a struck link // christopher lightwood {3}

thirteen // we'll get together then (we'll have a good time then)

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author's notes:
I have decided that, despite the events of Chain of Thorns, I am continuing this fic. I'm a fanauthor. I can do what I want. Including give my most beloved characters some happiness somewhere.
chapter title quotation: "Cat's in the Cradle" (Harry Chapin). trust me and give it a listen, it really does remind me of both Matthew and Charles.

harmonoia (n).

when everything feels just a bit too peaceful. like the moments before a tornado where the wind goes dead and the birds stop singing. where you're either bracing yourself for the inevitable chaos, or plotting out how you'll cause it.

< & >

The thing was, Pluto had never been good at parties. Here in the 20th Century, xe was totally useless. Xe didn't know how to dance the way that people danced here (and xe had nobody really to dance with), xe didn't drink, and xe couldn't be easily settled into the usual gender-segregations. Even Rosamund Wentworth had no idea what she was supposed to do with xyr and ended up just leaving xyr to xyr own devices. Without guidance otherwise, xe went looking for Christopher—they'd only showed up to be emotional support for him anyway.

Christopher was found easily enough, at a table with Thomas and Anna and Matthew. Pluto slid into a chair next to him and pulled their feet up onto the seat, crossing their legs. "Hey."

Christopher blinked up at them. Of the two of them, he was taller when standing, but he slouched in a chair and Pluto did not. "Hello, Pluto."

"I didn't think you would be here," said Anna.

Pluto raised their eyebrows—they'd never managed to master the trick of lifting just one. "Really?"

"Didn't seem like your style. And I know you can't dance."

"And I dislike dancing," said Christopher. "And everyone knows by now that the two of us are close. So now I have an excuse to sit here and not dance."

Anna's eyes flicked between the two of them and she smiled. "Smart. Though you're sure you don't want to dance with them at least once, Kit?"

Christopher shook his head.

"Trust me," said Pluto, "I don't know anything except dances that don't exist yet."

"Do I want to know what dances look like in the twenty-first century? Actually, no, I don't." The smile returned. "Just don't go disappearing on us, I will find you."

Pluto pointed with their thumb at the glass doors behind them. "Hey, if I'd planned on us disappearing I'd have come through the balcony."

"You?" said Matthew. "Climbing up to the balcony?"

Pluto shrugged. "Or maybe I'd just open a Portal and walk through."

"Just so long as the Annwyvn beast doesn't follow you," said Christopher. "We don't need it crashing Rosamund's party, however much some of us might like it."

"Annwyvn beast?" said Thomas.

"Oh! That's what we were doing in America. It got out of the Otherworld somehow and it got trapped in Iowa—it was like a bat in a kitchen, it couldn't figure out how to get back out on its own. Pluto had to talk it out of its panic so it could figure out how."

"You talked to it?" said Anna.

"Uh..." said Pluto.

"They did!" Christopher reached out and laid a hand on Pluto's shoulder. "Just...talked like you'd talk to a person or a cat and it...understood somehow. I think that was more the beast's magic than theirs but it was quite fascinating. And then it...bored open some sort of Portal with its claws, back to its home, and it crawled through."