#anyways it’d be like double life but so much worse

[mxmarsbars]

pls never stop drawing or positing ab clockduo i am so obsessed w them and how u draw them. u depict them so perfectly it makes me sick (/pos) ...im also just kinda inspired by u whenever i think ab them

aww thank you thank you!! yeah i don’t plan on stopping anytime soon you’ll have to pry those freakin freaks outta my cold dead hands >.<

also that’s so sweet im glad my craziness can be inspiring :,D maybe these doodles will also be inspirational or something. they’re really dumb

i just want them to team up again next life series season so badly and be super mega paranoid together like it’s not even funny. please. the clock duo withdrawals are killing me.

[sincerelyrki]

forbidden attraction

getting cheated on was never easy, but you wanna know what is? revenge. and as the infamous song says, if he’s cheating i’m doing him worse (aka fucking his four best friends).

pairing : enha!hyungline x fem!reader

warnings + genre : smut. double pen. oral (m+?f?). cum eating/sharing. unsafe sex. spanking. handjob. profanity. name calling. degration. profanity. a bit of begging. fivesome. no cheating bcuz i don’t fw that. jakehoon kissing once. not shipping the members!! it’s just for the plot. 18+.

wc : 3.8

a/n : a birthday gift to myself and everyone else born on september 2🫡 bonnes fêtes pote <3

tl : @vousty @ilololoveyou @moon0fthenight

Jay was appalled.

There were many things in life that confused him, but this? He’s never been as speechless as he was right now.

Whether that stemmed from his confusion on why one of his best friends would cheat on a girl like you or from your warm mouth wrapped oh so fucking deliciously around his cock- he wasn’t too sure.

But as much as he was appalled, he was thankful. so fucking thankful. it wasn’t every day that his best friend's ex-girlfriend came knocking on his door with nothing more than a poor excuse of a t-shirt and her slutty little miniskirts, not that he was complaining, but it was all too conflicting. 

Was he supposed to call Sungchan and tell him that his hot ex was at his door? He couldn’t imagine that going down too well with him, not after the next few words came spilling from your pretty lips- god your lips.

He almost wishes you never came over because he wasn’t sure how he could ever go back to being strangers with you, not after seeing the way you took him so perfectly down your throat. 

But as all good things come, they go. And it went with another knock on his door, one that barely sounded out before it was being swung open. 

Jay might’ve been the most unlucky lucky man to walk this earth. Lucky because he had you on your knees for him- unlucky because of the three other men who seemingly showed up out of nowhere.

“You started without us? I should’ve known a needy fucking slut wouldn’t have waited.” And by the faux pouting voice of Heeseung, Jay would’ve kept that narrative. It seemed that everyone except for himself had come to hear about this… event? Yep, he was definitely confused.

But as said before, he was so fucking thankful. But if he had known that opening the door to an enigmatic person like yourself, would he have left it closed?

No, no he wouldn’t have. Because if he had then 

he’d miss the singular hottest thing he’d ever seen- who knew watching his best friends fuck the girl he’s wanted for what feels like forever, could feel so fucking good? 

That’s definitely the one reason why he’s in this position right now, he’d refuse any other answer anyways. 

Jay’s head fell back with an abrupt moan, his head snapping back way too fast to be classified as safe. His legs shook from beneath you from the immense pleasure shooting across his entire midsection, his noises only grew louder the deeper he reached.

Your nails were scratching red lines across the man beneath you but through the combination of the hands grabbing against you and the cock you were being lowered on, you barely noticed. 

“Almost there, you’re doing so good.” Heeseung’s voice was no louder than a whisper when he breathed heavily in your ear, the actions going on under him getting to his head. His eyes were glued to the way you sucked his friend in perfectly, your walls moulding to the twitching man beneath you.

Heeseung was almost envious of Jay, he’d do anything to feel your tight cunt wrap around him instead. But he knew that his time would come- and that it’d feel almost a hundred times better. And so he continued to shush you from over your shoulder as his lips pressed small pecks against your open neck, his hands wrapped around your waist as he moved you against Jay. 

You fell apart in the two men’s embrace, the world fading into a haze as you fell into the feeling of getting used. It’s barely been a minute since you’ve been completely lowered on Jay yet you already felt completely fucked out.

Your sensitivity came in bursts of loud gaps and quiet moans, your legs unable to clench due to the tight holds of Jake and Sunghoon, one on each side. 

“Please, i-i need more…” Even in your current situation you couldn’t help but beg for more than you could take, the desire to be completely and utterly claimed by the four men surrounding you overtaking any conscious part of your brain. You wouldn’t be satisfied until you’ve had them all, and that’s exactly what you were going to do. 

“You need more or-?” Heeseung paused mid to push his teeth into your neck, his teeth pressing against you for a few seconds before pulling back. He glanced at the red spot once before he began lapping at it, his warm tongue providing comfort to the sore area. 

After soothing the spot he moved more confidently, his tongue pressing flat against your collarbone before licking a stripe up to your jawline. One of his hands left your waist to pull at your hair, the loudest gasp yet leaving your lips, “or do you just want it?” He pressed a final kiss against your ear before letting go of your hair. 

“Need, I need it.” Sunghoon looked up at Heeseung’s expected gaze before moving his eyes toward your face. His cock twitched in its confinements at your expression, his eyes following your tears streaks all the way down until your open mouth. 

He knew what Heeseung was asking of him, but he wanted something else. As much as he’d love to feel your lips wrapped around his dick, he’s been eyeing something much more… tasty. 

It came to a shock to both you and Jay once you felt something warm kitten licking at your entrance- well the spot where the two of you were connected in precisely. 

Both your eyes snapped down at the sudden sensation, it was safe to say that the sight didn’t disappoint. Sunghoon wasn’t shy in the way he was so evidently open to making the both of you feel as much pleasure as possible, his tongue pressing against the two of you as Jay slid out, Sunghoon’s tongue aiding him in pushing further in. 

It was nasty, but it tasted way too good for any of you to give a shit. Neither Sunghoon nor Jay seemed to care about the way Sunghoon’s tongue continuously licked along Jay’s cock. 

“I always knew that fucking bitch was fruity.” Jake tried to tease Sunghoon but not even he could stop his eyes from following the movements of Sunghoon’s ministrations. 

As much as the other two boys enjoyed watching the three of you, they were growing extremely impatient. 

Heeseung, being done with waiting around for his turn decided to force himself into the equation with an offer he knew you wouldn’t be able to refuse, “You wanna know what would feel even better?” 

He got his answer through the barely noticeable stutter of your growing noises. A smirk pushing its way onto his lips on its own accord. “Having both me and Jay inside of you, i’d make you feel so good.” 

He could feel your torso tense under his hold and so continued talking into your ears, his voice as compelling as a story told siren, “You wanted more, didn’t you? You’d feel so full, i’d be giving you everything you’ve ever longed for.” He made his point by pushing his palm against your lower stomach- right against the spot Jay’s cock was hitting inside of you. 

“He’s so big, right?” He cooed at you when you nodded your head, big tears staining your cheeks as his words fell through one ear and down to your needy cunt. “He’d feel so good against me, we’d stretch you out so good, make you feel things you’ve only ever dreamed about.”

Jay, having felt your tortuous clenches, was quick to get drawn to his high, his hips snapping up with a new vigor as he tried to chase his heavy weighted release. 

Heeseung noticed before you did, of course he did. He’d been watching the man since he’d first come through the door, it was only natural for his eyes to be watching his every reaction. 

“Or maybe we can have Jakey with me instead, hm? He’s not as long as Jay but he’s definitely thicker.” Liquid honey was practically pouring from Heeseung’s lips, the gold flowing across your skin until it reached its searing end along Jay’s thighs. 

“M’gonna fill you up, give you everything I have-” Jay was too far gone to realize what he was saying, but he meant every word. His hands replaced Heeseung’s after pushing the older man’s off, his hips pushing off the bed as he snapped into you as hard as possible. 

His head was empty but the thoughts still repeated out through his mouth, your seductive voice was the last thing he needed before completely filling you- “do it, fill me up.” 

Seeing Jay break beneath you was nothing compared to the feeling of him coming undone inside of you, and at this moment you couldn’t help but thank your ex. 

It was like a light switched inside of you, a newfound desire filling your entire body after seeing the way Sunghoon kept licking at the spot connecting you to Jay. His mouth was completely soaked with a combination of everything, the white ring along the bottom of Jays cock disappearing just as fast as it appeared. 

You grabbed Sunghoon’s hair, a shocked whimper leaving his mouth as you pulled him away. He was looking up at you so beautifully, the stars in his eyes and the wetness along his chin… he was irritably irresistible. and by the silence filling the room it seemed that everyone agreed.

“You just can’t get enough can you?” You used your own hand to nod his head at your question, his hair tight in your hold as you forced him to move at your will. You cooed at him before giving a small pout in response, your eyes still staring at his coated face. “You couldn’t help yourself, you just had to taste him didn’t you?”

Sunghoon didn’t answer, his mind too cloudy to comprehend anything being said. His eyes were barely open as he stared at you, his entire weight being pushed against Jay’s abdomen. 

His hands were pressed against the back of your thighs with his chest resting against jay, he was completely powerless. “How did he taste?” You knew he wouldn’t answer but you still asked with a slight hope that he’d give in, but as expected- he stayed silent. 

You repeat yourself louder this time as you tug his hair harsher against his scalp, he still remained silent as he allowed his head to move under your control. 

“He’s so dumb, he can’t even speak for himself.” Heeseung laughed against your neck before pushing his lips against your collarbones, yet his eyes remained on Sunghoon. 

You hummed in agreement before turning to Jake, your heart softening at the neglected boy across from you. “Poor puppy hasn’t gotten any attention yet here you are, a needy baby who can’t do anything but sit there in silence.” 

Jake visablly lightened up at your attention, his teeth slightly poking out from beneath his lips before he pushed closer to you, his head lightly knocking against yours whilst he nuzzled against you. 

You were still sitting on top of Jay’s sensitive cock, his cum still lodged in you. “Bad boy’s don’t deserve what I was going to give you.” Sunghoon finally came to his senses as he looked up at you in confusion, your eyes meeting for the second time tonight. 

“You were the closest to Sungchan, how could you do this to him?” You knew you weren’t the one to be talking, but you had more of a reason to betray him compared to Sunghoon. You got cheated on, but Sunghoon? You couldn’t think of a singular reason why he would turn his back on his childhood best friend just for a singular fuck.

“Why?” Sunghoon shook his head once before trying to respond but no words left his mouth, “what? Is your mouth suddenly dry?” Sunghoon shook his head in denial before snapping his lips closed and looking away once again, a heavy cloud of guilt replacing the dumb look in his eyes. 

“As I said earlier, bad boys don’t deserve it.” No one knew what the “it” that you were referring to was, not until you slowly pulled Jay from out of you, your fingers pushing against yourself as you tried to keep his release in. 

Still staring at Sunghoon’s avoidant figure you grabbed Jake’s wrist, your fingers wrapping around his hand as you pulled it down to replace your own. But before he could put his hand in place of yours, you stuck two fingers inside and scooped out as much of Jay’s cum you could while keeping some in. 

You used your hold on his hair to turn his head towards your hand, his mouth dropping open at the strings of cum connecting your two fingers. You pushed your fingers together before slowly pulling them apart knowing that all the boys were watching. 

“To think that this couldn’t been you…” Knowing that Sunghoon’s gaze was now following your fingers you rose it up to Jake’s mouth, your fingertips rubbing a bit of cum across his bottom lip before you pushed in between them. 

All eyes, including your own, watched as Jake took your fingers the way you’d taken Jay’s dick hours ago. 

Jake’s tongue swirled around your two digits, his eyes closing in focus as he attempted to clean your fingers the best he could. You could feel the vibrations of his mouth against your fingers, the feeling causing your need to grow more intense.

Before anyone could react, Sunghoon pulled your fingers from his mouth and replaced them with his mouth. His lips pushed against Jake’s with an animalistic desire, his tongue pushing between the other boys lips before Jake could even process the sudden kiss. 

Sunghoon ignored the sharp tingles from his scalp as he continued licking into the other boy's mouth, scooping the cum into his own mouth. It was supposed to be his anyways, so there was no reason why he wouldn’t be able to have it. It didn’t matter that he was eating it from another person's lips, maybe it tasted even better that way.

After sharing the cum between themselves Sunghoon pulled back with a devious smile, all guilt erased from his mind. Jake’s mind was still reeling from what had happened, his mind replaying the sight of their shared spit connecting their departing lips. 

“Sungchan would’ve have let you do this.” Sunghoon didn’t waste a second before kissing you, the taste of the other boys heavy on his tongue as it pushed it against yours. The taste was almost indescribable, hints of bitterness with the perfect amount of sweetness from whatever Sunghoon ate before coming to Jay’s. 

Sunghoon pulled off of you for a minute before using his hand to pull yours from his hair, his fingers entwining with yours as he messily stood up. His pants were off within seconds, and his back was against the bed just as fast.

He pulled you down on top of him, his hand letting go of yours to grip as your ass to help you grind down against him. His mouth met yours once again, his nose bumping against yours with each turn of his head, he was all too addicting. 

Heeseung tsked from above you, his disapproving gaze heavy on Sunghoon’s messy side profile. “You heard what she said earlier, you don’t deserve it.” Heeseung pulled you off of Sunghoon and back into his arms, your legs moving down to rest on top of Sunghoon’s flat knees. 

“Move.” Sunghoon’s pleading look barely worked on you, his expression changing into an annoyed one before he shot both boys beside you a glare. He didn’t say anything and just scooched over. 

Jake replaced his spot, but not before shooting Sunghoon a victorious wink. He made a whole show of fluffing his pillow before laying down, his hands moving to pull off his pants with a singular swipe. 

His walls came down the second you took over, your hands grabbing his shoulder as you lowered yourself down onto him. He was already hard from watching you earlier which lowered the prep time. 

Even though Jake was definitely wider than Jay, you still took him with ease. His cock gave you exactly what you needed yet you still wanted more. 

You didn’t have to voice out your desires because Heeseung was already tapping the head of his cock against you, his tip moving around to collect as much of your slick as he could. 

His hand moved from base to tip in a repeated motion, his fingers squeezing him in the manner that he was usually used to- but this time was different. He’d never fucked someone with another cock already pressed it, but that wasn’t to say that he hasn’t given it thought before.

He’s definitely thought about fucking you with one of his friends, way too many times that he’d like to admit. When you first came to him with the idea he would like to say that he was hesitant, but he wasn’t. The day you broke up with Sungchan was probably the best day of his life, well second best to today. 

He wanted to see if the real thing was as good as it was in his dreams. He already knew your pussy would be the best he’s ever felt but he's always known that- it wasn’t anything new. But this? This was all new. 

He knew you were ready after you looked back at him with a nod, your eyes sharing unspoken words before he began to push in. He knew the stretch would be rough and he fully attended to take his time to let you adjust to the new feeling. 

He rubs an encouraging hand along your back, his palm gently pushed you flatter against Jake’s chest as his other hand held his base.

Jake, seeing the way your body was reacting, wrapped both of his arms around your waist. The new addition made it easier for Heeseung to contort your body into the way he wanted, his hand moving from your back and up to your hips to pull you up higher. 

Even with the two boys comforting you, you still remained as tense as before. Heeseung knew it wouldn’t feel as good to you if you remained in that state so he tried his best to help loosen you up, “Relax, i’ve got you.” And it worked.

And after a few minutes of random thrusts both boys managed to find a shared rhythm, their normal stroke pattern differentiating from each other. 

All three of your bodies were shining in sweat, the heat from your bodies rubbing against each other making a force field of humidity- but it didn’t bother any of you too much. At least not enough to stop. 

You could feel the bed from beside you moving, Sunghoon growing angsty with his lack of attention. “As much as I love to watch this- I think I'm going to explode if I don't feel your touch in the next three seconds.”

You rolled your eyes at the dramatic boy beside you with your best attempt at a small smile. It was hard to show any reaction to him at all by the way the two men were pushing into you, your body was on fire and you could feel your pleasure everywhere. 

Jake ignored Sunghoon and wrapped his lips around one of your nipples, his tongue alternating between swirling around it and rolling it between his teeth. He didn’t want to share you with Sunghoon, not if it had the chance to cost him your perfect little pussy. 

Your mouth dropped open in pleasure, moans breaking through your no longer closed lips. It was too much at once but yet it somehow managed to be too little as well, you still needed more. You came here to be ruined, to be destroyed beyond fixable. And with your mouth still working- you weren’t getting that. 

“Fuck my mouth.” Sunghoon didn’t waste a second before pushing up beside you, his thigh pressing against your shoulder before he tapped the tip of his cock against your bottom lip.

“Will you be able to take it? I don’t think you’ll be able to focus with the other two taking you like this.” Sunghoon managed to switch the rolls once again, his voice coming out doubtful with an underlying degrading tone. “Maybe we’ll see why Sungchan cheated on you.”

Striker. Sunghoon didn’t wait for your response before he pushed into your mouth, his tip hitting the back of your throat right away. He ignored your gag and held himself there for a few seconds- enjoying the way you gagged and choked around him. “It doesn’t feel good, does it? To have something that was rightfully yours be taken away so easily?”

He didn't care about how you reacted to his words, his need to feel your tongue pressing against him overruling anything. “You can’t even take us all at once, poor Jay sitting back and watching you get dicked down by all his friends.”

Sunghoon pulled one of your hands from its position on Jake’s shoulder before holding your open palm out to Jay, “Make him feel good too.” 

Jay was heavy in your hand when you swirled your finger around his slit, his dick still sticky with his release. He wrapped both hands around your wrist as he fucked himself into your fist, his moans matching Sunghoon’s as they worked with your moving body. 

Sunghoon felt eyes staring at him and when he looked up he saw Heeseung’s heavy lidded eyes staring back at him, his reflection barely noticeable through his pupils. Sunghoon smirked at him once before nodding his head towards you, “better make her cum fast, Jay and I want our turn.”

Heeseung shook his head with a challenging smile, “nah, I think we’re gonna edge her a few times. I’m in no rush, I’ve got all night.”

Jay chucked from the side before chiming in, “Knowing your track record you’re definitely not going to last.” Jay was lying and they all knew it, yet it still struck a chord in Heeseung.

“You sure? Pretty sure our girl didn’t even cum whilst fucking you, did you?” Heeseung stared Jay in the eye whilst baby taking you, his hand rubbing your lower back in a fake comforting way. 

Heeseung’s hand moved lower, his hand now resting against your ass. He watched the way your ass bounced back against him and the way your skin jiggled each time your bodies made contact. He pressed down once more before raising his hand up before smacking it down against you, his eyebrow raising when he felt you clench down around them.

“You liked that?” He did it again just to check and once again, you clenched. “Of course she likes that.” Jake now chimed in from beneath you as soon as his lips left your tits, “she always has.”

All three other boys shared a confused look before asking for Jake to elaborate, “What? You think Sungchan was the first to meet her?”

[verdantwyrm]

Hi! Sorry to rant, I don’t know if it’d be appropriate, or if the theme has been discussed already… But you’re, like, the ambassador of Curly enjoyers to me, so I figured this would be my best bet.

The thing is, I’ve been quietly seething lately thinking about how much the perception & treatment of Curly post-crash is defined by his injury. Like, how much it would’ve changed if the man had at least retained his face.

(I mean, he is my fav character for many reasons and in a lot of ways, and yet when replaying the game I have to stop and remind myself every now and then that this is the same person we occasionally play as, with the same set of memories, traits, thinking patterns etc. Not because I forget the fact, but because of how easy it is to subconsciously divide them when he neither behaves nor looks the same anymore. I have a mind exercise of coming to the med bay as I have to pass by, to observe Curly where he lies on his gurney table and try to imagine his pre-accident version looking up at me from there. Something of an attempt to strengthen the associative connection and not be part of the problem.)

Imagine an AU where basically everything is the same but the cockpit didn’t catch fire during the crash, and instead the ship just stopped very abruptly, Curly hit the wall/control panel badly and broke his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. So he is aware but unable to move around or communicate effectively (like in canon), but also he’s completely recognizable. Now, I’m not saying people in the fandom wouldn’t have still treated him like a prop or a pet or a child or some kind of silly f/cked up mascot (bc some people are *****), but I bet my kidney the occurrence would’ve been considerably less common than it is now. And that’s it, that’s the point. The whole dehumanization thing going on is just disheartening.

Anyway, sorry once more if it was all over the place, didn’t mean to be rude... Thanks for listening and for all your committed work as an ambassador and an advocate!

Hi Anon! o(^-^)o Thank you so much! And do not apologise, you have no idea how much I appreciate you and others coming into my inbox and giving me their opinions, feedback and perspective of stuff! Curly is my favourite character as well and I will not tolerate slander! Especially when its just straight up incorrect.

But to answer your question, alot of Curly's post-crash dehumanisation does immensely come from the fact that he's lacking any real facial features. Real life burn victims that have suffered directly to their faces experience this basically every day. Because they lack a """normal""" face thats recognisable, alot of people subconsciously stop recognising these people as Human because they Do Not Look Like One.

Even people that are just double or triple amputees (or in Curly's case, a quadruple amputee) deal with an immense dehumanisation and infantilisation because they "lack the necessary equipment to be an adult human" and perform tasks on their own. There comes a very specific type of infantilisation towards disabled people and thats the utter denial and ignorance that once you "become" disabled you no longer have sexual desires, that you no longer function as an adult and anyone trying to have sex with you or engage with you in that way is a creep because to them you are the equivalent of a 10 year old.

Curly and how he's treated by the fandom and whatnot is significantly impacted by how he looks, and the example you give me of him managing to not burn all of his skin off but would become paralysed from the neck down, I know for a fact that if that was the case, he would be treated significantly worse because he cannot move. Canon Curly isn't paralysed, he's just in an excruciating amount of pain that reduces his movement, but he does still have somewhat control over his limbs. If he somehow ended up paralysed ontop of that, the treatment he receives would be way, way worse. And I can't even begin to describe what that would look like, but I know deep down in my gut that it absolutely would.

If he were to somehow not get burnt but still get paralysed like you said, I think his treatment could be different, but I'm not sure exactly how. He would absolutely still be dehumanised to an extent especially with being paralysed, but its the fact that he has a face that makes a difference. People might be able to remind themselves that he's a grown ass man, but probably not.

You going through the effort to conciously remind yourself that they are infact the same character is actually fantastic, and it shows that you're willing to see disabled people as human beings, real people, even in this case. And you're doing marginally better than alot of people who look at him and completely reduce him to nothing but a dog, creature or an "it" or "thing"

And it's also evident in how Jimmy treats him too, as a liability, that because he's in this state he can just strip away his title like it doesn't mean anything, dehumanise and project his own authority over. Jimmy does this with Anya and Curly, significantly so with her, but in an increasingly horrifying way with Curly.

And thank you so much Anon! Never apologise, I had alot of fun answering this question, and I will continue to work hard as Curlys ambassador and defender! ヾ(*・ω・)ノ

[thesoulspulse]

Danny Phantom Randomness (Principal Masters)

Not sure if this idea has been used in the phandom before, probably not since it’s a pretty common for the principal of a school in a cartoon to be the antagonist in some way, but I thought I’d share it anyways. So here’s what I’m thinking. Personally I think it would have made a lot more sense for Vlad to switch tactics and double down on trying to win Danny over instead of going full cookie-cutter-bad-guy-that-wants-to-rule-the-world after cloning him failed which would make him realize that his little badger really is one of a kind and what he has can’t be replicated.

Up until this point Vlad’s been making Danny’s life more difficult instead of easier which was his whole sales pitch when they first met...

Vlad: Daniel, stop. Think about the things I could show you, the doors I could open for you. You, Danny Phantom, and I, Vlad Plasmius. Together, we could rule.

Then there’s these comments Vlad made to Danny in Reign Storm...

Vlad: Sneak attack, very good, Daniel.You're getting more like me with every battle.

Danny: I AM NOTHING LIKE YOU!

Vlad: Oh, you're not? Using your powers to get back at people you don't like? Throwing the first punch? You're more like me than you know.

I’m so disappointed this didn’t develop into something more interesting where Danny starts to genuinely worry he’s becoming too much like Vlad which would have made the events of The Ultimate Enemy twice as cool because it’d be like a glimpse of that reality where he’d actually become worse than Vlad. But, back to the topic at hand! I’ve mentioned this in a few of my fanfics but I think the whole cloning thing was more of a desperate attempt to get Danny on his side since Vlad never really made any serious attempts to tempt him to join willingly and just spent the whole time bashing Jack and telling Danny he’d be a better father.

With that in mind, rather than being a petty rich bully after Danny gets Vlad’s mansion destroyed in Season 3 what if Vlad decided to put his foot down to “re-educate” him so to speak? What I mean by that is instead of running for Mayor of Amity Park, why didn’t Vlad try to replace the principal of Casper High? For one thing it would have ACTUALLY made sense because the position doesn’t require living somewhere for more than 6 months and its purely based on their education and teaching experience. And I think overshadowing the right people on a smaller scale would make it more believable than the whole Mayor thing.

Vlad could of course still be a jerk about a lot of things to get back at Danny like force the whole dress code thing, however, it would have been an interesting twist if when Danny comes to Vlad to apologize and ask for a truce he graciously accepts which totally throws Danny for a loop. Why? Because that was the plan all along! Vlad wanted Danny to learn there are consequences to his actions, realized that fighting him is counterproductive, and on top of that, to actually show how much easier he could make Danny’s life by letting him become a part of it.

Honestly, I absolutely love the idea of him unexpectedly becoming the cranky overprotective type kind of like what you see in this amazing comic strip by @lilianade-comics​: https://www.tumblr.com/lilianade-comics/703807353584320512/aw-man-dont-you-hate-it-when-your-arch-enemy?source=share

Think about it. If Vlad started to make Jack look bad without actively insulting him to make Danny finally get fed up with being hunted by his parents to the point where he’d reluctantly go there just to catch his breath once the two of them agree to a cease fire. Trouble with the high school bullies? In comes Uncle Vlad who happens to be the richest man in the world and a close personal friend of the Fenton family so Danny’s off limits. Ghost attack? Vlad helps cover up Danny disappearing to fight them or even scares them off if he has an important test that day. The list goes on on what Vlad could do to either make Danny’s life a living hell in a more personalized way by invading his school life or a lot better depending on their interactions at Casper High.

Long story short its basically using the idea that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that so seeing Vlad gradually start doing nice things for Danny from time to time might help change his tune. Because deep down Danny DOES want to learn more about being half-ghost, but he refuses to accept Vlad’s offer to join him because he hasn’t really done anything to make it appealing. Vlad’s always insulting Danny and his father so if you ask me, giving him the praise he doesn’t get at home or at school could change so much between them...

Vlad’s just gotta be smarter about it.

Obviously Danny would be suspicious if Vlad started acting too nice to him right away so the changes would be gradual. And whenever he goes to Vlad for help or at the very least asks if he’ll cut him some slack Vlad will reward him for coming to him first. Especially because unlike his parents, Vlad knows exactly how much he’s dealing with and I’d love it if what started off as a plan to manipulate Danny transformed into an actual student and mentor relationship leading into a redemption arc instead of whatever Season 3 was.

And there you have it. Principal Masters AU anyone?

[bbutterflies]

i was gonna request angst but oh my god . shadyclaw and taking care of the other after a fight.

SORRY THIS TOOK ME FOREVER!!!! here u go isa some emos just for u…

tw: blood

Claw Noir was only out because he was tired of being Adrien for today. After a grueling photoshoot where he’d been completely ignored by his dad, the last thing he wanted was to sit in his empty house and pretend things were fine. He was irritated to see Shadybug out, too, toying with her yo-yo as she wandered across rooftops.

“I can’t believe I’m stuck with you,” Claw sneered, hoping to get a rise out of her. It would at least be more fun than he’d had all day.

Shadybug rolled her eyes. “I’ve had a shit day, fleabag. I don’t need you to make it worse.”

Claw Noir scowled back at her. “Ever imagine my life might be worse than whatever stupid drama you have going on?”

“Fuck off!” Shadybug shoved him by the shoulders. “You think you’re so special, don’t you? No one could be as sad as you?”

“Maybe I do.” Claw shoved her back. “Definitely worse than you, roach. What could you possibly have going on? Not the prettiest girl in school?”

Shady threw a punch that Claw easily dodged. “You’re so pathetic.”

“You’re the one who can’t land a hit.”

“You’ll just go home and cry to mommy about it, won’t you?”

It flipped a switch. This wasn’t funny anymore. Claw lunged forward to try to strike back, but Shady caught his wrist. “Shut up!” he hissed.

“Oh, does mommy not love you?” she said, tightening her grip.

Claw grabbed her arm in both of his hands and used her own leverage to flip her over his shoulder. She landed on her back with a growl and wasted no time in kicking her legs up straight into Claw’s stomach. He didn’t let go. “You don’t get to talk about my mom!”

“Who’s gonna stop me?” Shadyclaw pulled down and Claw slammed into the rooftop next to her.

He didn’t give her an answer. She didn’t deserve it. He’d just have to show her.

She’d managed to get onto her knees, leaning over him with her first already made, but he wasn’t going to just take it. He needed the upper hand back. A kick to her side was enough to catch her off guard so he could jump back up to his own feet.

They knew each other well, for better or worse, and Claw predicted her next move of trying to knock his feet out from under him. He dodged, and she did the same when he tried to pin her back to the ground.

It was a familiar give and take, push and pull; they did this often. Claw would never admit it out loud, but he enjoyed it. Sometimes after a particularly bad day, the only thing he could count on was Shadybug being in just as bad a mood.

Claw wasn’t going to let her off easy, though. He was aiming for her shoulder, trying to knock her off balance, but she moved and his claws caught her face instead. She lunged forward, her shoulder catching Claw in his stomach and forcing him to double over. When he looked up again, something was wrong. Bright red and dripping down her cheek.

“Stop it!” Claw Noir grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her back against the nearest wall.

Shady struggled in his grip. “Get your paws off of me!”

“You’re bleeding!” he hissed. “Sit still for one second!”

Shadybug glared back but did as he asked.

Claw Noir reached a hand out towards her cheek, gingerly brushing his fingers near the marks he’d left. She hissed in pain – he’d done a good job.

He didn’t apologize. He never did. But he could at least try to fix it.

“Just leave it,” Shadybug said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do!” Claw Noir glared at her. “Shut up!”

Shadybug glared back at him but kept her mouth firmly shut.

Claw shrugged off his jacket (it’s not like they had much else in the way of first aid) and tore off part of a sleeve. He was pretty sure it’d fix itself the next time he transformed, anyway, but he didn’t really care either way. He pressed the fabric against the scratches in her cheek to try to stop the bleeding.

“Ow!”

“Do you want my help or not?”

Shadybug huffed. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Lucky Charm yourself a mirror, then, genius. It’s bleeding a lot.”

Shady reached up to where her suit met skin and pulled her hand away to look at the blood on her fingers. She didn’t say anything. She just looked so defeated.

“I didn’t mean it,” Claw Noir said.

“I know. It’s fine.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get a cool scar out of it.”

“You’ll finally have something to thank me for.”

“Whatever, fleabag,” she said, but Claw was pretty sure he saw a hint of a smile on her face.

[moongirlmusingss]

if i was a museum

If i was a museum, you’d see five screenshots of the same chat because i kept triple tapping on the back of my phone once because i was too nervous to not. You’d see a few hundred playlists titled “for my love” and a few hundred more titled “for us”. You’d see all the times I spent two hours on spotify going through bizarre indie underground underrated playlists (one of them was called ‘how i eat my pomegranates with no teeth’ and yes it has been deleted since then i think) just so I could find more music that physically looked like my best friends. You’d see all the times i clicked on that one friend from highschool’s music on bereal because she always had the best music taste and actually if i was a museum i’d be really messy and clumsy and you probably would want a refund once you entered the main gallery (it would be titled “my reasons for breaking down”, which include ‘the tree was so lonely amongst the flowers, so big and so wise and so old yet so incapable of being picked’ and ‘ok instead of okayy’ and ‘how i’ll mourn all the versions of myself i could have been if i didn’t move far away from home and how i would’ve mourned more if i hadn’t moved’) and the funniest thing i’d give you your money worth in coins and i’d probably double the amount of coins because i wouldn’t want anyone to ever dislike or hate me so i’d spend the rest of my life people pleasing my way through every friendship and then convincing myself that i have definitely manipulated everyone into not hating me because if i was a museum there’d be a room “entry to staff only” and i’d be the only staff and it would have a mirror and you’d see me the way i see me and it would be worse than asking for a refund you’d probably come back to the museum with a bulldozer and you’d make my bones crumble my artpieces from 2nd grade but anyways. If i was a museum, you’d see a sentence start with “you’d see all the times i clicked” go to “crumble my artpieces from 2nd grade”.

If I was a museum you’d see my grief hold hands with my joy and you’d see a thousand different metaphors of motherly love and all those smudged asymmetrical eyeliners and you’d see an instagram account called moongirlmusings and you’d see how i call it my own museum and maybe it is maybe that’s where all these things are maybe that’s where you’re reading this from.

If i was a museum it’d be bigger than every other museum combined, i have too much to say and too much of a tendency to overshare (i’d let a stranger know of how my worst heartbreaks were never romantic not even close)

[gaysimpsstuff]

Could I get a Hawks in his rut headcanon?

No problem, Anon! I’m sorry this took so long, I wanted it to be perfect since I really like thinking about Hawks’ avian traits, and I know people really like it too. I hope it’s good! 

Hawks Rut Headcannons

Genre: fluff, smut

Type: headcannons (so... many... headcannons)

Warnings: animal traits, Keigo being possessive af, the commission being assholes, sickness, food, breeding kink, lots of horny times

Other: most of this is based off of real research, but some of it also comes from personal preference. @keilemlucent and their fic Best Nest very much inspired many other headcannons, check them outI They’re one of my favorite creators, and the linked fanfic is one of my favorites! Hope it’s okay I tagged you here lmao

NSFW Taglist: @smolchildfangirl @combat-wombatus @mandalorian-baby-bird @waffleareniceandfluffy (Lemme know if you wanna be added to or removed from the Taglist)

Remember to check if requests are open before sending in a request. This was made while requests were still open.

Pre-Rut Behaviors

Grooming and Preening

Before his rut, Keigo starts to feel dirty. He just seems to accumulate more dust and dirt during hero work than usual. He’ll come back home grumbling about blood in his hair and little bits of concrete in/on his skin.

He will insist you clean him off. So you get to brush his hair, put creams on his face, and wash him off in the shower.

Finally, there’s the preening. If he lets you preen his wings, then you know he’s in it for life. He loves and trusts you with everything he has. 

Expect him to press his nose against yours a lot.

Possessiveness and Protection

You’ll notice he gets more clingy, more possessive of you. He gets really controlling in the days leading up to his rut, so you’ll be annoyed a  l o t.

Just text all your friends and family that you’ve been swamped at work, it’d be a little weird to say “hey guys, sorry I can’t hang out, my boyfriend’s horomones are crazy right now and he gets really insecure if I so much as exist near anyone but him.”

You would come home from work and he’s already on you, sniffing your body to see who you’ve been around, and to see if any of them were attracted to you at all.

If he had any kind of sneaking suspicion that anyone posed a threat, he’s literally laying on you and rolling on top of you to try and get his scent on you. Even if no one will smell it except him, he’s gonna do it.

He’s so protective of you, and if something tiny hurts you or makes you upset...

He.

Is.

Angry.

Someone was rude to you? He’s screaming at them.

Someone tries to hurt or touch you? You’ve got to hold him back to stop him from ripping that person apart limb from limb.

All that x100 when he’s approaching his rut.

One person accidentally bumps into you? He takes it as passive aggressiveness even if they’re very apologetic about it.

You stub your toe on a table? He’s smashed the table and burnt it then thrown the ashes in the ocean. 

If you’re sad about something he can’t beat up, he feels horrible. He’s not the best at comforting people, so he��s just grabbing onto you and not letting go, telling you how much he loves and cares for you, and just how amazing you make his life feel.

If you don’t give him enough attention, he gets really huffy, and it gets worse leading up to his rut. 

You lifted your hands from his head to reach for your buzzing phone? He’s already whining and pouting and begging you to give him more head-pats again.

Nesting

He’ll leave hints asking for you to make a nest, usually saying things like “Our bed needs some changing, don’t you think?” “Don’t you wish our space was more personalized?” 

If you don’t get the hint, he’ll be very sad, and he thinks you’re rejecting him. So you’d better be good at reading into things and realizing he’s approaching mating season and wants you to build a nest.

He comes home one day and sees you piled blankets, pillows, and dirty clothes in the living room, sprayed with his cologne and you’re cologne and/or perfume. He pulls you into his arms and spins around with you, giggling and laughing.

He’s so happy you made a nest for the two of you. 

He starts putting pretty shiny things he likes around the nest. Your toothbrush went missing and you found it in the mountain that was your nest.

Once, you were in desperate need of a clean shirt, and the only clean shirt you could find was in the nest. So you picked it up to put it on, and two seconds later, Keigo was in front of you, hands in your shirt, staring at you with such a fierce intensity, you felt almost like a villain.

He was very mad at you for taking things from your shared nest.

He leaves feathers all around the penthouse, but they’re all piled mostly around the nest, they’re for your protection so don’t try and throw them away.

Noises

He also gets really noisy, so he’ll be ‘singing’ and squawking and cooing constantly. He feels really bad about it so he might get you some noise-blocking headphones for when he’s screeching into the sky in the dead of night about how “THIS IS MY FUCKING TERRITORY Y’ALL MOTHERFUCKERS STAY AWAYYYY!”

You really think bird’s springtime songs are about love? Nah he’s mostly screaming about how he’s gonna fuck his partner and how the neighborhood  practically belongs to him.

Someone called the police once, tired of all the shouting, but the officers backed off when they saw who was doing all the shouting. Most of your neighbors are used to the screaming during early spring.

Rut End-game

On the third and second to last day before his rut, he gets a sudden burst of energy and an increased appetite. He refuses to eat anything unless you’ve made it though, so let’s best hope you can cook at least a little.

When he was younger, his hungry times before his rut were spent either eating anything and everything he can get his hands on. The commission broke that behavior very quickly though, so he’d starve himself before his rut, which would result in him getting very sick from a lack of energy and sustenance. That plus the extreme arousal was a recipe for pain and suffering.

So when you noticed he suddenly stopped eating, you insisted on making food for him, telling him that you wouldn’t let him go hungry ever. That was the first rut in years that didn’t feel like torture.

You’re cooking almost all the time, and he’s constantly eating everything you give him, running around from room to room while he waits for his next meal. He’s basically a hobbit.

In the last day or two before his rut, he suddenly has no energy, and starts getting hot and cold flashes. He’s sniffling, curled up in your shared nest, dirty tissues surrounding him. He comes in and out of consciosness, and when he’s awake, he’s whining and complaining about exhaustion and aches.

Physical Changes

Most of these happen in the last few days leading up to his rut, so it’ll be very sudden. These physical changes is what causes the extreme hunger and sickness.

His feathers darken several shades, and they become super sensitive. They also seem to grow in size, so when you cuddle, you’re smothered by them more than usual.

He also gains an extra couple inches in height, so expect some teasing now that he’s just that little bit taller. His hair also gets thicker and stronger, that’s so you can pull on it when he fucks you.

His nails get longer and darker, and they’re impossible to file or cut. So when he holds you and touches you, he often scratches you on accident. He’s really apologetic about it, but honestly you could totally paint his nails and pretend they’re acrylics if you’re into that.

His teeth get sharper, and he starts biting you just for fun. Bites your finger, hand, wrist, neck, even your nose. He underestimated just how strong his teeth are, and he made you bleed first time he bit you.

His whole body is very sensitive, so head-pats, back rubs, wings, and even his touching his feet can get him to the verge of cumming.

his tongue is longer, and it’s a whole lot stronger. He could probably carry a full plastic water bottle with his tongue (which isn’t a lot, but for a tongue it’s very much a lot).

His voice drops a whole octave and a half- mans is sounding almost like Corpse now. Maybe Markiplier? Anyways, if you’ve got a voice kink, you’re in luck

His dick changes too, it gets bigger, and he grows a lump at the base of it, between his shaft and balls. His balls get smaller until they’re barely noticable beneath what he calls him ‘knot.’

His eyes become sharper too, so don’t try and hide anything from him. 

Rut (MAJOR NSFW)

Everyone already knows Keigo has a breeding kink, but he hasn’t brought it up with you until now. It just kind of- happens. As he’s drilling into you, he suddenly starts blabbering about fucking a kid into you, and how hot you’d look all round with his kids. Might be a little weird for those of you who physically cannot give birth to children (my lovely AMABS and infertile AFABS). 

He can’t control it, so it’s especially weird if you don’t even want kids. If you can get pregnant, you’d better double check that you’re taking your birth control. And get to know some good clinics just in case.

However, if you do want kids, if you want to start a biological family woth Keigo, fuck. You will not be able to handle his happiness and horniness in that moment when you beg him to get you pregnant.

He is going to mark you up. Hickies, bruises, hand prints, bite marks, plus his scent. He needs everyone to know that you are his. He wants to claim you, make sure you know you belong to him. No one else can have you but him.

Halfway through your fuckfest, he starts making animalistic noises. He’s growling, roaring, whining, chirping, etc. This is around the time when he stops thinking about you, so he’ll really rough you up during this phase.

This man was a virgin before you, so this is also the first rut he’s ever going to have with another person, so he’ll hold himself back a lot. He needs you to reassure him at every step, tell him how good you feel, how you want him to fuck you, how not only are you okay with him going all out, you want him too.

Did he just cum? You think you’re finished? HA! No way in fucking hell is he finished after one, two, five, ten... so many rounds. He just keeps going and going and going and how the fuck is he still hard? He cums so fucking quickly, so much, and then keeps going.

When he finally does go soft, his whole personality changes. it’s like he didn’t just fuck you stupid. He immediately goes into ‘protect’ mode, which includes cuddles, him spoon-feeding you, petting you like a dog, and singing to you.

He puts the nest near a window so he can keep an eye out for possible threats. Just like “gotta keep mate safe. Is that the mailman? NO FUCK NO GET OUT OF HEREEEE!” 

One moment, he’s fucking you, and the next he’s leaning halfway out the window, screaming at some poor dude walking his dog. Remember, he’s still naked. You learned your lesson after that and kept the windows locked, and warned the neighbors to stay out of sight of the window, at least for the time being.

You’re going to feel very dirty, because he does not want you cleaning off the sweat, cum, and tears from your body. He likes that you smell like him, and you washing it off makes him feel rejected. 

He’s going to break a lot of things, so move pictures and vases into another room and lock the fuck out of that room. Or else he will break all of it.

He thinks any clothes you’re wearing are mocking him, so wear clothes you hate when his rut starts, then get used to being naked for a couple days. 

Oh yeah, his whole rut lasts one to five days. He’s fucking you for about three days on average.

He fucks you until you faint, and then keeps going until he’s out of ‘fuck’ mode and into ‘protect’ mode. A few times, he fucked you unconscious in the middle of the afternoon and then kept fucking you until the sun rose. 

Yeah, he’s got that much energy.

Don’t worry, during the whole time, he lets out pheromones with a strong vanilla-chocolaty scent that keeps your body and mind relaxed. 

There’ve been times when he’s just fucking into you and your water bottle is just out of reach.

During his rut, he has no shame. Let’s hope your walls are soundproofed, or else your neighbors will all know how he fucks you. 

He will not restrain you or hurt you in any way during his rut. So no degredation, no collars or chains, the only thing keeping you in the nest is his weight on top of you.

He gets upset if you try to touch yourself, things it’s you trying to tell him that he’s not satisfying you enough. 

He wants you to cum as many times as him, which is difficult because of his increased sensitivity, so he’s using every skill he knows to get you cumming again and again and again.

Most of the time, he’s going hard, rough, and spilling absolute filth from his cock and mouth, but in the last few hours of his rut, he suddenly gets emotional.

He’s rocking up against you, holding you close to his body and blabbering about you

How much he loves you

How good you make him feel

How he wouldn’t want anyone else by his side for his rut

How you’re his mate for life

How he’ll protect you and keep you safe.

Please be gentle with him, he’s very vulnerable near the end of his rut, and he’ll cry very easily.

When he’s nearing his last load, he makes out with you sloppily, trying to talk as he shoves his tongue down your throat.

He finishes off by  pushing his knot all the way inside you, and stays there for an hour.

This is the softest moment, and he’s covering your body in kisses. 

His knot pushes these small eggs inside you, and you have the lovely job of pushing them all out the next day. 

Post Rut

When his knot deflates, he finally pulls out and starts cleaning you off. 

He’ll carry you around and finally gives you a bath, constantly making sure you’re okay.

He’ll give you lots of massages and he’ll cook for you. He’s constantly thanking you for helping him, telling you he didn’t deserve it.

Just kiss him on the cheek, tell him you had fun, and that you love him so very very much.

He needs the most reassurance now than ever before.

He’s also very tired, so you’ll be taking care of each other.

Then his ‘post-rut’ resets, and he sleeps for hours.

Then he gets super hungry, and the two of you make huge meals and just kinda binge eat for a day or two.

Then his physical changes go back to normal, and you have a happy lil bird boy who simps for you so hard

[lieutenantwilliamrusso]

It Will Come Back S2 1

Warnings: mentions of sex, swearing, 18+ minors DNI

Werewolf Stalker! Billy x Female Reader

A/N: I told myself I would take a break before season 2, but I can't stay away from it I'm having too much fun.

Side note: Have I ever told you the title is from "It Will Come Back" by Hozier? Totally the Billy x Reader anthem for this fic.

Billy is on top of you, one arm holding himself up, the other one encircling your head, hand wrapped in your hair. He’s thrusting into you, cock dragging against every sweet spot inside of you. You’re begging him, to keep going, not to leave, not to stop. He smiles down at you, circling his hips as you whine and writhe from the attention.

“You gonna come for me sweet girl?” He asks, huffing as he approaches his own peak.

“Yes, yes, Billy yes!” You chant.

His mouth moves to your throat, his tongue tracing circles across your bite, and it’s that that pushes you over the edge.

You wake with a start. You’ve been dreaming of him, unable to make Billy leave your mind since you’d kicked him out almost a week ago. If you’re honest with yourself, you’re avoiding it, seeing him, talking to him. You want to be angry, know you have a right to be. He pushed you too hard, too far and you can't just let it go. If you think about it too hard, stare at the bite in the mirror a little too long, the feelings come rushing back and suddenly you’re faced with what you know you have to do.

-

Billy hasn’t been human in two days. It’s excruciating, wondering when you’ll talk to him again, fighting with himself not to go see you anyways. He’s smart enough to know when his actions will make things worse but that doesn’t mean he listens. Not seeing you feels like the worst kind of quitting. So he’s hauling himself through the forest just outside of the city, running until his lungs ache, until he’ll have no choice but to fall into a restless sleep. He’d tried getting plastered, but it’d just made him sad, made it harder not to go to you, not to cry and scream and beg like he wanted to deep down inside.

He knows Frank is probably livid, Billy’s been AWOL from Anvil for days, not answering his phone, avoiding opening the door. It seems like the more Billy allows himself to feel, the more people he has to answer to these days. He knows he can’t stick this out much longer. Soon, he’ll have to head back to the city, to his life, to his job, to you. And if you still won’t talk to him, he’s going to have to make you.

-

It’s Saturday night when you find it. Duke’s collar is collecting dust under your bed, and as you tidy up your bedroom, your fingers brush against it. The leather still gleams, shiny from lack of use. You cradle it in your hands as you bring it to the kitchen. You can’t bring yourself to throw it away, but it’s the last reminder you need. You’re going to break up with Billy. You have to.

Not that there’s much of a relationship anyways. You can’t really be with someone you just lie to all the time, no matter how bad you want them. It’s that little spark of anger that has you picking up the phone and texting him that you’re ready to talk.

-

When Billy reads your text he thinks he might pass out from sheer relief. You want to talk to him. Not just on the phone. You want to see him, be with him. It’s that thought that has him speeding all the way back to the city, human for the first time in days. He knows he must look terrible, must smell even worse, and the second he’s home he takes the fastest shower of his life and then he’s going, driving to you, desperate to be in your presence, smell your hair, stroke your soft skin.

When he knocks on your door, three staccato beats that somehow manage to come off shaky and nervous, you answer only a second later. It’s the look on his face that almost doubles him over with dread. You look resigned, unbothered, like you haven’t missed him at all while he’s been contemplating breaking your door down this entire week.

“Hey. You say flatly.

He doesn’t know what to say. For once in his life, Billy Russo is speechless with fear.

Until suddenly he isn’t.

“You can’t do this.” He says in a rush, entering your apartment and closing the door behind himself.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.” You retort.

“You can’t leave me.” Billy pushes, hands shaking. He balls them into fists, eyes boring into your face.

You sigh, eyes closing for a second before you reply.

“Billy, you know we can’t do this. I can’t agree to be with someone I barely know for the rest of my life. Not when I didn’t even get a choice in the matter.”

No, no, no, no, no, no.

“And I told you not to open the door.” Billy answers. He knows it’s a moot point. He would have just broken it down, but he’s desperate to get through to you.

“I thought you were hurt. But I guess I can count that as another lie.”

“Y/N, you don’t know how sorry I am-“

“Sorry because you really are, or just sorry I feel this way?” You cut him off, anger seeping into your eyes, mouth pulling into a tight line.

“You know how I feel about you! I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”

“But you would force my hand without me even knowing.” Your eyes are wide, the anger still there, but you also look defeated, maybe even sad. It makes Billy sick.

“Please don’t.” He whispers, hand moving to cup your cheek but you move away at the last second and Billy is becoming less and less sure he’ll survive this.

“You can’t change my mind, Billy. I’m sorry. But we can’t be together.” You say the words slowly, methodically, like you’ve rehearsed them and Billy wonders how long you’ve known you were going to do this.

“I will. I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. You can be angry, you can fucking hate me but every time you open that door I’ll be there. Waiting for you.”

“Trying to force me to change my mind.”

“It’s all I’m fucking good for, right?” He snaps, nerves shot.

“You said it." You bite back.

Billy laughs humorlessly.

“You forget you can’t get away from me, Y/N. You have to listen to me.” Billy knows this is only pissing you off, but he’s never felt fear like this.

There was fear in Afghanistan. But there was also the knowing that there was a good chance he’d walk away alive, just because he was smart, could strategize and work towards an outcome. Here, with you? It’s all uncertain, uncharted territory he can’t traverse.

He sees it when your face changes. When you go from mildly angry to livid, and it sends a pang through his chest. But he’s too scared, too angry at himself to resist lashing out, even at you.

“Don’t you dare.” You growl.

“Don’t leave me, then.”

“Fuck you!”

“That’s what got us into this mess, maybe we should take it slow, go away together for a while.”

“You’re delusional.” You say. “For you.”

“Do not fucking speak to me in my head. You’re not welcome there, and you’re not welcome in my life. Fuck off, Billy.”

Billy clenches his jaw. “You’re making the wrong choice.”

Suddenly you’re reaching over and flinging something at him. It hits his chest with a dull sting before he realizes it’s his collar, from before.

“Don’t you dare tell me what choices I should be making! This is the first smart thing I’ve done in weeks. You wanna talk about bad decisions? Taking your sick, twisted ass home was one. Get the fuck out and don’t talk to me again.”

Just like that, you’re turning away, ignoring him. You’re throwing him away, acting like the past month has been nothing more than a bad dream you’re ready to wake up from.

When he leaves he slams the door so hard it splinters a little, a reminder for you of how you make him feel. How terrified and angry and sick he is without you. You want to call him twisted? He’ll fucking show you what he’s capable of. You’re never getting away from him. You’ve got nowhere to run where Billy can’t find you, and he’s ready to take up permanent residence in your head.

[mythiccheroacademia]

— what you fight about (pt.2)

𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝟙

𝕙𝕠𝕥 𝕘𝕚𝕣𝕝 𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕤: 𝕚’𝕞 𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕤𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕪.  𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕪'𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤. 𝕒𝕝𝕤𝕠 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕥𝕨𝕠 𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕡𝕖𝕕 𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕣’𝕤 𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜 <𝟛 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: 𝕥𝕠𝕩𝕚𝕔 𝕓𝕖𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕠𝕣𝕤/𝕣𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕡𝕤, 𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕥 ℙ𝕋𝕊𝔻, 𝕒𝕟𝕩𝕚𝕖𝕥𝕪, 𝕡𝕖𝕠𝕡𝕝𝕖 𝕤𝕒𝕪 𝕞𝕖𝕒𝕟 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕗𝕗 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕪’𝕣𝕖 𝕦𝕡𝕤𝕖𝕥 :/

Tamaki Amajiki:

you love everything about tamaki

all his faults and his strengths

but sometimes…it feels like you’re the only one keeping it together

and to always be the strong one is hard

It had been a difficult two weeks since your last mission.

Perhaps you were naïve to believe you wouldn’t experience a death any time soon. However, you had been bright and hopeful. The hero you worked as a sidekick for rarely got involved in super-high level threats. You dealt with misdemeanors and a few moderate-sized threats.

Maybe you were being stupid. Nevertheless, the tragedy hit you hard. Both physically and mentally.

You were out until you could safely use your quirk again. In the meantime, your fiancé had done all he could to take care of you. But he was worried.

Tamaki couldn’t help but panic. He wanted nothing more than to kiss you better. Honestly, he wanted you back to normal. He just didn’t know how to do it. You were always the strength of the relationship.

He felt so pathetic over his inability to help, spending hours on the phone with Mirio and Neijre crying over the issue. Afterwards, he’d crawl into bed, cheeks wet with tears, and despite your sadness, you’d wrap your arms around him.

You’d comfort him like you always do and it’d make him feel even worse.

You knew he was trying his best and appreciated that. Though, there was a point to which it all got to be too much for you to handle.

Mirio and Neijre came over to help put up some Christmas decorations. You wanted to cancel. Today hadn’t been a good day. However, Amajiki began to worry over your mood again and so you held your thoughts to avoid his tears.

But it seemed like your tears were the ones you should’ve been worried about.

You sat down on a chair and held your head. The world was spinning, and your ears were ringing. Your eyes burned so badly you felt they’d melt out of your head.

“Bunny!?”

“I’m sorry,” you breathed. “I just need a minute.”

“What can I do?” Tamaki rushed to kneel beside you, fear shining in his glossy eyes.

You shook you head balling your fist near your lips to keep in a cry. “I’m fine, baby,” you sniffed, but that was a lie.

Your head was swimming, buzzing, and filled with nothing but noise. No matter how hard you tried to make it go away, you just couldn’t. You couldn’t deal with that or—

“I-I’ll take care of you. Just p-please tell me what to do!” he begged. You could feel his anxiety seeping into your body and it nearly sent you over the edge.

“Tama, please.”

“I can—I can do something. Anything. Anything you want. An-and—"

All you could think about was how you failed the mission, the girl, her parents, your team, your friends, the public, and—

“Amajiki.”

“B-bunny, I know I haven’t been a good fiancé l-lately, but I-I promise I’ll—"

“AMAJIKI!”

Tamaki jumped, eyes wide and body frozen as he took in the near panic in your eyes.

“I CAN’T—” your voice was shrill before you hiccupped, choking back a sob. You squeezed the air by your head, hoping to ground yourself to something that wasn’t there.

“I just can’t deal with you right now, okay? I-I’m sorry,” you whispered.

Your breaths left in puffs as you silently watched his mind work to process your words, and when it did, you saw his heart visibly break.

He grabbed his hand to cradle it into his chest like it was wounded. When he spoke, it was barely a whisper, not even a decibel above faint.

“N-no, it’s…I—I’ll give you some space.”

He tried to offer a brave smile, but it wobbled too much to do anything. The tears that ran down his cheeks seemed to suffocate him, and Tamaki couldn’t bite back his cry in time before he quickly left the room. Mirio worriedly gazed at you before running after his friend.

Your eyes remained transfixed on the space where your fiancé once stood. It wasn’t until moments later, when you felt Neijre’s comforting hands around your torso, that you doubled over and wept.

Togata Mirio:

he’s optimistic

too optimistic sometimes

you love the light he brings into your life

but it’s at the cost of him dismissing your feelings and worries

You checked the backseat when the car stopped at the red light to ensure your sleeping son was still there.  

“Two minutes and 20 seconds. That’s a new record babe,” Mirio chuckled.

“Very funny.” You threw an unimpressed glare at your husband before turning back into your seat. “But can you blame me? After the heart attack I had this morning, I wanna chain him to my chest and never let go.”

The blonde hero hummed thoughtfully. “That’s only slightly psychotic.”

“Mirio.”

“I’m kidding!”

You huffed and looked away. You were a bit annoyed over the nonchalance your husband seemed to have over what occurred today.

Your son had presented with a quirk and, to your horror, it was similar to Mirio’s—if not even more dangerous. When you came back to find your baby fading away before sinking into the ground, you screamed like murder.

Mirio had never phased into a room so quickly in his life.

After getting both you and your kid (mostly you) to calm down, you went straight to the hospital to make sure everything was still intact. They gave you some quirk inhibiting medication for your kid, a quick pep talk, and you were on your way back home.

The hectic morning made your son knock out as soon as he hit the car seat. You wanted to follow suit but were too paranoid to do so. In fact, you wanted to hold him—just in case. But Mirio insisted the medication would hold him until you got home. Then he cracked a joke about your kid turning into tumble weed and laughed like it was the funniest thing he ever said.

And he kept making jokes. Like this was funny.

Forget annoyed. It was pissing you off.

Mirio peeked a quick glance over your stiff figure. A small grin graced his lips, and he placed a comforting hand on your thigh.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I know you’re scared. I’ll chill with the jokes. Just promise not to blow a gasket on me, will ya?” he smiled.

You averted your eyes away from the moving tress to look at him well. “You could take this a little more seriously, you know?” you said.

“I assure you, I am 100% serious.”

He couldn’t even say that with a straight face. You rolled your eyes, groaning into your head tilt.

“Ooou you get on my nerves—”

“Sunshine, it’ll be fineee,” he happily assured. “It’ll just take some practice before [S/N] gets control of it.”

“[S/N] literally turns invisible before he permeates through surfaces. That’s so scary. I can’t do anything for him unless you're there and even then, that might not always work out. We need to figure something out.”

“His quirk is really not too far from mine. And you remember all the funny things that happened when I was a kid.”

You incredulously looked at him. “Yeah, all the funny near death experiences!”

“And I turned out fine!” Mirio laughed.

You wanted to rip your hair out. There was literally no getting through to him.

“Forget it. I don’t even know why I bother.” You scooted away from his hand, crossing your arms in frustration. “It’s not like you take my feelings seriously anyways.”

That last part was meant for your own ears, however Mirio heard them loud and clear. He turned into the neighborhood, brows subtly scrunching together.

“Now that’s not true. I care about that a lot actually.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Well that was not the answer he expected.

There were a couple minutes of uncomfortable silence before the car reached your garage and was turned off. You two looked forwards for a moment before someone spoke.

“I feel like we should talk about this,” Mirio slowly said, turning to watch for your reaction.

You gave him a glare that caused him to goofily purse his lips. You then got out of the car and went to go unstrap your son so you could hold him until the events of the morning faded from your mind.

As a last resort to make you smile, Mirio permeated his torso through his seat to give you the cheesiest grin.

“I love you, honey bunny~” he sung.

To which he earned a car door slammed in his face.

Dabi:

he’s selfish

you know it and he does too

yet you still stay around because you love him

but it seems like he couldn’t care less about whether or not you do

You impassively sat on the couch of your small apartment. Your hands were folded across your chest, teeth chattering against the raw skin underneath your nail bed. For a minute straight, your knee bounced in place before you stood up and took to pacing in order to release the energy bubbling in your chest.

It felt like hours before your apartment door opened.

Dabi threw his keys onto the closest surface and shrugged off his heavy jacket. You didn’t realize you’d moved before you took the jacket to hang on the wall.

“It’s cold as shit out there,” he shivered.

“Yeah, there’s supposed to be a blizzard sometime soon,” you replied, yet it sounded distant. However, Dabi didn’t seem to notice.

“Can’t wait,” he huffed. A mischievous glint grew in his eyes as he pulled you into his chest by your waist. Usually that would’ve made your thighs tense with anticipation. But all you could do was stand there like dead weight—and again, he didn’t notice. Did he ever? “But I guess it won’t be too bad if I have you to keep me warm, hm?” he smirked.

You stood stiff as he kissed your lips and tears burned your eyes as he moved to your neck, hands affectionately squeezing your hips. The bubbles in your chest rumbled and popped like angry bees when you realized he hadn’t noticed. He never noticed it. He never noticed anything about you. Just like he hadn’t noticed—

“Dabi, what day is it?”

His lips continued to pepper your skin with licks and nips, mindlessly working to find your sweet spot again. “Mmm…Thursday, sweetheart.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I am too.” Dabi looked up and met your stone cold face that looked angrier by the second. He quirked a brow. “What’s up with you?”

“It’s our one year anniversary, you asshole.”

You pushed him away, stomping towards your room. However, Dabi grabbed your arm, pulling you back into the conversation. But instead of hearing an apology, you received an inattentive eyeroll.

“Don’t be like that, doll-face. It’s really not that deep.”

“Excuse me?” you spat. “You said the same thing ever since our 6 month and I let it go, but now you wanna act like this isn’t a big deal? You know how much this means to me.”

“And you know that’s not my style. I don’t care about shit like that.”

“Well I do.” You moved out of his grasp and put distance between yourselves to help you think.

Dabi ran a hand through his hair, stress in his movements. “Are we really gonna do this right now, Y/N?”

“Yes! Because you don’t get it!”

Fed up with the argument already, Dabi threw his hands in the air, letting his frustration carry the words through his lips. It had been an awful day, his staples were aching from the weather, and this was making everything worse.  

“I already missed the damn thing, what do you want me to do!? You want me to say I’ll make up for it?”

“I want you to care, Dabi!” you desperately exclaimed. “I want you to care about me, about this relationship. Damn it, I want you to care about anything else besides what’s in my pants for once in your life—”

“Well that’s all I wanted until you started asking for more shit and I gave you that. What more do you want from me?” he sneered.

There was a silent pause between you two. You blankly stared at the man you’d come to love despite the hell he put you through. When you observed the honest irritation in his eyes, everything became clear. It was in that moment you realized it wasn’t that he never noticed. It was that he didn’t care. He never did.

That’s when you felt the deep ache of heartbreak nestle between your lungs.

“What more do I want from you,” you repeated, tasting the words. You numbly laughed and nodded your head, silently accepting his truth.

There were no tears, just bitter emptiness.

“Well, uh…you don’t have to worry about that anymore. You won’t be roped into another anniversary with me again.”

It was a moment too late when your soft whisper broke through the angry storm that clouded Dabi’s head. His face sunk with the exhaustion of a man well beyond his years.  

“Y/N, baby, can we just talk about this—"

“Leave the spare key on your way out.”

And before he could utter another word, you shut your bedroom door like it was never to be opened again.

[whythinktoomuch]

ii. apocalypse now & again

(pt. i)

Kara woke up and realized that she was going to die.

Too many of the drones had survived the explosions and were still closing in on her. What little strength she had left after quite literally digging her own grave was presently and painstakingly strained just from her efforts to climb onto her knees. And on top of all that—of everything that possibly could have gone wrong for her in this moment—her helmet was cracked.

The abstract red numbers warning Kara of the kryptonite levels in the area seemed redundant now, what with that unmistakable chill already flooding her bloodstream.

“… Alex,” Kara gasped out, barely able to hear herself over the ringing in her ears. “Hey, Alex… Are you there?”

Her words were met with not one whisper or even a crackle of static, and for once, Kara was inconsolably disappointed to hear no one yelling back at her. With her teeth gritted, she shoved herself off the ground as hard as she could, drifting barely a foot into the air before the first drone crashed into the back of her head.

Kara toppled back onto the ground, knees skidding across the rubble in a shower of hot sparks. The impact had her head reeling, her mouth filling with a taste that she was now idly recognizing as blood. But there was no time to consider any of that as the drone doubled back. Kara scrambled out of the way, narrowly avoiding another collision, only to be struck by a second drone smashing right against her ear.

Out of breath but swearing, Kara whirled around and snagged the fast approaching drone into a bear hug, squeezing and squeezing until it crunched in her arms with a frantic whir. Then with a burst of heat vision, she shattered the other as it came straight for her face.

Kara used her heat vision to pick off several more drones from a distance, but of course, more and more just showed up to take their place, never wavering, never slowing… and eventually, Kara just had to laugh. Because her exhaustion was catching up to her. And Alex was hundreds of miles away. And to get out of here alive, Kara would have to somehow defeat the entire horde of drones, while all they had to do was wreck her suit a little more.

Though admittedly, it’d be overkill at this point, given the crack now spiderwebbing across the glass visor of Kara’s helmet.

Either way, it was over.

--

So, Kara laughed, grabbed at her chest in a reflexive gesture only to meet the unforgiving metal of her suit, then dropped to her knees. “Alex!” she shouted herself hoarse, because maybe if said loudly enough, the words would still be lingering in the air by the time her sister arrived. “Alex, I’m sorry, okay? You were right, and I’m sorry!”

Then she just waited—chest heaving, eyes narrowed but never blinking despite the heat pricking at the corners—because she definitely had to see this through to the bitter fucking end. That much, she owed everyone, including herself.

Except the end didn’t come.

Not this time anyway.

No, instead came a silver sphere, emerging seemingly out of thin air to hover right before Kara’s face. It flashed a blinding white just once, and everything fell absolutely silent and still. Kara’s suit powered down completely, the drones collectively dropped from the air like marionettes with cut strings, and all the lights in the immediate vicinity blinked out.

Laughter welling up all over again, Kara could only collapse onto her side in something akin to sheer relief.

The first person to occur to her, of course, was Alex, who had already saved her ass from similar scrapes on many occasions. But that couldn’t be it. Alex was too far away. It’s why Kara had to take on this mission on her own in the first place.

Then she considered maybe Winn or James, which made even less sense, given how the deceased hardly ever came back to do things like save people’s lives. Not even hers. Not even in the most dire of situations. That’s, unfortunately, just not how life worked these days.

Then she considered Alex again because the kryptonite was clearly bleeding into her brain now, and it was getting rather difficult to remember why it couldn’t have been Alex who’d just saved her. Maybe Kara did shout loud enough after all…

But then, a set of footfalls drew near, metal scraping against metal at a steady pace until a heavy boot struck Kara firmly in the chest, flipping her onto her back where she settled with a grunt.

“So glad I got to you first,” came a self-assured drawl, and Kara promptly found herself face to face with a handheld cannon of sorts. “Would be a pity to come all this way and not get to kill you myself.”

And… Kara’s jaw just dropped.

Not because of the words, nor the intentions behind them—though perhaps they both merited some attention as well—but that voice.

Kara gaped up at her supposed knight in shining, lead-lined armor because her voice—that low, husky tone paired with that very specific lilting cadence—was making her reconsider some very fundamental things about how the world might work.

Namely, that people wouldn’t come back from the dead just to save her life.

Mind still reeling away, Kara tried to sit up, only to be slammed back into the ground, hard.

“Down, girl,” Lena said, grinding her boot into Kara’s chest, the weight of her entire body behind the gesture. But that was fine.

It was fine because Kara could still draw some breath into her lungs, could still use some of that breath to talk, and she could certainly still say some things that she hadn’t uttered aloud in many a year. Like her late wife’s name, for instance.

The cannon in Kara’s face wavered, but didn’t lower. “Shut up,” Lena hissed down at her. “Don’t talk. Don’t even think.”

“So… it is you…” Kara said, and she gently wrapped her fingers around Lena’s ankle—the only part of her that she could still reach from her position—and just cried.

With a startled gasp, Lena stumbled away, wrenching herself out of Kara’s grip. “What the fuck…? What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Kara sobbed out, trying not to choke on her own tears and snot and the slight taste of blood still lingering on her tongue. She suddenly, irrationally, wished that she could just take off her clunky suit. Just to eliminate some of that distance between her and Lena. Just so she could touch the chain hanging around her neck without any hindrance. “Just… just wanted to say, hi.”

Lena kept her distance, studying Kara in a stony silence, and Kara started to see things that she should probably would have noticed sooner if her body weren’t actively shutting down on her. Like the green glow of Lena’s weapon and the kryptonite cartridges strapped to her belt. Or that she was clearly wearing a lexo-suit. Or how the swirly edges of her own vision were starting to darken, and how the chill of kryptonite was currently all she could feel.

“Hey,” Kara called out, sniffling only slightly now. “Am I dreaming?”

“… No.”

Kara nodded thoughtfully to herself. “Okay, cool, cool… So, I think I might be dying then.”

“Yeah,” Lena said, after a brief pause. “Probably.”

“Cool.” Kara tried to flash a thumbs up, but no part of her body wanted to cooperate anymore. Her exhaustion had eaten up all her drive. “Hey, can you tell Alex something for me?”

Lena sighed, but she finally stepped closer, practically in reach. “Okay, sure.”

Kara fumbled for some words and the correct order that one might put them in, but then Lena took off her helmet, and nothing else mattered anymore. Because Kara was perfectly content to just watch that ripple of dark hair, streaked with a light gray that was just… nice to look at.

She never got to see her Lena’s hair do that.

//

Kara’s shoulder was being shaken so violently that she had no choice but to open her eyes and see Alex’s worry-creased face peering down at her.

“Dumbass…” Alex grumbled, releasing Kara’s shoulder with a dirty scowl. “That’s the last time I let you go anywhere without me.”

“Whatever you say, director.” Kara laughed, but it hurt. She then tried to do a salute, but her everything was still too weak to move apparently. But at least she was still alive.

… Wait.

Kara repeatedly tried to sit up on her bed, and Alex repeatedly shoved her right back down until she gave up. But still, she had to check, had to know that it wasn’t all just a dream.

“Where’s Lena?” she demanded, and the look that Alex gave her in response was so deeply pained that Kara almost felt pathetic for asking.

“… Kara.”

“No, I saw her, Alex,” Kara said, shaking her head, then immediately stopping when her entire body somehow got dizzy from it. “Shit. Ow, ow… But wait, no—But seriously, I saw her, okay?”

“I’m not surprised that you did. You almost died, Kara. Actually, I’m pretty sure that you were dead for a few minutes back there. Again, I say, you fucking dumbass.”

“But I didn’t die. Because she saved me,” Kara insisted. “No, seriously! She took out all the drones with some sort of EMP device, and, and… we talked! And she had gray hair, and I think maybe laugh lines? And yeah, I almost died because my helmet got cracked and stuff. But now, I’m here and I’m fine, so… everything’s fine, right?”

Alex frowned, then somehow settled on the least important part of Kara’s briefing, “You cracked your helmet?”

“Ugh, yeah. The glass visor part. When I fell,” Kara said, waving her hand dismissively. “So sorry about that, by the way.”

“Suit looked fine when we got to you,” Alex said with a shrug, before irritably exclaiming, “Jesus christ, Kara, enough! I’ll just have a guy get the helmet for you, okay? So, just stop trying to get up already.”

Huffing, Kara fell back onto her bed with her arms folded and waited. But when someone eventually showed up with her helmet in tow, she was surprised to see that it was somewhat worse for the wear but perfectly intact. Even up close, with the helmet out the tech’s hands and in her own, Kara couldn’t detect even the slightest blemish in the glass.

Pouting ever so slightly, Kara shoved the helmet back into the tech’s arms.

“… Satisfied?” Alex asked, rolling her eyes when Kara just shrugged one shoulder. “Great. Listen… You just need to get some rest, okay? Once you’re back to full strength, we can work through your… you know, memories together. And hopefully, it’ll make more sense by then. Sound good?”

Kara just nodded, suddenly all too willing to be left to her own devices in the relative quiet and darkness. She accepted a gentle shoulder squeeze and the promise of another session with the sun lamps within the hour, and just curled up under the sheets.

It’s not like she hadn’t conjured up images of Lena before. Kara had been close to death enough times that it was only inevitable that she’d fall back onto memories of her dead wife at some point or another. But this was different. Whenever her brain was just playing tricks on her, Lena appeared to her the way Kara remembered her: warm and loving, bright green eyes, long dark hair smelling of lavender, and alive and young.

Never before had Kara encountered an appropriately aged version of Lena, with creases gathered around her eyes and forehead, hair gloriously faded into the most lovely blend of light grays and white amongst all that black… The Lena that could have been if only she had lived out all these past years alongside Kara.

And she was never in a lexo-suit, of all things. Lena was always wearing one of her classic pencil skirts or Kara’s NCU sweatshirt, or something. Oh, and of course, her wedding band.

Instinctively, the same way she always did when it occurred to her, Kara reached for the chain around her neck, seeking out the familiar weight of the rings that hung from there… only to jolt upright with a gasp that dried up her entire throat.

She ripped the necklace off her head, almost snapping the chain, which in and of itself was telling. Because her chain had been forged out of an extraterrestrial metal amalgamation that not even the Girl of Steel would have been able to break. The one now clutched in her hand, however, was just plain white gold.

Heart pounding in her ears, Kara stared down at an engagement ring fitted with a modest cut of diamond, somehow occupying the very spot where two simple wedding bands—hers and her Lena’s—should have been. Then something drove her to check for an inscription, and sure enough, engraved on the inside of the ring was a series of kryptonian characters, denoting a term of endearment that Kara had never used, but apparently could have in another world altogether: my dearest heart.

[robininthelabyrinth]

A prompt for you (though honestly I'll read anything you write because it is always excellent): Wen Ning never dies, but somehow still ends up becoming Wei Wuxian's most feared subordinate...

ao3

Untamed

“Sect Leader Nie,” Jiang Cheng said, hurrying after the other man, who stopped and turned with a welcoming expression on his face even though Jiang Cheng knew he was in a hurry after everything they’d just planned. After Nie Mingjue had volunteered to go into the Nightless City himself, a reckless charge to try to kill Wen Ruohan, while the rest of them attacked directly - a final strike, if they could only manage it. “I just…”

He trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.

He didn’t even know what he was doing here.

Nie Mingjue didn’t call him out on it, though, only stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate your support,” he said, voice a little gentler than usual. Like he was trying to comfort Jiang Cheng or something.

Like he wasn’t the one volunteering to go die.

(Just like Jiang Cheng’s mother, and father, and - )

Oh. That’s why he came here.

“I’ll be there,” Jiang Cheng said suddenly, and Nie Mingjue blinked. “At – at the Nightless City. After you kill him, after we take the city…I’ll come find you, to make sure you’re all right.”

That was stupid, he thought to himself as soon as he said it. Nie Mingjue had an entire sect, and friends, and all that – he didn’t need Jiang Cheng hounding him with his insecurities, his worries, his fear that Nie Mingjue would die, too, die and leave him behind just like all the others. Why should he be the exception?

But Nie Mingjue smiled. “I look forward to seeing you then.”

Jiang Cheng swallowed and nodded. “It’s a deal, then,” he said, and watched as Nie Mingjue strode away.

He promised himself that he’d do as he said he would.

Even if all he found was Nie Mingjue’s corpse.

-

It ended up not being Nie Mingjue who killed Wen Ruohan, but rather a combination of Wei Wuxian’s new cultivation style and Meng Yao, who’d apparently been working as a double agent or – something.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t really clear on the details.

He rushed over to Wei Wuxian’s side at once, checking him over as best as he could, yelling at him over…he wasn’t even sure what, it wasn’t really important. Recklessness, probably. Wei Wuxian seemed to understand what he meant, though, grinning at him with bloodless lips.

“You worry too much,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep for – a week. Maybe more. Let’s go back to camp, and I’ll do just that.”

Jiang Cheng was about to agree when he remembered his promise.

(Nie Mingjue hadn’t been there at the final fight, although Wen Ruohan hadn’t been at his full power, either. Had he sacrificed himself to wear down their enemy?)

“What is it?” Wei Wuxian asked, noticing.

“Chifeng-zun,” Jiang Cheng said. “I didn’t – see him.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “You think…? Oh, poor Nie Huaisang..!”

Jiang Cheng wondered for a moment why Wei Wuxian’s first thought was of Nie Huaisang, then remembered that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been there for all those months of working as Nie Mingjue’s lieutenants, him and Lan Wangji and even Jin Zixuan. He wouldn’t have that personal connection with the man, beyond the brief meeting they’d had with him before the indoctrination camp - he wouldn’t have experience with his reliable competence and his talented leadership, his compassion or the gruff praise that he gave sparingly but sincerely and which made Jiang Cheng feel for once in his life like he was every bit as good as Wei Wuxian.

“I want to…” He was going to sound dumb. No, he was a sect leader, as Nie Mingjue often (gently) reminded him; he had to decide for himself what he was going to do, and have faith that his decisions were the right ones - and act accordingly. “We’re not leaving yet. We’re going to go further in, see if we can find him. Do you think you can hold up a little longer?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said, straightening up. “I’ll be fine for a while yet. Let’s go.”

“You’ll tell me if you –”

“Yes, Jiang Cheng. Stop nagging. Now are we going or not?”

-

Unexpectedly, Nie Mingjue was alive.

Alive, and also extremely pissed off.

“I’ll take him back,” Jiang Cheng said to Lan Xichen, who looked relieved: he was protecting Meng Yao from Nie Mingjue for some reason. “Better to go separately.”

“Thank you, Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Xichen said.

Jiang Cheng saluted and went over to Nie Mingjue, who was leaning on Wei Wuxian – a case of the injured helping the injured, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion, and he glared at his disciples until they ran over to assist them both.

Wei Wuxian was frowning, he noted. “What is it?” he asked, and Wei Wuxian shook his head, refusing to talk and inclining his head meaningfully down towards Nie Mingjue, who looked more tired than anything else. Exhausted, injured, even half-dead…“We should go.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue croaked. “There are probably – prisoners.”

“It can wait until we’re back at camp, surely?” Jiang Cheng asked. “We lost a lot of people in that battle. We could get reinforcements, then come back and do a full sweep when we’re less exhausted.”

“They might be injured, though,” Wei Wuxian put in, though he looked tired, too. “It’d be a pity for any person to die in Wen Ruohan’s custody right after we finally defeated him.”

It was a good point, Jiang Cheng thought, and although he was pretty exhausted himself, he forced himself to nod. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go sweep the place, look for prisoners. But you two are going straight back to camp, okay? No exceptions, no heroism, nothing! If I get back and I hear that you two took a left turn and fell face-first off a cliff into a pile of magma because you thought there was a baby bird that needed rescuing, I will personally resurrect and stab you both!”

Both Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian were grinning at him in a suspiciously indulgent (and almost identical) sort of way, Jiang Cheng noticed, but they also agreed solemnly to make no detours, not even if it was the most heartrending of baby birds, and Jiang Cheng supposed he had to be happy with that.

They staggered off together as he turned to go further in, and as he did, he thought he heard Wei Wuxian say, “Tell me more about what Meng Yao said to you –”

-

“Sect Leader Jiang!” one of Jiang Cheng’s subordinates said, rushing over and saluting. “I found another cell!”

Jiang Cheng ran his hand over his eyes, wanting nothing more but to sleep. “Show me where,” he ordered instead.

He’d already dispatched one of his disciples to act as a runner to Lan Xichen, asking for him to send more disciples from his Lan sect and the Nie sect (which he’d been helping coordinate in Nie Mingjue’s absence) to help get all the prisoners out – there were so many of them, and many of them were, as predicted, in poor health. He would’ve preferred to ask someone else, since the Lan and Nie sects had suffered as many injuries as his Jiang sect, but the small sects were focused on themselves right now and the Jin sect…well, they’d done so little in the war up till now that he’d almost forgotten that they were an option until one of his subordinates had suggested them, and then he’d dismissed the suggestion, too.

If the Jin sect were here, he thought ungraciously, they were probably busy trying to find the treasury.

At least the Lan and Nie sects had managed to confiscate the Yin metal first.

At some point, they’d have to find a way to destroy it…

Distracted by thoughts of politics, Jiang Cheng followed his subordinate down a twisting hallway to yet another set of cells, dark and dank but not quite as close to the place where the Yin metal had been used to refine ghost puppets, and there were men and women chained to the wall here. Unrecognizable, most of them, beaten and starved. They were probably the scions of small cultivation clans…

“Wen Ning?” he blurted out, surprised to recognize the kind-looking face of one of them. To barely recognize: Wen Ning had circles under his eyes, bruises on his face, and his usually round cheeks were thin. “What are you doing here?”

“He’s been here for weeks and weeks,” one of the other prisoners said at once. “He’s not – one of those Wens.”

Wen Ning could still blush, Jiang Cheng noticed, and as much as he would have said he hated all those surnamed Wen – well, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Wen Ning had been there with Wen Qing, when they’d helped them. Jiang Cheng had rescued and released her, giving her that comb as a keepsake…it would be manifestly unjust to make the exception for one and not the other.

His disciples were looking at him.

“What are you waiting for?” Jiang Cheng snapped at them. “He’s a prisoner, he’s hurt. Treat him as you would any of the other prisoners we’ve rescued.”

That would be his story, he thought, if anyone later came knocking at his door to ask what he was thinking, letting a Wen go free.

-

Maybe it was his fault, Jiang Cheng reflected. He shouldn’t have thought ‘go free’.

Go free implied that Wen Ning would go somewhere else, rather than following him and Wei Wuxian around like an imprinted puppy. It only got worse when Wei Wuxian spontaneously declared that he would help him find Wen Qing to make sure she was safe – without asking Jiang Cheng first, which was unhelpful.

“We can’t be seen as being partial to the Wen sect,” he groaned, head in hands. “Not even the distant branches, but much less someone adopted by Sect Leader Wen himself…no offense meant, Wen Ning.”

“None taken,” Wen Ning said.

“But they helped us,” Wei Wuxian argued, clearly choosing to take the offense on Wen Ning’s part. “It would be unjust for us to turn on them now, when we have the power and they don’t, when they took risks on our behalf in the past.”

Jiang Cheng squinted at him. “Is this related to your weird thing about Lianfeng-zun?” he asked. Wei Wuxian had taken a firm stance against the man recently, and had spoken of it incessantly.

“No! Or, I mean – I would’ve done it anyway, okay? Listen, I really don’t like that guy.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng gasped dramatically. “You, Wei Wuxian, don’t like Lianfeng-zun? Wen Ning, did you hear that? Can you believe it?”

Wen Ning was hiding his face behind his sleeve – a Jiang sect outfit, one of Jiang Cheng’s own spares, since that was what they had, but the dark purple suited him rather well. Better than the red ever had.

His shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“Traitor,” Wei Wuxian told him.

“Sorry, Wei-gongzi!” Wen Ning giggled.

(Jiang Cheng did not think that Wen Ning was cute when he laughed, nor did he wish to see it happen again, to be the cause of it again. He was the leader of a sect, with an obligation to have heirs to carry on his parents’ legacy – he could think Wen Qing was pretty, even if she wasn’t exactly an advantageous match, but he was not allowed to think the same about Wen Ning.)

Wei Wuxian sighed and flopped down. “His conduct is questionable,” he grumbled. “Lan Zhan agrees with me…Anyway, why are we talking about Lianfeng-zun again? I thought we were talking about finding Wen Qing, and the rest of Wen Ning’s family?”

Jiang Cheng groaned again. “I can try to raise it at the meeting in Lanling,” he said, even though they’d all agreed that it made the most sense for the Jin sect to be the ones to resettle any prisoners of war, mostly on account of them having the money, the manpower, and the time, being the only sect that didn’t have significant work to do rebuilding after Wen sect aggression. “Provided you behave. Okay?”

-

Wei Wuxian, predictably, did not behave.

“Sect Leader Jiang?” Nie Mingjue unexpectedly said from the doorway to the room Jiang Cheng was staying in, and Jiang Cheng spun to stare at him in horror that someone was seeing him in this state. The other sect leader stepped inside, ignoring the mess of things on the floor from Jiang Cheng’s temper tantrum, and closed the door behind him. “Are you all right?”

Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to say something – something confident and self-assured, something that would help brush away Wei Wuxian’s atrocious behavior and his own as nothing to worry about, something befitting the sect leader of the Jiang sect – but the words stuck in his throat and, instead, to his absolute disgust, he burst into tears.

He expected Nie Mingjue to make a hasty exit at that point, appalled by the rampant display of emotionality, and that he’d have to apologize later for disgracing himself in such a fashion. That had been the way it had always gone with his parents, his father who hated sadness and his mother who hated weakness, and so he wasn’t expecting it at all when Nie Mingjue stepped forward and pulled him into his arms. Into a hug.

It was terrible: there was absolutely no way Jiang Cheng would be able to get ahold of himself now that he was feeling warm and protected and like someone gave one single damn about him.

Nie Mingjue didn’t let go of him, not even when he tearfully apologized for making a display – “It’s not wrong to have feelings, Jiang Wanyin, and it’s not harming me to be here while you let them out.” – or even when, in broken unfinished unpolitical sentences, Jiang Cheng started stuttering his way through…he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.

Possibly a rendition of all the bitterness and resentment he’d ever had in his life.

When it was done, after he’d wept all the tears he’d hidden inside of him, Nie Mingjue said only: “Feeling better?”

Jiang Cheng swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “…yes,” he said, realizing that he did. “I’m sorry –”

“Do not apologize for having emotions like any other human being. Or for being a burden on me, which you are not.”

Jiang Cheng wished it didn’t feel so good when Nie Mingjue – stiff, stern, harsh Nie Mingjue, who rarely said kind words and never said anything just for the sake of saying it – said things like that. It would make it far easier to keep his dignity intact.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, instead. “It wasn’t to hear me talk about Wei Wuxian.”

At least, not the lifelong story of how Jiang Cheng had always been second to him even before he’d shown up – how his birthday was only a few days later, his skill a little bit less, his temperament inferior, his life inferior; how Jiang Cheng could ignore all of that if only Wei Wuxian were his brother the way he was his, the way he’d promised to be, and yet more and more nowadays it felt as if it were slipping out of reach.

“It was,” Nie Mingjue said. “He’s been coming around rather a lot to discuss Lianfeng-zun. It was his vehemence on the issue that reassured me that I wasn’t overreacting to the unnecessary death of my sect cultivators at Lianfeng-zun’s hands –”

The what?

Maybe Jiang Cheng should have listed a bit more when Wei Wuxian started ranting about how untrustworthy he thought Lianfeng-zun was.

“– and you have always had the strongest confidence in his sense of righteousness, even after he switched over to using demonic cultivation. Based on that, I thought there might be some reason behind his actions.”

Wei Wuxian’s actions: kidnapping an entire cohort of Wen sect cultivators from a Jin sect resettlement camp, assaulting several guards, running away, bringing shame on the Jiang sect by association…

“If I knew anything, I would tell you,” Jiang Cheng said bitterly. “But that would require Wei Wuxian telling me. Anything. At all.”

Nie Mingjue nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think he acted maliciously?”

“What? No,” Jiang Cheng said at once. “Of course not.”

“Do you think his thinking was affected by his demonic cultivation?”

“I almost wish it was, but no. He’s always been – like this. Reckless and over-confident, never thinking of consequences.”

“So you still have faith in him?”

“Of course!”

“That’s good enough for me,” Nie Mingjue said, as if Jiang Cheng hadn’t spent half a shichen crying on his shoulder about how all of his problems and how he couldn’t do anything right. “Let’s go ask him.”

“What, now?”

“Are you doing anything else?”

-

Fair was fair, but politics were politics: “If you’d gone about it the right way, perhaps the Jin sect wouldn’t have a claim,” Nie Mingjue said, pacing around the Burial Mounds with a scowl. “But as it stands now, it’s your word against theirs – and yours will be considered impaired on account of your demonic cultivation.”

“What about the testimony of the victims?” Wei Wuxian demanded.

“Wen sect,” Jiang Cheng put in, and shrugged when Wei Wuxian glared at him. “It’s true! Like it or not, their surname is Wen, and for Wen Qing and Wen Ning in particular, they were Sect Leader Wen’s wards.”

“It was not our choice,” Wen Qing said. Her voice was cold, and she’d tried to return the comb to him, earlier, though he’d refused – why he refused he didn’t know, since her decision to approach Wei Wuxian to seek help in rescuing the rest of her family rather than him had cut off any hope of anything between them. Even if she eventually understood his perspective, or even apologized for judging him unfit or unwilling to help her, he didn’t think he could live the rest of his life with a woman who had picked Wei Wuxian first.

“That isn’t what’s important, though,” Wen Ning said unexpectedly, and they all looked at him. He ducked his head, picking at his sleeve. “It isn’t. Sect Leader Jiang’s right: our surname is Wen. It’s reasonable for people to assume that we’re loyal to the Wen sect, and to treat us accordingly.”

“We never fought against anyone! We’ve never –”

“It doesn’t matter what we did, jiejie,” Wen Ning said. “Whether or not we fought for our sect, we would’ve benefited if they won, right? You rise when your clan rises, and fall when it falls. Why should we be an exception?”

“Well said,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wen Ning abruptly turned bright red – Jiang Cheng shot him a sympathetic look; he entirely understood the issue there. “Your testimony will be deemed self-interested, and even asking for it will only undercut Wei Wuxian’s position. Not to mention the Jiang sect’s.”

Jiang Cheng nodded, but Wei Wuxian crossed his arms. “Then just kick me out of the Jiang sect,” he said.

“What?” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, and even Nie Mingjue looked startled. “Absolutely not!”

“Why not? Isn’t the whole point that the Jiang sect is being dragged down by me and my new cultivation? Kick me out, and the problem’s solved.”

“I could cut off your head, and that of everyone else here,” Nie Mingjue said. “That would also solve the problem, but for some reason I’m not suggesting it. Can anyone tell me why?”

“…because it’s a bad idea?” Wen Ning volunteered.

“Because it’s a stupid idea,” Nie Mingjue agreed.

“It is a stupid idea,” Jiang Cheng growled. “Even putting aside that I don’t want to cast you out, do you really think people will stop blaming the Jiang sect for your actions just because you’re formally not aligned with us?”

“There isn’t another option,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m not giving up the Wen sect, I’m not changing my cultivation style, I’m not giving up the Tiger Seal – and I’m not dragging the Jiang sect down with me, not if I can help it.”

-

“Are they really calling me ‘Ghost General’?” Wen Ning asked on one of his visits to the Lotus Pier to pick up supplies for the Yiling Burial Mounds.

Since Wei Wuxian had been so set on splitting from the Jiang sect, they’d eventually reached a compromise, of sorts. Wei Wuxian’s actions in rescuing the Wen sect remnants was – not endorsed, per se, as it was clearly wrongful, but Nie Mingjue announced that he had examined the Wen in question and found evidence suggestive of malnutrition and abuse, which indicated at minimum some negligence on the part of the Jin sect in not supervising the guards better. Accordingly, the Wen sect would be removed from the Jin sect’s custody and permitted to set up camp in Yiling under Wei Wuxian, but as punishment for his reckless and unsanctioned behavior, Wei Wuxian was to be expelled from the Jiang sect.

Since the expulsion was mandated by external forces, rather than being a result of his own decision, Jiang Cheng was able to give Wei Wuxian a sizeable settlement as a gift for his separation – the cultivation world gossiped about it, but most people seemed to think he was just trying to get his own back at Nie Mingjue for supposedly forcing the decision to expel Wei Wuxian down his throat – and to set up something of a trade agreement to send them more, although exactly what the Jiang sect was getting out of their side of the ‘trade’ was still up in the air.

Despite these outward signs of remaining support, several small sects had made attempts on the Burial Mounds, growing more reckless once they realized that Jiang Cheng really hadn’t left any forces behind to protect it – stupid of them, of course, since the reason he hadn’t left anyone behind was because he didn’t need to.

Wei Wuxian could handle himself perfectly well.

As could Wen Ning, apparently – he was a truly excellent archer, it turned out, and capable of waiting in all sorts of strange places with perfect patience, even if sometimes he had strange ideas about painting his face with mud to better blend in. It’d been one of those incidents that had given rise to the rumor that he was actually dead, having been resurrected by Wei Wuxian…

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “Sorry about that. I tried to tell them to stop, but…”

“It made it worse?”

“It made it so much worse,” Jiang Cheng sighed. “Anyway, would you like to drink?”

“…do you mean tea?”

“No.”

“Yes please,” Wen Ning said. “I have been – so stressed. You wouldn’t…actually, you probably would believe it.”

“I grew up with Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said grimly. “I believe anything.”

-

“It would be good to bring a representative of Yiling Wei sect to the conference, even if it can’t be Wei Wuxian himself,” Nie Mingjue remarked, looking down at the plans Jiang Cheng had laid out for the first discussion conference to be held in the Lotus Pier since the war. “You’re on good terms with Wen Qionglin, aren’t you? Ask him –”

“No!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, then realized he was being suspicious and cleared his throat. “Maybe someone else should invite them.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him over the table. “…has something happened?” he asked.

Jiang Cheng stared down at the plans and hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Nothing important,” he said, and his voice cracked on the last sound – embarrassing.

Still not as embarrassing as that time he cried into Nie Mingjue’s arms, no, but still…embarrassing.

“Oh,” Nie Mingjue said. “You slept with him.”

“How can you tell?” Jiang Cheng hissed, mortified beyond all belief. “Is it – written on my face –”

“According to Huaisang, it’s always a safe guess,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged when Jiang Cheng gaped at him. “Either they admit that that’s the case, as you just did, or they get all up in arms and explain what it really was while denying it.”

“That’s –” Really useful and Jiang Cheng will have to put it into effect immediately. “– terrible.”

“Works, though. Why the embarrassment? I didn’t think the Jiang sect cared about cut sleeves.”

“We don’t,” Jiang Cheng said, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. “But I’m sect leader –”

“You had sex, it’s not like you got married.”

“I used to have a thing for his sister.”

“Awkward, I suppose, but it never went anywhere, did it? One can hardly hold your past inclinations against you –”

“We were both thinking about you,” Jiang Cheng blurted out, and then promptly wanted to die. He could have just not said that. He could have said anything else but that. He could stab himself right now and maybe Nie Mingjue would be so distracted by the bleeding and screaming that he would just forget what Jiang Cheng had just said…

“You could always just ask,” Nie Mingjue said.

Jiang Cheng looked up through his fingers. “…are you serious?”

Nie Mingjue looked at him with arched eyebrows. “Are you asking me if I’d be flattered by being propositioned by two extremely beautiful and deadly cultivators?”

“I wouldn’t rank those two as equally desirable traits in a lover,” Jiang Cheng said, and it was almost not a lie, “but…yes?”

He thought for a moment.

“If I did invite Wen Ning to the Discussion Conference…”

-

“Well,” Wen Ning said. “This wasn’t how I was expecting to end up.”

“Me, either,” Jiang Cheng said. He was staring up at the ceiling and thinking about not moving again for – possibly ever.

“Same for me,” Nie Mingjue, on his other side, agreed. “But I have no objections to how it worked out. There aren’t two other cultivators I’d rather be with.”

“There’d better not be,” Jiang Cheng said on automatic, then considered bashing his head in – luckily both Wen Ning and Nie Mingjue reached over and put their hands under his head so he couldn’t, which made him feel warm and happy in a way subtly different from the way the sex had. “I mean, who else would it be? Zewu-jun and Lianfeng-zun?”

“Wei-gongzi still thinks Lianfeng-zun is trying to kill you, you know,” Wen Ning said to Nie Mingjue, who looked long-suffering. “He’s got this idea –”

“He can’t be trying to kill me,” Nie Mingjue argued. “He’s just offered to help Xichen play calming music for me –”

“Wei-gongzi said that maybe he’s trying to kill you through the music –”

“I’m going to sleep,” Jiang Cheng announced. “When I wake up, we can discuss the political implications of letting there be rumors about us sleeping together, which will make it both convenient for us to do this again and also maybe using the potential threat of a Yiling Wei-Yunmeng Jiang-Qinghe Nie alliance to force the Jin sect to take action so we can figure out once and for all if Lianfeng-zun is actually planning to do something. But for the moment, I am going to sleep.”

“…seems fair,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Communication and straightforwardness is important in relationships like these.”

“Uh,” Wen Ning said, glancing at Jiang Cheng. “About that…if, theoretically, I were to know something about someone…”

[ficauthor]

inspired by the prompt by @danphanwritingprompts:

Danny narrowed his eyes as the Uber arrived at the church, and he finally remembered the occasion. “Wait, Mom? Did we just pregame Vlad’s funeral?” Danny asked. Maddie scowled. “Shut up and act sober. For some reason, your dad loved that miserable creep,” she told him. “It’s the only way to get through the day,” Jazz agreed, fumbling to open the door and step out.

and some other headcannons that I've seen float around tumblr about trans Danny fic below cut if you dont wanna follow the link.

Looking out the window was making him nauseous, like really  really nauseous. The kind of nauseous he only got when sick or from a good punch. He knew a thing or two about good punches. He’d been taking them for a few years now.

It really wasn’t fair if you asked him. One should ask him because it was an experience that only he could experience. After all, halfa's were rare as can be. Skulker had certainly told him enough for him to know. Every brush with alcohol in his younger days was, well, a mixed bag. He processed it faster than the average person so he was lucky in that aspect that he got drunk faster. But if anything his messing about with alcohol before he was 21 told him it was that it also left much faster than normal. Bullshit ghost rules and all of that. Genuinely being a ghost even half one had very few upsides. Some people online speculated about how cool ghost powers must be to have but clearly none of them knew about the burden that it came with. Sometimes he still wished that he didn’t know. 

However this time for whatever reason the alcohol was hitting him and staying. Maybe it was because the previous times he’d been drinking cheap party booze in Dash’s garage with Sam and Tucker, no one but the three of them aware that they were even there. Instead this time the booze was some semi expensive shit, he didn’t know the name or type but he’d been promised quality. Why he of all people was being given quality alcohol he'd never know but he wasn’t going to turn it down.

That being said seemed the trade off was intense nausea. It wasn’t that bad all things considered, he actually preferred being sloshed for the upcoming event but his body was not agreeing with that. Not that his body agreed with a lot of things. The disagreement between ghost and human sometimes really bit him in the ass. His head was floaty, the world in front of him was spinning badly, maybe it’d be worth it to never drink again. Especially if he was going to have this reaction . If only he’d invited Sam and Tucker. They were great fun and always knew how to reel him in. Man he missed them, if only they didn’t all go to different colleges. But nooo all of their majors just had to have few overlapping colleges. At least they were all within a drives (or in his case a flying) distance. When he wasn’t feeling too sick and unbalanced he’d have to fly over to their dorms for a movie night. It’d be nice. Sam might even be able to get them into someplace cool again.

In a stagnant attempt to push the feeling away he turned away from the window and towards his family. Jazz was studying a text on her phone. Probably a message from her girlfriend at university. Maybe she was inviting her. That’d be nice. She seemed nice when he’d saved her as Phantom a month ago, then everyone was nice when their life had just flashed before their eyes and they were rescued from it’s visions. Even when he and Valerie were on the worst of terms he was always grateful when ever she rescued him in either form. Bar Johnny 13 his sisters' taste in partners wasn’t actually all that bad. He actually liked her last girlfriend. Even then with Johnny he wasn’t sure how much of that was actually her taste and how much was Kitty’s possession. 

Certainly Jazz’s apprehension couldn’t be blamed, three of her previous partners both highschool and college were driven away by how weird their family was. She claimed she was fine with it, something about them not truly accepting all parts of her but still. That sucked. School had been rough enough, he couldn’t even count the amount of people that had been weirded out from being his friend because of his parents. Well there was also his reputation but his parents being renowned ghost hunters and chaotic town kooks certainly did not help. Looking back on it more of that might have actually been on his reputation. A nerd with A+ grades until highschool only to then end up with Ds on the best of days and bruises on the worst. Yeah some of that was probably on him.

Jazz gave him a look, he’d spaced out and looked at her for too long, it was weird now. He gave her a shrug and turned to their mother.

Laughing would be rude; he had to remind himself when he spotted her dancing along to the car radio in her dorky adult grooving. It was peaceful in a way. A down time he didn't usually get to appreciate before something bad (normally ghosts) interrupted. It was almost nice in a way to be calm with his mom and sister. Even if the former looked really really stupid.

He snorted anyway at his mom’s dance moves. Discombobulated shoulder jerks and little hand motions mixed in with little head rolls that had no rhyme or reason. It was wildly out of beat and didn’t match the tone of the song on radio. It was definitely the kind of dancing that Tucker would disparagingly call “white people shit”. The thought alone of Tucker's pain at his parents' dance moves was almost enough to send him into hysterics.

Man he missed Tucker.

He’d have to check in on Tucker soon, since he started the latest school assignment he’d sort of ghosted everyone, for the lack of a better word. It was probably the stress of dealing with his assignment partners, he’d done the same last time. Still… in a town and world with ghosts it couldn't hurt to try to check in on him. Tuck was a big boy now he could hold his own in a ghost fight but he didn’t like the idea of leaving him to it. Call him what you will but obsessions were just like that. 

Maybe he was a little possessive.

Just a touch.

“Oh Danny!” his mom squealed as a new song filtered in. The Uber driver rolled his eyes, clearly he thought no one could see him but Danny caught it in the rear view mirror. ” I love this song, isn't it rad!”

He tried not to laugh, he really did, but it was so ridiculous. His parents were doing this on purpose! They had to be! There was no way that they weren’t no one was that out of touch. That behind on lingo. Warm giggles and chuckles bubbled forth, messy and loud. The kind of laugh only those closest to him could coax out of him. Back in school it was only Tuck and Sam that got him to laugh like that (maybe Jazz if she was lucky) make him lose his composure so quickly, but more and more readily his parents had been able to also force the laughs out of him.

If only fourteen year old him could see him now. He’d be so embarrassed. Sitting in the back of an Uber laughing openly at something silly his mom was doing.  She said something he couldn’t catch, teased him probably for laughing. A random pop song and the air coming in from the drivers open window were just loud enough to cover even a raised voice. Even still the there was comfort. Whatever she said was from a place of love.

He loved car rides sometimes. He didn’t always appreciate them when he was younger, kind of like how he felt about his parents. Especially when he was 14 but now? They were some of his favourite times spent with his parents. He just couldn’t help it, something about the rolling scene and music with easy conversation lulled him. It helped keep his obsession at bay, blocking it from flaring if he could see that some of the most important people in his life were there, in front of him safe and sound.

He still ached. Felt that compulsion to check Sam and Tuck. Rather than scream like normal it was a soothing whisper. He was able to drunkenly send them a text about how much he loved them without the skin crawling need to see that they were still standing.

 The Uber slowed to a crawl, the Sudan squealing as they stopped. Man that guy really needed to replace his breaks. He could get in a wreck and then whoever he was ferrying around could get seriously hurt.

No!

He shook his head; he couldn't let his obsession obsess on something so small. It was probably safe to look out of the window again so he chanced a look. Danny narrowed his eyes as the Uber arrived at the church, and he finally remembered the occasion.

“Wait, Mom? Did we just pregame Vlad’s funeral?” Danny asked. 

Maddie scowled,“ Shut up and act sober. For some reason, your dad loved that miserable creep,” she told him.

“It’s the only way to get through the day,” Jazz agreed, fumbling to open the door and step out.

Damn he hadn’t meant to forget the occasion but he couldn’t help it his mind was already prone to wandering and the alcohol was just making it worse. Really it was a miracle he passed highschool in the first place, even when sober his mind just struggled to latch onto subjects, and that was before he had to nightlight as Phantom, hell it wasn’t even nightlighting it was a full double life. Really he didn't even know how he was managing college with the heroing on the side. Best guess if he was pressed to give one was that his parents’ disappointment and the desire to go to space was combining into the ultimate peer pressure. Funny how his brain worked like that, maybe Jazz could explain that to him. She was good for stuff like that. Explanations for why his brain was weird. She tried to give him an acronym for it one time something with A's. An attention thing of some sort. He'd have to ask her about it again sometime so he could wrap his mind around it.

“Hey!” Jazz opened the door, her face inches from his, the scent of some fruity cocktail on her breath,” get out Danny, and remember, act normal. At least for dad’s sake.”

“Yeah,” he waved her off stumbling to his feet, honestly it wasn’t fair that the ground was so unsteady beneath him, kind of transphobic if you asked him. “If you wanted me to act normal then why’d we all get plastered?” he joked.

“Shush,” Jazz clamped a hand on his face, their slow amble up the church's  many  steps paused. “Don’t lick a gift horse in the mouth Danny, you know this will be insufferable.” 

He licked her hand, she recoiled, wiping the spit off on her fancy black dress. 

“Danny!”

He stuck out his tongue in retaliation.

“Behave, ”she chided.

He rolled his eyes and followed her. It was just a funeral, what was the worst they could get into?

 The second he stepped in the church threshold he knew. It put his whole body on edge, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the faintest trickled of mist? ghost vaper? Ghost breath? He actually had no clue what it was that came out of his mouth. 

Well he never really understood what he was saying half the time anyways, his mouth had a habit of running out from under him. The worst case of that was just the other week, he was talking to Sam over skype about something and he’d forgotten that she knew about Phantom, how really he had no clue, and he just went on for about twenty minutes making some out there wild excuse for why he’d missed their last hang out when she’d stopped him.

Honestly it was getting embarrassing, even worse was trying to keep things he said to his parents in each form separate. He really had to tell them soon.

It was so easy when he was 14 the breadth of his conversations with them as Phantom at the time could be summed up with a snarky quip from him or a “I’m gonna dissect you” from them. Now though they seemed to be fully taking seriously the notion that ghosts had depth to them. Which while true was deeply inconvenient for him. That meant he had to have interactions with them as Phantom and keep his identity straight ( ha  ). Maybe he should be grateful, they weren’t threatening to dissect him anymore that was certainly a plus, they still definitely wanted to examine him however.  He had considered it, in the depth of the night, allowing them to examine him only to drop the transformation part way through. It’d be funny, just a little bit to catch them off guard like that. But they didn’t deserve a coming out like that. He stifled a groan, he thought he was done with the closet when he’d come out but no life just had to never end and add in ghosts.

“Danny,” Jazz hissed at him. 

He slurred out a huh at her in confusion.

Damn he’d been staring out at nothing, the Pastor? Priest? He didn’t know the difference to be honest, was still talking about Vlad. Shit that’s right! The second he’d walked in his ghost sense had gone haywire, Vlad was still (half) alive in that plush ass casket. He wondered how bad it'd be to fake a stomach ache and transform into Phantom for some ass kickery. Knowing his luck though Vlad might just feign full death embrace just to make a fool of him. 

He would do that, fake his death, hell he was doing it right now! Motive was still unclear to him but Danny was going to get to the bottom of it. The man at the front, religious figure of whatever denomination, was gesturing large and big as he wrapped up.  It was really official, and stuffy, when he finally fully died he wanted his funeral to be nothing like this. Maybe Tuck's ideas of dramatic funeral pranks were where it was at. Or maybe even Sam's ideas of celebratory parties that remembered the dead's life. He wouldn’t object to either of those. 

Alcohol was fading out of his system again, well it’d been nice while it’d lasted but it’d probably be best to not be sloshed if Vlad wanted to cause a scene. 

He sat at the edge of his seat as his father came up for a speech.

“Vlad,” his father stopped to blow his nose,” Vlad was a good friend of mine in college, w-we,” his lip trembled, his large jaw hammering up and down as he stammered for words. It took everything in Danny to not sink into the pew bench in embarrassment. Jack was for all intensive purposes the only person in the entire church that seemed genuinely broken up about the billionaire’s death.

“We drifted apart for a while, and he’d just started to come back to mine and my wife's lives a few years ago and- and- I-I sorry,” he winced as his fathers voice died.

While he didn’t understand his fathers affection for the man his heart couldn't help but ache for the man’s sorrow. His father had such a large heart. He was so trusting and held so much affection in his large beating heart. It was a weakness and a strength. One his mother often said he inherited. He didn’t know if he could see it. He wasn’t so soft, so trusting, so eager to love and care as his father. Then the larger man hadn’t been burned the same. Hadn’t had his heart half electrocuted to death like him.

His mom walked up on the stage, he was briefly impressed by her composure, she was buzzed but also in heels and looked to all the church exceedingly well put together. Quietly she was speaking her hands gently on Jack’s shoulders patting his back soothingly. She often sold herself short. Stating her heart not to be as big, Danny didn’t believe that, not really, his mother was just more careful in those she let in.

“I wasn’t as close to him as my husband,” she admitted, having softly taken the mic from Jack. her fingers were curled around it softly, but her other hand was in her hair. She was fidgeting and searching for words,” but I’m sure those he was close to will miss him dearly.” she said tight lipped. Jack whispered something to Maddie quietly making her smile tightly and nod. The man moved to his seat and let his wife continue his speech in his stead. 

It was nothing notable really, Danny wasn’t one for paying attention to speeches or lectures and a funeral would not be an exception. He caught a few snippets though, his moms implication that she liked him better in college. A line hoping that in death that he could hopefully move on from the past. He really tried to not laugh at that one clearly because she'd noticed the exes. How many of them had known before? How many of the exes had to learn of their blueprint right then and there in the funeral.

Still he sat teetering on the edge of his seat, half paying attention to her words and mind half trained on that open casket. Vlad lay there in the plush box waiting. What for he couldn’t tell yet but he wasn’t going to be caught unaware.

The speeches couldn’t have ended any slower in his opinion. He wished that the alcohol hadn’t run it’s course already. It was so much easier to get through shit when his mind was quieted and his obsession was dulled. Instead he was forced to wait, his waking obsession tearing at his insides making him wait. Watch the lingering guests with apprehensive eyes. A few were expected. Gaggle of divorced exes. Some smattering of people that vaguely had Vlad's chin and nose. It was bizarre, some looked wildly like him and others well. They were utter strangers to Danny. They all were but they seemed almost faceless in how unknown they were. Interestingly none of them really seemed that choked up. He’d never expected troves of people depressed about Vlad’s passing. Still to only have one sobbing mourner? Maybe they just grieved differently...

Yeah maybe.

About when he got his water from the refreshments table he realized that Vlad really wasn't pulling a stunt. Still he had no clue why he was in that damn casket if he was still (half) alive in there. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, his worst nightmare was being trapped in one of those, yet Vlad had clambered in willing foot after foot laying stricken and board straight for all that he knew to see him. It didn’t make sense. There had to be some trick.

There had to be.

He thought maybe after his father had bowed his head over the casket head in hands loud body wracking sobs shaking his shoulders that Vlad might then spring to life (ha) and attack them. No, instead he remained laying in that coffin, the soft plush pillow under his head holding him still, the flowers in hand still clutched in strict fingers. He must have some sort of long con going on then. Some sort of goal he was aiming to reach by laying stricken and dead.

Wouldn’t be the first time the man had pulled a bizarre stunt. The time he’d kidnapped Danny and his mom sprang to mind. But there were few situations that came to mind where faking one’s death could come in handy. 

A severe looking man walked up to him a small plate of hors d'oeuvres in hand.  Sam would hate the sight of the small snacks, not a single one was vegetarian. And Tuck? He’d be laughing his head off at the name and size. He really had to rope them into a trip to the movies or arcade sometime soon.

The man greeted him, straightening his professional looking tie as he spoke. The man was exceedingly out of place, in a clean and crisp business suit that hardly matched the tone of mourning clothes. Then his parents were wearing their jumpsuits under their fancy clothes so glass houses and all that.

The man was painfully dull giving Danny his condolences in a rather stilted and clunky tone. The man clearly didn't want to be there. He raised an eyebrow at the man as he finally asked how he knew the ‘deceased’. 

Telling the man something to the effect of, “Just through my parents,” somehow making it clear to the man that he wasn’t particularly choked up by the billionaire's death. Gee he wondered what gave it away, his flat unaffected tone? Or the fact that Vlad was a billionaire with no moral backbone. 

Huh, he must really be missing Sam a lot to be thinking like that. he hated to admit it but she was kinda right. 

Business suit was disinterested in conversation with Danny after that, he hastily wrapped up the conversation. Man even muttered “shame.” under his breath, if Danny wasn’t half dead he wouldn't have caught it. But well nothing ever really worked out well for bureaucrats did it?

Had Vlad seriously faked his death to avoid paying a few measly bucks? The man was a billionaire! He must really owe them a mean amount of money for them all to arrive at the funeral like this. Maybe they hoped the will would work in their favour? Not far in front of the refreshment table were two suits talking unabashedly about the amounts that Vlad owed them. If it weren’t for the setting Danny would think that they were coming or going from an important meeting.

For what was probably the first time he properly looked at all of the guests. Actually taking them in, a good chunk like he’d noticed before were the exes that half looked like his mom, and their kids (hopefully they weren’t biologically Vlads). Then there were the vague family members that looked like Vlad watered down with kindness. But the rest? Suits and-

Oh.

Oh he had to step behind an archway and stuff a fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing out loud. Vlad had fucking bounty hunters being sent after him! It was karmic, he had to stop himself from busting a gut right then and there in the middle of a church. It was already blasphemy enough to be the walking dead he didn't want to also throw in disrespecting the (only mostly) dead into the mix. 

Well at least they weren’t all debtors, lurking around the corners and edges of the room was a guy he’d worked with as Phantom a few years ago. He was kind of hot in a rugged sort of way. If it weren’t for Sam and Tuck he’d have considered flirting seriously with the other man. As it was his joking flirting got him in trouble with the other two.

He was really acting up being normal, that rugged man. Mingling about with other people dressed neatly.

Clear to only  Danny what he was, what the others like him were, the man wandered unaware that Danny was watching him. Ironically he only knew they were bounty hunters because Vlad had hired the rugged man and his crew to hunt Phantom that time a few years ago and now? Oh the tables have turned. Someone, maybe one of the exes, or the debtors wanted him dead. Damn what had Vlad done?

Ghost Zone inhabitants had mixed opinions on him, many of which wanted him dead or knocked down a peg. But that was the Ghost Zone, half of them wanted  Danny  dead at some point or another. This was the human world. Earth and shit, it was much harder to piss off someone to the level of murder. Not impossible but damn. He grinned at this, Vlad was (half) alive and (sorta) well in that casket and he couldn’t do anything if he started to stir shit up. Life was beautiful, twinkling and gorgeous, he decided. He Didn’t need Tucker and Sam to have fun.

 He started with one of the exes. He went out of his way to ignore her dyed red hair and pale purple eyes as he talked with her. It wasn’t her fault that Vlad had a complex, he reminded himself as the woman talked. Fault couldn’t be pinned on her for the parallels he could search between his mother and her. She was nice in a weird way, again really like his mom. It was unnerving. He kept trying to ignore her beady eyed gremlin of a child as she talked to him about the will. 

Whatever Vlad had done for all the people in his life to only care about the will and the will alone Danny wanted to do the express opposite. It was almost painful in a way to watch all of these people act like they weren’t only here for the money. Served the man right, it was still depressing, the man had everything on paper but not a damn thing in reality.

“Do you think his daughter will show?” he tactfully added into the conversation after the woman had made some condolences about his family and Vlad. 

“Daughter?” the woman asked, her large eyes blinking slowly,” I'm sure you're mistaken, Vlad told me he doesn’t have kids.”

“Oh,” he said, feigning apology, inside he was loving this, sure Vlad couldn’t admit the truth about the clones but clearly the man had seriously left out some details to his ex lovers. “Are you sure? ‘Elle is nineteen now,” he said, it was technically true if you counted right. She was also only seven if you counted right. It was all about semantics.

“Ninete-” the woman stammered something hard settling in her eyes,” he told me he didn’t want to have children,” she looked down at her angry eyed child (he hoped the little dude didn’t kick him in the shin) who had a hand fisted in the end of her dress. “If you’ll excuse me, Daniel, this was an- enlightening conversation.” he watched her walk away to a woman with a big chunky bracelet.

Also a redhead. Of course.

A sharp pain seared in the top of his ear he prevented himself from yowling out as the fingers attached dragged him over to a corner.

"ow ow ow," he whined out quietly trying heard not to draw attention to himself. It didn't really work.

“What the  fuck  are you doing?” Jazz hissed at him when they were hidden away from the rest of the group.

“First of all: ow!” He rubbed his ear delicately between his finger pads,” I’m not a child anymore, maybe borderline sibling abuse was funny in 80’s sitcoms but it's not anymore.”

Jazz rolled her eyes,” second of all?” she pressed, she was still slightly buzzed and yet she was still holding herself with so much composure. Kind of impressive, if she hadn’t just physically threatened to rip his ear off.

“Secondly I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Not do-” Jazz floundered,” Daniel!” she hissed out again struggling to keep her tone low. Damn she was mad, she only pulled out the full name when really fucked up,” I know your relationship with Vlad was- complicated.”

He snorted,” he tried to kill me multiple times, Jazz.”

“Yes bu-”

“Dark Dan,’’ he pressed further.

“I get it!” she snapped in a whisper-shout,” but a funeral isn-”

“He isn’t dead Jazz. Or really fully dead I guess I should say,” he laughed

Jazz rolled her eyes,” This is concerning behaviour Danny.”

“W-what?” he asked.

She tapped her chin pensively, she was psychoanalyzing him again, gag, “You must be transferring your complicated feeling about him into-”

“Jazz,” he groaned. It was best to stop her before she got on a roll, “Ghost senses remember? He’s still not fully dead, I can tell. He faked his death.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh," I'm not saying I believe you, but say he did fake his death-”

“He did.”

She shot him a look, “Why? Why would he fake his death? He’s a rich ceo multi-billionaire with more money than most of us can conceive of, nonetheless actually obtain, what does he get out of faking his death?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, this was easier when Jazz was talking to one of Vlad’s cousins ignoring him stirring the pot. 

He explained what he’d pieced together so far, with the suits and hunters lurking around the edges of the room it was easy to point out how out of place they look. Slowly a realization fell on her face, an acceptance of what he was saying.

“When I was talking to the stepford exes they were all talking about who would get the estate.”

“Do they know who?” he asked.

Jazz shook her head,” no the will was kept really secretive from all of them. There was even a bit of an altercation from two of the younger ex girlfriends over it.”

He winced at that, he couldn’t blame them for being mad he just wished Vlad wasn’t faking death for them to take it out on. “The bottle red and the one with the big bracelet?” he prompted, remembering the end of his conversation with the former.

“No that’s Maddison and Maggie, the two that fought were Morgan and Melenie.”

“Maddison? Maggie? Morgan? Melenie?” he repeated with a grimace voice getting higher with each name.

“Yeah I know,” she said with a sigh,” a textbook case of projecting an ex, or in this case crush, on future partners leading to a string of failed relationships,” she frowned looking over at the group of clustered red heads. Danny followed and examined them, they were all looking at something their eyes occasionally darted over to- 

Oh of course, mom, they ‘d probably done the math already. He winced at the thought. He’d half thought about it before  finding the notion funny. Now in his sparkling sobriety of the evening he couldn’t find the humour.

“At least they all mostly get along,” Jazz offered, trying to look away from how the dozen or so women were looking at the one woman they were all stacked against.

“Really?” he blinked at her,” I’d have thought that they’d all be fighting cause of the- well you know,” he gestured to the, everything, of the situation.

She shook her head,” no, they seem to all understand that it was all on Vlad, two of them, Mackenzie and Melody,” she clarified to even more of his confusion,” even found out that they were seeing him at the same time. How they didn’t know with all of the press that followed him I’ll never know, but they decided to team up on the legal front if there are any issues with the will.”

“Really.”

Jazz nodded,” yeah I was surprised too, but good for them, Vlad went around causing too many issues in their lives.”

He nodded in agreement as he looked at at the sea of redheads, some of them had grown out their hair revealing dark roots, some had hair styled in poufy curls reminiscent of his mothers old style and one of them had completely cut her hair into a half shaved look, it was actually similar to the look that Sam had now.

“Want to cause some problems for him?” he asked.

“Danny, legally and socially he’s dead, what could we do?”

“Legally yeah,” he agreed,” but technically he’s still half alive in there, and can hear everything that people say-”

“Are you suggesting that we ruin his reputation?” Jazz asked with a poorly hidden smile. He loved that in the years she’d loosened up. It was a good look on her, relaxation.

“Ruin?” He said, in mock scandal, ”I'm merely suggesting we bring it down to where it belongs.”

“Oh ‘merely’ what is that a fifth grade word? I'm impressed!” Jazz teased.

He shoved her lightly with a laugh,” oh fuck off I’m in college now you know.”

“Really? Accredited and everything?”

He stifled his laugh,” shut up, you know dealing with ghost shit messed with my grades.”

Truthfully he’d expected her to joke further about it, to razz him about doing so much, or maybe analyze him, diagnosis him with trauma. Instead she hugged him.

“I’m sorry so much was put on your shoulders so young,” her voice was raw. Too raw.  

He patted her back, stomach squirming. Because what was he to do with that? The tender care held for him in the cracks of her fingers. The sorrow that settled in her pores all for him?

“Hey stop that,” he eventually said, pulling back,” or I'll make clockwork take me back in time so you never find out.” He didn’t mean it, he never did.

Jazz laughed a little wetly, he didn’t comment on it. Why would he? Also didn’t get a chance as she ruffled his hair, despite the fact that he was now much taller than her. “People are allowed to care about you, asshole.”

He scrunched his nose up at that,” ew what? I detest affection.”

“Oh detest another good one, really racking up those vocab words huh?” she sniffled her hands on her hips, a little lean in her back as she smirked.

Snorting, he stepped back and fixed his hair,” how about we make this a competition?”

“Huh?”

“First one to make Vlad burst out of his casket and rage in ghost mode wins.”

“Really? What would the winner get?”

He tapped his chin making a humming noise,” how about this, loser has to reveal their secret.”

Jazz laughed nervously,” I don’t have a secret Danny.”

Danny gave her a look,” Jazz, I’ve met your girlfriend.”

She bit her lip looking down at his outstretched hand, a debate playing in her eyes.

“Hey you don’t have to if you don’t wanna,” he said softly,” this is just meant for fun after all.” he knew better than most what forcing this stuff did.

”No, it’s fine,” she took his hand and shook, if a little clumsily,” that doesn’t mean they have to meet her though.”

“Oh don’t worry,” he said,” it won’t be my fault if they do that’ll be entirely on them.”

“Danny!” she exclaimed at him as he fled to the other side of the church. Finally this funeral was going to be interesting!

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked the swaying uncle of Vlad. The man smelled of beer and hors d'oeuvres. Not that Danny could judge if it wasn’t for the thick layer of spray on deodorant that his mom smothered him in right before he got in the uber then he’d probably smell just as rank. Then there was the fact that he’d pregamed to.

The older man narrowed his eyes at Danny, he was shocked to see the man he looked to hardly be much older than Vlad yet he was his uncle? He’d gone to ask about it but thought better about it, the less lore he knew about Vlad’s family the better, he really didn’t want to know about how many kids and when and how the Masters ‘clan’ had. Conversation with the older man was… stilted, to say the least. But he was certain that if he told him something then it wouldn’t get back to him. And that was half the game wasn’t it? Finding a way to spread the most rumours without people finding out it was him or Jazz. All without powers of course, that almost went without saying. 

The man didn’t seem too broken up about Vlad, they probably weren’t that close and Danny had always gotten the impression from the billionaire that he was a smidge too snobbish to fully have developed relationships with people. As often as he teased Jazz for being snobby, she at least was nowhere near as bad as Vlad. Man damn near invented snobbishness and assholery. He’d have to ask clockwork if Vlad’s ancestors were just as bad. Judging by some of his family, probably not.

“Well before he passed,” Danny prompted, pausing in a way to snag the older man's attention.

“Yes?” the older man asked when he didn’t continue.

“Well,” Danny fidgeted with his nail,”  you know his signed Packers jersey?”

The older man nodded eagerly.

Danny looked to the side,” it’s a fake,” he whispered to the man.

“Really?”

He nodded,” yeah, but please don’t tell anyone,” he added,” it’s bad enough that they know he was banned from buying the team-”

“He was what?” 

Danny fought to hide a smirk. He knew it’d be easier to sell this lie if he started smaller.

“I thought everyone knew!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, most of the town knows, it’s just, no one talked about it to be polite.” okay that might have been overselling it a bit but the distant relative seemed to really be drinking it in.

“What did he do?”

Danny looked side to side like he didn’t want anyone to overhear.

“Well a few years ago when he was closing the deal to buy the team he got caught stalking some of the members!”

“Really?” the uncle asked,” wha- why?”

Danny shrugged,” they never really found the reason he was following them, he was even trying to seduce some of the wives.”

The man gasped,” I- really?” 

Danny nodded. “But you can’t tell anyone you have to promise me.”

He watched as the man smiled in what he thought was slyness,” of course! I just, with all of those wives he had!”

 Within the next five minutes Danny heard the rumour circulate across the room and it had grown legs. How glorious those rumours legs were. 

“I heard he’d tried to break up a marriage on the team!” an ex wife (Maggie maybe?) hissed.

The other ex (Mary? The other woman might have called her) laughed,” would it really be any surprise? With what he did to Morgan and Melenie?”

The first woman nodded sagely,” fair I can’t believe I even fell for his tricks.”

All things considered the rumour was spreading well, and there was not even a gasp of a suggestion that he was the source. He couldn’t wait to hear what Jazz had invented, with the rumbles he’d already started to hear, it was probably great. Jazz always did have a way of getting into people’s heads. Find what interests them the most.

“So this daughter of Vlad's?” the woman he was talking to prompted, he vaguely remembered Jazz saying her name was Maddison. She’d found him again some time later; her child now safely deposited over by the other kids with their group babysitter. They were in the middle of the church now, the other two still whispering about the packers' spouses.

“ ‘Elle?” he asked as if he’d forgotten.

The woman nodded her curls bouncing as she did.

“Can I see a picture of her?”

He pulled up an older photo of them hanging out, the picture was grainy and they were both sticking their tongues out at the camera. Shit he’d really forgotten how alike they looked.

“You both-” the woman said before stopping. She glanced at his parents. 

Shit he had to go into damage control,” well she’s also my cousin,” he fibbed.

“Cousin?”

“Yes! Technically once removed? Or something like that, I didn’t meet her until a few years ago, we were really blown away with the family resemblance!” he laughed. "Really it's uncanny!"  He continued.

Too far! Too far! He was leaning into it too much! It wasn’t like he could just tell her the truth, that Dani was Vlad's only successful half dead clone of him! Then he’d also have to out two things about himself to her.

“She travels a lot,” he added. He really needed to learn when to shut his big mouth,” she was in Paris a few years ago actually.”

“Really?”

He couldn’t even blame the alcohol! He was just this stupid naturally huh? They’d been saying it for years Sam and Tucker, if only he’d taken them seriously before this. His idiocy might really be terminal.

“Yup, I haven’t seen her in awhile though, hopefully she visits again!”

Scrutinizing eyes scanned him up and down, darting from each corner of his face hunting out the ruse. He really needed to learn to shut his big mouth.

“Do you have her number?”

Crashing noises filled his brain. Her number? The last thing that he had expected was interest in ‘Elle. he’d just thought that they’d get upset at Vlad and leave it at that.

“ ‘E-elle's?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m sorry if this is prying but me and the other ladies,” she gestured to a few of them,” we’re talking and we want to support her!”

“I-” he hesitated, he hadn’t really planned for this,” what?”

The older woman nodded,” we all talked it out and if we get the estate we’re going to support one another and the kids, and it seems like ‘Elle just got stuck in the middle of this like the rest of us.”

“Yeah uh, let me just text her first?”

“Of course honey!”

Danny walked away from that conversation feeling distinctly weirder than before. Regardless he pulled up his phone and slid out the keyboard.

He opened up the “With an I” contact.

  Hey i accidentally got you adopted by like fifteen random women that used to date vlad

5:43 p.m.

  You what? Lul

5:45 p.m.

 He looked up around him before typing out the next message

  Yeah long story short he faked his death. Its weird

5:46 p.m.

I’m at the funeral and the exes wanna like support you?

5:46 p.m.

  Well Vlad wasn’t good for much but at least i now have a multitude of mothers

5:47 p.m.

  So i can give them your number?

5:47 p.m.

  Yeah have at it! If this causes chaos for vlad im all for it !

5:48 p.m.

“So her phone number is.”

By the time he’d separated himself from that conversation a few more rumours were floating.

“I heard that the reason he died in a car crash is because he was on the run from the law!” one of vlad's relatives whispered.

“Really!” another responded.

Elsewhere some of the attending staff were murmuring too. “I heard that he got caught smuggling maple syrup cans from canada!”

“Cans?”

“Yes apparently the good stuff is canned there.”

He walked to a new group this time with the suits.

“I hear that the money in the accounts is dirty.”

“According to my source his invested stocks were backed with illegal funds.”

“If there’s drugs really attached to it like I was told then I don't want anything to do with it.”

“I agree it's hard enough to get money from wills with spouses involved. It's even harder if the feds sniff any drugs.”

“It might not even be worth it to try with all of the ladies,” a different suit complained,” I overheard them talking about lawyering up together if anything goes wrong.”

Another much older suit scoffed,” this business was much easier before the exes started working together.”

Finally he heard his own new rumour starting to gain some traction.

“Wasn’t it found out that he was stealing science equipment from the nearby college?”

“Oh whatever for?”

“I heard it was for making a specialty shampoo.”

“I’ve always wondered how he kept his hair so nice and shiny.”

 Jazz was good, too good, considering that neither of them had really clicked into any social cliques in highschool. Now she was gossiping better than even any of the A-listers.

“It’s just such a shame that they can’t come,” Jazz was even fake sobbing, damn he was going to have to up his game.

“Who couldn’t come?” One of Vlad's older cousins asked, Danny wondered if Jazz was screaming inside at the hand she had around one of the older exes' waists, it was casual and tender. If one of Vlad's exes was getting together with his cousin because of the  funeral , Danny would shriek from laughter, hell if he accidentally used his ghostly wail it’d be well worth it. Vlad of all people deserved to have a partner snatching occur to him. 

“Oh I’m sorry,” Jazz said,” I thought that everyone knew,” she looked from side to side,” please don’t tell the other ex wives Monroe I’d hate for their feelings to get hurt over this.”

Damn she was good. The wife- Monroe who was leaning comfortably on the cousin nodded.

“Of course Jazzie,” she said in a deep comforting New York accent,” this can be brought up to them later more delicately later.  Though I must admit,” she said after a pause where Jazz thanked her for her discretion.” I myself am curious who wasn’t able to come.”

“Well you know how he used to do ghost research with mom and dad?”

Where was she going with this? She was selling it well, Danny had to admit but for the life of him he couldn’t guess where this was going.

“Yes of course,” the cousin nodded as Monroe spoke.

“I can’t name the amount of times he used to write home in our youth about his little ghost adventures,” the cousin added.

Jazz nodded ,” well at the school there was the Lunch Lady Ghost and the Box Ghost, he was seeing them romantically in between their stays in the ghost zone.”

Danny held back a snort box ghost! If he laughed too hard in that moment he’d drop the ghost form and would fall on top of the group that’d gathered around her. As much control as he’d mastered over his abilities over the past couple years there was nothing that would be able to save him from Jazz’s wit. 

“I’m sure box ghost is very helpful for moves,” one of the crowd commented amicably. The others though had nothing to say. Clearly they’d all actually met Box Ghost. 

The gossip might have even stayed in that circle if it weren’t for another one of the cousins being right there and then deciding to tell his wife, who then told one of the ex-wives, who then told another, who then told a suit. So on and so forth.

By the time that Danny was back in human form and settled on the opposite side of Jazz’s conversation he was hearing the children that some of the wives had brought talking about Vlad ‘holding hands’ with the Box Ghost and Lunch Lady. Why couldn’t he have thought about that? It was so good, it was perfect, literally no one could prove it wrong. And embarrassing, seriously Box Ghost!

All the stuff he knew to be true about Vlad sounded so far-fetched.

Half ghost?

Well most people didn’t know about them.

The time he infected his two closest and longest friends with ghost pimples?

Needed the half ghost context. 

If only there was some-

“I hate Vlad!” one of the kids near him cried out stomping down his foot.

Unsurprisingly all of the kids agreed, okay he was a little surprised, usually Vlad had the wool pulled over on most people. So the fact that all of these kids  hated him really meant something.

“He stole my cotton candy at the fair!”

“Well he told me that I didn’t need to see daddy anymore cause he was gonna replace him!”

Eager ears pointed at them he drank in their every complaint. He’d known that Vlad was cartoonish levels of evil for awhile (see the infecting teens with ghost acne for personal gain as proof, or kidnapping him and his mom) but never had he truly expected for him to be so stupid as to do it all in the open in front of all of these kids. Then again some of this might be his obsession making him act out. Smallest sliver of him almost felt bad about that, the fact that Vlad was in a way forced to be this way, but it wasn’t really anything he wasn’t before. Obsessions just highlighted what was already there. Made it more severe.

 “Uhm excuse me,” he tapped the shoulder of one of the shorter women,” Mallory?” He'd asked the babysitter for her name but for the life of him he was struggling to keep all of the exes straight in his head. There were just too many of them and they all looked too similar to his mom.

“Yes,” her eyes flickered with recognition,” Danny?”

He laughed,” yeah that’s me!”

“Some of the others were mentioning you!” she said with a bright smile taking his hand,” thank you for telling us about ‘Elle! I can’t believe he kept her a secret from all of us for so long.”

He nodded in agreement,” well about Vlad-”

“Oh no, what else was he hiding?” she asked, there was a laugh ringing from her but Danny didn’t need ghost senses to know it was dead on arrival,” I’ve learned so much more here at his funeral than I ever did when we’d been together.”

He laughed a little at that, a stilted awkward laugh that only filled his chest halfway. He almost felt bad telling her about this, but she deserved to know the truth. “Well I overheard some of the kids complaining about Vlad.”

He filled her in on what he’d overheard about the kids, the petty little actions of Vlad. The cotton candy he’d stolen (which was weird he’s rich), the fathers he threatened to replace, it was all so bizarre. Danny was about halfway through when the casket began to shake.

Vlad masters was not an impulsive man. He was calculated, smart and forward thinking. At least he certainly liked to think so.  No impulsive man goes out of his way to plan his nemesis’ death and demise for twenty years. No reckless person would spend his time building an empire carefully crafting his abilities and connections for taking down his enemy.  Vlad however to his greatest distaste was in fact still half human and not infallible. While he was meticulous and in his personal opinion exceedingly intelligent he had no way to properly plan for wrenches in his schemes.

The fenton boy, Daniel was his biggest hurdle but it was only a matter of time before he found the right way to tackle the issue. He was just a particularly big roadblock. If only his emotional attachment to his dunderheaded father wasn’t so strong. These issues were all small potatoes compared to the one he was in now. The details can be spared and smoothed over all that was truly important was that he was at his own funeral.

He’d always wondered what people's reaction to his death would be. Contact with his extended family had been… loose, for the lack of a better term since his ‘accident’.  Deep down however he knew that when or if his time came, truly came, that they’d have a reaction. Probably sadness, he had been close to a few of them before his accident, hell he’d been close to them before his company had taken off. At the end of the day he simply had better things to do. Plans to make, revenge to ruminate on. It wasn’t his fault that they’d fallen to the wayside. They simply weren’t as important as Maddie.

He’d toyed with the idea that maybe his dear Maddie would sob over him, that she’d denounce Jack when she saw that he was no longer an option. How deeply poetic it’d be for that to happen. He never liked the idea of her only realizing their potential then but he couldn’t ignore the artful symmetry of it all. Some of the books that Maddie used to read in college had those even beginning and ends, those swooping through lines that tied it all nicely in a pretty bow. His first death had ripped her away from him. It’d gifted her to Jack on a silver platter, and his second oh how glorious it’d be if it drew her to him. Making her denounce her imbecile of a husband. Leaving the stocky man discarded.  Beauty was in the eye of the beholder and even with its harsh edges his death bringing her close to him was something to behold. If only that was what he was watching happen.

Unfortunately for Vlad Masters Owner, Ceo, and founder of Vladco. Life was not an art piece nor a well orchestrated game of football. No instead he got to lay still (half) alive in his exceedingly expensive casket and listen to the dolt sob.

It started like all of the worst things while heading to the Fenton's for another plan to be set in motion. The restraining order was still being held up in the courts so there was technically nothing legally stopping him from seeing them, or especially her. Besides he was a billionaire, those things were more fine machines than anything for him. Once it was enacted all he’d have to do was pay a fine.

Unfortunately it was during the drive that issues started. Again finer details notwithstanding for he’d run them all in his head a thousand times now while laying in this blastedly comfortable casket. While on the drive it became clear to him he was being followed.  No matter , he’d smugley told himself. He’d been followed by techbro fans before they were easy to deter. Easy to remove from his time and life. However in a deeply detestable turn of events the car following him did not belong to a fan.

He knew from the offset of seeing the make and model that it wasn't his average follower, those types usually had older beaters or worse highly expensive care that they had no business owning. No, instead this car was perfectly down the middle of class and price. How he detested those cars, they had no class. It was effectively similar to the many unmarked police cars that he used to have follow him during his brief stint as mayor. 

Regardless the car was tailing his limo, it was simple at first to attempt to outmaneuver them. Eventually his limo was pinned.

Blah blah blah mindless details later some pointless shooting at him with guns and he’d jacked their car. In the end it was simply easier to fake a fatal car crash. then there were all of those witnesses that had to see his death. Walking it back was impossible all circumstances considered. At least when they attacked him they only knocked his driver out, the legal case of that would have been a logistical nightmare and he still had some hopes of getting access to his funds later. 

It was almost funny in a karmic way. Almost as poetic as he had wanted pretending to be dead to be. Only problem was it was poetic in exactly the opposite way. The person that he hated most there sobbing the loudest. It’d be so much easier if it was Madeline sobbing. If she was sobbing, a faked death could be almost satisfying. If she melted down it could almost be worth it. Instead it was Jack Fucking Fenton. 

Numerous things were to be expected from his funeral, Daniel's arrival, yes, Maddie’s, undoubtedly. Even Jazz’s and Jack’s all expected arrivals. Some of them were more annoying than others but they were the requisite arrivals. Even his gaggle of ex flings was to be expected (they had to try and get their hands on the estate and money somehow. Well jokes on them he’d left it all to Maddie). No, what he hadn’t been prepared for was Jack’s incessant wailing and sobbing. 

The man was besides himself absolutely losing his mind right next to his goddamn open casket. It was getting hard to keep a straight face when he wanted nothing more than to leap from the plush silk sheets and throttle the man. His hands might not quite reach around the other mans thick neck but he could give it a good try he was sure. To put it simply and without intense amounts of rage he had mentally calculated for a lot of variables, not one of them being Jack of all people struggling to breath, choked out sobs instead of breaths coming from him as he hovered nearby. Not a single variable included being cried on by the most loathsome man in all of Amity Park. Every tear that fell on Vlad’s extremely expensive make up was another tally against the man’s. Had he no clue how hard it was to not flinch every time a drop of water splattered on his face? It was much harder than it looked he’d have him know.

Didn’t the idiot realize that he hated him? That he’d never cared for him? At least not since his death. 

Worse was when Maddie and the Fenton children staggered in, he could smell the alcohol on them from a mile away. It was tasteless! The smell alone nearly made him leap from his casket and throttle them where they stood (Maddie with exception of course). Have they no respect for the dearly departed? Have they no care for social decorum? Those Fenton spawn would never survive in high class society. Not like himself and Maddie. Oh how he wished he’d never gone for those pale imitations. They hardly kept up with all that he needed.

All he had to do now was ignore everyone and get through the funeral and he could be Plasmius full time. Pursue Maddie 24/7 with no worries of the law (though with some worries of Phantom). If only those blasted Fenton's would stop spreading rumours about him! And he knew it was them! Who else would say such outrageous things?

Okay certainly if one wanted to be technical Danielle was his daughter, but he hadn’t raised her. She was not his blood, she was not his in the most important ways.

Then there was that rumour about the-

“He-hey Vlad.”

Oh, oh no.

“I uh, I’m gonna miss you.” 

No no no no no! He couldn’t do this! He wouldn’t do this! He would not stand for this! He did not go out of his way to fake his death for this. 

Jack blew his big blubbering nose into a handkerchief so hard it honked. Honked! He was going to throttle this man at his earliest convenience. Getting cried on he could deal with, revolting as it was. What he couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with getting yammered at. That was not in the details. He did  not  plan for this.

“I- uhm- I know we weren’t really close these last few years.”

That was putting it lightly.

“Or really at all since college,” there was a wet laugh from Jack.

If that oaf ended up coughing slobber on him- Maybe if he tried hard enough he could die for real, that’d be nice. He’d never really craved death before, not like in this moment. It’d be so much easier if he just didn’t have to hear this.

“I-I know you didn’t really like me in the end.” 

Wait what? Had he finally gotten a clue? That was a first. Maybe his overt plotting had finally gotten through to the oaf. If Jack attacked him now that’d almost make this all worth it. He might even consider revealing he’s Plasmius if he did.

“I know I messed up, I-I must have hurt you, I don’t really know how, but- but uh, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Yes ye- He was what?

There was another laugh sob from his  ex  friend,” It’s probably too late since you’re uh- dead, but whatever it is I did to hurt you, I'm sorry. I hope,” he trailed off into a high pitched keening whine. 

Stop stop stop! This is not what he wanted!

“I hope you rest well Vlad.”

Footsteps receded away from him at that. 

Well what the fuck was he supposed to do with that? What in the world was he supposed to do with that knowledge? Internalize it? Grow and change as a person? He was (half) dead! He was well past the point of growth! He was beyond growth.

For all Jack knew he wasn’t coming back! For him and basically all of them he wasn’t coming back! The only person that would know was Daniel and maybe his sister if he told her. Maybe his brat friends if he messaged them. 

What did Jack get out of telling him all of that?

Certainly not money, the will had left everything to sweet Maddie, not him. Some sort of moral upper hand? A sense of feeling like he got one over Vlad?

No the dolt wasn’t that complex, his intelligence lay somewhere between absentminded and incompetant on a good day, there was no moral forethought. Yet why did the words settle so deeply in a corner of himself? Carving out a crevice in him that ached and burned?

“Did you hear about why Vlad couldn’t buy the green bay packers?”

Why? Why did it dig in his flesh? why when he’d thought he’d burned all of that away.

I'm Sorry.

“No, why?”

Life was easier when he was fully alive. College life was simpler. At least then he could fool himself that Maddie thought of him equally as she did Jack.

“Well I heard that he was stalking the team!”

What?

Why would he stalk them? He’d never stalked someone once in his entire life! (death maybe but he’d never admit that) he could buy all the tickets to their games he had no reason to stalk them!

There was no practicality in stalking them. Just like Jack had no reason to apologize to him! The idiot didn’t even know what he’d done to hurt him. He hadn’t ripped the apology from Jack. He wasn't on his knees begging from him. Hell he didn’t even know that he’d killed Vlad. Jack Fenton was as oblivious to the fact that he’d died back in college as he was to the fact that his own son was dead and playing hero as Phantom.

The density of the man was rivaled by no other.

But then why did he apologize?

“Did you hear?”

He got nothing out of it.

Why did it ache?

Burn? He wanted for years nothing more than to make the man sob and beg for forgiveness.

Why did having it fulfill nothing?

“About him and the Box Ghost?”

Would it burn just as painfully if he finally got sweet Madeline’s confession? Would it ring just as hollow?

“I thought it was the lunch lady ghost?”

No. There was something about Jack that made it wrong. Something about that blathering moron that lashed the words to him like a blade.

“I think it was both.”

And what the hell were they all blathering on about? What was all of this nonsense about Box Ghosts and smuggling and stalking? What were any of their empty little words? 

Did any of that really matter? Their blathering human rumours and petty squabbles when he, the very guest of honour in all ways but one was laying here before their very eyes on the precipice of something? He was teetering at some edge, he didn’t know what it was but he could just make out the shape of the hole he was almost toppling in, he just had to know what it was. He just-

“Well I heard-”

They heard- they heard! What did it matter what they’d all heard! Nothing that they heard could matter in the slightest not when he was dealing with this! Not when he was reeling with whatever this was! The weight and size of it completely overtaking him and yet none of them aware, he was suffocating being overtaken by the edge of knowledge some realization he’d yet to make and hee still couldn’t read it. All because they wouldn’t stop blathering on and on about what? Lies?

Stupid foolish tales spun by his greatest enemy!

By a child.

If it were not for the show and pageantry of it all, if it were not for the display that he’d set about around him he’d be yanking his hair by the roots, tearing it slowly strand by strand from his scalp. And if there was one thing that Vlad Masters was, it was a showman! He was dramatic and he was going to be so unabashedly it was not his fault that there was no one that yearned for his life to roll onwards like Jack. None of it could be held against him. He was a romantic! Everything he did was for  her.

Had it truly all been for nothing?

All these years.

Had she never really cared?

“Dirty money, attached to drugs. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pool.”

All this time.

Did he really-

“Never even mentioned a daughter!

All his schemes!

Jack's tears were so warm when they cut the thick funeral makeup.

“So many secrets for him to keep.”

Dozens of attempts on his life!

Did he really  care? The water on his face was still warm.

“Wasn’t the cause of his crash a run from the law?”

“Would you all just shut up already!”

Silence blanketed the church as Vlad’s voice finished ringing out the wooden box still perched on its little stage. The casket was still shaking and the flowers were falling from the box as the hush grew sharper. Energy crackled from the casket shooting out and blowing the bulb above. Glass fell from the light falling gently on the flower petals. 

None one spoke, Danny’s father had a hand over his mouth, new large tears welling up. He looked green and pale, unlike most of the stunned guests he looked like he was about to be sick.

Danny shot a glance at Jazz, she nodded and jerked her head to the side. He ducked out. Things were about to get hairy.

There was no response from Vlad for a second as it seemed the outburst was done. Even the children who’d been shrieking with laughter and joy from their play for most of the funeral were silent. The falling glass and shaking box were deafening in the silence. Danny ducked behind a pillar and into the doorway that led to the restrooms. There was no one there. The closest person was his mom but she was standing silent and stunned not an eye tilted away from the casket. He couldn’t blame her.

It wasn’t everyday your incel stalker had a breakdown after he’d legally died.

He transformed. On the most part there weren’t many people near the casket. It was just a few lingering Exes, most people were near the refreshment table. His first line of action should be to grab the people near the stage and get them to safety. Then?

Well the rest was adlib. 

At least he had stored the Fenton thermos in his suit jacket (just in case). If only Sam or Tucker were there. Things were so much easier with their help.

Just as he was about to jump into the situation, the group of exes all swarmed Vlad. Shit he’d have to replan everything. He wouldn’t be able to get in an ecto-blast with out the fret of hitting one of them. He could always try Ice or a little storm cloud?

Just as a new plan was starting to formulate one of them (Maria?) slapped Vlad hard across the face.

Smack.

The noise echoed loudly across the church.

He grimaced.

Oh.

He did not want to get in the middle of whatever that was. He really didn’t want to get in the middle of it at all. Backing back into the bathroom he turned back to normal. Didn’t matter what the situation was, he was not going to get in the middle of a dozen or so angry exes and Vlad. It was his grave (even if Danny had helped him dig it a little) like hell Danny was getting buried with him.

“Vlad Masters!” one of the exes screamed,” you slimy pathetic excuse of a man.”

Yeah Danny was not getting in that, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to watch.

“Ow!” Vlad cried out, his eyes were glowing red, but aside from that he still looked very much the same. 

Weird, Danny didn’t expect him to stay in human form. He guessed it made sense if he changed into Plasmius the gig would be up. There’d be a lot of questions too. Knowing Vlad’s tendency to monologue he might even explain the concept of Halfa’s.

“M-Maria!” the older man stammered out,” darling hello-”

The woman smacked him again,” I’m Maggie,” she spat out.

Danny winced, yikes. Makeup covered Vlad's gaunt face but Danny could imagine the smarting red forming on his cheeks.

“Y-yes of course, how could I mistake your beauty, how foolish of me to compare the two of-”

The clearing of a throat interrupted as Maria herself tapped her foot.

“Maria!” Vlad exclaimed this time correct, even if taken by surprise.

“Yes,” the woman agreed,” but don’t mind me, what were you saying? Something about comparison?”

The billionaire awkwardly laughed as he seemed to take in the fact that he was surrounded by all of his exes. Phantom wasn’t even needed. Villain defeated right then and there by the rage and power of his many exes. Again Danny found himself desperate to find out whatever the older man had done to make everyone hate him so just to do the express opposite.

When he actually fully died he hoped his funeral wasn’t this… whatever plan he actually ended up with he just didn’t want this.

“So,” Jazz said as she settled next to him leaning on the pillar with him,” any idea what got him up?”

“Nah,” Danny shrugged looking over to his sister. She looked more sober now, less unstable on her feet.” He didn’t really decree what his gripe was this time.”

Jazz sighed,” so no winner yet.”

“Unfortunately,” he said,'' He also technically didn’t go ghost mode.”

Jazz groaned resting her head on his shoulder,” I wanted to go home, these heels are killing me!”

He stuck a tongue out at her,” shoulda transed your gender like I did,” he teased quietly.

“Ha! Really funny Danny,” she flatly commented with a roll of her eyes at the tired joke.

“Ah meany,” he pouted.

“You walk in these heels at a funeral,” she complained again,” At least if he went full ghost It’d be socially acceptable to ditch them.”

He bit his tongue remembering a rant that Sam had gone on recently about heels and social pressure. How she’d then thrown one of her platform boots at Tuck when he made a remark. Jazz probably wouldn’t appreciate his lovesick ramblings about them.

“Looks like we'll just have to continue to watch this unfold.” he said instead with a sarcastic twinge.

“Oh what a shame!” Jazz said flatly,” sucks to be us.”

Danny snickered as Vlad continued to try to dig himself out of his hole. How he wished Sam and Tucker were here. Unfortunately for him they were both far too busy. Ah well he’d just have to video it all for them.

How unfortunate for Vlad that he was made to sit through his own will reading, and how fortunate for Danny Fenton that he was the one that got to watch it all go down. In the entire time that he and Vlad had been nemesis he never knew just how much he wanted exactly this to happen. Actually if someone ever suggested this happening younger him probably wouldn’t have appreciated just how funny this was. No fourteen-to-fifteen him was far too invested in things like learning his powers and finding out just how observant the rest of town was. Also looking cool. Adult him however? Freshly 21 and college attending him? Oh he could enjoy the fuck out of this situation.

There was some minor debate among some guests over how ethical it was since Vlad's ‘ghost’ was now here to view the reading. Some point could be made that it might be weird...

“Isn’t it rude?” one family member had suggested.

But...

“It might be in bad taste,” another guest had even pipped up.

No one really liked Vlad anyways

“Oh no!” Morgan said,” I want to know what it says, and who better to see how accurate it all is.”

Oh how glad he was that those few were beaten out. How glad he was that the crowd was seeing blood. That the group was too nosey and invested in the drama to really get caught up in such small things as ethics.  How grateful he was that the exes were in half a mind to Kill Vlad a second time.

Fortunate he was, that his luck was finally turning up. It might even be the universe trying to pay him back for all of the shit he’d been dealing with since he was fourteen. Return investment on the untimely youth death. Honestly if it was it was a pretty bang up start all things considered. He’d have to find out if there was a ghost involved in the control of karma. They might just end up with an edible arrangement on their lair door. Older adults loved that shit so ghosts should too.

“Hm,” the lawyer said when they entered the room with the walking corpse of Vlad masters. The office was small and hardly held everyone, but snugly, far too snugly for comfort they all fit on the other side of the large desk.

No one said anything to the lawyer. Whether the man had been privy to the rest of the funeral or had just arrived Danny didn’t know but he had to admit this entire situation was bizarre even with full context. Not many of them knew ghost rules and the only ones that did were in either stunned or gleeful silence. There was no objection to the fact that Vlad had dragged his body with him, not a voice descenting on the fact that his form hadn’t shifted. Not a single attendee seemed perturbed by the fact that Vlad was not really a ghost.

Even the paid bounty hunters didn’t know how to discern ghosts from humans judging by their stunned expressions. Though he’d love to watch one of them attack Vlad in the middle of a church. Stabbing a man in the house of god might just be a big sin, though Danny wasn’t sure.

“Well this is unprecedented,” the lawyer commented,” never in my time have I ever seen a dead man rise for the reading of his own will.”

Vlad grumbled but no one could make out the words as the two exes on either side of him glared. 

Oh how fortunate Danny was indeed, never before had he ever been so glad for his untimely death. If it all led to watching Vlad squirm like this still trying to keep his alter ego a secret? Pain and strife, the many attacks and attempts on his life were worth it.

“Well if there is no protest,” the lawyer said. For a moment Vlad looked very much like he wanted to protest, but the glares of the exes kept him silent and made him snap his jaw shut. Danny knew what went into keeping a corpse looking fresh. Shame the mortician seemed to have skipped wiring the jaw shut. Then, Vlad didn’t seem to need physical wires to keep him silent and well behaved, his Exes were all doing that job very well.

“In that case,” the lawyer sounded queasy, if Danny wasn’t so invested with the drama unfolding he might have turned to verify. “Then I believe we will begin.”

The man started out by reading the long legal preamble, the paragraphs upon paragraphs of titles and information about Vlad that was included. Danny understood that him being the owner of VladCo was technically important for the will but did he need to include all of his ten titles at the company in the will? It just felt excessive. ‘Ceo, entrepreneur, founder, head of decisions, etc.’ did anyone care? Leaving out the most important title of ‘asshole’ was the biggest mistake of his will.

“Yes I think we get it,” Monroe said, her accent clipping the words in stiff professionalism. Bless her for cutting the pain short. “I do have,” the woman glanced at the cousin who was still holding her hand,” A more important social engagement to attend to with Carmila.”

The lawyer stammered,” yes of course ma’am my apologies.”

“It reads:

‘First, I hereby denounce all previous wills made by myself, Vlad Masters, no matter nature or kind.

Second I Vlad Masters hereby appoint,” the lawyer paused making a face before he continued,” Madeline Fenton love of my life as the executor of my estate, networth, and-” the lawyer paused,” the ownership of my beloved cat ‘Maddie the cat, the third-”

“Huh, I guess you listened to my suggestion after all and got a cat.” Danny muttered as at the same moment his mother reached her breaking point

“You what?” Maddie was standing out of her chair, indignation flaring in her eyes,” Vlad! I don’t want any of this.”

“But but,” Danny tuned the man out as he made the normal declarations of love. Trite at this point his mind was already trying to entertain itself. Fast forwarding this would be nice, if only his core was time based. But no he got Ice, and Weather, and other weird disconnected powers. He was electrocuted to death! Cruel that he didn’t get cool electrocution powers.

They were still arguing when he tuned back in. Loath wasn’t a powerful enough describer for this love diatribe that Vlad spewed every three to five business days. His mom yelled something back, a few of the ex wives even chiming in agreement. Well at least they didn’t hate mom that was a plus.

He shot Jazz a look as he repositioned his phone camera to get a better shot.

‘This again?’ he tried to communicated with his expressions. Tuck usually laughed when he tried and Sam told him he looked to constipated.

She shrugged and nodded as if to say  ‘this again.’

“I am happily married! I told you I won't leave Jack for you!”

Tuning out the conversation didn’t seem to leave out many details. Everything was falling exactly into the same patterns as always.

“Maddie please-” the billionaire tried to beg.

This made the woman snap,” no don’t Maddie please me! You have not respected my decision to marry Jack since it happened, well guess what Vlad it’s too late for you! You were never even an option!” she turned to Jack and put a hand on his shoulder. her voice much softer when she spoke,” come on honey we’re leaving. Kids?” She turned to the two Fenton children. The both of them stood with no protest. Like hell they were going to end up on the wrong side of their mother right now. Mission orientated as she was they had no doubt she could commit Vlad's murder and get away with it. legally she might even considering the fact that he was technically a 'ghost' right now.

Just as she was about to step out the door she turned,” oh and ladies, don’t worry about a legal battle I’ll work with our family lawyer to transfer everything to all of you.”

There were some small thanks from the stunned Exes as the office door latched shut behind them.

 The air in the car was-

Well the word tense didn’t really sum up the air but it was the best approximation that Danny had. It could have gone worse, he supposed he could have genuinely ended up fighting Vlad again. Chances where that if he fought Vlad while he was Plasmius that the formerly rich business mogul would then use the moment to out Danny as Phantom. Not just his family but all of the church. If he had to rate the evening it was definitely not as bad as he expected. About a six or seven, depending on his critical he was being.

“Uh so who won the bet?” he whispered to Jazz. he wasn’t worried about his parents, Maddie was soothingly rubbing circles on Jack’s back as the man drove. That and they were sat in the back, sometimes the front seats struggled to hear them at a normal level forget a whisper.

Jazz furrowed her brows,” I guess neither of us really won, he didn’t even go ghost.”

Nodding, he thought back to the man’s loud entrance,” He also didn’t say what rumour got him up.”

“So do we both lose?”

“I guess?” he looked over to his parents,” so we both tell them?”

Jazz sighed leaning back in her seat, hair dramatically laying behind her,” yeah I guess.”

“You don’t hav-”

Jazz cut him off with a snort,” no it’s fine, my things not really as big all things considered.”

Fair, she had a point with that. Their parents already knew that she was interested in men and women but still revealing partners to them was always weird and nerve wracking. The first time he’d introduced Sam and Tuck as partners and not friends he’d expected a lot more questions. Turns out if you hunt ghosts for a living nothing is really weird after that. They just bought him new sex ed books. Sentiment appreciated but still weird considering he could google that sort of thing now.

“So Danny,” his mom said, her fingers tightened on her phone. They were lucky she got old brick Nokias instead of those new Smart phones. She’d break them in a week. Jack wasn’t paying them much attention as he drove, he seemed to still be shell shocked. Hopefully he didn't crash, okay so maybe he didn't always like car rides. Sometimes the looming threat of a car crash really messed with his obsession.

“Yeah mom?” he asked.

“I was talking to some of the ladies.”

“Uh huh?” wherever she was going with this he didn’t like the tone.

“And imagine my surprise when one of them tells me Vlad has a daughter.”

“Weird right,” he said. Please stop, please stop! He begged, wherever this was going it was nowhere good. It would have been better if he’d just died in that accident. Screw whatever he thought back when he thought his luck was turning up. He was still the most unlucky bastard in all of amity park.

She hummed in agreement,” and imagine my surprise when they said she was your cousin.”

Danny didn’t have a response to that, Jazz was stifling a laugh next to him.

“And then,” she said,” she showed me a picture of her.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, Danny," there was a pause as she seemed to collect her words," why does she look like you pre transition?”

“Does she?” sweating wasn’t really something he did so much anymore, not since his core started cooling his mortal flesh, it was nice sometimes. But it didn’t stop nervous sweating. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Hadn’t- Danny,” his mother sighed,” sweetie if you want to start presenting as a girl again you can. We won’t judge you.”

Wait what, “ what?!” 

Shrieking loud bursts of laughter came out of Jazz. 

“Jazz!”

That set him off, it was just so ridiculous.

“Honey I’m serious,” his mom sounded so upset her tone lost. She really was trying.

He couldn’t help it, it wasn’t his fault. It was just so out of the realm of what was happening. Man his parents really didn’t have any of the facts.

“Danny?” his father asked the tenseness in his shoulders from the funeral leaving way to confusion.

Him and Jazz made eye contact and the laughing got so much worse. If being part dead didn’t make him need to breathe so much less he’d be choking. He’d die, it was just- they still didn’t know and somehow that was all the funnier. God he was calling Tuck and Sam right after he explained everything they were going to get such a kick out of this. Especially Tucker.

“That’s not-” wheezes high and stringy, cutting him off, he was struggling even with his ghost lungs.

“Danny my boy,” Jack asked quietly,” what’s funny?”

“We’re trying to support you Danny!” his mother exclaimed.

Finally he quelled the laughter enough to speak,” okay okay,” he whipped a tear from his eye. “I’ll explain it all it just probably isn’t something dad needs to be driving for.”

“Danny what do-”

“Just trust me okay?” he grinned at his mom in what he hoped was reassurance. 

She sighed and looked at her husband, Jack furrowed his brows and the pair silently communicated before the man hit his turning signal.

 The small side road was perfectly out of the way enough that no one would be able to peer in. It was some half abandoned picnic area but none of them reached for their seatbelts to leave the car. It was just the closest spot they could stop.

“Okay,” he started giving Jazz a look, she nodded comfortingly,” Remember how the portal didn’t work at first?”

It took them a moment but they nodded in remembrance. 

“Right well I died.” it was best to just rip the Band-Aid off.

“What?”

“Danny- honey you’re not dead.”

He thought so at least, he sighed pinching his nose,” I need you guys to wait for questions till the end okay?”

“But honey you’re not dead!” she didn’t sound so sure as she looked him over.

“What your mother said my boy! You’re sitting right there!”

Danny groaned,” guys please?” there was a pause as they looked at each other and finally finally agreed to wait till the end. “Sam said I should check it out, see if I could fix it. I put on my suit, and,” he made a buzzing noise with his tongue,” the button shocked me to death when I hit it. It was dark so I didn't see,” he looked to the side. The trees outside were swaying peacefully in the wind. Jazz put a hand on his shoulder, he took a steading breath and clenched the hand with the thin invisible scars. “It was an accident but,” he turned back to them resolution in his eyes,” I died that day, When I woke up, well, brace yourselves okay,” he let the tugging cold of hic core shift and change his appearance.

There was silence. He’d expected something but, no, even Jazz wasn’t saying anything.

He cracked an eye open, his parents were staring at him dumbfounded. Yeah that was about par for the course.

“Well this happened and now, I’m half Ghost,” he admitted,” everyone in the ghost zone knows that’s why there were always so many attacks at the school.”

“Half?” his mom asked despite herself.

Danny nodded,” yeah I still age, and need to eat and breath... mostly on that last one. It’s kind of cool I can go invisible,” he demonstrated before changing back,” and phase through things and float,” he demonstrated both in succession allowing the belt to glide through him as he hovered up an inch. “Shoot Ecto-blasts… probably best if I don’t do that one in the car though,” he laughed.

“Okay,” his mom said. 

“Okay?” he asked.

His father nodded,” sure Son, we love you. It’s weird but, well we hunt ghosts for a living.”

He laughed,” yeah fair enough.”

"I-" his mom looked over at Jack," We're proud of you sweetie, that's a lot to undertake at so young."

he chuckled," it wasn't so bad, I had a lot of help," he grinned at Jazz," Between her Sam and Tuck I don't know if I would have lasted half the battles I did."

"You knew Jazz?" Their father asked his tone soft and slightly hurt.

She smiled softly," yeah, I walked in on him transforming. Thought it was best if I let him tell you guys."

"Part of the apprehension might have been the dissection thing," Danny addmited.

"I- honey-" his mom put a hand over her mouth in shock.

"I'm sorry son," His dad said," it was closed minded of us to assume stuff about ghosts we didn't know."

"Well you weren't always wrong. Just usually."

“So ‘Elle?” his mom prompted before Jack could pepper in questions about what the got right.

He sighed,” yeah her full name is Danielle, technically she’s the only living clone of me Vlad made.”

“Only living Clone?”

“Vlad made?”

Man he had a lot to explain. Years of events just gone unsaid. Some small part of the divide between them was shifting, growing smaller. 

“Is now a good time to tell you guys I have a girlfriend?”

Danny choked on a laugh. Not to long after his parents followed after the tension disrupted, Well at least he had Jazz to help explain. Sam and Tucker too when they weren’t busy. It'd be a mess and weird to finally clear the air between them, but at least he knew they were proud of him.

[therealvinelle]

how do you think book 3 of breaking dawn would have gone if bella had stayed dead?

Well, Renesmée is traumatized, for starters. There was one person in the universe who loved her more than anything, and she killed her. Thanks to her hybrid memory being perfect, she won’t forget a moment of that awful birth either.

Rosalie would swoop in, be a very performative Stepford mother who ultimately isn’t that good at it, and in the long run make Renesmée feel all the lonelier.

I’d imagine her relationship with Edward would be much more fraught. He couldn’t save Mother. Edward would blame himself too, of course, he’d be devastated by grief, and the knowledge that Bella’s daughter felt the same would make it even worse. It’d be a mess, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he left the family to grieve and to spare his daughter from growing up around her mother’s killer (which is how he’d come to view things).

I imagine Jake would try to get custody. Her mother is dead, her father is a wreck who may or may not have fucked off to Rio, really the best place for Renesmée is with him. Rosalie nearly commits manslaughter, while Carlisle puts on his best upside down smiley face, “no.”

Carlisle would be a much bigger part of Renesmée’s life, because there’s not a lot of options. He cringes the first time Renesmée calls him “Papa”.

Apart from that, the story stays the same.

Irina still goes to visit the Cullens, and she still spots Renesmée. She narks to the Volturi, and Carlisle has to frantically gather his army witnesses. The showdown still happens.

And this time there’s no shield.

Aro no longer has reason to execute them.

The Cullens and their witnesses aren’t threats, as proven by the fact that Alec uses his power on them and they drop like flies. The Volturi are in complete control of the situation.

Now, why would they execute the Cullens?

They haven’t broken any laws. 

Some of the witnesses present, like the Romanians, are there because they want to see the Volturi fall, but the Volturi are as supreme as ever. Even if Caius pushes through on executing them, it’s no reason to kill Carlisle.

I don’t think Aro was lying that day when he said he didn’t want to kill everyone. He didn’t know at the time that Bella could protect everybody, so there was no point in going «hope you haven’t broken the law so you won’t die. Oh, you haven’t, well, psyche! You’re all gonna die anyway.»

As it was, Aro had witnesses of his own, and the Cullens had created a huge splash already insisting they were innocent. Killing 20-something (I forget how many people Carlisle had) vampires would damage the Volturi’s reputation as fair rulers and murdering his best friend would be Aro cutting off his nose to spite his face. I don’t think he was queueing up to wipe out a newly discovered, exciting species, either, though Caius would be on the yes-side for that one.

Point is, I think the reasons not to kill the Cullens outweigh the reasons to kill them by far. Aro’s had his show of power, now he can show mercy and get to preserve his best friend’s life and come out looking like a fair and wise leader.

I think he’d ask that Renesmée come to Volterra for observation, which would be a de facto invite for all the Cullens to come.

From there it’s smooth sailing for Aro, not so smooth for the Cullens. Or Caius, for that matter, his palace is full of Carlisle wannabes and the OG himself, and there’s an abomination running around.

Aro is able to fix his relationship with Carlisle, much of the plot of Twilight is fuelled by miscommunications and character assassinations, now they could talk it out. His decision to spare Carlisle’s family would give him credence, and there’s always Chelsea.

In Volterra the Cullens would implode, as they always do. 

If Alice and Jasper came along in the first place (I’m on the fence on them. They’re loyal to their family, and would know that neglecting to come along, and so soon after ditching them once already, would effectively be leaving the coven for good. On the other hand, Alice would be very paranoid about not being allowed to leave. With Renesmée in the mix her visions wouldn’t be able to help her, so... yeah, she wouldn’t come along. Carlisle forgave Edward’s rebel years, she’d count on him accepting this too. And he would, he’d be entirely understanding, even as they were both standing there talking about meeting up in ten years knowing it’s not going to happen) they’d be the first to go. Edward would go into protector of the family mode and try to play political games with Aro, it would be embarrassing for everyone. 

Renesmée would have it better there.

Here would be a home with no reminders of her dead mother, a home not heaved down by constant grief and with a gaping wound in its core. She’d have new people, a lot of them. It’d be very healing for her.

Rosalie would double down on trying to mother here before realizing that Renesmée doesn’t need her, and now that the Cullens aren’t doing the human lifestyle she needs (Carlisle would bat his eyelashes at Aro so he could do night shifts at the local hospital, but that would be it) there would really be nothing for her in Volterra.

Edward would leave, and while Esme’s been having a great time redecorating the tower, she would not bear him going off on his own.

The Cullens leave Volterra one by one.

In the end there’s only Carlisle and Renesmée, and Aro high-fives imself.

[booksforevermore13]

The Mystery Girl

This is my too late entry to the Hinny Ficfest. I just got to know about it a few days ago, and I just loved the concept of something solely being for Hinny fanfiction. I haven't been writing very long, but I just had to participate.

Thank you to @clarensjoy for organizing this!

Also written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Huge thanks to my QLFC teammates for beta-ing this!

Prompt 68: "Are you just `going to stand there and gawk?" / "Yes." / "Well stop it. You look stupid." Prompt 23: "I'm not afraid of your sister, you're afraid of your sister." Prompt 29: "Do you even know what a whisper is?"

Summary: "I swear, if you're Draco Malfoy or another one of his cronies, I'll hex you where it'll hurt. Badly."

"I'm not," Harry replied hurriedly, though he suspected even Malfoy would answer no to that.

Missing moment in HBP between Harry and Ginny.

Read it on Fanfiction if you prefer.

...

"She's crazy," Harry heard Ron moan, "and just when you think you've reached the bottom of her craziness, there's a crazy underground garage," and winced as the latter banged his head on the table.

That morning, when the sky was barely blue with a chorus of greys, Harry had heard Ron scream bloody murder and shot up off the bed, only to see him behind a huge oval mirror — courtesy of Neville's grandmother — and went back under the covers. He'd figured that if Ron was potentially being threatened by a crazed homicidal maniac, he wouldn't have been screaming about it while standing behind a century old mirror. So he'd gone back to bed and been woken up an hour and a half later by a snickering Fred and George on a visit to Hogwarts, who'd informed him of a very distraught Ron in the Great Hall.

Of course, he'd rushed out, slipping on a shirt backwards, and scrambling towards the Great Hall, heedless of the beautiful day outside and how perfect the wind was for a game of Quidditch, closely followed by the twins, who snickered all the way there. It was only when he reached it did he fully grasp that the situation couldn't have been too bad if the twins were snickering.

Worst case was, there'd been a prank gone wrong. Ron being on the opposite side of it.

Harry squinted as he walked forward, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to discern the misshapen blob on top of Ron's head. For a second there, it did look like a spell gone wrong and Harry felt a twinge of panic as he walked faster. It was red from what he could see, and he came to a stop as he realised that it looked frighteningly like a poorly knit hat.

"Why," Harry said, still squinting, "are you wearing that?"

Ron didn't answer, instead wailing as he buried his head in his hands. Harry shared a look with a still snickering Fred and George who'd taken a seat on either side of Ron while Harry took the seat opposite.

"Beautiful hat eh, Ronniekins?" Fred said, in a vaguely condescending tone. "Though, if I might say, a poor choice for impressing darling Lav-Lav."

Ron didn't answer and let out yet another sound of anguish which sounded more like a distraught sob than a yell.

"Are you…. okay Ron?" Harry asked a second later, out of necessity more than concern.

"No I'm not okay!" Ron wailed, "I'm not bloody okay! Do I look okay? No! I'm wearing a bloody woolen hat in the middle of May!"

"We've noticed," Harry said, as he took small sips from his mug. "Why though, are you wearing a woolen hat?"

"Oh, let us," Fred said, a sly grin on his face as he bent forward and ripped Ron's hat off.

George howled in laughter as Harry choked and spluttered out his pumpkin juice, coughing violently as Ron lunged forward at Fred, who dangled the hat at arm's reach.

"You've got pink hair," Harry laughed at the same time Ron yelled at Fred to give back his hat or go and do something he dared not mention in front of Mrs. Weasley.

"Oh, Ronnikins," Fred laughed.

"you look so awfully good —" George quipped.

"— have we mentioned?"

"Suits your brows," which were also pink.

"— and your eyes —"

"— not to mention the lips." George puckered his lips slightly, making a popping sound that only managed to anger Ron even more as he looked fit to murder.

"Mind your own bloody business," he yelled at anyone who looked twice at him, or more specifically, at his head.

"It's pink!" Harry giggled again, covering his mouth as Ron shot him a glare, before dissolving in hysterics again.

"It's lavender, I'll have you know," he grumbled.

Harry laughed harder, before finding it in himself to sober down. Fred and George, though, paid no heed as they continued laughing hysterically, Fred even going to lengths to ruffle Ron's lavender hair, met by a glare and a well-placed curse word.

"What were you trying to do?" Harry said, glancing at Fred as he bit back a smile. "Match with Lavender?"

"Sure, yeah Ron," Fred added, "it'd be even more fun to stick your tongue down her throat with that head full of hair of yours. Imagine her hands tangled in your lavender hair, her lips —"

Ron punched Fred in his side, cutting him off as he doubled over laughing, while Harry drew his legs in as Ron's flung over to kick his.

"Ginny did this, not me," he defended. "And I'm going to have it out with her, I tell you. I'll dye her hair purple, or green, or-or black —"

"Wait, Ginny did this?" Harry gaped. "Wow, I mean, bad wow, very disappointed wow," he said quickly as Ron shot him a look.

"You underestimate her," Ron grumbled, "she's the devil's spawn, that one, even worse than these two gits here." He pointed at a smirking Gred and Forge.

Harry smiled to himself, his cheeks reddening rapidly as he spotted George looking at him with a suggestive grin. Fred joined in, wiggling his eyebrows, and Harry ducked down in embarrassment.

"Won-won!" he winced as heard a shriek cut through the silence, "ohh, my precious Wonnie-boo!" He cringed as he heard Lavender making kissing noises as she ran over to where they were sitting.

"Murder me, Harry," Ron muttered.

"Yeah, no," Harry replied, "you're doing a pretty good job yourself," he shook his head as he picked up a piece of toast, quickly leaving as Lavender threw herself over Ron.

…

He was screwed.

His assurance of his screwed-ness became even stronger as he heard Filch hurrying down the corridor and calling out for Mrs. Norris. The dastardly cat was going to die a horrible death, Harry was sure of it, and he cringed as he heard another pair of footsteps right outside the broom cupboard.

The small space was cramped, just high enough for Harry to rise up to his full height, and it was dark. Pitch dark, and if this was the metaphorical colour black — as Luna so wisely commented time and again — he didn't like it very much.

Harry held his breath as hurried footsteps stopped in front of the cupboard and turned around to hide his face as the door opened, eyes blinded by the light outside. He heard the door close again.

And then the blackness resumed.

That was until he felt a hand push him backwards roughly and he shrieked, his hands going up in mock defence.

"Who the hell are you?" the person demanded, and Harry discerned it to be distinctly feminine, and familiar. Very familiar, he thought.

He stayed silent though, wary of giving his identity away to a girl in a broom cupboard. Perhaps, he thought, she'd get the memo and leave, though he couldn't for his life guess why she had been hiding there in the first place.

The girl stayed silent for a second, probably waiting for a response before she said fiercely. "I swear, if you're Draco Malfoy or another one of his cronies, I'll hex you where it'll hurt. Badly."

"I'm not," Harry replied hurriedly, though he suspected even Malfoy would answer no to that. But the girl seemed satisfied as she humphed and turned around. There was a soft mellow in the mystery girl's voice and he knew he'd heard it before, he just couldn't place where.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked, before cursing under his breath. Normal conversation generally required a 'who are you?' and mutual knowledge of their identities, but clearly, that wasn't the case here, and anyway, Harry had a slight feeling that the girl wouldn't disclose her identity even if he asked.

He waited. And then sighed as the girl remained silent.

"You're talking too loud," she said finally. "Obviously, you're hiding in here from something, or someone," she snorted there and Harry smiled, "so if you don't talk softly, then you're going to get us caught."

"Filch's cat," Harry said.

"What?"

"I'm hiding from Filch's cat."

"Oh," the girl gave a humorless chuckle, "bloody thing's going to have a miserable death. I'm sure of it."

"So I take it you're hiding from her, too?"

"Filch actually," the girl said, "and I suppose that includes the cat too."

"What did you do?"

"Set off fifteen dung bombs in his office," and Harry could swear she had a tinge of pride in her voice, and for a moment, marveled at the nerve of this girl who'd threatened to hex his parts off the first minute they'd met, now claiming to have thrashed Filch's den. There were very few in the school who had the guts to do that, and Harry felt himself flushing as he wondered whether the girl in front of him was Ginny.

Before he could say anything more though, she stepped forward and pried open the door, peeking out to look for what Harry knew now was Mrs. Norris and her owner.

He caught a glimpse of her red hair as the door opened, and his suspicions about her identity grew and almost the very next second, the girl shut the door close, and he could make out her leaning on it.

"Bloody hell," she cursed, and Harry for the second time was flooded with how familiar that sounded, and how he had heard Ginny curse like that before as he felt her push him against the back wall of the cupboard and shuffle in behind him, so that now they were just barely touching, yet not, her body shielding his. Harry felt himself smiling at how the girl, who he had now deemed about a foot shorter than him, was trying to shield him from whatever came knocking on the door. The feeling felt almost foreign for him, for nobody before the Weasleys and Hermione had ever so readily provided a shield so unanimous and here was a girl, who could very well turn out to not be Ginny, shielding him from a petty predator.

However trivial that sounded, Harry felt a warmth blossoming in his chest.

"Just remember, if we get caught, you're deaf and I don't speak English."

"Huh?"

"I think Filch's coming our way," she explained.

"What?"

"Do you even know what a whisper is?" the girl hissed, and Harry's instincts went into overdrive as he clamped his hand on what he could hope was her mouth, pushing her backwards as he shielded her petite body with his, so that he was now between her and the door.

He waited for the footsteps to pass, completely aware of how close the two of them were, and he waited with baited breath as he heard Filch's grumbles get softer. The moment the sounds became distant, Harry yelped and snatched his hand away. She'd bit him!

"Lumos Maxima," the girl whispered and her wand lit up. Harry blinked as he saw her features come into view and her bright brown eyes glare fiercely up at him before they softened.

"Harry?"

"Ginny?" Harry said, more like a fact than a question, because he'd already known who it was all the way. He just couldn't believe he hadn't recognized her the second she'd entered the cupboard. It was hard not to.

Ginny laughed, and Harry turned red, satisfaction brimming in his chest as he took in her illuminated face. Her chuckles died down as she looked up at him.

"Are you just going to stand there and gawk?" Ginny asked, a smile playing on her lips, and Harry had an unexplainable urge to just bend down and kiss her. They were just a few inches apart, probably the closest they had been since forever, and it would take him to bend just a few inches to capture her lips with his.

"Yes," Harry found himself answering truthfully.

"Well stop, you look stupid."

And Harry laughed, and Ginny joined him, and Harry found himself just looking at her and thinking how beautiful she was. And not just beautiful, she was… radiant.

His hand was still pressed beside her head and she slipped out underneath it, the light in her wand dimming as she made her way to open the door.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked as the door swung open. Harry squinted, his eyes adjusting from the dark to the light as he, for a brief second, noticed how her red hair seemed to light up against the sun, making it seem as if it was on fire.

So he followed her out, and they smiled as they met each other's eyes.

Ginny noticed him before he did.

"Shit," Ginny cursed. "We're screwed."

Filch glared at them as Mrs. Norris purred, and Harry couldn't help but agree.

…

"Oh there was a time when they used to hang students by their thumbs in the dungeons," Filch said darkly. "Those were the days."

"I suppose you were hanged like that a lot," Ginny said sweetly, and Harry nudged her, sending her a warning look.

"What did you say?"

"They probably used your toes. Seeing your thumbs weren't large enough."

"Two months scrubbing the toilets with a toothbrush," Filch screamed shrilly, and Harry pushed Ginny backwards as the man advanced on her, Mrs. Norris following him.

He stopped as he saw Harry's menacing glare. "You, boy," he said, glaring at Harry, "you're going to spend a month in the dungeons. Scrubbing the floors till they shine."

"That's not fair," Ginny bellowed, and Harry pulled her away before Filch could open his mouth. He suspected if they stayed there for a second longer, there'd be murder committed. Or at least a heinous crime.

"Two months in the toilets," she muttered darkly as they walked down the corridors, "that lying, cheating piece of scum," she growled. "And his cat—oh, I hope that cat rots in hell."

Harry laughed, and then stopped as Ginny shot him a look, both of them lapsing into silence.

"Seeing your thumbs weren't large enough," Harry chuckled, seconds later. "You don't take things seriously sometimes, you know?"

"Never take life seriously," Ginny said, and Harry looked at her, glimpsing a side of her he hadn't seen before. "No one ever comes out alive anyway."

And though those words were too crude to be true, Harry agreed with them wholeheartedly.

…

"Wait," he said as they neared the Gryffindor common room, before laughing, "you dyed Ron's hair pink."

"Lavender, actually," Ginny replied, "thought it'd match his girlfriend."

Harry chuckled, shaking his head as Ginny grinned an impish grin. "You're scary, you know." The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Amazing, but scary."

Ginny laughed as she leaned against Harry's shoulder. "That's one of the best compliments I've ever received."

"One of the best?" Harry asked. "What's the best?"

"Oh. I don't know," Ginny shrugged, "probably on the lines of crazy ass she-demon who hides under children's beds."

"Really?" Harry laughed, "who said that?"

"Ron. I think Charlie agreed too."

Harry laughed and flushed as his hand brushed against hers. Instinct took over as he interlocked his fingers with hers and Ginny looked up in surprise, before relaxing into his hold, smiling happily. She was beautiful, Harry couldn't help but notice again as she swung their hands to and fro like two children.

But, he supposed, it probably wouldn't hurt being a child once in a while.

He'd never been one before — he'd at least never felt like one, even with Ron and Hermione. Like the entire world, they expected things from him, however few they might be. Ginny never expected; she'd always been the one to give without expecting anything in return. Never once, looking at him in pity or with a look that showed she understood everything he was going through.

She didn't, and she knew that and she made sure everyone around her knew it too. She tried to understand though, but if she wasn't able to, she didn't try further. Never pressed for more. Ginny, Harry had seen, was as open as he was withdrawn. What he saw was the truth — at least to him — and she was fiercely proud of that,almost daring anyone to oppose, but nobody ever did. He liked that.

Harry looked at her once again, smiling as he saw her glance at him through the corner of her eye.

"Oi, Harry!" He heard Ron's voice break through his reverie and felt a surge of disappointment as Ginny spotted her brother and let go of his hand. Ron was wearing that hideous woolen hat again, and Harry and Ginny exchanged glances, looking away to hide their grins.

"Heard you got into detention with Filch," Ron wheezed, "and you too." He pointed at Ginny.

Both of them nodded and Ron looked at them suspiciously before asking, "Were you two together all afternoon?"

"Yeah, well —" Harry looked at Ginny.

"We kind of fell in trouble together."

Harry smiled.

"Can't imagine why," Ron replied snarkily. "And you," he said, looking at Ginny, "don't think I haven't let you off the hook for this." He pointed at his hat, slightly grimacing.

"Didn't know I was on a hook," Ginny said cheekily. "I think you've lost your bait."

"Just taking pity on the number of toilets you have to scrub."

"I'll ask you for help if necessary."

Ron shook his head, exasperated. "He didn't do anything, right? Filch?" he asked, moments later.

"Relax, Ron," Ginny smiled, "I can take him any day."

They watched her walk away, a spring in her step, Harry with a smile on his face before Ron turned to him.

"I'm not going to see you with green hair tomorrow, am I?"

"I'm not afraid of your sister, Ron. You're afraid of your sister," Harry said and he grinned.

I think I'm in love with her.

...

[astaroth1357]

The Obey Me Cast on a Camping Trip (Part Two: The Undateables)

This post is split in two due to length (I had too much fun again…) For the Brothers, please click HERE!

Intro:

Another day, another team building activity between the demons and the exchange students. It was Diavolo’s idea to go on a camping trip to the human world (because of course it was), and there were very… mixed responses. That sentiment wasn’t helped when he refused Lucifer’s insistent pleas to just purchase cabins for everyone to stay in. Oh no, the Demon Lord wanted to rough it out in the wilderness, and now everyone else was getting dragged along with him…

Wonder how that turned out?

Diavolo

He was soooo excited to get to experience camping! He had been asking the MC about human camping trips for about a week before making the announcement and he was pumped!!

Barbatos chauffeured him to the campsite in his own car (of course) but he insisted on taking every roadside, touristy stop they came across which doubled the drive time considerably…

He wanted to help everybody set up the camp but Barbatos and Lucifer were having none of it… So he took pictures and offered moral support instead! Good work everyone! 😁

He had his own tent about the size of a small house (ngl it took Barbs and Lucifer about a half hour to set the whole thing up). Barbs even somehow managed to pack a collapsible desk in there for him so he could still work… greeeat…. 🙄

Diavolo wanted to try everything. Literally everything. The man even traded his uniform out for full on outdoors gear, right down to one of those floppy fishing hats with the tackle stuck to it.

Politely insistently asks that Lucifer does things with him. The MC could come along as well (and in many cases Luci begs them to do so) but he wants to get some bonding time in with his best friend!

Unfortunately for Lucifer, Diavolo would get sidetracked quite a lot… Which is how he ended up having to physically steer his Lord out of harm's way more than once…

At one point while hiking, Diavolo was so distracted by taking pictures that he nearly walked right into the path of a passing bear and her cubs. Lucifer had to tackle him down into some bushes until they went away... His brothers teased him mercilessly when they heard about...

Dia also loved the camping food quite a bit. He's never gotten the chance to cook his own food before, even if it's just marshmallows over a fire, so it was all a brand new experience for him! S'mores are now declared a human world delicacy.

Man had the time of his life! He'd love to do it again, hell, maybe even make it a yearly event! (Few of the brothers share his sentiment, but hey, it pays to be King 😏)

Barbatos

If his Lord orders it, then he follows. He'll just have to double check that everyone is prepared for the occasion…

Drove Diavolo there with the patience of a saint (while also, like, being the exact opposite of that). Had it been anyone else in the car, they might have told him, "No, we can't stop for pictures of every moose you see," but Barbs is as accommodating as he is loyal.

It was pretty much all on his shoulders to direct the others when setting up camp. Lucifer would claim it was his, but let’s be completely honest here, Lucifer can't order Barbs to do shit. 

Naturally, he had his own tent close to his Lord, more modest in comparison, but big enough to hold a majority of the belongings and gear Diavolo had requested.

He also managed to bring a almost fully functioning kitchen setup for him using magic, minus a working oven by Diavolo's instruction. If he wanted a heat source, he had to use the campfire and he found the challenge intriguing…

For once in his extended life, Barbs had to do some trial and error in the kitchen. As it would turn out, fireside cooking can be a little difficult to master, but by the end of the trip he could still somehow dish out four course meals without so much as a sweat (according to the MC the secret was tinfoil and cast-iron cookware… who knew?)

When he isn’t prepping their next meal (which let’s be honest, with Beel on the trip that’s a constant activity) he’s guarding the food from Beel and Solomon…

The sorcerer wanted to help, but Barbs has already learned the hard way that if he so much as pokes a dish its flavor is ruined… It’s enough to make him wonder if it was a curse laid on him at some point…

Watching Barbatos deny Solomon becomes a pretty funny routine in and of itself. He’s not above just smacking the man’s hand away with a wooden spoon if it gets too close. Barbs doesn’t play in his kitchen. Back off. 😠

Barbatos is happy with the trip so long as the young Lord enjoyed himself. If that’s the case, and it was, then he’d happily do it again if asked… not that he’d have much of a choice anyway.

Simeon

Simeon was familiar with the concept of camping, he’d written about it in his stories, but he’d never actually done it himself… He had hoped it'd be an interesting experience! And uh… it was that from the very start… 

Purgatory Hall got its own car and Solomon was put in charge of driving… But no one mentioned that he drives like a complete maniac. Speed limits, stoplights, even the ROAD ITSELF be damned. Solomon drives in a straight line from point A to point B and if there’s anything in the way he’ll just use magic to get around it…

It’s safe to say that by the time he and the others got to the campsite (which was significantly quicker than the rest) the angels weren’t in the emotional state to pitch tents… He and Luke just waited for the others to catch up while praying and praising the solid ground beneath their feet…

He shared his tent with Luke and didn’t mind at all. It was probably for the best anyway because the little angel was scared of human world predators like bears and wolves coming for him in the night… Poor boy…

Simeon took to hiking quite a bit. Going out and exploring the area around the campsite made him feel invigorated! The forests were beautiful and it gave him ideas for a bit of a guilty pleasure he's been debating on writing, "The Tale of the Lonely Prince." 🤭

It was on one of those trips that Simeon discovered human world creatures love him. Pretty much all of the wildlife gravitates towards him like he's a Disney Princess.

At one point he came back to camp riding on a moose with birds chirping on his new friend's antlers. He offered to take the MC out for a ride, but the brothers threw a fit about it…

He WAS able to get a couple more wrangled for Diavolo, who naturally dragged Lucifer along (though he clearly didn't want to touch the thing). 

The three ended up getting into a mooseback race because Diavolo wouldn't let Lucifer take the lead. He was glad to see Luci enjoy himself for a change! (It helped a lot that he won of course 🙄😏)

All and all, Simeon had a great time. Maybe he should ask the MC to show him more human places… But he's never getting in a car again. Pardon his language, but fuck those things!!!

Luke

He doesn't know what's worse… being out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of demons or the absolute insanity that was the "drive" down… 😣

He spent the entirety of Solomon's Magical Ride of Nightmares clinging to Simeon or the armrests for dear life. He swore his entire life flashed before his eyes, can angels even have heart attacks???

Stayed right next to Simeon when they finally pulled themselves together enough to leave the car. He was so happy that Michael didn't see any of that… Who knew human transportation was so horrifying…???

His saving grace (literally) was getting to share his tent with Simeon… After Solomon told him that bears sometimes get curious and ransacked campsites, he clung onto the older angel like a protective charm.

...Whiiiich he wasn't too off about actually after he saw Simeon playing (yes PLAYING) with the human wildlife… Simeon had to introduce him to some of the nicer animals for him to eventually get over his fear and venture out past the campsite.

Luke loved to swim in the lake or river with MC and the others. The MC found a sturdy branch where they set up a rope swing and the little guy amused himself for hours!

Sometimes he'd watch Barbatos prep and cook using the campfire… He didn't even know you could make lasagna in a Dutch oven…

At one point the MC convinced him to go with them and the twins on a particularly long hike…

He got tired halfway through and Beel offered him a piggyback ride, but of course he'd NEVER let himself be that close to a demon!! (Just kidding, poor boy was so tired he climbed onto Beel's back and held on the a kola until they got back. Then he jumped off to save face)

He had a better time than he thought he would, but still doesn't want to go camping with demons ever again. (He and Simeon also begged Lucifer to drive them back instead of Solomon so the brothers' van was pretty much a clown car on the return trip).

Solomon

Solomon hasn't been camping (for enjoyment) in quite a while, so when the prospect came up to do it with the MC and the other students he was intrigued...

When Simeon asked he knew how to drive, he said yes. He knows how to start a car, put it into motion, steer, and then come to a stop. That's all driving is really. 🤷‍♀️ You can't blame him for not memorizing all the rules, he's been traveling by portal for decades!

Was pretty confused why his angel friends fled the car so quickly... He got them there in one piece, after all. 😕🤷‍♀️ He put up their tents himself since they were too busy thanking their father then made a magic barrier around the site for protection purposes.

He and the MC both have their own tents, of course his is enchanted to be a lot bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, but he's only let the MC in on that little secret in case they want to visit… 😏

When everyone else finally arrived, Solomon was happy to help the MC introduce the wonders of the human wilderness to their companions! Including the breathtaking vistas, beautiful flora, bitter temperatures, man-eating predators, waters filled with disease… Hm? Oh, Luke won't leave the tent now…? Whoopsie.

Solomon kept himself occupied on the trip the best way he knew how… relentless trolling (particularly of Asmo and Barbs because they're used to his shit).

He'd alternate between poking fun at Asmo for the almost ritual length routines he was going through to try and save his looks to genuinely trying to encourage him and downplay the severity of the downgrade...

Meanwhile he was bound and determined to serve at least one of his own dishes during the trip (but Barbatos had banned him from the "kitchen," the food tent, and even the spoons...)

Diavolo, nice guy that he is, eventually made Barbs relent and let Solomon cook for ONE night… It went as well as to be expected. (They sent Solomon to grab more supplies then everybody took turns washing their mouths out with lake water... Diavolo apologized profusely, he had no idea...).

Solomon was confused why the angels would rather squeeze themselves in with the brothers than ride with him back but he wasn’t upset about it. That meant he could make a few extra stops without anyone complaining! He knows a guy in New Orleans he’s been meaning to see again… Luke and Simeon can wait a little for their stuff, right?

Click HERE for Part One. Check out my Masterlist for more!

[magical-xirl-4]

I’ve sort of talked about this on my blog before but like… it’s the way that the Futuristic Four probably grew up all lonely friends-wise, and the way that they find that friendship in each other™️

Wilbur may have been well liked but not had any close friends. Kids could see him the charming goofball that doesn’t really get close to anyone because he doesn’t know how to properly. They could think he’s annoying, or worse, they may have gotten the wrong impression of him because he’s rich and they think he’d be insufferable to be around because of his privilege. Either the perception is that he’s annoying + arrogant, or he’s a nice kid but he’s off in his own world so no one really gets close to him. He’s solo for the most part, and it lines up with how at the end of the film he says that Lewis is his best friend, as though he’s never had one before.

With the other three, it’s probably more evident (especially Violet) that they would’ve grown up without many friends. Hiro graduated high school at thirteen, he was a boy genius and that definitely would’ve othered him. From his peers not being able to keep up with him because his intellect was far ahead of his, and then being in classes with kids almost double his age and surpassing all of them. He goes into SFT with obviously no friends his own age and then makes friends with Tadashi’s.

Penny is well… either a child star or a spy. With the first one, she would’ve only been friends with kids that were also famous and that would’ve been tough in of itself. Not every kid who’s on the same level as you is going to get along with you, because it wouldn’t be that diverse group of people like one you’d find in a school. Plus, famous kids can be super pompous and she wouldn’t like that. As for Spy Penny… in my own headcanon, she grew up homeschooled because of her father’s high profile job as a scientist working for a secret organisation. He taught her some things himself because he’s a smart man. And then she had to rescue him, which cut her off from living somewhat a normal life and basically having to go rogue and off the grid.

Violet’s the most easy to understand because we actually see her in school. She’s hiding in corner by herself wearing dark clothes and is covered by her dark hair, very much a person in their lonesome. She could have a friend out Cory maybe?? But even then that’s just one person, who might not even be close to her anyway. And also because the Parr’s had to move a lot, Violet wouldn’t have been able to generate or keep friendships, and because she’s super shy, it just didn’t work a lot. It’s really tough being an introverted teen and having to do that. Even though she became confident by the end of the first film and is managing okay by the second, she still grew up that way. 

So yeah, by the time these four ever become a team, they would find so much kinship with each other because of being alone for so long. They would have such fun and wholesome dynamics too and it’d basically be a found family type thing. They have their biological families, but choosing one is even more special because of the agency that comes with that and they’re in a way, rewriting their pasts.