#i wanna bully Jason Todd so bad it makes me look stupid

[foulmouthdc]

Jason warmup from a few days ago.

[shebeafancyflapjack]

Eavesdrop

A quick alternate to Earshot, but set in canon S2 rather than NPL, where the demons focus on Michael for their taunting.

*

Second book in on the top shelf. That’s the one to pull to unlock the secret door hidden in the wall behind Michael’s desk. She’s supposedly the only other being, besides Janet, in this micro-universe privy to that bit of info. It leads to a hallway that extends to a secret chamber filled with a bunch of Earth collectables along with, recently added on her suggestion, a mini-arcade with classic game machines and a karaoke stand. The walls were sound proof, obviously.

She’s not here to escape a lecture from Chidi about messing up the laundry by hanging out in her demon pal’s very own ‘bud hole’ this time. Her ear is pressed to the closed panel after sealing herself in, waiting for the big Satanic tree to arrive.

To her surprise, and slight annoyance, he hadn’t arrived alone.

“You shouldn’t be getting drunk like this. What if the humans saw you? Everyone here is supposed to be abstinent of all vices!” Michael had grumbled, a ruckus of giggles behind him.

“That’s the point, dummy! It’s a ‘Purge’ night!” Vicky cackled; “Tell ‘im again, Gunner!”

“I got the idea off this human movie - one night, we’re allowed to do any shirt we wanted without consequence! We can drink, smoke, do drugs, stab and bite to our black hearts content!”

“NO! Definitely no stabbing! Or hurting any of them...Physically!” He’d struggled to make that last detail sound natural.

Good save, bud, Eleanor had thought.

Another demon, Petra, Eleanor thinks, had groaned; “Ugh, you are such a buzzkill lately. Can’t you see how awesome this idea is? Think about how wasted Eleanor is gonna let herself get! That dork, Jason, is gonna be high as a kite and it will make Chidi and Tahani wanna cower inside their homes! It’s genius!” 

Eleanor had almost let herself be excited for the idea of trying to make the most of this supposed ‘torture’, similar to the one at Tahani’s party, which even Michael had said she hadn’t done too bad at acting and preparing the chaos sequence the next morning. She could hear the worry in Michael’s response though, being surrounded by three hundred demons, losing their inhibitions and wanting to let off steam in the most ‘passionate’ way possible, had the potential to go very wrong. For all of them.

As she listened, Michael’s attempts to reign in his rogue employees soon descended into outright pleading, which only gave him more scorn in return.

“Look just...remember what our goal is here. I get that you’re all frustrated but we’re doing so well and all I ask is that you don’t go too far on the humans, please.” He’d tried to ask, nicely. Wrong move.

The laughter nearly shook the building.

“Jeez! If you love these humans so much, why don’t you fork them?” Bambadjan teased.

“Nah, let’s face it, not even those cockroaches would wanna go near that disgusting skin suit with all it’s musty folds.” Vicky responded; “...Oh, what’s wrong, Mikey? It’s not like we’re insulting ‘you’ after all...Unless you’re starting to feel a little too cosy in that costume of yours.”

Eleanor’s stomach twisted on his behalf. She knew how much he loved that suit; he was so forking vain, after all. But then again, is it vanity if it’s not really his body? He just wishes it was.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Michael responded, quietly.

“Then prove it, dude! Take it off! Strip! Todd goes streaking every night.” Gunner encouraged.

“You know I can’t! It’s not the same for me.”

“Maybe I’ll take mine off tonight. Imagine how much Mendoza will freak out when he sees a giant acid snake coming for him after too many mushrooms!” Vicky joked; “It’s still ten times better than any torture method you’ve come up with for them, Mike. Maybe melting their brains by revealing your demon form will provide us some results.”

Is it really that bad? Eleanor was naively hoping there was some sexy bald goat-man underneath that suit. Dude was so shifty about it, like he didn’t wanna spoil the mystery. Was it more than that? Was he ashamed?

“You’ve all made your point, have your Purge and I’ll clean up the mess tomorrow. Just go easy on the humans - I insist.” Michael sounded so tired.

“Oh he ‘insists’!? Did you hear that guys? Mikey, who failed his own experiment over eight hundred times, wants to ‘insist’!” Vicky sneers.

“Well I insist that he shuts his fugly food hole and leave the masters to our job!” Petra cackled; “And he gets back to trying to fork his paperclips or whatever shirt you get up to here.”

That sounded painful, Eleanor couldn’t stop herself picturing it.

“Jeez, Mike, you always were a loser but there’s really no hope for you, is there. Before you were just the quiet nerd no one wanted to hang out with because of your weird fixation with Earth-people. Soon you’re gonna be known as the idiot who failed his first experiment; even if the rest of us do manage to salvage it for Shawn, we’ll all know the truth about how badly you suuucked!”

It took all of Eleanor’s strength not to shove the panel open, stomp over and grab Vicky’s hair to slam her face into the desk. They all just followed him in there to bully him?! They were the losers.

“C’mon, guys! We should have known he wouldn’t have wanted to join our party, it’s not like he’s used to being invited to any.” Bambadjan added, inciting more giggles.

“See you in the morning, dumb-ash. Be up bright and early to clean up our shirt, as you say, chop chop!”

Counting to ten to contain her rage luckily meets up with the sound of the door closing, the demons exiting the building.

She carefully opens the secret door, seeing Michael sat in his chair, hands folded on his lap, eyes cast down. When he hears her soft footsteps, his head turns, expression shifting to try to cover the wobbling lip she’d briefly caught sight of. He sniffs and rubs his upper lip with his hand.

“Eleanor!” Michael straightens up; “Were you there the whole time? What if they’d seen you or...sensed you were there?”

“Relax, man, they didn’t see shirt, it’s cool.” She puts her hand up; “...You okay?”

He looks to the side, forcing his ‘superior’ smirk, “Uhh, yeah, of course! Why wouldn’t I be? Just...having a bit of workplace banter, as they say.”

“Didn’t sound like ‘banter’ to me, dude.” She edges closer, slowly, knowing that if he’s as much like her as she knows, he’s gonna be like a wounded tiger right now.

Getting too close, too quick, is gonna get her eyes clawed out. She would know, she’s swung a few claws herself.

Michael sniffs, struggling to keep his mask on; “M’fine, Eleanor, really. You better go prepare for this Purge or whatever they were talking about, go enjoy yourself or...make sure the others are safe-.”

His words are cut off by her weight falling down onto his lap, arms looping around his neck as she embraces him. Fork it. Screw being slow and steady; the demon was about ready to cry.

“Wha....What are you doing?” Michael stutters, stiffening.

“Hugging you, idiot...Sorry, I mean that affectionately,” She says against his ear.

“W-why?”

She shrugs, still hugging him tight, shuffling on his knees; “’Cause you need it. ‘Cause it’s the quickest way to let you know that all those things those demons said was garbage. Fork, have they always talked to you like that?”

His silence answers her question.

She squeezes him again; “Damn, no wonder you’re as new to this whole friend thing as me.”

“Demons insult each other all the time, Eleanor, it’s how we compliment each other. We’re meant to enjoy it.”

That made zero sense. 

“But you don’t....do you?”

Michael breaths in deep against her. Then she shakes her head, leaning into her shoulder.

“That’s ‘cause I’m a freak...I’m wrong, just like they say...like Shawn says...I’m just a failure of a demon.”

“That’s a good thing in my books, man.” Eleanor pulls back, looking at him, admiringly; “You might be failing as a demon but, I have it on good authority, you are rocking it as a newbie human. And I know you think we’re all gross and stupid but...I know you love us.”

He wrinkles his nose, trying to look as though he denied it, yet refusing to. His eyes gaze into hers, a rush of color brightening his cheeks.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to say it, I know you’re not quite ready there yet.” She knows herself how difficult it is to say those three words, to anyone; “But we’re your friends. We want you on our team, Michael, not just ‘cause it stops you torturing us but...Because you’re a cool guy to be around, when you’re not giving paperclip showers or putting us in purple space bubbles.”

A smile threatened to crack on Michael’s face as he squirmed beneath her. Was it really this easy to make an all-powerful being look so shy and bashful? It was adorable.

She moves her hand up to his cheek, thumb stroking below his eye, reddened with unshed tears.

“Also...I feel kinda obliged to confess something.” She says, “This skin-suit? Your skin-suit? What Vicky said was bull-shirt. All of it. Not only is this suit as much you as whatever demony essence you got going on underneath...But it’s also not bad looking either. I might even go as far to say ‘handsome’. In like a Richard Gere in Pretty Woman way.”

“R-really?” He looks hopeful for a second; “I mean...I know it’s gorgeous, but I wouldn’t expect...I mean I wouldn’t want you - or any human - to ever wanna-.”

She cuts his babbling off again with a kiss on the cheek.

He’s frozen now.

Eleanor grins; “That prove it for you? You know me, I don’t give out pity kisses.”

Michael squirmed again, biting his lip, mumbling something which might have been ‘gross’ or ‘weird food holes’, but he doesn’t move his hands away from where they’ve found the small of her back.

“Hey...how about we do one quick bit of karaoke before we go brief the others on tonight. You can pick the song.” She says, giving his bow-tie the smallest tug.

He smiles, touched, then nods; “Sounds good...”

“Cool. Also, don’t open that drawer on your desk until you’ve properly cheered up - I rigged it with a pie to get thrown in your face as revenge for cheating off my paper earlier!”

“Oh, pies are the best prank! I wish you hadn’t told me now, you’ve spoiled the surprise.”

Eleanor giggles as she takes his hand, leading him to his bud-hole; “You know me, demon buddy. I’m always full of surprises.”

His fingers squeezed hers; “That you are.”

[elareine]

Adamare (1/7)

Read here on ao3.  Tags: Harry Potter AU, Friends to Lovers, Bruce Wayne is a good parent, Friendship, Teenagers, Christmas, First Love, Bullying, blood supremacy 

Summary: Jason starts magic school two years late and with a terrible reputation. To say that his time there isn’t easy would be an understatement. Some people, however, make everything worth it. 

Year One 

“Todd, Jason!” 

Feeling the stares on him as he walked to the front, Jason reminded himself that his clothing was just as new and shiny as everyone else’s here. Of course, that thought then just made him feel ashamed of himself. He’d been Bruce Wayne’s ward for less than five months; he wouldn’t start taking this money for granted, not now, not ever. 

Jason shifted his gait so his sneakers dragged along the ground a bit and his cloak fell open slightly, revealing his favorite hoodie underneath. There. Better. 

The room was silent as he sat down on the chair in the front and lifted the hat onto his head as he had seen other students do. It would sort them into houses, which was weird to Jason but supposedly normal for an English boarding school. Apparently, this school was modeled on a major one in Great Britain. The white upper-class wizards that had been among the first to ‘settle’ the East Coast had sniffed their noses at the school founded by an Irishwoman, of all people, and created one that reminded them of home barely two hundred miles away. 

It was called Schola Artis Magicae, for God’s sake. These people had not been imaginative. 

No. No, I suppose they weren’t. 

Oh, great, the hat was talking to him. How did that even work? Was it telepathy or just a shallow whisper into his ears? 

A curious mind, huh? Brave, too, though. Hm… Do you have a preference? 

Jason had read up on the houses in ‘A History of Magic’ before he came here, but even Alfred hadn’t been able to satisfactorily explain to him what the point was. Dividing children up by allegedly defining characteristics seemed premature to him, not to mention leading to potentially dangerous stereotyping. Why not just go and go by favorite color or something? What was the problem with drawing lots? It was just stupid—

I see. “Ravenclaw!”

Right. That was the blue and bronze table. Jason headed towards under applause that was lukewarm at best. A few students smiled at him, but mostly everyone was occupied with watching the rest of the sorting hat ceremony. 

When it was over, the food appeared. At least Jason had read about this, so he was prepared for this. Still, this was… a lot of food. Even Alfred would disapprove of the waste. Who even made all this? Hopefully, it was just a feast for a special occasion… 

As he ate, Jason looked around. The Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables were behind him, so he focused on the Slytherin one (green and silver). He tried to remember what this house’s supposed defining trait was—cunning? Ambition? Something like that? Honestly, most of them just looked like kids to him. One of them was even tinier than all of the other first years. With a pang of pity, he thought: He’s gonna get eaten. 

Then, another one of the Slytherins said something, and Jason watched as the tiny first year drew himself up and fixed him with a glare so cold Jason was a bit surprised it wasn’t magical and turned the older student into stone. Jesus, where had the kid learned to do that? Jason clearly didn’t need to worry about him. 

Maybe he should worry about himself. None of his fellow first-years had spoken a word to him so far. 

After dinner, their prefect took them up to the tower. The riddle system for the portrait seemed easy to crack to Jason, but maybe that was the point? This was a school, for God’s sake. They were shown their rooms, but when Jason made to follow the other boys inside, the prefect took him aside. “Look, we’re aware you’re in a somewhat… unique situation.” 

Jason just stared at him, saying nothing. 

“And I thought… It just happens that two years ago, only one boy got selected for Ravenclaw. I’ve never been happy about having anyone living alone, so… maybe you’d be more comfortable rooming with someone your own age?” 

Great. Another thing that would make him stand out. Jason wanted to decline, saying he’d be just fine rooming with the eleven-year-olds.

However… looking at the group that was supposed to be his, he counted six people. Jason knew himself well enough to know that living with this many kids would drive him up the wall within a week. Rooming with a single person who hopefully had matured a bit might be more manageable. 

“Okay.” 

The prefect looked relieved. “Great. I already talked to him, he loved the idea. Your dorm is this one, then.” 

The staircase shifted enough to let Jason knock on the small, wooden door. 

“Come in!” a cheerful voice called. 

Jason did. The room was airy and spacious with two four-poster beds and roomy closets, as well as huge floor-to-ceiling windows. A lanky redhead sat on the ground between the beds, a multitude of random items spread around him. The first thing Jason noticed about him was his smile; the second was his hands, incongruously large and calloused for someone who looked like a breeze could topple him over. 

“Uh, hi? I’m supposed to be staying here.” 

The boy got up in a hurry. “Jason, right? Nice to meet you, dude, I’m Roy.” 

“Hey.” Jason gave an awkward little wave. 

“You can put your stuff in there. I’ve been sleeping by the wall, is that alright with you?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Better than, actually. Closed spaces still made Jason antsy. 

While Jason unpacked his things (all the equipment Bruce had bought, some clothes, his favorite books), Roy sat back down on the ground and watched him. “So you’re my age, right?” 

“I guess? I’m thirteen.” 

“How come you’re only starting now?” 

Jason, to his own surprise, appreciated the frank questions. Might as well get it out now. “I was only adopted into a Wizarding family last year.”

“Oh yeah, by the Waynes, right? I know your brother.” 

Well, that made one of them. Dick had been very distant when he’d been home during the summer; Jason had gotten the distinct impression that he’d disapproved of Bruce adopting Jason. The fighting had been hard to miss. 

“Didn’t you get your letter before that, though?” Roy asked curiously. 

Jason shrugged. “Sure. But I had no way to follow up on it.” A kid trying to fend for himself on the streets didn’t have the kind of resource that got him to a magical train station. Not to mention, he wouldn’t have been able to afford a wand, back then. 

Trying to lighten the mood, he added: “I also thought it was a prank. Like, if you’re a muggle, giant owls following you to draft you into a magic school means that you’ve either gone mad, your friends are having a laugh, or someone is trying to kidnap you.” 

Roy snorted. “Fair. Well, you’re here now. Wanna help me build a glitter bomb?” 

Jason took in the equipment surrounding his new roommate. “That’s a lot of stuff for a simple glitter bomb.” 

“The plan might just be to have it follow around the DADA teacher. Have it spell out stuff, maybe.”

“Why the DADA teacher?” 

“She likes making the first-years cry on their first day.” 

Jason thought of the prim blonde sitting at the teacher’s table and plopped down next to Roy. “Can you add sound? I’m thinking ‘Barbie Girl.’” 

Roy held out a hand. “Jason, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” 

Jason shook it gravely. Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad.