QZ Writes

Aaaaa I am SO VERY HESITANT to post this here.  I haven’t let anyone read this yet.  Or maybe I let Shannon read it.  Ugh I don’t know but this makes me NERVOUS because this story is my BABY and this is like the nine millionth version of it and 

It is so completely different from how it started, but it still FEELS exactly the same to me, ie. so important it makes me sweat to show it to anyone.

The story used to be called Silver Chain, which you may have read bits of or previous drafts of if you know me in real life.  It was the story I first won NaNo with, the plottiest thing I had ever written, and the first thing I wrote an entire outline of.  However, as I started writing it when I was thirteen, it was kind of terrible.  All the revisions and do-overs in the world didn’t change the fact that the initial premise didn’t make any goddamn sense.  Which is why this is completely different, from the POV of an entirely new and different character, and seems at first to have little to do with that story.

It doesn’t have a real title yet, because “Silver Chain” no longer makes any sense (as that was part of what got cut).

I really enjoy doing the hard-boiled detective fiction style narration that goes with this POV character, I gotta tell you.

——

Sharp was a private detective. It wasn’t an exciting job, but it wasn’t as hard to make ends meet as pulp books and noir film made it out to be. Sharp had a nice-ish office in a middling part of downtown and spent a lot of time gathering evidence about affairs and looking for missing pets. Sometimes the nearest precinct would call for a consult, or a second opinion, or overflow if they thought they could clear it with the union. Things had to be pretty busy for that, though, and the last few years had been pretty quiet. Analysts said the crime rate was falling.

Sharp didn’t buy it. Violent crime was falling, sure, and somehow most of the victims turned out to be scumbags when it wasn’t a crime of passion—okay, a lot of those were scum, too, but that was the same in every city.

Sharp was pretty sure the actual crime rate wasn’t going down, though. The number of people—usually rich folks—who came in with some sort of burglary or fraud or blackmail threat but qualified it with “I can’t go to the police”—which usually meant they were dirty too—had climbed steadily in the last few years. Sharp hated it, but usually turned those people away and told them, “Sorry, but I can’t help you.” The money those folk offered was good, but Sharp knew what was up.

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So this AU where Zach and Tristan didn’t meet.  I don’t know why the “long timeskip” thing stopped me from posting this bit, because it certainly doesn’t affect the messed up way I post everything else.

So this would be after they’ve pretty much become friends.  I have a short bit written where they run into each other in the grocery story, and I think Rhys must flip out when he sees his brother with Sonja Wilkins’s older brother, and so they all have dinner.  Tristan and Zach suffer through it and blah blah fuckups and bastards becoming friends.

This would be the Relationship Upgrade part, which is always fun to write since Tristan is so mean.

——

 Zach took off his shirt and said, “So I been thinking—”

Tristan muttered, “There was your first mistake.”

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More self-indulgent author appeal tidbits!  It’s what I do, taking my what-ifs too seriously.  Sometimes it yields results.

Anyway, this would probably end in violent porn if I could finish it, but I wrote it during SDCC last year and understandably got distracted by con crud and new books.

(For reference, monster choice here is not wholly self-indulgent; if I ever did some sort of weird fantasy monster AU, Max would be a vampire, Kev would be an incubus, and I think Edwards would be a naga.  Zach would be a troll, and so would his sisters probably and oh my god I just thought about Sonja as a troll omg ahahahaha)

——

Edwards gets off the couch when he hears the knock on his front door.  He assumes it will be Kev, out early or with a canceled engagement, and without the decency to call or text first.  He is wrong.

It’s Max, leaning hard on the doorjamb, staring down at the concrete.  His hair is in his eyes, but it isn’t enough to hide how much paler than usual he is—ashen and sickly, not like his usual simple light skin—nor is it enough to hide his scuffed sweater and torn collar, which is turned up, hiding the lower parts of his face.

“You alright?” Edwards asks.  He can’t imagine why Max would come to him if he was having any sort of problem, but he obviously isn’t well.

“No,” Max says.  He looks up.  There are dark circles under his eyes.  ”Can I come in?”

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shit but this story needs a title.

ANYWAY there should be more at the end of this, but it’s been in pretty much this format for ages now, and if I don’t post things when I write them, I stop posting and then I stop writing.  So.  Here’s this thing.

——

“Rhys!” Tristan pounded on the door.  ”You’re gonna be late!”

Voice somewhat muffled by the door, Rhys called, “I’ll be right out!  Go start the car!”

Tristan rolled his eyes and headed down the hall, through the landing, and started down the stairs.  Rhys was planning to skip breakfast again.  When he reached the bottom of the staircase, Tristan saw Zach’s door was still closed.  He knocked on it as he walked past.  ”Bus is leaving,” he said.  He was in the living room when he heard Zach’s door open.  He turned around.

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Here we go, a snippet showcasing Zach being an insensitive ass.  Cut out of a larger, terrible, written-strictly-to-occupy-my-mind-on-a-horrifying-road-trip story.  You don’t need context, in my opinion, because Zach and his heterosexist slurs speak for themselves.

——

“Yeah,” Tristan said, “that’s just what I fucking need, people saying I’m your girlfriend.”  He sighed.  Zach sat down on the bed next to him.  “Say that enough anyway,” he muttered.

“They do?” Zach asked.  “I’ve never heard that.”

“Well, you scare them,” Tristan said.  “You never lose bets in a humiliating way.  You’re always talking about whatever chick you’re screwing.  I don’t, so I must be a fag pining for you.”

“Are you?” Zach asked.  “A fag.  I mean, gay.”

Another Lost Affection verse Max/Zach bit. This one a little…idk man, there’s kissing, but it’s still pretty much about them being friends? Pfft, relationships.

I’m starting to feel like I haven’t actually posted enough “Zach being an obnoxious, ornery bastard” to this blog. I might dig some up—because his character started out, actually, as an obnoxious, sexist-as-fuck douchebag who annoyed Edwards and Max—so in my head, he’s well established as an annoying bastard and it’s interesting to explore when he’s not horrible, but without ever actually showing him being horrible, he kind of just comes off as…not horrible.

Anyway, this bit would come right after the New Year bit I posted ages ago. If I ever put things in any sort of chronological order.

——

Zach walks into the hotel room, expecting it to be empty, but instead, Max is sitting on the edge of the bed, back to the door, hunched over his knees.  Zach can tell right away something is wrong.

He closes the door and the room is in darkness.  “You sittin in the dark for a reason, bud?”

“No.  I mean, yes.  I’m fine.”

He does not sound fine.

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The problem with being a me who purposely writes multiverse fic is that I go through pretty much anything that could ever be a ship and find a scenario in which it would work. And then write an entire AU about it. And work hints of it into existing stories. I have a problem.

To be fair, this one isn’t much of a stretch; Zach’s type is snarky, controlling folk, and even though I don’t know that I’ve ever actually written it before, Max would be so totally into a relationship with someone who just unthinkingly took orders. In a universe where Zach was less hung up on his supposed heterosexuality (or met Max later) or where Max id’d as a girl, Max/Zach would work pretty well, up until Max and Tristan attempted to scratch each other’s eyes out.

In this Lost Affection bit, though, this is really just them being friends, which is also really cute, because, again, see above re: the kinds of people they prefer. Also I have a soft spot for snarky people bonding over being snarky.

This whole rant brought to you by me trying to work out the larger implications of how relationships in the Lost Affection verse would work!

——

Zach says, “So’re you, like, not into sex at all, or…?”

Max groans and says, “If there’s a single person I’d rather talk about this with less than you, I really can’t think of them.”

Zach looks at him a second.  He looks down at the floor, then says, “Last time we were home, Tristan kissed me.  Not like—a kiss, like you’d give to your brother or something.  He kissed me.  Pulled me over the center console an’ open-mouth kissed me.”

Max has no idea why Zach is telling him this.  Max has no idea why Zach would tell any of them this, after the shit they’ve given him over his completely archaic homophobia and Tristan’s sexuality.  Max has no idea why Zach would, out of all the band members, tell him.  Max is terrible at talking and at feelings and at…everything, really, that doesn’t have to do with playing the piano.

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A thing I have been writing off and on.  An AU, I guess, where Zach and Tristan didn’t meet.  There’s a lot more, but it’s after a substantial timeskip.

——

Allison left them alone almost immediately. She said she had to go turn in something—or turn something over? She mumbled so fast sometimes—and said she’d be back.

As soon as she was gone, Tristan sighed. “Great,” he said. “Who knows when she’ll be back.” He flopped down on the couch and looked over at Zach with a flip of his hair. God, Zach thought, what a massive tool. “So what’s Ally see in a meathead like you?”

“A coworker,” Zach said. “Someone who’s not a bitch, which looks like a vacancy in her circle of friends.”

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Adam & the Ants - Prince Charming

Prince charming, prince charming

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

Don’t you ever, don’t you ever

Stop being dandy, showing me you’re handsome

The Max playlist is full of sad, slow songs, full of piano and female vocalists and angsting.

Switching to the Kev playlist after listening to the Max playlist is an exercise in MOOD WHIPLASH.  Kev’s playlist sounds like a party, even if it’s not always a great idea.  For obvious, I think, reasons.

(Other songs on the Kev playlist include “Womanizer”, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, and the B-52’s “Party Out of Bounds”.  Yep.)

This story was supposed to be about Kev, and magic, and was inspired by thinking about Dragon Age and blood magic, and instead, it’s primarily a story about Max’s insecurity’s and anxiety. It does mean I get to write what I know, though (ha). This snippet is almost entirely a description of an anxiety attack Max has, and how he deals with it.

——

“You’re a mage,” Max said.  He felt detached from his body, cold and tingly.  He was having an anxiety attack, he thought.  It had been months since his last attack, and weeks since he had felt like this.  Mostly due to Kev’s influence, and how Kev was—

Oh god.  What if he’d felt better because of some spell?  What if Kev had enchanted himself to be attractive and reassuring and nothing Max had felt for weeks had been real?

He started to hyperventilate.

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