#thats all i got in me folks

[churmandurr]

The most toxic people you know are also the most powerful people you know....

Finished my 2nd play thru, finally did a full astarion romance. we went full durge EXCEPT for becoming bhaals chosen, ascended astarion... nastiest stinkiest worst dom sub leash out in public gross ass couple

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.

[suntails]

accolade

[starry-bi-sky]

No.

No, no, no, no, NO!

He's shaking. His heart is burning in his chest, pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs, and there's a trembling, aching rage building beneath his tongue and pressing against his teeth.

In his hands, his fingers tense and wrists locked, the article reads in big, black font: JOKER LOCKED IN ARKHAM ASYLUM AGAIN!

Danny shouldn't feel so angry about this, this is a good thing. Gotham doesn't have to deal with him for another few months at the least. He should feel relieved, a little more at peace.

He is not.

He cannot swallow the fury thudding behind his eyes, the burning white heat searing a deeper hole in his chest. A searing green filling static in his ears in the way only the rage of the restless dead can have.

How is he going to kill him now?

Arkham may be the only asylum in America made entirely of tissue paper, but it's still an asylum. There are cameras, guards, other patients resting inside. Danny can think of a million different ways to sneak in and kill Joker, but someone will hear his screaming.

It'd have to be rushed.

He doesn't want it to be rushed.

It's a cruel thought. Cruel and cold and merciless, but Danny doesn't feel an ounce of shame, not an ounce of guilt, for it. He wants to be alone with the Joker when he kills him, that's all he wants. In Arkham, you are never alone.

He forces his anger to bubble back down into his chest, stuffing it between his heartstrings and his ribs like a blanket you're trying to bunch up into a corner. It sizzles and burbles. The static begins to fade out into a high-pitched ringing; it sounds like distant screaming.

Danny is still trembling, but he can think a little clearer now.

He can wait.

He can wait. He can wait. He can wait. He canwait. Hecanwait. Hecanwait.

He can wait.

He's waited five years for this. He can wait one more week. One more month. One more year. However long it takes for the Joker to break back out, Danny can wait.

And when the Joker does, inevitably, break out.

Danny uncrinkles his fingers around the edges of the newspaper, loosens his limbs just enough so he can pay for it.

He'll be waiting.

The dead, after all, have all the time in the world.

[dutiful-wildcraft]

Something something Autistic Johnny who has energy abound quite often, but his social battery does run out *fast* if he isn't allowed time to recharge. Catch him hiding in Simon's room bc he knows no one else will look for him there.

Johnny who even gets agitated when spending too much time with the ones he loves. Gaz who is kind of a cuddler, but learned that Johnny sometimes needed Soap Time. No talking, no interacting, no touching.

A lot of times this is before bed. Johnny curled up on his side on the couch, knees to his chest with his favorite waited blanket, scrolling through his phone while Simon waits in bed for him.

Johnny who gets dysregulated when his Safe People are missing or unreachable.

Johnny who paces the halls when he's stressed out.

Price plopping headphones on him and having him sit with him awhile so he can calm down.

Johnny who's finnicky about food in the mess, and happily eats the same mashed potatoes everyday bc the consistency is the same.

Johnny who is picky about scents and has taken to making sure the 141 all washes their clothes with the same detergent.

John who meticulously cleans his space and equips all his gear the same way everytime.

[chiangyorange]

I just had some violent flashbacks of the peepaw polls. Hit me like a truck

hey bestie did u mean to drag my ass down with you

[toxichem]

*gently knocks on the inside of your screen* hi, i love you, i love sabine, i'm so sorry i'm bad at time management, i want to return to writing soon, i hate that i've been away so long.

[indecisive-dizzy]

thinking about Julie going into hibernation, but also how she was participating in winter activities and was at the Homewarming party.

obv an in-universe excuse is writing inconsistency within the show but nahh. i wanna get sad.

My headcanon is that Julie begins hibernation after the Homewarming party. Right after. And later in the evening it turns into a different party, Julie's Goodnight Party (name in progress).

It's fun, because any party with this rainbow monster's name in it is gonna be fun! but there's an underlying somberness. They eat, play games and talk about everything and anything like the Homewarming party, but it just feels different.

(continues below, sad warning bc I made myself sad)

When Julie starts getting sleepy, the party ends with her neighbors giving their farewells, goodnights, and big hugs.

Frank is the one to walk her home, of course. He brushes Julie's hair, makes sure her and her nest has everything she needs, and stays with her as she falls asleep. But not before they share a big, comforting, long hug filled with every unspoken "I'll miss you" and every ounce of love they can pour into it.

It's the longest Frank has ever hugged anybody. "A hug long enough to get him through winter," according to Julie.

He wished that were true.

Either way he smiles, he smiles for Julie as it's the last expression she sees before finally closing her eyes to sleep.

The tears that later soaked into his pillow are the only secret Frank's ever kept from his best friend.

[10hourshift]

Evil touys 😈

I lost the og concept I had for them so I remade them last night

Why do they exist?

They're filler characters for the contest (I have a lot of those :/), and go against the toys in the first round. The toys realize their team is kinda ass when they see how well the Evil toys perform and get along with each other. The toys then instead of trying to improve as a team fight and their relationship strains a little (btw their team completely falls apart at the end of the contest)

Reasons their team works:

Gloom is the leader, and White Bon is the first one to support her.

They're all committed to the contest bc they know they are all important for the performances.

When they lose (bc they lose against the toys) they don't get angry and are happy they got to enjoy that experience with their friends 😄 (corny af but that's the point)

[enginator2000]

infinites 141-149. the end of an era

part 1 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14

[saturnwisteria]

library books that’ll never be returned, for someone of your own choice (perhaps your OC? 😊)

Yesterday I was telling myself I'm probably just not the OC writing type, and then today I was seized by the throat and wrote this straight through for 5 hours. Thank you for the prompt!

Yeva Rosova woke before dawn with everyone else, even though she would not be flying today. The flak that had bit into her shoulder on the last mission had made sure of that. It stopped her from sleeping on the side she favored, and if being grounded hadn't made her restless enough, then being thrust out of sleep by the sensation of coals burning under her skin, to find she had unconsciously rolled over onto her bad arm, would do it.

It wasn't that she was bitter about being grounded; no, that she understood, because Yeva was not a pilot, and therefore actually sensible about the fact that her injury, although not serious, would still prevent her from doing her job to the best of her ability. So no, she was not bitter, but it would not have been inaccurate to say that she was more than a little peeved to not be going up with her crew.

Especially in the wake of the last mission. The absence of Major Cleven could be felt around base like a deep contusion: invisible on the surface, but felt with every movement. No one would say it, but the ache was impossible to ignore with Major Egan's dead eyes haunting them all.

She drained her coffee to the dregs, twirling the grounds in the mug like her mama used to. She didn't really believe in scrying truth from the remnants of a person's drink, but she had woken up already forlorn and found herself craving the familiar.

That feeling disappeared quickly.

For a moment, she's a little kid again. Little Yeva who waddled after her мама on house visits, who was shy and quiet but not scared of the sickness that filled the room. Who stared with big dark eyes at yellowed skin or inflamed joints or angry abrasions slick with pus and plasma and didn't flinch, but crept closer. She watched with fascination when her mother would pull out the glass jar full of fat, crawling maggots and place them on a patient's crowded lesions.

Sometimes what her mama did would work, sometimes not. Occasionally, Yeva would walk into the house, hand clutching her mama's tightly, and she would know nothing could be done. It was a smell in the air, thick breath and dry skin and the tang of ointment; or maybe it was the family's desperation that would linger visibly in the room, casting a cloak over her eyes. Either way, Little Yeva was never wrong.

Death did not scare Yeva; she had known it too often as a child to think of it as anything other than a forgiving figure. Now, it stood silently in the corner of every room. In the interrogation hut, spacious where it should have been crowded. In the barracks, solemn gazes where there should have been rowdy laughter.

She saw it on the hardstands, lurking under the bellies of countless forts, shadowy hands stretching out along their wings in anticipation of the moment where they would be allowed to tug them down, down, down.

Most of all, she saw it now in the dark shapes hunkered at the base of her mug, portents of the future, reflecting bad omens on the horizon. She slammed the mug down and stood up quickly, a few members of her crew looked up at her in question, but she waved them off. If she doesn't speak it, it can't come true.

That was not how tasseography worked, but perhaps her superstitions would cancel each other out.

She found Addy smoking outside, eyes trained on the lightening sky. Yeva walked over to stand next to her, and when Addy nodded in greeting, Yeva leaned wordlessly into her side. It was a little awkward, given that Addy was a few inches shorter, but Yeva didn't care. It seemed Addy didn't either, as she crossed her arms over her chest and allowed Yeva's arm to slide deeper against her side, bringing them closer.

Yeva "Bones" Rosova and Addison "Guts" Guthrie had met in basic. They had both gone to the recruitment station intending to join the Army Nurse Corps, and both had made a last minute decision upon hearing the news that a select few branches were opening a limited amount of active combat positions to women. Both of them, it turns out, had wanted to see what the world looked like from above the clouds.

They had landed in the 100th Bomb Group, in the 418th squadron, in separate crews but together nonetheless. Addy as a tail gunner, and Yeva as a top turret gunner/flight engineer.

In a few minutes, the mess hall would empty and trucks would begin to fill with crews ready to fight for yet another day. Yeva tries to ignore the feeling stirring in her gut, the sensation that something bad is about to happen.

Her mama had loved to tell her that she had been born with a sixth sense, a secret knowledge for knowing when something was amiss. Yeva had cherished this attention when she had thought she would be following in her mother's footsteps as the village's 'barefoot doctor.' She had clung to it as her secret weapon through training, where she proved again and again to be adept at quickly identifying issues and failures and finding solutions. And when she had finally started flying real missions, and the problems had turned from textbook to reality, she had found that more than once, following a hunch had saved her ass.

Now, watching Addy take a final pull before crushing her cigarette with her toes, Yeva despised this gift for the first time in her life.

The mess door flew open, and airmen began to file out, heading toward the trucks waiting on the tarmac. Addy stood up straight beside her, stretching out her arms above her head, before turning to Yeva with a signature Addison Guthrie grin; sweeter than honey and warm enough to melt the frosting off a cupcake. It sent a fresh wave of curdling worry through Yeva.

"Well, here we are," Addy said.

"Here we are," Yeva replied, taking the moment to memorize Addy's face. Deep grey eyes shining, brown hair pinned back, pale lips stretched wide in a smile that revealed both the dimple in her left cheek and the gap between her middle teeth, which Yeva had always found charming. Makes me look like the hillbilly I am, Addy would always say, purposefully making her West Virginian accent thicker.

"Guts!" Lieutenant Hoerr called from over by the trucks, "Time to load up. Get it moving!"

"Looks like someone's sour about getting kicked from their seat." Addy sighed, adjusting her jacket collar, and the lilac scarf tied there. Yeva's heart thrummed as Addy started to turn away.

"Wait," Yeva blurts. Addy looks back at her, soft smile still in place, and so fucking beautiful it threatens to steal the breath from her lungs. She wants to say, don't go where I can't follow. She wants to say, I don't know how to do this without you. Instead, she takes her own scarf out from her pocket, light pink and white stripes, and holds it out.

"Here, take it. So part of me can come with you," she says in a rush. Addy stares down at the offering, an emotion Yeva doesn't recognize flickering in her eyes, before she takes it, holding it gently I'm her hands. Yeva expects her to fold it up and put it in her pocket. Instead, she reaches up and unknots her own scarf, pulling it off, and ties Yeva's scarf in its place. Tucks the ends down into her jacket, the fabric resting just above her heart.

And then she leans over, loops her own scarf around Yeva's neck, and ties it up, hands resting on Yeva's shoulders to admire her work. "There," she says, "Now you'll have a little piece of me, too."

"Guts, come on, let's go!" Gangwer yells from where he sits, the rest of the crew of Mlle Zig Zig waiting for her. Addy laughs, and then pulls Yeva into the tightest hug she's ever had. It makes Yeva's arm twinge, but she's sure as hell not about to complain. It lasts for all of a second, and then she's jogging away.

"I'll see you later!" She shouts over her shoulder.

All Yeva can do is believe her.

●●●

Addy doesn't come back. Save for one crew, no one else does, either. Yeva wants to curse the entire world, to punch the walls until her knuckles crack and bleed, to cry until there's no emotion left in her.

She doesn't do any of that. She sits on the floor in front of Addy's bunk and stares at the contents of her trunk.

There's a couple letters, one addressed to her daddy, another to one of her brothers. Yeva sets them aside. She doesn't know for certain that Addy is dead, but if she is, it's better to grow accustomed to the idea, rather than deny it now and have it break her later.

There's the pretty blue dress she'd wear to go dancing the couple of times they'd had leave. Yeva runs her fingers over the fabric, soft and well-worn. Underneath that is a stack of books, taken from her hometown's library. Addy had offered to pay a fee, since she'd be gone for so long and these were her favorite stories, but the librarian had told her to just take them. Bring 'em back after you win this war. Teach these men a thing or two while you're at it. Yeva wonders who will return them now.

Tucked away in one corner is her embroidery kit, threads in a rainbow of colors lined up neatly next to two wooden frames. Yeva's hand comes up to the scarf at her neck, runs her thumb over the little blue flowers that Addy had embroidered in the corners. She blinks back the tears that spring up.

She can't do this. She can't write to Addy's father, she can't return her library books, she can't look at the things she left behind. Not when she's become one of them.

Yeva closes the trunk, rubs the numbness out of her legs, and goes outside. The night is cool, the air carrying the song of crickets and night birds. She leans back against the barracks and stares at the sky that Addy disappeared into.

Wherever you are, she thinks, fingers tracing the edges of the little blue flowers, I am still with you.

[god-of-this-new-blog]

““Latin,” both of their advisors had offered in the first weeks of spring term, “would be an undeniable boon.” L had put up a fight about altering his schedule. Light had yielded gracefully to the request. Light was one for yielding gracefully when he understood it was required of him.

There was one Latin class taught on campus, one room in which it was taught, one table around which the students gathered, and one seat—a necessary buffer—between the two young men.”

— Summa Cum Laude by God_of_this_new_blog

[skrrtscree]

'Happy' December 2nd and here's to DAY 7 of Ryomina Week 2023: Afterlife/Domestic

...Let's all pretend nothing bad happened today and that they get to be happy and together... :,))

[bacchuschucklefuck]

the boy-but-not-that-way-ism of riz gukgak send tweet

[starry-bi-sky]

I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth? I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask you, neither should you

-------- an extension of this excerpt because I've been thinking of Femme Danny and Jason all week. It's mildly suggestive, but that's really the only heads up needed. --------

Music blaring, bass heavy in her ears, Danny finds him in a ditch at the bottom of the bluff. She was leaving the observatory, and she nearly misses him as she turns out onto the last stretch of road leading back into the city.

She catches sight of him, just barely. A glimpse in the corner of her eye; something reflecting on the light. She thinks it's a deer at first, and instinctual terror that only the idiocy of a deer denting her car can give her, strikes her hard. There's no one behind her, so she slams the breaks.

Her car stops; there's no deer. She looks and looks, but there's no deer, no deer buddy — they always come in pairs. But something still catches her eye; light reflecting off leather, in the ditch below just a few feet in front of her.

"What the fuck is that?" Slips out of her mouth before she can really think it through, and she's pulling off to the shoulder, wheels crunching gravel, before she thinks that through either.

Danny's climbing out of her car within seconds, putting it in park and hitting her hazards as her door clicks open and she stands up on the ledge. The trees block the sky, and there is no moon beholden to brighten the land, only the dull light of the stars and the brights of her car.

There's a man in a ditch. And he's not moving. From the distance, Danny's not sure if he's breathing.

She breathes out for him; "Fuck." She's running around the front of her car, not thinking it through. Her feet crunch the gravel, bugs buzzing at her ears, and she's sliding down the small hill into the ditch to reach his side.

"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead." Repeats in mantra under her breath, she can smell blood; heavy and iron, mixing with the dirt and the grass. Her hands find his side, Danny rolls him over onto his back. Her fingers find his pulse, and she breathes relief. He's alive.

—---------

Danny finds no less than two — no, three guns, four knives, and an actual, goddamn shiv on the half-dead ditch man. But not a single ID or wallet.

The man reeks of danger, even in his unconscious state it lingers on him like a rich cologne. It's the human instinct to be curious, and maybe it's the blood and dirt that tells her he's bad news. Common sense, naturally.

She doesn't know what to do with him. Danny wants to help him, but the ghostly part of her, the one that seeks safety above all else — for herself, for her loved ones. Because growing up in a house of weapons on the tables for sticky, pudgy fingers to play with, and food that needs killing twice, and labs full of half-broken beakers and radioactive substances spilling onto the floor robbed her of it entirely, — tells her to leave him.

He's dangerous. Her core hums cold, freezing the tips of her fingers, making her ears ring. She forgets to breathe, her hands going numb. Leave him for the coyotes to find; for the bugs to feast on; for the mud to swallow whole. Leave him for the land. Nobody carries this many weapons on them unless—

He groans. In only the light from her high beams, his cracked lips split and makes a noise of pain. His chest rises, shuddery and slow, and he doesn't wake. The man slips back down into unconsciousness. But he's alive.

He's alive.

Danny exhales. It's springtime, wreathed in life. It's cold; he's cold. But alive. She shakes the chill from her fingers, resolution warms her lungs.

Carrying him up to her car isn't easy — dressed like fucking Dean Winchester and wearing half as many layers, the man is probably two hundred pounds. But she's been working out and taking boxing classes since sophomore year of high school. She throws him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and hikes them both up the hill.

She drives them home. Don't ask her why she didn't take them to the hospital; she can't give an answer. Not one that makes sense. She knows enough first aid to fix almost anything he might have.

Danny blasts the heat and turns the music on low; switches to something softer, more comforting, in case he wakes up. She kicks the passenger seat back far enough so that if he does, he's reclined comfortably.

He doesn't wake up, she can't keep her eyes off him anyways.

—---------

Danny lays him on the couch in her house. He gets blood and mud on the fabric, and she'll need to get a new one because of it. But she takes off his boots, strips him of his shirt and jackets, and flies to the bathroom to get her first aid kit.

He doesn't wake up the entire time she's putting stitches in his side. Nothing is broken, but he's bruised and cut. Some get band-aids, others get bandages.

The man has half as many scars as Danny does. Stabs, cuts, a few burns here and there. Danny has those too, but she doubts the man has been impaled before like she has. The luck of ghosts that they can't die by mortal means. Or curse, depending on how you look at it.

(There's a thin scar on his throat, like someone tried to slice it open. She sees it while she's stitching up a laceration near his collarbone, and Danny can't stop herself from huffing.)

("We match." She murmurs, joking dry and ingenuine. She doubts anyone's survived a botched decapitation like she has. At least his scar is thin and hard to see. That wasn't a good night for her; she had to sew it closed herself, alone out of refusal to let her friends help.)

When she's done, she collapses into the recliner beside him, and falls asleep. She slips in and out of dreams all night.

—---------

When she wakes up, the man is staring at her, sitting up on the couch like an animal listening for the predator nearby. It's a good thing she hid his weapons in the floorboards when they arrived. She stares back at him, eyes half-lidded with sleep.

He's handsome. She thinks, and wakes up fully.

—---------

His name is Jason Todd, he doesn't remember who he is.

That's... a problem.

—---------

She makes them both food, and she'll never stop appreciating the fact that she no longer needs to fight her fridge before the food inside lets her eat. She hasn't lived with her parents in years, and yet the awe still hits her some days.

"I thought I told you to stay seated." She frowns when Jason Todd enters her kitchen, a hand hovering over his bandaged side. They're both tense; awkward and wrong-footed. Off-kilter. It's not a surprise to her. He's amnesiac, she's a stranger.

Jason Todd blinks at her, leaning against the doorframe. From her periphery, he shrugs, only to suck in his teeth in pained regret moments later. "I got bored." He tells her.

"Well, I don't have painkillers," Danny retorts, cheek comes easy to her. Too easy, sometimes. "if you tear your stitches then I'm giving you a rag to bite into while I redo them."

Well, if anything, it gets a snort from him.

—---------

"So, do I have a shirt, or did you just find a half-naked, half-dead man in the woods and decide to take him home?" Jason Todd asks her from the table a few minutes later. She can see, even standing a few feet away, the gooseflesh rising bumps against his skin.

Her cheeks color pink, and she moves to the hallway. "You have a shirt," she says, "you have two actually, and a jacket. I threw the shirts in the wash because they were filthy."

The jacket was leather, so during the night, when she woke up from her many bouts of restless sleep, she got up and cleaned it by hand. "I would've done the same with your jeans, but I can take a half-dead man home," she opens the dryer and pulls out the shirts, "but I draw the line at taking off his pants when he's unconscious."

It gets a short laugh out of him; harsh and brief, and it makes her relax, just a little. Laughter meant just enough comfort to not be tense... most of the time. She returns to his side and drapes the still-warm clothes onto the table.

"What if my legs were hurt?" He asks her, raising an eyebrow even as he reached for the first shirt.

"Then that is called an exception to the rule, ditch man."

—---------

He stays with her. He has nowhere to go — and trust her, they looked. Or they tried to. But he has no social media that shows up under the name ‘Jason Todd’. Oh, there are Jason Todds, but none that match the way he looks — none of them his age, none of them with black hair and blue eyes, no white streak in the curls at the front.  

Well, there was one possible candidate. A Jason Todd-Wayne, infamous adoptive son of Bruce Wayne. But he died the same year Danny did, and unlike her, he didn’t come back. 

“Great.” Jason Todd sighs heavy, “I match with a dead kid.”

“I’m honestly kind of impressed.” Danny tells him, frowning despite her laughing disbelief. She scrolls through every social media she can find, and he just doesn’t show up. There are no warrants out for his arrests, no celebrity interviews with him in it, no missing news reports matching his description. Nothing. “How do you not have any socials? You’re like a ghost.” And she knows a thing or two about ghosts.

It’s equally as suspicious as it is impressive. Who are you, Jason Todd? She wonders, looking over to him.  

He merely shrugs, careful of his injuries, and slumps into his chair. “Don’t ask me, I don’t remember.” 

She gives him the guest room, and they go out and buy him clothes with what budget she can afford. She drags him to a thrift store first, to every thrift store in the city, and they come back with a decent enough haul that he has clothes for at least two weeks. 

—---------

“Danny, what is that?” 

She takes a long sip of her drink, Jason lingering at her side like a shadow. “A smoothie, Tucker.” She says, deadpan like it's the most obvious thing in the world as she slides into their favorite booth with practiced ease. “You know this, I always get one on Fridays.” 

Jason follows her easily, slow and careful, mindful of his sides. He’s back to awkward, tense, acting like an outside looking in. Like he’s not quite sure what to do in the face of her friends. They’ve been together for a week now, and she asked him if he wanted to meet Sam and Tucker with her. 

(“You’ve been cooped up here all week.” She says when he asks her why, her hands shifting the purse at her shoulder. In shorts and a tank-top her scars lay on display for the world to see, and while she's long since shed the worst of her self-consciousness, it still creeps up on her. She can feel his eyes on them, even after a week. “Some fresh air and a change of scenery might do you some good. Maybe even jog that noggin of yours.”) 

Sam and Tucker stare at her, expressions unreading on their faces. Their eyes flick to Jason at her side, and then back to her. Danny takes another longer sip of her drink, and when she lets go with an obnoxious smack, she jerks her head to Jason. “Oh,” she says like an afterthought, an impish smile shadowing over her lips. “This is Jason, I found him in a ditch on Sunday.” 

"You what!?"

—---------

She doesn’t know how it happens. It sneaks up on her like sunlight creeping across the grass, melting away the morning dew and warming the dirt. She loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. It’s a terrible, choking thing. Wonderfully beautiful, melting her from the inside out. 

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him.

It’s greater than anything she’s felt before. Different from when she nearly dated Valerie in high school — but so, so similar to it at the same time. Warm in its certainty, in its similarity, burning in its difference. 

Danny doesn’t even realize it until half a year living with him, maybe just a little bit longer. But she realizes when she comes downstairs in the early dredges of the morning, sleep clinging to her lashes and sunlight unfurling through the windows, and finds him in the kitchen making food already. 

It’s not the first time she’s woken up to him doing this. But it’s, for some reason, only now that it hits her how fucking domestic it is. With music playing soft through the speaker of his used phone, barefoot in nothing but sweatpants, and humming along under his breath. He’s gotten so comfortable here; he laughs easier now, smiles easier. It was like watching a flower bloom in real time. 

And the sunlight cards through his hair like fingers, caressing over his face in that loving way it does when it wants someone to see the breathless beauty of their eyes. 

Something constricts in Danny’s chest, tight, fond, wanting. Mine, her mind whispers, faint and distant, and knocking the air from her lungs like a fucking train. Her fingers curl tight around the stairway rails, she has half a mind to crack it in two. 

Then he turns and sees her, he always notices her quickly, and Jason smiles at her. 

Somehow, Danny manages to smile back smiling with the ease of breathing, even when her mouth runs dry.

(If she kisses him, will she taste sugar? She hopes not — white sugar is unfilling, sweet but with nothing else to it. If she tastes Jason Todd, she hopes she tastes caramel.) 

—---------

“Want to go throw axes with me?” Danny asks, draping over the back of the couch and hanging her arms off Jason’s shoulders. Her hand finds his hair, and her fingers tangle with the dark curls. She can smell his shampoo when she hooks her chin on the top of his head.

Jason stills, a book in hand — he’s always got a book, and Danny’s never had much artistic talent but she always want s to find a pencil, maybe some charcoals, and sketch the sight down on paper. Memory isn’t enough, she needs it burned into something tangible. She wants to burn everything he does onto paper, wants to remember every little thing about him.

Then he hums, questioning and low, and Danny tries not to shiver with greed to hear it again. She hums back, her next inhale clearing her head. “Well, it’s not just me, but Sam and Tucker too. A new bar opened up downtown and we were gonna check it out, and we have enough time to add another person to the reservation.” 

A silence, thick and thoughtful. Jason tilts his head back to look up at her, and she removes her chin and hand to look down at him. Her hair curtains over them both, locking her into his eyes — impossibly blue, and beautifully so, with teal lining the iris. 

He wears his thoughts on his sleeve, his brows furrowed and mouth puckered in lighthearted thoughtfulness. Quit making me want to kiss you, Danny thinks, and forces her eyes to remain on his face. Idly, her hands trace over his shirt, rising slowly to drag the back of her nail over his collarbone. 

Jason shudders, sighs out slow, and smiles easily. “Sure, what time are we leaving?”   

—---------

Danny sighs as if she aches; she does. Her fingers find Jason Todd’s hair, soft and slipping between her fingers like silk. He’s so close to her face she can feel his breath on her lips, it’s driving her crazy with it. 

“My god.” She murmurs, her voice slipping out without her consent as her fingers drop from his hair to trace featherlight touches down his temples, down his jaw. His eyes haven’t left hers, half-lidded they are, and heavy, staring at her like he might just swallow her whole. 

Please do, she thinks, tilting her head to the side to slot their noses next to each other. His hands tighten at her waist, fingers digging through her hoodie into her skin. He hums, questioningly, low and rumbling like a thunderstorm on the horizon. As if he can’t trust his voice to say something instead. 

Danny chokes on nothing’s heat and runs her thumb over his bottom lip, the flesh catching briefly on her nail. She can’t think straight with him so close to her. Not when he’s so close she can smell his cologne, not when he’s so close she can lean down and sink her teeth into his throat and leave a bruise. She should, it might clear her head. 

Instead, she sighs again, her mouth so close to his that she brushes over his lips when she says; “You’re divine.” 

In the end, she doesn’t need to think about leaving bruises on his throat, because Jason closes that centimeters’ worth of distance between each other and kisses her like he needs air. 

—---------

“Do you have to go, love?” Arms snake around her waist, slipping easily over her dress, and Danny laughs, soft and easy, as Jason pulls her flush against his chest and drops his head into the crook over her shoulder. He dwarfs her in the mirror, capable of curling around her entirely, and she raises a gloved hand to rake her fingers through his soft hair.

Danny hums deeply, tilting to bare her throat as Jason starts pressing kisses to the skin. “Vlad will be upset if I don’t show up.” She wasn’t sure of the importance of this party, but Vlad had promised her a hefty bribe to show up, and call her greedy but damn if she wasn’t going to turn it down.  

Teeth bite gentle at the underside of her jaw, and Danny laughs out of surprise. Jason smiles, indenting it into her skin, and his hand finds the slit of her dress and covers the burn scar on the outside of her thigh. “What about running late?” He asks, something impish in his tone. “I’ve never seen you wear this one; you look good in red.” 

Danny laughs again, turns her head to catch his lips against hers, and kisses him long and sweet. “Yes, he’ll be mad if I’m late.” She says when she pulls back. 

He pouts, and really, how else is Danny supposed to react other than kiss him again? So she does, happily. “Wake me up when you get back,” Jason murmurs against her mouth, chasing after her, “I want to help you undress.” 

—---------

Some days, death creeps up on her, and the phantom pains of it render her coiled into a ball in her bed. She wakes up at three am burning, her starburst scars rooting down to her bones to remind her of the feeling of being torn apart by the atoms and stitched back together again. 

Danny can feel her heart beating in her ears, fast and panicked like she ran a marathon, filling her mouth with iron and the urge to cough out her lungs. There’s a scream stuck in the back of her throat like a spider sac, and she writhes with her head in her arms for what feels like an hour before she forces herself out of bed, mind half-muddled like a zombie. 

Jason is still asleep, Danny doesn’t have half the mind to be grateful, she shuffles herself down into the garage and grabs a compressed canister from the fridge, hidden in a false shelf. She might not keep ectoplasm in the kitchen, but she does in the garage. 

She returns on second nature to the bathroom. She locks the door, shuts the drain, and runs the water to boiling, and doesn’t stop the faucet until the water reaches the little drain in the wall beneath that prevents overflow. The compressed canister cracks open with a hiss, and Danny dumps what’s probably an ounce of ectoplasm into the steaming water.

The effect is instantaneous, the water swirling and turning bright with ectoplasm all the way down. It’s diluted, and Danny only remembers to take off her sleep shirt before she slips into the water. 

Relief sinks into her, and chases away the worst of the pain. She sighs, she can breathe again, and dunks her head beneath the water. 

Then doesn’t get out until she’s freezing again and nearly peeling with wrinkles. 

(She goes downstairs when she’s changed into dry clothes and her hair is damp, and then collapses into Jason’s lap. Her face finds the crook of his neck, and Danny slumps, arms wrapping around his neck.)

(Jason’s hands find her waist, and his thumbs rub circles into her side, slipping under her shirt to run over the raised skin of the burn there. “What’s wrong?” He asks, murmuring low and close to her ear.)

(“Phantom pains.” Danny mumbles.)

(“Where?”)

(“Everywhere.”) 

—---------

When Danny returns home after finding Jason again, she feels numb, she feels cold. Her engagement ring is heavy on her finger and she feels like an outsider looking in when she looks down at it. 

She can’t get the way he looked at her out of her mind. It’s seared into her brain. 

Her back hits the door, and slowly she slides down it, a sob building in her throat. Her lip curling, her heart aching, her heart breaking. Too many questions inside her head for her to try and sort through them, but one is prevalent; Jason Todd is a liar.  

Danny shrieks his name so loud that she breaks her ceiling lights, and takes out the power throughout the entire block. There are dogs howling, cars wailing outside. There’s broken glass beneath her, scattered across the ground, cutting into her palms, and she hurts so much she wants to take the biggest shard and shred herself into ribbons. 

—---------

The memory fades away back into its small star-shape, and floats back up to the ceiling of her lair’s observatory. Danny watches it go, something small and aching still in her chest. Two weeks since she moved into the Zone, and she hates that she still loves him. She loves that she still loves him. 

She hates that she still misses him. She still visits Sam and Tucker, but Amity Park is tainted with the memory of Jason Todd; she needs away from it for a little while. Maybe a long while. She’s not too sure right now, she just needs to stay away. Somewhere where she can’t run into him. 

Danny pulls down another star to watch another memory again. One where they're dancing.

[bsotted]

ok well. unfortunate news: sometimes ur niche is so niche u've already niched the niche. this is exactly the same as the feeling of hitting the end of ur ship tag in ao3 🥲

*edit: sorry i accidentally named like every character ever in the tags so ppl are Seeing this post who dont have the benefit of so much as a single crumb of context. if i accidentally namedropped ur blorbo its bc of this post:

anyway. i was excited for recs bc i also enjoy this genre of fictional character. unfortunately as above the niche is niched, it turns out. at least for me, content enjoyer georg, who has apparently already seen or read everything anyone else has already seen or read except for a small handful of specific media properties that i do not wish to see or read for various personal reasons and also not literally everything ever... just the same things as everyone else has already seen and read... u get the idea. ok thnks 👍🏻