had two tiny, furry bodies leaping lightly to lay on his chest and his stomach, with Hardeen taking the senior position closest to his head.

"And if go time comes and you aren't ready?"

"I will be." he replied, glancing up at Mike with a chuckle. "Just have a little faith, brother. Anyway, let's wrap this up. I'm takin' Zee to Bardini's tonight...that place we used to go when we were in school? She was talking about needing a place again the other day, so I'm gonna make her forget that shit."

"What, give her a key? She already has one!"

Tommy grinned, rubbing Hardeen behind his ears. "Yeah, she does...but she don't have a key to the mailbox yet. And she's gonna need one if this is her permanent address, know what I mean?"