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Tomorrow is Blog Like It Isn't You Day, I am totally doing this. I'll leave you to guess who the blogger is. Responses to comments will be by said mystery blogger, so watch what you say! ;)
In other news:
Title: Love is Like a Victory March
Fandom: Original (Future Road to Moonstone Universe)
Pairing: Hadriel/Michael
Rating: PG-ish
Notes: Another 'not really sure where it came from' fic. Watch out for the backwards timeline
Summary: The world is a safe place, a better one. It can be seen spread out below them, from the sixty fifth floor of the Justice Building. (The name is ironic; it is meant to be. Hadriel picked it and Michael could not be bothered to argue with him.) Two ex-government agents have had enough. Taking over the world ensues.
6.
The world is a safe place, a better one. It can be seen spread out below them, from the sixty fifth floor of the Justice Building. (The name is ironic; it is meant to be. Hadriel picked it and Michael could not be bothered to argue with him.)
Michael stands looking out through the window that is nothing more than a door, a gateway to the clean cool air outside. He thinks about taking one step, then another, his fingers flexing and sparking green as he considers just going for a while. But he can’t; Barbara is standing behind him, and he knows any moment now he is going to hear her throat clear pointedly as she taps a staccato rhythm on her clipboard with a pen.
He sighs.
“One day I will get an afternoon off,” he says.
“One day you’ll be dead,” Hadriel says, emerging from the shadows at the corner of the room. Michael turns around and glares at him. This walking through walls thing is sort of unnecessary, and it nearly gives Barb a heart attack every time it happens. Which is probably why Had does it, but still.
“Problem?” Michael asks mildly, instead of complaining and Had smiles at him, the twist and pull of his scar grotesquely fascinating and beautiful.
“Not really,” he says, and stretches. “And if there were any problems, I would have sorted them by now. I leave you to deal with the diplomacy shit.”
Barb sighs disapprovingly. “I’ll just leave you, sir,” she says grimly, already tucking her clipboard under one arm. “You don’t have a meeting until two. Although…” she checks her watch, “you do have a press conference as well. So make sure you memorise your speech.”
“Yes Barb,” Michael says obediently, just to get her out of the room, and she goes.
Once the door clicks shut behind her, Hadriel raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I just kill her?” he asks plaintively, and the note of childish petulance makes Michael smile.
“No,” he says. “Without Barb I wouldn’t be organised. And if I’m not organised, you don’t get to have your fun.”
“Oh yeah,” says Had, absently ghosting fingers across the nape of Michael’s neck. “I’d miss blowing things up.”
“And since you are Lord High Enforcer, or whatever the hell your title is this week, not blowing things up would send out the wrong message,” Michael says, and there is a glint of amusement in his eyes as Hadriel slides up onto the only desk in the room, sitting so his legs are dangling, swinging in the air. “So no killing Barb.”
“She doesn’t like me,” Hadriel complains, leaning back on his hands and licking his lips. “She’s always telling me to go away because you’re busy.”
“I am busy,” Michael points out.
Hadriel smirks then and reaches out a casual hand to tug Michael to him, into the space between his knees. “But you always have time for me,” he says, and his fingertips burn the skin on the back of Michael’s neck.
Michael laughs.
“Always.”
5.
It is only after what becomes known as Black Tuesday that Michael meets Robin Toledo.
The rebels have put up a good fight Michael thinks, as two of his guards let him into the grim concrete cell. He can’t deny that their message is a powerful one: freedom, democracy, a chance for their voices to be heard. Yes, a powerful message but the wrong one. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and thinks about this as he stands, just looking. Behind him is Hadriel, silent as a ghost but twice as conspicuous.
“Did you honestly think that in the end you would win?” he asks Toledo softly, and knows that because there is no triumph in his voice, no disdain; it makes his question just that little bit worse. He is horrifically, genuinely curious.
“It wasn’t about winning.” Toledo looks at him with tired brown eyes. In another life, Michael thinks, this man could have been a powerful ally. He is persuasive, charismatic and fiercely intelligent.
He is dangerous.
“No?”
“No. It was about making people see that what you are doing is wrong.” Absently, Toledo goes to rub his eyes; he is pulled up short by the manacles on his wrists. “It’s odd; people just… accept what you are up to. They don’t care, they’re not interested. I wanted to stop that, shake them up. I wanted them to see that their freedom to think, to question, was being eroded.” He sighs, a little sadly. “At least it worked.”
“Ah.” Michael rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well yes, it did. But now it’s all over.” His smile is as sharp as glass and behind him Hadriel nods in agreement. “And everything will be exactly how I want it to be.”
“Will it?” Toledo asks, and there is still that spark of defiance in him.
“Sadly,” Michael tells him, “yes.” He glances over his shoulder at Hadriel, who is smiling faintly. “He’s all yours.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But do try not to make too much of a mess.”
On his way out, Michael shuts the door on the first of the screams.
4.
Most of the world leaders are dead. Unexplained events, the reporter is saying on the six o’clock news, tears streaming unheeded down her face as she stands outside Parliament. No one is stepping forward, stepping up to the mark; no one wants to be the next to die. Countries are in crises - leaderless, lost, and Michael smiles and gropes for the remote, hand sliding across the table beside the bed, knocking jars and bottles out of the way, sending them crashing to the floor.
Hadriel lifts his head, eyes dark; lips sleek and pink and satisfied in the half light. “Turn that off, will you?” he grumbles. “God, you always bring your work to bed.”
“Nonsense,” Michael says, giving up on the search for the remote, “I’m just checking on how everything is going. We need a bit of chaos, you know.”
“World domination,” Hadriel sighs, turning his face into Michael’s absent caress, sliding lips and tongue across his palm in a sly, subtle request. “Who knew it would be this much work?”
Michael laughs, low and breathless, and buries his other hand in Hadriel’s dark hair. “Don’t complain,” he says, “you’re the one who gets all the fun. Well,” he amends, “most of it.” He smiles at Hadriel’s low, filthy chuckle. “Which reminds me: how did it go today?”
Hadriel hums his approval, either at the topic or the way Michael has shifted, tangling their legs together. “Well. He begged before the end, you know.”
“Really?” Almost absently Michael blinks, and the remote zooms from its hiding place and lands next to the pillow. He reaches out and clicks the television off. In the silence he can hear Hadriel’s soft murmur of satisfaction. “I would have thought he’d have more dignity than that.”
“Prime minister or not,” Hadriel says, eyes slitted and lazy with pleasure, “he was still a man. And no man wants to die.” He laughs at the sparks Michael conjures with his fingertips and retaliates with some of his own, blowing on them so they dance up into the air like fireflies, circling around their heads.
“Show off,” Michael grumbles. “You always were better than me at all this.”
“Planning is your strength,” Hadriel agrees. “Our tutors always said I was more adept at the destructive side of things.” He smiles because this has never concerned him and Michael knows now that this has always been coming, ever since they started school together. This is what they were, are, destined for. Two perfectly complemented individuals, and no one had stopped to think that partnering them could result in something different, something new.
Later, much later, Had says sleepily: “Tomorrow, I want to go to a different continent. Kill someone there, instead.”
“Mm,” says Michael, who is almost asleep. “Whatever you want.”
3.
Most people don’t know that not so long ago, they were the good guys.
There has always been a system in the City - people who manifest any magic, any power, are taken to the academy. Hadriel and Michael were picked up at the same time, in the same van. They had the same lessons and shared the same dormitory. They learned well. Too well.
The first thing on Michael’s list had been to get rid of every other Gifted. Poison had worked really quite well, up until people realised that all these deaths were connected. Then the trouble had started as Gifted went into hiding. After that, it had taken skill, cunning, and Michael was forced to use an alternative means of disposing of people.
Now, it comes down to this:
“Please,” says Katelyn, and tears are streaming down her face, “Please don’t do this.”
In another time, another life, she had been known as Miss Keen, and she had taught the pair of them. She had been young then; pretty, idealistic, her smile ever ready and a comforting word for each and every child. She had taught Michael and she had taught Hadriel and privately Michael had always suspected Hadriel had a bit of a crush on her. Now she just looks tired, frightened, her hair lank and bruises under her eyes.
“Sorry Miss Keen,” Michael says, for old time’s sake. “It really is nothing personal.”
“Why?” Katelyn asks. “Why are you doing this?”
Michael sighs; they all ask the same questions. “Because I want to,” he says. “And because I can.”
He’s lying, of course.
Later, Hadriel says without much inflection: “You killed her.”
They are standing by the large window in the living room of Hadriel’s flat. The sun is sinking and the sky is lit like fire, painting their features with bloody light. Michael looks up at Hadriel, finds his expression inscrutable and looks away.
“Yes,” he says, “I did.”
“Was she particularly dangerous?” Hadriel asks, almost wistfully.
Michael sighs. “No,” he admits, “but she could have been.”
And Hadriel smiles in one of his lightning quick changes of mood. “Let’s talk about something else,” he says then, and shoves Michael back through the window, hard; glass shattering as he throws him out into the rapidly darkening sky.
And Michael yells with laughter as Hadriel hurls himself out after, phantom wings flexing, and together they burn their way through the atmosphere.
2.
The first time.
The first time is special.
Michael is standing over someone - he can’t remember who; faces blur in his memory after so many times of going through the exact same scenario. He is caught, torn: should he, shouldn’t he? This is where his plan starts; this is where it begins.
Except…
Except Hadriel is there, and Michael doesn’t want to do this in front of him. He doesn’t want to take this risk, because what if Hadriel sees what he does, and what if he says No?
And Hadriel stands next to him and sighs his disappointment. “Honestly Michael,” he says, “I though this was the whole point.”
And he shoots the first one in the face.
Nothing special, just a gun. No powers, nothing. Just a bang and some smoke and a soft, surprised grunt. And Michael stares at him, disbelieving, whilst Hadriel just smiles, slightly bemused.
“Do you have any idea…” Michael says, because this is the first step and there is now no turning back. “I mean, what did you…”
“We are not having a Moment,” Hadriel says, darting a sly glance at him, “if that’s what you’re thinking. I read your notebook. Michael, I know.”
“Oh,” Michael says, and sags with relief, “oh thank god.”
Hadriel laughs. “So,” he says, twirling the gun, “world domination, eh? I could work with that.”
1.
It doesn’t begin in a particularly important way, just Michael on his back gazing up through the leaves of a tree at the blue sky above.
He’s thinking, wondering in his head: How long until the next time? How long until the next mission?
He’s thinking: How long until Hadriel’s bandages come off again?
He’s thinking: I don’t want this any more.
And really, it’s as simple as that.
You can’t escape from the facility - you can’t get away from the government when you’re Gifted. You work for them and they own you. And suddenly Michael is very, very sick of the whole thing.
There is, of course, a solution.
Michael is a rational man - he thinks his ideas through very carefully and never for one moment wonders whether he has, at last, gone insane. World domination is for cartoon super villains, people with grudges and terrorists. World domination is not for government agents and the Gifted. He thinks about this, too, and then he gets out his notebook and chews his lip; considering.
He writes:
1. Monarchic rule means less spent on running the world
2. Fewer wars
3. Less danger
4. Hadriel will be safe
The last is foolish; Hadriel is always safe, it’s impossible for him not to be, but Michael has decided he is sick and tired of being shot at. He is sick and tired of having to stem Hadriel’s blood with his hands. He is sick and tired of thinking But what if this time, what if this time it doesn’t work?
Simple things, world changing things.
“What’re you doing?” Hadriel asks, from where he is perched up in the tree. He has seen the notebook, but not what is written in it. Not yet. He looks down at Michael and smiles, sweetly, and Michael thinks Yes, for this I’d do it. Of course I would.
“Oh,” he says out loud, and snaps the notebook shut. “Nothing important.”
In other news:
Title: Love is Like a Victory March
Fandom: Original (Future Road to Moonstone Universe)
Pairing: Hadriel/Michael
Rating: PG-ish
Notes: Another 'not really sure where it came from' fic. Watch out for the backwards timeline
Summary: The world is a safe place, a better one. It can be seen spread out below them, from the sixty fifth floor of the Justice Building. (The name is ironic; it is meant to be. Hadriel picked it and Michael could not be bothered to argue with him.) Two ex-government agents have had enough. Taking over the world ensues.
6.
The world is a safe place, a better one. It can be seen spread out below them, from the sixty fifth floor of the Justice Building. (The name is ironic; it is meant to be. Hadriel picked it and Michael could not be bothered to argue with him.)
Michael stands looking out through the window that is nothing more than a door, a gateway to the clean cool air outside. He thinks about taking one step, then another, his fingers flexing and sparking green as he considers just going for a while. But he can’t; Barbara is standing behind him, and he knows any moment now he is going to hear her throat clear pointedly as she taps a staccato rhythm on her clipboard with a pen.
He sighs.
“One day I will get an afternoon off,” he says.
“One day you’ll be dead,” Hadriel says, emerging from the shadows at the corner of the room. Michael turns around and glares at him. This walking through walls thing is sort of unnecessary, and it nearly gives Barb a heart attack every time it happens. Which is probably why Had does it, but still.
“Problem?” Michael asks mildly, instead of complaining and Had smiles at him, the twist and pull of his scar grotesquely fascinating and beautiful.
“Not really,” he says, and stretches. “And if there were any problems, I would have sorted them by now. I leave you to deal with the diplomacy shit.”
Barb sighs disapprovingly. “I’ll just leave you, sir,” she says grimly, already tucking her clipboard under one arm. “You don’t have a meeting until two. Although…” she checks her watch, “you do have a press conference as well. So make sure you memorise your speech.”
“Yes Barb,” Michael says obediently, just to get her out of the room, and she goes.
Once the door clicks shut behind her, Hadriel raises an eyebrow. “Can’t I just kill her?” he asks plaintively, and the note of childish petulance makes Michael smile.
“No,” he says. “Without Barb I wouldn’t be organised. And if I’m not organised, you don’t get to have your fun.”
“Oh yeah,” says Had, absently ghosting fingers across the nape of Michael’s neck. “I’d miss blowing things up.”
“And since you are Lord High Enforcer, or whatever the hell your title is this week, not blowing things up would send out the wrong message,” Michael says, and there is a glint of amusement in his eyes as Hadriel slides up onto the only desk in the room, sitting so his legs are dangling, swinging in the air. “So no killing Barb.”
“She doesn’t like me,” Hadriel complains, leaning back on his hands and licking his lips. “She’s always telling me to go away because you’re busy.”
“I am busy,” Michael points out.
Hadriel smirks then and reaches out a casual hand to tug Michael to him, into the space between his knees. “But you always have time for me,” he says, and his fingertips burn the skin on the back of Michael’s neck.
Michael laughs.
“Always.”
5.
It is only after what becomes known as Black Tuesday that Michael meets Robin Toledo.
The rebels have put up a good fight Michael thinks, as two of his guards let him into the grim concrete cell. He can’t deny that their message is a powerful one: freedom, democracy, a chance for their voices to be heard. Yes, a powerful message but the wrong one. He clicks his tongue against his teeth and thinks about this as he stands, just looking. Behind him is Hadriel, silent as a ghost but twice as conspicuous.
“Did you honestly think that in the end you would win?” he asks Toledo softly, and knows that because there is no triumph in his voice, no disdain; it makes his question just that little bit worse. He is horrifically, genuinely curious.
“It wasn’t about winning.” Toledo looks at him with tired brown eyes. In another life, Michael thinks, this man could have been a powerful ally. He is persuasive, charismatic and fiercely intelligent.
He is dangerous.
“No?”
“No. It was about making people see that what you are doing is wrong.” Absently, Toledo goes to rub his eyes; he is pulled up short by the manacles on his wrists. “It’s odd; people just… accept what you are up to. They don’t care, they’re not interested. I wanted to stop that, shake them up. I wanted them to see that their freedom to think, to question, was being eroded.” He sighs, a little sadly. “At least it worked.”
“Ah.” Michael rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Well yes, it did. But now it’s all over.” His smile is as sharp as glass and behind him Hadriel nods in agreement. “And everything will be exactly how I want it to be.”
“Will it?” Toledo asks, and there is still that spark of defiance in him.
“Sadly,” Michael tells him, “yes.” He glances over his shoulder at Hadriel, who is smiling faintly. “He’s all yours.”
“Really?”
“Yes. But do try not to make too much of a mess.”
On his way out, Michael shuts the door on the first of the screams.
4.
Most of the world leaders are dead. Unexplained events, the reporter is saying on the six o’clock news, tears streaming unheeded down her face as she stands outside Parliament. No one is stepping forward, stepping up to the mark; no one wants to be the next to die. Countries are in crises - leaderless, lost, and Michael smiles and gropes for the remote, hand sliding across the table beside the bed, knocking jars and bottles out of the way, sending them crashing to the floor.
Hadriel lifts his head, eyes dark; lips sleek and pink and satisfied in the half light. “Turn that off, will you?” he grumbles. “God, you always bring your work to bed.”
“Nonsense,” Michael says, giving up on the search for the remote, “I’m just checking on how everything is going. We need a bit of chaos, you know.”
“World domination,” Hadriel sighs, turning his face into Michael’s absent caress, sliding lips and tongue across his palm in a sly, subtle request. “Who knew it would be this much work?”
Michael laughs, low and breathless, and buries his other hand in Hadriel’s dark hair. “Don’t complain,” he says, “you’re the one who gets all the fun. Well,” he amends, “most of it.” He smiles at Hadriel’s low, filthy chuckle. “Which reminds me: how did it go today?”
Hadriel hums his approval, either at the topic or the way Michael has shifted, tangling their legs together. “Well. He begged before the end, you know.”
“Really?” Almost absently Michael blinks, and the remote zooms from its hiding place and lands next to the pillow. He reaches out and clicks the television off. In the silence he can hear Hadriel’s soft murmur of satisfaction. “I would have thought he’d have more dignity than that.”
“Prime minister or not,” Hadriel says, eyes slitted and lazy with pleasure, “he was still a man. And no man wants to die.” He laughs at the sparks Michael conjures with his fingertips and retaliates with some of his own, blowing on them so they dance up into the air like fireflies, circling around their heads.
“Show off,” Michael grumbles. “You always were better than me at all this.”
“Planning is your strength,” Hadriel agrees. “Our tutors always said I was more adept at the destructive side of things.” He smiles because this has never concerned him and Michael knows now that this has always been coming, ever since they started school together. This is what they were, are, destined for. Two perfectly complemented individuals, and no one had stopped to think that partnering them could result in something different, something new.
Later, much later, Had says sleepily: “Tomorrow, I want to go to a different continent. Kill someone there, instead.”
“Mm,” says Michael, who is almost asleep. “Whatever you want.”
3.
Most people don’t know that not so long ago, they were the good guys.
There has always been a system in the City - people who manifest any magic, any power, are taken to the academy. Hadriel and Michael were picked up at the same time, in the same van. They had the same lessons and shared the same dormitory. They learned well. Too well.
The first thing on Michael’s list had been to get rid of every other Gifted. Poison had worked really quite well, up until people realised that all these deaths were connected. Then the trouble had started as Gifted went into hiding. After that, it had taken skill, cunning, and Michael was forced to use an alternative means of disposing of people.
Now, it comes down to this:
“Please,” says Katelyn, and tears are streaming down her face, “Please don’t do this.”
In another time, another life, she had been known as Miss Keen, and she had taught the pair of them. She had been young then; pretty, idealistic, her smile ever ready and a comforting word for each and every child. She had taught Michael and she had taught Hadriel and privately Michael had always suspected Hadriel had a bit of a crush on her. Now she just looks tired, frightened, her hair lank and bruises under her eyes.
“Sorry Miss Keen,” Michael says, for old time’s sake. “It really is nothing personal.”
“Why?” Katelyn asks. “Why are you doing this?”
Michael sighs; they all ask the same questions. “Because I want to,” he says. “And because I can.”
He’s lying, of course.
Later, Hadriel says without much inflection: “You killed her.”
They are standing by the large window in the living room of Hadriel’s flat. The sun is sinking and the sky is lit like fire, painting their features with bloody light. Michael looks up at Hadriel, finds his expression inscrutable and looks away.
“Yes,” he says, “I did.”
“Was she particularly dangerous?” Hadriel asks, almost wistfully.
Michael sighs. “No,” he admits, “but she could have been.”
And Hadriel smiles in one of his lightning quick changes of mood. “Let’s talk about something else,” he says then, and shoves Michael back through the window, hard; glass shattering as he throws him out into the rapidly darkening sky.
And Michael yells with laughter as Hadriel hurls himself out after, phantom wings flexing, and together they burn their way through the atmosphere.
2.
The first time.
The first time is special.
Michael is standing over someone - he can’t remember who; faces blur in his memory after so many times of going through the exact same scenario. He is caught, torn: should he, shouldn’t he? This is where his plan starts; this is where it begins.
Except…
Except Hadriel is there, and Michael doesn’t want to do this in front of him. He doesn’t want to take this risk, because what if Hadriel sees what he does, and what if he says No?
And Hadriel stands next to him and sighs his disappointment. “Honestly Michael,” he says, “I though this was the whole point.”
And he shoots the first one in the face.
Nothing special, just a gun. No powers, nothing. Just a bang and some smoke and a soft, surprised grunt. And Michael stares at him, disbelieving, whilst Hadriel just smiles, slightly bemused.
“Do you have any idea…” Michael says, because this is the first step and there is now no turning back. “I mean, what did you…”
“We are not having a Moment,” Hadriel says, darting a sly glance at him, “if that’s what you’re thinking. I read your notebook. Michael, I know.”
“Oh,” Michael says, and sags with relief, “oh thank god.”
Hadriel laughs. “So,” he says, twirling the gun, “world domination, eh? I could work with that.”
1.
It doesn’t begin in a particularly important way, just Michael on his back gazing up through the leaves of a tree at the blue sky above.
He’s thinking, wondering in his head: How long until the next time? How long until the next mission?
He’s thinking: How long until Hadriel’s bandages come off again?
He’s thinking: I don’t want this any more.
And really, it’s as simple as that.
You can’t escape from the facility - you can’t get away from the government when you’re Gifted. You work for them and they own you. And suddenly Michael is very, very sick of the whole thing.
There is, of course, a solution.
Michael is a rational man - he thinks his ideas through very carefully and never for one moment wonders whether he has, at last, gone insane. World domination is for cartoon super villains, people with grudges and terrorists. World domination is not for government agents and the Gifted. He thinks about this, too, and then he gets out his notebook and chews his lip; considering.
He writes:
1. Monarchic rule means less spent on running the world
2. Fewer wars
3. Less danger
4. Hadriel will be safe
The last is foolish; Hadriel is always safe, it’s impossible for him not to be, but Michael has decided he is sick and tired of being shot at. He is sick and tired of having to stem Hadriel’s blood with his hands. He is sick and tired of thinking But what if this time, what if this time it doesn’t work?
Simple things, world changing things.
“What’re you doing?” Hadriel asks, from where he is perched up in the tree. He has seen the notebook, but not what is written in it. Not yet. He looks down at Michael and smiles, sweetly, and Michael thinks Yes, for this I’d do it. Of course I would.
“Oh,” he says out loud, and snaps the notebook shut. “Nothing important.”