#This is about comics (also other things probably) I missed them dearly | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deityoftherain · 1 year ago

Text

isn't that jimmy's hat? - Ranchers during Hermpires Rift Fanfic

Rating: Teen

Relationship: M/M

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Status: Completed Oneshot

Word Count: 2,751

Summary: Tango accidentally grabs Jimmy's hat when trying to grab the hat Shubble gave him and puts it on... oops?

Full fanfic underneath the cut! Please reblog, leave kudos on the AO3 fic slash notes/likes here on Tumblr, comment either place, and etc if you enjoy the story :D

@gumzau MADE ME A ABSOLUTELY STUNNING COMIC FOR THIS GO CHECK IT OUT https://www.tumblr.com/gumzau/748128729759399936/isnt-that-jimmys-hat-deityoftherain-empires

Tango groaned as his body pulled him from sleep. He rubbed his eyes as he tried to wake himself up enough so he wasn’t in the weird partly asleep but partly not stage. His body felt heavy but that was not unusual. Half the days he woke up, his body would feel heavy like if he slept too long or whatever other reason bodies liked to malfunction in one’s sleep. This time, as he blinked himself awake, there was actually someone on top of him.

His body tensed, not expecting someone to be next to him at this hour. The flame on the top of his head started to grow out of surprise but it quickly died back down when he realized he had expected someone to be in bed with him.

It was Jimmy. His Jimmy. The man with the worst bedhead you’ve ever seen. The man who threw himself into everything with his full heart. The man who once was his soulmate.

Tango smiled softly down at him, running his hand through Jimmy’s hair. It really was a mess but Jimmy would have it fixed once he woke up. He wasn’t sure what magic Jimmy processed because he would run his fingers through his hair a few times and his hair would look perfect. Tango would say he was jealous but his hair wasn’t the same as what other people had so there wasn’t a “bad hair day” for him. He supposed the feeling would be more impressed than jealous.

He hugged Jimmy close and he didn’t stir at all. Tango closed his eyes and just let himself take in the moment. They hadn’t been able to be like this since Double Life and a part of him missed it dearly. The Rift was probably the best thing that could have happened to his heart.

He had been tied to Jimmy in a literal sort of sense. Whenever one took damage, the other would as well. Whenever one died, the other soon followed…

The only bad thing about being tied to… what did they all call him? “The Canery”? Either way, the only bad thing about being tied to the one who dies first every time was that his time with Jimmy had been so short.

The games only ever allowed for a short amount of time with those you care about. It could be days, it could be months, it could be years… it would always be over too soon and none of the time They gave you will ever be long enough. Even knowing that, he wished they had made it closer to the end just for the extra time together. They didn’t need to win. All he wanted was time.

Jimmy’s soft snoring was comforting, even now. Even in this time of peace. Even if they weren’t currently a part of the games that destroyed everything you were before putting you back together.

There were nights where he couldn’t sleep but the close proximity always soothed his buzzing mind. Jimmy shifted on top of him, partly falling off. It was more comfortable on his muscles but he hadn’t minded it.

Jimmy always looked so peaceful like this. Even when they were running for their lives everyday, Jimmy always looked so content and happy in his sleep. Tango would ask if he dreamed but Jimmy always furrowed his eyebrows before telling him he couldn’t remember.

Tango hoped he had nice dreams. He hoped more that he would remember the dreams that must be the reason he was smiling as he slept.

Jimmy would always be so dear to him, even if they ever found themselves on opposing sides. Jimmy will always have a place in his heart, his mind, his soul…

The sun was rising and the light shined through the window. Tango knew if he stayed here any longer, he would sleep the whole day. There were things he had to do, places to explore, people he wanted to talk to... this was a new world to him, after all.

He untangled himself from Jimmy (even if it had been a struggle) and managed to roll out of bed to his feet. Tango grumbled to himself, forcing his body to move even though it didn’t want to. Maybe letting Jimmy sleep on him for so long was a bad idea.

Tango went to grab his clothes (yes, he had left some clothes at Jimmy’s base) from the drawer and got changed out of the pajamas (he had also stolen some clothes from Jimmy) he had previously been in.

He reached his arm out to grab the witch hat Shelby had given him (it was a stylish hat and it would be rude to not use a gift such as this) when a series of quick knocks rang out from the door.

“Wake up, sleepy head! I know you’re in there!” Scar called through the door. Tango could practically hear the grin on his face. ��Come on, almost everyone is here.”

Tango put his hand over his mouth as he yawned with closed eyes. He reached out behind him to grab the hat off the hook before placing it on his head as he walked to the door.

He opened the door and Scar looked surprised to see him. “Oh, that is why you weren’t answering your communicator. Did you have fun?”

“Yes, because sleeping is lots of fun.” His tone was slightly sarcastic but that didn’t negate the truth behind the words. Sleeping can be a pleasant experience but it was more of who you were with than the sleeping itself. Dreams could be enjoyable and feeling refreshed from a goodnight’s sleep was phenomenal but none of that could top spending time with those you care about. He knew Shelby would understand, at least, because everyone but Katherine knew she thought the same kind of way about Katherine.

He shouldered his way around Scar to walk out toward everyone who had gathered. Not everyone was here (that would be too many people to organize in any sort of cohesion) but there was a good handful of people that have come to help Jimmy out.

Why did he ask them to come by so early? When Tango looked up at the sky, the sun showed that it was closer to noon than the early morning. Ah, so they weren’t early. Tango and Jimmy had just slept in too long. Maybe that was part of why his body felt so heavy.

They all looked at him with shock and disbelief written all over their faces. Tango glanced between them, not understanding what their expressions meant. Was there something on his face?

Joel let out a low whistle and looked like he was biting back a bunch of jabs and jokes. “So… Jimmy, huh?”

“Tim still seems to have you in his pocket.” Grian teased, glancing up from Tango’s eyes to his head. “Even after Double Life ended.”

“You’re just jealous.” Tango flashed them a smile, his tone showing that he was just joking around but his confusion seeped through his words. What were they referring to? What was strange about hanging out at a friend’s base? They have all done it at some point or another.

“I don’t think Jimmy is going to be happy when he sees you with that.” Scott was leaning against one of the building’s railings, arms rested on the top. “He doesn’t usually let people touch his hat. He gets really passionate about it.”

“His hat? I’m not-” That was when it clicked for him. He hadn’t grabbed the witch hat from the rack… he had grabbed Jimmy’s sheriff hat! Now that he made the connection, he became aware of how different the hat felt on his head compared to the floppy hat he often wore around.

Everyone stopped speaking when the door swung open to reveal Jimmy, standing in the doorway. He had changed into his sheriff’s outfit and sunlight reflected off his badge but there was still part of his outfit that was missing… his hat. The one that Tango currently had on his head. Would he be mad? It was an honest mistake and he tried not to overstep Jimmy’s boundaries. Tango knew how attached Jimmy was to his hat.

Jimmy ran a hand through his previously messy hair (were his fingers laced in pure magic or something because how does that work for him?) and looked around at all of them.

“Jimmy, you’re replacing me, aren’t you?” Scar sighed dramatically, whipping away non-existent tears from his eyes. “It seems you have found a new deputy.”

“I might have to because you’re on thin ice, my friend.” Jimmy laughed, his voice still deep and husky from recently waking up. Morning voice has always been pleasant to his ears.

Grian and Joel both laughed at that while Scott gave Tango a look before turning his attention to Jimmy. “Hey Jimmy, don’t you think Tango looks nice today?” “He always looks nice.” Jimmy didn’t skip a beat in giving the compliment. “Why do you ask? Are you wanting to take fashion tips?”

Scott snorted at that, shaking his head. “My taste is much more colorful than his. Besides, I already look fabulous. I don’t need fashion tips.”

“I don’t think that’s what they’re referring to, Tim.” Grian looked Jimmy up and down as if he thought he didn’t have a single brain cell bouncing around within him.

“Jimmy, Jimmy,” Joel tsked in a condescending sort of tone but a chuckle rose in his throat, “he is wearing your hat.”

Jimmy wrinkled his nose at them all as he wrapped his arm around Tango. “So? That’s not a crime. Tango can do what he wants.”

Everyone couldn’t hold back anymore and Tango was pretty sure half of them started to tear up because they were laughing so hard.

Tango hoped his blush wasn’t noticeable on his cheeks. He wasn’t sure if it was because of Jimmy or because of the way everyone else looked at him. He pulled the hat off of his head and tried to put it in Jimmy’s hand. “I can give it back. I grabbed it by accident.” “Nah, you’re good, Tango.” Jimmy shrugged his left shoulder, right arm still around Tango. “It looks good on you.”

“Jimmy, it literally is a crime according to your law book!” Scott looked to find the whole situation hilarious. “You wrote it down in your law book that you’re not allowed to wear another person’s hat or something like that. Tango is breaking one of your laws and you’re chill with that?”

“Oh, so now you actually read it!” Jimmy snorted with a roll of his eyes, unwrapping his arm around Tango. “When did y’all start caring about what I had to say? That would have been nice to have this whole time.”

“I think you just have a thing for Tango.” Joel’s eyebrows raised when he said the word “thing”. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten soft on something you clung to so harshly before.”

“Don’t we have other, more productive things to do than bother Jimmy?” Tango inserted himself into the main conversation again. “If we keep this up, we’re going to be standing around all day.”

Scar pulled out a firework from his inventory and gave them a two-fingered salute before he launched himself in the sky. “I’ll meet you there!”

“I’ll leave you lovebirds alone.” Scott pushed up from the balcony and strolled out into the open. “Just don’t stay back too long. As you said, we don’t want to stand around all day.” It wasn’t long before the four of them were gone, leaving Jimmy and Tango alone.

“They’re so infuriating.” Jimmy huffed, glaring after them even though they were no longer in sight. “They always push me around and now they’re bugging you because of me.” “It is more that I took your hat.” Tango scratched the back of his neck as he avoided Jimmy’s eyes. “Here, take it back and maybe they’ll-” “Let them talk.” Jimmy took Tango’s hand, which convinced Tango to meet his eyes again. He could get lost in those deep brown eyes forever. “They all share hats with anyone and everyone anyway so there is no point in following a law when everyone disregards it. It is more of a personal standard at that point.”

“I suppose so.” Tango chuckled, somewhat awkward. There were the same feelings from before but also more positive ones fluttering around in his stomach. “I guess we should head over and-” Tango was interrupted by Jimmy’s lips pressing against his. It took his brain a split second to recognize what was happening before returning the kiss. Kissing wasn’t as blissful when it felt like you were kissing a wall.

Jimmy’s arms wrapped around his waist and Tango found his hands wandering to Jimmy’s hair and upper back. The hat that was in his hands had fallen to the ground but neither of them paid it any mind. Tango’s heart was beating quickly and he could feel Jimmy’s doing the same.

They eventually pulled apart, both taking several quick breaths. Jimmy had a lazily happy smile on his lips and Tango was sure he looked the same.

“I don’t know why we haven’t done that this whole time.” Jimmy laughed, leaning into him until his head was buried against Tango’s chest. “I forgot how good it feels.” “It has been awhile.” Tango hugged him close, resting his head on Jimmy’s. He smells too good for someone who lives in the sweaty mesa but Tango certainly wasn’t going to complain. “Mhm.” Jimmy muttered into his chest and Tango could feel his smile. “Too long.”

“You can always ask, you know. For any sort of affection, not just kissing and, and… yeah.” Tango hummed before Jimmy pulled his head back and Tango loosened his grip on him. “You will always be my rancher, no matter where we end up.”

“Oh really?” Jimmy raised his eyebrow, a small smirk on his lips. “I didn’t know you had such a thing for me. No wonder they were all teasing us.” Tango started to stammer, his brain short circuiting and he wasn’t sure what to even say to him in response. He could feel his fire grow and burn hotter in response to his emotions.

“Mm, don’t worry.” The sound of Jimmy’s laugh was soothing to him and it brought him back to the good times they had shared between the murder and death of the games. “You’ll always be my rancher too. You can always ask as well. I won’t say no.” Tango brushed some of Jimmy’s hair out of his face before pivoting the motion so his hand ran down Jimmy’s face, caressing him softly. He stopped when his hand was cupping his face. “Can I kiss you?” “Can’t you read my mind?” Jimmy leaned into Tango’s hand as his smile grew. “If you did, we would have been kissing alr-”

The kiss that cut Jimmy off was easy, natural, full of care and affection... just as it was all that time ago. He found himself lost in it (Jimmy was too based on how he reciprocated the kiss) and Tango had no idea how long they were there. It could have lasted only a few seconds or several hours for his perception of time was off.

“I was going to come get you,” Scar’s arrival startled them and made Jimmy flinch, “but it seems that you two are currently doing other things.”

“Why are you bothering us when you could be ‘doing’ Grian?” If Scar was going to tease him, why shouldn’t he return the favor?

“Anyway,” Scar just laughed his words off, rolling his shoulders, “Jimmy, everyone is going to leave if you don’t come soon.” “Okay, I’ll be there soon.” Jimmy promised Scar, who turned to fly back to where the others were.

He glanced at Tango and squeezed his hand. Tango reciprocated the motion before they let go of each other's hands. They both pulled their elytras out of their inventories before strapping them to their backs. Jimmy also swept down to grab his hat off the floor. After dusting it off, he placed it back on his head.

Without much warning, Jimmy launched himself into the air and called back to Tango, “I’m going to get there before you!”

Tango let out a disbelieving laugh before quickly following after him. “Not if I get there first!”

35 notes · View notes

some-pers0n · 1 year ago

Note

So about that ask game you reblogged abt an hour ago

Opinions on The Spy TF2?

Ah, lemme think.

Favourite thing

I am in love with how in-game his disguise is just a mask with the class he's disguised as. It's so stupid and dumb and funny. In the lore it's probably just him being disguised as the character regularly without any mask, but it's still so funny. I also adore every gag of him ever where he's disguised as an object and has the object on that mask. It's priceless.

Least favourite thing

I do wish we got more information about him. I get his whole appeal is that he's this mysterious guy and all, but I do wish we got to explore his past a little. I think there's a lot of potential for James Bond type stuff there.

Favourite line

"26 years ago, I dropped a 'sex bomb' on your mother." I love it both for the comedy of it and also because UAGHHUAHHH HE'S TELLING SCOUT HE'S HIS FATHERRRR WAILING

brOTP

I think Sniper and Spy are really great friends. They get along quite well, despite their occasional squabbles. I don't think of them in a romantic sense, even if they are quite intimate and close. Good friends. I also really like Spy and Pyro. They're cute buds.

OTP

Hm, it's a toss up between Freedom Fries (Soldier/Spy), Practical Espionage (Spy/Engie), and Spoovy (Spy/Heavy). I also like Spy/Sniper in a romantic sense, but personally I prefer it platonic. Spy is a very shipable character.

nOTP

Well there's the obvious forbidden ship, which is a clear and obvious pick-me answer. Normal people should hate that ship. Uhhh,,other than that? I dunno.

Random headcanon

Utter coffee snob. He's pretentious and has like $50,000 dollars worth of equipment to make his prissy little mocha fraps.

Unpopular opinion

Spy isn't a jerk. Snobby and pretentious? Absolutely. I wouldn't say he's particularly rude though. No more rude and antagonistic than the others during their voice lines. In fact, canon material goes against this. He tries to organize a little bucket list thing before they all die. He spends what he believes to be his last few days alive helping Scout try and get a date with Miss Pauling. He is willing to do a suicide pact with Pauling so that they get out of being tortured to death. He sticks around with Scout after they're all fired to keep him and his mother afloat. Hell, he gives Scout closure when he seems to be on the verge of death. I think people assume French = jackass which means he's constantly insulting people and rude. No, he's not.

Song I associate with them

OUghhHH,, that's a hard one to think. Something Stupid by Frank Sinatra. I associate a lot of 1950s songs with him, and Frank Sinatra is perfectly romantic for a guy like him. I also think that him and Scout's Ma hooking up came around from him developing feelings for somebody he shouldn't have, for their own sake. He loved her dearly. Still does even after all these years. But, he can't commit. He doesn't want to settle down. He wants that honeymoon phase to last forever.

Favourite picture

Something about this picture is just really sweet to me. I think a lot of people forget about this comic and how Spy interacts with the boy, which makes me sad since he's...not that bad with him, ya know?

#ask #Sp-rambles #tf2

22 notes · View notes

lethalitisms · 18 hours ago

Text

I have quite a few thoughts about the comic today. All of them are pretty goopy.

This fucks me up a bit, calling Eddie family like UGHHH IT MISSES HIM SO DEARLY. I can't remember which comic it was where it had written speech for the first time but it missing Eddie will forever and always be a Thing for me. It's very clear that the symbiote loved him above all its other hosts, and it probably thinks he's dead right now :(

ADDITIONALLY is she referring to Eddie as... a hero now? It's very interesting to me, if everyone considers him to be dead too, because not only did the world finally turn around about him but ( to them ) he isn't even around to see that happen. And technically that's still true given what's going on with the carnage symbiote right about now.

Also? The symbiote and this new host aren't even friends. Whoever this is, they're stuck together involuntarily. Dylan ruled out Luke later ( I'll get to that bit in a moment ) but idk I think the symbiote would willingly be his friend if he doesn't see it as a threat inherently.

Also man am I so happy to see silly Venom again. That 90's-esque comedy combat tactics. This is just so silly. Sniffing out the gunpowder, eating the bomb so they can contain the explosion, not to mention just REACHING OUT THEIR TONGUE to eat it up... so silly. Close enough, welcome back my silly little symbiote creature.

I'm not all too happy that the symbiote is seemingly sidelined as "thing that makes character stronger" rather than its own person BUT I do have some hope here, because the host DOES talk to it directly.

( I'm assuming this is host-to-symbiote and not symbiote-to-host, as is usually the case, but it's also not impossible to believe the symbiote speaking to the host with the words "in there"-- but also, ) hanging out with WHO ? is this referring to someone the symbiote has met prior to this moment ( Dr. Steve, for example ) or someone that they just recently came across with this new host and are somewhat fond of?

I love Dylan so much did you know that. That's my son. I hope they break up in this run and Dylan tells his parents alllllll about it. Eddie would get a big kick out of it.

I'll be real, I don't think this rules out Luke really. Because the symbiote could just have his head a little lower than Venom's, since they're larger and all that. Could still possibly be him, and for narrative reasons they've got to survive this so that's maybe what happened. Guess we'll find out next issue... can't wait for it all to be over and for Dylan to be back with his FAMILY. UGH.

#goop support squad ᯓ ooc #* mobile #* personals dni #[ wednesday spoilers ]#[[ making me insane this run...#[[ idk how to feel about it still but whatever . someone hand me a beer. i'll live

5 notes · View notes

asterhaze · 1 year ago

Note

If you get this, answer w three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs! Anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog :)

Thank you for the ask! I have enjoyed talking about myself a little bit lately.

Serious: I also art! Though I haven't posted any of my newer stuff online because my tablet broke and some of my traditional work is stuff I want to eventually draw digitally and hopefully sell. I'm terrified of AI taking away my dream of being a super cool artist writer dream before I even have a chance. So yeah.

Silly Fact: I have a horrible phobia of mascots. It inspired a comic idea that I will probably end up writing about evil mascots that try to take over the world and cause the apocalypse. It's a pretty serious phobia that councilors and therapists have tried to help me with but nothing has worked because I've refused exposure therapy. There are some masks that trigger this phobia, but honestly it's mostly helmets!

Random: I only started writing seriously last October, and the amount of progress I have made this year shocks even myself. This is hard for me, but here is an example of my writing from last October versus something I wrote a few weeks ago.

October:

Glen stood beneath the willow tree in a small graveyard. He stated down at two small graves whose names had been worn away by time. But he knew them well and kept them close to his heart.

"Maria. My love. I miss you dearly, even still to this day." Glen began, going down on one knee to brush his hands across the grass. "I wish I was there with you. Wherever you are and whatever is beyind this life. I wish we could sit beneath our willow tree and I could tell you how much I love you again."

Last week - a longer piece that may or may not make it into a final draft-

“Now your suit really will be ruined. Your socks too.” But I have the money now to buy new clothes. Who cares, Maria, about suits and pants and socks and shoes? Who cares about arranged weddings? Who cares about any of that when you’re dead, dead, dead and I’m here, here, here? I’m still here, here, here… He reached out, brushing his fingertips along the front of the tombstone, weathered smooth by time. Faintly he could see the first letter of her first and last name but the rest was worn away. He traced the letters, very gently, before pulling his hand away and putting it back in his lap. Willow had cried and cried so many times sitting here before Maria’s grave. Mourning her, missing her, wishing desperately that she would come back to him and forgive him for everything and being left with only memories. The tears had dried decades ago, but the longing in his chest and the aching in his soul still remained. Now he just stared, his eyes glossed over, his lips moving without a voice as he spoke in his imaginary world where Maria was fussing at him for this, that, or the other. He knew he was crazy, or ill, or pretending, or at least that whatever he was doing was wrong but it made him feel better. Talking there, remembering things, it made him feel complete despite reminding him otherwise and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was that people left him alone at the graveyard, let him spend however long he wanted there, or maybe it was because he was close to her again. Eventually, when a headache was starting to form across his temple, he imagined Maria turning to him and smiling. Still wearing that horrible dress that flattered only her body, sickly yellow. Maria fluffed her skirt, slapping it when she was done, before turning to walk away. Won’t you take me with you this time? Can’t we go together? I’m tired of living without you, Maria. Maria looked over her shoulder, a sad look over her sunshine eyes, as she sighed and turned away. “You’re too good.” And with that, he imagined her walking away and fading from his vision in a great glowing light that blinded him until he closed his eyes so tightly shut he prayed he would never be able to open them again. Anything else he would see would just tarnish it. Tarnish his memory of her, but eventually he did open his eyes, and there was all that was left of her before him. Faded, worn, and nearly falling apart. Here Lies M….M…. Loved Forever.

Tagging: @mthollowell-writes @rainisawriter @doublegoblin @gummybugg @veetvoojagigthemagnificent

9 notes · View notes

gothic-mothic · 1 year ago

Note

First, I like your font too, especially the colours. 💗

Second, are you into other fandoms?

First, Ty :3

Secondly, so. Many.

Fnaf and tf2 are the first things that come to mind, especially fnaf:Security breach since the new dlc come out recently (by the time I’ve posted this I have probably already drawn art of Eclipse, I love my boys). I tend to fixate on characters and I’ve always loved the tf2 comic so Medic has been on my mind with Engineer also making his way in there. Oh !! And Deltarune :3 love deltarune, especially Spamton. I love seeing AUs about it too, people are so creative. I really love HLVR:Ai too, just recently I got the Frenrey Pink-to-Blue fan Zine! In that series I heavily fixated on Benrey, my sona is actually heavily inspired after my own design of him!

Other offhanded fandoms I’m in are Call of Duty, Spooky Month, the ARG and Analog horror community, homestuck, Steven universe, and probably a bunch of stuff that I’m missing. I love a lot of things !

Ever since I got into tsp (over a year ago) Ive mostly been paying attention to that and not much else so I haven’t given my other fandoms much attention. However I still do love them dearly

But anyway ! TLDR: Tspud has taken over my life, I can’t focus on much else, it’s a problem but we’re still living laughing and loving

Despite that, I like video games (like fnaf, tf2, and portal) and webseries (like HLVR:AI, Spooky Month, and ARG/ analog horror stuff)

And I love to ramble

#Suzuki-notsonormal #apologies for the word vomit that I just dropped on you haha I don’t get to talk ab myself often so I tend to go a bit overboard #like I need to say all these things in a short amount of time bc people won’t listen for long !! go go go !!#lmao that’s probably why I’m always going off in my tags #bc I can say can what I didn’t have time to in the post #I can expand on thangs #ESPECIALLY if it’s about my boys (Stanley and Narrator)#i loveeee talking about my boys #this ain’t ab them #what is this about?#FANDOMS yes yes #I’ll leave it here before the tags get longer than the actual post again haha #apologies !!#.txt

8 notes · View notes

major-wren · 2 years ago

Text

That is EXACTLY what I mean thank you @chaoxfix

Let's think about it: mechanical obedience means nothing when your opponent has a genius sidekick that's just as technologically advanced as you. Absolutely any weapon Eggman builds can be turned against him by Tails with a little bit of re-wiring. The solution? Give them emotions that overpower their programming, and make them complex and intense emotions that will always end in loyalty towards you and you alone. He's seen robots who overpowered their programming through love like Gamma, it seems to be a trump card that tops all other control, so why not design it in a way that'll make them love only you? The result: daddy issues. Give them just enough love to get them attached, then just enough harsh words and punishment to make them scared of losing you, to make the love feel rare and like it's something they need to work for.

In the fandom space and in the tags I saw @measlyfurball13 asking: If Eggman seems to purposefully take on a fatherly role with his creations, this makes one wonder, does he have the capacity to be a good dad?

The canon answer: Yes. According to the IDW comics. When he experienced amnesia, he still wanted to improve the world through technology and build eggmanland, but he wasn't obsessed with control, and operated on a much smaller scale. He just actually genuinely improved a village with his technology. He also created Bell the tinkerer, a puppet themed fixit robot who adamantly identifies as eggman's daughter and is broken up to tears over losing what she said was a really good father that she loved dearly.

And now with the introduction of Sage in Sonic Fronteirs, this pushes my thoughts even further. Sage overpowered Eggman's orders too, in the name of protecting him, out of a love for him. Eggman also clearly cared for her too, just as he does for metal sonic, and just as he did at one point for Bell. I do believe he has it in him to be a good dad, but something happened to him that has made him totally obsessive over having control. As we saw from the zombot arc, he fully believes he needs to have absolute control of everyone, and that they need to follow his commands like robots, or else he can't "improve the world." I think this need for control bleeds into his creations, and causes him to put up such high standards and expectations for them, and to behave so cruelly toward them when things don't turn out right (and they rarely do).

@curetapwater also added the thought: Could Eggman be inspired by Gerald's treatment toward his creations?

He seemed to behave in a fatherly way toward his own creation too. Letting Maria build a relationship with Shadow, letting Maria name him, leaving a video-diary for him where he called him son (in the Archie comics). I think this is why Shadow tends to defect to Eggman too (in sonic adventure 2, sonic rivals 2, the Archie comics, and the boom cartoon). He reminds him of Gerald, and so he wants to work with him, but in the end Eggman is a little too far gone. Shadow probably misses his father figure and sees him in Eggman. On the flip side, while archie Shadow sometimes defects to eggman's side, I think IDW Shadow is so aggressive toward Eggman for the same reason. I think seeing Gerald in Eggman really affects him, and causes him to act out and get more impulsive and aggressive. In his mind, he probably just wants Eggman gone once and for all so that he doesn't have to see someone so similar to Gerald committing such atrocious acts of evil.

I'd also like to point out that Gerald literally augmented Shadow's memories and put like,,, sleeper agent trigger phrases in his mind... and somehow put Maria's soul in him and emerl from Sonic battle. Nobody has pointed out how fucked up that is... that's a little fucked up. He edited Shadow's memories to make him believe that Maria wanted him to take revenge on the world, knowing how much he loved Maria and that he shared her soul and therefore the pain of her death. He knew this love would overpower absolutely any other attempt to control him, no one would be able to stop or sedate him unless they said something similar to Maria's last words and caused him to remember what she really wanted. Another case of love seeming to have absolute control, and therefore, if you hold control over their love and use it as a reward and punishment system, then you have absolute control over your weapon. We see the same with Emerl, he's supposed to be loyal to the most powerful person as a weapon, but instead Gerald managed to give him some free will through love or Maria's soul or what tf ever. So them if anyone actually tried to use him as a weapon, he would then self destruct out of his love for others and desire to keep the world safe from himself. In both games it's shown that Eggman went through Gerald's diary and work-notes, so it's very likely he could have learned a thing or two from him.

Also!! Shadow's self titled game where he learns to have a healthy sense of self worth that doesn't depend on anyone else's love is a really good continuation of this whole thing in my opinion. That's the dangers of depending on someone for love. Wether it be a parent, a sibling, a teacher, or even your hero. You have to have love for yourself, that's true freedom.

Eggman's programming

I know this has been mentioned before, but isn't it so weird that Eggman programs emotions and personalities into his robots??

People point out that this is really self destructive on his end because it can lead to some of his creations turning against him after building resentful emotions toward him, like Omega, Gamma, and all of the robots on Scrapnik Island.

My personal headcanon behind his thought process is that not even pure mechanical obedience can rival the loyalty a creation will have to its creator, or "father." It doesn't matter if you reprogram or rewire its entire structure to have its own free will if it's inherent personality, aspirations, and deepest desires will always be to make eggman proud of them, because of the way he's designed and conditioned them. They'll always return to him no matter how many chances you give them, because he's made it so that their biggest desire is to make him proud, even when given free-will or reprogrammed.

We see this most clearly with Metal Sonic, and Sonic will even tease him and take digs at him for it in the comics, telling him to "run home to daddy" (cringe). Clearly, even the characters in-story can see how eggman has raised all of his creations to depend on him for any sense of self worth or purpose. Truly evil, and I think something that's always overlooked when discussing eggman. People say he's not a respectable villain but I think this is really compelling and a unqiue way for a villain to function. Especially because his design is pretty dad-like to begin with, with the mustache, glasses, round body, and bald head lol.

It's so effective, that even when Metal Sonic gains even more power than Eggman through becoming Neo-Metal, he still only wants to take over the world to gift to Eggman. His influence even goes past his creations and gains loyalty from other aspiring inventors, like Dr. Starline.

Most of all, I think it's so effective because it's genuine. He really does love his creations, but simultaneously holds them up to impossible expectations and holds severe disappointment in them when they fail. I mean, think of it. Isn't it awful to design a creation that entirely depends on you for any feeling of worth or purpose, and to make it capable of love and such, only then to neglect and abandon it when it doesn't live up to your impossible standards? Just think of Scrapnik Island and the sheer amount of abandoned bots there.

I think after seeing Mr. Tinker and Belle, it raises the question, does Eggman deep down just want to foster these fatherly connections? To build childrens' toys and fun-rides and kiddy amusement parks, with his helpful heart-filled robot creations? He does often say that he only wants to take over the world in order to "enhance it" with technology, and that people just aren't cooperating. Maybe somewhere down the line his pure intentions got corrupted somehow into this extreme need for absolute control.

#major mumbles #eggman #sonic the hedgehog #sonic idw #idw sonic #doctor eggman #dr eggman #metal sonic #neo metal sonic #belle the tinkerer #bell the tinkerer #ivo robotnik #robotnik #e 123 omega #e-123 omega #gerald robotnik #shadow the hedgehog #shadow #sth headcanon

1K notes · View notes

radioactive-earthshine · 2 years ago

Note

Hello. I'm very new to DC as in I only got into it as of April of this year and it started the animated YJ side then moved into the comics. I don’t know a lot and I'm really confused about somethings. I do plan on reading the comics but for now that just seems really intimidating so I'm sticking with fics. I really am loving Sunshine Falling but I want to know about Thad and Preston bc they haven't shown up in the show and I'm so new I don't know where to look. Are they canon characters?

I know I keep saying how much I am stunned when people (comic fans) say they don't know who Thad is and then I remember you gotta start somewhere. While the Young Justice animation is excellent, it is an entire alternative universe to the comics in it's own world with it's own history and thus everything you have seen should be taken with some caution.

Thad and Preston are canon comic characters.

Preston Lindsay

Preston is one of Bart's best civilian friends and he shows up in issue #1 and is a reoccurring character throughout the majority of Bart's series.

He's a great friend to Bart and accepts him for who he is and thinks he's the coolest even if one of the first thoughts he had about him was that he was a JERK.

He gets over the chilliness very quickly.

We learn throughout the comics that he is an aspiring director, he loves films and he makes movies in his free time sometimes coopting his friends in his projects. He also LOVES comics and is partial to After-Life Avenger.

He's supposed to have BROWN eyes, ignore the fucking blue eyes istg.

Preston also becomes Bart's very first 'big case' where Bart had to choose to do the right thing over protecting his own secret identity. Preston is a battered child and the whole story unfolding around that can be read in issue #6 (probably one of the BEST issues in all of Impulse imho).

Bart saw Preston being abused in his home as Impulse, not as Bart Allen, so when he was prepared to report it he would essentially have to out himself. Bart chose (obviously) to help his friend rather than keep quiet to preserve his identity.

Preston and Bart grew VERY close after this issue.

Some other highlights from Preston include;

The time he got "shot" by toxic waste dumpers and he thought it was the coolest thing.

"One of those guys shot me? Oh, boy!" Then Bart's soul just departs his body in guilt.

Preston also thinks Bart's mom is hot, which is, y'know, a requirement for all future hero boyfriends that are bisexual.

Speaking of being bi... He thinks Bart is really cool and is the BEST if you know what I mean...

"He's really great!"

Preston is 10/10 a GREAT civilian friend and I miss him dearly.

Thaddeus Thawne

To read him at his best and most interesting read Impulse issues #51-#53 and the entire Mercury Falling arc #62-#66.

Thad's history with Bart is complicated. Thus far in the comics he is firmly on the side of villain/nemesis (and an extremely successful one). Regardless of no matter how much he should have had redemption, or how much one was already set up.

He's a clone of Bart and fulfills the "evil twin" trope. He was created first and foremost to be a weapon and an agent of misery to fuel nihilistic spite and hatred. It's complicated, and the short-hand version of it is the Thawne line is entrenched in a one-sided blood feud with the Allen line for overall petty comic reasons that are justifiable to them.

Thad had no say in this and did not even know there was another option... Until the Mercury Falling arc where he got a taste of something he never had while impersonating Bart... love.

Thad in particular bonded with Helen and described her as "so full of warmth" and as a person who loved him, and as someone who he genuinely liked. Thad also felt love from Max and was strongly swayed away from his "task" just by experiencing their love as well as Bart's friends' love.

Unfortunately...

"Condemning those who condemned him to this and solitary single-minded existence!" - That alone was the launch into a redemption arc, but no we can't have fucking nice things.

In a perfect world Thad would have come back. Max would be willing to accept to him back and he did offer to take him in when he learned that Thad had been impersonating Bart all along. There would be a little tension, some acclimating, and an entire issue could center around Bart and Thad finally trusting each other after mutually sucking to communicate or something.

We... did not get this.

His interest and character development plummets after Mercury Falling, and his highlights afterwards include successfully murdering Bart, and then suffering a fate worse than death via Wally who took all his speed and turned him into a living statue reminding everyone that the Flash Family is more like the Flash Mafia and you don't fuck with them.

So that is a rundown of these two and where to read about them Preston is in so many issues it's hard to pinpoint single issues but Thad's "run" is easier to single in on.

I am so very glad you enjoyed them in my fic.

They are going to be just fine together.

#thad thawne #thaddeus thawne #preston lindsay #bart allen #flashfam #sunshine. falling.#my mess of a drawer fic #thad/preston #tagging it as that for categorical reasons

92 notes · View notes

antiloreolympus · 3 years ago

Text

11 Anti LO Asks

1. I don't get it, weren't the fans praising Persephone for wanting to own up to her crimes and saying she deserves any punishment she receives? Why are they now upset she got a temporary punishment that isn't even different from her life pre-uni? Why is Persephone upset too? It's not forever. It's almost as if the fans only care about the aesthetics of looking morally "good" while they really wanted her to get away with murder, and Persephone is a bad person who lied to keep up her nice facade.

2. I legit do not get why LO fans act as if it's some personal affront when people don't like it and even critique it. How self centered if their worldview to think everyone has to obsessively love and praise what they like? What reality are they living in where this is a thing? Get a grip, kids, you're not important and people not liking what you do is not a personal insult, it's just life.

3. LO would probably be better handled if it was put under an age restriction like more mature romances and other comics are, but WT and Rachel would never allow it because then they can't market it as YA and get the biggest draw of tweens and teens to spend their parents' money on it, so now LO is left w/ trying to be tween friendly while also trying to do serious topics with all the nuance of "bullying is bad >:(" but instead of bullying it's being critical of rich mass murdering slave owners 🤔

4. how does rachel have at bare minimum four people working on LO and it only looks worse?? like is it because they arent paid well, is the pay as low as the effort theyre expected to do. i dont care how much thhe fans are obsessed with it they seriously cant think this looks better??

5. What's going to preemptively anger me is that with IRL people I know, r/aita, and even tumblr anecdotes, giving a teen time away from a grown man for a long enough period of time usually results in the teen going, "wow, that was actually fucked up. thank you for stopping that disaster." Yet I KNOW that in LO, Persephone's probably gonna have her love grow by tenfold and miss her dearly totally-not-creepy beloved.

From OP: On a side note, I hate when fans try to justify the age gap by saying “it’s normal” or “perfectly fine since they’re adults” when most people (especially from tumblr, reddit, and just people irl) find it weird as hell and very questionable on the older person’s end. It’s just a blatant lie to try and justify this creepy dynamic.

6. introducing a major villain with no actual build up or reason for them to be in the plot right before a season finale is, no matter how you cut it, bad writing, and that's only one of several poorly planned and executed writing in this thing.

From OP: Yeah, even Apollo had some kind of foreshadowing. The only thing that hinted at Eris was an old tumblr ask from RS (Before LO became an original, RS said something about Eris and Hades having a bad date but that’s probably retconed) and Hera’s line to Hebe about getting her sister. With the sister thing, it’s too vague to pinpoint on Eris since she could also be Nyx’s daughter.

7. ok now LO fans are just lying and saying it was "always supposed to be a dark story" and people who are calling out it didn't develop these aspects well and it should have stuck to its original lighter tone "cant see context clues" like?? yes it did have SA shown early on ... which was IMMEDIATELY dropped and had rachel right way go into making puns! even persephone admitting she killed a village was framed with fart jokes and forced romcom flirting! how is that being a "dark and serious" story?

8. Rachel Smythe seems to have taken a weird approach to making HxP sympathetic? Like, I feel like she's trying to make the infinitely threatening villains more infinitely threatening as a way to make it seem like the rich, straight, cis, white coded deities in the story are the underdogs. The classism almost seems to come from her being too concerned about the image of rich people. Which, come to think of it, actually makes a lot of sense.

9. Even if we get Perse aow "justified" by Eris blessing it still doesn't mean she is innocent. She knew for a very long time that there is something "wrong" with her and she may be dangerous to others but she did nothing with it. Even now after everything that happened she still let that feeling affect her and didn't tell anyone beside Hades who equally doesn't care she may hurt someone again. Her wrath may be not her fault but her actions are

10. Part of me wonders if RS actually took any writing classes or even... just did basic research about how to write cohesive stories? The plot and timeline of LO is all over the place and it includes a lot of unnecessary scenes with characters who don't have a large bearing on the plot (like that whole subplot with Eros and Psyche, Thanatos and Daphne, that flashback with Persephone and the yellow war god who's name I can't remember. Like what was the point of that flashback? She could have just told us they'd met before and left it at that). Even just stuff that could have taken much less time than it did, such as those Medusa ladies spying, that dinner with HxP, Hera, and Zeus, or Hades taking the photographer's eye out.

I just always found the story very confusing to read. I've taken writing classes for my novels before and LO follows none of the guidelines for good writing.

11. I'm just upset that RS chose to make Persephone a young, impressionable literal teenager when she could have made Persephone an older, elegant goddess with years of knowledge and experience about how her world works. Like, if she wanted the r*pe subplot so badly, it could have been set up as Persephone deliberately avoiding Apollo/trying to expose him throughout the story, whilst the readers and Hades try to piece together what happened between them in the past before it's actually revealed. It also would have eliminated the gross age gape and Persephone acting like a child, etc. While we're at it, we could probably just take out that whole uncomfortable, unnecessary subplot where Apollo takes those photos.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lo #anti lore olympus

60 notes · View notes

justalittlebluetiefling · 4 years ago

Note

I feel like the campaign is wrapping up to a close, but I can’t tell if it’s in a Thordak to One Year Later vibe or a final chapter-epilogue vibe. How much longer do you think we have with campaign 2?

I have three (including yours) asks about this!! Here are the other two from a couple anons:

Unfortunately it really seems like we are in the last arc of C2. While I respect their decision to end their campaign when they want to, I can't help but feel like leaving the Trent and Ukotoa plots unresolved to be unfulfilling. I don't think one shots of those plots will be fulfilling either, as they will have to pack in so much into one episode. I just wish we got to see them resolved properly.

Hello hello, genuinely curious how you feel now that, the latest 2 episodes confirmed C2 coming to a close "sometime" this year (maybe end of Summer? Or early fall? That's my thoughts anyways on time), I know you expressed your feelings prior, but now that this is the second time it has come up live in the last 2 weeks, I wonder how you feel specifically after such a fun episode this week. I know many have different feelings about it, and while I myself am bummed in some ways, the cast and Matt look like they are having fun and enjoying themselves and if this is the last "arc" they want well, it's their story and I just hope C3 is as fun of a ride as C2 has been IMO.

So, my answer is still sort of the same as it was last time. Or maybe I've just been thinking this in my head and haven't said it out loud yet. I think it's likely that the campaign will probably be wrapping up sometime this year.

Obviously I'll be fine with their decision if they decide that whatever this is with Lucien wraps up their campaign. The thing is, we do still have two big storylines left outstanding that are a little bit too big for oneshots: Fjord/Sabian/Uk'otoa & Caleb/Trent. And I know that there are a bunch of you yelling at me right now about other characters and their backstories. But hear me out.

We're getting a Yasha origins comic this summer. The likelihood of her backstory being addressed in campaign is lower imo because of that.

Caduceus and the Savalirwood and Molaesmyr is the bit I'm the most anxious to see right now, but I bet that could be a one- or two-shot.

Everyone else has addressed their stuff.

Anyway... I'm hoping that they pick up with Fjord and Sabian and then Caleb and Trent before calling it quits on the campaign, but ultimately it's up to them. It's possible that they need to get out of the city now that Lucien has switched things up and do some more research, which could lead to downtime and dealing with the remaining loose ends. But I mean, between those two (maybe three, if we're including Cad), I bet those stories could all be wrapped up in about 4 months worth of sessions. Which would leave a few for whatever finale event and possibly have us ending campaign two in October or November, barring any breaks they need to take.

But I bet 2022 is the year of campaign three and it will absolutely be as entertaining, but I will miss the Nein dearly. I love them more than Vox Machina at this point, which I didn't think was possible, so I just plug my ears and pretend I don't hear Matt when he says things about the ending. But when he says that they're getting near the end, we should also remember that we're three and a half years in at this point. Which means the beginning and middle have taken that long. The "end" is possibly farther away than everyone is thinking.

#critical role #the mighty nein #cr spoilers #spoilers adjacent #its-a-me-disaster #anonymous

75 notes · View notes

miss-choco-chips · 4 years ago

Text

Bird Watchers

It was something like an open secret in Gotham, that even though all it’s heroes were open to help no matter the situation, each one of them had a special affinity to certain matters.

For example, children from all districts knew to yell for Nightwing if they found themselves lost and scared. Small business owners often painted little Oracle symbols on their doorsteps, to warn away possible thieves with the knowledge that Gotham’s cryptic hacker had their eye on them. Working girls would send a quick prayer to the Red Hood before seeing their seediest clients; and as such, knew who to call for if things took a turn for the worst.

And Red Robin… well. His was a very specific bunch.

---.---

Warnings: depression, suicide attempts, overdose comic-typical violence (discussed, not explicit). Hurt-comfort all the way, baby. There’s also one scene, with the redhead, that I copied from the comics.

(it’s almost 2 am, I wrote half of this in one go, don’t @ me for mistakes. I’ll edit tomorrow. Maybe.)

---.---

The first time he stopped a suicide, he had just turned thirteen. The suit still felt wrong, too loose in all the places where Jason’s bigger presence would have been a better fit. Too small, too brainy, not brash enough, not good enough.

He would never think himself worthy, but he was all Batman had. There were no other candidates, not ones he could have thrown the job at without risking Bruce’s identity, so he’d have to make do.

But even so, he had been gaining a little confidence over the past few months. His training with Shiva, and Dick’s and Bruce’s focus on making him as ready for the streets as humanly possible, had ensured he never encountered a situation where he couldn’t handle himself, or get back up in time to avoid any casualties.

Except for right now.

“Hey! Don’t do it, please!”

Yeah, maybe yelling at the man precariously balanced on the edge of a how many feet tall building wasn’t his wisest moment. He’d berate himself later. Now was freak out time.

Said man stumbled for a second before regaining his footing and turning to look at Tim. He couldn’t be more than forty, with a bit of an overgrown beard and tired eyes. He had something clutched in one hand, tanned and calloused from work, the other over his chest, probably due to the scare of having a bat suddenly appearing behind him.

“R-Robin…”, he gasped, shook out of whatever reverie he was going through for a second. “W-what… I mean, why are you…?”

‘Okay, Tim, breath. Can’t call B, he’ll notice, get startled and jump. Can I catch him if he does? My grappling hook is made to withstand more than my weight, but if I can’t handle the strain of swinging us both to safety…’

He couldn't risk it.

“Good evening, Mr…?”

Surprise and good manners made the man automatically answer, “Ed. Ed Harrinson.”

Encouraged, Tim took a tiny teeny step forward. Ed’s entire body shock and he leaned backwards. Tim froze, fear keeping his breathing and heartbeat hostages for the time being, stopping the first and kick starting the second.

“Mr Harrinson, I’d like to ask you to step away from the edge? I’ll call an ambulance for you, and…”

“No!”, the man screamed, suddenly over his surprise, a look of determination trying to masquerade his obvious exhaustion. “If you call an’one, I’ll jump.”

Tim wisely kept the ‘you were gonna do it anyway’ to himself. He nodded slowly, hands emerging from the confines of his cape to show Mr Harrinson the lack of a communication device.

“I won’t, then, but may I come closer? Please?”

It was on the last word, high pitched and wavering, that the man cracked. With wary demeanor, he waved him over, pointing to a patch of rooftop a little far but close enough for Tim to feel comfortable- or as comfortable as he’d get, in these circumstances.

As he approached, he could feel the man analyzing him. The little gasp when he stood by his side didn’t go unnoticed.

“You are… smaller than I imag’ned. Too small for a bat. My boy’s taller than you” he mused, likely to himself, but Tim grasped onto that bit of information and clutched at it with both hands, desperately.

“I’m short compared to my peers, so maybe I’m the same age as your son. How old is he?”, he asked, in his most conversational tone. Fear still had a grasp over both his lungs and heart.

Something in the man’s face shifted.

“He… he just turned fifteen.” Older than Tim, then. Ed continued, “He’s… ”, in a second, the sadness was replaced by pride, “he’s grown up p’tty well, if I say so m’self. A fine young man, that kid. He’ll go places.”

For a beat, Tim tried to imagine his own dad here. As much as he’d hate to see Jack in Mr Harrinson’s place, he couldn't help but wonder if he’d be talking about him the same way Ed spoke about his son.

He… didn’t think so. If on the verge of death, thoughts about his son would probably be the farthest from his dad’s mind.

“You sound like you love him very much. He’s a lucky guy” he said sincerely, a tendril of hopefulness still twisted around his stomach. His hands weren’t shaking any longer, finding solace in the fact that the man in front of him didn’t look like he was about to jump right that second.

Mr Harrinson’s face fell.

“Got served an’ unlucky hand, with an old man like me”, his eyes went back to the abyss, to the empty, poor litten streets below them. “Go ‘way, kid. Leave m’ be. Notta business what I do. Gotta do this f’r my kid.”

Fear came back, full force.

“I- Sorry, but I can’t help but think about your son”, he blurted out, the only bit of information he had about the man was his only tendril of hope. “Someone who loves his child as much as you seem to must be a good father. A father that… would be missed dearly, if lost so young.”

Mr Harrinson looked even more devastated. Tim was doing this all wrong, wasn’t he?

“There’s no other way t’ keep’im safe!'' he yelled, and for a minute Tim thought he had decided to jump then and there. Instead, he dropped to his knees, hands to his head, paper still clutched in one fist. “They’ll get to him if I don’t! Once I’m dead, they’ll just leave’im alone!”

Tim crouched next to him, tentative.

“Who is ‘they’, sir? Maybe I could help…”

Ed was already shaking his head.

“Nay, they said not to go to the bats. Kill my boy, they will, if I do. Seen them offing others for less, so I believe them.”

“Ah, but I’m too short to be a bat, am I not?” he smiled, wobbly at best but sincere. “Besides, who’s gonna tell them you spoke to me? I”, he gestured to his mask, “know how to keep a secret.”

He considered for a beat, before tired shoulders fell, defeated. He offered the slip of paper towards him, unseeing eyes on the street below.

Robin read the note carefully, noting the sloppy penmanship and cheap paper as well as the message itself.

“Mr Harrinson…”

“I know”, he whispered, “I know working for the Black Mask wasn’t my best idea. But m’boy needed to eat, and the landlord was gettin’ impatient. And now, for whatever reason, boss wants me dead. And if I make ‘im dirty his own hands, he’ll dirty ‘em twice and send me with my son for company to the other side. Felix is too young, and he’s good. Can’t let ‘im pay f’ his old man m’stakes, ya hear me?”

Tim thought his words over carefully.

“Mr Harrinson… I don’t think this comes from Black Mask himself”, for one, Blackie wasn’t one to avoid blood on his gloves, nor to send such a shitty note. The man lived for the drama, like most A-listers did, and he’d never forgo the aesthetic of an expensive peachment and beautifully worded threat. Also, if he wanted this man gone, he would have put a bullet in his head the second he clocked in; and if it were revenge he was after, he wouldn't have gotten a warning note but his son’s head sent to him instead.

He folded the paper and put it into one of his multiple pockets, free hand going to the man’s shoulder.

“I know Black Mask’s M.O, mister, and this is not it”, no need to spook him further by describing what it was, though. “Probably just a colleague who wanted your position, or has a grudge for whatever reason. And that, I can help you with. If you work with me on this one, we can both make sure Felix has his Dad making breakfast for him tomorrow morning, and all the days after that. After all”, he smiled, no longer uncertain now that he had firm ground to work with, “your son is going places, and he’ll have to be well fed to reach them, right?”

Mr Harrinson’s smile must have had magical properties, Tim thought. There was no other explanation for the way it returned his breath back to his body.

---.----

The next time he saw a jumper, a few months later, he was slightly more ready for it. Bruce had congratulated him on his work with Mr Harrinson, and the subsequent raid they could make on one of Black Mask’s warehouses thanks to the man’s information, but Tim hadn’t been satisfied until he had read every single mission report on the batcomputer about attempted suicides. And succeed ones, too. Need to know what went well and what didn’t, after all.

So when he saw the fifty-something woman crying on top of a tower in City Hall District, he didn’t almost-crash in his attempt to get there in time. He landed softly, making just enough noise to let her know she wasn’t alone, but careful to not startle her.

“It’s a little cold up here, Lady. If you’d like, I can walk you home?”, he tries for cheeky, despite the cold fear nesting in his stomach like a grumpy, spiteful bird.

The woman, sitting by the edge, turned her head to look at him. The movement called attention to her long, strawberry blonde hair, neatly braided, and her pretty diamond earrings. The face under her perfect make up was gaunt and pale, tear tracks cleaning paths of skin to his trained eye.

Despite him interrupting what probably were very private thoughts, she smiled at his approach, kind and polite. It didn’t reach her eyes, but the intent to put him at ease was generous enough.

“I may be a lady, but any adult worth their salt would insist on walking the young child home, instead of the opposite. Besides”, she patted the rooftop under her,” I live here, so it’s not a long walk at all.”

Tim stepped closer, carefully.

“May I sit?”

“I could use the company for a bit”, she accepted, head turning back to the city below.

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, before Tim’s soft voice broke it again.

“Is there anything I can do to help convince you not to do it? Please?”

The lady smiled. “You are a very sweet boy.”

“That’s… not an answer. Can I at least know why?”

“Won’t it torment you, in the future, if we speak now?”, she asked a question of her own, turning to face him again. Despite her words, there was nothing but kindness in those deep green eyes. “If you don’t know me, I’m just another one who jumped. If we talk, I’m afraid I might stay with you long after I’m gone. You are too young for that kind of weight.”

Tim swallowed.

“That’s easily solved, Miss;”, Dick’s rule of thumb; if unsure, always call a lady Miss before Mrs “don’t do it.”

She spared him a long, meaningful look, and he slumped over.

“Not my best, I know, but I’m kinda freaking out now?” She wasn’t like Mr Harrinson, no motive he could see, no strand to pull and unravel her pain. “Please, just… why?”

She patted one of the hands gripping his own knee. His other hand rushed over hers, sandwiching her cold, slim fingers between his gloved palms.

“There’s nothing left for me. I have a nice job, live in a pretty side of town, have friends, and still… it feels so empty. So… Meaningless. Why even bother?”

Tim chewed on her words silently. He was way out of his depth. A tangible, physical problem? He could solve those, no biggie.

Depression, though… that was a different giant to tackle. Was he even prepared enough to?

A strong gust of wind made the lady with braided hair shiver. Without thought, Tim unclasped his cape and draped it over her slim shoulders.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, head tilted like a curious woodland animal. Tim felt strongly protective of her, of this kind, sweet lady, who said she had it all, except the one thing that mattered to her.

“I’m used to it”, he shrugged. “This suit is very warm, but cold air often trickles down from the neckline and… well. Gigs of the job and all that.”

The lady tutted, frowning for the first time since Tim arrived.

“That won’t do, young man. You need a scarf. The nights will only get colder from now on.”

He shrugged again.

“I just… don’t have the time to buy one. And I had one, but… There’s these kids who often hang out by the park, and they were so cold, I just couldn't swing by and ignore them. So I gave them my scarf to share between them. I’m just kinda bummed that I don’t have more to make sure they all stay warm.”

The braided haired lady hummed for a second.

“Well… I knit”, she started, carefully. “I don’t have children or grandchildren to give my final products to, so they’ll go to waste after I’m gone. If you’d take them out of my hands, you’ll do me a favor.”

Tim wanted to say no, unwilling to make this any easier for her, but the chance of getting her away from the edge was enough to quell his voice.

She went and came back within minutes, a big cardboard box balanced over her shaky arms. He rose to help her, meeting the woman halfway through the roof, a good distance away from the abyss.

“This red one would look good with your suit… oh, and the green one, to keep with the theme! Or maybe the yellow one… Shame pink would be such a bad fit for your colors, because that wool is the best I worked with…”

Tim’s hand carefully took said carf out and looked it over. There were about six others in the box.

“I could take this to those kids I mentioned before… It’d still not be enough for all, but more to share between them means less cold.”

She hummed again, looking at the unfinished projects on the bottom of the box.

“If… If you give me a few days…” she muttered. “I mean, I’m in no rush”, a hand vaguely gestured towards the rooftop’s edge. “I could spare a few days finishing those, and you could take them to these kids you spoke about… and maybe, I can help make a few children less cold with this silly hobby of mine.”

Elated beyond words, Tim nodded vigorously, waxing poetry about her work and about just how excited little Ellie would be with this soft, pretty pink scarf.

His patrol route could use a few detours, after all, if that meant keeping Braided Hair Lady away from her roof.

---.----

He was just returning from a late supply run when he bumped into The Cats.

It was in an alleyway, a block off from Mrs Eloise Denvarow (formerly known as Braided Hair Lady). The older woman had caved after three months knowing each other, of Tim passing by her apartment once every other night to pick up her baked goods or knitted masterpieces, to distribute between street kids and working girls, and told him her name. It was said in passing (“Stop with that ‘Lady’ thing, honey. It’s Eloise”), as if lacking importance, when in reality it meant the world to him. Sure, he’d already known, having run a background check on her the minute he came back to the cave after stopping her from jumping, but there was that implicit vow between them, that she wouldn't tell him her name and jump, wouldn’t make him carry its weight on his shoulders forever, so it was… it was a promise, on her end, a reassurance, and Tim wasn’t even embarrassed that he cried in her arms like a baby for ten minutes.

So here he was, a month after that, still riding that high, when the desperate call from below caught his attention.

There were two teens on the dirty ground, nested among cracked bottles and old newspapers. The girl was lying in the boy’s arms, with him screaming for help.

“Robin! Thank fuck!”, he almost sobs, arms visibly tightening around the girl. Tim wants to ask how he knew to call for him, and if the proximity to Mrs Denvarow’s place was luck or not.

But it wasn’t the time to ask.

The girl was pale, which only highlighted the bruises on her face. Someone with a big fist punched her. It doesn't seem likely, considering just how distraught the other kid is, but he checks his hands just in case; fortunately, too small for that kind of damage.

She’s also breathing erratically and, when he puts a gloved hand to her neck, he realizes just how crazy her pulse is.

Fear Toxin? Except Scarecrow is still in Arkham as far as he knows, and even if he had gotten away recently, he needs time to develop his precious chemicals. Joker’s Venom and Mad’s Hatter drugs don’t have quite this results, and Ivy doesn’t usually attack street girls just for kicks; they are also too far from her usual turf for her to be a viable suspect.

So, that leaves very few choices.

“Overdose?”, he ventures a guess, hand already fumbling through the pockets on his belt.

The other boy sobs harder, nodding while looking down at the girl in his arms. Tim gently takes the girl from him to position her straighter, to help her down the vial he finally found in his belt. It was supposed to help flush out any chemical in a few minutes, tops; they usually used it when a new type of Crazy Criminal Drug made its way to the streets and they didn’t have the time to properly prepare an antidote. It was strong, and vicious in its path to devoid the body of any and all external agents, which was why it wasn’t a preferred method; who’s to say the civilian in need of a flush isn’t in some important medicine? The Big Flush, as Dick calls it, lacked any kind of finesse or discrimination.

But it was their best shot right now, so there goes nothing.

There’s silence while they watch the girl’s progress. He doesn’t bother asking if he called for an ambulance; they are obviously minors, probably homeless, and even if the Wayne Foundation takes care of children’s hospital fees, they’d avoid it to keep themselves out of the foster system.

But then, the kid kept talking.

“I… I found her near Grant Park. I… I didn’t know what to do, so I dragged her here. She/” and then he breaks again, hands grasping one of hers, as if letting go meant he was giving up on her and he couldn't bear it.

“Grant Park is only five blocks away,” Tim thinks out loud, mind already a mile away “and Moench’s Row illicit night clinic is about the same distance from there as this place. Why did you bring her here?”

“She… Alley… Oh, her name’s Allison, by the way. And I’m Thomas. Tom.” Introductions, miraculously, seem to do the trick here and calm him down. “Nice to meetcha.”

Tim’s not deterred by his toothy grin, but he has to admit he’s kinda cute. Like, stray cat cute.

Huh. Alley, Tom, cat… Yeah, that checks.

“What happened with Allison?” he presses softly, one arm still keeping Alley up and against his chest, the other hand on her pulse point, taking note of the way the heartbeat seems to be stabilizing. The puking fest was gonna start soon.

“She… It was on purpose.” Tom confesses, eyes going clouded for a while. “She tries to not be home, yknow? I met her in kindergarten, and even then she’d try to hide behind the teacher’s desk in hopes they’d forget about her and close the building with her inside. Anyway, we pretty much live on the streets these days, and Alley… she’s very depressed. I convinced her to see someone a while ago, even stol/ I mean, earned the money for it myself”, he’s quick to correct, eyes glancing up to see if he was smooth enough to cover it; which he wasn’t, but Tim was in favor of letting that small one go, “and they gave her a prescription for antidepressants. She’s been kicking it down the road, but she’s gotten a lot worse and I wouldn't lay off her case about it, so she sneaked back home to get some money from her folks to pay for it.”

By the way the kid looks at her bruised face with unmeasurable guilt, Tim knows she didn’t go unnoticed.

“And… I don’t know. We were supposed to meet up by the Commerce Street Highway, but she was late, so I walked around for a bit and… I saw her there, on a bench. She was/ she was still conscious then, and she told me… she said ‘these aren’t what the doc gave me, but they took the pain away all the same’.” Again, Tom chokes on his own emotions. If he had any free hands, he’d try to put one on his shoulder for comfort. “I don’t even know what she took, or where did she get it from!”

Tim has heard whispers of loan sharks and drug dealres camping toghter by the Fashion Distric, just north of Grant Park, so he can make an informed guess as to how that happened. Also, he now knows what he’ll do the rest of the night, once these kids are safe.

When Tom has gotten a grasp of himself, he pushes again.

“So, why did you bring her here?”

He shrugs, a bit abashed.

“Well… I mean, everyone knows about how Mrs Denvarow is the one giving clothes and food away, and that you help her distribute it. Well, not everyone, but… you know, the street kids. We flagged her building with a yellow skull and everything.”

A yellow skull grafitti, Tim’s mind translates, is the street equivalent of a ‘don’t fuck with this place’ sing. A sort of protective sigil. He wonders how he missed it.

“And… This is kind of your thing, right? So I figured you’d be better prepared to deal with it than some overworked clinic that might even not have enough free equipment to help us. Good think I did, too” he gestures at his friend, whose face is now looking flushed; a sign both of growing health, and of the upcoming puke. Tim’s quick to turn her so her back is to his chest, head tilted down just in case.

As if rehearsed, Alley chose that exact second to empty the contents of her now flushed stomach. Tim would need a sample of that, to catch the responsible dealer.

Tom held her hair away from her face while Tim kept her steady, and she blinked bearily at them after it was done, still not completely lucid but a world away from the girl she was ten minutes ago.

“She’ll still need a hospital.'' Tim informs Tom sternly. The boy had taken his friend in his arms again, softly rubbing her back to help with the uncomfortable ache leftover after puking your guts out. “The Moench’s Row clinic should be able to help with any side effect, but she’s safe for now.”

He nods, thanks Tim again and again and politely refuses his help to take her to the clinic. They part ways, both parties probably thinking this would be the last time they saw each other.

Still, their situation sticks with Tim during the rest of his patrol, and he decides to stop by the clinic, just to check on them. His knuckles still ache from the absolute beating he delivered to the ones who gave Alley the money and sold her the drugs, so he’s in better spirits and hopes to spread it to the kids.

Alley is awake when he visits, and her shy, little smile is enough for the rage inside of Tim to die down. The bad guys dealt with, the civilians safe, everything in its proper place.

He sleeps a bit better that night.

---.----

He almost doesn’t see him.

Actually, he probably wouldn't have, deeply lost into his own head, had the guy been anything other than a redhead. That exact shade of orangy-brown auburn, that he would have to pick up from his workbench at Titan’s tower after Bart had decided to ‘keep him company’ during his all-nighters.

It was ironic, how now he would give anything in the world to have those same strands of hair fucking up his experiments, if only for the impish, ‘please-don’t-kill-me-I’m-an-angel’ smile he would receive in exchange.

“Hey”, he greets, landing softly at the man’s right, sitting a few feet away from him, too tired to even stand up on common ground. “What’s happening?”

He shouldn’t be doing this. He really, really shouldn’t. His own mental health was less than stellar, and even thinking about it made him feel worse. He didn’t deserve to feel bad, not when civilians were in the hospital after his latest fuck up, Cass was missing, Cassie barely hanging in there, the family a mess with Damian’s lovely introduction, and… well. Every other person he knew…

Point being, there must be someone else, in a better inner place, that could speak to this guy. But since no one seemed to be patrolling this route, Tim could only hope to stall him long enough for a more capable vigilante to show up.

The guy looks startled, then angry. He has green eyes, he notices, under the glasses. Not sure why that sticks to him.

“What are you doing here? You’re not going to try to stop me, are you? You’re not going to swing down and catch me in mid air or something, are you?”

He seems defensive, but Tim notices a bit of hesitancy. He has worked with less.

(He wishes he had more energy to do more with what little he has)

“No. If I did, what’s to stop you from doing it again later, or tomorrow? I can’t be with you every second. If you want to do this, you are going to, no matter how much I don’t want you to. And I don’t want you to, just so we are clear.”

The guy still looks suspicious, but he hasn’t taken that last step forward, so… a win?

“I just needed to sit down for a minute. ‘been thinking about all the ways I’ve screwed up lately, and…”

Auburn-hair deflates a little, turning away from Tim to examine the night sky. “Well, that makes two of us.”

The bat signal lights up the night. His newfound companion looks at it, then him. “Do you need to get that?”

“Nah. Batman will, and if he needs help he’ll call me.” Tim shrugs. He needs a coffee-power-up. He needs to sleep. He needs for his loved ones to not be dead.

He needs to see if there’s anything he can do for this guy.

“So, do you want to tell me why you’re doing this? So someone can go to your family and friends to let them know?”

After all, if it was him who did it (and… wasn’t that food for thought?), he’d like Bruce and Dick to know why. To not… to not blame themselves.

Redhead looks annoyed again. Uh. A short fuse, this one.

“Don’t try any psychology, or try to make me feel guilty about hurting anyone… this isn't about anyone but me.”

He shouldn’t say it, but… “That’s pretty naive, but whatever. Tell me anyway.” He smirks a bit, then “Unless you’re in a hurry or something.”

He hears the guy (he really should ask his name) as he tells his story. A cold, clinical part of his mind recognizes the symptoms described almost unconsciously by the guy as depression. He would know, after all. The other part of him, the part that made him Robin, that made him human, discarded the label; there was much more to this guy than his illness, and he would treat him like it.

“So here I am,” he finishes, now sitting side by side with Tim, both their legs hanging above the bustling city. “Now’s when you tell me how stupid this is. That other people have much bigger problems, there’s hunger and war, and I’m weak because my problems are nothing next to stuff like that.”

Tim thinks of a father, desperately thinking his death would save his son’s life, when in fact it would have only made it worse. He thinks of a woman, so full of love and warmth, looking into the abyss and feeling empty inside. He thinks of a couple of kids, one hanging to life with nails and teeth, the other hanging to her just as fiercely.

He thinks about himself. About looking at a future version of himself, hating what he sees, and deciding to drown the bud before it can even flower. He thinks of sickly green water, of cloning equipment in a laboratory, of a phone falling to the ground after delivering him with more bad news.

He’s still in a bad place, still probably not the most capable person to be doing this, but a part of him is sure this is the right answer. The only answer.

“No. Your problems are worse than anyone else’s, because they are yours. I’ve... felt bad like you have, and some pretty bad things have happened to me.”

Red hair looks as tired as Tim feels, so it’s a surprise that he has enough energy to glance at him worriedly, hand stretching a bit in his direction in a half-formed attempt to comfort.

“You guys make it look so easy, swinging around, having fun… Things get bad for you, too?”

Tim looks down, and smiles. It’s a sad, bitter thing. He thinks about parents lost before ever connecting to them, about a girlfriend going away, a sister lost to the madness of their lives, about two best friends gone, one even dying in his arms.

He gives no details. Doesn’t talk about it all, just shares a little bit of himself. It’s only fair, after hearing about this guy’s demons. Misery loves company, doesn’t it?

“So what do you do? How do you deal with it?” the guy asks when he’s done, looking at Tim by the corner of his not-very-dry eyes.

Tim forces himself to remember. “One of the things I’ve learned is that it gets bad for everyone sometimes, Superman, Batman… everyone. I remember that I’m not alone, that things do get better. Sometimes on their own, most times when you work at them. And when I have trouble remembering those things, I find people to talk to.”

Most of those were dead, but Tim is hit with the epiphany that not all of them are. He still has people. He still…

“And you’ve got people like that? That you can talk to?” asks the guy, tone both worried and hopeful. Tim stands up, does his best to look calm.

“Yeah. Your folks, and old friend, even a trained counselor you’ve never met before… someone who has a totally different perspective because they’re not as close to your problems as you are. Maybe they give you advice, and that’s great… or maybe they just listen. Sometimes, that’s all you need. Anyway, that’s how I deal with it when things suck. And it works. Want to come down from there and give it a try?”

The guy gets back to his feet, as Tim watches from behind. Having been in this situation before, the fear grabbing a hold of him isn’t new, but it's different. He thinks he's too worn down. It takes the edge off of any emotion.

Except hope. Hope still hurts like a sharp knife when it’s snatched away. He prays it won’t be, right now.

Green eyes (Jason- that’s who they reminded him of) look down, deep in thought. Then he turns, smiles at Tim. There’s hope in him too.

“Yeah, why not?”

They get down together. He gives him a few numbers and they have breakfast together. The guy promises to call his English teacher, at least. Tim promises himself to call his brother.

At least, he still has Dick.

---.----

He’s been putting off doing his rounds since he came back, he knows. But…

It changed him, a bit. Going around the world, dealing with his grief while staying on his toes, ready to break down one second and having to field off attacks from all sides the next, with the Demon’s honeyed whispers echoing in his ear and mind.

He’ll never tell anyone, just how tempting it had been. How much he had wanted to reach for that offered hand. To lay his head on someone’s shoulder and let the responsibility bleed from his.

Tim will never tell anyone, but he’ll always know. And it’ll always make him hate himself a little bit more.

So, he’s different now. And he’s scared- that the people he gave hope to, that he talked with, that he could never stop thinking about, even halfway across the world- that they won’t like this new, worn down him.

That Mr Harrinson the Good Father, Braided Hair Lady and her sweaters, the inseparable Stray Cats, the girl with the bright yellow cardigan, the kid with the scarred wrists, the woman with beautiful star-like freckles that she’ll hopefully pass on to her baby, the gentle giant man with calloused hands, the petite but fierce young teen with defiant eyes and dead name, the soft spoken girl with the loudest laugh, auburn-haired boy and his hopeful and sympathetic green eyes… and so, so many more. They all knew him, maybe not at his best, but certainly better than now. The boy that kept them from jumping had been a bright, magical Robin. The teen that came back to their city was dark, weary Red Robin. It felt kinda like he had cheated them, returning this broken version of himself to their doorsteps.

But he had to go check on all of them. Even if Cass (and it was such a relief, that even after he lost everything else, the return of his sister could at least be a speck of light in the mist of misery surrounding him) had promised to do so, there were so many of them… and she couldn't possibly remember everyone, all the time. And if anyone had fallen through the gaps… if anyone had stood on a rooftop, waiting for their Robin to save them, only to think ‘nobody cares’ as he didn’t show up…

Tim gets sick only thinking about it. If it did happen, then he needs to know. He has to carry their names with him, that’s the least he can do for failing them.

So he’ll go check on them… anytime now. Soon. The moment he gathers enough energy to climb back to his feet and get his grapple hook out.

...The city looks full of life, beneath him. Like it feels the return of its Knight. The end of the internal quarrel among it’s vigilantes, that almost tore it all apart. The relief in Nightwing, the hesitant peace in Red Hood, the mellowing of Robin.

(He was feeling poetic tonight, in the worst ways)

Maybe it also feels Red Robin’s emptiness. Maybe that’s why it's so lively down there, like the ground is calling to him, just as it did when Ra’s broke the window with his body.

He thinks... he won’t have to check on anyone, if he jumps. And that way, there will be no name to carry with him to his grave.

“Robin!”

“Stop!”

“Don’t do it, please!”

He startles. Hadn’t even noticed when he got to his feet, nor that one of them was hanging over the abyss. The fact that he wasn’t alone on that rooftop any longer hadn’t even breached his usually perfect spatial awareness.

They didn’t call for him, but the voices sounded distraught, they were close, and he was a former Robin, so he turned around, tired, but with obedience and service too ingrained in him to consider denying help to whoever it was.

It turned out, he wouldn't need to go make his rounds any longer. His rounds had come to him.

There were… too many people on this roof. It was way too crowded.

“Robin!”

It was one voice now, not a mixture of them, so he could identify the one yelling his former alias. Allison broke from the mob of people (and there were more still, filling in from the open rooftop door, like a never-ending stream…) to run to him, looking like she might have just jumped into his arms, if not for Tom clutching her hoodie to stop her a few feet from him. Good move, considering he was still balancing precariously on the edge.

“Alleycat?” he whispered, a little blown. She looked so different (magenta looked amazing on the tips of her hair, and she totally pulled off that lip piercing), but he’d recognize those eyes anywhere. He’d been so relieved, when she first opened them after that dangerous overdose.

“We were so fucking worried, dude”, came from Tomcat just behind her, still gripping her hoodie (still keeping her safe; some things never change).

“I…”

“Where were you?” Maddie, not longer yellow but still wearing a cute cardigan, stepped up too.

“I’m… I’m not Robin”, he blurts out. They… knew it was him? It… like, obviously there was a new Robin, Damian was (still, but probably not for much longer) smaller than him, but to immediately know that he was…

“Yeah, no shit. I’d know that long hair and noodle limbs of yours anywhere, kid. Known you too long to be fooled. And the new kid’s really trigger happy with that lon’nife of his... You’re still the Robin I prefer, and fuck if I understand the name passing you heroes do” Mr Harrinson spoke from the back of the crowd, one hand clutching his kid’s shoulder, the other arm around…

“Braided Hair Lady?”

Eloise smiles at him, soft and warm as ever, a little shy when his eyes go to the arm hugging her close and back to her. He recognizes some of her handmade scarfs around the necks of plenty of people on the roof.

“I… wasn’t aware you all knew each other.”

A petite young teen steps forward, walking until they were shoulder-to-shoulder with the Strays.

“Most of us met through the app, and then introduced the others. There’s more, of course, but not everyone could meet here. Samantha’s baby was born just two months ago, so she chose to stay home, but we promised her pictures, so you’ll have to say cheese soon birdboy. Also, I found my name. I’m Cal.”

Allison’s smile broadened and she sneaked an arm around Cal’s waist.

“They are the new Straycat. Calico cat’s are the cutest shit ever, aren’t they?”

Well… Having someone as badass as Cal watching Tom and Alley’s back would sure make Tim feel a lot better about both kids being out in the streets.

Were they still on the streets? He’d need to find out and fix that, soon.

Then it hit him. “What app?”

Auburn-hair smiled from his place, at the front of the crowd just behind the Cats.

“Felix over there,” he pointed over his shoulder at Mr Harrinson’s son, who smiled shyly at Tim, eyes shining in gratitude and admiration like they always did when Tim did his rounds and checked on his dad, “defended you in a GothamHeroes forum once. Some bratty douchebag was complaining about you landing over his car or something and this kid went for his fucking troath.”

“I was in that chat too,” spoke Tom, smiling a little too savagely for a kid that sweet. “He tore the idiot to shreds, speaking about how you saved his dad’s life and took it upon yourself to make sure he was still okay even weeks after you met. I mentioned how you saved Alley and Mrs Denvarow, we exchanged numbers… then we met Cal during one of our rounds handing out Mrs D’s scarfs and food. They were weary of everyone else, but trusted us because they heard you talk about the clothes and baked goods... And Cal’s friend Gina worked with Samantha on the streets and told them about her story...”

“Soon, it seemed like people personally saved by you were just… popping out of the snow like daisies” Blair laughed, and it was still the loudest, brightest noise. The night seemed a little clearer, the air a little fresher for it. “Felix made his own private chat and added us, and we added everyone else we knew… The word went around about it, and more and more people joined in…”

“It’s really a wonder how you had any time to fight crime, seeing how often you were apparently comforting jumpers on the roofs” Ailbert, still as gigantic and gentle as always, raised a hand from the middle of the group. He had a little girl on his shoulders, probably the baby niece he had taken in after his sister’s death.

“Then the new kid appeared and Gotham went to hell on a basket, and no one saw you around any longer”, Elijah, wrists no more scarred than the last time he saw him, his arm tangled with Maddie’s, went on. “We were… well, we were a bit confused.”

“Speak for yourself, Cal jumped Red Hood one night, held him at knife point and demanded to know what the fuck happened to our Robin. We were like, zero chill.”

“Sorry, they did what?” Tim was definitely in the twilight zone now.

“No thoughts, head empty, only murder”

...Tim needed to give Jason a quick call. Also sign Cal up for anger management. And probably, judging by the way both Alley and Tom were looking at them, get one of the adults to give them the talk.

Mrs Eloise smiled at him, and like always it served to calm his nerves. That woman was a different kind of magic than Alfred, but magic indeed. “Anyway, dear, what matters is that we were worried about you. And then this incredible young man, Aaron,” she waved at him, and he winked one of his green eyes in response, “suggested we kept in closer contact with one another, so anyone who spotted you could inform the others.”

Aaron shrugged, his auburn mane of hair bobbing with the movement. “It just seemed like it’d be easier to have an alarm set up, since messaging everyone would take so long… and then someone suggested making a map of Gotham so we could have clearer routes for the kids handing out Mrs Denvarow’s stuff… and someone wanted a shared blackboard to write theories on where the fuck you were with others… and a few demanded a space to share photos, possible sightings or old selfies with you… It kinda spiralled and I thought it’d be less of a chaotic mess if I made an app that could do all of that, instead of all of us using multiple apps for the different fixtures everyone asked for… Since this is Gotham, we also added some Rouge Alarm for whenever a criminal was set loose. It helped keep us safe, and if we knew when crime was happening, we could pay attention to which heroes answered the call…”

“And then, you fought that firefly guy the other day”, Felix said, still by his dad’s side, still looking as awed as ever when looking at tim. “I was in the crowd, and I recognized you within a minute.”

“I don’t really understand technology that well, and the group chat was such a mess that day” Ailbert lamented, but he was still smiling. They all were.

That hit Tim then, hard.

They all looked so happy to see him. To have him back. They had been waiting for him to be back, banded together to make sure they’d all know when he did.

“You looked so sad the last time we saw you” Blair added softly, sadly. “And… when you saved Aaron, you told him about such sad things…”

Elijah winced “And I heard the Midnighter fell from Wayne Tower a few weeks ago, but then he was never seen around again, and your suit looks kinda similar, so that was probably really you… and, that fall…”

“We were very worried” repeated Eloise, but her eyes didn’t lose their warmth. “But you’re back now, and we can keep track of you and each other now, so it’s all good. It’s wonderful to have you back, love.”

This was an out of body experience.

Something must have shown on his face, because Cal snorted.

“We adore you, you dumbass. You are our hero.”

Alley smiled. “You are our Robin.”

Tim fell into her arms, and away from the roof’s edge. The rest of the crowd was upon them in seconds, all eager to pat his back or joke about the cowl hiding his hair from their hands.

He met eyes with Aaron, over Alley’s shoulder. He looked like the hope Tim had helped plant in his heart all those months ago had flowered, and the petals filled his heart.

(He was feeling poetic tonight, in the best ways)

“You should download the app too, so you always have someone to talk to. Look it up. It’s called BirdWatchers, because we’ll always look up and out for you. Because when we wanted to jump, you lended us your wings to fly instead.”

It was like this fucker wanted Tim to cry.

“Welcome home, Red Robin.”

#My writing #Tim drake #batman fanfic #red robin #trigger warning:#depression #suicide attempts #discussion of suicide #overdose #mental illness #hurt comfort #Tim doing the comfort and being the hurt #until he gets the comfort #happy ending #wholesome #I swear the tags are scary but it IS wholesome #Tim drake centric #my writting

191 notes · View notes

writeblrfantasy · 4 years ago

Text

here it is!

my pride and joy, the piece that has completely hijacked my brain and my life for the past 24 hours. this is the prologue, some might say, to TDOSA, featuring the vibes of an endless, sunny summer, the sense of floating through time and space, and a lot of lesbian yearning and projection, i present: the summer of seret ashling.

cw implied sex, blood

word count around 6300

one time tags of interest @ashen-crest @ettawritesnstudies

tdosa taglist (lmk to be added/removed) magic-is-something-we-create @hysteriwah @imjustalonesomewriteblr @a-forgotten-dusk @bronwennjames @metanoiamorii

Lysandra Fleming’s summer begins like this: a lonely night in Briar Bar, sipping a warm mug of cherry syrup. Not because she is cold—the heat in Vashiri Valley does not begin with summer, nor does it end there. Cherry syrup is vile and bitter and sweet at the same time, made worse warm, but the smooth way it goes down reminds her of childhood, the strange days when she actually liked this stuff.

Not home. She has not had a home since she was a child, when the supposed charm of the palace still worked on her. What were once silky ribbons in her hair became the invisible chains and rules of her parents, tying her down.

Lysandra, you can’t do this, it will reflect badly on us, or Lysandra, you can’t speak to that person, can’t smile at them, can’t see them, don’t you know what they did ten years ago? Don’t you know who their parents are? Vashiri Valley is struggling for power enough without you mucking it up.

Lysandra stopped smiling altogether.

Now, she comes to Briar Bar to be left alone with her cherry syrup, to melt into the crowd, to be normal, for once. Instead, others smile at her the way her parents always encouraged she smile, fake, polite enough, with an ulterior gleam in their eye. So many eyes watch her in want, but she does not feel seen at all by any of them.

The room’s quiet conversation dims and dissolves into whispers, prompting Lysandra to glance over at the reason. The reason is facing away from Lysandra, wearing a tall black hat and a black suit that nearly blends into the darkness of the walls, if not for the white shirt the woman is wearing underneath.

Lysandra didn’t see her come in, and all eyes turn to the tall, dark stranger, wondering the same thing. Her companions across the room point her in Lysandra’s direction, who braces for another meaningless smile, another delighted to meet you, Highness.

The woman turns, and Lysandra sees brown skin, black hair falling in long, loose curls, a subtle, close mouthed smile that draws her attention instantly. Brown eyes meet Lysandra’s green.

“Seret Ashling, my princess.” Seret Ashling leans down, never breaking eye contact, and kisses the top of Lysandra’s hand, holding her fingers delicately, but not like she’s glass. She treats Lysandra like she knows, instantly, her boundaries, how far she can safely push, what Lysandra can take—which is a lot more than most people guess.

Already, Lysandra likes her.

Lysandra is not her princess. She knows the name of every person in this valley, and she knows she’s never even seen Seret before. Even the name is foreign to her. Seh-reht.

That makes it all the better.

She moves her stool a little farther from the empty one beside her, raising an eyebrow in an invitation Seret accepts, removing her hat and tucking it under her arm to smoothly mount the stool. Seret sits with a straight back but ankles curled around the legs of the stool, adding enough humanity to her presence to make Lysandra smile.

She does not prop her elbow on the table, she does not order anything, but she does stare at Lysandra like she’s the most interesting person in the room. Lysandra can tell, somehow, that this gaze is genuine, not hastily crafted and practiced to impress her.

She offers to buy Lysandra another mug of cherry syrup, and Lysandra lets her.

***

Everywhere Lysandra goes, Seret seems to find her. She’s the talk of the valley, enrapturing them with her tall, dark, handsome aura, her small smile, the way the sun shines off her hair.

Finally Seret takes the leap and asks her out to places in Vashiri City Lysandra has been a thousand times, but somehow Seret’s presence paints color to her world again instead of the dull greens and golds the valley has become.

Their connection is instant, from Briar Bar to the lane of potion shops to the muffled awe in Seret’s face when she sees the Academy. At some point, Seret takes Lysandra’s hand, and they stroll through the town like they are not a princess and the new obsession of Vashiri Valley.

Everyone has been asking Seret about herself, where she’s from, what family she has, but she slips out of answering like a snake from a trap. Her smile is quite persuasive. Lysandra doesn’t even try to pry the answer out of her, though she might be the one person to succeed. Seret still looks at her every time like she’s the sun and the moon and the stars.

Lysandra’s heart thrums with nerves every hour before their dates, afraid of messing things up and driving Seret away, but the moment Seret enters the room, her heart calms. Seret gives her a warm hug that envelopes her whole soul, tells her she missed her dearly, and Lysandra wonders why she was ever worried. Seret seems impossible to offend.

“I am going to buy you a gift,” Seret announces on one of their dates in town, in a tone which makes it clear this is non-negotiable. Lysandra only nods. Seret pauses between two shops, one being the most popular jewelry store in the city with a line out the door, the one across the street being an adorable but little known competitor.

Lysandra waits for Seret to get in line for the popular jewelry store, but instead the woman lingers in front of the door of the other shop before opening it. “Don’t peek,” she says with a little smile, shutting the door and triggering the little bell. Lysandra stands there gawking like a fool until Seret emerges ten minutes later holding a little square box.

When Lysandra opens it with trembling hands, she finds a little heart shaped necklace, gold with a silver center on a golden chain. The gold probably isn’t real, probably just paint, but the pink paper wrapping the necklace and the little thank you card inside the box make her smile when the shop across the street wouldn’t.

The plain red and blue shelves in the windows of the other shop, where her family’s jeweler gets his jewels, have nothing on the soft pinks, greens, and browns of the cheap shop owned by twins. They keep flowers in their windows, pink carnations, and prices written in loopy court script.

“Do you like it?” Seret asks nervously, and Lysandra realizes she hasn’t said a word.

“I love it. Thank you.” She offers it up to Seret to clasp around her neck. Seret’s warm fingertips brush the back of her neck, and shivers run down Lysandra’s spine. This is special, her heart keeps telling her, like she doesn’t already know. This is different.

“How did you know?” Lysandra asks.

“Know what?”

“That I’d like this better than the shop across the street.”

“You’re a princess, you’re used to expensive jewelry, and you’ve publicly and loudly denounced royal life. Also, I’d rather give my money to them, seems like they actually need it. Don’t you agree?”

Lysandra has to take a deep breath to keep from blurting out something stupid. “Yes. I agree.”

Their first kiss a day later is a ray of light and a shadow of darkness, colliding and exploding in a glorious show of white and black, settling as ashes and debris into serene, calm gray. They are not the sun and moon. Lysandra is too sharp to be the sun, Seret too dim to be the moon.

It is the death of something. The birth. Lysandra can’t define what.

***

When Lysandra asks, Seret says she came to Vashiri Valley to visit and experience its delights, after which she meets Lysandra’s eyes and kisses her hands.

Lysandra hangs around the city apartment Seret rents. It’s close to Wynn’s cabin where she sleeps. She hasn’t slept in the palace in months. The layers of security and scrutiny she has to pass to enter are not worth the temporary comfort of a soft bed and her favorite meals.

She’s sleeping beside Seret before long, unable to bear being apart from her for that long, wondering how she behaves during such a precious time. Seret’s arms are even warmer around her under cool sheets, and in the morning, Seret brings her coffee before disappearing behind a white door.

She reappears in a cloud of steam, smelling like sweet flowers and honeysuckle. Lysandra gets to kiss her good morning and wonder how she got so lucky.

They’re invited to plays, the nights at the bars for amateur bards, the travelling witches who perform at the amphitheater. Lysandra has been to every event in this valley at least once, usually at the request of her family, but Seret loves going. Like the city and the shops and the Academy, experiencing Seret’s joy secondhand is intoxicating.

Everywhere they go, every table they sit at, whether it’s the theater or the bar or a café for a simple breakfast, people are fawning over Seret. The entire valley is enamored with Lysandra’s new lover.

Seret seems to find it amusing, the way they pat her arm and show a comical amount of interest in everything she has to say, just waiting for an opportunity to ask questions that they must know will go unanswered.

Lysandra sits quietly, burning from the way Seret entertains them, smiles at them in her private way. She wants Seret all to herself. She’s used to sharing things with the public, she’s had to share herself her whole life, but Seret is different. Lysandra doesn’t care if it’s selfish, Seret is hers.

When everyone finally seems like they’ve gotten their fill of Vashiri’s new inhabitant, Lysandra takes her to the edge of the forest and the dead tall grass fields beside it. She gets to watch the exact moment Seret falls in love.

Seret has never grinned, never raised her voice louder than a murmur, but her hitch of breath and the way she reaches for Lysandra’s hand is all she needs. Pride blooms in Lysandra’s chest at the realization she’s learned Seret’s little tells like that.

“It’s just a field,” she laughs. She’s laughing more, now, thanks to Seret. Stoic, cynical, unpleasant Princess Lysandra, laughing. This is why she hasn’t let Arlin near Seret yet, she’d never hear the end of it.

“No, it’s not,” Seret breathes, radiating darkness and mystery in a way that is curious, enticing, instead of harmful. Lysandra just wants to follow her into the shadows where no others can see them, hurt them, touch them. “Can’t you see?”

Lysandra strains her neck, but it’s not the fact that Seret is taller than her that’s the problem. “No.”

Seret pulls her along and begins running instead of answering. Lysandra yelps in surprise and stumbles along, staring enviously at Seret’s long legs—long legs, long arms, long face, long fingers, everything about Seret is long. She sweeps Lysandra up in her arms and spins her around, feet in the air, Seret’s strong arms keeping her up.

Seret is grinning for the first time, showing perfect white teeth, her joy the only reason Lysandra doesn’t scream in shock. She trusts Seret utterly, she realizes in a paralyzing moment of clarity, the sun warming her back, the wind blowing through her hair. Seret has never given her a reason not to.

“What’s the matter with you?” Lysandra asks, though she can’t keep the joy out of her own voice. Seret is infectious. Anything she feels reflects on Lysandra.

“We had fields exactly like this in the city where I grew up. I can’t believe I haven’t seen these yet.” She finally sets Lysandra down and immediately kisses her, as has become a habit the last week. Lysandra gives in, gives over entirely.

She has twisted and forced a key into the lock of her heart, but now, she hands the broken key to Seret and wishes her lucky trying to fit it in the rusty, damaged old lock. Lysandra knows she’ll unlock it fast, her eyebrows pinched and frowning in concentration, long fingers working quickly.

She doesn’t tell her that, of course.

Even then, Lysandra knew.

***

They find a cabin at the edge of the fields and the forest which they quickly move into, abandoning Arlin and the boys and Lysandra's family and Vashiri Valley for themselves. Lysandra has no remorse.

Seret shows her how to live in darkness, in quiet, in peace. They prepare coffee in the mornings before the sun floods the fields with light, arms brushing and using only using their sleepy voices when they need to, not wanting to disturb the holy peace of the morning.

They bathe in the evenings indoors where the fading sun doesn’t reach, sitting close in a tub of river water that Lysandra heats.

They spend all day laying on their backs in the fields, one of them lying on the other while someone’s hair is stroked and someone speaks over the wind.

When the afternoon heat turns the sunlight from pleasantly warm to scorching, they move to the shade of the big oak tree near their cabin to eat.

The shadows are their friends in this haven, where no one and nothing else exists but them. Seret trusts them like they trust each other, content to close her eyes and lay her head back against the trunk when she’s done eating.

Lysandra loves the warmth of the sun, but she hates the harsh white spotlight of her family, the prickly rules tying her down, the sense that she can’t ever escape their restraining eyes. She can hide in the darkness from Seret. They’ll never catch her.

Lysandra has never been so invincible, light enough to be picked up on a cloud every time the wind blows. Seret is the only magical thing she’s met that doesn’t have a drop of magic within her.

Seret is ineffable. Unknowable. Larger than life. Lysandra can never hope to understand her fully, but she can try, she can watch and observe, attempt to learn the inner workings of Seret’s mind.

“Seret?” Lysandra asks one afternoon just like every other, where the peace and warmth of their retreat cannot be broken. “Where are you from?”

It is the first time she has asked. She holds her breath, waiting for Seret’s answer, which takes a long time to come. Seret chews on her lip, her expression as guarded as always, until she finally smiles. “Wherever you want me to be from. North, south, east, west, I’ve visited them all. Pick one and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Lysandra’s chest opens to swallow an ache of emptiness. “Maybe later.” It’s not what she wanted, and they both know it. Lysandra inches mere breaths away from Seret’s side, but it won’t go unnoticed. She thought Seret might actually tell her. She rubs the small gold heart between her fingers and sighs.

“Hey,” Seret says, turning Lysandra’s chin towards her. “It’s not because I don’t trust you, because I do. I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone, more than you know.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?” Need, embarrassing and whiny, sneaks into Lysandra’s voice, but she ignores it. She’s entitled to this answer, at least.

“I don’t want to shatter your world.” Seret sighs and shifts to take Lysandra’s hands in both of hers. “I am from the south. I ran away from home at a young age to travel because my upbringing was hell, and I’ve never stopped since.”

Lysandra breathes out.

“None of that changes how I feel about you,” Seret continues, pleading, the most passionate Lysandra has ever heard her. “I have never met anyone like you, even with everywhere I’ve been. I do not want anyone but you.”

No one has ever said anything like that to Lysandra, and hearing it now gives her pause. The way Seret’s eyes burn on her skin with their dark intensity is exquisite. Lysandra will never get used to it. She does not want to.

“I would not want this with anyone else.” It does not mean the same thing, but Seret smiles, close mouthed, anyway. At times like this, Seret’s secretive nature makes Lysandra’s blood boil, unvoiced screams rise in her throat. She has given so much of herself already, why can Lysandra not know of her past, her family, her ugliest emotions?

She never wants Seret to treat her like glass. The first day they met, Seret got it right. Lysandra can’t bear the thought that Seret is any less perfect than she thinks, that would shatter her, not knowledge of the world beyond the valley.

Lysandra has gotten all she will today. She is content to sigh deeply and lay her head on Seret’s arm. Seret will stroke Lysandra’s hair, and the wind will ruffle her own, and Lysandra’s urge to push it back will fight the warmth settling into her bones. They are fine. They will be fine. Nothing more.

***

On lucky occasions, Seret shares stories of her travels from who knows when, who knows where. She has been everywhere, she said, and Lysandra believes her. She asks about the north, the far east, the west, and Seret’s homeland, the south.

The south could mean any number of things. Lysandra has never been out of Vashiri Valley, and her family have always been vague about what lies beyond their mountains, but Seret describes an actual ocean, the cold water wrapping around her ankles, the hot sand burning her feet.

She takes Lysandra to a desert in her mind, great, sprawling cities, icy lakes and snowy mountains to the north. To the east, she says, more ocean with great brown ships. Lysandra doesn’t care if she’s lying.

She lays in the grass on her side and lets the wind blow her skirts while she travels the world in her mind. Seret closes her eyes and traces mountains, rivers, canyons on her spine, unconsciously pointing in those directions. Lysandra’s breath catches in her throat.

Seret opens her eyes briefly to ask, “Am I boring you?”

Never. You couldn’t if you tried.

Lysandra shakes her head. Seret’s slow, easy smile returns, and the warm fingers on the skin revealed by her backless dress whisk her away to a thousand new worlds so big she can’t even imagine them.

***

“Does it ever bother you that I’m a princess?”

Seret smiles. “That isn’t something that would bother most people in my position.”

“I’d disagree. As the lover of a princess, you have no privacy, there’s expectations, rules you have to follow, harassment…I suppose a better word would be faze. You met and introduced yourself and spoke to me as if I were normal.”

“I called you my princess. the day we met.”

At Lysandra’s withering look, Seret chuckles. “Who said you aren’t normal? You didn’t have any control over what family you were born into. I would still feel the same if you hadn’t rejected your family and your role, if you were princess first and person second. It would be a bit harder to get to you, though, in that stronghold. To me, in that bar, you were just the prettiest girl in the nicest dress with the most captivating eyes. They told me you were a princess—so what? I love you anyway.”

Lysandra’s cheeks burn hot, and she chokes on saliva. The wind picks up, and she feels like she’s falling. How can Seret just say things like that and expect Lysandra not to explode and melt into the sun? “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

Seret smiles again. “I’m not looking to get anywhere. I’m not like those people at the bar when we met. I’m not trying to be like anyone. I’m not not trying to be like anyone. I’m not looking to impress you, honestly. I’m just being honest.”

Lysandra’s breath catches in her throat like a branch stuck in a river, unfazed by the powerful oncoming waves.

Seret is clearly not looking to hear it back, but Lysandra gathers all her courage and quietly says, “I love you, too. I--”

She shies away from Seret’s intense gaze, burning on the back of her neck. “I’m not good at, uh. Saying things like this. Like you. But I want you to know that you’ve changed my life. I don’t know how to thank you for all that you’ve done for me, given me. This place is nothing short of perfect. Every minute we’ve spent together has been nothing short of perfect. I’m sorry I haven’t given you anything back.”

“My dear, you are quite mistaken. You’ve given me the ultimate gift: yourself. The opportunity to know your heart, your mind. You’ve let me in when I can tell you have trouble doing so.”

She kisses the back of Lysandra’s hand, looking up at her through her eyelashes, as she often does. It still makes Lysandra’s entire being heat like the sun itself came down to lay its rays gently onto her, powerful but careful with her.

“You are my entire world,” says Seret, the sun. “The most precious creature in all the places I’ve visited, all the creatures in this valley alone.”

Lysandra smiles. “You haven’t met Wynn Scylla’s dragonlings.”

Deflect. Defend. Dismiss. Seret sees through it.

Lysandra lays their lips together, hoping to convey without the painful process of words said aloud just how much Seret makes her hurt. Seret makes her burn and ache in the best of ways, like a satisfying stretch after waking up from a stiff nap.

Seret challenges her to face things she loves shying away from, things like the swelling of her heart which she hasn’t felt in years. Seret is terrifying, all consuming, but Lysandra can’t imagine a world without her. Much of her allure comes from her mystery, however infuriating her secrecy is.

Hours later, when they’re full and sated from dinner, after they wash the dishes side by side at the river and after they’ve bathed in the tub in the house, Lysandra hears a faint hum, high and low, continuous, lulling and soft. She turns her head and discovers it’s Seret, humming to herself as she drapes the wet towels out to dry. “What’s that you’re humming?”

Seret pauses her sweet melody. “Hm? Oh, just some music from the east. If I had the proper instruments, I would play the tune.”

Lysandra chokes on air. “You can play music, too?”

Seret smiles. “I can do many things.”

“Oh?” Lysandra doesn’t know where her sudden burst of courage comes from. Perhaps she’s the one looking to get somewhere. She raises an eyebrow and crooks a finger, hoping a low tone will convey her point. “Come here and show me.”

Seret is quiet, face blank. Lysandra wonders, belatedly, if she does in fact have unknown boundaries.

When Seret desperately searches her eyes for consent, Lysandra realizes it was shock and not disgust that rendered her speechless. “You mean—” Seret asks, hoarse, never breaking eye contact. Lysandra shivers. She had that effect on her?

“Yes.”

They stare at each other for a long, silent moment, Seret’s hungry gaze fixed on Lysandra’s pale shoulders, the towel wrapped around her middle. Then they’re both moving at once, mouths moving in the same pattern of Seret’s melody, a symphony of hearts beating in time.

If Lysandra is Seret’s world, Seret is the center of Lysandra’s.

***

At long last, Lysandra’s family gets wind of Seret. Lysandra doesn’t want to know how. Maybe Wynn and Petrus spread it around by accident—she loves those boys, but they couldn’t keep a secret if they tried. Maybe it was Arlin, who Lysandra finally let meet Seret.

All she does know is that her family is demanding to meet their middle princess’s lover, which means they’ll clarify if they’re allowed to be together or not.

“I’m sorry,” Lysandra whimpers, on the edge of tears in Seret’s arms. “I don’t want them to touch us with a ten foot stick, but if we don’t go, they’ll send someone out here to find us and disrupt our world. I’m so sorry.” Something about her family interfering in her and Seret’s affairs makes Lysandra boil like nothing else.

“It’s okay, my princess,” Seret murmurs into her hair, cupping the back of her head, rocking them back and forth. “We’ll go, I’ll tell them what they want to know, we’ll come right back here. It will only be a few hours. Their opinion won’t change how I feel about you, but I’ll do whatever you feel is best.” The sorrow in Seret’s tone implies too much.

Lysandra pulls back. “Don’t you ever think I’d leave you for my family. Right now, I’m thinking much the opposite.”

Seret purses her lips. “What objection would they have to me? The whole valley seems to like me, why wouldn’t they?”

“You’re not a noble, you don’t have a title, you have nothing to offer them, you won’t even tell anyone where you’re from, and you’re the lover of their middle child.”

Her voice is bitter, matching her heart. Seret’s arms tighten protectively around her. Lysandra switches from bitterness to anger to guilt in a second. How dare her family do this to them? What makes them think they have this right?

They control Vashiri Valley, but Lysandra can’t remember the last time they appeared in public, and their power is distant at best.

They control Vashiri Valley, but they can’t control her.

“No matter what they say,” Lysandra says into Seret’s chest, “I am never leaving you. You’ll have to pry me away. Whatever polite, diplomatic accusations or insults they throw at you, ignore them. You don’t have to tell anyone, especially them, about yourself. You’re with me because I love you, and that’s all we care about. Okay?”

“I’m not sure I’m the one who needs reassuring, Lysandra.”

“Shut up. I’ll be fine.” She pulls back from warmth to wipe her eyes, hot shame from crying coating her face, but Seret pulls her back in.

“There’s no shame here,” she whispers, kissing Lysandra’s temple. “Comforting you is my pleasure, though I wish you didn’t have a reason to cry. Everything’s going to be okay, my princess.”

Lysandra breathes.

She wears the gown she wore when she and Seret met, soft pink with a low neckline, tiered ruffles reaching down to her ankles, frilly short sleeves. Maybe familiarity will give her some comfort, whether that’s Seret’s hand on her thigh or this dress pinching her arm.

Seret wears the same black slacks, white shirt, and black jacket she always wears, thoroughly combs her hair, but leaves the hat at home.

At the dinner, she is perfect. she speaks only when spoken to, sits with that straight, enviable posture, praises the food like it’s the substance of heaven itself, the best she’s ever had.

She’s gracious, thankful, answers every question they ask. If she had a title, Lysandra knows her family would be simply begging them to marry.

Things start out pleasant, her family treating Seret with the polite, arm’s length attitude Lysandra expected. Finally, the dreaded question comes.

“So, Seret,” Lysandra’s mother asks, folding her hands, “where are you from?”

Lysandra clutches her necklace, the one Seret gave her, and prays. Please don’t let them be the first ones you tell. They don’t deserve that.

Seret smiles. “This soup is delicious, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, thank you, you’ve said so already.” Her mother is reaching the end of her patience—Lysandra has been on the other end of that short patience dozens of times. Her blue feathered hat and perfect red lips cover up a much nastier woman. “Please tell us about where you live.”

“Well, Lysandra and I have been living next to the forest all summer. The fields there are positively peaceful, you should visit them sometime.” She pauses to let horror sink into the hearts of luxury groomed royals. Lysandra bites down on a smile. “But I am technically still renting an apartment in the city.”

“Where you came from,” Lysandra’s father adds, sharp, on the end of his patience as well. Lysandra wonders how much Seret prepared for this. Seret is smart, she must’ve known she couldn’t wiggle her way out of the question with her usual tricks. “Maybe who your parents are.”

Seret appears to consider the question. “I’d rather not say,” she says, stirring her drink with her spoon. Silence falls onto the room. Lysandra holds her breath.

Her mother nods her head tightly. “Very well. In that case, we’re going to have to insist you stop seeing our daughter.”

Seret bows her head in humble acceptance, but Lysandra stands up, every fiber of her being filling with inexplicable rage. She told herself she wouldn’t display a reaction, she would just accept the denial and then ignore it, like Seret will, but hearing it so frankly from her mother’s lips is different from imagining it.

“You don’t have the right to tell me who I can and can’t see just because you feel like it,” she spits. “I’m an adult. I haven’t lived here full time or done the duties you ask of me for years. You should disown me. Save yourselves the trouble of dealing with me any longer.”

Seret’s hand lands firmly on her knee as if to say no, don’t. Lysandra captures her hand and holds it above the table for the whole family to see.

“You’re the one who chose to come here,” Lysandra’s mother says.

“Yes, because I knew you’d hound us if we didn’t.” Lysandra can feel her chest being ripped open from the top down. Seret’s fingers squeezing hers is the only thing tethering her to herself. She pulls tightly on Seret’s fingers, who takes the hint and stands. They walk out without another word, without a glance back.

When they get back to the cabin, Lysandra sinks onto the couch in their living room face first, and immediately begins to cry. The seconds it takes for the door to click and Seret’s boots to march across the wood are far too long, until warm arms wrap around Lysandra’s back and Seret buries her nose in the back of her hair. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, which only makes Lysandra sob harder.

“I don’t know why it still matters. I knew this was exactly what they’d say. I didn’t want it to affect me. I want to move on from them.”

Seret stays quiet, just letting Lysandra exist and holding her through it. They don’t speak about it again.

Things are different after that. The fields and the cabin have been tainted with mere mention of the royal family’s presence. The spell has been broken.

The wind comes less, the sun seems to burn in a way it didn’t before. Lysandra doesn’t treasure dawn and dusk the way she used to, and baths are just baths. The only thing that hasn’t lost its magic is Seret, as kind and loving as always.

A week later, Seret begins taking trips into the city to gather everything from her apartment and bring it to the cabin, everything of Lysandra’s from Wynn’s cottage.

No matter how many times Lysandra offers to help, Seret insists she’s fine, she doesn’t want Lysandra to come into the city and get hounded and harassed by the usual people dying to meet the princess.

Arlin and the others come to visit a few times to keep her company while Seret’s gone, to speak about the upcoming Academy year, their last year, to learn the place Lysandra disappeared to the entire summer.

She’s happy to see them, happy for the company, but her heart never stops aching for Seret, wondering what she’s doing. Arlin and the boys stay for dinner well after Seret’s back, so she’s never given a moment alone to think.

This continues for a month.

Arlin and the boys become as intimately familiar with the cabin, the fields, the river, and the forest as Lysandra was with Wynn’s cottage on the forest’s other side.

Lysandra flies toward the end of summer in a haze, perpetually afraid to break the peace, shatter the dream, feel the cold seep into her bones once more. She has grown so used to the wind in her hair, the sun on her skin, the safety of Seret’s arms and her soothing voice.

Seret is never too loud, never jarring. Seret seems to float on the wind; sometimes her mind is lost to Lysandra as she stares into the sky at nothing.

Seret is—

Seret is many things. Nothing at all. Everything all at once.

Ineffable.

On what Seret says will be her last day of moving, she kisses Lysandra’s cheek and says, “I’ll be back,” like always. Lysandra thinks that’s rather silly—of course she’ll be back, that’s a given—but it’s sweet.

Arlin and the boys won’t be over since they have to collect their books for school in two weeks and otherwise prepare. Lysandra spends the day in the river, letting the water suck all the thoughts from her head.

By the evening, as Lysandra waits on the porch with dinner ready, Seret is still not back.

She probably got held up with the loading carts she’s been using, Lysandra tells herself as she gathers her shawl, puts on a dress fit for the town’s eyes, and begins the long walk there. She stopped to have dinner, or something. Maybe she met Wynn’s dragonlings at last.

Seret would’ve run back here herself to tell Lysandra she wouldn’t be back until later because of the dragonlings, or she would’ve sent a magical letter, or something. Seret has told her over and over how much she hates to see Lysandra in pain, and how she’ll never, ever be the cause of even the slightest worry.

Dread sits heavily in Lysandra’s chest.

The area near the school is in chaos, looking for her. No one she meets will tell her what’s going on, why they refuse to meet her eyes, why they offer faint smiles in place of explanations.

When Lysandra is shown the rooms in the Academy Seret broke into, the bizarre circles drawn on the floor in chalk, the thick books lying open, the blood splattered all over the floor, and finally, Seret’s body lying on the floor with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes closed, Lysandra falls to her knees and doesn’t get up.

Her entire being is shattered with a force she didn’t know existed, with waves of invisible pain too strong for this realm. Everything feels empty and quiet, but not quiet in the serene way of Seret’s.

She screams, and it rips her open. It rips every part of good out of her and replaces her with numb, muffled, faint feeling. Later the waves of pain will come back, the longing for Seret’s warm arms to wrap around her and make everything all better, but now, she’s able to look at the body with only thin trails of tears streaming down her face.

Seret’s white shirt is soaked through with a circle of bright red blood. The whole scene is almost unreal. If not for the blood and the cold feel of her hand, Lysandra’s Seret Ashling looks the same. Her hair is neatly arranged, her face free of the splattered blood.

Death is too simple a word for what happens to Seret.

She is gone, says a voice, Seret’s voice, her smiling face haunting Lysandra behind her closed eyes. The ghost of Seret’s fingers cup her jaw, stroke her cheekbones, brush soft lips over her forehead, push her spectacles up.

I love you, my princess, Lysandra hears when she touches her ear to the floor, soaking the front of her dress with her blood, such a cruel reminder of Seret’s humanity. She was brutally, unfortunately, unbelievably human. She may have reached beyond this realm to grab a fist of love for Lysandra, a greater capacity than any human could hold, but that couldn’t save her from her own humanity.

I’ll be back. Seret’s last words to her.

She wasn’t just going into town to move.

Lysandra clutches the necklace Seret gave her and squeezes until it hurts. It fits easily in her palm, hangs right over her heart. The death of Seret Ashling is going to hit Vashiri Valley like the rare storms, unforgiving and violent, bringing destruction that takes years to recover from.

Lysandra squeezes the necklace, closes her eyes, and breathes slowly, steadily. The storm will wipe her out faster and harder than anyone else, but she’s the one who has to control it singlehandedly, and that will be about as easy as trying to capture an actual storm from the ground.

She won’t survive this, but she’s known for months that if anything ever happened to Seret, she never would. She can only submit to the darkness—the bad kind, this time—awaiting her, return to reality behind this door.

#writing #writeblr #my wip #my writing #fantasy writing #fantasy writeblr #fantasy #lila's wips: dosa #bean's excerpts #lila's short stories

58 notes · View notes

dadsbongos · 4 years ago

Note

Greetings! I got this idea for danganronpa AU where Nagito is like ghost "living" (or haunting idk-) his old house and the reader moves into that house and they slowly became closer and yk<3

hi i love this concept :)

Request for: Nagito Komaeda Warnings: nagito’s backstory, slight religious overtones, we breach minor ghost-fucker territory (but no actual ghost-fucking), no-killing game au also ~~~

The house itself was rather nice. Nothing too luxurious for who the previous owner was aside from the obnoxiously fancy chandelier hanging in the den.

The realtor was hesitant to explain that the reason it was selling so comically cheap was, in fact, due to the belief of a ghost. Not just any, however. It was the previous owner’s ghost.

People who even stepped into the house could feel his chilling touch. Hear quiet, shaky whispers in the night. The fireplace would crackle and burst to life at strange times with nobody near it. Visitors and almost-buyers alike would thrust their warnings to stay away upon anybody who so much as looked at the home.

But that didn’t matter much - a house was a house and it’s not like the ghost was malicious from description. Just… annoying. Perhaps a little eerie, but again, not harmful. Everybody escaped without physical injury. So, why not buy it?

Maybe the ghost just needed a friend? Death was probably a lonely time.

Bought on Tuesday. Moved in Wednesday. Finished unpacking… still pending.

It’s not like (Y/n) had anybody to impress anyways. She’d made the move for a fresh start; new faces, new stories.

The bumps began on Friday.

Sometimes they were taps. Sometimes crashes followed by the gentle rapping against the walls, as if to apologize for the loud noise.

She’d stayed through the month, undeterred by any of the ghosts’ activities.

Then the happenings seemed a little more… intimate.

A photo slowly sliding out from beneath the fridge, at first.

Three people in frame. From left to right, there was a figure with shoulder-length pink hair and a smile to make the heavens jealous - then white hair to rival a cloud-marshmallow love child, skin sickly pale and body wastingly thin - finally, brown hair with an ahoge sticking out like an antenna and posture that almost made him taller than the one in the middle. Well, not really, but attempting counted, right?

“Which one’s you?” she asked the air, whether she was too tired, or simply didn’t care enough, to be embarrassed was irrelevant.

A single droplet of water, from a leak she didn’t know existed until this very moment, fell from the ceiling before splotching over the face of the one in the middle.

“White hair, heavy eye bags?”

There was no response, but she took it as a yes anyway. What a pretty, pretty face. In a tragic way.

Because he did look rather ill. Frail build and purple hues under his eyes. Pretty but suffering - it made her feel bad. Of course, she already knew he was dead, but even so - suffering should always inspire empathy rather than romance.

And again, he was dead, so the likelihood of a romance between them anyway was slim to none. None. Unless she suddenly dropped dead, there would be no sweet kisses in the morning or gentle hugs from behind as one of them makes dinner. Maybe when she died, he’d be available for a ghostly date while the house gets put back on the market.

(Y/n) chuckled at the sudden thought of lightning cracking into her home, despite the sunny weather, and striking her dead where she stood. Ridiculous, but God liked ridiculous things.

The sudden thought hit her - what if that old photo was old old? Maybe he was eighty when he died and she just subconsciously signed herself up for a date with an elderly ghost?

Shaking her head, (Y/n) scolded herself for the thought. She’d already be dead by then, it wouldn’t matter what age he was...

Then, it was the scribbling on spare papers. Always specifically spares. Double copies she had put in recycling. Scraps. Even on the backs of paper-esque trash. It was an oddly considerate move for a ghost, though to be fair, she’d never met a ghost before and couldn’t tell if it was out-of-place or not for them.

The words always appeared when she was out of the room. Leaving to grab something and coming back to find the out-dated schedule for work out of recycling and on her desk with crayon sprawled over it.

Eloquently said, in her opinion.

“Hi?” she looked around the room, “Can you not talk? I thought people said they heard whispers…”

A bang in the other room drew her out. When there was nothing out of place, she returned to her desk only to be met with more words.

I’m Nagito Komaeda :)

“Dodging the question, huh?”

The process repeated. Bang. Nothing out of the ordinary. Return. New words.

Sorry :(

“Don’t apologize,” (Y/n) shrugged off before moving to her computer, “I’m just gonna look you up.”

A series of bangs - now that she truly listened, it sounded like a fist pounding to the drywall - resonated through the home. She did not get up nor did she pause her actions of Googling the man known as Nagito Komaeda.

Until a piece of paper flew in from the open door.

Bad idea

“Probably, yeah,” she huffed, moving back to her computer.

Nagito Komaeda, born April 28th, first popped up as the sole survivor in an old plane hijacking report. Both parents, all plane staff, and the hijackers left dead after the plane crash caused by a meteor strike. Then he came up as a survivor of an old serial kidnapper/killer. Then as a boy who’d inherited the entirety of his parents’ fortune and won a large sum from a lottery ticket he’d found in the trash bag he was stuffed in by his kidnapper. Then as a Hope’s Peak graduate under the title Ultimate Lucky Student.

Finally, as a 25-year-old man who’d miraculously survived ten years post-diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia and advanced lymphoma before his death.

“Holy shit,” she nearly choked on her own shock, “You weren’t boring, that’s for sure.”

Another paper, this time written in marker as if he could sense that she didn’t wish to get up. Another strangely considerate move.

Thanks

You’re not creeped out?

“I mean, it’s more sad than creepy,” her eyes scanned over a single line in the article once again.

“Nagito Komaeda, after all his fortunes and misfortunes alike, died at age 25, after ten years of illness, surrounded by friends who took the place of family. Out of respect, no interviews were conducted, but anybody, anyone at all even from a quick glance, could tell - Nagito Komaeda will surely be missed.”

Her eyes watered slightly as she clicked out of the Togami Publications, laughing at the pure awkwardness of her situation, “Oh my God, that’s really fucking sad. I’m sorry your life sucked.”

Another paper.

It’s fine

I was just wasting space anyway :)

“No, you were- “ she gestured to her computer screen before covering her eyes in shame of her tears, “You meant so much to your friends.”

She expected memorial posts, maybe not as many as there were, but she saw them coming. What she didn’t see coming, however, was that each and every one would be dearly heartfelt - not a single one was disingenuous or vague in the slightest. She also didn’t see herself crying by the end of her little search.

But there she was.

Something light floated into her lap. A tissue.

“Oh my fucking God,” (Y/n) choked up again, picking up the tissue with a small smile, “Stop, you’re a ghost, you’re supposed to be scary and making me leave, not helping me dry my tears…”

Another paper atop the slowly growing pile.

Was that a ghostphobic remark?

“Oh, I’m keeping that one,” she stood, sniffling as she wiped away her tears, and picked up the last paper, nodding to herself as she muttered, “Yep. This one’s going on the wall.”

Nagito stopped whispering because people ran when he did. His voice was always hideous, he didn’t to be reminded. Besides, (Y/n) seemed to prefer the paper method - she hung up her favorites along the walls of her office and if a visitor teased her about it she would ignore them. It was admirable, how their grins and giggles rolled off her back like water droplets over a duck.

He wished he could be like that.

Could have been.

He still had trouble with that.

Has.

Nagito looks up from his spot at the kitchen table where (Y/n) was cooking for herself. She seemed so at-peace in this house, and he’s glad for that. He never liked living alone and everyone else seemed to hate having him there. Not that he blamed them much.

Even so, he much prefers (Y/n) over any past guest as his living counterpart of the house.

She even leaves chairs open for him at the table; he smiles widely at the thought, patting his thighs and kicking out his legs in his seat- just like now!

She’d pulled out the chair upon entering the kitchen before calling out for him that she’d be cooking. She even knew he liked watching her cook!

It was selfish of him to crave so much attention, but in the end, Nagito was already dead so… did it really matter when he indulged in his wants more than he should?

Divine punishment isn’t real and he likes being around her, so why should he bother hiding himself away in the attic?

(Y/n) moved around the house with little to no liveliness, it made him chuckle. Her shoulders drooped and footsteps heavy, it was fun. To feel like he wasn’t alone.

He hoped she felt the same. That he was a friend… or, undead companion?

He hoped she would stay and not move out.

He hoped they could be real friends one day… if it’s not too much to ask, that once she dies, she’ll meet him. The real him.

That would be heaven.

#nagito x reader #nagito komaeda x reader #anon chatter :)#x reader #oh to have a polite nagito ghost you can pull out chairs for and look up his tragic backstory

97 notes · View notes