magic_fratboy

NOTE: Takes place early this morning. As always, Zee is zee_ali and is used with much love & some permission. ;p

The shell in the bed is a ghost, pale papery skin against black sheets, head pillowed on red. He breathes, he sleeps, but he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even stir to let his body find a more comfortable position, so the muscles tense and bunch over two days until the shell isn’t much more than a wooden board. Warm hands come now and again to move him, ease the knotted muscles to softness again, but the tension’s never far.

Inside the shell, a man is fighting for his life.

The healing sleep is covering a war for human souls, fought not with weapons and blood but pure energy. Light dawns, darkness snuffs it out. A diamond glitters and it turns instantly to coal. It’s Hell on earth, but the light of the flames isn’t quite enough to make the dim the smell of sulfur and brimstone. The cycle has his chest rising and falling, leaves him running for his life until he’s buried so far in himself he’s not sure he can ever fight his way back out.

Surrender.

Never.

( ..... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 733

“Focus on the sound of the slot machines. Take what you need from there.”

Shutting his eyes, Tommy obeyed the softly spoken command. It was surprisingly easy to do, pulling that all encompassing blanket of sound around him. Then again, he realized with a grim sort of humor, maybe not so surprising. After all, he’d learned this lesson before…

The digital clang of bells and chimes, the cheery blip of reels turning, it all blended into a storm of noise that washed over him like cool rain that raised goosebumps on his arms and made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. It was an ocean of sound and sensation that moved with its own tide. It ebbed with heat and promise, held a current of icy despair and desolation and balanced both in a precarious dance that could send the waters surging in either direction.

( In the eye of the storm, the air bubble in the water…he walked forward. )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 403

Contents of a letter written by Tommy Karras on January 27, 2009 and sent to his attorney with instructions to safeguard it alongside his will...

( I’m writing you this letter about a week before I’m scheduled to be shackled into a coffin and buried alive, and leaving it for later just in case. You’re not supposed to get this letter ‘till you turn eighteen, so if you’re reading this then you’re all grown up.... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 761

The rain poured down. He got back up.

The knife flew. He stopped it, caught it, and threw it back again.

The darkness was thicker than usual, even with streetlights illuminating the end of the alley, showing him the path to freedom. A path blocked by a personification of evil incarnate, sure, but still it was a way out. If he had the strength, he could escape.

You’re weak. You’ll fail.

Another body came at him, the pavement hitting his back hard enough to sting, hard enough to break. Still, he was whole…he was stronger than a man.

And he was tired.

He was used to getting up because he’d done it so many times before. Once upon a time, the shoulders had been broader and the body stockier, but it was the same routine. It didn’t change a lick, and he almost wished it would. A slight deviation, a smarter servant…even a different look to the Faces would be welcome.

The rain poured down. He got up, slower this time.

You’ll fail. You’ll die.

The human servant scrabbling at his feet began to scream as Tommy called a tongue of fire to life and tossed it into the older man’s hair. It caught quickly, flickering as the rain struggled to douse it under the downpour. More darkness, more clouds…the rain was ice cold and evil in origin.

You’ll die. They’ll all die.

Weary and drained, he turned to face the shadow in his path. It had no face or form, but the heaviness in his limbs and the painful pins and needles stabbing him from the inside out were all too familiar.

“Surrender.” He called out, his voice thin and tinny over the sizzle of rain on pavement. “Its favorite son.”

Knowledge was a minor setback, a fleeting weakness, but it was all Tommy needed. Shutting his eyes, he struggled for the image in his mind of black and white, first stirrings of flesh and blood filled with potential and possibility. He saw her eyes, and another pair of eyes he had yet to meet.

Her mother. Their creation.

Tipping his face back into the sting of hail now raining down, he opened his mouth and let it choke him as he screamed the name at the top of his lungs. It was the name of possibility, the name he’d chosen with love and care, the name of a new generation whose power was his to call even now by virtue of its very existence.

He hadn’t shared it with Zee yet, but it was the name he wanted for their unborn daughter.

And with the hope of new life and light, the California rainstorm turned warm. Electric light was nearly blinding in the wet and gleaming darkness.

One more human servant came, a blade burying itself deep in his belly as Tommy fell back again. Shoving off his attacker, Tommy pulled out the blade and rolled with a slicing motion, cutting the newcomer’s throat with a single clean move.

The rain poured down. He got back up…slow, shaky and bleeding, he got back up.

And went home.

Just like he always had.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 579

NOTE: Bendy time to tomorrow morning.

In another life, anonymity was a dream. In this one, it was a reality he relished beyond description.

( The Rest Stop )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 489

Who's there knocking at my window?
The owl and the Dead Boy
This night whispers my name
All the dying children


“You’re doing far better today, son.”

Tommy dealt the new hand, frowning a little as he did. “So far, I guess. How long’s it been? I...can’t keep track here.”

( Conversations With Dead People...Namely Myself... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 816

I want to pull away when the dream dies
The pain sets it and I don't cry
I only feel gravity and I wonder why

* * * * *

She really should have been here.

I remember thinking that when I went to the Weiss family plot back in the day. I was twenty years old and just overwhelmed by the whole experience. I just sat at Houdini’s grave for a good three hours…doing nothing. The sun was on my face and I was dressed in black, but I didn’t get hot. I was warm, comfortable, almost sleepy. I was that comfortable, that content.

I left flowers for Houdini, and his whole family…I visited each grave in turn, and it was really almost a religious experience for me. That might sound kind of crazy, but how else can you explain the things I felt? There was just so much emotion, so much love there. Cecilia and Mayer Samuel were the man and woman who made Houdini great, his siblings were his compatriots, his charges…

…and Bess wasn’t there.

I was disappointed I didn’t get to see her grave, but before I left? translation: when Bela and Boney dragged me off kicking and screaming, just in case you two losers are reading this I was just overwhelmed by that. She wasn’t there, wasn’t allowed to be buried there, and thinking about it brought tears to my eyes.

It almost hurt.

She really should have been here. That’s what I remember thinking, and it’s true. She should have been there. Houdini loved his wife, almost as much as his magic. Kinda sad, but I understand it now: nothing can ever make you give up that first mistress.

Still, Bess came close, and that says a lot about the kind of woman she was, about the way her husband loved her. They set aside a plot for her, and she should have been able to use it.

She really should have been there.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 301

"Everything you can imagine is real."

It’s really not such a huge leap, believing. The mugging was the worst part, catching the bullet that would have ended his life the hard part. Believing...that’s easy. It’s all faith and acceptance of something bigger than he is, something that’s ultimately good, beautiful.

When he gets the facts, learns the truth, understands the nature of what he’s hearing...only then does he realize that he’s always known. Somewhere, secretly, he’s always been sure that the things living in his head were as real as darkness and light.

His hand is still sore, that’s his proof. What’s more, according to Jay it shouldn’t hurt. It won’t hurt, not once he figures out how to use his powers. That’s almost as hard as the bullet catch itself, because it’s hard for him to imagine. Jay and Mike, sure...they’re confident and charismatic in their own right, they own the world without power. Ben, too...he was born into the world of the Fraternity, but even without magic at his call he’s got more knowledge and self-awareness than Tommy could ever dream of having.

He can imagine the reality of magic and monsters...he can accept the mystery and put total faith in the world under the world, but he can’t imagine or quite accept that he has any claim to it.

That’s wrong, though...because he caught that bullet. A man meant to shoot him, and he caught the bullet in front of his own face. His hand is still throbbing...seeing, feeling, these are real things that require no blind faith. These are facts, amazing and painful.

He doesn’t believe these things are real, he didn’t imagine them. He experienced them...so maybe he can imagine the rest. Not now, but later...maybe with time, he’ll be good enough to belong to this larger scope of life that he’s suddenly been dropped into.

And with that thought, with that first step...the pain in his hand is gone.

Only when he closes his fingers does the bruise on his palm ache...only when he remembers the heat of ignited lead and tries to feel the curvature of that tiny weight cradled in his hand does he feel the echo of that agonizing impact and believe, just for a moment, that the magic is actually alive inside of him.

And a moment to imagine is all the magic needs.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 399