|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:30 pm
Lost "Ali, can I talk to you?" Avacyn's voice surprised him, and he turned partway away from the stubborn, sticky spot he was cleaning off the counter.
"Of course." He had been wanting to speak with her anyway - to ask about Chariklo, find out what she knew - but he hadn't broached it yet. It wasn't exactly an easy thing to ask about, not when he knew it still ached. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Um." Ava fiddled with her fingers, staring at the floor. "Natasha and Aarne, sort of. But purification, mostly."
Alistair felt something cold settle in his stomach. The names were familiar - achingly so. They had been his son and daughter once. Ava's too. The combination of their names and purification made him terrified.
"What...about them?" He hesitated, a little, and he saw her sink when he did.
"I don't...know, Ali. I've thought about them a lot lately. My mom and sister adored them - do you remember?" He nodded, because his throat was too dry for him to speak. "But I don't think I'll ever be ready for that."
"You can't say that - there's still nearly two years before..." Before they had been born, before everything went wrong. And he had year before he was left blind and broken. There was so much time, how could she be certain?
"If I stay...Chari's gone, Ali. Arilee's gone. Things will never be like they were. I can't picture myself as a single mom, even though I know you and Lance will have my back raising them. I'm sorry, Alistair." She sounded agonizingly sure, and it terrified him. How could she be? And how could he push her, if she was? That would be...awful. Wrong. Disgusting.
"Things could change for the better," he tried. It was so hard to let go of the thought of those two children - they had been the one bright spot in his terrible future. "And what were you saying about purification? You aren't thinking of leaving, are you?" His tone was pained, a little horror struck - he couldn't lose her too, not after everything they'd all seen. She was a friend, a wonderful friend, so much more than just the mother of his future children. He couldn't lose Avacyn because he couldn't lose Avacyn, children or no.
"I might be," Avacyn said, and he felt his heart drop into his feet. "I met a Senshi who told me how. I just...have to go into Mirrorspace and look." She crossed her arms. "I think I'm going to do it. I can't stay. I just can't. You and Lance and everyone, you've all been wonderful, but I just can't in good conscience keep staying here when everything is falling apart."
He couldn't make himself speak for a long moment, he was far too hurt. The thought of Avacyn being gone was like a knife in his chest. She had been a friend for years, a neighbor, a roommate, practically a sister now.
"I hope you're happy," he said, finally, and he couldn't control how bitter it sounded. "Whatever you choose."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:54 pm
Grieving Alistair had holed up in his room for a while, trying to shake the clinging anger he felt. It wasn't his choice, what Ava did, and if it had been Lance...he knew he would be chasing after him to the ends of the Earth, damn the Court.
He wondered if Lance would do the same for him - but he knew he wouldn't. He knew Lance far too well. His loyalty was night unshakeable, and he was devoted to the Court. That sense of loyalty - of devotion, the reason his sphere was so beautifully perfect - was one of the things Alistair adored about his fiancé.
And he would die before he left Lance and the Dark Mirror, anyway. They were his second family. He was wrong - he couldn't imagine what Avacyn was doing. And it made him angry, in ways he had no right to be. It was painful to think about, for a thousand reasons.
He called up his henshin pen, turned into Tantalus, and practically dove through the full length mirror in his bedroom. He came out in Mirrorspace, and he stormed through it, glad that it responded to his whims because for now it provided a long, curving path that he could burn his angry energy walking. He knew he was taking a risk, wandering with no real destination in mind, but he needed to clear his head.
And when he was done wandering, Mirrorspace provided again - a room, with a couch that he could sit on and press his face into his hands and cry, because burning through his anger left him with nothing but heartbreak.
Until Avacyn had so thoroughly pulled the rug out from under him, he hadn't realized how much he was counting on those children - how much he needed that beautiful bright spot in that dark future. They were the thing he most longed for, and now they were gone.
And so, he feared, would be Ava. She was a friend, almost family, and it ached that she wanted to leave. He couldn't imagine what things would be like if she was gone.
It was strange, and he knew it, to mourn children that hadn't been born yet, but he couldn't help it. He had never seen their faces, thanks to Lellouch, but he could remember holding them, hearing them babble, hearing tell go their first words and first steps. They were as real to him as his younger sister - a part of him that he hadn't realized it would hurt to lose.
He didn't want that. It was the last thing he wanted. But he couldn't do anything to keep them - talking Ava around would be immoral, and if she was purifying anyway...
He sighed, and stood up, and found his way to a mirror, slipping out into the city. Maybe a walk in the real world would help clear his head when one in Mirrorspace could not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2015 12:42 am
Found Wandering the city had done no more to help clear Tantalus's head than had wandering Mirrorspace. He had given up and taken a seat on a roof, and was back to being lost in frustrating, unhelpful thoughts. There was nothing he could do - if Ava was going to leave, she was going to leave. And he couldn't even be properly angry at her for doing it - she was following her heart. It just hurt that it led away from her family in the Court. All he wanted was for all of them to be together - that they were fragmenting was painful. He was losing people he had come to expect to have around, people who had been friends since he began as a Senshi.
"Tantalus?" He jerked, turning to the voice.
"Oh, Persephone," he greeted, a little surprised to see the small Dark Mirror. She sat next to him, staring up with wide violet eyes (he still wasn't used to the new color.)
"You look upset," she said, bluntly. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I..." Part of him definitely did, but e worried for a moment where she might go. If Leto knew what Ava intended to do, she would almost certainly try to stop her, and keeping Ava in the Court by force was the last thing he wanted. That would just make her resent them.
"I won't tell Leto," Persephone said, like she could sense his doubts. "She's...odd, lately. Chari leaving shook her up. Whatever it is, I'll keep it between us."
"You promise?" Tantalus asked. She looked offended, briefly, and then nodded. "Ava wants to purify."
"Of course she does," Perse said. "She wants to be with Chariklo, and maybe she has friends, and...maybe someone convinced her the Court was wrong." She fiddled with her skirt, like that was something she was familiar with. Tantalus wanted to press, but decided against it. "But that can't be it."
"It's...a long story, beyond that." He said, and he frowned. He knew Persephone's memories were fragmented...did she remember that terrible future at all? If she had been lucky enough to forget, perhaps that was for the best. He wished he didn't remember that.
"Try me," Persephone said. "You know I've dealt with a lot of weird magic crap. Can't be weirder than having ouur starseed probably maybe held together by wishes and duct tape, right?" She laughed, a little - an exaggerated joke, but no one really knew what her switches had done to her starseed. Although the strangeness had mostly settled in the months since her entrance into the Court, that was no guarantee she was totally alright.
"Um. Do you know anything about a uh, dark future? Where the Negaverse was winning?" Tantalus floated. Persephone frowned.
"That...sounds familiar," she said, and she scrunched up her face, briefly, like she was trying to remember something. "I...was a princess? And engaged to Leto, but she was...oh." Persephone exhaled softly. "Dark indeed."
"Ava and I...in that future, we had two kids. Twins. A boy and a girl - Aarne and Natasha. They were mostly hers and Arilee's, and they lived in that camp where Order was hiding out." Tantalus began. Persephone nodded along. "She said she doesn't want them, even if she stays. And I don't know what to do. I never...thought about a future without them. Without my family."
There was a long moment of silence, as Persephone leaned forward and considered what Tantalus was suggesting, and then -
"I could be their mother," she said, idly. Tantalus made a noise of shock, and stares openly at her. "I'm serious!" Persephone said. "Really serious -- I mean, Leto and I didn't have kids them, maybe having something to ground her will help? And your parents, they'd love it, and they'd help - there would be four of us to raise the kid, it would be amazing. We'd be a family!"
It sounded too good to be true, too perfect. To have his children years early - Tantalus found himself smiling, faintly, as he considered the possibilities.
"Persephone, you're brilliant. That would be...perfect," he agreed. "Are you sure you want to, though? Your memories, they're so..." He gestured, searching for an appropriate word.
"Scrambled like breakfast eggs?" Persephone asked. "That just means I have to make new ones, right?"
"We'll have to speak to Damocles and Leto," he said. She nodded. "But if you really mean it - and if they both agree? Yes. We could be a family. All of us."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 7:51 pm
Safety Safety was hard to come by in the world Alistair lived in, and he knew it. Or at least, in the world he lived in as Sailor Tantalus, Dark Mirror Senshi of Temptation.
For Alistair Holmes, safety was far easier to find.
Safety was curling up in front of the fire, as the temperatures in the city started to dip. The beginning of fall was nice, in some ways - the trees began to change, the air became crisp, there was pumpkin spice everything everywhere. For Tantalus, it was a bit of a pain in the a**, because his uniform wasn’t exactly built for colder weather, but that was what stealing Damocles’s jacket was for.
(Safety, in fact, was stealing Damocles’s jacket, or cuddling up against his fiance while he was still wearing it. Safety was Damocles, really, the warmth and solidness of his presence and the surety of his voice, the knowledge that whenever he needed it Damocles would be there for him. Circumstance had separated them a few times - but never for long. And the one time he had been in danger and out of Damocles’s reach, Tantalus had found the strength to stand for himself.)
Safety was a shirt a size too large, the sleeves rolled up partway so he could get his hands out. It smelled subtly of cologne, of Lance’s cologne which was insistently understated and very sparsely applied. But it was just enough in the fabric of the shirt for Alistair to be able to inhale and smell it, and that was what he needed. Everything felt warmer when he was in Lance’s shirts, like an embrace without the other man needing to be there. It was the best he could want, except that he was pretty sure things were going to get better.
Safety was being able to curl up on the couch with a hot chai tea - because it wasn’t quite pumpkin spice, but it was close enough - and the remote, with The Nightmare Before Christmas in the DVD player. Safety was having the time to do these things, and the expectation of not being interrupted, because there wasn’t going to be a crisis to call them away any time soon. Ever since he had come back from R’lyeh things had been pleasantly quiet, and he was happy to have it stay that way.
He whistled, and Lady happily climbed into his lap - a mistake, since now he had to operate around the dog with his drink, but that was fine, he could do that. And then a solid pair of arms slid around him, and he sighed happily and snuggled up against his fiance’s side, inhaling Lance’s scent from the man himself.
Safety was this.
And this was home.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:35 pm
Three Years, or Nine Months, or Both September 25, 2015.
The date on the day planner made Alistair smile, and he idly doodled a heart in between lines where theoretically he should write down appointments. The twenty-fifth meant nine months since Christmas 2104 - nine months exactly since Lance had proposed to him.
Neither of them was in any rush to get married, even if Alistair’s mother was dying for a wedding - sometime in late 2016 was their best guess, probably after Alistair turned 21, and that was just fine with him. Being engaged was good enough - being married felt far too amazing to even begin to anticipate.
Besides, September meant three years since he and Lance had met. Since the luckiest day of his life, when he’d wandered away from a drama rehearsal to find a handsome blond practicing piano in a private room. It had taken a year to get together, even though he had fallen in love at first sight - and that sounded unaccountably cheesy, but it was true. It had taken him a little to realize it, but he had been desperately head over heels from that first day. Possibly from the first embarrassed, blushing moment, when he had gotten Lance’s attention. He had been struck by how sweet and genuine the blond was, and that impression hadn’t changed at all. Lance was honest and gentle and loving and shy and surprisingly romantic - everything Alistair could have dreamed of in a lover.
Everything he could want in a husband.
He found himself idly flipping to the loose 2016 calendar at the back, circling dates in mid-October because an outdoor fall wedding sounded like the most amazing thing he could think of. Behind the church was just as good as in the church, certainly, at least in his mind.
(Though he was sure his mother would want a proper indoor church wedding, and there were arguments to be made for it - perhaps he could sell her on some fall-themed decor. And that it was an option made him distantly pleased to be Anglican, with a thoroughly open-minded pastor.)
He fiddled idly with his pen. Dates he would definitely have to consult with his husband to be, because this was Lance’s day as much as it was his. Guest lists, too, would have to be mutual (though much of his plan was “as many members of the Court as possible and also Des”) but much of the other things he and his mother would probably handle.
Speaking of, she would be by soon - and they would be able to talk decorations and flower arrangements, because she was so excited that having those things nailed down a year in advance didn’t seem excessive.
God, he loved weddings. Especially since this was his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:51 pm
Dates While Alistair definitely loved weddings, he was a little less sure on his feelings about wedding planning. Sorcha was a whirlwind of enthusiasm, with a thousand ideas for flower arrangements and napkins and place settings and invitation fonts - but how could they send out save the dates when they didn’t have a date?
That, it seemed, was also a point of contention.
“Honey,” Sorcha said, as she flipped idly through place settings, “you know the two of you have been engaged for nine months, yes?”
“Of course I know,” Alistair said, fiddling with his ring. “I am intimately aware of exactly how long we’ve been engaged.” If pressed, he could probably get it down to the minute.
“And yet you don’t have a wedding date.” Her tone was completely pleasant, but Alistair knew his mother well enough to know that it bothered her.
“We were, ah, waiting for the right one to present itself.” He said. That was an empty excuse, and he knew it, and by the way she looked at him, Sorcha knew it too. Alistair swallowed, and fiddled with his ring again. “It never seemed that pressing.”
“It is pressing, darling, because we need to send out save the dates. To send out save the dates, you need to have a date. And your family from England is going to want to come over - international travel requires quite a lot of planning!” Sorcha pressed.
“I know, Mother, but it just never felt like something we had to pick.” He said. She gave him a Look that said she was not accepting that answer in any way, shape, or form. “Sometime in October of next year? I’d like to be able to toast with actual alcohol at my own wedding.” Sorcha laughed, at that.
“If you had it across the pond, that wouldn’t be a problem. But alright, October of 2016.” He was somehow totally unsurprised when she reached into her purse and pulled out a small day planner, opening it and flipping through to October of 2016 and looking over the date,s much the way Alistair idly had in his room earlier that day. “What do you think of October the fourteenth? Middle of the month, weather doesn’t matter since you’ll be indoors,” a point Alistair had wanted to argue, but his mother had won that particular fight, “a Friday so hopefully any friends you wish to invite will be able to take off work?”
“October the fourteenth, 2016.” Alistair tried it out. “That sounds like a good anniversary.” He liked it. It wasn’t a special date, yet, that he knew of - which meant that it would be a day just for them. “I’ll ask Lance, but I think he’ll approve.”
“Excellent.” Sorcha said. “Now we need to design the invitations.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2021 6:38 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
