never seen the rain

What said happy birthday quite like a trip to right back where it had all started?

He’d tried to talk Hector around on his little gift to his staff - like everyone wouldn’t have enjoyed Bora Bora even more (alright, maybe Lawrence would’ve been pissed about the whole thing, but why should they all suffer because he’d been mugged?) - but it hadn’t flown. Magnus would go out of his way to make some sort of grand gesture for it all, but Linc had still felt that growing discomfort in the pit of his stomach over the last couple of weeks. Was this some sort of a test? Seeing if he was really stable and ready to handle things - whether or not he’d snap and tear someone else’s throat out. It was easier to believe he wouldn’t when Cassie was right there. The reason he needed to keep a hold on himself.

Saying no to her was kind of impossible, especially when she busted out that grin and it felt like the sun sliding out from behind the clouds again. They’d not exactly had much sun at the carnival, but that just made the kaleidoscope of lights feel a little more magical (ha! Not that he was gonna say that out loud to Cassie). There’d been local fairs back home, kids screaming on the rides, begging their parents for a few quid to put in the arcade machines. Mrs Graham had taken him to one, struggling along with him, paying for a couple of trips on the bumper cars. They’d crashed so hard together that his teeth had rattled, but it had been fun. The candy floss had made it, something sweet to tide him over - and it had been needed when his parents had caught them coming back. They’d tugged him inside the flat, his dad asking for a little loan to get him dinner when he thought he couldn’t hear. He’d much rather have had another bag of candy floss.

Or a cupcake - without the vampire design on top.

Linc snorted as he hung his coat up (there was no tossing it wherever in Magnus’ home) and held out a hand for Cassie’s. She’d insisted on the cupcakes, dipping her hand into her pocket for them too when he’d started to look dubiously at them. Why anybody would want to celebrate that in this town was beyond him, but people were still in to that whole Twilight like town folklore stuff and Cassie was … well, Cassie was Cassie, putting a little light on everything with that seemingly inexhaustible well of excitement in her. ”I dunno about that,” Linc murmured, his lips tipping up in an echo of her smile. ”Long as they taste good, that’s all that matters, right?” He’d have called her a little biassed about the whole thing, but that was a line he still wasn’t sure of the borders on.

The trip to the carnival seemed like neutral ground, a hangout - one where his toes were up to that line, nudging an inch over it maybe as he’d dragged her onto the bumper cars and up on the ferris wheel. A bag of candy floss to share (he wasn’t calling it cotton candy, even if that was what had been splashed all over the stall and the bag it had come in), the cupcakes off the stall. His fingers still feeling a little sticky, his palms sweaty enough that he didn’t offer his hand to Cassie as he started up the stairs towards his bedroom. If she wasn’t meant to help him pack - and if there wasn’t a chance Magnus would pop up all smiles and questions at any time - he’d have led her through to the living room instead.

Teeth latched on his lower lip, Linc pushed open his bedroom door. He kinda stepped aside, sweeping a hand past himself to encourage Cassie in. Resisting the urge to look around like he might’ve left discarded socks on the floor, Linc shook his head. ”They’re playing their cards pretty close to their chest. Hector promised a treat, but it’s probably gonna be Magnus trying to introduce us to his 50 times great-grandkids. I don’t think he’s got over the Queen yet.” In more ways than one. What had happened in England had brought up all sorts of things he’d never expected to hear. It wasn’t like Wesley had been old enough to claim he’d slept with Edward III’s wife.

That all seemed pretty wild still, wilder than this somehow, although it had happened back when Jesus was practically still a toddler. In comparison his own life felt kinda tame - thank God. A boy blushing over a girl he liked being in his room. Linc laughed, pushing the door to behind Cassie as she moved in to set the cupcakes down. ”You mean it doesn’t stink like a gym and Lynx?” It’d been every teenaged boy’s cover for sweaty pits at school, an attempt to make those adverts come true and have girls throwing themselves at them (like there was a chance of that). He resisted the urge to sniff himself all the same, hovering there like a big of a lemon before Cassie lit up the candle with just her … witchy juju? … and held it out in front of him.

The heat burned bright in his cheeks, like the candle. Linc was glad the candlelight would hide it a bit at least, its flame fluttering as Cassie rushed through singing Happy BIrthday to him. ”The perfect replacement,” he said solemnly. ”It’s the first time I’ve had one … a cupcake birthday cake.” The number of birthday cakes of any sort could be counted on one hand - two fingers. Mrs Graham that one year and last year when Magnus had given him his first proper birthday (although how he’d known exactly what day it was, he didn’t know). Eyes fixed on Cassie instead of the candle, Linc nodded. ”Yeah, twenty-five, although I guess I’ve got an excuse to always say I’m twenty-three now.” Eternally a twenty-something. In a couple of years Cassie would catch up to him, although maybe what had happened to her skewed that too.

Swallowing hard, Linc let his gaze tick down to the candle. He squinched his eyes shut for a moment, then blew out the candle, a wish rolling through his brain. Please don’t let me fuck up again, please let me keep her. Did that count as two wishes? If it did, then the latter was the important one. Magnus and Cassie had both forgiven him, if he fell again - which was almost a guarantee given that he could live seven hundred years now - they would again, helping pick him back up. His eyes fixed on Cassie’s when they opened, his smile curling slow again. ”You gonna ask what I wished for?” he asked lightly. His hand cupped hers lightly, lifting the cupcake up just far enough that he could nip some frosting from one side of it - zombie brains, yum. Linc grazed his lower lip with his tongue, getting another burst of the sugar as he eased it towards Cassie’s mouth.

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 1247

He’d never had any other kids over. His parents probably wouldn’t have been conscious enough to realise there were two kids playing with the plastic cars that were missing wheels and the random scatter of Lego bricks in his bedroom – the remnants of those little Christmas presents they’d handed out in primary school and the few birthday parties of other kids in his class he’d been able to go to (why bother feeding your kid when some nosy bitch from one of the big houses nearer to the school would do it instead?). There’d been no way he was opening himself up to that embarrassment as a kid, even at 5 Linc had known there was a pecking order on the estate and the Crownes were bottom of it, despite the loftiness of their name. The thought of a girl being in there? Shudder-worthy. Although, by the time he’d been old enough to notice them it had been the spare room in Wes’ flat he’d been sleeping in.

Girls had always been the crowning glory at the club. You convinced the pretty ones to come in and you’d get the uglier ones and the men following them (the teachings of Wesley, rank around the edges even then). There’d been one or two who’d found their way into that makeshift bedroom, wandering away from Wesley and the after party. They’d giggle over the embarrassment that rose up his cheeks as he’d shifted uneasily and babbled. Wes would always call them back out, telling him there was time for that yet. A wink and his stomach would twist. If only he’d had the brains to see what was wrong then.

That would mean no Cassie though and she’d been one of the very few good things that had come out of what had happened at that last party – even if he’d almost broken all of this when she’d panicked and that weird place in his brain had cracked wide open again. He wasn’t ready to wish any of this away, none of it worked that way anyway. He could hope for the bridge to repair itself one bolt at a time, and for his cheeks not to be heating up, but those were the small things in comparison, ones that didn’t leave that squirming sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Linc grimaced faintly, glancing from the top of his dresser back to Cassie. Everything here had different names and in those first few weeks, he’d let Magnus handle the small things (it wasn’t like he was used to being autonomous that way anyway). ”Yeah, I guess it is. Lynx sounds a little bit wilder than axe – eau de wild animal instead of eau de lumberjack.” Anything with a strong enough scent to cover up the smell of teenaged boy. Thoughts of checking that he wasn’t ripe after that trip through the carnival vanished as Linc grinned at Cassie. ”In the woods I guess, which probably means they don’t small that bad.” If they lived around here they’d probably be blamed for the bodies that seemed to drop on a daily basis though. Mountain lions and lynxes, the real plague of Mystic Falls.

Instead of teenaged boys with broken hearts.

He’d have sunk into that thought, the nerves taking on that edge that would swallow him whole if he didn’t take care to drag himself away from it, but Cassie was Cassie and she bounced from topic to topic, covering up the bad with the candle bright. What he felt for Cassie flared in his chest just the same, his eyes on her, not the candle in the moment before he blew. ”At least it’s not six hundred and twenty-five,” he quipped. He probably could’ve figured out exactly how old Magnus was if he started counting generations of royals but that was a headache in math form. Cassie had thought maybe he was older that first day, some ancient thing trapped in a twenty-three year old’s body forever. Scary and the future one day – as long as he kept his nose clean.

It'd been tempting to wish for that, but what echoed in his head was a twist on it, as much about Cassie as it was not disappointing Magnus again or losing his mind in a way that’d scared the shit out of him once he’d started to realise what was going on. Linc had thought it all, hoped it would stick as he held onto Cassie’s wrist and blew. His lips curled as she cheered, his cheeks warming again as he kept his eyes on hers and took a bite out of the cupcake. Close enough that he could’ve just dropped their hands and inch and shared the taste of it with her – but they weren’t there yet. He’d asked to be friends, had wanted to work his way to more of it. The pigeon steps were killing him though. ”Never said a word about them before and they never really came true. Maybe it’s the other way around…” Or maybe he’d just been in the sort of shitty circumstances where begging for social services to get him out of those places was never gonna come true.

Magnus hadn’t just wiped those places out and started everything over again, he’d given him a place where he wasn’t gonna have to waste wishes on asking for those things. A place where he could watch Cassie nip at the icing of his cupcake and snort as she went to paste his in his face. Linc took it, taking another bite to occupy his mouth as much as to satisfy his non-existent appetite for anything but … nope. He peeled back the paper on his, taking a bite that took in far more than just the frosting. There was something in the centre of it, sweet and gooey, but he couldn’t have said what it was. Living through people who could taste and actually enjoy it had become his go to, his tongue swiping his upper lip as Cassie extolled the virtues of raspberry sauce. Would he taste it is he kissed the little speck of it from her lower lip?

An apology for what she’d gone through stuck in his throat. Linc swallowed the sawdust like mouthful, wanting to reach out with sticky fingers to draw Cassie close, but she was scooting past it. ”At least,” he rasped. ”I’ve always had a baby face. Would’ve got IDed everywhere.” If Wesley’s hadn’t been the only club he was in then and that man couldn’t have given two shits. ”It’s only a little while, right? Just a blip and maybe those two years’ll come in handy sometime.” His gaze roved over Cassie’s face, lingering on her smile in the end before he knuckled his own lips and forced his gaze higher. ”I’m sorry,” he managed finally. What happened didn’t feel like the sort of question to drop in there when she’d gone out of her way to make his day special – happy.

Another bite of the cupcake stuck in his throat, probably catching on the held back question and Linc was setting the cupcake aside. Without a word Cassie bounced from the sucker punch of her past to the packing she’d promised to help him with. He sank down on his bed, reached under it to pull out the suitcase Jo had deposited in his room a couple of days ago – it wasn’t like he’d had a lot to bring with him the last time. ”Only on Modays,” he joked, although he held a straight expression for about two seconds. ”Cold probably, although sometimes it feels hot enough to roast your … to fry you like an egg in summer.” Like the sun wouldn’t do that to him now anyway, forget a smear of the pound shop sun cream Mrs Graham would try and put on his neck and shoulders in the summer – factor five billion wouldn’t do anything now.

Linc set the case down next to him, unzipping it and opening it. It still had that new stuff smell, although that wouldn’t last. An hour in the hold with Hannya’s bag and it would smell of perfume and probably something worse. He shrugged as Cassie turned around, stretching back on his bed to tug open the closet doors at the end of it. Freezing at Cassie’s question he stared at her, mouth open. His t-shirt had popped up, revealing an inch of skin and the thin grey edge of the waistband of his boxers. He almost eased back, pulling his top down to cover it, like things had suddenly turned intimate. ”I think I can probably handle those myself,” he said hoarsely, the heat rushing up towards his brows in a scarlet rush. ”You don’t wanna look in there.” Not that there was much to hide. Boxers weren’t exactly thongs and budgie smugglers, there was no leopard print in there, just the mental image of Cassie with her hands … oh God. This wasn’t friendly, it was a rush of heat he folded forward to hide, grabbing for the cupcake like it’d somehow take them back to when this conversation hadn’t felt so…

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 1530 (soz!)

There were no ways out of the situation his parents had dropped him in. Taking the girls up to the party that last night under Wesley’s thumb, Linc had figured his only way out was in a box. Wesley had been promising for months that he’d turn him at some point, because who didn’t want to spend a life partying, draining kids too stupid to realise that sometimes things really were too good to be true. A carrot on a stick for someone who might’ve been hungry enough to beg for it in the end. Linc didn’t know whether it had been good luck or bad in the end that he had been turned, but in those last few moments before Magnus had appeared, he’d figured that at least there was an end to it. Not really now. He had maybe dozens of lifetimes to consider all the crap he’d done in his undead life.

How many wishes had Magnus made in his seven hundred plus years? How many of them had come true or had he really stopped bothering? That was too big a question to drop over the breakfast table. Maybe he just needed to borrow some of Cassie’s optimism instead. Linc watch her lips curve as she smiled, dragging his gaze up quickly to her eyes when he realised he’d been wondering if the icing would be all the sweeter on them. ”Yeah, it’s better now,” he confirmed quietly. His shoulders rose up and down, his smile finally mirroring hers. He wasn’t about to plunge the mood into the toilet when things were as sweet as the icing between them, instead of copper penny bitter. ”Maybe, I guess we’ll see.” If he managed to stop that bitterness from rushing back in, they could. If he could stop himself from ever hurting Cassie or anybody else that way again.

He could keep his attention on his own cupcake at least, washing away the thought of anything else with the sugary bite of the frosting and filling. For a moment it felt like that Harry Potter stuff – didn’t one of the books have a teacher handing out chocolate when a run in with one of those dementor things seemed like it had sucked all the happiness out of you? Sadness and grief for a life that was shittier than it should’ve been swallowed down with bites of cupcake. Would a kiss have done the same? Drawing all of this out of them until all that was left was those warm feelings, the ones he was sure had been mutual before he’d gone and ruined it all – at least temporarily.

I’m sorry didn’t seem enough to make up for the nightmares Cassie herself had lived through. She was brushing it off now, but he got the impression that everything that had happened with the vampire had been worse than what he’d lived – well, half lived – through. It hadn’t left Cassie bitter, hadn’t dimmed that light in her at all. If he wanted to drag them down into that and ruin everything she’d done to make today good for him he could’ve tugged her down onto his bed and offered up an ear to talk it all through, but Cassie didn’t seem to want it. Linc nodded mutely to her question. ”Close enough to it. I … Magnus managed to move me between, you know, and waking up.” To somewhere safe where he could complete his transition. It seemed as though Cassie didn’t really have anyone making sure of that bit for her. Linc stared at her for a minute as she told her story, then forced his mouth shut, knuckling his lips like he could cover up that he’d just been staring at her. ”That’s … so fucked up. I’m sorry’s not enough for that. I am sorry you had to go through it, but, I’m glad you’re here.” That was because of it, he knew that well enough, the coven’s loss – of whatever they’d been trying to do – was somehow his gain.

Empathy, sympathy, some ounce of guilt, vanished as Cassie looked back at him. Linc’s brows furrowed, but he reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding his cupcake, brushing his fingertips against her arm. Not pulling her in like he really wanted to, enough to acknowledge the apology though. His lips curled up slowly, the colour in his cheeks rising. ”I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” he promised. Not when he was going to be desperate to get out of there, sweating like an addict with no hope of a fix the entire time. ”I’m glad you felt like you could tell me … and honestly, any time you do wanna talk about it, you know I’m here, right?” A shoulder to lean on, even if having her pressed up against his side while she told him the worst things that happened to her was going to be hard for other reasons, having Cassie right there and not being able to brush that sadness from her face or kiss it from her lips.

It left an ache in his chest as she turned away. Things could’ve been that way, if his loss of control hadn’t sent things spinning out of control for her. He rubbed his knuckles over his cheek, trying to work the blush out of them. Cassie was joking, but it still felt like there was a stilted edge to it. ”Only hot on Mondays,” he explained, his grin growing. ”Rest of the week it’s freezing.” Especially in a flat where your parents spent the money they should’ve used for heating it on frying themselves. ”Hector’s probably gonna be bringing half a dozen trunks, so I imagine there’s plenty of room in the hold.” Plenty of room there to threaten to put them in if things kicked off on the plane – which seemed to be almost inevitable given that it was an all staff thing.

Hector probably would’ve had something to say about Cassie’s packing style, or what was going in the suitcase all together. Him and Magnus would’ve stood there comparing the merits of waistcoats and tweed, instead of just briefly inspecting his sweaters before tossing them in. It wouldn’t have bothered him if they stayed wrinkled, but that was probably no-no number 72 in their list. Linc’s smile flickered as Cassie glanced at him, her blush rising as he realised he’d almost said the word balls aloud. ”Right,” he said hoarsely, turning his hand so that the overhead light in his room sparkled off of it. ”All the ringless vamps’ll be jealous.” With Lawrence leading the jealousy charge since some woman had apparently stolen his ring and he’d been restricted to dodging sunbeams ever since.

It was too late to put the horse back in the barn, or whatever the saying was, the embarrassment had already bitten. In just a single heartbeat – human fast or his plodding thing – the faint blush went to what would’ve been a furious burn with a bit more blood in his system. He’d been stretching back to open his closet for her, but then Cassie had hit him with a sucker punch that caught him in that strip of bare skin, the ripples of which rushed down, more than his cheeks suddenly heating. Linc froze for a second before the heat turned into a tsunami that wanted to drown him in the sudden mental images. Cassie was staring at him, and oh God, that was making it worse. Linc blinked, drawing in a slow breath as he curled over the edge of his bed, with his forearms planted on his thighs and nothing cooling off.

His eyes flicked up to her and away as her blush intensified too, like both of them were caught in some sort of strange spell. He wanted to apologise, but that was only going to draw more attention to the issue. Linc swallowed hard as Cassie turned away, only allowing himself to look at her then, as though her back was safer territory than her bright pink cheeks. ”Sweatpants? You think Magnus would let me have anything stained in this place?” Sweatpants … jeans. Fuck The laugh that rolled out of him was almost a groan, even that small amount of vibration dangerous. Linc propped his elbows on his knees as he tried to stifle the almost hysterical sound. ”You meant trousers … or jeans. You know pants are something else in England right?” He covered his eyes with one hand while he reached down and gave the waistband of his boxers a cautious flick. ”Second from the bottom. The middle one’s the … other kind. I think I can handle those myself.” Especially when that image of Cassie with her hands on them, where his had been just seconds before, was still raw enough to keep him hunched over there.

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 1480