#and some of us are still scared and trying to survive

[the-cosmic-cauldron]

𝒫𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝒜 𝒫𝒾𝓁ℯ：𝒲𝒽𝓎 𝒴ℴ𝓊’𝓇ℯ 𝒮𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓁ℯ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒲𝒽ℯ𝓃 𝒴ℴ𝓊’𝓁𝓁 𝒢ℯ𝓉 𝒜 ℬℴℴ

𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝟏

Pile number one, I see that the reason you’re single right now is because you’re avoiding love. You feel that love will disrupt your life, shake things up, and distract you from what you’re doing right now. You may fear that it will cause confusion or force you to revisit old wounds and trauma that you’re not ready to face. Some of you may even have someone who likes you or has a crush on you, but you’re keeping things surface-level, not allowing the relationship to deepen. You’re avoiding intimacy and shying away from getting too close to anyone. There’s a lot of fear surrounding love—you’re scared of falling in love, committing, and even the thought of marriage. It feels like a “hot plate” you don’t want to touch.

You’re overthinking the idea of love, trying to plan it out like you would a career or project, but love isn’t something that can be planned. You’re being too analytical and fearful, staying in your shell and not letting yourself open up. Many of you are repressing emotions, keeping them hidden beneath the surface. You don’t want anyone to see what you’re going through, and you’re afraid that love will bring those emotions to the surface in a way you’re not ready to confront.

Some of you may even be hiding aspects of yourself—perhaps you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community and fear your family or friends won’t accept you, so you’re repressing your sexuality. Others might have had a secret relationship or affair in the past that you don’t want to come to light. You’re keeping things quiet and laying low, avoiding anything that might bring attention to your romantic life.

It seems many of you have gone through a difficult period and feel it’s hard to meet new people. Some of you may be sick, bedridden, or dealing with a disability. There may also be mental health challenges or social anxieties that make it difficult to engage with others. Perhaps you’ve recently been heartbroken and feel like you need time to heal. You might be in a “healing girl” or “healing boy” era, taking things slow and focusing on yourself.

A lot of you are struggling to let go of past issues. It seems like you’re still stuck on an ex, unable to move on or take the risk of meeting someone new. You may not want to compromise, feeling like you want things your way, on your own time. You’re not ready to bend for someone else’s demands or expectations.

You’re dealing with a lot of responsibilities and stress right now. Some of you are single because you’re focused on your children and have no time for love. Others might be working long hours, earning money but burning yourselves out. You might be overwhelmed with schoolwork or taking care of someone who’s sick. Many of you feel like you’re just surviving day to day, and love takes a backseat to all these other demands.

Some of you might be using unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking, indulging in drugs, or binge-watching shows to soothe yourselves. Some are eating out a lot, treating yourselves to good food, while others might be losing weight due to stress. You’re keeping yourself busy with these distractions to avoid confronting the deeper emotional issues.

Right now, you’re energetically repelling others and keeping yourself away from potential connections. You have a lot going on beneath the surface, and you’re choosing to focus inward, avoiding love and intimacy for the time being. You’re in a very avoidant phase, but it’s clear you have some healing and self-reflection to do before you’re ready for a committed relationship.

I see that for a good amount of time, you’re going to remain single. There will be a period of stagnancy, where things feel stuck in the same routine. You won’t be meeting new people or connecting with them on a deeper level. I would say this period of being single and in this stagnant phase could last for about a year, with some of you possibly experiencing it for even longer. The minimum time I see for this phase is about a year, during which you’ll find yourself stuck in an unchanging, predictable, yet unhealthy dynamic.

However, after this period, I see someone coming into your life very quickly. This person is going to pursue you with intensity, and the connection will develop fast. They really want you, and you’ll likely want them just as much. The commitment between you two will form quickly. I see this person having many qualities you desire, and they will be someone you get very close to. They will take the time to truly pursue you, and as you both get to know each other, you will progress to a point where you’re genuinely dating.

Many of the fears and concerns you’ve had in the past will start to be resolved with this person. They will help alleviate your doubts and provide reassurance. I see this relationship leading to deeper commitments, like having a child together, building a family, and eventually getting married. You’ll likely move in together, and your families will feel comfortable with the connection. This will represent a shift in your life, where your perspective on love will begin to change in a positive direction.

This person will come into your life with serious intentions. They are standing firm in their desire to build something long-term with you. They envision a future together, possibly starting with a pet like a dog or a cat, and then moving on to living together, getting engaged, and ultimately getting married. But this transformation won’t happen immediately—it will come after that long period of stagnation, perhaps after a year or two of being stuck in the same routine. Once this person enters your life, everything will change rapidly, leading to forward movement and eventually a deep, long-term bond between you two.

𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝟐

To be honest, I think many of you are single because you’re currently in a phase where you may seem a little boring. You might be very focused on practical matters in life, rather than embracing something light-hearted, fun, and full of passion—things connected to love that make you feel energetic and vibrant. Right now, I feel like many of you are more mellow, chill, and disciplined. You’re focused on long-term goals and being patient, which leaves little room for love, especially in a youthful, carefree way. You might not have much to give at the moment because you’re too caught up in your long-term plans, like saving money, buying a home, or building your finances.

For some of you, this focus on saving and being frugal may even be affecting your love life. You’re being intentional with how you spend your money, which means you’re not really putting yourself out there when it comes to dating. If you’re a man, maybe you’re not interested in paying for dates or taking someone out. If you’re a woman, you may be focused on long-term goals or self-love, working on your boundaries so you don’t exhaust yourself with over-giving, especially if you’ve been a people pleaser in the past.

Some of you are also very focused on your career. You might be working on a master’s degree, completing a program, or trying to secure the job you want. Others might be struggling with unemployment, which leaves little mental space for dating. You’re focused on applying for jobs, preparing for interviews, or just figuring out how to establish yourself in your current city. You’re investing in your future, growing your finances, and prioritizing self-care, even if that includes focusing on health and wellness.

I also sense that you’re closed off at the moment. It’s almost like you’re serious and a bit boring right now, and it’s not giving off those passionate, romantic vibes. Instead, it feels more like a routine of work, setting goals, managing your health, and saving money. You’re being very disciplined and sticking to your plans. You may have high standards when it comes to love, and that’s why the people who approach you just aren’t meeting your expectations. You’re thinking long-term—marriage, owning a home, building a life together—and the people around you don’t seem serious enough.

You’re also busy juggling multiple responsibilities, and the last thing you want to do right now is introduce love into an already hectic life. You’re focused on the future and thinking about how love will fit into your life when the time is right. You’re wondering what kind of person will be able to align with the lifestyle you want to live, and right now, it doesn’t seem like love is a priority.

I also see you gaining more confidence. As your standards and boundaries grow stronger, you’re no longer willing to let people just come into your life without offering anything substantial. You can tell when someone is only interested in a one-night stand or a casual fling, and you’re not allowing that anymore. You’re focused on having a successful, long-lasting relationship, and you’re working on yourself to make that happen. You’re hitting your personal goals, whether they involve career, health, or finances, and that growth is boosting your confidence.

However, the relationships you’ve been dealing with haven’t been working out. You might have been talking to people who ghosted you, or situations that seemed promising ended up fizzling out. Maybe you didn’t get closure from past relationships or had a rocky ending that’s still affecting you. It’s been a difficult cycle where attempts at love have either led to ghosting or situations that just didn’t feel right. Now, you’re focusing on healing and building confidence, and you’re shifting your focus away from love because it hasn’t been working out for you. You’re learning to trust yourself and your boundaries, but for now, it seems like you’re better off staying focused on your personal goals rather than trying to force something that hasn’t been aligned.

For Pile 2, I think it’s going to be a while before you’re in anything stable in terms of a relationship. I’m going to be honest with you; that’s what I’m seeing. It looks like many of you have your hearts closed off. A lot of you are dealing with a cold, frozen heart, unwilling to budge on opening up or being vulnerable. Some of you are completely resistant to being vulnerable and reciprocating love. You’re pulling away from love and from the idea of opening your heart.

I see a few things happening here. Some of you may experience flings, and while the reading suggests you’re struggling with being single right now and that situations aren’t working out the way you want, I do think you will have some fun, thrilling, and exciting moments. These flings might happen during travel, possibly when you’re traveling for work or school, or even during a hike in nature. There’s potential for meeting someone during these moments. The relationship will be adventurous but unreciprocal in terms of emotional connection. One person will be more invested than the other—one will be all in, while the other remains emotionally distant, detached, and unwilling to be vulnerable.

The relationship might be passionate, but it will be intense in a chaotic, fleeting way, like popcorn popping in the microwave—exciting, but also loud and disruptive. I don’t see this becoming a committed relationship because of the imbalance in feelings. It will have a spontaneous energy, and it may catch you off guard when you meet this person, like when you’re commuting, hiking, or traveling.

Despite the passion, this relationship will involve a lot of growth and development, but also significant issues. You’ll argue and fight a lot, and you won’t see eye to eye. There may be jealousy between the two of you—one person’s success or achievements might cause envy, or the coldness of one might trigger frustration in the other. There could also be a lack of emotional depth, where one of you is seeking more while the other remains detached.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a committed relationship in your near future. I see more situationships—unreciprocal crushes or even exes who come back, but there’s still no real understanding or resolution. These relationships may cause drama in your life, but ultimately, they won’t be compatible or lead to commitment.

𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝟑

For Pile 3, oh my gosh, I see so many different energies. I feel like right now, you guys are healing from a really bad ex—someone who came into your life like a whirlwind, shook you to the core, and brought a lot of chaos. You argued, fought, made up, broke up, came back together, and they broke down your self-esteem. They played mind games with you, manipulated you, and now you’re just like, “I just want peace.” You want a peaceful life. You want to live in a cottage, on a farm, far away from humanity. You want to bask in the sun’s rays, bathe in fresh spring water, cuddle up with a puppy, and bake pies all day. That’s the energy I’m getting for you.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First off, you definitely came from something very toxic. Someone was playing mind games with you. They were on and off, stonewalling you, gaslighting you. For some women, it may have even involved domestic violence. You might have been highly dependent on this person, but they weren’t helping you succeed in life. Instead, they were holding you back. They caused you to fail and even go into debt. You were losing money, and your mental and emotional state were deteriorating. You were going crazy dealing with them. This person could have left you at a time when you really needed them, when you needed a compassionate, loving, and supportive person, but they just weren’t there for you. It crushed your heart and soul.

But now it seems like you’re coming to a better place. You’re leaving that person behind, and now you’re just sitting back, maybe drinking tea in your rocking chair, minding your own business. You don’t want to go back to that situation. A lot of you were with someone who never wanted to work with you. There was bad teamwork. If you have a child with this person, you did most of the caregiving and financial support. This person gave very little to you, your child, or the situation. They were hard to work with and probably thought they knew better than you. But working together could have helped. Unfortunately, they refused to listen, refused to communicate properly, and refused to offer any mutual support.

At this point, you just want to break free. You’re in a place of peace, and you don’t want to be bothered. This person caused so much disharmony in your life, and they didn’t have any real plans to make things work. They were only focused on quick fixes, not on getting to the root of the problem or healing the situation. As I mentioned, this person could have left you financially strained, and you were constantly depending on them, but they were broke and couldn’t help. This was a relationship built on crumbs—an attachment that kept you together, not love. The emotional connection had been drained, and there was coldness, resentment, bitterness, and a complete lack of mutual support, love, or compassion.

So I think you’ve recently walked away from a toxic relationship or situation, and now you’re just living for yourself. You can’t be bothered to do anything but enjoy simple pleasures like baking cinnamon rolls from scratch, watching the rain fall, and drinking coffee. I understand why you’re in this peaceful place because you’ve been through so much. And now, you’re growing and moving in a new direction. You’re focused on your personal growth, on new adventures, and new things to experience. You’re embracing the new and leaving the old behind.

Your confidence is growing, and with that, your happiness is growing too. There’s nothing that can take that away from you now. Not only do you have more energy now, but you also have more clarity. When you were with that person, you felt like a shell of yourself, but now you’re feeling reinvigorated. Your confidence is rising, and you’re starting to look at yourself differently. You have a lot of goals, and you’re making changes to your lifestyle. You’re glowing up and bossing up, becoming the person you always were, but that toxic situation was holding you back.

Being single and detached from that person is allowing you to flourish. You’re spreading your wings and seeing life differently. You’re more optimistic, more energetic, and more confident. You’re tackling tasks that once felt daunting, and you’ve had many proud moments lately, from the things you’ve accomplished since leaving that situation. There’s a song called Do Better that resonates with this reading, and it perfectly describes what you’re going through. It says, “Look at you doing way better without him. Look at you living.” And that’s exactly what you’re doing now—living.

As you enter the new year, you’ll do so with your head held high. I respect you for who you are and all the changes you’ve gone through. It’s admirable to see how far you’ve come. You’re resilient, and your bounce back is incredible. That person has to miss out because they put you through a lot. But now you’re overcoming it and rising above what they did to you. You’re not letting it hold you down. You’re maturing and moving forward, and I see you making progress, getting to the bag, and attracting better things. Keep up the great work.

I feel that for at least a year—maybe more—you’re going to be single, not actively dealing with anyone. During this time, you’ll focus on rebuilding your life and rediscovering who you are. Your head may feel cloudy as you try to figure things out, as you’re still healing from the past situation. Although you’re moving forward, you’re also somewhat stuck because that past relationship left a deep impact. It will take time to fully heal, and you might not feel ready to seriously date again for a while. You’ll likely be wary of diving into a new relationship, fearing it might turn out the same way as the last one. Your main focus will be on other areas of your life, as you’re not in a rush to pursue love right now.

You may feel that your passion for love and romance has burned out, and you’ll avoid situations that could turn toxic, chaotic, or full of arguments. For a while, you may not even know what you want in a relationship or who you want to be with. But I do feel that after a year or more, you’ll meet someone new. This person will want to marry you. They’ll be serious about building a stable, long-lasting relationship with you. As you get to know each other, they’ll demonstrate their commitment not only through words but through actions. They’ll show you that they’re there for you, supporting you emotionally and physically. They’ll give you lots of affection and romantic gestures, and this relationship will lead to marriage.

So for now, take your time, enjoy your single life, and continue healing. Love will find you when the time is right.

𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝟒

Oh my gosh, so the first thing I got is that someone is not wanting commitment in your life. Maybe it’s someone currently in your life that you have your eye on or someone you’re dealing with in a situation, but they don’t want commitment—or maybe you don’t. Either way, there’s a lack of commitment in this situation and a lack of movement. Somebody might be struggling with confidence here.

I see for some of you that either you or the person you’re dealing with is struggling with confidence when it comes to pursuing a person. Maybe you’re very reserved, shy, and hesitant to put yourself out there. You don’t want to be obvious or assertive. When you find someone you like, you’re subtle. You don’t express yourself directly or approach them. Instead, you stay in the background, waiting for them to make a move. You’re on the receptive end, and that’s what I’m picking up.

Yes, it seems to me there’s an unreciprocated situation. That’s the energy I’m getting. Either you’re in a connection with someone right now, and you’re confused, they’re confused, and the whole situation is confused, or you’re single and ready for a relationship, but nothing is happening—it’s stuck.

Because this energy feels confusing, I’m breaking this reading down into two parts: one for people who are single and one for people who are currently talking to someone.

For people who are single:

It seems like you’re ready for a relationship. You’re in a good emotional place. There’s no chaos happening in your life. You’re ready to talk, to spark a conversation, and to be intellectually stimulated. You want someone who is willing to give just as much as you’re willing to give. You want someone who reciprocates your energy, brings peace into your life, and allows you to explore and enjoy life.

You really want someone who is honest, straightforward, and open. You don’t want someone who hides behind smoke and mirrors. You’re looking for someone fun, someone with a bit of sparkle and energy who keeps things fresh. You don’t want someone boring or predictable. You want someone who switches up their routine, who’s spontaneous. You want someone who, on a Monday, might go to work, and on a Friday, decides to go on an adventure in a different town. You want someone who’s down to say, “Let’s go get drinks on a Wednesday,” or “Let’s go on a hike on Sunday.”

You want someone who is fun, exciting, and spiritual. That’s what you’re really wanting right now because you’re in a space where you’re ready to meet someone like that. You’re ready to match that energy, and you want someone who will reciprocate it.

However, for the single people in this pile, I feel like you’re just not getting anyone coming your way. It seems like everyone’s scared to approach you or to talk to you. You’re over here like, “Come on over!” but they’re over there like, “No, I want you to come over here!” There’s a bit of a stalemate. You’re ready to meet someone, but the people around you aren’t meeting you where you’re at.

It’s not that you’re a bad person or doing something wrong. In fact, you’re amazing. You know how to communicate, you’re fun, and you’re ready for adventure. You’re in a peaceful stage of your life, and you’re very nurturing, giving, compassionate, and honest. But despite all of that, you’re just not getting the attention you’re looking for or attracting the right people.

The people who are interested in you might not be the people you want, and the ones you want aren’t showing up. You also don’t want to go on dating sites or meet anyone online. You really want to meet someone face-to-face. But right now, it feels like nobody is grabbing your attention.

For people who are currently talking to someone:

If you’re talking to someone, it seems like you want all these amazing things in a partner—honesty, emotional connection, commitment—but the person you’re dealing with doesn’t seem to want the same things.

You feel like there’s potential with this person. You think the relationship could elevate into something meaningful, with love, compassion, and commitment. But this person doesn’t want to commit. They’re refusing to come your way and give you what you want.

Even though you’re honest and clear with them, they may not be giving you the same clarity in return. They might not know what they want, or they might just know that they don’t want to commit. They could be avoiding the serious conversations you want to have.

This person might be against marriage, or they may not want to get in their feelings. They like what you do for them, but they’re not thinking about moving the relationship to the next level. They could also be taking you for granted, assuming that you’ll always be there no matter what. So, they don’t feel the need to put in any work.

At the end of the day, this person isn’t prioritizing your needs or the relationship. You might feel like you’re holding on to hope that things will change, but this person isn’t showing signs of wanting the same level of commitment or emotional bond that you’re looking for.

For this group, I don’t see love happening for you anytime soon. It seems that many of you may be unsure about what you truly want or are stuck in a state of limbo, uncertain about how to approach a love situation. As a result, I think a lot of you will be stepping away from love for a while.

There are major changes on the horizon for you. These changes could involve losing someone important, whether it’s a friend or a situation you thought would grow but didn’t go anywhere. You’re going to go through a significant transformation in the future, which will bring endings. However, with those endings, there will also be an opportunity for healing.

I see a lot of healing in your future, but I don’t foresee a committed relationship coming your way anytime soon. Instead, there will be big life changes and a period of introspection where you might feel indecisive or unclear about what you want in love. You might not fully understand your feelings toward another person, or you could encounter fleeting connections—short-lived and superficial, almost like “smoke and mirrors.”

As these endings occur, a new chapter will open in your life, centered around healing and moving forward. While there may not be any immediate or long-term commitments in your future right now, this healing period will help you gain clarity. It will give you the space to decide what you truly want from relationships and to set higher standards for love moving forward.

Though this may feel disheartening, know that this phase is part of life’s journey, and it’s preparing you for something greater down the line. I hope this healing stage brings you clarity, strength, and self-awareness.

[girlofghosts]

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ the way i loved you | harry potter

₊ ⊹ summary: after the tri-wizard tournament, you really don't think your best friend, harry, could've possibly survived it. but he always amazes you—especially after your little reunion, when harry realizes he really doesn't waste any time anymore.

₊ ⊹ warnings: best friends to lovers, first times but not sex, kissing, dry humping, mutual pining, getting caught after but not during, readers not a gryffindor but it's not even a plot point so don't worry

₊ ⊹ a/n: first fic kinda nervy... not proofread it's 3:25 am sorry but i'm barely posting this i kinda hate it like a lot

"...Has anyone seen Harry?" You find yourself saying as you try and apologize your way through the crowds of people in the area, finally landing eyes on Ron and Hermione.

Surely they'd know. And know they did, as Hermione turns to you and says, "Harry's still in there. Haven't gotten eyes on them though."

God, you're sure your heart was nearly beating out of its chest, and it didn't help that you were heating up just from running around in the middle of June in the swarming heat.

Hermione's hand on your back is all you can focus on as you try to convince yourself Harry Potter is not dead. He couldn't be. Injured, at most—

"Y/N?" You hear your name, and by god you've never felt more relief in your life over your name.

The familiar sight of round glasses askew and messy brown hair grounds you as you rush past Hermione and Ron admittedly quickly before halting at the sight—Cedric Diggory unmoving beside him.

"By god, tell me that's your blood on your face." You breathe out, a bit frazzled at the situation, moving to kneel beside him, thumb moving to wipe the deeply wounded scratch on his jaw.

He nods, and at your relief, he snickers, "never took you to be relieved over me being wounded."

"You know what I mean, god, you're so stupid—" your first instinct is to scold, to tell him he shouldn't have gotten hurt. That he shouldn't have been so reckless.

That he shouldn't have given you such a scare.

"Shh, shh," he sighs, still a bit breathless from it all, "save that for later when I'm not so... Winded."

Letting out a defeated sigh in return, you apologize, "I'm sorry. You just really fucking scared us, y'know that? God, I thought you'd died—" you pull him into a tight, desperate hug.

He just takes the hug, the warm touches, greeting Hermione and Ron as they make their way up to the scene as well, particularly engrossed in the solemn sight of the boy unconscious feet away.

Dumbledore finally makes his way up, students naturally clearing a path as he treads up the steps to the scene as well, face unreadable.

"Harry, you best... Clean yourself up, visit the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey can handle those for you, surely." Dumbledore proposes, more of an order than an offer, to which Harry complies with a subtle nod.

Leaning on you for support, he slowly but surely gets up, the other two allowing you to handle it. Hermione's soft nudge as you walk past them tells you all you need to know, really. She's in on it.

Hermione's always been the one to go to for anything, really. As much as she's enveloped in her studies, she seems to be a good multitasker in the sense she'll retain any information you give her as she's studying.

That's how your late night rambles began in your dorm, in the library, all of it. You talking about classes, family, boys, you name it—she knew.

As the Yule Ball approached that year, you'd began the talk of boys, and she was surprisingly interested. Talking about her own interests, particularly of Ron, though. How he treated her like some last choice...

And you, with your best friend, Harry. Though, you two went as friends, it felt particularly good having a multitude of people not know that. Thinking you two were one anothers dates. Especially during The Champions Waltz.

Either way, ever since then, Hermione knew when to leave you two to your endeavors, and to make Ron mind his business.

So when Ron seems to start to follow down the path after you and Harry, it's no surprise Hermione moves to grip his wrist gently to stop him.

"You're easily gonna need some kind of cast, unless you're trying to drink that god-awful bone growth potion again." Your arm is holding him up gently, and the touch has your stomach in knots.

"Don't even remind me, I'll never stop tasting that." He groans, leaning further into you, glancing over and up at you, "say, was Cedric... Was he alright?"

"I don't know." You admit, "I bet he'll be in the infirmary sooner or later. Surely."

Harry takes that as an answer, thankfully, and you two finally make your way into the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey front and center as she ushers Harry in and to one of the many open beds.

It's a while that you two are sat waiting as Madam Pomfrey puts random disinfectant items and healing gels on his wounds before sighing and wrapping up her procedure by wrapping a piece of cloth around his neck to alleviate some stress on his arm, slouching it like a makeshift sling.

"Well, dearie, there's not much else I can do. Magic can't heal it any further. Keep this on as much as you can, alright? Now head up to your dorm, I bet you'll be seeing a visit from Dumbledore soon." She rambles, "now go on."

It's a lot of information, but Harry nods, adjusting to the feeling of it elevated before moving to get off the bed, walking fine now, thankfully.

"Can we go to the dorms now?" Harry asks, looking over at you as you two walk out of the hospital wing.

"The Gryffindor dorms? I can take you, yeah." You reply, not quite taking it as an invitation, but rather a request.

"No, no, with me." He shakes his head, "please?"

It's weird, hearing him nearly plead, but quite frankly you aren't against it one bit.

"Why? And, well, there's no way your roommates aren't in there too." Your eyebrows furrow, confused by the proposition despite wanting to agree without a worry in the world.

"They wouldn't tell, if they're even there." Harry shakes his head, "I just... Don't really wanna be alone after all that."

You can't say no to that. And it's true, Ron, Dean, Seamus, or Neville would never tell a single soul.

It's a long walk up the dizzyingly confusing, moving stairs you can never quite get an understanding for, and down corridors you swear weren't there before. Surely enough, you find yourselves in front of the portrait of The Fat Lady, who lights up at the sight of a new face.

"Oh, who in the world is this now, Harry Potter? A girl from another house?" She nearly scolds.

"Balderdash," Harry tries to ignore her words that'll without a doubt sprout into a lesson.

"Harry Potter!" The portrait attempts to scold him for a second time.

"I know. Balderdash." He repeats, prompting the portrait to swing open, as he hears her continue while he brings you inside until you're in the Gryffindor common room.

"It's awfully quiet." You hum, "and... Empty."

"Maybe they all went back to classes for today." Harry sighs, readjusting his sling, "I'll show you to our years dorm." He changes the subject.

You comply easily, trailing behind him across the room to find a staircase, many offshoots, but you don't get a chance to look too much before he's opening the room to reveal five beds, each with a respective end table and chest, appropriately decorated and left lived in by the others before he finds his own and lies down with a small groan.

Stood a bit hesitantly in the entrance, you take in the empty room, before glancing back at Harry to see him gesturing for you to come over.

You move to sit beside him on the bed, despite the tight fit. He finally speaks up.

"Y'know how you said you thought I died?" He sighs, reminding you of your earlier words.

You don't understand it's importance, but nod.

"Well, for what it's worth, I thought I did too." His messy brown hair splays against the pillow as he lies his head down finally to get comfortable, "and it was... Kind of terrifying. And I've fought a basilisk." He lightens the mood. Or, tries to.

"Yeah?" The low hum of your voice fills the room, nodding as you listen, wondering where this is going.

"I kinda just..." He shifts in the bed, ending up a little closer than before to you, "I didn't realize people were serious when they said your life flashes before your eyes."

That seems to have your heart growing heavy.

"It was that bad? What even happened?" You ask, before realizing... Maybe that's not the best question right now, "er... Just, it was that bad?"

"It was like... I realized how much stuff I regretted not doing. And like... I could die at any time. It was really weird." Harry rambles, "like, there's so many things I realized I should be doing and haven't."

"Like what?" You hum, glancing back over at him despite him looking right up at the top of the canopy of his bed.

"...I didn't get to tell Ron or Hermione I loved them, since I guess I've never been the type to say that stuff even if I mean it. I haven't stopped Voldemort. I haven't proven the Dursleys wrong, haven't avenged my parents..."

"Haven't told you a lot of things I should've by now." He trails off, adding, finally looking over to gauge your reaction. You blink a few times at the bluntness.

"Like what?" You ask all too quickly, shifting.

"...You know I like you, Y/N, don't you?" He murmurs, looking away and back up at the canopy, "and that... That I was gonna ask you to the Yule Ball but totally chickened out." He also admits, vulnerably.

It's kind of a lot to process since he only continues to add fact after fact, each more daunting than the last.

"And that one time I went to your dorm for the night, snuck in, hid under the blankets so your roommates didn't know, I really wanted to do that over and over again. I tried to come by again one day, but the entry was seriously impossible." He goes on, "I just really like being with you, y'know?"

"Shh," you shush him, gently, when you two finally get to make eye contact, trying to sit with the thoughts so you could get a word in.

The way he looks up at you as if you're his entire world has you weak, quite frankly, and you're debating whether to handle this with your brain or heart.

...You opt for heart.

In a few secomds time, your hand moves down to cup his jaw before leaning down to comfortably kiss him, praying he reciprocates.

Thankfully, a few seconds after, he complies, spare hand moving to find your waist gently, the other arm still against the sling as his lips press back to yours.

"I just really don't wanna regret never telling you. Or getting to do any of this stuff that I've always wanted to. Especially when it feels like we could die any day." He murmurs against your lips, forehead pressed to yours as he catches a breath.

"Yeah?" You murmur back, "we'll make sure it happens." The reassurance of your voice is enough to relax him in his position beside you.

You're a bit more aware of your position, halfway hovering over him as he lies down. Surely, if he weren't wounded, it'd be the other way around. Maybe. Probably. It wasn't everyday you got him in bed with you.

"...I don't wanna rush, but I also don't wanna wait anymore. Does that make sense?" Harry asks, hand finding your waist and gently ghosting it.

"I understand, I think." You agree and breathe out, "but we better make a decision quick because we're getting way too comfortable with the idea that they won't come back anytime soon."

He tries to move before soon remembering his sore arm, wincing before watching you opt to move for him, "where d'you want me?"

The sharp breath he sucks in at that doesn't go unnoticed before asking, "in my lap, please?"

Complying, you move to sit on his lap, looking down at him. His free hand finds your thigh.

"Are we seriously doing this?" You ask him.

"Don't have to. Just... Really want to." He says honestly, "you're really, really bloody pretty, y'know that?"

The way he acts and talks is almost cautious, as if you being on his lap was the signal to take initiative right now. Well damn.

"...Thanks," you hum, a bit out of it. You're about to have sex with your best friend, aren't you?

Eyes closing for a moment, he has to take in another sharp yet shaky inhale as he takes in the sight of you on top of him. At least you know you have an effect on him.

Kissing was oddly the safest option in this situation, a thought you never thought you'd have. But here you were, leaning down to trap him in your arms as you lock your lips again, careful of his arm beside him before your chest are nearly against one anothers.

He doesn't speak, kissing you like you're a necessity for life, if not life itself.

Admittedly, you feel him harden against you, bur you can't blame him. You're fully pressed down in his lap, kissing him, shifting to get comfortable here and there.

That doesn't mean it's not surprising, though.

"You already hard?" You murmur against his lips, pulling away enough to talk with him, one hand brushing the hair from his eyes and fixing his glasses.

He nods back, looking up at you, a little breathless.

Well fuck. You're having sex with the guy you've been in love with since your first year. The guy where your puppy love for him turned one random day into admittedly raunchy thoughts you found yourself thinking of late at night.

That wasn't the point right now.

He lets out a soft groan out of seemingly nowhere, head falling back against the pillow as his eyes shut tight, mumbling repeatedly, "do that again..."

"Do what?" You ask, not torturously, but rather confusingly.

"Uhm—just... That." He sheepishly moves a hand to your rear to try and press you down against him once again. Oh. Okay.

So this seemed more realistic right now. Kissing and grinding. Clothes on, all that. You didn't feel as timid now, knowing what was going on.

"I can do that." You hum back, assessing your situation before moving your hands to rest on either side of his head on the bed, hovering over him.

"But bare with me. I've never..." You decide to let him finish that sentence for you, and he quickly picks up on it thankfully.

"Me neither. It's fine. Anything you do feels good, really." He decides to admit in hopes of assuring you.

You nod softly, the high expectations you originally had for yourself lowering thankfully as you seem to feel the pressure lift from your shoulders.

Hips grinding, you press back down into his lap, your own hips stuttering at the feeling as you let out a shaky exhale.

Admittedly, he was in his usual uniform pants, and you your skirt, where this basically had you grinding your panties against him given the position. Any sensatations were heightened and your immediate shudders had him groaning.

"...Keep doing that, please." He pleads a little weakly. You didn't know whether he was always such a taker or if the daunting event had him needing to get taken care of for once.

You weren't not going to, either, though.

"I won't stop, don't worry," you hum, hips gliding over his, feeling him press up against you as you let out your own caught off guard whimper.

"You're so pretty," he repeats, hand finding your waist like before, before moving to move your hair out of your way, "thank god you like me—fuck."

"Yeah? Thank god I like you?" You let out a breathy laugh, before faltering to let out a small gasp, hips stuttering at a particularly good movement that you find yourself repeating for a few moments.

He nods, repeatedly, neck arching against the pillow, "fuck, oh," he bucks his hips, hand steadying yours, "bloody hell..."

You decide not to let up, wondering if that was what he'd need to get off, trying to think of what you'd want in his situation, and he reels.

"Hah, ah, Y/N," his hips buck once more, "need you to cum, too." He pleads.

It's not that you didn't love this, because you loved every second of it, but you weren't close. Not as close as him, anyway.

"Can't, 's okay." You shake your head, "not about me today. Next time."

He snakes his open hand down to your thigh before trying to get your skirt up with one hand and find your panties with the same one. You give in and hold your skirt up for him, wondering where he was going with this.

"Show me where to touch," he looks up, letting you move your own hand to guide his, right to your clothed clit over your panties, hips twitching.

He runs repeated circles over that spot, trying to find the right pace.

"Little faster," you hum, hand now on his thighs behind you, the other letting the skirt fall as you secure yourself on his lap, leaned back, hips experimentally grinding forward again.

"Now do smaller circles," your nods spur him on, and he's seemingly keen on figuring this out right here, right now.

He finally gets it, thumb on your clit, circling at the perfect speed, as you rolled your hips against his clothed cock, watching him twitch at your touch.

Not only that, but he seems to be trying to get you to cum first. His thumb persistent, trying not to get too horny from the sight and feeling of a pretty girls hips rolling against his.

"Harry? Harry, I'm close," you hum, moving back to hover more closely over him, "think you can cum with me?" You hum. You doubt it, simply since he seems so pent up, so sensitive.

"Cum with you? Oh, fuck," he rolls his hips up desperately, making you whine, and him orgasm, totally moaning out as he relaxes against the bed. He bucks his hips repeatedly, long, thorough thrusts against you.

"Harry, *please*," you whine. You don't orgasm at the same time, but during his, as he comes down. He simply keens at your reaction.

"I'm, fuck, I'm..." You roll your hips down, struggling, feeling him shakily move your hips with his hand as he continues to sensitively grind up against you, pants admittedly wet.

Your panties were no better, and you knew that, so you weren't one to talk.

You come crashing down with his meticulous movements he'd learned only minutes ago, whimpering before whining softly as your hips stutter and he guides you through it.

"You got it." He murmurs, reassuringly, rubbing your hips gently as you come down.

Quite frankly, you didn't even feel present after that. Here you were, in Harry's bed, limp in his lap, legs shaky with your head pressed to his chest.

"...We're dating, right?" You breathe out.

"Just let me ask you properly, like you deserve." He sighs with a soft nod, "later. When I can actually... Think. And breathe. And... All of that."

You like the sound of that. And he doesn't seem as stressed as he was earlier about all that... Existential, the world is ending stuff.

"What in the—oh, god, you two—" a loud voice makes you both tense, and Harry grip your waist a little tighter. Ron.

"Get out—!" Harry instinctively calls back out, "10 more minutes, I swear!" He sighs.

"...Did you two—" Ron tries to ask again.

"10 minutes, Ron." Harry huffs. That seems to get Ron to comply, thankfully, and the door closes behind him as he rushed down the stairs.

"...He's gonna tell Hermione." Harry huffs, sheepishly.

"She won't be surprised." You admit. There was no way she didn't see this coming with the things you'd tell her about your crush on him.

"What?" Harry blinks a few times before sighing, "y'know what? I... I don't wanna know. Just lie back down."

He sighs, bringing your head back to his chest and running a hand through your hair, and really, all you were thinking about were his words:

"Let me ask you properly. Like you deserve."

[scary-grace]

if my heart was a house (chapter 2) - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

It's been nineteen years since Tomura was sentenced to death, and you've built a life in the space he left behind, braced each day for the worst. You're prepared for everything - the questions your daughter asks, the memories that sting a little more in the winter, the specter of the news you've been afraid of for years. But of all the things life's thrown your way, it's the one you haven't dared to hope for might be the one thing you can't handle. (cross-posted to Ao3) The prequel can be found here: what I can't remember nowwritten for @pixelcafe-network's Challenge Friday event! Banner/divider by @cafekitsune

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

It’s freezing when you step out of the community center, and only the fact that Chihiro’s waiting for you to pick her up at school prevents you from going right back in and borrowing a scarf and gloves from the bin of spares. You knew you should have dressed more warmly, but you didn’t realize there’d be so much wind. By the time you make to the car, your teeth are chattering, and the car always takes longer to warm up than you want it to. You moved to Hokkaido nineteen years ago because it was the last place anyone would look for you, and no one’s found you yet. You just wish the price of privacy didn’t include freezing your ass off in the moonless polar night.

You think Chihiro worries about you a little less lately. You’ve gone to a month of pottery classes, and you make sure to respond to messages in the PTA moms’ group text every so often, and once when Kaori’s crazy mom asked you to get tea, you agreed. You left that conversation feeling like you’d been through a tornado, but the important thing is that you’re trying. That Chihiro sees you trying. That when she moves away for school, her worry for you won’t hold her back.

Her comment about you not having friends hit a little too close to home, and it’s still hanging around in your head. You used to have friends — Tomura’s friends, and some of your own. You loved them. You know they loved you. Half the reason you survived Tomura’s arrest and trial was because they were with you, suffering the same way, helpless to stop anything that was happening and trying all the same. Knowing all of that, it makes even less sense that you ran from them afterward.

But that’s always been who you are. When you’re hurt, when you’re scared, when you’re sad, you pull back from the world. You don’t like having your feelings where other people could see, and if you didn’t like having your feelings in front of anybody, there was no way you were having your baby in front of Tomura’s friends. You weren’t interested in how they felt about it. You didn’t want to hear what they’d say. And you didn’t want them involved, constantly circling, reminding you of everything you lost. Reminding your baby, once they were old enough to understand. Your new new job (you lost the first new one), your apartment, your friends, your city — it all started to feel like a prison. You could run, so you did.

Lately, though, you’ve been thinking about them. Enough to look them up and see that Toga’s a fairly well-known costume designer, and wish you could talk sewing with her; find out that Dabi’s doing okay, when you’d been worried ever since you met him that he’d wind up in prison; learn that Spinner’s a writer with a popular series of detective novels, famous for mercilessly skewering the police over their incompetence and corruption. You’ve thought about reaching out, seeing if they know anything about Tomura’s situation, if they’ve heard anything from him. Then you decided it wasn’t worth it. You don’t want to find out that he’s spent nineteen years talking to them and not to you.

Your car finally warms up. You take a deep breath, shove the thought of your old friends away, and drive.

Someone’s car spun out on the route you planned to take to the high school, and you call Chihiro to let her know you’ll be a little late. She doesn’t answer, but she probably just busy. The choir director is kind of a hardass, but Chihiro worships the ground she walks on, and she’d never interrupt a rehearsal for something like a call from her probably-clingy mom. You are a little clingy. You just don’t ever want her to wonder where you are. To spend even a second doubting that you’ll be there when she needs you.

You get to the school, park, and switch idly between channels on the radio, skipping away whenever you hear a snatch of the news. The choir kids trickle out of school slowly, talking through chattering teeth, and scatter to their parents’ cars. You watch for Chihiro, knowing that she stays late to talk to the choir director sometimes. But then the lights in the music room go out. The choir director steps out, locking the door behind her, and fear like you’ve never experienced in your life floods through you.

It feels like acid in your veins. You lurch out of your car and get in the director’s way as she heads for hers. “Where’s Chihiro?”

“She left at the break,” the director says. “Typically I don’t allow it, but she’s an excellent student and she’s never asked before —”

Chihiro left. Chihiro left school an hour ago. You can barely speak. “What happened? Did she get sick? Why didn’t you call me —”

“She said she would,” the director says, bewildered. “She didn’t?”

“If she’d called me, I’d have picked her up already.” Your voice stutters, fractures. “What happened?”

“She and her friends were discussing something. A news article, I think. I doubt that’s what caused it.” The director is frowning now, disconcerted to your terrified. “When we resumed practice, she was distraught, and asked to be excused early.”

Distraught. You’ve never heard anybody use that word to describe your daughter. “Did she say why?”

“She needed to go home. She said it was a family emergency.”

A family emergency? You’re her family. Your parents passed away when she was in middle school and you and your brother haven’t spoken in years. What family is she talking about? You don’t need that answer right now. You need to find her. “Thank you,” you choke out, and run back to your car.

You and she live five miles outside of town — on a big road that gets plowed and salted, sure, but still outside of town. Could she walk all the way home in an hour? You don’t think so. Not in this weather. And you can’t think of anywhere else she would go. You drive slowly, carefully along the road, your heart rising into your throat at each bend in the road and sinking when the stretch of road ahead of you continues to be empty. Your mind twists in agony. A family emergency. What does that even mean? It crosses your mind that it’s the perfect excuse, one no teacher would ever refuse a student like Chihiro — but why wouldn’t she call you? Why would she start walking home in the dark? What is there that she thinks she can’t bring to you, that you wouldn’t help her with? You’d do anything for her. You just have to find her, and you’ll figure it out.

You catch up to her halfway home, her hands jammed into her pockets and her shoulders hunched against the cold, her breath billowing out in a frozen cloud. The relief of finding her lasts for only a second. Now you need to get her home. You flip on your hazard lights and slow to a crawl alongside her, rolling down your window. “Chihiro, get in the car!”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look your way. “I’m so glad I found you, but I don’t understand,” you say. “You must be freezing. Why didn’t you call me? I was so scared –”

You’re making this about you. It’s not about you. “Chihiro, please get in the car. I just want you to be safe. I love you —”

“Shut up!” She wheels on you, and you hit the brakes, more in shock than anything else. Your daughter’s eyes are swollen and bloodshot with tears, and her lips are cracked and bleeding in the cold. Her mouth is turned down like you haven’t seen it in more than a decade, but her eyes are hot with rage. “Don’t come near me. Don’t even talk to me. I didn’t call you because I hate you. I hate you! How could you do that to me?”

“Do what?” you ask.

“Lie,” Chihiro spits, or sobs. “How long were you going to lie to me, Mom? Were you ever going to tell me the truth about my dad?”

Your stomach drops. How did she find out? How many people know? “I never lied,” you say. “I never told you he was dead. I always told you —”

“He’s gone.” Chihiro’s nose is dripping. She looks frozen. “Don’t play that stupid game. You knew what I thought you meant when you say that, and you just let me think — you were always going to let me think he was —”

“How did you find out?”

“That’s all you care about? I hate you —”

Right now, you hate yourself, too. It hurts to hear Chihiro say that, hurts to know she’s so angry with you that she’d rather freeze than spend even a second in the car with you — but your feelings don’t matter right now. They stopped mattering nineteen years ago. This is about your daughter. You shove your feelings to one side. “You hate me,” you repeat, and she scoffs. “You can hate me just as much in the car as you can out there, and the car is warm.”

Chihiro squints at you as she wipes her eyes. “It’s not that far. I can walk.”

“Yeah. But it’ll take you another hour, and it’ll just keep getting colder.” You swallow the lump in your throat. “I won’t try to talk to you. In the car or when we’re home. Just — please, get in the car, Chihiro. You don’t have to hurt yourself to let me know you’re angry.”

“I’m not angry, Mom. This is way beyond angry.” Chihiro takes a deep breath and coughs on the cold air. “If you try to talk to me, I’m getting out again.”

You don’t deserve to feel relieved, but you do. You put the car in park and unlock the passenger-side door. “Okay.”

The drive home is awful, but at least it’s brief. The first thing Chihiro does after taking off her shoes and coat is head straight for the bathroom. The water switches on in the shower, and you’ll bet it’s scalding hot. She must be so cold. And so angry with you, angry enough to override her better judgment and drive her out onto the road alone. Is she right about you? Were you ever going to tell her the truth about Tomura? You don’t know. But you should have seen this coming, somehow. You could have seen it coming, would have, if you were doing anything but hiding from your own pain. Of course Chihiro’s furious with you. You deserve it.

Deserving it doesn’t make it hurt any less, so like always, you find something to keep you busy. You set out clean pajamas for Chihiro on her bed. Then you finish folding the laundry, emptying the dishwasher, folding the quilts that are still strewn across the couch from Chihiro’s movie night with Kaori over the weekend. After that it’s time to sew, and even with the focus paper-piecing takes and the noise of the sewing machine, you can’t shut out a single question: How did she find out?

The water in the shower shuts off. You hear Chihiro’s footsteps in the hallway, then the sound of her bedroom door shutting. Shutting, not slamming. You abandon your sewing machine, planning to go to your bedroom and stay there, leaving her the kitchen and the living room and not coming out until she goes to sleep. You don’t want her to have to look at you. Or maybe you just don’t want to see how she looks at you now.

The thought stops you at the threshold. You’ve made everything about what’s happened into something about you. Who are you helping by going to hide? Yourself. You’re protecting yourself from your daughter’s anger, which she deserves to express, and from the questions she probably wants to ask, which you should have answered a long time ago. You can’t hide. You need to stay here and be the person — the parent — you should have been all along. Even if it’s too late.

You hear the bedroom door open, but you don’t turn, and Chihiro comes closer with soft footsteps. She stops at the edge of the kitchen. “What are you doing?”

“Making hot chocolate. Do you want some?”

“You’re being weird,” Chihiro says. She sounds unnerved. “I told you I hate you. Why aren’t you yelling? You’re not even crying. Do you even care?”

Your heart breaks a little bit, even as a surge of frustration rocks you. “It hurts to hear you say that,” you admit. No more lying. From here on out, you tell the truth. “But I don’t think it hurts as much as finding out your mom’s been lying to you for eighteen years.”

Chihiro’s quiet. She’s quiet, and you’re not trying to downplay what you did or run away from it, so you ask a question of your own. “How did you find out?”

The electric kettle goes off with a click. “The water’s done,” Chihiro says. “Are you making hot chocolate or not?”

She reminds you so much of Tomura — that same bluntness, that same impatience, that same affinity for cutting the knot. “Yeah. And some for you.”

Once you’ve both got your cups, you head to the living room. Chihiro unfolds all the blankets you folded earlier and burrows into them, and you sit in the armchair and pull your feet up and away from the floor. She watches you over the rim of her cup. “It’s weird when you do that,” she says. “It makes you look really young.”

It’s quiet for a second. “I guess you are kind of young. They said in school that most people don’t have kids until they’re thirty, and you were only twenty-two when you had me.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Four years older than you.”

It sounds wrong when you say it. Too young. Way too young. Chihiro looks unsettled. “I wouldn’t have a kid when I was twenty-two,” she says. “Why did you?”

You take a sip of hot chocolate, trying to calm your nerves. “I’ll tell you that and everything else. I want to know how you found out first.”

Chihiro’s eyes narrow, but to your surprise, she answers. “Takako at school — she watches that true-crime show. The one you don’t let me watch.”

“I never said you couldn’t watch it. I just said not on the TV out here,” you say. Chihiro rolls her eyes. “Your computer in your room is fair game.”

“My computer doesn’t get cable.”

“So pirate it,” you say with a shrug, and Chihiro nearly chokes on her next sip of hot chocolate. “I never said you couldn’t watch it at all.”

“Yeah. Like you never actually said my dad was dead,” Chihiro says. Ouch. “Do you want me to tell you or what? She watches that show, and you’re not the only mom who’s weird about it, so she tells us all about the episodes when they come out. I guess this week’s episode was about this guy Shigaraki Tomura who killed his whole family, and how he’s been on death row longer than anybody else in Japan. So we looked him up to see if he’s still alive — I guess the episodes get made in advance — and there were pictures of him at his trial. He has the same birthmark I do.”

You nod. “And the same eyes. Ever since you were a baby.”

Chihiro looks down into her cup. “One of my friends joked about it. I thought it was funny, so I laughed. But then I was thinking about it, and the — timing, I guess. And I realized you never said he was dead. My whole life, that was what I thought, but it wasn’t what you said.”

She takes another sip of hot chocolate. “I was looking at the pictures. From the trial, and you were in them. Your hair looked different, but I knew it was you. And I guess I — there was this one picture. From his sentencing. You’re holding his hands.”

You hadn’t realized someone snapped a photo, but you should have known. Your fingers still ache from the memory. Chihiro looks up, her eyes glassy again. “It’s him, isn’t it? My dad’s Shigaraki Tomura.”

“That’s him,” you say. You can’t call your voice steady. Flat might be better. “What do you want to know?”

“Why,” Chihiro says at once. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There were a lot of reasons,” you say. “I think my main one was trying to protect you.”

“From him?”

“No,” you say. “From everybody else. I don’t know if you read any of the articles about the trial, but the way they talked about him — and about me — was awful. People treated me differently, and I was just his girlfriend. I didn’t want anybody to do anything to you because of who your father was.”

“I got in fights anyway. Because I didn’t have a dad.” Chihiro’s voice is dull. “Maybe if they’d known who he was it would have been different.”

“Maybe.” You take a sip of your own hot chocolate, even though it’s getting hard to swallow. “That was part of it. Part of it was that I didn’t want you to grow up with that hanging over your head. Knowing that your dad was on death row and not even being able to visit him.”

“You said he didn’t know about me. Was that a lie, too?”

“I tried to tell him,” you say. “I called, and wrote letters, and tried to visit — he never wanted to see me. And he never answered.”

Your voice wavers slightly. You don’t try to fight it. Fighting it makes it worse. “I wanted to. He wouldn’t let me.”

Chihiro looks disturbed. “So that picture —”

“That’s the last time I saw him,” you say, and Chihiro’s expression collapses. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry about that.” Chihiro lets go of her cup to wipe her eyes. “Why else didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was selfish,” you say. It hurts to admit it, to admit that what you swore you were doing for Chihiro’s own good was for you all along. But you have to be honest. You’ve lied to her, by omission or on purpose, enough for a lifetime. “I didn’t want to think about what happened. Any of it. And if you didn’t know — if nobody knew — then I wouldn’t have to talk about it ever again.”

Chihiro wipes her eyes a second time. You keep talking, your throat aching more in every word. “I didn’t wake up one morning and decide not to tell you about Tomura. It just happened —”

“And kept happening. For eighteen years.”

She’s not going to let you get away with anything. The fact that you know she shouldn’t doesn’t make it any less frustrating. “Yeah. Eighteen years. I did it because it would make things easier, for me. Because it wouldn’t hurt as much, for me. I was thinking a lot about me and I should have been thinking about you.”

Chihiro looks away. “Do you think he did it?”

“Chihiro —”

“He confessed,” Chihiro says. “He said he did it.”

Yeah, Tomura confessed. They interrogated him for twenty days straight before they got anything out of him, and when you came to visit him again before the trial, he looked like something had broken inside of him. He seemed out of it, too. He barely recognized you, barely knew you were there. You don’t know what they did to him in there, but you trust that confession even less than you trust the testimony his adoptive father gave. “He confessed,” Chihiro repeats, her voice rising. She fumbles her phone out of her pocket, unlocks it one-handed. “Do you think he did it?”

She’s looking something up. You remember all at once how Chihiro stumbled on him in the first place. “Did they execute him? Chihiro, tell me —”

“Do you think he did it?” she demands, and you shake your head. You were there at the trial. Every day. You never saw anything that made you believe he was guilty. Chihiro squeezes her eyes shut and holds out her phone towards you. “You were right.”

Some part of you registers what she just said, but it doesn’t stick. It bounces off the surface and vanishes, because Chihiro has a news site open, with a bright red BREAKING NEWS banner across the top. SHIGARAKI TOMURA EXONERATED AFTER NINETEEN YEARS ON DEATH ROW.

You spend one wild second panicking at the sight of an “ex” word in the same sentence as Tomura’s name and “death row”, but then you force yourself to go back. Exonerated. Not executed, exonerated. You lift the phone out of Chihiro’s hands and she lets you take it — with a caveat. “Read it out loud, okay? So I know we both saw the same thing.”

You start reading, your voice rattling. “In a time of rising crime, escalating drug trafficking, and a loss of trust in our institutions, the accused mass murderer Shigaraki Tomura became the avatar for Japan’s worst nightmares: A remorseless killer, hiding amongst the innocent, ready to strike at any time. Those who questioned the scant evidence the prosecutor provided were ridiculed. Those who believed that his confession to the murders of his parents, his grandparents, and his older sister was the product of coercion were reviled. Nineteen years later, they and the man they spoke up for have seen justice served.”

Your eyes are burning. You blink back tears and keep reading. “In a stunning but well-reasoned decision released on Monday afternoon, the Supreme Court reversed all seven murder convictions against Shigaraki Tomura in light of new evidence uncovered in the course of an entirely different investigation. Midoriya Izuku, a prosecutor turned human-rights advocate, became interested in Shigaraki’s case while working to restore another inmate’s right to visits from his adoptive father — fuck!”

Chihiro looks up. “Huh?”

“Sorry. It’s just — he called me,” you say. “Midoriya Izuku. He’s been calling. I didn’t know why.”

“It’s weird when you swear,” Chihiro notes. You mumble an apology. “Keep reading.”

“Upon reviewing the available evidence and pursuing new investigations, Midoriya made a motion for a retrial, which was granted by the Supreme Court and conducted under terms of absolute secrecy in order to avoid the media circus that ensued during Shigaraki’s original trial. The Court has agreed to release all documents related to Shigaraki’s case and is expected to do so within the next twenty-four hours. Some sources have indicated that a different suspect in the Shimura family’s murders has already been taken into custody, but no official confirmation has been received.”

Your hands are shaking now, so hard you almost drop Chihiro’s phone in your cup of hot chocolate. “Mom?” Chihiro says, and you look up, blinking hard. “Do you know who they arrested?”

Your first inclination is to ask why she thinks you of all people would know, but you clamp down on that. Even though the world’s just been yanked out from beneath your feet, your daughter is still the injured party. And when you think about it, you do have some idea of who it is. “His adoptive dad. He was the one who had custody of Tomura when the murders happened, and he was really excited to cooperate with the investigation.”

“Custody?” Chihiro repeats. “How old was he when he — when they died?”

“Fifteen,” you say. “If you’re older than fourteen when you commit a crime, they can try you as an adult.”

“You think his fake dad set him up,” Chihiro says. You nod. “Is there more to read?”

“A little bit.”

Chihiro scoots over on the couch, making a space, and you sit down next to her. She has to wake up her phone again for you to keep reading, and you get the jumpscare of SHIGARAKI TOMURA EX- a second time before scrolling down to where you left off. “Although a release date has not been announced publicly, it is the view of this magazine that Shigaraki should be released from prison as quickly as possible. He has paid a debt to society that was never owed in the first place. When Shigaraki Tomura is released from Fuchu Prison, he will walk out a free man. Society’s atonement for the crime it committed against him is only beginning.”

You glance at the byline out of habit. This article was written by Kizuki Chitose, and if you remember right, the last article she wrote about Tomura struck a pretty different note. She’d better start atoning right now. You’d be happy to help. Balling up every single scathing editorial and hit job she wrote and jamming them down her throat feels like it would be a good start.

“It’s real,” Chihiro says. You nod. “He’s getting out.”

You nod again. You’re with Kizuki on wanting Tomura to be released as quickly as possible. You’re just not sure what happens next.

Chihiro’s thinking along the same lines. “Mom, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll figure it out,” you promise her. She leans in against your side, and some horrible part of you exults. With the chaos that’s about to unfold, Chihiro can’t afford to hate you any longer — or if you stop thinking about it like an asshole, she doesn’t know what’s going to happen and you’re the person she turns to. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know any more than she does. You’re the adult, but something happened to you when you read that headline. Somehow it feels like no time has passed at all; like he was just torn away from you, like you’re a lonely, hopeless twenty-two-year-old with a baby on the way all over again.

But you aren’t. You made it this far. Your baby turned eighteen this year, and you managed to raise her close enough to right. “We’ll figure it out,” you promise her again. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“Maybe you were right,” Chihiro mumbles. “It would have been harder if I knew all this time.”

You think so. It’s still not an excuse. You wrap your arm around your daughter’s shoulders and hug her closer, relieved beyond words when she doesn’t pull away. You’ll take care of her first — make sure she eats, make sure she gets some sleep, because you know from experience how much harder everything becomes without it. And after she’s fallen asleep, you’ll finally return Midoriya Izuku’s calls.

<- Chapter 1

[glitchdollmemoria]

that last post mentioning masks got me thinking about how like... i quite literally cannot wear a mask at all times due to one of my disabilities. i TRY to wear one when i can but it isnt always an option for me, which fucking sucks because im terrified of getting sick and potentially worsening the very disability that prevents me from consistently masking. and hardly anyone masks anymore so its not like theyre helping to keep me or anyone else safe lmfao. to spell it out very plainly i am PRO-MASK so dont put words in my mouth here please.

i experience heat intolerance, as a symptom of some kind of muscle weakness fatigue issue that still hasnt been properly diagnosed. my body temperature runs warm, im overly sensitive to my environment, and physical activity makes it worse. if i overheat, my muscle weakness (and nausea, and brain fog, and-) will flare up and ill be forced to rest for what could range from minutes to hours to days to weeks to months depending on how bad it is. i have to take IMMEDIATE action when i notice myself getting too warm because i cant risk that, and taking immediate action includes removing anything i can thats keeping me warm, including masks.

so when i walk to work in the summer bc i have exactly zero alternate options? most likely cant mask right away when i come in unless the weather is cooler than usual, because i need to take like half an hour for my body temperature to go back to normal.

moving around more than usual during my shift? the physical activity is gonna increase my temperature and ill have to take my mask off.

going somewhere other than work, having to either walk or take the bus? either way i have to spend time in the sun and so again i will probably need a cool down period once i get inside / on the bus, depending on how hot the weather is.

and theres an intersection here of my multiple disabilities and my poverty. i cant drive due to another illness, and i cant afford to use a rideshare service or even regularly take the bus, so walking in the heat is my only option to get to work. my work options are limited because i couldnt complete college and cant perform heavy physical labor, so i have to stick with a retail job that requires a lot of moving throughout the store, which itself is physical labor that can potentially make me sick if i go overboard.

mostly i just wanted to put this out there because i never really see people talk about actual reasons they cant wear masks, its almost always antimaskers who dont give a damn about people like me. but if you take anything from my ranting, let it be these two points:

while most people who dont wear masks are just making that choice because they dont like doing so or dont think its important anymore, a few of us out here literally cannot always mask despite knowing its a risk to ourselves and others; and

IF YOU CAN MASK PLEASE KEEP FUCKING MASKING. covid still exists! disabled people still exist! many of us are extra susceptible to the long term effects of covid! please fucking help to protect us! please give a shit about us! i feel like im shouting into the void here because i hardly see anyone mask anymore but please.

[sereniv]

I saved a daddy long legs!

i was scared and (i know dont @ me) was considering spraying him because I still fear spiders and spider-look-a-likes

up until past few years ive been working really hard on figuring out how to save them rather than kill bc ofc, it doesnt align with my views to kill them

normally i let my dog eat them to justify it- ironically, bc "im not killing them, my dog is"

but he was in one place, not moving and i was on the toilet, so i took the time to read up about him.

i named him, forced myself to, and to call him cute, so that it would make it harder for me to go through with killing him

i tried to imagine him being curious, or scared, or relaxing. Though i know most likely they arent capable of it in a way we can understand, it still helped me see him as no different than my dog or cat or me, rather than "just a bug' or some type of 'scary thing'

and in the end i saved him! container and a folder.

i still was scared, but seeing the (idk another word) humanity in him, the value he has and that he has for himself as a living being, helped make it possible to save him

its still really hard, and on occasion i do end up killing spiders or having my dog eat them when its quick scenarios where i dont have time to think it through

but compared to years ago ive gone from saving 0 to maybe 80%

and this is one of those moments where, its not exactly possible for me to push myself because it can undo all the work ive done. and thats ok.

this is the best i can do right now and im proud of myself.

my best, is not how i imagine my best being. in my mind, i could push myself harder but thats not practical.

doing your best is strategic.

im just so glad i didnt kill him. reading about him, learning about him, appreciating his role, and labeling him cute and giving him a name helped a lot

and sometimes, anthropomorphizing animals can be beneficial. i know he doesnt feel fear and curiosity like i do, but if it means not unnecessarily taking a life, then he does to me in that moment

[maximumzombiecreator]

It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.

Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.

Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.

These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.

And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.

You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.

[luna-azzurra]

How to Write a Death Scene

So, you want to write a death scene that hits your readers hard, right? Something that sticks with them, makes them feel something real?

First, give the death meaning. You can’t just toss in a death for the shock factor and call it a day. Even if it’s sudden or unexpected, the death has to matter to the story. Think about how it changes things for the characters who survive. Does it mess with their relationships? Their goals? Make sure this moment sends ripples through the rest of your plot. It’s gotta affect everything that happens after, like an emotional earthquake.

Then, think about timing. You don’t want to drop a death scene at the wrong moment and ruin the vibe. If it’s part of a big heroic moment or a heartbreaking loss in the middle of the story, it should feel earned. The timing of the death decides how your readers will react, whether they feel relief, gut-wrenching sorrow, or are totally blindsided. The right moment makes all the difference.

Next up, focus on the characters’ emotions. Here’s the thing, it's not always the actual death that makes a reader cry, it's how everyone feels about it. How do the characters react? Is the person dying scared, or are they at peace? Are the people around them in shock, angry, or just completely destroyed? You need to dive deep into these emotions, because that’s where your reader connects.

Make sure to use sensory details to pull readers into the scene. What does it feel like? The sound of their breathing, the stillness when they’re gone, the way everything feels heavy and wrong. Little details make the death feel real and personal, like the reader is right there with the characters, feeling the weight of the moment.

If your character has the chance, give them some final words or actions. What they say or do in those last seconds can really hit hard. Maybe they share a piece of advice, ask for forgiveness, or try to comfort the people around them. Even a simple gesture, a smile, a touch, a last look can leave a lasting impression. This is your last chance to show who this character was, so make it count.

Finally, don’t just stop when the character dies. The aftermath is just as important. How do the survivors deal with it? Does your main character fall apart, or do they find a new sense of purpose? Are there regrets? Peace? Whatever happens next should be shaped by the death, like a shadow that never quite goes away. Let your characters carry that weight as they move forward.

[flwrkid14]

Tim and Danny: Love, Trust, and the Weight of Protection

part 1

Danny knows what it's like to be hunted.

It’s been his reality for as long as he can remember—forever glancing over his shoulder, never truly at ease. Between vengeful ghosts, government agents, and countless other dangers, his survival has depended solely on his instincts, his powers, and the fickleness of luck. He has his friends—two best friends and a sister who would drop everything to stand by him, who he knows would always have his back. But the weight of that reliance feels heavy, a burden he can't quite shake.

Trusting others, truly leaning on them, has always felt like a luxury he couldn’t afford. He wants to feel safe, to let someone else take some of the weight, but the thought of putting them in danger because of him? That’s a risk he can't bring himself to take.

Then he meets Tim Drake.

At first, Tim’s protectiveness doesn’t faze him. It’s Gotham. You don’t date a Wayne-adjacent vigilante and expect anything less than a little paranoia. Danny’s been through worse. A tracker on his phone? Standard. Tim pulling files on his professors? Honestly, kind of funny.

But then, Danny finds out how deep it goes.

He stumbles upon a folder on Tim’s desk—his name printed neatly on the tab. Inside? Background checks on his classmates, neighbors and friends. Surveillance reports. A detailed map of his daily routine. Heart rate data. Sleeping patterns. Eating habits. There’s even a file on Phantom.

For a moment, Danny froze.

This should terrify him—it used to. Being watched, tracked for his every move, reminded him too much of those who hunted him, who’d wanted to tear him apart and dissect him like a lab rat. His first instinct was always to run.

But at that moment? He felt... safe. The notes in the margins weren’t cold or clinical like the ones his parents would have written. No, instead, they were worried. Make sure he’s eating enough. Possible threat? Keep an eye on this one. Look for ectoplasmic spikes—could mean trouble.

This wasn’t someone trying to control him. This was someone trying to protect him.

Tim’s not like the people who hunted him in Amity Park. There’s no malice in what he does. No intent to control or hurt. It’s all fear. Love, even. Danny can see it in Tim’s eyes when he stammers through an explanation, bracing himself for anger or rejection.

He’s scared Danny will leave.

And that’s what gets Danny.

No one has ever cared for him like this, no one willing to go through such lengths just to ensure his safety. Yeah, it’s intense, maybe unhealthy, even by the standards of a world that isn’t known for its normalcy. Danny knows Sam, Tucker, and Jazz would do the same—they’ve all put their lives on the line for him before, and he loves them for it. But Tim is different.

Tim is strong enough to face the dangers of Danny’s world and carry the weight of his burdens without hesitation. It’s something Danny could never ask his friends to do—not because they wouldn’t, but because they have their own lives, their own paths. They would drop everything for him, just as Tim would, but Tim does it with the resolve of a vigilante, already living a life where protecting others is his duty. This is someone who understands the risks, who’s already made those sacrifices, and still chooses to say, “I will protect you, no matter the cost.”

So, he smiles. He kisses Tim’s cheek. And he asks, “Can I put a tracker on you too?”

The way Tim’s eyes light up? Yeah, Danny thinks. This is love.

-----------------

The batfamily doesn’t get it.

They corner Danny one day, all serious expressions and careful words.

“Danny, we’re worried,” Dick starts, voice soft. “About Tim?” Danny tilts his head. “About both of you,” Steph says. “This… surveillance thing. It’s not normal.”

Danny shrugs. “Neither am I.”

They might understand—on some level. They’d lived through their own kind of danger, faced their own threats. But for Danny, it was different. They didn’t grow up being hunted, didn’t spend years hiding from people who wanted to tear them apart just for existing. For him, trusting the wrong person wasn’t just a risk; it was a matter of life and death.

Tim’s methods might be extreme, but Danny sees the intent behind them. It’s not control. It’s care. Tim watches his back because he knows what it’s like to lose people. Danny lets him because he knows what it’s like to be alone.

“Tim’s the first person who’s made me feel safe,” Danny tells them, voice steady. “You see obsession. I see someone who cares enough to watch my back.”

They don’t know what to say to that.

-----------------

Their relationship isn’t conventional. But in a city like Gotham, love isn’t always soft and simple. Sometimes, it’s vigilance. Sometimes, it’s knowing someone’s tracking your heartbeat because they’d die if it ever stopped.

Tim watches over Danny. Danny watches over Tim. It’s not about control—it’s about trust. About knowing that, no matter what, someone’s got your back.

The bats worry. They whisper about boundaries, red flags and healthy relationships.

Danny doesn’t listen. He knows what he’s got.

In a world where ghosts and vigilantes collide, where danger lurks in every shadow, Danny’s finally found someone who won’t let him face it alone.

And that? That’s everything.

[thinkingofausername]

some things from mouthwashing that i think need more attention:

UPDATED (again 😂) because I've been corrected on some things

jimmy, as co-captain, was unfortunately needed and couldn't be disposed of

pony express should carry the brunt of the blame - sending people into space and THEN telling them they're fired; not installing locks in the sleeping quarters; etc.

anya said "i have to believe our worst moments don't define us", implying she forgave curly, at least to an extent

every moment seen through jimmy's eyes could and should be questioned. he's an unreliable narrator

jimmy wanted curly to take the blame. he wanted the crew to blame him. the game wanted us to blame him for the crash (until the reveal)

curly got burned because he faced the explosion head-on; trying to fix things

anya died first; she did it with the last remaining painkillers which could've been used for curly; she even did it in front of him

jimmy shamed and attacked curly during the birthday scene and curly didn't react; implying their relationship was never smooth and truly friendly

it was never explicitly shown what anya said to curly. perhaps she never specified jimmy raped her. curly was shocked when she said she was pregnant, he didn't connect it with anything

anya telling jimmy she was pregnant is what made him crash the ship

it's implied anya told swansea about jimmy and he did nothing. he only attacked jimmy a while later, as revenge for daisuke

it's possible curly was only ever visited by jimmy, aside from anya

jimmy crashed the ship 147/365 days into the trip (they've got 7.2 months to go); the same day anya told him she's pregnant. assuming she found out a bit before that, and she could've found out within a month, by the time they got off the ship she would've been around 8 months pregnant - she would NOT have given birth on the ship

swansea had been 15 years sober

curly most likely wouldn't survive the cryopod. entirely skinless and then frozen? hell

curly was the only one to have clearance for the sweetener

curly very pointedly looks at jimmy ALL the time after the crash

after curly's conversation with jimmy (the "feet in cement" one), right before jimmy crashed the ship, the screen goes black and there's heavy breathing, implying curly was left panicking

jimmy gives curly medicine 3 times - first, with anya relatively nearby, a fairly normal intervention; second, with no one nearby, where jimmy assaults curly; third, alone again, he doesn't assault curly but he still cries, he's permanently scared of jimmy

curly was already struggling with insomnia before the crash

while anya was locked in medical, jimmy told daisuke she might do something to curly

anya said the mouthwash couldn't be used as disinfectant and jimmy still did it

jimmy drugged swansea; he convinced daisuke to go in the vent by saying swansea would be proud of him

curly and anya and jimmy all talk of "handling things"

jimmy says curly receives praise all the time; implying he was a good captain (he was also the only one to get exceptional references)

swansea had a wife and kids; daisuke mentions his mother, the creators of the game said curly loved spending time with friends and family. they had people waiting for them

jimmy said cartoon horses excite him and anya's baby is presented as a horse

[euniexenoblade]

i know a lot of you are scared and frightened right now, i know you see this election result as some omen. but we have been through this exact result before. you will get through this, we will survive this. i know you don't feel that way right now, but you will. i'm not trying to be condescending, i'm trying to just say, we have always been here, we will still be here tomorrow. use this moment to rally yourself into getting involved in your local lefty groups. help your local community.

free palestine. fuck trump and fuck harris. you're gonna live through this even if I have to come there and make you.

[midday-clouds]

Yandere Batfamily x Neglected & "Immortal" Reader 》 II

Part I Part III Part IV

Thank you so much for the love for the first one! 💞 There are so many ways I can imagine how this story can go and it's hard to pick one or try merging all the ideas. Nonetheless, I hope this meets your expectations!

CW: Stalking, Breaking and entering, Violence(Being stabbed, beating up a thief), Blood, (Menstion of past) Kidnapping

You had officially moved into your apartment in Bludhaven

Everything has moved so quickly and now you can finally relax

You gave up connecting with your family, got kidnapped, died, came back to life and moved out

It may be a bit much to pick the farthest college from the manor but you’re clearly unwanted there

Your family has neglected you and didn't do anything when you were kidnapped, so you have every right to be as far away from them as possible

It was honestly quite lucky that you were already accepted into a college in Bludhaven during your senior year. If you had applied after your kidnapping, the chances of you getting in would have been low.

But you’re here now and can finally feel happy. Well, if you don't count some of the nightmares you get from when you “died”.

Sometimes you do wonder how you survived that gunshot. Were you not hit somewhere vital? But then, where was the hole?

A part of you was curious and wanted to replicate the injury but that would be painful. You surviving the gunshot also could have been a one-time thing

You never ended up going to the police or the hospital because what were they going to do? You don’t have any proof that it even happened because your injury is gone, the blood left at the abandoned building is likely dried up and doesn’t look fresh, and Bruce probably threw away the ransom letter. 

The only proof you have that it even happened is your memories and you telling your friends. But the police or doctors would just look at you and say “You look fine now, no need to look into the situation anymore.” 

But enough about that though, you’ve got a few more hours before it gets dark and you want to get to know about the area.

It is still the middle of summer so your college classes haven't started yet. You could have waited until class started to move but you wanted to be out before Alfred returned from his vacation.

Alfred was the closest thing to family in the manor. But he and Bruce have never felt like safe adults to share your problems with. 

He should be back from his vacation now, has he found out about your kidnapping or did Bruce cover it up? He probably did to avoid getting news out. You should probably look into how you can change your surname.

Just as you finish your thoughts about the manor, you use your laptop to find interesting places in the area before heading out the door with directions in a notebook

Bruce and the rest of the family may know where you are currently, but bringing you back home was the hard part. Alfred had to convince Bruce that if he wanted you back, he shouldn’t just barge in all of a sudden. 

You’ve been hurt by the family's actions and won't return without a fight. 

But even then, Bruce has to see you. The entire family needs to see you with their own eyes at least once.

With this in mind, the whole family decides to take a small road trip to Bludhaven. They’d find you and figure out the best way to approach you without scaring you off. 

It was almost sundown when the family got to Bludhaven. They change into their vigilante gear so it’d be easier to hide in the shadows

Tim loads up the tracker on your phone and leads the way. It seems the tracker you have isn't the best because once the family gets close to your apartment, your phone just says your laptop is nearby instead of its exact location. 

No problem though, Tim can easily hack into the computer system for the apartment and find which room is yours.

Once your room is found, the family takes a peek inside. You’re nowhere to be found, which is a little worrying.

The locks on your windows are broken as the family opens them and sneaks inside. Your living room and kitchen are littered with boxes but that’s it. They each take a look around to find you but come out empty-handed. If you were here, they may do exactly what Alfred discouraged and just take you home. However, because you aren’t home, the only other place you could be is outside. Where it’s dark out and you’re alone.

Worried for your safety, the family immediately goes on another search for your

Because you could be anywhere, the family decides to split up to find you

You look around as you walk back to your apartment, a few small bags of food and snacks in your hands. Because it’s getting dark, you do begin to pick up the pace. You’re so focused on not getting home that you don’t notice when a person peeks over at you from a rooftop.

You’re just about to pass a convenience store when someone runs out and knocks into you. The person curses as they quickly get up and reach for their bag of stolen goods. Filled with adrenaline, the thief takes out a knife and stabs you. They were aiming to kill you so there weren’t any witnesses but ended up putting the knife in your shoulder. As the thief makes a run for it, a certain vigilante quickly blocks their path

Nightwing goes full force on the thief. How dare they hurt his baby bird. He refuses to make the same mistake of leaving you alone and hurt.

Your heart is racing as you attempt to pull the knife out of your shoulder. Your eyelids feel weak but you refuse to fall asleep. Unlike before, you aren’t restrained and can still escape.

You pull the knife out and let it fall on the ground next to you. After a few breaths, you do your best to stand up. You take a small glance at Nightwing before quickly running back to your apartment. 

Once inside, you almost collapse on the floor but try to get your first aid kit.

Your bandaging may not be that good but the best but it’s enough for you to feel comfortable sleeping for the night

Nightwing got a few swings in before he heard the sound of something falling onto the ground

He looks up to see that you've pulled the knife out of you and about to stand up

Before Nightwing could help you, his opponent throws a punch while he was distracted.

The vigilante shifts his attention to the thief when you suddenly make an escape. Night wing attempts to call out to you but it appears you didn't notice.

He sighs as he handcuffs the thief. This guy was such a hassle that Nightwing almost forgot why he was in such a hurry to wrap up the whole situation

The vigilante turns to where you were but only finds a bloodied knife and the bags you left behind. He carefully picks up the bags and knife while he considers where you have gone.

Spotting a trail of blood, Nightwing quickly follows it, contacting the rest of the family as well

The family gathers at the same spot near your apartment and finds you sleeping in your bed. Wanting to help you, Nightwing comes up with an idea

You lay on your bed, waiting for sleep to consume you when a knock comes from your door. You try to ignore it but the knocking continues. The only thing that gets you up is the realization that the knocking is too loud to be from your door. Opening your eyes, you realize that someone is at your window. 

Getting up, you pick up your pepper spray as you slowly walk towards the window. You have your curtains closed so you try to peek past them to see who is there

Who you see is Nightwing and it gets you worried. Does he think you were involved with that other person? He must have seen that the thief stabbed you at least

Not wanting to make the vigilant wait, you open your window slightly. Only enough so you can hear what Nightwing has to say

Nightwing happily greets you and shows you the bag of items that you left behind when leaving the scene.

Surprised, you thank Nightwing and open the window. Making sure to not open the window more than necessary, just enough to collect the bags

Just as you reach for it, the vigilante points out your bandaged shoulder. He goes on to say the importance of properly handling injuries and offers to rebandage your arm.

It takes you a couple of moments before you agree to his help.

Like a big brother, he sits you down and redoes the bandages. Honestly, it makes you wish your actual big brothers would care for you in this way. Even though one of them is right in front of you

Once your shoulder has properly been bandaged, you thank Nightwing for his help. He offers to stay the night but you tell him that you’d be fine. Plus, doesn’t he still have to take care of Bludhaven

You make sure to close and lock your window once Nightwing leaves before going back to bed.  As sleep consumes you, your whole family watches from a distance. You didn’t seem to recognize Dick as Nightwing so it may be possible to get you to trust them before taking you home

[suiana]

(yandere! zombie x gn! survivor reader) (im such a youtube shorts kid bruh this idea came to me because of a video i watched)

did you know that zombies retain their habits from when they were humans?

well you sure as hell do now, because why is your annoying neighbour still following you around?? he's literally fucking rotting???

"shoo! go away!"

you hiss at him, shooting a rubber band at him before quickly climbing up a tree. phew, you wouldn't be bothered by him from here. it's been like this for a few days now, your undead neighbour following you around as you did your best to survive in this ruined world.

you never really liked him, your neighbour that is. he's always been that one weird guy that keeps annoying you ever since he moved in. constantly knocking on your door and asking to have meals together, to getting to and from work at the same times as you... you're so sure that he was stalking you. how could it ever be a coincidence that he just somehow knew when you were going out and coming back from work?

but now you wouldn't ever know and it's not like you wanted to know anyway. ignorance is bliss after all. oh! he's also very stubborn and it's quite apparent in his zombie form.

"bweh."

"go away!"

the zombie hits at the tree you were sitting down on as he looks up at you with what seemed to be puppydog eyes. you could only grimace at the sight before checking through your supplies. shit, you're running out of stuff.

"ugh... i'll need to scavenge for food-"

"guh!"

you raise an eyebrow at your undead admirer before humming. right, you suppose it isn't that bad that you have him around... he gives you stuff that's useful and scares away other mobs (you think he eats them if they get too close to you). you would've actually coddled him like a dog if he wasn't trying to get into your pants or kiss you every second.

"thanks."

you lean forward and snatch the bad of chips from his rotting hands before stuffing it into your bag. mn, you could probably have that for your lunch and dinner tomorrow.

"let's see... i need to find a good place to sleep tonight."

"bwa! buh beh!"

your zombie immediately starts scratching at the tree bark before jutting his lower lip. huh...

"no, i'm not sleeping in your apartment."

"gah!"

you think you're starting to understand zombie language because why are you holding full on conversations with him??

"don't give me that face. you know our apartment complex is riddled with zombies. i don't want to be turned."

"kh... gur! rh..."

"you think i'm trusting you? i swear i saw our old neighbour lurking around there and he was an olympic sprinter."

you shake your finger at the zombie before sighing softly. why did this apocalypse have to happen? things were going great for you before this. you just had a raise and you were so close to landing a date with your hot boss!

if you didn't know any better you'd have thought that your little zombie admirer was the one who kickstarted this zombie apocalypse because of his jealousy. what did he work as before he turned? a scientist?

"tn... jhn... ngh..."

"don't act all sassy with me right now. it's not like i want to sleep in your place to begin with. you'd probably lock me in there with you and i'd be trapped."

"bah!"

rolling your eyes at the sassy undead man, you rest against the trunk of the tree and shut your eyes. might as well get some rest before setting off again.

"i'm going to rest now. help me keep an eye out."

"kah kah. jah?"

"no, i won't kiss you. and no, i most certainly won't reward you with myself. you're rotting, damnit! how many times do i have to tell you that?"

"ui..."

what in the sassy zombie apocalypse have you gotten yourself into?

[slytherinslut0]

SLYTHERINSLUT0’S RIDDLEMAS

dec 23rd. tom riddle — wet dreams, house rivals.

RIDDLEMAS MASTERLIST. I 2024

summary: tom’s been infiltrating your dreams, and you decide it’s time to call him out on it.

warnings: 18+, SMUT MDNIIII, coercion!!!!, dark!tom, mind manipulation, religious undertones, gryffindor!reader, enemies if you squint, fingering, squirting, begging, dream sex, tom riddle is his own warning, so much praise, dirty talk, verbal sparring.

You've never been a heavy sleeper. Even as a child, the smallest sound—a creak in the floorboards, a shift in the walls—would jolt you awake. For years, you chalked it up to some ingrained survival instinct, some form of trauma response to whatever part of your childhood still haunts you. You got used to it.

But lately, it isn't sound that’s been waking you. It isn't movement or foundation shifts, either. It's the dreams.

Dreams—strange, lucid, intense dreams of him. Always him. Dreams that make you feel like you're drowning, like you're flying, like you've found a new level of intoxication that you'd never imagined possible—and each time the dreams wake you up, the sheets (and whatever bottoms you may have been wearing) are always soaked, and your thighs are always shaking.

It's maddening.

They feel too real to be anything but a violation, his presence bleeding into your subconscious regardless of how much you try to fight it. You know it means something is wrong. You'd tried to rationalize yourself into going back to sleep, telling yourself it's just hormones or some form of stress, but you're too smart to believe your own excuses.

You know it's more than that.

He's haunting you in your sleep—in the most unexpected way. The dreams are always lucid enough that you can feel it—you can feel him—his mouth on yours, his hands on your hips, his dick bullying your fucking cervix and his magic on your clit—leaving behind nothing but hunger. Hunger that's so intense it makes you want him in a way it almost scares you.

You tell yourself you hate him, you've always hated him—but denial only lasts for so many days, as you realize you can't look at him or talk to him without the dreams forcing their way to the forefront of your mind, making you remember the feelings and the sensations and how much, despite hating him, you want them to be real.

You wanted to believe it would pass. That this was nothing but a phase, a trick of your overactive mind. But deep down, you knew the truth. Tom Riddle has wormed his way into your head, into your dreams—out of spite—and he's not letting go.

So after a hell of a week of this—with damn near zero hours of sleep—you decide to seek him out. To put an end to this madness. Once and for all.

It takes every ounce of courage and Gryffindor-like reckless bravery you can scrape together just to go through with it, but somehow you do. Somehow, you make it across the castle, make it to his door. You're in your pyjamas, for Merlin's sake. It's 1 a.m., and the slick still coating your thighs from what had to have been your tenth lucid orgasm in a matter of a week is a humiliating reminder of why you're even here at all.

And when the door opens, you have the strange feeling that he's been expecting you, even as he makes a great show of acting surprised to see you, looking you up and down with a lazy, smug glance that makes your pulse quicken so viscerally you lose the last shred of sanity you were pathetically clinging to—

"What the fuck—" you prowl forward without hesitation, forcing him a step back into the room. "—are you doing to me?"

Even if you're not imagining some form of surprise in that smug little smirk, he does his best not to let it show.

"Me?" He says, all pretend innocence, flicking his hand out to shut the door behind you with some spell you don't care to name. "You'll have to be more specific."

You glare at him, refusing to acknowledge how unfairly attractive he looks in just sweatpants and an oversized shirt—because of course, even casual looks like this are a weapon in his arsenal.

"Cut the bullshit, Riddle," you snap, and you're not sure if it's your lack of sleep or some form of desperation-fuelled bravery, but you're suddenly invading his personal space, poking an accusing finger into his shoulder. "You're fucking haunting me—"

He blinks. "I’m haunting you. And how am I doing that?”

There's a part of you that knows it's a trap—that this is probably exactly what the smug bastard in front of you has been wanting, but your brain is so deprived of sleep and your body is so starved of respite that you decide 'fuck it'—you want answers, and you're going to get them.

"You're in my dreams," you say, bluntly, forcing an exhale alongside it. "You've been in them every night for a week straight. I haven't slept a bloody minute."

That's when it happens—the tiniest flash of amusement in his eyes, so brief you might've missed it if you weren't ready to tear his fucking throat out.

"You're accusing me of giving you dreams?" He asks, in a tone that makes you want to grab him by the front of his shirt and make him cut the bullshit, and you can't tell how much of your own expression is irritation and how much is lust. "You think I've somehow managed to invade your mind?"

"Don't be condescending," you spit, trying to focus on the spot between his eyebrows that makes the heat in your core roar the least, "and don't act like you're incapable. As much as I can't bloody stand you, we both know damn well your mind magic is strong enough to do this to me—"

"Mind magic," he echoes with an amused snort, "you think I'm doing some kind of mind magic to invade your dreams, is that it?"

He's so damn good at this, you think—infuriatingly good. The way he's playing it off like the idea is absurd, completely laughable—

"Fucking precisely.” You can't hide the heat from your voice. You don't care to try. "These aren't just dreams. They're—they're strong. I feel you. Your hands, your tongue, your—"

Dick. You can't even bring yourself to say it.

And the bastard just smirks, like he's reading your mind anyway. Like he knows. That glimmer in his eyes—arrogant, insufferable—only confirms it.

"Hm," he says with something bored, running a hand through his hair. "Your subconscious—"

"It's not a bloody subconscious thing," you cut him off, uninterested in whatever bullshit he was about to feed you. "It's you. You're invading my dreams—I feel you—my body fucking feels you—"

He laughs at that. Like some sick, sadistic freak. He actually laughs—

"Listen to yourself." He says, with a mocking tone that makes you want to shove him. "Are you that desperate to hate me that you're pinning your dreams on me?"

"Hate doesn't even begin to cover it," you spit, stepping closer, your frustration boiling over. He shifts slightly, his back brushing the wall. "You've got a hell of an ego, but even you have to know this isn't something I'd want. I wouldn't put you in my dreams willingly if you paid me to do it—"

He hums, smirk never faltering, if anything it fucking grows at the tirade.

"You've been dreaming of me for a week," he points out, coolly, as if this is the most casual conversation in the world. "And now, here you are—standing in my dorm in the middle of the night, dressed like this." He takes a step toward you, now. "Do you know what that's called, sweetheart?"

Your lungs hitch at the pet name. Your mind is at war with your cunt and it's losing—

"Delirium?" You choke out, noticing another flash of something in his eyes as the gap between you closes. "Insomnia? Sleep deprivation?"

He gives you a mocking arch of the eyebrow.

"No," he says, in a tone that makes you seethe. "It's called obsession."

"Oh. The irony," you can't help but hiss at him, heart pounding because he's in your space and you're in his and this shouldn't be getting to you the way it is. "It's rich, coming from you, that you'd put that on me when—when you've been mindfucking me every goddamn night—"

"Mindfucking you?" He repeats, almost lazily, as his gaze drops, sweeping over you—your pyjamas, the clear lack of bra, the flush creeping up your neck. "Is that what you think I've been doing? You think—"

The way he doesn't even deny it—doesn't argue the accusation—makes your blood boil in a way you can't control.

"It's the only explanation. You've been—you've been—" you cut him off but your sentence falters because his gaze is moving so deliberately, dragging over you like he's cataloging your weaknesses, and the anger curdles into something raw and desperate. "God, Tom, I just need it to stop. I'm so fucking tense and tired. I'm so wound I can't even focus—I'm wet all the time—"

His eyes snap up to meet yours at that, and he gives you a look you can't even begin to interpret. You bite your tongue, realizing the words that left your mouth just a moment too late to pull them back, and you know you've lost the upper hand in this, somehow. You feel the ground slipping from under you and you hate the way your body shivers as he takes another slow, deliberate, step forward.

"Is that what you are?” He wets his lips. "You've come all the way here, in the dead of night, in your pyjamas, half out of your mind with exhaustion because you're wet. Isn't that right?"

You know better than to answer, though you feel yourself walking straight into the trap he's set.

"Piss off," you snap, but the bravado in your voice is paper-thin as he takes another step forward. He's so close now that his scent overwhelms you—leather and spice, something sharp and smoky that makes your head spin. You recognize it, of course you do; it's the same as in your dreams, and the familiarity makes your knees feel unsteady. "You're—"

"Don't act so offended," he leans closer, his voice a low murmur, quiet, almost silky as it wraps around you, and suddenly you barely remember what you were so pissed off about. "You can't even deny it. I made you cum tonight, didn't I? In your dreams."

Your teeth grit. "You know you did—"

He takes one more step and now you're backed right up against his desk—and gods, Tom's tall, so much taller than you—and it feels like he's looming over you, caging you in.

"Mhm." There's a flash of triumph in his eyes as you lose your words. He leans down, breath grazing your ear just as he brings two fingers to your temple, pressing the pads against it. "Let's watch, shall we?"

Watc—oh no.

A cold sense of dread washes over you as you catch on to what he's insinuating, merely a second too late—

"Tom—"

He whispers something, something that pulls you under, and the next thing you know—in a flash of consciousness you didn't even consider possible—you're staring at yourself inside a dream you remember all too well. A dream sequence where you're moaning and trembling beneath him, your head thrown back, eyes rolling in unabashed pleasure as he drives into you, hips snapping with thrust after thrust after thrust—

And it's one thing to have felt it in the safety of your dreams, in the dead of night when you woke slick and desperate, clenching around nothing. But this—this is visceral. You can't look away because it's projecting inside your mind: the flush blooming across your chest, the arch of your back, the way your lips part with every desperate breath. You hear the obscene sounds spilling from your mouth, mingling with his low, guttural grunts—and worst of all, you can feel it.

You can feel every ounce of pleasure he's giving you, as if he's giving it to you now.

"Mm," you hear him hum from infront of you—it's too much—you're lost in the memory, the dream, and it's a strange, voyeuristic, intimate experience to watch yourself and him like that. "You're worse off than I thought."

You’re gripping the wood of his desk so hard your fingertips are numb, heart flying out of the room as his hand slowly slides from your temple down to your jaw, holding you in place—

"Stop it." You manage to hiss at him, trying to force some semblance of control back into yourself—the last thing you need is to start melting against this bastard. "Tom—"

"You feel that?" He murmurs, breath brushing your neck, and you can't even focus on anything but the sensations he's forcing through your memory—seeing him above you, feeling him inside you. "You do, don't you? This is exactly what you've been feeling all week, isn't it?"

You want to snap at him, cuss him out, but oh god—

"Damn you," you hiss, even as his hands slide down to your hips—and it almost feels as if he's touching you twice, as if there are two sets of hands on your body. "Fuck, Tom—"

"Mm, you look good from this angle," he murmurs, and you fucking keen as you watch, in your mind, his hands slide over your stomach, pushing up your shirt and exposing your tits, groping as he fucks you. You keen as you feel it. "You love this, don't you? You want this."

"I—" you gasp, trying to convince him, or yourself, or goddamn anyone. Still fighting some invisible battle between resistance and submission because you hate that he's right. "I—god, what are you doing to me—"

"What am I doing to you?" He whispers, and you're not sure if the question is rhetorical, or if he's giving you permission to ask it. "I'm not doing anything that you aren't letting me do."

Your knees feel like they're about to buckle, and it's taking all your strength just to stay standing because the pleasure playing out in your mind is pouring into your veins and you can't even fathom how it's possible but you can't do anything to fight it—

"Oh, god—" you moan, unbridled, your physical body slumping back onto the desk as you feel the slick between your thighs, growing with every goddamn thrust. "Oh my god—"

He takes the opportunity of you slumped back against the desk and instantly leans down, bringing his lips to your ear—

"Not even god could keep your legs underneath you." His hand creeps up your thigh. "You're helpless."

"Helpless," you repeat, with a shaky gasp, and you hate how much the word turns you on. This is the first time you've ever been called helpless, and you're not even sure that you care. He's got you in his clutches, he's winning, and it's so infuriating and so goddamn perfect. “Tom—please, please touch me. I need to—fuck—"

You feel his lips brush the skin of your neck in a way that has you trembling with want, but—fucking hell, that's not what you need—you need his hands on you, you need him to just—

"What do you need?" He cooes, and there's a sly tone to his voice that makes you want to throw yourself at him all over again. "You need to cum?"

You moan, low and needy, writhing against the desk because this fucker—he knows exactly what he's doing. He’s got the upper hand here and you want it back. You want—

"Yes," you manage to gasp out. "I need you to—I fucking need you—inside me—"

As soon as that leaves your mouth, the dream fades from your vision and he's urging you to lay back. There's a soft thud as he places a hand on the desk next to your head, and he leans down, bringing his lips back to your ear, and you can't remember a time when you've ever wanted anyone else this bad.

"I'm touched," he murmurs, fingers slipping to the waist band of your pyjama pants, "that you want me that bad."

"I hate you," you manage to gasp out, but that's a lie, and you think he knows it. His fingers on your skin as he pulls your pants down make you ache for him, and you're struggling to not make another sound that will give him ammunition. "Why do you have to—"

"Why do I have to what?" He asks, and you know he's just trying to get a reaction out of you. "Tease you? Make you helpless?"

Your pants get hardly half way down your thighs before he decides it's enough and slides a finger through your soaked slit, and you can't hold back the moan that tears itself from your throat.

"Fuck, you're soaked.” He hisses through his teeth. “You've been sitting in your dorm for days, hm? Dreaming of me touching you, wishing you could touch yourself without thinking of me—do you want to cum, sweetheart?"

"Yes," you gasp out, and you're not above begging at this point. "Yes, god, please—I want to fucking cum—"

"There we go," he cooes, and he's enjoying this more than you'd like to acknowledge. "You know how long I've been waiting to hear you say that?"

"I'd say at least a week," you throw back, in a vain attempt to keep a shred of your dignity, but that's hard when he's circling his fingers around your clit and your body is jerking against the desk beneath you. God you really are helpless. "Because that's how long you've been plaguing my head, giving me wet dreams like some goddamn incubus—"

He chuckles at that, and you hate him a little less when he slips two fingers inside you, "You think I'm a demon?"

"You certainly act like one," you choke out, because he's crooking his fingers and your mind is going fuzzy and he's not going to let you get the upper hand back, even for a second. "Fuck—oh, yes, yes, yes."

"You've got me all wrong," he says, with a smile that would be boyish if it wasn't so sinister. "Demons come to punish you. I'm here helping you get that relief you've been needing so badly."

"Just want t-to help me," you moan as his long fingers work you open, thumb brushing your clit, "out of the kindness of your heart—"

"Out of the kindness of my heart,” he repeats, with a mocking tone, and it's the way he murmurs those words that's making your thighs clench around him until he grabs the fabric of your pjs bunched around them and pushes your legs up to your chest, working his fingers impossibly deeper. "Out of the goodness of my soul—it's what I do, darling, I'm known for my benevolence—"

"You're a good man," you know he can tell you're being sarcastic, but his fingers are filling you so fucking full you're nowhere near ready to start a fight again when you're this close to losing your goddamn mind on his desk. "You're such a good man, Tom—“

"Mhm," his breath tickles your ear. "What else am I?"

"So good with your fingers," you're moaning, and he's going to get a bigger ego than he already has. You're too far gone to care. "God, you're so good, I'm going to—"

"Yes, you are," he answers, and it takes you a second to realize that he's not correcting your words anymore. He's simply telling you that you are, in fact, about to fall apart for him. "Give it to me. You've earned it."

You almost want to snap back at him, you almost try to, but you're so far gone the words don't form on your tongue and you're not sure you'd be able to fight the fire pooling in your stomach.

"Oh, fuck—“

He doesn't even let you finish that, he just dips his hips down, bringing his hand that's not buried in your slick up to cover your mouth, muffling those strangled screams before they spill out and echo down the hall—

"That's it," he murmurs, his voice a low hum against your skin. "Be a good girl. Let it all out for me."

And it's that; that stupid combination of cooing warmth and the phrase 'be a good girl' that sends you over the edge, and you're muffling your gasps and moans and screams against his palm because gods, what would happen if someone heard you? What would happen if people realized what Tom Riddle was doing to you—your house rival, your sworn enemy—

"There we go," you're falling apart and he's watching you as if he owns you, as if this is where you belong—writhing beneath him, release squirting out around his fingers. "Ride it out for me. Such a good girl, you needed this so bad, I can tell you were aching for this."

You're struggling to say anything back, the only thing that comes out is a strangled moan of his name, and you've always known how bad he was, heard from other girls how good he could be with his hands, but this—you've never had this, never been this before.

"Such a fucking mess," he's murmuring, his voice low and rough and so goddamn beautiful. “How'd that feel? Hm?"

"So—so good," it feels like the words are being forced out of your throat, and you're struggling to think with enough clarity to form anything that's not an embarrassing moan of how much you needed this. "Needed it, need more, I—"

"More?" He murmurs as he slips his fingers free, and he's bringing his other hand up to your jaw, forcing you to look at him as he brings his soaked fingers to your lips. "Greedy girl."

You're not thinking about the implication of him calling you that, you're not thinking about how you should fight back, you're not thinking about how much you hate him—you’re just thinking about the sinful taste of you on his fingers, when they press against your tongue. Without a second of hesitation you suck them clean, tasting yourself, and it's obscene. You're obscene. But you don't care, it just makes that ache in you grow worse—you need more, you need him.

Dear god, what happened to you.

“So good," he murmurs, the praise dripping like honey from his tongue. You hum and he exhales. "I'll find you tomorrow."

"You'll find me tomorrow?" You repeat, as he withdraws his fingers from your mouth, and you're struggling for air, your chest heaving beneath your rumpled shirt. "What are you going to do, come into my room?"

"I'll come into much more than your room," he says, with a laugh that dances with promises of sin. "Now go. Before someone finds you here."

You push yourself up on trembling arms, pulling your pants up your thighs, your heart hammering in your chest because—god, that was incredible, you want more of it, and you can hardly even believe it happened. With a breath, you force yourself to move.

You look back at him as you get to the door. Your legs are shaking and you're not going to hold it against yourself for needing the wall to support you as his eyes rake over you, the corners of those lips curled up his signature smirk, and you want to hit him so goddamn bad—but then he speaks, like he read your mind, and it snaps you out of it—

"No dreams tonight." He says. "Scouts honour."

"You're no boy scout," you throw back, and your voice is a little breathier than you'd like. "And this changes nothing."

He smiles, slow and languid and knowing. "Of course."

You want to roll your eyes at the condescension dripping off his tongue, but you're worried that if you stay here any longer the only words on your tongue will be 'do it again'.

"You just owe me." You say as you crack the door open.

"I owe you," he agrees, and you think that his smile is just a little too genuine—like he would give you anything you wanted, just for another taste of that. “I'm keeping score, darling. Sleep well."

You hate him for calling you that, you hate his stupid smile, you hate the way he knows he's got you.

What he doesn’t know, is that you’re going to make him pay.

"Good night," you mutter, and then you open the door and slip out into the hallway.

[toast-on-dandelioms]

🕷️Just Another Neglected Story 🕷️

[previous] - Part 4.2 - [next]

I will add here the rest of the tag list, sorry for having to divide it into two

Clark immediately grabbed the door and punched it right in the middle of it, making a hole to which he used to grab the door off its hinges and throw it away, not caring about anything but Spider's wellbeing. 

He was the first one to enter the room, looking around to see if Joker was still there so he could kill the bastard who dared to hurt his child. 

Bruce was the second to enter and immediately walked around to find the vigilante, stopping to stare in silence at the cold body of Joker stuck on the wall. 

He checked for a pulse, not too worried about the clown but needed to see if he was worth saving, letting out a small sigh when he felt no pulse. 

He sighed once again, mostly out of anger since he wanted to be the one to kill the man who dared to hurt his child (Spider), before starting to worry that if Spider knew that they killed a man, he didn't know how they would react to the news. 

He quickly looked away and went back to search for the teen, now even more worried about their wellbeing, especially when Clark told him that he could hear their heartbeat but it was incredibly slow, which meant that he couldn't find them immediately.

As he looked around the room, he kept on getting angrier as he saw drops of blood from fighting and some weapons and bullets that Joker probably used on Spider since they were all covered in blood. 

As he searched around he heard Superman call for him and quickly ran up to him, finding a gravely injured Spider with their mask ripped off and full of bruises on their face and body. 

Their body was also covered in bruises and wounds made from Joker, their ragged breath accentuating the severity of their injuries. 

He gently called them using their vigilante name since no one knew their real name, sighing in relief when Spider opened their eyes to look at him and hissed at him, not recognising him or Clark because of their injuries and how scared they were. 

They calmed down after Clark gently called out to them and got in their line of vision then started talking with a broken voice as their eyes filled with tears, the words having to be repeated because of how much Spider sobbed and gasped from the pain of their injuries. 

"h-he kept laughing and hitting me after a weird gas poured in the room, I d-didn't want to hurt him but I punched him out of desperation, h-he's been so silent and I-I don't know if he's even alive, I'm so sorry". 

He set a hand on their head after taking off the rest of their mask to help them see better and just told them, with a soft voice that even Clark was a bit taken aback, "you did good kid, I'm sorry you had to fight alone" as he knew what Joker was capable of and was glad Spider survived and was able to fight back. 

He instructed Superman to pick them up and fly back to the Manor, using his own cape to cover Spider's body to protect them from the harsh winds while Clark was flying, letting Conner follow him so he could call Tim and get Alfred to prepare the medbay. 

He then turned to Jason and Stephanie with an unnerving calm face and a smile that the two took a step back in fear of what he was planning since Batman was never calm, especially if someone he cares about gets hurt. And he was smiling, which meant it was bad news and to not try to stop him. 

He quickly walked towards the three heroes in front of him and put a hand on both Stephanie and Jason's shoulder and said in a weirdly cheerful voice "who wants to help Batman burn down the place and all the people who dared to hurt Spider?". 

Not that Bruce was asking for their help, he just wanted it to be done faster so he could go home to Spider. In a normal case he would make it slow for whoever tried to hurt his child but this time he couldn't stop to enjoy the pain of the leader that was still in the room. 

He gave both of his kids a set of bombs to put all around the bunker, telling them to not care about anyone and just place the bombs around while he took care of the leader. 

He grabbed the makeshift throne from the pedestal it was put on and dragged it in the center of the room, not even caring about the noise the chair was making. 

He then grabbed the passed out cultist and threw him on the throne, using some handcuffs to hold him there so he wouldn't escape if things got bloody. 

Not that he wouldn't mind if things got bloody, he needed to relieve some stress after what happened to Spider and fortunately for him, that cultist was there and he needed to ask some questions.

He stared at the still passed out cultist and grabbed some smelling salts from his utility belt before snapping them under the cultist nose, a smirk appearing on his face when the cultist woke up and was scared when he saw him. 

He wanted him to be scared, god just seeing how scared he was while trying to free himself from the cuffs on both arms and legs was incredibly satisfying, especially to what he wanted to do to him. 

He roughly grabbed the cultist’s face to make him look directly at him, wanting all of his attention to ask his questions and slowly leaned down to look him right in the eyes. 

“Now I am gonna ask you a few questions, if you tell me the truth I will let you walk out of this room alive but if you lie..”

He didn't finish the sentence and let the fear and the realization of what he meant wash over the cultist face, enjoying every second of it and he wanted him to be scared. 

He let go of his face after a bit, a small smirk on his face when he saw the imprints of his fingers by how hard he squeezed his face. 

“Why was Joker here? That clown never worked with cultists before” 

He stayed silent as he watched the man hang his head low, starting to get even more angry when he didn't immediately answer. 

He took a small step back in shock when he suddenly heard a laugh, very similar to the laugh Joker always had whenever he fought that clown. 

His face was in shock when the cultist raised his head and showed the same maniac smile the clown always had, making him think that the ghost of Joker possessed the man, especially since the man just kept on laughing. 

“Batman, the world's greatest detective, can't figure out something so simple! The trap wasn't for you, or even one of your many sidekicks!”

The man kept on laughing before suddenly stopping, his smile still on his face as he stared at Batman right in the eyes. 

“It was for your little metahuman that started to clean the streets, everything here was for that annoying vigilante and leaving a message for you” 

He laughed again when he saw the shock in Batman’s face, not even minding the handcuffs on both arms and legs as he moved them while laughing like a maniac. 

“Everyone noticed your obsession for them, how all of your sidekicks kept on following them and getting rejected or thrown off a roof. You're not so secretive Batman and we just used them to send you a message” 

Bruce just stared at the cultist laughing before grabbing a gun that Jason gave him and just shot the cultist in the face, using all the bullets inside the magazine. (The thing that holds bullets inside the gun if you don't know)

He stopped when the gun didn't shoot anymore and walked out the room, his eyes filled with fury at the thought that other rogues and villains in Gotham wanted to hurt Spider.

As he walked around the bunker to get to the exit, he killed anyone who tried to attack him or was in his way, not even caring about his no-kill rule or how the blood kept splattering on his suit. 

He finally got out of the bunker, noticing both Jason and Stephanie near Conner’s ship and just gave them a nod before getting in his own jet, waiting until the bunker exploded before taking off. 

He put the coordinates to the batcave and flew as fast as his jet could, wanting to get to the Batcave as fast as he could, his mind going over so many scenarios of Spider dying because of him whenever Alfred or anyone else in the cave didn't answer his calls that he was starting to get a panic attack at the thought of Spider dying because he was too late to save them. 

When he finally arrived at the cave he basically jumped out the jet as it was landing and ran to the medbay, taking off his mask in the meantime as he didn't need it and having it on was like a reminder of the hatred that Spider has for that symbol. 

As he ran, he ignored both of the Kryptonians still in the cave, not caring about their presence as he was more focused on making sure Spider was ok. 

He arrived just in time because he saw Alfred walk out the medbay while taking off the surgical gloves and robes covered in blood and was throwing them away in a nearby bin. 

He quickly walked up to the old man and started to ask a barrage of questions, ranging to what's the situation with Spider to how were they holding up and if they were alive and didn't have anything that would make them unable to move or do certain tasks. 

He stopped talking when Alfred raised a hand to signal silence and listened as he explained:

"Their condition is stable - for now. Their wounds were.. severe to put it bluntly, Master Bruce. They sustained a multitude of near-fatal injuries from Joker. Fixing 2 broken bones in both arms, a fractured rib and stitching  3 stab wounds that, luckily, didn't pierce any of their organs is no small feat, consider it a miracle they are even alive."

He paused for a brief moment, almost as if to re-evaluate in his head.

"If my assessment is correct, they should be up and running in 5 days thanks to their increased healing rate, 8, maybe 9 if they were to refuse any medication." 

Bruce nodded and turned to Dick and Duke who were near the room where Spider was resting at the moment.

He started to talk with Duke and Dick about the situation, sighing in relief when both Clark and Conner left because Tim managed to convince them that if they stayed it wouldn't really help since Spider was still unconscious and they could come visit after Spider wakes up. 

When both Jason and Stephanie arrived he started to explain, to who didn't know, the situation with Spider before getting interrupted by Dick yelling out. 

“I call dibs to share my room with them!” 

His chest heaved in a quick rhythm as he finished his sentence, the words still just teetering on the tip of his tongue from how rushed his speech was, a big smirk on his face as everyone else glared at him. 

Bruce sighed when he saw his kids were ready to fight to share a room with Spider, even though he also wanted to share his own room to make sure Spider was ok if they stayed next to him the whole time they were recovering. 

Unfortunately he needed to be the voice of reason at the moment and said.

“Spider won’t be sharing a room with anyone, they’re weak right now and waking up with one of us in a new place will overwhelm them too much. They’ll get their own room.”

He smiled when everyone grumbled but nodded, glad that no one was gonna contest him on this decision. 

But the moment of happiness didn't last long since after not even 2 minutes Damian raised his hand and yelled out. 

“I wish to call dibs to be the first one to meet Spider when they wake in a room in the mansion” 

After Damian yelled that out, everyone started to fight to be the second person to be with Spider when they wake up and to also choose which room Spider was gonna be the next to. 

Alfred stayed silent for a bit as he listened intently, forced to hear his son discuss about Spider staying in the Manor when they already live there.

He tried to stay calm as he listened, keep his composure and remain civil. But hearing both Bruce and the others call Spider by their vigilante name and not their real name, even after seeing their face, made his blood boil - he knew that he couldn't wait anymore. 

The things Spider had been subjected to and the injuries they suffered as a result, and how the Bats had reacted upon seeing their face- not understanding they were their sibling and child made him so unfathomably frustrated and enraged at the people he'd raised and cared for. Bruce was still discussing with Damian allowing Spider to sleep in the room next to his so he could show them all of his animals as Alfred silently walked over to him.

He decided to stop waiting for his kids to finally realize that Spider was, in fact, [Y/N]. 

His attempts thus far had proved unsuccessful, even after all the small things he put around the house for them to notice. He knew they were a lost cause if they didn't get the hint after all he did so he just walked up to Bruce who was busy trying to convince Damian to not let Titus or anyone else of his pets inside Spider’s room. 

He waited patiently for Bruce to stop talking, since it is impolite to interrupt someone while they're talking, and called out his name. 

"Master Bruce." 

Which got him a simple hand wave, signaling that he was busy. The dismissive action made him annoyed that he wouldn't listen, but he tried once more.

"Mast-”

But he was interrupted by Bruce's sharp hand wave and a scoff yet again, the man obviously frustrated by Damian and Jason, since the two were now arguing about who Spider was going to be placed next to in terms of rooms. 

He was fed up of being ignored and interrupted by everyone around him, raising his hands before clapping them together with an angry look on his face that garnered the attention of the entire room, the normally alive and bubbling room screeching to a halt in a wonderful blend of terror and surprise since Alfred was almost never mad. His glare danced around the room, shooting at each individual face before settling on Bruce's similarly surprised expression. 

Then he began his exasperated speech in an eerily calm voice.

"Honestly, Master Bruce, I can't believe I raised you to be like this. I gave you all enough many chances to make it right, let you take your time figuring it out, but it seems like you cannot even put enough thought into noticing the blatant hints and information I have given you, I could have written it in bold red ink on my forehead and you would still turn a blind eye. I am so far beyond disappointed in all of you that there is no word in the English dialect that could possibly encapsulate just how much you have let me down."

He raised a hand to stop Dick and Damian from talking and trying to defend themselves, or shifting the blame onto someone else in the group. 

"I have been patient and understanding with all of you and your behavior towards [Y/N], but after what happened today with Joker, I cannot sit idly by and continue to allow myself to pretend as if your disgraceful behavior is acceptable. You have run my tolerance and composure thin, so much so I cannot even fathom being quite so lenient anymore."

He stopped once again to level his glare at Bruce before shifting it briefly to Damian, knowing what the kid did to [Y/N] when they first arrived at the Manor.

"Spider's secret identity is [Y/N] Lawrence, also known as [Y/N] Wayne to me, and who is your child Master Bruce. Your child got bit by a mutated spider while working in a science lab, of which they had informed me, but your blatant ignorance is not even the worst part." 

As he walked up to Bruce and put a finger on his chest, his footsteps seemed so loud and deafening that some of the individuals in the room had to refrain from covering their ears. Alfred prodded Bruce's chest accusingly as if he was trying to physically reach his heart, despite his doubts that the man could even feel it. 

"The worst part is that you all ignored that poor child who lost their mother and came to us seeking help. They needed a family and stability after their supposed 'loved ones' shut the door in their face, and yet they couldn't even find that here. Your child could have lost their life today, they could have been taken to hospital only for us to be told they are unable to be saved, you could have been called to the morgue to confirm the body is theirs. And yet I don't think you would have been able to name their corpse."

He paused for a brief second to regain his composure ever so slightly, turning his attention to the others in the room.

"They learned gymnastics for you, Master Dick. Just so that you two could have something in common to talk about.  However, you always ditched them for Master Tim or Master Damian whenever they begged you to do something with them."

He glanced at Jason and the others who were standing there, wanting to make sure his kids knew how bad they messed up. He also ignored how destroyed Dick and Bruce looked when they realized and remembered what they said and did to [Y/N].

"They spent days in the library reading your favorite books Master Jason and even learned about guns and the maintenance for one whenever you visited to be close to you. They were the one who left candies out for you and always made a new pot of coffee for you whenever you drank it all master Tim.”

He then glared at Damian, knowing what the young boy did to the poor vigilante, now resting in the med bay. 

"After losing their mother, they were ecstatic about the idea of having a younger brother but you, Master Damian, thought they wanted to steal your place as Robin when they didn't even know your identity. But did you even stop to consider how horrifically you were treating a child that you were supposed to be protecting?"

Alfred paused his talking to lean down and look Damian in the eyes, making sure the boy's gaze wouldn't drift away. 

"No you didn't. You instead abused that child and made them so frightened and anxious about living near you that I had to move them to the other side of the Manor and serve them food in their room so they wouldn't starve to death. Despite your treatment of them, you didn't seem to care about the consequences of your actions, did you Master Damian?" 

He leaned back and stared at everyone, an exhausted yet somewhat pleased little smile appearing on his face when he saw the horrified moment-of-realization expressions on display as the weight of their treatment of [Y/N] came crashing down on their shoulders.

His gaze turned to Stephanie, Duke and Cassandra who were in the back of the group. Stephanie's voice was hoarse and trembling as her uneven sobbing filled the air, the realization as to why Spider always ignored and looked so annoyed when seeing her hitting her like a freight train. 

He stayed silent as he watched everyone realize what they’ve done before Duke, who was a bit busy trying to calm down Stephanie who was still crying, asked out loud. 

“Wait, then where is Spi- I mean, [Y/N]’s room?” 

To which Alfred sighed but led everyone, except Stephanie and Cassandra, who stayed behind to help Stephanie calm down and also make sure Spider would be ok in the medbay. 

As they all walked they noticed the way the corridor that led to [Y/N]’s room was very dark, like all the lightbulbs were taken off every chandelier to hide something. 

When they finally arrived the first thing that was noticed was the door almost completely covered in stickers and little kids drawing, along with an empty plate on a small table next to the door. 

Alfred stopped in front of the door before looking at everyone behind him, annoyed at their obvious hesitation at entering [Y/N]’s room but eventually grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, finally opening the room. 

The room is small.

As soon as they set foot inside, only two of them because not all of them fit, the feeling given by the room is almost claustrophobic. 

Being small by nature, the bed and objects make the room even more restricted, almost unbreathable. The mess does not fail to compensate for the effect; it is full of sheets of paper, fabric,  and metal constructions everywhere.

It is very admirable that [Y/N] managed to make gold out of every corner of the room, making it livable despite their spider "work". All the constructions and planning have even come to be hung from the ceiling.

Duke stayed a little to the side, but still took into account all the details of the room; like all the posters that cover the room. An almost spontaneous smile appeared on his face as soon as he realized that they are all about him as Signal, the thought of [Y/N] being a fan of his work made him happy and also proud of himself.

As everyone looked around, Dick raised his arm to grab the only sheet of paper that was hanging only on one side, being held by a web that basically crumbled when Dick tugged the paper off of it. But no matter how much he tries to decipher what is written, he really doesn't understand anything even though he knows many languages, dead and still used thanks to Bruce’s training.

Each paper everyone grabbed had a different topic written on it before being thrown around the room and attached to the wall or ceiling via webs. Some of those papers had methods to make the costume more comfortable to move, others tested various ways to make using the web shooters in a way that they could still work if they were underwater or electrocuted, while others depicted different versions of the costume, to make it easier for a child to see it and not scare them if they ever had to see it.

One of the main things that the two men that managed to be inside the room noticed is that they basically didn't know exactly what they're looking at. It's definitely one of the few times they set foot in [Y/N's] room, and the realization that they've neglected them so badly into allowing them to pull off a whole "hero" act without ever being aware of it hits them in the face like a violent slap.

As they looked around they all saw various photos in addition to the posters and papers pinned to the wall; in these photos there are various experiences where [Y/N] was depicted, but nothing is familiar to all of them, increasing their guilt. There were photos of them at a science fair, two or three at various dance recitals, but they noticed that the arrangement of the photos seemed purposely placed; every photo where [Y/N] was depicted, their smile seemed to become duller, forced as they grew older. Their eyes began to lose more and more of that spark of joy, becoming emptier, sadder.

Dick ran his eyes over all the trophies on the shelves, the badges from every competition he never attended. He doesn't remember them; hell, he never even saw them bring any  or badge home. For all the times [Y/N] has attended something, he has never been there. He should have thought twice before excluding them so much from his life. But there's no point in crying over spilled milk. 

Above all the badges and trophies there are only two photos; certainly spacing each other by 2-3 years. In the first photo, when [Y/N] was younger, they seemed genuinely happy to hold the trophy, smiling as if they wanted to dare the sun to shine like they did. But the second photo was completely different, it's almost agony for Dick to look at that fake smile imprinted on their face, like all their excitement and joy were sucked out of them but they still needed to smile. 

When Dick finally walked out the room to make way for Jason, his face was full of regret and guilt but the man ignored him to walk inside [Y/N]’s room. 

He ignored the papers all around the room and stayed a few seconds to look at the photos before looking at the small bookshelf he noticed in the corner. 

He slowly picked up one of the books sitting on the shelf and looked at the title, a bit surprised that it was Pride and Prejudice since every time he ever talks about it to someone, they never say that they liked it and just had to read it for school. 

But he saw that the book was incredibly used and full of small sticky notes all inside it. Whenever he opened a page following a sticky note sticking out the book he always found one of the passages filled with sticky notes or notes written on the page with a pencil, making him smile at the thought of [Y/N] loving the book so much that they wrote what they thought on the pages. 

As he flipped through the pages of all the books, he kept on noticing that on his favorite paragraphs there were small notes, like small instructions on how to add those paragraphs in a conversation with him, his heart breaking at the thought of [Y/N] working so hard to just incorporate something he liked so he could like them. 

He could feel the excitement in all the notes by the way they wrote them, like you couldn't wait to see him and talk to him about it. But he knew that you two never talked much, hell he can't even remember one single conversation he had with [Y/N], making him feel even worse than before. 

As Jason kept on reading all the books in the small bookshelf, Tim got to work on their laptop that he managed to find after searching all around the room. 

As he opened the case that had [Y/N]’s laptop inside, he could see some old stickers that depicted him during his time as Red Robin, along with some cute cat stickers that covered almost the entirety of the laptop's outside. The sight made him smile, endeared by the thought of [Y/N] still liking him enough that they actually had some of his stickers on their laptop. 

After opening it up, he powered it on and copied the password off of the little scribble next to the keypad. Going through the stuff inside the laptop, he noticed a folder full of photos of all of the bats, in either an embarrassing situation or funny moments when they were inside a dumpster after [Y/N] threw them inside of one. The thought made him laugh, especially whenever he found small notes written on that photo like what their crime was as to why they ended up in a dumpster. Though Duke, Cassandra and Bruce were missing from all the photos, as if they never existed to begin with.

As he kept going through [Y/N]’s laptop, he turned to place the heavy item onto the table since it was starting to get hot from being powered on. As he pushed some items out the way to make room, he accidentally pushed the laptop case off the desk, watching as a small usb  bounced out and fell onto the floor,  sparking Tim's curiosity. What could possibly be inside of that usb?

He grabbed it and plugged it in, initially waiting patiently for it to load. His irritation grew as he watched the loading animation loop over and over and over again, almost teasingly. He made a mental note to buy [Y/N] a better laptop. Perhaps even a whole pc setup so they could play together. 

When the laptop finally gave him access to the contents of the usb, he found a multitude of videos that dated back years before [Y/N] arrived at the Manor. 

He quickly went back to the newer video in the usb and clicked on it, curious as to what these videos had captured.

Tim curiously clicked the play button on the small screen, watching as it started playing. The scene displayed that of a small child, no older than five or six, who he quickly recognised as [Y/N]. They seemed to be in a living room of sorts, though he was just assuming that based on the blurry sofa and coffee table in the background. 

He stared in surprise at the screen as they put the phone on something, probably a shelf or table, to keep it still. Tim laughed a little whenever it kept sliding over, the child's tiny yet menacing voice threatening to throw the phone as they stomped closer to it to prop it back up. This happened several times before they got the right angle. When they finally managed to get the phone to cooperate, he watched as they took a few excited steps backwards, tripping once or twice, before they smiled brightly at the camera.

"So! I just got my first role in a BIG dance recital!! I'm gonna be the uh- uhm I think it's the swan in, uh.. Swan Lake? I think that was what it's called, but anyways I don't care! I'll be a pretty swan!" 

The child twirled around in sheer joy, showing off the sparkly white ballerina outfit, the pretty pearls shimmering in the little sunlight that poured in through a nearby window and the delicate lace shifting with the movement of the dress. The excited spinning halted as [Y/N] jumped a bit upon hearing a voice called their name. As he listened to the gentle lull of the voice, Tim realized it belonged to a woman, though it was unfamiliar to him. 

He laughed when the small child ran to grab the phone, noticing that they didn't stop the recording. Instead, they just ran to the kitchen where he could see a woman standing over the counter cutting some vegetables with her back to the camera, dressed in some simple pajamas that were decorated with stars. She was shorter than average, with long brown hair that lay on her shoulder.

The young dancing prodigy shakily pointed the phone towards the woman, before asking loudly, "So, Miss Mom, are you excited about [Y/N]'s first dance recital?" Their enthusiasm radiated from their voice, bleeding into their movement as the camera just barely captured the woman's face turning and laughing softly at the young child's determined expression. Now that he had a good look at her face, Tim presumed this woman was [Y/N]'s mother based on their similar facial features. 

"So serious! Though, this isn't your first dance recital my little star, you have done many before now." She exclaimed, her shoulders shaking as she smiled brightly at her child.

"Mooooom! This is my first REAL dance recital because I have a big role now!"

As the woman playfully shook her head with a stifled chuckle, smiling down at them, she turned her head to her right, encouraging [Y/N] to follow her line of sight.

"Boris! Tell her!!"

The camera panned over to a much bigger man hunched over a cooking pot, and as he turned his head to look at the woman with a knowing smile, Tim noticed a deep gash along his cheek. No, not a gash, a scar perhaps? This baffled Tim since he knew of the existence of [Y/N]'s mother, but had no recollection of a father in their life. 

"You guyssss, I'm a freaking swan! Do you know how cool swans are?!" 

Tim chuckled softly when he heard little [Y/N] say their version of a bad word, watching with a fond smile as the woman gasped dramatically with a shocked expression while the man turned his head away as if trying to hide his laughter. 

"Little star! Where did you hear such a bad word?”

To this, little [Y/N] paused for a good few seconds before their tiny hand appeared in the frame and gestured to the man, throwing him under the bus in order to avoid punishment. 

"Boris said it earlier when the TV wouldn't work."

Tim watched with a curious smile as  the woman turned her hardened glare to the man, who gave her a nervous look. "Look it was an accident Amelie, I didn't realize [Y/N] was in the room-" The man had a slight accent, possibly Russian.

Before he could finish his sentence, the video got cut off, leaving Tim in a thoughtful silence. So [Y/N]'s mother was called Amelie? How interesting. Still, who exactly was that man?

He quickly went to the web browser on the laptop and searched for [Y/N]’s mother, which wasn't hard since the first thing that popped up were articles of her death and photos of the incident. 

As he searched more articles about her, he noticed a few things: [Y/N] was never mentioned in any of the articles that talked about Amelie during her modeling career or about her having any types of relationships.

While he searched, he did find a few photos of Amelie with Boris, easily recognisable thanks to face scars, but as he could see by the many photos taken by paparazzi and fans, Boris was always by the side looking like a bodyguard. 

Another quick research, about the man this time, and he found out that Boris was with Amelie when she was driving and died on his way to the hospital. 

Tim quickly finished searching and turned off the laptop before grabbing it along the usb to watch more videos about [Y/N], especially since he saw a small folder full of other videos that mostly depicted [Y/N] as a teen, so he wanted to see them in his room and make copies of all the videos to show the others.  

When Tim finally walked out the room along with Duke, Damian finally walked inside the small room, grimacing at the sight of the mess that [Y/N] lives in.

He promptly ignored Jason, who was still reading the books and had tears in his eyes, to focus on more important things, like searching through [Y/N]’s desk drawers and in the closet. 

In the desk drawers he didn't find much, just a few folders containing useless information and school books that Damian ignored, angry that he couldn't find anything in the folders. 

But when he searched the closet, grimacing at the poor quality of the clothes [Y/N] dared to wear that he even made a mental note to buy decent clothing for them when they woke up, he saw a few boxes at the back. 

When he opened the first one he saw a small box full of vials, all labeled with ‘web fluid’, while next to the small box were a few web shooters, at least that's what the label on all of them said. 

He grabbed them all and noticed a folder at the bottom of the box, which contained informations on how to create the web shooters thanks to the grappling hook parts and what to improve in the next model, so Damian assumed those web shooters in the box were old version that [Y/N] didn't use anymore. 

He was impressed at how neat the information in the folder was, all in order and even highlighted when something was important or not, plus small notes added with pencil or post its. 

When he finished reading the information, he put everything back in the box and set it aside to grab another box that was in the back of the closet, finding almost three, maybe four, albums of photos. 

He slowly grabbed one, making sure to not damage anything in the album as he slowly looked through the pages, admiring the photos of a small [Y/N] along with their mother or an unknown man. 

The other two albums contained photos of a woman, he assumed it was [Y/N]’s mother during modeling gigs and from clippings taken on magazines, alongside photos of her with a man, again the same man he kept seeing with [Y/N]. 

He closed the album in frustration and put it back in the box before grabbing the last box in the closet, wanting to see what this had so he could either use it to bond with [Y/N] or to understand why they hate him. 

He understood that [Y/N] hated him, especially after Alfred pointed it out and made everyone see who Spider really was, but he also didn't understand why they hated him the most. 

Yes, he did hurt them pretty badly that they had to find a safe place in this small room but he didn't understand the hate. He did the same with Drake but he didn't hate him. 

As he opened the last box, which he immediately noted was full of dust which meant that [Y/N] didn't really open it much and just kept in the back of the closet to collect dust, he only saw a notebook. 

He slowly picked it up, patting it down a few times to get rid of the dust before opening it to the first page, which read ‘Diary of [Y/N]’. 

He closed it and debated if he should really open it or not before finally opening it, needing to know why they hated him and maybe the diary contained some information about it. 

He started to read the first entries before skipping pages until he came to an entry where his name was mentioned. 

20-03-XXXX 

Dear Diary

Hi, sorry for not writing to you for a few months but many things happened that you wouldn't believe! Well you don't really believe in anything, you’re an object. 

I moved out of my old house and went to live with my father, and yes I know it's weird since mom never mentioned him but I had to move in with him. 

You might be wondering why, well mom and Boris died. The policeman who took me to my father explained everything, they both died in a car crash, he even let me grab everything I needed. I managed to grab all the albums I made with mom and Boris and mom’s favorite jewelry but not much. 

I think auntie is gonna grab her clothes and other objects, I hope she won't sell them. 

Well no more sadness! My father is Bruce Wayne! The billionaire man who made so many things possible in Gotham! 

I am unsure if he knew that I existed, he looked so surprised when the policeman, I think his name was Gordon, explained what happened to mom and why I should stay with him. 

But I got a big ass room! It's even bigger than my old one! Oh I have to ask Alfred, my father's butler and yes, he really has a butler, if I can buy some night stars to put on the ceiling and some new clothes. 

I also have a younger brother! His name is Damian Wayne-Al Ghul! His surname sounds so cool compared to Lawrence! 

Plus he’s arabic! Alfred told me he was raised in a ‘traditional manner’ but I don't know what that means, maybe that means that he’s a prince? 

Oh my god, I have a prince as a brother! That would be so cool! I hope I can be friends with him and the others! I am so excited! 

I do miss mom and Boris but I can't stay sad forever, the consultant in school said so. Plus I adore everyone! They're so cool and fashionable! I want to be like Dick or Tim when I grow up! 

Oh yea I also have some many older brothers! Their names are: Richard but he prefers Dick, I don't understand why, Jason, Tim who is very cool like a Duke by how classy he is and Duke! 

I also have two older sisters, Stephanie and Cadsandra, even though they're not ‘really’ part of the family like Alfred said but I consider them my sisters! They look so cool and Cassandra is so cool, like an assassin or a ninja! 

Damian slowly closed the notebook, using a finger to not lose the page and just thought about what he just read. 

He knew [Y/N] came to the Manor when they were 12, maybe 11, so the entry was maybe a few months after their mom died in an accident with a man, possibly the man he kept seeing in the photos, named Boris. 

But what he read shocked him. They considered him cool and just wanted a friend. They didn't even know about the family's business and just thought everything was cool. 

He quickly shook his head and reopened the notebook to read more, needing to know more about what they thought of him and when it changed. 

15-04-XXXX 

Dear Diary 

You know Damian, the younger brother I told you about almost 5 months ago? About how he's so cool and everything and how I want to be friends with him? 

Well he's not so cool anymore, he keeps hurting me and calling me names, saying things like “you won't replace me, I will be the ultimate Robin”. 

I think I spent more time with Alfred stitching up cuts made by him than everyone else in this Manor. I hate Damian so much!  

Why would I even want to be Robin?! I don't even know who Robin is now since they keep changing hair colors! Why would I be a Robin?! Batman is too scary! 

I just wanted a younger brother, is that so bad to ask for? I understand that I came into their life without much notice but it's not my fault I came here! 

It's that drunk driver's fault! He’s the one who killed my mom and Boris! I don't even want to be here! I would prefer to be with my mom, watching her get ready to do a photoshoot while Boris tells me stories about his time in the secret agencies he was in. 

I hate this Manor, I hate Dick and his excuses for not hanging out with me, Bruce for telling me that I am just someone he’s forced to take care of and not his child and especially Damian! 

I miss mom, I want to hug her one more time and dance with her. 

Why did she go to the supermarket? She could've gone another day! It's all my fault, I should've never let her go with Boris, if I did she would still be here with me. 

Damian stopped reading after that because the writing was almost illegible and in a few parts the ink was smeared because of small droplets of water, most likely tears. 

He felt horrible, even more now that he read about himself in [Y/N]’s eyes and how quickly their feelings for him changed. 

Even now, as he read past passages about himself, he could see how much they adored him even after he hurt them and it felt like knives were being stabbed on his body. 

As he read, he started to feel something wet trailing down his face and when he went to touch his cheek, he didn't saw blood on his fingers like he thought 

He quickly got up and put the diary on the bed before running out of the room, too distraught to stay there as the words written by [Y/N] about him kept circling around his head, taunting him and telling him that it was all his fault. 

He’s the reason why [Y/N] hates everyone in the Manor, he’s the reason why they refused to be a part of the Batfam when they were Spider. He caused this. He made them move into a closet just because he was scared of losing the Robin mantle. 

He ruined everything because of his selfish behavior towards a stupid mantle that you didn't even know belonged to him, and he knew it. 

He collapsed in front of the medbay after finally getting back in the batcave, a bit glad when he saw that Stephanie and Cassandra weren't there to see him crying, and sobbed in front of the room, knowing that he didn't deserve to even enter the room after what he had done to [Y/N]. 

When Bruce saw Damian run out he tried to follow him but stopped, knowing the boy probably needed to be alone and would refuse his attention if he tried to help. 

He nodded when Jason walked out the room and stood in front of the door, wanting to enter but still felt like he didn't deserve to even enter one of the only safe spaces that [Y/N] had in the Manor. 

Bruce kept staring at the room, his thoughts running wild when he saw how small the room was compared to his or even Tim’s room. 

“Alfred, what was this room before [Y/N] moved in it?”

The tiny space looked more fit for a young child, with walls that seemed to curve inwards the longer you stood in there, of which you could only stand if you were under 6ft. 

Posters, pictures and multiple sheets of paper decorated any free space on the aged walls, the rest of the area covered by a wardrobe and a shelf that used to hold a few books that Jason took to his room. 

A large bed sat pressed against the corner of the room, creating a small area of safety with the various pillows and blankets piled up on top of the thin mattress. Clothing was scattered all across the room, alongside all the documents and papers that were scattered around the room, though mostly on and underneath the bed, having likely been kicked under there by [Y/N] after they tripped on it.

The whole room emanated with coziness yet was so small that anyone would feel claustrophobic even just looking in the room. 

And yet [Y/N] had called this room their home, settling in each night to the tiny bed after kicking their clothing somewhere random in the room and slowly slipping into the realm of sleep as they smiled fondly at the figures on their shelf.

"This used to be a storage room."

Alfred interrupted, capturing Bruce's attention and pulling him out of his trance-like state. "We used to put random items like cleaning products and laundry supplies in here, I remember there used to be a cabinet for the detergent over there." He said gently, smiling a little as he gestured to where the small bed now sat. "[Y/N] was delighted when they found this room, practically begging me to stay in here. They told me it seemed cozy, though I will admit I did find it a little odd they wanted such a small room." He told him, chuckling a little towards the end of his sentence. 

"The way their little face lit up in excitement once we got the bed in here, watching them run around the room playing with their figures and hanging up posters. The room was small, sure, but it was more than enough for them.”

Bruce stayed silent after Alfred said that and looked around the room before noticing a small book next to the bed. 

He slowly picked it up and sat on the bed, opening it to the first page and immediately reading ‘Diary of [Y/N]’ on it. He closed it and wondered if he should read it, mentally debating on whether or not he was allowed. 

He decided on reading it when he remembered that he didn't know anything, absolutely nothing about his kid and what happened to them and how they were before they got bit by a spider.  

Bruce knew it was wrong, it was another invasion of [Y/N]’s privacy but he didn't care. He wanted, no he needed to know about them. 

20-05-XXXX (you can change the date with your birthday) 

Dear Diary, this is my first entry in this book that is now called Diary. 

Mom says that I have to practice writing and that I also can use it to express feelings or tell stories that I don't want to tell anyone in this book, so I shall be doing that. 

As of today, my birthday, I am now 7 years old and I have celebrated another birthday with no father, just my mom and Boris. 

If you are wondering, even though you can't since you are an object, I do not know who my father is and Boris is not my dad. 

He told me that when I once called him dad, which made me sad since why do I have to hold this title for a person that has never showed up in my life when Boris is always there for me when I am either sad or feel like I can't do anything? 

This is not fair. I will mom who my dad is and pretend to know why he doesn't want me. I don't even know why he doesn't want me! And I’m 7! 

Well, I’ll tell you when I come back! 

Ok so, mom told me that my father is someone that can't be traced so he’s either a ghost or dead. Which is the same thing. 

Well I don't care, I’ll just tell Boris that he's my dad, even if he doesn't marry mom since she refuses to have other relationships and because Boris told me that he's attracted to other men and not women. 

I don't envy him, boys suck. Especially my ghost dad! He abandoned mom! 

As Bruce finished reading the first passage, he realized that their mother, Amelie, didn't try to paint him as someone evil just because he wasn't there. 

He was also amazed at how serious the first entry was, it was almost a work document but he didn't think too much about it. 

He felt horrible because he remembered all the time he talked bad about Amelie and how she couldn't just do one thing and keep [Y/N] away, not even caring if [Y/N] was in the room or around. 

He knew Amelie, she was one of the models who never tried to flirt with him and spent most of her time talking with her bodyguard, acting like he didn't exist. 

He also remembered that, after that night with her, she never called him until a week or two later to inform him that she was pregnant and how she just wanted child support if he didn't want to be in the child’s life. 

He was incredibly surprised when she called him and even more surprised when she sent him a very well made child support agreement where she just wanted a decent amount of money every month and she will never bother him, she’ll just add him to the birth certificate if something happened to her. 

He quickly shook his head to get rid of the thoughts about Amelie and skipped a few entries in the Diary before stopping at one where his name was mentioned in the first line. 

31-09-XXXX

Bruce Wayne is my father. 

I now know who my father is.. and yet I don't feel anything. 

At first I wondered- why am I not happy? My father is a billionaire and a very famous man in Gotham, shouldn't I be excited and happy to have such a new lavish lifestyle with a loving, caring father?

Then I thought about it and came to a conclusion..

I don't like Bruce Wayne.

My mother and Boris died in a car crash. They were gone and I believed I had just become an orphaned child with no parents or guardians to care for me. 

And then the police told me I had a father - Bruce Wayne. That man looked at me like I was some grotesque animal when the nice policeman told him about what happened and who I was.

I don't like Bruce. 

He looks scary and totally different from what I saw on the TV whenever he was in a program with one of his many children. 

He keeps saying things under his breath, like how my mom had one job and failed at it or how annoying I was because he didn't want me here since I was the reminder of my mom. 

I want to hit him.

It's not her fault. 

How dare he say things about mom! She wasn't perfect, I know that, but nobody is! Just because she didn't know how to cook meat and always had Boris cook anything that was fish or meat doesn't make his hatred for her okay! She was horrible at making drawings with me but she tried to, she put in effort to sit with me and draw anyway!

Why does he hate her so much?! 

Why does he hate me?! 

I don't even want to be here! 

I want my mom back! 

I want Boris back! 

I miss my house, I miss my room! 

I hate this.

I hate everything.

I hate him. 

I hate Bruce Wayne.

Bruce stopped reading after that and just stared at the opened closet, trying to wrap his head around what he read. 

He couldn't believe he did that. No he could believe that he said something like that, he was going through a rough patch with both kids, business and his vigilante job that when [Y/N] suddenly entered his life he didn't do anything to help them adjust or comfort them. 

He also remembered how Amelie was a nice woman when he woke up in her bed, that explained what happened thoroughly for him, how they were both drunk and thankfully Boris took them to her house, and even gave him her business card after she took his so she could contact him if she was ended up pregnant because she knew she wasn't on a safe day and he didn't use a condom. 

He actually admired how gentle she was and how, when she contacted him about her being pregnant and how she wondered if he wanted to be in his child’s life, accepted his refusal and the offer of child support, not even caring about how much money he was gonna give her every month. 

So he felt even more horrible and a downright scumbag when he realized that he insulted one of the many women he respected in front of her child and how he never apologized or tried to make amends. 

Not even the realization about his actions would excuse them, especially because he said those words to a child, a traumatized child who just lost everything and had to be thrown into a house where no one wanted them. 

He slowly flipped through the pages, stopping when he found one of the last entries, which were dated almost 2, maybe 3 years ago. 

08-07-XXXX

Dear Diary 

As stated before, I moved into Wayne Manor and now I am a Wayne. I refuse to take his surname though, I will never give up my mother's last name. 

This will probably be one of my last entries since I will switch to video diaries, mostly to just watch myself and actually explain while talking. 

I have been in this hell that I have to call house for almost 3 years and I hate it. I know that I say it many times but it's true. 

I hate Dick and how he acts like he's the golden child, so righteous and kind to Tim and Damian but when I ask to do anything with him, he just tells me that he's busy. 

Even though I know that those are excuses so he wouldn't have to hang out with me. 

I hate Jason and how he complains that Bruce doesn't love him, but I know that he does. That man loves Jason even if he kills people as Red Hood but doesn't do anything about it. 

I hate Tim. I don't know much about him but I hate him so much because he's so perfect, already a CEO and so good at everything that even if I manage to do something good, I will always be compared to him by Bruce. 

I hate Stephanie, Cassandra and Duke. They never hang out with me, telling me that they're busy when I see them play around together or with others. 

What did I even do to them?! 

I hate Damian and how he feels superior just because he's an Al Ghul and Robin. I hate it. He has everything, Bruce’s and everyone else's love and attention and yet, he still tormented me and scarred me just because I existed. 

I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT BRUCE WAS BATMAN WHEN I FIRST CAME TO THE MANOR.

I hate Bruce Wayne. I hate his perfect TV smile and persona, I hate how he acts like he loves all of his children and yet he has never spent any time with me ever since I came to his Manor years ago. 

I hate how he told Dick about how annoying my voice was after I visited to ask him to sign something for school. How he described my voice as nails on a chalkboard for his ears and how he wished he never had to hear it again. 

But if he wants to, then I shall never talk again. Maybe this will make him happy. 

Bruce slowly looked up when he finished reading that entry, the diary slowly slipping out of his hands and falling onto the floor with a soft thud. 

He couldn't believe that he said something so horrible about a kid, someone he should be protecting, and made them, made his own child, hate their own voice. 

He slowly put his hands on his head and just cried silently, the realization that he was the reason as to why [Y/N] hated the Manor and their own blood, because he was a horrible father to a traumatized child that just wanted a family after losing their own so early.

The manor was quiet, eerily so. Usually it was bursting with life, sound practically reverberated off the walls. But today it was almost silent. Amidst this silence, a child finally wakes up from their slumber in a room in the Manor. 

You slowly opened your eyes, hissing when the blinding lights coming from the window immediately hit your face like a rocket, making you try to move your arm to cover your face. 

You slowly looked down to your arm when you noticed the difficulty at moving it and found it in a cast that almost enveloped all your right arm. 

You looked at the other arm and sighed in relief when you saw that it was just bandaged up and not in a cast. 

You did notice that you had an IV in your hand, making you sit up despite the pain you felt all over your body and managed to pull it out with the casted arm. 

After you pulled out the IV, you noticed that you were in a far bigger room compared to the small one you had before. You looked at the shelves and noticed that your worn out books were replaced with new ones while the photos and posters were in the same places but with more space. 

As you looked around, you could see that the furniture was the same, confirmed by the scratches on the closet, which was the closest to you, that you accidentally did while trying the first prototype of the web shooter in the room which resulted in you throwing the flaming machinery at the closet before destroying it as you tried to put out the fire before Alfred noticed. 

You laughed a little at the memory of your panicking before almost doubling over in a fit of cough, your throat burning when you finally calmed down. 

You slowly moved the blankets off of you after you calmed down enough to think rationally, understanding that you weren't in your room anymore but still in the Manor thanks to the walls and the colors in the room, which were totally different from the ones you had in your own room. 

You ignored how both of your legs were bandaged up and slowly got off the bed, using the IV stand to keep yourself standing as you wobbled to the desk, noticing almost all the papers you had around your room were now in neat piles, making you extremely angry since you immediately knew that Bruce and his kids entered your room, probably because of Alfred interference. 

You pulled away from the desk, still holding onto the IV stand and coughed a little, noticing that the shirt you were wearing was starting to get blood on it. 

You slowly raised the shirt and noticed that the bandages on your chest and sides were full of blood, but you ignored it and went for the door, needing to get out of here since you knew that if you were in a different room it meant that they all knew you were Spider. 

When you finally made it to the door, your vision was already starting to get blurry from all the blood you were losing. You finally opened it but fainted before you even managed to take a step out, the last thing you saw was the silhouette of a man running up to you, his face blurry and his voice muffled. 

Tag List

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[catscidr]

// taking care of your dogboy (hsr edition!) //

i. note — sry i havent been posting yall i got a job + ive been working on three cosplays at the same time bc my local con is coming up lmao (´ཀ`」 ∠) however the brainrot never stops. it only takes a break. a little break of approximatively. a month. ish. ......... anyways dog hybrid hsr boys brainrot !!! lmk if we want more of this with more boys •ᴗ• comments and asks are appreciated hehe ii. includes — blade, gepard, boothill and gn!reader iii. cw — slice of life stuff turning into smut, possessive behaviour, overstim, slight dom/sub dynamics, real messy stuff, manhandling. use of the word "hole" to keep reader gender neutral iv. wc — 1,9k

blade is a mutt riddled in scars and dirty bandages from living on the streets and fighting to survive.

you think he might be some german shepherd mix, but he refuses to let you swab his teeth n gums for a dna test (last time you tried you narrowly avoided a punch to the face. he apologized in his own way afterwards), so whenever people ask, just say he’s a rescue to avoid revealing that you actually just… don’t really know what breed he is. they usually drop the subject and simply go on their merry way, seeing as he wasn’t the type of pup to appreciate affection from strangers anyways– it’s rare for you to leave the house in the first place, though.

you had to switch to a remote job because blade is just so persistent when it comes to you. although possessive is a much better descriptor, because he doesn’t let anyone near you. whenever you leave to get groceries he ends up practically breathing down your neck from how close he gets— acting as if he were your literal shadow— glaring at everyone that gets too close to you. you’ve made it a habit to always go to self-checkout lane so blade doesn’t scare off the cashiers.

the second you get home he’s all over you, determined to rid you of that outside stench and replace it with his own. you started packing your grocery bags in a way that nothing will break if (read: when) you suddenly drop them on the floor, all because you’re so familiar with blade’s impatience.

he holds you still by engulfing your body with his, knees caging your hips as he grinds into you, shallow and deep. blade’s growls and huffs fill your ears just as much as his cock fills your hole, his knot kissing your tightness from the outside.

“do you like this? like how i have to fuck you every time you decide to go outside again when you could stay here,” with me blade omits, his tail swishing back and forth on the bedsheets behind him, the sound just barely grounding you to reality.

your grocery bags were long forgotten on the foor (as they usually are), your mind too foggy to function. clawing at the sheets, you try to crawl away from blade’s grip— to no avail.

he tuts, craning his head to bite down onto the skin where your shoulder meets your neck. “i might just need to mark you for extra precaution,” he bucks into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. you hear squelching, the constant plap! plap! plap! from his thighs smacking against your ass and whine, broken babbles leaving your kiss-bruised lips.

“b-blade, y’can’t- ah,” he shushes you by plugging you full of his lengthy cock, his knot almost threatening to press inside of you. you whimper, feeling lightheaded from a mix of both nervousness and arousal.

he soothes the hickey he left on your neck, licking it languidly as he stills to bask into the way your hole throbs around him. warm and tight and oh so tempting.

“shit, wanna fill you. wanna… have everyone know they can’t have you. you’re mine, mine to love ‘n mine to fuck,” you’re not lucid enough to process his thinly veiled confession, too busy writhing your ass back against him in a feeble attempt to get him to continue moving.

you might want to invest into some good concealer or into those skin coloured tattoo patches to cover the bruises and bite marks blade’ll leave on you if you want to continue being a functioning member of society. you can’t really be walking around in public as if a dog had just mauled you right before you left the house, can you?

gepard is a golden retriever because of COURSE he is. similarly to blade, he likes to invade your personal space a lot— not because he’s possessive, but because he’s extremely protective of you.

the random bruises you used to randomly notice on your body faded as soon as he came into your life. gepard’s soft, lingering touches healed them; gently placing a hand on your hip before you bump into sharp furniture so it doesn’t hit you, redirecting your head to his shoulder as you nod-off in the train before you bang your head, and so on.

it’s a full-time job and he’s working 24/7, always on the lookout for anything that could possibly hurt you as you saunter off… wherever, without a care in the world— because he took care of everything!

he would clean the apartment for you, cook (though you usually insist you do the cooking; a human doesn’t have the same taste in food as a hybrid), and even act as your own personal alarm clock. gone were the days of being woken up by loud, blaring beeping. gepard woke you up with forehead kisses instead, making your mornings much more pleasant.

but poor geppie, he’s always taking care of you; so take care of him, won’t you?

every so often you’ll sit in his lap to help him get rid of whatever stress he held in his body. your hands will knead at the muscles in his broad shoulders, all while you simultaneously kiss away the strain in his face. his brows are furrowed as you do your best to soothe his muscles; you never forget to smooch his cheek, nose and the corner of his lips.

though the attention and gentle acts of affection always ends with your hands lower than they should be.

“ah ah, no touching, remember?” you murmur in his ear playfully. you had been at it for what felt like hours; gepard’s cock and abdomen was smeared with the remnants of his cum, skin tacky from his previous loads. your hand shows no sign of stopping, not even when he begged oh so sweetly.

“c-come onn. just… jus’ wanna kiss…” and who were you to deny your sweet boy? your lips find his in a heartbeat, his tongue swiping over your own sloppily as he breathes you in like a depraved man.

the only condition you had when you did this was for him to keep his hands to himself— at least until you both decide to move on to something else. until then, his fists clench the sheets beneath the both of you, and his ears stay flat on his fluffy head.

“i’m… i’m close again, g- aah, please, please…!” he begs, cock weeping precum as you continuously jerk him off. you smile, absentmindedly rocking your hips to the rhythm you held him prisoner to— gepard was too engulfed in the warmth of your hand to notice, anyways. “cum whenever you want sweet boy,” you purr, and he keens as he buries his face in your neck, his hips lifting off the bed ever so slightly as they meet your hand and he thrusts, riding the high of his orgasm.

sticky cum coats your hand for the nth time; you relent your grip on his cock for his sake, instead choosing to shower him with chaste kisses all over his face. gepard whines, taking ahold of your waist weakly as he breathes into the crook of your neck.

“geppie, your han-“ he cuts you off, swiftly switching positions so you’re now laying on your back as he hovers over you, chest rising and falling quickly, catching his breath from the intensity of his orgasm. gepard’s tail wags slowly behind him as his hands creep up from your waist to your chest just as slowly- you feel his cock harden against your pelvis, precum spilling from his pinky tip.

“‘ts my turn now,” he huffs, leaning down to nip at your neck.

boothill is the most obnoxious dalmatian hybrid you’ve ever seen (not that you’ve seen many, or at all). but he’s made your life so fun so you can’t be too mad at him

he’s always dragging you out of bed to go do something— could be going to the park nearby or sit in the living room playing video games on your dusty console, it doesn’t matter because he’ll MAKE you step out of your cozy nest!!

you’re glad he’s friendly, because you’re not sure how you would handle such an excited hybrid when you left the house. people come up to the both of you to chat and he indulges their questions, essentially leading the conversation (while you stand there awkwardly, not knowing what to say).

boothill is also great with kids, unexpectedly. 9 times out of 10 when you go to the park he ends up playing with someone’s child, bright smile on his face as he messes up their hair with a rough hand. they’ll throw a frisbee for him to go catch and he’ll do it happily, or he’ll even… teach them how to beat people up.

(you stare mortified as he teaches a little girl how to throw a proper punch only for her to then punch her parent when she leaves boothill’s side. you go up to them and apologize profusely, forcing boothill to bow with you.)

he also loves to help you out, even though he’s not the greatest at household chores— but he definitely tries! though he is a stellar cook, which never fails to surprise you whenever he’s on dinner duty. he just… really sucks at everything else.

it’s… mostly because he just has so much energy. he sweeps the floor? nope, he’s picking off the pieces of the broom off of the floor because he accidentally broke it. he’s fixing your bed? nuh uh, you’re throwing out the ruined bedsheets because he accidentally tore them to shreds somehow.

so, with all of these accidents happening because he’s just brimming with energy 24/7, you started purposely exhausting him. or, rather, gave him the green light to exhaust you until he tires himself out.

“booth-aah, w-wait, you’re being too…!” you fall over on top of his hard chest, keening at the new angle his cock reached inside of you. he repeated his assault on the spot that made you see stars as your jaw gaped, broken moans leaving your lips.

“don’t tell me y’re tapping out.. haa, already!” boothill grunts, his grip on your hips tightening. he throws his head back with a loud moan, abs tensing as he nears yet another climax— the 5th one of the night. maybe, maybe not. you lost count after the third one.

you bury your face into the crook of his neck, focusing on the feeling of his cock plugging you full instead of the soreness, the burn in your muscles that came from your knees holding you up on his lap.

watching you riding him will always be his favourite thing in the world, even if he always ends up fucking up into you and taking back control at the end of the night.

“gonna cu-uum…” you whine, clenching around his length almost painfully tightly, hearing his breathing hitch as an orgasm is ripped out of him in consequence to yours. boothill’s fingers dig into your ass, his hips lifting off the bed as he cums deep inside of your sloppy hole again, sticky fluid building up beneath the sheets.

you collapse on top of him fully, chest heaving against his own as you come back to your senses, slowly but surely. boothill’s ears perk up, hearing how your breathing had evening out.

“so… got another round in ya?”

[radiance1]

"Mom, Dad. I have something to tell you."

Danny said, twin rings going up and down his body respectively as he went ghost. Then back as he turned back to Danny.

"Tada..?" He said, shaking his hands after he was finished.

Jack and Maddie sat silent on the other side of the table, eyes wide as they just... Stared at him. His mom's hands were over her mouth, while his dad's mouth just hung open.

Jack pushed himself away from the table, getting up and walking out of the room.

"Honey!" Maddie said, turning to look in his direction. She briefly glanced between Danny and the doorway, before getting up herself and following after Jack.

Danny looked down, placing his hands down on the table and interlocking them as an uneasy smile graced his face.

'Fuck.' He thought. 'I should've done this when Jazz was here.'

Now, Danny isn't scared of his parents per se. Having escaped from them multiple times up until this very moment, and having fought and won over ghosts that embodied concepts toughened him up considerably.

But, just because he isn't scared doesn't mean he isn't uneasy.

He really should have waited for Jazz-

"Danny," His mother's voice broke him out of his thoughts as she walked back into the room and took her seat. She rubbed a hand against her temple, looking down at the table. "Your father... Needs a moment. Just to collect his thoughts, alright?"

"Uh, yea I understand." Danny pulled his hands back and down into his lap.

Maddie gave the movement a brief glance, but chose not to comment.

"Listen, this..." Maddie released a breath, placing her hands down on the table and interlocking her fingers. "Is news that neither of us ever expected, and frankly it is hard to believe that you aren't just a ghost who took the body of my son-"

Danny's breath hitched.

"-But I want, no." Her eyes hardened, forcibly releasing the tension from her shoulders. "I need to give you a chance. This, a chance. Before I do something I might regret." There was something in her eyes that Danny couldn't recognize, and he fought to keep looking into her eyes.

"Th-That's good." He said, bringing a hand up to rub against the back of his neck. "Yea. Good. Good." He couldn't help but look down, digging his fingers into his thigh.

Fuck. Why was he trembling?

He's had way, way worse than this. Survived way worse than this. It's just his parents. Just his regular old, maybe a bit hyper fixated and ghost hating parents that threatened to dissect him on various occasions and tried to do the same to other ghosts-

Danny dug his fingers a bit deeper, forcibly exhaling.

Just. His parents.

"How long." His head snapped back up to Maddie as she spoke, it didn't seem to be a question. Something she seemed to realize as she softened slightly. "How long, have you been a ghost?" She asked, quietly, softly.

There was something there that Danny, despite everything, couldn't identify.

"Since," He started, before swallowing when his mouth felt dry all of a sudden. "Since you guys. Um. Built the portal." His fingers dug into his neck, and he felt something wet under his nails and a stinging on his neck before he pulled away and put it into his lap. "And, you know. Thought it didn't work."

Maddie's breath hitched, and her eyes screwed shut. Interlocked hands tightening on the table as her lip quivered.

"I..." She began, slowly. Voice trembling before she smoothed it back out, trying to restore some semblance of calm. "I see." She exhaled, slowly. Still keeping her eyes closed.

It... Hurt. To see her like this. To see his mother so shaken up.

He shouldn't have told them.

But it seemed to be going well.

Was it even worth it?

He hopes it keeps going well.

He should have just kept it a secret.

"The portal." She finally began again when her hands stopped shaking. "It opened on you, didn't it? And then you-" She paused, trying to get the words out. "You died. Didn't you?"

Danny nodded, before remembering that her eyes were still closed. "Y-eA." He said, voice breaking at the end.

He was glad her eyes were closed, just because she couldn't see the embarrassment on his face.

"I was hoping you would say no." Maddie said, reopening her eyes and looking down at her hands. "I so, so desperately want to believe this to be some trick by Phantom or- well, you. I want this to be a prank, or some nightmare, and to just wake up and know that you're still alive-"

"Well, I am." Danny shrugged, eyes darting towards a nearby wall. "Technically, half and half, y'know?" He said, making a so-so gesture.

"Are you?" She asked, eyes narrowing slightly as she looked up at him. "That would explain why you don't look like a ghost, but-"

She paused, eyes widening.

Okay, now this Danny could recognize.

Recognition and horror.

"Oh... Oh God." She looked back down hands breaking apart as one covered her mouth. She shook in her seat, hunching in on herself. "We-We chased you. Shot at you and said we would rip you apart." Her eyes grew wet, tears slipping down her cheeks. "We wanted to dissect you and said it in front of your face."

"Well, technically it would be a vivisection-"

Maddie closed her eyes, a sob ripping from her throat.

Danny shut his mouth.

Danny watched as his mother cried on the opposite side of the table. At this moment, for some reason, she looked so far from him. Like he could reach out, climb over the table, and still not reach her. Like there was some great, unfathomable distance, between them.

He looked down at the table, at his hands. One of them, the one he dug into his thigh, felt wet. He pulled away his hand, and saw... Well, blood.

Weird.

He didn't feel anything.

"I'm sorry." His mother sobbed, and for some reason her voice seemed so quiet even as he looked up at her. He could see her, yet why did she seem so far away? "I'm so, so sorry." She said.

And Danny...

Danny didn't know what to do.