sticks a n d stones

[Xaver]

"Xaver..."

His mother kneeled down before him, as to be of equal height, and met his eyes with a leveling gaze, sea blue eyes glinting like diamond encrusted jewels, and matching so well his own dark oceans. Though his now swam with tears, and moody thought, his eyebrows and very young, frowning mouth pinched with hurt. She reached to him, and cupped his jaw, tilting his head up to look at him fully, and bore down at him with the full weight of her gaze.

"Do not despair.. You know your other half loves you. It is a wonder you were born so seperately... I'd think that put together, you'd be a whole Angel. You, the compassion, and he-"

Xaver pulled his face away, and stared at the floor.
"I want to be compassionate no longer."
He was young, yes.
But you didn't speak to his mother like a fool. It wasn't accepted..

His mother smoothed her skirts over her knees, the silks and embroidered fabrics glittering slightly as they shifted.
"You cannot change who you are, my son."

Xaver lifted his head and met her familiar gaze.
"I don't know who I am.."

She shook her head, and finally reached out for him, wrapping her arms around his lean figure, just beneath his wings, pulling him close to her and enveloping him in a hug.
"That is fine, Xaver Aleksander. In time, you will find yourself." She nodded, cheek pressed against the top of his head. "You must lead Xences a little, though... Else he might lose his way..."



Xaver shook his head, violently forcing the reverie away, shifting the heavy cloak about his shoulders as he stole, soundlessly, into the dark and shroudy Hog's Head, his pupils  fixing quickly so that his vision was as adequate as in daylight, in the barely-lit bar. Just inside the door, he seated himself at the immediate table, leaning back into the wall, and allowing the shadows to envelop his shady figure, dressed in no color, the hood of his cloak concealing the pale girth of his throat and face, magics concealing his enormous wings in a vanished state. Completely soundless, he went unnoticed by the others already well on their way to drunkedness.
He folded his hands neatly over the wooden tabletop - and he waited. Utterly still, and with a practiced patience only centuries could teach and endorse.

Finally, the door opened - loudly this time, springing back to crack against the wall, the heavy-set figure jerking as he twitched, eyes scanning. Not wearily - but searching, finger resting idly on the trigger of an old-fashioned revolver.

"Where are you, you big bastard..."

Xaver snorted at the language.
At the sound, the man jumped, eyes widening, even as he pointed the weapon, aiming directly at the Fallen lord's forehead.

"There you are. ..Finally, I can get rid of your black-blooded filth for go-"

The man was cut off - and Xaver was gone. Even stalking back into the night, he could hear the upset cries and screams of the others as the man buckled and collapsed to the floor, blood pouring from the gaping hole in his throat.
Xaver shook his head, emotions and expressions concealed by the hood, and threw the oddly curved dagger into the air. He flicked his fingers, after it, and the weapon glowed an eerie, odd shade of blue, before melting, the piece remaining suspended in mid air until all of it had dissapated, collecting in a pool of foreign, glassy, liquid substance.


He had been gone too long.
Again.

Too far.
Too long.
..Too wrong.

Perhaps it was only right he would come home to this realm, and with his entrance, be hunted.
He bowed his head against the street lamp, the light boring down over him almost heavy - and he trudged on, his steps light, and almost careless, though there was an underlying wariness and power, to every of his movements...

[harrypotterfan:)]

((*gasp* Xaver is online....I shouldn't join this because I would just ruin this...eh?))

[Ginny Weasly]

((Who knows, haha.))

"Mom, can we stop and get some candy?"
The child's voice had strengthened since last Xaver had heard it. It had grown slightly, though not much. When he asked, he didn't whine. He just wanted to know. He knew better than to whine lately.

"I suppose so. You didn't get into any trouble today, so it's not a hassle." Ginny smiled down at Cody, squeezing his hand to let him know she was only kidding. He chuckled at her, now pulling her towards the candy shop. It would be closing soon, and he really wanted some sweets for after dinner.

He had grass stains on the knees of his jeans, and the sleeve of his t-shirt was ripped. But he was happy, it had been a nice day, so his mother had let him play in the forest while she taught her classes. Though he'd had to be followed by the wolf Moonlight, Cody didn't mind. He had flown, he had ran, and he had played. He was beginning to grow tired now, but he wouldn't ask his mom to carry him. She was tired too.

He looked up at her and thought about how tired she was, about how she still looked sad, even though she'd had a good day. He also thought about how pretty she was, with her red hair pulled back, her black teacher's robes. He was proud of his mom.

"Mom? You think dad will be home tonight? I miss him."

Ginny looked down at Cody, pushing the door to the candy shop open, "I miss him too, angel. I don't know. I'll try to contact him after dinner, ok?"

Xaver had been gone. For at least three weeks. Ginny wasn't sure for how long. One morning he'd gotten up to go to his home realm, and she hadn't seen him since. She didn't know if he'd stopped at the house during the day when she and Cody where gone, or if he simply hadn't been home. She was worried about him, but knew from experience that there was nothing she could do but wait.
And hope.
And not let Cody see her cry.

[Xaver]

(Never be afraid to join, silly. Just join and post with substance.)


It was a different man in his skin, that walked away from the murder. Sure it had been instigated - the man had been hunting him, after all - but he had still been a mortal. At an untold disadvantage.
Killing a man, in itself, was a sin far to dark for repetance. Taking another's life, and future, and destroying it with your own blade, especially that of a man who had really had no way of advantage, would have haunted Xaver, before. It would have been a last resort decision, as well. Even then, though, as figures rushed the street, in the opposite direction he made, toward the scene he had left behind, Xaver carried no remorse. No concern.
No feeling.

He tipped his head back, the hood of his cloak slipping just enough to reveal the pale, angled chisle of his jaw, and the slope of his mouth, slackened slightly as he drew in a breath, absently cracking his neck before he straightened. His wings appeared - slowly slipping out of their vanished state, and into firm, and supple reality, embedded into the hard set muscle of his back, through unseen slashes in his cloak. The dark entities stretched behind him, then drew close, folding into their natural reserve, tall and foreboding behind his already shady, powerfully lean figure.

Xaver was rounding the corner of the candy store, when he heard them.
The only voices that could ever jolt his heart back to feeling - and reboot his internal anatomy.

"...dad will be home tonight? I miss him.... ...I miss him too, angel..."

His heart pounding a bruise into his chest, he paused, stopping in his tracks only a moment to catch their scent - to be sure.
It was them.
..It was them.


"You will not have to wait through another meal, dearest."
His tones were lower, and far more calm - reserved - than they had been before he'd gone. Withdrawn into the shadows of the cloak, he waited, stopping just aside of the candy shop door, his wings a luminous presence behind him - almost absorbing the light of the lone streetlamp, rather than reflecting it.
He leaned almost lazily - but there was almost a predatory spring corded into his creature.. Like an animal that had been let back into the wild for far too long, and didn't know what to do, when once again in domestic land...

[Ginny Weasly]

Both of them turned on a dime the moment the first sound was out of his lips. Cody forgot about his sweets, and Ginny forgot about...well...everything else.

Without another word, they backed out of the shop and stood in the street, starring at Xaver for a long moment. It was Cody who broke the silence first.
"Daddy!" He cried out, leaping forward and wrapping his small arms about Xaver's hips. He hugged him tightly, suddenly shaking. "I missed you, daddy. Where were you? I thought you left us for good...I thought you didn't love us..me.." And then the child started to cry.

Ginny stood watching in horrified curiosity. She had known Cody was angry. She had known he wanted is dad. But the boy hardly ever cried, and he had never mentioned these fears to her. To see him expose himself so easily, and to cry, it pained Ginny. Her little boy had been torn up, and she hadn't been able to help in the slightest. Besides that, Cody hadn't called Xaver 'daddy' for a while now. She had thought he'd outgrown the name.

She tilted her head, her hands lose at her sides as she watched her angle interact with his father.

[Xaver]

"Daddy!.."


Xaver started at the outburst - but only just. Stiffening out of habit that had been more beaten into him, than taught. When the boy reached him, however - when Cody wrapped his arms around him, that ages-old composure, and mask of indifference, broke. The tension in his limbs slackened, and his hooded head bowed, still effectively concealing his features - but in no way concealing his emotion. It was written into his movements - the care, as he stooped down, drawing the boys arms from his waist, and gripping him under the arms, lifting him up, and bringing him to his chest. Xaver wrapped his arms around his son, and held him to him.

"Xerxes."
It wasn't so often that Xaver used Cody's first name. It was in that, that perhaps intensified his seriousness.
"I love you, and your mother. You are my world.. Nothing, could, or will ever change that."

Xaver planted a kiss atop the boy's head - and when his hooded head withdrew, the spot atop the young boy's raven hair glittered oddly beneath the lamplight.

[Ginny Weasly]

"I missed you..." Cody said quietly, wiping as his quickly drying tears. He shivered, and clung onto Xaver as though for dear life.

Ginny smiled slightly, but showed no more emotion than a bystander. She was ecstatic that Xaver was back. More so that he had calmed Cody quickly and efficiently. And she was euphoric that Cody was glad to see Xaver. And the simple sight of Xaver sent butterflies through her stomach.
So why did she feel this sudden, brief burst of anger? Oh, how she wanted to smack Xaver. He had worried Cody, had made their son cry. He had worried her.

In the brief weeks he was gone, Ginny had quickly fallen backwards. Far back, feeling much as she had the time before when he had left. Once again, her sole reason for not simply wasting away was her son. Her angel, Cody.

She recalled a promise. Xaver had promised not to break Cody's heart. He had very nearly done so. She clenched her fists suddenly, looking away from the touching scene. She was angry at Xaver, yes, but she would not ruin this for Cody.

[Xaver]

"I have missed you, too. More than words, Angel."

Xaver clung to Cody, tightly, recipiating the young boy's need for closeness.

He may have been the Fallen lord.
He may have, not an hour ago, slit the throat of another man.

..But Xaver, himself, was still a man, who could feel, and want, and need - and forgive every once in a while, and hold on a little too tight.


He could sense Ginny's shift of mood.
He didn't need his empathetic skills to note her lack of response altogether.
Xaver had been called many a things in his years - rash, irrational, merciless, detestable... Stupid, even by his enemies, wasn't commonly listed amoungst his attributes.

She was angry.
Angry with him.
As she very well could be. He blamed her not.

He shifted Cody onto his hip, holding him close and with effortless ease, even though the boy was now far into childhood and hardly the tiny boy he'd been when Xaver had first seen him. As he shifted, however, the hood of his cloak finally pulled, and fell back, the cloth finally falling away to expose his features in entirety. The entirety... of his difference.
His head had been shaved. A thick buzz of obsidian had already grown back, but the lack of long, silken locks severely sharpened his already wolfish, predatory features. Xaver had an easily attractive face, if one didn't read too deeply into the harsh lines of instincts set just beneath every pull and expression. Finely honed planes, and angles - a strong jaw, freshly shaved, though one side was oddly discolored of a healing bruise, above the marking a smear of what could have been blood. His lower lip was split, busted over his own teeth, and there was a jarred cut through his left eyebrow. His eyes were the same dark, brooding, moody oceans - but there was change, there, too. Though, such change couldn't be seen with the naked eye...

[Ginny Weasly]

Cody let out a low whistle, surprised by the lack of hair on his head. He reached up to feel the small amount that had begun to grow back, and giggled slightly.
"Did somebody cut off your hair?" He asked with a smile. He glanced back at Ginny, "Look at Daddy's hair Mom."

Ginny looked up, her eyes meeting Xaver's for just a moment before they scanned his head. Something flickered across her face. Surprise, a small amount of sadness. She had liked Xaver's hair. But hair was just hair. It would grow back eventually. For Cody's benefit she studied Xaver and his new haircut, not liking the way it made his face look.
Too harsh.
Too hard.
Too...dark.

"Mmm...I see it." She said, keeping her voice flat and disinterested. She let her eyes meet Xaver's for another momentary flash, then settled them on Cody.

"We need to get dinner."

[Xaver]

Cody giggled at the changes, but despite effort, Xaver, himself, couldn't manage a grin in response.
His gaze shadowed, very slightly, and he nodded, slowly. He met Ginny's eyes for a flicker of a moment, before she looked away, and he sighed, softly.

"Yes. Somebody cut off my hair.." he said quietly, in an off tone.

The tenseness that had again began to surface once more eased as Cody ran his small fingers over the thick, short buzz of his hair, unmarred fingertips grazing over his skull in such an unfazed manner that it soothed him.
When Ginny met his gaze for the second time, the incident at the Hogs Head was already long forgotten. The sadness, and anger in her eyes, even as she tried to suppress it, was by far, evident to him. And, by all means, his fault.
Her sadness - her hurt - was because of him - and instinct had him withdrawing sharply back into that shell he had forged long ago. There was no way to protect himself from her, for she was too much of him, to be able to fool anybody - and though he knew he did not need the said protection, the walls still went up. That poker face he could play, better than a statue, set itself into place. All the more deepening the fatigue lines of his features, and enhancing the dark, predatory look.

He was a killer.
Reminded all the more by the ease of which he could work, tonight.

Xaver glanced down at his son, and he swallowed. Vowing to never let Cody see the true monster that he really was...
He planted another kiss atop the innocent crown of the boy's head, and set the little Fallen down, a hand resting on his head.

"I won't hold you, from your prior engagement," he murmured, low tones quiet.

[Ginny Weasly]

Now Ginny's eyes grew wide, and an even bigger fear stole her breath for a moment, "You won't join us?" She asked. She felt slightly guilty. He must have sensed her anger, and must have thought she didn't want him around. Oh great, she thought to herself, I'm pushing him away again...just like before.

She had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she remembered that time, so long ago.
Now, she shook her head, annoyed at the memory of her screaming at him, even though he had just come back to her. Pushing him away from her because she didn't want him to leave again.

Cody looked up, his small face falling as he caught the weight of what Xaver said.

[Xaver]

"Would you have me join you?"

Xaver remained very still, the question of more weight than it gave in literal words. Deeper inquiry set just beneath the surface, than permission for them to grant him a time of meal.
His hand rested easily, still, atop Cody's head, thick, and well-worn and worked fingers entangled slightly in the boys voloptuous raven locks, so similar to the shadow of what remained of his own.

He could only guess her thoughts.
Xaver had set up a barracade of blocks to force away meandering thought lines - and he wanted nothing to do, anymore, with delving into others' thoughts. In this realm.
He wouldn't let himself read her - and so he was left with the very Human curiousity, of wondering what, indeed, she was thinking. In his realm, it was a sort of pasttime to connect with close loved ones - to always have that mental line open.
In his realm, there was far less privacy, in everything.
It was always different with humans. Thoughts were sacred territory - as were sexual explorations, and family-time. It seemed a habit of society to keep them locked behind closed doors, and blinds. ..Definately different. He respected their customs, however - and, he was in no mind to let anyone enter HIS own thoughts, anyway..

Xaver rested back, on his heels, and looked down at Cody, catching the upset in the young boy's face - but he said nothing. Not sure anything he could say, would make things any better.

[Ginny Weasly]

"I still love you."
Ginny had thought for a moment, and this seemed to be the only thing she could point out. But, not really.
"You're still his dad. And my fiance."

A heartbreat of silence, and then she held her breath, closing her eyes then opening them and exhaling softly. And she starred. Even with the difference between the two, the likenesses still shocked her senses. Xaver and Cody. Cody and Xaver...sometimes, they seemed like one person with how alike they were.

"Right?"

Cody reached up, grasping Xaver's free hand and squeezing it tightly.
"Please come home." He said, his lower lip trembling.

[Xaver]

Xaver had never known relief like that of which coursed through him at her words. He knew there would always be trouble. Controversy. Pain, and angst..
But, so long as she loved him..

"I have always been yours, Ginny."
The corners of his mouth tipped upward, for the first time, a hint of warmth, and amusement slipping into his expression, unhindered, through the deteriorating mask.
"Always," he said gently, lowly, emphasis on the word pronouncing it heavy, and more than slightly accented of his native tongue.

Cody gripped his hand, then, and Xaver's gaze returned to him, his head, tipping to the side in curiosity, before he nodded.
"I've m-"
He broke off as footfalls sounded around the corner, and two figures landed on the cobblestone street beside them. Identical twins, down to their completely naked forms, other than a wrap around their male parts, and the orange, spotted tails swaying, side to side, behind them.
"There you are, you feathered f--k," one of the Cats sneered, kneeling. As he bent, his figure transformed, until he was literally that of a huge cat. He stalked foreword, in a half circle, avoiding moving toward any of them, directly.


Xaver quite literally bristled, lips pulling back over teeth that were suddenly sharper, all the muscles in his impressive creature, even beneath the heavy cloak, tense. He moved foreword, just slightly, wings a huge, and foreboding presence behind him, the end tips of which, as he shifted, effectively blocked Cody from view. He still held the boy's hand, though, keeping him close, but not in front. Xaver cast a glance Ginny's way - his jaw clenching, worry seeping into his bones. Even if he was a professional at concealing it, worry, was closely associated with fear. Not for himself - but for his family.

"Going off to get supper, my lorrrd? And family?"
The still standing Cat purred, bronze head tipping in mock curiosity.

[Ginny Weasly]

Ginny smiled back at him. Knowing that later, she could scold him. And they could make up. And they would be happy. She really did love the silly bird.

As the cats circled the small family, Cody made a small sound, remembering the creatures. He glanced at his parents before watching the cats with large eyes. Ginny clenched her fists, her eyes following the large cat with bemused interest. She tilted her head to the side, scowling darkly. She knew mocking words when she heard them. And Cody's fear was enough to anger her anyway.

"And if he is?" She asked, her words clipped and annoyed.