#at least it’s working. people just think i have a thing about ghosts. and they’d be right but it’s much deeper than that

[pentrologram]

What Normal People Do - 8

You're so, so pissed.

warning/cw for user having a panic attack- basically hurt no comfort

never mentioning how long it takes for me to write a chapter again because wow hi guys it's been two months... i'll be real, it's not my best work, but if i try to nitpick anymore this chapter'll be out when i graduate haha (additional: this is day 25 of my advent calendar! i know this was supposed to be out on christmas day, i'm sorry, i'm sick 😭)

ao3!

ghost/soap/gn!reader (established ghoap)

(Why Did I Like You? Breaking it Off)

Your realization is a scary one.

It takes you taking an Uber home, collapsing in your bed and passing out and waking up before you realize the consequences:

Holy fuck, you loved them.

Them being a couple.

An established couple.

Who got along like water in a stream.

You came to another realization not too shortly after: there’s no way in hell you can tell them if you want your friendship to remain the same. And if you don’t want them to think of you as a creep- because that’s exactly how you feel. 

You feel like a creep, wanting to be a part of their undoubtedly closed, private relationship, wanting to get closer than what’s acceptable, at least in your head. You don’t know when or how or why these feelings have arisen- all you know is that they are just there. And you certainly don’t appreciate them at all.

No, you determine yourself to push down these frankly irrelevant feelings. There’s no use for them by either party, anyway.

Little do you know that on the other side of the plaster and drywall , Johnny’s feeling the same as you .

He’s a lot less in denial about his feelings than you are, though. He came to terms with his feelings a long while ago, and he’s been a lot less subtle about his feelings, too. What with the way he had snuck food from his plate to your own when you ate dinner with them just because you said you liked a certain dish or how he had stopped you from paying for anything while at the countless (literally, countless) art fairs you had been dragged to or the hopelessly-in-love looks he gave you from the other side of a room.

However, much like you, he’s scared.

He’s been stockpiling, hoarding random facts about you and committing them to his memory, just to randomly delight you with something you assume he’d forgotten .

He and Simon have had thirds before, multiple times. People that had left well before morning, whatever. They’d never seen anyone like you before—sweet, little you. You who had barged into their hearts with your broken one, nestled deep, curled up and settled.

Still, he’s scared. He and Simon had never talked about their relationship like that before, because they never needed to.

You, though, were making him question things. He had always thought- assumed?- that Simon was the one and only person for him. Only Simon could fill a persistent ache in his heart, could soothe his overactive mind and lull him into rest. However, when you came along, suddenly Johnny felt the same way he had when he first met Simon. Suddenly, he was poking the bear that was the 6’4 masked Lieutenant in base after being transferred into the 141, giddy off of boyish nerves and fickle puppy love that soon turned into something more.

Suddenly, you make Johnny feel as though he’s a lot younger than he is.

And don’t get him wrong, it’s bloody amazing . He adores you- well and truly , he does. He’s scared of how Simon will react, though.

He and Simon are birds of a feather, really, and he knows that Simon likes you a fair amount. The real question is if Simon thought of you the way Johnny did, or if to him, you were just a good friend. It’s that thought that makes Johnny scared- that if he introduced the idea of including you in their relationship, Simon would be disgusted, maybe even offended. It’s that thought that gives him pause and stops him from bringing it up to Simon.

More fuel to the fire of your trepidation: you're so anxious about the sculpture. You know they know that it was someone else (technically), but the memory of throwing that sculpture- god, you feel terrible about it. Yeah, you were maybe a lot intoxicated, but it was still insanely terrifying. You just knew that if you were to go up to them unguarded they would split your brain open and see everything within you. They would be able to tell that you broke the sculpture and they’d see your weakness and then they’d hate you for it. You’re convinced that they’d hate you about it so much that they will get you kicked out of your lovely new apartment somehow, maybe from a friendship with the landlord, and then convince your job to drop you for being a deplorable sculpture-shatterer. Maybe they'd even go as far as to go onto the news about you and your deplorable-ness since Johnny had gained internet reach via the homophobic outburst. Maybe they’d turn you in to the cops. Maybe you’d get locked up, like how Simon was trying to get the original vandal to be. Needless to say, you didn’t talk to either of them about the incident, going rigid whenever it got mentioned, going to yourself ‘god, maybe they’ve found you out’ when all it is is Simon grumbling about the local police being little to no help. You’ve also been sort of avoiding them, not responding to Johnny’s texts as much or purposefully timing taking out the trash to catch Simon and Riley on their afternoon walks. You don’t think they notice, since they’ve been caught up in a sudden wave of support on practically all ends- you’re sure you saw a few strangers loitering on their doorstep a few separate times. 

Despite all of your anxiety, life still moves on. You worked nearly every day for the past two weeks before getting two days off. The clinic had been swamped because a nearby elementary school had a lice outbreak; first-time moms who had never heard about lice shampoo came flocking to your practice. It probably would’ve been funny, you supposed, but it was just tiring to deal with back-to-back upset toddlers with upset parents. You were so tired that when Johnny reached out to invite you to watch a horror movie in preparation for Halloween, you couldn’t even bother with your anxiety declining, just wanting some sort of comfort. 

Now, you’re at the boys’ apartment, contemplating the benefits of leaping out of their balcony; just to rid yourself of the near-crippling anxiety of being so close to the two of them. You're settled into the couch to watch Jennifer's Body with the boys, and Simon is lounged with his mask off and he has one burly arm over the top of the couch , practically over Johnny's shoulders as Johnny sort of sits right in the divot between Simon's cushion (since he’s buff enough to warrant his own cushion) and the cushion he should’ve been sitting on, enticing you to sit closer than normal to Johnny.

Knowing what you know now, you don't. Feeling what you do now, you don’t. You even take the opportunity to put a little space between you two, sitting purposefully on the other side of the couch. You’re honestly scared that if you do sit close to him, they'll take you sitting shoulder to shoulder with Johnny wrong.

You settle in, kicking your stocking-clad feet up onto the couch as you watch the first scene of the movie .

You zone out for a while and it’s not until Simon huffs a gruff chuckle at something or other- you weren't really paying attention- that you zone back in. Then, as if recalling something, his brown gaze bores directly through the fucking tissues of your face, right over an asleep Johnny, who had leaned in his sleep, his head now on your shoulder. He’s kind of (really) scary like this, just staring at you. It’s more tense without a lighthearted Johnny to diffuse the tension.

“You’re jumpy,” he observes.

“I’m not.” You’re not.

“Are y’ sure? You haven’t been seeming like yourself for a while, bun.”

“I’m fine.” You are. He scrutinizes you and you can feel a pit of anxiety in your stomach, which quickly turns into an irrational sort of anger. “Don’t look at me like that.” You half-snap. He had just looked at you so closely that you’re utterly convinced he knows exactly what you’re thinking, which only serves to irritate you further.

“Sorry.” He says, but he doesn’t seem sorry, only surprised.

“No, you’re not.” He’s not . His brow furrows.

“Bun, are you-“

“Stop.” You say, and he does. Johnny starts to drool. You look back to the movie. Simon doesn’t, and it ticks you off- his eyes are analytical but soft. Like he’s pitying you, which confuses you- what about you is there to pity? You’re convinced he knows everything about the sculpture now, what with the intensity of his gaze earlier. He should be feeling angry at you, not sorry for you.

“ Stop looking at me like that!” You burst out, making Johnny flinch awake, his head stuttering as it rises up from your tensed shoulders. He blinks blearily at you and your heart stutters, because even mostly asleep, he’s drop-dead gorgeous. He’s so pretty. It shouldn’t be allowed. Unexpectedly, it just adds more fuel to the fire that is your anxiety-driven rage.

“Wh’s-” Johnny starts.

“Bun, it’s okay- hey,” Simon cuts in.

“Fucking stop! I don’t get how you can be so- so calm all the time when you hate me,” you say, traitorous tears pricking at your eyes. “I know you know that I broke the vase, a-and it’s so infuriating when you act like nothing’s wrong! Like it doesn’t matter! Like you’re just- waiting for the perfect moment to strike on me and force me to pay my dues or something! Being quietly pissed off is shitty and rude and dehumanizing!"

You fight through the rising nausea and-

"-I hate that you know that I love you!" Embarrassment rises to your cheeks. It's slick and toxic, because *what the fuck*, no way you just said that?! You're fuming as you get up on unsteady feet and leave their apartment, narrowly avoiding the next wave of trick-or-treaters. You fumbled with your key before prying open the door of your apartment , falling onto your bed and crying into your pillow, frustrated with yourself.

That was awesome. That was great. You'd just confessed everything you knew they knew- if they didn't, they surely did now. They'd hate you. You really had to start detaching yourself from your apartment now, because you were almost 99% they would be reporting you for harassment or something to your landlord.

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

Both Simon and Johnny are confused as they sit on the couch in stunned silence in the aftermath.

"Well." Simon murmurs.

"Yeah.”

“I mean… well, fuck. Right bloody mess, that.”

“Only a mess? More like-” Johnny stops himself and bites his lower lip , hesitating .

“Well? Go’n, then,” Simon interjects, bumping Johnny’s shoulder. “More like what?” 

Internally, Johnny berates himself for the slip-up, since the plan has never been to tell Simon the truth. To confess that he-

No, he’s sure Simon must have an inkling of the direction of the secret he’s concealed for the better half of a month. Simon knows him too well, too intimately, their souls too closely intertwined for any secret to survive longer than a month. He should just fess up, he knows, but speaking the words would only be painful and he feels like they both could do with a lot less pain.

“Si, it’s-”

“Bullshit,” Simon says nearly immediately, his eyes glaring daggers through Johnny’s skull, making him gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Jus’ spit it out.” He hisses.

“I… Si,” he sighs out. “Si, Ah really like them. Like, really,” he says sulkily. “Ah still love ye the same, an’ I still think you’re my soulmate an’ all, But…. Somethin’ abou’ them, Si, I dunno.”

“Ah, Johnny,” Simon says, sighing, drawing Johnny closer to his side. “Tha’ isn’t anything to worry about,” he rumbles, “I feel the same, y’know. Thought you clued it out by now.”

“Really?” Johnny asks, peering up at his lover.

“Yeah, really, with your dumbass.”

“Oh. Well. I think- I think they feel the same.”

“You think ? They fundamentally confessed, love,” he mutters.

“Yeah, ollright,” Johnny huffs. “What d’ya suppose we do, then, if yer all-knowing?”

“Well, we tell 'em, don’t we? Get them a nice dinner. Some wine. The works.”

“Uh-huh. I think they’re scared of us, though, Si,” Johnny says quietly.

“I think you’re paranoid.” Simon presses a kiss on Johnny’s forehead. Johnny huffs again but offers no further cheek. “I say we take ‘em out to Ivy Springfield’s. Alright?”

“Alright.”

<- back

[dannyphannypack]

Happy Holiday Truce @ghozteevee !

I'm so sorry about the wait! I'd say the holidays got away from me, but I think procrastination is pretty true-to-form for me. Something I'll definitely work on in the New Year. I really hope it's still January 3rd for you!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little story <3 I took some inspo from two of your prompts: post identity reveal family outing and sibling bonding. The sibling bonding is in the first quarter or so, the parental bonding is in the last bit. Also, the conclusion definitely ran away from me! Very Brother Bear vibes up in here. I hope that's okay!

Enjoy! :3

Word Count: 3280

Danny gasped awake with a shiver, barely catching the green of his eyes as it caught on the shiny, canvassed ceiling of their tent. His breath fogged in front of him, visible in the quickly dimming glow. It served as a warning of what he already knew had awoken him, but it was nice to get the confirmation anyway: there was a ghost nearby.

He rubbed the crust from his eyes as he allowed his brain time to wake up the rest of the way. The good news was that it didn’t feel like anything overly powerful. The bad news was that if it tripped his Ghost Sense, then it was powerful enough—and more than likely causing havoc, because it was clearly feeling some big emotions and those emotions usually amounted to some brand of anger. It also felt distinctly feral, and given their locale, it was safe to bet it was an animal spirit of some kind. Those could be especially unpredictable, and he wasn’t in the mood.

Danny looked over at the sleeping bag where his sister slept—seeing in the dark hadn’t been a problem for a long time, with or without the aid of glowing eyes—and he watched the slow rise and fall of her chest as she quietly snored. Now, whether or not to wake her was the question. The Ghost Assault Vehicle would be the safest place for her if things went haywire, but undoubtedly she’d be worried and clingy and want to help, which he also wasn’t in the mood for.

Ultimately, though, safety overruled whatever annoying sibling feelings she might stir up. Danny dislodged himself from his own sleeping bag and crawled across the floor to her, the waterproof fabric beneath him making rustling noises all the way.

“Psst,” he whispered, setting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Jazz.”

“Whazzat?” she asked, jerking. “Danny?”

“Hey. There’s a ghost.”

Her eyes blew open. “Like, here? Now?”

Yeah, maybe he could’ve handled that better. “Not yet,” he amended. “But I’m heading out. You should probably get in the Gav, just in case.”

“The G-A-V, Danny, not the ‘Gav.’” It was an old argument, one they hadn’t really argued over in years. Danny figured that Jazz probably found it endearing now that she was out of the house and missing him for most of the year. She sighed as she sat up and reached for the ground, hands fumbling towards her glasses. “You’re going alone? At least tell Mom and Dad first. And help me with a light, please.”

Danny summoned a ball of ectoplasm and sent it floating up towards the domed ceiling, where it lit the whole tent in a dim, soft blue. He grimaced. “I was kind of hoping you’d do that.”

Danny’s parents had been informed of his little secret only a week ago, and all-in-all it had gone down pretty well. The timing had been strategic, of course; Danny was going off to college at the end of the summer, and his parents needed to know why their newest ghostly ally would be disappearing from Amity for the entire school year (barring holidays and emergencies, if all went well). Going to college was a failsafe he knew he hadn’t needed, but wanted anyway—seeing alternate timelines where his parents were accepting of his after-school activities was very different from actually experiencing it in his own, after all. They’d reacted much as expected, though. Surprised. Excited. Sad. Guilt-stricken.

Jazz looked at him with something that bordered on pity, and it made him squirm. “I can if that’s what you really want, Danny,” she allowed. “But you know why I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Okay, no need to get all mopey about it,” Danny deflected, clambering up to his knees (the tent wasn’t tall enough to stand, which kind of put a damper on his whole ‘stoic’ front. Not that he’d admit that). “It just…still feels weird. But I can do it!”

Jazz raised her hands in fake surrender and fought a smile. “Yeah, yeah, you’re a big boy now, I got it.” She unzipped her sleeping bag and cast the cover aside. “I’ll go hide. Though…if it’s big enough that you needed to wake us up, maybe you should do more than just let them know.”

“Like?” Danny asked, just to be obstinate. He knew what Jazz was hinting at.

Jazz rolled her eyes. “Like ask for help, you big dummy.”

Danny sighed. It’d be the first time working with them since…“I don’t know if we’re at that level yet, Jazz.”

“You were before you told them,” Jazz pointed out with a raised brow.

“It’s different,” he stressed.

“Okay, well, different or not, you need to tell them you’re leaving, at the very least.” Jazz crawled over her sleeping bag towards the door and unzipped it with a practiced, fluid motion. “After you,” she said with a dramatic gesture towards the dark campfire and forest beyond.

Danny grumbled as he passed, and once out of the threshold he let the ectoplasmic ball lighting the inside of the tent wink out, just to hear Jazz’s indignant “Hey!” from behind him. Seconds later he heard (and saw) her flashlight click on behind him; ectoplasm-powered and too big for its own good, Danny was sure that thing created its own light pollution. He refused to use it on principle.

Danny walked the short trek to his parents’ tent and crouched to get the zipper, deciding against intangibility just in case one of his parents was awake enough to notice a shadowy silhouette phase through the wall. On the other side, Jack snored with the force of a train engine; Danny could swear it was rattling the zipper out of his hands as he fumbled with it.

The inside was dark, but Jazz’s flashlight outside cast long shadows across the floor. Danny moved out of the way so that the light could hit his parent’s faces; Danny knew his mother would have in ear plugs, so this was really the only safe way of waking her beyond shaking, which Danny knew from experience could be…startling, sometimes.

He watched her brows furrow before her eyes squinted open. She rubbed at her eyes with one hand and took an ear plug out with the other. “Danny? What happened?”

“Um, there’s a ghost,” Danny said (muttered, more like). “I was gonna go—”

“Hold on, I can’t hear you,” Maddie said, turning to shake her husband. “Jack, wake up. Danny needs something.”

“Whazzat?” Jack yelled, in much the same way as Jazz. Like father, like daughter. “What happened?”

“Uh,” Danny said, feeling tenser now with both their attentions on him. “There’s a ghost.” He pointed north. “Half a mile that way, maybe. Getting closer. I was gonna go deal with it, but I told Jazz to get in the RV just in case.”

Maddie frowned. “You were gonna go deal with it? By yourself?”

Danny glanced behind him, where Jazz was giving him a thumbs up from across the campsite. “Um, no,” he lied, turning back around. “You guys can come. If you want. You don’t have to.”

“Of course we want to, Danno!” Jack shouted. He had positively lit up, like grogginess wasn’t and had never been an issue for him. “I’ll go get the Fenton Grappler!”

“Do you know what kind of ghost it is, sweetie?” Maddie asked, still watching him. “What equipment do we need to bring?”

Danny hadn’t thought that far ahead. “It’s an animal, I think. It feels pretty feral. It’s not that strong, either, but—”

“Animal spirits can be unpredictable,” Maddie said, echoing Danny’s earlier considerations. “Alright, we’ll bring the capturing gear.” She paused. “If…that’s okay?”

Danny almost laughed; he’d never heard his mom sound so unsure when it came to ghost hunting. “That sounds good, Mom,” he said. “I’ll go get my boots on.”

— — —

Danny led the way through the timber with his parents, feeling a little silly in human form but unwilling to change nonetheless. It was nice to walk, sometimes, even when flying would be quicker and less taxing. And he could pass his feet intangibly through those pesky fallen branches and thorny bushes, so really it wasn’t all that worse than strolling down an Amity sidewalk. There was, he told himself, no other reason he might want to stay human in this scenario. He certainly wouldn’t feel uncomfortable otherwise.

“Are we getting close, honey?” Maddie asked after helping Jack over a rotted trunk.

The irony wasn’t lost on Danny; he’d asked the same question on the RV ride there. He felt around in his chest, feeling for the speed at which his core buzzed it’s steady warning, the strength of the tug. “Nearly there,” he promised.

“That’s a real neat trick, Danny-boy,” Jack praised. Danny could hear the smile in his voice. “You know, I always wondered how Phantom heard wind of a ghost faster than we did. Didn’t I, Mads?”

Danny kicked at some dead leaves and sticks at the ground, embarrassed. “That ghost alarm you guys developed works similarly. It maybe doesn’t have quite the range, though.”

Maddie hummed, contemplating. “And that’s what woke you up tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Maddie reached out to set her hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He closed his eyes before he turned to face her, bracing. If he hadn’t caught on to the concern in her voice before, he was definitely feeling it now. “How often do ghosts wake you up?” she asked, quiet.

Danny opened his mouth to lie and then thought better of it. That was a habit he was determined to break with his family, whether they’d like the answer or not. “Once or twice a night,” he admitted, slowly. When Maddie made a pained noise, he quickly added, “Usually it’s nothing to worry about, though, so I just go back to sleep. Like, at least half the time.”

She bit her lip. Guilty. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that, hun.”

“Can we not do this?” Danny pleaded. These were the kind of conversations he’d been trying to avoid for the past week. “It’s my fault for not telling you guys, not your fault for not noticing.”

“We know that’s how you feel, Danny,” his mom allowed. She shared a glance with Jack from over her shoulder. “But we can’t help but feel like some of that lies on us, too. For noticing the clues but not acting on them in the ways we should have.”

“We want to know now, though,” Jack said, coming up behind his wife. “Warts and all.”

“Is this an intervention?” Danny asked, nervous. It felt like his core was constricting in his chest. “Because I get enough of that from Jazz.”

“It’s not an intervention,” his mom denied, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s just…Why haven’t you turned into Phantom yet, Danny?”

Danny wasn’t sure if he heard that right. It felt like the conversation had spun 180. “What?” he asked.

“This isn’t exactly an easy hike, sweetie,” she said. “Mostly uphill, through brambles and across fallen trees.”

“It’s been fine,” he argued. “I’ve been phasing through most of it.”

“If we were Tucker or Sam, you would have flown us there,” Maddie finished, and, well, he couldn’t deny that logic. “So why haven’t you?”

Danny frowned. “I didn’t think we were at that stage yet.”

“We’re not on a date, Danny; we’re your parents,” she sighed, shaking her head. “There is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you. I changed your diapers; I should know.”

Danny frowned. If she had said that two weeks ago, before they’d known, he might not have believed her. He did believe her this time, but it was marred by something else—this aching, squeezing feeling in his chest, riddling his core with fear and anxiety and confusion and—

Oh. That wasn’t from him.

“Look out!” Danny yelled, grabbing hold of his parents and shoving them to the ground. His shield came up just in time: a glowing black bear, absolutely massive for its species, came barreling down upon it, scratching and growling and baring sharp, sharp teeth with saber-toothed tiger levels of length. He flinched against its strength but held steady, keeping his hands in front of him to feed ectoplasm into the bubble that surrounded them.

Perhaps realizing that its efforts were futile, the bear backed away, roared once in warning, and then took off running in the opposite direction, taking a moment to pause awkwardly at a hollowed tree stump before disappearing over the hill.

“Okay,” Danny breathed, allowing the shield to dissipate. There was that conversation out the window. He was almost grateful for it; he’d always been better at fighting than he was at talking, and staying human during this battle was quickly becoming a moot point, anyhow. “Alright, here’s the plan: you guys follow from back here, and I’ll fly up and cut it off from the front. Sound good?”

He was about to run off then, but Maddie grabbed his chin and twisted him to face her. Her eyes scanned over him faster than Danny could even blink, checking for injuries at a near-inhuman speed. 

Once he got over his shock at being grabbed, he started to squirm. “Mom, stop. I’m fine,” he murmured, trying to turn away to hide the way embarrassment was quickly flooding his cheeks with red.

Once satisfied, Maddie nodded and placed a chaste kiss to his forehead. “Be safe,” she commanded in a no-nonsense voice, like he’d be grounded for a week if he came back injured. Then, she finally let him go.

“You too,” he said, turning away. Squeezing his eyes shut, he transformed—focusing on the way his core bloomed outward instead of the stares on his back—and took off into the air.

Going on a bear hunt. He was sure there was a kid’s song about that.

Danny followed the tug in his gut from the sky; it was even stronger now that he’d transformed and they’d gotten…acquainted, for lack of a better word. He couldn’t shake that weird anxious worry in his gut—the one that seemed to be emanating from the bear in waves—but he could fight through it, and that’s what mattered.

Animal spirits were all instinct and emotion, wrapped up into something tight and cohesive that ectoplasm wouldn’t have trouble latching onto. Usually that something was governed by anger, which, as far as Danny knew, was the strongest emotion in a living animal’s arsenal. Human spirits could end up governed by that too, but there was more nuance to the reasoning behind anger with a person: jealousy, revenge, even loneliness could rearrange into different flavors of the same base emotion. It was easier to assuage because of its complicatedness; when there was a direct physical link to someone’s anger, there was something to solve.

It was more difficult to get angry animal spirits to move on. They were angry at everything and nothing all at once. The whole world fueled their anger, and so there was little that could calm them down.

Fear, though…He’d never met an animal spirit governed by fear, or worry, or whatever anxious instinct this bear’s ectoplasm was releasing. Maybe he could turn this into a happy ending, for both him and the bear. He hoped he could, anyway.

Danny dived down in front of it, and from the way it twisted backwards and picked up its pace in the direction opposite of him (the direction towards his parents), it seemed the bear could sense him, too. He went intangible and picked up the pace, letting trees and leaves fly through him at a dizzying pace. Finally, the forest opened into a little clearing, and Danny threw up a green wall at the end of it, where the bear was trying to escape. It skid to a halt so fast it left deep gashes in the dirt, dropped something fuzzy and black from its mouth, and turned to face him.

Danny froze. There, curled beneath the ghost bear’s legs, was a single cub. It peered out from behind her, oblivious to the danger and curious as to the reason for their night’s interruption. More importantly, it did not glow like it’s mother. It was still alive.

Mother Bear growled a warning at the same time Danny’s parents started crashing through the brush nearest her. “Stop!” he shouted out, holding out a hand despite his parents not being able to see him. “Uh, stand down!”

“Danny?” His dad called. “What’s going on?”

Mother Bear was looking increasingly frantic. Panicking a little himself—whether from the emotions that he was accidentally leaching off her or the situation, he wasn’t sure—Danny made a split-second decision and thrust a dome over the top of her and her cub. It would shield them from any sudden bear attacks, true, but it also served as makeshift protection from any Fenton weaponry.

He trusted his parents not to shoot him. He wasn’t sure if he trusted them not to shoot Mother Bear.

“It’s safe now!” Danny called to his parents. “Um, leave your guns outside the clearing! And walk slowly!”

Danny was almost surprised to hear them listening. He didn’t know why. He had to stop doubting them.

“Oh,” Maddie said when she breached the tree line. Mother Bear rotated to face her and Jack as they stepped out, gnashing her too-long teeth and backing further over her cub to put it safely beneath her belly. It peeked out from beneath her paws. “It’s…a mother.”

She sounded shocked. Danny concurred.

“Come over here,” Danny told his parents. “Behind me. I’m gonna try something.”

He stepped forward as his parents came around the dome. Mother Bear watched them walk until they’d settled behind Danny, and already he could feel that fear worry stress easing, just from having all potential predators in-sight instead of surrounding her.

“Danny,” Maddie warned when he took another step forward. “Bears are extremely protective of their young.”

“I know,” Danny murmured, keeping his voice low. He inched forward, getting lower to the ground as he walked. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Mother Bear snarled statically, touching on Ghost Speak but unable to form full coherence. Worry, is what Danny was able to read from it. Worry. Baby. Danger.

Danny switched tactics, changing to Ghost Speak as he set his hands gently against the wall of the dome, emanating as many calming emotions as he could summon. Calm. Safe.

She flinched, but her teeth were shortening, growing less sharp. Baby Bear yawned beneath her, a kind of squeaking hum. Almost like a puppy. Like Cujo, maybe.

Calm. Safe. Danny promised, at the same time voicing sentences in English above the Ghost Speak’s static: “It’s okay. You’re safe. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt him. You can let go. I’ll protect him. It’s alright.”

Mother Bear swayed, grew smaller. Promise. She growled. Staticked. No-nonsense voice. 

Promise. Danny responded.

Baby Bear nuzzled into Mother Bear, and she licked at his cheek as her body grew brighter and began dissipating, moving on. Baby Bear purred and purred.

She looked at Danny. Looked behind him, where his parents stood. Mother? she asked. With the emotions clogging her speech finally gone, he could actually understand her.

Danny nodded. “Yeah. That’s my Mom.”

Good. Mother Bear hummed, closing her eyes. Safe.

She disappeared, her glowing green fragments scattering on the wind.

Danny turned around to face his parents, and for the first time noticed that they were both crying. That was okay. He was crying, too.

He cleared his throat. “So. Anyway. Where’s the nearest Animal Sanctuary?”

[lizardaggro]

on the flip side (twst bully!au) part 2

the first part is doing way better than i thought it would, so here's part 2! please note that i won't normally put stuff out this fast, but i got woken up by tumblr notifs and only got 2.5 hrs of sleep. if this is trash, that's my excuse. also working on something for bnha, but that sucker's looong.

part 1 part 3

genre: gn reader, angst trigger warnings: bullying, lil bit of yandere word count: 1082

The look on their faces was hilarious, to say the least. Adeuce were in shock, and Floyd looked like a kicked puppy. Not that you made a habit of that. It was a shame that you couldn’t hole up in here a little while longer, and you knew the door would take ages to get repaired, but it would be fine. The sudden shift in your attitude would still be jarring.

“Wha- prefect, what’re you talking about?” Ace asked incredulously. Deuce nodded vigorously in agreement. The two had been your first friends in Twisted Wonderland, after Grim of course, and then the first to turn on you once they got bored. You supposed it was just too much for their pea brains to bear.

“Did I stutter?” Your gaze was cold as you looked both in the eye in turn. “Every day, the poor defenseless prefect is beaten, abused, and scorned. And all for what? Your entertainment? You lot are sick in the head and it shows,” you berated them mercilessly. It’s not like you expected them to have a sudden change of heart. You wouldn’t forgive them even if they did.

Floyd had been silent since demolishing your poor door, which could be good or bad. You’d always found him hard to read. His mood could change at the drop of a hat, and you knew you weren’t his only victim. For all you knew, he’d start whaling on Adeuce instead.

And then he just had to go and open his mouth. “Aww, that’s cute, Shrimpy. You think you can get rid of me?” He taunted. Now that was a threat, and you knew it. Still, you never thought any of your former friends would describe anything you did as cute now. It was meant to be mocking, but still. Something about his demeanor was off. He seemed almost… hurt.

Nah, there was no way. You must be imagining things. There was no way Floyd Leech, of all people, enjoyed your company. You were alone here; Grim and the ghosts were your only allies. You shook your head to clear away the unwanted thoughts.

You turned to face Floyd, a sinister grin working its way onto your face. “Oh, whyever would I want to do that? I can do so much better, after all. I mean, who’s the one who told me all their dirty little secrets they’d never want to see the light of day, back when we were friends? Because of course the innocent little prefect would never dream of snitching!”

You weren’t bluffing. You didn’t have to. It was true, after all. Each and every one of them had confided in you to some extent, the Overblot victims most of all. You knew e~verything that ailed them, and it would be oh-so unfortunate if their less-than-kind peers were to find out. It wasn’t like you wanted to play the villain card, but you felt you had the right. They’d already betrayed you, so why shouldn’t you return the favor?

The three boys’ faces visibly paled after hearing your words. Everyone had something to hide after all, and they were no exception. Deuce had been one of the first to trust you with his secrets, as well as one of the most forthcoming. Back then you’d thought he was such a sweetheart; you never would’ve dreamed it’d come to this.

“Come on, surely you don’t mean that?” He begged. It was pitiful, really.

“Oh, I absolutely mean it if you don’t leave me the fuck alone.” No one at Night Raven College had ever heard you curse before, so it must’ve been a shock. Your voice was cold as you crushed their hope. No one had ever listened to you when you pleaded for them to please stop hurting you.

Once convinced that you really meant business, they promptly turned tail and fled. You didn’t blame them. You’d be embarrassed too if you still slept with a teddy bear. But this was good- great, even. Now you had the chance to put the next phase of your plan in action.

You’d start off simple, with a warning, in case someone didn’t think you were serious enough. You logged onto the school’s messaging forum, and anonymously exposed some poor random guy whose name you’d forgotten’s crush. Who also attended NRC, of course. It wouldn’t be much of a threat if no one knew who they were.

Not long after, there was a rapt knock on your door, or rather the adjacent wall. Thanks, Floyd. When you headed downstairs to greet your unwanted guest, you were mildly surprised to see Riddle Rosehearts, there in all his glory.

“Riddle? What brings you here? Are you going to blame me for not knowing the history of countries I’d never heard of until this year again?” You jabbed. Riddle was never one for physical violence; his Unique Magic didn’t work on you since you had none to begin with. Instead, he chose to belittle you for your lack of knowledge.

“I heard from Ace and Deuce that you’ve been airing students’ dirty laundry on the internet,” he said with a stern look. “I’m sure you’re well aware that this behavior is unacceptable.” Two could play at that game.

“Yes, Dorm Leader Rosehearts, and I’m sure you know full well that several of your students are guilty of assault,” you rebutted, using his position within the school for emphasis. “So tell me, do you really want to go there? After all, it’d be a real shame if your mother were to hear about this.”

You really hoped his mother never heard about this. Him being abused would only make you feel worse, and it certainly wouldn’t correct his behavior. The most you’d do was “accidentally” let the whole school find out he’s secretly a crybaby.

Riddle’s face grew as red as Unbirthday party roses. “You dare to threaten me?! I’d have your head if you had any magic worth sealing! But you don’t, so you’re lucky I even bother to tolerate your presence. I don’t even want to think about what your grades would look like if it wasn’t for my help.”

You really didn’t think shouting at you qualified as helping. But once again, there was that odd tone to his words, like he was implying that he wanted you around. There was no way Riddle of all people would agree to play some elaborate prank on you, so just what was going on?

[guhamun]

@caemthe said (inbox):

When he heard that the Ghost Hounds' base was affected during a TD outbreak, he didn't have to think it twice before discussing the matter with administration and then sending two vehicles full of food rations and medics to the location to tend to the injured. He obviously went as well. The Ghost Hounds had been a great aid to the Midnight Rangers, especially with the more frequent TD attacks. If not for them, perhaps there would be more families going to Knell Square to pay their respects. So, even though the mercenary group affiliation to Jinzhou is a temporary one, it's near impossible to not see them as part of the city, just like all other citizens. "You'll have to forgive me for the delay, I came as soon as I was informed of the situation," was the first thing the general said upon arriving. He looked around, glad that the crisis was under control now, but there still was much that needed to be done. "You look close to overclocking, please take a seat, so I can treat you."

THE SITUATION AT THE base was now firmly under control, although the groans of pain from the wounded still lingered all the same. TD outbreaks came out of nowhere, and despite how he and his people were well used to situations like this considering these were a norm where they came from, one could never completely prepare for them when they did transpire. ❝Status report,❞ he spoke to one of his medics, gaze cold and tone just as frigid, nevertheless the older man was not the least bit deterred by this. Rather, they made to pull bloodied gloves from their hands, tossing them in a nearby wastebin before speaking.

     ❝There were a few casualties, but the death count is rather low.❞

     ❝How many?❞

     ❝Ten.❞

     Ten was still too many in his opinion, even if ten was indeed a low number from a logistical standpoint. Still, how unfortunate it all was. He said nothing, eyes narrowing slightly as he gazed upon the agonized breathing of one of his Ghost Hounds. The medicine they were given hadn’t settled yet, granted that he knew eventually they would either pass out from the pain or because those pills were quickly working through their system. There weren’t enough medics to tend to everyone’s hurts, but no doubt word had reached the Jinzhou about the situation. For all he knew, they were already on their way here. Turning away, he had just stepped out of the medical ward when the approach of vehicles caught his full attention. He need but offer a single glance at them to know where they were from. Though he shouldn’t be surprised to see that assistance had arrived, at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel this all the same.

     Mercenaries were disposable bodies. This was a cold truth they all knew. If any of  them died out there on a battlefield, they’d just be another corpse for the vultures. As such, aid like this was…peculiar to him. Why waste resources on outsiders that were merely hired hands? That was a question he would have asked himself had he still been new to how things worked around here. However, after staying within Jinzhou for as long as he had, he had come to learn that the people were just…like…this.

     It made no sense, really.

     Jiyan, even more so.

     ❝Your arrival is appreciated. My medics are a bit overworked at the moment, so they would be glad for the offered help.❞ His gaze slid from the General to the trucks, watching as food and supplies were already being unloaded with a speed he found rather impressive. Jiyan’s voice tugged his attention back before it lingered elsewhere for too long, his expression unreadable as he met with that unwavering gaze before a small, quiet sigh managed to slip from him. This was wholly unnecessary considering he has been on the brink many a time, but he knew there was little point in attempting to shoo the other away when he knew they would only stand firmer. Thus, without another word, he made his way over to a crate, taking a seat as was asked of him.

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Do What I Cannot

This is based on My Graveyard Song because I was captivated by the idea of Danny’s parents burying him alive. That’s basically the only part I took though. This is about him being confronted with his parents again once freed.

This is unedited so feel free to point out mistakes. Contains graphic description of violence.

-----------

The Justice League’s newest hero has been a wonderful asset, truly! Phantom is a rather powerful hero and even though some of his methods are a little questionable he follows the ‘no killing’ rule more strictly then some of the long-term members. Even if it’s just because he doesn’t want to deal with them as ghosts it still counts. Some of the more magical people have an idea that Phantom is more powerful then he’s letting on, but they don’t push it. After all he’s still just a teenager, they don’t really want to have him dealing with universal threats either.

Honestly even if he weren’t a hero Batman at least would have kept him around for the impressively positive affects he has on Red Hood. Jason had been calmer and more reasonable then he had been since his resurrection since digging up that grave and teaming up with Danny. It was just a little unsettling sometimes honestly, sometimes his eyes would glint with the green of the Lazarus waters and everyone would tense up prepared for an aggressive outburst only for Jason to announce he needed to find Danny and leave. The more suspicious minds found it odd, but they figured it was just because Phantom could calm Jason down and didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Really the only problem was that knowing Phantom had alerted them to a potential new source of threat that they really knew very little about. The JLD knew some but not enough and the ways they had to fight ghosts were clunky and unreliable, they needed weapons that would work on ghosts. Not Phantom obviously, though the overly cautious ones privately thought about him too, just in case you know? And there weren’t many people who specialized in such tech, so of course their search lead them to the Drs. Fenton.

The magic users thought their methods were crude and crazy but had to admit they clearly worked so maybe it would be best to invest in at least some of their tech. At least to study and see if it could be improved on. So they were invited for a meeting, and it was decided Phantom would Not be told. Mostly because they didn’t want to stress him out and also because they’d learned these two were ‘shoot first ask questions later’ types who apparently didn’t believe there was such a thing as a good ghost so they might actually try and kill Danny on sight, which would be awkward.

The presentation they gave to the Justice League was predictably unhinged and they knew well enough to take all of it with a grain of salt, especially the part about all ghosts being evil. Danny had already explained it to them, that ghosts were driven by obsessions which meant they behaved differently then humans but the majority only lashed out when something got between them and their singular passion. Some were different, some had malicious passions and some were more complicated. Diana and J’onn both looked like they were trying hard not to pick a fight but they’d all agreed to smile and nod till they got access to the tech.

There was a familiar sudden chill in the room, looking around Batman could tell a few others felt it too, though Flash was typically oblivious.

“Oh dear,” J’onn whispered before Phantom appeared.

“Hey guys what’s up?” He asked, cheerful but slightly accusatory, they should have known better then to think they could keep the meeting from him. Before they could think of anything to say Danny’s eyes caught on the Fentons and narrowed.

“GET DOWN!” Jack yelled pulling out one of those stupid blasters from somewhere.

“What a perfect chance for a demonstration,” Maddie said, sliding on a pair of gantlets.

“You-you don’t recognize me, do you?” Danny asked, and for a moment he looked hurt, then something happened none of them had ever seen before, his eyes turned red. The toxic green they were used to changed to a deep, blood red and his feet touched the ground as he stalked forward. Jack shot, Danny didn’t break stride, a green shield blocked the blast like it was nothing. Maddie tried to lung and was immediately hit in the gut by one of Phantom’s ecto-blasts, knocking her back against the glass.

Batman leapt up and tried to lung and stop Phantom only to hit a wall that rippled with green, a bubble surrounding the ghost and the two hunters, invisible until struck.

Danny grinned, shark like teeth on full display without any mirth, white hair whipping in an unfelt wind, flowing so it almost looked like flames. “I guess I look a lot different then I did when you buried me alive huh? How long did you leave me? Because you ‘couldn’t kill you son’ so you thought it would be more merciful to lock me away till everything human about me rotted.”

“No,” Maddie gasped, recognition suddenly sharp and painful on her features.

“Yes ‘mom’,” Danny snarled bitterly. Jack tried to shoot again but the blaster was knocked out of his hands so quickly no one was sure what hit him before it could fully charge. “YOU MADE ME! AND YOU ABANDONED ME! You’re lucky someone found me, I would have gotten strong enough to break out on my own eventually and if I had I would have destroyed everything.”

“Oh my god, his parents?” Diana nearly whispered. Batman understood how she felt, Danny didn’t like to talk about how he’d ended up buried ‘alive’, that his parents were the ones who had done it… that was horrific. It made sense why he had never been able to speak about it, but Damn that would have been good to know before they had invited Danny’s abusers to give a presentation on weapons that had no doubt been used to hurt him. And now.. what? They couldn’t get to Danny, it seemed like he had gotten to the point that Raven did sometimes when her emotions overwhelmed her, could they get to Danny? Could they stop him from doing something he might regret?

“You are not our son,” Maddie hissed, her breathing still coming in a harsh wheeze from the blow to her stomach. “Danny is dead! He’s gone. You’re just an acto-entity imitating him, and not even well, you’re just a parasite.”

Danny seemed to be losing some control of his form, it was stretching, getting taller, his fingers curling into dangerous claws tipped with the blackness of the star studded void. “Pathetic mortals, you act as if you will never die, but you will join my kingdom. Perhaps it will be punishment enough to become what you hate, perhaps not. Perhaps I will speed up the process so you can’t hurt anyone else,” He snarled his hands beginning to glow with familiar green of his energy blast.

“Danny stop!” Superman said, hitting the burier to try and get through but not even he could break it. Danny didn’t seem to be responding to them though he was hesitating.

Batman was resigning himself to watching Phantom kill his once parents before Jason walked by him. Batman wasn’t usually taken by surprise, but he was shocked, and worried, both because he could see the green glow of pit madness through the eyes of his helmet, which was worrying, and because he walked through the burier keeping the rest of the heroes out like it was nothing.

He walked to Danny, taking his hand, there was a soft sizzle as the gathered green energy burned Jason’s hand without him even seeming to notice. He pulled Danny down to the ground from where he was floating, pulling the young hero into his arms. Danny let himself be pulled into Jason’s arms, the green energy fizzling out as he wrapped his own arms back around Jason’s waist, hiding against his chest. As the anger faded he slumped against Jason’s chest.

Just as the heroes were breathing a sigh of relief and relaxing Maddie went for the dropped gun. But she wasn’t fast enough as Jason drew his own pistol, the one with live ammo, and put a bullet in her head. Diana cried out in shock and Batman froze as blood and brain matter splattered over the watchtower floor and her body slumped. Before anyone could recover Jack followed, another shot executioner style and Batman had to turn away.

The watchtower was completely silent, enough so that he could hear Phantom’s soft sniffles as he cried into Jason’s chest. When Batman looked back Jason had holstered his gun and was just holding Danny Close. The green had faded enough from his eyes that it seemed safe, Batman approached warily and wasn’t surprised to find that the invisible burier was gone now that both the Fenton’s were dead.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said softly as he heard the approach, without emerging from his hiding place in Jason’s arms where he seemed to feel safe. “I wasn’t actually going to kill them, but I guess my want to, my emotions, were strong enough to make Jason respond. I didn’t mean to call you that way.” He looked up at Jason, his eyes green again though red rimmed from tears.

“It’s alright, I would have done it anyway,” Jason growled, holding Danny even tighter. “I’ve killed people for less, they deserved it.”

Batman took a deep breath forcing himself to keep his cool about his son’s constant flouting of his no killing rule, now was not the time to make Phantom feel worse. “Jason why don’t you take him down to one of the sitting rooms so he can calm down.” No doubt Phantom was reliving trauma, and grieving because even if he wanted them dead they had been his parents.

Jason nodded and scooped Danny into his arm who let out an indignant little squawk and insisted he could walk while making no attempt to actually get down. Jason ignored Danny’s performative complaints and kept the young hero’s head hidden against his chest so he wouldn’t have to see the corpses of his parents while Jason carried him out of the room.

Now, how best to deal with the aftermath of… all this. And later on he really would have to ask Danny and Jason what he’d meant by Jason responding to his energy, because it seemed like there might be something more to their relationship then just Danny calming Jason down and that was worrying to say the least.

Part 2: here

[ohbo-ohno]

Kinktober Day 15 - Noncon

Ghost x Reader - 4.6k (on ao3)

summary: You find yourself cornered in a Maze of Mirrors. (Reader POV)

cw: noncon everything, face fucking, pussy slapping, degradation, kinda a wedgie? like a front wedgie? is that a thing?, orgasm denial

note: if you like this (or hate it but like the concept) read Halloween Haunt by Harley Laroux <3 her erotica is top tier

You’ve always loved Halloween - always been the kid with the scariest costume in class, always had the house decorated with uncomfortably realistic decorations. When your sorority sisters dressed up as black cats and sexy witches, you spent hours painting the most realistic zombie makeup you could. (Your sisters complained for months that you ruined the pictures, but the frat boys had all thought your makeup was far more interesting than theirs. God, you do not miss college.)

Regardless, you’ve always been known to love any and everything scary. There’s something about the thrill of a scare - the creeping horror as you start to realize what’s coming, the ultimate reveal - that always gets you a little squirmy in your seat. Your first crush was Skeet Ulrich in Scream - specifically the scene where he’s covered in blood, licking his fingers. 

You get all those ooey-gooey good scared feelings as your friend drags you through the decently crowded fairgrounds. The actual fair - the one that comes yearly, that no one ever calls anything but the fair - had left only two weeks ago, so this travelling fair had set things up in mostly the same arrangement and, you suspect, to trick certain people into thinking they were the same company.

You’ve already forgotten what your friend said the event was called. She hadn’t needed to give many details to convince you - you heard travelling circus, horror themed, interactive workers, and you were in. The branding isn’t very strong anyways, the only place the name was displayed was the entrance booth, and none of the workers seem to wear any sort of logo, so you don’t feel too forgetful for letting it slip your memory so easily.

You’re not very impressed with the fear factor so far. You hadn’t done too much makeup (hadn’t wanted to risk being mistaken for a cast member) but since it’s the night before Halloween you’ve got a half-done costume on - a clown. Just some white face paint, black lips, and overdrawn triangles around the eyes, a little smudged to make it look like you’ve been chasing someone down and working up a sweat. Your hoodie and tennis skirt look a bit out of place, but you’d wanted to be comfortable since you hoped you’d be spending your night running from actors.

But even a face full of makeup feels like it might’ve been too much effort for this place. Most of the costumes look like they’re from Party City at best - some of them even look very lazily hand-made - and none of the workers seem particularly interested in scaring people. Still, the crowd is easily amused and even a wave or a feint towards a customer has shrieks ringing in the air every few minutes.

You sigh a little disapointedly as you and your friend linger on the edge of the fairgrounds, off to the side and in the dark so you don’t have to deal with the crowd. She pulls out a cigarette and offers you her light.

“I’m sorry,” she says, lighting the stick between your teeth when you lean forward. “I really thought it would be scarier than this. Some of the posters…” she exagetates a shiver. “I thought they’d at least have better costumes.”

You eye a man in a werewolf mask across the pathway, pissing into the dirt. He’s got a flannel and jeans on, and the mask is a little bit crumpled like he pulled it out of a Walmart bin this morning. You’d bet money the flannel was just a happy coincidence he noticed when he showed up for work.

“Yeah,” you sigh, blowing out a lungful of smoke and watching the actor try not to get his dick stuck in his zipper. “Not really your fault, though, these things always look scarier in the ads. Wanna get out of here soon?”

You pass the cigarette to her. “In a bit,” she replies. “I want to try and find some food first. You hungry?”

You shake your head with a grunt. “I wouldn’t trust anything cooked here, honestly. Might just pick up something on the way back.”

She passes you the cigarette for one last breath. “Well I’m too hungry for that. You good on your own for a bit?”

You crouch down a moment to stub out the cigarette, leaving the butt in the gravel. “Yeah, sure. Might see if these fun houses have anything worth seeing in them.”

“You should!” She smiles over her shoulder at you as she starts off to a more well-lit section of the fair. “You never know, maybe they stick the real scares in there!”

You give her a final wave and shout, “Here’s hoping!” at her back as she leaves. 

You linger outside for a little longer, scanning the few structures nearby to decide which one you want to waste a few tickets on.

There’s a Freak Show, but you already know you’d be horribly disappointed if you went in there, something labeled a “House of Horrors” that you’re sure is as much a scam as the freak show, and a few games that have cheap prizes lined up above them.

Across from you, with no lights around it and just one attendant - slumped over, hopefully sleeping - at the front, is a House of Mirrors. Figuring it’s the least likely to be a waste of time (and knowing the kid won’t wake up to charge you), you head over to the building.

The closer you get the more you worry about if he’s asleep or dead, but his snores rattle the little tickets resting on his desk so you figure he’s just a slacker. It’s almost too easy to get by him with all your tickets safe in your pocket. There’s no one else around the darkened corner of the fairgrounds, but you’re quite sure no one would bother snitching on you this late at night. All the parents with little kids left hours ago, leaving mostly teenagers and adults of varying ages left to wander the park.

There’s music playing from speakers that you can’t see, an old clown-themed song that sounds like it’s playing on a scratched up DVD. You’re pleasantly surprised as you make your way through the dusty lobby and into the main section of the building, creatively labeled MAZE OF MIRRORS.

Their branding could definitely use some work, but you’ll give them points for ambience - the lights are turned so low that it’s nearly too dark to see, making all of the mirrors even more difficult to spot. You find yourself a little spooked as you start to make your way through the maze, grinning to yourself.

It’s a shockingly difficult maze, you quickly discover. The music is so loud in some spots that you can hardly hear your thoughts, and so faint in others that you think it might be turned off. The maze itself is a series of either tight, tiny hallways or large open rooms. Whoever designed it clearly knew how to take advantage of the space they were given, the maze feels ten times bigger than it looked on the outside as you wander through.

You know the trick to mazes - keep one hand on the right wall and eventually you’ll find your way out - but it’s fun to just wander around the place, so you let yourself get stuck wandering in circles. You’re glad your friend isn’t here to see how many times you manage to walk into a mirror fully confident that it’s not there, only to whack yourself in the face. For how low maintenance the rest of the fair is, you’re surprised that the hall of mirrors is what they focus their upkeep on.

You’ve been in the maze for about five minutes when you see him.

He scares the shit out of you at first. You spot him behind you in a mirror - one you’d just walked into, which is the only reason you can see well enough to notice him - standing at the entrance to the hallway you’d turned down. He’s clad in all black, except for the skull mask over his face. You think he’s just something taped onto the wall with the way that he blends in, but then that mask titls to the side and you’re struck with the bone-deep knowledge that you’re being watched.

“Shit!” You shout when it first registers that he’s not a piece of paper, one hand coming up to clasp at your erratically beating heart while the other steadies you against the mirror. He doesn’t move past tilting his head a bit further, and after a moment you relax.

You don’t turn around, but you study him a bit in the mirror. It’s too dark to see much more than the outline of his body, but he’s big. He looks like he’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and jeans with the mask, and he must be wearing gloves to cover his hands since you can’t see them.

You huff out a laugh as you let both of your hands fall to your sides.

“You got me good,” you call, glancing over your shoulder. You almost jump again - he’s closer than you’d realized, but too far away for you to touch. “I didn’t even see you follow me in here.”

He doens’t say anything. You turn around more fully, leaning back against the mirror and crossing your arms across your chest.

“You gonna start chasin’ me now?” You ask, cocking an eyebrow. You’re playing up the sass, but it’s always fun to mess with theme park employees.

The man takes a few steps forward, heavy boots thudding against the cheap wood flooring. He really is an intimidating bastard, far scarier than any of the other actors you’d seen so far.

“Well?” You call out, standing up from your spot. “Do I get a head start?”

Still no answer. He rolls his head on his neck, then steps to the side and walks into one of the connecting hallways without sparing you a glance. When you step closer to see which direction he’s chosen, he’s already gone.

You huff another laugh to yourself, shaking out your limbs and bouncing a few times on your toes.

Now that you know there’s someone in here with you, the thrill of a scare is starting to get you worked up. You hope they don’t have any rules against physical contact between actors and customers, just imagining the skeleton man tackling you has shivers running up your spine.

You don’t bother to be any quieter as you keep wandering through the maze. You bump into just as many mirrors, continue to question the speaker placement, and keep an eye out for any skeleton masks lingering behind you.

You see him a few more times, always behind you, always just out of reach. He gets progressively closer everytime you spot him. You're reminded of the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who - every time you look away, he gets closer.

It’s fun. More fun than you’ve had all night.

He finally catches up to you what you guess is about half an hour later. Youre just turning another corner, thinking about how it’s been a bit since you’ve seen your shadow, when a hand plants itself firmly between your shoulder blades and shoves.

You’re sent to the ground with a cry, palms scraping against the floor. There’s a gloved hand collaring your throat before you can think to do much more than catch your breath, hauling you up and holding you in the air.

Your eyes fly to the mirror less than a foot away, staring wide-eyed at the image reflected.

There’s you, in your messy clown makeup and hoodie, being held up by a giant swath of black behind you. He’s not ducking down at all, his feet planted on either side of your splayed legs as he towers above you. The way you’re being held up, your head doesn’t even reach his belt buckle. The contrast of your shock and discomfort to his plastic mask has your thighs clenching, just a bit.

He doesn’t duck lower, just tilts his head in that now-familiar way of his and pulls you a little further up. His hand is absolutely massive, thumb resting beneath one ear and his fingers resting below the other. You choke a bit as you’re lifted, knees scrambling beneath you.

This close to the mirror you can see his eyes - bright blue, surrounded by black paint, and staring back into yours.

He lowers his head, his free hand tugging your hair until you lean back and look straight up. The hand on your neck shifts to hold you in that position, his other hand lifting to pull the black part of his mask up.

He’s white, with thin lips and a broad jaw. You pant as you stare up at him, incapable of processing what’s going on.

His jaw works for a moment, lips twitching, and before you realize what he’s about to do you feel something wet splatter against your cheek.

He spit on you. Who the fuck does that? Being tackled and manhandled is one thing but spitting? You recoil reflixivley, lips curling as you reach up to try and wipe disgusting liquid off.

“What the fuck-” You start, but before you can even finish your sentence you’re yanked forward by your neck.

You yelp as you’re thrown from between his thighs, hips twisted awkwardly and head slamming back against the mirror. You cry out at the sharp pain at the back of your skull, but before you can think of doing anything there’s a hand around your neck again, a body crouched in front of you - over you - keeping you from doing anything.

You gape up at the actor, panting and surprised. None of the other employees even got close to touching customers - half of them didn’t even look like they wanted to be there - what the hell is this guy’s problem? Does he just take his job way too seriously

He’s far too close to you now, your nose nearly brushing where his shoulder be, his boots on either side of your thighs, his chest pressed so close that you can’t do anything with your hands.

The hand not around your neck comes up to your cheeks, grabbing them both in one hand and pinching until your lips pucker up. You squirm, letting out a noise of surprise and pain when his thumb and pointer finger dig in between your teeth to force your mouth open. One eye squeezes shut at the ache, but there’s nowhere for you to go with him caging you in.

This time when he spits, it lands right in the little hole he’s made for himself. With how close he is, you see the way his lips twitch up in the corners.

You try your best to get out from under him, hands pushing at his shoulders and legs desperately kicking. But he’s like a statute above you, hard as stone and immoveable. 

He leans so close that his lips nearly brush yours, meeting your glare with a spark of amusement. 

“Like how it tastes?” He purrs, chest rumbling against yours.

You make a noise somewhere between offended and annoyed, trying to throw yourself every which way for even an inch of freedom. All you manage is a tighter grip on your jaw and neck, leaving you wincing.

“Lots more where that came from,” he promises.

It’s insultingly easy for him to manhandle you, and you curse all the times you swore to yourself you’d finally start taking self-defense classes. You can barely manage a single blow, and when your hands or feet do make contact he doesn’t even flinch.

There’s absolutely nothing you can do as you’re wrestled to the floor. He gets you flat on your back then kneels over your head, his knees so close that you worry he’ll squeeze them together and pop your head like a berry.

He doesn’t give you a chance to sit up, planting one heavy hand in the center of your chest and leaning his weight forward, knocking the air out of you. You finally regain the ability to speak when his other hand moves to his belt, undoing it right above your face.

“What are you-? No, no, get the hell off me!” You shout, desperately pushing at his arm and trying to get enough leverage with your feet to squirm away. “Don’t you fucking dare- help! Somebody help!”

Your screams go ignored, blending right in with that stupid clown music and bouncing off the mirrors just to come straight back to your ears. Your noise doesn’t deter him at all, and he’s got his belt off and jeans yanked down despite your resistance. 

“No, no, no, don’t- stop, please, you can’t-” you gasp, eyes flying wide as you find yourself staring up at his cock above you. 

He doesn’t give you any warning, just grabs your jaw, holds it open, and sheathes himself down your throat.

Your limbs spasm, every instinct in your body screamin to get away as he slips right past your gag reflex. You’re terrified that you’ll vomit and choke on his cock, the fear dousing you in icy cold and leaving you limp for a minute. All you can think about is breathing around the intrusion in your throat, finding some way not to suffocate and die on a sticky mirror maze floor.

“Finally,” you hear him grunt from above you. He grabs both of your wrists, easily ignoring your weak pulls and tying them together with his belt. “Somethin’ to shut you up.”

You try and make a sound around his cock, yanking your hands away and panicking even more when you feel how firmly tied they are. You make another sound, insitively trying to cry out even with something stuffed in your mouth.

He moans above you, lowering himself to his elbows over your body. “Yeah, just like that,” he pants. “Mouth feel’s fuckin’ heavenly.”

You go silent, determined not to give this piece of shit anything he wants. Tears pour down your temples and across the tops of your ears, and your throat burns.

His hips move slowly against your face, grinding himself as deep as he can get before pulling out just a few inches and sliding back in. He’s got an unfairly large cock, and there’s already an ache developing in your jaw from just seconds held so wide open.

His foreskin catches on your teeth when he pulls the whole way out just to fuck back in, and you’re sharply reminded of the fact that you have teeth.

When his cock bottoms out, his balls resting against your eyes, you bite down, praying it’s enough to break skin.

It’s not. Instead of blood pouring into your mouth and a screaming man falling off of you, you hear the man snarl, pulling his dick out entirely and slamming it back down your throat so harshly that it feels almost like he’s punched you in the face.

“No fucking teeth,” he snaps above you, and you feel his weight shift back onto his knees, then his hands grab at your thighs and throw them open. He flips your skirt up and before you can think to bite down again lands a stinging slap against the gusset of your underwear.

You nearly scream around his cock, hips snapping closed to try and smother the pain. He only growls another sound, using one hand to hold you open and the other to rain down a series of progressively harder smacks.

Your breath hitches as you sob, hardly able to get any air in around his thrusts as he starts them back up again. Every time he buries himself to the hilt inside of you, he lands another hit to your poor pussy. You can’t help but wail around him.

“There it is,” he moans, the sound loud and unrestrained. “God you feel good screamin’ around my cock. Good fuckin’ hole, huh?”

He punctuates the last four words with slaps, leaving his length inside your throat and going back to that horrible grinding against your face. You go silent again, using all of your willpower to keep from screaming. What little thought is left in your head is used to figure out how best to breathe through your nose without choking on snot.

He doesn’t smack you again, but you feel his fingers trace around the edges of your panties. Your hips wiggle against your will, just trying to get away from the violation. One of your legs is pinned to the floor by the thigh, but the other oscillates between going limp and trying to get leverage and force your body up.

His fingers hook around the gusset of your underwear, but before you can even worry about him touching you there, he pulls them up towards your body.

He does it with such force that you’re left squealing, hips flying off the ground to try and lessen the pressure against your clit. His hand pulls so far up that you feel it resting nearly at your belly button. You can’t help the little gasping, gagging noises as he starts to thrust in and out of your mouth again.

You hear - you feel - him laugh, swaying his hand from left to right. Your hips try to follow naturally, just desperate to alleviate any of the pressure you can.

“Like a little puppet,” he murmurs, yanking even further up, moaning when you scream.

He lets them go only a few thrusts later, big hand smoothing the fabric down over your cunt. You can feel that it’s stretched out, a little looser around the meat of your pussy, and the thought only makes you cry harder.

But you go silent again. It’s the one thing left in your control - even pinned to the floor, hands tied, legs useless, mouth stuff, you can decide how much noise you make.

He doesn’t like that. He groans a little when you go quiet again, tapping your thigh sharply.

“No, come on, make your little noises again. Feels real nice on my cock.”

This time you’re ready for the smack against your vulva, and you remain silent. You stay silent for the next three too.

His hips work with a little more force again, balls smacking against your face and leaving you to squeeze your eyes shut. After the next slap his hand doesn’t lift again, just rubs over your vulva slowly.

It’s pure luck on his part that he happens to rub over your clit. It’s a pure lack of luck on your part that you moan at the sudden and unexpected pleasure, completely taken off guard.

He stills above you, then slowly repeats the movement. You’re helpless to the little whimpers coming from your throat, and you curse the fact that you’ve always been loud during sex. He zeros in on exactly how to rub your clit unreasonably quickly, fingers sure through the fabric of your underwear.

“That what you need?” He rumbles a laugh above you. “Pain won’t make you noisy, but pleasure will? I can work with that.”

Before you can even begin to question what that means, your underwear are tucked to the side, and there’s a face buried in your pussy.

He doesn’t bother taking any time to explore or try and learn your body, just dives tongue-first to your clit. His technique of lick first, figure out what feels good later unfortunately works on you, and you’re left writhing beneath him, eyes rolled back in pleasure and moans muffled.

He groans agaisnt you, too, lips vibrating against your clit in a horrible and delicious way. “There you go.” You can barely hear him over the sounds of your own choking, especially with his own voice muffled in your folds. “That feels good, keep going.”

You don’t want to, but the magic he works against your clit leaves you no choice. You can’t help the hitched cries spilling from your lips, even if they make you cry all that much harder as you hear them.

He doesn’t take much longer to come, and you’re torn between resenting the fact that it’s your sounds that get him off and being glad that he does so he can get off of you.

He comes with a loud groan, sent right into your cunt and dragging you far too close to an edge you do not want to see, and sends thick ropes right down your throat. It’s almost a kindness that you can’t taste him, only have to swallow as quickly as possible so you don’t choke. The movements of your throat only draw out his orgasm though, and you’re locked in a terrible cycle for what feels like an eternity.

He doesn’t get you off. You’re not sure if you’re thankful or not.

You gasp when he finally pulls out of your throat, taking uninhibited breaths for the first time in far too many minutes. You can’t shut your jaw from the pain, but you also can’t kick your legs when he kneels up more fully.

He’s silent as he takes back his belt, and no matter how much you beg your arms to move, they remain still on your stomach. He shifts off of you, and you whine wordlessly when he grabs a handful of your hair, wiping his flaccid cock off in it.

Still, you don’t move.

He stands and redoes his belt silently, the jingle loud even with the clown music still playing. You stare up at him, and he holds eye contact with you. For some reason, you can’t look away.

He crouches down again before he leaves, and you can’t help but flinch away. He doesn’t touch you sexually again, though, only reaches out and pushes your jaw closed with two firm fingers.

You hate that he still has the mask pulled up, because it means you can see his smirk.

“That was fun. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”

He’s gone before you manage to understand what he’s said, and the tears start all over again when you do.

—

It takes you a while to scrape yourself off of the floor. You only catch sight of yourself in one mirror before you stare at the ground.

Your makeup is ruined, teartracks running down your temples and both cheeks. There are smudges along your jaw where his hands grabbed. Your lips are swollen and red. It could not be more obvious what’s just happened to you.

You plant one hand on the wall to your right, and keep your eyes firmly planted on your sneakers as you leave the maze. You feel almost detached from yourself, unable to truly understand what happened, what it means.

The throbbing between your thighs is distracting. You worry you might chafe from how soaked your panties are.

It doesn’t take long to find your friend once you finally make it out. She takes one look at you and laughs, teases you about having fun without her. You can’t bring yourself to correct her, and she picks up on your tone quickly, dropping the subject.

The two of you walk silently to your car. You hate it, but you can’t help but scan every actor. Thankfully - or maybe not thankfully? You don’t know anymore - none of them are even close to as big as the masked man in the hall of mirrors was.

You tuck your hands beneath your armpits as you finally make it to the parking lot, walking as quickly as you can get away with without running. Your limbs go a little looser as you get to your car, mind relaxing as it recognizes how close you are to safety. 

You freeze when you finally make it to the driver’s side door, lungs going still and heart beating so quickly you worry it’ll pound right out of your chest.

There, sitting in the driver’s seat, is a skeleton mask sewed onto a balaclava.

[sufferu]

I like to think that, in Sloth:IF, Julius and Subaru eventually end up being friends.

Subaru is literally living with Anastasia’s dad, and I doubt she’d just — never talk to him again. So like, if she were to visit Halibel one day with her knight as her attendant, maybe after the Royal Selection ends, they’d have a very strong chance of meeting each other again. And that would be a hell of a shock for all parties involved lmao—

Subaru, greeted with a ghost from the literal worst week of his life, which he has been trying very hard to repress: You’re here?!

Julius, literally seeing a ghost, because he thought Subaru died to the Witch Cult alongside everyone else in the Mather’s Estate: You’re ALIVE?!

It probably wouldn’t go great at first. Maybe Subaru would automatically just — leave, make an excuse about taking up more shifts at work, and try not to look like he’s running away, but that’s exactly what he’s doing. He probably wouldn’t pick a fight, he gave up on that a long time ago. Maybe Julius would try to give him his space, because yeah, if their roles were swapped, he wouldn’t want a reminder of a week like that either. Or maybe after a while he’d decide that him terrorizing Subaru by basically chasing him around town via accidentally showing up where he tends to be is simply unsustainable, or at the very least entirely unfair, and eventually manages to get him to sit down and talk for a while.

They probably don’t Actually work everything out. Maybe Subaru refuses to acknowledge the lingering resentment he feels about something he knows was basically all his fault, fails to tell him that he’s still angry with him like he does when he sees him again in canon Arc 3, and Julius doesn’t know how to get him to acknowledge something like that. But they can make do.

There are probably a lot of things they don’t talk about. Not the duel, or Julius being a knight, or the massacre that chased Subaru all the way to Kararagi in the first place. They don’t talk about how Subaru looks at Julius sometimes, either. But there are other things they can discuss, especially as they start seeing one another more often. Rem is a good cook, and Subaru likes to show her off. Anastasia and Halibel’s dynamic is fun to watch, because seeing Anastasia act like a daughter and Halibel like a father feels so unnatural and peculiar that they may as well be seeing two entirely different people. Julius thinks Rigel is growing up to be so much like his father it hurts.

(In truly spectacular typical Julius fashion, Julius makes a sly joke about how he hopes he doesn’t need to repeat history with Rigel. It’s one of the only times he ever brings up their duel, and Subaru’s reaction to his comment is a large part of the reason why.)

Julius is older, but Subaru dies first. He makes a joke on his deathbed about finally managing to beat him at something. Julius finds it much less funny than he feels he ought to.

—Subaru wakes up some fifty, sixty years earlier, a teenager all over again, his son and daughter and grandchildren all lost to time, and it shatters him.

(When he sees Julius again, they don’t beat around the bush this time around. Subaru had fifty, sixty years too much of that.)

[datesinredink]

General yandere Danny Phantom headcanons

Definitely overprotective, I mean, c'mon, have you seen what he deals with daily? Boys got trauma

Really really hesitant about letting you fight ghosts with him- can be convinced but if you ever get hurt beyond something like scraped knees he’s not letting you ghost hunt again

If you break a bone may god forgive whatever poor ghost hurt you because he sure won’t

Anyway, he's also really sweet. It's almost sickeningly sweet at times

Bro is smitten. He tries to do cute stuff with you when he’s not busy with ghosts but unfortunately he doesn’t get a break very often

By the way, you're gonna have to deal with some degree of manipulation. He swears he’s just trying to convince you to make the better choice, but honestly who is he kidding. For the most part at least he’s trying to keep you to himself. Maybe he’ll be ok with Sam hanging around you, but Tucker is standing on thin ice.

Moving on. Of course he's gonna take advantage of his ghost powers to stalk you we’re talking about a yandere au

Also leaves little trinkets that he either found in the lab or made himself around your house. You don't know who's leaving green and white bracelets in your room or how they got in while all the doors and windows were locked but you sure wish they’d go away

I think he’d be kinda touch starved tbh. Am I crazy? Maybe. Am I projecting here a little. Most likely.

Usually has a hand on you somewhere- shoulders, hand, back, whatever. He's just really physically affectionate

Won’t kill anyone, but isn't above harassing people to make them go away

Gets really possessive when he’s jealous but also you’re gonna have to strangle it out of him if you wanna know why he gets really weird around any one person

Not all that quick to jealousy though!!! Maybe mild annoyance but usually not much further than that

One way to trigger it though is if you’re fine with him being touchy/are affectionate with him and then are the same way towards someone else. He may convince himself you're leading him on

Kinda goes by the logic of ‘well he’s best friends with Sam but he's not like THAT with HER so why would you be so affectionate with some other guy’

He does not grasp the idea that maybe you're more comfortable with physical affection with others than him. He should work on that.

End note here because this is kinda long, i’m running out of things to put here, and I’ve been working on this for something around 3 nights, kudos to the… *checks tag* one person who’s semi active in the yandere danny phantom tag. I dunno how you managed to come up with stuff without any other people to add fuel to the idea fire here, but great job. I could never.

[luvermore]

I haven't said much about S4 but I will say, I do not like the direction they took all the characters in. Especially both Ben's.

I think my least favorite part about how they go about Ben (Brellie and Sparrow) is that how they have the siblings dealing with them makes zero sense. Ben was supposedly the beginning of the end of the UA. Even though they didn’t even remember how he died. His death was such an emotional impact that their family imploded. So why does it seem like they glossed over A. Ben being around 17 years after his death and just hanging with Klaus. B. Literally saw adult him in S1 but had all of a “oh wow” reaction. Then in S2 seemed to not care when Klaus said (one of my fave scenes tbh), “Ghost can’t time travel”. I get he’s been dead forever but it just seems like there should have been some reaction.

My next issue is, when Sparrow Ben comes, they take him around like he’s their Ben. Which, in my opinion is why he could never feel connected to them. There was never a point where the Brellies accepted him for the Ben he is now. Granted there were scenes with Viktor and Allison trying to help him and Luther keeping up with him but that’s my point too. Viktor wanted to help Ben so badly because he saved him, but, he didn’t. At least not that Ben. I think they’d still try to help any of the Sparrows if they still existed and it was them inside but, Viktor’s reasoning for trying to save him, and Allison’s too was, “He’s our brother”. But he isn’t. He’s not their brother and if I was supposed to as the viewer, assume that a part of the reason they were gripping onto him is because they lost their Ben, then I would have liked to see that in the show.

I know that the Brellies are very accepting people and tend to accept anyone into their fold as we have seen with Lila and Sloane. But the thing is those two people did not grow up with them. They did not witness the death of someone they considered siblings (meaning the Brellies didn’t grow up with Lila or Sloane and watch them die). They don’t seem to even have a real reaction to the fact that when they go back to their original timeline that basically kind of erased their Ben in totality. They all parted ways when the New World was created and Ben left to his own devices and ended up in prison. So I am not going to assume that in between the years of season three and season four they were just keeping up with him.

I just feel like for a show that started it first season catapulting us into the personal issues of the siblings. It didn’t do a good job going through the motions of them in later season. In short, I feel like a show that clung to the complicated and dysfunctional family theme kind of crashed and burned in seasons three and four. It became less about the siblings working through their problems and dynamics and more about going back to a plot that never really made that much sense. There were aspects of season four that could have made for a great conversation and most of them were deleted scenes, which is beyond me.

[foxaftershocks]

Mine (Lars Pinfield x f!Reader)

Synopsis: You don't like the way some of Lars' fans talk about him.

Words: 2.4k

Warnings: smut, possessiveness, jealousy, marking, semi-public sex

AN: Another one for the Ghost Boy series. I'm taking a break after this one so I'll see you all when I'm back.

“Ohmigod, I can see him,”

You stood outside the fire station, waiting to get the moment the Ghostbusters emerged on camera. They were about to make a statement about the latest threat to New York City, one you’d written for Gary. It was always a toss up whether he would say what you wrote, but if you could live stream it, at least more people would see it.

“How is he hotter in person?”

There was a crowd around you, a group of young women standing close to you. You had to shift if the live was going to be worth it. But the crowd had packed itself pretty close and you didn’t think you were going to be able to find another spot. You sighed, lowering the phone.

“I know he’s a total nerd but I bet he’s a beast in the bedroom.”

Familiar eyes swept over the crowd from the side of the door. Lars was looking for you. That much was clear. You took the opportunity to watch him without him being aware of you. You did have to admit he was looking particularly handsome.

“No, he looks like he’d be really tender. Like it would be really emotional.”

His eyes snagged on you and you saw the way he brightened. He stood straighter and it almost looked as if he was going to take a step towards you. You smirked at him, a little wink making his cheeks flush, just enough for you to notice. He hated being in front of the camera and you knew he was only there today because you’d asked. The amount of power you wielded was intoxicating.

“I don’t care what he’s like. All I know is I want to climb that fine specimen of a man like a tree.”

Your teeth clenched. It would be stupid to complain about the comments from the women near you. You’d asked Lars to be there because of women like them, the kind who appreciated every time he was on the socials. That didn’t mean you liked hearing the way they spoke about your boyfriend.

You’d both agreed to keep it quiet at this point. Not that it was something to announce on the company’s social media. And Lars didn’t have social media of his own. But you knew you’d gained a few followers from the hopes of seeing Lars on there. They’d been disappointed, not wanting the speculation that was sometimes in the comment sections.

“I just want to run my fingers through his hair. It looks so soft.”

Gary stepped out of the door to a loud cheer. You raised the phone again, hoping the women would quieten down as he spoke. Lars straightened again, his eyes going to the other man, a barely contained curl of his upper lip just visible. Next lesson with him might be working on his poker face when in public.

“The first thing I want to say is that ghost got busted,” Gary said to wild cheers.

The women beside you were still whispering amongst themselves and you had to lower the phone. There was no chance you were going to be getting a clean shot. Rather than tune in to Gary reading from the speech you’d written, you turned your attention on Lars, standing in the background, hands clasped behind his back. With the sun shining down, he was so stupidly handsome.

“Do you think he’ll stick around when that guy is done talking?” one of the women asked, loud enough to interrupt your appreciation.

“If he does I’m definitely going to go shoot my shot,” another of them said.

You pressed your lips togethers. There was reading it on a screen and then there was listening to a group of women talk about hitting on your boyfriend. You weren’t usually a jealous person, but you’d never been with someone who got so much attention from other women. And looking at them, some of them were stupidly pretty.

He caught your eye again. You wrinkled your nose at him, watching the way a slow smile spread over his face. He could be so stoic sometimes it was gratifying to watch him with his heart on his sleeve when it came to you.

“Ohmigod, he’s totally smiling at me.”

“Duh, you’re like so pretty. I bet he wants you to come talk to him afterwards.”

“Ohmigod, no way, I can’t.”

“If you don’t I will.”

And there was the kicker. You rolled your eyes, looking down at your phone. The response online to the speech was going well, a few people live tweeting about it from fan accounts. When you looked up, the smile had slipped from Lars’ face, instead watching you with more interest than he should have. You pointed over to Gary, waiting for his attention to shift.

Good boy.

The tension kept ratcheting up the longer you listened to the women beside you. Giggling and laughing, they were obviously trying to get Lars’ attention. Flicking hair and batted eyelashes. Your jaw was clenching and you were just counting down the seconds that you could get Lars alone.

“Thanks guys,” Gary said, folding the paper you’d given him, shoving it in his pocket with an affable smile.

He turned, reentering the fire station. Lars lingered, his wandering back towards you. You flinched as the girl immediately to your right screamed his name. His attention shifted, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. The women surged forward, surrounding him before you could even take a step. With a small sigh, you waited long enough to see Lars shrug them off before entering the firehouse himself, almost scared of them. Their disappointment shouldn’t have made you feel better, and yet when you slipped inside there was a sense of smugness within you.

He was loitering in the entrance, watching for your return. You didn’t bother saying anything, grabbing his hand and dragging him away. He went with you willingly, not questioning you as you took the stairs down towards the containment unit.

“Are we filming something, love?” he asked.

“Not unless you’re looking for a scandal,” you replied.

You pushed him against the wall beside the stairs. The way he was looking at you was bemused, like he couldn’t figure out what you were doing but was more than willing to participate. Keeping him pinned there, you pushed up onto your tiptoes, lips grazing against his. You nipped at his lower lip before drawing back.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Proving a point,” you replied.

Not to those silly little girls. Mainly to yourself. And to him a little bit. But mostly to yourself.

Your hands slid up his body, fingers delving into his hair. You tugged him down, kissing him roughly. His hands were warm as they closed over your hips, holding on tight enough that he might be leaving bruises to be found later. He groaned into your mouth as you tugged on his hair, pulling it harder than you ever had before. You knew you were being a touch too rough with him but you wanted to leave your mark.

Your lips trailed down, finding that spot behind his jaw that was soft and vulnerable. You dragged your teeth over it, feeling the rumble in his chest as he moaned. Your tongue soothed over his skin. With the fingers still in his blond hair, you tugged his head to the side. Your lips took their time trailing down his neck until you came to his pulse point.

Your teeth sunk in. He yelped but didn’t push you away. You sucked at his skin, wanting to bruise him, to see your mark left on him. You wanted those girls to see he wasn’t available for their fantasies since he was too busy fulfilling yours.

“Fuck, love,” he groaned, but his hands were tight on you and you could feel his interest growing against your hip.

Your hands skimmed down his body, not bothering to take your time. You wanted him, no two ways about it. And you were going to have him.

Deft fingers found their way through buttons, seeking out warm skin to touch and taste. Your tongue was tasting the salt on his skin as he groaned, leaning back against the wall as if he needed it to hold him up. It was once your hands had slipped past the waistband of his trousers that he seemed to remember where he was.

“Love, they’re all just upstairs,” he said.

“So?” you asked, lips brushing over the beautifully developing bruise on his pale skin.

“Someone could walk in on us,” he said.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Your hand curled around his length, hot and heavy in your hand.

“No,” he hissed.

“Then be good and quiet and I’ll make sure it’s worth it,” you said.

He nodded his head, enthusiastic as you began to slowly drag your hand along his length. Pushing up, you kissed him again, wanting the taste of him on your tongue. He whined into your mouth as your hand continued to work him, feeling all the ways he was growing in your touch. Twisting your wrist, you massaged his tip, feeling his hips thrust into your hand.

“You like that, huh, ghost boy,” you said, drawing back so you could watch the way his face contorted in pleasure.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “fuck.”

You were being almost lazy about it, taking your time as you worked him over. The feeling of him in your hand, the weight of him, it was one you’d never grow tired of. His cheeks were flushing, a pretty pink colour, eyes blowing wide, the blue a thin ring surrounding his dark pupils. He was watching you from under hooded lids, lips parted as his breathing came heavier.

“Don’t want anyone else like this, do you?” you asked, increasing your pace.

“No,” he groaned, head falling forward, seeking you out.

His lips were desperate when they met yours, hands grasping you, holding on as you stroked him. Large hands on your ass, tugging you closer while your hand was on him, hips pressing into your touch.

“No one else makes you feel this good,” you told him, right as you did that thing that always made his eyes roll to the back of his head.

“No,” he agreed, “no one else.”

The weight of him in your hands, soft skin and hard length smeared with pre-cum, thumb swirling over the head. All of it was heady when mingled with the power you had over him in that moment. You paused a moment, listening to the sound of people moving upstairs. His tiny whine was addictive.

You were slow to start up again, hips rutting into your hand, your lips finding a place on his throat. He was doing so well, keeping quiet, the flush on his skin and his heavy breathing the only indication he was growing close. Your tongue licked a long strip up his throat, tasting the salt on his skin and your teeth nipped at him. His fingers were digging into your hips hard enough to leave bruises as he tried to keep quiet.

You could tell when he began to get close, the small noises in your ear growing more desperate hips more insistent as he pumped into your hand. Pulling him into a kiss, you did that thing again, feeling his whole body shudder. Warmth spilled over your hand, hips stuttering, your name a soft groan in your ear.

Pulling your hand out of his trousers, you licked his cum from your skin. The way he watched your tongue was gratifying in its own way. You grinned up at him, feeling so much better.

“Fuck, darling,” he said when he caught his breath again, “I don’t know what came over you but I’m loving it.”

“Those girls…” You shook your head, “I know it’s silly but something about listening to them talk about you…”

“I thought you liked that women found me attractive. That it was good for the business,” he said, doing up his belt.

“Sure but this was in person and they were planning on shooting their shots and they kept talking about what you’re like in bed and I don’t know. It just hit different,” you said.

“Were you jealous?”

Large hands cupped your cheeks, pulling you back towards him. He looked down at you, quirking one eyebrow up but the satisfied look on his face ruining the entire effect.

“Maybe a little,” you admitted, “but you’re mine. And I know no one knows but I guess I don’t like it when they hit on you.”

“They try and hit on me online,” he said.

“Yeah but you’re not the one reading the comments. I am. So it’s fine,” you said, “it just got to me today, I guess.”

He lent down, lips findings yours in a soft kiss. You could feel it, the way he loved you, just from how careful he was being with you. Drawing back, he pushed some hair behind your ear.

“You’re the only one for me, love,” he said.

“I know, ghost boy,” you replied, “I was just being silly.”

“Well, any time you decide to be silly, my body is willing and ready for you to work it out on,” he said.

You laughed, falling forward until your face was buried in his chest and his arms were around you. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, his own puff of laughter warming you up from the inside out.

“We should probably get back to work,” you mumbled, muffled in the material of his shirt.

“Must we?” he asked.

“You don’t want to go run some tests on the latest ghost?” you asked.

You knew his answer before he said it. He’d been talking about getting his hands on the latest ghost the entire night before. He threaded his fingers through yours, tugging you towards the stairs.

“This might be the best day ever,” he said to you over his shoulder.

You laughed again, letting him drag you to the car so you could return to the lab. Your heart had returned to normal and it was easier to shrug off the comments from those girls. As if he would ever want them when you made him this happy.

[five-rivers]

The next part of my Kingdom of Fish pollfic! Continued from here.

.

It wasn't the practice he'd been intending, but… “I'm fluent in Elysian Greek.”  That was the dialect Pandora's people used.  

“Oh, thank goodness,” said the attendant, handing him a pair of scrolls.  “People have been requesting these, and of course we don't get many people who know those dialects out this way, so…”

“Right,” said Danny.  “Where should I…?”

“Oh, right here!  But… oh dear, I'll need to find a booster seat…”

“I don't need one,” said Danny, quickly.  “I can just hover.”

Danny needed one. 

(But unlike what the attendant said, he didn't look absolutely adorable in it, nor was he perfectly precious when pouting.  He wasn't pouting at all!)

He unrolled the original scroll, weighing it down with the scroll weights on the table, then did the same to the blank scroll he was copying onto.  

“Are arrangements like this common?” asked Mom.  

“What arrangements?” murmured Danny, keeping his voice down.  

“Arrangements between groups of ghosts.  Between your library and this one.”

“The library network is a bit unusual,” said Danny.  The scroll appeared to be a transcription of the life story of an Eleusinian farmer.  “The Library of Tongues gets relatively good deals, too, since most libraries need translators at least some of the time.  But there are other groups that do similar things.  Like, alliances and stuff between Realms.  I think the Goblin Market started off that way.  And there are the universities.  Schools.  Museums, too, but I don’t mess with them.”

“Why not?” asked Dad.  “I’d think that they’d work closely with translators.”

“Well, yeah, but museums aren’t always very good about asking.  And a lot of them get overly interested in things that are one of a kind.”  Like Danny himself.  He trimmed the quill pen provided to him and dipped it in the inkwell.  He started writing.  

“Oh, avoiding them is probably a good idea.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised, Mom,” said Danny.  “I have all sorts of good ideas.”  He wrote in relative silence for a while, pen scratching at the scroll.  

“What’s in that?” asked Dad.  

“The writing?  Record of someone’s life.  Not very long.”  He hummed and contemplated how to translate a complicated religious passage.  

“Where were they from?”

“And when?” added Mom.  

“Eleusis,” said Danny.  “And, hm, there’s not a date.  Usually stuff like this is pretty old, though.”

“Eleusis.  As in the Eleusinian Mysteries?”

“Yeah, I think so.  This doesn’t really say anything about them, but I’m sure there’s stuff in the library proper that does.  Why?”

Mom sighed.  “Sometimes, finding things in the Ghost Zone, it’s a bit like time travel without the time travel.  It’s a window into history.”

Danny frowned slightly.  It was history, and books were always a bit like that, but it wasn’t as if the person who the scroll was about was necessarily gone.  There was a very good chance that they still existed.  They had already been dead when they’d dictated this.  

Well, it didn’t matter, he supposed.  It was very unlikely that they’d ever meet the guy.  He wasn’t sure why it bothered him, anyway.  

He finished the scroll and rolled it up.  He looked up scanning the room for the attendant.  His eyes, however, caught on the large man with the bat ears and moth winds.  He looked like he was suffering, his skin soft and melty.  The thin man didn’t look like he was having a good time, either, fighting with his wings and an over-the-shoulder bag.  Oh, and there was something broken on that printing press that he could definitely fix.  And then, if he thought about it, this translation hadn’t taken him long at all.  He could certainly afford the time to do a few more.

… Danny realized, then, that in addition to not having much of a chance to travel and explore, lately, he hadn’t had much opportunity to indulge his primary Obsession beyond helping in the lab, and now that he wasn’t swamped in the haze of cabin fever, it was itching its way out of his skin.  

He was going to be horribly nosy about things.  He could just feel it.  All the practice in minding his own business he’d gotten in high school was years ago now. 

[robinsegghead]

Danny's Daycare Part 7

[Master List]

   “This ain’t some weird trick, right?” Miguel asked for the fifth time since Danny had showed them their new place. Both boys had been shocked into silence upon entering the space, eventually following Danny around to see their rooms and bathroom.

            Shaking his head, Danny swallowed his bite of pizza. “I bought the building with the intention of giving the apartments to people who needed them. You guys need a safe place to stay.”

            Miguel eyed him warily, glancing at Jazz who’d been mostly quiet since they’d arrived, knowing they were overwhelmed. “We can’t stay here without pullin’ our weight. Wha’s rent like?”

            Danny hummed, considering. Jazz looked at him in shock, thinking he was actually planning on charging the boys rent. Finally, Danny wiped his hands of the pizza grease, folded them on the table, and looked at both boys seriously. “Here’s the deal I’m proposing. You two live here until you’re at least eighteen AND,” He emphasized the word, so they knew he was serious. “have graduated from high school. That’s it. That’s the rent. You’ll be paying me back by getting an education.”

            “But tha’s ridiculous!” Santiago shouted, clearly torn between confusion and hope. “Nobody gives nothin’ out for free! It just ain’t done!”

            Sitting back, Danny contemplated what he’d need to say to help them understand his intentions. Jazz met his gaze and gave him a subtle nod, knowing what he was thinking about doing. “My parents,” Danny started. Jazz stood up, clearing away trash and dishes as he told a story neither wanted to relive. “didn’t pay me or my sister much attention.”

            That was a safe start right? He didn’t need to explain the whole ghost thing or that they tortured him, just a bit of background. “They forgot my seventh birthday, too caught up in work to be bothered and after that it wasn’t occasional forgetfulness. Most days they didn’t know where I was, what I was up to, how I was doing in school, who my friends were, because they were too busy to care.

            “That put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and even more on my sister’s. She basically raised me.” He dipped his head in her direction as she put away the leftovers. “In my freshman year my grades began to suffer, and I struggled with really bad anxiety, but I didn’t have parents to help me with that, because they didn’t really know me as a person.”

            Taking in a deep breath, Miguel looked between the Nightingales. “What’s that gotta do with us, though?”

            “My sister, who spent her entire childhood taking care of everyone but herself,” He added with a smirk. “likes to remind me that I can’t help everyone, as much as I might try. But,” the two boys were watching him closely, absorbing his every word. “I can help some people. And I can help you. Don’t tell Jazz but I’m always trying to be more like her. And I think, if she had the resources I do, that she’d help you guys out.

            “Let me help a couple of siblings who don’t have parents looking out for them.” Danny pleaded. “Please.”

            Miguel and Santiago had a silent conversation, the air hung heavy in the room as they seemed to come to a decision. “A’ight man, you seem chill.” Miguel shrugged, the rest of the tension leaving his body. 

            It didn’t take long after that for the boys to start showing how tired they were. Jazz grabbed her stuff and headed out with a ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, brother’ thrown over her shoulder. Danny reminded the boys that he was across the hall and one door down and that if there was an emergency they could use their emergency key to get into his place. They’d seemed surprised by that, but Danny reminded them that he was, essentially, their guardian now, and he was there if they needed him.

            “Tomorrow I’ll come by around ten and we can go get you guys some school supplies and anything else you want or need, yeah?” Danny asked, moving towards the door.

            Miguel was pushing Santiago towards his room like a good older brother. “Sure, sounds good.”

            For the first time in a while, Danny got a full night of sleep. This was the shocking realization he came to when he awoke to his alarm and felt rested. The first thing he did was search his fridge for food- he was starving- and remembered Red Hood’s little gifts. The chicken parm had been pretty good, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a home cooked meal, even if he did have to reheat it.

            Sticking the stew in a pot, Danny began the process of reheating another Red Hood MealTM and planned out the day mentally. They’d need to get some basic school supplies to start working on tutoring, they’d get more specific items when school actually started, but for now, calculators, notebooks, pens, pencils, and some workbooks would be fine.

            After that they’d need to get the boys each a phone and at least one computer for them to share. It would be necessary for school anyways, hopefully he could convince them to just let him buy them each a laptop but that might be difficult.

            Although it was Saturday, and he planned on Saturdays being tutoring days, Danny didn’t plan on working on any school stuff once they got home. They would certainly be overwhelmed by everything else going on and didn’t need one more thing to add to it. Plus, Danny needed to figure out exactly how to teach these kids everything they needed to know. 

            Had they ever gone to school? If so, what level had they gotten to? What were their learning styles? Who would he bring in to teach the subjects he sucked at? Like English- Danny was bad at the arts. English, Social sciences, even history, he wasn’t very good at. 

            Shaking his head, he dished out the stew and tried not to get caught up on the details. He was winging it, and maybe that was a bad thing when it came to kids, but it was better than what they’d had going on before, so he wouldn’t be too hard on himself.

            (Who was he kidding? Danny was only ever hard on himself, and he only ever piled the work on until he was buried under an avalanche of paperwork and drama.)

            The boy seemed almost surprised when he knocked on their door at ten AM sharp.

            “You have a key, y’know.” Santiago muttered, closing the door behind Danny.

            Danny frowned. “This is your home, Santiago. I’m not using my key unless there’s an emergency.” He offered a smile to Santiago’s contemplative face, before clapping his hands together. “All right, where’s that brother of yours?”

            The younger boy frowned. “He wasn’t feeling too good.” Right. Because stab wounds don’t heal quickly, not for normal people- Danny you can’t just forget things like that! “Said we should go without ‘im.” 

            “Well that won’t do.” Danny sighed. “We need to get those supplies, but I don’t want to go without Miguel, do you?” Santiago shook his head hesitantly. “Then it’s settled. We will simply order everything we need and when Miguel’s feeling better we can go out. Have you eaten yet?”

            Santiago shrugs, not meeting Danny’s eyes. So that’s a no. Without another word, Danny begins searching the fridge and cupboards for what he needed. He wasn’t much of a cook, there was a reason he hadn’t had a homemade meal in a long time, but he could do pancakes, and he knew he’d bought the ingredients for it too.

            The younger boy just watched, silently, as Danny began measuring out flour. 

            “So,” Danny started, immediately regretting it and feeling just as awkward as he was in high school. “I did my best to get you guys the necessities. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but when I say that you can ask for anything, I mean anything.” He emphasized his words by looking Santiago directly in the eye until the boy looked away. “If you want a TV, tools for a hobby, books, literally anything, you just have to ask.”

            The boy licked his lips, still not making eye contact but at least he nodded. They’d work on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?

            Danny tried again. “What do you do for fun, Santiago?”

            The boy shrugged again, leaning against the counter and watching Danny closely.

            “So you… want to help me?” He asked, hesitantly, maybe he was reading the boy wrong. But before he could rescind the offer or change the subject, the boy nodded slowly, moving closer to Danny. “Okay, first things first, you gotta wash your hands.”

            The morning was filled with the smell of fresh pancakes and the quiet conversation between Danny and Santiago. At one point Miguel ventured out of his room and Danny gave him a stack of pancakes, drawing him into the conversation. Early afternoon Miguel moved from the living room back to his room to take a nap but not before Danny could change his bandages. There was something incredibly domestic about it. Danny didn’t think too hard about it.

            He let Santiago help him pick out some school supplies online as well as a phone case and anything else that caught his eye- including a TV which Santiago assured him he ‘didn’t need especially because it had been three years since he’d seen a movie so what was even the point?’ which Danny thought was code for ‘a television is an absolute necessity’. 

He bought the TV. 

~~~

            The rest of the weekend was spent making sure the boys felt comfortable and Miguel was healing well. He made an appointment with Dr. Thompkins for the following Saturday to check up on the boy and maybe get his stitches out depending on how everything was looking- Danny wasn’t a great judge of such things on humans anymore. 

            He’d pushed his own organs back inside himself, held his chest closed, snapped bones back into place-

            Humans were fragile.

            He was somewhat grateful he wasn’t that fragile anymore- though he was sporting a rather purple bruise under his left eye from yet another power nap. (He’d thought those were gone after his restful Friday night but apparently not.) It was fine, the bruise would be gone within a day or so and he’d be more careful to take his power naps on sleeping surfaces instead of while standing.

           ��Miguel had insisted they’d be fine; that Danny didn’t need to take another day off of work to watch over them, and Danny (who’d promised not to act like their parent) had agreed. Still, he left a clone in his apartment to be there in case of an emergency. 

Anxiety was a feeling Danny was familiar with, after much introspection in his adult life he’d come to the conclusion that he’d had anxiety since he was seven, but anxiety relating to children he was responsible for on this level was new, and terrifying. Of course he’d felt responsible for all of the people in Amity Park, and all of the ghosts he came across, but never had he been so completely responsible for the safety of two children who had no one else to depend on. 

 How he got into this situation escaped him. He’d never cared much for kids- Jazz said him not wanting kids was because he’d never been allowed to be a kid in the first place- and yet, here he was, with a daycare, four cats, and now two teenagers dependent on him. 

Ancients help him…

When he got to the daycare there were already two families waiting outside to drop their kids off- should he open earlier? Quickly, he unlocked the doors, turned the power on, and signed the kids in for the day. He had a couple of hours before Mia showed up (and Ember had already told him she wouldn’t be coming in for a few days) so he cloned himself to entertain Clara, Maru, and Benji while he looked over paperwork.

It never ended.

There was a steady increase in kids, Danny had to get rid of his clone every time someone new showed up and then reclone himself after they left, and by the time Mia arrived he was managing fourteen kids by himself. Sort of. Obviously, with clones, he was fine albeit a little tired, but once Mia showed up it was just the two of them.

Nap time couldn’t come soon enough.

“They’re all out cold.” Mia whispered, closing the door to the nap room. “You look like you also need a nap.”

He dropped an armful of toys into the toy bin and sighed. “A nap sounds good but I can’t. I need to finally finish setting up the website for this place so we can hopefully start getting applications online.” He paused, feeling Mia’s concerned gaze on his back. “I want to extend the hours of this place.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. Two families were waiting at the door this morning because we didn't open early enough for their needs.” He rubbed a tired hand across his brow and leaned against the nearest desk. “So… I need to hire some more people to maintain not only the hours we already have that are abysmally understaffed, but to open earlier. I haven’t been able to accept any new families recently either, we just can’t safely take care of anymore kids without more staff.”

Mia pursed her lips. “School’s just about out. I’ll be graduating and looking to work a bit more. I was going to bring it up anyways, but I’d like to work full time.”

He nodded, pulling out his phone to order food. “I can do that. You want to work earlier or later? And what do you want for lunch?”

“Earlier is better, Mama and I switch off cooking dinner so I don’t want to be home too late. What are you thinking? Thai kind of sounds good.” Mia took her usual spot in a bean bag towards the entrance of the room and pulled out the monitor set up to watch the kids.

Before Danny could respond, the bell rang. He and Mia shared looks, no one ever showed up in the middle of the day- not unless it was a last minute emergency. Mia made to move but Danny shook his head, and set his phone down. Someone needed to watch the kids while he saw who had shown up so late.

What he’d expected was a frazzled parent with a child, hoping to leave them here for a few hours because their babysitter had fallen through or they got called into work or some other reason most parents had.

What he did not expect to see was the very tall, very well built, Red Hood, holding a tupperware container. Before he could get a word out- which he wasn’t sure wouldn’t have simply been some kind of ‘wha?’ Red Hood tilted his head.

“Do you not eat or something?”

“Huh?”

Hood offered the food container. “Cause I’ve left you food a few times now and every time the old stuff is still there. If you think it’s poisoned I can take a bite first to prove it’s not.”

Danny’s jaw hung open, face screwed up in confusion, not really knowing what he was supposed to say. “Uh… I’ve been busy…” He took the container trying to ignore the stupid flutter in his stomach when their fingers brushed and noted how warm it was. “I had the chicken parmesan the other day and… uh the stew as well. They were really good- why are you leaving me food?”

The vigilante shrugged, hands on hips (which Danny tried very hard not to look at). “Think of it as a thank you for-” He glanced at the closed door. “What you did when we met. If you told people it was you I wouldn’t be the only person thanking you.”

Shaking his head, Danny set the container down. “You- YOU are thanking me for kill-” He looked at the door again. “For what happened?”

“Why’d you say it like that?”

Why’d he say it like that? Why’d he say it like that? “You- I-” Danny shut his mouth before he could accidentally reveal he’s the King of the Infinite Realms and that he had always wanted to meet the Red Hood to thank HIM. “No reason. Uh… well, you don’t have to do that, you know, if you don’t want to. I mean- it’s really good though! I appreciate it!”

A thought occurred to him. “How did you know I worked here?”

It was difficult to tell exactly what expression Hood was making sometimes, but he was pretty sure the bastard was smirking as he turned away and pushed the door open, pausing in the entrance. “It’s my job to find people of interest- and you are certainly a person of interest.”

Danny might have died again just a little bit.

~~~

  Miguel POV

It had been a week since he and Santi had moved into the apartment Danny had provided for them. A week since he’d been stabbed. Doc Thompkins had said he was healing well at the check up he’d had the night prior and he felt like he was. The first few days had been… frustrating. He’d moved into an entirely new place and instead of being able to assess the situation, search for threats, create escape plans, he’d been stuck in bed, eating homemade pancakes and taking washcloth baths.

Danny was… strange. He came over at least once a day, usually after work because he left so early in the mornings, and cooked a meal. Again, usually dinner because he came over in the evenings, but twice he’d come over, cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and then cooked a meal for breakfast the following day before cleaning the kitchen again.

He asked about their days, what they needed, what they wanted, and didn’t act like their dad. It was refreshing and surprising but not once did Danny scold them, lay down ground rules, or try to tell them what to do. He acted like a friend.

Miguel hadn’t had a friend in a long time.

So on Friday night when Danny came over to make dinner and asked if Miguel felt well enough to go shopping the following day, he’d agreed. Well, he’d argued a bit- they didn’t need anything else Danny had given them more than he’d ever be able to repay! But the man was insistent that they needed more clothes and he wanted them to pick them out so he knew they actually liked them.

That’s how he found himself in a clothing store in the diamond district feeling wildly out of place trying on dozens of items of clothing. 

“How about this one?” Danny held a shirt up to Santiago who examined it closely, felt it between his fingers, grimaced, and shook his head cautiously. “Got it, no polyester.” Danny put it back and moved on. 

Miguel caught the incredulous look Santi sent his way and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Their father had been an angry man, one who didn’t take no for an answer and thought Santiago was trying to be difficult when he ‘acted special’. To say Miguel and Santiago were surprised that Danny accepted the no and moved on without any hint of anger was an understatement.

Danny held up a different shirt. “This one’s one hundred percent cotton.” Santi reached out carefully, felt the fabric, and nodded, a shy smile forcing its way onto his face. His brother pretended to be tough because that’s what the streets demanded from all who lived on them, but he’d always been a softy with a big brain and a bigger heart. If Miguel had been hesitant to accept Danny’s offer about school it had dissipated the second he thought of what it would mean for his brother’s future.

“I hope you’re finding some things for yourself, Miguel.” Danny teased.

Scoffing, Miguel held up the three shirts and two sweaters he’d picked out. “I know how to shop for clothes, Danny.”

Danny looked Miguel’s way with a retort clearly on the tip of his tongue, but his eyes were pulled away from Miguel and locked on someone else. “Damian?” He called, waving to someone a few aisles away.

Following the direction of Danny’s eyes, Miguel saw a boy about his age standing across the store. He wore a serious expression, not quite a scowl but close, and said something to the man next to him who was much older than the person Miguel thought was Damian. The pair made their way closer much to the boy’s disapproval.

Danny set down the clothes he’d been showing Santiago, and moved out of the aisles to greet Damian. “I thought that was you! Nice to see you again. I was actually going to let you know that Curiosity’s finished his meds and has made a full recovery!”

Ah. Danny had shown Miguel and Santiago his cats earlier in the week and mentioned that someone had been giving him advice on how to take care of them, especially the sick one. So this kid had been the one helping Danny?

“I’m glad I was able to be of assistance. The cats seem to be in good hands.” The boy dipped his head.

The older man gasped. “Why Dami- that was almost a compliment!” By the sound of his teasing, they were brothers. “I don’t know how you did it, but I think Damian might actually like you. My name’s Dick, by the way, pleasure to meet you.”

“On purpose?!” 

The group turned to Santiago who was still watching the entire encounter from where he’d been looking at shirts. His brother’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said and that he’d practically insulted a complete stranger based on their name. Luckily, Dick offered a smile and Danny laughed.

“Yes, on purpose.”

Danny held out his hand which Dick shook. “Danny Nightingale, Damian’s told me about you, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Dick’s eyes widened. “You told your friend about me?” 

“Tt. Relax Grayson, I simply mentioned you in passing. I didn’t think Nightingale would latch onto such information.”

Miguel exhaled quickly, suppressing a chuckle, but it was too late, he’d been noticed.

“Oh right! This is Miguel and Santiago.” Danny pointed at each of them and smiled. Miguel wished this encounter would be over. He didn’t enjoy meeting new people, it made his skin itch and his mouth dry out. As much as he disliked shopping for clothes and Danny spending way too much money on him, he disliked meeting new people even more. Danny seemed to sense this and did his best to finish things up. “We were just finishing up some clothes shopping before working on some stuff at home.”

Damian, sensing the dismissal, nodded once. “It was nice to see you again, Nightingale, do message me if you have any more animal related questions.” He grabbed Dick’s arm and began pulling him away, Dick grumbling about wanting to get to know Danny more as they left and Miguel released a sigh.

“Sorry guys.” Danny apologized. “Let’s finish up and get food on the way home, yeah?”

~~~

When they got home Miguel and Santiago put their bags in their rooms and joined Danny in the kitchen. He looked… exhausted. To be fair, they all did, but Danny hadn’t been homeless or recently stabbed (as far as Miguel was aware) so he didn’t really have a great excuse. Before he could say anything, Danny clapped his hands together.

“So I’m thinking while we eat lunch we can touch on some school stuff just for a bit, and then we can all relax.” Santiago straightened up a bit, some of the exhaustion disappearing from his face and Miguel couldn’t help but smile. As the boys grabbed their boxes of takeout Danny grabbed them drinks. He’d already learned that Miguel liked coke and Santiago liked grape juice and had continued to supply them both with it.

“I don’ know how you’re gonna catch us up on three years of schoolin’.” Miguel said honestly, Santiago’s shoulders drooped slightly.

Danny took a bite of his food and considered what Miguel said. That was something about him Miguel liked a lot. He always seemed to think before speaking- at least, when it was something important.

“Well I’m really good at math and science so I should be able to figure out a good way to catch you guys up, it’s the arts we have to worry about. English, history, that kind of thing. Now, tests suck, I know.” He took a sip of his coffee- he drank way too much of that stuff. “But I want you each to take a few placement tests so I can understand where you’re going to be starting. Then I’ll put together a plan to get you back to the levels you would be at before the entrance exams at Gotham Academy.”

Miguel groaned. “Man tests suck.”

“I know.” Danny assured. “But these aren’t graded. I don’t care how well you do, I want to know what you don’t know so I can help you learn it. This is a judgment free zone- always.” He looked at the two seriously, Miguel’s skin itched. “I’ll just have you take two today, how's that? And you can do the other two tomorrow while I plan around the ones you take today?”

That seemed fair. He thought it seemed fair. While taking the placement tests he wasn’t so sure anymore. His brain hurt almost immediately and he wondered why he was really doing this. He wasn’t going to pass high school, he’d never been very smart and when Danny realized he wasn’t smart enough to get a good job he’d just be back on the streets again. 

His brother let out a happy sound as he solved one of the science problems and moved onto the next one. 

Taking a deep breath, Miguel remembered why he was doing this. Just because he’d fail out and end up back on the streets didn’t mean his brother had to. His brother was smart, smarter than him, and he’d be damned if he held Santi back from getting into Gotham University someday.

He could do this. For Santi, he thought he could do anything.

Prev. Next

[steddieas-shegoes]

Nother idea: 8 years later, Tommy & Carol apologizing to Steve for their behavior. & for immediately abandoning him when they knew he needed them most.

But Steve has people now who have shown him love, family, true friendship. And while he forgives them its not the same. He doesn't trust them. He is thriving without them.

But Carol realizes that the reason it isn't the same is bc Steve genuinely believes that they don't mean their apology. So she & Tommy actually discuss it and find a way to clear up any misunderstanding & ensure he knows they mean their apology. It works, it takes time & effort but they are once again his friends.

MY LOVE!!! STEVE REALIZING HE'S LOVED AND DOESN'T NEED HIS SHITTY EX FRIENDS CREW STAND UP!!!! I had the opportunity to really give Steve his shining moment and yell at them, but I decided that Steve would just be kind of over it, like they aren't really worth yelling at. Steve didn't do all this personal growth just to let them back in so easily, but luckily he isn't the only one who changed. You know I had to involve Eddie, of course! - Mickala ❤️

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

It was too fucking early on a Saturday morning to be woken up by the buzzer of his apartment.

Whoever it was was lucky that Eddie had to go into work today or he would be committing murder at their door.

He glanced at the clock on the microwave, 10:47, okay, so not that early.

They’d had a late night, okay?

If he had a limp to show what they were up to, that was his business.

“You can leave the package in the box, I’ll grab it soon!” Steve said into the mic, hoping it was just a delivery.

“Steve? Is that you?”

He recognized the voice, though he wished he didn’t.

Eight years was a long time to go without talking to someone who used to be your best friend, but when you’d been best friends for so long, certain things couldn’t be forgotten.

“Tommy?”

“Uh yeah, man. I’m here with Carol. We actually were hoping to talk to you?”

He looked down at his almost naked body, only Eddie’s boxers covering him.

“Sure.”

He buzzed them in, not giving them any clue where he was so they would take their time getting to his door. He had to throw on clothes, brush his hair, and try to look like he hadn’t just been asleep.

He rushed to the bedroom, throwing on the first pair of jeans he saw and a t-shirt from the floor. He heard voices down the hall as he was heading to the bathroom, his hands shaking with nerves as he tried to rush to brush through his hair.

“It can’t be that Munson, though, right? Even Steve wasn’t a fan of him in school.”

Steve grimaced at Carol’s voice.

Technically, Eddie worked a half shift when he had to work Saturdays, which meant unless they were only stopping by for a few minutes, he would probably be home while they were still here.

Tommy had always hated Eddie. No one could really figure out why. Sure, a lot of people said nasty things about and to Eddie in high school, but no one else really put their hands on him the way Tommy did.

Eddie joked it must have been because he liked him, but Steve thought maybe he just had a lot of displaced anger.

At least that’s what he thought when he became a counselor and understood a lot of psychology behind why people did things.

Eddie laughed and said, “don’t overthink it, some people are just bullies.”

But Steve liked to think maybe Tommy was more complicated than that, liked to explain away his worst qualities so it made it easier to accept that he was once best friends with him.

Eddie laughed about that too, and said, “kids are stupid, and sometimes we find friends in people who make us feel better about ourselves, but you grew up.”

Steve shook his head, not wanting to think more about it.

He opened the front door, the ghosts of his past standing there, hardly aged, hardly any different at all.

“Come in, guys. Um. Sorry, I wasn’t really expecting anyone.”

They all awkwardly laughed as Tommy and Carol made their way inside.

The apartment was small, cheap rent kept them there so they could save up to buy a house outside of town in the next few years, maybe work on starting a family if they could.

They’d talked about it over the last couple of years, once Steve was settled in his job at the school, once Eddie got promoted to general manager at the shop, they’d save for a few years, have a decent down payment, start looking for a house with three or four bedrooms. Start looking into adopting. Maybe get a cat.

But to do that, their apartment was cozy, as Eddie liked to say. One bedroom, one bathroom, kitchen and living room area all one room, a tiny storage closet. They didn’t even have their own washer and dryer, which reminded Steve that he had to take their laundry downstairs and get it started soon.

Tommy and Carol looked around, but hid any emotion on their faces.

He gestured for them to have a seat on the couch, which was a hand-me-down from Wayne when they moved in. It was “too much” for his space when Eddie moved out.

They sat, though they didn’t look very comfortable.

Steve sat in the rocking chair Eddie bought, the first thing he bought for their “eventual home”, but didn’t rock as he took them in.

He originally didn’t see any proof of them aging, but now that he was looking closer, he could see Tommy’s already-receding hairline, Carol’s wrinkled by her eyes, both of them just a little softer in the face and stomach.

They looked incredibly human like this, like they weren’t some high school king and queen who only cared about how they look and what parties they could go to every weekend.

It helped Steve relax a bit.

“Not to be rude, but uh, how did you guys find me?” Steve asked, not sure he even really cared.

“We moved here to Chicago about six months ago, Tommy’s gonna run his dad’s office here starting next year, so he wanted to ease into it. I started job searching a few weeks ago for a teaching position and I noticed you worked at the school I interviewed at. We looked you up and decided we wanted to come talk,” Carol always was a bit of a rambler, always annoyed Steve when she started in on something that really didn’t matter much.

Carol nudged Tommy, who had been staring wide-eyed at Steve since he sat down.

He cleared his throat and nodded.

“We actually came here to make things right. We were best friends for years, and then one bad thing happened and we weren’t anymore. I know I fucked up with everything. We shouldn’t have treated Nancy like that, or you like that, and we’re hoping you could maybe accept our apology.”

Steve stared at them.

“We were kids. We did stupid shit. We’ve all grown. I mean, look at you! Your own apartment in the big city!”

As if he had been waiting for a cue, Eddie walked in the front door, his oil-covered coveralls already coming off. Steve made the rule after he came home one day to see oil stains on the bed sheets where Eddie had fallen asleep after working from open to close: coveralls come off as soon as he’s in the door and they go straight to the laundry room.

“Jesus, sweetheart, this is the last Saturday I cover in the shop. At least until I hire some competent mechanics. I think I did most of the work all morning. And after doing most of the work last night, I-”

“Eds! We have company!” Steve rushed out, his face bright red at what Eddie was implying.

It’s not that he really cared about what Tommy and Carol thought; Once they realized Eddie lived here, it wouldn’t be difficult to come to the conclusion that they shared a one bedroom apartment because they were together. He didn’t even care if Tommy and Carol were disgusted by him for it.

But he’d be damned if Eddie felt uncomfortable in his own home, especially if they started saying shit to him reminiscent of their high school days.

He watched Eddie turn around, recognize the people on the couch, and turn to Steve with a questioning look.

“Tommy, Carol, you remember Eddie,” Steve said, not breaking eye contact with Eddie.

They were having an entire conversation with their eyes, Steve begging Eddie to just go get cleaned up, Eddie begging Steve to explain what was going on.

Tommy’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them, Carol’s eyes stayed pointed at Eddie.

“Munson?”

“The one and only!” Eddie said, his voice pitching just a bit higher, naturally going to his over the top self to protect himself from whatever they would say.

Steve loved every version of Eddie: the performer on stage, the performer with friends, the soft version of himself that only Steve got to see, the protective version that would fight the world to make sure his loved ones were safe.

He was lucky to have every part of Eddie, even the parts that may not always be the best.

But his least favorite thing was seeing Eddie go into this mode, the one that kept him safe during school, when kids were mean, adults were mean, life was hard.

He didn’t want that for Eddie anymore.

“You guys…live together?” Tommy asked, looking back to Steve for confirmation.

Steve rolled his eyes. Tommy apparently didn’t gain any intelligence over the years.

“Yes. We’re together.”

From the look on Eddie’s face, he hadn’t expected Steve to say that.

That was fair; it took Steve nearly a year just to come out to anyone who wasn’t Robin, scared that somehow everyone would hate him, hate Eddie, hate them together.

But it went perfectly, and Steve rode the high a bit too much. He came out to his parents a few months after, and that went quite a lot less than perfectly.

He was lucky he didn’t have more head trauma from it, actually.

So he kept it quiet, didn’t come out to any new friends he met in college, even after one of them came out to him. Didn’t come out to coworkers while he worked at a cafe throughout college to pay the bills. Didn’t even come out to the bartender at their favorite bar despite the rainbow flag that was hidden behind the bar in silent support.

It was only recently that he started to feel comfortable being more open, and only in the city, only select areas where he knew they wouldn’t end up hurt.

Eddie was patient, maybe more than he deserved.

So saying it outright to the two people who suspected and bullied Eddie for being gay in high school, despite it not even being confirmed then, clearly threw Eddie for a loop.

“Oh, like…”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for any response that would give him permission to kick them out of his apartment, their apartment.

But he saw Carol nudge Tommy again, pasting a smile on her face. It wasn’t completely natural, but it also didn’t seem fake.

“That’s nice, Steve. Have you been together a while?”

“Since ‘86.”

“Wow! Since the quakes!”

Steve nodded.

“Steve, can you help me with something in the kitchen for a second?” Eddie asked, his voice unreadable.

Steve hated it, hated that all of a sudden he couldn’t get a grasp of what Eddie was feeling.

It had been so long since he’d experienced this.

And a small part of him blamed Tommy and Carol.

He got up, wordlessly following Eddie into the kitchen area that wasn’t even separated from the living room.

“Not that I don’t love that you’re comfortable telling them, but um. What’s. What’s happening currently?” Eddie whispered as he tried to appear busy, grabbing a glass from the cabinet to fill with water.

“They came to apologize to me. For high school.”

When he said it out loud, it sounded a bit ridiculous.

“And are you accepting it?”

“I don’t think so. I think they’re only doing it to help themselves feel better. I’m not interested in whatever game they’re playing.”

Eddie looked over Steve’s shoulder at the pair sitting on the couch.

“Need me to get rid of them? Just say so, sweetheart. I’ll kick them both to the curb.”

Steve leaned in and kissed him quickly on the lips, smiling as he pulled away.

“I got it, baby. Get cleaned up so I can hug you.”

“Just hug?”

Steve laughed as he walked back towards his spot.

“Or more!”

He focused back on Tommy and Carol, who were graciously pretending that they didn’t hear the conversation that happened less than 20 feet from them.

“So, we were wondering if you wanted to meet up for dinner, catch up? You could bring Eddie, of course!”

Of course, she said. Like they didn’t outwardly despise Eddie eight years ago. Like they were perfectly fine with him now, and fine with Steve, and fine with them.

“I think we’ll pass. Good luck to you guys in Chicago, though.”

He ignored the pang of guilt when he saw Carol’s face fall and Tommy’s eyes darted to where Eddie was closing the bedroom door and back to Steve.

“Oh. Um. Well, it would be our treat, if you’re worried about money.”

“I wasn’t.”

Tommy and Carol hadn’t expected to be shut down like this, but Steve knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t accept their apologies, and he wouldn’t expect Eddie to suddenly be friendly to people who tormented him for years.

“Okay. Well. I guess we’ll go, then.”

“Thanks for stopping by.”

He stood as they stood, walked them out the door, then closed and locked it behind them.

Steve made it to the bedroom before he felt the tears spring to his eyes.

Eddie was in the bathroom showering, so he hoped he could get it out quickly. He didn’t want Eddie to worry.

But unfortunately, once a few tears fell, it seemed like they wouldn’t stop.

He got back in bed, burying his face in the pillow so he could hopefully pretend to be asleep, but didn’t quite manage it before Eddie was walking back into the room.

He got in bed and silently pulled Steve against his chest, running his hands up and down his back to soothe him, not trying to use any comforting words.

“I don’t know why I’m upset about a stupid fake apology from people I don’t care about.”

“Stevie, it’s okay to be upset. They were your friends for a long time, and you still have a lot of hurt leftover from them.”

“I just wish things had been different then.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Eddie kissed the top of his head, and as they lay there together, Steve realized this hurt would never quite go away.

—------------------

“T, I don’t think he believed us,” Carol said from the passenger seat.

“I can’t believe Steve’s with Eddie. Of all the people,” Tommy replied, not even acknowledging Carol’s words.

“They seem good together.”

“I guess.”

Carol knew Tommy had a crush on Steve in high school, they’d talked about it years ago when she found an old picture of Steve with a heart drawn on the back while they were moving the first time around.

She’d been caught off guard, but understood, and was fine with it when he explained it was definitely in the past.

And it was.

But a part of him was wondering how long Steve had realized he liked guys, and what might have happened if he’d just been brave enough to do something about his feelings before things went to shit.

He loved Carol, was happy to be married to her, and wouldn’t want Steve now, but still. The what-ifs plagued his mind on the drive back to their home.

“Are you jealous of Eddie?”

Carol sounded hesitant to ask, like she wasn’t sure which answer she would prefer because she knew either way, Tommy would be upset she asked at all.

“No. I’m not jealous. Steve and I would never have worked out.”

Which may not have been a great answer for his wife, but it was the truth, and they were always honest with each other if nothing else.

“Since I got the job at the school, maybe I’ll have more chances to convince him we meant it.”

Carol was good. Deep down she had always been good. But Tommy always managed to drag her down when they were young, convinced her she needed to be a mean girl to fit in with their group, kept it up through most of college before they finally realized life was better if you just weren’t awful to people.

“Yeah, maybe.”

—---------------------

So, a month later, when school started up, Carol began the task of showing Steve that they were truly sorry.

She would often leave notes in his mailbox in the office, usually just a “have a great day!” with a smiley face, or “let me know if you want to catch up over lunch!”

He never responded, but she knew he got them.

Tommy had issues with his car and took it to the shop Eddie worked at, nodding along to what he said and admitted he didn’t really know much about cars so he trusted Eddie to fix it.

It was entirely professional, but a small part of Tommy was satisfied when Eddie gave him a genuine smile.

—--------------------------

“Is it weird that they keep trying?” Steve asked one night while they were lying in bed.

“I don’t think it’s weird. I think maybe they just mean it.”

Steve pondered it.

Yeah, they must mean it. The old Tommy and Carol would have given up after he sent them out of their apartment the first time.

“Would you wanna go to dinner with them? Just give them a chance? It’s okay if you don’t want to. You don’t have to forgive them.”

Eddie leaned in to kiss Steve’s slowly, softly.

“If you want to, then I want to support you. We’re all different now. Maybe we can look at who they are now instead of who they were, as long as they can look at who we are and respect us.”

“Yeah.” Steve kissed Eddie’s cheek. “Yeah.”

—-------------------

Steve left a note for Carol the following Monday: “Dinner at ours? Friday at 7. Bring a red wine and beer.”

She wrote back that same day with a bunch of smiley faces and a response that they would be there.

When Friday came, Steve was nervous.

He’d planned to leave work right when school got out instead of leaving at five so he could make sure everything was clean and the food would be ready on time.

Eddie promised to be home by six in case he needed help.

And when six arrived, Eddie walked through the door with flowers and a smile, and Steve relaxed.

Nothing would go wrong.

Even if something did, they would be in it together, and they would support each other.

They didn’t have to do this alone like they did all those years ago.

—-------------------

It became a thing: dinner every Friday evening, sometimes at Steve and Eddie’s, sometimes at Tommy and Carol’s, sometimes at a new restaurant in the city.

The first few dinners were stilted, full of apologies and awkward catch-ups.

Then it got easier.

They got closer.

Eddie and Tommy actually became closer than Steve and Tommy ever were. Eddie showed him how to change his own oil so he could “stop bothering him at work just so he could look at his sexy coveralls.” Tommy rolled his eyes, but was grateful to learn.

Carol and Steve would often bake dessert together, catching up on school gossip, the latest who was dating who always entertaining them just as it did when they were in high school.

There were still the occasional moments where Steve thought about how much they hurt him, and Eddie thought about how they might be teasing him behind his back.

But it was rare, and they usually talked themselves out of it.

They were the first people to find out when Carol was pregnant, and the first people to learn it was twins. Carol and Tommy were the first (okay, first after Robin) people to find out when their offer on a house was accepted.

Tommy ended up cutting ties with his father when he found out that Steve and Eddie were together and threatened to cut him off. Tommy had a degree, and now had years of experience under his belt, and wasn’t worried about finding another job, one where he knew he earned his position because of his work and not being the boss’ son.

And when Steve and Eddie were able to finally adopt a little girl in 2002, Tommy and Carol were at the courthouse taking pictures of the new family, their own kids already best friends with her.

[tiddygame]

hello im sorry i wrote more for @myriadblvck ’s streamer au ghoap

I time travelled and around 4,000 words magically appeared in a document titled: "you didn't juju on the fucking beat soap" I think I was possessed by something. anyways here’s that:

tw: is it a panic attack? is it just typical ghost angst? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ just be careful it's mostly fluffy (ghost is mean to himself cause he almost kissed soap on the forehead)

also i just realized after i wrote this whole thing, this is based on my general knowledge of dog tags… as an american. writing about the british military. so if you know your shit about the british military, uhh sorry in advance. my bad. from a very brief search i think a lot of it’s the same or at least same enough but this might hurt for people that know a thing or two. whoops!

fun fact: did you know for a brief stint (iirc, >40 years from around 1960s to 2010ish) the american military was printing soldiers’ ss numbers on their tags? yeah can’t imagine why they switched back to serial numbers.

Ghost had been pacing outside of his office for three minutes before he actually entered. When he did, he didn’t say a word. Just sat down in one of the chairs, fidgeting. It wasn't that uncommon of an occurrence, he was normally either gathering his thoughts before talking to Price about something more personal or hiding from what/whoever he didn't feel like dealing with.

When it came to mission debriefs, he was clear and concise. However, personal matters were a different story, and based on the way he anxiously opened and closed his hand, he'd guess this was a personal matter.

Price didn’t ask. He knew that whatever it was Simon needed to say would come out eventually. For now, he continued filling out paperwork and trying to figure out what it was that had Ghost so worked up.

Honestly, there wasn't much guesswork involved. Chances were, it was probably yet another leave request. He knew from Gaz (who was such an awful gossip he sometimes wondered how the man made it through interrogation training) that Simon had been visiting some social media person he had taken a liking to.

(Look, yes, Price knew about Twitch and live streaming and everything. He’s not actually that old. However, as long as he kept up the front of the old man who complained about the keyboard on his phone being too small, he didn’t have to deal with social media. Sure, it caused all of them to joke that he was geriatric and on his last legs, but he was able to convince Roach that he doesn’t know what TikTok is, meaning he wasn’t in charge of reviewing all the bullshit he and Gaz posted. A fair trade if you ask him.)

He also knew that Gaz was convinced the two were in love to the point that he and Roach had a bet going to see when they would get together. Price thought it was rather stupid, but he had to admire their ability to keep it under wraps; if the lieutenant found out they’d been placing monetary bets on his love life, he had a feeling he would need to find replacements for the 141.

Regardless, Price hoped that one day Simon would tell him about the friend but, until then, he was happy to fill out any paperwork that would get the poor man off base. God knows that idiot needs a vacation.

Simon was bouncing his leg, messing with his fingers, and staring off into space.

Three of his nervous habits at once? He must be even more worked up about this than Price thought. But, he was a patient man. It was about seven minutes of companionable silence before Simon spoke.

“I need replacement dog tags. I seem to have lost mine.”

Price looked up. He could see the chain around his neck and the outline of them still under his shirt.

"You do?" Price shuffled his documents around, eventually finding a blank piece of paper he could write on.

"Yes sir."

“And do you know what happened to them?”

“I believe they were knocked off during the fight from the last mission. I didn’t notice until later that night when we were back at base.”

Price paused and looked up from where he had been writing.

The last mission had been an odd one. Ghost normally stuck further away, their eagle-eyed lieutenant typically stayed at long to mid-range, watching for hostiles and making sure whoever else was in the field wouldn’t get caught off guard by someone they hadn’t seen.

During the last mission, he decided to engage at close range, a far cry from his usual approach of sniping hostiles from the shadows.

At one point, their lieutenant had been tackled and almost strangled. The fight had pretty much ended, his attacker was the only one left there. Ghost, being The Ghost, dispatched him with ease, but it stuck out to Price. Ghost may prefer to stay further back, but that didn’t mean that his hand-to-hand combat skills were lacking by any means.

He remembered thinking at the time that it was a clumsy mistake, that Ghost would have had to be intentionally trying to fuck up to get knocked down. He assumed the man had just been caught off guard, but he knew that theory wouldn’t hold up to any scrutiny. Ghost isn’t one to get caught off guard.

What was stranger yet still was Ghost specifically pointing it out in his mission report, calling even more attention to it.

Price set his pen down and leaned back in his chair.

“You planned this?”

“I plead the fifth,” said the British man.

Price just continued to stare, curious to see if this was actually going where he thought it was going.

“Is this off the record?” Simon eventually asked.

“Of course,” almost everything the 141 did was of dubious legality. Not reporting a conversation about possible wasted assets was far from the worst thing that had been swept under the rug.

“Then yes.”

“Why?”

Simon didn’t answer. Price waited, giving the man time to gather his thoughts, but based on the way his mouth opened and closed before he slumped in his chair, it seemed he didn’t know what to say at all.

Price had an inkling he might know what this was about.

“You know, Gaz likes to keep me informed,” Ghost looked up at him, somewhat panicked yet resigned, like he already knew what Price was going to say.

“He tells me you have a certain someone you’ve been visiting?”

“Yes.”

“Is this person a friend or…?” Ghost once again paused, calculating the potential consequences of his available responses.

He didn’t answer.

“Hmm,” Price paused, wondering how far to push before he continued, “You want to give this person your old dog tags?”

“Yes.”

Of course he would pre-plan “losing” his dog tags. Price mentally chuckled, leave it to Simon to be such a sap that he wanted to give someone his dog tags yet still make sure to follow protocol so he never actually risked going without them.

He had to hand it to him, it wasn’t a bad plan.

Price had a smile now, knowing his grumpy hard-ass lieutenant had a sweetheart he wanted to be sappy with.

“Romantic or platonic?” Price tried again.

“… I don’t know,” he’d never seen Simon look quite so… forlorn.

Hmm… That would explain his hesitancy.

He was pushing how much Simon was willing to divulge.

“And does this person know the significance of you giving them your dog tags?”

Well, curiosity killed the cat…

“No, they don’t.”

…But satisfaction brought it back. How interesting, the plot thickens.

“Do you plan on telling them?”

There was a long pause, after which it dawned on Price, “You want to give them your dog tags because they don’t know.”

It wasn’t a question, he already knew. Simon somehow slumped further, attempting to hide his face as if he weren’t wearing a balaclava.

His grumpy hard-ass lieutenant. Absolutely smitten with someone yet too shy to say anything, deciding on a quiet confession, one they likely wouldn’t pick up on.

Price chuckled, jotting down the necessary information he would need when he got his hands on the right paperwork, polishing up some of the details of Ghost’s story to make it more believable, before reading off what he had written to Ghost to make sure he got everything right. Ghost nodded once, and that was that.

“Replacement tags will probably be here in two to three weeks.”

“I would like to request leave for two to three weeks from now.”

Price handed him the form, having already grabbed it. He noticed how the man seemed to calm at just the thought of getting to visit his mystery person.

Oh, he thought to himself.

I am definitely joining Roach and Gaz’s bet.

<><><><>

They were lying on the daybed in his streaming room, or, well…

No, that’s not quite right.

Simon was lying on the daybed.

Johnny was lying on top of Simon.

His computer was still softly playing quiet (non-DMCA) music from where his stream had just ended. Instead of turning it off, he had decided to unplug his headset and leave it on, the music just loud enough to be heard.

Simon was sleepily scrolling through his phone, trying to pretend like he hadn’t almost dropped several times while dozing off, desperately trying to stay awake. Johnny had watched his struggle and decided to lay down right on top of Simon, not even trying to pretend like he was trying to fit on the remaining space on the daybed. Why would he when Simon was right there?

It was meant to be a joke, having thrown himself on top of him to annoy the man into sleeping on an actual bed (he claimed he wasn’t tired but the comically loose grip on his phone and the waking world said otherwise.) However, unfortunately for said sleepy man, Simon was very, very comfortable.

His head was resting on Simon’s chest, arms under his back like he actually was just a pillow, one hand reaching higher to feel where Simon’s hair had begun to grow out slightly.

I wonder if he would let me help him cut it…

Simon had said he was like a clingy cat, his free hand running through his hair in the same manner one would pet a cat to prove his point. The joke's on him though, he likes it.

Simon had tried to stop but Johnny didn’t let him, threatening to tickle him if he did.

(“I’m not ticklish, I just don’t want you throwing a tantrum.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say,” he was definitely ticklish, and one of these days he was going to prove it.)

At some point, Simon had given up on keeping a grip on his phone, letting it drop to the side. They would probably have to go digging through the cushions to get it out of whatever crevice it had fallen to. As of right now, the idea of ever leaving his spot was comical at best.

The sun had begun to set, orange and pink tinted light filtering through the sheer curtains, making everything look more like a dream. Or maybe it was just the proximity to the man below him that was making him feel so serene.

Johnny took a second to inhale and exhale slowly, appreciating the moment. He hoped that this memory, this beautiful tranquility with Simon, would be something he cherished for a long time to come.

He knew that they had things to do. Soon, Simon would be catching a flight at some ungodly hour, headed back to save the world yet again. But for now, he was happy to nap away in their own little bubble. He never was a religious man but here in the arms of Simon Riley, he was tempted to think heaven was real, and that it was right in front of him.

“I almost forgot,” Simon mumbled, not sounding any more awake than he looked, reaching up for the collar of his shirt. Thankfully, the hand that was running his hair remained. He didn’t like proving the cocky bastard right, but he probably would have thrown a tantrum had he tried to remove it.

“They had some fuck up along the line or something and accidentally printed me an extra set of dog tags. I was just gonna toss ‘em but thought you might want—”

Johnny was now wide awake, sitting up and yanking the chain out of his hands.

“Don’t you fucking dare throw them away, of course I want them!” Simon’s face reddened, a frequent treat for Johnny now that he had gotten more comfortable going without the mask. Simon might have been good at keeping a poker face, but without his mask, he was a blushing mess.

He wondered if the blush was from his obvious jubilation at the gift or if it was because he was now straddling the man. Such pesky details, however, (even ones that would keep future Johnny awake at night) were far less important than examining the necklace in his hands.

It was obvious this was the older set, the metal worn and dented in some spots though the writing was still clearly visible.

“Calm down, I’m not going to take it from you,” the gruff tone was severely undermined by the aforementioned blush. It was hard to sound tough while half asleep on a daybed and being used as another man’s pillow.

Johnny stared at them for a little bit longer, feeling every dent and wondering the story behind how they got there, before putting them on.

He smiled at the man under him, “How do I look?”

He was going to joke, asking if he looked like a rough and tough soldier ready for war, but something in Simon’s eyes made him stop short.

He was looking with… with… Reverence was far too intense of a word for the softness of the moment but it was the only word that came to mind.

Simon reached up with his hand, grabbing the tags, his knuckles grazing his chest.

Well, that’s just fucking unfair.

Simon was supposed to be the blushy one. Not him, goddammit!

Though, he thinks when they make eye contact, they end up tied for who is blushing the most. They stare for a while, maybe it should have felt awkward but it was too adoring for either to feel any form of uncomfortability.

Neither moved.

It was Johnny that broke first, smiling at him, yet again tracing all of the scars he could see. It was his new favorite hobby, especially when Simon would blush making the scars on his face all the more visible.

He took one more second to sleepily appreciate the man before him, then went back to using him as a pillow. His hands went back to where they were before, one under Simon’s back and one playing with his hair. His head, however, did not fall back to his chest, instead resting in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

Simon’s hand returned to running through his hair, his other now coming up to rest on his back, rubbing up and down a few times before the sleepiness from earlier fully returned with his hand stopping somewhere around the small of his back.

Johnny leaned up slightly and gave a chaste kiss to the part of his neck that he could reach, then settled back to where he was. The hand in his hair paused.

“Thank you, Simon.”

A second of delay, and then the hand continued.

“You’re welcome, Johnny.”

Simon shuffled slightly, getting comfy before—

A kiss, on his forehead.

He couldn’t stop the blush and smile if he wanted to. He snuggled closer before drifting off to sleep.

When he woke, he was in his bed, practically tucked in. His window had been opened slightly, blackout curtains that had been drawn closed now swaying slightly with the breeze. When he focused, he realized he could smell petrichor and hear heavy rainfall outside with the occasional grumble of thunder.

There was a note on his nightstand. As he expected, it was Simon’s handwriting, apologizing for not waking him up before he left. It said that he had made breakfast for him (pancakes, with enough for when his sister would inevitably try to steal them), that he made sure to lock the front door, and left the window cracked.

He giggled sleepily at the last line. Regardless of the context, it always made Simon anxious to have the curtains open, much less to leave a window open. But, he also must've known how much Johnny loved the rain and set his worries aside, just this once, so he could wake up to the rain.

He set the note down and flopped back onto his pillows, his hand felt something cold and he remembered.

The dog tags.

John MacTavish is no stranger to crushes and heartbreaks.

He's had high school sweethearts, been in and out of love, he knows his way around the world of dating. Which is why he most certainly does not squeal and kick his legs while holding the tags like some kid with their first crush.

He did it like a grown man, thank you very much.

He grabbed his phone and sent Simon the worst pun he could think of; it was tradition at this point to send him some god-awful joke before his flight.

Simon has probably already forgotten about the whole exchange. He probably woke up and assumed he threw them away when he noticed he wasn't wearing them. It was probably stupid, an insignificant gesture with no meaning. But to Johnny, it felt like everything.

He sighed dreamily at the ceiling and felt the cool metal once more. Thunder roared outside. He thought about how he had felt in the man's arms. Thought about how much he wanted that again.

God.

His phone dinged and he immediately reached over to grab it.

I'm fucked, aren't I?

<><><><>

Elsewhere, Ghost was in an airport terminal, having far too much time to think.

Over the weekend, it was almost impressive how many times Ghost had talked himself into and back out of giving Soap his dog tags. He really hoped he hadn't made a mistake.

Simon felt the spot that Johnny had kissed and wondered if he remembered it. Wondered if he had meant it.

Simon thought about how Johnny had looked cradled in his arms when he carried him to his room, the way he had reached out for him when he laid him in bed. The way he had grabbed his wrist and clung to it, grumbling when Simon tried to pull it back.

If asked, he'd say that he had woken up late and that's why he was so far behind schedule. He'd keep the part where he sat there, kneeled in front of Johnny's bed, waiting for him to fall back into a deep enough sleep to pull his arm away all to himself. After all, it would have been rude to wake him up, no?

He had made sure to plug up his phone and, upon seeing the forecasted weather, hesitated before opening the window. It was only barely cracked, just enough for the sounds of the outside world to shamble in, but not so wide as to worry about water damage. He stared at it, convincing himself not to worry and that Johnny would like waking up to the fresh air.

He turned back to make sure the man was still asleep, still comfy, but stopped for a moment. He approached the bed and hesitated before running his fingers through his stupid haircut, almost wishing the man would grab his arm and give him an excuse to stay.

He didn't. Simon did, however, lean in to give him one last kiss on the forehead as some stupidly sappy goodbye, before his brain turned back on and he ripped himself away.

What the fuck is wrong with you? What? He grabs your arm in your sleep so you feel entitled to be able to kiss him?

Simon backed away, staring at the hand that had just been in his hair. He felt dirty.

For fuck’s sake, relax. It's not that big of a deal, you did it earlier; the man fell asleep in your arms, a forehead kiss isn't too much of a stretch.

He went to the kitchen and scrubbed his hands for a while, only stopping when he thought about how much water he was wasting. He still felt dirty.

Not a stretch? You don't get to decide that. How would you feel if someone tried to kiss you while you were unconscious? If they said that they felt they should be allowed to do so because you fell asleep?

He had started making pancakes. Something quick, easy, and reheatable for when Soap woke up. Like making him breakfast would make up for trying to kiss him in his sleep.

Why can't you just be normal?

Eventually, and after a run-in with Soap’s hell-spawn of a twin, he had to leave. The time on his phone showed that he should probably already be halfway to the airport by now but he has always been a selfish man.

He had snagged some paper and left Soap a quick note, hoping the apology would make him feel better about worse sins than not waking him up. It didn't.

He stared at the man for a second, admiring him, before he reminded himself that he was a fucking creep and left.

The storm left the flight delayed by 1.5 hours. Ghost had sat waiting, wireless headphones on and connected, but not playing anything. He had far too much time to think.

Simon thought about how Johnny had looked, his dog tags around his neck, silhouetted by the fading light, the sun behind his head as if even the stars knew they could never compare to him.

He stood and started pacing. Amongst the screaming children, feuding families, and people who think they're entitled to listen to their music without headphones, one middle-aged man having an existential crisis didn't stick out.

He thought about how he had never understood weighted blankets so well until Johnny had thrown himself on top of him. It should've hurt. He should've been annoyed. Instead, Simon selfishly hoped he would never get up.

It took him a while to put his finger on what he had been feeling exactly. Finally, he realized.

There, in that moment, he had never been so happy to be alive. It was a startling emotion to discern amongst the swath of negativity he normally felt. It startled him so much, he had snapped out of his reverie and stopped short in his pacing. When he checked the time, he saw he had one missed text from Johnny.

Soap (art streamer): i was trying to think of an airplane joke but none of them landed

Simon chuckled and sat down; he almost forgot about their dumb little tradition.

Ghost: Disliked.

Soap (art streamer): everyone is so mean 2 me 💔

Ghost: It is not my fault your pun was so Boeing.

Soap (art streamer): well i thought i could wing it

Ghost: Did you look up what giving do-

Ghost: About the tags, you

Ghost: I think you make me want to live

Ghost sighed and fell back further into his seat, coming to a conclusion that his subconscious had long ago discovered.

I'm in love, aren't I?

Soap (art streamer): speechless huh? finally, the Wright reaction to my comedic genius

Ghost: Absolutely awful, Mactavish.

Soap (art streamer): :D

Took you long enough, dumbass.

<><><><>

Soap’s twin spent a good bit of time staring at her brother's new accessory.

“Is something wrong?” he challenged, hoping she wasn't in a bothersome mood.

She failed miserably at hiding her shit-eating grin but didn't care.

“Nope!” she replied.

She had run into Ghost early that morning before he left.

"Detergent."

She was pretty sure he never even learned her name, just jumped straight into calling her detergent.

"Ghoul," she greeted, glaring at the man.

Being required by law to not trust him, she checked on her brother as he was still gathering his things and noticed the necklace.

“You gave him your dog tags,” she accused, like she was framing him for murder.

“Yes, I did,” he replied casually, as per usual robbing her of the fight she so desperately wanted to pick.

“Did you tell him what it means?”

“...What does it mean?”

Damn, he was good. If she wasn't convinced that he was the devil incarnate, she might have fallen for his feigned ignorance.

“100 bucks and you buy my silence.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“200 then.”

“It doesn't even mean anything.”

“Hmm. Well, I suppose you might be right… JOHN!” their neighbors were probably going to complain.

“What the fuck are you doing?” ooh he was getting panicked now.

“If it doesn't matter then you won't mind me telling him to look it up,” she started walking to his room, “JOHNSON!”

“Fucking Christ, woman! Just— Fucking— Here.”

He pulled out his wallet and started counting bills. Damn, that was easier than she thought.

“What did you say? 100?”

“Nope! That was before inflation. Now it’s 300.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You said 200!”

“So you admit you tried to scam me?”

“Just take the 100 and g-”

She didn't even get to yell, he reached for more before she could finish taking a deep breath in.

“Just shut the fuck up! Here! Three fucking hundred!”

She was tempted to raise her price further, but she was no gambler, she was a strategist. She knew a defeated man when she saw one. If she played this right, she could extort money out of him for a long time to come.

Something, something, vampires not fully killing their victims and all that.

She took the money, counted it, and then held out her hand to shake.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Wraith!”

He didn't shake her hand.

“Christ, both of you are awful.”

He packed his stuff and left, broke, broken, and defeated.

She ate as many pancakes as she could, rich and victorious.

She thought about how much power, how much blackmail she had in this moment.

“I’m fantastic actually,” she walked to her room.

I am going to be so fucking rich by the time they get their shit together.

[wolfjackle-creates]

Bring Me Home Arc 2 Part 9

Time for another WIP Wednesday! Wasn't sure how much I'd get out today, but had a sudden burst of inspiration and so you've got a decent segment here. Hope you enjoy!

Story Summary: Tim and Danny are both neglected by parents who care more about their work than their families. They deal with this by spending too much time online and find each other playing MMORPGs. They keep up their friendship as Tim becomes Robin and Danny becomes Phantom and don't bother keeping secrets from each other.

First, Previous

Word Count: 1.5k

-----

The first thing Tim and Conner did once on the ground was determine which streets were still intact enough for vehicles to drive on to set up transportation routes in and out of downtown.

“Superboy! Can you clear the road of glass and debris?”

“You’ve got it, Rob.”

Conner had barely started when a group of four ghosts noticed them and flew at them, batons raised. Tim shot them with his blaster. It pushed them away too far to use the thermos and he cursed under his breath.

“Keep going, Superboy!”

“This section is clear. Let’s go!”

Two overshadowed humans, one only a kid, started throwing debris at them and Tim dodged as he rushed towards them. Two quick blaster shots expelled the ghosts and this time Tim made sure to trap them in the thermos before they could get away.

The no-longer-overshadowed humans sat hard on the ground and held their heads.

“Are either of you hurt?” Tim asked as he looked around to make sure no other ghosts were going to attack.

“I— no, no. I’m fine,” said the older one, a hispanic woman in her late thirties in casual clothes. “Gabriella?”

Gabriella couldn’t have been more than ten. “I’m fine, Mama. What happened? Who’re you?” The last part was directed at Tim.

Tim hadn’t had to explain who he was in ages, but he smiled disarmingly. “I’m Robin. And the boy over there is my teammate Superboy. Phantom called us in to help with the invasion. We’re going to get you out of here, okay? But we need to get moving now. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” said the mother. “Come on Gabby. We’ve got to move quickly. Like racing your cousins.”

He and Conner fell into a rhythm. Conner would use TTK to clear several dozen yards of road while Tim would keep the ghosts away. All humans they rescued, up to ten now, were kept between the two of them to make it easier to keep an eye on them.

When not clearing the road, Conner would shoot at all ghosts with his weapon which had better range and a wider blast than Tim’s.

They’d managed to move about five blocks and this time, when Tim tried to use the thermos, nothing happened. He curse and grabbed the blaster to at least get it away from the people he was protecting. Turning on the mic on his Fenton Phone, he said “My thermos is no longer working. I’ve thirteen ghosts in it. Could it be full?”

“Shit,” came from Danny. “Must be. Um, B— er, Impulse. They can be emptied in the Fenton’s lab. Can you bring Robin’s thermos to the lab and back? I can’t get in with the shields up. I can give you instructions once you’re inside on how to do it.”

“Can do, Phantom,” replied Bart. “Location, Rob?”

Tim gave his location and seconds later Bart was in front of him. He handed over the thermos and Bart was gone so quickly he had to thank him over comms.

“Hey, Robin. I think my… The Fentons are near your location. They seem to be trying to hold the perimeter, so if you can get past them your people should be as safe as possible. Take a left on the next street and it’s just another two blocks.”

“Thanks, Phantom!”

Then Bart was back with his thermos. “All empty and ready to go!”

“You’re the best, Impulse!”

Bart saluted and was gone again.

“Superboy, we’re taking a left at the next intersection. The Fentons have a barricade set up and everyone should be relatively safe once we get past them.”

Sure enough, once they turned the corner, they could see the Fenton’s GAV and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles behind them. At the sight of safety, over half their humans began sprinting forward, heedless of debris in the street and running right past Conner.

Tim cursed under his breath as ghosts tried to rush the panicking people, and Tim was kept too busy shooting them away to be able to use the thermos as well. But then the Fenton’s saw them and added their own firepower to the mix. Everyone made it past the barricade.

Tim was the last to cross the barrier and found Conner already talking to some of the officers on scene.

“Robin, I’ve asked to speak to the police chief and head of EMS. We’ll accompany ambulances and firetrucks through the downtown area to help any who are trapped that Impulse and Wonder Girl haven’t already helped.”

“Excellent.” Tim turned the mic on his comm on again. “Impulse, Wonder Girl, report. How many have you found that need to be removed by ambulance?”

“Surprisingly, not that many,” replied Cassie. “We have five that we’ve found so far and Impulse has pretty much checked every building.”

“Anywhere you haven’t been able to get into?” asked Tim.

“There’s three banks, the backroom in a jewelry shop, and the back of a pharmacy. But the pharmacy gate was mesh and I couldn’t see anyone. No one replied when I shouted back to see if anyone needed help, either.”

“I’ll see if anyone has contact with those locations.”

Danny spoke up, “The portals closed by themselves five minutes ago. I’ll check them out.”

“Thanks, Phantom,” said Tim.

With impeccable timing, the police chief finally arrived just as Tim finished touching base with the rest of his team.

“We didn’t have a chance to send out a distress signal before communications were disrupted. How did you know to get here?”

Tim shrugged. “I’m friends with Phantom and he asked for help. Impulse and Wonder Girl have found five people too injured for them to safely evacuate. We’d like to get ambulances to their locations as soon as possible. We can probably keep two safe at a time.”

“Hmmm,” the chief looked over at the people Conner and Tim had already rescued. EMTs were checking them over and treating the minor injuries they’d received. “My men haven’t heard a single complain and the people you rescued speak highly of your skill. We’ll take you up on that, Robin. But if any of our people get hurt on your watch, it’ll be on your head.”

Tim couldn’t help but roll his eyes behind his mask, but he smiled the gala-smile his mom had drilled into him and said, “Yes, sir. You have my word we will keep everyone safe to the best of our abilities. Which is quite a lot.”

At that point, Jack Fenton came over. “Didn’t expect to see any superheroes in our little town! How’d you get a hold of our tech? Do you like it? Think the rest of the Justice League would be willing to put in an order or two?”

Tim turned the gala-smile on the man. “You must be Jack Fenton,” he said as if he’d never met him before. “I’m Robin and this is Superboy.”

Conner nodded, “Hello, Mr. Fenton. This tech is quite impressive. You’ve done good work.”

“We heard you were the best for ghost weapons,” said Tim, “so tried to stop by your house when we first came to town. But the invasion had already started and you were out here fighting already. Your son helped us find weapons that suited us. I hope that’s all right?”

Jack boomed a laugh. “That’s my boy! Of course it’s all right. Dan-o knows our inventions almost as well as Mads and I do.”

Maddie came over as well. “It’s great to see someone else use them. Let us know if there’s any improvements you’d recommend or anything that isn’t working out quite right.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tim. “They’ve been working great so far.”

“Oh, that’s so lovely to… DIE GHOST SCUM!” She turned away from him halfway through her sentence and shot a beam from a bazooka at a group of ghosts trying to sneak past the barricade.

Jack stared adoringly at her. “That’s my wife!” He returned to his own weapon.

The ambulances arrived minutes later and Conner and Tim spent the next hour evacuating the five injured victims.

As the night wore on and downtown fully evacuated and more ghosts trapped in the thermoses and sent back to the ghost zone, things got quieter. And around four in the morning, they decided it was safe enough to call it a night.

Phantom carried them back to his house invisibly and they changed in silence, too exhausted to say anything. Danny retreated to his own room so Sam and Tucker could make sure he’d wake up in time for school and the rest stayed in the guest room. Tim, Bart, and Cassie all managed to squeeze into the queen sized bed while Conner took the floor.

Tim was asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow.

I'm not very good with action scenes. Have very little practice with them, honestly. So hopefully this doesn't come across too rushed! I hope to get better with them as I spend time in this fandom.

-----

Next

This takes place before the introduction of the Specter Deflector. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that in any notes yet. I think I have, but idk. So if you were wondering why Danny didn't just give everyone one of those, that's why.

I will no longer be doing tag lists, but please turn on notifications for the Subscription Post if you want to be notified when this updates.

[xxwitchylanexx]

Wandering the Woodlands- Cloud/Reader

Rebirth Retold Chapter 1

May contain spoilers if you haven't played rebirth. Planning on making this a series that follow the events of the game.

Chapter 2

Masterlist

*~*

Earth to Cloud! Anyone in there?” Aerith’s sing song voice barreled through the fog that filled his head leaving him like a deer in headlights. A warm fingertip poked at his forehead as if she was trying to restart his brain.

Cloud quickly swatted her hand from his face before crossing his arms over his chest. He jerked his head to the side to hide the blush that was creeping up his face as an awkward feeling settled into his gut. She laughed lightly at his reaction much like the light wind that swept through the trees surrounding the field. He huffed in frustration knowing how easy it was for her to see through him especially since he was unsure of what he was feeling himself. He hated how she caught him in such a vulnerable moment.

“She is pretty, though I didn’t think you were interested in romance.” 

He scoffed. “I’m not.” Which was the truth. He had more important things going on, like saving the Planet, and surely didn’t have the time to be thinking about girls no matter how pretty he thought the woman was.

“Oh come on! You’ve been staring at her so long I thought you vacated your body!” And there it was: The beginning of her light hearted teasing. She stepped closer into his personal space, fully aware that he preferred people to stay at least two feet away. Her smile widened at his discomfort before she lowered her voice, “You’re lucky no one else noticed.”

“I told you, it’s not like that.” Even he didn’t think he sounded convincing. Even his eyes betrayed him as they swept back over past his group of comrades to admire her features that left him star stuck. Before his thought were carried away once again Aerith’s laughter made him self conscious. He quickly tore his gaze away and began stalking to the rest of the them, hopefully leaving a good distance between he and his annoying friend. “Let’s just catch up with the others.” He called over his shoulder.

She was one step ahead of him, again, and grabbed onto his forearm and pulled him back towards her. She leaned against him her front to his back. He seen that sparkle in her eyes that usually meant trouble for him and before he could say anything she spoke lowly in his ear before shooting him a wink and released him just as quickly before running ahead with a skip to her step rejoining the rest of their friends before he could get a word in edge wise. “Don’t worry,” she had said,“it’ll be our secret.” 

Cloud huffed. A mix of frustration and embarrassment swirled within him. He hated that she was, is, ultimately right. They’ve encountered plenty of attractive people during their travels and he never gave them the time of day, but something about this girl had him freezing in his tracks, and to be honest he wasn’t thrilled with his reaction. He never froze, couldn’t afford to in this line of work.

Billy had said they’d most likely run into his trainer, but Cloud didn’t imagine she’d look anything like this. He had expected someone much older with the way Billy talked about her expertise. If you run into Y/N give her a hand would you? Billy had asked, but now that he’s seen her in action it was clear that she was perfectly fine on her own.

Their ragtag group stopped in their tracks when they came across the field and began to watch from afar as the trainer soundlessly approached the chocobo from behind. Your lithe body was relaxed without an ounce of hesitancy and your movements were even and calculated. You stretched one hand out slowly for the reins near its beak and the other ghosted along the bird’s flank gliding through its ruffled feathers. Your fingers threaded through the leather just as the chocobo became aware of your intentions. Its beak opened to squawk loudly at you before Cloud had hear your melodic words even over the chocobo’s protests.

It was your voice, now that he thought about it, that resonated with something inside him. Your voice was bright, comfortable and entirely captivating. It soothed the thundering beat of his heart against his ribcage like a river weathering rigid rocks along the rapid cascades of rushing water. He was enthralled so much so that he didn’t even realize you succeeded in taming the bird or hear Barrett’s loud ass calling out to you. Which lets be honest should’ve been concerning itself. Cloud would think he was totally deaf if not for your laughter filtering through cotton between his ears.

And then he really saw you, and Cloud swore someone cast thunder on him. The golden rays of the high noon sun cast you in a ethereal light. A few rays ran through your braided hair, darker roots that flowed into a light h/c towards the end, giving you a graceful glow. The few pieces that framed your face highlighted your features. Flawless sun-kissed s/c skin that looked soft as silk, round face and flushed cheeks. Your sharp brows slightly furrowed, a cute little wrinkle appeared in between them, as your narrowed luminous orbs studied them. A Button nose leading to rosy plump lips slowly pulling into a grin as you realized that his group just wanted to know how to catch their own chocobos. Then your e/c eyes flicked over to him and the weight of your stare as you took him. The prolonged eye contact made the palms of his hands sweaty and he fought the urge to wipe them on his pants. Then your attention moved onto someone else and that’s when Aerith started her shit.

He hadn’t even realized how long he’d looked at you, and a small part of him was worried you’d thought he was creepy. He sighed once again and shook his head becoming more and more aware of how he must look standing all by himself across the field. Before they- he- could waste anymore time he called out to them. “We done here?”

*~*

“So you need some chocobos to cross the swamps?” Y/N asked once everyone made it back to the Bill’s ranch. She led Piko, a chocobo who was apparently as hard headed as you were persistent, into the stall inside the barn at the back of the property and gave him a stern look as if you were warning him to not try anything. The bird squawked as you’d turned your attention to the man in front of you instead of him. You just shushed him over your shoulder.

“That a problem?” Cloud said in a way that made you think he was trying to prove something, or maybe just covering something else up. 

Your eyes darted over his almost emotionless expression and debated if you should poke the figurative bear. “Not if you know how to handle a chocobo.” You turned from him suddenly and sauntered over to where Billy was tending to another chocobo. You flicked at the denim hat he was wearing and the feather tucked into the lighter blue band fluttered lightly. "Are you sure about these guys?” You tilted your head at the group behind you. You ignored the hushed scoff that escaped your new ‘friend’.

Billy brushed the bird in front of him a few more times before he tucked the brush into his overalls and wiped his gloved hands on the towel laid across the tall barrel next to the stall before he faced you. Before he could answer you the dark haired lady, Tifa you recalled, and the other girl in pick that cheerily had said her name was Aerith, each clasped one of your hands from behind you. “Could you teach us? Pretty please?” Aerith asked.

You tried to wiggle free, feeling slightly uncomfortable at the sudden contact, but their resolve proved to be more stubborn. “It’d really help us out. We really need to get to Junon.” Tifa explained immediately after Aerith.

Billy just smiled at the interaction, knowing how awkward you feel with the human part of the business. “That was your last job with us for now right? Weren’t you going to head to the saucer? You could just go with them.” Billy chimed in, and you internally cursed him. Of course he’d use this opportunity to try to force you to make friends. You’ve told him time and time again that you were happy being alone, but he would never let it go. 

“That’s a great idea!” Aerith chirped excitedly as she released you in favor of clasping her hands behind her back and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Right, Cloud?” she asked. You thought you caught her winking at the man as you turned to see his reaction, though it remained blank. The guy has a hell of a poker face. 

“Whatever.” he replied bruskly before stalking outside. You watched him blankly walk off to one of the outside corrals. When you were sure he was out of ear shot you addressed the girls. “Is he always so…” You struggled momentarily to find the right word, “standoffish?”

“Sorry about him.” Tifa turned to gaze at him as his form grew farther away. “He’s not so bad once he opens up, really.”

You hummed absentmindedly to yourself as your eyes followed his figure as one of the chocobos approached him. He extended one of his gloved hands to the bird allowing it to sniff him. Your head tilted to the side as you marveled at him. You couldn’t say you weren’t curious. For someone who basically lit you on fire with his stare back at the field he sure seemed like he wanted nothing to do with you. Was he shy? You didn’t feel like that was the case since he seemed to be arrogant as all hell. Maybe he’s just more awkward with people.

He shifted his attention back over at you and your eyes met briefly again before he quickly looked away. The second you saw him in the field you noticed the mako swirling around his eyes. A soldier. An ex Shinra employee. You admit you were worried for a moment when you saw him. A part of you wondered what the chances were that he was in fact there for you, but that was quickly proved to be true since he made it very clear that he was an ex-soldier. You found it completely bizarre that you felt so comfortable around him despite having any connection to that Gaia forsaken company.

“Cute. Isn’t he?” Aerith had whispered as she leaned into her space. You couldn’t help but laugh a little at her. You noticed that too. Blonde locks that closely resembled your beloved chocobos, round neutral eyes as blue as the ocean that look luminescent with the mako enhancing them. Perfect bow-like lips despite being pulled into a frown, and let’s not forget his sleek frame with muscles as hard as steel. Oh no, you were completely aware of how attractive he is.

“I suppose he’s nice to look at.” Both women shared a look before they broke out into a laugh. A smile pulled across your lips. “What do you say, Piko? Could be fun.” You asked without your eyes moving from the broody blonde across the field. Piko squawked happily at the prospect of a journey. You never could get him to be content in a pasture. “Some training is in order then. Let’s go see the birds.”

*~*

“You have to relax. Chocobo’s pick up on that stuff. If you’re uncomfortable they won’t trust that you’ll safely guide them.” Your voice called out to him from you place on the wooden fence as you observed him pull the reigns a little to firmly causing Piko to drift off to the side for the umpteenth time.

How could he relax when you won’t stop watching him? Cloud thought he was a decent rider. At least nobody told him otherwise in Midgar. He sighed heavily as you stood from your place and walked back over to the two of them, the sound of the stiff grass crunching under your boots with every step closer. His hands grew clammy as you stepped into his two feet personal space to smooth down some of the bird’s feathers. He tried his hardest not flinch when you wrapped your hands around his own to unclench his fist against the reigns. 

“Relax.” You soothed as a waft of vanilla was carried from your body on the wind making his pulse quicken. “You’re pulling to hard.” You let go and approached Piko’s head. Cloud wanted to smack himself when he caught himself missing the warmth of your hands. “What do you think, Piko? Can you work with him?” You brought your face in near Piko’s beak like you were listening for his answer before humming in satisfaction. “I think so too.”

Cloud cocked his head slightly to the side. “Do you understand him?” He felt a little silly asking since it was a chocobo, but you seemed so sure. You peered up at him through your lashes. He gripped the reins in his hands again against your instruction and looked away as he waited for your answer.

“In a way. Their body language is always a clear way to see how they’re feeling, but I look into their eyes. Some things don’t need to be conveyed by words. At least not for me.” He side eyed you as you patted the side of Piko’s face before stepping a few paces back giving him room to breathe again. He attention instinctively returning back to you. “I think you and Piko have more in common than just appearance.”

Cloud blinked once then twice thinking over your words. He looked like a chocobo? His friends certainly liked to think so, but he was always irritated at the comparison before. Why did he almost like that you thought so. For a lack of a coherent response he huffed and looked straight ahead.

“For example. You’ve ridden before and should have no difficulty getting around by chocobo, but like Piko here, when unsure you can become hostile. Temperamental on the surface, but a heart of gold within.” You side as one of your hands clenched into your shirt at your heart. 

“You don’t even know me.” The words slipped out before he could shove them back into his head. His tone coming off angry even though he felt more flustered than anything. Like Odin could he at least try to process the new whirlwind of feelings. He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.

“That’s true,” You stepped closer once again and raised yourself onto your tiptoes to get close to his face. His eyes widened in surprise and his breath hitched in his throat, but he didn’t dare move a muscle. “But, I can see it in your eyes.” You moved away as quickly as you’d approached him only this time you didn’t stop to perch on top of the wooden fence. This time you kept going. He could only watch as your braid swayed from side to side before you escaped his view when you reentered the barn. Even though he could no longer see you, he could still hear your words repeating in his head.

*~*