Watching Lindsay play through Dragon Age: Origins was super fun because 1) I got to share with her my vast knowledge of unimportant Dragon Age trivia and lore and 2) I remembered my old Dragon Age 2/Harry Potter au, the one where I spent more time figuring out the mechanics of the two alternative magic styles coexisting than I did figuring out plot... It really is the best au I've ever created, second only to the awesome, tuckington, mega!au Pilot and I wrote while on skype... We should really figure out a way to share that haha...
Pilot just gave a visual and I'mma need someone to draw it like now
"tucker'll be sitting on a bench drawing on himself with his [big ass hipster] glasses up on his head to hold back his hair and a pen cap between his teeth"
(I promised pilot479 that I'd post this tonight, but i was distracted by s12 stuff... so better late and full of typos then never. Also, my main blog is under totally construction, so sorry about that)
Modern Day Tuckington Au,
Retired ceramic artist Wash lives alone with a cat and hand built wood kiln, content to live the rest of his life in nice, safe, boredom, but then Tucker moves in across the street with his son Junior and step-son Caboose and Wash's quiet life comes crashing down.
Rated for everybody, but it'll probably get dirty later, you've been forewarned.
Part One
David Washington was not what you would call a people person. When he’d moved to Blood Gulge shores it hadn’t been for the fantastic gay community it supported. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even none that he was moving into a ‘gay neighborhood’ when he purchased the house. He’d simply told the real estate agent that he wanted a nice place, with a big enough yard to build a wood kiln and reasonably good neighbors. She’d taken it upon herself to find him a place in a gay friendly neighborhood. How she’d known, he wasn’t about to ask.
Of course, his sexuality was the only thing she’d gotten right. The yard was certainly big enough for a kiln, but she hadn’t told him anything about the ridiculously strict fire codes he had to work around. And the neighbors? Well, Doc and Donut were alright, they brought him organic vegetables almost once a week, and neighborhood gossip practically every morning. But his next door neighbors, Grif and Simmons? Well, if it weren’t for the fact he could hear them having make up sex as often as he could hear them fight, he’d have called the cops multiple times for a domestic disturbance.
Then there was the fact that their were two, different, crazy guys with shotguns in the neighborhood. Sarge, according to Donut, was a widow who’s partner had died of an aspirin allergy of all things, so Wash couldn’t fault him for being a little paranoid. But Locus? He didn’t see him very often, but every time he did he felt his skin crawl.
And then there was the house across the street. A two bedroom, that could be turned into a three if you could live without an office. It had been for as long as Wash had lived in the neighborhood. And each year that went by, the worse of a state it fell into. And as the selling price fell? So did the value on Wash’s house and every house on the block. The neighborhood council had met to discuss the possibility of demolishing it when Grif had popped up with the suggestion that they call his sister. Kaikaina, or Sister, as Grif called her, apparently knew someone looking for a house on a tight budget. That’s how everything started.
The moving trucks arrived on a Saturday morning. Well, a pick-up truck pulling a U-Haul, and a minivan arrived. The main window in his upstairs studio looked out on to the house, and since that’s the window Wash’s throwing wheel faced, he found himself watching the move for most of the morning.
A young woman, tan skinned and curvy, jumped out of the pick-up and slammed the door behind her. Even gay, Wash couldn’t help but notice how good she looked in her bright yellow tank top. She made her way over to the minivan as it’s doors opened. A young man, maybe ten years younger than Wash, stepped out of the driver’s side. Wash couldn’t see his face from far away, but from the way he held himself, he was probably very attractive. Short, taller than the woman, but not by much and dark skinned, that made quite the couple standing next to each other in the early morning sun.
The hug they shared, he expected, her letting go and taking off down the street? Not so much. Disregarding his current project to watch her, he smirked when she started pounding on his next door neighbors door shouting for Grif. So this was the infamous Sister. Not wanting to check the sight of an almost naked Grif answering the door, he turned his attention back to his project and the dark skinned man currently unloading the van. And the two kids.
Kids?
Where had the kids come from?
The taller, and presumedly older of the kids was dark skinned like the man, who Wash was now guessing was his father, was removing boxes from the trunk and caring them up to the porch. The smaller boy, however, didn’t look even remotely like the other two. He was tan, but clearly of a different nationality. If he has to guess, he would say that the boy wasn’t related to the two. Not that it was any of his business really.
The man had moved around the minivan and was kneeling on the ground, talking to the kid. The kid didn’t seem happy with him, but he eventually nodded, jumped up, and began grabbing boxes as well. The older man stood up and stretched, shirt raising up and exposing a strip of skin. Wash blushed, and quickly returned his attention to the pot he had been attempting to throw. In his distraction it had fallen off center, and he sighed. No point in continuing it now, he scrapped his wire along the wheel and popped the ruined pot off the wheel, balling the clay up and chucking it behind into the reclaim bin.
There was far to much clay back there in his opinion. He hadn’t had a good piece in weeks. The ones he did throw and keep were sitting in the spare room collecting dust, not even bisque fired.
He wiped the slip off his hands and stood up from his stool, legs creaking. Rolling his shoulders, he flipped off the studio light and descended down stairs to the kitchen, he had a tea pot and a hungry cat calling his name.
It wasn’t ten minutes, when the kettle had finished singing and he settled down onto into his couch with Maine in his lap, that he considered what he had seen. Obviously the person Sister had mentioned needing a house was actually her and her boyfriend. Grif had never mentioned having nephews so the kids were probably his and not hers. Why they didn’t look related, he wasn’t sure. He’d ask Donut next time he was over. The neighborhood gossip probably already knew everything there was to know about their new neighbors, even if he hadn’t met them yet.
He shifted on the couch, tea finished, and Maine meowed in complaint. Picking the large cat up off his lap and placing him onto the couch, he stood up and took his cup back to the kitchen.
After everything that had happened, all Wash had wanted was a quiet life as far away from his old circles as he could be. But even he was starting to get bored. When he was inspired? Living alone and working all day, every day was a dream. When he wasn’t… Well, he was going a little stir crazy. Maybe he should wood fire the stuff in his spare room for the simple thrill of having company over, throw that party Doc and Donut have been nagging him about.
Done washing his cup, he turned the sink off. Without the water running, he was able to pick up on some voices shouting outside. Seemed Sister had managed to get Grif outside.
He headed back up to his studio, ready to get to work with the new goal of a wood firing in his head, the sight that greeted him was not what he expected. His new neighbor was sitting on the curb, yelling into a cell phone while Grif, Sister, Simmons, and Doc were carrying boxes into the house with the older child. Donut was sitting in the grass playing a game with the younger boy. Whoever his new neighbor was, it seemed like everyone in the neighborhood knew him.
The man seemed to give up on his phone call, flipping it shut and crossing his arms across his chest. He turned towards the street, and looked around. Wash startled when the man’s gaze stopped on his window.
He didn’t know it yet, but not only was his artist block about to be over, so was his seemingly boring and quiet retirement. The rest of his life had just moved in across the street.
