#but not like Dannie at least my blood and brain are not boiling | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

anthropwashere · 4 years ago

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deadfic: Get Out, Get Gone

Yet more deadfic for @goodintentionswipfest! And also another giftfic I never finished, because that’s just who I am as a person! \o/

@ghostfiish did this truly excellent art of Danny’s transformation rings as a galaxy way back when that I promptly lost my whole entire shit over, and also took it as an opportunity to get some kind of manic with the writing style. That, combined with my sort-of accidental, sort-of intentional smashing yet more rad headcanons into it until the whole thing collapsed under its own weight. Still, I remain very fond of this one and what I was trying to do back in 2014, so here we are. 8.7k’s nothing to sneeze at, at least.

Oh, and! While we're at it, have an old Danny playlist I never got around to sharing that fits the mood this fic is going for. Title comes from To Kill a King's "Bloody Shirt (Bastille Remix)," which is unfortunately not included on the Spotify playlist.

There’s a weight to you now that wasn’t there before. You’d think with your powers—

(and doesn’t it feel strange to call them that, when you shake and shiver at the sight of your bones under your meat, when you walk down the stairs and your feet don’t touch anything at all)

—you’d weigh less, be less. A thing of smoke, and ectoplasm, and all that awful electricity arcing through your nerves. But that's not what happened.

You remember that day with a surreal nightmare quality, memories fuzzing and skittering like white noise in your skull. Pain and green light and being so, so certain that had been it. Zap! That’s all she wrote. But it wasn't, and here you are, hovering three inches off the grass and praying no one will see, that no one will know.

You aren’t less for all that’s changed, for all that’s changed in you. Tucker and Sam haven’t said anything about it, and it’s clear they don’t have a clue. Your first—

(disastrous, embarrassing)

—fight against the Lunch Lady knocked you right out. They had to carry you all the way home from school after you failed to stop her. It’s a wonder nobody stopped them, dragging your sorry carcass across town. If either of them had noticed, if either of them could have noticed, they would have told you. Or worse, they wouldn’t have managed to get you home at all.

You noticed it when you changed. Not the first time, in the shadowed, silver throat of the Portal—

(electricity cooking you from the inside out, the Portal writhing, burning, tearing itself into existence, a physical hole ripped so cleanly between realities even your parents don’t understand it and they built the damn framework, boiling ectoplasm splashing on you, over you, inside you, changing you forever)

—but after. Changing back and forth without any control, cringing behind dumpsters and hedges, tossing desperate prayers skyward that nobody had seen the light, that nobody had seen you change from kid to freak. So much of you changes when this strange, alien light stretches across you, not just your clothes and eyes and hair, no, you’re different now down to your cells, down to the very structure of your DNA. You know, you’ve checked. So much of you is different, it’s a wonder you didn’t figure it out sooner.

When you change, you’re heavier. Heavier. Not like ten pounds or something any normal kid might stress over. You become the kind of heavy that leaves brushstroke smears in asphalt, reduces sturdy brick walls to dusty rubble, punches craters through solid ground. It hurts when you fall, god does it hurt. But your bones never shatter. Your guts never liquefy. Your brain never dribbles out your ears. How? How can you possibly survive the beatings every new ghost is so eager to give you?

Ah, but there's never any time to think about it though, not really. No time for anything but a raw, thready panic and clumsily scrawled homework copied five minutes before the bell. Your chance to tell your parents came and went, and now there’s always another ghost attacking the city.

Mom and Dad are so happy now. You’ve never seen them happier than this, with the stuff of your grade school nightmares on the rampage. It’s proof they aren’t crazy, proof they haven’t wasted their whole lives on a pipe dream, proof that everybody who ever called them quacks were wrong. Good for them, you guess. Meanwhile you’re picking yourself out of the wreckage of another storefront, glass needled all down your spine, and you can’t help but marvel at the damage your body has done. Can do. Will do.

Because you’re stronger, you’re getting stronger every day. The weight in you that your Sam and Tucker don’t—

(can’t)

—notice grows more noticeable, and after a few fights you're quicker, too. And perhaps you're changing still, perhaps the accident isn't done with you yet, because one day there’s sickly green light at your fingertips, and in no time at all you can manipulate the energy buzzing inside you—

(the electricity and hot ectoplasm from the accident screaming through you, out from your palms and striking down the things that used to scare you as a little kid, back when door knobs and faucets were out of reach of your tiny fingers and there was so much dark in your big big house, and now your hands trail light like after images from staring at the sun too long, now you can patch your hurts up by the light of your own blood, now you're learning that you don’t need to be afraid of what hides in the dark anymore)

—in ways you never thought possible. Sure, lots of what you do is learned the hard way, mid-battle against sizzling green things with teeth like hunting knives, running on instinct and adrenaline and terror all tangled up in your throat. Lots more is later, when it’s quiet and safe again, practicing things you’ve seen other ghosts do again and again and again until you can mimic it, improve it, make it yours.

But no ghost you fight has the same heaviness as you do. No improbable weight that defies the logical mass of their ectoplasm. If it’s big, it’s heavy. If it’s small, it’s light. Unexpected logic from creatures that defy logic in every other way.

There’s a lesson you learn the hard way, testing the strength of these invaders against your bruised and splitting knuckles. You learn caution. You learn restraint. If you punch them hard enough, some ghosts, the little formless ones your parents have captured once or twice now, burst like water balloons—a hard pop of searing green, an overwhelming smell-taste of citrus and hot pennies. Too much of your supernatural strength pressed into the soft hide of a monster and the end result is a glowing puddle where someone used to be.

You learn this lesson quickly. You learn that even when you’re fighting for your life, you’ve got to hold back. You defend, you protect. Death scares you too much to risk killing—

(is it killing when it’s already dead, where does a ghost go when it dies, is there something more to the Ghost Zone than what you’ve glimpsed with your own eyes or is that it, is that all, have you erased someone from reality forever, these are the questions that make your stomach hurt, that make it hard to breathe, that make it hard to fake a smile when Jazz asks if something’s wrong)

—something so much like yourself. Even if it’s got teeth like hunting knives.

You think you’re an anomaly, a freak, the only one stupid enough to walk into a Ghost Portal and zap yourself full of juice that by rights should have killed you—

(and a little part of you wonders if that isn’t just what happened, if you’re just a dead thing walking around in your body, wearing it like a meatsuit and waiting for the rot to show, but it’s been a month, it’s been months, and you eat more and you sleep less, not because you don’t need it but because there’s never any time, and you’ve grown another inch and there’s new definition to your muscles, and that all must mean you’ll be okay, that you are okay, it has to)

—until Wisconsin. Until Vlad.

He’s in the same boat as you, plus twenty years of experience and enough self-made loneliness to turn him bitter and crazy and dangerous. He wants Dad dead and Mom his, like she’s some kind of carnival prize he can win if he throws his weight around enough. Swing the mallet, hit the bell, and congratulations! The woman you haven't spoken to in twenty years who has made her own life without you is now yours to take home! Ugh.

But god, he can hit hard. Lightning, real lightning, nothing like the weak little zaps of electricity inside you, rattles at his fingertips like a living thing, furious burning strikes of pain, and he knocks you aside like he’s bored. You have a thousand questions, but he won't give you a single answer unless you concede defeat or whatever he wants, so it looks like you’ll just have to beat the answers out of him instead. Who cares if he’s got twenty years on you? He’s not out most nights pummeling wayward ghosts back into the Ghost Zone. He’s not out most days saving people from ghosts with bloodthirsty, power-hungry vendettas. What you lack for in time and experience you make up in rooftop fistfights and stolen first-aid kits.

Sure you managed to outwit him—

(barely, hardly at all, he just wanted to save face in front of Mom, if he hadn’t cared about that, if he’d just tried overshadowing Mom instead it all could have turned out so differently, and doesn’t that thought make it hard to sleep the first few nights back home)

—but you can’t stop thinking of what it had been like to fight him, of what it was like to see another person do all that you can and so much more. You remember every second of each fight, like it’s been burned across your eyelids. You replay it all every time you blink for days, for weeks. It’s easy as thought to recall the light arcing around his waist as he’d transformed. Just like yours, and yet nothing like yours. The color, sure, that had been the obvious difference. When you change it’s a white light, sharp and searing enough to leave stars in your eyes if you look at it. His transformation—

(black like cave darkness, black like a power outage, black like the vastness between stars, sucking in light like a hungry thing, like it’d swallow you whole if it had had the chance)

—had been like a punch to the gut even before he’d buried his fist in your gut. You’d known without words, known in some primitive bit of brain that still looked up at the night sky and thought magic before science, you had known. You and Vlad were made out of the same mess, but maybe, just maybe, those twenty years were stacked against him.

Trouble is, the transformation is so quick you can’t make much out but the light/non-light of yours and his, and luckily—

(unluckily?)

—he’s all the way in Wisconsin so you don’t have many opportunities for a closer look at his. You ask Sam and Tucker to take pictures and videos, change back and forth so often you almost forget which side of you is which, but the quality is never good enough to see what you know is there—

(but can’t explain, not with words, even though you try for the benefit of your friends because they’re the ones there for you when everything else has gone topsy-turvy, but you’re just a kid who leaks green when dead people hit you too hard, just a kid with bad grades and a lot of questions to evade, and what you’re trying to pinpoint frame by frame is something so beyond your vocabulary you can only shrug, can only say you want to know more about your powers and hope this is one of those white lies nobody catches you in the act of)

—so you stop.

Do you give up? No, but there are more important things to focus on. It isn’t shelving your questions so much as putting them on the backburner. There are ghosts to deal with. Ghosts that want to hurt you, ghosts that want to hurt humans, more and more ghosts with strange and terrifying abilities pouring out from the Portal all the time. Closing the Portal doesn’t slow them any, which doesn’t make any sense to you. Then again, Dad was up to his elbows in most of the Portal’s guts and wiring, so applying logic to any inch of it is pretty pointless. You’ve learned not to ask too many questions about anything with a Fenton sticker slapped on it.

You’re busy now, busy all the time, bruised and burned and even stitched up all the time. Super strength is only so good when you’re fighting things with teeth like hunting knives. But it’s whatever, it’s no big deal, really. Because you’re keeping people safe. You’re learning more about the Ghost Zone and the things that inhabit it. You’re learning more about yourself; your powers, your weaknesses, how quick you can be with a snarky quip. Yeah, your parents are aiming guns and questions at you. Yeah, teachers with red pens and detention slips are hounding after you. And yeah, you’re fourteen years old bare-knuckle fighting monsters and no one ever says thanks because they think you’re just like every other ghost out there or maybe that you’re some human-loving freak—

(and when you think of your life like this, in lists of who wants answers and who wants to see you bleed, it sounds so bad, it sounds like you should be one inch away from a complete breakdown, but is it weird to say you’re happy, is it weird to say you couldn’t imagine your life any other way)

—yet you grin through a mouthful of red-and-green and keep going. Elated? Maybe, sometimes. Scared? Absolutely, sometimes. You’re just a kid with eyes that flare like headlights when somebody’s pissed you off.

It’s only right to be scared, sometimes.

Still, it’s the weight of you that keeps you grounded, keeps you human when you need to be. Sit in a chair, walk across a bridge, it all makes the same creak under you as it would for Sam and Tucker. But take one of Skulker’s shoulder rockets to the face, you leave a crater in Central Park so big they decide to just turn it into another duck pond. A permanent new addition to the park, and all your face gets is a nasty bruise Dash takes the credit for. You let him, because Lancer overhears. Dash is the one getting detention for once, and there’s a nasty satisfaction to be found there.

You and Jazz share a bathroom, and she’s got a scale she keeps in the towel cupboard. Curious, you take it out one day after school and try to weigh yourself. Last time you checked, you were somewhere near 120, puberty stretching you faster than your appetite can keep up. This time, the numbers whirl past 280 pounds before the scale makes a metallic groan and crumples like tissue paper under your sneakers. Sheer reflex launches you into the air, and you bounce off the ceiling with your knees hugged so tight to your chest you can hear tendons creak, your heart a thundering jackhammer in your chest. Thank god you’re home alone, because you hover there for who-knows how long, too scared the floor will crack under your illogical, impossible weight, too scared you’ll plummet straight down to the hard steel of the lab if you try to stand, too scared you might plummet even further.

When you finally do scrounge up the courage to touch down, an air bubble in the old linoleum crackles under your heel and you damn near jump out of your skin. After that, all you can do is laugh and laugh until your sides hurt. You throw Jazz’s scale out in a dumpster a block away and never tell her what happened to it.

What does this mean? Is the weight of you optional? If you think about it too hard, does it become real? What about when you’re fighting, causing all that property damage the city hates you for? You’re not thinking of the strangeness of your mass during a brawl, you’re thinking in terms of survivability. Punch this hard to win, get punched this hard to lose. What about when you’re thinking about it at school? Why don’t you break your desk, or the floor, or the stairs?

You don’t know. Your parents might be able to figure it out if you told them, but you don’t. Knowing about you, about what you really are—

(a freak, a monster, an accident, an anomaly bleeding out energy with every burst of green light you bury into the spiny hides of other monsters, who knows how long until your white rings burn black, if one day you’ll look in the mirror and be no different than Vlad, not because you didn’t try your hardest but because there was never any biological choice, what kind of choice can a species of two even make)

—would just scare them. It’s easier, keeping them in the dark, even if it means they’re trying to hunt you down and take you apart molecule by molecule any time you’ve got white hair.

But it’s not just flying and invisibility and energy you can summon with a thought—

(ray or bolt or fire, you don’t know what to call your power, you never really did pay attention when your parents got going even before you had to worry about all their blinking tech going nuts around you, but sometimes your green light is cool and wispy and other times it's hot and sizzling, sometimes you know which one will bloom between your fingers and sometimes it’s a surprise, sometimes it’s almost like your body knows what to do in a fight better than you, sometimes it’s easier to stop thinking and just let it happen, to just be the freak that you are, to burn white-hot and damn the consequences)

—you have to worry about. You’re stronger every day, stranger everyday too. You feel a little bit more at ease as a ghost as time goes on. It stops being a strain and starts being an ease, even a comfort, and some days you dread the thought of going to school because a ghost might not attack and you’ll be stuck as a human all day.

That kind of thinking should worry you, probably.

But so what? You could sneak into your parents’ lab in the middle of the night and try more tests, more experiments, but really, what would that do? You’re a freak, plain and simple. You and Vlad poked your noses in places you shouldn’t have and paid the price, and that’s that.

Eventually you get sick of worrying and just let it be. You’re a freak who can walk through walls, disappear, and fly. You’re the freak protecting a town full of people who pretty much hate you. Really, what can you do? The same old same old, that’s what. Try and get a little more sleep outside the classroom, maybe. As for the townsfolk? Well, you can’t always avoid the property damages, but you can at least save a few lives along the way.

People even start to say thank you, even if it’s from a distance, even if they think you're some crazed vigilante ghost, and doesn’t that make this whole superhero thing worth it?

But then of course something has to come along and ruin even that much, ruin this budding chance at gratitude, at finally feeling like a real life superhero. And it isn’t a ghost this time. It’s a human. You hadn't ever considered humans to be dangerous the way a ghost can be.

Freakshow happens, and all that hard work is undone in just a few short days. Days you can’t remember with any clarity, just blurs of color and noise, your hands full of stolen money and no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t let go, you couldn’t stop. Attacking the cops when they pursued, terrorizing any humans that got too close, puppeted by that grinning, painted maniac who treated you and the other ghosts like animals, like slaves—

(minions, he’d called you all, and he didn’t even bother to learn your name before he sunk his fingers into your brain, and you never did find out who any of those other ghosts were, what their names were or who they had been before that crystal ball had pulled them under, and they were gone before there was a chance to even ask)

—and tanked Invis-o-Bill’s reputation to a whole new low. Trashing nearly every car the Amity Park Police Department has and robbing the city blind at the behest of a psychotic ringmaster would have done that even if you’d been considered the hero you try so hard to be. Oh well. At least nobody was hurt in all that, unless you bothered counting Mr. Lancer getting left in the custodial closet for a weekend. You mostly don’t feel guilty about that. Mostly.

Sam says you ought to count yourself too, but you try not to think about any of what happened—

(all that time spent exhausted and hungry, he never let you rest, not once, because ghosts don’t need sleep, ghosts don’t get tired, ghosts don’t need friends, but it’s over, it’s all over now, you don’t have to hear yourself laugh as the little humans scream below, you’ll never have to watch Sam fall and wonder if your body will listen to you in time, you’re yourself again, you’re in control again, everything’s alright, you’re alright, you’re safe, you’re home, you’re yourself again)

—and try to pass yourself off as fine afterwards instead, just confused, just tired, just sorry for everything that’s happened.

For weeks after the police shoved Freakshow into the back of a car, your dreams are red. Not with blood, thank god for that. No, it’s like a filter. A stain. Strawberry candy red, saturated fire engine red, the color Sam said your eyes were when you were under his control. It doesn’t matter if you’re having nightmares—

(more common than you’d like, but you’ve never been one to shout after a bad dream and you don’t intend to start now)

—or regular old brain dump dreams. It doesn’t matter if you’re dreaming of broken bones and monsters or forgetting to study for a test; it’s all filtered through that darkroom shade of red.

What does it mean? You don’t know. You don’t bring it up to Sam or Tucker. They’d just worry, and they worry about you enough as it is. Besides, you’re fine. The Circus Gothica billboard is up for two weeks after Freakshow’s arrest, and it doesn’t do anything to you, not like before. You don’t lose time, you don’t say anything creepy. Your eyes stay blue or green, depending on whether or not there’s a ghost in need of wrangling nearby.

It’s just a weird, harmless after effect, that’s your best conclusion. Then you do your best to stop thinking about it. Who you were under Freakshow’s control wasn’t you. It wasn’t. You tell yourself that until you almost believe it. Eventually, you dreams return to their factory settings. Huzzah.

Meanwhile everywhere you go, people badmouth Invis-o-Bill like they’re getting paid to do it. They call him—

(you)

—thief and monster and dangerous, they call him—

(you)

—a menace and a bad influence on the children. A liar. Traitor. Conspiring with other ghosts to earn the trust of humans to terrorize Amity Park all the better. Kids at school spread awful stories about Invis-o-Bill, say he—

(you)

—was probably the ghost of a troubled teen who got in too deep with bad people and paid the price, and now he—

(you)

—spends his afterlife seeking revenge on humans and ghosts alike. They say a lot of bad things about you, for a while. You try not to pay much attention. You’re getting pretty good at that.

After Freakshow, there’s a lull. That doesn’t mean ghosts don’t stop attacking or causing havoc, it just means that, for a handful of weeks, it’s just the little ones. Hungry animals and disoriented blobs and the Box Ghost. Easy stuff. You actually have time to unwind, time to let the tension bleed from your bones, time to catch up on all your late homework and even squeak your grades up to passable. It’s nice. You’d almost call it relaxing.

Of course, the lulls never last. You know this, you’ve learned this, they made you understand this from your very first—

(disastrous, embarrassing)

—fight with the Lunch Lady. You have one fight with Sam the wrong ghost overhears, and everything that’s happened is wished away. You are wished away. For a couple of days, you never walked into your parents’ ghost portal. You were never torn apart and melted back together by heat and light and pain. You were never Phantom at all. Worse still, you have no memory of your erased past, not so much as the slightest disquiet to niggle in the back of your brain when Sam walks up to your locker and starts going on about imaginary monsters like they're real.

Sam Manson—

(a stranger, a total stranger, just a bottle-black pretty girl you stare at because you’re fourteen and desperate for a connection you’ve never had and don’t understand, she’s nobody else, she’s nothing else to you but a chance at your first kiss and later you will hate yourself for thinking of her like that, not as a girl because of course she is that, but as a prize you might earn, and who cared if she was crazy because she just might have kissed you for some unfathomable reason, and Sam is so much more than the sum of her body, Sam is worth so much more than that, Sam is worth so much)

—is the vehement Goth girl who's in half your classes and is [unfinished]

In those stumbling, halting days of dismissal followed by doubt followed by a desperate curiosity to believe that there might be more to life than growing up and settling for less, that movies haven’t lied and there really is something beyond the disappointment growing up has been for you so far. Sam’s purple mouth is a thin, grim line of—

(worry, guilt, fear, shame, envy, panic, uncertainty)

—complicated emotions you can’t parse as you zip up the jumpsuit your parents got you for your birthday. You’ve never worn it before, the fabric stiff and reluctant to bend at your joints. You don’t know how they’re comfortable wearing theirs all the time [unfinished]

Sometimes after a fight wears you out, leaves you bruised and smeared with shining green, you don’t fight the transformation. Not because you can’t, but because it feels good to have that fake pulse vanish, to hear real blood pounding in your ears. The weight of you shifts too, and even though you’re so much weaker when you’re human, it’s easier to sink your fingers into the dirt, to haul your meat out of the mess your ghost left behind, easier to duck out of sight before the news vans and curious bystanders get too close. Nobody ever sees you. Nobody ever puts your bruises and Band-Aids and the trashed Dunkin’ Donuts together. It helps that nobody’s ever heard of a half-ghost, that Vlad was cunning enough to hide his powers. Everybody’s heard of the Wisconsin Ghost, but Wisconsin is a big damn state and unlike you, Vlad and Plasmius hardly look like the same man.

Everybody at school just thinks you’re the football team’s personal punching bag, which is definitely true. Thing is, after spending a couple months fighting ghosts, a gut-punch from a junior is kind of a joke. You’re getting ganged up by a bunch of guys in letter jackets behind the auto shop and you have to mime pain to get them to leave you alone.

Is this real life? Yup, and it’s hilarious.

Time passes, as it does. You get stronger, faster, heavier. You hone your powers. You stop losing control, mostly. New ghosts terrorize the streets. Old ghosts do too, they’re just smarter about it. They all know who you are by now. Hell, a whole other plane of reality knows your name by this point, knows who Danny Fenton really is. Funny though, none of them ever spill the beans to any humans. What better way to take down the one person standing in their way of world domination or an army of hypnotized teens or whatever they’re trying to score than to oust his secret identity?

You don’t ask. Maybe they haven’t caught on that humans have no idea you’re trying to keep a secret. Maybe there’s some kind of code among ghosts; don’t spill a guy’s weakness, even if you hate his ectoplasm. Maybe especially if you hate his ectoplasm?

You’ve had a couple more run-ins with Vlad too. Each time he changes, transforms, you breath hitches, because you can almost see it. Whatever makes up the both of you, piecing the mystery together through the differences—

(light and dark and it’s cliché as anything, it’s so transparently Star Wars, but maybe there’s something to clichés, because you might be the one wearing mostly black but he’s the one with a sucking core, a void, something more horrific for its absence, like he used to be full of stark white light too but it’s all been burned up and whatever’s left is just playing through the motions, pretending at being something else, who knows what it means but you know that it scares the hell out of you)

—between you and him. He goes on and on about how you’re more like him every day, but he’s wrong. He’s so wrong. You’ll never be like him, and it isn’t just a matter of morals.

What you are, down to the complex disaster of your DNA, is different than what makes up Vlad, and you don’t need to slide a piece of him under a microscope to see that. You thought differently once, but now you know better. A glance is all you need. What you are and what he is, has become—

(powerful yes, but ugly and hating and cruel, the rings that flash at his waist are just shadows reflecting light, trying to hide a black mouth brimming with hungry teeth)

—well, you might as well be different species.

Vlad’s crazy and Vlad’s a jerk, but he is right about one thing. There’s so much about the Ghost Zone you don’t understand, and it’s this ignorance that just might get you—

(or somebody else, and isn’t that an old favorite in the nightmares)

—killed. You don’t know if it was fate or a simple coincidence that your parents were working on the Ecto-Skeleton when Pariah Dark woke up. You’re fourteen years old and you can shoot lasers out of your fingers; you don’t have the wherewithal for philosophical theology. You’re just glad they got it functioning in time to stop the King of All Ghosts from overrunning the city, even if the stupid thing nearly kills you.

You don’t fret much about the Ecto-Skeleton vanishing after you pass out. You do, however, remember Pariah’s nasty grin—

(having that much power, it’s a burden, isn’t it child)

—when you stumbled under the strain. You don’t know if he meant what the suit enabled you to do or if he meant the power in your own two hands. Either way, you remember those words, like they’re branded onto your brain, and you don’t have a choice but to hear it over and over every time you try to sleep. They rang in your head like bells in the days after you’d pushed him back into that sarcophagus, stuck in bed aching and weaker than you’ve ever felt in your life.

Because it is a burden. Everybody hates and fears you, but at the same time they happily expect you to protect them from hordes of skeletal ghosts. Sometimes you panic, so aware of how young you are, of how little comic books and video games have prepared you for a life like this, hiding bruises and spinning bold-face lies to everybody from your parents to the U.S. government. Teenagers are supposed to rebel, sure, but if you ever come clean you’d be thrown in a cell and they’d never, ever let you go. Not just because you’re a criminal—

(and you are, thanks to Freakshow and thanks to dozens of ghosts, and you’ve left an imprint of your tiny, impossibly heavy body all over the city, and you’ve done your best to protect everybody but you leave rubble and shrapnel wherever you go, ambulance sirens wail through the streets every day, and everybody’s just as scared as you are, just as fascinated as you are, and yet so many students and teachers have left Casper High, so many faces you used to see everyday in the hallways have vanished, so many business and restaurants and homes sit empty, gathering dust and graffiti, and it’s your fault, if you hadn’t walked into the Ghost Portal none of this would be happening, none of this would ever have happened at all, and you’re too much of a coward to show your face, to tell anyone but your best friends what kind of a monster you really are)

—but because you can phase through solid objects, you’re considered a monster with less rights than a dog.

Sometimes you wish Sam wasn’t a budding ghost-rights activist. You’d probably have an easier time studying if she didn’t rattle off all these statistics and news articles, stories of government agents in white suits quarantining whole city blocks to purge the ghosts inhabiting them, of ghost attacks stopping all at once in little towns after strange men with guns and knives and felonies like grave robbing and murder slunk through in the night. Ghosts are dangerous, there’s no questioning that. But so are bears. So are people. Just because something is dangerous doesn’t mean it should be destroyed.

Maybe that’s why the ghosts have never spilled your secret. You’ve never tried to kill them. You just want them to leave Amity Park alone. Who knows for sure though? You don’t have the guts to risk asking any of them.

Still, this whole mess is worth it. It is. You can fly, for god’s sake. If you’re careful you could juggle minivans, mimic all your favorite action movies and outdo even the craziest Hollywood stunts. What kid hasn’t dreamed of doing any of that? But you’re not being selfish. You’re not. It’s like Dad says; you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Progress is a disaster when you’re living it, when it isn’t past tense, when it isn’t all tidied up in a few short paragraphs in a high school history book. What’s happening now is worth it, for the future.

If you ever do tell Mom and Dad—

(you’re not afraid of what they’ll think, you’ve never worried about that, not really, they’re your parents before they’re scientists, and any experiment or test would be to ensure your safety and your health, because that’s what parents do, that’s what good people do, and they’re the best people you’ve ever known)

—you know they’d be able to break down your powers into reams of clinical data in no time. They’d figure out how you survived the accident, how your abilities generate and develop in power, maybe even pinpoint the how of your strange, mutable weight. They’d tell you what that light is, when you change, that light that reminds you so strongly of the stars. After all, just because they’re too oblivious to realize their son is the infamous Ghost Kid doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. They aren’t known as the leading scientists, engineers and weapon smiths in the paranatural fields for nothing. Mom’s practically got more letters after her name than there are in the alphabet, and while Dad may only have a fraction of that he thinks like nobody else out there. Most Fenton tech are his designs, wild and absurd and covered with stickers of his beaming face, and Mom’s the one who works out the bugs with fond exasperation.

Still, they have to get their knowledge from somewhere, and you’ve seen what they do down in the lab to the formless, red-eyed ghosts, the ones too weak to do much more than snarl wetly. Sometimes they snare something bigger and stronger, something fond of curling prickly tendrils around the nearest human and squeezing. More often than not it’s Dad that’s the unlucky one, always so eager to parse the secrets hidden in each fanged little beastie they’ve fished out of the Ghost Zone. He’s got nearly as many as bruises as you do, some weeks, but he’s never happier than when he’s holding a bag of frozen peas to his head.

After a good wrestle with something that wailed and whistled like a boiling kettle, Dad’ll limp up to the kitchen and settle heavily into a chair, grinning and running his mouth nonstop, talking about how much progress they’ve made today—

(wait ‘til the boys over at the GIW hear about that one, he’ll say with a bray of laughter, makes the piddly little Class Threes look darn near cuddly, didn’t it Mads, why Danny you should’ve seen the fangs on this fella, nearly bit through the exam table in one bite, y’oughta come down to the lab more often, Danny, seeing these spooks up close and personal’d be a great way to help you get over that silly fear of ‘em, and there you are, smiling meekly and holding up your hands and making up any excuse you can think of off the top of your head to keep you out of the lab when your parents have all their equipment up and humming, just in case, aw Dad I dunno, I’ve got this essay due, not today Dad I’ve got like six pages of algebra I haven’t even started yet, sorry Dad I’m sleeping over at Tucker’s tonight and his mom insisted I come early for dinner)

—and every time, Mom will smile indulgently, like she’s falling in love with Dad all over again. She’ll push him back into the seat and tell him to quit fidgeting so she can clean up the nasty cut behind his ear, and every time you smile behind your hand and think, how could Vlad ever hope to break your parents up? They only thing they might love more than each other would be you and Jazz and ghosts, and you’re all so much of their lives they can’t help but love you all completely. How they love each other and their kids and the ghosts they’ve studied all their lives, well, that’s like saying they love breathing. They love each other because without each other, they wouldn’t be themselves. It’s sappy as hell and like any kid you hate seeing your parents get all lovey-dovey, but you can’t help that secret smile as you walk out of the kitchen to give them a little privacy.

Seeing Mom and Dad so hard at work, so happy at work, is why you don’t tell them. They think you’re slacking off, they think you’re getting bullied, and they’re worried about you sure, but better they think their son’s lazy than a freak. If they knew what you did, what you could do, if they knew you were the one facing up against ghosts that made the ones they picked apart in their lab look like kittens, if they knew you’d heard all the awful things they want to do to Phantom once they finally nab him—

(you know they wouldn’t say it if they knew you and him were one and the same, you know you know you know, but sometimes you can’t help but be hurt anyway, to see all that fierce dedication focused on seeing whether or not Danny Phantom has bones, and if he does, how much pressure could they withstand before breaking)

—they wouldn’t know what to do or say or think. They’d be so eaten up with guilt, why hadn’t they known, why hadn’t they realized, what if they’d finally gotten a lucky shot in, what if one of all those cruel ghosts had gotten a luck shot in, what if what if what if—

(and you’ve pictured it a hundred times, it’s so easy to imagine the looks on their faces, the horror the shame the fear, and you know they’d love you all the same, you know this like you know the distance between the Sun and every planet, even little Pluto they just declared wasn’t a planet at all, but you’re young and selfish and definitely some kind of stupid because sometimes you can’t help but feel they’d shun you for the freak you are, turn you over to the GIW because they couldn’t bear to look on the thing their son’s become, and you know that couldn’t ever ever ever happen but still, it’s so easy to imagine)

—and you couldn’t do that to them. You won’t do that to them, no matter how many times Sam or Tucker try to convince you otherwise. How it is now, secrets and lies and detention slips and broken curfews, can’t last forever. You know that. But until then, it’ll have to do, and you’ll have to parse all your growing weirdness without all of Mom and Dad’s knowledge or experience, fingers crossed that their ticking and glowing machines won’t reveal your secret before you’re ready to do it yourself.

But you’re turning out stranger in ways you can’t even recognize, and for all that Sam and Tucker are by your side to help you as you change and burn brighter and hotter and faster and heavier, they don’t see it either. Jazz is the one who points it out, one day not long after the Spectra… thing, all out of the blue. She’s been noticing lots of things lately, and acting so strange, like she might have pieced it together. But she can’t have, of course not, you’re so careful, you are always so careful. Jazz is just clever, Jazz got all the brains and you got the leftovers. Everybody knows that. Even you know that.

She comes into the kitchen one morning with a curious little spin to her step, craning her head around and around like she’s running late for school and can’t find her keys, but it’s a Saturday. You’re there by the fridge, cobbling together something that might resemble an edible breakfast, moving slow because you’ve got a bruise all down your right side that makes it hurt to do more than breathe shallowly or raise your arm more than a couple inches. You sniff the milk and instantly regret this decision, and while you’re pouring the lumpy mess down the sink Jazz asks if the kitchen’s always been on the second floor.

You stare at her, too tired and baffled to give her the proper what the hell a question like that deserves, but she drags you over to the kitchen door and pushes it open, and since when has there been a door to the kitchen and oh my god the kitchen is on the second floor.

She gapes at you and you gape right back, and the rest of that morning is spent going over every inch of the house and seeing what else has changed compared to your shared memories.

Everything has, in some way or another. Doorknobs have shifted, cupboards have lowered, doors moved from one part of a room to another. Even chairs have changed their heights. There’s a whole new door neither of you can remember ever existing before connecting the upstairs bathroom directly to your room. Thinking back—

(staggering through your open window, mouth thick with the hot penny burn of ectoplasm and blood, your right hand pressed against the throb all down your side, and aren’t you grateful for your weight, your sturdiness, because before you finally peeled the faceguard off of Skulker’s exoskeleton and sucked that little jerk into a Thermos he got a good shot in with a rocket that hit you hard right in the ribs, and if you’d been normal there would have just been a dark wet hole where your torso used to be but lucky you, you’re every inch the creepy little freak Spectra called you, so you get to limp home and clean up as best you can on your own since it’s four in the morning and no way are you gonna wake Sam or Tucker up again, and you have to be quiet, you have to be so quiet, biting down pain, you can’t make a sound or Jazz might hear, grabbing the first-aid kid from your underwear drawer and slipping into the bathroom, and for once the hinges didn’t squeak, thank god, you think, thank god)

—you hadn’t even noticed last night or even this morning that a door had sprung up where there’d just been NASA and Nat Geo posters before. And your windows have moved, and your bed has moved, and you and Jazz just stare and stare. Why had neither of you noticed any of this until now? Why haven’t your parents? How long has this been going on?

What could cause something like this?

It takes half an hour to convince your mom that something’s off about the house, and even longer to get your dad to grasp what you both are trying to say. Their eyes just keep glazing over the differences, even something as huge as the kitchen being on the wrong floor. Once they finally do see though, it’s a whole other story. After the initial shock, they drop all their experiments and spend the next week measuring and scanning every inch of the house.

Their conclusion, a week and some change later? The Ghost Portal leaks.

Even with the huge steel door locked up tight, it seems there’s enough residual energy slipping through to warp, literally warp, the house. Somehow. The way your mom’s lips thin as she says all this means she’s not satisfied with this conclusion, but she puts on a wide smile when Jazz asks if you’re all in any danger. A smart question, one you think you might’ve asked yourself. Y’know, if you still needed to worry about something like exposure. Your dad just laughs big and loud and says not to worry about it, says if there were going to be any creepy side effects they would have manifested by now. Everything’s fine, they assure you both, but you look at the crease between your mom’s eyebrows and you wonder.

Later, when they’re out taking readings from the ectoplasm-damp wreck you and the Lunch Lady made of a McDonald’s and Jazz is studying at the library, you creep down to the lab and pull up all their documentation of the house. Most of it is dry as dirt; neatly typed spreadsheets and tidy, color-coded graphs (clearly your mom’s handiwork), but there’s also nearly a gigabyte’s worth of photos. Clicking through them, you can see Dad’s sloppy angles and the occasional square pinkie slipping into the frame. Most of the first hundred photos have been untouched, but the two hundreds have been filtered all to hell, like Mom and Dad went through the house a second time, trying to find something the human eye can’t see. Just shy of 300, the photos turn a dusty black and white, splattered in places with an all-too-familiar starkly glowing green.

No. Not splattered. A few spins of the scroll wheel zooms in on a crooked picture of the kitchen. There’s green all over everything; the fridge, the microwave, the drawers and cupboards, cluttered thickly at the kitchen table. These aren’t splatters. They’re handprints, slapped in layers and layers over themselves, like somebody dipped their hands in neon paint and went to town.

Every photo taken in that black and white filter shows the same thing. Handprints on doorknobs and railings, footprints on tile and carpet, green smeared and stamped everywhere, tracking the movements of something—

(somebody)

—for what must be as long as the Portal’s been active.

Why didn’t Mom and Dad say anything about this? Why haven’t you sensed it? There’s a ghost, an entity, some thing lurking around your house like it has every right to be there! Green gathered on the couch, on every table and sink, even the upstairs shower and your room and—

(the pictures of jazz’s room are nearly clean, the pictures of Mom and Dad’s room are spotless, but your room is practically bathed in green from floor to ceiling, your bed and desk nearly washed out by a poisonous haze, and no wonder Mom had looked so worried and no wonder Dad had laughed so loud, they know something’s wrong with you, they’ve always known you were messed up thanks to the accident but now here’s irrefutable proof, how can you lie your way out of photographic evidence, how can they look at you and not see you for the freak you are)

—oh.

You close the files, power down the computer, and walk quietly out of the lab. That’s… that’s all you can really do. Sooner or later your parents will knock gently on your door and ask you to come downstairs. Just a few tests, they’ll say. It’s for your own good, they’ll say. We’re worried about you, they’ll say.

But they’ll find out. They’ll find out what you are, and it’ll go one of two ways. They’ll either accept you as the freak you are, or hate you for the freak you are. Either way, there will be no more hiding. It’s… it’s almost a relief, to know the other shoe is finally going to drop.

Except it never does.

You wait, quietly, patiently, expectantly. They don’t treat you any different. They never say a word. When they call you down to the lab, it’s just to show off the latest in Fenton ghost hunting technology. Why? Why don’t they ask? Why don’t they administer tests, if not on you than on the house and the Portal? Why does nothing change?

They’re wrong on nearly every count, sure, but you’ve got hurts aplenty to hide. Sam and Tucker have seen the lightning splashed across your skin dozens of times by now, and when they hear the A-listers spreading this bad joke of a ghost story and see you laugh, they laugh too. There wasn’t much chance of hiding it for long from them, after all, when it’s so much easier to patch up the nastier cuts when you’re bleeding sluggish ectoplasm instead of blood pumped by a heart full of adrenaline.

The first time Sam had insisted on unzipping your suit to get a good look at the slash on one shoulder, Tucker cracking a half-hearted attempt at a dirty joke with hands shaking so bad the first aid kit rattled like a live thing, they’d both stopped cold. For ten long seconds, they just stared, pinning you down with matching expressions of horror. It was the longest ten seconds of your life. You’d been scared before, of being found out for the freak you are, of being overwhelmed by powerful ghosts, but this, you’re pretty sure, was the first time you were ever terrified.

But then Sam hugged you, and Tucker had smiled and squeezed your good shoulder, and that had been enough. There wasn’t anything to worry about after all.

They understand now why you gasp when your ghost sense goes off—

(shock like plunging feet first into a frozen lake, shock like drowning with a chest full of dead air, shock like electricity buzzing hot and cold and terrible through your nerves, leaving you breathless and tingling, your fists clenched so tight your knuckles burn white, teeth clenched and grinding as you dart for the nearest lonely corner to gather up your heaviness and summon the starlight in your heart)

—and they know why it took you so long to realize you don’t have a heartbeat when you’re a ghost. The first few times you changed, you’d felt it, felt it like a rush of blood flow to a sleeping limb, but it took weeks to put it together. To realize the stinging, cool pulse radiating from your hand to your chest wasn’t your heart but something else altogether. All that star-bright scar tissue pulses. Involuntary, but without any reaction to how much energy you exert. A constant, steady [unfinished]

Breathing is optional too, when you’re a ghost. You’d found that one out the hard way, choking on mud in that stupid duck pond and tangled in one of Skulker’s nets.

#danny phantom #my writing #deadfic #past me did present me dirty with all these FUCKING italics #you can take my 'danny's got serious anxiety' headcanon from my cold dead hands

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utterlyhopeful-fics · 4 years ago

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Love on the Line - Part 2

I hope y’all are ready for the heartache because this chapter absolutely destroyed me. Please read the warnings because this chapter does deal with quite a few heavy issues along with ripping your heart to shreds. Let me know if you’d be interested in another part? Thank you all for the read! Part 1 HERE

Masterlist

Henry Cavill x Reader

Word Count: 2360

Warnings: heartbreak, break-up, language, mention of self harm, pure unadulterated angst

******************

Today was a day where she just wanted solace though the impending doom of forethought clouded her every sense. She wanted to blink and will the world around her to magically disappear enjoying her descent into darkness. Y/N sought to feel anything at all but alas she felt wholly empty. It was slowly but surely killing her, picking her apart piece by fucking piece. She hadn’t had the chance to speak with him, hear his once soothing voice on the other end of the phone. Just nonchalant texts messages brimmed with no meaningful purpose. But is that what she wanted the entire time? Possibly so.

That’s what made her friends poke into her business, snoop until they found an answer worthy of their liking. Y/N knew how to play their games and say whatever it took to make them stop their line of questioning. It was her equivalent of mourning the future she mapped out. Her phone chimed alerting Y/N of its annoying presence. ‘Catching a connecting flight out of LAX to meet with Danny and, finally heading home baby! ETA tomorrow late afternoon.’

Great, there was no stopping his arrival now that he was officially coming home.

She had so many grand plans in her dreams, promises of a life she now questioned if she ever wanted at all. The blade felt cool against her skin, she begged for the sweet release for the air latched in her lungs to be set free, but no such luck today. Old habits die hard. Blood dribbled onto the marble sink as relief flooded her system, endorphins pumping as her vision momentarily darkened. For a second, all was calm and she relished in the fleeting feeling. Y/N finally released the breath scratching at her lungs. She was anxious and just wanted to sleep away the day while morph into her sheets.

Curiously, she didn’t remember when she became exhausted. She didn’t remember when exhausted was no longer exhausted, and it just was. The tiredness seeped in her bones and she accepted this state of being with utter apathy. Y/N frowned down at the piece of jewelry that once sparked joy, reminiscing on the night Henry proposed. Now the ring on her finger was beginning to weigh too much for her to fathom. So, Y/N did what was best and sadly slide the diamond off her ring finger and back into its elegant box.

~The Next Day~

Y/N paced their chic living room floor awaiting his and Kal’s arrival. Mentally prepping herself over the strong points to hit in their conversation trying to build her courage and morale. This would be easier if I wasn’t in love with him. Just then, she heard the sound of the garage door open and an engine decease. It was now or never. Realistically, Y/N knew she couldn’t keep a straight face for very long but at the same moment so ached for his touch, for his gentle kiss, and for one more unscathed instance. She inhaled deeply and soothed her nerves to the best of her ability. The front door opened, the pitter patter of paws hit the ground first, greeting her with overwhelming enthusiasm. Y/N kneeled to Kal’s level letting the dog lick her cheek powerless to the loyal Akita before her.

“Darling, where you are?” His voice echoed through the foyer in search of Y/N as he found her with Kal. He rushed towards her, wrapping his arms in a warm embrace and brought her close. He buried himself in the column of her neck kissing a trail of the gentle kisses and inhaled. Everything about this woman lit his insides of fire and now she was tangible, a reality he was more than happy to clasp on to. Hands finding his tamed locks, Y/N intertwined her fingers pulling him in leaving no space between their bodies. Stay strong. Stay focused Y/N.

“Is it even possible to miss one’s smell?”

“You’re home.”

Y/N stepped out of his warmth missing the fleeting scowl etched on Henry’s face.

“Can I get you anything to drink; Scotch possibly? I’m dying for a drink.”

Henry couldn’t put his finger on it but something didn’t feel right. As she reached the wet bar, he took in her appearance. She had lost weight; her bones were noticeable now. She turned his direction with glasses in hand. Her cheekbones were too pronounced, she quite frankly looked …fragile?

“Here you go, babe. Welcome home.”

His hand clasped over hers holding her stare before retrieving the glass.

The liquor deliciously burned down her throat. He refused to bite his tongue any longer; “Y/N, is something the matter?”

She ogled the bronzed liquid in her glass before clearing her throat; “Yes.” Henry’s eyebrows raised in concern reaching out to her as Y/N took a step out of reach.

He barely heard her before a whimper left her; “Please don’t touch me, Hen.”

Bewilderment override his body leaving his brain in the dust.

“Love, what’s wro—” Before he could finish, his phone beeped notifying him of an incoming message. He reached in his back pocket wanting to silence the damned thing before reading who it was from.

‘Anya: Make it home safe? I’m lying in bed alone and can’t help but think of your taste. See you soon?’

Y/N watched in disbelief at his attention pulled elsewhere. So much so that she didn’t comprehend the glass shattering onto the tile floor and blood sliding down her wrist. She clenched her fist in blinded anger reminding herself of the pain as the shard dug deeper into her flesh.

“I’m standing right in front of you. I always have and yet you refuse to even acknowledge me. I can’t even maintain your attention god forbid you put your phone down for five minutes. How do you think that feels when the one person you’re in love with can’t even give you the time of day?”

He drank in her disheveled appearance, her blotted checks streaked with tear stains, her messy hair from constantly running her fingers through, and lastly, the hurt that lay just behind her blue irises. He’d never hated himself more than in this moment. Ever so gently he leaned closer into her frame craving her closeness but she remained a step further. She ducked away in disgust swatting his hand from reaching her face. Henry attempted to cover up the shock from overtaking his chiseled features. He’d never seen her so on fire in their entirety as a couple.

“I said don’t fucking touch me. You sicken me. Is that what you wanted to hear, huh? Do you think it’s fun being invisible to the one person I thought had my back?” She refused to hold back her emotions anymore allowing the storm to overflow.

“YN... please let me...”

“What? Let you explain? What possible bullshit are you about to spew in hopes of changing my mind?”

“I love you. Don’t ever underestimate my feelings for you.”

Sighing, she inhaled a much-needed breath of air before composing herself, at least to the best of her abilities; “Henry. Stop. Please, I’m begging you. My chest feels as if it’s been pried open and my heart ripped from my body. My blood boils through my veins yet is tinged with ice. You’re breaking me into a million little pieces. You must see what you’re doing to me.”

Melancholy dripped from her voice as he silently berated himself, shaking his head in defeat. His eyes glazed over slightly in an attempt to find his own composure, to quill the manic pounding residing in his chest. If he were being honest, it had been quite some time since he last looked at Y/N. Genuinely looked at her. No facetime, no phone calls. And she was right, she was ripping at the seams. How had he not noticed? The chilled atmosphere left the pair suffocating, grasping onto their last truth of reality as quietness laid between them.

“You pride yourself on your so-called honesty. So, now’s your time! ...are the rumors true?”

Henry’s eyes immediately averted to the cement ground below wishing to buy himself another second of borrowed time. But with no such luck, he let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realize had been lodged in his lungs.

“Yes. But I didn’t sleep with her.”

YN bit her lip to keep a wail from slipping out making her insides inflate with sadness. She knew it was all too good to be true. Her stomach churned at the mere mention of her name.

She sniffled trying to look anywhere but at the handsome god displayed in front of her but to no avail met his calm blue eyes awaiting hers.

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”

Y/N’s fight was fast depleting and she wasn’t sure how long her energy would remain before perching upon empty. If she was being honest, all she wanted to do was bury her head into his warm chest willing his past mistakes away and reuniting them with their life...the life they built together. But that was no longer an option she could look forward to any longer. He made damn sure of that before returning home from filming. And worse, TMZ had the pictures to rub salt in her fresh wounds.

Her silence was killing him increasing his anxiety foolproof.

“Please Y/N say something, anything! I deserve your wrath and anger. A shout would be better than nothing.”

But to his surprise, she remained frozen unable to show what was running through her mind.

“There’s nothing left to say. You made a choice and with that said choice allowed for the entirety of our relationship to simply vanish. I deserve wholesome and unconditional love, not some half-ass attempt. It must’ve been so lonely in Budapest for you that you just had to fuck somebody else. I totally get it.” Her sarcastic tone finally freeing her most inner thoughts.

“I didn’t have sex with her! Woman, listen to the words I’m saying.”

“Don’t you dare patronize me. Look me in the fucking eyes Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill and tell me what happened.”

“A silly mistake. We had just wrapped and headed out to a local pub down the way. It had this amazing terrace and all I could think is about how much you would’ve enjoyed the view, the architecture of the city. Drinks led to shots and before I knew it, someone pushed me into a bathroom stall. I remember hearing the lock click, Anya tugging at my belt, and not having the restraint to push her away. I closed my eyes and pictured you, I swear it. God woman, I missed you. It wasn’t until I came that I realized it wasn’t you.”

“Did you ever even maybe think about how I get being hundreds of miles away from you? That maybe I was just as lonely. But guess what? I didn’t go to a bar and stick my tongue down anyone’s throat. Jesus, Henry, I’m not even sure I even crossed your mind. Do tell me though; are you apologizing because you got caught or because you feel bad?”

His question left her stunned. This wasn’t how he saw this scenario playing out in his head. Y/N glanced down at the beautiful ring residing on her delicate finger. The one she had forced herself to put on that morning. The diamond ring she once so blindly admired now felt like a ton of bricks forcing her stomach to stir with resentment.

“Filming was chaotic and I just slipped. A fucking lapse in judgement. I’m an asshole Y/N but you must know how much I regret causing you any amount of pain.

“Temptation is an impossible beast to tame. But worry no more for you are a free man now.”

“That isn’t what I want.”

She smirked at him before letting out a loud huff; “Sometimes we don’t always get what we want. In this case, we’re both losers.”

Henry shook his head in disagreement unable to process her words before she spoke again; “Perhaps, somewhere, someday, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.”

“Don’t say that my love. Please give me another chance. We can work through this; I know deep in my bones there is no one else for me in this life.”

“To what Henry? To make a fool out of me once more? To show the world your power of forgiveness?”

“Be rational Y/N. I asked you to fucking marry me for god’s sake. I want you as my wife, to be by my side!”

Her throat dried at his words of admittance. It was still her dream too. When she closed her eyes YN pictured him in a wonderfully fitted tux waiting for her but now he had trampled her trust.

“I, I want to be the last person who ever kisses you… Please, hear me out. I know that sounds weird, like some sort of death threat.” Henry continued to stumble in attempt to find the words his brain was spewing; “This is it for me, darling.”

His words sunk into her encapsulating her very presence. It was everything and more she had craved to hear. But now his pretty words were tinged with guilt and cheapness leaving a bitter taste on her tongue.

“You’re not in love with me, not really, you just love the way I made you feel. And you’ve definitely proved that others can make you feel the same just as easily. Stop playing the victim. You did a shit thing and it kinda makes you a shit person now. The sooner you accept that the easier it will be to comes to terms with your new reality. The one without me in it.”

Before Henry fully processed her words, he suddenly felt an object being placed into his right palm. Her slender fingers atop his before throwing him a pitiful frown. Slowly prying his hand open, the glimmer of the engagement ring laid desolate as blood bombarded his eardrums. After all, how often do we get a second chance?

-------

Tags: @maggiemoo1892 @thedeadhearted @giveusbackourbucky @elinalfrida @thereisa8ella @henry-cavlll @onlyhenrys @threeminutesoflife @princess-of-riviaa @omgkatinka @littlefreya

#my writing #henry cavill #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill imagine #love on the line #angst #fanfiction #henry cavill angst #henry cavill x you #henry cavill fanfiction #update #henry x reader

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twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years ago

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Written In The Stars XCIX (Harry Potter xF!Oc)

A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters but mostly bc of how well the song fits the plot of this part -Danny

Words: 3,209

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Listen to: Holding On To You -by Twenty One Pilots

Chapter Thirty-Four: In the Eye of the Storm.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! Tied in first place, with eighty-five points each — Mr. Cedric Diggory and Mr. Harry Potter, both of Hogwarts School!" The cheers and applause sent birds from the Forbidden Forest fluttering into the darkening sky. "In second place, with eighty points — Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute!" More applause. "And in third place — Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy!"

Mel looked back one last time, she watched as he waved at their friends and couldn't help but think how young he looked standing next to the other champions... Then she thought that probably she looked exactly the same, surrounded by all the teachers and the Slytherin Prefect that was at least a head taller. Mel felt completely out of place.

"So... on my whistle, Harry and Cedric!" said Bagman. "Three — two — one —"

He gave a short blast on his whistle, and Harry and Cedric hurried forward into the maze.

The towering hedges cast black shadows across the path, and, whether because they were so tall and thick or because they had been enchanted, the sound of the surrounding crowd was silenced the moment they entered the maze. Harry felt almost as though he were underwater again. He pulled out his wand, muttered, "Lumos," and heard Cedric do the same just behind him.

After about fifty yards, they reached a fork. They looked at each other.

"See you," Harry said, and he took the left one, while Cedric took the right.

Mel strolled on the edge of the maze until she heard the whistle blow a third time. Now all the champions were inside. Her breathing grew uneven and her hands started to sweat. Forty minutes into her walk Moody appeared near her place.

She quickly hid in the darkness, at first, she'd hidden out of instinct, when her brain finally realized it was dumb she attempted to move, but then it hit her: Why was he walking into the maze when no red sparks had flashed up?

Not that she was actually suspicious of Professor Moody, but... All right, maybe she was suspicious. Hadn't he always said 'constant vigilance'? Trust no one? Well, that was what she was doing. The old man reached for his watch, he had a frantic expression, not at all like his usual scowl.

"Anytime time now, my lord," He let out shakily. "Anytime now..."

Mel waited until the sound of steps had completely vanished. Maybe he'd gotten all crazy about a villain entering the maze and he was making sure that wasn't the case? It didn't felt right though, what 'Lord' was he talking to?

Someone screamed not too far from where she'd been standing. This only increased her anxiety, she walked faster around the maze, hoping to hear something. After ten minutes she saw a couple of sparks fly into the air and she ran. When she got there Professor McGonagall and Moody were examining something, she tried to look as neutral as possible, but her face soon fell as she looked down at the person that had conjured the sparks.

"What happened?" She kneeled beside Krum.

"He was stunned," Moody sneered. "Again."

"It's truly shameful if the champions have decided to start eliminating each other instead of searching for the cup," McGonagall said severely. "First Delacour, now Krum."

"What? Both of them got attacked?"

Instead of answering, Moody stepped forward and handed her Krum's wand.

"Take him back to the tent."

She looked into his normal eye and saw a type of coldness that she'd never seen before. The memory of Moody walking out of the maze was still very fresh, and an uneasy feeling was starting to spread through her chest.

"Aren't you worried someone else might be doing these things?" She demanded. Moody laughed, he openly cackled.

"Miss Dumbledore, boys will be boys, ain't that right? They must've lost their patience, anyone in their position would forget about manners..."

Cedric Diggory hexing people? Harry attacking Krum just for the win? No one that knew them could possibly think that. She was positively alarmed now.

"Professor?" She turned to McGonagall. "Could we speak for��?"

"Do as you're told," The woman interrupted. "I assure you we'll get to the bottom of this."

Mel swore under her breath and conjured a stretcher. Moody helped her put Krum's body on it before sending her off. She left, though she would've rather stay and keep on eye on Moody. When she walked into Madame Pomfrey's tent, Erick was already there with Fleur's figure lying unconscious next to him.

"Another one, huh?" Erick raised a brow. "What is happening there?"

"Someone stunned him," She frowned. "Moody says they've started to attack each other..."

"Cedric and Harry attacking people?" The boy asked sceptically. "Harry, who stayed behind to make sure all the victims were rescued from the lake? And the very same bloke that never complained about not being mentioned in the Daily Prophet?

Mel left Krum on the corner and stepped closer to Erick, lowering her voice.

"I told Moody this couldn't be right and he laughed– laughed! Said boys will be boys as if Harry's ever done such a childish thing– as if Cedric could ever act so unfairly!"

"It seems strange, especially coming from Moody..."

"I saw him leaving the maze moments before the attack. This is wrong, he's acting strange– This happened before, remember? Moody searched through the woods then, rushed out of the castle, got there in less than five minutes–"

"The castle?" Erick frowned.

"He said it himself, said he'd come down as soon as Snape told him and came down to check what was going on..."

"I was doing my strolls around the castle that night– you know, prefect duties– and Snape stopped me to tell me about some rowdy sixth-years in the other hall... Moody never got near us, I don't even think he was in the castle, I walked past his office and the staff room before that and he wasn't there."

"He's not known to hang around the school grounds, is he?"

"And he can't walk that fast, not with that leg... Why would he lie?"

"I don't know," She shook her head. "For someone who values honesty, it sure is odd, going through all the trouble searching rooms, then lie about where you... I'm an idiot."

"What?"

"Moody–" She said, sitting down. "Harry told me about Snape accusing him of stealing ingredients from the supply room the same night Harry was almost caught– Moody was already there– And the night Harry got chosen for the tournament, he told us exactly how he'd done it and we all just ignored it!"

"I'm not following," Erick crouched down to be at eye level with her. "Are you okay?"

"No, listen– Snape said boomslang skin had been stolen..."

"Polyjuice Potion?" He said blankly. "So?"

"Harry saw a Mr Crouch that night too, and Moody asked for the map so he could 'keep an eye'– but what if he was trying to avoid getting caught again?"

"You're trying to say that Moody's Mr Crouch? We saw both in the same room at least twice this year."

"I know! But Crouch wasn't acting like himself, was he? What if he was controlling him?"

"What would that mean, anyway?" Erick was losing his patience. "Say Crouch was under the Imperio curse, say Moody was there because he was controlling Crouch– Why?"

"Because that's not Alastor Moody!" Mel stood up, each realization coming one after another. "He was attacked the day we came back to school... They said there was no sign of an attack but they arrived too late, what if he wasn't Moody by then?"

"We've had an impostor the whole time?"

"Maybe Crouch found out and Moody– that man silenced him."

Erick shook his head.

"Mel–"

A sharp pain spread from her leg to the rest of her body and she screamed. Her eyes teared up to the feeling of boiling water being thrown on her forehead. She hissed and closed her eyes, pressing both hands on her temples.

When she opened them again she wasn't in the tent, all she saw was gravestones, and she– but it didn't look like her body at all– was covered in blood from head to toe. There was someone on the ground a few feet away, and in front of her, a bundle of robes were laying on the damp grass while cold, monstrous red eyes were staring directly at her from them...

A second stab of pain caused her to lose balance, when she woke up she was covered in a cold sweat and Erick was gripping her shoulders. Dumbledore was there too, somehow. Maybe she'd shrieked loud enough for him to hear.

"Mel," He kneeled in front of her. "What happened?"

He asked it in the strangest way, like he knew something was going on but not the why– perhaps he'd recognized the symptoms. Mel couldn't care less about it, she heard herself speak through the pain.

"Harry's hurt..." She winced. "Voldemort."

She fainted after that.

Her skin felt like it was burning and she couldn't stay either fully awake or fully unconscious. Mel kept coming back to hear people talking around her but behind her eyelids, she'd see flashing lights and cauldrons bubbling with fresh blood.

While in her dream, she could feel nothing but utter fright and pain. She was both, scared for her life and unaware of her surroundings. It felt like being run over by a wave, floating aimlessly.

"B-blood of the enemy... forcibly taken... you will... resurrect your foe."

A knife cut through her skin and she screeched in agony. This had to be a fever dream, all the things she was seeing were all a lie, Harry was probably okay, maybe even out of the maze by now... A new wave hit her and the air left her lungs, she couldn't move...

But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.

"Robe me," said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Wormtail, sobbing and moaning, still cradling his mutilated arm, scrambled to pick up the black robes from the ground, got to his feet, reached up, and pulled them one-handed over his master's head.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry... and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake's with slits for nostrils...

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

Back in the real world clear blue eyes were staring down at her, a large hand was on her forehead and he was talking, but she couldn't hear him over her own cries. It was torture. Dumbledore kept talking, during a moment of unnerving calmness, she was able to listen.

"What do you see?"

She gave up a bit, left her own mind wander.

"Their everywhere," She said, voice hoarse. "They're looking at us– looking at me... at him..."

"Is he there?" Dumbledore persisted. "Voldemort?"

"Am I... am I dreaming this?"

"Tell me what you see," The man ordered.

"They look like dementors," Mel choked out the words. "Wormtail's there..."

"Harry," He insisted. "Where is he?"

"I'm him," She cried. "It hurts... everything hurts..."

"He's alive?"

"I'm dying aren't I?" She whispered in fear.

Before anyone could answer, the pain came back in full force, her head felt like it would crack open at any moment.

"Mr Flint, please make sure no one enters, not even Madame Pomfrey."

"But Sir–"

"Do as I say," Dumbledore stood up and hovered above her. "Focus on my words, Mel. What you're feeling doesn't belong in your body. Those are Harry's injuries, his thoughts–"

She cried in pain, holding onto the sheets tightly.

"You can make it go away," He said, almost yelling. "You can help, give him time so he can come back– help him, Mel."

"I CAN'T MOVE!" She yelled. The waves came one after the other and Mel couldn't think properly, she just wanted to leave it be and wait for it to be over...

"Push back," Dumbledore insisted. "If you wait too long his pain will become truly yours, you'll both die."

That only made her feel hopeless, she didn't know what to do.

"Listen to my voice, focus on your reality. You are okay."

Harry was out of the ropes and with his wand in hand. She opened her eyes again and in the middle of the clarity this moment gave her, she held tightly onto the closest thing she found -Dumbledore's hand- and fought desperately to remain conscious. Her legs curled up and she grounded her feet on the mattress.

"I'm here," She panted.

The pain left her abruptly, like waking up from a very vivid dream. She was tense but completely unharmed. She could still remember the feeling, if she were to close her eyes now, it would surround her entirely again.

"Brilliant, dear girl," Dumbledore said. "Bring Harry towards you– it'll help him, it'll give him a chance."

She sat up, needing to get rid of the drowsiness completely.

"Be louder," He said. "Go back, and make him listen to you."

Mel didn't know what that meant, but she closed her fists and eyes tightly again, one last time.

Harry's mind was blank.

"Just answer no... say no... just answer no...." Said an icy voice next to her ear.

"I will not," He said, fighting back. "I won't answer..."

Just answer no...

I won't do it, I won't say it... Just answer no...

"Harry," She spoke, though she couldn't quite hear a voice.

"Mel?" Harry asked, but she didn't hear his voice either, it was more like a thought. "Are you... are you real?"

"We don't have time," She replied. "Whatever he wants... don't do it."

"I'm tired..."

"Not for long," Mel felt her fists tighten on the sheets. She was fine, uninjured.

"Follow my voice, Harry... you'll feel better..."

'Who's that?' said what she could only assume was Voldemort's. 'This can't be...'

She focused on the way she was feeling, her mind was getting more and more clear by the second, she could breathe, and yet, he was still there... he'd followed her.

The pain vanished completely, but Harry's voice grew stronger.

"I WON'T!"

Harry's mind cleared.

"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die... Perhaps another little dose of pain?"

He was ready this time, whatever Mel had done to restore his energies so the pain could go away a little had worked. He decided to do his best with it and threw himself onto the ground, he rolled behind the headstone of Voldemort's father and the curse missed him, bouncing off the stone.

"We are not playing hide-and-seek, Harry. You cannot hide from me. Does this mean you are tired of our duel? Does this mean that you would prefer me to finish it now, Harry? Come out, Harry... come out and play, then... it will be quick... it might even be painless... I would not know... I have never died..."

Harry crouched behind the headstone and thought frantically, Mel had bought him time... for what?

There was no hope... no help to be had. And as he heard Voldemort draw nearer still, he knew one thing only, and it was beyond fear or reason: He was not going to die crouching here like a child playing hide-and-seek; he was not going to die kneeling at Voldemort's feet... he was going to die upright like his father, and he was going to die trying to defend himself, even if no defence was possible...

Before Voldemort could stick his snakelike face around the headstone, Harry stood up... he gripped his wand tightly in his hand, thrust it out in front of him, and threw himself around the headstone, facing Voldemort.

Voldemort was ready. As Harry shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Voldemort cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand just as a jet of red light blasted from Harry's — they met in midair — and suddenly Harry's wand was vibrating as though an electric charge were surging through it; his hand seized up around it; he couldn't have released it if he'd wanted to — and a narrow beam of light connected the two wands, neither red nor green, but bright, deep gold. Harry, following the beam with his astonished gaze, saw that Voldemort's long white fingers too were gripping a wand that was shaking and vibrating.

And then — nothing could have prepared Harry for this — he felt his feet lift from the ground. He and Voldemort were both being raised into the air, their wands still connected by that thread of shimmering golden light. They glided away from the tombstone of Voldemort's father and then came to rest on a patch of ground that was clear and free of graves... The Death Eaters were shouting; they were asking Voldemort for instructions; they were closing in, reforming the circle around Harry and Voldemort, the snake slithering at their heels, some of them drawing their wands —

The golden thread connecting Harry and Voldemort splintered; though the wands remained connected, a thousand more beams arced high over Harry and Voldemort, crisscrossing all around them, until they were enclosed in a golden, dome-shaped web, a cage of light, beyond which the Death Eaters circled like jackals, their cries strangely muffled now...

"Do nothing!" Voldemort shrieked to the Death Eaters, and Harry saw his red eyes wide with astonishment at what was happening, saw him fighting to break the thread of light still connect- ing his wand with Harry's; Harry held onto his wand more tightly, with both hands, and the golden thread remained unbroken. "Do nothing unless I command you!" Voldemort shouted to the Death Eaters.

And then an unearthly and beautiful sound filled the air... It was coming from every thread of the light-spun web vibrating around Harry and Voldemort. It was a sound Harry recognized, though he had heard it only once before in his life: phoenix song.

Mel felt Harry's mind drifting away, but she was still able to feel him, he was using her vitality to keep himself steady, as long as he kept using it to stay alive, she would be able to see him.

Don't break the connection. She begged to him, though she was starting to feel weary. Hold onto your wand... and keep talking to me.

I know, Harry thought, I know I mustn't break it...

But his voice sounded a bit further away, she insisted desperately.

'Remember what we said– If you can pull through tonight you'll be back... please come back...'

It took a moment, but he spoke again.

'They're here,' He told her. 'Our parents.'

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

@dee123ksha @vampiregirl1797 @siriuslysirius1107 @stardusthigh @mikariell95 @vernon-dursley @thesuitelifeofafangirl @tomshollandz @kylosleftbuttcheek @reverse-hxlland @bloodorangemoonlight @omiwashere @t-rexs-world

#twoidiots writing #hp fanfic #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter xoc #WITT fic

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 4 years ago

Text

Roguish Women Part 28

Summary: Kate is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?

Part 28: Kate and Tommy make the journey back home. They are thrilled to be together, but Kate realizes that there are certain things she can’t leave behind.

They didn’t say anything as they made their way to their room on the ship. They parted ways with Patrick and the others along the way. Tommy didn’t let go of Kate’s hand until he needed to locate the key to the room and open the door.

He allowed her in first, touching her back gently as she entered the suite. It was a set of three rooms including the bathroom, a sitting room, and the bedroom. The rooms weren’t particularly large but they were ornate and comfortable for crossing the ocean. It was very similar to the suite she had traveled in with Santo to Boston. It felt like years ago when she felt so hopeless. Destined to never have love in her life.

But now, there she was with Tommy. It felt like a dream.

Kate turned to him, so filled with joy that she wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Tommy shut the door and set their bags on the floor. He brushed his hands together and looked at her with a bit of apprehension. Though their reunion on the docks was one he’d been hoping for, he was worried. Worried that she would be upset with him for still stepping in. For doing everything she told him not to do. In the end, it worked out. But that didn’t erase the fact that he hadn’t listened to anything she said. It could be argued that he was only doing it for her safety, but of course, there was a hint of selfishness behind his motive. He needed her back for his own sanity.

But Kate didn’t seem to hold any grievances. She was feeling too euphoric from being freed from such a long-standing burden. “Can I kiss you?” She asked softly.

“When have you ever asked for something so politely?” Tommy asked coyly.

She smiled. Oh, it felt so good to smile again. “I could insist on it.”

He started to move towards her. “You could.”

The closer he got, the faster her heart raced. It was as if it had been kickstarted back to life. All that time she’d been so numb, and now every nerve-ending was vibrating with excitement. “I could demand it.”

“And you wouldn’t hear any complaints from me.” Tommy stopped inches away from her. He gently combed his fingers through her hair.

“Then kiss me.”

He smiled. “There’s the Kate I know.” He murmured before pressing his lips to hers. Though they had never kissed before, it felt strangely familiar. Perhaps they’d known each other so well that there were no surprises. But it wasn’t meaningless. In fact, it felt like the most thrilling thing Kate had ever done. The lights of the Moulin Rouge, the weightless feeling of a grand jeté in front of an audience, nothing compared.

Tommy placed a hand on the small of her back, bringing her flush against him. Kate’s lips parted with a soft sigh of yearning. Her hands went to tangle in his hair, pressing him onward, praying he wouldn’t stop.

Luckily, he wasn’t keen on letting go of her. It wasn’t until they were both completely out of breath, did they part. Even then, neither of them moved away. Kate loosened her hold on his hair, instead, gently carding her fingers through his dark locks. She paused when her fingers grazed over the scars on his scalp.

“Are you still in pain?” She asked quietly.

Tommy pressed his forehead to hers. “I need glasses. Other than that, it’s only headaches here and there.”

She sighed. “I should’ve been there for you.”

“You were there.” He assured her. “The drugs they put me on, they made me see you.”

Her thumb smoothed over the damaged skin. “You visited my dreams nearly every night.” Her hand moved from his hair to touch his cheek. “I tried so hard to forget about you but I couldn’t.”

“You don’t have to try anymore.” He promised. “I’ll be right here.”

It was comforting to accept his love. It had been agonizing trying to push him away, trying to delude herself into thinking she could forget him. She smiled and pecked his lips before stepping away so she could remove her coat. “I trust you were still busy while I was gone.”

Tommy chuckled darkly. “There was a lot going on.” He admitted. “It’s a complicated story.”

“Well, we have time.” She reminded him. “It’s a long journey home.”

Tommy stood back, watching her hang up her coat and fix her blonde curls in the mirror. The short-sleeved blouse she was wearing gave him a view of some of the scars and bruises that still lingered after her stint in Boston. It made his blood boil knowing Santo had full rein to abuse her while Tommy was utterly helpless. It was satisfying knowing the son of a bitch was dead, although Tommy would’ve enjoyed being the one who killed him.

He had to take a deep breath. It wouldn’t be easy to let that anger go, but there was no point holding onto it. Santo was dead and Kate would be back home. “I’d rather just relax, not worry about what happened.”

Kate turned around with a look of shock. “Do my ears deceive me?” She asked with a faux look of horror on her face. “Tommy Shelby relaxing? That’s absurd.”

He smiled and rolled his eyes. “I was in a hospital for weeks; I think I’ve learned how to take it easy.”

She smiled. “I think that’s different, but I would like to relax a bit. I know neither of us has had it particularly easy in these last few months. We have plenty of time to catch up on things.”

It was relieving. Tommy didn’t want to talk about Father Hughes, Tatiana, or how Karl was kidnapped. Those issues had been on his mind nonstop for weeks on end and finally, he was being given an opportunity to put those worries aside. After all, there was nothing else to be done. Father Hughes was dead, Karl was back with Ada, and Tatiana was in Vienna. Worries in the past. There were things looming on the horizon, things Tommy had planned, but those things could wait. At least for a week while they were at sea.

~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, Tommy was laying on the bed, reading the newspaper while Kate was in the bathroom preparing for bed.

When she came out, a small smile formed on her face. “Y’know, when you said you had to wear glasses, I thought you’d look a little funny. I think it’s unfair that you look just as handsome in them.”

Tommy lowered the paper and looked up over his wire-frame glasses. “You’re the only one who thinks that. Everyone else gave me a hard time about them.”

Kate furrowed her brow. “Nonsense.” She put a hand on her hip, drawing Tommy’s attention to the white nightgown she was wearing with a navy-blue dressing gown over it.

He folded up the newspaper, fully aware that he wouldn’t be wasting any more time on reading. “Nonsense?”

She walked over to the bed and went to lay next to him. “You look even smarter than before and more…stately.” She curled up by his side, looking up at him with adoration.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it.”

“Does any other way matter? I would think you think highly of my opinion.” She gave him an innocent smile.

“Oh, I missed you.” He growled playfully. He shifted over so he could hook a leg over and hover over her, resting his weigh on his elbows.

Every little move he made took Kate’s breath away. It didn’t seem fair that he had such a hold over her, but she wasn’t going to deny it either. She closed her eyes as he kissed her softly. It felt like being enveloped in a warm, familiar blanket. A secure feeling of being held and cherished. It seemed nothing could go wrong until Tommy’s hand went to rest on her hip.

He pushed up the thin fabric of her nightgown and inexplicably caused a knee-jerk reaction from Kate.

Panic descended on her in mere seconds. She shoved Tommy off of her and reflexively reached for her thigh. The same spot where she had worn her knife all day and all night when she was in Boston.

But the holster wasn’t there, the leather was digging into her skin as it had been before. That split second, Kate thought she was back in Boston. She feared that she was only having a dream and Tommy wasn’t really there. She feared that Santo was trying to touch her again. Horrid memories of those grueling months flashed through her brain like deadly strikes of lightning.

“Kate?”

Tommy’s voice lured her back to reality, soothing her frayed nerves, and reassuring her that it wasn’t a dream.

Her vision cleared up a bit, she hadn’t noticed it was blurred until she could see the cabin suite clearly again. “Tom?”

He was sitting up on the bed, a concerned look on his face. But he didn’t move to touch her, afraid it would trigger her again. It wasn’t an unfamiliar phenomenon to him. Although, he had only seen it in soldiers before. The way Danny Owens ducked and covered his head every time he heard a loud bang. The ingrained reaction that was meant to protect him. His brain seized control even when there was no imminent threat. He saw that same detached, fearful look in Kate’s eyes as she relived something horrific. And Tommy had a hunch what it was.

“He took advantage of you.” He surmised in a quiet voice.

Kate was dumbfounded by her own response to Tommy touching her. She knew she was safe but still, she couldn’t seem to control the reaction. It was so frightening, yet she didn’t know why. Why couldn’t she see that Tommy wasn’t a threat to her? He wasn’t Santo, he would never harm her. She started to tremble in confusion and anxiety. “It was just…easier to give in. If he got what he wanted, I wouldn’t get hurt.”

It was just another reminder that it would be difficult to get over the anger Tommy had toward the dead man. And the anger for himself. That he had let Kate suffer for so long. That he wasn’t there to protect her.

“I just didn’t think it would…” She drew her knees to her chest and fought back tears. She had thought that once she’d finished Santo off, all the memories would be dead and buried. That was a part of her life she could toss aside. But how could she completely forget? She was abused, demeaned, threatened, raped. Those weren’t things that a woman just walked away from. They were scars she would carry for the rest of her life. She could put out a tough façade to the world, but she was so damaged inside. And even she couldn’t escape her memories.

“Kate, s’alright.” Tommy cautiously touched her hand. “None of it was your fault, that fucking bastard had no right to treat you like that. I should’ve come for you sooner I-”

A tear slipped down Kate’s cheek as she went to bury herself in Tommy’s arms. “I just want to forget it. He can’t have power over me anymore. It’s n-not fair.”

“He doesn’t.” Tommy wrapped his arms around her. “You’re safe, love. I promise you’re safe.”

She didn’t answer. She just held onto him tightly until she was so tired, she began to doze off. Deep down, Kate knew that safety was fleeting and it was never a guarantee.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Kate took a walk along the promenade to get some fresh air. The night before had been a huge shock to her. But in hindsight, she realized how foolish it was to assume everything would just be perfect after all she’d endured. Her entire life, Kate was taught to be tougher than the world or she’d be eaten alive. If she put on a tough face and told everyone she was strong, in the end, she would be. She learned early on that the world was unforgiving and those who wore their hearts on their sleeves didn’t survive. Becoming a ballerina in an esteemed company was an uphill battle. There was no time for tears and she had to dance through any injuries. Becoming the head of a bootlegging empire was a daily battle. She needed to be cutthroat or her throat would be cut, simple as that. She didn’t even let people see her cry at her own mother’s funeral.

And even as trauma continued to build up in her life, Kate continued on. Her fragile self was kept behind hundreds of layers of steel. Since she had been on her own for so many years, it was easy to keep those emotions to herself.

Now that she had created bonds with Tommy, she could see the consequences of being so guarded. Cracks in her armor were starting to show and it terrified her. She trusted Tommy but was afraid that he would look down on her for being so delicate. She was afraid it would compromise her entire being. But perhaps, she had let everything build up for too long. Usually, she assumed that she could walk away from anything and be okay. But in reality, she was simply tucking those emotions away, letting them build up until the pressure became too much and she cracked. Her time in Boston had become the final straw. Maybe it was the thing she wouldn’t be able to walk away from.

As she walked down the open deck of the ship, she felt like everyone was staring at her. Her chest was tight as she assumed, they all knew. They all knew what had happened. That she was nothing more than just a broken, used, poor excuse for a woman. All the things Santo said she was. After all, what did she have left? Her self-esteem had been shattered, her dignity had been stripped, her entire life had been torn to shreds. The woman who was returning to England was not the same person who had left months ago. She felt all of her flaws were finally out in the open for everyone to see and to mock. She was nothing more than a liar, a whore, a fraud.

Her stomach in knots, Kate knew she couldn’t be out around people for much longer, so she returned to the suite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tommy was doing a bit of work when she returned. He turned around in his seat and smiled at her. “How was your walk?” The smile didn’t last long when he saw the panicked look on her face. “Kate?”

“There are things I need to tell you.” Her hands wrung together as she walked into the sitting area of the suite.

“Things about what?” Tommy asked, setting his paperwork aside so she knew she had his full attention.

“I lied to you about a lot of things. A lot of things from my past when I was in Boston and Chicago. An-And I can’t lie to you anymore, I need to tell you the truth.” She was shaking slightly as she sat down on the sofa beside him.

“Kate, you don’t need to explain anything to me. Your past doesn’t affect us right now.” He assured her, turning towards her so he could cup her cheek.

“It has affected us!” She pointed out. “It already has and I don’t want it to happen again.”

“It’s over, it’s in the past. We need to focus on what we have right now and what’s in store for us in the future.” Tommy was worried that something else would resurface and cause them problems. But he was also afraid to hear what she might have kept from him. Sometimes, it was better to just forget the past than to dig things back up again.

“Tommy…”

“All I ask is you’re honest with me moving forward.” He soothed. “We’ll both be honest, and there’ll be no reason to worry about what might’ve happened in the past. It was before we even met, Kate, so it doesn’t bother me.”

Kate realized it was the same thing he’d done with Grace. He buried his head in the sand because he was in love. Secrets and lies would disrupt their relationship and that’s the last thing he wanted. He just wanted things to be alright again. Kate did too. She wanted everything to work out and to make sense between them. She had lied, she lied about her father and her involvement in crimes. And those lies were eating up at her from the inside. “Please, I can’t live with this anymore.”

Tommy met her eyes, worried, but he finally nodded. “Alright, tell me the truth then.”

Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @giftofdreams @biba3434 @kimmietea @karmezii @enrapturedbythemoon @vampgirl1997

Tag list: @radical-gecko @actorinfluence @meltingicequeen @merlettina

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#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelbyxoc #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinders #peaky blinder imagine #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #fanfiction #ofc #oc #cillian murphy #cillian murphy character #cillian murphy fanfiction

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 5 years ago

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Danny had just finished dealing with one problem when a sort of old problem reared it's ugly head and made itself a priority. For once, he may have to deal with a supernatural entity the same way any Fenton traditionally would.

trigger warning for suicide mention and school shooting mention

“Uh, well, I know a way I can help.” Danny smiled, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry for making that wish without asking your permission but I have a feeling you’ll like this one.”

“I’m certain.” Desiree sighed and turned to fly away, but Danny couldn’t just let her go like that. People made wishes haphazardly all the time, and interpretation was a horrible thing to mix magick into.

“I wish that you were free of the curse that was laid on you.” She froze, turning to stare at him with wide red eyes. Pink and green light gathered around her fingertips and she raised her hands.

“So you have wished it… so shall it be.” A cloud of smoke enveloped her like a cocoon, and Danny squinted into it. A wave of force exploded from the cloud and all the booths shook with the energy released, Danny being knocked to the ground. When he looked up, Desiree was blue-skinned, her silver armbands violet and her dress a dark green. Eyes like stars looked down upon her new form, bottom half still a cloud of wispy mist, and she slowly began to smile and laugh. “I’m… free? I’m free! Thank you, Danny, thank you so much!” She flicked her hand, pink and blue ripples of light fixing up the cotton candy explosion and even setting Danny on his feet properly. “I had thought I’d never be free of that wretched curse!”

“No problem! Just, if you can avoid it, please don’t go hurting anyone?” She arched a brow at him and Danny winced. “I mean, I’m kind of trying to keep everyone, ghosts and humans alike, safe in my town, you know?”

“I cannot promise not to hurt anyone but I won’t be staying in this Realm for long.” Desiree smiled, a sharp and dangerous baring of teeth and a gaze fixed on something far beyond them that Danny felt pity for. “After all, I have to find the fool who did this to me and show him how it feels. And then, I’ll return to my own realm, and a queendom of my own shall be mine!” She laughed, lights and swirls of colors that his brain had no way of making sense of dancing around her, and throughout the park. After a moment, she sighed and patted his head. “Thank you, Danny. Stay safe.” And in a swirl of pink that might not have actually been pink, she was gone.

Danny took a moment to feel all warm and tingly inside about how he helped someone so easily, and then he let everything slide past him and through him, flying into the ground and then back up under the table. The cold of his ghost curled back up into a ball somewhere within him and his skin regained its color and warmth, the world settling back into a thin extreme indigo lense. He crawled out from under the table cloth and found Tucker, staring at where he had been, and tackled him. They tumbled to the ground with a yelp from Tucker and Danny laughed, rolling away from the zap of the belt. “Dude, Desiree is a Jinni! I wished for a dick and now I have magickally transitioned.”

“Don’t let my being crushed into the ground by you fool ya, I’m genuinely overjoyed for you about that.” Tucker lifted his head and laughed, deactivating the Specter Deflector before dragging Danny into a hug in the grass. The hug lasted longer than he felt this deserved, even if he was over the moon about it. It was also tighter than it should be, and Tucker’s gold was streaked with all kinds of wild blurples, marshons and even some grick.

“Dude, are you alright?” Danny patted Tucker’s back when he just squeezed tighter and sighed. “Ok. We can do this, but like, we’re gonna get stepped on.” Tucker relented, finally, and they got up, dusting the dirt and grass from their clothes before Danny was hugged, again. “Tuck?”

“I… we need to talk, with the others too.” Well, this promised to be interesting at least. A good distraction from what happened before, hopefully.

It was not, in fact, a good distraction from the shapeshifter that had essentially murdered him (Sam was not the cause, no matter what she probably thought, and he needed to tell her that at some point, she deserved to hear it). No, instead Danny, Sydney and through the skype call Sam listened to Tucker tell them about how he’d wished that Danny hadn’t gone into the portal and apparently all hell broke loose from that. On one hand, it was almost freeing to know that even if Danny hadn’t caved to peer pressure like an idiot, the portal still would’ve been wrong when it turned on. It ached to know that if he hadn’t died in there, his sister would’ve died out here.

But the burning in Danny’s soul was nothing, apparently, compared to Sydney. “Wait, Tucker, did you say, Spectra? As in Penelope Spectra?” Oh boy, Danny knew that tone and he didn’t like it.

“Yes…” Tucker backed up a bit, while Danny shifted to stand in front of him, hand in his pocket. “She’s the guidance counselor at Casp-”

Sydney glitched, glitched hard. His features stretched, twisted, overlapped before settling on the image of a corpse, blood dripping from his mouth and the back of his skull as he hissed fury that made the skype call lag and crackle with static. “Penelope Spectra should be dead like the rest of us! I- show me a picture of her. Now!”

“Ok, ok,” Tucker said, pulling up a picture from the school’s website. “There’s surely plenty of people with that name, Sydney, no need to freak out.”

Except, he did. When they pulled up the image of a ginger woman with hair done up in what looked almost like horns and a red business suit, the air around Sydney shone with green and his eyes were pits of red light. “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! NO ONE CAN SURVIVE A BULLET TO THE HEAD LIKE THAT! I SURE AS HELL DIDN’T AND NEITHER DID ANY OF THE OTHER BULLIES LIKE HER!”

Tucker, slowly, exited the browser and reactivated his Specter Deflector™ while Danny gently tugged Sydney back from the screen. It stung, the dark reddish colors radiating off Sydney like heat, anger that wasn’t his own boiling in his chest. Danny took a slow, deep breath, and when he breathed out he pushed the anger out of him with it. “Breathe with me, Syd. Can you do that?”

“I’m dead buster.”

“Yeah, and you don’t need to breathe, but can you?” The glitching slowed ever so slightly, and Danny brought his energy as close to the surface as he could while still human. “In and out, c’mon. In,” the heat receded, concentrated, burned darker for it. “Out.” It dissipated in waves, ripples of static on his screens and Tucker grabbed the laptop to keep the current from ruining it. They did that, breathing, for a while until Sydney looked less like a floating corpse and more like a monochrome translucent image. He rubbed his arms and looked away while Danny turned to lock eyes with Tucker. Tucker was busily typing away on the laptop now that nothing was interfering with the wifi signal. “Tuck?”

“It’s a good thing Sydney stays away from the school,” he muttered, Sam snorting over the line. “Is it possible for an unagitated ghost to have some color and look like a human being?”

“Uh, not that I know about.” Danny glanced at Sydney and gave him a pat on the back. “Syd?”

“I-I don’t know… I’ve been a bit stuck, on the other side you know?” Sydney was becoming fuzzier at the edges and Danny sighed when he realized the other boy was invisible. “Maybe someone else would know.”

“Right,” Tucker drawled. “Syd, do you wanna come with us to go ask Agatha about this?�� If we’re dealing with a well-hidden ghost, then I wanna make sure you two are on top of your game. A hearty meal, or I guess a ghouly meal, is essential for any fight.”

Sydney at least flickered back into something easier on the eyes if not fully there, and he chuckled. “Uh, maybe? Who’s Agatha?”

“Agatha Reece,” Sam said over the call, pausing to cough into her arm. “She’s the ghost of a lunch lady at Casper.” Sydney’s white eyes went wider than humanly possible, a touch of sepia seeping into his greyscale.

“Ah, you know what, I think I’ll just head out and go see some sights. I’m sure you two don’t need me to help you grab a snack.” With that, Sydney flew through Tucker’s ceiling, and Danny leaned back in his chair, a heavy sigh on his lips. It felt like a lot of pressure just rose off of his chest, though there another pressure entirely coming from his swirling thoughts.

“It’s a damn good thing I got Sydney out of the school before he actually saw Dash doing the shit I ranted to him about.” They all laughed at that, and Danny felt a bit lighter still. “Though, I imagine school’d be pretty interesting without him.”

“Yeah, we could actually walk around without worrying about getting shoved into a locker.” Tucker stretched his limbs out, and Danny felt an ache in his joints just at the reminder. “What a stereotype.”

“As much as I’m glad to cheer on the virtues of Jazz’s therapy sessions with Sydney,” Sam cut in with a shaky, light laugh of her own. “We still need to figure this Spectra thing out.”

“I’m looking her up and while she’s not stupid enough to use the same name over and over again, her picture is sorta everywhere over the past five decades,” Tucker muttered. Danny got up and rested his chin on Tucker’s shoulder, taking in the image of a barely, if at all, changing face go throughout the ages back to the 50s. “Cause if she’s a ghost, she’s gotta be using a lot of energy to keep looking like that.”

“That’s if she’s a ghost,” Sam said. There was a long moment of quiet after that, and Sam went off-screen, grabbing some book that looked older than Spectra. “Guys, you just said a Jinni flew off to get revenge on a ghost, how do we know there aren’t other things out there.”

“Mom and Dad have been to other places before…” Danny felt his hand slipping out of reality as the realization hit him like a football to the face. “They’ve made so many windows to other places and then if a drone could survive going in, they went in, and then Jazz and I went in with them. Holy shit, what if there was stuff in there we just couldn’t see?”

“What did Sydney and Agatha call the other side?” Sam sniffled. “The Infinite Realms? There’s probably a whole lot of things that Spectra could be.”

“Based on this track record of depression, she’s either a shitty psychologist who doesn’t get how the human mind works, or she’s fucking up people’s lives on purpose.” Tucker shifted so Danny could see the news article that he was looking at better. “That’s a lot of people who went from average mental states to killing themselves, or going into self-isolation.”

“Maybe she likes ruining people’s lives,” Sam muttered. “There’s plenty of legends and myths about things that like to do that. Danny, have your parents made anything that might help reveal a supernatural being hiding as a human?”

“I… maybe? I’ll have to check, I haven’t been paying attention to their weapons or anything lately.” He had been actively avoiding anything offensive that his parents made besides the plasma rifle he had. He wasn’t looking to have things go off on him, after all. “Tuck, you check with Agatha about what Spectra might be and I’ll head home, see what Mom and Dad have worked on. Sam, you see if you can find anything on, I dunno, emotional vampires or straight-up assholes who love ruining lives in folklore.”

“Can do, captain, but there’s a lot of the latter in every kind of story.” Sam offered a wave before ending the call and Danny sighed, sagging in his chair.

“Look at you, takin charge like a hero.” Tucker hugged him again, and Danny leaned into his side.

“Yeah. Let’s hope I can keep being a hero.”

#TW suicide mention #tw school shooting mention #Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Desiree #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #Sydney Poindexter #fanfiction #fanfic #phanfiction #phanfic #fanphiction #fanphic #phanphiction #phanphic #Monstrous to Supernatural #MtS #Rexy Writes

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ashintheairlikesnow · 5 years ago

Text

Daniel Michaelson: Beaten/Numb

(for @whumptober2019 - combining yesterday and today’s themes of Beaten and Numb - plus @pinkcupboardwitch’s excellent suggestion of psychological whump/mind games. TW: Serious injury/violence and physical abuse, noncon touching, noncon kissing, implied/referenced torture, implied/referenced noncon, I really cannot emphasize enough that Abraham Denner is a bad bad man)

“Red!”

Abraham’s voice echoes across the small clearing and Daniel’s head jerks up instantly where he kneels in the dirt, a bit of red hair flopping over one eye, wincing as the sudden motion aggravates the new bruises around his neck from last night.

“Come here, boy!”

I’m not your fucking dog, you piece of shit. I am twenty… something years old - how old am I? I don’t remember anymore, why don’t I remember how old I am…

No. Stop it. Those aren’t the right thoughts. Be good, Red. It doesn’t matter that you can’t remember things. All that matters is that he wants you now.

You have to be good.

You want to be good.

He’s been carefully looking over the last few carrots from the spring planting, trying to decide just by looking at the thin green tops if they’re ready to pull for tonight. Abraham has a venison roast out of the freezer thawing in the sink - he likes roasts if you put onions, carrots, and potatoes in and cook it forever, until all the vegetables have gone soft and taste like the meat and the venison is as soft as beef.

Daniel knows how to cook everything just the way he likes. He can’t remember if he likes roasts or not - there’s never enough food, and he takes what Abraham will give him and he’s grateful for it.

Thank you for letting me eat, Abraham.

He lets his fingers trail across some carrot leaves, frowning at the lack of sensation he feels. After living here and being forced to use harsh cleaning chemicals and bury his hands in boiling water - after Abraham’s knives and the barbed wire and worse - Daniel can’t really feel much with his hands at all.

It doesn’t matter. His hands work well enough for gardening and cleaning and cooking and worse - and sometimes the lack of feeling is a relief. None of it matters, nothing matters, just that Abraham is calling, and he needs to stand up, but he doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t want to go.

Because he’s not a fucking dog.

Part of him still wants to refuse, even knowing what happens when he does, even knowing there are worse things than a little bit of cutting that can be done to him.

His heart is speeding up with his anger, pounding into his chest, and that’s not good; Abraham wants him to want to be his good boy, to be happy to be called, not pissed off.

He practices breathing in: inhale - I’m not a person, just the puppy - hold for five, exhale - no one wants me but Abraham now - inhale - My family thinks I’m dead and no one is looking for me - hold for five, exhale - I love Abraham and I want to be good - and feels his heart start to slow, a little, the dangerous anger starts to fade out, replaced by the way Abraham wants him to think.

Part of his brain wails that none of it is true, the thoughts Abraham feeds into his mind with the breathing exercises, at the end of a knife, licking the blood from his throat. Part of his brain wants to scream that there has to be some way out of this hell, but he tries not to listen, because there isn’t, and telling himself there is might make him less numb.

His body isn’t his own. His life doesn’t belong to him. If he starts trying to fight that knowledge again, he’ll scream and scream and never stop.

Be good. Be Red.

Red is numb.

Red is a good boy.

“Oh, little Reeeeeed… come here, boy…” Abraham’s voice is a singsong, but he doesn’t like to call twice. If he has to call three times, that’s breaking a rule.

Always answer when Abraham calls.

“Coming, Abraham! I’ll, um, I’ll be right there!” He glances over at Nate, who is wearing waterproof boots, real pants meant for the outdoors, a heavy shirt to protect against the hint of chill in the spring air, and gardening gloves, digging up some potatoes and tossing them into a basket next to him.

Nate moves slower than he does, thanks to the one busted hand. He has to dig with the little shovel, lay it to the side, pick out the potato, and then pick the shovel up and do it again, since the other can’t quite close enough to grip.

The two of them meet eyes, warm blue on mossy, faded green, uncertainty and more than a little worry written across both of their faces. “Wh-what do you think he wants?” Daniel asks, in a low voice he knows won’t carry far.

With Nate, he’s still a person, just for a few seconds at a time - in stolen kisses and touches while checking traps together, in furtive moments when Abraham sleeps and Nate comes to lay with him on the living room floor, in the old movies they watch sometimes and laugh along with.

On the best days - when Abraham leaves them alone while he goes on supply runs (Danny still securely chained to the living room wall, he’s not going anywhere, and Nate won’t ever leave again, they all know that now) and Nate teaches Danny how to waltz, to tango, to do all kinds of dancing with his chain scraping the floor.

Sometimes they talk about Nate’s career as a professor and how Danny wanted to be an anthropologist. They break the rules and think about a life other than this.

Then, and only then, does Daniel let himself stop being good and really just let himself be Daniel, the person that used to live in his body, when he didn’t have to be good, when he didn’t want to be.

When he lets the careful numbness crack and tries to find happiness, because he’s going to be here until he dies and if he can’t sometimes be happy he’ll lose his fucking mind.

But then Abraham always comes back, and his voice is back in Danny’s head and his hands are on his body, the body that doesn’t belong to him, it belongs to Abrahm Denner because Daniel Michaelson doesn’t exist any longer, just Red - and Red only exists for Abraham, to be hurt whatever way he wants, forever.

Nate only looks away from him, back to the potatoes. There’s a moment where his jaw becomes a hard line and the green eyes go flinty and angry. Then he slumps forward and goes back to work, slowly shaking his head. “D-d-doesn’t matter. You h-have to a-a-answer.”

“I don’t want to,” Daniel whispers, because he can say disobedient things to Nate and know that he’ll never tell Abraham he said them, thought the wrong way, didn’t want to be good. “I don’t ever want to, Nate. I don’t… I don’t want to try harder.” He drops his voice to a whisper, says the words he’s never, ever allowed to say. “I fucking hate him.”

“I kn-know, Danny-” Nate catches himself with a wince, even though there’s no way they were overheard. “R-R-Red. Sorry. I’m w-w-w-working on it, oh-okay? I’m t-trying to f-f-figure it out I, I h-h-have an idea, but… Go on b-before he g-g-gets mad.”

Working on what? What are you figuring out? He doesn’t dare ask. Nate might be having disobedient thoughts, too, fighting the same anger deep within himself that Daniel fights each and every day, the person he used to be screaming to get back out.

Daniel shoves that person even further away, buries him under the puppy. The puppy doesn’t think the wrong things, the puppy wants to be good. Abraham will know if he’s not being the puppy, he’ll know, and then the memory of last night’s fingers squeezing the air from his throat will be the least of his problems.

He hops up to his feet, turning and half-jogging across the yard, trying to be visible to Abraham as soon as possible, to prove that he really is answering the order immediately, just the way he wants. His throat aches as he takes in deeper breaths but he ignores it. He’s good at ignoring it by now, at letting all the different places he feels pain run together into a comforting nothing-feeling.

He’s good at it, but the person-thoughts trickle back in.

I used to be a person. I used to be more than this. There used to be more to living than trying to figure out the next way he’s going to hurt me. I have a little brother, he’s still out there somewhere looking for me.

Stop it. Never think of any life before or after this one. This is all there is. No one is looking. Noe one cares. Everyone thinks you’re dead. You know the rules, Red, remember the rules.

Never think of any home but this.

There used to be a home other than this.

God damn it, no, there isn’t any home other than this, not for me, not ever again.

“I’m, I’m right here, I’m coming right away, Abraham, I’m coming!”

Abraham laughs, the braying sound bouncing off the trees, and Daniel winces but doesn’t slow down as it settles into his bones, crawls under his skin, until he can feel the echo in his fingernails and down to his half-frozen numb toes in the wet grass.

Abraham can turn even obedience into something to laugh at - make out of his willingness to do as he was told a joke about the phrasing of his words, and he feels the grime that lives eternally on his skin all over again.

Dirty and empty and hollow but that’s okay, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that Abraham wants him right now and he needs to be good.

The metal cuff on his ankle shifts as he moves, a flash of old pain as the metal rubs against the skin that’s been some version of raw or open or scarred since he came here, and he can feel the slightest chill in the air right through the threadbare T-shirt and pants he always wears. He’s barefoot - it’s warm enough not to waste boots on the puppy, Abraham said this morning, and even though his feet and his toes are so cold they’ve gone numb, he doesn’t dare disagree.

If he’s good, he can get his feet close to the fireplace and warm them up later, maybe. Or at least take a bath, but Daniel doesn’t like baths, because Abraham always watches him. Makes comments. Sometimes pushes his head under the water in the giant old clawfoot tub. Sometimes does worse than that.

He’s not really supposed to not like it, because he’s supposed to want whatever Abraham wants, even though he hates it - hates his eyes and his hands and his fucking mouth - and…

Daniel stops himself from thinking, slowing to a trot, trying to breathe.

He has to force himself to focus, to think of the ache in his left side, the bruising around his throat. Focus on it, use it to settle his heart, to push away the anger that might otherwise boil out of him and end with being in trouble again. If he can’t calm down, there would be more ways he could be hurt, there would be worse than what’s already been done.

He can be made worse than broken.

There are so many things worse than dead, and Abraham knows them all.

Inhale.

I will never leave here.

Hold for five counts.

Exhale.

I want to be good.

Abraham is standing over along the side of the cabin, near the cellar, and Daniel skids to a stop twenty feet away, his face carefully set into his usual eager-to-please nervousness, trying to hide the disobedient, roiling thoughts underneath the surface.

The cellar doors are open.

No.

I don’t like the cellar. The cellar is dark. I don’t like the dark.

“Wh-why, um, why is the cellar, the-…” He trails off, voice cracking. “Abraham, I-… why are you, I don’t like to see those doors open, I don’t want-”

all alone in the dark, all alone all alone all alone

“No one gives a fuck what you like or want, puppy. Why did you stop so far away?” Abraham has his head tilted slightly to bask in the weakly warm sunlight of spring. The yellow sunshine make his skin seem even whiter, less human than it normally does - brings out the suggestion of deep shadows underneath the high cheekbones, turns his light eyes into glittering opaque glass Daniel cannot read, like the sheen of ice on a lake.

There are things underneath the ice in Abraham Denner’s eyes. Dark things that drag Danny under into the cold water, to keep him there forever.

“I, um, I stopped because I saw the cellar-”

“Why would that bother you, puppy?” Abraham smiles, a bright smile that shows his teeth, only a shade whiter than his skin. It’s never a good sign when he smiles like that. It’s never a good sign when he doesn’t, either.

“It, um, I don’t… I don’t like the cellar-… when you put me in the, the cellar, you, um, you leave me there.”

“Only when you’re bad, little Red. Are you going to be bad today?”

“No! No, I won’t!” Danny swallows back revulsion at the nervous fearful whine in his own voice, twisting his fingers into the fabric of his T-shirt in a helpless, childlike way he can’t seem to stop. “I won’t. I’ll be good. I want to be good for you, Abraham, you know, you know I want to be good now. J-just like Lyken says, in the show, I want to be good.”

Please please please not the cellar, please

“Hmmm… you’re so good at saying what I want to hear, aren’t you? But you’re still too far away. I said come here, Red.” Abraham holds out one hand, white fingers curled slightly, a clear command, invitation, and thread all in one.

Don’t hesitate, never hesitate, never reject a touch.

Daniel’s body jerks into automatic motion before his brain can catch up and remind him that he hates this - this place, this man, the breathing exercises, every single fucking thing about his life but Nate - and instead he keeps his eyes on the open cellar, on the yawning gaping black hole in the ground, the first few rickety steps visible, maybe a patch of the dirt floor beneath if he stood close enough.

He doesn’t want to stand close enough.

alone in the dark

Never hesitate when Abraham wants you, his brain shrieks the reminder, alarm bells ringing. He made him call twice already, he stopped too far away, he’s courting disaster if he hesitates now. He steps forward and ducks his head, leaning his face into Abraham’s touch.

A cold palm rests against his cheek, Abraham’s thumb pressing just a little into the scar that curves over his cheekbone, long fingers just brushing his earlobe. He swallows against the surge of nausea, forces it back before it can make him go any paler than he already is.

Puppies don’t get sick at their owner’s touch.

“Good boy,” Abraham says in a low, pleased rumble, and Daniel tries to feel reassured by it and not dirty and ashamed. For a second, there’s only silence and the vaguest hint of breeze moving his hair, the chill that seems to slip right through the thin cotton of his clothing, raising goosebumps on his arms and making him shiver. “That’s my very good boy. I want to ask you something, little Red - and it’s very, very important that you be honest with me.” Daniel tries to breathe.

I love Abraham and I want to be good.

No one will ever find me here.

“Wh-what do you want to ask?” Abraham’s hand slips down from his face and drops slowly to his throat, curling around, fingers placing themselves perfectly over the bruises, following the map laid out of exactly where Abraham had cut off his air last night.

The barest bit of pressure against the mottled bruising makes a fresh new wave of fear run through him as he gasps, and he’s not choking - he’s drowning. It’s not the lack of air - it’s the overwhelming frozen touch, the look in those odd nearly-colorless eyes, that pulls him under the water for the dark things to devour and holds him there.

“Pl-please don’t-… don’t do that again,” Daniel whispers. “D-Don’t take my air, please, Abraham, I, I need the air…” He’s taking in what breath he can, hands clenching into fists to keep himself from trying to grab at Abraham and pull himself free.

It won’t work, and he’ll just get in trouble for breaking the rules.

“I don’t have to, if you answer my question. Little Red, would you like to go in the cellar today? Just for four hours or so?”

every time he puts me down there, they go, they’re gone for weeks and it’s harder and I get so weak, I get so hungry, I ran out of water last time, I don’t want to be alone, I don’t, I can’t, please no, please not the dark

“No!” It’s more an exhalation than a sound, whistling air around the grip on his throat, the aching of the bruises. He’s taller than Abraham, but staring into his eyes always makes Danny feel so fucking small. “I don’t, I don’t want to go down there, please, Abraham, please don’t make me.”

“No? Only for four hours and you say no?” The hand leaves his throat, sliding along the edge of his shirt’s neckline, trailing along his shoulder. Daniel shivers and holds himself still, dropping his eyes down to the ground, hands still at his sides.

“I, but-…” But what if you’re lying and you leave again. He can’t say the words, because suggesting Abraham is lying is disobedient, but sometimes he does lie. Lies and puts Nate in the car and leaves Danny in the cellar with his hands tied for a month until he runs out of food and begs and begs and begs and somehow Abraham always seems to know when Danny is about to lose his mind from the isolation and hunger and thirst and reappears to take him back up the stairs, dirty and frightened and full of the need, the deep deep need, to be so good it never happens again. “But I, I can’t go down there, I hate it-”

“Poor thing, you’re so scared of the cellar, aren’t you?” Abraham’s voice is sweet, and loving, and Daniel hates this voice most of all - it’s a lie, Abraham hates him, only loves hurting him, because there are things like Danny in the world that only exist to be hurt. “What kind of grown-ass man is scared of the dark, little Red?”

He knows what Abraham wants him to say. He knows, and he hates it, and the person part of his brain tells him to spit in his face, punch him, give him another black eye and take his punishment afterward. But the person-voice is getting very, very small and weak compared to the, to the…

“I’m not a grown-ass man,” Daniel mumbles down at his feet. “I’m just the puppy.”

There’s a silence, and he glances up from behind a curtain of wavy red hair to see Abraham smiling at him, a wide and beaming, proud smile. Danny had, after all, just done a perfect trick. Like putting up his paws to beg for a treat. Roll over, sit, stay, that’s what’s left of Daniel Michaelson.

Daniel’s face burns with humiliation.

“That’s my good boy,” Abraham breathes, and Daniel shudders at the joy in his voice, the way the touch of his fingers changes, becomes more intense somehow, more purposeful.

Daniel turns his head to the side when Abraham’s hand slides up into the back of his hair. He never pushes him away. He never fights back. He closes his eyes, slowly, trying to focus on the way his eyes feel when closed, how his eyelashes are long enough that he can almost feel them brush his skin - he tries to deaden his skin to Abraham’s touch, to not even notice any longer.

Be numb. Be good. Go away in his head and come back when it’s over, when whatever it is Abraham intends to do is over.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Abraham murmurs. “I know what you’re up to, and you know I don’t like that. No escape for you.” The fingers tighten suddenly in his hair, he’s gripped on until Daniel can feel a flash of pain in his scalp and the velcro-like rip of a bunch of hair being pulled out of his skin, yanking his head backwards hard until his back is arched and his eyes fly open to stare up into the blue sky above.

Breathe. See the sky? The sky is still there, no matter what happens to him. No matter how small or inhuman or broken he gets, the sky is still there.

Let him do whatever he wants. Be good.

No one is coming to save you.

“I was thinking I would give you a choice,” Abraham spoke mildly, as though he wasn’t tearing Daniel’s hair out with the strength of his grip, slowly forcing his head further and further back until Danny finally realized what he wanted and buckled his knees, dropping like a stone to kneel in the dirt.

Cold damp from the wet grass began immediately to soak into the knees of his pajama pants, along the front of the shins. He kept his hands carefully at his sides, and now, staring up from the ground, he wasn’t looking at the sky. He was looking right into Abraham’s face as the man leaned over him.

“I’m bored and I want to play a game. You don’t get choices very often, do you?”

Danny tried to shake his head but it only pulled on the grip on his hair and he hissed in pain and went still again, swallowing, his throat aching as if to remind him that his hair wasn’t the only injured place right now.

There was never just one injured place, really.

“N-No Abraham, puppies don’t get choices. They, they like when their owners choose. I b-b-belong to you, so you, um-… You choose because you, you own me, my body, um… I’m just the puppy.“ He recites the words automatically, rewarded with a loosening of Abraham’s fingers, breathing a sigh of relief as sharp pain went back to a dull ache. “What, um, what kind of choice are you going to give me? What’s the game?”

He didn’t want to make a choice. If he didn’t have to make a choice, he felt safer, none of it was his fault or his responsibility. It was all being done to him, and Daniel had learned how to handle that, to go away in his head and let it happen to someone else.

Making a choice made him part of it.

“You’ll like this, puppy. You can choose to go in the cellar for four hours…”

Daniel whines in the back of his throat, a helpless unconscious sound of fear, shifting where he kneels in the dirt. The yawning darkness along the side of the cabin has a physical weight in the back of his mind, a constant drumbeat of panic and the dark things and the pressure he knows will settle over him down there, the buzzing static nothing, the dwindling apples and water day by day by day until it’s gone and still he’s all alone…

“Not your favorite option? Well, maybe you’ll need to think that over. You can go in the cellar for four hours, unharmed, just put your handcuffs on… or… We can learn about something else.”

“Wh-what?” Daniel will do anything, anything to stay out of the cellar, anything at all, and he looks up with a desperate plea in his eyes. “I, whatever it is, Abraham, if you, if you’ll let me choose, I-”

“Ever had your shoulder dislocated?”

Daniel blinks, and the fingers finally leave his hair entirely and brush down the back of his neck, along the line of his shoulder, then back down to his shoulder blades, rubbing at it through the fabric of his shirt. “Uh, um, I… n-no, no I haven’t.”

“Oh, let’s find out, shall we? Last night when I put my hands around your neck you pulled away from me. You’ll know better than to pull away from me next time, won’t you?”

Daniel takes in a deep breath - or tries, but he can’t manage more than a gasp. “I, um. You’re going to- to pull out my shoulder?”

“Dislocate it. Then I’m going to hang you by your arms in the smokehouse until the sun goes down. It’s only nine-thirty, Red. That’s a lot of hours to hang by a dislocated shoulder. Or… four hours in the cellar. That’s not so long, is it, to live in the dark?” Abraham’s hand wraps around the ball of his shoulder and Danny starts to shake, unable to stop himself, to hold still like he’s supposed to.

“That’s your choice,” Abraham says, in a voice that’s nearly a purr. “Do you want to go in the cellar, or do you want to dislocate your shoulder and hang out in the smokehouse for a few hours? You choose, Red. All on you.”

If I choose the cellar he’ll leave for days again, he and Nate, and I’ll be alone in the dark.

“N-No, I don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to choose-”

“Sssshhhhhh. No one gives a fuck what you want.” Abraham leans down as close as he can get, licks along the shell of Daniel’s ear with his cold, cold tongue. Daniel groans unwillingly - it’s an awful feeling, the wet and the cold - but Abraham mistakes it for something else and laughs at him, breaths of cool air against his dampened skin. “Oh, you like that, huh? We can learn more about that little response later. First, make your choice. I’ll count to ten. If you don’t choose by then, I’ll come up with something even worse.”

There is always something worse that Abraham can do to him.

Daniel tries to breathe, to practice his breathing exercises, but nothing comes. Instead he only gasps, half-chokes on his own fear, staring at the blackness of the cellar, then up into Abraham’s delighted, dancing eyes.

“I, I don’t want to, I can’t choose, Abraham, please, please you choose, please don’t make me-”

“One… two… three… four…”

I love Abraham and I want to be good. Making a choice is good. Making a choice is what he wants.

I don’t want to go into the cellar, I don’t want to be alone in the dark.

Please no, please no, I don’t want to hang by my shoulder, I don’t want to do that either.

“Five… six… seven… running out of time, little Red…”

Not the dark, not alone in the dark, please God don’t leave me alone in the dark again

My shoulder’s going to hurt so much, so much

If I don’t choose he’ll do something even worse, so much worse, he can always do something worse

“Eight… nine…”

“M-my shoulder!” Danny bursts out, nearly a shout, reaching up without thinking to grab onto Abraham’s arms in supplication, staring up at him with wide, panicked blue eyes glittering with tears. “Pl-please, Abraham, I can be good, I’ll be so good for you, please just don’t make me go down in the cellar again. Please, my shoulder, we’ll do my shoulder!”

“Good choice.” Abraham presses a kiss to the top of his head, then to the side of his temples, against his cheek where the line of the scar is, licks at the notch in his jaw, down to the pulse beating wildly in his neck. “That’s my very good boy. You try very hard for me, don’t you, Red?”

“I-I do, I can try harder, I’ll try harder-”

“Good. Good, good boy. Now.” Abraham disentangles himself from Danny’s grip, steps back and puts one hand on his shoulder, the other gripping his upper arm in an implacable frozen steel clamping. “Count to five out loud. On the count of five, I’m going to make you so fucking sorry you pulled away from me last night. And you keep your eyes open and on me the whole fucking time.”

Danny nods, slowly, raising his eyes to meet Abraham’s again, trying to practice his breathing, desperately trying to cling on to some calm, some sanity, as his mind screams at him to disobey, to be a person, to fucking run.

But he can’t run. He can’t fight. He can’t do anything, except what Abraham wants.

Inhale. No tears, no tears, no tears. Stay calm.

“One… t-two…”

Hold.

“Three…”

He can feel the tears in his throat, knows they’ll come out in his voice. Abraham’s grip tightens.

Exhale - shaky air, but Abraham doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t say anything, anyway, only stares right into Daniel’s terrified eyes.

Danny can feel the cellar pulling at him, wishing it had been his choice, all alone in the dark might have been better, only four hours…

But it’s never only four hours, it would be days, and he can’t be alone in the dark again.

Be good be good be good.

I don’t want to be in the dark.

“F-Four… oh god, Abraham, I can’t, I can’t, please-”

“One more, Red.” Abraham’s voice is gentle, loving, soft with affection, soothing his jangled frightened nerves. “Be my good boy and just one more number… if you take this well I won’t even leave you all day, that’s how good I am to you.“

“F-f-f-five, please, I’m so sorry I pulled away, I won’t do it again, I can try harder to be good please don’t-”

There’s a sudden horrifying pressure on his arm and shoulder, cracking and grinding somewhere deep within him, then a pop as Abraham pulls his arm apart with inhuman strength and a smile as wide as the sky. There’s a moment where Danny’s arm feels strange and loose, a half-second of horrified anticipation, and then - and then the pain hits and his brain bursts into an agonized explosion.

Danny tries to twist away from it, but that only pulls his shoulder more in Abraham’s steady iron grip, and he hears the sound of a horrible wailing scream tearing apart the air before he realizes the sound is coming from him.

The things that live behind Abraham’s eyes are pulling him down, pulling him under, and they’ll feed and feed and feed on his pain.

He is screaming so loud he cannot hear the lust in Abraham’s voice as he pets into his hair, murmuring, “That’s my good fucking boy, little Red, I wonder what else makes you scream like that…” His fingers card through the wavy red hair as Danny curls around himself, gasping - he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, the ends of his fingers on that side are tingling and half-numbed and the pain throbs and throbs into his lungs, he can’t breathe.

“Pl-please, God, please, I’m so sorry, Abraham, I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t, I won’t ever pull away again, please make it go back in, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’ll be good, I’ll be good-… oh god, oh god it fucking hurts, I’m so sorry-”

“I love you so fucking much, puppy,” Abraham speaks in a thick, throaty voice, pulling Danny to his feet as he screams again, pulling him close, nuzzling through the tears tracks and against the scars, pressing kisses as Danny cries in heaving sobs, but he doesn’t pull away.

He’s too lost in the pain and the strange way his whole arm feels loose, like it could just fall off of him at any moment, the way he can’t take a deep breath, the way every nerve-ending in his body is somehow connected to his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Danny whispers with Abraham’s lips on his scars, cold tongue licking up his tears. “I’m so sorry I’ll never, I’ll never, I’ll be good I want to be good, please, I want to be good…”

When Abraham kisses him, Danny’s mouth is open as he tries to gasp in breath to beg some more, and Abraham’s mouth on his is so fucking cold and steals all of what little air he can find.

But he doesn’t - he can’t - pull away.

Abraham finally pulls back, smiling at him, touching the side of his face with an expression like a proud father. “You’re so gorgeous,” He says softly, the words buzzing and dancing and bursting around and through the white noise in Danny’s head. “You’re so fucking beautiful when you’re hurting for me, my sweet little Red. Just two hours in the smokehouse, I think, that’s my good boy. Then I’ll help you…” Abraham presses a kiss to his forehead, laughing at the wide blue eyes that barely see him, the audible whistling gasps for breath around the ache. “And you, my darling, my sweet boy, my good puppy, can help me. You don’t need a working arm for that.”

Then he drags him by his dislocated arm towards the smokehouse across the yard, laughing every time Danny stumbles and cries out at the new flash of agony.

Nate, still working in the garden, hears the scream and jerks his head up, jaw hardening into that straight line again, teeth ground together so hard they hurt. He can only stare, hearing Danny’s pleading and begging and continued pained shrieking, Abraham’s wild, joyful laughter, braying and echoing around and bouncing off the trees.

Then he looks back down at his work, digging the next potato out of the earth with furious zeal, digging and digging and digging until his fingernails are caked with dirt and the basket is nearly full and still, still Danny is screaming.

The screams eventually coalesce into slurred words, occasional shrieks.

Nate knows what"s happening in there. Daniel, after all, isn’t the first man Abraham’s played a game like that with. Bram rigs the game, he always wins. Anyone stuck playing is always, always beaten.

Last time it was Nate - and his choice was a broken knee (I love you so much… you’ll never fucking run again, will you, baby?) or Ashley choosing what part of him to bury her knife in… and Ashley’s eyes had been staring far too long at Nate’s pelvis.

Nate swallows hard as he listens to Danny’s throaty wail, begging Abraham’s forgiveness for what he’s done wrong, promising to do better, try harder, be good, if only he’ll let him out and make it stop.

His knee begins to throb, a very old pain, in time with Danny’s pleading.

The sound of the smokehouse door slamming shut - and Bram’s joyful laughter as he heads back into the house - muffles Danny’s wailing until it sounds like nothing more than wind, until it quiets down to hopeless, hoarse sobbing.

The sun goes on shining and the sky is a beautiful, bright, clear blue.

It’s going to be a gorgeous spring, and Nate is running out of time.

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five-wow · 6 years ago

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Five possible reasons for That Thing Steve Does With His Mouth in 9.16

Or: Essentially a tiny five times fic, disguised as a Tumblr post. (For reference about That Thing, see these gifs by @peggyswilliams, this clip from @racoonsa or this clip from @h50europe. It boils down to blurry background footage of something that looks suspiciously like Alex/Steve biting or licking Scott/Danny’s hand/finger/wrist.)

---

There’s a smudge of tomato sauce on Danny’s little finger. Steve is trying not to let it distract him, but it’s hard, because it’s Danny, and food, and that hand that keeps moving. Danny is warm and talkative and laughing a lot, and when he suddenly touches Steve’s arm, just, out of nowhere, Steve feels like an electric shock hits him, but in a good way.

It might fry his brain a little, though.

Case in point: he seizes his chance to do his own out of nowhere thing by bending forward – he’s aware he shouldn’t be doing this while he does it, but there are magnets involved now too, apparently, because he’s powerless to stop it. Before he has much time to think about his actions either way or freak out too much, he closes his mouth around Danny’s little finger. It’s over quick, with a single swipe of his tongue and a light scrape of his teeth as he pulls back, but it’s undeniably a thing he has done, now.

Danny is a tiny bit wide-eyed and starts waving his hand around like he’s trying to air dry Steve’s spit, but he still looks warm and like he’s been laughing a lot. A little warmer than before, maybe – hot, if Steve lets himself hope. “What the hell was that?”

“You had something there,” Steve says, which isn’t even a lie.

“Hmm.” Danny shoots him a last speculative look, before he’s drawn back into the conversation.

It’s way less fuss or yelling than the situation deserves, that much Steve is pretty sure of. The hope in his chest is in full bloom, suddenly.

They’ve been having a discussion that Steve has stopped following a while ago when Noelani says, to Danny, “Actually, licking is a vital part in the courtship ritual of many species, from the vinegar fly to deer to giraffes.”

“Giraffes, huh?” Danny asks. He nudges Steve’s arm, as if to say, hear that, that’s you, time to pay attention. “I like giraffes. Giraffes are my favorite.”

Steve looks at Danny’s hand, which has withdrawn a little, but is not yet out of reach. He ducks down and licks it, a broad stripe across the back. Danny wanted him to pay attention, and what better way to show that he has been doing just that than by being an idiot about it?

“You’re an animal,” Danny curses. He starts shaking his hand, as if to get rid of Steve cooties, but he’s also halfway laughing, so Steve just grins at him.

“Apparently,” Noelani muses, “it’s an effective approach for the courting male in an even broader range of species than previously believed.”

So he may, emphasis on may, have had a little too much to drink. He’s also been thinking about Eddie, who’s all alone at home for some reason (possibly because Adam’s building does not allow dogs, or possibly because the writers of their lives regularly seem to forget that Steve even owns a dog at all), so hey, it’s not really that weird at all, when you think about it.

“Why?” Danny asks while he shakes out his newly licked hand, but the good mood of the evening must have gotten to him. He looks more confused than irritated.

“Eddie does it,” Steve explains. “I was jealous.”

“Alright. Catch.” Danny makes a gesture like he throws something, but Steve is on to him. He knows there’s no ball.

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“Only when you start licking me in public, babe,” Danny says, which is some very interesting phrasing, Steve thinks. He decides to try again later in a more private setting.

In the interest of science, of course.

It’s been two days, now, since the non-descript, generic fantasy vampire that Does Not Sparkle Because That Would Be Copyright Infringement bit Steve. Mostly he’s been fine – it’s a little tricky living in Hawaii, with so much sun, but he’s managed. He even felt well enough today to attend this Five-0 gathering and he’s barely sulking at all while watching the humans eat their normal human food.

Then Danny moves his hand, unknowingly sending a wave of sweet, blood-scented air straight in Steve’s direction, and-

Well, “oops” covers it pretty comprehensively.

The upside is that at least now he won’t have to build his deep, dark Vampire Dungeon all on his own. Danny has been yammering about wanting a retirement project for a while.

Danny pokes Steve’s elbow for no good reason, so Steve leans down to bite his finger for even less of a reason.

Literally nobody at the table says anything about it or even takes notice at all, really, because hey, it’s Danny and Steve. That’s just what they’re like.

#mcdanno #9.16 #i will probably post this to ao3 later because it turned out more actually fic-like than expected #but for now this is exclusive tumblr content!! wow!!#*#my fic

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dawnofaqua · 6 years ago

Text

Green Looks Good On You

Danny posts a lot of nudes and Roy doesn’t like it.

A/N: This is a prompt that was sent to me by an anon. I worked on this for a while, and I kept postpone the day I would post it because something bothered me about it and thanks to Lemonade, I found out what it is: that I don’t enjoy writing about some topics unless I make clear that I don’t feel the same way as the characters.

So, I thought I should make a little disclaimer before this: first of all I don’t know Roy or Danny and this is purely fictional, of course, but the most important thing is another one. Jealousy can be cute to an extent, but once it becomes toxic - as in “I want my partner to stop doing x because I don’t like it” it’s not cute anymore. Being in love shouldn’t mean you want to tear your lover’s wings apart just because you’re scared or because you want them all for yourself. That’s not love, that’s obsession and it’s not healthy. Please, if you ever find yourself in a relationship or friendship that makes you think “I don’t want to do this because x would get mad” consider leaving that person. Now, onto the fiction!

Roy had always been used to sleeping for only a few hours per night: when he moved to New York, between his work as a seamstress and his shows in drag at night, he would be able to sleep only around four hours before the alarm was ready to get him out of bed early in the morning. Even now that he was more successful and he could relax whenever he wanted, there was this rush, this need of doing more and more, to fill every hour with something. It wasn’t weird that anyone would call him a workaholic, and he never really cared. Relaxing was good and everything, but after a few hours he’d feel anxious, thinking that he was wasting time. D.J., once, had joked that he needed a Momo in his life, and Roy had just rolled his eyes at the time, snapping back and telling him that he was even surprised the other one would know the book at all. He was confident, though, that he wasn’t losing time. It was actually well spent in his mind, after all, his fans were always happy with his work, why would he stop then?

The thought that maybe he needed to slow down at least for a few days arrived during his traveling for the premiere of Hurricane Bianca. He wasn’t on tour with his show in May and until the end of June he wouldn’t have to leave the US, and when people told him he was lucky to have almost two months of relax, he just laughed and pointed at everything he still had to do. There was DragCon, tough he would be there only for one day to sign his new book, Hurricane Bianca was gonna come out, and the whole Drag Tots had just been announced after he worked on it with a few of his friends. To think he would actually take two months to just recharge was funny, at least to him.

But then, when the various premieres of Hurricane Bianca had finished, Roy just needed to open Instagram to witness how much he needed some time off. He had been posting photos and answered few of his friends as well, but he didn’t pay too much attention at anything - except for the whole Acid Betty thing, since everyone texted him about it - while he was travelling.

Roy was greeted with a picture of Adore on tour. He knew she was in England, and she looked happy in the picture - she was surely having a shit ton of fun. He just needed to see her smile to feel suddenly empty.

They talked in the last few days, mostly because of the way Danny acted a few days before. Shane texted him about the whole situation, and after reading his tweets, Roy thought he could give him a hand to understand what he did that night, talking so loudly at 4 am, was wrong. It wasn’t really cute, mostly because Danny was stubborn and childish sometimes, and he didn’t want to understand what Roy was trying to tell him. They didn’t argue, at least not too much, and while Roy wasn’t sure the other one had understood what he was trying to make him understand, at least he gave him something to think about. They texted a few times, mostly to know how they were doing, but it surely wasn’t like talking face to face.

That’s what made him feel empty. They had spent so much time together at the start of the year, he was growing used to having Danny around him most of the time, and once he was back on tour through the States, it was difficult to realize he couldn’t simply get up, call Danny and tell him they could hang out that night. It was something he then got used to all over again as soon as the tour kept going, but it still bothered him.

Roy clicked on the username of his friend: he decided to go through his latest posts, just to see what he has been up to, maybe leave a few comments and let him know he was thinking about him.

Most of the pictures were from the tour, obviously. There were also a few pictures of places he had seen while travelling, some with his friends… and naked pictures.

Now, that wasn’t something new - Danny had always been open about his sexuality and he liked to post pictures like this one, but the thought didn’t make Roy feel any better. He usually ignored them, because everytime he could feel his stomach tighten in a strong grip that resembled jealousy too much for his taste; just thinking about it was scary. Danny was young, he liked to have fun and Roy didn’t want to ruin their beautiful friendship in any way. He couldn’t have feelings for Danny, no, it was out of discussion.

He had to repeat to himself those words while he decided to stop looking at the photos, especially after reading all the comments of people praising him for his appearance. He didn’t want to get upset about Danny simply being himself and living his life, especially since they were probably gonna see each other the next day - he was going back to Los Angeles and the other one was coming back from England - or even to the people that commented. It wasn’t their fault Roy was jealous, not even Danny’s, it was his own for letting himself feel anything remotely romantic towards his friend.

He put down the phone and called it a night. The flight was early in the morning the next day, and he had to rest at least a bit if he didn’t want to look like a mess - and lingering his thoughts more on the matter would’ve never let him close his eyes. He got under the blankets, took a deep breath and tried to fall asleep, praying that his own feelings would’ve let him rest for once.

Of course, Roy couldn’t sleep at all that night. He kept turning around, waiting for his eyes to finally get heavier and let him slowly lose consciousness, but he had never been lucky with that. His brain kept reminding him of all those pictures, Danny’s face in everyone of them with that little smirk of someone that knew how attractive they were, the comments of everyone complimenting him… it was almost painful, at some point.

In the end, Roy got up for his flight with zero sleep, got dressed up and took the plane and went home. He managed to sleep at least a bit during the flight, even if he kept waking up for a few minutes and then fall asleep again, but at least he wasn’t as exhausted as he was when he woke up that morning. He also managed to stop thinking about the pictures, and when he arrived home he was just happy to see his babies again.

“Hi baby, come here.”

He called Dede, that was still jumping in front of him even when he sat down and took Sammy on the couch with him. She was always a little more energetic than the other dog, but that day it was more than usual; Dede was jumping and barking like she did when someone was coming and she could hear them already, but Roy wasn’t expecting any visitors. He was actually thinking to go to sleep for a while, since that day he didn’t have any work to do, and wanted to try to rest for the next day.

His plans were cancelled as soon as Dede sprinted to the main door, just a few seconds before someone rang the bell. Roy sighed, then got up from the couch after stroking Sammy’s head one last time and yelled a “Coming!” loud enough for whoever was on the other side to hear him.

He knew Danny was gonna come back that day, but as soon as he saw his friend in front of him, that stupid grin printed on his face and his luggage behind him, Roy was surprised. After last night, he pushed any kind of thought about Danny deep down, where they were gonna be out of sight in his own brain, but as soon as he saw him they broke free and filled his mind. The photos, especially, were still there - and he could feel his blood boiling in his veins. For a few seconds he even considered slamming the door in front of Danny’s face, but as soon as he was able to find control again, Roy remembered that it wasn’t Danny’s fault that those pictures made him angry. He didn’t want to be harsh to him, so instead of slapping him, Roy managed to smile and even hug Danny, that let out a laugh while hugging him back.

“I’m back, bitch!”

He chirped in Roy’s ear, so loud he almost made him deaf. Roy chuckled, patting his back for a few seconds; he was still on the edge, but the more he could feel the warmth of Danny’s body against his, the more he was feeling comfortable. It was always a mystery to him how the younger one was able to calm him with just a smile or a hug.

“I can see that.”

The reply came out a little more harsh than intended, but thankfully Danny thought it was just one of his jokes and laughed again, breaking the hug. Roy held him for a few seconds more, until he had to do the same to not raise any question - even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do. After all, he missed Danny a lot in the last weeks, more than he felt comfortable admitting.

Roy glanced at the luggage behind Danny’s back and raised an eyebrow, giving a questioning look to the younger one.

“You came here straight from the airport?” When Danny nodded, Roy couldn’t help but sigh. “You live next door, you should’ve stopped there first!”

Danny didn’t look like he cared at all about what Roy was saying; he took the bag with him, entering the older man’s house and then said hi to the dogs with a high pitched voice. Roy just closed the door, and couldn’t help but chuckle a bit: Dede was trying to jump in Danny’s arms, but she was clearly too little to be able to, at least until Danny decided to get down to get her.

“I couldn’t! I wanted to see you and these babies… I missed you all so much.”

Danny mumbled, while he was busy covering Dede with kisses. He then did the same to Sammy, once they were all on the couch, and surprisingly enough he even gave Roy a quick kiss on the cheek. He had always been affectionate, but for Roy everytime he gave him that kind of attention, it was a beautiful surprise he didn’t think he deserved at all.

Of course, that was the only thing he needed to completely forget about those pictures. He smiled, simply happy to have his best friend back, even if he gave Danny a little punch on his arm.

“Ever heard of consent?”

“Come on, it was just a little kiss!”

Danny complained, making Roy laugh loudly - and he joined the laugh immediately afterwards. They spent some time like that, just talking: Danny was clearly not pissed at him after the whole 4am thing, he even told Roy he was right and that he was simply pissed in the heat of the moment, and then they talked about their travellings in the last weeks. Roy talked about the different premieres of Hurricane Bianca; they all went well, people seemed to like the movie just as much as the first one if not more and he was really proud of Matt and his crew’s work. He was hoping they would make another one, and maybe this time Adore could be in it. Danny was simply happy just thinking about the possibility of finally working on a movie together, after last year’s mess.

Then it was Danny’s turn. While Roy managed to witness how happy he looked on tour thanks to some of the photos, hearing from him directly that it was the time of his life and that he really enjoyed being able to interact with his fans and feel their love. Roy could listen to him talk all night, and even without saying anything at all, just like he was doing in that exact moment. His enthusiasm made Roy smile, and he caught himself almost stroking his head at some point, but then managed to stop before Danny could notice. He knew the younger one probably wouldn’t read too much into it, but after last night, Roy felt that if he tried anything remotely affectionate, he would give away what he was feeling. It was almost as if he feared Danny would be able to see through his chest and realize how his heart would beat faster everytime he was nearby.

Danny leaned on him, placing his head on Roy’s shoulder once he decided to stop talking. Maybe he was tired as well, after all he just came back from another country - and he was more than ready to let him sleep there, in his bed. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time; it was something they always did, now that they lived next to each other more than ever.

Instead, Danny looked up to him, his eyes twinkling like everytime he was ready to drag him out of the house, and then smiled.

“How about we go out and get something to drink? It’s been so long!”

Roy sighed; he knew Danny would ask him something like that, and while usually he was more than happy to go out with him as well, after the last couple of weeks he was just looking forward to a chill night on his couch, maybe with a glass of wine and a movie on.

“I think I’ll pass today. I didn’t get much sleep last night, I just really want to rest.”

Danny pouted, poking his arm for few seconds before he sighed as well. He was ready to hear the younger one complain, like he usually did when Roy declined his invitations, but instead he placed his head on his shoulder again for a few seconds before getting up. He didn’t look pissed off, he was smiling again.

“All right, but we’re still drinking and you can’t say no!”

He chirped then, and without waiting for Roy to answer him, Danny made his way to the kitchen. He knew where Roy had what he called “the good stuff”, and it didn’t take him too much to come back with bottles of different drinks and two glasses.

“You know, we shouldn’t mix those--”

“Oh shut up, I’m not a baby. I know what I’m doing.”

Roy let out a laugh, then decided to let Danny do whatever he wanted. After all, if he was sure they could get wasted without any problem, he had to know he was free the next day. While Danny was usually wild and ready to party everyday, he also loved his work as much as Roy did, so he probably wouldn’t drink too much if he knew he had to do something in the morning. It was always difficult for Roy to stop acting like his mother; he would always worry about Danny’s well being, even if now the other one was a little older and a little more mature, even if he never lost his childish vibe.

Roy didn’t want to sound too much like a party pooper, so he simply sighed and took the glass that Danny was giving him. After a while, they both had drunk a few glasses together, and they were definitely in a happier mood. They were still talking, but this time there were more giggles, and Roy didn’t feel the need to be less affectionate than usual. At some point, he even held Danny close, while the younger one was playing with the buttons on his shirt.

“You’re finally back at being yourself, bitch. I was worried.”

Danny said after a while, a softer smile on his face. Roy didn’t understand: he frowned, looking at the other one with a questioning look, hoping he would tell him more about it. Danny simply shrugged, while he kept unbuttoning and buttoning back the same button on Roy’s shirt. He didn’t pay too much attention to it.

“Well, when you opened the door you didn’t really look like you were happy to see me. I almost thought you were gonna close the door right on my nose.”

His voice was cheerful, as if he knew Roy would never do that… and that was what made it painful to Roy. He actually thought of doing so, to someone that actually didn’t do anything at all to him. He didn’t want Danny to know, though, so he laughed a bit, scratching him a little behind a ear like he was a kitten to cuddle.

“I was just caught off guard. As if I didn’t know that if I closed the door on you, you’d take it down with kicks.”

That was enough for Danny to laugh and punch him lightly on an arm, and then everything was fine again. They talked a little more, but soon the younger one was more interested in going through social media and pointing at things that made him laugh, so he could show them to Roy. It was okay, until he suddenly stopped and smirked at his phone. Of course, Roy caught his expression, and he had to ask what happened.

“I’ve been stalking this guy for months, he’s so hot - and he liked one of my pics. Well, I wouldn’t blame him, my ass looks fantastic in that one.”

Danny exclaimed with a laugh, but as soon as he brought his eyes on Roy’s again, he stopped.

Roy didn’t like being jealous. It was a stupid thing to do, especially when you’re jealous of someone much younger, prettier and especially someone that wasn’t yours to begin with. And yet here he was: it took him just one comment from Danny about one of his naked pictures for the jealousy to be back as if he didn’t spend an entire day trying to not think about it. It was boiling in his body, hotter than any drink he had ever had, and this time around he wasn’t able to control it.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. Can you put your phone away? I don’t want to talk to someone more interested on his phone.”

The answer came out meaner that he meant, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted Danny all to himself, at least for a few hours, and knowing that someone was not only looking at him naked but he would also probably get to see Danny in person like that, was enough for Roy to want to punch something or someone.

Danny was still clueless. He raised his head from Roy’s shoulder, confused, but at least he put his phone away.

“What did I do? It’s something I said, isn’t it?”

Roy shook his head. He was drunk, but not enough to just put all the blame on Danny… even if he seen him way more guilty than before. He thought that the younger one didn’t have any kind of respect for how Roy felt towards him, he would always sleep around and then brag about it later - he didn’t care if he never told Danny about it. It had to be obvious how much Roy liked Danny, at least in his mind. He would never take care of someone as much as he did with Danny, at the point where he would get up during the night just to pick him up when Danny called him, drunk and in need of a lift. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to help him.

“No. I just don’t want to think about another idiot looking at your ass and jacking off to it.”

He growled, raising a hand just to put some distance between Danny and himself. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like the idea, the more he got angry. That’s why Roy didn’t like to drink too little - he just got meaner than usual. He either didn’t drink or drank enough to pass out.

Danny looked at him with his big green eyes, surprised by his answer… and then smirked. He fucking smirked and Roy hated it so much he was ready to punch him right on the nose.

“What’s so funny about it?”

He said after a few seconds, with the same tone as before. Danny didn’t look scared, he actually looked pleased. He even tried to get closer to him, but Roy wasn’t having it, pushing him lightly on the chest so he wouldn’t get too close. Danny pouted, and the fact that he was taking so lightly something that made Roy so angry was even more upsetting to the older man.

“So, you’re angry because a guy is interested in me?”

The way his voice was purring was distracting, but Roy was still way too angry to care. He crossed his arms on his chest, letting out an annoyed snort, and he even looked away. He felt so stupid, as soon as Danny said those words - it sounded like Roy was a stupid child instead of a grown ass man.

Danny didn’t like the silence. He grabbed Roy by the chin, forcing him to look back at him. As soon as he did so, he was met with two green eyes that were clearly having way too much fun for his taste.

“So, am I right or not?”

“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know - I just don’t like it, okay? And I don’t want to hear about it. Actually, I don’t even wanna see your nudes on the internet for everyone to see, but it’s not like you’re gonna stop anytime soon, no?”

He blurted out everything in a matter of seconds, so fast he wasn’t even sure Danny would catch everything - and it wasn’t like he actually wanted him to know, it was just a way for Roy to be able to be honest with himself, and simply stop having that weight on his shoulders. He didn’t look at Danny, snorted again and stubbornly looked away again, acting as a fool the entire time. Surely, if they ever had that conversation, that wasn’t the way he wanted to handle it. It was too late now, he guessed. Now Danny was probably gonna be pissed: he could already picture him getting up, telling him he was too controlling and possessive and that it was freaking him out, and then their friendship was gonna be ruined forever. Good job Roy, he thought to himself. There was no one that could mess his own life as good as he did.

But when he felt a weight on his legs and he found Danny on his lap, his arms already around Roy’s neck, he suddenly found himself at a loss of words. He didn’t have the time to react or anything, though: Danny chuckled, and his eyes were full of pure lust - and Roy was way too weak to be able to push him away, especially after waiting years for being looked in that way from him.

“You’re so cute when you’re jealous.”

That was the last thing he heard before getting dragged in the most heated kiss he ever received. Danny’s mouth was over his, then his tongue made its way in Roy’s mouth and all he could do was shiver, hold Danny closer and kiss him back as hard as he could. Roy still couldn’t believe it was happening: he thought about kissing Danny way too many times, but it was never like this. This was wild, tongue and teeth and hands everywhere - this was just perfect. There was nothing in his mind but Danny, the way he whimpered against his mouth when Roy’s hands squeezed his ass, his hands in Roy’s hair. It was a moment completely out of time and space.

But when they stopped and Roy was able to look in Danny’s eyes again, he didn’t even let himself catch his breath; his brain was moving way too fast, realizing that maybe that wasn’t anything Danny wouldn’t do with anyone else, that maybe he was just horny after days without sex and so on.

“Okay, what was that for?”

He asked, his breath a little faster than before - but he tried to focus on what that actually meant more than the act itself. He didn’t want to gets his hopes up, not so soon at least.

Danny giggled, sliding a little lower so he could place his chin on Roy’s chest. He looked like the cat that finally got the canary.

“For being jealous, of course. I can’t believe it worked! I owe Shane twenty bucks now.”

He added, pouting a bit. At that point, Roy was just confused, but it took him very little to understand what happened. He frowned, glaring at Danny.

“Did you two bet about this? Seriously? I thought you were better than that.”

His annoyed voice was cut out by another kiss. This time it was way more gentle, a quick kiss that had only their lips involved and nothing more. Danny then shook his head, a softer smile just for Roy.

“No, not in that sense- I just.. well, this is embarrassing…”

He mumbled, but as soon as he saw Roy’s serious face and he understood the other one wasn’t gonna cut him some slack, he sighed and continued.

“I didn’t think you were interested in me. I talked to Shane about this, and he was sure you were, even if I didn’t believe him… so he challenged me. He said that if I kept posting nudes, you’d get jealous and snap back. I didn’t think it would actually happen, but here we are.”

Roy raised his eyebrows, at a loss of words. He was gonna kill Shane first of all, of course: that was surely a dumb idea. Why not talk about it instead of playing with his emotions? This wasn’t a movie, they were real people and Roy found the strategy to be childish.

At the same time, though, he was happy. He still didn’t want to think too much of it, mostly because Danny didn’t say anything about liking him in a romantic way - he was a free spirit, it was nothing new for him to sleep with his friends. Danny didn’t even shy away from telling Roy he found him attractive, but that never escalated until that moment… and Roy didn’t want to be just one of the many. He cared about Danny more than he cared about anyone else, and he hoped the younger one felt the same.

Danny was looking at him in complete silence. He was nervously biting his lips, and Roy almost made him stop with another kiss - but that wasn’t the moment.

“What do you mean by ‘interested in you’?”

“Are you really gonna make me say it out loud?”

Danny complained, with a deep sigh once Roy simply nodded in response. Maybe he was being way too cautious, but after way too many heartbreaks, he couldn’t simply jump in the void without knowing if someone was gonna catch him on the other side.

“I like you. I always have, but there was this aura coming from you that told me you didn’t want anyone that close to you. It was painful, watching you being beautiful and perfect and shit like that and not being able to be by your side but as your friend. But now… it’s different. Isn’t it? Please tell me that you kissed me back because you like me as well.”

His voice changed during the whole thing - he was begging him. Danny was begging him, to like him back, to not destroy his heart… and Roy still couldn’t believe it, but as soon as he saw his big eyes filled with fear, he couldn’t help but give him a soft smile.

“You fucking idiot. Why would you orchestrate something like this - posting nudes all the time just waiting for me to react - instead of talking to me directly? This is much better. And way more healthy.”

He added, caressing his cheek with a different feeling than usual. He was relieved, and it was finally starting to kick in that Danny actually liked him and for as long as Roy did. The only thing that was bothering him at that point was that they wasted a lot of time… but as soon as Danny’s face lit up, that wasn’t a problem anymore. There was nothing he cared about more than seeing that smile on his face, especially when he knew he was the one that made him that happy.

“Hold on, you’re not kidding right? You like me?”

“You fucking idiot, why would I joke about that?”

Danny laughed in response, a happy laugh that could be heard from miles away probably - and it was all for him, only for him. He gave him more kisses, way more enthusiastic than any of the ones they exchanged before, but soon they became heated, and Roy could feel Danny’s breath getting heavier against his lips. After all, they both waited for so long, it wasn’t a surprise that both of them needed definitely more than a few kisses to feel satisfied.

“I am so happy I could die, really, but right now I just need--”

“Bed. I know. I need it too.”

He whispered against his lips. Danny smirked, tightening the grasp of his legs around Roy’s hips while the older one, even if with some difficulties, managed to get up and lead him to the bedroom.

Roy wasn’t sure where they were gonna go from there, but one thing was for sure: he would make sure to make a fuss about every damn picture Danny posted of himself naked if it made him as hungry as he was that night.

___________________________

“So, no more nudes now?”

Danny asked him, his head resting on Roy’s chest. It was late, they didn’t know how much, but it didn’t matter in that moment. Roy stroked his hair, massaging his scalp until Danny sighed happily at the sensation, closing his eyes.

The older one raised an eyebrow; now that he was definitely more calm, holding the person that was now his partner, naked and warm, he was embarrassed with the way he behaved. He wasn’t a teenager, he was a grown man that knew what boundaries were - and he didn’t have any right to tell Danny what to do.

“That’s not up to me to decide. It’s your life, your body.”

Danny looked at him confused for a second. He held Roy’s hand, placing it on the older man’s stomach.

“But I thought-”

“What? That I wouldn’t let you keep posting pictures like those?”

Danny simply nodded, making Roy sigh. This is what he feared the most; he didn’t want to become the reason for Danny not to be himself. He already saw what that could do to any relationship: it would become toxic, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt Danny in any kind of way.

“That’s not my decision to make, sweetheart. Do you enjoy taking those pictures?”

Another nod. Roy took it as a sign he could continue.

“Then keep doing it. I trust you, I just want you to be happy - and if that makes you happy, keep doing it. I was way out of line today… and I wanted to apologize for that.”

Danny got up, still looking confused like a puppy. He would look cute if Roy wasn’t worried about how he came across a few hours before - so he sat down instead of lying on the bed, waiting for Danny to say something.

“So you’re not mad anymore for the pictures?”

“No, and I shouldn’t have been in the first place. We weren’t in a relationship, first of all - and yes, even if you tried to get my attention, it’s still not right for me to get so mad at you. I will do better from now on; we’re a team, I support you and you support me. There’s no place for toxic jealousy.”

Danny smiled, leaning on to kiss him tenderly. It had been a few hours since the first one, but Roy still didn't have enough of them. He kissed him back before he decided to hold him close, just as before.

“Alright. If you ever act like an asshole again, I will tell you.”

“Good. And if it ever happens again, you have the permission to make fun of me.”

The eyes of the younger one suddenly lit, and a smirk that Roy knew too well was suddenly making its way on his face. He answered rolling his eyes, even if then he couldn’t help but smile.

“And you won’t talk back?”

“I won’t talk back.”

“Wow. You will regret this.”

Danny said with a laugh, that made Roy laugh as well. He really doubted he would regret anything that was happening in that moment, especially once Danny decided they needed to sleep and dragged him back to lie on the bed. Roy was actually relieved they had that talk, and when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t think of anything but how much he was looking forward to the next day, and the next one and the next one again.

#biadore #my fanfics #adore delano #bianca del rio

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