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bluetimeombre · 5 months ago

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ׂׂૢ Hugh and you are WIRED,

You and Hugh take part in the Wired autocomplete interview

[this has been sitting in my drafts collecting dust, enjoy! Not proof read, just the vibes]

'Hello, I am Hugh Jackman,' he smiled at the camera.

'And i'm Y/N.'

'And we're doing the autocomplete interview,' he said.

You smile at how he tried his best. 'The WIRED one,' you added.

Hugh looked back to you. 'Oh yeah.' he laughed and apologised to the crew. 'I'll hold, you peel and read and I'll answer,' said Hugh, taking the board that started with him.

You leaned back in your chair, eyes peering at him. 'So, I do all the work and you sit there, ok, yeah, that's fair.'

He chuckled as you peeled away the first question.

'Is Hugh Jackman Australian?' you read, screwing up the paper and chucking it behind you. 'Um, no, he's not. It's all a bit he does, it's incredible he's kept it up for years,' you answer for him.

Hugh laughed. 'I am, I am Australian,' he insisted.

You shook your head, nudging him friendly. 'Such a good actor. Is Hugh Jackman retired?'

'No, just old,' said Hugh.

You chuckle before looking at the camera. 'He said he was retired but that was a lie,' you poke fun at the amount of times he said he'll never do Logan again... but did Logan again. 'He's a lair like I said- a good actor.'

You rip the next one off. 'Is Hugh Jackman... a good singer? Uh yes!'

'Thank you, there you go,' nodded Hugh.

'He's such a good singer,' you boast, holding his knee. 'Les mis, Oklahoma, The greatest showman.'

'That's where we met,' he smiled. The two of you did meet during the filming of The Greatest Showman.

You smiled back at you. 'We did. Yeah, highly recommend having Hugh Jackman sing to you, it's-it's magic.'

You do a couple more questions before finishing his first board and letting Hugh break it over his knee before chucking it away. 'Oh woah. You know, people would pay to have that done to them.'

Hugh laughs. He takes the board meant for you and peels the first away. 'I've got it love, let me. Is Y/N dead?'

'Starting off strong here,' you said. 'Um, only on the inside.'

Hugh chuckled. 'That's horrible,' he said through his laughter.

'Don't worry babe, I'm still here. Alive and kicking,' you mumble off.

Hugh eventually peeled away the next one. 'Ok, is Y/N in Wolverine origins.'

'No, thank god,' you said as Hugh, again, keeps laughing. 'No, I do not appear in that movie. But a version of my character does for like ten minutes. And i'm sure it was the better ten minutes of the movie.'

'I won't argue with that,' said Hugh.

'So it wasn't me but another actress playing my character.'

'Right, not confusing at all,' said Hugh. 'Just don't think about it really. Yeah. Right, is Y/N a billionaire? If she was, I would've married her by now,' said Hugh.

You laugh, rocking back and forth. 'Now I really need to reach that billionaire status,' you said.

Hugh's board was next.

'Ok, how Hugh Jackman got jacked?' you read, looking over to him. 'How did the Jackman jack?' you asked, the question coming out a bit more on the naughty side than you intended.

The both of you looked at each other promiscuously.

You held up a finger. 'Maybe I should have worded that differently.'

'Yeah,' he chuckled. 'Um, I basically was miserable for six months. No I'm kidding, a lot of training and boiled chicken.'

'Yum! How tall is Hugh Jackman?'

'6'2- 6'3,' he hummed, thinking about it.

'Do you think people are asking cause they're angry you're not 5'3 like Wolverine should've been in the comics?' you asked.

Hugh's face straightened. 'Why'd you have to bring that up?'

You chuckle, peeling away another one. 'What is Hugh Jackman.., made out of?' he laughs as you whisper to the camera. 'Boyfriend material.'

'Is that actually what it says?' he turns the board, checking it. It really did. 'Oh woah. I assume the interweb means the Adamantium in Logan?'

You snorted. 'The interweb, is that what you just called it?'

'Isn't that what the cool kids call it these days?'

You shake your head and toss his board behind you without sparing a thought.

Hugh stared after it. 'Is that how you treat all yours lovers?'

You purse your lips, trying to hold in a laugh. 'It's just a board, babe, you're the real thing.' You picked up the next board for you and handed it to Hugh who was peeling the first one away immediately.

'How is Y/N... oh it ends there. Well, that's very nice, how is Y/N?' Read Hugh, answering before you got the chance. 'She's very well, er, cause she's with me. Next one. Is Y/N single? What a good question.'

Next to you, Hugh was grinning like a mad man, or a man who knew a secret. Or just like an idiot in love. Any of them worked as you just stared back at him. 'Um, you'd have to ask her,' you said, trying to do what you did best and avoid questions.

'We are asking you, c'mon, the people want to know, are you single?' Hugh teased.

You shook your head with pursed lips. 'You know, Y/N is...' you trailed off, mumbling incoherently under his breath.

Hugh chuckled before looking into the camera. 'His name rhymes with Pugh Ackman.'

'Ryan Reynolds, of course!' you say, peeling off the next one yourself. 'Ok, is Y/N in marvel movies? um yes, a few.'

'Most,' Hugh corrected. 'If not all,'

'Yeah, i've done a few in my time,' you answered. 'Started when I was like, sixteen now i'm,' you pretend to count on your fingers, freaking out when you realised the numbers were high. 'Anyway, Hugh's turn!'

'Ok, i'll peel now,' said Hugh, giving you the board.

'Oh thank you, give my poor nails a break,' you said.

'Does Hugh Jackman... smell nice?' he leant over to you and you took an inhale.

You shrug. 'Yeah, he's alright.'

He chuckled and made a gesture at you before going onto the next one. 'Does Hugh Jackman, my name is falling on deaf ears I think now, does Hugh Jackman do all his own singing?'

'Yes, he does!' you yell. 'He's a great singer guys, no debate.'

'No cap!' added Hugh.

'Oh jesus,' you hide your face and laugh into it.

'What?' asked Hugh.

Eventually you moved onto peeling the next one. 'Does Hugh Jackman have tik-tok?'

You laugh too loudly. 'No, could you imagine if he did? I have to help him out with instagram for gods sake.'

'That's true, I do not know what the tik, nor the tok is,' said Hugh. 'Ok, last one on this board. Does Hugh Jackman do all his own stunts? No.' he threw the board.

'That was an easy answer,' you scoff. 'Do you want to tell us why?'

Hugh thought about it. 'No.'

'Alright then, my turn,' you said.

Hugh took the board before you could, not letting you hold it or do your own peeling. 'Alright, ready? Does Y/N do all her own stunts, aw, we're matching.'

You laugh. 'Um, I try to,' you answer. 'I try to, I really do but some are just too dangerous. Like I'm legally not allowed to jump from a building into a dumpster or walk away from an explosion.' You give Hugh a look, referencing that scene in Wolverine origins which he cringed at.

'Does Y/N write her own songs in The Greatest Showman? Can I answer this?' Hugh asked you.

You lean back. 'Only cause I know you're going to gush at me, so go ahead.'

Hugh got his answer ready. 'So when Y/N came on the project, it was only a half developed idea- if that. And I'd seen her at an Oscar's party and we started chatting and I asked if you were interested in this little project we were doing, you immediately came on board and started writing songs for this. I think, in total you wrote, what was it four- five?'

'Five I think,' you nod.

'Five of the greatest songs on that movie. Honestly, hearing it live and in the workshops was just, the best thing i've ever heard,' Hugh looked back at you, a loving smile on his lips.

You pout and rest your head on his shoulder. 'God that Pugh Ackman is a real nice guy.'

Hugh laughed and pecked your forehead. 'Does Y/N enjoy being in the avengers?'

'I do yeah,' you answer. 'I think there's like a lot of talk that when you stop playing a role you're supposed to come out and say you hated it, but I loved it. And I still love it. And I'll always love it.'

Hugh held up a hand. 'That being said. She would love being in the X-men more.' He waited for you to reply but you didn't and just stared at him. 'Ok, never mind. Anyway. Does Y/N drive?'

'Absolutely,' you nod. 'I've got the speeding tickets to prove it.'

'Ok, so these are your last boards,' said the lady behind the camera.

Hugh frowned. 'Oh, i'm having fun,' he said, taking his board.

You shrug. 'We'll just have to google ourselves at home more often.'

Hugh agreed and peeled the next ones, these questions beginning with 'Why'. 'Why Hugh Jackman, returned as Wolverine?'

'Good question, liar,' you said.

'Well, at first, you know, I wasn't going to, I really wasn't,' he spoke, looking to you as if cameras weren't pointing at you. 'But then this Ryan... Gosling guy? I think that's his name. He just kept asking and asking, turning up at my house, he got my number, I don't even know how-'

'Yeah, sorry about that,' you added.

Hugh laughed before carrying on. 'Eventually you know, he waved a bag of cash in my face and I knew, just to get him off my tale, I had to.'

'Yeah, that sounds like a Ryan Gosling move.'

'Why didn't Hugh Jackman win an Oscar?'

'Guys, that's mean,' you tell the camera.

'Thank you, interweb for reminding me I didn't win an Oscar,' said Hugh. 'Well, listen, when you find out you're up against Daniel-Day Lewis, you kinda know not to prepare a speech. And then when your publicist the next day calls and says yeah don't worry, you- you don't worry.'

'You were robbed for Logan,' you mused.

Hugh agreed with a chuckle. 'She's my number one fan. Why Hugh Jackman ran naked?'

You perked up. 'Hello, he what?'

The crew laugh at your excitement.

'It was for X-men two... well, I feel like every X-men movie I strip down,' said Hugh. 'Thinking about it.'

'Got to get that watch rate up,' you said.

'Yeah, exactly. So I did a scene in X-men two where I was running the corridor after just finding the metal in my body and the claws,' he explained, again only looking at you.

You nod, like it was the first time you were hearing the story. 'As you do.'

'And then I turn the corner and the entire crew of women are just there waving dollar bills and I, on reflex, went to cover myself you know and then I cut myself.'

You seethed in pain. 'And then you did it for Wolverine one and two and the next X-men movie,' you listed.

Hugh nodded. 'Then I never stopped.'

'Why would you?' you asked, raking your eyes up and down him and winking.

The last board up was yours.

'Ok, let's go,' said Hugh, scraping at the board. 'Why Y/N is famous?'

You laughed.

'Because she's fucking talented!' said Hugh, 'why wouldn't she be famous?'

You shrug. 'It was gonna happen one way or another. I became famous because I wanted money. And Hugh Jackman, one of them i've got, the other i'm still working on.'

Hugh grinned, wriggling his brows. 'Why did Y/N win an Oscar? Oh, you won one,' he joked, glaring at you as you laughed. 'Lucky you.'

You read the question again. 'I mean- that feels almost condescending you know like oh she won an Oscar, why?'

Hugh stared and pointed at the camera again, repeating himself. 'Because she's fucking talented! Why wouldn't she win an Oscar?'

'I won best actress for a movie called Room, which was very tough, very well written annnndddd I deserved it,' you shrug.

'Why did Y/N marry Hugh Jackman?' he gasped. 'You married him?'

'I have not yet, but I am engaged to Pugh Ackman, so um, please, feel free to send us gifts,' you say causing Hugh to drop the board and laugh. 'Um, I really need a new toasted and he likes watches.'

'Oh, he sounds like a nice guy,' said Hugh.

'He is, he's great.'

taglist (thank you!): @oatmilkriver, @angstdaddy, @chronicallybubbly, @white-wolf-buckaroo, @th3mrskory, @wolfyychan, @chaimshelii, @wolviesgirl @haytchee, @aoi-targaryen

#hugh jackman #deadpool and wolverine #logan howlett #wolverine #deadpool #logan howlett x reader #wolverine x reader #x men #hugh jackman edit #hugh jackman x y/n #hugh jackman x you #hugh jackman x reader #hugh jackman wolverine #Hugh Jackman x femreader

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phantomrose96 · 9 months ago

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Sham Sacrifice

(Hi it's time for my favorite headcanon)

...

Vlad Masters sat firm and proper on the Fenton Family couch, legs crossed, teacup pinched in his fingertips, fighting subtly against the sinkhole that came with the mistake of taking Jack’s usual spot on the couch. He appeared with all the same charm and delightfulness of an ant swarm rearranging your picnic.

Danny stood at the doorway, just-still-in-the-kitchen, just not inviting himself to join the adults in the living room where Jack boomed and rambled and Vlad sat so stiff and polite and nice that his tea in his hands was going cold.

“Oh, Danny you’ll love this story—Danny, you should join us—Danny this was, what, summer of ’84? When was that heatwave, Vladdy? The one where you—”

“There’s no need to bore Daniel with the mad ravings of two old kooks, Jack. Kids would rather be off at the mall or—some store, surely. No need to stick around Daniel on my behalf. I assure you I won’t be offended if you leave.”

“No worries, V-man. I’m good right here. I love hearing Dad’s stories." Danny met Vlad's challenge, speaking with more poisonous courtesy than Vlad had proffered first. "In fact I think he should tell a few more, if he’s got more in mind.”

“In fact I do have more in mind—” Jack answered.

Neither Danny nor Vlad were listening to Jack. They held eye-contact, Danny with a stern unblinkingness of a sheepdog on duty. A lot was said without words. A lot was understood when Vlad decided to visit through the front door. Vlad only used the front door when he wanted something.

And it was never good when Vlad wanted something.

“—the core reactor project, yeah? That summer? That was in the lab with no A/C. Top floor. We were sweating like pigs, all of us. And I dared you to eat the really moldy pizza from our fridge the night before and you ralphed right into—”

“—Surely you remember this more fondly than I do. Daniel, really, you can go.”

Not a chance.

“Actually,” Danny answered, brightening some as his opportunity struck. “I am interested in this. For science class I need to write a report on the invention of an important piece of technology. I was gonna ask Mom and Dad about the Ghost Portal. And now that you’re here, I can get the whole history.”

Jack made a giddy little noise. He leaned forward, words primed, but Vlad was quicker to the draw.

“Sorry to say, your faith in me is unfounded. I wasn’t the portal guy back in college—that was always your mother and father’s passion project. I was their skeptic.”

“Bet that’s got you feeling pretty foolish right now, doesn’t it V-man?” Jack chided, a quick jab to Vlad’s ribs that nearly unseated the teacup from his suspended saucer. “Considering the fully-functioning portal right beneath our toes.”

“I hardly feel foolish, Jack. Your calculation for the portal in college was never going to work.”

“What do you mean? Of course it did.” Jack thumped the ground with his foot. “It’s running the old girl right now.”

At this, Vlad’s eyes narrowed. For the first time he’d been shaken off whatever skeezy machinations had brought him in. His pride was being challenged, and by Jack no less.

“Absolutely not. With that calculation? Absolutely not.”

“Well forget the tea biscuits Vlad, because you’re going to be eating your words in a second. Mads, hold my spot,” Jack said, as if anyone was planning to take his spot. He bounced from the couch, scooted from the living room, and vanished into the dark maw of the lab stairs, leaving only the waning beat of his footsteps behind.

His absence filled only a swallowing few seconds. The footsteps returned, bounding upward, creaking with his heavy cadence, and Jack bounced back into the room in much the manner he left. A pad of yellow lined paper was clutched in his hand. When he dropped it on the coffee table, it revealed row after row of tight scribble, churning math, carrying down the page and occupying two entire pages more that Jack flipped through.

“Same baby I came up with in college. It just needed heavier dampening and higher voltage than what we made back then. The portal downstairs has that in spades. Well, in like two-thirds of a spade.” Jack tapped something on the last line. “The projection was still only hitting 70% of the threshold we calculated to reach dimension penetration. But it’s an art, not just a science. We fired it up anyway, and it took!”

Vlad grabbed the paper pad, agitated. His eyes ran over it. Then again. Until he settled on one line, a firmness overcoming his face. He tossed the pad back onto the coffee table, and Vlad leaned back into the couch, arms crossed.

“The lambda, Jack.”

“The lambda?”

“Check it again.”

Jack did, lips pursed, pad of paper nearly swallowed in his big meaty hand.

“What about--?”

“It squares. The units don’t balance otherwise. It originates from an integration step of λ*∂λ/∂t. It squares.”

Jack’s brow remained furrowed, firm, until delight cracked into his eyes, and he let out a laugh.

“Gods, my handwriting is gonna be the death of us. Mads,” he tapped something unseen on the second page. “That’s the genius of Vladdy. Cracked this puppy wide open with just a glance. I never noticed that in all my checking. That explains the missing 30%, at least. That explains how the portal took. Lucky for you Danny that Vlad was here—”

“Jack,” Maddie said.

“—your report can have the correct formula. It’ll be—”

“—Jack—”

“—A+ worthy—”

“—Jack,” Maddie said, curt. “Lambda is the ambient ecto-energy. It’s a few ten-thousandths of a unit.”

“It—huh.”

Maddie had surfaced a pen from her pocket. She sheared a few blank pages out from the back of the pad and started the formula fresh. She made quick work of copying it over, quicker work of solving it through – lambda-squared intact.

She hit the final line and hatched a pen mark beneath the number. Jack stared, confused.

“That can’t… no.”

He repeated the same. New pages torn loose. Formula copied over, processed, line by line by line—lambda squared—by line by line by line.

Jack settled on his answer. Same as Maddie’s.

Confusion made his face tense.

“So it’s not 70% of the way to the threshold… It’s 0.013% of the way to the threshold.”

He held the pen hard, his whole body holding firm and taut as the gears turned in his head. Jack’s eyes flickered across the formula, again and again and again. He looked to Maddie, like a dog issued a command he did not understand.

“But it worked,” he said, small. “But it worked.”

Jack stood, robotic almost, eyes lost in something far away. He disappeared into the lab almost as quickly as he had a few minutes before, but now he exited with a smoothness and a quietness so very uncharacteristic of him. It bothered Danny, somewhere deep in his gut.

Maddie followed, a possession matching Jack’s.

Danny’s fingers curled and uncurled. He’d succeeded. He’s successfully interrupted Vlad’s… whatever this was. But the disquiet infected him. He didn’t like it.

“So what does that mean?” Danny asked, perhaps to Vlad. “What’s wrong with the calculation?”

Vlad sipped on tea ice cold.

“Who knows?” Vlad lied.

…

The math didn’t work.

Maddie and Jack burned through paper, burned through pencils, burned through hours.

The math didn’t work.

Clothes stuck to skin. Sweat lingered fetid and stale in the cold basement air. Exhaustion beat like a slurry through their veins.

The math didn’t work.

The portal supervised all, placidly green, the light for their table, the light for their work when the lightbulb overhead burnt clean out and neither Jack nor Maddie could be pulled away to replace it. It stood, it watched, a testament of contradiction to everything they could not solve on paper, and yet everything they built directly into the fabric of reality.

And it should never have worked.

They threw every radical what-if they’d ever conceived over 20 years of ghost research.

The ecto-ether layer.

The latent activation stitches in space fabric.

The anti-ectomatter collision proposal.

The positive-feedback crystallization theory.

And still nothing worked.

All together, every crackpot theory in their favor taken for granted, racked them up to an activation energy 200x more potent than the calculation, and still just 2% of what would be needed to rip open, and hold open, a stable fissure between their reality and the ghost zone.

Maybe by pure luck, unfathomable luck, Fentonworks basement was directly situated atop a natural portal.

Maybe that would explain ripping it open. It did nothing to explain the stability. Natural portals were unstable by definition. There and gone in a few seconds. Not hours, days, weeks, months, a year, that the Fenton Portal had been open. Never so much as faltering.

It was late. 3am ticked away to 4am, and 4:30am. The discarded paper stacked higher than Jack and Maddie both. Calluses oozed from their hands at another attempt, and another, and another.

Maddie flipped through a folder’s worth of yellowed papers, aggressively thumbed over and over after two decades left untouched. And she settled on the one she’d passed over a few dozen times already, always seeking something else, something better.

This time she unsheathed it, and she placed it on the lab table.

“…If a mouse died. In the machine. If a mouse ran through the machine and accidentally bridged two live wires, and died of violent electrocution. 500 milliamps. Instantly melted into the circuitry.”

Maddie’s mouth was cotton-dry while she wrote. Ambient ecto-energy was low. Always very, very low.

Unless something very, very bad happened to something with the capacity to become a ghost.

The numbers wove. Maddie started the formula fresh, and it was pure muscle memory. A mouse. A big mouse, even. A 99th percentile beast of a mouse. And a wire that had been wired incorrectly. Something grounded that never actually grounded. An absolutely horrific amount of electricity.

0.37%, by pure numbers. If she included every permissive crackpot idea they had thrown on top, it topped out at 6% of the needed activation threshold.

Not a mouse.

“A cat,” Jack said, words gummy, tongue dry, face tired. “If we’ve got mice down here, maybe… a stray cat wandered in. Chased the mouse.”

Maddie nodded. It didn’t matter if it made sense.

She penned it in. A large cat. A devastating electrical short. Cats carried more ecto-potential than mice did. Ecto-potential did not necessarily go up with size. It went up with complexity. The things with the most ecto-potential were the things that most became ghosts.

1.45%, by pure numbers. 18% at absolute, absolute crackpot best.

“A dog,” Jack proposed with a shaky laugh. He swallowed. “A mouse… chased by a cat… chased by a dog… all electrocuted at once”

Maddie didn’t say the thing they both knew, which was that both of them would have noticed the evidence left behind by the electrically exploded pieces of a dog.

Maddie did it anyway. A mouse and a cat and a medium-sized dog, maybe just small enough to notice no evidence of, all together. All at once. All violently ripped apart, sacrificed to a machine still asleep in its wall.

Mice did not often make ghosts. Cats did not either. Dogs, occasionally. But infrequently. Very infrequently.

37%. At best.

“Jack.”

“Maddie, I know just—maybe something really smart—”

“—Jack—”

“—like an octopus—”

“Jack.”

“I hear, maybe, pigs are smart. If it was—”

Maddie was writing, already. Not for a pig. Not an octopus. Jack watched, and he knew what the numbers meant. The ecto-potential she penned gave her away. An ecto-potential that high.

65kg, an estimate

10,000 milliamps, a catastrophic accident, a death certificate.

A human’s amount of ecto-potential.

Maddie wrote.

And she wrote.

And she did not apply a single crackpot theory, not a single discredited proposal, not an ounce of exaggeration.

138%.

Threshold, and then some.

Comfortable, easily, then some.

For the first time, after all the hundreds of times she and Jack had penned this equation over the course of 2 decades, the number met her and Jack’s threshold.

A breakthrough.

A revelation.

A pure eureka moment.

Jack and Maddie were silent.

Alone in a humming basement. Alone with only the soft swirls of the portal for company, happy, stable, purring its contentment, singing to the cold air.

“It has to be something else,” Maddie said. And she said it weakly. And she said it childishly.

“You’re right. It can’t be this,” Jack echoed. “If someone died down here, we’d know. Dead bodies don’t walk away. We’d have seen it. O-or even if, if the body got stuck in the portal, we’d have heard of someone going missing.”

Maddie sat, quiet. A thought held her mind hostage.

“Unless they didn’t go missing,” Maddie said, and she said it barely audibly. “Unless the portal spit them right back out.”

“Then—that’s what I said—a dead body, on the floor, we’d have seen.”

“Not a dead body.”

“It had to be lethal, Mads—”

“I know Jack. But if they died, here, in the portal Jack, then their ghost did not get ripped away from the body and sent to the Ghost Zone. …They ripped the Ghost Zone here.” Palms slick with sweat smoothed over her notes. She pointed to one specific line and found her pen tip trembled no matter how badly she stabilized it. “The ecto-potential of a creature is how strong of a pull their ghost creates on the Ghost Zone. A strong enough pull means the ghost can reach the Ghost Zone and stabilize, like a fish reeling itself up, yeah? We agree on this Jack, yes?”

“Yes,” Jack answered.

“It’s what makes the math even work, Jack. Someone dying in the portal didn’t reel themselves to the boat. They reeled the boat in. Jack, they brought the Ghost Zone here…” Maddie wasn’t breathing right. She pulled sweat-soaked bangs away from her face. “Their ghost never left their body Jack. They died, Jack. And they walked back out.”

“…No. No,” Jack said. “No, they didn’t.”

“Then what?” Maddie asked.

Jack stared. He looked away. He didn’t like the expression on Maddie’s face.

“It—what about the ecto-ether theory?” Jack said, of the theory they’d tested and retested and tested all over, all night. He grabbed his pencil back up and pointed it aimlessly at Maddie’s piece of paper, pointed end out in self-defense. “If the ecto-ether is maybe… if it’s only 250-times stronger than we calculated. Then it could…”

Jack’s voice died. His pencil hung idle. Maddie’s paper remained unblemished.

“If it… was a pig,” Jack offered. “If it was a pig that died in the portal.”

“How, Jack? How would a pig get in? We lock all the doors at night, Jack. No one else can get in, Jack. It’s just us, Jack.”

Jack and Maddie were not there when the portal turned on.

Maddie’s statement carried two possibilities. Only two. Both felt like claws digging all the flesh right out of Jack’s heart.

“I want… I want to try the ecto-ether theory again,” Jack choked. “I think it’s the ecto-ether. I think it’ll work.”

Jack slid a piece of paper over, already covered in scribbles. In its single untouched corner, he started the equation for the several-thousandth time that night.

Above their head, birds were singing.

Sunrise hailed unseen from the windowless laboratory.

…

At 6am, Vlad answered his cell phone. The reception crackled, struggling through the layers of sheetrock above his head.

“Vlad?” Maddie’s voice crackled. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Not at all my dear.” Vlad leaned his weight against the wall, playing with the singsong melody in his voice. “But you sound exhausted. Is anything the matter?”

“Yes. Well… Yes. Jack and I have—all night—trying to fix the equation.”

“Naturally.”

“We found something that maybe works.”

“Oh?” Vlad asked. He straightened, pacing now, cracklingly attentive. “And what might that—”

“If someone died. Activating the portal. We have an on-switch inside the portal’s interior. The trigger we use to press it is external to the portal, of course. But if someone went inside the portal, and they pressed it directly, and if they died, and pulled the Ghost Zone here—”

Vlad’s red eyes reflected pools of iridescent green. He twirled his free hand in the fringes of his cape, tongue working over the fanged edges of his teeth. He stared, consumed, forward.

“—and just, you, I was thinking, you’re the only other expert I’d trust to… maybe weigh in.”

“What does Jack think?”

“He denies it. He’s still. He’s trying other theories.”

“Well who knows, surely? The answer may lie somewhere you haven’t looked.”

“…I’ve looked everywhere, Vlad. That's the thing. There is no more ‘somewhere else’. I’ve looked.”

“You sound like your mind is made up.”

“I just… if maybe you have some idea.”

“Am I meant to talk you out of this idea?”

“Vlad.”

“Do you think I have some secret information you don’t? Sorry to say, I’m just your skeptic.” Some noise came through muffled from the other side. Vlad flashed a smile. “But…as your skeptic I will offer you this—It all sounds a bit absurd, doesn’t it? To kill someone and have them come back intact and… for you to never notice? Who would they be? How would they be? Surely not human anymore, surely. How would you never notice?”

Vlad paced forward, booted feet clicking along his laboratory floor.

“It would be ridiculous,” he continued, with a building crescendo, “so unfathomably self-centered surely, to not notice something like that befall someone so close to you, who died at the hands of your own invention? …If I’m correctly inferring who, in your household, you suspect of having activated the portal?” Vlad’s tongue lingered along his teeth.

Maddie’s line held, quiet. And the seconds of static drew long.

“Ah, apologies. I’ve overstepped,” Vlad continued. “I meant this as a vote of confidence in you. You and Jack both. Two people as attentive, caring, compassionate as yourselves. You would notice. I promise.”

“You’re… Okay, thank you, Vlad. I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything else, my dear?”

“No. No. Thank you, Vlad. I’ll think about this.”

Maddie’s line clicked dead. A chuckle built to Vlad’s lips and he let his head tip back with mirth. It lasted only a moment. He stowed his phone. And as if the interruption had never happened, Vlad reaffixed his attention on his own portal swirling in front of him. It bathed him, swimming green, purring contentment.

And Vlad vanished into his portal.

(Chapter 2)

#danny phantom #dp #dp fanfiction #GIVES YOU THIS GIVES YOU THIS GIVES YOU THIS #its my favorite headcanon so here you get a fic of it

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suguru-getos · 7 months ago

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jujutsu kaisen characters & how they react to you waking up with random bruises on your body

characters included: gojo, geto, sukuna

gojo satoru:

this man just genuinely does not get it? how is it that there are always bruises on your flawless body? whether you’d be sleeping next to him, or you both would be taking a shower together, satoru always finds out something. like the bruise on your arm- his fingers gingerly traced the skin and you winced. that’s when he yanked his arm off instantly like a scaredy cat. “sorry- sorry- baby, that looks like it hurts. what happened?” he hums, watching your features look even more ethereal now that your eyes meet his. the water from the shower drenching you and him. satoru marvels at your body like an excited child during times like these, but right now he’s worried. and the attention has been diverted from your ‘boobies’ to your arm. “ah- i dunno actually.” you shrug, watching the bruise. “might’ve hit something.” you shrugged again. what? what??? do you really not know how you got hurt in the first place? satoru has a little frown, and he sighs. “you should be a little more careful, princess.” he urges with all his might, holding you close. “don’t want you to take it as silly little bruises, my heart sinks.” oh, your man loves you so chokingly you almost forget, “gonna take care of it, toru, i promise.” you smile, grinning wide. now, satoru knows for a fact you won’t and he’s going to see another bruise very soon. however, there is a glimmer of fleeting hope he holds on to. :3

geto suguru:

“i should maybe start considering baby-proofing the entire house.” suguru hums on a random day, while you were sitting pretty on his lap and eating. the movie in front of you both had clearly gotten a little boring. “wow, why? don’t think i’m pregnant.” you chuckled, rolling your eyes. is that an insinuation to later on? 😏 you wonder. alas, suguru was serious. his rough hands brushed the supple skin of your arms, and eventually landing on your thighs, on the outer of your left thigh; suguru hums, “a bruise.” he sounds especially upset about it. his other hand caresses your knee, “another bruise.” you feel inspected, and weirdly nervous when suguru notices things so intricately; “dunno how i got em’…” you pout, and he hums, arms wrapping around your torso & pulling your smaller form plush against him. “that’s the thing, my love, maybe i should babyproof this house, so when you stumble and walk, you’re protected. silly baby.” oh— so that’s what he’s on about. you let out a chuckle, “don’t think so, i think i am perfectly capable of handling myself, thank you so much.” you wiggle a little to get comfier on his lap, head leaned slightly back, and slumping a little to enjoy maximum comfort. “and yet, my precious little thing has a body akin to the battle field.” you snort when suguru says that, dramatic king. “you’re too much, sugu.”

“please take care of yourself better, angel.”

ryomen sukuna:

“going to tie you up and cage you in now, brat.” sukuna snarls a little, unimpressed as you lay down next to him, curled up naked after a good time. “what d’you mean.” you pout a little, the sudden change in his behaviour quite unwelcoming. he hums, watching your body and tracing the random bruise near your rib, before you contort your face and say it could be from sukuna himself, he repeats instantly. “i didn’t give you that one.” your mouth fails into a chuckle when sukuna defends himself. “sorry, i just don’t know where i got that one from.” you mumble, nuzzling against his chest and hiding your face. “doesn’t hurt that much even if you touch it.” you defend yourself again. “clumsy and weak.” sukuna rolls his eyes, patting your ‘bruised’ ass which was totally his doing with such ease. “hypocrite king of curses.” you snort, earning another spank and bursting into a fit of laughter.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk imagines #jjk #gojo satoru #geto suguru #sukuna #gojo fluff #geto fluff #sukuna fluff #gojo x reader #geto x reader #sukuna x reader #sukuna imagines #gojo imagines #geto imagines #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff

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nctsworld · 1 year ago

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fever pitch

✩‌ mark x reader | pro baseball player!mark | fluff | smut | 8.4k

SUMMARY | your world is shaken up (literally) when you meet the handsome man guilty of the accidental baseball smack to your head. after a comforting meet-cute and realization that he’s the city’s ace pitcher, you two go on a date. and by the end of the night, mark thinks he’s falling for you faster than any pitch he’s thrown before.

WARNINGS | sexual content (near the end), arm riding (iykyk), breast/nipple play, oral sex (m and f receiving), fingering, piv sex, some drinking // this is 80% fluff-20% smut (with lots of corny writing); there's actually not too much baseball mentioned, but i did a little research on it; however, inaccuracies may be inevitable!

RATING | mature

AUTHOR'S NOTE | i am sorry this is so late </3 i hope y'all enjoy! please also check out (and maybe send in some prompts to) @nctpromptmeme!

TAGLIST | @curieouscapt @dearlyminhyung @infnteen

Under the warm, summer sun, you beam as you walk towards your close friend, Chenle, and his dog, Daegal.

Shining back, he nods in hello to you with sunglasses pressed against his face. The teacup Bichon by his side wags its tail and pants happily at the sight of you, but is easily distracted the next second due to the park’s stimulating surroundings.

Dogs running amok, families having picnics, kids chasing each other in circles, friends playing baseball—

Specifically, a group of absolutely stunning men playing, as if a model catalogue exploded onto the field across from you.

But one in particular catches your eye.

Kind eyes shine behind wire-framed glasses, paired with a wide smile. His soft hair bounces with his light jog across the area.

In his fitted white tee, he ends up in one spot and continuously throws the ball into his mitt. The game seems to be on hold as he speaks to a teammate. Absentmindedly, he rolls his arm sleeves up, revealing lean, yet defined muscles.

You silently gasp, struck by the beautiful sight, then gulp at the flexing of his biceps when he continues tossing the ball. His teammate must’ve told him a joke since the attractive figure throws his head back in joy.

And this is the exact moment you go into cardiac arrest because his laugh is the last straw of what you can handle from this man.

Suddenly, the sound of your name shakes you out of your daze and reminds you to breathe.

“Okay, which one of these guys is the one who made you do a full stop in the middle of the grass?” Chenle asks, coming up beside you.

Daegal welcomes you with loving rubs against your leg. You squat to pet her, but your eyes are still honed in on the handsome stranger. The teams seems to be switching now when someone hands the bespectacled man a bat.

Your friend tracks your line of sight and nods, impressed. “Okay, he’s cute. Your distractedness will be excused this time.”

Scoffing, you shove his leg lightly and he giggles in return. After a few more moments of gawking, Chenle wonders, “Why do I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere?”

Standing up, you reply, “Probably comes here often with his friends when you walk Daegal?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I feel like I know him from somewhere else...”

Deciding you should probably drag your attention away and not be a blatant creep, you begin to walk away backwards, heading towards the ice cream cart before the line-up becomes as long as the field.

“Want your usual?”

“Yes, please!”

However, Chenle’s brightness fades instantly, jaw falling and eyes widening. You’re about to turn around to see what caused his change of expression when you hear a piercing—

“WATCH OUT!”

With a throbbing in your head, you wake up, squinting at the blinding rays. Coming into view, the cute guy from before replaces the sun’s spot, staring down at you with concern written all over his face.

“Oh, my God,” he pants. His hands shake in front of him. “I am so, so, so, so sorry.”

You roll your eyes a bit, trying to center your vision. Groaning, you ask, “What happened?”

“I, uh...” The individual’s mouth, slightly open with gritted teeth, pulls to one side as he runs a hand through his hair, “may have batted the ball and it coincidentally went straight for your head.”

Carefully, he helps lift your upper body off the ground. He asks if you’re okay, and you nod. But a grimace comes after, causing the stranger’s frown to deepen.

“Maybe we should get you to the hospital. You might have a concussion.”

All of a sudden, he inches closer and gingerly runs his thumb over the source of the throbbing. It’s likely all in your mind, but you swear the pain lessens from his touch. You tilt your head further, angling into his palm and embracing the comforting gesture.

“I’ll obviously cover all the bills—”

You cut him off with a slow lift of your hand. “No. I’m okay, I’m okay.”

You know you’ll definitely be more than okay if you can steal some more time with his magical touch.

Continuing, you say, “And that’s too much. If anything, you can buy some ice cream for me and my friend.”

Glancing around for Chenle, you find him, crouching like the stranger, but a few feet away. With a raised corner of his mouth, you deduce he’s deliberately giving space for you to interact with Mr. Handsome Baseball Hitter.

Said handsome baseball hitter chuckles. Hearing it tugs at your chest, even harder now that you can experience it up close.

“I’ll buy you a thousand ice creams to make it up to you.” He retreats his hand and you don't hold back pouting from the fleeting contact you already miss. “But seriously, if there’s any long-term side effects, please reach out to me and I’ll pay for any expenses that come your way.”

“How would I know how to reach out to you?”

He rambles the following matter-of-factly, “Well, you can find my manager’s information online, there’s the team’s Twitter account”—he looks up cutely in thought—“and I guess I’ve been kinda active on Instagram—”

You tilt your head in confusion. What is this guy going on about?

“Okay,” you interrupt, “but who are you?”

His face flips through a few emotions in the span of seconds, but they’re unreadable. Finally landing on a grin, he says, “I think what’s more important is: do you know who you are?”

“Yeah, I’m—” And you properly introduce yourself.

“Good,” he says, “so we’re not dealing with amnesia.”

Your cheeks rise at his humour. Saying your name warmly, he adds, “Nice to meet you, I’m Mark.”

He lends out a hand for you to shake and you do so. With help from his knees, he rises upward, aiding you to stand on your feet in the process.

“Mark,” you repeat his name aloud, locking eyes with him, “the baseball batter with the strength of a thousand suns.”

At the odd line, you catch yourself, thinking how the injury must’ve loosened your filter. He laughs at the lengthy label. “You should see me pitch.”

You shake your head. “Nu-uh, nope,” you playfully say. “I’m going to be safe and stay far, far away from that sexy arm.”

Both you and Mark’s eyebrows rise at the remark.

Yep, definitely a loose filter. Maybe you really do have a concussion.

While Mark breaks out into a pleased smile, you snap your eyes shut, wanting to run away. Or disappear, if at all possible. “Strong, strong. I meant strong...”

Avoiding eye contact, you hurry and make way to a now standing Chenle. Trying to leave the embarrassment behind, you grumble, “Chenle, let’s get going.”

Your friend smirks and whispers by your side, “You sure you don’t want to dig your grave even further?” You attempt to elbow him, but he’s too quick and avoids it.

“It was nice meeting you, Mark,” you call out over your shoulder as you walk away. “Thanks for looking out for... my head?”

Cringe falls over, making you pick up your pace. Time to officially stop talking.

Chenle turns away, his body shaking as he releases a snicker into his fist.

“Again, I’m really, really sorry!” Mark apologizes in a shout. You can hear the sincerity in his voice, and also recognize his voice as the one who warned you to watch out before the incident occurred. “If you need to find me, I’ll be here over the next couple of weekends!”

When you’re far away enough from the scene of the crime, you smack Chenle in the arm. In response, Daegal chirps a bark at you. “You just had to watch me make a complete fool out of myself back there.”

He lovingly places an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into him. “I mean, Daegal’s great and all, but if anyone has any entertainment value out of the three of us here, it’s going to be you.”

You groan at his harsh, yet true, words.

“Your head good though?”

You note how the throbbing is barely there anymore. Touching the spot, you wince. At most, there’s likely just a bruise. “Yeah, it’s good.”

In a hopeful tone, Chenle sing-songs, “Think you wanna come to the park again with me next weekend?”

Reflecting on what Mark said, you ponder if he really meant it about coming to find him if anything was wrong. Even though everything would likely be fine, you’d love to see him again.

But how could you face him after the disaster of your mouth running free? You shake your head in defeat.

On Monday night, the next evening, your phone goes off right as you enter your apartment building. You drag your phone out, eyebrows furrowing at the notification that Chenle’s calling you. When was the last time he’s called you?

Actually, you’re fairly sure he’s never called you. Ever. You pick it up without hesitation.

“Hey, everything okay?”

“Find a TV playing the baseball game,” Chenle pants. “Right now.”

Out of all the things he could call you for, this is what he’s asking you to do? He’s not even into baseball; basketball is the sport he adores to death. “What?”

“Do it,” he orders. “Now!”

“Okay, okay.”

Thankful you haven’t gone up to your apartment yet, you stride over to the little in-house gym in your building near the front entrance. You haven’t used it much since you moved in, but you recall that the TVs usually play either sports or news.

And you remember right, except at the moment, the baseball game is the only event plastered on the screens. Most people in the room are fixated on the game while they’re doing their set or on their respective cardio machine.

“Okay...” you trail in uncertainty. A pitcher from your city’s team throws the ball and the batter misses. The camera cuts to the batter from the opposing team, shaking his head in disappointment. “Why must I need to watch the baseball game so ba—”

The camera’s now on Mark’s face.

The same Mark from the neighbourhood park yesterday, sans the glasses, and in proper baseball gear.

He’s on live, national television, playing baseball in front of the crowd of tens of thousands of people.

From a side angle, all eyes are on him as he tips his cap forward. His eyes mold into slits of concentration, his sharp jaw tightening after a lick of his lips. Sure, he’s different from yesterday’s care-free self, but you’d be lying if you said this serious side of him didn’t turn you on either.

Again, the camera cuts away, to the wide shot from behind him. Besides his great body (especially his gorgeous backside in those snug pants), you revel in the back of his white and dark green trimmed jersey, indicating his last name and his assigned number: Lee. 02.

He winds up for the pitch, raising his leg, and the ball is gone within a blink of an eye, landing directly into the catcher’s glove. The number 98 comes up near a rectangle on-screen, signifying the speed of his throw.

Mark wasn’t lying about his skills; he’s the pitcher with the strength of a thousand suns.

All the screens are filled with Player #02’s glimmer of a smirk, before he quickly stashes it away behind his cap. The camera lingers on him while the commentators in the background talk.

“A great put-out pitch for Lee,” one says. “His fastballs this season have been absolutely remarkable. Another great one from him.”

Cameras switch to another shot of Mark catching the ball, resetting once more for the next batter.

Another commentator supplements, “Aside from the slight hiccup earlier this season, he’s definitely on-track in making his mark on his debut in the league. A rookie ace indeed. It’s no wonder they’ve been calling him ‘The Tiger!’”

Understanding dawns upon you as to why he stated how easy it would be to contact him (and to be able to pay for any potential hospital bills). The city’s new star pitcher—how could you not know him?

“I knew he looked familiar!” Chenle pipes up from the other end, just as Mark’s nice figure takes up the screen once more. Awe and shock consume your voice, and you’re unable to create a coherent reply.

But you don’t need to, not when you have Chenle to talk your ear off about the game, but mostly Mark, for the rest of the night.

The week passes by, with you casually going through Mark’s Instagram (which, as he mentioned, he only occasionally posts on) and watching a few more of Mark’s games with Chenle in tow.

You fawn together over his plays (and his ass) and, despite not knowing much about the game, he must be having a great week from the commentators’ constant praises and the team’s overall wins.

Once Sunday finally arrives though, a wave of nervous anticipation rolls over you.

Because for you, it’s game time.

Sure, you may not have initially wanted to, but now that you know who Mark is, what is there to lose if you step up to the plate and see him again?

The scene of the park is quite similar to last week’s, except for the large presence of people staring at the men, many you recognize from the city’s team from all the games you’ve watched this week, playing baseball on the field. You wonder if you were too caught up with Mark last week because you didn’t notice how everyone else was this enraptured too.

As you stroll closer to the grassy area with Chenle and Daegal hovering behind, the players coincidentally take a breather. Some parents quickly take advantage of the break to bring their children up to receive autographs.

This is perfect timing for you too.

However, you stop in place, debating if this was a good idea to return. You’re surely going to make a fool out of yourself again (this time with no injury to blame) and Chenle, despite his promise of not interfering, will totally budge in and—

And it’s too late to backpedal, because Mark, although distracted by the little cluster of people surrounding him, lifts his head momentarily and his gaze lands directly on you.

Air seizes in your lungs when he flashes you a grin that could compete with the sun. He gives a small nod and wave. Like a star struck fangirl, you glance around to ensure he’s not gifting that nod and wave to anyone else.

But no, you’re not mistaken—his eyes are only on you.

Saying his thanks to his assumed fans, he jogs his way over to you, attired today in a fitted grey-mixed tee, ripped denim jeans, and thicker framed glasses compared to last time.

“Hey,” Mark says, still grinning beautifully. “How’s your head feeling?”

His smile is incredibly infectious. It’s a challenge not to do the same when you’re in the presence of this man. “Better. Had some bruising, but it’s all gone now.”

He nods in response, mumbling a “Good, good” under his breath. With his face turned away, he swipes some hair behind his ear and seems to be preparing himself to say something. But, you will yourself to address the elephant in the room first.

“So, why didn’t you tell me that you were in the major leagues?”

At the unexpected question, Mark darts his head up and draws it back in surprise, his lips pouting adorably. Your heart bursts.

Contrasting his cuteness, you notice the hint of stubble around his mouth. First the pout, now this. You’re captivated by it more than you should be.

He chuckles and lifts a shoulder. “Well, you didn’t ask.”

“I did,” you laugh. “I asked who you were!”

After looking up in thought for a moment, he concedes. “Okay, maybe you did.”

You two laugh in unison, and even when the moment is over, both of you stare into each other's eyes. Time’s filled with comfortable silence and equally comfortable smiles.

Mark breaks the silence, asking, “Are you still wanting to stay safe and far away from my sexy arm?”

“Oh, my God...” you groan, hating to hear the same words that left your mouth from last week.

“No,” he says through another burst of laughter, “it’s a genuine question.”

“I meant to say strong!” you argue petulantly. “I was just a little out of it from the hit, no thanks to you.”

“I know, I know,” he giggles. “I’m genuinely wondering though, cause...” Mark pauses and begins to fidget, this time rubbing the nape of his neck.

You tilt your head, intrigued. “Cause what?”

“Cause, I was, uh, wondering,” he says, eyes averting yours. “Since I owe you for your head injury—”

“You don’t owe me anything—”

“And I know it’s a long shot cause you’re absolutely gorgeous and you’re probably taken—”

This time, you draw your head back in surprise over the compliment and the grand assumption that you’re off the market.

“—but did you wanna go out with me sometime?” His hand moves through his hair before he shyly looks at you again. “Maybe?”

Before you can even process what's happening you hear a "Yes!" behind you, causing you to jolt upright. “Yes, she will absolutely go on a date with you!”

“Chenle!” you gasp, appalled but not surprised, in the direction of your close friend as he nears your side. You face Mark again and gesture in the direction of the incoming intruder. “Don’t mind him.”

As per his charming self, your friend holds out a hand. “Hi, I’m Chenle. Your newest number one fan. Great plays this week, by the way.”

“Mark.” He takes the hand to shake, giving him a small smile. “And thanks.”

Mark’s eyes wander down and notices the dog wagging its tail excitedly. His face lights up. “Aw, who’s this cute little guy?”

“Daegal,” Chenle answers. “She’s my little handful, besides this one.” he says, jerking his head in your direction. Mark's too focused on Daegal to see you slapping her owner in the arm.

Squatting down, he pets the lively dog. You follow suit and crouch down too, watching Daegal gift Mark tons of licks and enthusiastically rubs herself against his hands and arms. She’s never this delighted with strangers usually.

“What do you think, Daegal?” Mark asks, holding eye contact with her as if she could reply, then he glances over at you. “Do you think your friend should go out with me?”

Immediately, she barks happily, causing all three of you to laugh.

“Good girl,” Chenle whispers from above.

Although you pucker your lips playfully at Daegal’s betrayal, you reach out to pet her fondly along with Mark.

“But how will you guarantee my safety from your strong arm?” Your stare lingers on them. Not that he has to know, but you had to make a conscious effort to not say sexy once more.

“I promise I won’t be tossing any more of my balls in your direction,” Mark casually says.

After a pause, your eyebrows raise and his eyes widen.

“Wait, I mean—shit...” he hisses, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Your lips twitch, suppressing a laugh and finding him adorable.

“I know what you mean,” you quickly say, relieving him of his embarrassment.

He shyly glances up at you and you share a comforting look. Suddenly, someone from the field hollers his name. With a small frown, he begins to walk in reverse away from you.

“I probably should get back, but now that you know how to get in touch, message me on Instagram and we can figure out a time that works for our date?”

“Yes, definitely!”

Incredulously, you look up at Chenle for answering on your behalf.

“For sure, Mark,” you say. “Have a great game.” With the way he plays, you know he will.

Chenle and you wave your good-byes to him and watch him retreat to his friends.

“You do know that I'm the one he asked out, right?” you ask as the three of you begin to walk towards to the park's popular ice cream cart, except you're more vigilant this time.

Your friend grabs out cash, ready to pay for your order. Or at least you hope so, for all the trouble he caused.

“Yes, and that's why I will live vicariously through you!”

After messaging him over the last week (with Chenle hovering over your shoulder and backseat driving many of the messages), Thursday really couldn't come fast enough for your date with Mark.

As you step out of your apartment complex, your jaw drops and an impressed smile fills your face.

In a green bomber, black tee, and skinny jeans, Mark coolly pulls up on a red Ducati motorbike. You recall seeing a post or two on his Instagram with it, but it takes you by surprise to see it in-person.

He takes off his helmet and runs fingers through his hair, attempting to ruffle out the messiness. You're a little envious of how good he looks, even with messy hair.

Your date takes in your outfit—an off-the-shoulder floral dress that teeters the lines of being cute and sexy simultaneously—and beams.

“Wow,” he says, mouth agape. “You look gorgeous.”

“Thank you,” you say, then make an over-the-top attempt to check him out. “You don't look so bad yourself.”

After a moment of shared smiles, he tilts his head towards his mode of transportation. “Hope this isn't too daunting.”

You shake your head. “Not at all.”

As Mark helps you with your helmet, now that you're up-close, you notice he's clean-shaven, unlike the other times you've seen him, and you presume he opted for contacts for tonight.

You also can't help but relish in the proximity of his hands near your face, flashing previously to the first time you met only a couple of weeks ago.

Once he's done, you ready yourself for the ride by wrapping your arms around his waist from behind, holding onto him snugly.

He twists around with his visor open.

“Ready?”

You respond with a squeeze around his waist and a nod, so he closes his visor and you're off through the nightscape of the city.

Everything passes by in a blur, but when there are the occasional moments when he slows down or stops at the red lights, you drink in how beautiful your city is.

On the other hand, you're dying to know what Mark planned for tonight. He gave you a vague idea—dinner, a small post-dinner activity (no balls involved, Mark promised), and dessert—but that's all.

In a nicer part of the city, he stops and parks in front of a bumbling Italian restaurant.

Once inside, Mark gives his name to the greeter, stating how he has a reservation, and a sweet host immediately leads you to your table. As you walk through the restaurant, you admire its warm atmosphere with dim lights and candles spread everywhere, along with the many other couples eating their dinner.

The host stops in front of a secluded semi-circular plush booth. You shimmy in, and Mark follows. Both of you sit comfortably close near the middle of the booth.

Despite how much you have been talking through DMs over the last week, as first dates often go, conversation is awkward at first.

However, as dinner progresses and the extravagant wine (Mark insisted, “Only the best for my date, please.”) makes its way through your systems, it gets easier.

You learn more about his family, his team, and his love for reading. For him, he learns about your friends, your job vs. dreams constant conflict, and your love for music.

The easiness also goes beyond words. Underneath the table, your legs brush up against one another's. You throw your head back in laughter, and you bravely touch his forearm in response. Mark even leans in close to your body, sometimes the edge of your shoulders gently pressing into the other.

By the end of dinner, being the gentleman he is, Mark doesn't even let you glance at the check and pays it all without hesitation. Then, you're outside and on his motorbike again, off to the mysterious post-dinner activity.

When he reaches a particular end of town where there isn't much around except one place, you have an inkling where you're about to go.

Once you're there and parked, your hunch is answered correctly, but you realize something.

“Isn't the aquarium closed at this hour?”

He shrugs nonchalantly and begins to usher you forward with a hand lingering at your lower back. Whispering into your ear, he says, “I may have booked it privately for tonight.”

As you walk through, Mark and you stick to each other's side, shoulder to shoulder, and switch between revealing more about yourselves while reading and conversing about the informational signs on the aquatic creatures.

Both of you stop in front of the main showcase of the aquarium: the large tank that houses two beluga whales.

Mark leans in a bit closer to the tank, catches sight of one of them in a corner, and points it out to you. As he straightens, you feel the back of your hand brush up against his.

“You’re quite the romantic,” you state while glancing at the tank, almost as low as a whisper. Even with nobody around, there's something so serene about the aquarium that makes you want to be respectfully quiet. "Does everyone get this first-date, first-class experience from you?”

“Only the girls who get hit on the head by me,” he teases in a whisper, making you softly chuckle.

After a moment passes as you watch the tank, hoping and waiting for the beluga whales to move to where you're standing, Mark asks, “Would it be surprising to say I don’t go on dates as often as you think?”

Your eyes dart toward him, but you quickly keep your gaze fixated back on the tank. You nod. “A little.”

He hums, followed by a lengthy sigh. You can sense a shift in him. You hear how it's laced with sadness, maybe even a little regret.

“I’ve been working so hard to get to this point and of course being drafted’s been so worth it, but it also meant that I had to sacrifice some things along the way. But now that I’m finally here”—you feel his gaze now directed on you—“I definitely can rearrange my time for other things.”

Your breathing slows as you turn to face him.

Courageously, Mark intertwines his hand with yours and his free one raises, caressing the bare skin of your upper arm. The contact makes you gasp and hold your breath.

He drags himself forward, as do you, and his hand is about to cup your face...

Until the two belugas are now your front-row audience, glancing at you as if they were smiling.

You both chuckle softly and give them a wave, not wanting to lose this rare chance of seeing them this close.

And although the special moment has passed, you two finish off the marine life tour with your hand in his.

Once outside, Mark leads you somewhere nearby. After about ten minutes of walking, you're standing on a large cliff with a scenic view of the city. You've never seen the city from this height before, and all its twinkling lights and the starry sky beckon you.

An ice cream truck is also coincidentally there, and you assume Mark booked it for your date tonight.

You two grab your waffle cone orders and sit down on a wooden bench that overlooks the view.

“So,” you say, licking the cone on its side to avoid the ice cream from dripping down your hand, “does this go towards the debt of you hitting my head?”

“Of course,” he nods with his signature smile, doing the same as you and trying to avoid his sweet treat from melting. “It'll be one ice cream out of the many future thousands.”

The implication that there’ll be more than just this date hangs in the night air, almost as if it's a promise, and you really hope it'll be true.

At the very least, it feels true as you peer over your city, leaning your head onto Mark's shoulder while he casually drapes an arm around you.

Getting off the motorcycle, Mark walks you to the front door of your place and you don't even think twice about asking if he wants to come in. He says yes a little too enthusiastically, making you giggle, but it confirms that neither of you want the night to come to an end just yet.

Mark hangs his jacket as you grab beers from the fridge. Both of you make talk for some time on your couch, but the energy in the room is buzzing, especially since the almost-kiss.

The second you gravitate towards Mark, he rushes to wrap an arm around your waist and his free hand cups your face, dragging you in for the first kiss that's been itching to happen.

His lips are dangerously soft, addictive really. You swear he tastes like cherry (could be from the food earlier or maybe a lip balm flavour, you wonder).

It's a slow, yet deep, start. In the beginning, the kissing is with intent, wanting to know what each other tastes like. Naturally, the curiosity evolves into exploration, with Mark cautiously dipping his tongue into your mouth. You react with zeal, swiping your tongue against his and even experiment sucking on it. He shudders at the sensation.

Mark holds you close throughout, but your bodies move into a new position, letting you sink comfortably into your couch beneath him.

Here, passion rises. He grips your waist, whilst his body presses into yours, and he begins to trail down your neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses. Although it's already off your shoulders, he drags a sleeve of your dress further down, hungry to kiss as much of your bare skin as he possibly can.

Your fingers tangle in his hair and you arch into him, embracing his clear desire against you. You're falling and falling and falling, becoming more drunk with every touch and kiss from Mark. Ever since the first day you met, you couldn't help but yearn for his touch. Now, having a taste of him like this, you're desperate to experience more.

Although you're underneath him, you decide to take hold of the kissing. When he takes a breather for an instant, you steal the chance and fervently kiss along his jaw and rugged neck. Mark moans, gripping your waist harder, and grinds into you, his hardness dying to be free.

Shockingly, he suddenly tears away, sitting up and panting. Confused, you mirror him.

“Should we stop?” he asks. “Like, I know I might be being presumptuous, but I don’t wanna ruin our potential next date if we rush too soon?”

It melts your heart that he retracted because he's concerned over your potential future. You delicately rearrange some of his loose hair stuck to his forehead. “If you want to stop, we can.”

He pouts, reminding you of him previously at the park, followed by a cute whimper.

“But I don’t want to stop...” he laugh-smiles, leaning into you, about to drive his mouth into yours again.

“Neither do I.”

And with that, Mark makes the split-second decision to continue this good thing and not look back. Once again, he's leaving love upon your shoulders, at a measured pace currently, and he carefully lowers your dress. Drooping off your shoulders, you let it drop and bunch around your stomach.

Surprise is written on his face, as you didn't wear a bra underneath your dress, but the surprise quickly dissipates into enthrallment over the beautiful sight.

He lowers himself, mouth traversing across your chest while his free hand gently massages one of your breasts. You succumb to the rising pleasure, curving into him again.

When he arrives at one tip of yours, he looks up and asks, his voice low and gravelly, “Can I...?”

You whimper-nod, already on the verge of begging him to take the next step.

It kills you that he teases first, merely pecking the surrounding area and your tip; his mouth leaving goosebumps in its wake. Your patience grows thin.

“Mark, please, just—”

Air is depleted as his tongue swipes against your nipple in a broad stroke. He then wraps his mouth around it, sucking firmly. The other hand that was kneading your other breast turns to focus on your nipple, pinching it between his index finger and thumb.

The more he sucks, the more you hear the wet puckering of his lips, the more it makes you clench tighter. Bliss begins to boil in your abdomen when he flicks his tongue and mimics the same on your other tit with the pad of his thumb.

Your breathing grows heavier, and you sense you're close, but Mark abruptly stops. You're about to speak up, believing he'd be the type to finish you off if you ask, until you realize he's kneeling on the floor in front of you and stripping off his t-shirt.

With your help, Mark eases your dress to the floor and places it safely on the coffee table. Focusing on you, his gaze is dripping of lust—so carnal, so different than his regular self.

As Mark advances to your heat, your palms graze over his defined shoulders and back. He parts your legs further with his hands wrapped around your inner thigh.

“Wearing panties?” he inquires, his finger pulling the fabric a bit to the side.

“Huh?”

“No bra, but panties?” he smirks, making you realize the joke.

You roll your eyes and relax momentarily, leaning your head back. “Are you into that? No panties underneath?”

“Could be hot,” he shrugs, tugging your underwear to your calves and tossing them off to the side.

“Maybe one date I can do th-ah—”

Without warning, he dives in, one his hands now grasping you by your lower back, and you lurch forward to get a good view of his head between your legs. You've got a grip on his shoulder, the other tugging at his hair.

His tongue laps at your folds with agility, figures out what you like or don't like. There isn't much you don't like, Mark deduces. Languid licks. Penetrating patterns. Fast flicks.

You respond eagerly to them all with harsh tugs to his hair, notably when he spreads your folds to devour you entirely. The hair pulling hurts a bit, but he doesn't mention anything; he likes it a little rough.

Despite the positive reactions, he can tell you've been at a simmer with his moves, not quite reaching close to a high. He withdraws his mouth, and, through your hazy vision, you catch sight of his honeyed lips.

But your eyes blow wide open and an acute moan dispels as your lover of the night fills you with his fingers, alongside his licking of your clit.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Following a few more minutes of scissoring and a few sucks to your bundle of nerves, he asks, breathing into your inner thigh, “Does this feel good, gorgeous?”

Your lip is drawn between your teeth, digging so hard from the pleasure you wonder if it'll bleed soon. “Mm-hmm.”

“Good,” he says, kissing your thigh tenderly, “'cause I'm gonna need you to remember how good tonight is so you'll keep coming back for more.”

Not gonna be a problem, you think, but all you could muster is senseless panting.

“You close?”

You can barely release a whimper out to respond, and Mark orders you to tell him when you're near.

It doesn't take long to get there. The warmth in your abdomen encapsulates your body and your hips rut upward frantically, desiring your climax to take authority.

“Mark, Mark, Mark. Fuck, I'm close, I'm—”

Immediately, he stands up, fingers still inside you and somehow impaling you further and faster while his thumb lazily strokes at your clit when possible, and his ardent kiss is the needed catalyst to take you over the brink. Simultaneously, the kiss swallows your bountiful whines.

When you finally come down from your high, you kiss him deeply and feel him through his jeans against you.

“Let's take this to the bedroom, I need to grab—”

“Should I run to the pharmacy to—?”

In tandem, you chuckle over how in sync you are, and tip your perspired foreheads against the other.

Holding his hand, you lead him to your bedroom. You turn on your bedside lamp and gesture to the tissues, so he can clean his hands. You then bound to your bedroom bathroom and fumble around to find your condom packs somewhere in a drawer.

Upon your return, you're graced with the sight of Mark sitting naked on the edge of your bed, stroking himself. You almost salivate.

God, he's bigger than you expected, and that's only one part of his magnificent body. You didn't have the opportunity before to admire his muscular abs, but you take every chance to do so now. The way his arm flexes with each stroke. And those thighs...

“Sorry,” he murmurs and shyly shrinks a bit, in contrast to his lewd action, “hope it's okay that I took my pants off already.”

He really is quite endearing. Maybe even a little perfect.

“There is absolutely nothing to apologize for, Mark.”

You place the condoms onto your bedside table, but are so absorbed with Mark's cock and existence. Entranced, it's your turn to drop to your knees.

Fingers wrap around his cock, and Mark's groans rise. You delve in your enthrallment for a bit, squeezing and stroking to your heart's content until you finally decide to ease him into your mouth.

Your tongue works wonders, tasting the underside of his length with every bob of your head. Meanwhile, his hands lazily thread through your hair and he watches attentively.

More saliva develops and drips, especially when you relax your mouth to let him hit the back of your throat. Obscene slurps accompany his delicate moans, both of which permeate the room in melodious unity.

As his threading develops into tight pulls of your hair, you detract yourself to avoid the night ending right then and there.

Since he's still sitting on the side of the bed, you sit onto his lap with a plan to abate and elongate the tension. You're back to kissing him, allowing both parties' hands to roam each other.

“I love your arms,” you mumble into his mouth as you reach for them.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “I know you love my sexy arms.” You punch him teasingly.

But an idea flickers in your head. You halt your actions.

“This might be weird to ask, but could I...” you trail off, picking at your hands, realizing maybe you shouldn't finish your question.

“Hey,” he whispers, holding your chin in his hand. “You can ask me anything, beautiful.”

You hesitate with closed eyes.

“Could I... ride your arm?”

Peeking a nervous eye open, an evidently puzzled Mark stares back at you.

“I—What? Sure?” His voice raises in octaves.

Embarrassed, you try to wave it off. “Never mind that I asked.”

“No, hey,” he says, his palm caressing the side of your face and angling it towards him. “I'm flattered and obviously, nobody has ever asked to ride my arm before. But if you want to give it a go, by all means, I'm open to it.”

“Yeah?”

Mark gives you the sweetest smile and a reassuring nod. “Yeah.”

Since you suggested it, you lead him to lay on the bed, more in the centre so there'd be enough room for you to sit. He watches you gingerly lift his hand near head-level, as if he's almost flexing to show-off or about to lay his head on his palm.

Carefully, you sit onto his left arm, facing the direction of his body. At the contact, you shudder. “Is this okay?”

He agrees, enticed by your ass near his face and the general exquisiteness of your being. “You can put more weight on it, it's okay.”

You comply, relishing in the pressure of his arm against you. After becoming more comfortable and placing most of your weight to an arm on the bed, you slowly rub yourself upon his arm.

Mark's fascinated by this foreign act, eyes watching your every move. With his free hand, he touches himself.

His favourite part about you riding his arm? The look on your face—fluttering eyes paired with your lip biting—and the fact that you find him this attractive, that using him this way can simply get you off.

“This okay still?” you breathe.

“Fuck yeah.” He squeezes himself harder. He knows the answer to the next question, but he wants to hear it from you directly. “Does it feel good for you?”

You assent with a sharp moan. Without notice, you lick your palm with the intent of reaching over to grab his cock. At first, he's confused when he notices your hand, but he happily lets you handle him.

“Oh, God,” Mark pants.

You fasten your pace on his arm, grinding greedily against him. As you do so, your arm attempts to match the pace for his desire.

“Fuck,” Mark twists his head to look at your hips, tries to focus on how wet you are amidst his own pleasure, “you really do love my arms...”

It's a sweet dream for you—no, sweeter than any dream or fantasy could ever be. This is real, this spectacular sensation spreading all over and it's all thanks to his arm. Your body winds up, tighter and tighter, and you eventually break, chasing your second orgasm of the night.

Cleaning your mess up, you wipe his arm fast, keen on what's about to happen next. You then draw him into your mouth a bit to get him up again before rolling the condom onto him.

Once the rubber is on, you tease him from above, sliding the tip of his cock against your pulsing centre.

Mark may be a gentleman, but a gentleman can only be patient for so long. He seizes his possession and you gasp as he holds you by your hip, forcing you to sit down onto him.

The feeling is heavenly, stretching you sweetly. You bounce on his cock, and the sounds from you two are louder than from before. There's a small voice inside your head, worried about a noise complaint from your neighbours, but future you could deal with that.

Right now, it's all about Mark. He plays with your breasts with every move you make, while you fondle his abs and arms. Both of you try your best to look at one another through the pleasure, but it's difficult when you're floating higher and higher.

He then clasps your lower back and skillfully rises upward with the help of his strong abs. This position provides an angle for him to do all the work to thrust into you, as well as continuing to rub your breasts and even suck on them again.

At this point, you're in absolute state of frenzy, drowning in all the stimulation. Mark's underwater, right there with you too.

He pulls away in the midst of licking your nipple, his eyes going round. Nevertheless, you lean into him, your breasts pressed into his face and your mouth hangs.

Together, you cry each other's names and swear in endless spirals and the bliss finally reaches its peak for the evening.

As Mark lays next to you in your bed, observing your peaceful sleeping state, he's obviously amazed by tonight's events, but he’s also unsure what’s in-store for either of you.

There are so many factors at play with his career, you're both essentially still strangers, the future is unknown...

And yet, despite these worries, the feeling blooming in his chest is more than a blossoming liking. It’s akin to the moment he steps up to plate, either ready to bat or pitch. Nervousness, determination, and...

It’s too early to call it, but when he’s around you, he swears it feels a lot like his love for the game.

He shakes his head, not wanting to jump into the deep end this fast. He doesn't want to ruin this good thing prematurely.

Nevertheless, he places one last kiss atop your forehead before he sleeps, praying you'll be a new constant in his life, at least in the near future.

EPILOGUE — FOUR MONTHS LATER

Today is game four of the World Series and your city has won the previous three. If they continue their streak, tonight will be the night where Mark and his teammates take home the championship.

Hours prior to the big game, the teams are having batting practice beforehand to warm-up.

With your chin perched in your palm, you watch Mark closely—of course, safely from a distance and from behind him—and nod with every ball he hits well at the mound. You're seated in the lower area of the stadium among many of the other team members' families and friends, including a gleeful Chenle.

“Stop checking out your boyfriend's ass,” he orders, nudging you with his shoulder as he tosses a piece of popcorn into his mouth.

“You stop checking out my boyfriend's ass,” you retort, nudging him back.

The two of you continue your little nudging contest until he says, “So when you guys get married—”

“Oh, my God, Chenle...”

“I'm just saying, we all know you two are going to have beautiful little baseball player babies! Anyway, as I was saying, when you guys get married, can Daegal be the ringbearer somehow? She's pretty much the reason why you guys got together in the first place.”

You shake your head, eyes still on your love. “Chenle, we'll have that conversation when and if we get there.”

“When we'll get there,” he states confidently, and you laugh, dismissing him.

Sure, it may have been a fresh relationship only four months in, but you couldn't deny that maybe the idea of marriage wiggled its way through your mind here and there. Despite your thoughts, it wasn't at the forefront; you were happy in love with Mark now, here in the present.

Player #02 hands his bat over to another player and jogs towards you. It makes you wonder why he hasn't done an advertisement with slo-mo running and wind blowing through his hair yet.

“How’d I do?” Mark asks, leaning onto the railing next to you. Chenle gives him two thumbs up with a large grin.

“Awesome," you agree. "Did you think about hitting my head with each ball?”

Mark chuckles and juts his tongue to a side of his mouth. “You’re never going to let me live that down, huh?”

“Never,” you quip, scrunching your nose. You reach out for him and hold the tips of his fingers in yours. “You nervous?”

“Yeah,” he exhales, closing his eyes. “More than usual.”

Your fingers progress forward and your thumbs rub the back of his hands lovingly. “You’ll do amazing, like always.”

“You’re too sweet, babe. But this might be the game and I might—”

You cut him off by cupping his cheek in your palms.

“And you are the Mark ‘The Tiger�� Lee”—you tenderly swipe some of his hair away from his face—“top contender for both the Rookie of the Year and CY Young Award. So no matter what happens, you will come out on top.”

In awe and in a little disbelief with how well-put that was, he stares at you with starry, doe-like eyes. He's so grateful to have met you, to have someone so supportive of him in his life.

After a few moments, he concedes. “I had a pretty great run this season, haven’t I?”

You admire how humble your boyfriend always is. It's one of his greatest traits.

“And you have me,” you add jokingly.

He tilts his head side to side. “I guess there’s that too...”

The two of you share a kiss, innocent at first, until he deepens it and you wrap your arms around his neck, which generates some of his teammates to holler and whistle. Likewise, you hear Chenle screech, "Save it for after the win!" and you swear you feel some popcorn being thrown at your back.

Finally, until you're content, you peel away and press your forehead against his.

“Go get ‘em, Tiger,” you whisper.

Mark nods, a little more confident than before. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“So much,” he punctuates it with a loving squeeze to your shoulder.

You don't think you'll see him before the game starts, so you grant him one last good luck kiss.

You wouldn't know it that night, but by the end of the season, Mark would indeed take home the Rookie of the Year and the CY Young Award, being the youngest recipient of both awards.

That evening though, your city's team works in unbelievable harmony (or maybe the opposing team is having its worst day) because the game is a perfect one. Mark shuts out the other team, not allowing them to have any runs whatsoever...

Thus, sealing his first title of being a World Series champion.

But certainly not without his beloved running out into the field to give him a congratulatory hug and kiss among the sea of people.

And at the end of that night in the confines of your bedroom (after earth-shattering celebratory sex), you would find out that Chenle was right (and later, that he was in on it) when Mark, merely in his boxers, gets on one knee with a little opened box in front of you.

He's visibly shaking, and not because he's half-naked. You've never seen him so unnerved. Your love spills the following in almost one breath:

“I know we just started dating, and we can be engaged for, like, ten years or whatever. I just know that, deep down, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I may have felt this way since our first date. I really, really, really hope you feel the same, even if just a little bit."

Mark takes a deep breath, trying to regain composure for the important question he exhales.

Tears rise in your eyes as an ocean of feelings hit you, but within that ocean, no doubts rise to the surface whatsoever.

All you think about is how you will be forever grateful for the baseball that hit your head on that life-changing day.

You immediately say yes.

#mark lee x reader #mark lee smut #mark lee fluff #mark lee scenarios #mark lee imagines #mark lee fanfic #nct smut #nct fluff #nct imagines #nct fanfic #nct scenarios #nct 127 smut #nct 127 fluff #nct dream fluff #nct dream smut #yn brainrot

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ticklishfiend · 1 month ago

Text

Distracted

Lee!Viktor x Ler!Jayce

Word Count : 4761

Summary : Jayce can’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to tickle Viktor. When they get tipsy together one night, he doesn’t have to imagine anymore.

a/n : i love them. sm. also, two things: 1) this is lowkey an out of character fic but i realized that it’s kinda hard to write a tkl fic with lee!viktor and it not be a lil ooc so bear with me LMAO, and 2) i said i was working on a lee!jayce fic, and i still am, but it’s a little longer and more thought out than this one so again. BEAR WITH ME! okok love yall hope u enjoy

this is a tickle fic! not nsfw, but don’t like don’t read 😝

…

It’d be so easy. Almost too easy. Viktor would kill him for it, probably yell at him for 45 minutes for breaking his concentration with something so stupid and childish. But it would be worth it just to hear the cute sound Viktor would make when Jayce finally dug his fingers in sides, crawling up to his ribs and playing them like a piano, maybe even drill his thumbs into his hips just to hear him cry–

“What about this one?”

Viktor’s voice broke through his concentration, and Jayce nearly jumped. The slim man looked over his shoulder at Jayce, bringing his arm down from the top of the black board. Viktor has been writing near the top of it for a few minutes now, working on an equation as he mumbled under his breath. His arm had been outstretched over his head so he could reach, and with his whole side exposed like that, his ribs and underarms were on beautiful display for Jayce to stare and daydream.

It was nothing short of a miracle that Jayce had only been thinking those thoughts instead of acting on them, with the way his fingers itched and curled into the leg of his pants just looking at Viktor like that.

Shit, he should probably focus now. Jayce did a quick once over of the equation, making sure he’d have something of substance to say in response. “Uh, yeah it–it looks fine.” Ah yes, a very substantial addition, Jayce Talis. ‘Idiot.��

Viktor quirked a brow. “Just…fine?”

“Yeah I mean it’s…” Jayce cleared his throat, looking over it once again and finally taking in what Viktor was actually doing. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. And once we get it fitted into our earlier calculations, it should be ready to rock-and-roll.” Jayce cringed internally, ‘Oh my god shut up.’

Viktor still looked suspicious, as Jayce rarely seemed caught off guard like that. He turned back to the blackboard, “Well I think it could still use some touch-ups. You should come and help me, my brain is frying from staring at it for too long.”

Jayce swallowed. Dammit. He’d been perfectly content to watch from behind, it was easier to hide his self-made fluster at that angle. But…right fucking next to him? Where it’d be even easier to reach out, pinch a bottom rib, make Viktor squirm and laugh and—

“Jayce. Any day now would be preferable,” Viktor deadpanned, not even sparing a glance as he continued to look at his equation.

“Right, right,” Jayce hopped to Viktor’s side, really trying not to be any sort of distraction in his state. Now next to Viktor, watching through his peripheral, he saw Viktor once again reach up and make a few scribbles with chalk. Above his head. Exposed.

Jayce bit the inside of his cheek, snatching a piece of chalk himself just to have something to hold onto. Why was this hitting him so hard right now? Usually, moods like this were so much easier to suppress, easier to forget about when he finally got himself lost in their work. But right now, their work was more mundane, small touch-ups on calculations they’d been meaning to get to for ages. It had been a very dull day in terms of their work, but inside Jayce’s head, a boring work day meant more time to think about Viktor.

Whether Viktor was…sensitive. Ticklish. What kind of laugh he’d have. Would he giggle? Voice light and breathy, gently squirming and batting at Jayce’s hands while his face flushed at the feeling. Or would he cackle? His body shaking through the force of his laughter, having to clutch onto his own stomach like his reactions were being ripped from him. Maybe he’d beg Jayce to stop, maybe he’d be laughing so hard he’d be unable to even form words around his giggling, maybe he’d wail—

“Jayce, are you quite alright?” Viktor asked, his brow pinched in suspicion as he gave Jayce the one-over. “You’ve been…very distracted today. Not that I don’t appreciate the reprieve from your usual yapping, but your behavior does seem a bit unusual this evening.”

Viktor had taken to leaning against the board instead now, which was a lot easier on Jayce’s overwhelmed mind to take in.

“Sorry, sorry. Just got a lot on my mind, I guess,” Jayce gave his nothing-answer and turned back to the board to make a few marks, hoping Viktor would brush it off like he normally does. Or at least, like he used to do.

He’d been more inquisitive of Jayce lately, actually asking personal questions and even answering some of Jayce’s own. They’d gotten to know each other a lot better because of it, which was great, but it was also coming to bite Jayce in the ass right now since Viktor was able to notice that something was so off with him.

Viktor turned toward the lab’s window, his gaze on the moon shining bright through the glass. There was no telling when it had gotten dark outside, they both tended to very purposefully not look at the clock when they were at work.

Jayce heard him sigh. “It’s late,” Viktor droned, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “I wouldn’t mind taking a break if you’re also interested?”

Jayce’s brows raised in surprise, a little smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. “You’re asking me if we can take a break? Where’s my partner and what have you done with him?”

Viktor gave a small blink-and-you-miss-it grin, “He’s off drowning himself in a river. His brain turned to mush after staring at one equation for nearly 3 hours.” He grabbed his cane that had been leaning against the board, before pointing a finger at himself, “New Viktor, however, just remembered the alcohol he stored in the kitchen months ago for dull days like this. And he’s inviting you to share a drink.” Viktor poked Jayce in the chest, before turning toward the kitchen.

Jayce smiled brightly. “New Viktor’s got some good ideas.”

—

They ended up drinking just a bit more than either had expected to. They weren’t drunk, per se, but their combined buzz had them talking a lot more open than usual. Their conversations felt so easy tonight, and Jayce was starting to wonder why they didn’t drink together more often.

“And the next thing I knew, I had a kitten stuffed down my shirt and a crazy lady passed out on the floor behind me,” Viktor chuckled around the rim of his glass, taking a small sip before continuing, “Little moments like that make me glad I got out of the Undercity when I did.”

Jayce snickered openly, clutching at his glass through the laughter. “I don’t know Vik, that sounds like a great time to me.”

“That’s just because you're a Piltie with minimal Undercity experience. Trust me, a kitten down my shirt was the least of my worries.”

Jayce’s laughter simmered, but his grin never left. He gestured with his glass, “So, what’d you do with it? The kitten.”

Viktor shrugged. “I carried it in my shirt all the way home. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it with that woman, even at my young age,” He said, before giving a little chuckle at the new memory. “Actually, it was hell getting it back home. I didn’t take it out of the shirt because, before she collapsed, she said she had guys that’d be after me for it. I was naive to believe anyone would recognize the kitten on my walk, but I was young so I’ll give myself that grace.”

Viktor shook his head through a smile, taking another small sip. “But my god, if that thing didn’t tickle me the entire walk home. I must’ve looked insane. Some–hehe–some crippled kid with a lump in his chest, giggling to himself, ” Viktor couldn’t hold back his own snickers at the thought, but of course still scolded Jayce nonetheless. “Stop laughing, this was serious to me at the time.”

When that word, that one word he’d been thinking of all day, rolled out of Viktors mouth, Jayce felt his heart leap. His skin nearly prickled. And now he’s tipsy, and there was no way he could hold back on making sure they stayed on that topic for as long as he could hold it. “So what I’m hearing is, Boy Genius is too ticklish to handle a little kitten in his shirt.”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “I was a child. And I doubt you’d fare any better in that circumstance, even at your grown age.”

Jayce held his hands in surrender. “I never said I’d do any better. But it sounds like you think you aren’t ticklish anymore, which I think is total bullshit.” Jayce couldn’t hold back his smirk if he tried. “Actually, now that I think about it, you’ve just given me a way to get whatever I want in the lab. Maybe I should thank you?”

Viktor pointed at Jayce with the hand he held his glass, a small bit spilling onto the couch between them. “If you dare try something like that, I’ll go back and convince the counselors to have you arrested again.”

Jayce laughed, “Arrested for what? Tickling you?”

The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched upward, “For a hate crime. You can’t just take advantage of a cripple like that and get away with it.” Viktor claimed teasingly, before growing suspicious of Jayce’s wandering glare. He was staring hard at the glass Viktor held between them, a little smirk on his face. “What? What are you looking at?”

Jayce clicked his tongue, “Hold on, can I just—” He interrupted himself reaching his hand towards the glass, and Viktor was so caught off guard by the action (and a little slower to thinking now, thanks to their couple of drinks) that he let Jayce take the glass from him without any protest.

Jayce took one long swig of the drink, sighing hard as he set it down on the table next to them.

Viktor’s brow furrowed hard. “What the hell was that?!”

“That was me getting your glass out of the way,” Jayce’s smile was wide and his eyes alight with mischief, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “So I could test out a little theory.”

Viktor’s mind was working slow, but not that slow.

“Oh nonono , Jayce—Jayce, whatever you are thinking, stop thinking it.”

“Why?” Jayce wiggled his fingers as he scooted closer to Viktor, who cornered himself against the arm of the couch. “Nervous you’ll get caught lying?”

“Absolutely not,” Viktor said, “But I cannot promise you won’t get hit.”

“Ohoh that is a price I am more than willing to pay,” Jayce chuckled, before darting a hand out to sneak a quick pinch to Viktor’s side. The reaction was immediate. His partner choked on a sound in the back of his throat as he arched away from the fingers.

“Jayce I swear on everything—”

“C’mon, I never get to see you laugh. If it hurts, I’ll stop?” Jayce offered, and Viktor would appreciate the kind thoughtfulness of that statement had he not been too busy trying to push Jayce’s hands away from his torso. Unfortunately, the nervous smile on Viktor’s face during the entire tussle really took away any bite he tried to muster in his words.

“If it hurts, I’ll k-kill you,” Viktor’s voice wavered on the word as Jayce pushed a hand through and pinched his rib, latching on tight but not yet actually tickling. He just…held it there.

Viktor gripped onto the wrist at his ribs, pushing and pulling and trying everything to avoid his own humiliating downfall. He was already struggling to keep anticipatory giggles at bay, and Jayce was beaming at the reaction.

“You ready?”

“No, nonono, Jayce—”

“Three.”

“I’ll throw all your patents into the river!”

“Twoooooo.”

“Consider all your hard work a gross, soggy mush!”

“One!”

“Jayce, no-! aUgchk—n-nohohoho!”

Jayce finally put his fingers to work, gently pinching at that bottom rib incessantly. Viktor did exactly what Jayce thought he would. He giggled hard, arching in a way that curled his body around Jayce’s hand, and slapped at his wrist like it’d do anything to push him off.

“Y-You—You idiohohot-!” Viktor’s words faded seamlessly into another bout of laughter as Jayce brought his other hand around to squeeze nicely at Viktor’s side. Viktor squirmed in his hold, and Jayce thought he was going to melt.

Viktor looked so cute like this. Flushed from alcohol and laughter, smiling wide and desperate, squirming in Jayce’s hold like his every touch was causing a new reaction. Just cute cute cute.

“Nohot cute you freheak!” Viktor said around his giggles, making Jayce flush himself. Did I say that out loud?

Well. Might as well double down, right? “Only thing to make this any cuter would be a kitten popping outta your shirt, huh?”

Viktor visibly blushed a tinge darker, “Okahay okahay! Stohop! I cahaha-ahahah!” He couldn’t even finish his sentences. Jayce was hooked.

But he was also merciful. At his command, Jayce declawed from Viktor’s ribcage and hovered above as he watched Viktor pant and come down from his giggle fit. When Viktor caught his eye (and that doting look he got when Viktor did just about anything these days), he shoved Jayce’s face away playfully with an all too smiley groan. “I hope you got what you needed from that study, because you are never gonna try that again.”

Jayce snickered, leaning back to his spot on the couch. “Oh yeah? Says who?”

“Says the guy who’ll stick a cane up your ass if you try it,” Viktor leaned against his own respective arm of the couch.

Jayce grinned back. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

—

Hooked couldn’t begin to describe the feeling. Jayce was enthralled. Enamoured. He couldn’t stop thinking about that night, brief as it may have been. He didn’t want to go overboard with Viktor, of course, the man was weird about touch as it is. Jayce was lucky he’d been able to get his hands on him at all. But that hardly mattered. Because Jayce got to hear what Viktor sounded like when he felt ticklish, and now that he knows that sound, it might as well be on a record scratch repeat in his brain at all times.

Jayce’s leg shook anxiously under the desk. He wasn’t nervous, more just…unfocused, at the moment. Yes, partly from all of that, but mainly from the chaos of notes and blueprints and paperwork littered in front of him. That boring night must’ve just been the calm before the storm, because once they were able to get all those equations pieced together, the workload became fucking endless.

And of course Jayce loves their work, all the passion and hours they both devote to creating what is essentially their whole future. It’s a beautiful thing what happens in their lab. Astonishing. Awe-inspiring.

…and also ridiculously stressful.

Jayce must’ve been working for nearly 24 hours at this point. His legs felt like lead, and his shoulders ached from the past few hours of leaning over this desk and working working working. He couldn’t count the amount of times he’s had to stretch his hand out from all the notes he’s written.

He’s fucking exhausted.

And what’s worse? Jayce knows that Viktor’s somehow been awake for even longer than him.

Jayce cleared his throat. “So uh…it’s gettin’ late, Vik. Wanna call it a night?”

Viktor was hunched over his own desk, goggles on as he meticulously worked over their project. Jayce knew if those goggles were off, he’d be able to see Viktor’s eyes trying their damndest not to slip shut from exhaustion. “Not now. This needs a few touch-ups.”

“And it can’t wait til tomorrow because…?”

“Because if I break my concentration, I may forget where I was in my progress by tomorrow,” Viktor said, before waving Jayce off. “Go, get some rest. You deserve it.”

“And you don’t?” Jayce could hear his voice get defensive, on Viktor’s behalf no less. The guy never gave himself a break, it was nothing short of a miracle that he’d been the one to suggest their break just two weeks ago. Jayce sighed, “I miss ‘New Viktor.’”

At that, Viktor paused. Lifting his goggles to his forehead and throwing Jayce an incredulous look. “Seriously, Jayce?”

Jayce pouted with a shrug, leaning against the back of his chair. “Yeah. New Viktor would’ve had a drink with me hours ago and then gone to bed at an appropriate time,” Jayce grinned. He gave an exaggerated, almost theatre-like sigh, “I guess this Viktor just isn’t as fun.”

Viktor pursed his lips at Jayce, clearly holding back a little smile at the banter. “I’m plenty of fun. This is fun,” he pointed to the contraption on his desk he’d been fiddling with.

But Jayce stayed with the bit, humming dreamily. “Ohh, New Viktor, how I miss him. He drank with me. We shared funny stories and laughed together,” Jayce smirked, getting a fun little idea. “Yeah, I remember him laughing a lot that night, actually. And it wasn’t just from the jokes he was telling.”

Viktor scoffed a half-laugh, shaking his head. “You sound sleep-deprived.”

“Noooo, my head’s pretty clear right now, actually. I remember it so clearly. Gah, New Viktor was such a riot,” Jayce sat his elbow against the desk and propped his head against his hand, giving Viktor the cheekiest grin. “He even let me tickle him. Can you believe that?”

“I did not let you do anything, don’t go twisting the narrative,” Viktor pointed at Jayce, his face losing the battle against the smile he’s been fighting. “You probably have 100 pounds on me, you practically assaulted a disabled man against his will.”

Jayce ignored him. “If I remember correctly–”

“You don’t remember a thing.”

“-he was very ticklish, even though he tried denying it at first. How silly is that? If you deny it, you know someone’s just gonna try it out and prove you wrong anyway,” Jayce said, before humming in fake contemplation, squinting and tilting his head. “Huh. Are you ticklish, Viktor?”

Viktor tapped his finger against the desk in a steady rhythm, now avoiding eye contact with Jayce. “You are ridiculous. We are grown, and I need to work.”

“Actually, you need to stop working and go to bed,” Jayce stood from his seat and walked to Viktor’s desk (who still refused to meet his gaze), leaning an arm against the top and towering over Viktor. From the new angle, he could see a little blush over Viktor’s face and ears, how he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling anymore. Cute. “You gonna do that, or am I gonna have to answer my own question since you avoided it.”

Viktor glanced at Jayce with a side-eye. “You know the answer. And you’re being childish. If I wish to work, you cannot force me to stop.”

“Actually,” Jayce grinned, before hooking his fingers under Viktor’s arms (which were so conveniently sat atop the desk, leaving his underarms open and exposed) and digging in, getting an immediate reaction from Viktor who flung his back against the chair and choked down a laugh with the funniest sound. “I think I totally can.”

Viktor squirmed, his good leg digging its heel into the ground as his arms shook against their spot glued tight to his sides. His head was ducked down to hide his face, but he kept making these choked off little sounds like he was trying his hardest not to laugh (even though they both knew how ticklish he was, it was such a useless battle that Jayce’s heart burned in adoration).

“Viktorrrrr,” Jayce sung, his fingertips travelling just a tinge lower to Viktor’s upper ribs, and that’s what did the scientist in. Viktor let out a laugh that sounded like it surprised even himself, before tittering helplessly and falling into a giggle fit he couldn’t fight if he tried.

“Nohoho! Not again, Jahahayce–!” Viktor shook his head against his laughter, slapping at Jayce’s arm as deeper belly laughs started escaping him. Jayce could almost hear in Viktor’s laughter how he started to feel the helplessness take over, how he couldn’t get out of this if he tried. “Why?!”

“Because I care about you. You need sleep even more than I do, Vik, and you aren’t gonna do it unless I make you,” Jayce said, like he wasn’t tearing Viktor apart beneath him, like Viktor wasn’t coming undone under his fingers and squirming like a worm on a hook.

Viktor laughed harder at his words, “Cruel!”

Jayce couldn’t help but snicker himself. “Cruel? I’m helping you here. Just tell me you’re gonna go to bed and this is all over!”

Viktor shook his head, “Let me work! Evil fucking–ggahahaha shihit!” He lost his words as Jayce found his lower ribs right above his sides, Viktor’s hands grasping onto Jayce’s wrists like a lifeline.

“You are so stubborn,” Jayce chuckled. “I can go all night, y’know. You aren’t winning this.”

“Jdi do píči!” Viktor cursed in his native tongue around his giggles, and Jayce felt himself blush at the sound. Oh, Viktor’s gonna be the death of him.

“Gonna assume none of those words were ‘Yes, Jayce! Of course I’ll go get some well-deserved rest, thank you for helping me!’ Would I be right?”

Viktor didn’t respond, only laughing harder as Jayce slipped his fingers back up into his armpits. His head was thrown back now, and Jayce could see his Adam's apple bobbing through this laughter. His cheeks were flushed, eyes shut tight from the smile searing his face, and god the crinkles his eyes were making just made Jayce’s brain glitch. “C’mon, Vik. I know this is tiring you out.”

“You don’t know shit!” Viktor cackled, clearly confident he could withstand this. Well, at least before Jayce slipped one hand out and started tickling the side of Viktor’s neck and ear. Viktor seemed to stumble over his own laughter, his brain fuzzing around the new sensation as he slipped in and out of belly-laughter and high-pitched giggling. The side of his head slammed against his shoulder to block the sensation, but Jayce’s fingers were already at work, scribbling and scraping against those horribly sensitive spots that Viktor clearly couldn’t stand, if his incessant cursing in another language wasn’t enough to prove it.

“Oh? This a good spot?” Jayce teased, now bringing his other hand into the mix on Viktor’s other side. Viktor’s shoulders completely hunched up, his body so overwhelmed he didn’t know what to do with himself. He doubled over, clutching one arm over his aching belly while the other continued its useless slapping at Jayce’s arm. Jayce chuckled, “What? Does this tickle or something?”

“F-Fucker!” Viktor’s voice wavered, high-pitched and bubbly, before he finally resigned to his fate. “Okay! Okahahay! Bed–! I'll sleheheep!”

“Okaaay, I’ll trust you this time,” Jayce grinned. He stopped the wiggling of his fingers, but poised the tips of his indexes right at the curve of Viktor’s ear. It was a threat, and one that made Viktor titter and squirm and pull at Jayce’s wrists uselessly. “But next time I catch you without sleep for nearly two days like this, I’m not going easy on you.”

Finally, Jayce pulled his hands away, and Viktor slumped against the back of the chair with an exhausted sigh. “Have I ever told you how much I don’t like you.”

Jayce snickered, “Yeah. And I didn’t believe you then either.”

Viktor grinned, wiping a hand down his face. “I knew you’d do that eventually. I couldn’t expect you to find out something like that and not use it against me at some point,” He stood up on wobbly knees, and Jayce quickly handed him the cane that had fallen on the ground during Viktor’s squirming. “Just didn’t expect you to be so cruel about it.”

“Hey I wasn’t cruel–”

“Oh? You weren’t? Torturing a disabled man when he’s running off no sleep for over 48 hours isn’t what you’d call cruel?” Viktor teased, gathering things off his desk to bring home in his bag.

“Torture?” Jayce’s voice tilted up his grin. “You never even told me to stop.”

Viktor’s hands fumbled and he dropped a few pens. Jayce laughed as he bent down to retrieve them, their hands brushing as he gave them back. Viktor looked like a pouty cat, lips thin in a tight line with squinted eyes. Best of all, his ears were burning.

“It's a little hard to speak when you’re being forced to laugh.”

“But not hard enough you can’t slip in a few curses, right?”

Viktor had no rebuttal to that, merely scoffing like he had no clue what Jayce was talking about as he tossed his bag over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Jayce.”

Jayce watched as Viktor walked toward the door, completely satisfied with himself. He did it. And…it didn’t seem like Viktor even minded that much. In fact…hm. Maybe he’s reading too much into it. There’s no way Viktor liked it as much as Jayce. That’d be crazy.

“And um…” Viktor had the lab door pushed halfway open, stopping himself with his back turned to Jayce as he spoke. “Thank you.”

Jayce just could not help himself. “For tickling you?”

Viktor laughed at Jayce’s gall, “For making me get rest, you bastard,” He glanced over his shoulder to Jayce, who looked over the moon at Viktor’s honesty. “I know I need this, despite how I fight against it. So…though your methods are horrible, and undignified, and childish and stupid, and really show how odd your personality is—”

“Let’s get to thanks, yeah?”

Viktor smiled as he turned back around from Jayce. “...Thank you for looking out for me. I do appreciate the care.”

Jayce wanted to hug Viktor so tight their bodies melded together. Instead, he said, “Anytime. You know that.”

—

Viktor fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Jayce was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He’d lied when he said it was only two days without sleep. It was probably closer to four. Jayce just didn’t know that because the last time Viktor went home, he’d taken some of their projects and papers with him to work on in his own personal study.

So yes. His rest was needed, or whatever. And he did sleep really, really good. Almost 14 hours completely uninterrupted as he snoozed warm and cozy under the covers.

Only problem was…his mind ran a little rampant in his sleep that night. The events of the night before, with Jayce, and Jayce’s hands, and Jayce’s fingers, and Jayce teasing him so close to his ear he could feel his skin prickle with Jayce’s breath on his neck. All those thoughts that made his belly warm and fluttery were what he fell asleep to that night.

Which led to some…interesting dreams to think about when he woke up that morning.

“Does it tickle worse here? Orrrr here?”

“Jahahayce! No plehehease!”

“Answer the question, Vik. Your thighs or your hips?”

Jayce’s fingers were pressed deep into both spots, one hand tickling deep into his thigh first, before pausing so his other hand could wreak a similar havoc against Viktor’s hip. The feeling was overwhelming, and Viktor squirmed hard against the weight of Jayce pressed on top of him on the lab couch. Viktor was fully pinned under Jayce, unable to move and only allowed to squirm because Jayce thought it looked pretty when he did it.

“Hihips! Jayce, hips, plehehease!” Viktor wailed, and when Jayce paused, Viktor inhaled like he hadn’t had a good breath in years. His breath was labored, shaky, laced with leftover giggling from Jayce’s attack.

And Jayce just looked down at him like Viktor hung the moon that lit their lab through the window.

“I love your laugh.”

Viktor squirmed at the praise, shoving Jayce’s face. “Stop.”

“That’s the first time you told me to stop. What, am I embarrassing you?”

“Stop!” Viktor whined, shoving both hands over Jayce’s eyes so he couldn’t look at him in this flustered state.

But Jayce only chuckled, grabbing Viktor’s wrists and hoisting them up over his head to pin them against the arm of the couch.

“But you like it, don’t you?”

Viktor woke up with a jolt, his eyes wide and breath uneven.

Shit. Was he actually into this? What the fuck did Jayce do to him.

...

hope u enjoyed! pls consider reblogging if you did <3

#tickle fic #arcane tickle #arcane tickling #jayvik tickling #tickle community #tickling #my fic

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nanenna · 3 months ago

Text

Detective Work on the Other Side

We getting into my own HCs now, enjoy the lore!

Sleep King Master post (it should actually work this time)

---

It felt weird sitting in the Specter Speeder as Phantom with his parents. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d finally told his parents himself, but just like Jazz had said they’d loved and accepted him as is. Danny was still getting used to it.

Danny pointed out the windshield, “That island there should be good.” It was little more than an oversized boulder with some grass on it, but it was big enough for the speeder and was pretty close to Johnny and Kitty’s lair, so it would do. Once they landed, the three Fentons disembarked so Danny could let the lovers out of Soup Time.

“Ugh, finally!” Johnny griped once they were set free.

Danny crossed his arms, “How do you keep getting into Amity? We put extra protections on the portal, no one should be able to get through.”

“Your dinky portal isn’t the only one in the whole world,” Kitty said with an eye roll.

“You just gotta know where to look,” Johnny added with a wink.

“Well stop it! I don’t want to have to repeat a grade!”

“Then stop chasing us. Jeez, no one’s forcing you.”

“Danny, sweetie,” Mom interrupted, “ask them about the summoning.”

“Summoning?” Kitty asked, perking up.

“It’s really concerning,” Dad said while scratching his head.

“Yeah, I was asleep so I don’t really remember it but I got summoned last night.”

“How’d you sleep through a summoning?” Kitty asked incredulously with a sneer.

Johnny just nodded, “Damn, wish I could sleep through a summoning.”

“I don’t know!” Danny threw his hands up in the air. “The really weird part is they were trying to summon Pariah!”

That got Johnny and Kitty to stop laughing. “Oh shit, really?”

“Johnny! Don’t cuss around the baby!” Kitty smacked his arm lightly.

“You owe the swear jar,” Dad boomed eagerly.

Johnny just rolled his eyes.

“That’s what we were told,” Mom cut in. “There was a cult that was trying to summon the Ghost King and somehow got Danny.”

“Wait, were they trying to summon Pariah by name or the Ghost King title?” Kitty asked eagerly.

“Ghost King,” Mom said decisively.

“Oh no,” Danny said. His grades may be in the toilet, but even he could put two and two together. “No, there’s no way I’m the Ghost King!”

“Maybe,” Kitty said while looking Danny up and down.

“Not like it means anything,” Johnny said airily.

Danny thought the matter over, “How does it not mean anything?”

“Well Pariah just declared himself the Ghost King one day, others only listened because he forced them to. And it’s not like we need a king, we’ve had the council ever since.”

“Ugh, stupid eye balls,” Danny griped. “But yeah, if he just decided to make himself king I guess it doesn’t really mean anything.”

Mom sighed deeply, “You mean like Alexander the Great? Or Ghengis Khan? Or William the Conquerer? Or anyone else from history who declared himself in charge and then killed anyone who didn’t listen?”

Danny drooped, “Okay, so maybe it does matter. But how would that even work? Why am I the Ghost King now?”

“Dunno,” Johnny said with a shrug. “It’s not like you even have the crown or ring.”

“No, Pariah still has the ring and last I saw the crown Vlad had it.”

“Good old Vladdie,” Dad boomed eagerly, “holding onto a powerful artifact like that to keep it safe!”

“So shouldn’t Vlad be the new Ghost King?” Danny asked with a shudder.

“Well the summoning circle thinks you earned the title somehow, so I guess it’s you now.” Johnny snickered as he got on his bike, Kitty quickly hopping on behind him. “Anyway, see ya ‘round, your majesty.” Johnny sneered the last part, then the pair both laughed like Johnny had just told the best joke ever as he zoomed off.

“Well I’m proud of you!” Dad slapped Danny’s back so hard he face planted. “Fighting that nasty Ghost King was really brave of you, and look at you now! Our boy, the Ghost King!” Dad wiped away a tear of deep paternal pride.

Danny had already floated himself up off the ground and dusted himself off, completely unharmed. “Thanks Dad, that means a lot.” And it really did! He was used to his parents being proud of him, not for his grades obviously, but just… in general. Or something. To have his dad say he’s proud of things Danny did as Phantom just… hit different.

“Is there anyone we can ask about this? The council that ruffian mentioned?” Mom looked thoughtful.

“Ugh no, the council hates my guts for some reason.”

“Well… if they’ve been in charge since Pariah was put in the sarcophagus and you’re the king now, maybe they feel threatened?” Dad asked, rubbing his chin.

“That’s probably it, sweetiepie. They’re just threatened by you.” Mom gently pat his arm.

“That’s so weird! I don’t even want to be king, I’d probably be a terrible one anyway.”

Dad gasped, “Danno! That’s just not true! Sure, you’re a bit young to be king now, but in a few years I bet you’d be a great king!”

“Pass.” Danny did not want to add a crown to his disaster of a life. Especially if it meant he’d have to be a bully to make others listen to him anyway, it’s not like anyone listened to Pariah.

“So honey, anyone else we can ask about the Ghost King? Or summoning circles? I’m really worried about you randomly getting summoned by creepy cults.” And boy, did Mom have a point about that! Yikes!

“Uh… maybe Frostbite?” The yeti did keep calling him “Great One” and that had to mean something, right? And if not he could hopefully point them in the right direction.

“Wonderful!” Mom chirped as she started herding Danny back into the Speeder. “And along the way you can answer a few small questions about your fight with Pariah.”

“I’m sorry about taking the Ecto-skeleton without asking,” Danny blurted out, face turning green as it grew colder.

“It’s alright, baby boy,” Mom pinched his cheek, “we understand why you did it and why you felt you had to at the time. But never do it again, okay?”

“Yeah,” Danny said miserably as they got back into the speeder. Once Danny had pointed them in the direction of the Far Frozen, he sat criss cross applesauce in the air. “So uh… questions?”

“Oh yeah! What questions did you have, fudgecakes?”

“Well…” Mom started but hesitated before continuing slowly. “This sounds like it might be a right of conquest situation.”

Danny had no idea what that meant. Well he knew what the words individually meant, and he had a pretty good idea what the phrase meant generally, but he had no idea what the rules or details were.

“Was this an official challenge?” Mom asked when Danny only stared blankly at her.

“Uh… maybe?” Danny tried thinking back to the fight, “What would make it an official challenge?”

“Did the Ghost King say he accepted your challenge? Or challenge you?”

“He uh…” Danny tried to remember the times he’d bantered with Pariah. “He said he accepted my terms,” Danny said with a squeak near the end.

Mom just nodded, “Right, so it sounds like a challenge. And did you take his crown at any point in the fight?”

Danny tried to remember the end of the fight, and well… “Yeah, I knocked it off him right before shoving him back into the sarcophagus. But Vlad had the key that actually locked it, and then he had the crown the last time I saw it.”

“Danny, sweetie, Vlad didn’t challenge the Ghost King to single combat, and he didn’t take the crown as part of that challenge.”

“Oh,” was all Danny could say as the realization of what he’d unwittingly done sank in. “Well… shit.”

#danny phantom #dpxdc #dc comics #justice league #fanfic #nenna writes #sleepy king #he's not sleepy right now LOL #insert the rant from princess diaries here #just in case i wasn't enough of a freak let's add a crown!

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