#matvei|character

@halcyonterror || musical headcanons

Daddy Issues by The Neighbourhood

I tried to write your name in the rain But the rain never came So I made with the sun The shame, always comes at the worst time

It isn’t that Matvei doesn’t love, or doesn’t love Holly, he does. She’s wonderful, and light, and not afraid to call him out, and pull him away from his science when he hasn’t slept for days, and the idea that there is a world beyond the endless pages and pages of half-finished equations that still need to be made into graphs seems inescapable. 

But, she’ll never win, not really. She came too late, after Matvei had made himself into a vessel for the Smiling God, and His glorious, burning Light. No matter what happens, it it that for which Matvei has dedicated himself to, and there are times when he forgets it, when he dares to think “I could be happy with her”, and then he sees the light, or someone will say something, and the guilt comes in, and he reminds himself that loving her is temporary, just until he’s worked hard enough to be devoured. 

It’s a cycle where he allows himself to get comfortable, and then throws himself into his work and into his faith as penance essentially. He would love her if he could, but there’s too much of him that is wholly devoted, and he’s been blinded by the light for too long to ever let go of that, even for her. 

Three sentence AU fic || @halcyonterror

Technically, Matvei supposed, he should be up in the first class lounge with his fiancé, where’d he’d spent the previous evening, and was expected to spend the rest. That was proper, that was what was done, but... he thought, as he and Holly whirled through the throngs of dancing, joyful passengers, there was something infectious in the energy down here. His finely pressed suit was out of a place in a crowd like this, but when the voyage was over, it wouldn’t matter, he’d be back with Helios, golden ring sparkling on his finger.

Send me in a ship || @halcyonterror

Santa Fe - Rent

Now you're talking Well, I'm thwarted by a metaphysic puzzle And I'm sick of grading papers that are low And I'm shouting in my sleep, I need a muzzle And all this misery pays no salary, so

Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe Oh, sunny Santa Fe would be nice We'll open up a restaurant in Santa Fe And leave this to the roaches and mice

Sometimes, there are moments when Matvei seems more like the person he was before Strex, like he could have been without them. (He’s more like Mikhail, but with edges still sharper than his Night Vale double). In those few cases, he leaves the work at the lab, and brings Holly out into the Desert for a date- well and proper, without eve the pretense of scientific discovery. 

He’ll express his distaste for Strex is the closest thing to words he has for it, and the constant exhaustion that’s always there seems to lessen for just a day when he sleeps, and relaxes. An it’s then, that he lets it slip that he doesn’t take the medication that most everyone else in the city does. 

Only once does he express a desire to leave. He and Holly are sitting in one of the few restaurants in Desert Bluffs, and it’s daytime out (because it’s always been daytime. The sun hasn’t gone down in years), but the clouds are blowing across the sun and the light is inconsistent but golden. Matvei is talking about how the newest project hasn’t gone anywhere in weeks, and how he’s been living on coffee and cup noodles like he’s back in his first year of university.

They could leave, he says, they could leave Strex, and the whole desert behind them. She could open up her bakery somewhere else, and he could get a research, or a teaching job, and they could be happy and domestic in a world without an eternal day.

And then he laughs, and shrugs the idea off. This is home after all, he left and came back, and even then, there is Strex, and his job. And in the end, it doesn’t matter how much more normal he is, or how casual he acts, with a lazy smile on those days- on that day in the cafe. They don’t leave, and he gets caught back up int he fervour of his work and the Smiling God, and that strange, soft day over coffee is buried in the sand, along with the idea that they could have left.

5 Wedding Headcanons || @halcyonterror

1.      Matvei proposes at one of the parties held at the lab for a breakthrough. He doesn’t remember what the breakthrough was, or even which one of the smaller groups it was for, but he remembers her. He’d been carrying around the ring for three weeks in the inner picket of his lab coat. 

2.      Helios is the person officiating, and they get married early enough in the morning that the sun streams through the stained glass of the church to illuminate them in fractals of colours. Matvei is even wearing a suit, though, the desert is hot enough that by the time the actual marriage happens, he’s gotten rid of the jacket so he just has a vest.

3.       Matvei would like it to be known that he did not fumble in his vows and start to ramble about affection in science-based metaphors. He’s not Mikhail. The science-based ramblings were entirely planned. (Though in all honesty, he’s grateful that holly has picked up enough of it to understand what he means). Some of the other scientists are crying, his parents are just confused, and he gets a certain amount of vindictive pleasure in that.

4.      Matvei’s favourite picture from their wedding is the one where he’s picked up Holly from their first dance. They’re both smiling at each other, and the she’s looking down at him. Her dress is billowing out like a movie. He very nearly dropped her half a second later, but that picture is immortalized.

Send in two characters || @halcyonterror​

There’s enough kids, and each of their bios is long enough that i’m just gonna put them all under a read more. 

Three sentence AU fic || @halcyonterror

There would always be accidental, and unethical experiments, and sometimes those ended in the sorts of people that brought down oppressive regimes, and restored a sense of justice to the world. They... weren’t that, at least, Matvei wasn’t, and had Mikhail ever been, the chance for it was gone. Mikhail stood in front of one of the men in neat black suits, a clipboard with his and Matvei’s most recent finding held in one hand, the other clutched tightly in Matvei’s, beside him, his... (partner? double? twin?) Matvei was speaking. “Yes, and if your scientists were half as talented as us, you wouldn’t need us, but you do.”

@halcyonterror || Musical headcanons

Masquerade by Tokio Hotel

In time, we hide In a masquerade of heroes A million lies, behind blue eyes In a masquerade of heroes Scars on our faces Are showing the traces In a masquerade of heroes You don't know what life is Until you die for it

Matvei takes the fall of StrexCorp... poorly to put it lightly. He’d fallen down the rabbit hole of propaganda and conditioning harder than most- until it had become indistinguishable from what he would have been otherwise. Perhaps, had things gone differently, he may have been more like his double, but he had sold himself out to Strex when they came knocking easily enough.

And then they’re gone.

And so goes everything he’s built his life upon for years. His funding was cut, his city was struggling, the Strex medications started to run out, and suddenly, he’s not at the top of the world anymore. The citizens did not take kindly to the people who had willingly tortured them into being “their best, productive selves”. He’s spared a better fate than the current re-educators, because the people had overlooked him. There was quite simply, more that had to be done.

He doesn’t feel guilt for what he’s done, but... he also doesn’t know how to function outside StrexCorp. He meets Holly, not for the first time, but again, after he had driven her away, and made certain that she’d never ever forgive him for what he’d done. And then he meets Helios (and actually meets him, instead o passing him by ont he street), who was masquerading as a priest for a fallen church, but who wanted to help rebuild Desert Bluffs. He opened the Joyous Congregation doors to the people who wanted to or needed a place to stay. 

Helios and Holly had gotten together at some point before the fall of Strex, and Matvei doesn’t understand why either of them bothered to stick around, but when everything falls apart, he’s glad they’re there. They’re the closest thing to support he has, and even that’s... mild at best. 

He stays at the church for two months, and then moves in with them.

The Morning After || Matvei && Tomas @thesexierscientist

The sun was streaming through the gaps in the curtains where Matvei had forgotten to close them the previous day... night... period. That was one problem with an eternal day- the sense of a ‘day’ stopped holding nearly as much meaning. He let out a groan, head pounding from the night before. There had been a party at the lab to celebrate their latest find and like Strex always said: “Work hard, play hard” and they had played, very, very hard. 

Most of his recollection of the night was a handful of colourful moments connected with long blank stretches.  He turned over, pressing his face into the body beside hi- wait, body meant person, meant living, and as they were living it mean he hadn’t killed someone (and Smiling God, he did not want to have to wash his sheets because he’d made the decision to just leave a corpse there).