#riley’s 31 days of angstmas

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Title from Save Me From the Monster in My Head by Welshly Arms

*takes place between Chain of Iron and Chain of Thorns*

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Hold Me Steady When I’m Freaking Out

“Here’s something for your hand.” Alastair said as handed a cold rag to Thomas to wrap around his knuckles. Thomas gave him a non-committal grunt in response, not meeting his eye.

Thomas hadn’t said a word since Alastair had dragged him by the wrist into the empty infirmary of the London Institute. The only response Alastair was getting out of him was grunts and the occasional head nod. He was a little bit dismayed by the other man’s demeanor if he was being honest, but still, Alastair steadied himself and grabbed out his stele to trace an iratze onto Thomas’s arm.

Thomas again rebuffed him, snatching his arm away when Alastair gripped it.

“Tom-”

“No, I don’t want you to heal then, Alastair. I want to keep the marks.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Alastair couldn’t help but roll his eyes in exasperation. “This isn’t about us, Thomas. This is about you punching Augustus Pounceby, breaking his nose and nearly your own hand in the process, and how you are too stubborn to even let me heal you properly. Please, enlighten me as to how any of that relates to us.”

“This is the first time you’ve spoken to me in weeks, Alastair. And you only did so because I was injured, that is something I would love to talk about.” Thomas had a serious expression on his face, hazel eyes almost like gold in the dim light.

“And maybe, I don’t want to talk about that.” Alastair could be stubborn too, he wouldn’t let Thomas win. 

“But I do, Alastair. We need to talk.”

“I would much rather talk about why you decided to break Augustus’s nose. Was it to get my attention? Or did you just do it for fun?”

He knew it wasn’t a fair thing to say, knowing Eugenia’s history with Augustus, but he just couldn’t help himself.

“Fuck off, Alastair. You know it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Tom-”

“No, Alastair, it wasn’t about you. Like you said, none of this is about you. Or me, or us. So why don’t you take your own advice and just, fuck off.”

Alastair stumbled back at Thomas’s words, shocked by the severity in his tone. He hadn’t seen him be this angry in months, since he found about the rumors and the Academy.

Alastair took a deep breath and steeled himself, an old, perfected mask of icy coolness and feigned arrogance slipping itself onto his face like an old friend. He stood a bit straighter and jutted his chin out, eyes narrowing. “Fine, then. Have it your way.”

And with that, he turned sharply on his heel and left the infirmary, ignoring Thomas’s calls of his name as he went.

He walked at a fast pace until he came to an empty hallway, where nobody would see him, and collapsed on the ground, knees pulled up to his chest and tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

One word kept repeating in his mind, over and over again; Thomas.

Bloodied, bruised, beautiful Thomas.

The man he loved, the man he desired with every inch of his being.

The man he couldn’t have.

His unattainable impossibility.

His Thomas.

Oh, what had they become? Alastair didn’t know anymore.

He just knew the cracks it was leaving in his already broken heart.

And he didn’t know how much more he could take.

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🎶Simply having a wonderful Angstmastime🎶

🎶We’re simply having a wonderful Angstmastime🎶

🎶Simply having a wonderful Angstmastime🎶

Tag List (Reply or Reblog to be added):

@have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @littlx-songbxrd @tessherongraystairs @wagner-fell @i-die-for-alastair-carstairs @thelasthours-alastair @alastaircarstairsismybff @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Title from that way by Tate McRae

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Friends Don’t Look At Friends That Way

Cordelia was laughing, looking as happy as a clam as she twirled in James’s arms. Lucie didn’t think she’d ever seen Cordelia smile so much in her life.

They were all attending her parents’ annual Christmas party, an event that had always been one of Lucie’s favorites.

There had been a time where she would dream of Cordelia finally attending the Christmas party. She could name hundreds of times where she begged her parents to let Cordelia come, for them to beg the Carstairs for her.

But she never would have imagined it being like this.

She’d imagined the two of them dancing the night away, whispering and giggling as they went.

It would have been just them. Lucie and Cordelia. Cordelia and Lucie.

But it wasn’t Cordelia and Lucie or Lucie and Cordelia anymore.

After Cordelia had come back from Paris, she rejected the idea of being parabatais, saying she just wanted to be herself for awhile and not part of a set.

Lucie thought it was hypocritical of her to say, since Cordelia was already part of a pair when she had said that.

She’d been replaced by another Herondale, her own brother.

It was heartbreaking, to say the least.

But Lucie couldn’t keep her eyes off of Cordelia. Her beautiful Cordelia.

“Lucie? Are you quite alright?” It was Grace Blackthorn. The two of them had become quite close after their failed attempts to resurrect Jesse.

Lucie’s cousin Christopher was by her side, a concerned look on his face that mirrored Grace’s.

“I think I’ll be alright.”

“Are you sure?”

“Someday, I will be.”

Grace’s expression turned puzzled. “Someday?”

“Someday,” Lucie nodded. “I’ll be able to get over her.”

Grace’s expression softened and she wrapped her arm around Lucie’s shoulders, squeezing tight.

“Someday it is then.”

Lucie hoped it would be someday soon.

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🎶Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock🎶

🎶Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time🎶

🎶 Dancin' and prancin' in Jingle Bell Square in the frosty air🎶

Tag List (reply or reblog to be added):

@littlx-songbxrd @tessherongraystairs @wagner-fell @i-die-for-alastair-carstairs @thelasthours-alastair @alastaircarstairsismybff @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @melanielocke @crispynun @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

*Most of the writing comes from Harry Cameron’s death scene in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Kamala’s stage name is Ariadne in this fic and Zahra is their daughter

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To The Brilliant, Kindhearted, Tortured Alastair Carstairs

People were staring at her. Ariadne Bridgestock (as she was known to the public) in a pantsuit covered in blood. She feared the paparazzi coming in at any moment.

She went inside the hospital room, talking her way into borrowing a pair of scrubs and a private room to wait in. Kamala threw her clothes away.

It was just after midnight when a doctor came into the room and told her that Alastair’s femoral artery had been severed. He’d lost too much blood.

For a brief moment, Kamala considered getting her clothes back, as if she could some of his blood back to him.

If it only worked that way, at least.

“He will not make it.” Those were the next words out of the doctor’s mouth and Kamala started gasping for air, as she realized Alastair, her Alastair, was going to die.

“Would you like to say goodbye?”

Alastair was unconscious in bed when Kamala walked in. He was paler than normal, his brown skin almost grey in color, but they had cleaned him up a bit and he was no longer covered in blood. She could see his handsome face again.

“He doesn’t have long,” the doctor said. “But we can give you a moment.”

Kamala didn’t have the luxury of panic anymore.

She got into bed next to him, holding his hand even though it felt limp. Maybe she should have been mad at him for getting behind the wheel of a car when he’d been drinking.

But Kamala had never been able to get mad at Alastair, even when they had been younger.

She knew he was always doing the very best he could with the pain he felt at any given moment. And this, however tragic, had been the best he could do.

Kamala put her forehead on his and said, “I want you to stay, Alastair. We need you. Me and Zahra.” she grabbed his hand tighter. “But if you have to go, then go. Go if it hurts. Go if it’s time. Just go knowing you were loved, that I will never forget you, that you will live in everything Zahra and I do. Go knowing I love you purely, Alastair, that you were an amazing father. Go knowing I told you all my secrets. Because you were my best friend.”

Alastair died an hour later.

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🎶Please come home for Angstmas🎶

🎶Please come home for Angstmas🎶

🎶If not for Angstmas, by New Years’ night🎶

Tag List (Reply or reblog to be added):

@littlx-songbxrd @tessherongraystairs @wagner-fell @i-die-for-alastair-carstairs @thelasthours-alastair @alastaircarstairsismybff @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @melanielocke @crispynun @have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Title from Death By A Thousand Cuts by Taylor Swift

*for context, Matthew was forcibly changed into a werewolf by Kellington

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My Time, My Wine, My Spirit, My Trust

Matthew covered up all of the mirrors in his flat. Not that they really had any use to him anymore, not after he had smashed them all to pieces, broken glass shattered all over his carpet.

He’d been angry when he’d awoken a week ago, so, so uncontrollably angry. Like putting a red cape in front of a bull, angry.

He couldn’t control it, how angry he was, it had just come out of nowhere, completely blindsiding him.

Matthew was so angry that he destroyed everything in sight of him. He ripped up the paintings, destroyed the vases, ripped the pages out of his books.

But his mirrors, those had been the first thing to go.

He couldn’t even stand to look at himself anymore. His face was marred by bruises and scars, bite marks and scratches that slice through his once clear face. They made him look almost unrecognizable.

It wasn’t even his fault that he looked like this, not really.

It was the fault of one man and one man only: Claude Kellington.

A man he had once considered good, whom he had once trusted. He no longer thought either of those things about Kellington, he didn’t think he ever could again.

That man had ruined his life beyond repair by turning him into a monster. A monster who could no longer see his family, his friends, everybody that he cared about.

James and Cordelia had come by at first, trying to get him to open the door. Then his parents. Maybe Charles had, he didn’t know.

He couldn’t open the door, he couldn’t anymore.

Because Matthew was alone.

He was a werewolf now. A lone wolf without a pack.

Tonight was his first moon and he was terrified for the transformation to come. It would solidify his feelings of being a monster.

And he didn’t know if he would survive it.

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🎶I’m dreaming of a white Angstmas🎶

🎶Just like the ones I used to know🎶

Tag List:

@have-a-holly-jolly-angstmas @littlx-songbxrd @tessherongraystairs @wagner-fell @i-die-for-alastair-carstairs @thelasthours-alastair @alastaircarstairsismybff @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @melanielocke

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

I haven’t died and neither has Angstmas, I’m just taking a small break

Days 4-7 should be posted at some point this week, don’t worry

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Days 4 & 5 will be posted tomorrow because I feel like shit