#Clockwork told him about his supposed fate

[nelkcats]

Anomaly

Since the situation with Dan Phantom, Clockwork realized something very important: Danny was an anomaly, something that even he could not control. He lived outside the laws of time, suffered no consequence for his changes and was basically the representation of the butterfly effect.

That, of course, thrilled him. Since he began his "contract" with the Observants, his movements were restricted, he was forced to follow rules and could hardly act against them. That's why Danny was a blessing, his protégé was not tied to anyone, he could act freely.

Clockwork took advantage of this, he asked him for help frequently, for some things he could not change. This led him to discover another important factor: Danny was balance. He never acted for anything that was not fair. And the Realms followed his wishes.

That's why it didn't surprise him that Danny wanted to help Jon Kent. Clockwork knew how the "New Superman" would end up, he knew the boy would fall into a black hole and lose his childhood, he knew he would be trapped in a volcano for 7 years. The Observants told him it was "inevitable" of course, but as he had learned with young Daniel, nothing was.

Then he told him about the boy, the boy who laughed with joy in his parents' arms and had made a best friend his own age. The boy who had trouble controlling his powers but had a big heart. Just as he imagined, Danny frowned at his "inevitable fate," as a child whose childhood had been stolen, he didn't wish that for anyone else.

Then, the moment Jon fell down the black hole Danny decided to interfere. He changed the location he was headed to the clock tower, he needed the Observants to believe that the event had "happened" before taking Jon back home.

Jon Kent, who had been separated from his grandfather, panicked. Of course, since the Realms didn't have a red sun his powers didn't work, which made him feel worse. That was before he noticed the smiling boy offering him cookies and the old man-floating? looking at him curiously. Jon wondered what situation he had gotten himself into, he hoped Damian would believe his story when he got back.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny was forced to Reincarnate

So! One day, Dr Fate was doing a routine check on the Barriers between the many Dimensions that brushed up against his Universe, when he found an Anomaly.

Somewhere in the United States, Illinois if the spell was accurate, there was a Sustained and Stable opening into the Infinite Realms. Which was impossible. The Infinite Realms was Chaos Incarnate, the birthplace of God's and Monsters like the Lords or Chaos or the Ancients. Openings to the Realms were never supposed to exist for more than moments at a time, if not less than that.

So of course he immediately went to investigate it.

What he found shocked him.

Not only was there a stable Portal to the Infinite Realms created by Scientists of all things, but Realms Spirits have been regularly attacking the small town it was located in without his, nor anyone else's knowledge, for Years. Thankfully it seemed like one of the Realms Spirits objected to their attacks on the Mortal Plane and was defending it, but that was a problem in and of itself.

He quickly took off to rectifying the situation.

He approached the Protector Spirit and proposed an alliance, helped him chase down any loose Spirits still wandering the Mortal Plane, and then with his help Dr Fate closed the Portal for good. The Protector Spirit helped destroy all knowledge of how to contruct the Portal from the Scientists Servers (he was never good with technology) and Dr Fate used a few memory spells to wipe the knowledge from their minds.

The Protector Spirit then thanked him for his help, but Dr Fate told him that there was still one problem that needed rectifying.

He quickly summoned a Spell to immobilize the Spirit, and began the Ritual he had been preparing since the moment they had met. He was never planning to allow the Realms Being to wander free after his work was finished. Good Hearted as he may be, Realms Spirits were still too dangerous to let freely roam a world of Humans. He was never going to be allowed to leave once this was over.

Still, he had helped Dr Fate in his endeavors. For that, he had earned a more merciful fate than the others had. Rather than banish the Spirit to the endless void as he had the others, he instead cast a ritual to allow him to Pass on and find peace.

With his work done, Dr Fate left the small town and went back to his Tower.

...

Unfortunately for Dr Fate, he didn't know a few things about that particular Spirit. He didn't know that it was a Halfa, and was thus still partially Human. He did not know that it was still a Child by Ghost Standards, and that his Core was not yet matured as it should have. And he did not know that this particular Ghost was favored by an entity that governed all of Time. One that had a rather petty vindictive streak.

Because he wasn't the type of Spirit the spell was intended for, the Protector Spirit (Danny if case you hadn't caught on) was thrown into an entirely different type of Afterlife. The Cycle of Reincarnation.

Clockwork, angered that his friend had been betrayed so calously, helped his soul pass more easily through the cycle of Reincarnation. He wouldn't keep his memories or powers (at least not at first), but there would be echoes of who they used to be.

Which is how Danny Phantom, the little known Ghost Hunting Hero, was reborn into their new life as Zatanna Zatara, the well known Magician Hero.

[satoshy12]

After clockwork allowed Danny to use his time portals, he started to have fun with them.

Danny was playing with time, or better yet, just making the time line how it was supposed to be.

Like

Danny is in the past and meets Hippolyta and the Amazon while in a battle against Hercules and the monsters of Hades.

Hades was on vacation; let Hercules take care of the Underworld. (Never TRUST A CHILD OF Zeus. ONLY WHEN SHE IS YOUR wife.)

 Or the times he fought against Blackbeard (Vandal Savage) or helped Genghis Khan as a Ghost tried to kill him. (Again Vandal Savage) 

He trained under an old man after he was saved from a cage in the desert for many years too, with his dead wife inside of it with him.

Or the time he worked with Martian Manhunter, Dr. Fate, and a few others against an invasion by Darkseid in the past.

So back in the present, Danny notices the painting he saw a few days ago and thinks it's similar to him: It Was Actually Him The Whole Time.

Danny had not changed to a different time line; it was the original time line.

Clockwork explained it to him: Danny changed the past; it was the whole time. He is outside of it, but not fully; it happened after his fight with Dan.

+

Well, someone should have told Dani about the kind of Chaos her Genetic donor had caused in the past. So she wouldn't be on such a run from so many people! After they only met her once!

Many people Danny has met in the past are very interested as they saw and meet Dani.

+

Short.

Clockwork pulls absolutely favor Danny and Dani over the rest of beings. So they are part of time, like him.

Something like that Vlad would never get away with, and other ghosts would have been just erased or, worse, hunted down by time hunters.

Like a Hound of Tindalos.

I like them; they are cute.

[anticidic]

When I was young, my mother gave me an old music box. I cranked the crate, and inside, a ballerina came alive.

She twirled in pink and white like a finch mid-flight until her song stopped and the play rewinds. She resumes her position without a whine.

I cranked again, but the song distorts. She falters in her dance, one chain short; she falls with grace while everything else continues its pace,

After years of training for a broken turn, her audience does not applaud her. Resentment brews from plight. She has to reach new heights.

‘burn it all to the ground & force them to start again.  they made you lose everything. Now return the favor.’

In the end, she might come undone, but she'll be reborn again.

Metamorphosis, Black Swan!skk AU

(CW: obsession, mental health spiral, psychosis)

Nine hours in, the motions are burned into his memory, but it’s not enough. ‘Great job’ is not enough. The pained smile he gives himself in the mirror as he turns away is not enough. Nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will. Dazai’s been poisoned by impossible expectations and the lost dreams of others who didn’t cut it. All he can do is scream at them and think of Chuuya, secretly. They met one fateful, rainy day, and Chuuya’s never left his mind since. There’s nothing else to fill the void in his head now.

These were his last reserves of strength. His muscles will give in soon. To a scream.

Here he sat all alone in the studio with the lights low, uncomfortably close to the mirror, wrapping a bandage around his foot up to the ankle.

“It’s gotten worse,” Dazai mumbled, running his fingers along the arch of his foot. He pressed down and felt a sudden jolt rush up his foot. “Fuck…” His jaw was clenched, trying to hold in the cry that tried to break free. It hurt in the worst way possible, and he had no one to blame for it but himself. His doctor told him so. Mom, too. But the next day she was driving him and dropping him off at the studio like clockwork. Nothing changed. “It hurts so bad. But I’ve come this far, and I can’t give up now. If I do, I…”

If he gave up, he gave up his lead role to Chuuya. Chuuya took it by force, but Dazai could still take it back.

Dazai lifted his head and looked at himself. And what a pathetic sight it was. He looked like he was about to cry and barely kept the tears from flowing as his eyes watered. From the pain, he reasoned. Not because…not because everything had been taken from him and now he was like a lost child in a crowd looking for his mother—looking for guidance where to go and what to do next. He staggered to his feet and grabbed onto the barre for support, shifting his weight to his good foot. The pain, as he blinked, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Yes, the pain, as he placed his good foot in front of the other and bent his knees, closing his eyes.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to leap with this foot.” Dazai let out a shaky breath and continued stretching despite the protest of his burning muscles in his legs. They were as tired as his eyes, body, mind. Last night was one of the better nights he had in a while; four whole hours of uninterrupted sleep. But it somehow made him feel worse today. “How can he be naturally good at everything when I have to work so hard. He doesn’t even have to fucking try and here I am trying my hardest, and it’s still not good enough to beat him.” He slowly swept his other foot out to the side and cried out, collapsing to the floor and cradling his foot with both hands.

The lights brightened and the door clicked shut behind him. Dazai managed to open an eye and saw Chuuya’s reflection by the back wall, looking on in silent horror.

Looking on in contempt. Dazai forced a sneer through the pain and closed his eyes again, his fingers delicately touching his foot.

“I thought you said you were going home after practice today,” Chuuya finally said as he approached. He stopped a safe distance away from Dazai, hesitant to get any closer as he looked to Dazai cradling his foot, that horrified expression turning to one of sadness. And sympathy. Something he, too, wasn’t a stranger of. “…Did you ever go home? Or have you been here all night?”

Taking a deep breath, Dazai opened his eyes again and leaned back slightly, shooting Chuuya a narrowed look. If he could’ve, he would’ve gotten up and slapped that expression off Chuuya’s face. It somehow looked worse on his face than Dazai’s own he gave himself. Probably because of who it was coming from. All he felt from that look was anger and not the conflict Chuuya seemed to keep bottled in. “Why do you care? What are you doing back here, Chuuya? Decided that you needed to one-up me in something else? Or were you watching me all along and having a laugh about me getting injured?”

Chuuya scowled slightly, his hands balling into fists at his sides. He stepped closer and got down on one knee beside Dazai, taking a look at the foot limply on its side against the floor. “I forgot my bag in my locker, then I saw the lights were on, and of course it could only be you still here. It’s almost midnight.” He reached out, but Dazai swatted his hand away, glaring at him. “You’re hurt really badly, why aren’t you resting? You should’ve been resting this whole time, screw practice, screw the upcoming show!”

“No!” Dazai shoved Chuuya away and lowered his head, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall again. “And let you take my spot again?! Unlike you, I worked for my spot in Swan Lake. For years. You just showed up one day—this nobody from another prefecture—and had everything handed to you by the director and then you spat in my face.”

He hurt everywhere. His foot. His leg. His spine. Somewhere deep inside between ribs and lungs where his still-beating heart was, and it beat in agony. He swallowed thickly. Chuuya was everything and Dazai was nothing. Why? He was everything since he was a young kid, and it all shattered like the illusion it had truly been when they met. Now Chuuya was pain and a constant reminder lingering in the back of Dazai’s mind that no matter how hard he tried, it would never be enough. Dazai didn’t know who to direct his anger at: Chuuya, or everyone else who lied to him.

Or himself. His foot was getting in the way of his practice. If he could just push through it one more time tonight…

“Osamu,” Chuuya said lowly. He sat in front of Dazai and crossed his legs, shifting his attention between Dazai’s bad foot and his face, smiling weakly. It was the kind of look one friend gave to another in comfort, but Dazai felt anything but. He was being fooled. Chuuya was holding back his laughter for now, but when he went home, he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh until the tears came and he fell asleep happy and content. “Everything you’re doing is hurting yourself. You’ve been practicing with your injury the last few weeks like nothing’s changed—I think you’ve actually been working yourself harder. You never take a break with us anymore, you practice through lunch, and here we are at almost midnight, the night before rehearsal.”

“Yeah, well, this is what I get for not landing perfectly enough, but I learned from my mistake after going through it slowly and after watching you.” Dazai chuckled and side-eyed Chuuya. “I can be like you if I try hard enough. I know I can. Then I’ll ruin you like how you took everything from me. Maybe you’ll never show your face in this city again.”

Chuuya breathed out slowly and averted his gaze with a bite of his lip. That conflict returned, and for a moment, Dazai thought he saw a flicker of guilt. That Chuuya was shouldering the burden of what he did at last, and Dazai wanted him to hurt. Chuuya needed his foot sprained, and his ankle twisted. His soul crushed, and his heart broken.

Chuuya, Chuuya, Chuuya. Dazai couldn’t get him out of his mind. He needed him. Chuuya became the little voice in the back of his head telling him what to do and guiding him when he was lost. If Dazai ran him out of the performance, he would celebrate by drinking himself stupid.

And then he would weep. Terribly.

“Hey, Chuuya,” Dazai murmured. “Kiss me.”

Chuuya shot him a look of disbelief. “Huh?”

“Now.” Dazai tried to move closer, the sharp pain radiating in his foot making him wince. He tried again, and Chuuya stopped him with a hand on his chest and an annoyed look. One that also bled concern. “Now,” Dazai repeated, his voice cracking, desperate. “I feel like I’m gonna die. Kiss me the same way you kissed me at the party months ago.”

The same kiss that stole his breath away and killed him from the inside out. He’d rather die than feel this way any longer. All that was left was for Chuuya to lay him to rest.

Their lips connected. Slow, soft. A hand combed through his hair and tucked a lock of hair behind an ear. Chuuya was tender against him, and Dazai was bruised with split lips. This was not the same kiss they shared back then. This was worse. Now Dazai felt like he was on fire and Chuuya was stoking those flames with shy touches along his arms and careful caresses down his good leg. He leaned in closer, caging Dazai in and kissing harder—the bodily pain melting away in that moment they shared where it became just the two of them and Dazai recited Chuuya’s name in his head like a dizzying mantra. Chuuya was suffocating. It was wonderful. It was awful. But he needed to give in, he needed to feel bad all over again.

Chuuya was entwining himself with Dazai’s soul like the poison he was.

Dazai was coming to know a dance that began with enthusiasm and became obsession.

[iwudbutnah]

A Cornucopia for You!

Ransom Drysdale, Bucky Barnes; friends to lovers, idiots in love, secret dating, miscommunication; coffee shop, soulmate; angst

Being alive was nice, no longer being under strict orders was better, but one thing Bucky Barnes struggled with in the modern day was the fact that his soulmate was likely no longer out there. The poor person probably passed all alone. He couldn’t hold them and comfort them in their final days.

It was a common subject of therapy for him. Now that Steve and the remnants of his old life were gone, Bucky didn’t know what to fight for. But another benefit of the modern day was the fact that there was an increasing amount of people who were fighting against the forced fate that was the supposed soulmate bond.

Among them was you, one of the former SHIELD agents that had worked to deal with the more secret cases, which was how you met Bucky. With your dangerous line of work, you didn’t think it worthwhile to go searching for love high and low. There was important work to be done in saving the world and you were more than happy to find peace in what was right in front of you: Bucky.

To get out of the stuffy workplace, you and Bucky would go out to a local coffee shop in the city. First, it was as friends, but eventually, it started to become more like dating. That, and the fact that he would come to your apartment door like clockwork after a nightmare. In the darkness, you’d hold him, comfort him, the two of you falling into your own dance.

Bucky knew deep down, though, that your soulmate was out there, and at some point the invisible string would pull you away. He also knew that dating the Winter Soldier in the eyes of the public would only bring you pain, so he insisted on keeping it a secret and did his best to shove down his worries. He’d enjoy the time he had with you despite the way you said nothing could ever make you leave him.

So the two of you continued your dates, chatting and laughing at the coffee shop. As you took a sip of your drink, though, something felt different. All of a sudden, your heart started getting warm, feeling like it was pressing against your rib cage, making you almost lurch out of your chair. And through the glass door, you watched a stranger with a sweater and well-kept hair walk in. His eyes locked directly on yours, and suddenly, it was like a wave crashed over you. You knew everything about him all at once.

“Ransom. It’s you.”

In all of his memories, you’d never seen him smile past childhood, but right now, he was beaming at you. You knew you had told Bucky, who was far from your mind right now, that only an intervention of the universe could tear you apart from him, you just didn’t realize that it would happen this way.

First of all thank you so much. I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving if you celebrate.

I feel so bad for Bucky. They have a genuine connection and though she promised only an intervention of the universe could tear them apart seems the universe chose that moment the be a prick. Seems the soulmate could do it, breaking her word and his heart. Can I be greedy and have them both. There’s enough love to go around. Besides Ransom is bound to piss me off sooner or later it’s just his personality and it would be nice to have a buffer or someone to release tensions with.

[spectacled-renegade-writes]

An Early Start - Danny Phantom

Description: The accident that turns Danny half-ghost happens when he is four years old and leaves him trapped in the Ghost Zone. Clockwork finds him and takes him in to raise. But what happens when Clockwork sends Danny back to the human-world ten years later when a permanent portal appears?

Notes: Good news y'all! This story is COMPLETELY finished! The only thing I need to do is edit each chapter so that is what you will be waiting for! But I promise it will stick through to the end. Have a lovely day or night and thank you so much for reading!

Ao3: Here | Chapter 1

Part 1: Strings of Fate

Clockwork can see timelines. He can see the possible futures and the past which led to those points. He can see each decision and the webs they weave. Each crack, crease, and string. He knew all of it.

Clockwork can see Danny Fenton. He can see the lives the boy leads. Each choice splitting into timelines both similar or so different. He can see a world in which he is feared, revered, or never existed at all. Danny has always been an enigma in Clockwork’s eye since the moment the ancient ghost formed. Yes, Clockwork knew Danny Fenton. The boy who would save the world or destroy it. The boy that does so in some worlds and doesn’t in others. But, in this world, he gets an earlier start than most.

-

Young Danny is four years old and he is hungry. His big sister fed him breakfast this morning while she got ready for school. But, it’s lunchtime now, and Jazzy is not here. Danny wishes she was but she told him she has to go learn. She told him he would start learning too, next year. But right now is not next year and right now she is not home. So, Danny opens the fridge to find the lunch she made him. Jazzy knows Mommy and Daddy forget about him sometimes, so she takes good care of him for them.

But today, when Danny opens the fridge, there is no lunch. Today there is nothing. Today has been off to begin with.

For the first time ever, Danny woke up before his sister. This was confusing because she woke him up every morning. So, Danny stumbled out of bed in his spaceship pajamas and made his way to his sister’s room across the hall. She was still asleep. She shouldn’t be. Danny decided to wake her up.

He crawled up on her bed, little stuffed astronaut under one arm, and shook her shoulder. She did not stir. Danny tried again. Nothing. So, desperate times called for desperate measures and he raised his toy in the air… then proceeded to bring it down on her face. It did the trick and Jazz shot up in her bed. “Wah!”

“Jazzy?”

Jazz gathered her bearings and grimaced at her little brother. “Danny, why would you do that?” She demanded. Danny pointed to the digital clock on her night stand. Jazz looked over to the device and found, to her horror, that no numbers shone. She quickly picked it up and shook it, frantically pressing buttons. “The battery must’ve died! What time is it?” She missed Danny’s casual shrug as she threw her blankets back and rushed out of bed. “Come on!” She urged, grabbing his hand and dragging him out of her room. The following morning was just as frantic as her awakening as she hurried to get ready for school and take care of Danny at the same time. In her rush, she forgot to make lunch.

Now, here Danny stood. Hungry. No lunch. No Jazzy. Too small to help himself. He glanced toward the basement. Danny knew well that he is not supposed to go down there. Every morning, the last thing Jazzy always says to him before the school bus picks her up is, “Remember, don’t go in the basement. Be safe. I love you!” Danny wanted to listen to her. So, he walked to entrance instead, leaned against the doorway.

“Mommy?” He called. Nothing. “Daddy?” Just the same. Hesitantly, Danny took a single step down a single stair. “Mommy? I’m hungry!” He hoped yelling would get her attention but still he received no response. Jazzy’s words echoed in his small mind but moments later so did the rumble in his stomach. He decided, just this once, to go downstairs.

Carefully, holding tight to the hand rail, Danny made the steep trek down each stair, careful to watch his feet as he went. One, two. One, two. One, two. He left his toy at the top of the stairs where he could retrieve it upon his return. One, two. One, two. One, two. Danny wished he didn’t do that. The basement scared him a little and his astronaut made him feel safe. One, two. One, two. One… two. Finally, Danny reached the bottom floor.

He saw his mommy and daddy turned away from him. They stood hunched over a table reading something that Danny could not see. To their left, on that very same table, sat a small device they called a “Proto-portal”. Danny didn’t really know what that means but he did know his parents have talked about it for as long as his young mind could remember. Since he was in diapers his parents would say things like, “Today. Today is the day we perfect that portal!” or “I completely overhauled the filtration system. Good as new!” or even, “What if it never works?” But still, they pressed on.

Danny took a tentative step forward and spoke again. “Mommy?”

The thing about his parents, the thing Jazz knew since Danny was born, is that when they were focused on their work, nothing in the world could pull them out of it. But Jazz protected Danny. So Danny didn’t know this. “Daddy?” He took another step forward.

“I really think we cracked it this time, Jack!”

Danny reached the table and looked up at them. “I’m hungry.”

“I think so too, Maddie! Shall we do this together?”

Next to them, in front of the little portal, was a metal stool which belonged to his parents that they sat on when they tinkered away at the device. Danny climbed up on it.

“On three, Jack. One.”

Danny climbed his way to the seat.

“Two.”

He reached out for his mom’s lab coat.

“Three!”

In the same moment his parents flipped the switch for the portal, they finally turned so they could see their years hard work finally come together.

The moment they turned their smiles fell. The moment they turned horror dawned their expressions. The moment they turned, they watched their little boy reaching out to them. The portal sputtered and sprang to life. A ringing in their ears when they watched, before they could even move, as the vortex which appeared within the small portal began to swallow their son whole.

The only time one should hear a four year old scream is when they’re throwing a tantrum, or squealing with delight. One should never hear a four year old screaming, at the top of his lungs, from overwhelming and unfiltered pain. At the same moment Jack made to turn off the device, Maddie lunged forward to grab her son. But she was too late. They were too late. It felt like forever. It felt like an eternity. But, it was only seconds. Moments. A few precious moments which would change their lives forever.

The portal shut off, and their son was gone. Obliterated.

-

Yes, Clockwork can see timelines. But this timeline… it was so infinitesimal, so unlikely. It intrigued him that it came to pass.

~~~~~

Notes: This story will have 25 chapters and be split into 3 distinct parts. The first part, "Strings of Fate", will start at chapter 1 and end at chapter 7. Title of next part will release upon chapter 8! :)

[underforeversgrace]

Grace Writes Masterpost

Hello! This is to help keep all of my fics in one easy to find spot (other than AO3) especially for the Tumblr links.

I typically keep this pretty up to date, but that does mean it is kinda long!

(As I reminder, I offer commissions. I also have a ko-fi.)

Heartbeat (6,732) (AO3) (Not on Tumblr)

There are a few facts of life. Maddie Fenton knows this. One of which is ghosts don’t have a heartbeat. So why can she see his beating heart?

What It Means To Be (71,323) (AO3) (Not on Tumblr)

Caught by his parents and rescued too late from the lab by Sam and Tucker, Danny has to learn how to live with what has happened to him and what he is.

Danny Gets Caught by the Justice League (Tumblr only)

Just my addition to a viral dcxdp post even though I know nothing about DC

Share the Burden (1,056) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Tucker knows how much Danny has to deal with, and he wants to help Danny carry the responsibility. And the portal is turned off.

Parental Responsibility (5,929) (AO3) (Not on Tumblr)

After a night she’d rather forget, Jack and Maddie are missing, and Jazz has to face her new reality.

Woken and Bound (2,955) (AO3) (Not on Tumblr)

Danny wakes up in chains, Clockwork and the Observants hovering above him. Knowing only one fate could bring them here, he didn’t even fight, just bows his head and waits.

Earned Peace (4,254) (AO3) (Not on Tumblr)

A body is found in the park and Danny’s core is not happy about it.

i love you (don't kill me) (4,581) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Maddie had always thought she was a good mother. A bit of a workaholic, sure, but still a mother who would listen to them and who could be trusted. She learned she was neither of these things, and she learned it the hard way.

Just Another Day (2,711) (AO3) (Tumblr)

It's been eight years since the Fentons died, since Danny had undoubtedly lost his mind. On the anniversary of their deaths, Valerie goes through her day, remembering how they got here. Why he would be there today.

same memory (different perspective) (3,861) (AO3) (Tumblr)

It’s just chores, just him cleaning the lab. It’s just a normal day and he’s definitely fine. His fight or flight instinct definitely isn’t screaming at every single atom in himself to run.

by your grave (the monster we made) (19,762) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Maddie knew Danny kept secrets, it was a topic they didn’t discuss. But when she sees scars she knows he couldn’t have, she knows she can’t keep pretending. She just needs to figure out those scars.

definition of insanity (is doing the same thing) (11,694) (AO3) (Tumblr)

When his 16th birthday ends with Phantom yelling at him, Dash wishes he could just try it again, only to find his wish granted and the day beginning again. Determined to make it better with his hero, Dash does everything he can to make it better (and maybe wail on Danny Fenton a little harder), but Phantom just keeps getting angrier and Dash just wants to know what he's doing wrong.

broken trust and the wounds hidden behind (27,007) (AO3) (Tumblr - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Jack wasn't meaning to snoop in his son's room when he found a box of medical supplies and a USB with a tag that said IF I DON'T COME HOME. Danny’s secrets revealed, Jack is desperate to earn his son’s trust, to earn the right to this secret he stumbled across. After almost two years of unknowingly hunting his son, is Danny's trust too broken to heal?

where the wounds were hidden (5,629) (AO3) (Tumblr)

When there's no one to talk to, sometimes a diary is all that's left to turn to. (Danny POV of broken trust)

Welcome to Intro to Ghosts (in progress) (AO3) (Tumblr - 1, 2, 3)

Sure, turning sixteen was supposed to be a big year regardless, but this was a little beyond what Danny had expected when he'd both been told he was now king and then asked to be a teacher for the Intro to Ghosts class while also being a junior in high school. Now he has to juggle a secret identity, being a superhero, doing centuries worth of old paperwork Pariah didn't do, his own schoolwork, AND his students/classmates schoolwork! This'll be fun. Or catastrophic. Hopefully fun.

we're ghosts, not the mob (3,052) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Jeff Johnson has been, unfortunately, chosen as a month-long substitute for William Lancer at Casper High - and he very much does not want to deal with Amity Park’s ghost tourism nonsense. But some students keep getting hurt, and maybe there’s something dark lurking here?

never cared for the stars (1,111) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Phantom vs. the Box Ghost - those are barely fights, y'know? Besides, Phantom never let's humans get hurt. But Phantom didn't see Dash there.

searching for the severed tether (let me return) (9,893) (A03) (Tumblr)

Danny’s core won’t stop hurting and he isn’t entirely sure why - is it just exhaustion? Something else? He would quite like for it to stop hurting, instead the pain’s getting worse. Meanwhile, Jazz gets called for an assembly. And then it all goes to hell in a hand basket.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions (6,995) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Jack feels like death as he fights the flu, Danny’s wrist is broken and he refuses to talk about it, and Maddie feels like she can’t do anything right. If he could just see through his son’s eyes, walk in his shoes for a while. He forgot one should never say the word ‘wish’ in Amity Park.

A Make A Wish child wishes to meet Danny Phantom (Not on AO3) (Tumblr)

Prompt from danphanwritingprompts

purple and red (881) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Dannymay 2023, Day 2: Backpack

Summary: Jack recognizes that backpack

an august snowstorm (771) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Dannymay2023, Day 3: Blizzard

Summary: Lancer isn't sure what to do with a snowstorm in August. Especially not IN his classroom.

shatter my soul (I don't want it anymore) (1160) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Dannymay2023, Day 4: Fractal

Summary: An impossible accident and pain Danny had never known.

all masks must come off (2517) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 6: Eclipse

Excerpt: "Eclipses are... hm, kind of like holy days for ghosts." Danny began and Maddie fully relaxed. Ghosts weren't sentient enough to have anything approching religion or faith. "You can't hide under an eclipse. It's night and day both turning their gaze to you and no disguise can bear both the sun and moon's scrutiny."

Instinct (3035) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay 2023 Day 7: Weapon

Excerpt: He really hated it when his parents surprised him with the ghost version of weapons of mass destruction, honestly. It was getting old. When they’d unveiled the weapon and showed it to him and Jazz with more enthusiasm than a toddler sticking something new in its mouth, Danny had wanted to blow the damn thing up the instant they finished explaining what it did.

beneath bone (1125) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 10: Bones

Excerpt: Maddie tucked herself further into the shadow of the building, peeking around the corner. This metal ghost was really starting to grate on her nerves. It had been coming everyday for two weeks, challenging Phantom each time. Phantom, unable to resist a fight, has met it on the battlefield each time.

the monster I hide (1922) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 13: Monster

Summary: It's been two weeks since the Accident and Danny is struggling to come to terms with some of the less desirable side effects of dying - and he feels like a monster for it.

the electricity within me surrounds me (1456) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 8: Electric Core AU

Excerpt: Why was he having so much trouble controlling the static today?

fight the current (Two Parts)

under the river (1181) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 11: Underwater

after the water (1770) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 30: Post Reveal

Excerpt: Is this really a choice she was about to have to make? Dying together with her husband or leaving him to die on his own?

don't sass a sleep deprived ghost (1432) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 17: Temper

Excerpt: He was tired, he was over this, and he was so fucking done.

memories of the grave (2166) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 18: Grave

Songfic. Excerpt: He frequently thought about death. His death, at least.

wrong paper (665) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 19, No Backspace

Summary: Mr. Lancer gets an assignment from Danny that is not right.

fang u for ur help (341) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 16: Fangs

Summary: Danny has fangs and questions

does this suit come off? (1706) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 15: Full Hazmat AU

Summary: A fight goes sideways and Danny gets caught.

green in the air (2042) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 22: Cryptid AU

Summary: Ectoplasm is invasive and all consuming, and it shows in Amity Park's residents. (OC outsider POV)

memory of what may have been and never will be (3962) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 25: Blame

Summary: Valerie Gray from ten years in the future falls through a natural portal, landing in the past. Unable to get home, she decides to do the best thing she can - kill Danny Phantom.

Grace Can't Draw (picture post) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 26: Art/Fic Switch

stars in his eyes (1849) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 24: NASA

Summary: After two weeks in the GIW's labs, Danny is informed another government agency has taken custody of him. Of all the agencies to hurt him, why did NASA have to be one?

shattered saviors (2475) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 21: Shatter

Summary: Danny gets a horrifying glimpse into the intense negative reaction of Amity Park, and especially his parents, when Dani is accidentally revealed to be half ghost and is taken into GIW custody.

would you like fries with that? (1217) (AO3) (Tumblr)

DannyMay2023 Day 20: Nasty Burger

Summary: Danny wants to enjoy a meal with his friends. The ghosts say no.

am i dead or alive? (it's such a fine line) (2755) (AO3) (Tumblr)

Danny wakes up screaming from a nightmare - a memory he thought he'd long gotten over. When his dad comes running him to check on him, old fears and doubts resurface, and Danny decides that, since he's already told his parents about Phantom, maybe it's time to stop hiding other things, too.

chasing nightmares (703) (AO3) (Tumblr)

"Who got you this time?" Jazz asked with a sigh, wrapping the gauze around Danny's bleeding shoulder, grimacing as green immediately saturated the white. "Plasmius," Danny spat.

we live our lives like we're ready to die (in progress) (AO3) (Tumblr - 1)

Crossover fic - Danny Phantom x Angel: the series. Long summary, please view link.

the walls you hide behind (I saw the truth inside the real you) (in process) (Tumblr - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in process) (AO3)

Jazz is tired of the ghosts, tired of her parents not doing enough, tired of Phantom's recklessness and her brother's persistent exhaustion. When she yells all of her frustration at her parents after nearly getting killed by a ghost, she gets sent to Vlad's mansion in Wisconsin for the weekend - where she's offered a chance. She could have the ability to fight back, protect her brother and her town. Jazz leaps at the prospect. When she returns to Amity Park at the end of the weekend, it's with abilities and strength of her own, and she's fueled by anger and disdain. And she's got her eyes, first, on Danny Phantom.

healing the wounds we hid (sequel to broken trust and the wounds hidden behind) (in process) (Tumblr - 1, 2) (AO3)

(Invisobang 2023!) Now that his father knows, Danny's life is changing for the better. Jack encourages him to let his friends and the rest of the family into his small word. Unbeknownst to Danny, Jack is secretly worried about how Maddie will react to the news upon her return to Amity - and how to confront Vlad once Jack learns his true identity. Amidst it all, an enemy lurks and plots their revenge.

[tiny-space-platypus]

Jason was having a good day or at least he thought he was going to have a good day. His relationship with his family has never been better, he had even been going to the family brunches. He had assumed today's brunch would be just like the others where he and his siblings teased each other. But no, fate was never that kind to Todd.

Before anyone could leave the table Alfred would call for their attention.

“I am afraid I have some bad news. Earlier today, I received a notice that the arranged marriage between Master Bruce and Lady Madeline had not been voided like Master Thomas had once hoped.”

Bruce was about to question this before being cut off by Alfred already knowing what is going to be asked.

“There was an error in the process, and his engagement was passed to the next generation. Now that Mrs.Fenton's children are of age, one must wed into the Waynes, or the Waynes' assets are turned over to the Fentons. I understand that none of you would commit so I took the liberty of rolling a multi-faced dice. Congratulations Master Jason, your fiance, Mister Fetnon will arrive tomorrow.”

Wait,what? Jason was about to tease whoever was chosen, god had he hoped it’d be Dick, but no, fate is never that kind to him. Now he was the sucker to marry some kid— wait. The words spilled out of Jason as he thought this through.

“I’m Legally dead, how is that going to work?”

“Yes, which is why Mister Fenton accepted, believing he wouldn't have to commit. What a surprise this will be for him”

—--------------------------------------------------------

Danny had been terrified of this, of the confrontation he built up in his head after he had gotten a call from his mother saying to come home right away after school. He had assumed his parents figured out he was a ghost, well half ghost. He had assumed this was going to end with him either IN their lab or needing to run away. He had Sam and Tucker wait outside with Dani just in case they needed to go. Just in case home wasn't safe anymore. He wasn't expecting to be told he was getting married. He hadn't expected that his complaints would be met with his parents’ justification that were really just insults.

“Jasmine is a straight A student and in College Danny. She has a good life ahead of her. You just barely passed high school. This is a perfect opportunity for you to build a life.”

His parents had even told him who it was, just to get packed and ready for a one way flight to Jersey. He wondered if this is how the 1600s ghost felt when they were placed in arranged marriages. He'd have time to ask later he supposed.

A part of him was still processing, and there was so much to process. After being told about it and insulted he went to the realms hoping that maybe Clockwork, the only reasonable adult? Ancient? Mentor, that he had would somehow get him out of this but no. Turns out whoever he was marrying was also dead. Turns out there's a push for him to get married, turns out this ghost kid was the “perfect match” for him. Danny wanted to scream.

At least he wasn't going alone. Dani had made the decision that she would come as well and had a fit when his parents tried to reason with her. So now here she was sitting next him, passed out on their one way adventure to Gotham New Jersey.

Dani's been there before with Vlad for Galas apparently the Wayne's are very nice though a little out there. Though she hasn't spoken with any of them since she was 12. Hay at least of this went awful; he could just go ghost and never show back up in Gotham ever again.

‘What do I even say to the kid? Hay sorry you died at 15 but we're married now.’ Danny thought to himself and made himself shiver. This marriage was going to make him look like a creep. He groaned.

—--------------------------------------------------------

Jason was not having fun with this either. Though his family was trying desperately to find a way to get Jason out of this he was still forced to prepare like he was about to get married. Meaning stuffy suits, proper attire and he wasn't allowed to go to his apartment. In short this sucked.

At first his old room was offered to him. His old room that he hadn't step foot in-

Jason refused to enter that room so he was given another guest room. That was better. He had a headache forming and right now he only wanted to take a nap.

While Jason slept in a guest room Bruce was frantic. He was not going to let his precious son be forced into a marriage. So he looked over the agreement, had his lawyers look over the agreement. Look for anything that could save his son from this. He failed his son once, he won't do it again.

The next morning the house was being prepared for their guest, all of the Wayne family had arrived dressed up in formal attire per Alfred's request.

Jason, Bruce, and Alfred all stood outside waiting for the limo they sent to pick up the Fenton to arrive. Both Jason and Bruce were horrified when what looked like a high school girl hopped out of the car. Then an older boy who looked identical to the girl stepped out from the other side. The boy immediately took the girl's hand and walked towards the threeo. Alfred would be the first to speak.

“Good afternoon, Mr. And Ms. Fenton please, come inside.”

The boy looked hesitant but followed along with the girl they can only assume is his sister. Both Bruce and Jason could tell the both of them were nervous about this. The Boy would speak up as they walked.

“My name's Daniel and this is my younger sister Danielle. Though I prefer being called Danny and she also prefers Dani.”

This would peak Bruce's interest at least. Jason was also interested but wasn't going to ask.

“You both go by Danny?”

They both responded with a unified “Yes”

“I go by Danny with a Y”

“And I'm Dani with I”

They would enter the manor. Where the Fenton's would introduce themselves again to the rest of the family. The Wayne's would follow in turn introducing and naming themselves and of course ending with Jason.

Both Danny's looked at each other for a second then looked at Jason confused. Before Danny could question Dick jumped in with some rich people BS on why Jason was “dead” but still here.

Dani with an I seemed to have hit it off with the youngest Wayne. That made sense they were both around the same age and seem to have bonded over the love of travel and culture. Dani with an I even seemingly knowing Damian's native language though she was apparently not entirely fluent according to Damian.

Everything was fine till Danny with a Y pulled Jason aside and away from the others. Jason then saw something he did not want to see, Lazarus green eyes though they weren't as angry as his were. Somehow they were different. Somehow they were worse. The room got colder around them as the grasp on Jason's arm the one that gently pulled him to the side grew icy cold. Danny spoke, somehow his voice echoing and loud but also quiet.

“You've died before, haven't you?”

Alfred: I am afraid I have some bad news. Earlier today, I received a notice that the arranged marriage between Master Bruce and Lady Madeline had not been voided like Master Thomas had once hoped. Bruce: Wait I was in a arriage marriage? Alfred ignored Bruce: There was an error in the process, and his engagement was passed to the next generation. Now that Mrs.Fenton's children are of age, one must wed into the Waynes, or the Waynes' assets are turned over to the Fentons. Bruce: WHAT?! Alfred: I understand that none of you would commit so I took the liberity of rolling a muilti-faced dice. Congratulations Master Jason, your fience, Mister Fetnon will arrive tomarrow. Jason :HUH!? BUT I'M LEGALLY DEAD! Alfred: Yes, which is why Mister Fenton accepted, believing he wouldn't have to commit. What a surprise this will be for him. Tim: Thanks for taking one for the team, Jay. Dick: Yeah, the rest of us nepo-babbies appreciate it. Damian: We shall forever remember this bravery and sacrifice.

[valourworn]

( deaken bluman, 21, cis man, he/him ) hey, is that SIRIUS BLACK wandering the halls without a companion? the SIXTH YEAR is getting bold. and here I thought the GRYFFINDOR was always more fearless, charismatic, & humorous. but then they are also known to be impulsive, guarded, & brooding,  so maybe that makes sense. these hard times are enough to change  anybody, I suppose. and did you hear people are saying they’re in THE ORDER? rumors fly when people are cooped up.  here, I’ll show you — SIRIUS always reminded me of finding something that you lost ages ago, the low beam of light at the end of a dark hallway, a loud burst of laughter in the dead of night, blood shot eyes due to lack of sleep, mourning something that’s still alive. and I’ve heard HE JOINED THE ORDER TO SPITE HIS PARENTS. let’s hope the PUREBLOOD doesn’t get attacked by the beast. or let’s at least hope that rumor doesn’t get back to them before they do. ( leah, 23, cst, she/hers )   

i’m going to try and keep this relatively short, so i don’t bore anyone with how much i love this boy. trigger warnings for physical abuse!

the story starts like any other: a boy born into the house of black, the heir walburga and orion hoped for. sirius asterion black iii was born on a bitterly, cold and cloudy morning in november and immediately placed into the arms of his nanny. the noble house of black was similar to that of an institution, and sirius’s birth was just another stepping stone to confirm that legacy. 

later, he would be told that his parents were ‘ overjoyed ’ at his birth, but that tidbit was always confusing to him. he’d never once seen his parents display much emotion, nevertheless one that would be related to joy. his parents were cool and detached, certainly never ones for any sort of praise or physical affection. 

from the earliest of days, he's possessed this wild, untamable energy. his magic was even more unruly, so much so that walburga had to ward off most of the family’s heirlooms out of fear that he’d break them. no matter how much walburga chased him around the house, shouting spells in his wake, he would be right back at it the next morning, as if he had remembered nothing.

but that’s when the spells got harsher, the wounds they caused taking longer to heal. it was then that sirius learned his jokes and tricks weren’t funny - no one was laughing anymore. and they never had been.

but sirius was smart, he soon realized that in order to survive the house he needed to put on a performance. it wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the rhetoric that he was being fed, but he never thought much about it past the weekly lectures he received. he knew, however, that if he really valued his life, he needed to work hard for a chance at survival and really show his parents he could play the part they wanted him to.  

but the thing is, sirius could be good at the things his parents wanted him to excel at. charm the guests at a dinner party?  he could do that without so much of a second thought. things like that simply just came like second nature to him after years of enduring constant beration from his mother and father. but even if he were to execute something perfectly, there would always be something that he could have done better. and if he had really messed up, there would most certainly be hell to pay. by the time he was seven, walburga and orion were very comfortable with using curses and hexes to punish their children, a precedent established when he was only five years old. it became like clockwork, something he could expect. sirius will never forget the pit in his stomach as his mother dragged him down the hall to his father’s study, nor the sound of the door locking behind him, sealing him to his fate. 

and the truth was, sirius just assumed this was just how all families were. he knew his cousins were also held to unreasonably high standards, but he’d reasoned that it was normal and just the way things were. it wasn’t until he arrived at hogwarts did he realize that actually wasn’t actually the way the world worked.

sirius arrived at hogwarts fully expecting to be sorted into slytherin. because why wouldn’t he be ? it was tradition, and he’d watched as his cousin, andromeda, was sorted into their birthright only minutes before he stepped up to the stool. but it only took two seconds for the hat to be placed on his head before it called out GRYFFINDOR and he walked lamely towards his new house’s table, dazed and confused. 

it didn’t take long for him to settle in, though. his new housemates were warm and friendly and fun, everything he had always wanted. it was easy to fall into step with them, to laugh with them. they were people who actually laughed at his jokes, who even got them in the first place. it was at hogwarts that he felt safe for the first time in his life, and he would do anything for his best friends, the marauders, who showed him what real family was like.

it was also at hogwarts that he learned something for once, most importantly that blood status didn't matter. he mingled with people that he never would have met had he not left grimmauld place and learned so so much.

sirius's first trip home was certainly the worst, although they never lessened in severity. his parents were always furious, especially walburga. he was prohibited from speaking to his friends while he was at home, but he still found little ways to rebel. his summers were long and boring, days spent wishing he could be back at the castle.

as the summers continued, his hatred for his parents deepened. by his fourth year, they were hardly on speaking terms and as much as sirius tried to act like he didn't care, there was still a part of him that longed for the big happy family a lot of his classmates had.

as a person, sirius is first and foremost definitely traumatized from his childhood. it takes him a very long time to trust people and even longer to open up about everything he's endured ( i want to say the marauders are the only people who rly know everything and even that took forever for him to disclose ). he jokes a lot, but it's really just a defense mechanism. he can be obnoxious and loud, craving attention from anyone who will give it to him. he'll start fights just for the hell of it, kiss someone at a party just to start drama, anything as long people are looking at him. he's charming, a sweet talker and boy does he know it.

but he also goes through periods where he is broody and withdrawn, even isolating himself from those closest to him. sirius is a constant storm of emotions, but he tries to hide it with his humor and his rebellion. he behaves impulsively and almost selfishly at times. it's all really just to mask that he feels like he doesn't belong, not in the house of black or in gryffindor either. major imposter syndrome !

doesn't really put much effort into school, but he would do really well if he tried. he often ditches class to take walks around the grounds doing god knows what. chain smoking cigarettes probably

hates rules, is rly that person who thinks they were just made to be broken

lots of pride, will never admit when he's wrong

i think that's all for now <3333

[bubblegumbeech]

The Losing Move

Day two Ectoberhaunt:  Scream vs Laugh

AO3

It started with a scream. That’s how Clockwork knew it was finally time. 

He hesitated, of course. There was so much to lose, so much still uncertain, paths branching in different directions, moments shrouded imperfectly from his view, strings of fate tangled and misused. But he was the Master of Time. He could hesitate and no one would ever know. 

Not even them. 

Clockwork made a portal, leaving his Clocktower and walking towards a tall grey rock almost as old as time itself, weathered by age and nothing like the statue it had once been standing proud in a garden of overgrown thorns and long dead leaves. Nocturn appeared next to him, a swirl of inky black void scattered with stars and nebulae. 

“Did you hesitate?” he asked. 

It was a valid question. An important one too, if they were to succeed. Clockwork’s hesitation could lead to an uncertain future, to a failure in their plot. And then they would be lost, set back hundreds of thousands of years again. 

“No.”

Nocturn accepted his answer. Perhaps he knew that Clockwork was lying, perhaps he did not. Either way, they both turned to the stone. 

It wasn’t long before the others appeared. 

Misery Vex was the first, then Sojourn, on and on until they all stood, surrounding the stone. 

Misery turned to Clockwork. “Did it take?” she asked, and he flew forward, taking off one of his gloves to run his hand along the smoothed side of the rock. It hummed, an energy unlike any else, unique to here yet everywhere and nowhere at all. Very chaotic indeed. 

“It has.”

She hummed an affirmative, linking her hand in his before reaching out to take Sojourn’s. Clockwork reached for Nocturn and as they all linked together they formed a shield, thick and impenetrable between their varied talents, around the stone. 

“How long will this take,” Vortex said, ever the impatient one. He was jittery, yellow cords of lightning constantly jumping all over him in a nervous jumble, branching in and out of each other like writhing snakes. 

Clockwork sighed. “Not long.”

“You musn’t get too close,” Misery warned.

“I know.”

“You musn’t go too far,” Nocturn reminded him. 

He knew that too. 

“You’ve failed before,” Misery said, her voice steady and calm. She was not wrong, nor accusatory. He had faltered, it had led to a less than ideal outcome. He would not admit this. 

Clockwork didn’t allow any emotion on his face. “The threat is contained. My faults did not lead to the failure of our mission.”

She scoffed. “No, only to ‘inconvenience’. Right?”

As far as she knew. As far as any of them did. They relied on him, to determine if their future would be a success. He was the only one who could see which path to take, what choices would lead to their victory. He was the only one who knew just how thin the chance was, how precarious the choice. It would not benefit them to know. He did not need their doubt.

“Who was it?” Sojourn asked, referring to the scream that had summoned them here. The scream that had echoed hauntingly throughout the entirety of the Infinite Realms. 

Clockwork hadn’t looked. He looked now. 

“A boy, fourteen years old, between child and adult, between living and dead, between here and there.” 

Nocturn smiled, “How fitting.”

The stone shattered. Power and chaos, magic and will swirled around in a tornado, beating against the solid weight of their shield and making what was once so obviously strong seem weak and pitiful in comparison. 

Vortex’s eyes glowed in excitement. It was a sign, they all knew, that things were getting close. 

Eventually the storm faded and all that was left was a weathered pile of ash and rubble where there had once been a stone, where there had once been a statue, where there had once been nothing at all. 

It would come to nothing once more. 

Soon.

  The Infinite Realms had been lifeless for so long. Nothing more than ambient ectoplasm and void. A place. Nothing more and nothing less than it had to be. Many of the denizens had never seen them alive, existing as they once had. The panic was only natural. The frenzy, exciting and new. The heart of it all beating again. 

There was one ghost in particular, of course, who had only known the realms as they existed now. Sure there might also be others, newly made and newly dead, but this one was the important one. He’d been the one to give his life for the life around them now. 

Or at least, he’d given half of it. 

The Observants, of course, were furious. 

They had attempted to hunt down the Ancients, knowing it was they who had done this, who had planned this and then hidden it from the view of those who watch. Vortex had been taken first, as expected, and Undergrowth had fled to the mortal realm. The others also split, the time for them to come together was over; the time to prepare for the end was nearing. 

Clockwork, of course, their ever loyal subservient pet that could not leave his tower without their knowledge, that could not use his power without their permission, he’d never been looked at twice.

“You told us the threat was neutralized.” Nocturn said, sliding up next to one of Clockwork’s monitors. He watched a scene, where Daniel and Pariah fought. It was not a real fight, of course. Pariah had long shed the haze of bloodlust that had driven him mad, and was now attempting to be endearing, to rebuild a trust Clockwork had never actually had in him. 

Clockwork took a sip of his tea. It was made from some of Pariah’s newly grown coraleander leaves and made a thick, murky green tea that Clockwork quite enjoyed the taste and texture of. Unfortunately that was exactly why Pariah had grown them, and while Clockwork had snuck them away like a petty thief, he doubted that the missing leaves had gone even a moment unnoticed. 

It was infuriating and Clockwork sipped at it slowly, savoring it’s warmth.

“He is no longer the King. In fact, there is no King at all, just as I said it would be.”

Nocturn turned to meet his eyes, tilting his head just slightly in suspicion. “Yes, you did. Though I suppose the others thought you meant he would not escape his sleep. Or at least, that he would not escape his sleep until after .”

Clockwork looked away, towards the monitor. Pariah had soundly defeated Daniel and was laughing. Likely at the way the poor boy looked, his hair a mess and covered in the very coraleander leaves Clockwork was drinking. He’d need to wash them off before he transformed back into a human. While they wouldn’t be immediately deadly to a Half-Ghost, they would form a large, hard to explain, rash. 

“That wasn’t what I said though, was it?” Clockwork met Nocturn’s eyes once more. 

The other ghost just snorted and shook his head. “No, no I guess it wasn’t. Clockwork, the tightrope you’re walking, that future you see that you haven’t told us about? I really hope you get it. I do. Because the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows and I can’t imagine what would happen if you missed.”

Clockwork’s tea had gone cold. He continued to sip it. He ignored Nocturn’s words and he watched the screen as Pariah helped Daniel stand, only for Daniel to tackle him when he wasn’t expecting it. 

“I’ll take that under consideration.” 

It was becoming habit, he found, to lie to Nocturn. 

  Daniel was at the Clocktower, eating a plate of cookies and complaining about some of the varied ghosts he had to deal with and fight on a regular basis in his mortal realm. It was a side effect, of course, of Phantom’s new role as the Heart of The Infinite Realms. The smaller, weaker ghosts, especially younger and newly dead ones, had attempted to flee the Realms when they noticed the sudden changes. 

When the Observants had become so busy trying to find the cause of the change, so busy trying to hunt down what was left of Chaos’ children, that they could no longer micro-manage the state of the Realms. Could no longer constantly overstep their authority and keep their tasteless ‘Order’. 

The Realms had become more and more lively and Clockwork had found himself in a perpetual good mood. He took a cookie for himself. Nocturn caught him baking the other day; his expression had been dry as he congratulated Clockwork on his adoption. It was  a pointed accusation. 

He had shoved it to the back of his mind and decided to make some forgoent tea to go with the cookies. He hadn’t offered any to Nocturn. 

Daniel paused in his musings for a moment before speaking again, his voice careful. “I’ve been visiting Pariah.”

Clockwork hummed, not looking away from his screens. “I am aware.”

“Of course you are.” Daniel rolled his eyes. Then he sighed like he didn't know how to bring up what he was going to say next. “Did you… Did you know he was going to get free if you sent me after that key?” 

Ah, so he’d figured it out then. “It was a possibility. Each and every choice you make creates an entirely new future with entirely new consequences.” 

“He doesn’t seem all that bad…” Daniel argued, as if Clockwork was going to disagree with him. Clockwork raised an eyebrow, the one with the scar Pariah had given him, and looked over to him. “I mean, he just. When he first woke up he was really mad right? But like, I’d also be really mad if I finally woke up from a forced coma only to have Vlad there.”

Anyone would really. 

“And even though he sucked Amity Park into the Ghost Zone, no one actually ended up getting hurt. At least, no more than usual in a ghost attack. And I’ve been talking with the other ghosts that have been ‘Challenging’ him and they all say he's a pretty cool teacher… Like, he knows how to fight and he’s good at showing them how they can use their unique powers-”

Clockwork didn’t interrupt Daniel as he rambled. It was rare, at least since he’d been deposed, to hear lists of Pariah’s more positive aspects. It wasn’t uncomfortable so much as mildly frustrating. Was this part of Pariah’s ploy? Get Daniel to fall all over himself to recite poetics about Pariah to Clockwork. He should have learned by now that whatever affection he might hold for him, it would not be enough. Not to stop his plans, and certainly not to stop the others.

“So uh, you know, he seems… chiller. Without the crown and ring and stuff.”

“Yes, it was the Ring of Rage Daniel, what did you think it was used for?” 

There was a small imperceptible shift in Daniel’s expression, as if he’d realized something and made the choice to file the knowledge away for later. He must have learned that from Pariah as well. “So, if there’s things that can change even powerful ghosts like Pariah, are there things that could change, say… one of the Ancients?”

Was Daniel befriending another Ancient? Clockwork smiled, that was good then. He could hold that against them, the weight of his failure to keep an emotional distance wouldn’t be as stark, if another Ancient or two fell just as easily to Daniel’s pleasant company. He could use that, he simply had to find out which of them it was. Perhaps Sojourn? He was always soft for children, but Clockwork hadn’t been aware of him returning to the Barrens lately, and Daniel rarely went any further than the Time Locked Lands or the Far Frozen. 

“It is good to befriend others Daniel,” he says halfheartedly, searching through his mirrors to locate Sojourn, “but remember not to trust too easily. You never know the goals of those around you, if they might be using you towards their own ends.”

“Of course,” Daniel replied, his voice hard. 

Clockwork looked over to him, he was staring at the dregs of his tea, expression dark. 

“Would you like more tea?” Clockwork offered, wondering what had plummeted the boy’s attitude so suddenly. 

Daniel looked up, a small smile on his lips, “Yes Please.”

Clockwork left to make more, his mind still trying to find which Ancient Daniel had befriended. 

  “The Observants are completely ignorant of your machinations,” Pariah said as Clockwork entered his study. “Of course, they don’t know you as well as they think.”

Clockwork should stop visiting him. Should never have started, a fact that Nocturn was only too happy to remind him of. Sometimes Clockwork wondered if Nocturn got his taste of Chaos from Clockwork's mistakes, he seemed so dedicated to reveling in them. 

“I didn’t come here to talk about the Observants. I have my fill without the need to remark upon them when absent from their presence.” Clockwork was scowling. He could hide his irritation, but despite his lies and trickery he was hardly an accomplished actor. 

Pariah chuckled, flipping another page in the thick book he’d been reading. The title was faded, but Clockwork recognized it easily enough. It was a detailed history of the Infinite Realms after King Dark had been sealed away. It was a long history, though not as long as the history that came before his reign entirely. 

It was also the exact kind of thing Pariah would read cover to cover, like the obsessive monster he was. 

“I suppose you came to warn me away from your ward then?” Pariah asked, his voice casual. Clockwork scoffed, allowing a roll of his eyes before floating over to Pariah’s shelves and grabbing one of the books that looked recently used. It was about old soul binding rituals, much like what had happened to Fright Knight. It was amusing, the thought that Pariah’s oldest friend might still be whining about his little curse. 

“Hardly,” Clockwork said, idly flipping through the pages, “if I could control Daniel I never would have let him near you to begin with.”

Pariah smiled, placing his own book down. “Yes, I imagine you wouldn’t have. It would be a mistake to let me get close to him and realize he is the reason the Infinite Realms have started to sing.”

He’d figured it out then. Of course that wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Unlike the Observants, Pariah was wickedly intelligent and fully capable of coming to the appropriate conclusions. “Sing? An interesting way to describe it.”

Arms encircled his waist and Clockwork was pulled back into a warm chest. Pariah’s chin rested on Clockwork’s shoulder as he spoke softly into his ear. “Is it enough? The realms feel alive, weaker ghosts are fleeing or banding together once more. It resembles the time we once had, between Chaos and Order. Will you stop here?”

“There’s nothing more I can do,” he lied. 

Pariah hummed an agreement and reached out to flip a few pages through the book Clockwork had been holding. There was a beautifully illustrated drawing of a necklace, bewitched and layered in curses. Pariah must have memorized the pages, of course. “Would you wear jewelry if I made it for you? I would see you decked in gold and finery if I could.”

Clockwork slammed the book closed, just missing Pariah’s fingers. He didn’t think about the earrings Pariah had once gifted him, or how he wore them even now, dangling hidden beneath his hood. “You should know better than to ask that.” 

He felt a smile against his neck. “Then I won’t ask.”

  He held the Thermos in his hand. 

The other Daniel was a menace, truly. But he would not be so desperate to ruin Daniel’s life anymore. It had been long enough for him to realize that his existence was no longer predicated on Daniel’s decisions, or on the loss of his family. 

It would change him, of course. The knowledge that he exists in the same time as his once family will either soften his grief, or sharpen its edges. There were so many paths he could take, and Clockwork could not see them all, did not bother to look much further than the distance he needed him for. 

There was something more important than his grief that he and Clockwork had in common. Something Daniel and Pariah likely had in common with them as well: the detestation of the Observants. 

Clockwork opened the thermos, releasing Daniel’s worst nightmare and not thinking about how the young half-ghost had given it to him so easily, had trusted him so quickly when all Clockwork had done was protect his human family one time. 

The other, once possible, Daniel appeared in an explosion of light and matter and immediately attacked, using his claws to scratch at Clockwork’s face. He was prepared for that though, years trapped in a thermos had eroded much of Dan’s more refined aspects. It would work in Clockworks favor of course, he had made sure of that.

For now, Clockwork froze time and moved behind him. That way his wild attack would meet nothing but ambient ectoplasm and Clockwork could speak his piece. Provided his piece took less than a second to speak.

He allowed time to flow and watched as the other Daniel floundered, confused, only to instantly realize just what Clockwork had done and turn around, ready to attack once more. Clockwork smiled as their eyes met and asked, “Would you like to End the Observants and their Order?”

the other Daniel attacked him, but Clockwork could see the consideration in his eyes. The thought had been implanted, now all he had to do was sit back and watch. the other Daniel had always been rather good at ruining things after all. 

“CLOCKWORK!” Daniel yelled, flying frantically into the Clocktower. “Clockwork Dan escaped somehow! He attacked Amity Park!” 

His desperate flight slowed when he saw Clockwork floating casually at his screens as he always had. He was watching a specific screen now, and pulled the image onto the largest one to share with Daniel. “Yes, I know.”

Daniel looked between him and the screen, his expression growing more and more confused. “But, he was here though. Locked up. How did he escape?”

Clockwork didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m sorry Daniel,” he lied. “Your trust in me was misplaced. He escaped while I was distracted with another matter and I was unable to stop him. It’s my fault.”

Daniel’s eyes widened, searching for something in Clockwork’s expression, and then in Clockwork’s screens. The only thing he saw though, was the other Daniel causing havoc and destruction. After visiting Amity Park and re-traumatising Daniel’s sister, the other Daniel had been driven away by Daniel, whose power had become far superior in the time since they had last met. It was only natural of course, Daniel’s existence was unique and far beyond that of Dan’s mangled pieced together form of conflicting obsessions and damaged cores. 

It was possible, Clockwork knew, for the other Daniel to stabilize properly. Perhaps he could become a proper ghost, perhaps he could stop attempting to restrict what humanity he had left. Either way, it did not matter in the end. If anything, his existence was a fun riddle that would play itself out long after Clockwork’s plans came to fruition. 

Clockwork looked over at Daniel, his expression hidden behind the shadows of his hood. The boy was staring emptily at the corner of the Clocktower that led to the inner dungeons where the other Daniel had been hidden away.  After a moment he turned away, hiding his own expression, and began to walk. As if his legs had become too heavy to fly. 

“It’s fine. I’ll get him back. It won’t happen again.” There was a promise in his voice and it softened to be almost inaudible entirely. “I won’t let it.”

After he left, Clockwork turned back to the screen with the other Daniel on it. He was finished terrorizing the ghost from before, and was now floating listlessly in the void of the Infinite Realms. Likely, he was warring with his obsessions- or his emotions- it was hard to tell which. Eventually though, he shook his head, looked up as if to catch Clockwork’s eye, and flew off.

In the direction of the Observants. 

  It’s eyeball was glaring at him, the normally dull yellow of it’s sclera bright with fury. “You were given responsibility over him! You were entrusted to keep him from destroying the Realms!”

Clockwork’s own eye twitched as he fought back an eyeroll. Those who Watch were as predictable as ever, not showing up at the moment of Dan’s release but instead at the moment he began to take his rage out on the Observants. Their responsibilities had always been superfluous though, a vague excuse to do as they pleased in the name of Order. 

“I failed. He escaped. Woe is me.” He floated over to one of his more intricate gadgets and began to tinker with it, pretending to be busy. “Surely an Order such as yours, full of powerful ghosts that command the Realms, did not come to me in fear though? He attacked you directly, does that not make your vow of inaction void?”

“ You-! ”

“Of course, it would be different if you simply couldn’t defeat him. But… he’s only a decade dead. That would be an embarrassment.”

The other Observant that had come to scold (and demand his servitude) floated in front of its companion so as to cut off a likely incensed reaction. “He’s an abomination, and an amalgamation. Surely you can understand why we wanted him dealt with before it came to this.”

Clockwork inclined his head, playing at civility. “Perhaps then, you should seek to work alongside Phantom. I have it on relatively good authority he’s also trying to deal with your resident menace.”

Both of the Observants took his suggestion as an insult, one even growing red with it. “That Abomination? He should be destroyed along with it!”

“Pity,” Clockwork said, turning back to the screens and watching as the other Daniel tore the core out of another Observant’s chest and crushed it in his palm. He wasn’t even absorbing them for their power. It was a waste, but Clockwork was certain it was a waste born of trauma. Dan’s creation had, after all, been due to a botched absorption with a powerful ghost core. “You can leave now.”

“You must deal with this.”

“I will deal with it when the time is right,” he said in lieu of an answer. 

The Observants, disgruntled and unwilling to leave, as if hiding in Clockwork’s lair would somehow protect them, made comment after comment demanding his action and threatening punishment should he fail. He replied with sarcasm and an aloof attitude that soon had them leaving out the door if only to try and do what they could to tighten his bonds. 

He sighed, there was time still. He should make cookies, that always seemed to calm him, help him to exist in the present and not become impatient for what is yet to be. He headed to the kitchen, only to see an unexpected visitor at his table. 

“Nocturn, you’re early.”

The other Ancient nodded. “Yes, your plan seems to have worked flawlessly. The Authority of the Observants has been shaken. Much of the power they had gained through fear and reputation has dwindled, but…”

Clockwork raised an eyebrow as he opened his cabinets. There was egyptian sand flour left over, it would be dryer than using something more modern, but the age would add a good aftertaste. He just needed to add extra Honey-Wasp bits from the outskirts of The Undergrowth and that should balance it. Maybe some purified ectoplasm. Pariah gifted him a jar after he had somehow managed to create a device to filter it from the Infinite Realms. 

He had also made an absolutely unsubtle offer to join him in his new ‘sauna’ that Clockwork had pointedly refused. 

“But?” he prompted, there was little information he could glean from silence. 

Nocturn watched him prepare the batter. He sighed and stood, grabbing a knife and helping to mince the Honey-Wasps before speaking again. “But they still have their numbers, and much of their actual power. And Clockwork, Pariah has made his move.”

“I know,” Clockwork admitted, “but is that not in our favor as well?”

“Not if he takes more power from them, Pariah on his own is not a fight we can accept lightly. Anything more being beholden to him is hardly something I wish to see.” 

Clockwork cracked a Kraken’s egg into the mixture and moved the bowl closer to Nocturn so he could scoop the Honey-Wasp bits into it as well, without losing any of the juice. Mixing it would be troublesome, some of the more experimental batters attempted to gain sentience and would try to escape the bowl. “It will work in our favor either way. the other Daniel caused havoc, their power was broken across the realms. Pariah is merely salting the ground we have burned.” 

He used a dull knife to cut into the batter and stirred, stopping any attempts at formation. Nocturn grabbed the bowl from him, forcing eye contact. “What if he seeks something else?”

“Haven’t I already escaped the chains he bound me in before?” Clockwork laughed. “Do I not have allies that would find short work of cutting chains that I did not allow to bind me?”

The bowl was set back down and Clockwork and Nocturn both made short work of dividing the dough and setting it into the oven. “We could not break the bindings of the Observants,” Nocturn said as Clockwork closed the oven door. 

“That is different, that was part of our plans. They needed to never suspect me, if we were to get this far.” Clockwork waved him off. “Would you like a cookie?”

“We have to wait for them to cook, Clockwork.” Nocturn said, exasperated.

Clockwork simply rolled his eyes and increased the time surrounding the oven. “I don’t wait.”

Daniel hadn’t visited again since Clockwork allowed the other Daniel  to escape. It was possible, he admitted in the back of his mind, that Daniel blamed him for what happened. As well he should. Yet, the thought left a sour taste in his mouth. 

He was watching the screens again. Aiming them in every direction he could to see everything as it played out. Most were occupied by the remnants of the Order he had set about decimating. A few were dedicated to their interconnected Lair, the place where they held their play courts and kept their prisoners. It was where they kept Vortex before he was freed. One screen though, was aimed at Pariah’s Keep. 

It had been a simple thing that Clockwork had neither encouraged nor discouraged, Daniel’s visits with Pariah. But now that Clockwork’s own visits had come to an end, it had become something distinctly bitter, a feeling that was building in his chest, where his core hummed, that Clockwork was ignoring with all the practice of a man dead set on his goals. 

Daniel would visit again, of course. Clockwork could even tell the exact date and time, or at least the most likely ones. He didn’t look at the futures where Daniel never came back, there was no point in uselessly fretting about it. He’d be fine, there were more important things to deal with now. 

He could feel the pressure of his binds loosening as more and more of the Observants were hunted down. Not all of them were ended by Dan, of course. They had made many enemies. Both Vortex and Undergrowth had gone out of their way to visit quite a number themselves, along with a few of the other Ancients. Clockwork was certainly tempted to do so, alas, the restrictions upon him prevented it still. And the only way for those restrictions to end was for those wielding the reins to End. And well, then there wouldn’t be anyone left to take his ire out upon would there? 

Instead he allowed his own part in their demise to be enough for his bruised ego and the millennia of torment he’d undergone beneath them. Then he ate a cookie and kept watch of his screens. 

Pariah was teaching Daniel how to use a sword. Pandora had attempted to teach him swordsmanship but Daniel had been disinclined to it. He wasn’t particularly elegant to be fair, and the finesse and practiced movement of Pandora’s sword was more akin to an art than anything else. Her limbs risked entanglement if she wasn’t careful and had developed a style suited to such. 

Daniel was much more inclined to blunt, ferocious movements. He often thought with his fist before anything else, even as a ghost with a multitude of powers to command. He used speed and strength to win and outmaneuver his opponents and despite his lack of polish, he often won due to those two traits alone. Pariah was a talented teacher, in that he was clearly taking what Daniel had already in ample supply, and taught him how to wield it appropriately to its maximum use. 

He was still only beginning of course, but Daniel was a fast learner and had grown significantly in a short period of time. 

Clockwork had toyed with the idea of taking Daniel on as an official apprentice once or twice before. Teaching him how to exist beyond the means which he had become accustomed to as a human. While he would not have Clockwork’s inclination for time specifically, Daniel’s connection to the Realms would allow him a level of control over his surroundings and the beings that exist in them that simply does not exist in anyone outside of the Ancients. And even then, Clockwork’s Time was different enough from the others’ domains to be unique in and of itself in a similar vein to Daniel’s powers. Even if they’d only just barely begun to show. 

But it was a risk to do so before everything else came to fruition. If Daniel realized his plans, it would be troublesome. He likely would not agree to the lengths Clockwork is willing to reach, and more than that, there is no guarantee that his existence as half human would not have him attempting to side with Order over Chaos. No, it was better to wait and see how it all played out first. There wasn’t much left to do before the end. 

Yes it would lead to anger. Perhaps even to hatred. It would be fitting for Clockwork. He had never known a love that had yet to turn. That had truly been any kind of unconditional. 

But he would be free. 

Finally, finally free. 

Free from this horrid linear existence, free from his servitude, free from his bonds. The root of him, the core, had been born from Chaos, from the mess of all things and no things, and like any child wishing to cradle in the arms of its mother, Clockwork longed once more for it. 

He had been patient, as had the others. There was little left to do. 

  When Daniel finally visited again Clockwork had made cookies. 

They resembled human chocolate chips, if one squinted, and Clockwork had made sure to take them out of the oven just as Daniel arrived so they would be warm.

“There you are Daniel,” he greeted. The cookies were still moving and he had to give the tray he was holding a bit of a shake to get them to stop. He doubted Daniel would eat them if he thought they were alive. 

The boy didn’t look well. He had deep bags under his eyes, and a skittish, weary look about him. 

Clockwork clicked his tongue. “You need to sleep,” he said, not waiting for Daniel to speak. 

“What?” The boy lifted his head, confused. 

“I said, you should sleep.” Clockwork grabbed one of the amulets from the wall and placed it around Daniel’s neck. “I’ll stop time for a few hours, you can sleep here if you want.”

Daniel just blinked. “Oh.”

Nodding, Clockwork turned back to his screens so he could keep watch. Nocturn had warned that Pariah was making his move and Clockwork was determined to keep an eye on him now, when the timing was most crucial. 

He felt a tug on his sleeve. 

“Clockwork…”

He looked down to catch Daniel’s eyes. “Yes?”

“Nothing,” he sighed, “thanks.” He grabbed the amulet in one hand, a torn expression on his face. Then he floated off to the room Clockwork had given him to sleep.

Watching as his ward wandered off, Clockwork waited until he was out of sight to grab hold of time and let it rest for a moment. It was the least he could do. 

It wasn’t long after their fall that the final thread snapped and Clockwork opened his eyes in triumph. Everything was available to him now. There were no hidden futures, no shrouded pasts. His screens multiplied around him as even his Lair was freed from its limits. Like a beast stretching from a long hibernation, Clockwork lost himself to his Obsession, revelled in the freedom he had long gambled away. 

The Infinite Realms felt it as he left the Clocktower for no reason other than because he wanted to and he didn’t have to ask. He didn’t have to come up with some convoluted reason as to why this was perfectly acceptable before his own body allowed him to leave the doors of his own Lair. It felt wonderful, he almost took down his hood to see everything around him with the eyes of a free spirit. 

He didn’t though, it would be too much of a hassle to wrangle his hair back and he didn’t really want someone to see him so freely bared. It was enough in every way, that he was finally free. 

“I almost forgot how powerful you were, Clockwork.” He turned to see Misery Vex, lounging comfortably just outside his lair. “The Eyes Around Us are gone then?”

Clockwork nodded, looking to the future, looking to the past. She had been waiting here for him, but not for long. And she wouldn’t have waited much longer. “Are you ready for what happens next?” he asked. 

“Are you?”

He nodded again. There weren’t any more preparations to make, how could he be anything but ready?

They didn’t meet at the Clocktower this time. 

It was no longer necessary after all. This time they met in the night. The soft evening of eternal sleep and dreams, Nocturn’s lair. It was spacious if nothing else, and creative with its decoration. Should one of them wish to sit, they merely needed to chance sitting and see if the space around them would accommodate. It suited him immensely. 

“Have you found her yet?” Misery asked.

Sojourn nodded, a small enthusiastic smile hidden under his beard. “Yes, Clockwork and I were able to locate her shattered core amongst Pandora’s boxes.”

“ It will not be easy to receive her, and it will only be more difficult to revive her,” Nocturn warned, “especially if we wish to keep this to ourselves. Rather than risk the entirety of the realms turning on us as they did the Observants.”

Clockwork nodded, “we shouldn’t do much in more than pairs. Sojourn and Misery should seek Pandora. Nocturn and I can set the ritual once the pieces are complete.”

“And the rest of us?” Undergrowth scowled, he hated Nocturn’s lair. It was cold and empty, barren of any more physical matters and there was nowhere for him to take root. Clockwork suspected half of the reason it was that way was intended to irritate Undergrowth specifically. 

Sojourn clapped his hands together and smiled, his eagerness truly knew no bounds and his obvious delight was nearly infectious. “You’re our escape plan of course! We’ll need help once we locate the right box, Pandora’s obsession is hardly a good one to be on the wrong side of.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Vortex grinned.

Clockwork couldn’t help but agree, what are they waiting for indeed? 

  “What is Chaos, Clockwork?” Daniel asked. But Clockwork was distracted.

He hadn’t expected Daniel to show up today, he hadn’t paid attention to it. There was so much to do, so much to get ready for. The time was now after all. 

He took care to answer anyways, the changes that were to come would affect the boy. At least a little. He was strong enough that he would thrive in Chaos, and it would help to nurture his Obsession, if the weaker denizens of the Realms needed help. And they would

“Chaos was the first, how it all began. Everything started with Chaos or nothing could have been at all.” 

Daniel frowned, a small furrow in his brow. “That… didn’t really-“

Clockwork paused for a moment. “Is something wrong Daniel?”

He sighed. “So if you were made from Chaos, is she like, your mother?”

“No. Chaos is not sentient so much as conceptual.” Clockwork frowned, “though I suppose she predated concepts as well if she was the first. Chaos was neither one thing nor many things. It’s safe to say Chaos was everything and everything came from her. But that did not make her nurturing” 

Clockwork looked back at Daniel, letting time flow smoothly once more. It wouldn’t do to delay. 

There was a hint of something in Daniel’s eyes, a wariness that Clockwork had never seen before. It must have been due to their conversation, but Clockwork couldn’t place what about it would have Daniel on edge. Chaos would not be any more a threat to him than it would be the other Ancients. 

“Clockwork, if Chaos came back…” he paused, as if the words had been stuck in his throat, “what would happen to the humans? The mortals?” 

What a strange question. “Life would not exist as it does now, utter chaos would not permit it.”

It had been something of a sport, to watch Sojourn and Misery in their attempts to find and excavate the remnants of the Core of Chaos. Clockwork and Nocturn had watched it from the safety and comfort of Clockwork’s lair, on the largest of his screens. 

“They’re having fun aren’t they?” Nocturn mused, taking a sip of his tea. He’d made it himself in Clockwork’s kitchen, had been insistent about it when he’d seen Clockwork start to make his own.

“Pandora is a valiant warrior and a good fighter. Misery has been on the sidelines for some time since the end of Pariah’s court.” Clockwork’s tea was cold. He frowned and set it aside.

“Yes, it’s good to see her stretching her limbs. I hadn’t seen all of them since her last fight.”

Clockwork thought back, the fight Nocturn was referring to played on one of the smaller screens. It was a gladiator based competition, where Pariah had sent her as a member of his court to show his power. She had challenged the Lord of Little Crawlers to a duel and shredded him to pieces before even five minutes had passed. Then she had collected herself, reset her veil, and gone right back to Pariah’s Keep. 

Now she was using every extra limb she could against Pandora, swords clashing with long knitting needles and strings of silk. Watching the fight was mesmerizing to be sure, almost akin to a dance, if not for the frustrated vulgarities being thrown around and Sojourn’s overly eager cheering from the back.

“Do you think they’ll make it?”

“Sojourn will remember what they’re supposed to be doing when he almost drops one of the boxes held in his arms. Upon that realization he will sneak away while Pandora is distracted and meet with the others. From there they will come here with their spoils and it will be our turn to prove our worth.” Clockwork answered, easily detailing the future ahead of them. 

Nocturn nodded and took a sip of his tea.

  It didn’t happen exactly like Clockwork had predicted. But it was close enough. Sojourn had bypassed Vortex and Undergrowth completely and simply flown straight to Clockwork‘s lair on his own. Nocturn spared Clockwork a glance, but he remained unaffected. It was still on track to be an ideal future. 

Once Sojourn entered his lair Clockwork grabbed hold of time with his hand and twisted , forcing it to bend and still under his palm. The trip to the Cave was only a step after that and once there, he let loose and released time to settle amicably around them.

“Amazing,” Sonourn said, “I do think I’d like to travel this way more often. It’s quite convenient.”

Nocturn patted him on the shoulder and grabbed one of the delicately detailed boxes he’d been balancing precariously in his arms. “You’d need to be very careful if you did, there’s no telling what might get caught up in all that twisting and turning.”

“It won’t matter much longer after this,” Clockwork said, taking his own box. 

The entirety of Chaos was not here, her core long since mostly destroyed, but there was enough to recreate something should they use the ritual they had devised. 

It needed to be hidden, so they had found a cave. It was ancient, and once thought to be a reliable doorway into the spiritual and mortal realms, every wall was covered in ancient arts and writings. No rhyme or reason between them, a bit of a mess conceptually, but perfect for their purposes. Once Vortex had destroyed it in the mortal realm, it had been simple enough to recreate, especially using Undergrowth and Misery Vex’s powers. 

Most ghosts dared not travel here, where they placed it. It was a deeper part of the Infinite Realms, where the pressures of the ambient ectoplasm was strong enough to kill even some of the more stable spirits, certainly more than any Watcher could have ever handled. 

Clockwork gathered the ashes in the center of their chosen chamber. Three rights from the first left. Nocturn moved around the edges, the walls solid and firm under his hands as he tested them. And Sojourn, setting his own box aside, lit the flames. 

It began. 

They had known the work would be hard, tedious even. Most mortals, when they picture rituals like this, imagine chanting and holding hands, perhaps some use of indomitable will. But this was far more personal, more hands on.

Clockwork took the broken edge of a shattered piece of core, and began to mold it, shaping and soothing it into a puzzle-like shape. He had spent time looking into human carpentry practices, and had come across the traditional Chinese techniques of Lu Ban. 

It had taken more than a human lifetime to learn it properly and then suit it to his own needs, but he put it into practice now, shaping the shattered pieces anew and slotting them together so that they might fit and stay snug.

Sojourn had weaved together layer after layer of treated ectoplasm into a fine cloth and was now sewing it into a fitted dress, each stitch small and tidy, seamless against the weave. 

The one who stoked the flame, who kept its energy strong and the newly forming core well fed, was Nocturn. He kept a measured gaze upon it, not once turning away or getting distracted. 

This continued for an eternity, the creation, or recreation, of something both ancient and now new was exhaustive work. But eventually, Clockwork felt a hum. A small, weak thing that would have left him breathless had he needed to breathe. 

Chaos was born again, though faint, though weak. Not anything close to what she once was, but still, she was there, feeding on the flames of her own ashes, pieces of her own core held together and finally finding life. 

They needed to keep going. This was delicate work, if they got distracted, if there was even one misstep, it would be over. Chaos would be what she is now, what they made of her, and not what she needed to be. 

The fire went out.

“ Damn ,” Nocturn hissed, quickly turning to look around. He did not bother to relight the flame, it was too late. Clockwork felt hollow, had they truly failed? But how? 

He acted quickly, bundling the newly formed and still fragile core into Sojourn’s half sewn garment and thrusting it fully into the other Ancient’s hands. 

“You are the fastest of us, run, hide her away before we lose her entirely.” Sojourn nodded solemnly, flying quickly through the winding tunnels that led out of the cave. 

Nocturn scowled, “whoever is there should be glad I am merciful. Come out now and I shall forgo eternal torment for a quick End.”

There was only silence. 

Clockwork was growing irritated himself and looked to the future, only to see Nocturn tackled into a wall by a familiar black and white blur. 

“Daniel?!” He said, his thoughts screeching to a halt. But, there was no way. He couldn’t have followed them. He would have had to know about the cave and been lying in wait for the exact moment to-

There was a soft sound, like the clinking of a delicate chain, as Clockwork felt a weight upon his neck. All at once he felt the universe stand still, as if he had been trapped in the moment, the singular moment no longer able to spread himself beyond. It was cloying, claustrophobic. Something he never thought he’d experience again. 

And he knew who was behind it. 

“You’ve always been impatient my dear.” Pariah spoke softly, his lips far too close. 

Clockwork fled, slipping between moments to force space between them almost on instinct alone. Pariah simply let him go, a smug smile on his face. No, he wasn’t supposed to be here. How did he know about this place?

What had he placed on Clockwork’s neck?

He lifted a hand, not taking his eyes off of Pariah in case he decided to get any closer, and felt around his neck. It was a chain, delicate and just long enough to have slid over his head and dangle its pendant at a point on his chest, just above the glass. The shape of it was vaguely familiar, but Clockwork couldn’t place it.

“What have you done to me?” he asked, using anger to hide the tremble in his voice.

Pariah’s expression softened and he took a step forward. “Did I not say I would see you decked in gold?”

No…

The necklace…

It had been a cursed necklace, layered in charms meant for protection that slowly twisted into possession and control. It shouldn’t have been strong enough to cause any trouble at all to Clockwork, if something this simple had worked, Pariah would have used it long ago in the peak of his madness. 

Clockwork grabbed the chain, intending to rip it off, but Pariah spoke, startling him. “I wouldn’t, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

“Then why did you put it on me?” he tugged at the chain in emphasis, without his strength. Pariah never warned for no reason. 

The bastard smiled, like Clockwork had asked a stupid question, one he should know the answer to. Clockwork scowled, and moved further away from him. His back hit a wall. The cave, while earlier it had been comforting, a sign that eternal chaos was close at hand, that all Clockwork had done was paying off in the end, it was now more reminiscent of a stone cage. 

A trap.

He’d walked straight into a trap, one Pariah had been laying since he awoke. And Clockwork had never paid it any heed, had not bothered with his machinations because he assumed Pariah would be too slow, had thought whatever he did would be too weak. He had underestimated him, and now Pariah Dark was walking towards him, a lion stalking its prey.

Clockwork froze time.

He was still moving. Clockwork had frozen time and Pariah was still moving . 

It shouldn’t have been possible, there was nothing restricting Clockwork’s power in that way. He felt the threads of all existence tangled around him, grabbed the ones moving forward and tugged, sharp, desperate, to keep them still. He felt them still. 

Pariah kept moving though. 

“How-?” Everything else had frozen, all around them was silence and the only things that moved were the two of them. It was a strange kind of dance, one stepping closer and the other floating away. 

“I made it myself, the charm. It ties you to me, obviously.” Pariah caught him, gently because he didn’t need to use force, didn’t need to use any of the almost limitless strength behind him. “It’s based off the contract you signed with the Observants, I hadn’t honestly expected it to be so blatantly one sided when I read it. Though I suppose it was on purpose, a miscalculation on your part, in the end.”

Clockwork pulled his hand away, but Pariah simply moved with the action and stepped closer, crowding against him. “It doesn’t work like that,” Clockwork said through clenched teeth. A one-sided contract that gave away so much of himself was necessary. It was also only possible because Clockwork had signed it. Pariah couldn’t mimic that without Clockwork’s consent, that wasn’t how it worked. That wasn’t how any of this was supposed to work. 

Pariah hummed in agreement. “It wouldn’t be, if that was all I did.” He brushed a lock of hair from Clockwork’s eyes. “The Order of the Observants was in chaos. They were desperate. They wanted someone powerful to protect them. They were willing to give anything for the possibility they might find safety.”

Then he pulled out a medallion of his own, a horribly familiar one.

Oh.

So that was all it took…

Pariah was right, it had been a miscalculation indeed. 

“Even if they gave me to you, the contract dissolved with the Order. I felt it break.” 

“It did,” Pariah took hold of one of Clockwork’s hands and held it to his lips in a kiss, “But I had you for long enough. Long enough to bind you to myself instead. All it took was some craftswork.”

He let go of Clockwork’s hand to touch the pendant hanging from his neck instead. It was a gentle, reverent touch, as if thanking the damned thing for its work in keeping Clockwork trapped for him. “Luckily I was up to date on all the most prominent binding curses. I have a friend who suffers from such an affliction after all.”

“Fuck you.” 

Pariah laughed, a genuine surprised chuckle that truly lit him up from the inside. His eyes were so warm, his hands burned like brands, and Clockwork wanted nothing more than to tear out his other eye with his teeth. “Come Clockwork, you’ve failed. Let’s go home.” 

  Pariah led him back to the Clocktower, his lair. His home and prison. Clockwork stormed past him once they were inside. “And what is your plan now? I can’t imagine I’d be much use in subjecuting the Realms, as you can see I’m quite traitorous by nature. All of my previous masters can attest.”

“Then it’s good I’m keeping you for your sense of humor,” Pariah said as he closed the door behind him. 

It was the first time Pariah Dark had ever been inside Clockwork’s lair. Pariah had always been a cautious ghost, it made sense that he wouldn’t allow himself the vulnerability of being inside another powerful ghost’s lair, a place where they quite literally held all of the power and had all of the control. 

The irony of course, was that the moment Pariah had stepped inside, it was Clockwork that felt vulnerable. Exposed like a raw nerve, every part of him standing on end, tightly coiled and ready to flee. 

“How is this exactly how I have always envisioned it?” Pariah says dryly, his eyes roaming freely, invasively over every nook and cranny. Every randomly placed cog and haphazard ticking machine. It was a chaotic mess, naturally, it was Clockwork. 

Clockwork picked up a twentieth century alarm clock and weighed it in his hands before chucking it as hard as he could towards Pariah. The bastard caught it, of course. And Clockwork scowled.

“Did you often picture yourself waltzing into my Lair?”

Pariah set the clock down carefully, as if it would break. As if it were truly a piece of Clockwork himself. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t have. You were certainly at home in mine.”

“Oh please, half the Realms has access to your Lair. We are not the same.” Clockwork scoffed, crossing his arms and floating awkwardly in the middle of the room. He didn’t want to be any closer to Pariah, but neither did he want to risk being backed into a wall again . It seemed a recurring treat for Pariah, to cage him in that way. 

There was a touch of mischief in Pariah’s smile when he replied. “Perhaps we can change that, would you like more visitors?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

Clockwork grabbed another trinket to throw, this one he had pried from the walls. Pariah handled that just as easily, an uncomfortable expression aimed at the destroyed part of Clockwork’s wall. He was truly the most obnoxious perfectionist. If Clockwork’s mangled mess of a lair was going to bother him he shouldn’t have bothered to come inside.

In fact, if he was going to be disappointed so easily he shouldn’t have chained him in the first place. It wasn’t as if the bindings guaranteed something like loyalty. They couldn’t even force him to act should he not wish to. Clockwork wasn’t going to change from how he had been for eons under the damn Eyes. 

“Why did you do this?” Clockwork asked, “And don’t dare say it’s only because you said you would. You may be meticulous but you are not beholden to simple words.”

Pariah had fixed his wall. And was now attempting to reinstate the very same decoration Clockwork had used as ammunition. It was strangely domestic to see and Clockwork felt rage simmer and build. Would he simply make himself at home then? Perhaps he would seek to combine their lairs in a twisted amalgamation so that he might seek order where it damn well did not belong.

“You were going to leave.” 

What a useless excuse. “Did you lose your ability to reason permanently to that crown?”

This time it was Pariah that rolled his eyes. “Obviously not, if I was able to out-fox Clockwork of all ghosts.”

“You had help.” Clockwork said through grit teeth. He wouldn’t ask who, he didn’t think he could handle having it confirmed.

Pariah’s eyes sparkled. “So you knew?”

“I figured it out.”

“Feeling very betrayed, Clockwork?” This time Pariah’s smile was sharp, a vicious little thing that certainly made him more recognizable as the fallen tyrant he actually was. 

Clockwork refused to rise to the bait. He did not regret, it was impossible to feel regret when every single decision he’d ever made had been so thoroughly calculated. “I wasn’t going to leave. Where would I even go, Pariah?”

“You were leaving me.” Pariah walked towards him, quicker than his usual slow prowl. Clockwork had chanced a step back himself but it only served to darken Pariah’s expression further so he stilled instead and allowed himself to be caught and held. Pariah’s hands were heavy, one landing on his hip and the other reaching for his wrist. “You were disappearing to the flows of Time, one minute here and the next somewhere no one could follow you. You speak of chaos and the freedom it would give you, but you lie to yourself when you say that is all that you desire. The freedom you had so desperately sought, how lonely would it have been.”

Pariah had not been able to talk after that, too busy weathering Clockwork’s sudden violent outrage. 

Nocturn was the first to visit him, to see Clockwork’s anger, his desperate lashing out. He had the same expression he’d always had when the topic of Pariah or Daniel had come up. The look of undisguised pity, as if he had known from the start that Clockwork would fail, that he would be chained in this way, the moment his freedom was closer than at any other time. 

“We do not hate you for your failure, Clockwork,” Nocturn said, and Clockwork bared his teeth. It had been sometime since he’d carved out an eye in petty vengeance but he was not above making it a hobby.

Nocturn simply kept his distance, just one step away with one of those damned medallions around his neck, stopping Clockwork from freezing him in place in his own lair. “You’ve always been easily twisted by affection, too willing to be tied down with familiarity.”

His words hurt, like an arrow piercing through Clockwork’s chest. He hadn’t thought it would be so literal, hadn’t taken Pariah’s threats seriously. Had believed, genuinely, that he would be able to escape whatever bonds Pariah had fashioned for him. Had not thought to protect himself thoroughly enough and now all was for naught. Nocturn said he harbored no ill will, but he should . 

And Clockwork was distraught that he did not. 

He deflated and Nocturn floated closer, just within range. But Clockwork’s arms hung heavy, and he was exhausted now, the weight of it all too much. “You should. Chaos is lost to us.” he spoke, his voice barely audible.

“Yes,” Nocturn acquiesced, “but Chaos was lost to us long ago. It was a child’s hope, that we could get it back.”

“You are content then? To rot in containment in an infinite realm of order and stability?”

A laugh escaped Nocturn, perplexing Clockwork and only flaring his temper worse. The other Ancient didn’t even try to hide as he fell into a laughing fit. “I would not be, no. But my oldest friend, I am not the one in containment. I have always known you look too much towards the forest and its tallest trees, very rarely have you ever noticed the grass or the leaves.”

“Speak sense,” Clockwork snapped. It was his job to speak in riddles, he had little patience to hear them now. 

Nocturn did not call him on his hypocrisy though, instead he shook his head and floated closer, relaxing next to Clockwork as if they were two friends taking tea. “It was not, as you believed, an all or nothing gamble.”

“Was it not?”

“No, the realms are back to Anarchy as they should be. The Observants were the last hold in their attempts to tame them, and they have been destroyed. There is no King, not even a sleeping one, and Chaos exists.”

Clockwork listened, the cold weight of failure that had settled in his chest chipped and cracked as Nocturn spoke on. “She does not exist as she had.”

“But perhaps this is a better way,” Nocturn pondered, “last time, Chaos reigned so supreme it seemed all were insistent to seek order. Then order reigned supreme and we sought Chaos. Perhaps now, with the Realms alive once more, and order and Chaos in balance, it will last instead.”

Nocturn placed a hand on the top of Clockwork’s head, petting his hair. “The other Ancients and I shall seek our fun, and find ways to exist in this new existence. It is only you, I am afraid, that will remain trapped.”

Clockwork slapped his hand away, “How comforting, Nocturn. Do you also go to the newly dead and tell them not to weep, at least they were the ones that died and not others?”

Nocturn’s hand returned to pull his hood down over his face and Clockwork had to slap it away again. “It is not in my perogative to comfort the newly dead. I thought only to inform my dearest friend that he had not earned my animosity. A fear he might have had, failing the plan we had painstakingly worked towards for eons.”

“I don’t want to be chained any longer.” Clockwork admitted. It had been so long since he’d had any semblance of freedom. Did he even know what it would feel like anymore?

“We know. Though some, like Misery Vex, believe it karmic, that your attachments, which had led so thoroughly to our defeat, came back in the forms of chains for you alone. But know that if one day it comes to pass that I can free you, unlikely as it may be, I shall make the attempt.” Nocturn stood, leaving Clockwork alone in his tower. 

“Clockwork?” It was Daniel’s voice. It was the first time his young ward had come to visit since the binding. It was not a comfort to hear his voice, to see that he was okay. It was not .

He didn’t acknowledge Daniel when he entered, wouldn’t have let him in the door if he still had complete control of his Lair… But he’d bargained that away long ago in a gamble that had failed him entirely. 

Instead he floated to his screens. Ever since the fall of the Observants, he could see properly at least. Pariah had no interest in obscuring his vision, had even less in controlling what it was he could see. Pariah’s only interest had been binding Clockwork to him so that he might not escape, so that he might not regress, so that he might not lose himself to the chaos of infinity and escape his limited existence.

Clockwork scowled, still ignoring Daniel’s presence, his attempts at conversation. Pariah’s interests should not have mattered. Because Pariah should not have won . Because Pariah had lost before and Clockwork had been so certain that he would again. Because- 

Because Clockwork had made a mistake when he sealed him away. Because Clockwork knew he could not bring himself to end him. Because Clockwork had seen an opportunity to see Pariah again and had known it would be a mistake but had wanted so desperately just to see him again. Wanted to see him free of the haze of anger the ring and crown had obscured him in, but a ghost’s natural state was obsessive. And Pariah had never hid his desire to keep Clockwork as he was, Clockwork had simply brushed it off as words of affection. He should have known better really, Pariah was hardly the type to speak lightly, and had never claimed what he did not mean with his entire core. 

The screen he was watching was boring, most things were now that he had no reason to keep track of the threads, no overarching plan to work towards. It was so simple. A young ghost was trick-or-treating with a watermelon instead of a pumpkin and was turning into a large candy-based monster whenever someone turned them away. 

It was the middle of summer where the ghost was, and Clockwork allowed himself to appreciate the tiny bit of chaos that the ghost was bringing to the small mortal town. Nocturn had told him that not all had been lost, Clockwork may be trapped, but Chaos had been released. 

Just enough. 

He sighed. 

“Why are you here Daniel?” he finally asked.

Daniel straightened up, he’d been rambling, no doubt in an attempt to cajole Clockwork into joining conversation or listening subconsciously. He hadn't been.

He was also carrying a plate of cookies that Clockwork had not seen, because Clockwork had not looked. When would he learn his lesson about that? Why was he always looking too late?

“I wanted to check on you,” Daniel said, setting the plate of cookies down now that he was sure Clockwork had seen them. “Pariah said you were… having a hard time.”

Clockwork scowled, too many things tearing at his chest at once. Damn Pariah, damn him . 

“Having a hard time?” he said with a false calm. “The plans that I made eons ago, plans that had been in work before your mortal realm even knew what time was, were ruined by someone I trusted. Someone I did not think would step so easily between me and my goals. Exactly what kind of time should I be having, chained to my own lair without even the authority to deny entrance to whom I wish?”

There had been a small flinch, Clockwork noticed, when he had mentioned betrayal. But if Daniel felt any guilt he didn’t look it. He raised his head, eyes full of determination. The very same expression Clockwork had seen through his screens so many times, in the fights against the other Ancients. The plans they’d made to make him stronger, to keep him stable, so that when the Chaos had been released he and the Realms with him would survive. 

He had certainly survived. 

“Pariah said this was the only way to save you.” Because of course that was what Pariah had told him. Because Daniel was intelligent, but Daniel was also a child and all too willing to trust any competent adult. A flaw that Clockwork himself had been so quick to take advantage of. A flaw that cursed him now. 

“Do you really believe that Pariah Dark has my best interest at heart?” he would have sneered, if it had been anyone else. If it hadn’t been Daniel, who was practically his own child. Instead, he asked softly, his frustration drowned entirely by exhaustion.

Daniel still answered him though. “You were changing Clockwork,” What? “The same way you told me Pariah had once changed.”

He hadn’t, there was no way it had been so obvious. He hadn’t, it wasn’t as if he had lost himself to his obsession, nor had he gained power that grew out of his control, what was he talking about?

“You were distant, as if you were struggling to stay in any given moment. Sometimes you’d forget everything going on around you, and others you seemed to be somewhere or some-when else entirely. I mean,” Daniel took a breath, “you’ve always been a bit cryptic, but you were losing yourself entirely . Halfway through a conversation you would start talking completely randomly, in languages long dead or unrecognizable. Or you’d start talking about things that had never happened or had happened forever ago.”

He was almost shouting now, his eyes shining with more than just energy and Clockwork felt a sting in his core. He had known that Daniel would disapprove, that he would get angry. But it had not occurred to him that his anger would be pointed towards this rather than his blatant manipulation of Daniel and his friends.

“And your actions! They were reckless, Clockwork!! Releasing Dan? What the hell?! ”

It was Clockwork’s turn to flinch. “Your future self’s release had always been part of the plan. It was why I had you leave him with me to start with. I was not losing myself Daniel, I was revealing who I actually am.”

Daniel made a desperately frustrated noise. “Do you think saying something like that is going to convince me we were wrong, Clockwork? I- I trusted you! I care about you! You’re-”

“So you’d cage me and try to force compliance so that the more unsightly aspects of myself can be filed away? So you can teach me to be better, like some kind of petty human criminal, Daniel?” He let his anger take over instead. It was easier, so much easier. It was what he had always done with Pariah. 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “How dramatic,” he said dryly, “Didn’t you do the same thing to Pariah, wasn’t what you did like way worse? You’re throwing a fit just like he said you would.”

“If you trust Pariah Dark so much, why are you even here? Have him make cookies for you. I'm sure he’s fully capable.” Clockwork wasn’t throwing a fit, he was angry. 

Daniel sighed, grabbing one of the cookies he’d brought. They had long gone cold, but it hardly mattered to Clockwork, he wouldn’t be eating them. “Pariah has a lot of faults, and there’s a bunch of things I don’t really like about him. He’s manipulative, methodical. He never lets me half ass anything and he’s really picky. He doesn’t actually care if a person dies or a ghost gets Ended, and we fight about that kind of stuff a lot. But…” he met Clockwork’s eyes, his expression looked hurt, heartbroken. Clockwork didn’t want to see it. Had never wanted to see Daniel like this.

“He’s never outright lied to me. I’ve been checking, ever since… Well. I don’t just trust anyone at their word anymore. So yeah okay, I know he’s manipulating me just like he was manipulating you, but he never lied to either of us about his intentions. He didn’t do what you did.”

Clockwork couldn’t look at him any more. He’d made so many mistakes. If he was truly destined to fail… He should never have revealed his true nature or intentions to the boy. His disappointment burned almost as much as the chain Pariah had placed around Clockwork’s neck.

It didn’t matter though, that Clockwork could not stand to see him, because Daniel flew towards him and grabbed his face gently, hands on either side of his cheeks. 

“I don’t trust you anymore, Clockwork, but I still love you. So does Pariah. We can fix this, okay?” Daniel said and Clockwork’s eyes widened at the threat. 

He had truly lost, hadn’t he?

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Request: Rescued (Demetri Volturi x Reader)

You let out a scream, but the collision never came. You watched in horror as Demetri Volturi of all people had a tight grip on the newborn vampire and with impossible speed, he and Felix ripped the vampire apart. 

The two Volturi guards slowly turned to you. Felix and Demetri looked at each other briefly before Demetri approached. You inhaled sharply, trembling in fear as you anticipated that you were next. He crouched down to your level.  "You're safe." 

He'd never actually spoken to you before. He'd only ever stare at you when in his presence. 

After the battle with the Newborn army, you were more than ready for bed. You had just came back into your room after brushing your teeth, taking off your hoodie before gasping in fright. 

There, sitting on the bottom of your bed, was Demetri Volturi. He was quiet at first, seemingly in thought before breaking the silence. "You feel it too." Demetri said simply. You knew almost immediately that he was talking about the pull. The longing you had to be around him. "You feel it?" You asked quietly. Demetri slowly nodded with a grim expression. "I want to understand this but I can't with everyone surrounding us." "You and the others...killed that girl." You began quietly, listening to your voice of reason. "She lived longer than she should have." Demetri answered. "Am I supposed to believe that I won't meet the same fate?" You asked. Demetri sighed. "I'm not here to the play this game with you. I'm not here as a Volturi guard and I know for a fact that you are not as loyal to the Cullen's as you'd have us believe. You and I have to be seen a certain way, play a role and this bond doesn't care for that. So I suggest we figure it out together and cast those roles aside." Demetri swallowed, his voice lowering again. "So do you want to continue roleplaying or come to bed?" You were alarmed by the question, that was exceptionally forward, especially considering the little time you had known each other. You stammered. "As in-?" "Was that not what you were about to do? Go to bed?" You exhaled. "So you're not asking to..." You trailed off. After a moment, Demetri seemed to catch on, a slight smirk growing on his face. "There will be plenty of time for that in the future, love." The smirk vanished. "I just want to be near you, try to understand this." After a moment, you agreed. 

One thing was clear, Demetri wasn't entirely good at being open with humans. Then again, you didn't imagine he had much time for humans unless flirting.  It was clear, Demetri didn't want to do that with you. He wanted to get to know you and this was the way he decided to do it. 

You moved passed him, climbing into your bed. After a moment of watching you. He followed suit. You felt the bed dip as you moved to give him room. The two of you were silent. You felt his arm graze your back and you immediately turned to face him. Like clockwork, you both moved closer to each other and you curled into him.  You expected it to feel awkward, cuddling into a stranger, a dangerous one at that. However it wasn't. In fact it felt like you had been waiting for that moment. "Did you know?" You asked quietly. "In Italy? Did you know?" "I had my suspicions." He responded quietly. "I have so many questions. I want to know more about you." You admitted. "I know." Demetri replied. "As do I. However, there will be time for that. Next time. The next time we get peace like this, I'll answer your questions." 

As time passed, you were almost inseparable. Whilst your bond only grew stronger, so did the challenges. Such as when Bella fell pregnant. Things weren't supposed to go this way. You were at a loss of what to do. You couldn't tell your father what was happening to his daughter. Reality sank in that one day you'd have to look your father in the eyes and tell him Bella had died knowing full well that she was still around. You hated the situation but it only got worse. 

Whilst that was going on, Irina discovered Renesmee and thought her to be an immortal child. She fled before anyone could explain. Seeing there was a law against immortal children, she ran to the Volturi. You hadn't breathed a word to Demetri about any of it. You never got the chance to. The silence on his end was terrifying. Weeks going by with no contact. Soon enough, you wanted to distract yourself. Usually Alice would be a great help in this but she and Jasper had gone, leaving only a note. 

As you were heading back home, your eyes connected with a familiar blonde's red ones. Demetri gestured for you to come with him before he led you through the trees. "Were you ever going to tell me? What they did?" "Demetri, it wasn't-" "Were you?"  "I-" "Were you ever going to tell me about that child!? I highly doubt you didn't know about it." Demetri pressed. "I did but she was wrong!" You blurted out. "The child isn't immortal!" Demetri immediately sighed in frustration. "Is that what they're telling you? At least it will save you- that works." "They aren't telling me anything, I've seen it!" "You don't understand how serious this is. Children can't keep secrets!" Demetri said louder. You paused, biting your lip swallowing back the lump in your throat. "What works?" You asked quietly. Demetri looked at you, void of emotion whilst your emotions began to build. You continued. "After all this time, you didn't say a word to me. I've been here terrified and you didn't send as much as a letter or a call. I was frightened I would be dead, that you would be in trouble that my sister and her family would be in trouble- this whole time!" The more you told him, the closer you got to him, fighting back tears. Demetri grasped your elbows. "I couldn't because when I was angry and when I wasn't angry, I've been talking to Aro, Caius and Marcus. To make sure that at least you'd be safe in all of this. I convinced them you couldn't have possibly have understood, have known enough to ever piece it together. The only reason it worked was because you're my mate! If you were anyone else...you wouldn't get the chance." Demetri took a breath to calm himself. "If you would have told me, this would have been much more simple." Your lip quivered. "I-I try to keep up, I do but..." You shook your head. "I don't know enough about your kind to ever understand." "I know." Demetri said quietly. "That's what's going to save you, my love. I'm sorry, I am so sorry that you're in this position but I'm going to fix it. I just need you to trust me and I need you to be honest. Never ever out yourself in this situation again." Demetri pulled you closer to him, searching your eyes. "I know I went silent for some time and I'm sorry I left you worrying but it's alright now. I'm fixing it." Demetri cracked a small lighthearted smile. "Didn't you miss me?" Your mouth twisted, his attempt at cheering you up failing. However he continued to prod. "(Y/N), didn't you miss me?" His lips brushed against your own. "Even a little?" "Of course, I missed you." You breathed. You pulled back before he could kiss you and he tilted his head in confusion. Your eyes darted at every angle ad though making sure you were alone. "Are you reluctant to kiss me because you feel it's betraying them?" Demetri asked. You looked alarmed. That's exactly how you felt. "No-I-uh..." You stuttered, mind going blank with no excuses at all. "This is interesting." Demetri hummed, looking less than pleased. "It's really plaguing your mind isn't it? You don't know what to do. Be with me and you're betraying your sister or join your sister and betray me. You have no clue what to do." Your eyes fell to the forest floor, almost ashamed you could he read so easily. "Listen, if we're fine-" "Kiss me." Demetri interrupted. Your eyes darted up to his, wide in surprise. "Kiss me." Demetri repeated, moving closer to you. "We are completely alone. No one is watching and no one can hear us. It's only you and I here.Everything that has happened, everything that will happen- forget it. Just as I said, back when we first spoke. Take away our roles and it doesn't matter to us. So even for just the next five minutes, let's just forget everything. Be my (Y/N). No catch, no consequences, just us here and now. Kiss me, (Y/N)." 

In an instant, you closed the gap, capturing his lips with your own. Demetri cradled your face as he kissed you back with just as much force. You broke the kiss, leaning your forehead against his. "If I do as you ask." You whispered. "If I trust you, completely give in to you and let you deal with this. Promise me, I won't regret it." Demetri kissed you again. "I'm going to fix this it'll be easier if you trust me. It's all I ask." 

When the day arrived that the Volturi would come, it was bittersweet. To see Demetri again always tugged in your heart strings but under these circumstances, you couldn't be sure that was important. Aro and Carlisle were the first to speak and to your surprise. Aro got straight to business, starting with you.  "Firstly, I'd say we should get the first issue dealt with." Aro said, his eyes falling on you. "(Y/N)...why dont you come with us?" Your eyes widened in surprise and after a moment of silence, Demetri stepped forward. "(Y/N)!" He called softly. "Come." He held out a hand. The pleading look he sent you made you aware that this was it. 

This is what he meant. You realised that this was him fixing it. Carlisle's words rang in your mind. The Volturi often spared those they deemed innocent. All of those people ended up being in the guard. Due to their remarkable gifts. You didn't have one but what you did have, was the heart of his prized tracker and one of the higher guards. If he wanted to keep Demetri loyal to the Volturi, He'd have to bring you. Your heart beat faster in your chest realising you'd be the next. Although Demetri's words were the last thing you remembered. Him asking you to trust him and you did, you wanted to. You felt terrible as you moved forward. Bella sent you a pleading look and you didn't dare look at her. If you thought about it, or even cast a glance to her, you'd feel the guilt. Demetri was quick to take your hand and pull you tightly into his side. His arm pressing you against him. You realised he was taking a protective stance, ready for any attack. 

When Renesmee and the Cullen's were proven innocent, only Irina taking the fall, did you realise what would happen. You looked to Demetri. "I can't go back, can I?" You said quietly. Demetri shook his head slightly with a slightly apologetic gaze. "I'm sorry. It was the only way." You felt tears build up and Demetri pulled you into him tighter. "Please stay with me. I can't lose you." You nodded, wrapping your arms around his neck. "I know. I know. It's okay." It wasn't. Your human life was cut short. You could never see your family ever again. Your sister would never want to see you again.  Slowly, you turned your head to look at her. She met your gaze and to your surprise she nodded with a soft gaze. You couldn't believe it. Bella was encouraging you to go. She said nothing but you knew what she would say. She'd reassure you it was okay. You could go. Bella recognised how much you gave for her happiness with Edward and now it was time to repay the favour. Demetri also caught sight of this before lifting you into his arms. He couldn't help but smile as he began to walk away with many other guards, taking off with you in a blur. 

[woodland-gremlin]

The Beginning

Danny was tired. He was only 16 yet he was already world weary. It wasn’t enough for Fate to give him neglectful ghost hunting parents, Death and Life just had to fight over him like a toy before deciding to “share” him by basically cutting him in half. And as if that wasn’t enough he gets thrust into dealing with a whole other dimension. A whole ass realm that lives up to its name as infinite and is the glue of the multiverse. He was now stuck trying to protect two separate realms from hurting each other before he even finished going through puberty. He should be worried about his grades and impressing a cute girl or guy, yet here he was, trying to prevent war as ghost royalty. He wants a refund.

“Clockwork,” Danny groans from his place on the floor, “Why me?”

The Ancient being just huffed, switching from a decrepit old man to a baby.

“You know why Daniel. As the Right of Conquest states you are to be King. The only reason you haven’t already been given the crown is your age. No one expected a child, not even a decade dead, to Pariah Dark, let alone not to fall to someone else’s conquest. As such they see you as the rightful heir. You might not be called King yet, but you are still the Crown Prince and as such you have the right and duty to lead.” Clockwork stated.

“I’m barely passing my classes and they think I should lead? Besides Pariah was a fluke, anyone could have done it if they used the suit. If I really was that powerful as that then we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. The GIW would be disbanded, the Anti-Ecto Acts overturned, and my par-the Fentons would . . . ,” Danny tapered off.

Clockwork’s expression softened.

“That wasn’t your fault Daniel,” the Master of Time said gently.

“I know that, it just doesn’t feel that way,” Danny muttered with his hand on his chest. “I mean I’m just me, not anyone special. Just some dumb kid who couldn’t even die right. Who couldn’t even make their parents see the truth. If I couldn’t make them realize something as obvious as me being their kid or ghosts being sentient how am I supposed to lead and protect an entire realm? For Ancients sake their own work contradicts itself with it saying ghosts are nothing but evil and scheming yet saying that they are non-sentient and can’t feel anything, all while making something that they say would be painful to said ghosts!”

“You can not force the willfully blind to see Daniel. You gave them a chance and they chose to ignore it,” Clockwork explained.

Danny bit his lip, “I know. I know. I just hoped that just this once they would have chosen me over their work. That they would prove that they loved me more than they hated ghosts. Should have known they wouldn’t.”

Bills piled up to the point where they lost electricity and water. Permission slips ignored in favor of inventions that would eventually either explode or target him. Chores in the lab with no safety guidelines by the time he could walk. Compared and discarded in favor of his older sister, being told a ‘true’ Fenton would do better. Camping trips being derailed in favor of ghost sightings. Fearing that the food would re-animate and attack them. Hatred of Christmas, filled with arguments. Forgotten birthdays, throw to the wayside in favor of that stupid portal. The very thing that killed him and brought him back in an endless loop of death before spitting him out. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that they would choose ghosts over him, after all they have been doing that for his whole life. Yet, he still hoped. Like a fool.

“The heart and the mind very rarely align. At one point they choose something different than the other. Another they may choose the same as the other,” Clockwork proclaimed, as cryptic as ever.

Danny huffed, rolling around the floor, uncaring of the dust he kicked up while doing so.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he grumbled.

“You are kind Daniel,” Clockwork declared, “It is part of the reason you will be a good King. You are not like Pariah punishing others for the slightest misdemeanor. You see the best in others even when it gets you in trouble or hurt. The problem is that you don’t value yourself, often putting yourself in danger to protect others, even when it isn’t necessary. Letting yourself get injured as long as no one else but you would get hurt. But what good is a King to their people if they can’t do anything because they are hurt? It is time that you learn to take care of yourself.”

With a smirk and a flick of Clockwork’s staff a portal appeared under the young prince, ready to drag him to a whole new dimension.

“May you learn to love yourself young Prince. Learn why we care for you and want you to be King. Why we proclaim our devotion to you. Learn your worth and how it is infinite as the realms you will one day rule.”

Danny’s eyes widened in horror. “Wait-”

But before he could continue the currents of the portal swept him down and closed, leaving behind only the Ancient of Time and the shadows in his lair.

“Goodluck my grandson.” Clockwork said softly. Shifting between forms before settling as a person in their prime, looking to the mass of shadows by one of the many clocks.

“My Knights will make it so he is cared for,” the shadows spoke.

“I know,” Clockwork smiled sadly, “but it doesn’t make saying goodbye any easier.”

To be continued . . .

Note: This is how I imagine Danny got in that dimension in the first place and it was so much fun to write! If I continue it I will put a link to the next part here but post it separately to avoid the post getting too long. And as always will credit the one the inspired the work!

DC X DP Master post

dc x dp prompt

So I just got into the dc x dp fandom very head strong and I’ve been reading dc x dp fics left and right, some of the fics containing a/b/o dynamics and I just had a thought what if Danny one day took a trip to the DC universe and this universe had the a/b/o dynamics

Danny: I am a traumatized teenager that is alone and is totally normal

Adopting orphans left and right Bruce Wayne: don’t worry pup I’ll take care of you, you’re obviously neglected due to you’re having no parental scent

Danny: STRANGER DANGER, There’s a child sniffing pervert on the loose protect your childern(runs away)

Bruce Wayne: ???

Bruce Wayne: was it something I said.

[thegrantwater]

Darkness Feeds on the Saddest Souls

And you, my dear, are delectable.

inspiration from this post, which managed to pull me out of my swanqueen rut. i'm considering expanding this into a multi-chapter thing, but i wanna hear you guys' thoughts first! also posted on my ao3 :)

word count: 1169

Emma always thought she knew what darkness felt like. The crippling loneliness of an empty car in the middle of winter, melting into the backseat in an attempt to stay warm. Watching friends leave like clockwork, or being locked away for a crime she didn’t commit, or her son being stripped from her life when she was no more than a child herself. She thought the sick satisfaction she felt locking bail jumpers away and knocking them around in the process was darkness.

She was wrong.

True darkness is scarily comforting. Before Regina was surrounded, before they’d all realized what was so intensely wrong about the night sky they were under, an unsettling cool filled her body - it numbed her legs and dazed her brain, which is why it took the tendrils of destruction brushing her cheek before she noticed Regina had been pulled away.

“What’s it doing?” Robin was panicking, standing in shock.

“What darkness does...snuffing out the light.” Regina was light, and Emma was a moth to her flame.

It was almost painful for her to watch Robin’s attempt at a rescue, because this feeling in her stomach told her nothing would be able to save Regina. The fear in her eyes was crippling, like she knew that whatever happened next wouldn’t be good. Screams ripped through Regina’s throat, shaking the air more than the darkness around her. And as Emma watched, she slowly remembered the dagger in her hand, the cool leather of the handle weighing heavy in her palm. So, ever the savior, she did the only thing she could think of.

She ran. The force of the darkness was compelling, pushing her away from her mission. Still she pressed, holding the dagger above her head. A voice split through the din, a cry from Regina.

“There has to be another way!” Regina was shaking, trying her hardest to pull herself away from the darkness around her. Tears streamed down her face, all hope gone from her eyes.

“There isn’t!” Emma shouted, her grip a vice on the dagger. “You’ve worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed!” Her parents were screaming behind her, begging her not to do this. She turned back to them, because they’ve gotten the darkness out of her before and they can do it again, and the only thing she can do right now is fight to save Regina. She turned back to the brunette, tears flowing freely and a tremble in her hand, but she was ready. Henry would be okay without her, he was for how many years before he tracked her down, and Regina would be okay. She reached forward for the last time, resigned to her fate as the tendrils of black moved towards her. Regina’s eyes were wide, fear and confusion clear in them as her mouth opened in a silent scream.

“I can’t let you do this, Swan.”

The dagger fell as Emma was pulled away from the cloud, leather clad arms wrapped around her stomach. She scrambled against Killian’s grip, kicking and screaming for him to let her go as Regina was once again covered by the darkness. There was another set of hands on them, fighting to let Emma go, and she realized it was Robin when the two men started shouting at each other. But Killian was determined, much like Emma, but for paradoxical reasons. He wanted to save Emma; but if she were honest with herself, she’d forgotten he was there.

Nails scratched at his hands as she struggled, digging deep and burning with each swipe. Her magic was running wild, snapping left and right in a futile attempt to break free. And all the while Regina was slowly consumed, her form disappearing behind a cloud of dark. The cloud condensed, a mass of pure night, and as it went back into the sky Emma finally managed to escape Killian’s hold. She bolted forward, tripping on her feet as she stumbled to the empty spot where Regina Mills once stood. In her place was only the dagger, spinning in the frenzy and clattering to the ground. Emma fell to the concrete, and she felt her jeans tear at the knees as she reached forward, grabbing the dagger. The previously smooth metal was now tainted, engraved with the name of the one person who only deserved to have her name written on paperwork, or uttered softly between gentle stolen kisses in the back of the diner.

The scream that broke from Emma’s throat was shattering, leaving everyone to listen as her world began to collapse in on itself. She clutched the dagger to her chest, whispering her prayers to bring Regina back. But God stopped answering her hopeless calls many years ago.

“Regina! Where is she, where’s she gone?” Robin was desolate, standing speechless behind her. Emma fell forward, the dagger still in her arms as she wept. Over and over she muttered to herself, “Dark One, I summon thee.” She knew no one would come, no one would be there to tell her she was an idiot or assuage her guilt.

“She’s gone, mate.” The pirate’s voice rang in her ears, and Emma turned, facing the people behind her. A cold had settled into her eyes as she stood, glaring at the man before her.

“You did this,” She breathed. “Why wouldn’t you let me save her?” She moved at lightning speed, and David was on her the moment she put the dagger to Hook’s throat, struggling to move her away. “She would still be here if it wasn’t for you! I was supposed to protect her! Why wouldn’t you let me save her?” She screamed, her venom biting at his skin. The dagger tilted forward, and Killian let out a noise of shock as it dug into his neck. His hand moved to her wrist, his grip so tight she felt his fingerprints on her bones.

“I was only trying to protect you Emma!” He defended, shouting back at the blonde. He squeezed again, and the dagger fell just as David pulled her away. Her back hit his chest and the pair fell to the ground as Emma once again sobbed.

“What happened? Where’s my mom?” Emma heard Henry run up to the group as Killian wiped the blood from his neck. David still had a grip on Emma, but one of his hands had moved to her hair, running it over her head as he mumbled words of remorse into her ear. The conversation around her was dull, like she was hearing it from the bottom of a pool - all she heard clearly were Regina’s fractured cries as she fought against the darkness. She was just there, and now she was gone.

As her vision blurred in and out of focus, the only thing she could see was the dagger, sparkling under the streetlights. Regina’s name taunted her, and reminded her of the fact she so desperately wished to deny.

Emma had lost. And Regina was gone.

[nowis-scales]

Blood-Splattered Child Aesthetics + Quotes Guessing Game

Here it is, the BSC Ship Guessing Game, here to heal you after yet another chapter of angst. For those of you who don’t read BSC, basically the gist of this is that I don’t currently have my pairings labelled for the fic on AO3, but I’d like to change that next chapter. However, before I do that, I thought it would be fun to play a guessing game based on quotes + aesthetics to see if everyone can figure out what I’m working towards. 

Whether you’re reading the fic or not, feel free to drop a guess via reply, inbox message, or AO3 comment. Remember: only characters in Fire Emblem Fates count! Participation is not mandatory. I’m not expecting too many answers, I just thought it would be fun, so please don’t sweat it!

Please enjoy, and check at the end to see if I give you any hints. Oh, and if you’re interested in the fic, you can pick it up here.

Pairing #1:

Quotes:

“The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways.”

“I didn’t know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.”

“When I’d first loved him, I wanted to take him apart, as a child dismembers a clockwork toy, to comprehend the inscrutable mechanics of its interior. I wanted to see him far more naked than he was with his clothes off.”

Pairing #2:

Quotes:

“And you love him. Tell me, if he handed you a bloodied hand, would you take it, only because it was his?”

“You touch me and I feel a little less war torn. I’m not sure what peace is supposed to feel like, but I think it may feel a lot like you.”

“I can’t go another day choking back “I love you”. I feel it in my shoulders when I breathe.”

Pairing #3:

Quotes:

“You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only the sun has come this close, only the sun.”

“I burned so quiet and so long you must have wondered if I loved you back. I did, I did, I do.”

“I told the stars about you.”

Pairing #4:

Quotes:

“You’re a bad idea… but I like bad ideas.”

“In this space right here that we have made for each other, you can say anything and I will not abandon you. Unwrap the worst things you have done. Watch me hold them up to the light and not even flinch.”

“I’m quite choked with tenderness for you, my love, it makes me a bit pathetic to love you this much.”

Pairing #5:

Quotes:

“I never thought of her as a thing to be considered by daylight. The many times I had seen her, none had been in the day. I expected her like I expected the moon.”

“Loving me must be so fucking hard and I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I won’t be in the history books; that’s for you. But I loved you first. As long as they get that right, I don’t care what they say.”

Pairing #6:

Quotes:

“Can I kiss you before I kill you?”

“In the dream I don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who seems to have the faintest conception of what I mean when I say a thing.”

HINTS:

‣ Each of these pairings have photos in their aesthetics that pertain to their arcs and or future special moments.

‣ Pairing #1 I think will be by far the one that stumps the most people. I even think that you might not be able to get it at all.

‣ Pairing #2 is a rarepair that is not often used in game due to limited gameplay value.

‣ Pairing #3 has a character who could be said to have experienced compulsory heterosexuality.

‣ Pairing #4 are two characters who are not often considered alike, but have a particular thread that connects them.

‣ Pairing #5 grows from one-sided flirting to a budding friendship before a full conversion to romance.

‣ Pairing #6 features more of a quiet love, one that both sides are embarrassed or shy about.

Best of luck to all of you with your guessing!

[captainsolare]

Hiiii Cap 🥰 Can I get Yami fluff? 💕 Roll 4 times for AU, 1 time for dialogue prompt and 3 times for trope 💕 Thank you!!

A/N: Hi Nati!! I hope you enjoy it! Prince Yami is a very dreamy idea.

Yami Fluff + Royalty AU! + Locked in a (chamber) + "I wish I could hate you."

Yami stretched, nearly falling out of the tree he was perched in. He steadied himself, taking a long breath of air before leaning back against the tree; they’d be looking for him soon, they always did. Like clockwork, he heard footsteps rushing into the courtyard, “Prince Yami! I know you’re here in one of these trees, you have royal duties to attend to.”

Rolling his eyes, he hopped out of the tree, landing with a thud on the ground below. It was Finral, his primary keeper that had come for him this time.

“There you are! Prince you can’t keep going off like this, it worries the King.” Finral chastised, ushering him down the long hallway to Yami’s office.

Yami sighed, “I know, I know. But paperwork is boring.” He sat down at his desk, eyeing the files that sat untouched upon it.

Finral crossed his arms, fixing Yami with his sternest glare, but it failed like always and his gaze softened. “I know it’s no fun, but you must attend to your princely duties.”

The door shut with a click and Finral returned to his post outside it.

Yami sighed, putting his feet on the desk and flipping open the first file. “If he’s so worried about me, why doesn’t he ever come to see me?”

-

Once night fell you scaled the castle wall easily, keeping to the shadows. You’d spent weeks memorizing the guards’ schedule, figuring out the weaknesses in this impenetrable castle, and now was the perfect time to act. You had managed to get a map of the inside of the castle before you came here, and by now had committed it to memory.

If your intel was to be believed, the item you were looking for was kept in Prince Yami’s desk, the second drawer from the top, right-hand side. You crept along the walls, thankful for your camouflage cloak when a pair of guards went past your position. The trip to the second floor was quick work, but now came the hard part, you’d need to make it into the Prince’s room without getting caught. You found an empty room a few doors down and snuck inside, preparing to stand on the window ledge and scale across that way.

The window opened with surprising ease and you stepped outside after making sure the coast was clear. You could only pray that there was no one awake in the rooms between your current position and the room you were trying to get to. Thankfully, it seemed as if all the lights were off in the rooms between, so you should be able to slip past without detection. You made it to the Prince’s room and crouched down, praying the window wouldn’t open too loudly.

To your relief, the window opened with ease, and you smiled. It was obvious from the wear that the Prince often used this window to sneak out. You entered the room cautiously, boots thudding softly on the carpeted floor. The desk was across the room, but based on the snores you heard from the Prince’s bed, getting there shouldn’t be a problem.

You opened the drawer and just as your intel had said, there lay the ruby bracelet, ripe for the taking. Soon, you’d be off somewhere remote with plenty of pocket change. Your only way out of here was back the way you came, so you started heading off in that direction, but there was a whoosh of steel and a sword was placed dangerously close to your neck.

“Who are you?” Prince Yami asked, voice rumbly from sleep. “Just a thief.” You replied quietly, there was no talking your way out of this one. You raised your hands in submission, dropping the bracelet. Yami released the sword from your neck and picked up the bracelet, putting it in his pocket. Before he could ask for your name you were taking off across the room, trying to get to the window before he could stop you.

“Wait!” He whispered harshly, “Don’t step… there.”

There was a loud clicking sound, you’d stepped on a trap door. The floor opened up, sending you both tumbling into the pit below. The pit was surprisingly soft at the bottom, as you patted your hand around you realized it was hay.

“Are you okay?” You heard the Prince ask. As your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you could make him out in the ambient light.

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s good to hear.” He leaned against the wall of the pit, hair disheveled from sleep and from your fall into this place.

An uncomfortable silence settled over you, only the sound of your breaths breaking it.

“Any idea when we can get out of here?” You asked, watching him with hopeful eyes.

Yami sighed, “Not until morning. My knight will come looking for me then and he’ll be able to let us out.”

You smiled sadly, “I see, and I guess after that happens I’ll be executed.”

“Probably.”

The silence fell over you again, this time a more somber one.

“What’s your name?” Yami asked, turning to face you.

You took a breath, wondering if this was a good idea, then decided to just tell him, if you were to die anyway, it would be nice to make a friend first.

“It’s Y/N.”

“I see, that’s a pretty cool name.”

You laughed, “You think so? It seems pretty normal to me.”

Yami smiled, “Maybe so. You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t have many friends.”

“Really? I’d expect a handsome prince such as yourself to be surrounded by them.”

Yami laughed, a deep rumbly chuckle that you could feel in your own chest, “I suppose it may appear that way, but really it’s just people that want to suck up to me because of my title.”

You nodded, fixing your gaze upwards, “I know how that goes.”

Yami squinted, surprised at your admission, “Really? You don’t seem the type.”

You laughed and Yami cocked his head, studying your face best he could in this light, “Even royals can become disgraced Prince Yami. I used to be in a similar position to yourself, but I ran away, needed to get out of that place.”

You scooted closer to each other as you continued with your story, Yami settled his elbows on his knees.

“I used to have dreams about leaving, buying my own house by the seaside, living independently. No maids or servants, just me.” Your voice sounded almost wistful as you spoke, and Yami thought of his own dreams.

“I want to leave this place too.”

“Is that so? Where would you go?” You cocked an eyebrow, studying him. Prince Yami was attractive in a rugged sort of way, his jaw was chiseled and covered with stubble, and even in this dim light, you could tell how muscular he was.

Yami straightened, his eyes full of a hopeful sparkle, “I want to go live in the forest and open my own Knight Training academy. I’d take in the misfits from the Kingdom, those who have no place else to go. Maybe we’d be a family of sorts, it would certainly be better than what I have here.”

You smiled, a wistful sadness overtaking you, “That sounds lovely Prince Yami.”

“Oh please, call me Yami, there’s no need for formality here. And really? You don’t think it’s dumb?”

“No, not at all. In fact, I think it’s a noble dream.”

The two of you talked for a while longer, until your eyes were bleary with sleep. You huddled together for warmth as the pit became colder.

“I’m sorry I got us into this mess Yami.” You said softly, you had scooted next to him now, your head resting lightly on his chest.

Yami chuckled softly, “I wish I could hate you for it but the truth is, this is the first time I’ve been able to be this open with anyone in quite a while.”

“I see, well that’s comforting to hear.”

Yami got the spark of an idea, “Y/N.”

“Yes?”

He sat up excitedly, and you pulled away so you could look at him better.

“What if I did open that training school, and what if you were my first recruit? If you didn’t end up being executed of course. We could find a spot in the woods near the seaside, there is such a place, I’ve seen it. And we could open that school together! You’ve already proven that you can be sneaky, you could train our knights in stealth techniques.”

Yami’s words were kind, you could find hope being stoked in your heart, but you knew it couldn’t happen. You surely would be executed for trespassing and attempted theft.

“But… how would that happen? I will surely be killed in the morning.”

“Not if I lie.”

“Lie? What could you possibly come up with that could get me out of my inevitable fate?”

“You’ll see, I am excellent at talking my way out of things.”

You wished you could believe him.

-

The trapdoor was opened sometime later, letting the harsh light of the morning into your prison.

“Prince Yami, how many times have I told you to be careful? I have pointed the spot of the trapdoor to you many many times now.” A voice from above said.

“I know Finral, I’m sorry.”

You and Yami climbed from the pit and Finral drew his knife. You tried not to panic, but the possibility of you being thrown in jail, and worse, were almost certain now.

“Who is this Prince Yami? Are they a criminal? Did they trespass into your room?”

Yami put a hand up, gesturing for Finral to put the knife down.

“No, they aren’t, and no they didn’t. This is Y/N, and the past few months we have been discussing plans for my training academy, in secret of course.”

Finral blinked, looking from you to Yami and back again. “Is this where you have been running off to then?”

Yami nodded sheepishly, “Yes, I didn’t want to tell you because you’d already warned me against such actions.”

“Prince Yami, you already know I support you fully. In fact, I have already found a property in the woods like you wanted. I’ve even cleared your plan for the school with the King.”

Yami sucked in a breath, “Is the ocean close by too?”

When Finral nodded, you and Yami clasped each other's hands excitedly, then you wrapped Finral into a tight hug.

“This is great! When can we set off?” Yami asked, chuckling as Finral took deep breaths after being let go.

“Right now if we hurry.”

“Great! I will pack my bags.”

Finral nodded and set off to pack his own.

“Well?” Yami turned to you, eyes full of hope, “Do you still want to come? If you want to leave there will be no hard feelings.”

To his delight, you smiled, taking his hand in your own. “Of course I do.”

Over the course of one night, your life had completely changed, and you were filled with hope once more. Maybe, just maybe, you could make a difference here, unlike in your own kingdom. As you watched Yami buzzing about, packing his things, you couldn’t help but smile, maybe you could find love here as well.

[itshype]

Loki and Danny friendship is an EXCELLENT opportunity for a River Song-esque "meeting out of order" timeline.

The first time Danny meets Loki, the god is searching him out specifically by name to help with an alien-ghost that normal weapons won't be able to touch. Loki knows his preferred hero name and in-depth information about Phantom's history. Danny assumes the avengers just have a database of all heroes in the USA if not the world. But when he arrives with Loki at the site the alien will arrive at, Loki has to introduce him to everyone. They haven't even heard of Amity Park.

The first time Loki meets Danny he's following an over-active ley line across Asgard to try and figure out what its source is. A portal opens and Danny falls through it backwards. Loki is prepared for hostilities but the glowing teenager seems overjoyed to see him. The ghost is the first of its kind that Loki has met (hey everyone on Asgard is nearly immortal so death of any kind has to be a bit of an alien concept) but he makes a note to ask his mother later if all ghosts will instantly know his name, personality and hobbies on sight.

Danny figures out the time delay pretty quick, even though Loki looks the same, it's thousands of years before Tony Stark will even be born and Loki has no idea who Danny is. But Danny assumes he's supposed to not say anything, not to mess with the timeline. Unfortunately, he's not a superspy but an overtired space-obsessed teenager on his first alien planet and every third sentence out of his mouth starts with "I can't believe you never told me...." and Loki isn't an idiot.

Clockwork sighs. He supposes that timeline wasn't his best work anyways.

But the timeline's fate is sealed when Loki offers to take Danny to see Thor and Danny makes a face like Loki offered to feed him cat shit cannoli and passes.

Loki has a best friend. He's decided.

It was supposed to be a normal camp out. Loki’s brothers and his brother’s friends, who he claimed to also be Loki’s friends, were going to share ridiculous stories, Loki would correct Thor’s exaggerations, and Loki would read a bit before falling asleep before the rest. Instead, a familiar green portal opened up above their campsite and Danny fell through. Loki almost laughed at the others’ horrified expressions, but he was quickly distracted by the halfa.

“Hey, Loki.”

“Hey, Danny.”

Honestly, if he didn’t like a sudden turn of events every now and then so much, he’d be midway through giving his friend a scolding by now.