Twisted Wonderland Deuce Spade - Tumblr Posts

A New Beginning

Twisted Wonderland

Deuce overheard his mom speaking on the phone to his grandmother one night. Her words that night play in his head over and over again.

Word Count: 1842 ✯ AO3 Version

Characters: Deuce Spade, Deuce’s mom

Tags: Character Study, Light Angst, Minor Story Spoilers for cards and main story details to pertain to Deuce’s backstory, a few lines of dialogue lifted directly from main story

(A/N): This is my event entry for the prompt “New Beginnings” by @briarvalleyarchives ! I am…not very creative with titles…I hope you enjoy this short piece on Deuce and a brief look into his life before he would have received his letter from NRC.

“All I ever did in middle school was screw around… I was a terrible person that went as far as to use magic to lord over those who couldn’t.

Then, one night…I saw my mom hiding away tears as she called my grandma.

‘Was the way I raised him wrong?’

Even though none of it was her fault…

I swore that I would never make her cry again.”

Deuce slouched at his desk as he stared blearily ahead at the whiteboard, the writing on the board some assignment or other he couldn’t be bothered to focus on reading right now. The chatter of his classmates, whispering amongst themselves about his presence in the room, was nothing but a buzz of white noise as he mulled over the conversation he’d overheard his mom having with his grandma on the phone last night.

“Is it my fault for not being there for him more?” she’d all but sobbed into the phone.

“Tch.”

He scowled at the memory, scoffing at the classmates that flinched away from his glare. Exhaling and forcing his face to relax, he turned his back on them to stare out the window and watch the clouds, like his mom had taught him to when he got too irritated to contain it.

“Was the way I raised him wrong?”

He forced his jaw to unclench as the morning bell rang, forcefully focusing on the clouds while the teacher called roll.

“And now Spade, who - huh? Spade? You’re here today?”

He glanced over to find his home room teacher slack-jawed, the untrusting stares of his classmates crawling all over him.

“Well,” his teacher coughed, poorly attempting to compose himself, “if even the infamous Deuce Spade of all you failures can bother showing up for once, then maybe there’s hope for the rest of you lot making it to graduation yet.”

Deuce’s hands clenched as he focused on watching the clouds.

“Would it have been better if he had both parents?”

The morning lecture droned on too fast for him to grasp anything well enough to take notes that would make any remote sense. The class work that got passed around, when his classmates even bothered to give him a handout, might as well have been written with instructions done in gibberish.

“I…,” her voice cracked, dropping to such a whisper that Deuce had to strain his ears, “I feel like a stranger to him…I don’t…”

The whispers of his classmates….the whispers of his teachers…whispering, whispering about his presence in class, whispering about his “half-assed notes,” his “piss-poor class work,” whispering “Spade’s here? A fight’s sure to break out soon…”

“I don’t know how to reach him anymore…”

He bolted the minute the lunch bell rang, the patrolling teachers too used to his routine to even bother trying to stop him from jumping the school’s chain link fence. Some students hollered “Good riddance!” after him as he ran. Some of his fellow delinquents cheered and called out to him as he ran.

“I…I don’t want to give up on my baby…”

The voices all faded, one by one, until the only sound was that of his sneakers hitting the pavement and the surf of the sea that bordered town.

“When did I go wrong?”

Running, running, running…

“How did I…get to this point?”

Running, running until he reached the familiar shore on the edge of town that no one bothered visiting because it was more mangrove roots than an actual beach. Running until his knees hit the sand, face staring up at the clouds above as he shouted, “HOW DID I GET HERE?! WHAT AM I - ?!“

His lungs heaved as he slammed his hands down with a shout, sucking in air, “HOW COULD SHE THINK ITS HER FAULT?! I - I’M THE ONE WHO - WHO’S - !”

His fists clenched around sand, squeezing and squeezing until bits of shell and shards of pebbles dug painfully into his palms, a growl of aggravated frustration tearing from his throat as the tide came in and washed the sand out from under his fists and soaked his clothes.

“I don’t want to give up on my baby…”

The fight in him washed away with the receding tide, his shoulders slumping as he allowed himself one sniffle, sitting back on his heels.

“I’m the one who…I’m the one who’s been screwing around…And…And for what? Cuz sitting around in school was lame? Cuz doing projects and festivals was stupid?”

His fists clenched around the sand again, but it was loose and slipped through his fingers quickly in the ebb and flow of the afternoon high tide.

“I don’t understand any of the shit in class now…”

The ebb and flow of the waves nudged at him like a silent friend listening to all his deepest worries, like it always did. The sea never judged him.

“Ugh!” He scrubbed through his hair in a fit of irritation, but the sight of his bleached hair just made him even more agitated. “How could she think…?! I was the one…! I was the one who got a big head when the seniors showed me how to use my magic in a fight! I was the one who got a big head when they called me cool and showed me how to skip class! I was the one who…! Who…!”

His breath hitched as he remembered the ones who would flinch away from him in fear. The ones who would always shout “Good riddance!” whenever he’d leave to skip class for the day. Of the magicless classmates that’d pale if he so much as breathed in their direction. Of the teachers who gave up on him, one by one, and began instead to name him the culprit for every wrong doing he never did anytime something happened in school.

“I don’t want to give up on my son, mom. Don’t you dare say that about Deuce.”

He’d never picked a fight himself. He was in them all the time, sure, but he never actually started them himself. Sure, he looked down on the magic-less, but he never actually hurt anybody. He would never…he wasn’t that kind of person. He didn’t go around harassing people. He didn’t…

“Maybe I went wrong somewhere. Maybe I should have been there for him more. But I…Sevens, why did I call you? I don’t want to give up on my son, mom. Don’t you dare say that about Deuce.”

He didn’t hurt people on purpose. He wasn’t a malicious person. He only ever wanted to be like the seniors he looked up to. He backed his friends up in fights. But, at some point…those friends…

“Deuce isn’t like that. No, I don’t know how to reach him. But I don’t want to give up on my baby. My baby isn’t like what they say and you know it.”

At some point, it always led to his friends dragging him into the wrong places at the wrong time more often than he was really comfortable with. At some point, it led to him not understanding any of the lectures in class anymore. At some point, it led to all his classmates being scared of him.

At some point, it led to no one believing in him.

“I’m not going to give up on my son.”

No one believed in him anymore. No one except that officer that always seemed to be around to give him an alibi to prove his innocence and the one who refused to give up on him despite it all…

“Mom…?”

She stood, wind-swept and still in her work uniform, in the shadows of where the sidewalk met the beach sand. She smiled, a weary, strained tug of lips that made his eyes sting, that stole any words he might have tried to say.

“I thought I might find you here. You’ve had a long day, yeah? You’ve always come here whenever something was extra bad. Let’s head home. I’ll make your favorites.”

Deuce nodded, swallowing painfully around the lump in his throat as he took her hand. She looked up at him in surprise and it hurt more than he wanted to admit. Her eyes tried to search his, but he was too ashamed to meet her gaze.

She sighed; a soft, fond sound. Just for him.

The drying salt of his pants clung to his legs, a scratchy feeling that grounded him just as much as his soaked socks and sneakers. They walked in silence, hand in hand like they used to, before he began insisting that he was much too grown and much too tough of man to be seen doing such prissy things as doting on his mom.

Before he began bleaching his hair, before he began wearing leopard print jackets, before he began wearing clip-on piercings, before he began wearing eyeliner to make himself look tough and before he ever began skipping classes.

“What…have I been doing with myself this whole time?”

By the time they reached home, their yard was cast in the orange glow of the setting sun and their mailbox was cracked open from the day’s post delivery. The two of them parted ways so that Deuce could unlock the door while his mom retrieved the mail.

A gasp startled him, so much so that he fumbled and dropped the keys, but he had no mind for the keys when he was too busy with what could have possibly shocked his mom like that.

His mom was holding a black envelope with a white wax seal, a stately raven printed right in the middle of it. He’d seen that exact letter before. He’d seen that exact same envelope before, in the hands of seniors past, who’d brought it with them to school to show off to anyone who’d look, to anyone who’d listen.

Boasting that the Night Raven College had reached out to recruit them for their magic.

His mother’s hands trembled as she fumbled to open the letter, her eyes just as wide as his were.

Boasting that entry into Night Raven College, on that Sage’s Island, was by invite only.

The letter in her hands shook so much that Deuce had to wonder if she could even read it properly, let alone process anything that it said.

Boasting of a school for elite mages, that those who were lucky to manifest magic could only ever dream of attending.

The shout of pure joy, the smile that stretched from ear to ear, left no doubt in Deuce that the letter was really meant for him, of all people. Him, the delinquent. Him, the one who wasn’t even sure he could even envision going to high school.

Him, who made his mother cry for him.

As his mom cried again that evening, letter crushed between them as she hugged him close, hugged him so tight that he felt like she was trying to prove to himself that he truly was in her grasp, in her reach…he couldn’t help but think…

This was a new beginning that he desperately needed.

Likes and reblogs are always loved and appreciated!

That's bs Ace, you're always a prick-

Aw, look, they’re graduating!

Deuce: 13 year old me would’ve been both perplexed and in awe of who I am today *smiles sweetly to himself*

Sebek: 13 year old me me wouldn’t believe I’d get this far…

Ace: I would fight 13 year old me, I was a prick

Deuce: was?

Food Prompt: Burger

Ive been working on this rlly zoomed out so i was rlly surprised to see it so crisp??? lol

ANYWAYS I'm doing this food prompt I found on pinterest that belongs to @/lychgate.

Ive already sketched out 1-7 but if you have any suggestions you could always ask/comment a number+character even a character/prompt ive already done if you're interested.👀👀

being gifted hand-me-downs by the heartslabyul bois