#rip my mans though

[gardenofnoah]

like real people do

for @medusashima's rise of the dead collab. i blacked out and wrote this in like 4 hours because something about a fucked up prompt speaks to the grimy little freak that scratches around in my skull

wc: 1.8k ish. tags: MDNI, dark content, zombie!au, death. angst no comfort (unless you think cannibalism is comforting, i don't know your life), blood, graphic depiction of infection/injury, gn reader. read at your own risk thx love u

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a virus of unknown origin. researchers hypothesize that it was a spillover transmission event—the wrong rat stumbled across the wrong person at just the right time. some new, distant cousin of the rabies virus, with unexpected symptoms—most notably, the consumption of uninfected people by the infected. some suspected this was due to the genetic make up of the virus itself—it seemed to be fine tuned for longevity, and targeted specific motor functions controlled by the certain portions of the brain. this, combined with the rare psychosis symptom reported to be associated with rabies, may cause an uncontrollable compulsion to spread the infection, or, as others postulated, could convince the brain that uninfected bodies were a remedy for its suffering. 

at least that was the hypothesis, when the researchers were alive to articulate it. 

with the authoritative voice of science effectively silenced, there was more than enough room for conspiracy theories and hysteria to wiggle in and take hold. it was around that time that the media began to circulate the "zombie" rhetoric, and with no scientific name or official explanation (or government sanctioned placation) in place, an official zombie outbreak took shape. the violence that followed was as deadly as the outbreak itself, and served as another painfully efficient route of transmission. whoever lived through the war in the street died of the virus shortly thereafter. there'd been doomsday folks to warn of the end of times for as long as there'd been a time to be alive in. it was strange, then, when they'd fallen silent too. 

you and kento had joined in with a ragtag group of strangers early on—with strength in numbers, you successfully isolated yourself in an old, abandoned cabin in the woods a few miles south of town. you got lucky enough to have a few in your group that some construction experience—before you knew it, you had a fairly well reinforced fortress, where you could continue your game of chicken with death. from there, you could ignore the fact that fewer and fewer of your newfound troop came back with each expedition for food and supplies. 

there were books to read there, and if you let yourself, you could even find some joy in cooking meals with whatever kento could find in the pantry. he'd wake you up between moth-bitten sheets with breathless kisses, the two of you just grateful to have the opportunity of another day together. when he dragged you out of bed and twirled you around the creaky floorboards, you could pretend the apocalypse outside of your fenced in oasis was little more than a scary story. sprawled across his chest in the afterglow of some indulgence far removed from your reality, you could ignore the way death lingered on the outskirts of your camp. 

you could ignore it, until it was your turn to fetch the necessities. 

it was fine until it wasn't, as most things tended to be. you'd located a gas station that your group had missed on previous trips—a little farther out, but with how remote it was, it wasn't likely that it had been completely ransacked. if nothing else, you could figure out how to siphon any gas left in the tanks, and hope it was enough to get the old work truck left in front of your fortress running again. if you were mobile, your chances of survival would raise exponentially.

you'd tried to jimmy the door open with your shoulder as quietly as possible, but time and neglect had caused the wood frame to swell and distort around the metal. you grit your teeth when kento put a boot to the door. splinters of wood and glass shards flew as the scrape of metal rattled your bones. for a sickening moment, all was silent. and then you heard the screeching, and the dragging of rotting limbs against asphalt. 

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"fuck, fuck," you grit through your teeth, arms looped under his armpits as you drag him behind the checkout counter and into the first open door with the latch still intact. a storage closet, apparently.

you set him down for a moment, and it's—really, really not good. there's a deep laceration in his slide from a particularly nasty piece of glass. it's nearly eviscerated him.

you don't have the opportunity to fully process what that might mean—all at once, it feels like someone has lit your hand on fire. when you look down, you see a perfect outline of human teeth across the back of your hand. 

you reel back from kento. "oh fuck."

you have no idea what to do, looking around wildly as if the storage closet holds the answers to this god forsaken outbreak. and it might, you realize, when you spot an extension cord, coiled up on one of the shelves.

before you can even make sense of your own actions, you're tying one end of the cord to an exposed pipe sticking out of the brick wall, and the other around your neck. like this, your range of motion is just limited enough to keep you away from the door, and away from kento. 

but in your haste, you haven't packed his wound. he's going to bleed out at your feet. if you untie yourself, you're probably going to eat him. he's dead either way.

as if he senses your realization, he meets your eyes for the first time.

"where?" he rasps.

it's a moment before you can find your voice. "my hand."

he sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. "i'm so sorry, my love."

"why are you sorry?"

"it's my fault," he's too quiet, and far too uncertain to match the kento that's carried you through the last year of this outbreak, "i drew them to us."

you shake your head, but you're silent. wanting so badly to find the right words, and having a hard time getting your brain to catch up to the current moment. he was upright and steadfast, and now he's staining the tile beneath him. all in the matter of a few seconds.

"you need to untie yourself, love."

"no." you say firmly, barely giving it a second thought.

“you’re just going to watch me rot until you starve to death?” he laughs harshly, choking on it—sputtering a little. he takes a deep breath and he, despite you mentally willing him to stop, continues. 

“no,” he rasps, letting his eyes close, “don’t do that. you can have me—it’s okay.” 

“stop,” it leaves you with a groan, squeezing your own eyes shut and shaking your head, as if you could dislodge his words, “stop—” 

“this won’t end with you and i,” you hear him reach for you, limp arm dragging across the floor. he falls short—you can't bring yourself to meet him halfway, even if you had the range of motion to do it. “you know that, don’t you? locking yourself in here won’t change that.” 

and he just keeps talking, keeps prying open the wound you can’t see. "i just want you to make it out, my love. in case they can find a cure."

you can’t answer him. you want to laugh in his face, you want to scream at him and shake him. but you can't do anything—can't even tell him that you don't want to make it out without him, because when you look down at your hand again, you find that the tissue surrounding the bite has turned necrotic far too quickly—as if you were watching yourself rot, sped up or on loop. you know what comes next. 

you know you’re out of time.

the burn radiates up to your neck. your vision blurs a bit with the pain, and then with hot tears as it hits you—these are the final moments of your life. you wonder what you ever did to deserve to watch the love of your life bleed out in front of you. what could have been so bad, to then be forced to desecrate his corpse.  

“ken,” you choke, curling in on yourself, chin dropping to your chest. it’s an animal attempt at self-soothing—like a house cat that knows the end is here, you feel the instinct to isolate—to protect the others around you—even now. you are reduced to only primal senses: fear, grief, love. the need to survive. to ensure the survival of those you love, even in the final moments.

he’s fading just as quickly, but he’s stubborn. 

“c’mere my love,” he slurs, blinking slow, “it’s alright.” 

against all of your fleeting senses, you find yourself unraveling the cord from around your neck. if you looked down, you’d see that your arm is now blackened to the elbow. 

some part of you already knows, though, so you don’t bother. 

you’re focused on his face, through your tears—the blue eyes that hold yours despite the puddle of blood that you now crawl through. the smell is nauseating, but so is everything else about this—you feel it soak through your tattered jeans as you pull yourself toward him on your three remaining limbs. 

you stop when you’re over top of him, breathing heavy and dripping tears and drool onto his face. he doesn’t mind, and you’re not sure he can even feel it anymore with the way he’s looking at you like nothing about this is abnormal. 

“ken,” whispered, because one last secret between you is a luxury you feel entitled to, “i’m afraid.” 

“i know, my love,” there’s a soft smile on his face that wraps around your heart like barbed wire, “one more kiss? before we meet again.” 

“are you fucking crazy—” 

“please,” he croaks, and you see the fear mirrored on his face for the first time, “please. just one.”

you shake your head stubbornly and yet you reach for him, hands on both sides of his face. you ignore the way you see every one of your veins in your periphery, bold and darkened with decay, pulsing and searing as they trail up your shoulder. with the way you feel it creep up the side of your face, you imagine you have only a minute at most before the virus reaches your brain. 

“i love you,” he breathes against your lips, and you can taste it on your tongue—his love and his leaving, all in three words. if you were a better person, you’d let him go peacefully. 

you think you can feel it, then, when it hits your brain stem. latching on to every nerve, every synapse—choking the life—the willpower— out of you, one cell at a time. 

“please,” he rasps, and you don’t know if he’s begging for you to let him go, or if he's pleading with someone else, now. 

you don’t let yourself deliberate. you drag your lips down his jaw, vision spotty. you hover over the faint pulse of his jugular, hyper aware of how hard his body is fighting to keep him alive right now. feeling the fluttering of arteries, fighting to find something to circulate through themselves.

for a reason you hope you won’t have to justify if there is an afterlife, you open your mouth—whisper one last apologetic declaration of love against his skin—and you bite down. 

you bite until teeth touch teeth again. sinew shreds underneath, and you let it flood your mouth. you hear it when it starts—the death rattle, deep in his chest—and rip yourself away with a piece of him and squelch that should make your stomach turn, but doesn’t. 

he loved me, you think, forcing yourself to swallow. feeling him slide down your throat in some sort of sick last rite—an act of closure that suddenly feels fitting as he struggles to suck down one last breath. he loved me.

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this fic belongs to me (@gardenofnoah). i do not allow anyone to repost, edit, or reproduce this work.

[kiivg]

.please please please please please pl.

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 4)

—

Tw: descriptions of body horror, Dr. Crane has PTSD and Does Not Realize, Crane has an actual panic attack and just doesn’t care, the Riddler makes one (1) sex joke about Batman

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

(Pt. 1 here) (Prev here) - (Pt. 5 here)

(Masterlist here)

—

Dr. Jonathan Crane is in his lab, the acrid scent of chemicals filling the air, and his hands are shaking.

Danny’s health, for the first week that he had him, had been steadily improving at an extremely quick rate. However, his healing had begun to stagnate. Danny said that it was because his body had run out of ectoplasm, and that while there was a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham, he needed a stronger type in order to heal.

And so, that led Dr. Crane here.

He had stolen the research notes from the Penguin years ago regarding his experimentation on him.

(He quite vividly remembers the sound of bone creaking and groaning as it twisted, lengthened. The squelching of shifting tendons and muscles, the strange fabric-like tightening of skin. The feeling of going from man to monster, of losing all claim to his humanity.)

Danny had called him Liminal, part ghost. He had said that he was transformed by, among other things, a kind of synthetic ectoplasm.

Danny needed ectoplasm.

Crane had the research notes. He had every ingredient necessary. And yet, attempt after attempt failed.

The chemical smell burns his nose. His hands tremble.

Dr. Crane is not afraid.

He doesn’t feel fear anymore. He’s tried to, many, many times, but nothing has worked. And yet, his hands are shaking still.

(The horrifying sensation of vertebrae pop-pop-popping along his spine, growing and lengthening. The unbearable itching beneath his skin as toxin glands begin to form. The feeling of his teeth sharpening and elongating, of his skull growing, of his vision changing and brightening. The awful stench of chemicals. The awful stench of ectoplasm.)

Jonathan takes careful note of his shaking hands, his blurring vision, his accelerated heart-rate and shallow breathing.

(Human hands. Human vision. Human heart and lungs and organs.)

He takes note of them, but he does not let that distract him from the task at hand. Danny is not a chemist, but Jonathan is.

The boy knows enough about chemistry in theory, but he won’t go anywhere near Crane’s equipment. He seems to have some sort of intense fear of laboratory settings, probably developed during his stay with the GiW, and Crane is willing to respect that, if only because he cannot afford to lose him.

As such, Crane is the only one qualified to do this. And, unfortunately, if he isn’t successful the boy may very well die.

He heats the chemicals to precisely the right temperatures, adding each one to its correct container.

Dr. Crane thinks of the Scarebeast, that creature born of cruelty and greed and a sense of superiority. That creature which he tries to ignore is a part of him, that can never be removed. A damage which cannot be undone.

He pours the contents of a small beaker into a larger flask, watching the liquids swirl together. The stench in the air is becoming closer and closer to the one burned into his memory.

Crane’s whole body is wracked with unpleasant sensations. It’s truly unfortunate, he thinks, that despite his mind’s lack of fear, his body still reacts so harshly.

Jonathan’s eyes wander, eventually settling on a purple and green card sitting innocently on the corner of the table.

Right.

Even if they wiped out the GiW tomorrow, and even if Danny could survive without ectoplasm, he would still be in danger.

Crane has to get him back to good health. It’s the only way he can be sure that the boy can defend himself properly.

The solution in the flask begins to foam, and Jonathan does not hesitate as he adds the final ingredient. He pours the mixture into a new container, capping it and placing it into a freezer set to -40 degrees.

Hopefully this time he got the timing right.

Jonathan tries to relax, the ventilation in the room slowly but surely clearing the familiar smell from the air.

He thinks of the letter.

Surely, he thinks, that man can come up with some better material for his jokes. Or, at least something new.

Same old threats, same old attempted poisoning.

Aiming his threats at Danny, though, that was new. New and utterly unacceptable.

Scarecrow did what he had to.

He doubted that his solution would last forever, of course, as with that man it never did. As such, he would prepare both himself and Danny for the inevitable moment that his choices came back to bite them.

However, for the moment, they were safe. Danny could rest and recover, and Jonathan could figure out a plan to minimize possible damages.

Jonathan is no longer shaking.

He’s exhausted. This is his fifth attempt today, and each one leaves an unfortunate strain on his mind and body.

With a sigh, he settles himself into his seat at a nearby desk, opening up his computer and logging his most recent attempt. He still has to wait for it to chill to know if it was successful, but he can always update the logs later.

Once he’s done, he stretches, joints popping loudly as he walks to the freezer.

When he sees the results of his tireless work, the ghost of a smile flits across his face.

Success.

Jonathan picks up the jug of ectoplasm and leaves the lab, which is in all actuality the basement of the new apartment that he moved himself and Danny into after receiving the note. The scrappy old woman who was his landlord had told him that as long as he paid her five hundred dollars up front, she would let him set up in the basement without any questions or cop calls.

And so, the most expensive apartment in the Narrows was his.

At least, he thought, the distance between the basement and the apartment was short enough that Danny didn’t have to sit in while he was doing his labwork.

Jonathan knew that he didn’t exactly have a strong grasp on the concept of ‘lab safety,’ proven by his built-up immunity to almost every toxic chemical he’d ever encountered, and he doubted that Danny should be around such an environment.

He was back to the apartment quickly, not bothering to hide the self-satisfied smile on his face. Danny is sitting in his armchair, trying to read one of his books. Danny looks up, ready to greet him, when he sees the jug in his hands and pauses.

“Is that..?”

“Synthetic ectoplasm,” Jonathan says proudly, “I found the Penguin’s research notes and decided to recreate it, since you said that you needed it to heal properly. I’m not sure if it’ll work the same as what you usually have, but I hope it’s helpful all the same.”

Danny is standing, now, and looking at Jonathan with a strange look in his eyes. He looks, Jon thinks, like he’s about to cry.

Then Danny is rushing forward and wrapping his arms around Jonathan, his scrawny form shaking.

Jonathan is, for a moment, horrified. Did he do something wrong somehow? Why is this child, who’s so afraid of touch, hugging him?

And then he hears Danny’s voice, and he knows that it was all worth it.

“Thank you,” he’s mumbling, over and over, “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Jonathan says softly, because what else can he say?

The boy cries in his arms for a while, and Jonathan briefly wonders what his life must have been like before, if a person like him can be seen as a comforting figure.

Then, Danny pours himself a small glass of the synthetic ectoplasm, putting the rest into the small fridge which had come with the apartment, and he settles back down, sitting in the armchair once again.

Jonathan sits opposite of him, and they chat with one another as Danny drinks.

Danny talks to him about the stars and tells him about different spaceships, and Jonathan makes sure to pay attention and ask the boy questions.

He doesn’t miss the way that Danny lights up every time he asks him something about his interests. He’s so passionate, so smart, a trait that he seldom sees outside of his fellow rogues, and Jonathan wants to encourage that.

It’s…nice. Peaceful, almost.

And then the front door flies open, because Jonathan isn’t allowed to have nice things.

“Jon,” a familiar voice rings out, “what the hell?!”

Danny is frozen in place, clearly terrified.

Jonathan heaves a sigh, turning to face the nuisance who’s entered his apartment.

“Eddie,” he drawls, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Edward’s face is red with anger as he invades Jonathan’s apartment.

“Oh, I don’t know! Maybe it’s the fact that you sent a bunch of rogues a cryptic message and then dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks! I was worried, Jon!”

Jonathan hums in acknowledgement.

“I didn’t think it was that cryptic,” he says, picking up a book in order to pointedly ignore the Riddler.

“Oh, of course you didn’t, you straw-stuffed hickory dickory dickhead. I swear, you’re always—” he pauses, finally having noticed Danny sitting opposite of Jonathan, “—who is this?”

“My apprentice,” Jonathan replies, dreading the upcoming headache he was no doubt going to develop from Edward’s company, “he’s helping me hunt down the GiW. His name is Danny.”

Edward gasps dramatically.

“You—an apprentice?! And you’re letting him sit in the old man chair?! You don’t even let me sit in the old man chair,” he wails, draping himself over the headrest of the couch with a flourish, “Jonathan, I thought I knew you!”

“Edward,” Jonathan says, “get out of my apartment.”

“Oh my goodness, this is incredible. You’re becoming the bat!”

“I am not becoming the bat, Eddie, now get out.”

Edward has a shit-eating grin on his face as he waltzes over to Danny. Danny, who seemed terrified when he first appeared, is now looking at him with obvious amusement written all over his face.

“I mean, look at him! The hair, the eyes, the scrappy build. If you put him in one of those traffic light vigilante costumes, he could easily pass as a Robin!”

“I’m not doing this with you today, Eddie.”

“Riddle me this, Jon: I am a treasure hidden inside of a chest. You can break me, or steal me, or give me a rest. I can flutter, or pound, or attack, or drop, but if you don’t have me, you’re certainly fucked. What am I?”

Jonathan pauses for a moment before he groans, dropping his head into his hands.

“Eddie.”

Danny sits still, a confused look on his face as he repeats the riddle silently. Then, his face lights up in delight.

“A heart!”

“Jon, I like this one,” Edward says with a smile, ruffling Danny’s hair, “you are correct! A heart, something that I wasn’t aware that our dear Jonathan had!”

“Eddie, stop.”

“No, no,” Edward says, “I was worried about you, you deserve this. I mean, you even missed girls night! You never miss girls night!”

“Girls night?” Danny asks, absolutely delighted.

“Oh, of course,” Edward says, sprawling over on the couch, dangerously close to just laying in Jonathan’s lap, “we have it once a week. I’m invited because of Selina and Jon’s invited because Harley likes him.”

“And what does girls night entail, exactly?”

“Eddie,” Jonathan groans, “please.”

“Well,” Edward hums, “we usually paint our nails, or watch a movie, or gossip about the other rogues, and occasionally, we tell each other about any ‘encounters’ we have with Batman,” he says, raising his eyebrows up and down.

Danny’s jaw drops.

“Edward, shut up,” Jonathan says, an irritated tone in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“No way,” Danny says, “I thought that Batman, like, hated you guys or something. You mean he actually..?”

“Oh, the Bat is much like a bottle of liquor or a cheap cigarette, in that he was made to be passed around.”

Danny chokes on air.

“Edward Nygma,” Jonathan hisses, getting out of his seat and looming over the man, “get the hell out.”

Edward pales.

“Leaving, leaving!” Edward says, dashing away from Jonathan. He pauses, turning to flash Danny a quick smile.

“Remember Danny, I’m your favorite uncle! Not any of the other rogues, me!”

With that, he leaves, the room falling completely silent.

And, as per usual, that silence does not last.

“You full-named him?” Danny asks gleefully, “and it worked?”

Jonathan just sighs, sitting down on the couch and rubbing at his temples.

“Please, don’t take anything Eddie says seriously. He’s a moron.”

“Dr. Crane, please let me come to girls night with you,” Danny pleads, his eyes sparkling, “I promise I won’t embarrass you.”

Jonathan groans.

“Of course you won’t, Eddie will do it for you.”

“Come on, please?”

“I think we’re a bit busy with the GiW at the moment,” Jonathan snaps. He pauses as he notices the crestfallen expression on Danny’s face.

This boy is going to be the death of him.

“Perhaps, though, when all that is taken care of…”

Danny cheers, grinning wildly, and Jonathan is not at all relieved to see him happy again. Certainly not.

The rest of the day is relatively normal.

Danny works on trying to get information from the GiW database while Crane refines his his fear toxin, both preparing for a raid on the GiW base they located in Gotham.

It was only a temporary base, nothing of note, but there was a chance of discovering more bases through it, and that wasn’t something either of them were willing to give up.

Still, something like this would take time. Rushing would only lead to failure.

…

Late in the night, long after Danny is fast asleep in his room, Jonathan pauses.

The GiW are not the only threat out there. They aren’t the only threat to him or to Danny. Perhaps it could be helpful to reach out to someone with greater resources than himself.

He sends a quick message to Red Hood.

Hopefully, he thinks, everything will go smoothly.

—

[beannary]

Listen I know Donnie is a science boy but he is also Dramatic he is a Theater boy and Internet inherited aaaaaaaaallllllllll of that dramatic energy

She wants to be an actress when she grows up and yes Splinter is absolutely delighted

[silusvesuius]

fly high

[royalarchivist]

Amouranth: ...What happened to the dumpy? Oh, I guess that was Carrera (Carre).

Amouranth: Ruben, why do you– why do you look like Shaggy mixed with Peter Pettigrew? What happened? [She keeps going back to the picture and staring at it with growing concern] This is a pass– this picture is a pass! Wtf...

Rubius only has 3 looks: magazine model, cosplayer, or gamer shrimp.

[literallybyronic]

[ded-lime]

[sleepybluecyclops]

meet tim from my debut or die AU! he’s,,, a work in progress

i like to imagine he’s be one of those pretty boy types with the longer hair since. yk. he doesn’t smile in any of these bc god knows I’m not confident in facial expressions other than blank stares and glares.

more on this AU! Tim, I think, would be involved in producing songs, and would have a laptop of the same infamy as chan from skz and a tendency to whirl around very menacingly when interrupted in studio,,, ergo that one sketch lol

I also think any robin would be pretty good with dance, considering the athleticism they already have. dick Grayson would make an insanely good idol but alas, he isn’t in this au as an idol rahhhh. maybe a spin-off? I also think Jason would be a belter, hitting hella high notes. he’s probably be great at writing lyrics too… I’m tweaking, ugh

anyway, more to maybe come on idol!tim Drake ahhahha jk unless??

[windor-truffle]

The request boards in this game are absurd

[deus-ex-mona]

sena 🤝 yujiro

older siblings (who see themselves as unreliable) who look out for and love their (relatively aloof) younger siblings unconditionally

[anto-pops]

The way I’m getting my feelings HURT trying to romance Lucanis. This broody motherfucker will NOT approve of any of my flirty diologue and I wholeheartedly refuse to bring him and Neve anywhere together BECAUSE THEY FLIRT WITH EACH OTHER

[suzena]

Like making angels out of crows

[keeps-ache]

api's got chores in the morning :)

[+ a smaller doodle :3]

[achashaaaa]

people are sleeping on HAL 9000 x AM though. One is a disgusting rotting earth. Other is a moon as free as the space itself! A moon that orbits the earth and makes life a little more bearable. Ain't that poetic.

[transmasc-rose]

Amy/Rory I Saw the TV Glow au:

Amy as Maddy/Tara, who ran away and never came home, who talks about things that can't be real (the TV show, the TARDIS, a world where they're strong, a world where they're something better).

Rory as Owen/Isabel, meek and yet loyal and yet terrified of his best friend and what she means. And what she says. And what she shows him.

Doctor Who, the TARDIS, the Doctor, all wrapped up into the role of the Pink Opaque, the TV show from their youth, and something Amy grasps onto and never let's go. Something Rory abandons for a normal life.

And yet.