RAZOR BLADE CHERRYADE

i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back.

[ascrowesfly]

{ samuel larsen, 28, cis male, he/him } || LEVI CROWE aka CHARON is a mutant with the ability of FATAL TOUCH. he’s been in new york for SEVEN YEARS where he spends most of his time as A CEMETERY CARETAKER. when i think of him, i think of CHILLED MAUSOLEUM MARBLE, HAND-ROLLED CIGARETTES, BORROWED SILVER RINGS, and THE SMELL OF CEDAR. he is affiliated with THE BROTHERHOOD. [ alex, 30+, they/them, cst, n/a ]

@c23intros || @chromosome23hq || ability breakdown || brotherhood initiation

Abbreviated timeline:

At 5, Levi moves with his parents and sister to upstate New York and meets Riley.

At 13, he watches the presidential address outing his and Riley’s families as mutants to the world at large. That summer he loses his father to anti-mutant discrimination -- and finds out that he and Riley are mutants in the same day.

At 21, Levi and Riley leave their hometown to move to NYC.

At 28, Levi has been living and working around the city for seven years, with a job as a cemetery caretaker and ties to the Brotherhood.

Levi is born to and grows up with the perfect nuclear family: two parents and an older sister who all love him. Scratching past the perfect veneer is a little more telling when you notice that Dad has catlike eyes, brilliantly green and slit-pupiled, a seemingly harmless mutation that grants him better vision in low light and not much else. They move to New York when Levi is six, and he knows they’re in the right place when the neighbors don’t look at his dad’s eyes at all strangely. The Hunters have a son of their own, a shy boy with mousy curls, and with only a little gentle prompting does the boy grab Levi’s hand to pull him to the backyard and show him their swingset.

Levi would never be apart from Riley again after that moment, not really. Never for long.

Levi is thirteen when the president makes his address, telling the world what their two little families already knew: that mutants exist. Levi remembers glancing hesitantly at his mother’s face and his father’s bright green cat eyes, a rock forming in the pit of his stomach for what this could mean. He remembers taking Riley’s hand and squeezing til his knuckles went white. By now Levi knows his older sister is a mutant, too, but at least she doesn’t have cat eyes. It hasn’t been until now that Levi even thought he should be worried, but they all should.

Just over a year later, Levi’s father is dead because of his cat eyes and Levi is angry. Such a small, stupid thing to be afraid of and such a small, stupid thing to kill or die over. Levi puts on a brave face in front of his mother and sister, but when he has to tell Riley -- just as much a member of their family, at this point -- he breaks down. He shouts and cries and hits his fists against Riley’s chest and Riley is simply there for him. He always has been, and Levi is starting to think he always will be, starting to realize he always wants him to be. In a moment already fraught with emotion something else snaps, or finally tips over; Levi realizes he’s in love with Riley, and as Riley starts to lean in, Levi realizes he feels the same way. Anger gives way to surprise and an enormous ball of conflict, having this realization so fast on the heels of his father’s death.

Riley’s forehead bumps ever so gently against his, and Levi panics. Everything that happens after is a blur: Riley dropping to the floor, Levi shouting for help, an ambulance being called. Sitting as far away from his mother as possible in the car. Being told by the doctors twice in one day that there’s nothing that can be done. Knowing this is somehow his fault.

Astonishingly, though, just as Levi realizes he’s a mutant, so does Riley: over the course of days and in an act of miraculous self-preservation, Riley’s body knits itself back together and undoes the damage Levi did. The end result is bittersweet, with both boys now knowing what they are to each other and what they can do, but incapable of touching each other again.

Levi withdraws from high school and stays hidden in his room for the next six months, only seen by his family and by Riley, and even then only at a safe distance. It’s only thanks to Riley’s persistence that he doesn’t withdraw altogether, and slowly but surely, Levi is coaxed back out of his shell. He starts to leave the house again, even if he’s careful to wear gloves and cover most of his skin. Eventually he re-enrolls in school, even if he has to repeat a year when Riley’s already graduated.

Through it all, Riley is his constant. They’re inseparable as they ever were even if safe space has to be kept between them. Despite everything, Riley promises Levi that his feelings haven’t changed, and Levi hesitantly accepts them even if he thinks he doesn’t deserve it after what he did. When Riley announces he plans to move to the city to pursue medical school -- the most obvious course of action to learn the full extent of what he can do -- Levi follows without a second thought. They rent a musty hole-in-the-wall together and Levi finds a job as a cemetery caretaker, where the only thing he can hurt are the flowers left on graves.

Eventually -- and with years of careful practice, not to mention harrowing trial and error -- Riley figures out that he can rewrite a part of Levi’s DNA into his own. Riley carves a piece of Levi into himself, one that grants him Levi’s own immunity to his fatal touch. For the first time in over five years, Levi is able to touch and be touched.

Once they’re in the city, Levi hears whispers about them: the Brotherhood, with their disdain for humans and credo of superiority. Still embittered by his father’s loss years ago, it doesn’t take Levi long to track them down -- and in turn, they help him track down those who killed his father.

Levi gets the revenge he’s been craving for years, his only regret being that his way of killing is so much swifter than he thought they deserved.

Now, Levi lives and breathes for the Brotherhood and doesn’t understand how a mutant could feel any other way. Superiority runs through his veins alongside death, and he’s vowed never again to let a human harm anyone he holds close to his heart. He’ll be a willing weapon in the war against those who hurt him and his family first.

[ascrowesfly]

S. CROWE​:

The the speed at which his agreement comes surprises her, but only for a moment. A moment that she covers with first one nod, then another; her gaze turning away as their quickly hashed out deal settles between them. It’s not ideal, she knows, putting up this divider between them; asking him to keep her in the dark when they’ve always been able to each other everything and anything. 

But for now, at least, there’s no other way forward. And they need to move forward. 

‘I love you, too.’

Another nod and she looks back at him, to acknowledge the sentiment. To accept and receive it– when she sees his outstretched arms. Stevie scoffs lightly, but it does nothing to hide the small smile that forms anyway. And with a familiar, almost loving, roll of her eyes– the same one that they’d always given each other when one of them was feeling particularly sentimental– Stevie reaches out and grabs his ungloved hands and pulls her brother in, her arms wrapping around him in a tight hug. “Sentimental punk.” She lobs, though her tone is warm and thick, and she makes no moves to let go. 

After a few long moments of simply enjoying the moment, she pipes up again to ruin it, speaking into his shoulder. “We need to get some tequila on the way back to mama’s. I refuse to deal with her boasting about this,” their reconciliation that she’d all but forced. “sober. And she’s back on her dry kick.”

Levi hadn’t realized the breath he was holding until Stevie’s grabbing his hands, the surprise and the sensation pulling a shuddering breath back into his lungs as she wraps her arms around his middle. Without hesitation he gathers her close, burying his nose in the soft, wavy hair at her temple, comforted both by the embrace and the way he can feel those brushes of her skin that he’s wholly unused to. He missed this. He always misses this, being able to hug his sister without worrying, without a blanket in-between.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters with watered-down sullenness that does little to hide the smile in his own voice. Levi is sentimental when it comes to his family — for better, for worse, for everything else on the spectrum. He’d die for them just as soon as he’d kill for them, and someday he really hopes that Stevie understands he’d do anything she asked, just like he promised.

“Tequila. Okay.” That’s definitely not difficult to agree to, finally managing a quiet laugh into Stevie’s hair. “We can do that. — and I’m buyin’.” It’s the absolute least he can do.

FIN.

[ascrowesfly]

R. HUNTER​:

with @ascrowesfly​ at the satanic soiree

As always Riley and Levi had gotten dressed up for the Halloween festivities, never one’s that missed this holiday ever since they were kids who had started to go trick or treating together. However as the years passed, Halloween started to involve a lot more alcohol and ruined costumes by the end of the night.

Right now Riley was glaring at Levi’s face as they were both sat in the more secluded VIP section of Club Nyx, the blonde already a bit buzzed from the drinks “I hate it when you wear makeup because that means I can’t kiss you”

.

Mingling with their friends at parties was all well and good, but enough drinks in and Levi always found himself in the same place: wanting to find somewhere a little more secluded, where he could relax with Riley apart from the press of people. His unnecessarily spendy costume coat is draped nearby to keep anyone else from sitting close to him, and as Levi catches the look on Riley’s face, he just ends up more skeleton-like as he grins.

Sliding closer with one arm over the booth behind his boyfriend, Levi pulled the glove off the opposite hand with his teeth, tossing it back towards his coat. His fingertips caught one collar-corner of Riley’s bright orange jumpsuit and, leaning in close enough to kiss him but hovering just short of actually doing it, Levi murmured, “And who told you that you couldn’t?”

[ascrowesfly]

C. SONG​:

location: satanic soiree participants: cassia song & levi crowe ( @ascrowesfly​ )

“a skeleton,” cassandra commented, her eyes narrowed over the top of her wine glass as she studied levi in front of her. “you’ve out done yourself with the creativity, crowe,” she responded, this time with a laugh. “your makeup looks good,” she smiled, as she lowered the glass. “what do you think of my costume?”

Levi rolled his eyes even as he smiled, leaning one elbow against the bar as he waited for his drink. “It does look good, thanks.” For now, at least. He tilted his head and gave Cassia a once-over, considering the red coat and boots. “It’s, uh. Colorful. You an art student?” That was his best guess, and it wasn’t a great one.

[ascrowesfly]

30th September, 1998; nearing midnight.

It was a feeling Levi was familiar with, if not wholly used to yet: the gentle swoop-dip of his stomach, lingering with butterflies as a new setting materialized around him. The bedroom was almost uncomfortably minimalist, like a furniture showroom or a sample development home. Levi wrinkled his nose and glanced either way to gain his bearings, gaze coming to rest on the purpose for his intrusion: a man settled comfortably asleep, back propped against stiff and uncomfortable looking pillows, a book open and abandoned in his lap.

Levi didn’t have all of the details, but he didn’t need them. January had told him enough. She was the guiding hand and he was the weapon, the precision instrument uniquely suited for this particular job. As such, even if Levi wasn’t one for torture, never had been, some part of him still thought it was a pity he couldn’t take more time with this; give the man settled so obliviously in bed the slower, more painful death he no doubt deserved. But instructions were clear: the death had to look natural. That was the whole reason Levi was here. No signs of struggle, no telltale bruises, no blood. An unearned peaceful end.

Levi approached the bed with feather-light footsteps, knowing that January St. James was watching even if he didn’t know exactly how. The only sounds in the room were the breaths that matched the soft rise and fall of Levi’s target, and the quiet fabric hiss of one glove as he slipped it off. Leaning over, still unnoticed, Levi flattened one hand against the modern, minimalistic headboard as he leaned in close enough to let his next words brush the sleeping man’s ear.

“Jonas Goetsch,” he whispered, enough that he could hear those sleep-deep breaths interrupt. Levi barely drew back, eyes locking with a startled pair barely focusing, understandably surprised not to be alone.

“I just wanted you to know it was a mutant that did it.”

Levi waited a beat and a half, watching the shift from bleary confusion, to dawning realization, to some mixture of anger and fear. As soon as the man opened his mouth, though, Levi acted: his bare hand, already hovering nearby, found gentle but purposeful contact against Jonas Goetsch’s cheek. The man settled back into the pillows again with little more than a sigh, as though he’d only fallen back asleep — if not for the heavy-lidded glassiness of his eyes, still partially open.

Straightening, Levi looked down at the body with a subdued but unadulterated hatred, pulling his glove back on unnecessarily before he reached out to slide those eyelids shut. He wouldn’t touch the man again if he didn’t have to, even to complete the perfect tableau of uninterrupted, calm sleep.

Still: so much more than he deserved.

Taking a step back, Levi surveyed his work with an inscrutable expression. Anticlimactic, certainly, but well within the confines of the order he’d received. What the execution lacked in flair it made up for in pure satisfaction: so much of what Levi had done since April had been focused on making up for that ill-fated mission. Burning Essex to the ground had done most of the trick, but as with any sinking ship, so many rats had still escaped. Tonight, at least, there was one fewer — one of the biggest.

“It’s done,” Levi said to the empty room, probably unnecessarily; he assumed January was still watching, graciously letting him have this moment. Just like that, though, just like he’d arrived, he was gone again — and the room Levi left was even quieter than before.

October 1st, 1998.

It is a beautiful day.

January St. James hasn’t much cared for how days have been, after setting up the Hellfire Club and cementing the empire that she’s built for herself over days and weeks and years of clawing at the power structures that line the New York city skyline. But it is a beautiful day, and one that she starts with by watching the news. She doesn’t expect much, but what she sees makes her smile for a good, long while.

“[...] leaving a complicated legacy behind.” The woman, a blonde bob and a smart suit in front of a palatial mansion says, reading off a teleprompter as the howling of the wolves at the gate grow louder. “There has been no one like Jonas Goetsch, one of the co-founders of the now dissolved law firm Brandt and Goestch, has died from natural causes.” There are no more things that give her joy than this; the death of a rival, of someone that’s done her wrong. That’s done mutants wrong, by allying himself with Essex House—a peaceful death is not what he deserves, but it’s the job she was given.

She reminds herself to at least give Levi a larger cut. Not bad for his first job.

“The former CEO died peacefully in his home at what coroners might say is simply of old age. He is survived by his three children, Maude, Benedict, and Matthias Goetsch. He has not made any comment as of this time.” Her smile curls up to her lips as she takes an envelope of sealed wax, sent to Maxine’s bedside table in a flash. There is only a note there, that it’s done, and that she looks forward to their continued partnership in the future.

She would have done much more horrible things to him. Poison. Harm. Perhaps a little arson, with the body left on the top of the tallest tower as a warning. But Maxine didn’t hire her for theatrics, simply a good, old-fashioned assassination, and she is simply intent to deliver.

“Recently, Jonas was implicated in the Essex House scandal, upon which his company was apparently legal counsel to one Nathaniel Essex, who still remains at large. The mutants that were said to be traumatized from the institution were covered in legal red tape from his same law firm.” An eyebrow raised as she drinks her coffee, fresh off the pot. “They were barred from seeing friends and family, as well as kept in dehumanizing conditions, all thanks to the legal framework that allowed private individuals and corporations such as Essex House to keep them there.”

“Following this story, Maxine Brandt, former CEO of Brandt and Goetsch, has declined to comment about her former partner’s death.”

She looks out over the city’s skyline, the rush of questions and comments spouting from the television about Jonas, his legacy, and his death flowing to the backdrop of her mind. This was a beautiful day.

“The man was a controversial figure, with a severity that all those in his vicinity felt. Jonas Goetsch died at the age of 63, with a small following of colleagues and comrades that respected him.”

This was a beautiful day indeed.

[ascrowesfly]

D. HERNANDEZ​:

“Oh, straight up?” He waves to the bartender and orders Levi a double—just for telling him that. That’s a shit hand. Dante would put an arm around him if he didn’t think it could kill him, but he’s known to show his appreciation using a lot of things. Sometimes an extra one percent, sometimes a spare cigarette. “I’m sorry. That’s gotta fucking suck. But you’ve made it this long, so I figure you got a trick. Or you’re just real careful.”

He grabs the empty shot glass and focuses, the pain in his temples coming into focus. It hurts. It always hurts, but when he’s having his migraines it feels like it magnifies to a point where he doesn’t even know why he does it. But it twists itself. Turns into steel, A crude figure of a ballerina, before he breathes out and it snaps back like a rubber band.

“That. Mostly try to turn stuff into—” A pang on his head. In his temple. “Into other stuff. I can make it but calories and shit. Wicked side effects, but it doesn’t beat dying, though.”

Levi can’t help but find a fair amount of humor in Dante’s reaction, even if he probably shouldn’t. Other peoples’ sympathy is usually lost on him by now. They think they know what they’re apologizing for, but they don’t. Not really. Dante ordering him another drink is a better apology than most, at least; still empty, but it tastes better.

He’s more than content to focus on what Dante can do instead, eyebrows creeping higher as the shot glass changes, not just its material but its shape, then suddenly snaps back to its natural form. Levi doesn’t fully follow what Dante says after. “That’s impressive,” he’ll acknowledge regardless, but it’s followed with a faint frown when he sees the look on Dante’s face. “Don’t rip your head open over a lil party trick on my behalf, though.”

“Does it always change back, or can you like. Turn shit into gold ‘n sell it?” Seems like it could be lucrative.

[ascrowesfly]

FINS:

         levi’s enthusiasm is infectious, but his disregard for the people around them is… less so. fins can’t help but notice the passerby that crosses the street, the glances, the hurried paces—he’s grown to expect it, but the behavior still stings. “oh,” he says, pulling his eyes away from the street and back toward levi. “i don’t know if i have a favorite, but i like fish. can they make fish spicy?”

“Hell, yeah, they can make fish spicy,” Levi replies enthusiastically, since it’s not often he gets to talk about his love of cooking. Riley bears the brunt of it, and his experiments; otherwise, Levi doesn’t exactly do a lot of cupcake baking for the Brotherhood. “My mamá makes this killer caldo de pescado during Lent, it’s like a spicy fish stew.” Levi hasn’t had much reason to make it, since he doesn’t observe Lent; maybe this is a good excuse. “You like soup? If we can’t find some already made, I can make you some in no time.”

[ascrowesfly]

S. SULLIVAN​:

Levi still seems cautious – which is fair. Obviously he wouldn’t want people knowing about his affiliation: the former Essex residents might be profoundly grateful to the Brotherhood, but it’s not like they’re well regarded in the grand scheme of things. At the man’s question, Sawyer nods. “Nine years. I’d given up. Never thought I was ever gettin’ outta there. I ain’t gonna tell no one, ‘bout you I mean. Y’all saved my life.”

Nine years. The muscle in Levi’s jaw tightens, and his expression turns hard. He’s never going to forget sitting with Riley on their shitty little couch, sides pressed together and hands tangled like they were holding on for dear life, as they’d watched the Essex interviews. This man had gone through much of the same for nine fucking years.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner.” Levi assumes a lot of people must be apologizing to them, but he feels like he has more reason to than most. He sucks down another lungfull of his cigarette, lets it burn for a second or two before shaking his head and continuing in a soft cascade of smoke. “We- tried before. End of April.” Levi’s not sure they even knew that; maybe the first Brotherhood attack had been carefully suppressed, just like everything else. “And… we fucked up.” It’s hard to admit anyway, but especially difficult to someone who’d subsequently been subjected to another month of torture because of it. “Should’ve been sooner.”

[ascrowesfly]

S. CROWE​:

It’s an effort to hold back the stink-eye that comes so naturally at his comment about his anger not being directed at her. He has nothing to be angry with her about, is the immediate thought that– thanks to better judgement– is pushed aside without acknowledgement. Still, the confirmation that their fighting doesn’t have to escalate again; that she doesn’t have to be at the ready to hold her own again, does wonders for her too tight muscles. 

It doesn’t look as drastic as it feels, she’s sure, but all at once the tightly coiled up tension in her shoulders and all down her back slowly start to unravel. And relax. Stevie takes a deep, cleansing breath that for the first time in a month isn’t coated in anger or frustration. 

She’s still angry. But it sits.. differently, within her. 

‘I want you to know I’d do anything for you, Stevie. I mean it.’

Stevie nods, but only as an acknowledgement, so he knows that she’s heard him. Claiming the statement feels.. wrong, somehow. Maybe she doesn’t believe it. Maybe she can’t. Not yet, anyway.

“I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, kid.” An exhale, and more unraveling tension. “Your choices are yours. And so are the consequences. I want to be left out of it, Levi. Not–” She’s quick to clarify, shooting him a soft, mildly panicked look. “Not out of everything, just.. out of that part.” That part; It; all fillers to avoid saying the name of his band of terrorists. “I love you. And you know I’ve always got your back. But.. I don’t want to hear about them, okay?” Despite her best efforts, her bottom lip quivers and her voice cracks. “I don’t want to know what they’re having you do.” Stevie nods to herself, first slowly then with more conviction. “It’s all I can think of… It’s the only way to make this work.”

He senses it more than he can actually see it, but Levi still watches carefully as something in Stevie seems to… relax. Unspool, just a little bit. That’s a good thing, he thinks. Or at least… he hopes. For his part, he carefully flexes the stiffness from his hands at his sides, letting his fists relax, and listens to what she has to say.

It isn’t surprising, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, just a little. Keeping what he and Riley do for the Brotherhood from his mother is hard enough sometimes, feels bad enough for the secrets they keep… but maybe it was selfish of him to unload those things onto Stevie instead. Like a confessional she never asked for, and Levi never examined closely enough to see it was hurting her. It stings to know that now, but he supposes… better late than never. It’s better now than after it’s too late.

So, Levi barely has to think about it before he nods in agreement. “Okay,” he says quietly, meeting Stevie’s gaze with his own, still a little glassy and red-rimmed. “Okay,” he reiterates more firmly, nodding now. “If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it. I promise.” It’s so easy to promise this, to get his sister back. It won’t necessarily be easy to carry out, but that’s a problem for the future.

A beat stretches between them, then another. Levi’s chest feels tight as he draws a shaky breath, but at least this one brings a little more relief. “I love you, too,” Levi promises, quietly but with obvious earnesty, thick with feeling. A hundred more explanations or apologies die in his throat as he holds out his arms instead, silently asking — begging, even, considering the look in his eyes as he rapidly blinks a few more tears back — for a hug.

[ascrowesfly]

F. WALSH​:

Well, she figures he’s not wrong. They’re still learning the boundaries of this new, precarious friendship, and casual drop ins aren’t exactly the foundations of a ticking time bomb of a friendship. But, the problem with Finley’s morally upright composure is that it tends to breed morally upright friends. So, when the things weighing on her are morally dubious if she puts it lightly, then it feels like a burden too big to place on the shoulders of any of her friends at the institute. Taking the glass in her hands, she nods. “Guilty, I guess.” A poor choice of words based on the topic of conversation she’s about to steer onto, but maybe Levi will find some morbid humor in it. “Masten’s son goes to the institute. I killed his Dad, I’m sure you know. It was one of the ones that control minds that made me do it, it wasn’t of my own free will. But, I had to watch him die at my hands, and now I have to see his kid in the halls almost every day.” She lays out, words tumbling from her mouth at a mile a minute. “And, my other friends, they’re not going to understand what it’s like to kill someone. You do.” She pauses for a brief moment. “No offense.” There’s another beat. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for, here. I just… desperately have needed to talk about it, and I’ve been too scared to talk to anyone else.”

Phew. He’d essentially asked her to lay it all out on the table, and that’s exactly what Finley does. Instead of taking a full seat in the living room, Levi settles perched on one of the couch arms, listening to everything Finley has to say with rapt, maybe even slightly too intense attention. This isn’t really something he’s gotten to discuss with too many others, either, or if it was, no one with morals like Finley has.

Already this reminds Levi of the talk he had with Samson, not long after he’d been sprung from Rikers, thanks in no small part to the woman in front of him now — and the other spies. Both of these reminders leave a bitter taste at the back of his throat, something he endeavors to wash away with a drink and almost succeeds.

“You wanna know how I sleep at night, I’m guessing,” Levi asks with a small, borderline sardonic smile. He glances down at the glass in his hands, his gloved hands, and considers. “The first time I killed someone wasn’t of my own free will, either. It was an accident. A crowded subway.” Levi presses his lips into a thin line, then barely shakes his head. “I didn’t sleep for a few days. Couldn’t really be convinced it wasn’t my fault. I know it’s not the same,” he adds, finally glancing up to Finley again. “You were forced to do what you did. And that matters. But the most important thing you can do is… remind yourself you didn’t choose to do it.”

Levi pauses for a moment, then can’t help but add: “Plus, Masten was an absolute fuckin’ tool. What you did to him, he would’ve done to hundreds, thousands of our kind in much shittier, more underhanded ways. For what it’s worth,” he finishes with a casual shrug, watching her over his glass as he takes another sip. He says so partially to lighten the mood, but it isn’t as though Levi thinks he’s wrong to say so.

[ascrowesfly]

FINS​:

         the more levi explains, the more confused fins grows. he doesn’t know much about the world above, including the languages that people use. his experience with english is by chance—there are people who speak differently in the sewers, but none had taught him anything about it. “oh,” he says, instead of asking more questions. from the casual way levi speaks, he assumes this is common knowledge. maybe he’ll figure it out for himself? “and they sell… spicy things?”

“Yeah,” Levi agrees enthusiastically, turning a corner with a couple of quick nods and paying zero mind to a woman who opts to cross the street rather than pass the unlikely duo on the sidewalk. “And it’s not a specific kind of food, either, like. People’ll make anything spicy. You can get spicy candy, if you want. What's your favorite kinda food? ‘Cause I bet we can find it spicy.”

[ascrowesfly]

D. HERNANDEZ​:

“Met an ex. Didn’t exactly like the way it went,” he says, grimacing at the whole… mess with Mark that had happened just a couple of nights back. It’s still in his head, focused and horrible. He wants to wash it out with tequila. “And besides, I don’t exactly like being alone hankering for a goddamn drink with my head pounding. I can be miserable in public.”

He’s a little more muted, and he expects a quick word or a sharp jab from him. But nothing yet, and he soothes himself with the fact that the doppelganger was at least a fellow mutant; less likely to get his ass to HR. “So. What’s your poison? Your mutation?” Dante shrugs. It’s always a hit or miss question with people like them. Either it was a party trick, the core of their being or a traumatic memory. He doesn’t know how to parse it, so he ends up going forward, barreling on. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna. Just curious.”

Levi just nods blandly when Dante mentions an ex. Having been with Riley for over half of his life, he doesn’t really know what having an ex is like, so he usually opts not to comment on those threads of conversation. Plus, Dante is a stranger. Levi’s positive he doesn’t want to know anything about the man’s love life, just as he’s sure Dante doesn’t want him to ask. He understands being miserable in public, if nothing else, so Levi will briefly cheers to that before taking a slow sip of his new drink.

‘What’s your poison? Your mutation?’ The way the question is posed is entirely too apt. Levi rolls the bourbon over his tongue with a blank expression and considers lying. He’s got a list of clever comebacks a mile long for ‘why the gloves?’ that he’s cultivated over the past fifteen years. Something about this interaction makes him want to tell the truth, but only in a weaponized sort of way. "I kill people." Blunt. Simple. To the point. And that's all it is, isn't it? There's no nuance to what Levi can do.

He leans one elbow on the bar so he can face Dante, head tilted with a hint of intoxication and plenty of curiosity. "You?"

[ascrowesfly]

S. MUSA​:

Who: Sela & Levi What: the grand opening of The Gorgon’s Lair When: September 17th, 1998 (a whole month later than originally advertised, and that’s definitely not my fault)

The opening of the large doors causes a brief flash of light at the gallery’s entrance that catches Sela’s attention, which in turn has her politely excusing herself from a pair of long time clients that had come to show their support. With a smile, she makes her way to the newcomer; the hem of her long, white gown swaying gently with each step. “Hello there! Allow me to welcome you to The Gorgon’s Lair!” Her gloved arms spread wide with an artful flourish, each pointing to their own elaborate archway– the two true entrances to the gallery itself– as she comes to a stop a safe distance away. “Can I offer you a glass of water or champagne while you wander?” 

Levi isn’t someone who has a lot of opportunities to wear a suit; it’s just not who he is, and not the sort of events he attends. Tonight, though, is special, and if he’s being perfectly honest with himself, he’s been looking for a good excuse to wear this again. The Parisian suit he was gifted is obviously expensive and immaculately tailored, which means that for once, he fits right in with the rich-looking crowd milling about Sela’s new gallery.

Staring down one particularly intricate sculpture — he wonders what other people think of Sela’s skill, to so accurately reflect these delicate stems and leaves, veins and fingerprints in perfect stone, when he knows the truth — Levi has his hands shoved deep in his pockets to avoid touching. Sela’s voice distracts him from the temptation and prompts him to turn, and the smile he offers is rakish. 

“Thanks,” he says genuinely for the welcome, and the offer. “Would love a glass of champagne, actually. And the grand tour?”

[ascrowesfly]

FINS​:

         just like that, it’s as if he’s lit a fire under levi—once again, one he has no real understanding of. the explanation is perfectly lucid, but fails to give him understanding nonetheless. how can something be hot but… not hot? he thinks back to the wine frances had given him, and wonders if it’s like that. warm on the inside, instead of the outside. curious enough to follow, fins trails after levi with only one other question out of his mouth. “what’s a mercado?”

.

Fins falls into step beside him, and Levi finds he actually has to lengthen his pace to keep up. It isn’t often he needs to look up to talk to someone, tall as he is, so with his hands in his jacket pockets he cranes his neck at Fins and simply smiles. “Spanish for market. Like a supermarket.” Levi pauses, then opts to over-explain, just in case. “Y’know, where you buy food and stuff? But this place has got more Spanish and Mexican things than other grocery stores.”

[mothercain-deactivated20231124]

god put me on this earth to annoy my sister

[ascrowesfly]

feat. @doctor-crowe​

[baijingting]

[rileyprobably]

+ @ascrowesfly​

[ascrowesfly]

R. HUNTER​:

“Sounds more than good enough for me” he answers, an easy smile on his lips as he presses yet another lingering kiss to his lips. The thought of a future with Levi by his side had always made him happy, and even after a decade, he still got excited about the changes that happened from time to time. This one felt more permanent than when they first had decided to move in together but it didn’t scare him. 

He looks at Levi with nothing but love in his eyes, his heart still jumps upon hearing those words “It’s going to be more than perfect, it will always be the two of us. I love you” and for him too, it was just as simple as that.

THE END.