#and pulls him into the car thinking he’s imagining all the similarities between this kid and Jason

[frogaroundandfindout]

Jason shuffles around Gotham for 12.5 miles mumbling about Bruce. He’s soon found and checked into a hospital where he falls into a coma. They try to run his fingerprints, but as a result of being Robin they aren’t on record anywhere. (Batman Annual #25)

[mostly-imagines]

Who Needs Heaven? : The Drop-In

jason todd x fem!reader

aka jason meets his daughters

warnings: it’s not specific if the kids are bio or adopted — this probably doesn’t make sense on multiple fronts but i DON’T CARE

see for: the vibes

(2) safe & sound

His body jolts like he’s snapping out of sleep. The first thing he processes is loud conversations echoing, the sound of young girls talking over each other. He surveys over a book in his hands that he’s never heard of, though it’s opened more than halfway through and considerably worn. He drops the book to the side, coming to a stand and scanning over the environment. 

He looks around the adorned living room, taking in details rapidly. He doesn’t recognize the house he’s in but he can tell it’s somewhere he definitely does not belong. The room is filled with books on shelves and picture frames are littered in every free spot in between. The lights are warm and the furniture is colorful with pillows and blankets strewn all over. It’s a stark contrast to the refined stoic Manor he’s so used to; there’s a distinct feeling of homeliness and warmth that seeps through the walls.

He creeps into the front entryway to the house as quietly as he can, peering up the staircase to the landing above for any signs of familiarity or danger. From his right, a girl comes darting into the space, running face first into Jason. He immediately reaches out to steady her but she shows no sign of disruption. She makes a point of holding the wrapped popsicle in her hand away, keeping it safe. She blinks up at him before taking off past him, calling out, “Sorry, dad!”

Dad?

“Anna, I swear to God—” Another girl of similar age runs past, paying him no mind.

He gapes after her, thoroughly confused. Where the hell is he?

“Daddy?” He turns around and looks down to a younger girl who looks about six at most. She stares up at him with wide eyes and freckled cheeks. “Are you okay?”  

He can’t think.

This isn’t…this can’t be real. It can’t be. This is a dream. He got knocked out. He’s hallucinating. He’s dying.

He tries to keep his breath steady as this little girl peers up at him with curious eyes. “Daddy?”

He opens his mouth, struggling to find words, let alone get them out. “Where…where’s your mom?” He can barely make out his own voice.

“She’s in your room,” she tells him, looking up the stairs. 

He treds up the stairs slowly, the chatter downstairs barely getting any quieter. The second floor seems deserted in terms of the presence of children. If, if this were real (or more likely, a dream) you’ll be here somewhere. There’s no scenario where he’d ever imagine a life in a big house with a big family without you—subconsciously or otherwise. 

Several doors line the wide hallway, most of them open. He peers in the room closest to the top of the staircase, finding a heartily decorated bedroom with two twin beds. Polaroids and movie posters litter the walls and clothes are strewn across on top of the bed covers and in a few small piles on the floor. An orange lava lamp illuminates the room from a desk, shining off the glossy cover of magazines. Above, sports medals dangle off the wall against a white board, a scribbled on game of hangman midway through. A full-length mirror covered in stickers along the edges reflects a bookshelf across the room, dozens of books stuffed on each shelf. He blinks vacantly, pulling back from the doorway and continuing on.

He continues on down the right side of the hallway, passing up a bathroom and a closet before peering into the next room. It also has two beds, but it’s filled with remnants of young children. A small table with a tea set laid out on top sits in the middle of the room with various princess dresses draped across the short chairs. Pink bed sheets and butterfly-filled curtains joined by toy cars lined against the wall and strings of pink starry lights hanging from the ceiling. Both beds have stuffed animals arranged in thoughtful piles. It takes Jason a moment to notice the tattered, worn elephant with the green polka dot tie on the bed with the Cinderella comforter. Pickles. It was his when he was a kid. It’s placed delicately at the top of the pile, like he’s the king of the crop. A grand dollhouse sticks out against one of the walls, the dolls all lying asleep in their makeshift beds. Fluffy bubblegum and fuschia rugs scatter the floor just enough that you could jump across the room without ever touching the hardwood.

He turns to the last room, a door directly across that’s just cracked open. He can hear light music coming from inside and the almost inaudible shuffle of movement. He pushes the door open cautiously and takes in the sight of a woman, back to the door, folding laundry on the bed. He doesn’t even need to see your whole figure to know that it’s you.

“Sweetheart?” He sounds like he’s out of breath. 

“Yeah?” You turn around with your same kind eyes and gentle disposition. You look older, not much older but your face is more mature. You even hold yourself a little differently. You quickly notice the way he scans you with a look of bewilderment on his face and jump into concern. “What’s wrong?” You drop the shirt that you’re folding on the bed, approaching him with soft steps. Everything feels fuzzy.

“This—this is…” His voice seems far away, this body feels further. “This isn’t real…”

“What? Jay, what are you talking about?” You’re so genuinely concerned about him it makes his heart hurt and does nothing to help clear his head.

His breathing starts to stutter and his eyes can’t pick something to focus on. Everything is telling him that this is a false sense of security, he’s not safe, you’re not safe, everything’s wrong—

“Woah, hey, hey. It’s okay.” You take his face in your hands the way you know tends to ground him. “Catch me up.”

He tries to focus on the sliding clasp of the necklace around your neck. “I…I think this is…” He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up only to wake up in a few seconds and find that it was all pretend. Instead, he’ll settle for, “...This hasn’t happened…”

You frown at that, tilting your head. “What do you mean?”

He breathes out heavy, “I think I’m dreaming.” 

“What are you dreaming of?” You walk along this train of thought with him, though he has no idea why you would entertain it. This really must be pretend.

“The future…this is…is this the future?” He’s whispering, he’s not even sure if he’s asking you or himself or maybe even God. 

You’re quiet for a minute before you speak again. “Oh,” you say contemplatively, not nearly as alarmed as you should be. You should probably be calling him crazy, right? “This is—you told me about this. Yeah, it had something to do with that clock guy—”

He blinks a few times, “The Clock King?” That does sound…familiar. Was he—he was with Bruce wasn’t he? Or maybe Dick. Both?

You nod, “Yeah, yeah. You said you ‘time traveled’ for a minute...but that was in, like…”

He fills in the blank with the year as he remembers it and your eyes go wide. “Well, this would be a bit of a surprise then.”

“We have kids?”

You laugh, brushing his hair back gently, “Yes. Yes, we definitely do. Five girls.”

“Five?” He breathes.

“Yeah. Wasn’t the plan but…” you shrug easily, “Here we are.” 

He barely stops his next question from coming out of his mouth and replaces it. “Is this something I should be hearing?”

“What?” You tilt your head for a second before realization flashes across your face. “Oh, you don’t end up remembering any of this.” You shrug, mouth scrunched up to the side, “So why not?”

He does really want to hear about them. “Please.” He whispers faintly. 

You nod reposefully, “Okay, well…” you pause, eyes on the ceiling. “Oh, wait.” You dart over to the bookshelf against the wall and pull a book from the second shelf from the top, a large pink photo album.

You shuffle back, guiding him to the bed and sitting thigh to thigh with him and placing the album on your laps. You flip it open to the first page, which displays an array of photos of who must be his daughter.

“This is Mia—Miriam—she’s the oldest. She’s thirteen now, she’s very smart and a sort of a perfectionist. Really a perfectionist.” A couple of her baby pictures were taken in your apartment and it makes his heart absolutely melt to see you as he left you, holding a baby—his baby—with a glowing smile on your face. There’s another photo of her, kindergarten aged, dressed up as Spoiler for halloween. One shows her on a bike with shimmery handlebar streams, Jason holding her steady as she learns. He’s wearing the brightest smile he’s ever seen on his own face.

“Then there’s the twins,” you continue, flipping to the next page. You laugh when his breath hitches at that. “I know. It’s not as scary as it sounds. Well, not now that they’re older. Ryan and Anna.” You point to them as you say their names, and he recognizes them quickly as the two girls that had run past the stairs. The twins look identical, the only discernible difference found in that Ryan is grinning in every picture with a glint in her eyes and Anna nearly always has a stoic look on her face. 

“Ryan is her father’s daughter. She thinks she’s very clever and even more funny, and she is but don’t tell her that, it goes straight to her head.”

There’s a picture that has to be a couple of years old by now of the two of them dressed in what looks like brand new soccer gear. Another depicts one of them chasing Tim with a firework sparkler at dusk. He sees one of Ryan covered in dirt and tiny cuts, smiling big, helmet crooked on her head.

“Anna’s a happy kid, she is. Don’t let her attitude trick you—she just likes to keep her feelings to herself.” Anna’s pictures remind him of Damian in some ways. The very intentional lack of a smile but the happiness still seeps through anyways. One of her pictures has her cuddling with two rottweiler puppies in classic Damian style. Another one shows her a bit older, on Jason’s shoulders, surveying the land.  

You turn to the next page, “And Laine, uh, Elaine,” you smile, “She’s a bit eccentric. She lives in her own world but she’ll bring you into it with her. She likes magic and glitter and offbeat things.” Laine’s pictures leave a particular warmth in his heart. She has the absolute widest smile and the brightest eyes he’s ever seen. One photo shows her having a picnic with several stuffed animals, another has her drawing a rainbow with sidewalk chalk. One picture towards the bottom of the page grabs his eye, one of Laine happily braiding Cass’ short hair at what appears to be the Manor.

“And then the little one is Aurora—Rory,” You turn to a page full of pictures of the wide-eyed girl, who has the sweetest baby face. He can tell from the pictures alone that she has your personality. You point to a picture of her giggling with bubbles all in her hair as you explain, “She’s still small but she has a big heart and a very sensitive soul already.” Jason’s practically staring a hole in the picture of Rory as a newborn in the hospital, held delicately by Bruce.

You play with the hair at the nape of his neck as he processes quietly, letting him take his time.

“They’re happy?” He asks in a whisper.

“We’re happy.” You say affirmingly. He looks you in the eyes and you see a specific vulnerability in his that you haven’t seen in a long time. “You are a good dad, Jay.”

He’s still surprised that you can read him like a book, even though at this point you’d have been together for at least fifteen-some years. His eyes burn and he’s not sure he can keep it together. But you dig the knife in all the same, “They love you. A lot. We couldn’t live without you.”

You flip through until you find a page later in the book, plopping it back open fully. The first picture he takes note of shows him outside with picked flowers scattered in his hair wherever they’ll stay put, Laine and Rory trying to straighten them out. Another is of Anna hesitantly feeding a horse an apple, Jason crouched next to her, reassuring her. On the other page, Rory is mid-air being thrown into an absolutely massive leaf pile, glee adorning her face. He turns the page to find one of the girls with a red hoodie pulled over her head and a makeshift mask made from a red plastic plate with holes cut out for the eyes. One has Mia resting against his back, passed out, as he helps Ryan tie off a friendship bracelet on her wrist.

This isn’t—he doesn’t deserve this. This can’t be true, this is more than a happy ending and he’d never even expected you to love him this long, let alone give him the world and then some. He stares at the page for a while, trying to burn every detail into his head. 

You tear your gaze away from his face to glance at the clock on the side table, muttering, “Oh shit. Hang on.”

His eyes follow you as you stand from the bed and walk across the room to the door, cracking it open a few inches before shouting out, “Bed!”

There’s a brief delay before a clamor starts towards them, all five girls thumping up the stairs.  

You turn back to him, heedfully, “You can stay in here if you want. They’re a little…a lot.” You say tentatively. Well, if there’s anything he’s accustomed to it’s big families with bigger personalities.

Jason lingers behind you as you enter the hallway, looking like a little kid in an unfamiliar place. Whatever conversations were going on downstairs have simply moved location, no urgency present whatsoever to continue on with the progression of the night. You’re trying to verbally corral them towards their respective bedrooms, but it’s a tough job with two clear headed parents on a good day.

He stands frozen in the midst of the clutter of them as they rattle off to you and to each other. He’s scared to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. He doesn’t want to upset or alarm them. But because he is their father, they don’t need him to do anything strange to realize that he’s being strange.

Ryan squints up at him, “What’s wrong with you?”

The question grabs Laine’s attention and she looks to you with wide eyes, “What’s wrong with Dad?”

You shake your head, “Nothing’s—”

“He’s not having a stroke already, is he?” Anna faints, no alarm in her words. Mia thumps the back of her head for that with no returning acknowledgement given by Anna.

Ryan is looking at him like she’s sizing him up. Something you did not get a chance to tell him about Ryan is that she can smell blood in the water like a shark. So it’s not surprising to you that she picks up on Jason’s disoriented state.

“Father?” She calls out sweetly.

You sigh, “Ryan—”

“No, it’s okay. I want to ask dad specifically.” She turns him away from you with a smile. She doesn’t know what’s going on and she doesn’t need to. She’s an opportunist like that. “Could I have the last popsicle?”

Anna cuts in harshly, “You better n—”

“Hey Annie, few notes for ya,” Ryan says with widened eyes and a pointed finger, “One, you shouldn’t interrupt your father, it’s disrespectful,” Anna’s face contorts at that, and she’s about to bite back but she’s cut off quickly by Ryan’s dedication to dishing out her hypocritical sermon. “Two, you shouldn’t interrupt me because it’s potentially the single greatest sin you’ll ever—”

Alright, you gave her a chance to turn it around, she’s done now. “No, you’re all going to bed now and if you’re lucky that popsicle is still there when you get home from school tomorrow.” You tell Ryan with a pointed look. She gives you a half-hearted glare, absolutely nothing compared to her real one. 

“Mom, you said—” Mia throws her hands up as she recounts a promise that you may or may not have given her, it’s anyone’s guess. 

Then Anna starts up, “That’s not fair, I called—”

Rory pipes up from behind you. “We’re supposed to read our story first.”

You inhale sharply, turning to face her, “Oh—” you crouch down to her level, holding her waist. “How about I read it tonight, Rory?”

She frowns, “Daddy always reads it.”

Ryan taps on Jason’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “Dad, listen,” she says lowly, like she’s trying to get him in on the deal of the century. “Anna doesn’t deserve it, she’s rooting for you to stroke out—”

You frown at Rory with repentance, “I know sweetheart, but—”

Laine looks quite contemplative as she announces, “It’s unholy to break tradition.”

You scrunch up your face and swivel your head to her, “What?”

This declaration does enough to break Ryan away from her scheme. She turns to her and says flatly, “You haven’t said anything that makes sense in like two weeks.” 

Jason’s mind is going a mile a minute, trying to process the fifteen things that are going on all at once and take in the fact that these are his children. His daughters and they’re so loud and opinionated and bold and he loves it. He thinks this is the closest he’ll ever get to heaven. Hell, he’d take this over heaven a million times over.

“Mom. Mom!” Mia urges, “Can you help me?”

Your head stutters between your daughters, “I—yeah. Rory, just—”

“I can do it.” He says quietly.

“Yeah?” You look up at him, hopefully, genuinely delighted that he wants to jump into this mess without the twelve years of prep that you’re dependent on. 

“Yeah.” He nods, determined and you and Rory smile up at him. Mia all but yanks you up from the floor, pulling you to her room and you can just barely make out Ryan’s hushed murmur of, “I’m getting the popsicle…”

Rory takes Jason’s hand, drowning her own in his. She leads him to the pink bedroom with all the toys, and climbs onto the unicorn bed, shoving all but a few of the stuffed animals onto the floor. Elaine follows close behind and does the same with her own bed, though the only one she keeps is Pickles.

He stands next to the bed a bit awkwardly as she pulls a book off the table next to her, the length of the book easily taking up half her arms. It takes her looking up at him expectantly for him to get the hint, shuffling to squeeze in next to her on the small bed. 

She hands him the book and he regards it with a smile. Little Women. He pauses as he starts to open it, “Where, um…where did we leave off?”

She looks at him funny, smiling like he’s messing with her. She flips the book open a little more than halfway through and stops on chapter fifteen. She presses her pointer finger down to the start of the chapter with a thump. “Right here.”

Jason takes a steadying breath and begins reading in the same soft voice he reads to you in, and it seems to appease both girls. He’s not processing what he’s saying as he sits there with his littlest daughter tucked into his side and hanging on to every last word. He can feel her breathing in and out softly and it all feels so surreal now. 

““I don't think you'll blame me, for I only sold what was my own." As she spoke, Jo took off her bonnet, and a general outcry arose, for all her abundant hair was cut short.” Rory giggles as Laine gasps, and Jason can feel the rhythm of his heart fluttering in a new way. 

He reads to the end of the chapter and returns the book to its place on the side table, and reluctantly pulls away from Rory, standing up again. He tucks her nicely, if not inexperienced, into the sheets and kisses her forehead. She immediately holds out her toy bear, silently requesting the same treatment for him. Jason kisses the bear too, happily. He does the same for Laine, taking particular note of the way she hugs Pickles to her chest tightly. 

He starts towards the door, but is quickly put to a halt. “Wait,” Laine calls out. He turns back to her wide-eyed, terrified he did something wrong. “The lights,” she says, looking up to the ceiling at the dangling stars. Oh, right. She watches him skeptically as he innocently looks around for the switch, and Rory tilts her head at him, not sure what he’s playing at. 

“It’s right there,” Rory points with a mildly sullen look to where the mechanism dangles near the outlet. Jason quickly flicks the lights on, the soft orange-pink glow of stars illuminating against the walls. Rory’s pleased enough and adjusts to get more comfortable in her bed. 

Laine however, hisses out a, “Hey,” gesturing him towards her. He sidesteps the tea table and comes around to her side of the room, kneeling down by her bed attentively. She glances over at Rory before asking in a hushed voice, “Are you an alien?” 

That, he wasn’t expecting. “...What?” 

She shakes her head reassuringly, “It’s okay, I won’t tell. But um…I would like my dad back eventually please. If that’s okay.”  

His breath stutters and he forces out an, “O—okay.”

She holds out her pinky and it takes him a second to register what she’s asking. He wordlessly pinky promises her and she smiles big, pleased with the agreement.

He stands again, feeling light headed as he heads for the door. 

“Goodnight, Daddy,” Rory murmurs against the pillow, watching him leave.

His gaze flickers back and forth from them to make sure they like having the door closed, Rory watches him bemusedly and Laine nods at him slyly with a twinkle in her eyes. “Goodnight, Dad.”

“Goodnight,” He exhales, not as loud as he meant to. He clicks the door shut softly and there’s a warmth in his chest that he could get addicted to.

He wanders down the hall towards the sound of your voice, passing Anna and Ryan climbing under their covers and murmuring something to each other, half eaten popsicle in the ladders hand. He passes the staircase, peering his head into the next room over. His eyes immediately land on you and Mia stood in front of an armoire, shuffling through clothes having an exchange of considerative words.

Mia’s room is very neat and put together, everything is placed with much more intention than in the other girls rooms. Her room has more mellow colors too, largely white with soft shades of pastels throughout. There’s a desk with organized notebooks and multiple vases of flowers, with bundles of yarn placed nicely in a basket in the corner. A tall bookshelf is filled with fifty-some books with a violin case leaning up against it. Nail polishes rest beside a jewelry box on the side table next to her bed. She also has picture frames across the walls, some containing photos of flora, others of the family, and a few of what appears to be her own sketches.

“—worried it’s too showy, you know?”

You hum, “I don’t think so, I mean, not for picture day.” 

Mia turns to Jason, shirt held up against her body. “What do you think?”

He takes a second to bounce back from the surprise of being asked the question, “I, uh…I like it.”

You smile at him as Mia faces you again, “Okay, so this with that flowy lilac skirt?”

“The lilac…yeah, that would be cute.”

She nods pleased, draping the shirt over the back of the armchair in the corner.

You and Jason head out of the room, closing the door on your way out so she can change into her pajamas. 

“Goodnight!” she calls out through the crack in the door. You and Jason return it in sync, clicking the door closed. You hold his hand as you walk past the twins' open door, giving them the same sentiment with Jason’s own following quickly after. They call it out back, louder than necessary, and you close your bedroom door behind the two of you.

You rest against the door and he leans his head back against the wall next to you, glancing over at you. “I won’t remember any of this?” He seems dejected at the idea, not happy to have been handed the world and then having it swiped from his memory immediately after.

You consider it for a second, shaking your head, “I don’t think so.”

He’s quiet for a bit, thinking. “Do you have a marker?”

“A marker?” You look around casually, “Uh, yeah.” You unclip a sharpie from the mini calendar pinned against the wall, tossing it to him. You watch curiously as he holds his forearm out in front of him, popping the lid off with his mouth.

The light in the room starts to dim dramatically until his vision is completely dark. The pull of gravity on his body feels wrong and a pang of fire shoots against the side of his head.   

“Hood.” He hears in the darkness, “Hood.” The commanding voice startles him awake once again. “Are you alright?” 

He blinks up at Batman blearily, feeling like he’s just gotten hit over the head with a chair. “What…what—”

“The Clock King. He threw some sort of device at you. It knocked you out for a few minutes. Are you alright?”

He feels dizzy. “Uh…yeah.”

He cranes his head to glance over at where the Clock King is hunched over on the ground, handcuffed, inspecting the cartridge of his device closely. “Damn it, I knew it wasn’t right. Meant to knock him into the past.” He tells Nightwing like it’s some common mistake they can bond over. 

Nightwing moues at him, “I don’t care?”

Knock him into the—did he go to the future? He can’t get his thoughts in order, let alone summon memories from the future. Frankly, it doesn’t matter that much to him right now—he’s sore and wants to just fall asleep next to you. 

He sits up slowly, grimacing as the pain in his head sharpens for a moment. Batman clasps his hand on his shoulder, holding him steady. “Can you stand?”

Hood grunts and pushes himself up, anchoring his weight against the ground. “Fuck. I’m going home.”

Batman says nothing to protest, instead joining Nightwing and pulling The Clock King up from the ground. Jason stumbles away towards his bike, thankful that he’s only a couple miles away from your apartment. Jesus, the future? You’re not going to believe that shit.

He climbs onto the bike with a groan, pushing up his sleeves as he prepares to start the bike. He doesn’t notice it until he revs it, but when he looks down at his left arm, he sees scribbled on his arm in sharpie:

WE’RE HAPPY

vote: do you have a favorite daughter?

❤️ REBLOGGING = SUPPORTING ❤️

[celestialprincesse]

Mustang 🌵🏜️

The morning after dinner with Simon, you sit patiently on your porch swing, a chipped mug of coffee clutched in one hand, a pen knife balanced between the fingers of the other. Fortunately, the mornings aren't yet sweltering enough to wake covered in sweat and kick off the thin sheet from your bed. The sun still rises languorously over the horizon, and you wake with it.

Simon Riley is surprisingly pleasant, and you begrudgingly admit to yourself that Marlene had been right, perhaps you do need to get out more, meet new people, get over it. Perhaps you like him because he's like you. He's quiet, peaceful on the surface, undoubtedly roiling underneath. It's impossible to miss when you know the feeling so well. Tyres crunching on gravel snap you from your reverie, the black truck, some shiny new ford pulling in your driveway, cab doors swinging open to let its driver out.

"Nice." An appreciative eyebrow is raised in the direction of the truck, amusement barely hidden at its cleanliness. You struggle to imagine him spending meticulous hours cleaning the vehicle - when you do picture Simon Riley shirtless and suntanned, working meticulously to rid the truck of dust and dirt, you internally chastise yourself before walking down the rickety porch steps to greet him. "You left your pot." His gruff accent feels so odd to you still, so out of place whilst still being so somehow pleasant, sending shivers down your spine. "Shit. So I did." The enamel of your Dutch Oven is cool against your hands, chilled from the AC in his car. Still not used to the warmth, you suppose.

"You want a drink?" You hum as you wordlessly make your way back up the porch steps, Ness nipping at your heels as you usher Simon and the collie into your cozy kitchen, quick to shut the screen door behind you. "I got sweet tea, coffee, lemonade." "You got earl grey?" "Do I look like the type to have earl grey?" "Black coffee then, please."

Ness seems to like him. Good judge of character, you think. You hope. Maybe she likes him because of how similar he is to you, and you can't help but appreciate the newcomer as he pets the bicoloured ears of your pet. Your place is exactly how he pictured it'd be, cozy in a lived in sort of way, knickknacks scattered across the countertops and shelves and the occasional picture of what he can only assume is you as a kid strewn haphazardly. The coffee maker whirs quietly to life as you busy yourself with retrieving a plate of biscuits from the fridge, chucked in there to avoid the occasional fly that managed to get through the screen in the rushed moments where you failed to close it all the way.

"Biscuit?" "Just coffee is fine." "Your loss." You quip back, putting the plate back in its rightful place, by which time the coffee has brewed and you pour Simon a chipped mug full. "So, the fastback." Simon manages a little awkwardly, dwarfing your mug between his palms. "Ah, the elephant in my garage." The crappy joke makes you actually cringe, eyelid twitching as you angle your head back to the door, making your way to the garage, in which you pull the cover from the red painted mustang with an awkwardly executed flourish.

Upon assessing the car, Simon grunts out a quiet "Shit", turning to you with an almost concerned look. "You pay for this?" It seems weirdly as though he's mad, like anyone who charged you for this useless hunk of metal and rubber had committed some kind of sin, like they'd kicked a puppy or shunned god away. "No. No, guy said if I could fix it up it was mine." "Good. Cause it's worth fucking naught."

Simon spends the morning tinkering with the car. Pushes it out of the garage with pure brute strength so that he can look at it properly, says he'll fix your garage light whilst he's at it. When he appears at the kitchen door like a lost dog, cautious to shut the screen door, he can't help but appreciate the way you turn to face him, leaning the swell of your hip against the countertop. "The biscuit offer still open?" "You're fixing my shitty car and you already looked at my garage light. At this point I owe you more than just biscuits." You chuff.

The veteran can't help himself but to ogle your ass as you bend in front of your fridge to retrieve the biscuit plate, along with a jug of sweet tea and two chilled glasses.

"Prepared." "Ah, figured you'd get thirsty at some point."

There's something pleasant about the quiet of it all. Reminds him why he moved out here in the first place. The quiet nicker of horses and the sight of a beautiful woman making him lunch after spending hours out in the unforgiving heat. It makes him feel weirdly grateful, something he hasn't felt in a while. He's at your side as you rustle up some other food, something more substantial for a man of his size who's just spent four hours in the steadily boiling heat. He likes the way you don't flinch when a tentative arm slips around your waist to grab the glasses you'd set out on the counter, moving them to the table before returning to press his shoulder against yours.

"Need me to do anythin' else?" "Just stand there and be hot." Slips out before you can stop yourself, and your hand flies to cover your mouth, all whilst he stands, massive arms crossed against his chest with a smug. "Yes, Ma'am."

ᯓ★

Today felt like such a good day to write these two I promise I didn't forget about them!! I love them!! They're my emotionally wounded babies!!!

[thosefuzzywordfeelings]

For the smutty weekend!!! Need to know how Baron, Gator and Steve would react to them orgasming quickly :) would they be embarrassed, defensive or just roll with it?

I honestly think they’d all have a similar reaction, not embarrassed but just in disbelief and awe of you, but for the sake of some juicy smut, here’s different imaginations 😮‍💨🤭✨

CW; oral (m receiving), slight degradation, mention of ownership 😮‍💨

Gator;

“Takin’ it so fuckin’ good, darlin’ -“ Gator grunted into your ear as he kissed the lobe messily. When you responded with a sweet whine, his eyes rolled back into his head; pushing himself up onto his knees and settling his hands under the backs of yours. Pushing your knees back as far as they could go, a lower groan would leave his lips as he looked down at you. You were laying there so beautifully, eyes glassy as you took every hard hit he gave you. The room was filled with the sounds of heavy breathing, whines, and the dirty slick sounds of his fucking into you.

“You’re givin’ it so good - make it yours -“ You’d whine, knowing his need for ownership and authority is a sweet spot that only you know how to press into.

And that was all it took; his hips stilling as the throbbing took over and he came quicker than he usually did. He almost curled over as he moaned through gritted teeth, his fingers digging into the fat of your thighs.

“Fuckin’ damnit. Cunt’s too good, honey.” Gator would chuckle breathily after a moment, sitting back down on his knees. You’d whine again as you laid and just felt him twitching inside you softly realising just how good he always managed to degrade and praise you. He’d look down at his cock still inside you, as his own cum spilled out around his base; causing him to twitch up inside you sensitively. But when you’d whimper and look up at him with desperation rolling around the irises of your eyes, he’d smirk.

“Need more darlin’?”

Steve;

“What’re you doing? Fuck - no - baby I need to -“

Though Steve was stuttering and seemingly objective to the dangerous idea you’d had, he took one hand off the steering wheel to help you unbutton his jeans.

“Just watch the road and don’t get us killed, yeah?” You’d say sweetly, kneeling over the console in his car and pulling his cock free from the denim entrapment. After he’d taken a quick glance at you to see if you were kidding - and wasn’t - he nodded. Immediately you’d get to work, lips wrapping around his head and sucking softly, only bobbing lightly as you felt the car swerve ever so slightly with the lack of Steve’s concentration.

“Need to pull over - god I need you -“ He’d mutter under his breath as he hissed, braking at a red light and the sudden halt pushing his cock further into your throat. He let out a guttural groan as his hands scooped up your hair, pulling it into a messy ponytail in one hand and pulling his jeans down a little further with the other.

“Find somewhere.” You mumbled, pulling off only for a moment to catch air before swallowing him down again desperately, a light moan reverberating around his cock as he tugs your hair tighter in his fist, finally driving again as the light turned green.

“Fuck - we’re in the middle of fucking - Jesus Christ baby - in the middle of nowhere - can’t -“ Steve rambled, a tone of frustration to his voice as he unintentionally accelerated the car; hips threatening to buck up into your mouth as you sucked harder and giggled around him.

“Baby - don’t - fuck - I’m gonna come - no it’s-“ Steve was on the verge of crying as he bit his lip so hard it was about to tear between his teeth, his hand gripping your hair so tightly it evoked a whine out of you as you felt the first ribbon of spend hit the roof of your mouth. Steve wanted to squeeze his eyes shut so bad, praising whatever deity there was out there as another red light glowed ahead. Just as the car stopped, he finally bucked his hips up against your tongue, emptying the rest of himself entirely into your eager mouth.

“Your fucking giggle, baby…” He sighed as he caught his breath, eyes glued hazily to your face as you sat up and back in the passenger seat with a smug smile.

“Couldn’t wait to pull over, no?” You’d taunt, buckling up your seatbelt again. He’d shake his head, his cheeks and neck flushed pink as he looked over at you with almost disbelief.

“You’re just - you are something else.“ He kept stuttering, and you smile at his flustered state, leaning over again to kiss his cheek.

“Better be ready for when we get out of this car, Harrington.”

Baron;

“I can’t see you - I - oh - where’s the -“

“Just press the green button, sweetheart.”

You’d gifted your love a new phone, getting sick of hearing him tripping over his landline cord when you tried to talk to him on the phone. Here he was attempting to FaceTime you for the first time. As soon as his camera was finally on, all you could see was the bridge of his nose.

“Move back you fool, look at me.”

You’d say with a giggle, which slowly stopped as he pulled the phone back so you could see his entire upper half this time and he realised what was happening. Thighs straddled across each side of a cushion, you were perched in just a bra and panties, phone rested against the wall.

“Am I seeing angels baby or do you got nothin’ on?” Baron whispered, his voice strained as his eyes kept squinting and blinking something silly; trying to come to terms with the pretty sight on this little screen.

“Little bit o’ both. You like it?” You’d say back, smiling sweetly at his reaction. Bracing your hands on the cushion, you’d grip it tightly between your thighs as Baron’s eyes widened, understanding fully now what was happening.

“Is that - my -“

“Your shirt? Mhm.”

He’d left his gray shirt at yours accidentally, spilling so much ice cream down it that you’d offered to wash it for him. And you had. But it still smelled like him after, and you wanted to show him how much you missed him. Now it wrapped around this cushion. Comfortably snug right between your legs.

“Oh lord…gi’ me strength…” He mumbled lowly, close to growling as he watched you begin to grind your hips slowly. His eyes looked down at where your barely clothed core ground down against the thin fabric of his shirt, mouth agape.

“You wanna know something?” You’d purr softly, crawling towards your phone and grabbing it. He’d be speechless, but the way you could tell he liked this was, his other hand had reached underneath the view of the camera, to which you could only guess he was palming himself to you as he nodded.

“Made a mess once already.”

“Oh god…” He’d moan, his eyes hooded slightly as you got back onto the cushion and tilted the camera down, showing the dark gray patch on his shirt between your legs.

“Needed you so bad, Baron, couldn’t stop thinking about grinding on your pretty face, those pretty lips honey - my god-“ You’d say saccharine sweetly, and his eyes would roll back at your tone.

“Baby - you - you’re makin’ me -“ He cried out softly, whimpering a little as he lost grip of the phone and it fell to what you guessed was his side. You could just about make out his chest heaving as his hips bucked up against his hand. He was coming, and so quickly, so desperately.

“Baron?” You’d say, the sound of your voice through the phone making him jump a little. He picked it up, but the visuals were shaky - his hands trembling at whatever the hell just happened.

“God must’a put some kinda curse on me with you…you’re a little devil, got me all - messy and -“ You held back a giggle as he rambled on in a post orgasmic haze, knowing you needed to call him more often now.

[roanofarcc]

PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR → A BLAZE OF HORROR

summary: steve harrington x oc | on ao3

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 3.3k || masterlist

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

previous chapter ← → next chapter

a/n: we're nearing the end of season 2! many exciting things to come :)

Sunshine landed on the ground with a light thud as she let go of the rope they had fastened to Billy Hargrove’s stolen car. She found herself inside one section of tunnel that she’d been staring at in drawing form on the walls of Will’s Byers home. The temperature dropped upon entrance, causing her to shiver and pull her jacket closer to her body. She adjusted her goggles over her eyes and made sure the bandana tied around her nose and mouth was secure as she waited for everyone else to drop down into the tunnel after her. 

The tunnels looked like they stretched for miles in a terrible darkness that was only made worse by the cut of flashlights. Particles floated in the air, resembling ash, and vines decorated the walls and floor. 

“Holy shit,” Steve muttered under his breath as he landed beside Sunshine and took in their new surroundings. 

Once all of the kids were there, Mike took the lead with a drawn map in his hands that he had made between the chaos at the Byers. “I’m pretty sure it’s this way,” he said. 

“You’re pretty sure or are you certain?” Dustin asked. 

Mike sighed and Sunshine was sure he rolled his eyes somewhere under his goggles. “I’m one hundred percent sure. Just follow me and you’ll know.” He began to walk down the tunnel but was promptly stopped by Steve snatching the map from the kid’s grasp. “Hey!” Mike tried to object. 

“I don’t think so.” Steve held the map high enough that Mike couldn’t grab it. “If any of you little shits down here, we’re getting blamed. From here on out, Sunshine and I are leading the way.” If they couldn’t stop the kids from doing something stupidly dangerous, then they had to lead the way into danger. 

The kids seemed almost unsure of Steve’s authority, and all looked to Sunshine like she was supposed to make the final call. Of course, she agreed with Steve, so she nodded her head, and they all didn’t put up an argument. Then they were off. 

As they ventured through the tunnel, drenched in the cold and strange air, Sunshine was struck with Deja vu. The tunnels felt awfully similar to when she and Nancy had crawled through a small gateway in the woods that placed them inside the Upside Down. 

The other, terrible world infected Hawkins like a disease. The tunnels stretched for miles, according to Will’s map, underneath the outskirts of the town and threatened to reach the residents unless El closed the Gate and stopped it from spreading. Sunshine couldn’t imagine the kind of hysteria that would come from the people of Hawkins if they were exposed to the Upside Down, the Demogorgons, and the Mind Flyer. 

And it was up to them to keep that from happening and keep the world from ending, which seemed wildly unfair. Yet, there was no time or space for them to refute their position, no matter how bad of shape they were in. 

All of the events of the night, good and terrible, weighed heavily upon all of them, leaving them beaten, bruised, and tired. Sunshine wasn’t sure if they had another round of monster fighting in them, but she wasn’t sure they’d get a choice in the matter. 

As they ventured deeper into the tunnels, they came upon odd plants that grew beside the vines. The plants expanded and retracted as if they were breathing. They stopped to observe the strange scenery for only a moment before they started walking again, but they didn’t get far before a shrill scream came from the back of the group, startling everyone. 

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Dustin yelled as he hastily pulled down his bandana and began coughing violently. 

Sunshine had whipped around at the scream and hurried to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder with panic rising quickly in her chest. “What happened?” 

“It’s in my mouth! Some got in my mouth! Shit!” Dustin yelled and coughed while Sunshine shared a worried look with Steve. Neither one of them knew what to do; there wasn’t exactly common knowledge on what to do when someone breathed in otherworldly plant fumes. Luckily, Dustin’s panic faded with his coughs, and settled with a deep breath from the kid before he said, “I think I’m okay. It’s fine.” 

Sunshine let out a sigh of relief and pulled Dustin’s bandana back up over his nose and mouth. “Let’s keep going, yeah?” she said. Dustin nodded and the rest of the kids all started following Steve’s lead once more. 

After she made her way back to the front of the pack, Sunshine peered over at the map Steve held and tried to figure out how close they were to the hub.

“If we make it out of here, remind me to never volunteer to babysit again,” Steve said. 

“When we make out of here,” she corrected. Not making it out wasn’t a choice they had. Sunshine promised to protect all of them, and she didn’t plan on breaking that promise. “I will. But I don’t know how well that’ll go over.” She glanced behind them at the group filing behind them with brave faces and good hearts. “I think they’re really warming up to you.” 

Steve shook his head. “They said, like ten minutes ago, they wanted to leave me behind at the house.”

“Well, yeah, but to be fair, they were right about you freaking out in the car.” Steve scoffed. “And I wouldn’t have let that happen. We wouldn’t have left you behind.” 

Over the last year, Sunshine had grown a closeness with Steve that she didn’t want to let go of. She had learned what it was like to have a best friend, to have someone who was patient and kind to her without any obligation to do so. Sunshine wanted to hang onto Steve; she liked having him around, whether it was to study at the library or fight monsters. 

“I can’t believe you punch Hargrove,” Steve said after a beat of silence. “I bet that threw him off. Most girls in town are trying to get with him, not break his jaw.” 

It was her turn to scoff, playfully. “I didn’t break his jaw. I think his jaw hurt my hand more than my punch hurt him.” She flexed her fingers and winced. The way Billy looked at Max and Lucas still unsettled her; the idea that anyone, even an angry teenage boy, would think for even a second of hurting a kid half their size caused rage to flood Sunshine’s veins. Maybe it was her memories of the Lab and how far the violence inside there went, but she refused to let anyone lay a hand on any member of the party. And even though Sunshine had just met Max that week, she still felt a sense of protectiveness over her, considering how she was roped into the mess of their lives. 

“I also take babysitting very seriously,” Sunshine added, half-joking. 

“I’ve noticed.” 

They continued to trudge through the tunnels until they reached a large opening that multiple tunnels spilled into. It was a large space right where Mike had said. 

“Alright, Wheeler,” Steve said. “I think we found your hub.” 

Mike stepped forward holding a canister of gasoline. “Let’s drench it.” And that they did. 

The group worked to soak every inch of the room with gasoline. They worked quickly and tossed the empty canisters aside before they regrouped at the entrance of the tunnel they had come from. They had a straight shot back to the entrance and a quick trip back to the Byers. Sunshine hoped they beat everyone back and then she nor Steve would have to explain why they let the kids out of the house when that was the last thing they were supposed to do. 

Steve pulled a lighter from his coat pocket and everyone braced themselves. He breathed deeply and muttered, “I’m in such deep shit,” before he dropped the lighter and caught the hub on fire. 

The flames drank the gasoline hungrily, spreading alarmingly fast. Bright orange exploded before their eyes and the heat was felt through their layers of clothing. The vines that covered the ground and walls hissed loudly in pain like they were alive. 

“Go! Go! Go!” Steve yelled and prompted the kids to start running. 

A final wave of adrenaline gave them one last push to run as fast as their legs could carry them. Steve led the way, remembering each twist and turn even in the eerie darkness, and Sunshine brought up the rear to ensure no kid got left behind. That was a good thing, too, because as they ran, one of the vines snaked up from where it was curled against the ground and latched onto Mike’s leg as he tried to run by. 

He was pulled to the ground and Sunshine stumbled to a stop with him. Mike kicked his leg in an attempt to shake the vine, but it encircled his ankle, locking him in place.

Sunshine kneeled beside him and dug her fingernails into the vine, trying to yank it off of Mike, but it refused to let him go. 

“Sunshine! Get it off! Get it off!” Mike cried. 

She knew her powers were shot, but she thought she’d get lucky again like she had with Billy. Sunshine cupped her hands together, but before she could even think about igniting them, another vine shot out of the wall and curled around her wrist. 

An angry scream tore through her throat as she tried to escape and help Mike. 

The rest of the group had heard their yells and stopped running. 

“Oh, shit!” Lucas gasped, looking between Mike’s trapped leg and Sunshine’s bound wrists. 

“Steve, do something!” Dustin demanded, full of panic. 

Steve quickly pulled his bat from his backpack and hurried over to the two. He first brought the bat down against the ground, where Mike’s vine squirmed. The nails that had been hammered into the bat struck the vine and cut through its thick skin, causing the plant to ooze black goo. Mike pulled the dead half of the vine from around his ankle and scrambled toward Sunshine. He grabbed a hold of the vine that squeezed Sunshine’s wrists and pulled it taught between her and the wall. 

“Hit it! Hurry!” Mike yelled at Steve. Steve swung his bat again and cut the vine. 

Mike pulled Sunshine to her feet with a heavy breath. 

“Are you okay?” she asked him. 

With a nod, Mike brushed the sweaty pieces of hair back from his forehead. “Y-Yeah. I’m fine. But we’ve gotta go.” 

Sunshine spun around to resume their journey through the tunnels, but instead of an empty path, they were met with the faceless gaze of a Demo-dog. Instinctively, she grabbed a hold of the kids nearest to her, Mike and Luke, and shoved them behind her. She moved to grab the rest of the kids, but Dustin stepped forward toward the monster before she could. 

“Dart,” Dustin said, his voice steady. 

Sunshine’s heart dropped violently. “Dustin-” she hissed, but he held up his hand to quiet her as Dart growled. 

“Stop,” Dustin whispered to the group. “Just trust me.” 

Sunshine trusted Dustin: the kid was one of the smartest she knew, but he and all of the kids acted like they were invincible. 

Stepping forward slowly, Dustin kept all of his focus on Dart. Sunshine held her breath and tried to think of the quickest way to get him and everyone else away if the monster decided to attack. There wasn’t anywhere for them to run away unless it was back toward the hub that was burning. The only escape was past the Demo-dog. 

“Hey, it’s me. It’s your friend, Dustin. Do you remember me? Will you let us pass?” Dart growled once more in response, but it didn’t seem to deter Dustin. He spoke again, calm and slow, like he was talking to his mom’s dead cat, Mews, and not a creature that wanted to rip them from limb to limb. “I’m sorry about the storm cellar, that was a pretty douchey thing to do.” He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and pulled out a candy bar. “You hungry? I’ve got your favorite, see? Nought.” He tossed the candy to the ground in front of Dart. The monster sniffed it for a moment, and Sunshine feared it would ignore the candy and take to eating them instead. 

However, Dart turned his attention away from Dustin and began eating the candy bar similar to how a dog snacked on a bone. Dustin tossed a look over his shoulder at the group and waved them along. “Let’s go.” 

As carefully and quietly as they could, the group slid past Dart and resumed their sprint toward the exit. The crackle of the fire faded, and the tunnel was only filled with their labored breaths and heavy steps. 

They managed to make it fairly far before another problem was tossed their way. What was supposed to be a quick and sneaky task had taken several turns for the worse. 

A steady rumble began to shake the ground and a symphony of howls and growls sucked the nasty air from Sunshine’s lungs. 

“They’re coming!” Mike rushed out. “Run!” 

Sunshine spared a quick look over her shoulder and saw the monsters’ shadows growing on the wall behind them. She quickened her pace with her heart threatening to beat right out of her chest. 

Several feet ahead, the rope came into view, swinging down from the surface as their saving grace. 

Steve, having led everyone, was the first to reach the rope and he immediately started ushering the kids up it and to the safety above. Max was the first one up and the second she was out she reached her hand down into the hole and helped the others up. 

Together, Steve and Sunshine made quick work of hoisting the kids up, one after another as the monster enclosed around them. Sunshine could hear them coming toward at a rapid pace. As the seconds ticked by, and the Demo-dogs grew closer, she worried they wouldn’t get all of the kids up in time. 

Lucas followed Max, and then Mike, Dustin, and Luke all managed to scramble out with the help of one another. All who were left were Steve and Sunshine, but the monsters turned the corner and were only a couple of feet from them. 

“Guys! Come on!” Dustin screamed and all of the kids reached out their hands, but there was no time. It was mere seconds until the monsters reached them, not allowing enough time for even one of them to climb, let alone both of them. 

Sunshine didn’t even have time to think about dying. All she could think about was the way her sides ached from running and how the kids’ voices all bled together from above. She stared at the incoming creatures, too drained and stunned to fight. All she did was close her eyes and hold her breath. An arm hooked around her waist, and she was pulled into a tight embrace. 

For an agonizing moment, she and Steve braced for impact. They were either going to be eaten or trampled to death, perhaps both.

But nothing happened. 

The howls came and left with a strong gush of air that nearly knocked Sunshine off her feet if it hadn’t been for Steve. It was like the monster hadn’t even seen them. They slipped away down the tunnel before their very eyes. 

Sunshine peeled her eyes open and tried to catch her breath. She had Steve’s coat clutched tight in her shaky hands and he kept his one arm around her waist, while his other held onto the rope. For a moment, they stared at each other, unsure of what the hell just happened.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed out with a bewildered look overcoming his features. He suddenly grabbed the sides of Sunshine’s face, like he was checking to make sure she was real and that they both were still standing. “We’re not dead. We’re not dead!” 

A startled laugh fell from Sunshine’s lips. They should be dead. Why didn’t the monsters attack them? Why didn’t they even seem to notice them? 

The kids all called to them, frantically overlapping with each other so that Sunshine couldn’t make out what they were saying. 

Steve stepped back and looked up at the series of faces that peered down at them. “We’re okay,” he told them, but that didn’t seem to ease the worry that had overtaken each of their faces. 

“Something’s wrong!” Max cried, looking at something over her shoulder. “Hurry!” 

Steve hoisted Sunshine up first. She climbed the rope until the kids were within reach, and they helped her the rest of the way up. She fell into the dirt with a deep breath of fresh air. 

They only had a second to collect themselves before the kids pulled their attention toward Luke, who sat still on the ground a couple of feet from the tunnel entrance. 

“Something’s wrong with him,” Lucas said, nervously glancing between the older teens and Luke. 

Luke’s eyes were rolled into the back of his head and a single line of blood dripped from his nose. Sunshine cursed under her breath as she kneeled in front of it. As she did so, the headlights of Billy’s car suddenly burned brightly, nearly blinding all of them. The lights grew brighter and brighter until they switched off, leaving them in the darkness of night in the middle of an empty field. 

“El,” said Mike. “She did it.” 

Sunshine didn’t know what it was exactly, but she knew he was right. There was something, a feeling that buzzed through the air that quelled the doom that had been thick for weeks. El had closed the Gate. It was over. That allowed her attention to be fully on Luke. 

“Luke? Luke, can you hear me?” She didn’t touch him, but her hands hovered close to the young boy. Everyone else crowded around the two of them on the ground. “Who helped him up?” 

Max slowly raised her hand, her face blanched. “I did. D-Did I do something wrong? I didn’t-” 

“No, you didn’t,” Sunshine said. “When Luke touches someone, skin to skin, he gets a vision. That’s how his abilities work.” That’s why he often curled into himself and kept his hands tucked away in his pockets, but in the chaos of the incoming Demo-dogs, Luke had no choice but to accept the help of Max to get to safety. 

“Whoa, wait,” Dustin gasped. “You mean, he’s seeing the future right now?” 

Sunshine sighed, “Yes.” 

Another couple of quiet moments passed as they waited out Luke’s vision. He returned with a loud gasp and his eyes blinked back into focus. His hand pressed against his chest, and he looked around wildly until Sunshine gently placed a hand on his coat-clad shoulder. 

“Hey, Luke. You’re okay,” she soothed. Luke visibility relaxed, but not before his gaze fell onto Max. What Sunshine didn’t mention was that the future he saw was specific to the person he had touched. But he said nothing, and she was sure that meant he needed time to digest the flashes of the future he saw before he could make sense of them. 

No one was sure of what to do after that. The cold air nipped at their noses and their heavy breaths were visible in the dim moonlight. Sunshine felt her adrenaline wear off, and she had to resist the urge to fall back into the dirt and close her eyes for the night. 

“We should get back to Will’s before everyone else,” Mike said after a moment. Everyone silently agreed and started toward the car.

“Um, is Max driving again?” Lucas asked. 

“No!” Both Sunshine and Steve answered simultaneously. Max scoffed, but her attitude was watered down by the night, and she tiredly shrugged them off before tossing the keys she had kept safe in her pocket to Steve. 

Everyone fell into their seats, and they started back to the Byers, all ready for the night to conclude.

Tag List. @sattlersquarry , @leptitlu , @echoing-oursong

[manawari]

Girl, girl, we assumed "Wildest Dreams" to be Jinhae's anthem, but what about other ships? 👀 Any thoughts on which songs would fit them?

Hey! Do you know there's another song that can be Jinhae's anthem? Not Letting Go — You caught me at the end of all my rope. Show me all the light I'd never known. And I'm not letting, not letting go. Every wall I built for years you broke. Black and white world, you're a whole rainbow. And I'm not letting, not letting go~

And for other ships? Hmm, I have some ideas—

Choibaek:

"Strawberries And Cigarettes" by Troye Sivan → this is just a personal choice of mine. Particularly because of the "cigarettes" part which is associated with Jong-in a lot. And also, part of this song is a fic I will never get to write 😅. Plus, it's the whole ✨ vibe ✨ — Yoon-ho smelling strawberries and cigarettes in his suit after being in a car alone with Jong-in to release some pent up stress from work. Them realizing that they're more than just rivals, yet don't know how to act on it until they almost kiss, leaving Yoon-ho pray to give his heart a holiday. Plus, I'm a firm believer of Choibaek pining over each other intensely:>

"Taste" by Stray Kids → I BLAME STORM ON THIS ONE. She posted a video for the Solo Leveling Boyband AU, and since then, I can't imagine Choibaek having the same tension as this song has. Jong-in is literally a fire mage, don't you think he can make anything he touches hot?

"Don't let me love you" by Stray Kids → Storm sent me this when we were brainrotting about the Choibaek exes AU. I can imagine both Jong-in and Yoon-ho being in denial of their feelings because they're still stuck in the mindset of their rivalry and how much they hate each other.

Minlee:

"Enchanted" by Taylor Swift → this is technically my go-to Minlee anthem. Minlee is what I call "beautiful what-if" — two souls with shattered pasts had been brought together and healers who learned to heal each other. Romance between hunters is amazing and cool and breathtaking, but a romance between healers? It's like you're stepping into a shrine and you hear a distant echo of someone singing. I forever live with the fact that both Ju-hee and Byung-gyu will feel "enchanted" of meeting each other — can you imagine meeting someone who mirrors your soul and understands the pain you've gone through? Someone who won't let you break down again? Someone who won't make you worry?

Woozhi:

"Taste" by Stray Kids → need me to elaborate?

"Midnight Rain" by Taylor Swift → ZHIGANG IS SUNSHINE JIN-CHUL IS MIDNIGHT RAIN—

Sungyoo:

I can't remember a lot of songs that share the same vibe as Jin-ho and Jin-ah. Though, I imagine songs that are similar to "Paper Rings" — cute, sweet, fit for youthful romances like Jin-ah and Jin-ho.

Sungpark:

"Betelgeuse" by Yuuri → I'm not going to place the entire translated lyrics, otherwise the post would be too long than it should haha! Anyways, one of the stanzas that fit Ill-hwan and Kyung-hye: "we found each other, pulled towards each other, under the same sky. When we shine, we'll do it together, so we promised. Far and away, a never-ending Betelgeuse. Magic that connects one to another." — I don't think this needs to be elaborated either:')

Heeseok:

Yes. I can't get enough of this couple now! The more I think of Eun-seok, the more canon he feels. He's not some forgotten SL character to me anymore. Pairing him with Hee-jin just came out of the blue, but it's not like I'll be sorry when they already stole my heart from brainrots!

"Can't Stop Loving You" by Toya Takase (ft. Emi Noda) → fun fact: this is the song I used for inspiration in my 1st Heeseok fic under the same title. It gives me the idea that regardless of whatever Eun-seok is, Hee-jin can't bring herself to stop loving him, especially when he's still that cute gentle and kind hunter in spite of his flaws. You might not understand the whole lyrics, but you can feel the main point of the song, as well in the title:).

[enid-rhees]

BAE, I JUST GOT AN IDEA !!!

Alright, so idk if you've already written something like this. But imagine either reader or Enid (or both >:D) are on a run with Tara, Glenn, and ofc their bff, Carl.

They decide to split up (pairs of two), and Enid is with reader, savaging a section of an abandoned mall, when they come across a ✨special✨ store in the mall...;)

They find lingerie, sex toys, all the good stuff. Ofc, they get all hyped up about it and are like kids in a candy store once they enter. It's cute tho, even though they're just horny lil' shits 🫶

Later on, they come back with a bag full of sex toys n' lingerie, (with some other useful stuff to the community ofc)

When they get I'm the back of the van with Carl, reader is sitting between Enid and him right? Anddd silly ass, clumsy mf-ing reader is holding the bag of ✨special items✨ in her lap. Tara's crazy ass (lovingly) is driving, and drives over a few potholes, causing reader to almost drop the bag, but Carl notices what's inside (he'd been curious since Enid and reader got in the van) and teases them the whole way back 😭✋ (he's such a lil' prick sometimes 💀)

Anyway, I hope this makes sense! Apologies if it's too much :)🫶

i’ve done something similar but reader or Carl were not involved! but i will gladly do this again :D hope u enjoy 🩷

warnings: sex toys, sexual conversations, no actual smut though :)

a/n: hope you all enjoy! requests are back open! if you’d like to request, just read pinned for rules 🫶🏻 and fyi, this is after the six year time-skip.

“wait! Tara, there’s a mall like- five minutes away from here. we have to go.” Enid said from the backseat, but moved out of her seat to lean into the middle of Tara and Glenn.

“Enid!” Glenn hissed, “sit down and put your seatbelt back on.” she gave him a glare before sighing dramatically and falling back down next to you, sliding her seatbelt back on.

even in the apocalypse, Glenn was still strict about car safety, especially with Enid though. you couldn’t blame him of course, that’s his daughter. his excuse always cracked you up, “i was a pizza delivery guy! i had to drive carefully to protect the pizzas!”

you laughed and wrapped your arm over her shoulder when she sat back down. “what’s so good about that mall?” you questioned. “have you never been to it?! it’s huge! we could probably find so much stuff there.”

shaking your head, you replied, “i didn’t grow up around here. i’m pretty sure my old house is like three states away from here.” you chuckled.

“oh my god, i have to show you around it then. Tara, turn right now. we need to check out this mall.” Tara nodded and turned into the parking lot of the mall.

Enid immediately got out when the car stopped, pulling you out with her. “Enid, if you rip your girlfriends arm off i will not be the one telling Rick.” Glenn warned.

“Y/N is fineeee. lets go!” she took your hand in hers and ran towards the entrance. she threw the door open and pulled you inside. Carl came out from the other side of the car, running to catch up with you guys. 

“do you think there’s a GameStop in here?” he asked Enid. “…i think there’s one in the upper level.” Enid responded after a few seconds of silence.

“don’t forget we’re here to look for supplies.” Glenn said from behind you all. “you can look around but remember why we’re actually here. and please keep an eye out for walkers. they could be anywhere in here.”

Enid took you further into the building, keeping a tight grip on you. whenever you were on runs, Enid kept you close to her at all times, no matter what the situation was.

“this place is huge.” you breathed out, turning around as you walked to admire everything. it had been so long since you’ve seen a mall, and this one was way bigger than the one by your old house, hundreds of miles away.

Enid nodded excitedly, “i used to love going here. c’mon! i wanna see my favorite store.” she started to run, which pulled you with her as her grip on your hand didn’t let up.

the two of you ran down the first floor, giggling like children. “it’s here!” she exclaimed, stopping in front of it.

“i should’ve known,” you laughed with a shake of your head as you stared up at the Hot Topic sign above you. she pulled you inside and you started to look around.

“we can totally take these blades, yeah?” you asked, spinning the display case of pocket knives. “go for it. you might have to break the glass, though. they keep them locked in there.”

you nodded, “okay. back up.”

Enid backed away as you hit your elbow into the glass, watching it shatter down and hit the floor. you carefully started to put every knife into your bag.

“that was like…” Enid started, “really hot, by the way.” you laughed out loud and swung your bag over your shoulder. “do you know how to not be horny like… ever?”

she shook her head, “with you as my girlfriend? no.”

you started to walk up the broken escalator, looking around for more stores to scavenge for. “oh my god.” Enid mumbled.

you turned around, “what? oh-” the two of you stared at the sign with huge letters.

Sex Shop.

Enid took your hand and pulled you inside without another word. you slowly turned to her, “are we… actually doing this?” you asked.

“if you want…” Enid trailed off. “i-i mean we don’t-“

you walked over to one of the displays, breaking the glass once more. “okay, you have to stop doing that if you don’t want me to take you right here in this store.”

you didn’t respond as you grabbed onto a box, turning it over so she could see the front. Enid almost choked on her own spit, “is that a strap-on?!” you smiled, “yep. and we’re bringing it home.”

an almost devilish smile made its way to Enid’s lips as she started to look through each product as well.

at this point, you two started to throw anything you could find into an old shopping bag from behind the counter.

you pushed the back door open, pulling out your knife out and keeping it raised. flicking the light on, your eyes widened.

“Enid.” you called out.

she came running, “what’s wrong?” you continued to stare at the racks and racks of lingerie until she finally looked over at it too. “oh.” she spoke in surprise.

you walked over to a rack, pulling out a light pink set. “the things i’d do to see you in this.” you told her. her face flushed red, “okay but i need to pick one for you too.”

Enid walked to the opposite rack, flipping through the clothes on the hanger. “oh… this is so you.”

you turned around. the lingerie set she was holding was dark blue. “and with that strap-on… the things i’ll do to you.” Enid told you, smirking when you squeezed your thighs together.

“girls!” Tara yelled, “i don’t know where the fuck you guys are, but meet us downstairs. we’re going to the car.”

yours and Enid’s eyes both widened. “we can’t let her see us walk out of here.” Enid whispered. you shoved your items into the bag and peeked outside. you were able to see Tara’s head disappear as she walked down the escalator.

“she went downstairs.” you told her. Enid nodded and you both walked out the back room and out of the store. as you walked down the escalator, you tried your best to push all the items down further into the bag.

everyone was waiting by the door when you got downstairs. when they saw you, they started to head for the car. the two of you caught up to them and you got into the middle seat; Enid and Carl beside you.

Tara took off and you held the bag close to you. out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Carl trying to see what was in the bag. you held it tighter.

suddenly, Tara sped over a pothole, causing you to almost drop the bag. “sorry!”

and then another one.

the bag opened slightly, and you heard Carl gasp. you turned to him, and he had his hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. you him a pleading look.

“you can’t be serious.” he whispered. “shut up!” you hissed back. “don’t look.”

“how am i not supposed to?! it’s right there!”

“what are you kids arguing about?” Glenn questioned, looking behind him. you slapped both arms over the bag, “nothing! just talking about comics.”

Glenn eyed you suspiciously before turning around, looking back down at his map.

you looked at Carl again, “you’re so dead,” you whispered.

[that-darn-clown]

y'know. thought about Help Wanted (OG) in the Rewrite. and boy is the concept of how it would be presented terrifying.

imagine Help Wanted, but instead of being presented as a VR game...it's advertised as a collection of smaller games. like games intended for kids, but that's not to say that some adults looking for a trip down memory lane can't enjoy them, too (so think how Pizzeria Sim was presented to us IRL, kinda). we are told that these games are meant to "bridge the gap between the old Freddy's brand and the new reboot" that the current CEOs are currently doing.

but upon booting up the game, it's made clear that...we aren't the ones "playing" these games, technically. we're playing through someone else's perspective.

as the game starts, we see what seems to be the "starting up" screen of an old computer, and when it finally loads in, the player is shown three separate accounts: one for someone named "Summer" with a sunflower for their profile picture, another for someone named "Vanny W." with what seems to be someone's rabbit fursona, and a third just for someone named "Bill" with just a blurry brown car as the picture.

trying to click the latter two profiles will just lead to text saying "You don't know the password." meaning that, as we click Summer's profile, we are likely playing as her.

as we get onto her desktop, we are told to open up a few games for her to check out. one is a Freddy game where you have to help him set up parties for kids, and then bring the children cake, but you have to follow prompts, use requested prompts, bake and decorate cakes correctly, etc. the game has levels, progressively getting more difficult as you go along. the next game is a Bonnie rhythm game. similar to the last one, it has levels that get harder as you go.

but the third is where it gets...weird.

the third is an O'Hare tamagotchi-type game. not exactly, but that's basically what it is. basically, he'll tell you what he wants or needs, even having bars for you to prioritize things, but he is rather...fussy. even if you're making sure he's fed and not starving, if he demands bath or playtime, then may God help you, because he won't shut up. he'll also occasionally crawl out of the game and explore your desktop; crawling into files and pulling out pictures, demanding to watch videos, messing with the mouse cursor, you name it. He's Meant To Be An Annoying, But Simply Mischievous And Silly Lil Shit (yes, this was probably Michael being salty towards his father. understandably).

but once the player enters the game...what little 8-bit music was playing suddenly goes quiet for several seconds until the virtual hare "speaks." O'Hare welcomes the player to his lil game, and things go from there. Summer seems to deal with things rather well for the rest of this "session" of the game; she fucks around with our little virtual buddy, he wanders around her desktop as the player checks around as well, but...he acts a little odd. he pulls out pictures of Summer and Vanny together, but the odd part is that he refers to them both by name. "Oh, is this you and Vanessa? What a lovely photo of you both!" he also always seems to be looking directly at the player, rarely looking away for even a second.

and then Summer logs out, the screen fades to black...

and we're suddenly back at the log-in screen, asked to select an account again.

this time, the only account we can choose is Bill's.

we discover that, somehow, the game pack has been installed to Bill's account, too. looking at the time and date, we discover that this is all occurring just a few hours after our time with Summer.

Bill seems to be curious about the games, because we're also asked to play some games as him. this time, ones relating to Chica (who has a cooking game, and which Bill does not seem to be too concerned about playing carefully considering that no matter how gently the player does anything in-game, Chica will always comment on the player "needing to be more careful/do things slower") and Fredbear (who doesn't have a game, necessarily, but has story time where he'll read through "storybooks" with the player). like Summer, he also plays around with O'Hare a bit, but he seems...more fussy, somehow. harder to please, more troublesome, for some reason. oh well, maybe this guy just has bad luck...

but then O'Hare starts rummaging through his files and pulls out a picture. a picture of what seems to be Bill, but younger, standing next to a teenage boy. O'Hare makes no comment on the picture but seems to stare at it for a bit before going back into Bill's files. he pops out again while the player is busy with another game (the Freddy one, of which Bill is, yet again, not doing gently from what we can gather), now holding what seems to be a picture of an old newspaper article. he then says something that, in just a few moments, is going to become very ominous:

"Hmm....This looks familiar..."

but when the player clicks on the image, the image we get is...a disturbing one.

it's a newspaper article. from 1987. detailing the discovery of five bodies in the New and Improved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. all of them basically children; three teens and two small children.

a picture is circled, and a name underlined: Terrance Warren.

and as the player does some more digging through the files, it becomes clear why that name and that picture seems important. the picture O'Hare had pulled out earlier? it was titled in the files as "meandterry" ("Me and Terry").

through context clues, we learn something: Bill, the guy we're playing as, was the brother of one of the '87 victims. maybe that's why he seems curious about these games; he's got some history with this brand. a dark one.

while digging, we discover something else: an audio file in a somewhat hidden/inconspicuously named folder. it's a recording from Summer...how it got onto Bill's account is a mystery, though.

listening to it, we hear her talk about Vanessa, and her concerning behavior: apparently, she and Summer lived together as "roommates" (they are dating), and Vanessa had a rough childhood. Vanny's dad moved in with them, it's causing some tension, and she's gaming as a way to keep herself calm.

...except now she's getting obsessed with these "Fazbear games," and seems to be spending hours both on the internet and playing the games.

apparently, Summer's trying to investigate if something's up, or if Vanny's just gotten herself a mildly unhealthy coping mechanism (or both).

so that's how the rest of the game goes. you alternate between Summer and Bill as they try to get to the bottom of this. but, starting Day 2, you now have a new problem:

That's Right! Fucking Malhare! turns out O'Hare wasn't just acting odd for no reason: Afton's here, but...kinda not (a part of him is).

the way he interacts with the two protagonists is also wildly different:

with Summer, it's clear that he's mostly just toying with this poor girl (which, as we learn through the audio recordings, genuinely freaks her out and scares her) and being an annoyance. he'll mess with the cursor and demand attention while the player is busy with other things (and sometimes messing with the cursor during games where precision is the difference between winning and losing).

with Bill, he's more actively hostile, constantly making references to what Bill had done to Vanessa (which, mixed with Summer's audio recordings, let us know that Bill...ain't exactly the greatest dad. or person in general), all while saying he'd be a better father to Vanny (he really wouldn't), and just generally causing him problems on purpose. while both sessions are practically mental/psychological torture for the protagonists, Summer's section is more an annoyance to the player, while Bill's is more explicitly meant to be terrifying. he'll actively fuck up games and will just coldly state to "Try Again." over and over, while the player has to deal with him taunting the player. at one point, he straight up tells Bill "Oh come on now, your brother was trying harder than you are right now when I murdered him, and I caught him off guard."

with Summer, we learn more about what Malhare is and what he's capable of doing (not a lot, surprisingly). with Bill, we learn who Malhare is (a piece/2% of Afton's soul that's now a rogue AI) and what he did. but we never play from Vanny's perspective.

we do hear about her from Summer's audio recordings though. and it doesn't sound like she's doing too well. her behavior is getting...concerning.

and then we get to Day Six. where we don't open up to log-in screen just yet. we see a torn off slip of paper, with some drops of blood on it. it's a note from Vanny, telling Summer that she has to leave and she's sorry. but she apparently left the password to her computer account where Summer can find it.

and so we log onto her account. and we find concerning things in the files: notes on how to commit murder, notes where she seems to be talking to an "unknown entity," other notes where she seems to be rambling incoherently. and a video that seems to have been taken from the webcam.

of Vanny murdering her father, in her fursuit, before the screen glitches out and the video ends.

as we try to open up Malhare's tamagotchi game, there is an error, saying that the game could not be opened. no matter how hard the player tries, the game won't open. the lil guy is nowhere to be found, either

we watch as Summer leaves a final audio recording. distraught, distressed, she claims to have no idea what's happening. she doesn't really know what to do, but she knows one thing she needs to do now:

"I-I need to find Vanessa."

and the game ends.

(there's more, but it's real late and i wanna go to bed. here's my thoughts, though! :D)

It's like if purble place wanted you dead!!!! Meaning I love it!!!!!

[cheerfulmelancholies]

Mysterious New Member-Chapter 5

Vert pulled in first, followed by the others.

"Were you successful in finding the anomaly?" Sage asked as soon as he hopped out. She tilted her head at the look on his face.

"We did one better," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We brought her back with us."

"Her?"

The Camaro rumbled to a stop and Diana stepped out, eyes wide. "You, uh... You weren't kidding." She swept her gaze over their hideout before focusing on Sage. She took an uneasy step back, hand resting on her car in case she had to jump back in.

"Relax," Vert said, gesturing for her to calm down. "This is Sage. She's a friend."

"What... is she?" She didn't mean to sound rude but seeing the translucent blue being hovering before her put her in shock.

"She's an alien," Spinner said, appearing next to Diana and startling her. "She's one of the good ones though. Our job is to fight off evil aliens and monsters in inter-dimensional Battle Zones and keep them from attacking the Earth. We're basically superheroes."

Diana, speechless, nudged him away from herself. "I don't understand," she admitted, feeling creeped out. "Aliens? Monsters? I suppose next you'll say mutants."

Agura walked over and led her away from the elder Cortez. "Maybe you should let Sage do the talking. Sage, this is Diana."

"It is nice to meet you," the Sentient said, warm smile in place.

"Um... Nice to meet you too," Diana said awkwardly. She had almost convinced herself that the 'alien' was nothing more than a hologram; some sort of optical illusion. Seeing her up close–the weird circuitry and markings that made up her body, and the life behind her eyes–destroyed that delusion. She stared numbly as the strange being explained the Battle Force 5 to her, the Zones, the Reds and Vandals and Sark, and so much more.

By the end of it, Diana's head was swimming and her stomach sick with worry. "I need to sit down," she said, stepping back and settling onto Reverb. She was sure she looked nauseated.

"I know it's a lot to handle," Vert offered, about to place a hand on her shoulder before deciding against it. "You're probably wondering how you fit into all of this."

"I'm wondering a lot of things right now," she admitted, staring at the floor. "Portals, or Storm Shocks as you called them? I never would've imagined. There really are other dimensions?" It made so much sense and yet none at all.

"It's not what you're thinking," Sherman said. "The Battle Zones aren't their own little worlds with alien life on them. I mean, some of them are, but for the most part you're not looking at an alternate version of Earth." He suppressed a shudder as he thought about the Eclipse Zone and their evil doubles.

"But still," Diana said, in shock. "And here I thought you were a bunch of freaks living in the desert, building weird cars and harassing people." Her fingers gripped Reverb's grille.

"We're sorry about chasing you down like that," said Vert. "But your car was letting off some weird readings that were similar to those of the Storm Shocks. We had to check it out."

"I understand."

"Speaking of your car's abnormal readings, would you care to explain how it generated such power?" Tezz spoke up for the first time since her arrival.

Diana looked at him, face blank. "I'm honestly not sure what you mean. I was just out blowing off some steam. I wasn't trying to tear a hole in the space-time continuum."

"Surely you understand that there is something unusual about that car."

"It's my dad's old Camaro that he gave to me," she said, growing irritated. "Aside from the smell of cheap cigarettes and the fact that it seems to be a bad luck magnet, it's pretty normal."

"Normal does not send out abnormally high energy readings," the scientist countered.

"Yeah? Well, normal also doesn't chase down people who're minding their own business." She leveled a glare at all of them, sans Sage. The Sentient's presence made her uncomfortable.

"Easy," Agura said, stepping between Tezz and Diana and shooting a warning glare at the former. "What Tezz is trying to say, is that our sensors don't pick up ordinary cars. Yours was letting out some serious power that it shouldn't be able to. We just wanted to know why and where you got the tech."

The look on the other girl's face made Diana wish she'd never mentioned her father. "I don't know why your scanners keep picking up my car," she said after a long, awkward pause. "As far as I know, there's nothing special about it. Belts, oil, everything a normal, classic car tends to have. I've certainly never noticed anything while driving it."

"Would you mind if we took a look at it?" asked Sherman.

"I would, yes. It's not that I don't trust you guys–I mean, you're obviously not lying–but I can't say that I know you." She folded her arms. "I'll tell you what; you let me join, and maybe I'll let you dissect the Camaro."

Vert didn't miss the way everyone looked to him. Being the leader did have its drawbacks. He thought about the situation before responding. "You don't have to join us if you don't want to. What we do is dangerous and not for everybody." He knew he was taking a stupid risk here; if she went home they had no way of making her stay silent. She might reveal them out of spite. A part of him was wary of accepting her on the team, however. There was something not right about the girl and he didn't feel as though he could trust her, not like the others. Not to mention whatever was going on with that car of hers.

"It's not like I have anything better to do," she responded.

"I mean, if you've got stuff you need to take care of first..."

"I don't. So what's next?" She tried to hide her unease as they all stared at her, incredulous. The short one–Spinner, she recalled–looked skeptical. As did Agura, Zoom and Vert. The rest just looked some level of baffled or nervous, though Tezz seemed to be trying to analyze her. And then there was the Sentient, who was watching her with an indiscernible expression she didn't like.

"We will have to upgrade your car," Sage said when it looked like no one else would say anything. "I will scan you and convert your current car into-"

"Whoa, hold on, hold on. Is there any way you can just... build the car from scratch?" She pushed herself off Reverb.

Sage blinked. "Of course."

"But why don't you want to upgrade your vehicle to make it more efficient?" Tezz asked, nodding at the Camaro.

She put her hands on her hips. "What part of 'gift from my dad' did you not hear? That car has too much sentimental value to me." She gave him a hard look, to which he scoffed and left the area. She 'hmphed.'

"I will begin the procedure," Sage announced in the ensuing silence. She watched Diana flinch at the scanners suddenly surrounding her and thought for a moment that the girl might respond with violence. She seemed very defensive, though there was no denying the sheer awe in her eyes.

Diana watched the Shock Suit materialize with rapt fascination until the construction of her new wheels caught her eye. The car was built from literally nothing; the mechanical arms piecing together an assortment of parts that quickly formed a vehicle. When it was finished, she took cautious steps over.

"This is seriously mine?" Her eyes roamed over it. Electric blue to match her suit and looking far meaner than the Camaro. She noted the similarities to a '77 Firebird and let out a brief chuckle at how she'd once wanted that car more than anything. It was wider though, had thicker tires and sat lower. The headlights were long and narrow and the body lines screamed futuristic and aggressive, lacking the more boxy look of the '70's coupe. It was everything she'd ever adored and then some.

"That thing is so sick," AJ commented, speaking up for the first time. "What're you gonna call it?"

She turned round to face him. "Hm? Um, I don't know..."

"To complete the upgrade, you must name your vehicle." Sage hovered nearer and observed her.

Diana closed her eyes–ignoring Sage–and wracked her brain for a good name. She wanted something with meaning, something cool and worthy of the car. She opened her eyes and looked back at it. "Whiplash," she said finally, not sure why that of all things came to her mind but liking it anyway. She heard a grunt of indifference–Stanford, no doubt–and for the first time since her arrival in this town, she laughed. "I think I could get used to this," she said when the chuckles died down.

"Glad to have you aboard," Vert said, offering a smile. No backing out now.

She thanked him. After a moment's hesitation, she added, "Sorry about... before. I wasn't trying to be a jerk, it's just-"

"Don't even worry about it," he said, waving her off. "I didn't exactly make the best first impression either." He watched her nod and glance around, unsure. He gave AJ a look and said, "How about we show you around? You'll have your own room and we can move your Camaro into the shop so it's out of the way."

"Sure."

"I'll do it," came AJ as he strode over. "You won't believe how huge this place is." He led her away to the quarters and as she left she kept glancing back at them and her Camaro. She didn't trust them, that much was obvious.

"Do you really think we can trust her?" came Agura as the two disappeared from view.

Vert shrugged. "What other choice did we have? If we let her leave she could've come back for revenge. At least this way we can keep an eye on her." Looking to Sage, he added, "Anything weird about that car of hers?"

The Camaro sitting across from them looked like an average car. No special equipment or parts were visible. Still, it shouldn't have been capable of outputting that sort of energy, however small.

Sage shook her head. "It seems ordinary. However, I cannot scan it for some reason. Somehow it is blocking me. I would have to inspect it more closely to find anything."

"And we can't do that without her knowing," said Spinner from his spot on the front of the Buster. "And even if we did, she'd never trust us again if she found out."

"Maybe we can try to check it out when she's asleep?" Zoom suggested.

"And if she wakes up in the middle of the night to check?"

The scout shivered at Vert's comment, recalling her icy rage from before. "Nevermind. Totally not worth it."

"Like I said, we're just gonna have to keep an eye on her. Maybe once she starts trusting us more, she'll willingly tell us about the car. I guess I can't blame her for keeping secrets. Just... don't try and question her right now. Let's wait until she's less likely to drop out on us, okay?" They all nodded, though some were begrudging, and Vert waved them off, telling them to go about business as usual. Just because they'd gotten a new, highly suspicious member, didn't mean they could suddenly get distracted by playing detective.

Sage would figure out a way to analyze Diana's car in due time, he told himself. Whatever she was hiding would come to light eventually. It just didn't sit well with him to have to keep a potential threat on his team. The girl clearly knew something but wasn't telling. It put him on edge to think of all the what-ifs, including one big one where she had gotten her hands on Sentient tech. That one would keep him up at night for sure.

Chapter 6: here

Chapter 4: here

[indigochromatic]

Yes, this sounds pretty similar to what my experience was like! We're not a CDD system--to the best of our current knowledge + past several years' worth of interaction with multiple therapists--and it took us a long period of questioning (>6 months) before we felt confident enough in our experience to even start calling it plurality, but one of the major factors in that decision was the differences between my earlier childhood experiences and the ones we were currently having.

I definitely used to have "invisible friends" as a kid, wrote lots of stories, and had occasional internal conversations with characters and OCs; usually I wouldn't "put myself into their heads" unless I was imagining a scene I was writing or planning out to write later. When S first showed up, at first it didn't actually feel that different, at least in terms of "mechanism", especially because we didn't really switch: he was 'just' a surprise new invisible friend, as far as I could tell.... Although, he was character I would never have consciously picked to talk to, he kept showing what felt distinctly like an even-more-than-usual amount of independent agency in our internal conversations, and--one of the biggest initial differences of all--he didn't ever leave. (For example, I found myself regularly waking up to his mental image/voice sitting backwards in my desk chair telling me to get up and go get breakfast, without any conscious intention to "imagine" it, and then he'd go on to spend the rest of the day just hanging out near the front of our mind, making commentary--and, genuinely, helping me deal with a lot of the struggles I was having at the time).

But due to a lot of the aforementioned life-stuff challenges that were going on at the time, we didn't really bother to introspect much about the situation for a long while (several months at least), and we didn't even really start questioning being a system in earnest until I started trying to bring him up in my therapy sessions--"Hey, so my invisible friend actually has a lot of opinions about what he thinks is wrong with me and what would help me. He's right here all the time anyways, do you want to just talk to him directly? I'll tell you what he says!"--and, well...this was apparently not the completely normal request I'd assumed it to be, lol. Much of what we read about CDDs didn't seem to fit our situation, but neither did IFS, and he certainly felt much more like a person at this point than anything else we could think of. Probably the biggest turning point in our questioning process, though, was when we decided to try and see if we could intentionally switch. Looking back at that set of memories...whoa. For one thing, for me, it didn't feel like "putting on a different lens" or "getting into the mind of a character", it felt like letting go of Something Intangible and then...our brain's "first-person POV" was no longer me, and the me-who-was-no-longer-L was automatically adjusting our posture and voice like someone settling into the driver's seat of a car they'd never driven, trying to figure out how to change the seat height and the side mirrors. I'm pretty sure I have access to all the memories from that switch, but they feel different--like they're photos with a slightly sepia-toned filter over them, or putting on your friend's sweatshirt and suddenly everything smells like them instead of you. (Also, now that I've been writing this section of the post for a minute, I can feel him 'watching' me poke his memories about it, lol).

Switching is a hard thing to describe and I know each of us have put down a lot of words trying to capture it, but to make a long story short, that full, unambiguous switch (and our later ones) didn't feel like anything I'd experienced before. It didn't feel like daydreaming or story planning; it felt like getting pulled out of a reverie and then suddenly being a whole different person--but it's not even that you changed, you just...changed mental places with that "other you" who used to be driving, now she's just next to you, watching, taking her turn being the "invisible friend" for a bit.

Just remembered an experience I had as a kid.

I used to have imaginary friends. I would switch places with those imaginary friends. I would “put myself” into them and be them.

These imaginary friends were not my alters. I just had an incredibly vivid imagination aided by dissociation. It’s a distinctly different experience than having alters switch in.

Anyone else experience similar?

[deanstead]

Pieces (14): Our Jobs

Chapter Summary: Jay takes Y/N and Chloe out for a kid-friendly date which is interrupted by an unforeseen circumstance.

Word Count: 1,928

Warnings: canon-typical mentions of guns, injuries, GSWs

A/N: I'm back with Chapter 14! I'm just really thankful for all of you who have stayed on to follow this series, I hope you guys like this too! Remember to stop by and let me know what you guys think!

SERIES MASTERLIST || JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST

Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

Between Jay’s work at Intelligence, your shifts at Med, as well as Chloe, time passed quicker than you could ever imagine.

You’d been waiting for the thing to happen. The thing that would break this fairy tale apart, that moment when Jay would turn around and tell you he couldn’t do it, that it was too hard between your work, or with Chloe. But it didn’t come.

You were prepared again that first time you disagreed with something Jay said, the day you’d had a fight. But it didn’t come either. And when you asked him about it, your boyfriend looked at you like you were crazy. “What am I, an authoritarian? You’re entitled to disagree with me and to do whatever the hell you want. And if anyone says any different, you kick their ass. Me, included.” Jay had said with a smile.

Again, and again, Jay continued to show you that he most definitely meant everything he said.

“The park?” You asked him, an eyebrow raising.

Jay smiled. “Come on, the weather is going to be great, we just closed a big case so I have more time this weekend and I know you still have a day or two from the time you swapped with Connor. Or you can make Will work.” He paused. “I’ll make him work.”

You laughed, nodding. “But let’s not tell her yet, just in case.”

Jay nodded, smiling. The nature of their jobs, mainly his, meant there would be emergencies, or sudden calls that meant he had to take off, and he really didn’t want to be the person who disappointed Chloe, or you.

The weekend came around and everything seemed stable so you’d woken Chloe with a “Do you want to go on a picnic?”

“A picnic?” Chloe asked. “Can Jay come?”

You smiled. “Yeah, he’s coming to see you anyway.”

The little yelp of happiness made you smile. The last time you’d seen her so excited was when her father had agreed to take her out to a theme park, although that had been followed by the small disappointed look on her face when her father had canceled. Even though you had offered to take her anyway, Chloe had smiled and shook her head, asking if the both of you could go get ice cream instead.

And now looking back, you realized that all it chalked down to was effort. Effort that Jay could do, which was at least ten times what Caleb could do for his own daughter.

“Mom, hurry up!” Chloe yelled from where she was already up front with Jay.

So you’d spent the afternoon at the park, munching on sandwiches and other picnic food, watching Chloe run around, sometimes accompanied by her excited shrieks while Jay chased her.

As Chloe dragged Jay off a little further out, you leaned back, inclining your head back up against the clear sky. You forgot how much you liked watching the clouds drift by.

Then a shot ripped through the park.

You froze, sitting up with a jerk. Jay had paused as well from where he was playing with Chloe. There was a silence, where you figured maybe it was just a tire going off, or some other similar sound when a bunch of other shots went off, followed by screams.

Jay scooped Chloe up with one arm, both of them coming towards you quickly.

“Come on.” Jay whispered, readjusting Chloe onto his arm and taking your hand, leaving everything else behind, his only thought to get the two of you out.

You’d almost reached the parking lot when you saw him, a guy holding a gun, laughing and marching across the field to his friend. Jay pulled you down behind a small dividing wall made of stones.

“This is Detective Jay Halstead, badge number 51163. I have two active shooters in the park. Send some cars and ambos. Be advised, plainclothes officer on the scene.” Jay spoke into his phone in a low voice.

He turned back to you. “I need to make a break for it, alright. Get Chloe out of here.”

Jay pressed the keys of the car into your hand now.

“Jay…”

You knew that if you didn’t have Chloe with you, you might have stayed. You’d have argued that you’re a doctor and you could help. Somehow.

But you weren’t alone. You weren’t just responsible for yourself.

Jay put his finger to his lips and glanced at Chloe. “Take care of your mom, alright?”

Chloe didn’t say anything, just studied Jay’s face before she turned to put her arms around him in a hug and nodded.

You took Chloe from his arms and nodded.

“I’ll cover you. So whatever you hear, don’t look back. Just drive and get as far away from here as possible.” Jay nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

You swallowed before you nodded and Jay pressed a firm kiss to your forehead, before he gently touched Chloe’s head. “Be safe.” He whispered.

Your eyes lingered on his for just a moment longer before he nodded. You squeezed his hand.

“You come back to us, you hear?”

Jay smiled and nodded.

You kept your body crouched low, Chloe pressed against you as you ran straight for the car. You’d barely closed the back door behind Chloe when you heard shots ring out, bullets sounding like they were crossing each other.

“Y/N, go!” You heard Jay yell and you pulled yourself into the car, hitting the accelerator.

You spotted Jay in the rearview mirror but you wrenched your eyes back onto the road, turning away from where you could still hear gunshots.

Just as Jay thought you’d be able to at least start the cae before the shooter noticed, he’d turned and aimed his gun right at you.

With barely any consideration for the fact that he didn’t even have his police vest on, Jay had shot out of the corner he’d jammed himself into, firing the weapon he already had with him with no reservations now that you and Chloe were not there. Especially Chloe.

Jay rolled back down behind cover as he heard the sound of your car drive away and he allowed himself just a second to exhale and get his head back in the game before he peered out again and moved, exactly like he was trained.

You’d driven straight to Med.

“Y/N? Aren’t you off today?” Maggie asked, the confusion written across her face as you marched into the ED with your daughter. “Everything okay?”

You nodded. “Yeah, there’s a shooting at the park. This place is gonna be flooded. I just…”

Maggie glanced at Chloe and nodded. “We can take her to the daycare.”

You looked at Chloe. “Can you go with April?”

“You need to go too?” Chloe asked.

You smiled. “Yeah.”

“With Jay?”

Your heart clenched and you nodded, smiling and giving her a kiss. “We’ll come and get you as soon as we can, alright?”

As April took her gently from your arms, you paused as your brain had an internal battle all on its own. All you wanted was to dash back to the park to make sure Jay was alright. You had the one car you'd driven out in together this morning, the keys felt like stones in your pocket.

But the rational part argued against it. Other than the obvious danger you’d be putting yourself in, there was literally no value in you being there in a dangerous situation and there was a higher possibility in Jay getting hurt just to protect you.

“Y/N?”

You were snapped out of your thoughts when Will touched your arm.

“What are you doing here?”

You shook your head but then glanced back at him before you pointed to the doctor’s lounge, to which Will nodded.

Will closed the door behind him, before he looked at you. “You okay? I thought you and Jay…”

You nodded, taking a breath, feeling your heart pump a little harder as the memory hit you again. “We did. We were at the park. There was a… shooter. Two? I don’t know, Jay made me take the car and leave and I just… I just drove here.”

Will was blinking back at you, his eyes wide. “Should I go back?” You asked him now.

Will shook his head. “Listen, Jay’s going to be fine.”

“Liar.” You shot back at him, studying his face. “You’re worried too.”

Will smiled. “Being worried and believing he’s going to be fine are two separate matters.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Hardly.”

Will nodded. “Chloe’s upstairs, isn’t she?”

You frowned and nodded, wondering where he was going with this. Will reached over and threw your scrubs at you. “Let’s do our job then. We’ll be useful here.”

You stared at the scrubs in your hand for a bit before you nodded, glancing up at him. “I know.”

Before long, the ED was flooded with all sorts of injuries. There were the serious gunshot wounds, then the slightly less serious ones that came in with fractures and sprains from the stampede.

You’d been kept so busy, you didn’t have much time to let your mind wander. Not that you’d forgotten. It felt more like a nagging feeling, a stone at the base of your stomach, or sometimes it sprouted in your chest when you were least expecting it and you had to take another moment to breathe.

“Maggie, if you see anyone from CPD, or Intelligence, can you let me know?” You leaned in across the counter.

Maggie glanced up at you and nodded. “You want me to make some calls?’

“If you can.” You nodded. “Thanks.”

You were interrupted almost immediately by Ethan calling for help and you turned around, heading for the treatment room at the back.

“I’ll intubate.” You said, the moment you entered, moving as quickly as you could. “I’m in.”

The beeping sounds got steadier and you glanced at the monitor, before you looked at Ethan, who was studying the ultrasound.

“She’s bleeding into her belly. She’s got to go in to surgery.”

You nodded, “I’ll call ahead.”

You followed Ethan to the lift before he nodded at you. “I’ll bring her up. You better stay down here, just in case.”

Patient flow had already stabilized. Most of the non-emergent patients had been treated and the emergent patients were mostly upstairs already in surgery. But Ethan was right, you just never knew. Just then, you heard the sound signaling an ambulance had brought in another emergency patient, so you nodded at Ethan and headed back to the front, freezing as you watched the paramedics wheel him in as Connor reached them.

“GSW to the chest, intubated in the field. He lost consciousness halfway.” Sylvie’s voice felt like it was coming from another dimension.

The breath caught in your throat as you saw him, everything felt like it was going in slow motion as you stared. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, watching as he was wheeled into a treatment room.

“Jay.” His name left your lips through no will of your own.

“Someone get me Dr Choi. Y/N and Will, out.” Connor barked.

You couldn’t have been of any help anyway as you stood mutely there next to Will.

The worst was the sound that followed, the sound that came from the machine Jay was already hooked up to. The sound that echoed in your ears, in your mind, that terrified you to your bones. The sound of a flatline.

THANK YOU FOR READING!! PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT OF THIS!!

If you want to support me, buy me a coffee!

Character taglist is open here

[luna-rainbow]

(Having too many thoughts on the weekend)

This is sort of a rehash of this meta but can we talk about how one of Hollywood's permanent fixtures is "follow your heart"? It turns up everywhere, from action to space opera to chick flicks to animation, but probably features most in rom-coms and kid movies.

Steve's arc literally starts with Erskine pointing at his heart and telling him that's the reason he deserved to be a super soldier. But as often is the case, he loses his way: he gets swept into the propaganda machine and is spat out as a dancing monkey in spandex. He's "Captain America" but he has no real battle experience, no team to fight with, and he seems unable to remember why he wanted to join the army in the first place.

Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.

This is the line we remember -- Steve is not a good soldier because he has demonstrated time and again that he won't blindly follow an order that he cannot morally agree to. But he isn't always a rebel.

And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? (...) You know, for the longest time, I dreamed about coming overseas and being on the front lines, serving my country. I finally got everything I wanted and I'm wearing tights.

When he met Peggy again, he had spent months trying to tell himself that he's serving his country, just not in the way he imagined. He stoically pushes on with something he doesn't like and isn't good at because he doesn't think he has the right to rebel.

So it is key that when Steve does get the impetus to rebel, it is for Bucky, and it is the first time he stands up against his superiors and do what his heart tells him. TPTB are telling him to stay put, logic is telling him that he has no chance, but his heart says he has to go -- and he does, and for that he is rewarded the prize of actually becoming the person he wanted to be: a soldier, a leader, and someone who finally gives meaning to the title of "Captain America".

And each time after that Steve "follows his heart" and breaks rank from being "a good soldier", he does it because of Bucky. At the end of CATFA, he was always going to go after Hydra and the Red Skull, but Bucky's death changes his trajectory to "I'm not going to stop until all of them are dead".

When we get to CATWS, Steve is in a similar quagmire of self-doubt and uncertainty. He's talking to Sam in vague terms about quitting and finding something more meaningful. He's herded onto an anti-Shield path by Fury's death and Zola's reveal, but that was not the moment the penny dropped, so to speak.

Remember the brief exchange before Sitwell was pulled from the car on the Causeway?

Insight is launching in 16 hours. We're cutting a little close here. I know, we'll use him to bypass the DNA scanners and access the Helicarriers directly.

Now look at Steve's new plan when he meets up with Fury.

We have to get past them, insert these server blades. And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left... We're not salvaging anything.

And what happened in between?

Stopping the Helicarriers was their plan as soon as they found out Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD. It was still the plan when Sitwell told them that the Helicarriers would be programmed to kill according to Zola's algorithm. But the stance became a firm "SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes" when he realised who Hydra held hostage.

CACW was essentially all about Steve staying true to his heart. His insistence on preserving their autonomy is being mocked as arrogant. Tony has been pushing for greater security for years, but Steve can't get out of his mind Zola's words: "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security".

Bucky -- specifically, the world's treatment of Bucky -- allows Steve to see his fears about the Accords come to fruition. Despite Bucky's innocence, he was afforded minimal justice, dignity or autonomy in the events. At various points of the story, Steve had wavered and nearly compromised, and it is Bucky's circumstances that gave him the resolve to stay true to his beliefs. Bucky's circumstances also directly lead Steve to his final choice of relinquishing the shield and carrying Bucky away, symbolically walking away from what the world has imposed on him and moving forward with what his heart believes.

Steve's arc through the three movies was the biggest "stay true and follow your heart" arc in the MCU...and his heart was always, narratively, where Bucky was.

[shirakumos-sandwich-shop]

🍂Zhongli x fem reader 🍂

🍂Single Dad, modern au. 🍂

Feat. Xiao as a kid cause why not.

(Idk why I wrote this, let me just die of embarrassment while I post it anyway.)

“Did you have a good day at school Xiao?” You asked the tiny four year old.

“No.” He said bluntly.

“Why not? Did something happen?” You crouched down to his level.

“Ajax was mean to me again.” The little one whimpered. “He said my hair was stupid.”

You made a mental note to tell the child’s father once he got home.

“That’s not nice of him.” You tousled the boy’s colorful locks. “Don’t listen to him, your hair is perfect.”

“You think so?” He gave you big round golden puppy eyes that made your heart melt.

“Yes of course I do!” He smiled at your words. His little arms held out asking for you to pick him up. You scooped him into your arms and carried him off to the car. He was tiny but still heavy.

“Y/n?” He questioned.

“Yes Xiao?” You smiled.

“Why doesn’t daddy pick me up from school?” He said sadly.

“Your daddy has to work.”

“Oh…” the little one sighed. “Why does daddy work so much?”

“He has a very important job.” You answered.

You got to the car and buckled him into the car seat.

“Ajax said my dad works for dead people! Is that true?”

“What?” It took you a second to realize he meant the funeral parlor. “No sweetie, he doesn’t work for dead people.” You didn’t want to traumatize him with the details at such a young age.

You got into the driver's seat and drove out of the school parking lot. He was quiet all the way home and just stared out the window. After a short drive you pulled into the driveway of the large house. You let Xiao out of his car seat and he held his arms out to you to be held. He certainly was a clingy child. You carried him through the quiet house to the living room and set him down.

“I’m gonna make you a snack, is there anything you want?” You asked him.

“Almond tofu!” He exclaimed.

“You can’t have that for every meal, Xiao.” You chided.

“Oh..” he thought hard. “Apples then… but can I have just a bite of almond tofu?” He persisted.

“Would you rather have some now or save it till dessert? Cause I know you’ll ask for it again after dinner.”

“Fine… I’ll wait.” He sighed.

You patted his head and went to fix him a plate of sliced apples, you added some crackers and juice for good measure and brought it to him. He nibbled on the snacks happily and then decided it was time to color.

Time went on like this till nightfall. Xiao drew a dragon that he wanted to give to his dad. He was really just the cutest. You checked the clock, Xiao’s father should be back soon. It was getting late and Xiao was getting peckish again so you decided to get dinner ready for them so they could eat when he came back from work. You went to the kitchen and started preparing a good meal of chicken, rice, and vegetables.

“What about almond tofu?” The persistent child asked.

“I’ll do that next.” You calmed him. You went ahead and got started on the dessert so it would be ready later. Cooking wasn’t really required in your job description but you did it once in a while. The boy’s father always seemed to be so tired when he got back.

You heard the door open and Xiao scrambled to run to the door.

“Daddy!” You heard his exclaim from the other room. “Look what y/n helped me draw today!”

“That’s amazing!” You heard him reply. “Let’s go put it on the fridge!”

Zhongli entered the kitchen with his son dragging him by the hand. He looked very tired but tried to be energetic for his excited child.

“Hello, y/n.” Zhongli said softly.

“Hello, I went ahead and made dinner for you.”

“Oh you didn’t have to..”

“It’s okay, I wanted to. There is enough for leftovers. Let me just finish Xiao’s favorite and I’ll be on my way.”

“Would you just like to stay for dinner?” He asked.

“Oh no I couldn’t impose.” You blushed nervously.

“You're not imposing, you made the dinner after all.” He smiled at you awkwardly. “We’d love to have you stay, right Xiao?”

The little one jumped up and down and ran to hug your leg.

“Please stay, y/n.” He gave you the irresistible puppy eyes again.

“Of course, I’ll stay. I can’t say no to you.” You ruffled his colorful hair.

Zhongli smiled to himself while he witnessed the interaction. No one had been able to get Xiao to open up like you had. He used to be such a quiet child until you came along. Maybe it was just his imagination but he felt that you were having a similar effect on him as well.

You felt a bit awkward at dinner, Zhongli had never invited you to stay before. Your crush on him was driving you crazy, thinking of all the reasons he could have asked you to stay. You were just Xiao’s nanny so you didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. Throughout dinner Zhongli grew more comfortable as the evening continued. It felt natural having the three of you there together. He wondered as he always did when he saw you, if you might be the answer he was looking for. Xiao had always been begging him for a mother. Zhongli wanted to make him happy, he tried to go on dates but no one seemed to fit. No one except you. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered asking you out, but every time he considered saying something it didn’t seem like the right time.

“Y/n! Come read bedtime story!” Xiao was already dragging you off by the hand to his room. Zhongli cleaned up the dishes and then followed you to the boy’s room. It would be a difficult task getting you out of Xiao’s clutches so you could go home and get some rest. He was also feeling the fatigue of the day and felt like he could fall asleep any second. He found the pair in Xiao’s room looking at books. The little boy already had a stack of all his favorites that he wanted to read with you. The little one looked up happily at his father when he entered the room.

“Xiao, I’m sure y/n needs to get home and rest. Why don’t you save the books for another time?” Zhongli told the boy.

Xiao’s eyes widened and nearly teared up. He looked at you for confirmation.

“Y/n? You don’t have to leave yet do you?” The little one whimpered. He gave you the adorable puppy eyes once again.

“I can read one book with you.” you looked up at Zhongli. “Is that okay? I’d hate to disappoint him, he’s so excited.” Zhongli smiled at you and wondered how he could possibly deserve someone like you.

“As long as your not too tired.” He agreed.

Xiao looked at his bed skeptically. It was not big enough for all three of you. He was accustomed to his father laying on his bed with him while being read to. With you there now there was simply not enough room. He came to a quick conclusion on how to fix the problem and grabbed onto both your hand and Zhongli’s and led you off to his father’s room. He climbed up on the big bed and waited expectantly. You blushed at the idea of even just sitting on his bed. Zhongli had similar thoughts and looked away awkwardly. Xiao had already opened the book and was sitting there expectantly. Neither of you wanted to disappoint him so you went and sat on either side of the child.

Xiao nestled into the crook of your arm and gave you the book to read. As you started reading you felt yourself get more comfortable and sleepy. You were so sleepy you became unaware of Zhongli’s arm behind your shoulders or the adoring glances he gave you.

Zhongli was drifting off as well, it had been a long day for him. And now with you leaning against him and quieting his mind with the story you were reading he felt at peace. Your head fell onto his shoulder and he sleepily pulled you closer. The scent of your hair was the last thing he remembered before drifting off to sleep. Xiao stood up on his tiny legs and patted your head and then Zhongli’s.

“Lumine said that only mommies and daddies sleep in the same bed..” his little brain tried to work out what this meant. He climbed off the bed and jumped on his own bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Zhongli woke to find you cuddled against his chest with his arms around you. He gently tucked your now messy hair out of your face and your eyes fluttered open. You gasped when you saw who you were snuggled against and jerked back from his touch.

“I’m sorry.” You squeaked. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Y/n.”

“I’m sorry, I should go.” You scrambled out of bed and made for the door.

“Y/n wait!” He jumped up and hugged you from behind. You felt like your heart was going to burst out of your chest. “Y/n, I really like you.”

You twisted around in his arms to look at him.

“I like you too Zhongli.”

He smiled softly at your words and looked at your lips. You melted into his arms as he leaned down to kiss you. It was short, sweet, and perfect. He pulled away and gave you an unusually mischievous look. You squealed as he scooped you up and carried you back to the bed. He peppered you with kisses and held you close. You snuggled against him as he pulled the bed covers up over you.

“It’s Saturday, I don’t have work. Want to stay here for a while?”

You nodded at his request and pressed a kiss to his lips. At this moment Xiao came in search of the two of you. He climbed up on the bed and you gasped in surprise. He bounced his way into your arms and giggled. The little boy snuggled between you and Zhongli.

“Does this mean you’re my mommy now?” He asked seriously. You blushed furiously but Zhongli just looked at you happily.

“I hope so.” He told his son.

You blushed even harder and hid yourself in his chest. And so the three of you cuddled in bed until Xiao announced he wanted breakfast.

[the-soliloquies-of-sadists]

#255

This is a direct follow up to #35.

“Glad to see you make it up here ok. I’m Robert, and you are?... Eddie. Good to meet you. Did you enjoy the drive? It really is nice. That’s part of the reason why I live up here. We don’t get many clients that come up here. Most order on line, but you are the first of the season. I reviewed your e-mail again and I think I have a selection of rimchairs for you. It would help me to narrow down your selections more if you answer some additional questions….

“Here, let’s go into the workshop. So, is this going to be a chair for you? Good. Are you the ass or the ass eater? Will you ever go underneath it?... No? Ok. Don’t worry, the only time I go under mine is to work on it.... Women, men, or both?... Women. Is this part of a S&M or kink situation?... That’s fine. It’s very rare for me to find someone willing to spend all this money for the sensual aspects of eating ass. Did you bring a slave woman with you? That’s fine. Most straight men don’t….

“No, I prefer fags under mine; is that going to be an issue here? I only ask because, I want to find the best rim chair for you, and I have a wealth of expertise I rely on. I don’t want to share my experiences with you and have it be awkward.

“Good! Good! Unless we need him, the faggot is up at the main house. That reminds me, will you be using the rim chair for full toilet activities? No… you would be surprised with just how many people are. Hell, every single dominatrix I have made a rim chair for is into it. And some of those women are fucking brutal to their slaves.

“So here let’s start with these three. The left two are designed primarily for rear entry and this third one is for the front. Me personally, I prefer my slave lying behind me when he’s attending to my shithole. His tongue seems to go in deeper and at a better angle. And I don’t have to spread my legs when he’s there. That’s one of the big difference between men and women is that women are narrower than men. It gets uncomfortable at times. For me it’s just easier with it behind me. Do you have a preference?... That’s fine. They will be designed for front and rear entries, but structurally it will be designed one way.

“It’s really all about comfort. Comfort was actually that reason that got me into making rimchairs. What I saw out there was horrible. They were rimseats. To me rimseats are different than what I make. Rimseats are essentially toilet seats on legs. The faggot lies underneath, and I would squat down. I’m a big guy and I can’t sit that low for a long time, before my legs start to cramp up, about fifteen to twenty minutes at most. The problem with making the legs longer is that the faggot underneath is then straining to keep his head buried in the crack of my ass. Either it is straining to keep its tongue buried deep, or its head can move all around. Either way, the faggot tires quickly and it’s a piss poor rimjob.

“That’s why I started with the idea of transforming regular chair designs into rimchairs. I have throne-like chairs, deck chairs, reclining chairs, dining chairs, and so on. Every one has support for the toilet lying underneath, so that multiple hour-long sessions are not a problem. I can customize it to a specific head size, as well as how far in you want the slave’s face when you sit down. Or, some of the chairs allow for adjustability. I personally like feeling my faggot’s face getting wedged in there, and then to have its mouth lined up to connect with my shithole. That is priceless. No other feeling of power compares with it. If you are into slaves that are reluctant, I can make the head spaces very restrictive. I can even create a box, measured exactly to your slave’s head where they can’t move an inch. My slave tells me that it gets very claustrophobic under it. I even designed is so that the slave places its head in the box and the hinged platform lowers with a piece going below the slave’s chin preventing the slave from pulling out from underneath until you get up off the chair and let it out.

“I see you like the casual desk chair. I have one just like it at my work desk. My faggot is under that one for hours. I can be doing work, surfing the internet, or jacking off to porn. I’m not even paying attention to the tongue fucking I’m getting. It’s just adding to the general euphoria of what I’m doing.

“You have a wife, girlfriend, bitch slave, or whatever?... Oh you have an out of state friend with benefits that likes to eat ass? From what I have learned through the years, it’s hard to find a woman into it. That’s fucking awesome.

“If you really love your butthole tongued for a long time, maybe you should get a fag, until you find the right bitch. Seriously. I had one client purchase a similar seat to that one, that he had installed in his playroom. It was up against a wall. He enclosed the sides of the chair. There was a hole in the wall that the ass eater would crawl through. It was an 18 year-old faggot from down the street, and that fag tongue fucked like no other I have ever tried out, and yeah I tried it out. The most interesting thing is that they had a set time each week when they did this. The kid came in through a dedicated entrance, and the client sat down, neither of them said a word to the other. Truly amazing.

“Go on, have a seat. I’ll have it customed to your ass and thighs so that when you are sitting, your cheeks are comfortably spread. You know, those Carhartt pants are restricting your ass and legs. You’re not getting the proper placement of your ass.

“Why don’t you take them off? Other than me and shithead up in the house, no one is going to see you. I get maybe, maybe one customer a week. When we go into the design room to take measurements, I will need you to have them off. Leaving your underwear on is better than this. Briefs, no briefs. We don’t care…. Commando? We don’t care about that either.

“Look, if you think this is my way of seducing you, let me say that I like faggot boys, not real men like yourself. I get turned on when I know a man—a real hard working man—is getting his dick, ass, and everything else taken care of at the expense of faggots. I’m not talking about gay boys. I mean faggots, boys who exist to serve a real man, to take care of that man’s needs including draining his balls, eating his ass, and so on. To a faggot, draining your cock and eating your shithole is the reason for its existence, even at the expense of its own needs. So no, I wouldn’t dream of sticking my cock in you. You can count on that.

“Don’t worry about my faggot; its tiny pecker is permanently locked away. It has been that way ever since he got here last fall. You remember that first snowstorm we had? Well right before the snowfall hit its car ran out of gas, and it got stuck. At least that was its story. I made it an offer, find someone else to help in the snowstorm, or submit to me. I’ve kept it naked, with its pecker painfully locked up in that device ever since. I’ve trained it to service my shithole for hours on end. It hasn’t cum in the five months it’s been serving me.

“Let me text it to come down here…. No, it’s no problem. Go ahead and get comfortable. Take the pants off, leave them on the table. It’s best to put your work boots back on.

“That’s a beautiful cock you have. I bet the women love it. Stop the modesty thing. You are a fucking hot man, you should relish in the adoration. Have a seat. Doesn’t that feel good on your ass? You can feel the spread, but it doesn’t feel like you are falling in? Now imagine a moist tongue darting in and out of your crack.

“And speaking of a moist tongue, here’s the fag…. Faggot! This is Sir Eddie. Get under the seat and get to work….

“No more protesting. I don’t care how dirty it is. I saw your skid marks in your pants, the fag will clean you up. He lives for shit like this. Its tongue feels good in there, doesn’t it? Don’t answer, I can see it on your face. Just relax.

“I will be over there in the design shop if you need me. Try out any of the other chairs. The faggot will do whatever you want or need to feel good. You can stay as long as you like. Even over night or throughout the rest of the weekend. The fag will take care of everything for you. It’ll eat your farts, drink your piss, throat your shaft, take a beating, or whatever. Just tell it what you want, and it will comply. By the end you will understand why a faggot is better than a bitch. Make me a good enough offer, and I may throw the faggot in.”

[tumbling-darkling]

The boy who lived and the professor that didn’t (for the most part)

AO3

During Harry's second year at Hogwarts, a strange and unexpected man starts teaching his Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

(A Danny Phantom X Harry Potter crossover)

Chapter 1

Harry took a seat in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, glancing over to Ron who sat beside him and then scanning the classroom for their new DA professor. He already met the man in Diagon Alley, blonde and very much interested in only himself. Harry shivered as he remembered being pushed towards him as people took pictures of the famous wizard and the boy who lived.

At least it wasn’t worse than a head of the dark lord growing out of the back of the professor's neck.

Well- Harry did thumb through some of the textbooks before classes started. He absolutely agreed with Hermione who was very vocal about the books- they didn’t actually seem to teach anything. Just spoke about the ‘many adventures of Gilderoy Lockhart’.

Maybe this will just end up being an easy class.

The door slammed open 15 minutes past the start of class, startling the students as they swiveled their heads to look at the newcomer, expecting Gilderoy Lockhart.

Instead a tall man with a slim frame and hunched posture strode into the room. He had messy black hair pulled in a very horrible and tangled loose bun with the remaining dreads lazily dangling at the man's shoulders, his chin and cheeks covered in unshaven stubble. His robe was creased and torn, his hat loosely hanging from his hand and his sleeves pushed almost all the way up his arms. What really caught people’s attention was those eyes. Unnaturally clear and bright icy blue, so blue that even in the bright light they seemed to slightly glow.

He quickly pulled down his sleeves as he walked past the students towards the front of the room, grumbling slightly under his breath about something Harry couldn’t catch. He tossed the hat aside, muttering more loudly about how ‘wizard hats are so stupid and impractical I’m not wearing that garbage’ before he turned towards the class.

“My name is Fenton- er Professor Fenton I guess. Since I’ll be teaching you about…” he glanced down at the podium he stood in front of, crouching a little as if looking for something before straightening back up. “Defense… Against the… Dark… Arts,” he said slowly and not very confidently. Then he whispered again to himself but just loud enough for some students to pick up, “they see me fight one god damn ghost and suddenly I’m an expert on all dark magic entities? I think I’ll fight Dumbledore after this.” He straightened a little, eyes looking over the classes.

Harry did not like those eyes lingering on him for half a second longer than the others. He didn’t like this professor looking at him at all.

Something just didn’t feel right.

“Alright, any questions?”

A hand immediately went up, and Harry knew exactly who it belonged to.

“Uh- yes miss-?”

“Hermione Granger. Wasn’t our professor supposed to be Gilderoy Lockhart?”

“Yeah- that guy. He’s a phoney.”

The class went silent before someone yelled out, “WHAT?”

“Guy went around, found Wizards and Witches that did cool things, made them forget it then took all the credit. Tried to take my credit and I hit him a little too hard. Now I’m here taking his place. It’s all over the news, you know. You can read the exaggerated details in there. Anything else?”

The same hand went up.

Professor Fenton sighed, “yes?”

“Why were you 15 minutes late? Shouldn’t professors be on time? And why do you look like you crawled out of the forbidden forest.”

“I fought a ghost. Then got lost,” Fenton deadpanned.

The class went silent.

Fenton then turned around, “well if that’s all, let’s get started with something I know a lot about. What do you already know about Ghosts?”

-

-

-

“You’re seriously more afraid of Professor Fenton than Professor Snape?” Hermione asked Ron. “He’s not even mean! Sure he’s grumpy but he doesn’t beat down every question I ask him! He even seems to be glad I’m asking questions! Unlike Professor Snape who just treats us like idiots for not knowing something.”

“Sure- he’s not mean or cruel but… he just freaks me out. Like how he just stares sometimes at empty walls! Or how the room temperature always drops the moment he seems to take a single step into the room! I can’t even hear his footsteps when he walks! He’s bloody freaky is what he is!”

“Well I for one am glad he’s our Professor! Imagine having a phony for a professor! Though he talks a lot about ghosts. Ghosts can’t cause people harm. At most they give a little scare but it’s not like they could cause terrible damage.”

“What about those ectoplasm based ones he was talking about? The solid ones?” Harry asked.

“Rare and unlikely. Ectoplasm doesn’t form in the magical world, Harry! The stuff that leaks through and hangs in the air is only enough to allow ghosts like Nick or Myrtle to hang around in harmless ways.”

“But he said he fought a ghost before he arrived in class! And he looked really beat up!”

“He said he got lost too! Maybe he just stumbled across a guard dog like Fluffy and made up something about ghosts!”

“What if it’s like the last professor though? What if he’s looking for another secret object in Hogwarts walls?” Harry hissed softly, “Ron is right that he just has a sense of oddness about him! I just don’t trust him!”

“Harry, you’re just paranoid from last year. Professor Fenton is normal. Now pick up your pace, we’re going to be late for our next class!”

-

-

-

Professor Fenton glanced down at Harry, then back at Professor McGonagall, “he has what with me?”

“Detention. You see, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley caused a bit of a fuss by driving a flying car in plain sight of several muggles, and risked exposing the magical world. As such, his punishment has been detention. I trust you can find some fitting work for him to do as he reflects on his actions?”

Fenton crosses his arms, his mouth tightening slightly into a grimace as his fingers slightly tapped his own arms. “This won’t be every night, will it?” He asked.

“No, we will be switching supervisors for a few weeks but you may also need to supervise Mr. Weasley sometime before then.”

Fenron let out a sigh of defeat, “well- alright. I’ll take care of it then.”

Professor McGonagall gave a curt nod before turning stiffly and walking off. Professor Fenton scratched at the back of his neck as he watched her walk off, then glanced down at Harry, those eyes seeming to search him for… something. Then that stern look relaxed into a lopsided grin, “So you were the one that made that stuck up ministry trip over their hats and scramble around in blind panic! I say, hats off to you young Potter!” He laughed.

Harry blinked in confusion at the shift in mood, then Fenton patted him on the back, “hey, no need to look so freaked out! I’m not gonna bite ya!” He began walking forward, and it took Harry an extra second to realize that the professor was moving and he should follow. “Oh, wait you probably are a little freaked out, huh? I guess my mood could have been a bit better this morning, I was just a little flabbergasted today. I was kinda rushed into this position, you know.” He shrugged, his hands shoved into his cloak’s pockets. He didn’t really walk like any of the other Hogwarts professors. He had this relaxed saunter, like he was more of a visiting relative than a staff member. “Say, let’s say your ‘punishment’ will just be helping me bring some books from the library to my quarters. There’s a lot I need to run through and a single trip would make all the difference.”

Harry nodded, finding it hard to keep up with the man's long strides. “So… you don’t like the ministry of magic?” Harry asked.

Professor Fenton huffed in annoyance, “not one bit. They are almost worse than observants!” Harry had no idea what those were. Another level of magic government? “They try to control every little thing. Don’t expose magic to the normal world. Don’t use magic to make technology without permission. Don’t use magic to save muggle children if people are watching.” His said in a mocking tone, “they have so many rules that are outdated or stupid. Never trust a government, kid! Especially a magical one!”

“What are… observants?”

Fenton glanced down at Harry, “oh those stuck up jerks? They are like the government of the ghost realm. Really annoying. Unlike the Ministry of Magic, they actually know how to find me!” He laughed.

“Ghosts have governments?”

“Oh yeah! They have more of a monarchy, the observants are like hermit wizards that only step in when they believe the world is in peril. Meanwhile the rest falls on the shoulders of the Ghost King.”

Harry frowned, “I’ve never read about that in the textbooks. Hermione says that ghosts are just harmless beings formed from souls that aren’t ready to leave the mortal realm.”

“Well she’s half right. There’s different kinds of ghosts, like Sir Nicolas and the Bloody Baron. They are more like echoes. Souls that cling desperately to this world but didn’t have enough ectoplasm to become a fully solid ectoplasmic being. They won’t leave for the infinite realms until they are ready, though many believe they are trapped here forever. More solid ghosts form in a similar way but are exposed to more ectoplasm, but rarely show up because natural portals to the infinite realms are sparse and in between. Well until about a decade ago.”

“Infinite Realms? Natural Portals?” Harry felt like his head was going to explode.

“Well, there should be some books about that in the muggle section.. Though some wizards would say it’s all garbage because muggles discovered and studied it. Just look up my name under the author and you should find some.”

“Oh… wait- did you write them? Is that why you know so much about ghosts?”

Professor Fenton barked out a loud laugh, doubling over as he clutched his sides, “Ah! No! No, I didn’t write them! My parents did!” He cackled. “Ah, yeah but I did learn from them. And a bit of field work. Tell Miss Granger to check them out too, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind having something to read. She reminds me of my sister in that way.” He stopped in front of the library doors, “Aha! I knew we would find this place eventually!”

Harry looked at Professor Fenton in bewilderment, “you didn’t know where we were going?!”

Fenton shook his head and shot him another grin, “nope! I’ve been constantly getting lost in these dumb halls. This place constantly moves and I absolutely hate it. Even the Infinite Realms make more sense than this castle!”

Harry stuttered, “If the infinite realms is where ghosts go, isn’t that like… the afterlife? You’ve been to the afterlife?”

Professor Fenton lazily shrugged and opened the doors to the library, “yes and no. It’s all complicated. I’ll tell you a different time.”

Harry stood there for a few more seconds as his brain tried to catch up with the information, and once he managed to close his mouth he chased after the Professor.

-

-

-

Harry glanced around the Professors room as he followed after him, arms filled with books that seemed to suspiciously be only about the Dark Arts. He’d never been to a professor's living quarters, at most he had been in some offices. Even so, it was not at all what he imagined a wizard's living quarters would look like.

First off, there seemed to be technology. He recognized a coffee machine on a low table, but it wasn’t plugged into anything. There was an odd box that looked like a slightly smaller television, it’s screen black and wires sticking out of it attached to a rectangular box with a lot of buttons on top of it and a small round device. There was also a radio, and a huge telescope leaning out the largest window. As Harry looked, he began to notice spaceships literally in every corner of the room. Different kinds as well, some would even move and blast off. The most amazing part was the roof of his room. It was almost exactly like the great hall as it rose into dark nothingness, but the stars were MUCH brighter and all the constellations had been traced out, some brighter than others. For someone who knew a lot about ghosts, he seemed to really like space. Then there were also some odd things thrown around, like a very weird looking thermos. Or a metal… boomerang?

“Just place them over here, Harry!” Fenton called as he dropped his pile of books onto a couch in the corner. Harry did as he was told, placing the books down a little more gently than the professor did.

“Professor… how did you get these things to work? Technology usually… explodes around magic,” Harry asked.

“Oh! Well it’s because I power them myself!” Professor Fenton chirped. “They don’t work the same way as regular technology. Again, I recommend checking out some of the notes in the Fentons books, they have a lot of stuff that works in the magical realm.”

“Why would you need it though? Doesn’t magic make up for a lot of technology?” Harry asked.

“Ah, but that’s where you are wrong you see! There is nothing in the magical world that is equivalent to the coffee machine!”

Harry blinked, “... what.”

“It’s a very important machine, Harry. You will depend greatly on it once you need to stay up for an entire week. But! It seems our time together has come to an end. Thanks for your help, Harry, and if McGonagall asks, tell her I made you scrub toilets or something,” he winked.

Harry grinned back, heading towards the doorway to go find Ron and Hermione. He closed the door behind and the moment it clicked shut, he saw a flash appear from under the door.

He paused slightly, but shrugged. Maybe a comet passed by on the enchanted roof of his room. He then headed down the halls to find his friends.

-

-

-

“Not normally invited?” Harry asked.

Hermione nodded, “Ghosts throw death day parties like birthday parties, but rarely do they ever invite living people!”

“I see, so Sir Nick really wanted us to be there,” Harry pondered as the trio entered the party area. He immediately was hit with an awful stench, nearly gagging before he had to swallow it as Sir Nicholas noticed their arrival and approached swiftly with the widest smile they had ever seen on his face.

“Harry! Ron! Hermione! You all made it! Oh this brings such joy to my cold, dead heart!”

“Glad to see you as well, Sir Nick,” Harry struggled not to gag on the smell.

“Say, why do ghosts even celebrate the day they died? Isn’t that… like a very traumatic experience you would rather not remember?” Ron somehow managed to ask.

“Well, ghosts like to celebrate it to commodirate a start to a new chapter of our afterlife!” He paused, glancing across the room for a split second, “most ghosts that is, and the death day isn’t to remind us of our death. It more serves to encourage us to look forward! No one really wants to remember how we died. Never a pretty picture.”

Harry followed Nicholas’s gaze for the split second glance, then noticed a ghost he had never seen before. He ignored the smell (they would have to ask about that later) and nudged Hermione, pointing at the ghost, “hey Hermione, have you ever seen that ghost around the castle before? I don’t remember seeing him from last year…”

The ghost in question seemed so much stranger than the rest, he had a brighter glow, where he should have had legs, merged into what seemed to be a ghostly tail, drifting lazily like caught in a breeze. Long hair whiter than snow itself drifted around like caught underwater, and bits that weren’t drifting were braided neatly and lost in the rest of it as it constantly moved. The ghost had purple skin, pointed ears, green freckles dotting his cheeks and long sharp fangs showing as he laughed at another ghost's joke. He dressed like a medieval lord, wearing a delicately detailed black and white tunic tucked into a braided belt circling his waist, his ghostly tail completely black. Thick white leather gloves covered both his hands as he waved them around while he spoke. A white cape hung off his shoulders, but when the cape occasionally drifted to show the inside, it was like the ghost had taken the night sky and attached it to the garment. Thick fur wrapped around his shoulders and long and sharp horns that looked like ice circled his head like a crown.

Toxic green eyes that had irises that seemed to swirl around the pupil glanced at the trio and Harry suddenly felt very very small.

“I… don’t know. I haven’t even heard of any ghost that looked like him before,” Hermione seemed like she was at a loss, probably scouting through her thoughts and memories for any trace or mention of the unfamiliar ghost.

Sir Nicholas cut in, “oh! That may be because King Phantom doesn’t live in this castle! He’s mainly only here to visit for the year!”

Ron gapped, “... did you say… king? Was he a king before he died?”

Sir Nicholas frowned, “no, of course not! He’s the king of all ghosts! King of the infinite realms! The one who defeated Pariah Dark in single combat barely a year after he died! The youngest and most beloved king we ghosts have had in such a very long time.”

“There’s a king of ghosts? And that’s him?” Harry asked.

“That’s what I just said, my dear boy. Keep up!”

“I don’t want to seem rude, Sir Nicholas but… why is he here?” Hermione gasped, “if he really is such a powerful and imposing figure, doesn’t he have a lot of duties to fulfil?”

“Well, he told us he was technically here on business but that it requires time and an investigation that could take a few months. So he could visit and celebrate with us from time to time! He’s a very relaxed man, I assure you. Here let me introduce you all to him! My Liege! I have some friends you absolutely must meet!”

The King looked over and smiled widely, “friends, you say?” His voice echoed more than the other ghosts, seeming to carry across the room as he spoke. He then blinked in surprise and turned to Nick, “Sir Nicholas… you realize these three are still amongst the living?”

“Why of course! Harry is the Boy Who Lived! The first to survive the death spell!” Sir Nicholas said quite proudly.

The King drifted down towards the three, causing Ron to slightly flinch at his approach, his hands clasped together as worry seemed to etch on his face, “well, most ghosts don’t have a very good sense of smell or taste, right? Which is why we have all the rotting food out?”

“Yes?” Sir Nicholas still didn’t seem to catch on.

King Phantom held out his hand, producing clothing hanger clips made purely of ice, “The living can still very much smell and taste, and I don’t think it’s exactly the smell of roses and lavender.”

Sir Nicholas blinked, “oh. Oh! Oh Harry and friends, I apologize for forgetting such a detail!”

Harry, Ron and Hermione all graciously accept the clips, pinning them on their noses to escape the horrid smell. Then Hermione turned towards the Ghost King with a glint in her eyes, “wait- how did you do that? Ghosts aren’t this solid- and they definitely can’t use magic!”

Phantom chuckled, drifting back into the air as he pointed to the crown of ice horns on his head, “Well first off, I’m the king so I get some bonuses. As well as not all ghosts work the same. You should try listening to that Dark Arts professor of yours when he talks about ghosts. He’s quite knowledgeable about all things not living.”

“But- but years of documentation and research-!” Hermione tried to argue before the King tutted.

“Information is constantly changing and growing, something that seems pretty constant could change in seconds and turn your whole world upside down. Not to mention, many different types of ghosts like myself only became more common recently. Before, most of us were confined to the infinite realms, only ghosts like Sir Nicholas forming for many centuries and the different kinds rarely slipped out.”

“Well-, what changed?” Hermione challenged.

King Phantom sported a playful grin, “I d̶͙͉̓̓i̷̢̩̬̘̟̽ę̴̘̲̹̤͌̊d̸̢̳̞̄.”

He then turned and left the three on that note as he went to join other ghosts at the party.

“What does he mean by that?” Hermione huffed.

“He’s got an odd sense of humour, that’s for sure,” Sir Nicholas laughed.

-

-

-

Harry couldn’t stop his glare that shot towards Professor Snape as he accused Harry of petrifying Mrs. Norris and writing the bloody message that stained the wall. Before he could snap back at him that he did not do any of this, Professor Fenton seemed to almost step out of thin air to his defense.

“Mr. Potter was with me all night, he did not do this,” his voice laced with a chilling venom. Was he… lying for him?

Snape tilted his chin up, attempting to look down on Fenton who was no longer hunched, and instead stood tall at his full height. It was quite difficult to do as it turned out, Fenton towered over every other Professor in the area. “And who, pray tell, are you?” Snape seemed to almost spit.

A sinister grin spread across the tall Professor's features as he stepped in front of Harry, leaning menacingly over the shorter wizard and blocking his view of the student, “Professor Fenton, the professor of the Dark Arts. Accusing a second year of such a powerful spell isn’t a very wise take, now is it Professor Snape?” Fenton basically spat his name.

Snape glared back, “you would be surprised what Potter is capable of, especially the trouble he gets himself in.”

“How about you try not pinning the blame on a 12 year old child?”

“That is enough out of both of you,” Dumbledore stepped in. “We all know Harry was not responsible for this, as Professor Fenton’s defence is true. We have a healthy patch of mandrake roots that will cure Mrs. Norris of her petrification, and students will resume their classes while the professors investigate the issue. Now you three will return to your dorms for the rest of the night.”

Harry hesitated before he headed back towards the dorms, but didn’t fail to notice how Professor Fenton’s eyes flashed toxic green, or the wink sent in his direction.

[thotsforvillainrights]

Howdy, I’m here to join the thinking about Skeptic 24/7 gang. In other words, I’ve got a cute idea to share. I’ve had this image in my mind of Dad!Skeptic working away in a home office with his little toddler child on his lap coloring or playing with blocks or whatever. I like to think a similar set up is how the new PLF members learn he has a kid, like he had to skype them to present some info and he’s just got a cute little kid on his lap while he does. He’d be so used to it too that he just gives his presentation like nothings going on. He’d be about to end the meeting when someone asks who the kid is and he’s probably like “They’re my child and their productivity stats are higher than yours.” The kid gets to become his “#1 Assistant” when they’re a little older.

(Welcome to the club! I’ve done so many asks for him having a kid that I’ve officially given him a daughter. Her name shall be Tomoko. Let this henceforth be her first official ask.)

~Dad Skeptic and the Video Call~

headcanon|scenario|imagine|match-up

His eyes dart between the half empty coffee cup, the computer screen booting up, and the chunky arms flailing about from the corner of his desk leg. For a moment his eyes lingered and a small smile spread across his face as he watched the toddler going wild over the tower she’d successfully built. Then she quickly push it over while blowing loud raspberries happily. He chuckled and it caught her attention. She looked up at him with wide eyes and giggled. “Didn’t last long did it?” He pointed to the destroyed tower. Just then you entered the room and lifted her up from the ground, showering her in kisses and relishing the little giggles she released. You held her into a gentle hug before looking down at him and frowning a bit. “You’re really doing work on your off day? I though we agreed you’d watch Tomoko today while I ran a few errands?” He shook his head and held his arms out to take her from you. “No work, don’t worry. I’m just taking some time to present a bit of new information to the MLA that I’d come across. The video meeting shouldn’t be much longer than 15 or 20 minutes at the least.” He spoke while Tomoko gripped the ends of his hair and played with them. “Oh well alright I guess. Shall I stay out of the way for this one too or what?” You joked with him and he rolled his eyes. “Too late for all that. They already know about you after all.” He replied and you shifted interests. “Yeah? They still don’t know about her though.” You pointed at your babygirl squirming in his arms to get back to you. 

The two of you kept your life rather private. In fact, the rest of the MLA members didn’t even know about you for all of the time you and Skeptic had been dating for. They only met you a year before he proposed. You still hold it over his head sometimes lol. 

“Go on, get the stuff done out there and I’ll take care of her in here.” He reassured you while trying to get a grip on the girl so she wouldn’t fall out of his lap. You kissed the both of them goodbye and went on your way, fighting your mental desire to go back inside when you heard your baby crying because you left. She did that fairly often before quickly stopping as if she was pretending to cry the whole time. The two of you were used to it by now. “Tomoko, look here. Look what daddy has for you.” He gained the toddler’s attention as he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a coloring book with some crayons. By the time he set up the coloring station for her on the carpet, the Skype call connected and the others were there. ReDestro in his office, Chitose by her pool, Geten somewhere very dark apparently, and Hanabata in his car going through a drive-thru for coffee. Everyone waited on Koku to order before finally starting to get to business. Skeptic explained everything perfectly while watching his daughter out of the corner of his eye. He had to be careful since she sometimes had an affinity toward putting crayons in her mout-

“Tomo no! Drop that!” He panicked for a moment and snatched the crayon from her chubby little hand. She immediately broke out into tears and he quickly picked her up to apologize. He held her and pat her back while continuing to wrap up his conversation with the others, ignoring the shock and confusion on their faces. Finally it was Hanabata that spoke up before Skeptic could end the meeting. “Hey uh...Tomoyasu? Whose kid is that? Is it Y/N’s niece or nephew by chance? Maybe a cousin or something???” Skeptic sighs and rolls his eyes (not like they could see it from under his bangs). “No, this is my child and her productivity stats are higher than yours, I can assure you. Anyhow, that’s enough questions for today.” He hung up the call and left everyone scrambling for answers. It was clear by the way his notifications had gone wild shortly after. He didn’t have time to answer anything for them. It was Tomoko’s snack time and he felt that to be much more important than anything else in the moment.

(and yes, she becomes his number one assistant by the time she turns 5 years old💗)