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thevoidstaredback · 3 months

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How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

It had been a long few minutes since he'd opened the door and there were a lot of questions running through Dick's head. Most pressing of which was how this kid seems to have information he should not have.

"How did you..?" he asked, but the words wouldn't leave completely. There's so much he wants to know, so much he wants to ask.

"How do I what?" Danny tilted his head like the child he seems to be is.

"How do you know?" Dick knows he sounds weak. There's no hiding that, but there are a lot of implications in what the kid has said so far and none of it is painting a very happy picture for him.

"Oh!" Danny had the audacity to smile, "You want to know how I know you moonlight as a vigilante!" And of course he knows. Dick knows he knows, but he'd held a little bit of hope that the child Danny was mistaken. Danny's smile softened a bit as he explained, "Your hair and voice match up in both jobs almost perfectly. Not to mention your build and how you hold yourself. There's also the matter of your overall vibes, but that's not something living beings can normally pick up on." Excuse him? "Well, not living humans, at least, so no worries on that end!"

"Excuse me?" Dick was fairly sure his heart just stopped beating for a moment there.

"Anyway, I was a hero back home for a while, too. I know what it's like to have to walk the tightrope between maintaining a civilian cover and a hero persona. I know how it feels to have to keep secrets from everyone because anyone who knows will be in danger." he rambled, Though, admittedly, our circumstances are quite different. I was working as a hero all hours of the day as well as going to school. You only have to worry about properly balancing between day and night jobs. Either way, me having more to bounce between just makes me al the more qualified to help you!"

Oh. Oh he did not like that. He didn't like a single thing that just came out of the kid's mouth. Because that's what he is, a kid. "Are you...Are you alright?"

"Not in the slightest," Danny admitted with an even smaller smile. Then, it brightened, not quite to a grin, but to something similar, "But I'm here to make sure you are."

He gets points for being honest, but Dick felt his heart shatter. He knew for a fact that he'd never worked with this kid before. He also knew that the Justice League didn't know about him. If they did, he would've been picked up and dropped with either the Young Justice team or the Titans.

Dick wasn't going to ask why he became a hero because that's not his place. It's more of a 'third mission with the team' kind of questions, anyway. Most of the heroes didn't have many options when they took up the mantle. Asking what Danny can do is a more appropriate question, but he wasn't going to ask that, either.

"Now that that's out of the way," Danny turned a few pages from the table of contents to another one that was topped with 'Why Sleep Scheduling Is Important' in the blue glitter pen that Dick was starting to suspect he favored. "You're not getting enough sleep. Following you around - no one's been able to find me for a while, so don't worry about that - for the last two weeks has given me some really worrisome information on you."

Dick was worrying. He was worrying a lot and even more questions were coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Your dayjob is as an officer on the Bludhaven Police Force, or BPD for short." He was looking over the page he'd turned to very aptly and Dick realized that the kid had notes written on him. "The average hours per week for police across the country is forty hours. Gotham and Bludhaven are the exceptions. As a member of the BPD, you work a solid two days and two hours. Six nights a week, you work as Nightwing from eight in the evening to three in the morning. The last day, you take off, which is good. No deserable pattern, so good on you for that. Regardless, that's seven hour nights and ten hour days, with one day off and one day on call as an officer. Seven hours are now left in your day for personal time, eating, and sleeping. That's not a healthy way to live."

Oh, god, the kid had honest to god notes on him! What the hell!

Danny didn't even skip a beat as he pulled Dick's attention back to him and his binder. "I've drawn up a schedule for you to follow." The back of the page had a meticulously drawn schedule, complete with blocks of time to eat, sleep, work both jobs, travel, personal time, and still have a bit extra left over. It was titled 'Ideal End Result' in green marker. "Drastic changes right away will only affect you negatively, so we're starting off smaller." The next page over had another schedule titled 'Where To Begin'. "I've only pulled one hour from your Nightwing hours because I know important that time is to you and the city. I am, however, going to be having you submit an appeal to your boss to cut back your hours from fifty a week to forty a week. That way, you'll only be working eight hours a day and not ten. You'll still be on call for one day, and you'll have that last day off. Altogether, you'll be going be going from working seventeen hours a day to fourteen hours a day. Nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, and eight in the evening to two in the morning. Not including breaks at work or travel time. It opens up a few more hours for you to sleep!"

"You really think the chief is going to pull back my hours?" Dick raised an eyebrow in question.

"He will if he knows what's good for him."

"You know I can arrest you for that threat, right?"

"Yeah, but you won't." And, damn it, he's right.

Although, there was now another thing he had to know. "How to you plan on enforcing this schedule of yours?"

Danny seemed to have been waiting for this. He got a gleam in his eye as he pulled a black folder from his bag, not breaking eye contact with Dick. He placed it on the table and pushed it across. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Part 1 Part 3

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r-o-s-e-f-i-r-e · 1 year

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idk i’ve been thinking for the last day about modern day corroded coffin, semi-successful in the local music scene, did a self-funded tour through six states last fall where they all lived in the van together and didn’t shower for four weeks, has a standing gig at the dive bar next to the highway and the strip club, they’re established, they have a small but dedicated local following, they —

“can’t play a WEDDING, are you fucking with me?” eddie says, when gareth shows him the text from his cousin who’s getting married in two weeks and who, as of last night, has no wedding band because they accidentally double booked themselves and gareth’s cousin had sent the deposit in late.

“i’ve explained to him so many times,” gareth says, furiously texting his cousin back, “we’re not that kind of band—”

except gareth’s cousin, instead of responding directly to gareth’s text outlining the musical thesis of corroded coffin or watching the youtube link gareth sends to the show last month where eddie got a black eye in the pit from someone in an inflatable garfield costume, just sends back —

“holy shit,” eddie croaks, looking at the string of zeros on the end of the number gareth’s cousin offers me to pay them in exchange for saving his ass and his wedding and his marriage, since his fiancé was demanding a live band. “that’s—”

“three months of rent for each of us,” gareth says, awed. “that’s buy actual fresh vegetables money. that’s go to the dentist money—”

“yeah, okay, give him my number,” eddie says.

so they spend the next two weeks practicing every white people wedding song they can think of. there’s no way they’ll be able to do, like, get low, tragically, but they can pull off the classics, especially after they bring chrissy onboard for vocals and keyboard. there are places where eddie draws the line — no fucking journey or especially insipid top 40 — but they can do some whitney. abba. fucking — mr. brightside. a lot of it is pretty simple, when you get down to it, “and people will be wasted anyway,” jeff reminds them. there’s an open bar at the six figure venue gareth’s cousin booked. hopefully everyone will be too hyped just hearing the opening baseline to i want you back to notice if they fumble anything hard.

rehearsal montage, chrissy takes the boys to the mall to buy suits montage (except for gareth who, like most transmasc dudes, already has a custom fitted and tailored suit ready to go in his closet; instead he makes catty remarks about brian’s tie choices.) chrissy makes eddie put his hair up and eddie makes jeff shave the experimental mustache he’s been growing and eventually the day of the wedding arrives and they load up the van and drive 45 minutes to the six figure waterfront reception venue.

they riff for about ten minutes while the whole wedding party makes their grand entrance into the massive tent set up on the lawn, ending with gareth’s cousin and his new wife dancing in, the whole crowd screaming and clapping. it’s cute, eddie thinks, vamping as long as he can while gareth’s cousin’s best man takes the mic and introduces the new couple and directs everyone to their seats for dinner.

and meanwhile: best man is frankly one of the hottest dudes eddie’s ever seen. he’s got longish brown hair that he keeps pushing out of his eyes, full lips, an insane shoulder to waist ratio, big hands. eddie sneak looks at him while they play a bunch of low key jazzy standards for people to eat their expensive dinner to. he’s sitting with his arm around the shoulders of a girl with shaggy auburn hair, and they keep leaning in to whisper to each other and giggle, so. oh well. but it doesn’t hurt to look, eddie thinks, watching the guy take his suit jacket off and roll up his sleeves and make a toast to gareth’s cousin and his new wife’s long and joyful marriage.

once most people have had their plates cleared away jeff turns to eddie and the rest of the band and nods, once, and while chrissy plays the opening synth chords to i wanna dance with somebody, jeff turns his front man showmanship deal all the way up.

it’s good. people are fucking hyped, so they throw themselves into it, feeding off the crowd’s energy, and almost no one is more hyped than mr. best man. he’s jumping up and down, his arms around gareth’s cousin and his wife. he knows every word to dancing in the dark (hot). when they transition into robyn’s dancing on my own he turns to the girl with auburn hair and points at her and screams. cute, eddie thinks, watching best man pick her up and spin her around while she downs her wine and shouts along. okay, really fucking hot, eddie thinks, when he finally pulls his loosened tie all the way off and unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt and eddie can see a hint of chest hair peeking out.

they slow it down for the first dance. it’s the leon bridges one everyone always does, but it’s perfect in jeff’s range, and there is not a single dry motherfucking eye in the audience. they do a couple more slow ones, throughout the night. best man dances with his girlfriend and then gareth’s grandmother and then with every child under the age of 10, letting them stand on his shoes while he twirls them around. how is this guy fucking real, eddie thinks, which of course is when best man notices eddie looking right at him and their eyes meet. best man looks a little flustered, at first, and then grins at eddie, right at him, before spinning the flower girl around in dizzying circles.

jesus christ, eddie thinks.

they’re closing out the night on the only other request gareth's cousin gave them: the one from the end of dirty dancing. jeff thanks the crowd, offers his congratulations to gareth’s cousin, and then goes right into it. except as jeff sings the first line everyone absolutely loses their shit, turning to best man and jumping around him and one of the bridesmaids. what the fucking hell, eddie thinks, keeping one ear on jeff and chrissy’s duet and one ear on the crowd piling around best man “—you guys HAVE to, dude, you’ve GOT to—“ but whatever it is he has to do is not immediately apparent to eddie. best man dances in a circle with the rest of the wedding party and auburn hair and the bride and groom, shout-singing along, and then during the build up to the second prechorus gareth’s cousin’s wife and her bridesmaids start pushing everyone to the sides of the dance floor, so there’s a long space in the middle, so the bridesmaid with curly dark hair is at one end and best man is at the other end and oh my god is he actually going to —

the bridesmaid runs and then launches herself at best man, who lifts her perfectly, right on cue at the peak of the second chorus, his hands steady on her hips while she floats her arms out in front of her just like jennifer grey. they hold it for a few moments while everyone loses their fucking minds and takes a thousand pictures. eddie actually takes his hand off his guitar for a minute. he thinks his mouth is open. he can see the muscles in best man’s arms flexing under his white button up shirt as he carefully lowers the bridesmaid back to the ground, laughing, his eyes scrunched up in joy.

eddie is maybe a little bit in love.

they close it out. the whole crowd whistles and stomps and applauds for them, which feels pretty good, eddie’s not gonna lie. as they start packing it up and high fiving each other and a couple people come over to ask if they have a card, if they’re still booking for next year or the year after (what?) gareth’s cousin comes over and hugs every single one of them, almost in tears, and then adds another 2k to the check he writes for them. eddie pulls out his cigarettes right then and there.

“steve, come meet the band,” he yells, when steve and auburn hair walk past. “gareth saved my whole ass, oh my god —“

“you guys were fucking incredible,” steve says, grinning, shaking gareth’s hand. “best wedding band i’ve heard in years —“

“they’re not even a wedding band!” gareth’s cousin shouts. “they’re like metal — moshing — thrash, i don’t know, LOUD—“

“whoa,” steve says. he pushes his hair out of his eyes and then turns that blinding smile right on eddie. eddie feels struck by it, wants to stagger back like he’s taken an actual blow. “cool, so you guys — play locally, or —?”

“oh my god,” his girlfriend says, rolling her eyes; steve elbows her in the side.

“i like your guitar,” steve says, gesturing at the warlock eddie’s still holding in his non-cigarettes hand.

“oh, uh, thanks,” eddie says.

“it’s a cool shape,” steve says, stepping closer, flicking his eyes down and then back up to meet eddie’s. there’s sweat gathered along his hairline, dampening the ends of his hair. behind him, his girlfriend coughs something loudly that sounds vaguely like slut.

eddie feels his eyebrows go way up.

“uh, thanks, shapes are. you know. shapes are great,” eddie says, nonsensical. he sees gareth shoot him an incredulous look out of the corner of his eye.

“can i bum one?” steve says, looking down to the cigarettes in eddie’s hand.

“totally,” eddie says. “let me just—“ he holds the warlock aloft and gestures to the open guitar case.

“sure,” steve says. he waits around while eddie hustles through getting his shit sorted out and then turns away politely while eddie has a silent desperate telepathic conversation with the rest of the boys, who roll their eyes and make their way over to the still open, still free bar.

where auburn hair is standing and talking to chrissy, putting a hand on chrissy’s arm while she laughs at something chrissy says.

hm, eddie thinks.

“so,” eddie says, walking out from under the tent with steve, down towards the water, awash in the moonlight. he holds out his cigarettes. “you like springsteen?”

#here have some dumb shit #steddie #stranger things #yes the joe keery dirty dancing lift video is playing in my head 24/7 #mine

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