#like that guy's dead and the shit he did needs to be named (do speak ill of the dead actually

[on-the-clear-blue]

So do yall know about Jon Breaks Bad News? Guy that calls people for other people to, y'know, break bad news, sometimes in a funny way sometimes for serious stuff...the reason why I am saying this is because like any other DP fan I have the urge to say "But what if my favorite ghost?"

--

Danny, l a ring down as he reads the message: Hello is this Jason?

Jason, fully still in "I cut off mafia boss heads and put them in a duffle bag" days: Who the fuck is this.

Danny, not even a little bothered: My name is Phantom, from Phantom breaks bad news, are you Jason?

Jason, honestly confused what is happening here: I...how did you get this number?

Danny, sipping a smoothie: i am just going to assume your Jason, Tim says that you broke into his house and beat him up in scaled panties, and that your whole gimmick is a rip off of the guy who killed you, B misses you and would still love you after all...why did you wear underwear while breaking into some guys house?

Jason, feeling like he just got flashed banged: Ex-fucking-scuse me? Tim that little bitch, I swear to- he fucking stole my dad and my fucking suit he doesn't get shit to say!

Danny, looking to Jazz off camera: So you broke inot the house to beat up the guy who slept with your dad and stole a suit? What was he going to a wedding?

Jason, feeling like he is having an aneurism: I...I am going to hang up.

Danny, stretching like a cat: Okay bye, love you.

Jason: confused sqawking before hanging up

Danny, dead pan looking to the camera: He didn't say it back.

---

Babs, infront of the computer in the clock tower: Keep going that way Batman, the target is just around the corner...hang on i am getting a call.

Danny, now floating upside down: Hi this is Phantom from Phanton breaks bad news, is this Barbara?

Babs, eyes widening as she scrambles to start tracing the call because its coming through the bat network: Who is this? How did you get on here?

Danny, looking to Sam and Tucker off camera: I just picked up the phone, are you Barbara? Because I have bad news for you.

Babs, getting frustrated because every time she finds an avenue of finding the caller, it goes dead a second later: It...it is, who is this?

Danny, watchingnas Tucker gets an evil smirk on his face, typing hard on his PDA: Like I said, my name is Phantom of Phantom breaks bad news, this message is from a dude named Jay? Saying, get your redheaded ass back home you can play with the leather clad bastard man later, you have a college exam later, your father would be disappointed. What are you doing for college?

Babs, freaking out because what ever was blocking her started to counter hack her: U-uh...Library stuff, Sorry did you say Jay?

Danny, popping the 'P': Yup, payed me 50 dollars to call! I love you bye."

Babs, confused as the counter hacking stopped dead: I...what?

Danny, still haven't hung up: Say it back.

Babs, so utterly confuaed: I-i love you too?

Danny, grinning: great thanks bye.

Babs, wondering what the fuck just happened.

In Amity Park

Danny talking to Sam: Could you see what Tuck was doing during all that?

Sam, who in turn was lounging in a bean bag reading a book: Yeah...something about batman files? I wasnt paying attention, he'll tell us if we need to worry.

---

Bruce, running around all of Gotham, trying desperately to solve the Riddlers puzzle to save some hostages, getting a call over coms: What is it.

Danny. Looking over at Ellie who was in camera frame, floating above him: Wow someone's grouchy, take a cough drop dude, Anyways my name is Phantom from Phantom breaks bad news,I got hired from a guy named Edward to tell you some.bad news? Is this Batemen?

Bruce, skidding to a stop, tapping into another com level: Oracle, he is back

Danny, blinking a bit as the call went silent: Hello? Fuck did he hang up on me?

Bruce, growling as he speaks: Speak, You said that Nigma sent you something to tell me?

Danny, scrunching up his nose: Your a real people person arnt you...Your buddy Edward says, you got duped, it isnt actually him and your being scammed into not looking in the right places, and that he is offended that you would think such a low quality riddle is from him.

Bruce, eye twitching: What. How could this not be him we...unless...

Danny, batting away Ellies hand as she tries to steal the Fenton phone they are calling from: Oh he just payed me more, looks like he is...actually on vacation? And who ever bitch with a bad bob is running around with his name isnt actually him, if you dont believe him check...I think that is in Cuba?

Bruce, switching coms once more: Oracle, look into Cuba, The real Riddler may be there actually, Robin, go back to the cave and grab the extra strength Clayface spray.

Danny, at the same time, looking at Ellie who makes grabby hands at the phone: No i am- no i am not done yet- okay you can do the next one but- ugh fine but let me hang up first.

Bruce, finally returning to the call: Phantom are you still there? Phantom...Fuck me sideways in a gondola.

Babs, pulling a face that could be felt from over the coms: Could never pay me enough to sleep with your stinky goth ass, go see the Cat or Supes later if you want to get-

Bruce, blushing slightly: Silence. I didn't mean to say that, try and find Nigma then get back to tracking Phantom.

---

Ellie on the phone this time, Danny over her shoulder this time: Hello this is Specter from Specter breaks bad news is this Bateman?

Bruce pausing giving a presentation, looking up at the intercom of the watch tower: Of course you are able to call here.

The rest of the JL, looking around at each other: Batman what is-

Ellie, leaning back into Danny: Yeah, so i got a message here from you kid Dick, which b-t-dubs, is a super bad name to give to your child, like come on man.

Bruce holding his head in his hands because he has been subjected to these two for years at this point: I didn't name him, he came with it already when I got him...just speak, get this over with.

Ellie, giggling: Pump the hate breaks Bates, Dick here says that Fuck you for being a horrible father, you are a narcissistic, sociopathic, middled aged man baby that cant seem to keep the goth furry inside and causes untold emotional and mental trauma on anyone unlucky enough to meet you, he hopes you die alone and you are undeserving of love...also that if you replace the pop tarts you ate he takes everything back and he would love you forever.

The JL, completely speechless because some little girl just absolutely roasted batman but also since that roasting was written by a grinning Nightwing that is sitting across from batman

Bruce, after taking a few deep breaths: I really dont like how my children use you two to air grievances with me.

Ellie, humming: Oh yeah, we also got one form Tim, Tason Jodd, Damian Al Ghul (specificallynot Wayne), and...Jarro? Also, like five more from this Dick guy.

Bruce, slumping into his chair: I am revoking Tim's computer privileges...its that bastards fault about telling the others about your services...

[evilminji]

"DO BETTER!" Says Now Televised Fanboy

He, Dash Baxter is a Phan-Stan!! It's kinda his thing. See, he's a fancy ass talk show host now. Married Paulie, moved out of Amity, actually DID something with his life. His parents? Did not approve. Long n short of it? He got kicked out.

Paulie's parents were PISSED.

Retaliated by giving him all the help he needed getting EVERY scholarship he qualified for. He went to a really nice college. Missed his girlfriend like mad. But she was off in Metropolis, terrifying weaker men. Conquering the fashion scene.

And SOMEHOW? Thanks to that long talk he had with Phantom (*incoherent fanboy gibbering noises* SO COOL!) he's worked to be... more of a LEADER, you know? Less of an asshole. Cause he's popular. People copy him. He can't be an asshole.

So, somehow, when he's punching out some try-hard that thinks he's hot shit for bullying a Nerd? He and the nerd get talking, right? Cause the guy got his glasses completely fucked up. And it's what Phantom would do.

But GET THIS? Guy's never HEARD of Phantom! Is super curious, cause he runs a small time Hero's show on the web. And, Dude? Is it your LUCKY DAY! Cause you just met THE number 1 fan of Phantom, hands down!! He makes his VERY spirited case, about why Phantom is THE best Hero to ever have lived. And this guy?

Entranced.

In AWE.

Just straight up BEGS him to join his show. Cause apparently? He was BORN for it. Which? Yeah. He HAS been giving speechs to the team for YEARS now. And Talking at fan meet ups. Leading fan meet ups. Hosting parties... actually, now that he thinks about it? He DOES do a lot of public speaking? Huh.

But still, he's about to say "no", when?

Dude mentions? He'll get to talk about Phantom.

SOLD!

It. Blows. Up. Absolutely EVERYONE is in love with his pretty face, hot bod, and STRONG opinions. But they ALSO have no idea who Phantom is! Paulie! This is CRIMINAL! Horrifying! What is going ON!?

Some bullshit information black out, apparently. At least according to her... friendly Nemesis? The Goth Dweeb. Who's engaged, apparently? So good for her. Unsurprisingly, it's too the OTHER Dweebs, but still. Bout time she started planning to drag them to a court house. She's the only one with any spine in that group! If she waited for THEM to propose?

Not even as Ghosts, man.

They'd get distracted by shiny nerd shit and whimp out.

Still... a world where NO ONE knows how Awesome, Phantom is? Not on HIS watch!

So he works it in. To every segment. It becomes "his thing". Oh? Super man saved a kitten from a tree? Cute. Well PHANTOM saved a bus full of Ghost Puppies from a shady, rouge, Goverment agency. Do BETTER, Superman!

The Flash, who is a cheap knock-off and stole his name, took down an Ice Villian? Adorable! PHANTOM stopped a Rouge WINTER SPIRIT with the help of YETI WARRIORS then assisted in giving FREE medical care for anyone who needed it! Here's a picture of him making GHOST ICE SNOWMEN for small children! Do BETTER, Knock-off!

What's THAT you say? Wonder Woman fought a GOD in down town paris?

Excellent work Wonder Woman. Flawless as always. But YOU, god-boy, are a disappointment! All that power! And WHAT do you use it for? Are you even supposed to BE here?? PHANTOM uses his power to HELP people! Is awesome and knows TONS of better gods! You're just salty you didn't make the cut!

DO BETTER!

And obviously? No one believes him. There's no record of this "Phantom" guy. The pictures look fantastical and vaguely glitchy/glowy. Not quite right. They GOTTA be photo shopped. Manipulated somehow. But? As a shtick? A fake "perfect Superhero" is kinda funny and unique.

And it's one hell of Fake Hero!

A Dead Champion? Who fights gods and monsters? Rouge agencies? Sassy and tragic? With a mysterious past? Pretty cool! There's even an Offical Comic from some guy that went to the same high-school as Baxter!

Of course, as Baxter get more and more popular? The "meme" hero, Phantom, get more well known? People get more interested in where Dash grew up. You know, just a bored Google. Maybe see if the hero was based off a local legend or something. But... huh...

The Town website?

Weirdly? Sanitized.

Like... like aggressively sanitized. All smooth edges and no details. Very "move along, citizen". Ha ha... it's part of the joke right? They get it! They'll just look up local restaurants or som-....

Wait...

Hey, guuuuys?

Are you finding ANYTHING?

And! Nothing. And I do mean NOTHING! Triggers the "oh? Secrets???" Instincts of a Hacker, like finding a hard blank wall of "KEEP OUT". Especially when it's somewhere it rightfully shouldn't BE.

All it would take? Is ONE person, of decent skills and an account on Certain Forums, getting bored enough to Google the Dude On The TV(TM)? For the GIW's lil walls to come crashing down. Because yeah, you can stop ONE hacker. Even two. Probably five or six.

But how about thousands?

Hundreds of thousands?

From every time zone. Competing. Just to see what you HAVE and don't want them to see. Maybe they do something with it, maybe they don't. But fuck it, you're being RUDE and now they're CURIOUS. And THEN? Oh. Oh holy shit.

Not a meme.

Very real.

Not a joke.

The walls come crumbling down, down, down. Ripped apart by hundreds of hands. Emails sent to every sort of agency. The JLU line inundated with emergency tips. Not a joke. Not A Joke. Holy Shit, IT WASN'T A JOKE!

Phantom is REAL!

And there, on TV, stands the Man. The signal FINALLY breaching containment. Fighting off the invading God of the week. Built like statue, hair like an aurora borealis of white fire held almost delicately in place by a CROWN of ice, a suit made of void and starlight. Inhuman. Beyond human.

Here to help.

A laugh that crackles like ice and the snap of winter, rolls through the air like coming storms, rich and somehow warm. A smile that bares teeth, yet turns so KIND when he looks upon humanity, as though we are precious and worth fighting for. A living star.

A... a once living star.

And in the center of it all? Wearing his BESPOKE, custome made, Number 1 Phan full body outfit? That's right. Dash Baxter. Ha! You fuckers doubted him! Behold his blorbo and WEEP, ya fuckin casuals! The BESTEST of boys! The FINEST of Heros! Superman? Could NEVER.

And now? The weather!

@babbling-babull @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter @ailithnight @hypewinter @hdgnj @mutable-manifestation

[redflagshipwriter]

Ghost Driver Chapter One

masterpost

Four hours passed with no news or contact: it was time to see what had happened to his date. Danny sighed and tried to be philosophical about it. “Starting shit with Gotham PD and Batman is sort of a step up from fighting with the US government,” he told himself. “That’s just one city and one guy.” He jammed his feet into sneakers, grimly determined to find Jay. “And I’m a sneaky dude,” he pumped himself up. “They might never know I exist!”

At least Batman didn’t kill guys, so Danny didn’t have to check the morgue. Not like that would get Jay out of a date! He had kissed the back of Danny’s hand. They absolutely had to meet up again.

So, yeah. He had to find the bastard. Presumably Batman had arrested him. He was going to give Jay shit for that.

His first tactic paid off: there was clearly a ton of stuff going on at the main police headquarters, including a prison transport van with a frankly ludicrous amount of armed guards on it. Danny squinted at it. “...Alla that, for Jason?” He cocked his head to the side. “Am I impressed, or…” He screwed his face up into a frown. He didn’t know how else to feel about it. Impressed it was.

He was actually sort of grateful for his timing. Danny hunkered down and avoided being sighted by any cops or Batman. The prison van took off, escorted by a convoy of four flashing police cars. Danny felt his eyebrows crawl up his face.

What the fuck, Jay. What did you do, Jay. This sucks, Jay.

There wasn’t any rush to follow it, given that it had the name of the prison written on it. Danny googled “arhham”, “arhham prison,” and learned that he had misread it and that also, it was not a prison. 

“They need to invest in a graphic designer,” Danny kvetched. He went back to the car that Jay had said he could use. He continued not thinking about the registration and how it was probably stolen or something. “H and K don’t have to look alike. We could live in a better world.” He turned the engine on aggressively and smacked the wheel for emphasis. He put on directions to the asylum and some top 40s pop music channel. Charli XXL burst into the night air cheerfully.

He hit the gas. 

He drove too fast. He would admit it. Danny indulged a bit on the way to the militarized treatment facility. It soothed his nerves to hook sharp corners and drift a bit, to go intangible and invisible for a couple of blocks to subtly blast though a red light at 120 mph. 

“Cool,” Danny muttered. He dropped the invisibility and watched a driver startle. He snickered as he passed them on the left. Maybe it was a little mean, but it was harmless and frankly, it was important ghostly enrichment to give a little spook now and then. Speaking of which, he let blinding rings of light travel up and down his body to switch to Phantom. Danny Fenton definitely couldn’t get caught breaking into a building.

Arkham was extremely inconvenient. He left his car in the employee parking lot and floated around until he found the loading bay where the police transport van was currently unloading one dumbass.

Ugh. The shit he put up with. Danny groused to himself and bobbed in the air outside the building as he waited, watching through windows. Mist welled up in his lungs as he got close. Danny felt himself wake up, looking out for danger. Figures that a place like this was haunted. 

They wheeled a stretcher into a cell. Danny kicked his feet and waited. People went in and out. Then the stretcher came out, empty. Everyone but Jay left.

He waited a while longer before slipping down the hallway and into the cell. He ghosted directly through the door to avoid any issues with locks or alarms and then stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh,” Danny said, openly disappointed.

“Who is this?” purred the stranger. He had a weird habit of holding his eyes just a little too open. Looked like they were getting dry and itchy, they were red. To be fair, maybe they were irritated by the makeup the guy had on.

“Nothing, sorry for barging in,” Danny sighed. He raked his hand through his hair. “Sorry to bother you, dude.” He indicated the whole set up going on with a straightjacket and a chair with leather straps. “Seems like you are already busy. I thought you were my date.”

“I could be.” 

Danny laughed. Then he blinked. “Oh, you’re serious. Sorry, you’re too old for me.” Now that he was really paying attention to the guy, there was something wrong about him. Not just the eye thing— something about the way he moved registered him as a possible threat. He wasn’t a ghost. Right? There was something about him that was familiar… 

“Oh, I don’t suppose you were looking for Batsy.” The stranger came off weirdly coy. “No, no, he’s old too, to a whippersnapper like you. Oh.” He sounded delighted. “I know! I know!” He burst out into laughter.

“Uh…” Danny tried not to let how weirded out he was onto his face. “You alright, my guy?” 

“Joker,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m not your guy, boyo. Why, if my hands were free I would teach you some respect for your elders. Take you over my knee for a spanking like I gave your pretty boy date!” He laughed again, pitch getting higher and higher with each ha, ha, ha.

“...I don’t think you could do that.” Danny snorted. His hackles were up. He inserted a little more disdain into his tone. Man, what a creep. “He’s twice your size.” He started trying to rationalize this bizarro conversation away.

‘He’s probably lying, right? Or imagining things. He’s in that restraint for a reason. On the other hand… he’s probably genuinely dangerous to the average human. He wouldn’t be locked up like this if he wasn’t violent.’

“Oh, he grew up big,” Joker agreed. “Which is a shocker, after the spanking I gave him when he was this high!” He jerked as if he was trying to indicate a height with an arm. He was still bound. It could have been funny, but something was starting to read as seriously malicious.

“...Are you seriously telling me right now that you predated on my date when he was a kid?” Danny asked. It… Well, fuck, it was motivation for Jay to do something that involved this guy and Batman. Danny didn’t know Jay that well, but he could identify a motherfucker who liked tragic irony at a dozen paces.

‘I think this might be real. And I’m not imagining this: I think this motherfucker is in my jurisdiction. I don’t know what he is, but he is undeathly as hell.’

Joker blew a raspberry. “Poor dead little Jason Wayne,” he crooned. The hairs stood up on the back of Danny’s neck. He didn’t know that last name, but the first one matched. “All he wants is Daddy to love him, you know?” The sugary tone he used was outright gross. “If Daddy Bats really cared, surely he’d get rid of the things that go bump in the night!” He let his expression drop, blank. Then slowly a rictus smile spread over his face. “But he won’t.”

“...Right.” Danny stared. “And you don’t know where he went, right?” He checked.

‘He’s a creep for sure. I don’t like him being this close to Jason. Why was he out today? And why is he on full name terms before me? I don’t think Jason like, told him that personal information.’

Joker giggled. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know what hole he crawled into”, he crooned. “But when I get out of here again- and I will, I always do!— I’ll be sure to toss a nice little grenade into it.”

“Huh.” Danny frowned. Not very helpful. But the bragging that he always got out…. It didn’t sit well with him. And no wonder. If Joker was some flavor of undead, a regular human facility might never be able to hold him long term. 

After a moment’s deliberation Danny dug his phone out of his pocket and turned away for some privacy.

“Excuse me?” said the Joker.

Danny did the ‘quiet’ gesture with a finger to his lips. “Shh.” He hit two on his speed dial and kicked his toes against the floor as he waited for the call to connect.

“Hi, sweetie!” Mom gushed as soon as sound came across. “How are you, everything ok?”

“Yeah, hi Mom.” Danny went up onto his toes and bounced a few times. “Could you turn the portal on and poke your head in? I need to talk to Wulf.”

“Oh- yes, of course. Just a minute,” she sang out. Machinery roared so loudly that he winced and pulled the phone away from his face. 

“Is that really your Mummy?” said the Joker loudly, because he was rude and couldn’t tolerate ceding conversational ground for a minute, jeeze.

Danny ignored him. “Actually if you could tell him that I’m hoping he could help me take… take out a…” he glanced at Joker. “A themed villain, I guess. He needs to go somewhere safer than the locals can manage.”

“Oh, that would be good enrichment for Mr. Walker,” Mom said generously. The sound quality changed as she put him on speakerphone.

“Fuck the police,” Danny said reflexively. “But I was thinking, like…” He frowned. 

There were a lot of options. He could literally just toss the dude into the Ghost Zone and come back for him later without fear he would keep getting out. But it might be really annoying to hunt him down if he like, wandered around.

Oh. Hunt. 

“Skulker!” Danny said brightly. “This would be really good enrichment for Skulker.” He could take the guy over to Skulker’s lair and let him play catch and release. Skulker loved those games.

“I’ll pass on the message.” The portal unlocked on the other end of the call, an unmistakable sound. “Bye, honey!”

Danny hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. He turned around to see the Joker was trying to wriggle out of his restraints. Was that possible? Probably, he decided. The guy kept getting out of here. He pursed his lips. “You’re safer from me if you stay in there,” he decided to warn.

Joker let out a hysterical cackle.

It went on too long.

Like, it went on and on. Danny crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, lifting his eyebrows as he waited for it to end. Jeeze. 

“You’re funny,” Joker said. He licked his lips. It was uncomfortably loud in the cell. “A real jokester. A guy could get a little offended, you know? You’re stealing my schtick. Just like your little sweetie, come to think of it. I didn’t bring you together, did I?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “No, you gigantic loser. I’ve never even heard of you.” He ignored the affronted silence that garnered and opened up a gaming app to kill time.

‘I need to get Wulf a phone somehow,’ Danny thought idly. He matched two chocolate donuts and they disappeared in a cloud of sprinkles. 

“Hey. I am talking to you.”

Danny gave Joker a thumbs down without bothering to look at him. 

He stepped to the left. Then he shoved his phone back in his pocket and looked up in time for the ripple of interdimensional energy to coalescence into a vivid tear in the fabric of the universe.

Wulf bounded into sight and snatched him up in a hug. “Mia amiko!” (My friend!)

Danny hugged back hard enough to crack Wulf’s back and picked him up off the floor. “Amikinoooo,” he crooned. (Bestieeeeee)

Wulf kicked playfully at him. He caught himself with a scuttle of claws on the floor when Danny let go. “Mia panjo diris nenion embarasan, ĉu ne?” (My Mom didn't say anything embarrassing, did she?) It was mostly a formality. Of course Mom had done something embarrassing. 

“ŝi montris al mi la bildojn, kiuj pruvas, ke vi rifuzis blovi vian nazon ĉe Disneyland kiam vi estis sep, ĉar vi sentis, ke ĝi estas embarasa.” Wulf grinned back. (“She showed me the pictures that prove you refused to blow your nose at Disneyland when you were seven because you felt it was embarrassing.”)

Danny sighed. “Why does she take those photos everywhere she goes?” He groused. Then he pushed his hair back off of his face and decided to ask if Wulf wanted a phone, before he forgot about it. “ĉu vi ŝatus havi poŝtelefonon?” (Do you want a phone?)

Wulf brightened. “Jes.” He shook out his ruff. “mi uzus ĝin por verki retmesaĝojn kaj fari Linkedin-konton.” (Yes, I would use it to write emails and create a Linkedin account.)

Danny opened his mouth to ask why Wulf wanted to have a Linked -In account. Then he shut it and nodded. Great. He’d try to get Wulf a phone, then. For his emails. Were you supposed to email on a phone? Was Danny using his phone wrong?

“Či tiu viro estas tre malbonodora.” Wulf gestured at Joker. (This man is very smelly.)

“Hey!” Joker said loudly. “I resent that remark, you know. I do not smell of anything except flowers. Daisies. Roses.”

“Jes, malbonodora,” Danny agreed. (Yeah, stinky.) He didn’t smell whatever Wulf did, but he was willing to assume the other guy was right. “Li estas fripono. Mi pensas, ke li vundis mian amikon.” ("He's a creep. I think he hurt my friend.")

Wulf growled. 

Joker shut up for once. Danny shot him a little smirk. Wulf had no chill. He was a good bro like that. If Joker really had hurt one of Danny’s friends, then Wulf was gonna be his opp for life. 

“Kion ni faru? eble ni povus peti Desiree certigi ke li neniam vundas mortonton denove.” Wulf struck a contemplative pose, claws stroking at his jawline.  ("What should we do? Maybe we could ask Desiree to make sure he never hurts a mortal again.")

Danny nearly choked. Get help from Desiree? Like, make a wish that Joker would be incapable of hurting people again? Danny burst out into giggles. It seemed a little extreme. “Ne, ne,” he demurred. “Mi pensis doni lin al Skulker.” (No, no. I was thinking about giving him to Skulker.)

Wulf laughed. “Jes,” he agreed. “Tio estos amuza.” (Yes, that is funny.)

Danny gave him double thumbs up. “Mi vere dankus helpon pri transportado. Mi nuntempe rompas kaj eniras.” ("I would really appreciate some help with transportation. I'm currently breaking and entering.") He tried not to look too sheepish at that last bit, but it was relevant. Since he wasn’t supposed to be here, he really should keep a hustle on. 

His friend tossed off a crisp salute. Wulf picked Joker up with one hand and leapt back through the portal while Joker was still saying, “What?”

“Neat,” Danny said, alone in a mental health treatment cell that looked a lot like a high security prison. He glanced up at the camera that had probably recorded his whole visit. Had there been enough ecto to ruin the feed? He didn’t know, and it was too late now. “Hmm.” He let his eyes glow green. They’d reflect light like a cat’s would. Then he went invisible. 

If his ecto hadn’t shifted out the camera, that would at least give anyone who saw it the creeps. Danny snickered to himself as he tiptoed out of the not-prison to regroup. 

That had been a total deadend. But it meant that Jay probably hadn’t gotten arrested. 

Optimistically, he got out his phone to check if Jay had responded to his “You alive?” message. No dice. Blegh.

So. Batman. Danny grimaced. He had to talk to Batman. Right? Was there anything else? Not that Danny could think of.

Danny shuddered, feeling a bad case of the creepy eepies walking up his back. He still wanted to avoid Batman like he avoided parvo. But that ship had sailed, right? Batman knew who he was and where he lived. So he might as well meet the guy to get his information. “He’s probably chill,” Danny lied to himself. “And hey, he might be happy that I helped him out with Joker. Maybe he’ll be in a good mood.”

[unluckilyimnot]

hiiiii, can I please request bonten hc after they found out someone disrespected their gf!!

Bonten when their gf is disrespect

Character: Ran, Rindou, Koko, Sanzu, Mikey

m.list | rules

Note: I wrote that last night I forgot about the "find out" so there's both sorry 😞 thank you sm for your request 🤍

Ran

I hope for the poor guy that it's not in front of him or he can pray for his life and it's gonna be useless

Spoiler it is

It's not written on Ran's face that he's going to kill him, but everyone in the room tensed up at his "excuse me ?"

Your jaw is clenched but you feel so angry and ashamed, you really don't want to help this guy rn

As he started to stammer some useless excuse, Ran shush him instantly

"Come again ? I'm not sure i heard you right"

He's a sadistic, he wants his skin ripped of his body

He lied, not repeating at all his words

Not knowing it's gonna be worse

"So you lie to me now on top of insulting my lover?"

The second he stand up you know it's the end for him

He take one hit, then another, and another

Ran probably exposed a full bottle of alcohol on top of his head to end it

"Never again, do you hear me ?" He said, bend down to his level

Hoping that he made it clear to everyone in the room that disrespecting you it's worse than disrespecting him

Rindou

He got angry and doesn't wait to stand up

They don't even get to finish their sentence that their face is somehow already hitting the table

Doesn't matter where you are, he's never gonna let that slide

"Hey you think you're more important than her to speak shit like that ?"

He hits him until he answers, grabbing his face fiercely, letting the blood of his nose and mouth run down his fingers

"I didn't hear you ?"

If he's already knock down, he call the security to leave him in the street

He excuses himself to you all night even if you tell him it's not his fault, he thinks it is

He's suppose to make sure that all his subordinates respect you

Koko

"What ??"

You tell him what happened tear his eyes off his computer

He's in disbelief, this can't be true

He frown ad you go on with your story, walking in circles in front of his desk

He has to get up and catches you for you to stop but he can tell how upset you are

He will ask for their name again, and calm you down, smoothing your back

kindly whipping the frustration tears that show up in your eyes

He would probably take you out on a nice dinner to clear your head

You won't hear about it for a few days

But one day you'll wake up to see that their company went bankrupt and that they were found dead in their appartement, seemly suicide

If you ask Koko, he'll say he doesn't know about it but deep down you know he did it

Sanzu

He's mad to say the least

He wants to end them himself

You're tough, he knows you can handle your business alone but he just can't stand it

He'll find him himself to make him understand that that's not something you said to someone on of the higher-ups of Bonten loves

If there's one thing Sanzu put at the same place as Mikey, it's you

It's like disrespecting his boss, he can't let it unpunished

He'll probably step into their place and shot them down if there's no-one important

If they happen to be, he'll just make sure to make things complicated for them until they beg for help/found

Mikey

You're so precious he can't even picture someone talking you badly

But on top of that, you're the Bonten's boss gf, they really don't know what they're doing

But he won't handle it himself

He's too busy making sure you know your worth and make it up for you

He just make sure they suffer for good while he's having a good time with you

If it happened in front of him though, they're shot down without thinking

He can always find someone better, he doesn't need someone that don't respect him, and by that he means disrespecting you as well

It's been a while ! I hope you liked it ♡

[cece693]

Childhood Friends (Michael Myers x M! Reader)

Summary: You couldn't remember your childhood, so with a plan to return to your old home in Haddonfield for clues, you never expected yourself to be tied to the boogeyman himself, Michael Myers.

tags: childhood friends, Michael remembers you, mentions of memory blanks, happy??? ending

Your memory was shit. Anything before the age of eight was a void of nothingness and you hated it. Talking to your parents didn't work: 1) they were dead and 2) even when they were alive, they were too preoccupied with the bitch of your sister to pay attention to you. So, with nothing but a measly 300 dollars to your name, you traveled back to your childhood home in Haddonfield.

You didn't expect much from the trip, to be honest—a vague recollection of a location or a friendly face, but not the plethora of history that followed your family. Ignoring the stares as you walked through the streets and up the old stairway to your home, you turned the key and stepped inside. Once the door clicked shut behind you, you finally let out all the pent-up anger you'd been holding in.

You always knew your last name was trouble—your family was composed of delinquents and shady people. Still, you hadn't expected yourself to be associated with the boogeyman himself, Michael Myers. When you saw his name, it was like a gate swung open. Memories came rushing back, one after another, until you were thrown into the past—back to when you and a young Michael were friends. You remembered standing up to his bullies and tending to his bruises when they found him wandering alone.

And more embarrassingly, the pact you guys made. It was stupid—you were both young and naive—but it was easy to promise something to a boy who had nothing. Together forever.

At the time you laughed it off, thinking it was just Michael’s strange way of saying you were his best friend. But he was dead serious. The way he had looked at you, his eyes intense and unwavering sent shivers down your spine. Not wanting to remember anything else, as it was beginning to give you a headache, you decided to take a small nap. That nap ended up being hours. Once you awoke, the room was pitch black, the clock on the nightstand flashing midnight.

"Shit." You murmured to yourself. You had hoped to get more done, to start unpacking the few boxes you'd brought into this old place, but it seemed you needed sleep. With a sigh, you stood and made your way out of the bedroom, intending to grab a snack before going back to sleep. But as you reached the bottom of the staircase, a strange feeling washed over you.

You paused, squinting into the dark living room—perhaps you were going crazy, or sleep still clung to you.

But then you saw him.

Standing in the middle of the room, his back to you, was a tall figure, his broad shoulders unmistakable. For a moment, you were paralyzed, unsure of what to do. The last time you had seen Michael, he had been a friend, but now he was something unrecognizable.

The thought of fleeing crossed your mind, but before you could act, Michael slowly turned around. His face was obscured by the eerie white mask, the hollow eyes staring back at you, unblinking and unreadable. He didn't move, didn't speak. He just stood there, watching, as if waiting for you to take the first step.

"Michael?" you whispered, the word barely audible in the tense silence.

As soon as the name left your lips, Michael began to move in your direction. Your instinct was to back away, and you did, taking a cautious step backward, your heart pounding in your chest. It seemed he had sensed your fear as he stopped, and held his hands up, a silent indication that he meant no harm. Then, with deliberate slowness, he reached up to his face, his fingers curling around the edge of the mask.

Michael’s hands hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling the mask off. His blond hair, tousled and unkempt, fell slightly over his forehead, framing a face that was older yet familiar. He took a step forward and this time you didn’t move back. The fear was still there but it mingled with something else: curiosity.

Before you knew it, you were standing right in front of him, close enough to see the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. You reached out, hesitantly at first, and then with more certainty, wrapping your arms around him. Michael’s body tensed for a split second, but then he responded, his arms coming up to envelop you in a hug.

His embrace was strong, almost overwhelming in its intensity, and you were struck by how much larger he had become over the years. His frame dwarfed yours, making you feel small in comparison, but there was a strange comfort in it. As if the world could fade away and nothing could touch you as long as he held you like this.

Michael, on the other hand, was ecstatic. After what felt like an eternity, he was reunited with the only person he had ever truly cared for. And now, holding you in his arms, he felt a sense of peace he hadn’t known in years. I will not let you go again, Michael vowed, together forever. This wasn’t just a reunion—it was a new beginning. And he would do whatever it took to ensure you stayed by his side.

[nevertheless-moving]

unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self. 

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and— 

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic,  being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life. 

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal. 

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell) Scene from the Uberwald Grand Sneer

[spideyhexx]

saccharine - sharing the bed

saccharine - aka; cowgirl!reader who teases the shit out of him x billy who 'hates' you, or so he says.

sharing the bed

fem!reader, little nsfw

Billy tasked you with paying and booking a room at the local inn while the two of you made a stop in the nearby town. You were scouting with him, meeting some top notch lawyer that can help the gang’s endeavors. 

It came as a surprise when he specifically asked for you to join him on the trip (less than a 20 minutes ride on horseback, but nonetheless a trip, alone, with him). 

He addressed the group with his usual laidback confidence that made you swoon. So much so, you almost missed the way his voice perfectly said your name, followed by his instruction for you to accompany him. Later that day when you confronted him on it, you asked, “did you enlist me as your confidante for this job because of our kiss or…cause I’d-”

He scoffs, “No. You’re just perceptive. I need…perception from you when we meet this guy.” 

It makes you cock your brow and he shoves his shoulder into yours when he walks away. Most hasn’t changed since the two of you kissed. And frankly, you did not mind that one bit. At the most, there were more lingering glances and touches and that was fun enough. You swear to god, if Billy jumped your bones one of these days instead of just brushing his shoulder to yours, it would have you dead on the floor before he was even in you. 

You scold yourself for thinking about that with him. 

Billy had gone off who knows where, stating he needed to take care of some business whatever the hell that meant. But you knew better than to question him too much. You did like twice and he gave you the silent treatment and a look with his pretty blue eyes. So here you are, paying the lovely innkeeper for the room and trudging yourself up the stairs. 

Your eyes immediately lock onto the fact there’s one bed, but it doesn’t phase you. You’re an adult and the bed is large enough for you and Billy so who cares? Right? Right. 

You busy yourself while he’s gone. The money in your pocket was just enough to buy yourself a sad looking hat to replace your lost one, but at least it was something. You wrap one of your handkerchiefs around it to make it look better and when you stand in front of the mirror with it on, your shoulders sag. It’s not an ideal look but again, it was something. 

The rest of busying yourself ends in continuing the wood carving you had started. You were unsure of what exactly you were making, but it would come along eventually. Maybe you’ll give it to Billy. He did seem the sentimental type at times. 

Just as you’re gathering the wood shavings in a pile on the desk, there’s a knock to the door. You had told the innkeeper Billy’s name so she’d know to give him the room number. Jumping to your feet, you straighten out your shirt and smooth your hands on your pants. A quick adjustment to your hat is made before you open the door and he walks in before you can speak. 

“Hello to you too,” you say, closing and locking the door. 

Turning back to face him, he’s holding something behind his back and his eyes linger on the bed. “There’s only one bed,” he mumbles. 

“You can see.”

Billy rolls his eyes as he looks back to you, about to say something, but then he tilts his head, “you got a new hat?” 

“Yeah, I needed it, my head was burning up in the sun and I hate being-”

“Also I told you to get a room with two beds,” he interrupts, looking back at the bed, and you use that opportunity to move closer to him. 

“I forgot to ask about that, but it’s a fairly big bed. What do you have behind your back?” 

Billy’s gaze returns to you and he doesn’t even flinch at the fact you’ve moved close enough to be right in front of him. He just knew you would do that. 

“You forgot to ask?” He gives you a look, his brow raised, like he’s disbeliebving of you. 

You give him a dramatic sigh, “Yes! I forgot! But it’ll be fine, you prude, we can sleep in a bed together.”

He shifts on his feet when you call him a prude and his lips turn into a pout as your hand hits at his chest. “What’s behind your back, Bonney?”

Billy glances back at your hat, “That looks stupid on you,” he nods his head to it. A smirk graces his lips when you groan. 

“I know! But I needed one. So get used to this stupidity, I guess,” you grumble at him. You pause a moment, then just shove at his chest again. Billy purposely stumbles back a little and you know it. Almost makes you smile, but you don’t let yourself. 

“What was thar for?” Billy walks back close to you, his gaze ever so intense even with his calm smile. 

“I don’t know!” 

You throw your hands up with your words. Billy lets out a breathless chuckle, looking to the floor and you shift to try and see what he’s holding, but he turns before you can. 

“Take that damn hat off,” he tells you, waiting. 

Part of you wants to keep defying him, but he’s got a spark in his eyes and it’s making you weak. So you take the hat off and just toss it aside. 

“Better,” Billy says, and he moves his hands to his front, your perfect hat that he bought you in his hands. Your eyes widen at it, looking back to his eyes, then to the hat. “Did you buy a new one or-”

“No, it’s the one you lost,” he says, delicately putting the hat on your head, fixing it just right. 

“But how did you-”

“None of your business.”

You roll your eyes at him and his smirk is a legitimate threat to your sanity right now. 

“You need to learn to stop interrupting me, I thought you had some manners.”

He scoffs, “Only some? I have manners.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest. Oh. They look nice. Like you can tell he has muscles even through his shirt. Oh. 

“How did you get the hat back?” You try asking him again to block out your other thoughts. 

Billy thinks for a short moment before he shakes his head, “Like I said. None of your business.” 

Billy knew someone must’ve taken the hat, it was nice, and probably lying in the dirt. He went into every shop on the main street in town, hoping to catch someone with it on, with the reddish brown tie around it that he added. His luck of finding it was running out when he sees no sign, until he’s walking out of the general store, and sees a little girl with it on, too big for her head and her mother at her side buying some fruit. He initially decides to just let it be and buy you a new one, but he’d have little no money left so. 

He approaches the mother with his typical charming smile and a nod of his head. 

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he says, and the woman looks wary at first but gives him a greeting. 

“I’m sorry to bother you, it just seems your…little girl there has a hat that belongs to…a friend of mine. A special friend,” he adds on without really thinking. That’s what you were, yeah? A special friend. 

“I can show you the receipt if you need me to, my friend’s just been upset over losing her hat and I wanted to make her…,” he trails off and the woman seems to get what he means, bending down to talk to her daughter, saying something along the lines of this nice man says the hat they found belongs to a good friend who would be very happy if it was returned, etc. etc. 

Billy smiles at the little interaction and he takes the hat from the woman when she gives it to him, then he pauses. He digs into his pocket and takes out the money he had. “Buy her a hat that fits her with this. Sure she’ll love it even more. Every cowgirl needs her hat,” he says, before bidding them goodbye and heading to his horse with a stupid grin on his face. God he hates how he feels about you, but he can’t even hide it anymore. He’ll get his head together before he sees you. 

“You’re annoying,” you tell him when he keeps denying you how he found the hat. 

“Likewise, sweetheart.” 

Your heart does a jump, but you’ve already turned away from him, so he doesn’t see the way you squeeze your eyes shut for a moment. 

“Thank you for getting it,” you say to him and all he does is give a hum in response.

When the both of you settle for bed, you take up the opposite sides, so far from touching, yet it feels like you can still feel the heat from his body. There’s only the one blanket, so you share it. You tug it closer to you. He tugs it back more to him. 

You consider kicking him under the blanket but refrain because you’re not sure if you could handle feeling his leg. 

He falls asleep fast and you envy him for it because now you’re left with his calm expression and messy hair next to you. He’s just so beautiful. You’re not sure if he even knows how pretty he is or if you should tell him. Surely you’ve said it to him before, but he always wrote it off as you mocking him. But you wanted to stare into his eyes and tell him you thought he was pretty. 

“You’re pretty,” you whisper aloud without another thought. He doesn’t move, nor change expression, which gives you a sigh of relief. 

You watch him for a bit until you feel creepy and turn on your side, facing away from him, sleep slowly drifting over you. 

As the morning light shines through the window, you start to stir awake, your hand reaching up to rub at your eyes. But you feel him. Close. His chest flush to your back and his arm over you, his leg loosely tangled with yours, his breath on your neck, his groin…

His groin and the undeniable arousal from him pressed right to your backside. 

Your sleepy state doesn’t fully register it all at first until he shifts and you can almost feel how big he is. How nice it feels against your ass and how the slightest shift from you would make you rub against him, so close to your own pooling desire. 

Your eyes open. 

It snaps you out of the daze and you almost shriek, pushing your elbow back against his chest. It pushes his body to the edge of the bed. Billy stirs awake at the hit, but he’s too asleep still to realize his position and he falls off the bed, landing with a thud to the floor.

“What the fuck…” he mutters out, groaning, rubbing his chest where you shoved him. 

You quickly roll over to other side of the bed to see him, partially trying not to laugh, partially feeling very guilty. “Uh…I’m sorry?”

Billy, sleepy, messy-haired Billy, looks at you with his brow furrowed and his hand rubbing his chest still, “What the fuck was that for?” 

He sounds angry and you’re about to answer when he pauses, his gaze down at his lap. The blanket had fallen off the bed with him, but it still did not hide how hard he was. 

“Well you were kinda spoonin’ me,” you mumble, then put your hand over your mouth when he looks back up at you. His cheeks are flushed and he shifts the blanket so you can’t see his erection any longer. 

“I was?” 

“Yeah.”

Silence falls over the two of you and he’s trying to decipher if he actually made you uncomfortable but then he watches you try not to laugh and he shakes his head. 

“You can laugh,” he resigns, rubbing his hand through his hair, then at his chest again. 

You do laugh, just a little, then give him a pained expression, “I didn’t mean to push you that hard. Your head all good?”

“Fuckin’ shoved me, cowgirl,” he mumbles and you squeeze your thighs together, “yeah, head’s fine, but you probably got my ass bruised.”

A snort comes from you and it makes him smile. Oh you loved that smile. Since when did he like when you snorted?

“It’s not my fault you were a pervert with your…morning wood against me.”

“Okay, hold on, I am not…” he trails off and shakes his head, “I am not that. And don’t call it that.”

“What should I call it?”

He rubs his hand over his face, groaning, “just be quiet.”

“Will do, boss,” you say, smiling like a dork at him even though he can’t see it. 

But silently, you hoped he was also grinning like that under his hand.

[deadpool15]

Unexpected Visitor P2.

Before I knew it, two men had just pushed me in the ground, hurting my stomach in the process causing me to scream out the first name that came to mind. “MANNY”.

Abruptly the phone call ended, I had never felt a sense of fear like this before. Not me for me though, my child. Right before Armando went to prison I wanted to tell him about the kid but too much was happening, a part of me wanting him to be involved in our life though the other part of me had to be logical and as much as it hurt, I had to let him go. Armando wasn’t the father but with the way our relationship was going he damm sure had no issue stepping up and showing me he could be.

We were huddled up and moved to another location before that fucking asshole received a call from a partner I’m guessing to move the hostages. Then we were planted in cars and boats apparently traveling to Cuba. “Are they gonna kill us?” I had completely forgotten Callie was here alongside us. I felt worse if anything, I couldn’t even reach out to hug her, I knew she needed comfort right now more than anything.

“No, sweetie we are going to be fine. Mike and Marcus are going to come for us. No one will hurt you ok?” Pushing myself closer to her to offer her a shoulder to lean on. Since, in this situation that’s all I could really do. “Look at you, mama bear giving her false hope. Already entering your mama phase and it hasn’t even started.” Looking at this asshole who had already pissed me off for yanking my locs. “It’s not false hope and last time I checked your boss gave you orders to not walk around speaking to me and my fucking family asshat. So, how about you do everyone a favor and check the perimeter, lord knows u could use the walk.”

He moves closer to push some of my hair back into place before caressing my cheekbones. I hurry and bit the shit outta his finger when he gets closer causing him to scream aloud and slap me. A gray haired man comes over to check the situation, head butting guy before sending him off to check the area leaving me. Christine sits there in tears worried for both me and Callie. Eventually, we hear noise from outside causing someone to yell out commands and we realize we are being moved. “Come on, ladies it’s your big day. Don’t let them outta your fucking sight, especially the feisty one.” Motioning towards me.

After a moment of waiting outside we notice something out of the ordinary and sadly so did our kidnappers causing one to grab my fucking hair again and push me back into this stupid gator park. Gunshots ringing straight through my ears causing pain. And then the man holding me falls, shot dead right in front of me. “O my fucking god, I think I’m gonna be sick.” Tears running down my face cloud my vision causing me to trip a couple of times trying to run away from the constant gunfire. Managing to untie the knot that had broken skin off my wrists, I immediately look for sight of Callie.

Crawling on the floor trying to find my 16-year old god daughter in the middle of an abandoned gator park is not something I thought I would be doing today. Finally, I look over and find Callie trying to run away from two men. Without a second thought, I run over towards here as fast as my body would let me. Grabbing ahold of her, causing her to shout not knowing the identity of who she believed was another attacker. “Callie, Callie stop it it’s me.” Holding onto the girl for dear life I check for any injuries. From the corner of my eye I see movement causing me to turn around while shoving Callie behind my back.

And right before I thought my life had came to an end. He appeared. Armando pushed us both behind him. Looking at me, while holding onto my arm not letting go. “Stay behind me. You gotta trust me.” Hearing those words hurt, made me realize how dangerous the situation was, maybe one of us wouldn’t make it. Fighting off a group of men while getting sliced up relentlessly, made me shriek in fear for the man I love. Grabbing Callie and pushing her towards the door as we try to run away a man pushed us back and Armando fight him off taking a knife to the shoulder. Leaving him on the ground in pain, I’m quick to grab him and try to pull him up. Before, I hear Callie scream.

Looking down all I saw was blood. Rushing down, but it wasn’t from Armando, it was me. My blood was pouring down. My vision started to become blurry and suddenly nothing was coherent. They were speaking but my brain couldn’t comprehend anything in that moment. Armando gathers his strength and looks at me, like a burst of adrenaline he shoots to quick while grabbing me with Callie’s help and moving towards the door. I soon feel us stop and look up and can make out a spec of what looks to be Armando’s face and his mouth is moving. “My baby, no..o the b-baby. Help.” And then everything fades. Trying to grab ahold of my stomach as a last resort to protect my son.

Armando

Sitting here facing off with Callie’s mom, while holding onto my girl. I watch my father and Callie plead for my life. “Go.. before I change my mind. Grabbing a hold of her I move with my father to find a boat. Before starting it up he looks at me, “Take this, head south. Don’t look back, and be good.” Smiling I look at him, thanking the world I got to know him. “That’s not your choice, detective.” Grabbing ahold of her and starting up the boat looking back at him, “take care of them.” With one last smile I nod and drive off. Seeing him for the last time.

2 weeks later…

“Manny, are you ready to watch the stars.” Hearing nothing my random little noises as my respond I smile. Grabbing ahold of my son I make my way to the patio to oversee the stars, “pretty right baby?” Hearing boots hitting the pavement I look up seeing Armando. “Ain’t got a thing on you, though baby.” Smiling while I watch him move closer to grab our son and play with him. Reminded how much I love him and our litter family. “What you thinking about, Girasol?” Pulling him closer for a kiss, staring into his eyes while running my nails through his hair. “Us, baby. Always about us.”

[cheeseroach]

series of blurbs based on iwtv cast/bts photos

i think this is a picture daniel took of armand in the 70s. now in order to get a picture of armand that is not perfectly planned and coordinated you 1) need to actively not think about taking a picture of him 2) ambiently think about taking a picture of him for a long enough time that he assumes you won't actually 3) be quick as hell getting your camera out. lucky for daniel he is one stubborn motherfucker and he is also determined to have something physical to hold onto. armand gives him lavish gifts and shit but daniel wants something that he can hold physically and say hey motherfucker ive got a piece of you. cant erase yourself now. armand was pissed off but he got over it soon enough bc daniel just earnestly 1) is afraid armand's going to leave him 2) genuinely thinks armand is beautiful. daniel kept it in his wallet and armand took it with him when he left. modern armand keeps it in a scrapbook with the rest of the photos of him and photos of daniel and photos of the pair of them and clippings of daniel's articles and tickets to a panel daniel spoke at and he gets a little teary-eyed looking at it because that picture was the first time in however many hundreds of years that someone had wanted to immortalize armand's likeness not just because he was there or because they wanted him sexually but because daniel genuinely thought armand was gorgeous and liked spending time with him and wanted to have a piece of him to hold onto

somebody from the théâtre des vampires (but not armand. someone else) took this one when louis had someone buy one of his photos for the first time. louis was being all bashful and shy but claudia was genuinely so proud of him because this is a hobby that is (in her eyes) uncorrupted by lestat and she really thinks he's moving on and starting to establish a life for the better. louis took the photo because the guy he fed on that night was high and louis thought if he took a picture of his lestatlucination he might look at it the next morning and find out that lestat is real and hes back and hes not going to abandon louis again and they can all be a happy family. louis cried the next morning when he looked at the picture and it was just an empty courtyard, because even though logically he "knows" lestat is dead it was really nice to pretend for a while. he put the photo up for sale under some emo ass name - probably like "donnez des mots au chagrin ; le chagrin qui ne s'exprime pas tricote le cœur anciennement forgé et l'incite à se briser." which is long winded as fuck but that feels like louis' speed. anyway that's a shakespeare quote translated to french which i do Not speak fluently enough to be sure im doing it right so here's the english: give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.

this is a photo one of louis' victims (it does not matter who) took of him. maybe this is in new orleans idk i just know what louis whispers in my ear from the astral plane. anyway louis was doing his usual flirty shtick and showing his date (victim) of the night some of his photos and they asked to take one of him. louis keeps the photo because it reminds him of lestat and it makes him feel sick to think he had a piece of lestat in him and he didn't even realize until he saw himself from someone else's eyes. he ends up hanging it up in their house in dubai and doesn't explain to armand why he likes the photo so much and why he's hanging up a picture of himself in their shared home. he doesn't know how to explain that he doesn't have any photos of lestat and this is as close as he can get and having photos of claudia and claudia's things hung up without anything of lestat's makes him sick to his stomach because all he ever wanted was a happy family just like his sister's and he feels like if he just did a better job of keeping lestat and claudia happy he could've had that

this is post-turning era for sure. daniel is doing promo stuff for interview & him and armand are attached at the hip + armand is a mischevious little scamp so it's a very short leap for people to realize that the "rashid" from interview and the "rashid" daniel molloy is real-life "sugar daddy-ing" are the same person. armand ends up telling people they changed real rashid's name to protect his privacy and daniel named the character after him bc he's a closeted romantic. daniel absolutely resents this implication and protests it heavily but unfortunately when you're being defensive over allegedly being sappy towards the guy paparazzi have photos of you tonguing on the subway the people are not inclined to believe you are telling the truth. anyway this is an online interview daniel was giving and armand was puttering around the apartment in the background (bc hes a motherfucker & he knew exactly what would happen) until the interviewer asks if daniel can call "rashid" over to answer a few questions. they have like. two. for him. it's mostly just content farming bc every time daniel & "rashid" are being gay on film it gets 7 billion retweets (half of which are accusing daniel of being a cradle robber but ah well all press is good press). "rashid" answers the questions and then sits in on the rest of the interview just gazing at daniel and occasionally piping up to be pedantic and correct something

this is a picture that got taken at some event armand dragged daniel to. possibly staff were taking pictures of all the guests as a momento. armand mussed hair + tits out at formal event are bc these homos were making out in the back of the cab on the way over. armand can just. make the cab driver ignore them. and daniel Loves to take advantage of this fact. anyway i think we can all agree armand likes to dress daniel up like a barbie doll However daniel holds onto his ratty ass t-shirts with every fiber of his being and armand loves to indulge him so they settle on a blazer over the t-shirt. armand is whispering to me from the astral plane that this is some kind of party(?) in which case they're sneaking off like. halfway through the night. to go make out in the first unoccupied room they can find. and then also in the cab on the way back to daniel's. and then also in daniel's apartment for a couple hours. i think armand is honestly more into kissing and making out than he is sex bc that's something that happened very rarely (if at all) at the brothel so it is something that's uniquely His and He gets to make all the rules and figure out what he likes to do and he doesn't have to deal with pre-conceived notions (and ptsd symptoms)

i think louis is pretty open about being the same louis from interview, so he gets a decent chunk of publicity for it. he goes on tour with lestat i think & he picks photography back up in a big way taking photos for his concerts HOWEVER he also takes a lot of photos of lestat just around the tour bus and in dressing rooms and wherever else he can get lestat to sit still long enough bc there's a part of him that's still afraid he's just hallucinating lestat & if he has pictures of him he can prove that lestat is real and he's still there. at some point some reporter ends up getting like a behind-the-scenes of the TVL tour & they have to cut out like an hour of footage of louis painstakingly showing them every photo he's ever taken of lestat. that is his sweet baby angel and you WILL sit down and let him pull out the photo album

daniel announces he's gonna write a book abt lestat as a sequel to interview while lestat's on tour so they end up doing some kind of promo together and they bring their velcro boyfriends. this is a reporter interrupting what is essentially a team huddle about a different vampire that is planning some kind of attack or other dastardly deed. louis was on the periphery of the bickering so he was able to hear the reporter coming up and he wasn't too caught off guard. lestat is thinking about which of their bones will make the best mantlepiece and daniel is arguing with him about it telepathically bc this picture wouldnt even have been Taken if lestat didn't drag them all over here to whisper suspiciously as hell so this is Clearly all his fault. armand is suffering. "you see what i put up with?" he asks the camera. he's waiting for a break in the daniel-lestat catfight so he can interject with a harebrained scheme

[ramblingautisticman]

So, I haven't stopped thinking about this post I did talking about Logan being terrified of Wade going quiet because of the whole Stryker-sewing-his-mouth thing, so naturally I wrote a lil angsty thing for it.

(Also posted it to A03 here!)

(Also, @icarusredwings hope you enjoy, cause your little reblog of my post kind of inspired this lol!)

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

It's this constant fear. This constant nagging in the back of his head. Logan can't help it.

Normally, he's fine. Wade is practically talking every minute of every day, but on the rare occasions he doesn't, it catches him out.

Wade doesn't need to know that though. Wade doesn't need to be burdened with more of his own stupid hang ups than he already is. So what if some of his nightmares are more focused on Wade than they are his X-Men? No one but him needs to know that.

Logan just subtly makes sure Wade is fine, reminds himself that "Stryker is dead Peanut, trust me. You made sure of that." and moves on with his day. Mostly. Usually.

And okay, yeah, maybe he should tell Wade. Maybe Wade has a right to know about what happened to the 'other' him. Maybe Logan wants to tell him purely for his own stupid reasons. Maybe he wants Wade to know that Logan won't ever let anyone do that to him. Not this time.

He can't bring himself to tell him though- instead just keeps it buried inside like most of his other trauma- and it works for awhile.

Up until Wade gets a cold and loses his voice.

It's fine. It's totally fine. He is totally fine. Logan definitely hasn't been staring at Wade's mouth just to make sure it's still there. He definitely hasn't woken up terrified and sweating because of the nightmares happening more often. He definitely hasn't had a panic attack because Wade couldn't respond to him. No. Not him. Never.

He could deal with it. Wade was just sick. It was his stupid shitty healing factor working over time to stop the cancer, and as a result he had a cold. It was fine. People got colds. People lost there voice. It wasn't the same. Stryker hadn't done this. He still had his mouth. He could still make noise- hell- he could still speak! It was just alittle croaky and quiet.

Logan knew it really shouldn't get to him this much. After all this time, he should be able to move on from that stupid shit, right? He was over 200 years old, he was grown ass man, he shouldn't be hovering near Wade to make sure he is still breathing out of his mouth. He shouldn't be sitting so close to him on the couch just to hear the tiny mutters he makes. He shouldn't be glaring at his mouth just to make sure he still fucking has one.

He knows this Wade- the Wade that saved him- never went through the Stryker bullshit, and he knows that should comfort him. He knows that should fill him with relief, and in a way it does. It means he never had the one thing he holds so dear taken away from him. It just also means that- that could still happen- couldn't it?

Sure, Stryker was dead, but that didn't mean anything. Laura was still made in a lab and experimented on. Wade was still tortured and traumatised. Just because the guy that started all this shit wasn't around anymore, didn't mean it still didn't happen. Logan couldn't help but think that, any day, someone was going to come and take Wade away. Someone was going to hurt him in a way he wasn't sure he could fix.

Wade wouldn't be Wade without his mouth. He was called 'The Merc With A Mouth' for a reason. Wade's whole thing was talking. He loved making his family laugh and using stupid pet names and telling Logan all about the lore of his favourite show. He loved reading to Al and helping Laura with her drama class. He loved coming up with quick comments and snarky remarks while he killed assholes on missions. Wade just wouldn't be the same if he couldn't talk. Logan knew that all to well- and the though that one day, it might still happen? It just didn't sit right with him.

Even after Wade's healing factor fully kicked back in again. Even after Wade was back to rambling about cartoon dogs and his latest mission. Even after Wade had killed someone with a stupid joke. Even after he started making gross sexual remarks again.

Logan still woke up from nightmares terrified that the Wade he was laying next to had a scar tissue covered mouth. Logan still had panic attacks where the only thing to sooth him would be Wade's soft voice. Logan still subconsciously found himself staring at Wade's mouth- just incase. Logan still hated when Wade was quiet while watching a movie or eating something.

He wasn't sure he would ever get over it. Not fully. He would probably get better with the nightmares, grow used to them in a way he had with the others that frequented his mind, but he would still make sure. Double checking.

He would get used to Wade going quiet when he focused on a show or if he had a mouth full of food, but his eyes would still drift to his lips, making sure they were still there.

He would be okay with Wade sometimes loosing his voice, but it would still send a wave of panic over him. It would still make him lean in alittle closer so he could make sure Wade was breathing through his mouth or muttering something.

Wade would probably never know, Logan would probably never tell him, but he would get better. He would remember that this Wade hadn't been touched by Stryker faster when he woke up. He would settle quicker as Wade mutterd a quiet "I got you baby" as he wrapped an arm around him. He would find comfort in the fact that this Wade- his Wade- would never shut up.

No matter how hard anyone tried.

[jaggedamethyst]

…look for the light

joel miller x f!reader | 2.7k

pairing: joel miller (tlou) x fem reader

content: you're tired of hearing that old slogan from the fireflies...but maybe you should give it a chance.

notes: 18+ minors dni, eventual smut for the girlies (smfh + side eye) also unprotected in the heat of the moment unfortunately…dont be like them! angst because it's my specialty, mental health depictions (illusions to death, depression, etc. do not read if that's a serious trigger) this takes place in the time jump between tlou 1 and tlou 2…tons of existential crisis otw, grief, everything unfortunately…and i still don’t believe in proofreading

also this is the longest i've written so far...of course it involves joel too...hashtag need that.

 ࿐ ࿔*:·ﾟ🍂🌿༄。°          ° 。༄🌿🍂·ﾟ*࿔ ࿐

You hadn’t arrived in Jackson on your own. At the time, you were one of a family of four. As time passed, the number dwindled along with your will to live. Back when everything was normal--or as normal as it could’ve been in a world that corrupt, you saw a therapist. You knew it was in their career description to listen. It helped sometimes, others it didn’t. Overall, though, you’d say they’d done a shit job if at the first sign of loss, you wanted to cease to exist. 

When you weren’t overthinking, you found yourself on patrol. It became ironic that you rejoiced at the sight of a fresh dead body. Knowing that the person before you had made a mistake you could now avoid lit a small fire in you. The flame didn’t last long though, quickly blown out every day with a speed just as fast as its ignition. 

To be candid, there was this guy. Well, this man. You couldn’t do him the injustice of calling him anything but a man. You saw him often--sometimes to himself, others with this girl. No matter the circumstance, though, he rarely spoke. You liked that. Something about people who acknowledged their capability to not speak made you extremely happy. Silence is a valid option. 

As an observer, you learned his name was Joel, the girl Ellie. They’d arrived about the same time as you, which explained the lack of interaction. This was, of course, aside from glances, the fake half-ass smiles you exchanged, and your time on patrol together. 

Unfortunately, he was the worst. It absolutely burned you up. That, and the fact that even when he annoyed you, you wanted to have extremely private time with him. 

The first time you actually spoke, he’d found you by a stream. You didn’t know he was showing the girl, Ellie, something that day. But as you lay with your eyes closed, taking in the sunlight--a shadow cascaded over you. 

You opened one eye to see who’d stepped in the way. Before you could get a word out, he spoke, “You from Jackson?”

“Who’s asking?” You created a sort of visor over your eyes with your hand. 

He huffed, “someone from Jackson.” 

Resuming your position on the ground, you spoke, “You some sort of Jackson cop? You seem like the cop type.” 

He scoffed. You realized he did that a lot, not speaking, making annoyed sounds. Not answering questions directly. 

“You should get back.” 

With a quirked brow, you replied, “I’m good, thanks.” 

“Wasn’t really a question.”

“Didn’t say it was.” 

By this point you’d opened your eyes again, surveying the man. You kind of felt bad for being snippy but honestly, he interrupted your “alone with my thoughts” time. Some people can cope without thinking of the same incidents in a constant loop. Not you--you liked the hurt. It reminded you to be safe. To not trust people. 

Even in that position, though, you observed the man. He looked rough, but in a way that motioned toward experience. There were hints of gray in his hair, yet he didn’t look old. His shirt was slightly opened, tattered. The sheen of sweat covering him made him all the more alluring in the sunlight. 

“Are you gonna get the hell up and get a move on or what?” 

You didn’t know him at the time, or that he was trying to surprise Ellie on her birthday. Even worse, that on this day, he’d thought of his daughter. He was coping. Anyone or anything out of place was shattering the amazing plan he had made to go a day without feeling like a disappointment. 

He didn’t know that your “alone with my thoughts” time often consisted of thinking of your family. You’d willed yourself to shut your eyes tight, picturing those you lost; it was the only time you could see them. If you got lucky, you could dream of them. If you were unlucky, you’d see images of their mangled bodies. 

It seemed that even awake, your luck was the fucking worst. 

With swift and silent movements, you stood and turned to leave. Avoiding eye contact was the only way to hide the tears prickling in your eyes. 

“Dude,” a young voice called out, “you hurt her feelings!”

“Fuck, I didn’t mean to, Ellie!” 

Like you said, he was the worst. But you definitely took it to the next level at every opportunity. 

That’s how you found yourself on patrol with Joel giving him the silent treatment. It was customary at this point. If you two went alone, he would bark out orders, you’d follow if you felt like it. If someone else happened to be there, you two would rely on an unspoken rule to only speak to them and not one another. It worked…until today. 

Entrapment wasn’t a new feeling for you. Often on patrol specifically, you would have to maneuver your way out of dangerous positions to return. But the realization of there being nobody to return to hit you today. So even when Joel and Jesse said to stay back, you proceeded. It was a miracle none of you three were bitten or worse. Your reckless act left the trek back to Jackson completely silent. 

When you reached the gate safely, Jesse spoke first. It was obvious he was shaken up but even more annoyed with you. “Kinda fucked up you did that. Did you even consider that you would put me and Joel in danger?” 

“Nobody told you to follow me, to be honest.” 

“I don’t give a fuck! When we leave, we work together… or we don’t go.” 

Joel shook his head silently, observing the way Jesse continued to rip into you. You continued the back and forth until Jesse hit extremely low. 

“Look, I know you lost people…I remember them-”

You spoke over him, a finger out in warning, “Don’t-” 

“And just because you feel like there is no worth left in your sorry ass life, doesn’t mean I wanna die right now. Not for you. Not on a stupid patrol mission.” 

It felt like he punched you. Square in the face. The way your breath left you was unlike anything you’d ever experienced. Not since the day you realized your entire family was gone. As a result of that day, you grew accustomed to silent walks back to your house. You got used to the sounds your house made between the silence. 

You didn’t hear Joel’s faint footsteps and persistent calls to you as he followed behind. It wasn’t until the unusual sound of your door not immediately closing behind you that you turned around to see him there. 

“You didn’t even stop him, you just stood there like you always do!”

His signature sigh and no response. Just a sort of expectant look on his face. 

“Get. Out. Please.” 

You begged him to leave, your voice breaking. It was somewhere in the midst of you slowly falling toward the floor that he reached you. He knew what you were experiencing right now. The dull panging in your body, a faint scream at you, and a feeling that of anyone it should’ve been you to go, not your family. 

He didn’t want to admit that he recognized the bubble of sadness around you, as he’d be forced to acknowledge his own. The least he could do was to comfort you in a way he had yearned for when he lost Sarah. When he lost Tess. When he thought Tommy was gone. But he failed, as he always did, crying with you. 

He urged you to quiet your sobs, “It’s okay, shhh.” 

His attempts at soothing you were a sort of reassurance to himself--that it was okay. It could be okay. He eventually grasped your face, too, forcing you to look at him. He wanted you to believe him, despite the lack of conviction in his voice. The eye contact shocked you both. You had never seen the man cry let alone been this close to him. From a distance, it's easy to think that any dark-colored eye is just black but his…

“Brown…” You mumbled incoherently. 

“What?”

“Your eyes. I’ve never really looked at ‘em.” 

He was confused, “yeah, brown.” 

“It's just that, it's easy to overlook things…” when you’re so stuck in the past, you wanted to say. But you left it. You had a feeling he understood. 

It was hard to not lean into his touch, even harder to not want to be near him. He noticed you staring, but there was still so much left unsaid. Thinking about it, he never really allowed himself to carry out a conversation with you. But there was an unspoken attraction between you. It was easy to minimize said attraction to one where you needed each other. It was suffice to say that it was more tantamount to the way particles were reliant on one another. Even more, the way symbiosis occurred. Despite the urge to push one another away, you knew that you did, in fact, need each other. 

If not for a long time, at least for now. 

Without a word, you pushed up a bit, meeting your lips with his. He was obviously taken aback; there was so much behind the kiss…but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

You pulled at his shirt, that damned shirt he always liked to wear. Always opened slightly, but never enough to give you what you needed.

“Can I?” You broke the kiss and motioned toward the buttons, breaking eye contact for a second. 

Joel let out a characteristic sound, affirming you, “Mhm, yeah…” 

You moved your hands lower, stopping at the close of his top. “Are you sure?” 

The man understood you. The shirt acted as a sort of metaphorical barrier between the two of you. As much as it scared the both of you to cross that line, there was an unspoken respect for one another. 

He noticed your apprehension, bearing the task of taking down that wall for you both. 

Joel unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, intentional in his action. 

He watched you shiver, “I haven’t…I want…I mean-” 

That same alluring stare maintained its gaze at you, Joel allowing you the time to process and say what you wanted to. 

“I want to feel…be close to you. Not because I want to use you or something…I just,” You searched for words that seemed to escape you. 

His words interrupted your thought process, a gentle but calloused hand returning to your face. 

“You don’t have to have a reason. Use me.” 

That was enough to make you attack him full force. You’d thought of each other so long that there was an urgency. There wasn’t time for niceties or the pleasantries of preparing yourself for him. You just wanted each other immediately. 

The trail of clothing that led to your room was something out of one of those old movies you watched. Before everything went to shit. You allowed yourself a smirk at the thought--Joel hot on your trail. 

Joel observed how clean your place was. He was one to keep tidy, too. Not for the thought of expecting someone, but for lack of people except him. There were few things he held near and dear, so a large space like his home was often unused save for his bed and couch. It seemed you echoed this thought, and that made him even more eager. Knowing you had so much in common made him insatiable.

You found yourselves kissing again, seeking comfort in each other. It was sweet and slow. You couldn’t handle it, the lack of him. 

“Joel, please,” you backed towards the bed. Now fully available for him. With you demanding everything be so structured to protect yourself these days, you were willing to let go for once. 

He didn’t say anything, he never did. But the way he hovered over you, maintained eye contact and pushed into you said enough. 

His pace was somewhere between painfully slow and slower. He felt your wetness, the way you were ready for him already, and it made him harder. He knew he wouldn’t last long if he went any faster. 

You reached up, pushing the hair out of his face. It was a distraction from how good it felt, even the purposely slow pressure, but you wanted more. 

You bucked up into him. He hissed and grunted in your ear, that’s new. 

The southern drawl was even more apparent on the man. “Shit. I’m tryin’ to…make it last,” his head met your shoulder, breath against your skin. “Cant.” 

“Don’t.” 

You couldn’t see his face, but you figured a look of surprise flashed there. It only took a second for him to pick up the pace. Those grunts filled the room; his wordless communication was now music to your ears. 

You continued that way for not much longer--but the high was unlike any other. He reached down to rub between you, making sure you’d finish. The thought of him caring about you in that way and the pointed pressure of his strong hands doing so was enough to make your body pulse against him. 

He pushed you back down, keeping you still, “Don’t move, baby.” 

It was a lot. 

His movements became even more erratic, but it felt so damn good. 

“Where should I?” 

You arched a brow, “You want a little Joel running around here somewhere?” 

He chuckled, so sweetly, too. Fuck. 

“Wow, even full like this you still got a mouth on ya. I’m gonna work on that.” 

He pulled out suddenly, and before you could even complain, latched his mouth onto you until he finished and your voice went dry from calling out his name. 

Okay…

The usual urge to freshen up never came. The smell of Joel was all over you, and you liked it that way. You breathed in and out, processing what happened, fighting to stay awake. The sound of the man’s snores was enough to keep you awake in itself. 

It wasn’t until you heard the snores stop and Joel stirring that you spoke again.

“I’m sorry.” 

Joel turned his head toward you, clearly still half asleep, “For?” 

“For that day, in the woods, when we first met. I was mean.” 

“I understand. A random guy shows up asking questions. You get defensive. It happens to the best of ‘em.” 

There was silence. One long enough that Joel sat up to get out of bed--you stopped him when you spoke. 

“I was thinking of my family,” a pause, and with it, your eyes burned a bit. “I don’t know why I act the way I do. I don’t know why I’m… harsh. Part of me thinks it's because they are always looking at who I have become and are so disappointed. The other part of me thinks that they don’t see me at all…or that they can’t…that there’s nothing more after this. I dunno which feels worse but I know it drives me fucking crazy.” 

He silently reached for your hand, deliberate in his response. “I like to think that the big moments we share with the people we lose are more important than anything after.” He nodded, assuring himself before continuing. “Good or bad, their memory only survives as long as we are thinking of them.” He paused to look toward his wrist, almost out of muscle memory. “Our families may not be here, but even mentioning them proves that they were real. I know my baby girl was real, I can’t fail her by going on like she wasn’t.” He inched closer to you, “If it takes me being sad to know that there was someone I loved here before, I’ll stomach it any day.” 

You nodded slightly. 

“Thanks.” 

A hum resonated from him, and he made his way out of your house. He was elusive as always, and definitely just as attractive..if not more so now. But his words stuck with you. 

That stupid catchphrase from the Fireflies…you’d heard it often. The aftershocks of the group persisted even after they’d slowly dwindled in numbers. When you’re lost in the darkness…

Wiping your eyes, you pulled the covers back a bit more. A lot of time had passed, but for the first time in a while, you didn’t feel like it was ripped from you. 

After a few minutes, the Sun started to rise, heat emanating from your window. You felt the warmth slowly reach your face--closing your eyes. 

For once, you’d look forward to sleep, and even more, the possibility of dreaming.

[whatiswhump]

I absolutely adore your blog, always my go to for my whumpy needs. I would love a genuinely mental illness guy with erratic behaviour have an intervention and subsequently hospitalised with genuine caretakers. Of course with all the restraints and drugging.

It had been raining for days. Raining and raining and raining. Even in his dreams now. He had been having dreams about drowning.

…So maybe nightmare was a better name for what was happening.

He hadn’t been going to classes lately either. The emails were adding up in the inbox, texts too. He would respond eventually, just not now. Not now. There was too much to do.

And there was just so much rain. He couldn't breathe.

One shrouded morning, or early night? There was a knock at his door. He’d been ignoring those. He ignored this one too. But it got louder, more insistent. There was a voice too. Yelling at him to come out.

He went to his window, suspicious and annoyed. Outside there were police officers. One was still yelling.

They were here to arrest him? It had to be it, why else?

They finally realized what he was working on was important. Inconvenient. So very inconvenient. But this was inevitable, he knew.

One glanced over to the window and spotted him, then the rest did too. He darted out of view, heart racing. They were coming to get him, the recognition in their eyes was clear enough evidence to support the conclusion.

He ran to the back into the kitchen and didn’t bother to put shoes on or change his dressing gown for a slicker. Instead bursting out to the back garden and into the downpour. Taking the gate would surely mean being spotted so he knew he’d have to go over the wall. He began to scale it but suddenly, heart stoppingly, there were hands on him. Holding him- dragging him down.

How had they pursued him so quickly?

“Leopold! You’re not in trouble! Just calm down, we need to speak with you!”

He writhed and fought, he tried to land a fist on any of his attackers but they were too strong, they pulled him down and pinned him to the ground.

“He’s not going to go without a fight.” Someone grumbled.

“Tell ems we’re gonna need their help. This one’s a case alright.”

Now he was surely going to drown, they were holding him down, the grass was soaked, sloshing. They were going to kill him. He began to fight harder.

“Leopold, calm down! We are here to help, this is a wellness visit!”

They knew his name.. if they knew that what else did have filed on him?

They kept speaking but he was consumed with trying to free himself, even as it seemed more impossible with every second of their unrelenting pressure.

Suddenly something sharp bit him. He cried out and he- he became slower, sluggish. God, they poisoned him.

“Leo, buddy. The medic just gave you a sedative, it’s going to help you calm down so we take you to a good place. A place to help you.”

Hands were heaving him up, he wanted to fight but it was all gone. He could barely squint to keep the rain out of his eyes.

“Shit, he’s bleeding.”

“He’s a mess,” A casual officer commented, “Pity who’s gonna have to clean him up. Can smell you a mile away through the rain too, christ almighty.”

“Doesn’t feel like he’s eaten in months- good thing his friends called-” A voice next to him said in light reply.

“Alright lads, comments to a minimum, he’s still awake. Let’s get him to the car.”

They loaded his dead weight into the back seat of a car and two people sat on either side of him. He absently noticed they were covered in mud too. And his feet were bare. Why didn’t he have any shoes on?

Then suddenly he was being lifted out of a car. A woman was saying his name. Where were his shoes?

-

He woke very slowly. The first thing he was aware of was something in his nose. He tried to rub at it but his hands were caught on something, and one of them stung when he shook them harder, fighting what was holding them, panic constricting his throat.

“Leo, dear- Leo, calm down now” A face appeared above him, lined and warm, but clearly concerned.

“Whea-” He tried to demand answers, but all that came out was a slur.

“It’s okay honey, you’re being taken care of, you’re getting help- You can relax,” She reached out to hold his face and terrified he jerked back, only to be met with a downy pillow blocking his retreat.

“He’s gonna need more haldol, gonna pull out the tubes otherwise…” A different voice said out of view.

He was crying again and couldn’t breathe. This had to be a nightmare.

“Oh- it’s okay honey, I know this is frightening but you’re okay,” A hand was passing a syring to the woman in his eye sight, “I’m just gonna give you something that’ll help, you’ll be okay-”

Oh my god, she was going to poison him, that’s what the needle was for, she’d jab it right into his heart while he was pinned here!

But instead she… she went to a hanging bag of liquid and injected it into there instead… He didn’t understand- he didn’t-

-

“Your friend called local services, they were concerned about you. Said you hadn’t spoken to anyone in weeks, didn’t seem to be eating or sleeping either. The officers were simply stopping by on a wellness visit. Do you understand why they had to bring you here?”

They had him pinned again, tying him down like an animal. How could he speak to someone like this? Let alone someone with manufactured sympathy with an act to distract him from what was really happening.

“Leo do you understand why the police brought you here?”

He glared at the woman in the worn out polyester suit, “No- I don’t know! This can’t be legal!” Tears were threatening his bleary eyes again. He had been brutally kidnapped but his captors only wanted to speak in hushed voices and practiced looks of worry.

“You were severely dehydrated, incredibly emaciated, probably not eating on a regular schedule for some time now. You were dangerously close to perishing if the police hadn’t intervened. And these are just the physical implications.”

“I was fine.” He grumbled without looking at the woman.

“Leopold, at the moment, with the information we have, we have to treat this as a psychotic episode, some of my colleagues would describe it as a ‘break’. Do you know what that means?”

“You just want me to think I’m insane- you all do. I was on the brink of something very important before I was kidnapped and brought here to be tied down and drugged. I-“

“What were you working on?” She redirected, crossing her legs and smiling slightly, she spoke as if he were her elementary aged child coming in from recess.

He went silent. He wouldn’t give them any information and he sure as hell wouldn’t eat or drink anything they gave him.

If they killed him via injection or the nasogastric tubes, at least it wouldn’t be by his own hand.

“I hope soon you feel comfortable to exchange more information with me. The sooner that happens, the sooner we can help you. In the meantime we will work to stabilize you and get you back to feeling more like yourself.”

“Myself? How do you know what that looks like? You don’t know me.”

“No I don’t, but I’d like to get to know you.”

Oh he understood it now, they were keeping him alive only to get valuable information first. That was smart he conceded. He had a lot of information that he was certain they wanted.

“We’ll keep sending meals and snacks over in case you’re in the mood for anything. For now, we will have to continue the NG tube and IV. The second you start eating and drinking those can go away, do you understand?”

Again, the kindergartner approach, why did she have to keep asking if he understood?

“You won’t get anything from me. It’s only a matter of time before you realize that and execute me.”

The woman pursed her lips ever so slightly and adjusted her sitting position. Small signs, Leo knew, that indicated her annoyance. She was good but not that good.

“Leopold, I’m going to let you rest. Please consider what I mentioned. Consider the possibility that we are here to help.”

In a moment the woman was gone and he was alone with his tubes and wires again.

How long, he wondered, until they discovered what he already knew? How long until they marched him to a shooting line or slipped something into his IV once they understood he’d be of no use to them?

If they wanted to play this game of concerned caregivers, perhaps he could play too- buy himself some time to plan an escape. He knew he at least had to try.

[brundollyy]

Love. ps y/n

cowgirl!reader x jjmaybank

You had grew up in Southern Texas and learned a lot from your dad. Every day was great and every month your family had a festival with dancing, singing and horse riding lessons. It was fun every month but this month was different, You were drinking root beer and selling tickets so everyone can get in and there were only 5 left and there was this boy “hey, just one ticket please?” you look up from your drink and sat it down “of course” you say as you sign the ticket and grabbed a wristband “can i see your wrist please?” he gives you his wrist as you put it on his arm he smiles “have a good time, and if you need anything you can ask me” he smiles “thanks” after all the tickets got sold you were just watching after had got done cowboy dancing you were getting bored fast and you didn’t know why. “Hey?” you look at the same boy from earlier “oh hey!, did you need something?” you asked with a smile “no no no i’m fine but i was wondering what’s you name?” you look at him and take your hat off “my name is Y/N, what about you?” he smiles and scratches that back of his head and grins “JJ…JJ Maybank” you smile “so…jj are you having a good time at the festival?” you start walking towards the barns and of course he follows behind “yeah it’s pretty cool in Texas where they have these festival and shit” you look at him “really?, don’t other countries or cities do that?” you look at him with confusion, he chuckles “no, at least not mine and i live in Outer Banks but they only have festivals for those bitch ass kooks” your slightly widened at his words “oh, is kook a groups of people or a person or-“ he cut off real fast “ their like rich ass kids that get whatever they want, like stuck up little brats” you guys finally made it to the barn, you open the barn door “you know how to ride a horse?” you as you sat down on a chair snide the barn, he gets out of his thoughts “no…do you?” you nod and smile “of course, ever since i was 5” his eyes widened “five! that’s way to young, you have to shitting me right now?” you giggle “no i’m serious” he takes his hat off and sits next to you and looks at you for a while “your pretty..” and that’s when your heart started beating every five seconds and you could feel your cheeks turning red and and this warmth in your stomach. “thank you…” he smiles softly “i’m in Texas for a few days, you know maybe we should hang out” you nod “mhm…” and that’s when it all started You and JJ hanging out everyday until it was time for him to leave and it was like everyday you had someone other than your dad to talk to about your feelings and about your problems.

Today, JJ was meeting your parents and brothers but before that happened you and him went to go hang out at a park and you were making bracelets for him, “so have you ever been anywhere else but Texas?” you look at him “no… I love it here” he looks at you and clicks his tongue and stands up. You look at him “where are you going?” you follow him “you see the sunrise?” you nod at his words “yes, what about them” he takes a deep breath and speaks again “wouldn’t it be a good idea to have your first kiss here?” you look at him and you really looked at him to see if he was joking “your dead serious or your just joking around” he smile and takes your hand “i’m serious, i mean y/n your the most prettiest, creative, and amazing girl i’ve ever met and you make me feel loved and that i can trust you and i wanna make you feel all those things too” your heart warms at his words and your started to beating again but faster than last time “then, yeah you can take my first kiss” that’s all he needed was confirm and he was ready, his lips met yours and it was slow and passionate, his hand met your waist and the other to the back of your head, he pulled away with a grin and you bite your lip, “…woah… that’s was…very passionate” you say still stunned, he smiles and looks down, and looks back up at her and grabs something out his pocket “you know y/n for the 6 days i’ve spent with you, it was like the most important moments of my life and i want to keep them” he pulls out a ring and looks at her “she freezes in her tracks. you were kinda shocked but happy and jj was the most important moment in your life, he was handsome, funny, and a gentleman “is….that a no…” you snapped back to reality “yes!…yes please…” he looked at you and smiles, he picked you up as you giggled “jj put me down!” he puts you down and grabs the ring and puts it on your left index finger “i’m officially your girlfriend…” he looks at you and kisses you again “Mmm” you hum in kiss. And that’s the day when you fell in Love. ps y/n

[nicomrade]

whats up with ur thing with bones guy

see this is awesome cuz i have no way of knowing if this is asked knowing who bones guy is or just generally asking what the fuck im on about and thats a beautiful thing to me. bones guy disambiguation page right now lets go.

not to be confused with nameribone ("mr.boneman who loves bones") of usogui fame, bones guy is a character from hit podcast eidolon playtest poprock aka norman mason and its actually unclear if he does or doesnt "love bones". hes named after the killers song bones but that literally does not even matter.

the point of bones guy is hes lame and he sucks. and hes barely even in the podcast. and the scenes hes there for he barely even matters in. dudes some kind of skeleton ghost so to speak. the most screentime he has is in an AU where he makes a sentient trex skeleton out of himself for fun. which might make you think he has a personality or character traits but literally not the case. he drinks expired milk and its not even his quirk like he likes gross food he just needs the milk functionally to regrow lost bones and isnt picky about it i guess. whats wrong with him? dude can control his bones outside of his body at will and beat people up with them but theres a reason peoples bones are usually on the inside. its kind of really fucking bad when your bone is outside as it turns out. so he turns into a boneless gloop pile on the floor once and gets immediately shot to death (easy, no bones) and harvey d godlove showers with his blood which makes the death sound badass but it really was not

hes no ones favorite and no one cares that much about him both in- and out of-fiction cause hes just kind of gross with no depth or nothing there which is why i like him. also i picture him really decrepit in a trenchcoat and possibly a lame hat like maybe he thinks he looks a little cool but it just makes it a billion times worse. the deal with bones guy is i like a one-off antagonist that dies and no one cares. he shot a gun by propping his foot bone on his leg bone. that was his idea. he also remote-controlled a sniper rifle that way but that didnt go super well for him either. he teams up with another superpowered killer who makes a pretend illusion pretzel crate franchise out of salt in which bones guy RPs as a regular customer and orders a glass of milk. which he successfully drinks. which implies he made his coworker play house with him and pour him a glass of milk (that theyd have to have brought from somehwere else) through a fake illusion salt waiter. that shit was lukewarm to hot on the account of the fridges are also fake. the glass was also real so they prepared that also. and he drank it normalstyle. didnt even do it to regrow bones he just did it for the RP. its a little gap moe if u think about it?

theres a milk bar in the podcast where dead people sometime show up and i swear im not joking he never ever ever ever appears in it ever. hes so lame and unliked the guy-who-drinks-milk never haunts the infinite milk bar. it slaps. i enjoyed spending a whole two seasons going "heres how bones guy can still win" and "rip bones guy you wouldve loved the neutral milk hotel" and this never paying off. i want bones guy to have as little screen time in everything ever as possible. i want him 3 blurry pixels in the background of a single piece of merch and nothing more. thats what fits him the best.

[majesty-z]

First draft of my fic that I don't want to delete. This is the second chapter but in Ace's POV. Originally, it was in the first chapter but. Kept making me laugh. So I switched POVs to try and combat it and it worked!

(<1k btw.)

-~•~-

Ace gave Luffy a faint, reassuring smile. It didn't seem to have worked though, as Luffy's face scrunched up and he turned to frown at the man.

Ace glanced at him and had to do a double take. The blank look from earlier was gone. Now, he looked heartbroken as if seeing ghosts. Was he...?

“Who the hell are you?” Luffy yelled out. Glaring, he walked closer to Ace so they stood side by side.

“Luffy!” Ace couldn't help the reprimand leaving his lips.

The man just smiled and shook his head. “It's alright.” His voice was different from before. Strained and soft. “Please, don't fight. It's the first time I'm seeing you like this, you know?” It didn't resemble Sabo's but voices changed. It has also been a decade since Ace's even seen or heard his brother.

What was he thinking? His brother? Him?

The sight of that man was quickly making his blood boil. “Come on,” he said to Luffy, “let's go.” The blond was confusing him. There weren't any talks of ghosts or paranormal activities on this island.

That man looked like Sabo, had years old scars that could explain a possible survival, and wielded a pipe. And yet he acted strange.

Ace was sure they hadn't consumed any weird stuff but hallucinations weren't off the table yet. He had never seen a grown up Sabo before. It hurt to see what could've been. Over the years, the ghost of his brother stopped haunting him and Luffy, but Ace never forgot.

How high were the chances of meeting like this?

Not-Sabo smiled tiredly. “It was good seeing you. Ace, Luffy,” he said their names in farewell.

His heart sank.

“Sabo?” It was spoken breathlessly. Ace felt unsteady as if the earth could crumble underneath his feet. No, no. Everyone knew their names, it didn't mean anything. Luffy stood confused next to him.

“Yes?”

His eyes burned. His heart which had been unstable this whole encounter picked up the pace. He could hear it loud in his ears, as his blood rushed.

Luffy, on the other hand, bristled. “You're not Sabo.” It was like a bucket of cold water which left Ace breathless. It made Ace's head spin. He needed to get a hold of himself.

Not-Sabo exhaled amusedly. His smile has gained a teasing edge (just like how their Sabo's used to).

“Of course, I am.” His grin was bright and full. No gap. “Who else would I be? Don't you recognise me? I guess I have changed a lot.” His gaze downcast as he raised a hand to his face. Ace flinched.

“Sabo is dead.”

Not-Sabo blinked. “So are you guys.”

Ah.

A beat, then two, then many more. They didn't dare speak. Ace's mind went blank as he stared at Possibly-Sabo.

Shit, had they died unknowingly and this was Sabo's ghost, adult edition? (Did he take over the afterlife or something? Who the hell was he talking to before?)

“Um... No?” Ace tried nonetheless. He was ninety percent sure they weren't dead.

“Um... Yes?” Possibly-Sabo repeated in that same mocky tone he used to take when they were brats. He hated it so much. The percentage dropped considerably.

They were at an impasse.

Obviously, the only thing to do was take Sabo with them and deal with it after dinner. The Sunny should still be there and if Luffy's crew also were, then that meant everyone was alive and Sabo was a fucked up hallucination. Or a ghost able to interact with the living. Luffy swiped at him and it didn't phase through so.

Speaking of his brother, he was still skeptical. What a fun reversal of personalities. Ghost-Sabo was all joys and whimsy, while Luffy stayed cynical and suspicious. What that made him, Ace didn't know.

Either way, they continued on their return to the Thousand Sunny, with a kidnapped blond in tow.

(He came willingly though he claimed needing to leave before sundown. Busy secret work, he said. Busy secret take over of the hereafter, he meant.

Ace was still suspicious. He had no problems imagining a ten year old Sabo on Hell's throne with a spiky crown and fire surrounding him as he cackled maniacally.

This grown up version of him definitely looked evil enough for it.)

Or they would've, but Luffy got antagonistic very quick. Someone using their brother's name really pissed him off. Who knew?

It didn't take long for Ghostbo to spill all his secrets to get Luffy to believe him. Ace himself wasn't sure how to feel. Ghostbo was definitely Sabo. He proved it with intricate knowledge of things long past. Ace just wasn't sure they hadn't conjured him up with their minds.

Luffy hit Ghostbo again after he voiced that out.

He sniffed soon after, and his lips wobbled and his eyes started to water — and he was crying.

Luffy had fully latched onto Sabo, limbs wrapped around his body tightly. He was still not phasing through. Sabo looked horrified, eyes wild as his arms waved about uncertainly. He sent Ace a pleading look.

Ace walked over, and hugged him.

Solid. Alive.

Oh.

Sabo was alive.

-~•~-

[averycutesalamander]

ok uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh pseudoincest under the cut again. and uh. general nsft content. see previous post for more context lol

ok. the club scene. im doing all of these snippets as regular text instead of screenshots bc there's too damn much lol.

so before you get there there's this bit:

You dress a lot sluttier than is strictly necessary. Heels, fishnets, a low-cut crop top, a tight leather jacket, a truly obscene miniskirt – the whole nine yards. The jacket is probably your favorite part; it frames your bust so perfectly that the instant you try it on, you know you'll have to keep it. You spruce it up with some colored bracelets and a bit of extra jewelry, but as a whole, it speaks for itself. …The collar is probably the most egregious part of the whole outfit. You don't get a custom name tag, though, which is comforting in the sense that it makes you feel like a little less of a freak. It could be worse. It's just to fit in. Obviously. Just to fit in.

(and i havent written it yet but trust me when i tell you that this poor man almost has a fucking stroke when he sees you JHABWJHABFJHBFJ)

so you both get there and you're doing some scouting, right. and you notice that occasionally some individual people or couples will go past this guarded door, and they all have these bracelets that have a really particular pattern. so obviously bracelet = some kinda passkey probably. he also recognizes one of the people that goes through as one of the people behind the operation, so that just confirms that the underground area is through there. so you send him off to go yoink a bracelet from somebody when they're alone, and you chill by the bar to keep an eye out. and then a guy walks up and starts chatting you up.

"You're new here, right?" the stranger asks. Your heart jumps into your throat, and your nervous laugh isn't entirely for show. "What gave it away?" "I'm here pretty often." He leans in with a smirk. "And new blood always has a particular look when they walk in here." Then, his gaze falls down to your collar, and his grin widens even further. "No leash, huh?" Your face flushes with heat at the thought, because now you're thinking about Boothill holding your leash, and holy shit, you need to cut that out right the fuck now. You laugh with no small amount of awkwardness, fiddling with your hands as you look away. "Oh, I, um… didn't think to put one on, honestly." He hums, taking a sip of his drink. "Well, hey," he begins, reaching back into his pocket. Then, to your horror, he pulls out a leather leash, black with red designs; before you can even blink, he leans forward and clips it onto your collar with all the ease of breathing. Your mortification multiplies ten times over when he twists the length of it around his wrist, forcing you closer. "Fresh meat gets freebies," he says flirtily, grinning like the cat that got the cream.

and that's when boothill gets back. and he's fucking PISSED.

"Back off," he snarls, low and dangerous, like the rumble of thunder that signals an incoming storm. "C'mon, man, we're just having a little–" Boothill grabs him by the collar, his eyes gleaming red like blood, his bared teeth glinting in the club lights. "I don't share." You swear your heart stops dead in your chest. You did not just feel a pulse in your core. You did not just have a shiver run up your spine. You are being so, so normal right now. You are having a completely normal reaction. The stranger suddenly pales, letting you go without missing a beat. "H– Hey, woah. Sorry, I just thought– With the bracelet–" Oh. Oh, fuck. Your fucking bracelets. You tug quickly at Boothill's sleeve, starting to sweat at the feeling of eyes on you. "C'mon, let him go." You feel like a cornered prey animal when he turns his gaze to you, his eyes smoldering like coals in the dim light. "You think I'm just gonna let him–" God, you want to strangle him. You grab his jacket and yank him close as you lean forward. Then, you hiss in his ear, "They think you're my dom, and they think ya wanna share me." You bite hard on your lip when he chokes, no doubt sprinting through every stage of grief just like you did only moments ago. "They probably use color codes to know if someone is down to share or not, and I'm a fuckin' moron, and I didn't think about my bracelets."

so then the two of you skitter off, feeling EXTREMELY awkward, and then. and then. and thenahbwdawjdhabwjdhab

(for some reason this part does not want to indent so just pretend it's indented)

-

You can feel the prickle of suspicious eyes on you.

Shit. Someone saw that fuck-up. Anyone legitimate would know the color codes, and the fact that you didn't calls the whole thing into question. If they give your invites a second glance, it wouldn't be difficult to cross check to confirm your identities, and at that point you can kiss that data – and probably your life – goodbye.

You can't go for the door – not while you're being watched. You need to quell suspicions, but how?

Your horrible, wretched, disgusting mind provides a single answer, and no other.

Fuck. Fuck. You're panicking. You're panicking, and you need a second to think without having to worry about looking sketchy. And in a crowded place like this, there's really only one way to get a modicum of privacy.

You spin around, grabbing Boothill by the jacket and yanking him against you, forcing him to pin you to the wall. You're almost alarmed by how easily he follows you; surely he could've resisted, right?

…Wishful thinking. It doesn't matter.

This is for the mission. For the mission. It's for the mission.

He freezes against you, his body somehow going even more rigid than it already is, then immediately starts to pull away.

"Somebody's watchin' us," you quickly whisper. "Act like– Act like you're touchin' me. If they check our invites, we're fucked."

He swallows heavily, but he obeys; your heart leaps into your throat when he crowds closer, his arms on either side of you. His hair brushes against you as he leans down, hovering over the crook of your neck. One of his hands trails down, hovering hesitantly over your hip, and you're struck by the soul-crushing realization that you're on the verge of begging him to just fucking touch you.

For the mission. For the mission.

It's for the fucking mission.

You feel like you're going to lose your mind. You can smell him, rich and masculine and damn near identical to the way it was years and years ago, and wow, you do not appreciate the fact that you can remember that so clearly. His presence is intoxicating, so heady that it leaves you dizzy. It only gets worse when he shifts, moving until his lips are hovering right beneath your jaw, and god, fucking shit, you would do fucking anything to have him bite you right now. You want to feel his hands, his teeth, his–

"This is crazy," he mutters, and you fight to restrain a shiver when the hot wash of his breath hits your skin. "I oughta just light this whole place–"

You'll choose to believe that the spike of panic that runs through you is a reasonable fear for your safety, and not rooted in something much, much worse.

"Do not blow our cover," you hiss. "You might survive gettin' shot full a' holes, but I definitely won't."

He makes a noise that seems mildly offended. "I wouldn't let ya get shot."

"Yeah, well, I'd really rather not test it." You swallow, readjusting your hands clenched in his jacket. He's so fucking warm you can feel it radiating into you despite the distance. "And if we fuck this up now, there's no way we're ever gettin' that data."

He makes a displeased sound, something close to a growl, and holy fucking god in heaven, he's right next to your ear, and the gravel in his voice just ran straight down your spine and into your core and what in the absolute fuck is wrong with you–

"You got eyes on whoever's watchin'?" he rasps, and you startle slightly when you realize that your eyes slid closed without even realizing.

Get it together. Get it together.

"Girl at the far end of the bar, fourth seat from the left." Your palms are sweating. It only gets worse when you see the stranger move. "Fuck. She's getting up."

"Where's she goin'?"

His lips just barely brush against your skin when he speaks, and for a moment, your entire thought process is completely derailed, because you swear on your life you just felt him shiver, but–

"Focus," he growls, and your core clenches so tight that you're honestly worried you're about to pass out.

Still, you obey – and you're glad you did, because your heart leaps into your throat.

Shit. Now your nerves are reasonable.

"Toward us."

"Son of a forkin' bench," he hisses. "Sorry 'bout this, kid."

You swear your heart stops dead in your chest when he reaches down, grasping both of your thighs and hauling you up against the wall like you're lighter than air. Unthinkingly, you hook your legs around his waist, and there is absolutely no reason that you should wrap around him so perfectly, with your thighs slotting snugly against his hips. Then, he presses as close as he can without actually touching you, the chill of his metal palms biting into the tender skin of your thighs in a way that's so good it transcends words.

And then he starts to move.

He doesn't touch you, but he starts to shift his hips like he's grinding into you, and holy shit you're going to die, you're going to keel over right here, your heart is going to explode in your chest and you're going to die–

The way he has to force your thighs open to avoid making contact is fucking unbelievable. Your legs are clenching involuntarily, fighting to draw him closer, to sate the ravenous hunger building in your gut – but he doesn't budge in the slightest. He's not even straining; the power imbalance is so impossibly uneven that you're practically helpless against the sheer force of his strength. He could shift your panties to the side right here and slide into you, and you wouldn't be able to stop him – wouldn't want to stop him.

You grit your teeth, frantically trying to recenter yourself, scrambling to create some facade of normalcy.

He's your uncle. He's probably twice your fucking age, and you knew him as a kid, and you thought he was hot as a teenager, and no you didn't you definitely didn't. You're normal. You're normal, and you aren't a fucking freak, and there's nothing broken in your brain and you're so incredibly normal. You aren't wet right now. You are not wet right now. Absolutely not. There is no way. Only a fucking freak would be wet right now, and you aren't a freak, so you aren't wet.

(You don't know why you're bothering to lie to yourself. You already knew the truth.)

He's your fucking uncle, and that reminder should immediately douse the fire raging in your gut, but the fact remains that it doesn't. You're burning hotter than ever, and everything you try only feeds the flames.

Even without him touching you directly, you can feel your cunt throbbing with need, aching so badly you could cry. The strangled whine that escapes your throat isn't even for show. You need him. You need him, and isn't that fucking despicable? You want him like no one you've ever wanted before. Even with the distance, you can feel the power behind every lax stroke of his hips, and all you can think about is how he'd feel sinking into you, how he'd fill you, how he'd stretch you to your limit. You want him so bad you could die, and isn't that awful? Because you'll never, ever have him.

You're in hell. You're in hell. You have the devil looming over your shoulder and between your legs and pressing in and there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and–

Suddenly, he readjusts so he's holding you up with one arm – fuck, he isn't even straining – and then snatches up your leash with his newly freed hand. You think your soul almost leaves your body when he tugs on it, just hard enough to make you jolt.

"Quit squirmin'," he growls, and you swear on your life he presses closer, because the very front of his jeans brushes against the thin fabric of your panties, a ghost of pressure against your clit. And then it happens again, just a little harder,and your vision goes white – and you're honestly, truly terrified that you just fucking came, but you didn't, and you aren't sure if that's better or worse. You worry that your teeth are going to fracture with how hard you're grinding them.

"I– I'm sorry," you hiccup, and you mean it, with your entire heart and soul. You're clenching your fists so hard in his jacket that your bones ache.

His voice makes you jump, even though he sounds substantially gentler now. "Still got eyes on her?"

You make a confused noise before you can fully process the question, and then embarrassment hits you full-force, clarity hitting you like a brick. Right. Obviously, that's… Right.

What a fucking lunatic. God, you need to get it together.

You scan the crowd as subtly as you can from over his shoulder, but you can't see her anymore, nor do you see anyone looking at you now. You're just another couple in a sea of people, unremarkable in your perversion, real or not.

"…No."

You don't fully manage to bite back a disappointed whimper when he puts you down, and your skin feels cold the moment his hands leave you.

Holy fuck, you are soaked. You can't even be demure about it. You're literally dripping down your thighs, and it's so fucking mortifying that you actually contemplate collapsing into yourself like a black hole. Get it together. Get it together.

"Let's get down there while we still can," he murmurs, and you almost jump out of your skin when his hand presses gently against your back, guiding you toward the guarded door.

-

THIS SCENE. THIS FUCKING SCENE. AFHWABFJHAWBFJAHBFHJAWFVBJAHGFVBAHWFVGAHGFVAH BLOWING MYSELF UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!