#and no one knows everything right off the bat

[cakypa120]

Ok Billy keeps coming back au.

Seeing all those people, I just imagine everyone are careful and sad now, so imagine that either this is the first time Billy didn't got killed, or the first time someone who still haven't killed Billy killed him.

I'm don't want to lie I hope he survives, but everything you post says that he won't

Billy sighs. Everyone is tiptoeing around him. Which he expected anyway. Billy doesn't blame them. He just.... He wishes they'd stop being so careful with him.

And then Signal shows up at the Watchtower. Gotham's daytime vigilante. Billy had only seen him three times, since he usually died before Duke joined the Batfamily. Now was the perfect opportunity to meet him.

Marvel: Hello! I'm Captain Marvel! You're Signal, right? Gotham's daytime hero? Nice to meet you!

Signal: Nice to meet you too.

They shake hands. Marvel laughs loudly, although he feels Batman's piercing gaze, as always, watching his brood like a hawk.

Marvel: Are you here on business? Or just annoying your father like your brothers and sisters?

Signal: He is not my father, I don't know where you got that idea from. And I am here to familiarize myself with the internal affairs of the League, since I will be more accessible during the day, unlike Batman.

Marvel: I see. Then let's go, I will show you our cafeteria, where Batdaddy takes coffee as dark as his soul to get energy to suck the strength out of people.

Billy takes Duke to the cafeteria, ignoring the boy's complaints and an irritated Batman. In the end, Billy shows Duke everything, explaining everything in detail, sometimes telling funny stories about Bruce and others from the Bat Clan.

Duke eventually returns to Gotham, and Billy and Bruce see him off. After Duke leaves, Bruce asks the expected question.

Batman: Has he ever...?

Marvel: No. I was dying before he showed up in your family. Well, it's time to go on duty.

Duke doesn't know how to react to this smiling hero.

Duke: Dick, how do you like Captain Marvel?

Dick: A good hero, a wonderful person, has seen too much shit in his entire life.

Duke: He seems too cheerful to me.

Dick: ...... Believe me, if he weren't like that, then... a lot would have gone wrong.

Duke was a breath of fresh air in Billy's life. Ignorance was a blessing. No one wanted to enlighten Duke about what Marvel had to endure. And for that, Billy was grateful. Duke was the only one who talked to him normally, without any guilty looks or awkward silences. Billy liked talking to him. They even got to know each other better.

And then comes the day when the sword of Damocles falls on Billy.

The mission went wrong. Billy and Duke are sealed in an ancient seal that requires a human sacrifice. Billy can't break the seal, because it is too powerful. Created from the suffering of an entire people, created to contain the Gods. Even as the Champion of Magic, he will not be able to break this seal.

Marvel: The seal requires a sacrifice. A human sacrifice.

Duke: Like blood or hair? An arm? A leg?

Marvel: No. You have to kill a person and put it on this seal. The sacrifice will be accepted, and a portal will open through which you can exit.

Duke: What?

Marvel: Magic based on human suffering always requires a sacrifice. This seal is designed to contain God. And this seal is very ancient. We better follow the rules.

Duke: That means one of us will have to die!

Marvel: Yes. Unfortunately. But better than both of us rotting in this prison.

Duke: Maybe we can get help? Well, on the other side! And we will both stay alive!

Marvel: I understand your hope. But... A sacrifice will still be needed. From this side, from that side... It doesn't matter. Someone has to die.

Duke: No! We can't just give up! We have to fight! You have the wisdom of Solomon!

Marvel: The Seal is poisoning you. You're human. You won't last long.

Duke: I'll hold out. I'll survive. We'll be rescued.

Marvel: Duke, I know you believe, and that's good.

Duke: How do you know my name?

Marvel: I know many things. And I know that only one of us will leave this place. And that one will be you.

Marvel materializes a dagger, the blade of which was made of eternium. Duke flinches when Marvel hands him the dagger.

Marvel: It's one of the few things that can kill me.

Duke: No...

Marvel: I know it's hard, but... It's necessary. Sometimes we have to make difficult decisions.

Duke: No! No! No! What are you talking about?!

Marvel: Signal...

Duke: Why are you giving up on life so easily?! You have a family! Friends!! A city that loves you! Are you really going to leave them because of me!? I'm just a newbie! My death won't matter to anyone.

Marvel: *grabs Duke by the shoulders* Don't talk about yourself like that! You're so talented and kind! You'll become a great hero! And you also have family and friends who are looking for you, hoping that you'll come back alive.

Duke: What about you? What about your family?

Marvel: My family... My parents are dead, and my sister... she knows the risks I take by becoming a hero. She understands. The League will understand, too. They won't be mad at you. Trust me. They won't.

Duke: Are you really just going to give up?

Marvel: Maybe. Better me than you. You have to live, Duke. You have your whole life ahead of you, and I'm an old man.

Marvel places the dagger in Duke's hand. Duke's lips tremble. Billy looks at the seal and stands in the middle. He turns and looks at Duke. Billy spreads his arms out to the sides, a bright smile on his face.

Marvel: One blow will do.

Duke:.....

His hands were shaking, holding the heavy dagger. He looks at Marvel, who smiled brightly and spread his arms out to the sides. As if inviting him for a hug. Duke picks up the dagger. He closes his eyes. He has to do this. He has to. But he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to!

Duke takes a deep breath and runs. The dagger pierces the flesh, and Duke feels the warmth of Marvel's body. He slowly opens his eyes and looks at where it struck. Golden blood flowed from the wound. Slowly, the gold turned red. Duke froze, his body stopped obeying him.

Warm hands take his hands and tug. The dagger leaves the body with some kind of sound that Duke cannot understand. A few moments later, Marvel falls to his knees, and Duke continues to stand and stare blankly into space. Marvel's voice breaks him out of this strange trance.

Marvel: You did well, Duke. Great...work...

Marvel lurches to the side and falls. Blood soaks into the seal. The seal lights up brightly and Duke finds himself in the woods. He blinks. Where is Marvel? Wasn't he supposed to come back with him? He needs to be buried, right? Marvel deserves peace. Maybe if Duke searches, he can find Marvel? He's probably nearby. He wanders through the woods, looking for Marvel's body. He doesn't know how much time has passed.

He hears his name being called. But who is calling him? Someone is hugging him. Suddenly, Duke becomes aware of his surroundings. Bruce is hugging him, and Superman, Damian, and Flash are standing next to him. And their faces are sad.

Duke: I killed him... I killed him... I killed... killed... him...

The dagger falls out of his hand. Why was he even holding that abomination? His legs give way and he falls to the ground. Bruce follows him. Duke continued to whisper, "I killed him." Bruce stroked his back and whispered that it wasn't his fault. Duke feels tears, he screams, hugging himself. Before his eyes, again and again, is Marvel's corpse, with a peaceful smile frozen on his face. Bruce hugs him tighter, as if trying to hide Duke from all the pain, from everything that happened. Duke no longer screams, he cries quietly, burying his face in the man's armor.

Duke: I...

Bruce: It's not your fault.

Duke: He...

Bruce: It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

Duke presses himself closer to Bruce. Bruce continues to hug him. Duke just hoped that Marvel had found the peace he deserved.

In another universe, a newborn took his first breath.

[niwaart]

Hello! There are fanfics on Tumblr in which we are the outcast of the family and another child appears who easily gains favor. And in the end it always turns out that this child was gaining the trust of the Bethfamily in order to leak information about them. I'm wondering, what if we do the opposite? We came into the family, easily established relationships with them, became the missing part for them, while the other child was ignored. When another child finds evidence of our dark deeds, he presents it to the family and they are supposed to hate us, but they are too attached to us that they cannot let us go.

I loved that so much! I wrote a little about it, I hope it's like what you meant.

Damian never expected the day would come when he would be replaced. He had always been Bruce Wayne's biological son, the rightful heir, the warrior trained since childhood to carry the Bat-banner. But everything changed when Y/N came along.

This new son, whom Bruce suddenly adopted after discovering he was the son of one of Gotham's most notorious villains, was quiet, smiling, and humble, like the missing piece of the family puzzle. He learned quickly, showed his gratitude, and everyone loved him.

Everyone... except Damian.

From day one, Damian noticed that there was something off about Y/N.

- Bruce would spend hours with him in the cave, explaining techniques to him, and bragging about him to Alfred. "He's learning incredibly fast!" he would say.

- Dick would coach him on basic moves, while Y/N would feign weakness, then "mistake" in a way that would make Dick laugh and say, "It's okay, you're getting better!"

- Tim was protecting him from Damian, thinking the original son of the family might hurt him. "Stay away from him, Damian. He's new here."

- Jason, the big surprise, was reading books with him in the library. "What is this nonsense?!" Damian yelled at him, to which Jason just laughed. "At least he's not cutting people's heads off like some spoiled brat."

But Damian knew. Something was wrong.

Damian began watching Y/N closely. He noticed how:

- Whenever there was trouble in Gotham, Y/N was absent.

- Whenever Damian tried to get close to him, Y/N would smile innocently at him, then his expression would turn sarcastic when no one else was looking.

- One night, while sneaking up behind Damian, he saw Y/N talking to an unknown person on the phone. "Don't worry, everything is going as planned."

But when Damian confronted him, Y/N turned into a scared child, panicking, "I don't know what you're talking about!" That's when Bruce came and berated Damian in front of everyone.

"Stop teasing him! He's part of the family now!"

After months of searching, Damian found the evidence.

- Photos of Y/N sneaking into the Batcave at night.

- Leaks of family secrets sent to their enemies.

- Records of contacts with dangerous criminals.

Damian rushed over to the family, triumphant. "Here's the evidence! He's a traitor!"

But what was surprising was their reaction.

- Bruce looked at him in disappointment. "Damian, when are you going to stop following him?"

- Dick shook his head. "That sounds like a fabrication."

- Tim said quietly, "Maybe you're unable to accept him because you feel he's replacing you."

- Even Jason, who was always criticizing everyone, said, "Damn, Damian, that sounds like childish spite."

But Damian didn't give up. He grabbed Y/N's hand and said, "Tell them the truth!"

Y/N closed his eyes, let a tear fall, and said, his voice trembling, "I'm sorry... Maybe it was my fault for thinking I could become part of you."

At that moment, everyone turned against Damian.

The family couldn't hate Y/N. He'd become part of them, even if the evidence was clear.

- Bruce told Damian, "Even if he's wrong, we'll help him right his ways. That's what family does."

- Dick put his hand on Y/N's shoulder. "It's okay, we're here for you."

As for Y/N, he looked at Damian with cold eyes while everyone was focused on him, and whispered:

"Didn't I tell you? I'm the best among you."

[suzukiblu]

Hey, I was reading through "kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit" (which I adore, Tim's plot to kidnap Kon is gonna go great with definitely no more derailments for sure) and it seems like there's at least one post missing? Between the one ending with the "You didn't even look at me, though." "Didn't I?" dialogue to the one starting with "Superboy carts him halfway across town" without actually showing Superboy finding out about Tim's matching soulmark.

I . . . what the actual fuck, haha, there's like a good 700 words of PRETTY IMPORTANT CONVERSATION missing there and I cannot find ANY sign of any posts that should have them, mis-tagged or not, so like . . . Tumblr, what. Or ME what. Either Tumblr fucked up or I fucked up, and hell if I know which at this point. I could swear I posted those words, but god knows what happened to them and I am definitely not gonna go through ALL of this blog figuring out why they're not where they're supposed to be, so WELP, fuckit, here's just everything of this WIP so far all together and all in order behind the cut: 16.7k of an incredibly normal Tim Drake being an incredibly normal civilian about this situation.

Apparently Cadmus knew Experiment Thirteen was the one to invest in because Experiment Thirteen had a soulmark. 

Apparently Cadmus also considered terminating Experiment Thirteen because Experiment Thirteen had a soulmark. 

Tim knows this because he broke into the place and stole a copy of Superboy's file the day after they met. He also knows what Superboy's soulmark looks like, because these absolute bastards not only took multiple pictures of it, they put those pictures in his fucking file. Not even, like, classified or tucked away behind a firewall or a password or anything. Not even in a separate folder. Just right there in his standard file where literally any random scientist or doctor or goddamn intern could trip right over them without even meaning to. 

Forget the fucking mind control; that's fucked up. 

So yeah. Tim knows what Superboy's soulmark looks like. It's a stark, dark red, all sharp angles slung low in the V of his Adonis belt and cutting from one hip to the other, looking not unlike a stylized bird in flight coming at the viewer head-on. Bold. Undeniable. Very much like Superboy himself, really. 

And exactly like the mark that came in on Tim when, he now knows, Superboy was first put together in a fucking petri dish. So that's . . . a whole thing, there. 

Well. At least his soulmate is only literally fifteen years younger than him, not physically and mentally. 

Although that doesn't really seem like a big improvement, to be honest. 

Tim didn't even know he was into guys, actually? Definitely didn't know Superboy was into guys, all things considered. Like, he would not expect somebody like him to ever be subtle about who or what he was into. 

Maybe they're platonics, Tim tries to tell himself. The fact that his first reflex upon learning that Superboy was his soulmate was to immediately question his own sexuality doesn't really support that theory, though. 

Though it does help explain why Poison Ivy putting her hands on the guy had pissed him off so bad. 

Like. It very much does. 

Tim doesn't actually know what to do about this. Bruce still thinks he doesn't even have a soulmate, due to Tim previously really, really not wanting to deal with the absolute embarrassment of admitting that said soulmate was an actual fucking baby, so Tim never got the Bat-version of the soulmate talk. Bruce'd sat him down to give it to him when he'd first become Robin, but Tim hadn't had a mark then, obviously, so they'd both just assumed he didn't have to worry about it. Tim is pretty sure Bruce had been as relieved as he had to dodge that particular bullet, really. Apparently Dick had needed visual aids and hadn't understood the "gilly talk" version. And Jason had had questions. 

Lots of questions. 

Creative ones. 

Sometimes Tim suspects Jason might've been an asshole. Like, just a little bit of one. 

So no, Tim does not blame Bruce for deciding to skip that particular talk with him, especially when they'd both thought he wasn't gonna need to know any of it anyway. 

So . . . yeah. He doesn't know how he's supposed to approach this situation. Obviously telling Superboy that they're soulmates would compromise Tim's secret identity and therefore Bruce's, and everybody and their damn mother knows Superboy himself doesn't even have a secret identity so it's not like Tim can figure that out and approach him that way. 

On the other hand, not telling him that they're soulmates isn't a great start to being soulmates, now is it. 

Crap, Tim thinks. 

Then he calls Dick, because if he has to sit through the Bat-version of the soulmate talk, at least maybe Dick will be slightly less embarrassing to hear it from. 

As long as there's no visual aids involved, anyway. 

"Hey, Tim," Dick greets as he picks up the phone. Tim has a carefully crafted plan of attack, of course; several, in fact. He's got all sorts of subtle ways to lead the conversation without revealing anything too damning or too specific and while keeping everything in hypotheticals. Just making the whole thing either a quick thought exercise or casual curiosity from an unmarked kid who's heard one too many soulmate stories and wants to know more. So Tim's prepared. Tim's ready. 

Tim panics. 

"Poison Ivy kissed my soulmate and I want to burn down her entire life," he blurts. 

"Uh," Dick says. "You're . . . gonna have to catch me up a little here, baby bird. For starters, I thought you didn't have a soulmate." 

"I didn't," Tim says as he starts to pace back and forth across his bedroom floor, because he's already screwed this up so there's no point in playing coy now. "Then some dickheads in Metropolis decided to steal Superman's dead body and make a cocky asshole with douchey shades and a leather fetish out of it." 

"Ohhhhh boy," Dick says. "What'd B say?" 

"I found out like half an hour ago and you're the only person I've told, so nothing yet," Tim says. "What's the Bat-protocol for finding out your soulmate is somebody in the community, exactly? Specifically somebody in douchey shades?" 

"Depends," Dick says. "How'd the kid react?" 

". . . I don't know how to say this without sounding like a total creep, but he doesn't know," Tim admits with a wince. "I broke into Cadmus to make a copy of his file after I met him and they just . . . had his soulmark in it. Like. There wasn't even a password. It wasn't even in an isolated folder. It was just there." 

"That is the most fucked-up thing I've heard since the last time I had to talk to Jervis Tetch," Dick mutters in obvious disgust. "Alright, well, how are you reacting, then?" 

"My soulmate is a baby," Tim grumbles disgruntledly, dropping into his desk chair. "A baby who is also a teenager." 

"Tim, you're a teenager too," Dick reminds him wryly. "You are very much so a teenager too, in fact." 

"Yeah, and it sucks," Tim says emphatically. "And I have, like, actual legal guardians and a home and a trust fund. Superboy just lives somewhere in Hawaii with a sleazy businessman and his kid and some random guy from Cadmus!" 

"That's, uh, actually not great," Dick says, sounding a little troubled. 

"You think?!" Tim demands. "He's a baby! An infant! And he lives with his frigging manager!" 

"What the actual hell," Dick says. 

"Just–is it ethical to kidnap your own soulmate and does that even matter if they're not legally a person and so you couldn't actually be charged for anything anyway?" Tim mutters speculatively, drumming his fingers on his desk for a moment and then booting up his computer. "I mean, B can't get mad at me for doing it if the courts can't get me for doing it, right?" 

"Wait, Superboy's not legally a person?" Dick asks incredulously. 

"Nope," Tim says. "Which neither Cadmus nor the sleazebag selling his likeness for a living has in any way tried to correct, for the record. Technically he's classified as intellectual property, but Cadmus forfeited legal possession when Superman turned up alive again, presumably to avoid Superman ever finding out that they'd had said legal possession, so technically if I went and kidnapped him it'd be more like . . . salvage, maybe? Like, in the eyes of the law, I mean." 

"Yeah, okay, in that case kidnapping your own soulmate might be less an ethics question and more a moral obligation," Dick says. 

"Good point," Tim says, frowning consideringly as he pulls up his browser. "Do you think if I just do it as Tim Drake I can avoid compromising my identity?" 

"I have no idea but if I were you I'd already be booking my flight and thinking up a cheap excuse to 'accidentally' flash a teen heartthrob superhero my soulmark anyway," Dick says. 

"I am already booking my flight," Tim says mid-click of said booking. "Although, uh, flashing him our particular soulmark might require, like . . . third base, and I don't even know if he likes guys. I don't even know if he knows if he likes guys, he's like five minutes out of the cloning tube and like, I'm literally fifteen and don't know if I like guys, so why the hell would he?" 

"Okay, yeah, that could be an issue," Dick says. "Hm. Wardrobe malfunction? Slutty beach day? Wet T-shirt contest?" 

"I'm not above any of those options at this point, frankly," Tim grumbles, even though those ideas are all very "Nightwing" and not very "Robin". Technically he shouldn't be approaching this like Robin would anyway, because god forbid Superboy recognize his methodology. 

Slutty beach day might have to be a thing, Tim realizes with resigned dread. He is really not comfortable with slutty beach day being a thing. 

. . . maybe if he just gets lucky, he can catch Superboy having his own slutty beach day. Not to make any assumptions, just Tim's pretty sure if either of them were ever going to be the type to wear a speedo or low-waisted swim trunks or just walk around with their soulmark out in general . . . 

Which, in Superboy's defense, well–his soulmark is already on file with Cadmus, so yeah. He might not even care if other people see it or not, considering that. 

Then again, if Tim knew that a bunch of random strangers who'd wanted to mind-control him had all seen and taken pictures of his soulmark, he'd never wear anything that risked exposing it again. Like. Ever. Possibly he'd just live and die in a wetsuit. Or coveralls. Overalls. Or just–whatever. Something like that. 

. . . come to think of it, Superboy's costume is all one piece, isn't it. 

Cadmus is full of assholes, Tim decides as he confirms his booking, then gets up to throw together a go-bag. He has no plan whatsoever, but whatever; it's a twelve-hour flight. He's gonna have time to think something up. 

One go-through with airport security and a twelve-hour flight later, Tim has not thought anything up. 

Dammit. 

It's early morning in Honolulu and Tim is very, very tired. He didn't sleep on the flight because he was making plans, but to be honest said plans are all shit. His best option is gonna take six months to fully execute, for starters. Which is a reasonable amount of time to have to spend getting a near-complete stranger to trust you enough to let you kidnap them away from everything and everyone they know, he knows, but still. It's not even that solid a plan, even discounting the frustrating time delay. It's just the best of a bad lot. 

Maybe Tim should've, like . . . actually stopped long enough to tell Bruce what he was doing and get some advice. Or at least Alfred, anyway. 

Just . . . it's fine, Tim tells himself as he and his go-bag get a taxi. This is just preliminary work anyway. Recon more than anything else. Ideally he'll manage to "meet" Superboy, but he's not dumb enough to think he's going to get the guy to like him this quick, much less trust him. The goal is "passing awareness of his civilian identity's existence" and nothing else. 

Then the street kind of blows up in front of his taxi. 

So that's a whole thing. 

And here's Tim without so much as a damn domino in his pocket. 

People are screaming, things are very literally on fire, and some rando in lycra is yelling at the cop car on the corner. Normal Tuesday, really, except it's broad fucking daylight and again Tim doesn't have a mask on him, much less his bo staff or utility belt or anything actually any kind of useful. 

Fuck airport security, Tim thinks. 

"Who's the jerk with the monologue?" he asks the driver, who seems largely nonplussed by the whole situation and has definitely left the meter running while they're trapped between the other cars and the blown-up street. Priorities, Tim guesses. Can't blame a guy for having them. 

"Beats me, man," the driver says with a shrug. "I don't keep track of the spandex set, I just take the necessary detours around 'em when I'm working." 

"That might be lycra," Tim says, reaching for his wallet. "But fair enough. How much do I owe you?" 

He doesn't have a mask right now, no, but he can't just leave civilians unprotected. He can at least help people get out of the area and maybe distract the lycra rando for a bit, if it comes to it. If nothing else, he can–

Somebody in flashy red and blue and a black leather jacket crash-lands on top of the lycra rando with very deliberate flair and a very loud crow, and then the street blows up again. 

This time, though, the explosion is definitely telekinetic in origin. 

Specifically tactile telekinetic, Tim thinks it's safe to assume. 

He pays the driver, then grabs his go-bag and gets to getting people out of the area as subtly as possible while Superboy and the lycra rando tear up the street even worse. Like, almost impressively worse. Tim really wouldn't have thought the damage could even get that much worse, but they both find a way. 

He is going to have such a hard time convincing Bruce to let him drag Superboy to Gotham. 

Well, it's a six-month plan. Maybe the guy will mellow out a bit somewhere in there. Learn some subtlety. Pick up a bit of finesse. 

Tim isn't actually that delusional, obviously, but that's the lie he's gonna tell Batman when he pitches it. 

Superboy takes down the lycra rando without Tim having to improvise any assists, fortunately, and Tim manages to keep any civilians from getting in the other's way as he handles the fight. The street officially looks like a gravel road, but nobody's dead or even particularly injured–to surprising degrees, in fact–so Tim will take it. Superboy doesn't seem concerned, though a few of the civilians mutter disparaging things about what this is going to do to their commute. 

Tim technically understands their point, but also Superboy did just save at least those cops from getting blown up and the street was already pretty much fucked before he even got here, so he's not sure why they're all complaining about being alive and in one piece. People in Gotham are more intimately familiar with their own mortality than most private citizens, though, and also just grateful when it's not the Joker, so maybe it's just a regional thing. 

He shoos the last few civilians over to the EMTs to get checked out and starts trying to figure out his own exit strategy for this situation before any cops try to write his name down or something. Chances of getting Superboy's attention right now are slim, so it'd be best to just–

"Hey, man," Superboy says, landing lightly right beside him. "Thanks for the assist. Saw you getting people out of the way, made things way easier." 

Tim stares at him. 

"You didn't even look at me, though," he says reflexively. Superboy grins at him. 

"Didn't I?" he asks. His suit is torn right across his stomach and low down along his hips. His soulmark is not even slightly obscured and he is going to absolutely no effort to hide any part of it. 

Tim has never experienced something this convenient in his life. 

So yeah, Bruce is definitely going to assume that he deliberately hired some metahuman stranger to go to Hawaii and rip up Superboy's clothes in very indecent and very public fashion when he tells him this story. 

Frankly, that would've been a better plan than the slutty beach day one, so maybe Tim will just pretend that he did. 

"Uh," Tim says, really not sure what to say right now. Superboy flashes him the cocky smirk from all those lame teen magazine posters, still not going to any kind of effort to cover his soulmark. 

Tim hates Cadmus, but also is kind of embarrassingly affected to be seeing his mark on someone else's skin live and in person. With the photos, he was more distracted by the violation of their existence than anything else, but here and now Superboy is just standing in front of him with their mark bared for the whole damn world to see like he wants it seen. Like he wants Tim to see it. 

Like he wants everyone to know that he belongs to someone and exactly who that someone just so happens to be. 

So yeah. Tim is . . . affected. 

Tim is definitely, definitely affected. 

And increasingly less convinced of any possibility of this bond being platonic, too, because there is no way in hell that their mark looks half as good on him as it does on Superboy. Like. Not a chance. 

Tim really, really wants to touch it, which is technically SOP with soulmarks but is also a bit more fraught of an experience when said soulmarks are more suggestively placed. And they are very much in public right now, so, uh . . . yeah. 

So that's a thing and all. 

"Alright there, man?" Superboy asks, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. "Didn't get your bell rung or anything, did you?" 

Tim decides to just accept the gift the universe has given him and go for broke here. 

"This is really forward of me, to be honest, but that's me," he says, gesturing meaningfully at Superboy's soulmark. Superboy blinks. Tilts his head. Tim assumes he doesn't believe him, because why the hell would he believe a random stranger just saying that to him in the middle of what is technically a crime scene and completely out of nowhere, and resigns himself to having to flash his own mark on a public street with a bunch of way too interested people around. It's unfortunate and not remotely to plan, but there's no way he'll get Superboy actually alone this easy, so . . . 

"What, seriously?" Superboy says, looking bemused. 

"Seriously," Tim confirms. 

Superboy blinks again. Tim puts on a carefully sheepish smile and steels himself to–

Superboy jerks forward and grabs him, and the next thing Tim knows they're a couple hundred feet up in the air and zipping off to . . . who the hell knows where, even. Tim was so genuinely not expecting this turn of events that he didn't even register the instinct to hit Superboy with a nerve strike for lunging at him like that. 

Is he being kidnapped? Is that what's happening right now? 

. . . well, it'd be fair, admittedly. 

At least Superboy went with bridal style over, like, a fireman's carry. 

Not that bridal style doesn't have its own attached embarrassments, but still. 

Tim avoids doing anything as stupid as staring at Superboy's very close face and pretends to be interested in the view. It is a nice one, so it's not hard. Kinda makes him wish he had his camera on him, to be honest. Superboy doesn't say anything, so he doesn't either. He doesn't know how well they could hear each other with the wind in their ears anyway; according to those files from Cadmus, Superboy's not due to develop super-hearing for at least another year or two, and Tim definitely doesn't have it either, so it's probably just better to wait for the moment to avoid having to yell. 

Superboy carts him halfway across town and then lands them on a totally random-seeming rooftop that Tim assumes he has some reason to have chosen, though hell if he can tell what it was. The sight lines are all terrible and there are literally no defensible positions, and there's not even a single decent hiding place or useful perch. 

The local architecture is definitely nothing like Gotham's. 

"Uh," Superboy says as he lets Tim down on the roof, taking a step back from him and suddenly looking embarrassed as he pushes those ridiculous douchey shades of his up into his hair. "I maybe could've thought that one through a little better." 

"Well, I'm assuming you want to see my mark too, and this is better than me flashing it in front of the local press," Tim says, trying not to smile too wryly at the guy. 

Superboy blushes. 

Welp, there's another strike against platonic. 

"Um, yeah, I–" Superboy starts awkwardly, still blushing, and Tim decides to put them both out of their misery by lifting his shirt and tugging down his waistband just enough to reveal his share of their soulmark. Superboy visibly forgets what he was saying and just stares at it. 

"Honestly, I'm pretty relieved," Tim says as he directs Smiling Normal Civilian Face #4 at Superboy and tries not to get flustered by said staring. "I was absolutely expecting to have to deal with a literal baby in my future and I just don't need a soulmate who's gonna think Vena Cava is old news." 

Superboy flicks his eyes back up to Tim's face and sort of . . . grins, kind of, and looks unexpectedly . . . happy, almost? Tim thinks? 

Huh. 

Weird. 

"Uh, I . . ." Superboy starts, then just trails off like he's lost for words or maybe just not quite sure what to say. 

"Do you want to touch it?" Tim offers, because that's normal social behavior with a first recognition of matching soulmarks, and only realizes why maybe that wasn't the best suggestion when Superboy blushes even darker. Which–well, Tim might be blushing a little too, now. 

They really did get a pretty suggestive placement for their mark. 

"Uh–sure?" Superboy says, then somehow turns even redder and sputters: "I mean yeah! Yes. Definitely." 

Okay, Tim probably isn't straight. And this mark probably isn't platonic. 

That is . . . a lot to deal with right now, so he just buries it under Smiling Normal Civilian Face #4 and tries not to blush any harder himself as Superboy strips off his gloves and shoves them into his jacket pockets and then sort of–pauses, seeming a little uncertain, which is very weird to see on him. Superboy is the opposite of uncertain–to a fault, is he the opposite of uncertain. 

Then again, this is literally the second time they've met and most of what Tim knows about him came from either a Cadmus file or tabloid news and teen zine interviews, so maybe he's been making some assumptions here. 

"Together?" he suggests, holding up his own hands. Superboy nods immediately, his face still flushed almost as red as their mark. 

"Together," he agrees, and they both reach out at the same time. Superboy slips his fingers up under Tim's shirt and Tim slips his own between the torn edges of Superboy's suit, and they both just . . . touch. 

Tim's surprised, a little, by how soft and near-reverent Superboy is about it, and puts another strike against platonic. Then he immediately gets distracted, because touching your soulmate's mark is apparently very distracting. His fingers feel warm; his body feels warm. And Superboy feels . . . 

The empathy bond that Tim had always assumed to be exaggerated or romanticized settles in soft and warm and with a sense of rightness, and Tim feels a sort of nervous excitement and hesitant hope and an entirely unanticipated shyness and sweetness and softness where he was really expecting to get more like . . . brash and cocky reckless energy and just . . . very different things, really. This is really just not what he expected to get from Superboy, of all people. 

Not even a little bit, is this what he expected. 

And Superboy . . . Superboy looks flushed and flustered and fascinated, and Tim has the thought that if they, like . . . hugged or something like this, then their marks would touch each other, and then they'd be sharing the empathy bond through them directly, and . . . 

Yeah, okay. That's . . . a thought, definitely. 

Fuck. 

. . . although if either of them were, like . . . turned on or hard or anything, then they'd–never mind. 

Any potential platonic-ness of this mark is really, really losing ground here. 

Tim really does not know how he worked with Superboy last time without tripping over himself, at this point, but to be fair at the time he hadn't known what the guy would look like with his costume all ripped up and their shared soulmark exposed for the whole damn world to see. 

Tim is definitely, definitely kidnapping this guy. If it takes six months or six years, he's kidnapping him. He absolutely refuses to leave that soft little curl of shy hope and unexpected sweetness in this goddamn bullshit situation. He is kidnapping him and getting him legally recognized as a person and out of the stupid predatory contract with his manager and out from under Cadmus's supervision, and he is burning down literally anyone who tries to stop him at literally any point during the whole process. 

He will burn down fucking Superman if he has to. And also the US government and all of Cadmus and–

Just–anyone. Literally anyone it takes. 

"What's your name?" Superboy blurts, and Tim cannot believe he didn't even fucking introduce himself before asking the guy to touch his soulmark. What kind of fucking idiot is he, exactly? 

"Tim," he says quickly. "Um–Tim Drake. I'm from Gotham. Just, you know, visiting." 

"Hi, Tim," Superboy says, and gives him a soft little smile that all those lame teen magazine posters don't even deserve. Tim's heart does a rapid series of Dick-Grayson-level acrobatics in his chest. God, he hopes Superboy doesn't have super-hearing yet. He doesn't, right? God. 

Just–god. So, so many gods. 

"Hi," Tim echoes, feeling ridiculous. He clears his throat, then reclaims his hands from Superboy's soulmark. Superboy bites his lip, then does the same and takes a step back. 

Tim wants to throw himself off this roof, but unfortunately the lack of grapple is going to interfere with that theoretical escape attempt. Crap. 

Superboy's hands are still bare. 

So is his soulmark. 

"You did good with that guy who wrecked the street," Tim says, putting on Smiling Normal Civilian Face #2, which is a little more reserved than #4. Superboy turns red again. 

"Technically I also wrecked the street," he says, looking embarrassed. 

"It was already a wreck when you got there," Tim snorts. Property doesn't mean shit next to people. "And this way nobody died or got hurt too bad." 

"You helped with that part," Superboy says, still red-faced. "Made it a lot easier to keep everybody safe with somebody who was thinking straight about getting them all out of the way, like I said. It's hard to, uh–concentrate on that many at once, you know?" 

"Keeping track of where all the civilians are has to be a pain in a fight," Tim agrees, though he tries to make it sound more like he's following Superboy's logic than already fully aware of the vitality of situational awareness from his own vigilante gig. Superboy blinks, cocking his head. 

"Oh–no, that part's easy," he says. "I can feel everybody. It's just, uh . . . actively spreading the force field out that much? I gotta concentrate a lot harder. So it's just way easier when nobody's in the line of fire." 

Tim . . . pauses. Tilts his head. He is, technically, aware of how Superboy's tactile telekinesis works, but that sounded like . . . 

"Sorry," he says. "You had everybody there in your TTK field?" 

"Mostly," Superboy says. "Like I said, it's hard to concentrate on that many people, especially if they're running around all freaked out." 

"Why would you split your focus like that?" Tim asks, a little mystified. Though he guesses this explains how Superboy noticed what he was doing without ever actually looking at him, come to think. "Doesn't it weaken your powers?" 

"Well, yeah, but that dude was blowing up the whole street, man," Superboy says, making a face. "Somebody could've gotten shrapneled or something." 

It occurs to Tim, slowly, that the amount of injured civilians really wasn't as high as it should've been, and in fact most of the injuries he did see had almost definitely been caused in the initial attack. So that means . . . 

Oh. 

. . . huh. 

"Huh," he says. "I didn't realize that was something you could do.” 

"I try not to advertise that one," Superboy says sheepishly. "So, uh, bad guys won't start going after civilians harder when I'm fighting 'em. Or pick crowded areas to pick fights in." 

"I was under the impression that you advertised most of what your powers can do," Tim says wryly, though again, he did get that impression from stolen files and cheap magazines. 

"Well, yeah," Superboy says with an awkward shrug. "Otherwise people don't think I'm doing anything. Like, that I'm just punching stuff or whatever. Uh, so–how long are you in town for, then?" 

"Just for the day," Tim says while making further mental re-evaluations of his soulmate. And it's an admittedly terrible cover, but–"I'm flying back to Gotham on a redeye. I just dropped in to get some time to myself, but I've got school on Monday and a paper to write for it. You know how it is." 

"Not so much, man, I don't do that," Superboy says, and Tim . . . pauses, again. 

"You don't . . . what, go to school?" he asks. 

"Naw," Superboy says, shaking his head. "On account of supervillains attack it when I do.” 

"So you're home-schooled?" Tim assumes, trying not to cringe at the idea of Rex Leech teaching Superboy math or economics or anything even vaguely in that wheelhouse. That could not possibly end well. 

"Naw," Superboy repeats with another shrug. "Got superhero shit to do. And also, like, brand deals to do. Not really my thing anyway." 

. . . Tim is reminded, again, that Superboy is not in fact legally a person and is therefore not in any way protected by labor laws, and Rex Leech and every single dodgy opportunist he's been selling Superboy's likeness to probably knows that. Not even the laws intended for civilians or metahumans or minors or animals would apply, in fact. 

Fuck. 

The next six months of this kidnapping plot are going to be an agonizing wait, Tim's already realizing. 

Fuuuuuck. 

"Oh, I see," he observes non-committally, trying to figure out if he can move up that six-month timeline somehow. There's got to be some corner he can cut or something he can cheat, if he just–

"Do you wanna hang out for a little while before you leave the island?" Superboy asks hopefully. Tim stares blankly at him for a moment. What kind of question is that? Most people would be upset to find out they'd only have a little while to hang out with a newly-discovered soulmate, but Superboy's asking like he expects him to want to just . . . what, swap cell phone numbers and then go on about their original plans for the day? 

First of all: no. Second of all, Superboy doesn't know it, but this is Tim’s plan for the day, so still no. 

"That sounds cool, yeah," Tim says, applying Smiling Normal Civilian Face #5, which is a little softer. Superboy brightens, inexplicably turning red again. Tim has the even more inexplicable urge to pat his head about it. 

This is definitely not a platonic soulmark, no. 

Okay, so Tim's . . . gay, he guesses? Bi? Pan? Just–some sexual orientation that includes telekinetic alien hybrids that are at least male-presenting, anyway. That or Superboy is a trans girl and just not out yet, which he supposes is an equally logical option. 

. . . probably Tim being at least a little bit gay is likelier, though, because Superboy really is a look in that torn-up skin-tight costume he's (she’s?) barely wearing right now. Though Tim could also be bi and Superboy could be trans; it's not like either of those possibilities precludes the other. Actually, that combination would probably work out pretty well, right? In theory? 

At least, he assumes it would. Tim has admittedly not looked into that kind of thing too much, what with assuming it wasn't ever going to be directly relevant to his life. He infiltrated a GSA-style support group for a month and a half once for Robin-business and that's all he's really got to go on. His cover had been "kid with a newly-out older brother who was seeking basic information", just to minimize any potential concern about him dropping off the face of the earth after the necessary recon in the center was done, so he hadn't had to know anything even then, really. 

Apparently he should've been paying less attention to the layout and staff and more to the actual conversations. 

Go figure. 

"We could go grab some lunch," Superboy suggests, leaning towards him a bit. "I know all the best local places. Like, the not-touristy shit, I mean. Or maybe hit the beach?" 

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but I didn't pack a swimsuit," Tim admits. The possibility of the slutty beach day plan would've required a very different cut of swimsuit than his usual trunks, so he'd just figured he'd just buy a new one if he needed it. 

"I could lend you one," Superboy offers. He’s a little bigger and broader than Tim is, so Tim’s sure they don’t wear the same size, though he supposes if he had a pair of trunks with a drawstring waistband, or at least an elastic one . . . 

"Do you have a spare?" Tim asks, mildly dreading the thought. He's a Gothamite. They're not bred for the beach. And also, that would entail wearing Superboy’s clothes. 

Why didn’t he just say yes to lunch? Why is he stupid? 

"It's Hawaii, dude," Superboy says with a laugh, flashing him a wide grin. "Half my closet is swimsuits. Actually pretty sure I have more swimsuits than T-shirts, come to think.” 

Tim isn't sure if that means Superboy likes the beach that much–which would admittedly make sense for a Kryptonian hybrid, given the ridiculous amount of yellow sun that's out there free for the taking–or if that means that Superboy just literally never wears civilian clothes. He must sometimes, right? In theory? 

. . . Tim hates Rex Leech, he's pretty sure. Like. Really, really hates him. And also Cadmus. And Superman is on thin fucking ice, at this point. 

Very thin ice. 

He could get out the kryptonite ring again, if he had to. Like, that's an option that happens to be available to him. Just in case. 

"We could do the beach," he says as he reverts to Smiling Normal Civilian Face #5, because he’s an idiot, apparently. "Since it is Hawaii and all." 

"Cool," Superboy says, grinning wider for a moment before seeming to remember himself and straightening back up from leaning in so close. "Uh–cool, yeah! C'mon, I'll give you a lift." 

Tim, again, doesn't even have time to register the instinct to hit Superboy with a nerve strike before he's in the guy's arms and they're taking off into the air again. Does Superboy have super-speed? Tim was pretty sure he didn't. Like, at least not yet, anyway. Maybe all that constant island sun is paying off early. 

Hm. Note to self: look into that. He should really know if his soulmate has super-speed or not. 

Superboy doesn't actually tell Tim where they're going, but Tim assumes "his place" is a safe enough bet. Which is . . . a whole thing, actually, since it includes a marked risk of running into Rex Leech, who Tim absolutely cannot threaten this time. Which is really unfortunate, frankly. 

Then again, maybe if he can get the slime alone while Superboy is digging out that swimsuit for him, he can say something with some plausible deniability to it and Smiling Gotham Civilian Face (Nighttime Edition), which Tim has on good authority terrifies just about every other possible flavor of Normal Civilian. At least in the States, anyway. 

He'll have enough mercy not to use the Crime Alley version on the guy. 

Maybe. 

The flight isn't long, but the view is still nice, so Tim wouldn't have minded either way. Superboy sneaks a few glances at him from behind his sunglasses and Tim politely pretends not to notice so he doesn't have to deal with the weird fluttery feeling it puts in his stomach every time he does. It's not like Superboy can't feel him perfectly well with his tactile telekinesis right now, and also just his normal sense of touch; there's no real reason to keep sneaking peeks at him unless–

. . . wait. How well can Superboy feel him with his tactile telekinesis right now? Like . . . exactly how well? 

Oh god, Tim thinks, and desperately pretends that his only concern in regards to the answer to that question is if Superboy might notice he has more muscle and scars than a normal civilian should, whether they're from Gotham or not. 

Actually, if he can potentially feel something as subtle as scars–

Oh god, Tim thinks again, and then very quickly stops thinking altogether in self-defense. 

The flight to Superboy’s presumable place isn’t too long, like he said, so Tim manages to keep his brain from running off in too many buck-wild directions, and they’re landing in front of a big but slightly shoddy-looking plain wooden house before he’s catastrophized too badly. Or like . . . maybe not too badly. In theory. Probably. 

Superboy lands in front of the porch and the little group of people who appear to have been talking on and around it, and doesn’t even let Tim down before he’s excitedly blurting, “Everybody, this is Tim, he’s my soulmate! Tim, this is, uh . . . everybody.” 

Tim’s done his research at this point, so he recognizes Rex Leech sitting in a chair on the porch, Dubbilex sitting in another with a ratty-looking little white dog in his lap, Tana Moon standing by the steps, and Roxy Leech sitting on them. He doesn’t know the dog’s name or whose it is, but the rest of them he’s researched, for obvious reasons. They all look startled, then bewildered. 

Tim feels a little awkward about the whole situation, considering Superboy still hasn’t let him down from the bridal carry, but ignores it in favor of Smiling Civilian Face #4 and a polite little wave. 

“Nice to meet you, everybody,” he says. 

They all stare at him blankly for an awkwardly long moment, at which point Superboy finally seems to realize he should put him down, and then Roxy Leech lights up and jumps to her feet to run over. 

“Oh my god, SB, that’s amazin’!” she says brightly. Tim immediately clocks her as full of shit, but more in the sense of “trying to be happy for someone when not remotely happy herself” than “just being a fake asshole”. “Hi, Tim! I’m Roxy!” 

“Hi, Roxy,” Tim says, offering her a handshake to go with Smiling Civilian Face #4. She throws her arms around him and hugs him instead. Again, he’s too baffled to register the nerve-strike instinct. “Um . . . hi?” 

Dubbilex gets up and comes over with the ratty little dog in his arms and stares intently at Tim, who does his Bat-training best to think nothing but normal civilian thoughts. The dog sniffs him curiously and then jumps out of Dubbilex’s arms and straight for him. Tim barely catches it in time, which means now he’s got a dog and Roxy attached to him. Which . . . okay, sure. This might as well happen. 

Oh god, the dog’s licking him now. Why is the dog licking him now? 

“Krypto seems to approve of you,” Dubbilex observes. Tim continues to think very normal civilian thoughts, and Dubbilex tilts his head, looking . . . thoughtful. 

. . . Tim hopes these are normal civilian thoughts. 

“He’s cute,” he lies with Smiling Civilian Face #2, taking a blind guess on canine gender. The dog–Krypto, apparently–looks like a wriggly wet rag, actually, but that’s not the dog’s fault. Well, aside from the wriggling. Dubbilex still looks thoughtful. 

“Don’t lick him, you little shit,” Superboy says, eyeing Krypto dubiously. 

“Aw, you don’t think your soulmate’s lickable, SB?” Roxy asks with a sly grin, and Superboy turns bright red. 

“Don’t you lick him either,” he threatens, grabbing her off Tim and floating up into the air a few feet with her in his arms. She cackles delightedly and throws her arms around his neck. Tim wonders if she’s his girlfriend. It’d track with her being anxious about him finding his soulmate, but recon on Superboy’s interpersonal relationships was . . . unclear. 

Meaning, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out if the guy was platonic about a single woman or girl in his life, so who fucking knows. 

Tim really doesn’t know what that means for their mark, considering. 

He pats Krypto’s head, for lack of a better idea, and gets slobbered on again for it. Dubbilex still looks thoughtful. Rex and Tana come over a bit more grudgingly than he and Roxy did, Rex looking leery and Tana just barely frowning. Tim pretends to be an oblivious moron and ignores both their suspicious expressions to keep up Smiling Civilian Face #4. He is a perfectly normal civilian with a perfectly normal smile and perfectly normal thoughts, and that is all. Really. 

( and he’s going to get Superboy away from this fucking BULLSHIT living situation and into literally ANYTHING better, and away from Rex Leech and Cadmus and every single shitty person who’s trying to take advantage of him, and into legal recognition as an actual fucking PERSON while he’s at it, no matter which politicians he has to Bat-blackmail into passing some goddamn LEGISLATION already! )

Dubbilex tilts his head. Tim doesn’t panic, because he’s a perfectly normal civilian having perfectly normal civilian thoughts. There’s absolutely nothing in his head that Dubbilex would hear and think was weird. Nothing. Normal thoughts. All of them. Normal. 

. . . Tim needs to work on his normal civilian thoughts, maybe. Like, just a little. 

“A pleasure to meet you, Tim,” Dubbilex says, tone mostly neutral but still polite. “My name is Dubbilex.” 

“Nice to meet you too, Dubbilex,” Tim says like someone who definitely didn't already know that. He puts on Smiling Civilian Face #11: “Meet the Parents” Edition. It is . . . not actually one he's really had to use before. Like, not even with Ariana or–and actually also it’s probably not the right face to be using either, really, but Dubbilex is the closest thing to a not-an-asshole adult in Superboy’s life and he doesn’t want to be an asshole to him. 

Unless he turns out to be one after all, in which case all bets are off. But only then, obviously. 

“You sure this guy’s your soulmate, Kid? Not just some weirdo fan trying to take advantage or something?” Rex Leech asks suspiciously as he finally comes over, folding his arms and narrowing his eyes at Tim skeptically. Tim finds that a deeply ironic statement. And also a deeply hypocritical statement. 

Prick. Like Leech hasn’t been taking advantage of Superboy since he first fucking heard of– 

Civilian thoughts. Niiiiice civilian thoughts. Nice and normal and civilian, just like all his thoughts. Normally! 

. . . don’t think about white elephants, Tim tells himself, and immediately winds up with a full stampede of albino pachyderms in his head. 

It’s not non-civilian thoughts, so he’ll take it. 

“Relax, Rex, he showed me his mark,” Superboy says as he lets Roxy back down and lands again, the tips of his ears turning just a little bit pink. Tim considers both the reaction and the fact that he just noticed said reaction, then puts another point in under “not platonic”. It’s . . . getting to be a lot of points, at this point. No pun intended. “It matches. Like, it definitely matches.” 

Superboy doesn’t mention the fact that they’ve already touched each other’s marks to confirm, even though that’s a pretty normal thing to do upon mark-recognition. Tim makes a mental note of that, but doesn’t comment. He assumes there’s a reason for it, or otherwise why wouldn’t he? Not like Leech could argue with that, after all. 

Tana Moon follows Leech over to the group, looking a little wary herself. Tim sizes her up in his peripheral vision, pretending not to notice her approach. He’s “just” found out who his soulmate is, so he can sell the illusion of only paying attention to Superboy right now. It’s not an unusual reaction. 

It’s a pretty typical one, actually. The fact that Superboy decided to immediately show him off to everyone he knows is actually the less usual option, in fact. Not unheard of either, of course, but still. A lot of newly-discovered soulmates tend to just forget about the outside world for a few hours. Or days, even. A few missing person cases that Tim’s been involved in solving turned out to be cases of “I met my soulmate and we just eloped/ran away/went on a road trip/holed up in a hotel room without telling anyone”. 

Tim had thought it was ridiculous at the time, if obviously preferable to ending up with either a dead body or a traumatized victim, but Tim is currently in the process of planning an ethically-necessary kidnapping less than twenty-four hours after first cracking into Superboy’s file and not that much longer after first meeting him, so he supposes soulmates just bring out most people’s less pragmatic sides. 

Though he personally thinks carefully-planned ethical kidnappings are an improvement on spontaneous weekends in Vegas, pragmatically-speaking. But whatever. 

“He showed you?” Tana Moon says, glancing Tim over suspiciously. Superboy’s face reddens this time and he tugs at the slash in his own suit. 

“He, uh, saw mine first,” he says. “Kinda got into it with a dude downtown and Tim here was in the area, and like, he recognized it, obviously.” 

“It’s fairly noticeable as a mark,” Tim supplies helpfully, figuring he should be being supportive of his soulmate here, and also be shutting Rex Leech up as efficiently as possible. “And Superboy came over to check on me after the fight, so it was hard to miss.” 

“Sure it was,” Leech says, his face souring. “So then you won’t mind showin’ yours to–” 

“Shut up, Dad!” Roxy hisses, kicking him viciously hard in the ankle. Leech yelps in pain. Roxy is immediately his favorite, Tim decides. By far Roxy is his favorite. The dog’s kind of cute and Dubbilex seems decent, but definitely Roxy is his favorite. 

Her dad definitely fucking sucks, though. 

And as for Tana Moon . . . 

“You’re a tourist?” Tana says, just barely frowning down at Tim. She’s taller than him. She’s also taller than Superboy, because she’s a grown-ass woman and why, exactly, is a reporter even here right now? How is that necessary or reasonable? 

. . . admittedly she’s also taller than Leech and he’s a middle-aged man, but that’s not the point here. If Tim has to “no comment” this situation and figure out how to get either his parents or Bruce to kill a story, he absolutely will. He isn’t even slightly gonna hesitate there. He is gonna the opposite of hesitate, in fact. 

“Yes,” he lies, which might not endear him to Moon, given she’s a native, but is better than confessing to having premeditated designs on kidnapping a teen idol superhero. Especially to a reporter. 

Even if it is legally salvage. 

“I’m just in town for the day,” he continues. “I needed to get away for a little while, you know how it is.” 

“Sure,” Moon says, narrowing her eyes at him. “Who doesn’t.” 

“He’s from Gotham. And he helped the civilians get out of the area while I was fighting that guy downtown!” Superboy says eagerly, which is . . . odd, actually, and throws Tim off a bit. That seems like a weird thing for Superboy to be eager about, considering. Like . . . just very weird. 

“Well, that’s a Gotham thing, probably,” Tim says, putting on a sheepish Civilian Smile (#7). “We’re used to rogue attacks with area of effect concerns involved, so we get pretty good at clearing a street.” 

“You did awesome, man!” Superboy says, grinning excitedly at him. That is . . . still weird, yeah. Tim really doesn’t get it. 

Well, maybe Superboy’s just relieved to have a soulmate who knows how to stay out of the line of fire and what to do in a crisis, given how often crisises probably come up in his life. That would make sense, considering. 

“It was nothing, just a little light crowd control,” Tim tries, assuming that’s what a normal civilian would say. Probably, right? Almost definitely. “Nobody even needed any urgent medical attention. And you used your TTK really strategically and contained the guy too, that was much more impressive to pull off in a mess like that.” 

Yeah, that was normal civilian talk, he thinks, pleased with himself for managing it. 

Superboy turns pink, then grins again. Dubbilex . . . tilts his head. 

Normal. Normal. Normal civilian. That’s what Tim is. A civilian! Who’s normal! Very, very normal! 

Normal. 

He smiles Normal Civilian Smile #4 and pats Krypto’s head again. Krypto makes an enthusiastic attempt at licking his fingers off. 

Ew. 

“‘Light crowd control’,” Moon echoes. That’s what Tim said, yeah, so he’s not sure why she’s repeating it. Well–reporter, again, so it’s probably a trap. 

It’s almost definitely a trap, actually. 

Really definitely it’s a trap. 

“Sorry to just show up like this, hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he says to Roxy and Dubbilex with a smile, politely pretending not to be ignoring Moon. He is definitely ignoring Moon, though. Again: reporter. She may not be a Lois Lane or even a Vicki Vale, but he’s still not giving her any information he can avoid giving her. And he’ll just ignore Leech while he’s at it, too. 

“I invited you, dude!” Superboy says with a laugh, shaking his head. “We’re gonna hit the beach for a while, go hang out. Just swung by to grab Tim a swimsuit I can lend him.” 

“You came to Hawaii to ‘get away’ and didn’t pack a swimsuit?” Moon says skeptically. 

“Yup,” Tim replies with the most placidly innocent expression he’s ever worn in his life. Nothing. He is giving her nothing. Let all her reporter instincts strike against mirrored glass and high-security privacy windows and come to naught. 

Moon stares at him in silence, clearly waiting for him to fill it. Tim doesn’t fall for the incredibly obvious bait and just keeps the placidly innocent expression on. 

She frowns. 

“C’mon, man,” Superboy says cheerfully, apparently–and fortunately–oblivious to their stand-off. He grabs Tim’s arm and drags him towards the front porch. Tim seriously doubts its structural stability, from the look of it, but tactile telekinesis is hard to argue with. 

The steps manage not to collapse–possibly also because of tactile telekinesis, Tim can’t help suspecting–and Superboy pulls him straight into the house, which is . . . not particularly well taken care of, no surprise. The furniture looks like it all came from a thrift store, and not a nice thrift store. 

Admittedly Tim’s upbringing might be showing here, but also the corners need swept and there’s random boxes of assorted Superboy merch everywhere, most of which looks like cheap junk, and a huge stack of mail and four empty pizza boxes on the coffee table and overflowing trash cans with random junk scattered around, and it’s just . . . it doesn’t look taken care of, no. Which is something Tim would expect from a teenager or two, and maybe Dubbilex doesn’t know how chore wheels work or whatever, but fucking Rex Leech should at least be capable of getting out the broom once a week. 

Assuming there is one, anyway. Tim isn’t particularly optimistic on that one, honestly. 

Superboy’s room is even messier than the living room, covered in dirty clothes and abandoned comics and crumpled-up papers, but Tim’s bedroom looks like a bomb went off in it so he’s not gonna judge. Anyway, that’s Superboy’s personal space, not a common area. He can keep it however he likes, Tim figures. 

Somebody should really sweep that living room, though. And throw out those old pizza boxes, too. 

Tim isn’t judging, just–well, no, he is very much judging, actually. Specifically what he’s judging is Rex Leech, noted asshole sleazeball manager with predatory business tactics. 

Fuck that guy, seriously. 

“You want trunks or a speedo?” Superboy asks as he lets go of his arm to fly over to the cluttered dresser. Tim turns seventeen different shades of red and nearly disassociates. 

“Trunks,” he says quickly. “Please.” 

“Gotcha, man,” Superboy says easily, and then all the dresser drawers yank out at once and dump out crumpled piles of . . . mostly swimsuits and super-suits, it looks like, yeah. Like, basically nothing else but swimsuits and super-suits and a couple of cheesy-looking Hawaiian shirts. 

Well, that might be one lonely, lonely pair of cutoffs sticking out from underneath the swimsuits. But otherwise, that’s pretty much it, yeah. 

Fuck, that’s depressing, Tim thinks. 

Superboy comes back over with an armful of swimsuits, just about all of which have the S-shield either printed or stitched on them. Tim wonders why the guy even has this many swimsuits, especially considering he barely has any other clothes at all. At least not as far as he can see, anyway. 

He also wonders if he’s gonna die if he wears Superboy’s clothes. Is that a thing that might happen? Because it really might happen, yeah. 

Also wearing something with an S-shield on it feels like just a little too much to handle right now, so Tim’s hoping for a basic black option to be buried somewhere in that pile. Given Superboy’s apparent fashion sense, it seems unlikely, but hope springs eternal. 

“Take a look, see what’s good,” Superboy says, dumping the entire armful of swimsuits on Tim. Tim’s just grateful he remembered to stick to just the trunks, at this point. 

“So you spend a lot of time on the beach, huh?” he says wryly. 

“C’mon, man, it’s Hawaii,” Superboy says with a sheepish grin. “And I mean, I look good in anything but wet leather is just not a comfortable fit, you know?” 

“I guess it wouldn’t be, no,” Tim says, giving him Civilian Smile #4 again. Superboy’s ears redden a little again, and then he leans back and zips back across the room to shove all his drawers back shut. Tim lays out the pile of swimsuits on the bed, since it’s right there anyway, and then immediately feels embarrassed to be this close to Superboy’s bed. Which is stupid, even if they aren’t platonics. They’ve just met; it’s not like anything’s gonna happen. 

. . . even if Superboy is a notorious flirt and totally shameless and–

Tim is just not gonna pursue that line of thought right now, he decides. Just for his own sanity and all. 

He accidentally knocks some paper off the bed as he’s laying out the suits to get a look at them, and reflexively leans down to pick it up. The room’s a mess, yeah, but it’s Superboy’s mess. It’s still rude to just drop shit wherever. 

The paper isn’t as crumpled as some of the others, and Tim sees a glimpse of color as he picks it up. His inner detective reflexively wonders what it is, and . . . 

Tim uncrumples the paper a little, and blinks down at it in surprise. It’s a little kid’s drawing, it looks like. A sunny beach rendered in bright colored pencil and simple, awkward shapes all painstakingly but clumsily colored in and–

Superboy’s suddenly right back next to him snatching the paper from him and immediately hiding it behind his back, looking absolutely mortified. Tim’s confused, for a moment. What’s he embarrassed about? It’s obviously not anything he’d have drawn himself. It’s probably just something a fan or a neighbor’s kid gave him, or . . . 

Tim pauses. Then he recontextualizes just how much crumpled-up paper is lying around Superboy’s room and wonders, very briefly, if a bunch of STEM majors with delusions of grandeur would’ve bothered programming their custom-designed “Superman” with anything resembling art skills. 

So . . . maybe that is something Superboy drew himself. If Cadmus didn’t program him with the muscle memory or knowledge of how to draw . . . well, then he probably would draw like a little kid, wouldn’t he. 

And given Superboy’s cocky, braggart personality and defensive ego and how all that paper is all crumpled up as if in frustration . . . 

“Gift from a fan?” Tim “assumes” with Smiling Civilian Face #4, pretending to be oblivious. 

“Uh–yeah!” Superboy blurts quickly as he jumps on the provided excuse, though he keeps the paper behind his back. “Yeah, just–you know, just some kid gave it to me at a signing, whatever. Uh, bathroom’s through there, if you wanna get changed. Or like, whatever.” 

“Thanks,” Tim says, and resists the itching urge to peek at a few more of those crumpled-up papers. It’s just a lot of paper, especially if Superboy’s upset with the results. 

He wonders why the guy draws so much, if he’s that frustrated and embarrassed by it. Maybe it’s a rebellion thing, since it’s something Cadmus didn’t want him to know how to do. Tim would definitely understand that logic, if he were in Superboy’s situation. Or maybe he’s just bothered not to know how and trying to teach himself to make up for the perceived failing. 

Or maybe he just likes it, Tim supposes. That’s an option too. 

Probably a less likely one, though, given that it’s Superboy. Not to be an asshole or anything, just it’s a lot easier picturing the guy assuming he should be able to do something and getting fixated on trying to pull it off than just, like . . . liking to draw. Also, judging by all that balled-up paper, it doesn’t seem like there’s all that much there for him to “like”, either. 

Tim takes the plainest set of trunks with a drawstring waist, which are black and dark blue but still have an S-shield iron-on patch sewn onto their waistband, for whatever reason, and ducks into the bathroom with them. He realizes belatedly that said S-shield is probably going to rest right up against his soulmark, then feels like an idiot for feeling flustered by that idea and just sets his bag against the wall and starts getting undressed. 

He’s definitely wearing one of the spare shirts in his go-bag for this, he decides as he stuffs his clothes into his bag. Just–definitely, yeah. 

The trunks fit once he cinches the drawstring enough, but the S-shield definitely does rest right against his soulmark. Tim has never actually considered the sight of the S-shield to be, like . . . relevant or interesting outside of work, but he’s realizing that he sure does feel differently about it now that he knows his soulmate’s one of the people wearing it. 

Which is a little ironic, really, considering Superboy wears the S-shield as a branding thing or whatever and lets Leech slap it on whatever cheap shitty merch he can think of. Like, he’s probably the least respectful S-wearer there is.

Tim pulls on a plain clean T-shirt and a short-sleeve button-down to go over it, figuring that’s beach-friendly enough. He should’ve packed sunglasses, probably, but he was a little distracted by his kidnapping plans and didn’t think to. 

Seriously. He didn’t think to bring sunglasses to Hawaii. 

This whole situation definitely has him off his game, yeah. 

Soulmate thing, he guesses. 

Tim eyes himself in the bathroom mirror, mentally decides he’s being an idiot to worry about how he looks right now, and then grabs his bag and heads back out into the bedroom. Superboy’s changed into low-waisted S-shield-themed trunks of his own and flip-flops and nothing else, which does in fact give Tim an embarrassingly good and embarrassingly distracting view of their soulmark. It’s not quite distracting enough for him to miss the fact that the amount of crumpled papers strewn around the room has noticeably decreased, though. And there’s definitely more of them sticking out from under the bed and dresser and in the back of the closet than there previously were. 

Which is kinda cute, honestly, but Tim should probably not say that. Like, ever. 

“Thanks for waiting,” he says, smiling Normal Civilian Smile #4 at Superboy as he hitches his bag up a little higher on his shoulder. “And for the loan.” 

Superboy stares blankly at him for half a second, then seems to startle a little and puffs himself up. 

“Uh–sure, yeah!” he says quickly. “No problem, man. Anytime.” 

“‘Anytime’ seems pretty open, as an offer,” Tim jokes, because normal civilians make that kind of joke, and Superboy turns red. 

“Oh, uh–you know what I mean!” he sputters awkwardly, holding his hands up, which seems kind of a lot as a reaction, and then somehow manages to nearly knock over his dresser without even touching it. Well–that'd be the TTK, Tim guesses. 

It wasn't even that much of a joke. Like, lame suburban dad joke territory, that's all. 

“I do, yeah,” he says with a wry smile. Superboy finds a way to turn even redder and shoves his dresser back into a corner. That also seems like kind of a lot as a reaction, but Tim doesn't comment. Just seems, well . . . awkward? Unnecessary? “Are we good to go, then?” 

“Um, yeah, yeah,” Superboy says, clearing his throat and then zipping out into the hall. Tim wonders if he always flies indoors this much. “All good, dude! Let's head out.” 

“Sure,” Tim says, keeping the smile on. Superboy is still red, but floats along down the hall. Tim follows. Okay. They’re almost definitely not platonic, but Superboy clearly isn’t any more sure what to do with that than Tim is, so . . . small favors, he guesses. Like–that they’re at least roughly on the same page there, he means. 

Unless he’s just reading into things because of weird personal biases he didn’t even know he had, and Superboy is completely straight and just kind of socially awkward around civilians, and Tim’s just being socially pressured by the background radiation of living in a society that over-values romantic soulmates in comparison to platonic ones and sometimes disavows the value of platonic soulmates altogether. 

He supposes technically they could be familial, rare as that is. It’s not like he really knows how he’d feel about having a brother. Dick’s the closest thing to one he’s ever had, and that’s just . . . not actually the same thing, obviously, even if sometimes he wishes . . . 

Anyway. It doesn’t matter. He’s pretty sure having a brother wouldn’t in any way involve this level of embarrassment and unexpected hormones and just general sexuality-questioning over every little thing. Like, that seems very much not like what having a brother would be like. So–maybe he isn’t straight, or maybe Superboy’s not actually a boy, or maybe both of those things are true, or maybe he’s just really, really bad at having a soulmate. 

Entirely possible, under the circumstances. Tim’s not really all that good at getting close to people. If he got a little confused about how to handle having a soulmate, well . . . that wouldn’t really be a surprise, would it. 

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to have to figure out how to come out to his dad or Dana or the goddamn Batman. 

One or the other, probably. 

. . . statistically speaking, the likelier explanation probably is not wanting to come out to the goddamn Batman. 

“Wanna fly someplace or just chill on the beach out front?” Superboy asks as he floats backwards into the living room. Krypto runs up and jumps on Tim excitedly, his tail wagging so hard his whole little body’s wagging with it. He’s a weird-looking little mutt, but he’s really friendly, apparently. “Krypto, oh my god, get off him.” 

“I don't mind,” Tim says, leaning down to give Krypto a polite little pat on the head. Krypto barks happily and wags his tail so hard he knocks himself over. 

Yeah, weird dog in general, Tim thinks. But again, really friendly. 

“We can go wherever,” he says. “You're the local, you know the best places to get a little time alone to hang out, right?” 

“‘Alone’?” Superboy repeats, his ears reddening again as he somehow manages to trip in mid-air and hits his head on the doorframe. Tim can probably safely write off the idea of “platonic” at this point, but is still a little bit wary of his personal bias interfering. Though . . . “Uh–yeah! Totally! Yeah! We can do that!” 

Yeah, Superboy really isn’t selling the “platonic” idea here either. 

Does Tim have a boyfriend now? Is this how boyfriends happen? 

. . . well, or a girlfriend, maybe. He still hasn’t ruled out the “maybe Superboy’s just trans” option. That seems like a thing that might confuse his sexuality a little, if nothing else. 

This is definitely not anything like any previous girlfriend-getting he’s experienced, though. Like, not even a little bit. He’s not complaining, exactly, because admittedly it’s actually a little bit easier going into a new relationship with a plan and a cover established, even if the plan is still in flux and the relationship’s “romantic” vs “platonic�� status is still unclear. It’s still something he can approach like a case, which is much more straightforward than just floundering around trying to figure out how normal people work. 

And Superboy’s about as far from a “normal person” as it gets, so really, this is a pretty ideal set-up on Tim’s end. 

Hopefully Superboy feels similarly, though he also, like . . . is lacking some pretty important information there, so . . . yeah, that might be an issue. Bruce would definitely not have appreciated Robin telling Superboy he was his soulmate, though, and who knows how Superboy would’ve even taken that. Going in as a civilian is going pretty smoothly, though, so Tim’s pretty sure it was the right choice. 

Hopefully it was, anyway. 

“Cool,” Tim says, keeping up the placid harmless civilian face and thoughts and Totally-Not-A-Vigilante vibes. Superboy does a very bad job of pretending he didn’t just bump into the doorframe and ducks back outside, putting on a cocky grin of his own as he does. It occurs to Tim, briefly, that maybe Superboy has his own catalog of performative expressions. None of his friends really seem to, but Superboy is in the community too, so . . . well, it’d make sense, right? 

Also he does sell his likeness via a sleazy manager’s sleazy business deals, so yeah. It does kind of make sense. 

Huh. That’s . . . a thought, he guesses. 

Not a thought he’d really had yet. 

Just . . . something they might have in common, Tim guesses. 

Though so is being in the community to begin with, obviously. And they're physiologically about the same age and have similar coloring, though Superboy is–well, not actually mixed with East Asian, because Krypton did not have an actual place called “Asia”, but he does have subtle hints of that look, same as Superman. Easy to mistake for just being white, but recognizable if you know what you're looking for. Superboy would be at least half-white given Westfield's DNA, Tim guesses, but . . . 

Yeah, no, he doesn't even know how to begin to figure out the nuances of racial identity on a dead planet he knows next to nothing about, much less any potential experience parallels there might be for a second-generation half-alien immigrant with effectively zero access to their own culture, but maybe he could–

Right, okay, he needs to focus here. There's some fascinating stuff there that he can theorize about and investigate later, once he's kidnapped Superboy properly. The kidnapping is the current priority, though. Like, it is very much the current priority. 

Tim follows Superboy back out onto the porch. Everyone else is still out there, which is fine in regards to Roxy and Dubbilex and not fine in regards to Leech and . . . well, jury's out on Moon, maybe. 

Also the dog. He doesn't really know about the dog. Though said dog does run after him and jump up for attention wagging his scruffy little tail hard enough to wag his whole little body, which is sort of cute. 

Or as cute as a wet dishrag can get, anyway. 

Tim’s trying not to judge Krypto for that, since obviously he didn't ask to be born as the living embodiment of a wet dishrag, and anyway he's a really friendly dog, so judging by appearances seems like a dick move. Even if Tim kind of wants to iron him, to be honest. Steam-clean, maybe. 

At least take him to a decent groomer, if nothing else. 

“Down, you little shit, Jesus!” Kon says, scowling down at Krypto and trying to shoo him away. Krypto growls at him, which seems weird, then goes back to fawning all over Tim. Tim leans down and pats his head, figuring it might calm him down. 

“It’s okay,” he says. “He is cute.” 

“Whatever,” Superboy grumbles, folding his arms and inexplicably glowering at his dog. 

“You gonna go swim, or just hang out?” Roxy asks curiously as she comes over to them again. 

“Oh, we’re–” Superboy starts, but Moon cuts him off. 

“Want some company?” Moon inquires, pleasant and suspicious all at once. Superboy looks–conflicted, momentarily, and then awkward. 

“Um, well–Tim’s only in town for today, so . . . next time?” he hedges. Tim resists the urge to eye Moon. Can I just spontaneously insert myself in your first day with your brand-new soulmate? is incredibly rude, as a suggestion. And incredibly fucking disrespectful to boot. Like, what entitled-ass kind of thing is that to ask, exactly? 

How old is she again? Twenty? Twenty-one? He should look that up later. Well–no, she’d graduated college and started her career by the time Superman had died, which was a good eight or nine months ago now, so unless she skipped a grade or two in there, she’s gotta be closer to twenty-four, if not twenty-five or twenty-six. 

That’s . . . a thought, considering there is definitely news footage of Superboy kissing her in Metropolis. Like, Tim very definitely saw news footage of Superboy kissing her in Metropolis. And she was very definitely kissing him too. 

In retrospect, that seems like something someone should’ve, like . . . done something about? Or at least addressed? And is definitely further proof of how fucking useless and slimy Rex Leech is. Sure, let the five-minute-old clone make out with a twentysomething reporter and hang out with her at home; all publicity is good publicity, so it’s fine, right? Sure. Why wouldn’t it be? 

Tim is going to absolutely decimate that bastard’s credit the first chance he gets. Leech probably already has terrible credit, mind, but he’ll make it worse. He’ll find a way. 

. . . though he’ll wait until he’s sure Roxy is eighteen and financially independent, he doesn’t actually know if she is or not. Roxy seems nice, she doesn’t deserve that particular fallout. 

“It’d be nice to get to know each other later, I’m sure,” Tim says before Moon can say anything, smiling Gala Smile #1 at her, which is a targeted psychological attack and not actually very moral to be trotting out this quick, probably. 

He has no regrets, for the record. Absolutely none. 

Moon narrows her eyes suspiciously. Tim blithely strokes Krypto’s ears, Gala Smile #1 flawless and unphased. 

“I’m sure,” she “agrees” frostily. Superboy remains apparently oblivious to the tension and grins brightly at both of them. 

“Cool!” he says. Oh, sweet summer child who has clearly never socialized with sharks, Tim thinks resignedly, petting Krypto again. Has Leech taught him literally nothing about conversational warfare, for fuck’s sake? At least living with your sleaze of a manager should be good for that, dammit! 

Then again, Leech is probably not actually competent enough to teach Superboy anything actually useful, so maybe that’s for the best. 

If nothing else, Superman could’ve taught him a bit of “bless your heart”, but apparently that’s not a thing either. 

Tim has a brief moment of dread that maybe underneath his personal list of performative expressions, Superboy might just be a straightforward and honest person, which is a concerning thought. He doesn’t even know how to talk to a straightforward and honest person at this point, after this long as Batman’s emotional support sidekick. How do you form a lasting relationship with someone who isn’t habitually using at least three layers of double-talk and constantly locked in on all your microexpressions, anyway? 

That’s going to be a weird experience, yeah. 

“Ready to go?” Superboy asks Tim, grinning brighter at him. Tim feels momentarily overwhelmed and just sort of . . . has to collect himself about that, a little. 

Or a lot. 

“Lead the way,” he says, smiling at him. He’s flustered enough to forget to use an appropriately-planned smile, which is embarrassing, but Superboy just grins even brighter–which should not be physically possible, but apparently is–and reaches out to scoop him up into his arms and into the air again as Krypto lets out an offended bark. It’s totally overkill and not even slightly necessary. 

Tim isn’t complaining, just–well–

It’s really flustering. 

“Air Superboy up, up, and away!” Superboy says cheerfully as they float up over the others’ heads. His face is way too close to Tim’s face. 

Tim is gonna need a bit longer to collect himself this time, he’s pretty sure. 

“Do I get an in-flight meal?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Superboy laughs, which is even worse than his grin, and then takes off across the beachfront with him. It’s another bridal carry, which is quietly mortifying but could be worse, probably. Maybe. 

Somehow. 

Superboy flies them straight across the beach and then straight out over the water, skimming them along just above the waves. Tim makes a briefly startled noise, reflexively tightening his grip on the strap of his bag. 

“This isn’t waterproof,” he says just as reflexively, and Superboy laughs again. 

“I’m not gonna drop you, dude,” he says. Tim actually more assumed Superboy was intending to either dive-bomb them both into the water or just dump him in on purpose, because that seems like Superboy’s sense of humor, but maybe that was an unfair assumption. 

He really is not prepared for how it feels to be held in close against Superboy’s bare chest and arms like this, even if he’s still wearing a shirt himself. The idea of possibly doing that while they’re both wet seems a lot worse. 

Yeah. Definitely worse. 

Tim should’ve worn long sleeves. And maybe a wetsuit. And maybe a few layers on top of that. 

Jesus. 

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he says, barely resisting the urge to loop his arms around Superboy’s neck as the other hangs a right and swoops them back around towards shore. Flying over the water like this is a pretty cool experience, admittedly, now that he’s not worried about Superboy dumping him in the water. 

Well. Less worried, anyway. 

Camera next time, Tim promises himself, glancing back over Superboy’s shoulder towards the shining horizon. The sun reflects off the waves bright and beautiful, and the sky is a smooth and perfect blue dotted with sparse but billowing clouds, and everything smells like salt and sea and leather, which is probably Superboy, even without the jacket on anymore. 

Definitely camera next time. 

“Definitely holding you to that, actually,” he says, and Superboy laughs again and brings them down in the surf just past the tideline with a splash. Neither the splash or the water goes high enough to soak Tim's bag, so he figures it could've been worse. 

Assuming Superboy isn't planning to toss him or anything before he can put his bag down somewhere safe, anyway. 

They both settle down into the surf and onto their feet, and Tim becomes very aware of how close together they’re standing and also how very, very shirtless Superboy is, and in fact the only thing between their soulmarks is the very thin layer of cotton of Tim’s own shirt, and if he leaned in just a little bit . . . 

Jesus, Tim thinks faintly, and forces himself to take a step back before he can make it weird. 

He smiles Generically Pleasant Civilian Smile #2 just to make sure he doesn’t look like a creep or anything, and Superboy grins excitedly at him. Tim allows himself all of two seconds to be overwhelmed by that gorgeous expression and their physical closeness and the reflection of the light in Superboy’s eyes, as bright and perfectly blue as both the sky and water, and then reasserts standard operating procedures and keeps Generically Pleasant Civilian Smile #2 locked in place on his face. 

“The water’s really warm,” he observes, glancing down at it. “Is that normal?” 

It’s probably not an impending supervillain thing, he tells himself. 

Maybe global warming or something, though. 

“I mean, feels normal to me?” Superboy says with a shrug. Tim considers mentioning the average ocean temperature, comparatively speaking, or at least the average temperature of the water off the docks in Gotham. Admittedly, Gotham waters barely count as “water”, legally speaking, but that’s not the point. 

“It’s pretty out here,” he says instead, and Superboy grins at him and leans in. He’s pretty sure it’s more an instinctive thing than a deliberate one, just from the way Superboy does it, but that doesn’t exactly make it less flattering. 

Or flustering. 

“I mean, it’s Hawaii, man!” Superboy says, grinning wider before kicking at the surf. “‘Course it’s gonna be pretty!” 

Actually you specifically are possibly the prettiest damn thing that I have ever seen, Tim thinks, but isn’t stupid enough to actually let out of his mouth. Superboy, unfortunately, continues to be all warm and grinning and lit up by island sun. Tim did not come prepared enough for this. 

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure I’d be the guy who came to Hawaii and got a monsoon,” he says wryly, and Superboy laughs brightly. 

Tim really did not come prepared enough for this. Like, not at all. Not even slightly. 

“Guess you’d just have to come back, then,” Superboy says, grinning wider again and kicking at the surf again as he floats back up out of it. It’s–weird, a little, looking up at him like this. 

Well, not weird, just . . . yeah. 

Something like that. 

“Guess so,” Tim agrees, feeling embarrassingly flustered. Superboy’s friends can probably still see them from the porch, distant though it is, but part of him is still just considering very weird and dumb and insane ideas like maybe tugging Superboy back down to earth and into the surf and just . . . confirming the little sexuality crisis he’s been having since breaking into the other’s file and seeing their soulmark in it, maybe. 

Just, you know, ruling things out. Making deductions. Going through the process of elimination. 

Kissing him, maybe. 

He could very, very much kiss Superboy right now. They’re on a gorgeous beach in the surf and under the sun and Superboy is floating in front of him and grinning as happy and excited as could be and Tim’s stomach is fluttering in a stupid and also-embarrassing way, and . . . 

He could kiss him. That’s all. 

“I mean, it’s a nice place to visit, right?” Superboy says casually, linking his hands together behind his back. 

“The tourism industry seems to think so,” Tim says, wry again, and wonders what the “normal civilian who didn’t come here specifically looking for his soulmate to kidnap/salvage him to begin with” thing to say is here. He has absolutely no idea, because he actually has absolutely no idea how normal civilians react to superheroes. Robin is . . . not exactly an urban myth, necessarily, but definitely not a publicly-recognized superhero. He’s a vigilante that’s just barely allowed to operate outside the law, and not one with any kind of publicity or celebrity involved. 

Superboy, on the other hand, is not only a superhero, but a professional superhero. He’s selling his likeness and doing events and has signed a stupid predatory contract with a sleaze of a manager that technically shouldn’t even be legal, given Superboy isn’t even considered a legal person by the government. Apparently no one has ever realized that, though, or at least no one’s ever let Superboy realize that. 

Tim really doesn’t love that that’s a thing, to put it mildly. 

Actually, he just fucking hates it. 

Superboy laughs, and looks very, very pretty doing it. Tim continues to wonder what a normal civilian would do here, and for lack of a better idea falls back on small talk. 

God, his best plan right now is small talk. What is his life, even? 

No wonder he’s gonna have to take six months to kidnap Superboy, ugh. 

“So, uh–this seems like a weird question to be bringing up this late in the conversation, but what’s your name?” he asks, because it’s occurred to him that he actually has no idea what Superboy goes by when he’s off-duty. He knows he doesn’t have a secret identity, obviously, but there’s no way his friends just call him “Superboy”. Well–maybe his slimy asshole manager does, but otherwise. “I mean, if that’s okay to ask. Marks or not, I understand if you don’t feel like we’re there yet, given the whole superhero thing and all.” 

Robin knows Superboy doesn’t have a secret identity, after all, but Tim Drake is a normal civilian and shouldn’t act like he knows too much about any superhero in general, so–

“Naw, it’s fine, I don’t even have one,” Superboy says, for some reason just beaming at him, which is . . . weird, Tim thinks, but nowhere near as weird as that answer is. 

“You don’t . . . have one?” he repeats slowly, and Superboy shrugs easily. “Like–not at all?” 

“Yeah, everybody pretty much just calls me 'Kid' or 'SB', when it's not Superboy,” Superboy confirms. “Oh, and Knockout calls me 'Pup' when she's around but like, that's really just a 'her' thing and she’s low-key a supervillain, so yeah. So, you know, you can call me whatever.” 

Tim stares blankly at him for a long, long moment, speed-runs all five stages of grief, and also discovers a couple of new and unexpected ones. 

Alright. Well, he officially regrets literally nothing about this impending kidnapping. 

“Oh, okay,” he says. “Um–sorry, I guess I just assumed you’d have a more . . . civilian-ish name too, I guess?” 

“I’m a clone, man,” Superboy says, looking like he thinks Tim’s said something funny. “The only other name I’ve got is ‘Experiment Thirteen’, which is definitely not something I answer to.” 

Tim discovers a few more stages of grief that hit with all the subtlety of a spiked baseball bat and makes himself nod as much like a normal person as he can. 

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d go for that one if I were you either,” he says. “Kind of a mouthful, if nothing else.” 

Superboy laughs, then grins at him again. He is actually doing so, so much of that, Tim’s realizing. Tim was really not prepared for how much of that he’s been doing, in fact. He just did not come prepared for any of that at all. He’s got some nebulous kidnapping plans, but everything else here–from the supervillain attack to Superboy’s ripped suit and exposed soulmark–has been a crime of opportunity. 

He probably should’ve done more research. Actually, he definitely should’ve done more research. He kind of just panicked and bought a ticket and flew right over, and just because Dick didn’t stop him doesn’t mean it was a good idea. He just–he should’ve done more research. Planned more. Not shown up without something concrete. 

Admittedly Superboy doesn’t hate him yet or anything, but this was just . . . yeah, this was not his brightest idea at all. Not even slightly. 

Why didn’t he do more research? 

“You really can just call me whatever you wanna, don’t worry about it,” Superboy says with another one of those too-easy shrugs as he settles back down into the surf, which, unfortunately, puts him back into kissing range and is therefore incredibly distracting. 

Dammit, Tim thinks, trying to beat his stupid teenage hormones into order. Why is he even a teenager at all? It’s so inconvenient. He really needs to live to twenty just so he can stop being one, because god forbid he die at fifteen too and end up, like, a teenage ghost or something. He would just not be okay with that. He feels even worse for Jason thinking about that, actually. 

“Whatever I want?” he repeats, because he’s an idiot with no control over his hormones whatsoever. 

He really needs to make it to twenty. 

“Well, except for Experiment Thirteen. That one sucks,” Superboy says with another grin. Tim politely pretends not to notice the slight tightening of the corners of the other’s mouth as he says it. 

“Uh, okay,” he says, clearing his throat. He guesses Superboy doesn’t really care what his name is, then, but being told to just call him whatever he wants to is . . . well, a weird feeling, maybe. “What do you do when you just want to be a civilian for a while, though?” 

“I don’t,” Superboy says. 

“. . . don’t . . . what?” Tim asks slowly, not sure if he should be dreading the answer or not, but–

“Be a civilian,” Superboy says. 

Tim’s running out of new stages of grief, he’s pretty sure. 

“Ah,” he says. 

Superboy–for a second, Tim thinks he looks self-conscious, but then he’s grinning again before he can be sure, and . . . 

“Why would I, man?” Superboy says, puffing up proudly. “I’m Superboy! Nothing else I’d rather be.” 

Given how limited Superboy’s options for anything “else” he could be probably are . . . well, Tim’s not sure what to think of that statement. He doesn’t think it’s anything good, whatever it is. 

Yeah, he thinks as he looks at Superboy’s too-bright grin and thinks about how he just said "nothing" and not "no one". Definitely not anything good. Whether that was intentional or just an unknowing slip . . . well, who wouldn’t pick being “Superboy” over being “Experiment Thirteen”? 

And what else would Superboy even know how to pick, if he thought those were his only options? 

“Doesn’t that get . . . tiring?” Tim asks carefully. “Being Superboy all the time?” 

Superboy blinks. Tilts his head. 

And so, so obviously doesn’t understand the question. 

Dammit, Tim thinks. 

“Naw, man,” Superboy says confidently, grinning at him. “It’s great!” 

Tim genuinely cannot imagine how it could even be mediocre. They’re very different people, obviously, but–always? Always being the hero persona? Only being the hero persona? 

Not even being able to call it a persona, because it was all you ever were or had been? 

Even normal celebrities dress down sometimes or try to sneak around under the radar. A celebrity superhero . . . how does Superboy even do anything? Ever? It’s not like he lives in a gated community or a wealthy area or around any other famous people or superheroes; he’s an anomaly in both Hawaii in general and in his neighborhood specifically, as far as Tim can tell. Well–as much as he’s in a “neighborhood”, anyway. There seems to be a decent amount of space between houses, which makes Tim wonder exactly how expensive this house was, especially since it’s basically right on the beach, but also it’s not in particularly good condition and– 

God, he really wants a look at the setup of Superboy’s licensing deals, actually. And his bank balances and investments and just anything like that. And specifically, Rex Leech’s finances in relation to those deals and balances and investments. 

Seriously, fuck that guy. Tim wouldn’t trust Rex Leech with his spare change, much less literally everything about the entire livelihood of a teen idol with limited legal personhood. 

“Oh, cool,” he says with a very careful reissue of Civilian Smile #7, trying to sound like he isn’t actively fantasizing about faxing all of Rex Leech’s tax returns for the last entirety-of-Superboy’s-existence to the IRS with some very pointed notes in red pen. 

Very pointed. 

Superboy grins at him again. Tim thinks he’s going to have to start just inventing new stages of grief, at this point. The current ones aren’t going to cover this situation. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just thought it might be a little harder to hang out together if you’re really never doing the civilian look,” he tries, and Superboy–stills, suddenly, and the grin vanishes all at once. Tim has a moment to be split between having an anxiety attack about having said the wrong thing or having an anxiety attack about the supervillain attack that’s about to land on his head when he still doesn’t have a mask, and then–

“You–what?” Superboy asks, looking startled. “I mean, uh–like–you wouldn’t get bored doin’ that?” 

“. . . hanging out with you?” Tim asks blankly. They’re soulmates. And also Superboy is quite possibly the literally least boring person he has ever met, douchey shades or not, and the list of “least boring” people in his life includes Bruce and Dick and more superheroes than he could shake his bo stick at. How is someone getting bored around him even a concern that would occur to Superboy? Like, literally ever? 

“No, I mean–” Superboy turns red, looking briefly embarrassed. “You wouldn’t have more fun hangin’ out with Superboy than just, uh–some guy?” 

It takes all of Tim’s Bat-training and gala-experience to not stare at him over that. That–what kind of question is that? 

“I mean, I’m just some guy,” he lies. “But I just meant it’d be way easier to hang out if we weren’t having to deal with people bugging you for selfies or autographs or whatever all the time, you know?” 

“I–uh, I guess,” Superboy says, still looking flustered. “Like–probably, I guess.” 

“Also I don’t want, like, a Gotham rogue randomly deciding you being in town is a good reason to start some shit,” Tim says wryly, because he definitely does not want that, in fact. “Feel like Batman wouldn’t like that very much.” 

“You believe in Batman, dude?” Superboy asks, raising an eyebrow at him. 

“You’re a half-alien clone and you think Batman’s hard to believe in?” Tim attempts to deflect with, because that was definitely a fuck-up on his part, and Superboy just laughs. 

“No, man, I just have literally never met a Gothamite who’d admit to believing Batman was a real dude,” he says. “I literally met Robin like a week ago and, like, pretty sure he was low-key trying to convince me he didn’t believe Batman existed.” 

It was not even a week, Tim thinks, mildly indignant for no good reason, then puts Dubious Civilian Expression #1 on his face and rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, Batman’s one thing, but no one actually thinks Robin’s real,” he snorts, and Superboy laughs again, sounding straight-up delighted about it. 

“No, he totally is!” he protests, grinning at him again too and linking his hands together behind his back as he leans towards him, which is incredibly, incredibly distracting for him. “Dude’s got the sick flips and everything and I totally saved his ass from Metallo. And, uh, then he totally saved my ass from Poison Ivy. Long story. Also he’s got a stick up his ass, like legit you would think that was where he kept that quarterstaff thing of his.” 

This is a dangerous topic, Tim recognizes while forcing down the instinct to reply it’s a bo staff, actually, they’re pretty different, and tries to figure out how to change the subject as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Robin talk is not a good idea right now, when there’s a risk of Superboy possibly noticing something about him, what with meeting Robin a reasonably fresh experience in his mind. 

Not that fresh, apparently, since he thinks it was “like a week” ago. But whatever. Not the point. Tim’s just annoyed by the inaccurate intel. 

. . . seriously. A week? 

“Batman or not, you apparently already have beef with Poison Ivy, so definitely I’d be worried about you being publicly in town without needing to pack a super-powered weed-whacker,” he says wryly instead of anything more damning or secret-identity-blowing. Superboy looks–weird, for a moment, leaning back a little bit to straighten back up. 

“You’d, like–actually be cool with me visiting you in Gotham? Like–that wouldn’t be annoying or whatever?” he asks, sounding just barely uncertain about it, and Tim again has to force himself not to stare at him. First: Superboy being any kind of uncertain whatsoever is the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, and second: they’re soulmates. People will spend a lot more time with their soulmates than occasionally visiting each other in different cities, especially five minutes after meeting them when they’re still trying to figure out who and what they are to each other. Again: Tim has investigated multiple missing persons cases that turned out to be “I found my soulmate” cases! Multiple! In Gotham, even! 

“Yes,” he says instead of any of that. “I would actually really like you to, in fact.” 

“Oh,” Superboy says, and turns red again. “I–uh–yeah, I guess that’d be cheaper than you needing to buy a plane ticket or run up your phone bill if you ever feel like shooting the shit or whatever, huh?” 

“I have unlimited minutes, actually,” Tim says, forcing down another stare. The staring would not help, at this moment. Or like–ever, probably. “And the plane ticket was only like a week’s allowance, plus my dad’s got a disgusting amount of frequent flyer miles saved up he never remembers to use anyway. I’ll buy you a plane ticket if you don’t feel like flying yourself.” 

“. . . uh,” Superboy says. Tim should stop talking, probably, but– 

“Also you’re my soulmate,” he says. “I could get, I dunno, an after-school job if I actually needed to cover anything like that. I just figured we could take turns flying over or something. I mean, if you decided to go to college in Gotham in a couple years or something I wouldn’t complain, obviously, just we’ve just met and that seems like a bit much to suggest first thing. Especially, uh, since you don’t actually have any transcripts, apparently. Um. Just, well, if you ever did want to be a civilian sometimes . . . like, eventually, I mean? Well, Gotham would probably be a good place to hide a Super, right? Nobody’d expect to see you there, and it’s not like you can’t commute.” 

Superboy is staring at him now. Tim thinks maybe he said something wrong after all. Or maybe the lycra rando is about to jump him from behind. 

Fifty-fifty, given the way his life tends to go. 

“Um,” he says. “Like–no pressure or anything. I could also look into colleges out here, do you know if there’s any good programming–uh, programs around? Like just tech in general.” 

Superboy is still staring at him. 

. . . okay, at this point, it’s probably that Tim said something wrong, yeah. 

God, he’s usually so much better at subtle social manipulations. Is this the panicking thing again? Is he panicking again? 

Apparently, yeah. 

“Um,” Tim says again. Superboy jolts like he’s just gotten shocked by static electricity or something and turns blazingly red. 

That is definitely not a color achievable by human circulatory systems, yeah. 

“Uh!” Superboy says, looking incredibly awkward for a second and then clearly forcing a casual, cocky pose as he raises an eyebrow at him with a smirk. It might come across as more convincingly casual if he weren’t still blushing, but Tim isn’t going to judge; blushing is generally an involuntary response. “I dunno, man, I don’t ask the college babes what their classes are like, you know? Not really my priority in the conversation.” 

. . . Tim might judge a little. Just, like–in passing. 

He really needs to figure out if they’re platonic or not. Just–very much so does he need to figure that out. 

“Well, if you get the chance next time, maybe you could just see what they think about the curriculum,” he suggests, because maybe they are platonic, and Superboy–hesitates, for a second, and then Tim’s not sure if he said something stupid or not, and then Superboy just grins at him again, crooked and easy, and it sort of fries Tim’s brain a little. 

Okay, so like . . . uh. Another mark against platonic, Tim guesses while he’s trying to remember how his slightly-fried brain even works. At least another mark against platonic on his end, anyway. Superboy talking about “college babes” is kind of a mark for platonic, admittedly. 

Unfortunately, Tim is still the guy whose first reaction to finding out Superboy was his soulmate was “wait, am I gay?”, so . . . yeah. 

So like, that’s a few things he’s gonna have to process at some point this week, he guesses. 

He can probably fit it in Thursday, he tells himself. 

“I mean, if you want me to chat up some campus coeds for ya, I guess I can be a soul-bro like that,” Superboy says, grinning wider. His grin is unfortunately gorgeous, and the statement is unfortunately heterosexual. Or at least very strongly platonic-soulmate-leaning, anyway. 

And Tim, to his awkward embarrassment, thinks he might actually be disappointed by that. 

. . . maybe he’ll fit in his processing on Sunday, he amends. Sunday he has a little more spare time to work with, and there’s just . . . going to be a lot of it, definitely. 

Just a lot. 

[ghostly-bat]

This one is for @gosuckmydickgrayson simply inspired by whatever conversation we were having under a post (I don't remember which one lol)

Basically Jon's accepted the fact that Damian is pretty for a long time now but dumbly enough hasn't realized that his feelings go beyond physical attraction. Damian's only now realizing that Jon is hot, it's freaking him out and his blaming himself for not noticing sooner like the emotionally repressed bat that he is. (Like buddy where have you been??)

Their respective ages in this one are around 18 to 19 btw! Or super early twenties you decide uwu

---------

Damian's been going off about a mission that went absolutely off the rails for the past 15 minutes. Something about how no one listens to him, how they should because he's always right. Irey says that maybe if he said it nicer, they'd listen to him, and that just makes Damian throw daggers at her before he resumes his lecturing.

He is lecturing everybody, Jon included.

Jon, however, is not listening. He's had a hard time listening to Damian for years now actually. Though to be fair, he has had his moments where he would tune out Damian on purpose simply because he just didn't feel like hearing about how Tim took whatever was left of the Lucky Charms and left the empty box in the pantry.

But this was different. Because Damian could be telling him about whatever game he's been playing or whatever anime he's been watching, and Jon himself would notice the small beauty mark under Damian's left eye, the way his lashes frame his eyes, the soft and delicate features that are often paired with a stern look or an annoyed frown, the way his skin looks like it has almost no imperfections, and before he knows it, Damian is snapping his fingers in front of his face, bringing him back to reality.

It was in one of these many moments that Jon Kent realized,

"Holy shit... Damian's really fucking pretty," and it was for sure going to be his downfall.

When he realized around the age of 13 that his best friend was absolutely beautiful, Jon did his best to repress it; he did his best to not think about it because,

'Why would I find Damian pretty? He can be so bossy and arrogant'

'He acts like such a know-it-all, thinks he's right all the time'

'It's probably just puberty, it's nothing too serious'

These were things he told himself for the longest time. Did his best to find reasons to not think that Damian is pretty, but in all honesty, the last thing he wanted to do was admit that

"Oh my god... my best friend is pretty."

It's something that would keep him awake at night from the ages of 13 to 16.

It was something that would genuinely stress him out, something that would genuinely frustrate him to the point where, if Damian asked him to hang out, he'd make up some type of excuse like, "I'm going to my grandparents' farm this weekend" or "Sorry, D, my mom grounded me this week," because when he did hang out with Damian or when he was anywhere near Damian's vicinity, all he could do was focus on his pretty face.

Jon would stare at Damian wishing he would just get uglier, his life would be so much easier if Damian was uglier. But if he stared for too long his mind would begin to wonder about how long Damian's lashes have gotten and how cute his nose was.

He hated it.

Jon was so blaming Damian's mom for this. Why'd he have to look so much like her.

When he did decide to admit the fact that he found Damian really, really pretty, the first person he went to about his dilemma was Kon, and he wasn't much help because Kon's immediate first response was:

"Oh. So you like them mean and pretty, huh?"

The smirk that Kon was giving Jon told him everything he needed to know, and that was that Kon knew long before he did.

(And Kon had known that not only did Jon find Damian attractive, but that he clearly felt something more than just the fact that Damian was attractive. But that was something that Jon needed to discover for himself.)

Jon also picked up on the fact that Kon didn't just use the word mean to describe Damian, but he also used the word pretty, which could only mean…

"Wait... you also think Damian's pretty?"

"I have eyes, Jon. I know a pretty face when I see one, and so does everybody else."

Oh, and how true that was, because as soon as Kon said those words, that's when Jon realized that he definitely was not the only one who also thought Damian Wayne was pretty.

He proceeded to have another existential crisis about it.

And so, after the years of mental acceptance he's had to do, (he finally accepted it around the age of 17) he was now standing in the middle of the Watchtower, getting scolded with the rest of his team from the man he found absolutely stunning.

"I hope you all realize this is why we have plans; this is why we talk about strategy; this is why we don't react on impulse—"

"It got the job done, though."

'Oh, Tai... this is not the time to be talking back right now,' everyone collectively thought.

Damian stopped his rant for a brief moment, looked dead in the eye at his teammate, and said, "Oh, do not get me started on you—"

Damian liked things done a certain way, and everyone on this team should know that by now, but everyone on this team is also just as stubborn as the next.

So Jon stands there, alongside the rest of his teammates as they continue to get reprimanded, arms crossed and staring.

He sees Damian's lips moving, but... they look really soft. 'I wanna kiss him...' he thinks (oh, and that was a new thought he'd have to come back to later), and the way Damian's nose scrunches up when he's ranting about whatever is cute. Maybe it's just him, but 'Are Damian's eyes greener? They seem shinier.' Damian, in general, is really distracting.

And in that moment, Jon's brain decided that

'Hey, wouldn't it be great, just awesome to think your thoughts out loud!,'

So then, without thinking: "You're pretty when you're mad..."

Damian immediately stops and turns to look at Jon with a look that can only be described as horribly shocked and confused.

Everyone else also stops and turns to look at Jon.

And of course, Jon realizes a second too late what he just said.

There's a moment of silence before Damian speaks again because he needs to process what he just heard. He's shocked, bemused, and flattered? He is feeling everything in between, and it feels like he's in crisis mode.

"E—excuse me!?"

"I—"

"You—"

Damian was already red in the face, but it's for a completely different reason now.

"I—I didn't mean it!"

"You didn't mean it!?"

"I mean, I wasn't listening!?"

"You weren't listening!?"

Goddamn it, Jon really needs to get his foot out of his mouth. And he really needs to pay better attention because wait... when did Damian get into his personal space?

'Oh... his skin looks really soft...'

Now that Damian was closer, he could smell that smell that was oh so Damian. How he was fighting the impulse to cup Damian's face and simply admire him.

"Jon! Are you listening!?"

Oh yeah, he was getting yelled at.

Jon lets out a sigh; it's his own way of admitting defeat. Because it's been so hard keeping all this in for so long. And he already went ahead and said what he said so now seems like a better time than ever.

"I'm sorry, Dames... You're just really distracting..."

And Jon sees the red go from Damian's cheeks to his ears and down his neck. He also notices that Damian got shorter? Or maybe he himself got taller?

Yeah, that was probably it.

Damian at this point has absolutely no idea what to say. What could he say!?

He was confused and feeling so many things at once; he felt warm—in fact, everything felt warm.

'When did everything start to feel so warm!?' His thoughts felt like they were going into overdrive.

But wait... when did he get so close to Jon?

'Was Jon always this tall? There's no way I had to crane my neck up this high just to talk to him,' Damian thought.

He notices that Jon is slightly tanner; it makes his freckles more prominent. And his hair... it's longer, shaggier. It somehow suits him, making Damian feel some type of way. Oh, and those blue eyes, those pretty blue eyes with just a hint of violet.

Jon really is handsome.

It was kind of pissing him off.

And then his eyes begin to travel from Jon's face down to his chest, and almost immediately, he regrets it.

'His chest is... big... and his arms...'

Jon's suit wasn't doing much to hide it either. It seemed to be too tight now, and it was incredibly distracting.

Damian swallows; his throat feels dry now because when did Jon start filling out?

Why is he taller?

He was already tall to begin with! He doesn't need to be any taller!

Damian is now having an internal crisis and feels like he's going crazy.

He decides the best course of action is to take a deep breath and take five steps back from his best friend.

Emphasis on best friend, he reminds himself.

This action helps Jon relax a bit too, but then it's quickly replaced with confusion.

"Get a new uniform."

"What?"

"Get a new uniform before I make you one myself," Damian says through gritted teeth and with very clear annoyance.

"This whole thing has been absolutely ridiculous; everyone is dismissed!"

However, no one really leaves; they all just sort of stand there processing what they just witnessed as they watch Damian round a corner and disappear.

"... What the hell was that?" Kathy is the first one to break the awkward tension.

Jon just groans, throwing his head back and covering his face with his hands out of embarrassment.

Damian is now left with the fact that he finds his own best friend, Jon Kent, attractive in more ways than one. And the fact that Jon clearly feels the same about him is making his brain melt just a little bit.

[angelinthefire]

Duality and the bridge

Arcane is a show about duality.

It's present in everything. There's duality within characters, showing different sides to themselves; and between characters, with different matched pairs. Duality is referenced in the big monologues: Silco talking about drowing as a story of opposites, and everyone having a monstrous side; and Viktor explicitly talking about the duality of humanity. It's present in the the themes of order vs. chaos and science vs. magic. And in the structure of the show, two seasons with dramatic reversals between them. And of course, duality is reflected in the setting, the relationship between Piltover and Zaun.

What I really love about Arcane is that it really does justice to this theme, there's real depth to it. It's not just that everything is two-sided, it's that the two sides are deeply interconnected and interdependent. They're insprable, they come from the same source, one side cannot exist without the other, they condition each other and can transform into each other. And, as I mentioned, the theme exists at all levels of the story.

One thing that encapsulates this really well is the symbolism of the bridge, and how it's used. (The making-of documentary of season 1 is even called "bridging the rift", so we know that the concept of the bridge is important.)

Duality is a contradiction. It does not mean either total unity or total division, it means both at the same time, the unity of two things that are opposite from one another. And that's what a bridge is, it connects things that are apart from each other. A lesser show would have used the bridge as simply a symbol of connection, but Arcane uses it in a more complex way.

In a story about duality, the first image we get is not of two separate things. The first image *is* the bridge.

The scene is one of the worst conflicts between the cities. It's incredibly violent. The next image (after several more shots of the bridge) is an enforcer firing their gun, and then approaching the camera, with the monster-face scribbles.

So right away, this site of connection is also a site of deep division. And of course it is, where else is conflict going to take place, if not in the spot where two forces meet? The only way to avoid conflict is to avoid connection.

At the same time, the first lines we hear, in a scene that's otherwise without dialogue, are the lyrics of "Dear friend across the river".

Dear friend across the river My hands are cold and bare Dear friend across the river I'll take what you can spare I ask of you a penny My fortune, it will be I ask you without envy We raise no mighty towers Our homes are built of stone So come across the river And find [Powder is cut off, but the rest of the lyric is: "the world below"]

The lyrics establish the relationship between Piltover and Zaun, the haves and have-nots. But the song is not just asking help, it's also an invitation. It's addressed to a friend, to come across the river, to enter their world. The invitation is cut off by the violence around the characters. But the fact that the song includes an invitation implies not just the possibility for connection between the two cities, but the desireablity of it.

So right off the bat, the narrative already has this great contradiction to it. Because duality *is* a contradiction.

And then the scene ends with this shot of Vander carrying the kids, walking along the bridge.

They're small against this backdrop. This bigger problem that's located on the bridge, the problem of the bridge. And Vander is walking away from it. He's refusing to deal with it, and he's exiting screen left, he's retreating.

More under the cut:

It's not long before we see the bridge again. In the next scene, the kids escape across it, and it opens up.

This is the only time that we see the drawbridge raise. And I think it's significant that it happens at this point, after the time-skip. We're seeing what's happened since the time of the failed uprising. The drawbridge raising turns the bridge from a point of connection into an obstacle to connection. The implication being that Piltover and Zaun are farther apart than ever.

The fact that the bridge can act as a symbol of division just as much as symbol of connection, again, shows what a good grasp the creators have of this theme. For a bridge to exist there needs to be division in the first place. You can't have connection without division.

The bridge as a symbol of division is emphasized explicitly in episode 2, when Vander takes Vi there to talk with her.

He tells Vi, "I led us across this bridge, thinking things could change," with the implication that he now believes that change is impossible. He wants her to abide by the rule that "topside is off-limits". The bridge is there, but it's not for crossing. It's a borderline. Vander wants to avoid conflict, and he's talking about not provoking topside. But his approach also means preempting any possibility of connection. He's trying to eliminate the contradiction of duality by separating off the two sides.

Throughout the first season, the bridge continues to be a site of division and conflict, moreso than it's a site of connection.

It's the spot where Piltover cuts Zaun off, it's where there's resistance, and where there's violence.

Like Vander, Jayce tries to prevent conflict by enforcing a strict division, with his blockade. And as with Vander, the method doesn't work.

The bridge is used to signify similar themes with relationships as well.

It's where Jayce and Viktor have their falling out, where Jinx and Ekko fight. I'm also including Vander and Silco in this, because I think it's clearly deliberate that their final scenes take place on a catwalk, on a kind of bridge. (Also, I love how the suspension cables are used to direct the eye in these shots).

These sets of characters are all dualities in themselves. They share fundamental characteristics or experiences (Silco and Vander both fought for Zaun, Jayce and Viktor are partners and share similar dreams, Jinx and Ekko shared their childhood). But each set are also facing real differences (of philosophies, of priorities, of what they're fighting for). It's about tension, about unity and division pulling against each other.

The Ekko-Jinx fight is probably the best example of this. Of the three it's the scene that's the most self-contained story. And it's not a very straightforward one. The emotional punch of it comes from the fact that these are childhood friends who are now enemies. But it's not just a case of what was once united now being divided. Because in the end, that connection between them still exists, it still overcomes Ekko. Both tendencies are present at the same time, both coming together and pulling appart, both attraction and repulsion.

But then there's also instances of relationships coming together on the bridge.

Vi and Caitlyn's first hug, the first real acknowldegement of what they've come to mean to each other, happens on the bridge. That's a really significant moment, it's the first instance of a connection successfully taking place there, and it's one between characters from either side. I think to a large extent, Vi and Caitlyn's relationship itself represents the possibility of reconcilliation between Zaun and Piltover. By having this moment on the bridge, that symbolism is played up.

Later on, Heimerdinger and Ekko meet for the first time by the bridge, another connection between characters from two opposite sides, and one that turns out to be vitally important to the fates of the two cities.

Then, in act 3 of season 2, we start to see the bridge in quite a different way from season 1.

Starting with the AU world in episode 7. We see the connection between Piltover and Zaun fully realized. Not only is the bridge open, but it's full of activity and life. People are fully living in that connection.

And not only that, this is on the part of the bridge that opens up. But there's people just hanging out there. Heck, there's seemingly permanent businesses there. That means the bridge hasn't been raised in some time. Which sounds very inconvenient for maritime trade. But more importantly, it shows how well-established and stable the connection between Piltover and Zaun is.

The spot where two forces meet isn't just the place where they come into conflict, it's also where they begin to integrate. And of course, the division between Piltover and Zaun still exists in a literal sense, people are never going to not need the bridge to move between them. But it's being crossed over constantly as if it's nothing.

Then in the next episode, we start to see the bridge being used to connect rather than to divide in the main timeline.

Like in season one, enforcers are set up with their flood lights, but this time as an invitation rather than as a barrier. And there is a small number of Zaunites who come across, showing that first potential for a coming together.

And I want to go on a bit of a tangent here, because the show could have gotten quite simplistic at this point, to just be like, the two sides need to come together and sing kumbaya etc. But the show doesn't do that.

The characters who cross the bridge in this scene become subsumed into Piltover. They wear the same uniforms, and go through the same training. And the two characters that are highlighted the most, Gert and the nameless father, they die. And Piltover still loses to Noxus.

It's only when Zaunites show up under their own leadership, fighting with their own methods, that the battle turns around. A positive kind of unity does not mean one side being subsumed by the other. It doesn't mean submitting chaos to order. It doesn't mean eliminating the contradiction of duality (as Viktor tries to do). It is a unity of opposites.

We see this in the last scene on the bridge, the memorial.

The bridge is finally a true meeting place. There's still a certain two-sidedness to it, Sevika and Shoola are each representative of their two cities, and they're presented as being on opposite sides, with a strong line between them. But at the same time, when you look at the crowd, Zaunites and Piltovans are mixed together. Shoola and Sevika's colour palettes are very similar. Behind them, the two land masses look like they're tapering into each other. It's a unity of opposites.

I think the theme of duality carries over into the final scene with Cait and Vi as well. Like I mentioned above, I think Vi and Caitlyn's relationship is itself partially representative of the potential unity between their two cities. And even though the scene is not set on the bridge, bridge is still invoked by the song that Vi hums. The potential for connection that was first implied in the song has been fulfilled.

Of course, that doesn't mean the end of struggle, or the end of tension, or the end of the story. Caitlyn says as much, "our story isn't over." We see that there's still tensions when Sevika joins the council. Differences are not blended out, the duality remains, with all it's contradictions, which means that the relationship between the two sides will continue to be dynamic and evolve. And then there's the idea of "the dirt under your nails" which I think has layers of meaning, one of which is being a reminder of the past, a reminder that Caitlyn got her hands dirty, and in that sense, a reminder of what the history of Piltover and Zaun has been. There's no erasing the past or forgetting it, but there is forward movement, which is then communicated by the airship, carrying Jinx off to start a new story.

Point being, the relationship between the two sides, the duality of it, has changed its dynamic, but not its complexity.

I feel like there's not a lot of shows that can deal with such broad themes on so many levels, and do such a good job of it. And part of that is using symbols in complex and evolving ways.

[catlantern]

Kissing Santa Claus

JASON TODD/FEM!READER

SUMMARY: The Santa Claus in question was handsome as ever; he had foregone the fake belly but kept the beard. Why did you suddenly have the urge to cut in line and sit on his lap?

'Tis the season.

If you hear this phrase one more time, you might just blow your stack. Being surrounded by kids at the moment, you kept your cool. The last thing you needed was to be bombarded by disappointed nuns on Christmas Day.

Of course, you wouldn't be nearing the end of your patience if Santa Claus had just shown up at the event.

The Christmas party organized by the Wayne Foundation for the orphaned children of Gotham was supposed to be your present for the city you grew up in. Since you were tasked by Bruce to oversee the event, you had hoped everything would go smoothly, seeing as, in true Bat-vigilante fashion, you prepared contingencies (and contingencies for those contingencies) in case anything went south.

What you didn't account for (really, it should have been the first thing you made a contingency plan for) was the man you hired to dress up as jolly old Saint Nick not showing up. Now, for the past hour and a half, you've been stuck to your phone trying to find someone willing to put on the snow-white beard and red suit. If you still can't find someone in the next five minutes, you'll don the Santa suit yourself, you resolved. You just hope the kids won't be disappointed. The last thing you want is to ruin a lot of children's Christmases by being a subpar Santa.

After getting off the phone with Roy Harper (yes, you were desperate enough to call even your vigilante colleague), you sighed in defeat. With all the actual Santas already booked, there was no one left in the city you could hire. You were debating whether it was worth it to break Waylon Jones out of Arkham Asylum, knowing that the man has always had a soft spot for you and would do anything you ask, when Roy called again.

"Tell me something good, Harper," was your way of greeting. "I'm begging you."

"You do know that sounded like an innuendo, right?" He answered after clearing his throat.

"Yeah, well," you look around to make sure there aren't any nuns nearby. "I'll probably need a way to let out my frustration if I don't find a Santa Claus soon."

"Right."

"Anyway, at this rate, I might as well use the suit myself and hope for the best."

"While I'm sure you'd rock in a Santa suit, don't do that yet," you've never heard Roy sound so excited. "I found someone willing to help you."

Please, not him, you thought.

"I would do it myself if I weren't in another city right now," Roy continued, unaware of your growing despair. "And well, Jaybird is in Gotham."

"No."

Have you been a naughty kid this year? Is that why you're being punished? Or is it simply the universe messing with you by using your ex, Jason Todd, in your time of need?

"No," you repeated. "Anyone but him, Roy."

"Come on, it's been a year since..."

"I said no."

"He's willing."

"Harper."

"And you're out of options."

You choked on this. Of course, it was so in line with Roy's personality to use this opportunity to make you and Jason talk again. With you desperate and Jason being a softie for children in need, you almost believed Roy had done something to the man you originally hired. Wait a damn minute…

He didn't.

"ROY HARPER!"

"Okay, gotta go," Roy says hurriedly. "Jaybird will be there in ten."

Before you could berate the red-haired man any further, the line went dead. If you hadn't been surrounded by nuns and children, you would've been cursing to the high heavens right about now. Leave it to Roy Harper to pull a stunt like this.

The next ten minutes were probably the most anxiety-ridden minutes of your life, and that was saying something. You've faced off against the likes of Scarecrow and Poison Ivy, yet the knowledge that you're about to see your ex-boyfriend again after a year of not seeing or talking with him was more terrifying than fighting the Gotham rogues. Then again, you wouldn't be so worried if the break-up had been amicable.

It wasn't.

You both have said things you can't take back. You've burned that bridge to ashes and built walls around yourselves, allowing the chasm between you to grow ever larger. Regret has since been a permanent fixture whenever you think about Jason Peter Todd.

So, it was really no surprise when, upon seeing Jason at the entrance of the community centre where the event is being held, you couldn't help but blame yourself for losing the most beautiful connection you've ever had.

The first time Jason met you, you were twelve and thirteen respectively. He had just been picked up by Batman after getting caught stealing the tires of the Batmobile, while you were already training to be the next Batgirl. Your family back then were neighbors with the Gordons, and, as though it was fate, you happened to be the biggest Batgirl fan on the planet.

Jason thought you were annoying at first, a know-it-all whose favorite pastime was to criticize his every move. It didn't help that he found your sharp mind intimidating and that he had noticed how extraordinarily pretty you are, even when your face was obscured by a cowl. Okay, maybe he was in denial about his feelings for you (a massive crush at the time), but not anymore.

So, imagine the utter betrayal he felt when you accused him of cheating on you.

It happened a year ago, and Jason, who hadn't seen you in months after traveling in space with the Outlaws, was looking forward to spending time with you again. Only, when he got home, all your things had been cleared out. When he finally tracked you down, you had been staying with Barbara, you turned him away, accused him of being a cheater, and, well, he lost his temper and yelled at you.

Barbara kicked him out after he had reduced you to tears.

You haven't seen each other since.

He knew you had been avoiding him since your break-up and, like the fool he was, allowed you to widen that distance.

He managed to convince himself that it was for the best, that he would have just dragged you down to the farthest depths of hell if he had stayed with you. It took his best friend and youngest brother literally knocking some sense into Jason for him to realize that you were the best thing to ever happen in his life and he was an imbecile for letting you leave. He thought about Damian and how he owed the teenage boy so much for watching your back while on patrol, not that you needed protecting.

So, after much convincing from Roy and Damian (Jason shuddered at the thought of them teaming up) that he wasn't anything like Willis Todd, he allowed himself to be persuaded into helping you out. He suspected the two had done something to the man you originally hired to dress up as Santa Claus, but didn't care enough to check that they hadn't roughed him up. How can he care about anything else when you're now standing a mere few feet away from him.

"Come on," you muttered to him, foregoing any greeting and shattering the nice reunion he thought you two would share. "You have five minutes to change, then it's show time."

"Show time?"

You frowned up at him, mentally cursing his height. "Do you know what kids want from Santa, Jason?"

He noticed there was a certain edge to your tone, as though you'd rather be doing anything else than talking to him. "Uh, presents?"

"Yes, presents," you hissed, crossing your arms over your chest. "And what else do they want?"

"Uh…"

You were scowling now. "They want to sit on Santa's lap and lie through their teeth about how they've been such wonderful kids this year and therefore deserve presents!"

You gestured over to the raised platform in the middle of the room, where a cushioned throne-like chair stood, your eye twitching in anger. "So, if you're not over there in five minutes, I'll have to tell a hundred children that they're not getting gifts this year because Red Hood and friends kidnapped Santa Claus!"

He watched you storm off, an invisible force clenching his heart painfully. You've always had a short temper, he knew that, but not once had you directed your anger like that at him. He was now excruciatingly aware of how much he had messed up with you and wished he had just explained himself properly before, instead of blowing up at you.

As he changed into the Santa suit that a nun had kindly handed to him, he realized then that he had never even told you the truth.

He is an imbecile, indeed.

You stood off to the side, trying your best to keep the scowl off your face as children lined up to tell their wishes to Santa Claus. The Santa Claus in question was handsome as ever; he had foregone the fake belly but kept the beard. Why did you suddenly have the urge to cut in line and sit on his lap?

You cursed yourself for thinking that way about your ex, who looked quite attractive in that Santa suit (red really is his color). The only thing holding you back from acting on your thoughts was the presence of the nuns and children surrounding you and the humiliation you felt for snapping at Jason. Months of pent-up anger and hurt finally caught up to you when you saw Jason; your only wish was that you had handled it better.

Regardless of where you stood with Jason, you were glad he was putting smiles on children's faces. You had never seen him look so proud and satisfied when a child left with the biggest smile on their face. He really looked like he was enjoying himself, and you couldn't help but wonder if he had perhaps already found someone new.

The mere thought of Jason moving on broke your heart. You found yourself slinking away to hide out in the makeshift kitchen, unable to bear looking at the love of your life anymore. Thankfully, none of the staff who assisted you in organizing the event was present, no doubt on their break after feeding all the children.

You didn't know how long you sat there, on the dirty kitchen floor. It could have been hours or mere minutes. The next time you looked up from your feet to check the time on the wall clock, your line of sight was obstructed by Santa Claus.

You sighed in defeat at the sight of Jason Todd, still in his Santa suit but without the white beard. The urge to run away and avoid the conversation you're about to have was strong, but you stayed. Your love for him was even stronger.

"Hey," he spoke first, having always been braver than you. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"It's comfortable," you shrugged. "You should join me."

Despite the skeptical look he sent you, he sat on the floor next to you.

It was quiet for a minute, then the muffled sound of children's laughter filled the air.

"You know I'd never cheat on you, right?" he asked.

"I know," you said solemnly. "I should have trusted you. I just..."

You sigh. "I never told you this, but looking back, I should have. I have always felt inadequate next to you."

It was the truth. Ever since you were both kids, you have always struggled to keep up with Jason. Just like his brother and predecessor, Jason had an innate talent for crime-fighting, while you and Babs had to work harder just to be acknowledged by Batman.

You always were jealous of him. When he died and came back, and you got into a relationship, you thought that it would be the end of your insecurities. But they didn't. Being with Jason only showed you how he could have someone better, and soon, you began to think he must have felt the same, when it was the opposite.

Jason scoffed, surprising you with his next words. "What? You don't think I've never thought the same? Never felt useless when Bruce paired us up when we were kids? Or that you could have found someone better than my pathetic self?"

"You're not pathetic, Jason."

"Then you're not inadequate either."

"Jason…"

"I still love you, alright?" He stopped you before you could say anything else. "And it's okay if you've moved on, I just wanted to let you know–"

You finally gave in to your urge to kiss the man you have fallen in love with, proving yourself to be only human. Your lips against his, you savoured the connection and hoped with all your heart it was not too late to salvage what you had with Jason. If it was, then you wished that the universe would at least give you the chance to start anew, for there was no one else in the world you would ever be with but Jason.

Faintly, you heard a gasp followed by a youthful voice. "Sister, I found Santa! He's kissing the kind lady!"

At that moment, you no longer cared about being caught kissing Santa Claus because nothing else seemed to matter; you had finally found a reason to celebrate the Christmas holidays again.

BONUS:

"Well, looks like Santa was naughty last night," an infuriating voice cackled the morning after your reconciliation with Jason. "And you must have been really extra good this year."

"Get out, Harper," you growled, not bothering to lift your head off your pillow which happened to Jason's naked chest. "Before I decide to deck your balls."

"You better listen to my girlfriend, Roy. Lian will never have a sibling again," chuckled Jason. "Not on her father's side, at least."

The red-haired archer grumbled, not doubting that you would follow through with your threat if he didn't leave in the next ten seconds. "I deserve a thank you, at least."

When he was met with silence, he sighed. "Fine, I'm leaving. By the way, the guy you hired is fine. Damian just paid him money not to show up at the Christmas party. He's in the Bahamas with his girlfriend now, I think."

"OUT, HARPER!"

"Alright, jeez! Merry Christmas, losers!"

[sansfavatiny]

"Drive You Home, Break You In"

Choi San x Reader | Established Dom/Sub | Explicit

Description: San is driving you home after a party with the rest of the members and some friends. Everything seemed to be going well until San noticed you were flirting with Mingi. Prepare for your punishment...

Word Count: 1634

Warnings: 18+ content, bd/sm, pushing past limits, breath play, overstimulation, choking, slaps

A/N: Hello everyone, this is the first fanfic I have written in over 3 years so I do apologize if my writing is a little crusty. If you have any requests please let me know down below. I hope you enjoy!!

────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────────

The leather seats creaked under San's grip as he steered one-handed through the dim streets, jaw clenched, the other hand draped possessively over your thigh. The music was off, silence thick with tension.

You shifted slightly in your seat, the hem of your dress creeping higher from the movement. His fingers tightened. You didn't dare meet his eyes.

"You thought I didn't see you," San said, voice low, dangerous. "Batting your lashes at Mingi. Giggling like you forgot who you belong to."

"I wasn't-"

He squeezed your thigh, and the breath caught in your throat.

"Careful," he warned, turning to glance at you just long enough for his eyes to flash in the dark. "You're already in trouble. No need to dig deeper."

Your stomach flipped. He wasn't yelling. He didn't need to. That tone calm, condescending, full of restrained violence - was worse. And hotter.

He smirked, sending your silence wasn't defiance but anticipation. "Good girl," he murmured, dragging his hand just slightly higher. "You remember your place eventually."

You clenched your thighs, but it was useless the heat was spreading too fast.

"We'll be home in five," he said, voice dropping an octave. "You'll undress, kneel, and keep your hands behind your back. If I see even a hint of attitude..." He let the threat hang, licking his bottom lip slowly. "I'll remind you who's in charge. Thoroughly"

You swallowed hard. Teasing had its consequences. You knew that. Maybe that's why you did it.

He pulled into the driveway and you both make your way into the house. The second the door clicked shut behind you, San's hand was in your hair.

"You know what to do."

You didn't speak. You didn't need to. The air was hot with expectation, and your body moved on autopilot stepping out of your shoes, unzipping your dress. You let it slide to the floor, baring yourself completely, pulse already pounding.

Then you dropped to your knees. Your hands folded behind your back like always, fingers laced, spine straight. But you couldn't resist the smallest twitch of your lips a nervous, teasing smirk as you peeked up at him.

That was all it took.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, eyes gleaming with something animal. "Still mouthy, huh?" He stepped closer, unbuckling his belt at an agonizing pace. "You're practically begging me to break you tonight."

You didn't respond. You weren't allowed to not until he told you to.

He circled you like prey, dragging the leather strap slowly across your shoulder, down your chest, then around your neck. Not right, not yet just enough to make your breath catch.

"I'm going to ruin you," he whispered against your ear, his breath warm and cruel. "And you're going to thank me for it."

With one command "Crawl" you follow him on all fours to the bedroom. The sound of his footsteps, the creak of the bed, your own heartbeat thudding in your ears... it was all too much.

Once you reached the edge of the bed, he grabbed your jaw, forcing you to look up. His eyes searching yours not for hesitation, but for surrender.

"You're mine," he growled.

You nodded.

"Say it."

"I'm yours, San."

He kissed you bit you rough and hungry, before dragging you up onto the bed like a toy he couldn't wait to tear apart.

Then the real punishment began.

He didn't waste time. The second your back hit the mattress, San had his hand wrapped around your throat not tight, just firm to remind you who you belonged to.

"You looked so pretty tonight," he murmured, pushing your legs open with his knee. "All dressed up, acting shy. But underneath all that sweetness..." leaned down, brushing his lips over your jaw. "You're a filthy little thing, aren't you?"

"Yes," you whispered, voice catching. His fingers flexed slightly around your neck. "Only for you."

He chuckled low and sharp. "Damn right."

Then his hand was between your legs, two fingers slipping between your folds with an obscene wet sound. He didn't tease. Didn't need to. You were soaked.

"Pathetic," he sneered, voice tight with desire. "Already dripping from being told what to do."

You moaned as his fingers thrust deep, curling just right, palm grinding against your clit like he knew your body better than you did. And he did. He's made it his business to.

"You know what happens when you act up in front of others, don't you?" he hissed, withdrawing his fingers and holding them up, glistening. "You get used. Hard."

You whimpered as he shoved the wet fingers into your mouth, forcing your taste onto your tongue.

"Suck."

You did, eyes watering, tongue swirling, lips wrapped tight as he watched you with pure possessive hunger.

"That's my girl," he growled, undoing his pants with one hand. "Now spread those legs wider. I want to watch you come apart."

The stretch when he slid into you was brutal, overwhelming. He gave you no time to adjust, no slow ease in. Just one hard, hungry thrust that had your back arching and a cry slipping part your lips.

"San-"

"Shut up," he snapped, hips slamming into yours again. "I'll tell you when you can make noise."

Your breath hitched, hands still behind your back, nails digging into your own skin as he took you fast, deep, punishing.

"You love this," he grunted, one hand gripping your thigh, the other fisting your hair. "Being used like this. Stretched until you can't take it. Ruined."

"Y-yes-"

A harsh slap to your thigh made you gasp.

"Did I say you could speak?"

You shook your head, biting your lip, moaning low in your throat as he pounded into you without mercy.

"I'm going to keep fucking you until your forget your won name," he growled, eyes wild now, sweat slick on his chest. "And when I'm done, you'll still beg for more. Won't you?"

You nodded frantically, barely able to breathe, already close.

He saw it.

"Don't you dare come yet," he barked, pulling out abruptly. You nearly sobbed from the loss. But he wasn't done, not even close.

He flipped you over like a ragdoll, yanked your hips up, and slammed back in from behind with a guttural groan. One hand on your hip. The other? Back around your throat.

"You want to come?" he hissed. "You want to be allowed?"

"Please," you gasped, barely able to form the word.

He leaned down, teeth at your shoulder, voice in your ear like sin itself. "Then earn it."

Your knees were burning against the sheets, but you didn't dare collapse. Not when his hand was still wrapped around your throat, not when his hips were crashing into you like he had something to prove.

And he did. He always did.

"You think I'm going to let you off easy after the way you acted tonight?" he growled against your ear. "Wearing that dress. Flashing that smile. Do you know what you looked like?"

You whimpered, your body trembling.

"Mine," he spat. "You looked like mine. And now I'm going to fuck you until that's the only thing you remember."

Your body was strung tight, every nerve lit up like fire. Each brutal thrust knocked the air from your lungs, and his grip on your throat made it harder to breathe, harder to think, but you didn't want him to stop. You wanted to break. You wanted to shatter.

And San knew it.

"You're such a good little slut when you're quiet," he said, voice dipped in condescension. "Look at you. Obeying. Taking every inch. So desperate to come you're shaking."

He pulled out again and got sobbed.

"Don't cry" he mocked. "This is what you wanted."

You were shaking now, forehead pressed to the bed, hips still lifted and ready, so ruined and raw and needy. You could barely stay up, your arms trembling behind your back.

San ran his hand down your spine, slow, deliberate. "Beg."

"Please," you whispered. "Please, San. I need you. I need to come. I'll be good, I promise-"

"Oh, I know you will." His voice sharpened. "But I'm not done using you."

He shoved back in with a snarl, and this time there was no rhythm, just filthy, ruthless, thrusts that sent you over the edge so fast it hit like a collapse.

"Come."

The second the command left his lips, your body obeyed. You scream as everything unraveled, pleasure crashing through you so hard you couldn't feel your limbs. Your arms finally gave out, your chest hitting the bed, legs twitching as the orgasm tore through every inch of you.

But San didn't stop.

He kept going, grunting, cursing, using you like his favorite toy. You were too sensitive, too raw, tears streaming down your face, but you didn't tell him to stop. You couldn't.

"You take it so well," he groaned, voice wrecked now. "Fuck, baby. Look at you. Just perfect. Fucking perfect."

You barely registered the deep, growled curse when he finally came, deep, hard, spilling inside you with a feral sound. His fingers bit into your hips, hips stuttering through his release, holding you in place like you'd vanish if he let go.

When it was over, there was nothing but ragged breathing and the way his chest pressed to your back as he collapsed over you, still buried deep.

Then - silence.

Until San reached up and gently brushed the hair from your check, his lips soft at your shoulder now.

"You okay, baby?" he whispered.

You nodded weakly, still gasping, your body completely wrecked.

"Color?" He asked - the ritual. The check-in.

"Green," you breathed. "So green."

His arms wrapped around you instantly, pulling you close, warm and steady now.

"good girl," he murmured, kissing your shoulder again. "You did so fucking well."

[dessknightenjoyer]

WARNING: Massive deltarune spoilers and my running theory on who the knight is below

Im going to get straight to it. I think the knight is Dess and I think that there is more evidence leaning towards Dess than Carol. I think Dess and Carol are the only two realistic Knight candidates at this point.

First off, why it can only be those two. The Knight has Large antlers and when the green room is abandoned, the texture that appears during snowgrave overlays everything, which both Heavily hint at the knight being a holiday, and actually leans more toward Carol being the knight, But I still think it's dess.

Now, for my main piece of evidence for Dess Knight: The Knight Looks. Like that.

Ok, we know from Kris that things about a lightner can change when entering a dark world (their skin turns blue) but the knight is Something Else. It is completely pitch black and able to shift forms on a whim. Not only that, but although we never actually see it in the light world, Based off the drop from the Chapter 3 Secret Boss, It seems to not fully turn back. Let me explain.

Upon beating the chapter 3 secret boss, which is the knight itself, with the help of the shadow mantle, You get an item called a Black Shard. You get this from Susie chipping a piece of the knight's weapon. This item stays a black shard both in and out of the light world. Now, the Knights weapon and the knight both seem to be very similar (pitch black) and share the same properties (ability to transform) so I don't think its too much of a stretch to suggest that the knight and it's weapon might be made of the same stuff.

The fact that whatever this stuff is doesn't transform into any light world object but instead remains a black shard suggests that the knight also remains whatever they are in the light world. If I'm right about this, then Carol can't be the knight cause she is fairly normal in the light world. At least, more normal than whatever the knight is.

Now, the knight's weapon. When the knight first appears, the knight displays what seems to be a bat before grabbing it and transforming into a sword. I think that this little period where it really looks like the knight has a bat is a pretty clear sign it's Dess, as Dess is associated with bats, both from the sweepstakes and one of the examination dialogues from Noelle's computer, where says it shows Dess holding a cracked bat.

Ok it says baseball bat but. Cmon. Now the fact the knight has a sword could hint as Carol, as we know Carol owns and used swords. But I think the knight clearly showing off its weapon looking like a bat is a sign that the knight is Dess.

Next point: Mayor Holiday was Presumably at home when the church fountain was opened. Now, just based off when we see her enter holiday manor, she could have simply made the church fountain and gone home, but there is evidence against this. When examining the Door in the church after chapter 4, It says that a large person could fit inside (just like chapter 2). If you choose the option to turn the handle, Kris turns the handle and does nothing else.

I took this to be Implying that the Knight was in here, and that the knight was in the server room in chapter 2 as well. If this does mean that the Knight is here, it would make Mayor knight less credible as Carol would have had to run back to the church almost instantly to be there as the knight.

Now, the final point I have which uhh. Isn't great. But. The Knight poses a lot and just like has flair that I don't think Carol would have even with weird shapeshifty knight powers. Like look at this pose when Susie is chasing the knight:

Like I just don't think Carol would be like this. From what little we know of Carol and Dess this kind of stuff seems more like Dess. Plus from what we know of the mayor she seems to be more of a planner while the knight seems to just. Summon a titan without too much reason. It doesn't seem like something Carol would do, although thats not really evidence we don't know her.

Maybe I shouldn't have ended on my weakest point but i feel that everything else is pretty strong. Like all the evidence leaning towards to mayor can be explained away easier than all the stuff leaning towards Dess. From what I've seen Dess knight seems pretty popular right now but I just wanted to lay out what's making me lean towards it. Maybe I'll write another post about what I think Dess / the knights deal is if this one isn't too bad. Sorry if I mispelled anything or repeated myself or anything like that.

ADDENDUM: I didn't mention the phone dialogue anywhere cause depending on who is speaking it's meaning changes and I wanted to stick to what we know.

[theotherrookie]

"Variety is good!" And Erica appreciated that she was being humored. Most people started questioning her logic and that was very much not the point.

"I have noticed that mistakes are sometimes necessary in order to learn." Willow replied, "I almost lost my brothers once and that served as a reminder that family can't simply be cast aside until your earliest convenience, or managed like another company asset."

It used to be easier to do so when it was still just the five of them. But even with the facility and the children to look after, they still tried to make time to be together even for just a meal.

The shadows were dispelled once the crane was gone, leaving Erica free to have a closer look at the scattered belongings in case there was something unsafe to handle. It turned out her hunch was right

"...Oh no." She raised her hands, motioning to keep a safe distance. "Don't touch these tools! There's Ratchet's smell on them."

It was only fair everybody would know. Erica then shoved some notes aside and snatched a car key off the table. Now they could steal Five's car in a funnier way than feeding it to the void.

Willow quietly retrieved a box to store the books they were taking. They were going to the same place as the car, but half of the entertainment for Rook was digging into the pile for anything of interest. Presentation did indeed matter.

Lucien gladly drew his baseball bat and joined Russell. He aimed for a row of vials still waiting to be filled, then took a moment to savor the feeling.

"I know he will buy another one, but this feels great."

He almost felt like he could breath a little better.

Rook made to climb off Bill's back once they reached the roof, moving carefully so her spikes would not ruin his outfit. She took a moment to check their surroundings, before looking back at him.

"It's not much. I just..." She let out a tired sigh, "I've always been worried of losing control and hurting those around me and it's been hard to even look at Five. He's all those things and he likes it. He made it too real."

Rook trailed off as the memories of her time under Five's influence threatened to resurface.

"...But at the same time, it made me feel better." she then added, "Because I know what went wrong with him and know what to watch out for and I... just needed to say it out loud. I might still not be nice to myself in the future, but I feel a bit better for now."

She didn't dare adding that she felt a bit bad for Five as well, not after everything he had done. For now, a promise that she would try not resenting herself for being what she was as much would suffice.

Veronica was glad to see Frosty wasn't trying to fight back as they tended to him. He didn't do as much as flinch when he was sprayed and raise a hand to shield his face. That alone was a struggle in his current state. The best he could hope for was to pass out and not have to endure for as long as he could whatever they were really planning for him.

"Well, a cup of my special tea is in order, but we should wait a few more hours for that. His abilities have been tampered with enough, we would risk causing permanent damage." Veronica replied, "The best we can do right now is tending to his physical injuries."

Toxins aside, Frosty was going to feel very sore from the beating he took before going berserk.

"For now, though, sleep is the best medicine for him. Would you mind tending to that, Antonio? Erika told me that's a specialty of yours."

"Yes! And maybe a telemarketer too!"

Willow decided not to question how Erica planned to recognize such a person in the wild. It was always wise not to get in the way of her vengeful plots.

"Well, I must treasure the experiences of my older siblings." Willow replied, before adding, "Or that of a twin."

It was nice to hear Simon speak fondly of Truman. The brothers trying to get along was especially heartwarming, considering the horrid adults they had to live with while growing up. Willow hoped the future would keep looking up for all of them.

Her train of thought was disturbed by Lucien's laugh when he was hugged again. She really couldn't recall him ever being that happy. But with someone like Russell as a partner, it wasn't surprising.

"You are forgiven." Lucien replied softly, "Let's go commit some property damage."

"We could do that! I missed out on a lot of movies, so it shouldn't be hard to pick one." Erica smiled as the crane started sinking into the abyss, "Well, I guess we'll just have to find the keys. I really hope it wasn't in his pockets though."

"It wouldn't be such a loss. Red muscle cars are statically a sign of the early onset of midlife crisis." Willow noted, following after Erica.

"Does it mean we should repaint it before we let Antonio drive it?"

"We should do so regardless." Willow replied, "Then I will fabricate the necessary documents."

While this hideout wasn't as organized as the previous one, there was still enough equipment lying around to confirm that Five and his thugs had been camping out there for a while. Other than his car, his brewing kit had been left behind, along with a modest collection of books. Some tomes were rather old, while others were most recent editions.

Either way, none of it really caught Erica's attention, who was more fond of shiny things. Lucien, on the other hand, knew where to start from with his task.

"I just know where we should start from." he said, while pointing at the kit. That accursed brewery of horrors had to go.

Rook made sure to hold on tight as well as they ascended. Without the adrenaline and the heat of the fight keeping her distracted, she was suddenly awfully aware of how high up they were.

The task at hand was simple enough, though. So she felt like that was a good time for a chat. "Hey, Bill. There's something I'd like to talk about..."

Frosty stopped his pitiful escape when he heard voices around him. He let out an annoyed grunt when he was grabbed, but otherwise didn't have enough fight left in him to make himself a problem. Not when he couldn't even stand upright without the room spinning around him.

Veronica's eyes turned red and she immediately took note of the ice mage's paleness, along with his rather absent look. Frosty was awake, but he was likely experiencing a major case of brain fog. They'd have to be gentle with him. Even the slightest stress could aggravate his conditions.

"Well, he mainly needs to rest, but I'd rather keep an eye on him for a few hours. There is no telling how his body will recoil from Five's drugs and the draining." the ghost lady said, before spraying Frosty with a potion that vaguely smelled like rosemary and thyme, "This is just to make him safe to handle, in case the snake's poison has some delayed effects we don't know about."

Frosty only briefly raised his head for a moment, mumbling a complain before he finally found his words. "...not going home. They don't want me."

[hekateinhell]

anakin’s ptsd going into revenge of the sith

not to sound like a broken record, but one of the things i really love about the ROTS novelization is that it does a fantastic job of fleshing out anakin’s state of mind throughout the whole arc—beginning, middle, and end. to be clear, i do think a lot of things become more obvious in the movie once you’re looking for them, or perhaps when you’re just watching with an adult’s eyes and understanding of how trauma works and compounds—hayden’s acting goes a long way here as well, his micro-expressions and delivery are so on point for anakin.

but it’s even more devastatingly visceral in the novelization because right off the bat there is so much emphasis put on how it’s not like anakin just went through the trauma of seeing his nightmares about his mother come true, and then he is somehow doing reasonably okay until he starts having nightmares about padmé. he is not okay, has not been okay for a long time at this point! his ptsd is already so fucking bad at the start of ROTS, in what is the ‘fun part’ of the movie!

every single night anakin is being haunted by the memory of his mother, tortured and battered, dying in his arms when he was still a teenager. it’s not as if he ever had a chance to even begin to process what happened to her before being thrown into an active war zone for the next three years. he’s a military commander and combat soldier, regularly staring down the horrors of war with his best friend/brother/mentor/partner. he spends months at a time away from his secret wife, sometimes unable to contact her. much more often than not, he doesn’t know if he’s going to die today or if he’s going to lose one or more of the very few people he loves more than anything in the entire world. and he can’t and won’t accept that, which in imo is a very real response after everything he’s been through up to this point. healthy? no. relatable? understandable? yes.

again, i don’t think this is a mega deep read or anything lol like i said, you can see these elements to a fair extent in the movie too, but i also feel it is one of those aspects of anakin that can and does get lost in the sauce when people take the movie purely at face-value: “oh, he did all that because he had a couple bad dreams about padmé?”

no, it’s not a ‘couple bad dreams’ or arrogance or recklessness that pushes anakin to do the things he does, that pushes him to be more powerful, to be ‘the best’. it’s living in a constant state of terror and dread that has been building and building and building for years… the belief that he has no other choice but to be The Best or his loved ones will die, plain and simple. that is the weight, the pressure, the fear, anakin is carrying—this is already where his head is at when ROTS begins:

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (novelization) — Matthew Stover

and then of course, it gets so much worse.

[tinytalkingtina]

B.A.D. D.O.G.

Several months after starting to date two frat brothers from Sigma Alpha Chi, Eddie struggles to settle into his role in their new dynamic. Maybe someday he won't feel like Tommy and Steve's adopted stray mutt. Rated E | 7.7k words | Ao3 link

SFW-related Tags: Tommy/Steve/Eddie, established poly relationship, M/M/M threesome/polyamory, 2010's frat/college AU, Frat Boys Steve/Tommy, bratty diva Steve, eddie has ADHD and insecurities, Steve is Fast Food Royalty, Steve's Dad owns Scoops Ahoy, Steve has Good Parents (or at least realistic parents who don't understand everything but love their son), domestic fluff NSFW-related Tags: Dom Tommy, Sub Steve, Switch Eddie, puppy play/Puppy Steve, collars, cock rings, butt plugs, vibrators, blow jobs, spanking, anal sex, Bottom Tommy, Top Eddie, orgasm control, sexual overstimulation, nipple piercings, aftercare, cuddling/snuggling (in relation to the aftercare) This is a sequel to B(eta) E(psilon) G(amma) that picks up a few months after Steve and Tommy begin dating Eddie. The two stories can be read as standalone pieces, but feel free to read B.E.G. first to find out how Steve and Tommy introduced Eddie to their dynamic. Author's notes and pings are below the cut!

Eddie groaned and leaned back to balance on his chair’s back two legs. He pressed his hands to his eyes until he saw starbursts.

“This dev class is slowly killing me. Why are 'one-footed skipping’ and ‘hopping’ different milestones, and why does that matter for teaching high schoolers how to play chords and scales? For fucks sake it’s not like I’m gonna force kids to put balls into baskets, like some people I know.”

He waited for a delightfully bitchy little comment in reply to his dig, but several moments of silence passed without any retort. Peeking out between his fingers, Eddie saw his boyfriend staring into space.

“Steve?”

“What?” Steve snapped, making him jump a little. Eddie just stared back.

“Nothing, I just said—”

“Nothing? I don’t have time for ‘nothing’, leave me alone.”

“Excuse me?” Eddie growled back. Steve ignored him, his face stuck in a textbook.

What the fuck?

Eddie rose from his chair and stalked around the table, ready to bat that stupid book right out of Steve’s hands. He stopped short when he realized his boyfriend was swaying, the book held loosely in trembling hands with unfocused eyes.

Oh.

"Steve," Eddie asked, softening his voice. "Did you get any sleep last night, sweetheart?"

“Obviously,” Steve snarked back, still avoiding Eddie’s eyes. Eddie tried not to take the bait. If Tommy were here, he would have told Steve off for lying like that when all he was doing was hurting himself more. But Tommy wasn't here right now to help, and Steve looked ready to topple over onto the desk.

Eddie swallowed, hoping he wasn't overstepping as he added a touch of steel to his voice.

"I asked you a question, Steve, come on, tell me the truth."

“Fine, I didn’t get any last night, and only got a few hours on Monday and Tuesday, are you happy now?” his boyfriend spit out. Eddie had to fight not to get angry at the eye roll that accompanied Steve’s words.

"And why didn't you sleep, sweetheart?" He managed to get out more or less evenly

"Cause I have three prelims next week,” Steve mumbled back. "My dad's already on my case for the education major. If I don't do okay he'll rip me a new one for wasting his money dicking around."

He tugged at the hair sticking out from his snapback so hard Eddie was worried he’d pull it out entirely.

"And maybe he's right, I'm too stupid to do this. Nothing makes sense and it takes twice as long for me to figure it out as anyone else, so what’s the point?"

Steve's face twisted into a painful looking scowl, and Eddie's heart broke. He grabbed his boyfriend's face to break him out of his sleep-deprived spiral.

"Stevie, stop that."

He glanced around. They were tucked away in a cubby deep in the library stacks. He knew there were other students around, but nobody had a direct eyeline on them. Eddie leaned in closer to whisper.

"Don't talk about yourself like that.” Steve started to protest:

"But—"

"No, no buts allowed. My puppy isn't dumb." Steve opened his mouth to argue back some more but Eddie barreled on:

"I'm not arguing with you when you're running on fumes. You gonna behave and let me take care of you?"

Steve went quiet. It lasted long enough for Eddie to start panicking a little. He shouldn't have done this without his other boyfriend, who was he to tell Steve what to do on his own? They hadn't been dating for that long, maybe he'd only made things worse or—

A tinkling noise snapped him out of it, and he watched as Steve dug under his sweater and pulled out his dog tags. He bowed his head and made a little noise of frustration, but otherwise remained silent, waiting for Eddie to make a move.

Holy shit, it worked.

“Thank you, sweetheart, there’s my good boy.”

He gently slid his puppy’s glasses off his face and removed his snapback to card his hand through his hair. Stevie leaned into the touch with his eyes shut. Slowly, his shoulders unwound, and the crease between his brows flattened out.

“There you go. Feeling a little better?”

Stevie let out a little huff as he shifted to nuzzle his cheek into his hand. Eddie couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on, let’s go back to your room. I’m sure Tommy will want to cuddle you too.”

His puppy slid off the chair onto all fours and Eddie mentally smacked himself. Why did he put Stevie down now? Playing around for a willing audience at the frat house was one thing, but he shuddered imagining having to explain to the campus rent-a-cops what was happening: Oh, I’m so sorry, officer. Nonono he’s not on drugs, Steve here’s in dog mode is all. He’s sniffing your butt to be polite!

“I’m sorry sweetheart, but you’re gonna need to be up on two legs for us to go back.”

Stevie made a disgruntled little snort and parked his ass and hands on the ground.

“You know that’s not what I asked for puppy,” he hissed out. All that got him was another haughty huff and a nose in the air.

If Tommy was around and they were behind closed doors, his obstinance might have earned a couple smacks or some alone time in his cage. Here though, Eddie was wary of making too much noise. He kept quietly cajoling, but his boyfriend stubbornly refused to move.

Finally, inspiration struck. He wiggled out of his jacket and placed it on the linoleum underneath their table. His puppy pretended not to be interested, but Eddie caught him glancing as he smoothed it out.

“Go on, lay down,” he said, with a pointed finger towards his jacket. Stevie cocked his head, playing dumb even as his eyes lit up in delight.

“You’re gonna close your eyes right here next to me, okay? I’ll stay the whole time, make sure you’re safe. Please Stevie,” he asked softly, “come on, take a little nap for me. Think how much better you’ll feel afterwards.”

Mercifully, the solution seemed to amenable to his headstrong boyfriend. He crawled over to inspect the makeshift dog bed, his tags gently clinking against each other.

After a few seconds, Stevie made a small noise of satisfaction, circling around to curl up against his legs. Within a couple minutes, he was snoring away softly, and Eddie slumped against the desk in relief.

He took a photo and sent it to his other boyfriend:

Eddie bit his lip. Shit. He should be able to wrangle Stevie himself, right?

His boyfriend didn’t reply for a few minutes, eventually sending a thumbs up. Eddie swallowed his nerves. He’d be fine! Tommy had enough shit to deal with right now, he didn’t need to clean up any messes Eddie had created for himself. His boyfriend didn’t need to see the worst of him, not yet.

He hadn’t been fourteen-year old Eddie in a long time, that distracted fidgety mess of a kid who was so angry at the world. His guidance counselor calling Wayne in for a meeting and handing the two of them a pamphlet on ADHD had been a first step towards something new. But folks in his hometown had long memories. Didn’t matter if Wayne had taken him in and made sure he got his act together enough to graduate, or if he earned a full ride to a state college. They all saw Eddie as screw up Al Munson’s miniature screw up in waiting, ready to follow in his daddy’s footprints any minute.

Getting out of Hawkins had probably saved his life. No one on this campus got to know about his dad’s prison sentence, or that Wayne lived in a trailer park, or hell, even that he took Adderall, without Eddie telling them first.

And he was gonna get there with Tommy and Steve…someday. Well okay, they saw him taking his fucking pill in the morning when he stayed over, so that last one wasn’t a secret anymore. But the rest? He was gonna keep his mouth shut for the time being around them and their silver-spooned brothers. Eddie could enjoy being their drug-dealer turned adopted stray for a little longer.

A snuffle from Stevie pushed him back out of his mind. Shit, right. He had a puppy to get home. Eddie ruffled Stevie’s hair some more and considered his options.

In the end, he let his puppy sleep for another hour. Steve was still out of it when he woke up, but he had climbed back out of his doggy headspace enough that Eddie was able to corral him back home with an arm over his shoulder. Anyone looking at them would’ve assumed the two of them were hungover. Weird for so early in the afternoon on a Wednesday, but not out of the question for someone sporting a ΣΑΧ snapback.

A couple brothers looked up when they stumbled in through the front door.

“Y’know if Tommy’s back yet?” Eddie wheezed. Stupid fucking hill this stupid fucking frat house had to be built on top of.

The blonde guy on the left of the couch nodded. Eddie recognized him as the one who always lost his shirt at parties and bragged about all the T.A.’s he was banging…was his name Benny? Billy? Something like that.

“Just missed him.” Benny-or-maybe-just-Bill smirked. “Looked pretty wiped. Tell him if he’s too tired, I’ll take care of his mutt for the night. Don’t worry, I’ll let you watch. Maybe you’ll pick up some training tips.”

Eddie swallowed a scowl.

“Maybe next Friday, dude .” Asshole.

Ignoring the snickering, Eddie turned and practically dragged Steve up the stairs and into Tommy’s room.

As soon as he caught sight of his other owner, Stevie immediately dropped back down to all fours and ran over to Tommy.

Tommy laughed and fended off his puppy’s ‘kisses.’

“Down, Stevie! I missed you too puppy.”

Fuck.

Eddie’s already bad mood intensified. It was obvious who Stevie preferred, and not like he didn’t have plenty of people lining up to take Tommy’s place. What was the point in competing with any of them?

Caught up in his own head, Eddie didn’t notice Tommy making his way over to the door until his boyfriend was dragging him further inside.

“Thanks for taking care of the sneaky fucker for me. He didn’t give you too much trouble, right? I should’ve noticed Steve wasn’t sleeping. He tried to pull this shit last year around the same time too.”

When Eddie didn’t answer, Tommy gave him a look.

“Dude, helllooo?”

“What?” The snap came out reflexively. Tommy raised his eyebrows while giving Stevie some scritches behind his ear that the puppy was really leaning into.

“Ouch, didn’t realize you were in a bitchy mood too.”

If he’d been feeling better, the tease wouldn’t have come off as a barb that stuck under his skin. Today was not that day.

“Well I won’t darken your fucking doorstep anymore,” Eddie muttered, turning to go. Tommy grabbed for his shoulder.

“Just sleep it off here Eds, you keep saying you want to steal my mattress. I’ll take care of Stevie now, you don’t have to worry.”

Tommy’s bed was a lot comfier than the bed in his apartment. Eddie loved taking naps on that mattress. But his boyfriend standing there so confident, so self-assured, made him furious. Not even sleep deprived from his exam, or worried about splitting his attention between his real boyfriend and a screw up who was only good enough to sub in once in a while.

“Yeah, guess you fucking have to be better at everything, huh?” He bat away Tommy’s hand and turned again, only to find himself hauled around by the back of his shirt. “Hey fuck off—”

“Nope,” Tommy interrupted. “Sit down and shut up.” He shoved Eddie backwards until his butt hit the side of the bed, then full on climbed on top of him. All the air left his body with an ‘ ooof! ’ Before Eddie knew it, he was pinned against the mattress.

“You do know you’re kinda heavy right?” he wheezed.

“Don't really care," Tommy said, busy grabbing Eddie’s wrists to fully immobilize him. "I’m not moving until you’re over whatever the fuck this is.”

Eddie tried to kick out but his skinny legs were no match for someone who played a sport four times a week. He sat there stewing in his annoyance for a few minutes but…g-ddamnit. The weight and warmth of Tommy’s body was kind of soothing. His feet got further squished in while Stevie settled into the improvised puppy pile.

With a deep breath, Eddie let himself sink into the bed. Tommy bonked his head against Eddie’s.

“Better now?”

“…Yeah. Thanks.”

His boyfriend gave him a soft kiss.

“Whatever bullshit it was telling you, tell your brain to fuck off, ‘kay?” It took all of his willpower not to immediately turn into a pile of goo. Stevie gave a little wuff as he pawed at Eddie’s jeans. “See, the puppy says so too.”

At the attention, their puppy barked excitedly.

“Aww, is someone feeling left out?” Tommy crooned down at him, before glancing back towards Eddie. “You up to playing now? Think this one still has some energy to get out.” Eddie nodded, ready to push the focus back off his issues for a while and help Stevie settle better. His boyfriend grinned and gave him a much more forceful kiss in return. Okay, yeah, little Eddie was definitely ready to play now.

“Go get your collar Stevie,” Tommy ordered.

Their puppy immediately scampered off towards the trunk that held his toys. Eddie was mildly impressed that he managed to nudge the top open with just his teeth and nose. On all fours, the sides of the trunk came up to Stevie’s shoulders. He had to tilt his whole upper body in to search, leaving his ass and legs comically dangling in the air. After a few seconds, their puppy yipped triumphantly and tossed his collar out. He fell back onto the floor in a mass of flailing limbs.

Once Stevie re-oriented himself and had his prize in hand (or more accurately, in mouth), he raced over to deposit his collar in front of Eddie, looking up expectantly.

“Oh, umm…” he flushed, glancing at Tommy. “Can I?”

His boyfriend smirked.

“You know he’s trying to butter you up, right? Cause someone ,” Tommy slipped into a singsong high-pitched voice as he pinched their puppy’s cheek, “knows he’s been naughty today. Get naked puppy. Now.”

Stevie shed his clothes lightning fast and sat back on his haunches at Eddie’s feet, bowing his head for him for the second time that day. Eddie slipped off the dog tags and replaced them with Stevie’s collar, fumbling with the clasp in his haste.

Their puppy sighed, turning to nuzzle his face into his legs. Eddie couldn’t help but melt from the sweetness, reaching down to scratch at Stevie’s scalp.

“Oh sure, now that you get what you want you’re behaving,” Tommy complained. “Sorry, puppy, you know the rules. Now, stand and present.”

Stevie pouted, but got back on all fours and arched his back. He spread his legs wide, exposing his balls and hole, as a pink flush slowly spread across his body. Tommy moaned appreciatively. Their puppy turned his head to smirk as he swayed his ass back and forth a little. G-d, Stevie was such a vain attention-seeking diva.

He was also already half-hard from this little bit of show-boating. Tommy moved quickly, lubing up a silicon cock ring to sit just beneath the head of his dick. A matching band fit just above his balls, stretching them out away from his body. Eddie shivered as Stevie woofed happily, knowing firsthand from experience (thanks to a very enlightening weekend spent under Tommy’s hands) how intense orgasms felt with them on, even if their puppy would have to work a little harder to get there.

Once Stevie was properly collared everywhere, Eddie squirted some cold lube without warning directly over their puppy’s hole, enjoying both the shocked yip he got in response and Tommy’s snorting laughter.

He took his time to tease, stroking his fingers along all of the gorgeous skin presented in front of him. As he passed it, Eddie’d let the tip of his thumb just barely catch on Stevie’s rim. Their puppy whined and bucked around, trying to force it deeper.

“Hey, bad puppy, stay!” Tommy swatted at Stevie’s ass hard enough to leave a handprint. “Be happy Eddie’s being so nice, I wouldn’t give you anything after how much of a brat you were to him this afternoon.”

Eddie jumped and moved his hands away, feeling guilty.

“Shit, should I leave him alone?” Tommy cocked an eyebrow.

“Why? He’s yours too. Do what you want to him.” Their puppy woofed and laid his face on Eddie’s feet. Tommy smirked and gestured down as if to say see ?

Eddie flushed a little at the sign of support from both of them and nodded, picking back up with only light touches. He kept at it until Stevie was a whining slobbering mess, barely able to hold back from humping the air. It was only then that he finally picked up the tail-shaped butt plug and gently pushed it into their puppy’s waiting asshole.

Stevie barked and groaned at the intrusion, relaxing his muscles and rocking back and forth on the plug to pleasure himself. Eddie now knew he could take much bigger and thicker dildos, but the curved rubber tail brushing against their puppy’s ass with every movement drove him further and further into that warm fuzzy headspace.

“There you go sweetheart,” Eddie murmured. “Finally filled up the way you wanted?”

Their puppy whined, looking up with big sad eyes. Tommy snorted.

“Upset he didn’t fuck you with that nice thick dick of his first then plug you up?” he taunted. “Not tonight Stevie, you are being punished. Speaking of—” His other boyfriend tossed the remote to the tail’s vibrator towards Eddie. He squeaked in surprise at the projectile, only barely managing to catch it. Stupid frat bros and their jock reflexes. Tommy just laughed again.

“Don’t you go giving me a look too, you caught it, didn’t you?”

“I only quit smoking a month ago, don’t expect to turn me into an athlete anytime soon,” Eddie grumbled. He held up the remote. “What did you have in mind with this?”

“Well,” Tommy wandered over and slipped his hands underneath Eddie’s shirt to toy with his nipple piercing. Eddie let out a happy groan of his own. “Stevie still needs to get his spanking. Why don’t you lose your clothes? Enjoy the show, and keep our puppy on the edge.”

His boyfriend played with his nipples for a long torturous minute before walking back towards Stevie. He grinned at the sight of Eddie’s dick straining within the confines of his tight jeans, a wet patch just barely visible through the denim.

“Don’t come yet, got plans for you tonight too.”

Eddie groaned but nodded. He flew out of his clothes and leapt onto the bed as Tommy settled in on the beat up loveseat in the corner and beckoned Stevie over.

Their puppy crawled over reluctantly, whimpering the whole way. He cowered at Tommy’s feet, trying to appear as pathetic as possible. The groveling might have worked, had he not also glanced back at Eddie and stuck his butt higher in the air. Eddie had to stifle a laugh.

"Come on Stevie, don't give me that," Tommy snapped. "You know the rules. Dogs don't get to make decisions, their owners do. Get up here. Don't make me say it again." He pointed to his lap.

Stevie scrambled up then went limp. He obediently let Tommy arrange him so that he was stretched out over the sofa, his ass centered directly over his owner's thighs.

"There you go. See, it's not hard to be good, is it Stevie?" Tommy ruffled a hand through their puppy's hair, mussing it up and chuckling at the disgruntled huff he got in response.

G-d, the way he looked at Stevie, cheeks flushed and eyes soft, made Eddie's heart clench. His fingers itched to capture this moment in a song, so other people could get just a taste of the intimacy. But. He shouldn't be intruding on such a private moment between the two of them, right? He couldn’t hope to ever have Tommy look at him like that and—

“You gonna use the vibe on him, or want me to start first?”

Huh? Oh right. Belatedly Eddie realized the remote was cutting into his hand from the way he’d been holding it in a death grip this whole time.

Tommy finally glanced in his direction. And look, Eddie knew he was a terrible liar. Wayne had always said he wore his heart fluttering around right there on his sleeve. But he couldn’t help but feel caught out when his boyfriend quirked an eyebrow and gestured for him to join them on the sofa.

Stevie lifted his head enough for Eddie to slide his way into the empty seat, giving a happy little wuff now that he was positioned over both of them. He settled down to bury his nose in Eddie’s crotch, enthusiastically licking at his dick and balls with that heavenly tongue.

Tommy reached over to stroke his thumb against Eddie’s cheek.

“Guess the puppy wasn’t the only one who needed attention, huh.”

“Mhm.” Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and leaned into his boyfriend’s hand, basking in the affection. At least until he remembered he was still holding the remote. Again.

He finally turned the switch on. Stevie, in the middle of slobbering all over his ballsack trying to take everything into his mouth at once, gave an adorable squeal in surprise, and kept wriggling around as Eddie steadily increasing the vibe’s intensity.

His boyfriend caught his eye and grinned. Without warning, he brought his hand down on their puppy with a loud smack . Stevie jolted and cried out, his ass jiggling from the impact. Tommy wasn’t moved by the reaction.

“I barely touched you pup, shush.” He began to rain down blow after blow.

The sight of their puppy’s ass slowly growing redder was driving Eddie insane. Worse, all those little noises coming out of his mouth as he squirmed around vibrated right against Eddie’s dick.

With a lot of effort, Eddie only just managed to pull himself back from the edge.

Tommy saw him panting and paused his spanking. He grabbed one of Eddie’s hands and laid it on top of Stevie’s ass cheeks. Heat practically radiated off of them from the dark red blooming underneath his fingers.

His boyfriend winked at him before grabbing their puppy’s hair and yanking his head up. Stevie yelped, those pretty eyes shut tight from pain. Tommy waited until he opened them again to address him:

“Bad news pup, you distracted Eddie so much that I lost count watching. Guess I’ll have to restart. Poor thing,” he said with a fake condescending pout. “That mouth is always getting you into trouble, isn’t it. Maybe you should do something useful with it.”

He shoved Stevie’s head back down into Eddie’s crotch and started up again, steadily increasing the tempo of his strikes now that their puppy had been properly warmed up.

Obediently, Stevie opened his mouth and swallowed Eddie’s dick down. Every smack from Tommy urged him further and further, until their puppy’s nose was brushing against Eddie’s pubes. Once again, it took everything in Eddie’s power not to cum then and there from the warmth squeezing him tight. Tommy had mentioned that the two of them spent a good couple months training away Steve’s gag reflex and fuck , wasn’t Eddie a lucky bastard to reap their hard work.

He closed his eyes, resigned to the orgasm barreling towards him, when Tommy abruptly stood up, dumping Stevie off his lap in the process. Their puppy was caught off guard and went flying, landing on the floor with a yelp.

Laughing, his boyfriend finally started to take off his clothes.

“Sorry, but he was getting you too close. I told you, I’ve got plans involving your dick tonight.”

Eddie swallowed hard. His eyes traced over Tommy’s bare shoulders and chest, strong and built up from years of playing lacrosse. Unlike their puppy’s comparative jungle, Tommy’s chest only grew a smattering of hair. But there was more than enough for Eddie to run his greedy hands through it and enjoy the soft texture.

Pushing down his pants and briefs in one go, Tommy’s dick sprung free from its imprisonment to stick straight out. He really did have freckles everywhere. One of these days Eddie wanted to lick over each and every one of them.

“Like what you see Munson?” Oops, he’d been caught. Even worse, Tommy was using a jock nickname on him. Fifteen year-old Eddie would have been betrayed by how much it was doing it for him.

Eddie nodded, bouncing up to give Tommy a sloppy kiss. He returned the favor, only stopping to grab Eddie’s hand and gathering them both up in a fist, still kinda slick with remnants of lube.

Tommy directed him through a few rough strokes. Eddie moaned into his shoulder, finally giving into his own urge to bite and suck at the sun-speckled skin there.

A wuff coming from the floor interrupted his one-track thoughts. Stevie tried to hump their legs, only for Tommy to push him onto his back. His boyfriend chuckled as their puppy laid there pouting.

“What, you thought your punishment was over already? Not yet, Stevie. You’re going in your cage so your owners can have some fun together. That’s right, I’m the one who gets to ride Eddie for as long as I want tonight.” Their puppy whined in frustration.

Without hesitation, Tommy grabbed the back of Stevie’s collar and hauled him up so they were eye to eye.

“Behave,” he hissed. “We’re being nice, and letting you watch. Eddie and I could always go back to his place instead. Is that what you want? Locked up, all alone for the rest of the night?” Stevie shook his head and pawed at Tommy’s shirt, gasping a little for air.

Eddie grabbed ahold of their puppy’s shoulders and gently brought him down to the floor. Stevie curled up in his lap but couldn’t stay still, panting heavily and giving half-aborted little thrusts every few seconds. His dick twitched against Eddie’s thigh. Shit, he might gotten closer to coming than they wanted him to be right now.

He turned the vibrator down to a lower setting, enough to keep Stevie hard and wanting, but not in active danger. Their puppy moaned and burrowed deeper into Eddie’s arms. Tears and snot got smeared over his chest, but he didn’t mind.

“It’s okay sweetheart, shhh.” Eddie stroked the soft hairs on their puppy’s nape. “You’re being such a good boy, taking your punishment so well. Just a little more, it’s almost over.”

Tommy pressed a kiss to Stevie’s forehead.

“Think he’s good?”

Their puppy had quieted, his breathing no longer as labored. Eddie nodded.

In response, his boyfriend tilted his chin to stick his tongue in his mouth. When they parted, Tommy smirked at his dazed expression.

“Guess you’re good too. Put that one in his cage.” He sauntered over to his bed and grabbed the lube. “Come on, hurry up, I wanna feel full already.”

Eddie’s breath caught in his chest watching Tommy slick up two fingers on one hand and use the other to push a buttcheek to the side. His exposed asshole, adorned with a ring of freckles, greedily took one finger then another. The wet schlick s as he pumped in and out of himself filled the air, and Eddie’s dick was so hard it could cut glass.

A little moan underneath his feet reminded him of the task Tommy had left to him. Looking down, Eddie could see Stevie was similarly affected: his tongue was out and steadily dripping drool everywhere. If he didn’t act quickly, their puppy was probably thirty seconds away from leaping onto the bed and trying to take Tommy from behind.

Eddie tore his eyes away from his boyfriend’s ass, and ran over to the big dog cage in the corner.

“C’mere Stevie!” Eddie patted his legs and pointed to the plush dog bed inside. “Come on sweetheart, be a good boy, we’ll let you out soon, I promise,” he added hastily, seeing the dubious look on their puppy’s face.

Stevie took as circuitous a route as he could take, but eventually made his way over to the cage. He licked at Eddie’s hand, pleading with those expressive eyes of his. Eddie just barely restrained himself from giving in, and held the cage door open wider. Stevie huffed his displeasure. With his nose high in the air, he stepped into the cage, the picture of regal grace.

Their puppy occupied himself with getting comfy as Eddie locked him inside the cage. It was adorable the way he turned around a few times before curling up on himself, knees held close to his chest. The feigned nonchalance of the pose was ruined when Stevie peeked an eye open to make sure someone was still watching though.

It was Eddie’s turn to snort at this new tactic.

“Okay, yup, you totally don’t care sweetheart.”

A moan from Tommy called his attention back to the bed. Walking backwards, Eddie fiddled with the remote to give their puppy a taste of the vibe’s highest setting. Stevie yelped, limbs flying everywhere for a moment from the unexpected intensity. He glared at Eddie even as his hips ground down involuntarily.

Eddie giggled, giving their puppy a teasing grin. He set the remote to give random hard pulses, just to be a little mean. If Stevie wanted attention, he was going to have to work for it.

By the time Eddie rejoined him on the bed, Tommy was already three fingers deep in his own ass.

“Took you long enough, jeez,” he panted. “Come up here and fuck me already.”

Eddie didn’t need any more urging, and grabbed a condom, nearly tearing it in half in his haste to get the packet open.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tommy trying not to laugh, which only made his fumbling worse, of course. Eventually his boyfriend smacked his hands away.

“That’s it, we’re all getting tested this week,” Tommy muttered mostly to himself as he rolled down a fresh one onto Eddie’s dick. A couple quick pumps had Eddie whimpering too, already close to coming again. “So eager to please, huh? Well here’s how you make me happy Eddie-baby.”

His boyfriend pushed Eddie down onto his back then moved to hover right over his dick. Eddie couldn’t help but stare. Tommy’s muscles barely even moved as he effortlessly held the position. Stupid hot athlete boyfriend with his stupid hot abs.

Tommy moved in close, his breath tickling Eddie’s ear as he whispered: “I want to come on your dick tonight, and only from your dick. Doesn’t matter how much you beg me to stop, not gonna until that happens. Got it?”

Eddie swallowed hard. His dick twitched with every heartbeat, way too interested in what his boyfriend wanted. He was half tempted to beg for a cock ring of his own. Stevie had more than one after all.

As if he could hear his thoughts, their puppy gave another pitiful whimper as the tail kicked up again. Tommy didn’t react in the slightest. He just stared down, chest rising and falling evenly as he waited for an answer. The flush slowly spreading across his cheeks was the only tell that he was even a little bit affected.

A drop of precum landed on Eddie’s stomach. Okay, maybe there were a few more signs.

Tommy’s dick was sticking straight out, and his hole gaped, still loose from his fingers and practically begging to be stuffed full and…oh fuck it. Eddie had always been a competitive little shit anyway.

“I can definitely do that,” he said, putting as much false bravado into his words as possible. Sure, doing theater in high school meant he was forever labeled a dork, but did come in handy for moments like this.

His boyfriend smirked.

“Good.”

Without any warning, he slid halfway way down Eddie’s dick in one smooth movement. All of the air escaped his lungs from the sudden tight heat.

“Don’t even think about coming Munson,” Tommy panted.

The next however many minutes were the longest who knows how long period of time in Eddie’s life. He held onto the sheets for dear life while his boyfriend rode him hard and fast. Eddie could feel his balls drawing up almost past the point of no return when Tommy reached down to pinch at his nipple piercing again, and it was all over. As soon as he finished twitching, his boyfriend pulled off. He tore off the now used condom, pulled a new one down, and remounted Eddie before he could blink, much less have his dick flag.

“I told you,” Tommy panted. “I’m not gonna stop if you come, so don’t bitch and moan too much.”

He winced and moaned anyway, oversensitive and overwhelmed. Not that it mattered though. By the time Tommy groaned and came all over their stomaches, he’d squeezed another mind shattering orgasm out of Eddie.

Tommy flopped over, still trying to catch his breath. Eddie beamed from where he’d melded into the mattress, happy that he’d managed to make his jock boyfriend work that hard.

Belatedly, he became aware of their puppy whining and whimpering in the corner.

“Don’t worry Stevie,” Tommy called out. “Gonna let you out now, as soon as someone gets his legs back.” Their puppy did not stop his begging, the little brat.

Still, he had been in the cage and teased mercilessly for a long while. Eddie blindly fumbled around until he found the remote and turned the tail’s vibrator off. Stevie moaned and relaxed a bit more in relief.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Tommy wheezed, “keep your pants on pup.”

Finally, his boyfriend recovered his bearings enough to stumble over and free their puppy. Stevie tumbled out, equally unsteady after staying curled up for so long.

“You okay to move Stevie?” Tommy reached down and gently massaged their puppy’s legs. After a minute Stevie wuffed, and trotted over to the bed. Eddie reached out to help him up. He got their puppy arranged nicely on all fours before reaching a hand out to stroke his dick. Stevie moaned happily when Eddie slipped his other hand up to tease at his nipples. G-d , he loved how responsive he was.

“There you go Stevie,” Eddie said softly. “Poor thing, you must be aching everywhere, huh? All worked up, with nothing to hump.”

Their puppy whined in agreement. The whines kicked up a notch when the tail in his ass came to life again. Eddie looked over to see a grinning Tommy holding the remote.

“Come on, let’s let the doggy have his bone r.” Eddie groaned at the pun and his boyfriend cackled.

In the end, it didn’t take much. Eddie played with his nipples, Tommy gave a few gentle squeezes to their puppy’s balls, and they took turns alternating strokes to his dick.

The orgasm hit Steve hard. Underneath their hands he bucked and moaned in relief for seemingly forever. He finally dropped boneless to the bed with one last whimper.

Steve barely responded as Tommy went about removing the rings from his junk or the tail from his ass. But when Eddie went to unbuckle his collar, he grabbed his hand to hold it still.

“Five more minutes,” Steve begged, the words slurred and his voice a little raspy from disuse.

Eddie didn’t hesitate or wait for Tommy to give his opinion.

“Sure sweetheart, five more minutes.” Relief written all over his face, Steve closed his eyes and curled up into Eddie’s chest. He made a noise of satisfaction when Tommy slid in to cling to his back like a koala.

His boyfriend flopped a hand over Steve, letting it come to rest on Eddie’s chest. The weight and warmth of it grounded him as he laid there half drifting into a doze.

They stayed like that for a while and let time unspool around them, only broken by Steve’s little snores. Eddie’s brain even shut up for the occasion, not concerned with anything but the present.

Finally, Tommy stirred again.

“Fuck.” He poked at the drying sticky mess all over them. “We need to clean all this shit up, or we’re gonna get stuck together forever.”

Tommy directed Eddie to help him get Steve into the shower since he was still clumsy on his feet. They left his collar on the sink to deal with as tomorrow’s problem. The thing was already marked up with a lot of mysterious stains, what was one more gonna do at this point?

After the world’s fastest shower, the three of them all fell into a pile on the bed.

Steve settled down again in between Eddie and Tommy.

When Eddie finally came back to consciousness the next day, it was to Steve’s stomach growling.

He peeked open one eye to find his boyfriend reading a textbook, supporting it on top of Tommy’s head (who was splayed out and still snoring away on his chest). A beam of sunlight glinted off Steve’s glasses and made the two of them practically glow. Eddie’s heart lurched at seeing such a wonderful sight first thing after waking up.

Steve’s eyes flicked from the book over to him. He grimaced.

“Shit, sorry for waking you up Eds. Forgot you’re a lighter sleeper than Tom is.”

“It’s fine, whatimeisit,” Eddie slurred as he extracted himself from Tommy’s legs and stretched.

“Twelve thirty-ish. Was gonna go make some food, you hungry too?”

On cue, Eddie’s stomach made a noise. Steve grinned.

“That answers that. Hey, Tommy-” his boyfriend poked his human weighted blanket. “Want anything?”

Tommy shooed them both off.

“Shuddup m’sleepn’…” he muttered, flopping over and blindly groping around to find a replacement pillow.

Steve laughed and grabbed Eddie’s hand.

“Just the two of us. Come on, I’ll make some brunch.”

Eddie followed Steve downstairs and into a part of the house he hadn’t been in yet. Here, the fancy wood paneling was darker, and held rows and rows of framed photos of former Sigma Alpha Chi brothers from prior decades.

Just beyond the point where the photographs began to feature late 1800’s suits and silly facial hair, Steve opened a door helpfully labeled ‘Kitchen’, and turned on the lights.

If Eddie didn’t know better, he would have guessed this cavernous space made food for some Michelin star restaurant, with its pristine chrome appliances, glazed terracotta tiles, and white-washed walls. For fucks sake he could see his reflection mirrored back at him on practically every sparkling surface.

“What, no private chef?” he joked, valiantly resisting the urge to tamper with the expensive-looking mixer or leave behind fingerprints all over the island.

Steve shrugged and fiddled with the brim of his snapback.

“Oh, we do, today’s just her day off. You’re gonna love Maggie’s tiramisu, it’s so fucking good man.” Sigma Alpha Chi and their bottomless funds. With his back turned, Steve missed Eddie’s eyes popping out of his skull as he continued talking:

“Tommy’s been banned from coming in here since he freaking lit pasta in boiling water on fire. So, I need you to be my smoke detector and make sure this Kraft survives, okay?” Steve scooped Eddie up and deposited him on the counter next to the stove. If anyone asked, Eddie would deny the extremely manly ‘meep! ’ that fell out of his mouth in surprise. His boyfriend huffed out a laugh, kissed the tip of his nose, then got to work.

Eddie watched Steve putter around. There were still dark circles under his eyes that wouldn’t be solved by one good night’s sleep. But the Steve of this morning, er, afternoon, was nothing like yesterday. He moved around the kitchen confidently, humming like he was supposed to be here. Every so often he’d send little smiles Eddie’s way that absolutely wreaked havoc with his heart.

Twenty minutes later balancing several bowls of steaming yellow cheesy goodness in his hands, Eddie listened to Steve complain about his dad:

“He still not thrilled I decided not to run for and ‘let my boyfriend win.’ Pissed I let the streak of frat president Harringtons die. Like I want Tommy’s job.” Steve gestured to one photo out of the many frames lining the hallway as they passed.

The plaque underneath read "Sigma Alpha Chi Class of '86." In the center grinning at the camera was a guy with Steve's smile and a frankly impressive bushy blond mustache.

"Not that he really understands why I wanna be a teacher instead of following him into the family business either. I'm getting the management degree because he's convinced that by the time I graduate he can get me to work for him.”

"Don't want to join the ol’ law firm? Let him finally put the ‘& Son’ up on the sign?” Steve made a face.

“My mom's the family lawyer and she definitely doesn’t want me anywhere near her cases. My dad runs…you ever hear of Scoops Ahoy?"

"The ice cream chain? Yeah dude. Those commercials with the dorky admiral guy are hilarious. 'Set sail on an ocean of flavor with me!"

Steve groaned and hid his head behind his hands.

“We tried to get him to cast an actor but nope, had to be him. The stupid sailor outfits were his idea too, he's always been obsessed with nautical shit. Every year he hosts a murder mystery on his yacht and makes us all dress up in the dorkiest costumes with him, it's the worst."

Eddie blinked. Then blinked some more. Come to think of it the face of Scoops Ahoy had a very familiar crinkle to his hazel-colored eyes and sure his mustache was grey not blond but holy shit wait a minute—

“He…the Admiral is— your dad owns Scoops Ahoy??" he sputtered.

Oh my G-d he was dating fast food royalty. What was next, would Tommy reveal he was related to the King of Sweden?

With his free hand Eddie grabbed Steve’s shirt.

“Please tell me Tommy isn’t secretly Gustaf the Seventeenth,” he asked, his tone landing closer to ‘manic Swedish-obsessed axe murderer’ than intended.

Steve looked at him sideways.

“What?”

“He’s not from Sweden?” Steve grabbed their lunch out of Eddie’s hands after a couple noodles fell to their demise.

“Dude he’s from some town called Orangeville a couple hours outside of Indianapolis. It’s in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.”

“Okay, great.” Eddie wheezed. “Only one of you is the heir to an empire then. Tommy’s just normal fuck-off wealthy.”

Steve laughed.

“Yeah, I’m gonna regret introducing you to Dad, aren’t I. The two of you are gonna feed into each other’s dramatics, calling it now.” Eddie stopped in his tracks. Steve wanted him to meet his parents?

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll get along great at graduation.” That’s all he meant, probably. No need to explain polyamory to baby boomers.

“Actually, was kinda hoping you were free for Spring Break, you didn’t mention any plans yet.” A couple spots of pink appeared on Steve’s cheeks. Was he…nervous? Before Eddie could do more than shake his head no his boyfriend pushed on:

“My parents want to meet my music teacher boyfriend and might have invited you to come on this year’s murder cruise. If you want. I won’t let them make you wear the cabin boy outfit even if it’s tradition for first-timers. Those shorts are like, ridiculously tiny and I will get distracted staring at your ass.” Steve grinned, like it wasn’t complete absurdity to introduce him to anyone.

“You’ve talked about me to your parents?” His boyfriend gave him a bitchy look.

“No, I didn’t want to tell my parents about my new amazing boyfriend who can play ten different instruments. Oh, right!” He snapped his fingers. “If you come, don’t bring your guitar. Dad will make you play ‘Barrett’s Privateers’ too many times.”

“What about Tommy?”

“What about him? He’s already called dibs on being the ‘second first mate.’’ Eddie threw up his hands in frustration. In hind sight, Steve was entirely correct to take the mac and cheese away from him.

“Steve, if I’m your new boyfriend, they’re gonna assume you and Tommy broke up!”

“Oh. Nah, my mom would kill me if I broke up with Tommy at this point, she loves him. They think I’m involved in some sort of millennial swingers club, but they sort of get it. And the offer’s still standing if you want to come. Don’t need to RSVP now or anything, think about it. It’ll be nice to have you there.”

Eddie stared at Steve’s face. This had to be a joke, no one wanted to ever take him home. He was the dirty secret, the screw up, the—

“ Tell your brain to fuck off ,” Tommy’s voice whispered in his ear.

Maybe, this didn’t have to be a joke. Maybe, he could meet Steve’s parents with Tommy there and have it go okay. And maybe, he could believe that the two of them wanted him to be there.

“I’ll have to see what my uncle’s plans were, but he’d probably be okay with moving our fishing trip to another weekend. We uh, usually do that, when I’m home on breaks.”

“Yes!” Steve smiled and pumped a fist in the air, somehow avoiding spilling any pasta while he did so like the talented dorky jock he was. Eddie couldn’t help but smile. Maybe things would work out this time, if he could get his boyfriends to smile back at him like that. The rest could come later.

Author's Notes -Thank you to @vthx for beta-ing, you really helped me drill down and nail Steve's mannerisms <3 Also thank you to anyone who sent in an emoji during WIP Weekend. It took six months, but this fic finally saw publication!

-Shout out to @dame-zoom-a-lot for walking me through how to create the cool texting workskin!

-In this story, I wanted Steve, Eddie, and Tommy to have met in college, so only Eddie gets to be from Hawkins! Due to the demands of running a restaurant empire, I imagine Steve lived somewhere near to Chicago so his dad could travel to and from the offices frequently. Tommy's town of Orangeville is super tiny (less than 1000 people) and was picked randomly off the map

-Billy is in fact extremely jealous that Steve chose someone else not once but twice, heh

-Tommy lighting pasta in boiling water on fire is in fact inspired by a true story, unfortunately. The person who did this is now a literal rocket scientist, which thankfully does not require cooking skills Also thank you to saradika for the dog bone divider!

Tag list for this fic (thank you for your patience and continued emoji-based support while it took some time to write <3)

@dame-zoom-a-lot @fkinkindagauche @little-annie @augustjustice

@fuctacles @stellarspecter @griefabyss69

[shipstorms]

do you ever do the thing where you write whatever to get going on something else and then you end up with like 17 googledocs made up of a single paragraph each —

anyway here’s one of them. inspired by moneyball. main problem here is that i’ve never followed baseball and have only been to games for beer and garlic fries. mea culpa.

"Uh huh," John says. Pinches at his chin like he's thinking, even though there's nothing in his brain right now. "Uh huh. Okay. And just how do you figure?"

Harding looks over at Gale, who has his eyes downcast and is clearly not expecting to take the lead on this one. He startles back up to attention when Harding says, "Gale. Why don't you tell him."

Gale’s got tufted blond hair, but everything else about him is sharp — eyes, face, shoulders, knees, general countenance. He should be peering out condescendingly at John from the pages of a magazine that he’s jerking off to instead of sitting in his living room on a thrifted armchair, lit dully under a sixty watt bulb.

John redirects his question. "How do you figure?"

"Math," Gale says after a pause.

"Math."

"Statistics. Sabermetrics," Gale corrects himself.

"Must've missed that part of college. Enlighten me."

Harding looks at Gale again, but he doesn't need prompting this time. "Front offices look at all the same things. Home runs. Batting averages. RBIs." Gale's got a deep and scratchy voice, one that near reverberates through the underfurnished apartment. "The tried and true five-tool player kind of stuff, combined with marketability. Would this guy sell tickets for us? Would he look good on a Sports Illustrated cover?"

"Got that part in spades, Bucky," Harding chimes in, but John barely hears him, stuck in a standoff with Gale who now seems to be locked into the conversation with intensity. Zero to a hundred kind of guy, apparently.

"That doesn’t get you wins unless you’ve got two hundred million to blow," Gale continues. "Not enough people are considering obvious stats like on-base percentage or walks. Or they’re not considering it as heavily as they should be. And hardly anyone's looking at, say, slugging percentage. But that's the stuff that actually matters, if you want to build a solid team from the ground up."

Harding nudges his way in. "And no one's looking at all of those things put together," he concludes in his weighty drawl, settling back against the cushion like he's said something profound.

John sits back as well. Harding is still giving him a self-satisfied look as if John is supposed to know what to do with all this information. Biggest thing he learned going pro was not to beat around any kind of bush. Better to mow it down and get straight to the point. Close behind that lesson was another about not putting stock into promises no matter who was doing the promising, but John had already absorbed that one decades ago.

"Still doesn't explain why you want me," he says. "You know my stats? All of them?"

"Yes," says Gale.

"Then you know I have shitty numbers for just about everything you listed. And if you talked to anyone at all before schlepping out here, then you'd know that my elbow still feels like pins and needles and, oh yeah," John snaps and twitches his head, "I can't throw the goddamn ball anymore."

Harding leans forward, on the verge of a rebuttal, but Gale gets there first.

"Yeah," he says unblinkingly. "But you had a three-eighty OBP before your injury.

"That’s one stat."

"And most importantly, you're cheap."

John can’t help it; he laughs. Sometimes, rarely, the truth could be funny without being anything else. "We still talking about math here?" he asks, and Gale offers up the faintest of smiles. More a tightening of his lips, but it loosens that staid expression in a weird paradoxical counterbalance. "Listen, I appreciate that. I appreciate it, even if those sound like fighting words." He jiggles his leg up and down. "You know, my pops would say not to trust anything from anyone coming around past nine p.m."

"That’s a good piece of advice," Gale says. He’s staring at John dead on, probing in a way that would make anyone wonder what he sees. "My dad would say put five hundred bucks on black."

[stars-n-kites]

really an inexplicable train of thought but i feel like taako is the kind of person who in a modren era au would just decide to go to a shooting range and learn how to shoot a pistol for funsies, but would consider learning to spin the pistol all cool like they do in cowboy movies to be his first and foremost priority. like hes already bought a holster and the moment he is given a gun he immediately starts trying to twirl it. the instructor has to tell him to stop or theyll take the gun away from him. he keeps trying to lead the conversation back to it anyway because he really feels like theyre putting the cart before the horse here if hes learning how to shoot the gun before even knowing how to dramatically reholster it if he were to get in some sort of cowboy duel. hes actually really good at the shooting part but he gets kicked out of the class after his eighth guntwirling attempt in which he accidentally flicks the safety off mid twirl and shoots one of their light fixtures

[bacchuschucklefuck]

love thinking kipperlilly spends her afterlife looking for lucy in a familiar forest

[queenofbaws]

oh god. oh no. oh god oh no oh god i found the soapbox again. oh good heavens i'm climbing up onto it. oh NO someone left me a megaphone again. i can't stop myself......i can't.....fight it.........i just......

SOMETHING I REALLY LOVE ABOUT TQ IS THE LODGE

lmfao but fr tho, from the moment you step foot into hackett lodge, it feels warm, and it feels homey, and it feels lived in - a stark contrast to blackwood lodge, which is, from the prologue, cold and austere and menacing. in ud, you know the lodge isn't safe from the get-go. you hold your breath when you're exploring it, jumping at every creak of the floorboards. hackett lodge, on the other hand, just.......it's wood paneled and cozy. when the golden hour light comes in through the slats of the blinds, it feels nostalgic. safe. the creaks and sighs of it settling on its bones are expected and almost welcome. it is comfortable, it is maybe a little warmer than you want it to be, it smells faintly of sap and someone else's laundry detergent.

and it is a death trap.

[angeltism]

EEEEEEH honestly during the time we were mutuals we interacted like a maximum of . two times. perhaps even just once. which is a bit crazy considering all of this now. i was just scared of trying to keep interacting honestly HSJAHDJSHD but if you dont feel like dating after i reveal myself that is completely absolutely alright! i would appreciate having you as a friend just as much! its whatever you prefer and whatever you feel more comfortable with :3

- 💌 anon

oooh well . still honestly I bet uur kewl <3 and yayaya !! thank uu for being understanding , I very much appreciate it . to be faaair , I do . kinda . have a soft spot for uu , y'know ? so even if it isn't immediately . . . the idea isn't something I'm opposed to ^_^