#Danny fall first but Tim fall harder

[izarnox]

Hey, you remember the Evil Clone Tim prompt? Yeah was thinking about it then:

In Amity univers (APu) there's already a Tim, who didn't come from Amity nor moves in the city but unstead is just passing by because he have some matters to do in the nxt city or something

This Tim is a straight up sociopath ( or whatever tf it is) who never feels anything, the perfect heir and son whove done nothing wrong in his life and thinks of everything and every single person he've as dull and annoying (life itself as bothersome)

He somehow get himself dumped into ectoplasm. The thing is he's not an Amity Parker, like everyone in APu he's sensitive to it but unlike Amity Parker's he doesn't have a natural resistance.

Interdimentional beings are made of ectoplasm. Tim had quite the reaction to it.

There's is no Justice League here. But there is also only one single power source on this earth, Amity.

Oh no, he's a bit power hungry now. Thanks to the other Tims, he now know what to do what not to.

There's just one thing standing between him and taking down the world. Amity's protector, Phantom.

I like to think of them as an enemy-to friend-to lovers. + the rehab for Tim, slice of life too I guess since they're living together (Danny have to keep a close eye on him(but you know human )).

[wisteriavines]

Tim probably has no idea what Danny looks like because why would he look into someone who already had to go through a background check to even be hired in the first place

And I need him to be unprepared for how attractive he finds Danny

He just thought he’d be getting an equally snarky new friend! Not a crush!

DPxDC Idea

Danny working at Wayne Enterprises as some sort of engineer, uses the in-house app for all his blueprints and stuff

He starts getting notes from a coworker in-app, and assumes its this annoying older guy in his department who constantly undermines him because of his age, despite his education and past achievements (i feel like in this AU the Fentons react well to the reveal and they work together on a number of non-lethal ecto inventions that have Danny's name attached to them)

Except one day his coworker mentions never using the app, and Danny suddenly realizes there's only one other TD he could've been arguing with in the notes of the app

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Danny, at 17, did not have the best love life. This is partially because two of his must haves in a partner are " Will protect me with their life" and "Will commit unspeakable acts of violence for me" or at least beat someone up for his honor.

Naturally, this doesn't always result in the most stable of partners.

His first girlfriend, Valerie, became an anti-hero and broke up with him for his safety.

He finally got with Sam in sophomore year only for the feds to come into class one day to arrest her. To his surprise, her crimes had nothing to do with ghosts but rather an incident where she went too far and committed a few acts of economic terrorism. Danny and Tucker never really learned the specifics of the crimes, and her parents hushed up as many news outlets as they could, so there wasn't much info to go around. All they knew was that she saved thousands of lives by doing it.

In the end, she was sentenced to eight years, and she broke up with him so that he wouldn't wait around for her to get out.

His third partner was a guy named David who was really sweet. Unfortunately, Danny got kidnapped one day by David's arch nemesis, who was some villain with a corny edge lord name. Yeah. David had become a a super hero after they started dating.

And if you guessed that he freaked out and dumped Danny for his own protection, you'd deserve a cookie.

Danny was noticing a pattern here. One that continued with everyone he dated. They always became some kind of hero before dumping him for his own protection, and it was infuriating. Sure, danny could defend himself, but he was never deep enough into the relationship to reveal his phantom half, and frankly, his hero career was something he left behind when he left Amity and destroyed the portals.

He met Tim at a skatepark after Tim fell off his board cause of some jerk speeding out in front of him on his own board, forcing Tim to stop or else hit the guy. The guy was unrepentant and Tim calmed him down (this did not stop him from melting the guys wheels with an ectoblast when no one was looking).

Tim then asked him to coffee. Danny, noticing how cute Tim was, agreed.

Danny was up front with his parents being mad scientists in Illinois. He always was with all the people he dated. It was better not to hide these kinds of things or worse, wait until you're already attached and afraid of losing them. So he always told potential partners as early as possible. Tim seemed a bit put off by this but was calmer about it than most, and they continued chatting.

Tim didn't seem like the type to turn to heroism or anti heroism so he felt safe on their later dates. It was only after he had known Tim for a while that he put the pieces together.

Tim was always covered in bruises that he hid with his clothes and make up, he had complained about batman over the phone when he thought danny couldn't hear, he was rich, he knew how to fight as revealed by his stances and footwork dispite trying to pretend he didn't, and lastly he held a lot of political power and influence being Bruce Wayne's son. Power he had no reservations using when it suited him or he was just feeling petty (that pettiness was part of why danny was falling for him harder than he thought he could)

No wonder Tim was so okay with his parents being rouges.

Tim was a villain!

At least Tim wouldn't leave him like all his exes. Danny doesn't think he could handle it if he did. Another good thing about this is now he can talk more freely about the more villainous and morally gray ideas and inventions when he was alone with Tim.

Tim didn't see anything wrong with Danny's idea to use something similar to cloning pods to make synthetic meats like rump roasts and steaks as a way to end world hunger and was eager to add to the conversation.

[disillusioneddanny]

The Savior, The Reaper, and The Champion

Today was a bad brain day. That was the first thing Danny had realized as he laid beside Tim and let the other man rest his head on Danny’s bicep. On the other side of the human, Conner laid down, wrapping his strong arm around the man’s waist and burying his face in between Tim’s shoulder blades. 

No one ever tells you that being a supervillain is so fucking hard. That there would be days where you struggled to even get out of bed. When they had each chosen this life, they knew it would be hard. That there would be days where they questioned if what they were doing really was for the greater good of the world–even if the Justice League didn’t see it that way. 

That was the biggest thing, Danny had mused. They weren’t really villains, not to anyone except for the Justice League and the eyes of the government. Most of the citizens in this world loved the duo.

“It’s okay, we’re here,” Danny whispered as Tim let out a sob. He ran his fingers through his hair as he and Conner held their little super genius close. Today was one of the harder days. It was the anniversary of the day Bruce Wayne had officially disowned Tim Drake. It was a bittersweet day considering how it had ended between them. On one hand, Tim had felt liberated, no longer under the thumb of Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective and Control Freak. But on the other hand, he had lost the only real father figure he had ever had. 

The day Tim had gone on his own, he had lost practically everyone. Danny wanted to hate Bruce for it, but it had also been the reason he had met Tim in the first place. It had been just five years ago now, the day that Tim had first summoned Danny. 

He pressed a kiss to Tim’s head as another sob wracked through his lithe frame and Conner’s arms tighten just a bit around Tim as the man buried his face in Danny’s chest. 

“We’re here, we love you,” Conner whispered in Tim’s ear, voice hushed, calming. 

They had met just a few days after Tim had gotten into a screaming match with Bruce–a fight that Conner and Danny still didn’t have all the details for. He had gone off on his own, determined to destroy the League of Assassins once and for all and to have Ra’s Al Ghul die by his hand. He had summoned the Ghost King to find out about the secrets of the Lazarus Waters. Upon learning about them and Ra’s, though, Danny had decided to help get rid of them for good. No one was meant to live forever, not the way Ra’s was doing it at least. It was easy to say that once Danny learned of how the assassin cult was using the corrupted ectoplasm, he was more than ready to help take them down.

Between the two of them, they had completely destroyed the League and Ra’s. Upon learning about it, Tim’s family had been horrified. Apparently they had been holding out hope that he wouldn’t go through with his plans, that he wouldn’t fall so far and fast from the pedestal he had once stood on as Red Robin. They had cut him off, decided that Tim had crossed a line and they were unwilling to forgive him for it. Surprisingly, the only one who had stayed in touch was Jason. 

“Family pariahs have to stick together,” he had said. It also hadn’t helped that Danny had managed to heal the pit rage inside of him and supplement it with a healthy ghost core. 

The others, though, had declared Tim a rogue for his actions. Dick had even gone as far as saying that Tim had hit supervillain status and was on the same level as Lex Luthor. Danny didn’t see it that way. In his opinion, all they had done was get rid of an organization that would never truly stop killing, no matter how many times Batman and co. fought them. 

“I just want to forget about it,” Tim whispered, his fingers bunched in Danny’s shirt. 

After they had destroyed the league, the couple had fallen in love, they had finally found someone who was at the same level. They were the perfect puzzle pieces for one another. And once Danny had felt close enough to Tim, he had told him his trauma, shared with him the pain he had never told another living soul. 

And Tim? Well he went out that very night and placed a few explosives in just the right spots. And they had done their jobs. The GIW and the Fentons would never harm Danny again. He had the vivisection scars to remind him of the pain that they had caused but he would never see them again. It was then that the young ghost king had decided that he would follow Tim to the ends of the earth, do whatever Tim wanted from him. 

He may have been the Ghost King but Tim was his monarch and he was prepared to worship him any time and any place, prepared to do whatever bidding he desired. And it was then that Savior and Reaper had made their names known far and wide. 

Tim had declared himself the savior, promising to destroy those that the Justice League were too cowardly to fight, and he had declared Danny his loyal right hand man, his knight to command, his reaper. 

The people saw them as heroes, finally doing what others wouldn’t. Everyone else saw them as supervllains. TIm liked to call themselves the necessary evils. Conner liked to say that they were just doing what the heroes were too cowardly to do. They were willing to darken their own souls if it meant saving others. 

They had run into Conner shortly after Reaper and Savior had killed the Joker and sent his soul to the Nightmare Realm where he would suffer for all of eternity. He had known Tim from his heroes days and knew that if anyone would help him, it would be Tim. Soon Savior, Reaper and their newest member,Champion, had made their move and Lex Luthor had become their newest target. For a man who had done so much damage, it had been laughable at how easy it was to kill him once and for all. Danny had made sure to give him a special place in the Nightmare Realms for the pain he had caused Conner.

The team had made a name for themselves, they hadn’t come up with a name but Danny had heard the whispers of stories and myths, of how others would reverently call them the world’s new furies. They had become gods of vengence. Tim had been likened to Alecto for being unceasing, Danny had been compared to Tisiphone for being avenging, and Conner had been dubbed Megaera for being grudging.

So they had taken it for themselves, the Furies of the New World they were called, or just Furies for short. 

“I know you do, baby,” Danny murmured. “But it’s a part of you, it’s who you are.”

“I miss them,” Tim said with a whimper, curling in on himself. Oh their fearless leader, Tim who had called himself Savior and swore to protect the world from injustice, who despite himself being powerless himself, kept two of the most powerful beings on tight leashes behind him, ready to unleash them into the world on his command. And yet he still was just so small, he trusted Danny and Conner so much that he allowed them to see through the facade, to force their way through the cracks and see the broken man he had become. 

Some say that you have to sell your soul to become a fighter for the people. Danny was pleased to say it wasn’t true, he saw Tim’s soul, saw his love to his bones and knew him better than anyone in the world.  

“I miss talking to Alfred, sparring with Bruce, late night Bat Burger with Dick–I miss my life. I just, was this all a mistake? Is Bruce right? Did we go too far in our mission? Did I lose my family for nothing?” Tim whispered, wracking his fingers through Danny’s hair, petting him slowly. The ghost nearly purred at his lover’s touch. 

“We can stop if you want,” Danny offered quietly. “I can get Clockwork to reset time, let us start all over, let you decide-”

“No,” Tim said sternly. “I don’t want to forget what we’ve done. We’ve helped too many people for that. I’m just being a baby,” he said softly, folding in on himself slightly. 

“We can have Danny take us to a completely different dimension,” Conner offered, his thumb rubbed along Tim’s hipbone. “We can make new lives, leave all of this behind. We’ll make you happy, Tim, happier than you can even imagine.”

“We’re still needed,” Tim said, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “We still have so much to make right, to fix. I just miss the life I had, it doesn’t mean I hate the new one. I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be,” Danny told him seriously, moving to rest his head on his hand and looked down at Tim. “We all have our days. Timmy, my parents cut me apart limb from limb and there are still days I miss them, where I miss the life I had before all of this. It’s how the world goes.”

“The two of you make life so much easier,” Tim whispered, looking between his two lovers, tears collected in the corners of his eyes. Conner swiped a thumb across both, wiping them away. “I’m glad I have both of you here with me, I feel less insane, less out of control.”

“You’re not insane or out of control,” Danny murmured before he pressed forward and kissed Tim’s pouty lips softly. 

“Yeah,” Conner murmured, pushing Tim’s shirt up slowly so that he could tweak a nipple softly. “You’re our fearless leader.”

“And we’re your strong henchmen,” Danny finished, and nipped at Tim’s nose, making his precious lover giggle.

“You aren’t henchmen, we’re partners,” Tim argued, glaring at both of them. Danny and Conner just grinned at one another before they looked at Tim. 

“Nope,” Conner said. “You’re the brains and we’re the brawn.”

“We’ll follow you anywhere,” Danny said reverently. “Why do you think I call you my Northstar?”

[suppose-i-was-worm]

Sheets on the Tables and Chairs

**I didn't want to make this a series but then I had ideas, so. Here goes! First person to guess where the titles are coming from gets a free prompt fill.**

The zeta-beam activated, and Alfred watched as Signal came through, taking off his helmet as he entered the cave.

“Hey, Alf- B is bringing guests with him.”

“Thank you, master Duke. Adults or adolescents?”

“Adults, a man and a woman. They’re probably staying.”

“I will have rooms made up.”

Duke shuffled his feet a little.

“Probably staying longer than a night.”

Alfred nodded, putting down his finished work to begin making his way up the cave stairs.

“Thank you for the information, master Duke.”

Nodding, Duke headed to the showers, and Alfred continued to the stairs.

The zeta-beam activated again, and then twice more. Assuming it was the rest of the clan, Alfred paused at the base of the stairs.

“Welcome home.”

Bruce’s voice cut through the chirping of the bats high above. A good butler would never sigh out loud, but Alfred definitely did in his heart. He loved his master, the closest thing he would ever have to a son, but he would bet his entire career that the newcomers had black hair and blue eyes.

He missed Daniel too, but that didn’t mean he went around collecting similar looking children.

“It becomes harder to legally adopt people the older they are, Master Bruce.”

Alfred turned to greet their guests, only to stop still and stare. As a rule, Alfred did not stare. It was impolite. But how- how could he not, in this situation?

“Why would I need to adopt my own brother, Alfred?”

Standing there, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bruce, was Daniel Wayne. The man had Thomas’ chin- both of the Wayne boys did, it was a dominant trait, but other than that, he was Martha all over.

A slight form- not weak, but with lithe grace, dark brown hair that was almost black, and blue eyes that burned on either side of an aquiline nose.

Next to him stood a young woman, with the same quirk of her lips that Thomas had- the same shaped hands.

“My god.”

The cave went completely silent, other than the bats going about their days. All of the children had stopped still at Alfred’s words, and even Bruce looked a little stunned.

“You must be Alfred.”

Daniel- for it must be Daniel, who else? Stepped forward, holding out a callused hand.

“Sorry it took me so long to come back to you.”

Alfred allowed himself a moment of weakness and reached up to cup Daniel’s face instead of shaking his hand.

“My dear boy- dear boy.”

Daniel smiled and covered Alfred’s hands with his own, and Alfred felt something settle in him that had been broken since he’d helplessly watched a toddler fall through a strange portal. Daniel’s hands were warm, and Alfred could faintly feel his pulse through his own gloves.

“Welcome home, Daniel.”

“Thank you, Alfred. I’d like you to meet my sister- Well, both of them, eventually, but Danielle for now.”

Alfred stepped back, and they both turned to the young woman, who was smiling a little sadly. She waved, and Alfred held his hands out to her.

“Dear girl, thank you for taking care of him- and yourself as well.”

She took his hands, and hers were as warm as Daniel’s.

“Does it bother you that I’m his clone?”

“Dani!”

Daniel sounded scandalized, but Alfred just shook his head.

“Not at all, my dear. That just means I have more family to love.”

Her smile became infinitely less sad.

~~~

“I think we should buy flowers for Danny’s grave.”

The entire room of batsiblings looked up at Dick from their various evening pursuits. The three (three!) Wayne siblings and Alfred had gone to pay their respects to Martha and Thomas (and Danny, somehow?).

“Why do you think it matters?”

“It’s a nice thing to do?”

Tim and Damian both scoffed at the same time, in exactly the same way, and then they glared at each other.

Cass raised her hand.

“Yes, Cass?”

Everyone looked over to Cass, who signed ‘good idea’ before turning her attention back to her book.

“I agree.”

Dick startled and whipped his head around to look at Jason, standing in the doorway.

“Jason?”

“I- I think it would be a kind gesture, is all.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at Jason, and then cocked his head to the side.

“Does this have something to do with him teaching you about being dead?”

Jason flushed bright red.

“I- I don’t know. Shut up.”

Tim stood up and put his computer to the side, holding out his hand for Steph, who was lounging on the floor.

“Well, if Cass says it’s a good idea, I’ll run with it. Do we want to get the flowers now, or?”

“Might be a little weird if we’re all gone when they get back inside.”

Duke was sprawled out on the other couch, comment almost muffled by the cushions.

“That’s true,” Dick scratched his head, wondering about the best way to get flowers quickly.

Tim brushed past him and headed out towards the main foyer.

“Don’t worry, Dick, I texted DoorDart.”

Dick followed his little brother, knowing by experience that the rest of the siblings would come behind.

“You can get flowers on DoorDart?”

There was a knock on the front door, and Dick saw Tim’s mischievous grin.

“If it’s really your superpowered boyfriend you can.”

Dick darted forward and swung the door open to see Connor Kent standing on the stoop, carrying two massive bouquets. He smiled sheepishly at Dick, and then thrust both bundles of flowers into his arms.

“Hi Dick, hi Tim! Here’s what you asked for. Wish I could stay, but I have to go help Ma at the farm.”

Tim darted around Dick and shared a quick kiss with Superboy before the kryptonian lifted off into the air.

~~~

Bruce held tight to both Danny and Dani’s hands as they made their way back into the manor. Seeing Danny’s grave had obviously been emotional for both of them, and introducing his younger siblings to his parents graves had been emotional for him. Alfred had headed inside before them, claiming that he had to start on dinner.

Bruce was pretty sure he was just making sure the kids hadn’t managed to burn down the building from the inside.

As they approached the path to the manor, Danny spoke up.

“Dani and I- we can’t stay for long.”

Reflexively, Bruce tightened his grip on both of the hands in his, and then loosened it, feeling a blush creep up his cheeks.

Danny laughed lightly.

“It would be nice to, but we have responsibilities. Ghost King isn’t just a title.”

“We can visit, though,” Dani piped in. “Now that we know there’s family here. Jazz will want to meet you.”

“You won’t leave yet, though, will you?”

Bruce couldn’t help the pleading tone in his voice. He finally had his brother back!

“I’m sure we could stay for dinner.”

[phantoms-world-and-more]

Danny would argue he has especially bad luck. His reasoning this time? On his first day at Gotham Academy some kids he didn't know set up a giant prank and left Danny to take the fall for it. Now he's stuck in detention for the rest of the year and possibly beyond. After about a day he starts sneaking out of detention to try and gather evidence to prove he's innocent. Today was going to be no different until he was joined in detention by Tim Drake. Things just got harder for him

.

[moonsanoverthinker]

TMA SPOILERS // MAG 200

I wrote this based off a comment I saw on TikTok about Sasha and Tim being there during MAG 200! (Here’s Sasha’s POV)

And now onto Tim’s! (And for @look-at-those-niceass-rocks to be super normal about, although my tone reading isn’t great so I do hope you enjoy it!)

(Also hypothetical question, should I put things like this on ao3 as well? Because I’m unsure / don’t know how ao3 works for uploading things)

The two of them watched as he readied the knife. Watching as they pleaded and begged with each other,as they stand within touching distance but never being able to hear a word. Tim just stared his eyes flicking between them both, never settling on one of them for longer than a few seconds. And then he felt Sasha take his hand, giving him a reason to look away. He looked at her, only now noticing how tears streaked down his face as he watched hers fall. She smiled at him and he smiled back, it almost felt like old times. He watched as she tilted her head towards the huddled pair and he nodded slightly in return as they made their own silent agreement. They squeezed each other’s hand, smothering the finality with a single comforting act. Tim placed his free hand on Jon’s shoulder, gripping it firmly as his mind raced with a thousand different thoughts and a hundred different feelings. He saw glimpses of those early days of working in the archives, how mundane he thought everything was, how he’d always complain but now he’d give anything to go back. He looked at Sasha and smiled, remembering all those excuses he’d make so he had a reason to talk to her. He then remembered what he’d seen, that Thing that had her name but not her face. He hated that he didn’t notice. He felt his grip tighten on Jon’s shoulder, knowing that it didn’t matter how hard he squeezed, Jon would never know he was there. Tim still held on hard, knowing he could push his fingers into Jon’s skin without him ever feeling it. Yet he couldnt bring himself to do it, he wanted too, but here was something holding him back. He wished things couldve been different, for him, for her, for all of them. For Danny. He smiled as he remembers those childhood summers where they’d spend hours in that makeshift garden den, the sun warm and their smiles wide. Tim’s own smile quickly faded as he watched his brother’s childhood face, twist and contort until it is nothing but crudely stuck on features that don’t quite fit. He shook his head and the memory disappears, another one he’ll never quite be able to recall no matter how hard he tries. He hates that he can’t remember. Tim squeezed her hand harder, he can feel her bones shifting but he keeps squeezing, never wanting to forget again. He keeps his eyes focused on the three, he had so many things he wanted to say but the one thing he wished he could do, was remember them. He’d anticipated some kind of pain or sensation, like the first time but this time there was nothing.

[quotidian-oblivion]

20 questions for writers

(I'M GONNA CRY, I'M GONNA SCREAM, I'M GONNA LAY ON THE FLOOR AND STAB MYSELF WITH A STRAW, I GOT TAGGED BY THE AUTHOR OF THE FICS OF ALL TIME, I'M GONNA CRY-)

I got tagged by @wesslan for this writer tag game!! (I'M GONNA SCREME, LET ME JUST SAY HOW MUCH I LOVE YOUR CARDS ON THE TABLE FIC AND THE GOTHAM WATER TAP ONE AND-)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

62! I'm still in awe of the number. But then I look at the wips and unposted fics in my folders and then die

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

Hmmm, I have-

oh.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Batfam! On the majority. I've written quite a few BBC Merlin ones as well, and there's a Gravity Falls one roaming around somewhere. I'm hoping to write for the Ninjago fandom too and I already have a Danny Phantom wip too

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My School’s Local Mafia Boss (expected, i'm still so proud of this one) Sometimes You Have To Find Your Own Genes (also expected, because of the multiple chapters thing, it appears more and more and its also one of my very first ones on here!) Phone Alarms (I love how it makes everyone laugh ^^) The Client (I was not expecting this one lol, dunno why, but it's a cute thing) Greet Me With Open Arms (makes sense because it's a composition of everyone's prompts in one fic!)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yeah!! I used to reply to every single one, but as time went on, I got more burnt out and more and more busy cuz school became more and more harder. So I'm taking A While to get to comments cuz I don't have the energy and time, and though I read and love and snuggle the short comments too, I don't answer them nowadays unless I have the energy to at the time

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

*CACKLES*

Let Me Die, Let Me Drown, Lay My Bones In The Ground

*CACKLES HARD* >:D

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write so many sweet endings, I'm not entirely sure. In my opinion, true happy endings in stories are the result of what has gone down in the plot. So based on the plot and the results it has given in the end, I'd say it's either Loving In And Against A Storm or Let Them Be Family. Because the characters really deserved the ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

'Course

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Depends on the crossover. My very very first fic (not on ao3, on wattpad ugh) was a crossover between DC and Marvel lol. I haven't written any crossovers right now, but I have a Danny PhantomxDC one where Danny meets Tim while he's searching for Bruce.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah, actually. It was my wattpad one. Idrc about that, but I haven't found any of my ao3 ones stolen (thank God), and if I do, I'm going to be tearing someone apart with my teeth.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, I'm afraid. I've had people leave comments in other languages on my fics, so I suppose there are people who have been translating the page to read it which makes me very honored ^^ and it makes me want to translate a fic myself too if not for the fact that I'm bullshit at my other languages just as I am with English lol

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Plenty! I love co-writing with people! Let's see...

At The Drop Of A Hat I did with @tristicorde

I feel so broke up, I wanna go home I did with @wakkoroni

Chapters Capture and Grok along with 4 Times Jason Hid His Trauma + 1 Time Tim Helped Him I did with @cygnusdoesthings

And @sardonic-sprite and I have a fic in progress.

Broken But Not Beyond Repair is something Sprite, Vibey @foursixtwonineoh-pieces-of-lego and I scribbled around on tumblr reblogs then Evie graciously made it into an actual fic and posted it on ao3, praise be.

Vibey and I also have a batfam DEH AU collecting dust in our foldes. I also employed Tristi's help and @tireddruid in a 60 fucking chapters of a Merlin fic which isn't going to be written in a LONG ASS WHILE. @mispeltnostalgia is supposed to be looking at a de-aged Tim fic with me, but her role has become a beta/alpha reader role and I'm attending to other wips rn.

So yeah! I know for some people writing together isn't their cup of tea, and that's understandable lmao. I personally I love writing fics with people. It's... it's kind of a love language for me? It's much fun seeing how our writing styles meld together but are also distinct enough that you can still spot it. I also love the clash that explodes into a google doc with pages and pages of us ranting about ideas and plots in different colors texts. It's so cool.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I don't ship publicly

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Ahhh. Idk tbh. Any WIPs i have, I am hell-bent on finishing them until I have. And if I can't I just toss them in the scrap pile and never look at again. So idk if I have a wip I want to finish but won't.

Although the 60 fucking chapters of Merlin looks very appealing to abandon. But no. I've done too much work on it to just forget about it, unfortunately. I've worked too hard.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Right now, I'm feeling very down and flat and not finding any strengths at all 😭

It's been months since I've written an actual fic cuz I went on a break recently and I'm like... how do i- how do I write. how do I. words? where words?

In all seriousness though, I believe I can come up with Plots. I'm a mystery fan, so any fics I write, I make sure to have character motivations, purpose, plot, drive, foreshadowing, characterization, reasoning, etc. in it. Even in a oneshot. Even if all the literary devices are used in a shallow way, I use them. I like my stories having a purpose or a lesson to them. I can't write something which doesn't have one or both. I've also been called out /pos on my attention to detail. Sure, yes, some things do slip by. I am human after all. But yeah, on the most part, I like tightening all loose threads ^^

And I think dialogue's one as well. Because when I write, I actually picture everything I type in my head. So my writing is pure grains of imagination on paper :D, it's the only way I know how to write tbh. Which is why I struggle so much with reading or writing analytical stuff which sucks bc, school.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

EVERYTHING 😭

Well, right now anyway. I'm still recovering from burnout and mental breakdowns.

But there are weaknesses in my strengths. My dialogue can get lost sometimes and soon you'll be staring at just half a page of just dialogue. Or sometimes, I read back and realize that the dialogue I've written has no context and only makes sense to me.

I lack description in my settings and appearances. I struggle to describe things which are plainly obvious but aren't as obvious to the reader. Because of the whole imagination thing, the things that need description are all in the background, so when I write, I mostly assume that the backgrounds have already been established, so readers are left with faceless feelings most of the time. I'm practicing though! I'm practicing and I think I'm getting better at it!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!

I love adding representation of my culture and identity everywhere I go. My fics have Muslim characters and poc characters who speak Arabic, mostly. I'm also working on adding bits of Mandarin (thanks to lovely @birdybat who's helping me with that) in my current wip and hopefully in future wips as well. I know I've added Urdu and Hindi to previous fics which are not on ao3. But yeah! I love adding bits of cultural representation everywhere!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Marvel and DC lol. The crossover.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHY TF WOULD YOU ASK ME TO CHOOSE BETWEEN MY BABIES?

The most work I've put into a fic is Let Me Die, Let Me Drown, Lay My Bones In The Ground. I put tons and tons of work in it and reread after reread after rereads. I had Sprite, Tristi and Joan look over some parts and reread it too so it would be perfect. Every little detail is present in it and as you read for a second or even third time, you'll find more and more hidden details and symbolism present in it, like-

Literally. There are so many tiny details which all lead up to the final conclusion at the end and it all connects with the overarching theme and the purpose and the moral and lesson and comes together for the conclusion and I just-

I put a lot of work into it. only to get a couple hate comments on it Soooo, yeah :)

~

Thanks for the tag wesslan, I appreciate it very much (AND AM SO HONORED I LOVE YOUR FICS I'M GOING TO STAB A WINDOW-)

Gonna tagged everyone who I've already tagged in this post already if you write fics lmao + anyone else who wants to have a go!!

[piece-of-pierce]

It started because Danny stopped on the street to talk shop with Jason and knew his shit, and Jason just so happened to have never encountered someone who could read an engine like him.

So, naturally, he stalks the guy, finds out he works at a good-for-skill, bad-for-reputation shop in Crime Alley, and decides to test him with an extra Red Hood bike. (Not his main bike, obviously. One of the others that he keeps around in case the main one gets blown up or something.)

He doesn't expect much but Danny manages to not only fix the issue Hood had hidden deep in the throes of the engine but also find a few things that could be optimized and left the extra bike running as well as, if not better than, Hood's main one. Obviously, Hood hires him on the spot.

Things build from there. Danny is skilled in all mechanics, not just vehicles, so Hood lets him take a look at his more complex weapons to see if there are any things he could make happen there. What's the worst that could happen?

It might not be the worst, but Tim, of all people, manages to notice the change in Hood's gear and starts pestering, which only leads to Hood asking if Danny would be willing to quit his legally recognized employment and exclusively work for him. The guy was skilled enough that Hood didn't want to risk losing him, anyway.

Danny hummed and hawed about it as a joke, then Hood settled on a 50% pay raise without giving Danny a chance to say anything and that was that. Hood is just happy that Danny will be harder for Tim to find.

Then it's finals season and Danny's exhausted but the boy's got a hyperfocus on this gas canister design for Hood and he ends up asleep at his work desk in the main warehouse Hood works out of. It's his own quarter of the warehouse and, for all he argued against it, Hood just said that the other guys didn't make good enough use of the space to keep it. Danny would've kept arguing if the other 2 guys who worked in that warehouse (the only people Hood kept on a private 'contract' with him because they were too good to let go to someone else) weren't both laughing.

[Mike and Giorno were both cool and complete geniuses regarding chemistry and software, respectively. Hood couldn't take any risks with them or Danny. If any one of the three took a turn into being a Rogue, that would be it for Gotham. They get on like a house on fire.]

So, Danny falls asleep at his desk and it isn't the first time but he usually wakes up within a few minutes. This time, after about an hour, Hood carries him over to a couch in the corner and Danny wakes up just enough to know he's being held and cared for and, comforted ball of trauma that he is, he gets a grip on Hood's shirt and won't let go even in his sleep. Eventually, Hood relents and has Mike bring him his laptop so he can keep working from the floor.

This happens almost every night for a week and, by day 6, Hood just shoves Danny on the couch as soon as he shows up and tells him to 'get some f-ing sleep. You need it.'

Danny finally figures out Hood's identity because he walks past Jason on the street and does a double-take because he made that multi-tool. Why does this random civilian have the multi-tool that Danny equipped with everything from a bottle opener to a mini flamethrower?

So, of course, as soon as he sees Hood that night he starts talking a mile a minute because "I think you got robbed or something, man! There was this guy about your height, your build, and your demeanor and he had the thing that I made for you and- oh shit... If it helps, I have no clue who you are as a civilian."

Another story prompt. Dead on main, this time.

***

Danny stared into the emotionless red helmet as the wrench he was twirling clattered to the concrete floor. "What?"

Red Hood tilted his head "You should come work for me. Name your price. I'll even let you keep working here."

Danny swallowed. Swallowed again. Gotham U tuition wasn't cheap, even with a partial scholarship. And it didn't cover books. Added onto the bills and rent that were overdue. Danny added all of it up together and multiplied the number by 5. He half expected Hood to shoot him on the spot, but the man just nodded.

"Done. You start tomorrow. I'll pick you up here at closing time." The man turned and started walking toward the door.

"That's an insane amount of money you just agreed to!" He called out.

"You could have asked for more." Hood said, and the door slammed behind him.

Danny let out a Shakey breath and picked up the fallen wrench. Red Hoods mechanic, huh? What even was his life?

[void-writing]

One Batfam and Danny interaction that just came to me:

Danny, pointing fingers: How come that you can control those powers already?! It took me months not to clip through the walls!!

Whether or not said Batfam member really has as much control over their new, Danny-given powers as Danny at first believes is a different matter. XD It's about his outrage.

Hahaha lol.

I haven't gone into power shenanigans yet (that'll probably be an extra story somewhere down the line) but my thinking is that the Bats had a fairly easy time with their powers because 1) superpowers aren't that unusual in the DCU, so they have not only real live points of reference but people they can turn to with questions, and 2) they really only have to deal with 1 power whereas Danny was dealing with 3+ simultaneously.

Of course, I haven't shown it yet but like Danny, the Batfam's new powers are largely stuck in the "on" position if they aren't passive, and even then there's something of an adjustment period.

Dick floats if he's not mindful of it and now frequently hovers over his bed when he's sleeping, The Exorcist style. He kind of just lets himself do it when he's alone or in the company of other Bats or heroes, so it's not too much of an issue so long as he's not seen doing it in pubic as a civilian.

Jason is going to have a hard time getting needles through his skin now, so he better be careful about exposure to airborne chemical weapons. And also getting yearly vaccines.

Tim's astral projection doesn't necessarily mean that he's fully resting. The energy is more split between his astral form and his physical body, so the longer he spends in astral form, the less restful his sleep is. Also, the activation of his power depends on how tired he is when he goes to bed. If he's exhausted enough, he'll just sleep normally and not project at all.

Damian definitely melts a few things in his hands when he's not careful (canon seems to portray ecto-blasts as heat-based attacks, so I'm going to roll with that even though Danny is definitely more ice-affiliated).

Cass slips into the shadows a little too easily sometimes.

Steph sometimes ends up blocking herself with her own shields.

Barbara has to be mindful of what her new telekinesis grabs onto and from what direction it's coming from.

Kate is fortunate that her duplicates can't make duplicates, otherwise she'd have a harder time hiding it.

Duke definitely underestimates his own strength for a while after the abrupt buff. He may not have super-durability, which would enable him to punch through things or crush them without hurting himself, but he does keep accidentally pushing and pulling things too hard. Doors are tricky for him for a bit XD

Bruce regularly keeps blinking out of the visible spectrum, if not the entire detectable spectrum all together. Basically, his power has two settings: plain vanilla invisible (where he's just not detectable on a visible light spectrum), and Super Invisibility (where he just plain stops being detectable period). He can only maintain Super Invisibility for a few minutes continuously before it starts to wear him out (and you can bet that every time he uses it, Clark is sending him a "you good?" text or just straight up calling him to make sure he's okay XD). Of course, his power wants to be "on" all the time, so he has to be mindful of keeping himself within the visible spectrum, lest he just blip out of peoples' perception for a while.

And a note on Alfred's power: He's not going to "de-age" past his prime. I'm putting his age in CiM at around late 70's, early 80's. What his new power is doing is walking his physical body back towards the top of the "physical aptitude" curve, so he'll look like late 50's, early 60's instead of his actual age, but it won't go further than that. And most importantly, he'll feel like he's in his 50's again too :)

To note, when I say "Alfred is immortal now" I mostly mean that he doesn't age anymore. He can still be killed or fall ill, but time no longer wears on him like it used to (and really, as far as CiM is concerned, time was the only real threat to Alfred''s continued presence, so functionally, he is immortal now lol).

One thing that I do plan on writing later is that Jason and Duke spar a lot both for training and for fun because their powers kind of balance each other. Jason can take Duke's hits and Duke can wrestle Jason on fairly equal standing.

But we will be seeing Danny's reaction to the Batfam's swanky new powers fairly soon :)

[impyssadobsessions]

The whole thing is Secret was also a hero first tho- from an outside point of view, everything points to the Fentons' theory being right (The theory that ghosts are only capable of good in order to build trust so when they trick humans later they'll do more damage). Like idk man no matter what Danny did (maybe even up to revealing his ID) a portion of the population just wouldn't buy it. They'd just go, "haha yeah, I'm not falling for that trick twice." And attack harder. When I say Secret made what I imagine to be the worst first impression for ghosts I mean it, because no matter what Danny does next nobody's going to trust or support him. Not unless they knew Secret personally at the time or know what went wrong with her- and that's unlikely, she was extremely isolated. In all honesty? Tim and the other former members of Young Justice would probably be his biggest advocates- and that'd only make the issue worse. Like people calling them traitors and on the ghosts' side worse. Maybe even attacking them for association worse. For a guide to the afterlife, Secret sure did a bang up job of closing every possible door for ghosts after her appearance for the next 1,000 years.

Oh I know there will always be ppl against Danny. And Danny probably be really mad at Secret just on that grounds alone. Aw can see him really enjoying the YJ.. but even they get a bit spook when Danny does something that reminds them of Greta when she was spiraling. But one thing Danny has that Greta didn't is that he doesn't feel completely isolated. He still feels lonely-amg can see to help with things Danny has Tim and some of the yj (after becoming close to him) Meet his sister. "This is the only reason my mental health is hanging by a thread : 3" But yeah in world where Secret screwed things up, Danny would have to stay a hidden vigilante. He couldn't be known to the wider public/isnt accepted with the wider public. Though makes me think of him stay with Jason more or working with Constantine. Sticking with the very morally gray. Keeping low. Only showing his face to the big public when its needed and that has nothing to do with being seen. Just trying to save ppl. It makes Danny's life hard.. but not really any harder than it has been. Can see instead Danny being kept a big secret.. which is irony there as Secret was known.. LOL

[captaincravatthecapricious]

Feverish and Teary & How Long Has it Been Since You’ve Eaten- Prompt Fill

@thatonekidellis​ Jon, Tim, and Martin have a rough time after the Unknowing. Especially Jon.  I hope this is kind of what you were asking for?  

@janekfan​ you get a ping because this is your au!

CWs: nausea, vomiting, fainting, fever, food mention, alcohol mention, canon typical mentions of Tim's pre-unknowing mindset, canon typical Jon not taking care of himself.

I am still accepting bingo prompts, so let me know which character, which prompt, and if you want a drawing of a fic!  Bingo card by the wonderful @celosiaa​!  This one is twice my usual length because it is two prompts and I did not want to cheat!

The Unknowing blows up.  

As simple as that.  

All according to plan.  

It really is as simple as that.  

Jon, Tim, Daisy, Basira.  Piled back in Daisy's car.  Ears ringing.  Soot slowly settling.  Trying to drive away before the actually police get there.  

It hasn't been Jon's problem how to avoid arrest.  

He is even more glad it isn't his problem now, as he slides down the beat up seat in the back of Daisy's car.  Ash streaks the window, mixing with the light rains that is starting to fall.  

Jon tries not to vomit the nothing he's eaten in the last couple days.  Nothing in him but frayed nerves and statements.  Hadn't even managed to stomach dramamine before their trip.  

Jon just wants to sleep.  

They still have their hotel reservation for another couple hours, so Daisy drives them back there to clean up before heading back to London.  Yes they have to go back today, it's less suspicious.  Jon isn't sure if that is actually true, but he doesn't have the energy to argue.  

Tim showers.  Jon sends a text to Martin.  'Alive.'  

He doesn't answer Martin's near-immediate call because just then he's dry-heaving into the small bin in the corner.  Stiff and shaking and sweaty and miserable.    

Jon showers.  Too dizzy to stand, he sits on the shower floor.  He hates that.  The tub feels filthy.  He feels filthy.  He scrubs his skin raw.  He stands.  He throws up more nothing.  He scrubs himself again, leaning heavily on the wall.  

He wants to talk to Tim.  He wants to tuck himself into Tim's arms and never move again.  Christ, he's running an impressive fever.  Probably.  It's hard to tell.  And his brain is swimming too much to even think about asking the Eye.  

He's cold.  He shivers in his threadbare joggers and stolen jumper (Martin's).  

He wants to join Tim on the bed by the window, but Tim ...looks too deep in a melancholy thought to even notice.  Somewhere between losing his drive for anything, adrenaline crash, and losing the last hope of a last glimpse of Danny, if Jon were to guess.  

Jon could say something.  He knows he could.  But, hasn't he caused enough of a fuss?  Made Tim and Martin trail after him after the ...the.... with Daisy and... that.  If he'd have just stayed quiet and stayed still... well Tim would still hate him... and might not be alive... but ....but he's caused so much worry with that.  And then with... his other kidnapping No.  He can't think about what that... what... not without puking again which... the point is not to worry Tim.  Which means he should try some medicine again.... if he can keep it in him half an hour he'll survive the drive back.  Probably.  

Christ, when is the last time he bothered to drink anything?  

He lays there in a daze until Daisy bangs on the door telling them it's time to leave.  

Tim sleeps on the drive back.  Finally giving into the last few sleepless nights.  Jon is jealous.  

Last night had been spent tangled together, shaking, awake, and silent.  Anxiety too thick to slice with words.  Not even nothing to turn off the lights, because the fear is a little easier to manage in the light.  Jon couldn't stop thinking about Nikola.  He couldn't stop thinking about plastic hands on him.  Couldn't stop thinking about how many things could go wrong and how he could lose Tim and Martin when he only just got Tim back.  

Jon was pretty sure Tim hadn't been sleeping the last few nights.  Jon knows he hasn't.  Not that he has slept well in a long time.    

In any case, Tim sleeps.  Jon doesn't.  

Daisy glares at him through the review mirror.  Jon isn't sure if she is still waiting for him to prove himself monstrous so she can attack, or if she is making sure he isn't ill in her car... again.  (He really wishes he could forget his first ride in her car.  Really really really wishes.  It was not a pleasant experience for anyone, and Daisy had made him pay the cleaning bill.)  

It doesn't matter, he slides down further in his seat and closes his eyes tightly.  

His head hurts.  

Thankfully the medicine knocks him out soon enough.  

Martin greets them at the institute door.  Melanie by his side.  

Jon hazily wakes up to Martin gently touching his shoulder.  

"You actually made it!  I'm so glad you're safe... I was so worried, Jon why didn't you answer your phone, I've been so worried, I mean I know you would have said something if something had happened, but Christ I've been so worried about you, come here."  

Jon starts mumbling some apologies, but is interrupted by Martin gently gathering him in a hug.  Jon sinks into it, fervently hoping Martin doesn't notice the heat rolling off of him.  

Thankfully Martin is too distracted, gathering Tim in a crushing embrace.  Likely very relieved that Tim didn't die, and knowing Tim is harder to break than Jon with his delicate bones and fragility following many incidents.  

Jon... doesn't really know what he's trying to accomplish.  Just... get out?  Or go in?  Or get to the cot?  Or just curl up on the cold tile of the basement toilets?  Get away from people he will inevitably worry?  

Just go somewhere where he can fall apart without taking anyone else down with him.  

It looks like Martin has been crying.  Jon hopes it isn't over him.  

Tim needs to recover from the emotional toll of the last few days without having to pick up the pieces after Jon Again.  

Jon slowly backs away.  

His head is swimming, but that's okay.  If he can just reach the Archives.  The cot.  Anywhere.  Anywhere away from this moment.  This breath.  

His vision swims violently, and there is no doubt in his mind that he is going to be very well acquainted with the pavement in a matter of seconds.  Either that or he's going to be ill?  No.  Sidewalk.  He's going to eat the sidewalk.  Heh... first thing he'll have eaten in days.  

He isn't sure if he loses consciousness or not.  It's hard to tell in the blur of motion and sounds and his spinning head.  Sound is almost gooey in this state of almost unconsciousness, but he thinks someone might be shouting.  Or several someones.  He should maybe worry about this?  But in actuality, he is praying he properly passes out to save himself any more embarrassment and save himself from his unsteady insides.  

His face hurts.  

Someone is holding him.  

Jon fights to open his eyes.  They don't seem to want to look in the same direction, rolling in their sockets instead of doing what he wants them to.  He blinks hard a few times, failing to bring things into focus.  Glasses?  Does he still have those?  Did they break?  No... still there.  Skewed on his face.  Just... too dizzy to see, then.  

Daisy and Basira are glaring at him.  Melanie is walking away.  Possibly.  Hard to tell when the world is tilting with unsteady regularity.  

Jon closes his eyes again, pressing a groan against the nausea that threatens to overcome him, despite the medicine.  

"Jon?"  

"Burning up."

He's too hazy to put a name to a voice.  The words dripping in the air around him, tightening around his chest, silly string sitting on his skin in fibrous heaps that jiggle uncomfortably, cold and clammy.  

Shit, thinking in gibberish.  That can't be good.  

“Does anyone know how long he’s been ill?”  

Someone grunts.  

Footsteps.  Two sets?  I’m asking away.  Leaving him.   

“I.... I don’t know.  I don’t think he was feverish last night?  But... I haven’t exactly been... It’s.  It’s been hard.”

“Jon?”

He’s being jostled.   He whines.  Stomach flopping dangerously.   

"Jon?  Are you awake?  Can you open your eyes for me?"  

"Oh shit, he's gonna puke."  

He's being lifted, shifted on his side, bin shoved in his hands.  Where he throws up more nothing.  

He's crying now, feeling like utter shit, and unfortunately more awake.  

He isn't sure if eyes swimming with tears is better or worse than the unsteady world tipping around him and making him feel worse.  

"Christ, Jon!"  

He finally pries his eyes open.  Martin and Tim solidify above him.  More or less.  Still fuzzing in and out of focus.  

Now that he's crying, he just... can't stop.  Fistfuls of Martin's sweater.  

"Oh Jon..."  Martin's arms circle him, carefully.  Gentle not to jostle him more.  

"Buddy.  Think we can get you off the sidewalk?"  Tim.  Cupping his face.  Smoothing back sweat and tear soaked hair, long since escaped his bun, still not dried from his earlier shower.  "My flat isn't far, you know?  Didn't bring my car here, though.  Still... wasn't..."

Tim cuts himself off, but even addled as he is, Jon can fill in the rest of the sentence.  

So can Martin apparently, because Martin frowns.  It's never been more apparent that he's been crying quite recently.  "Still weren't sure you were coming home...  Tim..."  And his eyes start looking damp.  

Tim is tearing up now.  "Martin... let's not in the street...  I can carry Jon back to mine, it isn't far.  You can come too.  We'll get some take out.  Drink some whiskey.  Get Mr. Smoking hot cooled off.  We can talk then.  It's.... it's been a rough week."  

"Jon?  Can I carry you?  I think that might be less rough than a cab ride?  Do you need a few minutes?"  

Martin's voice is soft, and Jon thinks he could sleep right there.  In fact, he might.  So he nods.  

Martin lifts him carefully.  His head swims again.  This all is feeling rather familiar.  Jon takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.  He tries to relax despite the lingering anxieties about heights.  Martin feels safe.  Tim is also safe now.  He lets himself drift.  

He wakes briefly on the trip.

"Hey bud, how are you feeling?"  Tim.  Tim seems off.  Too many things crossing his face to parse out, probably even for someone with a better sense than Jon of what those subtle face changes mean.  But Jon is too hazy to think.    

Jon's mouth feels gummed up.  His eyes feel gummed up.  

He's thankful his mouth doesn't taste like something died in it, though.  Although he is very aware how unhealthy it was that he's spent a good portion of the day with his body trying to turn itself inside out, and he couldn't so much as produce bile.  

Jon feels sick thinking about it, so stops.  He drifts again.  

He wakes to a damp rag on his forehead, no memory of anything past the explosion. 

How did he get here? 

"Sorry, that looked like a nice sleep, but you'll feel better with some medicine in you, and some water.  We can try some tea later, once the meds work.  And some food hopefully."  

Martin helping him sit up.  Just enough to get a few sips and some pills into Jon.  Which, Jon thought was probably optimistic, but he'd try it for Martin.  

"When was the last time you ate?" Martin again.  

Jon blinks at him in confusion.  "Is it over?"  

"Is what over?"  Still Martin.  

Where's Tim?  Where's Daisy?  Where's Basira?  Where's Melanie?

His breathing picks up, and that makes his head spin again, and makes him wonder just how long he can keep the medicine down.  

"Is it over, what happened?"  He's panting now, halfway to a panic attack.  

"Jon?  Jon!  Calm down.  Can you take a breath for me?"  

How did he get here?  Where is he?  This looks like Tim's flat, but there is Tim?  Did he survive.  

Jon reaches for anything.  But comes up blank.  

"Where's Tim?  What happened?"  He gasps out.  It feels like his ribcage is shrinking, being laced up the front. fighter than the corset he had worn in acting class in uni.  

"Tim's... taking a moment.  As soon as we got you here... he.... it's been rough on him, you know?  He did all this for... and I know he said he wanted to live.  He wants to live... but he's... not been in a good place and it's helped that you two are talking again... and that he's had company more... but he saw an old picture with.... with his brother.... and that polaroid with ... with Sasha.  Well, he keeps going between you know tearful and sorry and cackling about how everything blew up.  It's... probably a lot to have three revenge schemes going at once for the same.... not a person really... but ... Her.  And then... having it sorted.  But...  Listen Jon I don't know.  What don't you remember... or what's the last thing you remember?"  Martin edges on histerical near the middle, but takes a turn for the sad near the end.  

"I remember the... the world was all wrong.  Then... then it blew up.  Is it over?  Martin are you real.  Is everyone alive?  What happened to you?"  He's desperate.  Desperate breaths too shallow.  Words interrupted by jagged pulling of too thin oxygen.  He's going to pass out.  

He does.  

He wakes feeling... clearer.  The last period of wakefulness a distant and flighty thing, dancing just out of his reach.  The rest of the embarrassing day back in vivid detail.  Tim's sitting over him.  Or rather, curled around him.  Jon's hair is being played with.  A stray curl looped around Tim's finger as he laughs softly to himself.  Muttering that he's alive.  That Jon's alive.  That Martin is alive.  he didn't lose anyone else.  That that clown is finally dead.  Finally.  

Gentle and warm hand on his face, refreshing the cloth.  Checking his temperature.  

"I..."  Tim chokes on a sob.  And Jon tries to remember how his arms work so he can let Tim know he's there.  

"Tim?"  

"Hey bud... sorry."  Tim wipes his eyes on his sleeve.  "It's been a hell of a week.  I... don't know how to feel about it.  Fuck I need a drink....  And to check in with Martin.  I... he hasn't told me what happened, but he's upset.  And.  Fuck I should have noticed you were ill, why didn't you say anything?"  Tim's voice starts to rise, and Jon tenses.  All the times Tim yelled at him still too fresh in his mind.  He trusts Tim.  he does... but Christ he is still afraid.  Afraid that it can't last, that it isn't real.  Where it be a trick of his mind, or some manipulation tactic to an end Jon can't see, he doesn't know.  

"Hey.  Hey.  Buddy... Jon.  I'm sorry.  didn't mean to yell.  It's just... been a day.  I'm not mad at you.  I just... I'm worried about you and Martin and I...I don't know how to feel about everything that happened.  I'm sorry you feel like shit."

Jon feels... like shit.  Marginally less nauseous, however.  A little less like he's going to pass out again.  Probably been given plenty of pills by Martin.  

"Sorry."  He croaks.  Voice probably shredded with smoke.  And fever.  

"He, bud, don't apologize.  I'm sorry I didn't notice you weren't well.  I... I thought I knew better than to be that preoccupied.  I mean... I guess I didn't make it worse this time, but..."  Tim sighs.  "I'm disappointed in myself because I don't want to fuck this up again.  And no don't apologize again part of that was on me and yes part of that was on you and we've done apologies to death.  All we can do now is keep going.  I just wanted to protect you and I couldn't see you were fading in front of my eyes.  Again.  I know you haven't been eating or sleeping, but I haven't been either so I didn't want to call you on it, and I didn't want you to call me on it, but I should have noticed.  I know I couldn't have done much, but I didn't do anything but shut you out again.  I could have told someone to stop to get you medicine, or food or even a bit more rest.  I know that would have done fuck-all, but I still could have offered you a little comfort and warmth and had us brought straight back here."  

Tim's crying properly now.  Jon is too.  Not sure if it is the fever, or just... everything.  There is so much to feel and think and worry about and yes they saved the world but that the fuck comes next.  

What comes next is that Martin enters with tea for Jon and a bottle of whiskey.  

Jon scrubs at his eyes.  "Martin what happened?"  Jon can see he's been crying again.  That is starting to scare him.  It's a goddamn miracle he hasn't pulled an answer out of anyone yet today.  

"It's... well it isn't fine.  I... well our plan worked here too.  Just... you know... Elias.  He can.... He can do things.  It's fine.  It's worth it."  Martin swipes at his eyes furiously.  

Jon pushes himself up, ignoring the room tilting around him, and hugs Martin.  Jon's still crying.  Martin sniffling.  Tim also crying.  It's... a very damp hug.  And Jon knows he's too warm to be comfortable to hold, and he's shivering hard enough to rattle Tim and Martin.  

"I'm... I'm so sorry Martin."  Jon chokes out.  

"It's alright.  It was worth it.  And you both.  Christ I am so glad to see you again... I thought... I thought.... I didn't..."  Martin is fully sobbing now.  Tea set down on Tim's bedside table, the whiskey being pried from his hands by TIm.  

Late that night the bottle is empty (and so are a couple more), Tim and Martin have killer headaches, and Jon is still feverish, but less so.  A lot of tears have been shed.  And Jon has been plied with enough liquids that he feels a little less like a crumbling husk.  

By the time that Tim and Martin are ready to think about food, Jon is finally feeling like he can maybe stomach something.  They order takeout.  Jon... has some broth. 

By morning Jon manages a few bites of leftovers.  

By afternoon, Elias Bushard is arrested.  

[britcision]

LISTEN GUYS LISTEN

DREAM ASKED DANNY BECAUSE DANNY’S HAD DREAMS ABOUT MEETING TIM

Like it doesn’t matter how or why it doesn’t matter if it was Tim Drake or Red Robin, Dream knows Danny knows who Tim is BECAUSE HE HAS SEEN HIS DREAMS

This is now possibly Dead Tired, or… just maybe… Timker slowest burn 👀👀👀👀👀

Dream knows Danny knows Tim because Dream knows Tucker is having gooshy dreams about Tim Drake Wayne and Danny is Tucker’s closest ghostly associate

Danny DEFINITELY commits to the bit harder the more seriously Tim takes it, at first it’s a favour and then he casually mentions to Tucker and Sam that he’s doing a favour for the actual ruler of sleep (eat dick Nocturn xoxoxoxo)

Tucker Loses His Shit

Tim’s next sleep fairy journal message includes “my friend says hi” as a joke

Tim LATCHES ON LIKE THE ULTIMATE CREEPER HE REALLY IS

The Sleep Fairy has a friend. They have a connection. The connection knows who Tim is???

Danny gives him clues every few months because

A) it’s funny

B) it never actually occurs to him that Batman Inc might actually be Good At Their Jobs

And C) once he realises they are, maybe he can hook Tucker and Tim up

The first Tucker knows of these shenanigans is Tim storming into his workplace, wild eyed and crazy, and demands information on the Sleep Fairy

(Danny probably didn’t mention they call him this RIP Tuck)

Tim then mysteriously falls asleep and disappears and Tucker glares into thin air, grabs his phone, and texts Danny a string of profanity

Then he changes Danny’s contact info to The Sleep Fairy on all of Team Phantom’s phones

Hob thinks this is adorable when Dream tells him at his next meet up; Dream playing matchmaker? So fucking cute, he’s taking a real interest

Dream, entirely unaware that this is all his fault, is confused but doesn’t ask

Tim Drake keeps getting kidnapped.

No one is sure how the culprit is doing it and no one has so much as seen them, but whenever Tim stays awake for even a second over the three day mark he disappears.

He always shows up back in the manor asleep somewhere and wakes up with no memory of anything occurring. The only reason the batfam even know that he's being kidnapped instead or mind control or other alternatives is the pictures on Tim's phone of him asleep and a notebook with handwritten notes on it usually making jokes or puns and telling Tim to take better care of himself. This is usually accompanied by a picture of Tim with one of those clay facial cleansing masks complete with cucumber slices over the eyes.

No amount of staking out Tim prevents him from vanishing. He simply disappears the moment no one is looking and it happens both as Tim Drake and Red Robin. The only clue they've gotten on the kidnapper so far is a glowing white glove that appeared in one of the pictures holding the container for the face mask.

In absence of a name, Steph has dubbed him "The Sleep Fairy"

[greenninjagal-blog]

Deja Vecu

Hello, its been a while!! Please accept this release of the unpublished scene from Chapter Two of Deja Vu. Its basically 4k of Remus being gay for a stranger he keeps seeing die, and ain’t that a mood? :)

Summary: The Missing Scene in chapter 2 of Deja Vu, in which Remus agrees to help a stranger rob a casino.

Words: 4397

Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist

At twenty-one years old, Remus finds out that robbing a casino is a lot less fun than Ocean’s Eleven led him to believe. It’s almost ridiculous the amount of security that went into protecting the chips and the cash on hand: following the path of the cash box from earlier, there’s two hired security guards framing the employee’s entrance, neither of whom like being touched nor can be persuaded to leave their posts together. There’s a card reader locking the door which despite looking like walnut wood, is actually steel with a clever paint job. And that’s just the first level.

“Predictable,” Dee says from where he had made himself comfortable on Remus’s bed with the complimentary note pad the hotel had supplied him. He had left his suit jacket on the desk to avoid the wrinkles but lounged on the foot of the bed without taking off his shoes. Remus had tossed himself down next to him, stretching out to gather all the pillows and built a throne for himself like he was eight instead of twenty-one.

Dee had watched him, back to wearing the face of the man who had approached him in the casino. Remus thinks he looks nice like that: hansom enough to please anyone who looked his way and charming enough to disarm anyone who might have seen him as out of place and forgettable enough that Remus couldn’t remember if they had gambled together previously.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Remus had pointed out. “I know what the real you looks like.”

Dee’s pen digs into the paper a little harder than necessary and Remus pretends he hadn’t noticed. The smile he receives is light and joking but it doesn’t meet his eyes at all. “I happened to like this appearance.”

Remus hums, “Lame. The scales are cool.” But he had let it drop in favor of twisting the purple casino chip between his fingers.

Dee taps his pen on the comforter in thought, his borrowed blue eyes distant as he mulled over Remus’s reports from futures that won’t happen. “What else did you notice?”

“Tessa isn’t your wife anymore, Danny.”

Dee snorts, which, by all means, should not be as graceful and elegant as he makes it seem. There’s a fluidity to the way he dips his head and scribbled on the pad of paper that makes him looks dignified. Or maybe that’s just the angle that Remus is looking at him with. A lock of his dark hair slips into his eyes and he brushes it back with two gloved fingers.

Remus falls back against the stack of pillows he had built around himself, breathing deeply and settling himself. The air smells like the lemon cleaner that the hotel staff had used to clean his room earlier when Remus had been out and about, but there’s hints of something else—something sweet and spicy with an undertone of wood.

--Dee blinks at the question, shifting so that he’s lying on his stomach, his head resting on his palm. “I wonder,” He says, with eyes so bright and blue and innocent that Remus feels like he’s stuck in them, “if you mean the Cardamom scent from my aftershave.” And Remus’s heart beats just a little faster, a little harder, a little more.—

“When I ask what else you notice,” Dee says, drawing Remus back to the present, “I meant your other senses. You’ve told me about what you’ve seen. What about sounds? The smells? You said you experience this as a first-person thing, correct?”

Remus waves a hand. “Its both. I’m there in person but I’m also having an out of body experience, too.”

Dee squints. “Doesn’t that…get confusing? How can you interpret all the stimuli at once?”

“Stimuli! What, are you a scientist in your free time?” Remus mocks, but Dee’s shoulders tense at the insinuation.

“You don’t have to tell me.” He says, “I was just curious.” He’s not, though. Remus isn’t quite sure how he knows, but Dee’s curiosity is more than just a simple question. It feels like it’s more, like he’s gathering information and sorting it away for later, like he’s making decisions based on Remus’s answers that have nothing to do with the how they are going to get into a Vault protected by a six digit code that only three people have and then get back out with more money than they can physically carry.

“Shame,” Remus says, feeling the shift in the bed as Dee’s shoulders unwind. “If you were a scientist you could dissect me for all the goodies inside! Of course, you can do that without being a scientist, too, but it’s not as fun.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?”

Remus flips the coin in the air and catches it with the same hand. It comes up heads. “Why, does that scare you?”

Dee watches him, the pen absently twirling in the air between them. Remus can feel the weight of his gaze like a physical thing, pressing on his chest and making him self conscious of exactly how many breathes he’s been taking. The cotton comforter has a square pattern on it that he hadn’t noticed before, but he can count only three squares between the two of them. For some reason that information feels important.

“No,” Dee says after another moment passes and the air simmers. “I supposed it concerns me.”

Remus swallows the urge to laugh at his face.

“You just seem to be a useful person,” Dee continues, defensively. “I would hate to see that usefulness be squandered.”

This time Remus does laugh and it’s a bumbling bubbling burst of noise in their quiet world. His lungs shake and his heart hurts, but he laughs and something about it makes Dee’s smile softly too. The air is light, but there’s an underlying tension there, lurking in the shadows and reminding Remus that for all the dashing good looks and the semi honest expressions, the man before him is a stranger wearing a borrowed face and absolutely no one would miss him if he disappeared.

He flips the coin again, watching it roll over itself too many times to count, bounce off his hand and then flop to a stop direction between the two of them. Dee pokes it with the butt of his pen, like he was expecting it to get up and walk away.

“To answer your question,” Remus says, breathing in deeply enough to smell his cardamom aftershave and wondering why no one else in his twenty-one years of living had thought to ask him. “Seeing the future does get confusing. But it’s whatever. It never causes anything worse than a nosebleed.”

Dee hums and scribbles something down on his notepad. If Remus sat up just slightly, he would be able to see it, but he finds he likes the mystery more. Was it notes to use against him? Or was it things to think about in the future? Or was it still the colossal list of numbers they weren’t even a fraction of the way through?

--They manage to draw the guard’s attention away with a faked emergency: Remus never put stock in his own acting skills so he stumbles and falls on another patron and lets his head crack against the corner of the a craps table just far enough away that the guards are drawn the few steps over to check on both of them. Remus doesn’t bother responding to any of their prompts until Dee with the face of Tim the dealer swipes his borrowed card and lets the door behind him close. They had radios from the same place where Dee had procured the keycard from, and Remus thinks he could fall asleep listening to Dee’s breaths.

“Left, right, or center?” Dee asks.

“Left,” Remus hums, watching the casino patrons around him. A woman in her thirties just won at a baccarat table and tried to kiss the dealer. “There’s a camera at around the corner, but it roves. Your future self said to wait five seconds then go.”

Remus waves down a waitress and orders a mojito while he waits. Dee gives soft laugh at the concept and Remus tries to calm his nerves.

“You’re so uptight,” He says softly, almost to the point where Remus can’t hear him over the chattering of other people. “Relax a little, Remus. It’s just my life.”

“The Elevator code is 7-1-3-2,” Remus tells him. “And you’re going to want change your pretty little face to someone of a higher ranking on the casino hierarchy unless you want Terry Benedict to know what we’re up to.”

Remus holds his breath as the elevator dings, and then as Dee repeats the code as he types it in, and then as the doors rumble closed. He twists the glass of his drink when it comes as he listens for the subtle clues on how far Dee is inside the belly of the beast. It takes him a moment to realize that Dee is humming softly, and his lips twist into a smile without his permission.

There’s some garbled conversation on Dee’s end, pleasantries and greetings and nice things that Remus never bothered to memorize. Dee glides through the conversations with ease, deceiving and grifting like he had been born to do it. And who knows? Maybe he had been. Polite conversation gets them through another three doors, including a hall wracked the cameras and the final elevator that can only be opened with two keys and a pin code graciously provided by an aware high-level friend that followed them in and was still chatting about their Perfect Child’s first steps.

Remus sips his mojito and watches the girl at the nearest roulette table eye the betting board. She’s still going to lose so Remus finds himself more entertained by trying to extract the lime from his drink than from watching her pout yet again when the ball lands on the red 36.

“Ah yes, the vault code,” Dee’s voice says, dragging Remus back to the mission at hand. He’s casual, loose, and ready, and Remus doesn’t understand how he does it. He glances down at the piece of paper in his hand and reads off the six-digit combination that was next on their list.

“5-1-3-2-7-6,” Remus presses a hand to his earpiece, listening as closely as he can. His breath shortens with each second, crafting infinities out of each passing tick. He can hear Dee’s laugh and his he listens closer he can make out the guard that’s next to him still chattering away. Each button bings when Dee presses it in, soft and charming and not at all like a guillotine that’s cut their mission off a hundred-some times before.

“Hey man you, okay?” The person with Dee asks, less out of curiosity and more out of suspicion.

“Yes sorry my finger slipped,” Dee says quickly and punches in the next number in ascending order out of blind hope that it might be the correct one but it isn’t and Remus knows it because that’s when the person next to Dee asks him to back away and demands to know who he is and Dee’s placating answers are never enough so he tries to shift but bullets are faster than he is and Remus rips out his ear piece right before the gun goes—

“Another bust,” Dee sighs, drawing a snake on the corner of his paper. “Somehow I feel like we could win more playing on the casino floor than doing this….” He trails, off eyes distant again, thinking more about money than about the number of deaths Remus has witnessed.

It seems strange, that Remus would care so much more about that then he does, but in a way that doesn’t surprise him. Its Death with a capital ‘D’ and in Remus’s twenty-one years of experience, the only people who feared death were those who were aware of how close it was. Remus was practically best friends with Death, with the taste of the asphalt on the highway, with the feeling of a free fall, with the awkward fit of a hotel bathtub. He’s familiar with the cold silver of fear, but it doesn’t make him any less afraid.

Dee knows he keeps dying, though. Dying alone, deep inside a labyrinth of a building and Remus wonders if he should stop this while he’s ahead. He knows once that half hour mark hits in the future there’s no more Dee to be waiting for, no pay out. Just the pain of seeing a swarm of S.W.A.T. officers covertly weave between the patrons and leave with a human sized black bag. But Remus still waits and watches, holding dutiful vigil over a fruitless endeavor and letting hope build just for it to shatter with reality.

“Why does this mean so much to you?” Remus asks, somewhere between the fifteenth and the hundred fiftieth casino themed wake procession. His eyes burn a little, and he tries to tell himself it’s just the brightness of lights.

“Money is everything,” Dee marks the next two number off his list on his notebook and talks without listening to his own words. Its not fair that he sounds so convinced it’s true, when his mouth moves like he’s practiced this in the mirror. “What about you? Why do you continue to watch?”

Remus sinks back on his pillows, holding on to that faint scent of wood and spice and the feeling in his gut that comes from every time Dee listens to his advice from the future, from every time Dee listens and adheres, from every times Dee just believes.

Remus wonders how so much trust could be from this stranger who’s known him for an hour or two, and yet Roman had never been able to just accept what he said without an argument. He sounds crazy when he talks about what will happen, but Dee just nods and lets his lips twitch into a smile when handing him a roll of toilet paper.

Remus rips off another length the cheap paper and folds its in half before shoving it on his face. There’s blood in his mustache, which is frustrating and tastes just as gross as all the other times he’s had blood dripping down his chin.

“Remus,” Dee says, without looking up from his notepad.

“Yes, dearest stranger taking up half my bed?” He inhales hard.

“This is a fourth, at most.”

“Tomayto-tomahto.”

Dee shoots him a look that he can just barely make out around the clomps of flimsy paper he’s holding to his face. He looks like he’s trying not to be amused. Which is funny! Because, well, Remus can’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t related to him was in his company long enough to find him amusing.

“Why are you doing this?” Dee asks. “Other than the money, which we agreed would be a fifty-fifty split, regardless of how much we manage to walk out of here with….but somehow I don’t see money being enough for you to watch me die over and over again. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stopped me from lunging for that cash box.”

Remus is twenty-one when he shrugs and says, “It’s something to do.”

Dee huffs another dazzling laugh and for a moment Remus thinks he can see a flash of sharpened teeth in that smile, fangs like a vampire come to life, but it’s too fast for him to be sure. “Ah, I see we’re both liars tonight. Ready for the next attempt?”

Remus wonders if it’s still lying when its technically the truth. He’s doing this because its time spent with this shapeshifting sham, this enlightening enigma, this confusing con artist who lies as easily as breathing. Remus has a hard time believing anything personal he says is true, and yet he finds himself eyeing the three squared spaces on the comforter again wondering if it would be too much to make it two, one, none.

For someone who trusts Remus to see the future seven billions times as they try to figure out the vault code, who follows every direction Remus gives without hesitation, who continues to act as if Death is not something that can happen to him, he is extraordinarily hard to trust in return. Words are meaningless because he flaunts them, and Remus grew up watching Roman practice lines enough to know when someone was acting. Dee probably isn’t even his real name.

But Remus…Remus hasn’t been seen the way that Dee sees him before. Isn’t that enough for him to want to spend as long as he can with this stranger? Regardless of the danger Dee is running straight into? Regardless of the slight thrill that he gets from the prospect that they might get away with this?

-- There’s some garbled conversation on Dee’s end, pleasantries and greetings and nice things that Remus never bothered to memorize. Dee glides through the conversations with ease, deceiving and grifting like he had been born to do it. And who knows? Maybe he had been. Polite conversation gets them through another three doors, including a hall wracked the cameras and the final elevator that can only be opened with two keys and a pin code graciously provided by an aware high-level friend that followed them in and was still chatting about their Perfect Child’s first steps.

Remus sips his chocolate martini and watches the girl at the nearest roulette table eye the betting board. He knows from all the other times he’s watched that she loses, although as he peaks over at the numbers she’s never far off. It must be that excitement of the near win that keeps her there.

“Ah yes, the vault code,” Dee’s voice says, dragging Remus back to the mission at hand. He’s casual, loose, and ready, and Remus doesn’t still understand how he does it.

“5-1-3-3-4-1.”

He can hear Dee’s laugh and his he listens closer he can make out the guard that’s next to him still chattering away. Each button bings when Dee presses it in, soft and charming and not at all like the bells of victory when the code is right, holy shit. The Code was right. Dee’s breath catches in his throat, and Remus nearly drops his martini on the floor. His heart races in his chest with an emotion that he can’t quiet put a name too.

They did it.

They…won. Remus makes his way towards the doors where they were set to meet back up, and Dee continues a casual conversation with the armed guard about children as he fills both his briefcases with as much money as he can fit. By the breathless excitement in his voice, Remus can guess there’s more money in front of him than he expected to be able to get. He invites the guard over for family dinner next night because he’s an asshole and Remus finds that quality admirable.

He waves down a waitress to get a second drink, Dee’s celebratory drink, because as soon as he got past the doors they were home free-

“Hey! Hey! Stop him!” A voice yells in Dee’s ear and the shapeshifter curses.

“Remus!” He yells, “The executive is in the halls! He-!”

There’s a gunshot and a thud and Remus rips out his earpiece and screams loud enough to make all the nearest games freeze in their tracks—

“Let me guess,” Dee says, rolling over, “Another bust? The next numbers ar—”

“No,” Remus throws himself into a sitting position, and blindly grabbing for more toilet paper. The back of his throat is slick with a metallic taste and his head spins a bit when he tries to stand up. “No, Dee!”

“No?”

“Dee, we did it! That’s the code,” Remus says, pretending like his knees don’t buckle when the floor rolls under his feet. Dee is there in a moment, hands under his arms and holding him up completely. Its almost like a hug, Remus thinks distantly. He’s twenty-one and he can’t remember the last time someone hugged him even as a joke. His skin itches at the contact, blistering and burning at the warmth of someone else being so close to him. The cardamom scent is so strong, but Remus thinks he might be okay if that was the only thing he smelled for the rest of his life.

“Are you…okay?” Dee asks. “Why are you…?”

Remus uses the back of his hand to wipe away the stream of blood from his nose and inhales hard. “You died again. The executive you choose to impersonate is in the building and you run into him right before getting out with the cash.”

“Who was it? I can change into someone else.”

Remus shakes his head. “Oh no. I’ve got no clue, but if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s get someone’s attention.”

Dee grins, “You certainly got mine. What are you going to do?”

Remus slides his weight back and manages to stand on his own legs. Remus’s heart does a dance routine in his chest, moving like if it slows for even a second Dee will lunge forward and rip it from his body.

Remus tells him, “I’m going to go make a girl win at roulette so much they think she’s cheating. With a hundred thousand dollars on the line that should have their attentions, right?”

It’s not really a question. Remus knows from experience that the more games in a row that you win during a game involving so much luck, the more interest people start to take in it and you. He just needs to convince the girl to bet only where he tells her to, and then bet as much as she can.

He knows how to do it, too: simply walk up to her and offer her a free Barney if she bets on the square he tells her too. Once she wins, he tells her the next one, and maybe she puts a nickel down, or a quarter, just in case he’s wrong. When she wins again, he’ll tell her the next number, and she’ll put more on it. Then more. Then more. She doesn’t even need to believe that he can see the future. She just has to reap the rewards.

“Oh,” Dee says staring at him. “Oh.”

Remus isn’t sure what he’s looking at. He just knows that Dee’s eyes are as blue as the ocean and deeper than anything he’s ever drowned in. He’s looking at Remus again, like this is the first time he’s seeing him in this lighting, and when he smiles, his teeth are definitely sharper than before.

“I do believe,” Dee says, “we could make the best team of thieves there is out here.”

“You’re just now figuring that out?” Remus asks. “Come on. I didn’t listen to you die nine hundred times just for you to chicken out now.”

He grabs his jacket, and buttons it. With a swipe of his hands he’s hair sets back in the position before, like some type of magic act. If Dee’s the magician, Remus thinks he would be honored to be in the front row every time he performs.

“So, you’d be up to doing this again, correct?” Dee asks, with his hand on the doorknob.

“They won’t fall for the same trick twice,” Remus says, “And what makes you think that this is something I enjoy?”

“I didn’t ask if you enjoyed it. I asked if you’d do this again. Not here, but somewhere else.” Dee glances at him, side eyeing him in a way that makes the hair on the back of Remus’s neck stand on end. “You still owe me.”

“What?” Remus turns to face him, and if there’s a spark in his chest, a nudge of excitement, well who can blame him? People don’t usually want him to stay around.

Another step in the hall. “We made a deal, unless you’ve forgotten. You said that if I could figure out how you were cheating, you’d do one thing that I want you to do.”

Remus snorted and motioned between them, “What do you call this? What we’ve been doing for the past hour?”

“This?” The man gives him a shark-like smile, “You did this of your own volition!”

“I seem to recall you asking,” Remus challenges.

Dee shakes his head too innocently. “Not in this timeline.” He pulls out his pale-yellow handkerchief and offers it to him, “You still have blood on your face by the way.”

There’s something nice about the way that this man is looking at him, the way he’s still looking at him, like Remus is something more than a nuisance, more than a distraction, more than an unwanted, frustrating intrusion. It makes his knees weak and the back of his throat taste like blood again and he so desperately wants to look to the future but won’t let himself do it.

“What do you want?” Remus says, because the uncharacteristic fear in his chest is slowly turning all his organs to butterflies and he never goes back on a promise.

“Well, you did say anything I wanted right? Anything at all?”

Remus nods, rolling his finger over the snake design on the stolen poker chip. Suddenly there doesn’t seem to be enough air in the world, and he’s afraid if he inhales too deeply trying to get more, the whole reality will shatter.

Dee’s form shimmers, shivers, and dissolves into Tim the dealer as they wait for the elevator to take them back to the casino floor. It’s an entirely different person but when he looks at Remus all he can see is Dee’s expression.

“Well, Remus,” He says, “After we finish up here, I want you to come with me. Work with me a bit. Let me help you amass a bit of a fortune. Strictly professional, of course. I won’t ask about your past and you don’t ask about mine. We don’t even need to be friends! Just…”

Dee offers out a gloved hand to him. “Business partners?”

Remus is twenty-one and he thinks there might be a timeline out there where he says no, but he doesn’t even entertain that thought.

“Business Partners,” He says and shakes on it.

[supercasey]

this is a weird af question i'm sure but what would the avatar kids be like if they hadn't ran away to the institute/not realized how messed up their upbringings were?

Oooooooo, now THIS will be fun to answer ((tbh, this has been on my mind for awhile now, so thanks for the excuse to infodump))!!! I’m gonna try doing stuff for ALL the kids, but it’ll be a bit hard considering the fact that most of them are so unlikely to actually submit to their avatardom.

Jonathan Sims: His destiny is a bit of a toss-up, since it depends on which of his parents’ teachings he would end up following. If he takes more after Elias, he’ll end up becoming the perfect Eye avatar anyone could ask for; an endless slew of information and knowledge, not to mention loyal to his patron and his father. If he ends up following in Gertrude’s footsteps though, he’ll use his powers much more sparingly as he grows older and be about 40% more likely to get arrested for arson.

Martin Blackwood: This is going off of the idea that the Lonely’s first big ritual involving him actually worked, otherwise the only other option would’ve been Peter not rescuing him, in which case he would’ve disappeared forever into the fog. In this scenario however, the Lonely accepts Martin as a more physical vessel for itself, and he continues on as a more or less lifeless husk that just swallows everything in it’s sight. Very sad all around.

Tim Stoker: In the event that he never runs away, Tim would complete his training as a dancer and allow the circus to change him into something barely resembling a human anymore (I haven’t actually listened to much of The Mechanisms, but maybe he’d look something like the Tim toy soldier guy??? I like him). He's Danny’s right hand man, as well as the circus’ muscle when things get particularly dicey.

Danny Stoker: He would’ve ended up very spoiled and damn near as conniving as Sasha; takes a lot after Nikola and makes her proud at every opportunity, making him a bit of a mama’s boy. Would be an incredible ringmaster, praying primarily on those attending the circus with their family members (especially sets of siblings). Becomes much more powerful overtime, almost completely growing into a monster in the process.

Sasha James: An absolute master of manipulation and trickery, using her hacking skills to start the Web down a path of internet fraud and impersonation on a massive scale. Ends up being rivals with Eye!Jon, leading to them having a very Spy vs Spy dynamic that’s this close to them becoming friends, but alas, their parents hate each other and they know it. Ten times smarter than anyone else belonging to the Web.

Melanie King: Say hello to Grifter’s Bone’s new lead bassist and singer! She takes up the mantle by the time she’s thirteen or so, putting a more young punk spin on the band’s music, which draws in younger victims for the Slaughter’s influence. Has a thousand something knives on her at one time, and has a hard time not joining in on the riots the band starts.

Julia Montauk: In the event that Trevor can’t keep her from succumbing to the Hunt’s influence, she becomes a brutal, violent creature that stays primarily in her Hunt form, only turning human when she wants to draw out a hunt/trick people into thinking she’s one of them. If things go really bad, she ends up killing Trevor at some point to prove she’s stronger than him (and immediately regretting it).

Alice “Daisy” Tonner: I feel like her fall would be similar to canon, with either Trevor never finding her, which leads her to follow her canon path, or she joins Julia in fighting back against Trevor’s desire to save them, eventually running away to hunt on her own and become a fully fledged werewolf. Unlike Julia, she never turns human after a certain point, and eventually she goes on to kill Julia after she crosses into her territory.

Oliver Banks: I honestly have very few ideas on how he would end up in this sort of AU, seeing as he’s kinda already on a path that’s very aligned with the End’s influence, but if he completely gave in and did whatever it wanted, he’d probably become something akin to a grim reaper, stalking people in their dreams and making sure they’ll die the way they’re fated to. Might take an apprenticeship under Nathaniel Throp.

Georgie Barker: Similar to Oliver, I’m not 100% sure what to do for her. I feel like the Admiral is what’s keeping her from falling, so without him she’d definitely become a completely fearless and relentless avatar of the End, carrying out similar death sentences to Oliver, except she actually makes more people die than is necessary. If Jon follows Gertrude’s teachings in this scenario, then he starts trying to help her escape her powers.

Mike Crew: He’s kinda already becoming a fully fledged avatar of the Vast, but like Oliver, I can see him going further than he has. He’d be almost exactly like his canon self, except he’d have a much harder time blending in with modern society, relying on his connection to Simon and the rest of the Fairchild family for help getting by. If he ended up getting abandoned though, he might become more lonely over time... 👀👀👀 Martin could certainly use a “friend”

Helen Richardson: Seeing as Michael and Gertrude finding her is what’s essentially saved her already (I imagine she’ll still have Spiral powers for the rest of her life, but she could never become an avatar later on in the CA AU while she’s being raised by Michael), in this scenario she’s never rescued, and she either dies in the Spiral due to neglect, or she becomes similar to Martin, acting as a mere vessel for her patron.

Jane Prentiss: I’m still a bit iffy on how to write Jane, seeing as I added her after the AU was already kinda started (and also because I don’t remember much about her from S1), but I imagine without Adelard saving her, she would’ve eventually left Amherst to be raised by the Corruption in a more direct fashion, making her like Helen and Martin, but with more free will than them.

So all in all, Jon vs Sasha would be a big conflict with the Stoker Brothers occasionally getting involved just so they can Cause Problems On Purpose, Martin, Helen, and Jane are the resident “ghosts” that haunt everyone, Julia and Daisy are feral, Mike can’t cope with this shit, Georgie and Oliver are essentially grim reapers, and Melanie is the only motherfucker having any fun.

These are some very sad/unfortunate scenarios, huh? At least this is all speculative and in no way canon to the CA AU as a whole; it’s just a fun lil’ idea to think about! Thanks so much for the ask, Anon!

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

Tumblr tag || Also on AO3

Chapter 30: Tim

Tim still feels guilty a week later.

Not, it has to be said, that anyone is making him feel guilty. Quite the opposite. The group hug in the Primes’ unofficial bedroom seems to have cleared the air. They don’t exactly say anything about forgiveness or accepting one another’s apologies, but Sasha comes with them when they leave work and ends up spending the night; they build a massive fort in the living room using every pillow and blanket in the house, have popcorn and hot chocolate for dinner, and swap stories about their childhoods until way too late in the evening considering they have work the next day. When Martin hesitantly admits the next evening that he’s been having trouble sleeping, Jon reminds him of his promise that Martin doesn’t have to be alone anymore, and the three of them curl up together in Tim’s bed for the first time since Jon’s stabbing, this time with Martin in the middle. They agree after that to assume they’ll keep doing that unless one of them has a genuine need to sleep alone.

But Tim still finds himself occasionally waking up in the middle of the night and studying the peaceful look on Martin’s face as he sleeps, or watching Jon mumble and shift restlessly as he watches whatever horror the Eye is forcing someone to relive, and feeling like the world’s biggest heel. While he knows he doesn’t have anything to do with Jon’s nightmares, he still feels like they’re not so bad when Jon isn’t isolating himself, and God knows Martin’s sleep is probably better when he doesn’t feel like he’s being shut out. And while, again, Jon was the one to insist at first that it would be better for him to sleep alone while he had the stitches in and Martin had quietly gone to his own room as well, Tim still feels like he pushed them away, even if it was unconsciously. He hurt both of them and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

He knows he should say something. That’s the whole point of all this; they’re trying to communicate. If something is bothering him, he ought to tell the others. But what he doesn’t want is for Martin—or Jon, for that matter—to spout platitudes and reassurances that he won’t believe. Even though he can tell from their actions that they’re genuine.

At the root of it, that’s the issue. Jon and Martin have forgiven Tim for the way he treated them when he was angry. Tim can’t forgive himself.

Tim taps his pen against his jaw absently as he studies the file in front of him. He’s quizzed Martin Prime on the “feeling” he once mentioned getting about which statements were real or not, and in the last few days he’s been trying his hand at it. It’s slow going, and he knows it’s probably at least partly because he’s resisted the Eye harder than the others, but ever since Sasha’s intervention, he’s decided, screw it. He’s trapped here, for better or for worse, and if it means he maybe gets freaky psychic powers, maybe he can at least use them to help keep his family safe.

This one feels real. It feels bad. Tim hates it on sight, which probably means it’s a Stranger statement; he tends to react badly to those for obvious reasons. And this one deals with taxidermy, which definitely doesn’t help matters. Still, he grits his teeth and digs into it, and what he finds…isn’t comforting. The name Daniel Rawlings is one he remembers—that was one of the people who went missing near Old Fishmarket Close, the very first statement they ever researched that had to go on the tape recorders. And the description of the thing in the basement sounds a hell of a lot like the thing Nathan Watts saw—holding bodies, luring people down with creepy, repetitive phrases. The guy’s lucky to be alive. The fact that the Trophy Room apparently still exists, and is still under Daniel Rawlings’ ownership, is…not great. From a research standpoint, it’s a boon they don’t usually get, but from a practical, this-is-probably-something-set-to-destroy-the-world standpoint, it’s fucking terrifying.

Tim stares at the statement for a long moment. Whether they need to follow up on it or not is almost academic at this point; they will follow up on it, because it’s what they do. They’ll do what they can from the office, but Tim doesn’t need any kind of special powers to know that eventually, someone will go out there to investigate in person. And it’s dangerous. Someone could get seriously hurt.

Which means there’s only one choice, really.

Sasha comes back from her lunch break and smiles at Tim; he smiles reflexively back and goes through the usual routine of how was your lunch, what’s the weather like, anything interesting come up while I was out. He assures Sasha that everything is fine on their end, shuffles the folder under some of the others on his desk under the guise of neatening things up, grabs his jacket, feels to make sure his phone is in the inner pocket, and heads out of the Archives.

It’s the warmest it’s been all month, but there’s just enough of a breeze to keep his jacket on as he walks to the Tube station. Sloane Square is the nearest stop to the Institute, but it’s not on the right line, so he’ll have to change trains at Monumental, and God, this is stupid. Jon hasn’t told him to look into this statement like this, hasn’t sent him to investigate. He doesn’t have to do this, job-wise.

It also occurs to him, belatedly, that he hasn’t told anyone he’s doing this. Well, there’s a reason for that, really; Jon would either try to forbid him from heading out there or insist he bring someone along, neither of which are happening. Tim’s not exposing anyone else on the team to this, even if he’s right there with them. Better that it just be him risking…whatever he’s risking by heading up to Woodside Park. But he should at least warn someone he might be a bit late getting back from lunch. He doesn’t have to say where he’s going exactly, he rationalizes, just say he’s investigating a statement. There are four or five on his desk, and even if Sasha goes snooping through them to see what he’s working on, there’s no way they can be sure this is the one he’s poking into. They’ll probably think it’s any statement but this one. They all know how Tim feels about the Stranger.

When he sits down on the second train just before it pulls out of the station, he reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone. What he pulls out…is not his phone. It’s a small handheld tape recorder, the sort of thing you’d find in an amateur spy kit, looking like it’s brand new out of the package. Tim stares at it in stupefaction for a moment, then quickly pats himself down. His phone is not in his pocket, and he suddenly has a clear and vivid picture in his mind of it sitting on the corner of his desk, charging, because he forgot to plug it in last night.

Great.

For a moment, he’s tempted to go back. Turn around, head back to the Institute, grab his phone, come back another time. Maybe give Jon a heads-up that he’ll be a bit late getting back, if Jon’s back from lunch by the time he gets there. He doesn’t have to say where he’s going, just that he’s following up on a statement or something like that. No need to specify, right?

He doesn’t, though. For one thing, he’s pretty sure if he goes back, he’ll lose his nerve and either not go back or bring someone back with him…or worse, let one of the others go instead. He’ll never be able to live with himself if he puts anyone else in danger like that. And for another, he knows Jon won’t accept a half-explanation. Tim will either have to tell him nothing or everything. And if Tim tells Jon everything, Jon will forbid Tim to come out here.

“I can hear him now,” he mutters, still staring at the recorder in his hand. “‘There’s no need for you to put yourself in that kind of danger, Tim, and certainly no need to expose yourself to that. We can do this over the phone if we have to.’”

Except they can’t; the Stranger is at its best when it’s hidden, so if they’re not looking it in the—well, looking it in the eye, Tim guesses—it’s going to lie to them. It might lie to his face, too, but at least he’ll have the evidence of his senses. And at least he can put it on alert, maybe. The Eye sees you. The Institute is aware of you. Timothy Stoker knows where to find you.

Yeah, right. This is the stupidest thing Tim’s done since he tried to jump off the roof using his grandmother’s umbrella with the bird handle as a parachute.

He turns the recorder over a couple of times in his hands. The Primes mentioned once that their Tim hated these things—the way they kept turning up without warning, the way they would turn themselves on at random times, what they might mean. Tim’s not exactly thrilled about this one just turning up in his pocket either, if it comes down to it, especially in place of his phone. A tape recorder won’t enable him to get in touch with anyone if things go tits-up, or if he’s running late or something. On the other hand…well, it’s better than nothing. And he has to admit it’s a little bit of a comfort to know he’s not technically alone. The Primes both swear they aren’t a tool of the Eye, and he has to admit their logic is sound as to why not, but still, someone or something is listening to him, which means he won’t disappear into nothing. If, God forbid, something goes wrong, at least there will be a record. Some kind of witness.

Tim pats down his pockets and locates a pen, then pops open the recorder. Nestled inside is a microcassette tape, ready and waiting. He considers for a moment, then writes RETURN TO ARCHIVES, THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE, LONDON on the label as neatly as he can. There isn’t anywhere on the recorder’s surface to write, and he doesn’t have any tape or anything, but he hopes that will be sufficient, should someone find it and need to send it back. He considers writing his name and the address of the Institute on his arm or something, the way his parents used to do with him and Danny whenever they went out someplace they might get separated, but decides against it. Based on where he’s going and what he knows about what’s there, the balance of probability is that if he dies, they won’t leave any skin to identify him. He’ll have to settle for tucking his wallet in the same pocket as the recorder and hoping they dispose of his jacket without going through it.

Tim is beginning to wish he put a little more forethought into this. Or, you know, any forethought at all.

Woodside Park is almost at the end of the Northern line, which gives Tim way too much time to think about turning back and consider that there’s no turning back now. He’s the only one who gets off at that stop, which is certainly not eerie at all. Nope, nothing to be concerned about here, perfectly normal. (Logically, it probably is perfectly normal, but Tim is so addled right now that everything looks spooky.) He fishes out the recorder and turns it on.

“Right,” he says. “Uh, this is Timothy Stoker, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, and…if you’re listening to this and don’t know what that is, well, uh, stop listening and get this back to Jonathan Sims, the Head Archivist. You, uh, you should be able to look it up. Stop listening now.” He pauses a second or two, then continues, “Okay, should be Archival staff listening now…Jon, Martin, if it’s you, I’m sorry, but I had to do this. I’m, uh, I’m at Woodside Park right now, I just got off the Tube, and…well, I’m about to go into the Trophy Room. This statement is just…it’s too freaky to leave alone. I can’t risk any of you if it’s something serious and…I’m sorry. Anyway, I’m…going to leave this thing going in my pocket, kind of try to get a recording, so that if I can’t explain for whatever reason, you’ll know what happens. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Hopefully nothing too bad, but…well, we’ll see.”

He pauses for a moment, then tucks the recorder back in his pocket and says under his breath, “Fuck.” Then he takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and heads down the block.

The Trophy Room isn’t hard to find. It’s exactly as the taxman described it in his statement—an aged, grimy building with faded gold lettering and a dirt-streaked olive green awning. There’s even a stuffed big cat in the window, and the only reason Tim knows it’s a tiger and not a lion, apart from the statement, is because big cats were something of an obsession of his when he was nine or ten, back when he’d considered a career as a wild animal tamer for a circus, and he made a study of the physiology of them. This is unmistakably a tiger, long-faded stripes notwithstanding. That seems to him a somewhat irresponsible way to care for something you ought to put pride in, but what does Tim know?

The bell over the door clangs raucously when Tim pushes the door open, and he is suddenly confronted by hundreds of staring, glassy eyes. Tim quite likes animals and he’s seen many of the ones in the shop live and in person, including an up-close-and-personal encounter with a moose (this one must be a juvenile, he thinks, a full-grown bull wouldn’t fit in the space it’s crammed into), but the concentration of them looking at him, all at once, is disconcerting, to say the least. But it’s not nearly so disorientating as the smell. Danny once declared he was going to buy their mother something “unique” and purchased a titan arum for her before learning that it was more commonly called a “corpse flower” for a very good reason. This place smells like they’ve got an entire greenhouse of them under the floor.

Which is better than the alternative, really.

A man comes out of the back. True to the description in the statement, he’s a “fresh-faced twenty-something”; if he’s even Jon’s age, Tim will eat the entire taxidermied moose. He raises his eyebrows in Tim’s direction. “Can I help you?”

A nagging, persistent voice in the back of Tim’s head that sounds an awful lot like Martin suggests that declaring himself to be from the Magnus Institute would be the worst decision he’s made all day, which is saying a lot. Time to fake it. Luckily, Tim’s good at that. He switches on his most charming smile. “Hi! I sure hope so. I’m looking for a Christmas present for my sister.”

Is it Tim’s imagination, or does the man he presumes to be Daniel Rawlings relax, just a fraction? “Bit early for that, aren’t you?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t know if you’d have something on hand or if I’d have to wait for you to get something in or bring something in,” Tim says, waving at the assorted animals. “I mean, she’s kinda picky sometimes. I don’t know how this works.”

“Ah. Well, let’s see what I can do to help you.” The man extends a hand and grins. “I’m Daniel Rawlings. And you are…?”

“Nick DiAngelo.” Tim Anglicizes his grandfather’s name; it feels safer than giving his real one. He accepts Rawlings’ hand; it’s cool, hard, and very dry.

“Mm.” Tim can’t tell if Rawlings believes him or not, but he shakes his hand and lowers it. “Well, all of these pieces are for sale, unless you brought something in. You’re not a…hunter yourself, are you?”

Tim doesn’t like the emphasis Rawlings puts on hunter, but he keeps up his smile. “Nah, not my thing. Never been one for guns or the like. I like my nature alive.”

“But your sister doesn’t?”

“She’s an animal lover, but she can’t have pets at this new place she’s moving to. So, stuffed it is.” Tim waves a hand at the room. “Don’t think there’s room in her flat for a whole moose, of course, but…”

“Of course, of course. Well, feel free to look around and see if anything catches your…eye.”

Tim manages not to react to that word. Instead, he, smiles again and ambles towards a shelf full of squirrels. The animals’ eyes seem to follow him as he walks, and he knows Rawlings’ eyes follow him, too.

“So how long have you been doing this, anyway?” he blurts after a moment, turning back to face Rawlings. “It must have taken ages to do all this.”

“Oh, I inherited it,” Rawlings tells him. “An old friend of my father’s left it to me. Apparently he didn’t have any other family.”

Mentally, Tim ticks off the first item on the list—the stories tally. Which, well, of course they would. “Do you like all this?”

Rawlings shrugs. Tim tries again. “You’re lucky, you know. Falling into a business like this. I’ve been having to work my way up from the bottom. Is it hard?”

“Not so hard as it could be, I suppose.” Rawlings looks around him. “At least it’s a good, steady business. No heavy lifting.” He smiles. “I’ve got people for that.”

“Hey, are you hiring?”

“Hmm.” Rawlings tips his head to one side, studying Tim. A prickle of unease crawls up Tim’s spine. The man won’t make eye contact, but something about that regard unsettles him. “I think we might be able to find a…fitting position for you. If you’re interested.”

Tim pretends to consider it. “Tell you what. I’ll let you know after the new year? Got a big project I’m in the middle of now.”

“Of course. There’s plenty of time.” Rawlings smiles. “It’s not like the animals are going anywhere.”

Tim laughs, despite the creeping feeling of dread. “That would be…strange.”

The word slips out before Tim can stop it, but Rawlings laughs, too. He seems genuinely delighted, and even comes closer. “Here, let me help you find something that would suit your sister.”

He lights a cigarette. Tim raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you worried about these old things going up if you drop that?”

“I’d be desolate if they did.” There’s no doubt about it; Rawlings is dropping those words deliberately, but this time he sounds amused more than taunting. He either realizes Tim knows something, or he’s just showing off his own knowledge. Neither of which is good. “But no, they’re remarkably well-preserved.”

“That’s what they said about our uncle,” Tim quips. He does get another laugh out of Rawlings for that one. “How old are they, anyway? I know you said your dad’s friend did them…”

“He owned the shop. Many hands have worked these creatures.” Rawlings strokes the moose’s nose almost reverently. “Tell me, Mr. DiAngelo, what is your field?”

“History,” Tim lies easily. “Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a focus on arts and industry.”

“Ah.” Rawlings still doesn’t meet his eyes, but there’s a glitter in them. “Then I think I have something worth showing you.” He gestures towards the back.

Tim’s not stupid, despite all current evidence to the contrary. He knows from the statement that the workroom is back there, behind the office. There’s a distinct possibility that he’s letting himself be lured into a deadly trap. But in keeping with his persona, and also in the interest of getting the information he needs, he says brightly, “Great! Lead on, then.”

If he survives this, Jon’s going to kill him.

The office is small, largely dominated by an old oak desk. Seated behind it is a petite woman with close-cropped brown hair, wearing a grey t-shirt and a light jacket, bent over what look like account books. Tim has a nasty feeling he knows who this woman is.

“Sarah,” Rawlings says, confirming Tim’s suspicions-slash-fears, “this is Nick DiAngelo. I brought him back to show him the skins…Mr. DiAngelo, this is Sarah Baldwin, one of my fellow employees.”

“Pleasure,” Tim says cheerfully. This is officially too much, but he’s got to see it through now. The smell of Death By Flowers is stronger here, and he remembers suddenly Melanie King mentioning in her statement that the Sarah Baldwin who did sound work for her Ghost Hunt UK episode had a sharp, faintly floral perfume, or something like that. He wonders if she’s been living here—so to speak—all this time, if the smell of the building has soaked into her skin or if it’s something that comes from her and Rawlings and whatever else might be part of all this.

“Hi,” Sarah says succinctly. Tim also remembers Melanie saying she was a woman of few words.

“Come look at these. She won’t mind,” Rawlings assures Tim. Sure enough, Sarah seems scarcely aware of their presence as Rawlings begins showing Tim the skins hanging on the wall. And if they’re genuine, if he’s telling the truth about their origins—and Tim has no reason to doubt him—they are impressive.

One skin seems to be missing, though. The man from Internal Revenue described a gorilla skin, alleged to be from the fifth century B.C., the oldest bit of taxidermy in the world. There’s nothing like that in this room. Tim’s not sure why that bothers him so much, but reluctantly, he has to admit that he probably shouldn’t ignore it.

“…And this,” Rawlings concludes, indicating a stuffed figure on the desk—a white hare in a waistcoat, “was part of the Great Exhibition of 1851. It helped drive Victorian England mad for the craft.”

Tim doesn’t like the emphasis he puts on mad, but since this is supposed to be his specialty, he says, “I am impressed. There was a lot of fantastic craftwork at the Great Exhibition. I saw a stereoscope card once while I was doing my graduate research, but I never dreamed I would ever see something that was actually displayed there.”

“Would you like to touch it?” Rawlings asks. “You can, you know. It’s quite safe.”

Tim tries very much to look like he’s hesitating out of reverence for the age of the piece and not because he wonders if he’s going to end up poisoned, sucked into an alternate dimension, or triggering a trapdoor to the mouth of a hungry monster, but he can’t actually think of a good reason why a historian would refuse to touch, well, actual history. So he reaches out, slowly, and runs his hand over the hare’s fur. It’s stiff and wiry, the effects of almost two centuries of existence, but still feels mostly soft under his palm. The body is solid and firm. If he didn’t know better, he would swear it has a heartbeat.

“That’s brilliant,” he breathes. Hopefully he still sounds awed and not terrified. He takes a risk. “Is this the oldest piece you have?”

“Wolf,” Sarah grunts, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the wolf pelt hanging on the wall.

“It dates back to the Middle Ages,” Rawlings explains. “We had one even older, but, well, it was stolen some years ago.”

“Stolen?” Tim is genuinely taken aback by this. “Did they ever find it?”

“No, sadly. It was never sold, at least not publicly, so who knows?” Rawlings sighs. “It was a gorilla skin, from Carthage. Brought over by Hammo in the fifth century B.C.”

“It must have been worth a pretty penny,” Tim whistles.

“Its value is immeasurable,” Rawlings says earnestly. “It means the world.”

Something about that phrase makes Tim’s blood run cold. Not it means the world to me, or to my dad’s friend, even though he guesses that’s a fiction. Just it means the world. Whatever that means, it can’t be good for humanity.

“Well,” he says, as sympathetically as he can. “I hope it comes back to you in the fullness of time.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will. If it hasn’t been destroyed…I’m sure there’s someone out there who knows where to look.”

Tim would like to go now, he decides. He’s pretty sure he has all the information he needs, and surely the Primes can fill in anything he’s missing. “I’m glad you showed me these. They’re really impressive. But I’m sure they’re well out of my price range.”

“Maybe,” Rawlings says. “But that could change. We’ll discuss that later, if you’re still interested in that job.”

Tim definitely does not like the sound of that. “I’ll be in touch about that. And I’ll be back for sure about something for my sister, once I’ve had time to…reassess things a little. You know, get an idea about her flat layout and what sort of thing would work best for her.”

Rawlings smiles. It sends chills down Tim’s spine. “Don’t be a stranger.”

He holds out his hand. As they shake again, for the first time, Rawlings looks Tim dead in the eye, and Tim realizes two things. First of all, the taxman wasn’t kidding; Rawlings’ eyes are as dead and lifeless as the animals’, and like theirs are made of glass, fixed in place where his real eyes should be. They should stare without seeing, but unlike Martin Prime’s eyes, which are still warm and expressive but stare right past or through you, these bore into Tim’s and he is one hundred percent aware that Rawlings can see him perfectly clearly.

Second…his eyes are glowing faintly, a deep and vibrant indigo, like they’re lit from within. Which is frankly beyond disturbing.

“I won’t,” Tim assures him, and means it.

He comes out of the office ahead of Rawlings and is about halfway to the door when it happens. The bell jangles again, and two men come in—two men Tim would prefer never to see again, dressed like deliverymen and crossing into the shop.

It’s Breekon and Hope.

One of them notices Tim and stiffens. “Hey, you.”

“What are you doing here?” asks the other, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Come to spy on us?”

“See what we’re doing?”

“What?” Rawlings asks sharply.

Tim bolts. He has surprise on his side and manages to get out the door before anyone can grab him, but unlike the man who gave the statement, he knows they’re not just going to let him get away. He considered a lot of possible fates for himself should he visit the Trophy Room, but somehow, Breekon and Hope turning up while he was there, and recognizing him, never occurred to him. Stupid. Stupid.

It’s a good stretch to the Tube station, and Tim expects every step to feel them on his heels, but either they can’t move as quickly as him or they’re not chasing him for their own reasons. Still, he hears a rumble behind him and doesn’t stop to check if it’s them or not. Instead, he sprints for the entrance to the station and leaps down the steps three at a time. He lands wrong at the bottom and his ankle buckles, but he shakes off the pain and manages to just make it to the train before it pulls out, which at least has the advantage of giving anyone who saw him come flying in a possible explanation for his hurry beyond “being chased by something out of a horror film”.

He collapses into his seat and catches his breath as the train pulls away, heading back towards central London. Once he’s breathing normally, he takes stock. His ankle throbs, but the pain is relatively mild. He’ll live and, most crucially, he’s not in the back of an ersatz delivery van…or worse. Tim honestly can’t say what he would have done if they’d caught him, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to think about it.

After a moment, he reaches into his pocket and checks for the recorder. It’s stopped, which might mean it cut itself off when the danger had passed, or might mean he hit the end of the spool, or might mean he screwed up and turned it off and it didn’t catch what happened in there at all. He’s going to have to hope he got everything, though, because no way is he risking playing this on the train. There are other people here, after all, although not many. He does rewind it, though, and he’s comforted to hear the length of its backwards spool. There’s something on it at least.

He makes the connection with seconds to spare; the Central line is a bit more crowded, so he ends up standing near the door, which does at least mean he’s the first one off at Sloane Square. He tries to hurry without running—the last thing he wants is to draw attention—but even now, he finds himself glancing over his shoulder periodically to see if anyone is following him. Luckily, it appears he’s managed to give them the slip. For now, anyway.

As he gets closer to the Institute, he slows up and tries to straighten up his appearance. The last thing he wants is to make it look like he had to run for his life, or might still be running. He’s got the tape if Jon doesn’t believe what he says, but maybe he’ll get lucky and he can avoid having to play it, so Jon—and Martin, for that matter—don’t have to know how close a shave he just had.

Yeah, right. And maybe he’ll finally get that phone call about his audition for Jersey Boys.

He’s still limping as he reaches the Institute and lets himself in the door to the Archives. For just a minute, he pauses when he comes in, wondering why they swapped out the light bulbs for novelty green ones…but no, he blinks hard and the lighting goes back to normal. Just the regular old Archives, rows of shelves littered with files, pod of desks in the work area, three people grouped around it. Tim’s not sure what’s going on, but from the looks of it, Sasha and Jon are sitting down and Martin is fussing.

Martin looks up as Tim comes closer, and his face goes slack with relief. “Tim!”

Sasha’s head whips around. “Are you all right?” she asks.

Tim tries for a grin. “I’m not dead.”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly comforting. You get why that’s not comforting, right?” Martin tugs at his hair in evident frustration. “Wh—” He stops and presses his lips together tightly for a second.

“You’re late.” Jon’s voice is soft but accusing. He gets to his feet and wobbles for a second before steadying himself against the back of the chair.

Suddenly worried, Tim takes a step towards him. His ankle chooses that moment to remind him that he’s already fucked it up and buckles under him, nearly sending him to the floor. He doesn’t fall far before Martin is there, catching him and half-dragging, half-carrying him over to his chair. “You’re hurt.”

“Master of the obvious,” Tim tries to joke, and then he sees the look on Martin’s face and realizes what’s going on. They’ve all realized that Martin has acquired the ability to compel people to tell him things, especially about how they got hurt or why they’re scared; he’s trying to learn how to control it, just like Jon and Sasha are trying to learn to control their new powers, but Jon Prime warned them already that it will be harder for them to not let it slip in involuntarily when they’re upset or stressed. Martin is trying very hard not to force Tim to tell him anything. It’s a courtesy Tim doesn’t think he deserves, but he swallows down on the guilt. “Just twisted, I think. No big deal.” He eases away from Martin and stands; it hurts a bit, but he’s at least able to do it on his own.

Martin lets him, but he’s still hovering, around both him and Jon. Jon stands facing Tim, looking grim. “You didn’t have your phone with you, Tim. We couldn’t contact you. It’s been two hours.”

Tim winces. “I didn’t realize I’d left it behind until it was too late to come back, and then I just…I thought I’d be back sooner. Sorry, boss. I’ll make up the time.”

“I’m not worried about the time, Tim!” Jon throws his hands up in frustration. “I’m worried about you. You were gone longer than you should have been, and we had no way of getting in touch with you, nor any idea where you were.”

“I—I was going to text you, but—”

“No, Tim, we didn’t know where you were,” Martin emphasizes. “Sasha tried to Know where you’d gone and gave herself a nosebleed. Jon tried and passed out! I-I finally asked downstairs, and all he’d say was that you were safe and on the way back, but that’s really not as comforting as he made it sound.”

“I know how you feel about…all of that,” Jon says, his voice sounding strained, “but we were worried. We were scared. Especially since…” He gestures at the files on Tim’s desk. “I wasn’t sure which one you were investigating.”

And Jon’s avoiding actually asking questions, too, out of fear of forcing Tim to answer against his will. They’re all better than he deserves, he thinks distantly, and it would serve him right if—no. He’s hurt them enough.

“The Trophy Room,” he says quietly. He reaches into his pocket and fishes out the tape recorder, which he hands to Jon. “Pretty sure I got the whole thing on there, but I haven’t had a chance to check.”

“The Trophy Room? The taxidermy shop in Barnet? The one we’re pretty sure is a stronghold for the Stranger?” Martin’s voice rises in pitch. “Are you out of your mind?”

“What were you thinking?” Jon says, clearly upset. “You’ve read that statement, you know how dangerous it is. If I had wanted someone to go there to investigate, I would have sent someone, and you would have been the last person I would choose—”

“I wasn’t going to let any of you go out there,” Tim argues.

“Tim, you’re already marked by the Stranger,” Jon says sharply. “Remember what they said? The marks make you a bigger target. It means they’re more likely to try something on you. That—whatever it was in the basement, the anglerfish thing—if Rawlings had opened the door, it might have lured you down. My God, Tim, you could have been killed and we would have had no idea where you were.”

If Tim did this to make himself feel less guilty, he failed spectacularly. He inhales sharply and tries to meet Jon’s eyes. For just a second, they seem to glow a vivid and vibrant green; Tim blinks and they go back to their normal brown. “I—I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about that, I just—all I could think about was that I needed to protect you all. I knew someone was going to end up investigating all this, we couldn’t get the truth over the phone, and I—I didn’t want to risk one of you going over there. I knew it was dangerous, but…I haven’t done enough, so I thought it had to be me.”

“Tim.” Jon’s jaw works for a moment, and then he just surges forward and hugs Tim tightly.

Tim hugs him back, feeling the tears pricking at his eyes. A moment later he feels the comforting weight and warmth of Martin’s arms around them both, but instead of making him relax, it just makes the tears flow harder. He doesn’t deserve this.

He must say that aloud, because Jon releases him and steps back to frown at him. “Don’t deserve what? What are you talking about?”

“This.” Tim gestures to Jon and Martin hovering around him, then to Sasha, who evidently was part of the hug, too, at least peripherally. “I didn’t—I fucked up, Jon. I shoved you all away and I made you feel—I was hurting, so I hurt you without any reason, and I—”

“We were all hurting,” Martin interrupts him, his face tight with sympathy. “And we all did things to hurt each other—”

“You didn’t,” Sasha points out.

“I could’ve stepped in any time, or spoken up about what was bothering me, instead of acting like I thought you’d hurt me if I tried,” Martin says. “I didn’t. I let myself class you all in the same category as my mother, and that isn’t fair to any of you. I know better. What happened this month between us is as much my fault as anyone else’s and I’m not going to sit by and act like I’m the victim in all this, because that isn’t fair to anyone. Including me.” He takes a deep breath. “We’re a team. We’re a family. We’re supposed to work together, right?”

“Right.” Tim swallows hard and wipes his eyes. “No more unauthorized field trips. Promise.”

Jon nods. “Thank you.” He glances at the tape recorder. “I’ll listen to this later, if you need me to, but meanwhile, why don’t you tell us what happened?”

Tim sighs. “Might want to sit down. This could take a while.”