#but he still has to deal with them in human form

[flaggermuser]

The First Christmas

1,238 words || Fluff, Christmas, GN Reader, Doctor Reader, Parent & Child Relationship, Parent & Child Attachment, Not Beta Read, Tawny is used to mean parent as reader is GN ||

I originally planned to do three Christmas fics but didn't get the time.

Previous Tawny fics: When You Loved Me, Home Is Where His Heart Is, They Took My Sunshine Away & Take Me Out To The Ball Game

This is also unbeta'd so we are dying like kings

It has been a long time since you celebrated Christmas.

Sure, you’ve been to friendly gatherings, invited in by neighbours to celebrate, even bringing homemade pies but it never felt as good as a family Christmas. Your parents had died years ago and you didn’t have any other family, so often you spent the day alone with a prepackaged dinner, watching the various Christmas specials; you always record the Vought ones.

But this year's Christmas is different.

You've had a busy morning, waking up early to start the preparations for lunch and you've pulled out all the stops to make sure that it's perfect.

There's turkey with all the trimmings, roast beef, a rack of lamb and smoked salmon. Then there's a range of desserts accompanied by home baked gingerbread people and a gingerbread house, as well as cookies in Christmas shapes topped with icing.

Your dining room table and your kitchen counters are overflowing with food, enough to feed around ten people instead of you and the two very special guests joining you. It seems extravagant but then again, they're used to the much finer things in life. You hope you've done enough, that they'll enjoy spending Christmas with you.

There's not just an abundance of food either, you've gone all out decorating your home. A real fir tree sits in one corner of your modestly sized living room, decorated with lights, baubles and tinsel, with a pleura of gifts underneath. You've spent a great deal of money on those presents and you pray that they'll like them.

If only you knew that your existence was more than enough, that you were the greatest gift he'd ever received in his whole life.

The doorbell goes and slight panic sets in, so you do a last minute check on the way to the door, taking off your apron and hanging it on the back of the kitchen door. You make a brief stop at the hallway mirror, straightening out your clothes so you look presentable before opening the door with a smile.

Ryan isn't really sure what to make of you.

Naturally he knows about the lab, Dad had been sure to tell him all about it. And despite his repetitive reassurances, Ryan is still reluctant to meet you.

After all, you were part of that team once, the one that tortured Dad in the lab, that turned a blind eye to him when he screamed and cried, begging for some form of human interaction.

“They’re not like the others,” Dad says. “Just trust me champ.”

Ryan nervously stands a few feet from the front door, breathing hard, doing his best not to panic but it’s getting difficult. He’s not prepared to meet the human-shaped monster on the other side. He sees the door open but from where he's standing, you're obscured so he only hears your voice

"Merry Christmas John."

Your voice is soothing and he watches as Dad falls into your arms, your hold on him tight. You're showing a great deal of affection towards Dad, something that Ryan knows Dad hasn't received from anyone else. When the hug ends, Dad looks back at Ryan and motions for him to come over.

Ryan slowly approaches, getting more anxious the closer he comes to the door. By the time he reaches you, he's not sure how to react. Who he had expected is the complete opposite of who he sees.

Instead of a monster, it's just you.

"Merry Christmas Tawny," Dad says before looking at Ryan. "This is Ryan."

“Hello Ryan,” your smile is humane, your hand stretched out to greet him.

Your handshake is warm, your grip isn’t tight, it’s almost as if you’re treating him like he’s made of glass or a delicate item that needs to be handled with care.

"Come on, let's get you inside."

Ryan’s eyes are glued to the festively decorated mantelpiece.

Pictures of Dad through the years, all in those fancy frames, accompanied with newspaper clippings. Then the one in the middle, the one of Dad when he was young, sitting on your lap with a smile on his face.

He can see why Dad is so attached to you - you were… you are nice to him.

You love him.

“A glass of milk for John, a glass of lemonade for Ryan and a plate of cookies to share."

Before you can return to the kitchen to continue cooking what smells like a feast, Dad takes your hand and squeezes gently, prompting a parental smile.

Now Ryan is far less intimidated than he was when he first arrived, reassured by the way Dad reacts to you and your affection practically beaming, how happy Dad is for you to call him by his actual name instead of his title.

Half an hour later, you return to the living room to announce that lunch is ready so him and Dad follow you into the dinning room, Ryan's eyes widening at the way the table is arranged and decorated. There's so much food, that Ryan isn't sure how the three of you are going to finish it all.

But it's clear that it's all made with love.

Ryan doesn't remember the last time he was so full, or the last time he had a proper home cooked meal.

There's still some food left over that you started to plate up as leftovers, and he can hear you telling Dad to take quite a lot with him. When you both emerge from the kitchen, Ryan is drawn to the bags that Dad holds, clearly overfilled but Dad doesn't seem to want to argue.

Dad is more than willing to do what he's told by you, his parent.

His Tawny.

Ryan spends the rest of the afternoon with you and Dad, watching the Christmas specials. He feels at peace, enjoying the familiar domestic simplicity that he can never experience at the Tower. It reminds him of Christmases at home with his mom.

Right down to the iced festive cookies on the plate on the coffee table.

There has been an abundance of gifts for Ryan all day and you've added to the pile, yet there seems to be more for Dad. These gifts are thoughtful, not just things that Dad probably won't use or doesn't want. You gone to a great deal of effort to make sure that you give Dad the best Christmas possible.

And that makes Ryan happier.

Eventually, it comes time for you to have your gift.

"Sorry about the wrapping," Dad says, handing it over. "I've never been very good but I wanted to do it myself."

Ryan watches you open the present with care, not just ripping the paper off as many usually do. The atmosphere changes and Ryan sits up straighter, filled with concern at your reaction.

You stare at the photo frame in your hands, shedding tears of what he hopes is happiness. Getting up from your seat, you head over to the mantle, moving some of the other frames out of the way to place this one down pride of place next to the one of you and Dad from the lab.

"We need to take just one more, just the two of us. It's important."

It's a photo of Dad and Ryan, immortalised in an ornate frame.

A picture of your son and grandson, the only family that you have.

And one that deeply loves you.

[heylittleriotact]

The only reason Emmrich isn’t a puddle of grief on the Lighthouse floor the way he should be in his non-lich resolution is because he cheated death - this time. He has a legacy in Manfred and makes peace with the fact that with training, Manfred will be able to care for himself when he eventually dies, but he only got here in the first place by fucking around with the natural order.

The playing field is still even in this outcome between he and Rook: they’re both mortal, and they will both inevitably die, but they may choose a life together that could be prosperous and joyful and all the other sentimental shit Emmrich has yearned for.

If he “accepts” Manfred’s death and becomes a lich, he does actually mourn him. There’s the banter where Davrin remarks that he heard crying coming from Emmrich’s room, which implies that he’s privately confronting those feelings of loss. Some people read this as regret, but I honestly think it’s grief presenting itself in a complicated manner for Emmrich.

Emmrich’s grief in this case is complicated because not only is he dealing with the emotional complexity of grieving a child who isn’t *technically* his child, but we’re adding survivor’s guilt on top of that, and the fact that Manfred’s sacrifice was ultimately his ticket to immortality.

That’s a-fucking-lot to unpack.

Is it any surprise that he’s weeping alone in his room when he thinks no one is around? How could ANYONE understand? WHY would anyone understand? So he hides it away and doesn’t even talk about it to Rook, his partner, and man… that is a slippery ass slope to some wildly unhealthy coping behaviours.

In real life you might see someone stuck in complicated grief become depressed, socially withdrawn, emotionally erratic, fall into substance abuse, self-harm, self-destructive behaviour, or suicide. Complicated grief is a bitch. Because remember - grief is vital: it is personal, but it is also communal, and Emmrich starts out his journey into lichdom by slipping into complex, isolated grief over Manfred’s passing.

So now instead of a regular person, you’ve got an immortal super-mage who can never die dealing with death TERRIBLY. This forms the foundation for his approach to death for eternity. Of COURSE he’s going to be insufferable to Rook. Of COURSE he’s going to take a holier-than-thou “be more careful please” stance without any thought to the staggering power imbalance that exists between them now.

It’s the most tragic, self-destructive ending for Emmrich, framed in a way that’s almost poetically cruel. He’s fucked himself, and he can’t un-fuck himself, and he has to live with that forever. He might be in denial about it for a month, a year… a century - but he’ll get there eventually.

You finally found the love of your life that you yearned for desperately for decades? You will smother them. Burden them. Shackle them unwittingly with your own shitty, shitty insecurity because even though you’re immortal you refuse to accept the natural order.

Regardless of which outcome you go with, Emmrich is in dire need of therapy. Luckily, as a human and not an immortal undead lich, he can do a lot less damage to himself and those he claims to love. But he really does need to work through his issues around his fear of death, his denial of mortality, and his insecurities in relationships, and I think if he stays mortal it’s more likely that in time once the world is saved and he and Rook settle down, he would be open to addressing those things - or hell he might even identify and work on them himself because he’s got the support of his partner - his EQUAL - who will stand by him and help him navigate things however they can.

Lich Emmrich though? He doesn’t feel like he *needs* to. Rook is no longer an equal, they are someone to be cherished and protected like an exceedingly old and rare edition of a book. They lose their personhood in EmmLich’s eyes and eventually become a possession, which should disgust him and he’d deny it vehemently but it’s true.

This is very rambling and badly worded and I’m just spewing random disjointed thoughts without any real point, @aldisobey I really loved this and how insidiously sweet it was. It’s just perfect. Thank you for writing it 🤍

Fuel to Fire

AO3 Link - Fuel to Fire

A gift on this eve! Finally got it to a point where I don't mind sharing. Emmlich content, come get some Emmlich and Rook angst. It's got comfort and warmth and I've been with it too long just take it before I start hating it again. Tagging @emmg you asked for it! (oh yeah and the title is just the song I listened to the most, it's how I'm naming things because eugh naming things how). Technically part two in a series, check out Nascent Blight if you need more.

Word Count: ~3k

Relationship: Rook Thorne x Emmlich, M/M

Full story below because why not

Emmrich paced the room, green flickers of his skull mixing light with the soothing glow of the water’s reflection on the ground. Rook sprawled out on the divan, head back on the armrest, eyes closed, and rubbed at his temples. Peeked a moment at the towering necromancer gleaming soft in the muted room.

“Rook.” Emmrich’s stern tone made him squeeze his eyes shut. The lich ceased pacing and stood near the small table at the center. Hands folded behind him he faced the waters. “That was reckless.”

The Warden was still coated in lingering blight from the Wetlands. He’d meant to clean up and go celebrate the Eruption’s destruction on return to the Lighthouse, but it was all he could do to drag himself here. He could still feel the echo of it. Too close, too much.

He gripped his head, pressed hard as he dared to drive away the thrumming recollection of whispers. Thank whatever luck graced him it hadn’t…his hands dropped. One to the ground, the other his chest. Their pressures had provided no relief. It would fade, always had, should have stopped when they burned the thing, but something of it’s nature let that damnable echo persist. That or a head injury, he’d taken some hits.

He sighed. Slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to glance at Emmrich’s back facing him.

“Had to be done.” Equally stern in a quiet way, exhaustion clear.

“You might have left the matter to Davrin.” A resounding voice. The folded hands clenched, then released, flicked to the side as Emmrich turned round to fix Rook with his hollow stare, “Or Evka and Antoine, or any number of other Wardens in Lavendell.”

“Emmrich,” Rook responded more softly, slowly, but kept firm, “I had my reasons.”

“And?” The skull tilted, frustration snipping, “Were those reasons worth it?” Emmrich gestured towards Rook, everything said in that tone and movement. Today had not been easy for the rogue. Taash had to half carry him back.

“Yes.” Grumbling, he swung his legs off the divan, sat up properly to face Emmrich’s accusations. “They were.” He straightened his back and squared off his shoulders, suppressed the pulse built on his forehead with a heavy blink. “Look. I brought Taash because they can burn whatever comes their way. And I brought you because you’re undead.”

Emmrich twitched, almost imperceptibly, at that. Rook might’ve missed it had his attention on the lich been less than absolute, but the movement sent his stomach falling. He bit at his tongue and rushed on.

“We got the job done alright? Lavendell can thrive. Everyone safe.” He rushed the words. Kept them short. Folded his arms. He might’ve looked petulant, but the wear of the day was too loud. Holes in the sleeves, tears on the sides, slash on the leg, all red stained, all healed flesh below, but memories of wounds. Everywhere.

“Darling. What about you?” Emmrich’s voice shook, seeing more than the evident physical. Undead eyes exposed a roiling of lingering red pain whispers, swirling confusion, exhaustion like a leaded blanket.

“Hmm? I’m already blighted, it was no concern.” Rook shrugged, doing his best to appear at ease. Brush off the worry, confirm the wellness of the situation. They were here, they were whole, they…

“Enough.” A snarl of exasperation, Emmrich stepped closer, seeming ever taller as he approached, “Davrin would have joined us had it been no concern. You brought Taash.” There was finality in the words, a stillness as the simmering anger evened and burned with purpose, “I was there, Rook. Your Warden friends were quite clear on the danger that Eruption posed to you.”

Rook grimaced, rubbed his hands, felt over callus, cut, and bruise. It hurt. He added pressure, focused the pain there.

Emmrich was right of course. The lingering pounding in his head was testament to that. What if the Eruption had sparked something? It felt safer for Taash to be there with their fire. Why put more than one Warden at risk? How many was it if not him? If not Davrin? Thoughts roiling he shrank below that green gaze burrowing into him feet away. Rook realized then he’d gone slack jawed, unable to think of an acceptable excuse. But no. He had made the right call.

He snapped his mouth shut.

“Fine!” Rook growled and stood using the armrest with a stifled groan. Patience worn thin after all the drumming in his skull he put his hands to his hips when he reached his full height and glared up at Emmrich.

He didn’t shout, but matched the steaming frustration, “I knew it was dangerous for me. Alright? But I had to do it.” The words came out through grit teeth, biting back the desire to escalate.

Emmrich drew back. Not a step, but into himself. “Dearest...”

“No, don't dearest me.” It came out like a hiss, and Rook leaned the smallest degree forward, “The Grey Wardens need every last person after all this.” His hands flailed out, gesturing vaguely to the world at large, “After Weisshaupt…” A breath found him. The fury caught on his tongue. This shouldn’t be so hard.

He cleared his throat, kept strong, “My jobs done once we’ve killed those gods.” His hands returned to his temples for a moment to steady himself, applied pressure to calm the beat. The blood flushing to his face couldn’t be helping.

Rook gave his head a shake and looked askance, maker how did a skull appear sad, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Unable to face Emmrich in that hunched posture before him. Bent, mourning, pathetic…no, Rook swallowed. Not that. The necromancer didn’t stand alone. The lean was enclosing him, protective. He dared a glance forward.

The lich stood draping the Warden in shadow like some gilded ribbed vaulting. And Rook, an insignificant supplicant come, with soft flesh aching, stinking of blight. Before a cathedral.

“Davrin’s got a book in the works!” He sputtered before he forgot all of the pieces reinforcing his decision. “Antoine makes such things?” Because it had been the right decision, “Can you imagine things if left to Evka’s hands?” They would all flourish after he did his part.

“You think I’d risk a single one of them?” Voice a hushed whisper of desperation. He couldn’t bear it.

No. The gods died next. No one else.

Tomorrow. His mind kept at a furious pace. A last check on Lavendell. Then Treviso, the Crows had word. He could feel cold sweat on his neck, they might have a location. Almost there. Not much longer now, almost safe, and all at once his legs went weak. Rook sank, barely controlled, back down to the divan. He settled with elbows on his knees, hands holding his head, and stared down at the floor. Could feel welling in his eyes, blinked it away.

“Rook,” Emmrich’s voice was slow, the gentle echo of a creek; water over stones as it traveled through him, “I’m sorry.”

Sincerity. Rook could feel it. Feel his nerves still at the serene appeal, “You carry the weight of every decision. Don’t you?” Not a question, a declaration, and in hearing it, so firmly spoken, Rook quaked.

“You were exemplary today.” Finally. A shuddering breath, a tiny lift, that voice of praise, a warming balm.

“My love,” The words sank deep past the skin, something in the tone kneading them firmly within the chest, past bone and into heart where a soul might sit, “let me help you.” Rook sniffed, didn’t trust his voice, dipped a nod once. Emmrich extended his hand, gestured towards Rook’s head.

Movements small, close, Rook leaned in, but then gave start, bit his lip, froze, “..wait.” He still needed to scour, make sure every speck of blight was gone, that could take awhile for hair.

“That’s of no concern.” Emmrich smirked.

Rook looked up as that comforting palm settled soft on his head. Peered past the linen, memories flashing of that arched brow, those lidded eyes, and met a crowned skull, flickering flame. He’d heard it in the tone.

His eyes went wide, tight pain gripped his chest. That was the cost wasn’t it? But then, he felt his heart beat. There was that…the desire...ever since…

'Rook’s Necromancer. An excellent subject to test how long one could go back and forth between life and death.'

Rook blinked at the perfect, beautiful, loving undead skull staring back at him, the whisper of hope escaping from dreams and solidifying here and now.

“You’re safe.” Rook choked out the words.

Then collapsed. Gone so limp he would have fallen from couch to floor had Emmrich not anticipated the movement and dropped to his knees to catch him in his arms.

They dropped together a moment, Emmrich’s arms a cushioning guide. And once stable, once still, he lifted, held the trembling man close, and carefully settled down on the divan with him. The Warden, for his part, was all snot and tears, clinging to the lich’s robes. His arms wrapped tight around the ribcage as he pressed close as he could.

"Emmrich, it can't…” His voice and body shook, words closing off in the shudder of relief.

Emmrich cradled Rook as tight as he dared, a soft hush drifting from him as he brought calm in his firm embrace. There was no measured breathing to guide the man hiccupping into his cloak, so Emmrich purposefully rubbed Rook’s back in the rhythm of a breath, and with a few extra movements green sprites darted from his fingers. All at once sound was still and calm around Rook’s hearing, and then began the sigh of trees, wind through leaves, in measured cadence to help level the rogue’s racing heart.

Rook almost felt a cool breeze on his skin same as he heard it, and the glow of water and flame mixed like light through the leaves to his eyes. He sighed, then lifted his head, buried it beneath the lich’s chin, felt his final quivers fade as a hum traveled in waves through the bones embracing him, back and forth, kissing skin where it touched, a fleeting doting touch. The beginnings of a smile and easy breath came to him at last.

Emmrich’s voice sounded quiet around…in…where his head lay. The traveling hum returned deep and pleasant, warming the skin where it passed. “My love. To think…you worried over me, to such...” Disbelief mixed with adoration, Emmrich’s voice eased its way into Rook’s waiting ears, pure love. The lost words saying more than any uttered.

Rook was steady now, melting instead of shivering, he clung to that genuine smile dawning on his lips, he could have this at least. They couldn’t take this. Rook tilted his head up to whisper to the air where Emmrich’s throat might’ve been.

“I love you.”

He put his head back down as he felt both of Emmrich’s hands move up to massage his scalp. The room was incandescent with green, the necromancer’s palms the epicenter of the glow. Focused. He plied at the Warden’s head. His movements were rhythmic, the magic alive with a pulse and rippling at his direction.

Rook could feel the echos become sated, the answering ebb of the necrotic channeling a path of release, carrying the riptide tight and rebounding in his skull back out to sea. Ease and push, gentle waves of magic and fingers worked the movements with Fade and physical, gently towing that ache out from the Warden’s skull.

Rook yawned, almost a thrum while in Emmrich's care, “Of course I was worried.” And he stretched in small movements, “You immortal fool.” His voice was low, pining, enraptured by the fool he entrusted with his care. Emmrich didn’t reply, his voice occupied in the ending incantations. Otherwise they kept in silence, the soft green glow encasing Rook’s scalp continuing to pulse, dancing with the shimmering from the tank.

“Darling,” when Emmrich's voice finally graced Rook again it sent warmth flashing through him, “I’m safe.” A rolling delight, the aches and pains losing hold, Rook groaned, toes curled as every muscle seemed to tighten, and hold. Then release.

The magic dimmed. Rook breathed heavy, then slow, then measured, calm. Almost asleep.

Emmrich sighed, his voice an echo that resounded through the room. He took a long laborious moment to take off his crown, and with utmost care placed it on the table behind them. Then, barefaced as possible, spoke gentle, the deep echo private now, tumbling only to the Warden’s ears, “But, Sir Thorne.” He looked down at Rook, tilted the man’s face to look up from where it lay on his sternum, kept his tracing fingers there, touch yearning. “You are most unsafe.”

Rook felt his eyes go hot at the words, if only because Emmrich’s couldn’t, and he could hear the despondent tears held in the lich’s tone. He tried to look away, but that meant leaving that soft touch on his chin, he pressed down into the palm instead.

“I’m sorry.” he twisted his head deeper into the hand, whispered the mumbled words into Emmrich’s thumb. The thumb traced Rook’s lips a moment, but seemed distant, moving further away.

“Those are words, Rook.” Emmrich’s hand withdrew, Rook looked up, sensing the gravity in the next words had been stressed by absent touch. “Please. If only out of love for me. Take more thought and action towards your safety?”

Rook gave the barest of nods, mind rebelling against the gross hope of self preservation. He nestled back down and away from the skull’s sight. Emmrich’s voice grumbled in old exasperation, his hands moving to cradle the Warden’s skull and massage along his neck. “If you remain so determined to put your life at risk I’ll have no choice but to drag you to the deepest tombs of the Necropolis. Seal you there until you develop a modicum of sense.”

“That a promise?” Rook’s voice surprised them both, and had Emmrich been able to feel heat his hands might have burned from where they held Rook. So quick and fierce was the flush on the man, so immediate the reply, it came without thought, driven by something deeper.

He could feel the lich’s fingers dig hard into his skin. Maker he really did want...The skull was staring up and away from him now. But Rook could hear the words resound in his own chest, “Don’t tempt me.” A low rolling warning, like thunder from a storm still away. But Rook could sense the ache, felt his heart quicken at what some choice words might lead to, felt the barest tremor in the hands holding him, but then they were gone. The storm gave way to trickling laughter at the thought.

Emmrich moved to extricate himself from the divan, took extra care to settle Rook comfortably in place. Hummed away the lighthearted mirth as he stood free and took off his cloak, gently draped it over the fading Warden, “Seriously, dearest, you mustn't jest.”

Rook held tight to the lich’s cloak and burrowed into it, buried his face deep in the lapel as he muttered half asleep already, “Don’t tease, you started it”.

He yawned. Felt warm, eased his mind to think of falling quiet, but the shiver of dreams crept up at him. The Fade always awaited, didn't it. Rook bit at his cheek, blinked an eye open to peek out from beneath the cloak. Emmrich was still there, though his back was turned to him now, he had taken to quiet pacing again, fish in the tank following as he glittered in the pale light.

“Emmrich.” Rook whispered.

“Hmm?” Emmrich paused midstep, fish paused midswim.

Rook stifled a chuckle, overcome at that moment with overwhelming adoration. He could ask this, a beaming smile hidden beneath the cloak, eye twinkling from beneath the fabric he muttered, “You once comforted me by saying the lich lords were, ‘Unlikely to visit your slumber’.”

Rook mused, calling back to that first time, that first terror. Emmrich had been so excited to share, so animated when explaining, the first time Rook heard the word ‘Lich’. Ice had taken Rook’s veins then. Fresh terror, new fear, but what emotion did he know better? And what a blessing it could be? His blood ran cold. Something deep in his gut warned him, but he ignored it. Looked long at the lich before him, fish following Emmrich’s concerned sway, and let the prickling sensation thaw, there could be warmth here, “Is that…something…you could do?” He finally asked.

“Oh.” The lich seemed to stand taller, an edge of excitement to his tone. “I hadn’t the time to consider it.” He started towards Rook, came to kneel at his side, put a hand on the cloak where the man’s shoulder lay, head tilting in question, “Would that interest you?”

Rook poked more of his head out so that his lips could be read, voice a hush, “Maybe…if you can, just uh check in?” He swallowed, “That song, it's in dreams…it’s worse…” Emmrich’s hushing tones cut off Rook. One hand going so far as to pull the cloak back up to cover the Warden's mouth and tuck him in.

“My love, speak no further. Sleep. Nothing will dare trouble your dreams.”

“Thank you…you know you can troub…”

“Another time darling. Please. Rest.”

Eyes closed Rook could hear the smirk again, felt a heaviness settle in his limbs, swore he was already dreaming when he heard the warmth in the immortal’s voice holding him, was that a lullaby? And sleep took him.

[dat1angel]

Trans!Danny is stuck at a gala when his period starts and gets caught unprepared. Thankfully, he finds some girls willing to help him out.

~~<◇>~~

When Vlad made him heir to DALV.Co, Danny knew that he would have to go with him to social events such as the gala they were currently at. That doesn't mean he has to enjoy them though. And he especially wasn't enjoying this one. Of course he had to be in public and without supplies when his period started. So now he had to find someone he could ask for a pad, no matter how mortifying it would be.

Danny scanned the crowd, trying to figure out who would be the least snobby if he tried to talk to them. He decided on two girls about his age who were standing semi away from any large groups. With a sigh and silently grieving his ego, Danny made the walk of shame over to them.

"Excuse me?" The girls snapped to attention when Danny spoke up.

"Oh, hello there!" the blonde greeted, "I don't think I've seen you at one of these before. My names Steph and this is Cass". The dark haired girl, who he now knew as Cass, smiled and waved at him but otherwise didn't speak.

"I'm Danny, it's nice to meet you," Danny fidgeted in place and a hand came up to rub the back of his neck, "Man, there's really no way to ask this that isn't embarrassing..."

Steph regarded him with a raised eyebrow, "You aren't going to ask for our numbers, are you?".

Danny's eyes went wide and he raised his hands in a defensive manner.

"Oh ancients, no. Ah- Not to say that you aren't attractive! You are! I mean, you're both very pretty but I don't swing that way-" He's cut off by airy laughter from Steph and soft chuckles from Cass.

"Relax dude, it's okay. So, your question?"

"Would either of you have and extra pad? Or a tampon? My period started and I don't have anything with me..." Danny flushed and didn't make eye contact as he asked.

Danny nearly sobbed in relief when Cass nodded, discreetly slipped a pad out of her bag, and passed it to him. "Thank you, thank you so much!"

Cass made a 'don't worry about it' gesture and Steph smiled.

Before they could say anything else, a tall man who looked like he could bench press Danny without even breaking a sweat came and interupted.

"Hey, have either of you two seen where Dick went?" He asked the girls.

"Last I saw him was by the refreshments table," Steph informed him. Cass nodded in agreement.

"Thanks," the man said. He then turned and walked off, presumably towards the refreshments table. Danny's eyes followed him as he walked away and- Ancients, that ass! Even the layered suit couldn't hide the clear musculature that made up the mans everywhere. He could step on Danny and Danny would thank him.

Danny only realized he was staring when Steph cleared her throat, an amused look on her face.

"Ah! I wasnt- I mean- I was just-"

"Totally undressing Jason with your eyes?" Steph smirked. Danny flushed and made a hasty retreat.

"WOw, would you just look at the time! I should go uh... take care of this!" He gestured at the pad in his hand. "Yeah! I'm just gonna go."

"Come find us when you're done, we'll introduce you!" Steph called to his fleeing form.

Danny practically flew to the nearest bathroom. As soon as the door was closed he leaned against it and screamed into his hands. He completely embarrassed himself! He could never show his face again! Although...

Images of Jason flashed in his mind. Maybe he would go find those girls again... But first he needed to get this pad on!

[beeapocalypse]

oh tma is nipping at my heels. i miss the extinction

[nataliedecorsair]

I wanted to give you some of Pticenoga's Borderlands AU backstory, how she was raised by Shade and before starting her shenanigans with Vaughn.

Plus a bonus comic about how she decided to set up a meeting for Vaughn and Shade, but didn't tell Vaughn who is supposed to be there x) Mostly because Vaughn has met Shade before in his macabre World of Curiosities museum and thought that Shade is too weird for him. Well, that's the kind of person that would raise a feral harpy siren, gotta deal with it!

When she was very young, nothing bothered her much as she was just a wild baby exploring the world x) And Shade was a good father figure to her. However, as she grew older, she realized that she doesn't really "fit in": yeah, Pandora is a crazy planet, but not every person there is crazy. There are plenty of "regular folk" like Shade or other people from their town - and many others. And she was frequently called a monster, a mutant and many other things by the regular kids and even adults. She was wild though, could bite them or fight with them in a pretty feral manner, and, even though she protected herself, it didn't help the situation much. She wasn't crazy enough (and too small) to fit in with the psychos or bandits, was "too human" for actual monsters living on Pandora, and for a long time she had no idea she was a Siren, as even for Sirens she looked too different. Only when she hit her teens, she was able to confirm that she is one, started using her powers, and in her human form she could see the full extension of the glowing pattern she had on her skin. She still, however, didn't know why she wasn't born "normal", and there were no older Sirens around.

At some point, she decided to become independent and live on her own. Her "wild" upbringing was helping that a lot, and she felt fine being away from people. She'd still visit Shade frequently, of course, and at some point she'd even met Zer0 and could hang out with him for some time. As Zer0 is a mystery himself, they had some common ground between them (though constantly listening to his haiku were exhausting xD). Sadly, Vault Hunters attract attention, not always positive, and that was the reason why she got spotted by a big bandit gang (could be the beginning of Vallory's gang, but before she took over). And local scientists like Tannis already declared that there may be some connection between Sirens and the Vaults. And they noticed that she's a Siren, but also pretty young (and dumb). After the first Vault on Pandora was opened, there was plenty of weird and valuable stuff around, but it wasn't so easy to get it when you're just regular bandits. And when Eridians, the aliens that are guarding the Vault, are everywhere. The Sirens like Lilith were too strong for them, and hiring a Vault Hunter is expensive, so they decided to wriggle into her favor and use her to gain access to the area. She didn't know she was dealing with bandits first, she naively thought it's a rare case of nice fellows just wanting to be friends and such, plus the Vault could have answers about her origin, and the new "friends" confirmed it.

At some point, she realized she was being used, and got into a fight with the bandits - and lost, as there were too many of them, and she had too little experience, and they knew about Shade. She got kidnapped and told that she'd do everything they told her to do, or they'd kill Shade, so she had to obey. She helped them to fight the way to the Vault and get some of the riches, and during the process she felt that she really does have a connection with Eridians - they boosted her powers and helped her to get free, and kill every presenting member of the gang. She was worried about Shade though, so she left immediately to find him before the remaining members found out what happened and could harm him. But she was too late - the water source in their town of Oasis was poisoned, and every single person there died. Except Shade though - he lasted longer, but dehydration made him insane, and he turned corpses into the stuffed dummies he could talk to (though she didn't have much of a problem with this part). As she was gone for at least several months, he didn't believe she's real, and she had to adapt to the new reality.

She never got back to the Vault after that as she felt it was a source of more trouble than anything good (in her view, the price was too much for a bunch of physical stuff).

That lasted for years, and became a bit easier as her powers, enhanced by the Eridians, wasn't only serving the destruction,  but could eventually "heal" some part of Shade's mind, so the moments of clarity became more frequent (she didn't know it's the reason, though). And you still need money, whether you like it or not, so, when Shade decided to use his World of Curiosities as a spot of illegal deals and smuggling, she didn't resist, but would watch over him in the shadows in case something goes wrong.

Eventually, she calmed down and just embraced herself. And, after some time, she met Vaughn, whose personal struggles she could sense right away, as she had to experience "being different" herself.

[earthtooz]

x : LUST FOR LIFE *+ﾟ

in which: sunday discovers a new emotion when he's under you.

warnings: 1.5k words, sunday is B(h)ORNY and doesn't know how to deal with it, he wants reader so bad, lowkey implied switch!sunday, gn!reader being sunday's freak awakening, NO SMUT BUT UNDER 16 DNI, not edited

a/n: five likes and i'll write nsfw for sunday

What good is a leader who can’t empathise with the lives of the people he was supposed to be leading?

This thought has plagued Sunday ever since he exiled himself from Penacony, since he joined the Astral Express in a journey of self-discovery and reflection, embracing the Nameless lifestyle so he can broaden the horizons that Penacony had restricted. There, he was so detached from the reality of the people he was trying to help, so trapped in a whirlwind of his own ideals to experience humanity, too buried in official duties to rejoice in the many wonders of the universe, the simple pleasures and the grandiose ones.

Since boarding, the former head of the Oak Family has experienced humiliation, desperation, and many close calls with death. It seems he underestimated how easily trouble found the Trailblazers, and the diary he carries with him has been updated with multiple entries, filled with exasperated recounts that ended with him being grateful that he is still well and unscathed.

Sunday has also experienced laughter, connection, and the bond of humankind- something he did not have before. When he controlled the Oak Family, had everyone under or at his fingertips, the only person he could depend on was himself. When Robin left to travel the cosmos, what was he to do than learn the bitter truth of independence and self-sufficiency? 

Yet, he sits on the couches of the Astral Express and there is bound to be another by him, trying to converse with him like an old friend. He is mentioned in the conversations like an individual who they keep around because they want to, not because he is crafty, not because of what he can offer. No, he can’t offer anything right now, and the crew still wants him to stay.

He learns more about humanity with each passing day.

However, perhaps one of the more puzzling feelings Sunday has had to confront was… infatuation. 

It’s a tricky feeling. It sends his heart into overdrive and his limbs to become jelly, and at the epicentre of this hurricane of uncharted territory, is you. 

“Sunday?” Your voice comes through muffled from the other side of the door. He almost jumps off his mattress at the sound. 

“Door is open,” he responds as calmly as possible, heart thrumming alive at the sound of your voice, beating in time with the rapid succession of your knocks. 

The door slides open slowly to reveal you on the other side. “Pom Pom just wanted to let everyone know that we will be jumping soon.” 

“I see, thank you for letting me know.”

“No problem,” your gaze then flickers to the angels that flock around him and he watches as your eyes gleam with fascination.

Then, without any hesitation or reluctance, you enter his room and approach him, the door sliding closed without your weight to hold it open. You stop before him without a bow, without a formal greeting of ‘Mr. Sunday’- no, you stop before him like an equal, which you most certainly are. In fact, he would even think of himself below you, but Sunday needs to unlearn this assumption of hierarchy, needs to not let it define the relationships he forms, even if he looks up to you and finds you reverent. 

“Hey, I’ve never seen these little guys before!” You exclaim, sticking out a hand to act like a perch for the angel-like summons. One of them flits up to you and stays on your outstretched finger. “Well, not this close, at least.”

It keens at your praise. Like owner like summon, Sunday supposes.

“I don’t tend to bring them out. They are for combat purposes,” he explains. 

Your eyes widen slightly. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me right now?” 

“What? No! That’s not it-”

“-I’m kidding, Sunday,” you snicker. “We’re friends, I wouldn’t want to fight you.”

“Right,” he exhales, “I wouldn’t want to fight you either.”

“Besides, we already did once.”

He freezes at the memory, remembers when he got hit with the exact train he is currently boarding. 

You, however, are unphased by the recollection, and even continue to rub salt in the wound. “I remember fighting against these little summons too, your owner was a real meanie, do you guys know that?” 

They flock around you, spinning and fluttering like little fireflies.  Instinctively, Sunday covers his flustered expression with his wings, and he doesn’t budge, even when he hears your laugh, the sound almost enough for him to melt into a puddle by your feet.

“Hey, hey, I was kidding, sorry if I took the joke too far.” 

He uncovers himself with an embarrassed sigh, not meeting your eyes. “It’s okay, I think the memory is just… humiliating, more than anything.”

“There are no more hard feelings. Everyone has accepted you on board and none of us think of you to be the same person you were when we first met, I promise.”

Your words are completely earnest, Sunday knows it, can feel it in the way you tell him so unabashedly. So who is he to deny it?

“Thank you,” he says, finally looking up at you, “it means a lot to hear that.” 

“I’ll say it as much as you need. Well, I’ll get out of your hair now, just prepare for the jump-”

Your sentence is interrupted by a shriek when you lose your footing, and Sunday feels it too, the force so strong that even he, while sitting, feels as if is being stretched and pulled into a miniscule hole. What he also feels is your body colliding on top of his, and his hands come to your waist to catch you in an attempt to prevent you from slipping, but it’s not enough and he’s falling with you onto the expanse of his made bed.

The Express is warping to some expanse of the universe, and his stomach drops at the sensation, spreading to the ends of his nerves before disappearing, just replaced by the extremely odd feeling of being pulled through the stars. He just hopes you’re comfortable, standing up whilst warping is tough, he heard the stories of when Stelle first tried to do it and how she fell flat on her face. 

When the feeling of normality returns and Sunday doesn’t feel like he has been stretched out, he opens his eyes and tries to take in the sight before him.

You. Your face. Centimetres away from his.

He’s always thought you were pretty, but seeing you this close… perhaps just pretty is an understatement. His gaze unwillingly flicks to your lips and he wished he hadn’t because suddenly the urge to sit up and lick into your mouth is raging; a fire that can’t be contained. 

Sunday wants you to push him down by the shoulders, with no gentleness or mercy, and just… devour him whole. His hands want to find you by the hips and pull you into him more than humanly possible, he wants you to indent yourself onto him so he can remember your taste forever, so that, in a way, you couldn’t ever leave him. 

Alternatively, he would happily flip around and pin you against the mattress. He would pry you open, explore the cavern of your mouth with his tongue and suck your sacred essence out of you so that it can stay and settle in his bones instead, replacing where marrow should be. He wants to lay you vulnerable so his hands can explore places only you want him to touch, wants to take you so that you stay forever, wants to feel your tongue against his, wants to hold your face and feel how you react when he takes his time cherishing you, revering you. 

This feeling is too much, these thoughts are overpowering, yet nothing has ever been more clear. Sunday wants you, lusts for you, even, and he’s never felt so intensely for someone before. 

How would the symphonies sound when they learn of the atrocities he wants to perform? 

Temptation holds him close and infects him with a desire so strong, he’s practically frozen in place as you recover from the shock, holding yourself up with your arms that were on either side of his head. 

“Ow, I’m sorry!” You immediately exclaim, before realising exactly what position you are in, your chests are pressed together, and you’re mortified to think about how close you were before you picked yourself off him, and- his… his hips… are pressed against yours- okay, you needed to leave as soon as possible.

You scramble off him like he had burnt you, frantically shouting apologies whilst doing so, the words clumsy and rushed, but neither of you can deny how you miss the warmth that was suddenly ripped away. 

(If he wanted to, you could have stayed in that position with him.)

Then, before you could get anymore thoughts, you turn and practically bolt out of his room without another word, leaving a hot and bothered Sunday behind.

© EARTHTOOZ 2024, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

[actual-changeling]

crowley avoiding the bookshop like it's consecrated ground is definitely one of my favourite options for how he deals with the break-up but have you considered the opposite?

he returns to tell muriel how to take care of it (don't sell books, get rid of customers, dust, drink tea, read, nothing else), and then he sinks back into his chair. it is still in the same spot as he put it while waiting for aziraphale to return, still catches as much of the sunlight throughout the day as possible, still smells like earl grey, and vanilla, and a hint of cinnamon.

still smells like his angel.

crowley sits down, takes off his shades and leaves them in their usual spot, and then he allows his human form to fade away until a smaller version of the serpent of eden is curled up on the cushions.

muriel knows, of course they do, and as their time on earth forces them to mature like it does with any celestial being staying for an extended amount of time, they ache for crowley. they make sure he's warm and protected, and that is all they really can do.

he doesn't quite sleep, it's more of a hibernation or whatever imitation he can manage, and he waits. maybe it's stupid, maybe it's hopeless, maybe it is useless optimism, but he has to cling to the possibility of aziraphale coming back for him.

crowley dreams of eden. damp earth and lush plants, sweet fruit and humming insects, and an angel offering kindness to someone who fell from grace

-

edit: continuation here

[lalunanymph]

୨⎯ 🖤⎯୧ 𝐌𝐎𝐍 𝐃É𝐌𝐎𝐍

driven by a desperate need to uncover the truth behind your visions after the chaos at the auction, you strike a deal with sylus to unlock more of your memories… only to discover far more than what you bargained for

𓇢𓆸 MONSTERFUCKING, explicit smut with sylus in his demon form, cumflation, predicament bondage (he ties you up with his evol), mentions of pregnancy, mentions of miscarriage, nightmare landscapes, references to GOETHE'S "FAUST" AND HADES imagery for my rendition of sylus' origin, religious imagery, sacrilege, mentions of food, mentions of blood, mentions of death, reader goes insane, mentions of gore, mentions of violence, reader and sylus had a child together, sexy but it's also pretty angsty wbk, this is barely edited ... sorry ...

They say that no one understands human curiosity quite like a demon does.

Once angels with the entire heavens at their feet, their eyes now scorch the earth searching for souls to entrap and torture, striking deals in turn for pounds of flesh they devour once a mortal leaves the realm. 

Demons were cunning and ruthless creatures who struck fear into every heart they encountered; whose natural oozing charm and demeanor could convince even the most stalwart of men to sell their soul in exchange for a paltry consolation prize. 

In a way, Sylus reminds you of a demon. 

If it weren't for the deal you struck with him to bring you to the auction at the hotel, you wouldn't be stuck in this liminal situation where you know too much, but not enough.

After the incident at the Salon Hotel where your memories were coming back in pieces and fragments, frustration stole the last of your rationality and you all but begged the towering, intimidating lord of the N109 underworld to help you gain more of your recollections back.

At first, he had refused to do so with no reason given. 

But, just as you overestimate how stubborn he can be, he underestimates just how persistent you are in turn. 

Sitting across from him in nothing but a scarlet robe he had gifted you, the runny morning sunlight spilling across the mahogany table does nothing to warm you up from the inside out. You're still jittery from the explosion and the fight with that strange looking Wanderer, all while your lover (partner?) appears both nonchalant and nonplussed despite almost losing his life a few nights ago. 

"I can hear the wheels in your head turning, sweetie."

Sylus finally puts down the book he's been reading for the past half an hour, peering at you over his glasses. 

You clear your throat and reach for the glass of pomegranate juice the personal chef had prepared, whetting your throat and your lips for what you have to say next.

"Sylus, it's been days since the last time we were at the hotel," you pause, biting your lower lip. "Don't you think I deserve an explanation of what happened? What I saw in those... flashbacks?" 

If you could even call them that.

The dagger in your hand. The blood stains on your fingers. A towering, dark figure whose touch was more familiar than you could ever believe. It all felt too real and tangible. 

Much, much too tangible. 

As much as you try to ignore it, bury your curiosity six feet under where you could never see it again, your innate Hunter instincts tell you there's something big he's not telling you. 

Something he can't tell you.

Sylus' exaggerated exhale grates your ears and he gives you a scrutinizing look all over.

"I told you—"

"You have no idea what set off those flashbacks, yeah, I heard," you bite back, seething.

A shadow of a grin teases the corners of his lips. "Seems like the little kitten has her claws ready. Whatever is bothering you, sweetie?" 

Bristling at his patronizing tone, your glare sharpens, your grip around the glass tightening. 

"I want to know the truth, Sy." You lean back in the chair and cross your arms. "The whole truth. And nothing but. Why did I have those visions? Why were you in them? Why can't my memories come back no matter how hard I try to remember?" 

You expect him to scoff or play elusive with you like he usually does. But, for the first time since you've met him, Sylus is wearing a pensive look, one which draws the angles of his face to look older than his 28 years of age. 

"Are you sure you want to know?" 

His voice is hoarser than you expect, and you perk up in disbelief.

"You-you're willing to tell me?" 

His crimson eyes flicker to the pomegranate juice in your hands.

"I would like to. But, it depends on if you can handle the truth, little bird." 

You squint at him through narrowed eyes, trying to uncover the ploy he has up his sleeve. Trusting Sylus didn't come naturally to you, though you did try for the sake of the Aether Core bond connecting you both. 

"I can handle it," you mutter decisively. "You've seen what happened after the hotel explosion—I can handle it."

The sunlight cascading behind you drenches half of his face in the shadows, a look of deep contemplation etched in his countenance. 

"Alright." He stands up, and without another moment to spare, rummages in his fridge, fishing out a whole pomegranate and peeling it with nimble, sure fingers. Your curiosity simmers to a boiling point when he taps out a handful of seeds, placing it in a bowl and pushing it right towards you.

"Eat up." 

Cautiously, you assess the blood red seeds, wondering if this was a test or some sort for him to evaluate you. 

“What is this?” 

Those crimson eyes glint with an unnamed emotion, and his expression remains unfathomable. Straightening to his full height, Sylus sauntered over to you, hands in his robe pockets; a teasing grin on his lips. He stops just shy of brushing his shins against your knees, and leans forward, broad shoulders blocking out the morning sunlight as he drenches you in the full shadows of his intentions and secrecy.

“You asked me to tell you the truth and I will. Consider these seeds a downpayment for what I’m about to reveal to you tonight.” 

Adrenaline spikes your veins, and your breathing hitches with excitement.

Is he really…?

Your thoughts trail off, and you hum, reluctantly picking up one perfectly round, juicy red globe. 

Faintly, your voice reaches him, soft and frayed with hesitancy. 

“And if I do this, will you tell me everything I want to know?” 

Striking a deal with Sylus is like striking a deal with the devil himself. You knew this—if it was too good to be true, there was something you had to give back in return. But… the idea of fully comprehending the horrible visions you saw is much too tempting. 

In answer, he cocks his head to one side, regarding you curiously like how a raven might, his mannerisms bringing to mind a scheming Mephisto. 

“Of course. When have I ever gone back on my deal?” 

The allure of knowing is too hard to resist. As you bite down on the pomegranate seeds, its sweet juices coating your tongue, you never thought succumbing to temptation could taste this good. 

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡

It’s night somewhere in the recesses of your consciousness. 

You should be in your own bed in Sylus’ mansion, high thread count sheets pulled up to your chin, but instead, you’re barefoot in this abandoned colosseum, staring up at the towering effigies of old gods long departed from this world. The state of these statues are in ruin; fragments of faces and bodies missing as if they were alone were the lone survivors of a universe-changing explosion.

Only the sound of your breath and the rustle of your footsteps whispering across the stone floor touched your ears. Your guard is up, and you think you’re fully here alone when a presence makes itself known behind you. 

You feel his arms wrap around your torso, pulling you right to his chest. There is no need to turn around; you already know who it was.

Silver hair the color of snow shines in this drab, gray pantheon where old gods and a new world witness him getting to his knees, pressing his face right into your belly that, you realize with a jolt, is protruding slightly.

“I have missed you,” his familiar baritone sends sparks of longing down your spine, and you tangle your fingers in his hair, sighing deeply in contentment.

“My brother tried to keep me locked in the basement,” your words, though foreign to your own ears, felt right at this moment.

Sylus, dressed in a soldier’s uniform, kisses your stomach again, his yearning felt through his sigh when he caresses your hips with broad strokes of his large palms. “I only wish to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“That is my dearest wish, too,” you reply back in a shaky voice.

His smirk, though flashed centuries apart from the Sylus you know now, is still familiar and cheeky. 

“Run away with me,” he decided, straightening up to tangle his fingers with yours, squeezing your hands tightly. “Run away with me and let us forget this horrendous fate, my love.” 

Tears pool in your eyes, and you touch your belly, as if holding onto it for strength. “My love, my brother will be back and he will wonder where I am. It is not safe for you here. He knows what you have done to me—” your grip tightens further on your belly, “—and he wants his revenge for the grave error you have caused my family and I. You need to run—”

The touching scene is interrupted by a man clearing his throat. The both of you look up to find the wounded eyes of your brother searing through the two of you. 

“Sylus,” Valentine snarled, and your lover is quick to hide you behind his broad build, unsheathing his sword. 

“Do not harm her,” Sylus’ tone is low and menacing. “Your sister had no part in this debauchery. It is me you want.” 

Your brother's eyes, so similar to your own, flash with a hunger for Sylus’ end and he swings the sword first. A bloody fight ensues, one man battling for your honor and the other for your love. Your cries go unheard, as if they are alike to the stone statues observing these conflicts with a detached eye.

“Sylus—noooo!” 

His blade sinks into Valentine’s chest, cherry red blood spewing out onto the stone floors. You drop to your knees, cradling your belly in anguish as you cry out your brother’s name over and over again. Your brother’s blood seeps through your hands, staining your snowy white nightgown as you fail to staunch his life from leaving his shuddering body. 

He’s dead… oh gods… he’s dead… My last family member is dead!

Devastated, you run off barefoot into the night, rocks and dirt cutting through the delicate soles of your feet as you scream and cry like a madwoman. 

Sylus has killed my brother… he’s killed my mother…

This cursed child in your womb! 

You want nothing more than to pull it from the flesh of your being, leaving it straggling and dying for breath. You want nothing of Sylus in you—there is an absence of everything warm and good in your shivering chest. All you desire for is his demise from this world. 

Hurling yourself into an empty church, you stagger to the sanctuary, climbing the steps and crumble into a desperate, sobbing heap. 

Tears drip down to the stone floor, and your sobs echo around the vacant space. Saint Verona gazes down upon you, heavenly in her glow of flowing blonde hair and esoteric glare, stoic and silent, as if she too has abandoned you from God’s good graces. A bubbling laughter filled with nothing but terror and hysteria bounces across the church’s walls and you cackle, tearing at your hair, your clothes, fists raining down onto your belly as you try to rid yourself of the monster’s child. 

The scene changes. 

Scorching earth fills your nose, and in your hand, a dagger prevails. 

There’s a thundering of hooves, like a battalion of horses fighting in the distance, ringing through your hollow ears. The ground shakes and trembles from the force of the hundred horses, but when you look up, you see a familiar pair of red eyes burning through the dark mists surrounding him. 

His name comes to you in a flash.

Sylus.

Those crimson orbs seem to float through the smoky composition of his face, though if you look closer, you can see the translucent demonic skin stretching over his towering form appearing in fleeting instances—proof that he was once human. 

You glare at him, getting to your feet and wield the dagger, aiming it straight for his heart.

The second the pointed tip sinks into his chest, the world explodes in a shock of white light, and you’re back in the same, decrepit pantheon. 

There is no longer a child inside of you, just hatred tearing through your heart as you bare your teeth at his demonic form, not afraid so much as devastated by his betrayal.

“You hurt me.” 

Your voice rings through the empty halls with the conviction of an entire jury waiting to declare him guilty. 

Sylus doesn’t respond, merely taking one step towards you. His demonic form towers above you by a few feet, but you tilt your head upright in defiance, unwilling to back down and grovel for a man who had left you in the lurch; abandoning you when you needed him the most.

A clawed hand drifts from his side, and you flinch when he touches your cheek, tracing his finger down to your jaw. The mists swirling around him recoil, as if waiting in anticipation.

“I’ve missed you.” His voice is a low croak, vibrating through your chest with the strength of his despair. 

You shrink back from his touch, the baleful glare on your lips never fading. 

“Why? After what you’ve done… after what you did to me…”

“I never intended for you to get caught in the crossfire,” he rumbled, taking one step closer to you. The tendrils of black mist move with him, and you feel them reaching out to you, caressing your arms, your hair. 

One of them touches your cheek, and you’re surprised to find it warm and pulsing, as if human blood ran through its dark haze. 

The tendril reaches to touch your lips, and those crimson eyes burn through the dark night, remaining steady on you. 

“I only wanted to make sure you were safe. That is why I made the deal with Mephisto.” 

You shake at the name of that cursed demon who had stolen your lover’s humanity. 

“And why should I believe you now?” 

Though in his demonic form, there are still bits of his humanity flickering through the amorphous slate of his once face. You can almost see his lips twisting into a frown, the desperation besmirching his brow with a furrow. 

“Do you think I would’ve done this—any of this—if it weren’t for you?” Sylus takes one thundering step towards you, close enough for you to reach out and brush his translucent skin. “I love you! I love you so much, my beloved and here you are, boldly claiming I want to destroy you. It is absurd.”

“It is not absurd!” you cry out, raising your fists and slamming them onto his chest. “You took everything away from me! You stole my livelihood, my sanity, my… my family!” 

Sylus caught you in time as your strength gives out and you crumple in front of him, tears seeping down your cheeks and staining your frock. 

“Our child… you didn’t even search for me when you found out the truth…”

Your hands clench above your hollow belly. 

For a palm with such immense size and width, it cups your face gently, bringing his face closer to yours, the love he feels for you desperately trying to bridge the distance. 

“I made sure to speak to the underworld lords. Our baby is currently in paradise now, my love. Nothing can hurt her. Her soul is free,” his voice breaks at the reminder of the price he had to pay to protect you and the child you both made out of love. The price of his soul, bartered and bargained for with the devil himself so his human lover would never feel an ounce of pain in her life again. 

You shake your head, tears staining the stone floor with dark droplets. “The price is too high, Sylus. It is too much. I should be taking on some of the burden—”

“You will remain in the above world, my love,” he reprimands you without an afterthought. “I will not ask you for much except to continue living as you would if I didn’t exist.” 

What’s left of his human conscience aches at the reminder of what he has to say next. “You are free to love, free to get married, have more children if you like… Your freedom has been bought and paid for. You don’t have to suffer anymore, Y/N. It is done.”

He stands after a second of hesitation, but you desperately reach out for him, grasping onto his broad shoulders. 

“I can’t live without you.” More tears gloss over your eyes, and you hiccup the truth through quivering lips. “Please. Sylus. There has to be a way we can be together.” 

He remains silent, impassive in the face of your desperate plea. 

The tendrils hovering around you are softer this time when they reach out to stroke your hair, grazing your cheeks and neck, leaving shivers of heat running up your spine. Effortlessly, like you weigh next to nothing, the wrap around your body, lifting you off the ground. 

Your back meets stone, and your hands are tethered above your head by the dark mist, the aching silence too much for you to handle.

“Sylus…” 

The sound of his name from your lips will never not be the sweetest thing he’s ever heard. 

Despite being dark and imposing in his demonic form, it doesn’t scare you a single bit when he moves closer, face hovering inches from yours. The tendrils now stroke your bare thighs, feeling the tensing of your muscles under his touch, wrapping around your shapely calves to spread them wider.

“Do you trust me?” He whispers, low and inquisitive, filling your parted mouth with his hot breath.

You nod, unable to speak, but the devotion in your eyes never wavers. 

“Yes. With all my heart and soul.” 

Your soul. Sylus feels the last remaining stronghold of his patience snapping; he has to claim your body as his own. 

There is nothing lewd in his touch when he caresses your hips, moving his sweeping palms to your chest as he squeezes your heaving mounds. Sylus’ mouth finds refuge in your neck, kissing a fiery trail up to your jaw as he tastes you with his tongue.

Your whimper fuels his sick need to claim you over and over again until you bear his marks upon your skin. Sylus lets the tendrils do their part in undressing you; those wispy curls slithering underneath the straps of your dress, drawing them down to let him feast his eyes upon your naked chest.

And you take these transgressions he inflicts upon with barely a grimace, encouraging him with soft moans and groans as the snakelike mist curls around your breasts, teasing your nipples to stiff peaks. 

Sylus commands the mist to lift you higher, right at his mouth level and he takes his time to savor the taste of your skin—licking your tender nubs, biting down on them and leaving them stinging from the cold and his saliva. 

Your abdomen constricts, and he sweeps a hand down the taut line of your body, humming in appreciation. It’s like he can finally see and touch you without any distance between your bodies; despite his sheer size and non-human composition. 

For the first time since his perceived betrayal, you’re openly receiving him with your reactions and enthusiasm. 

Sylus, you groan his name like it's a mantra. 

The tendrils trickle to the split between your thighs, lifting the hem of your dress aside so he can appreciate the bareness of you beyond your inner shift. He doesn’t hesitate to tear off your clothes, hungering to feel your body quivering under his palms. When your bare body is revealed in the gossamer light, he takes a step back, eyes burning from how pure and sacred you look.

Inches of warm flesh, so different from the hardness of his own translucent skin, greets his claws and he takes his time to touch you; memorizing your shape and smoothness in case he may never encounter them in his existence again.

You throw your head back, baring your graceful neck, and his mouth sinks right into the tender skin, working a mark right on your pulse point.

“My love,” he groaned in between kisses. “My love. All mine.” 

Your hips begin to twitch, and he takes it as a sign that you’re begging for more attention right where you need him the most. 

He may be a demon, but as Sylus sinks to his knees, he feels like a sinner falling at your altar; taking you into his mouth like you’re the only covenant in the world he wants to keep. 

Trembles tear through you like an earthquake, and Sylus has to sink his claws in the plush flesh of your thighs to keep you steady.

He runs his tongue over your clit, through your folds, the weeping wetness of your need running down his mouth, his jaw. 

The taste of you pumps his veins full of ecstasy.

Your sounds, moans, cries all filling his stone dead heart with a staggering love one will never find in this universe. 

Feels so good… you feel amazing… 

Your desperate panting and moaning go straight to his fuzzy brain, and your hips are circling and undulating, desperately trying to get yourself off with his mouth.

Sylus doesn’t care. He wants you to use him; wants to be used by you thoroughly. 

Those blood red eyes flicker up the length of your body, taking in the tendrils still cruelly teasing your nipples, your quivering thighs and endless streams of moans signaling you’re right at the brink of your pleasure.

Giving your sensitive nub a tender kiss, he rises to his full height, and prepares for the final claiming.

The way your eyes widen when he reveals his cock nearly makes him laugh, and you gasp, flinching back at the sheer size and girth of him.

Close to a foot long, you’ve never seen such… length on an appendage quite like the one Sylus was carrying.

He noticed your gaping stare, the petrified silence, and laughed. 

“Don’t worry, my love. I will make sure to prep you very—” he takes one step closer, sinking his claws into your thigh. “—very,” you feel his lips brush underneath your ear, drawing a shiver of heat wracking through your body. “—very well.” 

He remained true to his word.

Sylus spent what felt like hours between your thighs, giving your orgasm after orgasm, using his tongue, teeth, claws, and the mist to get you spilling for him until your every pulse wracking through your body was starting to hurt.

Your cries were eventually muffled by the tendrils stuffing your mouth, the cross-eyed expression you wore making it harder for him to deny the need to absolutely claim you with no mercy. 

“No more,” your garbled plea reaches his ears, and Sylus leans back on his haunches, staring up at you with a raised brow. 

Your exhaustion manifests in the tired droop of your eyes, tugging right on his heartstrings.

“Oh, my. Looks like I’ve tired you out, my love.” 

Sylus gathered you in his arms, holding you tightly to his chest. Your head lolls against his broad shoulder, the exertion wearing you out and making you susceptible to his next ploy. 

Lifting your hips, he tests the waters by sinking the tip of his tapered cock right into your heat. 

Your eyes flutter wide open, a gasp ripping past your lips. 

“Sy,” you stammered, and he shushes you. 

Pain. A neverending stretch. 

Your gasp is fused with panic, and you shake in your bonds, your body seizing.

“N-no… it can’t fit… it can’t…”

“Ssh.” He kisses your tears away, soothing your worries with his palms on your cheeks, thumbs stroking your jaw. “I’ll go slow, my love. I won’t hurt you.”

You hiccup and give a little, teary nod. 

Sylus smiled at your adorable surrender, staying true to his promise and taking his time to slowly ease inside of you. 

Without much effort, he’s halfway in and you gape, unable to believe you can take all of him in one go. 

A mist tendril helps to keep your body keyed up for him, playing with your clit and rubbing the sensitive nub until you begin to shiver and shake. 

You clench your hands into fists, unable to break the bonds that hold you fast to the sensations; that tie you down to Sylus.

He nips and licks at your throat, growling under his breath as his cock endeavors to plunge inside of you.

The need to fully bottom out, to have all of him buried inside of you is much too lustful of a temptation to surrender.

Sylus needs to see you struggling to make him fit. He needs to hear you say the words that will give yourself fully to him. 

Oh… Sylus… oh gods… gods…

“No gods, my love,” he bites down on your earlobe, drawing a full-body shiver from you. “Just me.”

His crimson eyes glance down to where you’re connected, and he huffs a sound of satisfaction.

“Look at that perfect cunt, my love,” he guides you to look down, enjoying how your eyes widen and your breath falls out in a desperate puff. “She’s taking me so well… you’re taking me so well…”

One more inch, and the ritual will be complete. 

Sylus can see the tip of his cock pushing against your stomach, and the idea of him being so deep, so intimately connected with you, makes his heart lurch and the blood rush to his ears.

“Gods!” 

Your scream echoed around the pantheon, both a revelry and blasphemy at once. 

His grip around your hips tightened, long fingers overlapping around your smaller figure as he waits for you to stop squirming, his jaw set tightly so he doesn't lose control of his urges and unintentionally hurt you. 

“Darling,” his warning comes out as a low rumble. “Please, cease your movements. I am barely holding on by a thread.”

Your lachrymose eyes trail upwards to him, and something in his chest tightens at the look of pure trust and devotion you give him. 

Tentatively, he shifts his hips forward, giving a gentle thrust to test the waters.

You respond instantly, back arching and hands turning into white-knuckled fists above your head that he thinks you might accidentally snap off your fingers. Your clenched jaw and quivering thighs fuel him to pick up the pace, and soon, the decrepit hall is filled with the sounds of your bodies messily meeting.

Each thrust he gives you makes your belly bulge, the sheer size of him driving you to the brink of madness as your eyes roll back into your skull, your mouth falling open and tongue slightly dangling past your lower lip.

He lives for the blissful look on your face, increasing his movements until he feels that familiar knot tightening deep in his body. 

“You feel like a dream, my love,” his whisper lights up the lust-tinged room with a flicker of innocent love—a great divide bridging closer and closer from the power of his devotion to you. 

The mists move by his command, pleasuring your erogenous zones—tugging and flicking your nipples, grazing firm circles on your clit.

Sylus needs you to be at the edge with him; needs to have you trust him enough to go off the deep end with someone as corrupted and wicked as himself. 

Your choked gasps and stuttering hips bring about a whole new wave of love and fierce protection he feels for you. 

Tangling his claws in your hair, he pushes your face up to meet his, devouring your entire being with his soul-sucking kiss.

The earth shakes, the walls tremble, and debris clatters to the ground.

Your orgasm comes as a jagged cry, and you shatter around him for the final time tonight, digging your heels into his broader waist; nearly losing yourself from the sensation of being completely tiny in comparison to him. 

Warmth gushes inside of you. At first, you find it familiar—comforting, even.

But, it doesn’t stop. 

Sylus keeps spilling inside of you until you hallucinate his taste in the back of your throat—salty, and musky desire. 

His hips tremble with the force of his unholy release, snarls and gasps bouncing across the dilapidated walls demonically sinister. 

You should be afraid—you knew that. 

But, all you can feel in this moment is raging passion for the man who was once your entire world.

The mists release you and you tumble right into his arms, feeling much too small and weak in his massive arms. 

Sylus’ demon cock remains hard and unyielding inside of you, and you think you feel him sloshing about in your inner guts.

Your belly is completely swollen, protruding from the copious amount of cum you hold inside of you. 

It makes you shiver and keen at the strange yet welcomed sensation. Sylus, mortified, tries to pull himself out of you, but you shake your head, needing to hold him close.

He drags you to the ground, holding you steady in his hulking build, pushing what’s left of his human nose into your hair to take in your musky, sweet scent.

When you straighten to lift yourself from his cock, you wince and gasp at the amount of white that floods from your gaping hole, making you twitch and whine loudly. 

Sylus too, groans at the sight, his head thumping back onto the stone floor.

“You will be the death of me, darling.”

His claws gently drag through your hair, and you sigh, leaning into his touch no matter how diabolical it may be.

Silence resounds around two lovers who are simply enjoying each other’s company. You press your head to his chest and he plays with the ends of your hair, content to nuzzle and cuddle you like he used to do when he was still human.

The thought puts a damper on your high, and you exhale, twining your arms around him.

As if he can read your mind, Sylus’ grip on your frailer body tightens—unwilling to let you go.

“Extend your palm,” his hoarse mumble draws you up short, and your look of bewilderment is second only to the confusion when he materializes a ripe pomegranate right into your outstretched hand. 

Sylus’ claws wrap around your smaller hand as he curls your fingers around the rotund fruit, reluctant to let you go.

“This is part of our deal,” he rumbled. “Until I can manifest in a pure flesh form, I will come to you in your dreams. Eat this and think of me, my beloved, and I will be with you the very second I hear your call for me.”

You gaze at the fruit in confusion, about to open your mouth and speak when you realize he’s disappearing right in front of your eyes.

“Sylus!” 

Your desperate cries mingle with your pained exclamation when you tumble to the hard ground, the warmth and strength of his body no longer under yours. The pomegranate in your hand rolls into a dusty corner, but you turn a blind eye to it—unable to believe he is well and truly gone. 

“Sylus,” you begin to sob, clawing at the ground, as if you could dig up the stone flooring and bring him back into your arms. 

“Sylus, you promised me! You promised you would never leave… you… you promised…”

You promised…

You promised…

You promised…

“...promised…” 

Your eyes flutter open in the half-darkness. Tears are drying on your cheeks, soaking the pillow underneath you. 

Numbly, you touch your stomach, thinking you can still feel the imprint of him deep inside of you. The sheets are tangled around your legs, and the emptiness yawns like a pertinacious monster inside of you, clawing through your soul till you think you might go mad with need. 

“Sylus…”

You feel the shadows stirring, and without warning, his embrace returns to hold you tightly to his chest.

The familiar scent of him, coming back to you after lifetimes apart, destroys what’s left of your self-control.

You sob in his arms like a child, soaking his robe with your tears and sorrow.

Let it out, darling, he whispers in the darkness, those crimson eyes filling with grief and pain, his tears dripping into your hair. 

Let it out… let it all out… I’m here… I’m here…

“Sylus,” you gasp, digging your fingers into the soft material of his sleeping robe, as if your touch alone could ensure he never leaves you again. “Sylus… I’m so sorry… I’m so…”

“Ssh,” he cradles you in his arms, rocking you from side to side like how a father might soothe a terrified child. “Oh, darling. There is no need to apologize. There is no need.”

Your shuddering, muffled wails pierce through the quiet night, and his eyes squeeze close, unable to bear the thought of you suffering from the same memories that never ceased to keep him up till dawn.

All Sylus has ever wanted was to protect you, but sometimes, protection comes with knowledge and knowledge is, in his experience, nothing but pain. 

“Do you want to talk about this now or shall we wait till morning arrives?” 

He wants to give you the choice he never had—a chance to confront your past and shape your future together, releasing himself from centuries of limbo spent navigating uncertainty alone.

But, you shake your head tiredly, a telltale sign of where your headspace was tonight.

“No. Let’s do it in the morning.”

Your arms tighten around him and he implicitly reads your unease and trepidation, letting you curl your body deeper into his embrace.

Sylus pauses for a moment, finding his center in your embrace, knowing that despite the centuries of turmoil you've endured together, come morning, you'll still be by his side.

“Of course,” he whispers, his voice threading through the comforting silence that envelops you both. He gently kisses the top of your head.

“Till morning, then.”

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡

dawn says: ngl i teared up writing this </3 goethe's 'faust' will always make me emo because all mans really wanted was to be loved by someone (and amass immense power but ... oh well ...)

i had to review a lot of notes on faust as well as this reddit post for reference in this piece so your reblogs and feedback will be extremely appreciated in return mwah

©️ lalunanymph. do not copy elements of my story, sentence structures and plot lines and claim it as yours. do not recommend and repost my stories on other platforms.

[greenglowinspooks]

The way that I’m brainrotting over a DCxDP crossover with a Danny who’s a vengeful villain rn

Like, let’s just say that the GiW finally get into contact with the JL. They need help neutralizing a threat, you see, and they’re on their last limb trying to keep civilians safe.

They have video evidence! They have studies to back their claims! The JL have to help them!

Unfortunately, the JL believe them. They join a fight against Danny, and defeat him due to being far more experienced than he is. Danny is locked away and experimented on by the GiW.

That would CHANGE a person. Your heroes turning against you and seeing you as a monster, being experimented on for who knows how long, not knowing if your friends and family are safe.

Danny gets out due to a simple mistake on the GiW’s part; having Blüdhaven as part of their transport route.

Of course the trucks were attacked, they’re government property!

So now, whoever decided to raid the government transport trucks (the Penguin or something) has a ton of experimental weapons with no idea how they work, and a heavily traumatized teenager.

Danny knows how they work. Danny can be useful! They won’t throw him out if he’s useful! And so, now Danny is working for the Penguin, altering the ectoplasm weapons to make them work on humans.

It’s a good deal for both parties. Danny gets to neurotically imprint on the Penguin like a small baby animal, and the Penguin gets a brilliant mind who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

But eventually, Danny finds out what happened to his family in his absence.

Jazz is in Arkham. Not as a psychologist, but as a “patient.” Apparently, she snapped and completely destroyed the house, leveled a few blocks of Amity Park, and conducted organized attacks on government bases (mostly GiW) for months.

Sam and Tucker helped her, eventually splitting once Jazz was captured. Sam travels to areas of extreme pollution, completely overgrowing them with her plant powers. Currently she’s in the Amazon rainforest, engaging in an ongoing feud with logging companies. Sam is winning.

Tucker faked his death, and Danny has no idea where he is. He only knows that the death wasn’t real because of a code that the three of them made together, just in case.

Ellie’s trapped in the Infinite Realms. Danny had a failsafe in place so that if she was ever cornered by the GiW, she would be sent to her haunt in the GZ. However, with the portal destroyed, she can’t come back. Danny just hopes she’s okay.

His parents are now top GiW scientists. They’re traveling the country giving speeches. They’re working on a battery powered by ectoplasm, but apparently started “having difficulties” around the same time that Danny escaped.

None of it is fair. None of it is right.

The Justice League destroyed his life, the lives of his friends, and they’re doing as good as ever. The GiW is respected, and his parents are happily working away for them.

Danny takes up some of his more experimental weapons and breaks Jazz out of Arkham. She’s a little different now, colder and more quiet, but she still loves him all the same. It’s an unimaginable comfort to him to see his sister again.

He can’t use his powers anymore. He’s so used to associating them with pain that even transforming into his ghost form is enough to take him down for hours.

However, he understands ectoplasm more than anyone else in the world. He knows how to use it in virtually everything; how it can become a weapon, how it can be used as a supplemental ingredient in poisons and nerve agents, how it can twist and distort the mind if applied correctly.

He doesn’t care what happens to him. He’s going to take down the GiW, and destroy the lives of the JL members who helped lock him away, just as they did to him.

No matter the cost.

[the-thing-inside-your-closet]

GhostKing!Maddie

Reveal gone right. Good parents Jack and Maddie.

Danny tells his parents that he’s Phantom and they accept him with open arms and hearts and the willingness to change their views. With this they start their research on Ghost culture, because that’s a part of their baby’s life (afterlife?) now so of course they’re going to make sure they understand their son so as to avoid potential culture clashes in the future.

(Did you know ghosts fight as a form of bonding?! Fascinating!)

At some point in their research they learn that the method of succession for the title of King of the Infinite Realms if for the former king to be defeated in trial by combat.

They learn that Danny defeated the former king tyrant Pariah Dark.

Their little Dann-o is the new King.

But he’s just a baby! Their baby! Cry his parents.

Danny is only 14, going on 15. Even if he’s a teenager he’s still their baby boy, and he is far too young to be forced to deal with politics alongside school and all the other dramas that come with teenagerhood.

They were young once, the Fenton parents remember how major some things were for teenagers and how stressful it could be. And Danny had already been through so much with protecting the town. And they wanted to make up for what they put him through before they knew it was him. Danny says it alright, they didn’t know but they do now and that accept him and that’s what matters! And oh do their hearts ache at the memories of shooting at their son and all the terrible things they said about him while he was right there.

No, they wouldn’t allow their son to deal with everything in his own when they could help him. Somehow. How do they help with this?

Then, Maddie demands an audience with the council. There, declares herself the King.

The Observants argue that she can’t possibly be the King as she is not a ghost, nor did she defeat the previous king to take the title. And anything else that they could use to oppose the idea.

Maddie counters that as her son isn’t even legally old enough to drive yet (the age is 16 in American right?) he cannot take on such responsibilities until he is of a certain age. Jack is nodding along enthusiastically as Maddie verbally eviscerates these floating eyeballs.

Clockwork is smirking in the corner. He likes Phantom’s mother. And he agrees with the Drs Fenton. He backs her up, and says that young Daniel had other pressing matters to attend to and that yes, he is in fact too young for the full responsibilities that come with being the King of the Infinite Realms. He is so young, and still of the living being a halfa that he would require education of the Realms laws before he could officially take up the crown.

But what about Maddie? She’s fully human, how could she possibly be placed in that position then without the same training?

Clockwork smiles as Frosbite or maybe Pandora, one of Danny’s other allies, states that the council could handle things until then, and that they would have had to have waited regardless for Danny to be up to speed before he could feasibly take on the role of King and confidently make decisions without the guidance of the council at every turn. With Maddie as a placeholder she could still sign off on things or act as a figure head, at least until Phantom could take on his role as the fully realised King.

Anyway, Maddie becomes the Ghost King. Or at least temporarily while her baby boy finishes high school and can decide what he wants to do. At least this is one less thing he has to worry about.

This however results in instances of cults and all manner of people trying to summon the Ghost King for one reason or another. But instead they get one Dr Maddie Fenton.

Sometimes it’s some kids that were fooling around at a slumber party, and she warns them on the dangers of summoning unknown entities without doing proper throughout research before hand and ensuring they have the proper protective measures if something were to go wrong.

And then there are cults and magic users and everything in-between that are trying to summon the Ghost King for personal gain.

These individuals are more often than not met with the sight of a bazooka, pulled from seemingly thin air, aimed directly at them as the very ominous sound of the woman counting down echos in the air. The ones with half a brain would book it.

All of this while maintaining the midwestern politeness would be both hilarious and a little ominous.

Then one day the Justice League, or any of the other teams, are breaking up a cult ritual that they got wind of to summon a powerful being for the purpose of destroying something or someone. I’m not to fussed on their motives.

But just before they can stop it the summing is cast and the air is filled with such a heavy sense of forbidding that it makes the hairs on the back of one’s beck stand on end.

The room darkens, the shadows seemingly converging in the centre of the summoning circle. It feels hard to breathe, and there’s a hint of something other in the air around them that just keeps increasing in intensity. It feels like reality is being around them, and just as quickly as it all began a crack appears within the circle. And a toxic green (Lazarus green) glow seems out of it as it opens like the unhinging jaw of a predator. There’s a blinding flash of green and then there is a woman, judging by her build, in a teal spandex suit with goggles fastened on her face.

She scans the room in silence before her eyes falls on the heroes standing in defensive positions before her. The cultists are all tied up or knocked out, or just frozen in place because holy shit the summing worked.

It’s never worked before.

But who is this woman?

And where is the Ghost King?

The head cultist, whom was still yet to be detained, demands to know who she is and where is the Ghost King?!

Maddie smiles as she pulls out her Fenton bazooka and says, “Oh bless your heart, I am the Ghost King!”

Where this goes from here, I’m not sure. This was all I had when is tarted writing this and right now I’m too tired to think. I just hope someone likes it and if you do, feel free to add anything! And if you have any critiques feel free to tell me!

(My apologise if I leave out a chunk of information, I’m writing this in my pyjamas half asleep and just trying to get it all written down. Also I’m not from the US, and haven’t watched Danny Phantom in a hot minute, so if I got something wrong pls forgive me.)

[homunculus-argument]

Character concepts that would be funny:

Some dude who's known around the city for being a complete public menace, obnoxiously loud, zero regard for traffic rules, laws in general, or basic manners. Nobody knows where he lives or what the hell he does for a living, he seems to always be wandering around the streets but as random as his clothes are, they always seem to be at least somewhat neat and the local homeless population doesn't know him and as far as they know he's not one of them.

Everybody knows he'll steal your shit. That's what he's known for, and what people warn each other about. Shoplifting, snatching your unattended coat off the back of a park bench, taking the fries from a fast food order that wasn't his. But somehow, only ever food or clothes. You forget your phone next to your kebab while going to a diner bathroom, and you come back to find that your phone is still there but your kebab is gone. And so is that guy.

Nobody knows what this guy's deal is. Well, his deal is that he is a shapeshifter. His true form is a seagull. He doesn't give a shit about integrating into human society, he just got sick of being harrassed by dogs while trying to eat from the trash can one day and decided to shapeshift to the biggest animal he could think of - having never been outside of the city, that would be human. Which naturally freaked out the dog, which was the goal in the first place.

And it then turned out that being around the city as a human had some other unexpected perks, which were convenient. Like cars swerving around him when he's standing in the middle of the road. He shrieks at them anyway, just to keep safe. He's learned some curse words but has no interest in learning any more of human language.

[sillystringpasta]

so, i see all these aus where danny gets help from the justice league for the anti ecto acts, and they're great. but hear me out. ghost king danny. classic setup, acts need to be repealed or war.

so danny goes to the league, of course.

the league of assassins.

Ra's is already familiar with death, and ghosts, and the realms. ya man's had the lazarus pits for centuries, he knows a little bit of what's what. maybe there's already some trade relations going on. more importantly, he has a massive group of hyper competent people who can pull strings in the government very stealthily, and have no outside affiliation or loyalty to that government.

but why not the JL? most of them are based in the USA. they work with the government (danny assumes). surely they are aware of the Acts. surely they would conform to them, enforce them.

so ghost king danny meets with ra's, who gives rancid vibes, but is able to, and wants to, do a smear campaign against the JL. against the USA. to gain favor with the guy who is the king of his most sacred resource, and knowledge about how to use the Pits to gain some basic liminal powers.

danny doesn't like the solution, exactly. but he's king. and this is what will protect his people. this is what will get expedient results. this is what his advisors who will still permit peace will allow.

so danny takes the deal with Ra's.

the initial outrage begins online, perhaps through MikMok. a mega famous influencer is cosplaying as superman, doing a twerking sort of dance to the most current haha funni meme song. the text overlay reads: when the superheroes condone genocide because they aren't human, ANTI-ECTO ACTS (whatever law/section code they were passed in).

it goes viral. and then someone finds the Acts (prodded along by the League) and it goes from a hit sensation online to every. single. news outlet flooding with information (puppeted by the League).

is this real? the Acts are real. but why? if these people(?) don't exist, why the Acts? the outrage. the mass confusion. the conspiracies. the new subgeddits and trending xitter tags. 4kun greentext be me: a ghost, becomes the new thing.

at this point, the GIW are scrambling to keep their involvment on the downlow. there are acts, sure, but they're not enforced :DDDD

vlad is in a similar situation. he cloned a guy. he def experimented on other ghosts to get to that level of knowledge. naturally, this is about when lex luthor gets involved. because, wouldn't you know it, but project CADMUS? yeah. that was a collab with DalvCo. they both wanted non-human clones from green stuff. they got it, and now luthor's sitting on some unpretty information.

he promptly shoves vlad under the bus, which is rapidly becoming less of a bus and more a trainwreck.

the league is surprised this happened, but goes with it.

the US governemnt is still trying to deny, deny, deny.

it's at this point that the JL gets themselves together. they don't know if the papers by Drs fenton are biased, or if ecto entities really are mindless creatures bent on destruction.

constantine says they're biased. green lantern concurs.

they decide to summon an ecto entity and find out what is going on.

danny is pretty stressed. it's a stressful situation. he's on break for the first time since they got a solution to this problem. he's not gonna answer a summoning. he has people to do that for him.

so they don't get the ghost king.

but they do get-

dani. and jazz. at the same time.

maximum possible psychic damage.

in the room at the watchtower is the big 3, green lantern, martian manhunter, flash, constantine, zatanna, raven, and black canary (legends of tomorrow experience? cool headed? there for arrow who is busy?).

dani doesn't like superman. he treats clones badly. jazz doesn't like batman, see Arkham.

dani doesn't know who c, z, raven, or bc are. jazz kinda knows of them, but not well.

so the actual negotiations go down with WW and MM.

they have a lot of questions. dani (abomination form) introduces jazz (basic looking human) as a princess of the realms. jazz says that the Acts are real, the realms want war, go suck a creamsickle (that was dani), they want restitution for the lives lost from the GIW.

then they leave the JL wondering who the GIW are.

someone (LoA) manages to hack the watchtower and post the meeting online as soon as it happens. or maybe they livestreamed it on Switch.

my spamblr, the result of my space buying tumblr in 1999, gains its first sexy women (jazz). jazz/WW fiction springs up on AOL3 overnight.

the GIW goes public. they try to push the envelop of ghosts being non-sentient. they try to use jazz being ambassador for that meeting to help their case. the JL is fighting accuations, but they are being pidgeon holed into siding with the GIW by the media.

it's at this point that things go from trainwreck to airplane runway crash.

dalvco and luthor are in a lawsuit. the usgov is under pressure from everyone. people are calling for impeachment of the president. the GIW is getting raided and having their evil posted online. the drs fentons are absent (in the ghost zone, either being evil or having mimosas with pandora). ra's is trying to use new knowledge of the Pits to reanimate tim's spleen. the JL is under constant fire. everyone who has ever had a malicious opinion about super or meta control is getting new platforms. danny can't use his intimate knowledge of what's going on to write his essays for school.

the world is galvanized. there are calls to action. liminals of Amity Prak come forward. you could be liminal too! the Acts get repealed. the GIW gets cleaned out, all prisoners rescued. the realms get restituition. the meta protection acts get expanded.

people will learn about phantom, the superhero. the dead boy who saved them all when the JL didn't answer amity's calls. the JL comes under more fire. they lose funding, defund the police style. for maximum chaos, this can be when the miraculous ladybug crossover starts.

phantom gets a bajillion features on true crime podcasts. tucker keeps sending links to the episodes to them. sam will never admit it, but she listens to them.

but things will never, ever be the same. arguably it's a bad end. but...

black canary restructures arkham from what jazz said to batman in that meeting. many of the rogues get actual help. the joker is transfered to a supermax. he never escapes again. nightwing takes the discowing costume back up in celebration.

vlad loses the lawsuit, and uses his powers to get one over on luthor, who has a mind control suggestion implanted to (amongst other things) never be able to work on these projects again.

there is greater transparancy in superhero work. this makes some people start social programs for villians who have a point. it works for a few of them. the JL is cleared up to handle more extraterrestriel threats, not leaving the burden on one person alone in the cities. the child sidekicks have less work.

amanda waller is fired. ironically, she had nothing to do with any of this, but people assume that she did. either way, everyone agrees it's deserved.

the league of assassins makes a lot of money. they get hired a lot in turbulent times.

disney, which is utterly unchanged in this dimension, makes a documentary about everything. they get dani in for an interview. it's in very bad taste. there is at least one death pun and CGI'd animal.

danny graduates.

clockwork smiles.

[sunderwight]

SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a dragon.

It's not so bad, at first. He's an extremely magical sort of dragon so he can easily take on a humanoid shape, and he has dominion over an entire mountain, with a magical gate that leads to his palace. Said palace has a fully stocked treasury, a library, garden, etc, with the only real downsides being that the place is kind of huge and very difficult for a neet with limited housekeeping or landscaping skills to keep up with. The original dragon had enslaved a bunch of fairy spirits to do it for him, but since Shen Yuan has moral objections to that, he'd let them all go and they'd run off before he could even think to offer to hire any of them as paid employees instead. Not that he can blame them for being in a hurry to get gone.

He does his best, and generally enjoys being a dragon lazing on his mountain, or wandering the beauty of his palace and investigating the books and scrolls kept there. He doesn't actually seem to need to eat or drink, so that's not really an issue, and nobody looks keen to bother him. But after a few months the dust starts to really pile up, and trying to figure out how to do his own laundry without modern equipment leads to several disasters, and even though he doesn't need to eat he's starting to think it would be quite nice to have a fancy sit-down dinner and enjoy it for its own sake anyway. He has an enchanted larder but his food prep skills aren't up to much.

So, Shen Yuan ventures away from his mountain. He keeps to his human disguise when he's not traveling, and at first tries to hire on some help from a nearby city. But when he explains that he lives on the mountain, he realizes the difficulty, because everyone in the area knows that only the dragon lives there. So they all think he's either a liar or a fraud, or some servant of a nefarious supernatural creature angling to trick and possibly devour them.

Shen Yuan tries approaching another town in his dragon form, to see if anyone will actually deal with him if he's being upfront and honest about the situation, but the townspeople just panic. He returns to his mountain to rethink his strategies, and in the meanwhile the alarmed locals hire a swordsman to go after him. The guy gives him a few very painful cuts before Shen Yuan mostly-accidentally sends him careening into a boulder. One broken arm later the swordsman is gently persuaded that the pay he was offered isn't worth the effort on this job, and leaves.

Discouraged, Shen Yuan decides he's gonna give this one last try. He picks the second closest city, flies up, and is like yes hello, yes I am indeed a dragon, no I'm not trying to burn down your walls, yes it would be excellent if you stopped shooting arrows at me, look they don't even get past the scales? It's kind of silly? Okay, yes, thank you very much. Good. Now, the thing is, I'm looking for some people. I want to take them back to my mountain with me, to my incredibly nice palace, and -- what was that? A princess? No no I don't want a princess, what would I even do with one? If anything I'm looking for the complete opposite of a princess!

Anyway, the locals take this to mean that the dragon is demanding a sacrifice in the form of a pretty boy of no particular pedigree, and Shen Yuan takes this to mean that he's finally made his case clear and they're going to dig up someone who is willing to overlook his being a dragon in exchange for free room and board and fair wages out of his massive treasury.

SY's a bit disheartened when the entire city could only apparently turn up one such person -- an underfed teenage boy who looks at Shen Yuan like, despite the situation, he is still expecting to be eaten at any moment. Poor thing! But at least having one servant means he can potentially get more, especially if it all goes well. The lad can tell others that working for a dragon isn't so bad! Well, provided that he doesn't give up in alarm at the state of the mountain palace.

For his part, Luo Binghe at first thinks he's definitely going to get eaten, and then that this dragon is weirdly nice about planning to eat him, and then that maybe the dragon has other (even less savory!) plans for him, until finally he sees the state of the dragon's laundry and the foot-thick layer of dust in the corners, and gets completely distracted. Mortal terror forgotten, those floors should not be that filthy, Lord Dragon respectfully that isn't how anyone should prepare rice either, but oh Binghe has never seen a kitchen so nice before in his life...!

Anyway, needless to say, it works out just fine.

[docdudo]

Hybrid 141 As Parents - Foster Human Child!Reader (Part 8)

It's not that you didn't like Johnny. He was just as nice as all the others, more charismatic than Price and Ghost, that's for sure. He was gentle with you, and that's nice, very nice... but goddamnit, was he lively.

You had werewolf classmates before, of course you did, and to be honest? They were all the same. Too much energy, too much movement, just... too much. Your only saving grace was that none of them were friends with you, so you didn't deal with their energy directly most of the time.

But now, one of your foster parents is a werewolf.

And... you are not really too excited about that. You follow along the path with him, watching his wagging bushy tail, sharp smile and light gym clothes like he barely feel the cold weather, and... you try to get used to this.

Used to him.

"Aye, and this is our shed!" Johnny smiles, pointing at the the big shed by the side of the house. The wooden door, differently to the doors inside the house, had a high handle and a big lock, making you look at it a bit questionably as Johnny chuckles a little. "Yeah, lass, ye can't go inside the shed alone. Too many dangerous tools."

You nod slightly, not really interested in the shed in the first place. There were houses you have stayed in that wouldn't let you go inside any room besides your bedroom, the bathroom and the living room. You were used to these kind of rules.

"Ye sure you don't wanna play tag, pup?" Johnny asks as he turns to you, clearly excited as his tail wags hard and ears perk up. "It's healthy to exercise! Ah'm sure ye'll like it, aye??"

You don't really answer verbally, but just your conflited expression was enough to make him sigh a little with a smile still on his face.

"'Kay, 'kay, ah get it." He shakes his head slightly, tail calming down a little on all the wagging. "I'll try to follow Kyle's advice." Then, he cups his mouth lightly with his hand, like he's telling a secret, as he whisper-shouts to you. "Lad's the smartest of the bunch, he knows what he's talkin' about!"

You nod slightly at that, a small smile coming to your face. He has a bit of a funny personality.

Just your small, shy smile was enough for him to bite down on his lower lip as he tried to control the deep croon he wanted to let out. God... he wanted to just pick you up and carry you forever. He really thought he wouldn't have a more delicate baby then when his harpy babies were born, but oh God, was he wrong....

You just look soooooo... damn small, and cute, and fragile. You don't move much, you don't look particularly energetic and you are bundled up cutely with layers of warm clothing as you look up at his face with big eyes.

So defenseless. How did humans defend themselves in this world??

He couldn't let you get hurt, ever. You are his resposibility now. His and his pack's responsibility.

And, oh God, were you shivering? You seemed to have curled up a little, was it too cold despite their efforts??

How easily did a human get sick??

He's warm. He's very warm. He could warm you up right away. You got so warm when he curled up with you on the nest, he could do it again...

"I-is everything okay...?" Your little meek voice snapped him out of his instincts for a second, eyes widening as he clears his throat slightly.

"Aye, aye, perfectly fine, wee lass. Come 'ere."

Even tho he told you to come to him, he was the one to come to you and kneel down in front of your small form, big hands coming to your jacket to gently adjust on your body firmly, a focused expression on his face as he checks all your others piece of clothing.

"Is it too cold out 'ere, lassie?" He coos quietly, a small pout coming to his lips naturally. It looked like he was talking to a toddler, and it made you blush a little in embarrassement.

"I-It's fine..." You mumble back, unsure. Yeah, sure, it was a bit cold, but nothing you couldn't take, especially with your new clothes.

He didn't seem very convencied, and quickly, he picked you up on his arms, easily taking you to his chest. You were not that surprised anymore, even if just a little startled, but at least he felt warm...

"Ye see, wee lass... we live a bit farther than the other houses, aye?" He asks as he turns to look back at the rest of the land, a lot of grass in a big, big plot, surrounded by a forest. There was a street not that far from there taking to the rest of the city. "We like lots of space, so our plot comes from all the way from the back of our house to the street up ahead."

That makes you winden your eyes a little, and now that you were in his warm arms, turning your head on his direction made you almost bump noses with him.

"All the way to the street...?" You mumble, almost incredulous.

"Aye! Big plot, yeah? Pride and joy to raise my pups 'ere! And when ye go back to school, we'll use one of our trucks to take ye." He smiles, tilting his head to the side in the direction of a big construction in the distance, hard to see, but you deduced it was where the automobiles were.

Suddenly, his fluffly ears perked up, turning on the direction of the house without him even turning his face. A smile appeared easily on his face as he looked down at you on his arms.

"Mama is calling us back." He snickers as he jokes, making you tilt your head in confusion a bit. "Simon, aye? Actually, both mamas. Even Kyle is starting to get antsy. Best that way, eh, wee pup? Before ye get a cold."

You turn your head over his shoulder to look back at the house, and sure enough, Simon and Kyle were both waiting by the open door as Johnny started to make his way back with you still on his arms.

"Tsc, are you trying to make her get sick?" Simon snarks as soon as you two get close enough to the door, grabbing you from Johnny's arms as he takes you inside quickly.

"We dinae even spend that much time outside!" Johnny protests even tho he still had a smile on his face.

"No, I agree with Si, even I was getting a bit antsy." Kyle sighs, closing the door behind Johnny, making sure to lock it. "I thought it would be fine, but it's cold out, and... ugh, whatever. It's hard to explain." He grunts, shaking his head.

"Nah, I get it." Johnny laughs slightly, watching Simon taking your jacked and beanie off gently as he leads you to the kitchen to eat dinner. "Was getting deep into my instincts and lassie was just... standing still, looking at me with big ol' eyes."

"Next time, we are all going out together." Kyle nods, going back to the kitchen with Johnny right behind him.

[freaknyx]

Can you please do a Okarun x reader where the reader finds out about everything and the is like I'm used to this because the reader is half yokai

note; i absolutely can do this bb!! thank you so so much for requesting love!! <333 i really hope this is good for you, thank you so much for reading!!

cw; fem!reader, canon-typical violence + fear, language, half!yokai!reader, established relationship, protective!okarun (my weakness), some descriptions of injuries, not entirely proof’d please forgive any mistakes <3

the first kick to your abdomen packed the punch of a freight train — your guard had been completely down, not fully expecting a yokai to attack so suddenly (and in a park of all places), so you didn’t have the adequate time to transform and protect yourself.

the second kick, however, was more than expected, your transformation shrouding your body faster than you could blink — you didn’t budge an inch this time, and it seemed to surprise the yokai attacking you. it jumped back a few feet and glared at you heatedly, foul smelling ooze dripping from its open maw.

“well, come at me, you bastard.” you muttered, heart thundering in your chest and lungs aching. you were fairly certain it had broken a rib — maybe five.

it released a guttural scream and lunged — only to be crashed into by a flash of grey and red.

“wait, there’s two now?!”

you almost immediately recognized momo’s voice, and the breath suddenly squeezed from you by some unseen force. you couldn’t move at all, and when you whipped your head to face momo, she was glaring at you with a scowl.

“momo, it’s me!” you shrilled, disengaging your transformation and pleading with her to understand. “i’m not one of them!”

momo’s eyes clouded with unsure confusion, lips thinned warily, but she released her ghost hand and you could breathe again. momo ran to your side, body tense and eyes locked onto you — you could understand.

“okarun, kick it’s ass!” momo yelled, only receiving a grunt and a mumbled “bummer,” in response as okarun ran circles around the clearly overwhelmed yokai.

your eyes widened and you snapped your eyes to the two tangled yokai a few meters from you. that was okarun? you recognized the glasses, and suddenly everything made sense; the sudden disappearances, the shady behavior, the protectiveness.

okarun had been trying to keep you distanced from his world — a world of danger and death and fear; yet completely ignorant to the fact that you’d been living in it for quite some time.

you watched as okarun studied the yokai in front of him, wary of its movements. analyzing its strength.

“it’s not very powerful,” you mumbled, cradling your aching ribs with a gentle hand. it could truly only do damage to you as a human, its attack barely enough to tickle you in yokai form. “okarun should be able to deal with it just fine.”

momo’s eyes hardened slightly, and you knew what was going to come out of her mouth, “how long have you been hiding this?”

you side-eyed her, feeling a little guilty, and mumbled, “a couple months.”

“months?!” momo shrieked, chocolate eyes flaring. “do you even realize how worried okarun has been about you?!”

your heart stuttered in your chest — you knew okarun had been hiding something from you, but you never would have guessed it was the same thing you were hiding from him.

“when he realized you’d gone off by yourself, he almost lost it!” momo continued, voice raising slightly. “he nearly transformed in front of the whole school—!”

“i’m sorry.” you cut her off, eyes locking back onto okarun. “i just… didn’t want either of you to find out and look at me differently.”

momo fell silent, eyes softening with what could only be sympathy — or maybe understanding. she sighed before also turning her attention to okarun; he had the yokai pinned down, teeth buried in the meat of its arm, which was quickly disintegrating.

“you know…” momo started softly, voice warm. “no matter what, okarun would still love you. you didn’t have to hide it.”

your cheeks warmed and your heart nearly thundered out of your chest, each beat painful against your aching ribs. love? okarun loved you? sure, you two had been together for a while now, but to say he loved you…?

momo guffawed and leaned low to smirk at you. her eyes were alight with teasing, and her lips had formed the most shit-eating grin you’d ever seen.

“don’t tell me you couldn’t tell?” momo jested, and you couldn’t help but sputter at her. what were you supposed to say to that? you’d never considered the idea of anyone loving you, let alone someone as pure and kind as okarun —

“momo, i’m totally bummed now. the thing’s, like, dead.”

you’d completely forgotten about the fight! you snapped your eyes from momo’s to find okarun standing above the ashy body of the yokai, posture lazy and spiked hair wild. he looked kinda… good like that.

okarun stumbled slightly as his transformation faded, and before you could blink he was running at you, arms pulling you into his body so tightly that you couldn’t help but flinch.

“thank god you’re safe,” he mumbled into your shoulder, warm hands massaging into your lower back. “i don’t know what i would do if i lost you.”

your were sure your body was combusting within your skin, chest full and warm and head fuzzy. momo entered your line of sight with a smirk and mouthed,

“believe me now?”

[tsukii0002]

In the human word

Mc's Kid neighbor: Mc, your friends' costumes are amazing!!!!

Mc: You think so? *looking over to where Diavolo, Mammon and Satan, in their demonic forms, are standing*.

Kid: Yeah, they're totally cool!

Mc: Do you want to meet them? *holding out their hand*

Kid: YES, PLEASE!! .

Mc: Hey guys here's someone who wants to tell you something.

Demons: *looking at the child*

Kid: … *jawing*

Satan: Mc I don't think this is a good idea…

Diavolo: Ha, ha… *somewhat sad* even the children of Devildom are usually afraid of me-

Kid: You guys are awesome, your costumes are awesome but you guys are even more awesome!!

The demons: ...

Diavolo: I- *doesn't know how to treat a child*

Satan: very still* … *doesn't know how to deal with a child, even less a human*.

Mammon: He, *crouching down next to the child* and if it wasn't a costume ????

Kid: *excited* What?

Mammon: What if it was a demon that's going to kidnap you to eat you?

Kid: *very convinced* Even if you were Mc is here and they'll defeat you!!!!

Mc: *grinning mockingly*

Diavolo: *giggling* The little guy is right *getting on his level too* so you're not afraid of demons?

Kid: Nope, I like demons.

Satan: …

Kid: Especially the ones with claws and tails like your costume *pointing at Satan*.

Satan: !

Kid: I wish demons were real….

Mc: *holding in their laughter*

Later, almost at midnight

Satan: Why did we come to the human world again?

Mc: Because there are certain materials that can only be obtained tonight.

Mammon: I understand that, but... why is Lord Diavolo here for that?

Mc: It's a kind of birthday present

Diavolo: Ha, ha ha, I loved it but, why are we going in our demonic form?

Mc: *looking at them* To make all the humans in disguise envious.

Mammon: Ok *laughing* and what about the kid?

Mc: *stopping* Well, let's say it was a trick.

Satan: A trick?

Mc: Yes, to see you panic in front of a child.

Diavolo: And you got what you wanted? *enjoying it*

Mc: Well, yes, but it helped me to know that you would be great papas.

The demons: Mc!!!

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Happy Halloween 🎃

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