magic_fratboy

He spits another piece of ice into the crimson-stained drain, mouth numb and still somehow burning with agony as he contemplates the sight of his own blood marring the sterile white of his kitchen sink, offset by the coffee-stained white of the tooth he lost in the earlier fight.

It’s wrong and it’s ghastly, but he’s not shocked by it. The piece of ice glitters like a diamond, catching the color of each stain as it slides and rattles almost cheerfully when it hits the surface and settles in to nestle in the little chrome sieve just above the pipe.

( It stings…but it’s beautiful... )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 536

NOTE: Takes place earlier this afternoon.

There are places in the world where good and evil are safe from each other. Safe havens exist for both, carved not out of protection but simple numbers. Dark can’t stand too much light, and light fades beneath shadow.

For the bad guys, that sanctuary is in dingy casinos off the Strip and just outside of Downtown Vegas. Off Freemont Street is where Tommy finds the one he wants…the darkest of the dark, the mecca of The Darkness in the heart of Las Vegas.

He takes an afternoon and goes in to have a drink, lighting the walls with breath of pure flame.

Good does not encroach on evil. Evil does not encroach on light…it’s a death sentence, and a breach of etiquette.

The Darkness gets his rage before it gets to the heart of him, and that’s exactly what he wants: to kill the fury and deliver a message to anyone that’s listening.

Don’t fuck with a Titan.

He walks out after twenty five minutes and pukes in an alley, but at least he’s alive. He’ll be sick for a week, but The Darkness will be, too. In the weeks to come, the city will get quiet and the air will get lighter…despair will take a holiday. Even the vampires and demons will lose a little of their passion, if only for a little while.

It’s a great victory…but it’s not a victory Tommy will take any joy in, because if evil cowers at his feet, it’s only because The Darkness doesn’t understand his distress.

It wasn’t responsible for taking Zee.

You said yourself before
Where are you?
I'm needing you much more
I bet you never knew

And now everything
Is gonna fall apart
I need you here
Not just in my heart

====================

The slow, sensuous techno beat pouring out of the speakers of the club wasn’t like the usual dance music that filled the air. Around them, the dance floor was packed with a sea of warm, faceless bodies writhing to the pulsing rhythm.

She was warm and yielding in his arms, the lean planes of muscle and skin perfectly molded to his body as they moved with the music. There was something unusual about the way he came alive for her, something alien and other about the warm rush, the excitement of holding her…of wanting her.

“Come home with me.”

( “I can’t.” )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 711

“Get fucked!”

“Get in line!”

For a long moment, Road To Ruin was thick with silence that only added to the uncomfortable tension in the room. It was an unusual and unpleasant enough circumstance when two Fraternity brothers were at each other’s throats…but it was worse and rarer still when Tommy Karras was one of the angry parties.

Sure, the other guy was six inches taller than him and outweighed him by forty pounds…sure, Tommy was scared shitless of getting his ass kicked. That didn’t change the fact that the linebacker staring down at him (his name was Kyle or Kenny or something equally banal) was wrong, and he was right.

( . . . )

Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 638

List of things that remind me of someone:

- HSN and QVC
- Teletubbies
- Demolition (long story)
- angels
- swords
- cannolis
- cursing in Italian
- cats
- Mayan culture
- clubbing
- rock music
- turn of the century aviation
- the Voisin
- straightjackets
- Greek food (stuffed grape leaves in particular)
- rough sex
- sweet smiles with bad intentions

List of moments I'd like to rewind:

- First glimpse of Zee I ever got. I remember thinking no man could touch that Amazon goddess and live to tell about it. I did.

- First time we kissed. She was half dead in my arms, and I was seriously fucked up 'cause I thought I lost her...still felt like I'd just won the Lottery.

- The last day we spent at home in LA. Slept late on a Saturday, Kel was stretched out on her chest and Hardy was wedged between us in bed. Zee was awake, I was half asleep, but I still heard her muttering under her breath in Italian...she was talkin' to the baby in her belly, and I knew right then that I couldn't have asked for a more perfect woman to be the mother of my child.

- The last time she said 'I love you' to me. It was in our suite just before I left to take May to see my folks while she took care of some stuff on her own. She kissed me and said it, and I left. Didn't think about it, didn't stop to consider it...I wanna go back and treasure that moment.

- The moment I was told my girlfriend had been murdered. I know, how come, right? Maybe if I went through it again...maybe if I torture myself enough with the reality of that moment...maybe I can finally feel the pain of it. Maybe then I can finally grieve for the woman I love.

Tommy Karras
Original Character

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