Author's Note:
This AU takes place during and directly after the World Tour. It's filled to the brim with my personal headcanons - like the poly trio, neurodivergent Brooklyn/Lex/Broadway, implied romance between other characters (which I tried to keep lowkey but lbh, David and Owen have been doing it since day one), among other things.
This story found life in late night conversations through IM's, initially just as sad headcanons and sappy "what-if's" back and forth among friends with far too many feelings until it started to grow all on its own. Before I knew it, I had thousands of words and multiple chapters, questions and their answers, motives and secrets and so much delicious angst I didn't even know what to do with myself - except post it all here for a fandom twenty years old but still very much alive. This fic would not have even gotten its feet off the ground if it weren't for my lovething, RoAnna Sylver and our good friend, Tobias, who both provided the real essence of this story, and I dedicate it entirely to them. What a bunch of gay baby nerds.
I haven't had this much fun writing something in years and I'm excited to share it with you.
Trigger Warnings for this chapter: none.
Special thanks to my friend, tumblr user cydare, for making the beautiful cover art for this story! It means so much to me and it's gorgeous and ahhhh thank you ;A;
Chapter One
It was day sixty and it was raining.
Brooklyn leaned in the threshold of the clocktower doorway and let fat raindrops pelt against his bare arms, the tip of his beak, and his taloned feet. The water felt cool and the wind whistled through old rock with the promise of a coming storm. From where he stood he could hear the distant ocean begin to churn with the pull of the moon and thunder brewed deep within the murky clouds. He even felt a distinct charge in the air from the lightning crackling to life in the sky; a thousand years ago there had not been a word for such a sensation, but now he described it as electric.
The heavy, loud groan of the short hand on the clock shifting gears to point skyward at midnight reverberated through his home and although Brooklyn had heard it a hundred thousand times, this time he jumped.
Day sixty-one.
"Aye, close the door, son. Even if they arrived in Manhattan today, there's no way they could glide up here in this mess."
Brooklyn turned over his shoulder to look at his elder who sat hunched, elbows on knees, in his recliner. Both eyes, one white and one gold, were turned to the television but he was not watching it.
"Besides," Hudson continued, sitting back slowly with a sigh that seemed to deflate his entire body and said nothing of relaxation. "It be colder than a witch's tit in here."
The beginnings of a grin cracked along the side of Brooklyn's beak but it sputtered to death before it had a chance to fully thrive. He pulled the door closed with a hollow sound, silencing only the wind outside. The thunder could be heard even over the grinding wheels and gears of the clock.
Usually Brooklyn hardly noticed that they lived inside a massive machine that kept time. The ticking and the motors had all been but pleasant white noise when Lexington fixed it shortly after the clan first made it their home and fortress. While it was no castle, Brooklyn had come to like it there.
Sixty-one days ago, perhaps.
Now, the eerie passage of time seemed to be the only thing Brooklyn was aware of. He felt every minute, every hour, every sunrise and sunset that fell right through the cracks in his fingers, because it was one more minute, hour, sunrise and sunset without Goliath, Elisa, and Bronx, and the clocktower did nothing but remind him of that every goddamn day. All sixty-one of them.
Beak grinding, Brooklyn crossed the room to stand behind Hudson, staring at the flashing images on the television but, like the older gargoyle, he saw none of it. His mind felt barely attached to the rest of him, as if he were connected by only a single string, like it floated above his body like a balloon. His thoughts were water; he could not hold onto them and they disappeared somewhere dark and deep as if he were a well.
"Soon, lad." Hudson said. He still faced forward and Brooklyn knew why; the last time they had tried to have this conversation face to face, they both began to choke with tears. "Soon."
What Brooklyn wanted to say was 'you don't sound very confident', what he wanted to say was 'stop saying that', what he wanted to say was 'I miss them so much I can hardly catch my breath sometimes' but what he actually said was "Yeah," and then he placed a gentle hand on Hudson's shoulder before leaving him alone, because Hudson was putting a hand over his eyes and bowing his head and Brooklyn knew exactly what that meant.
Not every day since their disappearance was like this. Sometimes Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington, and Hudson managed to have a few laughs while on patrol. They did as they had before part of the clan went missing; they watched the streets from the shadows and took out the robbers and the gangs, they kept a watchful eye on any movement from Xanatos' tower, and there seemed to be a degree of peace at times in the routine, at the very least. As long as they all kept busy, there wasn't a whole lot of time to feel their absence.
Sometimes they sat in relatively comfortable silence around the television and got lost in some old movie they barely understood. More than once, one of the four would start saying "Elisa, what does that mean?" to some reference or human idiom they hadn't quite grasped yet like they always used to and the illusion that everything was okay would shatter. Or they'd wake up in the evening from their stone sleep and immediately turn toward the the center pillar as they naturally would only to find Goliath's resting place empty, just like the night before. Sometimes, they could shake off these momentary lapses and go on pretending that the clan wasn't fractured.
Other times, days like this one, it took all they had not to crumble into stone with the rest of their skin in the evening.
Elisa had explained to Brooklyn once that human families function differently; when children are old enough to take care of themselves, they leave the home to live somewhere else. When elders are too old to to take care of themselves, they leave their home to live in a shared place with other elders until they died. Brooklyn had been appalled the first time he learned of that strange custom and he still was. Why break apart a family for any reason at all? His people did not operate that way; the bonds of gargoyle clans are lifelong. Only death separated those in the clan. Members didn't leave when they were old enough to fend for themselves or too old to do it alone anymore. The very essence of a clan was its strength in unity. He had always thought that humans could learn from that.
This is how he knew that Goliath would not just leave - not only did it go against everything that made a gargoyle a gargoyle, but it went against everything that made Goliath, Goliath. Elisa, too. Hell, even Bronx would know it in his heart to come back.
Which only left two explanations and neither of them were pleasant: they were trapped and being held against their will somewhere by someone or something, or -
Brooklyn's feet caught on the rough stone of the hallway. One curled fist pressed against the wall. The jagged surface bit into his knuckles. Above and around him, the sound of time passing. He forced himself to finish the thought, as painful as it was.
Or, he thought with a long sigh that made his chest ache, they were dead.
Brooklyn's breath hissed through the tip of his beak until he could finally stand straight again. He walked a little further down the hallway before using his shoulder to push open the door to Lexington's room. Elisa called it the tinkering room, since Lex liked to build things there. Brooklyn frowned, both at the memory and at the room - it was empty. He stared blankly at the half finished inventions, the disassembled clocks and toys and radios and computers, most of which had laid untouched since Goliath and the others disappeared. Brooklyn wasn't sure why he thought Lexington would suddenly be among them again, submerged in his tools, muttering to himself, happily lost in creation.
Maybe because Brooklyn longed to see him and Broadway and Hudson happy again, if just for a few minutes. Maybe because Brooklyn was a nostalgic fool.
He left the room and continued down the hallway, checking other doors as he went (the room where Brooklyn kept the stereo system Elisa had gotten him for Christmas that he hadn't used in two months, the deserted kitchen, the bathroom, the closet where Brooklyn had found Broadway exactly two weeks after Goliath and the others went missing curled up in a ball on the floor crying so hard he vomited) but they were all empty. The only room left was the library.
Brooklyn had not stepped foot in the library since he had searched for Goliath there the very first evening of their disappearance. Even being just outside the door felt strange to Brooklyn, like he was stepping on someone's grave. His heart seized; he put a hand over it while the other curled around the doorknob only to freeze there like the sun had leaked over the horizon hours too early. He knew Lexington and Broadway had to be in there and for a fleeting moment that angered him. There was no reason to be, he knew, because the library was not some sacred space that Goliath would not want disturbed. If anything he would be relieved that they would be among his books, among knowledge and stories, because Goliath loved to share that with them whenever he could. He knew that Goliath would want them to find comfort there.
It took Brooklyn several seconds to notice he was crushing the door knob in his fist. He relaxed his grip but did not let go. Goliath was becoming a ghost in his mind; dead and gone, someone he could not save. It made him sick to his stomach to realize that some part of him wanted to replace the torturous feeling of not knowing what happened to Goliath and Elisa and Bronx with mourning them as dead. That seemed easier, somehow. He had been able to grieve the clan he lost a thousand years ago precisely because he knew what happened to them. Stone could not be put back together. But this, the unknown, the what-ifs, the maybes and somedays and soons, they all crawled into the pockets of his heart and expanded them until the muscles stretched and tore.
Was it horrible of him to wish that instead of daydreams of possible futures, they had bodies to bury?
He pushed the door open if just to enter a new channel for his thoughts. The smell of dust and old books met his nose, two heads turning in his direction met his eyes. Broadway on his right, Lexington on his left, both with books in their hands. Brooklyn didn't stare at them for long, however, because the mess on the floor demanded his attention and - well, it confused the hell out of him.
Books. Books everywhere. Books shaken open and dumped out. Rows of empty shelves had purged themselves all over the floor, in piles that were nearly as tall as Lexington in height. Dozens of pages had slipped free from their spines and peppered the ground with text. Select books were lined cover to cover on a nearby table, others still mounted on the stool Goliath often read on. Broadway had one clamped between his teeth and Lexington had another pinched between his chin and his shoulder.
"What in the hell-?" Brooklyn's eyes jumped between the two gargoyles and the mountain of books - Goliath's books - blanketing the floor.
Broadway said something around the book in his mouth and when Brooklyn only stared back at him with even more confusion than he entered the room with, he pulled it out and dropped it to the floor with a loud clap. "Clues," he repeated, very matter-of-fact, and turned back to the shelf he was currently desecrating.
"We've turned over every stone in the clocktower looking for evidence of where they went," Lexington piped up from the other side of the room. He thumbed through the pages of the book in his hand, eyes flicking across the text at an impossible speed, before he tossed the book over his shoulder and replaced it with the one he held with his chin. "But we never thought to look through the books. It's the perfect place to hide clues!" Lex grinned at Brooklyn, all but bouncing on the tips of his feet with excitement. He weaved through the maze of piles to the table in the center of the room and gestured for Brooklyn to follow. He did, slowly, mouth slightly open in disbelief (that felt more like horror) and stared down at the random assortment of titles that faced him.
"See?" Lexington tapped a few of the covers with the tip of his taloned finger. "These were just some that were sticking out more than the others on the shelves. They didn't make a whole lot of sense at first, not until we put them together."
"Like these two," Broadway said as he came to Lexington's side. He placed each hand on a book and turned them around so their covers were facing the correct way for Brooklyn to read. One was Where The Red Fern Grows, the other A Tale of Two Cities. "These were just a few books apart on the shelf and both of them were pulled out, just a little bit." Broadway looked at Lexington and the two grinned at each other like they were the world's greatest detectives solving an age old mystery. "Wasn't sure what a fern was so we looked it up in the dictionary and we found a page folded down and guess what word was on that page? Tales. So these have to be connected," he said with a confident nod.
"And next to the dictionary? This book." Lexington leaned across the table and slapped his hand on a big blue cover. The title, in gold lettering, read Gone With The Wind. "I don't know, that just seemed significant for some reason, and then right below that-"
Brooklyn's mouth slowly closed the more Lexington and Broadway explained their apparent theory with all of the hidden clues in Goliath's books until his jaw ached with how tightly he was holding it shut. Their voices blended together into incomprehensible noise of rushed, almost panicked inflection, sliding books in and out of his view, opening and closing them, pointing to words and sentences and titles over and over again and repeating "Doesn't this make sense?" to one another every few minutes and it seemed like they were trying to convince themselves more than Brooklyn.
He stopped looking at the books. He watched the animated faces of his brothers. There was not a shred of sadness in them. No mourning, no confusion, only hope. Beautiful, nonsensical hope. Irrational hope. A hope burning so fiercely it lit their entire bodies, made them glow and move with excitement he hadn't seen in them in exactly sixty-one days. His heart ached with sorrow because he could not join them in their delusion and it ached with love because a desperate part of him wanted to.
Brooklyn closed his eyes briefly and ducked his head. Gargoyles did not pray to gods like humans sometimes did, but he sent something akin to a prayer out into the universe to wherever Goliath might be. He asked for guidance. He asked for a sliver of his strength.
"Guys," Brooklyn said, his voice soft and lost under the now loud and enthusiastic conversation between Broadway and Lexington. They were going on as if he wasn't there anymore, shuffling through pages and shifting books back and forth, searching for clues where there were none. "You guys," he said again, this time a little louder, but they didn't so much as glance at him. They were lost in their nonexistent clues, in their far fetched hope, a fairy tale in which Goliath and Elisa and Bronx were coming home if they could only find them.
Brooklyn's eyes and fists clenched shut; he brought the latter down on the edge of the table hard enough to make the legs rattle against the floor with a forceful bang. "Enough!" He barked, the wings at his back flexing wide with the sudden shout, making him appear much bigger and much stronger than he felt.
The seconds that followed were quiet but not silent; all around them, the sound of time passing. Distant ticking, whirring, grinding. Outside, the storm.
Life was moving on and it didn't give a damn about their grief.
His eyes peeled open to stare hard at the now silent and slightly cowering pair of gargoyles across from him. Even Broadway seemed small, tucked in to Lexington's side. Brooklyn shifted his eyes between them slowly, thoughtfully, much like Goliath had when they were but hatchlings and he was trying to teach them something very important. He did not feel qualified to stand in Goliath's place. He should be standing on the other side of the table beside his brothers, wide eyed, scared, looking for direction.
For the hundredth time in sixty-one days, he wished he hadn't been named second, and, at the same time, for the first time, he was glad he had, because it meant neither of his brothers had to fight the battle he was fighting. An awful heaviness settled on his bones and he wondered if Goliath had always felt like he had to shoulder the world.
Brooklyn straightened his spine and flattened his wings. When he pulled his fists away from the table he saw that the wood had splintered from the force.
"There will be no more of this," Brooklyn said, his voice so deep and so serious that it startled him. It did not show on his face; he kept his expression as even as he could, just managing to keep his shaking contained to his fists.
"But the clues, they're in the books -" Lexington began, only to have his mouth click shut at the harsh look Brooklyn gave him from across the table.
"There are no clues." He looked each of his brothers in the eye. "I know you want to believe that. I want to believe it, too. But it's not … healthy to obsess like this."
A muscle flickered in Broadway's cheek. "What do you expect us to do? Stand around and wait and - and do nothing?" His chest swelled until he looked twice his size, until Lexington shrank away from him. He snatched a book from the table and threw it with an exasperated grunt. It was but a small flick of the wrist on Broadway's part but he had never truly grasped the extent of his own strength and Brooklyn could hear the wind whistle in his ear as the book sailed past him. It cracked hard against the door. "What exactly are you doing to find them, huh?!" He was shouting now, his large voice filling the library all the way to the ceiling, drowning out the sound of the clock. "At least we're doing something, at least we're not just staring out the door hoping they'll just appear out of thin air-!"
"Broadway." Lexington slipped to Broadway's side again and Brooklyn was relieved he was the one to speak first because seeing Broadway explode like that spoke against his gentle nature and Brooklyn couldn't wrap his mind around the people they were becoming in Goliath's absence. "Breathe, Broadway." A small green hand wrapped around Broadway's thick wrist, lowered it, held it to his chest. Broadway turned his eyes as if in a daze away from Brooklyn, softening when he met Lexington's. He deflated like a balloon and swayed on his feet; his free hand moved to the table and flattened against the surface to keep himself up. Brooklyn watched with a tight throat as Lexington's thumb smoothed across the back of Broadway's trembling hand back and forth. Memories aged one thousand years burned into his corneas; Goliath's hand cupping the globe of Lexington's scraped head after he was tangled in a tree when the trio were first learning to glide, those same hands checking Broadway's limbs for broken bones after wild dogs had dragged him into a brawl. That same careful touch on Brooklyn himself when he was barely a hatchling waddling after Goliath at the sound of battle. Goliath had scooped him up from under his arms with a mighty laugh and held him against his hip. "Someday you'll fight, too, little one," he had said, his smile wide. "When you're ready."
Brooklyn swallowed hard. He did not feel ready. He wondered if Goliath ever had, or if he just did what he knew had to be done.
Nobody spoke for several long minutes. Above and all around them, the sound of time passing. Goliath did not burst heroically through the door just at that moment. He did not bring the three of them to his chest and apologize for what they had gone through. He did not remove the burden of leadership from Brooklyn's shoulders. Nothing changed. Everything was still awful and everything on the horizon looked awful if he did not do something to save what little remained of his clan. He stared at the books littered across the floor, piled halfway up the shelves, and strewn on the table.
Their salvation was not hidden in these old books.
Brooklyn took a deep breath and walked slowly around the table. He had barely opened his arms before Lexington slammed into them, face pressed flush to his chest and wings wrapped completely around him. Brooklyn turned his beak to Lexington's temple, shushing him softly as the smaller gargoyle began to shake with sobs. "I miss them," Lexington cried, his tears hot against Brooklyn's skin, and Brooklyn nodded and screwed his eyes shut because, god, he missed them too. And then, all around them, Broadway's warmth as his arms became protective walls. He tucked Brooklyn under his chin and tried to say he was sorry but Brooklyn would not allow it; there was nothing to be forgive, nothing to be sorry for.
"I love them," Brooklyn said, and Lexington shook so hard against him he was afraid he might break apart. "I am not giving up. But we cannot - we cannot get consumed by this. There will be nothing left of us if we do." Brooklyn's next breath hitched in his throat. Broadway tightened his grip around him. "And I love you, too. And you and Hudson are here. I can't save Goliath and Elisa and Bronx right now, but I can save you two because you're right here with me. I'm not going anywhere. I promise," he said, and Lexington whimpered against him, and Broadway hid his face in Brooklyn's hair. "So please, please don't go where I can't reach you. Okay?"
They promised. They swore.
The three could have stayed tangled in each until morning. It would have been easy - breathing in sync with one another, feeling nothing but their own warm skin. They could close their eyes and float in the space between awake and asleep until they all turned to stone. A part of him wanted to find a spell that would only wake them when Goliath and Elisa and Bronx returned, even if it took another thousand years.
The bigger part of him, the part of him that Goliath had nurtured and loved and chosen as his second, refused. He kissed Lexington's head and Broadway's neck. He was not alone, like Goliath had been. He had his rookery brothers. They had Hudson. Time was moving them forward whether they liked it or not and they could either fight against the current or try to ride it out like they always had. He knew that Goliath, wherever he was, wanted that. When Brooklyn closed his eyes, he could almost feel those strong arms holding him up, could almost see his smile beaming back at him. Someday was today. Someday was now.
When Lexington stopped crying, when Broadway could stand on his own two feet without their support, the three separated. Brooklyn cupped Lexington's face in his hands and used his thumbs to dry the tears away. He rubbed Broadway's back until the shaking ceased. And then they turned back to the books, to Goliath's precious books. They did not search for clues. They didn't even speak. They put the books away in silence and it felt almost like what Elisa had said was a procession before a funeral. He had seen one once on the streets of Manhattan. One final journey with the dead before lying them to rest; this chapter had to close, he knew, or they would be stuck on the same page forever. He watched Lexington and Broadway work in silence, their faces as troubled as the storm outside. He thought of Hudson crying alone in front of the television.
The clan was smaller now but it was still the same one and he would not be responsible for it breaking into such small pieces that it could not be put back together again.
When the piles of books had finally been put away, when the loose pages on the floor were swept up, Brooklyn took each of his brothers by the shoulder and steered them out of the library. They joined Hudson in the main room where he acted as if he had not been crying the entire time the trio was gone. Brooklyn stood beside him and held his hand to let him know that it was okay.
Broadway and Lexington made a meal for the four of them in the kitchen for the first time in weeks. Brooklyn stayed with Hudson while they were away and reassured him that one way or another, they would make it through this. It was a conversation he should have had with his elder a long time ago, but he had not felt ready until now. Hudson even smiled at his leader and clapped a hand on Brooklyn's shoulder and it was the first time he had looked hopeful in sixty-one days. When the food was ready they ate around the television, watching some old movie they didn't completely understand. During commercials, Lexington explained the special effects. Broadway told jokes. For a few hours they were just a small family enjoying each others company, and Brooklyn knew that moving forward was not a matter of forgetting who was missing, but adjusting to the empty spaces they left behind as best they could.
Morning crawled up on them all too quickly; Lexington was curled in Brooklyn's lap nearly dozing, much like he had to Goliath when he was a hatchling. Broadway's head rested on Hudson's knee. Brooklyn stared at the three of them and could not think of a time when he had loved them more. He wondered if Goliath had loved them the most when times were hard and for a few minutes felt honored that he was able to feel love the same way Goliath did.
The silence that enveloped them as they moved outside to take their perches was not an empty, sad one. It was determined. Rain was still falling when they came onto the balcony but the storm had mostly passed. Brooklyn could see the dark clouds drifting away across the island. The horizon was soft with the coming morning.
Without a word, and with the eyes of his clan on him, Brooklyn stepped onto the center pillar and spread his wings as far as they would go, as if daring the very sun to challenge his position as second, as leader. Behind them, the sound of time passing. In front of them, the unknown.
The sun came and it hardened his flesh and heart to stone.