A/N: Hey there, everyone. You may have seen me around the TKC fandom before. Lately I've realized I have far too many ideas and plots bouncing around my head to put into individual one-shots, although I prefer to. Hence I have created a home for my more PWP of them – and they all revolve around songs. These are songfics, I guess – although more often than not it won't have the actual lyrics in the fic. More like the plot is just based around the concept.
There will be plenty of Zarter, Jarter, some Sanubis, maybe Salt and Jalt. Pretty much all pairings, actually. So to start off, I picked one that has all five. ;)
Feel free to drop by songs – I may not use them, as I have to see if I'm inspired, but ideas are appreciated all the same. :-)
Taylor Swift
I Heart Question Mark
Wish I had concentrated, they said love was complicated...
##
None of them liked the sound of it.
First of all, what the hell was "Write The Name Of The Person You Love On The Back Of Your Hand" Day?
Second of all, what kind of holiday has that long a name?
So when Cleo announced the Brooklyn House would be celebrating it once a month, everyone was less than thrilled. They complied, however; everyone knew not to go up against Cleo from Rio, the diehard hopeless romantic. She could make Jaz's shrub curse look like a blessing when she was mad.
The first month, everyone took it lightly. Names of pets, insects, animals, even randomly named inanimate objects were scrawled across the hands of the magicians in everything from Sharpie to ball pen to magic marker.
Then Cleo went a little overboard and threatened to spell them if they didn't tell the truth, and if it wasn't a legit person.
Carter tried to stop her, even Sadie, but neither of them wanted to spend time sucked into a gadget - or worse, a game of Angry Birds - so they relented. Sometimes Cleo's technology manipulating skills were far from helpful. No one, not even smug green pigs deserve to be abused that way. Even from cute fluffy birds.
So - easy, right? For the next few months it was relatives (although Sadie swore she'd rather write Felix down than Carter) or people of the same sex, so it could pass off as sibling love. No one wanted to face writing anything that could serve as teasing material, but neither did they want to face Cleo's wrath. It was limbo.
And then Jaz Anderson changed everything the day she decided, Hell with it, and wrote WALT in big block letters across her left hand.
Everybody stared, Sadie most of all. Jaz just smiled, even to Walt's face when his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
From that moment on, the day wasn't a silly made-up holiday. It was a do-or-die contest.
Carter spent nearly the whole day locked up in his room before he shuffled out with Zia written across in nearly illegible script, even though he rarely took the hand out of his pocket and despite her not even being present at the House. Even then, it was only because Jaz coaxed (or rather, dragged) him out.
For Jaz and Sadie, it was something like war.
Jaz would wear the WALT around every month, cooly and fearlessly, carrying it off like it was nothing. Sadie would be quietly fuming, teetering. Most of the times she'd written and rubbed out so many times in indecision the back of her hand looked like she'd dunked it in ink.
Walt, the lucky guy, found his way out of it by sneaking on a baseball mitt over his hand every time the 'holiday' came around, and muttered some excuse about training. Cleo looked at him darkly but otherwise left him alone, much to his relief.
And everything went alright until the holiday fell on Friday the 13th.
Jaz would proclaim later that it was a "Lucky Swift Day" (and Carter would forever be trying to figure out what she meant) but at the time it was nothing but chaos.
The first unlucky thing that happened: Zia Rashid arrived to help with training.
Normally Carter would have been thrilled by this event, but he'd gotten used to writing her name across his hand every month, and now that it was in bold Sharpie he figured he was pretty screwed if she found out what was going on.
Second: Walt had challenged Carter to a friendly baseball-off, seeing as Carter completely failed at basketball. He'd agreed, and Jaz had decided to join in as cheer.
This wouldn't have been so bad if Jaz's cheerleader uniform did not look like it could have belonged to a McKinley Cheerio. Every male eye followed her down the hall, earning quite a few slap marks on some unlucky guys who had already been dating.
Third: Sadie seemed to have finally made up her mind, because she had her hand in her sweater pocket (or 'jumper', as she insisted) instead of letting the usual smudged mess show.
Again, it didn't seem like a bad thing, but just wait. This was Friday the 13th, after all. Something had to go wrong. It was a law of the universe that seem to be applied to everyone but that country singer person Jaz seemed to be obsessed with.
The game started in the evening, when the weather was cool. Walt had made a makeshift diamond, carving a path with a branch and using leftovers of breakfast's rock-hard waffles as plates (Carter tried not to be offended).
Carter was playing with the aim of impressing Zia (hey, he was desperate, okay?) and prayed to whatever god was in charge of sports that he wouldn't screw up horribly. Said god was probably feeling sadistic that day, because quite the opposite happened.
The first few runs went fine. The magicians sat around and cheered, some taking Walt's side and others Carter's. Jaz was cheering for no-one in particular, although it was safe to say more of the guys were watching her than the actual game (which Carter for some reason wasn't too happy about). Zia had been filled in on the holiday by Cleo, but luckily hadn't been observant that day and didn't spot Carter's hand - and he was starting to believe Jaz's lucky theory as he shrunk the bold Sharpie print down to small letters in ball pen.
Then Sadie forgot about her hand and pulled it out to cheer Walt on, letting the bold Anubis show clear as day.
Which resulted in Walt losing concentration instead, sending the ball spinning, glove along with it.
Which ended up with his bare hand clutching the bat, the Sadie scribbled across glaring right in Jaz's face.
The rogue ball (of course) had to hit Carter square in the face, sending him face-planting by Zia's feet, hand outstretched to stop his fall.
There was silence for a minute. Jaz stared at Walt's hand. Walt stared at Sadie's. Zia stared at Carter's.
And then like hitting play on a remote, everything happened at once. Jaz, looking like she might explode (and this was saying something - an angry Jaz Anderson was less common than penguins absent at dinner) stalked off, leaving Walt gaping after both her and Sadie like a fish as Carter's sister blushed, scrambling after the cheerleader. Zia's lips parted into an o as she took in Carter's hand, and he himself was sure his face was going to catch on fire.
The day after, Zia Rashid acted strange. She avoided Carter completely, much to his disappointment. He was crushed, and by the end of the day could be found sulking in his room, ignoring everyone who knocked on his door except Jaz, who seemed to be the only person who he would talk to. Several rumors spread at this, but they both brushed it off as 'being in the same boat'.
Walt wouldn't meet Sadie's eyes, and vice versa. The blonde spent most of her day in her room, blasting Adele so loud nearly the whole house could hear it. It almost rivaled with the Taylor Swift blaring from Jaz's bedroom. It was almost funny, if one were to listen to the overlapping voices, almost sounding like they were arguing...or maybe agreeing.
"We could have had it all-"
"I could have loved you all my life-"
"It was dark, and I was over-"
"It's getting dark and it's all so quiet and I can't trust anything now-"
The only person Walt seemed to want to talk to was Jaz, but she was beyond ticked at him, either alone or with Carter, glowering at Walt every time he passed.
Things only got worse. In the following days, Zia left. No goodbye, no warning. Just a note posted on the kitchen fridge that she was going back to the first nome.
Walt and Sadie began to start speaking, but seeing them together seemed to make Jaz even more, well...un-Jaz-like. The trainees were sure she was going to erupt any time, but suddenly Carter seemed to be hanging around the blonde a lot more, working a whole other kind of magic. And suddenly they were both smiling again.
So it really wasn't that much of a surprise when Jaz's hand read Carter the next time that day came around, or Carter's hand Jaz. Neither was it that Walt had his arm around Sadie - even if she did look conflicted - or that Zia was nowhere to be seen. Everybody agreed it was better without Carter moping around all the time, and apparently Jaz had had some sort of influence on Carter's choice in food, which improved things considerably. You never truly appreciate barbecue until you eat grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and dinner every day for several weeks.
And maybe Cleo's little monthly festival turned out okay after all.
But that was before Zia came back. And was it mentioned that Sadie chose Anubis after a few weeks, but never could quite stop turning back?
You've probably guessed by now that the love life of a magician is never easy.
So the next time that holiday came along - that stupid, cursed holiday which started all of it - none of them wrote a name. Zia, quite simply, didn't really have anyone to put down, so she settled for a symbol - ? - instead. Carter and Jaz were both too confused out of their minds to put down anything but a squiggly question mark. Walt sulkily traced a hook and dotted it, along with a frustrated Sadie Kane.
And when Cleo opened her mouth to berate them, she was met with the intimidating site of five very angry magicians, holding ivory wands in their question mark cladded hands.
To this day, Cleo from Rio is now a very elegant shrub displayed in New York's Botanical Gardens.
