#THEY DON'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD

[qcomicsy]

I like how every person who has a ship tend to be "my babies", "I love them 🥺", "coochie patooties" and all the love while me and the other twenty people who are still into spideypool are literally that meme "I'm sick of this guys".

Like it starts with love but most of us are just fucked out tired but our brain can't stop feeding the clown4clown bullshit

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[polararts]

It's a period piece~

[elizabeths-storytime]

Some thoughts about how Team 10 does their hair

[savanir]

DP x DC prompt [11]

Vlad is planning something big, something powerful and he’s using his wealth and connections to make it happen. Danny realizes that his parents' tech and his friend's aid isn’t going to cut it, and brute forcing the matter as Phantom is just going to ruin his reputation permanently.

What he needs is another different fruitloop, and thankfully for him the world is pretty damn full of them.

but he needs a very specific fruitloop, the one with a big company, advanced high end tech, so much money they don’t really know what to do with it and preferably they gotta be an absent figure, because Danny is on a mission, he’s not looking to get a new parent (he has his own)

and after some searching he finds his guy

Oliver Queen

Now he just needs to get in on that, and he decides to do that by using what little he managed to remember from Vlad’s “you will be the heir of Dalv,co” rants and Sam’s ideas on environmentalism. cause Queen apparently cares a lot about giving back to the little guy.

Which is great! very important, even if his business kinda suffers from how he goes about it (but Danny can help with that! somehow! he’ll figure it out, can’t be that hard) 

We can’t all be Brucie Wayne, but we certainly can try.  

So anyway, shouldn’t be too hard, he’s got some history in the field of environment stuff what with the whole purple back gorilla thing.

and Ollie takes one good look at this smart enthusiastic black haired blue eyed teen and is like, “oh neat! my very own Tim Drake Wayne” and he just goes with it.

Danny’s hidden power of drawing in rich people is truly something to behold…

Oliver is more than happy to just let Danny do whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t break the law or look bad on him, and no drugs, he was very clear on that.

and Danny is like great, I can now work on undermining Vlad and ruin his plans!

but then… Dinah…

“Oliver Jonas Queen!”

oh shit, full named…

“You are not going to do a repeat of Roy!”

Dinah is very effective, and the whole thing starts small enough.

Oliver personally shows him around in the company, makes sure to introduce him to the important folks.

that evolves into occasionally checking up on him, making sure he takes the appropriate amount of breaks.

then he takes him to a baseball match, he had multiple tickets… would have been a waste to refuse.

Then Dinah insists he tags along for dinner in a restaurant (there were some others, it was actually not awkward at all somehow, quite nice really), this grows into dinner at the penthouse.

It's when Oliver expresses the desire to teach Danny archery, telling him there are a lot of things in the sport that are also applicable to business stuff that Danny comes to a sudden and violent realization.

He's being parented!

[willowser]

HMMMMM bakugou being just. the absolute picture of sin.

he works overnight and comes home early in the morning, around 3 or 4 am or so, and you greet him and give him a kissy and ask how it all went. and even though it's still dark outside and he's been working for twelve hours—he's still coming off patrol, right ? so he's still got some energy left, and he eats something and takes a shower and winds down as you fall back to sleep.

and it's not until much later in the day that he wakes up, early afternoon, and you're kind of tiptoeing around so that he can get his much-needed rest. you slip into the closet of your bedroom for something and you think you're gonna get in and out without a sound, but his hearing is so attuned to just about anything and everything at this point.

so rough and raspy, he grunts out, "what're y'lookin' for?" and you whip around real fast and he's just—

half sitting up in bed, bare back leaning against the headboard. an arm behind his head, so that his bicep is tense and round and stone-solid. stretched like that, his obliques are more prominent, taut and rippling up the side of his ribcage. he must have gotten hot while passed out, as he usually does, because the comforter is all askew; one of his legs is bent, the fine hair a dark gold in the waning day; the other is hanging off the bed, lightly swinging as he watches you, and the blanket has come down enough that you can see the bulge of his thigh muscles beneath his stupid tiny black boxer briefs.

and he's just so. man. in every single way.

(his hair is flat on one side, too, and his eyes are still a little puffy from sleep—but you think that adds to it, all in all)

[riant-draws]

*cough* rain world anime when *cough cough*

thinking about if the ancients gave their iterators new looks during wartime

rough design under the cut!

assuming they did or even *could* go to war with each other when they lived on the iterators, and if they were willing to embrace the first urge... hm.......

[thevoidstaredback]

Danny couldn't tell you what he expected, but it most definitely wasn't this.

Time and Space were weird in the Infinite Realms, both bending to the will of their masters and no one all at once. They didn't follow a line or a path. Time and Space did as they wanted. Fitting, considering who their masters are.

The first time Danny was ten years old, his Grandfather killed him. He remembers that, in an effort to save him, his mother submerged his body in the Lazarus Pits he and his brother had been warned about ever going near.

As it was explained to him, the Infinite Realms has a base level of sentience at the very least. She allows herself to peak into the worlds She cradles to keep an eye on them. She found Danny when his mother had lowered him into the water and She claimed him as Her own. She bent Time to Her will, making Danny a toddler again, before bending Space to drop him in the world that would most allow him to grow. She promised that She would come back for him when the time was right.

The first time Danny was fourteen, after the second time he had been ten, he died. The parents he had learned to accept as his own tried to open an unnatural gateway into the Infinite Realms. He was the one to turn it on. The electricity of the mortal world killed him, but the energy from the Infinite Realms revived him.

He remembers the whispers barely heard under his own screams. Whispers and imprints of "I'm sorry" and "I do not mean to hurt you" and "You will only grow stronger" and "Welcome back, my champion".

Danny can count on one hand the number of times he's felt safe between the first time he was six and the first time his was fourteen. He can tell you the names of exactly two places he has never felt the need to hide from.

The day Danny turned fifteen for the first time, he told his parents what happened to him. He knew, instinctually, that they would not understand, that they are researchers before they are parents. But he held onto the hope that had been trained out of him when he was first four years old. He had hoped that they would go against all odds and accept and help him.

He shut down the portal the very next day. He destroyed it and all of his parents' lives work. He would not stand by and let them hurt his people when he could not be there to interfere. He escaped back into the embrace of the Infinite Realms through Vlad's portal, giving him the Order to destroy it. The only way for the citizens of the Realms to enter the mortal worlds was to use natural portals, as unstable and unpredictable as they are. He would not risk them again.

He finds himself wandering listlessly, letting the Realms take him where She wants him to go. Sometimes She takes him to places that are completely empty, places where he can mourn what he lost without anyone finding him. Sometimes She takes him to his mentors and friends. Sometimes She takes him where he needs to be.

Danny finds the boy just as the natural portal closes behind him, the sickly green and black oozing like a festering wound.

The boy looks similar to Danny. His hair is spiked, his clothing dulled shades of a hero's costume under a black cloak, a mask covering his eyes, his body being more filled out to match his age. But Danny, on every level of understanding that he is and ever will be capable of, knows that this is his brother.

"Damian?" he whispers. The Realms push him forward. "Damian!"

Danny cradles the body of his brother, slowly sinking to the ground the Realms produce for him to land on. He carefully peels the mask from his face and lays it beside the katana on the ground.

As expected of anyone who finds their way into the Infinite Realms without proper protections, Damian has no pulse. He is not breathing. He is cold. The wound under his sternum is not bleeding.

Danny brushed his thumbs under Damian's eyes, his hands on his cheeks. "What did they do to you, ahki?"

Despite having no mortal ability to do so, Damian's eyes opened. He started ahead, blinking when his green eyes met Danny's. "Danyal?"

Tears fell from his eyes as he nodded. "Hi, Damian. You're here early."

Tears fell from Damian's eyes as well. He knew where he was. There was only one explanation. He couldn't feel himself breathing, nor could he hear his heart beat or his blood flow. There was no pain from where his mother had run him through.

"She killed me!" Damian cried into his brother's shoulder.

Danny held him tighter. "I'm so sorry," No one should ever have to go like that.

"Father couldn't save me."

"It's okay."

"Dick and Tim and Jason and Cass-!"

"Shh, ahki. You will see them again. I'll make sure of it."

The brothers held each other as they cried. The Realms wrapped Herself around the boys, comforting them as she could. Her champion and his brother, both children She had claimed and would protect.

Part 1 Storyboard

@anarinette

[lucabyte]

Perceptive kid, I wonder just how much they pretend not to overhear.

[asaka-lucy-dr-rc]

[soraya-snape]

I know Cedric just died and Draco was dying but something about Sev in these two scenes just made me forget everything and everyone around me.

[divorcedfiddleford]

leave the door ajar

[silverskye13]

Etho looks down quietly at his basket, making sure everything he needs is inside. He knows it is best to only make one trip down to the water. The water is treacherous. He is strong enough to withstand it, but of course, everyone who ever drowned thinks they're strong enough until their lungs are bursting. So. He double checks. He makes sure.

He has a week's worth of laundry. Some dishes he needs sand from the river to scour. A bucket, so he won't have to make this trip for another few days. There are a few pieces of leather armor in need of a quick rinse before they're polished. Also, he's thirsty. He tries not to drink his rain water. He needs it to last.

Finally, Etho belts on his sword, hefts the basket over one shoulder, and the empty bucket with his free hand. He looks to the short path that leads down to the dock. The water is blue as the diamond sky above, edged in gold from the slowly gathering sunset. Birds are singing. Breeze whispers through the willow branches and cattails. Across the river, a small herd of deer is moving through the rushes. One breaks apart from the others to drink. Etho sighs out a long breath, steels himself, and walks down the trail.

The water is cursed. Very few people still come to the river for chores. Most only dare to run down for a few buckets of water when the well is running dry.

_____

When Tango saw him gathering his things earlier, he'd shaken his head and made a warding gesture with his hand. Protection. For himself. For Etho. Or just to ward away the idea of evil.

"Scream, I guess," Tango had told him. "I doubt we'll make it in time, but yanno, we'll know what happened."

Etho had only offered a tense smile behind his mask. Everyone would know what happened, scream or not.

"I'll be fine," Etho said. "I've been fine before."

He said it a lot more confidently than he felt, and Tango wasn't reassured. Tango had a good nose for things like that. He sniffed the air, and made the chagrined expression of someone who could smell a coming thunderstorm.

"Yeah. Sure." Tango sniffed again, and then tapped the side of his nose with a knowing finger. "On second thought, maybe save your breath."

_____

Etho walks out onto the dock, his footsteps silent as he can make them. He took his boots off by the dock's edge. They're heavy when they're wet. He sets the basket down gently on the aged wood. He fills the bucket first. In the neat and tidy plan of his habits, he thinks the bucket is the one he least wants to be left last with. It's heavy and cumbersome, and requires leaning over the water's edge. So he fills it, trying to disturb the water as little as possible, and pads back to his boots to set it down gently beside them. Then he's back to his basket, and getting to the louder work, what he know will attract attention.

He grabs a shirt and dunks it into the water, wringing it out a few times before scrubbing it against the dock's edge. Someone nailed a washboard here, probably to make it easier for everyone else who needed to scrub up -- one less cumbersome thing to drag to the riverside. Beside it, Etho can see long scratches in the wood, vanishing off the side. He has large hands, so they don't line up to him, but the unmistakable look of nails scratching, clinging, is recognizable even still. He wonders idly who made them. Probably someone playing, before the water was cursed. Or an animal that swam across the bank and needed help scurrying out.

He is tempted to think it's something more sinister, but he knows better.

The water turns from diamond blue to sunflower yellow, then to blazing orange with rusted and bleeding edges. The herd of deer on the other side of the water wanders off, sated. A fox calls in the wood somewhere, an uncanny, very human scream. The bird calls twitter into silence, replaced by chirping frogsong. Etho wrings out the last of his clothes and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. He checks how far the sun has dipped in the sky, and decides he has an our yet before dark settles in.

With his clothes washed, he sets them back in the basket, neatly folded. They'll wrinkle probably, but when he puts them out on the line, the wind will straighten them out. His knees are sore from kneeling, his back from leaning. His armor will be easier to clean if he can settle in, brace it on his crossed legs.

Etho looks around the water, at the deceptive stillness. It's a slow, lazy river, hardly pushing the water fast enough to put ripples on it. There is one place near the opposite bank where a long shadow stretches from a stone, broken by the reflection of red sunset. It's the kind of image he would expect to see on a lake on a windless day. He's heard before that quiet rivers make for deadly waters, that there is a current in holes in the riverbed that will devour someone.

But Etho isn't in the water. He's on the dock, and the dock is safe. Nothing will drag him off it. Nothing in the water is strong enough. It doesn't have to be. There is some comfort in that, in knowing he can't be devoured against his will. It is why he still comes to the river. It is why he dares. Etho sits back and crosses his legs, bracing his leathers against his knees. He scoops a palm full of water onto them and scrubs, trying to get blood out of the small cracks where it will settle and rot. His chainmail is back at the fort up the hill, where its heaviness can't encumber him. It cleans itself reasonably well, all the links clattering together, just so long as he doesn't roll in any mud.

There is shuffling on the dock behind him, the creaking of old wood. Etho tilts his head, breathes in deeply through his nose. His pulse doesn't quicken. After a momentary pause, he resumes his work.

"Hey BDubs," he says conversationally. "Trying to sneak up on me?"

"Wh-- no. Of course not." There is mischief in BDub's answer, a grin in his voice. "The great Etho? Never. You probably heard me coming from a mile away."

"Maybe not a mile," Etho chuckles humbly. "You going to join me?"

"Well, I don't know," BDubs laughs, leaning over Etho's shoulder. "Is it safe?"

"I don't know why it wouldn't be."

"Water's cursed," BDubs reminds him. "There could be boogiemen about."

"You trying to tell me something BDubs?" Etho asks slyly, peering up at his friend.

"What? No of course not," BDubs laughs. He sits beside Etho, plunging his bare feet into the water beside the dock. "Even if I was, you know me Etho. You? Kill you? You'd kill me first."

"I don't know about that," Etho hums, splashing another palm full of water on a buckle clasp and scrubbing at a rusted stain with his thumb. "You made pretty efficient work of Grian."

"Grian had it coming," BDubs shrugs. "Got too caught up listening to the music."

Etho chuckles. "The music was very good."

BDubs kicks his feet in the water, humming the tune momentarily under his breath. It's a haunting sound, not really meant to be sung. Not by anything human. Etho shudders in spite of himself.

"Man, don't do that."

"Sorry! Haha! Sorry. Couldn't help it," BDubs grins a gap-tooth smile in Etho's direction, his eyes bright and gilded by the setting sun. "It's probably one of the coolest kills I've ever gotten."

"I'll make sure Tango knows you said that."

"Oh, Tango's fine." Bdubs waves a hand dismissively. "He's just upset 'cause I scared him."

"You did more than just scare him."

Dark room. Dark water. Tango screaming and running, scrabbling at the walls with his nails. If they ever went back to that little cave, Etho wondered if there would be marks on the walls like the docks, played, desperate fingers, digging.

"Well he's alive, isn't he?"

"I guess he is."

"Then he should get over it!"

Etho shakes his head, laughing. BDubs' voice is over-loud on the quiet lake, but its a good sound. Full of intensity and joy, and revelry. It made the silence between his words stark and empty, and Etho was always loathe to fill it.

Bdubs suddenly wraps an arm around Etho's shoulders, pulling him into a conspiratorial embrace. "Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you, by the way."

Etho suddenly has goosebumps on his neck, his spine, his arms. BDubs' arm is cold against his shoulders. He smells of bracken and standing water, and his eyes are bright as sunset. Etho takes a long, slow breath in and holds it for a moment.

"Uh... Yeah, BDubs?"

"I've got a plan, you know, for the others," Bdubs continues, his voice dropping to something near a whisper. There is something on the edge of his tone like the ringing of bells. Excitement. Thrill. Hunger. "But I'll need some help. I mean, I'm good at redstone, you know 'ol BDubs knows his stuff. But I need an expert. Someone good at traps."

"You know you've always got me Bdubs," Etho laughs, and it is hard to keep the nervousness from his voice. He's not sure he succeeds. "I'm happy to help. Just uh--" He shrugs his shoulders, and BDubs' arm falls away. "You know. Keep your distance."

"You're not scared of me, are you Etho?" Bdubs laughs, and it's loud and boisterous, and perfect. It echoes off the water like glass. Bells and ringing. He gives Etho a prideful, knowing look. "No, you're not scared of little 'ol BDubs. I know what you're scared of."

BDubs suddenly turns and slips into the water. Not all the way. His hands are still clinging to the wood, his elbows resting on the dock like it was a pool side. But the splash hits Etho's side and makes him shudder so hard, he drops the armor he'd been polishing. In a flash he's on his feet, backing away two, three steps. His movements feel too slow and heavy, and there's an instant of panic in him.

"Woah man!" Etho snaps, startled. He reaches for something, anything-- "I said keep your--!"

But BDubs is laughing, kicking his feet, stirring up the mud at the bottom of the river. "Oh come on Etho. It's water."

Etho takes three long breaths, filling his lungs to bursting before pushing the air out again heavy through his nose.

"You're fine you big baby," BDubs grins, resting his head on his crossed arms. His legs stop kicking, stop stirring up the mud, and Etho can see the water is shallow enough that he's standing on the bottom. He'd thought-- he'd thought-- "You'd think I tried to drown you, jeez."

He thought it was deeper.

Etho held his breath for a moment, counted slowly. He wanted to reach his hand to his neck, to check his pulse. To see how fast his heart was beating. He moved his hand to, and at a mocking glance from his friend, decides instead to stoop to pick up his dropped armor. He walks carefully to his basket and places it inside.

"Why'd you come down here, anyway?" BDubs asks. "If you're so scared, I mean."

"You know me, BDubs. I always come back," Etho answers, almost a reflex. A rehearsed answer. "Who else would I go to?"

"Tango and Skizz?"

"They won't keep me safe like you will." Etho points out. He shudders again, the cold from BDub's touch had seeped into him more than he thought it had. He's acclimating though, like jumping into a pool. It's a cold that seeps out of him, warms as it settles. "It's me and you to the end, right buddy?"

"Of course Etho. I'd never betray you."

Etho looks through his things one last time, then frowns. He turns the basket with his foot. He glances at BDubs, who still watches him from the water's edge. Then he takes a chance and crouches down beside his basket, rifling through with both hands.

"Lose something?" BDubs asks, standing on his tiptoes to get a better look.

Etho looks around, checking first the dock, and then the water beyond. In the deeper water over the side, he sees the flash of a buckle in the dying rays of the sun.

"Oh, huh," BDubs hums disinterestedly. "Guess you'll have to get that."

"BDubs," Etho scowls.

"Fine! Fine. I get it. You don't wanna get wet." BDubs puts up his hands, as though surrendering. "The water really isn't all that bad." He offers Etho a quick little salute. "Be right back."

He takes an exaggerated breath and splashes beneath the dock, stirring up mud and river plants. He breaks the water's surface shortly after, holding up the fallen armor piece triumphantly. "Ta-da! Hold your applause. I know I'm great."

Etho, in spite of himself, chuckles. He shivers again -- the evening is getting cold -- and reaches a hand out. BDubs places the buckle in his hand, then reaches his other hand up to clasp Etho's gently. It's awkward and off-balance, Etho leaning precariously over the side of the dock, and BDubs on his tip-toes, holding him in place. It isn't a hard grasp. At any moment, Etho can take his hand away. He has always been stronger than BDubs.

"Hey, Etho, I really have missed you, man," BDubs says, smiling fondly, his voice soft. It isn't a whisper. It simply isn't loud and brash like he normally is. Heartfelt. The kind of tone that beckons, that wants to be listened to. "I mean-- I've missed us doing things together. It reminds me of the good 'ol days, you know? NHO and Mindcrack. We make a good team."

"We do," Etho agrees. He takes a long, slow breath. He shivers.

He frowns.

Etho pulls his hand out of BDubs, and BDubs offers no resistance. Etho looks down at his hand, at the wrinkled, waterlogged skin. He rubs his thumb across his forefingers, feeling the odd texture, grounding himself on it. Etho takes a deep breath in, lets it out again slowly.

"How long have I been in the water, BDubs?" Etho whispers.

Etho is still holding the belt buckle in one hand, still looking down at the wrinkled fingers of his other. BDubs is still in front of him, only his head and shoulders above the water. Etho looks back over his shoulder. The dock is startlingly far away, the basket sitting on the very edge. Beyond it, his boots and water bucket are sitting in the grass beside rushes and willow branches.

"Does it matter?" BDubs asks, smiling gently.

Etho takes a long, deep breath through his nose.

"Oh, don't be scared," BDubs says, moving silently closer. He reaches out his hands and grasps Etho's arms, a gentle touch, reassuring. A friend trying to assuage fear. His eyes are blazing red and orange with the setting sun, but the sky is black and salted with stars. "I didn't drag you down here, Etho. You came to me, remember?"

"BDubs--"

"You know I'd never betray you," BDubs continues, taking a slow step backwards. He pulls Etho with him, and Etho, by habit and familiarity, takes a step forward. The allure of BDubs' voice tilts his vision. He's on the dock, holding the buckle that fell in the water, and BDubs is clasping his hands, and the sun is setting. The water is up to his chest, and the world is dark star-filled, and BDubs is taking another step backwards, and Etho is following. "I could have betrayed you day one, and I didn't. I'm just asking for your help, Etho. You and me together, right?"

"BDubs--"

"It's the deep water, isn't it?" BDubs croons, like he's speaking to a child. "The deep water scares you? It's okay. You're fine."

Etho is fine. His breathing is slow, his heartbeat even. He wants to be scared. He should be scared. But BDubs is his friend.

BDubs reaches up to Etho's neck, not to strangle or to threaten, but to gently cup his hands around him. He pulls gently on Etho, not to drag Etho down, but to raise himself up, so they're nearly eye to eye. Etho feels water around his shoulders, and shivers.

"It's okay," BDubs says. "I would never hurt you, I promise. We don't have to go any deeper." His voice even and calm, inexorable. Etho's pulse doesn't quicken when he says, "You know how many people drown in shallow water? It's easy. I'll be with you the whole time."

The water is around Etho's neck, and BDubs is above him just slightly. One hand raises slowly to the back of Etho's head, fingers gently tangling in his hair. It is the caress of someone who cares for him deeply, someone who wants him to stay. The feeling is wholly dissonant from the words being spoken. Water? Drowning? How could someone who loves him so much drown him?

"You want to stay with me, right?" BDubs asks. "You and me together, we'd be unstoppable, Etho. The best duo the Life Series has ever seen."

BDub's hand on Etho's neck moves just slightly, the thumb pulling around to rest on his adam's apple. The hand in his hair clenches just a little. A warning. "You're not thinking about betraying me, are you?"

Etho shivers again. He wants to be afraid.

"You know, Grian said some things before he drowned," BDubs's hand on his neck tightened just a little. Etho could feel his pulse against BDub's thumb, finally, finally beginning to quicken. "He said you were a survivor. He said you'd leave me -- heh -- high and dry. You wouldn't do that, would you, Etho?"

Etho's pulse quickened more. There was a cold numbness in his limbs that he hadn't even noticed gathering, and his sluggishly awakening panic pushed it from him.

"BDubs," Etho said, his voice small and hoarse in his throat, "let me go."

"Etho..." BDubs said warningly.

"Let me go!" Etho shouted, planting his hands on BDub's chest and shoving backwards away. What he felt, in that brief second, was neither skin nor flesh, nor the softness of fabric. He felt tangled river weeds, and fish scales, slimy and cold against his skin. The cursed thing that looked like BDubs but wasn't, released Etho spitefully. His claws tore from Etho's neck, scraped along the back of his head to come free with pale strands of his hair. Suddenly there were arms around him, and Etho screamed and thrashed as he was dragged.

"I've got you dude! I've got you!"

It was Skizz, his voice a thunderous bellow in Etho's ear, his arms feverishly hot against him where they clamped like vices around his waist. Skizz dragged Etho from the water like he weighed nothing. Etho got his feet underneath himself and clung to Skizz, staggering out of the water as quick as he could. He heard feet pounding on the dock, and glanced over to watch Tango sprint across the wood. He stooped, grabbed up Etho's basket, and sprinted back with it, the reaching, clawed hand of the thing that looked like BDubs snapping for his ankles and missing.

"I got him!" Skizz shouted to Tango, scrambling onto the grass, refusing to let Etho go until they were well up the path. "Did you see how close he was?!"

"Yeah I saw!" Tango snapped, choking on his own fear, gulping in air and coughing it back out again. "It tried to drag me in!"

"Oh my god, are you okay dude?" Skizz demanded, and, when Tango nodded, he turned back to Etho. "Are you okay? I didn't see you go under. Can you breathe?"

Etho, who had collapsed into the grass the moment Skizz released him, lay there gasping like a hooked fish. He shivered, pale and cold from how long he spent in the water-- how long had he been in the water. He could still feel the thing's burning claws in streaks across his neck, and a tickling of blood at the back of his head.

"Etho?"

"I'm okay," Etho gasped, "I'm sorry I just-- I needed-- I wanted--"

"I know what you wanted!" Tango snapped angrily, the anger of someone who had risked his life. The anger of someone who thought a friend of his was dead, or dying. "But it's not him, Etho."

"It sounds like him," Etho whispered. He threw an arm over his eyes and shivered again. "It sounds like him, though."

"I know it does buddy, I know," Skizz said, his voice full of sympathy and pity. He waited with mountainous patience as Etho pulled himself together, and then helped Etho stand.

Together, they walked back to the fort.

Behind them, something cursed and hungry in the dark water, sang, and its voice was sweet and familiar.

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 4 - Nuthin' but Boothill Edition

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 5] [Pt. 6]