#i have a checklist of 'things every fandom has fics for' and god damn it i will fill that out myself if i must

[xlugger]

help its past midnight and i should be sleeping so i can get more con prep done before work tomorrow, but I'm here hashing out wild ideas for dumb crossover fanfics that only I would want to read

[alwaysxlarrie]

fav fics of 2024 !!

i didn’t read as many fics as i wanted in 2024, but i did manage to put together a list of 25 so here they are, separated by fandom !! the dair fics i've read helped give me sm inspo -- enough to start brainstorming again for my cult leader louis fic AND start my first dair fic, so big s/o to the dair fandom -- we were so robbed & somehow y'all still continue to give !! anyway, big thank you to all writers for continuing to bless us all w your creativity — readers, please remember to leave kudos & comments on fics you enjoy !! as always, fics are in alphabetical order <3

(also a moment of silence for @harruandlou who introduced me to dair & therefore had to listen to me talk abt nothing besides them for the last ~3 months)

dair fics:

an utter lack of self-preservation instincts by nevertothethird / @scabopolis

There are many things Blair Waldorf needs: the new sustainable division of Waldorf Designs to be successful, a fresh manicure, and maybe a weekend away with her best-friend.

What she doesn't need is a pretentious Brooklynite with no experience working in the fashion design industry to make her life harder. Or to bring her dinner. Or to look at her like she might be the best thing he's ever seen.

checking it twice by womanaction / @womanaction

Blair creates a checklist for her "perfect man", but someone surprising happens to match up to her demands.

flappers and philosophers by bookishandbossy / @bookishandbossy

Dan Humphrey first meets Blair Waldorf at a party he's not invited to. He doesn't mean to write a story that's all about her, but somehow it happens. Blair Waldorf has every intention of giving an aspiring writer a sharp talking-to about the character he's based on her. She doesn't mean to get fond of him, but somehow it happens. (1920's AU)

god help the girl by secondaudrina / @firstaudrina

At nearly three a.m., the idea of murdering one's neighbor starts to get just a little too appealing.

good night bad morning by secondaudrina / @firstaudrina

Blair refuses to be so hard up that she's giving Dan Humphrey the eye.

hang up and run to me by mysteriesofloves / @mysteriesofloves

“Keep talking,” she says. “I like your voice.”

“Oh,” he says, then, brighter: “oh. Okay. Well. Ha. That’s funny—not that, that’s not funny, that’s…nice, it’s just funny that I can’t stop talking until you ask me to not stop talking, then I can’t think of anything to say.”

“Would you like a prompt?”

“Sure. Yeah. Give me a prompt, Waldorf.”

“What would you do if you were here?”

His breath over the line is like static. “Um. What?”

i knew you’d come back to me by communitys

“Okay,” Dan says. He looks to the side, to Alessandra and the people bathed in the cold bright glow of the party, and feels so removed from them that his conversation with Blair might as well be happening in a different universe. “Okay. So, you’ve been hung up on me all this time”—he ignores her eye roll, like she doesn’t know what she’s doing—”and you’re divorcing your husband, who you only ever married for practical reasons, and what, exactly, do you want from me?”

or, dan writes a book about his relationship with blair, she shows up at the signing, and no one else is in the room for a while after that

just like in the movies by stapler_stealer / @anevildictatoroftaste

“I have five words for you, Mr Humphrey—,” Blair leans in with both palms laid flat on the counter, a triumphant smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “—The future…is online streaming.”

“And I have four words for you, Miss Waldorf,” Humphrey replies, with a mocking smile. “Get. The. Fuck. Out!”

Or, Blair Waldorf is a ruthless media executive looking to acquire an indie video rental store, seal that damn deal and score that sweet, sweet promotion.

There’s just one teensy little problem that stands in her way — a stubborn, curly-haired store manager by the name of Dan freaking Humphrey.

returning the favour by thestartofnothing / @mrs-nate-humphrey

After Georgina takes Milo away, Dan isn't expecting is Blair Waldorf at his doorstep with a plan to make him feel better.

He certainly isn't expecting her "plan" to involve having kinky sex, for fun.

somewhere you feel free by lizwas / @terrainofheartfelt

Four years ago, Blair had gotten married and fallen off the face of the earth. Dan had already fallen the year before.

Dan keeps Milo. Blair marries Louis. Years later, she returns to New York, divorced and determined to start a new life, beginning with finishing her degree at Columbia. Also a Columbia student? Single parent Dan Humphrey.

sweet comic valentine by mysteriesofloves / @mysteriesofloves

She hates Dan Humphrey. She really does. Any gut punch of a reaction to seeing him calmly wrangle rowdy children is purely biological.

the kind of opposites who do not attract by stapler_stealer / @anevildictatoroftaste

Blair Waldorf doesn’t like being reminded of Dan Humphrey. But that gap-toothed, curly haired man certainly had a knack for being completely unavoidable.

Firstly, the man was her best friend’s husband.

Secondly, he was a journalist, so she was bombarded by constant reminders of him.

That insufferable social climber was everywhere. She couldn’t even check her phone without scrolling past his selfies with Nate Archibald on her Instagram feed. Talk about the ghost of boyfriends past, haunting her ad infinitum.

In other words, Blair Waldorf doesn’t like being reminded of Dan Humphrey, because it's like being reminded of a life she could have had with him.

the pretentious classical music au that no one asked for series by lizwas / @terrainofheartfelt

Her first gig directing at a summer festival, and she gets stuck with Greenwood Lake’s Benedict Arnold.

this city screams your name by illicitaffair / @eyescllsed

The fact that her first audition with Humphrey was an accident would make great PR for the studio. Blair can see it already: headlines boasting Waldorf and Humphrey: Accidental Match of the Century! An Academy Award winner unknowingly instigating a fight with an up and coming actor that a casting director just happened to see, proving their “undeniable” onscreen chemistry? It was the stuff of legends.

Unfortunately, Blair doesn’t see it that way.

alternatively; dan and blair star in a film. it goes about as well as expected.

the milk and honey extended universe by mysteriesofloves / @mysteriesofloves

She wishes Dan Humphrey had never taken a seat across from her their first week here. She wishes she didn’t have to contemplate the way she feels about him at all.

[or, Yale AU].

write this down by mysteriesofloves / @mysteriesofloves

“I am so going to regret asking, but—what exactly are you getting at, Blair?”

Blair takes a deep breath, sitting up straight, and lets it all come out in a rush: “Come with me to Paris and pretend to be my boyfriend.”

you could call me “babe” for the weekend by pentaghastly / @kendallroynsfw

B. WALDORF, the card says, embossed in silver print, and Dan commits that to memory. He’ll probably never see her again, but even so, B. WALDORF etches a space in his brain ten times larger than any five-foot-two socialite should be able to.

He’s surprisingly okay with that.

(or,

Dan is a bartender and Blair is the obnoxiously rich customer who keeps coming in to see him and it's casual, okay, it definitely doesn't mean she's in love.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

larry fics:

endgame by brightgolden / @brightgolden

Harry has been told all his life how grateful he should be for being born as a male omega, and how blessed their people were because the heir to the throne would be carried by The King.

What they neglected to tell Harry was what would happen if he failed to become pregnant.

OR

Where omega Crown Prince Harry Styles is trying and failing to get pregnant for four years, but all that is about to change when courtesan alpha Louis Tomlinson comes into the equation.

howls like a beast (you flower, you feast) by indiaalphawhiskey / @indiaalphawhiskey

France, 1754.

Château de Versailles.

“You don’t love me,” Louis had said, utterly blasé as he callously fractured the heart of a Harry that was just barely eighteen.

“I do,” Harry had insisted pleadingly, green eyes already watering.

Louis had rolled his eyes, exasperated and flippant in the way only beautiful, young boys could be when faced with the affections of a baby prince. He had run his finger down Harry’s cheek then, had forced him to look into his eyes as he delivered the final blow.

“You’ll change your mind once you’ve seen more of the world,” Louis had teased, pressing a brutally delicate kiss onto Harry’s lovely, pure cheek. “Once you’ve been properly defiled.” He had whispered filthily, delighted by the gasp he heard, the frantic pink blush that had rested high on Harry’s cheeks, the power he had felt at knowing he could make the Crown Prince squirm.

groupie love by cuckootrooke / @larrydoinglaundry

"Now, Louis is only a human. He'd be lying if he said he has never considered his fans attractive but it's not something that happens regularly. Many of them are a little too young for him to look at and those who aren’t so young are rarely squished at the barricade for him to admire. So, seeing a woman like her right at the front is a rare and remarkable surprise for him.

And God does he want to keep looking at her."

In other words, Louis is a rock star on a world tour and Harry is a regular attendee. They could never work.

kitten’s first client by anonymous

Harry settles on his knees, legs together and hands resting gently on his thighs. He looks up at Louis through his lashes, his eyes big and innocent.

"Please, Sir," he says, in a sweet little voice. "May I have permission to suck your cock?"

~

Harry is a kitten hybrid who just started working in a whorehouse. Louis is his client.

pure, pretty, obedient by anonymous

Louis' hand settles on Harry's hip, making him draw in a sharp breath. No alpha has ever touched him there before.

"Aren't you just a lovely little thing," Louis murmurs. "Gonna be so good for me, aren't you, darling?"

~

It's time for Louis and Harry to consummate their marriage. Harry doesn't know much about what's meant to happen on his wedding night. Lucky for him, his new alpha doesn't seem to mind.

ride my sleigh tonight by kingsofeverything / @kingsofeverything

In exchange for free food and drinks at Liam’s office holiday party, Harry pretends to be his boyfriend.

But this is not that story.

staring at the blank page before you by livelaughlovelarry / @loveislarryislove

��Can I ask you a favour?”

Harry blinked. “Um. Depends?”

“It’s nothing weird,” Louis said quickly. “Well. It’s a little weird.”

“Very illuminating,” Harry deadpanned. He had no idea what Louis was going to ask, but he had a pretty good idea that he was going to say yes regardless. Louis had that effect on people.

Louis chuckled. “It’s just – God, bodies are fucking stupid and I can’t visualize the physicality of this fight scene, so I was wondering if I could. Well. Use your body.”

Or, Louis is trying to write his book, but he sometimes has trouble with deciding how the characters should move. Fortunately, his roommate Harry is willing to help him act scenes out. Unfortunately, the line between acting and reality is getting very blurry. Or maybe that's fortunate too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

phan fics:

ruby woo by phandomsub

Dani is dealing with yet another break-up, and Phil just wants to be there for her best friend.

[anthropwashere]

phango19: we go around, one foot nailed down

\o/ 30th DP fic and it’s the infamous dissection trope \o/

(you know I had to do it to ‘em)

Legit though, I’ve been wanting to write a DP dissection fic since, jeez, since I joined the fandom in '13 probably. It's practically a rite of passage to have one of these under your belt, isn't it? So here's me, giving you the gift of Danny Having a Bad Time.

There'll be some notes about the research I did for this one for the curious at the end, but apologies to anyone with an ounce of scientific know-how. I almost failed high school chemistry and that was something like 12 years ago. I am but a simple idiot with Internet access. Please call me out if there's something egregious in need of correction; otherwise... blame it on ghostly handwavium?

Title comes from TOOL’s “Pneuma.”

AO3 | FFN

=

It had been agony, at first. But like anything he’s ever set his mind to, it’s gotten easier with practice. 

He’s had plenty of opportunities to practice.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish he could quit the whole ugly business right this moment. Burn every file, lock the lab up for good, and pray for no more nightmares. But this ugly business needs doing and he’s the only one for it. He can’t allow Maddie to shoulder any more of this burden than she’s already insisted on. He won’t let those white-suited bastards lay so much as a finger on his family either, not while he’s got any say in it. There'll be hell to pay for going toe-to-toe with the GIW, but that's fine. He doesn’t care what happens to him anymore, so long as Maddie and Jazz are kept clean of all consequences.

If his luck holds out the courts will be hashing it all out for a while yet anyway. He’s never had a head for fine print or subtlety, nor doing anything so morally gray as—well. Everything lately. What should be done is clear as day to him, but if the courts agreed that easily with the GIW he wouldn't have a chance to make up for what he’s done.

He needs to do that much. 

The courts and those bastards will eventually agree he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, regardless of blood relation or his wealth of experience in an incredibly niche field. Sooner than later those bastards will come, and when they do there's only so much protest and fighting spirit they'll indulge in. That's a fight he'll lose once it comes, but in the meantime those bastards and all their clever little monitoring devices can’t come within 300 feet of Fenton Works without causing an uproar.

He has to take advantage of the time they have left.

This evening the house is empty, just him and—

Well.

Maddie’s out there fighting the good fight, Jazz and Sam and Tucker at her side. The three of them have got more experience than Maddie and him ever realized. They’ll be just fine. They’ll handle whatever toothy specter is out there terrorizing the good people of Amity Park and make sure nothing gets in the way of his work. He needs the peace and quiet. No distractions. He needs to do this by the book.

Working by the book isn't a habit he’s ever had to cultivate, not with Maddie there to shore up his madcap inventions with reams of reproducible data and neatly labeled blueprints, all hard copies done in triplicate and the digital files regularly updated to a secure server off-site. You can’t ever be too cautious when you’re putting pseudoscience to the test and winning, Maddie always said with a grin, and he’d kissed her every time for being so much more brilliant and beautiful than he deserved. What would he do without her? How far could he have gotten without her? Would Danny still be—

He swallows.

Best to banish that train of thought before it can run him down. No distractions. No what-ifs, no maybes. Not if he wants to make up for what’s happened. What they’ve done. What he's done. This one’s all on him, no matter how Maddie tries to tell him otherwise. Either he fixes this or—

Well. 

There is no ‘or,’ is there? 

He presses the record button on the Jack Fenton-improved observation rig. Blinking red lights and a momentary whine of feedback means he’s good to go. “Nov—”

Too hoarse. Clarity and enunciation are key here. Slow and steady. He’s got to do this right, each and every time. He clears his throat and begins again.

“November 24th, 2006. 9:43 p.m. This is the ninth full examination of the ectobiological aberration self-identified as ‘Phantom,’ legal name Daniel Fenton. General details of the aberration's previously accepted physical characteristics can be found in the recording and transcript of the first examination. General details of the aberration's current physical characteristics can be found in the first, second, and third examinations. Detailed characteristics that have remained unchanged between forms—the wholly living, the selectively living, and the wholly deceased are also recorded in the first and second examinations."

“For the record, I still don't think I qualify as an 'aberration,'" the body says.

He breathes. Swallows. Chooses to ignore the interruption. 

“This examination will consist of further study of Phantom's physical deterioration, to include the taking of samples of hair, skin, bone, and various fluids and tissues as necessary. Additionally I—" 

He hadn't identified himself, despite the GIW's explicitly written protocols on ghost examinations. He curses inwardly, decides not to bother. He's the only examiner on any of the recordings, after all.

The body takes advantage of his pause to add, “Oddity maybe. Hell, anomaly sounds pretty cool. But aberration? That makes me sound like I'm on the verge of a villainous origin story or something."

He presses on through gritted teeth. "I'll be conducting several tests as outlined separately—exact location in the Phantom file will be added to this examination's transcript—to see if it's feasible to separate the Phantom aberration from Daniel Fenton's remains."

"How many times do I have to tell you that Phantom has always been—"

"Danny."

The body sighs. Well. Its inhabitant does anyway. "Sorry, sorry."

He resists the urge to thank the body. He resists the urge to pat its mottled green hand. He doesn't trust his voice to remain steady if he does either.

"External examination.” He describes the body from toe to tip, his voice measured, unhurried, detached. Dark green skin, healed as flawlessly as it had seven times before. Untamed black hair that shines a glossy green in the harsh overhead lights. Eyes red as holly berries that shine with the predatory gleam so common among true ghosts when the overhead light hits them. The skin is firm, and firmly attached to the lean muscles beneath, and those too still conform to the bones as if the body hasn’t been dead for months. The body is as limp-limbed as a ragdoll in his hands as he goes through the checklist. He confirms that it’s continuing to lose weight incrementally despite no outward signs of decay or starvation—

(Can a dead thing still starve? God, but what were those two years like for Danny? All those worries, those fears, all those questions without answers, and now….)

Nothing untoward or abnormal—in shape, if not in color—can be noted. A normal male distribution of body hair. Teeth in fair repair. Gums, tongue, and oral cavity all normal, albeit pale green. Symmetrical and normal in appearance are checked off wherever they need to be checked off. On, and on, and on. An exhaustive process that embarrassed the body’s inhabitant horribly the first few times. Now it’s borne in silence, with only an occasional gruff sigh.

No deformities. No injuries, except for the postmortem thread that’s bunched up at weird angles as the body stubbornly insisted on healing practically overnight. He makes a note of it as he takes a small pair of shears to the tangles, snipping and pulling as needed. The small holes trace out a capital letter Y that’s gone a bit hunchbacked and knock-kneed. Another day or two and that scar will be gone, replaced by a new one that will stretch stark and symmetrical, for a little while. The small holes left behind don’t bleed. There isn't any blood or ectoplasm pooled or pulsing through the body. The heart is still, a fist-sized lump of dark green muscle. He'd drained the clay-colored fluid that had operated as blood out into a jar marked DP Specimen #58 - 3.85ltr ecto found w/in complex circ sys(!) w/ unk contaminant(s?). It hasn't clotted, and the body hasn't produced more.

They don't know why. They still don’t know why the body continues to heal. There’s not enough energy in the remaining ectoplasm to generate such a speedy recovery, but neither does it heal enough. Danny’s ghost—the aberration—is still bound to this inanimate, impossible corpse. Danny is still trapped.

Not to mention that the healing seems to be failing incrementally as the days pass. He doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t know if they’re running out of time or not. He doesn’t know what will happen to Danny if—

There’s no ‘if.’ He’s fixing this. 

He has to.

“You’re staring,” the body says quietly.

He swallows, shaking himself out of it. “I—I will now begin the internal examination to compare the body’s current state to that of the eighth examination conducted on November 16th. Additionally, with the data gathered from the previous examinations and tests conducted upon various tissue samples and the body itself it’s believed that optimal results might be achieved with as little biological interference as possible.”

“You said full examination,” the body interrupts. “Brain included?”

“Brain included,” he confirms. He can’t quite keep the apology out of his voice. Not as if those bastards would notice an ounce of kindness if it—

Focus.

The body doesn’t breathe. It can’t. Those lungs gasped their last 36 seconds after Maddie landed a neat hit on Phantom with a full 450 milliliters of their experimental paralytic. 

(He’d said it himself, not 24 hours before that day. Enough to lay out a ghost ten times his size! What a damn stupid, blind idiot he was.)

The inhabitant inside the body makes the sound of a slow, steadying breath. It shouldn’t shake. It shakes anyway. “Just. Don’t keep my face c-covered any longer than you have to.”

Danny’s made this request each time. As if he’d forget to give Danny what mean comforts he can through—through this. Danny had screamed all throughout that first examination. Not out of pain—he insisted he couldn’t feel anything anymore—but out of sheer, visceral horror. He doesn’t blame Danny one bit for that. 

(He’d hoped removing the brain would do the trick, that it would free Danny’s ghost, put him out of his misery. But it just grew back. There are three of them resting in glass jars of glowing formalin now. At the rate he’s going the entire lab will soon be nothing but bits of Danny in jars.)

“Sure thing,” he whispers, and picks up the scalpel. 

He narrates as he works, making small notes on the diagram at his elbow with a gloved hand that grows damp over time with green fluids. He makes the initial incision, running over it repeatedly where necessary, and inch by inch peels the anterior thoracic musculature and subcutaneous layers away. 

(He’s almost gotten used to making these incisions, to applying the necessary force as pulls the layers apart. The motions have almost become habit. It’s all the sounds of peeling the body open that continue to haunt him.)

The flesh folds like a thick blanket, draping over the body’s elbows out of the way. There’s no need at this time to study the neck musculature or organs. He leaves that stretch of skin where it’s meant to stay. He focuses on cutting away the pale bits of fatty tissue that might interfere, fully exposing the deep black bones of the body’s rib cage. 

(That had been a hard shock, the first time. He’s almost used to the sight now.)

As with the body’s hair and eyes, the bones have a faint green gleam to them. The same iridescence of a raven’s feathers. They yield to a rib cutter the same as any human’s would. He makes the cuts close to the sides rather than near the breastbone; he wants to get a good look at the heart and lungs in situ today.

The inhabitant begins to breathe rapidly. 

He pauses, the front of the body’s rib cage gripped carefully in both hands, pulled halfway out. “Do… do you want me to move the mirror?”

Oh, but he had put his foot down about the mirror. There was no way, no way, he would force Danny to observe as his own father cut him open—did this to him. Danny had asked first that his eyes not to be taped shut, because laying there paralyzed and feeling nothing in the dark was so much worse and anyway his eyes don’t seem to be going anywhere, right? The third examination is when Danny had asked for a way to watch him work, and he’d protested and blubbered and even shouted, enough that Maddie had called down the stairs in a voice thick with tears if everything was—if everything was—did he need help?

Yes, he needed help. But he didn’t tell her that. He told her everything was—was—that she needn’t worry, that he had everything handled. 

Danny had asked again. Again and again and again, and every time he said no, told Danny all the reasons why he wouldn’t, couldn’t, would never—

But Danny kept asking.

I want to understand, Dad. Please. I’m gonna go crazy if I all I do is just lay here until you and Mom fix me. I—this is all I can do. I want to see what you’re doing to me, instead of trying to imagine. Please. Please, Dad.

He’d relented for the seventh examination. He’d attached an arm to the observation rig above the table, attached a mirror to the arm, and messed with the angle of it until Danny said he could see himself perfectly. 

It had been such a terrible thing to do to Danny, but Danny had thanked him all the same.

The body sighs, chuckles weakly. “N-no. No. I just—hate that sound. That—cracking. Gets—gets me every time.”

He nods, not trusting himself to speak. He tries to be as gentle as he can, separating the breastbone from the clavicle, but some sounds are unavoidable. After setting the rib cage aside he swallows, and swallows again. His voice betrays him anyway. “M-mediastinum intact again as well. Comparable in color to previous examinations. The residual fatty thymic tissue present….”

And on. And on. Cutting and pulling and weighing, comparing weights and textures and colors to the eight other times he’s already done this.

How many more times will this be necessary?

Danny breathes, sometimes, hitching like he means to say something, or like he's trying not to cry.

 Danny doesn’t do either, but he hates himself anyway.

“Decellularization continues apace,” he murmurs near the microphone, tracing a careful finger across one lung in the scale. It and its twin had been a vivid lime green in the beginning, but like nearly every other organ it’s begun to shed its inhabiting cells, leaving a colorless scaffolding in the same rough shape of itself behind. 

Ghost organs. He’s never heard of such a thing happening outside of a microbiology lab. It’d almost be funny.

He doesn’t know what it means.

 He doesn’t know what any of this means.

The accident should have killed Danny completely, left a well-cooked corpse and an entirely separate ghost behind. Not hybridized him. Not at the risk of this. Their paralytic is what killed him—

(his son, his boy, little Dann-o, gone gone gone and it’s all his fault)

—but if he’d died another way would this have been the same result? This powerlessness, this fading? There’s no knowing, and that most of all is what keeps him up at night.

He finishes comparing all the numbers to those previously recorded. Then samples are taken and the cell debris drained, all the vials and containers marked appropriately. Lastly he bags the organs he intends to keep for study to minimize leakage, leaving the rest in their individual trays. If he were to place them all back in the body the bags would—somehow—vanish within a few days, all the organs reorganized and reattached exactly as they should be. If he doesn’t, new ones will take their place. 

Maddie suspects this to be the cause of the decellularization. The body is drawing on its own limited materials to regenerate because the ectoplasmic core once sustaining it has been snuffed out. None of their instruments can even pick up that Danny’s still in there, but there he is all the same. No one knows what to make of that.

All in all, it’s been over an hour by the time he carefully suctions out the last of the fluids pooled within the emptied cavities, filling and marking one more container to join the collection on the stainless steel counter. He’d lined the interior of the body with cotton, the first time. It had gone the same way as the bags, vanished or vaporized or who even knows. He doesn’t bother this time, returning the unbagged organs to rough approximations of where they should be. He gives the small intestine up as a bad job, grimacing apologetically. In the space where the right lung sat he places an oblong monitoring device small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Something clever Maddie cooked up to measure all sorts of things, all potential avenues to make sense of the body’s physiology and shake the ghost clean of it. It shouldn’t be too intrusive once the lung grows back. Not that it matters.

It’s far too late to save their son. They know that. That doesn’t make this any easier.

“Brain next?” The body asks once he’s finished up the new Y incision. 

“Brain next,” he confirms wearily, setting aside needle and thread. “Your moth—”

He bites his cheek hard enough to taste blood, but that’s not enough to take back the slip. No familiarity. No acknowledgement of their relationship. No divulging more details than strictly necessary. That had been part of the agreement.

He wiggles the rubber block out from under the body’s back, moves it to support the head, cards his fingers—a fresh pair of gloves on—through its thick dark hair. Danny can’t feel it but hums a wordless thanks anyway, watching in the mirror. There’s the faintest shiver of motion at his eyes; not the eyeballs themselves but of a fey light within. It’s the only sign anyone’s still in there.

He makes the incision across the crown, sloping from behind one ear to the other. The scrape of the scalpel against bare bone makes Danny suck in a breath. He peels, he cuts, he peels. He whispers an apology as the anterior flap covers the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin. The inhabit’s imagined breaths come faster than ever, but it’s only the dark that upsets him. It is. The dark, the numbness, the helplessness. A hell that can’t be imagined, only experienced.

He moves quicker now, his narration stuttering in favor of action. The posterior flap peeled and cut and folded out of the way, then both of the temporal muscles severed. The scalpel traded for a blade like a bread knife to etch out a rough guideline around the crown of the exposed skull. Then the hammer and chisel.

Danny whimpers all throughout.

As soon as the brain—the same gray-green color of mold—has been removed, he gently pulls the anterior flap back, lets it dangle over empty space as he wipes the body’s face clean of a few green drips. “Keeping this one for testing, I’m afraid,” he says.

“Okay,” the body whispers.

“Nearly finished now.”

“I know. I’m okay.”

He doesn’t acknowledge that. He can’t afford to. The brain—what a brilliant kid, a professional ghost hunter, reaching for the stars since he first realized they were up there, the sum of his son cradled in his hands and this isn’t ever going to get any easier, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not—

He takes a deep breath. Steadies himself. Sets the brain carefully aside to be dealt with shortly. Soft as Jell-O, brains are, but unfathomably powerful. Science has only scratched the surface of what goes on in that three-pound mass. Danny might still be—somehow—tied to the body, but maybe the answer lies in the brain. 

Nearly finished. He can do this.

The skullcap is held awkwardly in place as he sews the scalp closed. It’ll be good as new in no time, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still take care to make the stitches tidy. He uses the back of his hand, the cleanest part of his glove, to smooth the dark hair over the seam.

“This concludes the ninth examination of Daniel Fenton, AKA Phantom,” he croaks into the microphone, and at last, at last, he can kill the recording. As soon as he has he reaches up to nudge the mirror askew so Danny doesn’t have to stare at himself a second longer.

“Done,” he says, his voice gone hoarse again.

“Yeah,” the body says.

He stands there a long, long minute, braced on the examination table staring down at the twisted corpse of his son, both splashed with any number of ghostly-bodily fluids. Arms shaking, his knees rubbery, breathing through a throat of sand. He’s tired. He’s tired. He doesn’t know how much longer he can do this.

As long as he has to. As long as it takes to help Danny. That’s how much longer he has to. No ifs, ands, or buts. 

“Are you okay?” Danny asks.

He laughs. It comes out wetter than he meant it to, but it’s fine. All of the recording equipment is off. The only person who’ll see him cry now is Danny. “Sh—shouldn’t I be asking that?”

“Maybe,” Danny says, “But it’s not easy on anybody. Is it?”

“...No. No, it’s not.”

He’s made such a mess of this corner of the lab. Maddie’d be furious with him if she saw. Not that she will. He’s cordoned it off with tall curtains and begged her on bended knee to leave this whole ugly mess to him. She hasn’t looked yet. He’d know if she had. He's seen the way her eyes linger on the curtains while they're working in another part of the lab, how her hands fumble, how her mouth thins. She's not slept more than four hours at a time since—

Since.

"Quit staring," the body orders. "Mom'll blow a gasket if you leave the lab like this. So c’mon now. Hop to it."

He laughs again, sniffling thickly as he pats the mottled green hand nearest him. Danny can't feel or see him do it, but it feels right to do it all the same. "You're a good boy, keeping your old man on task."

Danny hums. "Somebody's got to."

Well. That’s true enough, isn’t it? He’s always needed a firm hand to keep him focused. It’s been Maddie since the day they met in college, his rock in all things. All things but this. He won’t let her carry this burden. Not the messiest parts he can protect her from anyway.

So. Another checklist.

Juggling trays full of specimens off the second examination table to the counter so he can wipe the table clean. Then cleaning the body. Then moving the body to the second table so he can clean and sterilize the first. 

(Like a twisted game of musical chairs, Danny had joked once. Neither of them had laughed.)

But before that comes organizing and storing all the specimens for Maddie to study tomorrow with that eagle eye and incredible patience of hers. She’s doing the real work, laying out all the pieces of Danny to see what makes him tick, working on a way to free him even as she tries to understand him. They’ve dedicated another corner of the lab to this; nearly an entire wall, really. All their other work has gone by the wayside, shelved apart from the necessity of dealing with any ghosts that slip out to wreck a little havoc. 

Funny, how few times that’s happened—since. They’d worried, once Jazz and Sam and Tucker had told them the whole terrible truth, that the ghosts might celebrate Phantom’s condition. Take advantage of his helplessness to get revenge or at least run amok in Amity Park. They know news got out; the ghost Phantom had been after the day Maddie got her lucky shot in had gotten away. 

But there’s been nothing. Almost nothing, apart from a few non-sapient threats. Mean and cunning things, but nothing half so dangerous as they’d feared would come. Danny doesn’t seem surprised, or worried for that matter. If he knows something though, he’s staying quiet.

Once he’s passed back through the curtains the body says, “Jazz visited me again last night.”

The curse slips out him before he can help it, anger and worry and shame and grief a hot migrainous mess hammering away at his skull, matching the pace he’d chiseled at Danny’s. “She knows better—!”

“Yeah, and I told her to get out too.” Danny chuckles. “She never listens though.”

“I….” He sighs and shakes his head, exasperated. “...Yeah. She gets that from your mother. How is she?”

“Figured that’d be obvious.”

“She won’t talk to either of us,” he replies, and goes to clean and disinfect the table and floor. Easiest to get that done with before he spends 20 minutes hunched over the sink and autoclave. His back’s already clamoring for a hot shower and a handful of ibuprofen after—

Well.

“She’s not as angry as she was,” Danny says in a pause between clangs. “She hardly cried at all this time.”

“Good. That’s—good.”

“Hey, Dad? Do me a favor?”

He’s at Danny’s side at once, taking one hand in his and leaning enough to be in more than Danny’s frozen peripheral. “What is it?”

“She’s gonna try to sneak Sam and Tucker down here this week—”

“What?”

“—so can you make sure the security system will let them in?”

His knee-jerk reaction is to put his foot down, to remind Danny and then Jazz of how tenuous a position they’re in with the GIW, of how they can’t afford the littlest slip or look for loopholes or do anything to risk Danny—

But.

Danny’s been down here so long now. Alone apart from him, from Maddie’s voice on the other side of the curtains, Jazz’s midnight visits. Just his family and the ceiling and hours of silence and a hundred experiments and failures and—

And that’s no way to live. That’s no way to live at all.

“Is that what you want?” He asks.

“I… I really don’t want them to see me like this,” There’s nothing but revulsion in Danny’s voice, self-loathing and guilt and horror. “But they’ll do it no matter what I tell Jazz, and I don’t want them to get caught either.”

“Okay. Okay then. I think I can finagle three days before anyone might notice. Make sure she knows.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

He goes back to cleaning, finishes the area and moves to the instruments and trays. Ectoplasm is notoriously difficult to scrub out. It takes time. The smell of bleach burns his eyes and nose, eventually overpowering the citrus sting of ectoplasm. Once the autoclave is set to run he tosses the latex gloves into the hazardous waste bin and takes a moment to let his hands breathe. Never did like the feel of latex, but his usual pair don’t allow him the finesse he needs for—well, this kind of work. His fingertips have gone pale and wrinkled. His fingers ache. His wrists are on fire, to say nothing of his shoulders and back.

How many more times is he going to do this?

“How do you feel?” He asks.

“I’m fine,” Danny says. Too quickly.

“Be honest, kiddo. Please.”

“I… Cold. Heavy. Like I got stuck phasing through the ground, and any second I’m gonna slip up and go solid and it’ll—” Danny makes a small, miserable noise and falls silent.

He rubs his aching eyes, gritting his teeth against every stupid, useless thing he wants to say. He’d asked, hadn’t he?

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s been months.”

“I know.”

Danny’s voice breaks. “I have to get out of here.”

“I know,” he repeats. It’s the only thing to say. He’s exhausted all apologies. “We’re trying, son. We’re working on this day and night. We’ll get you sorted, you know we will.”

“...Yeah. I know.”

He forces his aching legs to the cabinet to pull out a fresh sheet to drape over the body, then Danny’s comforter over that, pulling them both up to the body’s chin to hide the edges of the incision. “Eyes open or shut tonight?”

“Um. What time is it?”

He glances at the wall as he carefully swaps the rubber block under the body’s neck for a plastic-wrapped pillow. “Just after midnight.”

“When will Mom be down?”

“Six sharp, same as always.”

“Right. Um. Shut’s fine.”

He gently tugs the medical tape off the body’s face, smoothes the eyebrows flat and brushes the bangs aside. The green skin feels even colder on his bare fingers. 

This is the part where he bids his dead son good night and retreats upstairs. This is the part where he passes by Jazz and Maddie with his eyes firmly on his feet. This is the part where he near boils himself in the shower until he feels almost clean again, scrubbing his skin raw to wash the smell of ectoplasm away. This is the part where there’s only nightmares followed by silent hours spent staring at the ceiling of their bedroom, trying to imagine how helpless and terrified Danny is down here.

He stays where he is, hands braced on the table again. He asks the question that's festered in his gut ever since Jazz threw herself over Phantom's prone shape and spat the truth out through a stream of furious tears. "...Why didn't you tell us?"

Danny is quiet for a long, long time. Then, "I was always gonna end up on this table."

He shudders, pulling away. "We— you don’t really think that. Do you? We love you, Danny. We wouldn't. If we'd known, we wouldn't have."

Another long silence. Then, "Good night, Dad."

“I….” He shuts his eyes, weary in a way he’ll never find the words to express. “Good night, Danny-boy.”

He shuts the lights off on his way up the stairs.

=

Notes: Decellularization is cool as hell. Check out the >Wiki page< for it, and if you don’t some close-up pictures of a pig heart >here< is a fascinating DIY to create your very own ghost organ as a Halloween decoration! (Scientists are amazing.) For the rest of the research I did for this, I’ll just say that boy! You sure can find some extremely specific How-Tos on the Internent, huh? I sure learned a lot this week!

Anyway, thanks for reading! You’re great. <3

[thievinghippo]

Fic Update: The Longest Distance (24/100)

Fandom: The Adventure Zone

Pairing: Barry Bluejeans/Lup

Rating: Teen

Summary: “Time is the longest distance between two places.” - Tennessee Williams. 100 cycles. 100 moments. aka how Barry and Lup’s relationship evolves over 100 years.

Chapter Summary: Davenport insists on order. Lucretia wonders about semantics. The twins deal with mistaken identity. 

(Read on Ao3!)

#

Cycle Twenty-Four

“Everyone ready?”

Lup rolls her eyes. How many times have they introduced themselves and told their story to a new town after all these years? They could do this in their sleep at this point.

Yet Cap’n Port insists on going through the checklist each and every time.

“We’re ready,” Lup says. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

From the outside, it looks like it’s gonna be a pretty decent cycle. Plenty of villages scattered around. If one doesn’t want to trade, they’ll just make their way to another one. Eventually they’ll find a place to settle.

The entire crew heads out of the Starblaster. This area of the world they’re in is warm, almost hot. Makes Lup glad she’s wearing a tank top. Might not be the classiest thing to wear when meeting a new civilization. But when the fuck has she ever care about that?

The town they’re walking towards is on the smaller size. Rows of houses and shops, all facing what Lup assumes to be the main temple in town. Considering how it towers over the rest of the buildings, she guesses that’s where the power lay.

They get more than a few stares as they start walking towards the temple. They only walk a block before Lup realizes that a small crowd has started following. them.

“Okay, this is weird,” Lup says. “Townies must be bored out of their mind if they care that much about strangers.”

“Seriously,” Magnus mutters back. “I don’t like this.”

It’s not like they haven’t gotten less than warm welcomes before. Some cycles are full of people who hate strangers. This feels different, though.

Then she hears someone mutter, “It’s the twins.”

Lup looks over at Taako. “Um. Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“Keep walking everyone,” Davenport orders. And since he’s Cap’n Port, everyone follows.

She drifts over next to Barry as they walk. That’s something she does now. She tries not to think about why too much. Barry just gives her a grin. He’s always loved this part of a cycle, the part after they know the planet isn’t trying to kill them. Nerd.

They turn a street corner, giving them a view of the temple. There are stairs leading up to it and they’re packed. And some people in very fancy robes are standing at the top of the stairs, like they’re trying to look very important.

The crowd parts as they start walking up the stairs. More than once Lup hears the twins. Like, yeah, it’s pretty damn obvious that she and Taako are twins. But why would any of these people care?

She doesn’t think she likes this cycle and they’ve been here for a whopping day. Great.

The second she and Taako walk to the very top of the stairs, the humans in very fancy robes drop to their knees. Lup raises an eyebrow. Now she’s intrigued.

“You have returned to us,” the woman who looks like to be the person in charge says. Not only is she the eldest, she’s always wearing the most ornate robes. Double whammy. Totally in charge. “We are honored that the twin gods have come to save us yet again.”

Lup looks over at Taako and grins slowly. Oh they can have fun with this.

“Twin gods?” Barry asks, sounding confused. The rest of the crew is just standing there, looking as confused as Barry sounds. Well, except for Lucretia, who’s writing every single word down.

“Have you hidden your identities to walk with these travelers?” one of the men asks, his voice reverent. “How humble of you both, to want to protect these commoners from your greatness. We should all aspire to such humility.”

Two servants with heads bowed, each holding a tray, walk up to Taako and Lup. “For the twin gods, to help you rest after your journey.”

Hot towels, a bowl of fruit, and some sort of wine. Lup does a complete one-eighty as she pats the hot towel on her face.

She fucking loves this cycle.

“Thank you,” Lup says to the servant as she pick up the glass of wine.

The servant practically drops the tray before walking off. The leader still looks in awe. “And you deign to notice a simple servant. We have always heard of the tales of your bravery and beauty. But to learn firsthand of your kindness and compassion-”

“Yeah, I think that’s enough,” Magnus says.

“Who are we to tell them what to believe?” Taako asks, hand over his heart. He bows to the leader. “Please, continue.”

The leader looks amazed that Taako is actually speaking to her. Oh this is going to be fun. They’ll still do all the normal things. Trade and science and searching for the Light. But if these people want to worship her and Taako?

Lup’s never minded a little worshipping.

“You and your companions will want for nothing. We will have residences prepared. Banquets every night. Your time here will be nothing but bliss,” the leader says.

“I have a question,” Lucretia says, stepping forward. “Apologies. You mentioned before that the twin gods will save you. We come from another land and don’t know your ways.”

“Oh snap, good call,” Taako says, looking over at Lucretia. He turns back to the leader. “My twin sister and I, of course, are your humble servants. How can we help?”

Lup kicks Merle in the shin when the dwarf starts to chuckle. “Shut it, Merle,” she whispers.

The leader looks a bit confused, but seven strangers just came into town, so it makes sense. “Anything we can do,” Lup says with a bow, to play things up a bit. 

“Ah, of course,” the leader says, a relief passing over her face. “We’ve heard that sometimes the soul doesn’t always remember its past lives.”

“So what can we do?” Lup says, putting her forearm on the woman’s shoulder. “We are kick ass at magic.

The leader takes Lup’s arm off of her shoulder. “It’s so much simpler than that, thankfully. Our world is blessed. Our people want for nothing. And it’s all because of the twin gods.”

Lup looks over at Taako, who’s starting to look a little uncomfortable. Just like she is. It’s one thing to play at being god. It’s another to take advantage of these people. That, she doesn’t want to do.

“How do they help?” Lucretia asks.

“The ritual,” one of the robed men says. “For the next few months, we will prepare. Then once the time is right…” He throws his arm out. Behind him, far in the distance, is a huge volcano.

“The sacrifice,” the leader says, head bowed. “The twin gods willingly sacrifice themselves to the volcano and we will see another hundred years of bounty.”

Suddenly being a god doesn’t seem like such a good gig after all. Her hand finds Taako’s.

“Ooh, death by volcano,” Merle says. “I haven’t even died by volcano yet.”

Lup looks over at Barry, who looks worried. Like he does most of the time. For a moment, she wondered if he might be worried about her and not just the group but then pushes the thought away.

Taako squeezes her hand, his sign that he’ll back her up with whatever she wants to do. She bites her lip. The last thing she wants to do is piss off these folk. Not in the very beginning of a cycle.

Might be fun to live the high life for a couple of months. Not like she won’t be back next cycle, right? Decision made, she turns to the leader.

“The twin gods will perform this most sacred duty with honor,” Lup says.

The crowd around them starts to cheer and Lup smiles. One thing’s for sure. She will never let the crew forget that she and Taako were worshipped as literal gods.