#and maybe that's a good thing'

[softquietsteadylove]

It’s been a while for the life interrupted one. Would you write more?

Druig being worried about Thena not coming home and it’s being very very late that he rushes to Gil’s and almost breaks the door from his angry knocking?

"Where is she?!"

Half the apartment complex would be woken.

"I know you can hear me you bastard!" Druig raged, not caring who heard him--not caring what time it was. He pounded on the door, "let me the fuck in or I'll-!"

The door whipped open just before Druig was yanked inside.

"Will you calm down?"

Druig looked up at Gilgamesh with wild eyes. "Calm down? My sister disappears and you tell me-"

"She didn't disappear," Gil huffed at him as if he were pitching a fit over nothing.

Druig took in the man who was 'dating' his sister. His t-shirt was rumpled, his hair dishevelled; Druig grabbed the front of his shirt, "you have idea what I am gonna do to you?!"

"Easy," Gil spoke calmly, despite Druig seeming completely ready to let his fists fly. At least Druig wasn't nearly tall or strong enough to actually haul Gil up by the neck of his shirt.

"She's vulnerable," Druig snarled through his teeth, "and you-"

"Thena is asleep, in my room, untouched," Gil defended, holding his hands up to Druig as he backed him up to his couch again. "Fully clothed, you can check on her in you want."

Druig looked at Gil's pointed hand for a second. He let go of his shirt and did just that, stomping the few feet to Gil's bedroom and opening the door none too gently.

Thena didn't even blink, curled up in the middle of Gil's bed, on top of all the covers but with a blanket thrown over her. He had taken her hair out of a ponytail and taken off her shoes, but she was clearly still wearing the stockings she wore under her dress to work.

Druig whirled around; he wasn't done being angry.

Gil huffed as Druig closed the door gently so they could talk man to man. He put his hands on his hips, "we were watching tv on the couch and she dozed off."

"So call me," Druig snapped at him, circling him like a wild animal. He certainly looked wild in the eyes.

"I did, but there was no answer," Gil shrugged. "I left you a text."

Druig's face twitched. He did actually have that text--it was what had made him storm all the way over here.

"But you're not-" Gil cut himself off before he could say something that would only worsen Druig's feelings towards him. He cleared his throat, "Thena doesn't need you to worry about her every minute of the day, is what I mean."

Druig tried not to pounce on him for the simple statement. It was true, T didn't need his worrying and fussing. She more and more often was telling him to leave well enough alone--that she was his older sister and that he did not have to baby her.

He wasn't babying her! He was worried about her! He was worried about the only person in his life on whom he could rely, ever. Thena had always looked out for them their whole lives, and he knew that standing up to their father came at a price. She was more fragile than she let on, even before being committed.

Now he was more worried about her than ever, and this 'boyfriend' of hers wasn't helping things.

"Look, Druig," Gil sighed, holding out a hand for them to talk at the ledge connecting his living room and kitchen. Druig waited for him to move but he rolled his eyes and sat himself down. "I have no intention of hurting Thena."

Druig held back some more biting and acerbic responses. He leaned against the edge of the counter, leaving a stool between them. "Yeah, and our father never 'intended' to backhand 'er 'cross the face."

Gil looked away.

Druig gripped the counter edge. "She's a lot more vulnerable than she lets on to be. She's more vulnerable than she even knows she is, and she's puttin' a lotta trust in you when she comes over 'ere!"

"And I take that seriously, Druig," Gil scowled. "I would never let anything happen to her, whether we're out or back here."

Every time either of them brought up their 'dates' Druig wanted to grind his back teeth flat. "You wanna know why I don't like you?"

Gil sighed, still rubbing at his eyes, "I'm sure you'll tell me."

Druig pointed at him, "you show up like magic during the worst time in T's life? And suddenly I'm hearing about this amazing guy who's a li'l too perfect?"

"I hear about how they're not even wearin' real clothes, just these loaner scrubs that've been fuck knows where?! I hear about how they get woken up on the hour and the showers don't have bloody doors and they're barely allowed to take a piss by 'emselves!"

"You expect to hear about the hell that place was and have a good opinion of ye?" Druig hissed at him. He realised none of those things were Gil's fault, and not even things he would be able to change or influence in his position. "So forgive me if it's a li'l hard to swallow my sister's trauma bond to you with all that goin' on."

Gil sighed after he was done his tirade. "I get it, okay, man? That place is a hellhole, you're right. But a job's a job--obviously they don't exactly pay me in gold."

Druig shrank as Gil held out his hands to display his modestly sized flat.

"And I never thought anything of it before," he shrugged. "But Thena was there for three months. And I saw her every single day, dragging herself around, obviously just wanting five fucking minutes when she wasn't being watched like a rabid animal."

"So yeah, I let her hang out with me and the potatoes, and I made her fresh mac and cheese, and I saved her pieces of cake so she'd have a singular thing to look forward to." Gil tilted his head at Druig, "obviously you wouldn't have preferred I give her up."

No, he didn't want that. And as resistant as he had been, Thena had asked him to pass her contact onto Gil, and he had done it. Because the look in her eyes when she said that she would miss her chivalrous cafeteria cook was too much to bear.

"Gil," Druig said just above a whisper, looking at his hand fidgeting on the back of the stool. "T really likes you, and I'm tryin' to accept that. But...I haven't been able to do much for her in our lives. She's always been older, stronger, tougher--her balls are bigger than both of ours, I'm sure you'll agree."

Gil just nodded.

"This is the one thing I can actually do to keep her safe," Druig professed, shifting as the feelings attached to his words became too much to bear. "After it was me who landed her there in the first place."

Gilgamesh smiled, though, "y'know she doesn't think of it that way."

"Maybe she should," Druig grumbled.

"Well, she's not going to," the older man chuckled and ruffled his hair again. The size of them arms... "So you can forget it."

Druig sighed as Gil slipped off the stool. He resisted the urge to ask Gil if he had been excused.

"Here," Gil set down a glass of water for him, smiling like Druig hadn't barged into his home and harassed him.

Dammit, he was just a nice bloke, huh? Druig snatched the water and chugged it aggressively. "I should go."

"You don't have to," Gil shrugged, leaving it up to Druig what he would prefer.

He shook his head, "T'll lose it if she knows I came o'er here."

"Druig?"

"Fuck," he bit his tongue as Thena emerged from the other room.

"Hey."

Druig watched Gil get up and go right over to her, speaking softly and reaching for her hand. She was drowsy, blinking a lot against even the living room lamp's dim glow. Gil brushed some hair out of her face with a smile. He must have asked if she was okay, because she nodded with a smile Druig had never seen before. Gil kissed her forehead, and Thena blissfully leaned into it.

"Sorry, I was just-"

"Druig, what are you doing here?" Thena asked, knowing the last thing her brother would do was ignore her.

Druig's shoulders drew up and inward, "I, uh, was just comin' to see if you wanted a drive home. But-"

Thena looked at Gil, who shrugged. "I texted him when you fell asleep. He just got here."

Traitor; Druig glared at him again.

"Oh." Thena just shrugged, no hands on her hips, no lecture about how her baby brother didn't have to come barging into her love life, please and thank you. She smiled, "I see."

Shit, was this guy really such a miracle drug for her? Druig tried not to be even more suspicious of his temperamental sister's serenity. He sighed, "yeah, but, clearly I had nothin' to worry about. I'll head out. You two...whatever."

"Really?" Gil raised an eyebrow.

"Druig," Thena spoke up a little more firmly, making him freeze partway to the door.

He sighed as she came over to him, but rather than jab him with her bony little finger, she tugged at his rumbled jacket affectionately.

"I know you were worried. But thank you," she gave him the eyes, "for trusting me--and Gil?"

Druig made a face and looked away from the woman who was as good as his own mother in many ways. "Fine, fine, I'm goin'. I'll see you when I see'y."

Thena nodded, pressing her hand over his heart for just a second before pushing him gently, "I do hope you didn't make a scene when you arrived."

A chill ran through him; how did she know that? "'Course not."

Gil chuckled, "not at all."

Okay, maybe he wasn't so bad.

[desperatepleasures]

one time I used the ben affleck smoking reaction image in the family group chat and my mom replied with the funniest possible response which was: "mommy doesn't know who the guy is???" and that phrase has not left my brain since. I'll see blorbos on my dash that I don't recognize and I'll be like well it seems mommy doesn't know who the guy is.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[pinkravat-art]

i cannot keep my identity secret anymore. I am harrier du bois

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

trigger warning: blood

[some-kind-of-creature]

It wasn’t supposed to be a secret.

If you died while with the league, you will no longer be acknowledged to have existed, especially if you died during a mission. A disappointment will not be remembered.

The bats and birds don’t like speaking about the people they have lost, so they don’t. If someone ask about the dead, they will tell the person they don’t talk about that.

So how was Damian supposed to know that he should have told his father about his dead brother?

[raynewolferune]

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

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

~

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

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

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

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

~

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

[merrigel]

Ludovica and Sausage I mean Luck (gif version:)

[veliseraptor]

have realized that while i am not a fan necessarily of "people meet and immediately fall in love" i am a fan of "people meet and are immediately obsessed with each other." the love can come later but the absolute fixation should be immediate

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[chiangyorange]

the chain but on a scale of who says hooray yippee and wahoo

is this anything.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

truly this one's just for me. I can do what I want foreverrr

[spitblaze]

Men and masculinity are not inherently bad or untrustworthy things and I don't mean that in a 'misandry is real and a problem' way, I mean that in a 'I think some of you might have contracted minor radfem poisoning' way

[stoopidstapler]

SO IVE BEEN GOIN INSANE SINCE THIS TRAILER DROPPED. JUST. SIMON. SIMON. SIMON.

[hinamie]

sidelong