holiday fic: feet don't fail me now
wizards of place. alex/justin. 560 words.
notes: for clockworksummer. I haven't watched the show in a long time, but writing these two was very comforting. and the usual warning of incest.
She leaves afterwards.
Without magic she doesn’t feel quite so young. The earth pulls harder on her bones and wizard or not she’s still Alex. Pushing back is in her nature.
It was always going to be Justin. She knew this. Still it hurts.
-
The world is still bigger than it seems. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, a lot she doesn’t care about as well. But she takes a camera and things seem less empty with the right framing.
She wanders narrow streets, gets lost in cities that she used to have trouble placing on maps, gets lost and found and lost again. She calls home and lets the parents worry at her and doesn’t fuss too badly.
She writes postcard after postcard. Writes one every day. Spends more money on them than on food sometimes but they don’t get posted. She isn’t angry with him, not really. For all their differences she never knew how to hate him. But the words are there and she still can’t say them to him. She can’t.
-
The years slip by, is the thing. Time keeps moving and the more she moves with it the easier things get.
She doesn’t keep a house anywhere but the photographs start paying the bills. She goes home sometimes and sleeps in her old room and the boys are gone but she’s used to the silence now.
She talks to Justin, always across the safety of a dinner table or in the space of a cab ride. When she kisses his cheek she can feel the pulse of it, his second heart, the magic that she once knew, against her lips.
She wants to swallow him whole.
-
There’s a decades old fight that never broke between them. It sits there and she doesn’t bother bridging the gap. It’s her fault.
“You didn’t call.” There’s no accusation in his tone. Maybe something that could fall at sadness but she doesn’t listen too closely.
“You ran and then you didn’t call.”
“I didn’t run. I left.”
(When she left Alex was nineteen years old and she felt ancient. She didn’t feel any less indestructible though.
This is the true legacy of the Russo family: running at walls and expecting them to fall before you. Some days it’s the only thing that keep them alive.)
-
She can taste it in his mouth. It coats thick against his tongue and there’s a hint of metal and beyond that just the taste of fire.
(Know this-magic is fire. They burned witches once. Tied them and set them alight because it was the only thing that could hurt them. Only the things that know you can truly destroy. )
“I miss you,” she whispers against his lips and isn’t sure to whom she’s speaking. His hand tightens against her waist. She digs her fingers into his back and presses hard.
“I miss you,” she whispers again. The words have lost meaning. Maybe she didn’t mean them in the first place.
-
She leaves afterwards. Gets on a plane and doesn’t look back except for when she does.
She doesn’t talk to Justin, doesn’t send postcards and doesn’t dream of him-doesn’t dream of the magic.
He’s there though. A taste in her mouth, a picture etched into the walls of her heart. He’s there with her, always.
notes: for clockworksummer. I haven't watched the show in a long time, but writing these two was very comforting. and the usual warning of incest.
She leaves afterwards.
Without magic she doesn’t feel quite so young. The earth pulls harder on her bones and wizard or not she’s still Alex. Pushing back is in her nature.
It was always going to be Justin. She knew this. Still it hurts.
-
The world is still bigger than it seems. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, a lot she doesn’t care about as well. But she takes a camera and things seem less empty with the right framing.
She wanders narrow streets, gets lost in cities that she used to have trouble placing on maps, gets lost and found and lost again. She calls home and lets the parents worry at her and doesn’t fuss too badly.
She writes postcard after postcard. Writes one every day. Spends more money on them than on food sometimes but they don’t get posted. She isn’t angry with him, not really. For all their differences she never knew how to hate him. But the words are there and she still can’t say them to him. She can’t.
-
The years slip by, is the thing. Time keeps moving and the more she moves with it the easier things get.
She doesn’t keep a house anywhere but the photographs start paying the bills. She goes home sometimes and sleeps in her old room and the boys are gone but she’s used to the silence now.
She talks to Justin, always across the safety of a dinner table or in the space of a cab ride. When she kisses his cheek she can feel the pulse of it, his second heart, the magic that she once knew, against her lips.
She wants to swallow him whole.
-
There’s a decades old fight that never broke between them. It sits there and she doesn’t bother bridging the gap. It’s her fault.
“You didn’t call.” There’s no accusation in his tone. Maybe something that could fall at sadness but she doesn’t listen too closely.
“You ran and then you didn’t call.”
“I didn’t run. I left.”
(When she left Alex was nineteen years old and she felt ancient. She didn’t feel any less indestructible though.
This is the true legacy of the Russo family: running at walls and expecting them to fall before you. Some days it’s the only thing that keep them alive.)
-
She can taste it in his mouth. It coats thick against his tongue and there’s a hint of metal and beyond that just the taste of fire.
(Know this-magic is fire. They burned witches once. Tied them and set them alight because it was the only thing that could hurt them. Only the things that know you can truly destroy. )
“I miss you,” she whispers against his lips and isn’t sure to whom she’s speaking. His hand tightens against her waist. She digs her fingers into his back and presses hard.
“I miss you,” she whispers again. The words have lost meaning. Maybe she didn’t mean them in the first place.
-
She leaves afterwards. Gets on a plane and doesn’t look back except for when she does.
She doesn’t talk to Justin, doesn’t send postcards and doesn’t dream of him-doesn’t dream of the magic.
He’s there though. A taste in her mouth, a picture etched into the walls of her heart. He’s there with her, always.