#some body horror lol

[ierofrnkk]

Many Moons Are Deep at Play

werewolf!Steven x reader (~3.1K)

Summary: Ever since you and Steven were attacked on the last night of your camping trip, he’s been different. Six months after the fact, you learn exactly how different he’s become.

Content: 18+, gn!reader, the other MK boys aren’t around (sorry), body horror, graphic description of a werewolf transformation, Steven is a werewolf, he’s in pain for like 400 words sorry, overuse of italics

a/n: does this count for monsterfucktober? who cares. the title is from ‘dark necessities’ by rhcp!

-

It’s been exactly six months, eight days, and fifteen hours since you and Steven barely made it back alive from that camping trip.

It was your idea; you suggested that this was the perfect time of year to go camping—the weather was incredible and honestly, the two of you needed a break from the city, even for a few days.

What a mistake that would turn out to be.

—

The first few days were great; the spot you two had picked to camp out was perfect, there was nobody around to bother the two of you—it was great.

The last night was when things went terribly, awfully wrong.

You and Steven had put out the fire for the night and were preparing for bed when you heard it. At first, you both thought it could’ve been a bear or perhaps a neighboring camper’s dog that had gotten loose, but you very quickly—and too late—realized that it was something much, much worse.

The beast had lunged at the two of you from beyond the clearing, cloaked in darkness beside the taunting, hopeful glow of the full moon. You two barely had time to react—you managed to just get knocked back by the sheer force of such a creature, but Steven was less lucky.

The thing had gotten the best of him, but only for a second before being startled and running off. It still left its mark on him—a nasty scratch that ran from the top of his shoulder down near the middle of his chest.

You both are lucky to have made it out of there with your lives—thankfully, Steven’s injury was no more than a flesh wound, and healed with little scarring. When law enforcement arrived at your aid, you had been told that there had been sightings of wolves in the area, and were told that this was just a ‘freak accident’ and that you two were ‘not in any more danger’.

It was a difficult few months after that; poor Steven, as skittish and anxious as he already had been, was a total mess after the incident. He was grateful to have you around, though, and you helped him to return to some sense of normalcy.

Things have been generally pretty normal, but once a month, Steven is…different.

It’s like for a few days, he’s less like himself—he’s more reckless, clingier, like he can’t tear himself away from you even for a second. He’s abandoned his veganism, too, which you’ve found most strange.

He’d given you some rushed, stilted response; something about how he’d gotten tired of tofu scrambles and veggie wraps. It was very unlike Steven, but he’d been through a lot, so you’d forgiven it.

There’s a lot more steak in your fridge than you thought you’d ever have.

One day a month, though, he goes away overnight—tells you that some of his mates invite him over to have dinner and play some games, and you let him. He never tells you which friends he’s with, or where he goes.

A part of you thinks he’s lying.

He comes back all disheveled the morning after, a bit worse for wear, but he always insists that it’s just because he and the boys got a little wild the previous night.

It all doesn’t add up. You figure he’s just going through some kind of crisis in the aftermath of such a horrific attack.

But after months of this same routine, you’re fed up—it’s been too long of him lying and dancing around questions, skirting away from giving you any sort of solid, definitive answer.

“I’m coming with you tonight,” you tell him as the two of you sit on the couch together, spending time before he vanishes overnight.

He looks at you like he’s seen a ghost.

“No! No, you—love, it’s not—there’s nothing for you to worry about. Promise.”

You’re not convinced.

“I am worried, and I’m going to come with you. I don’t care what your friends say.”

He’s flustered now, nervous and looking like he’s trying to find an escape route to get out of this conversation. A part of you feels guilty for pressing him like this, but you need to know.

After what feels like an eternity of Steven struggling to find the right words to say, give some decent response to what you’re suggesting, he speaks up, voice soft.

“You can’t come with me, love.”

You make a face. You never knew Steven to be so insistent that you stay away from him, even if it’s overnight. So, you give him an ultimatum.

“Fine. If I can’t come with you, then stay home.”

He makes it seem as if that’s the worse option of the two, but he knows that you’ve got him backed into a corner. Either let you come with him, or stay at home.

That seems to have gotten through to him, and he nods, resigned. It was inevitable that you found out, and he knows that he’s damned no matter what he chooses.

“I’ll stay home, but we have to talk about this, yeah?”

You nod right away. Finally, you’re getting somewhere with him, so you’ll take whatever you can get.

He shifts in his seat beside you, suddenly feeling awkward and much more nervous about having such a conversation, but he eventually speaks up.

“After what happened to us a few months ago, I’ve been…different.”

No shit, you think. He continues, fidgeting.

“At first, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I thought I’d just gone mental, yeah? But I didn’t. Something, er, worse happened.”

Your brows knit together in confusion, and you’re immediately able to tell that he’s stalling. Playing with his words and trying to put off this inevitable confession. You need him to tell you.

“Steven, just tell me.” You interject, tone a bit more firm than it usually is.

He tenses, and immediately blurts out the confession like the words burned in his throat.

“I’mawerewolf.”

What?

The words were rushed, all jumbled together but it was so obvious what he’d just said. You can’t believe it.

“Say again?” You ask, desperate for clarification.

His face is flushed red with embarrassment, and he can’t meet your gaze anymore—he’s awful at this, but he eventually gathers the nerve to repeat himself.

“I’m a…werewolf,” he cringes at the word, hating the way it sounds from his mouth. To further elaborate, he gestures vaguely in the direction of the window, where the sun has set and tonight’s full moon has begun to rise.

“You know; full moon, lycanthropy and all.” He makes a sad, awkward little howl noise, probably in some attempt to be funny or lighten the mood.

You stare at him, dumbfounded.

Unfortunately, it all makes too much sense.

The “wolf” attack, the disappearances once a month, the sudden change in his appetite.

Steven’s a werewolf.

The glow of the moon through the window is suddenly much less comforting. You realize he doesn’t have a lot of time before he’s unrecognizable.

“I go out to the woods every month,” he starts again after a beat of silence.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody. Don’t want to hurt you.”

You feel the guilt burn in your throat—that’s why he’s been so flighty, hiding away from you every month.

You don’t even have anything to say. What can you say to something like that?

You aren’t given much time to dwell on your thoughts before Steven doubles over in pain before you, and immediately all of your senses go on high alert.

“Oh fuck, Steven, are you okay?”

It’s a stupid question. Obviously, he isn’t.

You wish there was something you could do, but you don’t exactly know the protocol for what to do when your boyfriend starts turning into a werewolf.

“Fine! Fine, just—ah-“ he grimaces in pain, arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

You give him as much time as he needs, and he manages to get a few words out through his pain.

“Put away anything fragile—ah, fuck—please. I can’t-“ he doesn’t finish his thought, dropping to his knees from where he’d sat on the couch, and your heart aches for him.

After a few seconds of standing dumbly in place, you move with nervous speed, grabbing anything immediately fragile—glassware, the framed photo of the two of you in Cairo, anything breakable—and toss it all onto your bed, before shutting and locking the door.

By the time you return, Steven’s gotten rid of his clothes, and it’s the least of your concerns.

“I don’t want you in here when I—“ he cries out in pain, and your heart aches for him.

He doesn’t want you in the room with him when he turns.

You nod unsteadily, trying to wrap your head around this situation. An hour ago you figured that he might’ve been hiding something from you, but you never had thought that it’d be something like this.

Even though he’s warned you, you can’t take your eyes away from him.

The first thing that changes are his hands; his nails elongate into what you can only describe as claws—sharp and deadly.

You keep a safe distance.

With a pained shout, he arches back, and you bear witness to the grotesque sight—and sound—of his breastbone and ribcage cracking and stretching, expanding his chest to better accommodate the anatomy of a wolf.

It’s killing you to see Steven—your Steven—hurting and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it.

His canines stretch and sharpen into points. You back away from the living room.

You watch as he falls forward, leaning on his hands and knees; his back arches, his spine cracking and popping as his entire form is rearranged.

The sounds of his bones and joints cracking and shifting are awful enough on their own, but combined with the sound of Steven’s cries and shouts in agony, it’s that much worse.

His joints are rearranging, moving and grinding against one another. It’s grotesque and horrible, and you can’t believe that this is what Steven goes through every month.

It’s awful, and it gets worse when you see the way his face distorts, his nose and his cheekbones cracking horribly as his face stretches into something more canine than human.

It doesn’t take long until he’s completely unrecognizable. A hound; a werewolf.

You stand a fair distance from the creature that used to be your boyfriend, watching as the beast paces around your living room, sniffling and snarling as it takes in its surroundings.

“Steven..” you murmur, and the beast turns in your direction.

You can see Steven’s eyes, deep and brown—and even as unrecognizable as he is in this state, you still know that this is your Steven.

Against your better judgment, you step closer, treading softly and praying that he remembers you.

The wolf’s ears flatten against his head, and it takes a cautious step backward. It—he—growls, something low in his throat. Not quite a threat, but a warning. You can’t tell if it’s out of anger or fear.

He looks like a wolf, but bigger. You don’t know if that scares or excites you.

Every alarm bell in the back of your mind is blaring, telling you to run, get out of there, but you can’t. Not when you know that the wolf in front of you was your boyfriend a handful of minutes ago.

Slowly and carefully, you lower to your knees—you vaguely remember a documentary you and Steven had watched about wolves, how if you approach them on their level, they’d be less inclined to attack you. They’d be less threatened.

The wolf steps forward cautiously, sniffing the air in front of you as it tries to determine if you’re a friend or its next meal. It takes another step forward, and you put your hand out—palm facing upward—in front of it.

Those deep brown eyes you recognize so fondly as Steven’s never leave yours as the wolf sniffs your palm, its nose nudging your fingers as it does its best to understand who you are.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding when it presses its nose against your hand, a large, warm tongue swiping across your fingers.

He remembers you.

“Steven,” you breathe, and he huffs in response.

You move your hand carefully across the wolf’s snout, brushing your fingers over the fur on the top of its head gently.

You’re petting your boyfriend like you would a dog at the shelter.

The wolf takes another step forward, and you can see more of Steven in its eyes; that care, the affection, it’s all still there, just expressed differently.

He’s a lot bigger up close, definitely larger than any dog you’d ever seen, and that’s more obvious when the muzzle of the dog (if you can even call it that) nudges against the side of your head, then under your jaw. You can hear the way he sniffs and huffs as he takes in your scent.

Your hand slides from the top of his head down behind his ears, and you’re able to feel how soft his fur is. It’s dark, dark brown, much like Steven’s own hair color.

My boyfriend’s a werewolf, you think. Yeah, no big deal. I can roll with this.

You scratch behind his ears briefly, before you let your hands trail across more of that soft fur. With every pass of your hands, you can feel the strong beat of his heart, the way his chest expands with every breath.

After he’s gotten a good idea of your scent, he nuzzles against you for a few more moments. You can’t deny that the feeling is nice, like subconsciously, you know that it’s him.

You continue to pet him, before he shifts, and lays across your lap, putting all of his weight on you.

It doesn’t surprise you at all that Steven’s werewolf form is as much of a cuddler as he is. He’s warm, impressively so, and you take the tranquility of this moment to truly process the way this evening has gone so far.

Steven’s a werewolf. That night six months ago when you were attacked, he’d gotten scratched by what you can only assume was another werewolf, and that was all it took.

You resume brushing your hand across his fur, wondering what happened in your life to bring you to this point—sitting on your living room floor while Steven’s oversized werewolf form lays across your legs like some big lap dog.

Most of the night passes the same way, with the wolf curled up as best as it can in your lap, until you move him off of you when your legs fall asleep. There’s no complaint, though, and he settles down on the floor right in front of you, going right back to sleep.

Much to your surprise, nothing was broken like he thought when he told you to hide away anything fragile, and the two of you end up falling asleep on the living room floor.

—

When you wake up the next morning, Steven’s back to himself. You take this time before he wakes up to take in the sight of him now, and mentally compare it to the way he looked last night.

You drag your hand lightly down his bare back, fingers tracing his spine, remembering the feel of his thick fur beneath your touch. He stirs, so you retract your hand, allowing him to wake up on his own.

He does, turning and stretching as he comes out of sleep, sitting up to get himself more awake.

Before things can get awkward, you grab the blanket that rests on the back of the couch, pulling it down to cover his lap, since his clothes lay in a haphazard pile on the other side of the room.

He turns to you, a sheepish grin on his face as he takes in the sight of you.

“Hiya, love,” he murmurs, voice soft and still thick with sleep.

“Sorry about…everything.” He gestures to himself, before letting his hand fall lamely back to his lap.

You shake your head, moving so that your head rests on his shoulder, now sitting beside him as the two of you wake up in the aftermath of an interesting and unexpected evening.

“It wasn’t as bad as you probably thought it’d be.”

Now it’s his turn to look at you, dumbfounded.

It’s only then that it dawns on you that he might not remember everything that happens when he’s turned, so you fill him in.

You recount the events of the previous night to him, from witnessing his transformation to the way his wolf had cuddled and nuzzled against you for most of the night until you fell asleep.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t—“ he shifts, keeping the blanket across his lap.

“—didn’t know that I’d been such a lap dog.”

He says the words sarcastically, in that self-deprecating tone that you always associate with Steven.

You take it in stride, chucking softly.

“Oh, yeah, total pooch,” you tease.

“We even played fetch at one point.”

He flushes a bright red, the color bleeding down his neck, and you swear you can hear the way that his heart rate skyrockets.

“Shut up.”

After a few beats, you speak up, voice a bit softer and more sincere.

“You go through that every month?”

He pauses, eyes falling to the blanket in his lap, hands fidgeting with the fabric. He nods, taking a slow breath.

“Not really a good way to spend the evening, is it?”

You both chuckle softly, taking this quiet morning to become accustomed to what very well might be a new routine for the two of you.

“You were pretty calm, all things considered.”

He hums, nuzzling against the side of your face as you speak. You can’t help but make the mental connection between the way he did that same gesture as a wolf last night.

“Maybe you should just stay here when you..y’know. Turn.”

You can feel him pause for a moment, thinking, but after a few seconds, he resumes his nuzzling against your jaw and neck.

“I don’t want to put that responsibility on you,” he murmurs, tone low.

You shrug, bringing a hand up to card gently through his curls. You remember the texture of his fur beneath your fingers.

“I didn’t mind it all too much. It’s not like you tore up the apartment or anything,” you gesture around, his lack of destruction apparent.

You can feel the way he grins shyly against your skin, and your hand continues to brush through his hair.

“Thank you,” he hums sleepily, breath warm against you as he speaks.

You’re definitely not opposed to one morning a month turning out this way.

tags: @winniethewife , @faretheeoscar , @silvernight-m

[wolfsnooze]

in which hunter’s possession goes a whole lot worse

[bunnieswithknives]

How much can you fit under your skin?

For @warning-heckboop's AU :3

[theholeyness]

from 2021

[noisyghost]

rambling out loud about the one year timeline of how getting bit by a werewolf affected ark/his body <3

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXVII)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

��� Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... Danny has another hashtag breakdown! Diana helps mediate. Stinky Dad and the Alien Guy observe.

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

Danny’s space-watching time is very important to him. He’s pretty sure it’s on his schedule, even.

Every few days—and even more days in a week, now that people are relatively certain that he’s not going to start hitting the medical staff—Danny gets wheeled over to the big window to stare out at the moon.

The moon hasn’t changed all that much since his first few visits, since. You know. It’s in space. Still, the stars shift in their positions, and sometimes they face Earth, and sometimes they do not, and a couple times Danny sees people flying out there, which is super neat.

Sometimes Danny sees maintenance workers out doing repairs on their buildings, too. They wave back at him when they’re not busy or carrying something, which makes Danny’s core bubble and spark with joy.

So, Danny is watching the stars twinkle in the sky with all the meditative calm his Obsession requires when something plops onto his head. It doesn’t hurt, but it does put pressure onto his neck. Ow.

Danny hisses automatically, but he already knows who it is—the quick-fast-kid-who-hasn’t-introduced-himself practically vibrates against Danny’s skin, all excited by omg/omg/misch/iefomg.

Typical. Danny wants to feign a bite, but his neck kind of hurts. He settles for grumbling. “What?”

“Dude,” the teenager says, or, uh, Danny approximates he says something kind of like dude, anyway— “Want to come see a feoht?”

Uh. “A what?” Danny asks, ignoring how the guy’s chin keeps digging into his scalp. It might be the most non-medical physical contact Danny’s had since he broke down with Diana. Maybe.

The teen backs up, and models some very quick punches into the air, making his own sound effects to match. It’s all very impressive, or whatever. Danny’s not going to applaud, though; his arms are tired.

“…Sure.” It’s not like Danny has anything better to do.

“Berstan!” the kid chirps, and—

Danny clamps down on his wheelchair wheels because holycraptheyaremoVINGFAST. His wheels aren’t on the ground—the teen is carrying him, chair and all—!

He’s going to be in so much trouble for running. Danny’s wheels touch the ground, and he drops straight to the floor. His hands shake all the way up to his elbows as he grips his wheels. He is going to be in so much trouble when the nurses look for him and he’s not there.

Oh no. Oh no.

“Here we are!” the quickfast teenager announces, grinning. They’re in a room with a big, rubberized floor. It’s basketball orange. The rest of the room is virtually indistinguishable from the cloth folding walls Casper High uses to divide the gym into smaller gyms—giant cloth panels line every surface that isn’t the floor. Walls. Ceiling.

Well. It’s certainly…sound dampening. There’s vents, though. So. At least they can breathe.

The other teenagers Danny recognizes yell out to them, cheerful as ever. One waves—the kid behind him waves back, and then they’re all clustered together, pleased and breathing heavy and slightly sweaty.

“Feel alright?” one teen asks—Danny recognizes him after a second; he usually has a leather jacket on over his brightly colored shirt. He isn’t sure what the huge S is for, but hey, it’s a cool emblem or whatever. Danny used to have his initial on his…

…Danny doesn’t want to think about that, actually. He doesn’t want to think about anything about home at all.

Oh. Someone asked him a question, and now they’re all looking at him for answers. Danny nods jerkily—something sloshes inside his skull, though, which. Ew. He scrunches his face up when everyone else starts to look worried about his expression, though; it’s no big deal! It’s just! Gross!

The boy who is very fast pats his hand before sliding to the other side of the room. There are buttons there, which he presses; the room shifts, just a little, to make a piece of the floor turn away in favor of a rack of weapons. The teenager who’s always masked, but is now in an exercise shirt, whistles approvingly, and two of the teens—whoah—start flying off to grab at the equipment available.

…There’s some cool stuff there. Danny. Danny might…

He doesn’t want to fight, per se, but. Um. Weaponry is intrinsically cool. There’s no doubt about it. Half the reason he liked to play Doomed was collecting the newest and coolest weapon to blast at all his enemies with! And Tuc—

—and—

—Tucker—

Something clicks right up in front of Danny’s face.

He flinches.

“You good?” the teenager asks, big blue eyes on him as Danny struggles to breathe. “Do you want hweorfan?”

Danny gasps around three uneasy breaths before his ears catch up. Or. Well, his ears work, but his brain doesn’t know what the teen is saying?? Danny shakes his head anyway—he doesn’t want more to happen. He wants less.

The teenager frowns. Danny immediately worries that he did something wrong. “Okay, but tell me if you change your mod.”

As soon as Danny figures out what that is? Sure. He’ll tell him.

In the meantime, the kids split up into groups; one set of two goes to one side of the gym and the other goes in the air, floating on the other si— wait, they can float??

…Danny stares, and two ostensibly human-looking teenagers take to the air, loudly teasing the two left on the ground, and, yeah. They’re flying. Danny watches as the one on the ground starts counting, ready to start their match, only to interrupt his own countdown for a sneak-attack at the start and a PIFF of a smoke bomb going off. Danny can’t see the buzzing kid disappear from sight as the air begins to thicken, but there’s a distinct taste of JOY/games/VICIOUS that flutters through him that tells Danny that, wherever he is in that smoke cloud, he’s living his best life.

 And. Well.

The fighting is—there isn’t a better word for it, it’s just so damn cool. There’s kicking and punching and throwing and tossing and—sure, Danny can take a few hits and deal out some surprise punches when he has to, but these kids know what they’re doing, which is so cool, because once Danny lost the benefit of gravity mid-fight basically everything Mom had trained in him had been thrown out the window. The physics were just never right.

(And— Mom—)

Like, all the punches are happening at speeds that Danny can only kind of follow. His neck starts hurting from trying to follow them—but he can’t stop watching, and the kids are really having a blast. They’re laughing. They’re teasing. They show off, even, stopping to pose and flex and be admired by their sole observer, which Danny obliges with some gentle claps. The others are quick to jump on any distraction, though, and are more than willing to have Danny be the center of attention while they sneak up on showstoppers, stick or lasso in hand.

On one hand, Danny should probably be more alarmed by the sight of kids acting as literal child soldiers training to be combat ready. He…he’s pretty sure he’s meant to be one of them as soon as he’s recovered enough to get trained.

And…it is scary. It is kind of a scary thought that Danny might have to go back to…go back to fighting and getting hit and hitting and everything that fighting means.

On the other hand, there’s no one here. All the kids here are Danny’s age, and they’re not fighting because someone is making them; they’re having fun, and their job is to help people.

…Danny puts his legs higher up on his wheelchair, until he can wrap his arms around his knees. They’re supposed to beat up threats, but they don’t think that Danny’s a threat. They’re letting him sleep in a bed and get medical care and making sure he gets medication and everything. They let him hang out with their children and he has toys and fidgets to pass the time, and maybe he’ll have to pay them back later, but… isn’t helping out because he got helped only fair?

And they let non-humans live on Earth! That one teen’s stinky dad said that they could help Danny stay on Earth, he thinks. Or, uh, it’s what he thinks the green guy translated that as? So as long as he doesn’t leave, they could even protect him from the— all the bad stuff on Earth! So really, all Danny has to do is work on getting better. He’s safe here. Diana is here, the stinky dad is here, and there’s a whole team of super-people with super powers ready to help people.

Danny’s safe. He’s calm. He’s fine. He’s…worried that Diana doesn’t know where he is, but she’s smart and there’s probably cameras.

He watches the teens play around with various weaponry like they’re his model rocket. There’re thrown projectiles and giant hammers and dodgeballs and sticks, staves, and lassos; someone pulls out a shield, of all things, glittering gold and gleaming with something that itches at the back of Danny’s eyeball, and there’s a gun that sh—

Danny only breaks out of the memory of RUNNINGRUNNINGRUNNING when he realizes that someone is holding him. He’s choking. He doesn’t know who’s holding him, but they’re not hurting him right now and he can see a crowd of other colorful figures around him, which means he’s not with the Guys in White.

He’s hyperventilating. He can’t help it. He can’t stop it! His lungs hurt and there’s no end to the stress pressing out of his chest. Someone is holding him; where’s his chair? Did he lose it?? That’s really expensive medical equipment—they’re going to be so mad at him—!

Someone lifts him out of the stranger’s arms. It’s one of the older quick-buzzing humans. Not the teenager, and not the oldest one, he thinks. Danny can’t tell. He can’t breathe, and it’s hard to focus.

He’s shushing Danny like he’s a kid. Danny would be insulted, except he can’t breathe, and he really wants someone to help him, and his eyes are all weird and he can’t see and he doesn’t know where he is and his core hurts and his chair is gone—

Oh. The guy puts Danny’s hand on his chest and models breathing in with one big, visible breath.

Danny breathes in.

The guy models breathing out. It’s a long, slow breath.

…Danny struggles through the follow-through, but he manages. Well. He chokes hard enough to cough, twice, but…close enough.

The colorful forms milling about slowly disperse, until it’s largely just Danny, and the fast guy radiating very measured levels of calm, and his friend in black and blue, who is eating a sandwich. They breathe in, and they breathe out. That one guy eats his sandwich.

Danny looks around. He’s…the room he’s in is really big. Tables. Benches. Little stands of foo… Oh. He’s in a cafeteria. Cool.

…He squints through the new haze of green in his eyes. He’s probably strained something, but there are more important things at stake here: can he get some real food here?

“Where is here?” Danny asks. Rasps. He’s mostly horizontal, so manipulating his head around to glance at his surroundings is kind of a strain on his neck. Is that a hot dog cart?

“Wistheall,” the two say simultaneously—the guy in black and blue and a bird on his chest swallows his sandwich. “…Want a snakka?”

You know what? Danny’s going to assume that this means a snack. Sure! Why not. Nodding his head so quickly hurts, but he’s also not walking anywhere, so it’s not like it’s a full-body pain. The buzzing-quick guy sort of just…carries him around and asks Danny what he wants, and the bird guy gets it for him.

The little vibrations the guy is giving off are tinged a little with wor/ryworry/worry, but the guy’s mostly…at peace? Forcibly shoved it all down? Danny and the guy are practically chest to chest at this point, so it’s probably just that Danny’s close enough to feel even really quiet things.

His suit is super smooth, by the way. It’s not, like, skintight—there’s a little armor underneath, Danny can feel—but the fabric itself is like super slick. It’s cool. Texturally.

Also, he gives Danny a tube of something that are clearly off-brand Prongles, so Danny’s mostly just enjoying that instead of wondering what’s up with this guy and his friend.

“Are you okay?” the guy finally asks, his chatter mostly winding down into a question Danny can recognize. Danny swallows his bite of chips with a swig from his water bottle, and nods. He’s…unsettled, but he’s fine. He doesn’t know where he is, but he didn’t know where the teenagers had left him either, so this is about what he expected.

Even under his red hood-and-mask, the guy’s eyes are kind. Kinda worried. Not mean. “Something bad happened?”

…Danny looks back at his chips. Something bad happened, but it didn’t happen recently. “No,” Danny muttered around the crumbs in his mouth. He swallowed dryly. “Not…not now.”

The vibrations slow, and dim, melancholy lacing through the air. The sensation makes Danny itch. “Before?”

Danny nods. He thinks about his body melting from the outside in, his face dripping off in chunks of wet matter, his throat torn open still screaming.

“It was a—“ Danny tries, but he doesn’t actually know their word for gun or blaster. He just forces his fingers to make a familiar symbol, holding his own middle and end fingers back, leaving a shaking, uncomfortable thumb and pointer.

The quiet pew pew sound effects probably aren’t necessary, but the more detail, the better, or something like that.

Danny remembers how hot it got. Just…all the heat and light, and he could smell smoke right up until he couldn’t. And his face…everything hurt—everything still hurts, even—but the scary point had been when suddenly his face hadn’t hurt, and there was nothing left to feel.

…The guy holding him pulls Danny’s fingers away from his face. Oh. Danny was pulling at his still-green, still-healing wound. He. Uh. He doesn’t remember starting to do that anymore.

“Sorry,” Danny whispers. He swallows something wet from his sinuses to his stomach, and has to fight back the memory of a blood-and-ecto-and-flesh slurry taking its place in his esophagus as he tried to crawl away to die. Again.

The man sends out pulses of sorrysorrysorry through his skin. “Me too,” he murmurs back.

Then Danny gets hitched up—Danny squawks—and gets thrown into a better position over one shoulder, so Danny has better height to see from and a better perch in the guy’s arms. Danny drops half his prongles on the floor in the process. “Want to go find your chair?” the guy asks, body vibrating just a touch outside of Danny’s conscious awareness. Still, even without seeing the guy’s face, his whole body radiates sympathy/curiOSITy/Hungry.

…Didn’t they just eat?

Either way, Danny’s not torn between staring sadly at the ground where his prongles lay cold and bared to the cruelty of the world or getting up to go find his chair. “Yes,” he agrees, and uses the flat of his forearms to haul himself up higher onto the guy’s shoulders. Kindly, the guy in red doesn’t even budge. “Thank you.”

“Na geswincan,” the guy reports back easily, which Danny is pretty sure is a less-formal you’re welcome. Too bad there’s a whole language’s worth of context Danny’s missing out on here. His friend even snags Danny an extra can of prongles, and is kind enough to rips open the seal for him.

Nothing beats recovering from a crying jag like chips. Danny takes them earnestly.

The quick-fast guy hooks his arm onto his friend’s, and the world starts to stretch and blend into the in-between planes of reality, slices of world layered atop each other. The guy smashes through each one and pulls them both along for the ride.

It’s not quite like dunking his head in the portal, but it’s not not like sticking his head in a homemade portal either. Danny shakily pulls out a chip and starts chewing. He’ll just take the ride as it comes.

*

“Superboy.”

Kon winces.

“Robin.” Wonder Woman’s eyes turn to the more remorseful end of the bunch. “Wonder Girl. Impulse.”

“Wedidn’tmeanto!” Bart wails into a pillow, which. Fair. Cassie is sweating from possibly every pore she’s ever had (and maybe even a few she doesn’t??), and Tim is doing that stoic-faced thing that means he’s flipping the hell out too much to even tell his face to make expressions about it.

Kon just looks…miserable. Just absolutely miserable.

“…Triggered by firearms, maybe…?” Tim mutters under his breath, which means that he’s theorizing about their guest’s symptoms rather than coming up with solutions-oriented paths out of this confrontation and Cassie wants to shake him because this is NOT the time, Timothy Jackson Drake, except he’s kind of made of mortal human flesh and if she actually shakes him too hard he might die.

“I hope you understand how deeply irresponsible it was to take our patient out of his rooms without any form of supervision from either myself, his medical team, or an adult up to speed with our patient’s medical and psychological needs.” Wonder Woman’s voice is sharp—and her eyes are on Timmy Wonder Boy, who’s barely paying attention, making it clear that the majority of her ire is currently on him. “All four of you are being taken off of mission rosters for the next month in favor of remedial training. I hope that you are all satisfied with the decisions you made.”

“Fiiiine,” Cassie groans. Kon slumps in place. Tim nods without really looking.

Bart, still wailing at lightning speed into his pillow, continues doing…that.

[cherubchoirs]

v1's old mechanics giving it a last little tune-up (and maybe refreshing its paint job)

[ink-the-artist]

bought some crayons

[starapture]

[bugfail]

whadda heall.... ai? on MY self aware?

[libr-0-cubicularist]

I do not know what is fucking happening. I just doodled something based off the scraps of context we’ve been given. anyways. @gia-d and @not-freyja I’m very excited to see you hurt the boys :D

[bunnieswithknives]

Gore, Violence and Blood under the cut

What a mess

[hplonesomeart]

‼️ART TRIGGER WARNING: Mild body horror/gore

Sooooo I kinda unexpectedly deviated from what I would consider my normal art preferences here. Mostly because I’ve seen a lot of talented artists drawing their own renditions of menacing Puzzles fanart where he goes fully insane and whatnot. I wanted to also contribute to that trend somehow…although it’s slightly out of my usual comfort zone << especially with his recent design change of loosing his whole lower body lol. Adapting that into my art was an interesting experimental challenge

Here is my own take on Puzzles falling apart! Quite literally! I still wanted to add a bit of empathy in here for him tho— because I’m going to be so distraught if WOTFI 2024 is his resignation from the spotlight for good. His final bow on stage if you will; the grand finale of his performance before he departs in death (MAN I SURE HOPE HE DOESN’T DIE BUT THE FANDOM SPECULATIONS AND PARANOIA ARE GETTING TO MY HEAD. And it just seems like the narrative progression is leaning that way). Well not matter what happens to him this upcoming Saturday…this tragic TV guy has impacted me in unexpected ways and I’m just so glad we got to spend and entire year with his character. And he’s sure not gonna disappear from my art anytime soon. Hopefully I won’t be maiming him ever again after this though jksjsksp he’s suffered enough angst for now <3

And here is just a black & white sketch version without the red overlay stuff!! Although it’s an older version so not everything is exact

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Sam's statement is exactly what I thought it would be

[varilien]

some au sillies with @whatever-you-can-give-me :]

[riant-draws]

had a rough day but inking is like getting free therapy

don't look too hard at the arm haha yeah it's way too long, that's what I get for not sketching first lol

anyway this was way more fun to make than I anticipated even if it turned out kinda janky :D the crosshatching on the bottom of his robe and the details in his head are probably my fav parts