#Danny is starting to like cookies a lot

[nelkcats]

A Little bird told me

Danny knew his dimension didn't need him. It had been a long time since it stopped needing him, a long time since he had to be content to spend most of his days in the Infinite Realms. His sister and friends were too busy these days to pay attention to him; Danny understood, it's not like he could work or have a job, considering he'd stopped growing at 21 and people would start asking questions eventually.

Honestly, it was a relief that he'd even been able to grow up to that age, Clockwork's knowing look told him he had help with it.

So, he distracted himself by learning things from the other ghosts in the Realms, who were definitely as bored as he was. He even managed to get Vlad to teach him duplication, but it wasn't that interesting after a while. Though he had become interested in the different dimensions that Clockwork watched over.

The problem was that there was one dimension that had caught his attention (one full of heroes and magic) but they always made the worst decisions. There came a point where he decided to interfere, Clockwork seemed amused so he figured he wasn't going to stop him.

As he thought about how to infiltrate (definitely not as a hero, he loved his retirement, thank you very much), he remembered a rather...odd power he had recently discovered.

Danny had discovered that he could shapeshift. The problem was that he could only shapeshift into dead animals and well, while it was fun to scare others, he didn't know how well people would take a ghost crow with ectoplasm coming out of it's wounds.

Figuring it was better than nothing, he transformed into a bird and flew through the portal; he flew towards John Constantine, who seemed fed up with his life. Constantine knew the bird was fucking weird the moment it sit on his shoulders but he had better things to take care of, like the demon in front of him.

Said bird apparently knew the way to defeat the demon, because he started naming the ingredients needed to banish it. Constantine saw it with narrowed eyes and asked if he wanted his soul, the bird pecked him, looking annoyed.

From there, seeing that the dead bird was doing no harm, Constantine let it stay. It was oddly useful and he had sold his soul for less.

Danny spent his days whispering things to Constantine to defeat enemies and the hellbazer gave him cookies in return (the halfa really wanted to be offended), when the League saw Constantine with a dead crow on his shoulder they wondered if he had finally lost his mind.

John commented that his name was Ghosty (he was pecked again) and that he was useful, unfortunately for the superhero community, Constantine had never been that useful and therefore they couldn't complain (but why did he suddenly know all the existing gossip?, he kept bribing them with it! His crow looked amused too).

Every time Constantine won a battle without explanation, someone would make the mistake of asking how he did it. With a shit-eating grin, Constantine would point to his shoulder and say "a little bird told me."

Danny was so tempted to shape-shift just to bite his head off, but the cookies were good.

[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.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Finally Getting Help (prt 6)

Masterpost

The Wayne family gathered in the family room once Alfred was done setting up the projector, somehow there was also a plate of cookies and a couple pots of tea on the coffee table. How he’d found the time they didn’t know, he always seemed to be doing just a little more than should be possible but they didn’t question it. 

Jazz seemed nervous as she plugged in her USB and accessed the power point on Ghosts and Liminality. The tidal page had a picture of Danny in his Phantom form standing with a group of others, a boy with gray skin and blond hair, a girl with green hair and skin, and a goth with purple eyes and a dark skinned boy who looked around Danny’s age, and Jazz with the title “Ghosts and Liminals!” 

The next slide had simple text: “What are they and How are they made?”

With each slide she read the text on the screen allowed and then added any context or anecdotes she thought of, or had prepared. 

(Next slide)

Ghosts:

Made of ectoplasmic energy and obsession

Made either:

when someone dies with strong enough desires

An idea gains enough traction to take on a life of its own

Immutable concepts and gods

Must be allowed to indulge in obsessions or they will cease to exist

All have basic abilities such as flight, intangibility, invisibility, and minor shape shifting

On top of basic abilities most will have additional powers based on their obsessions

Immortal unless killed 

Love to fight

Liminals

Made when a human is exposed to high levels of ectoplasm for prolonged periods of time

Have some ghostly traits 

Ghostly traits vary person to person

Less susceptible to human illness and injury

“The ghosts on the picture are Kitty and Johnny, we’ve had problems with them but would consider them friends now. They’re the ghosts of two humans who died, but there are others, Vortext for instance is the ghost of Storms. Those ghosts who come from ideas are called ‘neverborns’. There seem to be almost an infinite number of ghosts, however not all of them are interested in having anything to do with us so we tend to get the same faces showing up a lot in Amity.

“I don’t know how many liminals there are. I thought they might be new with my parents' research but as I look into it more I think there are more natural sources of ectoplasm then my parents thought.” Jazz explained before going to transition to the next slide.

“I have a question-” Bruce started before Jazz hushed him. 

“Wait till the end please! I might answer it without you having to ask,” She scolded, and he felt very much like a schoolboy again as his children snickered.

(Next slide including a image of the glowing green viles in the Fenton’s lab and a glowing green crystal)

Ghost biology 

Ghosts do not have any recognizable organs or bones

The only solid part of their being is their Core which is the source of their ectoplasm 

Any injury to a ghosts form not done directly to their core is considered minor and will heal

A healthy ghost is fully capable of mending any damage including removed limbs in a matter of hours or days depending on extent of the injury

All injuries not including the Core are considered minor 

Ghosts are considered young for at least the first hundred years of their existence and are often not considered adults until nearly 500

A caveat to this is ghosts are heavily driven by emotion and will often be the age they feel they are allowing ghosts to mature much more quickly, or more slowly

When this is the case ghosts are treated as the age they present and behave

Ghosts reproduce by shaping ectoplasm and Wanting a child badly enough

“Believe me it was incredibly scary the first time I saw Danny in his ghost form have something go right through his stomach. It took him a long time to convince me it wasn’t a big deal and it barely hurt. He does have to make sure he repairs the damage Before turning human again though or the damage can transfer over and I don’t need to tell you a hole in the gut is a lot more serious for humans!

“If I’m honest I only know ghosts that have stayed younger then they really are, for instance Youngblood who’s a few hundred years old and could be well on his way to adulthood if he wanted but has remained a child. I assume it can go the other way though, if a ghost is very mature for their age.”

Ectoplasm 

Ectoplasm is the energy that makes up all ghosts and the Ghost Zone itself. All ghosts can feed on the ectoplasm around them as well as produce their own by indulging in obsessions. The ghosts Cores produce the ectoplasm like a brain produces neurochemicals when exposed to the right stimulation.

Ectoplasm is a powerful source of energy but unstable. When it is stabilized into an ecto-crystal it is more stable and can be used as a power source safely by ghosts and liminals.

“Most ectoplasm is green like you see in the pictures. But it isn’t the only colour, some other ghosts produce different colours and it is highly tied to what emotion drives them. When it’s pure it usually smells like petracore but it can get pretty foul.”

(next slide)

What are Obsessions

Every ghost has one or more obsessions

They can be very literal things such as boxes, or ideas and emotions such as Love

In rarer cases they may have dual obsessions

Unlike for humans obsessions are very healthy for ghosts

Ghosts need to indulge their obsessions

Sometimes the way ghosts indulge their obsessions might seem evil, however it is almost always just amoral 

Obsessions shape every part of a ghost from their powers to thier physical appearance, to befriend a ghost you Must understand and aid their obsession

In very extreme circumstances a ghosts obsession may shift, sometimes this is healthy, more often it is a result of extreme trauma

“With my interest in psychology this was sort of hard for me to accept. From the outside the way ghosts obsess seems really unhealthy but it’s what gives them life. When not allowed to indulge in their obsessions ghosts will dysregulate and go to extreme lengths to try and get their obsession, if that doesn’t work they either go dormant if their core is still healthy enough or they will melt. 

“Ghosts change their obsessions very rarely, I’ve heard of it happening as they heal. For instance once a ghost has gotten revenge for themselves, if that was their obsession, their obsession might shift to avenging other people, or even protecting them so they don’t need to be avenged.”

(Next Slide)

Ghost Culture

The Ghosts have a monarchy

The title of the Ghost King is not hereditary but passed through trial by combat

Under the monarch is a council of being known as Observants, and powerful and old ghosts called Ancients 

Ghosts respect strength and value power and cunning in combat a lot

Ghosts bond with each other through combat and play fight with family and friends often

“I have down that the ghosts are a monarchy, and technically that is true but the current Ghost King was a tyrant who was locked away thousands of years ago. I’m sure as soon as someone shows up who’s powerful enough to beat him his court will be happy to pick up where they left off with a better King, or queen, though I don’t think the title has to change based on gender.

“I really can’t stress enough how violent ghosts are! Because nothing short of having their cores shattered can kill them, play fighting for them can look Very Much like a murder attempt to a human. A lot of the issues we’ve had with ghosts have come from them just not understanding quite how fragile humans, and for most of them they feel really bad once they know they actually Hurt someone by shooting them. It’s really best for everyone when they’re kept separate and Ghosts can happily tear each other apart in peace.”

Liminals

The result of long term low level exposure to ectoplasm, sudden high doses are almost always deadly

Liminals Can have almost every trait a ghost can, usually having a combination of a few

Commonalities between liminals include

Minor cosmetic changes such as: glowing eyes, pointed ears, and/or sharp teeth 

Increased stamina, strength, and aggression

Increased obsessive behaviour

Liminals sometimes develop powers shaped by the strength and type of obsession 

“Most of the people Danny and I know are liminals. I don’t want to talk about them in case they don’t want to be outed so I’ll talk about myself and my parents. We all had prolonged exposure after all. My ears are pointed,” She said brushing her hair back so they could see them, “And Danny is a little more then liminal but even in human form he has fangs. 

“My parents didn’t realize it but they could to the point they could subsist on their obsession without needing to eat or sleep as often as a regular human would. About a year ago I started developing the ability to tap into and feel other peoples emotions, I can feed on them a little too but I try not to because the Worst ghost we met did that and I don’t want to be anything like her.”

(Next Slide)

In conclusion

Ghosts are not evil even though sometimes their actions are hard to understand

Never get between ghosts when they’re fighting each other but it’s usually safe to yell at them to remind them not to break anything

Never get between a ghost and their obsession

Don’t drink ectoplasm unless you know you’re already liminal

“I have a feeling the section about liminals will be familiar to a bunch of you. I know Damian is liminal though I don’t know how he was exposed to ectoplasm and some of you,” Her eyes skirted across Tim and Bruce. “Are toeing the line. You’ll probably notice Damian and Danny getting really close, and they might get in some really vicious looking fights. I promise Danny is playing at least.”

The family was left silent for a moment, Bruce knew he was thinking about Jason. Who had died, been exposed to.. What certainly seemed to be something like Lazarus water and come back, obsessive, aggressive, and emotional. He wished he’d had this powerpoint a long time ago. It helped understand Damian too but mostly he was thinking about Jason. He needed to reach out again, maybe meeting Danny would be good for Jason?

“So uhhh, ya, that’s the end of the powerpoint?” Jazz said, shifting from foot to foot in the awkward silence. “Any questions?”

Next

[flamingpudding]

I love your writing so much but I'm here with a crack idea just imagine deage Dan is Klarion.

Dan was able to find out who he is outside of Danny then he was able to change his name Klarion Jackson Fenton/Nightingale he is still a little villain boy also now a mom boy.

Ghost King Danny is his mom young justice was so confused when Klarion you're the best gifts get your mom after not talking to him for a while to also begging them to pretend to be his friend . Justice League dark is panicking in the background about the electric being that just shows up.

Danny in full ghost king attire standing there with a plate of cookies ready to meet his son's new friends.

Thanks so much! I am glad you enjoy my writing!

Also thanks because I absolutely love this Idea/Prompt! Sooooo please enjoy this piece inspired by it! Also I haven't consumed a lot of DC material lately so i am basing this all on my memories. In other words.... I went with Tim's little team here.

Hope that's okay and that this won't disappoint.

-------------------

Dan, who was going by Klarion for some years now, had a massive problem. It was the huge kind of problem build on small bubbles of lies that then turned into this one giant bubble that was about to pop just because of one little question asked by his mom when his sister decided to throw him under the bus to deflect from herself and the fact that she was dating a demon. Don't get him wrong he still loves her, but man did he want to strangle Danielle right now.

"So Klarion, Ellie is right. When will I get to meet your friends you told me so much about?"

It was such an innocent question from his mom. And while his moms titles don't scare him, cause at some point in time they could have been his too, the happy dopey smile like nothing was wrong in the dimensions with little expectations directed at him was the scariest thing his mom could ever direct at him when he had asked THAT question.

So now Klarion was in need of a quick solution. When his mom had asked he had mumbled out a quick: "Next week maybe. We won't be busy with hero stuff then." He had started to form a plan. First of all, he needed to remember what all he had told his mom about his new and redeemed life on Earth 43 he had build for himself with the name Klarion Jackson Fenton-Nightingale.

Which fuck. There was a lot he had told his mom just so he wouldn't worry.

Cause now he also remembers that whenever he had gone out to cause some chaos he had made it seem to his mom like he was going out to bond with his new friend or help them with their hero duty. Well, in a way maybe his chaos causing could be seen as bonding. The ghostly kind, that is. And as for helping with the hero duty... he did give them work, something to do with their hero status. Anyway Klarion tried to remember all possible names he had dropped. Shit why did he also mention to his mom that he was working with heroes to make her proud? He should have name dropped some villains instead but nearly all of them were adults. He knew his mom would have frowned if he had only adult friends and no one around his age.

He was pacing his room in their castle. He need a plan, a good one at that. He knows he name dropped Robin, now Red Robin, Superboy and Impulse on a whim once. Superboy more so cause his mom had been interested in the Alien Heros of the Earth of the dimension he was partially living on now. He had mentioned Robin for the joke of knowing that there is a Dinner in an other Dimension with the same name. And because his Grandfather didn't like the Flash-clan which meant his mom didn't like them too much because of their messing with timelines either, he had mentioned being friends with Impulse on pure spite because of a punishment one day and to see their reactions. So he had to get these three on board anyway, and because for the heck of it he would get Wonder Girl involved too. It was never bad to have a girl in a friends group.

Klarion stopped his pacing. Turning towards his demonic ghost cat companion, kind of what Cujo was to his mom now. "Teekl, I think I have a plan. I will convince these Idiots, that shouldn't be a huge problem. Most of them are normale little flesh sacks." Teekl and him stared for some time at each other and after a moment Klarion huffed turning away with crossed arms. "It's a good plan don't be so sceptical, they are heroes right? They will not refuse my request!"

Well maybe Klarion should have planned this a bit better.

The next day Red Robin blinked at the witch boy up from the ground in the living room of what looked like to be an normal apartment. He had just been in Gotham, working on a case and now he was here? Looking to the left he also noticed that Superboy (the older), Impulse and Wonder Girl were also with him. They all looked stunned he observed and partially disoriented. Additionally they hadn't heard from Klarion since the last time they had foiled his plans on raging chaos upon the earth, that had been weeks ago.

"Kla-"

"I have summoned you heroes here. For the moment it is fruitless to try to leave because of the magic barrier." Okay rude to be cut of but that explained why he suddenly wasn't where he remembered to be last anymore. It was now Superboy who opened his mouth first but before he could even make a sound Klarion decided to speak over them again. "I have presents."

Four young heroes collectively blinked, confused, stunned and weirded out. As the which boy before them waved over to wards a table filled with boxes and packages. "I come in peace today, to proof that I brought these are presents, filled with various goods from different dimensions that should be to the liking of you all. Technologie, accessories, snacks, weapons, as well as clothing styles."

Red Robin shared a glance with his friends, a silent communication but before he once again could say anything Impulse was already by the table going through the stuff. They could here his 'oh's and 'ah's, which inevitably made them curious and they wandered over too. Klarion was not acting hostile at all yet but Red Robin did not trust that so he kept the which boy in clear view the entire time.

"Rob! You gotta see this! That actual futuristic Tech!"

"Look at these snacks."

"These accessories don't look to bad..."

His eye twitched when he noticed Klarion was sporting a smug look. Red Robin had to ask now, because this was not normal for the other. "Okay usually you would have started some big shot chaos plan by now. I don't buy this peace offering act and your way to formal talking. So what is going on?"

The other three, thankfully in Red Robins opinion, finally looked away from the tempting gifts and also turned their attention fully on Klarion. Who's smug smile falter as he let out a sigh and stared at them with what they could only describe as a frustrated look.

"My mom is planning to visit me."

"And?" Impulse asked between munching on three different bags of chips that where on the table.

"And he believes I am friends with you idiots."

They stared slack jawed. Impulse was pinching himself like he couldn't believe what they had just heard. Did one of their Villains, just informed them that their mom believes they were friends? Red Robin was starting to think he might be in a sleep deprived Hallucination.

"Why would she?" Wonder Girl questioned next to which Klarion glared at her with fire in his eyes.

"First of, my mom uses the pronouns he/Him. Be rude to my mom and I will find a way to make your life a permanent hell on earth." Wonder Girl blinked lifting her hands as in a sign of peace. "Second, my mom is under the believe that i work with heroes not against them. I do not have the heart to disappoint him after everything that happened in the past. So I embellished the truth a little."

"A little?" Superboy retorted sarcastically, to which they caught a light blush dusting the which boy's cheeks.

"Look my sister threw me under the bus and my mom wants to meet my friends now! So I need you idiots to play nice with me for when he visits!"

"And we will do that because?" Red Robin crossed his arms, watching their villain sceptically still not really buying this entire act. This was to strange of an behaviour change. Something was up, and he was going to get behind it.

Klarion on the other hand was starting to panic internally. His plan was not as he had hoped. The presents he had specifically gotten from other dimensions with what he believed was their interests did not work to make them simply accept his request. This was the last time he would listen to old man Vlad on how to bribe humans, he wasted his entire week on getting all that stuff. His mom was going to show up soon enough he need to have them act as his friends by then so he could remove the magic barrier. Or else his mom would notices he faked everything.

They left him no choice. He would have to throw his pride away for the sole reason to not disappoint his mom.

All four Young Justice Heroes blinked as Klarion suddenly threw himself on the ground before them into a pleading position.

"Please! I beg you, just for the time my mom is here. Please act like my friends!"

"I didn't think Klarion was a mama's boy...." Impulse whispered to the rest of them in pure disbelief as they stared stunned at the kneeling witch boy.

Cut to the heroes that noticed their teens were missing.....

"Where is he?" Batman growled at the Constantine who was sighing tiredly.

"Look mate, the way you and the other Spandex wearing friends explained it, made it sound like they got summoned by a being of the Infinit Realms." The blond man sighed lighting another cigarette eying the four heroes, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Flash. Zatanna was behind him pouring over a book about the realms and trying to find a tracking spell to trace it back and to where they could have been summoned.

"Don't you have something like a tracker on your boy?" Batman only growled something under his breath to which the Brite couldn't help to arch and eyebrow. Constantine was going to say something sarcasting as Deadman suddenly appeared a panicked look on him. "The Ghost King has chosen to come to our dimension."

"Say bloody what now?" All attention that had been on the heroes and their problem of missing teenage heroes turned now to Deadman and the news he brought with him. "The ghost, shades and spirits talked, for the king has decided to visit our Dimension. They are in an uproar, no one knows of why our King is on his way."

"Bloody fucking hell!" Constantine cursed. "We are fucking screwed! Isn't that guy a fucking tyrannical eldrich war maniac?!"

Deadman nodded solemnly and Constantine uttered another hearty and colourful 'fuck'. While the heroes present exchanged worried glances, not only were their kids missing but now a, by the sounds of it, highly dangerous being decided to appear in their dimension? Batman couldn't help but think that there had to be a connection to the missing teens and this.

Meanwhile in the Infinite Realms the Ghost King Castle...

Danny smoothed out his fur trimmed cape and adjusted his crown so it was floating nicely and evenly on his head. Today was the day he would get to meet his sons friends. He needed to make a good first impression. That was why he had chosen to take on his Ghost King form for this. With the wave of his hand he made an ice mirror appear before him, checking how he was looking once again. Once satisfied he nodded to himself looking over towards Fright Knight who was holding the plate of cookies he had baked himself. It was the fifth batch, and the only one that didn't turn out burned. He had needed Jazz help for this one to turn out well. It was only proper if he brought some cookies for the kids. Also he would have loved to bring his families fudge but... the last time he had tried making them had turned into a disaster.

"Thanks Frighty. Do you think Klarion's friends will like these? Wait don't answer! If they don't like them I will just get something else to thank them for taking care of my boy." Danny rambled on as he glanced at the plate of cookies in his hands. Why was he so nervous? He was just going to get to meet his little boy's friends. Sure his boy had dropped some stories about them and his adventures with them here and there. But hearing stories and meeting the kids were two different things.

Shaking his head Danny put on his best smile as he summoned a portal to Klarions apartment in the 43th Dimension of Earth. It was time to visit his boy in the place he had made his second home and thank the people that looked after his kid.

[hauntedbythefanficsofmypast]

Past, Present and that of Space

Masterlist

Dead-ends and Surprise Visits

“Alrightie, Duke your classes don't start for an hour right, LightBrite?” Duke snorted, nodding as he got comfortable pulling his blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Good good, should be enough time, ehhhh maybe we'll see, anyway!!” 

Harley snagged a cookie munching on it before she began. “Sooo years ago before I was a doctor and your daddio a crime-fighting college drop-out vigilante, we went to Gotham Uni. Bruce had been studying to be a Doctor like your granddaddy, so all of us had the same base classes. We actually had a study group and we'll as a ‘Fuck Professor Tanner’ club.

We met in advanced Calculus, I sucked and Brucie was my seat buddy along with Vladdie. After a bad failed test on my part and Professor Tanner purposely marking the others down, we formed a spite study group. I dragged Crane into it and Vlad pulled Jackie and Mads in! It kinda cemented our friendships a bit!” Harley snorted, shaking her head while reminiscing on the old days.

“Jackie, Mads, and Vladdie we're going for Doctorates in Science and Engineering. Jackie was more towards Engineering that was his crazy strong point while Mads and Vladdie were genius to boot. Would've fit in very well with your bunch now that I think ‘bout it! It grew a pretty decent friend group between us. Of course Brucie dropped out after that year, but Crane and I stayed pretty close with them. It was our final year when a lot of drama happened.” Harley sighed before grabbing her Tea cup downing it.

“The three of them were convinced that another universe lay parallel to ours. Called it the Ghost Zone, they'd been attempting to make a portal to it for months. Then the accident happened, it exploded and Vlad got carted off campus, didn’t see him again after that. He transferred out and last we heard he went to Wisconsin. Jackie and Mads were heartbroken, they’d been friends for a while at that point and losing Vlad made them a little unstable. Not ya know, rouge unstable but they started designing weapons to hunt ghosts. Caught some attention shortly before graduation and got a couple grants, they were really ecstatic. They left soon after we graduated, Jackie proposed and Mads said yes, went back to Mads hometown for the wedding. I got invited but at that point I was already at Arkham and well, you know my story already.” 

Tim stopped his note taking, looking up at Harley, who seemed slightly trapped in thought. He coughed slightly, breaking her out of her remembrance of who Harleen Quinzel used to be. 

“Ghost Zone? Huh? Weird niche of all things but ya know, we dress up and go fight crime nightly.” Duke elbowed him teasingly as he ate a cookie, and Tim rolled his eyes. “Right, right I forgot one of us is  a weirdo and patrols during the day time!”

“Oi! At least I don’t have an ugly ass cowl, owl head ass.” Tim gave him the dirtiest look, already calculating how far Duke dropped on his favorite sibling list.

“Congrats Duke, Damian has officially passed you on my favorite siblings list. It’s a sad day when two siblings drop below the one that has stabbed me multiple times.” Duke went to respond but was cut off by Harley’s barking laughter. Harley was bent over holding her stomach laughing so hard Duke contemplated running to get a cure for Joker Venom, but seeing the satisfied look on Tim’s face calmed him. Tim’s plan to distract her clearly worked, besides he had enough to work on now.

Of course Danny had contact with the Realms, his parents succeed in making their portal after all. 

Alfred hummed lowly to himself as he entered his bedroom for a short break. He set the tea tray down before pulling out both his chairs and sitting down.

“You were cutting it close you know, old friend.” He sipped his tea slowly before looking up at the person now sitting in the chair across from him. “You’ve set my charges into a protective mode that will lead to less sleep. Honestly the extra stress you’ve added to my plate with this stunt.”

“Apologies are in order for that, you know I should not interfere too often. Their eyes weren’t on me for only a few seconds, talking with Young Timothy was not possible.” His form shifted and Alfred hummed taking in the appearance of the elderly man in front of him.

“Your form has changed. I see you added to your family circle, congratulations.” Clockwork chuckled knowing he had taken some aspects from the kids he had practically adopted when they were fourteen.

“Indeed, not as many as your brood, but I am content. They have fine futures, fine futures indeed.”

“I see, and their futures are now intertwined with my charges.”

“Yes they are, we will be seeing more of each other in the future. Young Timothy will get along very well with my Phantom. They will be a force to be reckoned with.”

“Dear Clockwork, I believe they are on their own, together they could rule the multiverse.” Clockwork and Alfred were silent for a while, simply enjoying tea together. However he was the first to break their silence with a chuckle.

“I believe you are quite right Alfred. Quite right indeed.”

Dani typed silently on her phone as she sprawled across Danny’s back. The other Halfa too busy editing a video to pay attention to her. The others in their family were in varying places of Fenton Works but the two self-proclaimed siblings had holed up in Danny’s room. At first they simply sat staring at the ceiling, or rather staring into space, literally. After discovering Danny was the new Ancient of Space came even more power training that had Danny wish to rip his hair out.

Danny had discovered the ability to make a rift that could remain open until he willed it away, it was unlike portals that he needed to concentrate on to keep open. No those portals were Dani’s expertise, able to portal them to any place and even universes. Danny’s rifts allowed him direct access to space, and since discovering it his ceiling had been a constant show of the different galaxies that graced their universe. So often the others would come to call them for dinner and find the two’s eyes locked on their stars.

Val often joked that Dani’s love for space came from her template. Of course Dani wasn’t as crazy about space as Danny was but she still loved it. Dani paused her typing looking up at the ceiling for a moment before grinning.

“Danny, I have a great idea. Our next video should be in space.” Danny stopped editing mind racing between different ideas before his core was vibrating so hard in excitement that he was purring. Dani’s mirth couldn’t be contained as her body took flight lifting off him and towards the rift. “We could do so much!”

“Visiting other planets!”

“Space fights!”

“A day in the life with off-world species!”

“Jumping universes! People will lose their minds if we go to the ‘Futurama’ universe!”

“Oh my crown Dani! The possibilities are endless!!” Danny laughed as he took flight playfully taking the girl out of the air, both phasing through his bedroom floor and bouncing off the couch as they began a mini fight. Wes watched them amused as he paused his show, thankful he was sitting fully to the left of the couch and not in the middle. “Black holes! We can explore black holes!!” Danny announced laughing as he got Dani into a headlock only for her to phase out and land a hard elbow to his gut.

“Yes! Oooooh I want to kick you into a black hole so bad!!” We can cut the video there and the next one can be you in the Futurama Universe trying to find your way back!!” The two cackled together as their fighting amped up. 

“That is a pretty good idea.” Wes hummed, blinking as mischievous eyes locked on him. “Don’t even think about it you two.” He warned as they started grinning, he threw himself to the side flipping over the arm of the couch as they lunged at him phasing through and landing on the other side in a crouch. “Damnit!” Wes yelled as he scrambled up taking off up the stairs. The two grin as they jumped flying up through the floor to the hallway waiting to ambush him, only to be surprised when the front door slammed shut.

“Did he just?” Dani asked as she stuck her head through the wall Danny followed a second later as they watched Wes booking it down the street.

“He just juked us. Oh we gotta get him now!” The two flew through the wall, not even transforming as they rushed after him, waving to a few people who called out to them. Jack and Maddie watched them go from where they were unloading groceries from the Fenton Ghost Assault vehicle.

“Oh I hope they have fun hunting Wes!” Jack said with a laugh as Maddie slid a fifth bag onto his right arm. “Ah these kids keep up young Mads!” Maddie laughed leaning up and kissing his cheek as she grabbed the last four bags and locked the assault vehicle.

“Those kids of ours they really do, and they’re all growing up and breaking my heart! I wish we could have more.” Maddie said with a small laugh as Jack wiggled his eyebrows at her, Tucker opened the door for them as they approached and Maddie kissed his forehead in thanks as they walked to the kitchen. “Thank you Tucker dear. Are Sam and Val here?” Tucker nodded following them after he took some bags from Jack.

“Yes, they’re in the kitchen waiting to help with groceries. I was gonna let the other three know but Danny and Dani were having one of their bonding fights, then Wes got dragged into it.” Jack laughed as he put the last bags on the counter.

“We saw that! If it wasn’t for the groceries I had I would’ve ran after to join them! It's that Fenton blood after all!” Maddie chuckled, sharing a look with Sam before she moved over to the fridge starting to clean it out.

“And the fact that ghosts literally bond through fighting, it's like another language to them.” Val said with a chuckle as she unpacked some bags. “How about spaghetti tonight?” Moving aside the needed ingredients as agreements rang out from the room. “Sweet, is it alright if I invite my dad? He makes some mean garlic bread.”

“Of course Val! You’re our kid now and that makes him a Fenton too! The more the merrier!” Jack said moving over to pull out the needed cooking utensils. Sam was quick to take them from him, shooing him away while waving a spatula.

“I’ll invite my grandma over too. She made cookies yesterday and wanted more people to try her new recipe. I’ll make dinner with Tucker, you two aren’t allowed to make food anymore after those hot dogs took over the town.” Jack held his hands up defensively with a laugh as Maddie didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

“In my defense we didn’t know they were hot dogs from the Infinite Realms!”

“We came back to them trying to sacrifice Lancer, Dash and Kwan to their god.” Val said deadpan remembering the return home from their senior trip. “I smelled like hot dog water for weeks. I couldn’t look people in the eye anytime they questioned the smell.” Maddie couldn’t hold back her snort as she continued to not look at them. He shoulders shaking as she remembered the look on their kids faces the moment they stepped through the portal in front of City Hall. Laughter finally burst from her lips as she shook her head sitting on the floor in front of the fridge.

“Your faces that day!! You all, you all looked so done!” Soon everyone joined in laughing with Maddie as they remembered that day and the fight that followed.

“What's so funny?” Danny asked from the doorway Dani standing next to him with a slightly bruised and pouting Wes slung over her shoulder. Everyone turned to them laughter pausing for a second before they just laughed harder remembering when the biggest hot dog attempted to eat Danny.

Universe Hopping and Reunion Trip Planning

[persevereforahappyending]

He Hung Up (Christmas)

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Summary: “Christmas is literally in a few days, is the plan for them to stay through Christmas as well?”

Warnings: None

Word Count: 6k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Sam trudged up the stairs to her apartment, sighing as she got her keys ready. She just got off a long shift and wanted nothing more than to just relax. She wasn’t big on Christmas, but she was looking forward to the time off and spending time with her sister, it had been a long time since they got to spend Christmas together. Sam doesn’t really count last year because there was still a lot of recovering from Ghostface going on. She knew this year wouldn’t be perfect, but she was hoping it might be better, maybe she and Tara could make new memories and Christmas could become something they enjoyed again. She knew she was part of Tara’s dislike of the holidays, first their dad left and then Sam left. Sam had a lot of make-up to do.

The college was already on winter break but given Sam’s job she hadn’t gotten to spend any time with her sister, she barely got started on her Christmas shopping. Chad and Mindy left the first day of break, which happened to be the day after Tara’s birthday. Sam was glad the twins got to spend Tara’s birthday with her, it ended up being a fun night. The next day they flew back to California to spend the break with their mom. They all agreed to do a Christmas together when the twins got back, which just meant Sam had more time to pick something good out for them. She was hoping to get a little input from Tara, she wanted to do something football related for Chad and horror related for Mindy but despite her father being a serial killer that spawned a popular horror franchise she didn’t know shit about horror.

Danny also flew back to his hometown to be with his parents. So, the only thing keeping Sam from getting to spend the holidays alone with her sister was you. As Sam’s keys jingled, unlocking her apartment, she heard what she had been hearing every day since the break started, you. You had been over every day since the break started. The only good thing was that most days you left and went back to your own apartment, not that it mattered because you stayed all night and then were back by morning, sometimes Sam was eating breakfast, and you were already there, knocking on the door. Sam was trying to be nice though, it was the holidays and she’d hopefully have Christmas Day just her and her sister.

When Sam pushed open the door, she saw you and Tara curled up on the couch watching a movie as you not so quietly talked to each other. Sam glanced at the TV to see Gremlins playing. “Gremlins?” she questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah!” You exclaimed, looking at her like it was the most obvious choice for them to be watching. “It’s the best Christmas movie.”

Sam was taken aback giving you a look like you had two heads. “How is-”

“Don’t,” Tara tried to warn her.

“That a Christmas movie?” Sam continued her question.

“Well, you see Samantha,” you started, earning a quick glare from Sam, she hated when someone called her Samantha. “Gizmo,” you pointed to the little fuzzy guy who was currently on the screen, “was a Christmas present.” You clasped your hands together as if you were presenting a project. “The whole movie takes place around Christmas time. They’re decorating the tree, making Christmas cookies, and the gremlins even dress up like carolers.” You let out a satisfied huff at the end of your reasoning.

“But people are attacked and some of them even die,” she tried to argue. She wasn’t sure why she was playing into your game.

“People are attacked in home alone, but everyone considers that a Christmas movie,” you fired back.

“But there’s no death!”

You scoffed, waving off the claim. “Gremlins only has off screen deaths, those don’t count. Also, all that shit Kevin did? Those two guys should have been dead.”

“Whatever,” Sam said shaking her head. She saw your reasoning and it was pretty logical, not that she’d ever tell you that. She still wasn’t sure if she’d considered it a Christmas movie.

Sam tossed her stuff down and made her way into the kitchen, opening the fridge to see what she could make for dinner. “Oh,” Tara called out from the kitchen. “Can Y/N stay for dinner?”

Sam sighed, closing the fridge, and moving to stand in the doorway. “Again?” Sam asked some of her annoyance from the week slipping in.

“Yeah?” Tara asked, turning to face Sam. “What’s the issue?” Tara wasn’t glaring at Sam, yet, but Sam could hear the slight annoyed tone. Tara always got that tone when she didn’t get her way, specifically when it came to you.

“They’ve been here an awfully lot this week,” Sam started, keeping her voice as neutral as possible.

“So? It’s Christmas break.”

“That doesn’t mean they have to spend every second of every day here.” Sam ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “They’re usually just leaving by the time I’m going to bed and then they’re back knocking on the door before I leave for work.”

“So what?” Tara was now on her feet, arms crossed and glaring at Sam. “You haven’t been home, and I don’t feel like spending all day alone. Who cares if they’re here all day?”

“Christmas is literally in a few days, is the plan for them to stay through Christmas as well?”

“Maybe!”

“No,” Sam snapped. She didn’t mean to be so harsh; all the weeks of stress have just been building up. She hadn’t expected an answer and the fact that Tara didn’t see a problem in you crashing their Christmas sent her over the edge. “That’s where I draw the line.”

“What are you saying?” Tara matched her sister’s anger. “I can’t spend Christmas with them? They’re not allowed to come over and see me?”

“I want one day! One day of just you and me! I figured Christmas could be that day. We could finally spend a Christmas together, just the two of us.”

“What about what I want?”

“Don’t they have a family to go see over Christmas and they want to spend time with?” Sam saw a flash of something in your eyes, but she was to focused on Tara to recognize what it was.

“God! You-”

“Actually,” you spoke softly cutting Tara off as you slowly rose to your feet, gently resting a hand on her arm. “I’m headed back home tomorrow.”

“What?” Tara whipped around. Sam almost got whiplash from how fast Tara went from angry to hurt. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know I was having fun with you; I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“You leave tomorrow?”

You nodded. “Yeah, but I’ll call you every day and I’m getting back the day after Christmas.”

Tara crossed her arms pouting. “I was hoping to give you your present on Christmas Day.”

“I’m sorry,” you looked at her sadly. “I wish I could give you yours Christmas Day as well, but we can do Christmas the day after, yeah?” You smiled, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Just me and you. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“I guess.” Tara was still pouting but she seemed slightly less upset. “I still wish you would’ve had told me.”

“It’s not like it’s going to be fun. I’m not going to be doing anything, really.”

“Then why do you have to go?” Sam wanted to roll her eyes, of course Tara would try and convince you to not go to your families for Christmas.

“Spending time with family is important, right?” You raised your eyebrows, staring Tara down to make her agree with you. Sam didn’t know how you did it, you always got Tara to agree with you. If Sam had said any of the stuff you did, Tara would be nonstop, making nothing into a monstrous fight.

“Yeah,” Tara sighed. “I’m still going to miss you.”

“Me too,” you rest a hand on the side of her face, caressing her cheek. “Besides we still have tonight,” you looked up at Sam, silently asking her if that was still okay. Sam nodded; she could tolerate you one more night since it meant you wouldn’t be around for a few days.

“I guess,” Tara mumbled, wrapping her arms around your waist before burying her head in your shirt. You instantly wrapped your arms around her, pulling her in for a tighter hug. Sam wanted to roll her eyes, the two of you were acting like you weren’t going to see each other for months not a few days.

“Come on, lets finish the movie.” You kissed the top of Tara’s head, keeping one arm wrapped around her as you pulled away and led her back down to the couch.

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

The next few days did not go as Sam had imagined. She had still been working crazy hours and after work she spent the night going from store to store searching for a present for Tara. She had a gift card at the ready to give to Tara, but she wanted something more personal. Tara had also been silently hostile towards her since you left. Sam was trying not to start anything; she was just hoping Tara’s mood would lighten by Christmas day. The only good thing was that Tara wasn’t actively seeking arguments with her, she was just pouting and giving Sam short responses. Every night Tara was on her phone either texting or talking to you. Sam knew it was young love or whatever, but you guys had just seen each other. She herself had barely talked to Danny since he left, they texted a few times but neither one of them was glued to their phone.

As she walked the streets of New York, searching for a shop she hadn’t already been in, something that would call to her, something that screamed Tara, she passed by a bakery. Sam stopped, looking in the window at all the Christmas themed baked goods, there were cakes decorated with snowflakes, cupcakes with little Santas, and various cookies decorated. Sam ripped open the door, stepped into the shop and purchased a dozen cookies. All the cookies looked great but before she could walk away from the window, she noticed some of them were decorated with characters or quotes from various Christmas movies.

As she continued to walk down the street, the box of cookies under her arm, she thought back to her childhood. Sam didn’t like thinking about her childhood, most of her memories were tainted by the lies of her mom, her dad leaving, the truth of her birth father, and the guilt she felt for leaving her sister. When she was younger and Tara was just a little kid who loved following her around things were good, they were happy. Christmas used to be a magical time for them, every Christmas eve they would spend the day baking cookies to leave out for Santa. A part of Sam wanted to bring that back, maybe not the leaving the cookies out for Santa part but the making their own cookies. Besides loving to eat the cookie dough, Sam remembered how big of a smile Tara had on her face, usually covered in flower, when they would make the cookies. Part of Sam worried about bringing it up to Tara, she knew Christmas wasn’t great after she left and Sam didn’t want to try and force old memories, just because she thought it’d be fun didn’t mean Tara would.

Sam sighed, she had been out a little later than usual and she hadn’t seen a single shop that seemed interesting. She was about to turn around when a life-size Wolfman figure caught her eye. She looked at the store front, seeing the windows filled with other movie related memorabilia and posters. She shrugged, deciding there was no harm in giving the little store a shot and opened the door. She knew it was the holidays, it was the day before Christmas eve and the store was closing soon so she was going to do a quick look around and see if anything jumped out at her.

The store was small but was stuffed full, wall to wall, ceiling to floor, there was product everywhere. There were posters, action fingers, DVD sets, a wide range of TV shows and movies. As Sam weaved her way through the rows of shelves she finally came to the register where there was a display case of collectibles. There seemed to be higher valued collectibles, things way out of her price range, but there were also knives and other weapons. The weapons were horror themed though, they were the same style from whatever movie they were from and then they had the villain of the movie etched into the blade. Sam’s eyes grazed over the Ghostface knife and landed on a Friday the 13th machete. The machete had Jason from different scenes etched all down the blade. Sam smiled at the old man behind the counter and pointed to the machete.

When Sam left the shop, she had some slight reservations about buying Tara a weapon. Luckily for her the man assured her the blade was dull and was meant to be a display piece more than anything. Sam made a note of where the shop was, she would have to take Tara there one day and she was tempted to come back and get the Michael Myers knife for Mindy as a gift.

As Sam juggled the box of cookies in one hand and Tara’s present in another, she caught a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye. She stopped dead in her tracks, turning to do a double take. Her mouth fell open, her brow furrowed as she watched you walk out of a pizza shop, pizza box in hand as you made your way in the direction of your dorm. Sam watched you from across the street, Tara hadn’t mentioned anything about you coming back to town early. Sam also hadn’t noticed any evidence of you being in the apartment since the night you left.

When Sam finally got back to the apartment, she kicked the door closed, making sure to hide the bag with Tara’s present. She heard Tara on the phone but paid her no attention as she rushed to her room to hide the present, dropping the box of cookies on the dining room table on the way. She quickly shoved Tara’s present in her closet, planning to wrap it before she went to bed, then made her way back out to the living room.

“Alright, night,” Tara said, smiling into her phone. “Have fun with your family and I can’t wait to see you when you get back.” Sam watched curiously as Tara waited for, Sam assumed you, to respond. “Love you too.” With that she hung up the phone and looked up at Sam with a confused look. “What?”

“Was that Y/N?” Sam questioned, turning her back to Tara to open the box of cookies.

“Yeah,” Tara sighed. Sam could see Tara’s pout without having to turn around.

“They still out of town visiting their parents?” Sam looked up, internally smacking herself, she was trying and failing at being subtle.

“Yeah.” She heard Tara leave the couch, her feet quietly shuffling as she made her way next to Sam. “Said it was kind of boring there and has only really been watching Christmas movies.” Sam could only hum in response, she couldn’t figure out why you didn’t go home for the holiday and more importantly she couldn’t figure out why you were lying to Tara about it. “Whatcha got there?” Tara nodded to the box.

Sam smiled, flipping open the lid of the box. “No way!” Tara said, reaching out and grabbing a cookie. “These are so cool. Where did you find them?” Tara mumbled through a mouth full of cookie.

Sam giggled, shaking her head at her sister. “Passed a bakery on the way home. Are they good?” Tara nodded, giving her a thumbs up.

Tara grabbed another cookie and plopped herself back down on the couch. Sam tapped her fingers against the dining room table, working up the courage to ask Tara what she wanted to. She grabbed a cookie, taking a bite as she sat in the chair next to the couch. She glanced at the TV to see Tara watching The Grinch.

“So…” Sam started off slowly, looking down at her cookie, it was a really good cookie. She flicked her eyes from Tara, who was already looking at her, to the TV, and back to Tara. “I get it if you don’t want to do it, but I was wondering if you wanted to make cookies tomorrow, like we used to do.”

Sam flicked her gaze from her cookie to Tara a few times, waiting for her sister to respond. Tara was looking down at her cookie, her brow furrowed as she was deep in thought. “We don’t have to,” Sam said softly, trying to reassure Tara that it was totally fine if she didn’t want to do it.

“No,” Tara said with a small head shake, finally looking at Sam again. “I’d like that actually, it sounds fun.”

“Great,” Sam smiled and turned her attention back to the TV. Which is how they spent the night, sitting in a peaceful silence, watching whatever Christmas movie popped up next.

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

It was Christmas eve, Sam was off work, she had Tara’s present wrapped, they had plans to bake cookies later in the day, and everything was going perfectly just like Sam had always wanted. Sam couldn’t stop the nagging feeling at the back of her head though. She made breakfast for herself, and Tara and they were halfway through their second Christmas movie when she suddenly couldn’t take it anymore. Sam jumped to her feet, grabbed her keys, and walked to the door.

“I’ll be back,” she said, looking back at Tara before opening the door.

“Wait what,” Tara said, muting the TV. “Where are you going? I thought we were spending the day together?”

“We will, I just have to run out real quick, I forgot to pick something up.”

“I thought you wanted to make cookies,” Tara frowned.

“I do,” Sam smiled softly at her sister. “We will make them as soon as I get back. You’re going to like what I bring back.” Tara continued to pout. “Trust me, please, I promise you, you will love it.”

“Okay,” Tara mumbled quietly, curling up on the couch as she unmuted the TV.

Sam gave her sister one last look before rushing out the door. As a surprise to no one, the streets were bustling with people doing last-minute Christmas shopping. Sam pushed her way through the crowded streets, making her way to the college campus. There were hardly any students on campus, most having returned home for the holidays. Sam easily found her way to your building and up to your dorm room. She did a few quick knocks on your door, then bounced from foot to foot as she waited for you to answer.

The door was quickly flung open and standing before Sam was you, your mouth hung open, whatever you were about to say dying on your lips as you just stared at Sam. Sam bunched up her hands in her pockets, looking at you expectantly.

“What are you doing here?” you finally asked.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked back, a little harsher than she intended. She couldn’t help it, you had a habit of just annoying her without even doing anything, she knew she had to work on that.

“I live here,” you said confused.

“Why are you lying to Tara?” Sam crossed her arms. “Why did you say you were going back home?”

You let out a defeated sigh. “You wanted Christmas to be the two of you,” you shrugged. “I didn’t want to intrude or ruin your Christmas.”

Sam’s eyes fell to the floor, it was so hard to dislike you when you were so considerate. You were kind of an asshole and Sam’s dislike was warranted half the time but deep down you were sweet. “Why didn’t you go home? Don’t your parents want to spend Christmas with you?”

You scoffed, refusing to meet Sam’s eyes as you looked down at the floor. “My parents haven’t spent Christmas at home since I was thirteen and deemed old enough to not burn the house down when left alone.” Sam frowned, she knew you didn’t talk about your parents much, Tara had said they weren’t super active in your life, but she didn’t realize how distant they actually were. “I don’t even know where they are right now,” you shrugged. “Somewhere warm.”

“Let’s go,” is all Sam said, turning to leave.

“Wait what?” you leaned half your body out the door.

Sam turned around, rolling her eyes at you. “Grab whatever you need and come on,” she waved her hand impatiently. “You’re spending Christmas with us.”

“Nononono,” you shook your head. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

“Get your shit and come on,” she snapped.

You quickly shut your mouth, ran back into your dorm, and came out with two presents in less than a minute. You silently walked behind Sam as she led the way back to the apartment. She never thought she’d say it, but it was actually unsettling how quiet you were being. When the two of you got back to the apartment, she went in first, tossing her keys on the table before closing the door behind you.

“What did you have to get?” Tara asked, not taking her eyes off the TV. Sam didn’t answer, making Tara look up, her eyes becoming confused when she saw you but quickly lit up. “What are you doing here?” she jumped up, running, and crashing into you for a hug. Sam shook her head; it hadn’t even been a week since you were here and yet Tara was acting like it was a lifetime.

“I never had plans to go to my parents,” you admitted, dropping your eyes to the floor in shame.

“What?” Tara asked, there was no anger in her voice, only confusion.

“They aren’t big on Christmas; I never spend it with them. I didn’t want to intrude and ruin Christmas for you guys,” you looked back at Sam. “And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel bad, I knew you’d try and convince me to join you guys.”

Tara lightly punched you in the shoulder before pulling you in for another hug. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into your neck.

Once Tara and you separated, the two of you followed Sam into the kitchen. Sam grabbed the ingredients and the three of you made cookie dough. You and Tara threw flour at each other, making a mess and though Sam would usually be annoyed she couldn’t help but laugh along with you guys. She’s pretty sure the three of you ate more of the cookie dough than you used to make cookies. When there were finally enough cookies to fill the tray, they popped them into the oven and moved to the living room, popping on another Christmas movie as they waited for the cookies to be ready.

When the oven dinged, you and Tara raced to the kitchen, nearly forgetting oven mitts as you moved to pull the cookies out. Sam had to push the two of you back before the two of you started grabbing the cookies off the hot tray before they had the chance to cool. She shooed the two of you back to the living room, forcing you both to wait for the cookies to cool before you all started eating and decorating them. With how excited the two of you were Sam wasn’t sure you guys would be able to wait to start decorating, you and Tara would probably eat all the cookies plain.

That’s how the three of you spent the rest of the night. You all decorated cookies together at the dining room table, eating cookies in the processes. Sam was focused on her decorating but every time she looked up, she saw you licking icing off your fingers, she wasn’t sure if you ever finished decorating one cookie. When all the cookies were eaten or decorated the three of you retired to the living room, Sam taking her usual spot in the chair while you and Tara cuddled up on the couch.

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

Sam woke up Christmas morning to the smell of something delicious cooking. She rubbed her eyes, frowning at who could possibly be cooking so early. It wasn’t that Tara was a bad cook, she had to learn to cook after Sam left but she had never made anything smell this good. Sam couldn’t judge though; it wasn’t like she was a master chef either, she knew how to make enough things to allow them to survive and give them some variety, but they still did takeout the majority of the time.

Sam ran a hand through her hair as she walked down the hall and into the kitchen, she stopped, blinking a few times to try and clear her vision, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, you were in her kitchen, cooking, and it smelled good. Sam looked around, seeing you were making use of the entire stove, cooking eggs, bacon and sausage, and pancakes at the same time. You flipped three pancakes onto a plate that already had a few, before pouring more batter into the pan, making three more pancakes.

“Morning,” you said, when you finally saw Sam. You kept your pace though, sprinkling cheese across the eggs before flipping it over, creating an omelet, then added more cheese on top. “We got pancakes,” you gestured to the plate beside you. “And eggs,” you gestured to the pan in front of you, before sliding the omelet onto a plate when the cheese was sufficiently melted. “And bacon and sausage,” you pointed to the other pan that was sizzling. “What would you like?”

Sam blinked a few times, still processing the site in front of her, it was just breakfast food, but everything looked so good, perfect almost, nothing was burnt. “An omelet, please,” Sam said, finally finding her voice.

You nodded, cracking another two eggs into the pan. “You guys didn’t have a ton of options but let me know what you want in it.”

Sam looked across the counter at the options, there was actually more than she thought there would be. “Just tomato and spinach.”

You gave a quick thumbs up before flipping the pancakes. You grabbed another plate, dumping all the bacon and sausage onto it. Tara came in, grabbing the plate of bacon and sausage and two separate plates with omelets.

“Morning,” Tara mumbled, taking the plates to the dining room table.

“Morning,” Sam replied, still watching you cook. She watched as you added the veggies to her omelet, flipped the omelet and added more cheese and veggies to the top of it. You flipped the pancakes onto the plate, Tara at your side the instant you were done and already taking the plate to the table. You quickly finished the omelet, sliding it onto a plate and holding it out to Sam with a smile.

Sam looked from the omelet up to you and back down to the omelet. She hesitantly took the plate but had to admit it looked just as good as everything else. “You can cook?” she couldn’t help but ask.

You just shrugged, turning off the stove as you followed Sam into the dining room. Sam set her plate down, taking a seat and got a full look at the table. The plate of pancakes, sausage and bacon, and a plate of toast was already laid out in the middle of the table.

“They can cook breakfast at least,” Tara said, shoving a fork full of omelet into her mouth. “Everything else, that’s debatable.” You scoffed, stabbing your fork into Tara’s omelet, and stealing a bite, she quickly slapped your hand, throwing a grumpy glare at you, making you chuckle.

“Thanks,” Sam said, looking down at the omelet.

You shrugged again. “It was the least I could do.”

Sam took a small bite of her omelet, and it was amazing, she hated how good of a cook you were. She almost wanted to say you could spend the night any night as long as you made breakfast in the morning. The three of you sat in a comfortable silence eating breakfast, slowly waking up the rest of the way. By the time you were all done almost everything was gone, except for a couple pancakes left over. Sam sighed, she hadn’t had breakfast that good in a long time, the diner she worked at didn’t even make breakfast that good.

The three of you moved into the living room, grabbing presents from under the little tree the sisters had put up. Tara and Sam exchanged gifts and then you handed Tara a little wrapped box, Sam was silently praying that it wasn’t a ring again. Her mouth fell opening as she looked up at you with questioning eyes when you handed her a present as well.

“Why is hers bigger?” Tara questioned, whipping her head around to look at you, holding the present she had gotten you out of reached.

You just chuckled at her. “Yours is more expensive?” you offered.

She narrowed her eyes at you but handed you the present. You happily took it, giving her a quick kiss. Without wasting any time Tara was ripping into the present you had gotten her. When she was done, she held a small jewelry box in her hand, it wasn’t a ring box though. Breakfast was good but if you had gotten Tara another ring Sam probably would have killed you. Tara lifted the lid, letting out a light gasp at the sight, she lifted the item out of the box to reveal a necklace. The necklace had a silver chain connected to a silver pendant with her birthstone in the center, it matched the ring you had gotten for her birthday. Sam might have hated the ring at first, but she had to admit you had good taste in jewelry. Tara held out the necklace for you, moving her hair so you could place it around her neck.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, pulling you in for a long kiss, acting as if Sam wasn’t still sitting right there. “Thank you.”

Tara then ripped into her present from Sam, letting out an exciting gasp at the machete. “This is awesome!” she held up the machete, a crazy look in her eye. Your eyes widened, instantly going to Sam, silently asking her if she was serious.

“It’s not sharp,” Sam quickly said. She could see you physically relax as she calmed your fears.

Tara pouted a little at the new knowledge but still twirled the machete in her hand, looking closely at the etching. “This is so cool,” Tara said again. “Thank you.”

You opened your present from Tara, jumping to your feet to reveal two videogames. Sam had no idea what the games were, but you were acting like a little kid, so she assumed her sister did a pretty good job. “Thanks babe,” you said, giving Tara a quick kiss, making her blush.

It was Sam’s turn; she slowly opened her present from Tara. “Holy shit,” she whispered as she took out the little box. Tara had gotten her ear buds, she had been looking at a pair forever because she wanted some for when she went for a run or to the gym, but she could never pull the trigger, they were always too expensive for her to justify. “Thank you.”

As Sam started to unwrap the box you had gotten her, she caught a mischievous smirk on your face. Sam almost paused her movements; she couldn’t even imagine what you had gotten her let alone what would cause that kind of smile on your face. Sam undid the rest of the wrapping paper, looking down at the box in front of her, she blinked a few times before glaring at you. You were smiling widely, nearly bouncing up in down in your seat.

“You’re an ass,” is all Sam said. She turned the box, revealing Woodsboro Monopoly, making you break out into laugh. Tara quickly slapped you but there was a small smile tugging at her lips as well.

“I’m sorry,” you said through laughter. “I couldn’t help myself,” you were practically wheezing. “I’ve had that for months.”

Sam couldn’t help but join in, lightly laughing at the game. “You know we did never get to finish our game.”

Your eyes lit up. “Yes!” you pumped a fist into the air.

“But I get to be the knife,” Sam said in a serious voice.

“Well, I’d expect nothing less.” Sam glared at your light jab. “I want to be the phone though.”

Tara groaned, rolling her eyes. “This means we have to suffer through another game of Monopoly,” she mumbled.

You gasped in offense. “It’s not my fault we were rudely interrupted last time,” you said.

Sam shook her head as she listened to you and Tara argued back and forth. Tara might hate monopoly, but it was only a matter of time before she conceded. You would probably even convince her to wait for the twins to be back and would probably drag Danny over and force everyone to play the new version they now had for game night. Sam relaxed into her chair, watching as you and Tara argued with smiles, you were slowly growing on her, not that she’d ever tell you that.

After presents the rest of the day was uneventful. The three of you just spent a lazy day lounging in the apartment, watching Christmas movies on TV again, even though you all had seen all of them within the last few days. When night finally came, Tara was curled into your side, your arm wrapped tightly around her as she was sound asleep with her head resting on your shoulder.

“Night,” Sam whispered, getting up to head to bed herself.

“Wait, Sam,” you called out, looking back but making sure not to turn enough to disturb Tara. Sam stopped in the doorway, looking back at you. “Thank you,” you whispered, dropping your eyes for a second before meeting hers again. “I really appreciate you inviting me over. This has really meant a lot.”

Sam nodded. “You’re always welcome here.” She looked away from you, opening and closing her mouth a few times. “Sorry, I kicked you out earlier.” You gave her a soft smile, shrugging lightly. “You’re now expected to join us every year,” she said in an annoyed tone, but you laughed, catching the playfulness underneath.

Sam went to bed that night with a smile. She had wanted Christmas day with just her and her sister but you joining them ended up making it better than she could have imagined. This ended up being the best Christmas she ever had, and Tara would probably agree with her. It seemed the cycle of tainted memories and disappointing Christmas’s were over; she was more than happy to make new memories with Tara and was even okay with you being in those new memories now.

You still annoyed the hell out of her, but she didn’t miss the way you brought a lightness to the group, even after everything that happened, even though you were still struggling, you managed to still find the humor in things. If Sam was being honest with herself, she was now looking forward to you joining her and Tara or the group for holidays, birthdays, and other big events. If anyone asked her if she were happy, you were there, she would deny it but inside, she was happy to have you around.

Taglist: @screechcat

[deanbrainrotwritings]

—  LINES OF YOUR HANDS

SUMMARY : dean tries being seductive in a Santa suit… and it works, surprisingly. 

PAIRING : dean winchester x fem!reader

CHARACTERS : none

WARNINGS/TAGS : explicit(18+), fluff, on the kitchen table, Santa suit kink, nude photography, breeding kink, jerking off, cum play

WORD COUNT : 2.3k

A/N : devil wears prada song title. @spnkinkevents : #12daysofspnkinkmas2023 — (Santa) suit kink and nude photography. this was cute to me, idk ‘bout y’all, like yeah, the sex, but Dean’s so cute in my imagination (and in the show). had clara oswald and danny pink in mind for this one, lmao XXX

“Merry Christmas, my love!” Dean exclaimed from the doorway of the kitchen. His girlfriend turned around, distractedly biting off the arm of a gingerbread man. 

“You could’ve at least picked something sexy,” she snorted, turning away from him to bite the other arm of her gingerbread man. Dean pouted and made his way to her unenthusiastically. 

“Well, guess what I’m wearing underneath,” he proposed excitedly with his hands on his hips. She didn’t turn around to look at him this time. 

“Uh… your Scooby-Doo boxers?” She asked, grinning at the space in front of her before taking a bite of a gingerbread cookie’s leg. She knew that would make Dean whine more. “One of the hundred of black t-shirts you own, and uh… those ‘send noods’ socks, my fave,” she continued with a dreamy laugh. Dean sputtered. 

“No,” he pouted adorably. She shrugged, mouth full, drinking warm coconut milk to help the cookie go down. Defeated, Dean’s frown deepened. “Nothing,” he whined, then stomped over to her, hoping she’d look at him. “Come on, admit it’s sexy,” he smiled cheekily, sitting on the table next to the small plate with crumbs and a gingerbread man that no longer had arms and legs. 

She sighed playfully and then leaned back, eyes trailing from the top of his cute head to the bottom of his hot legs. She checked him out once more, contemplating his appearance: she stared at his thighs, the tent in the red, fluffy trousers, the tightness of the suit on him, the little bit of skin showing at his neck, the floppy red and white hat on top of his head.

She tried to give him what he wanted, to see the sexiness in his costume. But… she couldn’t help it, she smiled brightly at him. He was too damn adorable. 

“Oh, come on!” He whined, then hastily undid the black belt around his waist, letting the coat fall open. She held her breath as she watched him, her eyes glued to his taut, hot body, and his warm, freckled skin. He bit his lip, and pulled his pants down to release his cock, and slowly started to jerk himself off. 

That did it for her. Her stomach flipped and her pussy clenched, warmth spread over her face, her stomach, her cunt. She released a shaky breath as a wave of dampness ruined her underwear almost instantly. 

Squeezing her thighs, she fumbled and checked her pockets for her phone to take a picture. Maybe a lot more than one. This was so hot and definitely worth being kept in the hidden photo album of explicit photos and videos of her and Dean. 

When he saw it in her hands, he stopped touching himself and reached for the phone, but she snatched it away before he could snatch it away.

“Hey!” He complained. He thought she was going to ignore him and scroll through her phone instead.

“Shut up,” she grunted, which made his mouth shut instantly, “I’m trying to eat my gingerbread man and you want to seduce me… now deal with the fact that it worked.”

“You’re torturing the little man,” he stared down at the gingerbread man with an exaggerated frown. “But, hey, I ain’t complainin’ if you wanna take a few videos of me right now,” he grinned, going right back at it. “Did ya name him?” He asked, running his thumb over the tip of his leaking cock. 

“Patrick,” she laughed softly, then stood up to find the perfect angle. It didn’t matter though, he looked good from all angles. She snapped a photo, kept tapping and tapping the red button to get as many as she could. Data storage be damned. 

“Want some more frosting on Patrick?” He jested, but she was actually contemplating his offer. He cursed softly and watched her with hooded eyes. 

She leaned down to collect the beads of precum at his tip with her tongue which made his body tense up, a loud moan erupting from his throat. She reached over and took a bite of her cookie, mixing the sweet and tangy flavour of her two favourite things. “Yummy,” she snickered, staring straight at Dean. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, licking his lips. 

“Maybe when you’ve got another load, you’re cumming inside me first.” She pushed her cup and the headless cookie to the far end of the table, close to the wall. “Fuck, actually… should I take a picture of you cumming on your hand first?” She stopped in the middle of lifting her shirt up, staring at him as he slowed the pace of his movements to stop his orgasm. 

“No, later,” he decided for her, “please, get up here and ride me.” He begged, then shifted on the table to lie on his back, aware of the plate and cup she pushed against the wall when he placed the Santa hat with them. She snickered and lifted the top over her head. She wore no bra this morning and the sight of her  breasts made him moan softly. 

“Comfortable?” She asked, kicking her slippers off and then slid her leggings and underwear down in one swift pull. 

“Just get up here,” he told her impatiently, reaching down to tug at his balls instead of jerking himself off. She laughed again and did as he asked. She climbed up the chair, made her way onto the table, and then sat on his lap, taking his hard cock in her hand. 

“How are you making this work?” She teased, biting her lip, slowly stroking from base to tip. He instantly grabbed her hips, his red lips parted to release quick breaths as he brought her forward over his erect cock.

He shrugged, biting his lip and smiling cutely. “Please,” he begged again, urging her to take him. She playfully, teased her entrance with the tip of his cock, and stared down at him mischievously.

“Sam’s gonna get mad that we fucked on the table.” He knew she was stalling on purpose, getting him riled up. Her intentions were clearer when she reached for her phone again, and took a couple photos of his cock in her hand. 

She stopped stroking his cock to focus on taking more photos. It frustrated him and he groaned, reaching between her legs. While she treated him like a sex model, leaning back in his lap to capture him at the best angle with her phone, he separated her folds and brushed his thumb against her clit. 

His cock twitched when he brought two of his fingers to her entrance and an insane amount of slick met his fingertips. “Wow, it’s really workin’,” he chuckled, smiling up at her smugly. She rolled her eyes, lips parting when he pushed two fingers into her, meeting no resistance. “Please tell me you’re done, I wanna be inside you and feel all of this… wrapped around my dick,” he mumbled, pushing a third finger into her, then spread them apart inside her. 

“Oh… fuck, Dean!” She moaned in surprise. Her phone tumbled out of her hand and rattled on the floor, but it didn’t break. She slammed both hands on his chest as her thighs shook on either side of his body as his fingers curled against the front of her walls. 

“It’s Santa now,” he teased, pulling his soaked fingers out of her fluttering pussy to wrap it around his cock. She barely composed herself when he bucked his hips upwards, thrusting his cock into her swiftly. 

She cried out again and buried her face into his neck, making a tight fist with both hands clenching around the red and white Santa jacket he wore. She moaned softly when he rolled his hips gently, soothing the amazing stretch of her cunt around him. 

“Shit.. that was way too easy, babe,” he gasped, giving her ass a gentle swat. “You okay?” He murmured, kissing her temple. She nodded, her pussy fluttering needily around his cock. “Well…” he paused for a moment, reaching up to move her hair to one side, then lifted her mouth up to his. “What do you want for Christmas, sweetheart?” He mumbled against her lips, giving her a few loving pecks. 

She kissed him lewdly, licking across his sugary lips and into his minty mouth with a hum. With a smirk, she replied, “a baby.” 

His grip on her hair tightened and his cock twitched inside her. He pulled her off him with a sharp tug of her hair and stared at her face, stunned and aroused. “Don’t ask for something if you’re not serious about it…” he murmured, planting his black-leather-boot clad feet on the table.

“Who said I wasn’t serious?” She asked, placing her arm beside his head and laying her palm flat over his toned stomach. 

“That shit-eating grin on your fuckable face.” Before she could get out a reply, Dean began to piston his hips up into her, clasping both hands on her hips roughly to keep her from moving. 

With a surprised moan she pressed her forehead into her arm and wrapped her hand around one of Dean’s wrists, above his watch. 

She panted heavily into his ear, occasionally moaning encouragements that made him fuck her harder. Her clit slapped delightfully against his pelvis with each thrust and upward grind. He focused on chasing her pleasure more than his own, angling her hips so he could press his cock into the front of her pussy, brushing repeatedly over her sweet spots. 

“You want a baby?” He asked breathlessly, cock throbbing inside her velvety walls. He could feel her getting as close to her orgasm as he was, and continued to grind up against her after every thrust to stimulate her clit. “I’ll give you a baby,” he growled, latching his lips to her pulse. 

With a sharp thrust and a hard bite, he came inside her with a grunt of her name against her neck. Hot cum pooled inside her and triggered her own orgasm. With a shuddering moan of Dean’s name, she took Dean's face lovingly into her hands and kissed him as he helped her ride out her orgasm. 

Her kiss-swollen lips moved across his jaw, down his flushed neck and chest as they attempted to catch their breaths. Dean pulled her closer, his warm hands squeezing his favourite parts of her body that he could reach. Barely having caught their breaths, he mumbled, “I believe you need to let me eat your cookie now that I’ve delivered your gift. Santa’s gotta get a reward,” against her flushed cheek.

She moved away from his mouth and lifted a brow at the playful grin he gave her. “Do not call my vagina a cookie ever again,” she giggled, pushing up off his chest. Except he pulled her back down with his fingers around the back of her neck to peck her lips, once, then twice.

“Babe, please, I’m trying to be in the Christmas spirit,” he reasoned playfully with a nod, dimples on display with his puckered lips. He slid his hands down the curve of her back and stopped just shy of her ass, calloused hands caressing her soft skin.

She eyed him suspiciously and then dropped a lingering kiss on his forehead for cuteness. “Okay, I’ll let it slide… this time,” she smiled, then dropped doting kisses over his cheeks and nose. 

“Right, but you have no problem with me referring to myself as Santa, hmm?” He muttered, feigning disappointment. Mischievously, she stopped her kisses before she could get to his mouth, hovering over his lips after kissing the corner of his mouth. 

She pulled away as he waited for her kiss with a very subtle pucker of his lips and then, he had the audacity to pout again. “Be happy that I fucked you in this ridiculous costume at all,” she frowned, but her bright and amused eyes betrayed her serious face. 

“This costume is not ridiculous, okay? You’re ridiculous…” he scoffed, moving his hands away from her hips to cross them over his chest defensively.

She bit back a smile and slid off his soft dick, which made him reach out for her to return with his lips parted to ask her to come back. Instead, she took his hands to balance herself as she climbed off the table and took her phone off the floor, his cum already starting to dribble out of her pussy.

She squeezed her legs together as she unlocked her cellphone to study the photos she took of Dean. “I’m gonna get these framed… or.. I’m making my own porn magazine with photos of you naked.. yeah, that’s a great idea,” she spoke to herself thoughtfully. 

Dean blindly grabbed for the Santa hat, lifted his pants up, and slid off the table to wrap his arms around his naked girlfriend. He put the hat back on and dropped his chin on her shoulder to gaze at her phone.  

“Only if you do the same for me,” he proposed bashfully, then slowly started moving his hands down between her legs. She smiled and parted her legs for him, but she didn’t expect him to send a slap over her sensitive clit.

He must have expected her reaction because he released her immediately and backed away when she jumped with a shout and turned to face him swiftly. She glared at him and walked towards him until the metal counter hit his back. 

He licked his lip, trying to lean casually against the counter with his green eyes shining bright like shiny ornaments on a Christmas tree. He swallowed excitedly and smiled at her flirtatiously—that stupid smile he gave women when he tried picking them up or to get information out of them. 

“I’m tying you up with the Christmas lights for that,” she threatened seductively, pressing herself up against his taut body. He bit his lip and carefully moved his hands to her ass to keep her close, then squeezed. 

“Really?” 

taglist

@rominaszh @livingdeadmak @lanassmarty @murdockscumsock @zepskies @candy-coated-misery0731 @stxrgazer03 @epsilonsagittarii @lyarr24 @spnfamily-j2 @globetrotter28 @deansbbyx @lickmybawls @jackles010378 @winchstrdean @deanwinchestersgirl87 @the-achievementhunter @deanfreakingwinchester @k-slla @madzzz0797 @laylaackles @fanfic-n-tabulous @kristophalis

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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO DEANBRAINROTWRITINGS 

do not steal, plagiarise, translate, or republish my work on another platform

[tomboy014]

Dun Dun Dunnn!!! Arkham Security Guard Danny's Epic Backstory! with Dick Grayson

I fell in love with the Arkham Guard AU by @xy-is-i and like most projects I work on, rather than starting where the story starts, I end up going backwards and delve into the backstory.  And I mean waaay into the backstory.

Because while the stories might start when the Bats run into Danny and Jazz working at Arkham Asylum isn’t where they first met.

Long, long ago, through shenanigans unknown, Robin and Phantom became friends, and honestly, they both really needed it. 

Dick Grayson, age 16, has been Robin for a while, but this is so early in the day that there just aren’t many teen heroes or sidekicks yet.  He’s basically pioneering the field of child heroes.

For Danny, 14, Sam and Tucker are great, but there are just some parts of superhero-ing that they just don’t get when you don’t have to hide a secret identity. 

Batman, for his part, does not approve of the friendship.  He’s already not a fan of metas in his city, but when the two of them get together, the chaos twin energy between Dick and Danny multiplies.  Worse, it brings about the pun-pocalypse, and there are only so many puns Bruce can take.  And then there’s the sibling discourse…

After all the stories Danny has told about his family, Dick is desperate to have a little sibling of his own, and the two repeatedly gang up on Batman to adopt another kid.  Their acting may be stilted, but the efforts are constant.

It never works.  Bruce doesn’t have empty nest syndrome yet, and tiny, homicidal Dick was already more than he could handle while he was trying to figure out how to adult, but he also can’t stand that he’s disappointing Dick.  Alfred isn’t helping either; he wants more grandkids.

And there’s no way in HELL that he’s adopting Phantom.

But for Robin and Phantom, they finally have someone they can talk to who gets it.  They can vent about their rogues, get help with homework, bitch about balancing their vigilantism with going to school, talk about whatever TV they’ve been watching, anything and everything.  It’s not uncommon to see them hanging off the Gotham gargoyles or grabbing a bite on top of the Nasty Burger.

There’s an unspoken rule between them that neither pries into the other’s personal life or secret identity, but as they get more comfortable with each other, little things slip out.  Then more.  Numbers are swapped, bits and pieces about their families come out. 

Later on, homes and secret hideouts are visited and they know each other’s first names.  It’s not a problem for Dick to go to the Fenton’s, but technically, Danny isn’t allowed in the Bat Cave or the Manor.  Those visits happen behind Batman’s back, and they were almost caught when they hid in the chandelier before Danny remembered he could turn them invisible. (Alfred encourages the friendship and bakes extra cookies once when he finds out Danny is over.) 

And eventually the relationship grows until they’re comfortable enough to swap full names.  No more secrets.

Dick likes going over to Danny’s place since it’s a chance to feel a lot more normal, even if they have to be very careful and either stay in civilian clothes in the shared areas or stay locked in Danny’s room if they’re in uniform.  Danny also goes out of his way to keep Dick from ever meeting his sister, Jazz (Danny knows he has a type).  It doesn’t stop them from swapping their numbers under the door.  (Jazz will unofficially be Dick’s therapist for years after this)

But being this close, Dick can also see just how stressed Danny is trying to maintain this lifestyle.  Doesn’t help either he has to listen to Danny’s parents go on and on about wanting to rip their own son apart, molecule by molecule.  Sure, Danny has a couple friends to help him, but he doesn’t have the same mentor or support system Dick has.  For a kid his age to be anything other than a sidekick is practically unheard of in this day and age.  Superheroes are still fairly few and far between, but Batman helped start a group called the Justice League a couple years ago with the idea that heroes could help each other.  Maybe there’s something there…

So, Dick starts the Teen Titan.  He had originally intended for Danny to join him as one of the founding members, but are you kidding?  Jump City is on the opposite side of the country!  He has school! and parents! (That’s the point, Danny. We’re trying to get you away from the parents that want to dissect you) He can’t just up and leave home and run halfway across the country!

So, Dick found the other iconic members and still joined the Titans, but Danny will always have an open invitation to join them and a room at the Tower, something Danny does occasionally take advantage of.  Jump City doesn’t spawn as many natural portals as Gotham, but he visits whenever he can and basically haunts the tower the entire month of December to get away from his family.

Still, the distance and growing up are hard on Dick and Danny, and they grow more distant over the years, but they’ll always have each other’s backs in an emergency.  Dick was there when Danny thought he was turning into a monster (it was just ghost puberty).  Danny stole the Spectre Speeder so they could scour the Ghost Zone after Jason died.  And Danny would eventually become godfather to Dick’s daughter, Mar’i. 

But things cooled down between them… at least until a panicked Danny called because his sister just took a job at Arkham…

Next>>

[earl-grey-teacake]

the thought i just had. THE TEAM BOSSES. all quietly vying to be the favourite so that whhen inevitably baby loscar start karting they can recruit to academy. zak plonking baby oscar in the simulator often and providing him with australian chocolate (since he learned what good chocolate is when Danny was in the team). meanwhile fred declaring that oscar *clearly* has italian lineage and therefore *must* be brought to ferrari more often. (charles and whoever lando's teammate is in this universe vying for oscar's affection as the cool uncle). toto is trying the same thing with logan, but he is struggling because james is, well, JAMES and try as he might toto has never yet succeeded in managing to put logan to sleep just reading tyre data to him. (logan does however end up having to be closely supervised at merc because he learns a lot of german swear words when he starts talking)

😭😭😭 This has been in my inbox for who knows how long. I've never been able to do it justice so I never answered it.

But yes, you are quite correct. They all spoil the babies, regardless of the fact the children are a bit too young to even reach the pedals on the SIM.

Oscar, like all children love sugar. It is like coke to them but the downside is that it is super messy. So you have Oscar sitting on Lando's lap in the SIM so he can play with it and Zak just handing him chocolate, like a dog getting treats for doing a task. Oscar doesn't care that much about racing the SIM as he is about seeing the cars. At some point, it really is about him seeing the cars and getting snacks for it instead learning how to drive. It will take a bit more time before he's old enough to race karts so they still have time.

Lando's teammate is Pato and he is very committed to being liked by Oscar. Oscar finds him loud and energetic but he's very receptive to what Oscar wants.

"Oh, you want to chocolate, of course!" Absolutely ignoring the fact that he received 3 pieces earlier.

"You want to go on a hot lap?" Sure! Let's find you a helmet.

"Want to pet a dog?" Come meet Norbi!

"You want your leash taken off?" Hmmm. Maybe.

At some point, the competition to becoming favorite had to have rules solely because Oscar was getting sugar high after sugar high.

****

When Oscar walks into Ferrari, he is met with cheers and clamoring about "Oscar!" "Oscar's here!"

Then comes the "have you eaten yet? Come eat! You're so small, you need to eat more. After this plate, you can have tiramisu."

Needless to say, Oscar enjoyed going to Ferrari now and again given how much and how well they feed him. It's just that Ferrari was so far from Williams and Oscar wanted to go see Logan. Of course, once Fred knows about this, he has someone go get Logan to join them.

Time spent at Ferrari is less about hanging out in Ferrari and more about teaching the kids about the greatness of Ferrari. FORZA FERRARI! VIVA ITALIA! JOIN FERRARI AND FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE GREATS!

It's a lot for Oscar to take in.

Charles loves it though. Charles loves kids and he's great with them. Oscar "want" to join Ferrari? Of course! Everyone should aspire to be at Ferrari!

Like Pato, he is very much willing to spoil Oscar. However, he is also very susceptible too with large, cute eyes that beg him to take off the child leash and let him run free, which is the one thing he cannot do.

However, he can distract him with Leo.

"Look Leo has a leash too!"

****

Toto may not compare to James with his soothing voice but he is absolutely willing to spoil Logan nonetheless. Also, he is kind of like a grandparent to Logan.

"Oh, would you like to go see the cars be painted? Come here, I'll take you."

"Oh, George won't let you have a cookie. That's okay, I'll get you a cookie."

"You want to sit in on the meeting? Sure you just have to be quiet. Here, have some papers to draw on."

"See that building right there? That is RedBull, you must never go there. There are monsters there and they will eat you. They're a bunch of miststück (bastard)."

Needless to say, Susie was very displeased when Logan repeated the word the next day at a meeting.

****

I hope you like it! Sorry for the wait!!!

[ar3s-r4t-qu33n]

Johnny's Bluffing

CW for discussion of potential sexual assault, toxic/unhealthy relationships, stalking, obsession, and, of course, murder and cannibalism. Nothing like, too crazy I think? But especially this one section on sexual assault, it's brief but separated out so it's quite easy to skip if that makes folks uncomfortable.

Hi I am currently in a really bad insomnia cycle and as such haven't slept so I'm sure I'm gonna have missed something that immediately prove me wrong, but here we go:

I don't think that certain members of the Family know that Maria is alive, and especially Nancy. This theory sort of delves into a lot of different stuff, I wrote and rewrote this a fair bit and idk, this is what I ended up with. It's a lot of my personal interpretation of both the written text and the way lines are delivered, as well as my own analyses on characters and how I personally think the timeline of events went (Danny and Virginia dying before the gang even show up in Newt, Maria being the 'Definitive Final Girl' and surviving to the very end, but never getting to escape the Slaughters/Johnny. That isn't to say that she dies, but Sally is the first and only person to escape until Stretch if she is canon to this timeline now that Choptop is on his way) so idk, I hope you like what I've been thinking about I guess?

Nancy and Drayton both have several voice lines that refer to Maria being in the past tense. So does Johnny, but my theory here is that he is playing into this line of thought so they don’t realise that he is still keeping her.

I will source my way of hearing all of the voice lines at the end.

Starting with Nancy, she has several;

‘It didn’t have to be this way, you know? You just had to come looking for that floosy of yours, didn’t you?’

‘Your little friend had it coming. Looking at my Johnny that way- he’s a sweet boy!’

‘You ever hear the saying murder starts in the heart? … I think my Johnny liked that girl…’

The first two are obviously extremely defensive over Johnny and are meant to taunt the other Victims over Maria’s ‘death’. The last one, however, feels almost like a realisation. This line has confused me for a long time, because it sounds like two different once spliced together, but they are, in fact, connected. This is the only time that Nancy ever speaks about Maria in any other way than pure disgust and defensiveness. Another interesting thing about Nancy is that she does not hate her husbands. She murdered all three of them, none of them were able to give her a baby of her own, and yet she defends them from Sissy, she keeps them all in her basement man cave, and even when talking to Hands, she’s apologetic about Harold to him. She still holds a fondness for them, it seems, and I feel like maybe this is what makes her finally realise that Johnny actually, truly loves Maria. For Nancy, she loves people to death, and that type of love extends to Johnny, too. Sure, he’s still alive, and could easily kill her now, but she permanently scarred his face when he tried to leave her. I don’t believe that Nancy isn’t above murdering Johnny to keep him with her, and I think this admittance leads to her realising that Johnny actually did love Maria. Of course, she can’t say ‘love’, that’s a bit too far, but at the very least, she will acknowledge that he likes her, and these days, Johnny doesn’t seem to like anyone, not even her. It’s also interesting to note that she says this after losing sight of a victim she was chasing. She says herself that she hasn’t hunted like this in a while, it seems as if physically chasing people down to kill them is making her reminisce on her feelings about murder and love in a way.

But all of that to say, she believes Maria is dead. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she’s dead now, and maybe she plans to talk to Johnny about it later, maybe not apologise, but try and make it easier on him now that she’s realised just how much she meant to him.

Then we’ve got Cookie.

‘Look, I’m sorry about your friend… but… I’m afraid you done landed square dab in the shithouse!’

‘We didn’t have much choice! Couldn’t let Johnny spring no lovechild around here. It ain’t personal! Now get back here!’

There is obviously a lot less here, the former being Cook or Drayton’s more humble, car salesman type approach to everything, apologising sincerely that their friend had to die… but now so do they, so how sorry can he be, really?

The second is far more interesting. I’m still sort of working out the kinks with what I think on all this, but it implies not only that the whole family knew about Johnny’s feelings for Maria, but that there was a worry about something more than just his feelings. A genuine attachment, the possibility for a child.

Now, one thing I wanna throw in real quick is that a lot of people think Johnny assaulted Maria once he kidnapped her. And I personally don’t think that that is true. And it’s more than just ‘noooo not my pookie he would never!’, I feel as though Johnny’s feelings for Maria are beyond sexual, or beyond purely sexual. I’m not gonna get super into it because I wanna make a whole post about just their relationship, but in short, Johnny knows he’s hot shit. He knows women love him and men do too, and he uses that all the time to lure people to their deaths. Maybe he fucks them first, then kills them, who knows. But this is a man who is used to being sexualised and uses it to his advantage, like a reverse femme fatale, almost. A lot of his lines are sexually charged and he speaks seductively low at times, even flirting on the odd occasion. However, Maria is in love with Danny and is a sweet girl in the seventies. There is no way she’s heading off to knock boots with the pretty boy at the bar no matter how charming, persistent, helpful… always somehow exactly where she needs him to be… is. She’s kind, she’s sweet, she brings out the best in people, we know this about her. And when there’s no sex, when it’s not about fucking them and killing them… Johnny has no choice but to fall completely head over heels for her. It’s no surprise that the day she’s heading out of town, maybe to go back to see her boyfriend, that is when her car breaks down. Johnny’s oil stained gloves, the fact that he’s designed to look like he helps at a gas station, his friendship with Uncle Hands, the fact he lives in a junk yard? This man knows mechanics. He knows cars. And he is definitely not above tampering with an already busted old car to ensure it stops before she can get away from him. It’s just his luck that she happens to break down by his family’s land. All this to say, I don’t think Johnny assaults Maria once he has her. Not only because that would be a lot, like, in general, for this game to go from goofy cannibals to sexual assault by one of the game’s most beloved characters to one of the game’s most beloved characters, but because I don’t think Johnny is the type. He’s pretty and charming enough that people want him, he doesn’t have to take it, he earns it. And he wants Maria to give it to him, for him to earn it because she wants him. He likely spends his time down there with her trying to get her to fall for him and forget about Danny. He wants her to want him. Or at least, this is my personal interpretation.

Maybe she does begin to fall or maybe Drayton’s complete lack of any and all sexual knowledge just makes him think they’re already going to pound town, but he was worried about a baby. That’s something I wanna explore in the future, why he’s so worried about Johnny and Maria having a baby, but moving on; again, Drayton is seemingly fully convinced that Maria is dead.

For Johnny I wanna take his lines one at a time, but it is important to note that I think some of these lines are referring to someone else and not Maria, but also some of these are in present tense, he either slips up or sometimes on purpose mentions things that could hint to her being alive to the Victims.

‘You wanna know how your friend died!? … I can show you!’

‘Your little friend put up a better fight than this… come on! Make it interesting, will you!?”

Pure just bluffing to get them angry and scared. It could also be referring to Danny but more on that a different time.

‘That’s what I get for taking it easy on them. Time for them to join that little friend of theirs…’

‘You’re gonna look real nice next to that friend of yours…’

Again, if my belief that Danny not only went to Nancy’s a lot earlier than the others is true and that he has been dead for a good few days before the gang shows up, then this is absolutely about him, not Maria.

‘You kinda remind me of your little friend’

To Ana about Maria, obviously, and comes across as quite flirtatious. He’s figured out that not only does Maria have a sister (if she never told him), but that Ana has no intentions of leaving there without her. I interpret this as Johnny taunting her, making her his new priority to get rid of. I said he loved Maria, I never said he loved her in a healthy way, alight? This is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, not the Notebook (never seen that movie)

‘You should have never came here looking for that girl!’

I don’t need to explain. Pure possessive Johnny in his raw form.

And finally, the infamous;

‘You know… I was actually kinda fond of that girl, I-I didn’t really wanna hurt her… but… family first, you know?’

Johnny is an agitator. Almost all of his lines are trying to fuck with the victims, playing with his food. Egging them on to hit him, teasing them about being too slow, the way he calls after them as he hunts them down, he wants to see them upset and charged, he wants a good fight, he wants to feel something. The main part of this line is just that, I think; he wants them to believe that even though he cared about Maria, he fucking killed her. He wants them to be angry, to fight him, to hurt him. The end is guilty. Incredibly guilty sounding, and I don’t think that’s out of a guilt for killing her, since… well, Maria is alive and kicking. But more a guilt about his family in general. ‘Family first, you know?’ he’s almost saying it so himself, as if that’s what he should think, what he should be doing. But he is actively betraying them and knows that once everything blows over, he’s going to keep on betraying them for every day he keeps Maria alive. And he also knows that even if he feels all of this guilt, he will do it anyway because he loves her, and he can’t let his family have her. She is the only person who is truly his, who represents what life could have given him. I have another analysis I made on TikTok that I’ll repost here soon, but it essentially goes like this; Johnny and Danny really aren’t too different. Scrappy orphans who are good with mechanics. Except Danny got to go to college, travel freely, meet the girl of his dreams, and Johnny is forced to be someone he doesn’t want to be. He isn’t not a killer, but he also could have not been a killer. Maria is everything he has not been allowed to have; naivety, kindness, softness. And now that he has her, and once everyone else is out of the way, he has no intentions of letting that go.

So he is pretending that she is dead. And for now, it is working. I have a feeling in the canon story of the game, the victims stumble upon her somewhere once they’ve already caused enough trouble for the family, and then all bets are off. Once they find out she’s still alive, it’s a new game for Johnny, a choice; does he kill her, make his mother proud and live the only life he knows because even if he leaves, he knows he can’t be any better? Or does he take her away and try, try to be a different man in the softness of her love?

Rush Week could be the result of either of those. Either he kills her, and becomes an even worse, even colder killer, now able to handle a situation like in the game completely on his own, or he takes her away to start a new life and just couldn’t stop the urges; the Bad Man needs to feed. He stays late after work or pretends he has a night shift and gets his fill on blood and chaos before stumbling home, washing it all off, and returning to Maria’s (definitely traumatised at this point from seeing her friends and sister murdered (don’t worry about Danny I’ve got thoughts on him shhh) in front of her and ‘rescued’ by Johnny) arms.

That was a lot... Please tell me what y'all think on this, again, a lot of my personal interpretation on a lot of things, but isn't that what art is for?

Sources for the voice lines:

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Johnny All Voice Lines (youtube.com)

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Black Nancy All Voice Lines - YouTube

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Johnny All Voice Lines (youtube.com)

Promised I'd tag @bloodfeeder when I finished this so here ya go!! :)

[thesoulspulse]

Danny Phantom Randomness (Principal Masters)

Not sure if this idea has been used in the phandom before, probably not since it’s a pretty common for the principal of a school in a cartoon to be the antagonist in some way, but I thought I’d share it anyways. So here’s what I’m thinking. Personally I think it would have made a lot more sense for Vlad to switch tactics and double down on trying to win Danny over instead of going full cookie-cutter-bad-guy-that-wants-to-rule-the-world after cloning him failed which would make him realize that his little badger really is one of a kind and what he has can’t be replicated.

Up until this point Vlad’s been making Danny’s life more difficult instead of easier which was his whole sales pitch when they first met...

Vlad: Daniel, stop. Think about the things I could show you, the doors I could open for you. You, Danny Phantom, and I, Vlad Plasmius. Together, we could rule.

Then there’s these comments Vlad made to Danny in Reign Storm...

Vlad: Sneak attack, very good, Daniel.You're getting more like me with every battle.

Danny: I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU!

Vlad: Oh, you're not? Using your powers to get back at people you don't like? Throwing the first punch? You're more like me than you know.

I’m so disappointed this didn’t develop into something more interesting where Danny starts to genuinely worry he’s becoming too much like Vlad which would have made the events of The Ultimate Enemy twice as cool because it’d be like a glimpse of that reality where he’d actually become worse than Vlad. But, back to the topic at hand! I’ve mentioned this in a few of my fanfics but I think the whole cloning thing was more of a desperate attempt to get Danny on his side since Vlad never really made any serious attempts to tempt him to join willingly and just spent the whole time bashing Jack and telling Danny he’d be a better father.

With that in mind, rather than being a petty rich bully after Danny gets Vlad’s mansion destroyed in Season 3 what if Vlad decided to put his foot down to “re-educate” him so to speak? What I mean by that is instead of running for Mayor of Amity Park, why didn’t Vlad try to replace the principal of Casper High? For one thing it would have ACTUALLY made sense because the position doesn’t require living somewhere for more than 6 months and its purely based on their education and teaching experience. And I think overshadowing the right people on a smaller scale would make it more believable than the whole Mayor thing.

Vlad could of course still be a jerk about a lot of things to get back at Danny like force the whole dress code thing, however, it would have been an interesting twist if when Danny comes to Vlad to apologize and ask for a truce he graciously accepts which totally throws Danny for a loop. Why? Because that was the plan all along! Vlad wanted Danny to learn there are consequences to his actions, realized that fighting him is counterproductive, and on top of that, to actually show how much easier he could make Danny’s life by letting him become a part of it.

Honestly, I absolutely love the idea of him unexpectedly becoming the cranky overprotective type kind of like what you see in this amazing comic strip by @lilianade-comics​: https://www.tumblr.com/lilianade-comics/703807353584320512/aw-man-dont-you-hate-it-when-your-arch-enemy?source=share

Think about it. If Vlad started to make Jack look bad without actively insulting him to make Danny finally get fed up with being hunted by his parents to the point where he’d reluctantly go there just to catch his breath once the two of them agree to a cease fire. Trouble with the high school bullies? In comes Uncle Vlad who happens to be the richest man in the world and a close personal friend of the Fenton family so Danny’s off limits. Ghost attack? Vlad helps cover up Danny disappearing to fight them or even scares them off if he has an important test that day. The list goes on on what Vlad could do to either make Danny’s life a living hell in a more personalized way by invading his school life or a lot better depending on their interactions at Casper High.

Long story short its basically using the idea that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that so seeing Vlad gradually start doing nice things for Danny from time to time might help change his tune. Because deep down Danny DOES want to learn more about being half-ghost, but he refuses to accept Vlad’s offer to join him because he hasn’t really done anything to make it appealing. Vlad’s always insulting Danny and his father so if you ask me, giving him the praise he doesn’t get at home or at school could change so much between them...

Vlad’s just gotta be smarter about it.

Obviously Danny would be suspicious if Vlad started acting too nice to him right away so the changes would be gradual. And whenever he goes to Vlad for help or at the very least asks if he’ll cut him some slack Vlad will reward him for coming to him first. Especially because unlike his parents, Vlad knows exactly how much he’s dealing with and I’d love it if what started off as a plan to manipulate Danny transformed into an actual student and mentor relationship leading into a redemption arc instead of whatever Season 3 was.

And there you have it. Principal Masters AU anyone?

[piedpiperart]

Phantom of Gotham 16

Chapter 15

Danny woke up not long after he fell asleep. And wasn’t that weird? He wasn’t sure what the change was but he’d been sleeping a lot more lately. Was it because he didn’t have ghosts to fight all the time? Or school, considering they had a bit of a winter break right now with the blizzard. He figured they’d be going back to school tomorrow or the day after at the latest, because the snow had already started to melt significantly. Danny wasn’t really sure what that was about but he figured it might be a Gotham thing. 

Upon waking up, he’d immediately noticed the warm body next to him, and his face grew warm with embarrassment. He was more or less leaning most of his body over- yep that was Tim. He was surprisingly comfortable, and his core preened at his friend getting some much-needed sleep. Danny had noticed the dark bags under his eyes, and frankly horrifying coffee addiction. Even when Danny had subtly made Tim’s coffee go cold the boy still gulped it down like he was starving. 

Looking at the sleeping body pressed against him, Danny preened at the fact that his coffee-stealing had paid off. Sure, he’d probably have to fetch the coffee cups out of the walls, but it was worth it. Tim did not need to drink so much coffee, and it was obvious that no one else in his family was going to put a stop to it. He’d have the twelve cups a day whittled down to three in no time. Mostly due to ghostly interference, but Danny could admit he needed superpowers to fight Tim on this one. 

Slowly, Danny creeped out of the little blanket cuddle huddle with a subtle use of his intangibility to keep from waking Tim and placed the blanket more securely around Tim. After a moment, he also phased the game controller out of where it was digging into Tim’s ribs and put it on the coffee table. Satisfied with his work, Danny pulled out his phone to check the time, and to his relief, he didn’t need to get to the warehouse just yet. 

Glancing periodically back to Tim snoring softly on the couch, Danny made his way to the kitchen. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes while he padded down the hall in Tim’s fluffy Superman socks.  He made his way to the kitchen only to find no one but Alfred there, puttering about and making what looked like oatmeal cookies. Danny grimaced. Chocolate chips were better, he reasoned. 

------------------------------------------------------

Tim woke up with a start, finding himself surprisingly warm. Glancing around, he could tell he was on the couch in the game room. Alone. His stomach rumbled lightly and Tim assumed Danny had gotten hungry and left. Slowly, stretching his limbs until he heard a few concerning cracks, he shuffled his way to the kitchen. He checked his phone, noting that he’d missed dinner. They must have let him sleep, he figured, but couldn’t argue with how rested he felt. 

“What if we make ones with oatmeal and chocolate chips?” Tim heard Danny voice from his spot outside the kitchen door. Amused, he pushed the door open to see Danny at the counter with what looked like leftovers from dinner, the boy gesturing with his fork towards where Alfred was baking cookies. 

“Ah, Master Timothy. Have a seat, your food will be ready in a moment,”Alfred gestured. His lips were tilted up with amusement the moment Danny piped up again. 

“I can make chocolate chip cookies,”Danny reasoned. “My sisters like it when I make them. I can share my secret recipe with you if you don’t put oatmeal in them.” 

Alfred’s eyes crinkled with amusement as he placed a heated plate of vegetables and meat in front of Tim. Tim nodded in thanks, turning to Danny. “Is this another toast situation? I promise Alfred’s oatmeal cookies are really good.”

“I’m sure they are,”Danny placated,”But I’m just saying they’d be better with chocolate chips instead of raisins,” He said, shuddering at the word raisin. 

“If it would appease you Master Daniel,”Alfred said, noting the flinch and grimace Danny made at the name,”I shall make half with raisin and half with chocolate.”

Danny thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

“And then we can mix them up for everyone else so they don’t know which is which,"Tim added helpfully. Danny beamed at him. 

“Exactly!” Danny cheered. Tim knew for a fact that most of the manor wouldn’t mind either option, but Dick would. Over the years Tim has found that Dick’s sweet tooth has left him easily susceptible to food-based pranks. In his early years, Jason apparently utilized this tactic constantly. 

Tim picked up his coffee mug and made a face when he realized it was tea. Alfred, most likely. “Thanks for the food Alfred, I’m gonna head to bed a bit early today,”Danny said, dropping his dishes in the sink. “The nap earlier kinda tired me out,”He added, patting Tim on the back on his way out. Tim opted to finish his plate before asking Alfred about the rest of the family. 

“Alf-”Tim started when he’d gotten up to put his plate away, only for Alfred to cut him off. 

“You’ll find the rest of the family in the cave,”Alfred raised a brow. “They’re reviewing some concerning discoveries about Danny and getting ready for the meeting with Phantom.”

“Oh, great,”Tim said, pulling out his phone and pre-emptively sending his research and plans about how to make a treaty with people from another dimension to the batcomputer. He ignored the sting of being left out of the family gathering, but he brushed it off as spending time with Danny instead. Besides, now he felt refreshed. If only he had some coffee…

Making his way to the cave, he immediately heard arguing and sighed. Maybe it was better that he’d gotten some peace and quiet before dealing with this, he reasoned. He miserably sipped his thermos full of…tea… and made his way to the batcomputer. 

“Okay, so we just have to do the treaty thing first and then get more information on Danny,”Jason gestured. Most of them were already in costume, minus Dick, who was without a domino. 

“It’s more than a simple treaty, Todd,”Damian scoffed. 

“Enough,”Bruce chimes in gruffly.”This is just a meeting to negotiate. Since the Fenton’s and the GIW are committing interdimensional war crimes, we’ll have to bring this to the Justice League eventually.”

“You think the Green Lanterns are going to intervene?”Dick pondered aloud, and Batman’s mouth twitched down. Tim could tell it was because Bruce didn’t like dealing with Hal Jordan. Or any other lantern, really. 

“They shouldn’t have to if we manage to keep things civil here,”Tim chimed in from his spot at the batcomputer, startling a few of them of his presence. “Assuming the Ghost King just wants the human realm to stop hunting them and poking holes into their dimension, we can take over with charging the necessary parties responsible. Though, we don’t know what kind of resources or information the Infinite Realms have, so this could possibly be a good thing for Earth.”

“How was your nap?” Jason cooed, and Tim frowned exasperatedly. Sometimes he wonders why he hasn't moved out yet. 

“It was fine. Danny’s purring lulled me to sleep in minutes,”Tim deadpanned. 

“Awww, I can’t believe I didn’t get to see it in person!” Dick complained. “Do you think Phantom purrs? That would be adorable.”

“Timothy has stated that all ghosts are likely to purr,”Damian stated. “I assume they only do it when they feel safe and comfortable, which is unlikely for Phantom to do around vigilantes.”

“I bet I could do it,”Dick grumbled to himself. “Ten bucks to the next person who can make a ghost- or Danny- purr.” 

“Bet,”Tim smirked. What can he say, he’s a bit competitive. 

Bruce sighed at their shenanigans. “Tim, get in uniform.”

“All of us are going?” Dick bounced. “So early?”

“We’re setting up,”Batman grunted. 

“Ah, contingency plans,”Jason sighed. “I for one, trust Phantom. Sure, maybe the other ghosts aren’t so great, but the kid wouldn’t do anything bad on purpose. Hell, he’s stuck in Gotham just to protect Danny.”

“Can never be too careful,”Damian tuts. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flying out as Phantom, Danny made it to the agreed upon warehouse in record time. Okay, so he got a little lost, but it was fine. He made it early, even. The warehouse was already full of bats, Danny smiled at the pun, and he could even see Robin from where he was phasing through the roof. He observed them for a few minutes, taking in the familiarity of their banter. It reminded him of the Wayne kids a lot. If he thought about it, there was probably one bat to each Wayne, he mused, shaking his head. 

Danny took a breath to steady his nerves, and flew down to meet everyone. Batman was first to register his presence by the way he stiffened. Danny wasn’t really sure how, but he figured his nerves were making the air around them a bit colder. “Hey,”Danny called, popping into existence. The five vigilantes turned towards him, a few taking stances. 

“Hey Phantom,”Red Robin called, making his way over. The rest followed, and Nightwing in particular looked excited. 

“Oh my gosh, you’re adorable!” Nightwing cheered, and bounced into Danny’s personal space. Danny floated back a bit, amused but nervous. “It’s nice to finally meet you face to face.”

“Uh, you too,”Phantom said, rubbing the back of his neck. He nodded to Robin and Batman, who didn’t move much. 

“So, if you’re serious about an alliance, I figured we should probably start small with ghosts to meet,”Danny said, rambling a bit at the attention. 

“We’ll follow your lead on this one kid,”Red Hood said, and that made Danny relax. No pressure, he reminded himself. 

“Alright, well, for starters, I need you to hold onto this,”Phantom instructed, pulling out what looked like a regular stick from off the ground. He passed it to Hood, who seemed exasperated yet curious.

Phantom turned to the rest of them, “Stay where you are and don’t make sudden movements until I calm him down.” And before anyone could process that sentence, Phantom let out an ear-piercing whistle. 

The bats exchanged glances, and nothing seemed to happen for a moment as Phantom floated in the center of the warehouse. Just when Dick shifted to say something, a bright green, swirling hole opened up in front of Phantom, getting bigger and bigger by the second. Hood, recognizing that particular shade of green, took a step back. Phantom only seemed to have eyes for the swirling portal. 

Once the portal got to a worrying 16 feet in diameter, the bats startled as a loud bark echoed around the warehouse. Tim was maybe starting to think this whole thing might be a bad idea when he spotted something large and green coming out of the portal. It looked… like a dog?

Once the massive beast stepped through the portal, Phantom proceeded to fling himself at the giant green dog. “Cujo!” He exclaimed, the green fur practically hiding him. “I missed you boy!” Phantom cheered, petting him vigorously. The bats collectively took a breath of relief. 

Then, surprising all of them, Phantom floated back from the excited, slobbering dog. “Can you shrink for me buddy?” He asked in a babying voice, and Cujo gave another deafening bark before shrinking to a tiny little dog that was floating around Phantom happily. “Good boy! Now, I want you to meet someone so behave.”

Phantom gathered the tiny wigging dog in his arms as the portal vanished, and brought the two of them to the warehouse floor. Phantom’s white boots were glowing against the concrete as he stepped closer to the Bats. Tim noted fondly that Phantom was practically beaming as he held his ghost dog. 

“Okay, so, this is Cujo,”Phantom gestured with his arms, not bothered when Cujo licked his face at the movement. “He’s a ghost dog, obviously, and he’s got a thing for playing in the human realm sometimes. My job is usually to take him back home when this happens, because, well, you saw how big he can get.”

“How many other ghosts can make portals themselves?” Batman asked, and Phantom tilted his head. 

“Two or three that I’ve met. I know some that are probably strong enough to make them, but just don’t leave, so I’m not sure exactly,”Phantom said, and at Batman’s stare, he sighed. “I’m still learning.”

Ah, Tim thought. That explained why he brought Cujo first. He had to admit, the dog was cute. Phantom kind of reminded Tim of show and tell with the little presentation he had going on. “It’s easy to get Cujo to do what you want when you understand what he wants. The Fentons, however, just shoot at him and try to trap him, which just makes him get big and then people get hurt,”Danny said. “If there’s an alliance, there needs to be protections to prevent Cujo from hurting people, but also to prevent people from hurting Cujo. It’s hard to keep him in the zone, cuz he can just leave whenever he wants. Since not a lot of ghosts can do that though, you won’t have to worry much about other ghosts coming and going.”

“What sort of powers does Cujo have?” Red Robin piped in from where he was taking notes. 

“He has the basic skills of a ghost, which is flight, increased strength, intangibility, and invisibility. What makes him unique is the portal thing, a ghostly bark, and the bigger form. Not a lot of ghosts can do that stuff,”Phantom listed. “Usually ghosts will also have some form of ecto-blast too, but I’m not sure if Cujo has one.”

“Ecto-blast?” Batman grunted, and Danny perked up, before glancing at his hands that were busy holding Cujo. 

“Uh,  yeah,”Danny muttered, stepping to Robin. “Here, hold him for a minute,” Danny said, dumping Cujo gently in Robin’s arms. Dick was worried for a moment before he saw how positively excited Damian was to be holding a ghost dog, and he almost laughed when Cujo immediately started licking his face. 

Meanwhile, Phantom held up a hand and generated a small glowing ball the same color as the portal. “All ghosts are more or less made of ectoplasm, so we can generate it into concentrated blasts.” He then demonstrated by firing a small blast to the floor opposite to everyone. It reminded Dick of Starfire’s energy beams. 

“What other powers do you have?” Tim asked.”You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Nah, it’s cool,”Phantom waved.”Some abilities are unique to the ghost. For me, I have an ice core, so I can generate ice. But Technus has an electric core and Jonny has a shadow core so they both have different abilities.”

“So ghosts are like pokemon,”Hood commented and Danny shot him an exasperated look. He kind of wasn’t wrong though.

“So Danny has an ice core?” Robin asked, and Phantom froze. How did he- Danny had only told Damian that and- Did he- “I’ve seen him make snowballs with his powers, and he is unaffected by the cold.”

“Is an ice core common?” Red Robin piped in. Phantom’s eyes widened as all the dots in his head connected. Damian is Robin. That meant… Tim is Red Robin. Dick is.. Nightwing? And that leaves Jason for Hood and Batman as Bruce. Woah. 

“Uh,”Phantom stammered. “No? Maybe? I’m not really sure. Some ghost cores like Ice and electricity and fire are obvious, but then other times I have no idea how to classify a ghost. Sometimes only the strongest ones have specific cores, while the weaker ones don’t. Take Cujo for example, I have no idea what kind of core he has.”

A glance towards Cujo and the dog preened at the attention. Yeah, Tim could understand the reasoning there. Robin was still absently petting him.”And can all ghosts purr?” Dick added. 

Phantom choked on air for a moment before he croaked out a,”What?”

“We just assumed, since Danny can purr,”Damian scoffed, but he looked interested in the answer. 

When did I- Danny thought frantically before he figured it must have been when he was sleeping in the game room. He couldn’t help it, it was just comfortable and warm, and he’d only ever purred around Tucker, Sam, or Jazz before. He abruptly realized that he’d gotten comfortable enough around the Waynes that he’d purred. 

Phantom took a breath, pushing those thoughts far back into his mind. “Yes, ghosts purr when their core, uh, hums or vibrates or something. It usually happens around family or friends when they’re relaxed though.”

 “Aright, so what can we expect from the stronger ghosts?” Red Robin asked. 

“As I said, the abilities of a ghost are unique to the ghost. Cores are a way to determine that, but also obsessions,”Danny continued. “It’s rude to ask about obsessions like it is to ask how a ghost died, but usually it’s pretty obvious when you meet them. Technus is a ghost obsessed with technology and inventing, so usually when he comes to the human realm he goes into the powerlines, or steals computers and stuff. Ember was a singer when she was alive, and she has an obsession with being remembered, so she has the power to hypnotize with her guitar. Stuff like that.”

“You said Ember was a singer? Were all ghosts alive in the human realm before?” Dick chimed in. The unspoken, were you alive before was something Danny chose to ignore. 

“Ectoplasm is largely made up of emotions, which can form from basically anything, including a human who had a pretty big obsession with something when they died. But no, ghosts can also have ghost kids with other ghosts, or things like shadow or blob ghosts can just form from a bunch of strong emotions,”Phantom said. 

“Wait- ghosts can-”Nightwing sputtered. “Ghosts can have kids?? How??”

“When a ghost loves another ghost very much-” Phantom smirked but was cut off by Hood’s bark of laughter. “But yeah, Lunch Lady and Boxy had a kid, so I know it’s possible but not too sure about the specifics- and please don’t make me think about it longer than I have to.”

“That’s fair,”Dick nodded. 

“Alright,”Phantom clapped. “Introductions and explanations done, any more questions before I grab some regents?” 

“So many,”Red Robin muttered, typing on his computer almost violently. Danny worried about him, he really did. Course, he was still reeling over the discovery that Tim was actually a vigilante, and now that he thought about it, the lack of sleep Tim got made sense now. He just resolved to push all thoughts of the Wayne-Bats to the back of his mind and deal with it later. 

Batman gave a look, and Phantom stretched his hands out,”Alright then, for me to find a regent I’ll have to go into the realms and get him. Does anyone want to come with me? It’s a hundred percent safe and we’ll be gone for like, twenty minutes. Probably. Maybe thirty.”

“Into the realms?” Nightwing echoed. 

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,”Phantom reassured. “I just thought I’d ask. Electronics don’t work through the portal and it’s pretty cold where he lives, but other than that you’ll be fine.”

“Can I come?” Red Robin raised his hand, and the bats gave him a look. “What? I wanna go explore the Infinite Realms.”

“You sure it’s cool with the Ghost King?” Hood asked, and Phantom grinned.

“Oh yeah, totally. He knows we’re meeting and everything,” Phantom said. “And Cujo can stay here so you can observe ghost dog behavior or something. If he gets rowdy just have Hood throw the stick for him.”

Batman sighed, knowing no amount of arguing would persuade his most curious son when the opportunity to research something was offered,”Twenty minutes,” He grumbled. 

“Sweet,”Red Robin grinned, bounding over to Phantom. 

“I’ll give you the ghostly tour,”Phantom beamed, floating to the center of the warehouse. It took a minute, but the kid clawed through the air with a bit of difficulty. “Ta da!” He chimed when a smaller portal opened up. 

“I thought you needed Cujo to open a portal for you,”Red Robin commented, and Phantom shrugged. 

“I’m still learning, but since he already opened one up here it’s easier for me to just re-open it,”Phantom said, pointed teeth shining through his grin. “Now, hold onto me and don’t let go. I don’t want you getting lost and ending up in Walker’s prison or your pelt on someone's wall.”

“What?” The bat family heard Tim say before the portal closed around them. 

“So… that happened,”Hood broke the silence. Batman turned to type things on his computer while Dick bounded over to where Damian was giving Cujo some love. Hood kept a hold on the dumb stick and made his way over to the duo. 

Jason had to admit, the tiny green dog was cool. He reached over to let him sniff his hand before running it down the dog’s back. It felt like petting a cloud, not very solid but still there. Fuzzy around the edges, Jason thought. 

“I can’t believe we just let Red Robin explore an entire dimension by himself,”Dick fretted, petting Cujo a bit frantically until Damian gave him a look. Cujo seemed content in Damian’s arms, occasionally licking whoever came close to his face. 

“Eh, he’ll be fine. Phantom will take care of him,”Jason replied, fiddling with the stick. He kind of wanted to see what would happen if he threw it for the dog. 

“I believe Phantom has an obsession with some kind of protection aspect,”Damian scoffed. “Red Robin will be fine.”

“Maybe we should take a vacation into the Infinite Realms after this,”Jason mused. Though, after seeing the glowing green swirling portal so similar to the lazarus pits, he wasn’t so sure. At that moment though, Cujo started getting restless. 

The dog squirmed in Damian’s arms, much to the boy's disappointment. Before Damian could set him down, he was shocked when the dog just phased through his arms and floated around the group. Jason grinned, holding up the stick.

“Here boy, want the stick?” Jason said, brandishing the stick in front of the dog to catch his attention. Ears perked up, and Cujo barked, though not as loudly as before. “Fetch!” Jason called, and the dog dashed through the air after the stick when Jason threw it clear across the whole warehouse. 

The three of them busied themselves with playing fetch with the ghost dog until a familiar portal opened up in the middle of the warehouse. Phantom stepped through first Red Robin following, though they saw him asking Phantom a million questions about the zone. Everyone in the warehouse let out a sigh of relief, seeing Tim in one piece. The only thing different was his face was flushed and smiling and his hair was more of a mess than usual. Phantom on the other hand, looked the same as before he left. Behind Phantom, a tall, broad, ghost walked through the portal, looking like what one would describe as a yeti. 

Cujo bounded up to them excitedly while Tim rattled off more questions, oblivious to the other bats. “No, well, I’m not sure,”Phantom was saying,”Frostbite?” He said, turning to the yeti. 

The guy- Frostbite- looked fond and amused at the two,”Most ghosts have a haunt, or share one. Phantom, I suspect yours is the human realm,”Frostbite chuckled at the bewildered expression on Phantom’s face. “Now, I assume you’re the Bat Man?”

“Just Batman is fine,”Bruce nodded respectfully. “This is Red Hood, Nightwing, Robin, and you’ve met Red Robin,”Batman introduced. Frostbite nodded at the kids gracefully. The two ghosts were glowing eerily, but Frostbite seemed a little more solid than Phantom. 

“I am frostbite, leader of the Far Frozen and one of the regents for King Phantom,”Frostbite introduced, and the bats froze. 

“Dude, you’re the Ghost King?” Red Robin accused, giving Phantom a look. Phantom just groaned. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m the Ghost King, whatever,”Phantom muttered. Frostbite giving him a sympathetic yet amused look.  “Thanks a lot Frostbite.”

“How?? Why??” Dick exclaimed, and Phantom sighed. 

“Long story short I beat up the old Ghost King for doing bad things and that made me Ghost King by default except I’m not really- uh- old enough to be King yet so Frostbite and CW and a few others are ruling as a council until I’m ready or whatever,”Phantom huffed. “It’s not really important because I don’t really make decisions about anything and I have absolutely no idea how a treaty alliance thing works.”

Ah, well, Dick could understand that. Still. “Guess we have to call you your highness now, huh?” He responded. 

“No,”Phantom groaned, putting a hand to his face. Meanwhile, Frostbite and Batman made their way to the side to continue the grown up conversation. Ugh, paperwork, Danny shuddered. “Call me that and I’ll haunt you forever.”

This time, Cujo found a spot in Jason’s arms as the teens and Dick conversed. He pet the ghost dog absently as the three called Phantom anything between Supreme Emperor to Princess. For the first time in a while, he was actually glad to find an easy mission like this to bide their time. Sure, he knew the legal stuff might take a while, but it was unlikely that they’d end up in any kind of invasion-scenario. He was almost relaxed in the present company. 

------------------------------------------

Batman was surprised the alliance was going so well. While he was surprised Phantom turned out to be the Ghost King, he was relieved he had at least a good judge of character for the kid going forward. In addition, Frostbite was surprisingly helpful. 

The two mentors discussed policies on ghosts who end up in the human realm, sentience laws that needed changed, and much to his surprise the Yeti offered to share advanced technology and lost human artifacts. Batman considered all of these good points, and knew they could hash out the intricate details like researching the Infinite Realms and so on later. For now their main priority was overturning the anti-ecto acts, protections for halfas, getting the two known portals shut down or at least confiscated, charges against the GIW and Fentons, and setting up a safe way for ghosts to be sent back to the zone. 

Bruce was relieved that Frostbite was so logical about everything. It made negotiations far simpler, and he found himself learning a lot about ghost habits and biology. It amazed him at how much trust they were putting in him and he vowed not to let them down. Frostbite was definitely not what he’d been expecting, but he was pleasantly surprised. He wondered how many ghosts resided in the realms, what their society is like. He’d have to read Tim’s report about what he found on his tour with Phantom. And then lecture him on taking unnecessary risks. 

Two hours later, they had a plan. Phantom and Red Robin had apparently searched the warehouse for boxes and brought two to Frostbite, who smiled at their antics. When the group asked Tim about it later he said they had run into the Box Ghost on the way to Frostbite and Tim had promised him a box. They weren’t really sure if Tim was pranking them or not, but decided to change the subject. 

When Frostbite disappeared into the portal with Cujo, they turned to find Phantom had disappeared as well. 

Chapter 17

[klaprisun]

One Sunny Day

(Stardew Valley)(Haley x Female Farmer)

Chapter 22: Haley's POV

The whole day after Danny left, I had rotted away in my bed. I had no motivation to do anything, nor was my stomach up to doing anything. It wasn’t until the next day that I was back to being me.

Unfortunately, that me was the old me. I was short fused, hot tempered, and giving attitude left and right. I couldn’t help it for whatever reason, I was just really angry.

“I’m going to Alex’s. Enjoy the empty house,” I sneered at Emily before walking out the front door. Emily had a look of disappointment on her face after I told her where I’d be going. She just shamefully shook her head and went back to working on her sewing machine.

“I’m not even going to waste my breath. Do whatever you want, just don’t go crying to Danny when you get hurt by him again,” Emily shoots back.

Angrily, I turn on my heels and slam the door behind me as I walk out.

“Cry to Danny my ass. When have I ever cried to Danny about anything?” I mumble as I walk to Alex’s house. I pause in my step for a moment, realizing what I had just said. I started recalling all the times I have in fact cried to Danny. Shaking it off, I continue walking.

It was sometime in the afternoon, so there was a lot of hustle and bustle going on in town. Lots of townsfolk were going into Pierre’s to shop, or to the Stardrop Saloon for lunch. With every person I see, my heart skips a beat as I think they might be Danny. I don’t know if I am hoping to see her or not.

“Hi Evelyn! Beautiful day out today. Your flower beds are looking lovely,” I gush to Alex’s grandma when I arrive at their house. As angry as I am, no one can be mean to the sweet, elderly Evelyn.

“Why hello Haley. It’s been so long since you have been over, is everything alright?” She takes my hand and brings me further into the house.

“Everything is quite alright. I just thought I’d stop by and see how you all are. I also picked this on my way over!” I hand Evelyn a sweet pea that I found on the side of the path. She really likes flowers and will put any that she receives in a vase on the kitchen table.

“Oh my, it looks wonderful! That's very kind of you,” Evelyn starts walking to the kitchen to bring the sweet pea to the vase. Excitedly, I followed her into the kitchen to sit at the table.

When I round the corner to the kitchen, not only do I see the vase completely full of her all time favorite flowers which would be tulips and fairy roses, Danny is reclining back in one of the kitchen table chairs. I can’t see her eyes due to them being covered with sunglasses, but a huge grin is plastered across her face. She was also wearing a flannel tank top with the collar popped up to hide her neck and her cowboy hat resting on top of her brown hair. Her arms are crossed behind her head, as she dangerously tips the chair back and forth on its back legs. For a second, I can’t help but focus on the way her arm muscles are flexed but quickly snap out of it.

“A sweet pea is so thoughtful of you, Haley,” She jokes, continuously rocking back in the chair.

“How did you even get tulips and fairy roses! Those are only able to grow in spring!” I shout at her, aggressively pointing to the vase. All my anger I was suppressing has boiled to the brim.

Danny shrugs with no further explanation.

“What are you even doing here?” I shout at her again.

“Evelyn made cookies and asked if I wanted one. I’m not going to pass on that,” she says slyly as she takes a bite of a cookie.

“Haley, dear, do you want a cookie too?” Evelyn hands me a napkin with a fresh chocolate chip cookie placed on it.

I gently take the napkin from her hands and sit in the chair farthest from Danny. Just as I sat down, Danny had finished her cookie and got up.

“It was lovely seeing you Evelyn. Thank you for the delicious cookie. I’ll see you later,” Danny tips her hat down at Evelyn and starts to leave.

Before completely leaving my sight, Danny turns, slides her glasses down her nose and blows me a kiss. I feel my face get warm and quickly look away.

“What’s going on with you two? I thought you were friends?” Evelyn questions me.

“That’s not happening anymore. I completely ruined it,” I tear up as I explain to Evelyn.

“I’m sure if you guys just talk it out, you’ll be okay again?” She had walked over to rub my back as I let the tears fall.

“I wish,” I mutter. I cross my arms and rest them on the table in front of me. I lay my head down on my crossed arms and start tracing the designs on the wood of their table. Evelyn starts braiding my hair which calms me down immensely. It also causes me to let more tears roll down my cheeks from how nice she is to everyone. She truly is the best.

I spend all day hanging out with Evelyn and eventually George, Alex’s grandpa, as well. Alex was not home all day so I decided I’d wait for him by helping with chores in their house. I hate doing my own chores at home with Emily, but Evelyn and George are getting older and some things are tough on them. George is also in a wheelchair and can’t help her with much. I did a lot of their hard scrubbing and reaching into high places to dust. Helping out and cleaning really reduced the amount of stress I was feeling.

Around dinner time, Alex had waltzed through the front door. I was helping Evelyn with supper at the time, but quickly popped over to let him know I’m here and supper is almost ready.

“Hey Alex. I was waiting for you all day, where’d you go?” I ask him.

“No where,” he smugly says. I just nod my head and go back to help Evelyn. Clearly he isn’t in a good mood today either.

For dinner we had baked fish with, of course, a salad. A salad with leek in it for George. For dessert, I had helped Evelyn with making my favorite sweet treat ever. Pink cake! There was some left over so she told me I could bring it home with me.

“I’m going to the saloon. I need a beer,” Alex huffs as he gets up from the dinner table. I cringe at the thought of drinking, but quickly recover.

“I’ll come with you. Just to hangout though… I’m not drinking.”

I wave to Evelyn and George as I hurriedly try to keep pace with Alex. He is in such a rush.

“I’ll meet you over on the couch in the corner of the arcade where we usually sit. Do you want anything?” Alex states as he walks up to Gus at the bar.

“I’m alright. Still full from dinner,” I sigh as I walk to the couch. I don’t know why I wanted to see Alex so bad. He isn’t in a good mood and neither am I. Seeing Danny today left me completely flustered and lost in my thoughts.

Do I try to go see her? Do I try to talk to her about us? Is there even a point if I was to? I ask myself.

The couch cushion bounces me up as Alex plops down beside me on the couch. He takes a sip of his beer and reclines back. The two of us sit in silence, unsure of what to talk about.

Finally, Sam, Abigail, and Sebastian walk into the saloon and make their way to the arcade. Apparently the other night didn’t wreck Abigail’s friendship with the two of them. At least some of us stayed friends.

“Time to play some pool!” Sam hoots as he grabs a pool stick. Abigail grabs the other one and shoots daggers at Sam. I guess I was wrong about them being cool.

The rest of the group pours in as the night goes on. All except Danny. I’m not complaining since I’ve already seen her enough today.

Everyone in the group was looking at me funny today though. I’m not sure why they are smirking at me or looking me over. Elliot and Leah seem to be whispering about something but I see them looking my way every so often. It is really starting to bother me.

The bell over the saloon door rings out at the entrance of someone. Just as I hadn’t hoped, it was Danny. But instead of her flannel tank top with the collar popped, she had on a normal tank top that tied up in the front, showing her stomach. There was nothing hiding her neck with this shirt though, so the hickeys were on full display.

My hand flies to my mouth, causing the crowd in the arcade to bring their attention to me. I slouch back in my seat, trying to get the couch to absorb me. The entire restaurant and saloon had their eyes on Danny as she entered now, embarrassing me more since everyone can definitely see.

A few chuckles echo in the arcade area from Sebastian, Sam, Elliot and Leah, but the rest are all silent and straining their necks to look. Apparently the whole town has heard about the hickey situation and now it's their chance to catch a glimpse.

“Can’t keep anything private here,” I huff as I cross my arms.

Danny takes a seat at the bar instead of coming this way, which is the best thing she could do. She was smart enough to keep her distance. I watch as Gus takes her order and gives her a glass of water. She must feel the same about drinking again right now because usually she has a beer.

I jump up from the couch, and grab Alex’s hand. He gets the hint and stands up with me. I continue to hold his hand as we weave our way out of the arcade and saloon. Danny sees the motion of people walking out and turns to investigate. Her face is unreadable until I see her eyes focus on me holding Alex’s hand. Her face drops. I continue dragging Alex out, not giving it a second thought.

“That was only my first beer, Haley. Did we have to go already?” Alex whines as we near his house.

I pull him closer to me and whisper in his ear, “Evelyn and George are asleep. We can go to your room and… hangout?”

His face lights up and we pick up the pace into the house. We lock lips as we enter the house, bumping up against the front door from the force of the kiss.

We continue doing it all the way down the hallway, hoping to not wake up his grandparents from the bumping and stumbling around.

I rip his shirt off over his head and toss it aside once we enter his room. He guides me to the bed and starts undoing my shorts. I help him out and slide them down my legs once they are undone. He goes for my shirt next and flings it away. We continue to make out a bit longer until he pauses suddenly.

“I have to… go to the washroom,” he hesitates weirdly. He does this a lot when we are just about to go farther than making out.

He leaves me alone on the bed in his room, exposed in my pink lace lingerie. I sit up and take a look around the dark room. He loves to lift weights and play grid ball which is why there is a ton of weights and gridball equipment laying around. His whole room is covered with gridball print wallpaper which I think is cute. He also had a few posters of bodybuilders and weight lifters torn from sports magazines on his wall.

The silence of the room is interrupted by the sound of his telephone ringing. Who would be calling at this hour? Curiously, I went to pick up the phone.

“Hello? Who is this?” I speak into the phone, twirling the cord around my finger.

“It’s Taylor. Who is this?” A male voice rings through the phone. My mouth falls open in shock. Without thinking, I throw the phone back onto the receiver, hanging up on Taylor.

“Hey Hales, I heard the phone ring. You didn’t pick up, did you?” Alex bolts through the bedroom door suddenly. When he sees where I’m standing, his head lowers sheepishly, knowing exactly what I heard.

“You’re…gay?” I mutter. Taylor was the voice he always moaned accidentally whenever we had sex. He must’ve always been the person in bed when I caught Alex cheating too. I had never seen the face, but I always thought it was too unproportionate of a lump under the covers to be a girl.

Alex just nods his head, his eyes welling up with tears. Suddenly the posters of shirtless, ripped, men on the wall made sense.

“Alex, you could’ve just said something. I would never be mad at you for that,” I cautiously walked up to him and put my hand on his shoulder.

“I didn’t…I didn’t want to admit it…” he sniffles. He lowers himself and wraps his burly arms around me, nearly squeezing me to death.

“It’s all okay. You are who you are and we all love you for it,” I try comforting him.

“Says you,” he says through sobs. I freeze and pull back from the hug.

“What did you say?”

“I know what’s going on between you and Danny. Everyone does, Haley. Except you,” he wipes away his tears and just stares at me.

The tears I have frightening to hold back all day make their appearance as I register the words he had just said. He pulls me in for another hug but it’s my turn to cry.

“I don’t know what to do,” I cry into his chest.

“You guys just need to talk it out. There is so much connection between you guys, you just have to embrace it. Danny seems to be very comfortable with it, you just need to let her take the lead. She will understand this is new to you and will be patient with your feelings. Once you’ve accepted yourself, then you can kick it into high gear when you’re ready,” Alex explains, comfortingly. I have never heard him be so wise before. I guess he is also speaking from experience.

“You’re right. I’ll give it a shot. Thank you, Alex,” I squeeze him tighter and he rests his head on top of mine. We were never destined to be lovers, we were meant to be a couple of “confused feeling” besties.

[becomingkatie]

Book Blub Retreat 2024

My book club rented a house for the weekend and had the best time. Half the girls went down on Thursday. The rest of us went down Friday whenever we finished work and could take off. We brought our crafts and books to read and played a few games and had s'mores. I made several inches of progress on my blanket and wrote half a scene in my current WIP, and started reading our holiday pick which we'll discuss at our annual holiday cookie exchange/secret santa exchange meeting in a few weeks.

One of the activities we did was a powerpoint night where everyone made a presentation about something we're interested in and shared with the group. I taught everyone about professional mountain biking and told them about all the women racers I love. After showing them little bits and bobs about all the different cycling disciplines to illustrate what mountain biking is, they wanted to see some trials stuff. I don't watch trials and didn't want to just pull up a UCI trials world cup highlights video in case it wasn't good, so I pulled up the Danny MacAskill gym video because he jumps around with trials-y skills but is also just a fantastic showman and that video is great. They all liked that more than my actual presentation, lol, which is understandable.

We also stayed up way too late sharing family issues. Out of the eight who made the trip, three of us are mostly or fully estranged from our fathers. One of those three sounds like her dad was a lot like mine, but has passed recently. Another girl is facing the issue of both her parents and in-laws declining mentally and physically, and the financial and emotional burden of caring for them while also trying to conceive. Also multiple people with parents like, "What do you mean you can't afford to buy in XYZ neighborhood? We bought our house in that neighborhood when we were in our twenties!"

I feel like I've seen a lot of book clubs that are just friend groups who get together and no one actually reads the books. And book clubs that are purely book discussion groups. I feel really lucky that ours is a group who actually cares about reading and discussing the books, but also really enjoys each other socially and facilitates getting together outside of our book discussions.

[flamingpudding]

Part 11 of Ghost Kid in Gotham

>>Masterpost >>AO3

<<1 Previous Next

One Step Closer

Casandra stared at the child hiding in the antic behind storage boxes. Her siblings were out on patrol and Bruce practically had to drag Damian out on it for once. She could see how their youngest was reluctant to leave his twin.

She couldn't say she understood but from his body language Cass could clearly see what she was able to understand. Damian was protective, worried, scared and loved. It wasn't much different from what he felt towards the rest of them yet it was highly amplified and not as subtitle as he usually made it seem.

It worried her. Should anything happen to Danny it would greatly hurt her youngest brother. That was why she had stayed back to help Alfred and Duke to look after their newest brother while everyone went out. Steph had wanted to stay too but Cass saw it and pushed her girlfriend towards the cave, shaking her head. Maybe next time.

Steph had too much energy and was too excited to stay with Danny. Damian probably knew it too. He had scowled when the louder ones of their siblings tried to volunteer. But Cass? She had seen it. Danny had stiffed once the child realized Damian was going to leave him for a short time.

Confused, protective, scared, defensive, worried.

She had wanted to tell their father to not force Damian on patrol, even if he had skipped it a lot lately in favor of staying with his twin. But when Alfred and Duke approached the boy as chosen watcher, he had calmed. He was still scared and defensive but also curious and nervous now.

Still she had stayed behind. Danny had still been scared and defensive.

Her worry was proven correct when not even after three minutes into the others leaving the little boy disappeared from their side. Danny was silent and knew what openings to use to slip away. But the way she didn't even sense it felt like more than just the league's training. It was like the little guy blinked out of existence. Duke had instantly used his ghost vision only to curse when he ran into a wall, again apparently.

Alfred had seemed rather amused and only gave them a knowing and amused smile. If Alfred wasn't panicked then Casandra wouldn't be either. The butler knew, so Danny wasn't in danger.

Still it had taken her some time and she was ready to call everyone back to help in the search for her newest brother but then she had seen him. It was only from the corner of her eye and once again Danny was very silent and didn't even make a single sound. She could have imagined seeing him but Cassandra trusted her instincts now.

Which led her to the current situation. She blinked as she moved to sit cross legged with a little distance in front of the child. Blue eyes were clearly watching her the moment she had entered his field of vision.

Defensive, scared, worried.

Smiling, she didn't move any closer at first. There was a green blob, a blob ghost according to her brothers, floating close to the child and some snacks laying around the boy, discarded wrapping papers and a stolen plate of Alfred's cookies. So that was why the butler had been amused, he knew Danny had taken them. A giggle wanted to bubble out but she suppressed it, opting to smile fondly.

"Cookies good?"

Her newest brother only tilted his head in confusion. She inched a little closer, stopping when Danny started to hiss slightly.

Defensive, protective, scared, confused.

Once the child stopped hissing she tried again, this time pointing at the cookie in Danny's hand. "Good?"

Defensive, confusion, realization.

Danny with wary eyes kept watching her as he broke the cookie in two and offered one half to the green blob that ate the piece in one go while Danny nibbled on it. His blue glowing eyes never left her. The boy continued eating the cookies like that, always sharing with that green blob while also keeping an eye on her.

Cass could only smile as she just sat there in silence. She had remembered to send Duke a text that she had found Danny but with that text she had also asked him to not come up here. There was no reason to unsettle her newest brother any more than needed.

Besides, she counted it as a win for her when after a while of silently enjoying each other's company and respecting Danny's boundaries, the boy himself slowly crawled closer to her. He wasn't touching her but he slid half a cookie over to Cass.

She wished she had taken a video of this. Just so that she could prove that Cass officially had one over her brothers now, except for Damian of course. Danny was close to her, not hissing and sharing one of the cookies the little biter had stolen. She would hold this over Dick for a long time.

Meanwhile in Amity Park…

"Where is the twerp?"

Suppressing a scream, Jazz whirled around and came face to face with Dan who stood behind her with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Glowing red eyes were glaring unblinkingly at her. It would be off putting if Jazz didn't know that there was an undertone of worry. She was alone and hadn't expected any of the others involved in the search to show up. Tucker and Sam were in school keeping up appearances and Ellie was following a ghost rumor two cities over to the west of Amity park.

Jazz looked over the other, taking in how unaffected the near mirror image of her brother looked. Dan had been mostly spared from the fallout in Amity, considering that he lived 90 percent of the time with Vlad with the other 10% spent in the ghost zone making friends with Fright Knight again and so far Dan had also avoided meeting their parents. Vlad, him and Ellie had been the last to hear of Danny's disappearance let alone his death announcement of their parents or rather from the GIW. It had been a month since that announcement and Jazz was honestly surprised that Dan hadn't shown up earlier. But Vlad had pulled back from Amity and who knew when their parents had informed him about Danny's 'death' if at all and the other man had only found out because he decided to visit now of all times.

Eitherway, the future version of her brother / time clone / cousin / second brother was now standing before her. "I know the twerp is not dead yet. And the old man is trying to get as much information out of Maddie and Jack as he can right now. So I decided to get information from you shits."

"Language Dan." Jazz corrected out of habit. She was amazed that Dan even found them but again Danny probably knew about this hidden room of Sam's Mansion, which they were now using as their debriefing room. Maps were laying everywhere as well as pinned to the walls. Some were marked red, places Ellie had already looked into and hadn't found any sign of Danny.

"We have been looking into a lot of towns with reported ghost sightings to try and find him but a lot of them came up with nothing. All fake with no real ghost appearances. Danny isn't dead, we know this because Ellie told us that the Ghost Zone would riot if he were, so-"

"Oh they wouldn't just be rioting. If humans killed or incapacitated the king this entire dimension would be done and over." Wasn't that reassuring to know, Jazz thought, her parents weren't just neglecting and too obsessed in their research. No, they and the GIW could be the cause of their entire Dimension dying if they ever got their hands on Danny again.

"The Fenton portal is closed, right? And I have asked Fright Knight to not let anyone slip through the old man's portal until I am back at the castle." Dan wasn't looking at her anymore but to the side a scowl clearly visible on his face. That was another mystery to Jazz, the Fenton portal one day shortly after Danny's disappearance and right before the death announcement stopped working. It just suddenly closed and no matter what her parents did, did not open again. "Don't know how long we can keep ghost idiots, that also want to go look for the twerp, in check. So you better hurry up and find him."

"Thank you, Dan." Jazz smiled fondly at her time double brother who only scowled and refused to make eye contact with her. "I am sure we will find Danny."

"Tried the Booo-merang, yet?" The other only muttered, but he did glance at Jazz from the corner of his eyes.

Jazz let out a sigh, remembering how throwing that thing was one of the first things she did upon returning from college and hearing about Danny's disappearance. "We did but it only flew a couple of meters before falling to the ground. Tucker is tinkering with it, thinking that Danny might just be out of range for it."

She heard an inaudible grumble from the other and smiled sadly. The Booo-merang had always been a sure fire way to find Danny but now even that wasn't working for them. Sam was convinced that they must have brought Danny to another GIW-facility far away from Amity before or after they announced his disappearance, but Tucker refuted this with what he found when he hacked into them. But what he found made Tucker think that Danny might have initiated one of their backup plans, the fact that the Fenton portal was no longer working spoke for it but that the emergency kit they had prepared for this was still untouched spoke against it. Ellie hadn't said anything on that matter but Jazz knew the little girl was very worried, going so far to travel to every city ghost rumors appear in hopes that it's Danny they were talking about.

And now even Dan and Vlad seemed like they were starting to get involved.

A sigh escaped her once more as she turned around and looked sadly down at the map on the table. "Danny will… is… has to be on the run. Tucker doesn't think the GIW have him anymore. He had hacked into their database and nothing indicated that they still have him. But from what he found Danny must be heavily injured to the point , Tucker… he… he has seen pictures he refused to share. According to what he found from them, Danny just disappeared with injuries that would make escaping without help difficult, yet no one knows where he is."

"The twerp will be okay. Little shit is tougher than he looks. I should know that the best." Dan muttered and Jazz smiled saddly at the way the other attempted to comfort her. Then she noticed how Dan was eyeing a world map that was pinned to the wall, his red eyes strangely focused differently than they were before. Like he was remembering a long forgotten memory.

"Dan?"

"You remember, I… we… he…" Glowing red eyes closed in frustration before they looked back at Jazz. She knew that the other sometimes still had a hard time putting a line between Danny and himself, especially when it came to certain things like memories and everything before the split of their timelines. "Danny is adopted."

"What does that have to…?"

"You said he just disappeared according to the GIW Database? There might be something more to it. I am going to have to look into some old shit I… we, fuck, Danny probably hasn't thought about for years now."

Stunned Jazz watched how Dan changed into his ghost form that looked so different from Danny's, the form that used to scare her and hadn't changed much since he gained a human body. The ghost looked ready to fly away.

"Wait, Dan where are you going?!" She tried to stop him but just like her Danny when he got an impulsive idea, Dan wasn't going to listen. Instead the other only turned to her with a grim face.

"If you come across the old man, tell him I am going to look into an old asshole. There are a handful of people involved with me… fuck I mean him that could make the twerp disappear without a trace. These fuckers are worse then the GIW and we certainly don't need them getting involved now. As if killing us once wasn't enough…"

Jazz watched helplessly how Dan disappeared through the wall like he had appeared. With a worried look she glanced at the world map Dan had been looking at, unsure of what the other had seen or remembered because of it. Worry heavily stirred inside of her and she wanted to scream loudly infrustration. Once more her brother was keeping her out of the loop about something important and by the quiet mutter at the end she most likely wasn't supposed to hear, she knew it didn't mean anything good.

Once more Jazz sighed, swallowing her frustration and worry to pull out her phone, decided to tell the others with a quick message that Dan was now helping too and apparently following a different lead. A lead that if she interpreted everything Dan had said correctly, had something to do with Danny's life before he had been adopted and was connected to something highly dangerous.

The secure chat exploded with follow up questions, she couldn't answer and only left her to stare at the world map once more in worry and unsure on how to proceed from here.

[captainnameless]

I'm having a pretty awful time at the moment, so any soft Oscar and lando moments to share? (Only if you feel like writing it)

Hope you're having a good day.

-🐨🧡

i’m so sorry you’re having an awful time ): sending you lots of good and happy vibes! <3 and some thoughts:

when they’re baking cookies Lando has a hard time sharing (cough McLaren 60th anniversary cake video cough)

he has a vision and no one is allowed to take his stuff, Daniel learns very quickly that next time he’ll have to get two of each so each boy has their own stuff.

Oscar doesn’t mind though, he’s happy just kneading his dough, pressing out the little shapes and leaving them plain

Daniel thinks about enforcing more sharing, but Oscar does not seem fussed, and Lando’s really into his craft and he decides it’s not worth the fight so he let’s it play out

there’s a stark difference between Oscar’s plate and Lando’s, the latter a sugar overdose on a plate while Oscar’s are.. well.. simple

Daniel’s about to compliment them both when Lando starts transferring several of his cookies onto Oscar’s plate.

“Bub,” Daniel starts. “They’re for Oscar?”

Lando gives a look that sort of says “duh” before going back to his task. “Gotta share, Danny. Oscar likes sprinkles too.”

Daniel totally soaks up the way Oscar beams at the statement before he sheepishly shoves some of his cookies Lando’s way.