#I need a glass of wine

[saintartemis]

Was with some visitors today, when a man asked me a question about one of the collection objects, to which I answered.

Guy then proceeds to tell me, "Oh incredible, usually people in your position don't know the whole story behind a thing like that."

And I'm sorry, but what the fuck do you mean by that? People in my position? People who's whole-ass jobs are to know the museum's collections, their history and impart that knowledge in fun and exciting ways to jerks like you? Every museum worker ever?

I didn't say anything, just smiled, but that man is damn lucky he didn't hear what I was thinking.

[meaningtotellyou]

just cried my eyes out

[theeyeofv]

[theoldkyokodied]

Uploading all my Tomgreg art at once from the past few week before season 4 hits, who knows in what kind of mental state i'm gonna be once it does :')

[hyunpic]

[theythemmer]

phinktober day 10: sister daniel and father philip 🙏🏻

[kirakewpie]

own any black lipstick?~ i am obviously asking for fashion reasons and not fetish reasons (psst i am Lying)

i do!! ur in luck because i took some saucy photos a while ago that never got posted

enjoy ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

[woodlandkisses]

Sea shell martini glasses 🍸🐚

[catcorsair]

How is a man to foresee what the Fates have in store for him? How can he predict when his world is to change? Of ever abandoning that lonely bachelor's existence to which I had long-ago grown accustomed, I harbored not a single hope—and then, as if by one thoughtless snip of a shear, I discovered myself no longer a bachelor. Sixty years I had spent in lack of the honest company of a woman and suddenly she was everywhere, in every thought, every action, every desire: I could see nothing past Sophia. Thus the warnings went unheeded, only spiders in dark corners, darting out where they cannot be seen, secrets concealing themselves in the shapes of other things; rarely do those Sisters cut their lines in absolutes. It is the slow unraveling of a thread by which the red strings shorten. But heat makes men mad, and summer is a mad season; despite my attempts to ignore them, the ghosts of Erik’s unsavory history crept up with the rising temperatures. Such specters, I have found, are not so easy to put to rest. The attempt to do so comes too late.

Like Pulling Teeth: Part Six

Read on AO3 HERE

18+ / Very Explicit / EC, EOC, E++ / 50K

Pre to post-Leroux canon. General tags: Gothic, Horror, Drama, Romance, Historical Fiction.

*(edited) cover art by Zhao Dalu

Enjoy!

Please Comment / Review :)

[iknowwhereyousnoozeatnight]

wine dinner

[indimiart]

someone sent me this dress and said I should draw Nievan in it and by god were they right

[gingersnaptaff]

Thinking about how under the Laws of Hywel Dda (old Welsh law) a woman could divorce a man and take half his stuff (including brined cheese - best not to ask.) So, now I'm imagining Gwenhwyfar and Enid divorcing Arthur and Geraint respectively, and Gwen taking half of Arthur's worldly possessions, which would include both Caledfwlch (Excalibur) and Cafall (Arthur's dog), AND half of Cornwall in Enid's case.

(All this to say that, yes, I defo think Gwen and Enid had a lesbian sleepover in 'Geraint ac Enid.' Gwen was probs pushing for Enid to divorce Geraint. I KNOW it.)

[gerryrigged]

dicktim - La Beau Au Bois Dormant

idea gripping my tired brain by the throat about Tim being struck by some kind of sleeping beauty poison or spell and falling comatose.

Except the solution is not True Love's Kiss but sending someone inside his soul to battle the dragon that will manifest from his inner demons to keep him imprisoned, forever.

The highest chance for success necessitates sending in the one person that the sleeper trusts most - often their love, hence the poison/spell's reputation, but not always.

And almost everyone immediately turns to Dick, like in you go, Nightwing, what are you waiting for.

Which Dick. Doesn't know how to react to, because. God he would give anything to be that person for Tim again. But he knows that he broke something between them when he stripped away Robin.

They've moved past it, they're...fine. But Dick knows. It's not the same. They aren't the same.

He can't help Tim with this. Tim probably wouldn't even want him to try. And that kills him, but he won't sabotage Tim's only shot to wake up because of his own desperate wish to still be the one Tim turns to first. His north star.

There's a ticking-clock time limit before Tim won't be able to wake up at all. They don't have any time to lose.

He looks away from everyone's expectant, demanding stares.

"Call Superboy," he says, voice scraped raw from his throat. "Or Kid Flash. They'll get here in time."

He can't stand the disappointment on Bruce's face. It makes helpless anger boil hot and toxic in his belly. Bruce wasn't here for everything that happened. He doesn't know.

(Dick's never told him. How badly he fucked up.)

"Wait, not his boyfriend?'" Steph says, raised eyebrows and gesticulating at nowhere in particular and Dick's churning thoughts sputter and die into frozen blankness. Boyfriend?

Babs shakes her head on the Batcomputer's view screen.

"They're not at that level of trust yet. They haven't even been dating that long, Tim definitely hasn't told him about - " she twirls a finger, indicating all of them. Red Robin on the medical bed, cowl pushed down and cape pooled around him. The Cave, vaulting overhead. " - all of this. And he won't thank us for doing it for him."

Tim...has a boyfriend?

Wow. His little brother used to always want his advice on love. Life. Everything. If he doesn't trust Dick enough anymore to tell him even that much... Well. It just proves definitively that Dick isn't the right person for this job.

(It hurts like Dick's vital organs are being crushed in a massive fist.)

"Time is ticking," Jason Blood says quietly, looking down at the open face of his pocket watch. At his feet, a circle of lit candles awaits someone to sit down inside and sink into an enchanted meditation.

"Father, clearly it should be you," Damian says, tapping his foot rapidly. His arms are crossed tightly under his cape in a way that he probably means to come across as scornful, rather than apprehensive. "Or Pennyworth, even."

Bruce shakes his head, troubled. "No. I don't think so. Cassie...?"

"No," Cass responds calmly. "Not me." She seems untroubled by her own denial, even though she and Tim have been thick as thieves ever since she returned to Gotham.

She's looking at Dick. She hasn't looked away from Dick this whole time, or let go of Tim's hand, folded in hers protectively, over his heart.

"It's still you, big brother," she says. Gentle and direct and devastating. "Go. Bring him back."

Not so long ago, Tim trusted Dick to catch him when he fell.

Or, he was depressed and passively suicidal and telling Dick what he wanted to hear. Maybe he even believed it, after the fact.

In the end, it doesn't matter. He's Dick's brother. Dick will always, always be there to catch him, whether Tim trusts him to or not.

Dick goes.

He faces Tim, sinks into lotus inside the ring of flickering little flames, and closes his eyes, heart in his throat.

He opens his eyes. A vast, jagged bramble forest looms dark above him. Far in the distance, he can just make out a spindly tower piercing the sky, a flickering little light shining at the top.

He hacks his way through the biting brambles of Tim's resentments, leaving blood and sorrows dripping from the thorns in his wake.

He fights the sly, sinuous dragon of Tim's despair, singing with every breath that he can spare, so that Tim might hear him and know he's not alone.

He wishes he could remember happy songs, bright and lively songs - wishes he could be the light in the darkness that Tim deserves, that he looked up to and chased after and for some reason tried to model himself upon, even when he was already so very bright himself.

But any song is better than none to pierce the lonely vault of silence, so he sings of pain, of loss, of faith and faithlessness. Of holding on past the point of breaking. He sings of two hands open and outstretched, waiting to be clasped and held.

When his voice falters, when adamant scales break his sword and claws shatter his shield, he throws himself at the winged serpent, letting it coil about him and grappling it in turn. Fangs strike at him again and again, piercing flesh and armor both, before he winds his arms around its jaws and holds them shut.

It hisses through clenched teeth about failures, his and Tim's both. He holds its jaws shut, and sings of two ships tossed in a maelstrom, anchored to each other, weathering the storm.

It hisses, venom dripping from its furious curled lips, about abandonment and betrayal. He holds its jaws shut, and sings about two robins, flying with an olive branch held aloft between them.

It hisses to him of ice unending, frozen hearts, shattered trust. He holds its jaws shut, and sings about the steady radiating warmth of a hearth, of a hug, of a new dawn. Of new beginnings.

He rests his forehead on the dragon's growling snout, and sings, "Come home with me. Come home to me. Tim, I love you. Tim, Tim, Tim."

The beast shudders and shivers. And starts to break apart.

The crumbling wings buffet and beat at Dick even as they begin to crack and collapse. Dick lowers his head and holds on tighter.

The massive coiled tail squeezes around Dick convulsively, thrashing and withering. Dick's ribs crack, but he holds on tighter.

Scales etched with Tim's regrets flake off and fall away, like a tree shedding razor edged leaves in autumn. Dick closes his eyes as they kiss and cut his already tattered skin, but just holds on tighter.

Eventually, the violent disintegration comes to an end, and all goes still and quiet.

Save for a familiar shape shaking and weeping in Dick's arms.

Dick opens his eyes, blinking away sweat and blood just to be sure. But yes. It's him. Blue eyes reddened with tears, staring in horror at the ragged torn-up mess of his older brother, come to rescue him.

"Tim," Dick sighs, bones papier-mâché from relief. And exhaustion. "Timmy. Thank god."

"Dick," Tim cries out, gripping him tightly in distress. He lets go immediately at Dick's wince, and tries to pull away. "I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I'm - your wounds, we have to - "

Dick doesn't let him move an inch. "Shhhhhh," he breathes. "It's a dream, don't worry about it." Tim wriggles in protest at first, determinedly attempting to staunch some of the heavier bleeding, but Dick just holds him tighter. "Please, Timmy," he begs. "Please. Just let me."

Tim's breath hitches, then he wraps his arms around Dick just as hard as Dick is squeezing him, strong and anchoring. Dick's own breath shudders on the edge of a whine, and he buries his nose in Tim's hair.

-----

"Missed you," he whispers hoarsely, several minutes later.

Tim lifts his face from where he's been leaking a silent wet spot into Dick's collarbone.

"Missed you, too," he whispers back, as if they're sharing secrets and might be overheard.

Then Tim hesitates, before setting his mouth firmly. He meets Dick's gaze, and there's a fierce light in his still reddened eyes that transfixes Dick. He almost lost this. He almost lost Tim - so many times, more than he probably even knows about. He never wants to look away.

"And I love you, too, you know. That's never changed. It never will change." His brow is furrowed intently, gaze searching Dick's, like he can find and burn away any hint of doubt or disbelief.

"I know," Dick murmurs, warm down to his battered toes. Tim's alive. Tim's going to wake up, and keep living. Tim loves him, and forgives him, and still trusts him more than anyone else. "I do know. I - "

He releases one arm from its death grip, because he can no longer resist the urge to cup Tim's face, stroke a thumb across his cheek. Tim closes his eyes briefly as he covers Dick's hand with his, leaning into it, brows still drawn together. Like he's in pain, even though all the dings and scratches are on Dick, not him.

Dick's heart seizes.

He dips down, to the impossibly inviting bow of Tim's mouth, and kisses him. At Tim's small, quiet gasp, he gentles further, catching Tim's lips, pulling the full lower curve between his own in a soft tug. To his delight, Tim follows him, chasing his mouth, and they share the sweet cling and press, back and forth.

-----

Dick's wounds are somehow all still present upon waking. Magic, ugh, such a pain. The resulting frenzy of medical attention and getting bundled into another bed - too far away from Tim - like he's one foot through death's door isn't exactly fun, either.

(But still. Well worth it, for that first moment Tim's eyes flutter open and hazily lock on his. The world can keep spinning, now that Dick knows Tim is safe.)

As it turns out, Tim's recollection of what happened inside his own soul is equally hazy.

He remembers enough to melt bonelessly into Dick's chest when Dick sneaks over to share his bed, which dissolves the hard knot of worried tension in Dick's chest that he wouldn't remember anything, that he'd be back to subtle distance and awkward texts and not even feeling comfortable enough to share that he likes men, and Dick. Isn't sure he could have handled that.

So he ignores his aching ribs and multiple lacerations and puncture wounds and curls around Tim with his whole body, warmth and gratitude suffusing every aching muscle.

Tim...doesn't seem to remember the kiss. Which. Is a shame.

But Dick remembers it. Every moment is burned into him like the most intimate pyrography. That will have to be enough, until he can make it happen again.

(Tim's boyfriend doesn't stand a chance.)

[kayzig]

you roll out of bed, get your mug of wine, and are immediately informed by an underling that one of your schemes was foiled by your archnemesis 😔

[idliketobeatree]

anyways if the 1941 almost-kiss, almost-something never happened and we are all being led astray then...... what even is THE POINT

[hongthoven]

pov that old tape footage of the dead husband on his wedding day at the beginning of the movie.