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autumnalwalker · 7 months

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Empty Names - 23 - Compression

Author's Note: Another Lacuna POV chapter, which means time for anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and paratechnobabble. But also bonding time with Ashan as she finally takes a shot on undoing the seal limiting the types of magic he can do. Wordcount: 8,993 Content Warnings: Anxiety. Gender dysphoria. Intrusive thoughts. Questionable ethics about collecting data for mad science purposes.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost

It’s hard to say if it's the pain in her hip, shoulder, or neck that wakes Lacuna up. She supposes that’s what she gets for allowing herself to fall asleep on her side. Or maybe it was the thirst, hunger, or need to relieve herself. In the haze of waking it’s hard to say which woke her and which rudely made its presence known after waking. Or was it the unfamiliar weight on her shoulder and chest? Some combination of all of the above, probably.

Still drowsy, she ignores her body’s various protests and tries to go back to sleep on her hard pillow without ever opening her eyes.

Lacuna’s eyes snap open at the realization that she doesn’t have a hard pillow.

Directly in front of her, a DVD logo lazily bounces around a black TV screen. Angling her eyes downwards she confirms what her sense of touch is telling her. Her head is resting on a blanket, and underneath that blanket is…

Oh goddess, she fell asleep on Eris’s lap and that weight on her chest is Eris’s arm wrapped around her like she’s some kind of teddy bear.

Lacuna feels her heart speed up and her face flush as the muscles around her already-stiff joints somehow become tenser still. She turns her head to look up as much as she can without shifting her position too much and confirms that Eris is still asleep. All the more reason to continue ignoring her own body’s demands to get up and take care of it. If Eris was so exhausted last night that she fell asleep on the couch halfway through her favorite comfort movie (and let Lacuna fall asleep on her in this inappropriate position), then what kind of friend would Lacuna be if she woke her up before she was ready? A bad one, that’s what kind. And she’s already been a bad enough one after that (incredibly informative for her own research) accident with Eris’s memory and scars.

Lacuna focuses on the DVD logo bouncing off the edges of the TV screen to distract herself. Distract herself from her body’s physical discomfort. Distract herself from the awkwardness of her position. Distract herself from how nice it feels to be held. At least she’s well-practiced at ignoring the first of those issues. Probably unhealthily well-practiced at it, but then again, she’s also well-practiced at ignoring how that’s a problem too.

As she lays there, her mind starts to wander from calculating how the logo positions and bounce angle prevent it from ever touching the corner of the screen to lamenting how DVD has come to be replaced by BluRay as the physical video storage medium of choice. Sure, BluRay might be the better one from a technological standpoint, but DVD just feels better to say and looks better written out. It’s the combination of simple acronym and similarity to CD. Because really, any shiny disk with a hole in the middle that you stick in a computer is a CD at heart, it’s just a difference of compression algorithms for storage capacity. And at the end of the day, none of that matters if your screen isn’t high enough resolution to make a difference. Everything’s just pixels in the end if you zoom in enough, even on those modern HDTVs that make everything look uncanny valley crisp. Even on the giant screens that comprise the walls, floor, and ceiling of her lab’s test chamber. Even if you vectorize all your shapes so they’re pure math they still have to get rasterized down to pixels to display and will lose detail and sharpness on some minute level. That’s what most likely went wrong with her most recent self-transmutation test; running up against the wall of digital display resolution.

A part of her’s starting to understand why some people are so hung up on analog film and live music performances. Too bad she can’t somehow generate analog versions of her ritual circle glyphs down to a micrometer, or even nanometer precision.

Or can she?

Compression algorithms. Vectorization. Embedded media. Digital to analog conversion. Her first ritual.

She’s already enchanting objects to play pre-recording audio for the incantation and she’s already had one such object do a pseudo-spell ritual to generate light in drawn patterns, why not enchant an object to project a pre-programmed ritual circle as conjured light based on stored vector data? Is there even a theoretical limit to how fine a resolution she could scale down to with that? Not that she knows of, but it could be worth looking up or asking Ashan. Or just trying it and seeing what happens. If she’s on the right track like she thinks she is with regards to the autogenesis problem and her only obstacle now is sufficient resolution for glyph complexity then…

“This could actually work!” Lacuna laughs.

“Hmm… What could work?”

At the sound of her best friend’s voice, Lacuna attempts to bolt upright, disentangles herself from Eris, and scurries to the far end of the couch amidst a flurry of “Sorry”s and “Didn’t mean to wake you”s. Somewhere in the middle of her guilt and embarrassment, some part of her brain reminds her that she hasn’t shaved in at least forty-eight hours and piles that onto the list of reasons to feel self-conscious.

“No worries,” Eris says. “I was half awake already anywaaa… what are you doing?”

“I haven’t shaved,” Lacuna says in a voice muffled by her hoodie’s hood pulled sideways around her neck to cover the bottom half of her face.

“You know I don’t care about that, right?”

“I know, but I care.”

Eris hangs her head and gives Lacuna a look that does more to reiterate the oft-repeated conversation the two of them are on the verge of than could be accomplished by half an hour of words.

“I’m doing it again, aren’t I,” Lacuna says. It’s more observation than question.

“Uh-huh.”

“Thanks. You’re right. It’s fine. It’s fine.” The scratch of stubble against pilled cloth screams that it’s no such thing.

“No worries,” Eris says again. “Besides, I thought you’d landed on a solution to that anyhow.”

“What?”

Lacuna drops the stretched hood she’d been hesitating to pull away from her face in surprise. Surprise turns to dread at Eris’s puzzled look.

“Huh. That’s weird,” Eris observes.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but you definitely have a couple days worth of stubble that I could have sworn wasn’t there a minute ago. And I know last night you didn’t have the bit of fuzz you normally have by that point in the evening.”

“I… didn’t?”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything until you did, but I’d figured you’d just been having success with that personal project of yours that you’ve been working on. It’s been subtle and I’m not sure if it’s from the project itself or you just finally building up enough self-esteem to start turning your autogenesis around, but you have looked a little different lately. Healthier maybe, and definitely more energized.”

“You know what I’ve been working on?” Lacuna stammers.

“Sis, no offense but this is you we’re talking about. What else are you going to be getting up to in your free time with a paratech lab at your disposal? I’m all for it, of course, even if I don’t get why you’ve been so cagey about it.”

“Force of habit after having that NDA hanging over my head, I guess.”

“Hey, well, as long as it’s working out for you and you’re not gonna blow us all up on accident,” Eris jokes. “Weird though that the beard came back all at once. I wonder if -”

“Actually, can you hold that thought?” Lacuna interjects. “I’ve been, well, holding it, for a while now, so, uh, I should… go…”

Eris’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh shit, yeah, go do that.”

“Thanks,” Lacuna says, taking off toward the stairs as quickly as she can without running.

“Oh, and while you’re up there,” Eris calls after her, “if any of the guests are up, let them know I’m making breakfast.”

“Will do,” Lacuna mumbles, probably too quietly to hear over the squeaky board on the step.

As real as her body’s calls for maintaining homeostasis have been, finally giving in and heeding those calls was a convenient excuse. The similarity between her suddenly growing stubble once she realized she hadn’t shaved and Eris’s accidentally erased scars reappearing after being remembered is too close for Lacuna’s comfort. No, that’s not honest. The similarity is immensely encouraging that she’s on the right track with cracking the autogenesis problem for transmutation. It’s the conversation with Eris about that similarity that she's avoiding.

Guilt over what happened hadn’t been enough to stop Lacuna from incorporating what she’d learned from that accidental violation of her best friend’s mind, memory, and body into her own research.

“It was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just salvaged something good from a bad situation,” she whispers to herself for what feels like the thousandth time as she closes and locks the door to the upstairs bathroom behind her.

It’s even true, so why does she still feel so guilty for having benefited from it?

By what feels like the thousand and fifth repetition of the words, Lacuna’s finished her business (shaving and otherwise) and is giving herself one final check in the mirror. Does she actually look any different? She can’t tell, but then again, a certain degree of change blindness would be expected with the workaround for lasting transformation she thinks she’s found. She pulls out her phone, opens the photo app, and hesitates to pull up the last picture she took of herself. It was over a year ago when she gave up on taking monthly transition timeline photos that had only wound up as a testament to her lack of progress.

A knock on the bathroom door saves her from having to decide.

“Just a second,” Lacuna apologizes while shoving her phone back in her pocket and unlocking the door.

She finds Tam standing in the short hallway outside. Or is it Carter? Yes, they look similar now, but not that similar. She should be able to tell. Especially after getting the two of them agree to letting her run scans on them after getting back yesterday. Her claim that it was a check for lingering curses and potential medical issues was technically true, but it was also partially an excuse to gather data on a pair of shapeshifters.

Mostly an excuse.

At a preliminary glance, it should be useful data.

Was that a violation of trust?

The nearby grandfather clock ticks.

And tocks.

And ticks.

And tocks.

“Eris is making breakfast downstairs I’ll be in the basement,” Lacuna blurts out just as Tam (or Carter?) opens their (or his?) mouth. She slides past and scurries down the stairs before it can turn into a conversation.

The smell of brewing coffee and the sight of a ceramic mug of microwaved water steeped brown from a teabag of chai greet Lacuna’s arrival in the kitchen. Disconcertingly, Eris does not. She’s too busy grimly mixing pancake batter and glaring daggers at a blank spot on the wall.

“Thanks,” Lacuna says hesitantly as she picks up her chai. Too hot to drink yet. The warmth feels good on her hands. After she finishes her project she’ll quit caffeine again. She hopes.

“You’re welcome,” Eris says without turning to look at her.

“Are you… okay? E?” Lacuna takes a sip. Burns her tongue. Why’d she check when she knew the answer?

“Gretchen left.” The batter is long since mixed. The whisk scrapes against the metal bowl with a noise that makes Lacuna’s teeth itch.

Lacuna notices the crumpled-re-flattened-and-folded paper note on the table.

“Oh…”

“Yep…”

“I…” Lacuna starts and then trails off. “If you need…” she tries again.

Eris makes a sound Lacuna fails to interpret.

She takes her chai and heads down the stairs.

She’s never known what to say in these types of situations.

She puts one hand on the doorknob of the door to the basement.

She’s so useless.

She thinks it's strange how normal the doorknob feels.

She really couldn’t think of anything to say?

She could probably feel the bigger-on-the-inside space beyond the door if she were a real mage.

She continues to draw a blank on words that could have helped.

She opens the door.

She’s a bad friend.

The sound of whisk scraping against metal bowl continues.

She closes the door.

She heads back upstairs.

She puts down her chai, retrieves two pans, places them on the stovetop, butters one, greases the other, turns on the heat, retrieves the vegan bacon from the fridge, and starts slicing it into thin steps.

Batter pours into the buttered pan.

“Thanks,” Eris says.

“You’re welcome,” Lacuna says without turning to look at her.

She catches the edge of a smile in her peripheral vision.

*******

Three hours later Lacuna is wearing her labcoat on top of her hoodie and is in the tail end of performing the longest ritual she’s ever cast.

By the time breakfast was ready, Eris had seemed to be back to her usual self and even seemed to be hitting it off fairly well with Tam and Carter. That lasted until Glassheart (no, Ashan) and Bridgewood (still too intimidated for a first name basis) arrived. Bridgewood hadn’t even needed to get up to his usual antagonism to set Eris on edge this time. Apparently he’d had something to do with the note Gretchen left. Between Eris dragging him off in private to have it out with him and Lacuna’s attempts to focus on how best to handle Ashan’s counterseal ritual she hadn’t caught many of the details. Attempts to focus that kept wandering off into puzzling over how best to adjust the ritual generation algorithms to produce and use analog light vectors in the place of digital screens.

When Eris and Bridgewood finally returned, they announced that the two of them would be accompanying Tam and Carter back to their mothers’ house to help with integrating Carter back into mortal society and better prepping Tam for life with knowledge of things Backstage. Ashan voiced Lacuna’s surprise that Road wouldn’t be the one to handle all that, but apparently they were “unwell” and resting at Bridgewood Manor. That managed to get Lacuna’s full attention. Bridgewood and Eris both confirmed that Road had, in fact, not slept for days, possibly weeks. According to Bridgewood, this was not entirely uncommon for Road but this particular instance had pushed even their heroic stamina.

The idea of someone like Road needing something as mundane as sleep had somehow felt disconcerting to Lacuna. Hours later, the guilt over feeling that way still lingers in the same far back corner of her mind with all the other tiny guilts that never go away. She needs to stop putting everyone she likes on unrealistic pedestals. It’s unfair to them. She knows she’ll keep doing it anyway.

After they all departed (the idea of Eris and Bridgewood trapped in a car together continues to distress Lacuna when she thinks about it so she doesn’t), Ashan asked about the counterseal ritual she should have performed for him yesterday. (Would have been able to perform for him if she hadn’t gotten selfishly impatient.)

And so now Lacuna is doing the best she can to keep her mind from straying off-task in the final minutes while a new tattoo-like sigil forms between Ashan’s bare shoulders. (Why is his appearance less distracting without the robe on?) Creating an enchantment capable of being applied to a living being that would cancel out the effects of the seal limiting Ashan’s spellcasting to the same type of magic practiced on his mentor’s homeworld had only taken a few days of iterative design, math, and data pool recalibration. Creating a variant that simulations predicted wouldn’t cause the same adverse reactions Ashan seemed to have to most of Lacuna’s rituals and enchantments took the better part of a month, and even as the procedurally remixed samples of Lacuna’s voice come to an abrupt stop and the glowing fractals covering the testing chamber fade out to stark white she’s still not sure this one won’t make him sick.

Lacuna unclenches her jaw, lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and resists the urge to drop her head onto the desk in front of her. The last time she headdesked it shook most of the flowers off the miniature jacaranda tree wilting under its sunlamp on the far end of her workstation. She’s been worse at taking care of that than she’d hoped.

The ritual is complete. On the nape of Ashan’s neck the old seal in its clean arcane geometries remains in its position just below the start of his long hair that’s been pulled aside to hang over his shoulder and drape down his chest. The new seal - the “counterseal” as Lacuna’s taken to thinking of it - fills the space between his shoulder blades with organic-looking chaos of twists and coils that resolve into a series of minute sharp angles and overlapping symbols under closer inspection. Between them the silver choker with a blue stone that serves as Ashan’s translation charm remains fixed in place around the base of his neck. Its continued presence was non-negotiable, regardless of potential complications from having additional enchanted objects in the test chamber during the ritual.

“How are you feeling?” Lacuna asks into the desk-mounted microphone. She should get a headset. It would be more efficient. The sensation of having one on her head makes her ears hurt and skin crawl just thinking about it.

“I am well,” Ashan replies from inside the testing chamber after a moment’s self-assessment. “I can feel the presence of the counterseal on my back. It is not painful but it is continually noticeable. I suspect I will grow used to it over time.”

“Okay,” Lacuna acknowledges while typing down Ashan’s words. One of these days she needs to figure out how to get speech-to-text working with his translation charm. “Whenever you’re ready, try to cast something. Start with one of your usual conjurations as a baseline and then something the seal wouldn’t let you cast before for comparison. This counterseal is a temporary test version, so if anything goes wrong, let me know and I can dispel it via voice command.”

“Acknowledged,” Ashan says.

Lacuna switches the displays from four of the eight paratech cameras observing Ashan to show their second sight filters. It’s a far cry from what a real mage could perceive unaided, but Lacuna will take what she can get. Ashan left his wand outside the testing chamber lest the presence of additional magic complicate the ritual in unexpected ways, but all he requires to conjure a simple rectangular kinetic barrier are a few quick hand gestures. On the unfiltered displays the barrier is nearly invisible save for the glass-like reflection and refraction of light, but on the filtered views both the barrier and Ashan’s hand glow with a blue-white light. On the most zoomed-in filtered view, Lacuna can make out the dimmest glow from portions of both the seal on his neck and the counterseal on his back. Most likely from the baseline power draw limiter.

A minute later, Ashan dispels his conjuration and creates a new one, a floating oval tall enough and reflective enough to serve as a full length mirror. Initially, all is as it was with his first test conjuration but then the second sight filters show Ashan’s eyes flash a deep indigo, causing the seal and counterseal to pulse in response. He takes a step toward the conjured mirror, staggers, touches a hand to his head, takes another step, and then presses a palm to the conjured mirror.

In the mundane, unfiltered view camera feeds not much happens. In the filtered feeds, the conjuration’s aura shifts from white to indigo and the pulsing of the sigils on Ashan’s skin increases in intensity. On another screen an alert notifies Lacuna of a sudden drop in temperature within the test chamber.

And then Ashan steps through the mirror.

The temperature readings plummet further, the pulse on Ashan’s skin becomes a solid glow, and a hazy blurred shape extrudes out of the side of the mirror Ashan entered from. The haze starts to take form. Ashan begins to sway on his feet and clutch his head.

Ashan falls.

The conjuration and haze disappear.

The second sight filters cease to detect anything outside the mundane visible spectrum.

The temperature stays low.

Lacuna shouts a string of well-practiced nonsense syllables into the microphone and begins running toward the test chamber before she can even see the counterseal evaporate off of Ashan’s back. She slows down briefly only to snatch the white robe from where it had been left folded over an open cabinet full of drone parts. It feels silkier than she expected, almost slick to the touch. She slams her palm against the over-dramatic big red button that opens and closes the test chamber door. Her heart skips a beat at the sight of Ashan still on the blank white floor.

“Are you okay I’m so sorry what happened are you alright please be awake how do you feel I’m sorry oh goddess what did I do let’s get you out of here please be alright I’m sorry.”

The words pour out into a stream of mist as Lacuna throws the wizard robe over Ashan’s shivering form. The words change cadence without pause when he starts to push himself back up to his knees. The words finally cut off when he pulls back from her attempt to help him to his feet.

It is only after Ashan has pulled the dress-like robe over his head and worked his arms through its voluminous sleeves that he calms enough to take her hand.

“I am unharmed,” he claims. “There was an unexpected onset of vertigo but it is nothing that I will not be able to train myself to adapt to. It was already ignorable enough when casting my usual barrier spell, and with time I am sure I will get the dizziness when attempting more unfamiliar magic down to a similar level.”

“You really shouldn’t have to adapt like that.”

“Perhaps not, but this is the hand I have been dealt. It is an improvement over my previous attempts to cast that spell resulting in nothing but exhaustion from inordinate energy expenditure, and that is worth pursuing. Let us move forward with the permanent seal.”

“We really shouldn’t do that,” Lacuna starts.

“You intend to move forward with your own project despite yesterday morning’s setback, do you not?”

“I - what - oh…”

“Then you understand.”

“But that doesn’t mean we should go ahead with a solution that we know is going to potentially cause you to collapse every time you try casting a spell. And if you’re going to be out there fighting monsters, sorcerers, and who knows what else, then even a little bit of mild dizziness could get you hurt. Or worse.”

“I understand that risk, but as I said, it is something that I will be able to train myself to overcome.”

“But you shouldn’t -”

Lacuna stops herself, closes her eyes, holds up a finger, and takes a deep breath.

“Let me try that again,” she says almost a minute later. “This morning I think I came up with a new solution that will work better, but I’ll need your help to implement it.”

*******

The whole concept behind the AI-assisted ritual system is that the universe and reality itself react to certain combinations of shapes, sounds, and substances, and that by analyzing known combinations, new ones can be predicted and accurately correlated to the reactions reality will have to them. In a lot of ways, it’s less like the sort of so-called “AI art” generation that Lacuna had an ethical crisis about working on before falling Backstage and more like protein structure modeling. Except for magic instead of biochemistry.

This means that when she’s constructing a new ritual she isn’t just feeding a bunch of prompts of what she wants into a console and letting the system sample from a library of traditionally-made rituals. Yes, that’s a part of it, but a bigger part of it is her constantly adjusting the math and weighting of different elements and needing to memorize which originating magic systems for rituals are more or less compatible with one another. Not to mention fixing edge-case bugs on software that was never fully completed and making updates to the UI so that the inputs settings and diagnostic outputs are actually human readable. Or at least Lacuna readable.

At Lacuna’s last job they’d kept a wizard and a couple of enchanters on-staff as consultants for the ritual generation project to point out such systemic incompatibilities and synergies between existing rituals in the database. The sort of expertise that could save hours, or even weeks of time that might have been spent chasing false leads and troubleshooting simulations that were doomed to failure. Lacuna had been too intimidated to talk to any of them directly most of the time, but at least half of what she knows of magic theory came from listening to them answer questions from other developers on the team and reading through software changelogs referencing their advice. Ever since leaving she’d been doing a lot of guesswork and workarounds that her self-teaching left her knowing enough to recognize as being inefficient but not knowing enough to find a better way.

Spending the day actively collaborating with Ashan is unexpectedly refreshing.

Trying to get him onboarded onto the project and explaining how the ritual generation works was harder than anticipated though, a reminder that he’s spent most of his life on a world without computers and hasn’t kept up with recent tech trends since returning to this one. And a sharp reminder how much jargon she thought was common terminology is specialized to her field. Her go-to metaphors and analogies being opaque to Ashan didn’t help. Nor did the fact that she has no idea how the simulation portion of the system makes its predictions.

And yet somehow working through all that is proving more invigorating than frustrating.

“It is not so noisome as your usual enchantments, I shall give you that,” Ashan says to a nearby Lacuna as he picks up the freshly-enchanted metal card from the floor of the test chamber. He turns it over, examining the laser-engraved glyphs on its surface. “A simpler pattern too. Or should I say ‘more efficient’?”

“Heh, thanks,” Lacuna says, rubbing the back of her neck. “After you pointed out that it was possible to set up a generic recording enchantment to capture audio at the time of the ritual that greatly simplified the glyphwork. Now it’s mainly just a bunch of vector math for the circle drawing.”

Ashan hands the card to Lacuna. “I still find myself incredulous that you had been directly encoding aural waveforms. You may as well have been conjuring lightning by targeting individual air molecules to ionize.”

“You can do that?”

“Technically yes, but not in any sane or practically effective manner. There is a reason that my own method of doing so is merely a variant of a kinetic force barrier.”

“Huh. The dangers of being self-taught I suppose. The more you know.” Lacuna shrugs. “Anyway, ready to do this thing?”

Ashan gives a slight raise of the eyebrows that Lacuna’s starting to think counts as excitement for him.

“Exceptionally so,” he says, “but are you sure that you are? It is very nearly midnight and we have been working since before noon.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lacuna says with enthusiasm making up for confidence. “That nap I took during the last round of simulation compilation did wonders.”

Ashan nods. “Very well then. It would be untruthful of me to deny a certain eagerness in the face of waiting one more day. Let us begin.”

Lacuna’s face suddenly flushes from aspects not thought through and she averts her eyes.

“Right… About that… You’re gonna need to, well, take off your robe again.”

“That makes sense.”

“And this time I’ll… need to…” Lacuna trails off into a mumble.

“Come again?”

“I’ll need to be making skin contact for the duration of the ritual.”

“Ah.” Ashan swallows. “I see.”

“Are you… okay with that?”

Ashan hesitates. “Needs must, I suppose.”

“Right. Right. I’ll just, uh, turn around then.”

As she listens to the sound of shuffling fabric behind her, Lacuna wonders if she should have pushed harder to make sure Ashan is okay and not forcing himself. It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic response. Then again, Ashan’s pretty muted all the time. She reminds herself that he didn’t seem to have an issue with her watching the prior test through the cameras, and it’s not like he doesn’t wear a pair of shorts under the robe. But should he be subjecting himself to the ritual twice in one day? Was he actually excited when he said he didn’t want to wait another day or did he just want to get it over with? It’s probably fine. It should be harmless, even if something goes wrong. But what if she overlooked something? What if that nap earlier wasn’t as helpful as she thought? It’s one thing to be reckless with her own wellbeing (she has been reckless hasn’t she, no don’t think about that) it’s something else entirely to be reckless with someone else. Just look at what almost happened to Eris. Sort of did happen. What if -

“Do I need to take this back outside again?” Ashan asks.

“What?”

Lacuna snaps out of her spiral and turns back to face Ashan. Stupid reflex, defeating the point of turning away in the first place. Wait, what was even the point of turning around when she’s going to have to look at him anyway for the ritual? Stupid social reflex.

She sees Ashan clutching the carefully folded robe to his chest. His normally-perfect posture is thrown off from curling inwards around it. He looks up at her. For once Lacuna actually makes what she thinks is eye contact, and for once Ashan’s expression is something other than serenity. Impatience? Annoyance? Nervousness? Embarrassment? She’s never been good at deciphering faces. Whatever the expression is, it finally connects for her just how young he is. A solid decade younger than her, if her math is right. She knew that, but she didn’t know it until just now. Maybe it was the perfect makeup. It suddenly doesn’t feel right that he’s always subconsciously registered as being the older and wiser of the two of them. She should have her shit together by now. He shouldn’t have had to go through things she can scarcely imagine.

“You can hang onto it,” Lacuna answers. “The functionality’s a bit different on this ritual, so it won't’ be an interference concern.” She hopes so anyway.

“Thank you,” Ashan says. His expression softens. Still not the usual serenity. Gratitude? Relief maybe?

“Oh, and you should probably hang onto this too,” Lacuna says, passing the enchanted metal card back to him. “I’ll be the one actually doing the ritual, but if you’re the one activating the enchantment to run the incantation and draw the circle it should theoretically be designed to attune to your magic somewhat.”

“Indeed.” Ashan takes the card. “As we discussed earlier with regards to lessening the chance of adverse reactions.”

“Right. Sorry. Just running over everything one last time.” Lacuna steps around behind him. “By the way, this is going to take a fair bit longer than my usual rituals. Would you prefer to sit down? Maybe lie down?”

“I can handle standing.”

“Okay,” Lacuna says and starts to reach out a hand.

Wait. Something familiar about that answer. Isn’t that the same sort of response Eris always used to call her out on? The non-answer that avoids expressing what she actually wants?

“Rephrasing,” Lacua says. “I’m not sure I can handle standing the whole time while retaining proper concentration.” She is technically telling the truth. “Do you mind if I sit down for this?”

“That works for me,” Ashan says and lowers himself into a cross-legged sitting position.

Lacuna follows suit.

“It is strange,” Ashan says while pulling his long hair out of the way. This close it is easy to see the streaks of midnight blue amidst the black. Lacuna wonders if he dyes it or if it’s an autogenesis thing. “Disrobing in front of another person feels different than doing so with only cameras around, despite the knowledge that you could see me in both cases. Somehow I did not expect that.”

“It’s an extra layer of abstraction,” Lacuna says. “Those’ll sneak up on you like that. Incoming hand.”

She waits a second for any objections and then places her palm on the bare skin between his shoulder blades. He’s warm. She feels the surrounding muscles reflexively tense on contact and then slowly relax. He’s all muscle beneath the robes, but it feels different from what she’s felt through Eris’s tank tops when pulled into an embrace. Leaner. Less bulk but still toned. She’s heard of mages tapping into their own metabolism for fueling magic to burn excess fat and retain figures in defiance of diet, but that doesn’t build muscle mass. The skin on his back and arms doesn’t look like it could ever be anywhere near as sickly pale as hers is, but it is noticeably lighter than his hands and face, even accounting for makeup. She wonders when the last time was that he wore anything with short sleeves. Does he even have other clothes? She’s never seen him wear anything else.

Still less distracting without the robe on than with. Probably says more about her than him. Do all wizard robes on Orthon look like sleek dresses with wide sleeves, or is it just because he copied his mentor’s style?

“You good?” Lacuna asks.

“Yes,” Ashan answers.

“Cool. Activate the enchantment when you’re ready.”

Lacuna feels Ashan’s shoulders rise and fall with one last deep breath and then the lights of the conjured ritual circle begin to glow around them. It starts as an orbiting ring of tangled threads drawing itself into existence with the card held by Ashan at its center. The threads then begin growing upwards and downwards like roots and vines along an invisible trellis. The threads curl, and warp, and split. They glide organically and then go through a series of jagged geometric corners. They intersect and weave and repel as they try to align themselves to seven different mathematical function plots at once. Within seconds Lacuna and Ashan are surrounded by a cocoon of glowing wild ferns and ivy whose leaves split off into layers of details too small to be seen by the naked eye. It is still just as much of a chaotic mess of butchered symbols and aborted fractals as it ever was when confined to a three-dimensional screen, but now Lacuna feels like she can almost pick out a method to the madness. A story she could read in the whorling leaves of runes if she just knew the language and if it didn’t keep changing the moment she started to think she found a pattern. It’s almost more maddening than looking like noise. She could lose herself in staring for hours if she let herself.

And then the incantation constructed from samples of her own voice begins uttering phoneme strings no human mouth could manage and she focuses her will on her intention for the world to take a new shape of her desire. The incantation is slow enough for once that if she lets herself listen to it she could almost make out individual “words,” untranslatable gibberish though it all is. She hasn’t figured out why yet, but after talking with Ashan earlier about which of her rituals and enchantments got the worst reactions from him, there’s some evidence to suggest a loose correlation between ritual acceleration and noisomeness to the magically-sensitive.

She resists the urge to listen for false patterns and visualizes the diagnostic reports from her original scan of the seal on the back of Ashan’s neck. If there’s an upside to the iterative simulations and adjustments taking a whole month it’s that she’s had plenty of time to practice this part by memorizing those lists of everything the seals are doing and correlating them to individual elements of those arcane shapes. In her mind’s eye she goes down the lists one item at a time and crosses those items out. Writes over them. Scribbles over the corresponding sub-glyph of the seal. She repeats the visualization over and over for each item before moving onto the next. Or when her focus wavers too much to visualize, she repeats the verbal description of cancellation in her head as a mantra. Or failing that, just holds onto the idea of what she is seeking to undo. It’s the intent that matters, not the specific focusing metaphor.

All along she forces her eyes to stay open, staring at her hand on Ashan’s back until both stop registering to her as being parts of people. She nearly loses her concentration for a moment when she feels the first line of the counterseal grow hot beneath her palm. She hadn’t expected a physical sensation. It is clearly defined enough that she can almost see it through touch alone. She folds that sense into the focusing metaphor, correlating the cancellation to the new growth. That heat spreads in jumbled half-organic lines until it at last breaches the boundaries of her hand and she can see the new lines forming on the flesh-colored canvas in front of her. They grow agonizingly slowly. A slowness that makes her question her own sanity and perception as to whether they are truly growing at all. And then all at once she will realize that not only have they doubled length but they’ve filled in the gaps between with recursive and overlapping branches.

Her sense of time compresses and distorts. The visualized focusing metaphors become hazy until all she can see are the lines of new growth that she can no longer tell if they’re in front of her eyes or inside her head. The parameterized list of effects from the old seal that she needs to cancel out blurs together into a single sense of hurt that had been done to her friend that she is in a position to heal.

When the chaotic circle of the new counterseal closes, it is like jolting awake after a nap she didn’t mean to take. The glowing cocoon is gone and the voice that both is and isn’t hers is silent. She lifts a shaky hand and takes in the sight of the counterseal in front of her. She doesn’t know what else to do right now other than stare.

The exhausted silence of stretched minutes and compressed hours blurs the ability to tell the difference.

Lacuna begins to allow herself to collapse backwards but catches herself at the unmistakable sound of sniffling. She leans forward and hovers a hand over Ashan’s shoulder. She pulls the hand back. For all that interminable time that very hand had just been in constant contact with him, to resume touch without a clear and practical reason feels like an intrusion. She knew Eris for a whole year before she was ever the one to initiate a hug or pat on the back.

And what kind of gesture would it be if it’s her fault something is wrong?

Oh goddess what did she screw up this time?

“Hey,” Lacuna whispers, “what’s wrong?”

One more sniff, followed by a dabbing of the eyes with his folded robe, and Ashan turns around enough to see Lacuna.

“Nothing is wrong, only this counterseal is more effective than the earlier test. Without the power draw limiter it is like someone has pulled a dark, heavy, wet cloth off my face after I had gotten used to breathing and seeing through it. I had a similar sensation upon visiting Bridgewood Manor after having gotten used to this world’s lack of an ambient aether analogue, but this is moreso.”

“Ah. Yeah. I feel you. Okay, probably not really the same, but I’ve had some experience with sensory overstimulation. It sucks.” Lacuna looks around the stark white testing chamber lit from every surface at once. “Set test chamber lighting preset nineteen,” she says to the hidden microphones and the floor and walls go dark while the ceiling dims to a muted warm night-mode-screen glow. Just bright enough to comfortably see by with the eye-straining blue spectrum filtered out. “That help any?”

“More than I would have expected. My thanks,” Ashan says. “Alas, the greater part of my discomposure was due to the unblocked memories being more vivid than expected. They are rather much to process all at once.”

“Oh, I see.” This is why she’d left that part out of the test counterseal’s cancellation. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to potentially yo-yo him in and out of remembering. “Want some time to yourself?”

“Truthfully, I would prefer a distraction,” Ashan says, pulling his robe over his head as he stands. “Shall we resume testing?”

“Can do,” Lacuna replies, leaping to her feet. The world spins around her, and she puts one hand to her head and the other out for balance.

“Are you well?” Ashan inquires.

“I’m fine. Just stood up too fast. Normally I’m more careful about avoiding that. Maybe a bit tired from the ritual too. But I’m fine. Let’s do this.”

“Do you not need to return to your computer?” Ashan asks when Lacuna makes no motion to leave.

“Eh, the monitoring system’s still recording from when I set it up for the ritual and this room’s rigged up with voice commands in the off chance there’s an emergency. Oh! Unless you’d rather me go. I can do that. I should go.”

Ashan puffs a sharp exhalation that Lacuna thinks passes for a laugh and shakes his head. “You may stay, my friend, though it may be best if you stand back. I will not be attempting anything with a danger of collateral backlash should anything fail, but we know not yet how the changes to power draw may affect energy redistribution. I would hate to give you frostbite.”

“Oof, yeah, good point.” Lacuna retreats to a point by the exit door, nearly invisible from the inside now that it’s closed. She taps a spot on the wall, gives a voice command, and a small portion of the screen comes back to life to display temperature readings for the test chamber. Just in case.

A quick gesture and Ashan conjures another simple rectangular barrier in front of him. He tilts his head, hums curiously, and then rotates his wrist, causing the conjuration to spin in place like a revolving glass door. A wave of his hand slides the first conjuration away and a quick circle traced with the other hand creates a transparent floating shield. Ashan nods to himself, hums once more and allows the conjurations to flicker out.

Lacuna opens her mouth to ask if he’s feeling any adverse effects from the counterseal but catches herself when he raises his hands to his face to stare through a box created by thumbs and forefingers. A new conjured square appears in front of him. He makes a series of quick yet precise gestures and the conjuration morphs to follow the motions; widening, stretching long, tilting upwards into a steep ramp, coiling into a spiral, and then splitting into segments that snap into flat stairsteps. Ashan glides up the conjured staircase, drawing railings into existence as with trailing fingertips as he ascends.

At the top of the stairs, with his head nearly touching the test chamber’s ceiling, his wand slides out from his sleeve and into his hand. When he raises the wand, Lacuna’s first thought is of a conductor about to begin a concert, but it is a painter’s brushstrokes that the motion falls into. New conjurations begin appearing throughout the test chamber, simple at first - circles, wires, domes - and then building in complexity - spider webs, chains, trellises - until he gives a nod of satisfaction and steps off the edge of the staircase, lands upright upon a floating tightrope, and slides down it to the far end of the test chamber.

What follows next Lacuna can only call a dance as Ashan moves around, between, and over his conjurations. Most are the usual transparent glass-like distortion in the air, but others outright glow with a blue-white light. Some persist throughout the dance, some move and change shape, and others flicker out to make way for new ones to be drawn.

Lacuna shivers and checks the temperature readings. Steadily declining, but less rapidly than she would have expected based on prior observations of Ashan’s twisting of thermodynamics to fuel his magic.

Ashan raises his wand straight above his head and his conjurations gather towards him, falling into a single mote of light at the wand’s tip. He touches his wand to the ground and slowly raises it, turning as he does. Within seconds he has conjured a great coiling glass serpent around him, smaller than the one that he used to lift the ferry boat on that first mission but still larger and more detailed than any single conjuration Lacuna has seen him create since then.

She lets out an involuntary gasp of wonder at the beauty of it.

Ashan blinks at the sound of her voice and the serpent briefly flickers from lost focus.

“Forgive me. I seem to have gotten carried away in the moment,” Ashan says through heavy breathing. “As I said, I was in need of distraction, and there was a feeling of exercising for the first time without a great weight slowing me down.”

“Can I touch it?” Lacuna says without thinking or taking her eyes off the serpentine conjuration.

After a flicker of surprise, Ashan smiles (unmistakably a smile for once), nods, and stretches out his free hand. The glass serpent uncoils from around him and drifts in Lacuna’s direction. Lacuna meets it halfway, feeling the sharp drop in temperature as she gets closer to Ashan. She reaches out a hand, flinches back, tries again, and rests her palm on the serpent’s snout.

“I can feel individual scales,” she says in awe. “Hard to believe this is just a massless kinetic barrier.” She gives in to the urge to pet the giant hovering glass snake with both hands. “It’s not as slick as I expected. Less like glass and more like…” She tries to think of a fitting analogy. “Like freshly-dried paint over wood.”

Something shifts in the way the serpent refracts the light passing through it and Lacuna’s hands slide off.

“Friction is a variable I was taught to adjust early on,” Ashan explains. “It would do no good to lose my footing on a platform I created or for bindings to slip right off a foe, but at other times a slide or a slick shield is desirable.” Ashan gasps and the serpent flickers and fades away. “Best that I not push myself too much more with it though. We still have another test to run.”

“Are you alright?”

“A moment to catch my breath and I shall recover anon. There is a reason most of my creations are simpler in form.”

“If you say so. I’ll go see if I can turn the heat back up in here.”

A few minutes later the air in the test chamber is no longer quite so chill and Ashan is no longer breathing quite so hard. For safety’s sake, this time he and Lacuna are standing on opposite ends of the room. She really should have gone back out to observe the more detailed readings from her workstation, but now that she’s had a taste of it, the draw of seeing new magic up close is too strong to resist.

Once again Ashan conjures a mirror in front of him. Once again he steps forward and places a palm on its surface. This time he does not stagger. This time when he steps through the mirror and out the other side his reflection steps out of the side he entered from.

The mirror disappears. Ashan and his reflection turn in sync to look at one another. Ashan’s eyebrows raise slightly and his reflection gives a toothy grin of excitement. Ashan walks around the test chamber, occasionally pausing to go through a series of test motions. His illusory double stays broadly in sync with him, but the details of its motions are far more energetic and its face is openly delighted while Ashan maintains his signature cool placidity. Ashan stops moving, focuses intently, and his copy begins independently doing a lap around the test chamber. For a moment the bounce in its step smooths out into a better imitation of Ashan’s elegant glide but once the real Ashan starts moving again the excitability returns to its animation.

“No vertigo, nausea, or other adverse reactions to the counterseal,” Ashan reports once he and his double return to Lacuna. “This illusion feels as natural to create and control as my conjurations.” He glances over at said illusion practically bouncing up and down in excitement. “Well, almost as natural. Thank you, truly.”

With those last words Ashan lightly puts a hand on Lacuna’s shoulder. When his double tries to do the same it passes through her slightly and becomes both there and not there to her vision, like an object only visible through one eye.

“You’re wel- whoa, that’s weird,” Lacuna stumbles her words in surprise.

Ashan pulls his hand back with a puff of exhalation and the illusion throws its head back in silent laughter.

“Ah. My apologies. Illusions can be like that when exposed for what they are.”

“It’s fine. Kind of cool actually. Do they normally reflect the caster’s emotions like that too? That’s not something I’ve read about.”

Ashan’s reflection has just enough time to blush hard enough to be seen through the perfect makeup before flickering out of existence.

“Merely a random aberration born from tiredness, I am sure,” the real Ashan says coolly and evenly. “It must be well after midnight by now.”

“Sure it is.” Lacuna grins and chooses not to poke more fun at the matter. “Let’s call it a night. Morning? Whatever. Either way, I think we can call this experiment a resounding success. What do you say?”

“Indeed,” Ashan agrees.

The two of them leave the test chamber and make their way back out through the lab. Now that the excitement of testing is winding down, the exhaustion from the long day and the extensive ritual casting is catching up to Lacuna. She nearly leaves without checking on her workstation.

“Just a sec,” she says as she hangs her labcoat on its hook by the door. “Need to shut everything down for the night.”

She bends over to use the keyboard and mouse, foregoing sitting down for fear of not wanting to get back up again. She stops the recordings and takes a brief glance at compiled readouts. Nothing catches her eye as out of the ordinary, but she’ll need to check it again in the morning when she’s more awake. She shuts down the test chamber, starts to shut down the computer, and then remembers she forgot to check her email all day. Nothing urgent, thankfully, but there’s an unexpected message from RevaTech asking if she’d be interested in scheduling an interview and reconsidering working for them. Weird. Maybe someone from her old team heard it had taken her a while to find a new job?

She nearly deletes the email but then thinks better of it, flagging and archiving it instead. Not that she has any intention of leaving where she is now. Still… It’d be a heck of a coincidence, but with what she gathered yesterday evening and this morning over breakfast about Sullivan and Road looking into something involving robots, it couldn’t hurt to keep open as an avenue to explore later.

“All done,” she says as she puts the system into sleep mode. She looks up to see Ashan staring at her poor wilted bonsai jacaranda. “What’s up?”

“Would you mind if I attempted one more spell for the night?” Ashan asks. “As a thank you gift.”

“Thanks, but you don’t need to give me anything. I was happy to do this.”

“Call it another test of the counterseal allowing me to access other magic systems then.”

“Fair enough. Go ahead.”

Heart beat beneath snow Long waiting, ready to grow Weathers the cold storms.

Dream of some place warm, Finding sunlight in the gray. Do more than survive.

BLOSSOM!

The browning leaves on the tiny tree uncurl and become green once more. New purple flowers bud and bloom before Lacuna’s eyes. Lacuna’s mind wanders back to the growing ferns and vines of the analog light vectors surrounding her and grows giddy all over again.

“Thank you,” she gasps without taking her eyes off the blossoming tree.

Everything is nearly in place. Theories and concepts seem to be confirmed. She just needs a chance to rest and run the final compilations.

It’ll be her turn to blossom soon.

<-Previous Chapter Masterpost

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thesolferino · 4 years

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⤷ note: apologies for losing your request, anon, but thank you for requesting! this is my first time writing a full fic in second person, so bear with me, and i hope this is what you were looking for <3

The Great American Bake Off

pairing: corpse husband x gn!reader

word count: 3.6k

genre: fluff

summary: you’ve been jealous of rae and her closeness with your boyfriend since the dawn of time, but things change and friendships are made once she comes over for one hell of a cooking video.

Corpse, among many other things, was a man many wished to have.

It’s the truth; even if he didn’t have a YouTube channel through which millions kept up with everything from horror stories to Among Us gameplays, people would still turn heads and whisper whenever he spoke - that attention more than multiplied when he started blowing up and his social media presence grew.

With growth come numbers, and there are always people behind said numbers. Through them, Corpse makes wonderful friends - through them, you had met him, too. All the way back, during his horror narration days, you had grown to like him - really, who wouldn’t?

A DM you once sent after a few drinks, when you claimed to your friends you’d get the “deep-voiced man of your dreams” you often talked about and they, in turn, challenged you to message him, was nothing short of a joke and the idea of him responding was merely a pipe dream. What you hadn’t expected, however, was a response, which wrecked your brain at noon the next day, where your head throbbed with embarrassment, guilt, pride, happiness, a melt of hatred and gratefulness for your friends, panic and the remains of alcohol that tugged at every part of your skull.

It had turned out to be more than a great idea, though, because for the next few weeks you were constantly talking. You learned so much more than he let on in videos, and during late night calls you found out everything from his favorite clothing brand to his favorite color to his thoughts about his own mortality and then back to his favorite cereal. Audio calls and short voice messages turned into hours long FaceTimes that led you from friends to something more. And after a year or so of dating, you packed your bags and made it to sunny San Diego, ready to lay in his arms and sweat bullets.

Safe to say Corpse’s social media presence had its good sides. However, with all good things come bad things too, and you weren’t sure if the bad things were bad at all or you were simply too jealous.

Corpse made wonderful friends thanks to his YouTube channel. He met people he could confide in, meet, people he could talk to about his worst problems, people who would listen - he met people he could have fun with, with who he could forget all about the real world and his own issues, and simply laugh his heart away, play games until the late hours of the night.

If he had to name his closest ones, they would have to be Dave, Loey, maybe Mykie, possibly Jack, and Rae. And that is exactly where the root of the problem stood.

Rae is beautiful, and everyone who denies it must be either dumb or blind. She’s drop dead gorgeous, and funny, and kind, and smart, in a way that made you want to rip your hair out. You wanted to hate her so bad, because the jealousy ate away at you like a damn disease, but you couldn’t, because she was perfect Rae, and as much as you hated the fact she seemed to be perfect inside out, you just couldn’t hate her as her. It was impossible, you concluded.

You convinced yourself you weren’t jealous every time you heard him yelling or laughing at her from his office room - or at least you attempted to do so. Your lunch would turn sour and end up forgotten because you’d be way too focused on listening in on what he was doing and trying to make out what she was saying to even eat at the same pace you previously were. Jealousy ate away at you, no matter if you admitted it to yourself or not.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Corpse, of course. On one late night when you couldn’t sleep and neither could he, as per usual, you turned on a random comedy that you half-heartedly paid attention to, his fingers combing through the knots in your hair peacefully and the slow pace of the movie lulling you to sleep slowly. That is, before his phone rang and lit the mostly dark room. You managed to sneak a glance at the notification before he had, and the familiar bitterness seeped between your ribs as always upon seeing the name displayed at the top of the message, more than awake now.

You visibly stiffened when he laughed at the message and typed something back, shifting your head in his lap as some subconscious attempt at getting him to pay attention to you instead. He put his phone down and you huffed, eyes locked on the TV screen as you pretended to be extremely absorbed in the movie even though you weren’t quite sure of the difference between the protagonist and antagonist anymore. His hands didn’t return to your hair, and that somehow made you even more annoyed.

“What’s up?” Corpse quietly spoke up, barely over the volume over the already quiet movie.

“Nothing.” You said, quicker than you wanted to, and you bit your tongue in cringe when you realised it was an awful lie. Corpse seemed to think the same.

“That’s bullshit. Seriously, what’s wrong?” He asked, and was met with pure silence. In reality, you were hoping he’d simply never realise you were somewhat jealous, because you knew you were being stupid and unreasonable, but you couldn’t help wanting him all to yourself. Admitting it out loud made it so much more real, and so much more embarrassing that you would rather bury yourself alive than admit to being jealous of Rae, of all people.

After a few seconds of silence, save the laughter of characters on screen, he spoke again.

“Are you jealous?” The hint of a teasing tone in his voice made you want to rip your hair out of your skull. Was it really that damn hard to believe that yes, you were jealous of an extremely close friend of his? Was it a crime?

The clenching of your jaw seemed to give Corpse enough of a response, and his hands returned to running themselves through your hair as he giggled to himself.

“What’s so damn funny?” You borderline spat, causing his movements to halt for a second before continuing with even louder laughter.

“I don’t know, just the idea of you being jealous of Rae is so funny. I’ve noticed the way you roll your eyes whenever I text her in front of you. You’re not exactly sneaky, you know?” His words made blood rush straight to your face, cheeks heating up in embarrassment. How long has he known this for?

“Sorry. I don’t…” you exhaled and attempted to smile. “I don’t know what’s up with me. I’m so jealous nowadays. I don’t even know why.”

“There’s enough of me to share with everyone, no worries baby.” he replied, teasing tone still yet to dissipate as you slap his knee in mock offense and he starts wheezing.

“Absolutely not! Fucking excuse you, I’m not sharing with anyone!” you gaped at him as he kept laughing.

That was the end of it - or at least Corpse thought so. Needless to say, he was wrong.

Your mood would instantly turn sour whenever he’d laugh at one of her messages, and you attempted to push down every eye roll whenever he’d sit on his phone, between your legs, back turned to you so you could see everything, and open Rae’s DMs again. Sometimes you managed, sometimes you couldn’t help it, but you did your best to do it whenever he wasn’t looking. Because you truly knew you were being unreasonable, especially whenever you have to relay situations like how he had to postpone a date one time because Rae asked him to play Rust for a bit longer and you almost ripped all your hair out of your skull in frustration back to your best friend who just turned Rae and Corpse into the villains in the situation because that’s what best friends are supposed to do.

Not like he was going out of his way to talk to her a concerning amount, they mostly talked in groupchats and on streams and that was only a few times weekly, but it did absolutely nothing to calm the green monster growing stronger in you every day, fed by every laugh she got out of him.

The green monster fucking loved it when Corpse excitedly announced to you that he’s finally meeting his friends for the first time, and by friends meaning Rae, Sykkuno and Karl. You, however… were far from impressed.

He paced around the room in excitement, a mix of obvious anxiety and joy evident on his face, and he fiddled with the strings of his hoodie with shaky hands as he very proudly announced that he would be the second tallest person in the room through a blinding, pearly grin, and seeing him so electrified couldn’t help but make you shut your jealous thoughts up, even if just for a little bit, and mirror his grin back to him.

What did, however, make you as anxious as him was when he announced they’d a) be coming to your shared apartment and b) making a cooking video - it sent you into a panicked mom mode as you dusted every corner of every room and vacuumed everything from the kitchen to the balcony and Corpse did nothing but record you as you anxiously rambled and laugh at you from his place on your bed.

When the dreaded Saturday finally came, and the first person to arrive, Sykkuno, rang your doorbell, you squeezed Corpse’s hand to stop him from nervously toying with his rings and opened the door, and you greeted the man like he was your own brother and not a person you’d seen probably a total of three times through the computer screen and someone who’s seen you maybe two times, from the pictures Corpse sent him, in your best attempt to make both of them more comfortable. It actually kind of worked - turns out Sykkuno is a pretty affectionate guy, too, and a conversation started as soon as he stepped in. Corpse gave you a look when you pulled away from Sykkuno’s half-hug, and you almost laughed out loud at the irony when his phone lit up with a notification from Rae announcing she was almost there at that exact moment.

She had kept true to her word; ten minutes or so later, another ring was heard and you gestured to Corpse to open it this time as you gave Sykkuno his cup of water and resisted any and every urge to roll your eyes or do something otherwise bitchy and stupid. Corpse did as told, and you watched them hug and listened to Rae squeal in excitement through the open door of the living room and decided to plaster a smile on your face for as long as you could muster before you remove yourself from the situation when they start filming.

Unfortunately for you, the first person she locked eyes with was exactly you, and they lit up an even prettier brown (if that was even possible) as she beelined to you and you barely got a greeting out before she engulfed you in a large hug, arms wrapping around your neck as she swayed both of you side to side.

“Oh my God, you must be Y/N! I’ve heard so much about you, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” Rae cheered into your ear before she finally pulled back, before shooting an infectious grin at you that you couldn’t help but return back.

“All good things, I hope.” you chuckled as she moved to greeting Sykkuno, and nodded her head with an enthusiastic giggle of her own. You eyed Corpse for a second who simply leaned against the door frame, watching the whole thing unfold with somewhat of a proud smile on his face, before Rae turned back to you and your attention was on her again.

“Of course! Corpse is very much a simp for you, you know that?” She said and both you and Corpse laughed, especially him, who nodded his head in agreement as she sat back down, still beaming at you.

“Well, I’m happy to hear that.” you respond before turning back to Corpse. “Where’s Karl at?”

“He’ll be here in half an hour or so, he only landed recently.” he said. You nodded and moved to sit on a nearby chair to leave space for the guests on the couch.

Karl ended up arriving in twenty minutes and apprised everyone of the information that “his taxi driver is a psycho that, apparently, doesn’t fear stop signs or the police” before setting up the camera in your kitchen and tried his best to attach lapel mics on everybody (admittedly, it took way longer than it should’ve, but he eventually managed and that counted as a win in his book). You reluctantly agreed to be the judge of the finished product when they’re done cooking, and Karl was there for the purposes of being a cameraman and making jokes off screen so he agreed too, albeit way more enthusiastically than you.

The two of you sat behind the camera as the three of them lined up, Corpse wearing a mask and his signature eyepatch (that he didn’t really need, but those two did their job in preserving his privacy) and introduced what they were doing. Corpse was obviously very anxious, hands fidgeting constantly and shivering like a dog after a bath despite the hoodie he was wearing in 100 degree weather because of the shower of sweat that was now drying on his body, and that was partly why you were there, supportive smiles, encouraging cheers and all.

They were making Mexican ground beef tacos, and despite knowing Corpse can barely make a sandwich without setting at least two dishes on fire, you still cheered him on proudly and repeated he was part Mexican himself roughly 5 times a minute, claiming he was going to kill it.

“Kill it? More like kill one of us- CORPSE watch what you’re doing with that fucking knife! You’re proving my point!” Rae yelled at him as he giggled in delight, watching the woman gape at him in pure horror and Sykkuno watch his movements completely entranced as he played with the knife in his hands.

“You’re just mad that he’s going to make tacos fifty times better than you.” you said to Rae, chewing down on some M&Ms that Karl and you shared (both of you decided on a genius plan - you’re going to eat the whole bag before they’re done with cooking so you can claim you’re full and therefore can’t eat the atrocity that will most likely be the tacos).

“Don’t gas me up like that, Y/N, you are well aware I’m shit at cooking. Expect absolutely nothing from me.” he replied over the sizzling of the meat on the pan, throwing a whole spoonful of chili powder into it, earning loud yelling and scolding from your side and loud laughter from Rae.

“HALF A TEASPOON! Half a teaspoon, how have you not remembered this already?! We’ve made tacos a million times now, oh my God, you’re actually stupid.” you yelled at him, arms flailing in the direction of the seasoning to emphasise your ‘half a teaspoon’ point as Rae doubled over in laughter and Sykkuno looked into the pan with a concerned and somewhat afraid look. Just as he peeked in, the overwhelming smell of chili powder started biting away at his eyes, and he jumped away with a yelp.

“Jesus, Corpse!” he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes with his forearm as the whole room burst into laughter and Corpse suspiciously inspected his beef.

“What were you saying about your ‘Mexican king’, Y/N?” Rae asked, pulling out a few tortillas and putting them on the table. You huffed, grabbing another handful of M&Ms.

“Giving him up to God. He’s the only one who can help, at this point.” you said. She giggled in response and Corpse let out some sort of protesting sound and waved his knife around in complaint. “I don’t know who this man is. He broke into my kitchen and now I’m here.”

“Hey, I pay half of your rent!” he said, and you were about to reply but Rae dropped her meat into a pan full of overheated oil, and a loud hiss and some sort of a scream overtook the room as a cloud of steam shot into the air and she frantically looked around for the wooden spoon so the meat wouldn’t stick to the pan. You simply sat and laughed, eating the candy like it was popcorn and you were watching a shitty cooking show - it wasn’t that far from reality, really.

“Um, I just realised I don’t make many tacos, actually.” she said as she helplessly stirred the meat, turning to you with pleading eyes. “What seasoning even goes into this? Y/N, will you help me? Let’s team up against Corpse!”

You tilted your head in thought, but before you could even speak, Corpse spoke up.

“That’s not fucking fair, that’s-that’s against the rules.” he turned to you. “You won’t betray me, right?”

You laughed at him, adjusting in your seat. “I gave up on you ever since you added, like, 3 kilos of seasoning into the meat for no reason.” then you turned to Rae. “Sure, let’s do it, babe.”

Their loud yelling immediately started mixing, Rae’s cheers contrasting Corpse’s protesting. She stuck her tongue out at him meanwhile Corpse shot her the middle finger, and she turned back to you with a grin.

“Alright, what do I put in?”

Roughly twenty unnecessary and extremely long minutes later, the tacos were done, two each for each of them. Rae’s looked the best - probably because you guided her through the whole thing - next to Sykkuno’s, whose you were genuinely intrigued to try. While Corpse was arguing with Rae, he burned roughly half of his already ruined beef, and Karl made the very nice observation that it looked like a bird shat in a tortilla, which you proclaimed as the highlight of the video.

Since you and Karl claimed you were full, the three of them simply swapped tacos between each other as to be unbiased, and the two of you watched in amused suspense. You were actually quite interested to see what the end results were - you were first anxious and quite annoyed you even had to participate in the first place, because it meant losing your mind from jealousy, watching Corpse and Rae giggle and act all domestic while cooking, but jealousy simply dissipated somewhere half through the video as you watched the three argue if cheddar cheese belonged on tacos or not and Rae laugh at every stupid joke you cracked. Now, you sat, fully immersed as you stared at Sykkuno’s face; the poor guy ended up with the misfortune of having to try Corpse’s taco first.

“Zoom in, zoom in!” you whispered into Karl’s ear who complied and zoomed into Sykkuno’s face. He bit into the taco, chewing for a second before his face twisted in disgust and you began wheezing when he grabbed a tissue and spit it out, immediately grabbing his glass of water. Rae laughed at him as well, mouth full of his one, which she claimed she actually liked but it wasn’t as good as the “Y/NRae-co” as she proudly called it. Corpse silently ate Rae’s taco and refused to give a review on it because he was upset he got defeated, but the fact that he scarfed down the whole thing in a minute or so was enough of a review.

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” Corpse exclaimed when he saw Sykkuno’s bite in the tissue, grabbing the second taco he made and biting down on it. The whole room burst into laughter when he roughly swallowed, tears obvious in the one eye that showed, because of the overly spicy beef.

“What are you motherfuckers laughing at? It’s not that bad, I stand by tacorpse.”

“Tacorpse is actually genius. The one good thing you came up with during the entirety of this video.” Rae said and Corpse mumbled a fuck you in response.

“Well, I think we can all agree that me and Y/N’s taco was clearly the best.” she said, clasping her hands together.

“I actually think mine was better.” Sykkuno said, to which she pushed his plate out of the frame.

“Nobody asked you anything.”

“Don’t bully Sykkuno, I’ll fucking kick you out.”

“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure Y/N would kick you out before they’d let you kick me!” Rae said, accusingly pointing her taco in Corpse’s direction.

“Alright, let’s wrap up the video.” Karl laughed behind the camera, and the three of them all turned to properly face it and end the video.

“Thank you all so much for watching, this has been an… interesting video, to say the least. Uh, thank you to Karl for filming this whole disaster, thank you to Corpse,” Rae gestured in his direction, “for lending us his kitchen, thank you to Sykkuno for probably getting us more views on this video, and also a big thank you to Y/N, Corpse’s better half for making this video way more interesting and helping me make probably, like, the best taco I’ve ever made.” she grinned and you shoved a peace sign in front of the camera.

“If you liked this video, check out Sykkuno and Corpse’s channels, they will be linked down below, and please click like and subscribe to support the channel! Again, thank you all for watching, see you later, bye!” she finished, and with that, Karl turned the camera off.

Silence engulfed the room. You sighed.

“Alright, who’s gonna clean this shit up?”

#corpse husband x reader #corpse husband x y/n #corpse husband x you #corpse husband x female reader #corpse husband fanfic #corpse husband imagine #corpse husband fluff

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bubblegumbeech · 3 years

Text

Haunted Towers and Hidden Truths

Phic Phight prompt by @lexiepiper

Write a more traditional ghost story. How would things change if ghost powers weren’t super powers, but closer to old horror movie tropes?

“We shouldn’t do this Danny,” Sam said, ever the voice of reason. “This place isn’t like our usual haunts.“

But Danny shook his head, “No Sam, I have to do this. I have to know what that dream meant, if it was really a dream or something else.”

He moved to take a step forward when his other friend, Tucker, grabbed his arm, “I don’t know man, I think she’s right. There isn’t a possessed item to destroy, or an overactive ghost to try and calm down, heck even Vlad has a weakness we can exploit, we don’t know anything about this place. What if we don’t make it out of this one?”

“Come on Tucker,” Danny argued, his own confidence nothing but a mask, “It can’t be as bad as the haunted video game right? You die in the game you die in real life!”

Tucker didn’t laugh, “this is serious Danny, I know that dream had you messed up, but what if it was just that? A dream?”

“Or,” Sam cut in, “What if it’s a trap? Remember how Desiree tried to get us with that monkey’s paw when she realized we were getting involved with every scary story and urban legend in town and she didn’t want us to find out about her?”

There was also the time a ghost discovered Danny’s secret and decided to haunt him personally and make his life a living hell until he and Tucker were able to exorcise it. It had involved a gorilla, a lot of research into dead safari hunters, and one of his parent’s inventions that they rigged to do what they needed before destroying it so it couldn’t be used against Danny himself.

“We made it through all of those things together, remember when we first saw Cujo? And we thought he was to blame for Valerie’s mother?” Danny said.

Sam deflated, “and then we did research and discovered that Cu Sith only foretell death, not cause it… But Danny, we tried to research this place, remember? We found nothing. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”

“Yeah man,” Tucker scratched the back of his neck uncertain, “I couldn’t find so much as a blueprint. No building plans, nothing. The only thing we have to go on are stories from reckless kids trying and failing to spend the night.”

“You don’t have to follow me, the last thing I want is to put you both at risk. Especially after last time.”

Tucker groaned, “Danny you know we aren’t going to let you do this alone right? Especially not after Walker’s prison. Who knows what would have happened if we didn’t come in and save you?”

Danny smiled, “I probably would have starved to death to be fair, but yeah, I’ll try to avoid getting locked in any metal cages, deal?”

“To be fair,” Sam said, returning his smile with one of her own, strained though it was, “you probably would have died of thirst first.”

Chuckling at his friends' attempts to lighten the mood once they realized his mind wouldn’t be changed, Danny finally let himself look up at the place in question. It was a tall, crooked looking clocktower with old, brittle wood and peeling paint. In the low light of the evening it looked almost purple and with the dust and cobwebs covering it, it was clear no one had been inside for quite some time.

The Clocktower was a recurrent presence in his dreams, the ones he’d started having since the accident that made him the way he was: different from any person, but not quite anything else. It was always there in the background, but he’d never gone inside.

Once, during a particularly dull recurring dream where he relived the life and consequent death of a warehouse worker, he’d walked away from the endless piles of boxes and tried to go inside the clocktower instead. But no matter how far he traveled, it was always the same distance away. He just couldn’t get to it.

Danny couldn’t shake the feeling though, that something inside might have the answers he’s been searching for. So he stepped forward, and knocked on the door.

There was no answer, of course, and Danny almost felt foolish doing it, but also, ghosts and spiritual beings all had their own rules and perceptions of what is or isn’t polite, most of which Danny had stumbled into learning the hard way, and it really didn’t hurt to check.

“No answer,” Sam said and Danny nodded, turning the handle. It was old and brass and when it turned it made a loud grinding noise that vibrated along his arm. But it did open, and without Danny needing to persuade it, so that had to be a good sign right?

Unless it really was a trap.

“Maybe we should leave someone outside, in case it really is like Walker’s prison.” He offered, but both of his friends shook their heads and stepped past him. It was dark, musty and smelled in a weird way, like a library. If a library had locked its doors and not let anyone enter for a good century or so.

Sam took the lead, her flashlight catching on unfamiliar shapes and shadows. “Do you know what we’re looking for?” she asked, her voice uncertain.

Danny shook his head, “Not really, just… answers.”

They looked around the ground floor at first, but if it held anything particularly supernatural or important, it wasn’t going to be found. “This just looks like my grandma's living room.” Tucker complained, taking the sheet off of one of the couches, “we need to go further in if we want to actually find something.”

He wasn’t wrong, Danny looked over to the spiralling staircase in the back of the room, and then to the other doors that surrounded it on the first floor. “It’s probably better to do this systemically right? Go through every room on each floor and move our way up?”

“You mean like in a video game?” Sam asked, “sure, we can do that.”

They started on the left, but that room wasn’t much better when it came to finding any kind of clues. It held a kitchen, a very old kitchen, with a stove and oven that Danny had only ever seen in period movies. But…

“Why does it smell like cookies?” Danny asked, turning to his friends who both looked at him like he was crazy.

“Cookies? Yo, Danny this place smells like straight up death. Not cookies.” Tucker said, backing away from the oven and starting to open up cabinets.

Sam rolled her eyes and did the same on the other side of the kitchen, “it doesn’t smell like death you dolt, it smells… like a graveyard.”

Danny walked to the middle of the room, towards the oven- he always made sure to be the one seeking out the more dangerous or suspicious things in the haunts they went to- while the two of them bickered. They tended to start these smaller, petty arguments when they were scared, it took the edge off.

“Duh?” Tucker said, and Danny heard him slam one of the cabinets shut, “graveyards are death? What does it smell like to you? Your Mom’s perfume?”

“No, it smells like someone dying, you know all hospital chemicals and gross stuff.”

There wasn’t anything in the oven, but oddly, Danny had felt a wave of warmth when he opened it. Almost like it had just been used. But, ghosts didn’t need to eat, right? And there couldn’t have been a person living here, they’d notice that. At least, Danny hopes they would notice that. After being in dozens of life or death scenarios hinging on whether they noticed important but minute details, they’d become pretty good at that kind of thing.

“Ugh! Don’t talk about hospitals, I’m still not over North Mercy, that was horrible,” Tucker turned to Danny, leaning on one of the counters and ignoring the cabinet he opened right behind his head. “What do you think death smells like Danny?”

Danny walked over and closed the cabinet, he didn’t want something to suddenly appear inside of it all twisted limbs and empty eyes or for something to crawl out and scare them, or even have it slam shut on Tuckers head, like some ghosts were known to do. He didn’t have to put much thought into his answer, “It smells like burnt flesh, electricity, and polished wood.”

Tucker paled, “oh… right. Sorry.”

He shrugged, “anything yet?”

“Not unless you count cobwebs, dust, and deteriorating cooking books,” Sam answered, walking over to both him and Tucker.

Danny looked around at the kitchen, it looked normal, even some dying light shone in from the one window along the outer wall. The only thing weird was the shape and that was because it was at the bottom of a spiralling clocktower. There was nothing particularly scary about the place, and frankly Danny didn’t know what to do with that.

“Let’s move on, this place is giving me the creeps,” Sam said, crossing the room and going to the next door.

Danny and Tucker followed, unwilling to be left behind, or to let her go on her own. The next room was the same size as the other two, but it had an extra window and was crammed absolutely full of books. Just books. Stacks and stacks of them where they didn’t fit on the shelves, which were completely packed themselves, and Danny had the thought that this was probably what he was smelling when they first walked in.

It was a library. A personal one, but without any room to sit or anything to sit on despite the genuinely impressive display of books and Danny found himself gently stroking his hand against the cover of a book on the top of the nearest stack, When Ghosts Speak: Understanding Earthbound Spirits.

“Please tell me we aren’t reading all of this,” Tucker whined. Danny frowned, why wouldn’t he want to read these? It was a treasure trove of information, these books could have countless, researched, answers to questions they’ve been asking since the start of everything!

What if one of these books could tell them why Amity Park seemed to attract the supernatural, why they seemed to gain power within the city’s boundaries, why Danny wasn’t dead. He wanted nothing more than to grab any one of these books, walk into the next room, with the couches and comfortable chairs, sit down and read and read until he found something, anything he could use.

These books might even be able to help him deal with the supernatural threats that plagued their town. Mostly they’ve been surviving through luck and half baked internet searches with the occasional trip to the town library. And while it had been enough so far, Danny was practically salivating at the thought of being properly, genuinely prepared for something for once.

“Of course we aren’t,” Sam said, dragging Danny out of his fantasies of maybe knowing what he was doing, “they’re completely deteriorated. If we even tried to open one it would probably fall apart.”

Danny frowned, and then looked down at the book he’d subconsciously grabbed. It didn’t seem as bad as Sam was describing, but he also didn’t want to risk it either. He’d realized early on there was a difference between what he was seeing and what was actually real. He set it down gently and looked around the rest of the room with his friends.

“Are we so sure this place is haunted?” Danny asked. By then, the sun had set entirely and the only light left was their flashlights. High powered and with fresh batteries they were still little use against the encroaching dark and Danny wanted to move on to the next floor already if he wasn’t going to be able to open a book.

Tucker stood up from behind a precariously leaning shelf and dusted himself off, “Dude you’re the one that said there was something here and we needed to investigate. Remember, like an hour ago when the two of us were trying to stop you from going inside?”

Danny scoffed, “that’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean then?” Sam asked, stepping closer so she could meet his eyes. There was something in her expression, curiosity or suspicion, Danny couldn’t quite parse.

“I…” Danny stopped to think, what did he mean? Was it just that the place didn’t feel haunted? There wasn’t anything here trying to scare him away, no ominous winds or loud knocking, but they’ve gone into haunts before that took a long time to start actually reacting to them. “There’s no, I don’t know how to explain it. Usually when we go somewhere haunted, that a ghost has a claim to or whatever… there’s this feeling that I’m trespassing? I don’t feel like I’m trespassing here.”

That probably didn’t make any sense, and despite everything they didn’t usually act on Danny’s gut instincts as a group without evidence. The issue with the circus and it’s terrifying owner was a lesson too well learned after all.

True to expectations neither Sam nor Tucker looked convinced. They shared a quick ‘what now’ look between each other and Danny resisted taking a step back and sinking into the wall. Not that he could do that, as far as he knew he couldn’t do that. Only actual ghosts could do something like that and despite everything Danny was still human- well, still had a physical form.

Permanently.

“Let’s move on upstairs,” Sam reasoned, “if Danny’s right there won’t be any harm in it, and if he’s not we’ll find out once whatever’s here starts actually reacting to us, right?”

Perfectly reasonable and logicked as always. Danny nodded and walked to the next door, if he was right it would lead into the room they had first entered with the staircase that twisted and climbed higher and higher into the heart of the tower. That was the next place to go. He knew that.

Tucker gently patted his shoulder as they walked towards the base of the stairs, “yeah, maybe the ghost doesn’t consider this bottom part his haunt? Maybe he just likes the clock on top?”

Danny smiled, “like the hunchback of Notre Dame?”

Smiling back, Tucker nodded, “exactly! Oh man, we gotta find out if that guy is real one of these days.”

“We have our hands a bit tied with Amity Park without going after disney characters,” Sam said, pushing the two of them from behind so they’d actually go up the stairs. “Now let's get a move on, I want to be back home before breakfast so my parents don’t realize I snuck out again.”

There was something Danny could say but he bit back the comment about how at least her parents would notice and quickly walked up the stairs instead. As soon as his feet touched the first step a bubbly feeling lifted in his chest, and it made him want to go higher as fast as he could there was someone up there waiting for him-

“Danny!” Sam called out, grabbing him by the arm, “calm down!”

Her grip on his arm was tight and Danny looked down to see what had her panicked only to find his feet had left the stairs entirely and he’d started floating upwards instead of walking. Like a human. Like his friends. Like what he was supposed to be.

He swallowed and let himself sink back down, forcing the feeling in his chest back as much as he could. It was like trying to kill the fizz in a shaken soda by screwing a cap back on it and he struggled with it for a moment. He’d never felt like this before- sure, most ghosts and other supernatural entities tended to broadcast emotions to a higher degree than humans, and with them also being natural empaths and Danny’s unfortunate situation it often led to him being overtaken by emotions that weren’t necessarily his own.

It’s just, they’ve never been this overwhelmingly positive before.

Even with Vlad, as human as he was, his emotions were always tinted with obsession and desperation. His need to have Danny and his mother for his own colored every interaction he’d had with the man and it often left a bitter, strained feeling in his chest. Right now, Danny felt almost giddy. And he wasn’t even sure it wasn’t just his own emotions, reacting to the environment around him. It was a nice environment after all.

But Danny was good at ignoring things like that.

“My bad. I’ll try and keep my feet on the ground from now on.”

Sam looked conflicted, “Danny you know we don’t mind you using your powers,” Danny nodded, they’d told him so many times over and over again, “But we don’t want to lose you to them. You promised to stay with us, remember?”

Danny smiled, “I remember. I won’t end up like that, I promised. That’s why we’re here right? To stop it?”

Sam nodded and let him go.

The second floor was similar to the first, in that it had three rooms leading into each other with the spiral staircase in the center. Danny started with the door on the right. It was a study. There was a desk, paperwork, and a bottle of ink with a quill and Danny found himself wondering just how old this clocktower really was. And how long it had been since its occupant was truly here, alive, if ever.

They split up and started looking around, eagerness exposed in their movements. This was the most likely place to have something useful, especially if whoever spent their time here was as studious as the lower floor suggested. Danny went for the desk.

There was a note on it, in perfect, looped handwriting and the ink was still glistening, fresh from the bottle if the smell had anything to say about it. Danny ran his hand across the words hoping to smudge it, but it had dried already, if barely.

It’s nice to meet you, little anomaly.

Danny grit his teeth.

“Guys,” he called out, holding the paper, “It knows we’re here.”

Sam and Tucker rushed over, and Sam grabbed the paper from his hand to read for herself. “Little anomaly? Isn't that kind of insensitive?”

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed, “you just have weird ghost powers right? Vlad’s the same way it’s not like you’re the only person on the planet like you.”

Hesitant to correct him, Danny bit his tongue. It was true that Vlad was a person who had unfortunately gained the abilities of a ghost, things like floating, making objects move with his mind or using his spirit to control people while he slept safe and sound at home. And he’d gained them in a similar way to Danny as well, trusting the wrong people and delving into things he never fully understood and still didn’t.

It was just … less true for Danny was all.

But he wasn’t going to tell them that, he wasn’t going to tell anyone that. So how did whoever, or whatever this was, know? Or was it just saying things to get under his skin, that was pretty par for the course when it came to ghosts. So why wasn’t it doing anything else? Trying to get them to leave? Was Sam right? Was it really a trap this entire time? What would happen if they went back downstairs and tried the door, would it open?

He grabbed the paper and shoved it into one of his jackets pockets, there was plenty of time to freak out over it later after all. “Let’s keep looking around, there has to be something here that it’s trying to distract us from.”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything more useful than there had been downstairs. Just what one would expect from a normal office. What papers he did find had detailed extensive notes, yes. But they were in a language Danny couldn’t read and neither Sam nor Tucker even recognized. It was infuriating!

Almost like whoever was haunting this place, was telling them it had all the answers they wanted but wouldn’t give them any. He just wanted to know how - Danny shook his head. There had to be something. He wouldn’t have been led all the way here, had all those dreams, if there was nothing he could do at all.

He threw one more frustrated look around the office before he threw the stack of papers he’d been digging through on the floor and marched over to the next door. It was unlocked, again, just like all of the others and it only served to increase Danny’s frustration.

“Wait, Danny,” Sam noticed him leaving and quickly followed, the door slammed shut behind them, locking Tucker inside the office.

“No,” he whispered, this was all his fault, he shouldn’t have let this ghost get in his head like this! He never should have let his emotions take him over, he knew better. It led to bad things. Horrible, terrible, things.

There was a loud bang on the door, someone was pounding against it and Danny flinched. Was the actual haunting finally starting? Was everything really just a way to lure them deeper into the tower and away from each other?

“Guys?” he heard Tucker call out from the other side of the door, “did you seriously just leave me behind? Don’t we have like, a rule against that?!”

Danny sighed in relief, it was just Tucker. “Are you okay Tuck? Did anything happen over there when the door shut? Any oozing walls or flying papers-”

There was another thump, probably Tucker banging his head against the door, “I know what to look for Danny I’ve been doing this the exact same amount of time as you.”

“Yeah yeah,” Danny acquessed. “Just get to the stairs and we’ll meet you there.”

He exchanged a glance with Sam, she was glaring a hole into the side of his head and he felt guilty for being the cause of everything going wrong, again. So he apologized and ignored her exaggerated eye roll when she said he should have known better, because well, he did. But what was he going to do, apologize twice?

The room they were in was a simple one, likely some kind of storage space that he and Sam could dig through for hours on end, but it was more important to get to Tucker than to try and make sure they didn’t miss anything.

Which, in hindsight, was probably exactly why they’d been separated.

A cold breeze tickled at Danny’s hair and he felt himself relax despite it all. It felt nice, the cold, and Danny liked when the haunts they went to leaned towards the chillier side like this. Sometimes, especially if Vlad was involved, it felt like he was walking into an overwarm swamp when he entered a haunt and it made him itchy and uncomfortable the entire time. Vlad never seemed to notice, and his friends complain equally about both, so Danny had mostly kept it to himself.

The entire tower felt nice, cold dry air, the smell of books, ink, and cookies, even the playful, excited feeling that seemed to permeate throughout the tower. Like someone had designed it to appeal in every way to both sides of Danny’s instincts.

It was unnerving.

He followed Sam out of the room and back into the middle where the stairs were, but Tucker wasn’t there.

Sam pulled out her phone, and Danny held his breath as it rang, once, twice, and then a click and Tucker’s familiar, annoyed voice came through the speaker and Danny sighed in relief. “Uh guys? I couldn’t get out the door so I tried to climb out a window, and there was uh, a ladder. So I’m outside right now. Come get me?”

Danny met eyes with Sam and nodded, they headed back down, “we’re coming Tuck,” he said.

“Cool, cool, actually rather than coming to get me, can we just go home? Come back later, like in the day time? How come we never do these things in the daytime?”

“You know that’s not how ghosts work Tucker.” Sam said, bored, as they walked to the front door. Danny felt a tug, something like a hand on his shoulder and turned to see what was behind him. There wasn’t anything there.

He turned back around to see that Sam had already walked outside, and was holding the door open for him, one of her eyebrows raised. Awkwardly, Danny jogged a little, so as to not hold them up too long. But before he could actually walk outside the door slammed shut.

Sam screamed.

“Danny! Are you okay!” Tucker asked, his voice panicked and muffled from the other side of the door.

“I’m fine,” Danny said, gritting his teeth and turning around. The room didn’t look or feel any different. There was nothing screaming at him to get out or anything else malicious. If anything it seemed even cosier than before, and Danny didn’t really know how to react to that.

He looked back at the door. There was a way, no. He couldn’t do that. Danny pinched at the bridge of his nose, the only thing to do, really, was to see who had invited him in. That’s what it was right? Some kind of weird ghostly invite?

“I’m going to go check upstairs,” he called out to his friends before walking back towards the staircase.

They pounded on the door, “Danny don’t you dare go up there without us! Just wait, we’ll find a way in! It’s dangerous alone!”

Ignoring their protests Danny took the stairs two steps at a time, fighting the rising excitement in his chest and firmly planting his feet against the polished wood. There were answers waiting for him, he knew there were. He just had to find them.

The third floor had a bedroom, it was nice, cozy and the bed even looked inviting. Danny didn’t bother to stay long. Whoever it was that called him here wasn’t in this room, nor were they in the next or the one after that. Just two bedrooms and a bathroom on that floor and Danny quickly made his way to the next.

This room was different from the rest. For one there were windows, everywhere, that seemed to play different scenes of different people from all over the world. If Danny strained his ears, he could even hear them speaking different languages. On the other side from the windows was an entire wall of clockwork that chimed and churned as the gears moved, keeping the face of the clock on the outside ticking along in sync with the rest of the world.

When Danny stepped into the room properly the carpet sunk easily underneath his feet and he felt a nice, cold breeze that came from a purple flamed fire housed properly in a fireplace in the middle of the room. He hadn’t even noticed a chimney from outside.

There was a man in front of the fire. He was tall and hooded and he carried an equally tall and gnarled staff in one of his gloved hands. Danny felt himself freeze, he had never seen a ghost this solid before. There was always a little bit of transparency, no matter how powerful, they didn’t have physical forms afterall. Not like Danny.

“Who are you?” he asked. His voice was dry and soft and Danny was thankful when it didn’t crack on his question. How embarrassing would that have been?

The man turned around, his face changing as he did from old and aged to a younger one, closer to his parent’s age, a large jagged scar marking it’s way through one of his eyes and down his cheek. He smiled, “I am Clockwork, Master of time. All that was, All that is, and All that will be. I understand you have many questions for me. I hope to answer them.”

A thousand questions ran rapidly through his mind, why did you call me here? Did you call me here? Why get rid of my friends? What are you and why haven’t I seen anything like you before?

“How do I prevent myself from becoming that.” Danny asked the most pressing question first, desperate. The man-ghost-Clockwork, sighed and gestured for him to sit. There was a comfortable looking couch with an equally comfortable chair across from it and a plate of cookies set on an elegantly carved coffee table between the two.

“That’s easily answered, sit, have a cookie.” Clockwork floated over, crossing his legs and settling into the chair before grabbing a cookie for himself.

Danny glanced at them, uncertain, before taking a seat. The couch was even more comfortable than it looked and he found himself sinking back into it, confused. The room was a nice, cold, temperature as well, despite the fire clearly burning in the fireplace.

He grabbed one of the cookies, “can I eat these?” he asked, looking over at his host.

“Of course,” Clockwork smiled, taking a bite of his own before leaning back, “I made them for you. Though your friends would have to be more careful, I’m not sure what food like this would do to a human.”

“I am human,” Danny argued, placing the cookie back on its plate. He had to, denial was all he had left at this point.

Clockwork frowned, “yes, well, I suppose we’ll get there next. You wanted to know about your dreams.”

Finally, Danny nodded, “they’re different ever since- uh well… ever since the incident.”

“It’s natural to not want to talk about one’s death,” Clockwork said, he leaned forward and tilted his head, “or one’s birth.”

“My dreams,” Danny asked, avoiding that conversation with all the grace of a blind hippo, “why are they different. You know right?”

Sighing, Clockwork nodded and leaned back, “yes, I know everything. They’re different, frankly, because they’re dreams. It’s unsettling to you because it’s new, you’ve never dreamed before.”

Danny scowled, “that doesn’t make any sense, I had plenty of dreams when-”

Clockwork interrupted him, disappointment plain under his hood, “You can lie to your friends Daniel, but I already know the truth. Just as you do.”

“I was astral projecting. Like what Vlad does… but then why-?” Danny bit his tongue. He couldn’t say it, not outloud. It was too difficult, he’d spent too long hiding it, pushing it away and doing everything he could to keep anyone from noticing.

“Why can’t you do it anymore?” Clockwork answered for him, Danny nodded. “The simple answer is that you aren’t like Vladimir, despite what he believes and would like you to believe as well. But that’s something else you already know. Ask me a question you don’t have the answers for.”

Danny grabbed another cookie, biting into it fiercely just to have an excuse not to speak. It tasted really good, better than anything he’d had in a while and Danny wondered if maybe there was something in it meant to sate his less human cravings. The thought didn’t help his inner turmoil.

Clockwork smiled softly at him though and sighed, “Fine, in order to answer your question, first I have one of my own.”

“Didn’t you just say you know everything?” Danny mumbled before shoving more cookie in his mouth.

“What good is a teacher that only lectures?” Clockwork said in retort, “do you remember how you died?”

He did, of course he did. “Kinda hard to forget that. Lab accident, electrocution, nothing fancy.” he said, curling in on himself. Clockwork had been right before, it was painful to talk about. But he wanted, no, needed the answers to his questions. He’d survive this.

“Well, that’s where your first mistake lies. Yes, that is what stopped your heart, and likely the most memorable part, but you didn’t die from that Daniel. What killed you came after.”

Danny frowned, “that doesn’t make any sense? What happened after?”

“Your spirit was never particularly bound to your body in the first place, likely due to your parents dabbling where they shouldn’t for as long as they did before you were ever born. There was a summoning, I think you remember, that your parents were holding when your accident happened on the floor below them.”

It was frustrating, that he was right. That he knew it. “I remember them recognizing me, my spirit. I remember them finding my body and shoving me back in. I remember the pain, and waking up and seeing-” Danny choked on the realization. It couldn’t be...

“Seeing the world in your dreams?” Clockwork asked, “the way you saw it when you were a spirit, free from the confines of your body, correct?” He floated over the table, sat next to Danny, and placed a hand on his back. Danny realized he had been shaking.

He grabbed the fabric of his jeans in a tight grip and tried to stop, “It’s all real, right? It isn’t… I’m not still dreaming? Please, I need to know.”

The hand on his back pulled him close, tucked into Clockwork’s side and Danny felt comforted despite himself, he fought to blink away tears that had been building behind his eyes as he tucked himself into Clockwork’s side. He was so solid, unlike any other ghost Danny had ever met and he seemed to radiate comfort where most just gave off fear and hurt.

“You’re not dreaming Daniel, you never were. The world is different when you see it through our eyes, that is all. When you woke up, you weren’t human anymore. Of course you wouldn’t be limited by a human’s sight.”

Danny curled into himself tighter, despair clouding around him and likely leeching unpleasantly into the air. It would be a wonder if Clockwork didn’t feel it. “So I’m a ghost.”

“Hardly,” Clockwork said and Danny stopped breathing, “Do you think the world is so simple it is split between what is ghostly and what is not?”

“I…” Danny had actually assumed that. So far everything they’d dealt with so far, short of Vlad, had either been a ghost or spirit of some kind, or a human that used magic or ghostly artifacts. Even Vlad had simply been a person who had learned how to control his own spirit the way a ghost would. If Danny wasn’t a human, and he wasn’t a ghost, then what was he?

Clockwork ruffled his hair, “I suppose you’re young. It is easier, afterall, to think of it that way. But Daniel, ghosts don’t have physical forms. They can possess one, or control one, and sometimes even mimic one, but they are spirits.”

He sighed, “you are something entirely different. You’re something remarkable.”

Danny leaned back, using the sleeves of his hoodie to quickly dry his tears so he could look Clockwork in the eye, “What am I?”

“You’re new.”

Danny shoved him, “Agghh, I knew that you jerk!” It was probably a bad idea to attack or antagonize someone as clearly powerful and knowledgeable as Clockwork, but really he’d been asking for it. And Danny’s patience was only so strong.

Clockwork didn’t fight him back though, nor did he get offended. Instead he just smiled that soft smile that Danny was starting to realize was affection, and said, “did you? Weren’t you trying to read my books to find out if there was anyone else like you?”

“Well yeah-” Danny stopped, “Oh. There wouldn’t be anything would there? If I’m the first?”

He groaned, that really was just his luck. He’d never figure out anything at this rate. Clockwork, the bastard, just hummed and grabbed another cookie, offering it to him. “No there wouldn’t. But you’re not the only one who was the first or only of their kind. Who had to figure out on their own, who and what they are.”

“You mean Vlad?” Danny asked, the thought left a sour taste in his mouth, wow he really hoped he didn’t mean Vlad.

Clockwork’s smile turned brittle, “I don’t mean Vlad.”

Danny chuckled, his thoughts turning mischievous, “I don’t know, he seems pretty unique, what with all those different abilities he has and the way he can choose to be human or ghost-”

“Oh please,” Clockwork interrupted, “there’s plenty of humans like Vladimir Masters, you were fully capable of astral projecting like that from birth, no black magic necessary. Just because he found a way to twist-”

He stopped, then looked down at Danny who was trying and failing to hold back a shit eating grin. All at once the air seemed to leave him and he deflated, the irritated look on his face replaced with open and honest affection and Danny felt it sing in the air around them.

“You were messing with me.”

“To be fair I didn’t think it would work, all knowing and everything.” Danny said, unable to fight the bubbling feeling in his chest as it rose to meet the affection around them. Usually it sucked having the empathy of a ghost and being near one or at least, something with the same traits. The negative emotions tended to bounce between him and them and amplify and it always made Danny struggle to parse his own emotions from theirs. But right now, in the top of a clock tower with the most powerful entity Danny had ever met, he felt happiness and joy to a degree he’d long forgotten. It was dizzying. He was almost giddy with it.

Clockwork patted him on the head, purposefully messing his hair, “yes well. I think in time, it will be more obvious just how different you truly are, how crucial every small coincidence was that came together that night to create you. But until then, you had another question? I can answer it now.”

Danny frowned as he realized what Clockwork meant, “You! I asked that question first! How did you only answer the one you wanted to!!”

“It was important,” Clockwork said, relaxing into the couch next to Danny, “to answer that question I had to be sure you knew what you were.”

He sputtered, “But I don’t?! I’m just something new! Something different!”

“Something physical that exists with the laws of the spiritual.”

“Yeah!” Danny said, “Wait, what?”

Clockwork nodded his head, “a physical entity that exists within the realms of spiritual possibility. It must be such a struggle, to deal with both sets of instincts like that.”

Danny’s head hurt, it was too much to try and understand the details of all of this. Maybe Tucker was right and he should just have let it be, learn to live with the new normal his life was now. Wasn’t that kind of what Clockwork was suggesting anyways? Then again, unlike Tucker, he did seem to thrive off of all of Danny’s questions, whether he actually answered them or not.

“Yeah, I have to fight my more ghostly instincts all the time. It’s exhausting.” he said, leaning into Clockwork. It should have been embarrassing, seeking comfort like that, but he’d already cried into his shoulder and there wasn’t really any way to come back from that so Danny did as he pleased.

He felt Clockwork’s hand return to his back, a solid comforting presence, “Now why would you do that?”

Danny tilted his head in confusion, “what do you mean?”

“Why would you fight against one half of yourself so thoroughly? But embrace the other side entirely?” Clockwork elaborated. “Did you think there wouldn’t be any consequences in fighting against your nature?”

“But,” Danny struggled to speak, pieces of the puzzle he’d thought hopeless putting themselves together in ways he had never expected and didn’t quite understand, “my nature is bad.”

Clockwork frowned and turned to look at Danny properly, “Daniel, it’s your nature. There is nothing good or bad about it. It is only as it is. Everything is as it’s meant to be.”

This was too much, Danny sat up fully and turned entirely towards Clockwork, “are you saying, the way I become that thing from my nightmare, is by… doing what I’ve been doing to avoid becoming that thing?!”

“Yes,” Clockwork answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He blinked, the answer really couldn’t be that easy. “But in my dream, I, my instincts-”

Clockwork grabbed a cookie and placed it in his hands, “even humans react poorly, when they starve themselves. As you exist now, you simply need a different kind of sustenance. One you’ve been denying.”

Danny felt dread crawl down the length of his spine, “what kind of sustenance?”

“Spirits exist for reasons, and they exist differently from humans. In order to keep existing they need emotions, experiences, something to keep them held together. A spirit that has no reason to exist will simply disappear, you’ve seen such before it is relatively common after all. But you can’t do that, since you are physical in a way that they are not. You can starve yourself endlessly, into madness even if you’re desperate enough.”

“I do it to myself?” Danny asked, flustered and frustrated. It was true then? He really was his own worst enemy?

Clockwork shook his head, “it is not inevitable Daniel. As you were, it was the most likely path forward. Yes. You would have noticed the symptoms, seen yourself losing control and then, in reaction, suppressed yourself further. Starved yourself further.”

Danny cringed, yeah, that sounded like him. “How do I stop it then? I just embrace what makes me ghostly? What about my parents? If they think they failed the resurrection, that I’m not human anymore, they’ll kill me for real! Or worse!”

“That is indeed troublesome, and the paths of the future where they know your truth are twisted and sharp, every small decision every tiny change causing a greater effect on their reactions as a whole. But you do not need to reveal yourself to your parents to live your truth.”

Relieved, Danny fell back into the couch. He hadn’t even noticed he’d floated off of it, was that good? Bad? He shook his head, this was all too confusing. “How then?” He asked, maybe this time he’d actually get a straight answer.

Clockwork ruffled his hair and stood up, er, well, floated up and over towards the fire. “You continue doing what you’re doing with your friends, protecting your town and interacting with the truth of the world around you. And…” He turned around, “you can come visit me. It’s quite lonely in the clock tower they trapped me in, and there is much I can teach you about becoming. I had to learn such things about myself once after all.”

“You’ll let me come back? To visit you?” Danny didn’t know what to say. He could come visit, ask more questions, get more answers. It seemed too good to be true, and Danny found himself eager and excited at the prospect.

For some reason, the entire conversation, he’d thought this would be a one time thing. That the clocktower would disappear behind him and leave any question he didn’t ask unanswered. To find out that wasn’t the case, that he had somehow, against all odds, made some kind of ghostly ally, was beyond expectations. “You’ll help me?”

The answering smile had Danny floating out of his seat, “Of course Daniel. I’ll even bake cookies.”

#Danny phantom #Clockwork #clockwork dp #Phic Phight #phic phight 21 #sam manson #tucker foley #op #Bee's writing

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mollysfoundfamily · 3 years

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What are the epithet erased folks like when they're drunked?

Oh ho ho ho this is going to be fun! ( alcohol and drunk Tigger warning though)

Molly: No. No. No. No. no alcohol for the baby. EVER! Percy doesn’t even anything that even looks like it get close to her and her young still forming brain!! the others have kind of an unspoken rule about it to. SHES. JUST. TOO. PURE.

she hasn’t told them that her dad used to let her drink pumpkin spice beer at thanksgiving yet.

Sylvie: Don’t tell percy but Sylvie drinks wine the most respectable and classy of all adult beverages when he’s at office parties. The others are reluctant to let a 15 year old do it but he insists he‘s more then responsible enough. It’s purely to study the complex flavors anyway (he’ll never admit it but they all taste like expired cough syrup to him) not to get totally inebriated for the sake of it.... that part happened on accident. It only takes about one glass to do it and He goes into beef beef sheep mode but as a drunken out loud ramble. He comes up with alot of “ground braking theories“ when he gets like this too. He was once convinced that motion wasn’t real it‘s just an illusion our brains cook up to help us cope with our frozen world!!! He’ll just keep rambling and hiccuping for hours every once and a while admitting something very very embarrassing like How he doesn’t know what half the big words he uses mean or that his coffee is actually just chocolate milk until he eventually passes out on top of a pile of very tipsy sheep sucking his thumb.... which is usually fallowed by a visit from a very very glitchy beefton Who has fish fins for some reason because drunk dreams apparently aren’t as stable as regular dreams.

Giovanni: Gio doesn’t even really like alcohol (mostly because of Debby) but sneaks into bars every now and then because underage drinking is a major crime!! He can’t stomach anything unless it’s drowned in sweet strawberry staved ice or a million different juices and of course a tiny umbrella and it only takes one of those to get him waisted... His whole face flushes totally red even his ears! He’s somehow even louder and more obnoxious then usual! Dancing on tables swinging form ceiling fans yelling at strangers who don’t tip or harass The bar tenders and getting into fist fights with them which he usually loses (making out with crusher that one time) his few inhibitions completely out the window along with the Bar‘s jukebox.... it’s the only time he’s ever committed any kind of real crimes. Then on the second on he just Starts maniacally laughing and crying at the same time. Its actually pretty scary to witness so thank goodness Bear trap ain’t around. Until It eventually just becomes crying about all the mean stuff he did and how great it is but how it’s awful too and how he doesn’t wanna be mean but you have to be mean to be a bad guy so does that mean he doesn’t wanna be a bad guy? and really feels like he should have taken that four year baseball scholarship to the city’s top medical College!!

Mera: She’s a little harder to get waisted mostly Because she has to be really careful not to brake the fancy glasses her drinks come in. When she does it only makes her get more grumpy and makes her start scream ranting about how terrible life is and how terrible people are and just how much everything and everyone sucks all the time... expect for Indus

her affection for him is turned up a hundred fold she’ll throw herself on top of him and nuzzle into him like a kitty squeezing his muscles! She’ll ramble on about how he’s the handsomest sweetest person in the history of ever and how she doesn’t deserve him and just wants to kiss his big dumb face and from there it trails off into.... pg 13 territory untill she passes out and a very red faced indus has to carry her home.

Indus: Indus is also pretty hard to get drunk since he’s so huge it’s only ever happened once. It was from one to many of those wooden pints of ale at this theme bar because of course it was. Everyone there thought he was an actor or something and kept asking for selfies because he kept singing broken warrior drinking ballets and challenging people to drinking contests which only made things worse. After winning about 5 he couldn’t say too words without braking into giggle fit or hiccuping his head off. It would have been kinda cute if he hadn’t also lost all motor control, completely forgot how strong he was and smashed almost everything and everyone he came in contact with. He hugged about 7 people into the hospital, smashed a hole on the bar. and then tried to fight a forklift. But he probably would have done that last one anyway.

Percy: (aka the one you’re all waiting for) Has only ever taken a drink once in her life. Ramsey thought Champagne would be a good way to celebrate after closing a big case together... he has never regretted anything so much. She took one sip and she was immediately completely intoxicated a Drunken delinquent unable to control her own actions or the already rapidly forming addition she was suffering from. But she would work as hard as she could to get sober and decided to check herself into the nearest rehab center. He tried to stop her but she was determined to go strait there but she wouldn’t allow herself to operate a motor vehicle under such conditions so she decided to walk there right through the middle of heavy traffic. Once again totally unable to control her rash decisions. He eventually got her to come back thankfully without getting hit. Only for her to run straight into a stop sign. She got back up again immediately and acted like nothing was wrong even though blood was pooring out of her swelled up nose! He tried to take her to the hospital but she insisted on staying to defend her honor again the offending sign as irrational displays of strength was a common drunken activity. But electrocuting it was probably not the best idea since it sort of acted as a lightning rod and fired the underground wires the ran underneath it blacking out the next 5 city blocks. The video of the whole thing when viral and Percy uses as an example of the dangers of alcohol For the kids.

Ramsey: The man can afford freaking gold laced Champagne but chooses box rosé in the basement watching Adam Sandler movies like the king he is.

But somehow with out fail he will always always always wake up the next morning in the master sweet of a yacht he just bought with a bunch of passed out strangers half of which are furries in a giant pile of money totally unable to move his face because of the back ally Botox he got done. wearing nothing but his boxers, gold chains with a little gold rats on them, and solid gold crocks still holding that box of rosé....

Zora: We’ve done drunk Zora art here before she’s pretty much exactly what you would expect downing whisky and beer left and right just to see how far she can go!! Her competitiveness goes through the roof and she’s challenging anyone to anything darts, arm wrestle, poole, russian roulette, jump rope, anything she was one of the said people Indus got into a drinking contest with and the only one he lost too! She really isn’t that much different then her usual self since she drinks pretty regularly and has the highest tolerance out of everyone.

extra because I had too!!

Howie: It seems like its impossible to get him drunk. His worker bees get him to try and loosen up a little because like it or not he needs it. But he’s already downed 10 giant beers and seems totally the same.... until he gets a call about a new job gets up and walks right through the wall of the bar leaving a Howie shaped hole behind him.

#epithet erased #Epithet Erased Headcannon #Headcannon #Found Fam #Alcohol Trigger warning #molly blyndeff #giovanni potage #sylvester ashling #mera salamin #indus tarbella #percival king #ramsey murdoch #zora salazar #howie honeyglow

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letterboxd · 3 years

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In Focus: The Truman Show.

Inspired by Letterboxd data that revealed it to be a lockdown favorite, editor-at-large Dominic Corry looks at the ever-evolving importance of contemporary masterpiece The Truman Show.

It has long been apparent that The Truman Show is an unnervingly prescient film. The story of a man who becomes aware that his superficially idyllic life is, in fact, a live-streamed television show has gone from being high-concept to every-day.

Thanks to the three Ps—the prevalence of mass urban surveillance, the proliferation of reality television and the pervasiveness of video in social media—the notion of cameras filming our every move is no longer a paranoid fantasy, but real life. The twist being that, for the most part, we all willingly signed up for it, and did all the filming ourselves. As Yi Jian saliently observes in his review: “Not to get all ‘we live in a society’ on Letterboxd but I know a person or two in real life that would actually give anything to trade lives with Truman, it do be like that sometimes”. It indeed do, Yi Jian.

So it’s something of a cliché at this stage to point out how we are all living in some version of the The Truman Show, and you don’t have to be a member of the royal family to feel that way. Yet, somehow, the film has become even more pertinent over the last eighteen months. And it’s a pertinence reflected in the massive uptick in viewership for the film as seen in Letterboxd activity.

During the month of February 2020, the last moment of the Before Times, The Truman Show had a modest 1,235 diary entries. That number tripled in April of that year, by which time the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear. And by July, deep in the worst of the pandemic, Truman fervor peaked, with a further 178 percent leap over April’s numbers, firmly placing it in the top 200 films watched by our members in a year of lockdown. (By the way, ‘diary entries’ mean activity where the member has added a watched date; many thousands more also marked Truman as ‘watched’ in those dark months, but didn’t specify a date.)

It’s not difficult to imagine why we might become more interested in revisiting this eminently re-visitable film. During lockdown, social media—including Letterboxd—took on a greater presence in terms of how we communicated with each other. We got used to seeing footage of faces more than actual faces. We were all the stars of our own ‘Truman Show’, and simultaneously the audience of everyone else’s ‘Truman Show’.

Christian Torres boiled it down effectively when he wrote: “Now every movie I see seems to be related to my life in quarantine. I am Truman and I want to escape.” And Sonya Sandra eloquently captured the film’s increased contemporary significance in her review: “This is a real-life daylight horror film. The best kind. Even more relevant in 2021 than ever. We are all Truman, we all want to find what is real in our fake lives filled with media, capitalism and ideology. And it’s our job to fight the storm and get to the truth of it all. Nothing is real, everything is for profit, and everyone is selfish. Go out and find what is real, because it’s definitely not here.”

With its deft, dazzling blending of the profound and the humorous, the optimistic and the cynical, it’s difficult to think of anything released since The Truman Show that comes as close as it does to being a modern-day Frank Capra movie. It’s hopeful, but has its eyes wide open. There’s a darkness in the themes of the film that is never replicated in the colors on display.

While everyone involved delivers career-best work, we must principally credit the triumvirate of talent at the center of the film: director Peter Weir, screenwriter Andrew Niccol and star Jim Carrey.

Star Jim Carrey and director Peter Weir on the set of ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

Weir is a director who inspires much online love whenever his name is mentioned, but he isn’t really mentioned all that often. Or at least as often as he should be. The Australian filmmaker has delivered masterpieces across multiple genres, and it’s extremely sad that he hasn’t directed a movie since 2010’s not-quite-true World War II drama The Way Back, arguably one of his lesser works. That’s also, insanely, one of only two movies he’s made since Truman, the other being Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the wide and rabid affection for which regularly kicks up on Twitter (not to mention demand for a sequel).

Weir doesn’t do many interviews, and while this 2018 Vanity Fair article marking Truman’s twentieth anniversary has many quotes about the film’s modern relevance, Weir doesn’t offer any commentary to that effect, presumably preferring to let the work speak for itself—though in this 1998 interview he did talk about the relationship between the media, the general public and the people we become fascinated with, as a “complex situation”.

The Vanity Fair article does, however, reveal a fascinating ‘what if’ scenario relating to Christof, the god-like director of the in-movie TV show played by Ed Harris, who offers up a pile of pretentious auteur clichés: mononymous, beret, etc. (beyond the whole god thing, that is). When Dennis Hopper, originally cast in the role, wasn’t working out, Weir considered playing the role himself, which would’ve added yet another meta layer. It brings to mind how George Miller styled Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne) after himself in Mad Max: Fury Road, or how Christopher Nolan’s haircut shows up in most of his films.

Ed Harris as Christof in ‘The Truman Show’ (1998).

And, at one point, it could have gone mega-meta. Weir, in the 1998 interview, talked about a “crazy idea” he had, a technical impossibility back then but easily achievable with live-streaming now. “I would have loved to have had a video camera installed in every theater the film was to be seen [in]. At one point, the projectionist would … cut to the viewers in the cinema and then back to the movie. But I thought it was best to leave that idea untested.” Imagine.

Weir also played a role in helping to shape the originally much more overtly dark screenplay into the cheerier (on the surface at least) shooting script, which is solely credited to fellow antipodean, New Zealand-born Niccol, also a producer on the film. Both men have done the majority of their work in America, but it’s tempting to credit the film’s tone-perfect sense of heightened Americana to the degree of separation offered by their foreign provenance. In any case, it’s clear that open-air mall designers were paying attention.

Niccol’s original screenplay made his name in Hollywood, and revealed a storyteller excited by big ideas. He moved into directing with the smaller-scale Gattaca, released a year prior to Truman (itself delayed to meet Carrey’s availability). Niccol’s subsequent filmography includes several legit bangers (Lord of War hive step up!), and his endearing dedication to lofty allegories in a genre setting makes him an increasingly rare breed in Hollywood.

Like Weir, he is not the greatest fan of giving interviews, but the Vanity Fair piece quotes him making an interesting point: “When you know there is a camera, there is no reality,” thereby making Truman “the only genuine reality star.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by MusicMoviesMe, who writes that “‘Truman Show’ beats all other reality shows out there like Bachelors, Survivors and Kardashians. Come on, when you know there’s a camera at your tail, there’s no reality. So yes, Truman beats all reality shows out there bar none!”

The role was perfectly suited to Jim Carrey’s affected mannerisms, and his status as one of the world’s biggest stars meant he could relate to Truman more than most people. Then, at least. Nowadays, of course, we are all Truman.

“It is always incredible to see how far The Truman Show was ahead of [its] time,” observes The Closer79. “In a world where celebs are monitored 24/7 and we are showered with unnecessary private information on the web, where talent-free wannabes become famous and where you sometimes [wonder] what kind of surreal show society you are in—Truman and his fake show life cleverly have anticipated all of this. Only Truman knew nothing of his luck and he was granted an escape from his glass prison. We don’t really have this possibility… Aren’t we all Truman? Sometimes even voluntarily…”

Austin Burke concurs: “I have always known that I really enjoyed this film, but I had no clue that it would hold up so well years later… Could this be because the strange world that he finds himself in is far more similar to our world today? Possibly, but the idea and themes are so much more relevant now compared to when this originally released.” And while DallasFrance is conscious of piling on about the film’s prescience, his review highlights how there really is no limit to the film’s meta qualities:

“Instead of writing a review about how this film predicted social media, or how we’re all Truman, or yadda yadda yadda, I’ll instead fixate on the miraculous fact that two absolute legends were cast as primary viewers of the Truman Show:

1. The old lady from The Running Man who starts betting on Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger). ‘He’s one bad motherf*cker!’

2. The villain from The Karate Kid Part II:

‘Live or die, man?!’ ‘Die!’ ‘Wrong!’ *hooooonnnkkk*

I’ve never seen either of these actors in any other roles. With the second one, I felt like I was watching a character from my childhood watch a character from his childhood come to realizations about the characters in his childhood. So actually… the movie’s really about me.”

Never change, LB membership.

We are all generally pretty aware of how ahead of its time The Truman Show was, but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Maddie’s review shows that there’s always some new angle to consider: “Imagine being an extra in this movie… You would be an extra, playing an actor, playing an extra. Think about that long enough and tell me that doesn’t make you want to walk into the ocean.”

Kev goes even further: “Watching other people watch somebody else while also watching that person while also watching the person watching over that person is a great reminder that watching is weird, and to be watched is to not own yourself. Don’t watch, don’t try to be watched. Just live.”

Or perhaps Will encapsulates the film’s ability to present an ever-evolving message best, writing that, “clearly, this is video proof that we live in a simulation.” Beyond mere prescience, The Truman Show is a telling mirror to whatever era it is viewed in. Its message will continue to evolve.

Now that we’re finally (touch wood) emerging from the pandemic, it will be fascinating to see what The Truman Show has to say about its audience and the world they live in, in years to come. Rest assured, it will be well-documented by you, the Letterboxd audience.

Also: can Peter Weir please make another movie? Like, seriously.

Related content

A Meta-Reality: Robert’s list of layers of film in life and life in film

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

#the truman show #truman #peter weir #jim carrey #andrew niccol #letterboxd #lockdown #quarantine #coronavirus #pandemic #movies #comfort films #comedy #truman show

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star-spangledstud · 4 years

Text

SAVE THE DAY

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Summary: Peter wants to quit being Spider-Man, but the reader needs saving.

Word Count: 3600-ish.

Warnings: mentions of violence/alcoholism and abuse/hostage situation. Angst with fluffy ending.

A/N: Let’s just pretend Peter didn’t turn into dust during IW. Also, this has a dark theme? I wrote this a while ago and figured I’d post it. It’s pretty bad, sorry.

Peter Parker is sick and tired of being Spider-Man.

Between hardly getting any sleep and his grades faltering miserably because of his nightly escapades, the fact that half of his friends died just three weeks ago doesn’t exactly help his case. He’s tired of putting on the suit, tired of scouring the streets in the dark of night, tired of waiting for crimes to happen when he really should be studying.

Peter lost some of the people he looked up to the most, and ever since he returned home, he hasn’t been able to stop feeling horrendously guilty over the fact that he wasn’t able to save them. He misses his friends, but mostly, he misses his coworkers, half of whom had disappeared into dust. What’s the point of being Spider-Man when you can’t even save the ones you hold dear to your heart?

Peter is seated behind his desk, black ink pen tightly gripped between his clammy fingers. His left palm is stuck under his chin, and his eyes, droopy and fluttery, shift between the clock hanging above the door towards the back of the classroom. His hazel orbs scan everything from the green linoleum floors to the yellow-stained ceiling with its flickering lights. Empty seats line the back walls, desks and chairs stacked on top of each other in a sick manner.

Desks that were once filled with students now sat empty to collect dust and termites. Most of the kids that vanished didn’t even know who Thanos was or what his intentions were. It isn’t fair, Peter thinks as he grips his pen and clenches his jaw. They didn’t deserve to die.

Several of Peter’s classes have been postponed until further notice due to the sudden lack of staff and student body. Of course, Mr. Brown hadn’t vanished, and so, Peter is sitting in his Tuesday morning math class with barely over a dozen other kids. Each one of them looks just as sad, confused and most of all defeated as Peter does, because most of them have lost multiple family members and friends in the blink of an eye without any hope of bringing them back.

James from physics has lost both his parents. Samantha from biology lost only one, but her grandparents as well. Francis from literature didn’t have parents even before the Snap, but lived with her aunt and uncle who both disappeared. The gist of it is clear; grief, hurt and anger surrounds the school like a thick, impenetrable blanket of fire from which nobody can escape and for a moment, Peter doesn’t know on which side of the Snap he’d rather be.

The seconds on the clock tick by agonizingly slowly. Mr. Brown knows nobody in his class gives a shit about potentially solving mathematical problems anymore, but life must go at the end of the day and until anyone has any better ideas, the only thing the school board knows to do is to keep teaching classes to whoever decides to show up. To be fair, even though it’s nothing like how it used to be, school remains the only constant in most of these kids’ lives.

Doubt continues to plague Peter’s cloudy mind as the day progresses. He’s already stuffed his suit in Ned’s locker - he wouldn’t be needing the space anymore anyway. The mere thought of his best friend vanishing into thin air made his fist curl and his eyebrows twitch in anger and every waking moment of his existence he hates himself for not being able to help him make it through the Snap. Then again, maybe it was for the best.

Being alive suddenly didn’t seem like such a great thing anymore with the world in complete shambles.

After class is over, most of the students slowly drag their feet towards the library or the cafeteria. With so many postponed classes, study hours are given left and right until the board has time to conjure a new schedule. Peter slings his backpack over his shoulder and, while dragging his feet to the library, absentmindedly reaches his phone from his back pocket. The latest iPhone he was given by Tony now feels alien in his hand, especially since half of his contacts don’t exist anymore. The Snap chat streak he used to have with Ned died weeks ago, and the last message Peter sent him still sits in Ned’s inbox marked as ‘unread’. Peter grips the device and bites his lip. He has to stop himself from throwing it out of the window all together. Looking at it has become unbearable.

Just as he’s about to shove it back deep inside his pocket, it vibrates. He thinks it’s just his imagination at first, but when his hand shakes for the second time, he lifts up the phone with the thumping of his heart.

It’s you, your name displayed as the caller ID across the screen, followed by blue and red heart emojis. You picked those out yourself.

“What’s up?” he asks after picking up, “where are you? You have no idea how boring math is without you.”

When the line momentarily remains silent on your end, Peter shrugs. You’ve pocket-dialed him before so it doesn’t immediately strike him as odd, and when he calls your name and doesn’t receive a response, he hangs up, finally able to place the phone in his pocket where he hopes it will remain forever.

But it doesn’t remain there forever, because less than a minute later, it rings again, once more flashing your name across the screen for his eyes to see. His groans, but picks up anyway as he stands in front of the library entrance.

“Y/N?” He asks, holding the device tightly to his ear just in case he can hear you in the distance.

“No,” you whisper finally, “he’s going to kill a bunch of people, P.”

Peter’s blood runs cold when the call is ended once again. He wastes no time sprinting towards Ned’s old locker and holds his breath when he dashes through the empty hallways. Before he gets there, he calls you back. You don’t answer.

Peter sneaks the costume into his backpack and changes into it in the empty bathroom near the physics lab. He stuffs his backpack inside the air vent and dials your number again. With his phone stuck tightly against his ear, he jumps out of the window.

You are one of the only people Peter still has left and vice versa. The two of you have been friends for ages, sharing nearly every class and you, him and Ned always sit together for lunch. The three of you would hang out together after school as well; you saw movies together and played video games on the weekends. You texted each other constantly.

The Snap wiped out nearly your entire family. Your mother, little brother and both of your grandparents and your aunt and uncle on both sides. You were left with nobody but your step-father.

Peter knows the two of you don’t get along. The man drinks too much, stays out too late even during the week and sometimes, he doesn’t even come home for days. Your mother always welcomed him back with open arms and chose to ignore the empty bottles of vodka and whiskey in the trash. She ignored the perfume on his clothes and his behavior towards you and stayed with him, a man so unstable he couldn’t hold jobs longer than a few months at a time. Her blindness to his shenanigans always angered Peter, because the relationship between your mother and step-father affected you in more ways than you cared to admit.

He knows you wish it was him who died instead of your mom and frankly, Peter wishes the same. He never liked the guy.

Peter is extremely worried about you, because he knows the drinking has doubled since your mom died. You’ve been skipping school to take care of the household and you know very well how Peter feels about your step-father’s lack of participation in and around the home. He started taking you away from your house whenever he could find the time and you’d even met Tony Stark the first time Peter took you to the tower. It surprised Peter to see how well the two of you got along, but then again, computer science is your favorite subject in school so it’s something the two of you could bond over. Well, it used to be anyway, because the class got dropped after the teacher and eight of his students got lost in the Snap.

Peter’s heart rams against his rib cage when you finally answer the phone. In the background, he can hear people screaming and shouting.

“Y/N? Where the hell are you?” He asks, using his webs to sling himself from building to building to avoid being seen in broad daylight.

“Central bank,” you whisper under shaky breaths, “gun. Can’t talk.”

The line goes dead once again, and Peter immediately changes direction.

You knew something was wrong when Hank offered to drive you to school this morning, because he’d never volunteered to take you anywhere before and you doubted he would start now. The red rims around his dull, yellow eyes made you decline his proposal at first but he insisted, and in fear of getting hurt by a man nearly twice your size, you finally agreed to have him drive you to school. You weren’t in any kind of mood to argue with him, and you sure as hell didn’t want to provoke him. Besides, the drive would only take ten minutes, while walking took you nearly half an hour, so you couldn’t exactly complain.

It saddened you to see him like this. The two of you never really got along, but at least a small part of you hoped that the shared loss of your mom and little brother would bring you some type of twisted companionship, something dark to bond over. You wanted to ask him if Peter could stay over for dinner, but the dark sweat stains on his creme t-shirt and his iron grip on the wheel made you stay quiet.

Hank never liked talking when he had a hangover. Talking too much always made him angry, and you don’t like seeing him pissed off. Granted, the only times he’d physically hurt you were when he was so drunk he couldn’t even tell you his own name, but you still fear him even now, afraid that one day he might actually do something he can never take back. With this knowledge, you typically stick to avoiding him on mornings after he’s had too much to drink. Nowadays though, it’s all he does.

Even when he deviates from the usual route to your school, you bite your tongue in fear of pissing him off. Perhaps, you think, he’s forgotten the location of your school or maybe he’s too hungover to think straight and the entire time, you expect him to turn around. He doesn’t, but wen he finally does stop, he does so in front of Central Bank.

You finally dare to speak up, asking him quietly what the two of you are doing there and fully expect him to sneer at you, to spit out that he’s only going to withdrawal money from your mother’s account again so he can support his bad habits, but instead of answering, he leaves you in the car and reaches for the trunk.

“What are you doing?!” You ask fearfully when he rips open your door and grabs a fistful of your hair.

“Shut up and don’t make a sound, got it?”

He pulls your head towards the ground when he walks, so the only thing you can see is the beat up sneakers on his feet and the terrifying barrel of a semi-automatic weapon. There’s no security guard near the entrance, but you don’t have enough time to wonder where he might be, because Hank’s already crossed the threshold and he’s shouting like mad when you realize what the hell is going on.

"Everybody sit the fuck down on the ground or I'll kill every last of one you!"

Screams erupt from every corner, and as Hank angrily waves the gun around in an attempt to scare the customers and bank personnel, people left and right begin to duck behind chairs, desks and in booths. You can hear a baby crying somewhere nearby, and your palms are sweating and shaky when you curl them into fists. You’ve always known he’s crazy, but even for him, this is fucking insane.

"Hank, what the fuck are you doing?" You scream, feeling the pressure of his grip on your neck sting like a hot iron.

"Shut up, before I shut you up myself. Don't make a god damn sound, you hear me? That goes for all of you!"

The next hour is a complete blur. Shots are fired into cream-colored walls, demands are made on stolen cellphones and most of all, you and everybody else inside is scared shitless. Hank forces you to sit in of the empty chair behind counter three, the one where people come to apply for loans. He continues to keep the gun pointed mostly at you - the hostage he uses to negotiate his demands. You called Peter when his back was turned to you, but couldn’t speak at first out of pure terror of being seen or heard.

Outside, flashing red and blue lights draw near, and the sound of multiple helicopters rounding the perimeter nearly drowns out the sound of Hank’s screeching voice when one of the clerks makes an unexpected move. You’ve never seen him this angry and doubt you’ll ever see it again. Practically all bank transfers are conducted digitally nowadays, most banks using shares on the stock market to finance their customer’s savings accounts. Sure, there’s physical money inside, but none of the desk clerks have access to the vault where they keep the big bucks. How Hank didn’t realize this is a mystery to you.

You’re starting to realize time is running out when SWAT arrives with a hostage negotiator. Peter can feel his heart nearly exploding inside his chest when he thinks of you as he slings his way across the city. He’s never run faster across rooftops, but he doesn’t take a moment to breathe until he makes it there.

It doesn’t take him very long to sneak inside through one of the top floor’s open windows. Peter ignores the news camera’ that zoom in on him while he climbs inside, swallowing thickly at the knowledge that Tony’ll probably be pissed off later.

He jumps down the staircase, swinging from left to right and balancing on the barricades until he reaches the first floor of the old building. Directly beneath him, he can hear the commotion and when he finally finds an air vent in one of the break rooms, he uses his webs to fling himself up and inside. His phone vibrates again when he’s slowly crawling his way through the dusty vents, but he doesn’t answer, because he can see you sitting in your chair shaking like a leaf when he finally reaches one of the vents that lead to the main entrance.

He notices your step-father walking anxiously in circles, his eyes wildly darting across the entire ground floor to make sure nobody tried to take him down. He needs money now that his source of income has died and the amount of debt he finds himself in leads him to believe this is the only way to do it.

Peter quickly and quietly unscrews the roster that allows fresh air to distribute throughout the ground floor and silently moves it to the side.

Look up.

He quickly texts you, but doesn’t realize your phone might make a sound until he’s already pressed send. He releases a deep breath when you check the message, and begin to search around the ceiling with a worried frown on your face until your finally eyes land on him halfway hidden in the darkness.

You sigh inaudibly but tremble when the gun goes off three times and Hank begins to shout at a mother and her crying baby.

“I'm going to get you out," Peter mouths at you after pushing up his mask you you can see his lips.

He has to get the gun away from Hank, who is now pacing back and forth on the other side of the wall. With one swift motion, Peter drops down from the vent with his finger pushed against his mask to let the people know to keep quiet. He slides behind your chair and gives your hand a tight squeeze before disappearing just in time to see the barrel of the gun followed by Hank.

Sweat drips down the man’s face and back, veins popping angrily in his neck protruding from his temples. Outside, the hostage negotiator uses a megaphone to shout at him, but it’s as if nobody is paying attention to what he’s saying. You only have eyes for Peter, who’s crouched under one of the desks, his arms stretched out in front of him so he can get a good angle on Hank.

Before you get a chance to do as much as blink, silvery webs shoot out from Peter's wrists. They latch onto the cold metal of the firearm and begin to quickly retreat, pulling the weapon out of Hank's sweaty palms. He accidentally pulls the trigger when he struggles to hold on to the only thing that’s currently keeping him alive, firing four shots into the wall before the gun clashes to the ground and drags away from him.

His eyes bulge out of his head when he sees Spider Man, now standing on top of the desk. Peter yanks his arms back, flinging the weapon towards the security guard, who was sitting near the water cooler next to the staff room. The man doesn’t hesitate to pick it up and disarm it, emptying the magazine onto the ground until every last bullet falls to the ground with a clang. They bounce across the floor and roll under desks and at people's feet, away from the man who threatened to kill with them.

Within minutes, the entire place is surrounded by SWAT and cops, their guns aimed at the man who was willing to kill innocent people for his own benefit.

You can hardly get up from your chair when you feel something warm and smooth pressed up against your body. You instantly feel your knees buckling under you, but Peter uses his strength to keep you from falling. Reporters outside try their hardest to catch a glimpse of what’s going on inside the bank, but police officers hold them back as best they can, cutting off their view with all their might while the two of you hug.

Your entire body trembles and your heart feels like it was going to explode as you shivered in Peter's arms, holding onto the boy for what felt like dear life.

"Shh," he whispers in your ear, "It's okay. I got you."

You try to speak, to thank him for coming as quickly as he did, but nothing comes out except throaty stutters and shaky breaths. You’re hurting, even a blind man can see it.

“You came,” you manage, “he just lost it.”

“Of course I did silly,” he replies, “I couldn’t let you get hurt, could I?”

People all around you gasp audibly when Peter pulls off his mask, synapses doing jumping jacks when you come face to face with him in public. He’s never taken off the mask in front of people before, especially not in front of reporters, and out of all of the Avengers, his identity is the only one that up until now remained a secret. Peter isn’t thinking about what Tony might say or what Steve might think. He’s not concerned with the gaping expressions of journalists and cops alike, or with the newspapers that will have his face plastered on the front page tomorrow. He doesn’t care because grown attached to you.

The feeling had crept up on him slowly, and he hadn’t realized it until now, when the possibility of losing you for the second time in such a short amount of time finally managed to get it through his head.

“What are you doing?” You ask, eyes wide and pupils blown out.

“I want you to see me,” he says, “not the mask.”

“But-” you stammer, “your identity. They’ll know. Everyone will know.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Peter uses his thumb to caress your cheek, “let ‘em know that spider man’s just a kid from Queens. I’m sick of hiding.”

The small smile that plays on your rosy lips makes his heart skip a beat. He’s in love with you, has been for a while now, and Peter’s pretty sure the adrenaline surging in his veins is the reason for the sudden realization. He opens his mouth to speak and the words dangle on the tip of his tongue, but he remains silent when a police officer drapes a blanket over your shoulders and asks you if you require medical attention.

He’ll tell you, he reckons. When the time is right.

172 notes · View notes

tornrose24 · 4 years

Text

Thoughts on Cinema Sins ‘Everything wrong with Phantom of the Opera’ video.

Well at least ONE of the movies I was hoping Cinema Sins would cover happened. Some sins were expected, but I wasn’t expecting that the CS guy apparently saw the musical and has some knowledge about the history of PotO in general.

-”Several people died.” No not really unless not everyone got out of the burning opera house.

-Knew he’d make a Minions joke the second ‘illumination’ was mentioned.

-Aww, no sins off for the use of the Overture music? And its from the 80’s so of course it would sound the way it does.

-Ok, I admit showing the seats losing their dust and becoming brand new again as a ‘what if’ for movie theaters when quarantine was over was amusing.

-There’s a difference between good opera singing and annoying opera singing, which is why the ladies didn’t care for Carlotta’s singing.

-I wonder what a Silence of the Lambs opera would be like, speaking of CS getting his Hannibals mixed up.

-Raoul and Christine are supposed to be around the same age, so the fact that Patrick Wilson was like 13 years older than Emmy does make the ‘childhood sweethearts’ thing strange.

-Oh great, now CS made 2004!Raoul and Christine’s age gap as problematic as with her and Erik’s by pointing that out.

-Minnie Driver is a great Carlotta AND was a memorable part of this film.

-Oh Christ, 200,000 francs equals almost a million bucks in today’s world? Isn’t that a little too much to demand, Erik?

-Yeah Emmy doesn’t exactly HAVE the right voice for Christine when you compare her to other stage Christines (but at least she doesn’t have a weird vibrato like a certain someone).

-Christine doesn’t strike me as a super social person, and her father was a supporter of her musical talents so it makes sense that she wouldn’t be amongst her new fans and pay a visit to the chapel.

-I wonder if Ramin (aka one of the best Phantoms) found out that he was compared to Harry Styles in this video.

-Christine was supposed to keep her lessons a secret, so it makes sense that she’d confide in Meg after that.

-CS points out the unfortunate implications of Christine being a child when she was approached by Erik in this adaptation and I’m pretty sure CS is going to utterly destroy Webber for this someday.

-Actually yeah-where the hell did everyone go when there was so many people outside Christine’s dressing room a few moments ago?

-I do appreciate CS calling out Giry for just letting the Phantom stalk Christine and not stopping it sooner. (And it does feel strange that she’d let the girl she considers a surrogate daughter go through this).

-”Psychedelically laced smoke.” Every fan thinks that too.

-Also, the mirror is a trick mirror. Kind of obvious later.

-Also he needed her to think he was a divine tutor and didn’t show up until Raoul came into the picture (and because he wanted to move on to actually facing her like a real person).

-Well the horse WAS in the book, but him being part of Christine’s ‘possible hallucination’ makes sense too. Also the idea of her ridding the Phantom is amusing.

-No that WASN’T the sewers they were going through–the opera house literally had an underground lake and there’s a history behind it since the opera house this story is based on is real.

-Erik building the statues makes more sense to me since the guy is meant to be hyper talented.Also note that this is where you can especially tell CS had experience with die hard fans of the book since he refers to the Phantom by his actual name for this sin in addition to saying WHAT they told him specifically.

-Actually CS has a good point about how the final note of the title song is shown off. They should draw more attention to Christine singing that note since its not only a display of her talent but a show of just how much influence/power Erik has over that. Instead we don’t see Emmy singing (and as anyone will tell you, she sang it as an E flat and not an actual E note).

-Yeah that scarf mask is weird.

-The smoke eye has been a mystery for AGES CS and no one can answer why.

-Love the description of singing “Music of the night” as to treat it like going to a glorious destination.

-Thanks for reminding me why the casting choices and changed up backstory makes 2004!Erik worse than he needs to be (God... what the hell were you thinking ALW and JS?!)

-If CS is familiar with the musical, I wonder if he’s aware that 2004!Erik was many a teenage girls’ crush with that in mind.

-Ah the return of the original ‘creepy doll that looks like a character’ that I almost forgot about. Except CS makes it more creepier by pointing out something about it that makes 2004!Erik more creepier than he needs to.

-CS keeps referring to actors by whatever they were in/a character they also played. And I’m just reminded how strange it was to see Emmy in Shameless (and she’s not enough to make me want to watch that show).

-CS forgot that the managers were supposed to be ass-kissing when he wondered why they were in the dressing room.

-If I remember correctly, a company performs one opera production at night and then practices/rehearses for the next one during the day. The one they perform happens for a certain amount of time before its time to switch out. But yeah, the film makes it look like this is all happening in 24 hours which shouldn’t be possible.

-Nothing for that guy mooning Carlotta? Ok then, moving on I suppose.

-I’ve seen this movie hundreds of times and I NEVER saw the boat in the woman’s wig until it was pointed out.

-Was he not paying attention? Erik kills Bouquet because the guy was trying to go after him. The original reason why he died in the book was for the same reason.

-I’m glad that CS has sympathy for Christine for all she went though in a supposed 24 hours. I’d crack under all that too.

-Surprised he didn’t sin the snot shot on the roof. (You know what I’m talking about).

-Yeah, so much for a secret engagement if you got the ring exposed.

-Not sure why CS finds the gold guys funny other than they are ‘just there.’

-I would love to see the party-goers go after Erik since they DO outnumber him as an alternate scene during that moment after ‘Masquerade.’

-No ‘This is Sparta’ jokes? Ok then, moving on I suppose.

-Christine’s dad is implied to be famous in this movie (explaining the mausoleum, but in the book he was poor so he shouldn’t have one). But that does raise questions as to why Christine seemingly has little money to her name in this version.

-Dude, seeing the gave fight scene as Nite Owl vs. Leonidas was something I couldn’t unsee for more than 10 years. But I bet the Snyder fans loved that joke. (Speaking of CS and superhero films WHEN WILL YOU STOP TEASING ME WITH ‘ANIMATED SUPERHERO FILMS’ THAT ARE JUST ANIMATED DC FILMS AND SHOW ME THE ONE I ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE?!)

-I would love to see a Home Alone version of PotO since CS pointed it out.

-Actually I would love to see the au where CS is a critic in the PotO world and just not give a shit if Erik threatened him.

-Yeah, Raoul making Christine the bait and endangering her IS messed up. As much of a dolt he is, novel!Raoul would NEVER have done that to her.

-Erik’s hair looks nice because its a wig, CS.

-Oh boy, the reveal of the bad make up. No surprise it got a sin. I loved that CS showed Lon Chaney’s version (and hopefully will get people to watch the original silent PotO) and was more impressed by it over what this movie had. I also love how blunt CS is in summing up the deformity.

-There wasn’t a fire when the mob went after the Phantom in the musical. But as history can prove, some mobs care more about their goals than their own safety.

-I think they wanted to squeeze in one more trap before the final confrontation and Raoul WAS trapped in a room that became filled with water in the book and silent film. Though I’m amazed CS didn’t notice the reverse direction the bubbles were going during that scene.

-I don’t know how to answer why Christine was just standing around and doing jack shit to help Raoul during the final confrontation.

-A recreation of one of the most famous kiss scenes in musical history and CS just sums it up as ‘yeah your first kiss always sucks.’

-I love the contrast of Super Mario music with shots of PotO for the bonus round.

-Holy crap, that WAS a lot of candles.

-Some of the alternate audios for the last bit were unfamiliar but that Bug’s Life scene for when Christine is heading towards the mirror is perfection.

-And of COURSE CS would use that one Mission Impossible scene.

Final verdict: Predictable at times, but pretty amusing for a PotO fan like myself. I do hope the next movie musical CS covers is ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’

#phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #cinema sins

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haikyuu-appreciation-club · 4 years

Note

heyy can i request head canons with the haikyuu captains or the karasuno first years with how they would react to a haunted house. just to get in the spirit of halloween :)

heyyy anon!! yes ofc, i love that request :)

i hope you don’t mind but i decided to go with the karasuno first years bc i have a lot of ideas for them. If anyone wants though i can make a part two with the captains :)

alsooooo im sorry if anyone seems ooc, this is just how i think they would react + this is my first headcanon sooo forgive me if it isn’t the best <3

anywhooo, ty for the request, i hope you enjoy !!

•Haunted House w/ the Karasuno 1st Years•

[art credit : @boonooniee on twitter]

warnings: a few curse words

genre: crack

characters: hinata, kageyama, tsukishima, yamaguchi, and yachi

•Hinata•

surprisingly enough, this whole thing was his idea

he just wanted to spend time with his friends

he had to practically beg everyone to go, half of the group was scared out of their minds and the other half just weren’t interested in the slightest

when everyone finally agreed, he was quite literally jumping for joy

days leading up to it, he would not shut up about it

this boy was beyond excited

“Are you guys excited for the Haunted House? It’s gonna be so much fun!”

he was all smiley and giddy about it until he was standing at the entrance

now he was about to shit himself

“Heh um, who wants to go carve some pumpkins?”

mans had to be dragged in that hoe

he kept trying to tell himself that everything was fine and this would be super fun

then the first jump scare happened, and every ounce of courage in that tiny body was gone

he was clinging onto anyone that was in proximity of him

at some point he got a little bit of courage back and started to threaten to beat up one of the decoration

yeahh that “decoration” was one of the actors

that boy literally screamed and tackled the nearest person poor yams

now tiny yelps could be heard whenever he suspected something was about to pop out at him

at one point he literally started to hold his breath and Kageyama had to smack the back of his head so he would exhale

he finally reached the end after one of the actors chased him all the way to the exit

had to stand there for a minute to catch his breath after he realized the actor went back to their post

on the walk back home he kept talking about how it “wasn’t so bad”

luckily Tsukki had gotten a video of him jumping on Kageyama and knocking him over to remind him just how bad he seemed to think it was

little pouty after he realized that video was sent to the team group chat

he cheered right up when Yachi suggested they go get hot coco though

•Kageyama•

just no

he did not want to spend his time going to a haunted house

he had volleyball to practice

which is why, initially, his answer was no

but Hinata would not stop asking him about it and it was making it impossible for him to focus

he thought that if he agreed he would finally get some peace and quiet

ohh boy, was he wrong

Hinata would now not stop talking about how excited he was

Kags definitely had mixed feeling about all of this

he wasn’t the worst when it came to scary stuff but he’s never actually had to experience anything like a haunted house before

he figured if he could handle scary movie, he could definitely handle this, right?

he was a little nervous once they arrived but he would not let himself get startled so easily

mainly because he didn’t want to freak out the others 10x more and also because Tsukishima would never let him hear the end of it

so he decided he would suck it up and get through this without getting the absolute crap scared out of him

at first things were actually going pretty good, just some gory decorations on display

maybe this would actually be kind of fun

then one of the actors popped out and all hell broke loose

everyone was now terrified well except tsukki, mans got the popcorn out

Kageyama was trying his very best to play it cool but on the inside he was losing his shit

this was definitely so much more terrifying then the movies

Hinata and Yachi’s screams were not helping either

he tried to mask his fear by yelling at Hinata any chance he got

Tsukishima saw right through that,

“Oh? is the king getting scared?”

yes, yes he was

but Tsukishima did not need to know that

flinched at anything that could potentially pop out at him

got knocked over by Hinata a few times

Yachi had a death grip on this mans arm half the time to be honest he kind of felt less scared with how scared she was so he didn’t mind

ended up using Hinata as a shield a few times

he got to the end after what felt like an eternity

never wanted to do something like that again

Tsukishima unfortunately got most of his unfortunate experience on camera

cue the never ending teasing

Yachi had told him it was okay and asked if he wanted to get hot coco with the rest of them bby is too kind

sir was definitely in the mood for some hot coco after that nightmare

•Tsukishima•

“No.”

that was his immediate answer

its’s not as if he was scared to go mans knows everything is fake and does not care in the slightest

he just did not find them as entertaining as most people did

and going with the others?

yeah, count him out

but Hinata was determined

Tsukishima was ready to resort to violence when Hinata had bothered him about it for what felt like the millionth time

when he realized that that midget would not shut up until he got the answer he wanted, he finally caved

“Fine. Just shut the hell up, would you?”

Hinata did not shut up

listening to Hinata go on and on was worth it once they got there though

this was one of the most entertaining things he’s seen in a while

everyone was already loosing it before they even got inside

teasing was at the max today yams was the only exception

Hinata was the main target of his laughs

Yachi was runner up but he didn’t really have to try, miss girl was scared of everything tbh he went a little easy on her bc he lowkey felt bad

he even got to poke fun at the king himself

documenting everyone’s misfortune and sending the videos to the gc

purposely walked in front of the group so they’d bump into him and get scared

he and Yamaguchi were the first one to reach the exit so he got to watch everyone run for their lives

now he was really running his mouth

told Hinata he never wanted to do something like that again though

in reality, he had a lot of fun

he surprisingly agreed to get hot coco with them afterwards mainly because he knew the cafe they were going to had strawberry shortcake

•Yamaguchi•

oh no

Yamaguchi was definitely not one to willingly participate in things like this

he honestly was about to refuse the offer until he found out Tsukki was going

he decided it was now or never to get over his fears I’m convinced that if Tsukki jumped off a bridge, Yamaguchi would too

Hinata talking about how excited he was did nothing to calm his nerves

every time it was brought up he would try to change the topic

he preferred to pretend as if it wasn’t a thing that he was actually involved in

As soon as they arrived, Yams was clinging onto Tsukishima for dear life

he was very grateful that Tsukki didn’t deny his attempts to use him as a human shield

It didn’t start off too bad

sure there was a few props that were uncomfortable to look at but for the most part he thought he could actually get through this pretty easily

he had even loosed his grip on Tsukki’s arm a little bit

then things started popping out at him

sir did not sign up for all of this

he was right back to cutting off the circulation in Tsukishima’s arm

Yamaguchi wasn’t the type of person to scream when he got scared

he preferred to shut his eyes as tight as he could and repeat that he was okay over and over again in his head

if he wasn’t so terrified he would probably be laughing right along with Tsukishima

but at the moment all he was focused on was getting the heck out of that place

funny enough, he didn’t even notice that they had reached the end until Tsukki told him he could open his eyes

poor baby was pretty much on the brink of tears after all of that

Hinata apologized profusely as Kageyama scolded him

he felt much better later, laughing at all the videos Tsukishima took with some hot coco in his system

•Yachi•

poor girl

when Hinata suggested going to a haunted house she felt her heart drop to her stomach

she agreed none the less though, figuring that it would make Hinata sad if she refused seeing how excited he was

leading up to it, she was still scared out of her mind but some of Hinata’s excitement had surprisingly rubbed off on her

maybe she could get through this

her mind changed when they actually arrived

nope nope nope nope nope nope

definitely could not get through this

she was furiously nodding at Hinata’s offer to get the heck out of there but that idea had been shut down

she tried to gravitate towards Tsukishima, since she figured that he was big and he could be a shield or something of that sort

she ended up taking off in the other direction once he began telling her about all the scary stuff that was inside he was just teasing but poor baby definitely did not sense the sarcasm

she opted to clinging to Kageyama since sticking around Hinata and Yamaguchi just made her more nervous

“Kageyama-kun, am I going to die in there”

once they got inside she calmed down a little bit

the decorations at the beginning were mostly just bloody props and Kageyama kept hitting them to show her they weren’t real we love big brother Kags

it was probably just a coincidence that every prop he hit ended up smacking Hinata in the head

then the jump scares begun and Yachi was just about ready to faint

miss girl was just babbling nonsense, trying to distract herself from how terrified she was

every single jumpscare she would let out a squeal and shut her eyes

she ended up bumping into Tsukishima a few times which just made her even more terrified I mean, mans is huge and it’s dark what do you expect

almost got lost

she had run in the opposite direction and Yamaguchi thought one of the actors kidnapped her

Hinata started flipping out

Kageyama just started yelling at him

Tsukishima ended up spotting her running back to the group after getting chased back by one of the actors

someone was now in front and behind her at all times

by the end of it Yachi was on the cusp of needing medical attention

she suggested getting some hot coco once she calmed down mainly just to get her mind off of everything she just had to experience

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #479

“war sends our sons to slaughter / another failed attack; there is no turning back”

Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes, a video game when I was little. I was so mad, lol. Do you vent a lot on social media? No. I don't want people to get annoyed with me. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I haven't been responsible for any bills yet. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? I can't/don't do either really, but if I could, I'd probably donate to uhhhh... suicide prevention organizations. As for volunteering, definitely something with animals. Have you ever dated someone who wasn’t at all your usual type? No. What is something you have no patience for? Waiting at the doctor's office. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. What’s that you’re listening to? I'm watching Gab play The Evil Within 2. What kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? We're a couple. What is your biggest accomplishment in life? Still being alive. What is one thing that you really wish you could understand, but don’t? Political stuff. Economics. Have you ever been tutored or tutored someone yourself? I had an Algebra tutor the last time I was in college, and I had to strangle an anxiety attack down because I wasn't understanding the material AT ALL and felt so dumb and annoying. I never did it again. What was the last thing you said out loud (singing doesn’t count)? "It's really embarrassing," to Mom. It really is fucking humiliating that my ankles are swollen from walking/standing more and pushing my desk chair back against the resistance of the carpet. That's pathetic. I'm trying to focus on the fact it's good my body is even reacting to moving more, though. Is everything you have on actually yours? Yep. Do you ever just randomly drive around when you’re upset about something? I don't drive, but if I did, that would NOT be my method of de-stressing. What was the last act of creativity you displayed? Writing an RP post. What’s your favorite department in Wal-Mart? Uh, I guess where you can go see the plants and flowers. Do you find kite flying boring? I LOVED it as a kid. I'd still probably find it kinda fun. Do you have any interest in visiting Japan? Yes, but it's not a massive interest. I've heard the humidity can kill a bitch, and I am NOT into that. Have you ever run a cash register? Yes. I sucked. Have you ever worked as a server? No. Have you ever done the Bratz challenge on YouTube? No, but I saw James Charles do it and it was v unnerving, holy shit. Would you rather paint or carve a pumpkin? Carve. What was your worst experience in high school? My depression as a whole. How much did your senior prom dress cost you? I don't remember. Have you ever been in a serious romantic relationship? Three, if you include my current one. Which part of your body is the most muscular? Uh, nothing? What is the first site you check when you get online, generally? KM. Are you good at creative writing assignments? That's my forte. In elementary school, I actually won a I think county-wide creative writing short story assignment. Not to brag, but I've always been very proud of that, ha ha. Or would you rather just do an informative essay? That's easy for me too, but I prefer writing creatively. Are you more attracted to the badasses, or the goody-goody types? Definitely the goody-goodies. The "bad guys" have never appealed to me romantically. Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I did if I really wanted to ask something or was confident in an answer. What is something BIG you want to do with your life? Make a difference, somehow. What do you think of people who own wild animals? Do NOT just casually take in animals from the wild. That's selfish and just generally disgusting. If you're going to keep an animal generally described as wild and undomesticated, you'd better have a license and deserve that license. Know what you're doing and be certain that keeping the animal in captivity is in the animal's best interest for its unique case. Are you good at explaining things, in general? NOOOOOOOOO, I suck at that. Do you like visiting the mall? Why or why not? Not our mall, no. Its stores suck/are extremely limited, and SO much crime has happened there. Do you like window shopping? Why or why not? YESSSSSSS, mostly on Morph Market, a mostly reptile selling hub online. You can browse TONS of breeders and literally thousands of reptiles, especially ball pythons. They even have a tarantula section I like to look at sometimes. If you lost your job/home/etc., who would likely help you? If I'm losing my home, I'm assuming my mom is gone, so my dad. Why did you first kiss the last person you kissed? We were a couple and I felt like I was supposed to. At that time I didn't see him romantically, but I desperately wanted to. Funny how we're back together and I've no reservations against kissing him now. Feelings change, for sure. Plans for tonight? Girt and I will probably play some WoW Classic together. We've started playing that together, and it's lots of fun with him. :') Has anyone seen you kiss the last person you kissed? Actually, no. Have you ever been kissed in a car? Yeah. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? I know Girt does. Is there anyone in your life that knows right away something’s wrong with you? My mom. Who last made you smile? Girt, 'cuz he's a sweetheart. Where is your mother? She's in bed in her room. She feels like shit. Like, you would think she WASN'T vaccinated, though her long-time doctor has said she'd probably be dead without it while having Covid. Would you rather look at clouds or stars? Stars. Think about your biggest mistake, would you go back and change it? I absolutely would. Are you dating the person you last kissed? Yeup. What is the most immature item you own and actually use? Um. Idk. Do you always take a shower after you have sex? I... didn't know people did this? Like I know women are advised to pee after sex, but full-on showering? No. Do you like chocolate popsicles? Oh hell yeah. Are your parents proud of you? They claim to be. I don't see how. Are you interested in the ocean? Yeah; it's inarguably so fascinating. Hot dogs or hamburgers? I prefer burgers. Have you ever been to a Chinatown in any of the cities you’ve been to? No. Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? No. Do you have any dietary restrictions? No. Have you ever turned down a job offer? No. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A dog named Cali that was a boxer mix. Do you ever pray, even if you don't believe in God? What exactly is the point if you don't believe in God...? Anyway, I don't. Have you ever been to Mexico? No. Have you ever gotten stuck in quicksand before? No. What's the shortest or longest length you've ever had your hair grow? To around the small of my back. The last nest you saw - was it a bird nest or a hornet's nest? I think a bird's? Do you enjoy Jeff Dunham? I don't know if I'd like him as a person, but I do think he's a funny comedian. Who is your favorite character from Frozen? I was never into the movies. I do think Elsa is kinda cool (no pun intended, lol), though. I like that she has her flaws. Did you finish high school? If not, do you plan on doing so? I did. Have you been in a simulator that mimicked a submarine or rollercoaster? A rollercoaster, yes. How often do you go out to eat instead of cooking for yourself? Mom and I try to avoid fast food for our health. We do a pretty good job at it, but sometimes for convenience's sake, we do eat it. What is the largest family of siblings that you know of? This is probably gonna come across as very judgmental, but... it really bothers me. I don't know how many kids she has now, but one of the dance moms from the studio has SO many children; I've completely lost count. Now if you want that many kids and can provide for them, that's cool. But that's not the case. She uses the "if God wants me to have a baby, then it will happen" mentality, and I'm just like... um, no hunny. Poor choices are leading to kids you're not adequately providing for. She uses no methods of protection and literally has twins whose room is a fucking closet. Ugh it just really bothers me. What foreign languages were offered to you at school? A whole lot. Only Spanish and I believe French were offered as in-school courses, but there were lots of online classes. If you were required to take a course right now, what would you choose? Photography. Team Biden or Team Trump? Over my dead body would I have voted for Trump. My vote went with Biden. What is an animal native to your country that may not exist in others? Bison are factually exclusive to North America. Note that bison and buffalo are different. What are some of your favorite autumn activities? Taking pictures of fall scenery. <3 What are some of your favorite winter activities? Going out in the snow. :') Especially with a camera. Do you eat a shit-ton the week before your period? uuugggghhHHHHHH yes Wendy's, McDonalds, or Burger King? Wendy's. What's the weirdest question you've ever asked Alexa? I've never asked Alexa anything. Do you prefer your apple cider to be warm or cold? I've actually never had it. Do you prefer your coffee hot or iced? Y'all know the story of me and coffee. Can you sing the alphabet backwards? I can't. Have you ever sent flowers or chocolates to yourself before? Ha ha, no. Is there any meat that you won't eat? Yeah, fish and ANYTHING that comes from a wild animal. Does your cat use anything other than it's scratching post as a scratcher? When we got him a scratcher WITH CATNIP, the lil butthead ignored it. -_- He scratches the carpet instead. Did you go through a vampire craze before? Are you still going through it? Nah. Have you ever forged your parents' signature on a poor test paper, etc? No. Has a bird ever pooped on you before? Omg, no. I'd die. Have you ever been sprayed by a skunk before? No. Are black jellybeans delicious or disgusting? I HATE them. Have you ever rolled down a grassy hill before? I have! I miss that.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''black rain'' by ozzy osbourne

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sincerelymarinette · 4 years

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A Recorded Life Sequel (7/10) - Miraculous Ladybug

Words: 1533 Summary: Finally, a day off for Marinette and Adrien. To celebrate, they decide to capture it on video for their fans. Author's Note: domestic adrienette domestic adrienette domestic adrienette!!! my fave. Sorry for missing two weeks, been busy! Only 3 more chapters of the sequel (also there's a hint to the next chapter at the end of this one wink)

Prev / Next / Masterlist

Our Day Off

---

Nowadays, Marinette and Adrien rarely slept in. They were constantly going with work and life, but they decided to treat themselves today by getting extra sleep. The rebrand is almost complete, meaning both Adrien and Marinette will get to breathe for a few days. The main stuff was done, like the website, displays, tags, and business cards, among other smaller things.

He was getting a little nervous, but excited, as the final day got closer. They planned a fashion show to truly ring in the new era of Agreste Fashion, now called Emilie's, with Marinette and her team's line as the first official Emilie's line. They also reworked some fan-favorite clothing to make them fit the brand better while getting rid of Gabriel's name. It was going to be an exciting day, seeing the old and the new mix together. But there were still a few weeks until that day; there was still work to be done.

However, it was Saturday, and both Marinette and Adrien decided they could have a few extra hours of sleep. Adrien rolled out of bed earlier than Marinette and went to the kitchen to start breakfast. It was nothing crazy, just some eggs, because they agreed to stop by their favorite bakery to see her parents and enjoy a well-deserved macaron. Or two.

Marinette followed him into the kitchen when she smelled the eggs, her hair still unbrushed and in her pajamas. "Smells good, Adrien," She yawned.

"I'm glad. Time for a quick breakfast so we can go see your parents," He said as he slid the plate over to her seat.

Marinette nodded and took a bite. "You know, I was thinking," She said, carefully. "I wanted to put up a video like we used to do. Maybe we could vlog our day, or at least some of it? One of our first days in a long time that we haven't been so busy with work. Heck, I don't think either of us has had a day out of the office in at least two weeks."

A big smile formed on Adrien's face. "I think that's a great idea, Mari!" He hopped up and walked to the corner of the living room that had Marinette's desk. He grabbed her camera battery off the charger, then her camera bag, and brought it back over. Marinette would have gotten it herself, but sometimes, Adrien beats her to it.

She thanked him for the camera as she got her settings flipped to the right ones, then held it up. "Hi! I'm Marinette!" She waved at the camera, with Adrien waving behind her. "I know I look like a mess right now, but on our day off, we wanted to vlog! It's been so long since I've done a video like this, so I'm excited to give you guys some insight on how we've been recently."

"I made eggs," Adrien held his place up with a big grin when Marinette paused.

"And they're lovely, thank you, Adrien," Marinette admired. He set his plate back down, clearly proud of himself.

"Well, we're going to finish breakfast, then head over to our favorite bakery in the world! I'm sure we'll check back in then," Adrien said, Marinette nodding with him, and she shut the camera off.

Marinette and Adrien finished their eggs quickly and got their morning routines done. They were out the door by eleven o'clock, which to most people meant they barely slept in, but sleeping past eight was glorious for them.

Marinette got the camera back out when they were in the car. It wasn't too far of a drive to get to her parent's, but it was just long enough that the car was needed, and she had some time to talk to her camera. "We're in the car now, and let me just say, my stomach has been aching for some sweets recently. We've been so busy we haven't had time to go get anything other than what's in our fridge or the late-night store around the corner from Emilie's," Marinette rambled.

"Well, when we get to work at six or seven in the morning, and we stay past dinner time, we don't have the time to go there, and most other places are closed when we head out," Adrien said. "Don't get me wrong, I love what we're doing, but it sure is tiring."

"Once the rebrand is done, hopefully we'll have a more normal schedule," Marinette said. "Long days, but it'll be worth it."

Adrien agreed. They continued rambling about work all the way until they parked near the bakery. It had only been a few weeks since she last saw her parents, but it was always nice to see them and talk about life, no matter how long it had been. Her parents tried to stuff them full of all kinds of sweets while listening to Marinette talk about how excited and exhausted she was about her team's line, and Adrien talked about how pleased he is with changing the brand to remember his mom. They had front row seats to the fashion show, and couldn't wait to see it all come alive.

Marinette did record some of her parents and the bakery, but they just talked most of the time. They closed for lunch, so there was all the time they needed before Marinette and Adrien had to leave; well, they didn't want the bakery to be closed for the whole day.

They ran a few errands, like grabbing a few groceries, and Marinette can never resist picking up some swatches when they pass her favorite store. They checked out a few shops that should have received the new displays and were able to see them getting set up.

What was truly special, though, was their evening. They ordered a pizza for a movie night so they could fully relax. Plagg snacked on his cheese while Tikki sat in her little bed on the table so Marinette and Adrien could finish setting up. Marinette walked over to the hidden safe in the closet and opened it, pulling out the special box. She set it on the coffee table and opened it, letting all the Kwamis out to play.

Usually, she tries to let them out at least once a week. But with them being so busy lately, it has been a lot less. The Kwamis love her and Adrien and understand; they're just excited to come out to see them and Plagg and Tikki, and they were even more excited to hear about movie night. A strange idea to their magical creatures, but they all seemed to love it all the same. Though they did miss Trixx, Pollen, and Wayzz, the rest of them knew they were having a good time with their masters, and they were able to enjoy themselves.

Marinette scrolled through the streaming services to find the perfect movie while all the Kwamis got comfortable around the couch and little pet beds. As she waited for Adrien to come back from the kitchen with pizza boxes and their drinks, she pulled out her camera for one last update to their vlog.

"Well, here we are to end the night! Adrien and I are relaxing with a movie and pizza, and it's a great way to end our first full day off. It's a nice break, but I'm excited to get back to work. Can't wait for all of you to see what we've been working on!" She said. Marinette was extra thankful that Kwamis are not visible on camera, because it would have looked crazy with all the little animals sat around her.

"I can't either!" Adrien popped in, setting the food on the table, then kissing Marinette's cheek. "This was fun; we should make more videos when we have time."

"I would love it, and I'm sure they would, too," Marinette gestured to the camera. "But that's it for today. Make sure to follow us in the description and be ready for some more videos, hopefully soon!" Marinette said, and both of them waved as she ended the recording. She would have to find time to edit it, maybe tomorrow before work.

Marinette and Adrien began digging into the pizza as she pressed play on the movie; both she and Adrien cuddled up to one another, all the Kwamis filled in around them.

As always, she was ecstatic to see some of the replies on the video. It was one of the things she missed most about not uploading as often.

I've missed these type of videos so much! I would LOVE more when you guys aren't busy!!

Seeing them happy makes me so happy. I'm so glad their lives are turning out great after everything they dealt with as teenagers

did you guys see that those guys who forced them into lb and cn got charged? DESERVED! But I'm so glad you guys are alright after that, it looks like you had a fun day

PLEASE TELL ME YOURE GOING TO RECORD ALYA AND NINOS WEDDING I CANT WAIT FOR THEM TO GET MARRIED ITS GOING TO BE BEAUTIFUL

I can't wait to say I have clothes from Emilie's! Such a beautiful meaning behind the name change and I can't wait to own a Marinette design from Emilie's instead of Agreste Fashion. We knew this day would come! (I know she's been designing for them for a while, but this is different guys)

---

@lady-of-the-roses-and-lilies @bookishserendipity03 @avatheexceed @gkz10 @coccinellegirl @kat-thatoneweirdo @strawberryblondish @snow-swordswoman @lilgaga98 @evufries @toodaloo-kangaroo

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sif-the-tsunami · 4 years

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Ropes and Roses part three

Summary: Elizabeth Rosehill is a talented dance instructor and a force of nature that beguiles her famous student. Events in her life, however, have led her to search for more creative ways for her to keep herself afloat. What will she do to keep her dreams secure and what will it mean for her blossoming relationship.

Warning: this passage contains some drunken shenanigans, heavy petting, making out, self deprecating humor, stripping down to ones underwear, sexual frustration, some insecurities, and angst. Oh and the beginning of Elizabeth showing her dominant side. If I missed anything please let me know

Word count: 2500

A/N: If you read it and like it, it would mean a lot to me if you could say something nice!

“And what will the lady be having?” The handsome bartender asked from behind the wooden top.

“Gentleman Jack, two fingers, neat. Please and thank you.” Elizabeth had her face all smooshed up in her hands, cradling her own head, resigning to the feeling of utter defeat. Gregory Chapman had called her and told her that the movie had lost its funding. The promises he made her were now as empty as the glass in front of her. As was her bank account. At least the bartender quickly remedied the empty glass problem. Henry saw her sitting there, her perfect posture was replaced by the pose of someone who wanted to be as small as possible.

“Oh shit, you are taking the news way harder than I thought you would. I also had no idea you liked whiskey.” He saw that her eyes were puffy, she had rubbed the winged eyeliner tip off on one of her eyes. He took the hand closest to him and gave her a gentle squeeze. The best part of having had their lessons was they had grown comfortable with touching each other. He appreciated the intimacy they shared, even if he though it had been platonic on her part. “Cancellations happen pretty often, don’t beat yourself up too much.”

“You were getting so good too.” Her voice came out as a whine, she took a sip of her liquor.

“I was mediocre at best, I just happen to look good while you dance around me.” The gold tinged light above them made her eyes and the drink the same color. Everything about her right then seemed angelic to him, even with her sad expression she glowed. “My only regret is that I won’t get to see you as much. I’ve enjoyed our time together.”

“That is very kind, Henry.” Elizabeth laced her fingers with his. “It was a pleasure to teach you.”

I love how she says my name, he thought. “So, what happens next for you?”

“I have to work harder to try to keep my dance studio open.”

“What do you mean? You have some great teachers, you have full classes.”

“Greg had told me that once he was given the funding he planned on investing in the dance studio with some of his earnings. I’m not sad about the movie being canceled, I’m just sad that this is just one more thing to have gone wrong this year...” she trailed off.

“Want to talk about it?”

“If I start, I will not shut up, I’m sure you don’t want to listen to me bitch and moan for an hour. Don’t you have more important things to be doing?”

“I could listen to you complain all night. Besides, nothing is more important than us getting drunk and possibly finding people to snog with tonight,” he said with the intention of making her laugh, but with a quick look around the pub, it looked like the their options would be limited. “I bet you could charm the pants off that lad at the end there.”

The lad was an older gentleman wearing a newsboy hat and a sweater with patches on the elbow.

“Oh Mr Cavill,” she said in a dreamy, playful voice, “he’s just my type. Do you think he’ll like me?”

“I don’t know Ms Rosehill, you might have to show him a little clevage.”

She pretended to pull the top of her dress down a little, big shit eating grin on her face, “How’s that? Better? Oh please, sir, notice me. Please come tap my ass like a keg!”

The remark caused Henry to choke on his drink. After a deep gasp of air he looked at her incredulously “never mind, you’ll kill the man. Give him a heart attack talking like that.”

The two talked, Elizabeth told him about how earlier that year she had gone through a bitter divorce, her ex had left her with more debt than she would be able to handle by herself and then her mother had passed away. She felt like she was drowning and the first life raft that had been thrown her way was being pulled from her.

“But you know what? I am a pretty damn good swimmer, and my momma didn’t raise no bitch.” She stated. She sat back sagaciously for a moment, “I think that might be the whiskey talking.”

Henry chuckled to himself. They were both a few drinks deep into their conversation and she was feeling it. He paid their tab and took her with him, “Come on, you lightweight, let’s go put some food in you so you don’t black out on me.”

Trying to get the teacher to do anything while she had been drinking was like trying to get a cat to cooperate. Every time they walked for more than a few minutes, she would wonder off some where distracted by anything that caught her attention. He stood there the fourth time when she stopped to look at display of macrons in a window.

“Are you like this every time you drink?”

“No, only when I forget to eat during the day before hand, I’m so hungry, I would perform unspeakable acts if I could get my hands on some fried pickles right now. Are those even a thing here?”

“Fried… pickles?” He responded moderately concerned for her sanity. “Why?”

“Do you want the drunk answer or the athlete answer?”

“Both. Oh my god woman, would you get off of that. You are like the worst version of the worst mission in video games. No, no, no, you wrap your arm around mine right now, I will get you food, I promise. Stay with me, Lizzie, tell me about the pickles.”

“Drunk answer is that they taste good, you know what takes a sandwich from eh to great. Pickles.” She tucked her arm right into his, with his other hand gently resting on top of her arm ready to guide her along. “Athlete answer is that they help re-hydrate you, after work outs, after drinking. Drinking pickle juice always cures my hangovers. Although chips work too, especially with salt and vinegar.”

They found a place still open that was serving delicious smelling fried food. He was together enough to set her down on a curb. “Please stay here. I’ll be right back.”

She leaned against him as soon as he sat down and handed her their snack. It was beginning to get late and a chill in the autumn air was starting to creep in. “You called me Lizzie earlier, I haven’t been called that since I was a little girl.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you still are a little girl. Well, compared to me anyways.” He nudged her with his elbow a little to get a smile out of her. “I hope you don’t mind, I won’t call you that again if you hate it.”

“It is totally fine, I’ve gone by Liz, Lizzie, Lizbeth, Beth. Just please don’t call me Libby. My middle name is Louisa, my ex would call me Libby-Lou, knowing how much I hated that nickname. Made me feel like I should be living in Whoville, waiting for the Grinch to steal my Christmas dinner.”

“They can be the worst, ex’s. They always know where they can jab at you with a mean joke or poke at an insecurity. One of mine would make comments about what I was eating, especially if I was between jobs.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and felt her whole body shiver.

“I’m sorry, you never deserved that.” She said softly. He looked into her eyes, the eyeliner had somehow gotten more smudged, she looked as exhausted as she sounded.

“No, neither did you. I don’t know what all he did to you, but you deserve better too.” His voice came out low and husky. “Do you want to come back to my place, I live pretty close by and you look like you are about to freeze.”

“I don’t know, Mr Cavill, I seem to remember you mentioning something about finding someone to make out with tonight, will I find one there?”

With the straightest face he could possibly muster, “As long as you don’t eat all of my pickles.”

***

A twenty minute walk later, they were in Henry’s home. They were both greeted by a very excited Kal, who snuffled and snorted at his daddy’s new friend. A warm welcoming glow came from the living room where the lights had been left on for his dog. He offered her one of his hoodies to help her warm up and planted her on the couch so he could take his boy to do his business outside. He came back as quick as he, honestly expecting to find her asleep. Instead, she was looking at him with her whiskey colored eyes. He had wanted another drink, and brought them both another glass of the liquor. He sat down at the other end of the couch, trying to respect her space. “Are you comfortable, can I get you anything else?”

“No, I’m warming up well, thank you. You have a beautiful home, it’s nice and cozy.”

“Thank you, I like it here a lot, it is just enough for me. And Kal, for that matter.” His furry buddy was pressing as much of himself against the spot Elizabeth sat on the couch. She was delicately rubbing the area between his eyes and cooing at big beast, his fluffy tail wagging happily. “I think he likes you.”

“Oh good, I’m glad His Lordship approves of me.” She moved her hands to rub his chin. “You are just a big softy aren’t you? Good man, Kal.”

Henry watched them get acquainted, allowing himself to melt into the couch, legs spread apart. She turned her attention to the beautiful man before her. Maybe the booze was making her feel more bold than usual, but damn did she want him. Her mind was still swimming from their earlier adventure. Hopefully, it was an invite to climb between his powerful thighs. She shot back her glass and put the empty cup on his side table. He reached over to her and pulled her close. She positioned herself to face him and straddled his lap. His breath caught in his throat for a moment.

“If I’m being to presumptuous, I can stop. I will go sit on the other side again.” She said quietly.

“No, I want this. I want you.” He reached up, fingers were gently touching the back of her arms.

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his, “Before you... we… whatever it is here that we are doing, I need you to know that I don’t know what all I can give to you right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I think you are worth the risk,” he whispered to her and they connected.

Henry had wanted this from the first time he placed her hands on him. Every nudge, posture correction, hand offered to help him, whenever he felt her skin on his he felt the current between the two of them and it was electrifying. He felt himself grow hard as she invited him to explore her body. His hoodie was off was off of her body as soon as they started, and then shortly after came her black dress. They continued to make out as she unbuttoned his soft flannel shirt.

He fingers searched the back of her bra for it’s clasp. She broke off their kiss long enough to lean back and unhook it from the front. Henry could feel the pressure building in his jeans as he looked at her body. All she had left on were knee high black boots and a pair of silky purple panties. Elizabeth gave him a lopsided smile as she leaned back into their embrace. Her fingers danced and tickled down his chest running down to to the bottom hem of his shirt. Henry stopped himself before she removed the cotton undershirt, ever so gently. “Before I take this off, I want you to not be disappointed.”

“Disappointed?” she asked breathlessly.

“I don’t look like Geralt right now. I’m in my off season, and I don’t know what kind of expectations you have...” Elizabeth slowly ran her hands back up his chest.

“I like you, Henry: your beautiful, overthinking, intelligent mind; your sweet nature; your burning passions. You as a person.” peppering his neck and face with tender kisses, her hands tangling in his hair. “Everything else is just sprinkles on a cupcake.”

“Sprinkles on a cupcake?” he smiled. She nibbled on his ear and he moaned, hungry for more.

“Cupcakes don’t need sprinkles to be delicious, I have never refused a cupcake because it didn’t have sprinkles on it.” She ran her fingers back down to the bottom of his shirt. “So, Mr Cavill, do I have permission to take your shirt off?”

“Yes, Ms Rosehill, you do.” The woman on top of him pulled the garment off, never breaking eye contact. After it’s removal, she kept a firm grip on his arms, inching ever closer to his wrists. With her hands on them, Elizabeth pressed her weight against his wrists and pinned him as best she could to the back of the couch. She ground her pelvis against his as she started nibbling and kissing his neck, her torso against his. Appreciating the nuzzling and nibbles on his neck, he closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for her to continue.

All he felt was her soft breathing against his skin. A moment later her hands dropped from his wrists. Henry tried to move himself to see what what was going on when a soft snore came from his would be lover. He rubbed his face, not believing what had just happened.

“Liz… Lizzie… wake up, sweetheart.” He tried kissing her cheek to wake her. The only response she gave was tucking her arms to her chest and adjusting her head on his shoulder. He groaned, but knew what he had to do. Elizabeth was as limp as a rag doll, so he guided her arms through his flannel shirt, placed her down gently on the couch and prepared his guest room for her. Making sure his warmest duvet was on the bed, he left a bottle of water and some Tylenol on the bed side table for her. He carried her to the room and tucked her into bed, making sure a pillow was wedged behind her back to keep her on her side. Henry then went to his room, fell face first into bed and yelled directly into a pillow.

#fanfic #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill smut

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mytastessuck · 4 years

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Gorillaz: Gorillaz (2001)

The history of my relationship is a long one...but I don’t like explaining stuff so I’ll keep it brief. I became a fan of the band when I saw a premiere of the “Clint Eastwood” video on Toonami. This could be attributed to the fact that I loved cartoons and I didn’t know there was a bunch of animated music videos back then. But there are. There are a like a ton of animated music videos. Even back then. Even before back then. Did you know one won an Oscar? It was by Tom Waits. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. We’ll get to him later. Anyway, I heard a couple more songs from them around this era but I couldn’t get into them because I was young, stupid and had no money. It actually wasn’t till around the Demon Days era (Phase 2 for us in the know) that I managed to get a hold of this album. My dad is also a fan of this band and gave a special edition version of this album. Thanks to that gesture, I really got back into Gorillaz in a huge way. Looking up lyrics, lore and cameos (these guys did a song with D12. For 9/11. Is The Rap Critic’s Patreon still open? I got a request to make...).

We can get into more details later. Right now, I am going to rate every single song on Gorillaz (2001) US Deluxe Edition. 1. Rehash A nice breezy way to start off the album. Although, to be honest, if you picked this CD up and put it in a player after seeing of Gorillaz’ released singles, you’ll most likely be going, “Did I get the right disc?”. Still, that’s the reason I love the band. They can go into any genre and there is still something there that sounds like them. This song is pretty cool.

Song Score: 8/10

2. 5/4

Now this is what I’m talking about. Classic British Alternative: Uncommon time, indecipherable lyrics, disgust when you figure out what the lyrics are actually saying and a sick bass. This song right here? It justifies the purchase of the whole album. It’s nasty and it’s cool, like Peanut Butter water ice.

Song Score: 10/10

3. Tomorrow Comes Today

Oh my lord, this song. I always have a soft spot for songs that I can pretend I was deep to back in the day. Very slow, very contemplative, very moody...just like a young me. It’s good that they made this their first single because it really showed up what they were capable of.

Song Score: 9/10

4. New Genius (Brother)

Ooooo...spooky. This song is pretty nice for a dark atmosphere and recommended for singing in a bar by with smoking patrons. Also nice of Gorillaz to give us the Stranger Danger spiel without sounding completely lame about it.

Song Score: 8/10

5. Clint Eastwood

AWWW SHIT MUTHAFUCKERS, HERE WE GO! This is the song that I obsessed over for a decade of my life. I sucked the entire life out of this song to the point that I skip over it in some playlists because it has nothing left to offer me. Still, I objectively love this song and I appreciate it for introducing to this band and for introducing me to Del Tha Funkee Homosapien. Seriously, how was I supposed to live the rest of my life without knowing a guy was capable of bars like that? This song fucks.

Song Score: 10/10

6. Man Research (Clapper)

I think I can blame this song for me getting into Electronica at a later age. High-pitched voices, nice beats, the feeling that I’m in a lab watching people being experimented on...everything a good track needs. This song was really fun to sing out loud to myself when I was younger. Probably one of the things that made my neighbors call my sanity into question.

Song Score: 10/10

7. Punk

Fuck yeah. Gorillaz was slaughtering some bands before they even got of their crib with tribute to the genre. Don’t bother with the lyrics because the words just basically become another instrument on this track and boy are the instruments on their loudest display here. I can only hear a dude telling his mom to shut up on it anyway.

Song Score: 9/10

8. Sound Check (Gravity)

Gotta admit, didn’t really appreciate this song when I was younger. It felt like the pieces were there but it didn’t come together into something of substance. Now that I’m older, I...am still of the same opinion. I like the breakdown but I feel like the high-pitched voice has been played out at this point in the album.

Song Score 7/10

9. Double Bass

Ah, an instrumental. Probably one of the first ones I listened to on repeat. I love the string work on this and the accompanying beats. Really good music to chill to...if you ignore that one line.

Song Score: 9/10

10. Rock The House

Hey, it’s our old friend Del! I was pleasantly surprised to see him on another track, kicking ass to a set of nice pan flutes. Man, this song ruled. But I can only listen to the album version. The music video version censors ass crack. Ass crack! How conservative can you get?! Luckily, Gorillaz never ran into this problem again.

Song Score: 10/10

11. 19-2000

I remember this album being the first time I heard the original version of this song instead of the Soulchild Remix. Obviously, I had to prefer this version because the original version is always the best. At least, that’s the way I thought back then. Nowadays...

THEY BOTH SOUND NICE!

But I do have a special place in my heart for this song. I like the woman in the background. Adds an ethereal quality to the song.

Song Score: 9/10

12. Latin Simone (Que Pasa Condigo?)

The first time I heard this, I was like, “Why is this song in Spanish?” This is because I listened to the G Sides album first (more on that next week). But the more I listened, the more I preferred it to the English version. This guy sings like he’s before an auditorium and he wants the people outside to hear him. Funny story: I tried to play this song for my Spanish class but my speakers didn’t work for them to hear it. Sucks for them.

Song Score: 11/10

13. Starshine

This is probably my least favorite song on the album. Just melancholy for the sake of melancholy. Kind of bothers me how there’s no substance to it I can find...nice instrumental though.

Song Score: 6/10

14. Slow Country

My second least favorite song on the album. Usually I like discordant noises in a song but the amateur piano with the honks...don’t really do it for me. Nice mumbling at the end though. Never change, Damon.

Song Score: 7/10

15. M1A1

I remember the first time I watched Day of the Dead and during the beginning I kept going, “WHEN THE GUITAR COME IN?!”. I know, I know, I’m hilarious. Especially when I’m by myself. But seriously, not even factoring in nostalgia, this is the best track on the album. Great song, great singing, awesome fucking solo. The only thing better than M1A1 on this album is M1A1 live.

Song Score: 12/10

16. Dracula

You know that when I heard the sound bite from this track, I thought it was from the original movie? It’s not. It’s from fucking Looney Tunes. Damn. Egg on my face. Anyway, I love the goofiness of this track. It tries to sound dark and scary but it’s like that nice goth kid in your class who always pick Edgar Allan Poe as his Powerpoint topic. Good kid, great song.

Song Score: 8/10

17. Left Hand Suzuki Method

FEEL THE IMPACT

And I did. Like a wise man once said, I don’t need drugs to enjoy this track, just to enhance my enjoyment of it. And you know what? I don’t want to enhance it. This shit sounds good by itself. See, Slow Country? This is how you mix in things that don’t sound good together and make them sound good together. You know what that track needs? Japanese children talking. That improves everything.

Song Score: 9/10

18. 19-2000 (Soulchild remix)

And the head honcho themself, one of the first Gorillaz songs I listened to. Man, this shit slaps like Dave Grohl in a Michael Gondry video. Whenever I heard this song when I was a kid, I was thinking about it all week. It just sounds so sunny, so uplifting, like something you should be listening to on an amusement park ride. Fuck, this track is tight.

Song Score: 10/10

19. Clint Eastwood (Ed Case and Sweetie Irie remix)

...

...Is it too late to change my least favorite track on the album choice yet?

Okay, Slow Country was on the original album so it can keep its title. This track is the worst track of all the bonus ones. It’s just...they were onto something with the breakdown but the goofy reggae singing and the way too fast to enjoy beat? Just rubs me the wrong way. Ugh, and now I’m thinking of Laika already...

Song Score: 5/10

Album Score: 8.8/10

Join me next week as I review G-Sides. It’s gonna resemble fun!

#gorillaz #music #review

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elareine · 5 years

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clock ticking (sudden silence)

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Temporary Character Death, Loss, Grief/Mourning, Age Difference, Identity Reveal Summary: For twenty years, Dick Grayson has waited for his timer to begin ticking. When it finally does, there are only two issues: Jason is thirteen. And the timer only reads eighteen months.

Read here on ao3

The thing about the timer was: It didn’t tell you anything about your soulmate, only how long you would have together.

Dick had heard people talking about how they ‘sensed’ who it was before they ever met the person, how they just knew their soulmate(s) would be sweet and gentle and fiery and perfect. Some even said it came to them in dreams, the vague shape of a face they loved more than anyone else.

Privately, Dick thought that was bullshit. It was a timer, nothing more. They all had the same lettering, the same number system, everything. There was no way of knowing what the other person would be like.

When he had been a child, he’d thought he would meet his soulmate in the circus for sure. He couldn’t imagine anything different. Perhaps it would be an audience member, coming up to meet him after the performance. Maybe one of the countless children that tried to sneak in to watch, one of the ones that looked so poor, the circus owners decided to turn a blind eye and allow them some joy, therefore helping Dick meet the love of his life.

But deep down, he’d always thought it would be another acrobat. Someone joining the circus. Someone who knew the sheer joy of flying, the thrill of danger and an audience. Someone to become part of his family.

That dream crashed spectacularly, of course. Try as he might, Dick never found quite another dream to replace that one. Would they be handsome or beautiful? If they were his soulmate, he would think so for sure, and that was all that mattered. Would they be kind? Supportive? A rock to lean on?

He’d told himself that it wouldn’t matter until his timer started, and maybe not even then.

Bruce’s timer, for example, was ticking. Dick had spotted it for the first time months into their partnership. He’d been confused, had asked if he had met Bruce’s soulmate—where were they?

In those days, Bruce had still been willing to answer Dick’s questions. He said: Sometimes, even soulmate relationships didn’t work out. It was a chance, a hint, nothing more. With him being a vigilante, the choice to be together wasn’t as easy as kids’ movies made it out to be.

(He had never actually mentioned the name of his soulmate. Back then, Dick had thought he knew anyway. Now, he wasn’t so sure.)

(He also thought Bruce had been full of shit that day.)

His teenage years were pretty good, romantically speaking. Sexually, too. Some lovely puppy love, a bit of experimentation, the conclusion that yep, he was going to continue using the gender-neutral ‘they’ for his future soulmate, but probably not in the plural sense.

Still, he kept waiting for his timer to start ticking.

He heard about the new kid before he ever met him. He and Batman weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the time, but. Rumors spread, and soon, so did videos of the kid in the Robin mantle. Seeing how Dick was now twenty and very much not built like that anymore, the conclusion that he had been replaced was pretty much inevitable.

It would be accurate to say Dick didn’t react well to the news. Bruce had every right to take in another child, but how dare he call him Robin? Nevermind that Dick himself had moved on from that title. It wasn’t Bruce’s to give.

So his first time meeting the kid was already tense as hell. The fact that his timer started ticking the exact moment he laid eyes on Jason didn’t help.

Dick was panicking.

Jason was thirteen.

He was tiny.

Okay, he wasn’t, he was pretty average for his age, he went up to Dick’s chest, even, but the keywords here were ‘for his age’ because Jason was thirteen.

Dick wasn’t a pervert, okay. There was nothing sexy about a teenager that had just hit puberty to him. His replacement, nonetheless. His brother.

But maybe all of that would’ve been fine. They could’ve become friends or made sure to meet up later in life when the age difference wouldn’t seem so monumental. Seven years wasn’t so much once both of you were out of puberty. Dick could’ve morphed from a big brother figure to something closer over time. He’d have enjoyed that, probably.

But none of that would happen because the timer only had 18 months left from the day it began.

Dick didn’t say anything to Jason. When the younger sought him out, he kept their interactions short. His ongoing problems with Bruce were a good enough reason to stay away from the manor, from Gotham, and to never talk about this. Either he would die far away from the kid, never to be mourned, or Jason himself would die, having lived unencumbered by soulmate that was way too old for him. It was better that way.

His friends found out in one of the worst ways possible: by accident, two days before the timer was due to stop.

Jason had disappeared over a week ago. Dick had tried to warn Bruce, had fully intended to at least be in Gotham and try to stop it from happening because although these things were rarely wrong, he knew he wouldn’t ever forgive himself for not trying—but Jason had disappeared so much earlier than he’d thought.

In a way, that made it worse. If Jason had indeed been kidnapped (and according to Bruce, signs were that he’d left on his own, but you never knew what the incentive for that might’ve been), then Dick didn’t want to imagine the torture Jason would have to suffer in the week before he died.

He still did, of course. That was why Kori and Wally had caught him staring at the ticking time bomb on his wrist.

There was no need to explain, no way to hide what was happening. Kori sighed, “Oh, Dick,” and Wally was wrapped around him in a hug faster than Dick could tell that he was fine.

“Is there anything we can do?”

Dick looked into Kori’s beautiful green eyes and seriously considered the question. A speedster, an alien, a man trained by the world’s greatest detective. Together, they had saved the city—heck, the world—from certain disaster more than once.

But they couldn’t fight against fate. Dick shook his head.

Eventually, they made to leave, and truthfully, Dick was glad. He didn’t know how to talk about this. How to tell them that no, he had no idea where his soulmate was because he had rejected him, hadn’t even kept a close watch.

But Kori turned around.

“Just,” she closed her eyes, “is it one of us?”

Understanding her fear all too well, he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “No.”

At least there was that. No one here would miss Jason.

Bruce didn’t tell him when he found a lead, he just went. Dick wasn’t even mad about that. He hadn’t been entirely honest with Bruce, either.

Besides, when he got the alert that the Batplane had taken off and saw his timer tick down its last hours, he already knew that Bruce would be too late.

00:02.

Dick watched the last hours tick down on his timer. Now that it was happening, he would give anything to be in Ethiopia. He barely knew the boy—nothing beyond his history and that he was Dick’s soulmate; that he was Robin—but he knew that Jason didn’t deserve to die alone.

Bruce hadn’t reached out to him at all. Neither had Alfred.

00:01.

It was agonizing.

00:00.

Jason’s last hour had begun. Dick set the stopwatch on his phone for sixty minutes. The timer didn’t go into so many details. He’d tried to find out just how accurate it was; the results had been dispiriting. Jason could, as of now, be dead. Or he could live and breathe and hope for another 59 minutes.

The whole time, he prayed for his display to change. That Bruce would do the impossible once more, defeat fate, and buy Jason more time. Buy themmore time, now that Dick suddenly and painfully realized that he wanted there to be a them so badly, in any way he could get.

His stopwatch beeped. It was over. Dick hadn’t felt a thing, couldn’t have told you when his soulmate died, but it was over.

When he heard about what actually happened, it was worse.

Here’s a secret Dick never told anyone: He still wished Bruce had not even tried to revive the Joker. The old bastard had died that day like he deserved—unmourned.

Once Dick went through Jason’s things.

Bruce wasn’t home—gone on one of these trips he took these days, the ones filled with revenge and darkness in a way they hadn’t been before. If Alfred knew what Dick was doing, he didn’t comment. And after all, Dick thought mutinously, why shouldn’t he be here? This had been his room, once upon a time. He had a right to see what happened to it.

There were books there now. So many books. Jason hadn’t been choosy; classic French literature was crammed in next to space operas and cowboy romance. When Dick idly pulled one out, he could see scrawled comments in the margins. Apparently, Jason had considered “The Great Gatsby” to ‘suck ass.’

The room itself was much more orderly than when Dick had been responsible for tidying it. No way to tell if that was because Jason was a neat-freak or because Alfred had cleaned it out since his death, though.

It took Dick a second to realize what was missing. There was only one photograph, Batman and Robin heading into the night. Where were the family pictures? Dick remembered his own collection: his parents, the circus folk, his friends, Bruce and Alfred and Babs and Clark…

Maybe Jason had taken them with him when he left.

Still Dick’s eyes searched the room, hungry for something more personal than books and tidy clothes on a hanger. Finally, he saw it: a simple brown teddy bear, almost hidden by the curtains.

“Hey, little buddy,” he murmured, crouching down. “What’re you doing in the corner like that?”

In his mind’s eye, Dick could see Jason arguing with Bruce—or maybe just quietly seething in anger—, finally throwing the bear into the corner, his decision made.

Dick hesitated, but—he couldn’t leave the bear. It shouldn’t lie here, abandoned in a mausoleum. It went home with him that night, and to every home since.

It was such a fucking cliché, but after that, life went on.

Dick could see the empty space Jason left behind in Bruce’s life, in Alfred’s, hell, even in Tim’s, in Gotham itself—but the only thing for him that had changed was the nature of his guilt.

Eventually, he started dating again, unwilling to be chained to the ghost of a what-if. It was okay. People had relationships after their soulmates died. Sure, there were forums full of people complaining that nothing compared to dating The One. Wasn’t like Dick had anything to compare it to, though, so he was in the clear.

He and Babs really gave it a try. There was no universe in which Dick wasn’t glad that they did. She would always be one of the most important people in his life.

After they split up, the responsibilities keep piling onto him. Being a full-time vigilante with duties to more than city, to more than one team, heck, even to an international spy agency—it kept him busy. Distracted. Until fate found him again.

Dick’s timer was ticking again, only this time, he genuinely had no idea who had set it off. Maybe he’d been too busy, too numb to notice during patrol. It wasn’t unheard, people gaining a second chance at a soulmate. Dick just hadn’t exactly considered the possibility for himself, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

It read two years.

Dick wanted to throw something against the wall. Why? Why would he only be granted so little time? How much of it had he already wasted because he hadn’t noticed when it started ticking?

How many chances would he be granted, just for his love to leave him? Was this to be his doom?

You sound like Batman.

Dick stopped and pulled himself up. The last time this had happened, he’d been twenty, unsure of his place in the family and the world, ill-equipped to handle an already devastating situation.

That wasn’t him anymore.

This time, he would take whatever time they had. And when it ended, he’d be grateful for it, and keep living his life.

He just had to find them first.

There was a new vigilante in town. For months, he was but a rumor of a red helmet and dead bodies left in his wake—until he made his big move.

The takeover of the Penguin lounge had been well-planned and viciously executed, and there wasn’t a damn thing any of them could do about it, not when all the Red Hood’s minions were loyal to him and his precautions excellent. He stayed far away from Batman and Robin; he seemed to have an understanding with Catwoman; his policy seemed to be to protect the street workers.

Somehow, he’d moved himself to the bottom of Batman’s list. Still, Dick knew he made Bruce uneasy. All their attempts to find out more about the man failed. Even when Tim managed to listen in on the club’s communications for almost a whole day, all they got was a name: Red Hood.

He was a rumor, until the day he sought out Dick on the rooftops.

“Red Hood.”

“Nightwing.” The other man’s voice was metallic, a voice modulator giving nothing away about its original timbre. “What brings you to Gotham?”

“Helping out on a case.” Nightwing’s connection to Batman wasn’t a secret. Dick would be astonished if there was still a citizen left that didn’t know Nightwing and Robin I were the same person. “What brings you to this roof?”

“You’re going after Sionis.”

“Yes.” Or at least, he was now.

“He hurt one of my own. He’s mine now. Stay away.”

Dick did his best not to snort. That was bullshit. His own interest in the Sionis case had been cursory at best. If Red Hood had just waited three days to eliminate him, Dick never would’ve noticed.

“What about him is so interesting that it warrants you coming out of hiding?”

The helmet tilted to the side. Dick would be damned if he could tell you why he found the movement so provoking, but he did. “Who says it’s Sionis I’m interested in?”

“Uh.” Dick was sure his eyes were wide behind the domino. Was Red Hood… hitting on him?

“Tell Batman to stay out of my business.”

With that, the other man shot a grapple and vanished. Dick made no move to follow him.

Dick expected that to be it. He returned to Blüdhaven, leaving Gotham and its secrets for Bruce to deal with. Except that particular secret seemed to have singled him out.

The first time he saw Red Hood in a fight in his city, he did nothing, merely observing the other’s fighting skills critically. Not bad. He had clearly been trained in a variety of fighting styles and was quicker than you’d expect for a man of his size. His left hook was good enough to rival Bruce’s.

Dick was still pretty sure he could take him in a fight.

“Are you just going to watch?” Red Hood called out, gripping one of his attackers by the throat and dangling him into the air.

“I dunno, you seem to have it pretty well in hand,” Dick sniggered.

“Never mind.” Red Hood dropped the now-unconscious man, turning to disable the next one with a well-placed nerve strike. Dick noted that unlike some of the scenes he’d seen in Gotham, Red Hood seemed to have no interest in killing these men. That implied he had some sort of value system. Interesting. “Please leave. That was terrible.”

Dick eyes the entrance of the alley. A group of armed thugs was gathering, clearly ready to strike. Decision made, he jumped from the roof, landing right beside Red Hood. “Sorry, but I can’t let you have all the fun.”

“Spoilsport.”

“You come into my city and then complain when I help you?”

“Oh, is that what you call this? ‘Cause all I can see is you standing around and jibbering.”

Dick thought the criminals he was currently sending a few thousand volts through might beg to differ. Between the two of them, they had the entire gang out in less than ten minutes.

It was, Dick reluctantly conceded, fun.

It became something of a regular occurrence after that. Nightwing would drop by Red Hood’s territory whenever he was in Gotham, and Red Hood would return the favor with regular visits to Blüdhaven. They’d banter, punch out some criminals, collect whatever they had come for, and go their separate ways. Not exactly a friendship, but something easy. Comfortable.

Until the night they busted a heroin ring in an abandoned warehouse and found some kids hiding three rooms down.

Dick saw the boy first. He couldn’t be more than twelve. His body was skinny, and not in the way teens sometimes got after a growth spurt.

Not knowing what else to do, Dick gave a wave. “Hi. I’m Nightwing. What’s your name?”

“I don’t want to tell you.” As soon as he uttered the words, the boy tensed, visibly expecting punishment.

Dick smiled. “That’s okay. I’ll tell you a secret—Nightwing’s not my real name, either.”

“Well, duh.” The teen scowled, but he did look less afraid. Then he looked over Dick’s shoulder and asked: “Who is that with my sister?”

Dick turned around to see Red Hood kneeling and… wearing a blonde wig? He blinked.

The little girl in front of him hiccuped, still crying but visible distracted by the big shiny helmet. Wearing a wig. Where had Hood even found that?

“That’s Red Hood,” Dick told him, trying to sound as if all of this was perfectly normal. God, he hoped the kids hadn’t heard the fighting. What a terrible time to pick this warehouse.

“What’re vigilantes doing here? Is something happening? Were there guns?”

“Sort of. I’m afraid this place isn’t safe, but we can bring you somewhere else for the night,” Dick said.

Red Hood looked up and suggested: “The sisters on St John Street. They’re good people.”

“No one will separate you,” Dick added. “Just help. Get you some food, somewhere to sleep safely.”

The boy looked at them. “We’re not going back to—to—”

“You won’t have to,” Red Hood promised, and Dick nodded. Not if he had anything to say about it—and once he would investigate whoever it was that they were running from, he would have.

“How about we accompany you?” Dick suggested.

The boy looked hesitant, but the girl suddenly gave a giggle. “You can’t walk like that,” she told Red Hood.

“Why not?”

“You look silly, dummy!”

“Well, that’s very rude of you to say.” And just like that, the wig still perched on the helmet, Red Hood stepped out onto the street. He was walking rather uncannily like a model, Dick noted with some amusement.

The girl followed him, still laughing and pulling her brother along. “No! Take it off!”

“But I feel so pretty!”

The distraction worked, and the walk to the center for vulnerable children passed quickly. Only there did Red Hood take off the wig, making a big show of stuffing into his belt to hide his ‘shame.’ “Your wish is my command,

The girl’s priorities seemed to have changed, though. “C’mon,” told her brother, “they said there’s food in there.”

But the teenager hesitated, looking at Dick. “Are you sure they’re okay?”

Dick was about to reassure them again, heartbroken by the hesitant hope in their eyes, when Red Hood said: “Yeah. I stayed with them a few times when I was your age. They get it.”

He didn’t mean the boy’s age, Dick realized. Jesus.

“Okay.”

Dick let them head in alone. They needed to see that they would welcome on their own, vigilante accompanying them or not. He would talk to the workers in a minute or two.

Red Hood’s metallic voice broke the silence. “So, I’m assuming you’re going to look into whoever did this to them.”

“You bet. Aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. You better be quick.”

Dick had already planned on that, but: “Why?”

“I do not like child abusers, and I clean up after myself.” With that statement, Red Hood gave a little wave. The casual movement was belied by the suppressed rage that suddenly seemed to pour out of his every pore. “See you.”

Dick stared after him, undecided.

He had allowed himself to be judge, jury, and executioner once, and never regretted it. Not once had he since felt the desire or need to be in that position again.

Didn’t mean he didn’t get it.

In the end, he decided to head inside. The kids needed him, and they were what was important here.

Still. Life had just become a lot more complicated.

“We should eat.”

“Sure. Let’s have a picnic. Just you, me, the stars, and the person we’re staking out. How romantic.”

“Shut up.” Red Hood casually dropped a lunchbox next to where Dick was sitting. “You haven’t eaten in all day.”

“I’m not in danger of fainting, you know.” Still, Dick couldn’t help but open the box. “Pasta salad?”

Red Hood shrugged. “Carbs.”

It honestly smelled terrific. Red Hood had even brought a fork. Dick was ready to dig in when he realized something.

Red Hood was still wearing his helmet.

“So… you’re just going to sit there and watch me eat?”

Red Hood crossed his arms. “Well, if you say it like that, it just sounds creepy.”

“Yeah, exactly. You don’t want any food?”

“I’ll eat later.”

Dick considered him. “I bet you I could get that off you in less than two minutes.”

“Believe me, you don’t want to.”

For the first time, the other vigilante turned his back to Dick. There was what Dick recognized to be a trigger device at the back of his helmet. Dick shuddered. Red Hood would rather have his head explode than someone see his face without his consent.

“Okay, don’t take it off then. That looks like it would spoil the meal.”

“My point exactly. Do you always talk so much when there’s food on the table?”

Dick grumbled, but he did start eating after that. Damn. That pasta was goood.

Three days later, Red Hood shot a man that was about to decapitate Dick with an ax. He even left the criminal alive. Dick tried not to be charmed.

“Well, fuck.” Red Hood stared at the little dot on Dick’s display in dismay. “Guess it’s back to Blüdhaven for us.”

“Looks like it.” Dick sighed. Just what he’d needed. His ride was back in Blüdhaven since he’d taken a detour through space on his way here. Looked like he’d need to borrow one from Bruce. It was that or public transport.

As if he’d read his thoughts, Red Hood asked: “Want a ride?”

“You got a car?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, but no.” Hood fiddled with something on his belt. For a minute, nothing happened. Then Dick heard the noise of a smooth motor approaching. Red Hood made a ‘ta-da’ motion with his hand as a red and silver machine turned the corner. “I got a bike.”

Dick whistled. “Wow, my little brother would love that.”

“He got one of his own?”

“Nah, he’s thirteen, just a kid.” That may be slightly too much information to give out, but Dick had honestly stopped caring at some point. “It’s all about skateboards for now.”

“Is he turning his sick tricks in the local park or on the rooftops?”

“You could always just meet him.”

Red Hood snorted. “I have no desire to meet any more bats or birds.”

“And yet you keep hanging out with me.”

“Yeah.” A sigh. “Dunno why I keep doing this to myself.”

Suddenly feeling defensive, Dick crossed his arms. “Hey, we’re not that bad.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You haven’t even met them.” Or Bruce wouldn’t be trying to milk Dick for information about their meetings.

“Oh yes I have.”

Red Hood froze. Dick pounced. “When?”

But it was no use. “Look. I’ll make you a deal. We don’t talk about Batman anymore tonight, and you get to drive.”

Dick considered that. “If I say no, are you just going to leave?”

“Yupp.”

“Fine.”

Ten minutes later, with Red Hood’s arms wound tightly around his middle, the bike humming between his legs, Dick couldn’t even be mad.

Sometimes, Dick worried. Red Hood was too casual about his own life. Even as he made friends—not just Dick, but Roy and Kori and Artemis and, somehow, a Superman clone—he threw himself into the kind of situations that made even Dick take a step back and evaluate.

He was too reckless. It was as if his life didn’t matter. If Hood went on like this, he’d be dead within a year or two—Dick froze.

Could… could Red Hood be his soulmate?

His timer had begun ticking again before he met the other vigilante on that rooftop. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have passed him on the street one day before that, though. Or rather, one night: It must’ve been in his Nightwing garb. If Red Hood knew, or suspected, that would explain why he sought Nightwing out.

Granted, the odds were slim. But it was possible.

Funnily enough, Dick never once asked himself whether he wanted Hood to be his soulmates. Why wouldn’t he? Underneath that anger, he suspected Red Hood to be one of the kindest men he’d ever met, and he’d been nothing but supportive to Dick.

Still. He had to treat this with caution.

Look. Dick knew he should be with his friends and/or family, celebrating his birthday, not out here, jumping from rooftop to rooftop in Blüdhaven. It just felt… right, this year. Days like these, Dick couldn’t bear looking at what was left of his friends. All he would do was count the empty spaces. Patrol was safer, somehow.

Of course, the one time he was looking for a distraction on his birthday, he didn’t find any. Blüdhaven was weirdly quiet. It took Dick two hours to figure out why.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, bemused.

Red Hood, visibly startled, turned around—then swore when the two-bit criminal he’d been cornering took the chance to sprint off into the sunset. “Dammit, was that necessary?”

“Eh, you’ll catch him. So?”

“I was in the area, and I didn’t expect you to—never mind. What are you working on?”

Dick shrugged as casually as possible. “Nothing in particular. Just patrol, business as usual, you know. How about you?”

“I was following a lead, but it just fled for the hills.” Red Hood sighed, always a funny sound through the helmet.

“Ooops,” Dick said, not apologetic at all. “How about that. Whatever are you going to do with your evening.”

He’d meant it as a joke—there was always more crime to hunt down—but the other man paused. “Actually. There’s something I wanted to show you.”

‘Something’ turned out to be yet another rooftop perch, this time in one of the poorer districts. Dick didn’t get what was so special about this until the first family left their house. Another followed, and another, until there were about thirty people gathered, nearly half of them children.

“Watch,” Red Hood murmured.

One man put down a large bag and took out an object. For one terrible second, Dick thought it was a missile—but no. A rocket, but one of the harmless variety.

The kids cheered as several of the adults prepared the fireworks. The first rocket went up, bathing the street in the light of its beautiful golden rain. It was quickly followed by a serious of smaller, purple blasts, underlined by a wheel of blue lights.

“They do this once a month,” Red Hood told him. “To bring some light to the city.”

Dick pressed his shoulder companionably into the other man’s. “This is neat. Thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for?” Ah, there was the embarrassed grumbling again. Dick had learned to tell. “Shut up already and watch, you’re louder than the fireworks.”

He didn’t move away, though. Dick counted it as a win.

“It was supposed to be me,” the woman whispered, over and over again.

Dick kept his grip on her shoulder tight to keep her from running to into the fire and to her soulmate. He’d seen the body. There was nothing they could do. “I’m sorry, but—”

“You don’t understand!” she yelled, suddenly furious. “That’s my wife! My soulmate!”

He wanted to tell her: “I do understand.” However, did he really? Jason had been more of a concept than a real person.

(Red Hood, however little information Dick had about him, was very, definitely real. Dick tried not to imagine the kind of hole someone like that would leave in his life.)

Instead, he said: “She wouldn’t want you to follow her.”

With one last anguished cry, the woman collapsed against his chest.

As he watched the police car drive off, Dick considered going home. As far as he was concerned, this night could go fuck itself. But… he didn’t want to be alone.

“Can’t be easy, something like that.”

Relief flooded Dick at the metallic voice even before he turned around to greet the other vigilante. With Red Hood, he wouldn’t have to be alone. He knew that deep in his bones.

“No,” he replied belatedly. “No, it can’t be. Isn’t.”

“Are you alright?”

Dick frowned. “Yes? This hasn’t been a great night so far, but patrol is nearly over, so—”

“You’re bloody.”

“Oh.” Dick lifted his hands and studied the scratches that now marked him. “It’s fine.”

Red Hood, though, took one of Dick’s hands in his and studied it as if to inspect the wounds. “Those are gouges.”

“She was desperate.”

“Understandable.” Red Hood dropped Dick’s hand. It felt cold. “I think if I lost my soulmate, I would go searching for them in any way I could. Try to save them, somehow.”

There was something pointed about these words. Dick couldn’t quite grasp it. “Destiny doesn’t negotiate.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Brought me here, didn’t it?”

And that was—

Dick closed his eyes, just to think for a moment. The way the other man was behaving, there was good reason to think he might suspect himself to be Dick’s soulmate. All Dick would have to do was ask, and maybe, just maybe, something he’d wanted for a very long time would be within his grasp.

But Jason’s shadow still loomed over him. He couldn’t forget that boy. He mustn’t. It was the least of what he owed him.

“I had a soulmate before,” Dick told him.

Red Hood cocked his head to the side. “Had?”

Somehow, his tone was more surprised than emphatic. That didn’t exactly fill Dick with confidence, but he continued: “He died. My timer was set for only eighteen months. He was—he was just a boy, really.”

Suddenly he realized he was crying. It was the first time he’d let his guard down, really down, about this, and something about Red Hood made it impossible for him to pull it back up.

Embarrassed, he covered his face with his hands. “I’m sorry.”

Gloved hands settled on his shoulders. “Hey, no, it’s okay, you don’t have to—“

“I fucked it up, Hood. Left him alone. It was selfish and stupid and I—I can’t—” Dick stopped talking. It wouldn’t come out without sobs, anyway.

Red Hood’s hands stayed on him during the minutes he cried silently, pressing down hard enough to hurt Dick, to anchor him; but he didn’t say anything. He just waited, and when Dick was coherent again, he asked: “What happened?”

“He died,” Dick said simply. “I murdered his killer, but that does not bring him back.”

There was a long silence. It should’ve been tense, nervous, now that even the last of Dick’s secrets had been exposed. Instead Dick felt resigned. Either this would be too much, even for the Red Hood, or not.

This was who he was. There was no changing that, no matter how hard he’d tried.

“Well, fuck, now I’m not even slightly angry with you anymore, what the fuck.”

Dick frowned. That… wasn’t what he’d expected. “What do you mean?”

“You know I fully intended on some kind of revenge plot here? I thought maybe a dramatic reveal in front of all of the bats, you know, or at least something accompanied by a lot of yelling and triumph, not to mention bloodshed,” the Red Hood told him almost conversationally as he stood back and began fiddling with the mechanism at the back of his helmet. “But no, you have to go and be a much better man than I thought, Dickie. Of fucking course.”

All the alarm bells began to ring in Dick’s head. “What did you just call me?”

The helmet came off.

“…Jason?”

They were so different. Hood was taller than Jason; a man instead of a boy. His hair was dark, yes, but there was white streak running through it. His jaw had filled out, his bearing straightened, his eyes turned slightly greener.

And yet.

Dick knew.

“Yeah. Uh. Surprise. Guess you didn’t know? I wasn’t completely sure before today.”

Dick filed the notion that Jason thought him (or the rest of the family, for that matter) capable of just quietly ignoring his resurrection away for some other day. Right now, he was too busy trying to breathe.

“Dick?” There was concern in that voice now. “Are you okay?”

“Am I—” Breathing. “How?”

“Maybe you should sit down?” Jason looked like he expected Dick to faint any minute now. Dick admitted that might not be too far from the truth ‘cause what the fuck, but it didn’t matter right now, because: “You died.”

“Yes.” Jason ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Don’t ask me how or I got out of that grave, I don’t either.”

Dick didn’t know what to say to that.

“Talia al Ghul rescued me,” Jason continued, talking more quickly as if wanting to get it over with. “I wasn’t whole, so… Lazarus Pit. And then she trained me and told me a whole bunch of stuff, some of which turned out to be true, some of which didn’t. And now I’m here.”

“But—” he whispered. This was dialogue straight out of a terrible Hallmark movie, but he needed to know. “My timer—”

“Dick,” Jason looked at him with a steady gaze, “my timer has read the same time ever since I met you.” He lifted his wrist and pulled off the leather glove.

46:04.

Dick stared at it helplessly. That was the kind of number he’d only ever dreamed of. And it was supposed to be his and Jason’s?

His and Jason’s. Because Jason was his soulmate, returned to him from the dead without Dick’s knowledge or help. That, finally, what was got through the shock, rattling Dick back into reality.

Dick looked him into the eyes—and God, those eyes; if there hadn’t been that helmet, that modulator, Jason would’ve had no way of hiding himself—and said something he’d wanted to say for seven years: “I’m sorry.”

“I told you I’m not angry anymore.”

“I should’ve been there for you,” Dick insisted.

For the first time, Jason looked away. “In a way, you were.”

“I was what?”

“There with me. I can’t speak for what was happening when I was dead—don’t remember, mostly glad about that—but when I clawed my way out of that grave, I had no idea who you were. I had no idea who I was, really. But I saw that timer and knew that someone, somewhere, was waiting for me.”

Dick couldn’t help himself, reaching out with trembling hands to finally, finally pull Jason close. Burying his head in the other man’s shoulder, he whispered tremulously: “I was, Jason. I didn’t even know it, but I was.”

Strong arms wrap around him to hold on just as tightly. For the first time in years, Dick felt his head quieten.

Still he had to ask: “How can you forgive me?”

“Okay, one? As an adult myself now, I completely understand why you freaked out. Teenagers are babies. A+ not taking advantage of me.”

Dick chuckled wetly.

“Two… I’ve seen you open your heart again. Tim, he’s actually your brother. Your friends.” Jason was talking into his hair ear now. Maybe it was easier that way. “You keep doing that, Dick, just opening up and taking people in and being vulnerable, and I don’t know how you do that, really, it’s kinda worrying, but—I cannot blame you for being tired just one time of losing people.”

“You should,” Dick told him, “I do.”

“Yeah, well, no-one said you were smart.”

That got a laugh out of Dick. He let it shake through him, then asked: “Why did you hide when you came back?”

“I didn’t want to see Bruce. Still don’t.” Jason’s voice was matter of fact.

Dick knew they would have to talk about that. Not now. “Why come back at all, then?”

“It’s my home. Also, I didn’t want to just give up on you, you know?”

The side of Jason’s neck was naked and vulnerable without the helmet. Dick pressed a kiss there in gratitude.

“When I didn’t know if you figured out my identity or not, I wanted to see what happened,” Jason continued. “I figured, this situation is fucked up and all, but it’s also a chance.”

“A chance?”

“My last turn as a vigilante in Gotham was kinda a shitshow. So I thought I’d just prove that—that I could be what you want. That I could do better. I don’t know if I can ever be good, not the way you and Batman want me to be—”

“Jason,” Dick interrupted him, pulling back to look at Jason; his voice fierce with the obviousness of what he had to say, “you are exactly what I want. If I had ever taken any time to know you before, I’d have known that, and I wanted you since I got to know you as the Red Hood. If you think there is any way I am letting you go again—“

Now they were talking in circles. Jason seemed to notice that, too, for he cupped Dick’s jaw mid-sentence and kissed him.

It was a hesitant kiss, slightly at odds with the confident way Jason acted otherwise; Dick realized with a pang that, of course, his teenage years hadn’t lent themselves to the same experimentation that Dick’s had. Still, he was so gentle, not letting go of Dick even as his hand trembled on his face, and the soft sigh he let out when Dick cupped his nape was nothing short of sweet.

There was a softness in this that warmed Dick from the inside out.

When they pulled apart, Dick had to giggle. This night had been an emotional rollercoaster; he felt air-headed and silly with it. “We probably shouldn’t do this here.”

“Not good for the reputation,” Jason agreed, his voice low. Dick liked it.

“Come home with me?”

“Sure.”

When Dick looked surprised at Jason’s easy acceptance, Jason shrugged. “I’ve been dying to take that mask off of you. Knowing you, it’s glued on with a special mixture only you got the remover for, though.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong. “Oh,” Dick said, remembering something. “Actually, I got someone at home who would love to see you.”

“Don’t tell me you got a kid that I somehow missed.”

“Nah. Better.” Dick smiled. “A bear.”

The next morning, after he woke up in Jason’s arms; after they showered separately and ate breakfast together and just tried to parse out what this meant for the rest of their lives—that morning, Dick looked at his timer and saw that it now read 07:22.

Jason seemed fascinated by the change. “I think I read a study about mismatched timers before. There’s a theory that they reflect our choices really more than our fate, and are meant to influence our actions—maybe I should look it up…”

“I think,” Dick said firmly, “that we should cover the damn things up and never look at them again.”

Jason considered that. “Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan.”

#jaydick #elareine writes #well that only took a year or so

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