#(kidding i know i misplaced it somewhere BUT WHERE)

[rubiatinctorum]

right b'ys where the fuck is my computer mouse

[wordsinhaled]

Thinking about Charles and his absolutely massive and enduring desire for praise... It makes me unwell, because it is everywhere, sprinkled throughout the entire season from the very beginning, and it isn't subtle at all.

Charles has this very clear thing where he is always expecting to be doubted—this really deep fear of fucking up. We see it come through especially hard with Monty specifically, actually. Something about Monty cawing at him, before Monty even becomes a person who ignores Charles' handshake and clearly prefers Edwin - seems to grind on Charles' nerves. (And, just to note, when Monty does pointedly ignore Charles introducing himself, Charles right away goes to wondering if he'd done something wrong: "I was polite, wasn't I?" and Crystal reassures him, "Yeah. You did good." Everyone can see it. Everyone can see what he needs, even Crystal, who just met him like, a week ago.)

Maybe Monty's cawing reminds Charles of his own unceasing and grating inner voice that says: You're bad, Charles. You're wrong, Charles. You're not enough, Charles. You're too angry, always too angry. Too broken, too weak, too unserious, too useless, too fake, too dangerous and everyone can see it. Who do you think you're fooling? Shut up and quit smiling about it and take what you deserve, which is nothing.

The fact that at the beginning, Monty isn't a person yet, he's just a bird, makes it extra-clear it's straight-up just Charles' insecurities coming through, provoked by his perception of being belittled, his fear of being not good enough, of being not-good period.

He was never good enough, when he was alive. He could never reach a point that pleased his dad properly, permanently. He could never reach a point where he fit in with the other lads, and eventually they turned on him. He chose to protect someone who was like him, different and defenseless and scared and alone, and it got him killed.

Edwin tells Charles he knows he can open the lock, and even that's still not enough to quell the little voice inside that says he's being doubted. And we get, "Yes, I can, crow, you'll see." He has to prove himself. To whom? To a bird?

Or is this his way of speaking, indirectly, to Edwin in that moment? Of trying to say, You're right, I can do it, you'll see. Your faith in me isn't misplaced. You weren't wrong to be kind to me in that attic thirty years ago. I can earn you if I keep being good. I deserve it. Please believe me.

(He doesn't grasp that Edwin already thinks Charles is the best person he knows. That he deserves everything good in the world and doesn't have to prove a single thing to be loved, adored, cherished. All he has to do is exist.)

And then: "Keep mocking me, crow. I'll make you my friend eventually. Everyone likes me. I'm a good sort of chap."

There it is again, the need to be good. the need to be liked. The need to be a good sort. Not a bad sort because if he's fundamentally bad then maybe he can make some sort of sense of why he's been hurt so much. Maybe that's why his dad did what he did to him; maybe that's why he got stoned and drowned to death. If everyone likes him eventually, he can keep from getting hurt again. if he's good it means he didn't deserve what was done to him and the world was wrong for it. (And indeed, when Monty seems to ally with him later, on the Case of the Creeping Forest, Charles points out to Edwin that everyone likes him eventually - an echo of what he'd told Monty at the beginning, but he's saying it to Edwin - as if to say, You see? I'm good enough for people. You were right to believe in me. I can be good enough for others so maybe I can be good enough for you, too.

But all of that, it's really still just Charles kidding himself; he knows better. If someone likes him, if he's convinced someone he's good, if someone—what the fuck—if someone is in love with him, like, romantically? It has to be a joke, or temporary. If it is real, he'll slip up somewhere soon enough and mess it all up, like he always does. Forever-love is something that happens for other people, not for Charles Rowland.

It's just a matter of which mistake he's going to make next. Was I too brown? Too weak? Too sensitive? Too compassionate? Too counterculture? Did I think about a bloke the same way I think about girls, in my head where no one can even hear? Which flavor of fuck-up will I be today, dad? Which one will I be tomorrow, world?

This post is getting a bit long, but I'll just point out Charles' relationship to making mistakes, since it comes up already in the second episode, after he breaks the enchanted vessel at the dandelion shrine. Important to note that Edwin doesn't actually tell him off for doing it at all; he just looks shocked it happened, and then explains it to Crystal as a statement of facts: 'We found the vessel; Charles dropped the vessel; now we need the vessel to trap the sprites.' He sounds a bit terse, maybe, but it's nothing much, for how blustery Edwin can often get when he really means to.

But Charles shouts at himself immediately when he drops the vessel; he goes to beating himself up, internally, instantly. And then, when they are explaining the situation to Niko, he's visibly bracing for his own part in messing it up, you can see it on his face - his mouth thins into a line, he's rolling his eyes, he's ready to be the fuck-up, so to speak, the reason everything went tits-up. When Crystal gets frustrated about him having dropped the vase, he gets apologetic - "Didn't mean to!" - and then defensive - "All right, all right, no need for you lot to pile on!"

What 'you lot' does he really mean? Edwin's actually being pretty reserved with the telling-off, in this instance. And yes, Crystal's annoyed with him for it. But I'm willing to bet a huge part of what's making him feel so on edge is the loud, loud, loud inner voice that's been punishing him since it happened. And then! He goes straight to fixing the situation—in a really ingenious way! In a way that completely compensates for his mistake, and solves their problem, and has Edwin awestruck praising him just minutes later.

And that's the thing, isn't it? The thing is Charles is brilliant. He's creative, artistic, and inventive, he thinks on his feet, he says he's the brawn because it's what he thinks he has to be to have worth in their partnership, but he's equally as often the brains. He creates loopholes, he survives by being convincing, in fact he makes himself a walking exception to the rules of the narrative by sheer power of will, when he becomes an Orpheus analogue who defies the text of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth he never even finished, and successfully saves Edwin from hell.

How often had Charles done this in life? Worked so hard to make up for even the tiniest mistakes, real or perceived, in ways that blatantly try to overcompensate for being weak, undeserving, wrong, inherently bad? How hard did he—does he still—overwork himself with his mental gymnastics; his insistence on placing himself in physical danger for others because it's the least he can do to be worth their time and attention and esteem; his suppression of every emotional impulse he thinks makes him awful and unsavory?

All he wants, so bad that it informs his every decision, is to be told he's good.

Each time it happens, it's like a tiny, pleasant surprise. And like an awful little game he plays with the world. Can he get people to think he deserves their kindness? Has he finally earned it? Now how can he keep it? Can he do enough sleight-of-hand with his cricket bat that they'll look past all his flaws and see something to love in him?

Each time he gets a kind word, a little morsel of praise, it's like, maybe it'll finally sink in this time—but he's not exactly holding his breath. Just like he's never enough, neither is there ever reassurance enough. Soon he needs it again. And again. And again.

And so it goes. To the point where he can't help but be so transparent about it that his praise thing can be seen from space.

[morganski-19]

Chills Right to the Marrow Part 8

part 1, prev part

The hallway is empty when Dustin leaves the room. Steve and Lucas nowhere to be seen, Mrs. Mayfield gone somewhere else. Leaving Dustin alone to wander.

He doesn’t quite know what he wants. Where he’s going. Just following the path he would normally travel each day. Bouncing between rooms, looking for something to do.  Trying to find someone who would talk to him. Give him something to take his mind off the train tracks it’s bound to.

He grips the book in his hand, feeling the familiarity of wore out pages. Each one loved as he read and reread them over and over again. That’s what he does when he needs comfort. Goes back to the same story over and over again, to a world where he knows every outcome. Where there are no more mysteries. Dustin knows the answer to every question, every possibility.

It’s why he chose it to read to Eddie. It was a book the both of them loved, brought them joy in the darkness of life. He wanted Eddie to feel safe while his body was asleep. Knowing that some coma patients can hear what’s going around them. Even if it doesn’t register, it brings comfort on a subconscious level that there are people here supporting him.

At least that’s what Dustin hoped would happen, what he was striving to do. But he can’t do that today. There’s someone outside telling him that he can’t be in Eddie’s room right now. That something’s going on inside.

He goes right to thinking of the worst. That they are preparing him for some surgery that will probably delay the day he wakes up. Take more time from Dustin. Or maybe Eddie is dead behind those walls. Body finally succumbing to his wounds. His brain activity finally faded away. Leaving Dustin with the misplaced hope that it would all be ok.

He continues to wander into the waiting area. Seeing a familiar face getting a cup of shitty hospital coffee. Dustin must look confused, as Wayne’s face immediately looks concerned when he sees him.

“You alright kid,” he asks, stirring his coffee.

Dustin blinks. “They wouldn’t let me go into Eddie’s room.”

“Yeah, they’re working on him right now. Taking out his breathing tube.”

Panic fills Dustin, the only reaction he’s capable of right now. “Is he ok. That’s a good thing right?”

Wayne sets a steady hand on Dustin’s shoulder. “Yes, that’s a good thing. Why don’t you go sit down, you seem like somethin’s upsetting you.”

Dustin lets Wayne lead him to an empty chair, taking the one beside him. Quiet, letting Dustin be the one to start talking about it. He doesn’t really know how to. Wayne’s been through enough already, he doesn’t need to go through his things too.

Now that he has things to go through.

This was so much easier when things worked out for him. When Will was found and ok. When all his friends made it out of the tunnels underground. When it wasn’t him who lost people, but he could be there to help the ones who did.

He's seen so many people go through the hospital. They always got better in the end, that was good. Why is it so hard during the wait for them to get better? Why does the hope leave him more and more each day? He was the happy one, the one with all the jokes. Helping everyone else out, making sure they smiled.

Who’s going to cheer them up now that the smile can’t seem to return to his face?

“Do you remember Max Mayfield? she lived across from you and Eddie in the trailer park.” Dustin says when the words finally form in his mouth.

Wayne nods. “I do. She a good friend of yours?”

“Yeah,” Dustin plays with the bent cover of his book. “Yeah, she is, one of my best friends. We’ve known her ever since she moved to town back in middle school. She's in a room down the hall from Eddie.”

Wayne looks at Dustin like he understands where this is going. Maybe he does. Or maybe he’s just used to the hospital life after all this time. “Figured, saw her mom here a few times. She doin’ ok?”

Ok isn’t the right word, but Dustin can’t speak for how she feels. He can only speak for himself. And he is definitely not ok. “She’s blind.”

The words feel more crushing now that they’re said out loud.

A sob escapes from Dustin’s chest. The crushing feeling he’s had for weeks finally breaking free. Everything coming out at once in this hospital waiting room. His face falls into his hands, palms pressing into his eyes. Trying to keep the tears inside.

A hand pats his back, comforting him while he breaks. Helping him through this pain. Someone he barely knows but feels so safe around. Silently telling him that everything will be ok. That he will be ok.

Someone else comes and crouches in front of Dustin, placing a hand on his arm. “Hey, what happened?”

Dustin blinks the tears away enough to see Steve looking at him. “What do you think?”

He nods. “Why don’t I take you home, it’s already been a lot today.”

“What, no, I didn’t get to visit Eddie yet today. I have to read him the next chapter.” Dustin pulls himself to sit straighter, making himself look more put together. Tears still running down his cheeks.

“I think Eddie would understand if you missed a day. He would want you to take care of yourself.”

“He’s right,” Wayne agrees. Gently glaring at Steve, but still agreeing. “He wouldn’t want you to strain yourself for his sake.”

Why does everyone keep making decision for Dustin’s benefit? Do they even know what they’re talking about?

Still, Dustin lets Steve bring him home. His mind still stuck in that waiting room with the world falling down around him. Looking through the window doing nothing but add to his feeling. The peaceful outside now rampant with destruction.

The town was broken into pieces. People moved around between the shelters and the hospitals. Some even brought outside of the town to different hospitals in the area. It finally hits Dustin how much of this actually concerns him. How much it always concerned him.

How that kid he used to be kept smiling, he doesn’t quite know anymore. How he was still able to smile a week ago, he doesn’t know. With all that’s happened, with all his friends are going through, he thought he needed to bring levity to it all. Bring the hope that things could get better.

Hope is a dangerous thing. It makes people believe in something that might not happen. Makes him believe that the scars will fade, and the injuries will heal. That his friends will be exactly the same as he knew them last week. A year ago. Two years ago. When they first met.

He’s not even the same as he was a week, a year, two years ago. Somehow, foolishly he thought that life could move on from this. That the upside down would become nothing but a pin in the greater picture of his life. That down the line, when he’s married and maybe has a kid or two of his own, he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

Now, it’s become more real than he’s ever thought of before. Now, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to sleep the same again. The nightmares won’t leave with age. His friends will never become less scarred. His mind won’t be as scarred. His childhood will never be just his childhood. A part of it will always be captured by these memories. Memories that he can hope to only repress.

Dustin will have the privilege to walk away after all of these years without as little of a scar. He has what, a sprained ankle, and that’s it. Max is blind, Will’s lungs are damaged from extended time in the upside down. Lucas, Erica, and Mike are completely traumatized by what they’ve seen. By what they’ve been through.

Dustin is traumatized by what he’s seen. By what he’s been through. He’s always said that his was so much better than everyone else’s. That he was the least effected, so it was ok to diminish it.

He’s now realizing how stupid it was to think like that.

next part

Note: Back to the Wayne POV in the next part. All of Dustin's POV will also be uploaded to ao3

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[novelconcepts]

There’s a line from American Gods I keep coming back to in relation to Yellowjackets, an observation made early on by Shadow in prison: “The kind of behavior that works in a specialized environment, such as prison, can fail to work and in fact become harmful when used outside such an environment.” I keep rotating it in my head in thinking about the six survivors, the roles they occupy in the wilderness, and the way the show depicts them as adults in society.

Because in the wilderness, as in prison, they’re trapped—they’re suffering, they’re traumatized, they’re terrified—but they’re also able to construct very specific boxes to live in. And, in a way, that might make it easier. Cut away the fat, narrow the story down to its base arc. You are no longer the complex young woman who weighs a moral compass before acting. You no longer have the luxury of asking questions. You are a survivor. You have only to get to the next day.

Shauna: the scribe. Lottie: the prophet. Van: the acolyte. Taissa: the skeptic. Misty: the knight. Natalie: the queen. Neat, orderly, the bricks of a new kind of society. And it works in the woods; we know this because these six survive. (Add Travis: the hunter, while you’re at it, because he does make it to adulthood).

But then they’re rescued. And it’s not just lost purpose and PTSD they’re dealing with now, but a loss of that intrinsic identity each built in the woods. How do you go home again? How do you rejoin a so-called civilized world, where all the violence is restricted to a soccer field, to an argument, to your own nightmares?

How does the scribe, the one who wrote it all out in black and white to make sense of the horrors, cope with a world that would actively reject her story? She locks that story away. But she can’t stop turning it over in her head. She can’t forget the details. They’re waiting around every corner. In the husband beside her in bed. In the child she can’t connect with across the table. In the best friend whose parents draw her in, make her the object of their grief, the friend who lives on in every corner of their hometown. She can’t forget, so she tries so hard to write a different kind of story instead, to fool everyone into seeing the soft maternal mask and not the butcher beneath, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the prophet come back from the religion a desperate group made of her, a group that took her tortured visions, her slipping mental health, and built a hungry need around the very things whittling her down? She builds over the bones. She creates a place out of all that well-intended damage, and she tells herself she’s helping, she’s saving them, she has to save them, because the world is greedy and needs a leader, needs a martyr, needs someone to stand up tall and reassure everyone at the end of the day that they know what’s best. The world, any world, needs someone who will take those blows so the innocent don’t have to. She’s haunted by everyone she didn’t save, by the godhood assigned to her out of misplaced damage, and when the darkness comes knocking again, there is nothing else to do but repeat old rhymes until there is blood on her hands just the same.

How does the acolyte return to a world that cares nothing for the faith of the desperate, the faith that did nothing to save most of her friends, that indeed pushed her to destroy? She runs from it. She dives into things that are safe to believe in, things that rescue lonely girls from rough home lives, things that show a young queer kid there’s still sunshine out there somewhere. She delves into fiction, makes a home inside old stories to which she already knows the endings, coaxes herself away from the belief that damned her and into a cinemascope safety net where the real stuff never has to get in. She teaches herself surface-level interests, she avoids anything she might believe in too deeply, and still she’s dragged back to the place where blood winds up on her hands just the same.

How does the skeptic make peace with the things she knows happened, the things that she did even without meaning to, without realizing? She buries them. She leans hard into a refusal to believe those skeletons could ever crawl back out of the graves she stuffed them into, because belief is in some ways the opposite of control. She doesn’t talk to her wife. She doesn’t talk to anyone. It’s not about what’s underneath the surface, because that’s just a mess, so instead she actively discounts the girl she became in the woods. She makes something new, something rational and orderly, someone who can’t fail. She polishes the picture to a shine, and she stands up straight, the model achievement. She goes about her original plan like it was always going to be that way, and she winds up with blood on her hands just the same.

How does the knight exist in a world with no one to serve, no one to protect, no reason propelling the devastating choices she had grown comfortable making? She rechannels it. She convinces herself she’s the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most observant. She convinces herself other people’s mysteries are hers to solve, that she is helping in every single action she takes. She makes a career out of assisting the most fragile, the most helpless souls she can find, and she makes a hobby out of patrolling for crimes to solve, and when a chance comes to strap her armor back on and ride into battle, she rejoices in the return to normalcy. She craves that station as someone needed, someone to rely upon in the darkest of hours, and she winds up with blood on her hands because, in a way, she never left the wilderness at all.

How does the queen keep going without a queendom, without a pack, without people to lead past the horrors of tomorrow? She doesn’t. She simply does not know how. She scrounges for something, anything, that will make her feel connected to the world the way that team did. She moves in and out of a world that rejects trauma, punishes the traumatized, heckles the grieving as a spectacle. She finds comfort in the cohesive ritual of rehabilitation, this place where she gets so close to finding herself again, only to stumble when she opens her eyes and sees she’s alone. All those months feeding and guiding and gripping fast to the fight of making it to another day, and she no longer knows how to rest. How to let go without falling. She no longer wears a crown, and she never wanted it in the first place, so how on earth does she survive a world that doesn’t understand the guilt and shame of being made the centerpiece of a specialized environment you can never explain to anyone else? How, how, how do you survive without winding up with blood on your hands just the same?

All six of these girls found, for better or worse, a place in the woods. All six of them found, for better or worse, a reason to get up the next day. For each other. And then they go home, and even if they all stayed close, stayed friends, it’d still be like stepping out of chains for the first time in years. Where do you go? How do you make small choices when every decision for months was life or death? How do you keep the part of yourself stitched so innately into your survival in a world that would scream to see it? How do you do away with the survivor and still keep going?

They brought it back with them. Of course they did. It was the only way.

[cherryblossombankai]

Summary: Years after the final battle, a retired Endeavor moves out of the city. You are working as his new housekeeper, and you begin teasing feelings from him that he didn't expect. Word Count: 5,025 Warnings: lots of talk about feelings, enji and rei talk about the past, all around there's some mention of past abuse and such, enji has a prosthetic arm, unprotected sex, smut with feelings (lots and lots of feelings), fem!reader, she/her pronouns for the reader, age gap relationship (reader is implied to be the same age as Fuyumi) Tag Lists: @pixelcafe-network, @actuallysaiyan, @helloiamadrawer, @satorustar, @sweet-chocolate-sweet, @hinomasumi, @renjis-wife

The dream had never changed. Deep down Enji knew his family would never truly be happy with his presence. He had tried to shake off that feeling for Fuyumi’s sake at least. Of all in the Todoroki family, she was the only one who seemed at peace with fate forcing them all together again. All she’d ever wanted was a happy family, but this was not a happy family. It never was, and it never would be. 

When Rei asked for a divorce, Enji didn’t fight her on it. He’d been living alone in the old house with the ghosts of the past for the better part of two years anyway, and she deserved a chance to be with someone good. Someone who would see her gentle strength for what it is, and savor her. The last time she’d come by to make sure he had food, he’d finally gotten up the nerve to put a stop to that as well. 

“Do you come here because you want to or because you feel you must?” he asked her, his voice gentle despite the raspiness it had acquired. Gentleness, something he never imagined himself practicing. 

“Somewhere in between, I suppose,” her voice was unsteady. 

“I don’t want you to tie yourself to me any more than you want to. I have more than enough money to hire help,” he sits back against his chair and stretches out his legs. They’re still sore and stiff, but he can stand on his own again, but he still uses a cane sometimes. “You should be using this time to do things you want to do. You shouldn’t worry about me.” 

Rei sits down beside him. “A man asked me out,” she confessed with a flush on her cheeks. “I suppose it’s difficult to imagine not being married anymore. I know the divorce was my idea but—”

He doesn’t have to hear the rest to know where she’s going with this. She’s worried if it was the right choice. Despite everything she’s worried about if he will be okay when she moves on. More than anything, she’s worried about stepping forward with a new relationship.

“Is he good to you?” Enji asks. 

“Y-yes, he’s very nice. We met at the library.” 

“That’s good. Do the kids know?” 

“No, I wanted to make sure you were truly okay with this before things progressed.” 

“Rei, all I want is for you to be happy.” 

“I am happy,” she admits sheepishly. 

She feels guilty to an extent. Guilt is an emotion Rei has never quite been able to get over but she has slowly learned not to misplace it anymore. So much of what went wrong was out of her hands, or she’d done her best but living with Enji was certainly living with an unstoppable force. There had been a brief moment in time when it felt like they were at peace, but it hadn’t lasted long. It almost feels like she just imagined things were better than they were. But she remembered the flush on her cheeks the first time he kissed her deeply and held his face in her hands so delicately. She remembers how he fumbled with the clasps on her lingerie on their wedding night then apologized when she winced the first time they were together. 

It seemed like almost overnight the gentle cradling of his hands turned into harsh slaps. The gaze that seemed concerned about hurting her when they were intimate became fierce with determination and rage. It had all fallen apart so quickly, and there was no way to pull it back together. It had taken him quite literally being beaten within an inch of his life for him to see the error of his ways. Still, they’d all paid the price. 

“You should find some way to be happy too,” Rei breaks the silence. “I know you think you deserve to be alone forever atoning, and maybe you do, but everyone who loves you wants to see you happy.” 

Enji furrows his brow, “No, I don’t deserve—” 

“Being miserable for the rest of your life won’t change the past,” she sighs softly. “And over the last few years, we’ve all seen the change in you. Even Natsuo asks about you sometimes.” 

“I have been thinking about leaving the city,” he admits quietly. “This house is much too big for me, and I just…I want quiet.” 

“I think that sounds nice,” she smiles softly. 

“I found a little place,” he fumbles through his pockets for his cell phone. “Well, Keigo —Hawks— found it for me,” he explains as he pulls up the house listing. 

 Rei takes the phone from him and looks it over. The house is a small two-bedroom in a tiny town known for its therapeutic hot springs, which are conveniently within walking distance of the house. She can see why Keigo would consider it for Enji.

“It looks nice,” she says as she flips through the photos. “Enough room for you and…Someone special.” 

Enji snorts softly, “Ah yes because everyone is on the market for a broken-down hero.” 

“Why not? You’re still handsome,” Rei giggles. “You could meet someone.” 

“I’ll consider it.” 

The weeks pass slowly. With Keigo’s help, Enji closes on the house. Over dinner he’d announced to Shoto and Fuyumi he was moving out of the city. He had texted Natsuo as well to let him know, but he didn’t expect an answer. He just didn’t want Natsuo to feel neglected anymore. He wants Natsuo to know that he’s always on Enji’s mind just like the rest of the children. He’d gone to the hospital to visit Touya as well and tell him the news, and also assure him he’d still be coming to visit him. Touya, who made a miraculous recovery due to some uncovered research from Garaki’s lab, had taken the news worse than Shoto or Fuyumi had. 

“You’re running from me?” Touya had croaked, his voice just starting to recover. 

“No, nothing like that Touya.” Enji’s cane taps across the floor as he comes closer to the glass looking into Touya’s chamber. 

It seemed like yesterday Touya was locked in a tank, but now he’s able to have a proper bed. His skin is growing back slowly due to the regeneration cells used in his treatment. The doctors said within a couple of years he’d be healed, albeit with some scarring.

Enji places his hand on the glass, “Perhaps when you’re ready, you could come live with me.” 

“You’d want that?” Touya looks up at him, tears brimming in his blue eyes. 

“I’d love that,” Enji smiles softly. 

Touya comes to the glass and places his hand over Enji’s. “Save a room for me, yeah?” 

“Always.” 

With all of that settled, the day came for him to move. He was a little nervous. Keigo and Shoto, to his surprise, came to help him move. Fuyumi did as well, but she spent a lot more time worrying about him being far away. No matter how many times he reminds her that he’s only a short train ride away, close enough for him to come to the city every day if he wants, she still worries about him being lonely. 

“I know how you are,” she says as she follows the guys outside as they load the moving van. “You’re liable to just lock yourself in the house and not talk to anyone for days.” 

“Well, don’t worry too much about that. I hired a housekeeper,” Keigo speaks up. 

“You did what?” Enji frowns. 

“Yeah, she’s a real nice girl.” 

“Oh! That sounds nice,” Fuyumi grins. She and Keigo share knowing looks that Enji picks up on, but decides not to say more. The last thing he wants to do is encourage this behavior. 

Once the moving van is packed up, Shoto and Fuyumi offer to drive it to the new house. Enji rides in the car with his driver. 

You’re already at the house, using the key Keigo had given you to let yourself in. He had told you that you would be working for Endeavor when you were hired. Many of the housekeepers he’d interviewed walked out the moment he revealed the identity of the client, but you had remained level-headed. 

“He is still trying to atone for his mistakes,” Keigo had told you. 

“He helped save the world,” you smile kindly. Keigo was pleased you remembered that. “I suppose the least I can do is keep the house clean and mind my own business.” 

He’d hired you on the spot, and now you find yourself getting the house ready for him to move. Keigo had even sent you some money to go buy some basics for the house. You may or may not have taken some liberties. You were putting together a bouquet on the porch when the moving van pulls up and is followed soon after by the car. 

“Oh, shit,” you mutter under your breath. You hadn’t expected him to be here today. You stand up quickly with the flowers in your hand. 

You see Shoto and Fuyumi first, they hop out of the moving van. You wave to them, noticing how Shoto seems a little shy when he waves back. Fuyumi smiles softly and walks up to introduce herself. 

“I’m the housekeeper,” you explain after introducing yourself. 

“It’s nice to meet you! It’s good to know someone will be around to help him and stuff,” Fuyumi sighs happily. 

For some reason, her attitude has you expecting a feeble old man to emerge from the black car. Instead, the man who emerges is instantly recognizable as a former number-one hero. He’s tall and still broad as though he works to keep in shape despite his forced retirement. The only hint of his injuries is his cane and the few scars he has on his face. 

“Hello, Todoroki-san!” you smile softly as you come down the steps to introduce yourself to him. He greets you with a kind smile before looking at the flowers clutched to your chest. 

“Are those for me?” he asks uncertainly. 

“Oh! Uhm…Yes!” you lie and hold out the unfinished bouquet. 

He chuckles softly as he takes the flowers and blushes. He’s never been gifted flowers before. It makes his heart flutter in a way he didn’t expect. “Thank you.” 

“I hope you don’t mind, I’ve been cleaning inside to get everything ready for you. Takami-san gave me some money to buy some things for the house.” 

“I see,” Enji sighs softly. Of course, Keigo would make sure you take on the role of a lady of the house. He feels embarrassed at the idea of Keigo putting in so much effort just to hook him up with someone. 

“I bought a few groceries, and of course, some cleaning supplies and Takami-san said you didn’t have much for decor so—” 

When Enji opens the door to his new house, it almost looks as though you’ve moved in. It’s what Keigo had told you to do, start some decorating to make it feel like a home. Enji notices the pretty rugs and floral tapestries you have on the walls. He looks down at you, raising his eyebrow. 

“I can take it down if you don’t like it,” you blush. 

“It looks nice!” Fuyumi says as she walks in behind the two of you. 

“Heh, it’s pretty,” Shoto smirks and playfully nudges his dad. 

“It’s fine,” Enji groans before taking the box Shoto is carrying from him. 

“Would any of you like some tea?” you offer, hoping to break the ice. You feel a little silly now; already being here when he arrived, having decorating…It didn’t matter if Keigo encouraged you to do it, you feel foolish. 

“Tea would be nice,” Fuyumi says as she follows you in the kitchen. Shoto goes out to get more of the boxes out of the moving van. 

“Todoroki-san, would you like some too?” you ask. You can’t help blushing when you realize he’s putting your flowers in some water. 

“That’d be nice, thank you,” he responds. 

While you’re making the tea in the kitchen, he sets the flower vase on the kitchen table. Then he and Fuyumi go to look around the house. He notices right away how much effort you’ve already put into it. Everything is spotless and there’s a few touches here and there that show you’ve tried to make it more comfortable. 

“She seems nice,” Fuyumi comments to him as they step onto the back porch to look around at the garden. 

“She does,” Enji agrees nonchalantly. 

“Very pretty,” she adds. 

“Oh, want her number?” Enji offers, wholeheartedly sincere in his words. Ever since Fuyumi came out to him, he’s been doing his best to be as supportive as possible. 

“Not exactly what I was thinking,” Fuyumi giggles. She looks in through the door to make sure you’re not close by. “I was thinking you should ask her out.” 

“You have to be kidding me! She’s the same age as my children!” 

“So? If she likes you and stuff,” Fuyumi giggles. 

“Absolutely not!” he insists.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fuyumi giggles. She leans against the door frame as Enji looks at the potted plants you placed out. “It’s a good thing she decorated. You wouldn’t have thought to do it.” 

“She could’ve waited until I asked,” he grumbles under his breath. 

“Well, your feathered friend is pretty persuasive,” Fuyumi reminds him. 

Within a few hours, it’s only the two of you in the house. You’re busy unpacking boxes when he sees everyone off. His body is a little achy, as it always is after a full day of activity. He wishes he still had his youth some days, but then again he’s grateful for the clarity he’s found in his age. 

“You should rest,” he says softly as he walks into the living room where you’re fussing with the curtains. You’re not quite tall enough to get the rod on the hook. With ease, he reaches over you and fastens the hook. You smile up at him before straightening the curtains. 

“I should at least make your bed before I leave,” you insist. 

“No, really, that’s not necessary.” 

You giggle as you look up at him, “Sure it is! Where will you sleep if I don’t?”

“I’m capable of making my own bed,” Enji blushes and steps away.  

“Yeah, but I get paid to make your bed,” you argue playfully. 

He rolls his eyes at you, “Fine, fine. But then I want you to go home and I don’t want you coming in too early.” 

“Don’t worry, I won’t overwork myself,” you brush past him and make your way to the bedroom. 

He follows you, although he’s not sure why. He leans against the door frame and watches you dig the sheets out of the box Fuyumi had helpfully labeled ‘linens’ and begin making the bed. The thought suddenly crept up on him that you might be the first woman to be in his room in years. He turns away quickly and walks away. 

You notice him stomping off, but of course you don’t know why. You hum softly as you make the bed then throw the pillows on it. 

“Todoroki-san, should I make you something to eat before I leave?” you ask as you breeze into the kitchen where he’d been taking solace from what your presence was starting to do to him. 

“N-no,” he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Call me Enji! You don’t have to use honorifics.” 

“Oh,” you blush deeply. You’d spent all day wondering if you should’ve called him Endeavor-sama or Todoroki-san and now suddenly he’s permitting you to call him by first name. Yet he won’t turn to look at you and he seems so damn eager to get out of your presence. You clear your throat and when he turns around, you’re bowing at the waist. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” 

Enji feels like he’s going to melt. He shakes his head and comes closer to you, placing one hand on your shoulder to guide you to stand straight again. 

“You haven’t,” he assures you softly. “I’m sorry…I didn’t expect…you.” 

“Oh? Did Takami-san not tell you I was going to be here?” you blush. “Did you not want a housekeeper? I’m so sorry! I must have seemed crazy all day—” 

“No! No, listen it’s fine. I’m glad you’re here to help me,” he lets out a sigh. “I just meant you’re very…Uhm…” His words fail him completely. Pretty? Yeah, sure you’re quite pretty but he can’t tell you that. Nor can he tell you that it’s been ages since he was close to a woman besides Fuyumi and Rei, one of which was his daughter and the other his now ex-wife who he never deserved to be close to in the first place. “Fuck,” he growls and turns away again. 

“How about tomorrow we can start over?” you suggest shyly. 

“Start over?” 

“Yeah,” you come closer to him and place your hand on his back. “It’ll be good.” 

“Alright, that sounds good,” he agrees. 

True to your word, the next morning you come into the house with a fresh smile. You don’t even say anything about the awkwardness from the day before. You make cheerful morning conversation, and as Enji sits at the kitchen table drinking his coffee and watching you cook, he can’t help wondering if anyone in his family was ever this content in his presence. Does he deserve this feeling now? Maybe he’s a desperate old fool, but he admires you. You’re sweet and funny, even towards him. You aren’t graceful all the time, but you are confident. Even when you mess up, you giggle through it in a way he’d never be able to imagine. 

As the days go on, he becomes even more of a fool for you. He can’t help it. 

He finds himself at the grocery store and passing the flower section, he considers buying you some. He remembers you had a bunch of daisies in the house and he realizes they must be your favorite. He picks up a bouquet of them, but then changes his mind at the register only to then change his mind right before paying. 

He comes home to the sight of you sweeping off the front porch. You were wearing a pair of corduroy overalls that hugged your curves in a way that had made him bite his lip when you first arrived this morning. He notices your bare feet. This morning your hair had been down, but now you have it pulled into a messy updo. He’s always liked long hair. Rei had grown her hair out as his insistence, but he’d been thrilled when she cut it off after their divorce. She was healing. 

“How was the grocery shopping?” you ask as he comes up the steps. 

“Good,” he grumbles and shoves the flowers at you. His cheeks are flaming red, and he doesn’t look you in the eyes. 

“For me?” you giggle. 

“Y-yeah, take them home,” he rushes past you. 

You watch him go into the house, and you smile softly to yourself before going into the kitchen behind him. He’s putting away the groceries when you find a vase to put your flowers in. 

“My roommates would probably just knock them over, so I think I’ll keep them here,” you explain as you set the flowers on the counter. 

“Roommates?” he asks. Although you’d talked a lot about yourself, you’d never mentioned roommates. You also never mentioned a boyfriend or girlfriend. 

“Oh, yeah. I had to get some roommates to help cover the bills,” you shrug. 

“Is Keigo not paying you enough?” he asks and he’s already fishing into his pocket for his checkbook. 

“He’s paying me plenty,” you insist. 

“How much do you need?” he opens the checkbook and places it on the counter. 

“Really, it’s okay!” 

“Just tell me,” he presses on. 

“Enji, stop!” you snap. His eyes come to meet yours. He can see right away that you regretted taking such a tone with him, and he has to fight down his own pride wanting to lash back out. 

“I was trying to help,” he growls softly.

“I know, but it’s fine,” you insist. “Lots of people my age have to have roommates. We’re not all heroes making bank.” 

He watches the way you force a sad smile before turning away. It had been his desire only to take care of you, but of course, he always pushes too hard and breaks the things dear to him. 

The rest of the day is quiet, and for the first time in months, you don’t stick around for dinner.

He’d been shocked the first day you called out of work. You told him you weren’t feeling well, and just needed to rest. He’d been sure to keep up with all your chores for you so that you wouldn’t be overburdened when you returned. But then you called in for a second time, then a third. 

It was almost a week before you finally showed yourself again. This time you weren’t smiley and happy like before. Your brows were furrowed as he sat down at the kitchen table in front of you. You’re staring into your coffee trying to get up the nerve to slide the envelope across the table to him. 

“What’s this?” he asks, pointing to the little cream envelope. 

“It’s…My two weeks notice.” 

“Your what?” his eyes widen and he wants to pretend he’s not hearing this. Fuck, you were the only thing that made him want to get out of bed most mornings. 

“I just think maybe I shouldn’t work for you anymore, Todoroki-san.” 

“Why?” he feels like his chest is being ripped open. “Because of the money thing? I am sorry about that! I didn’t mean to…” 

“It’s not that,” you sniffle back some tears. “It’s really not that.” 

“I see,” he looks miserable. “Is it me? Did I offend you?” 

“No! No, nothing like that.” 

His hands are shaking as he tries to find something, anything to make you stay. He doesn’t want to lose you. Just thinking that you would walk out that door today, and he would never see you again, he felt like dying. 

“Don’t go,” he pleads. His pride be damned. 

Little did Enji know, you were leaving because you’d fallen for him. It happened so suddenly that you hadn’t even realized it. Everything had just fallen into place, and every time you came to work it felt more like coming home. All of his little quiet gestures, like buying you flowers and making sure to keep your favorite tea around even though you only told him once which one you liked best, had made you feel like maybe he felt the same way. When he’d offered you a check, you’d felt like a commodity instead. It had made you wonder if he only did nice things to keep you around. But now…He’s pleading. You never thought you’d hear Endeavor plead. 

“I just think it’s for the best,” you whisper before standing up. You grab your purse to leave before you lose your nerve.

Enji rushes to his feet. The kitchen table is pushed aside as it just becomes an obstacle keeping him from you. The effort of pushing it sends a sharp pain through his back. At the same time, he takes his first quick steps towards you, he falls to his knees from the nerves in his back searing with pain. Still, his hands reach for you, grabbing at your skirt. He’s fought through worse pain than this. 

“Don’t go, please don’t go. I’ve been alone…For so fucking long,” he pleads, not caring how foolish he looks. “I know I’m a stupid man. I’ve made mistakes, and I fucked up because I couldn’t just tell you…How I feel…” 

“Enji, let me help you up,” you whimper as you try to pry his hands off your skirt. He wraps his arms around your legs instead. 

“Don’t go,” he pants softly and he nuzzles his face against your thighs. “Stay with me, just…Stay!” 

“Enji,” your hands are gentle in his hair as you lower yourself onto his lap. You kiss him softly on the cheek before hugging him tight, burying your face in his chest. “I…I love you…” 

“Oh…oh…” he wraps his arms around your waist and squeezes you against his body. His nose is in your hair, taking in your scent and his hands are kneading at your sides. “My precious girl…” he gently kisses you. The taste of your lips makes his blood run hot, and you can feel the heat rising on his skin. 

Everything else is forgotten now. He may not have told you he loves you, but every touch proves it. The way his tongue is slow and tentative against yours, his hands are gentle yet insistent as he touches you. He keeps your body pressed close to his, not wanting to part even a little from you. Even his moans, the first time you grind against him, are so incredibly desperate. 

“Can I touch you?” he asks between kisses. 

You nod eagerly and he pushes up your skirt. His thick fingers brush against the wet spot on your panties, making you moan softly for him. Months of shy smiles and lingering touches culminated into this hunger neither of you can contain any longer. 

He pushes your panties aside carefully and begins rubbing your slit carefully. His hands are a little shaky, it’s been so long since he’s done anything like this. Already his mind his in a daze.

“Is this good?” he asks. 

“Y-yes,” you pant softly and spread your legs a little wider for him. 

Every moan he manages to draw out from your body makes his cock twitch in his jeans. The outline of his cock is finished off with a thick, sticky splotch of precum on leaking through. He feels needy, feral even. Your walls are hot on his fingers, making him hunger even more to be inside of you. 

“I need you,” he growls as he pulls away from your kiss. 

He can’t be bothered to take the time to do this properly. He needs you now, and he can tell by the look in your eyes that you need him too. 

“I need you too,” you whisper. 

He pushes you against the kitchen cabinet, only making space enough between your bodies for him to open his pants and push them just past his ass. Then, he’s hovering over you once more, guiding your legs around his waist. You only get the quickest glimpse of his cock and the dark red patch of hair at the base before he’s pinning you against the cabinet and pushing into you carefully. Your arms wrap around his waist and your hands rest on his ass. 

“F-fuck,” you whine as his girth stretches you past anything you’ve felt before. He knows he’s big, huge even, and that’s why he’s going slow despite every instinct to slam into you. 

“You feel fucking amazing,” he groans softly. 

He clings to your body like he never wants to let you go. He works his way into your warm walls and pauses so you can both acclimate to the feeling once he’s bottomed out. 

By the time he starts his pace, he’s rutting into you like a man gone wild. His face his buried against your chest, his mouth drooling and biting at your tits through your thin shirt. He loved that you didn’t wear a bra, he had noticed it from day one but didn’t want to be a pervert. Now he’s leaving saliva stains right on your shirt from biting at your nipples. 

“You’re fucking perfect, so perfect,” he pants as he fucks you. “Love you, love you, love you…” he emphasizes every declaration of love with a deep thrust. 

You can’t even make a coherent thought come out of your mouth. You can only moan and cry his name in blazes of ecstasy. It’s music to his ears, knowing he’s managing to bring you to this state. You don’t even manage to warn him when you cum on his cock. The pleasure takes over your senses completely. He can only tell by the way you grind against him and your walls clench so tight around his cock that you’ve reached your peak. His nails dig into the meat of your thighs as he feels himself reaching his climax. 

“Shit shit shit,” he grunts. “Do I…fuck…pull out?” 

Your hands grip tighter on his ass, “No, please!” 

His eyes roll back in his head as he quickens his pace. His hips snap frantically, and he shakes when he reaches his peak. You’re filled and then some with his seed. It’s dripping out even as he continues to fuck it into you. 

Finally, he slows himself to a stop. You’re limp and weak in his arms. Your head rests on his shoulders. 

“Are you okay?” he asks as he rubs your back. 

“Mhm,” you hum sleepily, your eyes fluttering closed. 

He carefully holds onto you as he stands. He manages to hold you with one arm long enough to pull his pants up. They hang loosely from his waist as he carries you to the bedroom and gently lays you down. 

“Rest,” he whispers and kisses you quickly. “Let me take care of you.” 

“Will we do it again?” you ask as you watch him dig through his drawers for a shirt to dress you in. He didn’t realize until now that he’d ripped your clothes. 

“You don’t regret it?” he asks as he carefully undresses you only to slip a black sweatshirt onto your body. It’s big on you, and he loves the sight of you in his clothes. 

“Not at all,” you smile softly. 

“Then, we’ll do it again,” he promises. “Next time, I’ll go slow. I’ll make love to you like you deserve.” 

“Mm, sounds good,” you giggle as you snuggle up on the bed. “Nap first though.” 

“Yes, yes, nap first,” he agrees.

[ddejavvu]

fairy!reader with hotch? 🥹 he’s somewhere in the woods because a murder happened there and when he’s alone she shows up and leads him to a clue?? and he thanks her and she’s all flustered and shy around him? 🥹 thank you!!!

today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)

--

"The trail goes cold," Aaron huffs, neck craned to speak into the walkie talkie clipped to the strap of his vest. His eyes flutter shut and his fists clench in frustration. He doesn't know how the unsub has managed to vanish, but the footprints abruptly and and there's no misplaced leaves that could be covering them up.

"Psst," He's just released the button on his comm when he hears it, and his hands tighten around his gun quick as a flash. He aims blindly where he heard the noise, into a dense tree that he strains to see movement inside of.

"It's okay!" He hears the same voice, light and sweet, "I won't hurt you. And I'm not who you're looking for."

Once again, he combs the tree for movement, looking for the rustle of a leaf or the snap of a branch. He comes up empty, all until a gold glow catches his eye near a cluster of leaves near the top.

With his gun aimed carefully at the light source, he watches with breathless wariness as you peer out from behind a thick branch.

You're... tiny. You're unlike anything he's ever seen, dressed in a flower and glowing to boot. You look human, you have a human face, a human body, and a human voice, but you're mind-bogglingly small. He doesn't know what you are.

Then you fly, and he sees the wings. They're shimmery and fluttering, guiding you to a lower branch that you wrap an arm around for stability.

"Please don't hurt me," You stare nervously at the barrel of his gun, "I'm harmless. I just want to help."

"Help?" Aaron finally finds his voice, hands sweaty and nearly slipping from how hard he's clutching his gun. He readjusts his grip, "What are you?"

"I'm a fairy," You accentuate the knowledge with a soft flutter of your wings, one that shakes shimmery dust from their surface, "And I couldn't hurt you if I tried. Please put down the weapon."

Against all survival protocol, he does. He guides the gun slowly into his holster, watching as your miniscule fingers toy with a flower growing out of the branch you're hugging.

"I saw a man here a few minutes ago," You hum, looking up at him through lashes laced with the same shimmery substance slowly dusting off of your wings, "He climbed my tree and knocked over my house. He went that way." You point behind you, and Aaron sees a low-hanging line of tree branches the unsub must have used to cross the forest without leaving tracks in the mud below.

"Thank you." Aaron says cautiously, wondering if he should jam you into his pocket and take you straight back to headquarters. He decides not to, because you've just helped him, but he's not sure how to go about concealing information about magical species from the U.S Government.

He starts to back away, slowly, in case you decide that he's the enemy now and turn on him in a glittering mess of fairy dust and flower petals. But your face drops quickly to a frown, and you reach out for him using the hand that's not around the tree branch.

"Wait!"

He stiffens, spine straight, "Yes?"

"My.. my house," You repeat, "He knocked my house over. And it's too heavy for me to carry. I helped you, can- can you please help me, too?"

You redirect your finger to point at a knocked-over bird house laying on the forest floor. It's crudely painted, something Jack would make him for father's day, and he assumes some kid used to camp here and left it as a present for the wildlife. If only they knew who lived in it now.

"Okay," Aaron hums, crouching slowly to the forest floor and reaching for the birdhouse like it's a bomb. Of course, it's not, unless a glitter bomb counts, because his fingers are already sprinkled with the stuff.

You rush to flutter higher in the tree, and Aaron realizes he can't reach the perch you're standing beside. Not while his feet are on the ground.

"You can step on that one," You point to a thick branch protruding from the bottom of the tree, one that the unsub probably scaled himself, "That one's strong enough for humans like you."

Birdhouse in hand, he tests his weight against the limb. It doesn't even creak, and he hoists himself up so that he's eye-level with you, chin hovering just over the branch you're standing on.

"There," You instruct him, and he lowers the birdhouse gently onto its mount. You've fashioned it a nest of sticks and feathers, and he wonders if you stole that from a bird, too.

"Is that okay?" He murmurs, voice quiet with the same wonder he's spoken with since meeting your eye for the first time.

"That's perfect," You gush, and flutter your wings happily, "Thank you!"

As your wings shake, more glittery dust falls from them. It lands on Aaron's nose, and he has to stifle a sneeze if he doesn't want to blast you off of the tree branch. It means he jerks a hand to his face, and in doing so, loses his balance below.

He's barely able to repress his sneeze and catch himself on the branch before he falls, and his face knocks into your legs, landing you on your butt on the branch. His chin falls to your calves, nose butting against your stomach as his head lands in your lap.

"Oh!" You shriek, hands coming up to cup his cheeks, holding his face for stability. Your eyes are wide and shiny, and Aaron looks bewilderedly up at you as he tries stabilizing himself.

"Sorry," He breathes, tightening his hand on the branch.

You reach up a tiny hand to brush fairy dust off of his nose, shaking your head, "It's alright. I didn't mean to dust you."

Once his nose is glitter-free, you cast a bashful glance at his eyes, then lean in to kiss his nose. He barely feels it, a soft brush of something small against his skin, but the gesture sends heat to his cheeks and wobbles to his legs.

"Thank you for your help," You coo, hands detaching from his face and holding the branch below you. As he straightens up and removes his face from your lap, you swing your feet back and forth, glitter streaming down to coat the branch Aaron is standing on.

"Mhm." Is all Aaron can manage, "And- and you're... you're okay here? You're- you live here?"

"I do," You nod, bracing a hand against your birdhouse, "I'll be okay. Just catch that guy, okay?"

"Okay. Yeah," Aaron breathes, nodding as he carefully dismounts the branch below him, "And- and thank you for-" He backs away, right into a tree behind him, "Uh, thank you for your help."

You stifle a giggle at his clumsiness, waving cheerily as he finally turns around, heading in the direction you'd pointed him in. And if, when he takes off his jacket that night in his hotel room to find a fairy dust-covered flower petal, he slips it in his wallet? He's sure it's what you would have wanted.

[wolfjackle-creates]

Answer My Call Chapter 2 Part 2

Happy WIP Wednesday! So last week, we had a tie between Bring Me Home and Answer My Call. The tie breaker didn't come in until Monday after I'd already finished the entire Bring Me Home chapter and half the Answer My Call one.

So y'all will be getting two fic upates today then I'm going to sleep. I'm tired after a full day of work with a call out. XP

If you want a say in next week's update, vote in the poll!

Story Summary: Jazz, Sam, and Tucker manage to help Danny escape the GIW, but they can't follow him and are under too much surveillance to communicate with each other. Sam snuck Danny a phone as he ran and Jazz sends him a text every day, hoping to hear he is all right. But he's not the one getting the texts.

Jason was away for several months on a mission with the Outlaws. When he finally returns home, he is surprised to find dozens of messages from an unknown number begging a Danny to tell her he's okay. Looks like there's not going to be a break between missions this time around.

Chapter 1: AO3 (user locked), Tumblr

Chapter 2: Part 1

Word Count: 1.3k

-----

After the performances—an odd mix where the main band yielded the stage to a poet or an accordionist when they needed a break—Jazz and Todd continued to mingle.

Jazz waited until about fifteen minutes had passed before reaching into her bag to search for her phone. “Todd!” she cried.

“Jazz? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my phone! Shit, what time is it?”

Todd pulled out his. “Eleven fifty. Did you have it when we arrived?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t checked it. Where could it have gone?”

One of the other attendees broke into the conversation. “Lost your phone? What does it look like? We can help you look.” She was a woman in her forties or fifties. Next to her was another woman who nodded her agreement.

“Thank you, that’d be great.” It didn’t take much effort to bring tears to her eyes—all she had to do was remember that Danny was still missing. “It’s a Samsung in an unfortunately standard black case. The lock screen has picture of and my brother. My name’s Jazz, by the way. And this is Todd.”

“I’m Mel and this is my wife Jayden. I’m sure we’ll find your phone soon enough.” Then, in a voice loud enough to cut through the chatter, “Oi! Anyone see an unattended phone lying around? Jazz here misplaced hers?”

Even Mel, though, had to admit defeat after half an hour of searching through the entire apartment yielded nothing.

Jazz sat down on the floor and let herself cry. “And by now we’ve missed the last train. I’m sorry, Todd. What a disaster.”

“Hey, no. None of that, now. Tonight’s been a blast. This sucks for sure, but I can get us an uber or something—”

“How far are you kids going?” asked Jayden.

“Too far,” cried Jazz. “I live out of the city. Parked at Alewife and took the red line in.”

Jayden winced. “Well, we parked nearby. Is there somewhere close we can drive you?”

Jazz blinked up at them. “You’d do that?” She turned to Todd. “I just want to go to sleep. Is there a motel nearby we could stay at?”

Todd pulled out his phone and searched. “Looks like there’s a Holiday inn just down the street or a La Quinta that’s a little cheaper just a bit further out.” He smiled ruefully at the women who’d been helping them. “If you could get us to either place, we’d be more than grateful.”

One of the residents, an older man named Rob, took a seat next to them. “Hey, kiddo. What’s your email? We can contact you if anyone finds it.”

Jazz smiled at him gratefully and gave it. If it wasn’t so necessary, she’d feel bad for lying to and worrying all these people. But they were in so much danger. To the women, she said, “Would the La Quinta be too far out of the way? If I end up having to get a new phone, I’d like to save as much money as possible. Thank God I still have my wallet.”

“Sweetie, it’s totally fine,” assured Mel. “We’d take you all the way home if we didn’t live on the opposite side of the city.”

“Thank you, but that’s really okay. I just want to go to bed and worry about it tomorrow.”

“Come on, dear.” Mel reached out a hand to help Jazz up. “Let’s get you cleaned up then we’ll be on our way.”

Jazz thanked Rob for his help before Mel led her towards the bathroom with an arm around her shoulder.

Less than forty minutes later, Todd and Jazz were alone in a hotel room together. She pulled the blinds shut and finally let herself relax.

When she turned back to the room, Todd was looking at her with one eyebrow raised. “Want to explain to me what all of”—he threw out his hands—“that was about?”

Jazz glared back at him. “You didn’t tell me you died! Damn it, if I’d known in advance—!” she cut herself off and took a deep breath. “Never mind. What’s done is done.”

Todd was deadly still. “How do you know that?”

Jazz threw her hands in the air. “It’s obvious to anyone who knows how to tell. Including the Guys in White who I told you are dangerous to ghosts and liminals! I had plans for what I’d say when they found us, but those won’t work if you’re dead!”

“Wait.” Todd held up his hands. “You’re saying I can be persecuted under those Anti-Ecto acts?”

“Yes! You’re more ghostly than me, and I am watched every minute of every day.”

Todd narrowed his eyes and stared at her for a moment before asking, “Have you heard of Lazarus Water or had any dealings with the League of Assassins?”

“No! I have no idea what you’re talking about. Quit changing the subject. My brother is the only thing that matters and you and Red Robin promised to help me find him.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” Jason’s eyes flashed green, and Jazz glared right back at him. “The League of Assassins are the ones who brought me back to life with Lazarus Water. I need to know if you and your brother are mixed up with them because that would change our approach. If it’s a rogue government agency, that’s one thing. If it’s also the league, we’ve got a whole set of other problems.”

Jazz sat down heavily on one of the bed. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t— It’s been a long few months. After a long few years.”

Todd sat down across from her and nodded for her to continue. “Tell me what happened.”

“It started three years ago. My parents, they’re ghost hunters. Been building weapons to detect and hunt ghosts since before I was born. But three years ago is when they finally finished their life’s work: the ghost portal. Only it didn’t work at first. Then my brother Danny and his friends decided to be stupid. They went to check it out. I wasn’t there and the three of them don’t talk about it, but something happened down there that day.

“My brother died and the portal was working. Only, he didn’t die all the way. He became half-ghost, half-human. And that would have been bad enough, but with the portal open, ghosts came through from the Infinite Realms, sometimes called the Ghost Zone by humans. Some were benign, but many of them came to cause problems or hurt people. Danny stopped them.”

Todd held up a hand to stop her. “Your brother became a supehero? How didn’t the Justice League hear about this? How old was he?”

Jazz shrugged. “I don’t know about the Justice League. It could be that no one ever contacted them. It could be they didn’t believe us. And it could be that no one cared. Danny felt responsible though, since it was his fault the portal turned on. And he was the only one with the ability to stop the ghosts, so…” She held up her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Todd closed his eyes and let out a careful breath. “I can guarantee you the JL didn’t know about your town. A fourteen-year-old would never have been left alone to monitor an interdimensional portal if we had.”

Jazz had no idea what she thought of that. Danny had done it all alone. So finding out he could have had help? She shook her head. What-ifs were a waste of time. “Well, he did. But the government didn’t like that a ghost was the main defense against ghosts. So the Ghost Investigation Ward, more commonly called the Guys in White or GIW was formed. At first, they were as incompetent as any other ghost hunter. But they didn’t stay that way.”

“What happened to your brother, Jazz?” asked Todd.

-----

Next

Sorry to end it there. But it's the right length and I need to go to bed. XP

Hope you enjoy!

I no longer do tag lists, but please check out the Subscription Post if you want notifications when I update.

Not much to say about this one. When I went to the event at this location, my friend and I very nearly missed the last train. It was pulling into the station as we entered. If we'd been 2 or 3 minutes later, we would've been stranded so far from my car, I don't even want to know what that uber or cab would've cost.

Luckily Jazz and Jason had a few good Samaritans nearby.

Next up: We learn more about what happened to Danny!

[moonlit-imagines]

Robin and the Stray (Part 2)

Dick Grayson x Kyle!reader

warnings: blood n death ment and urge to puke teehee

a/n:

prompt:

part 1

Joining the Titans wasn’t exactly something you had in mind. The Titans were all kind-hearted heroic-types with these clear cut motives and tragic or powerful backstories that drove them to do good. You were here for two reasons: Dick moved to the other side of the country and you were being “rehabilitated” from your kleptomanic ways while Selina was serving a short sentence.

It felt awkward being in their presence, every glance felt like a glare. They must be thinking how dare y/n stand and fight beside us, theyre nothing but a common criminal, a petty thief, we can’t trust them. Dick had always assured you that they didn’t think less of you, but when anything was misplaced they always seemed to look to you for an answer.

You and Dick had been together for a few years now, and not all of those years were you a cat burglar. Maybe here and there, mostly for kicks or just to prove you still had it in you. Sometimes just to mess with Dick and Bruce. But Dick never stopped trusting you, he found it amusing more than anything and you grew to love each other deeply. Nothing could change that.

You were already sort of a vigilante before you were inducted into the Titans, usually sticking to the lower levels of Gotham and helping women steal their purses back or a kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stuff like that. Unless, you know, Batman and Robin needed a hand.

As far as the Titans went, you were genuinely happy in San Francisco. It was a nice change of scenery after growing up in dark and gloomy Gotham. Dick felt free without Bruce standing by, doing what he could to make you feel comfortable here. Taking you on dates to new restaurants and going to beaches on your days off became a regular thing, something to make you forget you felt like you didn’t belong.

You had your own room, which was a nice change considering you and Selina typically shared or one of you slept on the couch or somewhere else depending on the night. Although, you spent most of your time in Dick’s room, it was hard to sleep alone most nights, he was like home to you. He’d mindlessly play with your hair and rubbed you back to ease your worried mind. He kept you sane.

But missions were different in so many ways. You had each other’s backs, sure, but you knew well enough that the two of you were more than capable of handling yourselves. Years of fighting against each other and beside each other made the team observer you two in awe, your fluid teamwork was incredible. To you, it was just another day.

“You okay?” Dick asked with your cheeks in his hands, looking down at you with a wet washcloth pressed between your cheek and his hand. “Don’t tell me you’re concussed, I’ll have to stay up all night with you.” You both chuckled weakly.

“I’m fine, just wiped from the past few nights.” You sighed as he wiped grime and blood from your face. You winced when he brushed against just below your eyelid where a bruise was budding. “I really got my ass beat tonight, huh?”

“We all did.” Dick wiped stray hairs from your forehead. “You seemed distracted, though. Thinking of me?”

“Gotham. Just homesick.” You told him and he kissed your forehead and continued you clean your wounds. He was pretty banged up, too, but he could tell you needed some TLC. “I love it here, but you know. I miss all that stuff. I miss Selina. I miss my cats. I miss Commissioner Gordon giving me shit for stealing and then helping him. I miss Bruce giving us lectures about staying focused. I miss Alfred trying to give us ‘The Talk.’” You rambled on while Dick nodded along, and your dull laughter caused another wince as you realized you maybhave a bruised or broken rib. “I miss you sometimes.”

“I’m right here.” He told you.

“Will you always be?” You asked.

“If all goes well.” He pulled out some bandages.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You continued to question.

“It means I don’t know the future and I won’t promise something I might not be able to control.” Dick explained in his smart-ass way. “It’s just the job, y/n. You know I love you.”

“I know you love the job.” You said tilting your head down and eyes up before he picked your chin back up.

“I don’t.” He replied.

“Keep telling yourself that.” Your sigh left his stomach slightly drop and you slid down off the table you were perched on. “I have to get a quick shower in, I’ll be back.” You trotted off the the bathroom to do so and left Dick alone with his thoughts, which you might have sparked something in him at this time. Unbeknownst to the two of you and the rest of the team, your lives were about to b me turned upside down in the worst of ways when Deathstroke entered your lives.

Your head was spinning at the time you heard the news of Garth’s passing. You fell into Dick’s arms and he held you so tightly. You felt as if you might puke and the rest of the team was right with you. Any barrier keeping you and them was broken down, there was no more tension or fear that kept you from getting close, the grief brought you all together.

It was Donna who apologized to you first, letting you know your worries were not that far off and there was a lot of distrust in you, but they moved on from it. It was the load off you needed after this tragedy. And Dick felt guilty he put you in that position, started blaming himself for so many things. You’d thought he’d get distant in all this anguish, but he wouldn’t let you go. He held on tight and began to worry for you more than usual, which worried you greatly. And it sucked because after all that happened with the Titans, you two had no choice but to go home.

“It’s what you wanted, right?” He asked you on the plane ride home, sitting across from each other on Bruce’s private jet.

“Not like this,” you stared out the window, picking at the seams of your jeans, “I just started feeling like I belonged. Now I’m leaving a place that felt like paradise. I really did love it there.”

“We can go other places. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” Dick leaned forward and grabbed your hand. “I hate this, too. I love you, though. Wherever you go, I’ll go. It’s fine.” You closed your eyes and nodded.

“For now we’re going home.”

And you were home and it was dull and lifeless and you felt all the joy you had slip away as you fell back into old habits. Started to realize you stole because you were bored, you roamed the same streets and rooftops over and over because it was just what you did, you laod around all day and played with the cats but nothing was ever different. Not even when there was some huge debacle with a villain that belonged in Arkham Asylum. Not Two-Face or Riddler or Joker or Mr. Freeze or whoever’s weekly turn it was to enact a failure-destined plan to take over Gotham or kill Batman. It was all the same.

You sat on the same ledges and ate the same Pizza with Dick. You had meals at Wayne Manor with Bruce and Dick, a spot reserved for the late Alfred was an unfortunate change and maybe the only one. Bruce was paying your rent, offering you a bigger place or maybe one for you and Dick to share, but for some reason you couldn’t bring yourself to it. It already felt like you were taking advantage of him.

Don’t get me wrong, you loved Dick with all your heart, but he was off, too. It was obvious he fell back into his old ways. And something about it made it obvious he’d grown too fond of his life as a Titan. The independence and emancipation from Batman, where he called the shots and could do nice things with and for you. Maybe the guilt set in after another year or two or three. Because one day you were fine and the next, it was over. You looked back and realized that that promise you wanted him to make was never going to be fulfilled because he never felt secure himself. But that was his problem now, you would have helped if he’d let you.

It was awkward seeing each other in passing. After all, neither of you gave up your vigilantism. But avoidance was key. It was only a matter of time before he decided Gotham was too small for him now. You heard he’d moved to Detroit, good for him. You hoped he’d moved on and was doing well, you sure weren’t getting there anytime soon.

Then one day a few weeks later, you heard your phone ringing. Blocked Caller. You stared at the screen for a few moments grabbing the phone and holding it for a few more before you pressed the answer button. You put the phone to your ear but said nothing.

“Y/N? Y/N, it’s me. I need your help. I just—I need you.”

taglist: @volturi-stuff // @ravenmoore14 // @canarypoint // @brutal-out-here // @jinxll11 // @swanimagines // @captainshazamerica // @greek-mythographer // @cipheress-to-k-pop // @summersimmerus // @glxwingrxse // @azazel-nyx // @simsrecs // @xoxobabydolls // @azazel-nyx // @ravenstrueluv // @evilcr0ne // @sydknee624 // @retvenkos // @thedarkqueenofavalon // @elenavampire21 // @deanzboyfriend // @zoeyserpentluck //

[malyce19]

Hi.

I’m working on coming back to the world of fic writing after a very long hiatus. TLDR I got sober and had a baby and my perspective on the whole world changed, as it does. So if you’ve liked my fics in the past, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for so long. Here’s a teaser of what I’m working on right now. It’s called State Lines.

“there’s no such thing as a clean break when your heart starts bleeding out.” - chance peña

Day 1

She sold her penthouse and bought the car. A gray sedan, plenty of room for all of the belongings she cared enough to travel with. Nothing flashy, something reliable and low maintenance that wouldn’t call too much attention to her presence as she made her escape. All that mattered to her was that the car’s suspension wasn’t impacted by all of the emotional weight she was bringing with her on this journey to nowhere. She should have said something, she knows that. But what do you say when you’re leaving everything and everyone behind?

She didn’t know where she was going, not that it really mattered. She’d been driving for two days, only stopping for gas and compulsory restroom and food breaks. The more distance she could place between herself and blonde haired blue eyed loves of her life, the better. So she drove, vaguely eastbound with stinging eyes and an aching heart.

Miles passed and the road lines started to feel like metaphors, lines in the proverbial sand. Endless expanses of pavement and exit signs beckoned her forward, the promise of anonymity and rebirth lingering somewhere on the horizon as she drove. As her old life burned to cinders behind her, she felt less like a phoenix and more like a nondescript speck of ash, floating aimlessly on the wind. And maybe that’s all she was now, without her.

Day 3

By day three, Lena had to stop to sleep. She’d pushed herself as far as she could, coffee and disgustingly sweet energy drinks sustaining her only to the point of blurred vision and shaking hands. So she found a slightly innocuous looking hotel a few miles off the highway in northern Texas, pulling her borrowed (now stolen) NCU baseball cap down as far as it would go to obscure her features as she checked in. It helped, she supposed, that the kid behind the counter couldn’t drag his eyes away from the football game he was watching long enough to look her in the eye, so being recognized wasn’t an issue. She paid for the room in cash, as she had with everything else on this trip, and she tipped the boy an extra $100 bill to ensure housekeeping left the room alone until she’d checked out. Leaving a paper trail would defeat the purpose of a clean break, and she couldn’t risk being recognized by a well-meaning staffer trying to offer more towels.

In the safety of a locked hotel room, Lena took her hair down and tossed the duffle bag on the bed. It was getting dark out, and she closed the heavy curtains to keep her eyes from searching the clear sky for familiar streaks of red and blue. It was only a matter of time, she knew, before her absence would become obvious. She’d left LCorp on sabbatical, leaving Sam at the helm for the time being, vaguely committing to take the reins again sometime in the future. Her new phone was blissfully quiet, Sam and Jess the only two she trusted with the number. News alerts about superheroes and aliens and secret government agencies were disabled, and all that graced her lock screen was a stock photo of some rainy trees.

As she sat down on the bed, exhaustion starting to settle into every nerve, she couldn’t help but wonder how the hell she got here. Not physically, that was obvious. She bought a car and drove for three straight days until she realized she was endangering the other drivers (though there’d been very few) by continuing on like this. She just didn’t trust herself to keep going without rest, so here she was, in a Hilton hotel in fucking Lubbock, of all places. Trust. That’s what this all boiled down to, wasn’t it? Misplaced trust, betrayal of trust, lack of trust where it was dutifully earned with literal blood, sweat and tears. Trust, broken and shattered and disintegrated in one fell swoop with her former favorite person’s too-little-too-late confession.

[lolathestoryteller]

a boggart in the attic (April 14th; Ridiculous) @jilymicrofics

„Mum?“ James asks, somewhat nervously, as he walks up to his Mother in the sitting room. „Where d’you keep the old photographs, you know, of when I was a kid?“

Euphemia Potter smiles knowingly, placing her book aside to grant her son her full attention. „She finally got you to agree to show them to her then?“ she teases, all too delighted by James‘ girlfriend, whom he’s been talking about constantly since last summer.

James scratches the back of his neck, blushing ever so slightly. „I promised to send one with my next letter…“

„I see,“ Euphemia replies, trying her best not to chuckle at his love struck expression. „They’re up in the attic, I think. Oh, but be careful, dear, if I remember correctly, there’s still a boggart hiding up there somewhere.“

At that, James’ expression unexpectedly brightens. „A boggart?“ he asks, already taking his wand from his jeans pocket.

Euphemia raises a brow at the, in her opinion, rather misplaced excitement. „You’re happy there’s a boggart in the attic?“ she asks doubtfully.

„Yeah, it’s great practice!“ James hollers back, already half way up the stairs.

He rummages through the many, many shelves and boxes for a while, before finally, he notices how his Dad‘s old wooden desk, cramped into a corner, suddenly rattles. „Ah…there you are!“

He raises his wand right at the desk, saying clearly: „Alohomora.“

The box opens at once, a barely visible shadow escaping from its confides.

James readies his wand once again, preparing himself to face Voldemort and turn him into a clown, or maybe rather an old granddad? — but then, for the first time since fifth year, when his biggest fear had changed from snakes to Voldemort (not that much of a change, in his opinion) it isn’t Voldemort‘s pale face or red eyes that he sees…

„No…no, no…“ he whispers frantically, his wand cluttering to the floor as he stares at the body lying there in front of him. „Lily!“ he dives down, kneeling to take her into his arms, her bright green eyes dull and empty. „Lily! No! Lily…wake up, come on…wake up!“ he‘s crying, his entire world shrinking down to the feeling of her, cold and motionless in his arms.

He feels like he’s suffocating. „Lil, please…please…“

He doesn’t hear the footsteps that thump up the stairs, nor does he feel the hands that try to pull him away— away from Lily. He’ll never let go of her. „No! Don’t touch me! Don’t—“

„James! It’s just a boggart!“ he can hear his Mother‘s voice, albeit faintly, like she’s miles away…but he remembers. The boggart.

Though, before he can even look around for his wand, his Mother stands before him protectively, raising her own wand to the changing image which settles, just for a split second, to one of himself — lying there where Lily‘d been.

„Ridikulus!“

[my-mt-heart]

Why "Unconventional" Daryl Matters

Daryl is my favorite male character on television. In fact, he was the first male role model I had after growing up with men who were always quick to anger, shouting at others, breaking things, and throwing tantrums. Norman's portrayal showed me that men have the ability to choose kindness, tenderness, and true love even if nobody taught them how when they were kids. 

Daryl’s “unconventional” masculinity is what makes him so unique. He doesn’t make speeches or push to be the leader. Yes, Rick is a strong character, but I love Daryl because he isn’t Rick or any other male character on the show. Daryl is a trailblazer who breaks several stereotypes. Having spoken to so many other Caryl fans, I know Daryl's backstory and his devotion to Carol give them hope that they too can rise above their trauma.

Because of Norman and Daryl, so many fans feel more comfortable opening up about childhood or sexual abuse despite the stigma surrounding it. Daryl's representation is especially empowering to men who were abused or neglected for not conforming. He showed them what it means to be a kind, emotionally intelligent man. He did that. That's something I hope Norman is very proud of. The writers may have created a powerful emotional arc, but he is Daryl. No other actor could've captured Daryl's nurturing side that effortlessly – sometimes with just a simple look or touch or tone of voice – and balanced it with all of his epic moments. That's all him. 

Most people understand that the purpose of my campaign over the past couple years was to demonstrate Melissa's and Carol's vitality to the show, but that's not all. I was advocating for Daryl's character integrity too. His fierce loyalty, vulnerability, and devotion to Carol all make him heroic in my eyes and they all go hand-in-hand, but when Daryl starts questioning where he belongs after spending only a short time with new characters and when his feelings get buried under layers of subtext, then my investment in him starts to feel misplaced, which hurts a lot because of the personal connection I've made with him. It makes Daryl's character growth from a lone wolf to a committed family man seem fruitless if he can just find a "surrogate" family somewhere else. Do I think the story will ultimately lead to Daryl making that choice? No, but my point is, it isn't clear why he could never choose anyone other than Carol and TF. And it needs to be. Norman said Daryl is someone who "wears his heart on his sleeve." That's the Daryl I root for. That's who I want to see more of. I miss him terribly.

Again, Daryl inspired a generation of young men to refuse the toxic male stereotype, and taught them how to choose kindness and how to love fiercely. Daryl’s love for Carol showed so many women that they deserve to be treated with love and respect by their partners. I'm excited to see more of Daryl who knows where he belongs and isn’t afraid to show his love for Carol. I want the trailblazer who stands up for who he is and doesn’t fall into toxic masculine traps – because that ain’t him. 

[hanahaki-disease]

If I Can Hold Myself Together

Hell or High Water - Percy Jackson x DC crossover

Summary:

“Is…Is Percy…?” He didn’t want to speak the words aloud, frightened that the universe would put that plan into motion.

“He isn’t here, young master,” Alfred eyes couldn’t meet his. “He’s gone missing.”

That was worse than being dead, Dick thinks. At least if he was dead, then he’d be here. His name would be carved into stone beside Jason’s, his own flowers decorating the grave. But he wasn’t. He was gone. His little brother was somewhere in the world without them and he didn’t even know where, didn’t know when, didn’t know how it happened.

CW: child loss/mourning, visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations

****************************************

The manor was quiet when he returned from his mission, and that was strange in and of itself. Two young brothers, both under the age of sixteen should have their voices echoing in down the halls. Their game system blaring sound effects or a movie flickering into the hall form the media room. And with Jason’s affinity for cooking, Dick should have been able to smell something good waft out from the kitchen at least.

“Jason? Percy?” Dick knocked on the doors to their rooms, empty and still. As if they hadn’t been home for a while. A again, weird. He knows Percy stayed with Tim next door during the summers sometimes, spending a few days over there before the two made their way to the manor.

The silence was nerve wracking. He had already spent so long traveling back in the silence of space, but that quiet and this quiet were different. Up there the silence was expected, sound didn’t travel if there was no air. When the shots of enemy ships headed their way, Dick couldn’t hear their canons go off, and only knew they got hit when the explosion shook their craft and the boom left him deaf. This silence was unnerving. Misplaced, haunted almost. As if something was clinging to the walls, to the grounds, suffocating him in an unease he didn’t have the answer to.

The cave had it’s usual sounds and noises, the chittering of the bats above head, water splashing against the rock below, the beeps and bops of the various machines Bruce used. But still no sound of his younger brothers. He half expected them to be down here, Jason taunting Percy on the mats, hearing a thud and an ‘ow’ right after. Or Percy would be organizing the medical supplies with Alfred in the med bay, asking him questions about what different instruments do while Jason helped Bruce with a case at the computer.

And yet, Bruce was the only one down here. Hands locked together in front of his mouth as he read a report, hunched over with dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t look too good. “Bruce? Where’s the kids?” He saw Bruce’s jaw tighten, a far away look in his eyes before he averted Dick’s questioning glare. “Bruce. Where are they?”

He was silent for a moment and Dick could see all the possible responses working through his head, evaluating the outcome of each one before settling on: “I think you should go.”

Dick’s eyebrows twitched in confusion but the man didn’t elaborate and he was too tired to argue. With a sigh, Dick turned away from the older man and made his way to the weapons rack. Might as well stock up whi—

He paused in front of the uniforms. Two different Batman suits on display, his own Robin uniform and an old Discowing right after, but the centered one. The one staring back at him with blood stains, dried tears, and missing pieces. Battered, broken, empty. Dick felt his heart drop in his chest the closer he got to the suit because why-why was it on display like this? Why was Jason’s suit tucked away in a case and not his locker like it should be, what happened to it?

It was by pure luck Dick looked down and saw the plaque. A Good Soldier. It read.

“Bruce, where’s Jason?” Dick stormed back to the man, pulling the chair back from the computer. “Where’s Percy, what happened.”

“It’s none of your concern,” Bruce countered. “You said as much before you left.”

“It is my concern when my little brothers are missing in their own home.” He said. “Where are they Bruce, I’m not playing your stupid mind games anymore!”

“If you were going to come in here and demand information like a petulant child, then you should have stayed up in space,” Bruce stood, eyebrows furrowed as he glared at his oldest. It was a strange sight to see Bruce in, one that reminded him of the early days after he took Dick in. When the five o’clock shadow grew a little bit too long and the purple beneath his eyes matched the bruises. And he was positive there was an empty glass of bourbon waiting by his bedside.

Bruce looked like he was grieving. Like his world was ending and he had no control over it.

Dick’s fists clenched beside him. “No! You’re going to fucking talk to me like an adult and tell me where my brothers are, because so help me god…” He inhaled, the sting of the intense cleaner Alfred uses and the stale air of the cave hit the back of his throat. “I will beat it out of you if I have to. Tell me. Where. They. Are.”

Dick knew the threat wouldn’t budge him. He knew that his worlds, his anger did absolutely nothing against the stubborn wall that was Bruce Wayne. But a small part of his hoped he would come to his senses, that he would break and tell Dick everything he’s missed and they’d figure out how to fix it. Salvage whatever was left, mend whats broken into something recognizable.

But Bruce’s glare just hardened on him, jaw tensing and his own hands curled at his sides. “I don’t have to tell you anything, nor do I have to answer to your insolence.” He said walking back to the computer, hands holding tight to the edge of the desk. “If you want answers, get them somewhere else.”

Rage simmered in his veins. Dick wanted to tug Bruce from the computer and reel his fist back, he wanted to feel the satisfying crunch of his nose snapping beneath his fist. To feel the muscle and adipose tissue bend and bruise with every punch, hit, kick, and jab. He wanted to lodge his escrima sticks into his brachial plexus, watch as Bruce crumpled to the ground. Would he tell him then, when he’s bloody and bruised on the floor? Probably not, it was easier to get answers from a brick than it was from Bruce.

It was useless to press further, years spent biting back his tongue because Dick knows that him lashing out wont solve anything. If anything it’ll feed Bruce’s own anger and it’ll end up in a big cycle of cold glares and strained, screaming voices.

“Fuck you, Bruce,” Dick spat and made his way back up to the library entrance. The ambiance of the cave fading into the unnatural silence of the manor.

It wouldn’t do him any good to stay down there any longer, have the tension flood the place till they were both drowning in it. Suffocating in their own hate and disgust. Dick sighed and ran his hands through his hair, tugging at the roots. Maybe he should go find Alfred. Have the butler who was more like a grandfather help him calm down and give him some kind of answers.

He paced the manor, finding all the rooms empty once again before walking the grounds. He found remnants of his brothers. Their cups in the drying rack on the counter in the kitchen, Percy’s shoes by the patio door with his skateboard propped against the wall, Jason’s blanket folded and his bookmark still sticking out his latest read in the library. Their place mats at the dinner table were in the same spots, their favorite snacks in the pantry, and their Nerf guns tucked in the game room corner and he wondered when the last time they had been moved. The last time they had been used.

There was a figure on the far side of the manor estate, dressed in black with their head hung low. It was hard to figure who it was at first but the closer Dick got he could tell it was Alfred. He stood in front of a grave, and at first glance Dick thought it was Martha or Thomas’s, seeing as how sometimes he would come and talk to them from time to time. But the grave before him was fresh, new, the dirt had just barely settled and the grass still hadn’t grown over it. Flowers sat either side of the headstone and the weight Dick had developed from seeing the suit in the cave dropped. It shot to the bottom of his stomach, stopping him mid step, mouth agape as he read the name engraved in stone.

“Alfred?” He called out, bile threatening to rise.

At the sound of his name, he turned around, eyes red from crying, handkerchief in hand. “Oh my dear boy, I wish you hadn’t found out this way.”

“What? No…N-No! He can’t—What—How? What happened?” Dick’s widened eyes searched Alfred’s hoping, pleading, for the answer.

“It was the Joker,” Alfred answered. Four words was all the Bruce had to say but the man couldn’t pull his own head out of his ass long enough to say it. “It was a ruse. Young master Jason had been deceived and, after an argument with master Bruce, he had left to pursue it. Master Bruce was too late, the bomb had detonated before he could save him.”

Dick sunk to his knees in front of the head stone, the dirt staining his jeans. He traced the letters with his fingers, smooth lines into pristine granite. The word ‘brother’ made his heart squeeze harder in his chest…“Percy,” He mumbled to himself. “What about Percy? Where is he?” A crestfallen look made panic rise in Dick’s chest. “No. No. No no no.”

Damp dirt soiled the palms of his hands as he stood up. Blue eyes searching the cemetery for another patch of dirt. Percy couldn’t, he just can’t. Jason shouldn’t have either. They were both kids, they were both so little. Jason was supposed to go to a basketball championship in May. Percy had a field trip to the Met right after the game. Dick was going to take them to Six Flags for their birthday, right before school started up again.

“Is…Is Percy…?” He didn’t want to speak the words aloud, frightened that the universe would put that plan into motion.

“He isn’t here, young master,” Alfred eyes couldn’t meet his. “He’s gone missing.”

That was worse than being dead, Dick thinks. At least if he was dead, then he’d be here. His name would be carved into stone beside Jason’s, his own flowers decorating the grave. But he wasn’t. He was gone. His little brother was somewhere in the world without them and he didn’t even know where, didn’t know when, didn’t know how it happened.

“Damn, you suck at being a brother. But you already knew that, huh?”

Dick turned back to the headstone. Legs outstretched in front of him, back pressed against the stone, dressed in the suit from the cave, was the silvery image of Jason. His domino was destroyed, one half clinging to the bruised and bloody skin, the other separated by a gash that swiped clean through his left eyes. Blue-green, blackened and red stained, eyes stared at him with a smug smile on busted and bleeding lips.

“I probably would have gone to you for help, you know.” The image of Jason crossed one leg over the other. “But you were too busy brooding like B to spent time with your little brothers. Look how that turned out. Funny isn’t it?”

“He went on the trip to the Met with his class in May and he hasn’t returned,” Alfred said but Dick wasn’t paying much attention to him.

“You know they got into a big fight after I died? It was like you were home and picking a fight with the old man again.”

“Commissioner Gordon sent a search party to New York to aid them, and they found no leads on the young master.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that Bruce doesn’t really like Percy that much anymore? It’s probably because we look too much alike.”

“They were only able to find his bag in a restricted area of the museum. Mister Kent and some of the other available league members were sent as well to search undercover, but they were unable to locate the boy.”

“Do you think Percy would have gone to you if you were here? Probably. You were an ass but you still kinda cared. If you didn’t, then why do you see me now?”

“Master Richard are you alright?”

Dick could only look at Jason’s ghost, the wispy slightly see through version of his little brother. His mouth dry and the words he wants to say dying before they could even reach his mouth. What was there to say? How does one redeem themselves from this? Would this have happened had Dick had been there for them, if he put his disdain of Bruce to the side and not let it affect his view of his little brothers? Would Jason have followed the Joker to his death, would still Percy vanish into thin air? Or would they have trickled into the Titian’ tower, angry, tired, and sad after their own arguments with Bruce?

“Well, Dickface? Answer him. Don’t be rude.”

“I-I’m fine, Alfred,” Dick ran his hand through his hair, dirt be damned. “I…I gotta go.” His shoes sunk into the dirt with every step, soles leaving his tracks behind him but he couldn’t stay at the manor any longer than he had to. The silence was suffocating. It shouldn’t be suffocating. It shouldn’t even be as quiet as it is.

****************************************

What a character introduction if I do say so myself.

I will be honest, writing Dick is difficult for me so I don’t know if his character came off the correct way. Just something about him, idk.

Anyway, this is ya’lls second present since it’s Percy’s bday, hope you liked it!

Edit: I don’t know it wasn’t formatted correctly here and only realized it when I uploaded it on ao3🧍‍♀️ fixed it though

Previous | Masterlist | Next

[nattinatalia]

Jack Harlow x Reader : LIKE DADDY

“Baby, have you seen my chain?”

You walk into your shared closet and see your husband going through the jewelry cabinet. “Which one?”

“The one you gave me for our anniversary.” He bends down to look at another box. “I’m sure I placed it on the nightstand, but it’s not there and I can’t find it here.”

“Hmm, you probably misplaced it somewhere else. At the studio maybe?”

He groans “No I came home with it last night.”

You shrug, “I’ll help look downstairs, let me just check if the kids need anything.”

You walk out the door and towards the Children's room. You see your daughter Mia playing with her Fujifilm Instax camera her godfather gifted her for Christmas.

“No Ezequiel, you need to pose like daddy so you actually look like twins.” Mia tells him, her voice sounding like she's irritated.

“But mama said that’s not nice.”

“Mama is not here, you baby.”

“Mama is here young lady, what are you making your brother do?” You cross your arms and raise your eyebrows to look at her.

Mia looks like she just got caught doing a crime, but the thing is, she has the same sneaky smirk her father does when he gets caught doing something he’s not supposed to.

“He wanted to look like daddy.”

“Okay, and what was the not nice thing he had to do?”

Mia shakes her head.

You turn to look at your son. “Ezequiel?”

He was about to answer but Mia cut him off. “Fine, fine, I come clean. He was supposed to do the naughty fingers and hold his chain.” She shrugs.

“You know better than that Mia, no naughty fingers- wait, What chain?”

“He has daddy’s chain.”

You stand up straight and head towards your son. “Oh your dad is throwing a fit, he thought he lost it.” You pick up Ezequiel and have him in your arms. “Let’s go show daddy.”

“Can I come?” Mia asks.

You nod, “Of course baby, come on.” You hold out your hand so she can put hers in with you, and you three make it back upstairs.

“Babe.”

You hear noises from the bedroom, things being thrown all around.

“He’s mad mama?” Mia asks.

“No, he just really loves this chain.” You walk into your shared bedroom and see the bed is unmade, the side dressers are wide open.

“Jack.”

“What?” He’s on the floor looking under the bed. “Yeah sorry, what happened?” He says looking up and seeing you and the kids there, so he stands up and smiles.

“Daddy you made a big mess.” Mia says, looking around the room.

“Yeah, I’ll clean it up in a bit.”

“So I found your chain.” You tell him smiling.

“Fu-I mean duck yes, where was it?”

You walk up to him and hand him Ezequiel. “Your little twin.”

Jack looks down at EZ and smiles. “I should’ve asked him first huh?” You just smile.

“Daddy, Mia took pictures of me with your chain, we twins.”

“I bet she did an amazing job, I can’t wait to see them.” He looks at Mia and winks. “And you definitely are my twin little man.”

Ezequiel smiles at that.

“Now why don’t you all go downstairs, get some snacks ready and pick a movie to watch, while I clean up here?”

“Yes movie please.”

“I want Little Rascals.”

“I’ll help you bubs.” You say and start picking up.

“No, it’s okay, I need to make a call real quick anyway. You go downstairs with the kids, I got this.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

Jack nods, so you and the kids make it downstairs and fix up some snacks and look for a new movie to watch.

******

A few hours and some movies later, the doorbell rings.

“Are you expecting anyone?” You ask your husband.

He nods, “Actually, yes. But it’s just a drop off.” He says and gets up from the couch and heads towards the door.

“Who is it momma?” Mia asks.

“I don’t know bug, it's probably daddy’s work.”

Mia groans, “It’s our weekend. No work duties.”

“It’s not work baby, I promise.” Jack says as he comes back into the living room and sits down next to Ezequiel.

You look at the velvet box and raise your eyebrows. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

Jack smirks, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jackman, he doesn’t need it.”

He shrugs, “Only when we’re home.”

You’re smiling at that. “Go on then, he’ll love it.”

“Mia, pass this to your mama please.” Jack hands her a box.

“Oh, for me?” You ask him, smiling.

“Mia, this is for you.” He hands her a smaller box. “And this one's for you Ez.” He hands him a box.

The three of you open the box and see there’s a matching chain with the one you had gifted Jack for your anniversary.

“Oh pretty.”

“Daddy we matching now, yay. Thank you.”

“Anything for you little man.” Jack tells him and helps him put it on.

Ezequiel immediately gets up from the couch and heads your way. “Look mama, I’m just like daddy.”

You smile, “Yeah you are buddy, twins for life.”

•••••••••

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[clockworkspider]

I feel like the Minor DNI phenomenon and increasing tension between minor and adults in fandom is really um... It really feel like it's taking away the ambiguous space in which teens could safely explore their sexuality. And although I totally understand the reason it got this way I just feel really bad for the kids nowadays, you know?

Like... the weird thing is the legal age of consent in US is 18, which means porn isn't suppose to be shown to kids under 18. Adults gotta protect themselves legally because if we show kids porn we can get into big trouble. But at the same time puberty hits from 11-14 and teens need a safe creative space to explore their sexuality, and like... as unsafe as porn online can be, it beats trying everything yourself with other kids.

In the past I knew adult members of the fandom still lock their NSFW art behind a "I am over the age of 14" button or a very impersonal "18+, minors do not read" disclaimer in front of explicit content. AO3 also have that for mature/explicit fics. But it's broadly understood by adult members of the fandom that kids are gonna see your porn and you're suppose to turn a blind eye to them just like people has done for you when you were 14 and wondered what gay sex is.

Like... we've always kinda had the same laws but the attitude was totally different back then. It wasn't the norm for adult fans to vocally forbid any minors from even following their blog or interacting with any of their post. It wasn't the norm to go through your list and block any minor. Nowadays there's like... an implicit expectation for transparency when it comes to age because adults act SO OFFENDED about minors following them. Which lead to a number of teens in adult space feeling pressured to disclose their age either out of some misplaced sense of guilt or in attempt to avoid confrontations. I've seen this more than once...

The other day I saw a nsfw post from someone who openly disclose they're a minor. Kid, I'm glad you're exploring your sexuality. I'm honestly so happy for you. Please don't tell us your age. Nobody needs to know, actually.

And like... I know this is all because we're in this social media surveillance state where anonymity is getting harder and rarer and everyone's one doxxing away from losing their job. I get it. I just think somewhere along the line we lost the precious space of ambiguity, of "yes I confirm i'm 18" and "if you're underage you didn't see this from me". And I think that's really unfortunate, actually.

[erinsworld]

WIP WEDNESDAY

This was supposed to be for WIP Wednesday, but I'm a day late. Oops. 🤷

A little Macgyver season 5 tag I'm currently working on. Because if Mac missed his calls plus he suspected he had a mole somewhere in his Task Force? Jack (my Jack) certainly wouldn't have dropped the matter. He would have called the one person who always had all the answers.

"Dammit, Matty… Tell me the truth.”

Matty sighs. “I assure you, Jack, Mac is fine. Do you really think I would lie to you or withhold the truth if he was otherwise?”

“Is that his version of fine or my version of fine?”

Jack huffs out a frustrated breath and stares at her. And even through the pixelated image on the small tablet she holds in her hands she can clearly see the intensity in his gaze.

“No… You wouldn’t outright lie to me because you know how I feel about people lyin’ to me, ‘specially where my kids are concerned,” he states. “But we both know damn well and good that you would downplay and gloss over the seriousness of any injury or situation in a misplaced attempt to try to protect me while I’m away from them huntin’ this maniac, psychopathic bomber. And don’t you dare deny that, Matilda.”

“Yes, you are correct. If something serious were going on or were to happen, I would absolutely do my best to keep the severity of it from you,” Matty admits easily, unrepentant.

Jack’s glare intensifies and his face hardens, and Matty quickly continues, hoping that Jack will understand her reasoning, her efforts to protect him.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

vines I am staring at your MY canon divergence au and would love to hear more about it!!!

OKAY SO.

This AU exists for two main reasons:

1.) A lot of fix-it fic for JGY seems to focus on him being "saved" from his canon fate via romantic relationship, and that simply doesn't cut it for me. You really want to free him from the destructive weight of his misplaced filial piety in a way that doesn't just handwave it all away? You save his mom. You save his mom and enable them both to know JGS is a lost cause from the get-go and give them the means to forge a different path.

2.) WQ and MY are my faves and I want them to hang out!

As I said, I will almost certainly not write the whole thing out. I did post the inciting portion where MY actually arriving in Qishan and WQ starts treating MS, but as you can see, I did not finish it over the summer as intended, because I am the world's slowest writer. But I think about the ways it could go a lot! It's a little thing--just pushing a canonical event earlier in the timeline and changing the impetus--but it has SUCH impact. Aside from what I mentioned in the tags of that other post:

-MY no longer has any ties to Qinghe. He and NMJ can still clash (since MY is for all intents and purposes a Wen), but it's not personal in quite the same "I lived in your household for a substantial amount of time" sort of way

-WQ has someone she can talk to who's in similar straits! This is all based on CQL canon foremost, and what's striking to me about her is that she never gets to be a kid. Even at Cloud Recesses, while her peers are having a silly goofy time, she's on high alert doing WRH's work. WN's behavior suggests that he knows the vibe is weird, but he doesn't seem to understand exactly how fucked things are, which in turn implies that WQ is deliberately shielding him from it. That's so much stress that she's bottling up! With MY there in the same situation of abetting atrocities to protect beloved family members, at least she has someone to confide in (while their situations are juuuust different enough to conflict).

-MENG SHI REACTS TO: EVERYTHING. Those five sentences of information about her are so interesting. She's clever! She's shrewd! She's also compassionate, I feel, because MY had to get his altruism and his loyalty to those who show him kindness from SOMEWHERE, and he certainly didn't get it from his dad, WRH, or anyone else he grew up with. I have a whole backstory for her that I cannot write because hooo boy the effort required would not be worth the reward, but I want so much to explore how she'd respond to the fucked-up situation of being beholden to the Evil Regime. On the one hand, she knows the Wen clan under WRH are doing horrible things, and I don't think that would sit well with her. On the other hand... MY inherited his survival drive from somewhere, too. What does MS feel she owes to society when that society abused and degraded her?

-MS and WQ would also have some things to talk about on the "making great sacrifices for family" front, I think.

-Less seriously, XY meets MS and probably calls her a slur to be edgy, and she hits him right back but in a way that he finds fun rather than takes personally, and now she's on XY's list of People He'll Murder For On The Slightest Provocation.

-MY and/or MS might know about the core transfer and that sure is a fun piece of information for more people not named Jiang Cheng to possess!

-I think MS gets to date WZL firstly on account of WZL being a total catch who respects smart women going by his ??? with YZY, secondly on account of them both getting a lot of shit from society for their work (though the one who voluntarily disables people for a living is treated more respectfully by far bc this is a horrible garbage world!), and thirdly because MS is going to have to bear witness to Xiyao and Chengqing and she deserves something for herself there.

-I mentioned "what about after the war?" in the tags of that other post, but ahhh the Optimal Outcome here fixes EVERYTHING. JGS offers to legitimize MY. MY kind of wants to tell him to fuck himself, but realizes that his and MS are in a highly unstable position and he needs to go all-out on convincing people He Was A Good Guy All Along. (WQ and WN don't have that luxury with their Wen surname.) He accepts on the condition that prisoners are treated with mercy and MS is also granted security. JGS provides exactly neither of these things, as MS is either shunted off to a prison camp with the Wen remnants or she's isolated within Jinlintai as a means to keep MY compliant. How do we solve this? Unclear! Maybe XY finds out JGS is being a dick to Meng Shi, A Person He Likes, and he impales him about it. Regardless, we have MY and the Jiang sibs (plus Jiang-in-law Zixuan) all conspiring together, and in an ideal scenario, I believe in them.

-There are also a lot of sad messed-up ways this could go, but. I do not want it to this time. At least not for my two faves and MS. Everyone else........ debatable.

Again, I cannot stress enough that this is not ever going to be an actual longfic. I have written one (1) longfic ever and it was three years ago and not even that long. But it has POTENTIAL.