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laylax13s · 1 year

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Precious

chapter 2 : I Gotta Get Out Of Here

TW/CW: child @bus3, @lc0h0l @bus3, t0x!c relationship, emotional @buse

“Your hair is growin out again-” Elias said with floppy words, already slipping away mid-sentence, passing out. Alastair quickly grabbed his shirt and reached under his arm to stop him from falling to the ground.

They were behind a bar in Kensington, not so far from Cornwall Gardens. It was around midnight, taking Alastair two hours to find his father. A man passed by them, not even stopping for a minute to ask if everything is okay, Alastair glared at him. Not like he would let the stranger help though, since they had to hide it, keep it a secret from the world. It was not fair, he thought, but it was what it was.

He let go of Elias for a second to get a bucket of cold water from the bar. He then poured the water on the man, gathering all his self-control not to throw the bucket on him as well. He woke up all of a sudden, glaring at his son. They just glared at each other like that for a few seconds before Alastair said, “Stand up.”. Elias held his chin up high, still laying on the ground, unable to put his pride away even for a second. Alastair sighed and held his hand out for his father. The man seemed to be thinking about it for a second, but eventually let the boy help him up. The latter practically dragged him over the hidden alleys of Kensington so that no one would see them.

Once they arrived home, he helped Elias on to a couch, and left to the kitchen. There were some wine bottles there left, he didn’t know how Cordelia didn’t notice it.

When he finished, he checked once more if his father was sleeping, then went to his room. He didn’t rest though, he changed clothes and walked out into the cold night again.

------

Once he was at the Fairchild manor, he checked his pocket watch, it was 01:23. Charles should be here in any minute now. Just with that thought, the red-haired man appeared at the door, looking around, then settling his eyes on Alastair. The latter’s heart skipped a beat at that, but then he reminded himself he is not here to stand and stare so he gave a huge jump over the fence and landed stably on the other side. He straightened up and walked over to the entrance. Charles opened the door for him, quickly closing it after them. The silence surrounding them was uncomfortable, simply being here was uncomfortable for Alastair, he hated it when he came over to Charles and not the other way around.

The mentioned led him into the drawing room, as always. As soon as they were inside and Alastair took his coat off, Charles grabbed his collar to drag him closer and kissed him. Alastair opened his mouth and brought his hands up to pull Charles even closer, deepening the kiss. The latter started towards the couch, dragging the other along. Alastair laid down on it, pulling Charles on top of him and starting to unbutton his waistcoat, still not breaking the kiss.

When they finally broke away, neither of them had any clothing on.

“I love you,” Alastair murmured. Charles did not reply, instead kissed him again.

------

After a few hours (Charles didn’t even have to say it anymore), Alastair dressed up and left. It was still only 4 am, everyone still asleep, the moon high on the sky. After taking a deep breath, he was already on his way back to Cornwall Gardens.

When in his room, he finally could flop down on his bed and take a small rest. But even after about half an hour, sleep wouldn’t come to him. He groaned in frustration, and sat up, rubbing at his eyes. He decided it was best to change clothes and get ready for the new day.

He chose to wear black trousers with a white shirt and wine-red waistcoat, it will match perfectly with his mahogany-red coat. That was when he heard a knock on his door, again. Who might be awake in these hours?

He walked to the door to open it, with a frown. To his not such big surprise, Risa stood in front of it.

“Did you get home safely?” the woman asked in Farsi. He nodded,

“Yes, thank you for asking.” he answered in the same language. Risa nodded too,

“Good; I made you Adasi. It’s waiting for you downstairs.” she said and turned around to leave. Risa woke up every morning to check if Alastair was alright, she knew about his nightly “adventures”.

After having breakfast, it was time for daily patrol. He got assigned to Anna Lightwood, great, he thought and rolled his eyes.

Anna was twenty minutes late, not even apologizing. Typical conceited rich white child, he thought, just like Matthew Fairchild. They started walking, though when he confronted her, “You are twenty minutes late.” the only thing she said was,

“Only fashionable, of course.” Annoying little twit-

“So how are you and Fairchild, the elder one?” she said, completely out of the blue. Alastair was startled, and immediately stopped walking.

“Pardon?” he asked, acting as if nothing happened. Anna gave him a smile of success (in what though?),

“Do you mean “Pardon” as if you want me to repeat my question, or “Pardon” as if you are too startled that I confronted you that you don’t know what else to say?” asked, even though they both knew the answer to that question. Alastair glared at her,

“I mean it as if you wouldn’t know the meaning of privacy.” he hissed sharply. Anna hummed, shrugging, and continuing the walk. Alastair sucked in a breath and followed her.

“Reasonable,” she said, “Then again, I do have something to do with it since the younger Fairchild brother, is my best friend, of course.” Enough was enough. He stopped again, this time talking in a way harder and stronger voice.

“You and your little “circus” have nothing to do with me and my life, so stay out of it!” he ordered. Now Anna realized it was best if she didn’t try to get gossip out of him, or even try with small talk.

The day went away slowly, and boringly (as most times), but it did go away. Once the sun wasn’t visible anymore, he nodded to Anna as a farewell, and started his way home. No demons today, either. London was a boring city, with boring people, who had either scandalous lives or no life at all. There were two categories: The first one being the one full of idiotic children who thought they knew everything about life and thought everything was so easy and that they were the main characters in a book, the other category were the more mature ones who decided to sell their soles to politics and live in secret. For example, Charles. He was a promising man, with a seemingly perfect life, the only problem was he had a fake bride and he was secretly gay and had a secret lover who was also a man. For another example, Matthew. He was a little brainless inept child, who thought he can solve all the problem in the world by drinking away his money and wasting his life for love and other drugs while giving away all the opportunity of becoming something by being open about his sexuality. And these were brothers, ironic, isn’t it?

He didn’t even realize but he got home somehow. When walking inside, the first thing to do was check on his sister. That was when he realized, Layla wasn’t home.

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end notes : I made this with @thelasthours-alastair

Taglist : @melanielocke @astriefer @life-through-the-eyes-of @all-for-the-fanfiction @thelasthours-alastair @lightstairs1902 @mariiaarranz @unpaididiot @punk-with-trauma @cityofthomastair5

#alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #charles fairchild #anti charles fairchild #thomas and alastair #alastair x thomas #thomastair #thomastairs #thomastair fanfiction #thomastair fanfic #the last hours #the last hours fanfiction #tlh fanfiction #Cordelia Carstairs #Lucie x Cordelia #tw abuse #tw alcoholism

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4uru · 4 months

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convos with my mutuals that live in my head rent free: @what-ho-christopher-put-in

Charles with a ukelele : *singing* the only thing i groomed are my two persian cats-

Thomas : YOU GROOMED MY PERSIAN BOYFRIEND YOU ABSOLUTE TOSSER-

#auru's incorrect tlh quotes #the chronicles of charlie kentfaque #thomas lightwood #anti charles fairchild

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lightstairs1902 · 1 year

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🤞😍👈 Ch@rles

Wow get rid of this mf

Cassie, girl -, why?

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melanielocke · 2 years

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Alastember - day 26 - passion

I decided to read passion as emotion, and wrote an Inside Out story set inside Alastair's head during scenes from Chain of Gold. I might rewrite more scenes like this later. I had to think for a while about Alastair's emotions and how to gender them, since Riley in the original movie has mixed gender emotions I felt Alastair should too, especially since emotionally he's not super mature yet (mostly due to trauma). I decided making Anger male since it is Alastair's dominant emotion. I made Sadness female because I think Alastair's sadness is very similar to Sona's (the theory for Riley's mixed gender emotions that I like best is that Riley has a male anger and fear because she models those after her dad since those are his dominant emotions). Joy is also male, and Disgust and Fear are non binary and I used they/them pronouns for them. It is possible I have been inconsistent with pronouns though, since I also have the original movie in mind while writing. If you haven't watched Inside Out, I'd really recommend it, and before reading maybe watch a trailer so you can picture it better?

CW: Charles, descriptions of Alastair's not super healthy emotions

@alastair-appreciation-month

Anger was tired. Tired of the control panel having issues all the time, tired of Joy being sick and pretty much useless. Tired of Sadness keeping at the control panel despite Anger repeatedly telling her to leave it alone. Really, she was impossible. Disgust was the only one up here who was even remotely helpful at keeping this going. If he let Sadness and Fear take control like they both wanted to, Alastair would likely break down. Anger was tired of having to do all the work to keep Alastair going.

‘Do you think Charles is coming today?’ Joy asked that morning.

‘Well, how am I supposed to know that?’ Anger grumbled. ‘He hasn’t sent any messages.’

Joy stretched his limbs, then turned around and rolled over. ‘Back to bed then. I need to save my energy.’

Typical. Anger had been trying for a long time to get Joy back into action, but truthfully, Joy had never been good at his job. He was supposed to make Alastair happy, but Alastair hadn’t been happy in a very long time. It worried them all how sick Joy had gotten in the past years. Anger didn’t know if he’d ever recover.

‘I think Charles might come over later today,’ Sadness said softly.

‘What do you think you’re doing? And stay off the console! It already breaks enough without you messing around.’

‘Of course,’ Sadness said, looking down. ‘I’m sorry. I just thought maybe I could help.’

Anger sighed. ‘Please go back to your circle and keep all the sadness there. We can’t use any more of you today.’

Sadness obeyed and disappeared into a corner. Time to start the day and if this day was like any others, he and Disgust were on their own. He didn’t have time to protect Alastair and keep the other emotions away from the control panel. Not to mention he still had a call scheduled towards maintenance, because someone ought to update this console.

There were new issues every day. Sometimes buttons stopped working, and it became increasingly difficult to make Alastair feel anything. Sometimes the control panel stopped working entirely, or responded only to Sadness which only made everything worse and give Alastair a breakdown. Other times buttons became hyperreactive and only slightly brushing past them let to an overwhelming and out of control reaction. Anger hated it, Alastair hated it, but it was impossible to control. Anger never knew how the control panel was going to respond when he did something.

Alastair got dressed and went down to have tea and breakfast with his mother and Cordelia. They were discussing an invitation Cordelia had received by Anna Lightwood, something that sparked Joy’s interest enough to drag himself to the console.

‘What is it?’ Anger asked.

‘We should convince Maman to let Cordelia go,’ Joy said. ‘If Cordelia accepts Anna, she might accept us too.’

It had been a topic of debate for some time. Fear was absolutely terrified they would be rejected or worse if anyone found out about Alastair’s attraction to men. Joy was hopeful Cordelia might accept Alastair, but often too weak to do anything about it. It was a discussion Anger tried to stay out of, it wasn’t really his place.

‘Alright. Go ahead.’

When Joy hit the buttons, Alastair convinced his mother to let Cordelia visit Anna, under the condition that Alastair would go with her. He hardly sounded or felt happy, but Joy was doing the best he could with the pieces he had left. Anger might not always show it, but he knew that.

‘Cordelia won’t like that,’ Disgust said.

‘What do we care,’ Anger grumbled. ‘We’re taking her to Anna. No need to go all the way inside.’

‘We could visit Charles instead,’ Disgust suggested. ‘Anyone any ideas where he might be?’

Anger was always up for visiting Charles. The time Alastair spent with his lover was the only time Anger really got a sufficient break. It was the only time Joy came anywhere close to functioning.

‘Alright. Charles it is. I’ll see if I can reach maintenance when you’re together. And Sadness, I’ll remind you that Joy is in charge when we see Charles. You had better not ruin this!’

‘Of course!’ Sadness said, but Sadness had a tendency to do whatever she liked.

Anger didn’t understand it. No matter how many times, no matter what he said, Sadness just couldn’t seem to figure out that she was making things worse. That she was making Alastair feel sad. Charles was all Alastair had right now, the only source of light in the endless dark. They all needed to step back and give Joy a chance.

‘I’ll keep Sadness under control,’ Disgust promised as they fixed their make up with a hand mirror. Disgust had always been rather vain. ‘Whatever Sadness wants to do, I’ll make sure Alastair doesn’t let it show.’

‘Thank you,’ Anger said. ‘What would I do without you?’

Disgust snorted. ‘You could never take Sadness and Fear on your own. Fortunately, you’ve got me to make sure it doesn’t show. With those two, you’ve got to pit them against each other. Fear is scared of what Sadness will do if she’s left unchecked and will stop her before she lets people see just what a mess we are. Sadness will keep trying to make Alastair sad anyway, and hates it when Fear gets in the way and so she’ll stop them from making Alastair show his fear.’

‘Charles isn’t here,’ Fear said.

Anger wasn’t quite sure why Fear became so active on the console when visiting Charles by his house, and now at his club. It was frustrating, because Fear didn’t understand their fear of being judged was what made people judge them.

‘Then where is he?’

Anger took over control, pushing Fear out of the way.

‘Time to pick up Cordelia,’ Disgust said when they returned to the city.

‘Already?’ Sadness said.

‘Get back in your circle!’ Anger barked, taking control. ‘Right. We’re going to pick up Cordelia.’

When Alastair finally arrived at the address where he’d left Cordelia, he realized his mistake. He should have gone with her. He should have stayed and at least checked what Anna’s plans for her. There was no one home.

‘What do we do now?’ Fear asked, shaking on their knees. ‘We don’t know London well. Where could Cordelia be?’

‘Stay away from the console,’ Anger grumbled. ‘Okay. Anyone any clue where Cordelia might be?’

No one raised a hand. Typical. Not that Anger had any ideas himself. Not long after arriving, Lucie Herondale and Thomas and Christopher Lightwood arrived at the scene.

‘Maybe they know where Cordelia is,’ Sadness suggested.

‘Or maybe they were the ones who put her in danger,’ Fear said.

‘You’ve lost your hat Alastair,’ Lucie said.

All five emotions stared for a moment. ‘What did she just say?’ Anger grumbled.

‘We did lose our hat,’ Disgust said.

‘That’s beside the point!’ Anger yelled.

‘Wait, wait, stop!’ Fear yelled. ‘Just take a deep breath, find your happy space!’

Fear was always trying to stop him when he was about to have an outburst. Anger didn’t listen, his head caught fire and he pulled the handles of the control panel.

‘I’ve lost my sister!’ Alastair hissed.

Later that day, Anger was exhausted. Another long day with him the only one to keep Alastair going. Some of the buttons on the control panel had gotten stuck again after Sadness had touched them, making it so that no amount of pushing Sadness away from the panel would stop Alastair from feeling sad. Which meant that they couldn’t go to sleep before Anger had fixed this, which meant he was on the phone with maintenance for the second time this week.

‘What do you mean, you can’t come fix this today?’ he yelled into the phone. ‘What kind of mind workers are you? How do you expect Alastair to go to sleep when EVERYTHING KEEPS FALLING APART IN HERE!’

Anger hang up and threw the phone across headquarters, hitting Sadness in the process. ‘Ow!’ she yelped.

‘Well, this is all your fault,’ Anger grumbled. ‘Stupid maintenance, stupid mind workers, stupid control panel.’

‘Charles is coming!’ Disgust said, hold their mirror in front of their face to fix their face.

They entered something onto the control panel, which seemed to be working because Alastair took a good look in a mirror and started fixing his hair. Disgust was generally in charge of Alastair’s appearance, and Anger had to give them that they did a good job of that.

‘Joy!’ Anger shouted. ‘Joy, get up now! Charles is coming, you’re up.’

Anger and Fear heaved Joy onto his legs, supporting him as they walked to the panel.

‘Don’t touch that!’ he hissed at fear, but it was too late already.

Meanwhile, the buttons Sadness had touched were still going and she was getting back to the screen and control panel too and Anger couldn’t fight them all off.

‘Can you guys behave for a moment! This is Joy’s moment, give him space!’

‘Alastair. Why are you looking a state? What happened?’ Charles asked.

‘You’re up, Joy!’ Anger yelled, but Joy was still leaning against the panel, holding himself up by his arms.

Instead, Sadness started pushing some buttons. ‘I went to find you earlier today,’ Alastair said. ‘My sister was with Anna – I went to your house and even to your club. Where were you?’

‘I was at the Institute, of course. My fiancée remains ill, unless you’ve forgotten.’

Anger stopped trying to push Joy and took control of the panel himself. Charles was their one chance for Joy to do anything, that was true, but there were limits. Anger was getting tired of how Charles kept prioritizing his fiancée over Alastair.

‘I would be very unlikely to forget your fiancée,’ Alastair said coldly.

‘Alastair, we discussed this.’

Sadness kept at the control panel along with Anger and for once he did not stop her. The two of them mixed into a sort of softer anger, an expression of Alastair’s pain as much as they could ever allow it.

‘You said it would be temporary. A temporary political engagement. But I have spoken with Ariadne, Charles. She very much believes this marriage will happen.’

They had to be careful here. Too much Anger, and Charles would become angry too. Too much Sadness, and Charles would think him weak and turn away. Anger decided to let Sadness take over for once.

‘This is not fair to her, Charles. Or to me.’

‘Ariadne does not care what I do. Her interests lie elsewhere. She will gratify her parents with a good match, and I will find it useful to be connected to the Inquisitor. If I become Consul, I could do so much good for the Clave, as well as for you. My mother is too sentimental, but I can make our people strong again. It is what I have wanted all my life. You understand. I told you all my hopes in Paris.’

Charles’ mentioning Paris brought back memories. Orange, happy memories. From the corner of his eyes, Anger noticed how Sadness touched all of the memories. It was a thing none of them really understood, something only she could do. Whenever she touched a memory, they turned sad, and none of them were able to change them back.

Alastair closed his eyes as the sadness the memory had brought hit. ‘Yes. But you said- I thought.’

‘What did I say? I would not make any false promises. You know how it must be. We are both men of the world.’

Sadness knew she was not supposed to touch memories, that she was supposed to stay away from the control panel. But everything Charles was saying was a dagger in Alastair. Charles had made so many promises once, and Sadness alongside all the other emotions, had believed him. She’d been happy to let Joy take control when Charles was there. But right now, Sadness knew deep down she was supposed to drive.

‘I know. It is only that – I love you.’

Charles’ voice cracked like a whip. ‘You absolutely cannot say that. Not where someone might hear you. You know it, Alastair.’

Sadness had always been a romantic. She’d wanted something epic for Alastair, a beautiful man who loved him when no one else would. There would always be tragedy in Alastair’s life, and she would be there for him through it, but in the end there would be a man to help him pick up the pieces. Instead, Charles was crushing the pieces of Alastair’s heart that remained.

‘No one can hear us,’ Alastair said. ‘And I have loved you since Paris. I thought you loved me.’

‘He’s going to say it, right?’ Joy whispered.

‘Nah, don’t think so,’ Anger said.

‘What if he doesn’t love us?’ Fear asked.

‘What would we do without him?’ Sadness said.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, Charles responded. He put his hand on Alastair’s shoulder, and it sent a little spark into Joy, enough to get him up on his feet for a moment.

‘I do,’ Charles said. ‘You know I do.’

Charles’ hands went into Alastair’s hair, he drew him closer and their lips met. Joy finally could touch the control panel, urging Alastair to surrender. Alastair slid his arm around Charles neck, pulling him onto the sofa with him.

‘We did it!’ Disgust said. ‘We fixed the relationship!’

‘That could have been a disaster,’ Fear said.

‘I’m feeling so much better! I’m finally going to make Alastair happy!’ Joy said eagerly, pushing several buttons to have Alastair start running his fingers through Charles’ hair, fumble with his waistcoat.

‘Uhm, Joy,’ Sadness said softly, pulling at Joy’s sleeve. ‘Are you sure sex is the same as love? I mean, does this mean he really loves us?’

‘Oh, come on, Sadness. This a victory. Please allow the rest of us to enjoy it,’ Anger said.

Except that this happened every time they saw Charles and Sadness had learnt by now that in the end Charles would always leave. She’d made so many of their memories together sad. The other emotions didn’t think Sadness knew what she was doing, but she did. Happy memories turned sad as summer turned to autumn, and whenever Charles left it was up to Sadness to pick up the pieces. Sadness wasn’t just there to make Alastair miserable. Her job was to help him recognize when he was being mistreated, and with the other emotions’ insistence of shutting her out, Alastair struggled to recognize why he was so unhappy.

‘Alastair, I cannot- I cannot.’

Charles abruptly stopped, pushing himself upright and away from Alastair.

‘Wait, what?’ Joy said, in shock until moments later he collapsed to the ground again.

Her turn, Sadness decided. ‘Charles, what’s wrong?’ Alastair asked, his voice rough. ‘If this is not what you came for, then why are you here?’

If this is not what you came for. If this is not what you came for. Alastair was so close, but Sadness just couldn’t make him see it, she couldn’t convince the other emotions. It was the only time when Joy became strong enough to do anything, but the aftermath was so much worse than what Sadness wanted to have to do. This was not sustainable.

‘I thought you had accepted the situation with Ariadne,’ Charles said. ‘I would not leave you. We would still be – what we are. And I thought that you would agree to marry to.’

‘That we would marry!’ Anger burst out. ‘How many times? When is it going to get through his thick skull!’

‘Anger, calm down,’ Fear said. ‘You’re going to make it-’

Anger pushed Fear out of the way before pulling the handles of the control panel.

Alastair sprang to his feet. ‘That I would marry? I have told you over and over, Charles, even if I did not have you, I would never marry some poor woman and deceive her as to my love and regard. I have convinced my mother I can be of better use to the family in politics.’

‘You will find it difficult to succeed in politics without a wife. And you do not need to deceive a woman.’

‘Why does he keep bringing this up,’ Sadness wondered. ‘In such an arrangement, both would be miserable. How could we do that to anyone? Why won’t he just understand?’

‘Ariadne is an unusual case, if she did not prefer women, she would be unlikely to be willing to marry you.’

‘And if it were not Ariadne?’

‘What the Dickens is he talking about?’ Anger grumbled. ‘Who else is he going to marry.’

‘Speak sense, Charles. What do you mean?’

Charles shook his head. ‘Nothing. I am unsettled. Much has happened this night, all of it bad.’

‘What is he talking about?’ Fear asked. ‘He doesn’t know what we did, does he? Should we tell him?’

‘No,’ Anger said. ‘We promised Cordelia, and we’re keeping that promise.’

‘She would be very unhappy if we broke our word,’ Sadness agreed.

‘Barbara Lightwood has died.’

‘What?’ Joy said softly.

‘Thomas’ sister is dead?’ Sadness asked, taking over the control panel. Alastair repeated her words.

‘I wouldn’t have expected you to care. I thought you hated those fellows.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Disgust said. ‘Wouldn’t have expected us to care? Who does he think we are?’

‘No,’ Alastair said. ‘But Ariadne is alright?’

‘She lives still. But Raziel alone knows what will happen. To any of them.’

‘We might not be safe here,’ Fear said. ‘Maman, Cordelia… We need to get them out of here. We never should have come to London.’

‘Perhaps we should leave London. It may not be safe here for Cordelia, for my mother… Nemidoonam.’

The emotions of headquarters spoke multiple languages, but tended to gravitate towards Persian, so whenever Alastair was feeling a particularly strong emotion, he tended to switch to Persian too. Anger had access to an extended Persian curse word library, whereas Joy liked to whisper Persian terms of endearments into Charles’ ears.

‘We are shadowhunters,’ Charles said. ‘We do not run, or spend our time in mourning. This is the time to fight, and win. The Enclave will need a leader, and with my mother in Idris, now is the time for me to show them my best qualities.’

‘Is he seriously using this as an opportunity to further his own goals?’ Disgust asked.

‘Surely he doesn’t mean it like that,’ Joy said. ‘He’s just looking out for us. Guys, he might have some faults, but he loves us, alright? We can’t forget that.’

‘I must go,’ Charles said. ‘But do not forget, Alastair, that whatever I do, it is with the thought of you ever in my mind.’

‘See?’ Joy said. ‘He is doing it all for us. Just wait and see.’

‘I don’t know, Joy,’ Sadness whispered softly. ‘I’m not so sure it’ll get better.’

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @styxdrawings @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @broodyhawthorne

#Alastair Carstairs #anti Charles Fairchild #Inside out #inside out au #the last hours #fanfiction #anger #sadness #joy #disgust #fear #alastember 2022

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alastairstom · 1 year

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having reread chain of gold, i think one of the reasons that charles' relationship with alastair is so... unsettling? for the lack of a better word? is that the full implications of the relationship are never directly addressed in the canon.

like, i full-stop have stronger "ick" feelings about charles/alastair than i do even about like, clary/sebastian. because with the latter, you know it's widely accepted as wrong, you know that everyone around the characters know it's wrong, you know you're supposed to be bothered by it and upset about it. we know that the creator wants us to go 'oh, yuck! that's gross!

but with charles/alastair, we genuinely never get into the age gap and (possibly even worse) the power dynamic. it's all on-page, too explicit to write the abuse or even the grooming off as a headcanon. but it's so sidelined, so eerily unaddressed beyond 'yeah he's a shitty boyfriend,' and that's somehow haunting in a dully chilling way. and the lack of metatextual acknowledgment of this beyond a (very untrue) 'age gaps like that were normal during that time period' is super unsatisfying and kind of makes it worse.

idk how else to explain it but it's eerie and it leaves this lingering yikes feeling. it's also lingeringly odd how charles also exclusively attaches himself to much-younger women as his beards. both ari and (especially) grace are younger than alastair is, and even if the relationships aren't sexual, you'd think someone would go 'hey! that guy's got a weird vibe!'

i do appreciate that we get into its impact on alastair a bit in chain of thorns when he's unsure if thomas really likes him even after their love confession and subsequent night together. i like that cassie does directly tie that into how charles treated alastair. but it still kind of... isn't enough? to address how fucked up this relationship actually was.

i'll be keeping an eye out for anything in chain of iron regarding this, but from what i remember it's only addressed when alastair feels sick when he looks at charles. a very valid and normal trauma response! we did not explore that at all!

im tagging @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer because we were kind of talking about similar things the other day

#alastair carstairs #anti charles fairchild #unhinged tlh reread #my choi reread might be kinda salty because i was so angry that 80% of the book was just like. jrdelia making out and playing chess #when like. other characters with more interesting storylines got paid dust #at least chot brought the trilogy back i loved chot #so maybe i'll have a better reaction to choi this time

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stairwaydowntohell · 1 year

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so i just found out that by popular theory Clary is actually Charles' descendant. just... why Charles?

#anti charles fairchild #and i'm not sorry #actually i don't like clary either #wow this theory makes a lot of sense now #lol #charles fairchild #clary fairchild #shadowhunters chronicles #the mortal instruments #the last hours

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lifewouldbebetteronmars · 10 months

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!!!PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS IN THE TAGS!!!

Title from no body, no crime by Taylor Swift

Angstmas Days of Summer Masterlist

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I Think He Did It But I Just Can’t Prove It

It had been two years now, since the day Thomas had died. He was murdered, if you asked Alastair, but everyone, including law enforcement, said it had been an accident.

An accident my arse. Alastair thought to himself as he studied his “murder board”-as Cordelia called it-for what had to be the thousandth time. Most people would have given up by now, with two years having passed and no evidence to the contrary that the death had been anything but accidental.

But not Alastair Carstairs. He would never give up. Not until justice had been served.

And if he had to serve justice for Thomas himself, then so be it.

He’d done so much on his anyway, how could this be any different?

Two years ago, the love of his life had been killed, his waterlogged body found in the Thames. An accidental drowning. The toxicology report said he’d been drinking heavily that night, so heavily that he must have fallen off of the bridge and into the river. A complete accident.

It was an answer that everyone else believed and accepted. Thomas’s friends, his family, everybody. Everyone but Alastair. He knew it wasn’t an accident, it had been murder. He even knew who had done it.

Charles Fairchild. His ex-boyfriend.

He certainly had the motive and the means to kill Thomas, to even make it look like an accident.

He was a jealous man, a possessive man. He hadn’t liked the fact that Alastair had moved on and he had made sure everyone around him had known that fact.

Everyone knew how much Charles hated Thomas, yet they called him paranoid when he even suggested the possibility that Charles may have had something to do with Thomas’s death.

Charles may have been a bad boyfriend, Alastair, but he’s not a murderer. Cordelia had assured him, the first time he had brought the idea up to her.

Charles would never hurt Thomas. He’s my brother. Matthew had said, getting angry when Alastair kept trying to push the point.

Alastair, dear, we miss Thomas just as much as you do, but blaming Charles for it isn’t the way to grief him. Thomas’s own parents had said that to him. Alastair couldn’t even give them a response to that, he just simply left with no explanation.

And now he hadn’t talked to any of them for months.

They all acted as if Alastair just couldn’t accept Thomas’s death, like he just couldn’t grieve and his way of coping was to not accept that Thomas’s death was an accident.

But they were wrong. Because Alastair wished more than anything to believe it was an accident. But so much just hadn’t added up. And he couldn’t ignore that.

The toxicology report, for one, Thomas hadn’t been drinking that night. He’d been at home all night and he’d had one beer, but that was earlier in the evening with the rest of the Merry Thieves. He couldn’t have been that drunk from one beer that he’d had hours earlier.

The two of them had even gone to bed early.

Alastair hadn’t known where Thomas had gone when he woke up in the morning to the sound of his doorbell ringing and an officer there to let him know that Thomas’s body had been found in the Thames.

They’d gone to bed at 10:30 P.M. and Thomas’s body was found around 6 A.M. the next morning, he’d been dead at least three hours, putting his time of death around 3 A.M.

That in itself left Alastair with four hours of time where Thomas couldn’t be accounted for.

Charles didn’t even have a solid alibi for that night. He said he’d been at home sleeping, something no one could prove but believed anyway.

And even besides the toxicology report, what had Thomas been doing at the Thames anyway?

The police’s theory had been that Thomas and Alastair must have had a fight that night and Thomas had gone out to go cool off, possibly to go drinking at a bar close to the bridge.

But Alastair knew he and Thomas hadn’t fought that evening. Everything had been calm, they’d been happy, nothing had happened.

So why had he been at the Thames?

And what about Thomas’s phone records? Which had been mysteriously wiped clean. Police said he was probably doing an internet purge, something his friends had backed up.

But that wasn’t even Alastair’s biggest question: what about the stalking?

Thomas had reported some instances of stalking to the police in the months before his death.

His tires were slashed. Four different times.

He was mailed photos of himself with his head cut off.

Threatening text messages, phone calls coming from unknown numbers, it all seemed to add up to a stalker.

He’d taken his claims to the police only for them to be brushed off. And they were brushed off yet again when his body had been found.

Thomas had been sure he knew who is stalker was, the same person Alastair knew Thomas’s killer was.

Charles Fairchild. Thomas had figured it out after the last pictures were mailed to him. They were intimate pictures of himself and Thomas, doing things they wouldn’t want anyone else to see.

There were messages written on the pictures this time, calling them both slurs and derogatory names. Alastair had never seen Thomas as angry as he had been when he saw the picture calling Alastair a slut.

Alastair had recognized the handwriting on the photos, the same handwriting he had spent years staring at.

That was how he had known it was Charles. There was no one who would really go after them, and their relationship, as harshly as Charles would.

No one had been as jealous of their relationship as Charles had.

No one hated Thomas as much as Charles did, whether he was Matthew’s childhood friend or not.

No one wanted to hurt Alastair like Charles did, like he had during their relationship with his words and his bruises.

No one would have targeted Thomas, he didn’t have any enemies, except for Charles.

No one had the motive Charles did.

It all circled back to Charles and no one else could see it, but Alastair could.

He looked to the photo of Charles pinned to his “murder board” and scowled. It was covered in pins and red string, connecting it to all of the other evidence.

“You did this, Charles, and I know it.” he spoke directly to the picture, even though he knew it couldn’t hear him or even respond back.

“Nobody may believe me right now, but one day, I’ll prove it. Just you wait.”

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So do you guys think Charles actually did it or is Alastair really grasping at straws here?

Let me know in the comments!!!

Tagging (let me know if you want to be added/removed)

@tessherongraystairs @petalsofaflower-shutupthomas @wagner-fell @littlx-songbxrd

#riley’s angstmas days of summer #tw murder #tw drowning #tw stalking #tw mentions of abuse #tw toxic relationship #tw abusive relationship #the last hours #alastair carstairs #thomas lightwood #thomastair #anti charles fairchild #anti charlestair

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