#he's like .... i got ZERO sleep. zero.
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someone make up a good ship name for these two while i go crazy
#oh ym god.........#the original thought was like what if billys fans go off when hes nervous#and then i hauve covid#but anyways i have more of these to come im gonna take a nap now cus i got only like 3 hours of sleep last night heeheehoohoo#zzzero#zzz#zenless zone zero#wise zzz#belle zzz#billy kid#belle is so hard to draw
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Huevember 11
Karen and Rick but in the DND AU. (I just look at this and think 'Barbie learned eldritch blast' but ya know. Whatever.)
#my characters#oops i fell in love#shocking zero people rick is one of the most side characters you can side aside from erin#like at least he appears in canon OIFIL#he and karen are platonic soul mates for the record and that is SO important to me#karen is always surrounded by guys and decides to try a dating app and then matches with rick#and is like omg what a handsome guy ??? score?#and then goes on a date with him and is like sorry but has ANYONE told you that you're way cuter in person#and he is like excuse me? is that bad?#and she is just so devastated to explain sorry man you just make me want to treat you like a brother#i cant help it - youve got a stellar profile pic but dang the real deal is just. cute. bummer#and then they ghost each other and then they match on a different app#and after a while they start to meet up after matching but in a strictly friendly way to mourn the shot at romance#also karen is surrounded by bisexuals but is straight and then meets rick who is also straight and shes like#really im not shocked im feeling NOTHING for the only other straight person in my life#im going to go lie in a bag and sleep i hope#gotta take care of me and me has a headache#so i guess i should go get more water before death i mean sleep#idk why my hues are only for oifil ??? brain no work with hues and fanart ???
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a helpful graphic
+ one more entry i have in the black/white doomed yaoi category (and also an orv spoiler)
#orv#joongdok#lc#sgdlr#shiguang#alnst#ivantill#vnc#vanoe#yes i reused that joongdok/shiguang joke. what are you gonna do. sue me#the they should be at the club is a reference to like. cxs is 21 and i think ivan's 22?#both kdj and yjh are 28 they should be getting 8 hours of sleep. (????#not even joking halfway through making this zero by lmyk came up on my spotify#as in. the vnc ed that i got that exact image from#if you wanna be a pedant i think vnc is more doomed yaoi than tragic yaoi tho cuz we just know noe's gonna kill vanitas but we havent#gotten?? there???? yet??????#i love how much that sounds like a spoiler its literally the first thing he says in the fucking show LMAO#asto speaks#in a better timeline i wouldve typed this out instead of writing it by hand
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Finally went and watched Zero Tea Time and like, how is this man still functioning at all??? If we're to assume that Furuya sleeps about 2 hours a night regularly, I'm sorry but this man would in no way shape or form be able to do what he does. - Sincerely, someone who has legitimately slept 3AM to 5AM regularly for several months due to having pre-existing sleep issues and a job that started at an ungodly time.
Like, yes I get that I shouldn't be thinking too deeply since anime logic, but also on this same schedule I felt like I was about to die by week 3 and was essentially a human zombie with my mental health down the sink by week 6(and technically I was sleeping more than 2 hours since I would take some naps as well) so I have some strong feelings about this. Hell, there's no way this man would be able to keep track of what time it is let alone all his jobs and secrets with that amount of sleep. Even if we go under the assumption that he sleeps 3-4 or even 4-5 hours usually and the 2 hours was a special case this man would still not be able to make all those deductions and chase all those criminals. Sure you won't feel as shit, but you definitely will still be feeling quite shit.
No wonder this man depressed and insane with a sprinkling of anger issues and seems to be constantly lowkey disassociating in Zero Tea Time. Yes most of it is because he's the only one left and is horribly traumatized but also like Furuya, have you considered taking a nap? It doesn't solve the trauma, but give yourself 8-10 hours of proper sleep and you'll be waking up ready to take on god.
As a side note, are there fics where Furuya is severely sleep deprived and how that impacts him? Because so far I haven't seen any but I also don't usually go out of my way to find Furuya centered fics. Because if there isn't I'll write one myself, not enough chronic sleep deprivation rep round here in general. Mans mother hens everyone around him, he deserves someone to mother hen him back to force him to sleep because the world will not in fact end if he takes some time off.
#sorry for the mini rant y'all#but I'm intimately familiar with chronic sleep deprivation and this ain't it chief and I want my rep lol#where's the chronic headache where it feels like your brain and sometimes eyeballs are being squeezed out of your skull#not to mention the brain fog struggle to focus and feeling like you're not in control of your body bc your reflexes and stuff get real shit#at least they got the recklessness depression and temper issues kinda down pat since many inhibitions go down the drain#seriously I want to lock this man in a bedroom wrap him in a blanket and force him to sleep 8-10 hours#great way to start my dc side blog I must say#furuya rei#amuro tooru#zero tea time#dcmk#detective conan#detco#on a slightly unrelated note it's good to see he at least gets some sleep a night#I've gotten up to 50 something hours without sleep before at my worst and it was a *trip* I'll tell you that#10/10 do not reccomend
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s3e4 "Paradise"
highway's first screencaps.
lol this is addictive
i blame @masterwords
#aaron hotchner#he is so angsty in this ep#like he admits he got zero sleep the entire case#and kind of fucks up when he doesn't suspect that unsub#then just beats the shit out of himself mentally#i love him#criminal minds#angsty aaron#screencaps
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don’t let me reread because i saw this
and an image of reynevan pleading innocent like the crying cat meme flashed across my mind
#szarlej: if the sorcerer does not fit you must acquit!!#you know we were robbed of a scene where szarlej pretends to be reynevan’s lawyer? that should have happened at least once#what is with bandits robbing tax collectors in sapkowski’s novels??#you know of all the get rich quick schemes out there robbing a tax collector has REALLY dropped off in terms of popularity#i guess this is what happens when you study foreign trade - economics and then have an interest in medieval history#im still like omg. raubritters were a thing you didnt just make that up? that’s fucked up. but cool that it wasn’t made up. but fucked up#and it’s literally raub + ritter. obvious german should be obvious#the first is a cognate and the second i know from rittersporne which guess how i know that 🙄#anyways…#you know… if angoulême still had friends around there’s a less than zero chance they would have tried to jump regis#he would hear it coming from a mile away (… maybe literally) and just disappear around a street corner#or… hide under a rock… like canonically. honestly still not sure why he did that.#ITS THE FULL MOON. YOU CAN FLY#regis answer = ‘idk… i got scared 😥😥…’#honestly interesting conundrum because too many ideas i have seen are like ‘someone tries to fuck with a vampire they get ripped to shreds’#which ok wish fulfillment i get it but#consider that 1. regis is nonviolent and would likely put someone to sleep over kill them#2. they are teenage hooligans 3. he understands teenager hooliganism#honestly he would pacify them and then while their eyes are empty he would just be like giving some solid life advice#bandits: standing with head drooped. probably drooling on themselves | regis: sounding like a turn your life around podcast#the elbow-high diaries#not even interesting post sorry just totally ramble nonsense here
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Isn't it crazy how Minato is the most trans protag they have ever made.
#That little transmasc boy having the worst year of his life#has anyone seen that post that's like “reload minato has thought about killing himself but og has attempted?”#thats what im thinking about rn#im so tired#i got like 4 hours of sleep so im not on the top of my miserable minato posting#im going back to sleep#oh his poor horrible life#wouldn't even be able to buy a binder.#he has zero autonomy I'm going to kill myself 😭😭😭😭
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Still laugh about when my dad brother and I went to Italy together and on the first day, after a flight that arrived at nine am italy-time and 2 am our time, my dad was watching the two of us stumble around Venice half conscious and incapable of mustering even an ounce of enthusiasm for anything because neither of us managed even a minute of sleep on the flights over, and what he took from this was ‘oh my god, my kids don’t even like Italy.’
#he was about to never take us anywhere again lmao#but seriously… it was so bad. my allergies kicked in horribly at the very end of the flight when i took my mask off to eat (i’m convinced#someone sprayed something i was allergic to because this was can’t-stop-sneezing-eyes-watering-so-much-you’re-basically-crying bad)#and between that and the zero sleep we got to saint marks square and i literally couldn’t look at anything because the sky was too bright.#like i’d try to look up at the buildings and i literally couldn’t see anything. and then i spent the entire walk back to our hotel on the#verge of passing out every few steps because i was That tired. and my dad just saw all this and went#‘damn my kids don’t know how to have fun at ALL.’
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that was, hands down, THE worst sleep of my life. 0/10. Thank you Marriott Hotels.
#ray's tag#tbh it wasnt even the bed itself its tje fact tjat i shared a bed with a friend and he couldnt sleep#and tjere was no white noise like zero so all i could hear was [rustling of blankets] [rustling of blankets] [rustling of blankets]#the other two people in the room slept just fine. I gave up at around 12:30 and moved to the floor. My friend slept in the bathroom.#and then i got off of the floor at 1am and got back into the bed and then he slept on the floor and everything sucked#but i think i got like two hours of good sleep at least?#for reference we usually get 8-10 even on school nights and 12-14+ on the weekends so.#this'll be interesting.
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where is my lockwood & co. crossover with bridgerton in which lockwood & co. somehow time travel to the regency period and now have to deal with the time era’s bullshit whilst also figure out how The Problem is a thing in the early 1800’s when it hadn’t even existed… this is exactly what george wants to investigate. they get dragged to a time where The Problem was active and yet it has never been documented. meanwhile, locklyle were just getting their footing and being semi-more-flirty each other and now they can’t interact in private without a goddamn chaperone. do you think that stops either one of them— fuck no. but it creates so many fun situations. and in total, the trio goes out nightly more or less every time there’s ghost activity.
#i like to think that it took a while for children to develop the seeing ghosts thing#like some of the kids right now in the regency era can see weird stuff or hear weird stuff but are basically told from a young age#to not ‘act out’ or ‘talk like a loony’ etc#and so they had to kind of push it down#till later in the decades talent just increased more until it was just there especially when the problem came a knockin’#eloise goes insane over lucy. like not only does she look vv similar to her litle sister but she’s COOL#and yes there will be a subtle implied subject that lucy is decended from a bridgerton- most likely franny- but its never like a big thing#its mainly ‘oh fuck one of these arseholes is my ancestor and if they die i may cease to exist. oh well.’#and then its lockwood ‘OH FUCK ONE OF THESE ARSEHOLES IS LUCE’S ANCESTORS AND IF THEY DIE SHE MAY CEASE TO EXIST’#so thats why he takes a bigger interest in protecting them more or less; but it’s never gonna be like a HUGE thing its just a thing#who would george get along with#i havent seen bridgerton in a minute#i would write it but i have zero knowledge about regency era stuff#like ill write lockwood & co. in my sleep but i got no clue how the regency era scandal™️ works#do i have to rewatch bridgerton again; im just gonna skip to the s*x scenes we both know this#and the lady danbury scenes too#like thats all i’d end up rewatching#lockwood and lucy#lockwood and co#anthony lockwood#lucy carlyle#george karim#lockwood & co x bridgerton#hyacinth and george can see ghosts totes but the rest of the bridgertons as well as older teens have pushed the talent down#theyre sensitives and thats it#is that how it works#im making it up as i go#should i make a whole new type 4 that can time travel. is that allowed? can anyone stop me?#should lockwood meet kipps’ ancestor and start the rivalry from decades earlier bc he’s THAT petty
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none of the archangels have their shit together, but gabriel is the closest to pulling it off and you gotta respect him for that
#sorry i was thinking about human au fanfics that make raphael the reasonable and boring one again sorry you are wrong#human!au raphael doesn’t even get to inherit their dead dad’s business or anything. they just inherit ‘keeping michael alive’.#they should literally be at the club but instead they are inventing lobotomy for office workers so that michael’s job is easier#gabriel is like. a moderately well-paid janitor who fucks with people and gets away with it because of the anonymity of being the guy who#cleans everything. he has a mortgage. raphael has not moved out of their dead father’s house. raphael is acting like michael sleeping in#their dead dad’s bed and wearing his clothes and working in his office is both Normal and also Doesn’t Make Them Furious#raphael has zero healthy outlets for their emotions. they destroy the shed outside their house one time because everything is Too Much and#then immediately blame it on lucifer (not even in the state when this happened) and michael believes them#gabriel adopted a dog. raphael is going to have to micromanage their grieving brother while locking themselves in their room to scream into#a pillow every few hours to survive. and this is before michael gets hitched to adam after a one night stand that was So Fucking Loud#that raphael actually left the house and slept in their car for half of the night before driving the gabriel’s. and they didn’t even go in#on their own. he had to come out and get them. and drag them inside. and for a brief night in the past few years of hell they’d been through#they got to sit on the floor with their brother’s dog in their lap and watch stupid romcom movies with him.#and then they went right back to being self-destructive.
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I was looking at the groovy gumlet tag and saw that there's less than ten posts or so
And my brain, in its resist-the-sleep, thought: well, just write x fanfiction about him
And I immediately had to swat it because to me, Groovy is like. A child. In the terrible age phases of like, thirteen. He is physically so small. NO.
#first solution to get interest? fanfictions apparently#i mean i think i just ramble about julius so im glad im finally not feeling like the only one who likes the guy#considering he got a lot of hate for beating up subaru#but brain why#x groovy fanfics of all things#if the tag needs attention i think thats not the right way to go for groovy#hes more of a character i want to hug and swing around knowing he'll bite my face off anyway#groovy gumlet#my thoughts#rezero#re zero#re:zero#fanfic#fic#yikes brain#you need the sleep
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shout out to ND for making it incredibly hard to get caught up on COVID boosters; I think that may be why this time having COVID is kicking my ass so hard
#text post#i at least have been getting up to go downstairs but today i don't even want that and i hate that#my throat is killing me and there is Zero energy in any limbs and i slept for shit#bc apparently at this stage i should have been sleeping sitting up to help the throat (i am sitting up in bed now aksnfkgn)#butterscotch weed hard candy do ur work and numb my throat a bit pls#it keeps it from hurting as much and my god i have never been more grateful for weed aksndkfng#thank travis for travis but instead it's thank ppl who fought for legalization for it being legalized#i feel so lazy!!! sitting in bed!! gnashing teeth and frustration!!!#there is i think? a woodpecker outside tho and that's so cool#bc the last one i saw and heard was at my great aunt and great grandmothers place while they were both still alive#they claimed to hate the guy but after the fake owl didn't scare him off he just got to Stay aksndkfng#aunt Betty and great granma pls lend me some strength here bc im a Baby TM when sick like this aksndkgngn
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Miles 🙂🥺🥹🥰☺️🤗😌😊😇😁
#this is just my brain right now. he is so cool.#argrhekajHhhh. i need to sleep. i also reslly need to do schoolwork like ive got shit due URGENTLY SO VERY SOON#but i just want to draw miles#ive been figuring out how i wanna draw him & when i eventually get around to doing smth digitally i'll post it :]]]#just doing secret sketchbook stuff for now though. because people irl see my sketchbook and Noone Can Know.#the chances of anyone ever even getting the chance to make that connection are so low. but not zero... so. yah. miles is so awesome#though#blorbo microwave spinning SO fast right now. like the microwave is broken it is not supposed to be spinning this fast.#imagine theres a gif of a microwave here and its sped up like 200x#so fast
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" damn. when'd you get up, early bird? " touya in his scrumpy pjs seeing him in the common area.
UNPROMPTED ASK » ANSWERED.
↳ @crem8 always accepting !
❝ -- i'm an insomniac. ❞ the blonde expels cooly, peering up from a half interesting novel. books he's brought from home for a hideout this foresaken. telling them honestly that he'd SAT THROUGH AN ENTIRE CONCERTO FOR GRAVE CASES OF SLEEP APNEA was almost juvenile. second to anxiety & the wars within, a punishment disclosed to no one. -- the better question is, why touya was skulking about with rags that further tore along the floors. ❝ you look ready to stick it to father dearest. ❞
#he's like .... i got ZERO sleep. zero.#at least be ready to take over the world or sm#fuck you.#❛ ⦗ ᴄᴏᴅᴇ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ☾ ∶ ⁎﹡☆ ᴛᴡɪʟɪɢʜᴛ ⁎﹡☆ ⸺ ic .#❛ ⦗ ᴄᴏᴅᴇ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ☾ ∶ ⁎﹡☆ ᴛᴡɪʟɪɢʜᴛ ⁎﹡☆ ⸺ answered .#crem8#❛ ⦗ ᴄᴏᴅᴇ ɴᴀᴍᴇ ☾ ∶ ⁎﹡☆ ᴛᴡɪʟɪɢʜᴛ ⁎﹡☆ ⸺ v: my hero academia .
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GUESS WHO’S BACK! this time, with a slightly different take on the prompt 🤣 Bio!Dad Bruce, Siblings Danny and Damian!! I know I said I was going to do twin!Damian, but it just fit better this way I think. I told you this prompt really gripped me, so please enjoy even more words on it!!
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Look. The only excuse Danny can give is that he's tired, alright? He's so, so tired. Matchsticks propping up his eyelids kind of tired. Five quiet seconds away from face planting into the ground kind of tired. Mistake the coat rack for his mom again kind of tired.
Beat this ghost into the ground if he doesn't put him back in his bedroom so he can finish his homework and finally get some sleep kind of tired.
Seriously, what the hell? He'd only just gotten back to his room after souping the fifth ectopus of the night (apparently there was some sort of migration happening and it just happened to coincide with the worst case of homework overload he's had since freshman year) when he was enveloped in a swirling mess of green and deposited in an ectoplasmic cage in some random ghost's lair. It's just not fair! If it doesn't rain, it pours, and the only constant in life is that Danny doesn’t ever seem to have an umbrella.
So, when Danny looks down and sees that he's still clutching his textbook and homework packet to his chest, and then looks around to see a few more cages containing a few more blurry looking people all milling around and banging on the ectoplasm in confusion, sees the ghost up the front in the middle of a monologue that Danny just knows is going to take forever, he does the only reasonable thing he can think of.
He does his homework.
Yes, he knows he's meant to be a hero, he knows he's meant to be helping these people escape, but come on! He's also an overworked high school student with several deadlines and a dwindling amount of detentions he can get before exclusion, so what choice does he really have?
The ghost doesn't even feel all that powerful, maybe on par with Boxy? He's got a sense for these things now—an annoyance metre, rather than his normal ghost sense—and from the weak pulse of ectoplasm surrounding him, the cheesy Sigmund Freud-looking therapist getup, and the very fact that he's still monologuing, Danny just knows. More annoying to deal with than an actual oh-shit-the-world-is-ending kind of problem. He could take this guy in his sleep.
Or, more accurately, he could take this guy on close to three hours of snatched sleep for the entire week.
So, sue him. He's using this time as independent study. He's doing his homework and there's nothing this smarmy, two-bit Doctor Phil ghost can do to stop him.
Actually, please don't sue him, Danny has this all in hand, he promises. As soon as he hears the other hostages make a sound, he'll abandon his homework and he'll soup the guy. Just let him do most of it first, please!
Decision made, Danny settles down and cracks open his textbook. Math time!
Hey, so turns out, math fucking sucks.
It's not long before Danny thinks this whole thing was a stupid idea and he kinda wishes he would just get expelled. Give him something broken and he’ll fix it. Give him a lab and some scrap metal and he’s pretty sure he can build whatever, just like his parents.
Getting these numbers into the right answer, however? Impossible! How in the name of all that is dead is he meant to do this?
He's sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cage, textbook split open and the pages from his packet scattered messily around him, head in his hands, when he hears a knock on his cage. A shiver rolls through him as a rush of ectoplasm powers through the walls, lighting it up in a pale glowing green.
“What? What do you want?” he grumbles, not even looking up. “Because if it’s not an easy explanation for the quadratic formula, I don’t wanna know.”
“Are you doing your homework?” The ghost’s voice is incredulous and Danny can feel him swoop down to the floor to get a closer look, but whatever, he still doesn’t look up. Instead, he focuses on trying to put the numbers into some semblance of order. “You should be concentrating on my game!”
“Oh, man, ordinarily I’d be so into blowing off my homework for whatever game you’ve got cooking, but if I get one more detention I’m pretty sure Mom will actually succeed in killing me and I don’t fancy going through that again, you feel?”
“Excuse me? I don’t think you understand the kind of position you’re putting your—”
“You have to do brackets before multiplication, right? But you’ve got to make it balance on both sides of the equation, so that means I’ve got to… Wait, no, balancing equations is something different, isn't it? Ancients, this is so fucked, where’s my calculator…”
The cage rocks back with the force of the ghost’s fists and Danny has to scramble to keep all of his scraps of paper in some sort of order.
“Dude! What the hell?”
“Answer my question so we can carry on with the game.” The ghost hisses, his face pressed up against the glass walls of the cage.
Danny rolls his eyes. He’s trying to answer his own questions, thank you very much! Perhaps he should just bust out, end this quickly and get back home. At least there he’d have access to the internet—and more importantly, Tucker’s answers. To compare, not to cheat, of course.
“Fine, what’s your question?”
“You weren’t listening? Do you even care about this at all?”
“All I care about right now is finishing my homework and getting back home at least an hour before my alarm goes off. So unless you can promise me that, I'm going to fight you now and finish off my homework in peace."
“Fight me? At least threatening bodily harm is something you all have in common. Please, you’re all stuck in there until this game ends, whether you like it or not.” The ghost sneers against the cage in what he probably thinks is an intimidating display of teeth, but instead just has Danny realising that he’s not brushed his own in two days. He's been so tired, he's not had time. It's still gross, though. “Answer the questions and you’ll be able to go home lickety-split.”
“Yeah, alright, whatever—as long as I get to answer my own questions, too. X doesn’t solve itself, you know.” As much as he wishes it did.
“Fine. I suppose this isn’t a test for you, anyway.”
Okay, well, at least it seems like Danny’s just a pawn and not an actual player in whatever kind of game this is. He’s not sure how he feels about that—actually, scratch that, yes he does. It’s really fucking nice to not be the one that’s one fuck up away from losing everything.
Mind you, he’s still not off the hook for it, yet. Obviously, he’ll still be keeping an ear out for anything going wrong, but what’s the harm in letting it play out a little longer? At least he’ll get some more work done.
“Fine.” Danny parrots. “What’s your question?”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“What’s your name?”
“You don’t know who I am?”
Huh. It’s not often that happens anymore. Weird.
Instead of giving him any answer, the ghost just whips around and cackles as he flies off towards the centre of the room. The glow of his cage dies down as the supply of ectoplasm dwindles and he finally takes a proper look around.
“Did you hear that? Did you hear the shock in his voice, did you see the betrayal in his eyes? You don’t know who he is!”
The ghost is swirling around a podium in the middle of the room, mocking the person in a voice that pierces Danny’s eardrums and stabs directly into his brain. Great, he’s entered the blinding headache stage of tired. He squints and rubs his eyes, but the heavy, blurring tiredness doesn’t leave.
He gives up on trying to guess who the hulking figure in the middle is. All he can assume is that he’s the reason they’re all here, what with the five or six other cages surrounding placed facing him.
Look, it’s unreasonable to ask Danny to do maths and hero work, let him just pick one thing to focus on.
“That’s your first point lost, I’m afraid! Let’s keep going, shall we? The questions are going to get a little harder now, good luck…”
With that, the ghost flies over to the first cage and poses another question. “When is his birthday?”
There’s barely any hesitation from the man on the podium who gives his answer as “March 20th,” with a confident growl. It's pretty impressive, to be fair. Danny can’t remember what date his own birthday is half the time, let alone anyone else’s.
To be fair, Danny has two birthdays, so it's doubly hard.
He doesn't forget.
The first birthday, the one he celebrates, is the day he found the Fentons. He tells them he doesn't know his actual birthday and they believe him, so every April 3rd they celebrate the day he came into their lives.
Or, at least, they do in theory. The Fentons aren't great at remembering birthdays either.
He reserves his true birthday for remembering where he came from. For mourning the life he left behind, the family, his brother. And when the day is over, he pushes it aside and carries on with his completely normal life as best he can.
Which is what he’s doing now. Carrying on with his life as best he can. Doing his homework.
When this stupid game finally finishes, he’ll get transported back to his bedroom with his three sheets of (hopefully) correct answers and he’ll get some sleep.
Then he’ll wake up, go to school, and do it all again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as the ghost feeds enough ectoplasm through the first cage so that it lights up just like his did. Immediately, the man inside starts shouting, threatening the ghost with some very creative swearing to let them all go, but Danny just tunes him out because he’s doing what he does best. He's getting on with it.
He swallows and settles back down on the floor, trying to ignore the way his eyes are prickling. Cool. Entering into the “crying way too easily at just about anything” stage of tired. Lovely.
Right. Come on, you can do this. Take a deep breath. It’s just math.
Solve 7x^2 - 25x + 2 = 0 using the quadratic formula. Give your answer to 2 decimal places.
What the fuck.
He keeps an ear out as the ghost goes down the line asking the same question and receiving much the same results. Meanwhile, Danny’s getting nowhere fast.
So, a = 7, right? Which means that b = 25 and c = 2, that’s good, okay, so plug that all into the quadratic formula—wait, shit, b = -25 instead! Does that make a difference?
Whatever, now he has to… fix all the numbers in the formula, so minus minus 25 which is… 0, right? Right. Then it’s all the brackets, so first he’s got to square -25 which is… fuck. Where’s his calculator, did he bring a calculator? How in the hell is he meant to do that in his head?
Danny��s halfway to pulling his hair out when he hears it. The ghost is laughing, congratulating the man on the podium for his three right answers even if it looks like he’s gotten this one wrong, judging by the reaction of the person inside the cage. Danny can’t quite make out what’s happening because all he can see is numbers and, having abandoned squaring -25, a square root that he doesn’t know how to deal with.
So it's understandable that the shout doesn’t quite register to begin with.
“—yal! Danyal!”
But when it does, when the name finally makes it through, he freezes.
It can’t be real.
“Akhi, please!”
It’s not real.
His head whips up to the cage that’s glowing, but it’s too far away, too bright in the darkness, to really make out for certain that… It can’t be. He can’t be here, why would he be here?
Part of Danny really, really wishes he was paying attention to the monologuing.
“Danyal, please, answer me!” The voice is desperate, so, so desperate. Hoarse and wet and thick with tears, a far cry from the confident boy he used to know. The… the only time Danny’s heard his voice like that was when… But it can’t be him. “Let me go, let me see him! Danyal!”
“Answer my question, you little rat!” The ghost growls, face twisting in a snarling grimace that gets him nowhere. Of course it wouldn’t, there's no way that would scare him.
“Danyal! Please, akhi, please!”
It… Oh shit, is it really him?
Danny stands up, his pencil clattering to the floor, and he steps close enough to the glass wall of the cage so that he can reach out and touch it.
He hesitates.
What if it’s a trick? What if he’s in a nightmare dimension and the ghost is actually super powerful and this is all a trap? It’s not a game for the man on the podium, it’s a game made for torturing him—hell, it even had math in it! He hates math!
It can’t be real.
“Danyal, please, let it be you, please be alive, Danyal… Akhi, please.”
He lets his ectoplasm flood the cage, the walls blinding him as he pours in too much, far more than the ghost keeping them captive could ever hope to conjure. He wets his lips, regulates his ectoplasm to a trickle so that the light dims and he can finally see out again, and tries to say something. Anything. His heart is pounding and his mouth is dry.
“Dami?” he whispers, not daring to hope. Then louder, “Damian?”
“Danyal, is it really—”
“What are you doing?” The ghost snaps, taking his hand off of Damian’s cage so that the light dims and he can’t be heard, and shoots over towards him. “How are you doing that?”
Yeah, fuck this. That’s Damian in there, that’s really Damian, and Danny’s not staying in his cage for another second. He takes his hand off the wall and powers up an ectoblast, not even bothering to transform. He’s getting his little brother.
The glass of the cage shatters easily.
He steps out of the cage easily.
He… It’s not quite as easy to walk over to Damian.
It’s even harder to smash it open, so he just stands there, staring. Watching as Damian—and it is, it really is—stands there, too, his mouth moving as he's trying to call out to him but no sound is heard. Danny can read his lips well enough…
Damian sniffs, wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve, and smiles tentatively. It’s a small, fleeting thing. Unsure. Sad. Hopeful.
“Damian?” He still can’t believe it, it has to be some sort of trick, surely. Still… even if it is, he’ll get to hold his brother again. Even if it’s not real. He smiles back at him and readies an ectoblast. “Stand back.”
And then that stupid ghost fires one straight at him instead.
Damian’s gaze flickers behind him, shouting a warning that he can’t hear, and he turns intangible on instinct. The bolt flies through him, but it’s not even strong enough to break Damian’s cage. Yeah, Danny was right. This guy's just annoying, not even worth the time it'll take to fight him.
“You’re ruining it, you’re ruining my game! You’re… you’re a ghost?”
There it is, there's the realisation, finally. He turns to face him, anger boiling in his veins. Fuck this guy.
“You’re an idiot?”
“Excuse me? How dare you?” The ghost blinks, then puffs himself up, ghostly flames licking up his stupid, ill-fitting suit, still not fully comprehending what’s going on. Not knowing the danger he’s in. “In my own lair, how dare you call me that?”
“I’m not a ghost.” Danny interrupts, ice beginning to creep out from his feet. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “I’m Phantom.”
“Wh—Phantom?” Immediately, the ghost loses all of his fire and shrinks into himself. “Oh, Ancients, I’m… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I didn’t mean to—”
“And yet, you did. Is this a challenge?”
“Challenge? Cha—no, no, of course not, of course not, I wouldn’t be challenging you, not at all! Here, I’ll just, I’ll… I’ll let everyone out and then you can be on your way, I’m so sorry!”
Danny doesn’t even bother to answer, he just turns back to Damian with a roll of his eyes and—he’s still there, he keeps expecting him to have vanished, for this all to have been a dream, but he’s still there—and he readies another ectoblast.
“Stand back, okay?”
Damian nods and moves away, his eyes flicking between Danny and the ghost behind him with undisguised contempt.
The ectoplasmic glass shatters easily and then Damian is out of the cage and in front of him, just an arms length away.
They stand there for a long minute, watching, neither of them able to make the first move. Danny should probably start explaining some things, right? Ancients, there’s so much, but…
It’s been six years.
Six years without his brother.
Six years of only allowing himself to remember on one day, because otherwise he’d break down, otherwise he’d go back and…
Six years.
“Hey, Dami.” He tries to smile, tries to step forward, tries to do something other than stand there stupidly, but he just can’t.
“Are you… Danyal? Is it really you?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs, but it comes out weak and watery.
He’s definitely in the crying stage of tired now.
“Are you—” his eyes flicker over to the ghost again and Danny knows what he’s going to say with just as much certainty as he knows he’s not going to like hearing it. “Are you alive? Truly?”
He shrugs, puffs out some air in a sardonic grin, and spreads his arms wide. “Depends on how you define it, I guess. It’s… kind of a long story.”
It’s not comforting, from the look on Damian’s face, but then he hadn’t really expected it to be. He couldn’t lie to him, there was never any lying to Damian. Even when they were children together, he always saw through him.
Damian brings his arm up, towards him, but falters before they actually touch. Danny can feel his core twist and he so desperately wants to reach out and bridge the gap, but…
“Can I? Danyal, can—”
Ah, screw this, Danny hugs him.
He hugs him and the solid warmth of his presence, the familiar scent, the feeling of weight, of rightness, of home makes everything truly click for him.
It’s real.
It’s Damian.
Danny clings on tighter and a second later, he feels Damian’s arms circle around him, grabbing fistfuls of his hoodie and pulling it taut in his effort to hold on. Damian’s shoulders start to shake and he can’t help but laugh softly, his heart fluttering in his chest. At least he’s not the only one crying.
“Akhi, it’s really you, it’s really…”
“I’m here, Dami, I’m sorry, I won’t leave again.” He pushes his face into Damian’s shoulder, sniffing against the fabric. Yikes, he hopes Damian won’t be mad at the pretty obvious wet patch. “I promise.”
They stay there for a few minutes longer, clinging to each other, trying to breathe through it, when Danny feels a shifting in the ectoplasm around them. He groans, he just cannot catch a break!
This guy really does not know when to stop, does he? It’s always the weaker ones, too, the ones that have absolutely no hope in defeating him that never know when to bow out gracefully. It’s annoying. If this ghost isn’t careful, Danny will have to update his annoying list and finally move Boxy out of first place. At least he knows when to make himself scarce.
With a sigh, he conjures up a shield just as the ghost lets the blast loose. If he was alone—he’s so glad he’s not alone—he wouldn’t have bothered with the shield at all, but it’s not like he’s going to let Dami get hit.
“You’re really starting to piss me off, you know that, right?”
“You ruined my game! I don’t care who you are, no one leaves until my game is finished!” The ghost—Danny doesn’t even feel bad about not knowing his name any more, this guy sucks—snarls and throws another ectoblast which Danny knocks away with one of his own.
With one last squeeze, he lets Damian go, already feeling the loss of it. Fuck this guy.
“Last chance, let everyone go and I’ll let you go. Call it a thank you for reuniting us.”
“I already told you,” he spits, both his hands glowing with ectoplasmic fire, “no one leaves until the game is finished!”
Danny pushes Damian behind him and pulls a thermos out of thin air, still not bothering to transform. He knocks the ghost back with a strong blast of ectoplasm and soups him before he can do anything but groan.
At least it was over quickly.
"I win."
He throws a smile over his shoulder at Damian and pops the thermos back in the pocket dimension it came from. The ghost can stew in there for a couple days, really think about what he did. It’s just rude.
Then he lifts both his arms up and shoots five ectoblasts in quick succession at each of the remaining cages, finally freeing the rest of the ghost’s hostages. Let them get themselves together while Danny can go back to giving Damian a hug.
It’s been so long.
He goes to grab Damian again, but stops when Damian hisses sharply and pulls his hand back.
“You’re hurt?”
Oh, Ancients, he’s hurt! Did Danny do that? Is it bad, was it an ectoblast? What happened?
Before he can spiral too far, Damian lifts up his wrist to reveal a splint already protecting his injury.
“I sprained it a few days ago, it’s nothing terrible. That’s why I’m me and not, you know.” Damian shrugs and gestures, presumably, to the guy on the podium. Danny has no idea what that’s meant to mean.
“Not what?”
“Not patrolling as Robin. I have been benched until I’m sufficiently healed.”
“Yeah, sure, that makes sense—I’m sorry, wait, what—you’re Robin?” He follows Damian’s outstretched arm towards the guy on the podium and… “Holy shit, is that Batman?”
“Mother never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“He’s our father, Danyal.”
“That’s our… That’s our Batdad? Fatherman? Dadbat? Dad-Dad Bat… man? What?” He shakes his head a little, trying to make some of his thoughts actually connect because nothing is actually making any sense right now. “What the fuck?”
His face burns as he hears the barely stifled laughter coming from pretty much every broken cage. He swivels his head around, eyes wide like an owl, and tries to place the names of the audience he’d forgotten about.
Nightwing—that’s the Nightwing—waves with a cheery grin as he makes his way over to them, and there’s Red Robin with his hand clamped over his mouth, nowhere near successful in silencing his laughter. Black Bat, Signal, Red—is that Red Hood, the crime boss, over there? Holy shit!—all wave at him, too, but mercifully they stay where they are.
Batman steps down from the podium.
“Sorry, I think I missed just about everything earlier. What the hell is going on here? What kind of game was this? ‘How Embarrassed Can We Make Danny?’ Because that’s what it feels like.”
“Nah, but if it's any consolation, you’d certainly be winning that game!” Nightwing laughs as he stops a few feet away from them.
“It was my fault,” Batman says, his voice low and gravelly. He gestures towards the thermos. “He wanted to test my ability as a father. My knowledge of my children.”
“Oh… How did you do?”
“I mean, not great,” Red Hood laughs from behind him. “He didn’t even know who you were.”
“Well, that’s fair, can’t really blame him for that. I’m meant to be dead.” Danny says cheerfully, nodding with a smile that he hopes is reassuring. “I mean, I am dead, but that’s unrelated. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Red Robin asks.
“Don’t worry about it!” Danny waves him away and slings an arm around Damian, just like he used to do when they were young. He feels like he’s buzzing, his core vibrating happily out of his skin, and he’s pretty sure he’s got the goofiest grin on his face. “It’s all good!”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Red Hood says as he picks his way towards them, cutting off whatever Batman was going to say, thank goodness. There’s no way he’s awake enough for a proper, actual conversation about his death(s) and everything that came after them, not at all. “We have bigger things to worry about, after all.”
All of them groan. Guess he’s not the only tired person here.
“What’s wrong now?” Red Robin asks, already pulling up a dope wrist computer that looks slick as hell but obviously isn’t going to work in the Ghost Zone.
Red Hood brandishes a load of papers and turns his head towards Danny. “Danyal here thinks adding 4 and 7 makes 10, which isn’t a great start, but you should actually be multiplying them there, and then multiplying all that by 2, not just… leaving the 2 out? I don’t know what you’ve done with half of this, but it definitely doesn’t make 10 though. I can also tell you that 25 squared is not whatever this squiggle is meant to be. Pretty cool picture of a horse, though, great job on that!”
Danny slumps and hides his face in his hands with a half-hearted sob. He’s so screwed. “It’s meant to be a cat.”
“Oh.” Red Hood turns the paper on its side, tilts his head, then turns the paper upside. “That’s a really crappy cat. Sorry.”
“Do you know how to get us out of here?” Batman asks gently, drawing Danny out of his shame spiral.
“Yeah, that’s not a problem, I can portal us out. At least I’ve got that down.” He rolls his eyes and rubs at the back of his neck with weak laughter. He’s really not making a good impression right now, is he?
“Let’s go, then. If you’d like, I can help you with your homework when we get back somewhere safe.” It’s so weird, Batman sounds so uncertain, not at all like the fearsome crusader he’s seen on the news. And then he smiles, soft and warm, and Danny can’t help but return it. “Damian can help you with the drawing.”
“Yeah… I think I’d like that. Thanks.”
"Let's play a game of 'How well do you know your kids?'" The being shouted, eyebrow still twitching from Robins latest remark.
"I know all my children perfectly." Batman growled at the entity. He held his ground as the spirits (demons?) smile sharpened, "Than you won't mind!"
A puff of purple glowy smoke engulfs then entire area and the next thing anyone knows is that all of Bruces children, even the ones who weren't with them previously, are locked inside magical cages while Batman is trapped in a invisible mime box with a podium and a microphone in what is quite possibly the most garish game show set up ever.
Why was everything neon green and purple? Why was the guy neon green and purple? Who were these other kids-gdi Bruce! You have more kids?
Danny could just transform and beat up the ghost. Its a pretty weak one after all. But this one doesn't seem to recognize him as a halfa and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do his homework without being attacked.
Jason stared at the kid next to him. What kinda life did this kid have to calmly get out his math homework and start solving problems while being held hostage by an unknown entity?! And with the bats no less?!
All the while Batman is getting peppered with questions about his kids and is realizing he doesn't recognize a few of the names.
#dpxdc#prompt fill#my writing#hello hello hello back again two days later with the exact same prompt and another 4500 words!#this brain rot is still consuming me i will never be free of it#but that's okay because i'm making things and it's fun!!!#i'm currently much like danny and very very sleep-deprived - i am making myself laugh so much with danny's poorly drawn cat#i'm sorry danny but cats do not have necks like that you poor poor boy#also i had to learn the quadratic equation for this again - who said you wouldn't use this stuff after school?? me i did it fucking sucks#once again i am a FAKE FAN because i have ZERO IDEA on characters in the dc universe LET ALONE who counts as bruce's children#so you've got this deal with it#again i did not give this poor ghost a name nor a description lmao sorry family therapist ghost#also please imagine: all of the batfam that are actually engaged in the game seeing damian's reaction as soon as danny's introduced#there's a minute where damian is just frozen - trying to comprehend what he's seeing because his brother is meant to be dead#because i love the idea of little baby damian being so clingy just absolutely doting on his older brother#that losing him - that danyal's supposed death - just absolutely breaks him and he can't let himself be close to anyone else especially his#new 'brothers' - they're never going to replace danyal no one can replace danyal! that's what he tells himself while thinking deep down#he can't take another loss like that. getting close to another brother means the possibility of losing another brother#and he can't go through that again#anyway he's fucking losing it in his cage and everyone else is watching damian show way more emotion than he's ever shown before#and they're all so scared and so worried for damian and hearing him shout and plead for danyal when it comes to his turn just breaks their#hearts poor poor little bby bat TT^TT#anyway i hope you all enjoy i'm sorry for going ham on this prompt but then again no i'm not this was fun!!!!#cab writes
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