#spin!anon

We're gonna call you spin.

I think Kattigan and Julien decide it's a competition, with Occtis selecting the best kisser. They're both confident and competitive.

.... Do you happen to wear glasses, spin? You know the thing they do when it's like is one better or two? And fuck if you know, they're both miles better than no glasses. So you make a non-committal sound and the optometrist just starts to progressively switch it back and forth more aggressively a few more times? One or two? One or Two? One or Two?

Yeah that's Occtis here.

He knows what he's about leave him alone.

It was a gift from Thaisha when Hal first took over leadership of the Rookery troupe because all of the new responsibility had been super overwhelming and he kept forgetting Important Things He Had To Do (he was fifteen minutes late for exactly one date night)

Like i said earlier it’s bound in heirloom leather, specifically an apron she confiscated from the Lloy forge—it’s also branded on the front with a blessing in Rungjani that roughly translates to “teller of stories, sower of hope” and there’s a single steel rivet on the spine to mirror the piercings she gives people she loves. She also had it enchanted to never run out of pages!

It’s color coded the same way his kitchen calendar is, and there’s a running legend in the front that archives the names and colors of everyone/thing that’s been dear enough to have their own color. (i forgot to mention in the last one that Wick is yellow, not mint, for the same reason that Occtis is light green instead of purple: the colors remind Hal of each of them while acting as an almost-subliminal reminder to Wick and Occtis that in Hal’s home they don’t have to wear the mask of their blood family)

There’s a section that’s just notes on each of the people in his life with things like lists of gift ideas, important dates too far in the future to be put on the calendar quite yet or in the past he wants to remember, thoughts he has or things he sees that he wants to remember to share with them next time he sees them, etc.

When Shadia was about 10 or 11 she stole the diary and wrote a poem about how much she loves him, and covered the page with doodles of their family. Naturally, this is his favorite page

Now, getting to the actual calendar section (using irl day names cause the araman ones are way too complicated to remember):

Azune’s work schedule isn’t always consistent, but from noon on sunday until 9am on monday is highlighted in red every week because a genuine good night’s sleep, a few full meals, and of course other manners of taking care of Azune set him up for an overall much better week. He also loves packing Az’s lunch and walking him to the Brethren Hall on his way to the Round!

Friday nights are always highlighted in purple, because that’s when Julien is most likely to make Bad Decisions & if Julien’s going to get high Hal would rather he do it where he knows Julien is safe. Hal has a habit tracker in Julien’s notes section, and every week Julien goes without using anything stronger than alcohol he gets a gold star. Four consecutive gold stars, and Julien gets a reward.

Occtis’ last class on Tuesdays ends at 11am, so 11am-6pm is highlighted in light green. 10am is also blocked off so that Hal has time to walk to the Pentevral to pick him up. The nice thing about being self employed is that you can take most of every Tuesday off.

He has breakfast with Shadia at sunrise every Wednesday, and lunch with Hero at 1pm on Thursdays. This week, he also blocked off an hour after his lunch with Hero to write and send a letter to Alogar

Nothing is ever highlighted on Saturdays from 11am onward, because that time is for all of his family. Everyone knows that lunch is served at noon and dinner at 6:30, and that the kitchen is closed to most from 3-4:30 so that Occtis can bake dessert without getting overwhelmed by too many people—this is all written in black ink

Spin I love how much thought you put into this, building out the world like that.

I do need to know if Julien is AWARE of his habit tracker, and what rewards might be for him??

I'm having trouble even picking out favorite bits of the rest without just copying and pasting... Wick and Occtis having colors that are THEM, not their house, particularly Occtis having slid off of Thaisha's is a nice touch. Making Azune lunch. Shadia's doddles.

“intellectually i know this is my body but it doesn’t feel like my body because how could i not have control over my own body and why isn’t it doing the things it’s supposed to be doing” is a conversation i have with myself at least once a week and i really get the vibe that Occtis does the same

idk, I’m fully on the occtism (we’re going for it) train & i’m loving all these takes today!

we need more disabled characters and i’m so glad that Occtis is one of them!!!

xoxo, spin🌀

At first Julien didn’t know, but Hal asked Bolaire what he thought about the idea before he started doing it so he knew about it all along.

Julien had gone on a pretty significant clean streak, but then something happened and he had a really bad day, and he ended up at Bolaire’s door looking for Something Strong. Bolaire invited him in and poured him a drink (something with gin in it i think) and was like,

“i can give you what you’re asking for, but first, is whatever you have going on worth losing your star for the week? I think Hal mentioned that you were coming up on an award if you made it to Saturday morning”

and Julien was understandably ??? and was so confused and interested that it did its job & he left without the drugs to instead go interrogate Hal.

so now he knows, and he is 8 weeks sober, and every four weeks he gets 24 hours where Hal says yes to every single request (the only boundary being: no actual crimes). He got one this past weekend, and he and Hal went horseback riding and had a picnic on the secluded far side of Lake Nahami.

Everyone is incredibly proud of him, and the other boys each have their own little ways to reward him every four weeks, too.

Occtis gives Julien a high intensity scene of his choice. Most recently he wanted to spend a few hours testing some limits with pain play together.

Azune does similar, but on the other side of the intensity spectrum. He prefers to reward Julien with praise and warmth and body worship. Az got a new set of massage oils recently and Julien’s favorite smells like mint, basil, and fresh dirt (which is what occtis’s magic smells like but he hasn’t figured that out yet)

Wick is still new & getting to know everyone, and he’s just a wee bit intimidated by Julien, so he made Julien a cake that just said “YAY JULIEN” and the letters were a little wonky because he misjudged how big to write them but julien did get very emotional about it & hugged wick so tight it made his eyes bulge out of his head a little

hope this helps! xoxo, spin🌀

Wick's little cake I can't even.

Confusing Julien and then giving him something interesting to think about is SUCH a valid technique for him.

I love all their rewards for him, and I hope he can manage to be still long enough for Azune!

And fuck yeah Occtis deserves someplace to allowed to be just as sadistic as he can be, I don't think it's something Hal is involved with directly but he does kinda just... make sure he's available?

second: gonna yes, and you about hal’s google calendar because he absoLUTELY has a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall and it’s fully color coordinated for both his Boys and the rest of his friends and family and anyone who wants can just write their name on it and sign up for Hal Time. Azune definitely writes little hearts around his name.

Hal also keeps a diary for more detailed scheduling (he doesn’t really want to specify what type of booty call each of his boys is receiving that week on the calendar his daughters can also see). it’s about A5 size and bound in heirloom leather, and it’s enchanted to never run out of pages.

Azune is color coded red, Julien is purple, and Occtis is light green. Thaisha’s is dark green and Elodie’s is dark blue, and he has special metallic pens for his children who are gold (Alogar), silver (Shadia), and copper (Hero). Bolaire is light blue and stuff for the theater & company is magenta. Thjazi was orange (that pen now lives in the back of a desk drawer)

—spin🌀

..... Okay Spin this is the cutest and most accurate thing I have seen in a while. Like I had a vague idea that yeah Hal had to have a schedule but this is perfect and color coded and the pen in the back of the drawer and Azune's little hearts. I wonder how long it took him before he would put them on the public calendar like that.

It also makes me think of like... So there's just a regular pen and pencil by the callander, for general use and appts and visiting friends and such. And what if the first couple of times Julien actually had a planned time over it was in light blue, coming with Bolaire so like it would say Bolaire (Julien). And then after a bit it moved to light blue Bolaire & Julien. The first time Julien sets a time that's just for him he picks up the blue pen and really wants to use it, but scrawls his name with the pencil instead.

Nothing is said but when he glances at the calendar the next time he stops by, someone has carefully traced over the pencil of his name in a deep, rich purple, and there's a brand new pen in the chipped mug on the counter.

It takes Julien a very long time before he's willing to process the emotions that pen brings up.

@♦️ you hearing the interest for your Occis hcs?

The idea was conceived at Gossip Brunch. Julien was complaining that since all the Revolutionary Bullshit was going on the only parties people were throwing these days were funerals. Thaisha brought up, “Well, Hal is turning 45 next month. Could be nice to have something to look forward to!”

Once it was decided that it would be a surprise, the next person brought on board was Shadia. Since she both lives and works with her dad, she is an ideal person to have part of the planning. She makes sure that Hal’s schedule on his birthday will accommodate whatever they come up with and that the house is available for planning & setup.

Thimble and Azune were put in charge of invitations, and also pull strings as necessary to help make sure that everyone would be able to make it. Julien wrote to the barrowguard at Castle Torch with orders for Alogar to be placed on family leave as soon as he would need to be in order to be home the morning of the party.

Once most of the basic details were figured out, invitations started going out. Nothing in writing, lest he see it on someone’s desk accidentally—word of mouth only. It was all perfect, all those involved were beginning to pat themselves on the back for finally, somehow being able to pull one over on Hal at such a scale.

Then, only about a week to go, they approached Olgud about doing the catering. He enthusiastically agreed and was excited to spend the next few days planning and cooking for the event. He was so excited, however, that he spent the next day at work going on and on about it to Hal — and with that, the surprise had been ruined.

He didn’t say anything about it though, he’d noticed even before finding out that many of the people in his life had been more closely connected recently than usual. He was honored to be thought of and cared for like this, and overjoyed by how happy it made the people he loves.

His birthday arrives it all goes according to plan. Shadia gets Hal out of the house two hours earlier than usual by taking him to breakfast before they have to be at the theater for work. Olgud and a few others quickly arrive and start cooking, since that will take the longest. When you’re as deeply loved as Hal, it takes a lot of food to make sure everyone eats their fill.

Thaisha and Bolaire arrive next; first to go through each guest room so that those who lived inconveniently far could spend the night, and then to begin decorating. Thaisha was in charge of the outdoors, and Bolaire focused on indoors.

Hero, Occtis, and Murray all finished their day a bit before lunch, so they left campus together & stopped on their way to pick up lunch for themselves and those already working on party prep at Hal’s.

Julien had been summoned to Castle Torch to tend to a few things, so he and Alogar were able to ride back together. They arrived just after lunch, and the reunion between Hero and her brother was incredibly sweet. Guests started to arrive not long after that.

By the time late afternoon rolled around, the Fang home was full of people. There was barely room to maneuver through the crowd, but the party couldn’t expand into the yard until after the big reveal. Though, most barely noticed over the excitement and good vibes of being around other people who loved and were loved by Halandil Fang.

Then, Thaisha got word from Shadia, through Hala, that they were on their way home. She got the crowd’s attention, and with a little thaumaturgy so she could be heard, thanks everyone for being there and for the fun it was to work with everyone and plan this and a whole bunch more sappy stuff.

Everyone starts to get into position once she’s done, hiding as best they could or crouching down as far from the door as possible to try and get into shadows. Then, not much later, the door opens and Shadia leads her father inside.

As the lights go on, the room erupts in an uproar as everyone jumps out to scream happy birthday. Even though he knew it was coming, Hal is overwhelmed with joy and love and starts crying so fast. Then he sees his son, and sees his daughters surrounding their brother as they press forward to pull him into a group hug, and he is freely weeping to see all three of his children in one place. Then Thaisha and Elodie press around them, and then more and more and more people until the entire crowd is locked together in a big group hug.

Then the party finally gets properly started. There’s no choice but for the party to spill out into the yard, and once they do it’s a full block party. The entire neighborhood, and that many people thrive over, all coming together to celebrate Hal.

He will never emotionally recover from this.

xoxo, spin🌀

p.s. holy shit i got carried away lmao, i think i blacked out writing this

Said plotting and scheming

Also now I’m thinking about Julien & Thaisha & Bolaire going out for brunch together cause this seems like the kind of idea to come up over mimosas and then executed same-day before Hal gets home from work

They try to get together every time Thaisha’s home. They always go to the same restaurant because they have a private balcony overlooking the river so they can properly gossip to their hearts content without risk of being overheard. They always say they’re having mimosas but it’s definitely actually a bottle of Davinos Prosecco with a half squeeze of an orange, and they definitely always plan to stop after one bottle pitcher but it’s definitely usually 2 or 3

xoxo, spin🌀

The Red Diamond Speaks

Wick’s crying silently, but he can’t help the way his breath turns to gasps for air and his nose sniffles and his body tries to curl in on itself.

Hal wakes up and Wick feels even worse for waking him, but it’s just the two of them tonight so at least he doesn’t bother the other boys, too.

Hal holds him and strokes his hair until he cries himself out, gently applying some healing magic for the bruises and friction sores.

Once Wick is still and his sobs taper out to ragged breathing, Hal talks about when Alogar hit his growth spurt and went from a small and scrawny kid to almost as tall as Thaisha in the span of little more than a summer. He tells Wick how it took Al years to really understand how big he’d gotten and regain that full control and sense of his limbs, and how many things he knocked off shelves and people he accidentally kept hitting and bruising.

Then Hal tells Wick how beautiful his wings are and how well they suit him. He tells Wick how in all the years since he last saw the frontlines he’d never slept through a thunderstorm until the first time Wick wrapped wrapped his wings around their little group and held them, safe and secure.

Wick doesn’t feel better right away, but he does feel better enough to fall asleep as Hal holds him and strokes the ridge of his wings with a thumb

xoxo, spin🌀

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