Carson’s not disappointed.
How could she be disappointed that the man she’d spent her life with was her soulmate? That’s wonderful news, surely, and she can tell Charlie is thrilled about it, so she tries her best to smile and nod along like her heart isn’t shriveling up in her chest.
“Can you believe it?” Charlie says once they’ve finished their afterlife tour and finally settled into their new eternal home. “We get to spend eternity together!”
Carson hums in agreement and tries to ignore the ache in her chest. Tries to forget that moments before they’d died together in that car accident she’d been about to ask Charlie for a divorce. It doesn’t work, of course, and she lays awake every night thinking about it.
For this to be a place of eternal joy, Carson sure is feeling stressed out.
“How about we go to dinner tonight downtown?” Charlie asks like he does every day.
He’s worried about her, she can tell, but it was a lot easier to fake happiness on Earth when she’d felt like there was a way out. There’s no way out of The Good Place. This is her forever. Everything feels a bit hopeless, knowing that.
Her afterlife doesn’t feel any brighter, in fact, until she meets Greta.
They make eye contact at the Fruits and Boots market downtime as they both reach for the same pair of leather cowboy boots at the same moment. Carson is so overwhelmed just looking into her eyes that she drops it and sprints away, not stopping until she’s safely hidden behind the banana display. She has no idea why she reacted like that and she spends the next minute berating herself for her odd reaction, only to look up in her self-flagellation to find the woman standing before her watching her with a curious look.
The woman holds out the boots.
“I’ve got a pair like these at home,” she says. “You can take them.”
They’re inseparable after that.
Being friends with Greta becomes the highlight of Carson’s afterlife. She’s happy, and Charlie’s happy, too, seeing her light up so much. She spends every moment she can with Greta. At her house, in her garden, exploring their small town together - she enjoys almost every moment she spends with her. Every moment except for when Vernon is there.
Vernon, Greta’s soulmate.
Her tall, handsome soulmate, who worked as a veterinarian in real life and now spends his days volunteering at the zoo of imaginary creatures. They make a good pairing, Vernon and Greta. They’re both so beautiful, and seeing them together makes sense to her, even if it makes her stomach ache. They probably would have clicked in their living lives had they met, though they didn’t know each other before like Carson and Charlie did.
“It’s so special,” Vernon is saying over another dinner they share, “that you guys were soulmates in and after life.”
Carson wishes the seat would swallow her up. She can feel Greta’s eyes on her.
“Yeah,” Charlie says, completely unaware of the way she’s melting into the ground. “You know, most people don’t get to spend their forever with the person they’ve always loved. We’re so lucky.”
Carson doesn’t say much else for the rest of dinner, too lost in her own thoughts. Greta doesn’t say anything either until they’re alone in the kitchen placing their dishes in the Dish Disintegrator (there’s no dish washing in the good place, after all). She tries to ignore the way Greta keeps hovering over her shoulder. Obviously Greta won’t allow that.
“You okay chickadee?” Greta asks, and Carson tries to smile.
“Oh yeah! It’s just… I don’t know. I’m fine.”
Greta nudges her.
“It’s okay to not be fine, too.”
Carson laughs too loudly, with too much force.
“What are you talking about? We’re in the good place. Everything is fine here, that’s literally the motto.”
Greta’s studying her face like she’s trying to read something. Carson feels her resolve crumble fast. Vulnerability strikes her, makes her foolish.
“Do you ever feel like they got it wrong?” she asks.
“Who?”
Carson gestures towards the living room where the men are having a charming conversation about the fishing they plan to do this weekend at the lake. Greta stares out at them, then looks back to Carson before looking at the men again. Carson can tell she understands.
“Do you ever think they got this wrong? Got us wrong?”
Greta doesn’t say anything after that, so neither does Carson.
The next morning, Carson finds a letter under her door from Greta inviting her over to help make table decor. She’s throwing a neighborhood party soon and needs to make sure everything is perfect.
Carson’s excitement at being with Greta slips away at the serious way she’s appraising her, at the way she pulls her into her home and locks the door, shuts the blinds, pushes her to the couch. Carson’s practically trembling by the time Greta sits beside her.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” Carson says, desperate fear clawing at her. “I just had too much giggle juice, you know? I just wasn’t thinking.”
Greta keeps looking at her that way that scares her even as she holds her arms open and asks,
“Can I have a hug?”
Relief washes over Carson as she pulls Greta in. She can feel how tight Greta is holding her, can feel her breath against her ear as Greta whispers,
“I think you’re right. They got us wrong.”
Carson jolts and Greta holds her tighter.
“Vernon is not my soulmate, and I don’t think Charlie is yours, either. Something’s wrong.”
“How do you know?” Carson whispers back, and she ignores the chills that breakout across her body at the feel of Greta chuckling against her ear.
“Because I’m a forking lesbian,” she whispers bitterly. “There’s something wrong with this place, and I’m gonna figure it out. Are you with me?”
Overloaded with sensations and thoughts, Carson takes so long to speak that Greta starts pulling away from the hug, but Carson pulls her more firmly into her, going so far as to press a hand to the back of Greta’s head to hold her tight against her.
“I’m with you,” she whispers back with a slight tremble in her voice. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she felt a quick brush of lips just beneath her ear.
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tales of the passerine - danny fenton being bruce wayne's first kid
okay okay. so this is like a continuation/elaboration of my oneshot/prompt i wrote about the idea that Danny was the first batkid. We have a lot of aus where he joins the family after the rest of the bats do, right? So hey! Lets shake things up a bit. Danny is the first to be adopted by Bruce Wayne.
Danny's parents and unfortunately Jazz die shortly after the events of TUE -- how so? I was gonna say an ecto-filter explosion, that would call back to the TUE explosion and trauma behind that. But lets do something new! Carbon-monoxide poisoning.
It's not too unexpected for something to break in the Fenton house, especially with the Fenton parents' questionable understanding of proper weapon handling and lab safety. The water heater broke from a stray shot by one of the weapons, and was promptly MacGyver'd incorrectly. Danny went to stay with Tucker for a guys' night, and came back to a dead silent house.
(Danny's neighbors got a very unfortunate shock when he ran to the next house over in hysterics.)
There was a lot of shuffling around with CPS, the police. People had to be called in to handle the equipment in the lab, and the GIW was rumoring to show up in aid to clearing the scene. When Danny heard of that, he immediately went and dismantled the ghost portal to the best of his abilities. He burned the physical blueprints of all his parents' inventions, their blueprints on the ghost portal, and their most dangerous weapons were destroyed beyond recognition. Anything to prevent the GIW from getting their hands on his parents' tech.
It opened up another investigation, but he was not under the list of suspects. He was placed in the care of Vlad Masters, where they then went back to the rebuilt castle mansion in Wisconsin. Danny, terrified of the future that has once passed and may do so again, shuts down in his grief. Inadvertently, he ends up somewhat repressing his ghost half. Something Vlad, who is grieving Madeline but relishing in Jack's demise and his custody of Daniel, is not very happy with.
Vlad's... gone into a bit of a mental health spiral. He's becoming increasingly possessive over Daniel, the final remnants of his friends and a liminal being like him. He doesn't like that Danny's repressing his ghost half -- both out of genuine concern as a ghost, but also because of his desire to control Danny and groom him into the perfect son. If you ever had a phase where you read Dark SBI found family fics, first off; me too bro, and second off; those are the vibes I'm thinking of.
Danny's mentally shut down from grief! And fear. He's dropped into a bad depressive state -- paralyzed with grief and the terror of the inevitable. Clockwork saved his parents because he believes in second chances, but what's the point of that when his family ended up dead anyways? Danny doesn't wanna believe that he's destined to become evil, and he's holding out onto that hope, but it's a thin line, and he feels utterly hopeless and trapped. He hasn't used his powers or ghost form since he trashed the lab, and Vlad has alarms set up to prevent him from trying to escape.
He's also unintentionally cut off Sam and Tucker -- both of whom are so scared and concerned for Danny too, and are trying their damndest to reach out to him. He keeps ignoring their texts. Danny basically haunts Vlad's manor. He goes out to eat if he has to, attends parties Vlad drags him to, and stays in his room all day if he can.
At parties, Vlad doesn't allow Danny to leave his side, or really talk to anyone -- not that Danny wants to. A product of Vlad's increasing possessiveness. Well, he almost doesn't let Danny leave his side. Danny has a habit of slipping off to hide somewhere for the parties whenever he can, and Vlad reluctantly allows it so long as he stays alone.
This becomes an advantage when eventually, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after missing for years, and holds a bright charity ball to celebrate the return. Vlad has been chomping at the bits to get his hands on Wayne Industries, and with the return of its owner there is no better opportunity to wipe out his rival. He goes, and he as normal, brings Daniel with him.
Vlad thinks Wayne will bleed his little heart out for Daniel's poor orphan sob story -- he's a fellow orphan himself, after all. He's not wrong; Wayne's little heart will bleed, just not in the way that benefits him.
Bruce sees Vlad and Danny approaching before they're even close enough to introduce themselves - and like with many of the children he will soon come to care for, it's like someone set a mirror into the past right in front of him.
Danny Fenton's suit is tailor-made for him, and despite the fact that it's his perfect size, the sag in his shoulders, the ducked down head, and the way he hunches into himself all pictures the image of a child in shoes too big for him. There's a far away, glazed over look in his eyes and grief marble-cut into the lines of his face. There's not enough makeup in the world that will hide the dark circles under his eyes.
("My nephew, Daniel Fenton." Vlad's hands are possessive on Danny's shoulders. Bruce immediately notices the way the boy tenses under his touch. "His parents passed recently, and as his godfather I was designated his guardian.")
("I'm so sorry, the loss must've been terrible.")
("Yes, carbon-monoxide poisoning caused it. Daniel was out with friends, when he came home... they had already passed.")
(Bruce immediately dislikes that Vlad shared the details of their death unprompted -- he likes it even less when Danny flinches at the reminder and hunches into himself.)
Danny runs off at some point earlier into the charity. At this point, parties are still being held at Wayne Manor (because iirc google search mentioned that was a thing at first before it was changed), so he disappears and hides in one of the empty rooms nearby. It just so happens to be the same room Bruce Wayne hides in when he needs a break from all of the socialization.
Thus begins a long, long process of trust. Bruce can't reveal his hand as being smarter than he looks, but he can be compassionate. Kindness needs no measure of intelligence. He keeps Danny company for as long as he can before he runs the risk of being found.
Rinse and repeat. Vlad insistently wants Wayne Industries, and he'll go to as many Wayne parties as he can to get his hooks into the man. The problem is that Bruce Wayne is never alone, and getting him alone is impossible. Finding him too. It's like the man never stops moving. Always talking to someone, always circling somewhere. He orbits around the room as if he isn't the sun of the Gotham Elite's solar system.
Danny's had such repetitive behavior that Vlad never thinks to believe that Bruce Wayne is disappearing to go talk to him. That "Vlad's" son is even interacting with him at all. Danny never gives him a reason to think so, and neither does Bruce.
Danny doesn't actually acknowledge Bruce until a handful of parties in, where he hands Bruce a small slip of paper he smuggled in that says; "don't trust Vlad". Danny's face stays carefully blank, but he's so tense that his hands are trembling, and he's purposely looking away from him. Bruce plasters a smile onto his face, slips the paper into his pocket, and tells him "okay".
(he's been busy with his own goals with the mafia, but he sets aside time to investigate Vlad Masters. He was holding off. Until now.)
Danny does eventually start speaking to Bruce, he's starting to really like the guy. He's starting to see a little hope, even as Vlad is starting to get more and more agitated with him the more he refuses to use his powers.
He reaches out to Sam and Tucker again, and starts trying to reconnect with them. Vlad has spyware on his phone, and he limits the amount of times he can talk to them. A weird parental control lock of some sort that leaves a time limit on how long he can talk to them for. 30 minutes. Danny doesn't tell them anything about Mr. Wayne.
Danny, slowly, wants out of here, and he's slowly gathering the motivation to do it. Vlad is genuinely scaring him -- and Danny wonders just how truthful the past-future Vlad was when he told him that Danny wanted his ghost half separate. He starts trying to come up with an escape plan.
Vlad has anti-ghost wards everywhere around the mansion, and while they're always on, they boost to full power at sunset. The doors and windows are always locked, all main exits have alarms set on them. The only reason it's not super extensive is because Danny hasn't tried leaving at all yet, so Vlad hasn't had to tighten anything.
At night, Vlad locks the door to his room and puts up an anti-ghost ward around the room. The mansion is on the outside westward side of Madison, more entrenched in rural Wisconsin. The closest town is a four-way stop sign with one house on three corners, and an open bar on the fourth. Not much to go.
He refuses to go to Sam and Tucker; Vlad would look there first. It's too dangerous. Vlad would sound alarm bells and have a manhunt looking for him, Danny can't risk going just anywhere. Too much risk of being found, sold out, or caught. There's really nowhere for him to hide.
Until there is. Bruce is telling Danny about the history of Wayne Manor, and says, as casually as saying the weather; "The manor has dozens of empty rooms, I'm sure Alfred wouldn't mind filling another one if he could." And quietly, hesitantly, Bruce places a careful hand on Danny's shoulder, unrestrictive and gentle; "He wouldn't mind getting one ready for you if you need one."
And there it is. There's his out.
Danny, just as quietly, replies; "I'll keep that in mind."
The ball starts rolling.
Now I've been trying to summarize this au as much as possible for length convenience, but Vlad has been steadily growing more and more controlling. More emotionally manipulative. More agitated at Danny for not using his powers.
He wants Wayne Industries under his thumb but he's been steadily growing more and more concerned with Danny. He's started grabbing him, yanking him around, shaking him; trying to goad him into using his powers. He gets angry when Danny doesn't react, or tells him he doesn't want to use his powers. He hasn't outright attacked him, but he's getting there. This has been happening over the time it takes for Bruce to indirectly offer Danny sanctuary at his home.
It all comes to a head when Vlad stops going to parties at all -- something Danny has to pretend he isn't upset about -- because Vlad doesn't want him around other people anymore. Vlad rarely goes now without him, and only leaves to go to a Wayne function or to handle something at VladCo.
Danny can't wait for Vlad to leave long enough to escape. So he leaves during the night of a big storm. Vlad's locked him in his room, but Danny doesn't bother trying to go for it; he goes to the alarmed window instead. Danny's been repressing his ghost half so long that he can't access his powers immediately anymore -- he can feel it, he knows its there, but he can't quite reach it.
He breaks the lock by hand.
Immediately the alarm goes off through the entire castle, filling the room with red, and he scrambles for the rope the Wisconsin Ghost left for him a few months back. Danny's already out and climbing down the side of the castle before Vlad even reaches his door -- the only good thing about the entire room being ghost-proof is that Vlad can't get in that way.
The rope ends before it reaches the bottom, and he's still twenty feet in the air. It won't kill him if he lands it right. Danny takes his chances, and drops. He breaks his ankle, but he survives.
And he fucking books it to the back garden. He hears Vlad shrieking over the thunder and rain.
I'll save the full experience for a future oneshot, but Danny makes it out into the nearby woods and forcibly experiences what it's like to be in a horror game, trying to hide from the thing that's hunting you. There's only one thing going through his mind; "i'm going to die"
I have this mental image for this scene. Very stereotypical horror imo. Where Danny is hiding behind a tree, with a hand over his mouth, and Vlad is a few feet away from him, glowing ominously red through the trees, trying to search for him.
Danny doesn't get away from this unscathed, but he does get away alive. That's all he could ask for. He gets away by getting his ghost half awakened long enough to transform into Phantom and fly to Gotham.
But he gets to Wayne Manor, he gets to Bruce. Or, at least, Alfred answers the door from his insistent pounding. Danny's just in tears and Alfred gets him in the living room, wrapped in a towel, with ice on his swollen leg before he has to step out and alert Bruce.
Bruce already breaks multiple traffic laws on a nightly basis. And that's just with the sheer existence of the batmobile itself, not including the speeding and military artillery attached. He breaks double the amount trying to speed back to the cave and get out of the suit.
Right off the bat: Bruce will know, at least before Dick enters the picture, about danny's powers. He'll figure out something considering the fact that Danny traveled from Wisconsin to New York in a single night. That'll be a bit of complicated affair, but I've already got something in mind.
Actually it'll probably be very soon after Danny joins the family, because Bruce tries to offer to fight for custody for Danny - the state Danny was in at arrival is clear enough evidence for a trial. But Danny immediately shuts it down, says it's not going to work and then Vlad will know Danny's with him and he won't be safe. He tells him that Vlad cannot know Danny was with Bruce.
Danny's biggest regret was not telling his parents he was a halfa, and while he doesn't want to tell mister wayne (yet), he does tell him about Vlad being one. He needs to know why Danny can't be seen with Bruce. So he tells him, and Danny's current plan is to just hide out from Vlad until he turns 18. That way, he has no more legal jurisdiction over him. After that? He's not sure.
And to wrap this up, since this has already gotten very long and I can make more posts about this au later; I've thought about it, and I'm going to say that Danny does become a vigilante before Dick enters the scene. He goes by, as you probably guessed; Nightingale. "Gale" for short.
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hiii!!! do u have any recs for long AUs??? thank you! :]
of course, i love long good omens AUs, here are some of my favourites:
[you can request more fic recs here.]
Golden Handcuffs by seekwill (E, 70k)
Far from any city, near the Scottish coast, Tadfield College has a celebrated history, an unrivaled academic reputation, and two departments at war. When the Biology and English departments are forced to share a building, Senior Lecturer and botanist Anthony Crowley finds himself drawn into the orbit of the polite but strange English professor, Dr. Aziraphale Fell. As the new term begins, two academics navigate the politics of both their offices and academia, and try to solve the puzzle of one another.
Fifty-Two Blue by bendycello (M, 84k)
It would be a gross understatement to say that Crowley simply didn't like Aziraphale. He was posh and stuffy and arrogant, and Crowley couldn't figure out why everyone else in the program liked him so much. It hardly mattered; they were competitors, and Crowley didn't need to make friends to become a surgeon.
It takes several unleasant encounters, the excessive use of house plants as a coping mechanism, and getting stuck in an elevator for Crowley to start reconsidering his priorities.
Or…
Crowley and Aziraphale are surgical interns with competitive streaks a mile wide each, and they really do not like each other at all.
Until they do.
Waking Up Slow by the_moonmoth (E, 87k)
“Then you’ll just have to come back with me," Aziraphale said.
“You what?”
“You’ll have to come and isolate with me, at my cottage.”
The thing about messing with people, Crowley thought, was that sometimes, they genuinely surprised you.
After both being exposed to coronavirus, total strangers Crowley and Aziraphale are forced to wait out their isolation together. A tale of soft winter romance by the sea.
Slow Show by mia_ugly (E, 95k)
In which temptations are accomplished, grand romantic gestures are made, and two ineffable co-stars only take four seasons of an award-winning television program to realize they’re on their own side (at last, at last.)
Car Trouble by summerofspock (E, 102k)
Aziraphale's car breaks down so he takes it to the first mechanic he can find. From there, his mundane life changes drastically as he finds himself befriending the man fixing his car.
on the same page by Chekhov (E, 117k)
Aziraphale Z. Fell is a rising star of the spiritual literary genre - the next Eat Pray Love guy - and his version of Chicken Soup For the Christian Soul is flying off the shelves. It's not that he's not grateful, but it's one thing to enjoy a career in writing and another completely to be pigeonholed into a specific genre, so much so that you are almost forbidden from writing anything else.
So yes, maybe he has a bit of a secret. An outlet for his less… appropriate urges. And yes, if his typical readership got word of the sort of paragraphs he could put out on a particularly inspired night, they might suffer some form of heart attack typical for their age.
But all of that is well hidden, and there is absolutely no way anyone would ever find out about his Arrangement with A.J. Crowley - the most debaucherous romantic fiction author of the decade.
That is… until they have to pretend to be married to each other.
Married at First Sight by Aracloptia (T, 146k)
“Well, that was a thing,” Crowley said once they were out of earshot. Without talking about it, they were both heading down the field, towards the lake where the photographer (and likely a few more people from the TV crew) was waiting.
“That was a wedding,” Aziraphale replied, surprised at his own annoyance that somebody called a wedding a ‘thing’.
“Yeah, obviously, didn’t miss that part,” Crowley said with a shrug, and waved abruptly in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Neither did you, from the looks of it, since you’re dressed like a wedding bride and everything.”
“Excuse me, I am a—“ Aziraphale stopped himself, and started over.
In which Aziraphale ends up marrying a rude stranger who wears sunglasses.
Old Vines by sevdrag (E, 189k)
A.Z. Fell, one of the most respected names in wine and food blogging, has been sent on assignment with his assistant Warlock Dowling to spend six months in California Wine Country. Under direction (by his boss, Gabriel) to use this experience to double his blog followers and write a novel, Aziraphale is both excited and anxious about the opportunity.
Anthony J. Crowley is the owner and viticulturalist of Ecdyses, a winery that unexpectedly fell into his lap eleven years ago when he hit rock bottom. He may be in debt, yeah, but he’s paying off his loans — and despite pressure from his lenders and their team of inspectors, Crowley has found a kind of contentment tending his little corner of terroir and producing extraordinary wine. Crowley’s old vines are the heart of his vineyard, and he’s never let anyone in.
Crowley finds Aziraphale intriguing; Aziraphale finds Crowley enthralling. Turns out a famous wine expert and an experienced viticulturalist can still learn things from each other. The summer of 2019 unfolds.
What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding) by charlottemadison (E, 213k)
The important thing, Crowley tells himself -- the most important thing -- is Adam, his brilliant, creative, empathetic nephew. Being fourteen's hard enough; the kid didn't ask to deal with the weight of the world on top of it.
And if taking care of Adam means Crowley has to tough it out at a job he can’t stand, so be it.
And if Crowley's job means that Adam’s charming English teacher is NOT a romantic possibility, well, that's just how things go.
But the occasional drink with Aziraphale proves hard to resist. They frequent the same pub, so who can object to them saying hello? Briefly sharing a table? Perhaps a little conversation? The painful knowledge that it can’t be anything more -- not without somebody getting fired or sued or both -- well, that can't be helped.
Until Crowley stumbles onto a terribly reckless idea…
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