#i also love how Eugenia is like her parents

[desertdollranch]

Late last month I spent a few days visiting my parents at the same time my sister was also visiting. While there, I was gifted with something quite unexpected.

The big treehouse!

This was custom made for her in early 2021 by her sister's son, who can build just about anything from wood. But my mom never played with it or used it all unless I was there on my twice-yearly visit. It was just needlessly gathering dust and taking up space, so she asked if I'd take it off her hands, and of course I said yes.

(The porch railing does need fixing but that should be easy.)

(Hi, Eugenia!)

This thing is huge, and it's sturdy. The base is a hollowed-out log. I almost don't have room for it, but I'm sure a lot of you know how that is, when you ran out of room for more dolls or doll stuff ages ago, and yet somehow you always find a way to make room for more.

She had wanted the treehouse for her Kit and Ruthie dolls, but she sold them both only a few months later, and at that point just kind of lost all interest in the treehouse.

I actually painted the exterior back in 2021 when my mom received it and wasn't sure what color she wanted it to be. I convinced her to make it look like upcycled barn wood, just like Kit would have used for her treehouse. I suggested red so I could get ahead of any ideas she might have to paint it maybe like aqua blue with greyish yellow stripes. (She and I have very different perceptions of what colors go well together.)

I plan to play around with the exterior color and turn this into a lovely little all-seasons log cabin--both a summer vacation home and a ski lodge. I've got a few ideas about how I want it to look inside and outside. I'm thinking like a nice fireplace, some cozy furniture, rustic decor, that kind of thing.

[hallucie]

Astro Observation 5

✨Saturn Aries✨ these natives grew up with the drill sergeant parent/authoritative influence. Had to learn how to hold back impulse. I personally think these natives are really great leaders once they learn how to dial in their drive. A tendency to be critical of human weakness and error.

✨Saturn 4H✨ grew up fast, often looking after their family members. They held a lot of responsibility at a young age. These natives also tend to hide who they are from the world. They’re honest homebodies but given a chance to get away from their responsibilities I think they’d make a run for it.

✨Saturn 2H✨ growing up with little money, feeling valueless but overtime finding self confidence through items. (Kanye West Leo Saturn 2H) “Man, I promise, I'm so self-conscious. That's why you always see me with at least one of my watches.” - All Falls Down 2004

✨Saturn 8H✨ hard time connecting with individuals on a deep intimate level. Struggling for most of their lives, these people go through setback after setback. Eventually it will lead them to greatness.

✨Saturn 11H✨ it takes a long time for these individuals to reach their dreams and goals. Little do they know that others look to them as 100% capable of achieving greatness.

✨Pluto conjunct Jupiter✨ HUGE power struggle. These Natives thrive in growing their power to assert their will onto others. (Warren Jeffs from the FLDS) I’ve also seen this play out in composite charts as well— from experience.

✨Virgo Venus conjunct Lilith✨ these people believe something is inherently wrong with themselves and obsess/strive for perfection (Eugenia Cooney) I’m also pretty sure her Pisces Saturn is in opposition to her Venus+Lilith, which really doubles down on the delusion that something is wrong with her.

✨Scorpio 12H✨ keep secrets about themselves to their grave.(Kim K -Whole House System)

✨Sun opposition Jupiter✨ being adamant about following through with something because they believe that they can but they’re over shooting the reality. They say yes to everyone because they believe that they can and they don’t want to disappoint. But because they overshoot the belief in themselves, they end up falling short and disappointing anyway.

✨Jupiter Sun conjunction✨ Big ego (Kanye) someone who never really grows up. They have a child like sense about them. A strong belief within themselves. I also noticed that these people really put in the elbow grease of whatever they shine in. Whether that be in their work life, their home life or when it comes to loving others.

[melanielocke]

Day 13: Soulmate AU

I hadn't prepared this one yet and had to come up with it today. I also don't have an AU yet for tomorrow and since it's free choice, if there are any requests please let me know!

It's maybe a little more fairytale than traditional soulmate AU and based around Sleeping Beauty but I think the whole true love thing counts as soulmates. Unlike previous entries, this one is written from Thomas' POV and not Alastair's

@alastair-appreciation-month

Thomas Lightwood had been fascinated by the sleeping Prince of the Dreamless Castle as long as he could remember. People said he was the son of Lady Sona, Goddess of the Sun. They said that only his true love could wake him from his curse. It all sounded awfully romantic, but the Prince had been asleep for nearly a hundred years already and in that time no one had been able to wake him up. Many had tried, but most had not even been able to reach the castle itself.

Thomas had lived in the city state of Turan since he was six years old and although his family was not originally from here, he’d heard the story of the prince from those who’d lived here longer.

Turan was the most culturally diverse city in the world. Apparently, after the Prince was cursed much of the original Turanian people had left the city and those that had remained had invited immigrants and refugees from all over the world, hoping one of them could be the Prince’s true love, and in time communities from many different parts of the world had established themselves here. Thomas believed Turan to be the most beautiful city in the world, but the one thing that could improve it was if Prince Alastair woke at last.

Charles Fairchild had been the last to try. The first to breach and enter the castle, he had failed to wake the prince and refused to speak of what he’d found inside. He’d believed waking the prince would secure his future as a political leader of Turan, but that was the wrong reason to go inside, wasn’t it?

So that was why Thomas had decided he would try. He would enter the Dreamless Castle and free Prince Alastair from his curse. He wasn’t sure why he believed he was the one. Perhaps it was all just a big fantasy he’d got himself caught up in. Always a little awkward in love, Thomas had always liked to imagine himself in such romantic scenarios when he didn’t have the courage to approach boys he liked in real life. He was determined to try though. It was the right thing to do at the very least.

He hadn’t told his parents yet and wasn’t sure that he should. They had always been protective of him because of his childhood sickness, had moved the entire family to Turan because the city was known for having some of the best healers. They hadn’t come to Turan for the cursed Prince of the Dreamless Castle and wouldn’t appreciate if Thomas decided to disappear into the castle.

So he’d waited until his parents both left for work. His father was on the city council, while his mother taught primary school children. He started packing his bag. Would there be any food inside the Dreamless Castle? He had no clue how long he would stay there, Charles had been gone for a month, and with Thomas’ appetite he wouldn’t last long if he couldn’t eat. Thomas had always liked to cook, and perhaps cooking deliciously smelling food was how one woke up a cursed prince. After all, didn’t they say a man’s love went through the stomach?

He packed as many ingredients that wouldn’t spoil as he could as well as his most expensive clothes. He was trying to impress a prince after all. In the end he ended up with bags that were almost too heavy to carry, but Thomas was one of the tallest and strongest men in the city. He would manage to carry all this to the dreamless castle.

‘Where are you going with all that, Thomas?’ someone asked while he was outside, walking to the castle.

It was Kamala, his sister Eugenia’s girlfriend. She’d moved here a couple of years ago after leaving her adoptive family. She’d traveled quite a bit before deciding to settle in Turan. Thomas liked her a lot better than Eugenia’s ex, that was for sure. She was in training to be a healer, like Thomas although he was in a much earlier stage of his education, and the both of them cooked for the same restaurant to support themselves while they studied.

‘Please don’t tell my parents, but I’m going to the Dreamless Castle,’ Thomas said.

‘Don’t tell your parents you’ll be gone for at least a month? I don’t think that will go over well.’

‘I might not even be allowed in,’ Thomas said. ‘If that’s the case, then I’ll turn around and my parents will never know.’

‘Okay. I’m coming over to see Eugenia tonight,’ Kamala said. ‘If you’re not allowed in, you’ll be back home by then, and I won’t say a thing. But if you’re not home, I will tell your family. They’ll worry more if they think you’ve been kidnapped or murdered or something.’

‘That’s actually a pretty good point,’ Thomas said. ‘Okay, I agree to your terms.’

‘Good luck on your journey, Tom.’

Thomas continued to the castle and paused before the gates. They were closed, always had been. He wasn’t sure how they’d opened for Charles, or why. He was about to knock when the gates swung open, and he didn’t waste any time before rushing inside. For all he knew the gate would close again before he made it through.

The gates closed behind him the moment he was inside. No turning back now. He wished Charles had told him more of what he’d experienced inside these walls, but no matter how often Thomas asked, Charles had refused. It could have prepared him better, but never mind that. He would find out soon enough.

The castle was beautiful. Built in the old Turanian style, white with blue decorations and several big blue domes, surrounded by a big garden with waterways and tile paths. He heard a stream of water and the garden felt unusually alive for a place called the Dreamless Castle.

He found an entrance into the palace itself and was relieved to find out it was the kitchen. Old fashioned, he’d have to figure out how these ovens and stoves worked, but everything looked clean and in perfect condition. Thomas unpacked all the food from his bag and put it away, only to find there was food in the kitchen too. Where it had come from, Thomas had no idea, but there were many things missing he liked to use so he was glad he had brought his own food too.

His bags were far easier to carry now that he’d lost all the food and he went to explore the rest of the palace. It was big with many rooms. Big and open, and there was a courtyard in the middle with another garden and a fountain in the middle. How did it all still look so clean and gorgeous when no one had been here in a hundred years?

He noticed movement in the corner of his eye. A girl was in the courtyard. She didn’t look Turanian with her pale blonde hair and fair skin, she looked more like someone from Thomas’ parents’ home country or even farther north. He didn’t realize there would be people here. Who was she?

Before he could make a decision on whether or not to approach her, she’d noticed him and gestured at him that he should come closer. He did, not sure what else to do. The girl was wearing a thin white dress that almost reached the ground. She was pretty, exceptionally so.

‘I wasn’t expecting another visitor,’ she said.

Her voice was soft and melodic, but betrayed little of her emotions. Thomas had always been observant and good at reading people, but with this girl he got nothing. Then again, perhaps Thomas’ reading of people was more accurate because he tended to not make assumptions.

‘Hi. I’m Thomas Lightwood. I’ve come to break the curse.’

The girl sized him up. ‘I guess you look like someone who could break the curse. But it is not an easy job to do, and I hope you’re prepared for what it will entail.’

‘I actually have no idea. The last guy who came here, he wouldn’t tell anyone what he experienced in here. So I am not really prepared. But I guess I’ll figure it out along the way, and I brought some food too.’

‘The kitchens are never empty,’ the girl said. ‘Though I admit the variance could be better and only Lady Risa is any good at cooking.’

‘I’m a good cook,’ Thomas said. ‘How many people are living here, exactly? And have you been here for the past hundred years?’

The girl laughed. ‘We’re all cursed, in our own way. We have stayed the same for the past hundred years. The prince is asleep in his chambers. You’ll see him when night falls. Lady Risa is a priestess of the Sun Goddess, but she’s also like a mother to the Prince and Princess.’

Thomas frowned. ‘Princess? I didn’t realize there was a princess too.’

‘Lady Cordelia. The last man who entered here did not know about her existence either. She is the Prince’ younger sister. She’s the daughter of the Sun Goddess and wields the Sun Sword. And I’m Grace. I’m the daughter of the Moon Goddess and as you might have guessed I’m not from Turan originally.’

‘What happened to Charles here? Why did he fail? Why did he leave?’

There was a gleam in Grace’ eyes. ‘He was chased out by Lady Risa and Princess Cordelia. His motivations to come here were selfish, and he was harming the Prince. He was not Alastair’s true love and Lady Risa and Lady Cordelia decided to remove him before he could do any more damage. Consider yourself warned.’

Thomas wondered what Charles had done to anger the Prince’ family. He wondered what it meant, Grace being the daughter of the Moon Goddess. Then he remembered something he’d been told about the Dreamless Castle long ago.

‘The stories say the Prince was cursed by the Moon,’ Thomas said slowly.

‘It was me who cast the curse. And now I’m trapped here too until the curse is lifted.’

Thomas didn’t dare ask any further. Instead, he left Grace in the courtyard and went back inside the castle. Had he been here before? The castle was so big and there weren’t exactly signs that said “This way for the sleeping Prince”. In the end, he found himself back in the kitchen, his stomach grumbling. There was a woman in there, cutting some onions and garlic. She looked around his mother’s age and had brown skin and brown curly hair.

‘So there’s a new young man here to break the curse,’ she said with an old fashioned Turanian accent. ‘I’ve been expecting you. The last one was not a very good man, but I hope you’ll be better. If not, I will not hesitate to protect Alastair.’

In the modern city, many different languages were spoken, but Turanian was still the most common, the language everyone spoke. Thomas prided himself in being nearly fluent in all of Turan’s commonly spoken languages. He’d always had a gift for languages.

‘So I’ve heard. I’ve come to help the prince,’ Thomas said. ‘Or well, to try at least.’

‘Good, good. The palace gates have been closed for so long. I sincerely hope you’re the one to break the curse.’

‘What made the difference? Why did the gate open for me and for Charles but no one else?’

‘The gate only opens once the prince’s true love lives in the city of Turan, but it’ll open for others too if they come here with the intention to wake him. Charles did intend to wake the prince, but for selfish reasons, and while he was not Alastair’s true love, the real one did live in the city already.’

‘I did live in the city when Charles went.’

‘Then perhaps it is you,’ the woman said.

‘I’m Thomas. Thomas Lightwood.’

‘My name’s Risa. I’m the priestess of Sona, Goddess of the Sun. I’m currently also the palace cook, considering Princess Cordelia has no gift for it. I hadn’t realized I’d be cooking for more people though.’

‘That’s alright, I can help,’ Thomas said. ‘I like to cook myself.’

‘That’s good. The Prince was often difficult to motivate to eat,’ Risa said. ‘I always wanted a partner for him who liked to cook, someone who could make him food so good he couldn’t resist. Let’s see what you can do.’

Thomas ended up making a big batch of lentil soup while Risa baked some flatbread to accompany it. He carried the pot of soup to the dining hall.

‘You’re strong,’ Risa said, carrying her own tray of the bread. ‘He’ll like that.’

Thomas had the idea that Risa was constantly evaluating if he’d make a good true love for the prince. She wasn’t his mother, he was the son of the Sun Goddess, but she seemed motherly towards him just the same. At dinner was Grace and a second girl around Grace’ age. She had reddish brown hair and brown skin and was dressed in a red and gold gown, her hair partially covered with fabric that fell to her waist. It was traditional Turanian, the kind of clothes Thomas had seen in a museum of pre curse Turan.

‘You must be Princess Cordelia,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m Thomas. I’ve come to break your brother’s curse.’

‘I thought so. I’ve been waiting for another man to come and try. Did you make this soup?’

‘I did,’ Thomas said. ‘I like to cook.’

‘Alastair always liked lentil soups,’ Cordelia said. ‘I hope you can make some more for him once he wakes.’

‘About that. How exactly do I wake him?’

‘It takes time,’ Cordelia said. ‘Time you’ll spend here. You’ll see him at night. This castle is dreamless, except for you.’

Thomas had no clue what Cordelia meant by that, but he wasn’t sure if it was something he could just ask. Instead, he returned to the kitchen after dinner to clean up only to find everything was put back in order already.

He decided to take a walk around the gardens instead, breathing in the air as it cooled down around him. The difference in temperature between day and night was much greater here than where he’d been born and his father had never quite grown accustomed to how hot it could become.

Lady Risa found him in the gardens when the sun began to set.

‘I’ve prepared a room for you,’ Risa said. ‘It’s one of the nicer rooms, with a balcony looking out on the gardens. I’m sure it’ll be to your liking.’

The room was nice. There was a lovely rug on the floor, a large bed with several pillows and a door opening to the balcony.

‘There’s a bathhouse on the ground floor,’ Risa added.

Turan was famous for its bathhouses, something Thomas had been unfamiliar with before he’d moved here as a child. His parents had never quite gotten used to the public bathhouses as opposed to private baths at home, but Thomas and his friends were more used to going to bathhouses together. It was were people came together to socialize and

He’d go tomorrow in the morning, right now he was too tired and wanted nothing more than to get some sleep. He fell asleep within five minutes of getting in bed. This place was called the Dreamless Castle, but Thomas did dream. He dreamt of a bedroom not unlike his but grander even. A large bed against the wall, and in it a young man with dark hair and brown skin. He looked small for the bed. He opened his dark eyes, and pushed himself up into a  

‘Who are you?’ the young man asked.

‘Thomas Lightwood,’ he said.

‘I take it you’ve come to wake me, then,’ he said.

‘You… seem rather awake.’

The Prince rolled his eyes. ‘We’re dreaming. I am still very much asleep. It’s been a while since I dreamed.’

‘Right, you only dream now that I’m here?’

‘That’s part of the curse breaking process,’ Alastair said. ‘Since I’m asleep, you have to meet me here. We’re in my bedroom now, but I control pretty much every aspect of the dream.’

‘And how do I break the curse?’

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ Alastair said. ‘You have to love me. Romantically, that is. Familial love doesn’t work or my sister would have gotten me out of here a long time ago.’

‘That doesn’t sound too hard.’

‘Doesn’t it? I’ve been told I’m a very unlikeable person, and growing to love someone is hardly something that happens fast. You’d have to stay here for quite some time and get to know me. Or leave and give up. I imagine that’s what the last one did.’

‘Actually, your sister and lady Risa chased him out. They claimed he hurt you.’

Alastair shrugged. ‘In a way, I guess. He could never have broken my curse. He wanted me, but didn’t love me. That’s not how the curse works. Only genuine love can break it.’

‘What about you, do you have to love me back?’ Thomas asked.

‘I don’t have to, to break the curse. But it would be rather cruel to make someone love me while not loving them in return, wouldn’t it?’

‘That’s hardly something you can control.’

‘No. But I can narrow it down. That’s why everyone knows it has to be a man who breaks my curse. Theoretically, a woman could if she were to fall in love with me, but I could never love her back and I wouldn’t do that to someone.’

‘Risa said the castle only starts letting people in once your true love lives in Turan.’

‘That’s true,’ Alastair said. ‘Grace added that to the curse. To make it easier, and so I wouldn’t have to spend the eternity of my curse entertaining random men to make them love me. I don’t think she expected it to take so long. But even now, you could free me without being the true love destiny had in mind. As long as you can grow to love me.’

‘Okay,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll try my best. But I’m not sure I can control what I feel.’

‘You can’t. All we can do is get to know each other and see where it goes. If after a couple of dreams, you decide I’m awful and you could never love me, you’re free to go. Do spread word of your experience though. If others decide to give it a try, the curse might actually break.’

Thomas did love the idea of the Prince, he guessed. He always had. But to break the curse, he would have to love the real Alastair, and that could only come with time and compatibility, by getting to know each other.

‘I never really believed in one true love myself,’ Thomas said. ‘What if that one person lives on the other side of the world? Chances are you’d never meet?’

‘Most people don’t have one true love. Just people who are more or less compatible with them as partners, or even no need or desire for a partner at all. But I’m the son of a Goddess, and the rules are a little different for me. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it weren’t for my curse, even with destiny I still have a choice. But my mother told me my one true love would be good for me, so I hope I can find him someday. I hope it’s you.’

‘Okay. I hope so too. But for me to love you, I’d have to know you first. Maybe you could tell me a little more about yourself,’ Thomas said.

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @styxdrawings @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @broodyhawthorne

[thechangeling]

Wake up

I feel like @littlx-songbxrd already knows what this is. (And fall in love again)

Alastair is autistic because I say so.

Title is from Nine by Sleeping at Last.

Thomas is something the matter?"

It was his least favorite question. All throught his entire life people had been asking Thomas if he was alright. If he was feeling alright, if there was any pain, if there was anything they could do. He absolutely hated it but he was loathe to admit it to anyone. He knew that everyone just wanted to help and it would be unfair to make them feel guilty for it.

His parents and sisters had sacrificed so much for him, looking after him as a child. He never wanted them to think that he was ungrateful.

Eugenia was still looking at him expectantly.

Thomas pushed his feelings down and put on a smile. "No, nothing. I am fine Genie."

His sister narrowed her eyes at him. "No you're not. You cannot fool me you know. I have known you all your life." She placed her tea cup and saucer down beside his and took a seat next to him. "You can tell me Tom. After all, what are older sisters for?"

"To annoy me evidently," he muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me!" She protested half heartedly. "You mind your manners now Thomas Lightwood." She took a sip from her tea. "Now what's this about, I can tell that something is wrong."

Thomas took a giant gulp of his own tea to avoid answering her. He hadn't the faintest idea where to begin. Or if he even wanted to.

Alastair.

His words still rang in Thomas' ears. "It isn't possible, it never will be."

Perhaps he was right.  Raziel knows it would be easier to just walk way and forget about Alastair Cartairs. To abandon hope and go back to burying his feelings just like always.

After all what was the alternative. To tell his friends the truth? To tell Matthew the truth?

To admit to wanting something that might inconvenience someone else. It was unthinkable.

Thomas groaned and placed his head in his hands. "I am a coward," he mumbled.

"Im sorry what?"

He lifted his head. "I said that I am a coward Genie. That is what's the matter."

Eugenia's eyes bulged. "What? Tom that's absurd."

Thomas bit his lip. "No it isn't. Perhaps not on the battlefield, but in my personal life, with my friends. I never tell them what I truly want or how I truly feel because I am simply too afraid of hurting or inconveniencing them."

"What do you mean exactly?" Eugenia asked.

Thomas was reluctant to tell her the truth. To truly open up. Partially because he did not want to hurt his sister, or anyone. But also because there was a certain comfort in keeping the truth buried.

Thomas had been ignoring painful truths for sometime now. Because he was terrified of causing trouble, the kind of trouble that he knew he honestly was not worth. He had always abhorred conflict of any kind, but especially with his friends.

Anything, even something so trival as deciding on plans for the evening or what to eat. Thomas would always defer to the group. Somewhere along the line, throughout his life he had become a walking automaton of sorts. A machine just like the ones his parents had fought, only capable of saying exactly what other people wanted him to say.

Thomas didn't want to admit the fact that he had been sleepwalking ever since he was fourteen. Just mindlessly stumbling through life and letting things happen. It was a painful realization.

"I think that I have ruined everything," he admitted.

Eugenia placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Hey now. That is not true! You have not ruined anything Tom believe me. This world is better because you are in it."

It was those words that caused the dam inside of him to break. Thomas began to sob and Eugenia instantly pulled him into a crushing embrace. He allowed himself to be weak in his older sisters arms, crying into her shoulder.

Perhaps it was unfair of him to cry when this was his fault, when he had brought this all on himself. But Thomas couldn't help it. Years upon years of rage and grief over all he had lost, over all the things he had allowed to happen. He had let Alastair walk away. No worse, Thomas had driven him away by allowing him to believe that he did not love him.

And Thomas was terrified that now there was nothing he could do, nothing he could possibly say to make Alastair hear him and understand that he was loved.

"Hush," Eugenia whispered softly. "Do not despair Tom. It will be alright."

Thomas firmly shook his head. "No. No you don't know that."

"Very well then tell me," she leaned back, studying him with her even gaze. "What is it?"

Thomas had never actually spoken the words outloud before. There was this comfort, this safety in never allowing oneself to speak the words. Almost as if actually speaking the words would finally make them true.

Not only true but inescapable. Impossible to hide from or to take back.

But what exactly had Thomas been preserving all these years? The happiness of his friends? Not bloody likely. Everyone was falling to pieces with or without him.

Eugenia sighed. "Tom listen to me. Whatever it is, if there is anything that our parents have taught us is that it is never too late to fix what you may have broken. If you truly believe that you have ruined everything as you say, then fix it." She took a sip from her cup.

Fix it. But was it really that simple?

He had spent all this time trying to keep the peace when no one else seemed to hold the same regard for it. He had sacrificed his own happiness, let his wants and needs fade away like backround noise. All for the sake of peace. Because he was so afraid of losing the people he loved.

The greatest irony was he already had lost someone he loved. Thomas just hoped he could make it right.

He stood abruptly, startling Eugenia.

"Terribly sorry Genie. But there is something I must do." He rushed for his coat and flung open the door.

"But-" Eugenia protested.

"I will tell you everything later!" Thomas called to her as he left.

He was on his way to the Carstairs'.

As Thomas stood in front of the Carstairs' front door, it dawned on him that this was the most terrified he had ever been.

Fighting demons was nothing compared to Alastair.

He knocked, and after a brief moment of waiting where he almost considered running off and forgetting this whole thing, Cordelia Carstairs opened the door.

If she was surprised to see him, she did not show it.

Cordelia smiled slightly. "He is upstairs in his room. I assume Alastair is who you're here to see yes?

Thomas gaped at her for a moment. He wondered if Alastair had told her what had transpired between them in the sanctuary or if he really was just that obvious.

"I am just asking," Cordelia's gaze fluttered downwards in a brief show of vauneability. "For you to please take care of him. He's been through too much Thomas."

Then her expression turned sour as she glared. "If you break my brothers heart, you will answer to Cortana."

Thomas attempted to keep his face neutral as his heart pounded. "I understand."

Cordelia led him up the winding staircase and down the brightly lit hallway until they reached the third door on the right. Thomas wiped his sweaty palms on his jacket.

He couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door. No signs of Alastair. But Cordelia seemed adamant that he was there. Thomas had imagined this moment a thousand times, wondering what he might say. But now his mind was blank.

Just tell him how you feel, a voice whispered inside Thomas' head that sounded suspiciously like Eugenia.

But he knew it wouldn't be that simple.

"Alright," Cordelia nodded at him. "I will leave you to speak with him alone." Thomas barely acknowledged her as she took her leave. He exhaled sharply.

Thomas wasn't exactly afraid. He had never been afraid of Alastair, even during his academy days. But he was still nervous. Less afraid of what Alastair might say and more of accidently saying the wrong thing.

But he couldn't stay hiding forever. Thomas couldn't just keep letting things happen around and to him because he was too afraid to fight. There was so much worth fighting for.

Alastair Carstairs was worth fighting for.

Thomas took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Go away Layla. I told you I'm busy!"

Thomas' breath hitched at the sound of his voice. It had been so long. He had missed it so dearly.

He cleared his throat. "It's not Cordelia. It's me. Thomas."

There was a defeaning silence and then,

"Go away Lightwood. You have no business here."

Thomas was jolted slightly by the harshness of Alastair's voice. He forgot how cold the other boy could be. However, Thomas knew that it was only an act. Merely a disguise meant to protect Alastair from getting hurt.

Thomas was would not allow himself to be dissuaded.

"Yes I do Alastair. My business is you. Will you please open the door?"

There was the sound of movement and then the door swung open revealing a very unkempt looking Alastair. His hair was messy, sticking up in all directions and his clothing was rumbled as though he had slept in it. His shirt collar and sleeves were unbuttoned and Thomas fought the urge to stare at the smooth skin on his exposed neck. He was beautiful.

That was when he noticed the redness of Alastair's eyes as though he had been crying.

"You and I have nothing to discuss," Alastair snapped. "Now leave me alone!" He moved to slam the door but Thomas caught it swiftly.

"Stop it!" He snapped without thinking. "I need to speak with you!" Thomas' own aggression surprised him. He so rarely yelled. He never allowed himself to yell.

But he could tell he had overstepped when Alastair immediately flinched, almost if he was expecting to be hit.

Thomas' heart broke. He let go of the door. "I apologize. That was unacceptable. Please understand Alastair, I would never hurt you."

He laughed coldly. "Oh really? Because I seem to remember you threatening to throw me in the Thames. He was fiddling with the fabric on the end of his shirt which was untucked. Thomas had noticed that whenever Alastair was irritated or bored or under pressure, he would run his fingers through his hair or fiddle with something. Sometimes his facial features would twitch a little as through he has fighting off a sneeze.

Thomas sighed. "I apologize for that as well. I never should have said it, I was angry and-" he trailed off. He was beginning to realize that perhaps this wasn't a good idea.

Honestly what right did Thonas have to be here anyways? What was he thinking, barging into Alastair's home and demanding things from him. How was he any different then Alastair's father? Or Charles?

Thomas was pathetic.

"I am sorry. I worry I'm saying this all wrong. But I want you Alastair. I want you more then anything else in this world."

Alastair clenched his jaw as though he were suppressing an emotion. His hands were balled into fists. "I told you Thomas," and Thomas couldn't help but gasp a little at the sound of his first name coming from Alastair's lips. "You only want me because you want to rebel, and I am finished with being used as object to satisfy the physical desires of others."

Oh...

Oh.

Thomas rapidly shook his head. "No, no please you misunderstand me. What I meant was," he took a deep breath and exhaled. "I love you Alastair."

Alastair's eyes widened almost comically. He gaped at Thomas for a moment, then glared. "No you don't. You are mistaken."

"No," Thomas said firmly. "I know how I feel. I love you Alastair. I have loved you for years now, ever since the academy. I loved you at your worst and I will continue to love you as you reach your best, because I know you have the ability to thrive you just need someone to support you, someone on your side. Someone who embraces all that you are and cherishes it. I adore you ātashé del-am, and even if you tell me to go away and never come back I will still love you."

Alastair's eyes widened at the sound of Persian coming from Thomas' mouth.

He hoped he had pronounced it correctly. He and Lucie and been learning Persian for the Carstairs, although Thomas hadn't informed Lucie of why he was doing it. 

However, then again maybe she knew if Cordelia knew. He wasn't sure how that made him feel. Thomas knew deep down that his family and friends would be accepting of his attraction to men. However their reactions to his feelings for Alastair might be another story.

But he didn't care. Not anymore. Thomas wasn't letting go.

Alastair hadn't spoken yet. He was just staring at Thomas looking completely dumbfounded.

So, although he was unsure of whether it was the right thing to do or not, Thomas kept talking.

"Before, in the sanctuary I kissed you because I was trying to tell you I loved you. I thought I could show you how much you meant you me. It was never just something physical or an excuse to rebel. For me personally emotion and desire have always been firmly linked. I have never desired anyone I did not feel for in some way." Thomas glanced down briefly. "I know it is unusual but I want you to understand that I was not trying to use you."

Alastair looked pained as he bit his lip. Thomas could see cracks beginning to appear in the armour he wore around his heart. His body shook slightly as he dig his fingernails into his palms. "Thomas just go away," he pleaded. But it sounded half hearted.

"No," Thomas whispered taking a tentative step forward and reaching for his hands. "I know that you believe I only want things that are bad for me. Perhaps you are right, but you azizam, are not bad for me. You are not bad, Alastair."

Thomas carefully unfolded Alastair's fists, rubbing his fingers on his palms. Alastair shook his head. He looked as though he were trying not to cry.

"How can you say that to me?" He muttered. "After everything I've done? Everything I've said?"

"Because it's true," Thomas said firmly. "I understand that wasn't really you, and I know how sorry you are." They were mere inches from each other. "Believe me Alastair, it broke my heart when I learned that you were one of the people spreading those rumours about my parents and I was so furious."

Alastair's face was solemn and guarded. "I remember."

"But I never stopped loving you."

Alastair sighed, closing his eyes. "Thomas," he opened them. "I will not be responsible for you losing everyone that you hold dear."

Thomas reached up gently to cup his cheek. "If that happens it will not be your fault. If they truly love me, then they will understand."

Alastair shook his head. "I love you. Asheghetam, but I cannot allow myself to be this selfish." He stepped back out of his reach.

Thomas could feel a sob bubbling up in his chest. He fought against it. "You are not being selfish," he insisted. "It is my choice not yours!"

Alastair glared at him, crossing his arms. "I cannot allow you to make that choice. Somebody needs to protect you from yourself."

Rage burned through Thomas' veins, but instead of forcing it down the way he always did, he spoke.

"I am not a bloody child Alastair! I do not need your protection or for you to decide what is best for me. My entire life has been filled with others making decisions for me. I have always complied with what my friends and family wanted because I did not want to cause trouble. I never ask for anything!" Thomas was trying very hard not to yell to avoid scaring Alastair, but it was proving difficult.

He stepped towards Alastair. "If you do not want this. If you do not want to be together then tell me. But do not cast me aside for the sake of the so-called greater good. He was breathing heavily as he reached out once more and stroked Alastair's cheek. "Please?"

Alastair gasped slightly at his touch, leaning into it. His expression had transformed into one of longing and adoration. "Thomas," he whispered. "Joon-am. You are impossible."

He leaned forward and captured Thomas's lips with his own in a passionate kiss. Thimas made a slight noise of surprise before melting into the kiss, sliding his hands up into Alastair's hair. Alastair slid his hands across Thomas' back as he deepened the kiss, pulling him closer so that their noses brushed against each other. Thomas smiled against Alastair's mouth.

Alastair kissed him frantically, clinging onto Thomas' body as though he was afraid he would disappear. It made Thomas' heart ache a little. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against Alastair's. Thomas could feel his heart racing against his.

"Please stay with me," Alastair murmered. Thomas had never heard him sound so vulnerable.

He kissed him softly.

"Of course."

I pretty much never write the tlh characters so I apologize if they're ooc.

Persian terms of endearment:

Ātashé del-am: The fire of my heart

Azizam: My dear

Asheghetam: I am in love with you

Joon-am: My life

Tagging: @lavender-scented-rat   @littlx-songbxrd    @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @amchara @wagner-fell @sandersgrey @the-wckd-powers @spooky-drusilla @ellexu

[drunkonimagination]

Maybe it's because the TID/TLH lightwoods have a chokehold on me, but I wish we'd been given more scenes of them before and after Barbara died :( I know that TLH has a much larger main cast than the other TSC series, but they each have so much going on (James' heritage, Math's alcoholism, Kit's inventions, Tom breaking out of the 'kind one' box, Cordelia's desire to save her family, the parentification of Alastair, Lucie's necromantic adventures) not to mention their romantic entanglements (1/?)

anon.

from a lightwood family enthusiast to another all i can tell you is: you are right.

i would have loved to have more moments revolving around thomas's family, but, as you said, there's so much going on, so many important stuff that absolutely need to get sorted out/developed more and we have just one book left. and despite its quite huge it still remains one book. so, to be fair, i don't think we'll get too much focus on the minor characters (tid cast, eugenia, etc.) but still there's a tiny part of me that really hopes we'll get at least glimpses of tom and eugenia's dynamic and their relationships with their parents....also another thing im hoping for is a scene in which tom comes out to his family i know i know im delusional i just want so much to read about gideon, sophie and eugenia's reaction like....they already know? if not, are they surprised about thomas's revelation? what do they say to him? and what about alastair? what are their thoughts about him? of course they will adore the boy and instantly forgive him for the rumor issue, but i would love to actually read all of this jwksj

about tom and barbara, anon you said you're not a writer but that scene you just delivered is so good 😭 pls it was so tender, i loved it.

and yes. i would have very much liked more focus on the lightwoods tbh and i know, im biased, but i just love them so much, i can't help it!?! like, as you pointed out, learning more about barbara and her relationship with oliver, tom's opinion on him, the way he interacted with both of them.....and i can just imagine how difficult must be to handle so many characters at once for an author, but honestly i would have probably emphasized more on tom and barbara's relationship? and not just bc im a sucker for the lightwood-collins family, but also bc it would have given us definitely more context to understand better thomas's behaviour in choi and how much his sister's death affected him.

overlooking thomas and barbara's relationship, such as tom's suffering after her death, just enforce the idea that what he's going through is not that serious, it kinda minimizes the gravity of what he's living and makes the reader less sympathetic toward him and also contributes to reduce thomas's character to the other half of thomastair

and i don't care if he's a shadowhunter and got used to the idea of death, he's still a 18-year-old traumatized boy constantly terrorised to lose the ones he loves.

and this fear is so tangible if you linger on some aspects of his story. like his tendency to put his needs/desires aside and keep everything inside for the fear of losing more people (because saying he was in love with alastair at the time of the academy would have made his friends uncomfortable and pushed them away or simply going to james and cordelia's house because he couldn't face the possibility of eugenia's death all alone.)

all these things....they give immediately the idea of how much scared and broken thomas actually is.

and (imo) the fact that we haven't gotten the chance to properly grow fond of barbara and her relationship with tom, makes it difficult for us to understand the extent of the actual nightmare thomas is living.

oh

you asked me about the lightwood family and i ended up talking about thomas. what a clown. im so sorry i got carried away, but i hope i properly answered what you asked me in the first place help

[lazyscience]

throwing another anecdote about choice out there into the water.

In 1984, I was suffering through sixth grade and adolescence in Catholic school. Worldly child that I was, I'd read that Judy Blume rite of passage, Are You There God It's Me Margaret. I had written my first unnecessarily gritty fanfic as a school assignment (Sword of Shannara, mercifully pre-Internet). On the other, my BFF and I still played with My Little Ponies when we got home.

(that fic was violent AF, the kind of thing that you'd probably get a visit to the counselor for nowadays. But for Christ's sake - ha- they let us read aaaalll kinds of Lives of the Saints. Especially martyrs to purity. I had already internalized Maria Goretti, Agnes of Rome, Agatha of Sicily, Catherine of Alexandria, little girls torn apart, beheaded, casually brutalized, dead because they refused to be raped, held forever in God's love and raised above the sinful masses because of it.)

(rape is not sexual, either, as was clearly understood by providing this snuff porn to tweens who still played with My Little Pony. but, we continue.)

In health class, I don't remember which Sister taught that day - I don't think was Mary Ruth, who was a WAC in World War II and wore Franciscan brown like olive drab and noncom stripes on her shoulder, or Esther, who was frail and fluttery and easily flustered. It might have been Mary John, who was calm and kind and left the next year replaced by a lay principal. Could have been the saccharine Sister Peggy - yes, a wholeass nun who went by Peggy instead of Margaret - who liked neither me nor questions. It might have been Sister Eugenia, on loan from the Jesuit's sister order, who validated my already questioning streak by assigning us a list of events to find in the Gospels only to find that they didn't all have the same events or same stories, and her answer to that was "The Bible was written by men, who are not all-seeing or all-knowing, and prone to tell stories in the way that fits their biases."

(we used to speculate Eugenia was one of the last girls who "had" to go to a convent. Maybe she was. If you get through this, remind me to tell you the "video rock" story. Explaining MTV to someone who had gone into the convent before television was a trip.)

I don't remember, because mostly I remember the appalling content. The graphic and bloody pictures of dismembered parts with tiny hands and feet the only things recognizable, the ominous pronouncements of damnation of the mother - and of the hapless infant, who would never see God because of being killed before they could be baptized. How such a selfish, destructive and violent act was unforgivable, couldn't be allowed to happen! Abortion, the worst crime of them all. And we must always, always speak out about it, no matter what. They gave us all these tiny feet pins, so we would remember our goal. To save those tiny babies who had no one else.

(If that shit had been in a movie, it would have been rated R. And this was when the Church still taught that unbaptized babies would go to limbo, not heaven. Why? probably some BS about original sin. The single most corrosive concept anybody has ever come up with, the idea that non-baptized were automatically stamped Damaged Goods.)

I didn't tell my parents; I felt...wrong. About seeing those Freddie movie basins of parts, about having just barely learned what a period was and what girls were supposed to do instead of submit to defilement. And babies living a bleak existence of unending loneliness forever?

...bullshit, some 12-year-old part of me thought. That is absolute horsehockey. Why would God blame the baby? If he's all-powerful and all-knowing, he knows the baby didn't do anything wrong. Also, in First Confession classes we were taught even Hitler could possibly get to heaven if he was really, really sorry for what he did (which Sister Mary Ruth personally doubted "but only God knows for sure, and he WILL know, so you'd better tell Father S. EVERYTHING at Confession, and do NOT confess unless you are Really and Truly Sorry."). We were supposed to believe Hitler could go to heaven, but not a baby?

The next day at school, a classmate who HAD told her mom came to school and very quietly at recess handed folded paper pamphlets out to the other girls in class. These gory pictures were in black and white, but equally violent. They were of young women lying in blood-blackened sheets who had died using coathangers, or other illegal methods of abortion. And I thought - if the baby and the mother died, then that was two souls that were damned, and if the mother didn't live how could she be sorry? If we were supposed to ask God every single day, like we did every single day when we prayed our decade of the rosary, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others their trespasses against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil" - whose fault was this, really?

Amy Coney Barrett is the same age I am. I do not doubt got the same talk I did, if not from her deacon father, from her Sunday school teacher somewhere in Louisiana. But she believed every word, because it allowed her to imagine beauty and justice in blood spent for heaven, instead of cruelty and waste.

I took the pamphlet. I put the creepy feet pin in the trash. And I stopped believing in a God who thought the best thing a woman could do for him was die, and would punish her unborn child if she didn't want to. And I haven't confessed, because I'm not fucking sorry.

[rinadragomir]

Okay, so, here I am, remaining anonymous so that it’s harder for you to kill me 💀

- Jessamine is such an underrated character.

- Gabriel is way better than Gideon, and his internal struggle is way more realistic. Also, Gabrily is the best TID ship.

- Herongraystairs are special, while not my favorite, as a human relationship, but both Jessa and Wessa are so overrated. So is Kitty.

- Tessa is annoying. Worst protagonist by a whole lot.

- I dislike James almost as much as Charles. Also, I hate how Cassie blames everything on being irascible when it comes to James and Will. I feel like she validates behaviours that really shouldn’t be validated.

- Having Thomas and Eugenia is Gideon’s redemption era.

- Neither Grace nor Christopher are necessarily aroace, and people should treat the topic more carefully. I’m not saying that they can’t be (and it would be great if Cassie handled it correctly), but I see a lot of people mixing up trauma with being aroace. And that is really harmful.

- Cordelia is okay, but I do feel like Cassie hasn’t fully fledged her character and it occasionally seems to me like I’m dealing with different people depending on the scenes.

- Ghostwriter isn’t worth the hype, but it’s still way better than Jordelia.

- Jordan was in the wrong with Maia, but he wasn’t a bad person.

- Kierarktina doesn’t work. If Mark and Cristina had as much chemistry as Mark and Kieran or as Cristina and Kieran, it’d be great. Sadly they don’t.

- Thule!Livvy and Cameron are so underrated. I’m still heartbroken over one of them being dead in each world and them never being able to be together.

- Diego is a very complex and interesting character, precisely because he’s not perfect.

- QoAaD was disappointing, and its best parts were the Rosales brothers’ interactions.

- I love Malec, but what Cassie is doing with TEC (especially with TLBotW) isn’t it.

- Shinyun was so interesting in TRSoM and deserved a better characterisation than whatever Cassie was thinking at the time.

Ready to be killed in 3, 2, 1… 💀

@thestarkster1465 your soulmate is here. You can run to Antarctica together ✨🤗

1 - SHE IS 💅 MY UNDERRATED QUEEN. I really hope she'll manage to find peace in the wicked powers

2 - I wouldn't say he's better, I'll just say that plot makes him more complex, cause he was the one who stayed with his abusive father when Gideon left to Spain. He just has to be more interesting and complicated at this point. GABRILY BEING THE HORNIEST COUPLE + BEST PARENTS CHECK✅

3 - ...not Kitty and Jessa......YOU—

4 - That's an individual thing, i guess. Tessa annoyed me too a bit in TID but i understand that she was just a young girl raised how she was supposed to be raised that time. I love her in every other book🌼

5 - .... there's some truth about Will...BUT MY LITERALLY CURSED BOY JAMES?!?!?! LIVING UNDER SOME DEMONIC LOVE SPELL SINCE HE'S 12 or sth?!?!?! He literally cries when he hears the sound of rain!!!!!

6 - Maybe maybe 🤔

7 - That's actually a very complex and complicated topic. I think I should dedicate a separate post to this, but you're so right about that trauma part. @hotdog-frenchfries EDUCATE MEEEEE😭 Personally, I think that as long as we don't have official information about their sexuality, we can think whatever we want. They might both be aroace or not, both options are valid for now. And no one can condemn any of these options cause we don't have any information about it🤷🏼‍♀️I hope we'll find out in chot

8 - THAT'S SO TRUE OH MY GOD! Not to mention how in the first book Cordelia proudly told us where she came from and talked about her culture, and in the second book we pretend that none of this happened WTF CASSIE?!?!

9 - WHY Y'ALL DON'T LIKE MY GHOSTWRITER I'M GONNA CRY ALL DAY🥺 @axoloteca hug me

10 -That's true, i actually answered one ask about him yesterday, pls find it👉👈

11 - I wrote everything I think about Kierarktina here meow

12 - I KNOW😭😢 they fit each other so well, i guess Livvys destiny, to suffer in every world

13 - I've read TDA so fast I don't even remember him well. But everything i remember is pretty good🤔✨

14 - It was disappointing for me too but for different reasons. I tried to finish TDA as fast as I could, so i don't remember much about them either ;-; I said it hundred times and I'll do it again: too many characters + not enough pages

15 - oh but why 🥺🤔

16 - ONLY FACTS, THERE'S NO LIE, JUST TRUTH IN YOUR WORDS! #shinyun_deserves_better_2022

BABE I'M ALREADY RUNNING AFTER YOU😤😤😤😤😤😤😤😤

[astriefer]

I Closed My Eyes And Hoped You'd Catch Me When I Fall

summary: Alastair and Grace are out to patrol, roaming the lively London streets for demonic activity. And if he admitted it to himself, Alastair didn't think patrolling with Grace will be as nice as it is. Until something interrupts their quiet strolling, of course.

words: 2866

CW graphic descriptions of injury, referenced death, referenced abusive relationships. (Tell me if I should any any!)

Odd but not unpleasant, Alastair decided. That how it was to patrol with Grace Blackthorn.

Grace, wearing on full patrol gear next to him, was taciturn. It suited the dark-haired boy just fine. They walked side by side through the streets of London, heeding any demonic activity.

The day had tired him up. At daybreak, Rostam woke up and demanded his undivided attention. He knew his mother or Risa could take care of his baby sibling if he wanted to. Still, he wished to lend a hand with raising Rostam, lessen the burden of taking care of a now 4-months-old baby.

His brother was a curious wee thing that stared at anything with wide, innocent brown eyes, the same color as his own. Everything new would come under scrutiny. Rostam would grasp whatever in his vicinity: toys, food, and clothes of whoever held him. He also liked to be held and shamelessly cried for attention. He particularly loved being in Thomas's arms, the scamp. Cordelia said both her siblings had that in common.

Rostam had begun to protest whenever Alastair tried to bottle feed him with formula, much to the older sibling's displeasure. Sona just laughed it off and kindly pointed out to Alastair he had done the same when he was a baby. He overlooked this remark.

So after a short negotiation (Neh! Rostan cried. No, you can't eat your toy instead. ) to make Rostam have his meal on schedule, Alastair spent the early hours of the day playing with him. It wasn't as if he slumbered much at night and couldn't use further sleep, yet he knew it wasn't likely he would doze off if he tried. And he liked spending time with his baby sibling.

Instead, he was kept busy with a pedestrian enclave meeting that seemed to just go and on to no end. Charles's mouth seemed to not pause for hours, and Alastair wanted to smack Ms. Highsmith in the face for bringing up a question followed by a lengthy answer from Tessa Herondale. He wished it was acceptable to fall asleep during a session, same as children would fall asleep on their parent's shoulder at parties. Alas, Alastair wasn't a little boy anymore. He had no excuse.

Alastair slipped out of the room, excusing himself by claiming he had a patrol shift that night. It was the truth, yet he said that to prevent a pile of new rubbish coming out of Charles's lips as he approached him upon the end of the meeting. As he returned to Cornwall's street, the young man retreated to his father's old study. His study, ever since his father had died. As the man of the house, it was his responsibility to care for matters regarding the upkeep of the house. He plunged into documents and works. Before he knew it, it was time to get ready for the patrol.

He was absorbed in his thoughts, not realizing at first the grey-eyed girl was speaking to him. He grasped the rest of her sentence. "-discuss the rest of our plans."

Alastair blinked. "Yes," his lips curved to a thin smile as he glanced at his friend. "Our plan."

Alastair knew, of course, she didn't mean to patrol.

"Matthew and Christopher are under constant check, provided by James and Cordelia," Grace said forthrightly, with a flat tone he didn't believe to, "Kamala swore to secrecy, and so did Lucie. She was quite disappointed when I told her she cannot write the idea down and show it to everyone. Anna just smirked at us when we asked her to be silent about it. I'm not sure Eugenia will keep it to herself. Hopefully, not a word would get out."

Speaking of Kamala, she had joined them in the institute for a patrol of three, before taking her departure in a rush. She claimed she'd forgotten something urgent and would come back. It was unheard of to have a male and female go together without a supervisor, but it was Alastair and Grace, and there was no one to condemn them.

They strolled down the main square, and Grace observed the mundanes striding the pavements. Her gray eyes skimmed the area, seeking any demonic presence, same as Alastair. It became second nature to every Shadowhunter to be at high alert and be attentive to the environment.

The legal age to be assigned to patrol was eighteen, and Grace was a year younger than the required age. She joined him, though, to practice in the field.  He heard Grace had been secretly training since she young age, with her brother, Jesse, behind their mother's back. She carried a seraph blade, and knives with her to the patrol. When the man once asked, out of boredom, what her favorite weapon was, she retorted with a grave face it was hairpins.

She raised a bright eyebrow at him, making him roll his eyes. "Yes, yes. Thomas won't say a word. He knows better."

"Does he, now?" The blonde-haired girl said, but now a playful glint shone in her eyes, despite her flat tone. Her voice matched her looks. Grace was beautiful like a statue, even in her shadow hunting equipment. It contracted her pale features, highlighted her braided silver-like hair and fair skin. It also made her look deadlier. Alastair imagined Grace liked this effect.

"I wouldn't have chosen a partner incapable of a simple lie," the dark-skinned man scoffed.

"Shouldn't it be concerning?"

"Did you just put into question my taste in men?"

"Maybe it's well-deserved." She indicated innocently, looking at her patrol partner.

Alastair stopped in his tracks. Then he laughed. "Fair," he conceded with a grin that took over her face as well. The sunset gleamed in the sky, washing them in gold as they made their way in London's streets. "But Thomas is different."

Her smile softened around the edges. "I know."

Grace, as Kamala did, knew of his past with Charles. It was quite incongruous to have all Charles's former partners under the same roof, on friendly terms. Alastair and grace's sort of comradeship was different from others, too; it wasn't the same way it was as smooth as with Christopher, as easy as with Kamala. It was their own, and Alastair liked it. It took them a long way to reach where they were now.

At first, he resented her, for she was betrothed to the man he loved. Later, after he broke up with Charles, he was grateful. She was the reason he broke from the chains that bound him to Charles, albeit unintentionally. A small part of him threatened to be profoundly sorrowful as well. Charles would never love her. He couldn't love anyone the way they deserved. He also knew that the 16 years old girl did not love Charles in any way. He was a tool. A reprieve from her mother and her demands. They both used each other, and Alastair supposed it was only fit.

Subsequently, when he heard of the agony she caused his sister, he was furious. His heart throbbed with wrath, and it bled because his own sister's heart shattered mercilessly.  Alastair had always gotten easily riled. Nonetheless, the vast loathing he held against Grace threatened to swallow him whole. He despised her for hurting his sister so badly, and he saw red. He couldn't comprehend what made her turn her blade of ice toward his sister, and it didn't matter. He'd have thrown her into the Thames without a second thought.

Until he heard Grace's story.

Cordelia was an unfortunate soul involved with Tatian's games, along with James, and Grace herself. She told her story in front of the inquisitor and Consul, holding the mortal sword in her hands. She was not innocent, but none of them were. They all carried a weight on their backs that no one else saw. And Grace's was a heavy burden.

He got the full details from Charles, funnily enough. The upbringing of Grace, her brother's death, her mother immersing in dark magic to resurrect her son. He knew it all before, yet he merely didn't believe Tatiana went so deep into bringing her son back to life. He didn't know how she hurt Grace in the process.

Grace did plenty of wrongs to hurt their families, Alastair learned. She wanted to bring back the only person that truly cared for her. She wanted to be a dutiful daughter to her adoptive mother. That was something he could understand. Seeking the approval of your parent, the one who should take care of you and love you unconditionally. In Grace's haunted look, he saw himself - same as his father was whispering in his ear even after he was gone, so was Tatiana whispering to Grace in the shadows.

His anger drifted away eventually as he discerned the wounds on Grace's heart. Everyone knew at this point. She was barefoot in front of the whole London enclave. Her whole story, plain in front of everyone to assess. He was there before, and he could only guess how much Grace struggled all by herself.

He had ones too, those invisible wounds. He worked days and nights to conceal for so long. And somewhere in the back of his mind, as he looked at Grace when he first approached her months ago, he realized there might be a Grace worth knowing beyond the layer of thorns she built to hide the cracks.

He was glad he had been proven right.

Alastair threw his hand in the air in front of him. "For the record, Thomas kept the secret of James and Lucie being Belial's grandchildren for months. I'm sure he can handle a-"

"Wait," the fair-skinned lifted a hand and came to a halt. The dark-haired man stopped as well, tensing and reaching to his seraph blade, vigilant for anything out of place in the bustle of the city. "I think I heard something."

The sun already disappeared behind the buildings, indicating demons would emerge from their hide soon. They had night vision and flexibility runes, along with stamina runes and other runes they drew on each other, enhancing their natural abilities. They were capable of handling demons if they emerged from the darkness.

"Alright," Alastair whispered, barely above a whisper. "We'll cast around for anything out of the usual. Stick to the streetlamps, and-"

He was cut short by a high-pitched shriek. But it wasn't just one.

Following it came dozen more shrills, approaching them from all sides, surrounding them.

~~~*~~~

"Demons!"

As dusk fell, in a matter of seconds, they were cornered by demons. As if they were poised to ensnare them, the same as a snake waits patiently for its meal to come closer before striking.

Grace drew her dagger out, swiftly calculating their circumstances. A flock of nasty-looking Dahak demons snarled at them, approaching with every passing moment. Their legs, long and octopus-like, moved against the ground with an irritating sound. Their faces, or what the fair-haired girl assumed were their face, were ghastly and bloated and made her feel qualmish. Eyes, dark as the Thames at night, flashed at them viciously.

"This is London, never boring," Alastair murmured by her side, weapon in his hand.

She charged forward. A demon launched at her with a loud screech. She swerved to the side and threw her knife. It was almost too fast to capture the way it flew in the air and struck the demon's right eye. The runes carved into the dagger did their job, and with a screech, the Dahak demon collapsed on the floor. A malodorous aroma reeked from its body, and Grace gagged in disgust.

Alastair was in a fighting stance and hurled daggers in the air. Each demon had a tough skin, of a sick color of dirt and saffron. Some of the daggers did hit their aim, yet many merely scattered on the ground with a thud, leaving the demons with nothing but a scratch.

They slithered on the cold stones, drawing closer, sizzling around them. She seized her seraph blade. With a hurried voice, she activated the weapon. "Harut!"

She had heard Alastair doing the same, but she was consumed by the pounding of her heart and the Dahak demon that launched at her. His sharp teeth were visible as he growled at her, and she dived into the battle.

"How is it possible they got so close without our notice?" Alastar gritted his teeth, his seraph blade poking from the other side of a demon he just slew.

"There must be a nest somewhere by," Grace hissed, her eyes darting back and forth between the demonic creatures. They were ridiculously outnumbered. On every demon she killed, two more appeared.

They weren't chasing down demons. The demons were chasing them.

This breed of demons was foolish, yet they were aggressive and defensive. She didn't know how long they could last. She stood her ground, though, clenched her fists around her seraph blade. Adrenaline washed over her body. The demons stank from death and malice as ichor spilled on the pavement and her clothes. Their quantity seems to have diminished, at last, but all she could hear was the buzz of battle and the blood in her ears, and after she finished off another Dahak demon, she risked a glance at Alastair.

A demon hovered on top of her dark-skinned friend, its shark-like teeth perilously close to the half-Persian's face. Its octopus legs were wrapped around his waist, pinning Alastair to the ground. The one thing that prevented Alastair from being this demon's meal was the spear he held in front of his face.

She heard herself call Alastair's name. She turned, ready to help her friend before she felt something brought on her feet. As she looked down, startled, she found a sucker-bearing arm tangled around her ankle. The demon jumped on her. In pure instinct, she stuck her seraph blade into its mouth, leveling eyes with the demon. Still, she had no time making sure she was the last view it saw before it vanished from this realm. She pushed its body, bleeding and promptly dead, away from her. Her weapon shut off shortly after, being drawn in too much demon blood. She tossed it aside.

She moved her ankle, deeming there'd be a bruise left from the demon's grip. But she was alright, and when she realized she was alright, her mind immediately turned back to Alastair.

Her head swept to her friend, running in his direction. The demon tried to strangle him, she perceived, its legs firmly tightening around Alastair's neck. Alastair, with a strident growl, pressed his spear with all his enhanced Shadowhunter might against the demon. It seemed to work, but it was foolish of Grace to hope. The demonic creature closed its sharp teeth and with a crack! the spear was broken into two pieces.

The young Shadohunter girl moved like the wind. She pulled out a knife and it flung through the air, right before another demon blocked her view. She withdrew from the demon and Alastair and yelled the name of another angel. Even as she battled the demon, she grinned when she heard the knife sink into a less-thick part of the demon's skin. Not Alastair alone was good at aiming.

Screeching in pain, the demon's grip loosed around Alastair's body, and the brown-eyed boy took his chance, narrowingly avoiding a fate similar to many young Shdowhunters. He reached a broken part of his spear on the floor, the one that carried the blade. He yielded the broken spear like a knife, gashing at the demon's eyes with force. As the demon's attention was elsewhere, he grabbed the closest weaponry scattered on the ground- one of his runed daggers.

Grace hissed as the demon she fought got too close, almost biting her head off her shoulders. She finished it off with a raged cry and hurried to Alastair's position on the ground. Blood spilled on the street, a black viscous ichor that stunted the pavement.  Alastair kicked off the corpse, heaving. It was a burdensome task when the Dahak's octopus-like legs were intertwisted around his limbs and neck.

She managed to let out of her throat a comment as he struggled to his feet. His clothes were torn and dirty, and he seemed out of breath, same as she. "Well done for not being devoured by a demon."

"Are you for real?" Alastair groaned, "To affront your fellow Nephilim on the battlefield?"

Grace yelled in return as she took a new seraph blade out of her weapon belt, offended, "IT WAS AN HEARTFELT COMPLIMENT!"

It wasn't until another few minutes that the world paced down slowly. When she noticed the Dahak demon advancing toward Alastair from behind while he fought off two of its sickening-looking siblings. She could feel the wind blowing softly on her face, see the look of horror on Alastair's face, hear the screech of the Dahak demon as she placed herself without hesitation between the creature and Alastair.

Grace didn't know what happened past that point. Her world faded to black, and all she felt was a stinging pain in her abdomen and the ice-cold pavement.

Then she felt nothing.

~~~*~~~

A/N: I wanted to explore their relationship a bit because clearly Alastair & Grace wouldn't immediately become good friends. So even if they're on friendly terms here, there's still some tension left! It's interesting to me sorry if it's a boring chapter. It's not my best work but It'll do for now. T^T

Taglist (tell me if you want to be added or removed!): @ary-es @writeordie-4 @justanormaldemon @life-through-the-eyes-of @hidethebreakables @tessherongraystairs @merry-esfandimas @take-the-train @pink-party-dino <3 @wagnerthedragon you asked to be tagged but it's just nonsense I'm sorry it's like an introduction to the next part.

[imherongraystairstrash]

Puzzles

A/N: Idk if this is good, but I wanted to write it so bad, so I did it because I can:

Ship: Sophideon + Family fluff

Title: Puzzles

...

Sophie woke to the warmth of Gideon’s body and the crackling of the fire in the hearth. She could also hear the children, speaking in hushed tones and giggles. Cracking open an eye, she saw that they were currently sitting side-by-side by the coffee table, their backs facing her. Her left arm was resting on Gideon’s chest, and it rose and fell with his steady breathing.

She realized that their legs were tangled together under the thick blanket that she could only assume their children had placed over them. She closed her eyes and took a blissful stretch before resting her temple on her husband’s shoulder. He was still asleep, emitting soft snores that she felt in her belly.

They had been patrolling all night, and had barely gotten any sleep before their children woke them up again, ready to begin the day. Sophie and Gideon lasted until midday before they must have fallen asleep. The fact that they’d managed to stay awake that long surprised Sophie.

She wiggled her toes a little bit and adjusted herself, so that she could stretch the leg that was thrown over Gideon’s hips. His hand was warm on the small of her back, and she didn’t want to accidentally shift in such a way that would cause it to slip off her. Therefore, each movement was minuscule and delicate.

Gideon’s breath stirred the smallest tendrils of her hair. She looked up at him, brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead. She loved him very much. So much so, she often surprised herself, as she had never thought she could ever love someone again, after what had happened to her all those years ago. She kissed his jawline and put her ear to his chest, feeling his steady heartbeat against her cheek.

It was times such as these that she felt as if the world stopped at her fingertips; like no matter what happened, she would be fine, as long as she were here, with Gideon by her side and their children near.

She heard Gideon grunt softly, as he always did before he woke up, before slowly opening his eyes. He blinked a little, his dazed eyes slowly roaming the room, and closed them once more. He turned to where she was, resting the tip of his nose against her forehead.

“Good morning,” he muttered, his voice an octave deeper than usual and thick with sleep.

“Evening is more like it,” she replied, reaching up to stroke his impossibly soft hair.

She felt Gideon’s muscles shift as he stretched them, the hand he had on her waist tensing briefly as he did so.

Finally, Gideon let out a breath through his nose and said, “that was the greatest sleep I’ve ever had in my entire life.”

Sophie chuckled softly. “I would have thought the best sleep of your life would have been on our wedding night.”

Gideon opened his eyes and smiled, “we didn’t do much sleeping that night, though, did we?”

Sophie nudged him with her elbow. “Why is it that you’re only like this around me? You act diplomatically and mature to everybody, and yet you say the most scandalous things when it is just us.”

Gideon pressed a soft and lasting kiss on her lips. He then brought his lips close to her ear and muttered, “I’m not trying to woo everybody else,” before kissing the spot where her jawline began.

Sophie’s eyes shuttered closed, Gideon’s warm breath sending shivers down her spine, but she turned her face away from him and nodded in the direction of their children. “We should spare them the sight of their parents kissing.”

Gideon turned to where they were huddled around the puzzle. Sophie resisted the urge to turn his face towards her and kiss him regardless.

He looks back at her soon enough, his sea green eyes bright in the soft light the fire emitted.

“They’re not paying attention.” He said, brushing a strand of her hair away from her face with his knuckle. “They have their backs to us.”

“They could turn around at any second and begin shrieking, like two of them did last time.” Sophie said.

It was no mystery to anybody who the two that had done said shrieking were.

Gideon presses his lips together at the memory of that before raising his eyebrows and smirking.

“What’s that smirk all about?” Sophie asked.

Before Sophie could so much as to guess what it could be about, Gideon turned on his side and lifted the thick blanket so that it shielded them from the children.

“How is this?” He asked, kissing her nose.

Sophie huffed out a laugh. “It’s better, I suppose. At least this way, our eardrums will remain intact.”

“Hallelujah.” Gideon said, flashing her a dazzling smile, that made her insides melt. She put both of her hands on either side of his face and lowered his lips towards her own. They kissed softly, unrushed and lavishingly so.

Gideon was so warm. His body seemed to emit heat when he slept, which meant that right now, his skin was hot enough that it felt as though Sophie were standing right in front of a furnace. It ended up working in their favor, because whenever Thomas gets too cold at night, they plant him next to Gideon and he’s able to fall asleep. They’re absolutely adorable when they sleep together, if Sophie does say so herself.

Sophie giggled against his lips, causing them to break apart.

“What?” Gideon asked, his smile soft as he kissed the corners of her lips.

“I just thought about something silly.” She said, spreading her hands on his chest and roaming upward, intertwining them at the nape of his neck.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

Sophie shook her head giggling.

“Come now,” he said, playfully, “I’m dying of curiosity.”

“Alright. I was thinking about the time you slipped off the roof while we were patrolling in London.”

Gideon laughed through his nose, burying his nose in a particularly sensitive spot of her neck. “I’m never living that down, aren’t I?”

Sophie shrugged her left shoulder and kissed Gideon’s bottom lip when he lifted his head.

“Not a chance.”

His eyes fluttered shut as he kissed her shamelessly, his hands sending shivers through her as they travelled up and down the sensitive skin of her waist and hips.

“We should stop,” Gideon said, breaking apart. “Before they realize we’re awake.”

“Yes, I suppose we should.” Sophie said.

They kissed once, twice and then thrice (for good measure) before reemerging from the blanket.

Once they’d gotten over their daze, they arranged themselves in each other's arms, fitting like pieces of a puzzle, and gazed towards their children. They were quiet as they built a puzzle Sophie had left out for them while she and Gideon rested on the couch for a while. They hadn’t expected to fall asleep, but thankfully, the children were still entertained by the puzzle. Barbara had a blanket over her shoulders and had placed little Thomas in her crossed legs, periodically hugging him and adjusting the blanket, so that he didn’t get cold.

Thomas, on the other hand, took every opportunity Barbara was looking away to try to crawl out from the blankets and watch the puzzle-making action.

Eugenia was humming to herself, picking up random pieces and fitting them together. Every time she’d manage to get them to go together, she’d get up and do a little twirl, before sitting down once more and starting the whole process all over again.

Thomas was the first to realize they’d woken up. He gave them a toothy grin and crawled out of Barbara’s arms. Using the table to slowly get to his feet, he padded over to Eugenia.

When he got close enough, however, Sophie reached over Gideon’s chest and scooped him up. She tucked him into her arms and kissed his little cheeks.

“You’ve been caught by the love monster.” She said tickling and attacking him with kisses. Thomas giggled and tried to squirm away from her, but she held on tighter.

Part of her wants to hold Thomas forever. It felt like just yesterday he’d been born, four months and two weeks premature. He was still so small and light in her arms and got sick far too easily, but she thanked the Angel everyday for his life. Her miracle child. Who seemed very keen on getting away.

She stopped peppering him with kisses enough to hold him away so that she could see his face.

“You don’t love the Love Monster?”

He met her stare before putting his hands on her cheeks and kissing her forehead. Sophie

raised her eyebrows at him and when he giggled again, she tucked him in her arms.

“No,” she heard a soft voice say.

She pulled back. “What?”

“I love Mama, not the Love Monster.”

Gideon chuckled and ruffled his hair.

Sophie gave Thomas a final kiss on the forehead and let him go to his sisters.

They watched their children put puzzle pieces together, Eugenia aggressively so, going so far as to slam her fist upon two tricky pieces.

“Mama! Papa! Do you like it?” Eugenia said, gesturing towards the unfinished puzzle.

They both craned their necks to see.

“Oh. Erm…”

“We love it!” Sophie said.

“It’s lovely.” Gideon added.

When the kids turned around again, Sophie covered her mouth.

“There’s not a single puzzle piece that’s connected to its corresponding partner, is there?” Gideon asked.

“No, I’m afraid that in the hours we’ve been asleep, they haven’t managed to piece any together correctly.” Sophie said.

Gideon pressed his lips together and shrugged. “Well…”

“They’ll get more intelligent with age.” Sophie said.

“Yes, yes. I should think so.”

“I should hope so.”

They looked at each other and smiled, and then laughed, perfectly content with the life they had made for themselves.

...

Tagging: @tsccreatorsnet  @atla-lok143  @rinadragomir  @youngreckless  @autumnangel20  @julemmaes  @cupcakesandkittens  @no-scones-allowed  @ninacarstairss  @stxr-thxif  @writeforjordelia  @itsdaughterofthemoon  @jordeliasupremacy  @cordelia-cardale  @will-effing-herondale  @axoloteca  @heronstairs2014  @ilovemanicures @ti-bae-rius @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @readersconfessions812 @nightshade3465 @livvyheronstairs @zemiraa @proudtobealuthor @neurogliadudette

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[shadowhuntertrash]

tlh gang's insecurities

alastair ♤ he is insecure about his musical abilities. he is actually quite good but every time he played around his father he would mock him for playing such a feminine instrument. he never allowed alastair to play for anyone outside their immediate family and this left a lasting shame everytime he played.

cordelia ♡ she is terribly self conscious of how she looks because all the dresses she has (can afford) are all meant for pale skinned people and simply do not match her skin tone. she hates it because it not only makes her look washed out but also because it looks like she's trying to blend in which is not what she's trying to do at all. at least not like that. kamala and anna are eventually able to help her pick out some dresses.

lucie ♧ she is scared of being forgotten. she didn't have powers and even when she discovers them they're more traumatizing then helpful. she doesn't think she'll ever be as smart or save the world like her parents did. she's scared everyone will remember her family and forget about her. she's never voiced this fear but tessa tries to quell it whenever she can.

matthew ◇ though he may seem secure in his sexuality it took him a long time to get there. he didn't think anyone would accept him and though he was going to be damned if he embraced it. he was most scared of telling james as he didn't want him to be disgusted seeing as it would break his heart. when he saw how james embraced anna his fear was lessened though it didn't dissappear. when he told james is was around tears and surprisingly no whiskey. it was a hard night for both of them but they got through it.

thomas ♤ stretch marks from growing too fast and taking up too much room. it takes him a long time to get over these but it has a lot to do with alastair always commenting on how he was the perfect height and size to cuddle/hug/kiss.

james ♡ he has a lot of insecurities about never living up to his parents expectations. he tries his hardest but he never feels like he can make a difference. he looks up to both of them so much that he's scared he'll be a major disappointment.

christopher ◇ he is very insecure about his inventions. everyone tells him that his work will amount to nothing and he knows it will change things but there's this little doubt planted in his mind. if his friends tease him about how long it's taking he'll get very defensive. his friends stopped after he blew up on thomas for remarking on the time and effort he was taking on a particularly hard invention. (this belongs to @littlx-songbxrd because i love her characterization of kit and asked her)

kamala ☆ she is always doubting if people actually want her around. she has been shunned and rejected by so many people that she can never truly believe that people want her around. her lost family, alastair, grace, eugenia, and even kit have made her feel more wanted and loved than anyone ever has.

eugenia ¤ she doesn't believe she will ever find love because she deems herself unlovable after what augustus did. she had truly believed that they would end up together and when he proposed to someone else and ruined her reputation she didn't trust anyone else. kamala helped her through it and showed her how to love herself before she loved anyone else.

grace • this is canon but her looks make her self conscious. she knows she is beautiful and she knows she can have any guy she wants but this makes her self conscious about her brain. she doesn't believe anyone will like her for any other reason then because she is beautiful.

[ninacarstairss]

THOMAS HEADCANONS

THOMASTAIR WEEK — day 2, thomas appreciation day @youngreckless

thomas always loved to tape his friends. he captures all the moments he's sure he wants to remember and his phone is filled with videos and photos he snaps when they're all together. he loves to be in the moment and enjoy it as fully as possible, but he also wants to have the memories pinned firmly in his camera roll so that he can get lost in the feeling again in moments of loneliness or sadness.

he always seems very put together and organized on the outside but he can never make a coherent plan to follow and his room, his computer screen, the backpack he uses for uni are always a complete mess and he can never remember where the stuff he's looking for is.

no one has ever beaten him at monopoly. no one has either figured out his strategy, he's just unbeatable.

he’s watched every single cooking show out there. masterchef? binged every series twice. the great british bake off? could probably reenact it. all the gordon ramsay shows? knows them by heart. it's eugenia who got him into these competitions: she’s been dragging him out of bed to watch cooking shows with her at 3am for years and thomas hated it at first, but soon he got used to it and the adrenaline of the competition kept him on the edge of his seat. more than once gideon or sophie walked into the living room, hair a mess and a big frown on their faces, because thomas and genia were shouting at this or that contestant doing something stupid or unfair in the middle of the night.

despite this, thomas can't cook to save his life. both genia and barbara tried to teach him the basics to make sure he didn't starve when he was home alone, but somehow every dish turned out burned, overcooked, entirely raw or, well, on fire — to be fair, it only happened once, but neither his sisters nor his parents will ever let him live that down. the only thing he ever managed to learn how to cook was pisto, a spanish dish gideon had prepared multiple times and taught the girls how to make, and that thomas himself had tasted often during his year in spain.

the first time he tried cooking for alastair on a date they ended up ordering chinese after thomas had somehow managed to break two pans.

because genia made him watch so many cooking shows, he's always wanted one of those lavish, elaborated cakes with frosting and fondant decorations, so, on his twentieth birthday, alastair and thomas’s sisters team up to get him one of those: it's a giant cup of tea on a silver tray with teaspoon and saucer included and a side of fig rolls, thomas's favorite cookies, all in fondant and sponge cake. it's the best birthday thomas has ever had.

barbara adopted a stray cat years ago and named him sir fluffypaws meowton. when he was younger, thomas never gave him much attention but the cat always liked him better than anyone else and he constantly sneaked in his room. barbara was always a little bitter that her cat liked thomas more, but whenever she found thomas asleep on the couch and sir fluffypaws curled up in his laps she just smiled and let them happily sleep.

his starbucks order is always a caramel macchiato tall and a double chocolate cookie on rainy days and a iced matcha tea latte and blueberry muffin on the rare hot summer days.

he was class president in high school and to this day he still has no clue how he ended up there.

he was one of the most popular guys in school, together with the rest of the merry thieves, and he always found himself embarrassed when someone told him they had a crush on him or hoped to ask him out on a date when instead he only had eyes for the cute black haired boy with six rings per hand and the most beautiful dark eyes he'd ever seen.

after years of wondering he chose to study engineering in college but he never gave up on his love for languages and still finds time to teach himself.

he binged all the scandinavian shows on netflix and eventually started teaching himself the languages of his favorite ones so that he could rewatch them and truly understand them instead of just reading the subtitles.

gideon and sophie loved to travel a lot so thomas, genia and barbara were hauled all around the world for years when they were younger. as they grew up these travels became less frequent but the habit always stuck with thomas and he keeps on going around the world whenever he can.

lucie is the first person he comes out to and she is obviously more than supportive; she's enthusiastic and wants to know everything about this mysterious boy he likes.

next in line are genia and barbara that find out by chance when they enter his room without knocking and find him kissing alastair carstairs – thomas turns bright red and starts muttering nonsense until the girls grin and barbara says “i was wondering how long it would take you to stop giving alastair longing glances and ask him out”. alastair grins back at her and that's how thomas finds out alastair had a crush on him all along and his sisters both knew

the person he was less scared to come out to was gideon. he knew his father would love him no matter what and the day he told him and sophie he cried when they pulled him into a hug and spent an hour telling him how much they loved him and how happy they were he told them

Tag list: @cordaisya @im-not-ruined-im-ruination @surrounded-by-exquisite-clutter @stxr-thxif @icycoolslushie (let me know if you want to be added or removed!)

[thomaslightwood]

The Weight of Love

THOMASTAIR WEEK - Day 2 (16th July): Thomas Appreciation Day (hosted by @youngreckless!)

I managed to put myself together to write this, hope you enjoy it 🤧

Words: 1 773

•

When Thomas was a little boy he hated runes.

He hated seeing the anxious faces of his parents when the Silent brothers put the Voyanceon rune on his hand. 

He hated how he had memorized the Nourishment rune and still did it on himself.

He hated how the Iratze runes were put on him over and over again when he had a bad ill episode.

He hated runes.

But he loved musical notes.

In a way they were so similar to the Shadowhunter runes but it didn't cost anyone worries.

The first time he wrote a song - full written song - he didn't want to show it to anyone. It wasn't something that was meant for anyone's eyes.

“Tommy!”

Thomas sighed. He loved his sisters. He loved his parents. But sometimes their love was a weight that was crushing him.

“I'm coming!” he shouted in response. He hid his notebook with stories and songs under his bed, carefully putting a few things over it. Then he ran over to the living room where his sisters were.

“Yes?”

Eugenia was furiously pricking with a needle the tapestry she was making. Or trying to make. Barbara was doing the same as her's but she used the needle much calmer. She looked at Thomas.

“Come here with us,” she smiled. “The dinner is soon.”

Thomas sat on the couch next to Eugenia without saying a word. He knew why his sister had asked him to come. So they can watch after him. Like he was a glass that could be broken by the wind.

“Barbs,” Eugenia said, her face a little red. “Please come help me with this or I swear to Raziel, I'll rip it off.”

Barbara left her tapestry on the table and stood up from the chair she was sitting on, coming to the couch. Thomas moved at the end of it, making space for her.

“Here,” Barbara gently took Eugenia's needle. “You must be careful with the threads…”

While Barbara was explaining to Eugenia, Thomas was staring at the wall without blinking. He wanted to be alone. To write a new song. To train. He didn't want his sisters to babysit him.

Barbara laughed. Her laugh was soft, quiet, warming up something in your chest.

“It's alright, Nia. It's hard.” She stood up again. “I'll bring some of my materials. Wait a second.” Then she left the room, heading towards her bedroom.

“Damn it,” Eugenia said, angrily throwing her work at the table. “Stupid, useless thing.”

She hid her face with her hands and took a few breaths. Thomas, unsure what he could do to comfort his sister, approached her. He slowly hugged her, wrapping his short hands around her. 

She looked at him. Her eyes were wet. But as she blinked a few times the tears disappeared. Eugenia hated people seeing her cry.

She hugged Thomas across his shoulders, almost crushing him in a hug.

After a few seconds he murmured, “You're stopping my oxygen.”

A devilish smile broke on her face.

“This is not my problem. I'm a big sister, I have duties of annoying my little brother.”

Thomas giggled and tried to fight her off. They ended up falling on the couch, laughing. 

Barbara was standing on the door, smiling, while she watched them.

•

The day his parents decided he was ready to go to the Academy, Thomas had conflicted feelings. On one side this meant he wasn’t looked at like a fragile little boy. On the other hand - he had to deal with people. He was worried he wouldn't find friends. Or he would do something stupid and everyone would laugh at him.

The night before his first day at the Academy Thomas couldn’t sleep.

But in the end everything turned out fine. Even better than he expected to. He had a whole group of friends. While there, he missed the solitude he once had. He missed being alone with his own thoughts. But he liked being here. To talk with so many people who weren't his family.

There was one thing he couldn’t escape. That worry on everyone’s faces. He agreed to go to the Academy because he wanted to go away from his overprotective sisters and worrying parents. But sometimes he could see the same worry on his friends’ faces. Maybe it was all in his head. But he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that since they once knew him as a sickly boy, they forever would see him as a sickly boy.

The only one who didn’t have this worry on his face was Alastair Carstairs.

•

Thomas was aware he was becoming ridiculous. But he wasn’t sure he could stop.

He didn’t want to be Alastair's puppy that follows him everywhere. Matthew hated him. James was bullied by him. Alastair was nasty to everyone. But still. 

Thomas couldn’t explain it but there was something in Alastair Carstairs that was… extraordinary.

Sometimes Thomas would spot Alastair looking at him when he thought no one was watching. He was turning away quickly and called him “pipsqueak” or “half pint”. Thomas’ heart was starting to beat very fast when this happened. Like a small song was trapped in his heart and Alastair’s closnesses was making it louder.

Shortly after James, Matthew and Christopher were expelled, he found himself in an old room in the Academy. It was all dust and dirt that made his lungs ache. But he stayed because there was an old piano in it.

It made him smile. He took out his notebook with songs and sat in front of it. He was happy to touch it, to feel its coldness and steadiness. It was refreshing. 

Eventually he decided to examine the rest of the room. It was stuffed with books and old furniture. 

“Pipsqueak?” 

Thomas jumped. He turned and saw Alastair next to the piano. 

“What are you doing here, pixie?”

“Um” Thomas said. “Just looking around.”

Alastair’s gaze slowly moved to the piano. Thomas’ heart stopped. His notebook was there. Alastair was going to see his notebook.

“T-That’s nothing-”

But Alastair was already reaching for the book. He grabbed it from the stand. Thomas started to tremble. He hurried towards the other boy.

“Please, this is just-”

“Wait a second, tea cup,” without much effort he avoided Thomas’ attempts to take his notebook back. He was scanning the pages and then glanced at Thomas. Looked back at the page.

“That's not bad, pipsqueak,” then he gave him back the notebook, turned around and before leaving the room stopped. Turned to him. “You should let me play this sometime,” Alastair said and left the room.

Thomas' heart was beating fast. He was still trembling but for other reasons. His face was hot.

He glanced at the song Alastair had looked at. It was his first song. Did he really like it? Did he really want to play it?

Thomas hugged his notebooks, smiling, because he imagined how Alastair was playing his song.

But this never happened.

•

“You damn Shadowhooligans,” Polly murmured. “Don't have demons to hunt or something?” she sounded annoyed but said this with a smile. 

The four boys, giggling, headed towards their room where James managed to make their exclusive place in the Devil's Tavern.

Thomas was happy. He felt alive. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so reckless, so independent from his family. A time when he could just be.

As he looked at James and Matthew he thought how lucky they are. To find themselves parabatai. They were so different, not just by appearance. James was more quiet natured, more into stories and books. Matthew was loud, bohemian and liked being around people. Yet they somehow made it work.

Sometimes Thomas dreamed of having the same bond with somebody. The only one he could think of was Christopher. He was his brother in every way except blood. But he knew they weren't like this. Christopher would be kind of Shadowhunter Thomas wasn't and vica versa. And he couldn't imagine being with someone like Matthew - he loved him with his whole heart - but Thomas would prefer somebody more like James or himself.

Probably the parabatai-hood wasn't for him after all.

•

“I believe you'll like it there, son,” Gideon said to Thomas. “It helped me a great deal when I was your age.”

Thomas was packing clothes. He soon would turn eighteen and he was going to his travel year. He was scared. And anxious. But so excited at the same time. He looked forward to it for months.

“I hope so,” he said while putting a few shirts in his pack. “I will have a great opportunity to practice my Spanish.” 

Gideon smiled. “Indeed.”

He watched Thomas pack for a few minutes with a warm smile.

“Tom,” he said quietly. Thomas turned to him. Gideon hesitated. “I came to realize that all the attention and care the family took for you were necessary but… that they may have been a burden for you.”

Thomas looked at the floor. Gideon put a hand on his shoulder.

“You never said so, I know. This is what you do. But I have noticed it. When you're annoyed at the overprotectiveness of your sisters, at your mum and I when we put some restrictions on what to do, especially when you were younger.” 

Thomas looked at his father. His face was kind, gentle.

“It's alright. When I was your age I did similar things. I was silent for… some things. You know the story of your grandfather. But going to Spain had a really good influence on me. It helped me grow outside my father's control. I hope it can do the same for you. I strongly believe when you have the chance to be on your own and far away from all the people that overwhelm you with their care, you'll do great.”

Thomas' eyes were wet. He blinked a few times, trying to chase the tears away. 

“I… I don't want to be away from you.”

Gideon hugged him and gently squeezed him. Thomas buried his face in his father's chest.

“I know,” he said. “I also know that this can be scary and equally exciting. Just want to let you know… it's alright to feel this. All of this. Has always been and always will be. When you return you'll be changed. And our family, we'll be here, waiting for you.”

Thomas hugged his father too. It was alright. Everything was going to be alright. 

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice a little muffled.

Gideon kissed the top of his hair. “I love you too.”

[luciehercndale]

TLH Parenting Style Analysis: Lightwood Family (Sophideon)

And we are done! This was the last post, unless you want me to analyze a different character or family, etc. that I haven't touched. You can send me a message to suggest me something (anon is always on). Hope you enjoyed this series of short essays 💜

If you want to read the previous posts, here you go:

Blackthorn // Carstairs // Fairchild // Herondale // Lightwood

tw: death mention; tw: trauma mention

Lightwood Family (Sophideon): Authoritative Parenting

This couple is balanced and supports each other, albeit they may seem they have opposite personalities. Gideon and Sophie both like to take care of people, and they do it in silence. When Gideon met Sophie in TID, he had just realized that the world his father Benedict had shown him was false. Travelling abroad changed him for the better, and this is the reason he was able to fall for Sophie without prejudices since she was a maid at the time. Sophie also had prejudices on Gideon, since he was famous for being the typical rich boy from an important family before his travel year, and also arrogant. After they overcame their problems, they became very supportive of each other and it wasn’t long after they got married. They took great care of their children (perhaps too much), and we know that Gideon always tried to make up with his sister Tatiana and see Grace and Jesse, but without success. We know that Gideon and Sophie lived between London and Idris because of his position in the Clave.

We don’t have much information about Sophie and Gideon’s upbringing of their children, especially Eugenia and Barbara. From what we can assume, they must have been authoritative parents. They are not strict, although they might have been a little preoccupied after Thomas was born because of his health problems and might have set rules in order for him not to get worse. I’m sure Thomas was sick of this protective treatment and he joined the Academy because he wanted to get away from all of the attention. Too much attention and protection from parents can be damaging in the long run. It can turn into something unhealthy because the parents might be too afraid that their child might get sick (like in Thomas’ case) that they won’t let him live his life and try to decide for him in order for him not to get sick again. Thomas going to the Academy was important for his growth and health because it let him live new experiences and interact with others. It was also a way to show his family he could take care of himself and his health was okay.

We can assume that Gideon and Sophie were also protective with their first daughter, Barbara. Not like Thomas, maybe, because Barbara didn’t have any health issues as a child. Barbara was a sweet girl, and she was loved among her peers. She was a lady, always behaved like society expected her to. She was already engaged to Oliver Hayworth in 1903, and from the little we saw, she loved him very much and they were about to get married. Barbara was mature and innocent too, and romantic. She grew up in a safe environment with her father Gideon reading her bedtime stories and her mother Sophie warning her about the people she chose to love and their promises. It was devastating that Barbara died. Her death created a great void in the Lightwood-Collins household, because they were a close-knit family. I think that the members of the family are still processing Barbara’s death, and we haven’t seen much of this in the books, it’s sad. A death can break the equilibrium of a family. When someone dies, the members of a family react in different ways, and some of them might do things that they never did before, because that is their way to process the death of a loved one. Thomas still hasn’t processed Barbara’s death, in my opinion. His own way to deal with this event is to act, to do something, to get rid of whomever did this to her. And this can be achieved, since this is a fictional world. But what next? What will happen to Thomas if he gets revenge for Barbara and the other people who died? At some point the loss of his sister will get back to him. He “avenged” her, but she can’t be brought back. How cool it would be to see a scene between Thomas and his parents mourning his sister. Sometimes he acts like he’s grown up and doesn’t need his parents anymore, but the truth is that he just doesn’t want to be a burden to them, reminding them that they have lost a daughter already. And they already had to put extra care for him because of his childhood health issues. I don’t know you, but I believe that Thomas is keeping everything inside and someday he will break.

After Barbara died, Gideon and Sophie went to Idris to comfort Eugenia, their second daughter, but they also probably feared for her life, since she was alone in Idris. Thomas decided to stay in London because he thought the only way to face Barbara’s death was to stop the attacks and destroy whoever had caused them and caused Barbara’s demise. In COI, Eugenia returned to London. She also seems like someone who would not sit back and wait for things to happen, and she is trying to cope with the loss of her sister this way. We know that Eugenia was the victim of a scandal which ruined her reputation. Gideon and Sophie probably tried to protect her by suggesting she stay in Idris, but Eugenia is done hiding. Thomas and Eugenia seem to react in a similar way, except she is probably more blunt than he is.

[queer-and-dear-books]

Title: Anger Is A Gift

Author: Mark Oshiro

Genre: Fiction | Thriller | Drama | Friendship | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Racism | Major Character Death | Police Brutality

Overall Rating: 10/10

Personal Opinion: Adam Silvera said it best, this is “a beautiful and brutal debut.” It is a powerful look into the institutional racism of the police force and the constant battle between black & brown people and the police. Morris Jeffries Jr., better known as Moss, has lost people he loved. People he cared about to police brutality. And he is angry about it. He wants to use that anger to fight back in the only way he knows how. Protest. Follow this incredible, brave young man as he fights with everything he’s got. 

Do I Own This Book? Not yet but maybe one day.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- This book is so real. It’s not a great option for those that use fiction as an escape but it is so raw and authentic and it hits all the major points like a freight train. The inherent institutional racism among cops is just so awful. How they brutalize and abuse brown and black people and even kids! It was chilling and tense and had me on the edge of my seat because I just wanted a happy ending whilst knowing that that can’t happen in this book because it’s real life. People of African descent, Latinx, South Asian, and also middle easterners have a long history of suffering because of police brutality and it is awful. Lives are constantly lost. And yet, they never do anything. It’s always justified somehow in the media and they never take responsibility. They always try to spin it in a way to imply that the victim deserved it. Often bringing up citizenship status or prior conviction record or, I don’t know, “uncooperative behavior.” Moss’s dad didn’t hear the cops! He had on his headphones! But they shot him anyway with the justification that he should’ve raised his hands if he was innocent but he didn’t know! And the gall of those privileged fucks going up to a TEN YEAR OLD KID to tell him that his dad deserved to die makes me sick. It’s real and it’s wrong and the fact that this book was written before the George Floyd protests is honestly insane to me. This is a necessary book. Because I don’t doubt that there are a lot of people like Esperanza who do not understand. Who see the world as simply black and white. That justice prevails in the end. Because the truth is, I have seen a lot of people say that people deserved getting shot at. Deserved tear gas and rubber bullets and riot gear. It is awful. And the fact that it took the death of a white girl to enact change is too real. And to make it worse, it was Hayley who paid the price. She was sexually assaulted and the god forsaken police took the side of the perpetrator. She never got her justice. And she stood with Moss to protest. For Javier. She didn’t deserve to die. To be a martyr. Sharelle, Morris Jeffries Sr, Javier Perez, and Hayley Simpson should not have had to die for something to be done. 

- Moss has so many amazing friends. Rawiya, Kaisha, Reg, Bits, Njemile, even Esperanza in the beginning. In that first chapter, she was always there for Moss. When he was going through his panic attack, she stayed by his side and got him through it. She knew when he didn’t want to talk and knew when he did. But because she was adopted by white parents in a rich home, she didn’t really know what he went through. She never experienced all the fear directly, just by proximity. She took her life for granted and even said she wished she went to their school, not even knowing just how terrifying and dystopian it was. The worst of it was that it’s not dystopian. It is just our present-day reality. The rest of Moss’s friends are so good though. They have a lot of empathy and they tease him so lovingly. They, along with Shamika, Martin, Dawit, and everyone else in his large community are his family and I adore that. And I loved that he decided to take Eugenia into his family even though Javier was gone. No. Especially due to the fact that he was gone. She lost her only family. So he wanted to be there for her.

- Every character played such an integral role in telling this incredibly moving story. We’ve got Kaisha. This brilliant young woman who knows the entire online world like the back of her hand. Reg, who is disabled due to a car crash but he tries to be positive all the time. And the stupid magnet inside of the metal detector obliterated his hopes of walking again. Bits is a person of few words but they are the shoulder to cry on and they are loyal and kind. Even though they used to be in a gang. Njemile and Shawna are trans women. The former with two moms. And they just both radiate so much beauty along with their sass. Rawiya is punk rock and a Muslim and she is just a badass. And then there’s Javier’s friend Carlos. A small artist who made a mural of his best friend after he passed. An immortalized memorial of an incredibly loving soul. He was taken from the world too soon and he could’ve loved Moss. It hurts that Moss may never know.

- The moments of Moss’s grief and anxiety were relatable and tough to read. But also really necessary. When Javier had been shot, Moss had several moments where he thought he would appear. Alive. Waiting. He would leave his home and kiss Moss. When my grandpa passed, there were moments where I would stand at the top of the staircase, about to go to my bedroom, and I would think about the fact that he would be there. He would be in his room and he would wake up to use the bathroom and he’d ask me if I’d like some milk while I was on my laptop. But he was gone from my life. It’s honestly just so heart-wrenching. And this is a novel. It’s not even real. But I bet there are a lot of people who have experienced it.

- I get why this book wasn’t tagged with “romance.” Since Javier died halfway into the story. But he was there. He made an impact. Because the dates he went on with Moss, even if they were short and even mildly awkward, were so cute. They understood each other on an almost anatomic level. Even though they had met on the BART briefly, they had this real connection that they wanted to explore. They bared their souls even though they knew each other for only a week. They talked about the real shit going on in their lives and wanted to be as open as possible. It’s the kind of short-lived, fast-burning love that I want for myself. And Moss with all the items he had left of his first love, it honestly hurt. The comic, the bicycle chain, his backpack, the memories that they had. I want what they had but without the tragedy.

- Moss’s protest was brave and powerful and emotional and I respect the hell out of this amazing young man. Even if he’s fictional. I respect every single person out there fighting and I want to be the best possible ally for them.

Dislikes:

- This was in the positive section but it deserves to be here too. It’s too real. I often like reading for escapism. Living vicariously in the minds of others. So this was scary. It’s like a realistic horror novel. I enjoyed the ride but it just hurts. I’m still processing it. But the fact that Hull and Daley both reacted so horribly and violently is just so wrong. How can they just escalate things like that? If Hull had just let Shawna explain then she wouldn’t have had to be hurt. If that one white cop hadn’t forced Bits through the magnetic metal detector, the pins wouldn’t have shot out of his leg. If Daley hadn’t drawn his fucking gun on a bunch of high schoolers for “not respecting him” (a dude that is literally spraying them all with a sort of acid), then Javier would still be alive. But the police just continued on with their terrible behavior. Trying to resolve the issue of police brutality with even more brutality. They didn’t take any responsibility. They didn’t even apologize until after a white woman was killed. It makes me nauseous but it’s real. And it just sucks so much. I just kept on wishing for some deity to come down from the heavens to stop it all. But that won’t happen. But the ending still gave me chills. Moss only spoke to one reporter after the incident. Sophia Morales of NBC. A Latina woman.

“What do you think the Oakland Police Department should do next?”

No answer was sufficient enough because nothing they did “next” could ever bring back Javier or any other victim. So Moss’s only response was: “Stop killing us.” And I got chills. What an ending.

- Fuck Jacobs (performative ass bitch), Esperanza’s parents (ignorant whites), and those two idiots (just idiots) at the first rally. That is all I’ll say about them.

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter one

Lucie, Cordelia, Thomas and Alastair are spending the summer in a small town at the edge of a forest. Lucie hopes she can finally tell Cordelia how she really feels, while Thomas hopes to get to know Alastair a bit better. Alastair and Cordelia are glad to get some time away from their family and their parents separating. But something is not right in the forest. People are disappearing, and a creature warns Thomas that he is in danger, that a debt to a powerful being has not yet been repaid and they will need to combine all their abilities to stop what’s coming, and save Thomas.

CW: past toxic relationship, past abuse, mentions of alcoholism, PTSD It won't be super gory, but can be creepy

Tag list: @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @nott-the-best

Tagging @julywood because Thomas is one of the main characters

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32505550/chapters/80620474

‘Are you finished packing, Lulu?’

Lucie heard her father’s voice from behind the door of her bedroom, but she didn’t respond immediately. She was working on her story, and needed to finish this chapter so she could email it to Cordelia. She needed to concentrate, and that required blocking out all sounds coming from the outside world. The chapter had taken a bit longer than anticipated and the ghost of one of Cordelia’s dead boyfriends had somehow made its way into the chapter. Fictional Cordelia had had many boyfriends and all had died tragic deaths to make way for the next. She currently didn’t have a boyfriend and Lucie wasn’t planning another one yet. The real Cordelia had only dated her brother James for a while a year ago. Lucie didn’t think she wanted real Cordelia to have a boyfriend either.

The door opened and her father peeked inside. ‘You haven’t started packing at all, have you?’

‘I need to finish my chapter for Cordelia,’ Lucie insisted. ‘She will be stuck in a very long car ride with only Alastair for company and she needs something to occupy herself with.’

Lucie would be staying the summer with her parents in her grandmother’s manor, whereas her grandmother would be traveling to southern Italy with a couple of friends. While Lucie was usually excited about spending her summer there, she had feared it would be lonely considering her brother James wouldn’t be coming this year. He’d graduated school and he and his best friend Matthew were going to travel across the continent by themselves. She’d feared she’d be alone all summer, but then Thomas, her closest friend besides Cordelia, had convinced his parents to travel to the same town this summer, renting a cottage nearby her grandmother’s house.

‘Alright, I’ll pack for you,’ her father said. ‘But if you find your swimsuit or your sparrow plush toy is missing, then I will not be held responsible.’

‘Jack is coming,’ Lucie insisted, referring to her sparrow plush toy she’d once named after Jack Sparrow, and she put her laptop away to put her plush toy in her bag.

After a short moment of contemplation she put her new pink bikini and an older black and red striped one piece in there too. There was a lake close to grandmother’s manor and Lucie expected she’d go swimming regularly. She returned to her laptop, and tried to think of a good ending for the chapter. She didn’t like to end everything in a cliffhanger, but the story needed to remain intriguing.

‘No clothes? Underwear?’ her father asked.

Lucie considered just bringing everything suitable for the summer but realized they didn’t have that much space in the car. So instead she opened her closet, picked out some tops, skirts, dresses and jumpsuits and put them into her bag. She would probably regret leaving something behind later on but there was no time. Just to be sure, she went over the closet again and added a couple more dresses. She couldn’t leave her new yellow wrap dress behind, she’d sent Cordelia a picture of her wearing it a couple of weeks ago after she’d bought it and Cordelia had commented that she looked gorgeous. Lucie suspected it was just Cordelia being nice but the comment had still made her heart run wild.

She added enough underwear to last her several weeks and then went back to adding clothes at random until the bags were full.

‘Done,’ she announced, and she went back to her laptop, finishing her chapter.

Adding in a ghost was a difficult choice, but Lucie had decided fictional ghosts behaved similarly to real ghosts. Lucie had never seen a ghost of a dead boyfriend though. She hadn’t seen Jesse Blackthorn even once since he’d died four years ago.

When the chapter was finished, she emailed it to Cordelia, hoping she would receive it before she and her brother left home. Cordelia had almost not been allowed to come stay with her family this summer, her father tended to be strict and wanted to keep Cordelia at home. There had been some trouble lately at the Carstairs home though, and Cordelia’s mother had decided it would be good for her to go spend time with Lucie. Cordelia’s brother Alastair had decided to come with her, although Lucie wasn’t sure why. Either way, Lucie had decided she and Cordelia were going to have the greatest summer ever.

 ***

Thomas hadn’t been this excited about going on a vacation with his parents in a while. The small town where they’d be staying sounded boring, and certainly wasn’t the location most boys his age wanted to spend the summer, but then Thomas wasn’t interested in drinking and partying all night and would much rather explore forests and go swimming in lakes with Lucie Herondale. That wasn’t the main reason he was excited though. A week ago, Lucie had confirmed her close friend Cordelia Carstairs would be staying the summer with her, and a couple of days later Lucie had informed him Cordelia’s brother Alastair would be coming as well.

Thomas had gone to school with Alastair for a year, Alastair a year ahead of him, and at the time Alastair had been rather awful, especially to Thomas’ friends James and Matthew. To be fair, Alastair’s jokes about Matthew behaving like his mother were funny. Matthew did behave like his mother, always coming to collect him when he’d spent too much time around Alastair. Why he’d fallen in love with Alastair anyway, he wasn’t sure. He’d been intrigued by the mystery, he guessed, Alastair’s sad eyes and vicious tongue.

But after that year, Alastair had changed schools, and had gone to school with Lucie and Cordelia instead and he’d heard much from Lucie about him. Alastair had defended Lucie from bullies had kept to himself and created this image of someone who was untouchable, no longer a bully, but he would destroy you if you even considered hurting his sister or her friend Lucie. Thomas was once more intrigued. While James and Matthew were still angry, Thomas had decided he must have changed and he was thankful Alastair had protected Lucie, heaven knew that girl knew how to get herself into trouble.

Thomas checked his phone for the millionth time. He was done packing, but his parents were not. Lucie hadn’t send any new texts and Thomas suspected she needed to pack or finish the latest chapter of her novel before her parents left. She’d listed some ideas that might help him spend more time alone with Alastair, although Thomas was not yet sure if he wanted that. He wasn’t out to anyone but Lucie yet, and although he intended to tell his parents, he wasn’t yet sure how. He wasn’t yet sure he was ready for a relationship, and although he liked Alastair, he was also a bit intimidated by him.

Barbara had sent a message, and Thomas opened it. It was a picture of her and Oliver in front of the Eiffel Tower. Barbara and her boyfriend Oliver had gone to Paris to celebrate their two year anniversary and to celebrate Barbara graduating as a nurse.

Thomas texted a response and put his phone in his bag and walked outside, checking to see if his parents needed any help. A couple of gnomes were running around the garden. Thomas didn’t mind them, they took good care of the garden, and were far from dangerous, but they could get up to mischief. He’d learned that whenever cookies, forks or socks went missing, it was usually the garden gnomes. They lived in forests sometimes, but also liked to build their homes in human gardens. Of course, most humans had no idea they were there, but Thomas could see all sorts of strange creatures. Most were harmless, so Thomas never minded much. He didn’t seek out the supernatural, but he didn’t mind its presence.

Both his mother and Barbara had the same gift, and although Eugenia didn’t she had learnt to see the gnomes. Thomas had found out everyone could learn to see the supernatural if they knew what to look for and knew it was out there. Most people didn’t believe so they didn’t see, but Eugenia had grown up with a mother and siblings who saw everything whether they wanted to or not. She had always known what was out there.

Eugenia and her friend Kamala would be spending the summer in India this year, they’d saved up for months for their big trip. Thomas suspected they might be more than just friends but so far Eugenia had not confirmed this.

‘We’re almost done,’ his mother promised, handing him a plate of cookies. ‘Give some to the gnomes, will you? To show them our thanks for taking care of the garden.’

Thomas went into the backyard where even more gnomes had gathered. It was difficult to imagine most people could look at this scene and see nothing out of the ordinary, when several gnomes were running around, holding something shiny in their hands.

‘The car keys,’ Thomas groaned out loud and he put the plate of cookies on the ground.

‘You can have these, but please give me the keys back,’ he said.

The gnomes said something, but Thomas didn’t understand their language, and then attacked the plate of cookies, dropping the car keys in the process. Thomas picked them up before the gnomes realized anything, and picked up the plate as soon as it was empty. Gnomes could be monsters when it came to cookies and they didn’t have table manners, they just attacked any food they saw. Thomas couldn’t blame them.

Thomas quickly washed the plate and put it back with the others before joining his parents again, who were finally finished with everything.

‘Feeding the gnomes again, Sophie?’ his father asked. ‘Are you sure that many cookies are healthy for them?’

His mother shrugged. ‘They’re gnomes, Gideon. Who knows what’s healthy for them?’

His father couldn’t argue with that logic. Thomas wondered if there would be gnomes too at the cottage where they would be staying, or if other creatures would show themselves. Thomas had learned that if there was a myth or any kind of story depicting it, it probably existed somewhere, but most such beings were very rare and so far Thomas had mostly encountered gnomes.

Checking the car one last time to see if they had everything, Thomas got into the passenger seat next to his mother who would be driving, his father behind. Thomas had gotten too tall to fit in the backseat of this car and sitting there for a long drive would be unnecessarily painful. Besides, Thomas was better at reading maps than his father, and if they got lost they would depend on him to find the way.

As they drove, Thomas couldn’t help but think of Alastair Carstairs. Why had he decided to join the Herondales? Thomas didn’t think he was particularly close to Lucie, although he knew Will Herondale had a weak spot for anything that carried the name Carstairs. He wasn’t surprised the Herondales had invited him along. Could he be thinking of Thomas? And would Lucie’s plans to get them to spend time together help, or only make everything worse?

 ***

‘I cannot get this bag to close,’ Cordelia complained.

‘Perhaps that’s because there’s a limit to how much fits in there,’ Alastair said without looking up.

He was finished packing, of course. Cordelia, on the other hand, had decided she had not yet enough clothes packed and with some suggestions from her mother and aunt Risa had tried to add more.

‘Don’t you have another bag for me?’ Cordelia asked, annoyed.

She loved Alastair, but sharing a room with him was a bit too much and they’d gotten on each other’s nerves. They were currently staying with their aunt Risa, their mother too, but Risa’s apartment was a bit small for all of them. It was a temporary situation and Cordelia hoped that after the summer she and Alastair didn’t have to share a room anymore. At least in the Herondale manor, there were plenty of rooms and Cordelia intended to get one as far away from her brother as possible. Alastair tended to be neat, and his half of the room was always perfectly in order, whereas Cordelia was a bit messier, and both were irritated with the other.

‘You can check if any of my bags have some space left. Or you can leave the bag opened and put it in the car like this and hope it doesn’t end with clothes littered everywhere.’

Cordelia went to the building’s parking garage and to the car and put the bag there, half open, making sure nothing fell out. No one but the two of them would be fitting in there with how much Alastair had packed. Cordelia couldn’t imagine he’d need all that, but she knew better than to attempt to convince her brother he could leave something behind.

Back inside, she saw Alastair sitting on his bed, vaguely staring into the distance as if he was daydreaming.

‘Alastair, stop doing that,’ Cordelia said.

Calling his name usually brought him out even when his senses were closed off from the world around him. Alastair had an ability that Cordelia best described as him being Harry Potter’s pensieve. He could revisit his own memories, and if they allowed it, other people’s memories as well, as well as bring people with him into memories. Alastair tended to stay out of other people’s memories, but could get lost in his own. Outside their family, no one knew about it and Alastair preferred to keep it that way.  

The Carstairs family had always been aware of the supernatural, of course. Once their father Elias had carried the magic sword cortana and fought evil creatures with it. That had been a long time ago though, and Cordelia owned cortana now, but she had never used it to fight anything beyond straw men in the backyard. She didn’t have any abilities though, not beyond her connection the sword, nothing like Alastair’s odd memory. Neither of them understood why he was that way.

‘Were you revisiting your break up again?’ Cordelia asked then.

She knew he’d been revisiting that memory over and over lately, although she didn’t understand why. It couldn’t possibly make him feel better, could it? Of course, Alastair wasn’t exactly known for making the healthiest choices when it came to coping.

‘Charles has been texting me,’ Alastair said, his face blank. ‘I made sure that when I broke up with him, I was very clear about not wanting him to contact me. I wanted to see if there was anything I said that might have made my meaning unclear, any invitation for him to keep texting me.’

‘I don’t think Charles has ever listened to a thing you said,’ Cordelia said. ‘That’s his problem, not yours. Have you blocked his number yet?’

Alastair didn’t say anything.

‘You can block him,’ Cordelia insisted. ‘And you should. It’s creepy how he keeps texting you.’

As far as Cordelia was concerned, Charles had been creepy long before that, ever since he began a relationship with her brother despite Alastair only being sixteen at the time when Charles was six years older than him. Charles must have known how wrong and creepy that was, even if Alastair hadn’t.

Alastair hadn’t told anyone about his relationship, not ready to come out yet, which must have been convenient to Charles. Cordelia had only found out four months ago when she’d started to worry about Alastair, how he’d seemed more nervous and prickly than usual, how he’d lost weight from not eating. Reluctantly, Alastair had told her about his relationship, and Cordelia had been horrified to learn just how much abuse he’d accepted, believing that was how relationships worked. After a month of Cordelia trying to convince him of how toxic Charles was, Alastair had broken up with him. She’d been very protective of him ever since finding out, and was glad he’d decided to come stay with the Herondales with her this summer. Some time away from everything would be good for him, right?

Then Cordelia had found out Alastair had been keeping even more secrets from her, this one surrounding their father. Cordelia had always loved her father and looked up to him, a former warrior who’d slain the supernatural horror that had taken his brother and sister in law, a former hero who’d fallen ill in later life. A while ago their cousin Jem, who was a psychiatrist, had visited, despite their father trying to keep him away from their family, and he’d noticed Alastair was not doing well after an anger outburst. Cordelia and her mother had always assumed Alastair’s moodiness and anger outbursts were just him being a difficult teenager, although at eighteen he was getting a bit old for that. Jem, familiar with mental disorders, had recognized symptoms of something more.

He had recommended Alastair see a therapist. After some pressure from both her and Jem, Alastair had gone and he’d been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. Cordelia had found out father was not sick, but addicted to alcohol instead. Alastair had spent years protecting her from the effects, attempting to take care of father while he was drunk so she have the illusion of a normal childhood. Now that she knew, she guessed she understood a bit better why Alastair had thought what Charles had offered was love.

‘I guess I can block him,’ Alastair said.

‘I’m serious,’ Cordelia insisted. ‘You have to stop revisiting bad memories, you’ll only get hurt again. I don’t like seeing you hurt.’

Alastair took his phone out his pocket, presumably blocked Charles’ number, and put it back.

‘Are you ready to go, Layla?’ he asked.

When Cordelia was young, she’d loved the story of Layla and Majnun her mother used to tell her, and Alastair and her mother had taken to calling her Layla.

‘Ready when you are,’ Cordelia said. ‘Lucie just emailed me the latest chapter of the beautiful Cordelia. I’ll have plenty to do on the way.’

[alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer]

if this was a dream pt. 2

Part 1 | AO3 | Fanfiction Masterlist

Thomas tried to steady himself as Alastair walked - no, more like ran - away. What was he doing here, by his bedside? In what universe would his parents allow Alastair Carstairs to sit with him while they slept? He seemed to recall many nights in his youth when his mother refused to sleep at all when he was unwell. 

His mind ran through countless possibilities, each one less likely than the last, until his parents rushed into his room. He pushed those thoughts aside as mother ran to him, cupping his face in her hands and gently kissing his forehead. “We were so worried. How are you feeling?” 

Besides blinding rage? He took a moment to actually consider the question. He’d been too distracted by the Alastair fiasco to take notice of it all. Alastair said that he had been injured. “Er, my head hurts, but other than that, I feel alright.”

She smiled. “That’s good. You were attacked on patrol about three days ago, and your injuries were quite severe. There’s a Silent Brother lingering around here somewhere, we should fetch him to check on you. I’m so glad you’re feeling alright, love.” 

“Alright is one word for not being able to remember the past six months,” Eugenia commented, appearing in the doorway. 

Both of his parents looked alarmed. “What do you mean?” his father asked. 

“That’s what-” She cut herself off abruptly. “Thomas, what month is it?” 

“Um…” He thought for a moment. Now that she mentioned it, he was feeling a bit blurry. Was the engagement party last week? Two weeks ago, perhaps? “It’s August.”

His mother looked at him worriedly. 

“What?” 

“It’s February,” Eugenia answered. She was always the most blunt out of all of them.

Thomas wasn’t sure how to respond, but his mother quickly reassured, “That’s alright, dear. I’ll go find the Silent Brother now. I’m sure this will pass as your head heals.” 

She left the room and Eugenia came to the chair that Alastair had been sitting in earlier. She sighed. “I know you’re mad at him.” It took him a moment to realize she was talking about Alastair. “You should be, but also… try to keep in mind that a lot has happened over the past six months.” 

He could feel the anger rising in his bloodstream again, but there was only so much he was willing to say with his father present. “Forgive me if I find it hard to believe that…” He trailed off. What was being implied here? He had no idea what was happening at all. 

“Believe what you must, then,” Eugenia exhaled. 

“Well, what did happen in the last six months?” 

Eugenia thought for a moment. “Hm, let’s see… Well, Rosamund and Thoby got engaged. Cordelia and James got married, kind of. Matthew got a flat! And a car. And he’s trying to quit drinking now, though that’s a bit new, maybe don’t bring it up. Let’s see… There was the whole serial killer bit, we fought a couple of Princes of Hell, Lilith showed up, Lucie raised Jesse Blackthorn from the dead… Oh, I’m sure I’m missing some things. Your friends can explain it better.” 

Thomas could only stare in response. 

“See? Is your relationship with Alastair Carstairs truly the most shocking thing to have happened in the past six months?” 

Thomas’ head had ached before, but now he could feel it pounding, trying to process all that his sister had just rattled off. “I- What-” He flashed his gaze towards his father, who seemed a bit concerned, but not the least bit surprised or upset. “My- I don’t-” 

“I can see now that I’ve said far too much. You know what? It’s fine. Most of that doesn’t even matter anyways. The parts that do, well, you’ll figure them out. Besides, your memories may come back soon enough anyways. And it’s all truly not as dramatic as it sounds listed out like that.” 

Thomas closed his eyes and tried to shove all of those thoughts, his sister’s words, the many questions needing answers, into some corner of his brain to be picked up later. “Perhaps we can just… avoid that as a topic of conversation.” 

“Of course,” his sister said quickly. “By ‘that’ you mean-” 

Gideon cut her off by clearing his throat. “Genie, would you please find Bridget and request some food be brought up for your brother, now that he’s awake.” 

She shot out of her seat with nervous energy. “Of course. I’ll be back.” 

Once she was out the door, he chuckled gently. “I have no idea how she still has that much energy after staying awake for nearly three straight days.” 

Thomas bit at the inside of his lip. “It was bad, wasn’t it?” 

Gideon nodded solemnly. “You’re alright now, though, and you’re awake. That’s what is important.” He paused. “I know this has all been a lot to take in, but you needn’t worry about any of it, truly. All that matters to any of us right now is that you heal. You should try to rest, if only because Eugenia is less likely to harass you if it looks like you’re sleeping.” 

He gave him a small smile and tried to relax. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to quiet the noise in his brain. Alastair, sitting by his bedside. The look on Alastair’s face as he fled the room. How his entire family had seemingly accepted Alastair as part of his life, as his… partner? Had Alastair sat with them these three long days, hoping, praying, that he would wake? 

It didn’t make sense. Alastair had spread cruel rumors, terrible lies, about Thomas’ family. Rumors that had made his mother weep. He’d hurt Matthew so badly that the scars showed even now, four years later. He’d had a crush on Alastair in school, of course. Just a silly schoolboy crush, running after the witty and mysterious older boy with cutting words and sad eyes. Thomas had thought, for a moment, that he was falling in love with him, back in Paris. He kicked himself at the thought of it now. He’d been terribly lonely and feeling alienated, of course he would fall at the feet of the first person he connected with. 

He felt it again, though, when Alastair arrived in London, in those stolen conversations at parties or in the laboratory. He knew now that the Alastair he’d shown to Thomas was not true. It was a facade he put on to please him, a trick. That Alastair would never be able to say such terrible things about his loved ones, even as some strange, sick act. This must be another trick, Thomas thought, one that he’d seemingly convinced not only Thomas of but everyone else, too. 

Thomas silently scolded himself. There were much bigger issues to worry about than Alastair Carstairs’ games, such as the fact that he’d nearly died a few days prior or that Lucie had apparently raised Jesse Blackthorn from the dead. Those were the types of things that he should be worried about, or even the fact that this meant that it had been over half a year without his sister, or that he’d turned 19 last month and could not remember. And yet, his mind lingered. 

His mother returned soon after with Brother Shadrach. Thomas allowed himself a moment of silent relief that it was not Brother Zachariah. He had no issue with Jem, but he suspected that his presence would make it a bit difficult to keep his mind off of a different Carstairs. 

Brother Shadrach did a short physical evaluation. Thomas still had several wounds that had not finished healing, but they were reportedly improving nicely. His head injury was a different story. 

With these types of injuries, recent memories are typically more affected than older ones. Only time will tell whether the amnesia is temporary or not. It is likely that even if you begin to regain your older memories, some of your most recent memories will never return, even if that is merely the days or weeks leading up to the attack. 

Sophie thanked him for all of his help, and he left them with orders that Thomas be allowed light physical activity as he finished healing, though he should avoid anything that may make his headache worsen, such as reading. Or Alastair Carstairs, Thomas had wanted to add, though he did not. 

Over the next several hours, his family tapered off in shifts, finally allowing themselves much-needed rest and meals now that they were certain that Thomas was alright. 

It was Eugenia’s shift when he woke from a nap with too much restless energy to lie in bed any longer. “I’m going to walk around a bit,” he announced. 

She sat up, closing the book she was reading. “I’ll come with you, then.” 

“That’s alright, you don’t need to. Brother Shadrach said I’m allowed to walk around. I’m meant to avoid headaches, though, and I’d rather not have you talking my ears off.” 

Genie’s face fell. “Oh.” 

“I didn’t- That came out wrong. I only meant that I’d like some time alone.” 

“I know what you meant.” She looked back down at the book in her lap. “Go. You have until I finish this chapter, and then I’m coming to find you.” 

His wandering eventually led him to the library, though he was not meant to do any actual reading. In the library, however, was a man. 

“Why are you still here?” Thomas asked. 

Alastair looked up from the book he was holding. “I- Thomas! I didn’t realize that you were walking around.” 

“Yes, according to Brother Shadrach, my head injury has not affected my ability to walk.” 

“Right-” 

“You still haven’t answered my question. Go home, Carstairs. How many times do I need to tell it to you? Do you need it in a different language?” He was about to tell Alastair to leave in Farsi when he was cut off. 

“No, I’ll go.” He shut his book and stood up. “I’m sorry. I did not intend to bother you again, I simply-” 

“I don’t know what game you’re playing or how you’ve managed to convince my whole family of it, too, but it won’t work anymore.” 

“Thomas, there’s no-” 

“Cease constantly addressing me by my first name. We’re not schoolboys any longer. That’s what you said, isn’t it?” 

Alastair couldn’t seem to find the words to respond, though his expression was as unreadable as ever. 

Thomas could feel tears burning in his eyes. “I thought that you were different, but I was wrong. I will not allow myself to fall for your lies again.” 

“Very well, Mr. Lightwood. I will take my leave. I did not wish to upset you.” His face was still blank. 

“Really? Because you don’t seem to care all that much. We’re meant to be in a relationship, or something, according to my sister, but it doesn’t even seem like you care that I hate you.” 

There, just for a moment, was a flicker across Alastair’s face, though Thomas couldn’t quite catch what it was. He thought for a moment before finally responding. “You’re allowed to hate me, T- Perhaps you should. It matters not to me because as long as you hate me, you are awake and you are alive, and that is an easier reality to contend with than one where you are… not alive. I hope you feel better, Mr. Lightwood.” 

Thomas opened his mouth to respond, but was too flustered to find the words. He stared as he watched Alastair walk out of the library. For a moment, he thought that perhaps he would look back at him, but he simply kept walking, turning the corner towards the front entrance of the Institute.

Thanks for all of your support! taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @littlx-songbxrd @dianasarrow @doitforthecarstairs @lifewouldbebetteronmars @delusioneon @bookswitchcraftandcats @jamesherondaleofficial @thomas-gaypanic-lightwood

Part 3