magic_fratboy

Viva la Vida by Coldplay. That’s my theme song, has been since I came into my powers last year. If you’ve ever heard it, and you’d have to be living under a rock not to have, you know why. The melody, the string sections…it’s a powerful song and it evokes powerful feelings.

It means more to me than the emotion it calls up, though. It’s a story about us…who we are, who we’re going to become. Forgotten kings and power, it’s a story about redemption and how there’s none to be had. No rest for the wicked or the blessed. It’s one man standing up and calmly telling the truth: he knows in his heart he’ll never see the gates of Heaven.

That’s me. Whatever hereafter there might be, Tartarus or Elysium, Heaven or Hell, my loved ones will go there. In all likelihood, I never will. Unless I’m very lucky and I get shot or stabbed or fucking cancer before I die, when my life ends there won’t be anything left. No salvation, no reincarnation…just a notch in a celestial gun nobody will ever see.

And we choose this, me and the avatars like me. We make a conscious choice to end our lives knowing there’s no hope for us in death.

There’s only hope for you.

This is my theme song because it’s yours. My people don’t exist without you, and you’re the masters we serve. We’re the puppets on lonely strings. You are the wicked and wild wind, the shattered windows and sound of drums. You are the revolutionaries waiting for the head of the king. We’re the sea, commanded to rise…we move, we breathe at your whim.

If an avatar never again had to fight the darkness, we would still be yours to destroy. Every avatar is born with the borrowed face of a living human, and every time a human being loses hope, one of my people dies.

You are the power. You always have been. When you rise each morning, remember that. Know that in your image, we are made. Our hearts beat in time to yours.

You make the magic. All we do is use it.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 363

While the world and the body moves…he dreams.

He’s at the table once again, dealing a hand of poker with another man, only it’s not Harry. It’s a man he recognizes all too well, except for the blood red eyes set in features he’s only ever looked at in the mirror.

And this time, he knows what to do, what to ask…he knows how to get his answers.

“Who are you?”

“I am you. I am Harry. I am the god of hindsight.”

“You’re jerking me around. What’d you do to me?”

His doppelganger regarded his hand of cards thoughtfully, his voice deeper and more resonant than his own. “I took you from the world before you got yourself killed.”

“Who. The fuck. Are you?!”

The double stilled, finally lifting his gaze back up, glaring red eyes piercing through him.

“The soul animates all living things except for us. Where our soul should live, hope has taken its place. It gives us personality and thought, animates the flesh and grants us power.” He paused, regarding Tommy with a tilt of his head. “Except for us. We have a soul, a Titan soul. A god gives us personality and thought, animates our flesh and grants us power.”

“So…you’re Epimetheus?”

The double shook his head. “Not exactly. I am all of you. At the core of that soul is a convergence, an energy that holds life fast. Memory, experience…it is why you remember. It is the place that the cup of Lethe cannot touch. Though the first of our lives is strongest in my memory, you may think of me as an echo. I am the sum of all three of you, answerable to all names and responsible to that which we all answer to: the power.”

“You’re…the one that comes out when I get pissed?”

The double nodded. “Titan fury. The impatience of brilliance. The passion of a leader. I am the one who will always know the truth of…everything. And I am the worst all three of you have to offer.”

He paused, and for a moment Tommy was spellbound as the double stood and moved around the table to face him.

“This means I will not release you until your Source has returned.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The woman who completes you. The heart of your power. Without her, you will eventually weaken and die with all you have endured.”

Before he could respond, the double laid a hand on his forehead. Healing warmth and drowsiness overtook him.

“Sleep. Awake when you can rule again.”

Unable to resist, Tommy obeyed as he was claimed by a deep, healing sleep.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 447

The power outage a couple hours before had forced him to bring out the candles, but even after the lights came back on, he left the melted stubs out for the baby.

With the lights out and three candles burning on the coffee table, not much more than stubs of wax cradling flickering tongues of flame, Tommy sat on the floor in front of the sofa with Mayilia cradled back against his chest so she could watch the fire dance. He was as entranced with her as she was with the fire, fascinated by the movement of her eyes and the way she worked her tiny mouth open and shut, as if she was trying to comment on the incomprehensible display before her.

“Is it pretty?” he asked her softly, reaching up to gently stroke the downy thatch of dark hair that was coming in thick and straight. He had no doubt it would take on the same wave both he and Zee had, soon as it grew longer…

She turned her head and tried to look up at him when he spoke. His heart clenched, watching her respond to his voice…knowing him, answering him in her own way. He was so impatient to know what she was saying, eager for the day when she’d become more than a vision of her mother, but an actual little person with opinions to express and thoughts of her own.

Grinning, he pointed at the candles and watched her. “What’s that? Is it pretty? You see the pretty fire?”

Flashing her baby smile at him, she turned back to the candles and cooed, lifting one arm and waving at them. One day she would point, one day she would be able to tell him.

Extending a hand, he turned to focus on the candles and smiled as he lifted his arm, calling to the fire as he did. The candles flared, rising to the call of power as the tongues grew and split, leaving three on the wicks and three floating above them, rising higher and moving as Tommy moved his hand. This way, that, they danced in midair as Mayilia rested her head back against his chest and tried to look up high, fascinated by the display.

In the darkness of his living room, Tommy turned three tongues of flame into dozens and made them fly. With little more than a thought, he made magic for his infant daughter and watched her marvel at the simple majesty of fire, and the greater feat of the power that was her birthright.

He gave her magic, and as she smiled and laughed, she gave that magic right back to him.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 446

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

-Black Saber Studios, July 8, 2008-

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

Tommy just grinned as Jelly beamed and held the sheet of notebook paper even higher, turning this way and that for optimum visibility. “Then maybe somebody should have remembered my good morning hug, you big barefoot galloot.”

Laughing, Tommy took another bite of his chicken salad, shaking his head. “Crazy. Ben was right, you got issues and I got a front-row seat.”

Jelly just beamed, knowing that she was amusing the hell out of him. True, Jelly Lang was more than a little adorable, but the ‘Free Hugs’ sign she’d made and was now displaying prominently in the break room was a little corny even for her. Usually he did just that, stopped by her office to say hello in the morning and got tackled by the tiny girl for a hug, but he’d been late that morning.

And when he’d refused to buy her lunch to make up for it, she started making a federal case out of it just to give him a hard time.

Jelly took that moment to leap out of her seat and fling herself at their co-worker, Todd, hugging the stuffing out of him before she sat down again. When she did, he pointed at her with his fork.

“Okay, how ‘bout we compromise?” Tommy suggested with a grin. “I’ll buy you dinner, and you hug me now, settle the score, and stop trying to whore yourself out to every man, woman, and androgynous she-male in the office. How’s that?”

“Gee, love you too, Karras!”

Grinning at Giselle across the break room, who had gotten her hair done in a pixie cut the week before, Tommy turned back to Jelly with a questioning raised eyebrow.

Jelly considered her options for a moment, then tossed her handmade sign aside and bounced around the table to fling her arms around him. “Deal…but I want McDonalds!”

“Ooh, the big spender…McDonalds it is.” He laughed, hugging her back. It wasn’t all bad, having a fallout over hugs be the most bothersome part of his day, especially when it ended with a dinner date with his best friend.

Life was a little mundane…but if he never had one exciting thing happen to him, just days like this…he could do mundane.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 385

"Let me know you're up there. Come on. Love me, hate me, kill me, anything. Just let me know it."


The one thing he hadn’t completely anticipated was the sensory deprivation of being submerged in the dark swinging in midair. In a way, holding his breath is a saving grace because the discomfort of being unable to breathe keeps him grounded.

It didn’t help that he had four false starts to this thing, three of them quite real. First the water was too cold, and it took him nearly twenty minutes to restore control of his muscles while they refilled the barrel with warm water. Then he was having problems getting the safety line into the barrel during a dry run on the ground.

That had been staged for dramatic effect…he’d been rehearsing all week, and he had plenty of room to maneuver.

( The last two false starts had scared the crap out of him... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 474

If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, you become something else entirely.

In the dead of night, sleep won’t take him. He can hear their souls screaming in the dark...

He wears black, with short-sleeve shirts that leave his wrist bare, wearing only a watch and a single bracelet, a silver handcuff shackle. He abandons the rest of his jewelry and binds his hair back with a bandanna.

A hypnotic suggestion keeps Zee asleep as he leaves the loft and enters the world in the night.

His steps are light as he stalks the concrete jungle, slipping through the shadows that usually hold death in some form or another for him and all his kind. The darkness doesn’t belong to Darkness alone, however...it also comes before the dawn, and in the beginning of every happy story there is always darkness.

Walking is a quiet meditation, and that’s all the world asks of him in these hours. The screams grow quiet as he approaches with the simple desire to see a smile, feel a rush of heat and happiness in his blood. He gets, it, too...from the homeless and the hungry, from the junkies and the dealers, the thieves, whores, and shades of pale faces and silver chains that litter the best and worst of Hollywood.

The moments of action bring the largest result. Small moves, big waves he’s sure the Fraternity can feel, waves all of Pandora’s children can sense in the early hours of the day when even the sun won’t wake. A coin in a cup, a door held for another, even a smile over change at a liquor store.

Lately he’s even taken to doing magic. Pausing on a street corner to show one of the pale shades a simple effect with no real power behind it...only practice, diligence, understanding that brings the same amount of awe, and germinates as the first seeds of hope in a lonely soul.

He does nothing in those wee hours of the night just breaking into morning, save for maybe drinking a cup of coffee before he heads home and back to bed, with his current companion none the wiser. All he does is exist...as a man, as a soul, as an avatar of human hope.

He lets the lonely souls see that hope lives...and it’s all they really need to keep going one more day.

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 387

I got lucky. That’s all it was...right?

My first night at the Magic Castle, and I’m checking out a wing the general public never gets to see. Fraternity only, y’know? Relics of the masters humans will never get to touch, much less see, and here I am running my fingers over Dai Vernon’s favorite pack of cards. I’m leafing through volumes written on Kellar and Cardini penned by Brothers for the Fraternity.

( A brush with Houdini... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 683

“It’s gonna come, Tommy…the moment you stop being who you were.”

( That moment was now, in the noxious jet pits that served as eyes in the face of the man before him... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 590