#how was he supposed to know about ghost procreation?

[thenewgirl76]

Since he was reasonably polite while asking, (for Damian) Bruce didn't even bat an eye when Steph's new bff explained that his youngest son requested that he bring his dog with him after Steph invited him to the manor. It was a bit of a shock discovering the dog in question was not amongst the living, but not by much.

The presence of the spectral canine causing their own dearly departed doggo Ace to unexpectedly manifest was a little more startling, but again not by much.

Danny's sudden wariness toward how well Cujo and Ace were getting along when Jason corrected him after he called Ace he instead of she however, when not a minute ago he was absolutely ecstatic over the good behavior being displayed despite the whole "haunt intrusion" thing was such a clear sign of something soon to go wrong Bruce is now kicking himself for not paying closer attention and being more concerned.

He regrets this more than ever now that he's stuck dealing with the half-a-dozen green or blue bullmastiff shepherd puppies flying around wrecking havoc with their random growing and shrinking a day later. Oh well, at least Damian's the happiest he's ever been for some time, for now. Bruce really isn't looking forward to telling him that they can't keep the puppies and why. Maybe he should try bribing Dick and if that fails, Alfred into doing it instead.

[phantomwithbreakfast]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

First post ever. Oh, my. I’m such a noob at this. So bare with me, please!

DP content loading…

Halloween was supposed to be Danny’s night off—a chance to enjoy the frights and fun without worrying about ghosts or ghost hunters. He, Sam, and Tucker were strolling through the rainy streets, drenched but laughing, making their way to a Halloween party. Danny had even gone for a classic look, throwing an old bed sheet over himself. Underneath, he was still Phantom, his ghostly glow hidden, figuring no one would notice on Halloween. Right?

As they got closer to the party, droplets dripping down his soaked sheet, Danny couldn’t help but feel a bit smug. Maybe I’ll get through tonight without a single ghost hunt, he thought, smiling to himself.

But just as he let his guard down, he caught sight of two familiar figures in the distance—his parents, Jack and Maddie, sprinting toward him with their ghost-hunting gear gleaming through the mist. Their ecto-scanners must have picked up his signature. Heart pounding, he backpedaled, slipping and stumbling until he found himself cornered in a nearby alley, the rain pouring down harder, plastering his sheet to his body.

“Uh… can’t I just, like, take a night off?” Danny stammered, pulling the sheet tighter around him, hoping they wouldn’t recognize the glow. “By the way, nice costumes!”

“Costumes?” Maddie smirked, aiming her ecto-blaster, raindrops streaking down her goggles. “Nice try, Phantom, but we’re not here to trick-or-treat.”

Danny shot a desperate look at Sam and Tucker, silently begging for an escape plan. Spoiler alert: they didn’t have one. His parents were closing him inn he hit the back wall of the alley, rain dripping down his face, and in his panic, the sheet slipped from his shoulders, leaving him exposed as Phantom. Great. Just great.

“Well, well, look who’s cornered,” Jack grinned, his blaster humming as he powered it up. “We’ve been saving this tech just for you, Phantom!”

Danny forced a nervous smile, raising his hands in surrender. “Uh, I was just here for the candy, really…”

His dad fired before he could finish, and Danny found himself tangled in an ecto-net, rain-soaked and sputtering as his powers faded. “A net? Really? You can’t do better than that?” he muttered before realizing sarcasm probably wasn’t helping.

“Oh, we’ve got more than that,” Maddie replied, tightening the net with a gleam in her eye. “Tonight, we’re making sure you’re not going anywhere.”

Danny cast a helpless look at Sam and Tucker, rain dripping from his hair. “Uh… a little help?”

Sam shrugged, giving him a teasing smile. “You did say you wanted an exciting Halloween.”

Danny sighed, muttering under his breath, “Should’ve just gone as a ninja…”

———————

I wanted to draw something for Halloween. And DP is the perfect match for it, for me though. First I didn’t want to draw Dannyyy angry… But all of a sudden his brows were furrowed. So I had to came up with a little story behind the art lol.

Poor Danny is being captured again.

Art made in ProCreate.

DP copyright/rights, belongs to Nickelodeon 🥶

Still pissed they ended the show 17 years ago, but hey. Who am I? Lol.

———————

PS: stay tuned to see more in the future.

You can also follow my IG: phantomwithbreakfast

I also have an account on FanFiction.net under the same name. So if you want to read something when you’re bored… (posted there my first story—not finished yet)

Also, almost everything is gunna be DP related.

——————

I don’t know how Tumblr works, even when I had it like… years now—I never used it. But I needed new Social Platforms for specific reasons.

And also, I was a bit anxious about posting my stuff online, but here we are—I finally shared it.

[wulvercazz]

A Haunted Forest👻

(Where Creatures Lurk...)

Open World Intro

// cw - mild groping/smut bc monster possession, some emetophobia triggers near the end~!

Thirteen’s counting this, convincing Chromo into guiding them here in the first place, as one of their greatest achievements.

Chromo maintains a tense flat brow the whole way there, still reluctant about it even as he shows them the way; but Thirteen’s got their way of getting what they want. Perhaps he should feel manipulated in some way, but there was no real “evil” intent behind all the help Thirteen offered with packing and sorting. Listening intently and helping Chromo make the day’s job so much easier before they even dared to ask, tit for tat. Fine. But he’s not taking the lanky human to one of the most dangerous places he knows without a long road of stories that ought to spook them out of actually going in.

So he guides them there, and tells them the stories he knows. Tells them about creatures and legends, about thick dead woods and a blinding fog. Tells them about the Kingdom that lays there, and the people that lived in it. How they were like any other royals, with their parties and their luxury; until darkness overtook the Kingdom, and bad things started to happen.

“Some say the King wasn’t evil, but he was careless, he got too confident- he could have prevented the horrors that befell his Kingdom, but that carelessness let a curse fall on his family. Others think he was evil. That the King got so greedy, that he sold his Kingdom to a terrible force…”

“What do you think?”

In his short time knowing them, Chromo’s come to know Thirteen as a pretty quiet person, for someone so curious; so their voice startles him out of his narration. “Uh- I suppose… I don’t know enough to think anyone in the Kingdom deserved to be cursed…”

Thirteen doesn’t add anything else to that, simply ruminating on his answer; so Chromo continues, “all we do know is that the townspeople all left, one way or another. Fled when the blackout got insufferable, or perhaps when carnivorous creatures inundated the town… if you believe that part of the story to be real. And the royals… no one’s seen ever again. It’s as if they just vanished, or… died more likely.”

The road continues on for a while longer, more ghost stories, some holding more truth than others, all the way until the fog starts to seep in to the meadow and the thicket of darkened trees comes up on their immediate view.

“This is as far as I go.” Chromo threatens, waiting for any sign of doubt or fear to offer a helping hand right back to the safety of the town, or perhaps any of the other towns he’s visiting for today’s deliveries. If that’ll quench this one’s thirst, whatever a weak human like them is searching for– it’s definitely not here.

“That’s ok. Toodles!”

Chromo doesn’t quite understand what happens next fast enough- Thirteen’s ass heading straight into the forest he just spent the last couple of hours warning them about with far too much confidence.

“H-HEY!” He calls after.

Black goo slithers and shifts across the cracked, dry, soil, reaching over the new warmth in their territory. Thirteen’s walk slows down to a curious halt, watching the dark creatures reach up to inspect them as much as they do. Mold Sprites.

Chromo beacons them back out, warning them about being touched by the slimy tendrils too late. Thirteen’s kicking and shaking the sticky creatures in an attempt of getting them off their skin; but with every movement they seem to hold on tighter, trailing their way up their limbs until Thirtheen’s moaning around the thick body of one forcing itself down their throat.

“AH!” The sprites aren’t dangerous by themselves, they like to choose a warm body to possess and ride around in safe, dark, warmth to take them to new sun-free territories to procreate in. But although they never quite harm the host, they’re quite annoying enough to get rid off with how far they can move by themselves.

“I tried to fucking warn you–” Chromo cusses out, “here, take this before you lose more braincells-” he rummages through his pockets, barely missing the way Thirteen’s possessed body wobbles it’s way to him.

What’s ‘funny’ about Mold Sprites is their incapability to actually control a body. While these possessions aren’t inherently harmful to the host… they can be troublesome if left untreated. Making creatures roam about fullfilling their needs and instincts, and acting out on their basic impulses more passionately, in the unstable limbs of a newborn foal.

“Y’know what I’ve been thinking…~?” Chromo nearly jumps out of his skin at the grabby hands suddenly climbing his chest and kicking about to use his front legs as a ladder, reaching for this belt to get a good grip of his torso, all rounded up into a most ridiculous picture by their slightly slurred words. Their hands holding onto whatever they can find to pull themselves up to his chest and wrap their legs around his torso, “...you got real nice boobies, rainbow man.”

Chromo’s so dumbfounded by what Thirteen’s possessed mind throws at him, that he missed their head suddenly diving for his chest, screeching when their face rubs itself between his pecs and hugs their body tight against his; warmth reaching everywhere it shouldn’t.

Troublesome.

He gets but a slight chance to slip the remedy out its bag and promptly push it inside Thirteen’s mouth for them to chew on; holds their face and covers their mouth to force them to swallow. And lets go when the black leaves their eyes and threatens to spill violently.

Watches the poor human retch and vomit all over the ground, near liquid sprites that soon recover shape and slither away in a hurry.

“G-Garlic-” Thirteen groans with their fully human voice.

“Now you get it?!” Chromo doesn’t wait to reprimand, watching Thirteen slumping sat on the ground as the gross mess reincorporates into the separate bodies that’d tried to take a ride inside. A tired, shaky arm reaching up to wave a dumb little ‘good-bye’ at the sprites, despite the bad experience.

“Let’s go.” Chromo huffs, a mild pout and heat still pooling on his cheeks as he turns away from the human and waits for them to follow.

Thirteen makes their quiet way around, to stand right next to the centaur and sheepishly look up at their flushed face.

“...Sorry,” and a light touch of their hand in apology, has the furred skin of his barrel trembling, still a bit jittery. “I– wasn’t quite thinking straight with them squirming around my head…”

Chromo lets out a breath, letting go of the last bits of tension with a shake to his feathers, “I know, you’re forgiven. Now let’s go.”

And still… despite taking quite a few steps forward himself, Thirteen stands stubbornly there. “I am sorry about… all that, but I’m going.”

His faces scrunches up in disbelief, and the human jumps to stop him from making another argument; “I won’t ask you to come, I’ll try to be more careful– promise– but… I don’t think I can put into logic how sure I am about going in there and seeing all there is to see.”

And true to their word, even while Chromo stares on, dumbfounded, the little human slowly turns back and right back into the forest, this time pulling out a firefly lamp and pointing it threateningly at the mold sprites that try and reach back. Thirteen disappears into the fog with just as much spring to their step as before.

~👻

... pls pretend I didn't completely forget Chromo's neck tattoo halfway

[secretdiaryofcrowley]

Where we left off: Nina scolded me for being mean to Maggie...

Now she actually WANTS me to be mean to Maggie and even meaner to Muriel. People! Will you ever make sense?

But let's rewind and start... right here.

"For once in your life, trust somebody."

No, no, wait, that's too far back. A little further along.

"Fine", Nina says, although it's not. "You've made your point, Mr. Crowley."

Did I? And is my point pointy enough for you to go away, never come back and leave me to my misery?

It certainly seems so, because Nina backs away. "We can offer you our friendship, we cannot, however, make you accept it. I still think you're making a mistake, but the choice is yours, and you're old enough to take responsibility for your own actions."

She falls silent for a moment. The sun's setting with the buildings casting long shadows over the road.

"I'll leave you alone from now on." Nina half turns, looks back over her shoulder. Her features seem calmer than before, but there's still some anger in her eyes. "And Maggie will too, once you explain to her that you don't need or value her friendship. I trust, you will do this soon and won't leave her worrying about you any longer."

What? "Explain to her... what?"

"This. Do you think, ghosting is an appropriate behaviour?"

"I'm not a ghost, 'm a demon."

"Don't take it literal." She sighs. "Ghosting means not answering people's messages and pretending you aren't there. It's very hurtful to others because it leaves people worrying and they never get any closure. That's what you've been doing to Maggie and me and I haven't even started to talk about Muriel."

I didn't know there was a word for it, but I never meant to do anything. How can I do anything by doing nothing? It doesn’t make any sense.

And yet, I know she’s right. Doing nothing sometimes hurts people most of all. Simply standing by and just allowing things to happen.

“What’s that with Muriel? There’s a croak in my voice I can’t supress right now. “I don’t understand, what do they have to do with it?”

“She… wait, Muriel uses “they”? Nina seems surprised. “I assumed since you and Mr. Fell both look like guys and she… they chose to look like a woman... you can all choose what to look like, can’t you?”

Great. Humans are not supposed to know about any of these things. I hope no one tries to erase her memory or turns her into a pillar of salt.  

“Yes, we can, but Aziraphale and I have been to Earth for such a long time that we understand the concept of gender. We use the ‘he’ pronoun when we present male and the ‘she’ pronoun when we present female. Most angels don’t know or don’t worry about these things, so they go by “they” unless it feels right for them to go by something else. Muriel has only been to Earth for a couple of months and it’s their first time here, so they wouldn’t worry about gender or pronouns yet. “They” simply makes most sense in their case because it’s neutral and doesn’t assume anything. And before you ask, no, we don’t.”

“You don’t what?”

“Procreate. I thought that would probably be your next question.”

She tilts her head to the side, giving me a long apprehensive look. “So, you’ve had this kind of conversation with humans before.”

“Well... occasionally.” It’s not that I never had closer bonds with humans before. I just try to avoid it because it’s trouble.

Fortunately for me, Nina does not press the point.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and starts talking about Muriel.

~*~

More Diary Parts

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21

[ratective]

What's Sard's main albatross? Each of our characters had a main problem, some sort of trauma, a stressor, a ghost haunting them. Was Sard an accident? Does she have a hard time being one a kind, like Steven? Does she feel defective in some way? Does she suffer from being able to make connections, do to Garnet's influence? Does she resent Steven, for being the reason Rose is gone?

i think all of those can and might coexist lol

sards was definitely unplanned but she wasn’t unwanted! i think pearl had the most complicated feelings about it as she was the one to have her but she had rose and garnet around; there was no way she could resent sardonyx for being there, not with their support so they would do everything in their power to make her feel loved. it was definitely easier with rose around but they tried nonetheless

i believe sardonyx’s main burden would be, like with amethyst and steven, how homeworld perceives her existence. gemlings have long since served any purpose on homeworld and gems with the ability to bare them were no longer produced. those gemlings that were found out were probably shattered on spot – they don’t need to waste room for imperfect gem prototypes when they have kindergartens and injectors that do a far more solid job with making gems than another gem than can only create so few at a time.

i don’t want this gemling idea to revolve around just gems being able to have sex because that’s already hackneyed but i can’t find a good enough alternative since that was just supposed to be the pearl-and-garnet-have-a-baby au LOL so instead of how they do it i’d focused on how homeworld banned something as simple and organic as procreation in favor of something more sustainable for them; how they police another natural and normal aspect of being alive for MOST living beings, 1984 orwell style lmao

so i think the biggest impact on her would be coming in contact with homeworld customs via peridot jasper the diamonds…pearl or garnet accidentally disclosing something etc. similar to amethyst her existence would be considered a mistake, a burden and useless in the gem society. along with the other two earthlings she would have to deal with being dubbed not enough and weak.

up until that point of coming in contact with their ideology her biggest issue would be navigating her parents trauma responses, especially after rose died, and like steven, having to coexist with them while they do wild shit out of grief and war trauma

she knew she was loved but the crystal gems aren’t exactly famous for being good parents. pearl can spiral easily at slightest provocation (and i know how badly having a hysterical anxious traumatized mom affects you and your relationship with her lol) and garnet can shut people out and become distant and cold when upset. this seems like a standard recipe for having a complicated relationship with parents

i think she does struggle to make connections like garnet but it’s more because of her explosive responses, which was more pearls influence if anything. she’s easily overwhelmed and if things become too much she blows up and then shuts in

i think she would only feel a little jealous of steven. when he was born it came with the tragedy of losing rose and while gemlings existed previously, everyone’s focus was on the new being, completely never seen before. it was hard getting any of her parents attention while they stressed over steven and the lack of rose and that was the first time she really felt left out and loved less. she and amethyst kept to each other while garnet sucked up her feelings to comfort pearl so any resentment towards steven for taking rose from them came with the fact that suddenly everything was falling apart around her! but sards quickly became friends with steven. they’re bros now 💪

[probablyazeusbastard]

*Spring serves it course and summer has once again graced the kingdom of Vale and the Arc legion with it. We once again find ourselves in a very familiar office.*

Doctor: Mr. Arc I simply must thank you. Your insane procreation rate is paying for my kids tuition 3 times over. How about a drink after this?

Jaune: No inquiry about who this is ?

Doctor: I already took otone your many *checks chart* many partners put you up to it. Now let's not waste time and get to the meat of it all. Unless you need time to prepare. This news will be quite shoking.

Jaune: Lay it on me doc I'm ready.

*He was infact not ready*

Ozpin: So nice to see Jaune's Father after all this time. How is your wife? I can't imagine she's absent of her own volition.

Papa Arc: Yes yes she recently broke her leg and the twind are keeping watch of her back home.

Meanwhile

Mama Arc: MUST SEE NEW GRANDBABIES

Indigo Arc: VIOLETTA GET THE TRANQ.

Violetta Arc: HOLD HER STILL.

*Back in the waiting room*

Ozpin: I see.

Papa Arc: I was gonna be here this time anyway. Just got a feeling my son is gonna need me.

Ozpin: A fatherly instinct. I know it all to well

Papa Arc: So is Amber your daughter ?

Ozpin: In a manner of speaking.

Papa Arc: Well let me be the first to say that Amber will want for noting with us Arcs. An Arc never brakes his word.

Ozpin: You haven't failed Cinder. I see no reason Amber will be any diffrent.

Amber and Jaune walk out of the office.

Ozpin: Lad you look like you've seen a ghost,but I suppose it is better the passing out entirely.

Jaune: Hol-h-hold on a minute.

Jaune stumbles to his dad and hugs him. He wispers* I wasn't ready* the passes out.

Papa Arc: Jaune,my boy, speak to me. After every thing his been through what could shake him like this.

Amber: Hello sir. It's nice to meet you. He's just being a bit overdramatic. I'm only having quintapletes.

Ozpin: A bit more the usual but nothing to warrent this. Do you know the genders ?

Amber: Yep. Four beautiful baby girls and one health baby boy.

Papa Arc: *PTSD flashbacks to watching Jaune's Childhood* Dear Brothers.

Pyrrha: Shout out to the man that made me realize I was bi....

Ruby and Weiss each being held under the crook of her arms...

Pyrrha: AND into polyamory! 💕💕

Ruby: Eh?

Weiss: Huh?

Vanishes into JNPR's dorm room with them...

Pyrrha: 💕💕 Jaune honey! I found our WAIFUs!!! 💕💕

[sisterspooky1013]

Better Than Sex

Author: SisterSpooky1013

Rating: Teen and up

Words: 1666

Tagging: @today-in-fic

Read it on AO3

“Better Than Sex Cake” Mulder read aloud from the menu before looking across the table at Scully with his eyebrows raised in question.

They had just concluded an evening traipsing through an (alleged) actual ghost town, though no signs of ghosts were to be seen. Just a lot of graffiti, dirty mattresses and a used condom or two. Now they were sitting at the first diner they came across, Mo’s Café, and Mulder was considering the sex cake.

“Knock yourself out, Mulder, I’m sticking to coffee.”

“You aren’t curious as to whether this cake is, in fact, better than sex?”

“Well I’m sure it’s better than bad sex, but if it were better than great sex the population would die out because everyone would skip procreating and just eat cake.”

Mulder considered her statement. “Isn’t ‘bad sex’ somewhat of an oxymoron?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you being serious?”

Now it was his turn to look incredulous. “The only bad sex is no sex, as far as I’m concerned.”

Scully shook her head ruefully. “Must be nice to be a man.”

Just then the waitress came by to take their order. Scully requested coffee and dry toast, while Mulder opted for coffee and the aforementioned sex cake. After she collected their menus and retreated to the kitchen, Mulder eyed Scully appraisingly, gaging her mood. Sometimes she was open and willing to talk about things of a personal or private nature, other times she kept her lips as tight as a steel trap. He suspected he might have a chatty Scully on his hands, and didn’t want to waste the opportunity.

“So, if I’m understanding correctly, Scully, there would be a circumstance under which you would choose a piece of cake over sex?”

She screwed up her mouth a little, not in consideration of how to answer the question, but whether to answer it at all. “Depends who the sex is with, I suppose, but yes, I could think of a few times where cake would have been a more enjoyable option.”

“Hm” was his only reply as he sat back against the seat of the booth, absorbing this information.

“Are you saying you’ve never had sex that was subpar enough that cake would have been better?”

He pulled in a deep breath and looked to the ceiling briefly, and she could imagine him running through his mental file of sexual encounters. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Is it wrong that I feel compelled to kick you right now?” She asked, just a hint of playfulness in her voice.

He laughed.“I’m not saying that every single time was Oscar-worthy, but even the worst was still better than some flour and butter.”

“And they say male privilege isn’t real” she deadpanned as the waitress came by to present them with two coffees, cake, toast and a tray of sugar and cream. She mixed the accoutrements into her cup while Mulder sipped his black, followed by a bite of the cake, which looked like a basic white cake with some kind of custard and whipped cream on top.

“This is pretty good, though I can’t say it lives up to its name” he said around the food in his mouth, pushing the plate towards her and holding out the fork suggestively. She took it and stabbed a small bite, meeting Mulder’s eye as she pulled the tines from between her lips. It was good, as most cake is, but nothing to write home about.

“Well?” He asked expectantly.

“Well what? She returned, wiping her finger at the corners of her mouth.

“Is it better than sex?”

She paused before answering, knowing that Mulder was going to keep picking at this until it got uncomfortable. He liked to do that, to see how far he could get her to go before she blushed and demanded they change the subject. He took immense pleasure in making her squirm, and even more in getting her to reveal something personal that he normally wouldn’t be privy to. Sometimes, she had as much fun indulging him as he did in goading her. She wasn’t above sharing something that she knew would shock him, just so she could see the look on his face. She liked that she could still surprise him.

“Not better than all sex, but certainly better than some of the sex I’ve had, regrettably.”

“What would make sex so bad that cake is better? I must know.”

“I think you can use your imagination, Mulder.”

“Come on, Scully, you could be saving some poor woman from ‘worse than cake’ sex with me in the future. Consider it an act of charity.”

She shook her head at him, but couldn’t hide the smile that tugged at her lips.

“Your answer lies in that drawer full of tapes that aren’t yours, Mulder.”

“How’s that?”

“Let’s see, sex starts when the man presents his erection and ends when he ejaculates. The woman howls like an animal no matter what he’s doing, though her orgasm is never mentioned. There is no foreplay. Would you like me to continue?”

He swallowed a mouthful of coffee he’d been holding, afraid he might choke. He’d never heard her speak so openly about sex before, especially not sex she had personally experienced, and though he’d been the one who initiated the conversation he was suddenly afraid he was going to have to walk out of this diner trying to hide a bulge in his slacks.

“Fair enough, Scully, but porn isn’t real. It’s like an action movie. No one actually hangs off the skids of a helicopter mid-air, it’s just fun to watch.”

“I’m glad to hear that you’re aware of that, Mulder, and I would implore you to spread the news to the rest of the male populace.” She punctuated her statement with a loud crunch into her toast.

Mulder’s mouth fell open slightly as he studied her, trying to tell if she was joking or embellishing.

“People really do that? Have sex like they do in porn? Men you’ve slept with?”

She rolled her eyes. “Mulder, if you’re going to sit here and tell me that you have never done that, even as a young man, I’ll have to call BS.”

He put his hands up in defense. “I’m not saying I emerged from puberty as Don Juan, but I don’t recall ever not being invested in my partner’s experience. I’m sure my skills were lacking at the outset, but I always tried.”

She looked at him derisively from under her eyelashes. “Well then, you really should get out there more, Mulder. Share your gift with the world.” Her voice was laden with sarcasm.

He laughed and ran his hand over the back of his neck. “How am I coming out to be the bad guy, here Scully? I’m not the one who gave you a ‘worse than cake’ lay.”

She smiled at him but her tone remained facetious “of course not, you’ve demonstrated that your skills in this area are unparalleled.”

“Damn straight!” He said with a slap of his palm on the table, and they both erupted into laughter.

They held eye contact as the laughter subsided, awkwardness descending over the conversation. He had made reference to the two of them having sex, which was a topic he’d only made innuendo about, never mentioned directly. Trying to break the tension, Scully finally spoke.

“Well, I guess you can see why I don’t bother dating.”

“I guess I can” he replied, swiping the last crumbs of cake off the plate with his finger.

“Why don’t you date, Mulder?” His expression registered surprise. “Or do you? I don’t want to be presumptuous.” She felt a pit in her belly at the idea that he may actually have a secret love life.

“No” he spat out, chuckling a little. “No, I definitely don’t date. It’s just too complicated I guess. I’m kind of a serial monogamist anyway.”

“Really?” Now it was her turn to be surprised.

“Yeah, for the most part. I’ve had a couple flings, but the vast majority of the women I’ve slept with I was in a relationship with. The emotional aspect is important for me.”

She studied him, imagining a version of Mulder who would be so considerate and giving. She didn’t need to imagine it, really, she’d seen it. While he was capable of being selfish and obtuse, he had also been incredibly tender and caring with her on many occasions. He had certainly shown a proclivity towards chivalry; opening doors for her, walking closer to traffic on the sidewalk, helping her into her coat or holding an umbrella for her. The idea that such gestures would extend into the bedroom was logical, but it still set off a stirring in her belly. In what other ways might he be so attentive to her needs? She swallowed the last of her coffee and tried not to think about it. Maybe later, but not here. Not now.

“Well, I hate to state the obvious here, Scully, but I don’t think you’re going to happen across the guy that will give you a 5-star experience if you never put yourself out there.” As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to kick himself; why the fuck was he encouraging her sleeping with other people?

She smiled demurely and shrugged “for now I get my thrills from ghost busting and the occasional slice of really good cake.”

He bobbed his head and smiled back, pulling out his wallet and setting his bureau credit card on the tabletop.

In truth, she had already happened across that guy. He was sitting in front of her at a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere. And while she hoped that she may enjoy that 5 star experience in the future, for now just being in his presence, laughing and seeking the answers to the mysteries of the universe together, that was better than sex.

[soranihimawari]

For the Love that is You

Premise: you received letters and other posts in the mail. You think it would be a fun idea to start writing back. After all, letters should always be answered no matter how soon or late it is.

Rating: 17+ bc of suggestive & implied sexjokes//material

Sending letters and postcards are part of your yearly tradition with two boys, well men, from your early years in university. Both have been a great source of friendship and comfort on some days, on others when you feel a disturbance in the proverbial future, you immediately open your stationary kit and bring to write. Words which border on the senseless caring side, words that uplift their recipients’ spirits, often wondering if this was what it meant to love freely like. Perhaps this is why you don’t mix business with pleasure because the first time you meet your two pen pals face to face, you’re attending a reunion banquet hosted by both team Argentina and team Japan for the upcoming worlds tournament. You’re standing next to a colleague who tells you how well things are going now that he’s married with his second little one on the way, and you call him a promiscuous horn dog like you did in college.

“I can’t believe she actually let you procreate with her ,” you hand the empty champagne flute to a caterer’s waiter tray. “Thought I earned that right when we played house Tsukki.”

He pinched his brow in annoyance, but considering you were the next closest friend he had in attendance here, he chuckles.

“Speaking of procreate,” you played into his hands effortlessly. “How are things going with those two people you exchange posts with?”

Your cheeks are silently hot with embarrassment. Unbeknownst to you, the ghost writers are in attendance. Duty calls to keep appearances between the athletes to show rivals can and more often are friends. On the Argentine side, there is a sharply dressed setter who keeps hooded eyes glancing in your direction. He wonders what you’d look like when you’re not preoccupied by the blonde former crow; you slap your old friend’s arm, meaning that he has a hell of a chance… until his pupil, bright and blue-eyed blueberry sourpuss joins your conversation.

What. In. The. Fuck?!

“Perdóname,” he says with a polite smile branching off from potential sponsors. The setter walks with confidence as though he wears a crown upon his head. You’re in the middle of a story about how you received two very different posts in your mailbox one afternoon almost three years ago: “so I think to myself I should write back.”

“You wrote back? Aren’t you a little too old for pen pals, yn?” Tsukki teases you, eyeing the way the color is almost seamlessly lost between his old setter from high school and their mutual scary kingly rival.

“Unlike you, some of us like reading letters, Kei,” you stick your tongue out. “But whomever they are, I’m sure they’re happily settled down.”

You glance at Kageyama who is suddenly a bit more withdrawn than normal. You acknowledge the other person standing a few feet behind him as well after Tsukki greets the man formerly.

“Oikawa,” he nods, shaking your hand.

“YN.”

“Oikawa,” Kageyama nods.

“Brat,” his former captain says. You raise your eyebrow, remind Kageyama and by default, Oikawa, that the event was supposed to show some friendship between the athletes before the worlds tournament starts. Eventually, you find out Oikawa is a star naturalized citizen for Argentina before he was able to compete professionally abroad; Kageyama explains as he gained popularity also moves to Italy to play in the European circuit.

“Something pique your interest there, yn?” Tsukki questions as the setters banter on trying to one-up the other in their civility.

“What makes you say that?” You fire back in a low tone.

“I’ve been receiving a lot of fanmail too ya know,” Kageyama slips back into his teenage lisp.

“Did you ever get one who wrote back?” You test the waters to try to ease the tensions with this question.

“Yes,” they both replied a little too eager.

Holy. Fucking. Hell. The. World. Is. Small.

The two young men pause and their eyes grown wide with curiosity. Your blonde friend excuses himself formerly giving you control of the brain synapses. The guys ahead of you grip your hands in front of your body and you squeeze theirs back, excitedly smiling at their reaction.

“That was you guys?” You are eager now like a hunting dog who just caught the scent.

The outburst made a few people in the party glance quickly at you dragging them outside to the rear patio and you could feel your eye twitch. The gods really were in your favor either that or the once rivals actually took time to process what just occurred.

“You,” Oikawa points to you. “You wrote me back?”

“Yes,” you pair it with a nod. Thankfully, Kageyama’s brain finally catches up.

“Let me get this straight: you’re the person who replied to our letters?… and correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Oh I will,” oikawa sarcastically claps back.

Kageyama rolls his eyes as you shake your head in a, ‘not now, let’s focus here,’ kind of way.

“But did you mean everything?” Kageyama’s eyes match yours.

You swallow thickly. You were nervous, but why? Weren’t you always taking about having multiple, “the One”‘s? Your brain had to think of a proper response, yet the truth is stranger than fiction.

“I figured you did too,” you rest your hands behind your back prior to cupping both of their faces. “Both of you meant those things you wanted to try with me, yeah? Might as well get a head start now…?”

—.—

Magazines are an interesting source of news. Even now, a couple weeks later, when there is a photo of you, Kageyama (who has a hand around your waist) and Oikawa kissing the top of your head, is ran at the top of the entertainment/sports pages. You’re all attending an awards ceremony for the season where your loyal subjects, you loving refer to your lovers, are both receiving awards for a season well played. In the acceptance speeches, Oikawa goes first and blows kisses at you two, Kageyama buries his head on your shoulder in a bashful manner; when Kageyama accepts his, he makes sure to kiss you both on the lips, making Oikawa more flustered than expected.

“Kissing the homies tonight, huh?” You jest.

You laugh behind a champagne flute. The brunette and blueberry q have a darkened expression meaning perhaps tonight they ought to have you relearn some manners. Yet you recall you’re best at taming brats and sadistic devices can be used if they’re not on point either. You’re just lucky you answered their needs and were able to write coherently after that first night.

Oh! And the lovely Tsukkishima family receives your holiday card in their mailbox: you’re all wearing sweaters with the Google Dinosaur Game print on it. You’re just wearing heels. The boys, don’t wear much else—Tsukkishima’s wife saves it in their scrapbook for unexpected & funny cards.

[fridayfirefly]

crushed petals, shattered glass, and other broken things

Read crushed petals, shattered glass, and other broken things on AO3

Masterlist

For Maribat March Day 17 - Court of Owls

Marinette was twelve years old, and she was a knife. Delicate in her looks, deceiving in her appearance, Marinette was the most dangerous weapon in the arsenal of the Court of Owls. She was an assassin. She was a spy. She was clever, cunning, versatile. Most importantly, she was a knife, a sharp tool to be used to inflict violence. It was a role that suited her well. Marinette was training to become the Talon of the Court of Owls, and she was untouchable.

-----

Marinette was thirteen years old, and she wanted to know how she came to be. Procreation was easy to understand scientifically, but part of Marinette's brain objected to the idea that she had two parents. Marinette was a knife, and knives were forged by hammer and fire, sharpened to a point by tools so that it might become a tool itself. Marinette could not have come from something as human as love. Love has no role in the creation of a knife.

To settle the conflict, Marinette did what she did best - she snooped around, gathered intel, and created the most likely version of events. From what she could tell, her Grandmother, an associate of the Court of Owls but not an actual member, betrayed the Court. As punishment, Marinette was taken away from her family to be raised by the Court. Marinette's surname, kept hidden from her for thirteen years, was Dupain-Cheng.

The very concept of a surname was blasphemous. Marinette had no family. She belonged to the Court of Owls. And yet, sometimes at night, when she was alone in the dark, Marinette mouthed the words, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Something deep within her stirred.

-----

Marinette was fourteen years old, and she was supposed to kill the whole family. The mother and father, Marinette knew she could kill, but to kill their three children felt inhumane. The youngest wasn't even a year old. Marinette had completed hundreds of missions identical to this one. Sneak in, poison the food, sneak out, wait for the obituary in the newspaper in a day or two. However, this time Marinette couldn't do it.

Marinette cut the tracking chip out of her neck, crushed it beneath her boot, and disappeared into the shadows of the city. It was entirely unplanned, the only reason that Marinette was able to escape. Marinette didn't know much about life in the outside world, but she knew that it had to be better than the alternative, spending the rest of her life as a tool of the Court of Owls.

What Marinette didn't know was that the city she was disappearing into had a certain reputation. Soon, as she learned the true nature of Gotham, Marinette would wish that she stayed with the Court.

-----

Marinette was fifteen years old, and she now knew the true depravity of man. There was so much tragedy on the streets of Gotham. Some of the tragedies Marinette was able to prevent. Knives, after all, are just as good at preventing violence as they are at inflicting it. For other tragedies, Marinette was only able to witness the aftermath. For the victims, she had nothing to give. Knives can only hurt, they cannot heal.

Marinette loathes Gotham, a hatred that burns through her down to her core. In the Court of Owls, violence was planned. On the streets of Gotham, violence was random. It was so much worse. But a safer city would be more dangerous for Marinette, who needed deep shadows to hide in.

Marinette lived on the streets. She knew that she could pickpocket enough money to rent an apartment. It would be easy, the roughest slums of Gotham, to find someone willing to rent to a child, so long as they had the money. But Marinette's fear and pain had nothing to do with the physical conditions of living on the streets. It was all psychological. The horrors that Marinette had seen haunted her like a ghost.

The worst incident was Hannah, whose death shattered Marinette to her very core. Hannah was only seventeen years old, only two years older than Marinette herself. Marinette didn't know much about the girl, other than that she was on the streets because her boyfriend had threatened to kill her and the police wouldn't do anything until there was physical proof. Except, the way Hannah explained it was that the police wouldn't get involved until she was already dead. Marinette had offered to protect the older girl, but she shooed her away. Hannah told Marinette that she wouldn't let anything happen to herself. She told Marinette that she was tough.

Evidently, Hannah wasn't tough enough for the streets of Gotham. Marinette cried over the body for thirty minutes, cried so hard for so long that she knew she wasn't a knife anymore. Knives would never cry. Knives would cut right back. But Marinette was so sick of violence, so she cried and cried. Eventually, she knocked on the door of a house down the street, asking to borrow a phone to call the police and report a murder. Hannah's body was taken away. The police were ambivalent, they didn't even ask Marinette for a statement. To the police, Hannah was another victim of Gotham and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

This world was so deeply and terribly bad that Marinette didn't know how the rest of the world could survive it. Marinette didn't know if she wanted to survive it.

-----

Marinette was sixteen years old, and she finally got herself involved in the vigilante side of Gotham. Before Red Hood entered the scene, Crime Alley was a mess of villains and vigilantes, in a constant battle between chaos and order. Marinette never got involved. She had spent many years as a weapon, long enough to learn that a weapon can only harm and can never heal.

Red Hood toed the line between villain and vigilante. His network of crime was more civilized than any other the other organizations vying for control of Gotham. He kept the streets safe by keeping the most dangerous players in line. Marinette had to admit, he did more good for Crime Alley than Gotham's actual police force.

Still, that didn't mean that Marinette wanted to get involved. She preferred to keep to herself, keep out of the way, and keep in the shadows. It was safer that way.

That November evening when Marinette met Red Hood was cold. The rain that had come in the afternoon had frozen to ice. Marinette shivered as she sat in the alleyway, back against the brick wall, arms wrapped around her knees, hugging herself into a tight little ball. Winter was fast approaching, and Marinette knew that she needed to find better shelter.

Marinette hadn't been quick enough. Marinette should have fled the alley as soon as she saw the three brutish men start walking down it, but she was so cold she wasn't sure if she would be able to get her feet to move. By the time Marinette had gotten her feet under her to stand up, the three men were surrounding her.

The man in the middle leered at her. "You look cold. Why don't you come with us? We'll keep you warm."

There wasn't a trace of a question in his voice. It was a command. However, Marinette knew what happened to the girls who took up the offer, so she vigorously shook her head. She would rather freeze to death than join him in his bed.

"That wasn't a question," he growled, reaching down to grab her and pull her to her feet.

"I wouldn't touch her if I were you," an unfamiliar voice piped up from farther down the alley. "I just might have to remove your hand if you do."

"Red Hood! I was just helping the girl to her feet. I swear I wasn't going to do anything to her." The man sounded terrified, and for good reason. The punishment that Red Hood chose for rapists was well known for its brutality.

"You should leave," snapped Red Hood. The men hurried out of the alleyway, running without looking back. Marinette watched them go, relief rushing through her.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?" Red Hood asked, offering Marinette a hand to help her to her feet.

Marinette shook her head, squeezing herself into a tighter ball.

"I can take you to the nearest homeless shelter or I can take you to the nearest of my safehouses until I set you up in something permanent."

"I'm fine here," mumbled Marinette. It was the first time she had spoken in weeks. Her own voice sounded foreign to her.

Red Hood scoffed. "You'll freeze to death out here. It's either a homeless shelter or a safehouse. I don't leave girls out on the streets. Not in Gotham. Not in Crime Alley."

Marinette shivered, feeling more than miserable. It was obvious that she wasn't going to be able to convince Red Hood to leave her. A homeless shelter might need identification, which Marinette didn't have. Going to his safehouse was her best bet. "Safehouse."

Red Hood pulled Marinette to her feet. "Alright, safehouse it is. Mind telling me your name?"

"Marinette."

"No last name?"

Marinette shook her head. She hadn't earned a surname yet.

Red Hood took her back to the safehouse and got her settled, bringing over groceries every week as he tried to tempt her into giving him more information about herself. Marinette was reticent to tell him about her past. She doubted that he would still trust her enough to leave her alone if he learned that she used to work as an assassin.

However, Marinette couldn't keep that secret for very long. Two months after meeting Red Hood, as she waited in the kitchen for him to arrive with his weekly delivery of groceries, Marinette was caught off guard as a dark figure burst through the door and attacked her. Marinette didn't want to fight the dark-haired girl, but to be honest she couldn't see any other option, considering the other girl attacked first. The girl was skilled and Marinette was out of practice, after two years away from the Court. The best she could do was hold the other girl off while she tried to figure out an escape plan.

Red Hood came in the front door, which was already ajar from the entrance of the other girl. "Black Bat, stop! Marinette is my guest here," shouted Red Hood over the commotion of the fight.

Black Bat ceased her offensive, falling back into a defensive crouch. She pointed one finger at Marinette and accused, "Talon."

Marinette cringed back. "Not anymore. Never, ever again."

Red Hood stared at Marinette in shock. "You were an assassin?"

Marinette nodded miserably, wishing she could be anywhere else. She should have escaped the safehouse when she had the chance, but her stupid brain decided that Red Hood's safehouse would be a good place as any to spend the winter months.

"Cass? Jason? Why was the door left open...?" The civilian man who walked through the open door stared at the scene in front of him in confusion.

"Aliases, Grayson!" exclaimed Red Hood, or, Jason as he had just been named. Jason took off his mask, casting it aside as he ran his hand through his hair with a groan. "Black Bat, you take Marinette back to the bedroom and help her put bruise cream on wherever you managed to hit her. Grayson, you're coming with me back to the cave so we can explain this situation to you-know-who." Jason almost reached the door before he let out a loud swear "Fuck! I cannot believe that I have to be the responsible one here."

As Jason and his friend left the safehouse, Marinette followed Black Bat - Cass - down the hallway to the bedroom. "Sit," ordered Cass, pointing towards the bed as she starting digging through the bathroom cabinet, looking for bruise cream.

Marinette stripped off her shirt so that Cass could get to the bruises. The only significant hit was a kick to the chest that knocked the breath out of Marinette. It was already turning yellow. Marinette poked it and grimaced at the twinge of pain that followed.

"Don't worry," said Cass as she started to rub the medicine onto Marinette's chest. "Jason will keep you safe."

Cass wasn't lying. Whatever Jason said or did in the hours that he was gone that day, it worked. Two days later, Marinette was moving into Wayne Manor.

Jason explained it all to her on the drive over. "Bruce - Batman - doesn't want an ex-assassin living on the streets in Crime Alley, especially not one in possession of compromising information about our identities. Given that you've already taken the first step towards reformation, Bruce is pretty confident that you're safe to live in the house. He'll help you get back on your feet, get you a new identity, an education, or anything you need."

Marinette froze for a moment, then wrapped Jason up in a hug. It was her first hug and it was better than she expected. "Thank you."

-----

Marinette was seventeen years old, and she finally had a family. The Wayne household was a chaotic place. Marinette used to think that she hated chaos, but she could now see the appeal. Coffee at midnight with Tim, practicing acrobatics with Dick, racing motorcycles with Jason, rescuing farm animals with Damian - none of it was normal, and because of that, Marinette loved it. However, when things got overwhelming and Marinette needed a break from the chaos, she always knew where to go.

Cass was one of the only quiet Waynes (the other being Alfred). In fact, she barely spoke at all. Marinette had learned that she and Cass had quite a few similarities in the nature of their childhoods. They were both taken from at least one of their parents, both raised to be assassins from a young age, both were isolated from the rest of society. Where they differed was the particulars of their education. Cass was raised without language, and she only learned how to speak after she escaped from her father's grasp.

One night, after a patrol that led to Marinette stumbling upon a body that reminded her of Hannah from all those years ago, Marinette walked through the halls of the Manor to Cass's bedroom. All anyone wanted was for Marinette to talk about it. Cass was the only person who wouldn't make that demand of Marinette.

Marinette knocked on the door, two quiet little knocks. Cass cracked open the door, then gestured for Marinette to come inside. Marinette settled down on the couch in the corner, trying to pick out the questions that she wanted to ask Cass. There were so many questions, but Marinette knew that only a few of them were worth asking. They sat in silence for a while, Marinette so lost in thought that she almost forgot that Cass was there, too. Finally, Marinette settled on the question. "Do you ever wish that you could change the past?"

Cass was silent, deep in thought for a few moments before she shook her head. "No."

"Not even if it meant that you could have had a normal childhood?"

"I had a hard childhood," Cass acknowledged. "I like where I ended up. I wouldn't be here without my childhood."

Marinette had one last question to ask. "If you're able to speak now, why do you barely talk."

"I learned to speak," agreed Cass, going silent for a moment before continuing. "I have become proficient at using words to deliver information but I lack the skill to converse with others. I find it difficult to use any more words than necessary. For that reason, people do not like talking to me. I do not talk to those who do not want to talk to me."

"I like talking to you," said Marinette, squeezing Cass's hand. "I can talk enough for the both of us. You don't mind my talking, do you?"

Cass shook her head. "I find your words tolerable. Sometimes even pleasant."

It was a high compliment from Cass. Marinette smiled. "May I hug you?"

Cass nodded, and Marinette wrapped her dearest friend up in a hug.

-----

Marinette was eighteen years old, and it was time for her to create a new identity for herself.

"Do you want a surname?" asked Bruce.

Marinette stared at the screen. There were three options in front of here. The first, to remain nameless. The second, to take on the name she was born with, Dupain-Cheng in remembrance of her parents and the childhood she never got to have. The third, to move on entirely from her past and embrace the future. "Wayne. Marinette Wayne."

@maribatmarch-2k21

[concussed-to-pieces]

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Eleven

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Part Nine: Domestic Ruminations

Part Ten: Institutionalized

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains brief mentions of pregnancy (relating to bodily changes and a C-section) and a graphic depiction of an emotional/nervous breakdown. Stay safe!]

Two weeks and three days. 

  Danse wasn't exactly certain of what to do. It had taken his squadron nearly three weeks to track down Cutler, so three weeks had become his hard limit almost unconsciously. The paladin had never been overly good at resting on his laurels, but it wasn't like he could single-handedly lay siege to the damn Institute for a retrieval mission.

  Returning to the Prydwen without his charge might prove divisive , regardless of how many technical documents Codsworth had procured from the cul-de-sac's abodes. 

  Speaking of Codsworth…

  "Aw, cheer up man." Sturges comforted the robot, who (unless Danse was imagining it) was hovering a bit lower today. "I bet she'll be back any second now!"

  "Mister Sturges, as much as I appreciate your optimistic outlook," the robot sniffed dramatically. "I'm afraid that you cannot begin to understand the sadness I feel. I believed for two hundred years that I had lost Miss Vega, and to have lost her once again is...well, it is unbearable , Mister Sturges."

  Danse grimaced. Did he actually feel bad for a robot? He was, at the very least, sympathizing with it. What the hell was his world coming to?

  Knight Vega certainly kept some interesting company. Aside from the seemingly permanent presence of the elderly Mama Murphy, Sturges, Codsworth, and the married couple of Jun and Marcy Long, numerous colorful individuals had drifted through the settlement over the course of the weeks.

  First there was Cait, a woman with hair red enough to put Proctor Ingram's to shame. She blew into town, provisioner in tow, speaking with a thick, caustic brogue and toting a sawed-off shotgun. "I owe Backhand my life." She said shortly when Danse enquired as to what her business was with Vega. "She got me off the chems, so now I keep her goddamn caravans free from pests."

  She only stayed for a night, but she insisted that Danse join her for a sparring match. He wasn't afraid to admit that she put him through the ringer , his whole body sore the following morning.

  "Tell Handy Cait sends her love!" The woman had called before she departed, giving him a small smile. Danse had ruefully promised to do so, trying not to visibly wince as he waved farewell.

  One Robert MacCready followed shortly thereafter, who had acted like Danse being there would raze the town to the ground on nothing but principle. "I dealt with you ass--er, you jerks in the Capital Wasteland." The lithe man scowled up at Danse, pushing the bill of his hat back. He had a sniper rifle slung around his body with a barrel that was almost as long as he was tall, bearing an ornate, quick-slide scope.

  "I assume you are used to the charity of former Elder Lyons. The eastern chapter is no longer so benevolent, civilian." Danse growled, pricked by MacCready's blatant disdain for the Brotherhood.

  He could tell MacCready wasn't a bad sort, just overly suspicious and prickly. After serving with Knight Rhys for so long, Danse was almost tempted to tell the younger man that he would need to try harder to keep people away from him.

  "Backhand saved my kid." Robert admitted one night after he had been drinking by the fire with Sturges. "She...She helped me get the medicine I needed. Helped cure my little boy." 

  Danse knew he shouldn't be surprised that someone who seemed as young as MacCready had managed to procreate. But as he watched the other man toy idly with a tiny, battered tin soldier that he had pulled from his pocket, Danse felt that perhaps...perhaps Robert had the right to be a bit suspicious and prickly.

  The next visitor was a petite, dark-haired woman named Curie who had an incredibly strange accent. She was of the medical persuasion and curious about everything . Danse was a little taken aback by how blunt some of her inquiries were, but he did his best to humor her. 

  She seemed harmless enough, even if she was hellbent on learning the inner machinations of his entire existence. She asked everything in such a clinical manner, Danse didn't even have the presence of mind to be uncomfortable or embarrassed. 

  That is, until she asked whether he was sexually active and " when was zee last time you stimulated yourself, Monsieur Danse? " Then he clammed right up, loathing that he could feel his face going hot as he remembered exactly when the last time he had stimulated himself was.

  "I will not be answering any more of your questions about my personal matters, civilian." The paladin informed her curtly, caught off-guard by her plaintive cry of dismay at his refusal. 

  "But Monsieur Danse, I must learn zee secret of your overgrown size! You are so very tall and muscular compared to your contemporaries, my research could result in a breakthrough for your whole species! If you are a genetic throwback, zis could mean-" Sturges finally came to his rescue, ushering the wailing doctor away and shooting Danse a wink that made the paladin huff out an irritated grunt.

  Genetic throwback . Dogmeat was a genetic throwback. Danse just...maybe he had good genes. Both of his parents must have possessed more robust constitutions. That was the clear answer. 

  An elaborately-dressed ghoul had marched down the main road like he owned the joint a few days after Curie had come and gone, only stopping when he realized there was a fully-armored paladin aiming a laser rifle at him. "Whoa! Easy crewcut, you'll harsh my mellow." He exclaimed, taking off his tricorn hat and fanning himself with it. "The name's John Hancock," he continued with a showy little bow. "I'm lookin' for General Vega. She around?"

  "Knight Vega is indisposed at the moment, but you're welcome to leave a message, ghoul." Danse gritted out, oddly keen on attempting civility.

  Hancock whistled and Dogmeat came running over, immediately flopping onto his back for a belly rub. "Ah, there he is. My favorite of the general's mutts. Sorry, you say somethin'?" The ghoul asked lazily, the pitch-black void of his eyes boring pointedly into Danse's. 

  The paladin threw his hands up in the air after a moment and stormed off. God damn it, Vega, you could have warned me that you kept such diverse company! he ranted inwardly.

  The visitor that had nearly sent him into a conniption was an old synth, its skin ragged and tattered enough to show its inner workings. Sturges chatted away with the damn thing (and its traveling companion, a self-styled reporter apparently named Piper Wright) and Danse just floundered . Backhand made friends with synths?

  Ticking mentally over everyone else he had met during his stay at Sanctuary, Danse reluctantly admitted that yes, Backhand would absolutely make friends with synths. Perhaps he should have come to terms with that before everything that had occurred, but now here he was, fully kitted and watching this synth narrowly. 

  "Come on over and introduce yourself, big fella'. No need to glare from afar." The synth commented wryly. "From what I understand we're all on the same team."

  "If it's all the same to you, synth , I'll keep my distance." Danse could tolerate a lot of things. Ghouls, specifically. He had met numerous in his travels and while it was unsettling to converse with them, he knew they weren't all diseased, mindless shamblers despite what the Brotherhood had beaten into him. But synths …

  They were the embodiment of mankind's arrogance. Monstrous, uncanny, a mockery of bodily functions. They made Danse's skin crawl.

  Piper huffed indignantly, rolling her eyes and pointing a finger at Danse as she remarked loudly to Sturges, "I wasn't aware that Blue had rechristened this place Bigotry Hills."

  The synth inclined its head in the meantime, somehow giving off an air of mechanical resignation. "Alright, I'll go first I suppose, since you've forgotten your manners. Name's Nick Valentine. I'm a detective operating out of Diamond City."

  Nick Valentine . Danse's mouth became a desert. This , this was the detective Vega sang the praises of when it came to tracking down the man who had stolen her son? "Knight Vega failed to mention that you were a synth." He muttered.

  "She probably figured it wasn't relevant. After all, the Institute left me at the curb with another man's memories in my head. Miss Vega did me a good turn after I helped her out with that Kellogg fella'." The synth shrugged. "Let an old bot put a few more ghosts to rest." He dusted off the raggedy fedora he wore, those unnerving golden eyes focused on Danse. "I caught wind that something might have gone a little sour with her infiltration, so Piper and I thought we'd drop by and see if we could offer any sort of assistance."

  "And can you?" Danse asked, concern and suspicion making his tone even sharper as he glanced at the woman. Piper stuck her tongue out at him, to his chagrin.

  The synth looked regretful for a second and Danse pondered that its face could even convey such a complex emotion. "Probably not, but at least now I know I'm not the only one worrying about our doll Vega." It remarked shrewdly. 

  Danse blushed guiltily, dropping his gaze from that calculating stare. It felt like the synth could see every damn thing he had ever done wrong in his life and Danse loathed the idea of this machine being able to help where he couldn't. "I'll be watching you, synth ," he blustered. "If you step out of line-"

  The synth actually interrupted him, waving a spindly, metallic hand. "You'll what, melt me into slag? I'd be careful, I might do something nefarious like trap you in an intelligent conversation."

  …

  Danse's sleep schedule had never been anything even bordering on concrete, but now the worry kept him up more than the nightmares. A thousand scenarios ran through his mind, each one worse than the last. His fatalistic tendencies would be the death of him one of these days, and wouldn't that be a poetic end. Death by apoplexy, his heart just exploding under the stress of his own imagination.

  No one commented when he ended up abandoning that soft mattress in the front room of Vega's house in favor of planting his bedroll on the floor at the foot of her bed. He spent long hours there every night, disassembling his gun, cleaning it thoroughly and checking over his mods. 

  When he inevitably gave up on sleep, he would patrol the perimeter. Jun joined him fairly often, the soft spoken man having taken it upon himself to manage the security around the settlement.

  "At first, I think Backhand just wanted me to have something to do." Jun mentioned out of the blue one evening, his haggard expression illuminated in the faint light of the moon. "So she told me to uh, walk the property line. Marcy didn't know what to do with me. Hell, she didn't even know what to do with herself . Losing Kyle was…" the man swallowed hard. "Well, the general understood, on account of her own little one. She knew I needed to be kept busy, especially after that close call in Concord. I'm just glad Marcy didn't give up on me." He admitted.

  "Why would she have given up on you?" Danse asked, a bit confused that this conversation was even occurring. He didn't do this sort of thing. "Whatever transpired with your child wasn't your fault." He had never asked for the specifics and Jun hadn't volunteered them.

  Jun shrugged. "Being married is...full of ups and downs. And sometimes the downs are really, really hard. Too hard. It's terrible, seeing the person you love turn into some kind of...angry husk because of grief and you're grieving too, and you know you can't fix it because-" the man's eyes welled up, his voice hitching. "-b-because you're not strong enough."

  Danse's breath caught in his lungs because oh God , that had been him after Cutler. Frustrated, hollow, newly promoted and warming Arthur's bed out of duty as he tried to privately grieve the man he had lost.

  It had been Haylen and Rhys who pried him from his depressive, wrathful tendencies. Brandis had suggested that Danse consider sponsoring his own initiates, and recommended him two candidates. The young woman, barely into adulthood, so full of life and eager to learn, and Rhys had been angry like him. 

  More followed after those two, but they had been his first. He sponsored Dawes, Brach, Keane, Worwick...squire or initiate to aspirant, aspirant to scribe or knight. All the while keeping them at arm's length, reluctant to open himself up again to the suffering that had wreaked its havoc upon him after the loss of Cutler.

  Learning about Paladin Krieg's passing during the assault on Adams Air Force Base was a blade twisting in his back. Danse had felt like his entire body was on fire, raw with agony once more as everything he had tried so hard to keep under control collapsed beneath him. He emerged from that particular rubble stoic and grim, and it was shortly after that incident that Recon Squadron Artemis went dark in the Commonwealth. 

  Brandis was sent to die and you know it! That evening in the barracks had been one of the hardest in his entire military career. Danse had known he was lying, lying to every single man, woman and child in that room that he would pass along any information he learned about Paladin Brandis.

  But what else could he do?

  "You can't fix everything and every one, Mr. Long." The paladin murmured finally. "You'll only burn yourself out with the effort. All you can do is let time do its work."

  "Oh, I know." The other man said calmly, having clearly mastered himself while Danse mulled over his response. "Marcy and I had a long talk about...our son, and even though it still hurts to talk about him, I know someday it won't." He smiled at Danse. "Thanks for listening, Mr. Paladin. I can see why the general likes you."

  Danse may or may not have tucked that precious information away, deep down in his heart.

  ...

  Backhand had no idea how many days had passed since she had departed. The Commonwealth was relatively quiet all around the settlement as she took a few steadying breaths after relaying back, bent nearly double with her hands on her knees. Overhead in the night sky, the moon beamed weakly between the thick clouds.

  Staggering down the steps that were still attached to the bare foundation, a wave of exhaustion threatened to cripple her. Away from the artificial lighting and brilliant whiteness of the Institute, she abruptly felt like she hadn't slept in weeks. How long had she been awake for?

  Bed , Vega decided with a nod. Bed before anything else . With slow, trudging footsteps, the young woman made her way to the house where she had lived before the bombs fell. Whatever time it was, it was obviously late. There wasn't a light on across the whole settlement, and she was incredibly grateful that she would be afforded a few moments of reprieve before she was plied with questions.

  Backhand closed the front door behind her, doing her best to be quiet. Danse must be asleep. Either that or he had returned to the Prydwen. Vega was a little startled at how distraught that made her feel, like she had lost somehow. 

  She stifled a yawn as she jiggled the sticky doorknob to her room and, too impatient to ease the door open, she put her shoulder to it.

  The door flew open and she immediately found herself on the business end of a very familiar laser rifle. Vega couldn't help her shriek of surprise and in her haste to retreat, she toppled into the hall and landed hard on her back. "Wait, wait! " She pleaded, throwing up her hands in surrender. "Don't shoot, Danse!"

  The paladin just stared down at her for a moment, his brow slowly unfurrowing in recognition as he lowered his gun. "Elizabeth?" He asked, his voice rasping hoarsely.

  "Y-Yeah. Hi." Backhand replied, her voice shaky. "It's me." Danse extended his hand, easily pulling her upright off the ground. She half-fell against his body, the large man accepting the weight without a word. "Why are you sleeping in here?" Backhand blurted out the first question she could think of, noticing the disturbed bedroll on the floor at the foot of her bed. 

  "I assumed that should you return, you would most likely head to your room first." The paladin answered quickly, too quickly for it to be the truth.

  Backhand raised an eyebrow. "And the armed greeting?"

  "A reflex."

  Vega's hands curled into fists on his chest, taking handfuls of his shirt between her fingers. I missed you , she wanted to say, I missed you so much . "How long was I gone for?" She asked instead.

  "Seventeen days." Danse replied in a no-nonsense manner. "It appears your infiltration of the Institute was a success." He was watching her closely. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Knight."

  Vega wanted to kiss him, not missing the warmth of relief in his eyes despite his neutral tone. She hurriedly peeled herself off of his chest, awkwardly clearing her throat and casting her brain around for an excuse to leave. "I'm...I need to shower." She lied, grimacing. "I was going to go right to bed, but…"

  "Take your time. I'll remove my personal effects and return to my quarters." The paladin intoned stiffly.

  Backhand grabbed a random assortment of clothing from atop her rickety dresser and fled to the bathroom without another word. 

  She slid down the door once she had shut it firmly, closing her eyes and hanging her head. What the hell were you expecting, Vega? she chastised herself, starting to unlace her boots. Some kind of fairytale reunion where he sweeps you up into his arms and professes his undying love? And we ride into the sunset? Backhand scoffed, bringing her fist down on the side of the salvaged water heater to get it to function.

  Vega stared down at her body as she showered, feeling oddly like a spectator. The faint scar at the bottom of her stomach mocked her, taunting her with the memory of the hospital room, the swaddled Shaun being pressed into her arms…

  This was all so wrong. 

  She pushed the heels of her palms into her eyes hard enough to blind her for a moment, fending off the tears that threatened to close her throat. The scar was placed low enough on her body that the waistband of her underwear concealed it. She didn't have to think about it too often. Usually she avoided looking at it while she bathed, the surgical leftover making complex feelings of grief and resentment war inside her.

  Her fingers drew over the faded scar, then rose to brush the stretch marks that striped over her belly from where her body had changed to accommodate Shaun's growing form. And still her eyes were dry.

  Backhand emerged from the lukewarm shower and simply sat on the side of the tub, watching the water slowly swirl down the drain. She thought of the Institute, where clean water was just a faucet turn away. Free of parasites and radiation, bearing a faint reek of chlorine that had clung to her hair and skin after bathing.

  Her brow furrowed and she toweled herself off briskly, donning the clothing she had grabbed at random. The shirt was too big, unfamiliar, and she realized with a sharp pang of a strange emotion that it must be one of Danse's. Had he done her laundry while she was gone?

  The young woman hung her towel up to dry, scooped all her dirty clothes off the floor and padded back across the hall to her room. 

  Danse, true to his word, had removed his bedroll and pack from the room, leaving no trace of his previous occupancy. Vega dropped her ball of clothes in the corner and sank down on the edge of her mattress, putting her head into her hands. 

  I believe you will do great things for the Institute.

  Her fingers dug into her hair, raking through it in a nervous gesture. She didn't want to do great things. She had never wanted to do great things. All she had wanted was a family.

  A child, a husband, a modest house in a quiet neighborhood…

  The bombs had taken so much from everyone else, did she even have the right to mourn the life she wished she had? It seemed so selfish, so...petty.

  Shaun's crib sat empty by the door like always, but now its vacancy mocked her. Had she ever truly believed she would find her son? Or had she been lying to herself the whole time, trying to convince herself that she could have been a good mother and that it wasn't all her fault Shaun had been taken. Rage bathed her in a comforting blanket of numbness and Backhand clenched her fists, rising from the bed. 

  With a stilted, furious cry of, " fuck you! " she heaved the empty crib against the wall.

  It was a simple enough task to snap the rungs in it, blowing through them one after the other. Next the flimsy headboard, torn from the sides with a shriek of abused screws. Backhand broke it over her knee, pitching the pieces off to land somewhere as the crib teetered on two legs. She grabbed those last two legs, picked the remains of the crib up, and smashed it against the floor with all her might. 

  It exploded in a cloud of chipped blue pieces, effectively destroyed. Backhand screamed in frustrated anguish, sinking to her knees and wrapping her arms around herself. She hadn't even noticed she was crying, but the tears were hot enough to burn on her cheeks.

  She felt running footsteps vibrate through the floor, but she didn't so much as raise her head. 

  Danse, Danse , those brown eyes so warm and concerned, knelt in front of her. " Easy , Knight." He soothed. Backhand sobbed hysterically, her whole body shaking with each inhale. "Elizabeth." Danse said her name calmly, quietly, his arms falling open.

  The woman flung herself into his embrace, gripping his back tightly. Danse held her close, like she was small and fragile and needed to be protected, one hand on the back of her head stroking her still-damp hair. Vega just went limp, weeping pitifully into his shirt.

  "By Jove…" Codsworth breathed from the door. "Oh mum, I'm so sorry." She felt a metal pincer rest gingerly on her shoulder and Backhand knocked her forehead against Danse's clavicle when she turned her face to look at Codsworth. "You should have told us, mum. Whatever it is, it's all too much to carry alone." The robot scolded her kindly. "I helped you raise the little tyke, if you recall. We will always have those fond memories, you and I."

  "It hurts." Backhand said thickly. "It h-hurts so much. I just wanted him back."

  "I'm sorry, Elizabeth." Danse murmured, words laden with sorrow. And he didn't even know what had happened yet!

  "I don't want anyone else to be sorry. I-I want to take every one of that smug f- fuck's toys and break them. If he wasn't already on his way out, I would-" Backhand dissolved into seething, nonsensical muttering. "There's good people in the Institute." She said finally. "People who wanted to help. People who need to get out."

  "And the Brotherhood will do everything we can to save them." Danse promised solemnly, taking her hands in his own and making a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat as he examined the battered skin. "Christ Vega, you're full of splinters."

  "I just...I don't know, I shouldn't have done that." Backhand mumbled, feeling idiotic for letting herself get so out of control.

  "Not to worry, mum!" Codsworth cheerily clicked his pincers. "I'll have you squared away in a jiffy!"

  Danse didn't let her go as Codsworth painstakingly worked over her abused hands to remove every last sliver. The paladin even assisted when the robot asked, holding her skin taut or flattening her palm out on his own to keep her steady so Codsworth could get a better grip.

  Piper appeared in the doorway in the midst of the procedure, wearing a raggedy robe and carrying a steaming mug. "And there's our gal." The reporter said softly. "Heya' Blue."

  "H-Hey Piper." Backhand sniffled. 

  The other woman tipped her head. "Nicky's on his way. You want tea or coffee?" 

  "Coffee, please. Please." Backhand begged, feeling Danse's hold on her tighten slightly. She was sitting in his lap still, his arms around her while Codsworth worked. She hated herself for enjoying the comfort his proximity provided, hated herself for being too weak to deal with this on her own. 

  As if he could sense her thoughts, the paladin settled her back more firmly against his chest.

  …

  She was back. She had come back. Harried and haggard but alive . Danse could feel the tension radiating from her and he wanted to kick himself for greeting her with a weapon at the door. His brain hadn't even registered that it might be her , he had awoken from his uneasy half-doze to someone breaching the door and his body reacted.

  Danse wanted to question her. He wanted to grip her to his chest and never let her out of his sight again. He wanted to berate her for being gone for so long. He wanted to lay her down on her bed and--

  He shoved that thought away. She was obviously exhausted and worn from whatever it was that she had gone through. Now was absolutely not the time to voice the pesky, budding emotions that warred in his chest.

  He could sense the impending explosion hanging heavy in the air like the changing pressure of an approaching storm, but he hadn't expected the rupture to happen so soon. Vega was barely out of the shower when he heard the first crash , her yell of " fuck you! ". 

  Danse wrestled momentarily with himself, his hands clenching in the fabric of his sleeping bag. Expressing anger could be therapeutic in it's own right, and her getting everything out now might be miles healthier than bottling it all up until she imploded.

  But her sobbing cries effectively wiped his plan of inaction. She sounded like she was in agony and Danse didn't even remember tearing the door open. One second he was in his own room and then the next he was on his knees in front of her, " easy , Knight," his voice gone soft and tender in a manner wholly uncharacteristic of the usually stoic man.

  He couldn't help saying her name, her first name, even though he felt wrong for doing so. But she pitched forward into his embrace just like Haylen had, weeping as though her heart was fit to break. And all Danse could do, all anyone could have done, he assured himself, was hold her close.

  She had no care for the safety and wellbeing of her hands, he realized wryly as he checked them over for broken bones. This was the second time patching up her poor fingers, the first time feeling like a distant memory. Her shredding her knuckles to ribbons on the manual release of his suit, her complete disregard for her own comfort…

  Danse didn't move, even when the synth arrived on Piper's heels. Everyone crowded into the room and he knew he ought to feel self-conscious, but now Vega was the one refusing to release him . So there he sat on the floor with her secure in his arms, listening to the entire sordid tale as Codsworth quietly tidied up the mess that had been Shaun's crib. 

  The Institute was real , and it wound for miles underneath the Commonwealth. They had access to safe food and pure drinking water, all made possible by unimaginable technology. Her son wasn't dead or even a child, but instead old and frail. The years had stretched on longer than anyone could have anticipated between his removal from the Vault and Vega's own awakening. 

  The advances that made the generation three synths possible had been brought about by utilizing infant Shaun's pre-war DNA, and he was known as Father to all the synths. But he wasn't a father at all, at least not one that anybody would want to have.

  "Synths are like lower class citizens to these scientists. Expendable. Seen and not heard." Backhand explained, and Nick muttered something uncharitable under his breath. "They're not people, they're tools. Shit, Shaun even listed them off like that, he called the coursers hammers ." Vega spat. "But they think . They dream. Hell, they grieve even though they don't know that's what they're doing."

  She spoke of the courser mourning the loss of his friend, forced to grieve without understanding the feelings he suffered through and Danse was somehow full of sympathy for a damn killing machine. It must just be Vega's compassionate nature transferring to him. There was no way he could actually believe anything like that was even possible.

  Spinal recalibration .

  Danse wasn't sure why , but he felt a blunt stab of pain at the nape of his neck when she explained the procedure. It was probably psychosomatic, he reasoned. The process sounded gruesome.

  Nick flipped back and forth through his notepad, scratching at the side of his head with his pencil. "I'll need some time to look all of this over, sweetheart." He said to Backhand, glancing at Piper. "And you need time to recover," he continued in a gently-chiding tone. "You seem half-dead, doll."

  Danse realized with a barely-hidden start that he had begun to refer to the synth as Nick in his mind. What was happening to him? Had he been away from the Brotherhood for so long that he was going soft? Was his moral integrity being compromised?

  Or was he just coming to terms with something that he couldn't bring himself to label yet? 

  Backhand nodded, tugging the paladin out of his reverie. "I really want to sleep." She mumbled. She must have been truly exhausted, because in spite of downing the mug of coffee Piper had procured for her, she was slumped in Danse's arms. 

  Piper patted Vega's knee, giving Danse a stern glare. The paladin wanted to laugh at her attempt to intimidate him. "You get some rest, Blue. Nicky and I will do our best to compile what you've given us." She assured her.

  After the duo from Diamond City had left, Codsworth made a noise like he was clearing his throat. "I'm just so glad you're back, mum." He said, his words weirdly heartfelt for coming from a machine.

  Vega reached out and caught one of Codsworth's arms before the bot could leave, the young woman smiling wearily up at the Mister Handy. "I'm glad to be back, Codsworth." 

  Danse managed to usher her into her bed just as the sun was rising, but she grabbed his hand when he turned to depart. "Wait." Backhand whispered, her eyelids drooping. "Please...please stay? I don't want to be alone, Danse." A lone tear wound its way down her cheek. "Please don't leave me alone." 

  Danse planted himself in the chair beside the bed, laying his laser rifle across his knees. "I'm not going anywhere, Knight Vega." He promised her solemnly, taking a greedy, selfish moment to push the hair back from her face. "Sleep."

Part Twelve

[jaethaone]

Lost Without You - Part 1

Parings: Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Prompts: #13“I Loved You And You Still Left Me” & #15 “If I Could Go Back And Do It All Over, I Would Do Anything To Get You Back.” From @xxwritemeastoryxx 1k Challenge

Warnings: None , A Little Agsnt , Some Fluff, Some Strong Dialogue

Arthur’s Note: Hi Everyone . This Is My First Fic In A Long Time So I Might Be A Little Rusty. Sorry For Any Mistakes , And I Hope You Like It .

You Felt Nervous As You Made Your Way Into The Mikaelson Compound Fidgeting With Your Fingers As You Still Tried To Process The News You Just Recieved. An Hour. You’ve Only Managed To Be Gone An Hour And It Seems As Though Your World Has Made A Complete 360. You Had Gone Into The City For A Doctor’s Appointment That You Had Scheduled Seeing As Though For The Past Couple Of Days You Haven’t Been Feeling Yourself. Light-headedness, Loss Of Appetite, Moody, Drowsiness, The Whole Nine. You Name It You Had It.

Klaus Insisted On Just Compelling A Doctor To Come To The Compound Instead Of Letting You Out Into The City On Your Own, Especially After Recent Events Involving Some Vampires.

“I Only Want To Do Whats Best For You Love”

“I’m Only Going Into The City For An Hour , Two At The Max.. I’m Not A Little Kid , I’m A Grown Woman Who Can Handle Her Own” You’d Explain .. Or At Least Tried Too

“I Can’t Stand The Thought Of Seeing You Hurt, Or Losing You” Klaus Replied Back

“It’s A Doctors Visit, I Will Be Fine, And In An Hour I’ll Be Making My Way Back Here To You”

As You Walked Out Of His Study You Never Thought You’d Be Going To Recieve Life Changing News. You Were Pregnant. About 12 Weeks Per Doctors Examination. You Honestly Didn’t Think It To Be Possible, Nobody Did Actually, Vampires Couldn’t Procreate, But Then Again Nik Wasn’t JUST A Vampire. The Whole Ride Back You Were Trying To Wrap Your Head Around The Fact That You Were Carrying A Living Human. Or At Least For The Time Being. It’s Not That You Didn’t Want Children, You Very Much So Want Kids Of Your Own, But Being With Klaus For About 3 Years Now You Wrapped Your Head Around The Fact That It Was Merrly Impossible To Have Kids With A Hybrid.

You Didn’t Exactly Know What You Were Going To Tell Klaus, Or How , Or How He Would React But You Knew It Had To Be Done, Sooner Rather Than Later.

You Were So Caught Up In Your Thought That You Didn’t Really Notice You Were Passing Rebekah On The Stairs

“Earth To YN”

“My Fault.. I Didn’t Really See You There”

“You Okay.. How Did Everything Go? You’re Not Dying Are You, Because We Will March Right Back Up There And Gi-“

“Beks ! I’m Okay Sheesh” You Laughed Out “Just A Little Cold Is All, Doctor Gave Me Some Medicine And I’ll Be Good To Go”

“Alright Just Making Sure.. Looks Like You Seen A Ghost, But In This World Today I Wouldn’t Put It Past Everything” She Said Taking In My Current State

“I’m Good .. I Promise, Anyways Is Klaus Still In His Study” You Asked As You Looked Up The Stairs

“You Know It, Probably Thinking Of Ways To Tourture His Enemies”

“Like Always” You Laughed And Made Your Way Up The Stairs To Klaus

Each Step You Took You Felt Your Heart Beat Faster, At The Rate It Was Going It Probably Would Beat Right Out Of Your Chest. As You Made Your Way To Klaus’ Study You Could See Him With A Glass Of Bourbon In This Hand Starring Out Into The Busy Streets Of The French Quarter.

“It’s Now Or Never” You Thought Walking Further In

“See I’m Back, And In One Piece” You Joked Walking Closer To Klaus

“Hm”

Brushing Off The Dry Response You’d Just Recieved You Proceded To Start This Conversation Because If You Didn’t Do It Now Who Knows When You Would Tell Him

“So I Found Out What Was Wrong.. And We Kinda Need To Sit And Talk I Have Something I Want To Tell You”

“And I You” Klaus Said Turning Around To Face You

“Alright Well You Can Go First .. What Is It You Need To Tell Me” You Said Stitting On The Edge Of The Desk Patting The Spot Next To You

But When He Didn’t Move You Started To Get This Strange Feeling, That Something Was Wrong, Something Had Happened In That Hour You Were Gone, And The Look On Klaus’ Face Confirmed It .. But What Was It

“What’s Wrong .. Wait Don’t Tell Me , Is It Kol” You Laughed Out “Or Is It Some Witches Again.. I’m Convinced You’re Never Going To Be On Their Good Side” You Said Smiling Trying To Lighten The Tense Atmosphere

“Oo Or Maybe It’s Some Old Enem-“

“We Can’t Be Together Anymore” Klaus Said Interrupting You Mid Sentence

“Excuse Me” You Questioned

I Mean You Heard Him, Clear As Day, You Just.. You Were Shocked , Confused, Was He Being Serious. But Then Again When Is Klaus Ever Not Serious.

Standing Straight Up Off The Desk “What Do You Mean We Can’t Be Together Anymore Nik, You Got To Be Joking Right Now”

“When Have You Known Me To Joke Around Love”

“Then Why Are You Saying This.. Where Did This Come From?” You Questioned Slightly Raising Your Voice

“I Can’t Protect You The Way I Need Too An-“ Klaus Started To Explain But You Cut Him Off

“And You Think Breaking Up With Me Is The Best Way To Do That .. Bullshit” You Said Laughing A Little Because You Couldn’t Believe Any Of This Right Now

“Yes! This Is The Only Way!”

“No It’s Not” You Yelled “You Think It Is. THREE YEARS KLAUS.. THREE!! And Now You Want To Do Whats Best For Me.. To Protect Me , We’re Past That”

“Yn.. Please Understand I Am Doing This For You. My Enemies.. The- They’ll Never Stop Coming And As Long As You’re With Me They’ll Continue To Use You To Get To Me”

“I Can’t Believe This Right Now” You Said Starting To Pace Back And Fourth In Front Of Him

Trying To Wrap Your Head Around What Was Taking Place Right Now You Completely Forgot That You Were Supposed To Tell Him About The Pregnancy, But How Were You Going To Tell Him Now When He’s Trying To End Your Whole Relationship

“You Can’t Be Serious Right Now .. You Can’t . Three Years? Klaus” You Stopped Pacing To Look At Him

“Please Try To Unders-“

“Understand What! .. You Can’t Possibly Expect Me To Belive That You Want To Break Up With Me To Protect Me” You Paused For A Second And Then Looked Up “No”

“No?” Klaus Asked Seeming A Little Confused At Your Single Worded Responce

“I’m Not Leaving .. Were In This Together , Always And Forever Right? You Told Me I Was Now Apart Of That Vow So No .. I’m Not Leaving”

“Love I-“

“No .. We’ve Both Given So Much To This Relationship For Me To Just Agree To Leave And The Fact That You Actually Let Those Words Come Out Of Your Mouth Is Really Appauli-“ You Were Cut Off By Klaus But What He Said Next You Didn’t Think You’d Hear Him Say. I Mean It Was Your Fear To Hear Those Words Come From Him. For Someone Who Was Just As Equally Scared Of Letting Someone In As You Were When You First Met, You Didn’t Think You’d Ever Hear Him Udder Those Words

“I Don’t Love You Anymore”

And With Those Five Little Words You Felt Your Whole World Come Crashing Down Infront Of You. At Least That’s What It Felt Like Because In A Way He Was.. He Is Your Whole World. Moving To New Orleans Some Years Back You Dropped Everything In Your Hometown And Never Looked Back, You Haven’t Spoken To Your Two Brothers In So Long, Some Fight That Happened And If You Were Being Honest With Yourself, You Don’t Even Remember What You Three Were Fighting About. So In A Sense Klaus And His Flamily Were All You Had At This Point In Time

“You What”

“I Don’t Love You Anymore Yn” He Said Looking Away And In That Moment You Just Knew He Had To Be Lying “I’m Breaking Up With You Because I Don’t Have A Need For You Anymore, So There’s No Reason For You To Be Here”

“Wow .. I Guess Always Isn’t Forever After All” You Said As The Tears You’ve Been Trying To Hold Back This Whole Time Started To Fall

“I Guess Not Love .. So You Best Be Making Your Way”

Walking Up To Him And Placing Your Hands On Both Sides Of His Face You Forced Him To Look At You “You Cant Do This .. Not Like This .. To Us.” You Said Tears Now Streaming “I Love You .. And I’m Going To Fight . There’s No Way I’m Not Leaving Without A Fight”

“I Was Afraid You’d Say That”

At First You Were Confused By What He Meant But You Soon Understood. All The Things You Thought He’d Never Do He’s Managed To Do In A Couple Of Minutes .. Break Your Heart .. And Compel You “Klaus No”

“You’re Going To Leave Here” Klaus Said Has He Pushed Your Hands Off Of Him And Grabbed Your Shoulders Looking You In Your Deep Y/E/C “You’re Going To Pack All Of Your Stuff, And You’re Going To Walk Out Of That Door.. Out Of This Compound.. And Out Of New Orleans .. You’re Going To Go Live Your Life And Meet Someone New Who Can Give You The Life You’ve Deamed Of .. And You’re Going To Put Me And My Toxic Family Behind , Once You Walk Out Of That Dior You’re Going To Forget About Me And Elijah .. Rebekah .. Everyone .. This Conversation” He Said Tears Slowly Falling

“Forget About Us.. And Leave”

And Just Like That .. You Were Gone

———————————————————————

9 Months Later

Over The Next Six Months Of Your Pregnancy After You Left You Did Everything You Needed To Do To Make Sure You Were Prepared To Bring A New Life Into This World You Were Scared But Once It Happened You Wouldn’t Have Changed A Thing. You Had A Beautiful Baby Boy .. Kase ‘Pronounced Case’ And You Loved Him With Everyone Ounce Of Your Body The Last Three Months Have Been A World Wind, You Reconnected With Your Brothers, You Made Some New Friends, And You Were Still Getting Used To The Fact That You Were A Mother Now .. With A New Born.. That Looked Exactly.Like.His.Father .. Klaus

You Still Remembered .. In Fact You Rememebred Everything .. After That Situation That Involved Some Vamipres You Took It Upon Yourself To Get A Locket Made .. Spelled So That No One Could Compel You. So Klaus’ Atempt To Compel You That Day Didn’t Work. And Even Though It Hurt So Bad To Walk Away You Did. Not Because You Didn’t Love Him , In Fact You Still Love Him. You Left Because It Was Clear Where He Stood .. He Took Away Your Choice By Attempting To Compel You .. So Against Every Grain In Your Body .. You Walked Out The Door .. And Never Looked Back

These Last 9 Months Haven’t Been Easy To Say The Least .. There Were Countless Night You Cried Your Eyes Out, Waking Up Out Of Nightmares Calling For Klaus And Him Not Being There , Moments In Your Pregnancy You Wanted So Bad To Have Him Be Apart Of. Yes You Had Your Family Back And You Had Friends That Were There For You .. But If You Were Being Honest You Felt Lost Without Him . You Honestly Felt Crushed, And You Had Been Strong About The Situation For So Long That You Never Thought Of How Much You Love Him.

You Were Currently Cleaning Up The House . You Had A Small But Spacious 2 Bed Room Apartment In Atlanta Ga. You Had Just Put Baby Kase Down For A Nap And Was About To Take Advantage Of The Down Time You Had When Your Door Bell Rang. When You Opened It The Person You Least Expected To See Was Standing At Your Door Step.

“Hello Love”

Tbc ..

[thewreckkelly]

Who among you is Spartacus?

The reason I know for sure no one has ever seen a real ghost is because they haven’t. The certainty I have in being so sure no house has ever been haunted is because none are.

The mythical legends and beliefs of every culture and society are exactly that.

Produced works labelled ‘based on a true story’ are by their own clever definition; not the truth.

The reality of ‘Reality TV’ is it is never the reality it promotes.

All of these ventures into the realms of fantasy should be reasonably harmless within our current civilization – because access to educated expertise is readily available in enough quarters to allow for considered decision making and understanding.

The simple lesson being; truth in its purest form can only be objective and never subjective. The simple truth is that lying can be massaged into being both subjective and a perverted form of objective.

The propensity to lie is a human condition conceived within our survival gene where the mechanism of deception is a tool of defence. The gullibility to believe a lie is a result of laziness, lack of knowledge / curiosity and sometimes wishful on the part of the individual and/or collective. The need and/or desire and/or strategy to promote a lie is another thing altogether.

For argument’s sake …..

Logic and science dictates we can all be quite assured the novel Corona Virus (COVID 19) kills people of all ages because it has. The result of the US election is that Joe Biden won it and there was no systemic voter fraud because he did and there wasn’t. So why anyone would say different is a challenge in curiosity and why anyone would believe different is an exercise in stupidity. 

But they have and they do!

Let’s accept there is an amount of serious thicko’s in every society and let’s allow a degree of sympathy and jealously for such naïve easy existence throughout their unchallenged simple lives. Let’s also accept that greed and self-betterment at any cost plays a part in the supposed acceptance of some among us - as insidious as that is when the subjects and situations are as important as the two under discussion.

Let’s say that the innate desire to protect what one has is a big driver in promoting a suitable lie. Let’s go with apathy on the part of people with busy, difficult lives allowing any lie to fester and grow. Let’s play with the idea of commercial aspirations being only perceivably achievable through a degree of misrepresentation and lying.

Let’s take the position money is everything and can only make you content, give you choice, put icing on the cake of life.

However ……

Let’s remember that having lots of money and exercising conspicuous consumption can be more often a sign of deep seated insecurities coupled with a terror of mortality - than some level of superior intellect or even a form of happiness - and as for choice …. well most people with money I know have about as many choices as I am content with when it comes to filling every day until the Grim Reaper comes a calling.

Let’s not forget the primary drivers in human existence are to procreate, protect and provide. Let’s take it as a given that peaceful co-existence is a must to ensure procreation, protection and provision on any scale above the singular.

Let’s be aware that all lies are eventually revealed for being lies. Let’s think about the moral consequences of lying.

Let’s agree that too often power is achieved and maintained through fear and such fear is always based on a lie perpetrated by tyrants - acknowledged and accepted by the suppressed and cowardly.

Let’s …….

The survival of the human race – now that we’ve come this far – is primarily dependent on our unique ability to grow intellectually. Such growth will only work when the truth successfully combats the lies of those regressive status quo believers whom fear change and inclusive progress.

The absolutes promoted by liars are singular and simple with only the coating of language to conceal them. But the truth is liars will lose everything in time - of that there is absolutely no doubt. The danger is how much hurt and damage they cause - and how much they retard us improving as a species - along the way.

It’s time for more of us to stand up and proclaim to being: ‘Spartacus’

‘I’M SPARTACUS’

[adoranymph]

I’m not a fan of horror.

I’ve acquired a taste for things that contain horror elements, like Stranger Things, which contains moments of comedic heart and compelling character drama in addition to the horror, more so than say something with similarly disturbing horror moments like Alien or Aliens, and Shawn of the Dead, which is a romantic comedy spin on the traditional zombie apocalypse movie. And I’m more than certainly looking forward to checking out Lovecraft Country when it comes out. I’ve even gotten over my squeamishness concerning the face-melting in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the villain aging rapidly and ghoulishly into dust and then exploding in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

Actually, one of my favorite movies to watch with my father was the original Predator, probably because it was as much a movie about an alien trophy hunter hunting humans for sport as it was a macho action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. And unlike Alien and Aliens, didn’t involve that oh-so-disturbing means of procreation we all have come to know and love about xenomorphs. Which means that no, much as I’m chill with the Predator, I still have little desire to watch its crossover with the xenomorph menace, Alien vs. Predator, all the way through. Admittedly, I have, in the past, watched clipped reviews of the Alien movies, including AVP and even AVP Requiem, which I think if I had watched in full would have made me sick. Because my curiosity just gets the better of me from time-to-time, and I know that about myself only too well.

And as much I love Michael Biehn in a James Cameron movie, and was touched by the concept of the found-family storyline in Aliens, I just don’t think I can stomach those chestbursters (ha ha).

I can’t even watch John Hurt reprise his role as “Kane” in a parody of his iconic horror scene in Spaceballs, and, like Shaun of the Dead, that’s a comedy! Even more so than Shaun of the Dead! Well, I do watch the part after when the CB sings, “Hello My Baby,” but by that point the parody of the worst part of that scene is over and done with, and there’s nothing but the joy of a dancing baby alien with Michigan J. Frog’s singing voice coming out of it while John Hurt “Kane” laments, “Oh no! Not again!”

And however compelling The Exorcist is in terms of character…yeah no, not touching that.

It is weird though given how far I’ve come in tolerating horror gore, but that’s just not a line I’m willing to cross yet as of writing this.

But back on track.

Sprinkling this in to counter-balance the PTSD I get from the mere thought of xenomorphs.

A few weeks ago, I got a taste for a different kind of horror, and honestly the kind I’ll take over gore in a heartbeat, even if both equally can get stuck in my head to an ugly degree. And that was rewatching M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. Probably because I got it in my head to watch Ari Aster’s Midsommar, and I still needed something else to fill out my creep-factor quota. I thought about backpedaling and watching his film before that, Hereditary, but I already know that that one ends far more bleakly (compared to Midsommar, depending on how you look at it, mind), and I needed something that was creepy and tragic, but had an ending that positively affirmed itself.

Then I remembered that The Sixth Sense sort of did that, and it had been a while since I had seen it, but I remembered it from as far back as childhood, me with my parents, adamantly not understanding how they could be fans of things like Alien and Aliens. More than that, I remember actually being able to enjoy Sixth Sense somewhat, even then. Appreciate it for its horror elements and moments of tragedy, rather than shrink away from it.

So I that’s what I did. And for all that Shyamalan has done (botching the first attempt at a live-action adaptation of Avatar: the Last Airbender chief among them), this one still gets me in the feels. Helps, I suppose, that I faced certain deaths and griefs at a far tenderer age than I was “meant to”, but even so, what Shyamalan does best, he does best here. And probably in Unbreakable and even Split too, but I haven’t seen those, and apparently after all that, Glass got panned so…yeah.

Still, if nothing else, it was fun to remember that Toni Collette was in this, and now that I’ve grown and seen her in things like Little Miss Sunshine, and clips of–that’s right, Hereditary–not be surprised, but no less pleased for her performance. Not only is she in a Shyamalan film that works its earmarks to its advantage, but she sells her character as a single mom at the end of her rope, with both a son, Cole, going through a difficult time that they can’t talk about, considering the kid knows what she’d think if he told her he sees dead people, and haunted by the death of her mother with whom she clearly had a difficult relationship. Not saying that this still couldn’t have worked, but given what The Happening did to Mark Wahlberg, color me double-rainbow impressed.

Bruce Willis too. Plus he had the advantage of working with Shyamalan on Unbreakable. So he probably knew how to play things in either situation. That and it’s honestly not a badly written character, all things considered, any more than Toni Collette’s character was. Or, even if it was, again, he sold it with his performance. He has a handle on subtle gravitas as much as he does going toe-to-toe with Alan Rickman (rest in peace) playing a terrorist.

Picked this one for the nostalgic fondness of, “Rent it on video. DVD’s also an option!”

Then you have Haley Joel Osment as Cole. And again, given he’s supposed to be this awkward kid with the added burden that he can see ghosts when no one else can and they scare him and even if he tells someone no one will believe him, any stiffness that comes with the Shyamalan style makes sense here. Death makes everything…stiff. Moreover, he sells it too. I get a lump in my throat just thinking of that moment when, after he’s at least told Bruce Willis’s character, as his therapist, about his secret, he tearfully demands, “How can you help me if you don’t believe me?”

Then there’s the revelation itself of the probably reason the ghosts come to him in the first place. Even if they’re not appearing to him with any conscious desire, some subconsciousness of their incorporeality compels them.

They need help.

In death, they’re lost, but maybe, as Cole’s still alive, there are loose ends he can tie off that they can’t. Not that he should, or even can–like I’m not sure what good he can do for that deceased housewife who clearly committed suicide to escape her abusive husband–but when he’s visited by the girl who’s mother poisoned her to death in a little fit of Munchausen-By-Proxy Syndrome, and he goes to her wake, finds the tapes that prove her mother’s guilt, gives them to her father, and the father confronts the mother about it, that got me more even than it did when I was younger and still trying to wrap my head around the concept of mothers poisoning their daughters.

That’s when things start to turn around for Cole. It’s still scary, but he takes that leap of faith, if you will, and one of the last times you see him with a dead person he’s conversing with them rather normally. Going over lines with them where he gets to play Arthur in a reenactment of the legend of the sword being pulling from the stone. You don’t even realize they’re another ghost until his teacher asks him who he was talking to and the ghost turns her head and you see the burn on the other side that obviously came from the fire that killed her. There’s just something so pure and honest in that, the idea of not only facing your fears, but doing so for the sake of lost souls who otherwise have no other hope because they’re dead.

After that is the one-two punch feels conclusion.

One being Cole not only confessing to his mother at last that he sees dead people, and her clearly starting to freak out about it, until he tells her that, “Grandma says, ‘hi’.” And communicates to her something that her mother never got to tell her herself. Of course, after thoughts of, “Oh dear lord, my son is insane,”, when the proof that Cole has indeed been talking to her mother’s spirit, that goes out the window in favor of,

“Do I make her proud?”

and she just cries and she and her son hug it out. And again, Toni Collette sells it.

Then you have the revelation of Bruce Willis’s character: he was dead the whole time! His wife wasn’t just distancing herself from him and then maybe cheating on him, he was dead and she was a widow who was simply trying to find love again. A moment of horror, and then tragedy, and then bittersweet letting-go all in the last few frames of the film. There’s the two in the one-two punch.

Not to mention my first experience of a “Shyamalan twist”. One that was set up well. Scenes constructed to lead you into thinking that of course he’s alive, details you glaze over, and then you realize, “Oh sh**.”

Which was probably part of the problem with some of his later works, where the twist became synonymous with his style, so sometimes it felt like they were put in there in future movies of his without any real rhyme or reason other than that the public were expecting them and thus somehow obligatory to the script.

Just as I haven’t seen Unbreakable, or Split, and certainly not Glass, I haven’t seen The Visit, either, though from what I understand, it almost sounds like Shyamalan went back to the same headspace he had here in The Sixth Sense, using the awkwardness that seems to come out in his work to an advantage in the found footage format. And the twist was apparently actually hilarious. Which is nice. Good for him.

Not everything someone makes is going to be a hit, even if they’re getting paid for it. But when things are a hit, sometimes, they hit so well that it can make up for all the misses. Or almost make up for them.

Honestly, Sixth Sense is, ultimately, the only Shyamalan film I’ve seen in full. But I enjoyed it no less this time, in fact, enjoyed it more now that I have a better understanding of death and grief and loss.

Guess that’s kind of a weird thing to say, but it’s that same kind of “enjoy” that comes from feeling like someone understands something about something you understand, and maybe even feel a little bit less alone for it. Not only did I experience a lot of grief as a preteen, but before that, I was the weird one that most everyone else at school generally avoided if not viciously teased, with the exception of a few fair-weather friends. All these elements and story beats used to creepy effect in Sixth Sense, along with that sense that some horror doesn’t so much horrify me as actually make my own life seem brighter rather than darker, made for a viewing experience that I place value in as I write this. (Especially given right now we are all apparently living a Stephen King novel right now.)

  So even if I still can’t handle body horror to the degree of stuff like Alien or Aliens, or David Cronenberg’s The Fly (much as I would love to see Jeff Goldblum in all his 80s hair awkward nerd glory as he romances Geena Davis), there is some horror I can handle. And figuring out why is yet one more thing that I place value in.

Keeping this link up to their donation page!

Sixth Sense Post I'm not a fan of horror. I've acquired a taste for things that contain horror elements…

[eqcentriceqclectic-blog]

Inherited Demons

2019/12/07 – Nothing Right

Nothing I do is ever right. In His eyes, I will always be a feral horse that needs to be put to the whip. If I don’t and I get free, he hopes that my freedom in the wild will end in cold realisation in my last moments as I am beset by wolves. Even, if objectively right, it is as if an offense on his very existence—as if he were a god or a ghost and disbelief in him would condemn him to abyssal oblivion. And so, being right or doing well is actively discouraged—either through deafening and oppressive silence, or through roaring rage and insufferable indignation. He may be seen as quiet, but that is not to be taken as docility or humility—no; it is a sinister and seething silence. Normally, improvement is supposed to be seen as positive.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve either wanted to run away from home or outright kill myself. It desperate times, they’ve been my mantra or my prayers to soothe my wretched soul. What stopped me from running away? Fear of failure. Fear of strangers. Fear of retribution. An incompetency instilled in me long ago. One I replicated and instilled in a brother placed into my charge, even as a shell of a person—shattered shards looking for a reflection. It wasn’t until that reflection attempted to kill himself that I realised what my shoddily-assembled puzzle-of-a-person had done. I had become that which I had despised all my life--that dictatorial and patriarchal demon for which is suffered beneath had impregnated in me a piece of its insidious soul. It had gripped me in its agonising grasp, and regurgitated the darkness imparted to it, into my screaming-tear-streaked face. And thus, the cycle would continue like a horror-franchise that just won’t die. That was the day I realised—despite my love for the pure curiosity and optimism of children and the undeniable yearning to cradle and raise small-beings of my ghostly-ovaries—that I could not perpetuate this curse. To adopt a family-less entity into this story would be tantamount to sacrificing them to the demon that inhabits our family-line with my own bloodied hands.

I remember when I was bird-sitting Rita (a cousin’s feather-child) and He attempted to interact with it while wildly inebriated—like he enjoys doing—and held out his hand. Rita, as finicky conures tend to be, bit him HARD as she did not know him and did not like him. I feared for that bird’s life as I recognised the drunken rage that overtaken his alcohol-laden-bubbly-demeanor, as he shouted some profanity at the bird. I called out, to let him know I was present, and explained to him why she bit him before telling him to leave her alone.A similar incident happened years ago when I had my bird, Vira. She was a feisty bird and I loved her bravery and assertiveness but the curse infused in me by Him did not make distinctions between humans, non-human animals, plants, or inanimate objects. She and my brother have both bore witness to the same rage and self-perceived-indignity-fuelled-wrath I bore witness to growing up. I loved her dearly, but could not reconcile my own behaviour—I could not split this demonic presence within myself with the love I had for all living things as they both were a part of who I was and it was maddening. But as with all things deeply-unsettling, we seek to take flight from it—as is natural—to get as far as we can from it and forget about it so we can go about our days. To face it, would be to face the demon—itself, a part of you—and to face your own guilt and culpability in its sins, for without you, it would not be able to do its work as a formless, parasitic, lifeless virus. To face your own guilt and responsibility in hurting others is a terrifying thing; it chills you to your core and tears it to shreds because you want to believe you are a good person who does good things, and when you are not the hero of your own story, then you can never be a hero in any story—if you are the villain in your own story, then you will be the villain in all stories.

Looking myself in my own shattered mirror, I could finally see the demon bleeding forth from behind my ill-assembled portrait… I could only play at perfection for so long before all the mismatched pieces fell apart and revealed the vast darkness that mocked me beneath. Like a self-indulgent actor without a true mirror to look into, I enchanted myself with delusions that I was not He and that I was above that which lurked at the bottom of every bottle. And all the while, I was a cheap imitation of him—like a copy-cat-killer imprinting on a serial-killer worshipped by the media. I didn’t need alcohol to justify my crimes, for I had a divine mandate bestowed upon me by my ancestors, which was bestowed upon them by successive emperors, and god-kings before them, and thus the gods themselves. Chinese patriarchy is as insidious a poison as it is insipid as it permeates into every aspect of life in the family. It may not have been such a poison, but it certainly is now. As they say, “Power, absolute, corrupts—absolutely.”

In Chinese culture, there is a powerful emphasis put upon passing on the family name—so much so that female-infanticide was a widespread practice in China. My grandmother used the phrase ‘tuang-tong jeng’ frequently when urging her living descendants to procreate and pray for sons. Also present in Chinese culture is the misguided belief that because all elders are to be afforded respect, it automatically blesses them with the power to always be right—no matter the circumstances. It can be seen in dazzling display with successive Chinese-emperors slaughtering countless people over the millennia, simply for disagreeing or embarrassing the father-of-the-nation with reality and truth. Is it not why the satirical fable of the Emperor and his “new clothes” exists? An emperor that is willfully-blind is one that is indulgent and willfully-negligent—and those that could not see beyond their own gilded mirrors, often led to the starvation of the masses they were given dominion over, and ultimately, their dynasty’s demise. Once they lost their divine mandate, another emperor would rise and a spoiled descendant of his would lead it to ruin, in cycles unending.

After help assembling my mirror to match those that see me for who I am, only now am I able to see the apparition hiding behind it. As puppet-master and puppet entwined as one, it is my responsibility to sever those strings that snake around my offending limbs. It is my responsibility to cast off the shadows that shroud me, as it has become me. It has infused into my essence and become its own—my own—demon, separate from His, but no less His satanic-spawn. Only after acknowledging its existence, screaming its name, can I even begin to excise it like the viral cancer it is. The process is never-ending, for if you ever believe you have destroyed it, your complacency will allow it respite to recover and thus spite your own efforts to defeat it in the first place. We must always strive to be better, despite our accomplishments and desires to revel and relish our achievements—for idle hands do the devil’s work. Resting on our laurels is like laying and brooding upon our nest-eggs atop a poisoned heath—our savings and our accolades will rot along with us. We’ll only fester along our heaped up hoard, as a magnificent dragon does upon all its glittering greed. If I’ve gleaned anything over the past two or so years, it’s that our own pride and arrogance will always be our downfall. It understand that it was my own hubris in believing I was less of a terrible person than he was, only to find myself, one day, staring back at Him in the mirror. I saw me, regurgitating exactly what putrid horrors was spat into my own face, at someone else—someone I was told was below me—simply because they were younger or less of a person than I was. And that is how He still sees me: lowly, basal, lost, stupid, barbaric, “sub-human”—and worst of all—a child. And one that is unbridled, feral, and wild—but worst of all, “uncontrollable”. And, also, wholly unimpressed with the infallibility of the patriarchal parental dictatorship to which begs rebellion and resistance.

I will no longer scrape my head at His feet simply because he decided he would do the “holy” duty of acceding to his mother’s wishes of him to marry a woman he didn’t know, and would never love, and bear for him a son he could present to his parents—just because he is my father and my elder. He is as flawed as we all are and I will not grovel at His feet simply because he thinks he is my superior simply because he is my father and my elder. Respect is earned—not demanded—and throughout the years, my respect for him corroded away until there was no flesh left to burn off. Similarly, I have but few happy memories of Him, as the visceral emotional abuse and on-going threats of physical abuse incinerated the vast majority of them as Vesuvius did the people of Pompeii, or the atomic bomb did to the people of Nagasaki. Neither annihilating disaster completely removed the people from existence, as there remained ashy shells or radioactive shadows in their wakes—such are my happy-memories left, as obtuse imprints in the eroding beach-sands: as vague stories of ‘Snow Black and the Seven Dwarves’, as ephemeral visions of rehabilitating young birds blown to the ground by torrential storms, and as echoes of lessons on why not to step on ants. Stronger and clearer are the memories of being slapped for protesting against a particular untested brand of pizza or being chased with a large wooden stick purchased from Home Depot for refusing a hair-cut from Him. Another, particularly, peculiar poison of His was his inherited creed of beating his own child if that child was bullied to tears (or into action)—a shadow he internalised from his own father when being bullied by neighbourhood Vietnamese kids for being Chinese, back in Vietnam.

Growing up as a child in a house-of-cards propped up by two maternal hopes for their fifth-born children was a bittersweet hell, as many are—sweet enough for hope to grow but not enough to survive under the withering harsh bitterness. Perhaps it’s more of a purgatory: not horrible enough to cause one to kill oneself, but just enough to wish so. Those two grandmothers were my oases of love and care in an arid dusty desert of moonless, endless, nights. They were my guiding stars, above all the rabid fighting and gnashing teeth of childish gore-cloaked-hyaenas that called themselves my parents. My grandmothers were the life-sustaining waters, and my parents were the malarial insects that abated my existence. When my brother attempted to kill himself, I came to find out—of course, through another one of their petty and accusative arguments—that neither of them ever dreamed of having children and raising them. Why? Because they were still children, themselves—they were mostly raised by their elder siblings as their immigrant parents worked to carve a life in an increasingly hostile environment. That environment they grew up in abruptly changed as conditions in Vietnam deteriorated and they it was decided that they all needed to flee through hell and high-water (and marauding pirates). The Peter-Pan-like situation became even more so during His teen and young-adult years; formed here, in Canada, under his elder brother and without parents or grandparents to guide these “Lost Boys” fell into a world of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and guns that their new peers immersed them in. His elder brother went from a sixteen-year old running a small textiles business that employed workers in Vietnam to an alcoholic who would gamble his way into a depression in Canada. He would go from an inquisitive child making toys out of trash and sticks and swimming in monsoon-flooded roads to a teen drinking himself into a stupor and smoking until his adult teeth would become grey and lined with tar. Children raising children does not yield the positive results, and least of all depressed children raising children—this is true of my parents, and of myself. I had no business being in-charge of my baby brother—absolutely zero—especially with the foul fecal froth spilling from their mouths, to mine, as it then spilled down to my younger brother as I abused him emotionally, verbally and physically as my parents did to me. As explained in the paragraphs above, it did not occur to me until later what I was doing was wrong—it was just what I’ve known and what I felt.

I started to notice how my cousins, aunts, and uncles would look at me as I terrorised my brother over his mistakes—or my perception of his mistakes and improprieties. My logical reasoning at the time was that, “I’m not allowed to do that; why is he?” They always looked startled—or, “unsettled,” maybe is a better word—at my outbursts and threats. I remember once, in a restaurant—where I sat next to him while we were seated amongst our cousins and the adults were sat across from us—where he refused to eat a certain food and I became unreasonably enraged at him and I threatened to cut the head off of the stuffed toy (acquired from Midway arcade in Niagara Falls) if he did not eat it. I had stunned everyone and their hearts broke for my brother, just a young child being terrorised by a teen sibling. Breaking this cycle of abuse was tough—especially while still being abused, yourself. After, breaking free from physical (less so, emotional and verbal) abuse, all the injustice and indignity and rage continued spilling on to the easiest and most vulnerable target, who—under patriarchal rules—would lack arbitrary familial immunity from my wrath and cruelty. Where I could verbally, emotionally, and physically abuse him for whatever I wished, I could only cry, whimper, cower, and hide. However, I did exact vengeance upon them by hiding or damaging the belongings of my parents in protest of their mistreatment of me. There was one instance when I was about six or seven and I fled out of the back of the house after having been shouted out of the tear-stained washroom I had locked myself into on the top floor of the house. On my way passed the car, after deciding that I would run away from home, my eyes burned with salted indignation and so I picked up a stone from the gravel bed and scraped profanities onto the car’s paint and transferred my raw emotions into words. I dropped the stone and continued past the garage and through the laneway until I reached the side-walk, still crying. I stood there, thinking, and came to a realisation that I could not go any further—for if I did, I would be kidnapped and killed by a stranger. So, I walked down to the corner and right back to the front of the house and down the alleyway back to the backyard and back into the house where my parents were still searching—His wooden stick still in-hand—without a clue that I had tried to run away (or that I had keyed words of profanity on to the car with a pebble).

In 2017, when Grandma first became weak after years of mismanaging her own hypertension-medication, I became involved in her healthcare in the balmy month of July. Before then, I didn’t even know she had hypertension and thought she took medication just because it was something a person did when they got as old as she did. After accompanying grandma and Him to both the hospital and her nephrologist, I began researching Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). I learned about how the kidney can be damaged by high blood-pressure and looked into the medication she was taking, going so far as to see which medications could be contra-indicated. I advised Him that grandma’s medication (since she became inconsolable and beyond fearful for her life and no longer was able to manage them herself and became paranoid that we (including the doctors) were trying to poison her and began refusing to take them for a while) should be split into two as then the hypertensive-medications were be better able to manage her blood-pressure through the day instead of causing a sharp drop for the day while allowing it to rise again in the evening--one of her medications for hypertension-management was even specifically designed to be taken at night which is when blood-pressure is supposed to naturally drop. He likes to take credit for this. He also likes to take credit for what he didn’t even believe for a long time—her weakness that started in the first place. When her health was declining in April of 2017, after her nephrologist cut her off from the round of erythropoietin he had initially put her on in the winter prior, He did not believe that it was her health, but her age. I would become increasingly frantic in asserting that this was the reason as the months dragged on and by July, she could barely get out of bed because of how anemic she was. I, unlike He, had done research into what “erythropoietin” was and why she needed to take those shots. I was upset at her nephrologist for cutting her off from those shots because he thought her red-blood-cell count was too high (after a blood-test in March/April) and he’d see her back in three months (this was the cadence of her visits to him: every three months, so approximately four times a year). Again, by July, she was so weak that He took her to the hospital twice in the latter half of that month and once in August where I accompanied them after ending my seasonal job a few days prior. I urged him again that it was the lack of erythropoietin shots and resulting anemia that made her so weak—but he again asserted that it was because she was old. Thankfully, the nephrologist prescribed another round of erythropoietin shots (one shot, every other week, for three months—so six syringes in total). However, the ordeal and fear of death had warped her mind—the nurse at the nephrologist’s office told us that because her GFR was so low, she would likely need dialysis but that dialysis for people aged eighty and up were too at risk of developing a central-line infection—and surgery for a kidney transplant would provide an ever higher risk of mortality. She also told us that she most likely only had two-years left to live—guess what? It’s been over two-years now. I guess it’s the same for when Push got the morbid news that she only had three months left to live and lived another three years. Anyway, I digress. After horrifying and terribly painful months of trying to sleep with an insomniac grandmother in the next room having an end-life crisis, chanting all through the night of her tragic ending, and trying to manage her anxiety, panic, and paranoia in the day-time after both He and mom went to work, and brother went to school, she snapped and her dementia advanced by leagues. In the years prior, I started to notice she became much less brave and much more reserved and careful—in addition to misplacing her watch and other things that told a story of short-term memory loss. She became a lot less aware of her surroundings where, before—as a mischievous little child—I would stand behind the wall at the base of the stairs and try to surprise her but just get a sweet old smirk and an adorable elderly quip as she walked by her silly grandson. However, ever since reaching ninety, just walking to her room and asking what she was watching would startle her half to death (and our floors are obscenely creaky)—she became a lot less aware of her surroundings and where things (or people were). Around this time, she also started to hear ringing in her ears when there was only dead-silence. After she became increasingly unhinged and violent, there became a need to hospitalise her—not for her weakness or anemia, this time, but for her aggression. She probably had not slept for over a month, by this point, and this was most likely the source of said aggression, paranoia, and anxiety. On the car ride there, she was openly hostile to Him while he was driving and my attempts to stop her so as to avoid having a car-accident turned her aggression towards me. When finally passing triage and reaching the waiting area of the emergency department, Grandma continued her violence, painfully hitting Him and I with her gold-and-jade-laden rings. When a room finally opened up, she refused to go and wanted to go back home (even after days and days and days of wanting to be taken to the hospital) and when we tried to gently push her towards the room, she suddenly turned around, and as it with the power of all the elephant matriarchs of the world pushed me and Him out of the room and began assaulting us before the nurses quickly called for orderlies and security to bring her down and tie her arms and legs to the hospital-bed in the room. Because of what had just transpired, she was upgraded to the sub-accute emergency section with a room closer (and facing) the nurses-station. She was sedated with haloperidol through injection because she refused to take an oral dose but during the process Him, I, a nurse, and two security guards needed to hold her down and she still was almost able to bite the nurse (and myself). After that, we were put into contact with the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to discuss placing her in an assisted-living facility and both 4th Uncle and He were seriously considering it and passed on the responsibility of coordinating with LHIN to me due to my higher education and superior command of English. They also put in a referral for us to the hospital’s geriatrics department and scheduled us to see a Dr. Cheng at a later date after the attending physician provided a temporary round of anxiolytics (lorazepam). When taking the lorazepam, she was much more docile and also able to sleep and it felt like we got her back from the throes of insanity—that is, until we had to take increasing doses and it became unfeasible to continue. Her violent tirades returned, along with her insomnia and we went to see the geriatrician. He proved to be—not just incompetent, but—wildly careless and inadequate; his bed-side manner was shockingly crass and crude. He never really listened when we came in for the appointment and seemed in a hurry to get us out the door with a new round of pills for her to take: haloperidol, sertraline—you name it, she probably was prescribed it. Some of them were worse than others, like haloperidol which left her a stumbling and drooling mess—taken long enough, left her bid-ridden and Him changing diapers and bed-sheets. Eventually, I decided it was time to stop seeing the geriatrician as I was also so upset with his flippant demeanor when at appointments in his office. He took a little while to convince, as He was afraid of Grandma reverting back to her violent and difficult self even though I was the one home alone with her while everyone else was gone for a majority of the day at work or school. As that was the case, the representatives from LHIN mostly dealt with me when they came by the house whether it was the social-worker on the case or the professionals she would send to the house. The most helpful professional was an occupational therapist who educated me upon dementia and Alzheimer’s as well as providing emotional support and advice on the situation with the geriatrician and his exceedingly terrible medications. Before this, in my ignorance, I was yelling and screaming at Grandma, confused as to how she could go from a completely normal and loving grandmother who I would give up the my own mother for to someone I was afraid of being around. After the occupational therapist left, my relationship with Grandma started slowly shifting back to one of positive interactions and normalcy. He, however, refused to read the educational materials the occupational therapist left to enlighten us on Grandma’s dementia because he refused to believe she had dementia because of how quick and abrupt the change was. He wanted to believe that she was doing this on purpose and after retiring before the Christmas of 2017, would often get into drunken tirades and yell so loud you could hear him throughout the house and even in the backyard. This continued afterwards, as well, and followed the cycles of her decline into bed-riddance (either from the anti-psychotics prescribed by the incompetent geriatrician, or the lack in erythropoietin) and ascent back into insanity and unnatural strength. In another descent in early 2018, after her nephrologist AGAIN decided that her RBC-level was too high and cut her off from erythropoietin for another three months, I again became insistent that He call the nephrologist to prescribe another round of shots. He was stubborn, as always is the case, and believed that her being bed-ridden and defecating in a diaper meant that it was her time—as if you were just born with a pre-determined age at which someone would die at. I was enraged so I took matters into my own hands after getting home from work one day in May and called the nephrologists’ office and angrily berated the secretary, to which she told me that all we had to do was call in after running out and they would send the prescription and shots to the pharmacist and we could pick them up. I sat there after the call, part-relieved that it meant Grandma wouldn’t have to go through another round of panic and part-annoyed that He did not want to do it because of laziness and self-importance (the belief that He is smarter than I, even without doing any research or having any prior knowledge about anything, even though He was always the one who took her to the nephrologist’s and family physician’s appointments). He does the same with plants and ended up condemning our eight-year-old starfruit plant to die in the cold, despite my protest. He always thinks he’s the smartest person, regardless of what experience/knowledge he has or doesn’t have in a particular subject—and I’ve inherited a similar manner of speaking-as-a-matter-of-fact-ly, as if I was 100% sure about what I was saying (which often gets me into trouble).

Depression In every waking day, the demon lurks within your shadow—always just out of the corner of your eye. As that sun sets and the lights go out, that shadow becomes an all-consuming spectre that fills the room as much as it does your mind—it eats that light your try to light inside, unhinging its jaws and swallowing the sun whole like a constrictor after it had crushed all the air from your lungs. A breath-taking darkness sends your heart into a frantic panic, straining and screaming and searching for every last bubble of air in the blood starting to leak from your eyes. Crimson tears streak down, acrid and burning, like streams of fiery lava making their way to the salty sorrowful depths of the oceans. Your head is feverishly throbbing with starvation, suffocating and drowning in itself as it melts from the draconic hell-fires lit under you by the shadowy-figure. You are more palatable to it when scared out of your mind and injuriously maimed by your own hand, so it eats at you night by night, piece-by-piece—it could be days, months, years, or even decades—but it is patient and diabolical. You are to it, like finely aged-wines or cheeses are to a wealthy connoisseur with too much money to know what to do with.

An Unwelcome Stranger Is His child, in his home, being a burden upon him. It doesn’t matter if this person does anything good, because—ultimately—this person is a stranger. A worthless stranger borne of his flesh and blood, that only continues to feast like a fat leech, engorging itself on His blood.

[taki-the-chimaera]

Ghost - Infestissumam (Commentary Version) Transcript

This was done by me, posted originally on Reddit HERE There was a request on Reddit here for a transcript of the Infestissumam commentaries. Thanks to romulogomes_s notes and dfdecker mp3s I was able to get it all done. You guys rock! I had a lot of fun doing this! I'm glad my transcription training is finally being useful. LOL NOTES: I've removed all the 'uh' 'umms' and stutters, and because his accent is odd in a few places I've made notes of what I heard, vs what I think he may have said/meant. He's extremely articulate and intelligent but sometimes accents get in the way. LOL If anyone has any changes, notes, etc, please let me know and I'll update it! ***If anyone has any requests, send me an ask and I'll get it done!*** **Spotify playlist ------------- Infestissumam Infestissumam, the song itself, the the track, Infestissumam, it's very much an introduction for the entire album. It's basically the opening scene, and whereas our concerts so far and our first album started out very very slow and creepy, we wanted a song on this new record to be opening up the album way more bombastically and quickly and more to the point. Just overall this record was intended to some, a little more lavish and just overall more sort of Catholic (cathartic?) so the opening track should be very, sort of combine all those things. (Catholic may be cathartic - He pronounces it ka-thaw-lick, so I'm not sure. Thank you gyabo for pointing it out for me!) Per Asepera Ad Inferi Per Asepera Ad Inferi. There's an old Latin motto that goes “Per aspera ad astra” which means “through hardship to the stars.” It's not very uncommon that you see that, with the very obvious message, whereas ours mean “through hardship to hell” and it's basically a song that deals with human ambition. I almost said youth, but nowadays youth sort of encompasses everything from 15 year olds to 45 year olds who are still, especially consider themselves, still part of youth and their never dying ambition to become something else. If that is combined with any form of religious beliefs, it's surprisingly how unbeknownst they are to the the fact they are basically, in a Biblical sense, worshiping the devil. Secular Haze There's a lyrical meaning and there's a musical, dramaturgical thought. It has a sort of carnival theme, which was not really intended to be carnivalesque or in a circus sort of manner, sort of maritime because it's moving in waves or... There's a saying that if you freeze to death it is apparently one of the most pleasant of deaths. The closer you come to the actual point of death, you all of a sudden go warm and the acceptance of death, this apparently overwhelming and quite comfortable. The song was supposed to feel like you were basically in a stormy sea, freezing to death. So it being very like monotonous and non stop stormy, whereas in the end you sort of come into this sort of acceptance part, which is the 'come rest eternal' part in the end. Lyrically deals with, as with most of these songs, with the presence of a force that is recognized as evil, the hedonistic signs that we are progressing towards a darker future. Jigolo Har Megiddo Ghoul 1: Har Megiddo is like the, what's the word? The basic two words which... Ghoul 2: It means the mountain Megiddo, which Tel Megiddo is a city in Israel. Ghoul 1: Yeah. Ghoul 2: Thus the bottom of the mountain of Megiddo, the final battle between good and evil is to stand. Ghoul 1: Armageddon. Ghoul 2: Har Megiddo, Armageddon. Ghoul 1: Yeah. So if that were a cheesy movie, it would be called Jigolo Har Megiddon. Armageddon. As the title implies, jigolo. The worship among a female collective of these sort of guys that act and treat them like shit. Guleh / Zombie Queen Lyrically, the literal meaning is not, doesn't really, it has a deeper meaning, but the literal meaning is not as deep. It has a very classic sort of horror choice of words, words for a Papa to sing over a cool song. The subliminal meaning of the song is about the embracement, the embracing of the past, and nostalgia, and the idea of putting things to, on a pedestal. Year Zero What's funny about that song is... That the two albums that we have done are very much thought out as being vinyl records, albums, in the old sense. What you get then is basically two opening tracks and two finishing tracks and you sort of have an act 1 and act 2, and Year Zero is like the perfect opening song. Idolitrine Yeah, Idolitrine. I don't know. It's a made up word basically. It comes from idolatry and latrine. The church throughout all these years has quite openly looked down upon it's followers. In a way that's, sometimes is absolutely amazing how openly people subject to that sort of disgraceful resentment from whomever they're bowing to. So that is what the song is about. Body and Blood It deals with the irony of digestion and especially from a religious point of view where you actually digest the body of Christ in order to sort of do this solemn act of holiness. And whatever comes in must come out, though there's a, like a, there's a, like back side to that, and so it's about that, and it's a song about cannibalism. A ballad about cannibalism. The Depth of Satan's Eyes It is a song about a sense of purpose and how a lack of sense of purpose makes a person lost. Monstrance Clock Monstrance Clock... The literal meaning is traditional Satanic rituals, sort of the process of *clicks tongue* that happening. The sense morale of the song, is about people coming together in a carnal sense, to procreate the devil's son. So we're back to the beginning basically, where sex and procreation has throughout many years has been regarded as like the ultimate sin and the end of mankind. That's why people throw acid in each other's faces, cut their noses off, kill each other, disown their children and so forth. And on and on and on, forever.

[chronicbatfictioner]

JayTim Week 2018 - Day 7

Day 7: Soulmate // Space AU

Tim saw his soulmate through a camera lens.

He was only a few months into his tenth year of life, and by all account, thought his brain was making it up. Wishful thinking, he thought. After all, the supposed soulmate he had seen was Batman's newest Robin. How could a guy be his soulmate?

Times changed. The new Robin, Jason Todd, was killed. At age 12, Tim became Robin, his mother died, his father got remarried.

On a whim, one day in cool September in the kitchen, Tim decided to ask Dana, his father's new wife, if she'd ever seen her soulmate. She said yes, "the instant I saw your father's photograph in a newspaper - years ago when he wedded your mom. But not all soulmates end up together, you know? Plus, I was in Arizona back then - there was no way I could meet your dad."

"What was it like?" Tim asked curiously. "I mean, I think I've seen my soulmate, but I couldn't be sure, you know?"

"Oh, Tim," Dana sighed dreamily. "It would sound cheesy, and I think every person has different perception of their soulmates. What I saw was kind of a halo behind your dad's head, and I checked against several people - there was no halo behind his head at all. My college roomie saw wings behind her soulmate in a photo. Another saw flowers, trucks, a puppy... it's always different for everyone, I think." she explained.

"What is this about soulmate?" Jack Drake, Tim's father, wanted to know as he walked in to the kitchen.

"I've-- I've just read somewhere that you can see your soulmate through a photo." Tim told him.

Jack snorted. "Timmy, you remember that photography was not invented until the 19th century, right? It's simply illogical to say one's soulmate could be seen through a photograph. What about those in the 18th century? What about the Greeks? The Romans? How would they know if they married their soulmates?" he scoffed as he retrieved a newspaper and flipped it open directly on the economic section.

"Yeah, I just thought it was a romantic thing that people told," Tim hedged.

"Wishful thinking, that's what it is. How about those models whose photos were digitally enhanced? How could their soulmate know they were 'the one'?" Jack continued, oblivious to the exchange of amused glares between Tim and Dana.

"Well, I would say that when you found The One, you'll know it, you know? History is filled with the glorious stories of those believing that their spouse is The One; but it's also filled with as many heartbreaks, right?" Dana remarked, ruffling Tim's head as she went to the sink. "I think the concept of 'soulmate' is something that was created to give people hope. That they have someone, somewhere, waiting for them; that they will never be alone. Maybe some did end up alone, after all, but at least they have that hope, still, in their hearts. Maybe it's that hope that makes us human, you know?"

"--and yet humankind continued to thrive; soulmate or otherwise. As long as they can feed, procreate, I'd say we're all fine without the superstitious mumbo-jumbo."

Dana winked at him from over his father's head. Tim cursorily wondered what his mother would have said of the matter, or the matter that Dana believed that she has eventually wedded her soulmate that is Jack Drake.

The second time Tim saw his soulmate, was when Batman and Nightwing were reviewing footages of the Red Hood. Without the villain even removing his helmet, Tim knew who it was.

As it was, Batman and Nightwing were equally reluctant to reveal who the Red Hood was. More reluctant, even, to let Tim go and face him. Until, unfortunately for all - Tim included - the Red Hood decided to go find him and face him. In the Titans' Towers, no less.

It was hard and heartbreaking for Tim. His father had died, following the deaths of his two best friends. But his sense of self-preservation - some would argue that it was his lack of self-preservation - prevailed, and he fought. He fought hard. He'd lost, obviously. Fact is that Red Hood's - Jason's - arms and legs were twice the size of Tim's own. Fact is that - even at mere 18, Jason was nearly six feet to Tim's 5'5". Fact is that he was fueled by anger. And the biggest cause of said anger was Tim, who had replaced him - as he'd said.

Tim had always thought that he'd felt something soft, warm, and maybe a little wet, pressed gently to his forehead. But in his defense, he was a little unconscious, and maybe even concussed, by that time. Plus, the surveillance cameras in the tower had only caught Jason knelt by Tim's side after he'd knocked Tim unconscious.

There were more instances of their meets that ended up with a whole load of violence since then. But there were other instances where they had ended up side-by-side, or back-to-back, defending each other. Tim kept Jason at arm's length, while at the same time trying to figure out how to include Jason back into the ever-expanding family's fold.

Dana's words of 'maybe that hope is what makes us human' rang in his ears that night. Dana has long since gone, her psyche and memories forever ruined when Jack was murdered. Her sister in Tennessee had taken her over to care for her, and the only contact Tim had with her was the occasional texts from her sister, saying she's okay.

That night, he came in from his Wayne Enterprises office to find Jason perched on a windowsill.

"Long time no punching." Jason remarked.

Okay, that might or might not put Tim into fighting stance. Sure, Jason might have behaved generally fine. But it's Jason, really. Highly unpredictable, mostly volatile and combustible, generally hating the BatFam. Except maybe Cassandra - Black Bat.

"You're not here to fight me or anything like that, are you?" Tim had to ask.

"No," Jason replied, his voice sounding amused. Tim still could not see his eyes, or his ever-present helmet. He could see from the silhouette that Jason was not wearing said helmet. "Not looking for favors, either. I'm not wounded. Maybe a little battered and bruised, but not from today." Jason finally shifted from his perch, and Tim could see that he was - in fact - in casual clothing. Leather jacket notwithstanding.

"Okay," Tim sighed. "What do you need from me, Jason?"

Jason glared at him, a little too intently to Tim's liking, a tad making Tim wondered if the 'not looking for favors' or 'not planning on bludgeoning Tim' part of his presence were lies. When he tossed something toward Tim, he was almost ready to reach for the vase to throw back before his eyes caught a glimpse of the 'thing'.

A photograph.

A photograph of Tim, to be exact, in his Robin costume. In fact, if Tim's memories serve correctly - and they usually do, barring concussions - that photo had to be taken in the second year of his patrols with Batman. He knew each and every the alterations on his costume quite well.

"That's me," he noted.

"Yes." Jason's voice was flat. "The instant I saw the little robin behind your photo, I knew who you were."

"Who I was?" Tim asked, a little confused.

"Ra's Al Ghul has a graphite sketch of Melisande, Talia's mother, hung in his private chalet in Switzerland. Even Talia didn't know why it was there, since he had killed her. Or so she said. White Ghost said Melisande was murdered by an apprentice of Ra's. The other guys said he saw a lotus behind her that he didn't draw." Jason explained. "Back then, before the creation of a photography camera, people saw their soulmates when they paint them. There were so, so many painters back then who'd marry their models - not because they were exceptionally beautiful, but because the painter saw it."

"Oh..." Tim looked at the photo, and then it hit him. "Oh!"

"Yeah, 'Oh'. I took that photo. Imagine how I'd felt when I saw it and realized what it means, and that Talia practically had challenged me to kill you."

"Not good." Tim commented.

"Not good at all." Jason agreed.

They were silent for some long moments, before Tim gathered enough of his thoughts, and courage, to ask. "So what now?"

Jason shrugged. "Now, well, we're not killing and/or punching each other. And you know what I'm supposed to be for you and vice versa. How about we just live life one day at a time?"

He was actually standing near Jason, by the windows. Jason was still looking out the window, but Tim could make out the red flush on his face.

"Do you..." he started, waving his hands and inwardly cursing his eloquence.

"Just as a reminder that I'm still a dangerous person." Jason said, inhaling sharply.

"Yeah, that I kinda can't forget..." Tim deadpanned. "So you want to live up to the soulmate thingy and live one day at a time, see where it would bring us?"

"That's about it in a nutshell." Jason fiddled with something. Tim took a step back, assessing. Realizing that there was no more alarm blaring in him. "That is, if you're okay with it." Jason added hastily, as if an afterthought.

"Okay," Tim said, feeling a little proud that his voice didn't crack or waver.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay. One day at a time."

Jason suddenly brightened, his whole face sparkled - metaphorically, thank goodness - and Tim could remember clearly where he had seen such expression.

A long time ago.

On the first photograph of Robin - Jason in Robin costume - where Tim had seen his soulmate. In the same form that Jason had seen in the photo of Tim.

"Great!" Jason exclaimed. "Now, you had your dinner or not? 'Cause I've heard of this great old diner, one of Gotham's few that's not been destroyed by whoever villain-du-jour the Bat is facing, down at Tricorner. Wanna go and try it?"

"In costume or not?" Tim asked - just as precaution.

Jason huffed and scowled. "Eh, one day at a time, right?"

"Costume it is." Tim realized. It would be least awkward if their... extended 'family' has seen them if they were in costume.

"Costume it is. We'll get there next time." Jason agreed.