#ch: atticus

[bodycountgame]

rowan and atticus!!! by @hadrassians

thank you @oscarwrites 🥰

[heavyisthecrown-if]

Important Characters

Leopold Drachmann

The very man aiming to take down your family. You'd be lying if you said you knew anything about him beyond rumors, but there's no doubting how close he is- or, rather, was- to your father. Times have changed though, and what was once a close alliance is now chasmed due to his own actions.

Atticus Bracht

Derrick's father and a surprisingly mellow man in comparison. You've known him since you were a child, and he's almost always seen with a grin on his face. He's guilty his actions as a young man led to Derrick's ignominy when it should be him instead, but he's always seemed more than nervous to face the other nobles that disapprove of his son's illegitimacy.

Ewan/Elvira Chevalier

Your lord/lady-in-waiting and a close friend since they were appointed to you six years ago. They're quick to gossip and always come to you to spill the details, as their husband refuses to listen to their spiels. They care deeply for you and those they've grown close to, and are always there to assuage your worries.

Arina Falkner

An elderly woman who served as your parents' royal advisor. She's since stepped down, allowing you to take the role, but she's never been shy of voicing her opinions. Having been a close friend of your grandfather, she took care of you and your brother as children when your parents weren't able, and will always have your back should you need her.

Mundir Al-Maghrabi

He's Derrick's uncle, and was always the quickest to defend the boy's honor. You'd met him a few times and he always carried himself with an undeniable charm, but there was something sinister beneath the surface. Even though his death was unfortunate for not only the family, but his ministry as well, you can't deny the fact that it may have been timely.

[oflark]

@atticusofarborea​​

It was nighttime because Lark had literally become the whitest white person of all time when she had been turned into a vampire. Sunlight was literally her enemy, and she couldn’t just fight the sun. But she could fight other people. "Do you ever just take a second and consider why you’re using so much plastic? Why we as a society need this much plastic? All it’s good for is being hostile.” At the moment, she was trying to open a bottle of lotion because Austria had ridiculously dry air. “Can you open this? I think this bottle is broken.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@polyfacetious big ass Christmas Drabble Extravagaza: Day Nineteen

George has a damned fine voice. And it’s a good thing that he does, because the man talks about boring shit more than anybody that Atticus has ever known. 

Like now. He’s been droning on about chemical reactions for god knows how long. If they weren’t naked in bed, Atticus would get up and walk off. Go make a cup of tea or something. It wouldn’t deter George at all. He’d just keep on talking. 

Because it wasn’t really about having a captive audience. George just did his best work thinking out loud. God only knew how much chatter that little assistant of his heard. Hours upon hours would be Atticus’ guest. 

But you didn’t get to be one of the best chemists in the world by being white bread and butter normal, now did you?

Atticus waits for a lull in the onslaught of words, giving it a full three seconds before he speaks, just to be certain George had wrapped up his thought. (He’ll never admit to thoughtfulness out loud. That would ruin his reputation.)

“I’m getting leave again at Christmas.” George shifts onto his side, head resting on the upturned palm of his hand. He’s not what anyone would call beautiful, but there’s something about him that makes Atticus’ blood run hot. (He’s not a looker himself. Atticus figured that out young. He also learned that personality could get you the same bits with just a little more work.)

There’s a moment where George’s eyes are far away. Atticus waits, as patient as he ever is. You had to give the man time to come back to himself from wherever those rambling thoughts were. But there’s a blink and those clever eyes zero in on him, because George is clever, and he sees what’s being offered. 

A holiday. Together. 

Neither one of them had any family to speak of. Atticus had the crew, and George had his work socials and his bored rich housewives, but beyond that, there wasn’t really much to do on a holiday. 

Unless one of those bored rich housewives could sneak away from her family on Christmas day. Which if a woman could handle that, Atticus would concede his spot in the bed, because that’s some fucking logistics and deep lies to accomplish. 

“I could swing ‘round this way.” An offer. Because they’ve been doing this on and off for years, but it’s never been Official. It’s never been just the two of them and no one else. Atticus don’t mind it that way. He’s not jealous of saggy breasts or diamond earrings. A man had his urges. 

But there was something about asking to spend a holiday together that felt intimate in a way they tended to skate away from. Atticus was head over heels, there was no denying that truth. He’d been in love with George for a long time now, and he’s confident enough to say it’s mutual. But mutually in love and mum about it was a hair different than mutually in love and spending Christmas together like a pair of old queens. 

He brushes his fingers along the corded muscle at the back of a strong neck, his breath a sharp exhale when George clambers on top of him. “You aren’t exactly light as a feather here, Georgie.”

And that gets him an elbow right to the ribs for his trouble. “I’m perfectly shaped for all my activities, I’ll have you know.” George had a voice that made your toes tingle. It’s what drew Atticus in, back when they first met. Sitting a few blokes apart at the bar, nursing drinks in the quiet of an early morning. 

All the partiers were gone, the lightweights sleeping it off against the bar top. All that was left were the lonely men and the alcoholics. And when Atticus heard that raspy, dry paper grumble of ‘another, damn it’, his dick was already on board and half hard. 

There wasn’t much courting, then. But neither one of them were the type for romance. (A lie Atticus perpetrated because if George saw his notebook full of poetry, he’d never let him live it down.) Atticus had simply moved three stools down, knocked back the rest of his pint, looked over at George and said ‘I’ll jerk you off in the bathroom if you’ll do the same for me.’

And they’d been meeting ever since. A slow and steady escalation, because despite the drugs and the booze, George was as steady in spirit as he was in hand. Hand jobs in the bar bathroom became back alley blow jobs. Back alley blow jobs became backseat fucking in George’s car. Fucking in George’s car became a short drive to whatever hotel that Atticus was scrimping out to get him through leave. 

All to get them here. Legs tangled like mad drunk grasshoppers, fingers tracing muscle and ink. (George had a fondness for tracing the lines of the compass tattooed on the top of Atticus’ head. He said it helped him think.) Talking about spending the holiday together in a hotel room just like this. 

“Well.” The word is snapped off at the end, though the rasp of it is teasing. “If you’re going to be staying more than a day or two, it stands to reason that you should sleep at my place. That way, you can spend your money on getting me a proper gift.”

Another escalation. Atticus knows where George lives. He’d gotten the address back when they were still fucking in the back of the car, fogging up the windows like teenagers. He’d used it only to send the bastard postcards, though. Atticus liked to fill them out with useless facts about things he saw when they were out and about. The biggest thing he saw in a place, and the smallest. What the oddest local cuisine was. Atticus liked his little facts.

And he liked an excuse to keep himself in George’s thoughts, since the slimy git had a habit of taking up space in Atticus’ thoughts, whether he wanted to or not. 

But being offered to stay at George’s place? That was a big deal. Because it made this holiday bit even more serious. It wasn’t two men sharing take away on a shitty motel bed with A Miracle on 34th Street playing quiet in the background on an out of date TV. 

This was a proper Christmas. At home. In George’s home. For at least three or four days. 

“You’d do that?” It’s a stupid response, and Atticus sees just how stupid it is by the way that George is looking at him. 

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to.” And he had a point there. It was like moving mountains to get George to do things he was indifferent about. Atticus couldn’t imagine what it would take to make the bastard do something that he really didn’t want to do. 

“Right.” Atticus murmurs, tracing the crow’s feet wrinkles where they crease the skin at the corner of George’s eyes. Some people said you could read those lines, the same way you read the lines on someone’s palm. But Atticus can’t be sure if those were lines of laughter, or lines of squinting behind goggles in a lab. 

He hopes it’s more laughter than anything. 

Atticus saw a fortune teller once, a little old woman set up on a blanket at the fringes of a bazaar in India. She had taken his hand and pointed out the lines to him in broken English. His life line was long, a few close calls written into the cracks in the line along his hand. His fortune line was more like Morse code, and Atticus felt like that was pretty true to life. 

But most of all, she earned those rupees when she pointed out his heart line. ‘Late’, she said with an all knowing nod. ‘Strong.’ 

It’d be years more before he met George. The old bag had been more right than Atticus could have guessed. Late meant he was in his forties before George Cholmondeley. (And another year plus before he could spell the bastard’s last name.) 

Strong wasn’t the half of it. 

Nothing was ever going to keep Atticus from being out at sea. But George was enough to lure him back to land more than he ever did before. This was the first year that Atticus was actually going to use up all of his leave, instead of having it converted and put onto his pay. 

“Right.” George agrees, and that’s the end of that. There’s a light in those clever eyes that says ‘argue with me and lose hours of your life and still do what I say’ and Atticus can’t argue with those facts. 

Arguing with George was like trying to shove a camel through the eye of a needle. You’d work up a sweat, you’d get pissed off and tired, but you’d be no closer to your goal hours later. 

No, it was settled. 

“And what does a man such as yourself want for a Christmas gift, hm?” Because Atticus has no earthly idea what to get him. He knew all the stupid tidbits, things that George liked to eat, the things that he loathed. What movie he’d roll over to watch, if it was on the television when they were done fucking. 

But none of those things equalled out to Christmas gifts. It’s not like Atticus could buy him a tie or a nice pen and call it a day. 

“You to figure it out.” And Atticus should have seen that coming. George was contrary, often just for the fun of it. And even more often, just for the amusement of watching Atticus get pissed off trying to figure it out. 

“Bastard.” He drops his head back against the overly starched hotel pillowcase and sighs, eyes on the ceiling. There were no stains up there, which was an improvement from the last time that they met up to spend the night together. But it was that popcorn style that reminded Atticus of being a little boy, spending his nights staring up at the ceiling in the boy’s home. Right out of the 1970s, it was. 

“You like it.” And again, Georgie isn’t wrong. Atticus loves the holy hell out of the bastard, not that he’s going to say that out loud any time soon. His silence is rewarded with George easing down into the crook of his left arm, cheek pillowed against Atticus’ chest. 

He wasn’t exactly a chiseled Greek god, but it was easy to not feel insecure about the softness of his belly when George was running his fingers through the soft, downy hair there. 

“A notebook is cheating.” Because he knows that George is going to buy him a gift too. There’s a huff of offense that blows warm air against his chest, and Atticus grins. “If I don’t get the easy out, then you don’t either.”

His notebook did need replacing, though. It was a battered old spiral bound number. In a few more weeks, it’d go in the bottom of his trunk with the other full ones. But he wasn’t going to carry around some expensive leather wrapped thing. Hell, just last week he dropped his notebook in the toilet. 

Not going to risk doing that with something that cost more than a pound or two. 

“Now you’re the one who’s being a bastard.” George’s irritation always has such a lovely bite to it. Atticus likes getting him riled up, though he doesn’t try too often. It wasn’t easy. But it was always worth his hard work, as evidenced by the blunt nails dragging deliciously down his belly. 

It’d be awhile yet before he was able to go again, seeing as they’d just finished fucking about ten minutes ago, but the spirit was really fucking willing right about now, regardless of what bullshit the flesh was on about. 

“Yeah. But you love me.”

And yeah, it was very much mutual. 

[askmitraandco]

“ PROMISE you will be careful, dear heart of mine... “ came the soft voice of the Dragonite, nose gently nudging against his daughter’s cheek. “ Keep yourself and your team safe... Be c a u t i o u s of strangers. “ he added as the Flygon gently nuzzled her daughter’s other cheek. “ But do not be unkind. Never be unkind...  Cautious, yes. But not unkind, gentle heart. Keep an open mind, but guard your heart too... “

A smirk appeared upon the Dragonite’s face as he peered at his wife. “ You are one to talk, Amila, you will be accompanying her until Pyralis town. “ he chuckled, their noses bumping for a second. “ Your mother is right, however... Guard that precious heart of yours. And keep your friends as safe as you can.

A small giggle, two hands resting upon the dragons cheeks. “ I PROMISE mama, papa. I’ll be careful. And I’ll collect LOTS of stories and write them all down. And I’ll send cards and letters whenever I can. And I’ll keep an eye out and not be unkind and always open. Pfff... I’ll miss you both, SO much... “

“ And we you, dear heart... “

“ We love you, lil’ dragon bug... “

“ M o m please, we already had this goodb-- “

“ And promise to always eat enough, and DON’T be rude to your elderly. AND for the love of ARCEUS please be more tolerable and DON’T pick ALL fights. Getting strong at the cost of your life is STUPID. And PLEASE be kinder to your friends too and you listen to whatever Amila has to say and-- “

“ Milo you fuckin’ f u c k, don’t gimme that smug fuckin’ smirk, you put them up to this-- “

“ DON’T YOU CUSS IN FRONT OF YOUR MOTHER YOUNG MAN. “

“ Yeah, lil bro... No cussing in front of baby siblings and mama dear, jeez... Haven’t you figured that out yet... “

“ Cay-Cayyy... Will you be beatin’ any bad guys? Are you going to EAT them? Will y’be sending stuff back? “  “ Yeah, will you? “  “ An’ are you comin’ back to us? “ “ What if YOU get eaten? [ G A S P P ] “ “ Don’t be silly, Layla... Cayden won’t get EATEN! “

“ M’gonna BITE you even more if you DON’T come back to us, Cayd. “

“ YOU SHOULD SEND TOUGH THINGS TO US. So I can be big and strong like you too, Cay-Cay!! HEY, listeeeen!! “

“ Pfpfft.... “

“ G u y s ... P l e a s e ... “

“ Cayden, I am serious though... You listen to your mother here... And be a good boy... Come back to us in one piece... “

“ I will, mam.... WHY is Milo here anyway...? “

“ Didn’t you hear, baby bro. I’m accompanying you to Pyralis town. “

“ ... Oh fuck me now. “

“ CAYDEN. “

“ Still no way I can convince you to stay here in Fiametta? “ grunted the Arcanine, peering at his daughter somewhat worriedly as she gave a snort. “ Nah, not a chance dad... I love Fiametta but it’s TIME... “

“ Will you promise to write us whenever you hit a town? And tell us about all the adventures you had? And ... A-and I’ll miss you, sis..! “ whined the small Mienfoo, staring up at the growlithe.

“ Aww... I’ll miss you too, lil’ fighter... “

“ And don’t you worry about that brother of yours, love... He’ll get around... We’ll keep an eye out on him... “ came the gentle voice of Hazel as she nuzzled her daughter’s cheek . “ Keep yourself safe... DO write us... We will think of you, every day... “

“ And if anything goes wrong and you need to come back home, DON’T think of it as a failure, lil’ chomp. Though knowing you, you won’t fail in what you want to do. “ sighed Falkor, a smile touching at his maw as he nuzzled his nose against his daughter’s cheek. “ Stay together. Look after each other. DON’T forget anything we taught you... “

“ I won’t, I won’t... I love you, dad... I’ll be careful. I promise, I promise. “

‘ If Zamir would have been here... He would have laughed... Nudged my side.. Told me everyone was being so sappy... Heh... He’d probably be super sappy too... ‘ stepping to her two companions and the Flygon, she finally turned back to look at the group that had gathered, ears flicked down. ‘ ... I’ll miss you, brother... Please be safe... And... Don’t worry... I understand... I’m not mad at you for deciding to stay... I’ll send you letters. And tell you all about the things we saw... I promise.. ‘

                                   “ We should SING a song! “

                  “ We are NOT singing, Solveig. “

“ Oh no, DO sing, Solveig. Your CHARMING voice will be the spirit of our desert adventure. “

                                                                      “ Pffft, guys. “

                        “ MILO, I S W E A R. “

             “ Come on, children. The first resting point is still a long way from here. “

[ MILO AND AMILA UNLOCKED FOR QUESTIONING. ]

[ndrthwthr]

Tell me what your worst fears are. [I bet they look a lot like mine.] Tell me what you think about when you can't fall asleep at night. Tell me that you're struggling. Tell me that you're scared. [ No, Tell me that you're terrified of life. ] When it hits will my heart burst or break or grow strong? ___ atticus leander bach, 16, high school junior, failed suicide attempt, the mortician's son, lone wolf, anxiety cigarette, socially awkward

[sunkissedmusing]

the squelching noise was nearly vulgar when he tore his mouth away from the gush neck. letting the body drop to the floor, he licked his lips slowly of the blood that clung before taking stock of the moment. five bodies really wasn’t too bad. each covered in their own gore. honestly Atticus was almost disappointed with himself. years ago it would have been ten or twenty. oh how time changed people. 

taking his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, he lit one quickly before taking a deep breath in. mm good. his mind caught up with him after a moment and he looked towards the clock. “fuck,” he was supposed to be home two hours ago. apparently his little bout of fun had gotten out of hand. 

sighing softly Atticus did little to wipe the blood away before sliding out of the abandoned building. seeing as he never abided by any speed limit, he saw himself home quickly before parking in his usual spot. nearly slinking his way up the stairs. he heard Aislin’s heart beat, steady as it was in the darkness of the apartment before he quietly opened the front door and made his way in. 

Atticus knew she was in the apartment but he hadn’t be expecting her to be sitting in a chair. waiting. looking around for a moment, he could only offer a confused smile as she twisted around in a swivel chair as if in dramatic effect. “I may have gotten a little carried away,” he offered with his normal accented tone and a shrug. no use in lying. he still had blood all over him after all.

[sea-citrus]

zelda m. whelan

twenty-nine / nurse manager / margot robbie

big fish in a small pond / failure to reach full potential / orphaned adult / misery builds character / fool for love / maternally challenged / not a morning person / sex is evil and i am horny / the tease / spirited young lady

atticus b. mott

twenty-eight / professional miscreant & hotel director / matthew daddario

the devil has a limp / quid pro quo / dark and troubled past / brutal honesty / deadpan snarker / delinquents / hates being touched / hates everyone equally / humans are the real monsters / handicapped badass

dexter j. hyde

twenty-nine / real estate agent / dominic sherwood [1]

golden boy / cannot talk to women / nice guys finish last / apologizes a lot /  brilliant, but lazy / desperately looking for purpose in life / innocently insensitive / open mouth, insert foot / oblivious to love / bad liar