[c-muses] 9 - paramore [decode]
How can I decide what's right?
When you're clouding up my mind
Can't win your losing fight all the time
Not gonna ever own what's mine
The house was still a shambles. A week in his new home, and there were still boxes to unpack, furniture to rearrange and incidentals to put away. With the exception of a few pieces, he’d left most of his furniture back in LA, sold along with the loft. Naturally, Sassy had sent along a good part of it, except for a few items that were, in her words, “too tacky to live.” And the futon in his guest room, which she co-opted for herself.
The black corduroy couch now sat in his living room, along with a single floor lamp and an overturned box serving as his coffee table. Stretched out on the couch with May in his arms, sucking contentedly on her bottle, Tommy surveyed the desolate scene with a grim eye.
She should have been there.
The emptiness was screaming at him and he had no way to fill it. He was stuck waiting, motionless and stagnant in anticipation of something that he could never again feel, someone he would never see again.
She should have been there.
A soft coo from May alerted him to the fact that she’d released her bottle. When she wouldn’t take it back, he set it down on his makeshift table and picked up her burp rag, slinging it over his shoulder before lifting her up against it. As he burped her, gently patting her back, he shut his eyes and tried to shut out the images that filled his head…unpacking with Zee, fighting and flirting over crates and furniture, shopping trips spent with May in her stroller and lost in debates over color and quality, themes and prices and preferences.
They should have been creating their new home together. They should have been together, making this house May’s, his, hers…theirs.
Setting his jaw with very deliberate intent, he called on his power and reached deeper than he had ever dared, into places beyond the magic of his mortal frame and into the depths of his ravaged, aching soul where Titan fire burned…
He felt it sear as he let his magic work and found some comfort in the burn. It was foolish, tapping power that he had no business touching when he had so little control over it, but pain gave him strength enough to keep the flames from raging out of control.
Reality itself shifted as he opened his eyes, heart hammering and chest heaving with the effort it took to keep a leash on the fire. May was still and snuggled against him, long since done and now comfortably huddled against his broad shoulder. One tiny hand clutched his shirt while the other explored the different textures of his bare arm and the soft cotton of his sleeve.
Around him, the house had become a home. The living room was done, furnished and full with every photo in place, every curtain hung and every color chosen. Even the fireplace nearby was going with a comfortable little blaze that lent extra heat to the otherwise cold house. He knew that every other room was much the same: done in blacks and grays, except for May’s room done in soothing pinks and pastels.
Catching sight of his face in the glass of a framed picture of his father on the end table just to the left of the couch, he saw the hellish red of his own eyes, muted by the clear surface…Titan eyes, staring right back into him.
Waiting.
“Stop it.” He whispered at his own reflection. He got no answer.
With a weary sigh, grateful at least to have the worst part of moving in over and done with, Tommy rose with May in his arms and stooped to pick up her bottle, dropping it off in the kitchen sink before heading off to put his daughter to bed.
Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 640
When you're clouding up my mind
Can't win your losing fight all the time
Not gonna ever own what's mine
The house was still a shambles. A week in his new home, and there were still boxes to unpack, furniture to rearrange and incidentals to put away. With the exception of a few pieces, he’d left most of his furniture back in LA, sold along with the loft. Naturally, Sassy had sent along a good part of it, except for a few items that were, in her words, “too tacky to live.” And the futon in his guest room, which she co-opted for herself.
The black corduroy couch now sat in his living room, along with a single floor lamp and an overturned box serving as his coffee table. Stretched out on the couch with May in his arms, sucking contentedly on her bottle, Tommy surveyed the desolate scene with a grim eye.
She should have been there.
The emptiness was screaming at him and he had no way to fill it. He was stuck waiting, motionless and stagnant in anticipation of something that he could never again feel, someone he would never see again.
She should have been there.
A soft coo from May alerted him to the fact that she’d released her bottle. When she wouldn’t take it back, he set it down on his makeshift table and picked up her burp rag, slinging it over his shoulder before lifting her up against it. As he burped her, gently patting her back, he shut his eyes and tried to shut out the images that filled his head…unpacking with Zee, fighting and flirting over crates and furniture, shopping trips spent with May in her stroller and lost in debates over color and quality, themes and prices and preferences.
They should have been creating their new home together. They should have been together, making this house May’s, his, hers…theirs.
Setting his jaw with very deliberate intent, he called on his power and reached deeper than he had ever dared, into places beyond the magic of his mortal frame and into the depths of his ravaged, aching soul where Titan fire burned…
He felt it sear as he let his magic work and found some comfort in the burn. It was foolish, tapping power that he had no business touching when he had so little control over it, but pain gave him strength enough to keep the flames from raging out of control.
Reality itself shifted as he opened his eyes, heart hammering and chest heaving with the effort it took to keep a leash on the fire. May was still and snuggled against him, long since done and now comfortably huddled against his broad shoulder. One tiny hand clutched his shirt while the other explored the different textures of his bare arm and the soft cotton of his sleeve.
Around him, the house had become a home. The living room was done, furnished and full with every photo in place, every curtain hung and every color chosen. Even the fireplace nearby was going with a comfortable little blaze that lent extra heat to the otherwise cold house. He knew that every other room was much the same: done in blacks and grays, except for May’s room done in soothing pinks and pastels.
Catching sight of his face in the glass of a framed picture of his father on the end table just to the left of the couch, he saw the hellish red of his own eyes, muted by the clear surface…Titan eyes, staring right back into him.
Waiting.
“Stop it.” He whispered at his own reflection. He got no answer.
With a weary sigh, grateful at least to have the worst part of moving in over and done with, Tommy rose with May in his arms and stooped to pick up her bottle, dropping it off in the kitchen sink before heading off to put his daughter to bed.
Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 640