#tlh fanfic

[vwritesaus]

Thomas drops a handful of broken timber planks onto the ground with a sigh. Sweat pools at the back of his neck and at his hairline, ice cold against his skin. The sun has decided not to make itself present today, hiding behind dour, blackened clouds that promise a frigid, windy afternoon. Not that it bothers him in the slightest. Thomas prefers to be out at the Institute, sorting through debris in a cracked, stained courtyard in poor weather than sitting around doing nothing at all.       After all, sitting around doing nothing at all gives way to dangerous thoughts barging into his head, ones he doesn’t want to think about lest they crush his soul more than it already has been.       No, it is better to be productive. Better to be busy. Better to be surrounded by people he knows and loves than to be at home alone.       His family is out for the day, Eugenia in search of a new set of embroidery needles, and Alastair—the one whom Thomas wants to see more than anyone else when his mind is like this—is babysitting Zachary in Kensington. As per the letter he’d gotten yesterday, Thomas has been invited to see them later on in the day, but the gap between the morning and the afternoon is a long time, indeed. So when James and Matthew’s fire message came to him that morning requesting (namely, begging) his assistance with cleaning up, Thomas rushed out of his home in Golders Green without a backward glance.       At the present moment, both Matthew and James are kicking at loose rock and dry leaves in the distance. The trees bordering the London streets and the Institute seem to have dumped all their broken branches into the courtyard, creating a crooked, spiny cemetery circled by dust and dirt and withered foliage. Shattered roof tiles, odd riff-raff from horse-drawn carriages, ripped shop awnings and jagged pieces from window panes, and general rubble and dirt make up the rest of the unfortunate picture. But Thomas finds himself really not caring about the mammoth clean-up task left to the Shadowhunters of the London Enclave.       It’s easier not to care, he’s found. It helps with this evidently everlasting numbness.       He turns his attention to the handful of broken planks he’s dumped onto the ground and forces himself to count each individual ringed spot and dark-stained grain.       Focus. He must focus—

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SO.

hi

i know it's been AGES since i posted the first chapter of this fic (and, indeed, any fic....) and all i can i say is that the work/life balance this year hasn't been kind to me in the slightest :')

but!!! we're finally here, and the other chapters are getting there... slowly lol

i hope you all had a lovely holiday break and are looking forward to the new year (i know i am, good grief). hope you enjoy this chapter !!

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tag list: @drunkonimagination @astriefer @ferrari-go-vroom-vroom @alastairstom @what-ho-christopher-put-in @thomastaircompassrose @faithfromanewperspective (thought you might be interested, but no pressure!!) let me know if you’d like to be added to or removed from the tag list!!

#the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #the last hours #tlh #chain of thorns #chot #cot #thomas lightwood #alastair carstairs #james herondale #matthew fairchild #zachary carstairs #christopher lightwood #the last hours fanfiction #tlh fanfiction #the last hours fanfic #tlh fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #grief/mourning #hurt/comfort #dear christopher #okay for once i'm pretty proud of this?? #there are some parts i really enjoyed writing #let's see if you can guess which ones haha #(hint: it's to do with thomas and alastair) #omg who saw that coming!? /j #also i know a lot of people see thomas as being a cancer/having a birthday during the summer months #but idk the maths i pulled out of my arse (given what little info we get in canon) has resulted in a january birthday #specifically the 15th

[tleeaves]

Wasting Beats In This Heart Of Mine - how it would have ended

Hello, folks! As some of you already know or have heard me mention previously, my TLH fanfic WBITHOM is coming to an end. I am no longer comfortable with it being in the public eye since it involves a lot of personal stuff for me, and so I have decided to delete the fic entirely on every platform it's been published on (that's Quotev, AO3, and Wattpad) rather than rewrite the entire thing. This will also finally give me the chance to focus on other written works. Maybe I'll return to fandom with a rewrite one day for anyone interested, but for now, the future is dedicated to other things. The fic will be deleted in 48 hours, so readers on Quotev and AO3 have a chance to download the unfinished fic if they so desire before then or just have one last read. I ask that no one rewrites or adds an ending to my fic and publishes it anywhere without my knowledge and permission. Never put an author's work through AI either. I still have several copies of my fanfic and its outline, so I will always have evidence of where the story comes from.

WBITHOM is a monster, with the master document coming to well over 150,000 words and the fic so far being ~146,000 words (the entire outline and all my notes makes up over 4,000 words, yes). I predict that, had I finished the fic, it would come close to 188,000 words (so, there was a decent ways to go still). It's the biggest thing I've attempted, but because of that, it is also the most time-consuming (it's been almost a year and a half of writing, and each chapter either takes two full days to write or weeks) and it takes up the most space in my head, not really leaving room for the other ideas I want to explore.

So, as someone suggested, I thought I'd give readers who were hoping to see the fic to its proper end some closure. That's what this post is for: how it would have ended. Along the way, I'll explain some things too about recurring themes and motifs and all manner of behind the scenes and thoughts behind my ideas.

Character Arc Summaries

As readers know, this story follows the characters of Lila Raftis, James Herondale, Cordelia Carstairs, and Matthew Fairchild. They're all the most significant figures, though we do see other perspectives and side characters too. Essentially, Lila Raftis struggles with loneliness due to a myriad of other issues she has to work through, and James Herondale's arc starts with his depression and turns into a journey to authenticity where he feels like his own person and not just what he has been written or expected to be. Cordelia Carstairs' physical state of being lost extends to how lost she is within, and she ends realising that she has been continuously defining herself through other people. I see her as leaving London and the love triangle with James and (unconfessed) Matthew (and Lila) to deconstruct a lot of the ideals she was trying to live up to and why. As for Matthew Fairchild, I made the deliberate decision for him to turn into a werewolf and have that separation from Shadowhunter society so that he could pursue the arts and build a better life that he would find more satisfaction with, also eventually becoming sober. I took inspiration from his time at the academy, particularly when he turns to Lila in one of the earlier acts and asks if it's so bad to not be a Shadowhunter. At first, he regrets turning, but I planned for him to wind up relieved.

Honestly, while this work is very self-insert (and that's not a bad thing generally, but I've been finding it uncomfortable as time goes on, so that's why I prefer to take it down and keep it to myself), it was also my way of going How It Should Have Ended for the TLH series as a whole. I started it before ChoT, yes, but that book only led to minor changes and alternate paths taken -- I was already using ChoI as a base to steer these characters in the directions I thought they should go.

The Rest Of Act Three

The rest of Act Three of the fanfic is summarised below (...at length. It's a lengthy summary).

We ended the fanfic on the chapter where James and Lila returned to London, 1903 of his dimension. He was gravely wounded in his left arm, which ends up being amputated despite the efforts of Lila and Lucie (and Gus' help too). This is, of course, a reference to the recent fan art of James where a headcanon went around that the reason we couldn't see his other arm was because it just didn't exist. I took it and ran, which was not planned. I knew I wanted James injured so that Lila could return the care he once had shown her when she was wounded badly, but it wasn't going to be as severe as it ended up being. This is how we ended up at the Institute instead of 48 Curzon Street as I had previously planned for the chapter. James was going to be fine, but Cordelia had decided to confront Lila about several things, and they'd end the night having kissed -- which in turn leads Lila to going for a walk to clear her head and her subsequently getting kidnapped by Jonathan Bell (the Other James from another dimension). Anyway, the change did make some of these plot points awkward (😭) hence why I spent ages editing the make out between Lila and Cordelia because I could not decide how it should start and end. It was a nightmare. As Silver pointed out, it didn't make a whole lot of sense in the order of events (Cordelia should have gone to see James first), but I was in a mad rush to finally release the update since I knew people were waiting. The kidnapping also was not quite as dramatic as I envisioned it, but oh well. I'm actually quite happy with the rest of the chapter though.

From there comes the rest of the fic that readers probably will not get to experience, so that's why I'm writing this out, so you at least know the mysteries that I won't get to reveal and how we get to the end.

Jonathan Bell kidnaps Lila and, through the use of shadow, they end up in Paris, France. This is where Matthew also fled after his mother released him from the Silent City cells after he persuaded her into it. Lila ending up there and being away from both James and Cordelia, and spending more one-on-one time with our antagonist and Matthew since the earlier parts of the book was always intended.

Jonathan is revealed to have possession of another silver pen, which is a reference to a previous fanfic I wrote (also deleted) called Chain of Lies, where the pen could literally rewrite reality if you used your own blood for ink. In Jonathan's dimension, Lila ended up staying in his world and marrying him, but she also dies of a mysterious sickness during their honeymoon, so he uses the pen to go back in time and cancel their honeymoon, under the impression she would not get sick. Instead, she was hit by a car several days earlier, and died in the accident. Jonathan goes back again to stop that from happening, but Lila ends up dying again anyway, over and over again in different ways, every time Jonathan reverses time to prevent each event from occurring. Eventually, he goes so far back in their timeline together that he's reliving the December when they met, and that's how he knows how to divert the accidents in WBITHOM that threaten harm to this other dimension's Lila (are you still with me?). But before that, he created a time loop in that December of his dimension just trying to keep Lila alive for two years of his life whereas everyone else remained the same, but stuck in time. It's supposed to be very angsty and tragic, and it's a demonstration of one of James Herondale's core traits eventually twisting horribly wrong: how he would do anything for those he loves, whether that be family, friends, or lovers.

This character flaw/strength is something I reference lightly a few times throughout the fanfic, mostly in the ways he is concerned about the safety of his family and friends which he tries to find out from Lila, who has read Chain of Iron and knows what the future is supposed to be, and then how he reflects on how he does not know what he would do when someone he loves dies. Honestly, the issue is that he cares too much about people, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how far it goes. Jonathan is the literal embodiment of what would happen if James' care went too far, if it bordered on obsession, if he wanted to keep someone from dying so bad that he would sacrifice everything else, even the universe.

So, Jonathan finally confesses to the time-loop and explains that as a drastic measure, he tried finding Lila in another dimension to see if he could save her there, but this tearing of the time-loop to escape it worsened a tear that Cordelia had already created in her fight with Belial and the Mandikhor to such a point that it started growing and expanding and destroying the fabric of time and space between dimensions and the universe as a whole. You know, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff (Doctor Who reference for those who get it). The thing he did not realise though is that in this timeline, Lila is not meant to die, so long as she goes back home instead of staying in 1903 (he still doesn't know this, it's just a fact I would have explained to the readers when we meet Circe, the employer of Poppy Morad (P.M.) and Saint Nicholas). This is supposed to leave Lila conflicted, because as much as she wants to hate his guts for being the reason for her family disappearing and the worlds ending, even this Other James is a reflection of her own nature, which is another thing that's been lingering beneath the surface for the duration as the fic: while James has a doppelganger that demonstrates who he might become if he cannot accept loss, he and Lila have similarities boiling beneath the surface that go unnoticed until an outburst we saw Lila have where she basically accuses James of being just like her (not complimentary at the time).

Lila as a character is someone who cares deeply, but is willing to sacrifice herself and others to protect what or who she cares deeply about (yet we also see her choose self-preservation over self-sacrifice a few times before she truly starts acting in service of others). Her circle of people she cares about is more limited than James', but the shared sentiments still stand. Plus, the way Jonathan has acted this entire time has always bordered on unnerving or odd -- I did that on purpose. He's been driven to obsession, where he's basically an extreme of what James and Lila believe in. And he is both James and not James in this way, if that makes sense. We see in one of Lila's nightmares earlier in the book Jonathan saying it does not matter which version of him he is or which version of her she is -- they belong together. Fully delusional at this point, but it's meant to be scary. I'm kind of obsessed that Jonathan is also a mirror for Lila to see how she might look to her James: someone who knows you way too well, but you've also never met nor know much about at all (she might know James but she does not know this one), who's inexplicably fixated on you (granted, James did not even begin to guess Lila's feelings, and hers were rather superficial in a way until they spent more time together).

Anyway, basically, the start of this rewrite of Chain of Lies pretty much began with these dynamics between the two Jameses and Lila. It was a whole thing with diagrams and late night ranting to my poor sister and everything.

So, of course, Lila is conflicted and she also does not know how she's supposed to get Jonathan to reverse the problem he has created -- whether he's also supposed to go back to his dimension and whether that will be enough to repair the tear. Most of this happens in the Notre Dame cathedral because I said so (I like cathedrals as settings, sue me if you dare).

Meanwhile, Matthew has been in Paris and totally avoiding Charles, so he also hears nothing of Will and Tessa being notified about James' injury in London and leaving by portal. But he does hear some French Shadowhunter gossip about the Consul's werewolf son's disappearance when he discovers Lila being taken to the cathedral by a masked man. Then ensues a solo rescue operation. Honestly, I always have a lot of fun writing Matthew, it's hard not to include him more. Anyway, the rescue is successful, and he takes Lila back to his hotel room to lay low for the night before he gets her back to London with the others (since he recognises that they must have no idea where she is, what happened, and she's an integral part of solving this whole mess, as people are still disappearing in this world).

I had a really nice scene planned that I'd been waiting the entire book to write, but basically Lila and Matthew spend a sober night together (as opposed to their time in the Silent City together) where they talk about all their woes, including their love lives, and eventually they get on to the topic of how they could have smoothed over both their dilemmas if they just had each other as lovers, if only their similarities were not such that would probably be self-destructive at this point in their lives. Because we've seen often in the book other characters compare these two, but it's these two themselves who recognise that, yes, they are alike in some ways, but not the ways it counts in order to have a healthy romantic relationship. They settle on being good friends. Matthew also takes her measurements so they can pick up some quick changes of clothes since Lila's still wearing her grimy outfit she wore during the explosion. And she also brings up that she knows he's an artist, but asks that she have the chance to sketch him, and he offers to do so in return, so they spend the rest of the night drawing, which I just find so sweet. There's not much significance in that at face value, it's just cute, but I also see Matthew embracing an old hobby as one of the first steps he takes in moving on from all his pain and finding better outlets for it.

Also, the platonic nature between Lila and Matthew, the complicated romance with James and Cordelia, and then all the familial themes and side-plots going on are all part of an idea I had going into this that I wanted to demonstrate many facets of love and the importance of each in their individual right. If anything, given the extreme slowburn I've come at James/Lila/Cordelia with particularly, I want to end this book purposefully with none of them winding up together because so many other things mattered more than their romance, and even the kind of loves they have for each other are a reason they don't end up staying because they would all rather see each other safe and not see each other at all than know they might cause other problems by being in the wrong dimensions.

Anyway, because I do multiple perspectives for everything, while Matthew and Lila and Jonathan have their bit going on in Paris, back in London we see James coming to terms with his disability and in all his rumination over what's happened and Lila being missing but him being unable to go out and find her, James finally (FINALLY!) realises his romantic feelings for Lila. This also leads to a scene between him and Cordelia where they both discuss Lila and their feelings for her. Cordelia also confesses how she has felt for James for a long time, but she also explains that she wants nothing to come of it anymore because she does not see herself settling down with him like she previously thought. James is a bit stung by this (I mean, my guy had no idea about Cordelia's true feelings until now and then she also springs a rejection on him at the same time when he's just begun to realise some of his own feelings around her) but is ultimately relieved since he feels he needs more time to figure out who he is and the life he wants without the bracelet numbing him.

We also would have seen Poppy Morad and Saint Nicholas again and their increasing distress and alarm with how difficult Jonathan Bell has been to track and control since he's hared of to Paris with Lila.

When Jonathan finds out Lila's gone, he feels betrayed and frustrated by his failure. Because while he feels he has saved her, she's refusing to be his as she once was in his dimension (also why he was confused and then against her leaving and going home earlier in the story). The world is breaking down around him (we start to see parts of Paris going up in flames, not unlike London 2021 of Lila's dimension) and he's about to go track Lila down again (but now he's going a bit more heavily into Villain Mode).

We also see Poppy Morad closing in on Jonathan as he returns to London when she's defecting orders from Circe, her higher up, to take him down instead of corralling Lila's effects on the timeline.

Lila and Matthew return to London on Christmas Eve just hours before the end of the world properly starts in 1903. This is also when she and James interact for the first time since he passed out on the bridge several days ago. I was a bit undecided on how I wanted this scene to look, other than I needed them to finally confess their feelings for each other in the rain like a cliche after they have an argument where Lila says that James has everything she wants (and this is where we realise the root of her problem in this whole book is not simply loneliness, but a dissatisfaction with herself and her life, which has lent itself to the more superficial issues she's been having) but that ultimately she also just wanted him though she knows she cannot be with him without risking everything. So, when James confesses his side, they decide to spend what little time they have left with each other as best as they can. (And this where I as an author push them together like Barbie dolls and go "now kiss").

Have I mentioned this story has too many layers and plot points and it's been driving me mad this entire time I've been writing it? Anyway.

They quickly determine with The Gang™️ that "Belial" and "Lilith" are not who they seem to be anymore, because while Alastair just got arrested for the murder of Lilian Highsmith (oh yeah, that happens while Lila and Matthew are in Paris, because I wanted a reversal where it's Thomas who stands up for Alastair when he's accused of murder, just for funsies) everything else that has happened seems to be related to whoever this P.M. (remember when Cordelia was also accused of murder because Filomena thought she saw Cordelia when she was attacked?) and Matthew body double is (spoiler: Poppy Morad and Saint Nicholas are codenames for other versions of Cordelia Carstairs and Matthew Fairchild in another timeline, I'll explain more about this later, but what you can probably surmise already is that this alternate Cordelia has taken the place of Belial within this dimension and is the one murdering all the victims (including her father. That was a difficult point, because we see in a PM and Saint Nick scene that he's concerned about whether she can go through with it) and Matthew has taken Lilith's place in some minor ways (like hiding and then handing back Cortana at the right moments)).

Anyway, because Lila's kind of behind on some events, she goes to confess to Cordelia (but explain how she also feels about James), when Cordelia says there's a lot more she wants out of life before she pursues romance again. That she's been so consumed by it, by finding love, by getting married, she's lost who she is beneath it all. (Have you noticed the theme for every character in this fic is basically authenticity and finding oneself despite whatever circumstances they find themselves in?)

Then, we also would have seen Lila dedicate herself to taking down Jonathan herself since he's the main problem that's tearing things apart and perhaps if he's killed then he can no longer influence time and reality.

Vaguely, I had planned that James and Lila would have what my outline says is "an emotional night together" because it could mean literally anything and I wasn't totally sure where I wanted it to go. So. Interpret that one how you will with whatever you prefer, honestly. Anyway, while that's happening, we see Matthew go home to his mother who is, understandably, worried sick and mad because he never wrote to her like he was supposed to and Charles return without him. We see Matthew collapse into her arms and just sob. That was the plan. It's important to me that he's actually vulnerable with her for once and that he, a young man too big to be in his mother's arms, lets himself be held anyway. There was also supposed to be a wholesome Thomastair moment that I hadn't really planned, though I knew Alastair would go home with Cordelia afterwards and she would start her journey to forgiving him. We also would have seen her kneel in front of Sona to confess A Whole Lot Of Things about what's been happening in her life, from as early as the marriage blanc and the Blackthorn Manor incident. Basically, everything is supposed to be hopeful even if it hurts just a bit and feels a little bittersweet. Because then in the chapter this all would have taken place in, we'd end with Saint Nicholas and Poppy Morad collecting the pithos from Christopher who picked it up in the background of everything (basically, all the Belial storyline has still been operating as it should, except it's being orchestrated by PM instead of Belial), when Jonathan sneaks up on them and fatally wounds (he had the intent to kill) Saint Nicholas, who he is shocked to find out in that moment is an alternate Matthew.

AND THEN, next chapter we would have had at the tolling of midnight, signaling Christmas day, PM the alternate Cordelia (whose character is the way it is because she's been hardened by some long and traumatic years -- she and alternate Matthew have a tragic backstory that I've been keeping in my back pocket that wasn't really necessary to be explained in the story, but if you want to know more, just ask) drags a dying alternate Matthew back to their tent where Circe, their mysterious employer, is torn away from her work elsewhere to start enacting emergency world-fixing in this timeline. This is also when we find out Circe's identity: she is Cassandra Clare, once again (if you read Chain of Lies) who's codename was derived from the common shortened CC she's referred to in fandom, who has universal powers and basically controls (to an extent) a good portion of the universe. Like a god. But also not. It's a whole mysterious thing that I never intended to explain because I think some things are better unexplained.

THEN, Jonathan shows up to 48 Curzon Street, covered in blood and calling for Lila. A fight between him and James (and sort of Lila who's attacking Jonathan though he refuses to attack her) ensues before he ends it all by taking out a silver pen (The Silver Pen) where we see 'Nikoletta' engraved on it, and writes a time-loop which snaps the final threads keeping all the timelines and dimensions in order.

Act Four Explained Slightly More Briefly

This is the final act of the book and also the shortest. It was planned to only be about six chapters long. Now, I was most excited about this part of the book because I had ✨visions✨. No, literally, the entire inspiration of this entire fanfic came from a dream I had about James Herondale as Spider-Man, me impersonating Cordelia Carstairs and not knowing how to do Shadowhunter things, Santa Claus as Father Time, and the end of the universe, and this is where we would have finally get to see it all come together.

We kick it off with an entire chapter dedicated to a lot of scenes similar to what I've written earlier in the book with Lila and James' nightmares, where nothing makes complete sense and yet the reader is meant to feel on the cusp of understanding something alongside the characters before the dreams usually end. Only they don't here. The dreams are reality, but reality is broken, and there is no waking up because there is also no sleeping and there is no normal but faint memories of what came before. So not only is the environment ever-shifting (think of it almost like a kaleidoscope and you have maybe a quarter of my vision here), but the people also keep "glitching" between different versions of themselves at different points in time and in different realities even (sometimes the doubles join and then they split apart, it's a weird nightmareish sort of thing in my mind), and so they also have different memories and levels of knowledge about things that have happened and what's going on. We see it mostly through Lila and James' perspectives. There's supposed to be a lot of angst and a feel like everything is a fever dream.

In the next chapter, things only start to get slightly ordered when Jonathan Bell finds Lila and says he'll rewrite the universe she wants so that it's perfect for her, and can have it be anything she wants, so long as they are together (major creep vibes though, honestly, as sweet as this might sound to some). This is also me addressing a problem from my original fanfic before this one, Chain of Lies, where I basically gave that silver pen waaay too much power, and now I'm demonstrating what it can do and so, like the one ring to rule them all, it must be destroyed (once Lila or someone else gets a hold of it to rewrite and fix the fabric of everything). Alastair saves Lila from Jonathan this time (he's still a bit prickly, but we see he still cares about Lila anyway), and demands she go find Cordelia to end Jonathan (Cordelia has Cortana which can cut through anything, which is important). Then we also would have seen that James is stranded somewhere with a fluctuating Matthew (the vision is that he keeps changing states from a werewolf to a living corpse to himself at various ages) and they are attempting to find PM, the alternate Cordelia, who knows Circe who should be able to fix everything as PM explains (she got separated from Circe and Saint Nicholas when the world went crazy). She leads them partway before she's taken by the collapsing world (she disappears basically, because that can still happen to people). When Lila finds her Cordelia, she's in the Paladin state (imagine glowing eyes and a vague aura of scariness with a glowing sword and you've got it) and it takes a bit to get through to her so they can make a plan to take down Jonathan.

Chapter after that, we have Cordelia distracting Jonathan so Lila can steal the pen, but she realises she does not know how to write an ending that does not kill all the Jameses since, as Jonathan once put it in her nightmares, "it does not matter which version of him I am... we are the same". This hesitance gets Cordelia fatally wounded, though she's not quite dead yet, but it's the final push Lila needs to kill Jonathan with Cortana (as also seen in a dream she had ages ago without realising it), and Circe finally manages to pull enough worldly strings in this chaos to pause time long enough for James and Lila to reunite to do the re-writing with her.

From there, we have two alternate paths. I called these basically "the happy ending that could have been" and "the bittersweet ending that was", which I was inspired to write by The Umbrella Academy (if you know, you know, I won't spoil it for anyone else who doesn't).

In the happy ending that could have been, we see the characters a couple years down the line. We also find out that Lila would not have died like she did in the other universe. She and James are together and they end up planning to propose to each other on the same day, which is the day after Lila successfully ascends. Then we see Cordelia and Matthew travelling together across the world as friends. After that, we would have seen Thomas and Alastair having dinner at the Lightwoods'. Finally, the Raftis family believe Lila is missing, presumed dead, but after a couple years they are finally moving on.

The bittersweet ending that was though is where Lila goes home. The friends she's made in London 1903 see her off before James takes her back to her dimension where they'd have one final goodbye on Blackfriars Bridge. That night, Cordelia gets on a train to set off and travel on her own. We also see Matthew, who has already picked up Oscar a couple days earlier, going to Gus' flat to complain that Oscar misses Gus and would not stop whining until they came by. We see Matthew finally tentatively suggest a first date, and Gus would accept. We close this part of the ending much like we started the book, with James walking alone in the night, just as he was when he left the Devil Tavern and his story took a different direction to canon when he found himself outside Cornwall Gardens where he met with Alastair. This time, James is alone, and he's feeling a little hopeful about the future ahead.

We get one final chapter before the epilogue where it's mostly Lila's perspective as she finally gets to experience Christmas with her family in 2021 and I planned for the beginning of some family healing and bonding to occur. Then we would have seen future James once more, who it turns out is now tasked by Circe (CC) with maintaining the space between dimensions, but this means he can't be in any one for very long since it's a lot of work that takes up time.

And now we get to the epilogue. Every time I imagine this, I get a little emotional. The epilogue would have began several years in the future with Lila dropping a bi-annual letter into the Thames, which I liken to the River Styx, in that it's where all lost things end up. We see, rather comedically, that she has moved out with the money she gained from some things she "stole" from Curzon Street, as well as her mysterious finding of the adamas, which scientists in her world are still amazed by. We are surprised to see though that when she goes home, she's living with the version of Matthew who nearly died in his previous role as Saint Nicholas, because CC gave him a chance to live out a new life elsewhere, in a dimension where there was not another version of himself. He and Lila seem to be doing well.

We cut to James of around December 1905 who has gone to visit his family at the Institute, where Lucie and Jesse are pouring over Cordelia's latest letter from abroad. James says he was just at Matthew's flat, and Gus was telling him about theories of time travel that the mundanes at the university Gus attends were discussing. We also find out that James himself has written a book, a science fiction piece with a ridiculously long title, about different worlds and the doubles of people that exist. After the dinner, he goes to Blackfriars Bridge and produces several of Lila's letters out of a pocket before stowing them away and shadow travelling to her dimension to leave a letter for her.

The fanfic would have ended on James' letter, which mentions briefly that he is having nightmares again of Belial's return since they have heard nothing have what happened with CC. Aside from that, the letter is rather sweet. But we see that Lila never gets a chance to read it, because CC collects it first and burns it with a lighter while humming "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas".

Concluding Words

And that, ladies, gents, and fair folk, was how Wasting Beats In This Heart Of Mine would have ended. It has potential for a sequel. One I never want to write except in my head because, man, I am so exhausted by this fanfic alone after I already did it as a rewrite of Chain of Lies. If anything, this is the sequel to Chain of Lies and the next potential story would be the third book. It's been a long few years, I'll tell you that.

Some final things:

If you're wondering about that green coat I was always mentioning: it was supposed to be my tell, along with the gold-ringed eyes, for Saint Nicholas being an alternate Matthew, who is also the leader of the SoHo wolf pack in his origin universe. For Poppy Morad as the alternate Cordelia, who worked as Matthew's partner in time shenanigans, it was the fact that people forgot her face once they saw it because of a facial rune she applies (one that does not exist but she has courtesy of working for The CC). That's why people often knew they saw Cordelia, but could not remember the details of that meeting, if they managed to remember her at all.

The reason Lila has essentially what I call "a death aura" is because of her alternate selves, many of whom die, and it's something that leaks between worlds as the walls steadily break down.

At some point in Le Grand Reveal Of The Time-loop, Lila realises that the detailing on Jonathan's mask matches the floral detail on the back of The Joker card she's been carrying around with her sister's initials this whole time, which hints at just how significant some of the objects in this story are and the meanings they can give (The Fool and The Master being other common names for the card, related to its unpredictability and capability of being anything).

Jonathan wears, obviously, his crimson cape, but his clothes are a deep navy blue and this is part of my reference to Spider-Man and the original dream that inspired all of this.

Future James does indeed have diamond stud earrings. I said so.

At the end of the book, CC would have reinstated Lilith and Belial (whom she removed for previously causing problems in other dimensions where they became too aware of alternate timelines) with altered memories, so the stories can generally continue where they left off (some a couple years later, which has some interesting effects if I wrote the next book, in theory).

And I think that's all I have. But if anyone has any questions at all, feel free to reply to the post to ask, message me, or put it straight into the ask box, I'm more than happy to answer since I'm already depriving you of a properly written-out neat ending to everything. Reminder that I am deleting the fanfic WBITHOM in roughly 48 hours from the time of this post, so after that it will not be available on any public platforms for reading. I am not taking down any of my other fanfics (except for the few that I already have some weeks ago).

Thank you to the readers who have supported me on this longass journey. You were often the reason I kept going when I wanted to give up on writing fanfic, especially writing this one, which has been a very trying process (I mean, it took me half a day just to explain the last approximate third of the damn book, for crying out loud). I appreciate the kudos, the comments, and all the enthusiasm. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Take care now, and I'll see you in the updates of other works in the future.

-- streettealee

P.S. special thank you to @thevagabondexpress who endured many hours of me blabbering way too much about this fic and these characters, who I pestered to give me feedback as I fretted over whether I was doing everything right (spoiler: there's no right way, just better ways), and who cared about this when I struggled to. You suggested I might find a way to give readers some closure. And so I also give thanks to @faithfromanewperspective, who went nuts for an Australian OC (understandably, as I would too) and blazed through my entire fic and encouraged me inadvertently to start updating again after a long dry spell. You still absolutely get to see my drafts and outline next time we catch up in person, but I hope for now that this is a good description of the rest of what the book would have been and it gives you some closure, as well as for the other readers. Thank you also to @quantummeep for reading and commenting! I can never get out of my head how even early on in your reading you recognised all the plot threads that I had been weaving together, and it meant so much to me that you appreciated the level of detail I tried to work with.

Thank you all and to the other readers who also supported me 💛

#wasting beats in this heart of mine #wbithom #the last hours fanfic #tlh fanfic

[esfandiyar-jahanshah]

Alastair Carstairs Moodboard

Snippet from my unwritten story. :

"Because I will ruin you. I will destroy your life, your future. For fucks sake, Tom, you have it all laid out perfectly and I will set a torch to all that!!

All your friends and your family will hate me. Can you live with that? My family would never accept us. Can you live with that?? They won't accept me, your parents James, Mathew, and Kit. By the Angels, Tom I'm already a fucking menace in their eyes. They will not accept us.

What will you do then? Leave me? Leave them for me?! You will start to resent me, Thomas, for creating a rift. No... do not deny it. No, you will. Eventually, you will. Best case scenario, you wake up one day and realise I'm not enough, that you don't have any reasons to love me, and you’ll leave, and decide that I'm not worth all this. You would be right, I'm not. Or, you will die, resenting me till last breath. Your "true" love will turn to hate, Thomas.

And I'm done with people leaving, no matter how hard I try. No matter how much I beg, they leave. They always do, and there's nothing I can do to stop them."

#alastair carstairs #thomastair #thomas lightwood #Tlh moodboard #tlh fanfic #icarus rambles

[livingformyself]

So yeah everyone I'm not ready to leave tlh era... sooo any talented writer out there please add me to your taglist.... i repeat PLEASEEE

#alastair carstairs #thomastair #thomas lightwood #cordelia carstairs #the last hours #jem carstairs #will herondale #tessa gray #james herondale #matthew fairchild #christopher lightwood #anna lightwood #lucie herondale #jesse blackthorn #sophie lightwood #gideon lightwood #chain of iron #chain of thorns #chain of gold #tlh fanfic #tlh gang #grace blackthorn

[thevagabondexpress]

sometimes . . . you just gots to draw them

this book will never get a graphic novel, but here's a little illustration/panel from the comic we'll never get

#a boat without oars #rivers & gates #pluto lochlyn westhouse #pluto what're you reading and is it pirated #it's probably an article on the van meter visitor tbh #the last hours #fanfic #tlh #tlh fanfic #original characters #the last hours fanfic #fanfic art #cryptids #cryptid mythology #time travel #serial murder mystery #murder mystery #faerie mythology #faeries #fae #fay #fairies #kentucky goblins

[4uru]

Hey so I need a beta reader for a fic with cordelia and alastair. It's a part of my Reckonings series where cordelia, instead of running to Matthew, runs to alastair at the end of choi.

@alastairstom and @thevagabondexpress I don't want y'all to volunteer bc it's a surprise for you two kinda.... (I just want to emotionally wreck you both and don't want to spoil my own sadistic fun)

So anybody else who is interested in helping me pls DM me. I wrote this on a goggle doc. So just give me your email and I will add you to the doc.

(estimating the fic to be 3k + words. Probably not exceeding 5k/6k)

Tagging the rest of my mutuals for SB: @fangirlghost-19 @what-ho-christopher-put-in @chaosandtwo @caterpillarinacave @tleeaves @quantummeep

Edit: @quantummeep has offered to help (thank you bestie I hope you never accidentally step into a puddle with your socks on)

#alastair carstair #cordelia carstairs #beta reader #ao3 writer #looking for help #pls #tlh fanfic #the last hours

[jemsbitch]

He’s a 10 but his father thought he was cursed but whereas he is damned and his grandfather is one of the princes of hell

#hope this hasn’t been done yet #james herondale #shadowhunters #the shadowhunters chronicles #tsc incorrect quotes #tsc #incorrect tsc quotes #the last hours tlh #the last hours #tlhdaily #tlh headcanons #tlh memes #incorrect tlh quotes #tlh gang #tlh fanfic #tlh au #tlh fanart #tlh theories #will herondale #the infernal devices #tid #William herondale #lucie herondale #cordelia carstairs #matthew fairchild #herondaisy #heronchild #tessa gray #grace blackthorn #james x cordelia

[streettealee]

So, I finally updated that Beauty and the Beast AU for TLH.

Apologies to all of those who have waited patiently and asked after it with incredible love. This long overdue update is for you 💛

Let me know if you'd like to be tagged in future update posts!

#tlh #the last hours #fanfic #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #tlh fanfic #tsc #lucie herondale #grace blackthorn #beauty and the beast au #alastair carstairs #inspired also by greek myth #psyche and eros au

[zickmonkey]

Charlotte X Henry fic, COT spoilers

I don't know the word count but short, probably soon to be cross posted on AO3, description under cut.

Henry and Charlotte discuss their presumed dead son before Charlotte joins the shadowhunters in London.

.......

"Charlotte," Henry was looking up at her so intently, his brown eyes wide in his face. She was still so unused to having to look down to see him, her husband and her had always been such opposites when it came to their heights. He had been the tallest in the institute, she the shortest, even when the boys were still exactly that- boys.

"Perhaps you shouldn't go."

She looked at every wrinkle in his face, some of the creases deepening with the way he gazed at her. His thick eyebrows were drawn in, his lips were downturned.

"Henry. . . I know that you'd rather I stay safe, but I can't just remain here and have the others do the hard work for me." She brought her hand to his face, gently cupping his stubble lined cheek. "I'm the consul-"

"You're also a mother." He interrupted her. "Cecily is not going."

She felt his words through her entire body, though she didn't move her hand. She knew her husband was smart, she always had, but she also hoped that now his eccentricity would kick in, his tendency to be oblivious, and he would not realize that their son was almost certainly gone. She wished he'd instead say something about her going to get Matthew back, as though he were just optimistic.

"Christopher is dead. We know that. We don't know that Matthew is." She didn't say the rest- that maybe she could help get him back.

Charlotte also refused to look directly into her husbands eyes, worried she'd see hurt at how cold she'd said it. So unlike her. And over a boy they both cared for deeply.

"Lottie. . ." He brought his own hand up to hold hers, his index finger running gently along the back of it, blindly tracing the voyance rune they all knew without thought. "Matthew followed James to Edom, do not hurt yourself with delusions of him returning."

She could see as he spoke her young son, with the blond hair that made him look so out of place in their family, his green eyes. She wanted to be mad at the way he spoke with just a certainty that their son was gone, and that while he did it gently he did not do it with a sadness.

But she knew that was only because the sadness would come later. She knew him well. Henry would return to the main hall the second she left, he would be there to answer any questions anyone might have- however unlikely people were to ask him. There was a certain credit to being the consul's husband, more of one, when said consul was away and there was distrust about the inquisitor.

It was not that he didn't feel grief for Matthew- he was feeling that right along side his grief for Christopher, they both were. It was that his job now was to tell her to stay, to hurt openly beside him. And when that didn't work, like they both knew it wouldn't, to not hide from those who did stay.

"Even if Matthew is truly gone," She did meet his eyes again now, the brown of his irises seeming dulled while the whites of his eyes shone just slightly with tears he didn't fully release. "London might not be. And there are others to fight for. Lucie, Tom."

She didn't see Matthew when she looked at her husband, just as she knew she wouldn't see him if she looked in a mirror. But she could see all the times Matthew had followed after his father. The times he'd take Henry for walks and they'd talk. When she'd go into his laboratory late at night to retrieve her husband only to find him accompanied by a ten year old who should've long been in bed.

She saw memory after memory of Henry and Matthew together.

Charlotte loved both of her sons equally, she always had, but still she knew Matthew had always been more his son than hers.

#fan fic #fan fiction #cassandra clare #the shadowhunter chronicles #shadowhunters #the last hours #the last hours spoilers #tlh spoilers #tlh fanfic #chain of thorns spoilers #chain of thorns #cot #charlotte fairchild #henry fairchild #matthew fairchild #cecily herondale #christopher lightwood #cecily lightwood #one shot

[thrxughthenxght]

CONGRATS LORE!

for the ask game....

📝 for Matthew and James the biggest drama queens of tlh. But can you make it really short? I want no context and utter angst *smiles evilly*

👀 If there was one thing you'd tell your 12 year old self, what would it be?

👀 Yes I am doing two but only to ask to see picture of your cat because I love your cat.

and finally ⭐ for the mutual ask game

<333333333

Thank you sm Chia!! 🥺🥰 I hope you like your drabble <333

I put a read more because the post is a little long 😂

📝:

"Jamie," Matthias said, stepping forwards with a stumble. "I'm sorry.'

James turned away and paced, trying to ignore the twinge of pain in his heart when he saw Oscar with his head down in his bed, watching the whole ordeal with sad eyes.

"Matthew," he said, running a hand through his hair. "You can't do these things. You're going to get yourself killed!" He turned on him. "You could have gotten Lucie and I killed!"

"I didn't ask you to come there," he insisted. "It wasn't any of your concern! I told you already, I never asked you to watch over me like a bloody," he sputtered, then gave up. "I never asked you to care!"

"You asked me to care and look over you the day you asked me to be your parabati," James said, the anger gone and just a deep sadness behind his eyes. "This must stop, Matthew."

And Matthew screamed at him until he left. He collapsed to a pathetic heep of tears and pulling at his hair. His only comfort was Oscar, who had come to put his head in Matthew's lap. He leaned against his couch from where it sat behind him. "I'm sorry Jaimie," he murmured in an empty space.

Angsty and short, as you requested <3

👀:

If there was one thing you'd tell your 12 year old self, what would it be? Ahhhh this is a tough one! I wouldn't so much as tell myself anything but would rather show myself all the things I've achieved since then. The friends I have, the things I've made and done, how I've improved. I went through some major creative block when I was 12 and I think if I'd had the encouragement I do now, I could have done a lot more!

👀:

Aw thank you 🥹 She loves you too she's a sweetie. (She bites with love 😌)

Have three <333333

Thank you Chia!!! 🥰🤗

#new lore #written lore #drabble #lilith 🖤 #chia <3 #chia's ask #followers celebration #follower celebration #50 followers #questioning lore #james herondale #matthew fairchild #tlh fanfiction #tlh fanfic #tlh fic #the last hours

[laylax13s]

Precious

Waiting for the night to fall

Summary :Alastair's backround in an alternate universe (NOT MODERN SETTING), how I imagine his teen years, the time he was with Charles, and the beginning of his and Thomas's relationship (edited)

This is still a first draft, chapters coming weekly or every three days.

ps.: in this fic he is mentally ill, so tw for that (dw only the first chapter is this short)

CHECK THE TWS BEFORE EVERY CHAPTER!!

TW/CW: @lc0h0l, @buse, d3pr3ssion

--‐-----

A soft knock was to be heard on Alastair’s door. This must be Layla, he thought, ignoring the sound. But the person repeated it, making him roll his eyes in annoyance. He stood up and went to open the door, revealing (of course) his sisters face.

“Dadash!” she called with a smile spreading across her face. Alastair glared at her before closing the door back and turning around to walk to the window. He ignored Cordelia’s comments and sat up on the windowsill, drawing up his knees to hug them and stare at the stars. It was around 9 o’clock in the evening, London’s streets already dipped in the sky’s dark ink. He normally wouldn’t be so rude towards his sister, but today his chest was aching specifically badly. His anxiety was crushing him, along with the feeling of numbness and pressure. He knew, once Cordelia and his maman will go to sleep, he will have to go out and look for his father. Who knows what mood he will be in, though when he was drunk there was typically one mood representing him.

He sighed, and wiped at his eyes, having the familiar sting in his eyes, signing tears.

Someone knocked again, and this time he didn’t dare open it for his sister not to see him like this. He simply said, “Go away Layla.” in a shaky but somehow strong voice. The door opened, now Risa standing there. She whispered “Mr. Carstairs, Ms. Carstairs and Mrs. Carstairs are asleep.”, nodding to him and leaving. Alastair took a deep breath and stood up.

It is time.

----------

Thank you for reading, tell me your opinion <33

#alastair carstairs #the last hours #thomas lightwood #thomastair #tlh #chain of thorns #chain of iron #cassandra clare #chain of gold #tsc #tlh fanfiction #tlh fanfic #thomas x alastair #alastair x thomas #cordelia carstairs

[vwritesaus]

The first thing Thomas notices is that he is standing in a well-lit room. Sunlight streams in through large arched windows, casting long rays along the floor and opposite walls from which framed paintings hang. He can’t make out any of the faces, most of them blurred or faded from age, but he can see every miniature groove in the elaborate frames carved with fleurs-de-lis, tiny leaves and rose petals.       The second thing he notices is Alastair Carstairs sitting sideways on one of the window seats of those arched windows, his back leaning against the edge of the arch and one foot planted firmly on the seat, the toes of the other grazing the wooden flooring. His attention is fixed on the world beyond the glass panes—a streaked mass of fluffy clouds and a blue sky stretching for miles—and his expression is contemplative, almost serious. That attention quickly turns to Thomas, possibly having sensed his presence, and something close to coyness blooms to life in his expression.       ‘Lightwood,’ he greets politely.       When Thomas blinks and doesn’t respond—too shocked to do so, because Alastair Carstairs is talking to him? To Tiny Tom, willingly?—Alastair rolls his eyes. He swings his whole body around to face him, both feet on the floor and his gaze fierce.       ‘Well?’ he prods. ‘Are you simply going to stand there like a cad, or are you going to come here and sit beside me?’

continue reading on ao3

~

hello!! long time no see, haha...

but here i am, and i bring with me a little fic i wrote for my wonderful best girl @drunkonimagination for her birthday back in july ✨✨ it's based off this art of hers where thomas dreams of kissing alastair, only to get rather the rude awakening lol. hope you enjoy it!!

~

tagging people who might be interested: @ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone @ferrari-go-vroom-vroom @astriefer @luciehercndale @claritywithclary @bluewrite

let me know if you’d like to be added to or removed from the tag list!!

#the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #the last hours #tlh #thomas lightwood #alastair carstairs #thomastair #thomastair fanfiction #thomastair fic #the last hours fanfiction #tlh fanfiction #the last hours fanfic #tlh fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #canon compliant #fluff/angst #falling in love #5 + 1 #5+1 fic #birthday fic #birthday fanfic #what's in a kiss? (by any other touch would feel just as sweet) #v loves agnes #i love you so much babe #this was very fun to write hehehe #academy thomas has a very special place in my heart ; v ;

[tleeaves]

Honey, I'm home, and I came back with the goods: chapter 3 of Blood Upon The Snow.

Get it while it's hot 🔥

Summary: James and Alastair embark on their quest with an unexpected third wheel. There is angst, violence, and gore ahead.

#james herondale #alastair carstairs #the last hours #skyrim #fanfic #tlh fanfic #james herondale x alastair carstairs #they need a ship name #jamastair?? #jastair? #we'll workshop it

[astriefer]

And One Taught Me Pain

I wished I had something for all days of Alastember, but here I am popping at the very end of it to give you some hurt (and a little comfort).

This is an au where Sona died when the Carstairs siblings were young. Alastair had no one but Risa to help with Elias's addiction - but once he and Cordelia grew and had enough, the thought of running away was what they whisper about in the middle of the night.

CW: parental neglect, addiction, mentions of drinking, bullying (tell me if there are more)

@alastair-appreciation-month

"I'll be there in thirty," Jem spoke through the phone. Metal clattered together on the other side of the phone as if his cousin was rummaging through his keys. He imagined he walked out of the comfort of his house in the countryside near London in a rush, thanks to Alastair's out-of-the-blue phone call in the middle of the night.

Alastair clutched the phone firmly to his ear. "Thank you," he mumbled numbly.

He resented Jem. He was beyond grateful for this, too. His emotions were spluttered all over the floor and bare for anyone. Yet, once the blinding rage had faded, he couldn't feel anything at all. He was so bewildered, not to mention frightened beyond words. Nothing was certain anymore, and Alastair doubted it would ever feel otherwise. No. No, actually, that wasn't true. there was one thing the half-Persian boy was sure about: he wasn't returning back home.

Was it a home? Cornwall Gardens in south Kensington was where he, his sister Cordelia and their father had lived for the past few months. Since Elias came back from rehab, he turned a new leaf to be there for his children. At least this is the story the family told with a strained smile if it was ever brought up.

The truth was far more disheartening.

Having nothing else to say, Alastair turned to finish the call. His cousin wasn't done yet, though.

"How is Cordelia?" Jem asked. The younger boy heard the sound of the engine turning on. He tensed and started to tap on the kitchen marble table. "You said she's not with you. Is she still at home?"

His breath went out of his lungs involuntarily while the thought of it filled him with unimaginable dread. Layla alone with Father, having to bear his demands and his moods, and his recklessness. Layla watching the person she used to look up to with bright eyes in the past now with chagrin while he couldn't stand on his own. It almost shattered whatever small pieces were left of his heart.

"No," Alastair informed. He yielded the tapping to a stop, pressing his fingers to his thigh.  He kept any emotion away from his voice, keeping it from wavering and choking. He can't be weak, not now. Not ever. "She is sleeping over at Lucie's."

"Oh," he could hear the confusion in his older cousin's voice. There was a pause.

Truth be told, he knew the Herondales wouldn't harm Cordelia. He didn't like James much, but he knew they were a respectable and kind-hearted family, and they loved her. Alastair, on the other hand? He bullied their son, he threw shade at their friends, and although he started to heal and deem himself worth forgiveness, he couldn't feel safe enough there to tell them the truth. So he left Cordelia on the steps of the Herondales' house – despite her stubborn protests of him staying with her -  with her bag of clothes. When Lucie opened the door to greet her best friend and usher her in, he spiraled into the darkness of the night. It was better this way for all of them.

He expected Jem to ask why Alastair didn’t stay with the Herondales and was convinced he would question his ways. The half-Chinese man never did.

"Alright," Jem said, not probing further. That irked Alastair anyway, albeit mixed with surprise. He swallowed it – when his father was away and they lived with their aunt, through her stories he learned about how much his late mother cared for curtsey. She probably wouldn't be proud of the vast variety of swears he uttered thoughtlessly all the time, but he hoped she at least appreciated the effort to be mundane with his cousin.

"I will not tell them unless you want me to. But I recommend you speak with Cordelia, I'm sure she's worried about you. And maybe give a call to your aunt, as well." The dark-haired boy felt like he was being chided.

"And Alastair?" Jem added, a bit softer.

"Yes?"

"I'm glad you called me."

He hung up, and Alastair stared at the phone as the silence settled around him.

*

Alastair had two options. To seethe or to cry. It wasn't all that surprising he chose the former.

When he left Cordelia with the Herondales, he had no clear vision of where he would stay the night. Sleeping under the moonlight on a bench was the main option, but he was widely aware there were dangers in the night. He could try and sneak to Kamla's house. But although they were fast friends, she had no idea about… anything. His father, Cordelia, the debts.

Could he have trusted her with this? She would've gotten into a lot of trouble had she offered him shelter, so he dismissed the idea as soon as it formed in his mind. He didn't believe he would get any sleep at all, whatever he had done.

So he let himself walk. Which was an awful idea.

As adrenaline left his veins, and he had time to rewind in his mind the latest events in his life, it left him exhausted. And so, so angry.

The dark-eyed boy managed to walk along the moonlit Thames, stepping near street lamps that shone like fire on his skin, as he went up the river skimming the rail. It was getting colder, and he needed to find shelter from the approaching storm soon.

His fingers creased the ceremonial dagger gently in his jumper's pocket. His father owned a sword in his youth, Cortana, which Cordelia inherited. His sister took it with her when they left Cornwall Gardens in hurry earlier, the sword one of her most treasured items. It was a family heirloom - a reminder they were warriors, heroes - that passed down generations of Carstairs. It'd been said to bestow fortuity along great pain on its bearer, which Alastair had always thought quite contradictory. Besides, who wishes their ancestors to live through great pain? He had enough of it his whole life.

Cordelia took Cortana with her while Alastair took a Persian dagger Aunt Risa gifted him for Nowruz, Persian New Year, ages back when they lived in Italy. Risa was the only member of the Jahansha family to keep in touch with them after the death of their mother. Some of his relatives sent them the occasional postcard, but when they left Iran, Risa was the one who put her life on hold and join them.

There were many stories of how Sona Carstairs, eldest daughter of one of the community's strongest families lost her life – some verses claimed she had an abortion and died from complications. Others gossiped it was the heartbreak of losing a child. Others speculated she was pulled to the other world by her late previous husband, Theodore Verlac, to reunite or to demand revenge. The most popular tale, though, was that she was poisoned, just like she poisoned her previous husband.

None of those fabricated stories affected their aunt or her loyalty to her sister. Even when they were ten, two years after Sona's death, she helped to keep the house afloat in her frequent visits. Years later, when Elias was sent to rehab and Cordelia learned what his illness truly was, Risa moved in temporarily and helped them settle in London.

After he lived a somewhat normal life without Elias, he couldn't return to the hell his old ones were. Not again.

This day wasn't supposed to be any different from the new routine they had since Elias's return. It filled him with rage the way Elias treated them when they returned from school, asking them to clean and cook. Most days he claimed to suffer from a headache due to work, while he stunk from the alcohol he downed in a nearby bar. The things the half-Persian boy had done to keep his sister safe from the cruel truth, all the pieces of himself he lost in attempts to hide his broken life. It was too much to recall or think about. It merely left him feeling hollow and bitter.

He didn't get farther into the sulking. A very tall man interrupted his contemplating. He didn't pay attention and lost his footing, wide-eyed, barely regaining his balance. Large hands shot forward to steady the both of them.

The dark-skinned man's head jolted upright swiftly. His body tensed up and he placed himself in a defensive position out of instinct. One good thing his useless father did was to teach them self-defense and attack patterns to ward off any threats. Nevertheless, the person that called his name was not a threat. Not a physical one, at least.

"Thomas?" Alastair asked in amazement.

*

"What are you doing here?" Thomas asked, his voice stiff. He glanced at the dagger in the older boy's hand, just a fraction of nervousness passing his features. "And do you mind putting down the pointy knife?"

Alastair glanced down and realized that as he tried to keep himself standing he pulled his arm out of the jumper. Oh. He lowered the weapon, trying to stop a snide remark to leave his lips. But he always had a loose tongue when he was angry. Which seemed to be almost all the time. "It’s a dagger." Alastair spit. "And I can ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

It managed to shut Alastair up. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. There was a fraction less heat in his words when he asked, "What?"

"It's a personal favor for you sister, who's been trying to call you for hours, by the way," Thomas said coolly.

Alastair's heart dropped to the floor, but he kept his chin high. His phone had no battery once he left the Herondales' house. Had his sister called while he was out? She must have had if she called her friends and asked them to search London to find him in the middle of the night.

Still, something else sparked his interest. His hope.

"Do you realize," Alastair said slowly instead. "That it's a very daft idea to stroll by yourself in the night?"

Lightning appeared in the sky. Seconds later the loud rolling laugh of thunder was heard across London. It was Thomas's turn to raise his eyebrows. "Well, I can ask you."

"I am on my way to a friend," he lied. He preferred better that the hazel-eyed boy didn't know that when Alastair racked his brain to where he could stay the night, none of the options were very pleasant. Alastair had no friends. Unless he counted Charles – which he did not. "And anyhow, I considered you the least stupidity–inclined of that group of friends you have."

"Really," Thomas retorted dryly.

"Obviously, yes." Alastair huffed, trying to compose himself. "Please, no offense, but I wouldn't have followed someone all night to make sure they're safe, having no protection of my own. It'd be stupid." If it weren't for people close to him, he wouldn’t have bothered. And he didn’t think it was right to describe the relationship as close, exactly.  

"I had no such expectations," Thomas assured him, crossing his arms. He was still glaring at him with such sharpness he had the urge to flinch, but Alastair was prideful and stubborn just as much.

It kept like that for a long, awkward silence. Thomas broke eye contact first. "Why?"

Alastair blinked in confusion. There was a pause, in which none of them seemed to know what to do or say.

"I-" Alastair has no idea what Thomas asked 'why' about. Why did he take a night trip in London with no appropriate clothing in an impending storm? Why didn't he make sure to charge his phone? Why was he there, having an eye contest with Thomas Lightwood? "I don't know what you mean."

"You know what I mean," anger tinted Thomas's voice now, and he clenched his hands into fists. "Why-"

Alastair was not having it. He answered the question with his own.

"Why would you come search for me?"

After all, You hate me.

*

Thomas scoffed. "What do you mean? Cordelia asked me to help. I wouldn't have come on my own accord."

"You went out of your way to search for a person you despise?" Alastair tried to clarify. "Why go through the trouble? Why not pretend you already went to sleep, or that you are helping with your mother's café. Anything, really?" He sounded almost desperate in the ending. Thomas must have hallucinated it.

Thomas was excellent at reading people, Alastair especially. The Lightwood boy assumed Alastair wasn't accustomed to someone understanding him, knowing his heart as easily as it is to know his own. When Thomas looked at his unreadable face, visible in the moon's soft glow, he knew that Alastair couldn't understand why.

"Because I'm not heartless, unlike you," he answered. A half-truth. He watched as Alastair gritted his teeth.

"I tried to apologize." Alastair countered, "I know what I did was - unacceptable. That it hurt you. I regret the path I've taken. But when your father is the advisor of the president and part of the British parliament, you cannot possibly pretend people don't gossip."

"You are not just people," Thomas said, a tad bit too fast and too harshly. He shut his mouth tightly as he registered what he blurted out.

Alastair did too, looking at him with narrowed eyes. "What exactly," he exclaimed, slowly, "do you mean by that?"

 Thomas took a deep breath. "I mean," Thomas said sternly, avoiding his eyes. "That you knew James, still you decided to pick on him. You humiliated people. You had no reason to be cruel to us. I know the world hasn't always been there for you, but you could've chosen to be kinder."

Alastair restrained a disbelieving snort. He wanted to say, Thomas, by the love of the Angel, there's so much worse that could have happened to you lot.

What did come out of his mouth was, "What do you know?"

Thomas's gaze shot to him in shock. He opened his mouth, but Alastair cut him off with a violent shake of his hand.

"What do you know," Alastair repeated, enraged. "About my life, about what I had to do? You say I had an option, but I did not." His fingers itched, so turned them into fists and shot his hardest look at Thomas. "You whine because I spread a rumor once, when I was, what, thirteen? Try hearing everyone laugh at you all your life because you have only a father, and that's an overstatement!" He smiled then, a crooked smile that broke Thomas's heart. "Try being kind, Thomas, when the world has only ever been merciless."

He literally spat the last words. And now that he has begun, Alastair found it impossible to stop. He wanted to be heard, for once. He wanted something to take off the pain that never seemed to leave him alone. Thomas, on his part, looked mortified. "And you know why I'm not worried about walking alone at night? I've done that since I was a kid. When I did works a child shouldn't do. When I never had a shoulder I could lean on, unlike you and your family and friends. The world has never proven to me it could be anything but tedious." Alastair had no idea when the tears started, neither he knew about the rain that poured around them. But when he felt something wet on his cheeks, he realized streams of tears had constructed on his face.

 He breathed a long, profound breath that stabilized him enough to continue. "So don’t assume I should be grateful that you sacrificed your pride to come search for me," He stepped closer to Thomas, poking his finger in his chest. Thomas blushed faintly. "That you were so kind as to speak to me. I might l-" he paused. It was then that he looked away from Thomas, averting his eyes. "I try to do better. To be better. And you can despise me all you want, but you don't get the tell me I should have been kinder." Alastair's throat felt dry all of a sudden. He poked Thomas's chest weakly once again. "You do not."

Thomas gawked at Alastair. He knew there was no way to answer this correctly, and he doubted he needed to. Alastair didn't say this to make him pity him. The said man moved to keep a distance between them, as Thomas found himself saying: "I don't hate you."

Alastair lifted his gaze to look at his eyes, glassy dark eyes – dark as the sky above them, that started to seriously gather clouds by now. "I tried. To think of you as a monster, to loathe you. But I can't, " Thomas whispered, looking to keep Alastair's eyes. He didn't understand all of what Alastair has said. But it was enough for him to connect the dots. "Cordelia suddenly dropped off at Lucie. You wander the city at night…" he trailed off.

They weren't close, they weren't even on friendly terms anymore. Thomas busy himself trying to convince himself the man in front of him had no heart. But he couldn't have been more misguided. He felt ashamed, all of a sudden. He was a complete fool, wasn't he?

"I…" Something shut off behind Alastair's eyes. It looked like the spirit he had moments ago abandoned him, and Thomas first took notice of the dark circles around the older boy's eyes. The way every strand wasn't perfectly in place, so unlike Alastair. What startled him the most was the look of defeat in his eyes. "I have nowhere else to go."

What does that mean?

Before Thomas had a chance to ask, a loud HONK! Startled the both of them. A car skidded to a stop next to them. As the window rolled down, Thomas gasped in astonishment.

Alastair squinted, trying to recall the name of the man in front of him. Then it clicked. "Gideon Lightwood?"

"What are you doing out, my boy?" He quizzed Thomas. His eyes reflected his curiously, with slight alarm. "Alastair Carstairs?"

Alastair nodded, not sure what to say.

"We…" Thomas thought of something to say. He looked at Alastair. What excuse could they make, when they wear bone-deep soaked in rainwater, far away from both their homes?

"Nevermind that. Get inside first, before you'll catch a cold." Thomas obliged and rushed to slide inside the back seat. He was dripping water, which his mother wouldn't be pleased about. Both for the car and himself.

"What are you doing, standing there like a statue? Get inside." Gideon told Alastair, who blinked with surprise. Gideon gave him an encouraging honk, and Alastair started to think he just really liked to blow the car's horn.

It gave Alastair a startle. This man was worried for him. It was odd and, he suspected, very much like Gideon Lightwood, because Thomas hadn’t seemed to be surprised by his father's concerned face.

Hesitantly, Alastair entered the car. He sat on the back seat, near Thomas. After he fastened the belt, he straightened his back and stiffly thanked Gideon.

"Anytime," Gideon Lightwood, the man Alastair slandered in his youth, smiled brightly at him. Something inside him twisted. "Shall we take you home, Alastair?"

Thomas glanced at Alastair as he stiffened. I have nowhere else to go.

"It's the route you take every day to work, right, Pa?" Thomas asked. "We're closer to our house. And we're both soaked. I think we should get home and change to some fresh, dry clothes."

Gideon frowned. "Is it okay with your father, Alastair?"

"Yes," Alastair answered, his voice steady and closed off, composed. It was Alastair Carstairs, the untouchable, cold, and stony persona he wore anywhere else but when it was just himself. "He doesn't mind."

Thomas couldn't stop gazing at Alastair. Gideon seemed to trust Alastair's word, so he started the car toward home.

The hidden, grateful eyes of Alastair had not gone unnoticed by Thomas. Maybe Alastair wasn't so bad. Maybe Thomas misunderstood it all. But he knew one thing: he wanted to be there for him. So he had.

Taglist: (which is very old, so please tell me if you don't wanna be here)

@life-through-the-eyes-of @rainingpouringetc @takethetrain @ary-es @justanormaldemon @tessherongraystairs

#alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #the last hours #tlh #tsc #chain of iron #chain of gold #the shadowhunter chronicles #cordelia carstairs #jem carstairs #gideon lightwood #sophie collins #kamla joshi #james herondale #lucie herondale #ariadne bridgestock #thomas x alastair #thomastair #hurt/comfort #tlh fanfic #the last hours fanfic #mine #my fics #alastember2022 #alastairappreciationmonth2022

[linluanloudstandsforlesbian]

"And so, as Luan looked at the muddied pavement with its hobbled tiles, she felt a certain warmth grow inside her- not from the summer heat, but from the feeling of a building infatuation beating its wings inside her heart. "

Linger on, Your Pale Blue Eyes - AO3 fanfic (by me)

1K word one-shot

1/1 Chapter(s)

Pairing: Luan Loud x Maggie / Luaggie

Fluff & Humour

hope you all enjoy! this is my first stab at a fanfiction so please be respectful and kind! <3

#self promo #loud house #the loud house #luan loud #maggie loud house #maggie #tlh #tlh fanfic #luaggie

[thevagabondexpress]

a personal headcanon for how christopher lightwood could survive chain of thorns without wrecking up the plot of the back half of the book

a) anna attempts to put a healing rune on christopher immediately when he's hit and not a moment later, instead of only when things start to go wrong. she of course realizes that it's not working.

b) either 1. cordelia decides to preemptively test the cortana paladin healing powers in case she needs them again, or 2. remembering what the silent brothers did with the khora demons, someone and grace get hold of a stele and bullshit their way into putting him into a medically induced coma and pray they can get help for him before the poison reaches his heart or his brain.

c) whatever they do, miraculously it works. he's in a lot of pain, both from the lingering post-antidote effects of the poison itself and from how much healing his body has to do (sometimes the process itself can be painful, like the pins-and-needles sensation when you wake up a circulation-deprived foot), and therefore out of commission for an unknown period of time (and who knows what permanent damage may still have been done) but he's alive. though also weak and aching and possibly even delirious as his body rids itself of the remaining nonlethal damage. he needs rest in order to heal. lots of rest.

d) sometime after the epilogue christopher properly comes around to the world to discover that matthew left for Austria and his sibling got back with her ex-girlfriend. again. then he learns that grace barely took any credit for her part in the invention of the fire messages. extrapolate as one likes from there.

of course, this excludes any potential details that may or may not occur depending on the individual imagination (soap-operatic death faking, tearful bedside talks, panic! at the gabrily household, etc.)

#christopher lightwood vs the butterfly effect #tlh #tsc #the last hours #tlh fanfic #christopher lightwood #chain of thorns #tlh headcanons #christopher lives #i make this as a list and not a fic because i already wrote at least one fic that uses this #but i also want to throw it out there as a share-round-able plot thing #fanon; headcanons; etm