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anonymous-existences · 14 hours ago

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I caused this pain onto others 'indirectly' btw and I don't regret it <333

Die with a Smile

For @anonymous-existences who asked for a "Die with a Smile" by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga using Spirt Halloween ship. Hope you like it!

Danny remembers being alive, but it was a distant memory as if he had woken from a wonderful dream. He could recall no scents or tastes from his time being flesh and bone, but he remembered sights and sometimes, if he was lucky a few sounds.

The sound of his sister singing. His father's laughter. His mother's humming. His best friend's fingers tap on his keyboard. His other best friend's plants when the water of her watering can fell over their leaves.

Danny held all the sounds dear to his heart, even if he could not remember their names or voices. Just their faces, smiles, and the warmth in their eyes before the car accident. Danny had been a Halfa from the age of fourteen, but twenty years later, he had died in a collision caused by a drunk driver, turning into a complete ghost.

Like all his previous adversaries, Danny could no longer return to the human world willy-nilly. He had reformed after he died in the Zone, becoming one of its citizens, anchored to the Realms between Death and Life.

He needed a gateway made by a mortal who willingly invited him through. All natural portals were nice, but it was a one-way. Anyone could pass through them to the Realms, not vice versa.

His parents had unknowingly created an open invitation when they stabilized their portal, allowing ghosts to run a rampage in the city. Danny doesn't remember why they had made it, but he wishes it was still there so he could see them again.

So that he could feel the deep love so evident in the glimpses and flashes of their faces that ran through his mind. He couldn't find his way back, so he spent years looking. He was one of the few ghosts that had no anchored haunt. Danny spends all eternity flying through the Realms in search of the love that he had once felt.

He lost count of how long ago that was. But along the way, he picked up other various wonders.

A bag that opens to his pocket of cosmos is flung over his shoulder. A long cloak that protected him from the scorching heat, freezing blizzards, howling winds, and drowning rain. A glimmering book that recorded his adventures in the consultations. And many new friends who have been in the Realms for so long they had developed their own culture and given birth to generations that knew nothing of the mortal realm.

Danny's ghost's name had also faded from his mind, knowing he used to answer something when he was fourteen. He is grateful that his birth name stays with him, even if he does not know his surname.

He now went as the Wander. Always searching for something he did not know if he could hold, let alone own. Wander grew in power, for his death had brought along all the ectoplasm of his Halfa days, and while his travels were relatively peaceful, there were times he needed to fight his way through.

He has never been defeated.

That was Danny's experience now. Wander, find adventure, find friends, find new incredible sights, become saddened that the new things didn't match the love he set on a pedestal, and wander again.

Over and over. Never lingering for too long. Never belonging.

Just lost in the endless void of the Realms.

Then, Danny had run into him.

A human had fallen through a portal caused by unnatural means. It was due to being attacked by a monstrous tyrant that was threatening his world. Omega Beam radiation polluted the portal, and for a second, Danny had thought he had finally found a stable way into the human world.

But alas, when he approached it, an invisible force kept him from leaving the Realms. Its constant flickering and electrical crackles mocked him, even if the scene behind the portal depicted a broken world.

Danny wanted nothing more than to fly through the human world, feel all those fantastic emotions, and live again. He pushed and pushed against the force field; however, there was no open invitation. He could not pass through the portal.

The human that fell after being pushed by the sudden explosion could. Danny had caught him and nursed him back to health, and when he awakened, he was struck dumb by those intense, intelligent eyes.

Batman was the name the human gave him, and for a few months, that was what Danny called him. The way to his home, an Earth called Gotham, had closed as soon as the omega beams had vanished. Batman was beside himself, attempting to find another portal.

As the man was living without means of flight between islands, Danny offered to take him to a few natural portals. He warned him that even if he could enter said portals, there was no guarantee he would be back when he vanished.

Portals bend time and space. They may appear in the same spot, but it was also a gamble of when that would be. Batman had no care, taking Danny's offer, and the two went off on a new adventure.

The broken pieces of an endless city was the connection between the Realms and Batman's Gotham. It took some time before Batman admitted that the city they traveled through - as, for some reason, the city bounds stopped Danny's flight - was his beloved city. It was an exact duplicated, over and over again as time moved on in the mortal world; this one copied every new development without removing the old one.

It merely expanded right next to the old building. The natural portals across the range were unstable, lasting only a few seconds before Batman was forced to throw himself back into the Realm or he got stuck at the wrong time.

Batman left a clue at every stop the portal gave him, claiming one of his children would notice and help find a way to bring him home. Danny wasn't so sure, but if the human found comfort in the thought, he would not be the one to burst his bubble.

As for Danny, the familiar emptiness that came with the urge to move on never showed itself. He found comfort in the footsteps of Batman. He found glee in the laughter around the small fires they make in the destroyed streets, void of any color.

Danny had forgotten most colors, so used to the Grey's, blacks, whites and dark purples of the Realms but the way Batman spoke of it made him think back to the reds blues yellows and greens he had not realized he missed.

Slowly, his journal filled itself with nothing but the mortal he had found.

Batman survived on what little they could find in the broken streets of his colorless home. He seemed disgruntled by the silence of the repeating streets, the obvious signs of violence that never quite healed in his city.

After a while, Danny realized he felt whole again. As if a part of his soul had been returned. Batman did not bring him back to life, but he made him feel alive.

Danny informed him it meant the land was cursed, but that only earned him a cold glare and a sharp bite of beef jerky from a gas station with its window smashed in. Their travels continued, with Danny dreaming of the five sounds he could recall of his loved ones- he did not need food anymore as a ghost, but he did need sleep. His core required recharge- realizing a new sound had been added.

The sound of Batman's soft taps as he marched on, searching for a way home.

Danny created a new constellation for him. He named it the Lost Vengence. It seemed right, even if Batman rarely spoke.

A few months of them together, Batman had wandered into an air that exploded with green grass. He grasped for his belt, but whatever he was searching for wasn't there, and he fell to his knees screaming.

Danny, who hadn't breathed it in, had rushed him over to a crumbled hospital, strapping the human down and panicking over his state. He was no doctor, but if he left Batman alone to get help, leaving the area that didn't allow him to fly would take far too long, and Batman would die.

Already, his heart was beating too fast for a human. Danny had ripped off his strange mask, trying to get him out of the clothes covered in the green goo, but it didn't do much. All that was left was a human- a handsome human- screaming his head off.

Eventually, Danny realized that his journal may have the answer. He could not always remember what he recorded, but if he asked it to, it would pull up records of adventures he may have forgotten.

There was a method of passing on his healing that Frostbite once shared with him long before his death. He pressed his hands over Batman's chest, not with his palms but with his soul, and prayed the human would accept it.

A few minutes later, Danny's ectoplasm had sunk through the skin and cleaned out the effects of the strange grass. Batman slumped against the metal table, breathing heavily and sweating profoundly, but he stared up at Danny as if he were bestowing an angel.

Since ectoplasm was purely emotional, no words had to be shared between them to know Danny had wanted to save him more than anything. Had felt the way Batman made him feel complete.

"My name is Bruce Wayne," Batman had told him later that night while the pair looked through a mall that seemed to have been flooded. The water splashed against their mid-calfs, slowly picking their way through the new clothes that Bruce could wear.

His soft smile filled up to his core, and neither mentioned the way the distance between them closed or the fingers that laced together,but Danny knew he had found it.

What he had been searching for all these years.

Bruce would sometimes stop them in the nicer parts of his city- places that merely went out of business instead of being broken down- and treat him to the few things he had forgotten of the human world.

An ice cream parlor had been stripped clean, but the owners had left one fringe with three tubs of ice cream. As time was frozen, it was good to eat, and Danny realized that while he did not need food, he did enjoy it. Bruce was sensitive to the weather that changed every few hundred miles.

In the parts with ice and snow, he curled up on Danny's chest, protected by the cloak that expanded to cover them. In the fires, he was carried on Danny's back, the fabric of the cloak protecting him from burning while Danny's hair flickers snowflakes for him to breathe.

Other times, he merely liked holding hands because he, too, felt whole with Danny.

Then they came upon a part of town that belonged to Bruce's third youngest son. He called it the Nest, and a date and time was carved on the wall. His son had found a way to stabilize a portal, and he planned to pull Bruce back home.

The boy thought Bruce was trapped in the past, but his rescue would still work. Bruce could finally return to the humans.

He understood. Danny had lived his life. Now, it was time for Bruce to finish his.

"Will you go? Would you leave me?" Danny knew the answer to his questions the second he looked into Bruce's eyes. It cracked something deep inside, but he was not angry or feeling betrayed.

"I'm sorry," Bruce whispers, tracing his hand on the curve of Danny's cheek. The ghost leans on it, wishing, not for the first time that he had the sensation of touch again. He only gets brief impressions of something against him, but Danny can not feel the texture of Bruce's clauses.

The warmth of his skin.

"Don't be. This was the best part of my existence in a long time. You were everything that I had forgotten about love."

He knew humans were warm. He remembers a tiny moment when his sister's fingers in his hair comforted him.

But he could not remember what their warmth felt like.

Bruce's face crumbled before it softened. "I'm not gone yet. We have a few hours."

"Just three," Danny whispered, looking at the numbers on Bruce's watch. He had set a countdown to when Tim would activate the machine- the portal- that only called Bruce home. Since the boy did not know it wasn't a time issue but a different reality, he had unintentionally made it with only Bruce in mind.

The force keeping all ghosts like Danny in the Realms wouldn't let him enter.

"I know how I want to spend them." Bruce found a record player broken in the movie theater beside his son's shining new hideout. Apparently, it was the one that had been abandoned in Bruce's youth.

It played a lovely old, slow dance from the forties that echoed through the dusted room, surrounding them in its soft, wistful melody. Bruce guided Danny to the center of the stage- the only place not covered in dust or supplies- and carefully bent him into an elegant dip.

At that moment, Danny and Bruce were all that existed in the broken-ended city of Gotham's past.

A smile blooms on Danny's face, twirling around the man who caught him and guided him, saying without words how much he adored Danny. The unsaid words between them meant nothing in the face of their world ending, but their smiles made up for it.

Danny's book had fallen open at one point, his collected stars and cosmos flying out to surround the pair as they swayed and slowly danced. He felt the thumping of Bruce's heart against his chest, pressing closer to record the feeling in his core and soul.

Song after song. Step, spin, sway, dip, intelligent eyes that watched him with the same amount of wishful longing and bright, loving smile.

"I could die again," Danny told him, hands on Bruce's shoulders and the human hands on his hip.

"I am," Bruce whispered back as his clock started beeping. They had ten seconds left. "I want you to remember me with a smile."

"Of course." Danny leaned back only far enough that when he pushed his face against Bruce's, their lips sealed in a burst of incredible, indescribable sensations. All at once, it's like sounds, feelings, tastes, and sights rush back at him, making him feel as if life was being breathed back into him, only for it to vanish as Bruce's body slowly fades away.

He leans back after his hands pass through Bruce's body, no longer anchored enough in the Realms to hold, and gives him the brightest smile he can muster. Neither mentions the tears rolling down their faces as he whispers.

"The party is over, and our time on this Earth is through, but I'll love you. For all eternity. I always do when I think of those who are still alive." Danny watches him fade away in soft, gentle sparks that he would later gather and shift into stardust.

He places them in Gotham's skies so Bruce can have a tiny part of him, even though he cannot see it. Danny turns around and marches back towards the realms.

The Wander must find a new purpose.

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satoruxx · 6 months ago

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you fiddle with your nails as you walk home at tooru's side, the sounds of mattsun, makki, and iwa bickering further up ahead cutting through the empty streets. you’re uncharacteristically nervous, because god knows you’ve never done something like this before—but you steel yourself because it’s worth it for him.

your feelings for oikawa tooru are all consuming—strong and deep and intense. they’ve been brewing for well over two years now, nourished by the increased amount of time you’ve spent with him. they overwhelm you, washing over your being with an intensity you’ve never felt before, and they drive you to stick by his side for as long as you can—desperate and aching for the boy who puts the stars in your sky.

you know that timing is important because tooru is nothing if not driven—singularly focused on the sport that gives him the air he needs to breathe. so you wait until well after his match with karasuno, giving your all to support him and the rest of the team because volleyball has become important to you after spending so much time with them. you give it time, wait until after the team has taken the time to lament over their missed chance, and after all the third years are ready to move on to the next phase of their lives, before you finally decide to spill your guts to him.

tooru stares ahead as he’s walking, pensive and unsmiling, and you’re dying to know what’s going on in his head. his eyes are bright, a contrast to his expression, and there’s a resolute glint in his irises that has you feeling oddly shaken. when you reach his house, the rest of the group waves back at him before continuing on, and you realize this is your chance.

so, dangerously, you put your heart on the line.

you tell him everything you've ever thought about him—how you admire his drive and his passion, how you have looked up to him for years and years. how you have never felt so deeply for someone before knowing him. it comes out in a rushed ramble of words, all those nights of practicing in the mirror doing nothing for you in the actual moment. you stumble a few times, your face getting warmer with every word, and yet as each sentence falls forth you feel a weight lift from your shoulders—the flesh of your lungs clatter against your ribs, anxious and eager.

tooru inhales, gaze darting between your eyes and then flitting downwards. even in the dark of the night, you can see the pinkish hue crawling up his neck, can see the way he fidgets with his own fingers. he stares at you, lips parted as a wide array of emotions flit over his handsome features—they finally settle into a strange combination of apologetic and resigned.

and then he tells you no.

he tells you that volleyball will always take precedence, that he has already mapped out his future, which is too far away from you. he tells you about argentina and how his mind is made up. he tells you that he's flattered, that he's glad you're friends but that's all he can do right now.

“i'm sorry,” he says with a grimace. he studiously avoids looking at you, but you can't stop staring at him—your stomach sinks as he turns to head inside.

it takes you months to muster up the courage to tell him. it takes him two minutes to say no to you.

the rejection stings in a way that is unfamiliar, and you take a shaky breath as you walk down the street to catch up with the others.

the humiliation makes itself known in the form of a painful lump in your throat—unmoving and heavy. when you glance up you see that the third years have hung back, waiting for you. makki is wearing a knowing grin, but it falters when he sees your expression. mattsun, ever observant, seems to immediately understand, and he wordlessly slings an arm over your shoulder.

all you can do is awkwardly chuckle, knowing that it sounds weak and throaty as you shake your head. “i feel stupid,” you admit, voice wobbling as heat burns through your skin—unpleasant and unwelcome.

“you're not stupid,” makki mutters, hands shoved deep in his pockets as his lips slant regretfully. you stare at the ground, nodding slowly under the weight of mattsun's arm. your lungs ache, and you know that if you open your mouth, you will lose it entirely. so all you can manage to do is look up at iwa with glassy eyes and trembling lips and a rueful smile that probably makes you look as pathetic as you feel.

you don't notice the way his fists are clenched at his sides, nails digging indents into his palms. he grits his teeth, gaze flitting to oikawa's house in the background, but he doesn't say anything.

none of them speak as they walk you home, and you try your best to keep the sniffles to a minimum, too embarrassed to look at them.

you've never felt pain like this before, and it's hard to get over it because everything reminds you of tooru. it's like someone has taken a knife and carved into your ribcage, grasping your heart before taking it out crushing it between bloodied fingers. but even despite the gaping hole in your chest you know that there are expectations to be met, things to be done.

that's the strange thing about your silly unrequited love—it hurts and hurts and hurts some more until it stops one day before you can realize it. even though your chest is still bleeding you go on with life—you go to university, you get a job, you pay bills. you get up in the morning and brush your hair and drink water and tie your shoes until the wound closes itself up. you start smiling a little wider and laughing a little freer until oikawa tooru is nothing more than an old name.

and of course there are instances where you are reminded of him and what could've been, whether it's seeing milk bread in a supermarket or passing by children hitting a volleyball over a net out in the sun. you know very well that your friends are occasionally still in contact with their old captain, not that this bothers you. after all, mattsun, makki, and iwa were very careful not to bring him up around you, which you're grateful for. so even hearing the name in passing becomes easier.

it is difficult until it isn't anymore.

you've all but forgotten him now, after years and years and years—nothing more than a distant memory.

so imagine the sinking feeling of dread pooling in your stomach when you walk into the restaurant on makki's birthday and see oikawa tooru sitting at the bar, drink in hand. his eyes are alight as he laughs at whatever conversation he's joined, dark hair falling into his eyes messily.

one step forward, ten steps back.

for a second you can't help but stare, breath stolen from your lungs because it feels like the knife is back and twisting itself into your flesh all over again. there is a panic rising in your throat, suffocating and overwhelming and jarring.

tooru lifts his glass to his lips, hiding his grin as his gaze lazily travels over the expanse of the room.

another surge of panic. the familiar sting of humiliation.

he pauses as he's about to take a sip, brown eyes widening when they land on you, and you see the sharp inhale he takes. his stare doesn't waver, too consumed by shock to look away.

and yet that's all you can do—tear your eyes away because you're different now and it's long gone and you know there is no point in going down that rabbit hole again.

it was a lifetime ago—it's done now.

but you will never know how long tooru thought of you after that night back in high school. you will never know that he felt sick to his stomach when he saw the way your face fell at his rejection. you will never know that he bit his tongue so hard it bled as he watched you walk away from him. you will never know that he spent countless nights in argentina wondering what you were up to and how you were. you will never know that sacrificing you for his beloved sport was the hardest thing he's ever done.

so imagine the sinking feeling of dread tooru feels when he sees the way your eyes light up as you find your way over to iwa's side.

@teddybeartoji this is for you mickey ily hehehehehe

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