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lovlyrp · 9 months ago

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excerpt [2] from my archived TWD rp: "the ones who live" (2021-23)

𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦 : A chapter after the bridge explosion (S9) where an injured Faith (Rick's adopted daughter) & Rick Grimes are trying to survive the damage. They found a pharmacist, Jared, who tags along only because she needs him to look after her father in really rough shape.

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ : For 18+ only. Chapter contains violence, gore, all TWD regulars. [ word count: 7294 ]

➯ note: this was originally an rp where another author wrote Rick's perspective. All credits for those parts go to them and are marked with this symbol "⿻".*

Home. Family. It all seemed so far. Faith didn’t see it the way Rick did. She thought they were gone, that everything was gone. Everything they loved was gone. But he just thought they were lost- that they were going to go home. She tries to remind herself that they’re not dead. That they’re still here and they have somewhere to go. They’re not lost. Not completely.

Jared Epson, the pharmacist they picked up, moves his body as he adjusts his position, making Faith sit up immediately and look at him. He freezes as he hears her movements, pretending to be asleep. “Good.” She says, now standing up and walking over to her designated rock pillow, sitting down on it. “You’re awake.” Jared lifts his head and looks at her, noticing her eyes were teary. She wipes her face with her arm and sighs as she looks around, seemingly safe from anything. The walkers’ bodies were still scattered a bit further away, but that didn’t matter. They were dead. Jared sits up and looks at the terribly injured man strung up on the wood planks. The girl’s father. “Now you can go check on him,” she says, motioning her open knife to Rick, not giving the man a choice but to check on him. She needs to know he's okay.

⿻His ice blue eyes meet Jared's through his glasses, giving him an intimidating and an assertive stare, even though he was weak. He may be frail and unable to walk on his own for now, but he sure as hell had to make it clear that Jared wasn’t leading them and that he wasn’t in charge. Then again, Faith seemed to have already done that. She was the leader. Not Jared. Not Rick. Her. ⿻

Jared stands up and stretches, walking over to the plank sled and crouching down beside the man. He feels his head with his hand, feeling Faith’s eyes burning through his skin as he does a wellness check on her father. “He’s a little hot. Probably a light fever.” He says, sitting on his folded legs as he looks at the closed wound. “It doesn’t look infected.” He says, giving the injured man a small smile as he bears the good news. Faith nods as she listens to the updates, admiring her knife.

“What can we do about the fever?” She asks, looking at the man now. Jared shrugs.

“He needs water. We all do,” he says, looking at the empty water bottle beside him. They used it all last night. She didn’t even think about how dehydrated she was. Her mind had other priorities than her own health.

She looks out at the woods before sighing. “You said you were ‘passing though,’” she says, looking at Jared now. “From where? Is there something there we can use?” She asks, eyeing the tubby man. He scratches his chin and sighs as he thinks about her question.

“I’ve been staying in a van. No gas or anything. Just been sleeping in it.” He says, figuring it had no real use. She nods and looks down at her ankle splint. She thinks for a long time before looking at him again.

“We need to get moving.” She says, standing up and going to her dad, folding her knife away and picking up the belt loop. Jared shakes his head in silent disagreement, picking up his bag and lantern before they go. She shouldn’t put more pressure on her ankle. And where were they even going, anyway?

“Where to?” He asks, his voice a lot less nervous than yesterday. She pulls her dad along the planks, yanking the belt loop. She still wasn’t letting Jared help. She doesn’t answer his question. How could she? She didn’t even know where they were now. She was just walking aimlessly, hoping to find something or somewhere they can stay to heal and go home, like Rick said. ⿻He just laid there with his eyes closed, listening to everything that was going on around them. The sound of the planks dragging against the ground. The gentle wind brushing through the trees. He listened to any signs of other people or walkers. He couldn’t be too careful, even though his eyes weren’t even open. He felt his breath slowing down, but he wasn’t going to let himself go unconscious again. He couldn’t. But he could say goodbye to Carl if he did. No. He couldn’t. He can’t stop fighting.⿻ After a while of walking, she finally answers.

“I don’t know.”

Faith keeps tugging for what felt like hours. She was getting tired already on her ankle and she's thirsty. Her stomach felt so empty that it cramped to move. Jared was sweating completely through his shirt again, struggling to keep his groaning to himself. Be must not be used to walking long distances. Neither was Faith. Not this long anyway. She keeps dragging the planks by the belt loop until she sees something through the trees. It looked like some sort of water tower. Water towers usually mean there’s a town nearby. She keeps pulling with more hope this time, thinking they could find some food or something to keep them stable. Jared noticed it too, reading the town name printed on the water tower out loud, "Blue Ridge.” He starts to move with more energy too, as this was good news.

Faith sighs and looks down at her dad, noticing he was covering his face from the sun. She frowns with worry and guilt, realizing she should’ve taken better care of him so he was comfortable. She leans down and checks his forehead with the back of her hand before running her hand through his short hair. “Sorry,” she says, apologizing for him being here like this.

She looks at Jared and then at the buildings around. She has to check each one. There has to be something they could use. She drags the planks across the street to one side of the strip of buildings, letting go of the belt as she pulls him into the shade. She looks through the dirty window of the building they’re in front of, not able to see anything through the grime. She pulls her knife and looks at Jared. “You stay here with him.” She says, hoping he wouldn’t do anything stupid to make her kill him. She really didn’t want to have to lose a doctor who could help her dad.

“What am I supposed to protect myself with?” He asks, trying to get his hands on a weapon just in case. She scoffs and shakes her head, waving her knife nonchalantly.

“Your head.” She says before leaving, limping along to go into the first brick building.

With her knife in hand, she opens the door. It's a little stiff, but it opens. A walker growls somewhere inside, though it sounds stuck or at least it isn’t coming for her yet. She pushes past the door as it seemed like chairs were pushed up against it, creating a barricade. Pushing through, she scans the room with her eyes. It's dusty, enough to make her cough.

It felt like hours passed in silence since Faith entered the building. Jared looks at the man on the planks who hasn't removed his eyes from the door since she went inside of it. He sighs and fiddles with his stubby fingers. Inside the dark building, Faith carefully treads across the wooden floor, keeping her knife up in a defensive stance. She listens to the walker’s distant groaning, trying to locate it based on where she was. This building seemed to be some sort of sandwich shop. There was a dusty menu above the countertop, one she couldn’t read very well from all the grime. She steps around the counter, now looking through the shelves. There was nothing but moldy display clubhouses and sandwich wraps in here. Faith holds her breath to avoid breathing in the moldy air. She stands in front of two silver double doors that looked like they just pushed open from either side. She peers through the circular windows on the doors, seeing a kitchen. The light was flickering inside, making it hard to see anything without agitating her already throbbing head. She braces herself by taking a deep breath, now slowly pushing through the double doors and peering inside. Rats scurry across the floor underneath the kitchen appliances as she walks in quietly.

Faith walks across the white tiled floors to the boxes along the walls. She peers inside of them, keeping her eyes open for any danger. She uses her knife to cut open the boxes, the blade slicing through the cardboard with a loud, rigid ripping noise. She looks around to make sure it didn’t attract any unwanted company, pausing in silence before reaching her hands into the boxes with her knife in hand, feeling around the bags of what looked like frozen chicken breast now all wet and leaking. She gags and jerks her head away from the box, now swatting her hands through the air to get the wet slimy liquid off her fingers. She wipes it on her pants, moving ahead. This place would definitely not cut it under any supervisor or health inspector.

She moves through the kitchen until she turns a corner, now popping her head around it as she hears the walker’s groaning become louder. It only got more aggressive once its dead eyes saw her lively brown ones. She holds her breath to keep quiet and fearless, now walking to the silver countertops and looking through all the clutter on top of them. The walker was trapped in some sort of wiring and hose by the dishwashing area. She ignores it, considering it to be not a threat while it’s stuck like that, moving around pots and pans as quietly as she can despite their clinking and banging. She keeps glancing up at the walker as it reaches out for her with its disgusting fingernails. In any other case, she would just terminate it now, but she didn’t want to exert any more energy than she had to. She needs it to travel.

She walks next to the walker, making sure to stay a good distance away from it. She moves things around on the counter with her hands, her attention averting to the walker as she hears it stretch some of the wires as it reaches out for her with even more hunger. She looks back down through an emergency plan map, noticing that this place had some sort of basement. There has to be storage down there. Maybe a freezer. Food. That's when she felt the walker’s groan become even more loud as it breaks free from the wiring, stumbling onto her shoulder, it’s hands grabbing her hair.

She yells out in surprise, dropping her knife, and moves her body away from it only to bump into the steel kitchen counter. She winces in pain from how hard she hit her side into it, but that didn’t matter now as the walker was pulling her hair towards its mouth. She looks back at the knife as it skids across the slippery tile floor under another counter across the room. Her eyes meet the walkers as it yanks on her hair, making her groan in sharp pain. Its foot was still connected to the knots of wires, keeping it restrained at some level. She keeps pulling her head away as it yanks on her hair, listening to the chopping down of its rotten teeth on her curls. She struggles, now nervous that she's going to be bit- that she was already bit somehow because of her stupidity to kill it when she initially saw it.

Her hands push against the walker’s forehead and neck, pushing it back with her life. In the same moment, pots and pans knock over the counter onto the floor, stirring a loud clanging and banging noise, throwing her off her game. The rats squeal and run away, scurrying out of the building into the street. Her fingers start to slip through the walker’s flesh, the rotten skin and muscle too loose to hold back with such strength. She yells loudly and shoves the walker down onto the ground as hard as she can, it’s greedy hands pulling her hair down with her body.

“Shit-!” She cries out, falling on the walker’s arm. She looks to her right, seeing a pan handle sticking out. She grabs it and swings the pan onto the walkers head, the sound making a metallic ringing sound along with a wet crunch. Pulls her hair from the walker, watching in pain as it seems to pull some of it from her scalp. She screams in agony and desperation as she’s above the walker now, swinging the pan over and over onto its head. She hammers the walker’s face in until its hands dropped limp and its growling stopped, leaving her only with her heavy breath. She drops the pan to the ground with a clang and reaches her hand to her hair, feeling the tiny bald spot from where the walker pulled her hair. Luckily, it wasn’t anywhere near her stitches to pull them out. “Fuckin' bastard...” she breathes to herself, now walking across the kitchen and retrieving her knife from under the dirty counter.

⿻ Rick’s ocean blue eyes were so focused on the building that his daughter had gone to that he practically forgot to blink. He waited and waited and waited, which felt like forever. His mind went to the worst things that could be happening inside that building. What if she was attacked? His eyes began burning, which eventually made him blink slowly. Then, suddenly, a bunch of rats ran out from that very same building. That only made him more worried. Worried sick, really. Something was going on, something that was even scaring the rats. He had to go see what was going on. He moved his arms so that his hands were against the ground next to the planks and his elbows were bent, after which he tried to push himself up. But he couldn’t. He groaned in pain as his muscles were refusing to flex. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sit up. He couldn’t help her. ⿻

“Hey- you can’t,” Jared says. ⿻ Rick panted as he eventually gave up, but then turned his head to look at him.

"Go… Go in there,” he ordered him. His voice was weak, but assertive enough to make it clear that he was giving the man an order, one that he shouldn’t refuse. Me? Go in there?? No way, no way in hell. If he couldn’t go see what was going on himself, Jared had to. Someone had to. What if Faith was in trouble and needed help? Jared wasn’t a fighter, but he had to be able to help somehow. He wasn’t going to lose his daughter. He would much rather lose the pharmacist. Jared gulps as he watches the rats run out of the building, now more scared of what was going on inside. He stays still, not moving a muscle. That was until he heard the man aggressively growl at him from the planks, his eyes only more chilling to look at. "Go. Now.” He practically is growling at him through the pain. ⿻

Jared freezes and then gets up, nervously walking to the door, pushing it open gently and peering through as he breaks a nervous sweat. He looks around the dark abandoned sandwich shop, looking around the area until the flickering lights coming from the kitchen doors catch his fearful attention. He breathes shakily as he approaches it now, picking up a broken chair leg off the ground and holding it close to him, ready to swing as if it would do something. He pushes through the door to see a shadow growing larger as the figure walks around the kitchen. He walks towards it with fear trapped in his throat, making him want to cough and desperately clear it. He yelps in fear and holds the chair leg out as a figure walks around the corner. Faith stares at him with surprise at first, but it quickly turned to irritation as she looks at how Jared was standing there with the chair leg pointed at her with both shaky hands with his eyes squeezed shut. How did he even make it this far.

She shakes her head and scoffs before putting her hand on the piece of wood, lowering it down from her face. “I’m not even going to ask...” she grumbles, sighing as she picks up her knife and blows the dust off of it. She turns to where she saw the basement was located on the emergency map, now looking at the door covered in a duvet of dirt. She uses her hand to wipe away the dirt to read the printed words on the door. 'For employee use only.’ She rolls her eyes a little and turns the handle, opening the old creaking door wide. Jared finally opens his eyes as he hears Faith’s voice and realizes there was no danger. He looks at the lock of hair on the floor to his left and the walker’s smashed in head. He wanted to gag.

“D-Did you do that??” He asks, pointing a shaky finger at the walker. Seeing as to she ignores him, he just follows close behind her for safety, peering around her as she opens the basement door. A basement. A dark, wet basement. This is what happened in horrible scary movies.

Faith squints her eyes as she looks down the wooden stairwell, unable to see anything as it's pitch black. She flicks the light switch up and down which, as expected, doesn’t do a thing. She adjusts her grip on her knife before taking slow steps down the stairs. Oh my god, she’s actually going down there, Jared thinks. “I’m- I’m gonna stay here and uh...” he immediately scurries away to watch the kitchen door just in case, his eyes on the smashed in walker even though it was dead. Faith looks around as she walks down the stairs, now holding her hand out behind her at Jared, who once she turned, was not there. She scoffs in annoyance and realizes that she’s just going to have to look around down here in the dark. She could’ve used his lighter or flashlight. But of course, he punked out.

As she walks into the basement, she realizes that the ceiling was leaking, water dripping onto the very shallow water below her cowboy boots. She steps down onto the concrete floor from the last wooden step, her boot splashing quietly into the shallow water. Great. It’s like she couldn’t escape water. The incident: The bridge crumbling beneath their feet and their bodies being thrusted through the rushing current with bits and pieces of the dead... It haunts her. Faith stands still and listens for any growling or movement, not hearing anything but the dripping of droplets from the ceiling to the floor.

She then ventures through the dark wet basement of the sandwich shop. She had no light but the flickering one from the stairway of the open door. She steps through the water, trying to make as little noise as possible. She sees shelves and some sort of big steel door. Must’ve been the freezer. She walks closer to it, now looking through the darkness and feeling around the door with her hand. She could feel that the handle and pulls it, but nothing happened. Again. Locked. She feels around the handle until her fingertip presses along some sort of outline; a keyhole. She looks around the room, trying to search the shelves for anything she could use or even the key if she was so lucky. Her hands feel around the damp wooden shelves, feeling boxes upon boxes. Her hand reaches inside and pulls out a bunch of rotten lettuce. She scrunches her face and puts it back in the box to keep looking. She trips over something in the water, catching herself with her hands and knees as they get wet from the shallow water. She looks around the pitch black area until she turns around, feeling something hard that she tripped on. She picks it up, realizing it was a glass bottle. She looks at it for a while through the darkness until she sees something tiny inside, shaking it to hear it clink against the glass. She brings it all the way to her face to inspect it, now seeing the faint outline of a key.

She turns the bottle over and shakes it, but the bottle hole was smaller than the key itself. How did you get in there..? She decides to get that key out either way, now smashing it on the ground. She reaches into the water, her fingers blindly searching for or the key. She hisses and yanks her hand up out of the water as she cuts her hand on some glass. She holds it with her other hand, feeling the warm liquid leak out of it. Not smart. Dad would’ve warned me not to do that... and the walker earlier. If only he were here. It was all up to her now.

Faith finds the keys with her other hand, picking it up and putting it into the keyhole. She turns it, relieved to see it click open. She pulls the handle back, pulling hard against the big heavy door. A breeze of cold air chills her and her soaking cowboy boots as she opens it. Finally, there was some light in here coming from the fridge. She looks at the ground, noticing a corpse inside of it, its insides missing. It was dead dead. She steps in the fridge, keeping one boot out the door just in case it shuts, not wanting to freeze to death trapped in here. She wonders if that’s what happened to this person. Before they were a walker. She looks at the shelves, seeing a big box full of frozen goods like peas, potatoes, chicken, and even a giant container of water. Frozen, of course. Breathing out in satisfaction, she carries it out the door in her arms.

She rolls the water jug across the wet floor with her foot, the water splashing in its path while she carries the boxes in her arms. She walks up the stairs with the boxes, setting it down and going back down for the frozen water jug. It was very heavy, but at least it's water. She stops every four steps and sets it down before picking it up again; her back straining and her hand stinging. Finally, she makes it up the stairs to Jared who was inspecting the box she brought up. “Thanks for the help.” She pants, stretching her back in pain.

He frowns and carries the box outside, leaving the water for her. She sighs and rolls it out of the room through the double doors and out onto the sidewalk. She looks around the corner to see a walker’s legs. She practically stops breathing as she rushes around the corner, shoving Jared out of the way to see its head smashed in and her dad bloody on the planks. She comes to his side and shakes him a little, afraid for the worst that he was bitten or finally died killing this thing on his own while he was alone out here. She finally starts breathing again as she sees he’s alive. He wasn't going to be for long though if they stayed out here in the open. The dead found their way into the town, and she had to get him into cover.

After setting up camp in the run down daycare, Faith managed to grab what must've been the children's naptime cushions and some sheets to use as blankets. ⿻ Rick was relieved that she came to lay next to him. He moved his arm around her, ignoring the discomfort it brought and focusing on the fact that he was holding his daughter close in a way. His hand rubbing her back weakly, he closed his eyes, listening to the walkers’ faint growling and his daughter’s breathing that was slowing down. It made him feel relieved that she was getting some rest too. He stayed awake himself, even though he was exhausted too from what his body had gone through, making sure that the walkers didn’t manage to come inside the building. It seemed like the barricades and the sheets over the windows did the job, because eventually their growling became more faint as they either gave up or found another prey. ⿻

Jared lays down on the pillow, sighing in relief as he removes his glasses and listens to the walkers eventually mozy away. He turns his head to look at Faith who was cuddling her father. It warmed his heart, but still, he was curious. He says after a while of silence, after Faith was finally asleep- as if he was too scared to say it if she was awake, “She cares about you.”

⿻ "I know,” Rick told the man in a low voice, making sure not to wake up his daughter or attract any more walkers. He didn’t take his eyes off of Jared now that he knew he was still awake too. He studied him from afar, thinking of which of the many questions he wanted to ask him. His mind went to the three questions he always asked people. Maybe he already knew the answers to those questions, but he still had to ask. Looks could be deceiving. "How many… walkers have you k-killed?” He barely even blinked as he studied Jared’s reactions, trying to see any signs of him lying or getting scared of the questions. ⿻

Jared watches the weak man glare at him. His eyes were sharp and intimidating, but still, he tried to be polite. That’s all anyone could do nowadays. To keep some part of humanity alive. He watches Faith sleep next to her father as he replies to his comment, making sure she was in good shape while also thinking about their story. What happened to them and all. He holds his breath for a moment as he was a bit embarrassed to be honest with this man, but he knew he had to be. They had to trust each other.

“One.” He says quietly, clearly nervous at the thought.

He wouldn’t hurt a fly before all of this. And now he had to kill things to survive. He avoided it all costs; that’s why he ran. That’s why he always ran. He then realizes that this man was asking him more questions. They sounded... formal somehow.

⿻ "H-How many people… have you killed?” That was the question Rick really needed him to answer. He needed to know if he was a threat to them. "Why?” ⿻

How many people? Have I killed? How many? As if he would even kill one person. To think that people had a body count was frightening to him. He wonders how many people they’ve killed. Would he be added to it? “Z-Zero! I can’t even imagine...” he says, looking at the floor as he scares himself by thinking about what it’d be like to take another human life. He processes his last question, but it didn’t take long at all. “I want to keep my humanity for as long as I can...” he says, looking at his black leather slip on shoes.

⿻ Rick listened to Jared’s answers without a muscle flinching on his face. The answers were exactly what he had expected to hear. He hadn’t expected him to have killed many walkers at all, since he had ran away from the clearing yesterday. He also hadn’t expected him to have killed people. He wasn’t surprised at all. Now he was just curious how he had survived for so long. He assumed that he had been with those friends he had mentioned, but he still had many questions and he was sure as hell going to ask them. If he were to ever trust Jared, he had to know, and if Jared knew anything about survival, he was going to understand. Rick didn’t stay quiet for very long.

"Those friends of yours… You been with 'em… all this time?” He stared at the man. The assertiveness wasn’t leaving his face, though his voice was slightly softer than when he asked those three questions. "You got… weapons or a… a place you stayed at?” He had to know as much as he could about Jared and the group he had been with. There was still a chance that they were going to come looking for him and they had to be prepared for that, which meant that they had to know what they were up against. ⿻

Jared looks at the man as he addresses him again, seeming to have a lot of good questions. He may be a coward, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that he had to ask such questions. Trust was in little supply these days. He also realizes now that this man had a southern accent while the girl did not. His friends were really just a small group. Three people. Molly, Jordan, and Rebecca. He missed them. They were good friends before all of this. “Yeah... we uh... we were coworkers. Office job, nothin’ fancy.” He says, shrugging. “I ran my brother’s pharmacy on the side.” He didn’t mind telling all of his personal life. He enjoyed it actually. Especially rambling on. “We were actually on our lunch break when we heard about zombies in the streets. Been together since.” He says, referring to walkers as zombies.

He glances at Faith sleeping before bringing his eyes to the floor for his next question. “I took them to my pharmacy,” he says, probably explaining where he got so much medicine in his backpack. So much that it barely closed with the zipper. “We found weapons along the way but... we mostly just kept moving. Rebecca...” he says, now arching his thick black brows. “The one with lung cancer,” he says quickly so that the man could understand, “She couldn’t move very far without problems so we used the van. Crashed and... I was left in the van by myself...” He says, clearly not even thinking that maybe his friends had left him behind. Or maybe they just figured he was dead. Either way, they weren’t with him now.

⿻ Rick listened to every word that came out of Jared’s mouth. He paid attention to every detail, making sure to memorize all of it. Luckily for him, the man seemed to know how important it was for him to know these things, seeing that he kept telling more and more about his story. Jared seemed harmless. Rick wanted to trust him and a part of him already was, but he wasn’t going to let that get to him yet. He couldn’t afford to trust someone so easily, not when so much of this was up to Faith. If he had been able to walk and fight and all, things would have been different. He couldn’t do anything that could put Faith in danger.

"Have you ever come… across o-others?” he asked next. He had come across many other survivors himself, some of which had become his friends and allies, while others had become enemies. He had to know if Jared had seen others too. Maybe he had enemies of some sort that could come after him or want to hurt him if they crossed paths. He just hoped that if he had come across others that they weren’t anything like the Saviors were. Or the people of Terminus. Or all the bad people he had come across. There were a lot of bad things in this world, but there was good too. He hoped that Jared was one of the good things. ⿻

Jared shakes his head chuckles a little quietly. “Only a few dead folk,” he says, referring to walkers. Or zombies as he so proudly puts it. He rubs his eye tiredly before speaking up, now finding it fair that he could ask some questions now. Especially now that the short little psycho was asleep. He hadn’t dared ask her any questions about their story or lives when she was awake. She had a knife and rude threats on him at every breath.

“Where’s her mother?” He asks, assuming the man’s wife- her mother, was around or perhaps gone now as people usually ended up. He found himself wondering where they came from- not that he hasn’t thought of that, and how they got here. The way they talked about ’home,’ it suggested that they had somewhere stable and safe to go back to. A community perhaps.

⿻ As soon as Rick heard the man ask about Faith’s mother, he frowned slightly. His mind immediately went to Michonne, but then he thought about her real mother. From before. He didn’t know anything about her. They hadn’t really talked about it. He just knew what happened with her real dad. That he abandoned her from the start, and then again after he met him in Atlanta.

"She, uh… She’s waitin’ for us.” He said eventually, talking about Michonne. Her mom.

He wasn’t going to give details about where Michonne was. He wasn’t going to tell Jared about Alexandria. It was too early for that. He stayed quiet for a while, but then decided that it was only fair to let him in to their story a little bit. After all, Jared had told him about his story too. "We got separated from her… There was… an accident. We were escapin’ a herd. Somethin’ happened… and we got lost.” ⿻

There was no growling or groaning from outside with the morning. Maybe the rats stole their attention and chased them away. Hopefully far from here. As Faith folds back the cardboard flaps with her hands, she looks down into the box to see that the bottom of the cardboard was a bit damp. The food, it must’ve defrosted like the water. Her eyes light up in excitement as she picks up a bag of frozen peas and squishes it with her hand. They were soft. Some of the bag was still cold to the touch and frozen, but most of it was ready to be prepared to eat. All they needed was some fire to cook it. Faith looks at Jared, now awake, and then walks over to the barricaded door. She listens for any growling, peeking through the curtains of the windows to see nothing but the deserted street and strip of buildings. Not a walker in sight. “They’re gone.” She says, turning back to the duo with a hopeful smile on her face.

Faith peers back out through the curtains to look down the other way of the street. Nothing there either. She watches the town of Blue Ridge for something to happen, but it was still as if time only passed through here and nothing else. Trash blew down the streets and the sun baked the black, tar pavement of the road. She needs something to cook this food. Her mind immediately went to the sandwich shop she had been in before. She cleared it- there surely wasn’t anything in there that could be of danger to them. The entire kitchen made perfect sense to cook the food with.

⿻ "Faith…” Rick's face is settled in worry. What if she was attacked again? He didn’t want to let her go out, but they had to eat. She turns her head to her dad as he says her name so uneasily. She comes over to him and crouches down in front of him, giving him a reassuring smile to his words. She was especially hopeful today. Things were going their way in terms of survival. "I know you have to go out there, but… Be careful. I mean it.” He gave her a serious look and raised his eyebrows a bit as a way to ask if she understood just how careful he was expecting her to be. ⿻

“I know you do.” She says before leaning in and kissing his cheek sweetly. She touches his shoulder as a way to say goodbye as she stands back up and walks to the other side of the room to the barricaded door. Jared looks at her and gulps. She was going out there.

“I��ll stay here, watch him-" he says quickly. Faith starts moving the tables and chairs out of the way of the door.

“Yeah.” She says dismissively, already assuming that part. She needed to go make sure there wasn’t a threat outside or in the building she was about to bring her father into. She could never be too careful- like he wanted her to be. She had to clear the sandwich deli again.

She opens the door and pushes through it, the door hitting something solid. She peers down to see a walker. Dead. She immediately pulls her knife and looks around cautiously. The walkers that were in front of the door... Someone must’ve taken this one out. As she steps over the body through the small crack of the door, she sees another body. And another. The entire group of ten walkers... they were put down right here. She pushes the door closed with her boot. If someone was around, they couldn’t know about her dad or Jared inside. Why did they take them out? The walkers? They had to have known they were trying to get something or someone inside, so why didn’t the person who did this come after them?

⿻ Inside the building, Rick exhaled deeply and pressed his head against the wall behind him, closing his eyes. He was worried sick for her, but there was nothing he could have done. His mind kept going to the worst; that she was in danger again. What if someone else was in the building she had gone to? What if someone found her? What if there was another walker or another herd? He eventually opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, avoiding Jared’s round face and his glasses. He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted his daughter back already. ⿻

Faith carefully walks down the sidewalk with her knife in hand. If this person had a gun, it was over. She didn’t have anything long range. She stays close to the wall to have some form of cover. There’s no way someone just decided to take out a small herd for no reason if they were distracted already. They had to be here still. Or close by. She walks into the sandwich shop, pushing the door open carefully with her knife pointed in front of her. Nothing looked different about this place from before. Just as dark and dusty. She walks with cautious footsteps into the kitchen, walking through the double swing doors and peering around the flickering lit room. She turns the corner to see the walker she killed still there, its head smashed in and being eaten by rats. She scrunches her nose, now noticing the lock of her brown coil of hair still on the floor beside it.

As she takes a step towards the basement door, she hears a faint noise. She freezes immediately and listens to the silence, eventually hearing the noise again. Water splashing. Someone is here. In the basement. They don’t know she is. She breathes quietly, her breath starting to get a bit heavier from the intensity of her anxiety. They don't know. She could get the jump on them. Wait for them to come up. Or... She looks down the pitch black abyss the wooden steps descended into. She could still hear the occasional splashing around. She slowly brings her hand to the handle... before closing it as quietly as she can. There was no light down there anymore besides from the freezer she had taken food from. As the door clicks into place... she turns the lock. She listens as the water stops splashing.

It felt like an eternity of silence since the water stopped. That’s when she heard a creak coming from behind the door. Whoever was down there... they had stepped onto the bottom step of the wooden staircase. The flickering lights in the kitchen only made her more nervous. Her brown eyes were wide and she practically tried to hold her breath against the rapid beating of her heart. The creaking continued, the noise of footsteps getting louder as they ascend up the steps. She watches the door and the door handle with anticipation. She watches as the door handle turns, but doesn’t open. It was locked. She hears the breathing of someone directly behind the door. She backs up, her palm bouncing her knife handle in her hand anxiously. The door handle continued to twist with no effect.

“Hey!” A voice shouts from behind the door. Her breathing practically stopped. There was a person in the basement- behind this door.

Silence.

She then hears the door start to bang, rattling against the doorframe and the handle turning over and over. She thought she had swallowed her tongue as she jumps back, her back knocking into the steel countertop behind her, knocking metal utensils to the ground.

“Hey!!” The voice shouts again, now certain that someone was there- that someone locked them in the basement. “HEY! LET ME OUT!!”

Faith breathes heavily, her heart beating out of her chest. She felt frozen. She watches as the door rattles and bangs, the loud noises making her afraid. It brought her back to when she had shot the gun by her ear, when the bridge exploded, when all she saw was red and the river water. Her wild eyes drop to the bottom of the door as she eyes the shadow coming from behind it. Then she watches in horror as blood starts to spill from out from under it. It crawls its way to her boots.

She moves out of the way immediately as the voices started to speak to her through the door. Murderer. You failed us. You gutted me like an animal. You killed me for you. You didn’t have to do it. You sliced that girl’s face until she was unrecognizable. You tried to kill my girl. You got that woman shot in the face. My insides spilled all over you and you didn’t even flinch! She squeezes her eyes shut and grabs a metal shelf from beside her, now shoving it against the door with all her might to keep the red away. To keep the voices trapped. To lock away Negan's men- Jackson’s voice forever. The voice behind the door- she could only hear it as Negan’s and Jackson’s now.

“LET ME OUT!! LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW!!! YOU SICK FUCK!!” She looks back down to the bottom of the door, the blood gone. It was never there. She was sweating. She turns on her heels as she listens to the person behind the door bang against it and turn the handle desperately. She runs away, runs at top speed until she pushes through the front door, her hands on her knees as she breathes hard. She just locked someone in a dark, wet basement. She just locked them down there without any food- she had scavenged it all. She locked them down there in the dark and she didn’t even hesitate.

Thanks for reading this very long chapter. Let me know if you'd like to see more from different seasons/episodes or if you want part 2 of this chapter!

#twd rp #twd au #the walking dead #twd roleplay #rp blog #just a LONG excerpt #faith grimes #rick grimes #towl #rick grimes daughter au #original character

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rapidresultsacvketogummyusa · 2 years ago

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satan-is-a-furry · 2 years ago

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I awoke to a loud thumping noise. It was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Thump. What was that? My doorknob rattled and opened very slowly, almost at a turtle's pace. I opened the blind next to my bed, unleashing the moonlight's illuminating presence. The door to my room was open, and something silver glinted in the darkness. I squinted my eyes, hoping to spot something. At that moment the glint moved. It was moving towards me. I reached over to the lamp and pulled the string down, brightly illuminating the room. A huddled mass was revealed: it was Noah. In his hand he clutched a Phillips-head screwdriver. His eyes opened, like two giant almonds. He darted out of the room and into the dark hallway. He dropped something. It was Pooh. Enough's enough, I'm keeping the doll in here from now on. I sat the yellow bear on my nightstand under the lamp. God, Noah has destroyed the little bear.

Noah bugged me and bugged me asking where the bear was, and I always replied, "Pooh went back to the hundred-acre woods to visit his friends." Weeks went by and Noah's health was improving dramatically. He gained his weight back, the bags under his eyes were going away, and he started eating again. He even starting telling me he loved me at night before bed.

I lay on my bed looking over the worn doll. I even picked it up and tossed it back and forth in my hands for a while. I like how this doll feels. Despite its aging, the doll was still as fuzzy as ever. I started putting the doll into my bag before work. On lunch-breaks I pulled the doll out and stroked its head. I quickly shoved it back into my bag when a coworker would walk by. Eventually, I stopped going to work. I need more time with Pooh. I spent my days clutching the weathered doll in my hands, caressing it, and taking care of it. I love you Pooh.

"Dad, there's nothing to eat!" Noah would moan.

Stupid kid. He's interfering with my time with Pooh. "Can't you see I'm busy you little cretin?!" Noah would hang his head and scurry back to his room. He doesn't know Pooh. He doesn't know the time needed for you. I started confiscating his V.H.S collection of Winnie the Pooh, bringing them to my room so I could watch all day, and all night. I stopped sleeping. If I slept, Pooh would be angry. I don't want him to be angry. I hadn't even gotten up to relieve myself. My room was blanketed in the putrid smell of feces and urine. I don't care. As long as Pooh is happy.

Noah eventually left, but I can't exactly remember when. Was it yesterday? Was it weeks ago? Good riddance, I'm free of him for good. Eventually, my electricity went out; I hadn't paid the bill in months. I'd gone from a 180lb man to a tiny 100lb man. As long as Pooh loves me I don't care. I was forced to eat bugs and rats that unfortunately scurried across my path. The paint on the walls started to peel, and mold covered the ceiling. I don't care. I do it for Pooh. He needs my time more than I do.

Much time has passed and I haven't been in great shape. I think I'm dying. I can't die, Pooh doesn't want me to die. My beard and unkempt hair reach below my chest, my clothes are in tatters, and my fingernails have grown unreasonably long. I sing to myself occasionally to please Pooh. Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff, he's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, willy nilly silly old bear...

There is a knock at the door. People have knocked before but this knock was persistent. It was hard but I got up and stood. I looked through the peephole and a man in his late twenties was outside. He knocked again. He shouted something:

"Dad? Are you in there?..."

Lemme grab that Winnie the Pooh """creepy""pasta real quick

#im sorry #btw this was only part of it #idk whenever I think of it i think it's funny fsr #long post

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piknim · 5 years ago

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throwback to when i wasnt eating and got kinda skinny and it was the only time people constantly talked about how beautiful and good i looked and ever since i started eating again no one has told me that since

#what matters is i started feeling better so :)#i keep almost wanting to go back #but i stop myself bc im better than that now :)#i mean i get like pitty comments that dont feel genuine but not actual comments #i told my dad what my stepmom did to me mentally bc of her constant diet shit #and he had no words #he said something but i cant remember what but he mostly just looked really mad/upset #bc i dont think he realized that whn i was only eating 1 meal a day of chips and salsa i was not doing it bc i loved salsa #and when i used to go w/o eating on weekends at his house it wasnt cause i was antisocial it was cause i didnt want to eat in front of her #i still absolutely hate great value mild salsa #it makes me want to puke #hot salsa is fine tho but i cant do it a lot #oh but #theres this photo of me back then on the fridge #and yeah i look kinda nice i guess!#but i look! so unnatural!#like everyone telling me i looked good and didnt question my habits are all assholes and dont actually care about my health :)#just whether im fat or not :)#well i would like to loose a little weight(HEALTHILY) id much rather be a little tubby than starving myself so :)))))

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lardguz · 3 years ago

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All You Can Eat Bluff-et

WHEW. This took me a lot longer to write than I anticipated because I got kind of stuck near the end (just like a certain fatass lawyer in this one, hehe) but YEAH. Wow! Hope you guys like gay lawyer feeder/feedee relationships!

Phoenix Wright sat on the couch in his office, formerly known as the Weight & Co. Law Offices, blankly staring at the TV screen in front of him. It had been two weeks since he was found presenting forged evidence to the court and subsequently stripped of his attorney’s badge and defense attorney title. Since then he’d not really had much to do, not being used to being unemployed for the first time in years. He had cleaned the office from top to bottom multiple times in the first few days following his sudden dismissal, trying to keep his mind off the creeping existential dread. His friends had stopped by frequently to check on him when they heard the news, and he put on a reassuring smile to them all, but now? The apathy was beginning to set in. Phoenix sat there, wearing just a dress shirt, an undone tie, and some slacks, watching the news talking yet again about his disbarment, with his hand rummaging absentmindedly around in a bowl of potato chips. He kept bringing handfuls of the crunchy snacks up to his mouth, loudly chewing on them without realizing how much he was eating.

Phoenix had been eating like this for as long as he could remember, but without constant cases keeping him on the move, and all the time in the world to just sit on the couch and mindlessly watch TV, his snacking habits were starting to show on his body. His middle was starting to protrude just the tiniest bit, slightly straining the button nearest his tummy on his dress shirt. As his fingers scraped the bottom of the bowl with nothing left to eat in it, Phoenix got up off the couch and turned off the TV. At that precise moment, he heard the familiar Steel Samurai ringtone that his former assistant, Maya, had begged him to put on his cell phone echoing from across the office. Trotting over to his messy desk, he picked up the phone. “Wright and Co. Law Offi—er, wait. No. Hey, this is Phoenix Wright speaking?”

“Wright, I’m outside your office door,” spoke a familiar voice with a slight British accent to it, “Open up. How long have you been hiding away in there, anyways?”

Phoenix audibly sighed. “Just a couple of days, Miles. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right over.” He hung up and made his way over to the office door, hastily running his hand through his hair to make sure it wasn’t a mess.

There outside his door stood Miles Edgeworth, the famed prosecutor, long-time rival to Phoenix Wright, and his boyfriend. The silver-haired man had bags in each hand which seemed to be very heavy. Phoenix leaned in to kiss his partner and then welcomed him into his office. Edgeworth looked around at the shabby state of the room, empty snack bags littering the floor, and huffed in mild disgust. “Really, Wright, you live like this? Have you eaten nothing but garbage junk food at all the past week?”

Phoenix rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, you know, I was always more of an art guy in college than a cooking guy? Ehehehe…”

Miles groaned and dropped the heavy bags onto the couch, sitting down next to them. “Well, it is a good thing I brought you some real food then, Wright. Here, come sit next to me. I’ll show you what I’ve brought.” The well-dressed prosecutor patted the cushion beside him gently. Phoenix lowered himself down next to his boyfriend slowly and looked into his cool gray eyes curiously. Edgeworth opened one of the bags and pulled out a few plastic containers of some sort of soup. “This is homemade potato and leek soup, with lots of heavy cream. Very nourishing. It’s still warm, I made it just before I left to come over here. And this,” he said as he opened the other bag, revealing a single much larger container, “is a devil’s food cake. I also made this myself, but I baked it last night. The frosting is also homemade.”

Edgeworth popped the lid off of one of the containers of soup and, pulling a spoon out of the bag, dipped it into the bowl and lifted it to Phoenix’s mouth. Phoenix leaned back a little in confusion, stammering. “I-I am perfectly capable of feeding myself, Miles! You don’t have to—”

He was cut off abruptly as the spoon was inserted into his open mouth. The soup, with beautiful, bright flavors and creamy deliciousness, practically melted in his mouth. His cheeks flushed crimson as his eyes met his boyfriend’s, who lifted a finger to his own lips in a shushing gesture. “You have done so much for me, Wright. Now it’s my turn to take care of you. Understand?” Phoenix nodded quickly, still a little dazed, and Miles removed the spoon, refilling it from the bowl and bringing it to his lips again. This went on and on, as Miles emptied one container of soup and moved onto the other two, until there was no more left to feed to his lonely boyfriend. Phoenix belched softly, rubbing his distended belly, which strained against the buttons of his shirt even more now that he’d eaten essentially a whole pot of soup by himself. Miles rubbed his swollen tummy sympathetically before leaning over to whisper in his ear. “I hope you still have room in there, Wright, because you still have to eat dessert…”

Removing the rich chocolate cake from its container, Edgeworth cut off a large piece and held it to his boyfriend’s lips, encouraging Phoenix to take a big bite of the delicious confection. He opened his mouth wide and took a much larger bite than Miles had anticipated, taking about a quarter of the slice in one gulp. The two men continued in this manner, the prim and proper prosecutor delicately feeding slices of the moist chocolate cake to his now very stuffed boyfriend until no more cake remained. Phoenix undid the buttons on his shirt to allow his strained gut some relief, the orb of flesh firm and hard to the touch. Edgeworth gave his boyfriend some gentle belly rubs to try and ease his aching tummy before leaving for the night, promising to be back again tomorrow with more proper food to keep the unemployed former lawyer well-fed.

A year had passed since the fateful trial that had left the legendary Phoenix Wright unemployed, and not many people had seen much of the former lawyer since. Only his closest friends, and the occasional food delivery person, had been in contact with Mr. Wright since his disbarment. The one-time master of courtroom bluffs was sitting on the couch in his former office as he did every day now, a small stack of takeout boxes stacked on the coffee table in front of him. Anyone who knew Phoenix Wright in his lawyer days would hardly recognize the man on the couch as that legendary defense attorney now. Phoenix was wearing a baggy hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, having long since outgrown his old tailored suits from when he still practiced law. The loose, stretchy clothing he preferred to wear at present didn’t leave much to the imagination despite not being form-fitting yet. Phoenix’s chest, once a decently defined pair of pecs, had blossomed into a pudgy pair of moobs that even his XXL hoodie couldn’t hide, and his growing gut sat comfortably in his lap, the bottom of his softening tummy rolls peeking out from the bottom of his hoodie whenever he stretched or moved his arms. Speaking of which, Phoenix’s arms were also noticeably jiggly with fat, with rolls that bunched up at his shoulders whenever he reached upwards. He also had a nice, plush pair of love handles that oozed into a muffintop over the elastic waistband of his sweatpants, which his boyfriend Miles Edgeworth had taken quite a fancy to grabbing ahold of whenever they kissed. None of his weight gain on his upper half even held a candle to how his lower half looked, though. Living such a sedentary life for the past year since his disbarment had sent quite a bit of fat to his thighs and rear end. Phoenix’s ass cheeks were enormous, giving him a beautiful pear shape whether he sat his fat ass on the couch or stood up to waddle to the door to get food delivery. Each round cheek was roughly the side of a pillow, and just as soft. His thighs were also thickening at an astounding rate, each one roughly wide enough to get him stuck in some smaller chairs. When he’d weighed himself earlier that week, Phoenix saw that he’d surpassed 350 pounds. If he had still been a lawyer, that number would have stunned and horrified him, but now? He didn’t really mind at all.

The tubby former lawyer scratched at the stubble on his double chin, leaning forward to grab one of his takeout containers stacked in front of him, when the doorbell rang. Phoenix lowered his arm and instead hoisted himself off the couch, his chubby stomach wobbling underneath his sweatshirt as he did so. He walked over to the door to the office, his meaty thighs rubbing against each other uncomfortably as he did so. God, I’m probably going to have to start taking bigger steps when I walk soon, Phoenix thought to himself as he reached the door. He peered through the peep hole, expecting to see Maya or Edgeworth or someone more familiar, but instead he saw a face he never thought he’d see again. Or, rather, the lower half of a face, since the upper half was covered by a very familiar visor. Phoenix hastily opened the door and stepped outside to confront the visitor.

“Godot?!” he shouted, “How did you get here? Aren’t you supposed to be—”

“In prison?” the white-haired man laughed. “Yeah, well, as it turns out, murder in defense of another isn’t a death sentence. Your pretty little boyfriend got my sentence reduced for “good behavior” and “health reasons”. He also said I should stop by and say hey.” The former prosecutor glanced up and down at Phoenix’s body, chuckling dryly. “Good to see you’ve been taking real good care of yourself, Phoenix, despite everything that’s happened to you.”

Phoenix gulped, subconsciously scratching at the bottom of his overfed gut which flopped over the waistband of his sweatpants. “So, you heard about… that?” Godot nodded, and Phoenix sighed softly. “Figures. Yeah, I got played for a fool. Given forged evidence to present in court. I’m sorry for letting you down so soon after I proved to you that I was worthy to follow in Mia’s—”

“Trite!” Godot snarled. Phoenix yelped and reflexively covered his face, expecting to feel a scalding cup of coffee smack into his face upon hearing his old rival’s nickname for him. He peeked around his fingers to see the masked man rummaging around in a plastic bag that was slung over his arm. That was the first time Phoenix noticed that Godot was carrying multiple plastic bags. The older man clicked his tongue decisively and pulled out a small white box, marked with a logo like a coffee cup with three red lines going horizontally across it. He held it out to Phoenix.

“What’s in this?” Phoenix asked curiously as he reached a hand out to take the box. Godot stayed silent, so Phoenix opened the little package. Inside was a large pastry, a cream tart shaped like an attorney’s badge. Phoenix looked down at the confection, then glanced back up at Godot, a look of confusion plastered on his chubby face. The masked man’s eyes couldn’t be seen, but his mouth broke into a sly grin upon seeing the disgraced attorney’s expression. “I needed something to do after I got out of prison, so I decided why not do what I was always born to do and open a nice little coffee shop? We’ve been a massive success, and your prettyboy boyfriend told me you’d been really enjoying sweet stuff lately, so I decided I’d bring a little taste of Café Armando to your office.” He lifted his bag-laden arms to properly show off just how much he’d brought with him. “Got a little something of everything we make back there for you, Wright. Mind if I come in?”

Phoenix swallowed heavily, his mouth watering already at just the prospect of gorging himself on fresh-made pastries. He nodded shakily, unable to form words with his mouth in his dazed state. Godot shouldered past the overweight former lawyer, heading further into the office. He chuckled loudly at the stack of takeout boxes on the coffee table. “Looks like you already got plenty to eat here, Phoenix, but that’s fine, I’ll put my stuff on this side of the couch for you.” Godot dropped the bags of baked goods onto one half of the couch, leaving Phoenix with the other half all to himself.

The portly man sat back down on the couch cushion, his lardy ass spreading out under him to take up the entire couch cushion. He made to reach for one of the plastic bags and grab a box from within, but Godot slapped his hand away. He waggled a finger in Phoenix’s face. “Ah ah ah, that’s not how we’re doing this, Wright. Your man had very specific instructions for me. So you just sit there and look pretty while I handle the hard stuff, tubby.” Godot prodded a finger into Phoenix’s chubby gut to emphasize his point before reaching into one of the bags and removing the box that contained the cream tart from earlier. The older man then swung his legs over either of Phoenix’s thick thighs and straddled his rounded gut, leaning on it lightly while pressing the cream tart to the scruffy man’s lips. Phoenix eagerly devoured the tart in just a few bites, waiting impatiently for the next confection.

The two men continued their feeding session for hours, Godot getting more and more forceful the more Phoenix ate. His fat cheeks and double chins were covered in crumbs and cream, and a few bits of pastries had fallen onto the front of his hoodie, which was now riding up heavily on his distended gut. The soft layer of fat cushioning the outside of the enormous orb was stretched far by the amount of food Godot was stuffing into his former rival. Phoenix’s mouth was constantly full, every time he finished chewing on a pastry another was prompt shoved into his tiring mouth. Godot growled taunts in a low tone the entire time, calling him a fat pig and commenting on how far gone he was after just a year of unemployment. Finally, as he reached into the last bag to grab another pastry to shove into his adversary’s mouth, Godot’s long fingers closed around empty air. Turning his gaze back towards Phoenix’s exhausted, messy face, he grunted in annoyance. “Well, I guess that’s the end of my fun for now, Wright. But before I leave, I got one last thing I need from you…” Before Phoenix could muster a response, Godot leaned heavily against his bloated gut and wrapped his arms around the stuffed man’s chubby shoulders, planting his lips against Phoenix’s cream-covered mouth. Phoenix let out a muffled noise of surprise before melting into the kiss, unable to deny his long-standing attraction for the mysterious masked Godot back from his lawyer days. The two passionately made out for another few minutes, Godot’s sharp teeth digging into Phoenix’s lower lip occasionally. Finally, they parted, and Godot stood up, slapping Phoenix’s engorged stomach as he made to leave the room. Phoenix sat there in a daze for a few moments before the inevitable food coma washed over him, lulling him into a slumber while his stuffed gut digested its feast.

Morning light filtered through the blinds of the former Wright & Co. Law Offices’ windows, shining directly into Phoenix’s eyes and waking him up. The disgraced lawyer yawned and stretched as he leaned back on his couch, where he had fallen asleep sitting up the night before, just as he did every night these days. It was now a little over four years since the once-famous Phoenix Wright had been stripped of his attorney’s badge, and that time had not been kind to his once-slim and fit body. As he yawned, his fat cheeks caused his eyes to squish shut entirely, and his triple chin creased into a quadruple chin. His neck was buried under rolls of fat, showing no separation between chins and neck anymore. His hoodie, once slightly too big for him, was now several sizes too small, and yet he kept wearing it. The only thing it covered was his oversized moobs, which stretched the elastic fabric nearly to its limits just from their girth alone. The sleeves of said hoodie were starting to rip in places on the seams, his pillow-sized fat-coated biceps poking through the little tears in diamond-shaped bubbles that widened as he stretched his arms above his head. Phoenix’s stomach, while nowhere near his biggest asset, was still impressively large, completely visible due to his hoodie not even coming close to covering it now. His gut split into two distinct rolls that were separated by the fold where the upper roll collapsed over his belly button. The lower roll pooled in his lap like a liquid, settling between his overstuffed thighs while also overflowing over the outer edges of them, and flopping over the edges of his knees slightly. His love handles had also become a multi-layered deal, each one soft and squishy and overflowing out of his strained waistband like an overcooked souffle.

Still, due to his sedentary lifestyle since losing his job four years ago, Phoenix Wright was incredibly bottom-heavy. All those months of planting his fat ass on his couch and doing nothing but eating crappy takeout food, sleeping, and watching Steel Samurai reruns on his TV, with the only exercise he got being walking to the door to bring in all the bags of food he got delivered every couple of hours, truly did a number on the lower half of his body. Each of his enormous shapeless asscheeks took up one half of the couch, the cushions completely flattened underneath his incredible weight. The burgeoning bulk of his massive ass strained the fabric of his once-huge sweatpants, with one steadily growing tear going right down the middle of his butt, which would reveal his boxers to anyone behind him if his ass weren’t firmly sat down on his overburdened couch at almost all hours of the day. His thighs were almost as thick as tree trunks, making his pants look like overfilled piping bags, with little rips forming on the seams where his dimpled cellulite poked through. His thighs were so fat that no mater how far apart he spread them while sitting, they pooled under him in a way that they were always touching. The fat from his thighs was also starting to fold over onto his knees, making it gradually harder to bend them when he stood up to get his food deliveries. Phoenix was also starting to notice that his meaty calves were starting to get so fat that his ankles were fusing with the mass of fat that was the rest of his flabby leg rolls. All in all, the former legal legend was nigh unrecognizable to anyone who hadn’t seen him in the past four years and known about his decline into pure sedentary gluttony.

Phoenix felt a buzzing coming from the pocket of his hoodie that currently rested right between his massive pillow-sized moobs, straining his fat arms against his squishy chest. The sheer size of his chest made it hard for his already-overburdened arms to reach things in front of him, especially when it was something so close to his body. Eventually he managed to reach his pocked and pull out his phone and saw that the last of the deliveries had been made, so Phoenix swung his bulk off the couch and began waddling to the office’s door. His soft, flabby gut hung almost like an apron in front of his legs, the lower half of it dangling halfway down his couch-crushing thighs, slapping against them loudly with every heavy step he took. The obese man opened the door and gathered up the piles of takeout containers in his flabby arms, his wobbling gut just barely brushing the floor as he leaned down to pick up the precious packages. He knew he had a double date tonight with his husband and boyfriend, but Phoenix just couldn’t wait that long to have his greedy gut properly filled. He began steadily waddling his way back to his old worn out couch, his shapeless orbs that were his enormous ass cheeks jiggling hypnotically the entire time.

Phoenix slowly lowered his incredible bulk back down onto his sofa, oblivious to the strained groaning of the metal frame beneath his prodigious rear end. He deposited his delicious cargo onto the coffee table in front of his couch and leaned forward, his double-layered tummy splitting into even more rolls as he strained to reach one of the roughly thirty or so containers of food. He grabbed it in his pudgy fingers and sat back, sighing in relief as he opened the styrofoam box. Inside was a triple decker cheeseburger with extra cheese and bacon, with extra fries. Phoenix always gorged on burgers on Wednesdays, it was an old tradition of his and Maya’s to get burgers on Wednesdays nights after working a long case. Now that she was too busy training to be the next Master of Kurain Village, Phoenix opted to just stuff himself with extra large burgers on his own instead. Grasping the massive burger between his sausage-sized fingers, he lifted it to his mouth and took a huge bite, moaning in joy as the flavors of the juicy burger burst over his taste buds. A little bit of grease dribbled down his scruff chins, but Phoenix didn’t even notice. He continued devouring the triple cheeseburger with practiced ease, demolishing the entire thing and all the fries in record time before moving onto the next container, and the next, and the next…

The former lawyer ate and ate for hours, completely lost in the decadence of his burger feast, each one just as fattening and greasy as the last. Phoenix was completely ignorant to the pounds he was packing on in his fast food haze, too busy stuffing his flabby face with his greasy “breakfast”. His fatty arm rolls grew thicker and thicker, ripping the seams of his hoodie’s sleeves to shreds after just an hour of gorging himself. Tears in the stretchy fabric began to form between his massive breasts, each one straining the overburdened sweatshirt in opposite directions. His soft, flabby gut gurgled as it slowly seeped further outwards, filling his entire oversized lap and overflowing over his legs entirely. His enormous ass and titanic thigh rolls finally won the battle against his formerly-loose sweatpants, a series of loud ripping noises and the twang of splitting elastic signalling their end as waves of lard erupted out of them, his meaty love handles and wobbling cheeks resting comfortably on the arm rests of his overtaxed couch as his oak tree sized thigh rolls dangled over the edge of the sofa cushions.

Finally, after just a few hours, Phoenix finished devouring the last of his burger feast, belching into his closed fist after swallowing the last bite. The man lazily looked down at himself, realizing all he could see was his bare tits and the top roll of his gut. Then he felt his soft fatty flesh covering the entire couch, overflowing over the edges, and it hit him: Phoenix had officially grown fat enough to fill his two-person couch just by himself. As that realization was sinking in, he heard a loud noise, like metal bending, and his heart sank. Trying desperately to lower his sagging lard-covered arms to his sides to hoist himself off of the ticking time bomb that was his couch, Phoenix realized he was now so fat that his arms couldn’t bend right at the elbow anymore, his rolls of arm fat folding over the joint and making it essentially useless. Not only that, but he couldn’t even get his arms down to his sides anymore because of his beanbag-sized moobs and layers of side rolls getting in the way. Well, that just leaves me with one option, Phoenix thought to himself as he planted his chubby feet on the floor in front of him. He began slowly leaning forward, trying to inch his way upwards and off of his sofa, but after a few minutes a cold realization dawned on him: his enormously fat ass was stuck between the armrests of the couch. He’d heard of people getting stuck in a dining chair before, but an entire loveseat?! This was ridiculous! Phoenix didn’t have long to think about how incredibly obese he had gotten, as the couch let out one last groaning metallic shriek and gave out under his unbelievable weight. Phoenix let out a yelp as he plummeted backward to the floor with a resounding boom that sent the entire office quaking. Thankfully he had a lot of extra padding to cushion the fall, and he lay there groaning, his flabby shoulders and back rolls pushing his multiple chins and drooping jowls up around his face. Well, at least Miles and Godot will be here in a few hours, Phoenix thought to himself. I may as well sleep off those burgers while I wait for them. The gigantic man yawned loudly as he fell asleep, pinned beneath his own hundreds of pounds of lard, snoring loudly the entire time.

Phoenix woke with a start as he felt something laying on top of his squishy chest. He opened his eyes and was greeted with the familiar red glow of his boyfriend Godot’s visor inches from his fat-wreathed face. Standing over him and looking mildly amused was his husband, Edgeworth, holding a few bags of food in his arms. The chief prosecutor tssked softly as he shook his head at his obese partner. “Really, Wright, I’ve been warning you about that couch for months now, and yet you kept ignoring me. Now look where that got you, stuck laying on your back, pinned by your own greedy ways.”

Godot laughed softly as he leaned forward to kiss Phoenix’s fat lips. “He has a point, Phoenix, you really have let yourself go. You’ve become quite the hungry little hog, haven’t you?” The masked man grabbed heaping handfuls of Phoenix’s flabby jowls as he shoved his mouth against the helpless former lawyer, making out with him with such an intense ferocity that Phoenix didn’t really know what hit him. Their lips parted with a whimper from Phoenix, craving more, but it was cut off by Edgeworth sticking a sticky cream-filled donut in his husband’s greedy mouth. “There will be plenty of time for that later, dear, but for now, I’m sure you must be starving. Let us take care of that little issue first before we get you up off that floor and find out just how big a butterball you’ve become.” Miles passed the rest of the box of donuts to Godot, who was still laying on top of Phoenix’s enormous bulk. He positioned the box on Phoenix’s chins for easier stuffing access and began pressing the fried sweet delights into his mouth one after another, barely giving him any time to swallow one before another was fed to him. Miles sat on the floor beside Phoenix, leaning against his pillowy arm rolls as he began stuffing his husband’s face with large fancy cupcakes, frosting and crumbs flecking his droopy jowls and his many stubble-covered chins.

The tender dual-feeding session was over quickly, with two feeders and one voracious feedee making short work of the boxes of baked goods. Edgeworth leaned over his morbidly obese husband’s arm fat to kiss his round overstuffed cheek. “All finished? Then we should probably get you off the floor now and see how much you weigh, hm?” Godot whined from where he still lay on top of Phoenix’s mounds of man-tits. “Aww, but I’m having fun up here! He’s so soft and fun to pinch and lay on now “ The masked man grinned mischievously. “Plus, it’s so fun to see from above just how far the mighty Phoenix Wright has fallen.” Miles gave Phoenix’s flabby gut a hearty shove, sending the entire expanse of his husband’s fat-swaddled body wobbling so hard that it knocked Godot off of his chest. The two men each grabbed one of Phoenix’s lard-coated wrists and heaved, taking a solid five minutes to get the jiggling mound of pure fat that was once the best defense attorney around back on his feet. Edgeworth then led the pear-shaped butterball to the scale he’d bought last year, watching the numbers go up and up. They finally stopped, and Edgeworth read the display out loud. “Seven hundred and sixty-two pounds. Good god, Wright, you really have gotten enormous.” He pulled Phoenix into a hug, squishing into his pillowy soft body. “I’m so proud of you, dear.” Godot grabbed a fistful of his boyfriend’s chair-sized ass cheeks appraisingly, before grunting in approval. “Yeah, I’d say you’ve become a pretty prize hog, Phoenix. Good work. Looks great on you.”

The two much smaller men escorted their doughy partner as he lumbered his way back to the broken sofa. Phoenix was breathing heavily, worn out from just waddling over to the scale and back, but the couch was completely busted. He had nowhere to sit now. Edgeworth patted his squishy shoulders reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Phoenix. I can get you a special reinforced couch delivered tomorrow. But more importantly, I have a job opportunity that came my way for you.”

Phoenix looked at his husband quizzically. “Job opportunity? What kind?” Miles chuckled. “Well, it involves a lot of eating as a front, but… how good are you at playing poker?”

A young brown haired lawyer was pacing around the defendant lobby of the courthouse. Today was his first ever trial as a defense attorney, and his client was nowhere to be seen. The chubby man was very nervous, loudly muttering to himself in a voice that had clearly been driven hoarse from practicing all night the night before. “It’s fine, Apollo! Everything is just fine! Your client is probably just stuck in traffic, that’s all! He’ll be here in time for the trial! It’s fine! You’re fine! I’m fine!” He took a deep breath and let loose a yell that could probably be heard from across the entire courthouse. “I’M APOLLO JUSTICE, AND I’M FINE!!!” Breathing heavily after such an incredibly loud scream, Apollo wiped his forehead with the back of a pudgy arm and walked over to one of the benches in the lobby, collapsing onto it gratefully. It was then that the rotund young man noticed the array of tables on the other side of the defendant lobby, each one piled high with mountains of food. “What the…” he mumbled to himself, “Who is all that food for…? Is- Is that for me?” He hoisted himself off the bench and walked over to the tables, his fat tummy growling hungrily at the sight of all that delicious food. Apollo was by no means a skinny man, having been well acquainted with stress eating ever since he started law school. Reaching out for a cream-filled donut with one chubby hand, he stopped when he heard noises coming from out in the hall. Loud noises, like a dinosaur was stomping around out there. Curious to know the source, Apollo turned around at the exact same moment the door to the defendant lobby opened. His eyes were greeted with the sight of none other than the Chief Prosecutor himself, Miles Edgeworth. Apollo yelped in shock and bowed his head respectfully, but Edgeworth stopped him. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Justice. I’m not here on prosecutor business. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, though. I’ve heard much about you from your mentor, Mr. Gavin.”

Apollo’s chubby cheeks were bright crimson, flustered to receive such high praise from such a legendary prosecutor. “U-uh, th-thank you, Mr. Edgeworth. I mean! Uh! Chief Prosecutor, sir!” Miles chuckled, a sound that Apollo was certain not many heard. “Please, Mr. Edgeworth will do. Now, I’ve heard you’ve taken over the case that Mr. Gavin was originally meant to take?” Apollo nodded. “Yes, Mr. Edgeworth. Once I heard who it was I would be defending, I insisted! He was always a hero of mine when I first decided I wanted to be a lawyer as a kid. Even after what happened seven years ago, I still believe he’s innocent!”

Edgeworth nodded, satisfied by the fledgling defense attorney’s passionate answer. “Excellent. Well, then, your client shall be arriving shortly.” Apollo looked up at him, clearly confused, so Edgeworth continued without pause. “I said I wasn’t here on prosecutor business, correct? The only reason I came here was to make sure your client could get here on his own.”

Apollo hummed in even further confusion. “What do you mean, Mr. Edgeworth? Is he… injured?” Miles shook his head gently. “You’ll see soon enough. Good day, Mr. Justice, and good luck with your trial.” With that, the Chief Prosecutor left the defendant lobby, his coat tails swooshing behind him. Apollo stood in the middle of the lobby, absolutely baffled, when he realized the loud stomping noises in the hallway had started again, and were getting louder-- and closer. He stood and watched as the door to the hallway was opened, not by a hand, but by an enormous flabby stomach as wide as the door was pressed into it slowly. The wobbling double-decker behemoth of a gut oozed past the door frame, soft enough that it could still fit through despite being wider than the doorway itself. Then came the rest of the doughy man’s front, his enormous drooping moobs and upper belly roll the only thing covered by his tent-sized sweatshirt. His neck was a thick ring of no less than eight flabby chins, all covered in a stubbly beard. His eyes squinted from behind jiggling oversized jowls that drooped down to his shoulders. The mammoth of a man continued shuffling his way through the doorway, squishing all his doughy rolls against the frame. His arms, which were just cylindrical dimpled pillows of fat that were slowly absorbing his round hands at the wrists, grasped at either side of the door frame to try and lever his massive bulk through the door easier. But suddenly, his flowing rolls of lard stopped moving through the doorway, and the flabby behemoth strained and pushed against the walls with his swaddled arms, trying desperately to get the rest of his bulk through the door. Apollo shook himself and trotted over to help the comically oversized man.

As he got closer to the wedged ball of lard, Apollo really got a good look at just how massively obese this guy was, even with only half his body visible. The young lawyer wasn’t skinny at all, but this guy even put his soft and round physique to shame. Apollo was pretty sure he could see the man’s feet peeking out from under the bottom of the exposed rolls of his incredible gut, which came down to just above his ankles. Looking down at his own stomach, which only just barely drooped over his belt, he couldn’t help but feel a little impressed, and maybe jealous, that someone could get just so ridiculously fat.

Apollo coughed nervously before addressing the panting, wobbling blob of a man. “Uh, sorry to bother you, sir, but uh, do you… need help getting through the door?”

The blubbery behemoth responded in a voice that was deepened by all the fat caking his neck and interrupted with wheezy breaths every few words. “Yeahh… tha’ woul’… haah… helph a lot… thin’ my assh ish… haah… shtuck…” Apollo had to take a few seconds to mentally translate what the enormous man was saying through his speech being slurred by his flabby jowls getting in the way of his mouth. “Oh, your, uh, b-backside is stuck? Here, let me grab your arms and try and pull you through, okay sir?” The doughy butterball nodded, his cheeks and chins jiggling as he did, and he reached his overburdened arms as far forward as he could. Apollo had to lean into the man’s cushiony stomach rolls to reach his arms, feeling himself sinking into the warm, soft adipose. He grabbed onto the man’s fat-ringed wrists and began pulling as hard as he could, trying to ignore the way being enveloped between the man’s blubbery tits and tummy made him feel. After a few minutes of pulling the immense man’s nearly useless arms, Apollo finally felt the wobbling flab all around him begin inching forward slowly. He kept tugging at the monstrously sized man’s round hands as he in turn shuffled his titanic thunder thighs through the door, every roll and fold of fat covering them touching at the middle, all the way down to his ankles. Once he got his double door-wide hips and thighs through the door, it was just a manner of getting his fat ass inside, which was easier said than done.

Apollo let go of the man’s flabby arms to take a few steps back and think of a new plan of attack. He scanned the blubbery blob’s body, observing the parts he could now see that were stuck on the other side of the door before. It was no wonder he’d gotten stuck in the door. It was a single doorway, and this man, who was so fat that he’d probably be immobilized by his own weight soon if he kept getting fatter, had a lower half that was wide enough to take up five chairs at a dinner table. One overstuffed thigh was almost as wide as the doorway itself on its own, let alone two of them. His squishy love handles oozed over the top of his sweatpants that probably had more X’s in their size than Apollo cared to even imagine, giving the already definitively pear-shaped blubber bag a overflowing muffin top behind his apron of stomach rolls. His arms rested at a ninety degree angle because of his beanbag-sized tits and plush love handles colliding with fat-coated arm rolls that were the size of his own fat head. Damn, how huge must this man’s butt be if it’s still stuck in the doorway after all the rest of that managed to get through?! Apollo thought to himself, when he noticed the whale-sized lardball eyeing the food tables that he’d almost taken a donut from earlier. “Who’sh tha’… haah… food f’r...? Haah… haah…” the behemoth wheezed. “The food? Oh, I’m not sure. It was here when I got here. No one said whose it was.” Apollo could only stand and watch in awe as he observed what happened next. The monumentally obese man began wobbling his bulky form forward and backward against the door frame, slamming his rolls against it repeatedly as cracks began to form around the wooden framework. He then began slowly inching his thunderous legs forward, having to shift his blubbery bulk back and forth in a painfully slow waddle, his lard-caked thighs touching at all points no matter how far apart he spread his legs to “walk”. As he moved his door-sized legs forward, the cracks around the door frame widened, creating loud snapping noises as he dragged his rolls of fat further and further into the defendant lobby.

Finally, with one resounding crunch, the door frame gave way, parts of the walls surrounding it coming with it, crushed to pieces by the enormous blob of a man and his incredible ass cheeks. The flabby titan’s doughy body surged forward as he freed his backside finally, giving Apollo a chance to finally see the probably half-ton of lard in all his glory, and boy, did it make sense how he’d gotten so stuck in that doorway. The man’s ass was easily wide enough to get stuck in a double door, let alone a single one! Each doughy cheek probably took three chairs to sit on on their own, and they sagged so far down that they were touching the floor! Apollo was stunned. How could someone get this fat and still be up walking around? The swollen mass of fatty rolls wobbled constantly as he stood still, wheezing from the effort of busting through the doorway using his hundreds of pounds of fat as a battering ram. After getting his breathing back to the normal level of heavy breathing for one his massive size, the colossal mountain of man-flesh turned his attention back to the tables piled high with food across the lobby, drooling at the sight of it all. He began shuffling his jiggling bulk towards the tables slowly as Apollo watched in fascinated awe. Each heavy step shook the entire room, his double-decker gut rippling with shockwaves from slapping against his meaty cankles with every step. His shapeless flabby ass cheeks wobbled hypnotically as they bumped against the floor with every movement. His beanbag chair moobs slapped against his flab-caked arms, which rested at an angle even when waddling across the room. His cascade of chins and sagging jowls shook with every heaving breath from the exertion of walking so much. As soon as the man’s gut rolls reached the tables before the rest of him, he flung his doughy body at the plates of food, his fat hands grabbing any food within reach and stuffing it into his greedy face, chewing loudly and getting his chins covered in food. Apollo cleared his throat and spoke to the whale of a man. “Um, excuse me, sir, but, wh-why are you here? This is the defendant’s lobby, not a buffet.”

The barely-mobile butterball spoke around a mouthful of food. “Mmmmph… sho… Milesh… mrrrrmph… dihden… shay…? Youh… ahre… hffff… my… lawyuh…mmmmph…”

Apollo’s jaw practically hit the floor. Gazing at the mound of blubber before him, wearing a tiny sweatshirt stretched across his moobs and sweatpants what couldn’t even contain half of his ass fat, the young defense attorney stammered out a response. “W-what?! So then… y-you’re the Phoenix Wright?! The famous defense attorney?” The man’s swollen fatty head wobbled in something resembling a nodding gesture, his neck too fat for an actual nod. “Wh-what happened to you? Last I heard, you’d been disbarred seven years ago! How did you end up like… like that?” The enormous Phoenix Wright paused his gorging himself to explain. “Haaah… haah… I wohrk… ash a… haah… tashte… teshtuh… urrrrp… fuhll… tihme…” The blob-shaped man smiled cryptically, before immediately returning to stuffing his face with the frantic speed of someone who thought they would starve to death. Apollo rubbed his temples, more stressed than ever. How was he going to defend someone who couldn’t even go ten minutes without eating? This case was going to be an ordeal, he could just tell.

#my writing #fat!ace attorney #fat!phoenix wright #ssbhm #male weight gain

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flamingredanon · 3 years ago

Note

Galeforce and baby Reg:

Reg is 6 years, Henry being a year younger and weaker(health and all.) reg doesn’t understand why Henry couldn’t play today. And why was papa making Henry stay in bed.. added he was using that weird tubby thing on Henry’s chest…. Papa said it was a feeding tube, for when Henry couldn’t eat like us.

Reg was worried. Why couldn’t Henry eat like that today? Was he hurting?

Reginald snuck into Henry's room to ask his little brother what was wrong, trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. Henry grabbed his little notebook and pencil to write as well as a sick five year old could.

"Felt really cold last night, tummy didn't like that dinner from that fancy place and now feel even worse then last night. Dad says I need my tube today, cause when I don't eat or drink alot when I don't feel good that I can get really sick."

Reginald asked if there was anything he could do and Henry nodded no before writing again.

"You go have fun, don't let me feeling all yucky stop you from a good day. I will be fine soon."

Reginald pondered abit before leaving, coming back shortly after with a stack of their book. Reginald pushed the big recliner next to Henry's bed before getting in it with the books.

Reginald wasn't going to let his youngest brother be sick alone. So Reginald started reading all their favorite books together, getting around the fourth book before they both had drifted off for a nap.

Galeforce walked in Henry's room and smiled as he checked up on Henry. He loved his two sons dearly and while Reginald didn't understand the severity of how sick Henry could easily get, he did understand the basics that Henry did get sick alot.

Galeforce would wake Reginald up later for lunch, letting his two boys take their naps for now.

#lizzyask #henry stickmin #reginald copperbottom #hubert galeforce #dadforce #sick #child sickness #feeding tube

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bbrandy2002 · 4 years ago

Text

Six Sentence Sunday

Thanks for all the tags from several people.

I’m currently working on several different things, which is unlike me, and I’m not sure I’m even going to post the newer ones I have, but here we go ...

Fools Rush In -- Chapter 18 (I’m really trying to wrap this one up soon)

Without sound, no one could ascertain specifically what was said among the two women, but it was clear Riley was not a willing participant in the conversation. But the disk held up in the Countess' hands, and the look of sheer horror on his wife's face told him all he needed to know. This was a blackmail situation, plain and simple, that included assault -- a treasonous act that Liam would ensure his ex-fiancee would pay for handsomely.

After they replayed the footage several times, the Royal Guard was immediately summoned to Krona to find Madeleine and take her into custody. Liam knew it was a long shot whether or not his guards could pull this off, but he was working with what he had at the moment.

Despite whatever happened next, there was one thing the King was confident of: He was prepared to give up his entire Kingdom to get his girl back. Returning to Cordonia without her was not an option.

A Beautiful Ending -- This is a mini-series I started probably in 2019 and decided to just go ahead and write it. I swore I’d never write this type of plot, but I found inspiration and I’m going for it.

A tiny shadow rippling on the edge of the shoreline pulled him from his thoughts. It was a welcoming intrusion, one that humbled him and kept him on his toes for the past five years. Liam peeked down to watch his daughter, emulating his every movement. Not that he minded in the least. It was rather endearing the way she often copied him or her mother, all the while insisting she was her own "woman." He shook his head with an amused grin, taking in her dainty curls, bouncing and bobbing with each change in the wind's direction. She must have sensed he had stopped burying his feet, because she followed suit and looked up to him with a puzzled expression. "Why did you stop, Daddy?" "No reason. Thought I'd admire my little shadow instead," he replied, before leaning down, swooping her up in his arms, and tossing her tiny body over onto his broad shoulders. Giggling heartily, Gracie kicked her feet while struggling to get away from the major tickling on the sides of her ribs and tummy. That sound. That beautiful, innocent sound -- one he would gladly slay the world for -- was why he would never make the same mistakes his father did.

Where The Green Grass Grows-- The Country AU, a continuation of Burn’s Birthday fic.

Sweeping away imaginary dust from her shoulder, Olivia formed a sharp-toothed grin as the pair reluctantly approached her.

"You're looking ... well," Olivia observed as she scanned him over critically. "A little trimmer in the middle, I see."

Anton let out a proud chuckle, running both hands over his leaner tummy. "I'm down 15 pounds, thanks to my Maddie-poo." He leaned over and placed a loud peck on her bright red lips: Madeleine cooed and wiped away the evidence from his lips with her thumb.

Olivia sneered. "And what exactly did your ... Maddie-poo, do?"

"Weight Watcher," Anton exclaimed proudly.

"Weight Watchers?" Olivia responded incredulously.

"Penelope Ebrim has a group that meets at the old Pentecostal Church on Route 29 -- You know, the one the health department shut down last year for rattlesnakes and poisoned wine?" Madeleine piped in cheerfully. "My little Anty was getting too tubby, and I worried about his poor heart. Pen said she'd give him the first five pounds for free if we joined. I'm down three, and of course, Anty can't stop losing."

He's a loser, all right. Olivia pulled her cart back to maneuver around them; she was finished with this nauseating conversation. "Waylon. Travis. Say 'bye' to your daddy for now."

Anton smiled down at his sons before placing a hand on both of their shoulders. "Wait, Liv. I'm actually glad to have run into you today." He peered over admiringly at a grinning Madeleine. "Maddie and I have a bit of news to share with you."

Madeleine held up her hand that donned a silver band with a tiny diamond nugget, with barely a sparkle in the center, before squealing, "We're getting married."

Even though she tried to keep her composure, Olivia felt her breath hitch and her fist tighten. "Married?"

He shook his head proudly. "Yes'em. Next weekend. And I'd love to have the entire family there. Thought you'd be interested in giving me away," he joked.

"Married? MARRIED?" she hissed. "Boys, go pick out a box of cereal. Momma needs to talk to daddy real quick."

Anton clutched onto his sons harder, not letting them break free. "Now Liv, this is a good thing. We're moving on, getting settled into our new lives. We thought you'd be happy --"

"Waylon, take your brother to the cereal aisle now. Don't come back until I come to getchya. And if you hear your daddy yelling out in pain..." she reached down into the cart and picked up a heavy piece of meat. " ... it's just him trying to pull a pork roast out of his ass."

@burnsoslow you told me to tag you lol I’m not gonna bother anyone else with my craziness.

#six sentence sunday #fools rush in

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strongbrew-hamstery · 2 years ago

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Early this morning I got a message that sadly #Chester our duprasi had passed away. Chester was born in June of 2019 making him almost 3yrs old which is fairly typical for a doop. Chester was born at @sooperdoopers to George and Penelope and was born with only half his tail. He got the nickname nubby because of it. When SD went away on vacation I got the pleasure of looking after their doop family and fell in love with Chester. Chester was the perfect "look don't touch" pet, though he did occasionally oblige for some pets and scritches. He loved his space and he LOVED his enclosure. He used every bit of space, preferring ceramic enclosures to others. With a penchant for cardboard and wood destruction (he was in fact a fastidious recycler) I enjoyed watching him enjoy his very best doop life. He loved his snacks (which was part of why he was such a tubby butterball lol) and had a hilarious snatch and dash. When we began this moving process I had asked @sooperdoopers to watch him for us. He was the oldest rodent we had but seemed in fairly good health. He decided that teeth were lame and ended up losing some of his. Luckily SD noticed and got him on a mush diet which he loved. If I had to tell you Chester's three favourite things they would be (in this order): food, destruction, dooping. I'll miss his fuzzy little face and little nub bum. Even if he was perhaps never my biggest fan (human is rude when she wants to clip nails and do health checks of course) I loved him to bits. He was a funny little guy who never ceased to make me laugh. We are now doopless and back to a Syrian hamster-only household. For now. Sweet dreams Chester. You were loved by us, and by SD. Thanks for being such a funny little guy. Rest in peace Chesterton. #memorial https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd3LjR4gl-0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#chester #memorial

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reedrfeedr · 6 years ago

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Story - You Don’t Want This

A superchub gives a cautionary tale of getting to your dream weight. (cw: health problems, extreme obesity)

I need to clarify some things.

I get so many DMs asking ‘oh man I wish I was your size’ and let me tell you right now, you really fucking don’t.

Maybe if I walk through my typical routine you’ll see what I mean.

I usually end up waking myself up from a choking snore. My mouth is so dry from hanging open (listen, when your chest is packed with fat on top it turns out it’s harder to breathe) so I get a gulp of the flat lukewarm soda can that’s probably at my bedside.

Fuck getting up, just sitting up is a bit of a process.

Step 1: Swing the leg closest to the bed as far to the edge as possible. This should feel exhausting.

Step 2: Rock back and then forth, using your other leg as a counter balance to shift the rest of your body to the side. This should feel exhausting.

Step 3: Take a big breath you fat fuck, this isn’t done yet. Try not to think about the sweat forming on your love handles.

Step 4: Use your arm closest to the bed to try and lift yourself. Do not use an open hand as it might over-extend it, instead use a fist and press against the mattress. It might take a few times because you’re roughly the weight of a walrus and half as strong.

Step 5: If you’re up, great! If not, you’ll try again in fifteen minutes when your stomach starts growling even louder.

Oh, and this might be obvious, but it turns out a body this size needs a lot of food, constantly. Very quickly you fall from ‘I should eat something’ to ‘if I don’t eat an ENTIRE chicken like from Gauntlet right the goddamn now I WILL die’ once you get this fucking big.

So just go to the kitchen, right?

Not so fast, tubby.

First you get to feel the incomparable combination of knee pain and back pain as you stand. It will feel like you’re lifting weights at their max because you fucking are, really. Wide stance, lift with your legs, hopefully you remember from that one time you went to the gym the last time you had that health scare. Sometimes you will actually think you can carry your gut with your arms and get your back some rest as you walk, but even if that made sense, sitting on your fat ass 99% of the time doesn’t really leave you with much arm strength, turns out.

I hope you freaks have watched enough superchub videos on xPorn or whatever to know how you have to walk with balance-wrecking sacks of lard surrounding you, but whatever you do: do not think about how embarrassing the waddle you gave yourself is, it only makes it worse. Don’t be afraid of leaning against the wall to catch your breath a bit, you don’t have to prove you’re in shape to anyone. (That ship sailed at least 300 pounds ago.)

(Sidenote: I don’t know how many of you idiots are already somewhere in fatass territory but want to take it even further, but you know that feeling where you’re breathing a bit heavy but try to hide it in front of people? Yeah, somewhere around when you get to that neck-blob-flopping-on-top-of-chest-fat weight you kind of forget about that level of shame, which is replaced with the shame of someone over voice chat asking if ‘you’re okay’ because your fat man mouth-breathing can’t help but be picked up over mic. Fuck, you can tell how fat I am from voice.)

If you managed to get to this weight, you’ve basically had one choice: stuff yourself with junk food to get there. There might be some people who say you can do it ‘correctly,’ but don’t trust those skinny fucks. Because of that, though, you grew a body with a binge eating disorder and a tongue that can only handle a vegetable if it’s fried. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, I’m just telling you the truth. So when you get hungry, you do what’s easy: this time it’s to throw a pile of frozen garbage in a pan so you can eat it all.

By this point, thankfully, you’ll be fat enough to put a rolling chair in the kitchen because fucking lord knows you spend enough time there. (My furniture expenses are way higher than they have any right to be. I should be spending my money on all the food I can barely afford, dammit!) You can keep your fat spoiled ass happy with a light snack of ‘ripping open a pack of oreos from the edge instead of the perforated top like a monster and shoving them in three by three.’

You’d think this is enough to make you feel full, or at least sated (like you even remember what that feels like anymore) but this is constant now. If you’re not snacking while making dinner, you’re guzzling something filling or setting a tub of something in front of you to empty. You became more fat than anything else, so it’s only fitting that you spend most of your time making all that useless flab happy.

This should feel exhausting.

I know a lot of you are still thinking ‘yeah but it’s so hot to be that big’ but I say speak for yourself, twink. (Now don’t you other fatties come yelling at me that you aren’t a twink. Trust me, I make you look tiny.) I barely even get to feel how ‘hot’ it is because I’m too busy being hungry. Plus, when you get to my size, jacking off starts to feel like it’s not worth the exhaustion or the calories.

And don’t go saying that this sack of lard I’ve eaten myself into is desirable to chasers. You guys talk a big game, but one ‘hey it’d be cool to get off maybe’ and they fucking ghost. When you go from land whale size to landmark size you stop being fantasy and start being disgusting, I guess. Forget ‘can you host,’ it’s more like ‘I’ll host because I don’t want to bother exhausting myself trying to find a tent shirt that still fits me.’ Not to mention I’m further limiting myself not just to chasers, but fucked up sadistic encouragers that are okay with watching this bariatric nightmare shovel donuts in his mouth in between gasps of air because he once thought it’d be ‘good for his gaining’ to associate eating with getting off.

I mean, I am asking a lot though. I can’t even imagine what it takes to dig through my thigh fat and my crotch fat and my belly-overhang fat and whatever other fat has grown there since and reach that buried little nub that remains. It doesn’t even sound worth it to be honest, what with a weak spurt the best that I can reciprocate with.

I really don’t think you want to be this size, trust me. Because the worst thing about it is that you’re going to want more. Even when you fucked yourself up and you can feel your heart pounding from just shifting your heavy body around, you’ll want to be buried just a bit further. It’s not going to stop.

So take it from me kid, stay small and enjoy being able to top someone, or being able to look down without a chin getting in the way, or being able to get off a couch without help.

Because you don’t want this, do you?

#fat #wg #weightgain #story #obese #xwg

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heyheycaitalin · 5 years ago

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I'm getting married tomorrow!

11 am, we're meeting his sister and her roommate at the magistrate's office to do the damn thing. We've pretty much been living like a married couple for 3 years, this just makes it legally official. We share a bank account. We share a home. His name is on my car's lease and he has at least two radio stations just for him in the presets. When I had insurance, he was on my health insurance and a life insurance beneficiary. He's getting a partner/spouse discount card from my job in a couple weeks. We love and support each other unconditionally. Really, the only thing that differentiates us from married couples is our tax filing status.

So hell yeah, I'm ready. I've known for over 4 years that he's The One. Life is too short and too cruel for us to wait for any arbitrary reason.

I was engaged to the wrong guy 7 years ago and I'm telling you, it didn't feel anywhere near as right as this does, not by a long shot. With my ex, I didn't want a courthouse wedding. Because I wanted to be a beautiful bride with a Pinterest worthy reception more than I wanted my ex as a husband.

But now? I could get married next to a fish market dumpster the day before garbage pickup. As long as it's with the love of my life, the man who has unconditionally loved and supported me for 4 1/2 years, the man who has been nothing but loyal and working for our future, the man who I'd take a bullet for, I'm happy.

I can't wait for this new chapter in our lives. I know it'll be pretty much like the one we're in now, but it's different and it's beautiful. I can't wait to be known as V's wife and call him my husband, my hubby, or his favorite: Tubby Hubby. I want to get started on raising a family together. I've got a lot of emotions right now, all good, all extremely sappy.

#mine #personal #wedding #courthouse wedding #civil ceremony #relationship goals #excuse me I'm emotional

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tricktster · 6 years ago

Note

You should stop feeding your axolotls bloodworms, they're really bad for them. They want real worms!

Oh, yeah, probably should have also covered this: even though those little worms Taako and Lup have been eating since exactly November 30, 2018 are colloquially and incorrectly referred to as bloodworms, they’re not the type of “bloodworms” (i.e. Tubifex) that aren’t great for adult axolotls. Turns out, there’s like a lot of worms that people call bloodworms, usually for the following reason: they look like blood is in them. By that logic, I suppose I’m a bloodhuman. Don’t call me that. Or do. I’m not your boss.

Anyway, since November 30, 2018, Taako and Lup have been eating exclusively blackworms. Blackworms are a really good source of nutrition for axies, so I like to rotate blackworms and earthworms as feed. Unfortunately, it’s just like hard to find earthworms in the winter, you know?

That’s not why Taako and Lup haven’t eaten earthworms since November 30, 2018, though.

See, I fucking prepared. I stocked the larder. I bought a fucking worm farm this summer. I lovingly assembled it, I began sorting my compost bin even more specifically to make sure the worm food was safe and nontoxic for the worms. I tested Taako and Lup on red wigglers and nightcrawlers, and saw that they fuckin’ uhhh were CRAZY about red wigglers.

I bought a thousand fuckin’ red wigglers.

Shipping and handling was another $10 by the way. Whatever, anything for my babies. So for a solid three months, Taako and Lup are having the Greatest Time Ever eating my *chef’s kiss* house made red wigglers.

Then, the day after Thanksgiving, I left for a week long vacation to God’s Floridian Asscrack: The Villages Retirement Community. This is not because I’m old enough to want to go to a retirement community, by the way. This was the byproduct of several months of guilt tripping from my parents, who own a retirement home down there. I digress.

Before I leave, I ask my cousin for a major solid, which is really the least she could do to pay me back for being her bridesmaid. Frankly. Could she handle feeding them each two worms? I ask. I’ve got them all set up for you in the downstairs freezer. Here’s the tongs, you never have to touch a worm or an axolotl. Little did I know that anyone could be so incompetent. Obviously I’m not talking about my cousin when I say that - I’m talking about a certain pair of amphibians who are what the french call, “les incompitants.”

So, my cousin came over twice while I was gone and fed Taako and Lup. She told me everything went perfectly, that they both gobbled up their worms, that they had nice fat tummies, etc etc. She took some pics for me, and I could see that I didn’t have anything to worry about, because they looked great and they’d been eating like champs. So, I get home, and there’s my two beautiful children, looking tubby and resplendent, the absolute picture of health.

I go get their worms. It’s only here that I notice something has gone amiss. I feed Taako one whole worm. He bites it apathetically and then spits it out. I wait to see if he’ll pick it up again. He doesn’t. Fine. In with the tongs, pick up the worm, move it over to Lup’s side of the tank divider.

Lup bites it, thinks about it for a second, then spits it out.

Ok, bad tasting worm, fine. I get them each a fresh one. Same result.

Maybe it’s my worms? From my worm farm? I speculate, like the Lord of the Assholes. So. I go to the fridge and get the worms I bought earlier in the summer, who have not been added to the compost pile. Totally different batch of worms. Same result vis a vis spitting, and now I’ve got five traumatized worms to deal with. Perfect. I check the temperature and water parameters, and they’re all totally normal.

Okay. I’ve got frozen bloodworms (midge larvae) in the fridge. It’ll tide them over until I can hit the aquarium store when it reopens on Tuesday. They grew up eating the stuff, it’s fine right? No, is the answer. Taako and Lup apparently won’t eat frozen food anymore because they’re accustomed to the finer things.

I am getting worried at this point, and I try over and over to coax them into eating a worm over the next few days. No bites, both figuratively and literally. Finally, Tuesday rolls around, and I grab like 8 scoops of blackworms. I’ve got a hypothesis to test.

I feed Taako and Lup a red wiggler. They both spit it right back out. I then feed Taako and Lup blackworms, and all of a sudden it’s FEAST TIME. How. Why. How.

This is my theory: Taako and Lup probably Did Not Like It when my cousin fed them. They’ve only been fed by me for their entire juvenile and adult lives, so maybe if my cousin smelled different in the water than I do, it might be cause for alarm. And, you know, because Taako and Lup are evolutionary masterpieces, they decided the thing they Do Not Like is large earthworms, not whatever ACTUALLY triggered their stress.

Which, sure, whatever guys. Eat what makes you happy! Except. Exceppppppt.

I now have like 945 worms for no goddamn reason, because Taako and Lup decided to hunger strike, again, for no goddamn reason.

Nearly a thousand fucking worms because they both decided to be picky.

Assholes.

#Anonymous

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bibliophilea · 6 years ago

Text

Clueless

For the Phic Phight 2019, organized by @currently-lurking and @ibelieveinahappilyeverafter

ao3 | ffn

Prompt: "Danny/Jazz swap AU: Jazz is the half ghost and Danny is the older sibling. Go wild on your take of how this would all play out." - @octolingkiera

TW: Canon Typical Violence (but with greater consequences), Suicidal Ideation, Broken Bones, Ectoplasmic Burns, Hospital, Electric Burns

Word count: 9313

Danny should have known something was wrong the first time Jazz came home with a less than stellar grade. Rather than her usual cheery cry of "I'm home!", she stalked through the door, forgetting to close it on her way down the hall. Danny got up from his perch in the living room to close the door, then followed her down the hallway towards the kitchen. She had paused there, hand running through her hair, mouth frowning, eyes boring a hole into the paper she was holding.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay there, sis?"

She started, then held the paper to her chest, looking down, frown deepening. "I'm fine." She abruptly turned around, brushing past him to pace back down the hallway.

"You sure you're okay? Because I'm pretty sure that paper's smoking from how hard you're staring at it." Danny raised an eyebrow, leaning against the wall. "What is that, anyways?"

Jazz absentmindedly pulled her hand through her hair, pacing back towards the kitchen. "We got our tests back."

Danny nodded. "Nice. Get your A plus plus?"

Jazz froze mid-stride. The paper crumpled and shook in her hand. Her other hand had stopped midway down her hair and had tightened into a fist.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Danny asked, pushing himself up from the wall.

Jazz looked down at the ground. Then she looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "I got a B, okay?" she shouted, her voice echoing in the hallway. Her backpack dropped to the floor and her test slid from her hand. She growled in frustration, bending down to pick them up.

"Woah, hey, you don't have to growl over that, a B's a great grade!" If there was one thing he hated more than her holier than thou attitude, it was when she was genuinely upset.

Jazz snorted. "For you maybe, you get B's and C's all the time!"

"Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that!" Danny retorted, miffed.

"But that's you, not me!" Jazz stressed, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and stalking past him into the kitchen. "I'm supposed to be the straight A student – the perfect daughter who goes to Stanford and becomes a renowned psychologist! How can I do that if I start getting B's?"

"Wow, way to make a guy feel special," Danny muttered, following her into the kitchen. She had dropped her backpack by the table and was pacing around the island, one hand holding her test, the other alternating between turning a page and running through her already frizzy hair.

"Seriously, though, it's nothing to worry about." Danny put a hand on his sister's shoulder, stopping her mid-pace. "Stanford's not gonna care about one B. So the test was a little harder than you expected – so what? You put in the work, with all that time you've spent in the library studying – that's what matters. You did your best. That's all anyone can ask for."

Danny sent her a gentle grin, but she didn't reciprocate. Instead she bit her lip, looking down at their shoes.

"Danny, can I tell you something? And can you promise not to freak out or anything?"

Danny put his other hand on her other shoulder. "Yeah, of course, Jazz. What's up?"

Jazz took a deep breath. "Well, I–"

Then she gasped. She looked up, but not at him – her eyes darted around the room, before settling on the window.

"Jazz, what's wrong? What's going on?"

"I– I need to go to the library!" she blurted, yanking herself from Danny's grip and running out of the kitchen, down the hallway and out the door.

Danny followed after her. "But you forgot your–"

The door slammed shut.

"... Backpack."

Danny should have figured it out the first time he met the ghost girl – but, to be fair, when he finally did meet her, he was a wreck.

He had gone to schedule a meeting with Dr. Spectra for being late to class, again. He wasn't sure why, but ever since he'd started sessions with her – heck, maybe even before then, he was too depressed to tell – he'd felt miserable and dazed, and found it harder to get up in the morning to go to school, let alone get to class on time.

So here he was, skipping the beginning of the Spirit Week assembly, hoping to catch Dr. Spectra before she left for the day. Sam and Tucker were probably jealous – skipping even a part of any school-mandated assembly would be the highlight of his day, even if it was to meet with the school counselor.

But she'd helped him realize that maybe he'd always felt depressed, and the fact that it was worse now just meant he was getting it out in the open so it could be dealt with. It sounded about as reasonable as any of Jazz's psychobabble, so he went with it. Maybe he should ask Jazz about this, she was into psychology and all that... but he shouldn't burden her with his problems, he was the older brother after all, and especially after her accident and with her troubles in school–

Danny was about to knock on Dr. Spectra's door when he heard a cackle.

That was weird.

Danny stopped short, hand on the door handle, listening. The voices were muffled, but it was clearly Dr. Spectra talking animatedly, probably to her assistant. He could only just make out the words.

"Oh, Bertrand, I'm gonna miss these kids. They're a waterfall of misery."

Bertrand murmured a reply Danny couldn't hear. Dr. Spectra laughed in response.

"Especially the Fenton kids! Teen misery is the nectar that keeps me looking fabulous. And those kids are like a walking spa treatment!"

Danny's blood ran cold. This doctor – no, this hack – was making him feel miserable? Was making his sister feel the same way? His eyes widened, and his grip tightened on the door handle in anger.

Bertrand muttered something, and Spectra chuckled.

"You and your puns, Bertrand! Just because we're ghosts doesn't mean we have to spirit ourselves away! Certainly not before the grand finale!"

Danny had heard enough. He dug his other hand into his pocket, gripping the Fenton Lipstick Blaster before swinging the door open. He pointed the lipstick at Spectra, who was leaning against her desk.

"I don't know what your 'grand finale' is, but it stops here!"

Spectra and Bertrand looked up at Danny, still smirking. "Why, whatever do you mean?" Spectra cooed, putting her hand to her face

"I heard what you were plotting, ghosts. And you're not going to get away with it! You're going back through the portal, and you're not gonna touch me or my sister again!" Danny tightened his grip on the lipstick.

Spectra glanced at Bertrand. Bertrand glanced at Spectra. Then they burst into peals of laughter.

"Oh, kid, this is too good! So you've discovered our little secret, so what? What are you going to do, throw lipstick at us? What's a boy like you doing with lipstick anyways?" Spectra wiped an invisible tear from her eye, getting up from the desk.

Danny smirked. "This."

He then let loose a blast from the lipstick blaster, hitting Spectra in the shoulder.

Spectra cried out, stumbling backwards into the desk, clutching her shoulder, grimacing in pain and anger. "Bertrand," she hissed. "Sic 'em!"

Bertrand lunged at Danny, transforming from a short tubby man to a green glowing cougar. Danny let loose a cry and another blast from the lipstick. It missed wildly. Bertrand knocked Danny down, pinning him to the ground. Danny held back a cry and tried to buck the ghost off of him. Weren't ghosts supposed to be light? But Bertrand was heavy in this form, and he quickly pinned Danny's blaster hand down with his paw. He pressed down slowly, firmly, watching with joy in his eyes and his bared teeth as Danny squirmed and then screamed in pain, letting go of the blaster.

Bertrand flung the lipstick away, and in that moment Danny curled his injured hand into a fist and hit Bertrand in the eye. Bertrand recoiled from him with a yelp. Danny choked on a scream, grimacing against the flaring agony spreading across his knuckles. Oh god, the ectoplasm burned, even more than curling his hand into a fist did.

Suddenly free of the pressure, Danny flipped himself over and bolted from the doorway. He had bitten off more than he could chew. The blaster was just a few feet from him; if he could reach it, he could hold them back and call his parents, and they could help–

A cold hand grabbed his neck; nails dug into his pressure points. He tried to scream, but another hand, black as midnight and clawed, wrapped around his mouth and nose. He was dragged back into the room, saw Bertrand, smirking despite his black eye, close the door. Then he was forced to sit in the chair before the desk, forced to face the nightmare that had captured him.

Its form was like fire and knives, forged in darkness. Its edges were sharp, yet flickering, and they cut into his torso and arms as it wrapped itself around him like a snake. The top of its head flickered and waved, trailing behind its every movement. Its clawed hands wrapped over his head and around his face, forcing him to look into its eyes. The eyes were the worst – red like blood, glowing like embers, tinted with malice.

Then it spoke, and Danny realized with horror who it was.

"Aw, why are you afraid?" Spectra crooned. "Surely you knew what you were getting into when you decided to face us. Where's your brave face now, you stupid boy?"

She grinned, purple lips splitting to reveal pointed teeth. Danny shuddered, then winced in pain as she tightened her hold on him.

He was stupid – stupid for opening that door, for starting a fight with things he didn't understand – hell, for trusting Spectra with his mental health in the first place! Stupid Fenton with his stupid anger and his stupid pipe dreams and stupid grades and wow, you're just all around stupid aren't you, you stupid, stupid boy?

Danny couldn't respond, couldn't find the will to respond. Everything was hazy and everything hurt and he just wanted the pain to end, just wanted it all to end, and who would care if anything happened to a stupid boy like you? Your friends? Your sister? They're better off without you!

His friends... his sister... he needed to... he was here because... if he let go now....

"L-Let go," Danny muttered, still hazy with pain and misery, still staring into those horrible, horrible eyes.

"What was that?" Spectra murmured, bringing her face closer to his, feasting on the anguish in his voice, in his eyes. "Are you ready to let everything go, stupid boy?"

Danny screwed his eyes shut. He needed... he needed to think, he needed the pain to go away, he needed it all – no, he needed the monster to go away, needed it to....

"Let– let go of me!" Danny cried, trying and failing to pull away from the monster's claws.

"Why would I do that?" Spectra crowed. She traced a line down Danny's face with one of her claws, drawing blood. "Your doubt, your misery – it's delicious."

Danny was fading. He couldn't keep his eyes shut, couldn't look away from those glowing red pits that promised pain and despair before the sweet release of death. He couldn't fight, couldn't get away, could only wait for the monster to devour him whole–

"Let go of him!"

The voice echoed in his head, cutting through the fog like a ray of sunshine. He felt something collide with him, felt his body hit the wall before collapsing to the floor, and it hurt like hell but not like the hell he'd felt before; it hurt like hell but he could breathe again, and he did so, taking great gasps of air, and with every inhale the fog lifted a little bit more, until he could think thoughts other than death, feel emotions other than misery.

When he could remember what moving felt like, he slowly worked himself up to a sitting position, glancing around the room. It was empty. Undisturbed, save for himself and the chair knocked over in front of him. If not for the chair, it looked like Spectra and Bertrand might just be out for lunch.

Spectra. Danny couldn't repress a shudder, and then a wince as the cuts along his chest and arms and face made themselves known with sharp, stinging pain. What the hell kind of a ghost was that? Mom and Dad had never said anything about ghosts that could do that. When he thought of ghosts, he thought of little green blobs with frowny faces. Not... whatever the hell Spectra was. He forced back another shudder. Maybe they were right all along. That ghosts were real, and that they were evil and to be avoided....

But then, who was that voice that had cut through the fog? Who had saved him?

He didn't know. But what he did know was that those ghosts were too much for one person to handle. He needed to find whoever had saved him, and help them before Spectra could–

He repressed another shudder. Don't think about it.

He needed to help them stop the ghosts.

Which meant he needed to get up.

Right.

Danny pressed his hands against the wall, then hissed as his left hand shot fire up his arm. He looked at it and gulped – it didn't look good. A couple of fingers were bent the wrong way, and the skin was raw and blistered from punching Bertrand in the eye. He squeezed his eyes shut. Took a deep breath. There were worse things than a broken hand. He couldn't focus on that now. He cradled his hand into his chest, and with his other hand he dragged the chair closer to him, using it to lever himself up onto shaky legs.

Standing. That was a thing he could do now. Good.

He took a small step and nearly fell over, bracing himself once more on the chair.

Okay, walking was going to take a little bit.

He took a few moments braced against the chair, before pushing himself up. He took a few wobbly steps towards the door, feeling like a baby giraffe taking its first few steps. When he reached the door, he braced himself against it for a few seconds, before taking a step back and pulling the door open. He needed to get to his locker if he wanted to be of any help – the ghost weapons his parents insisted he took to school were there, as was the ghost tracker they'd nearly perfected. It still pointed to Jazz for some reason, but it was better than nothing. He just hoped it'd lead him true.

Getting to his locker didn't prove to be a problem. He was a little slower than he wanted to be, but he was for once grateful for the school assembly, which emptied the hallways of students and teachers.

Opening his locker posed no problem – he could do it just as well with his right hand as he could with his left.

Picking a weapon to go along with the Fenton Finder proved tricky. He needed something that actually worked, that he could use with one hand. Something he could tuck under his arm while he used the tracker. Something that could actually do something against Spectra and Bertrand. He wished he had an ectogun, wished that he hadn't drawn the line at guns in school. But maybe...

He remembered his Dad demonstrating it at the kitchen table. He remembered how it turned into armor and a blaster. Hoping against hope that his parents had given a functional prototype to him "for his protection" – with the days he'd been having, hell if he knew – he dug one-handed through the junk in his locker, searching for the Fenton Peeler.

Fenton Ghost Fisher... no... Fenton Grappler... maybe... Fenton Anti-Creep Stick? What was that doing there? Aha!

There, partially hidden behind the Fenton Blanket, the Fenton Peeler sat, green ports gleaming in the light from the hallway behind him. He picked it up, finagling it one-handed under his arm, before picking up the Fenton Finder. Shutting his locker door and turning the tracker on, he waited for it to download location data.

"Ghost 150 feet to your right."

Danny grinned and turned to his right, following the Fenton Finder down the hallway, occasionally leaning against the lockers as he fought waves of dizziness, but always forcing himself back up again. Whoever it was that saved him probably needed help, and he was the only one who could find them.

He turned down a side hall to the doorway that let out in the alley behind the gym. The gym was where the Spirit Week assembly was being held... if this thing led to Jazz, he was going to scream. And then maybe faint. And then berate her for skipping assembly when there were dangerous ghosts on the loose.

But a few feet from the door, his blood ran cold and he couldn't suppress a shiver at the harsh, cutting sound of Spectra's voice. He powered down and put down the Fenton Finder, pulling the Peeler out from under his arm as he crept to the door. Gently pushing it open, he caught the last of Spectra's spiel.

"... some creepy little girl with creepy little powers?"

"Both! Uh...neither! I don't know!" The voice he had heard before – the one that had cleared the fog for him – rang clear now, high and uncertain, echoing in the alleyway. He glanced out the door and saw Spectra in her nightmarish form, clutching the face of his savior in her claws.

She was a ghost. She glowed like a ghost; her white hair, done up in a ponytail, floated and flickered like a ghost; and when he thought about it, her voice echoed like a ghost. He wanted to shut the door and leave them to it – they were ghosts, and ghosts were evil, Spectra had proven that – but she had saved him. Why would a ghost bother with saving him?

Then an aura formed around both ghosts, growing weaker around the girl, and stronger around the nightmare. Spectra bared her fangs in wicked delight.

"You're a freak! Not a ghost, not a girl! Who cares for a thing like you?"

Danny gritted his teeth. His grip hardened around the Fenton Peeler. With his elbow, he slammed the door open.

"Hey! I don't know this girl, but I think she should get a second opinion!"

And he activated the Fenton Peeler.

Spectra dropped the ghost – the girl, she was just a kid, no older than his sister – as the armor formed around him, sprouting from his hand and engulfing his arm, then his torso, then his head and legs, with metal. It squeezed just a little too tight, and he grimaced in pain; but it held him up, held him steady, held his arm steady. Gritting his teeth, he fired.

The blast of green should have bowled him over, but the armor stood firm. Instead it expanded from the end of the blaster, a wave of green that threatened to blow out the knife-like flames of the monster's being.

And then it did – peeling the darkness away, revealing Spectra's human form beneath, still buffeted by the onslaught of green. And then it peeled that away too, unveiling a slightly older Spectra, lines in her face twisting as she screamed. Layer after layer shriveled from her form, each revealing an older, weaker Spectra, until there was nothing left but a withered husk of the ghost she used to be. Danny released the trigger.

"No! I am nothing without my youth!" the ghost cried, voice straining against its atrophied state.

Suddenly, a blast of blue-white light engulfed her, and she screamed again, distorting and stretching towards the source of it. Danny looked and saw the ghost girl, arms outstretched, holding the thermos Dad had thrown away. Her eyes blazed green, her face set in a determined expression, her feet spread and braced against the force of the thermos.

Then, as Spectra disappeared into the thermos, the ghost girl capped it, and everything suddenly went silent, all but the blood pounding in Danny's ears. He wondered briefly if the ghost girl heard blood pounding in her ears, then dismissed the thought. Ghosts were dead. Their hearts didn't pump blood, if they had hearts at all.

Danny pressed the button to shut down the armor, and it peeled off of him, making him think of the way Spectra's nightmarish armor had peeled off of her. He chuckled, saying, "Talk about having nothing within."

Then a wave of dizziness hit him, and his legs buckled. His vision blurred as the pain he'd been forcing back hit him all at once, and he collapsed.

"Danny!"

The voice echoed in his head, but it couldn't cut through the pain he was in. He ached everywhere, and his arms and torso and face stung with a dozen cuts and bruises, and his hand was on fire, and his head – oh god, his head hurt like hell. He couldn't tell which way was up, could hardly think over the pounding in his brain–

There was a bright flash of light, and he couldn't hold back a moan as it stabbed into his eyes. He squinted them shut for a second – it could only have been a second – but when he opened them there was a familiar shock of red hair, and then a face – Jazz's face – looking down at him. Her mouth opened and she said something, but he couldn't make out the words, could only stare as her hair floated around her head, forming a ring around it like a crown of flames. Her eyes burned a toxic green, almost glowing in the alleyway. Then he blinked and her face was gone, and red and blue and white surrounded him, switching between the colors too fast for him to keep track. He wanted to sit up, to look around and find Jazz again, but his body wouldn't do what he told it to do. Instead he closed his eyes, shutting out the confusing lights and the loud noises that wouldn't sort themselves into things that made sense.

As he faded from the world, a fragment of Jazz's voice caught up to him, echoing in his head like the ghost girl's. Funny, they sounded almost the same. He would have laughed if he had the strength, if the world weren't tilting and twisting around him.

"Hold on!" she had said.

Hold on

The first thing Danny noticed was the sound of beeping.

It began softly, echoing in the darkness, an almost comforting sound in the background of his mind. But as awareness crept into his being, the beeping grew louder, more distinct, climbing to the foreground of his mind, poking him and prodding him and urging him to wake up, wake up, WAKE UP–

He opened his eyes.

And squeezed them shut again as the white light bored into them, driving a spike through the front of his head. He hissed in pain, and the beeping increased in frequency.

"Danny?"

He felt something cold touch his hand, and flinched away instinctively, eyes flinging themselves open, then squinting against the harsh light and the sharp pain in his head. He tried to sit up, but felt something large push against his chest. A dull ache pressed into his chest, but it was nothing compared to the panic racing through his veins, the beeping growing louder and more urgent, he was trapped, he couldn't get out, couldn't escape the monster that wanted to devour him whole–

"Danny!"

"Danny, it's okay!"

Danny froze, and then relaxed at the sound of familiar voices – voices that meant safety and comfort, voices that meant the monster couldn't be here because they would have chased it away. He opened his eyes again and was met with a wall of orange, a pillar of it outstretched, ending in a black glove held against his chest.

He glanced to his right, and saw a mild teal color – the color of home and cookies and gentle hugs and forehead kisses – then looked up to see purple eyes with eyebrows knotted in worry, lips pulled down in a gentle frown.

"Dad? Mom?"

His voice was raspy, but his parents smiled down at him all the same, their heads haloed by the bright white light in the ceiling above him. Still squinting against the light and the pounding in his head, he asked, "Can you turn down the lights? They're making my head hurt."

His mom turned back, saying, "Jazz, could you – thanks, honey!"

The lights went out, and the spike in his head disappeared, leaving a dull ache in its wake. He sighed in relief, slumping back and rubbing his eyes. Or at least, he tried to rub his eyes – his mom grabbed his right hand, saying, "Oh honey, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

His left hand, however, was left free; but as he raised it into his line of sight, he stopped short.

His hand was bandaged, and two of his fingers were heavily bruised and splinted. He stared at his hand in dull confusion. Was he in a hospital? What had–

Then his hand began to shake as the memories rushed back. Bertrand pressing slowly into his hand until his grip on the blaster and his fingers broke. Spectra's body cutting into his own as it tightened around him, her claw dragging down his face as she–

He put his hand down, pressing his head back into the bed and squeezing his eyes shut. He didn't want to think about it – didn't want to think about those red eyes, bleeding with malice and glee, staring into his own, or the way his thoughts and emotions had bled and twisted at the whim of her words, or – no, don't think about it – don't think–

"Oh, honey!" He felt a warm weight upon him, and he opened his eyes. His mom's hair was in his face, her arms wrapped around him, holding him gently, but holding him close. His dad quickly followed, his huge arms wrapping around them both. Danny burrowed his head into the crook of his mom's shoulder, and she hugged him tighter. He turned his head and looked for Jazz – she was still by the light switch, one hand fiddling with the hem of her shirt, the other fisted in her pocket. Her eyes were trained on him, shining with unshed tears, expression uncertain. He smiled wearily, extending his right hand to her. Before he knew it, she was hugging him, too, holding his hand and burying her head into his shoulder. Her hand was cold, but not freezing the way Spectra's had been. Her grip pressed into the needle in his hand, but he squeezed it anyways, pressing his head into hers. His dad wrapped his arm around her as well.

Surrounded by his family, warm in their arms, he felt safe for what seemed like the first time in ages. What Bertrand and Spectra had done almost felt like a dream.

Almost.

Stupid boy... who cares for a thing like you?

He shuddered and held tighter to his sister's hand. Then his dad squeezed him harder, and he winced as pain flared in his chest.

"Jack, you're hurting him!" his mom berated, giving Danny a kiss on the forehead before pulling herself from the hug. Jazz and his dad let go as well, his dad sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

"Sorry, Danno, I'm just... so proud of you, son!"

Danny stared in confusion at his dad, who wiped a tear from his eye and smiled.

His mom beamed down at him as well. "We're both so proud of you, Danny, and we're so glad you're alright."

Danny looked between his parents, still confused. "Um... proud? Why–"

"You kicked ghost butt, Danno! Just like your old man!" his dad proclaimed, chest swelling with pride.

"Jazz told us all about it! How you saved her from that horrible ghost–"

"And how you shredded that ghost with the Fenton Peeler! Created by me! Jack Fenton!"

"But–"

"You were so brave, sweetie, facing down three ghosts–"

"That's my boy! You got Fenton genes!"

"Wait–"

"But next time be sure to call us before you confront them; we're the experts, and we don't want you to get hurt–"

"Plus you get to see your old man in action!"

"Okay, but–"

"We'll have to figure out just where that ghost girl got a Fenton Thermos, and how she knows how to operate it..."

"And then we can rip her apart molecule by molecule!"

"But not before a thorough dissection–"

Danny bristled. "The ghost girl saved my life!"

His mom and dad paused, a bit shocked by his outburst. Then his mom smiled gently at him.

"Oh honey, that concussion must have really done a number on you! Ghosts aren't helpful, and they don't save people's lives except to advance their own selfish desires."

"Ha! Imagine that, Mads, a ghost saving someone!"

Danny could only stare dumbfounded as his parents laughed. Then he spluttered, "But– but she did, she– can you please stop laughing?!"

His mom put her hand on his shoulder, her laughter dying down to a chuckle. "I'm sorry, sweetie, we weren't laughing at you. We were laughing at the concept of a helpful ghost!"

"But she did help me..." Danny muttered, looking down.

His mom sighed, still smiling, removing her hand. "Ghosts don't help people, sweetie. If they seem like they're helping, it's only to further their own selfish agenda."

His dad nodded enthusiastically. "And when we get our hands on that ghost girl, we'll figure out just what she wants, and everything there is to know about her!"

His mom beamed up at his dad, wrapping her arm around his waist. "But first – we need to fill out some paperwork!" she said, guiding his dad towards the door.

"Aw man, I hate paperwork!" his dad complained, pouting.

"We'll get fudge after we're done!"

"I love paperwork!" his dad cried enthusiastically, pulling his mom out the door.

"You kids stay safe in there!" his mom called back to them.

Then the door shut.

The silence was deafening after the whirlwind that was their parents. Jazz was still standing next to Danny, but her hands were bunched into the bottom of her shirt, her eyes boring a hole into the floor.

"So..." Danny said, trying to break the silence. He wanted to move his arms, but with the bandages on one hand and the needle in the other, he figured that was a bad idea. Instead he bent forward, trying to catch his sister's eyes.

Oh no. Bad idea.

Danny shot back into the bed, squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for the vertigo to pass.

"Danny!" Jazz cried out in alarm. He felt her cold hands grip his arm, and he focused on them, tried to ground himself in the only sensation that wasn't spinning.

"Do you want me to call a nurse or something?" Jazz's hands loosened on his arm.

He thought about shaking his head, but decided that would be a bad idea, too. "No, I'm fine," he grunted out. "Just vertigo, it'll pass."

Jazz's hands settled on his arm, and Danny settled into the bed, riding out the tilt-a-whirl the world had become. When everything finally stopped spinning, he opened his eyes, carefully turning his head to look at Jazz.

Jazz was looking at him with worry on her face, but the moment he caught her eyes, she let go of his arm and turned her head down again, biting her lip. Danny sighed heavily.

"You know, I'm not gonna shatter or anything. It's just a concussion."

Jazz looked up, staring at him incredulously. "Just a concussion? And just lacerations that required stitches and just bruises and just a broken and burned hand and–"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Danny rolled his eyes. Then shut them as another wave of dizziness overtook him.

"Still not gonna shatter," he gritted out.

"You sure you don't want me to–"

"I'm fine, Jazz." Danny waved a hand in her general direction. "I don't think some nurse sticking a light in my eyes is gonna help anything."

There was a pause as Danny got his bearings. Then he heard Jazz shuffle in place, her hands digging into her shirt again. She was going to stretch it if she kept up that habit.

"Sorry," she whispered. Danny opened his eyes, glancing at her.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for."

Jazz turned around, pacing between the door and the bed, glaring at the floor.

"It's my fault you got a concussion, and it's my fault Spectra did what she did to you."

"Jazz, it's not–"

"No, it is!" She stopped mid-pace, fists by her sides, eyes glaring through him, glaring vivid green.

"I should have found out about them sooner! If I had, then you wouldn't have – and who knows what sort of psychological damage those monsters did to you!" Jazz then turned back to her pacing, throwing her hands in the air. "And to the whole student body! They're not psychologists! They used psychological tools sure, but they used them monstrously and to the detriment of everyone they touched! They..."

Danny was frozen while Jazz went on her tirade. His mind was whirring, trying to process what he had seen. He knew his sister's eyes like he knew the back of his hand, and the toxic green irises that illuminated her face were not them.

Nevertheless, they were familiar.

Jazz's hair began to float around her head as if lightning were about to strike, and Danny felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck rise in response. Memories fractured by pain and disorientation bubbled up in his mind. Jazz's face above him, hair spread like a wildfire around her head, eyes burning green with worry. And another face, illuminated blue by the light of the thermos. Teeth bared in a grimace. Eyes aflame with determination.

"... and she said horrible things to Janet about their gender, I've never seen them so upset and uncertain! And I bet she's the reason why Johnny Barker ran out of class when Oedipus came up, she probably filled his head with Freud even though Freud's been largely disproven–"

"You're the ghost girl."

Jazz paused in her pacing, turning to face Danny. "Well, yeah. You saw me, right? Before – well – you saw me transform and–"

"Get out of her."

Danny had pushed himself into a sitting position, had felt his face harden into a glare.

"Wait, what?"

Her hair fell around her and her eyes blinked from toxic green to their familiar blue in her surprise. That didn't fool him, though – Mom and Dad had said ghosts could hide in anyone. This was no different, except that it was his sister, and it was the ghost girl. His hands curled into fists. Or at least, they tried to, before the bandages and splints stopped his left and the pain from the needle stopped his right.

"You saved me, so I'm not going to call Mom and Dad. But you need to get out of my sister, and you need to leave."

"Danny, it's me!"

"What do you mean, 'it's me'?" He scoffed. He wanted to cross his arms. He settled for pressing his hands into the bed instead.

"You're the ghost girl, and you're possessing my sister, and you need to leave her alone!"

"Danny, I'm Jazz! The ghost girl is Jazz is me!"

"Yeah?" Danny raised an eyebrow. He could do that much, at least. "Prove it. What did Jazz do to my dinosaur when she was four and I was five?"

"Dinosaur? What– oh, I know what you're talking about!" Jazz smirked, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. "First of all, it wasn't a dinosaur, it was your adorable bunbun. And second of all, I made it cuter is what I did! It was plain and white and boring, and I gave it some much needed color!"

Danny blushed. "You made him into an atrocity is what you did!"

"Did not! I gave it all the colors of the rainbow!"

"You colored his eyes red! It was creepy!" It was all he could do to refrain from waving his arms. Jazz had no such qualms.

"They turned pink when Mom put it through the wash! It was cute!"

"You mean creepy, because those eyes were lopsided and weird and haunted my nightmares!"

"If I call Mr. Fluffy Munchkins creepy, will you admit I'm Jazz?"

"Fine!"

"Fine! It was creepy!"

"And you're definitely Jazz!"

"Fine!"

"Great!"

"Wonderful!"

"Splendiforous!"

"Absitively Posolutely Splendtacular!"

There was a beat of silence as they glared at each other.

Then Jazz's face wobbled, and Danny snorted, and they both broke down in laughter.

Danny couldn't help it – the whole situation was ridiculous. Here he was, trapped in a hospital bed, arguing with his sister over whether or not she'd turned his stuffed animal into a creepy monster and whether or not she was a ghost who had saved him from a creepier monster.

Oh man. His sister was a ghost.

His laughter took on a hysterical edge, but Jazz made no comment. Her laughter was bordering on hysteria as well, now that he thought about it.

But he needed this – they both needed this – a good long laugh, after everything they'd been through, after everything that monster had done.

As his laughter died down to a chuckle, he felt lighter, despite the dull ache of his torso. He watched with a smile as Jazz wiped a tear from her eye, her own chuckles subsiding as she looked at him.

He sighed, flopping down onto the bed. Then he pushed himself back up into a sitting position, carefully turning his head to face Jazz.

"So... how does that work? Are you d– are you a ghost?"

She bit her lip, looking down at her shoes. After a moment, she said quietly, "I... don't really know. I have a heartbeat when I'm human, so I don't think I'm dead, but... well, you've seen my other form." She looked up at him, quirking a smile despite the uncertainty in her eyes. "I'm basically a ghost in that form. I glow and float and can do ghost things when I'm a ghost. Oh, and I can do some of them when I'm human, too!" She raised her right hand, which faded out of visibility.

Danny's eyes widened in shock. It was one thing to half-remember his sister's glowing green eyes and floating hair; still another thing to see them when he was awake and lucid; but it was another thing entirely to see her do something ghostly on purpose, to watch as her hand faded to nothing. He reached out towards where he thought her hand was, and she took a step forward, putting her hand in his.

It was cool to the touch, but unmistakably a hand, palm squishing under his thumb. He pulled her hand towards him; adjusted his grip so that her fingers curled under his own.

Then he carefully uncurled her middle finger.

"Hey!" she cried, hand blinking visible as she pulled it back. He laughed at her expression, and at the incredulous tone in her voice.

"You know I had to!" he chuckled.

"Rude!" she pouted, sticking her tongue out. But she couldn't hold back a smile as she did so, the corners of her mouth fighting and losing against themselves to stay down.

He poked her in the cheek, and she finally let go and giggled. "You're so immature!"

"Well, someone's gotta be, with you being Miss Mature Smarty Pants over there!"

But Jazz looked back down at her shoes again.

"If I had been smarter, I could've saved you before she did that to you," she muttered. Danny could read the self-loathing in his sister's voice, and it broke his heart. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a hug.

"Jazz, you are the smartest person I know. If you hadn't figured it out, no one would've, and I'd have been a goner."

He felt Jazz shudder. She pulled away from him a bit, distraught eyes staring into his own. "You almost died! If I had found you any later she would have – and the concussion, that was my fault, I shouldn't have hit you so hard – I'm just some loser freak, and I can't even save my own brother right and–"

Danny covered her mouth. He stared hard into her eyes, which had begun to leak.

"You're not a freak. And you're not a loser. You're a person with superpowers, which is pretty cool in my book! You're, like, the coolest person I know, and that was even before I knew you had superpowers." He smiled at her, removing his hand and putting it on her shoulder. "And because you're a person, you're not gonna be perfect, no matter how much of a perfectionist you are. It doesn't matter when you figured it out – what matters is that you did, and you saved me when you did. I don't care about the concussion – a lot worse would have happened if you hadn't found me."

His sister stared at him, tears still falling from her eyes, bottom lip trembling. Then she sobbed and lunged at him, hugging his torso and burrowing her head into the crook of his neck. He held back a groan and held her tight, pulling his right arm as far as it would go and wrapping his left around her. He buried his head into hair, shutting his eyes. After a few moments, he was surprised to find it wet. He opened his eyes again, and his sight was blurry.

Crying. He was crying.

He shut his eyes again, taking a few deep, shuddering breaths.

He was alright. Jazz was alright. Everything was going to be alright.

"Hey Jazz," he whispered after a few moments of holding each other close.

"Yeah?" Her voice was still damp with tears.

"Thanks. For everything."

She chuckled wetly.

"No problem, big bro."

Danny supposed the very first thing that should have tipped him off was the accident itself. He'd never forget the sight of his little sister sprawled before the swirling, pulsing mass of green that wasn't there before, red hair covering her face, almost glowing white in the green light coming from the portal that had only ever been a sparking hole in the wall beforehand. He heard someone scream her name. Blinked and he was halfway down the stairs. Blinked again and he was kneeling in front of her, legs aching, throat raw. His hands shook as he moved the hair from her face, and he forced them to still as he held one of them in front of her nose and mouth, holding his breath as he waited for a sign of life–

There! Only just noticeable, but unmistakably there, a small exhale of air from her nose tickling his palm. He could have sobbed with relief, but he wasn't done yet, her foot was inside that toxic radioactive green, and her arm – her arm was – he couldn't look away, could only stare at the raw flesh blistering in fractal patterns up her arm, disappearing at the shredded shoulder of her jumpsuit, why was she in her jumpsuit she said she wouldn't be caught dead in that thing oh god please don't die–

And suddenly he was shoved aside, heart pounding in his ears, pulsing out of tune with the light of the portal. He blinked and saw his parents, his dad a mass of orange clashing with the pulsing green, cradling Jazz in his lap; his mom a slip of teal blue and black, gently caressing the injured arm before turning to Danny and yelling something he couldn't process over the pounding in his ears. He blinked and his mom had disappeared, his dad standing up, his sister still cradled in his dad's arms. He blinked again and he was walking up the stairs, following the mass of orange in front of him, leaving that toxic pulsing glow in the basement behind him.

He blinked again and heard sirens, loud in his ears, how had he missed them approaching; saw the kitchen awash in cycling blues and reds and whites. His dad was carrying his sister to the door, to a bunch of people in uniforms, to the ambulance he could see just beyond his dad's hulking figure. He felt a wave of relief wash over him, they don't bring ambulances for dead people–

He blinked again. He was in a waiting room, sitting between his dad, who was glaring a hole in the wall and tapping a divot into the floor with his foot; and his mom, who was chewing on her lip, worrying her hand through Danny's hair. Danny leaned into his mom, closing his eyes, letting the feeling of her fingers gently untangling the knots in his hair wash over him.

He saw his sister, sprawled on the ground, pulsing green light casting her in a sickly glow, fractal blisters climbing up her arm–

Danny tensed, eyes shooting open, pulling away from his mom.

"Honey, are you okay?" she asked in a hushed tone, resting her hand on his shoulder.

Danny nodded. He tried to speak, choked, cleared his throat. Tried again. The words came out in a hoarse whisper.

"Will Jazz be okay?"

His dad's foot paused, and then tapped a little harder, a little faster. His mom's hand on his shoulder tightened.

"She's in the ICU. We have to wait for the doctor, but– we don't know, sweetie." Her voice wobbled. "I'm sorry, but we don't know."

Danny's eyes blurred. He blinked, rubbed at them, and was surprised to find tears. His mom wrapped an arm around him, leaning her head on his shoulder. His dad turned and engulfed them both in a hug, burying his head into Danny's hair. A sharp pain squeezed his chest, and suddenly he was sobbing, unable to keep back the flood of emotion coursing through him. He couldn't quite process it all, but there was one thought on his mind, echoing in his head: Please don't die.

Please don't die.

"I'm going to school! Bye!"

Danny heard the front door slam as he dug into his scrambled eggs. Today was a rare day when his parents were between projects. His mom made the best scrambled eggs (when she wasn't testing some new ecto-powered appliance): mixed with parmesan cheese and pico de gallo, and spiced and cooked to perfection. He was going to savor this breakfast.

Or at least, he would have, if he hadn't caught sight of Jazz's Fenton thermos on the table.

Danny nearly choked on his mouthful of eggs, but he quickly swallowed it. Shoveling the rest of the eggs on his plate into his mouth, he got up from the table, snagging the thermos in one hand and his backpack in the other. If he was fast enough, he could catch her before she took off–

"Danny, what's the hurry?"

He turned around in the doorway to see his mom poking her head out of the kitchen, a slice of toast in hand.

"I–"

"Danny! Chew and swallow before you talk to anyone, young man!"

Danny swallowed the large clump of eggs in his mouth. So much for savoring his breakfast.

"I need to give Jazz her- her lunch! She forgot it!"

"But–"

"Okay Mom going to school now love you bye!"

Danny turned around and ran out the door, slamming the door shut and jumping down the steps. He hoped he wouldn't get a lecture later.

He glanced down the street and caught sight of Jazz flying away from him, hair and ghostly tail whipping back and forth in the breeze. He ran towards her, waving his hand in the air.

"Hey Ja– Phantom! Hey Phantom!"

Despite her distance from him, Jazz stopped and turned around. She flew down to the street, looking around before transforming, her tail splitting into legs a few feet above the ground. Danny marveled at the ease with which she transformed in front of him. Only a month ago she had been reluctant to transform in front of him, even when they were alone. Now, as long as no one who didn't know was around, it came as natural to her as breathing.

Jazz alit on the asphalt completely human, running a couple steps before coming to a stop and frowning up at him.

"Danny, what are you doing?" she hissed. "You can't just shout my name in the middle of the street!"

"First of all, I didn't shout your name, I almost shouted your name. There's a difference. Second of all, you forgot your thermos."

Her eyes widened in surprise as he handed her the thermos. "Oh, uh, thanks!"

"No problem, sis."

They walked together in comfortable silence for a bit. Jazz frowned at the sidewalk, muttering under her breath. Something about... signs? And co-signs? And tans... Oh, he knew what this was about.

"You've got a math test today, right? How'd studying for that go?"

Jazz continued to mutter under her breath before answering him, still staring at the sidewalk.

"Pretty good, actually. Spike's been helping me a lot, he's really good at math. Says he might be a math teacher or a professor someday."

"Cool. Maybe you'll see each other at the same university some day!"

They stopped at the end of the block, waiting for Danny's friends to join them before they walked the rest of the way to school. There were a few cars passing by. An old lady was walking her dog on the other side of the street.

"Oh, I doubt it," Jazz said, looking up at Danny. "I'm going to Stanford, and he's set his sights on–"

Jazz gasped. Her face turned upwards and her eyes searched the sky. Danny, meanwhile, searched the street for somewhere to hide, somewhere she could transform and not be seen. The nearest alleyways were usually occupied, they'd learned that the hard way. If they wanted an alley that probably didn't have anyone in it, they'd have to run half a block–

Wait, there! There were Sam and Tucker, making their way down Birch Road, talking animatedly. He saw Sam punch Tucker in the arm, and Tucker grab his arm in (probably) mock hurt before pushing Sam. Danny grabbed Jazz's arm and booked it towards them.

"What– hey!" Jazz cried, stumbling before turning around and keeping pace with him.

"Hey guys! Group hug!" Danny shouted down the street. Sam and Tucker turned their heads to him before running towards them as they processed what he'd said.

"Danny, what are you– oh!" Jazz spotted Sam and Tucker, and raced ahead of Danny to meet them.

They all four met in the middle of the sidewalk, Jazz running into Sam and Tucker's embrace before being glomped from behind by Danny. When she was sure she was covered, she transformed, rings of light hidden by her brother and their friends. She then slipped invisible and intangible, the only sign of her a cold spot in between them – one which left them with a quickly whispered "Thanks, guys!"

The trio held onto the hug for a moment more, only letting go when Jazz turned visible in the sky, searching for her quarry.

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

Jazz groaned, turning around to face the ghost.

"Come on, Crate Creep! If you ruin my no tardy streak, I'm leaving you in the thermos for a week!"

"YOUR PUNY NON-BOX-LIKE CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER CANNOT CONTAIN–"

Jazz threw an ectoblast at him.

The Box Ghost gulped and fled, Jazz chasing after him.

Danny smiled up at them, shaking his head. It was just the Box Ghost. She could handle it.

"Do you think she does that on purpose?" Sam asked, pointing towards Jazz with her thumb as the trio continued their walk to school.

"Does what on purpose?" Danny asked, glancing at Sam.

"Oh, you know," Tucker said, pulling out his PDA. "Call the Box Ghost 'Crate Creep' and Skulker 'Ghost X' and all that j–"

"Tucker, finish that sentence and I will hit you."

Danny laughed as Tucker dodged from Sam's reach. "I think she just doesn't want to admit she was wrong about their names. Either that, or she likes the names she came up with for them more than the names they came with."

"Well, you gotta admit, 'Lady Lunchabelle' has a certain ring to it that 'The Lunch Lady' lacks," Tucker quipped.

They all three nodded seriously, before breaking into laughter.

Then Sam said, "Have you seen the trailer for that new superhero movie? I know it's normally not my thing, but the protagonist was so cool! She..."

And so the three of them continued, their discussion moving from superhero movies to movies with secret identities to secret identities in general. They were crossing Elm Street when the topic turned to Jazz's secret identity.

"How did it take you so long to figure out your own sister?" Sam asked Danny, lightly shoving him in the arm. "I figured her out within the first week!"

"Yeah, dude, it only took me like two weeks to find out – she 'becomes ghostly' everywhere." Tucker tapped a few buttons on his PDA, before looking up at Danny. "She's lucky she has me to scrub all the security cameras!"

Danny winced, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I should talk to her about that."

Sam continued as if Danny hadn't spoken. "It took you over a month to figure it out, and only because she told you! You gotta admit – you're pretty clueless when it comes to these things!"

Danny didn't respond. He rubbed the back of his hand – it was still rough from where he'd punched Bertrand, but he was familiar with it now – familiar with the way it dipped and whorled around his knuckles. He thought about Jazz's eyes – both their teal blue, and their glowing green. So different, yet both familiar to him now as well – both burned with the same curiosity, and both lit with laughter in the same way. Both meant his sister.

He thought about how her voice had echoed in the hallway the day she had gotten her first B, and the way it echoed in his head when she saved him from Spectra. He thought about how white her hair had seemed in the light of the portal, splayed limply around her head. And he thought about how white it was now, tied behind her head but flickering like fire, as she floated across the sky, giving them a wave before flying in the direction of school.

"Danny? You okay?" Sam put a hand on his shoulder, and he started.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just thinking." He chuckled, watching as his sister did a vertical loop in the sky. "I am pretty clueless, aren't I?"

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