#paul-clay tercesverse

[soundprisms]

clay and max-ernest probably both canonically have brown eyes hurrah

[soundprisms]

seeing clay's powers developed and expanded is so interesting because my first thought when reading bad luck was that clay's ability was to speak to dragons and his connection to como was because of being a dragon tamer. but now its just like well he can speak to all animals and talking to dragons is just an extension of that? can all dragon tamers do that??? how does being a dragon tamer work????

[soundprisms]

fictober prompt 1: “that was good work” | the secret series | T

read on ao3

Max-Ernest’s head hurts, and his knee is starting to feel sore from his brother’s weight at this point, but he can’t bring himself to mind. His brain is much more focused on watching PC scrunch his nose as he stares at the workbook in front of them.

“Now, what’s six plus seven?”

“Hmm….” PC chews at his pencil, and Max-Ernest moves to snatch it out of his hand because they treat those things with so many chemicals, it’s not safe for him to do that, what if he gets sick— “Sixteen?”

“We— we just went over this, kid,” he says, louder than he’d meant to. He blinks. He digs his nails into his palms and tries to remember that PC is not stupid, that he’s learning, that this is how children learn and unfortunately people are not born from the womb knowing addition or language or anything else, no matter how much he may forget that.

“Remember?” His breathing is shakier than he’d like it to be, but at least his voice is calmer now. “Show me your hands. So if you have six, and I give you seven…” PC holds up six fingers. Max-Ernest holds up seven. There’s still tiny red nail marks in his palms. His nails are too sharp now. He needs to cut them, but it feels like he never has the time for it these days. “How many do we have now?”

PC frowns an adorable little frown as he counts each finger individually. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve… thirteen?”

“Yes! That was good work, kid.” PC is beaming now. “And we’re done with that page! How ‘bout that?”

“How ‘bout that?” his brother parrots, giggling.

Max-Ernest takes the workbook and puts it back on the shelf, the plastic cover cool in his hands. He can’t help but feel, yet again, like he’s not doing something right. Like he can’t do this right, no matter how many mommy blogs and child psychology books he reads, because he is for some reason completely incapable of understanding his brother’s tiny little baby brain.

(He’d once asked both of his parents, separately, if they had any advice on raising children. They’d raised him, after all, they had to be at least better at… all of this than he was.

They’d both said the same thing. That it was better that they not involve themselves too heavily in his brother’s life, that anything they might propose would only harm him, that we made so many mistakes with you, we couldn’t bear to repeat them. He’d given up after that.)

Well, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that, right or not, capable or not, he was all that his brother had. PC needed him.

He’s gotten used to being needed, these days.

[soundprisms]

rereading bad magic and bad luck and saying i am going to jump off a cliff out loud every time max-ernest is mentioned

[soundprisms]

honorary big sister cass is REAL!!!! also crying at pb defending cass im just picturing him telling clay its not her fault he was such an idiot kid

[soundprisms]

somebody please get clay duolingo

[soundprisms]

ughhh the idea of seeing cass and clay interacting..... will my honorary big sister cass dreams come true

[soundprisms]

whenever i feel down i just think about max-ernest forcing baby clay to watch citizen kane

[soundprisms]

max-ernest and young clay

[soundprisms]

something something max-ernest saying that he will probably have two names for the rest of his life because he associates his double names with his parents vs clay dropping his second name as soon as he can because he associates his double names with his brother

[soundprisms]

ok i am going to go throw up now!

[soundprisms]

alright who told clay about the terces society because it absolutely wasn't max-ernest. was it owen. did owen have to go and tell max-ernest dude i know you don't want your brother to know literally anything but if he's here he's going to have to know why you were doing undercover operations on a cruise ship

[soundprisms]

im going to vomit. glad overprotective max-ernest is true and real though that guy is the biggest helicopter parent of all time when he's around

[soundprisms]

im losing it..... just picturing clay going "oh god did my stupid brother fucking die"

[soundprisms]

they're so sillyyyyyy. they're like the straight girl and gay best friend except if straight girl was a bi guy and gay best friend was a lesbian

[soundprisms]

thank god leira's still bullying him for thinking she had a crush on him. he deserves mockery for it until the end of time

also thank you rsimon for inadvertently supporting desi clay mostly because i think it would be weird to call a white guy mowgli. however it might also be weird to call an indian guy mowgli. so i don't know