#edit he’s alert to sounds not sturdy body | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nominnation · 4 years ago

Text

Kept Secrets

Paring(s): Johnny x Ten

Genre: Supernatural, Angst, fluffy ending

Synopsis: Ten has a secret. A big secret. A secret that creates black, inky tattoo's all over his arms and causes a giant beast to have tea party's in the middle of the forest. With this secret comes great hurt and anxiety about his boyfriend, Johnny, finding out. Little does Ten know that Johnny has a secret too, and Johnny's secret will lead him to finding out Ten's. If only Ten had listened to Kun.

Warnings: mentions of witchcraft, a demon, supernatural elements

Word Count: 6400

Author's Notes: This is the first story in a several oneshot series called Qian Manor, a supernatural series. This story has been posted on AO3 and on Amino! I hope you enjoy!

Edit created by Sunny on NCT Amino!

The full, midnight moon hung high in the nearly black, cloudless sky. Qian Kun sat on the old creaky porch, back resting in the springy green chairs nursing the red liquid inside the small China teacup, his dear friend, Lee Taeyong, sitting across from him, drinking a honey colored liquid from his own cup. The porch overlooked a beautiful garden, filled with gloriously extravagant flowers that Taeyong took special pride in. It was a wonder the others hadn’t seemed to notice that the flowers never died, even in the winter. Apart from the garden was a yard, the grass cut short, and a laundry line running across from the edge of the porch to a sturdy oak at the edge of the woods. The yard was filled with various items, from broken laundry baskets and empty buckets to curiously placed dog bones and old shoes. Beyond the yard was a vast, dense wood that stretched on for miles and never seemed to touch anyone else's property. That was one of the reasons Kun had purchased this house so many years ago, and, as a slightly familiar howl from a wolf filled the air, followed by two more distinct howls, Kun was even more glad.

“Beautiful night,” Taeyong muttered, keeping his voice low so as not to wake any of the house occupants.

Kun hummed in response, taking another sip from his teacup.

The howls died down and silence settled over the two friends again, until the soft squeaking of the opening back door alerted them both that someone was awake. Their heads turned toward the door just as another friend, Ten, stepped onto the porch, dressed in a long dark cloak, carrying a wicker basket filled with black objects in various shapes. His bare feet crept across the porch, attempting not to wake anyone, seemingly unaware of the two sitting in their green chairs.

“Little late to be going out for a stroll,” Kun spoke softly.

Ten’s body jolted, as if his soul were jumping from his skin in that moment. He turned to face Kun and Taeyong, his dark eyes wide.

“You scared me!” he hissed when he’d regained his senses.

Kun shrugged and took another sip from his teacup.

“Little late to be going out for a stroll,” he repeated.

Ten rolled his eyes and stepped toward the three little steps leading into the grass.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Kun rolled his eyes. As far as excuses went, this was one of Ten’s lamest. He knew exactly where Ten was going, Ten knew he knew too.

“What? Couldn’t sleep without your giant cuddle bear?” Taeyong asked teasingly.

Ten hummed in agreement.

“I hate when he’s not here. But I also don’t want to tell him he can’t go out with his friends for beers,” he said.

Kun sighed at this.

“Just be careful, there are wolves out tonight. Don’t want to get gobbled up,” Taeyong offered.

A slight smile tugged to the corners of Kun’s mouth at the innuendo only he and his friend understood.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ten waved off before stepping off the porch and into the grass.

Kun nor Taeyong said anything else as Ten made his way across the yard before disappearing into the black woods just as another howl ripped through the air.

“This is bound to be interesting,” Taeyong mused after Ten disappeared.

“They’ve got to find out one way or another,” Kun added.

“I still don’t understand how they’ve been dating for over a year and neither has picked up the oddities of the other,” Taeyong said.

It was curious. Ten was obvious, but also weird, so when he carried that basket full of black candles into the forest, no one questioned his motives. Johnny on the other hand… Johnny was obvious. So obvious that Kun and Taeyong weren’t the only ones that knew of the giant man’s secrets. How Ten had missed it was beyond Kun.

“Do you think they’ll figure it out tonight?” Taeyong asked.

Kun brought his teacup back to his lips, polishing off the red liquid.

“I suppose we’ll find out in the morning,” he said.

He parted his lips, his fangs glistening in the moonlight as he ran his tongue over them, licking away the residual blood.

“Afraid a certain someone won’t kiss you if you taste like blood?” Taeyong asked, a small smirk playing on his lips.

“Goodnight Taeyong,” Kun replied with a groan.

He stood up from his chair, taking his teacup with him. He walked inside, placing the cup in the sink before slowly walking up the stairs to crawl in bed with his girlfriend, who’d likely already fallen asleep.

Whatever happened was going to happen. Johnny and Ten had chosen not to be honest with one another from the beginning. Perhaps tonight would mark the end of that. Perhaps tonight, the Wolf and the Witch would finally meet at last.

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

Bare feet silently walked through the dark woods, never faltering even as questionable substances squished between his toes. He gave no inclination of being worried about the wolves howling somewhere deeper in the woods or the spooky noises coming from every direction.

He walked until he was in roughly the center of the forest, far away from the large house that he didn’t have to worry about any of his curious housemates sneaking out into the woods to figure out what he was doing.

He dropped the wicker basket he was carrying on the ground and carefully maneuvered around the black, waxy objects inside to pull out a black and white checkered picnic blanket. He unfolded it and fanned it out, letting it swoop delicately onto the mossy earth. He placed the basket in the center to hold it in place and pulled out the objects, eleven black candles, all burned to about the same height. He began placing them around the picnic blanket in a circle, being especially sure to make sure they were almost an equal distance apart. Once that was completed, he took from the basket two small teacups that he’d smuggled from the kitchen and Taeyong’s favorite tea kettle, still warm. He placed the kettle in the center of the blanket and the tea cups on each side, one for himself, and one for his guest. Finally, once all was set up, Ten pulled a lighter from the basket and moved the basket back onto the bare ground. He stripped off his black robe, revealing himself shirtless and in a pair of black boxer shorts he’d stolen from his boyfriend. His skin was finally on full view in the dim light of the moon. Sucken, black tattoos carved all over his chest and torso. Tattoos and symbols in Latin characters that almost screamed evil. The tattoos almost resembled scars from the various jagged edges of skin. They covered almost every inch of the male, chest, back, and down both his legs.

Ten flicked on the lighter, as he moved to light the first candle, his eyes turned black as coal. He hovered the flickering flame over the first candle until the wick caught. Then Ten moved to the next one, patiently lighting all eleven candles before tossing the lighter back into the basket and sitting down on his side of the blanket. He closed his eyes for a small second. He could feel the power of the candles and the looming shadows of the demons and monsters he’d summoned just by existing here. A smile climbed onto his face as he took a deep, almost relaxing breath.

“Azzoch, I summon you,” he breathed, voice level and smooth.

He didn’t speak very loud but, as a gust of cold, sulfery wind splashed across his face, his smile grew wider and his eyes opened.

Now, sitting across from him, giving him an almost irritated look, sat a creature that Ten had come to know very well, his Patron. A demonic creature named Azzoch.

The creature had long legs and cloven feet, a large, stocky body, and thick arms. It’s hands were massive with spindled claws on each finger and it’s head like that of a bull's skull, but larger. A thin, fleshy membrane covered the skull, the nearly transparent dark skin pulled so taunt it appeared as though it would rip any moment. The creatures teeth were gnarly and huge, hidden slightly by bony lips composed of bunched up membrane around the mouth, and the creatures eyes were sunken into the skull, leaving two black holes.

“Seriously?” the creature's voice boomed in a deep, ringing tone that was so obviously not a sound from humanity.

“Tea party picnic,” Ten grinned as he grabbed the kettle in the center of the blanket and poured some of the warmed tea into the creature's cup and then his own.

“Last time it was a ‘sleepover’ and this time a picnic. I wonder what next time will be,” the creature said, voice full of some combination of irritation and agony.

Ten didn’t reply. He simply smirked and picked up his teacup, bringing it to his lips and slurping loudly. The creature groaned at this and reached to pick up its tea cup, however, a small teacup versus giant hands with spindle claws was not as simple as it might sound. He grunted in frustration as he attempted to pick up the cup and missing until finally, one of his claws hooked the tiny handle and he was able to lift up the cup.

“You should show me more respect. I’m your patron after all,” the creature spoke, bringing the cup to his lips and tipping its contents into its mouth.

“I’m also your only disciple. Therefore, I have the right to respect you as much or as little as I wish,” Ten chirped.

The creature groaned again. Who knew that when Ten had signed his soul over to the devil that his patron demon would be the one regretting the deal.

“Regretting living with the meatbags you call housemates yet?” the creature asked, changing the subject.

Ten shot it a playful glare.

“My boyfriend is one of those ‘meatbags’ thank you very much.”

“A meatbag that doesn’t know what you are?”

Ten shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m cherishing him as much as I can before he runs for the hills.”

The creature let out a little chuckle.

“You knew what you were getting into when you made the deal.”

Ten glared again at the creature, but this time it wasn’t friendly.

“Not fully! I didn’t know at the time that I’d fall in love and have to hide it from the person I loved!” he argued.

“No one says you have to hide it,” the creature pointed out.

“Johnny wouldn’t exactly understand if I just suddenly came out and said ‘Hey! I’m a demonic witch! I sold my soul to the devil and now I have a giant ox-like creature whom I have to meet with once a month!’” Ten complained.

Another wolf howl caught Ten’s attention for a split second before he turned back to the creature.

He sighed. He knew he shouldn’t be complaining. He’d chosen this life for himself. Now there was no going back.

The sound of rustling leaves from somewhere behind him caught his attention, but he didn’t turn around. Whatever was out there couldn’t hurt either of them if it tried.

“Whatever Ten, but if you lose him because you’re choosing not to be honest, don’t blame me. That’s on you.”

Ten opened his mouth to retort when a sudden growling and snarling from some animal appeared behind him. Slowly, he turned around, only to come face to face with a large brown wolf, larger than any wolf he’d ever seen before. It had long, sharp teeth bared and growling, except, the odd thing was, it’s eyes weren’t fixated on Ten, but on Azzoch.

“What the-” Ten murmured.

“That thing looks like it wants to eat me alive! Why the hell is it not trying to rip you apart?!” the creature spoke.

It would have been comical if Ten hadn’t been wondering the same thing.

The wolf took a few steps forward, it’s massive feet moving around Ten, eyes still locked on Azzoch, growling getting louder now. Ten watched, frozen as this wolf bypassed him. The wolf had to know that Ten would be the easier choice to kill. Virtually impossible, but still easier than the demonic creature. So why was the wolf so fixated on said creature. It was almost like… like it was protecting Ten… But that was so weird.

Ten had been so fixated on this wolf that he hadn’t noticed several other wolves surrounding them until the first wolves attention suddenly snapped to something on the other side of Ten. Rapidly, Ten moved his head just in time to watch another large wolf, although this one solid white, creeping towards Ten, it’s ember eyes full of hunger. It got closer and looked as though it were about ready to pounce. Ten steadied his hand, ready to knock this wolf back when it lunged for him, but the giant brown wolf beat him. It jumped over Ten to pounce on the white wolf, mouth wide open to rip the wolf’s throat. Ten let out a little yelp as the brown wolf’s paws hit the white wolf, knocking the wolf to the ground, but the fight wasn’t won. The white wolf fought its way up and snapped at the brown wolf’s throat. Loud, angry growls filled the air. Growls that, for some reason, made Ten’s heartbeat rise in his chest. He’d seen fights like this before, but now, as he watched the white wolf rip fur from the brown wolf’s pelt, he wanted to jump onto the brown wolf and save it. But right as he was about to do just that, another large wolf, this one black, jumped in.

Ten was about to jump up, unsure if this wolf was there to help the white wolf or the brown wolf, but as the black wolf snapped hard at the white wolf’s throat, he relaxed slightly. He still didn’t quite understand what was going on, but the brown wolf had help.

It was strange how attached he’d become to the brown wolf…

As the three wolves fought, Ten turned back to look at Azzoch, the demonic creature who had already vanished. Ten looked around at the circle of candles, three of which were blown out. He let out a breath and turned around to blow out the candles behind him when he came face to face with a smaller, reddish brown wolf who was just staring at him. The eyes of the wolf also very familiar, although he couldn’t figure out where he’d seen them.

With the fight going on in the background, Ten waited for the wolf to pounce on him, however, the wolf lowered its head and slowly walked closer to Ten, but not in a hostile or aggressive way. It was almost acting as though it wanted Ten to pet him.

Hesitantly, Ten brought a hand down on the soft fur of the wolf, earning himself a snort from the wolf that soon somehow made its way onto Ten’s lap.

Why was this wolf so familiar? Why were all the wolves, save for the white one, so familiar?

As Ten’s fingers weaved through the reddish-brown wolf’s fur, he glanced over to the fight going on just in time for the white wolf to finally give up and run off as a third wolf, this one a honey brown, appeared.

The brown wolf snarled at the black wolf that had come to it’s aid, the black wolf nodding and running off to chase after the white wolf. Ten stared at the exchange. Did that wolf just… nod…?

The brown wolf turned back around to face Ten, a growl rising from its lips, but not in a way that scared Ten. He knew, for some reason, that the wolf wouldn’t hurt him.

The reddish brown wolf gave Ten a lick to the face before getting off his lap just in time for a grotesquely loud popping to fill Ten’s ears. His eyes locked back on the brown wolf in astonishment as the wolf’s bones began to reshape and the fur reseeding into skin before a tall, naked man stood in front of the group.

Ten’s heart dropped as he stared open-mouthed at the man standing before him. In that moment, he realized two things. One, these wolves were not ordinary. They were indeed werewolves. And two, the brown wolf that had been trying to protect him, was his beloved boyfriend. Johnny.

“So do you want to explain to me who the hell that was and what is all over your body?” Johnny asked, voice flared with anger.

Ten shuddered lightly. It wasn’t a common occurrence for Johnny to get angry, but when he did, it always sent a spark through Ten’s core. However, now was not the time for that.

“I think you have explaining to do too, Johnny Suh!” Ten fired back.

His veins were on fire. Partly from rage, partly from the tone of Johnny’s voice, but he chose to focus on the rage and anger. How could Johnny have kept this secret from him?!

At Ten’s tone, Johnny took a long step forward and moved so that he was barely a foot away from Ten, towering over him.

“Who was that,” Johnny growled.

Normally, Ten would feel an exhilarating sense of intimidation that would result in Ten pressed up against a wall. But now, it only made him angrier because he knew exactly what Johnny was trying to do.

He placed his hands on Johnny’s chest and, using a force of strength that wasn’t entirely his own, he shoved the male back, hard. So hard, in fact, that his rear-end slammed into the ground, eliciting a surprised grunt from Johnny and a sinister growl in Ten’s direction from the honey colored wolf.

Johnny sat up and placed a hand on the wolf’s flank lightly.

“It’s OK, Yukhei.”

Ten’s eyes widened.

“Yukhei?!” he exclaimed.

Johnny let out another grunt as if to confirm Ten’s question before getting up, not bothering to dust off his backside.

“What are you?” he asked. His voice was far from kind, and it almost made Ten want to wrap his arms around the taller male and beg for forgiveness.

But he didn’t, whether it was from his own stubbornness or own sense of betrayal.

“What if I don’t want to tell you?! You freaking liar!” Ten shrieked back.

He knew he was as much in the wrong as Johnny was. They’d both lied and kept secrets, but that didn’t appease Ten in any way.

“You’re calling me a liar?! I wasn’t the one having tea with some freaking demonic creature surrounded by candles and covered in black tattoos I sure as hell have never seen!”

Ten’s fingers balled into a fist and his eyes began to glow red.

“Maybe I was having a meeting with my freaking patron! But here you are growling like a freaking crazy creature at it and now turning from a wolf into a human! You didn’t tell me you’re a freaking werewolf!” Ten shouted back, no longer bothering to be quiet.

The ground beneath his feet began to quake, an effect on his overwhelming surge of rage. The shadows of the woods began to move, fangs and claws tearing themselves from the trees and ground, causing the reddish brown wolf to let out a yelp and run to stand behind Johnny with its tail between its legs. Johnny shot a glare at Ten before kneeling down to gently pat the wolf.

“It’s alright, YangYang,” he soothed softly.

The quaking stopped and Ten’s arms fell lax by his sides. He knew that the wolf had looked familiar. His little brother. He’d terrified his little brother. The one that had come to comfort him.

“YangYang, I’m-” Ten began but he was cut off by a sharp glare from Johnny.

His shoulders slumped. He should have told Johnny. Maybe if he had come clean, Johnny would have too.

“Look, Johnny-” Ten began again, but this time he was cut off by a loud, ringing howl.

Johnny turned to look in the direction of the howl along with Lucas and YangYang.

“Jaehyun’s found the wolf,” Johnny said, although Ten knew he wasn’t talking to him.

With that, Lucas moved away from Johnny and dashed off into the trees, YangYang hot on his trail. Johnny didn’t even spare Ten a glance before he was quickly growing fur and four wolvish legs. He dashed off into the woods and, it was at that exact moment that Ten’s heart dropped, because, he knew he'd royally screwed up.

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

When Ten’s eyes opened the next morning, he knew what had happened the night before. He remembered the events of the evening, but that didn’t prepare him to wake up alone in his large King bed, Johnny’s side cold and still made up.

Ten sighed and closed his eyes. Maybe Johnny was still out with the boys… well, existing in some wolf’s den to last out the full moon.

He still wasn’t accustomed to thinking about Johnny as a wolf…

There was a knock at the door and the person didn’t wait for Ten to invite them in before opening his door.

“I brought you breakfast,” Taeyong’s voice greeted.

Ten sighed. Taeyong. One of the only people that knew Ten’s secret.

“You didn’t have to,” Ten muttered.

He made no move to sit up to greet Taeyong or react appropriately to his guest. All he could be bothered to do was roll over in bed to face the male.

“You got in really late last night. I figured you’d be tired… And I thought you could use a friend,” Taeyong spoke.

He carried a tray over to Ten’s bedside table and placed it down. From where Ten lay, he could see the still steaming porridge in a fancy bowl, a smaller bowl of fresh fruit beside it. Ten made a face. Taeyong never seemed to get that this was Ten’s least favorite breakfast. But he knew the male made the easiest meals. He was still learning, after all.

“So you heard?” Ten mumbled.

He closed his eyes and sank deeper against his pillow with a groan.

“YangYang told us this morning,” Taeyong answered.

He felt around on the bed for Ten’s legs and, when he found them, he carefully pushed them to the side and moved to sit down on the bed, his hand coming to settle on Ten’s hip, stroking softly.

“He’s a wolf,” Ten muttered.

“Yes,” Taeyong answered.

“And you knew…”

“Yes,” Taeyong spoke again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Taeyong let out a sigh and moved his hand in soothing circles over Ten’s hip.

“It wasn’t our place. Kun and I know everything that goes on in this house. We knew Johnny was a wolf. Actually, there’s not many people who don’t know. He doesn’t try to hide it. How you didn’t know is still a mystery to me.”

Ten groaned in slight annoyance.

“We also knew what you were. We didn’t think it was our place to tell Johnny. We just kind of assumed when you two started getting serious that you’d talk it out together. But when you didn’t…” Taeyong trailed off.

Ten let out a sigh and pulled the blankets over his head, hiding away in the shadows of his duvets.

“Why didn’t you, Ten?” Taeyong asked.

Ten sighed again but didn’t pull the duvet back.

“Because I love him,” he said.

He felt Taeyong shift.

“Shouldn’t that mean you tell him everything?”

Ten shook his head although he knew Taeyong couldn’t see him.

“I’m a freak Yong. I made that stupid deal when I was young and wanted power to get my mom away from that monster and my sister away from the men who hurt her. But it backfired. They had nothing to do with me because of my choice and I’ve had to live with that! Now they’re both gone. Everyone I love leaves me then dies! I couldn’t…”

Tears peaked to Ten’s eyes and before he could hold them back, they were rolling down his cheeks, and with them, came the dam crashing down. His shoulders began to shake and quiver, tears openly spewing from his eyes, turning him into a blubbering mess. He curled in on himself slightly, hugging his knees to his chest.

As he sobbed, the bed moved and, for a moment, he thought Taeyong was leaving him to cry, but when the other side of the blanket lifted up and Taeyong’s body was sliding in beside Ten’s, Ten felt himself relax slightly. Taeyong’s small but strong arms wrapped around Ten’s middle, hugging him tightly as if he were trying to hold Ten together. He placed his face against Ten’s neck and whispered soft words as his fingers drew small miscellaneous shapes against Ten’s clothed body.

When Ten had calmed down enough to speak again, he took a deep breath and leaned closer to Taeyong, seeking more warmth and comfort.

“I couldn’t lose him… He is everything… He means everything… I couldn’t let him be one more person to leave me because I made a horrible choice I can’t take back,” Ten whispered hoarsely.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted so badly to be angry at Johnny, but looking back, Johnny really had been very obvious. From his love of Ten’s shoes to chasing Kun around the whole house when Kun refused to give him the last bloody steak. He hadn’t tried to hide it. Sure, he hadn’t come right out and said he was a werewolf, but he still hadn’t tried to hide it like Ten had. Ten never got intimate with Johnny completely bare. He had enough strength and concentration to hide the markings on his legs but not the rest of his body. He hid his candles in the closet and always snuck out when he was meeting with Azzoch. He had driven Johnny away when he was trying so hard not to drive him away.

With a sniffle, Ten wiped his eyes and curled up against the pillow. Taeyong hugged him tighter until Ten’s door opening caught both of their attention. Ten uncovered his head, his bloodshot and tearstained eyes glinting with hope that Johnny was here to forgive him. However, when YangYang’s head peered around the corner, the hope dropped slightly. Still, Ten knew he had some making up and explaining to do with YangYang too. So, instead of disappearing back under the blankets like he wanted and like he would have after seeing the male, he lifted the blanket up and opened his arms.

Part of Ten expected YangYang to scoff and walk away, but when YangYang immediately bolted through the door and dived onto Ten’s bed, practically headbutting himself into Ten’s chest, Ten’s arms wrapped around the male in surprise and comfort.

“I’m sorry for scaring you last night,” he murmured against the youngers neck.

YangYang’s arms locked themselves around Ten’s waist, squeezing with a force that Ten knew was less than human. Ten just rubbed down the males back soothingly.

“Why didn’t you tell me…” YangYang muttered and, Ten was sure he felt something wet drop onto his neck.

He pulled YangYang’s body tighter.

“I was afraid you’d all leave me when you learned what I was,” he muttered honestly.

YangYang didn’t respond again, choosing instead to burrow his face in Ten’s neck. Ten stroked his hands up and down YangYang’s back when he felt the bed shift again and Taeyong’s arms recoiled from around him.

“I’ll let you two talk,” Taeyong whispered softly, almost as though he were afraid to ruin a conversation by talking too loudly.

Ten nodded and pulled YangYang a little tighter as Taeyong quietly made his way from the room, closing the door with a quiet click behind him.

“You could have trusted me,” YangYang muttered.

Ten sighed softly and nuzzled against the younger's face. He wasn’t used to this. Usually, when YangYang was sad or upset, he’d hide it away until night fell when he’d crawl into Ten’s or Kun’s bed to sleep. Usually Ten’s bed after Kun had gotten married and began sharing his bed with a woman. Ten would hold and comfort him, let the younger bask in the warmth and comfort before they would talk about what was bothering him. Then, YangYang was back to his usual self, being an annoying little shit with his boyfriend. This was out of character. Way out of character. And if this was how YangYang was feeling, he hated to know how his big fluffy teddy bear that would only cry at night in Ten’s arms felt.

“I do trust you, Yangie, but I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me anymore,” he said.

YangYang mumbled something against him.

“Do you know what I am?” he asked.

YangYang paused before shaking his head.

“I’m a demonic witch. I sold my soul to the devil and took on a demonic beast as my patron.”

YangYang didn’t even react and, at first, Ten wasn’t sure the younger had heard him.

“I’m a werewolf. So is Johnny. So is Lucas and Jaehyun. Kun is a freaking vampire and Donghyuck is an Imp. Do you think I give a damn that you’re a demonic witch? Do you really think Johnny does?”

Ten sat, shocked for a moment. How had he been so blind he, one, didn’t know that all these people YangYang listed off were also creatures, but more than that, he had let his hurt over his family dictate his honesty with Johnny.

Ten shifted around in the bed, jumping up slightly, startling YangYang.

“I have to apologize!” he wailed.

“You’ll have to wait. The alpha’s went out to find the nearby pack after one of their newly turned tried to kill you last night,” YangYang said, snuggling into Ten’s pillow.

“Alphas?” Ten asked.

“Johnny and Jaehyun,” YangYang answered.

“They went to what?”

YangYang sighed and let out a low groan.

“The wolf that tried to kill you last night was a newly turned alpha that Jaehyun wounded pretty badly when he caught him. They went to talk to the pack alpha. If you had been an ordinary person, they’d have no right, but you were covered in Johnny’s scent and clearly the alpha’s mate. Attempting to kill an alpha’s mate is punishable by death,” YangYang answered lazily as if it was the most common thing in the world to talk about.

Ten stared at the male dumbfounded, the cogs in his brain turning to fast he was surprised steam wasn’t floating from his ears as his brain tried to comprehend what YangYang was saying.

“Alpha’s mate?”

“That’s seriously what you’re most worried about?”

Ten shot YangYang an unamused glare that resulted in YangYang groaning to himself.

“Jaehyun and Johnny are both alpha’s, but Johnny is the head alpha. When Jaehyun was turned, they fought, Johnny won-”

“But that doesn’t answer my question!” Ten interrupted.

“Would you let me finish!” YangYang snapped, but the cheeky grin on his face made Ten slap him lightly.

“Now, as I was saying,” YangYang continued, “Johnny defeated Jaehyun making him the leader of our pack. You are his mate, something that is clear to anyone that gets close enough to sniff you-”

“I don’t stink! I think someone would say something if I smelled like Johnny’s sweaty workout clothes!” Ten objected.

YangYang fixed him with a pointed stare.

“If you’re going to keep interrupting me, I’m not going to explain,” he threatened.

“Fine, I’m sorry.”

YangYang grinned at the apology while Ten rolled his eyes.

“Anyone who can smell scents on the molecular level can tell he scents you-”

Ten opened his mouth to speak but YangYang slapped a hand over his mouth.

“This means when you two cuddle or hug, he rubs his face against your neck and top of your head. Anyone who has a stronger sense of smell can smell his scent. His natural scent is a deep pine scent. Anyone who smells it knows that you are scent marked. Any werewolf or vampires can smell it on you,” YangYang explained. “Now you may ask questions,” he said, removing his hand from Ten’s mouth.

Ten stared at the male in shock, mouth agape.

“So… that’s why Johnny attacked that wolf? Because he’s marked me?” Ten asked.

“It goes deeper than that. You’re his mate,” YangYang answered.

“So he loves me?”

YangYang groaned.

“It’s deeper than that!”

“Then explain it! What do you mean I’m his mate?!” Ten snapped.

“He means I’m attracted to you in a deeper way than just physically. My heart yearns for you. It has since I met you. Yes, I fell for you slowly, but a part of me always knew we would be together. A mate, to a wolf, is someone the wolf loves, the person the wolf is supposed to be with. Usually, it’s a love of another wolf, often an omega for an alpha so the omega can bare the alpha’s children, but there are some cases in which the person the wolf is mated with that is not a wolf.”

Ten didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed that his door opening or the tall figure standing in the doorway.

YangYang rolled off the side of Ten’s bed and, just as soon as his feet hit the floor, he was moving past Johnny, giving the male a side hug on the way out. Ten watched as the male left, a sudden anxiety settling in his stomach, an anxiety that only grew as Johnny closed the door.

Once the door was closed, Johnny’s lanky frame stood at the door for a moment too long before slowly moving closer to Ten’s bed. It felt like an eternity before his weight fell on the mattress as Johnny sat beside him.

“I think we need to talk,” Johnny spoke.

His voice was soft but deep and full of emotion that made Ten flinch.

“I think we do…” he muttered, dread filling his stomach as Johnny opened his mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Johnny asked.

Ten let out a sigh before explaining his story. The truth about his past. The reason he is the way he is. His family’s reaction. Everything. And Johnny listened attentively, nodding along as Ten spoke, lips drawn into a line. And when Ten was finished, he had a tear or two dropping from his eyes, creating a salty trail down his cheek. He made no move to wipe them. Instead, Johnny moved off the bed and a tear fell faster. Maybe Johnny was leaving. Maybe he didn’t care for Ten’s reason. Maybe he didn’t care.

Before Ten could make himself even more upset than he already was, Johnny knelt onto the floor between Ten’s slightly opened legs and brought his large hands up to cup Ten’s cheeks. He brushed away the tears gently before leaning closer and pressing a kiss against the males forehead.

“I should have outright told you what I was too, but I didn’t. We were both wrong to hide it,” he spoke, his face still so close to Ten’s that Ten could feel his warm breath against his lips.

Ten nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak, afraid he’d break down and begin crying harder if he spoke.

“You are still my mate. Still my only one. And I’m not going to break that tie because of something as trivial as this. But please, you have to be honest with me. We have to be honest with each other.”

Again Ten nodded, but a few more tears spilled from his eyes. Johnny swiped them away gently, giving him a soft smile.

“I love you,” Johnny whispered.

Ten couldn’t hold himself together any longer. He collapsed into Johnny’s arms, Johnny’s strong embrace immediately caging him against his chest.

“I love you too,” he whispered.

Johnny nodded and pulled Ten tighter into his embrace, crushing him against his chest.

“And I wanna learn all about you,” Johnny’s voice whispered in his ear, making Ten shiver against him.

“I want to learn about you too,” he replied, voice coming out weak.

“Why don’t we start right now,” Johnny asked, voice dripping even lower, low enough that Ten’s body trembled and he found himself sliding further back onto the bed.

Johnny pulled his shirt over his head and crawled over the smaller male, giving him a dangerous smirk as he hovered over him, leaning down to kiss him with force.

“Let me show you everything about being an alpha,” he growled low.

Ten nodded pliantly, taking his bottom lips between his teeth before leaning up to press a kiss to Ten’s lips hard.

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

Outside the room, YangYang and Donghyuck sat, two shot glasses pressed against the door and wall.

“Gross!” Donghyuck hissed, pretending to barf on the floor.

YangYang didn’t say anything, but the way his face was drawn into one of utter shock, horror, and disgust was enough to read his thoughts, yet somehow, he nor the boy beside him could seem to tear themselves away from the door.

“What are you two doing?” came the surprised but stern voice of a certain vampire who’d stumbled upon them.

“Kun-ge! Ten-ge and Johnny-ge are doing the dirty!” YangYang hissed quietly.

Kun stared at him dumbfounded by the sudden information.

“OH MY GOD!” Donghyuck suddenly shrieked in horror.

Kun was seconds from rushing to his side as YangYang listened closely to the glass to discern what had gotten a yelp from Donghyuck.

“He’s going to-” Kun slapped a hand over Donghyuck’s mouth before the sun kissed boy could speak another word.

“That’s enough, if you want a show, go rent a movie or borrow one of Yuta’s adult films,” Kun hissed warningly as he took the shot glass from Donghyuck and held his hand out for YangYang’s.

The younger boy stared at Kun before rolling his eyes and passing him the glass before getting off the floor and following Donghyuck in the direction of Yuta’s room.

Kun groaned to himself and stared at the door shaking his head. He had half a mind to breakup the love scene from inside until the rest of the house was asleep to avoid any youngsters hearing the noise and getting any ideas, but as loud mewls from Ten and howls from Johnny echoed from the room, Kun thought better of it. There was no way he’d want to see anything even closely akin to that.

Besides, at least they weren’t lying to each other anymore. At least they both knew the truth and loved one another for it.

#nct oneshot #johnten #supernatural #werewolf #witches #johnny suh #ten wayv #fanfiction #vampires #bxblove #series #qian manor series

22 notes · View notes

imlostinsantacarla · 5 years ago

Text

@brideofcthulhu10: Hey hey, I love you imagines and headcanons! So awesome, I love reading them! Could I maybe get some fluff and angst with the boys after getting into a motorcycle accident with their human!S/O. Maybe she's barely alive (of course the boys would be fine) and they have to choose whether or not to turn her, and there's already so much blood.

(a/n: hey love! i can’t believe the queen of writing for the lost boys has requested something from me, ahh! thanks for requesting this, it was awesome to write. i influenced this heavy off of the idea you gave to me, which i’ll be incorporating into the other boys pieces also. i did promise more than 2k words and i doubled it! the whole time i wrote and edited this i was listening to “People Are Strange” from The Lost Boys soundtrack, so i sneakily and vaguely placed it in there, haha. i hope you enjoy this piece! - admin kat 🌙❣)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Title: A Night To Remember (David x Reader)

Summary: A night to remember, so vivid and fun. What in the hell could go wrong? A ride on the back of your boyfriends bike on a familiar street in Santa Carla was never the place you’d thought everything would go south...

Disclaimer: This was inspired by @brideofcthulhu10‘s post on turning ➡ here. She also provided me with an idea very similar to this one, which I will be basing the other boys parts on also! so without her help i wouldn’t have been able to create this.

Word Count: 4,130

Warnings: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF BLOOD AND VIOLENCE!!! THIS PIECE CONTAINS DETAILS ON BLOOD, FEEDING, FITS, NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES, DEATH, TURNING, ETC. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO GORE AND SO ON!!! (Please let me know if I forgot anything else!)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

A glorious high encased you in a giddy box, leaving you slightly lightheaded as you rode on the back of Davids’ motorbike. The swift speed morphed your surroundings into a wind whipped experience, something so psychedelic that no drug in the world could provide you with. The once swaying palm trees became nothing more than tall flashes of muddy brown and muted green as nighttime swallowed their colors within it’s deep grasp. Bleeding them dry of any relevance to you.

The speed in which the pair of you were going was a reasonably hasty speed: Not enough to get you to fling off of the back of the bike, but just the right amount to pull excited squeals from your form. The sound of your imminent joy caused the blond vampire to simper wildly to himself, his own hoots and hollers echoing your elation.

In your very mortal perspective, this particular night had unfolded to be one of greatness. You had spent the better part of the evening on the Board Walk of Santa Carla with your four most favorite people on this entire planet. Nothing was capable of dampening this victorious ado!

Behind the pair of you came the thunderous roars that belonged to a trio of motorcycles, which alerted you that the other boys were eager to catch up. The three motorcycles occupants were wild eyed, animal-like from the high the speed in which they traveled at provided them with. Goofy grins were sloppily plastered onto their handsome countenances as they hurtled towards you and David. Dwayne, Paul and Marko appeared to possess a candid enjoyment from the experience, their shouts of excitement ringing shrilly in your delicate human ears. Anything speed related got these boys to geek out in such a passionate fashion that it almost made you physically cringe in response. Instead you laughed in vivid amusement at them and their antics.

Your primary focus was fixated behind you with the boys and their childish shenanigans of one-upping each other. The sight of them was more than enough to propel you into fits of laughter. David was fully aware of your attention having been stolen by the boys, though he minded very little as his focus was intent on the road ahead of him. He hadn’t exactly bagged on the idea of scanning for anything dangerous, but he wasn’t stupid enough to take his eyes away for a second, - particularly since you were perched on the back of his bike, clutching onto him tightly -.

In an unforeseen flash of one single flickering headlight turning onto the road just up ahead of you and David, there came a shrill screech of rubber on asphalt and a horrendous streak of zooming metal hurtling towards you both on your side of the road! A thick plume of black exhaust thundered from the bikes exhaust pipes. David’s impeccable reflexes were suddenly called into question whilst the man continued to bound on his bike towards you, pushing past 150 miles per hour.

The sight alone caused David to cuss exponentially, his arms yanking the handle bars of his sturdy bike to the right, followed by his full body weight. A millimetre or two was left for the drunk asshole to pass you, the mere wind of it further knocking David’s beast of a ride off balance. The pair of you had almost been smeared road kill across the street.

The bike flung across the road and into a precipitous ditch at it’s side. Trepidation leaped at and swallowed you whole, your mouth agape as you struggled to breathe from the sheer force of the entire predicament. The violence of the bikes movements were so strong that they tore your arms off of David’s waist and threw your body through the air and off to the side, as though you were a piece of trash to be discarded. The entire experience warped your sense of time and reality, causing time to appear much slower than it actually was. You hardly had the reflexes or mental capacity to brace yourself for impact as your body crashed into a large bolder. And darkness encompassed you in it’s death-like wings.

The other boys on the road had barely escaped unscathed themselves, though not before they witnessed the terrifying reality of what occurred to yourself and David.

Maybe it was Dwayne who’d managed to skid to a squealing stop first as he threw himself from his bike, allowing the meaningless hunk of metal to smash onto the ground with a deafening crash. He bounded towards the ditch where David and yourself laid, Marko and Paul hot on his heels.

"Jesus Christ, man!” Paul shouted, slipping down the dusty sides of the hole, barely just catching himself from falling flat on his face. “Oh fuck!” His ocean orbs widened at the terror before him, eyes scanning for you as David attempted to compose his disoriented self. “Where the fuck is she, man?!” The lion’s voice broke as he skidded to a stop, the scent of sickly sweet blood entered his flared nostrils.

During the entire event, David had miraculously managed to stay glued to his bike, a credit to his immense strength. He’d slid to a definite halt with the bike trapping his legs underneath it. His wounds having healed as soon as they had appeared.

As though he were in limbo, the blond leader of the group could hear shouting, though it was impossible to make out who it was coming from and what the context was. The aroma of something sweet and familiar coaxed him from his discombobulated state just like the cool night air flooding around his torn ankles did. He found himself spread flat out on his back, Dwayne and Marko having just heaved his busted bike off of him.

“Oh fuck, man!” Paul breathed out desperately, his wild blond hair in a disarray due to his fingers bunching chunks of it viciously in a stressful pattern. His entire body had come to a stand still, back facing the trio behind him. The typically well-witted and smart mouthed vampire was experiencing consternation at it’s most alarming peak. The poor boy felt as though he was about to vomit on the spot. David slowly followed his gaze and the sight before him created such a forceful pang of rushing emotions to slam into his chest it left him absolutely winded. David knew that if his heart was still beating that it would have stopped altogether there and then.

There you laid, limbs bent in gruesomely awkward angles, surely broken whilst a pool of blood seeped from the rear of your skull. Never in all of David’s existence had he experienced panic quite so potent. This scene was something that belonged in an R rated horror movie, it couldn’t be real! He had to be dreaming. David blinked, shaking his noggin a few times as though it would erase the sight of you all mangled and barely alive.

Before he even was cognizant of his actions, David was by your side, humming brokenly down at you, “No, no, no!” His gloved fingers barely fluttered over your breakable flesh, a newfound fear created in him. He was too afraid to touch in case any amount of pressure worsened your state.

“Fuck!” Marko cursed from behind David, anger pouring from his entire being as he thrust his foot into a large rock to his left, shattering the entire thing into a billion specs of dust. A nausea developed in the other boy, knocking the wind out him. You were one of them! You couldn’t be dying. These string of events never occurred to them any more. It was never meant to happen to you.

Anger encompassed David, vulnerability belting him straight in the gut. His intent wasn’t to shout at them whilst his orbs glowed a fiery red, like the menacing pits of Hell. “Will you idiots get out of the way and shut your traps?!” His voice echoed in the still night. He sucked in an enormous breath before he held it. The scent of your blood was driving him into a frenzy he dared not to jump into. After all, he was pitching to save you, not eat you.

He could recognize that you were beating against the dark currents of unconsciousness to the best of your dwindling capabilities. Though you were unable to move even a muscle due to the phenomenal pain that pulsated all over your body, the loss of blood creating a numb feeling in all of your shattered and twisted limbs. He could hear the wheezing of your lungs as you attempted to keep yourself above the surface. Your fight to keep yourself alive was slipping through your fingers and time was working against David: And for the first time in many years, David felt utterly helpless. His usual ability to make sound decisions was clouded by the shock of the events that had just occurred.

But somehow he managed to swallow the tears that had welled up in his usually acerbic eyes, leaning towards you from a place of love. Love? No, he was a creature of the night so gruesome and cruel- he wasn’t capable of such a profoundly light emotion. Love opened up a brand new door to vulnerability. Vulnerability was something so foreign to David that he had shunned it ever since the woman in his previous life had come to her demise. This hadn’t been the plan. To fall for you, that is. But even as his inner monologue argued with himself, he knew deep down that his feelings weren’t betraying him. He could only do one thing to make this right.

David’s leather fingers peeled the cloth off of your shoulder as though you were porcelain, something so delicate that he could effortlessly break. His beautiful full lips parted as he bent over your dying form, teeth sinking sharply into your shoulder with the mental anguish that if he moved your neck, it would break in two and then you really would be dead. He wasn’t a doctor. He was a goddamn vampire! Who knew what unimaginable trauma could have lurked beneath the surface of your skin in this moment. Based upon his swift assessment on the outside of you, he was sure that your insides were a hundred times worse.

Besides, he was more than certain that biting you ensured the most expeditious way of turning you. His movements were halted, his teeth scraping the splintering bones beneath the flesh. He wanted to ensure that enough venom entered your system in order for it to work it’s instantaneous magic. And thus he pulled apart from you with the silent prayer that he hadn’t been too late.

A brief moment of silence seemed to have etched on for what felt like a thousand years before your breathing halted altogether. David felt hot tears begin to sting at the corners of his eyes like prickling needles. He was too late. Too late and too sluggish to save you.

However, your breath hitched tenderly, the windows to your beautiful soul fluttering open so delicately he almost felt as though he imagined it. The pain that engulfed you was greedy, radiating a searing hot white all throughout your system. The bones in your body cracked and snapped back into their sockets, tiny clicks reconnecting smaller fragments together whilst the nerves in your whole being were signalling to your brain that you were burning up! Then came the shifting of your bones, a dull groan emitting from your throat. The sounds made David feel sick. He hadn’t ever felt guilty before, but now he did whilst he witnessed you begin to morph into what he was. Yet he refused to touch you, an act appearing so cold yet he was doing it all for you. All because he could not stand the thought of the rest of eternity without you by his side.

Instead he murmured sweetly to you, a low humming rumble. A sweet song so encouraging that it almost sounded as though he were pleading with you to stop screaming, because he knew the pain you were experiencing all too well. It’s so vivid and hot. But he had had no other choice. You begged him between gargled breaths, begging him for deaths cold embrace but he was too selfish and could not fulfill this desire of yours spurred on by the delirium of anguish. “The pain will be over soon,” he promised you.

Though something peculiar was occurring, an event that he’d never encountered prior to this very moment. It hadn’t happened to him or the other boys when they had been turned. You were seeming to grow far more alert than previously with each passing second. Your heart having drummed sluggishly before, now it spurted into a bounding gallop until it froze altogether. The choked sob that fell from your now dead lips rung in David’s mind like a torturous gong.

There was no movement coming from you and his hands began to shudder, leather fingers desperately yet ardently sliding across your cheek to brush away the sticky hair from your face. “No! No, you can’t be-” He automatically feared the most catastrophic thing. How could you be gone? He’d bit you! It was supposed to have guaranteed you immortality!

Failure implodes in his brain whilst he slumps back onto his backside, a defeated sigh flowing from his mouth and beckoning his head down. You laid there motionless, crimson having stopped pooling beneath you both. Your eyes were glazed over with the look of grotesque lifelessness. He had failed. Failure had never been an option for him, he’d always kept you so safe. Yet one nightly drive that was nothing more than routine had cost you your precious life. And David wished perilously that you were here with him. Breathing and with your heart beating. He never registered how much he’d miss that thumping heart of yours. He’d grown attached, even though you had been a human.

Red flooded his vision as he cried out violently, balled fist striking the ground as the mighty Norse God Thor would strike his hammer down upon Earth. He was going to find that sorry bastard that had done this to you and he’d rip his limbs off and beat him with them! That David was sure of.

Yet even with his vision induced with the crimson color of his enemies blood, David could not bring himself to rise from the ground and fulfill his imaginations desires. Instead, he sat next to you, eyes never leaving your form whilst grief struck him like a stake to the heart. He’d forgotten that the boys were still there, watching silently as he’d asked. They too felt the devastating grief of having lost one of them. That’s what you had always been to them. You were one of them. Watching you pass on struck them with a feeling of dreadful melancholy. This whole ordeal was heartbreaking.

Suddenly a tremendously deep gasp flooded into your lungs, whilst your arms flailed sporadically and your body twisted in vicious convulsions. It frightened David to begin with, his hands grasping onto your body with purpose, bringing you close with a sigh of relief. You quaked in his arms whilst he cradled you, lips pressing themselves to your hairline on your forehead. “Shhh babe, it’s me.” David murmured calmly into your hair, your terrified form sobbing into his powerful chest, the after effects of your cells dying leaving you delirious. “You remember me, princess?” He inquired coolly, his head cocked to the side as you peered up at him with tear filled eyes. Your were so bewildered with all the intensely vivid sights, sounds and smells, it made your head swim. It sounded as though he were screaming at you. These highly sensitive senses would take some time to adjust to.

“D-David?” You inquired softly, your brow creased sweetly in the middle as it typically did whenever you were scared or perplexed. As if by habit, David’s leather thumb placed itself on top of it, softly pushing down and smoothing it out. You had nothing to be frightened about. He was he with you. He wouldn’t let anything like this happen to you ever again. Yet as his gaze wandered over your face, your orbs darted around swiftly, the burning sensation in your throat driving you wild with an animalistic hunger!

“It’s okay, princess. You’re alright. Don’t be afraid.” He cooed mellifluously down at you, a smile gracing his usually smug lips. Even though you were all covered in your own blood, there was a beauty to you that nothing else could compare to. You were now all his for eternity, and he would never let you go.

“What happened?” You croaked questionably, your fingers darting up to his face at a speed he was not yet used to. Though he allowed your blood covered fingers to smooth across his fare cheek, just this once. Your once welcoming warmth had now disappeared, replaced with a coldness just like his. Although your body temperature had vanished, the warmth of your soul still radiated from you, welcoming him in just like it always had.

“You don’t remember?” He inquired, pushing your blood matted hair from your breathtaking face, his forehead leaning against your own. You shook your head no, to which he swiftly pulled back from you. Eyes ablaze like an inferno. “Some jerk easy pushing 150 came bottling down the road towards us. I had to take us off the road otherwise you’d have ended up being road kill. You weren’t doing so good. I had to turn you, princess.” The way he explained it was soothing, as though he were speaking lowly to a rather confused child. It was certain that you probably still possessed nasty after shocks of a severe concussion, your mind attempting to make logic of the events that had occurred earlier in the night.

“Turn me?”

“Yes, turn you.” A slight edge of derision dripped from his mouth and into your ears, the man didn’t possess a whole lot of patience, though he was trying his best. Besides, any thought of you suddenly wanting to reject your new life created apprehension to ruffle David’s feathers. “You would be dead if I hadn’t have bit you.” He clarified further.

You swallowed thickly in response to him, throat barren like a sandy cracked desert. Your hand brought itself up to your throat, tenderly clutching it to which your lover cocked his head to the side, amusement rampant on his face. He knew all too well what you were going through. “You’re thirsty.” He stated it matter-of-factly.

“Thirsty. Yes.” You nodded in sincere agreement, the sight of your innocence made David chortle before he got to his feet. Yet you remained on the blood soaked ground, staring up at him like a deer in head lights. Uncertainty blossomed in your gut as he offered you his infamous gloved hand to take, yet you hesitated, orbs sweeping around as you took in the other boys shyly. Relief was painted on their faces.

“Do you trust me, sunshine?” David inquired down at you candidly, a lightning strike of mischief twinkling within his blue eyes. Your fingers answered for you, instinctively smoothing over the worn leather on his hand and clutching ever so softly whilst he hoisted you up onto your feet as though you were royalty.

“Yes,” You breathed softly, voice scratching with thirst.

Satisfaction was painted colorfully on David’s face and he leaned closer to you, icy eyes filled with a fiery desire that you’d never encountered in him before. “Then follow me.” He stated, leading you up the steep dusty hill of the ditch with little effort before bringing you back onto the road that had caused this all to occur.

You took in the familiar street you and the boys had always driven down with a new pair of eyes. Everything seemed crisper, tiny details that you had never noted before came popping out. The road was practically deserted since night had settled fully on the small town of Santa Carla. Yet in the distance you could hear a tender thrumming, a melodic rhythm that was all too enticing for your newborn state to resist.

Your eyes captured the teenage girl walking on the cracked sidewalk on the opposite end of the street. She was strolling towards you, her black hair a fluffy pixie cut, swept into disarray by the wind cast from the beach. She smelt of ocean and salt. It made your mouth water steadily. You could tell that her mind was preoccupied, a headset nestled over her ears and a velvet voice oozing from the speakers and into her small ears. Her Walk-man clicked in her small bag strapped to her side. She appeared in deep thought, eyes staring straight ahead, however, she did not seem to notice yourself, David or the other boys. You were meaningless to her, so she carried on walking, safe in her imagination. Her silky skin glowed under the moonlight, head bopping to the music she listened to, her neck bare.

Your throat burned intensely as though a red hot glowing poker was being wedged down it. You couldn’t resist and released David’s large hand with enthusiasm, to which he allowed.

All you were aware of next was being right in front of the girl, terrorizing her out of her contemplation. She let out a blood curdling scream, flinging backwards onto the ground. You could not blame her because unbeknownst to you, you were covered head to toe in blood, your clothes shredded to assorted ribbons and your orbs were a bright orange, face contorted into that of a monsters.

The poor girl hardly stood a chance against you. You did the only logical thing and pounced on her, teeth tearing and ripping into her throat like a savage bear. Streaks of red flooded into your mouth, pouring down her front as you drank her dry. Her headphones were intent on a song, it’s lyrics speaking of the strangeness of strangers when one was alone.

The young girl gargled and fought, nails digging and ripping into your durable flesh, attempting feebly at getting you off of her. Though as soon as she had begun she stopped altogether, falling limp in your iron clad grasp. A bolt of euphoria slid through your veins as you drew away from her. Her glassy eyes stared up at the stars and the moon vacantly. You panted wildly, desiring more. Needing more.

A chorus of boyish snickers came from behind you, alerting you once more that you weren’t alone. Yet you stayed in place, a high overcoming you that rivaled the one that you had experienced on the back of David’s bike. There was an immense part of you that wished desperately for that feeling to stay persistent. It was addicting and already you craved more, licking your lips to take in every last drop of the metallic bitterness of the red elixir.

“Welcome to the club, y/n!” Paul grinned in your ear, his nimble fingers grasping your shoulders comfortingly. He was buzzing with particular excitement. The sight of you utterly comical to him. He understood your desperation though. The desperation for more, to quench the aching hunger of human blood.

“Yeah, welcome!” Marko sneered infamously beside Paul, your head tipping up and backwards to see the blonde duo grinning down at you like hungry wolves. Although they were so nonchalant about this ordeal, you were still basking in the deep glow of your high, feeling nourished already.

Dwayne hung back from the other boys, stood next to David, his hulking hands shoved into his jacket pockets. He had an amused grin on him as well. The sight of you covered in blood almost laughable. As a human, you had always voiced your opinion of how much the sight of blood turned your stomach nauseously. To see you enjoying the experience of feeding was something rather hilarious to the raven haired boy.

You’d now taken the final pledge and thrown yourself into a new way of life. Their way of life. This was where you belonged. You belonged with the band of boys and it was where you would stay, forever and ever.

David stood there, wedging a cigarette coolly between his lips and lighting it. He inhaled the smoke with need, eyes glued to you. Although you had pulled through, there was vengeance brewing in his gut. He’d get the man who had caused this entire incident. He’d get him in the cruelest of fashions. Maybe not tonight, but he’d start looking for him tomorrow. Oh, he definitely would...

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

please like, reblog and follow for more!

requests: open!

#david #david imagines #the lost boys #the lost boys david #the lost boys david imagines #the lost boys 1987 #the lost boys 1987 imagines #the lost boys imagines #the lost boys 1987 david #the lost boys 1987 david imagines #angst #trigger warning #tw violence #read at your own discretion #the lost boys angst #blood #tw blood #hope you enjoyed it!#admin kat

118 notes · View notes

protectduffy · 5 years ago

Text

When You’re Hurt (M)

male edition! featuring the camp boahs along with trelawny and eagle flies! female edition coming shortly! and let me know if you want any more characters added!

Trigger warning: violence, injury, cursing, racial remarks

this is so looong, i am so sorry!

Arthur

- you always have a warm smile for Arthur when you return to camp, shortly before falling into his arms

- however, this time when you came back from a robbery of a small bank, you walked straight past him with your head down

- concerned, Arthur followed like a wounded pup, trailing after you

- “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he keeps his voice very soft, quiet

- you try to ignore him with only an incoherent mumble of an answer as you find your cot and all but collapse on it

- immediately he knows something went wrong, you start crying to yourself and he falls to his knees beside the cot, touching you all over and looking for the source of the pain

- he finds a few bruises and scrapes, but nothing too frightening

- realising you were hurting emotionally, too, Arthur hesitates before lying beside you and sliding his arms around your waist, murmuring softly to you

- when you finally decide to tell him that the robbery went wrong and how disappointed in yourself you are, he scoffs and recounts all the times he’s failed miserably at something, reassuring you of how much he cares for you always, no matter what

Charles

- it was supposed to be a quick hunting trip to bring back a couple of rabbits or a deer if you were lucky, but when you returned to camp empty handed, Charles was quite surprised

- he respects your hunting ability and has helped you to hone in on your skills, so to come back after hours of being gone with nothing so much as a fish, he knows something went awry

- he doesn’t push you, though, watching from the campfire as you trail into your tent, disappearing from sight

- only then does Charles approach, so as to give you some space but also ensure your safety

- he finds you sat on the bed, sniffling and inspecting your bleeding forearm

- first he feels fear first, then concern

- “What happened? Did someone hurt you?” his voice has a mild shake of emotion as he grasps at your wrist to inspect the zigzag cuts on your forearm

- it isn’t too deep, but neither is it pleasant, and it will likely scar

- embarrassed, you admit that your old hunting bow snapped when you pulled it taut and ended up whipping back against your arm

- “You should always come to me if you get hurt, I want to keep you safe, and I’ll never look down on you for accidents.”

- Charles promises you it isn’t silly and that he’ll help you make a new bow, a sturdy one, after he bandages your arm

Javier

- you had set out for a train robbery with a few others, but Javier had stayed back to help around the camp with a few pressing matters

- he wasn’t too worried about you, but he did constantly look up at the horizon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of your returning figure

- when it grew dark and still nothing appeared, Javier became restless

- he had just grabbed his weapons to go find the others when the noises startled him

- you stumbled into camp with Bill, Dutch and John, obviously limping but trying to hide it

- Javier’s eyes narrow, he had made Dutch swear to keep you safe because he couldn’t be there himself to protect you

- you can’t hide the limp from him, and Javier becomes like a dog with a bone, swearing and storming over and not once showing signs of letting this go

- “The hell happened?! I told you to keep them safe, hijo de puta!”

- Dutch explains calmly that you were kicked and fell off the train when attacked by one of the guards but that you were fine

- Javier, deciding not to explode in front of everyone, picks you up without another word and cradles you on his lap by the fire, cooing softly, even if you insist you’re fine

- he uses the injury as an excuse for the rest of the week to keep you in bed, or to carry you around constantly, never leaving your side until you’re healed

- he plays you songs on his guitar to keep your spirits up

Dutch

- Dutch has enemies everywhere, and he’s always treading very carefully so as to not alert those enemies to his whereabouts

- unfortunately, this doesn’t always work out in his favour

- you had gone into the local town to collect some groceries for the camp when you were recognised by two men whom Dutch had once had a run-in with

- when you saw them drop their drinks and come charging towards you, it was already too late to make a run for it

- overwhelmed, you tried your best to fend yourself off and ended up killing one of the men before you could finally break free

- you ran all the way back to camp, bursting through the trees like a wild animal with hair sticking up and eyes bloodshot

- “The-they k-knew me, I c-c-couldn’t stop th-the-”

- you had burst into tears before you could finish the sentence, with Susan and Arthur immediately at your side to hold you up

- covered in bruises and with a split lip, you looked quite the mess

- Dutch, attracted by the sound of your distressed voice, emerged from his tent and stood for a fraction of a second in shock

- you could see the expressions form on his face, surprise, worry, hatred

- he cleared the distance to you inhumanly fast and pulled you against his chest after checking for any other injuries, holding you against him, feeling your body shake with sobs

- “Who did it, darling?” he speaks softly so as not to startle you, but the bitter undertone is unmissable

- when you tell him, Dutch kisses your temple and gently gives you back to a concerned Susan, promising he’ll be right back

- the storm in his eyes is one you won’t forget as he left with guns in hand, not returning until the next day covered in blood and quietly returning to your side

Hosea

- O’Driscoll boys had always been a problem, but never more so than when you found yourself in a saloon alone

- having decided to take a break, you found a quiet corner and sipped your drink, watching out the window as the sun slowly sank in the sky

- three rough looking men approached you, leering and nudging one another, laughing to themselves

- your face went pale, you recognised them as the O’Driscoll dogs who so often plagued you and your gang

- trying to ignore them didn’t work, one of them pulled you up from your seat and you immediately went into fight-or-flight, drawing the gun at your hip and firing blindly

- you managed to escape in the chaos of the saloon in uproar, the men after you losing track of your form but not before one of them landed a shot in your left arm

- crying out, you managed to throw yourself on your horse and ride back to camp, leaning heavily to one side as the blood continued to weep through your wound

- your whole body was pale and sweaty as it slid from the saddle and thumped on the grass

- Hosea looked up from the book he was reading at the sound of your approach, alarm bells ringing in his head as he watched you fall

- he ran across the camp and skidded in the dirt, pulling you up onto his lap

- you managed to mumble something about O’Driscoll and that you were sorry before passing out

- “No, not like this, you’re not dying like this!”

- he makes the others bring medicine, bandages and hot water to help you, but never once does Hosea get off the ground with you gently on his lap

- when you wake up two days later, you learn that he had sent Arthur and John to take care of your attackers, but Hosea himself hadn’t left his seat next to your bed the whole time

Lenny

- skinning animals was still very new to you, though Pearson was being very patient (most of the time) in teaching you so that you could assist him with the stew

- in fact, you were beginning to feel like a real expert a few days in with your knife

- spying your boyfriend Lenny walking across camp with some firewood, you decided to flourish a little, twirling the knife and trying to look casual as you did so

- unfortunately, this ploy didn’t work

- the blade caught in some of the pelt you were removing and flipped on itself, cutting across your palm in a short line

- with a slightly yelp, you at once had Lenny fawning over you, grabbing your hand and twisting it every which way - gently as he could - to inspect the wound

- he isn’t the best with injuries since he panics when he sees that you’re wounded

- thankfully, Pearson knows what to do and instructs the poor boy to clean then bandage the injury

- although it will heal in time, Lenny insists that you stay close to his side in case of any more unpleasant accidents (but he loves the excuse to have you beside him)

Micah

- Micah doesn’t like to be viewed as clingy or overprotective, but he does often stick by your side like glue, making sure you won’t get into any trouble without him (or because of him)

- when you were waiting for him outside the gun merchant’s store, he was drawn to focus on the sounds of hushed argument

- as soon as Micah had disappeared inside, a dark figure emerged at the front of the store to interrogate you, asking if you knew Mr. Bell and how that was so

- suspicious, you didn’t give away any details of Micah, the gang or yourself, but this only proved to anger the man

- he flashed his badge at you and drew his pistol, at which point it was too late to reach for your own without being shot at

- the detective attempted to force you to your knees as you fought him off, struggling to find grip in the dust

- “Micah!”

- he responds like lightning, dramatically kicking the door open and storming outside

- nobody messes with his baby

- he doesn’t even mock or anger the detective like he normally would, instead Micah draws his freshly cleaned and gleaming guns, firing six rounds into the detective

- the whole town is alight then, but Micah is more than happy to help you onto his horse, murmuring assurances to you the whole time, riding out of the chaos and clutching you (and his guns) tightly

- “Don’t worry, I got’cha, honey.”

John

- on a hunting trip with John, you were both relaxing in the shade waiting for prey to take the bait in the clearing ahead of the two of you

- resting against his chest and sat up against a tree, you share hushed conversations and jokes while you wait

- after an hour, a buck wanders into the clearing and approaches the bait, his antlers catching some of the morning light

- unfortunately, you were not the only hunters in the area

- a growl sounds out behind John and you swivel around in his arms to spot a looming grizzly, which had been attracted by the buck, baring his teeth

- John pushes you aside and leaps to his feet to draw his weapons, heart pounding in his throat with pure adrenaline and fear for your safety

- the bear takes a solid three bullets and swipes in retaliation before it scampers away to lick it’s wounds

- John is hesitant to slide his guns away, panting, as he turns to find you

- the bear’s claws had just managed to clip your jaw and though the injury is not immense, it is something which needs to be treated

- regardless, he swears and pulls off his shirt to press it to your jaw, stopping the bleeding

- “It don’t look too bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it sooner!”

- after apologising profusely and unnecessarily carrying you back to camp, he makes you smile by suggesting that maybe you’ll have a smaller version of his own scars

- it would be safe to say that he always holds your hand from that point on when you’re out together, just in case

Bill

- admittedly, the rain was probably not the best weather choice for a walk, but that didn’t outright occur to you when you decided you wanted a break from listening to everyone bickering

- Bill was asleep already, exhausted from a recent robbery, and you wanted to clear your head

- exploring the surrounding areas seemed like a good way to do that

- you wandered along a nearby stream so you would know how to get back, and you followed your feet up a gradually inclining hill

- however, you hadn’t noticed just how steep that incline was getting until your breath started coming in pants

- when you realised that you had probably gone too far and were at risk of losing the trail back, you carefully tried to tread your way back down the hill

- slowly making each step count, you were about halfway down when your heel lost grip and you fell head first, thankfully flipping and rolling before skidding the rest of the way down to the stream

- the pain in your wrist was immense from having landed on it, but your pride was probably the most wounded

- very slowly, you trudged back to camp, hoping nobody would notice the mud stains or the throbbing red bruises around your wrist

- unfortunately for you, bill had woken to find you missing and was already in a mood

- as soon as he lay eyes on you, he felt the urge to scold you for scaring him like that, but was distracted by the shame in your eyes and the way you held your wrist awkwardly to your chest

- “What the hell happened? I told you not to go out alone!”

- he isn’t very sure how to treat you but presents you to Strauss with an urgent look in his eyes

- Bill hovers behind you the whole time you’re examined and put in a sling

- he takes the instructions to rest very seriously, grumbling about how you worried him as he holds you that night, smoothing your hair

Uncle

- it was a silly accident, but that didn’t make it any less painful

- “Shit, Sean, get me a cloth!”

- you scold him under your breath as he hurries to get a clean rag for your hands

- he had been messing around with you that evening when he accidentally knocked you too hard and your hands shot out to steady yourself, smashing the glass you were holding against the table you braced yourself on

- very apologetic and drunk, Sean brings the attention of a sleepy Uncle, who grumbles as he makes his way over

- seeing the damage to your hands and the sheepish expression on the redhead’s face, Uncle starts to turn a bright pink shade of anger

- “Stupid boy! What did you do? Give me a look at that.”

- you politely suggest to Sean that he had better leave and he looks relieved to high-tail it

- Uncle sits you down and tells you about the times when he had a bottle smashed against him, or was thrown through/jumped through glass, so he has a surprising amount of knowledge

- after cleaning out the wounds on your palms and covering them with clean cloths, he ushers you straight to bed and makes sure to keep Sean away from you until he’s sobered up

Pearson

- you really, really wanted to learn how to cook

- robbery jobs and general mischief was low since the gang had only just set up in the new location, so you decided you would be helpful in other ways and at the same time get to spend all your moments with Pearson

- he was a bit begrudging over it, playfully suggesting you’ll get in his way, but he is surprisingly a good teacher if you’re a good listener

- you’re asked to bring over the pot of boiling water from the fire so he can add in the meat to it

- seems like a simple task, but the pot had been boiling for longer than either of you realised and even the handle was ragingly hot

- with a yelp, you yanked your now blistered hand away, shaking it frantically as if that might ease the burning sensation

- with an immense amount of concern, Pearson grasps your arm and pulls you to the table where a bucket of cold water sits, plunging your hand in and rubbing your back with his free hand

- “It’s okay, just focus on me, m’kay? Look at me.”

- when the burning subsides, he bandages the hand and keeps applying cold water to it as well as some ointment from one of the previous robberies

- he makes sure to gently kiss the hand every now and then

Kieran

- it was a nice day to test your new revolver

- you had decided to ride a small distance from camp to test your skills in your new weapon by shooting some bottles

- however, you had failed to realise that the weapon you had purchased was not brand new, and was instead a second-hand gun that the store owner had pawned off on you

- as a result, it wasn’t a steady or recently tested weapon

- when you pulled the trigger the first time, it hit the target, but slightly off centre

- with another shot, the gun recoiled hard and the metal at the rear seemed to come apart with an agonising burn to your palm

- the scent of burnt flesh and metal made you howl in pain and shock

- this startled your horse who, mistaking it for the cry of a predator, darted back to camp

- Kieran, naturally recognising your spooked horse and seeing no rider, calms the animal before going out in search of you, calling out with a shaky voice as his wide eyes search every tree, bush and boulder

- he finds you curled up against a tree trunk clutching your arm, whimpering

- Kieran himself makes a soft noise of pain to see you hurting and sits next to you, gently prying your other hand away from your injured one to inspect the damage

- although he very much wants to throw up at the sight of all the blood and burns on his lover, he steels himself because you need him

- Kieran puts you on his horse and rides like thunder into camp, presenting you like a broken bird with the most heartbroken expression on his face that he can’t help you because he doesn’t know where to start

- Strauss treats and binds your hand, letting Kieran lead you to his bed where he sits with you and kisses your shoulder in between sweet words, rocking you against his chest

- the next day he pulls Arthur aside and asks him as a favour to go find the gun trader and ‘deal with him’

Sean

- law was always going to be a problem when you were running with Dutch’s gang

- however, Sean certainly didn’t help that situation

- he has a habit of stirring up trouble with lawmen, even if he does nothing other than verbally taunt them

- sometimes he just doesn’t know where the line is

- usually you don’t mind, because you know he can slip away and you’ll always have his back, but this time he went too far

- the lawman decided he’d had enough of Sean’s smart mouth and pulled out his gun, yelling at the Irishman in colourful tones

- Sean had the sense to pull you out of the store you were browsing as you both took off, Sean but you scolding him

- in the crossfire - although you had managed to escape into the woods - a bullet had grazed your thigh and burned Sean’s shoulder

- “Oh shit, shit, shit! I’m so sorry darlin’, honey, let me see it! Dammit, shit, I can fix this!”

- he rants to himself as he makes you a makeshift little bandage, soothing your pain and occasionally kissing you

- he also kisses your thigh very very lightly over the bandage, giving you puppy eyes and swearing he’ll make it up to you

- although he won’t admit it, he’s much more reserved around lawmen (at least for a little while) afterwards, and he always makes sure that you are safe first

Trelawny

- due to his common disappearing act (which had lessened immensely since the two of you became an item) around camp, you and Josiah both took great pride in making time for one another to do different things

- one day it was boating down the river, the next it was saloon-hopping, the next was basking in a flower field

- he always has unique places to take you and the softest gleam in his eye

- this time, he insisted you go for a horse ride down the trail he found which would lead to a beautiful cliff overlooking the vast area

- your horse was brand new and still slightly skittish, having not had enough time to bond with you yet to develop a sense of trust

- regardless, you wanted to ride the mare next to Trelawny and his own steed

- it was a peaceful walk through the trees until your horse noticed the lithe form of a snake darting into the underbrush

- immediately, the mare reared up and kicked her legs, panicking, throwing you from the saddle before she bolted in the opposite direction

- it all seemed to happen in slow motion as you came crashing down to the dirt, audibly snapping something in your foot

- Josiah leapt from his horse and had pulled you close at an instant, inspecting you all over

- “Where does it hurt? Is this sore? Did you hit your head?”

- he’s like a mother hen fussing and protecting you, his hands expertly feeling for any breakages until he reaches your ankle and hears you cry out

- “Okay, it’s alright, dove. Just breathe, I’m going to take you home.”

- for the time that it takes you to learn how to walk with a makeshift crutch, he is always there shadowing you, making sure that if you look even a little bit unsteady that he is there to right you

- he makes sure you ride with him, too, until you gain your confidence back

Eagle Flies

- when the soldiers set up not too far from his tribe, Eagle Flies immediately became much more tense when you’d visit

- he would always love to grasp your hand and sit with his arms around you, but this was different

- he wasn’t blind to your beauty, and he knew the soldiers saw it too, since they frequently made passing comments in your presence when you’d walk by

- trying his absolute best to ignore it, he could still very much enjoy his time with you when you would visit, showing you all of the best spots for a good view, hunting, and contemplation

- one morning, Eagle Flies decided to leave early to find some of those flowers you always awe over

- when you arrived to find him missing, you decided to wander the local area since it seemed you were starting to become more familiar with the land thanks to Eagle Flies and his many trips with you

- however, you weren’t the only one roaming the forest

- three soldiers, all surprisingly tipsy despite it being morning, stumbled through the bushes and happened upon you

- both parties stared for a good few seconds - which felt like hours - until the shortest of the soldiers cracked a grin and made towards you

- his friends were quicker, grabbing your arms and attempting to subdue you, ripping your shirt in the process

- “If it ain’t the Indian-loving little bitch! Come here, sweetheart, come on!” the other two men took to whistling at you like a dog

- “I’ll show you how a real man fucks a-”

- there was no opportunity for the man to finish his vulgar statement likely due to the arrow protruding from his chest

- blood splutters from his mouth and the other two soldiers are on their backs before they could draw their weapons

- shaking from the shock, you barely register the familiar presence as Eagle Flies emerges from the shadows with his bow clutched tightly in hand

- he has a look of immense rage you’ve never seen before, his eyes ice cold as he surveys the bodies before deciding they’re dead

- when his gaze shifts to you, it softens at once to a look of concern and love

- “Are you okay? I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. Come.” he speaks quietly, like a whisper to not startle the doe, and opens his arms

- you whimper and gratefully fall into his embrace

- back at the tribe, Eagle Flies sits you on his lap and whispers softly to you, watching the campfire after informing his father of the situation

- he makes sure from then on to always scope the land before your arrival, but soon a better idea emerges; you permanently stay with him on their native lands

- regardless, he’s much more protective of you and always has a warm comment to make you smile or a gentle touch to remind you he’s always there for you

1K notes · View notes

austarus · 6 years ago

Text

HR Wells x Reader Waking Up Papa Bear

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to @stellar-raven .

Scrunching your face, you squeeze your already shut eyes even tighter as the sunlight rouses you from peaceful slumber, your dream world escapes you. You rub your face with a hand and regain a sense of gradual wakefulness, eyes adjusting to your shared room. A little noise escapes your throat, the ray of sunshine hits you as the slight glimmers of light filter through the cream colored blinds of your bedroom windows. You shift your arms under the pillow as you lay on your back, your pajama shirt rides up slightly as you squirm slightly.

Turning your head as you settle the palms of your hand on top of your stomach, folding them there, your eyes scan over HR's exhaustively asleep figure. His dark hair's ruffled from sleep, snoring lightly as his broad back faces you. Breathing quietly to yourself, your eyes soften up before you maneuver you head to your beside counter, where you phone lies along with the baby monitor. As you pick up your phone you note the time. 9:30... I don't want to get up though... You think, snuggling back under the warmth of the covers. Closing your eyes once more to fall back asleep, your ears perk up at a noise, which has your senses on wide alert.

A small gurgle followed by a fussy noise is emitted from the baby monitor to your baby's room. You're wide awake, eyes snapping open as your motherly instinct kicks in, blood pumping loudly in your ears and worry filling your heart. Theo? You gingerly push the covers off you, pulling them around HR so he can remain asleep. You cringe, body aching from moving all of a sudden from the bed. Grabbing one of your jackets that lay on the chair that has become a clothes rack for you, you put it on and pad hurriedly to Theo's room. You step closer to the baby cradle in the midst of the pastel-green colored room with multiple baby toys arranged neatly. The changing bed next to the baby drawer full of clothes and diapers as the hanging animal mobile shook slightly with every movement.

"Hey, baby," you coo to the young child, one hand on the white wooden cradle while the other reached out to Theo. The 1 year-old and a half extended a tiny limb to grasp your finger in his hand. Baby blue eyes wide with curiosity. You smile gently as the baby moves your finger around.

"Mommy's here," you coo and shift closer to gingerly carry the fragile baby. "Mommy loves you so much." You place a kiss on Theo's forehead, bouncing him slightly to elicit a giggle and wide smile. That same sunshine-y smile as HR. Goodness, you know you’ll never tire of either of them. You dread the day your baby boy grows up and goes off to kindergarten.

Theodore... my baby, you turn your head to look out the door, across Theo's room was yours. You stroll out with your baby in your arms, one hand resting on his back so he doesn't fall back, and meander into your room. Your eyes glance over HR, who now resides on his back with a pillow clutched to his chest in one arm, before falling back to Theo. Our baby...

To this day, the thought of Theo coming into the world and being here with you and HR... A bundle of joy, the product of your love with the Earth-19 novelist... It still tugs at your heart, melting, so much that tears prick at you eyes out of happiness. You quickly wipe them away with the back of your palm. I love them so much. You hadn’t thought that this, love so strong yet willing, would ever be in your story. You didn’t think anyone would ever want you, but... then HR came to Earth 1...

You kiss the top of Theodore's head once more, a soft smile on your face as you step out of you room, phone in your back pocket. "How about we get you changed out of your pj's and get something to eat while daddy sleeps?" You talk to the baby in a low, but soft voice as you comb his floofy hair to the side. Baby blue eyes just watch you with big and innocent eyes, tiny hands gripping onto your shirt.

---

You head out to the kitchen with Theo, who keeps gurgling incomprehensible noises, in fresh clothes for the day with your pajamas in the basket, ready for a wash. You wiped his little butt and changed his diaper along with dabbing on some lightly-scented lotion. Caitlin was proud of Theo’s developing verbal skills, well in this case all the gibberish noises he makes, as well as his motor functions. He should be able to crawl soon, Caity said so and she’s a good doctor so...

"Aahh fffft maa," your baby fiddles with his own fingers as you seat him in his reclined chair, the bottled milk of baby formula and some napkins (in case some milk splutters out of his mouth) on the table beside you. Because last time you set anything infront of Theo, like the fruity yogurt cup you had for breakfast, he would make a mess out of it. "Maa," he squirms in his seat, arms out stretched to you.

---

After feeding Theo, you clean the baby up because he managed to still somehow get messy. "Silly baby," you chuckle with a soft smile on your face, wiping his chin with the soft wipes. Theo gives you a toothless grin, automatically melting your heart. This baby is too precious... I blame HR.

"Up we go," you stand up slowly, cradling him close to your chest with one hand secured at his back. He busies himself with your gold-chained necklace, adorning a golden star. It was the one that HR had gotten you for your first anniversary together. Looking to the clock, you furrow your eyebrows at the current time. 11:22? Already? Time really does fly.

"Looks like we should wake up papa bear," you whisper to Theo, rubbing your nose against his smaller one, a happy noise to fall from his mouth. "Right, Teddy?"

"Ahh daaa mm," Theodore murmurs, before patting your collarbone in what you can only assume agreement with your words.

"I'll take that as a yes, my little cutie pie"

You gently padded through the small apartment with socked feet, reaching your room to find your lean husband still slumbering with pleasant dreams. The covers were thrown off to the side haphazardly, only covering a part of his midsection as light snores escape him. Literally an angel, I almost feel bad for doing this. You held in a giggle, creeping closer until reaching the bed an idea sparking in your mind as Teddy held onto you tight.

“Daaa,” he made a little noise as you set him down on HR’s chest stomach first. Of course, HR doesn’t really register the baby weight on him because he’s asleep and well... he’s all buff too. But that rant and power-point on HR’s godly designed body is a discussion for another day.

You gave your baby boy a gentle forehead kiss once he was situated. Teddy looked up at you before gingerly maneuvering his head to look at his dad, uttering “Daa” then looking around a bit more.

You pulled out your phone and decided to make a little video out of this entire exchange. “Go on, honey bun,” you whisper, getting on your knees and resting your elbows on the mattress to HR’s side with the camera trained on your boys. “Wake daddy up, Teddy.” Your baby only looked up at you before looking down with a little frown and pouty lips, noises falling out of Theodore’s mouth as he squirms.

“Daa, daaa, daaa,” you giggled when he started doing that little cute shriek, patting your husband’s sturdy chest. A groan erupted from HR’s throat as Theo continued his assault, the older man languidly returning to reality and registering the tiny child on top of him and the sound of your giggling. Scrunching his nose, HR blinks awake and rubbing his face with a strong hand from any remnant of sleep. The awakening novelist moved his body slightly, hands resting on the child laid on him.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” you whisper, saving the video and tucking your phone away to lean closer, giving HR’s stubbly cheek a kiss. Baby Theo had stopped when he felt HR move a bit, gripping tightly to HR’s shirt.

“I’ve been kissed by an angel, and it looks like another has made his place on my chest. I must be blessed today.”

I’m the one that’s blessed... you jumped over to E1 and made your way into my heart... “Is that so?” You quirk an eyebrow at him when his baby blue gaze meets yours. A deep chuckle resonates in the room from HR. Teddy watched you as he leaned for an actual kiss from you, which you sweetly gave him.

“Apfftt maa.” Pulling away, your head snapped to Theo, getting your full attention.

“Teddy, what did we say about spitting like that?” You lightly scold the baby, obviously not meaning any harm as you pull out a napkin and gingerly wipe his mouth. He only kicked his feet while HR moved to sit up, holding your baby tightly as he adjusts himself. The tall man places a his on Theodore’s forehead, playing with his silky dark hair that mirrors his own.

Teddy just rests his head against HR’s shoulder, playing with his shirt. “Da!” HR pats the spot beside him for you to sit. Doing so, you take your spot beside him and pass him the glass of water that HR keeps on his bedside table in case he gets thirsty at night or early morning if he was to go on a run. Your Earth-19 novelist takes a swift drink before handing it back to you. After setting the glass cup down you rest your head against his chest, closing your eyes and relishing in this quiet moment with HR curling his arm around you. Listening to his strong heartbeat always eased your worries, but you couldn’t help but think that maybe blessed things do come to those who do good and wait.

138 notes · View notes

darling-clemmy · 6 years ago

Text

All of Our Lullabies (ClemxLouis Fanfiction)

Summary: During an intense thunder storm, Louis comes up with a plan to ease the nerves of both Clementine and AJ. Requested by Anon💛 (edit: I changed the title because I felt the old one didn’t fit)

Word Count: 1,727 words

Genre: Fluff

A/N: I ended up really liking how this turned out. I hope you guys enjoy it, too!

Louis and Clementine were laying together on the bed that was definitely too small to fit both of them. Despite that, they found a position that worked, with Clem’s torso pressed against his while her legs were set off to the side. She placed her chin atop her hands folded on his chest, staring up at the boy fondly, though her eyes were lulling closed.

Still, through the slits, she could admire just how beautiful he was. Louis had her enchanted, what with his dark brown freckles sprinkled across his face and how his short eyelashes hit his cheekbones everytime he blinked. He truly was a work of art, like the Renaissance paintings she saw on a field trip to a museum when she was a kid. He’d be a great model for those artists, Clementine bet.

As she was moving a hand up to graze his jaw, a loud boom of thunder shook the room, suddenly alerting her eyes open quick enough to see light fill the room due to the lightning. A flood of raindrops could be heard crashing into the ground, some fresh from the clouds and some erupting out of the dilapidated gutters. Clementine shivered in sync with another boom, and pulled the thin knitted blanket closer to her collarbones.

Louis’ grip instinctively tightened around the girl’s slim waist at the surprising noises. Once he calmed down and realized that she was okay and still with him, his hands released, allowing his slender fingers to travel up and down her ribcage. He exhaled, lowering his chin to reach Clem’s hairline to give a tender kiss.

“Did the thunder wake you up?” She questioned, now resting her cheek against his chest.

“I was never really asleep anyway,” he shrugged. “I could feel your staring.”

Clementine grew red and squeezed her eyes closed. “That’s embarrassing.”

His deep chuckles vibrated in his lungs. “No, it’s cute. You’re cute.”

That definitely didn’t help her blush, only increasing the fuzziness in her sight. She groaned in annoyance. “Stop.”

Louis continued smirking at the girl’s actions. Then, sliding a hand up to cup her head, he lifted it, making her pretty face visible. The smirk morphed into a grin, the same one he allegedly smiled everytime he saw her.

Clementine’s eyes stayed closed for a brief moment before she opened them, brown specks drowning in a sea of amber. They closed again as another crack of lightning shot through the room. The bolts were getting too close for her liking.

“Clementine?”

“Yes, Louis?” She whispered, tilting her head to the side.

“You’re so beautiful,” he sighed. “How did I get so lucky?”

At his words, she brought a cold hand up to her face to timidly hide behind it. Louis smoothly pushed it away, replacing it with his own. He could feel her melt into the touch, her soft skin gliding against it. Slowly and quietly, she began lifting her body up, closer and closer in an attempt to reach his lips—

Knock, knock, knock

Quickly, the couple pulled away, Clementine moving her entire body off of the boy and onto the mattress next to him. Thankfully, they did so quick enough so that AJ didn’t see anything they were doing, even if just cuddling and kissing. Clem sat up in worry at the sight of the boy, dressed in some new sleepwear they found in an old house, carrying one of Tenn’s toys.

“AJ? Is everything alright?” She questioned frantically, pulling the blanket off and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

He paced over in front of her. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Then why aren’t you asleep? It’s late.”

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed together, probably a habit adopted from Clem. He paused, staying quiet before admitting, “The storm was scaring me. It’s just so loud. What if it’s a hur-huric-“

“A hurricane?” Louis offered, now sat up next to his girlfriend.

“That!” AJ approved. “I was reading a book about them earlier.”

“Trust me, I don’t think it’s a hurricane. They’re usually a lot worse than this.” Louis assured, glancing between him and Clem, noticing a little appreciative smile on her face.

AJ shivered at the thought. “I just thought...Can I stay in here tonight? Like I used to?”

“Yeah, of course you can, goofball,” Clementine agreed. “Do you wanna sleep in the other bed or with one of us?”

AJ grimaced at the nickname, but didn’t reply.

“I have a better idea!” Louis chimed in excitedly. “Let’s make a pillow fort.”

“What’s that?” AJ asked curiously as Clementine shot her head over to look at Louis.

“Is there enough room for that?” She said.

“We’ll show you what it is, AJ!” Louis beamed before turning to Clementine. “And of course it’ll fit, come on. Let’s gather up all of the pillows we can find, then we’ll take the sheets off these beds.”

The little family got to work in collecting as many pillows as they could find. AJ returned to him and Tenn’s room just to snatch his three Louis, being the pillow-hog he is, contributed his seven to the fort, while Clem only had one. Once that was settled, they tore the not-so-white sheets from their mattresses. The two teenagers began tying up the fabric, supporting it up with the bedposts and desk chairs. Placing two thick comforters down that AJ had previously found and dragged into the room, the group of three carefully settled into the cave of comfort.

Louis admired their handywork, his pride only swelling after he saw how excited the child now looked. “Isn’t this cool, little man?”

He giggled, looking up at how the sheets rolled and folded, almost as if they were morning clouds. “It’s awesome! Did you make these as a kid, Clem?” He asked, peaking over Louis’ body at her.

“I did a few times with my old babysitter,” she reminisced. “But I don’t think any of them were as sturdy as this one.”

AJ was about to laugh again, only to be cut off by yet another heart-shaking boom. He yelped and automatically nuzzled further into the blanket and closer to Louis.

Louis obviously didn’t mind. AJ was the closest thing he’d ever get to a little brother, maybe closer to a son. It was just another positive to being in a relationship with Clementine, to be such an influental figure in a little boy’s life. All that Louis did was hope he’d be a better dad than his own.

He wrapped one arm around AJ’s shoulders, the other around Clem’s waist, pulling her closer, to which she put her head on his shoulder. Briefly, he gave her a kiss on the forehead, to then begin speaking. “How about we tell some stories to distract ourselves? I’m sure you two have some interesting ones.”

“I don’t know. Most of our time was spent driving, there wasn’t much that was interesting.” AJ doubted.

Clem spoke up, making the two boys look over at her. “Then, I’ll tell a story. From when I was a kid.”

Louis gave her an appreciative smile while AJ stared in anticipation. Soon enough, she began telling the story of when she took a roadtrip to New York City with her parents. She explained that while in Time Square, she actually got lost after strolling off to look at a street preformer. Her parents were looking all day in a frenzy, reporting her missing to the police and such. Eventually, they found her, sitting on a nearby bench, eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich they had packed her earlier.

After she had finished storytelling, Louis stated, “I don’t believe that.”

“What? Why not?” She questioned, almost offended.

“I just can’t see you causing any trouble as a kid,” he explained, smiling widely at the thought of Clem being a troubled youth.

“I barely even did anything! I just wanted to watch the sword-swallower,” she replied.

“That’s gross,” AJ winced. “Why would you swallow a sword?”

“Why would you want to see that?” Louis asked as well.

Clementine rolled her eyes, although she wasn’t even annoyed at the two. “I can’t believe my boyfriend and my kid are both disregarding my story. I’m hurt.”

“Don’t worry your pretty, little head about it—we still love you.” Louis teased, looking down at the girl, watching her blush for the third time tonight.

He was pulled out of his trance when AJ called out his name.

“Hm?” He turned his head. It was becoming hard for him to focus on both of his favorite people.

“Can you sing us something?” The boy asked gently. “I like your voice.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you, AJ,” Louis appreciated before thinking about which song to sing.

After a moment, an option came to mind: Put Your Head on My Shoulder by Paul Anka, which was a little ironic due to how him and Clem were sitting. With it being all he could think of, he began singing softly.

Put your head on my shoulder

Hold me in your arms, baby

Squeeze me oh-so-tight

Show me that you love me too

The soft pattering of water against the glass seemed to be keeping a tempo for Louis. His smooth, jazzy voice bounced off the walls and returned back to their ears. He continued as he felt Clem stir on his shoulder, kissing it as she did.

Put your lips next to mine, dear

Won't you kiss me once, baby?

Just a kiss goodnight, maybe

You and I will fall in love

In reality, it wasn’t just a maybe of that happening. Louis knew that he was completely, utterly in love with the girl, and absolutely committed to looking after the boy. Until the day he died, he promised to dedicate his being to those two. After all, they were the best things to ever happen to him.

Soon later, he concluded the song, ending it with a hum. Sighing out, thankful he remembered all the lyrics and didn’t mess up, he looked to his left and right. It was charming to see that Clementine and AJ had both fallen asleep against him.

Sinking back against the soft pillows, he closed his chocolate eyes, letting the darkness overcome him. The last thing he discerned before he slipped into sleep was the muted sound of thunder, now seeming much further away.

#twdg #the walking dead game #clementine #louis #aj #clem #clouis #louisentine #ninja family #request #anon #fanfiction #fanfics #the final season

108 notes · View notes

zztophat · 5 years ago

Text

Discord Chat: Magic Dragon

SUMMARY: The World is saved and the balance is restored. She should be happy, right? But she isn’t. Zatanna and Dimitri are forced to confront feelings they’ve both been hiding from for far too long. TRIGGERS: Angst, Sadness, Trauma, Break Up WRITTEN WITH: @ofreddragon, @ofwarriors, @ofhxllblazer

Dimitiri: Needed to escape after saying such horrible things to Zatanna and physically hurting John had been things he'd never wanted to do. He didn't believe anything he'd said in the heat of the moment nor did John ever really upset him with his sexual jokes or innuendos. He sighed looking around in his pocket universe created just for him by Zee, yet another knife in his heart at how much love and work was put into such a gift. He slipped the ring from his finger taking him back to his place, looking around he noticed no one was here which he was secretly grateful for. He moved into the kitchen checking to see if Zatanna had at least eaten while he'd been gone only to find very little missing. He sighed looking at his phone seeing the almost thousands of unread messages from the last couple of days pinging on his phone most from Zatanna wanting to know where he was. He quickly sent her a text alerting her to where he was as he moved about the kitchen, making all her favorites as routine as it seemed. They needed to talk and he at least wanted to ensure she fed before he walked out of her life forever.

ZATANNA: She was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. They'd completed the spell to restore the balance and it had been more taxing that anything she'd experienced in a long time. She hadn't had the energy to teleport herself home and to be honest, after watching Adriel lose his wings, she didn't have the stomach for that kind of travel either. So, Michael had offered to take her home. They walked together in silence as the heaviness of the night weighed in on them. Balance was restored. She should be happy, right? But she wasn't. She was scared. Without something to focus on, she her thoughts kept going to everything she'd been ignoring these past few days. She heard her phone vibrate in her purse and pulled it out to see what it was. The shock must've registered on her face because she heard Michael calling her name. "It's Dimitri," she replied. "He's home," she looks up at Michael, not sure what she's feeling anymore. "Can you take me there?"

Michael: The night had been difficult on all of them, but he could tell it weighed heavy on Zatanna's shoulders. She'd performed the spell to it's completion and that kind of energy exertion left her with very little surplus magic. She needed to go home and rest. She hadn't had the energy to teleport home so he'd offered to walk with her. The night was quite, quieter than any of the previous ones now that the sins of the city had been calmed. Yet, he still felt tension. As her phone vibrated he looked toward her. Her face stilled in shock. "Zee? What's wrong?" he asked. When she told him Dimitri was back in town he was a little surprised. A feeling of both anger and shame swept over him. Where had the man gone? And why had he stayed away for so long? While he'd been sulking, the magician had been trying to pull the world from the brink of war. "I can take you," he nodded as they changed course and diverted into an alley. "Brace yourself," he replied, putting his arms around her and letting his wings envelop both of them. In a quick flutter, they were standing outside Dimitri's apartment.

Dimitri: Had just finished cooking, it was quite easy seeing how much food had been left behind by Zatanna's lack of eating. Of course he'd been pretty detached for the last couple of days as he looked through his phone seeing what had been going on through his texts and news. He felt better, of course during the fight with John he felt himself slowly regaining control but the damage was done, he'd insult Zee and hurt John he doubted that either of them would even want to see him again and he couldn't blame them. The Red Dragon was something he'd put in the past, his rage and wrath legendary to the point where the streets dripped with blood. But he never wanted them to see such a side, not to mention the army that was probably after him not that he'd hurt the one women in New York who was a friend to all.

ZATANNA: She felt the air escape her lungs as Michael grabbed hold of her and teleported her into the complex. "Fuck," she murmured as she tried to steady herself. That was not at all like the teleportation she was used to. "You remember when I asked you to take me flying? Yeah, now I get why you declined. That was...a lot," she swallowed hard and stared at the door. She was nervous. She hadn't seen Dimitri in several days and didn't really know what would be waiting for her behind that door. And tonight of all nights she was tired. She didn't want to fight. She held her hand to the door and gave it a good knock. "Dimitri?" she called out. "It's me."

Michael: He held out a hand to steady her as she tried to collect herself. "Sorry, I should have warned you it can be a little turbulent," he replied. Flight travel was dangerous which is why he'd denied her the request the first time around. But, given what she'd done for him, his brothers, and the city he felt he could bend his usual rules a little. "Deep breathes help. And I'm told so does chocolate, but then again what problem is there that chocolate can't fix?" he added, trying to get her to laugh a little. Humor helped more than deep breathing if he was honest. Especially when your heart felt like it was about to be ripped out of your chest. He watched as she collected herself and gave the door a sturdy knock. Michael positioned himself at attention behind the magician, letting her take charge but always at the ready if she needed him.

Dimitri: he could feel himself slipping in self loathing as he read all the chaos he'd left Everyone to deal with but he couldn't be of help. His rage had taken control and it had taken everything he possessed to just pull away from the one's he loved. He was sure no one would care after all he still blamed himself for everything he said and did while under wrath's influence. "Come in" He replied setting his phone away to see Both Zatanna and Michael, both looking worse for ware. "I didn't know if you'd be hungry so I cooked some food" He replied not moving from his chair unsure if he moved that would cause her to not want to enter. "Now that I see you, it seems like food would do you both good...and possibly a nice warm bath. should I even ask? all you said was the world was ending."

ZATANNA: She crosses the threshold and enters into the kitchen where she knows she'll find him. It's the one place he always goes to for comfort. Her body tenses as she finally sees him. A mixture of anger and sadness bubble inside her. She wasn't angry at the way he'd spoken to her that night. She had enough sense to know that was wrath's doing. She could hardly blame a man for his sins after all, it was her primary sin too. No, she was more angry and hurt by his absence. She'd tried for so long to find him, reach out to him, but she was just met with emptiness. He'd disappeared on her like magic. "I'm not hungry," she replies. Her words are clipped and short. "I'm afraid I nearly hurled on my way over here. Pulling the world from damnation does that to you sometimes," she remarks, crossing her arms across her chest protectively. "We're not here to stay. I just wanted to check in and make sure you're all right."

Michael: He followed the magician into the apartment, noting all the exit and entry points. He knew their spell had worked, but he also knew how Zatanna worked. She wasn't the kind of woman you break easily, but when you do break her the shards are hard edged and shape enough to kill. He observed Dimitri in the kitchen going about as if things were normal. Offering food and comforts when he should've been offering explanations. He was somewhat relieved that Zatanna wasn't buying into it. "It's been a long night, Dimitri," he offered in explanation but did not elaborate further. Had the man been here for Zatanna like he should have no elaborations would be needed. Michael turned as he heard a knock at the door again and looked at Dimitri. "Are you expecting someone?" John: It was bloody cold in New York tonight and he was relieved when he slipped past the doorman and into the complex. Jesse had filled him in on everything that had been going on in the angelic sphere. John knew he couldn't help Zatanna outright, but he'd offered suggestions here and there for Jesse to pass along. Jesse, in turn, had pestered him to no end to make amends with Dimitri. John knew he shouldn't have pushed like that, but in his defense he wasn't in control. So, here he was, middle of the night, knocking on the door of the man that had tired to kill him last week. "Oi, come on," he knocked loudly again. "I'm not getting any younger."(edited)

Dimitri: Watched the two of them still thinking it was best to keep quiet as much as possible. cooking away worked to calm him even when he knew there was nothing that could ever fix this it was always better to just let things end naturally. "Sounds like quite the day, I shall not keep you then, I'm sure Michael can ensure you get home safely" He replied before turning towards the door shaking his head "no i only just texted Zatanna before I started cooking." He replied freezing a bit when he heard John's voice, of course he as going to have them all here to gang up on him great. He moved towards the door answering it "Welcome John, wish I knew you planned to drop by, there is food in the kitchen"

ZATANNA: "I'll get home just fine," she replied. "Just like I have been for the past week or so." She watched him move about the kitchen, ignoring the question she'd posed. Although he was playing it cool, she could see he was clearly not okay. He'd been seething somewhere deep in self-loathing for the past few days. A part of her felt sorry, but another felt angry. Where had he been? Why had he just not talked to her? She turned as she heard a knock at the door and the familiar voice of Constantine echo through the halls. "Wonderful. Looks like all the disappearing tricks are reappearing tonight just like magic."

Michael: He felt like he had no right to be here, but he couldn't leave Zatanna to see this through on her own. Both the men in this room had hurt her in different ways. She'd put off that hurt until now. Michael could sense it in her words, her posture, her tone. She hadn't allowed herself time to process whatever had gone on in that room that night. Not even he knew the full story. "Zatanna, perhaps you should come back in the morning?" he suggested. "It's already been a long night. No need to make it longer."

John: "Hiya, tiger," he greeted the man as he opened the door. "Well, dragon, but close enough." He entered the house and was immediately met by Zatanna and Michael. "Well, looks like you have a full house," he replied. Great. More people who could kill him. He was definitely outnumbered in the skills department here. "Food?" he perked. "Gone for a week and you still deliver, Dimi. Wouldn't expect any less."

Dimitri: "I have no doubt Michael has been looking after you in my absent, you have such good friends" He replied softly before moving aside to let John into his home might as well let this get off in full swing, he flinched a bit at the sound of his old name, thinking against this and just telling everyone to leave but he was sure no one would bit it. "You know me, even when I'm gone I still think of you all" He replied deciding it may be best to stay out here moving to sit at the table. "Feel free to anything in there" He replied

ZATANNA: The words felt like an accusation once again. Whore. John's whore. Michael's whore. Like she was always someone's prize to be had. "I looked after myself, but I appreciate the concern," she replied. She made no move to eat a bite. She wasn't hungry. "John," she acknowledged his presence. "You're healing well. You do that yourself after you fucked and ducked on Jesse?"

Michael: He'd been caught off guard by Dimitri's words. Gabriel had told him he was being more than transparent about his affection for the magician, but now at full strength it was easier to ignore those feelings. He knew they were there, but the rational part of him knew not to act on them again. He knew he'd eventually have to tell Dimitri what transpired, but this didn't seem like the time or the place. He also made no moves to take any food mostly because he didn't need food. A small smirk crossed his face as the magician called the con artist out. She was in rare form tonight.

John: Despite the fact that no one else was eating, he made his way over to the table and grabbed a plate. He wasn't going to let food go to waste simply because the others wanted to be petty. Although, based on how they all looked, they'd been through the ringer tonight. He paused only for a moment when Zatanna addressed him. "Misunderstanding. You see, I was under the influence of lust. Which you already know because you were under the influence of wrath. And so was he," he cocked his head at Dimi. "So, let's address the elephant in the room, shall we?" he asked as he took a seat at the table and prompted his feet on a chair.

Dimitri: "I know you can, you're very strong and very able to look after yourself" He replied sighing of course he'd said the wrong thing something too close to his horrible words that night, and now they got to talk out there feelings which he'd rather take a bullet to the brain then do. If anything he felt himself smile at John's directness sleeping with Jesse had been new though. "So under lust you went after the only man who's fought just crawling into your bed? clever John" He replied before sighed "While under wrath's influence I said and did plenty of things that could've been seen as out of character. " He looked at John his wounds healing somewhat nicely. "I'm very sorry for putting my hands on you John, I didn't mean it I pride myself on my control of my darker side but I failed you and Zatanna that night" He replied softly before turning to Zatanna "I know You're tied so I'll make this quick, I'm very sorry for the words I spoke out of anger they no way reflect my feelings, but I understand once said can never be forgiven. " He pulled out the ring she'd given him once upon a time and placed it in front of her "You shouldn't waste your magic on someone like me...I can never hope to earn your forgiveness and I understand."(edited)

ZATANNA: She didn't feel strong, quite the opposite actually. She felt weak and vulnerable standing here in front of them. Her arms wrapped reflexively around herself as if she could armor herself against both the emotional and physical hurt. "Once it's said it can never be forgiven?" she repeated. "I'm not a monster, Dimitri. I'm intelligent enough to realize that you didn't mean what you said. You were under the influence of a cosmic imbalance. One I fixed without you. And that's the real hurt here, Dimitri. I forgave your words the minute I pieced things together, but your absence?" she shook her head. "I gave you that ring so that you can take a few hours and have peace to yourself and your thoughts. I didn't give it to you so that you could ghost out of our relationship when things got hard."

Michael: Michael put a hand on the magician's shoulder to steady her. She wasn't in the headspace to have this fight, but reasoning with her would be akin to moving a mountain. She needed to say her peace before the emotions consumed her. "Nothing said or done is beyond forgiveness, Dimitri. And that's not just Bible talk." He watched as the man set the ring down on the table. He couldn't have seriously been breaking up with the magician after everything she just went through tonight. "No one is wasting anything here. You're willingly giving it up."

John: "What can I say, lusty me likes a challenge," John shrugged. "I've also had worse beat downs before if we're honest. For an assassin your right hook isn't as mean as I expected," he teased. Humor to mask pain had always been John's greatest magic trick. "I pushed you, Dimitri and I shouldn't have. Your reaction, although intense, was expected eventually," he shrugged. John wasn't one for apologies so this was the closest the man would get. He watched as Dimitri placed the ring on the table and he could almost see Zatanna's heart breaking. "Dimitri, come on, man. Everything is forgivable. That's pretty much my motto in life. How else you think I'm still in her life? You called her a whore and ghosted for a few days. I killed her father. Which one of us has more blood on their hands? If you're gonna pitty yourself, I beg thee stop or whatever..."

Dimitiri: he could see the other break under how very little she'd looked after herself during this past week and he felt even more shame. Why did she depend on him so much? there was nothing special about him by any means. "Forgiveness is for other people, Bible talk or not, I never said you were a monster, I disappeared because I needed to be alone, I wanted to be alone, what good my being here would've done. You had the people you needed to help you and I needed to stay away, I'm sorry my absence hurt you but I needed it. I abused its power so I'm returning it, What ever you call it Michael I'm giving it back, it doesn't belong in my hands" He replied before turning towards John of course he felt the need to actually say the word he wished never left his mouth. "I'm not like you John, and that isn't a hit, you two share a very special bond I don't even pretend to understand, She cares for you and always wants the best for you, I don't pity myself I'm taking responsibility for what I've always been, You've just finally be privy to it"

ZATANNA: "Forgiveness is for everyone. That's what my dad taught me. What good would hating John do? Won't bring back my father. Won't assuage his guilt or my sadness. So I forgave. I might not have forgotten, but I forgave. What good would hating you do for me, Dimitri?" she asked. "It won't change the past. It won't change the fact that while you were deep in self-loathing, I was at the shop every single night with Jesse flipping through every spellbook in my collection trying to find something that would fix the world. What could you have done? Been there. Picked up a book. Read through some passages. Offered guidance. Or what about the fact that tonight I watched Michael rip Adriel's wings not by choice but because that's the blood price of magic. What could you have done in that instance? Been there. Dimitri, you don't need magic to be a part of my world. You just need kindness and heart and I know despite everything you're saying you have those qualities."

Michael: The capacity the magician had for forgiveness never ceased to amaze him. He never understood her relationship with John, but he could see it from her perspective a little more these days. Hate had no place in a world where she was fighting against it every day. "Taking responsibility is one thing, but isolating yourself from the things that make you human is another entirely," he remarked as he looked at Dimitri. "I'm only just beginning to recognize that myself. Don't burn this bridge, Dimitri. You'll be losing the best part of yourself."

John: He always got this burning in his chest when Zee talked about her dad. It was the guilt he'd never cleanse himself of. She was right, she'd forgiven him. It hadn't been easy. She'd almost spelled him dead once and would have had Blayze not pulled her back. "She cares for everyone, mate. I'm not special. But you're right. You're not like me. I fight for the good things in my life. And that woman," he looked up at Zee, she looked so small and fragile standing beside the archangel. Had she been eating or sleeping at all? Probably not. "She's one of the best things that's walked into my sorry life. Michael's right. This whole isolating thing, I mean I get it. Been known to skip town myself. But doesn't mean it a good coping thing or whatever."

Dimitiri: looked at everyone why couldn't she just leave and find someone better, she'd seen what he was and should've run for the hills. Just because they all preached Forgiveness didn't mean a single thing to him. He'd blame himself and he'd continue to do so, for the entirety of their relationship, she'd needed him and he'd failed once again by disappearing. "there is nothing wrong with isolating one's self I do it quite often before I started dating Zatanna, I'm sorry I wasn't there, I'm sorry I lacked the kindnesses and heart you needed in that time. I'm sorry to save everyone it was at the cost of another angel's wings, and I'm quite sorry John took your father from you" he replied looking at John "I never said she wasn't the best thing to happen to me, But I will not take that ring back, I abused its power and she suffered for it, forgiven or not I'm never using it again," he replied softly before turning to Zatanna, "We can talk later, you need to rest, its been awhile even though I know you wont want to sleep you need to"

ZATANNA: She was tired of fighting everything. Tired of her sadness, her anxiety, her fear of being alone. His disappearance had only reinforced the fear. And his words there's nothing wrong with isolating yourself only told her he'd do it again when things got hard. And with Zatanna things were always hard. "The past is the past. I'm not sorry for any of it anymore. If I walk out of here, Dimitri, I'm not coming back. Ask John, I don't chase. You want me in your life, you find me," she replied as she took the ring off the table. She muttered an incantation to turn it into ash before turning to leave the apartment.

Michael: He wasn't sure whether the man was beyond reach. His own self-loathing and fear of hurting those around him seemed to cloud his judgement. And what he didn't seem to realize was the fact that his very fears that he'd hurt someone where actually hurting the one person who'd taken the time to try to break through to him. Michael watched as Zatanna destroyed the ring and walked out of the room. "Think about your next move wisely," Michael replied as he looked at Dimitri. "I've been around since the dawn of creation. A woman that loves as fiercely as she does isn't something to be thrown away." He would give the man one more shot to do the right thing.

John: "You're an idiot, mate, and I mean that in the best way," he replied as he looked at Dimitri. He wasn't going to sit here and convince him to fight for Zatanna. A man who needed convincing wasn't worth her time. "Guess all that's left to do is break bread and be merry," he replied as he grabbed a drumstick and put it on his plate.February 12, 2020

Dimitri: Watched Zatanna melt the ring in truth he was glad she did, magic was tempting especially when he'd been in a less then good head space for it. He looked around heaven forbid they could have this conversation alone but he couldn't even blame John or Michael he really shouldn't have been alone with her yet he didn't want her to leave. Think about his next move wisely, please he had little choice in the matter as he moved to stand almost hesitating, maybe she needed a day, she looked so tired he didn't want to burden her with this but even he could see how hurt shed been by his words. he sighed moving to follow her after all he was sure Michael and John alone in his apartment would be fine they both could bond over their hatred for him. "Zatanna" He caught up with her rather quickly "I never said I wanted you out of my life" He paused looking at the elevator as it opened up. "I didn't leave because your world got to hard, I left because the last time I felt rage like that people died....that side of me you say your fine with it only because you've never seen it......I hide because I needed to regain control....and i terrified that one day i'll wake up covered in your blood too" He sighed moving his head to hold the elevator "Can I walk you home?"

ZATANNA: She turned around when she heard someone call her name. She'd given up and almost half expected it to be Michael, but was surprised to find Dimitri. She sighed as he explained himself. "For heavens sake, Dimitri. I almost spelled you to hell back there and would have if john didn't stop me. You cannot hurt me, I'm stronger than you." The words weren't an insult, they were fact. "I'm not afraid of you or whatever darkness you think you carry because darling I assure you my darkest nights probably look like your mornings." She watched as the elevator door opened and contemplated if she could do this again. If she could put herself through this even though every time she slipped into the dark part of her world she was afraid he'd leave her. "You can walk me home," she finally said. "But you can't come in."

Michael: A sad smile crossed his face as he watched the man make the right choice and run after her. He couldn't help the feeling of loss that came over him, but it was there. Michael pushed it down when he noticed John examining him. "Well, I think that puts an end to the night."

John: "You look like you've just attended your own funeral, mate." He noted as he looked at the archangel. He'd seen that look before. Hell, he'd worn that look before. "Oh hell not you too," he sighed. It was easy to fall under Zatanna's spell so to speak. "Look, mate, you did the right thing. You and me, we can't give her the kind of stability he can. We're chaos forces," he sighed as he stood up, his appetite now gone. "Let it go. Let her go. It'll hurt like hell, but it's the best choice we can make."

Dimitri: He knew he should laugh but he couldn't help it looking at her "I know your stronger then me but I do hold the power to hurt you, look at you, You haven't eaten or slept correctly for a week, plus instead of being by your side you faced it somewhat alone. I hurt you by not being there, how to throw someone in hell who isn't there" He replied softly shrugging there were plenty of things he didn't allow her to see, things even his mind didn't want to deal with but he kept quite nodding his head "I wasn't going to ask to, I just want to ensure you make it home safely" He replied letting her enter first before getting in. "Please tell you at least have food there so I know when you wake up you'll eat."

ZATANNA: "Any man or woman I give that kind of power to has the ability to hurt me," she replied. "Could be you, John, Michael, it wouldn't matter. I gave you the power to hurt me and that's on me." She shrugs off his concerns about her health. "There were bigger issues at play, but it's over now. Balance restored. World saved," she shrugged. Life burned. "There should be food at home. I haven't been around much," she answered honestly. Being home made her feel his absence more. "Been staying mostly at the loft above the shop."

Michael: He smiled softly at the dabblers crassness. Despite all appearances of not giving a damn, John cared for the magician. "I kissed her," he admitted. "Momemt of weakness. Even the celestial have them. I assure you I'm not here to hurt her, John." He opened a portal to the church. "Now, one apology down. I think you owe another to a certain preacher."

John: "I've seen that look. Its more than a moment of weakness," he remarked. "You love her. There is nothing wrong with that. I can't blame you or him for it. Maybe none of us will be good enough but this isnt about being good or what we want. It's about what's best for her," he sighed and stood up as the angel opened a portal. If he didnt go through he would surely be kicked into it. "Alright, lover boy. I tell Jesse how I feel, you tell Zatanna. Only fair," he replied, folding his hands across his chest.

Michael: He grinned as the man challenged him. "Goodbye, John. Safe travels." He waved his hand and propelled the man through the portal to the church before shutting it behind John. He stood alone in the apartment for a moment. Feeling the emptiness of time and immortality before disappearing back to the loft above the shop that he called home these days.

Dimitri: he listened to her knowing she was quite right, only it wasn't John or Michael this time it was him. "I'm sorry, I didn't think nor did I do this to intentionally cause your pain. I just couldn't be myself with you at the moment and I didnt want to cause unnecessary worrying or burdens on you" he replied truthfully watching the numbers as they went down. Of course she hadn't been taking care of herself in truth he hadn't either the whole week he was gone he hadn't slept or ate but he was quite used to going without. "Balance restore and world saved, you are truly amazing. But now that there isn't anything to worry over and the night is quiet maybe you can look after yourself. You always care for everyone else, I see how much your deeds tonight have eaten away at you. I just want to make sure you'll be okay tonight."

ZATANNA: "And that's the thing, Dimitri. You don't trust me to be able to handle that part of you. That's the thing about both of us, isn't it, though?" she said softly, owning her part of the problem. "We liked each other because we could pretend for a moment we were just normal. We hid those sides of ourselves from the other because at the end of the day we're both scared that we're too fucked up to be loved," she swallowed hard as the elevator reached the bottom floor. "You should take your own advice, really. You look as bad off as I am," she notes as she steps out of the elevator. "I think I can handle it from here," she replies as she pushes her hair out of her face. She stands on her toes and places a soft kiss on his cheek. "Take care of yourself. And do me a favor...if Dick comes by don't answer the door. He tends to take my break ups worse than I do." And with that she pulled away from the man, using the last bit of her energy she muttered the words reappasid and she was gone. Moments later she appeared in her own apartment feeling weak and out of breath. "And, ladies and gentlemen, that's the magic. She saves the world but destroys everything in her path," she sighed as she braced herself on the wall. She was too tired to even cry now.

#╰☆☆ you know the devil would be jealous of your silver tongue | replies ☆☆╮#╰☆☆ no grave can hold my body down; i’ll crawl home to you | michael ☆☆╮

3 notes · View notes

shatteredmindsposts-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Shattered Minds Chapter Ten: Taking Flight

Hey.... so I am actually alive. I’m sorry for the hiatus, I was trying to have motivation to actually edit and post. But, here we are. I can’t absolutely guarantee that this will last, but for now, here’s the next chapter (hope you like smut, only read the part after the first cut if you don’t, the rest isn’t super necessary other than the fact that Virgil is uncomfy after the things that happened with Jakob). I recommend going back and skimming over what happened at the end of the last chapter, this is really confusing to start without it.

(Written by @cresstic and @fandomfreak-19)

Trigger Warnings: Mention of rape (very brief), sorta non-consensual sex (but not known, you’re see, just please be careful reading it)

The vampire blinked, shock crossing his face for only a moment before he smirked, relaxing into the bed. "Go ahead then." He smiled, blushing lightly.

Virgil laughed, leaning down to kiss him again, before dropping down to kiss and nibble at his jaw and neck.

Judas sucked in a breath, tensing at Virgil's movements. "Ahhh..." he moaned quietly, biting his lip. "Th-the others," he frowned.

Virgil smirked, sucking gently on the other’s skin before pulling away. “Oh I just wanted to get you bothered,” he said innocently, lightly getting to his feet and walking to the other side of the room.

"Hnnnn" Judas whined, sitting up slowly. "That's not fair," he complained, sounding like a child.

Virgil smirked, looking back at the other before stalking over and pulling himself back in his lap. “Oh I think it’s very fair, love. You had your fun after all.”

He sighed, wrapping his arms around Virgil's waist. "At least I went through with my teasing," he cooed, kissing Virgil's head softly.

“Ah... but see, this is my fun.” He gently pushed the other back down, pinning his arms above his head and going back to sucking against his skin.

Judas blushed again, biting his lip to avoid moaning again, not wanting to alert the others. "V-Virgil," he whined.

“You should stay quiet, love.” He grazed his teeth over the other’s collar bone. “They don’t even know you’re in here.” He leaned back enough to play with the hem of Judas’ shirt, looking at the other for permission.

Judas gave a silent nod, his eyes pleading.

Virgil pulled the other’s shirt off before pinning his wrists again, not letting him touch or move. He mouthed down the other’s stomach, before moving back up and biting down carefully at his collarbone.

Judas arched his back slightly, gasping as quietly as he could, letting out a quiet moan .

Virgil laughed softly against his skin, sliding back up to meet his gaze. “You are stunning, you know that?” He closed his eyes, kissing the other again.

He smiled softly, kissing back, panting a little. "Virgil...please," he begged "I-I need you."

Virgil smirked. “You’d love that wouldn’t you?” He let go of the other’s hands to rub on the other’s stomach and around the bite.

"Hnnnn..." he whined, squirming a little. "St-stop teasing m...me," he moaned, not wanting to move too much, a small tent in his pants now.

He grinned softly, pressing another kiss to his lips before leaning close to his ear. “Maybe later.” Virgil swiftly got to his feet, smirking at the other as he walked out the door.

Judas whined, sitting up slowly and carefully, placing a hand to Virgil's bite mark and chuckling slightly. He wasn't the one getting bitten that often.

*****

Virgil held Judas’ hand, leading him into a clearing in the woods. The sun was a bit lower in the sky, hoping that not everyone would be out at the time. He turned around, rocking on his heels a bit like a child. “Are we going to fly?” His eyes were lit up.

Judas grinned, fanning his wings out, thankful to be able to stretch them out fully. "Of course!" he laughed. "The original routine has way too many aerial maneuvers for us not to."

Virgil quickly pulled off his coat, fumbling with the wrappings that held his wings down, before shaking them out to their full wingspan, grinning like a child. With a strong beat of his wings, he lifted of the ground, shakily hovering about 5 feet off the ground. “I haven’t done this is so long.”

Judas followed soon after him, flying just a little higher, his cape on the ground below him. He chuckled, wobbling just a little. "Try ten years without flying," he smirked.

Virgil came up to meet him, careful to leave enough distance to not accidentally hit the other. “I feel like the flying is going to be the most difficult part of this,” he chuckled.

"Well of course" Judas laughed, deciding to land on a sturdy tree branch.

Virgil flew to just below the treetops, then let himself drop down, twisting in the air before opening his wings, attempting to use them almost like a parachute. He landed on his feet, but stumbled back a bit. He looked up at Judas, laughing. “I used to be amazing at that.”

"Just don't break your neck love," Judas chuckled, swinging his legs.

“I won’t,” Virgil called back. He played around with his wings a bit more before settling on the branch beside Judas, resting his head on his shoulder. “I forgot how much I loved this.”

"It is great isn't it," he sighed happily, letting his body relax as he leaned against the tree trunk.

Virgil hummed, shifting to lay down on the branch, his head in the other’s lap and wings hanging down. “So... how do you want to do this?” he asked, looking up at him.

He ran a hand through his hair, subconsciously combing his fingers through Virgil's. "Well... We'd start on the ground, and I'd take off during the first chorus, and you'd watch me from the ground until yours, then we'd do some aerial stuff." he grinned, leaving it purposely vague.

Virgil quickly shifted away from the touch, sitting up and trying to looking like he was just contemplating. “‘Some aerial stuff,’ so specific,” he mocked.

Judas rolled his eyes, going along with Virgil's movement, laying his hands in his lap. "I figured we'd do what comes naturally while we're in the air."

“Fair,” Virgil hummed. “We’ll just have to be careful not to hit each other by accident.”

"Right, though there is one thing I want to... Choreograph? Isn't that what Roman calls it?" He waved a hand. "Well during the 'all I want is to fly with you, all I want is to fall with you-'" he sang the lines unintentionally, but went along with it- "We could do that parachute wing thing." Judas laughed.

Virgil smirked. “You like my trick then? But yeah, I like that.” He stared down at his feet, kicking them softly. “If I have her part, then am I singing the last lines and... walking away?”

"No no, we could change it." He smiled a little. "You'd start to walk away, but I'd grab your arm and pull you back into a kiss," he said with a blush.

“Awww,” he cooed, blushing slightly himself. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to the other’s cheek. “I like that idea.”

"And if that's not enough of a hint," he chuckled, kissing Virgil back, "Well then I don't know what is."

“I think it definitely will be obvious.”

Judas laughed, nodding and fluttered his wings. "You did bring the music right?"

Virgil nodded towards his coat on the ground. “My phone and a semi-shitty speaker.”

"Well that's something I guess." He slipped from the tree branch and fluttered down to the ground, grabbing Virgil's phone and speaker, beginning to set it up.

Virgil shakily stood on the branch, taking a few steps forward to the end before hopping off of it, swooping down to land beside the other.

Judas smirked. "Impressive." He finally figured out how to unlock Virgil's phone, smiling when he saw that his background was a picture of them together. "Cute," he chuckled before opening the music app and beginning to play the song.

Virgil blushed slightly, facing the other with a small smile.

Judas took a deep breath, making sure he was on pitch before starting the song over, taking a few steps into the clearing and singing with the music, smiling softly.

Virgil followed after him, walking slow circles around the other as he watched.

Judas suddenly shot up into the air during the chorus, smiling warmly down at Virgil. He was right in taking the male part, his voice was deep but not to bass levels, perfect fit for this range.

Virgil licked his lips nervously at the small interlude, before singing the beginning with his hands in his pockets. He met Judas’ gaze just before the chorus, before taking off, looping around the other as he sang.

Judas smiled slightly, flying higher, taking Virgil's hand softly and guiding him higher, closing his wings on the appropriate line, opening them in a parachute-like fashion a moment later.

Virgil followed the motions, swirling around the other as he parachuted, and then slowly guiding him back up. As the music slowed, Virgil gently touched back down. He quietly sang the final lines, glancing up at Judas with his head ducked before turning away.

Judas took several quick steps to catch up to him, taking Virgil's wrist gently, pulling him back toward himself, kissing him deeply.

Virgil laughed against his lips before kissing back, his arms wrapping around the other’s waist and pulling him closer.

Judas smiled softly, moving his arms to rest on Virgil's waist before he pulled back. "That was a great first rehearsal," he chuckled.

“I agree,” he breathed, eyes taking in the other’s face before he buried his head in the other’s chest.

Judas sighed, hugging the other softly, avoiding touching his hair this time.

“I love you, Judas,” Virgil mumbled against him, tightening his grip around the other.

"I love you too, Virgil," he smiled.

*****

Judas woke the next morning, his arms wrapped gently around Virgil's neck. He paused, listening due just a moment, hearing two breathing patterns: Logan was the only one awake at the moment, and he was likely downstairs reading. He smiled softly, shifting to sit over Virgil's waist.

Virgil woke with a soft grunt, blinking open his eyes in confusion. “Judas?” he yawned, rubbing at his eyes with a hand.

"Morning, love," he chuckled, leaning down and scraping his fangs along Virgil's shoulder.

“Ah,” he gasped softly, before clearing his throat. “Morning.” He felt his face heating up some. “What are you doing?”

"Getting you back," Judas mumbled against his skin, trailing a hand down Virgil's chest.

Virgil flushed, shifting slightly. “By catching me unprepared?”

"I was just as unprepared love," he grinned, biting down softly on his shoulder, not enough to draw blood. His hand roamed Virgil's chest before sliding lower.

Virgil moaned under his breath, dropping his head back onto the pillows. “And like you said: the others.” His gaze flickered to the door of the room.

"You'd better stay quiet then," Judas chuckled, running a hand along Virgil's balls gently. "Logan's the only one awake"

Virgil’s eyes fluttered shut as he sucked in a breath. “Oh perfect, just who I want to risk catching us,” he snarked, but made no move to stop the other.

He rolled his eyes, moving slowly downward, trailing his fangs down Virgil's chest lightly

“Judas, please,” Virgil muttered, moving to grab on to the other’s hips lightly.

"Please what?" Judas teased, looking up at the other, mischief clear in his eyes.

Virgil glared at him lightly. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”

"Have it your way then," he cooed, taking Virgil in his hand gently and rubbing along his length slowly.

Virgil dropped his head back again, groaning around gritted teeth before flushing slightly, realizing he wasn’t exactly being quiet.

"Shhh." He looked back up at Virgil. "If you're quiet I may just let you cum," he smirked.

Virgil parted his lips slightly, making a face at the other but trying to control his shaky breaths to stay quiet.

Judas nodded slightly, picking up speed with his strokes only a little, kissing his way back down his chest before taking him gently in his mouth, sucking on the head softly.

Virgil harshly sucked in a breath, hips raising up into the touch. His hands tightened in the sheets as he shakily released the breath, teeth biting down onto his lip.

The vampire chuckled, scraping his fangs gently along his shaft before pulling up and smiling softly at Virgil.

Virgil gripped onto the other’s shoulders. “J-Judas,” he gasped, shivering.

"Hmmm?" He chuckled, smirking, his face red

Virgil glared at him. “Please, please, Judas...” He raises his hips some, his look turning pleading.

He smiled softly, sitting up and debating whether or not to give in to him. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Well... You've been good, and I promised..." he teased, smirking.

“Please,” Virgil hissed, desperately trying to keep his voice quiet. “Please Judas, I need you, please.” He shifted slightly to grind up at the other.

Judas couldn't help but groan quietly at that, laughing under his breath. "Fine, I'll be nice." He moved back down, beginning to suck on him again, rubbing his balls with a hand.

Virgil moaned, unable to stop himself, before he quickly covered his red face with his arm in embarrassment. He bucked up into the touch, shivering.

Judas smirked, picking up his pace slowly, agonizingly slowly. He wanted this to last; seeing Virgil so vulnerable was adorable.

Virgil bucked up again, desperate for more. “Judas,” he whined quietly into his arm.

Judas dragged his fangs along his shaft again, squeezing his balls gently before going back to stroking for a second, then taking his full length in his mouth.

Virgil gasped. “Judas- Judas please, faster, please,” he whined, dropping his arm to fist into the sheets.

The vampire chuckled, obeying and speeding up. He was sweating now and was debating whether he could convince Virgil to help him after this.

“Judas-“ he gasped before biting down on his fist, arching his back as he came.

Judas let out a noise of surprise but swallowed , pulling up and panting, smiling softly up at Virgil. He crawled up and layed next to him, licking the little drop of cum off his mouth "See?" he panted "I finish what I started," he chuckled.

Virgil let out a long, blissful hum. “Yeah but it got me this,” he murmured, eyes closed with a slight smirk.

He chuckled, rolling his eyes. "I don't suppose you could help me now?"

Virgil kept his eyes close for a few moments, mentally freaking out and trying to relax, before he blinked open his eyes. “Mhmm,” he hummed, propping himself up and pressing a kiss to the other’s lips.

Judas returned the kiss, shifting to lay on his back.

Virgil slid down, trailing his hands over Judas’ stomach. He didn’t give himself time to think, just gently wrapped his mouth around the other, licking at the underside of his head.

Judas sucked in a breath, knowing that he should stay quiet, bucking up just a little.

Virgil ignored the tension in his body, slowly moving up and down the shaft, licking softly and occasionally grazing his teeth across it.

Judas shivered biting his lip to avoid moaning, panting and whimpering, a not so silent plea for Virgil to speed up.

He fluttered his eyes shut, picking up his pace for a while before suddenly pulling back, lips just around Judas’ head, which he gently teased with his tongue.

"Haaah... V-virgil... More please," he moaned as quietly as he could, not wanting to move. "I'm so c-close... please."

Virgil’s look shifted some, purposefully keeping from looking up at the other. He swallowed around the other and quickly resumed his fast pace.

Judas gasped, bucking up and gripping the sheets tightly as he came, biting his lip hard to stop from screaming.

Virgil forced himself to swallow before sitting up, gazing at the other’s movements with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Enjoy that did you?” he murmured, coming back up to lay beside the other.

"Mmmm," Judas smiled softly, adjusting to lay on his side. "You did great love," he smiled, running the back of his hand across Virgil's cheek.

Virgil smiled back again, not quite meeting the other’s eyes but leaning into his touch.

"What's wrong?" He frowned, concern crossing his face.

Virgil shook his head softly, closing his eyes. “Nothing, love.”

"Are you sure?" The vampire shuffled a little closer, hugging him gently. "You can tell me anything."

Virgil swallowed, keeping his eyes closed. He knew the other wouldn’t believe it was really nothing, so quickly tried to come up with an explanation. “Back in school there was a guy who would force me to help him.” He said bluntly. “It’s hard to get over.”

Judas frowned, rubbing circles gently into his cheek again. "Oh... I'm sorry love.. If you were uncomfortable you could've said something."

Virgil shook his head, opening his eyes to look at the other. “I wanted to make you happy. I’m alright, I promise.”

Judas nodded a little, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. "All I want to do is sleep, but we need to get up," he chuckled.

Virgil cocked his head slightly. “Do we…? Cause this is a very comfortable bed and I see no real reason to get up.”

The vampire smiled. "Unless you want Patton knocking on the door in a few minutes, we should get up now."

Virgil groaned, sliding away from the other and shuffling over to grab some clothes and his hoodie. “It’s your fault for rushing us,” Virgil smirked lazily, looking back at the other.

"Rushing?" Judas chuckled, sitting up and pulling on his old sweatpants and a tee shirt that he had left in Virgil's room.

“Oh you know what I mean, to make sure someone doesn’t get caught in my room.” Virgil pulled on a baggy pair of pajama pants and a shirt before pulling his hoodie on, instinctively tugging his sleeves. He looked up at the other. “Ready?”

He nodded, jumping a little at the unexpected knock and Patton's voice from the other side. "Hey Virgil? You awake kiddo?" He called.

Virgil froze for a moment before nodding for Judas to get away from the door. “Yeah, just a second Patton. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Judas took a couple silent steps backwards, relaxing when he realized who was on the other side of the door.

Patton smiled softly. "Alright, just don't take too long, I'm making crêpes for breakfast," he chuckled, heading downstairs.

“Ooh, thank you Patton!” he called. After listening to the footsteps walking away Virgil laughed softly, looking at the other.

Judas smiled softly. "Talk about perfect timing," he chuckled.

Virgil smiled back. “You go ahead. Walking down at the same time will be suspicious.”

He nodded, leading the way downstairs, smiling and nodding a hello to the two others in the room. Patton looked up from transferring the batter to the pan on the stove. "Oh! Good morning... Judas," he paused, clearly trying to call him by his name.

Virgil sat down on the bed, wings slouching as he rubbed his face with his hands, taking a deep breath. He was both happy that he could help Judas, but shaky as he tried to calm himself down. After a few moments of regulating his breathing, Virgil got up and slipped out of the room, heading downstairs.

Taglist: @didsomeonesayprince @fandomsofrandom @depression-takes-over @jellobugg @bigfirecreator @sanderstalker @cute-anxious-kitten

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #deceit sanders #patton sanders #fic #tw: rape #anxeit #deceit x virgil #virgil x deceit

9 notes · View notes

yellowmagicalgirl · 7 years ago

Text

With The Distance Amplified Chapter Two

Light Years from You

Read on FFN

Fic summary: AU: After the battle with Zarkon, Katie disappeared from the Black Lion. A couple months later, the paladins receive a distress signal from the Black Lion, and find a group of prisoners that she rescued; one of them happened to have flown her to Kerberos. Background Kidge; Shiro and Keith are former foster siblings. Age Swap!AU/Paladin Swap!AU

Chapter Summary: Katie wasn’t able to reunite with her teammates, but she did leave a message.

Guess who finally updated! AU idea belongs to @sabertoothwalrus Chapter title comes from “Telescope” by Starset.

Dark purple lightning arced from the fingers of a Druid that Katie thought someone had shot, and then she felt an all too familiar push on her prosthetic. She was glad that most of her weight had been on it because at least then she could use her right leg to stabilize herself. She heard a crackle of static in her ear. Whatever spell the Druid had used, it wasn't an EMP. It had only affected her prosthetic; not her armor and definitely not her helmet.

"Katie? You there?" Lance said as she shifted her weight onto her left leg as best she could. So the Black Lion had finally found her. She frowned. Escape and home were so close, and yet she was firmly rooted to the ground with Druids fast approaching.

She yanked her helmet off of her head; there was information on it that could help the paladins. Maybe Matt and Hunk could decrypt what she hadn't gotten around to and find her dad. Too bad it also meant that they might hear the recordings that she had wanted to go back and edit so that her emotions wouldn't be on full display.

The tallest of the three aliens who hadn't turned on her and Keith was now specifically holding them back within the pod. Despite not having spoken in more than a year, he still knew her way too well.

"Use this to contact Voltron!" she said, kicking off with her left leg to give her helmet every ounce of starting momentum that she could.

"Kates, don't!" Keith pleaded as she threw the helmet. It was too late, though. She was already falling, the force of the throw too much for her unbalanced body. She hit the ground.

After the helmet crossed through the doors, the airlock of the ship closed. Katie lifted her head to see it fly away.

She was then yanked to her feet by bony hands. She bowed her head with a small smile, white and brown hair forming a shield between the world and her eyes. They would be okay. That was all that really mattered to her when the Druids teleported away.

She focused on that thought when the Druids alerted Haggar to their presence.

They would be okay. Whether or not she would be didn't matter. Keith would be okay, Shiro would have their foster sibling back, and the others would have closure. The rest didn't matter. She couldn't let it matter.

Especially not when Haggar once again called her Champion.

Keith looked up at Shiro slowly, the gold in their eye twisting, shrinking, and dimming until they were no longer heterochromic. In addition, some of the purple fur receded, but this only made them look paler. "Shiro?" they rasped before closing their eyes. Prior to today, it had been so long since they had heard their name. It had been so long since they had actually spoken rather than just make pained noises, and it had been a long time since even that. Their head began to feel hot with the feeling of being close to fainting or a panic attack, probably fainting. They hadn't had that much experience with shifting their body between human and galra, or at least not in their memorable lifespan. Now, especially with their recent blood loss, they were pretty sure the only thing keeping them conscious was a rapidly depleting store of adrenaline.

Shiro attempted to wipe away the beginnings of tears away from his eyes as he nearly ran towards Keith, but paused midway. They were injured, and given his poor ability when it came to medical situations he'd only make things worse.

"Um, hi, my name is Shiro," he introduced himself with a wobbling voice. "I'm the acting leader of Voltron, um, the guy with the mustache is Coran, he'll show you to our healing pods." Hopefully that sounded natural, and not like the kid who was playing at being leader like he still felt like sometimes.

The group began to walk away, though Lance lingered at the back. "Hey, Matt," he said. The oldest of their old lunch quartet hadn't started walking at all. "Are you going to be okay?"

Matt turned to him. "I'll be fine," he said with a softness that hadn't been there a year ago. "I just need some time alone right now. Call me when the mission briefing starts." Lance gave him a thumbs up and a sad smile before walking away.

"Are you kidding me, Katie?" Matt said to no one as he entered the ship, where several bags laid in the corner. "When will you learn that you're not an army?" As he walked into the ship, his foot brushed up against something. Matt looked down to where her helmet lay abandoned. He picked it up and cradled it in the place where it would be if she were hugging him.

"Since I don't know what the date or time is, I'm going to say right now is Day 1, time 00:00; I'll be using military time," Katie's voice said from the helmet.

Matt dropped the helmet, stifling a shriek.

Keith was half Galra. That was what the pod displayed on the diagnostics that were trying to calibrate for species. It wasn't taking as long as it had when Lance had been blown up, but it still was taking longer than Shiro had liked. He didn't really understand why they displayed that; was it possible that the Druids could change someone's species? Was that why Green had only said that Katie was 90% human? Then again, she had also said there were Alteans. Shiro would have to ask Hunk. Technically, Matt was better at bio stuff, but he was also more emotionally volatile at the moment.

Shiro gave one last glance at the timer on Keith's pod before exiting the room. They would be in there longer than the other aliens (all of whom had been able to fit, thankfully) due to prior blood loss, as well as any injuries they had received from both the escape and from fainting on the way to the pods.

"Hey, guys? Can you meet me in the lab?" Matt's voice said from the coms, sounding surprisingly chipper for someone who had been complaining about being somewhat tired prior to coming close to finding his sister, only to lose her again. Even if Shiro wasn't leader and already planning on checking up with the team, that would be good cause to check on Matt.

He arrived at the lab at around the same time as Allura, and had to practically shove his way through to see Katie's helmet hooked up to Matt's computer. On the screen, there was a line as well as a display for the time.

"Katie recorded a message, or rather, a series of messages," Matt said. "Maybe we can figure something out from them.

"I still need to land the ship," Allura said. "Let's end when we reach Olkarion."

After murmurs of agreement, Matt pressed play.

"Since I don't know what the date or time is, I'm going to say right now is Day 1, time 00:00; I'll be using military time since that's easier to keep track of. I set things up so that if anyone holds the face, er, opening of my helmet to paladin armor and either my head isn't in it or I'm in some state where I can't speak, the playback will start."Like I said, I don't know where or when I am, so I'm just going to start from the top. My name is Katie Miranda Holt, and last I checked I'm twenty-two years old. I'm from the planet Earth, and I'm the Paladin of the Black Lion of Voltron." She paused.

"So the last thing I remember is fighting Zarkon." A second pause, this time shorter. "Specifically, a giant robot version of Zarkon." Underneath the panic and awkwardness, she sounded incredulous, as if she still couldn't believe the event had actually happened. "Um, Robeast Zarkon? I unlocked the Black Lion's teleportation ability, and was able to steal the Black Bayard. Reclaim it? Is it really stealing when Black decided I was the better choice of Paladin?" Shiro winced; she sounded so confident in her bond (or at least the most confident since the recording had started) and what had he done? Usurped it in her absence. Black hadn't seemed to mind it, but what about her Paladin?

"Anyway, we were able to make a giant flaming sword when all five of us placed our Bayards in our lions, which im-" she said, before pausing. For a few moments, the only noise in the room was her shaking breath. "Zarkon's robot was stabbed," she said, sounding distant like she usually did after a flashback or while dissociated. "He tried to take me down with him by using the bond between him, me, and Black. I guess it was too much for me, because Black sent me to the astral plane, this time without a physical body as an anchor or anything. I don't know how long I spent there, but it was long enough to change me. Both in the way that Black meant I guess, and in a way that is way too similar to the last time I came back from space. A lot of my hair is white now, not just the streak. What I can see of it, anyways. It's still rather short.This planet has a breathable atmosphere and a nice and sturdy, erm I think that's a hollowed out tree that maybe Matt and the Green Lion will find me in, so I'm going to attempt to sleep. Hope the armor is bug repellent. You'd think that after not having a physical body for so long, you wouldn't be tired."

"Pause!" Lance shouted. Matt stopped the recording, and turned to look at him. "Sorry, but did anyone understand what she was talking about during that last bit? Like, before she started talking about whether or not she could survive. Or maybe the new body thing too?"

"While I wouldn't be surprised if the Black Lion cooked something like that up, I haven't ever heard of it," Coran said. "Things would certainly be easier if Black would just get rid of Zarkon's physical body."

"I'm sure she'll explain it later in the recording," Matt said as he turned back to his computer.

"And hopefully she doesn't cram her explanation with quantum theory," Lance grumbled.

"Day 1, time 09:42. I feel more rested than I did a few hours ago. Time to try and find food and water, since I don't know how long it will take Black to find me. I hope it isn't too long.

"Day 1, time 12:26. It's getting dark; the planet appears to have two lunar masses. I wish I knew the stars here. Even though I didn't know the exact constellations on Kerberos, I knew the stars and planets well enough to be able to find my way…" She trailed off, before speaking in a flatter, more monotone voice. "Find my way to Earth, even without just pointing myself at the Sun, despite it seeming like a perfectly valid option. Thanks, Keith.

"Day 2, time 07:58. Sunrise. I think this planet doesn't operate on a twenty-four hour system. So glad my suit has a clock. Still haven't gotten in contact with Black.

"Day 3, time 14:46. While I'm glad we stocked up on ration bars, half of one a day isn't cutting it as well as I thought it would. I mean, I'll be fine for now, and it's going better than I thought it would. Besides," She paused, and then said darkly, "somehow, I doubt they fed me well in the Arena. I survived it once, I'll survive similar circumstances.

"Day 4, time 02:54. I'm alive, and really want to edit this when I get home. Yesterday was uncalled for." And there was that old attempt at being a wise, totally-not-affected by her PTSD leader. Somehow, Hunk had thought that she had stopped that mindset.

"Day 4, time 21:46. For all that Black said that she wanted to protect me when she asked to modify my body, I really feel like I got punted onto a random jungle planet. Am I being too picky? Probably, but I'm hungry.

"Day 5, time 06:05. I found fruit. Well, since it looks like Earth fruits I'm calling them fruit. One's a giant blue strawberry, which is edible, but really bland. There's also one that looks like a banana but tastes like a pineapple. Well, at least I won't starve. Glad the suit has these bags," she said, referring to the bags Hunk and Shiro had used that one time to gather scaultrite.

"Day 5, time 7:92. Am I dying or is it just indigestion?"Day 5, time 15:37. Not dead yet. I'm going to try one fruit at a time."Day 5, time 17:28. I think I'm allergic to the pine-bananas. Quiznak.

"Day 6, time 12:39. If I ever get back to Earth, I think I'm going to go to therapy.

"Day 7, time 21:24. I think my near-lack of a sleep schedule is adjusting to this planet, which means that when I get back to the Castle things will be… hectic. Well, assuming that I didn't get dishonorably discharged for disappearing in the middle of battle. Already got that from the Garrison, I bet." Lance cringed, remembering the team's last twenty-four hours on Earth.

"Day 8, time 14:52. Is that a skyscraper? Or am I seeing mirages? I seriously doubt it's a flashback, given that as far as I know I spent the entirety of Hell-year either in the Arena, in a cell, or with Haggar and I really doubt any of those were on a planet.

"Day 8, time 15:34. I found a city, and it turns out that the skyscraper is a database for the Galra. I am so glad that there are easily-hacked maps. Maybe I can hack into it?

"Day 9, time 13:06." Katie's voice was shaking and fast. "Or rather, January 26, 2115, if I'm doing my calculations correctly. Quiznak, it's been three months. I really need to edit this; it's not like the team needs to hear all that." Matt gripped the edges of his chair. This had been recorded not even a week ago.

"Hunk, Matt, if you're hearing this then Happy Birthday. But that's… well, I guess it's important." A wince was shared by the two young men in question. "It's just not what I found in the Galra skyscraper. There were prisoner records, and -"

"Pause," Allura said. "I need to land the ship soon."

"Can she finish her sentence?" Shiro asked.

"Twenty ticks maximum." Everyone knew how Katie could get when she rambled.

"- I found Keith."

ed.

“- I found Keith.”

28 notes · View notes

the-ultimate-nobody · 7 years ago

Text

The Simple Life of Discord Bots

[A/N: This is so dumb, that im posting it here. Thats low in my standards. I used sites to translate the Morse code and binary. If this gets a certain amount of notes, imma continue writing it. Until then, I deem this the ------ story I ever wrote] /This wasn't beta’ed read and hardly no Editing/

“.- .-. - ... -.--!!!” The small Drawbot Snake froze in place, hearing a familiar clicks and beeps from the older bot. They slowly turned their head, seeing a famliar dark red M:TG bot, who's currently crossing his arms and staring at the young robot.

“...00101110001011100101011101101000011000010111010000111111” Artsy questioned, letting out beeps and ticks. They tilted their head and stared at the older bot, fluttering their own small mechanical wings.

“.-- .... .- - / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / -.. --- .. -. --. .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-- .. - .... / - .... . / -.-. --- -. - .-. --- .-.. / .--. .- -. . .-.. .-.-.-” Magi said, flying closer to the middle of the Void Chat to the pedestal floating in the middle. The Control Panel for the whole Chat, and Artsy here is messing with it. Ever since the new arrival of the New Bot, deemed the name ‘Plushie’, Artsy gotten more brave on their surroundings. The silver naga monster sat on their curled tail and crossed their arms, ignoring Magi and continuing looking around the flouting screens above him.

Magi sighed and looked back at the Green Avatar’s chair, where Plushie laid down, sleeping and dreaming, seeing how he flapped his wings in the air and the occasional soft ‘moo’s’. His gaze went down to his feet, eyeing on the time.

“ 9:02 PST PM; 12:02 CST AM; 1:02 EST AM”

The Magic bot sighed, ‘It’s only 9 over there.’

A long drawn out gasp caught Magi’s attention to a certain screen. Currently showing all of the Tokuranger’s persona/armor. Magi seen them running through and out of portals wearing the armor, very often worn out tired when coming back. The screen was wiped away and a new one popped out, which caught Magi’s attention. The screen softly glow as it showed a naga monster, probably 10 or 15 feet tall with a long snake tail. The monster bares four arms with attached dragon wings on the back arms, and feathery bird-like wings on the lower part of the shoulder. Four eyes glared towards the camera of the screen, golden-dark markings were written on their muzzle and going down through their sharp fangs and popping teeth. Ear fins and feathers on top of their head were spread out, in an attack position. A feathery chest popped out with golden feathers scattered throughout the whole body. The Red bot stared at the Snake. And they were smiling at him, excitement in their eyes. Artsy began to chatter up a storm, gesturing to themselves and to the monster on screen. Their metal flouting wings were out and fluttering behind as Artsy continue admire the design.

“Moooo….” Magi turned around, seeing the bull stirring up awake and looking at the two at the pedestal. His ear went up in confusion and began to stand up, shaking the tiredness off of him. The bull yawned and slowly flapped his wings, lifting off and slowly glided towards him.

“.-.. --- --- -.- / .-- .... .- - / -.-- --- ..- / -.. .. -..!!” Magi shouted, looking at Artsy, who stuck out their tongue and shrugged. The Magic Bot carefully watched Plushie as he safely landed at the edge of the pedestal.

Artsy clicked their tongue and ignored Magi, scrolling through more into the file where, what they assumed, their own armor is settled. Within the same file, lays many other drawn out designs, including Plushie’s current bot form. Magi shook their head, but sat down. At least they’re not harming anything. The two youngest bots began to look at the files, being amazed at the creation of both avatars’ creation powers. Hours flew by, a few naps from Plushie, until a small alert rang out.

Magi glanced down at the current time, sneaking a glance at the currently colored dark red avatar's seat.

“ 3:24 PST AM; 5:24 CST AM; 6:24 EST AM”

‘On time’ Magi thought as small dark red glowing pixels and thread flowed down at the chair next to the pedestal. It began to clustered together until it constructed a human body, then as the body was forming, colors was filling in. Small body laid across a custom chair, their back facing them. The familiar avater excited the snake, as they beeped and clicked very loudly. A small sigh can be heard, as the body turned around and eyes staring at the three bots.

“...Morni’..” They groaned, rubbing their face on the arm of the chair, sighing awake. Artsy continued to shout, pointing at the files. They happily stared at the bots, then spoke, “Give me….10 minutes….”

Artsy huffed and slithered close to the edge, spreading his arms apart to show their dragon-like wings. They flapped their arms, plus their steel wings. No matter how much effort, the small snake can’t lift up from the platfort. Magi huffed in laughter, then opened his own wings, followed by Plushie opening his own in small. The bot slowly lifted up the ground, and wrapped his flouting arms around Artsy. They huffed but complied as Magi lifted them up into the air. Despite having no ability to fly, Magi can see their wings flapping up and down, like Artsy is trying to help.

After a short flight, Magi landed Artsy on the edge of the chair. They hooked onto the avatar’s current clothing and climbed up to the shoulders.

Once settling a sturdy platform, Artsy took a deep breath then shireked a loud high pitch computer like sound.

“OH GODS!” The avatar startled awake, and scaring Artsy, The Avatar took a few breathes in and out, and a sigh escaped, “I swear to the gods, I’m going to mute you.”

How threaten those words were, a tone of happiness can be heard. The small teen adjusted their position on laying on their back on the chair. Magi looked at Plushie, who was too excited seeing the avatar awake. Magi waved to him to join in and not a moment too late, Plushie run into the air and flew towards the small grouping.

“Mornin’ you three. Just checking in.” They said, petting Artsy then at Plushie. When Magi flew closer to the avatar, they lean towards them and gave a affection lean for a few seconds to them. The moment was quickly erased as the avatar looking at the still actived Pedestal.

“What...Why is that open?” They asked, looking at them three. Immedality, Plushie and Magi pointed at Artsy, who at responded pointed at Magi. When looking at the resulted, Artsy gasped and waved their arms at Magi, while looking at the avatar. Not knowing what’s the small Drawbot is saying, they knew it was them.

“I’m not mad, my friend. Just don’t mess with the settings, I don’t want our recent spawn point to be a swamp or in the enemy's territory.” They said, petting Artsy with their finger. Artsy glared at the red bot, sticking out their tongue and huffed.

“CR3471V3!” Artsy shouted, their voice glitchy and echoy, but got the message through.

“Daww… So close!” The dark red avatar, Tokuranger named Creative, awed.

“MOO!” Plushie copied Artsy, looking at Creative and flapped his wings. They laughed and pulled up a sound file. With a press of a button, a familiar bull man’s voice pulled through, shouting in victory, “MOO!”

Plushie stood on all fours and bounced in excited, his tail following the bounce and his wings flapping up and down. Though, with a nice scene, Creative held back a wince from their lower stomach. “Calm down. To be honest, i'm here to check on you guys before,” Creative took a deep sigh and groaned out the next word, “SCHHHOOOOOOLLLL.”

The two oldest knew the concept of School in Reality, and from the Downer talks at nights between the four avatars, it's important and stressful business. Artsy nodded and slithered down to the seat of the chair where a space was left aside. “Would you mind if you could close and check the settings, Magi? I’m running late.”

Magi happily nodded and opened his wings as in to get ready. Creative smiled at them and waved goodbye, disappearing like as they arrived. Magi did as he was told, and flew over to the Pedstal.

“N000000!” Artsy shouted again, waving his arm in the air as Magi flew to the flouting screen.

“-. ---” Magi repeated back, looking at the files and closing all the tabs and files. He looked over to the recent spawn point for Creative and their current green tokuranger, Heartist.

KYUI-10,19,8903

Magi nodded at the numbers, ‘Seem about right’ then closed it off. He turned to look at Artsy, seeing that Plushie was coming back to the pedestal.

“..-. .-.. -.--” Magi taunted. Artsy huffed and crossed their arms, curling their tail into a bean-bag like chair. Magi laughed, and intimidated a mother rocking a child in their arms back and forth. Artsy hissed at the magic bot but continued to glare. After minutes went by, Artsy sighed and moved towards Creative’s chair personal Control Panel, which covers Creative’s personal things on their computer and mobile. Hitting a button, a large screen similar to the Main Control Panel popped up.

“.- .-. - ... -.--” Magi said, glaring at Artsy as they began to fiddle around with the CP. Only getting a response of a raspberry from the naga snake.

~offline

Magi turns his head to the side, turning his gaze to the gray void’s ceiling. He sigh and sat down, crossing his legs. Plushie flatten his ears and slowly walked up the bot. Plushie whine at him, before the red color of Magi started to slowly fading away. The bull kneeled next to the bot and looks up at Magi. From time to time, the original creators of the Bots, most often either Artsy and Magi, takes down the Bot’s AI and does repairs or update. Artsy glanced over the pedestal and saw Plushie taking another nap and waiting for Magi to get back online. ‘Repairs, maybe 10 minutes…’ Artsy shrugged, knowing that often if it’s new updates then the bot physically goes offline, fading into pixels into the air back to the Dev’s server.

“M440000VV…” Artsy mimic Plushie’s moos, gaining the bull’s attention. He huffed a laughter, his shards attached around his furry neck shone and gleamed with the glowing of the Control Panel.

“Mooaoww.” Plushie repeated.

Artsy giggled at the childness of Plushie and carefully moved files and programs of the CP. They opened a few scenery screenshots of the newly drawn planets for a certain Space Team that the four avatars often go. A snow covered forest, swamp, a large village in the middle of the desert. One of many things that all of the Avatars have created. Artsy pulled up one of the planet’s scenery, the thick vines tangling the thick trunks of the trees. A few detailed bugs flying through the grass and flowers. Artsy scooted back and admire the work.

Their eyes fluttered down, soften his expression into a deep thought. It’’s been months ever since entering the chat. The only times the bots can ever experience anything other than the official grayscale colors of the Void Chat, are when one of the Avatars change the environment. To a big field with the grass dancing with the wind, to a small cave. But that only last a few minutes or hours, until they return back to Reality. The snake look back up to the drawn scenery, and sigh.

“...)(M?” Artsy perked up as another screen popped up, the color gray slowly gain color. Codes and sequences began to fill the empty notepad. With the rapid coding, the only thing that Artsy caught a glimpse of is his monster design's file overriding his own current design. Then the button above the notepad popped up, glowing a solemn blue. “Begin Application”

Even going closer to the CP, they hoisted their body ontop of the chair arm where the CP didn’t reach. They placed their hand onto the mouse pad and carefully navigated the mouse to the button, where the icon turned into a hand. Artsy glanced at Plushie, where he successfully intranced in his nap, and where Magi sat stilly. They turned back to the notepad and looking at the notepad. It’s only the end of the coding, where its typed;

12076 scene.begin 12077 event.command(:getdb) do I event I 12078 break unless event.channel.id == VCCHNNEL 12079 file = File.open(tj.plntstrt) 12080 event.channel.send_file(file) 12081 end 12082 12083 12084 creative.1017s.run 12085 bot.run

‘....What event…’ Artsy scooted up, sliding his claws up to scroll up. It was supposed to a simple search around the Creative’s file, but something else caught his wing to stop. What it took to turn this simple fiddling around into something more, is with a small pinch. Artsy whimpered and backed away from the source his tail slipping, then a

*blinp*

Artsy rolled off from the arm of the chair into the center, hissing at the pinch which slowly turn into a burn. They rose their arm to examine their wing. Where the small pinch were, it left a very noticeable three holes, slowly oozing black glitchy pixels. Their eyes snapped to a hiss, to a small black and purple monster, their back into a mechanical form while their legs were smokey purple body. It’s eyes narrowed and hissed, jumping down to the ground floor. Artsy shouted and slithered to the edge, spreading his wings to glide down, but only to be stopped by a force suddenly surrounding the chair. Artsy hissed and whimpered, rubbing his snout and looking up, seeing the force field slowly pulsing into a blue color.

“01010000 01001100 01010101 01010011 01001000 01001001 01000101!!” Artsy screamed, banging onto the field, hoping to wake up the bull or the resting bot. Before they knew it, everything turned into a white screen, a buzz can be heard.

*FOOSH*

Plushie jolted awake, springing himself to all fours. His eyes darted everywhere until it landed onto the Creative’s Chair. The CP slowly dimmed down to the light. Where once the older snake, there was nothing but their monster design on the leftover flouting screen.

Unknownname.exe ONLINE

Creative101.file OFFLINE

‘Did...did they enter one of the universe's…’ Plushie’s face drained out of color, as he kicked himself into the air back where Creative’s chair was. He landed right ontop of the CP and turned it back on, only to see codes being activated, sequences going through their routine, but nothing on Artsy. Plushie whimpered in worry and looked back at the offline Magi. Plushie shouted a ‘MOO’ at Magi, looking at the black screen. He has seen these things before, when the avatars go to the universe and only one stay in the Void Chat for support. Plushie shook his head and flew back at the MCP. The bull plushie continues to try and wake up the bot.

“Hisssss….” The small virus bat hissed above it, eyeing the bull bot going back and forth, his cries echoing within the void. Time to wait…

It lays itself to the ground floor and wrapped their dimly glowing wings around itself, shrinking into the shadows.

#discord bot #orginal writing #self insert #writing #Adding tags later #Fcccckkkk #nobody's can't talk #nobody writes #will edit this later #original work #toku buddyroids #ihatethissomuch #like #whydidIwritethis #WHydidthisideafinishitself #OutofallthestoriesI'vewriteandstillsittinginmyGoogleDocs #Why #whythisone #..........................................

10 notes · View notes

berrynarrybanana · 8 years ago

Text

use me // h.s.

a/n: I didn’t really edit, I kind of just rewrote the whole thing I already had because someone suggested this off of my list and I figured why not get to it while I have the time and the drive! So here’s some smut about being impatient and wanting to bone your boyfriend even though he’s super busy! Enjoy!

You really didn’t want to disturb Harry.

It was rare that he got the chance to work from his home studio. It was even rarer that you happened to have your weekend off around the same time that he decided to stay home and work instead of spending his days in a studio. But just because you had the weekend off didn’t mean he could drop everything to spend all of his time with you. You still had a lot to get done before you were back at work on Monday though, so you tried to busy yourself the best that you could with your little checklist. The bedroom and bathroom needed to be deep cleaned, the kitchen needed to be reorganized, and you had your home office that needed to be set up. The only problem was you had most of those things started on Friday evening and finished on Saturday afternoon. That left you with a day and a half of doing nothing, a day and half of wanting Harry desperately from afar.

It all started when you woke up that morning next to him, your head resting on his pillow. He’d wrapped your legs up in his own sometime during the night and he’d draped his arm around your waist. He was warm and he smelt of his shampoo and cologne and Harry. It had been weeks since you’d last been intimate with Harry. The last few weeks consisted mainly of you and Harry orbiting around each other and coming home only to crash in bed after working too hard. Now he was here in front of you with the sheet draped over his waist, displaying his beautiful torso and your mouth was practically watering at the thought of finally being with him again, feeling him, tasting him.

From that moment on your mind was completely focused on Harry. You wanted to kiss over his jaw, down his neck, and all the way down his chest to his happy trail. But instead you kiss his cheek, causing him to grumble ‘Five mo’ minutes love’ before rolling back over and curling up in bed. He was such a light sleeper, so you tried your best to tiptoe your way out of the bedroom and downstairs. It had been such a long time since you’d made a proper breakfast and you had a few ideas rattling around in your brain for what you might want. It was a few moments of relief from your thoughts, but as you were whisking eggs in a bowl, your mind began to wander to your thoughts earlier that morning. You shook your head and to continue to whisk the eggs.

It didn’t take long for the sound of your music playing and the smell of breakfast to reach Harry and pull him out of bed. You expected him to come downstairs still half asleep and half naked, to sluggishly walk over to you and kiss you deep before taking his breakfast and sitting on the couch, pulling you along with him. But he was fully dressed, his hair pushed up and his eyes wide and alert. You were a little disappointed, but you did have to admit he looked good in that damn donut hoodie and his favorite pair of dark wash jeans.

His thighs were absolutely magical and you couldn’t keep your brain from wandering to thoughts of you rocking your hips back and forth, rubbing along his sturdy thigh until you were crying out his name. You hated when you were wound up like this. It would ruin your whole day and keep your mind in the gutter, dreaming of ways you could be tangled up with your lover under the sheets (or anywhere else the two of you could find, neither of you were picky when it came to location). You cleared your throat, shaking your head as he waltzed into the kitchen, clueless to your thoughts.

“Gonna make some smoothies in a second,” You said, knowing your voice was a little too high for it to seem natural. Surely he would catch on. “Kale, blueberry, and banana sound good?”

“Sound perfect,” He pressed a fleeting kiss to the side of your head, his hand quickly squeezing your hip as he walked over to the fridge. “Don’t have much time to eat anythin’ though love, gotta run down to the store an’ pick up a new cord for my speaker an’ some other stuff for the studio.”

“Okay,” You nodded, working on cutting up the banana in front of you with unsteady hands. He smelled amazing, like Harry and some expensive cologne brand. “Water or juice?”

“Water please,” He said quickly. “What’re you doing up so early on your day off? Sposed’ to be havin’ a lie in, sweetheart.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” You said quickly, filling up a glass with water.

“Are you alright?” He chuckled lowly, like he did when he wasn’t sure if he’d done something to piss you off. “Yeh sound a bit off this morning.”

“Fine,” You squeaked out, jumping as his hands landed on your hips. You could almost feel your body pushing back into his broad chest, but you couldn’t go there. He was busy today. “M’fine.”

“Are you sure?” He asked slowly as you wiggled out of his grip, reaching for the blender and its top, slipping it onto the base before you tossed the ingredients in. “Love?”

You didn’t answer, you just turned on the blender before going over to stir up your own breakfast, making sure that nothing was burning in your pan filled with food. Before you could get back to the blender, Harry had turned it off, lifting up the plastic container before pouring his smoothie in his favorite to go cup. You cleared your throat as he screwed the top on, putting the blender in the sink with furrowed brows and a deep frown on his lips. He was annoyed with you. That was clear.

“Love you,” He turned round, kissing your forehead quickly before jetting off. He never left without a kiss goodbye, not even when he was pissed off at you or vice versa.

“Love you too,” You mumbled out, sighing as you heard the door shut. You felt bad for putting him in a foul mood so early in the day, but you knew if you had let him pull you into a hug, you would have turned around and kissed him until you were pulling back to gasp for air. So maybe it was better to let him go so he could continue his day without being interrupted by your insatiable appetite. All you had to do was keep yourself busy, to keep those thoughts in your mind at bay.

Maybe then you could actually get through the day without pulling Harry to the bedroom.

Cold showers were not the solution.

You didn’t mind slightly cool water when you were showering, especially if it was a hot day, but cold showers were ridiculous. It did nothing to keep the heat spreading through your body at bay. It only made you think about Harry joining you, his body covering yours and keeping you warm as you showered quickly. You tried taking a nap, but your hands only started to wander and your body only grew more restless at the smell of him in the sheets. You tried to go for a jog, you tried to read, you tried to watch tv, you tried almost everything you could think of to keep you distracted. But it was no use. You could hear him singing and playing guitar, knowing he’d left his studio door open so that the sounds would filter out. It was his way of letting you know he wanted feedback without actually asking for it. He was a bit shy when it came to sharing his music with friends and family.

Around lunch time you finally decided to just leave the house. You were going to make yourself some lunch and give up and distance yourself. There was no chance of you caving and climbing all over Harry if you left. It was a little ridiculous trying to keep yourself from having sex with the man you lived with, the man you loved and spent many nights tangled in the sheets with. But you knew this album was important to him and you knew he was struggling to get this song right. He’d been working on it for quite some time and you didn’t want to go in and interrupt him in case he was finally getting it the way he wanted it. When you’d made your lunch and a little something for Harry, you decided it couldn’t hurt to bring it up to him and let him know you were heading out.

He looked almost shocked to see you walk in with a plate in hand.

“Wha’s this?” He hummed, rolling his lips in as he looked over the lunch you’d made him with wide eyes and raised brows. “Looks good, love, but you didn’t have to bring me anythin’.”

“I wanted to,” You cleared your throat. “I’m gonna head out and run some errands for a bit, okay?”

“You’re not gonna have lunch with me?” He turned his chair, his knees brushing yours as he sat directly in front of you. This was the perfect angle to straddle him and tangle your fingers in his hair. You wanted to so badly, you really did. “I’ve missed yeh. You’re always working so hard love an’ it’s your weekend off-“

“I don’t want to disrupt you,” You said quickly, prepared to back away. “I’ll be home for dinner though if you’re not too busy then.”

“S’that what this is about?” He asked, his voice soft and concerned. “Never too busy for yeh love, yeh should know that.”

“You’re working so hard on this album and I know you want it to be perfect-“ You mumbled, slipping your hands in the back pockets of your jeans. “-and I don’t want to distract you or keep you from it.”

“You’re not keepin’ me from anythin’ at all,” He said quickly, standing up from his chair. “It might be good if I take a few breaks every now an’ again. I’ll get a fresh new perspective on it all when I come back to it.”

You didn’t say anything at first, looking over his face as he gave you that crooked grin. It was like he knew what you’d been going through all day, like he knew how bad you wanted him. “I’ve missed you too, you know?”

“Me or my cock?” He said bluntly, lifting his eyebrows as he moved forward slowly. “Cause I’ve seen the way you’ve been starin’ at me the last few days an’ then this mornin’ when yeh wouldn’t even let me touch yeh, I really knew what was goin’ on then. You’ve been holding back on me, haven’t yeh sweetheart?”

“Not really holding back,” You stuttered out, shrugging your shoulders. “I just- I was waiting for you to not be busy.”

“Why do you keep sayin’ that? I’m not too busy. I’ve been home all week and-” You shook your head, sighing in frustration before you snapped.

“And you’ve been working away in this damn studio every night! I know this is important, it’s more important than my sexual appetite!”

“It’s always been more than just sex with us, sweetheart, yeh know that,” He grabbed your hands, pulling you closer. “It’s about connectin’ and bein’ together. So if you wanna pull me away from this bloody office to spend some time lovin’ on each other, then I’m okay with it.”

“I know how important this is to you, Harry,” You frowned as he lifted his hand up to cup your cheek, his other hand dropping to your hip. “I just didn’t want to interrupt.”

“You are far more important to me than this album,” He pressed his lips to your forehead. “And just so you know, I miss yeh too. I’ve been giving you your space all week cause I thought yeh were too exhausted to deal with yer horny boyfriend.”

“Never too tired for you,” You smirked as he leaned closer, his lips finally pressing to yours in a soft peck. “Always wanna be with you, you know?”

“Yeah?” He pulled your hips closer as his lips pressed to yours a few more times. “Love being with yeh so much, feeling every inch of yeh pressed t’ me. S’like heaven on earth.”

“Please.”

It didn’t take much more than soft plea for Harry to kiss you like he really meant it. Your knees felt like jelly within seconds and you were gripping his shoulders harshly before you were slipping your arms around his neck, trying to climb onto him. You wanted to be close, so close that you could feel his heart beating as if it were your own. He moved back, his knees hitting the edge of his chair as he fell back. You wouldn’t get much done in this chair, it wasn’t one you could really fuck on, but you knew you’d get a few good touches and kisses sitting on his lap the way you were, your jeans pressing into his growing bulge. You were amazed at how quickly he was worked up and it made you feel even more drenched between your legs, like your panties were completely wrecked.

“Harry,” You pulled your lips back with a gasp, tilting your head back as he kissed down your neck in quick little pecks. “Want you in me right now, I can’t wait.”

“Wanna ride my cock, love?” He pulled back, reaching up again to cup your cheek, his thumb brushing your lower lip as you nodded. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful, I can’t wait until I can see these pretty lips wrapped ‘round my cock again. I miss it.”

“Later,” You whispered. “Right now I need you.”

“Take me love,” He smirked. “I’m all yours.”

You fumbled off his lap and he whined low in his throat before he started working on the buttons of his jeans. As you were pushing your pants down your legs, he was lifting his hips up, pulling his jeans and his boxers down. You whined as his cock bobbed up, the head leaking and dark red. You wanted you get your mouth on him, to taste him on your tongue, but that ache between your legs couldn’t be satisfied that way today. You needed to be stretched out, to be full of Harry. You fell back onto his lap, gripping his shoulders as he gripped the base of his cock, holding it for you. You glanced down between your bodies as he started to rub his tip up your slit, pushing between your lips before sliding up to stimulate your clit just enough to have your body shivering in shock.

“Harry, please, I can’t fucking take it anymore,” You gasped, gripping his shoulders. You knew your nails were digging into his skin, but if anything it would only fuel his fire. He chuckled softly shaking his head as you slowly slipped down. “I love your cock, I love you.”

“Yeah?” Harry looked up at you as you sunk down over him slowly. You hadn’t been together in so long and you didn’t want to push yourself. You pressed your forehead to his as you held your breath, trying not to let the pleasure paralyze you like it often did. You could tell Harry wanted to lift his hips up, fucking up into you, but that would happen later. “Yeh missed my cock, didn’t yeh love? Missed fuckin’ yourself on me whenever yeh wanted? M’sorry I’ve been neglecting yeh sweetheart.”

“S’okay,” You gasped, whimpering out as you found yourself fully seated on him. That familiar twang in the pit of your stomach had you reeling. “Album is more important.”

Harry growled out, slipping his hand up to grasp your chin so that he could pull your focus to his face. “Nothing is more important than yeh, do yeh understand that? Fuck the album. Fuck the world. Just yeh and me.”

“Harry,” You whimpered, dropping your arms around his neck, pushing yourself closer as you lifted up, pulling yourself up to his tip before working yourself back down. “Fuck me, I love you. I love you so much.”

“I love yeh more, sweetheart,” He cooed, kissing up your neck as he wrapped his arms around your torso, holding you close as you rocked your hips. “Everythin’ about you is perfection. Love how much yeh need me.”

“Always need you.”

“I love how much I need yeh too, love,” He gasped as you slipped your hips down, the rhythm shaking the rolling chair you were on, making you move slightly. “Yeh feel so good, squeezing me so tight.”

“Harry, I’m gonna cum soon,” You warned, knowing it was far too soon for you to be finishing, but you couldn’t help it. You were so worked up and the feeling of him stretching you and filling you up had you floating on cloud nine. This was heaven. You’d gotten just what you needed from him and as he started lifting his hips up, you realized he needed you too. “Please make me cum.”

“Go on,” He cooed, slipping a hand between your legs to rub over your clit. “Cum all over me, let me know how much yeh need me love.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” You gasped, the sounds of your thighs slapping together and your wetness filling the air tipping you over the edge.

Euphoria.

Paradise.

Heaven on earth.

It was like all of the planets and the stars aligned as Harry stilled his hips, his cock buried in you to the base as you came around him. You were flabbergasted, eyes rolled back in your head and your mouth wide open as he cried out into your shoulder, biting down on the skin there. You loved when he came. You loved the faces he made and the sounds that flew from his mouth as he stilled in you. If you weren’t already finishing an orgasm, you’d be having another one due to the feeling of him filling you with warmth. You pulled off, his cock falling against his thigh as you gasped, lifting your head up so that you could kiss him deeply. His tongue slipped into your mouth easily.

“Fuck,” You cried out against his lips. “That was just what I needed, Harry, thank you.”

“No need to thank me, love,” He smirked as you stood up on wobbly legs reaching for your underwear and your pants. “You can use me whenever you want.”

“It was more than the sex, H,” You rolled your eyes as he reached for his boxers. You waited for him to slip them up his legs before you fell back on his lap, draping your arms over his neck and resting your cheek on his shoulder. “I missed being close to you too, just wanted to get there again.”

“I missed it too,” He whispered, glancing down at you. You lifted your chin, kissing his lips slowly as you whimpered, squirming in his lap. “Now, I’m going to take the rest of my day off and we’re going to be together. We can do whatever you want to do for the rest of your day.”

“You don’t have to do that, Harry,” You said softly. “I don’t want to pull you away.”

“You’re not,” He said sternly. “I want to spend time with yeh today, love.”

“Fine,” You grumbled, fighting off a smirk. “In that case, I want to just lay around with you all day long. Just want to kiss and cuddle and talk.”

“As you wish,” He chuckled. “Do you need a moment?”

“Yeah,” You whispered softly, your cheeks going red.

You couldn’t help but think that if this was what you got every time you distracted him from his work then maybe you would distract him for work more often.

#harry smut #harry #Harry styles smut #the ending is rushed #sorry #harry styles one shot #harry one shot #my writing

503 notes · View notes

lusilly · 7 years ago

Text

streets of gotham: secret origins

finally a complete introductory fic for the Streets of Gotham 2 team: Colin Wilkes (Abuse), Ellen Nayar (Ember), Nell Little (Spoiler), Jordan Joyce (Jabberwock), and Niloufar Ghorbani (Seraph). (lucas comes later lmao)

Since Jordan’s got the most complicated backstory, xe has xyr own intro fic you can read here. The SoG2 team is featured heavily in Fiat iusticia and in Wheel in the Sky.

This fic was an exercise in Mark Waid’s advice on how plot is nothing more than setting upon which to hang emotion.........and that was Tough lmao. extremely unsatisfied with the ending. Relies heavily on story from Batman: The Black Mirror. Damian is about 16 here. My fav part of this is damian beating the shit out of a joker stan. Enjoy!

NAME: Damian Wayne ALIAS: Robin DATE OF BIRTH: 5 September 1996 (approximate) BLOOD TYPE: O- (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: BW, DG AFFILIATIONS: Teen Titans, Team Ember EVAL: [File Encrypted] NOTES: |Robin| Eval needs to be de-encrypted. Any information contained therein cannot possibly be worse than not knowing |Nightwing| Yeah thats kind of a dick move B. Lol |Batman| Notes are to be relevant to the file in question not a space for airing personal grievances |Red Hood| Im airing my personal grievances here just to spite you. You suck |Batman| If this continues I will remove editing privileges for all of you |Red Hood| You still suck Editing on NOTES is locked

----

Damian got up early; patrol had ended before two AM last night, the city quiet and still in the early winter lull. A cold snap had settled across Gotham this past week, creeping in from the bay. Though it did not snow, the clear skies brought the temperature to well below freezing, which led to slow nights on patrol. The heat of summer pushed people outside relentlessly. The cold, on the other hand, made criminals lethargic and cautious, preferring to stay inside with their families.

So Damian rolled out of bed around nine in the morning, the sunlight shining into his window through blinds he had forgotten to draw last night. The first thing he did was take his phone from its perch on his bedside table and scroll through any new notifications. Both Iris and Lian had texted him. He responded to Iris’s but not Lian’s, then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Not ten minutes later he was in the drawing room downstairs, where Titus slept before the great brick fireplace, which was empty.

Damian patted his dog on the stomach, whistling through his teeth. “Come on,” he said, getting down on his knees and drumming his hands on Titus’s sturdy body. The dog lit up with energy, reaching up to lick Damian’s face, tail wagging furiously as he got to his feet. Damian scratched him behind his ears. “You ready for a run, boy? Come on, let’s get some exercise.”

Alfred appeared, hot coffee in hand. “Good morning, Damian,” he said. “Taking the dog for a walk?”

“Yes,” answered Damian, glancing around. “He’s been indoors too much lately because of the cold, he needs to stretch his legs.”

“You too?”

Damian offered Alfred a little grin. “Me too,” he agreed. “It’s slow out there.”

“And here I thought that was a good thing.”

“It is.” Titus bounded across the room excitedly, chasing his tail, ready for a walk. He started to paw at Damian’s leg, and Damian only held up one hand to indicate Stop. “Down. One moment, alright?” To Alfred, he asked, “Do you know what time my father got home last night?”

Alfred gave sort of a shrug. “Not long after you.”

“Oh,” said Damian. “When he wakes up will you tell him I’m heading to school later today? I’ve got an exam at three.”

Alfred made a face of enthusiastic pride. “Your first university exam,” he said, sounding impressed. “In which subject, may I ask?”

“Multivariable calculus,” Damian answered, kneeling down to rub Titus’s big head. “It’s simple stuff. A pre-req for applied math.”

“Not finance?”

Damian flashed that grin at Alfred once more. “I’m just testing out my options,” he said. “I have time.”

“Indeed you do,” agreed Alfred, with an approving nod. “In any case, good luck and I shall inform your father as soon as he wakes. Which,” he glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway, and took a disapproving sip of coffee, “should be quite soon. He’s quite worse than you, isn’t he?”u

Damian opened the French doors to the back garden. With a wave to Alfred, he said, “We’ll be back,” and he whistled for Titus to follow him, then took off jogging past the flowerbeds. Coffee in hand, Alfred watched him go.

The morning was brisk, but Damian felt warm and alive underneath the early wintertime sun. Taking it slow, he scrolled through his phone, searching for an appropriate playlist, then tucked earbuds into his ears and his the phone itself into a holder at his bicep. Whistling once more at Titus, he took a wide berth around his vegetable garden, knowing that Titus was prone to digging around in it sometimes, upsetting his crops. From there he stayed close to the tree line, heading out across the Manor grounds. The route he liked to take eventually led to a field and a set of rolling hills littered with public paths; he preferred, however, to take a less intuitive path, slightly different every time and designed to get the most out of the slope of the hills.

Damian took great joy in his morning runs with Titus: it was productive and refreshing and outside, instead of careful training in the facilities under the Manor, which, though state-of-the-art, could feel a little claustrophobic. It was good, he thought, to get out of the house for a little while, out from under his father’s watchful eye. This was the same reason why he’d been spending so much time with the Titans lately.

Cutting through the edge of the woods, where the trees were sparse, Damian suddenly realized that Titus wasn’t following him anymore. When he glanced around, Titus was nowhere to be seen. He came to a stop and turned around, tugging his earbuds out.

It was mostly quiet, except for the wind shuddering the tree branches. Damian whistled. “Titus!” There was no response. Muttering an oath under his breath, Damian jogged back down the path he’d just cut. “Titus!” he called again, searching between the trees on either side of him. “Titus, come!”

His heart jumped as he heard suddenly a piteous whining, as if Titus were afraid of something, cowering in fear; with a little more urgency he headed into the woods, following the source of the sound. “Titus!”

Off the beaten path, obscured by some low underbrush, the scene Damian found jolted his stomach, making him feel immediately sick before his well-practiced professional instinct took over. “Titus,” he hissed, approaching the dog, who laid whining beside the ugly sight. Grabbing Titus’s collar, he tugged the dog away, retreating to a nearby tree. Titus whined as Damian took out his phone, but Damian just said, “Sit. Titus, sit,” and the dog did so, albeit reluctantly.

In Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne’s personal cell phone, which sat neatly in a charging device by his bed, started to ring.

Bruce, raised his head groggily from the mess of sheets and limbs in which he typically slept. Narrowing his eyes at the screen of the phone, which displayed an close-up selfie of Damian’s annoyed face that Dick had assigned to his civilian contact, Bruce started at it for a moment before reaching out and plucking it off the charger.

“Damian?” he said, masterfully masking his confusion.

“Father,” replied Damian shortly, heading back to the path by the edge of the woods. “Did I wake you?”

“I – where are you?”

“A few miles away from home, almost at Brentwood. I took Titus for a run.” This was not unusual, but it was unusual for Damian to call home halfway through. Unsure what was happening, Bruce began, “Is…everything all right?”

“I found a body,” he said bluntly.

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “You what?”

“Well, Titus found it, really. It was sort of tucked off the main path, we never would’ve seen it had I not decided to loop around past the Kai estate. A boy,” Damian informed his father automatically, pausing to bark, “Titus, come,” before continuing, “maybe my age or slightly older. Wearing a Brentwood uniform.”

“Signs of assault?”

“No,” answered Damian. “Dead for a few hours now at the very least, but I can’t determine COD. Suppose we’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report.”

Sitting up in bed, calm and alert, Bruce began, “All right. Bring anything you’ve gathered back here and we can look into it tonight. Good work so far but for now the best thing to do would be to call the police-”

Damian interrupted him. “I already did,” he said. “Father, I’m sorry, I think you may be misunderstanding me? I wasn’t actually calling about the body, I’m calling to ask if you can come pick me up.”

Bruce blinked in surprise. “What?” he asked. “Why?”

“Because I already called the police and they’ll be here any minute, and I’ll have to act all traumatized because of the dead body, and anyway you know I don’t like civilian encounters with police without you.”

This more or less made sense, but it wasn’t what Bruce had meant. “What do you mean you aren’t calling about the body?”

“Oh,” said Damian, as if he hadn’t even thought of this. “Well. It’s by Brentwood.”

Again, Bruce did not immediately understand. “So?”

Almost apologetically, Damian said, “A five mile radius beyond campus limits…isn’t your jurisdiction, Father.”

It hit Bruce then with the force of a freight train: he, like a goddamn amateur idiot, had ceded actual turf to Damian’s pet side team made up of Gotham natives and sometimes headed by Damian’s closest friend in the city, Colin Wilkes, who boarded at Brentwood Academy on a Wayne Enterprises scholarship. The agreement itself had been a bit of a farce meant to keep the team out of trouble, given the specific area the Batman had permitted the team as their responsibility was located in the richest neighborhood in Bristol County, slightly outside Gotham city limits. He had not imagined that any terrible crime might go down five miles away from a wealthy private school, but in retrospect, of course it would.

“Damian,” said Bruce matter-of-factly. “I appreciate your loyalty to your friends,” he didn’t want to legitimize it by saying your team, and besides the Titans were more Damian’s team in any case, “but even you need to admit, this is out of their league.”

“This is one dead body,” answered Damian skeptically. “If that’s out of their league, they shouldn’t be doing this at all.”

“Well, perhaps that’s a fair point-”

“No,” said Damian shortly. “It’s not. You wouldn’t have given Ember her uniform if you really believed that.”

This was true enough, but frankly Bruce thought Ember was the only member of that team capable of joining the fight, and ideally he’d absorb her into the Batfamily at large before she got too committed to her own team. But this was not a conversation he wanted to have over the phone, so he shoved the sheets off the bed and said, “Don’t move for now, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Will you hurry, please?” Damian asked, sounding bored and slightly annoyed. “I hate calling the cops.”

Getting out of bed, Bruce reminded him, “You should be used to it, it’s half of what we do on patrol.”

“Yes,” muttered Damian, hearing the distant wail of sirens. “But I’m not exactly in uniform at the moment, am I?”

Feeling a little awkward at the reminder of the constant presence of race in Damian’s life which Bruce could never really fully grasp, Bruce assured his son that he would be there very soon. As soon as he hung up Damian sent him a pin dropped into a map at his location.

Bruce arrived not long after the police; a detective was talking to Damian, taking down notes. Titus got anxious around people he didn’t know, so Damian had his fingers hooked around his collar, keeping him close. The detective – a rookie who Bruce didn’t recognize on sight – had a few questions for Bruce, then patted Damian’s shoulder reassuringly. Taking Bruce aside, he recommended considering having Damian speak to a professional about the trauma of the sight he’d just witnessed, and Bruce nodded in what he hoped looked like naïve paternal concern.

Damian coaxed Titus in the backseat of the car, then got in himself. Titus hung his big head in between the two front seats, panting from exertion and excitement.

On the ride back to the Manor, Damian mercilessly mocked the police. “Now, this is so traumatizing, but you’ve been awfully brave – for Christ’s sake, it’s like none of them have ever seen a dead body before.”

“Well,” said Bruce fairly, “most sixteen-year-olds haven’t, Damian.”

“It’s not as if it was violent,” Damian pointed out. “There wasn’t even any blood or anything.”

“Which is…curious,” said Bruce thoughtfully. “No external evidence of foul play. Suicide?” Phone in hand, Damian replied, “I already sent photos to Colin, he should be able to identify him and pull his school records. We’ll check for a history of depression or mental illness, but my gut tells me a Brentwood student wouldn’t stagger into the woods to kill himself unless it was going to be uglier than that.”

Bruce nodded; this made sense. “Could’ve been an accident. Alcohol poisoning, or an overdose.”

“I’m leaning towards overdose personally,” answered Damian, texting something on his phone. “Colin’s files should have any record of drug activity at the school. I’ll meet up with him and the others tonight and we’ll get started.”

There was an awkward sort of pause. Bruce began, “You know, if you or the rest of the team ever require any help-”

As the car came to a stop in the Wayne Manor garage, Damian shook his head, interrupting his father. “You’re micromanaging,” he pointed out. “I told you, they’re never going to get better if you keep stepping in and taking over their investigations.”

“I understand that,” replied Bruce, turning the car off. “I’m merely remarking upon the fact that they lack experience, and therefore could benefit from guidance.”

“Namely, me,” said Damian, watching his father. “I’m their guidance.” He waited for a moment, eyes on Bruce, as if expecting confirmation. Little tink-tink-tink sounds came from the car’s engine as it cooled. “Right?”

Bruce began, “You already have a team-”

“You have, like, four teams,” Damian countered. “Not to mention whatever secret society you’re funding this week.”

“A murder is serious business.”

“You don’t even know if it’s murder yet.”

“If it were-”

“-then you still wouldn’t be in any position to take this from them. Just,” Titus stuck his head forward again, whining, and Damian reached out to scratch his face. “Unclench, alright?” Damian asked his father. “I can handle this.” Bruce didn’t reply to this, so Damian got out of the car and opened the door for Titus, who happily jumped out and followed him back into the house.

Later that day, Damian drove to Princeton for his first college exam. He finished early, and called Colin on the drive home.

---

NAME: Colin Wilkes ALIAS: “Abuse” DATE OF BIRTH: 9 December 1996 BLOOD TYPE: AB+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Jane Brown LSW, Caseworker AFFILIATIONS: Team Ember EVAL: Behavioral history of paranoia and violence in multiple foster homes, though likely a result of instability in childhood rather than pathological root. Experimentation by SCARECROW led to increased physical abilities through transformation which includes augmented strength (no evidence senses are affected) as well as moderate invulnerability. Venom appears to have had long-lasting effects on body chemistry despite its degradation.

Decent field skills complemented by extreme strength. Only cleared for patrol if transformed. hand-to-hand and weapons training negligible. Defense training and development of damage-resistant uniform necessary to compensate for tendency to take fire. Precision training vital for development of fine offensive skills.

NOTES: |Robin| Consistent attitude improvements since enrollment at Brentwood. Some instability with transformations likely due to a mental block, have seen improvement past 2-3 months

---

“You’ve got to get a permanent HQ,” said Damian, in full Robin uniform, standing before a laptop computer in an empty Brentwood Academy classroom.

“This is good though,” Colin insisted. “This way we’re close to the action, right?”

“Well,” Damian replied, trying not to hurt Colin’s feelings. “Yes, though it really isn’t worth the lack of security or tech resources. Batman operates almost solely out of the Cave, and you know that’s a bit removed from the city.”

Colin said, “I don’t have a house to stick a secret lair underneath, though.”

“I mean, yes,” Damian admitted, nodding. “But the point stands. Besides, most of your team has trouble getting all the way out here. Spoiler’s bike can only hold two people.”

“That works fine anyway, Jordan doesn’t need a ride.”

With a long-suffering inhalation, Damian gently corrected, “Jabberwock, Abuse. Jabberwock. We use codenames in the field.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Colin, clicking through some files on the computer. “My bad. Anyway.” He gestured towards the screen. “This is what I got so far.”

“Aren’t we going to wait for the others?”

“Oh, should we?”

“Ideally, yes, we should. But if you’ve any sensitive information to share with me first,” he gestured at the screen, “by all means.”

Colin hesitated for a moment, watching Damian. Then he began, “Well, you know how I was kind of sort of maybe dating Ethan a while ago? So it turns out-”

“Abuse,” interrupted Damian loudly, holding up a hand. “I don’t mean – I meant sensitive information related to the case. You can call me and update me on your social life any time, so let’s try to avoid it while in uniform, yes?”

A little hurt, Colin replied, “This is related to the case. The dead kid is Joey Fremont, OK, and his roommate is on the wrestling team with Ethan, and so a while ago Ethan asked me to go to one of the wrestling team parties after the meet, and I didn’t go ‘cause he was being weird cagey about us and I could tell he wanted to go as ‘friends’ and it was annoying because like I asked him out and everything so it’s not like he didn’t actually have like feelings-”

Softly, Damian reminded him, “The point, please.”

“OK, OK, so – Ethan heard from Joey’s roommate that he was dealing in some shady shit.”

A frown creased Damian’s brow. “Define ‘shady shit.’”

“Dealing,” Colin emphasized, as if that had made it obvious. “Like, drugs.” This seemed a little far-fetched. “Joseph Fremont, seventeen-year-old trust fund baby, was a drug-dealer?”

“Yeah. Some shady stuff.”

There it was again, shady, Colin’s favorite ambiguous descriptor. Damian felt a migraine coming on. “We’re still waiting on the tox report,” Damian told him. “But it’ll be easier if we know what to look for. Do you know what he was dealing?”

“Drugs,” said Colin.

“What kind of drugs? Cocaine? Heroin?”

“What the fuck, you think I know? I didn’t buy any shit from him.”

This was going to be harder than Damian thought. “Do you know anyone who did buy it?” he asked. “Maybe Ethan, or someone else on the wrestling team?” Offended, Colin told him, “Bitch, Ethan isn’t a fucking junkie.”

“Right, since you have impeccable taste in guys.”

“Wow,” said Colin, even more insulted. “That’s fucking rude.”

Damian was saved from trying to apologize for his completely correct and true reading of Colin’s limited dating history by a knock on the window. “Cavalry’s here,” he said, heading to open the window.

Ember and Spoiler slipped into the room. “We weren’t sure if we were supposed to use the door,” Spoiler explained. “We thought there might be cameras and stuff.”

“Abuse disabled them,” Damian said. “And we’re far enough from the center of campus that security doesn’t patrol here.”

“Oh, cool,” said Nell. She waved behind Damian. “Hey Colin.”

Before Damian could correct her, Colin impressed him by chiming in. “Abuse,” he said, grinning at her. “Only codenames.”

“Oh, shit, sorry!”

“It’s OK,” murmured Damian, going back to the laptop. “Is Jabberwock coming?”

“I haven’t heard from her,” answered Ellen, shrugging. “But I imagine if she was, she’d be picking up, um,” she gave a pointed pause, “you-know-who on her way over.”

“Who?” asked Damian.

“Voldemort,” said Nell, giggling.

He looked around at Colin, expecting an answer. Colin made a beckoning gesture with one finger, and Damian went over to him and leaned in. “Niloufar,” he whispered.

Damian pulled away, frowning. “Niloufar?” he echoed.

Colin took great pleasure in going, “Shh! Codenames only!”

“I don’t know who that is,” said Damian honestly. “Do they have a codename?”

“Not yet,” answered Nell, taking a seat on one of the desks. “She said she liked Angel or something, I think.”

“No, it wasn’t Angel,” Ellen said thoughtfully. “It was something Muslim I think. I can’t remember right now.”

Damian hesitated for a moment, then said to Ellen, “Whether or not Jabberwock brings her, can you send me her information later? We’ll do a background check.”

Ellen watched him for a moment, but beneath the scarlet mask her expression was indecipherable. “I can relay it to Oracle, if that’s what you mean.”

It wasn’t exactly, but it would do. He nodded. “Now. Let’s get to business. Abuse, would you brief your teammates on the case?”

Quickly, Colin got back to business. He did a decent job, though Damian interjected a few times with details that seem to have slipped Colin’s mind. Nell, in her caped eggplant-colored Spoiler costume, sat on one of the desks, whereas Ellen, her crimson-and-black uniform, took a seat, leaning forward over the desk thoughtfully. Her body language was tight and measured, inscrutable. When his mind wandered Damian found his gaze occasionally drawn to her, though it wasn’t really in attraction so much as curiosity. He still wondered exactly what she had done to prove herself to his father, who trusted her far beyond any other member of this burgeoning team.

The specifics of the case were this: Joseph Fremont, seventeen years old, white male, five-foot-eight inches, approximately a hundred and ninety pounds, had according to his roommate never made it back to his bedroom on the night of November the thirtieth, and had the following morning been discovered dead one-point-eight miles away from campus. They were still waiting on the physical evidence, but Robin had called them all together tonight so they could hit the ground running. Colin’s revelation that Joseph Fremont might have been dealing was kind of disappointing to Damian, as it suggested that the kid might’ve just been sampling the product and accidentally overdosed. Not that he wished a murder had occurred or anything, but a good old-fashioned mystery would’ve been perfect training for the young team.

When Colin told Ellen and Nell about the drugs, sparing them the details about how he knew, Ellen spoke up. “If he was dealing and there were no external signs of a struggle, don’t you think he probably just OD’d?” “Perhaps,” said Damian, chiming in from his spot in the shadows behind Colin. “But we have to consider all the possibilities.”

“What if his tox results come back positive for a shitload of heroin?” asked Nell.

“Then we’ll rule it an overdose,” Damian told her, feeling like he was talking to a bunch of infants, “unless we find evidence that suggests otherwise.”

“But what if it’s an actual murder but someone just like coerced him into taking a shitload of heroin so he died?”

“That’s why we look into anyone who might have motive,” said Damian. “Even if this looks cut-and-dried on the surface, if there’s someone who would benefit from Joseph Fremont’s death, then we tug on that string. Tug hard enough, and something always unravels.”

“The Fremonts are Wall Street money,” Ellen commented offhandedly. “I’m sure a lot of people would have motivation to target their family.”

“Right,” said Damian. “Ember, you look into potential suspects. Colin, dig into the drug connection. Maybe something went awry with his supplier.”

Nell asked, “What can I do?”

“Stay plugged in to our contact in the coroner’s office,” Damian told her. “We need to know what killed Joseph Fremont. Until we have that, there’s only so much we can do.”

“So you’re saying all we can do now is wait.”

“No,” said Damian coolly, turning to Ellen. That blank red mask was starting to bother him, making it impossible to read her. “I’m saying you can look into potential suspects so we can get ahead of the game.”

She watched him for a moment. “So you do think it’s a murder, though?”

“I think it’s suspicious that our victim wound up two miles away from campus, in the middle of the woods,” Damian told her. “And I find it unlikely that no one knows any specifics about what occurred. Our job is to apply pressure until the cracks become evident, and then plug the leaks when we find them.”

Ellen ran her hands down her long braid. “I think that’s a mixed metaphor,” she said.

It wasn’t, though it admittedly was kind of clumsy. He ignored this comment, turning instead to Abuse. “I’ll find somewhere more secure to use as headquarters. In the meantime, collect your research. Remember to keep it all under secure encryption using the tech I gave you.”

Nell raised her hand. Damian looked at her, then did a double take, then Ellen reached out and pulled her wrist downwards. “You don’t have to raise your hand,” Ellen told her.

“Oh,” said Nell. “OK, sorry, but sidenote, are we allowed to use the computers you gave us for like, other things?”

“They’re yours,” said Damian. “Use them for whatever you need. All of your encrypted files go to a drive that Batman and I can access, but other than that you can do what you want with it.” “OK, cool,” said Nell. “I was just asking because I use it for homework.”

Colin threw his arm around Damian’s shoulders, hanging onto his neck. Poking him in the ribs, he told Nell, “Just ask Robin for another separate homework computer, that’s what I did.”

Though Nell’s eyes lit up, Ellen spoke before she could. Leaning back in her seat, she said smoothly, “I’m sure Robin doesn’t have the time to play sugar daddy to all of us, Abuse.”

“No,” agreed Damian. “Fortunately Batman plays the part very well for you, doesn’t he, Ember?” There was a silence so deep they could hear a pin drop. Damian felt belligerent and annoyed, and didn’t immediately regret the comment. He knew the grants and the scholarships and the job offers that had been extended to Ellen Nayar, and he didn’t think she had any right to sound so dismissive of his family’s generosity.

Though Damian could not Ellen’s gaze behind her mask, she turned her head away from him first, indicative of breaking first.

When she and Nell left, Ellen did not say a farewell to Robin.

---

NAME: Danielle Little ALIAS: Spoiler DATE OF BIRTH: 29 June 1997 BLOOD TYPE: O+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Rhonda Holmes Little, Mother (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Batgirl (Formerly), Team Ember EVAL: Promising but untrained. Investigative instincts are excellent, but more practice is necessary. Very young and inexperienced, though a strong devotion to local community and neighborhoods is a good foundation for future efforts. Potentially a place for her in the Batman Inc. hierarchy whether as an official agent or otherwise.

---

As dusk arrived the next night, Bruce sat in front of the computer in the Cave as Damian worked on some complex tech designs at the workstation below the computer hub. There was a comfortable quiet apart from the usual whir of machinery and fluttering wings of the bats in the eaves. All at once, the silence was broken by a gentle beeping notification coming from both the computer and Damian’s phone.

Not a moment later, Damian was skipping the stairs two at a time, practically sprinting to the locker room area where his uniform was kept. “Oracle,” said Bruce, hitting a button on the panel before him, “get Jim on the line.” Damian emerged, in full uniform except for his mask though his cap was only half fastened and his boots weren’t laced yet, while Bruce was still on the line with Commissioner Gordon. “I’ll look into it personally,” he was saying. “I’ll be in touch.”

Bruce closed the line and turned around in his seat to look at Damian, who stood there defiantly. He pointed at Bruce with one accusatory finger, then began, “You promised-”

Stoically, Bruce replied, “This could be very dangerous, Damian, and it would be irresponsible to let a bunch of inexperienced teenagers deal with something of this magnitude.”

“You promised,” repeated Damian stubbornly. “You told me this would be our jurisdiction, and that you would allow us freedom to pursue this mission on our own time.”

“Us?” echoed Bruce mildly. “So as soon as the mission interests you, it becomes us rather than them?”

Rolling his eyes, Damian headed down to the garage below, where his motorcycle was kept. Raising his voice to be heard, he called, “I’m their leader, so-”

“Ember’s their leader.”

Damian stopped on the staircase, then went back up so he could look at his father. “I’m their leader,” he said again, offended.

Bruce shook his head. “This team is designed to be closer to the ground than we are. You don’t have their experience when it comes to the city itself.”

“I patrol the city every single night,” Damian protested. “I know it just fine.”

“That may very well be true, but you still don’t have their urban expertise.”

“Urb-?” Damian broke off suspiciously, watching his father. Then he leaned against the rail of the stairs slightly and asked, “Is this a race thing?”

Bruce glanced around at him, an eyebrow raised. “A what thing?”

“Are you being,” he paused, didn’t know what else to call it, so went with, “…racist?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Urban is just one of those dog whistle words that means people of color,” explained Damian; he was taking a sociology class at Princeton, and he’d just read a chapter of a book about this. “And since this team is mostly that, you emphasizing that their street smarts and inner city experience feels almost as if…” he trailed off, feeling suddenly uncertain under his father’s gaze. “I’m just saying,” he said, unwilling to admit his doubt. “You may want to…think about the way you talk about them, is all.”

Bruce watched his son, surprised. Despite the fact that Damian’s words weren’t exactly flattering, he felt an odd stirring of pride. He nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I will.”

There was an awkward sort of pause, and then Damian headed once more down the stairs. Though it was just barely dark outside, he took his motorcycle to the hidden entrance to the Bunker, where he did some minor rearrangements and set up what basically amounted to parental controls on the computers. Satisfied, he alerted the entire team that they would be meeting beneath Wayne Tower tonight.

This time, Jordan and Niloufar were there first. “Ms. Ghorbani,” he said, holding out his hand to the girl in the headscarf, “a pleasure to meet you.”

Niloufar shook his hand warily. “We’ve met before,” she told him shortly. “One time you and Batman saved a school bus I was in from tipping off a bridge.”

When in uniform, Damian got comments like that all the time. Though a school bus falling off a bridge was far more memorable than most of the everyday encounters he had with citizens of Gotham, it still didn’t ring a bell. “That sounds like us,” he told her, with a killer smile. She just watched him suspiciously.

Jordan, who had been using her powers of flight constantly since they manifested, floated near the low ceiling of the Bunker. “I don’t like it in here,” she said. “Feels cramped.”

“It’s merely temporary, Jabberwock,” Damian informed her, heading to the computer. “It’s not an ideal location for your team, but I needed some place with the technical capabilities to fill you in completely on the status of your mission.”

“Our mission?” Jordan echoed. “You mean the dead kid from Brentwood?”

Damian nodded, typing something into the computer. “Joseph Fremont.”

Niloufar asked, “Is this about the results from the tox report?”

The file on the computer unopened, Damian stopped and turned around to face her. “What do you know about the tox report?” he asked her.

��I’ve heard things,” she said shortly.

He eyed her, then began, “How do you-?” but before he could finish, the doors to the garage opened and Ellen arrived with Nell and Colin.

“Hey,” said Nell breathlessly, her laptop underneath her arm. “I might have to leave early, I have a lot of homework to do.”

“That’s fine,” Damian said, looking past Niloufar and Jordan at her. “There’ve been some new developments in the case and I just need to make sure we’re all on the same page about it.”

“Hey,” said Jordan, floating upside-down, her ponytail hanging down from the back of her head, “I have a question.”

Suppressing a roll of his eyes, Damian looked at her. “Yes?”

“This kid OD’d, right?”

“Yes,” repeated Damian, “and I’m about to get into the specifics of what exactly he-”

“But like. Why should we care about him?”

The silence that followed this comment deepened considerably, broken only by the hum and whir of the high tech machinery surrounding them. “Jabberwock,” he said, “if you have to ask that question, then maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

Before Damian had even finished this sentence, Jordan was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I mean like, specifically him. There’s a dozen cases of this same thing every day on my block, and no one’s investigating that shit.”

Damian explained, “This death occurred in your team’s jurisdiction-” but Ellen interrupted him.

“She has a point,” she said, glancing at Damian. “It does seem a little biased that we suddenly care about an overdose as soon as it happens to a rich white kid. And I have wondered before why Batman decided we don’t get jurisdiction,” she framed it in air quotes, “over our own neighborhoods, especially because Jordan’s right, this kind of thing happens all the time in the city.”

“OK,” said Damian, trying very hard to exercise patience, “well. When one of your neighbors overdoses on recreationally-developed Joker Venom, then perhaps we can look into that.”

A frisson of excitement went through the Bunker, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Joker Venom?” echoed Colin, sounding almost delighted. “Joey got offed by the Joker?”

“No,” said Ellen, a slight frown on her face. When she watched Damian as intently as she was doing now, he could almost tune out the scar, imagine exactly what she might look like without it. “Robin said – recreationally-developed? You think this kid was using Joker Venom to get high?”

Damian nodded. “It gets worse.”

Seated at one of the specimen analysis desks, her laptop computer already open, Nell asked, “How could it get worse than the Joker?”

Damian pulled something up on the computer screen. “A few years ago – back with the previous Batman – there was a case that involved a drug called diaxamene which was reverse-engineered to attack the part of the brain which controls emotion, blunting the ability to feel empathy.”

“Turn them into sociopaths,” Jordan said, sounding almost impressed.

“Psychopaths,” Damian corrected. “But, yes. Essentially.”

“Diaxamene,” echoed Niloufar, her gaze far away behind her thick glasses. “That sounds familiar. Didn’t it have something to do with a baby formula recall?”

Clearly surprised that Niloufar knew this, Damian stopped short and looked around at her. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “The perp claimed to have dosed baby formula, though no evidence could confirm this. There was a recall just in case, though, which led to a shortage.”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Niloufar, nodding. At Damian’s curious look, she finally added, “My younger brother was a baby at the time. I remember formula got really expensive.”

Without replying to this, Damian nodded, then looked at her for a moment longer.

Then he returned to the computer screen. “It looks like small amounts of Joker Venom were added to the reverse-engineered diaxamene. Because Joker Venom produces effects similar to psychopathy before resulting in death, diluting it with the diaxamene can reproduce the same feeling while decreasing its lethality.”

“He still died, though,” Nell pointed out.

Damian nodded. “It’s called an overdose for a reason, Spoiler.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right.”

“The modified diaxamene is a pharmaceutical, though,” said Niloufar, considering this. “It’s supposed to function long-term, not for a temporary high.”

“Exactly,” said Damian. “For a young person like Joseph Fremont, the mild Joker Venom would have a slight narcotic effect while the diaxamene, if he even knew it was part of the drug, would be – nothing more than a placebo. At first.”

Ellen nodded. “So what his death tells us,” she began, “is that this drug is on the market. That people are using it, and the more they use it, the more psychopathic they become.”

“Yes,” said Damian, feeling an odd rush of pride at how quickly the team put this together. “That’s the real problem here. Someone’s pulling the same stunt as the baby formula plan, but aging up their demographic.”

“Why not cut it with coke?” asked Jordan, seriously. “Or dope or something?”

“’Cause it’s Joker Venom,” Ellen said, looking over at her as if this were obvious. “It has sex appeal.”

Nell giggled, and Colin asked, “What about the Joker says sex appeal to you?”

“Ember’s right,” said Damian, shutting the others up. “How many of you have seen firsthand some result of the Joker’s crimes?”

Everyone except for Niloufar raised their hand without hesitation, but Niloufar eventually followed suit, making a noncommittal kinda sorta gesture with her hand.

“Joseph Fremont never lived in the city,” Damian continued. “If you live in the wealthy suburbs your whole life, the Joker is something of a myth, and as a result anything with some proximity to him has a certain thrill to it – like forbidden fruit. It’s the perfect new drug to introduce to a privileged private school like Brentwood.”

“Plus rich white boys are already a little psychopathic,” Jordan added.

Damian decided to give her that one. “And that.”

Despite this, Ellen didn’t seem fully satisfied. “But no one bothers to do a full tox report on a bum who OD’d in an alley in Midtown,” she pointed out. “This drug could be way more rampant than we thought.”

Considering this, Damian answered, “True, but we haven’t seen the resultant wave of crime or violence you’d expect from that.” “That’s assuming the drug has been out there for long enough. And Gotham streets are always full of crime and violence. How would you be able to tell the difference?” He shook his head. “There’s no difference on patrol.”

“You haven’t been on patrol all that often lately, though,” Colin said fairly, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “You’ve been with your other team a lot.”

Inwardly, Damian cursed Colin’s lack of filter. Ellen’s eyebrow cocked, but it was Nell who asked, “What other team?”

Jordan grinned at him. “Are you cheating on us, Robin?”

“It’s the Teen Titans,” he said stoically. “Yes, I am frequently away with them. But Batman and Oracle keep a careful record of nightly criminal activity, which has not shown any major spikes lately.”

“What’s Superboy like?” asked Jordan, legs crossed, sitting in air. “Just like a mini Superman?”

Chris was in fact very dissimilar to his adoptive father, so Damian replied, with a hint of annoyance, “No, actually. Now if we can get back to business-”

“What about Arsenal?” asked Nell, from her computer. “She seems cool.”

With a knowing grin, Colin added, “Not as cool as Impulse, huh, Robin?” Damian shot him a dirty look. “Let’s try to focus, shall we?”

“Ohh,” said Nell, laughing. “Wait, Robin, is she your girlfriend?”

For fuck’s sake. As he opened his mouth to shut this down for good, Ellen mercifully came to his rescue. “Come on,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “Don’t tease him, Spoiler, that’s mean.”

Which, naturally, set his blood boiling again. “Ember, please,” he told her. “It’s fine. Now. Back to the case?”

She gave him a wry, enigmatic smile, but nodded all the same, gesturing for him to continue.

His face felt warm, and he felt stupid for allowing himself to feel even the slightest bit self-conscious. “Some excellent thinking happened tonight, team, so thank you for that. Now that we all know where we stand, it’s time to get serious about this case.”

Doubtfully, Colin asked, “We weren’t serious until just now?”

“I mean we have a lead,” said Damian quickly. “That’s all. Niloufar, Jabberwock, I want you two looking into other recent overdose cases throughout the city, see if we’re missing something.”

“Seraph,” said Niloufar.

Damian blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Seraph,” repeated Niloufar. “That’s my codename. I mean, it was Hafaza, but then we figured that was a little harder for people to remember and the key to a good codename is its memorability, right? Like, branding.” She paused, a little awkward. “So. Seraph.”

He watched her for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. Seraph, then. Usually the codename is accompanied by a uniform, though.”

Apologetically, she admitted, “I’m probably not…super useful in the field.” At Damian’s expressions, she explained, “I failed P.E. last year.”

Damian only had the vaguest notion what P.E. was, but he waved it aside. “Fine,” he said. “If you do need a uniform, Batman and I can help. Abuse,” he said, turning to Colin. “Have you dug up anything else at Brentwood?”

Colin shook his head. “Not really? I think Joey’s roommate was clean, actually. He wasn’t dealing anything hard, just weed. I lit up with him the other day and he told me everything. He’s kind of fucked up over it actually, it’s kind of sad.”

“Great,” said Damian. “Generally I would request that you try to avoid partaking in illicit substances, but otherwise, sure.”

“Robin,” said Jordan, with a grin. “C’mon. It’s just weed.”

“OK,” said Damian, ignoring this. “Keep pushing, Abuse. If you need backup, call me.”

“Or me,” offered Niloufar. When Damian glanced at her, she added, “I go to Brentwood too. So I can help with that.”

This was a relief; Colin was competent enough in the field, but his investigative work was still spotty. Damian had been considering an undercover mission in Brentwood himself to get the intel they needed, but if Niloufar also attended the school then she might be able to bolster Colin’s mission. “Perfect,” he said. “Seraph, you get double duty – work with both Jabberwock and Abuse.”

Niloufar practically glowed at the extra responsibility.

“Ember, Spoiler, you’re going to be investigating the Joker connection,” he continued. “Ember, I understand you have some familiarity with Arkham? This is your chance to demonstrate that. Meanwhile, I’ll-”

Just then, he realized Nell’s hand was up in the air again.

“Spoiler,” he said tiredly. “I’ve told you this a dozen times, you don’t need to raise your hand to ask permission to speak.” “Oh,” she said, lowering her arm. “Sorry! I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“It’s fine,” Damian told her, waving this away. “What is it?”

“Would it be possible for me to sit this one out? I’m failing geometry.”

Damian blinked at her. “You’re failing what?” he asked.

“Geometry,” she repeated. “Tenth grade math.”

Damian, who had mastered geometry when he was seven, felt suddenly and abruptly out of his depth. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, of course. That’s fine. All of you, never hesitate to tell me if you feel like you’re taking on too much. It’s fine. Civilian responsibilities come first.”

There was an awkward sort of pause.

Then he restarted, “Ember, I suppose that means I’ll be with you. We’ll also look at the previous case regarding diaxamene, but I’ll need a few days to round up my resources on that. I’ll contact you when I’m ready.”

“Fine,” said Ellen. “Anything else you need to update us on?”

Thoughtfully, Damian looked back at the screen. “No, I don’t think so. We’re dealing with a high tech trafficking ring by the docks again so if any of you find any unfamiliar weaponry or anything let me or Oracle know. Oh,” he said, turning around to face them again. “And I suppose I should warn you about something.”

They all leaned in a little, as if intrigued by the hint of danger.

Almost regretfully, Damian informed them all, “Batman is likely going to try and edge in on this case. He takes everything involving the Joker very personally, so I can almost guarantee he’ll try to take over. At the very least he’ll try to insert himself in an observational role.”

“That’s not so bad,” countered Jordan. “Batman’s welcome to observationally roll me whenever he likes.” Colin laughed, obviously in agreement.

Damian tried to keep his expression level. “My point is,” he restarted, “this is your mission and you all can take care of it perfectly well without his help. Don’t let him take this one from you.” He paused, looking around at them. “So. We’re all clear?”

“Super clear,” agreed Colin. “I’m gonna head back to school and get a jump on this.”

“Hold on,” said Niloufar, her gaze swiveling around towards him. “That’s not fair, I don’t board at school so I won’t be able to help out until tomorrow.”

“Um, I just said get a jump on it,” Colin pointed out. “I didn’t say I’d solve absolutely everything so you don’t have anything to do.”

“Abuse is right,” added Damian. “He can probably get a lot more done after hours than you can during classroom time. I’m sure he’ll fill you in on any developments in the morning.”

Niloufar shot a glare towards Colin, but he shrugged and relented. “Yeah, for sure.”

“We’ll get started, then,” said Jordan. “If we find anything out we’ll ping you or share it on the vigilante cloud or whatever.”

“Thank you,” said Damian, as Jordan and Niloufar began to leave. “Good luck.”

After them Colin headed out to return to Brentwood and Ellen, the only one of the team cleared for patrol on her own, also took off. Damian went over to where Nell still worked on her laptop. “If you need a tutor,” he said, peering over her shoulder, “I’m happy to help.”

“You kind of already are,” she told him distractedly, focused on her work.

He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

Glancing at him, she explained, “I’m going to the Neon Knights center in my neighborhood for tutoring, so it’s cool. I guess I meant your family’s already helping out.”

Damian stared at her for a moment. Though he knew rationally that the entire team had enough information at this point to deduce Batman’s identity and therefore his own, it was still a new and unfamiliar feeling, like danger. It set him on edge, despite the fact that they never would have let Nell or the others into the game in the first place if they didn’t trust them enough to be discreet.

“Sure,” he said, straightening up. “Though I shouldn’t have to remind you not to talk like that when we’re in uniform.”

This seemed to confuse her, as she finally took pause to glance up at him. “But…nobody’s here.” “I know, but it’s a matter of developing a habit. If the mask is on,” he pointed to his face, “then I’m Robin. Only Robin. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. “I got you.”

“Good.” He hesitated, then added, “If you’d like you can stay here to do your work. I can program everything to shut down and lock up after you leave.” This too drew her gaze away from the computer. She looked at Damian with big eyes, surprised and a little touched. “Wow,” she said. “For real? That would be super great.”

“OK.” He shrugged, feeling a slight twinge of self-consciousness he normally only felt around Iris. He tried to push that out of his mind. “It’s no problem. And again, let me know if you need help.”

“Yeah,” she said, beaming at him. “I will.”

---

NAME: Jordan Aguilar Joyce ALIAS: Wonder Girl / Jabberwock DATE OF BIRTH: 17 March 1995 BLOOD TYPE: B+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Maya Aguilar, Sister (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Wonder Woman, Team Ember EVAL: Flight, augmented senses and strength from Themysciran heritage. Will follow-up with Diana. Deeply resistant to authority, but loyal to team. Need to develop discipline before regular patrol is instated.

---

“So Abuse and Seraph managed to get a lead on the Brentwood supplier – turns out a few of the older boys had been recruited by someone called the Dealer.”

“Not very creative,” replied Ellen through her commlink, peering down at the city from the corner of a tall roof.

“Yes,” answered Damian, “particularly because we dealt with someone using that name a few years ago, around the same time as the diaxamene case. In fact, the man who reverse-engineered the diaxamene actually bought outdated Joker Venom from the Dealer.”

“Oh,” said Ellen, a little taken aback. “Then – that should sort of blow the case open, right? It’s the same guy.”

“Impossible,” said Damian grimly. “The man in question has been locked up in a mental facility for years.”

“In Arkham?”

“No. I believe it’s somewhere in Chicago, far away from here. Besides, the version of the Joker Venom found in this new drug isn’t old or decayed at all, it’s very new, something we haven’t quite seen before, impossible to build up a resistance to. Enough of it would probably poison even the Joker himself.”

“If our guy can reverse-engineer a prescription drug, I’m sure he could figure out how to update Joker Venom. And if he’s not at Arkham why are we even going there in the first place?”

“Because,” Damian answered shortly, “sometimes you have to play with vermin to sniff out a rat.” This was cryptic and annoying, and beneath her mask Ellen rolled her eyes. “OK. I can meet you there in an hour if-”

“No need,” he said, just as the sleek and quiet hum of an energy-efficient stealth motorcycle came buzzing down the alley beneath the building on which Ellen stood. Robin stopped the bike, got off, and waved at her.

She let out a sigh, then made her way down on the fire escape, jumping the last few feet. “How did you know where I was?” she asked, as he got back onto the motorcycle.

“The tracer Batman put in your suit,” he answered; when she gave him a look, refusing to get on the bike with him, he grinned a little and added, “I’m kidding. But only a little. When you’re on a direct line, Oracle can pinpoint your location. If you toggled a private line or turned off your commlink, we’d lose you.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” muttered Ellen, finally relenting and climbing onto the back of the motorcycle, behind him. She sat further back than was entirely necessary.

They went most of the way in relative silence. They’d worked enough together – Damian had spent enough time training with her – that it wasn’t particularly awkward, but there was an odd degree of discomfort that neither of them were used to. When they made it to Arkham, stowing the bike in the woods behind it, Damian asked, “That reminds me, when are you going to get a motorbike of your own? You can’t rely on rides from Spoiler and Abuse and me forever.”

“I don’t have my license,” she explained. She wanted to add, And I can’t afford one, but she knew that he would offer and insist and that would be unfortunate.

“Oh,” said Damian, as if this hadn’t occurred to him. “Well. You don’t really need one, in our line of work.” “Thanks,” she said, though her smile was not visible beneath her mask. “But I’m already toeing the line as is. I’d prefer to break as few laws as possible.”

“She says,” he added, grinning slightly as they headed towards Gotham, “as we break into a private mental facility in order to interrogate a patient.”

“He’s a criminal,” she replied smoothly. “Not a patient.”

Damian shrugged. “They all are.”

This wasn’t true, and Ellen wanted to fight him on it, but this wasn’t the time or the place. With the help of Robin’s gadgets and expertise, making it into Arkham was easier than it had ever been for Ellen – he did it with such nonchalance and finesse that it seemed positively casual for him. That sort of annoyed her.

They made it to the Wayne Ward, which is where the most dangerous criminals were held, cut off from the rest of the world by thick steel doors. Somewhere in one of the cages, someone sang a children’s song. “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, hopping through the forest…”

Another inmate moaned, “Shut the fuck up.”

Damian brought her to an unmarked cell that looked no different from any of the others, and put his hand on the door, behind which the Joker still sang. “Scooping up the field mice and boppin’ them on the head…”

Quietly, he asked, “You ready?” She nodded, but didn’t speak. Looking away from her, he punched a series of numbers into the keypad by the door, and it slid open.

He gestured for her to enter, and she did. He followed behind her, and the steel door clanged behind them.

A pale man in an Arkham uniform sat cross-legged facing the wall across from them. “Down came the good fairy, and she said…”

“Joker,” said Damian.

The Joker’s head lolled back on his shoulders, his dirty green hair hanging down from his scalp. He did not look around.

“Ah,” he began, his voice sickly sweet. “It’s my second-favorite little birdie. You’d be third favorite,” he said, almost reasonably, “but the dead one came back, and that’s no fun.”

“Joker,” repeated Damian. “What do you know about a new version of your Venom?”

Though he still did not turn around, the Joker made an unpleasant sound in the back of his throat, as if displeased. “None of that faker stuff. I’m no street corner dealer, little Robbie! I only have big plans, big shows, big-” he threw out both arms theatrically; in his left, he held a crowbar stained with blood, “-drama.”

Without hesitating, Damian moved forward and grabbed hold of the crowbar, kicking in the Joker’s elbow as he did so. As Damian inspected it, the Joker started to laugh, then collapsed and rolled around on the floor so he was facing the door.

“Where’d you get this?” asked Damian stoically, raising the crowbar.

“Beirut,” answered the Joker.

Damian shook the crowbar. “Whose blood is this?”

“Yours,” answered the Joker. “Robin’s. Doesn’t matter which one, best not to get attached,” he looked past Damian, as if addressed Ellen directly, “they’re just gonna break your heart and move on. They always do.”

Uncertainly, Ellen glanced at Damian, who only stared at the Joker.

He raised the crowbar, and hit the Joker across the face with it. Again, the Joker laughed. “What do you mean that fake stuff?” asked Damian. “So you know someone’s dealing.”

“Everyone’s always dealing,” Joker answered, with a shrug. “You know, dealing, coping, the human condition.” “How do you know about the drugs?”

The Joker lunged suddenly, throwing himself at Damian, grabbing hold of the crowbar tightly. Ellen instinctively moved to help, but Damian dodged, gripping the crowbar tightly and wrenching him away so that the Joker lost his balance and fell, half laying on the ground, still clutching the crowbar. He laughed and laughed.

“The drugs?” he screeched, ecstatic. “You mean the Xanax? Oh, no, you mean the painkillers? Or are you talking about the meth, because that was what really made her spiral, huh? Just took a little while to get there, step by prescription step, and then all of the sudden bam!” His laughter turned higher, more frantic. He held up one hand in the gesture of a gun and pointed it right at Ellen’s face. “Right in the kisser!”

Horrified, Ellen stared at him, frozen. It took Damian a moment to realize what was going on, and then he kicked the Joker square in the chest, sending him reeling back to the floor. “I miss Divya!” he called, as Damian, turned around returned to the door, taking Ellen’s wrist in his hand as he did so. “She was so much fun! Good stories! She missed you bad you know, she missed her beautiful son, her beautiful little-”

A name came out of Joker’s mouth that Damian didn’t know, but he could guess what it was. “Come on,” he murmured to Ellen, who said nothing, her face obscured and made unreadable by her mask. As the Joker laughed and laughed and laughed, Damian led Ellen out of the Joker’s cell, ensured the door was closed tight, and they retreated out of Arkham. After a while Ellen pulled her hand away from Damian’s. He said nothing until they were outside.

In the darkness, he turned to her heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought you in there.”

“No,” said Ellen, shaking her head. “It’s fine. I had to meet him eventually.”

“I don’t know how he knew that about you.”

“It’s fine,” repeated Ellen, with a little more urgency. She tried to smile at him from underneath the mask, but obviously he couldn’t see it.

Damian watched her cautiously for a moment longer, then suddenly jerked his head around, obviously hearing something at his commlink. Then his gaze lengthened past Ellen, behind her, and under his breath he muttered, “For fuck’s sake-”

Despite the fact that Batman, from behind Ellen, should not have been able to hear this, he growled, “Language, Robin,” and Damian resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Ellen turned around uncertainly; she had only very infrequently been in the presence of both Batman and Robin, and didn’t really have the hang of their dynamic yet.

Batman stood impassively before them both, watching them. “Are you here to talk to the Joker?” he asked, as if reserving judgment.

“We already did,” Damian told him. “He didn’t have anything useful to say.”

Thinking this was underselling the encounter a little, Ellen added, “He seemed to know a version of his Venom was being used on the streets,” Damian gave her an urgent look, like betrayal, so she continued, “but Robin’s right. He didn’t sound like he was involved in or even really approved of its production.”

Batman gestured at the crowbar in Damian’s hand. “What’s that?”

“A crowbar,” answered Damian.

Batman only watched him.

Damian held it up. “A man known as the Dealer tried to auction off an item just like this a few years ago,” he said, almost defiantly. “Nightwing brought it home, but he never entered it into evidence. He just got rid of it.”

“Why?” asked Batman.

“So you wouldn’t find out,” said Damian, “for obvious reasons.”

Ellen wasn’t sure what that obvious reason was, but she just glanced in between Robin and Batman, sensing the tension there.

Stubbornly, Damian continued, “The Joker was a red herring last time and I believe it’s the same thing this time around. We should be focusing our efforts elsewhere.”

“Hn.” Batman headed past them, towards Arkham. “I’ll talk to the Joker.”

As Batman passed, Robin reached out and physically took hold of his arm. “No,” he said. “You won’t.”

Batman twisted around to look back at Damian, and there was a moment of deadly, pin-drop silence.

“It’s my case,” insisted Damian.

Batman glanced up at Ellen. “It’s her case.”

Beneath her mask, Ellen’s eyebrows shot up. Reluctantly, Damian let go of Batman and turned to her. “Fine,” he said. “Ember. What do you think? Do you want a second opinion on the Joker, or do you think we should be able to proceed on our own from here?”

There was no expression on Batman’s face, but then again Ellen didn’t think there was ever really any discernible expression on Batman’s face. Once more she glanced in between Batman and Robin, before finally admitting, “I…think we should be OK.” To Batman, she said, “I’ve studied your case files and I don’t really think this fits the Joker’s M.O. Right now selling drugs to rich kids sounds a lot more like this Dealer character, or maybe, um, what’s his face, that guy who poisoned the diaxamene.”

Damian winced slightly when she said this and she suddenly feared she’d said too much; maybe there was something he’d been trying to keep from Batman. Though she didn’t really think that was all that smart – Robin’s pride be damned, this was about solving the case, not who got the glory of figuring it out.

Batman watched her for a moment, then nodded. “I expect a mission report,” he said.

“Of course,” responded Damian sourly.

Without looking around, Batman added, “I meant from Ember.”

Damian looked almost ready to blow a gasket, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded. Batman lingered for a moment longer, then swept away.

There was an awkward sort of pause. Damian turned and headed back to where the motorcycle was stowed in the woods. “C’mon,” he said.

She followed him, secretly a little pleased at this indication of Batman’s trust but also not wanting to push Damian at all. It was a weird place to be, staying quiet for fear of hurting Robin’s feelings – but then again, he was only a kid, at least a couple years younger than her. There was no need to be cruel.

A minute or so after he revved the bike and they started heading back towards the city, he asked, “Are you hungry?” His words came through clearly on her commlink, and yet she was still certain she had misheard. “Um. Sure?”

“I know a place,” he continued, taking a sharp left. “Up by Amusement Mile.”

Amusement Mile meant carnival food of some sort probably, which was fine by Ellen. Late at night as it was, the boardwalk was still all lit up neon, but Damian avoided that, heading instead for the less touristy area. There was a little shop – not much more than a booth – where he ordered falafel. Ellen got a kabob. The woman working there spoke warmly with Damian in a language Ellen didn’t know, but eventually she picked up that the woman was refusing to accept payment when Damian tried to pass it over the counter to her. He just grinned and stuffed a twenty dollar bill into the tip jar, and the woman laughed.

They sat together on the rail of the pier, which was already closed for the night. She lifted her mask to eat, then took it off completely, leaving only a domino mask around her eyes.

“Hey,” she said, nudging him a little. “Are you OK?”

He looked around at her, confused. “What? Why?”

“Your dad was kind of harsh on you. He didn’t really need to be, I know you have more experience at this than I do.” For a moment he said nothing, just watching her. Then he looked back down at his falafel wrap. “You shouldn’t refer to him as my father when we’re in the field,” he said. “Things like that are supposed to stay in a civilian context only.”

“Mmm, be careful about that. Everybody knows Robin is either Batman’s son or something a whole lot less wholesome, so I really think you should take what you can get.”

She smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, only looked at his wrap unhappily.

When he didn’t reply, she too looked down at her food, picking at it. She hadn’t been that hungry, but would’ve felt stupid turning down free food.

Softly, she asked, “How do you think he knew all that about me?”

Damian glanced at her. “Who?” he asked. “The Joker?” She nodded, and he considered this for a moment. “He knows everything about everyone. Don’t take it personally. He knows how to get under everyone’s skin, we’ve all been there.”

“He knew my…” she trailed off. “He knew my mother’s name.” He gave a shrug. “She was in Arkham, right?”

“Yeah, but – not in the Wayne Ward. Not with him.”

“No?” asked Damian, with mild interest. “What was she in for, then?”

Glowering, Ellen muttered, “As if Batman doesn’t have a file with all the sordid details.”

“He doesn’t,” answered Damian. “Or at least not one I have access to.”

For a while, so long that Damian didn’t think she was going to answer, Ellen said nothing. Then, her eyes fixed out across the black water of the ocean, waves lit by moonlight, she said, “She…was transferred. For the Wayne Enterprises drug rehabilitation program.”

“Ah,” said Damian, nodding. “Yes. I understand that whole project was – a massive PR disaster.”

“You could call it that,” Ellen agreed. “It’s what happens when rich people throw money at problems and expect results. At any cost.”

“We didn’t know it was going to go as badly as it did.”

“I know.”

“Arkham’s always been a mess. We really did want to reform it into something good. Something productive.”

“I mean, it was productive,” said Ellen, her voice sharp. “Lobotomizing addicts did help them kick the habit, it just also had the unfortunate side effect of, well, I mean, lobotomizing them.”

There was a short silence. Damian asked, “Is she alright?”

“Kind of,” answered Ellen shortly. “She’ll be in assisted living for the rest of her life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Probably not even your fault. She OD’d a couple times before, so she wasn’t in great shape to begin with.”

“This can’t be an easy case for you.”

“Why?” she asked, looking at him. “Because it has to do with drugs?” He returned her gaze, then gave a little shrug.

“If I couldn’t handle an overdose now and then, Batman wouldn’t have given me the mask.”

“Why did he?”

Ellen leaned forward slightly, setting aside her food and holding the blank scarlet mask in her hands. She shook her head. “When you figure that out,” she said wryly, glancing at him, “let me know?”

When they finished their food and headed back to Damian’s motorcycle, Ellen nudged him again. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks for not asking.”

He didn’t know what she meant. “Not asking what?”

She gestured across her face, at the diagonal scar there. “If this was what she was in for.”

Damian had of course assumed this, but he had been pointedly trying to ignore the scar at all costs since he met Ellen, so he’d avoided saying it outright. For some reason the scar across her face reminded him of his own hidden scar down the length of his back. How he got that was a sensitive story, and he didn’t imagine Ellen’s was any less sensitive.

He took her back into the city, and they parted ways for patrol.

---

NAME: Ellen Nayar ALIAS: Ember DATE OF BIRTH: 26 August 1993 BLOOD TYPE: A+ (Relevant Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Kiran Kaur Nayar, Grandmother AFFILIATIONS: Green Arrow II (Former), Team Ember EVAL: Mastery of basic defensive techniques at a young age provides a solid foundation for future training. Has a tendency to fall back on defense when cornered, relying on tools to compensate. Capable of much more but struggling to balance training as well as other civilian commitments; requires more investment both in and out of uniform. Significant pain tolerance. Easily identifiable due to the scar and also hair/body type, any uniform designs must compensate.

Strong field skills, hand-to-hand improving and introduction of nonlethal weapons going well. An apparent preference for the staff though she lacks martial arts training in that area. Sharp mind and eye for puzzles. Potential for leadership role assuming increased confidence in her abilities. Imperative to firm up her loyalties or risk alienation. Family history of addiction.

NOTES: |Robin| Hand to hand is fine but she needs to work on weapons and tech. Uniform needs an upgrade, face mask restricts breathing |Red Hood| She smokes

---

“I have good news,” said Oracle, on the screen, “and bad news.”

“Good news first,” said Nell, at the same time Damian said, “What’s the bad news?”

They looked at each other, and then Damian gestured for Nell to continue. She beamed at him and asked, “Good news?”

“We got a lead on our guy,” said Oracle, a big globular green head taking up the screen in lieu of her real face. “The one who reverse-engineered the diaxamene.”

Ellen sat up a little straighter, alert. “I thought he was in some mental facility somewhere.”

“Yeah,” continued Oracle. “That’s the bad news. I, uh – had a friend in Chicago drop by to see him.”

“Oh?” interrupted Damian, with a tone that sounded unlike him. It was half intrigued, half snide. “Interesting. What kind of friend?”

“Just a friend,” she said snippily.

Damian just made a face, but didn’t protest. Ellen glanced at him, wondering what that was about. “What’d he have to say?”

“That’s just it,” Oracle told them. “It wasn’t our guy, just some decoy checked in under his name.”

“A decoy?” asked Niloufar, a frown on her face. “For how long?”

“Presumably since he checked in,” said Oracle darkly. “Which means James has been out this entire time, no doubt plotting his next step for years.”

At the name, Damian lifted his head slightly, as if surprised she would use it. He leaned against the wall of the Bunker, a little away from the others, his arms crossed over his chest. “James?” asked Colin. “Is that his name?”

“Yeah,” sighed Oracle. “OK, confession time, you guys.” The green icon which represented Oracle disappeared from the screen, replaced with blackness and then suddenly a crystal clear image, as if a window to another room. An older woman with ginger hair and glasses on sat before them, computer glare lighting her up.

She waved at them. “Some of you have met me,” she said, “but I guess it’s time to make this official. My name’s Barbara, but I’m still O in the field, OK?”

Nell and Niloufar looked a little starstruck; even Colin seemed impressed. “OK,” said Jordan, glancing with what may have been a tinge of jealousy over at Niloufar. “What does that have to do with our case?”

With a look that was tight and worried, almost apologetic, Babs continued, “The guy we’re looking for – his name is James Gordon, Jr. His dad is Commissioner Jim Gordon of the GCPD.”

Everyone’s eyebrows raised in surprise, except for Damian. He watched as Jordan asked, “Gordon? The cop?”

“Commissioner,” Damian corrected, echoing Babs.

“Didn’t he retire?” asked Ellen, glancing around at Damian, who shook his head.

“He was on leave a few years ago, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” continued Barbara, nodding. “He took some time off after what happened with James the first time. I mean,” she paused, adding, “first is relative, but – anyway. Here’s where it gets personal. Jim Gordon is my dad.”

In a little bit of awe, Nell asked, “So this guy is your brother?”

Making a face, Babs said, “Kind of.”

“Kind of?” echoed Jordan derisively. “How can it be kind of-?”

Abruptly, Damian noticed Niloufar; she kept glancing in between him and the screen suspiciously, as if she was just putting something together. “What?” he barked at her.

Again, her gaze flickered in between him and Barbara. “You’re Robin,” she said, then pointed at the screen, “she’s Oracle. Aren’t you two…?” she trailed off. “Does that mean Commission Gordon is your…dad…too?”

Damian just stared at her for a moment, arms still crossed over his chest. Then he pointed at the screen, and asked doubtfully, “Do I look like I’m related to her?”

“You could have different moms,” offered Nell helpfully.

Rolling her eyes, Jordan said, “Come on, Nilou, everybody knows Robin’s dad is-”

Both Damian and Babs said, “Jabberwock,” and even Ellen added a scolding, “Jordan.”

At these reprimands, she threw her hands up in surrender. “Nevermind.”

“OK, so,” said Nell, turning back to the computer screen. “If we’re pretty sure it’s this James guy, then we at least know where to start, right? When was the last time time he was in Gotham, and did he have any favorite haunts? We can start there.”

A little taken aback by Nell’s sudden professionalism, Damian snapped his gaze away from her and back to Babs. “Spoiler is right,” he said. “We’ll dig into all the leads we have on James Gordon Jr.”

“This is the guy who poisoned the baby formula, right?” asked Ellen doubtfully, glancing around at the group of them. Returning her gaze to Babs on the screen, she added, “Of course you know more about him than I do, Oracle, but somehow that kind of crazy complicated scheme just doesn’t seem to fit the M.O. here. Why would he downgrade to selling to rich kids?”

“Actually,” piped up Niloufar, “we went through a couple overdose cases in the city over the past few months and came up with three positive reports for the same Joker Venom-diaxamene hybrid that was found in Joseph Fremont’s body.”

“We?” echoed Damian sharply, watching her.

Instead of shrinking under his gaze, as Damian had expected, Niloufar turned to look directly at him, straightening up slightly. “Me and Jor- Jabberwock.”

Damian watched her for a moment, then his eyes flickered over to Jordan, who nodded.

“So it’s not just Brentwood,” said Ellen.

“But it’s still a valid point,” said Babs, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “James is more psychological than that. I don’t really see him getting off on handing out drugs like some kind of common pusher.”

“You think he’s working with someone,” said Damian.

It was Colin who spoke up then, from where he was leaning against one of the specimen analysis tables. “The Dealer,” he said earnestly. They all paused and looked around at him, and he returned their gazes, nodding slightly. “It’s gotta be this Dealer guy,” he continued, “the one who’s been selling to the older kids at Brentwood? That’s his partner.”

Babs considered this, twisting her lips thoughtfully. “That would make sense,” she admitted. “James can’t exactly hang around the schoolyard, but he could manipulate someone younger into working for him. He manufactures, the Dealer distributes.”

“Then that makes things a lot easier,” said Nell. “If this Dealer guy’s younger, then he’s more inexperienced, which means he’s more likely to slip up.”

“Exactly,” said Babs, nodding. “I think the important part now is to split up-”

Behind everyone, Damian cleared his throat loudly.

When the others looked around, he seemed a little apologetic. But on the screen, Babs hesitated for a moment before letting out a short sigh. “It’s your team’s case,” she admitted. “This is really important, you guys. Batman’s really taking a leap of faith by trusting you with this one.”

“They’ve earned it,” said Damian, in protest.

“Yeah, but.” Babs shrugged, her empty hands turned upwards. “This is Batman we’re talking about. It took him about ten years to even start trusting me.”

“Well,” said Jordan shortly, shooting a slightly too-friendly grin up at Babs, “all that means is that Batman’s one stupid motherfucker.” “OK,” said Damian loudly, moving forwardly to the computer. “Thank you, Oracle. Send anything you’ve got our way, we’ll get ahead on this.”

Before she said anything else, something else seemed to occur to Oracle, and she said, “Oh, one more thing. Which one of you keeps saving your math homework to the encrypted file database?”

There was a beat of pause as Damian turned to glance around at his team. Nell was staring up at the screen with her mouth in a little ‘o’ shape; Ellen nudged her. “That – might be me,” she squeaked, obviously humiliated. “I’m sorry! Robin said we could use the computers he gave us for homework!”

Damian tried not to roll his eyes as Babs explained, “You absolutely can, but you don’t need to put it in the encrypted file drive. Just leave it on your desktop or something so it doesn’t get uploaded to our databases.”

Mortified, Nell nodded. “Sorry,” she said, again.

“It’s fine,” Babs told her. “Anyway, I’m here if you guys need anything. Keep me updated.”

“We will,” promised Damian, and then the screen before them went blank. In the white glow of the Bunker, he turned around to face them all. “Jabberwock, Abuse, Spoiler,” he began, with no hesitation, “you three need to fan out, comb the city for James Gordon Jr. He’s got to be hiding somewhere. Take a look at the information Oracle sent, and then head out. This is our top priority for the time being. Ember,” he added, turning to her, “you’re with me.”

Snidely, Jordan muttered, “Wow, what a surprise.”

Glancing at her then back at Ember, he explained, “We need to figure out who this Dealer person is. If he’s dealing in Gotham, then it can’t hurt to check in with Red Hood.”

Already, Ellen was shaking her head. “Hood doesn’t let his people deal to kids,” she told Damian. “If the Dealer’s been selling to Brentwood students-”

“Based on Seraph’s intel, he’s been dealing on the streets as well. Anyway, I’m not saying Red Hood will know who the Dealer is, just that he may be able to point us in the direction of any suspicious activity lately.”

Ellen considered this, then nodded. “Is he in town?”

Damian nodded. Earlier that week the entire family had gathered to celebrate the final night of Hanukkah; Bruce wasn’t particularly religious, but as he grew older he started to take every opportunity he could to gather everyone under one roof. This had been the first Hanukkah celebration at the Manor Jason had attended since before his death. He had spent most of the night messing around with Damian and Cass, more or less refusing to talk to Bruce directly. All things considered, it went well.

Anyway, Damian knew that Jason was still in Gotham because he’d been in a group chat with him, Cass, and Stephanie since. Steph, offended that she hadn’t been invited, had been alternatively demanding all the details and simultaneously assuring them she wouldn’t even have gone anyway.

Instructing the others to review Oracle’s information then spread out across the city, he made contact with Jason before riding out into the dark streets with Ellen on his motorcycle behind him. “Hey,” she said, her commlink transmitting her voice clearly into Damian’s ear despite the rushing wind, “what’s your deal with Red Hood?” He didn’t answer right away. “What do you mean?”

“He’s, like. One of you guys, right?”

“Oh,” said Damian, taking a sharp right turn that nearly scraped the side of their legs against the street. He had thought she was speaking emotionally, as if she could detect faint strains of annoyance he thought he’d gotten past. But Ellen knew his identity and that of his father, so he wasn’t shy about admitting relation. “He’s my brother,” he told her, his voice a whisper in her ear. They entered the old block of Midtown, edging into Red Hood territory. “Adopted brother, actually, not that it really matters.”

Ellen knew vaguely of Damian Wayne’s adopted brother, but she hadn’t realized he and Red Hood were one and the same. “Damn,” she said. “The papers would have a field day if they realized the founder of Neon Knights was a drug lord on the side.”

This took Damian by surprise; he glanced back at her, confused, and then realization dawned on his face. With a laugh, he slowed the motorcycle, drawing close to their destination. “No, not that brother. Red Hood is older than him.”

After a beat of hesitation, Ellen asked, “I thought the other guy was Nightwing?”

“He is,” sighed Damian, pulling the motorcycle to a stop in a tight alleyway. Getting off, he explained, “Not very many people know this, but I actually have four siblings. Three brothers and a sister.”

“Oh, shit,” said Ellen, impressed. She too got up, slipping off the bike. “And I thought you were an only child.”

“In fairness,” he said, shooting a grin her way, “I do act like one sometimes.”

There was a loud thump before them, and a red helmet shone in the darkness as Jason Todd descended from the fire escape above. “Sometimes?” he echoed, teasing. “More like all the damn time.” He jerked his thumb at Damian and to Ellen, he said, “Kid’s insufferable.”

While Ellen gave Jason an uncertain smile, Damian got straight to business. “You heard about our case?” he asked, his voice low.

Jay gave a shrug, shaking his head slightly. “Rumors, mostly. I heard some evil assclown is selling Joker Venom pills to kids.”

Damian nodded. “We’ve pursuing all the leads we’ve got, but we’re trying to pinpoint a distributor. What do you know?”

“Nothing, really,” admitted Jay. “Nobody on my payroll goes anywhere near kids, definitely not all the way out to the suburbs. Besides, I have kind of a,” he paused, and though Ellen could not see his face behind the helmet, she imagined she could hear him smiling, “thing when it comes to the Joker, so most of my people know not to touch that shit with a ten-foot pole. Sorry,” he said, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. “Wish I could help more.”

“It’s fine,” murmured Damian thoughtfully, taking this in. “Have you caught anyone selling to kids lately? Maybe this is someone you dismissed?”

But Jason was already shaking his head. “Nope,” he said. “My reputation is pretty well-known by now, Robin. People don’t usually try and test me.”

Glancing in between the two heroes, Ellen moved slightly forward. “Is there anyone who left your operation lately, maybe for unrelated reasons? I don’t think a street pusher goes straight to working for a supervillain, if you know what I mean – it’d make sense if our guy had some exposure to you and yours before he ever made it to where he is now.”

Jason considered this for a moment.

And then he let out a very small groan. Though the helmet obscured his expression, Damian’s pulse quickened, sensing and impending revelation. “Yeah,” said Jay, nodding ruefully. “Now that you mention it, yeah. There was this one kid – I didn’t exactly, like, kick him out, ‘cause he never really did anything wrong, but he was just…” he paused for a moment, as if searching for the word, “…creepy. Not like, in a big-bad-supervillain anyway, but he was just kind of a creep. A lot of the women who worked around him had…complaints. He never did anything,” he added mildly, “but they just got weird vibes from him. Women’s intuition, huh?” Ellen heard the grin in his voice, and imagined he may even have winked her direction.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Yeah,” answered Jay, his voice turning serious once more. “This guy – his name’s Scott Morrison, he’s maybe your age, Ember. But I caught him following me around on patrol a few times. Not following,” he continued, qualifying himself, “but – showing up in suspicious places. Like he memorized my route, which is weird enough, but then he’d start asking if I ran into any of the Big Bads. He asked me about Joker maybe once before I put my fist through his front teeth.”

Disappointed, there was a reprimand in his voice when Damian began, “Hood-”

But Jay just laughed and held up his hands. “Wasn’t that bad, li’l wing, just scared him a little. Anyway, haven’t seen him since then.” Damian nodded, but before he could say anything Jay added, “OH! I almost forgot – there was this one time, super fuckin’ weird, I kind of tuned it out.”

At this, Damian and Ellen exchanged looks. “What happened?” she asked.

“OK,” he began, leaning in slightly and lowering his voice. “Now this is super weird, and don’t tell your old man, Robin, ‘cause it’s the kind of thing he’d whoop any of our asses for – but one time, I got, you know,” he mimed gunshots with both hands, “beat up, a little, and I was bleeding all over the place try’na find somewhere to hang out and lick my wounds, and I swear to you this guy – I caught him, like, on his hands and knees on the ground following me with a fucking sponge in his hands.”

Both Damian and Ellen stared at him. “A sponge?” Ellen echoed, with a hint of disbelief.

“Yeah,” said Jay, nodding his head. “A fucking sponge. Blood is literally dripping off of my body, and he’s on the ground sponging it up. It was like, the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”

More heatedly than Ellen really thought was necessary, Damian demanded, “And you just let him take it? Why didn’t you tell Batman about this?”

“Because,” answered Jay, rolling his head in a way that suggested he was also rolling his eyes, “no motherfucker’s dumb enough to try and clone me. You and your dad-” he broke off, glancing at Ellen, then corrected, “-I mean, the Big Man, sure, but me? Nobody gives a shit.”

“It’s protocol,” said Damian stubbornly, but Jason shook his head.

“Believe me, this guy wasn’t smart enough for anything like that. He was just fucking creepy.”

There was a suspicious pause, and then Damian asked, “When did this happen?”

“Like, maybe a month ago? But he quit working for me before that, maybe half a year or so.”

Ellen glanced at Damian. “That fits,” she murmured. “Our first recorded overdose was almost four months ago. That leaves time for recruiting and initial distribution.”

“Right,” said Damian, with a nod. The expression on his face was still severe. “Hood, we’ll need all the info you can get us on this Scott Morrison character.”

“He used to have a place over in Midtown,” Jay said. “I think it was a motel or something, nothing permanent. Riverview, or something?”

“Riverview,” repeated Ellen, with an urgent look towards Damian. “That was on Oracle’s list.”

With a nod, Damian touched the commlink at his ear. “Thanks,” he said to Red Hood, and then into his comm he said, “Spoiler, come in.”

Returning to Damian’s bike, they headed back through the city. By the time they reached Riverview Boarding House, Spoiler was waiting for them in Room 7. “I talked to the owner,” she said, as Ellen and Damian entered the room. “Somebody’s kept up-to-date on payments, but he hasn’t seen anybody come in or out for a couple weeks now.”

“Probably since we started investigating,” said Ellen, as Damian moved forward to search the room. “He knew we were on to him and wasn’t about to get caught with his pants down.”

“Robin,” said Nell, watching him search the walls for hidden compartments. He glanced around at her, and she jerked her head towards a door in the wall. “The closet.”

For a moment he did not move, only stared at her. And then he turned to the rickety wooden door, and he opened it.

Peering in behind him, Ellen made a face. “Gross,” she said.

Damian said nothing, taking in the sight before them: a veritable shrine to the Joker, littered with newspaper clippings and amateur art and low-res photos printed from the internet. In the center, there was a small Robin action figure, the kind of thing sold at tourist traps in Gotham. The plastic Robin’s limbs and his head were all removed from his body.

Gravely, Damian said, “He’s a Joker fan.”

“That explains why he’s working with JGJ,” offered Nell, from behind them. When both Ellen and Damian glanced back at her, she clarified, “Uh, James-Gordon-Junior. He needed a snappier name.”

Looking back at Damian, Ellen said thoughtfully, “It does explain the connection. Gordon used the lure of Joker Venom to recruit Morrison as his Dealer.”

Still staring at the shrine, Damian’s brown skin had gone wan with disgust, and his lips were pressed tightly together. “I don’t understand these people,” he said lowly, then he stood up, getting to his feet. “The Joker is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people. He’s a criminal. He’s not funny, he’s not interesting, and I don’t understand people who find him compelling.”

“Yeah,” agreed Nell sympathetically. “I mean, the guy’s basically a terrorist.”

Ellen caught the brief flicker of emotion across Damian’s face, a momentary tell that betrayed how much Damian disliked that word. Still; Ellen didn’t think Nell was wrong. “This is good, though,” said Ellen, to Damian. “It means we can bait him.”

Damian paused, then, very slowly, he turned around to look at Ellen.

----

“No,” said Bruce, shaking his head.

“It’s an hour, tops,” Damian insisted, leaning against the computer’s control panel in the Cave. “The entire team will be on top of him the whole time. It’ll be fine.”

“No,” repeated Bruce, shaking his head. “You are not removing the Joker from Arkham custody for any amount of time. He is in solitary confinement for a reason, he’s too dangerous-”

“A hour,” Damian repeated, practically begging his father. “Tightly contained and surveilled. It’s the easiest way to smoke out the Dealer.”

“The easiest is not always the wisest,” said Bruce shortly, “and I will not permit you to play games with a dangerous criminal. He always has a plan, and he’s bested you before.”

“But the entire team-”

“My answer is final,” Bruce told his son. “Harleen is out on parole, perhaps she may be of some help.”

As if disgusted by this suggestion, Damian began, “I’m not retraumatizing Doctor Quinzel on the off chance that she completes Scott Morrison’s Joker fantasy. Most Joker-philes like him think she’s a meaningless distraction anyway.”

“I’m afraid I cannot allow the alternative, Damian. It’s too dangerous.”

“We’re so close.”

“Then find another way.” Bruce’s voice was not unkind as he said, “I believe in you, and I believe in your team. But this mission has already exposed you and Ember to that monster enough. It isn’t going to happen again.”

For a moment, there was silence in the cave except for the constant whirr of machinery and the far-off drip of slowly-forming stalactites. There was a profound tension between father and son, thick enough to slice; Damian was once more angry that his father was blocking the team’s ventures, and yet Bruce would not budge. There was no compromise here.

On the specimen analysis table, unceremoniously contained in a plastic box, the crowbar remained. Bruce had not been sure what to do it, and so as he ran his tests he had kept it there in full view for all to see. Mercifully, Jason had not ventured into the Cave the last time he was here.

A part of Damian wanted to tell Bruce about Scott Morrison, known Joker fanboy, on his hands and knees, sponging up blood. He wanted to tell him that he’d dug up records that someone fitting Scott Morrison had made a clandestine visit to the Joker’s cell in Arkham, presumably leaving him with a gift. He wanted his father to know that the crowbar was a complete plant, and if the crust of bloodstains on its curved end matched Jason Todd’s, it wasn’t because this was the weapon that had been used to kill him.

But Damian was still a sixteen year old, and he was still petty. Perhaps Bruce was being especially strict because of this painful reminder of his own failure at the Joker’s hands, but Damian was just spiteful enough to keep this small knowledge from his father anyway, let him simmer in his own guilt and shame.

“Fine,” Damian said curtly. “Then any further deaths due to this Dealer character are on your conscience, Father.”

Later, he updated Ellen on the situation via commlink while on patrol. She sounded somber. “So that’s it, then?” she sighed. “That plan is out.”

“Hm? Oh, no,” said Damian, leaping from one rooftop to another, his boots absorbing most of the shock of impact. “We’re still going to do it. We just need to keep it a secret from Batman.”

“What?”

He fiddled at his commlink. “Ember, can you hear me? I said we need to keep it as secret from Batman.”

“No, I heard you, I just – that’s impossible.”

“Not impossible,” he corrected, “merely difficult for the inexperienced. Luckily you have me, and I happen to be extremely adept at keeping secrets from Batman. You have to learn that kind of thing,” he told her, offhandedly, “when you live in a house with him.”

“Breaking the Joker out of Arkham is a little different than sneaking out to meet your girlfriend, Robin.”

Without hesitation, Damian said coolly, “That’s not what I meant.” It had been, actually, almost exactly what he meant. “All I’m saying is that I know him well enough to anticipate where he’ll be watching. We do this quickly and effectively, and it’ll be over before he knows it.”

“That’s…optimistic.”

“I have been told I have a very glass-half-full demeanor, yes.”

Ellen laughed, and despite himself Damian caught himself grinning. “If you say so. When’s it going down?”

Good question. Damian considered this, standing above a stone gargoyle, scanning the cold city streets below him. “The longer we wait, the more drugs the Dealer gets out on the streets.”

“Fair enough. What’s the plan?”

“Meet the others at the Bunker. I’ll explain everything there.”

When all was said and done, it did take a little more time than Damian had anticipated. The first phase was dependent on the speed and inertia of rumor, which was spread both throughout Brentwood via Colin and Niloufar and throughout the rest of drug-dealing Gotham by Jason and a select few on his payroll. The rumor spoke of an anniversary: the birth of the Joker, or the rebirth, rather, when a man was swallowed by acid and spat back out as something else. It was a trap, designed to target the biggest Joker fanboy who frequented those circles, who, of course, naturally knew the apocryphal location of that fateful warehouse.

All they needed was one night. It had to work perfectly, smooth as silk, precise as clockwork; but Damian had faith in his team. Well. Ember’s team.

Ellen herself was stationed at the warehouse, staking it out. Colin and Nell were off on the other side of the city, waiting for their cue; Niloufar was spearheading operations out of the Bunker, and Jordan was with Damian, her speed, strength, and flight, a necessary part of his plan.

Hidden inside the bowels of Arkham Asylum, Jordan hovering slightly above him, Damian watched the seconds tick by on his mask’s lens display. For a minute or so, there was nothing but tense silence.

And then Damian touched the commlink at his ear. “Abuse, Spoiler,” he said, “you’re good to go. Seraph, how are we on security?” “All disabled and looped,” came Niloufar’s voice, without hesitation.

“Perfect,” he replied. “Ember, Jabberwock’s on her way.” He nodded towards Jordan, then took the lead, expertly navigating through the high-ceilinged halls of Arkham, avoiding guards.

In his cell, the Joker was still singing. “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, hoppin’ through the forest…”

Disabling the door’s security, Damian gestured for Jordan to take over. “Go.”

She did so, wrapping her arms roughly underneath the Joker’s shoulders and heaving him up and out, shooting back the way she and Damian came, disappearing into the night. The Joker’s fading laughter echoed in Damian’s ears as he locked and secured the door once more, then slipped away, hoping no one would notice Joker’s sudden silence.

As Damian headed back out to where his motorbike was stowed, he checked the open channel; the shit had, to put it delicately, apparently hit the fan, and Batman was barking orders at other Gotham heroes following an incident on the other side of the city, which meant he was far away from Arkham and from the docks where their plan was about to go down.

It took him almost twenty minutes to make it to the warehouse. Leaving his bike some ways away, as he approached the empty, abandoned building he was certain he could hear that faint, familiar laughter. Their trap was lain.

He found Ellen and Jordan in the rafters, high above the walkways which crisscrossed above vats which were now mostly empty. Jordan had dropped the Joker in one which had a foot or two of (probably?) nontoxic sludge at the bottom, and his laughter was so manic and so loud that its reverberations started to hurt Damian’s ears. He activated the dampeners in his commlink, relying on his teammates’ comms to hear them.

“Nice work,” he told them both. “Abuse and Spoiler gave us an hour, tops. After that Batman resumes his normal patrol around the city, but we caught him as far away as we could, so it should be at least another hour after that before he realizes there’s anything amiss.”

Though Ellen’s face was obscured, the sound of her voice betrayed her concern. “So Morrison better show up in the next two hours.”

“He will,” said Damian, watching the dark and empty walkways below them. “He won’t be able to resist the lure of legend, and there’s no way he’ll stay away once he hears that.”

“No kidding,” muttered Jordan, following his gaze.

“That’s still leaving an awful lot to chance,” Ellen added, sounding uncertain. “The timeline seems kind of arbitrary, and I’m still not completely sure why we needed the Joker himself for this anyway? Seems to me we could’ve just used, I don’t know, a recording of his voice or something-”

“Ember, please,” said Damian shortly, waving away her concerns. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, OK,” she replied, maybe a little insulted. “I don’t doubt that, Robin, but I’m pretty sure Batman said that this isn’t your team, it’s mine, and part of me is starting to think the only reason you wanted to go get Joker in the first place was because your dad told you not to-”

But before Ellen could continue or Damian, suddenly livid, could open his mouth to defend himself, Niloufar’s voice echoed in all of their ears. “Someone’s approaching the warehouse,” she told them, via commlink. “Good luck, you guys.”

They didn’t reply, because at that moment they heard the big sheet metal door to the warehouse creak open. All at once, the Joker’s laughter suddenly stopped.

Scott Morrison was not at all what Damian had been expecting. He was somewhere in his twenties, tall, slim, good-looking. His blond hair was gathered into a topknot, and he wore wide-brimmed glasses which appeared to have no magnifying effect on his eyes, and so therefore were probably only worn for the aesthetic appeal. Both he and Ellen shifted uncomfortably at the same time, perhaps coming to the simultaneous conclusion of, Oh no, he’s hot.

“Hello?” he called into the vast warehouse, which Damian thought was a pretty stupid move. He went to the stairs which led to the walkways above the giant but now-empty vats, climbing them slowly, cautiously, peering around. “Joker? Mister J?” he called, which caused Damian to cringe slightly and Jordan to whisper, “Yikes.”

Morrison continued, making his way across steel catwalk, his hands on the railing on either side. “I heard you laughing,” he called. “Are you here? Joker?”

A low, sickly chuckle emanated from one of the vats. Morrison’s eyes went wide behind his fake glasses, and he darted across the walkway, leaning over the railing.

The Joker leered up at him. His voice was low and frightening, like a purr in the back of his throat. “Who’s asking?”

“Oh, shit,” said Morrison, in obvious excitement. “Holy fuck, OK, oh my God, Mister Joker, woah. Hold on,” he said.

Morrison dug into his pocket, and Jordan muttered, “Oh, Christ,” as he took out a phone and literally posed for a selfie.

“Oh my God, Mister Joker, big fan,” said Morrison, once he’d taken the picture. “Like, holy shit, I can’t believe this is actually happening-”

Ellen gently nudged Jordan. “Go,” she whispered, but then Damian held out his arm.

“Wait,” he said.

In disbelief, Ellen blinked at him. “We have him,” she whispered angrily at him, “he’s right there, if we don’t move now then the Joker could tip him off to this whole operation-”

But Damian was already shaking his head. “Wait,” he said again.

This infuriated Ellen. Jordan just gave her an apologetic look and a shrug. Knowing Robin was the most experienced vigilante between the three of them, she forced herself into silence.

In the vat, up to mid-calf in a thick yellowy-gray sludge, the Joker just stared up at Morrison, unimpressed. “Big fan, huh?” he echoed. “What era?”

Morrison stared down at him. “Uh, what was that?”

“What era?” repeated the Joker, sounding as petulant as a child. “Nicholson, Ledger, Leto? Who was your favorite?”

“Um,” said Morrison uncertainly, “uh, no, sir, I think you misunderstand me, I’m just saying that like, you know, out of Batman’s whole rogues gallery, out of, you know, out of everything in Gotham that makes up the soul of this place – I mean, you’re it, man! Your presence is stamped into the very fabric of Gotham City! You’re everything!”

There was a silence. The Joker stared up at him. “Not very funny, are you?” he asked, his lip jutting out in a pout.

“What – I mean, no one’s as funny as the Clown Prince of Crime! But, like, I do have some stand-up material, if you like, want to hear?” He paused anxiously, then began, “OK, so, like, here’s one – why does Batman’s sidekick keep getting younger and younger?”

Sounding bored, the Joker drawled, “’Cause the older ones keep dying.”

“No,” said Morrison, “but – that’s funny too. No, it’s ‘cause – ‘cause he’s Robin the cradle. Get it? Like robbing?”

There was a long, tense silence. And then the Joker let out a chuckle. “Hey, kid,” he called up, “that is pretty funny.”

Beside her, Ellen could feel Damian tense, his entire body coiled tightly. He was aching to jump into action, she could tell. She didn’t entirely understand why he hadn’t already.

“Hey, kid!” Joker called once more. “Why don’t you come on down here, and tell me a couple more of those funny jokes you got there?”

A flash of uncertainty crossed Morrison’s face. “Oh, I – I don’t know-”

“Aw, come on,” said the Joker, kicking around at the sludge under his feet. “Hey, wanna hear another one? What did Batman say to Robin before they got in the Batmobile?”

Jordan leaned over and whispered, “I know this one!”

“Get in the car, Robin,” said Joker, and then he wheezed with laughter, breathless in his own hilarity. A grin spread across Morrison’s face. Once more he dug into his pocket for something, then pulled out a plastic baggie full of pills. He snagged three or four out of the bag, and stuffed them into his mouth, swallowing them down.

Then he climbed up on the railing, and he jumped down into the vat below.

He hit the bottom with a sickening crunch, and let out a yelp of pain. “Got him,” muttered Damian, but once more he stopped Jordan from moving. “Wait.”

The Joker stalked towards Morrison, who misinterpreted this as intent to help him up. “No!” he barked. “No, no, no! This is good! Pain is good, it’s freeing, like chaos of the mind!” He let out a loud, manicured laugh, as if it were something he practiced in the mirror. “See, Joker, man, I get it! I get you, the big joke behind everything, the ultimate gag! Laugh in the face of an indifferent universe! It doesn’t matter anyway, so why not try to burn as many bridges as you can on your way out, right? We all die in the end!”

“That’s not very funny,” said the Joker.

“It’s all funny!” insisted Morrison, as the Joker slowly neared him, like a shark stalking his prey. “That’s the point! It isn’t real! It doesn’t matter! That’s what makes the joke so damn funny-”

The Joker grabbed Morrison’s topknot; his wide grin, usually so gleeful, was downturned into a comical frown. Though the slimy sludge at the bottom of the vat was only about a foot high, he shoved his face into it, sticking a knee on Morrison’s back to keep him down. Morrison started to struggle wildly, his shouts unintelligible as the ugly goo slipped into his mouth and nose.

“It’s like babies in bathwater,” the Joker said, cocking his head, watching Morrison struggle. “Never understood it! You leave the kiddies alone for two minutes and suddenly they’re floatin’ on their bellies like a bunch of goldfish. How do they drown in that!” He let out a guffawing, belly-deep laugh, which sent a chill down Ellen’s spine. Pushing Morrison’s face deeper into the sludge beneath him, he roared, “It’s not that deep!”

At that, Ellen disregarded her orders and moved. She leapt onto the steel walkway, sprinted down towards the vat, and jumped in, her feet landing squarely on Joker’s shoulders, knocking him off his feet. As Morrison lifted his face and gasped for breath, the Joker turned around to see her, and his face lit up. He laughed maniacally, gleeful.

“Look who’s back!” he screeched. “How nice! How soon! Tell me, how’s Mama?”

Ellen drew her fist back to throw a punch, but in a split second, the Joker had disappeared; she glanced up to see Jordan spiriting him away, presumably back to his cold cell in Arkham. There was a squelching thump behind her, and she turned around to see Robin glaring at her. As Morrison coughed, Damian said, “I had it under control.”

Pointing towards the pathetic figure on his hands and knees, Ellen said, “Joker was going to kill him.”

“He was going to scare him,” replied Damian pointedly. “Nothing like a healthy dose of trauma to cure you off your obsession with a criminal like the Joker.”

Still wracked with coughs, Morrison’s head swiveled towards Damian, sludge dripping down his face. “S’not a – criminal – he’s an – artist-”

Damian turned around, looking only mildly interested. He kicked at Morrison’s torso with his boot, and the man toppled over. “The eight-year-olds finger-painting at Neon Knight Centers are artists,” he told him. “The Joker’s just a two-bit con man who somehow stumbled into mythologization.”

Gasping for breath, Morrison refused this. “He’s the – beating heart – of Gotham City! He’s Batman’s binary star! He defines the Batman!”

Damian grabbed the man’s collar and swung a leg over his head so his feet stood on either side of him. His gloved fist connected solidly with the front of Morrison’s face. “He’s not that interesting,” Damian said shortly.

“Where would Batman be without the Clown Prince of Crime?”

Again, Damian punched him. “In better mental health than he is right now, that’s for sure.”

“Who would he be? He’s the Batman’s greatest match! His greatest foil! The only other man he’ll ever truly understand!”

His fist connected for a third time with Morrison’s face, and Damian looked over his shoulder to address Ellen. “People use that one a lot,” he said, sounding genuinely perplexed. “It really says something concerning about how people interpret empathy and intimacy in male relationships.”

Once more Morrison attempted that terrible, overly-practiced laugh, and Damian turned around again to hit him in the face again. It was then that Ellen moved forward, placing a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “As satisfying as this may be,” she told him, sympathetically, “we’re here to get information out of him, remember? We need to know about Gordon.”

“Gordon?” echoed Morrison; there was incredulity in his voice, even through the blood running out of his mouth. “J-James Gordon?”

“That’s the one,” said Ellen, turning to him. “Junior, that is. Is he the one who’s been supplying you with the modified diaxamene?”

“Diaxamene?” he repeated, but Ellen was already digging through his pockets for that plastic baggie full of pills, which she quickly found and removed. “I don’t know what the fuck diaxa-what is, that shit’s diluted Joker Venom!”

“Yes, we know,” said Damian shortly, clearly still irritated. “You’re the one they call the Dealer, aren’t you?”

“I – I don’t know, man, James just said to tell people that!”

“James,” said Ellen, seizing hold of this. “He’s your supplier, isn’t he?” His whole body trembling, he tried to nod, but it came out looking more like a seizure. Spittle gathered at the corner of his mouth, and his skin was quickly draining its color, turning pale. Quickly Damian pulled open one eyelid, inspecting his pupils. Tightening his grip on Morrison’s collar, Damian asked, “How many pills have you taken tonight?” Morrison started to shake violently, his eyes rolling back into his head, and through his teeth, Damian snarled, “No!” Removing one hand from Morrison’s collar, Damian flipped open a compartment on his utility belt, popped the cap off a tiny syringe, and plunged it into Morrison’s neck.

“Anti-Venom?” asked Ellen. Damian nodded as Morrison’s shaking subsided, and he grew limp in Damian’s grip. “Robin,” she said, lowering her voice. “You can OD on diaxamene too if you take enough of it. The Anti-Venom may not work.”

“Maybe not,” grunted Damian, “but it’ll give us more time.” He shook Morrison bodily by the collar, and the man’s head lolled on his neck, his eyes blinking out of sync. “Scott Morrison,” he barked, “we know you’re the Dealer, and we know you’re working with James Gordon, Junior. Listen to me. Tell me where he is, and I’ll do my best to save your sorry life. If you have nothing to give me, then I will leave you here, and you will die alone in a warehouse where no one will find your body for weeks, if not months, and you’ll go to your grave knowing that Joker himself thinks you’re not fucking funny. Now,” he said, his voice calm and collected. “Where is James Gordon Junior?”

Something was catching in Morrison’s throat, making it impossible to reply; Ellen had a suspicion that it was vomit, his stomach protesting against all the poison he’d swallowed. Incapable or unwilling to form words, he merely lifted his hands, and he pointed out of the windows which lined the walls, just below the ceiling.

Damian paused, then he twisted around, following the direction of Morrison’s finger. Ellen did as well, but she didn’t understand: all that was visible out of the window was the night sky, stars faded above the lights of the city, and the shooting spire of the tallest building in Gotham City – Wayne Tower.

Grabbing Morrison’s hair, Ellen hissed, “Is this a game to you?” but Damian had already let him go, shooting his grappling hook out onto the walkway above.

He touched the commlink at his ear. “Seraph!” he called wildly. “Seraph, come in!”

Something dropped into Ellen’s stomach as she understood. Following Damian, she sent out a 911 call with Morrison’s location and status, then quickly followed Damian onto his bike. Niloufar had never responded to Damian’s call, and when he tried Jordan, he heard nothing from her either.

As they raced through Gotham, Ellen asked, “You think Gordon knows about the Bunker?”

“Maybe,” murmured Damian. “I know he knows about my family, and he knew about Batman back when we were based out of the Bunker. It’s a tease, Ember, don’t you get it? The diaxamene, the Joker Venom, the dead child so close to the Manor? He’s been playing us this whole time.”

“How?” asked Ellen, confused. “What do you mean?”

The bike shot into the secret entrance to the Bunker, and Damian was off of it immediately, sprinting into the main computer hub. “Seraph!” he called, looking around wildly, but there was no one there. “Seraph!”

Before them, the computer screen glowed a blank white. Something blared on both Damian and Ellen’s comms, Batman sending out an emergency signal for something going down at Arkham. “Jabberwock,” said Ellen to Damian, fear tight in her voice. “Something’s gone wrong-”

For a moment, Damian did nothing. On either side of him, he squeezed his fists tightly, gloves still stained red with Scott Morrison’s blood.

Then he turned to Ellen and said, “We can’t leave. Gordon’s here.”

“Where?”

Damian gestured for her to follow him, then took her through a set of doors she’d never seen open; he peeled his mask off his face, then lowered his eye down to a retina display. It blinked green, and an elevator opened. He held out one hand as if to say to her, After you.

“Where are we going?” she asked, unmoving.

He shrugged, then stepped into the elevator first. “The Penthouse,” he said shortly. “It’s where Nightwing and I lived back when he was Batman. If I’m right, it’s where Gordon’s set up camp.”

In disbelief, she finally boarded the elevator with him. “And how is it possible that none of your fancy security features ever picked up on anything up there?”

“I don’t know,” said Damian shortly, pressing his mask back onto his face. The elevator moved so rapidly with such sudden force that Ellen almost stumbled. “But it’s stupidly obvious – where’s the one place we would never look? Right under our noses, of course.”

Ellen glanced up at the ceiling of the elevator. “Or – above our noses, I guess,” she mumbled.

They emerged in a hallway; Damian jogged to the door and took off his glove, pressing his thumb against a scanner, and then he said aloud, “Voice recognition, Damian Wayne,” and the lock of the door let out a little click.

Lowly, Ellen asked, “If your security’s so tight, how’d he get through?” but Damian ignored her, pressing his gloved hand against the door and pushing.

The Penthouse was dark, but a light was on down the hallway, coming from the kitchen. When Ellen and Damian entered, a voice called, “In here!”

With a wary glance at each other, they followed the source of the voice. Turning the corner into the big modern kitchen, they found James Gordon Jr. sitting at the counter, glasses on his face, a spoon tucked into a pot of yogurt.

“Hi,” he said, waving at them. “Hey, it’s nice to finally meet you, Damian.” To Ellen he said, “I don’t know who you are,” then continued, “Nice digs, huh? Dick could’ve decorated more probably, but personally I like it.”

“Where is Seraph?” asked Damian, his voice flat.

“If you mean the girl downstairs,” James answered, scooping up a spoonful of yogurt, “she left a while ago. Probably to help her friend with the Joker.” Blandly, he looked at Damian. “Really nice of you to break him out and everything for me, Damian. I didn’t even have to lift a finger.”

“You’re done, Gordon,” Damian told him. “Your operation is shut down.”

“What operation?” asked James, looking mildly interested.

“The drugs.”

“I don’t have any drugs,” said James, innocently.

Damian stared at him, his expression stony and unreadable.

“Go ahead, search the place,” James continued. “Not a lot around here except some personal mementos. Sorry for squatting, but, hey, life’s tough when everyone thinks you’re a psychopathic murderer, right, Damian?”

Color dropped out of Damian’s cheeks, then suddenly rushed back in, flushing his brown skin. Sensing they had to take control of this situation, Ellen stepped up. “We’ve got you, Gordon,” she said simply. “We got the Dealer, too. We know what you’ve been putting out on the streets.”

“I haven’t been putting anything on the streets,” James said smoothly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Feeling a surge of anger, she suddenly sympathized with Damian’s fury. “Scott Morrison-”

“-OD’d,” said James flatly. “Right?”

Damian and Ellen exchanged a look. For all they knew, Morrison had died before the paramedics reached him.

“Scott Morrison was a crazy man with a Joker fetish,” James said, with a shrug. He ate a spoonful of yogurt. “Nothing to do with me.”

“The diaxamene-”

For the first time, a hunt of frustration entered his voice. “Any idiot could’ve gotten ahold of that. Haven’t you heard, Miss Nayar? Prescription pills are all the rage nowadays. Oh,” he added, picking up a remote from behind him, pointing it at the television on the wall. “Would you look at that.” A Breaking News broadcast played, informing viewers that a potential catastrophe at Arkham Asylum had narrowly been avoided, and the Joker, who had mysteriously vanished from his cell, was back in custody.

James smiled at Damian and Ellen.

“All according to plan,” he said.

Damian’s eyes were glued to the screen, slightly in shock as the news showed shaky video footage of a slim figure shooting into the sky, holding someone else in their arms. It was obviously Jordan, and it looked like she was carrying Niloufar, who had covered her face with her headscarf against the cameras. Despite himself and the absurdity of the situation, he somehow found himself taken by surprise that they had managed to solve the situation on their own, without his help.

James Gordon Jr. did not fight back. He did not protest; when the police came, they arrested him, but found no evidence of wrongdoings in the Penthouse except, obviously, trespassing. Later, into his commlink, Oracle informed Damian that they were holding her brother temporarily, but they may not have enough solid evidence to put him away.

Meanwhile, Ellen got a quick status report from the other members of the team, then checked on Scott Morrison. He was alive, but comatose.

As the late nighttime hours began to bleed into the impossibly early morning, Damian and Ellen sat on the rooftop of a building, their legs hanging down over the side.

“I know – technically – we won,” said Ellen, peering down at the city streets below them. “So why does it still feel like we got played?”

“It usually feels like that,” Damian told her dully, without looking around at her. “Especially with filth like the Joker and Gordon, Junior. It always feels like there’s something we missed.”

“We didn’t need to take the Joker out of custody.”

“No,” agreed Damian. “I…suppose I just hate it when people think the Joker is bigger than he is. He’s a lowlife criminal. I wanted Morrison to understand that.”

“I think that’s the problem,” said Ellen, glancing around at him. “It…strikes me that you really can’t take these things personally in this business.”

Damian didn’t answer for a moment. Then, slowly, he got to his feet. “I understand that,” he announced, with some finality. “But…I don’t think it’s right to remove your own feelings out of these kinds of situations. I think that’s how you end up like Batman.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It’s the worst thing,” he told her, his gaze flickering over to her. “A terrible option. The bad ending.”

“I don’t know,” she challenged, with a shrug. “He took care of this city for a long time before you came along. Maybe he knows something you don’t.”

This obviously troubled Damian. He bade her farewell, and then he made his way back to Wayne Manor, arriving in the Cave just as the very first edges of dawn began to break. His father was already there, seated in his throne before the computer, as always. Damian noticed the crowbar was gone from its place on the specimen table.

He removed his mask on his way up from the garage, passing his father at the computer and heading in the direction of the stairs that led up to the house above. Before he reached them, though, he paused, and he turned around.

“Father,” he said.

Bruce moved only slightly, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted, like pulling teeth.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then Bruce turned back to the computer, his fingers clacking away on the keyboard. “What are you apologizing for?” he asked. “You won.”

“The Joker-”

“Is back in Arkham.”

“But I-”

“Maybe you made mistakes, Robin,” said Bruce, still facing the screen, “but your team was there for you, and they took care of it. I was impressed with Jabberwock and Seraph in particular tonight. Jabberwock should do very well on patrol, though I believe Seraph would benefit from a more permanent headquarters.” On the screen, Bruce flipped through a series of safehouses he’d long kept on reserve. “The Haven, perhaps?”

Damian gaped at his father. “Headquarters?” he asked. “Patrol? You mean to say – this is it? You really trust them?”

“I trust you,” said Bruce, “and I trust Ember. That’s got to be enough for now.”

Still, Damian felt discontent. “Father,” he began, “I still think – if we had just-”

“Ifs and should haves are poison, Damian,” said Bruce, without looking around. “You won. Red Hood and some of his contents are working on getting Gordon’s drug off the streets, but without a supplier, it should dry up on its own.”

“And Gordon?”

“From what I hear of him, he’s no criminal mastermind. He just likes toying with people. If he can, his father will put him away.”

“His father,” echoed Damian, trying to ignore the obvious parallels suddenly rearing his mind. “I imagine you might be feeling some…empathy, for his situation.”

“None at all, Damian. None at all.”

Damian rolled his eyes, then turned to head up into the Manor, taking the stairs two at a time.

----

NAME: Niloufar Ghorbani ALIAS: N/A / Seraph DATE OF BIRTH: 16 October 1996 BLOOD TYPE: O+ (Full Medical History) EMERGENCY CONTACT: Nazanin & Mahmoud Ghorbani, Parents (Contact) AFFILIATIONS: Team Ember EVAL: Observe for further development of metahuman abilities

#sog2 #earth 28 #damian wayne #colin wilkes #nell little #ellen nayar #bruce wayne #jason makes a cameo!!!!!#also i hated writing the joker #and this fic officially makes jewish!waynes canon #i'll fix some shit in here before i upload it to ao3 but i just had to power thru it and get it Finished #oh babs is also there

6 notes · View notes