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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 8 months ago

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Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Part 9

MASTAPOST

Byleth trembled as the Guard gathered in the barracks later that night. He had been found floating belly up near the top floor after having sounded the alarm.

It wasn’t his fault! T-there was a s-s-SIREN. Right there! In front of him! It looked thin and waspish and starving, and he was sure it was gonna maul him to death right then and there. Did you see the teeth on that thing?! Byleth shuddered. His hand went to cover his gills. Imagine being chomped on the neck by that stuff. The stuff of nightmares.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he wasn’t the only one terrified. Well, that was a little misleading. Byleth stood at attention in line with his fellow guardspeople, awaiting dismissal. The debrief was long and agonising, hearing details about how the siren lurked around unnoticed for hours, but most of his comrades were just irritated, or even disappointed. He glanced to the right, where Ableth was nursing his wounds from trying to tackle the little demon, and he wasn’t even fazed! Like, holy shit. If the siren got that close to him, he’d probably shit his pants right on the spot!

No, the one who was terrified was apparently the local administrator, currently having a ‘conversation�� (more like a shouting match) with their commanding officer out of sight, but definitely not out of earshot.

“It was a child! A baby! Do you even begin, begin to comprehend how bad this makes you, and by extension, me, look?! King Arthur will have our heads! Our heads!”

Their commander audibly sighed (which was a big yikes, considering how patient the guy was even on a bad day). “I understand your concerns, administrator, but this guard have done the best they can. The siren child was armed with weaponry the likes of which we have never seen before, and the raids have been tireless besides.”

“Blah blah blah blah do you even hear yourself? Maybe if you had trained these grunts better they wouldn’t have been out-matched by a toddler!” Byleth took offence to that. He’d like to see the office suit face up against that monster!

“Only one man was hurt, and he’ll be disciplined for his recklessness. The child did not set out to attack anyone, he was only stealing supplies, and fled when resistance appeared. It’s the same story as ever.”

“It sounds like your guards are as incompetent as ever!”

“The sirens have no way to access such advance weaponry. Do you understand what this means? If we don’t speak up, what will we do when a proper war band appears, each bearing these weapons? How many towns will they have razed before your dead spirit will be ready to admit the consequences of this cowardice?”

The administrator sputtered. The ridiculous loss of composure, and the raucous laughter of Byleth’s friends helped sooth the abject terror of a hundred more sirens appearing out of the ravines. By Poseidon spare them!

Line breakening~~

With the adrenaline running low, Damian ran on fumes as he twisted through the ravine, tracing back his fin-strokes to the cave where he’d left Phantom. Against all odds, he found it, and almost cried in relief. Throwing his newly acquired loot to the floor, Damian let his body drop like a cold iron, and passed out.

Danny felt pain. Like, all over. Everything hurt. Normally he’d be able to heal any injuries he got while siren fighting, and what a blessing that was. He wasn’t sure just how dense his parents could be, but he didn’t want to test it. The aching agony all over his body reminded him just how little he ate that morning, and man was he regretting it. Stupid Skulker and his stupid hunting dog dolphins. His stupid hunting doglphins. And stupid Damian for making him come close.

Well, that was a little harsh. He couldn’t blame the kid for believing the dolphin propaganda. They had a tight grip on the world, man.

The smell of blood prickled his nose. Danny shot up, fully awake. “Damian where ar-”

There the kid was, collapsed against the rocky floor of their makeshift hideout. Beside him, bags and satchels spilled out with food, bandages and weapons?! Guilt rocked up Danny’s body. Did Damian go hunting for food while he was unconscious? The kid’s tiny body was littered in bruises, and raw patches where the scales barely healed over. His sail was bent at an awkward angle too. Where the hell did he go?! Where did he get weapons?

No wait. Danny came closer and sniffed the loot closely. You had to be kidding him. There were Atlanteans nearby?! Part of Danny very much doubted the idea that the Atlanteans, probably the number 2 siren haters in the world aside from his parents, would just hand Damian a gift basket if he asked them to. So he stole from them?

Jazz would call this catasrophising, but she wasn’t around, so Danny felt pretty justified in panicking a little. Like, what was he thinking?! The Atlanteans would’ve skewered him without a second thought.

A small whimper caught his attention. Danny’s mental disaster train screeched to a halt. Damian was shivering, violently. Oh right. It was like, midnight or something in a deep ocean ravine. The kid was probably freezing. And if he wasn’t healing, that meant he was low on nutrients, and even lower on body heat.

Right, needed to care for the kid. Crap. He was planning on staying near the surface for most of the trip. A blanket was big and cumbersome and he didn’t have much storage space on him.

But goddammit if he let the kid freeze to death on his behalf. Resigning himself to a fate of being bitten once Damian woke up, Danny picked up the tiny, fragile guppy, and tucked him underneath his fins. As Danny began to eat his fill, he wondered just what kind of person he was going to be swimming across two oceans with, to be brave enough to go out singularly into the unknown…

Damian awoke to the sound of chewing, and gentle purring. He missed Alfred the cat. Poor kitty. He probably missed Damian too. It’s ok, Damian can make it up to him. He’ll give the little kitty all the pets and grooming he could ask for.

A weight settled on his hair, and- oh… oh that was so good. He didn’t know Alfred could pet him too. Maybe this was one of the good endings to his life, one where he’d spend life as a kitten, without a care in the world. That would be so nice, just being there and safe and warm. The hand stroked and straightened his hair, and it snaked down to where his ears were and scratched them. It was pure heaven. Damian thought that such a place would be forever closed off to him, but maybe the world had decided to be kind…?

“Woah, you’re actually lowkey super adorable like this.” Alfred said. Why did Alfred the cat sound like a pasty-faced teenage boy? He’d always imagined him like the real Alfred: prim, proper, distinguished.

“You sound strange, Alfred.” Damian mumbled. The hand scratched his ear again, and Damian’s purring intensified. “Please return to your proper voice at once.”

“Dude, I have no idea who that is.”

Nonsense. Damian had named his cat after a very distinguished man, and let him know it every time he saw him. How could he not know his own name?

“That is preposterous. You are Alfred the cat, my esteemed pet and loyal member of the family.”

Aflred the cat snorted. He snorted. “Oh my god that is so gold. I’m going to hold this over you literally until you grow old and wrinkly.”

Damian felt… offended. That was so mean! Why would Alfred the cat say such a thing, to him, Damian, his owner and friend! Damian always made sure to treat his pets with the care and respect they deserved, and this is what he got!?

“B-bad kitty. You will be disciplined.”

And Alfred the cat just kept laughing! Alright, the air of relaxation evaporated as Damian started getting annoyed. He opened his eyes, ready to teach his wayward cat some manners when-

The last 24 hours caught up again. Before him was not Alfred the cat, as he had thought, but Phantom completely healthy again, lying on his back, laughing his heart out. Almost literally, too. Damian watched as Phantom’s still beating heart, and water-filled lungs bounced and jiggled inside his chest cavity with each half-choked laugh. It was mesmerizing, and kind of nauseating.

Suddenly Damian couldn’t find it in himself to be angry, just an overwhelming feeling of relief.

“Phantom!” He cried out, voice almost cracking. Phantom tackled him into a hug, and Damian only put up a token resistance. It just felt so… right. “You are… You have recovered from your injuries.”

“It’s Danny, actually.” Phantom, er- Danny, said, voice soft, quiet. Almost vulnerable… “Danny Phantom. Most people just know the Phantom part.”

Danny… Daniel…. “I was foolish. I should not have ignored your warnings. Forgive me, Daniel.”

“Hey now, don’t you start picking up the Fruitloop’s habits. It’s never Daniel. Just Danny. Daniel’s a randomass human name, but Danny’s mine.”

“It does not change the fact that it sounds like a nickname. I… I do not do nicknames.” Damian said. Normally he paraded this fact as a matter of pride. With Richard, Drake, even Kent. Now, with Daniel encompassing his body in warmth, he felt strangely small.

“And I don’t do self-deprecation. So what about a deal? I’ll forgive you, if you promise to call me Danny.” The older boy said, voice leaving no room for argument. And yet, the playful tone underneath it gave Damian something akin to comfort. The way Richard did in the early days, despite Damian’s barbs and open threats.

“Very well, D-Danny.” Damian forced out. The name felt alien on his tongue. “This is a privilege few can boast to.”

Daniel- no, Danny, chuckled again. “You sound like a kid saying a swear for the first time and they’re really scared of being caught.”

“I am not a child.” He was never allowed to be.

“You are crazy though. And reckless. And that’s coming from me!”

Ah, so Danny figured it out. “You noticed the smell of Atlantean.”

“What were you thinking? They hate sirens. With a capital H.”

“I will not apologise for my actions in there. You needed food. It was my own poor judgement that got you injured, so it was my responsibility to rectify that.”

Danny was quiet for a moment. “I’m really trying to channel that ‘angry because I’m worried about you’ energy that my sister does, but you’re making it really difficult. Now I just feel bad.”

“They posed no threat to me. It was an easy operation.” Damian said. Danny sighed again.

“What am I gonna do with you? Outside of taking you home, that is.”

“For one, you could unhand me.” Damian’s words were hollow, even to him.

“And let you freeze to death? No chance. Now come on. The sun’s about to rise, and you need your breakfast.”

“Have you eaten enough yourself?” It would not do to let this foolish teenager hurt himself for Damian’s sake again.

“Dude, I’m like triple your size and age right now. It’s my job to be worrying over you.” Damian harrumphed.

It felt nice to be cared for again.

LINE BREAK BABY

Bruce hung up the phone. Dick was about ready to riot, and the others were on a wire-thin line too. It was one of the most exhausting calls he’d done in his life, but it had to be done. He wasn’t going to leave his family in the dark, not after Jason.

It wasn’t just he who had potentially lost a son, however. In his hours of maddened searching, he’d glossed over the fact that the son of local siren hunters, the Drs Fenton, had also gone missing. Tim was already on the case, sifting through thousands of hours of CCTV footage to analyse the kid’s behaviour of the course of the last six weeks. Two unrelated boys going missing at the same time. And one boy had been displaying suspicious behaviour for months before hand. Something was up.

And so Bruce straightened his tie. He refused to wear any form of black. Not now, not yet, while there was still hope to be clung to. His trip to Fentonworks was in part to share condolences, and in part to investigate. Wherever Damian was, the clues lay somewhere surrounding Daniel Fenton.

He just hoped Damian had to be ok. If this hope died, Bruce felt like he might die with it.

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pickleking8 · 1 year ago

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Adoption Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be -- Chapter Two

This is chapter two to ‘that one fic idea I had’! I really enjoyed writing this one. It’s my first time writing a fic, and I’m having a lot of fun. This chapter is from Jazz’s POV. This is mostly just set up, the next chapter should be when the plot actually gets going.

Words: 1,085

Ao3 Link

First -- Next -- Masterpost

TW: blood, vivisection, neglectful/abusive parents

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Jasmine Fenton was panicking. She was definitely, surely, without a doubt panicking. Her breathing was quickened, she was close to crying, her hands were shaking, and her baby brother was bleeding out in the back seat of her scrappy old car. Danny, her sweet, kind, dead baby brother was bleeding Christmas colors in the back seat of her car. Yeah, she was panicking.

“It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay, I’ll protect you, I won’t let anyone hurt you again, okay, you’ll be safe - safe - okay?” She was only vaguely aware of whispering this, over and over again, throwing as many reassurances as she could at Danny, whose eyes were squeezed shut and whose breath was coming out ragged and hitched.

She needed to think. What was she going to do now? She needed a plan. Yes. A plan, that’s what she needed. Baby steps. She’s got this. Okay, first, where to go? What city has enough ectoplasm to both sustain Danny and hide his signature? In what city will no one notice, or care, if two teenagers show up and start living on their own? Gotham, of course. Dark, gloomy, and hidden. She could protect her brother there. Accelerating, she made several questionable driving choices and steeled herself for the long ride to Gotham that would surely be filled with worry and regret.

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Jazz heaved a deep sigh as Gotham’s signature skyline came into view. Grand gothic architecture with solemn gargoyles and sweeping rooftops. It was as beautiful as she was pretty sure it was cursed. Danny’s breathing in the backseat was slow and shallow. It was much slower than a normal human’s but fairly regular for Danny. His brow was furrowed in his sleep, a perpetual grimace of pain evident on his face. Jazz quickly turned her eyes back to the plastic-littered road, both to avoid crashing in the worsening traffic and to avoid the swell of emotion that rose looking at her baby brother. Her baby brother, whom she had sworn to protect, and whom she had failed so miserably. She shook her head, trying to dispel those thoughts before they overtook her. She failed at this too, the images of Danny sprawled out on a clinical metal table, his chest dominated by a gaping incision and the rest of his skin mottled with bruises, swam in front of her eyes like persistent flies. The way his blood reflected the fluorescent green light from those buzzing (so, so much buzzing. Everything seemed to buzz) light bulbs in the basement. She never wants to look at that shade of green again.

It’s too neon, she thinks, too bright, too green, too much of it in her brother’s blood that was not inside his body, where it really should be.

She’s in shock, she thinks. Yes, she’s in shock. She remembers the psychology books she’s read describing trauma response. She’s in shock. She has all the symptoms. This is bad, though. If she’s in shock then she can’t think straight and if she can’t think straight then she can't protect Danny! She needs to protect Danny. She needs to. Jazz swears, she won’t let anything bad happen to her brother ever again. Never, ever, ever, ever. He’ll be safe, she’ll make sure of it, she’ll protect him, she’ll do better, she’ll be everything he needs, and she will damn well rain destruction on anyone who tries to hurt her sweet, precious Danny who’s already been so broken by the world. She’ll do anything.

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Jazz pulls up to a hotel with a flickering neon sign (not neon, anything but neon, she can’t handle neon) and a door that squeals in protest when asked, even politely, to open. The clerk, a tired and raggedy looking young man, doesn’t question Jazz’s request for their most out of the way (and cheapest) room. Doesn’t question Jazz’s poor attempts to hide Danny and the alarming amount of blood he’s covered in. Doesn’t even question finding Jazz in the employee break room, holding their only first aid kit behind her back with a desperate look on her face. Simply raises an eyebrow and turns back around. Jazz is grateful.

Back in their foul-smelling room about half an hour later, Jazz ties off the bandages now cocooning Danny’s chest and finally allows herself to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s okay, they’re safe, Danny will be okay, she will be okay. She can figure this out. They can stay in this hotel for a couple of days, maybe a week, before she can find some cheap apartment to stay in. She can get a job. She… won’t be able to go to college. Get her degree in psychology, like she always dreamed. She can’t. She’ll need the money she saved up just to survive, to take care of Danny, and anyway, enrolling in university would let the Fentons know exactly where they were.

Only nineteen and your dreams are already in the toilet. Her thoughts continue to scream at her, and she smiles bitterly, but it’s really more of a grimace that makes her tired eyes seem even more hollow.

She shouldn’t be thinking like that. Danny’s hurt, Danny’s more important. She’ll figure it out. She’ll change her name. Talk it over with Danny first, see what he likes, but they’ll change their name. She certainly doesn’t want to be a Fenton anymore, and she doubts Danny does either. She can take online classes. Eventually. Yeah, she can do this. Running a hand through her carrot-orange hair, she sighs for what must have been the thousandth time that day.

It is only when she feels her tears dripping off her chin that she realizes she is crying. They start as silent tears dribbling down her face, and then morph into hiccups and little hitches in her breath and the tears begin to fall more steadily, and before she knows it she is doubled over heaving big, gut-wrenching sobs. She cries, for herself, for her broken dreams, for her broken life. She cries for Danny and how small he looks, curled up on a dirty, bare mattress. She cries for the bandages around his chest and for the pain they’ve both known. And she cries for a very long time. Eventually, the tears stop and her cheeks dry, and she is left sitting in the corner of a shitty hotel room, hair askew and head in her hands, deafened by the silence and quieted by the rasping breaths she and her brother draw.

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I would appreciate constructive criticism, thank you for reading!

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Next -- Masterpost

#Danny Phantom #jazz fenton #BatFam #Jason Todd #Red Hood #Batman #Tw blood #Tw vivisection #Tw experimentation #Yayyyy second chapter!#i'm proud of myself #please give me constructive criticism #dpxdc #dcxdp #dpxdc crossover

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fangirlwriting-stories · 1 year ago

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Late Night Waiting

Summary: No One Knows AU Part 5, After everyone has been waiting for a couple of nerve-wracking hours, Sam and Tucker finally show up at the police station.

...

Danny wishes he could feel better about having a night off from grounding. But at this point he’s been stuck in the police station for hours and Jazz hasn’t even managed to distract anyone for long enough that he can slip out and figure out what’s going on as Phantom, which would be much more efficient and more likely to solve the actual problem.

Instead, he’s answered the police’s questions about where he saw Sam and Tucker last (at school, like almost every other day since he’s gotten back), and spent the past three hours pacing back and forth in the room they’ve been given to wait in. Sam’s parents are talking quietly together in one corner, Tucker’s parents are sitting silently in the other, and his family is sitting in the middle, talking about which ghost most likely did this and how best to go after them.

The one time Danny had gone to the bathroom to try and slip away, his dad had insisted on coming with him and waiting outside the door. Something about waiting to make sure he’s safe while they don’t know what’s going on.

Give this much longer and Danny’s secret identity might slip down the ranks in priorities.

His brain can’t stop coming up with ways he could have prevented this. Sam and Tucker’s parents called at dinnertime, he should have done some kind of patrol before then. He should have insisted on spending the night with Sam and Tucker, grounding be damned. He should have run out to look for Sam and Tucker the second they called, who cared how worried his parents would be when they saw he was missing again too?

It doesn’t matter, because Sam and Tucker could be hurt. A ghost could have captured them, and he could be contacted any second with some kind of ransom, or threat, or worse. Fuck, worse. If Sam and Tucker don’t make it back he’ll never forgive himself—

“Danny,” Jazz says, cutting into his thoughts. “Come sit down.”

“No thanks I’m good,” Danny says in one breath, spinning around to walk to the other way.

“Danny.” Jazz reaches out and grabs his hand, then pulls him down onto the chair next to her. “Stop catastrophizing. It’s not your fault.”

“But— I could have—”

“Jazz is right, honey,” Mom says, reaching around Jazz to squeeze his hand with a smile. “There isn’t anything you could have done.”

“As much as I loathe to admit it,” Sam’s mother says with an irritated sigh, before her face surprisingly softens. “Your mother’s right. You don’t need to beat yourself up over this, Danny. You couldn’t have helped by doing anything differently.”

She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew, hisses the voice in Danny’s head.

Jazz catches his gaze and gives him a knowing look.

Danny shakes the voice away.

He leans heavily against Jazz’s side and pushes his hands over his face, and Jazz wraps her arms around him. “It’s gonna be okay,” she murmurs. She lowers her voice further. “Worst case scenario, you slip away when all the adults fall asleep and I cover for you.”

Danny nods weakly, then sits back and tries to breathe.

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. Because after about four hours of sitting there, when his dad has just fallen asleep across several chairs and Danny is debating trying the bathroom again, the door opens and a police officer pokes appears in the entrance.

“They’re here,” he says, and Danny is rushing for the door before he can get any other words out.

Sam and Tucker are both talking to an officer across the main room of the precinct, and both of them have barely turned and spotted him when Danny reaches them and throws his arms around their shoulders.

“Oh my god holy fuck are you okay,” he says, squeezing them tightly before pulling back and looking them over for injuries. He doesn’t see anything life threatening or anything that looks too badly injured thank god, but he pats them down anyway, gently but firmly, checking for any strange lumps or obvious breaks.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, I— are you okay are you hurt where does it hurt I don’t know why I’m asking that I can’t actually do anything I’m not a doctor, I— are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay,” he says, looking desperately back up at their faces. He finds them both staring at him, at an obvious loss of what to say.

“Young man,” a police officer says before any of them can say anything else. He reaches out and pulls Danny back, away from Sam and Tucker. “Please step back. I understand this is difficult for everyone but we all need to remain calm.”

“Samantha!” comes her mother’s voice, and all of them turn just in time to see her mother rush past the officer to Sam and start doing the exact same injury pat-down that Danny did.

Sam groans in obvious irritation and takes a step back.

“We’re fine,” she says, glaring at her mom. “Honestly. We’re not hurt.”

“Oh thank heavens,” her mother says, pulling Sam back in for a hug, and causing another annoyed groan from Sam.

Danny lets out a sigh, looking down in relief. Now that it’s clear that Sam and Tucker are at least mostly okay, most of the nerves that have been building up around his shoulders relax, and suddenly he just feels exhausted.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and turns to see Jazz giving him a reassuring smile, which he returns, albeit shakily.

The police finally managed to get everyone to stand back from Sam and Tucker, at least enough that they could continue asking them what happened.

Unfortunately, they’re still close enough to hear everything, meaning Danny’s close enough to hear Sam say, “We got captured by a ghost,” and all of his nerves leap back into his shoulders.

“He didn’t hurt us,” Sam says, waving off the officer’s next question. “Seemed like he just wanted to scare us. He actually got distracted pretty easily, and that’s how we managed to slip away.”

Okay, so probably someone harmless like The Box Ghost if they got away that easily. They probably weren’t in any real danger in a way that Danny was actually 100% necessary to be there for.

…That does not help.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Danny asks, drawing both of their gazes. They look wary, probably because everyone here is still more than a little on edge. “Ghosts are no joke.”

“You got that right,” Dad says from over his shoulder. “You both are going to have to come back with us tonight to get a full check over from the professionals.”

“No,” Sam says quickly, at the same time her mom says “Absolutely not.”

Probably a smart move, honestly. His parents tended to look for the wrong things, and a lot of their tests tended to be painful in some way. Danny can keep an eye on Sam and Tucker for the next couple days, while trying to not let the guilt eat him alive.

“I’m in agreement there,” Tucker’s mom says, stepping forward. “You two both sound like you’ve had a very long night, you need to go home and get some rest.”

“Absolutely a good idea,” Jazz says, trying to send a knowing look at their parents (of which only time would tell how successful it was). “Sleep is important after an upsetting experience, especially if it’s past midnight.”

“Jazz has a point, honey,” Mom says, putting a reassuring hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Just come by in the next couple days, you two. We’ll make sure nothing’s wrong.”

Danny sighs, dropping his head into his hands. That’s still not going to be helpful, but that’s probably the best they’re going to get from his parents that night.

“Uh, we’ll see,” Sam says, in a tone that means ‘I doubt it,’ and Danny can’t blame her. She turns to her parents. “Can we just go home now?”

“We still have questions,” one of the nearby officers says.

“We already told you everything, and I want to go home and sleep,” Sam says. “It’s been a very long day.”

The officer sighs. “Alright, but we might come find you with follow up questions in the next couple of days.”

“Fine,” Sam snaps, and she grabs her mom’s arm and starts tugging her towards the door. Sam’s dad follows shortly after.

Danny can’t help but laugh a little bit. Sam being just as annoyed with authority as usual is probably a good sign.

“Yeah, I want to go home too,” Tucker says quietly, and starts for the door without any fanfare. Before he leaves, however, he stops in front of Danny. He doesn’t look at him though, instead watching Sam.

Danny turns to watch her too, wondering what Tucker sees. But as soon as Sam walks out the front door and steps out of sight, Tucker turns and wraps his arms around Danny.

Danny gives a sound of surprise, muffled by Tucker’s cheek smushing against his face.

Tucker pulls back a second later. “Sorry,” he mumbles, looking down. “I just… I had to do that.”

Danny just gives him a warm smile in return. “Hey, if you want to talk about it, you can tell me anything,” he says quietly, with what’s hopefully the right level of a joking tone.

Tucker smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It barely reaches his mouth.

Danny doesn’t push, since that’s a bad idea especially now, and a couple seconds later, Tucker turns back to his parents and nods to the door, and all three of them walk out.

“Alright,” Jazz says, drawing Danny and his parents’ attention. “We should go home too.”

“I agree,” Mom says, as the four of them all start moving towards the door. “It’s been a very long night, and you both still have school in the morning.”

“What?” Danny asks. “Don’t we get to stay home? These are extenuating circumstances and all that!”

“Sam and Tucker are the ones who got captured by ghosts, not you two,” Mom says, raising an eyebrow. “And you can’t afford to miss any more class, Danny.”

Danny grumbles something incomprehensible under his breath, though he’s thinking about how he didn’t get time off when he was kidnapped. It doesn’t matter that it’s entirely his fault for using running away as a cover story, the universe is still being unfair. Especially considering he’s exhausted enough that he feels himself falling asleep on the car ride back.

When he gets home, however, he shakes himself awake, and after telling his parents goodnight, he heads up to his room and transforms.

He opens the window and is about to fly out when the door opens behind him, and he spins around, heart leaping into his throat.

Thankfully, Jazz is the one who stands in the doorway.

“And what exactly makes you think that’s a good idea?” she asks, shutting the door behind her.

Danny lets out a breath of relief and slumps back against the wall. “Don’t do that, Jazz, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

“Danny,” Jazz says, crossing her arms. “Patrolling isn’t a good idea right now.”

“Why not? Clearly I should have been patrolling earlier.”

“Well, because you need to sleep for one, and for two, I don’t want you going out there stewing in your own head and making yourself feel even worse.”

Danny looks away, trying to disguise it as a glare. “Sam and Tucker—”

“Are fine. They’re not even a little hurt, and got away themselves without any needed help. You, on the other hand, need rest. Mom already said you’re still going to school tomorrow.”

Danny forces himself to look back at Jazz. “I’m not gonna be able to sleep until I know everyone is safe, Jazz.”

“Everyone is safe, Danny. Your ghost sense would go off or there’d be some kind of news alert if there was something you needed to take care of. And if the news alert was happening Mom and Dad would wake up the whole house rushing off to help with it.”

Danny looks down. She has a point. And he can practically feel himself falling asleep standing here.

“Go to sleep, Danny. There’s nothing else you can do tonight. If tomorrow Sam and Tucker are at school you can talk to them and see if there’s ways you can help, and I’ll help you out there too. But tonight the most helpful thing you can do is get some sleep.”

Danny sighs, and glares more lightheartedly up at Jazz. “I hate it when you’re right,” he says, prefaced with sticking out his tongue.

“You’re gonna hate most of the things I say, then,” Jazz says with a smug smile.

Danny rolls his eyes and shuts the window. He turns back into Danny Fenton and moves over to his dresser to pull some pajamas out, then casts a glance back at Jazz. “Alright, now get out. Neither of us want you here for this part.”

It’s Jazz’s turn to roll her eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, turning to leave. “But hey, I’m really proud of you, you know.”

Danny scoffs despite himself. “I didn’t even do anything tonight.”

“I’m proud of how much you care, you dork,” Jazz says, crossing her arms with a fond smile. “It’s obvious how much Sam and Tucker mean to you, that’s all. And I’m proud of how much you do for them, and everyone.”

“Uh, whatever,” Danny says, looking away and crossing his arms. “You don’t have to get all sappy about it.”

“You can’t stop me from getting all sappy about it,” Jazz says, sounding smug again, and she leaves and shuts the door before Danny can say anything else.

Danny sighs, but he has a slight smile on his face as he changes into pajamas and climbs into bed.

And it’s honestly annoying the level of right that Jazz is, because he falls asleep almost immediately.

#danny fenton #jazz fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #pamela manson #jeremy manson #jack fenton #maddie fenton #angela foley #maurice foley #i didn't even know those two's names #the no one knows au tag doesn't really apply for this series anymore #so i'm gonna start calling it #everyone knows au #because that's the problem #okay? okay #my fic

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merv606 · 11 months ago

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“I do need someone recommending that Daniel offer up his 🍑 to Terry. It’s the only way to truly save the soul of the valley lol”

I kinda have a NHE/dark-ish version of this plot in mind in which Amanda doesn’t leave Daniel but tells him to give up Miyagi-Do for good and get Cobra Kai out of their lives or she’s divorcing him.

When he tells Silver he wins, he’s walking away and he can have the Valley, he tells him “they’re way past waving the white flag.”

However — he’s willing to shut down CK for good. He can have his precious Miyagi-Do, and he’ll give Johnny Lawrence full control and ownership over CK… if Daniel sleeps with him.

Horrified Daniel tells him he’s crazy and rejects his offer, but Terry tells him he’ll “let him sleep on it… no pun intended.”

When he tells Amanda Silver’s demands, she coldly tells him to do it — this is his fault, he made this mess and he’ll do whatever he has to do to end this and keep their kids safe.

Stunned, and beyond hurt, he accepts Terry’s offer. Terry keeps his promise and hands CK over to Johnny Lawrence. All Miyagi-Do students are safe and off-limits.

Afterwards Daniel slaps a shocked Amanda with divorce papers. He can’t even look at her after what she did. To his shock, the kids support him (Samantha overheard their conversation, and neither will tell him they know what Amanda wanted him to do.)

Should he end up back in Terry’s bed is anyone’s guess…

This is kind of similar to the idea that - when his business was in danger, instead of the girl he saved helping him out, we find out that Silver owns the company and he is more than willing to help his Danny-boy - for a price.

Given Daniel’s self sacrificing nature he’s “willing” but he doesn’t want to cheat but Amanda agrees and gives him the go ahead.

The business means so much to them after all.

Daniel is a thirty year itch that Terry intends to scratch.

And Daniel, who convinced himself that he no longer had feelings for Terry - he was Daniel’s bi awakening we’ll say - is proven to be so very wrong on that. Everything he had buried comes roaring back to life.

In this story, I like the idea that Terry is gentle and a great lover - some of the best sex Daniel has had.

Which surprises Daniel to absolutely no end.

It would throw him for a loop - he would expect violence, pain (what he associates with Terry), and maybe humiliation/degradation.

That he could rally against - mount a defence against.

But gentle touches and loving words - Terry worshiping him - that he doesn’t know what to do with.

I am, above all, a sucker for a happy ending / even if the happy comes from you convincing yourself you are.

Finding it within the confines of an inevitable situation.

#ask #I got an ask 🤩#cobra kai #daniel larusso #karate kid #terry silver #silverusso #silverrusso #mercy is a sharp knife

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oldblackhat · 1 year ago

Text

It’d be really funny if they offered a Young Justice spot to Phantom and he’s like I’m too busy but here’s my little sister!

And then Ellie’s like “yeah my brothers too busy between court responsibilities, being local hero in his mom’s town, and going to school in his human identity he just doesn’t really have time to be on a permanent team but like he can be called in for big stuff and we can try to get dad for really major stuff…but me Im the spare I got loadsa free time cause my presence is almost always optional”

And Danny protests “you’re not a spare”

“What I’m sooo important to ghost politics”

“…You’re important to me”

“It’s fine you know I hate politics” turns back to the JL “it works out really I like my freedom, to travel and fight, but ghost politics are a big snooze so its all good that I’m only rarely required to attend. Poor D really he’s the one who has it rough - often called into meetings and stuff being oldest and all”

And Danny and Ellie just keeping up this ruse and dynamic of the Heir and the Spare for kicks.

(Of course whats funny is there keeping up this ruse but really besides Danny being King not Heir it’s bot a lie - he really is required more for court stuff then Ellie being King Prince and all)

And Ellie throws in privately some to Young Justice or Leaguers comments about how Danny doesn’t really like politics much either but what can you do he’s oldest he has responsibilities and expectations, about how he had to call in sick to school to attend some ghost meeting and that cant be great for his GPA. And when someone questions why the court’s fine with hurting his GPA “oh well a lot of ghosts *cough*Observants*cough* don’t really understand why he’s insisting on getting a human school diploma its not like he’ll need it to hold a ghost position, you know his future after school is kinda set good thing to because between heroing Amity Park and court responsibilities his GPA is abysmal so how likely is his getting into human college anyway.

Maybe Danny also lets off some steam about this to Young Justice at some point and Red Robin mentions it to Batman

Maybe a reference to his responsibilities increasing once he graduates and on an unrelated note I’d love to get an astrophysics masters GPA permitting. And they also here how excited he gets talking about space (he just lights up! So animated! His freckles almost seem to shine too!) compared to when he talks about ghost politics meetings he’s attended lately. If anyone asks if he likes those meetings he’s like “i’m oldest (shrug) what can you do”

And word gets back to Superman (if he’s not already in the room) and he offers to tutor him more often because damn it he ought to be able to do school (including college) if he wants royal or not! A person - even those with predetermined careers - ought to have some control over there loves and get to do some things just for them. Phantom’s getting that astrophysics masters!

And maybe Batman or Superman mention to the Ghost King next time they see him that his kid ought to have some weight taken off of him and allowed to be a kid a little more - there’s plenty of time later for more responsibilities and the King just sighs like “I know I’ll try” or “its not really me the advisors push for his presence I’ll try again to reign it in” or “I was unaware just how much pressure he’s feeling thank you” (internally Danny just scrambling to seem adultish)

And later maybe Danny makes some off hand ticked off teenage comment about ratting out his little complaints to his dad and to kindly keep out of this you don’t know our dynamic please

Oh! Also at least once when things are really getting hairy Phantom slips out and the Ghost King comes back and later Danny or Ellie explain that protocol/tradition dictates a member of the royal family is always on call in the realms and since Danny’s oldest when the Kings in Earth then Danny probably has to go be Prince in the Realms. At least one joke about tag teaming is made at some point

Wow this got a lot longer than I expected lmao

Just fake court dynamics to me with people - but really the realities not that different so they also get to vent some fr

Short DPXDC Prompts #837

Danny was just relaxing doing his homework on the moon. (It was quiet and had minimal distractions. Perfect for studying). He didn’t expect to see anyone during his studying but after seeing movement out of the corner of his eye he went to check it out. To his surprise: Superman was just sitting on the moon looking down at earth. Chilling.

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five-rivers · 2 years ago

Text

Life's Great Lie 7

It was early in the morning when she got the call. Sixish. The other numbers on the clock didn’t register to her.

“Hey,” said Tucker, “guess what government agency I just hacked.”

Sam sat up, all traces of sleep gone. Her hand curled around the wing of the nearest stuffed bat. “You found him?”

“Sort of. Ever hear of SHIELD?”

“No,” said Sam. “Is it part of the GIW?” Ever since the Fentons came back without Danny and locked themselves in Fentonworks, that had been her biggest fear.

“I found them through the GIW, but they seem to be partitioned pretty well, along with something called HYDRA…”

“What, like World War Two HYDRA?”

“You know them?”

“They were one of Hitler’s science divisions,” said Sam. “They… My great-grandparents were rescued from one of their camps by Captain America.”

Tucker paused. “Funny you should mention Captain America,” he said, the words almost tumbling over each other. “Because apparently, he works for SHIELD. Or with SHIELD? It’s a little unclear, actually. I’m not sure he’s getting paid.”

“Focus, Tucker,” said Sam. “How is Danny involved?”

“He’s been mind controlled by an evil clown.”

“What? Freakshow?”

“No, this one’s green and Norse god themed. Loki. Has a scepter, too, though, which is a weird coincidence. And he’s from space.”

“An evil green clown from outer space is mind controlling Danny?” That was… an eclectic bundle of traits, even for them. Like someone had thrown darts at a board of character concepts. Or took Freakshow, swapped his palette and made him an alien.

At least it wasn’t the GIW.

“And making him fight Iron Man and Captain America in… Germany. Stuttgart, Germany. Oh, this is live.”

“You have eyes on him?” She swung her feet over the side of her bed and reached for her laptop.

“Electronic ones, but yeah. Gotta love the body cam trend. I’m sending you the footage on a secure link, but I’ll have to delete it, after. I don’t want to show up if they investiga—”

Sam, having just clicked on the link, swore. “He’s human, Tucker.”

“Yep, I know.”

“He’s fighting them as a human. That means they know who he is.”

“Yeah.”

Clearly, the problem with that wasn’t clicking for him. “That means they know who we are.”

“Crap,” said Tucker. “Plan?”

“Not much we can do to help Danny, but… He didn’t hurt anyone in that fight. Not seriously.”

“I think Captain America cleared thirty feet on that throw, so…”

“Captain America’s abilities are well documented. He’ll live. I think Danny is fighting this, or at least working around it. We can’t trust SHIELD if they’re associated with the GIW and HYDRA, even a little bit, so… We need to find out where they keep prisoners, in case they catch Danny, and figure out how to stay away from them. They’re going to come looking for us eventually.”

There was a tapping sound from the other side of the line. “Ghost weapons will only get us so far.”

“Yeah,” agreed Sam. “Secret government agency versus two teens armed with weapons that only hurt dead people. Three, if Jazz gets back soon. Not much math there.”

“Objection. The Fenton Anti-Creep Stick can hurt a wide variety of people.”

“It’s just a baseball bat with the name Fenton painted on it in phase-proof paint. Not much good against bullets.” She knelt on the floor and reached under her bed. After a moment of groping, she pulled out a thermos. “I have an idea, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Is it some variation of sneak over to Germany and hit Danny with the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick until he snaps out of it?”

“We don’t even know if that will work,” said Sam. “It didn’t with Freakshow.”

“We couldn’t even hit him when he was with Freakshow.”

“You think that’s changed? No. Even if he can’t go ghost for some reason, he actually knows how to dodge now. I was thinking about a trip to the museum.”

“You’re right, I don’t like it.”

“It’s the best weapon we have access to, and I trust you.”

“I don’t trust me. Besides, do you really think that a second mind control scepter is the thing we need right now?”

“We need something.”

Tucker sighed. “How are we even going to get it? It’s in a museum.”

“I haven’t been able to empty the thermos since Danny’s parents came back. It’s almost full.”

“Oh, no,” said Tucker.

Releasing the Box Ghost (among other sundry minor animal and blob ghosts) into the museum caused a predictable amount of chaos, especially when the staff sprinted into back rooms and downstairs to protect the archives. They still used boxes and crates for that, here. Rookie move.

“Come on,” said Sam, making sure her hoodie was on and her blaster was primed. Tucker, with his PDA and ‘ghost noise’ generator, followed behind. With all their precautions, they’d hopefully wouldn’t be identifiable on the security cameras.

Duulaman’s Scarab Scepter sat in the display case in front of them. She raised her blaster and fired. The glass broke.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Tucker, hand hovering in front of him.

“Yeah, but we can try something else if you’re really worried about it. You stopped yourself last time. You controlled it.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker. He swallowed. “Okay. I’ve got this.”

He picked up the staff, and the museum dissolved in a whirl of sand. They were standing on top of a dune, pyramids in the distance. Tucker’s fingers looked bloodless from the stress of his grip.

“Tucker,” said Sam, cautiously.

“It’s okay,” said Tucker. “I can do this. Just. Give me a second.”

The sand swirled again, and they were in Tucker’s bedroom. He dropped the staff with a gasp. A fine layer of sand drifted to the floor.

“That was,” he said, “something. I could.” He covered his mouth with one hand. “I could take us to Germany,” he said, voice harsher than usual.

“We don’t know if Danny is still there,” said Sam.

“R- Right,” said Tucker. “I need to—I need to sit down.”

Mrs. Foley’s voice rose from downstairs. “What agency did you say you worked with again, Mr. Coulson?”

#danny phantom #op!danny x marvel #dp/marvel crossover #dannymay

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dp-marvel94 · 3 years ago

Text

Asking for Death

Note: So forever ago, @ectoblood and I had a conversation about a clone asking Danny to kill him and discussed, if a Danny clone would feel imperfect because he doesn’t share the same interests and dreams as his original? I actually expanded a little on those ideas from these two posts so have a ficlet.

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net

Daniel knows he was imperfect. It’s obvious; Father made that abundantly clear. The boy knows he was cloned from someone named Danny. And the older half ghost made it clear; he looked just like Danny and had all his powers. But that wasn’t enough. Father wants a better version of this Danny, someone who is a loving and obedient son but also with the personality and interests of the original. Perfect son, Father says, holding up this idealized version of the clone. He is to be the perfect son.

Father notices the difference and the man does not like it. He’s deeply dissatisfied because how dare his ‘perfect son’ not meet all of his expectations. His ideals t hat no one, not a clone or even the original Danny, could ever meet.

Father tries to force him in that direction. Daniel is a clone so of course, he likes space and video games and horror movies like his original. Daniel wants to be a good son, a perfect son. He really does. And he tries. He tries everything that Father offers him. And Daniel finds he likes some things that Danny does and doesn’t like other things. The clone also finds he has some of his own interests and dreams. He would rather watch birds in the garden than the stars. He’s rather draw than play video games. And horror movies...they scar him. He’d rather watch musicals.

Soon he’s always yelling at Daniel for some reason.

“Say yes sir, when you address me!”

“I… yes, Father. Sir.”

“I told you to clean the kitchen an hour ago. Why is it not done?!”

“I...I apologize, sir. I’ll...I’ll do that right now.”

“You call that an ecto energy attack? Pathetic!”

“Allow...allow me to try again. I will do better, please.”

He’s not obedient enough or powerful enough. He’s ungrateful, too quiet, too timid.

“Why do you never use the telescope I bought you?!”

“I...I have been busy with my studies. But...Tonight. Father, sir.”

Daniel never geeks out about space. The clone actually likes reading and birdwatching and hiking. He’s quieter and more thoughtful than his original.

All this burns in Vlad’s mind, his anger rising. How dare his perfect son behave like this? He was to be a perfect copy, in body and mind, yet perfectly loyal to his maker.

And for Daniel, all he wants is to make his Father happy. Maybe Father will be happy with him if he acts more like the person that Father wants him to be. So he tries to make himself like the things that Danny does and pretends to enjoy Danny’s interests. But he’s miserable, because space and horror movies don’t make him happy like reading in the garden and watching the birds does. He tries to be more outgoing and outspoken but that’s just not him. And Vlad can see that the clone is just putting on an act, trying to be more like Danny but failing (because he’s not Danny!).

So Vlad gets increasingly angry and dissatisfied because his ‘perfect’ son isn’t perfect. Vlad yells at him because he’s wrong, broken, a mistake, imperfect.

“Why should I even bother to keep a mistake like you around?”

“I… Father. Please. I’ll do better.”

“Be silent.”

“Father?”

“Never call me that again! Nothing as broken and imperfect as you deserves the privilege of calling me that. I am your Master, boy.”

“But-”

“I AM YOUR MASTER.”

“Yes… yes sir, Master.”

And Daniel believes him because Vlad is his Father, no, his Master and his Master has to be correct. If he was just more like Danny, then the man would love him. But he can’t be more like Danny. He’s not Danny and he’ll never be, no matter how hard he tries.

Vlad gave up on him, in his insanity thinking he just needs to try again. But he keeps the clone because he could be useful. Daniel isn’t Vlad’s son. He is tool. The man stops even trying to show him affection, increasingly having him run dangerous errands and be a lab rat for the older halfa. Vlad throws himself into making the next clone

“This one will work. It has too.”

“F- Master. Please, I’m hungry. Maybe I have some...some food.”

And the clone increasingly spirals into hopelessness and depression.

“Stop crying. You’re negatively affecting the data.”

“F...father. Please. St...stop.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

A cry of pain as Vlad digs the knife in deeper.

“Oh please. It barely even hurts.”

Weakened from hunger, thirst, and injury, Daniel escapes one day when Master is away. He...he is a failure. He...he is weak, he is horrid for begging Master to stop, for leaving now. But...he can’t...he can’t do this anymore. There is...there is only one way for the pain to end.

He arrives at a familiar building, one he’s seen through Master’s cameras. He rings the door bell and the front door opens to a familiar boy.

“Please. Please kill me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny refuses, of course. So Daniel tries to force his hand, attacking him. But Danny still refuses to hurt him, only defending himself so he can capture the other boy. Danny manages to get him in a thermos and soon after releases him in the ghost containment unit in the basement. He hates doing it but needs to talk to the other boy where the clone can’t hurt himself or anyone else. Danny manages to get some information from the near inconsolable boy.

“He keeps… he keeps hurting me.”

‘Who?”

“M...master.”

Eyes wide. “Vlad! Of course. Of course he cloned me again.”

Despite being stable and trying to be a good son, the clone’s still not what Vlad wants. He’s tried so hard to be what the older half-ghost wants but the man is still obsessed with having the ‘perfect’ son. And feeling like a failure and that his life is worthless, the clone wants to die and hopes that his original would have mercy enough to take him out of his misery.

After the speech, Danny is heartbroken watching the other boy weep. He feels helpless, not knowing what to do. He joins the other boy inside the unit, trying to comfort him. The clone still begs Danny to end him but the other halfa refuses.

“Why won’t you just do it?!”

“I will not hurt you. I don’t care how much you beg me or if you attack me again, I. will. not. hurt. you.”

“Please. I’m no one. I’m worthless. I can’t do this.”

“You’re not worthless. I promise. You’re not.”

“But I am. I AM.”

Danny grabs the other boy’s face. “Look at me. You are not worthless. You aren’t no one.”

“But-”

Danny cuts him off. “You’re family.” The clone’s mouth snaps. “I don’t care that we just met, or that you tried to hurt me. I made up my mind. You’re my family, no matter what. And I am going to find a way to help you. Vlad will never hurt you again.”

The other boy looks dumbstruck but Danny can tell he was listening. Just after Danny let go of his face, the clone fell forward, collapsing in Danny’s arms. He still wept but Danny thinks this clone did hear him. And he meant what he said. The boy he was hugging was family and Danny would always do everything in his power to help his family. Even if he wasn’t sure how to right now.

#Danny Phantom #my fic #Danny Clone #Danny Clones

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blueberrypossum · 4 years ago

Note

Oh! Sorry! I just thought you did write imagines...but I will tell you my idea...I was wondering how the mud dogs would feel having a kindhearted girl in the group that is a nurse and and each of them (separately) have a crush on her? (can this be a headcannon?) but it’s ok if you don’t do it. I also like your blog and your drawings of ocs! They’re very cute!

Rottmnt Mud Dogz! Headcanons!

If you were the kindhearted nurse of the team and if the Mud Dogz started to develop feelings for you!

( I decided to do this gender-neutral so everyone can get their love from the Mud Dogz! Hope that’s okay!)

Also, anyone can make requests or asks! The reason I don’t really have it placed in my blog is because there are some requests where I just stare and I’m like: I don’t have enough creativity to come up with anything oh heck I don’t want to let someone down. So, don’t be afraid to send anything!

Hope you guys enjoy it!

Loathsome Leonard

-He didn’t pay no mind to you at first, his group was okay with you joining in seeing that they were going to hurt on most heists so he respects you.

-It takes a long and hard time to get close to Leonard, he’s the leader after all, and he doesn’t want to continue adding people to his group and then see them either leave, die, or backstab them.

-Of course, he isn’t rude to you, he just doesn’t talk much about plans and heists when you’re around at first and there is barely any small talk between the two of you in the beginning.

-Until one night he goes off on his own without the other guys knowing and stumbles back terribly wounded and can’t make it back to their apartment, but your place is closer.

-You were asleep when you heard the strangled yet urgent knock on your door and you quickened your pace when it started to repeat in more rapid strings.

-You can’t help but gasp at the sight of Leonard, beaten and bloody as if he had just starred in a horror movie and you rush him in, setting him in the chair in your kitchen before gathering your medical supplies you had in your home.

- In silence you help him take off his shirt and put yourself to work, cleaning and dressing his cuts and gashes, all while handing him water to drink and a towel to play with when the pain gets unbearable.

“Where are Danny and Mickey? Are they wounded as well?”

“No, it’s only me.”

“Did you...did you go out on your own Leonard?”

“...”

-Your once nice outlook is now casted with anger as you stand and throw the damp cloth you had used to clean his shoulder wound into the trash with such force that it almost startled him.

Almost.

“You know, for someone who works so hard to make sure his teammates don’t do stupid stunts, you suck at taking your own advice.”

-That causes a surge to burst through him; he had never heard you speak like that before, never spoken your mind with such raw rage. And when he goes to fire something back, your hand is under his chin and shushing him, taking a new wet rag and cleaning a cut that sliced down his cheek.

-”Next time, just tell them, and me. Trust has to go both ways, and since I trust you -” You tilt his head until he is looking up at you, the first prickle of tension bubbling his skin.

“You should trust me.”

-And oh he’s hooked now and nothing can smother it.

-He’s sudden embarrassed and possibly even scared to be around you alone, afraid that his words will slip up or he'll do something stupid in front of you.

-You’re just so smart and kind, but that more dominant and stronger side of you has caused his heart to beat faster when you enter the room and he despises it. He can’t let his emotions get caught up in the missions and...you deserved better, someone who just wasn’t a lowlife thief.

-But, he’s warmer around you, and will actually create a conversation with you about yourself and how you are doing instead of just talking about the next heist.

Dastardly Danny

-For once, the rat yokai doesn’t have to play doctor in the group once you join the band of thieves. It’s a great change of pace because for one he never went to medical school and only learned to clean wounds just by experience.

-He would be super intrigued by your understanding of the yokai and/or human body and how to treat and dress each different type of wound. He would probably ask to be placed under your wing in case you were injured or couldn’t make it in time (also to spend time with you).

-He’s a huge talker with you and would possibly be the one in the group who would fully understand the scientific words you spit out sometimes.

-Danny knows and understands his feelings pretty well, and once he realizes he has developed an infatuation with you, he falls head first into it.

-He’ll go to you and make the cheesiest and gooiest jokes that play in with you and your job profession and boy does it make Leonard and Mickey gag.

“I don’t think you can diagnose me because there’s no treatment for being madly in love, dollface.”

“Danny, sit still, you keep reopening the cut!”

-Instead of getting you flowers and chocolates, he understands the expense of medical supplies and you come by to find new needles, clean cloths, and antibiotics all wrapped up and presented nicely with your name on it.

-After hours of sewing cuts and bending arms back into their sockets, Danny would still crawl over to the kitchen and make you your favorite drink, even if he broke both his legs.

-Of course, he loves to make you a flustered and stuttering mess, especially during dire moments such as him with a bullet wound and you’re desperately trying to seal the blistering hole. He’ll look right at you and horsley state, “Bleeding out like this doesn’t seem too bad if you keep touching me like dat’.”

-Would def. Give you the nickname doc, nothing will change that.

Malicious Mickey

-Honestly, you can impress this sweet guy with anything, from knowing what ointment to apply on certain cuts and then easily telling him facts about his internal organs, you make the guy have that astounded look of a child.

-He probably wouldn’t understand a single word if you explained to him how the body works or why certain medicines only work for certain illnesses and infections, but he will certainly show his wonderment in the information.

-He would probably start falling for you since you are kind, you place care in his wounds. Not saying Danny didn’t, but you placed colorful stickers on his cuts and then started to bring pieces of candy only for him (for a second, he believed you only saw him as a brother and it worried him).

-Mickey would be the only one in the group to remember the most random facts you have told that shocks everyone, even you. It shows that he listens, just doesn’t understand.

-He would try to make jokes like Danny does when he’s wounded but he’s just so baffled at how fast and calm you work on him that he will just state how pretty you are or how your nose will ruffle up when you’re concentrating on something.

-Will probably come and visit you at your workplace and you will have to hide him because he’s a literal criminal like jeez Mickey someone can recognize you.

-When hanging out, he’ll ask certain questions about his specific internal workings and then about Leonard and Danny, and then what were your favorite things to learn from medical school. It feels great for someone to be interested in what you know, and even though you will go into a huge rank about certain things and he just stares at you, you know that he cares.

-The poor sweet boy would die inside once you two started to date because you got to kiss his bruises and smaller cuts before continuing on to the bigger wounds and he would play with your hair and curl around you after a hard day at work.

#rottmnt #rottmnt mud dogs #tmnt #rottmnt dastardly danny #rottmnt mud dogz #rottmnt loathsome leonard #rottmnt mud dogz x reader #rottmnt malicious mickey

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janekfan · 4 years ago

Text

Too Much

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26972698

When Jon stalked back into the archives the fierce conviction in his face belied his ragged appearance. Tim wasn’t stupid. He’d known there was something shady happening in this place probably before Jon did, considering. It didn’t stop him from purposefully hardening his heart against his pallid skin and bloody throat, his poorly bandaged hand, his filthy, mud-covered clothes.

“Jon?” Martin’s voice was soft and it set off a trembling in him that Tim could see from across the room. “Hey--” Without warning, Jon bent double over the nearest wastebasket, going down hard on his knees as he emptied his stomach painfully, shaking so hard the bin rattled. “Oh, oh, Jon.” Hands fluttering over his back, Martin hovered close, unsure of what to do, before settling next to him on the floor to hold his hair back, plaiting it loosely to keep it out of the way.

“Nngh...s’sorry.” Jon collapsed the rest of the way, resting his weight over the bin, his forehead on the arm slung across the top. “I, I...clean. Clean it up.” Shuddering, voice thick and wavering on a heavy breath. “God, I. I’m so, so sorry.” Another bout of dry heaving cleaved through him, Martin’s hushed reassurances making the ire in Tim rise to vitriolic levels and if he stayed any longer in this room he knew he’d do something to upset Martin. Physical violence had never been the way he preferred to resolve disputes but the confirmation of being trapped here. Trapped by Jon made him desperately want to lash out. Scream. Kick. Throw a tantrum and that wouldn’t do, even if the anger and dissolution flooding into every empty space left behind by the deaths of Danny and Sasha and his freedom begged him to take it out on the one thing left that represented it all.

“Tim, where are you going?” Martin’s attention was still focused primarily on the man panting under his palms, but he spared him a glance.

“Can’t be here for a while.” He flashed a bitter smile. “Guess I’ll be back, won’t I?” He was suffocating and if he stayed here one second longer he’d explode and Martin didn’t deserve that.

Martin had his hands full of a sick and shivering Jon so had no choice but to let Tim go. It was probably best at the moment. He’d been sniping at Jon even before he’d disappeared and the fury flashing behind his eyes wouldn’t help anyone right now. And besides, Jon was going to pass out any minute by the look of it.

“Jon?” His head jerked up and he swayed where he kneeled.

“Sorry, s’sorry…” the slurred apologies certainly weren’t a good sign. “‘L’get this cleaned up.” When he moved clumsily to do so, Martin stopped him with a hand on his cheek, ignoring his temperature for now in favor of attempting to catch his unfocused gaze.

“Let me worry about that later.” And Jon looked stricken, but when Martin pulled him to his unsteady feet he was more concerned with staying upright, embarrassment shoved unceremoniously to the back of his mind. “Can you stand?” Whole, long seconds passed and Martin almost asked again, but Jon took a wobbly step only to topple into the taller man who caught him up and held him close.

“S’sorry.” Martin hitched him a little higher. “Dizzy. Jus’...ah.”

“It’s alright, Jon.” Who knew having a cot in the archives would prove to be so useful and Martin was grateful for it now, lowering him as gently as he could. “Nothing to be sorry for.” The hiss of pain sucked through his clenched teeth didn’t bode well. “I’ll be back.” With the first aid kit, warm water, maybe a change of clothes--he was pretty sure he had a few things. They’d be big on him but certainly cleaner than what he was in now. When he returned with his supplies, Jon had tipped onto his side, apparently asleep, and Martin was careful to wake him slow, worried when he didn’t seem to remember where he was or what was happening. With him so sluggish and lethargic, Martin wasn’t sure where to start (maybe a 999 call), deciding top to bottom was as good a plan as anything. Forcing cheer into his tone, he talked about what had been happening while he'd been away, dipping a cloth, wringing it out, and wiping the muck off his skin, noting the pallor in his face underneath all of the dirt. He had the start of a pretty intense fever and looking at him it wasn’t hard to puzzle out why but the only thing for it right now was water and rest.

Jon pushed him away when he began on his neck and it took Martin several minutes to talk him back down, convince him that he was safe before he was allowed to hold a warm compress over the gash across his throat to loosen the blood. It was deeper than it looked and longer than he’d have liked; another brutal scar to add to his growing collection and how was any of it fair? Butterfly stitches applied and covered over with clean bandages, Martin gave Jon a break and kept urging him to drink. He was so silent, focused on pulling in short and shallow breaths, and Martin kept his questions to himself, trying to ease the ruined jumper over his shoulders when it became clear that he was too sore to do it on his own. Each centimeter bared developing bruises just beginning to black and Jon’s breath hitched the higher he was forced to raise his arms, exposing more over his stomach, his ribs and Martin couldn’t help himself.

“What happened?”

“Mm?”

“These bruises?” He ran a delicate thumb over the edge of one, watched him shiver in response.

“Oh…” Martin got the impression Jon was answering from somewhere far away and didn’t blame him. “Asked questions.” He didn’t elaborate and Martin moved on to his hands, draping the blanket over him while he unwrapped old dressings and examined the burn spanning his entire palm and fingers. He didn’t want to think about the shape of it, like he’d shaken hands with the wrong sort, and instead examined the broken blisters lining the long, ruined fingers of both hands, cleaning them gently and applying salves and more bandages before slipping a worn jumper over his head and joggers onto narrow hips, tying the cords to keep them secure. Jon was too pliant, too submissive, more than spent after whatever he’d been through and he sighed in heavy relief when he was finally allowed to lay down.

“Better?” Martin brushed some stray curls out of his face after tucking him in and he nodded.

“Tired.”

“You can sleep, it’s alright.” Jon forced heavy lashes apart, closed them again when Martin swept light fingertips over them. “I’ll keep watch. You’re safe.”

Late into the next day, Martin saw Jon back to Georgie’s flat where he immediately curled up in bed with the Admiral, clutching his borrowed clothes, so baggy they dwarfed his small frame and made the vulnerability in him that much more. He shared a cup of tea, spoke with Georgie in a hushed voice and urged her to keep an eye on him if he’d let her. She nodded resolutely and wished him luck when he left to return to the institute.

“Well?” Basira accosted him immediately as soon as he stepped through the door.

“Christ, Basira!” Hand over his heart, Martin calmed his racing heart, suddenly surrounded by the lot of them.

“Well?”

“He’s exhausted.”

“Aren’t we all?” Martin ignored Tim’s comment. It wasn’t a competition, just a bad situation all around, and after treating and cataloging all of Jon’s myriad injuries, he didn’t feel like continuing along that track. It wouldn’t help anybody. It wouldn’t convince them that Jon was as much a victim in all this as they were. That he didn’t want this. Instead.

“He’ll be back in a few days. Or probably tomorrow, knowing him.”

“Wonderful.”

“Tim!” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose, already exasperated. “Tim, just. Go easy, alright?”

“Oh, I’ll go easy.” Full of grief and anger and heartbreak with nowhere for all of it to go, it had sharpened into a blade Tim wielded with deadly precision. Jon had been at the other end of it for a long time and despite his own frustrations with him, Martin wanted to shield him from the worst of it even if he knew he wouldn’t be able to. If Tim wanted to hurt Jon, he would, and it made him want to weep.

Sure enough and right on time, Jon dragged himself into the archives, mumbling a breathy ‘thank you’ to Martin as he passed by him to his office on new fawn’s legs. It didn’t escape his notice that he was still wearing the jumper, bundled up in it with his bandaged fingers tangled in the sleeves.

And work began again as though they’d never stopped.

Jon could have spent the next eternity wrapped up in bed, bundled in the comfort of Martin’s clothes and hiding from his very new and very real responsibilities. He ached, deeply, profoundly, in a million different ways, crushed by the weight of it all and barely able to breathe. Georgie was disappointed by his decision to go back to the institute but he had to do whatever he could to protect the rest of them, even if that meant playing into Elias’ hands until they came up with a solution together.

If they would have him back.

Reading the statements was going slow, too slow, the pounding in his head increasing whenever he tried to focus. Jon kept the lights low, avoiding the hallways with their cold fluorescent bulbs beaming down at him from above, bowing his back, trying to push him into the floor, keep him there like an insect pressed between pages and he would gladly succumb if it meant he could rest.

“Oi!” He jumped at the sharp voice, groaning when the stabbing hurt all over his body intensified.

“T’Tim?”

“‘Y’yeah.’” He mocked, tossing a stack of folders onto the already overflowing surface of the desk.

“What, what’re these?” Though his hands were shaking and sore, Jon picked up the pile, paging through distractedly.

“How the hell should I know. Martin said you asked for them.” He had?

“I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“Tch. Of course. Busy work to keep us preoccupied so we don’t have time to plot?”

“Wha--no, no!” It seemed his paranoia continued to have lasting consequences and he supposed it was only fair. “No, I wouldn’t. I. I’m sure I asked for them.” Reasonably sure, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember when. He couldn’t remember asking Martin but there was no reason for Tim to lie. Fingers snapping in front of his face jerked him back to the present.

“What’s wrong with you?” His eyes were narrowed and he was standing so close, too close, and suddenly Jon was on his feet, swaying into the wall and pushing past Tim in a desperate bid for the loo, head pounding enough to make him ill and only just making it in time to rid himself of the tea he didn’t remember drinking. Shaky, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaning back against the wall and willing the spinning to stop or slow or do anything that might make it less overwhelming. He washed his hands, his face, letting the cool water drip from his chin and closed his eyes against his reflection in the mirror. When he returned Tim was gone and Jon was thankful, tears prickling, threatening, as he sat back in his chair and rested his forehead on his folded arms for only a moment.

It was better in the stacks, dark and still, silent save for the rustling of statements and that didn’t make any sense at all even though something in the back of his mind insisted it did, encouraged him to pick one up and devour it. But the letters swam on the pages and his legs refused to hold him up any longer and he slid to the floor, hugging the folder to his chest and breathing in the stale scent of old, yellowing paper and ink. He felt so poorly, so tired, and he didn’t remember curling up on the floor but he must have, because he was, the statement still crushed in his arms like a safety blanket. How long had he been asleep? Getting up seemed too monumental a task and he let his eyes slip shut with a sigh, breathing through all the pain of his injuries.

Too much. This was all too much.

But it was quiet here among the boxes and envelopes, tucked with his back against the shelf grounding him, taking away some of that awful wooziness, the feeling of vertigo he hadn’t quite gotten rid of after his encounter with Mike Crew. He was safe here underground; underground was the opposite of up, the opposite of falling endlessly and he breathed in, out, slow, measured. Until his physical self seemed to drop away with everything else.

Plucked like a weed, Jon was lifted into the air, hauled up by his collar and set clumsily on his feet, pressed forcefully into the shelving. If it wasn’t for the hand at his throat (his throat, she was going to slice him open, bleed him like a game animal) he would have fallen and he was so scared of falling, no air in his lungs, just the deafening rush of it in his ears, so he scrabbled desperately, the statement fluttering away somewhere in favor of holding onto wrists attached to arms attached to shoulders attached to Tim. The world tilted on its axis, rolling like a ship at sea and he was desperately afraid of being released into that endless void.

“--Hiding down here?” How long had he been speaking? His face, features so twisted in revulsion of him he almost didn’t look like Tim, was close enough that he could feel his breath on his face. “Martin’s been worried sick looking for you!” Why was he yelling at him? He’d, he’d been here, not hiding, not doing anything. Just trying to, to, stay on the ground. Everything blacked out when Tim shook him roughly, shouting something else, and Jon didn’t know what he wanted, what would make him leave him alone, stop being so angry with him. He was going to be ill, too dizzy even when mercifully held still again and he was torn between letting go and taking his chances with Crew and sticking to Tim like a burr. But Tim made the decision for him, shaking him off, dropping him to his feet and shoving him forward and Jon knew he shrieked, shameful, loud, but he was falling, falling, falling and he hurt where he’d been pushed, like his bones were trying to make room by doing their level best to yank themselves free.

But he was plunging down, straight down, unmoored, unanchored, too much space, infinite space and nothing to grab to slow himself and he was going to fall forever and ever and ever and--

“Jon!”

No. He’d. How.

“Martin…” Whimpering, voice choked with tears, more of them streaming, pouring down his face, and he clung to Martin, solid, strong, holding him.

“Tim, what did you do?”

“M’falling...m’falling, Martin.” Clutching, clawing, he was going to hurt him if he wasn’t careful but he was too frightened, he had to be hurting him. Sobbing, selfish, stupid, and he couldn’t stop.

“You’re not, I’ve got you, Jon, I won’t let you fall.” Murmuring gently, embracing him tightly and it hurt, but he’d rather hurt than fall forever. “You’ve got to take a breath, Jon.” But all the air was rushing past him, too quickly to drink up even a sip, let alone breathe any into his seizing chest. “I’ve got you, try for me.” And he did, he would swear it, he’d try anything for Martin but he’d always failed in the most important tasks. He’d always failed the most important people.

At least he wasn’t falling anymore.

“Tim, what did you do?” Martin shifted Jon, passed out over his shoulder with bandaged fingers still tangled in his jumper and he was surprised he hadn’t torn it in his panic. Gently he pulled him into his lap, boiling with heat beneath his hands and heaving hard-won, gasping breaths.

“I--” He swallowed, shock naked in his expression. “I found him here, on the floor. Uh, pulled him up?” Tim raked his hair back. “I was rough, but. I didn’t mean.” Martin could only hope he looked as angry as he felt and Tim stopped speaking, following him to document storage like a lost puppy.

“Mm…” he held Jon tight, secure, relieved that he’d come around as quickly as he did even if he was groggy, setting him firmly on the cot, exerting pressure on his shoulders, an unspoken ‘I’m here, you’re here, no one is falling.’ He ducked his head, hiding from the light and groaning low.

“Jon, look at me.” He hadn’t noticed before, the black of his dilated pupils swallowed up by deep brown irises, but with the light, and his sensitivity to it, Martin suspected a head injury. “Jon?” Gently he tilted his face up with the tips of his fingers under his chin, trying to catch his dazed stare as it slipped over him like water over a stone.

“Hey! Stop ignoring him!” Jon flinched, hands clapping over his ears and curling even farther into himself while Martin glared. “Sorry.” Tim mumbled, arms crossed, leaning against the wall to give them some space.

“S’okay, Jon.” He inched closer. “Did you hit your head? Does your head hurt? Can I check?”

“Check?” Before Tim could do much more than scoff, Martin shushed him. If he wasn’t going to help, then it would be better for him to leave.

“Yep.” He didn’t wait for much more confirmation, just carefully reached forward under Jon’s wary gaze and buried his fingers in thick, unkempt curls, smiling softly when he leaned into the touch. Bolder, he cupped his face with his other hand, stroking along his cheek and watching his eyes drift closed with a hum. “Ah, oh, Jon.” Right at the back of his skull there was a large swelling, painful to the touch if Jon’s reaction was anything to go on. “Were you hit?”

“Hit?” Jon’s wrapped, burned fingers brushed against his own when he went to check for himself. “Daisy hit me.” Just a stated fact that chilled Martin to the bone and he watched his other hand come up to touch the column of his bandaged neck. “Daisy cut me.” He glanced back at Tim, trying to gauge his reaction, relieved to see horror blossoming in his expression and when he turned to Jon again, it was as if he was seeing Martin for the first time. “Martin?” He let his weight fall into his palm, and when his dark, damp eyes slipped shut, tears ran down his face. “Don’, don’think m’well.”

“Okay, it’s okay. I’ve--” his eyes flicked towards Tim. “We’ve got you.” Jon swallowed and Martin could feel it against his palm, literally holding his cut throat in his hands. "Can you tell us what's wrong?"

“Hur’s. Spin...falling, m’falling.” He paled, clutched at the linens, his breath shallow and fast and even Tim came forward in concern.

“I’ve got you, won’t let you go anywhere, Jon.” To Tim, “Don’t think he can tell which way is up. Vertigo? Concussion? We’ve got ice packs in the freezer yeah?”

“Anything else?”

“Ginger tea? If we have it.”

“M’tin…” He brushed stray curls back away from his forehead. “Stay? Please?”

“Of course I will.” Gentle and soft and Tim returned with tea and cold compresses quickly, passing off the mug to Martin, going so far as to sit beside Jon. “I’ve got to let go of you now.” And the look of panic and sorrow and resignation told him more about his state of mind than anything else.

Martin promised he would stay.

Martin was letting him go.

Jon was not surprised.

Just sad, so, so sad.

Prepared to be tossed aside.

“‘Course...s’sorry.” Another swallow, another and another, swallowing it down, how frightened he was, how lonely. Tears slipped over Jon’s skin, over Martin’s. “M’sorry, sorry.”

Too many.

Too much.

He watched Jon pull away, swaying, woozy, grip tightening on the sheets such that his knuckles were bone white. Alone again. Alone always. How dare he think or hope or dream otherwise.

“Got’chu, boss.” Martin waited until Tim had him ‘round the shoulders, pressing him into his sturdy side, before removing his hand and holding the mug to his lips.

“Drink this down and then some sleep, I think.” Together, they tipped him carefully sideways, grabbing his hands when they flew out to the side in an attempt to break a nonexistent fall, and Tim pressed a cold pack to the back of his neck, a shadow of a smile crossing his face when Jon relaxed into the pillow.

“You’re alright, boss. Won’t let you fall.”

#TMA #The magnus archives #jon sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #strained relationships #sickfic #concussion #vertigo #Bad mental health #vomiting #Hurt/comfort

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captaincravatthecapricious · 4 years ago

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Feverish and Teary & How Long Has it Been Since You’ve Eaten- Prompt Fill

@thatonekidellis Jon, Tim, and Martin have a rough time after the Unknowing. Especially Jon. I hope this is kind of what you were asking for?

@janekfan you get a ping because this is your au!

CWs: nausea, vomiting, fainting, fever, food mention, alcohol mention, canon typical mentions of Tim's pre-unknowing mindset, canon typical Jon not taking care of himself.

I am still accepting bingo prompts, so let me know which character, which prompt, and if you want a drawing of a fic! Bingo card by the wonderful @celosiaa! This one is twice my usual length because it is two prompts and I did not want to cheat!

The Unknowing blows up.

As simple as that.

All according to plan.

It really is as simple as that.

Jon, Tim, Daisy, Basira. Piled back in Daisy's car. Ears ringing. Soot slowly settling. Trying to drive away before the actually police get there.

It hasn't been Jon's problem how to avoid arrest.

He is even more glad it isn't his problem now, as he slides down the beat up seat in the back of Daisy's car. Ash streaks the window, mixing with the light rains that is starting to fall.

Jon tries not to vomit the nothing he's eaten in the last couple days. Nothing in him but frayed nerves and statements. Hadn't even managed to stomach dramamine before their trip.

Jon just wants to sleep.

They still have their hotel reservation for another couple hours, so Daisy drives them back there to clean up before heading back to London. Yes they have to go back today, it's less suspicious. Jon isn't sure if that is actually true, but he doesn't have the energy to argue.

Tim showers. Jon sends a text to Martin. 'Alive.'

He doesn't answer Martin's near-immediate call because just then he's dry-heaving into the small bin in the corner. Stiff and shaking and sweaty and miserable.

Jon showers. Too dizzy to stand, he sits on the shower floor. He hates that. The tub feels filthy. He feels filthy. He scrubs his skin raw. He stands. He throws up more nothing. He scrubs himself again, leaning heavily on the wall.

He wants to talk to Tim. He wants to tuck himself into Tim's arms and never move again. Christ, he's running an impressive fever. Probably. It's hard to tell. And his brain is swimming too much to even think about asking the Eye.

He's cold. He shivers in his threadbare joggers and stolen jumper (Martin's).

He wants to join Tim on the bed by the window, but Tim ...looks too deep in a melancholy thought to even notice. Somewhere between losing his drive for anything, adrenaline crash, and losing the last hope of a last glimpse of Danny, if Jon were to guess.

Jon could say something. He knows he could. But, hasn't he caused enough of a fuss? Made Tim and Martin trail after him after the ...the.... with Daisy and... that. If he'd have just stayed quiet and stayed still... well Tim would still hate him... and might not be alive... but ....but he's caused so much worry with that. And then with... his other kidnapping No. He can't think about what that... what... not without puking again which... the point is not to worry Tim. Which means he should try some medicine again.... if he can keep it in him half an hour he'll survive the drive back. Probably.

Christ, when is the last time he bothered to drink anything?

He lays there in a daze until Daisy bangs on the door telling them it's time to leave.

Tim sleeps on the drive back. Finally giving into the last few sleepless nights. Jon is jealous.

Last night had been spent tangled together, shaking, awake, and silent. Anxiety too thick to slice with words. Not even nothing to turn off the lights, because the fear is a little easier to manage in the light. Jon couldn't stop thinking about Nikola. He couldn't stop thinking about plastic hands on him. Couldn't stop thinking about how many things could go wrong and how he could lose Tim and Martin when he only just got Tim back.

Jon was pretty sure Tim hadn't been sleeping the last few nights. Jon knows he hasn't. Not that he has slept well in a long time.

In any case, Tim sleeps. Jon doesn't.

Daisy glares at him through the review mirror. Jon isn't sure if she is still waiting for him to prove himself monstrous so she can attack, or if she is making sure he isn't ill in her car... again. (He really wishes he could forget his first ride in her car. Really really really wishes. It was not a pleasant experience for anyone, and Daisy had made him pay the cleaning bill.)

It doesn't matter, he slides down further in his seat and closes his eyes tightly.

His head hurts.

Thankfully the medicine knocks him out soon enough.

Martin greets them at the institute door. Melanie by his side.

Jon hazily wakes up to Martin gently touching his shoulder.

"You actually made it! I'm so glad you're safe... I was so worried, Jon why didn't you answer your phone, I've been so worried, I mean I know you would have said something if something had happened, but Christ I've been so worried about you, come here."

Jon starts mumbling some apologies, but is interrupted by Martin gently gathering him in a hug. Jon sinks into it, fervently hoping Martin doesn't notice the heat rolling off of him.

Thankfully Martin is too distracted, gathering Tim in a crushing embrace. Likely very relieved that Tim didn't die, and knowing Tim is harder to break than Jon with his delicate bones and fragility following many incidents.

Jon... doesn't really know what he's trying to accomplish. Just... get out? Or go in? Or get to the cot? Or just curl up on the cold tile of the basement toilets? Get away from people he will inevitably worry?

Just go somewhere where he can fall apart without taking anyone else down with him.

It looks like Martin has been crying. Jon hopes it isn't over him.

Tim needs to recover from the emotional toll of the last few days without having to pick up the pieces after Jon Again.

Jon slowly backs away.

His head is swimming, but that's okay. If he can just reach the Archives. The cot. Anywhere. Anywhere away from this moment. This breath.

His vision swims violently, and there is no doubt in his mind that he is going to be very well acquainted with the pavement in a matter of seconds. Either that or he's going to be ill? No. Sidewalk. He's going to eat the sidewalk. Heh... first thing he'll have eaten in days.

He isn't sure if he loses consciousness or not. It's hard to tell in the blur of motion and sounds and his spinning head. Sound is almost gooey in this state of almost unconsciousness, but he thinks someone might be shouting. Or several someones. He should maybe worry about this? But in actuality, he is praying he properly passes out to save himself any more embarrassment and save himself from his unsteady insides.

His face hurts.

Someone is holding him.

Jon fights to open his eyes. They don't seem to want to look in the same direction, rolling in their sockets instead of doing what he wants them to. He blinks hard a few times, failing to bring things into focus. Glasses? Does he still have those? Did they break? No... still there. Skewed on his face. Just... too dizzy to see, then.

Daisy and Basira are glaring at him. Melanie is walking away. Possibly. Hard to tell when the world is tilting with unsteady regularity.

Jon closes his eyes again, pressing a groan against the nausea that threatens to overcome him, despite the medicine.

"Jon?"

"Burning up."

He's too hazy to put a name to a voice. The words dripping in the air around him, tightening around his chest, silly string sitting on his skin in fibrous heaps that jiggle uncomfortably, cold and clammy.

Shit, thinking in gibberish. That can't be good.

“Does anyone know how long he’s been ill?”

Someone grunts.

Footsteps. Two sets? I’m asking away. Leaving him.

“I.... I don’t know. I don’t think he was feverish last night? But... I haven’t exactly been... It’s. It’s been hard.”

“Jon?”

He’s being jostled. He whines. Stomach flopping dangerously.

"Jon? Are you awake? Can you open your eyes for me?"

"Oh shit, he's gonna puke."

He's being lifted, shifted on his side, bin shoved in his hands. Where he throws up more nothing.

He's crying now, feeling like utter shit, and unfortunately more awake.

He isn't sure if eyes swimming with tears is better or worse than the unsteady world tipping around him and making him feel worse.

"Christ, Jon!"

He finally pries his eyes open. Martin and Tim solidify above him. More or less. Still fuzzing in and out of focus.

Now that he's crying, he just... can't stop. Fistfuls of Martin's sweater.

"Oh Jon..." Martin's arms circle him, carefully. Gentle not to jostle him more.

"Buddy. Think we can get you off the sidewalk?" Tim. Cupping his face. Smoothing back sweat and tear soaked hair, long since escaped his bun, still not dried from his earlier shower. "My flat isn't far, you know? Didn't bring my car here, though. Still... wasn't..."

Tim cuts himself off, but even addled as he is, Jon can fill in the rest of the sentence.

So can Martin apparently, because Martin frowns. It's never been more apparent that he's been crying quite recently. "Still weren't sure you were coming home... Tim..." And his eyes start looking damp.

Tim is tearing up now. "Martin... let's not in the street... I can carry Jon back to mine, it isn't far. You can come too. We'll get some take out. Drink some whiskey. Get Mr. Smoking hot cooled off. We can talk then. It's.... it's been a rough week."

"Jon? Can I carry you? I think that might be less rough than a cab ride? Do you need a few minutes?"

Martin's voice is soft, and Jon thinks he could sleep right there. In fact, he might. So he nods.

Martin lifts him carefully. His head swims again. This all is feeling rather familiar. Jon takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He tries to relax despite the lingering anxieties about heights. Martin feels safe. Tim is also safe now. He lets himself drift.

He wakes briefly on the trip.

"Hey bud, how are you feeling?" Tim. Tim seems off. Too many things crossing his face to parse out, probably even for someone with a better sense than Jon of what those subtle face changes mean. But Jon is too hazy to think.

Jon's mouth feels gummed up. His eyes feel gummed up.

He's thankful his mouth doesn't taste like something died in it, though. Although he is very aware how unhealthy it was that he's spent a good portion of the day with his body trying to turn itself inside out, and he couldn't so much as produce bile.

Jon feels sick thinking about it, so stops. He drifts again.

He wakes to a damp rag on his forehead, no memory of anything past the explosion.

How did he get here?

"Sorry, that looked like a nice sleep, but you'll feel better with some medicine in you, and some water. We can try some tea later, once the meds work. And some food hopefully."

Martin helping him sit up. Just enough to get a few sips and some pills into Jon. Which, Jon thought was probably optimistic, but he'd try it for Martin.

"When was the last time you ate?" Martin again.

Jon blinks at him in confusion. "Is it over?"

"Is what over?" Still Martin.

Where's Tim? Where's Daisy? Where's Basira? Where's Melanie?

His breathing picks up, and that makes his head spin again, and makes him wonder just how long he can keep the medicine down.

"Is it over, what happened?" He's panting now, halfway to a panic attack.

"Jon? Jon! Calm down. Can you take a breath for me?"

How did he get here? Where is he? This looks like Tim's flat, but there is Tim? Did he survive.

Jon reaches for anything. But comes up blank.

"Where's Tim? What happened?" He gasps out. It feels like his ribcage is shrinking, being laced up the front. fighter than the corset he had worn in acting class in uni.

"Tim's... taking a moment. As soon as we got you here... he.... it's been rough on him, you know? He did all this for... and I know he said he wanted to live. He wants to live... but he's... not been in a good place and it's helped that you two are talking again... and that he's had company more... but he saw an old picture with.... with his brother.... and that polaroid with ... with Sasha. Well, he keeps going between you know tearful and sorry and cackling about how everything blew up. It's... probably a lot to have three revenge schemes going at once for the same.... not a person really... but ... Her. And then... having it sorted. But... Listen Jon I don't know. What don't you remember... or what's the last thing you remember?" Martin edges on histerical near the middle, but takes a turn for the sad near the end.

"I remember the... the world was all wrong. Then... then it blew up. Is it over? Martin are you real. Is everyone alive? What happened to you?" He's desperate. Desperate breaths too shallow. Words interrupted by jagged pulling of too thin oxygen. He's going to pass out.

He does.

He wakes feeling... clearer. The last period of wakefulness a distant and flighty thing, dancing just out of his reach. The rest of the embarrassing day back in vivid detail. Tim's sitting over him. Or rather, curled around him. Jon's hair is being played with. A stray curl looped around Tim's finger as he laughs softly to himself. Muttering that he's alive. That Jon's alive. That Martin is alive. he didn't lose anyone else. That that clown is finally dead. Finally.

Gentle and warm hand on his face, refreshing the cloth. Checking his temperature.

"I..." Tim chokes on a sob. And Jon tries to remember how his arms work so he can let Tim know he's there.

"Tim?"

"Hey bud... sorry." Tim wipes his eyes on his sleeve. "It's been a hell of a week. I... don't know how to feel about it. Fuck I need a drink.... And to check in with Martin. I... he hasn't told me what happened, but he's upset. And. Fuck I should have noticed you were ill, why didn't you say anything?" Tim's voice starts to rise, and Jon tenses. All the times Tim yelled at him still too fresh in his mind. He trusts Tim. he does... but Christ he is still afraid. Afraid that it can't last, that it isn't real. Where it be a trick of his mind, or some manipulation tactic to an end Jon can't see, he doesn't know.

"Hey. Hey. Buddy... Jon. I'm sorry. didn't mean to yell. It's just... been a day. I'm not mad at you. I just... I'm worried about you and Martin and I...I don't know how to feel about everything that happened. I'm sorry you feel like shit."

Jon feels... like shit. Marginally less nauseous, however. A little less like he's going to pass out again. Probably been given plenty of pills by Martin.

"Sorry." He croaks. Voice probably shredded with smoke. And fever.

"He, bud, don't apologize. I'm sorry I didn't notice you weren't well. I... I thought I knew better than to be that preoccupied. I mean... I guess I didn't make it worse this time, but..." Tim sighs. "I'm disappointed in myself because I don't want to fuck this up again. And no don't apologize again part of that was on me and yes part of that was on you and we've done apologies to death. All we can do now is keep going. I just wanted to protect you and I couldn't see you were fading in front of my eyes. Again. I know you haven't been eating or sleeping, but I haven't been either so I didn't want to call you on it, and I didn't want you to call me on it, but I should have noticed. I know I couldn't have done much, but I didn't do anything but shut you out again. I could have told someone to stop to get you medicine, or food or even a bit more rest. I know that would have done fuck-all, but I still could have offered you a little comfort and warmth and had us brought straight back here."

Tim's crying properly now. Jon is too. Not sure if it is the fever, or just... everything. There is so much to feel and think and worry about and yes they saved the world but that the fuck comes next.

What comes next is that Martin enters with tea for Jon and a bottle of whiskey.

Jon scrubs at his eyes. "Martin what happened?" Jon can see he's been crying again. That is starting to scare him. It's a goddamn miracle he hasn't pulled an answer out of anyone yet today.

"It's... well it isn't fine. I... well our plan worked here too. Just... you know... Elias. He can.... He can do things. It's fine. It's worth it." Martin swipes at his eyes furiously.

Jon pushes himself up, ignoring the room tilting around him, and hugs Martin. Jon's still crying. Martin sniffling. Tim also crying. It's... a very damp hug. And Jon knows he's too warm to be comfortable to hold, and he's shivering hard enough to rattle Tim and Martin.

"I'm... I'm so sorry Martin." Jon chokes out.

"It's alright. It was worth it. And you both. Christ I am so glad to see you again... I thought... I thought.... I didn't..." Martin is fully sobbing now. Tea set down on Tim's bedside table, the whiskey being pried from his hands by TIm.

Late that night the bottle is empty (and so are a couple more), Tim and Martin have killer headaches, and Jon is still feverish, but less so. A lot of tears have been shed. And Jon has been plied with enough liquids that he feels a little less like a crumbling husk.

By the time that Tim and Martin are ready to think about food, Jon is finally feeling like he can maybe stomach something. They order takeout. Jon... has some broth.

By morning Jon manages a few bites of leftovers.

By afternoon, Elias Bushard is arrested.

#the magnus archives #tma #magnuspod #fic #sickfic #cw nausea #cw vomit #cw vomiting #cw emeto #cw fainting #cw food #cw fever #fever #cw alcohol #my writing #my words #my art #my fic

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ladylynse · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 6 [FFN | AO3] of Forewarning

All Dipper knew was that there was something buried in some special thermos behind the shack; all Danny knew was that he had no idea how he'd gotten here.

Based off this artwork by @hashtag-art. Happy birthday, @bibliophilea!

(beginning | previous)

-|-

Once safely back at the Mystery Shack, Wendy turned off the golf cart and grabbed her supplies from the rack in the back. It had been a bumpy ride, but she’d only needed to sacrifice one bag of marshmallows to the forest. That wasn’t bad, considering how many creatures she was fairly sure lived there.

And, fine, maybe it made her a little paranoid to think that some of the bumps she’d hit had been deliberate, a growth of tree roots just so or deep holes suspiciously covered with leaf litter, but it wasn’t like she voiced her thoughts to anyone else.

Besides, whatever lived in the forest seemed happy with the occasional sacrifice of candy. At the very least, she’d never been stopped by something yet, and she took a lot of shortcuts through here by herself. That wasn’t exactly recommended, even for those who knew the territory well. When her family went out for apocalypse training, they were supposed to pair off. They didn’t always, but they did more often than not.

It’s easier to survive if there’s someone you trust around to watch your back, but you have to know how to fight if there isn’t.

Whatever had stopped by the Mystery Shack wasn’t bringing the apocalypse with it—she was pretty sure about that—but she didn’t want this to turn into that. Taking the twins to see the haunted grocery store? Sure. She still hadn’t been sure they’d actually see ghosts despite the stories—no one had been until it had happened—but that was different. That was contained. That was very much not in the Mystery Shack. Where the kids slept. With only the oblivious skeptic Stan around to fight the things that went bump in the night.

Now, if those things were corporeal, she wouldn’t be concerned. The man knew how to punch, and he’d punch before asking questions. But whatever had turned up this time clearly had the option to not be corporeal. Like a ghost.

She remembered the footprints appearing in the scattered baking soda a split second before the boy who’d visited earlier appeared. The same boy who had flashed a careless grin and flipped through postcards and keychains and magnets in the gift shop before taking a tour with Mabel.

Whatever he was, he wasn’t a ghost, but he was entirely too much like a ghost for comfort.

There was no sign of Stan yet—not a surprise; she hadn’t heard his car—but chances were good he wasn’t far behind her.

She saw Soos walking in from the lane and raised her hand in a wave. He spotted her and held a finger to his lips before pointing, and something cold and heavy settled in her gut as she spotted three figures by the woodshed: Mabel, Dipper, and the not-a-ghost boy who’d called himself Danny.

She cursed under her breath as she hurried to meet Soos. “That’s him,” she hissed. “We need to get him away from the twins.”

“Did you find anything in town that we can use?”

“I bought a couple more boxes of salt.” Silver was expensive—too expensive for her, anyway—and she wasn’t exactly guaranteed to find holy water even if she tried breaking into a church, mostly because she didn’t know where she’d look for it. She could’ve bought a cast iron frying pan, but she might as well grab one from the kitchen. The ideas of what they might be able to do had quickly fallen apart when she’d realized what was actually feasible. “It’s better than nothing.”

“What about garlic?”

“For a ghost?”

“You said he wasn’t a ghost.”

“Close enough to a ghost. And, anyway, there should be some in the kitchen. We can always chop up a couple of cloves and see if it does anything.” If it didn’t, and they didn’t waste it, they could always throw it into hamburger meat or make garlic bread. “How long has he been here? The kid?”

“Just a couple of minutes,” Soos allowed, “but this isn’t the first time the kids have met him.”

Wendy closed her eyes. “I know, I just…. I’d hoped they wouldn’t realize he wasn’t normal.” More to the point, she’d hoped that he wouldn’t come back. What the hell did he want, anyway? Sure, he’d said something about fixing whatever was wrong, but their ideas about what needed fixing weren’t likely the same.

“They might not. He was pretending to be normal when he talked to me.”

“He talked to you?”

“Just to ask after Dipper and Mabel.”

Wendy frowned. Soos didn’t sound too optimistic that Mabel and Dipper wouldn’t realize there was something weird about the kid, and frankly, she thought he was right. Mabel might be more forgiving, but Dipper…. “We’ll play it cool. Keep doing whatever you were doing. Try to keep an eye on them without being too obvious about it. I’ll prepare the fire pit.”

“The wood, campfire forks, hot dogs, marshmallows—?”

His gaze had wandered pointedly down to the box of salt pressing against the white plastic bag she carried, its blue label clearly visible. “Yeah. I won’t ring it thickly enough that it’s noticeable, especially since it’ll have to be in the gravel where nothing’s growing anyway, but if he’s going to pretend to be normal, then we’ll see how long he can keep that up.”

“And if he’s not affected by the salt?”

“We cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“And if we’re wrong and he is normal after all?”

Wendy snorted. “If he’s normal, he’s only normal for here.” She saw Soos shift uncomfortably and added, “If Stan comes back before I’m finished, give him the pitch about taking measures to ghost-proof the Mystery Shack and advertising doing that because it’s haunted. He’ll know how to get more of what we need, even if he doesn’t think it’ll do anything.”

“What if he’s not bad? The kid, I mean. Not everything is bad. Not everyone is bad.”

The kid had claimed he wasn’t a threat. He’d said he was stuck, that he just wanted to go home, that he had to fix something, not break it. What if it hadn’t been a lie? She didn’t see how his sneaking around could mean his intentions were honourable, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t missing something.

On the other hand, if he were simply determined to show a friendly face to the twins to get them to lower their guard, only to strike once he’d fooled them—

Wendy wasn’t sure if she wanted to take that risk. Having a healthy amount of suspicion now and apologizing later sounded much better to her than being overly trusting and being burned—especially if she wouldn’t be the only one caught in that fire. She and Soos had lived their entire lives here. Mabel and Dipper had not. They might not yet appreciate the degree to which not everything was as it appeared.

“You don’t need to be ready to attack,” Wendy finally said. “You just need to be ready to defend.” Soos nodded, maybe thinking her words were for both of them, but they weren’t. She had no intentions of simply being ready to defend. She wasn’t about to attack unprovoked, but if this kid did anything that set off alarm bells for her, she’d act on her gut. She trusted her gut more than her head. It was reliable in these sorts of situations.

The trouble was, her gut should have made a call on this already. Instead, she was still conflicted, and more time to mull it over on her trip into town hadn’t helped. Part of her still wanted to take the kid’s words at face value, but the little she’d seen of what he could do backed up the part of her that insisted he was far too dangerous to blindly trust. Soos wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there was so much that could seem innocuous at first….

The knowledge that Soos was right and they had no idea if salt would actually help defend them didn’t make this any easier—especially when Danny was clearly interested in Mabel and Dipper. Soos had mentioned Dipper having a book, and she remembered seeing glimpses of it before. If that’s what the kid was interested in, how was she supposed to help Dipper and Mabel protect it while still protecting them?

Salt first. Purifying fire and questions later, if the kid decided to stick around for it. As long as he wasn’t hurting her friends, she was willing to give him a shovel and see how deep he dug.

XXXXXXX

Danny didn’t see the journal around, but Dipper apparently didn’t need it to draw his magic circle thing in the dirt. To be fair, Danny didn’t know if it was the same one as before, but he also didn’t want to find out. Which meant taking the initiative and trying to explain before they decided to pull more magic stuff on him.

“Please don’t do whatever you’re planning on doing,” he said, keeping his voice low in the hope that the guy he’d been talking to earlier wouldn’t hear it. “I just want to talk, I swear.”

“Are you ready to explain now?”

That was Dipper, with a bite in his voice that reminded Danny a bit of Valerie. Dipper might not sound even half as malicious as Valerie could when she was spitting curses at Phantom, but he was appropriately wary. “Yeah. But you have to promise you won’t try any magic stuff.”

“No. You’re not defenseless, and I’m not swearing away my ability to protect anyone.”

Oh. Right. He might think that particular promise carried more weight than a regular promise. He seemed to think giving his word would make it impossible to break. Danny didn’t know of any ghosts with that power, and frankly he didn’t want to meet one who had it. “You don’t have to. I just…. I promise I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else. I only want to talk. And not, y’know, risk being exorcised if you don’t believe me.”

Mabel looked from Danny to her brother and raised an eyebrow. He scowled at her but said, “Fine. If you don’t do anything except tell us the truth right now, I won’t try to exorcise you.”

Not ideal, but it wasn’t like Danny was planning on lying through his teeth to them, anyway—or that he couldn’t still attempt a lie if he felt he needed to. He had a feeling it wouldn’t work, though. He hadn’t had a whole lot of luck earlier. Maybe seeing through that thing was a kind of survival instinct around here, just like Secret Lab Guy had said.

Come to that, though— How had he had an entire conversation with someone, spilled half his life story to that someone, and not actually gotten their name?

Whatever. He’d ask later if he didn’t figure it out before then. It just proved the point, though. These people were good. Sharper than he was used to, unless almost everyone in Amity Park had already figured out his secret and was just being nice and waiting for him to make some kind of grand announcement.

Yeah, right. If Amity Park’s continued obliviousness wasn’t natural, then Vlad had done something. Not something Danny would thank him for, exactly, but something he wouldn’t fault him for, either.

“Thanks. Can I sit?” There weren’t chairs. There weren’t even logs. Dipper would be able to tell that he was staring at the circle drawn in the dirt, though, and know the question for what it was.

Mabel reached out one foot and drew a line through it with the toe of her shoe. “Yup!” she said, dropping down in place. “Pull up some grass.”

Dipper glared at her as Danny sat down on a patch that was more gravel than grass, but the other boy didn’t say anything; he just settled down and looked like he’d be ready to grab the axe beside him at a moment’s notice. Danny didn’t really want to find out if he knew how to use it. Then again, going by the assorted sizes of split logs nearby, he wasn’t overly skilled; even if it wasn’t a normal axe that Danny could avoid with intangibility, there was a good chance that Dipper was clumsy enough with it that he’d be easy enough to avoid.

“I’m sorry about not being entirely straight with you earlier when I said I would be.” Danny didn’t know where to begin, but an apology seemed smart when he still wanted their help.

“Which time, Phantom?”

Well, at least there wasn’t any lingering doubt. Danny sucked in a breath and let it out slowly to give himself a bit of time to think. Mabel looked ready to listen, but Dipper…. He still wasn’t sure about Dipper. “This isn’t exactly something I tend to tell strangers,” Danny said slowly, “but you’re right. I’m Phantom. I’m the one you let out of the thermos.”

Dipper was still practicing his glare, but Mabel asked, “So what are you? You’re not a ghost. We’ve seen ghosts.”

“I’m still a ghost,” Danny said, since as far as he knew, that was true. “Just…part ghost. Part human.” He rubbed the back of his neck and offered them a smile. “Remember when I joked about being the poster boy for interdimensional safety?”

“You expect us to believe you were in some sort of accident,” Dipper said flatly.

They didn’t need to know all the details, but— “Yeah. Lab accident. It didn’t kill me, or at least I don’t think it did, but I did get ghost powers, so that’s cool. Not something I’d recommend to anyone, but cool.”

Okay, Dipper definitely didn’t believe that, but Mabel nodded as if Danny had said something normal and not what probably sounded insane. “Why were you in the thermos?”

“Clockwork, I think. He’s the one who gave me the message to warn you in the first place, remember? Also the one who likes to pretend he doesn’t interfere but interferes like this. I thought it was Vlad, until I…until I realized how long it had been. And, no, before you ask, I don’t know who wrote that journal. I wasn’t lying about that. The only important bit I lied about was ‘Danny Fenton’ being a friend.”

“Why fess up now?” Dipper’s question was a challenge, sure, but Danny could hear the genuine curiosity behind it. Chance were, he wasn’t a great liar, either.

“Because I might need your help to get home. Especially if that help involves you trusting me enough to let me help you and you not trying to kill me first.”

“What were you looking for earlier?” Danny blinked, trying to figure out what that meant, and Dipper must have read that confusion on his face because he elaborated, “Mabel heard you. We know you were back before you showed yourself now.”

Right. She had been in the gift shop area, hadn’t she? “I was trying to find some clue about what else I’m supposed to do here.”

“And?”

That meant did you find it? Danny might’ve promised them the truth, but he’d also promised the other guy that he wouldn’t blow that secret, either. More or less. Hopefully that wasn’t what he was supposed to do here? “There’s something weird about this place,” he said instead. “It’s got this…feeling. I don’t know how to describe it.” It was something unnerving, like the feeling the Fright Knight could give you, but with more…. More I’m-watching-you vibes. Vlad times a hundred. If he didn’t need to stick around to get home, he’d be gone by now. Whatever Clockwork was trying to warn these guys away from, it felt like a danger on par with Pariah Dark.

Not that he’d be able to explain that to them.

Mabel reached over to poke Dipper in the arm. “Show him the journal.”

That would make things a lot easier for him. “I could tell you what it has wrong about ghosts. Or at least about me,” he offered. He wanted to do that regardless, but if he could give them more reason to show him, well….

“It seems to be right about you,” Dipper said, “unless you want to pretend that you’ve never been affected by anything we’ve done.”

Danny blew out a breath. “Look. Being part ghost doesn’t mean I’m exempt from everything that works on ghosts. It also means that I need to be careful around hunters, including you guys. But I’m not here to fight you or steal something or whatever your book says about me. I’m the good guy, I swear.”

“The good guy. Who needs his own little dedicated section in the journal.”

“Dedicated section?” That sounded worrisome. How much info did these guys have on him? Some of it had to be accurate, but if it was just full of things he’d done as a ghost with no context, like the stealing—

“More like a paragraph,” Mabel interrupted, “and it’s not even in the same language as the rest of it.”

Wait.

“Not the same language? What language is it?”

“See for yourself,” Mabel said. She elbowed Dipper when he didn’t immediately produce the journal and offer it up and then hissed a few things in his ear for good measure, which finally seemed to convince him. He pulled the journal out from beneath the vest he’d been wearing earlier, flipped through to the right page, and turned it around to show Danny.

Danny leaned closer, but he didn’t recognize the language, either. If it was something ghosts spoke, he’d never seen it written down, but aside from Wulf, most of the ghosts he’d met spoke English. He didn’t know how many other languages they spoke, though. He’d never asked. If this was some common language he had yet to learn….

“It might be the way it’s coded,” Dipper admitted, “instead of actually being in a different language. Some passages in the journal are coded, but they’re all the same code, except for this. I haven’t had any luck cracking it.”

Danny frowned, reading the page over before Dipper could take it away. He couldn’t see anything about a thermos or anything else that would have led them to him in the first place, but there was a bit of gibberish above that section written in green ink that might be the first code—

Wait. Green ink? Everything else in here was black or blue or some kind of brown that Danny really hoped wasn’t blood. “What else is written in this colour?” he asked, pointing to the passage.

“That’s it.”

“In the entire book?” That didn’t make sense. “But…why?”

“When I find the author of the journals,” Dipper said bluntly, “that won’t be one of the first questions I ask.”

“It won’t even be one of the first hundred,” Mabel added. “Dipper’s never understood the importance of colour.”

To be fair, it wasn’t typically high on Danny’s list of priorities, either, but this colour thing was definitely strange. How many other weird things were in that book if this didn’t make the list?

“Does it mean something to you?” Mabel asked.

Danny hesitated. The fact that it happened to be the same colour as his eyes—or his ectoplasm—in ghost mode could be a coincidence, but things tended to be a lot less coincidental when Clockwork was involved. Danny wasn’t really ready to bet that whoever had written this journal had simply run out of every other colour of pen that day. “Maybe,” he admitted, “but only in that it might point toward me.” Or another ghost like him. Hopefully not Danielle.

“So do you know who wrote it?” she prompted.

He shook his head. “I don’t know the handwriting. That’s not saying much, though. There are a lot of people—and ghosts—I know whose handwriting I’d never recognize.” He wasn’t even sure he’d recognize the Ghost Writer’s handwriting. “What does the other part say about me?”

“That something was stuck in a thermos behind the shack,” Mabel answered immediately, ignoring her brother’s glare. “Which it was.”

“It’s a Fenton Thermos, something specifically designed to contain ghosts. My parents build them.” If he wasn’t trying to keep his secret anymore, there was no harm in admitting that. “They’re paranormal scientists and inventors.”

“Like the author of the journal is,” Mabel said, shooting Dipper a pointed look. “That must be why the bit about the thermos is in there.”

“Not— I mean, I’m not thirty years old. Seriously. Do I look that old to you? I just turned fifteen last week.” Well. Last week for him. Not for whenever this was, five years in his future. “Me being in the thermos is Clockwork’s fault.” Probably. Except Clockwork wouldn’t have needed to catch him in a thermos to force him back here; he could’ve simply asked and called in a favour if Danny had complained, which he would’ve. More likely, Clockwork had merely taken advantage of someone else capturing him in a thermos, and that list of possibilities was long—and included more than one ally, even when the capturing was intentional.

“I don’t know all the details, okay? I just…. I haven’t met a ghost besides Clockwork that messes with time.” His evil future self didn’t count, not when Clockwork’s power had still been the vehicle for everything he’d done.

…Danny really hoped this had nothing to do with him. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t appreciate the thermos parallels.

Of course, now that he thought about it, the fact that he’d been stuck in a thermos had to be deliberate. Sure, it was a way to skirt the notice of the Observants, but Clockwork had messed with the timeline before without doing anything sneaky like that. If the thermos was important…. Coupled with the fact that there was a portal being built beneath a place called the Mystery Shack….

“That’s why I’m here.”

“You care to share with the class?” Dipper asked.

“The thermos, the portal—”

“What portal?”

Oops. “The, y’know, whatever, it doesn’t matter, the point is, you said the author of the journals was a paranormal scientist? Maybe an inventor, too?”

“No, no, don’t change the subject. What portal?”

“Like a portal to another dimension?” Mabel queried. “Is that why you talked about interdimensional safety earlier?”

Oh, crud. They weren’t going to let his slip about the portal go. So much for that secret. “Just…never mind that right now. Paranormal scientist. Inventor. Like my parents. He probably didn’t know them, it would’ve been too early on for them to have made a name for themselves, they might not even have been together yet, but…. Okay. This is gonna sound crazy—”

“Crazier than everything else you’ve said?” Dipper asked dryly.

“—but just go with me on this. Please. I know what happened when my parents messed stuff up, and—”

“And you’re warning us so we’re prepared and more careful,” Mabel finished. “So I don’t get impatient and Dipper doesn’t get complacent.”

Danny frowned. “What?”

“Your warning,” she repeated. “You’re not trying to get us to stop what we’re doing. It’s a terrible warning for that. That kind of thing just makes you wanna do it more, whatever it is. So you’re actually warning us to be more careful than you think we would be otherwise.”

Danny opened his mouth to tell her that warning someone not to do something obviously meant they shouldn’t do it, and then he remembered all the times his parents had warned him not to touch stuff in the lab.

Right.

Maybe she wasn’t wrong.

Just because that was what a warning meant, didn’t mean it would always have the desired effect.

Moreover, Clockwork would know exactly what to have Danny say to get the desired effect.

He’d thought he’d come to help with the portal, but he still didn’t know the blueprints of his parents’ portal as well as Tucker did. If this were just about helping them build or fix the portal in the basement without bad consequences, Tucker was a better choice than he was, and Clockwork could most definitely have arranged that.

But Danny had joked about being the poster boy for interdimensional safety, and he could still disassemble and reassemble most of his parents’ weapons in order to tweak them, even if he wasn’t as good at it as Tucker, and he’d be an idiot to keep ignoring the fact that Clockwork had made sure he had a thermos here.

The thermos wasn’t for him. It had never been for him. It had contained him, sure, but Clockwork must’ve made sure he was stuck in one so that he’d think of this. So that he’d think of what they’d done with his evil future self. And so he’d have it when he needed it.

There was a portal in a secret lab in the basement of the Mystery Shack, and the thermos written about in Dipper’s journal was for whatever was coming out of it.

(see more fics | next)

#gravity falls #danny phantom #phantom falls #crossover #fanfiction #gf fanfiction #dp fanfiction #my writing #ladylynse #snippets #crossover snippet #gf snippet #dp snippet

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years ago

Text

Whumptober 30 + 31: Internal Injury and Left for Dead

CW: Blood, just like a whole lot of violence, organ removal, more than mild arson, whumper turned whumpee, character death, dissoci@tion, mild vampirism, some brief threatening pet whump and dehumanization + a noncon reference

TIMELINE: Begins immediately following Possession, end of the Bad Arc. One year after Danny is abducted for a second time.

Nate tastes blood on his tongue, thick in his mouth, but he’s tasted blood before. Bram’s skin is cold but it is always cold, and his panting breaths are heavy against Nate’s ear but he knows Bram’s breathing better than almost anything else, better than he knows anyone’s breathing but Danny’s.

Abraham Denner has been breathing in Nate’s ear, down his spine, inside his mind for seven very long years, and Nate is about to ensure he can never do it again.

Bram groans in pain, like so many other sounds he’s made against Nate’s ear before, whispering, I love you, you’re mine as Nate cried and fought and screamed and didn’t cry and moaned and gave in to him, to his eyes and his love, again and again and again-

Nate pulls back, his teeth and tongue black and red, blood smeared thick like oil around his lips and down his chin, and Bram’s eyes meet his, wide with rage.

Nate isn’t scared of Bram any longer.

His wrists burn from tearing free of the ropes, the scent of new and old blood is thick in the air around them. His hands close around Bram’s neck, a collar of skin, and he closes his grip slippery-red, thumbs pressing down on the windpipe of a man who will not die from this, because he already died centuries ago.

Ryan is in his mind and in his hands, guiding their strength, Ryan is darkness and white teeth sharpened to points. Ryan is glowing yellow eyes that stare out from Nate’s own. He is not alone inside himself, and they are the same, and if Danny is dead then Nate will make sure Bram follows him-

He’s not dead, Ryan’s voice whispers inside of him, and Nate bears his thumbs down harder just to hear Bram’s gurgling, rasping chokes, to feel his hands press against Nate’s bare chest and then claw there, digging in but Ryan is between Nate and the pain, pressing up against his skin, a barrier between Nate and true sensation. He’s not dead. We can still save him.

Nathaniel Vandrum’s life has been narrowed, day by day, month by month, year by year. He spent years under Bram’s spell, eight months a hunted animal. He spent four years keeping Danny alive, he spent a year and a half helping him learn to be human again, spent a year watching Danny suffer from a place too far for him to follow.

He has spent a year watching Danny bleed, and scream, and cry, and slip away inside himself with only Ryan there to bring him back out.

He is tired of watching Danny suffer.

He is tired of this.

He is so fucking tired.

He feels no pain from his broken right hand - Ryan stands between him and the pain there, too. He can feel Ryan twisting inside him, pushing him to close his hands tighter around Bram’s neck, staring down into his eyes. The things that move there thrash with desperate desire to survive but Nate has no mercy left in him.

He should be horrified by someone else being inside his body with him but he can’t be, he can’t let it sink in that he is moving as two people working together inside one skin, or he’ll slip. It takes one mistake and Bram will have him again, and if Bram gets him again he’ll be done, he’ll die before he’ll hurt anyone, but Bram would make him hurt so many people.

“N-Nate-” Bram’s voice is husky, but the anger boils inside it, and he grabs Nate by the shoulders finally and throws him off. Nate slams to the ground on his side, groaning and moving to scramble to his feet just as Bram, blood still pouring in thick black waves from the wound Nate tore open, stands and kicks him hard.

Something snaps in Nate and Ryan isn’t fast enough to take the pain. There’s a burst of it, an ache that overrides him, and he’s still for too long. Only a second... but too long.

Bram drags him to his knees by one arm and slaps him, his palm slamming into Nate’s cheek sending him back to the ground. Back up to slap him again, the other side. Kicked again and Nate coughs out air before he can find more to inhale.

Ryan is gone from inside him, collapsing onto the ground where he’d been standing before he stepped inside Nate’s skin, dark skin glowing faintly with the same yellow as his eyes.

Somewhere, Bram’s sister runs from her own mistakes, but Nate stares up as Bram walks towards him and thinks that Bram has never needed his sister to keep his puppies in line before, and he doesn’t need her now.

“You would… refuse the gift?” Bram’s voice is laced with his disbelief. He raises a hand to touch the uneven skin torn apart at one shoulder, looking at the blood there with something like wonder. “You’d try to kill me? After everything I did for you? After everything I gave you?”

“After-...” Nate coughs again, trying to get back on his feet, but as soon as he’s on all fours Bram kicks him again and sends him back down. His eyes move to Danny - limp on the ground, blood welling up around the blade buried in his back. Danny’s eyes are open, wide and so so blue.

So blue, and so empty.

Danny’s gone.

“No.” The voice is from Nate but it’s not his voice. It’s a whimper. A whine. Barely a protest.

Too late.

“I gave you the puppy,” Bram says, stepping between Nate and Danny, blocking him from the sight of the man he loves most in the world. The only thing left that he loves in the world. “Now I’ve taken the puppy away.”

Nate’s heart does not twist with fear. He doesn’t let himself grieve yet. Instead… he lets his head drop to the ground, into his arms, and he starts to weep. If the tears are anger, not sadness, Bram doesn’t notice. He chuckles, satisfied, and pulls Nate back onto his feet again. One hand gripped tightly around his arm, the other hand cups Nate’s cheek, gently pressing his jaw to tilt his head up, get him to look Bram in the eyes.

“I w-wanted to save him,” Nate whispers.

Too late, Vandrum. Always too late.

“I know,” Bram says with unnerving tenderness, and when he leans in to kiss Nate, the man doesn’t fight him. Bram’s lips are cold.

He spent half a year, once, being the perfect lover. He can do it again, for just a few minutes.

For long enough.

Bram licks his own blood off his lips when he pulls back, smiling now. There’s blackish red on his teeth, staining his pale pale skin. “You can’t save anyone, Nate,” Bram says, reaching up, running his fingers back through Nate’s hair. “You’re mine. Mine, forever. For the rest of fucking time, Nate, you’re mine. Mourn him if you want, but you were never meant for the puppy. You were meant for me.”

“Yes,” Nate says, and pitches his voice to be slightly faint and empty, the voice he used when Bram would wipe him away from himself. He looks into those colorless eyes and, like every day since Bram once forced a muzzle on Danny for months and nearly took him from Nate for good, he feels absolutely nothing.

“Bring Faerie Boy inside,” Bram commands with effortless certainty. “I know how to take care of his kind, too. Then we’ll decide what happens next.” Bram looks carelessly over at where Danny lays crumpled in the dirt. “Faerie Boy can bury the body.”

The body.

Nate has to steel himself with every ounce of willpower not to make a sound in response. He only nods and, making his expression blank, he limps over to Ryan, dragging Danny’s brother to his feet. Ryan’s skin feels like an open flame under his hand, far hotter than human skin ever should be, but the glow in his eyes is dulling. He’s too tired, too new at this. His strength is already waning, Nate thinks, he pushed himself too far.

“Danny’s n-not dead,” Ryan says in a croaking, cracking voice. “He’s, he’s not-”

“I know,” Nate responds, forcing him to move. He knows Danny is dead, though, and that this is just Ryan trying to convince him not to give up, give in, and let Bram rebuild his family - with his true love and his dog - with Ryan in Danny’s place. Bram is behind them, ensuring they go where into the house, and Nate half-drags Ryan up the steps. “T-trust me. I h-h-h… I’ve got a plan.”

Ryan laughs, dry and hopeless, but he allows himself to be moved. His neck is a ring of bright red agony, his wrists look the same. He’s skinny, after a year earning bites of food with obedience to torture, bony under Nate’s hands. His hair is dull and brittle, dried and tangled frizz instead of curls. “Sure… hope so.”

“When I m-m-move,” Nate whispers, barely loud enough for Ryan to possibly hear, just hoping he understands, “grab his l-l-legs to s-slow him down, and then c-c-come back… I’ll l-let you in.”

Nate deposits him on the floor next to the kitchen table without waiting for a response, letting him drop more roughly than necessary, pretending he is still in thrall as he pulls out a chair and sits.

He’s going to have one chance at this.

Bram pulls out a chair and sits across from him, giving Nate a smile. Brilliant, and shining, and loving, even as the love of Nate’s life is bleeding to death in the front yard. Nate might not be able to save Danny, now - but he can save Ryan, he thinks.

He hopes it’s enough for wherever Danny will be after he’s gone.

He hopes it will somehow settle Danny’s soul, to know Nate gave everything to save his little brother, after watching Danny break himself again and again to hold Ryan together.

If we’re damned for loving each other like they told me, Nate thinks with an all-consuming grief and conviction, I’ll see you in hell soon enough.

“We’ll have to go somewhere new,” Bram says, gripping Ryan by the hair, jerking him backwards. Ryan bares his sharp, inhuman teeth, and Bram snorts, ramming his head directly into the edge of the table, making Ryan cry out and slump.

Nate doesn’t flinch.

“I’ll dedicate you. Make you one of us. I’ll finish the dedication and then you’ll understand.” Bram’s hand is still gripped in Ryan’s hair, tightening on the curls until he hisses in pain, but it’s a faint and faded sound. “We’ll take the puppy with us and go find my sister. You know I never like to leave a puppy, Nate.”

Those eyes are back on his, and Nate gives Bram a slight smile - as if pulled out of him unwillingly, as if he’s falling into the depths of his eyes all over again. As if, without Danny to fight for, he has no fight left.

Danny might be dead - Nate’s mind skips from that truth, runs from it as fast as it can, circles around it endlessly - but Ryan isn’t. Danny would want his brother saved, and Nate…

He can do this.

He has to do this.

“Y-yes, Bram,” Nate says, soft and as empty as Danny’s open eyes. “I c-can help t-t-take care of Faerie B-Boy.”

At his feet, Ryan lets out a choked-off sob. Whether he’s only playing the part, or drifting into pure hopelessness, Nate isn’t sure. He can’t risk a look, can’t risk giving anything away for a second. Instead, he moves to lay his hand over Bram’s on top of Ryan’s head. Bram’s hand is cold under his.

Danny’s hands get cold, too, his long fingers feel like ice sometimes in the morning when he wakes Nate with a hug. He pulls his hands into the sleeves of his sweaters, tugs them constantly down to cover the scars on the backs of his hands. His eyes are warmer than his hands can be, as Nate holds one of his hands in both of his, rubbing at them to warm up those cold fingers while Danny smiles-

Danny’s dead. You can save his brother. Focus.

“I l-love you,” Nate says, softly. He knows how to twist his tone just right, to make his voice foggy like the power of Bram’s eyes has once again papered over Nate’s will, his very self, to remake him in Bram’s image.

If there is a heaven, it will be Danny that I beg for forgiveness, not God.

“I love you, too.” Bram smiles, letting go of Ryan to hold Nate’s hand. Cold dead fingers. Nate forces his smile to widen, softens his expression. “My black-haired prince. Red got in our way. But it’s just us all over again, isn’t it? Just you and I.” He smirks, pale lips smeared with drying blood. “And the puppy.”

Nate nods, and pulls Bram’s hand up, to press a kiss to the back of it. Smooth, scarless.

Not the hand he wants to kiss at all.

“That’s why you had to watch it all, you know.” Bram sighs, content in this moment. There’s still blood running from the wound in his shoulder but he doesn’t seem to notice it, and the wound is closing before Nate’s eyes, skin knitting itself together. He won’t die, even if Nate kills him he won’t die. There’s only one way to be sure. Only one way to keep him from coming back.

“Wh-what? Why?” Nate tilts his head, closes his eyes so Bram won’t see he’s disgusted by his touch, plays it off as shivering desire, maybe. Somehow, somewhere back there, he gained the ability to hide some of his unhappiness from Abraham Denner.

They lost with their first attempt.

There’s only one more chance.

“So you would get used to it again.” Bram pulls his hand back and away, lays it palm-down against the back of Ryan’s neck, and Nate tries not to watch Ryan shiver where he kneels on the floor. Bram scratches his fingernails through the red, irritated skin, reopening old wounds from the iron collar. Ryan whimpers, whines with the pain, and Nate fights the memory of Danny’s scream behind his muzzle, jaw straining as the wire mesh cut in deeper and deeper.

Bram took the muzzle off - the new one remade, but it might as well have been exactly the fucking same - before Ryan and Ora came out. It’s still out there, isn’t it? Lying in the dirt, bloodied.

Nate almost loses his iron grip on his own emotions at the thought of Danny’s body in the dirt so close to the tool of torture that hurt him the worst. Not from grief, no - he still has that locked up inside his head, he will mourn Danny when he has saved Ryan, when it’s over, when it’s done. But the fury that comes with the realization that Danny’s eyes, still open and unblinking, will be staring right at the muzzle.

He catches himself. Holds the anger down. Gives Bram a soft, sweet, loving smile. “Used t-to it?”

“Right. Used to it, and… maybe a little bit appreciative.” Bram laughs, his high-pitched hyena’s laughter, smacking the wound he reopened on Ryan’s neck just to hear him cry. His eyes glow such a brilliant, bright yellow they turn nearly white, like staring into the sun - and then falter again, fade and go dull.

He needs to be strong enough to do one more thing, and Nate isn’t sure if he will be. But he’s going to try, anyway.

“I’ll l-learn,” Nate promises, and runs his own hand through Ryan’s dirty, greasy curls, catching in the tangles. He looks down, cold green eyes locking on Ryan’s dulled yellow, back to the color of old, cloudy honey, and uses his good left hand to tilt his chin up, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip. “You’ll b-b-be good for m-me, puppy, won’t you?”

Ryan’s eyes widen, just a little, flicker in the dim kitchen lit only by the light coming through the window over the sink, and through the open inside door. Outside the closed screen door, down the steps, fifteen feet away, Danny lies in the dirt.

“Oh, that’s good,” Bram says, rubbing at Ryan’s back. “What do you say, Faerie Boy? Can you be as good between us as you’ve been for me so far?”

Ryan’s lip trembles under Nate’s thumb. Nate smiles at him, the same soft loving look he’s been giving Bram. He is the personification of what Bram can do. He is the perfect vision of Bram taking control and making him someone he’s not, as he did for years with power, manipulation, and threats. “Bram asked you a qu-... a question, p-puppy,” Nate whispers. “Wh-what’s the r-r-rule?”

Ryan’s eyes well with such human tears. “Al-... always answer Abraham’s questions, never hes… hesitate and neh-... never lie.”

“So wh-what’s your answer?”

Ryan looks up at him, pleading, but Nate keeps his eyes, his face perfectly steady. I’m sorry. Just a few more minutes...

“I...” Ryan’s voice catches. He’s exhausted, struggling to pull threads of himself together. Whatever it is Ryan is, whatever it is he can do, it takes too much out of him. “I c-can be good for you,” He whispers.

“B-B-Both of us?”

Ryan’s eyes close tightly. “Both of you.” He has to spit out the words.

“Good b-b-boy.” Another rub over his lower lip, his skin is rough and chapped against Nate’s thumb. “Do you w-w-want a d, a drink, Bram?” He raises his eyes, lets his hand drop, but not before he taps twice on the front of Ryan’s neck next to his Adam's apple, deliberately spaced apart to make it clear it’s a message. “I th-think I remember how you l-like it.”

Bram smiles, twists a curl around his finger, yanks on it until Ryan winces. “Sure. Whiskey sour. Red made sour mix, it’s in the fridge.” He sighs, mournfully. “I suppose Red won’t get to make me my drinks anymore. Pity, he was always better at it than Faerie Boy.”

Nate swallows. He won’t cry for Danny yet.

Not yet.

He pushes himself to his feet, walking away and moving to the fridge. Slow footsteps, careful and solid. He feels strange, as though he’s far away from himself, watching his body go through these motions from a distance. Open the cupboards until he finds a glass, pull it down and add some ice cubes. Find the whiskey in a different cabinet, expensive small-batch distillery in Portland, he notes absently, pouring a shot, and then two, into the glass.

He pulls the sour mix, stored in a pitcher, out of the fridge and tries with every ounce of strength he has left not to think about how Danny’s fingers were the last to close around the handle, and now they never will again.

Not yet not yet not yet.

Cry when Ryan is safe. Until then, be for Ryan what Danny cannot be any longer. He owes Danny that much and more, he owes everything he could ever give. He pours in the sour mix, adds a cherry from a jar in the fridge. Picks a lemon up from a basket, staring down at it, and then his eyes move to the knife block, but he’s careful not to turn his head to make it obvious.

One chance.

He picks up not the chef’s knife but the smaller, sharper paring knife, and he feels Bram’s eyes on his back as he cuts three identical lemon slices, struggling to do it gracefully with his broken hand throbbing again, fighting him with every step. He drops the lemon slices into the drink, gives the whole thing a quick stir. Closes his eyes and breathes.

I’m sorry, Danny.

He turns around and throws the drink in Bram’s face.

Ryan is moving before Nate has even finished his own motion and he grabs Bram around the legs as he starts to stand up, slamming the man into the ground as he’s knocked off balance, pale eyes widening in surprise as Nate falls on him with his teeth bared and the knife in his hand, bringing it down over Bram’s heart.

There’s resistance, and pain, and Nate doesn’t care about either anymore.

Ryan’s eyes flare, glowing brilliant with one last spark of energy, and the shadows press like velvet against Nate’s back, overtaking all the light but Ryan’s. The kitchen is pure and perfectly black as Nate feels Bram’s blood bubble up cold around the handle of the knife as he forces it down.

Cold hands grab onto his like a vice, and he opens his mouth to scream-

Let me in.

Ryan is in his skin in his heart in his head, pressing the knife down harder, dragging it back towards himself, cutting into Bram’s skin as he fights them but Ryan is stronger than Nate and the two men working in one body open the emptiness inside of Abraham Denner and Nate shoves his hand inside.

It’s cold, like everything about Bram is cold, and it has a little give under his fingers. He grips as tightly as his hand will allow and Ryan is gripping alongside him as they pull backwards. Bram screams, the first true scream Nate has ever heard from him, high-pitched. Windows crack around them as the scream carries on and on and on, Nate’s head is pounding but he can’t feel it. Ryan takes it for him, presses himself along the length of Nate’s body, underneath his skin, against his eardrums, layers himself over Nate’s mind.

He is protected.

He uses the blade of the paring knife to cut the veins and arteries. Cold black blood coats his hand as he pulls out Abraham’s Denner ancient heart.

The shadows recede - or Nate can see through them now, he doesn’t know, the whole world seems strange and disconnected from him - as he pushes himself to his feet.

Nate-

“It’s not d-d-done,” Nate says to the voice inside his head of his dead love’s little brother, and he turns, dragging one leg as he moves out into the sun outside.

Danny hasn’t moved, but Nate didn’t expect him to.

Dead people usually don’t, unless they’re Bram or Ashley.

He is nothing but blood now, and the heart in his hands is still beating. Soft contractions of muscle with nothing to push through, no blood to rush through old veins. But still the heart beats. It’s not over.

There’s a burn pile over by a shed, covered with sticks and trash, and Nate walks to it with Ryan still inside him. The two of them look out of one set of eyes.

Burn it?

“B-burn it,” Nate confirms in a fierce whisper.

There are no tears.

Not yet.

He lays the beating heart down in the burn pile and walks away from it, moving to a shed to open the door. He stares, blankly, at a skeleton that faces him against the back wall, rotted away by now. It’s been a year. Death is still in the air but neither of them can smell anything any longer but Bram’s blood. Nate ignores the skeleton and finds a can of gasoline - Bram is predictable, always predictable - and carries it back out to toss about a third of the can into the sticks, taking special care to ensure some of it splashes over the disembodied, beating heart.

Left here, Bram’s body would eventually reform and wake back up.

Like Ashley.

Nate will not lose anything else to them ever again.

“I’m not your b-b-black-haired p-prince,” He says to the heart, and lights a match.

The gasoline catches immediately, flames rising with the sharp pungent smell. Nate doesn’t wait - he picks the can up again, sloshes it around to see how much is left, and looks to the house. “Go s-s-say goodbye to your b-b-brother,” He says. “I’ll come, t-too, when this is o-over.”

Danny-

“Go s-say goodbye.”

Ryan is out of him in a flash, and Nate is oddly lonely inside his mind as he makes his methodical way back to the porch. Ryan kneels next to his brother, hands out but not quite touching, as Nate moves inside. He passes Abraham’s body without looking at it. He lets the gasoline trail - a little here and a little there, splashes on the curtains, splashes on the rug.

With his leg throbbing, he moves upstairs with gasoline trailing on the steps. He pours a little on the bed, staring at the bloodied ropes tied to the headboard a little too long. Outside, he starts to hear the crackle of the fire catching outside. Good. The heart will burn.

Just like his.

More gasoline for the curtains - he’s getting low, he needs to conserve. He has to be sur the whole house will burn.

Then he stops in front of a room with no door, a room he’s seen in Bram’s texted photos and videos, in a few of the livestreams he watched. He watched them all, desperate for clues. Danny and Ryan had managed to tear the paper that covered the window once and before Bram had cut the video, Nate had been able to pause - and see beyond the rolling fields to a water tower in the distance.

One of his first clues.

In this room there are manacles attached to the wall, a broken chain of iron on the floor, pools of drying blood. Nate pours a little gasoline into the pool, watching the change in texture as it thins and goes oddly shimmery.

In the closet, he finds half-drunk bottles of cheap high-proof alcohol. He lets the trail of gasoline lead to those too, and opens them all.

Done with his work, he drops the now-empty can and walks through the house, reeking of gasoline and blood, and goes downstairs and past Bram’s body one more time without looking down or looking back.

His heart beats steady and calm inside of him as he lights a match and lets it fall onto the porch, to find the first thin trail of liquid.

He stands long enough to watch the flames lick into the kitchen, over Bram’s body. He stares long enough to watch Bram’s long wavy pale hair begin to darken and curl. He watches the flames find their way from kitchen to living room. He watches the curtains burn.

Then he turns and walks down the steps.

His hands have started to shake.

Ryan, kneeling on the ground next to his brother with his wrist torn open and pouring blood, pressing it against Danny’s mouth, speaks to him but Nate doesn’t hear it, turning from Danny’s body - too late too late too late too late - and going back to the other fire, to see Bram’s heart burning, turning black. It will be ash soon, and nothing else.

Nate doesn’t cry, no.

Still, he doesn’t cry.

Not yet.

The wind blows warm over his face and Nate takes in a breath. The world is blood and smoke and his failure to save the most important person in his life. The world is the empty feeling underneath his skin. The world is the grief trying to claw it way back up his throat to make him scream-

“Nate!” Ryan’s voice is right next to his ear and he jumps as Ryan grabs at his arm, spinning him around. The yellow eyes are dull, shadowed, bereft of power - but they still dance. You can’t torture the beauty out of Ryan Michaelson.

You can’t kill the light inside him, or the things that live there.

He smells like green hills and a rainy season over waving grasslands. He carries the scent of a predator that hunts at dusk and at dark. Blood soaks the hills, pours down the river, threads into the homes of sleeping people at night.

He’s smiling.

“Nate, he’s not-... Nate, listen to me!”

Nate jerks back into himself, blinking rapidly as his strange disconnect ends. There is fire all around the two of them, and Nate realizes for the first time that the shed will burn, too. It’s already dangerously close to catching. The air is starting to heat around them. “What? Wh-what, Ryan, I-”

“Danny’s not dead! I-I can’t-... but he’s not dead! He’s still breathing! We still have time!”

In the distance, the first faint sound of sirens. Nate raises his head, staring. “Who c-c-called the c-cops?”

Ryan lets out a peal of wild, half-hysterical laughter, and the sound is beautiful. “Whoever saw that bigass cloud of fucking smoke, Nate! Someone’s-...” He swallows, suddenly, sways as his knees buckle, and Nate catches him, arms around him, keeping him upright. “Someone’s... coming for us. Someone’s coming to h-help, someone’s... someone’s coming...”

“Someone’s c-c-coming,” Nate agrees, softly.

Ryan turns to look at him, then slides his arms around Nate, hugging him, burying his head in the side of Nate’s neck.

“Someone fucking came,” He whispers. “And Danny’s not dead.”

Nate’s eyes move over to the tall, thin body sprawled out on the ground, and watches as empty blue eyes blink once, slowly move to meet his.

He’d seen emptiness and thought it was death, but it was someone else buying Danny - buying Nate - some time.

He gently pulls away from Ryan and moves to the muzzle, picking it up in one hand. Someone else is still watching him, blue eyes following his movements, and he holds it out. “Never ag-again,” He says, softly.

Someone else doesn’t move. Just keeps watching as Nate drags himself to the fire and throws the muzzle in.

But when he turn back again, tears are running down Danny’s face, his lips twisting with the agony, and he whimpers, “Nate, h-hurts-”

Nate and Ryan both run to him at once.

When the fire trucks arrive, they find the three of them together on the ground, Nate and Ryan each holding one of Danny’s hands.

---

@slytherynjolras, @whump-it, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @swordkallya, @astrobly, @slaintetowhump, @moose-teeth, @untilthepainstarts, @whumpiary, @lave-whump @raigash @cupcakes-and-pain

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orange-imagines · 4 years ago

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Congrats on your new blog!! 😁 I was wondering, how would the Mud Dogs react when their crush is friends with the turtles? Do you think the turtles and the Mud Dogs would get along??

A/N - Mud Dogs content hell yeah

I have no idea how you managed to befriend both of these groups (at least I’m going to assume you’re friends with the Mud Dogs in this), but, honestly, I can see the Mud Dogs being pretty chillaxed about what you do in your spare time and who you choose to spend it with outside of them, so they don’t really pry. And, well, you know the turtles. They didn’t know their own dad’s true identity for a whole 13 years

Your accidental double life totally fits with the vibe of the show

You didn’t mean to hide your friendships from anyone, they just sort of happened and never got brought up. And no one asked. Whoops

Honestly, the whole discovery part was a little awkward because,,would you believe it,,,you had no idea the guys were even enemies

They aren’t even technically enemies! The Mud Dogs just had a bad encounter with Raph one time and you only heard about it a couple days later when you were hanging out at the Mud Dogs’ apartment and Leonard was going off about this “lame red guy” who totally screwed them over

“Uh...could you repeat that, Len?”

“Lame red guy. Looked kinda like a turtle. We thought he was Heinous Green, but he was just pulling one over on us.”

“Oh okay okay cool cool okay cool would you guys excuse me for a second-”

You had no idea how to go about this, but both groups meant so much to you that you couldn’t just up and abandon either of them

You’re kinda pressed for options, and probably don’t feel like continuing to lead a weird, double life, so you decide to just introduce the guys to each other. How hard could it be?

(This goes a couple different ways depending on which Mud Dog it is that’s crushing on you)

Leonard

The second he sees Raph, he’s pushing you behind him and trying to shiv the guy

This does not go over well

You’re gonna have to get Danny and Mickey to hold Leonard back while you explain to the turtles that this is just a misunderstanding, and no one’s going to stab Raph

But, even if you’re not in a relationship yet, Leonard is protective -and he heard the rumors about Raph taking down Heinous Green. There’s no way he’s not gonna fight to keep his family out of that line of danger

Eventually, upon your insistence, everyone will calm down. It’ll take a minute for Leonard to see that Raph’s not a threat to them, and you might have to stare him down a bit to get him to back off, but he will

Still, Leo, Mikey and Donnie will be watching Leonard like hawks for the rest of the time you’re all together

After you explain everything, Leonard’s kind of hurt. He thought you guys were closer than that- he thought you knew you could tell him anything. But once you clarify that it was just an honest mistake, he’s more understanding than he would’ve been with anyone else. It’s you, after all. He can’t stay mad at you

Danny

At first he’s just shocked and confused. He’s quiet, but he keeps an arm around you because he doesn’t trust Raph as far as the turtle could throw him

Once you start putting yourself in the middle of everything to calm the guys down, he listens. He isn’t quite sure what to say, so he’s watching you intently and deeply processing your words

He knows making blind threats and being overly protective isn’t going to help right now, and he trusts you. A lot. And from how chummy you seem to be with these turtles, it’s pretty easy for him to realize that you guys are friends and they’re not gonna hurt his family, which relaxes him a lot

After you get everyone on the same page, Danny begins to understand that it was just a weird mix up. He can recognize when someone has malicious intent, and you definitely didn’t. So he’s cool. He’ll still tease you about being friends with a bunch of “goody-two-shoes heroes”, though

Mickey

“Oh fuck!!”

He honestly thinks the turtles ambushed them, so he’s got a hand on your arm, ready to either fight or make a run for it at any second

Raph is obviously confused, so he steps up to bring his questions to you, but Mickey’s Not Having That

Like Leonard, you’ll have to physically hold him back. Which kind of ends up with you just holding him against you as you talk things out with Raph and the others glare each other down, waiting for either Raph or Leonard’s signal to attack

Mickey’s still in your arms...he’s not complaining

Once you get things sorted out, he’s honestly not even mad about your weird, secret double life. He has no idea how none of them figured it out before, but he thinks it’s kinda cool. I feel like he would get that you were trying to sort things out and he honestly does not care if you force him to try and get along with four teenagers. He’ll do it for you

He’ll probably hold this over your head for a bit though. Just as a “you hid your double life from me. You owe me a night out committing arson” kinda thing

All in all

It would take a while, but I feel like the guys could learn to coexist and be cool. They may be on nearly opposite sides, but all of them are your friends. And if they all really mean that much to you, they can put their differences aside

But the turtles will get worried when you’re on missions with the Mud Dogs, and vice versa. You’re exposing yourself to twice as much danger, but, then again, you’ve got twice as many friends watching your back

...You might want to keep an eye on Donnie, though. He may or may not be crafting an anti-Mud Dogs ray as we speak

#rottmnt x reader #rottmnt imagines #rottmnt leonard x reader #rottmnt danny x reader #rottmnt mickey x reader #rottmnt mud dogs x reader #rottmnt mud dogs

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gladly-be-the-good · 4 years ago

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"Hi I'm Boyd, a definitely real boy! Do you want to see the lab?" Danny raised an eyebrow as his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Suuure." Jazz smiled widely at the little boy bot and said, enthusiastically,

"We'd love to!" Boyd reached out for their hands. Jazz took his immediately while Danny shoved his hands in his pockets. Boyd didn't seem too discouraged, so Gyro wouldn't eject the moody teen from his lab, yet.

As soon as they were in another room Boyd started taking.

"This is where Dr. Gearlose first thought up the Gizmoduck armor! He made it as a tool to help around the lab, but then Dr- um, I mean, someone totally random that I definitely don't know and love, nailed it, wanted to help people all over duckburg, and beyond!"

"So he's a good person then? Not someone who would be upset with another superhero reaching out to him?" Jazz asked.

This little boy was clearly incapable of subterfuge, so his goodness was genuine. She could trust him as much as she could trust any other sweet ten year old.

"Oh yes! He loves when he gets to work with other heroes! He needs breaks sometimes and is happy for any help he can get."

"Is he someone that would approve of, I don't know, magic or ghosts or underaged superheroes?" Boyd smiled at her, taking her words at face value even as Danny, who had been listening carefully, shot them both incredulous looks.

"You've never met Mr. McDuck before have you? He employs Gizmoduck and he has a ghost butler! And a niece that used to be a spirit and is entirely magic. We even have an intern here who is.... I don't actually know, but he's really nice too! And as far as thinking kids can't be heroes, he wanted me to be one! And he works with Darkwing who has a sidekick that's twelve. Here at McDuck enterprises, we follow rule 53 in the Junior woodchuck guidebook! Greet the unknown with an open mind and an open heart."

"Wow. You people are basically perfect aren't you?" Danny asked sarcastically. He didn't like where Jazz was going with this and he really didn't need a little kid, who obviously couldn't lie to save his life, knowing a secret that would get Danny killed. Or, more killed, at least.

"Oh no, nothing is perfect. Even machines are flawed."

"So Boyd, tell me about Dr. Gearlose?" Jazz interrupted, a nervous lilt in her voice.

"Dr. Gearlose is amazing!" Boyd exclaimed, spinning in a circle with his arms above his head. Danny swore he saw a rainbow in the background. "It's a secret, so don't tell him please, but I like to call him Dr. Dad."

"He's your dad?"

"Well I don't exactly have a dad, but he was the one who created me so- I mean, in the way that all kids, are, created, dude?" Little bulb smacked his head, the sound of metal hitting glass was the only sound in the room as Jazz and Boyd both looked nervously at Danny, though Boyd was looking at Jazz too.

Poor, sleep deprived Danny, who had grown up with awkward Tucker as a best friend, just blinked slowly and said,

"So, are we gonna learn about any of the science stuff here or just your family?"

"Oh! Yes! Those two things are definitely separate things! Over here we have, uh, no that's for Gizmoduck, but this upgrade is-! Oh, no, that's for me, me phone! Yup. Me phone. Ha ha hahahaha. I'm a definitely real boy!!" The kid started shaking and looked so stressed.

Jazz big sister mode: activated.

"Boyd, come here." He ran to her without hesitation. She hugged him and said, "I know you're a robot-"

"He's a what?!"

"And we don't care. Do we Danny?" Jazz emphasized her messing with a sharp glare. Danny raised his hands in submission.

"Nope. Totally cool with the robot boy. I'm just surprised."

"How? How are you surprised by this? When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

"Oh come on, Tucker pretended he was secretly a robot for nine months when we were kids."

"You, aren't scared?" Jazz cooed and held Boyd tighter.

"How could anyone be scared of someone so sweet?!"

"A lot of people used to think I was bad, a lot of people still do. Even Dr. Gearlose was worried I was going to hurt people, that that's all I could do." This was a story Danny knew all too well. He looked away and scuffed his shoe against the floor.

"So, what changed?"

"I don't know, actually. One second my programming is being overwritten to terrorise the world, the next I'm being held." Danny moved his hands out of his pockets so he could cross his arms tightly against his chest.

"And you've never worried about, I mean, the guy's a scientist, robotics especially, aren't you worried he'll open you up one day to, to see what's inside? Or break you down for spare parts?' Boyd rubbed his chin.

"I, never thought about that before. I don't think he would, because he loves me. But maybe..." Boyd's chin started to wobble. "What, what If I disappoint him? What if I hurt somebody on accident and I'm too dangerous to be online anymore!?" Little bulb burned a bright red and shook a first at Danny.

"Woah, sorry, just um, stop that? Please? I'm sure your dad loves you too much to ever turn you off okay?" Boyd wiped at his eyes, even though he couldn't cry, and said, desperation and fear in his voice,

"I'll go ask him!" He jumped out of Jazz's arms and ran to the conference room.

"Boyd!"

When they burst into the room, Scrooge McDuck was standing on the table waving his cane in the air.

"Now see here you huanter hunting hooligans-!"

"Dr. Gearlose!" Gyro, the only person in the room that had still been sitting, bolted to his feet and caught Boyd as he jumped into his arms. Gyro instinctively cradled the boy bot and glared at the other kids. Boyd was literally vibrating. Fenton, who was already standing, watched with worried eyes. This was going to end badly.

"You. What did you do to Boyd?" He growled. Little bulb hopped from the chair to the table to Boyd and pat his little brother's head.

"Our kids didn't do anything! We've raised them to be fine upstanding citizens!" Maddy insisted.

"That's right! They know how dangerous ghosts are, don't you kids?" Danny felt all the emotions, guilt, regret, bitterness, jealousy, fear, resentment, building inside of him. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for him to be angry because Boyd had parents who loved him no matter what. It also wasn't fair that Danny didn't. He was so tired of always being scared to go home. Of having to run away from his parents as they shot to kill or capture. If they knew what he was, Danny didn't doubt for a moment that the only reason they'd want him alive would be to dissect him. The fact that Jazz had been asking questions about the heroes here proved that she knew the same thing.

"In my experience," Danny said, voice carefully controlled, "ghosts are very dangerous." His parents looked over at the table of angry strangers victoriously. It was the proudest they'd seemed of Danny in a long time. Seeing Boyd, burying his face in his Dr Dad's chest, he felt the words coming out, and with them all the pain and resentment he'd felt for so long, all before he could try to stop it. "But so are people. In my experience."

"Danny, what are you saying?"

"And you don't just throw away a person because they cause you trouble!" He continued. Looking Boyd directly in the eyes as the younger boy had turned his head. "You don't break them down into usable parts, or molecules. Because they feel things and want things and love things! They're just like anyone else!"

"Danny, what has gotten into you?!" Danny walked right up to Boyd and said softly,

"The only people who don't believe that, they," Danny swallowed past the lump in his throat and the realization that came with saying the truth out loud. "They don't really love you." Boyd sniffed and held out a fist. Danny smirked wryly and bumped it with his own.

"What are you talking about? Ghosts don't have feelings, you know this."

"Do we though? Do we even know why they haunt people? Even if they are just, just bad, we don't have to tear them apart." He implored. This was the first time he'd contradicted his parents. This was the closest he would ever get to asking if they could really love him, spooky bits and all.

They weren't even looking at him anymore, they were holding at each other.

"He gets this from you, you know." Jack said, arms crossed.

"What?!"

"Well we Fentons sure don't have that kind of open mindedness."

"I'll say! Who's idea is it out Fenton before everything we own?!" Jack, clearly offended, raised his voice.

"It's called branding! It was your idea to bring the kids with us anyway! It'll be good for them Jack, they'll experience different cultures. Look at what cultural diversity did! It poisoned our impressionable son's mind against ghost hunting!"

"Well excuse me for wanting our children to be educated!"

Danny sighed and his shoulders slumped. His courage died inside of him.

"I was only kidding. Haha. Let's go back to Amity and live in ignorance for the rest of our lives." Jack's face lit up.

"Atta boy!"

"Honestly Jack, he's clearly lying."

"Danny wouldn't do that, we raised him better than to lie, at least to his old man."

"Kids, RV, now. Jack, we'll be discussing this later." She turned back to the scientists and said, professionally, "Thank you for your time, sorry it was a waste for us both." Boyd waved hesitantly, still sniffing,

"Bye Jazz, by Danny." Danny offered a single wave of his hands before slumping it the door. Jazz waited a moment after her parents were gone too. She hurried and took the card she'd made for just this purpose and handed it quickly to Boyd.

"See you soon." She whispered. She was almost at the door when Jack poked his head back in.

"Come on Jazz, we don't need these ghost-lovers."

"Coming dad." Just like that the Fenton family was gone. Scrooge, still standing on top of the table, summed up the feelings of the group pretty well.

"What in dismal downs just happened here?!"

#ducktales #danny phantom #danny fenton #darkwing duck #gizmoduck #crossover #scrooge mcduck #Boyd #jazz fenton #jack fenton #maddy fenton #fenton cracshell cabrera #dr dad #Manny the man horse #gyro Gearlose

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