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robinsegghead · 6 months ago

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Danny's Daycare Part 7

[Master List]

“This ain’t some weird trick, right?” Miguel asked for the fifth time since Danny had showed them their new place. Both boys had been shocked into silence upon entering the space, eventually following Danny around to see their rooms and bathroom.

Shaking his head, Danny swallowed his bite of pizza. “I bought the building with the intention of giving the apartments to people who needed them. You guys need a safe place to stay.”

Miguel eyed him warily, glancing at Jazz who’d been mostly quiet since they’d arrived, knowing they were overwhelmed. “We can’t stay here without pullin’ our weight. Wha’s rent like?”

Danny hummed, considering. Jazz looked at him in shock, thinking he was actually planning on charging the boys rent. Finally, Danny wiped his hands of the pizza grease, folded them on the table, and looked at both boys seriously. “Here’s the deal I’m proposing. You two live here until you’re at least eighteen AND,” He emphasized the word, so they knew he was serious. “have graduated from high school. That’s it. That’s the rent. You’ll be paying me back by getting an education.”

“But tha’s ridiculous!” Santiago shouted, clearly torn between confusion and hope. “Nobody gives nothin’ out for free! It just ain’t done!”

Sitting back, Danny contemplated what he’d need to say to help them understand his intentions. Jazz met his gaze and gave him a subtle nod, knowing what he was thinking about doing. “My parents,” Danny started. Jazz stood up, clearing away trash and dishes as he told a story neither wanted to relive. “didn’t pay me or my sister much attention.”

That was a safe start right? He didn’t need to explain the whole ghost thing or that they tortured him, just a bit of background. “They forgot my seventh birthday, too caught up in work to be bothered and after that it wasn’t occasional forgetfulness. Most days they didn’t know where I was, what I was up to, how I was doing in school, who my friends were, because they were too busy to care.

“That put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders and even more on my sister’s. She basically raised me.” He dipped his head in her direction as she put away the leftovers. “In my freshman year my grades began to suffer, and I struggled with really bad anxiety, but I didn’t have parents to help me with that, because they didn’t really know me as a person.”

Taking in a deep breath, Miguel looked between the Nightingales. “What’s that gotta do with us, though?”

“My sister, who spent her entire childhood taking care of everyone but herself,” He added with a smirk. “likes to remind me that I can’t help everyone, as much as I might try. But,” the two boys were watching him closely, absorbing his every word. “I can help some people. And I can help you. Don’t tell Jazz but I’m always trying to be more like her. And I think, if she had the resources I do, that she’d help you guys out.

“Let me help a couple of siblings who don’t have parents looking out for them.” Danny pleaded. “Please.”

Miguel and Santiago had a silent conversation, the air hung heavy in the room as they seemed to come to a decision. “A’ight man, you seem chill.” Miguel shrugged, the rest of the tension leaving his body.

It didn’t take long after that for the boys to start showing how tired they were. Jazz grabbed her stuff and headed out with a ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, brother’ thrown over her shoulder. Danny reminded the boys that he was across the hall and one door down and that if there was an emergency they could use their emergency key to get into his place. They’d seemed surprised by that, but Danny reminded them that he was, essentially, their guardian now, and he was there if they needed him.

“Tomorrow I’ll come by around ten and we can go get you guys some school supplies and anything else you want or need, yeah?” Danny asked, moving towards the door.

Miguel was pushing Santiago towards his room like a good older brother. “Sure, sounds good.”

For the first time in a while, Danny got a full night of sleep. This was the shocking realization he came to when he awoke to his alarm and felt rested. The first thing he did was search his fridge for food- he was starving- and remembered Red Hood’s little gifts. The chicken parm had been pretty good, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a home cooked meal, even if he did have to reheat it.

Sticking the stew in a pot, Danny began the process of reheating another Red Hood MealTM and planned out the day mentally. They’d need to get some basic school supplies to start working on tutoring, they’d get more specific items when school actually started, but for now, calculators, notebooks, pens, pencils, and some workbooks would be fine.

After that they’d need to get the boys each a phone and at least one computer for them to share. It would be necessary for school anyways, hopefully he could convince them to just let him buy them each a laptop but that might be difficult.

Although it was Saturday, and he planned on Saturdays being tutoring days, Danny didn’t plan on working on any school stuff once they got home. They would certainly be overwhelmed by everything else going on and didn’t need one more thing to add to it. Plus, Danny needed to figure out exactly how to teach these kids everything they needed to know.

Had they ever gone to school? If so, what level had they gotten to? What were their learning styles? Who would he bring in to teach the subjects he sucked at? Like English- Danny was bad at the arts. English, Social sciences, even history, he wasn’t very good at.

Shaking his head, he dished out the stew and tried not to get caught up on the details. He was winging it, and maybe that was a bad thing when it came to kids, but it was better than what they’d had going on before, so he wouldn’t be too hard on himself.

(Who was he kidding? Danny was only ever hard on himself, and he only ever piled the work on until he was buried under an avalanche of paperwork and drama.)

The boy seemed almost surprised when he knocked on their door at ten AM sharp.

“You have a key, y’know.” Santiago muttered, closing the door behind Danny.

Danny frowned. “This is your home, Santiago. I’m not using my key unless there’s an emergency.” He offered a smile to Santiago’s contemplative face, before clapping his hands together. “All right, where’s that brother of yours?”

The younger boy frowned. “He wasn’t feeling too good.” Right. Because stab wounds don’t heal quickly, not for normal people- Danny you can’t just forget things like that! “Said we should go without ‘im.”

“Well that won’t do.” Danny sighed. “We need to get those supplies, but I don’t want to go without Miguel, do you?” Santiago shook his head hesitantly. “Then it’s settled. We will simply order everything we need and when Miguel’s feeling better we can go out. Have you eaten yet?”

Santiago shrugs, not meeting Danny’s eyes. So that’s a no. Without another word, Danny begins searching the fridge and cupboards for what he needed. He wasn’t much of a cook, there was a reason he hadn’t had a homemade meal in a long time, but he could do pancakes, and he knew he’d bought the ingredients for it too.

The younger boy just watched, silently, as Danny began measuring out flour.

“So,” Danny started, immediately regretting it and feeling just as awkward as he was in high school. “I did my best to get you guys the necessities. I don’t want to overwhelm you, but when I say that you can ask for anything, I mean anything.” He emphasized his words by looking Santiago directly in the eye until the boy looked away. “If you want a TV, tools for a hobby, books, literally anything, you just have to ask.”

The boy licked his lips, still not making eye contact but at least he nodded. They’d work on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?

Danny tried again. “What do you do for fun, Santiago?”

The boy shrugged again, leaning against the counter and watching Danny closely.

“So you… want to help me?” He asked, hesitantly, maybe he was reading the boy wrong. But before he could rescind the offer or change the subject, the boy nodded slowly, moving closer to Danny. “Okay, first things first, you gotta wash your hands.”

The morning was filled with the smell of fresh pancakes and the quiet conversation between Danny and Santiago. At one point Miguel ventured out of his room and Danny gave him a stack of pancakes, drawing him into the conversation. Early afternoon Miguel moved from the living room back to his room to take a nap but not before Danny could change his bandages. There was something incredibly domestic about it. Danny didn’t think too hard about it.

He let Santiago help him pick out some school supplies online as well as a phone case and anything else that caught his eye- including a TV which Santiago assured him he ‘didn’t need especially because it had been three years since he’d seen a movie so what was even the point?’ which Danny thought was code for ‘a television is an absolute necessity’.

He bought the TV.

~~~

The rest of the weekend was spent making sure the boys felt comfortable and Miguel was healing well. He made an appointment with Dr. Thompkins for the following Saturday to check up on the boy and maybe get his stitches out depending on how everything was looking- Danny wasn’t a great judge of such things on humans anymore.

He’d pushed his own organs back inside himself, held his chest closed, snapped bones back into place-

Humans were fragile.

He was somewhat grateful he wasn’t that fragile anymore- though he was sporting a rather purple bruise under his left eye from yet another power nap. (He’d thought those were gone after his restful Friday night but apparently not.) It was fine, the bruise would be gone within a day or so and he’d be more careful to take his power naps on sleeping surfaces instead of while standing.

Miguel had insisted they’d be fine; that Danny didn’t need to take another day off of work to watch over them, and Danny (who’d promised not to act like their parent) had agreed. Still, he left a clone in his apartment to be there in case of an emergency.

Anxiety was a feeling Danny was familiar with, after much introspection in his adult life he’d come to the conclusion that he’d had anxiety since he was seven, but anxiety relating to children he was responsible for on this level was new, and terrifying. Of course he’d felt responsible for all of the people in Amity Park, and all of the ghosts he came across, but never had he been so completely responsible for the safety of two children who had no one else to depend on.

How he got into this situation escaped him. He’d never cared much for kids- Jazz said him not wanting kids was because he’d never been allowed to be a kid in the first place- and yet, here he was, with a daycare, four cats, and now two teenagers dependent on him.

Ancients help him…

When he got to the daycare there were already two families waiting outside to drop their kids off- should he open earlier? Quickly, he unlocked the doors, turned the power on, and signed the kids in for the day. He had a couple of hours before Mia showed up (and Ember had already told him she wouldn’t be coming in for a few days) so he cloned himself to entertain Clara, Maru, and Benji while he looked over paperwork.

It never ended.

There was a steady increase in kids, Danny had to get rid of his clone every time someone new showed up and then reclone himself after they left, and by the time Mia arrived he was managing fourteen kids by himself. Sort of. Obviously, with clones, he was fine albeit a little tired, but once Mia showed up it was just the two of them.

Nap time couldn’t come soon enough.

“They’re all out cold.” Mia whispered, closing the door to the nap room. “You look like you also need a nap.”

He dropped an armful of toys into the toy bin and sighed. “A nap sounds good but I can’t. I need to finally finish setting up the website for this place so we can hopefully start getting applications online.” He paused, feeling Mia’s concerned gaze on his back. “I want to extend the hours of this place.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was. Two families were waiting at the door this morning because we didn't open early enough for their needs.” He rubbed a tired hand across his brow and leaned against the nearest desk. “So… I need to hire some more people to maintain not only the hours we already have that are abysmally understaffed, but to open earlier. I haven’t been able to accept any new families recently either, we just can’t safely take care of anymore kids without more staff.”

Mia pursed her lips. “School’s just about out. I’ll be graduating and looking to work a bit more. I was going to bring it up anyways, but I’d like to work full time.”

He nodded, pulling out his phone to order food. “I can do that. You want to work earlier or later? And what do you want for lunch?”

“Earlier is better, Mama and I switch off cooking dinner so I don’t want to be home too late. What are you thinking? Thai kind of sounds good.” Mia took her usual spot in a bean bag towards the entrance of the room and pulled out the monitor set up to watch the kids.

Before Danny could respond, the bell rang. He and Mia shared looks, no one ever showed up in the middle of the day- not unless it was a last minute emergency. Mia made to move but Danny shook his head, and set his phone down. Someone needed to watch the kids while he saw who had shown up so late.

What he’d expected was a frazzled parent with a child, hoping to leave them here for a few hours because their babysitter had fallen through or they got called into work or some other reason most parents had.

What he did not expect to see was the very tall, very well built, Red Hood, holding a tupperware container. Before he could get a word out- which he wasn’t sure wouldn’t have simply been some kind of ‘wha?’ Red Hood tilted his head.

“Do you not eat or something?”

“Huh?”

Hood offered the food container. “Cause I’ve left you food a few times now and every time the old stuff is still there. If you think it’s poisoned I can take a bite first to prove it’s not.”

Danny’s jaw hung open, face screwed up in confusion, not really knowing what he was supposed to say. “Uh… I’ve been busy…” He took the container trying to ignore the stupid flutter in his stomach when their fingers brushed and noted how warm it was. “I had the chicken parmesan the other day and… uh the stew as well. They were really good- why are you leaving me food?”

The vigilante shrugged, hands on hips (which Danny tried very hard not to look at). “Think of it as a thank you for-” He glanced at the closed door. “What you did when we met. If you told people it was you I wouldn’t be the only person thanking you.”

Shaking his head, Danny set the container down. “You- YOU are thanking me for kill-” He looked at the door again. “For what happened?”

“Why’d you say it like that?”

Why’d he say it like that? Why’d he say it like that? “You- I-” Danny shut his mouth before he could accidentally reveal he’s the King of the Infinite Realms and that he had always wanted to meet the Red Hood to thank HIM. “No reason. Uh… well, you don’t have to do that, you know, if you don’t want to. I mean- it’s really good though! I appreciate it!”

A thought occurred to him. “How did you know I worked here?”

It was difficult to tell exactly what expression Hood was making sometimes, but he was pretty sure the bastard was smirking as he turned away and pushed the door open, pausing in the entrance. “It’s my job to find people of interest- and you are certainly a person of interest.”

Danny might have died again just a little bit.

~~~

Miguel POV

It had been a week since he and Santi had moved into the apartment Danny had provided for them. A week since he’d been stabbed. Doc Thompkins had said he was healing well at the check up he’d had the night prior and he felt like he was. The first few days had been… frustrating. He’d moved into an entirely new place and instead of being able to assess the situation, search for threats, create escape plans, he’d been stuck in bed, eating homemade pancakes and taking washcloth baths.

Danny was… strange. He came over at least once a day, usually after work because he left so early in the mornings, and cooked a meal. Again, usually dinner because he came over in the evenings, but twice he’d come over, cooked dinner, cleaned the kitchen, and then cooked a meal for breakfast the following day before cleaning the kitchen again.

He asked about their days, what they needed, what they wanted, and didn’t act like their dad. It was refreshing and surprising but not once did Danny scold them, lay down ground rules, or try to tell them what to do. He acted like a friend.

Miguel hadn’t had a friend in a long time.

So on Friday night when Danny came over to make dinner and asked if Miguel felt well enough to go shopping the following day, he’d agreed. Well, he’d argued a bit- they didn’t need anything else Danny had given them more than he’d ever be able to repay! But the man was insistent that they needed more clothes and he wanted them to pick them out so he knew they actually liked them.

That’s how he found himself in a clothing store in the diamond district feeling wildly out of place trying on dozens of items of clothing.

“How about this one?” Danny held a shirt up to Santiago who examined it closely, felt it between his fingers, grimaced, and shook his head cautiously. “Got it, no polyester.” Danny put it back and moved on.

Miguel caught the incredulous look Santi sent his way and gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Their father had been an angry man, one who didn’t take no for an answer and thought Santiago was trying to be difficult when he ‘acted special’. To say Miguel and Santiago were surprised that Danny accepted the no and moved on without any hint of anger was an understatement.

Danny held up a different shirt. “This one’s one hundred percent cotton.” Santi reached out carefully, felt the fabric, and nodded, a shy smile forcing its way onto his face. His brother pretended to be tough because that’s what the streets demanded from all who lived on them, but he’d always been a softy with a big brain and a bigger heart. If Miguel had been hesitant to accept Danny’s offer about school it had dissipated the second he thought of what it would mean for his brother’s future.

“I hope you’re finding some things for yourself, Miguel.” Danny teased.

Scoffing, Miguel held up the three shirts and two sweaters he’d picked out. “I know how to shop for clothes, Danny.”

Danny looked Miguel’s way with a retort clearly on the tip of his tongue, but his eyes were pulled away from Miguel and locked on someone else. “Damian?” He called, waving to someone a few aisles away.

Following the direction of Danny’s eyes, Miguel saw a boy about his age standing across the store. He wore a serious expression, not quite a scowl but close, and said something to the man next to him who was much older than the person Miguel thought was Damian. The pair made their way closer much to the boy’s disapproval.

Danny set down the clothes he’d been showing Santiago, and moved out of the aisles to greet Damian. “I thought that was you! Nice to see you again. I was actually going to let you know that Curiosity’s finished his meds and has made a full recovery!”

Ah. Danny had shown Miguel and Santiago his cats earlier in the week and mentioned that someone had been giving him advice on how to take care of them, especially the sick one. So this kid had been the one helping Danny?

“I’m glad I was able to be of assistance. The cats seem to be in good hands.” The boy dipped his head.

The older man gasped. “Why Dami- that was almost a compliment!” By the sound of his teasing, they were brothers. “I don’t know how you did it, but I think Damian might actually like you. My name’s Dick, by the way, pleasure to meet you.”

“On purpose?!”

The group turned to Santiago who was still watching the entire encounter from where he’d been looking at shirts. His brother’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said and that he’d practically insulted a complete stranger based on their name. Luckily, Dick offered a smile and Danny laughed.

“Yes, on purpose.”

Danny held out his hand which Dick shook. “Danny Nightingale, Damian’s told me about you, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Dick’s eyes widened. “You told your friend about me?”

“Tt. Relax Grayson, I simply mentioned you in passing. I didn’t think Nightingale would latch onto such information.”

Miguel exhaled quickly, suppressing a chuckle, but it was too late, he’d been noticed.

“Oh right! This is Miguel and Santiago.” Danny pointed at each of them and smiled. Miguel wished this encounter would be over. He didn’t enjoy meeting new people, it made his skin itch and his mouth dry out. As much as he disliked shopping for clothes and Danny spending way too much money on him, he disliked meeting new people even more. Danny seemed to sense this and did his best to finish things up. “We were just finishing up some clothes shopping before working on some stuff at home.”

Damian, sensing the dismissal, nodded once. “It was nice to see you again, Nightingale, do message me if you have any more animal related questions.” He grabbed Dick’s arm and began pulling him away, Dick grumbling about wanting to get to know Danny more as they left and Miguel released a sigh.

“Sorry guys.” Danny apologized. “Let’s finish up and get food on the way home, yeah?”

~~~

When they got home Miguel and Santiago put their bags in their rooms and joined Danny in the kitchen. He looked… exhausted. To be fair, they all did, but Danny hadn’t been homeless or recently stabbed (as far as Miguel was aware) so he didn’t really have a great excuse. Before he could say anything, Danny clapped his hands together.

“So I’m thinking while we eat lunch we can touch on some school stuff just for a bit, and then we can all relax.” Santiago straightened up a bit, some of the exhaustion disappearing from his face and Miguel couldn’t help but smile. As the boys grabbed their boxes of takeout Danny grabbed them drinks. He’d already learned that Miguel liked coke and Santiago liked grape juice and had continued to supply them both with it.

“I don’ know how you’re gonna catch us up on three years of schoolin’.” Miguel said honestly, Santiago’s shoulders drooped slightly.

Danny took a bite of his food and considered what Miguel said. That was something about him Miguel liked a lot. He always seemed to think before speaking- at least, when it was something important.

“Well I’m really good at math and science so I should be able to figure out a good way to catch you guys up, it’s the arts we have to worry about. English, history, that kind of thing. Now, tests suck, I know.” He took a sip of his coffee- he drank way too much of that stuff. “But I want you each to take a few placement tests so I can understand where you’re going to be starting. Then I’ll put together a plan to get you back to the levels you would be at before the entrance exams at Gotham Academy.”

Miguel groaned. “Man tests suck.”

“I know.” Danny assured. “But these aren’t graded. I don’t care how well you do, I want to know what you don’t know so I can help you learn it. This is a judgment free zone- always.” He looked at the two seriously, Miguel’s skin itched. “I’ll just have you take two today, how's that? And you can do the other two tomorrow while I plan around the ones you take today?”

That seemed fair. He thought it seemed fair. While taking the placement tests he wasn’t so sure anymore. His brain hurt almost immediately and he wondered why he was really doing this. He wasn’t going to pass high school, he’d never been very smart and when Danny realized he wasn’t smart enough to get a good job he’d just be back on the streets again.

His brother let out a happy sound as he solved one of the science problems and moved onto the next one.

Taking a deep breath, Miguel remembered why he was doing this. Just because he’d fail out and end up back on the streets didn’t mean his brother had to. His brother was smart, smarter than him, and he’d be damned if he held Santi back from getting into Gotham University someday.

He could do this. For Santi, he thought he could do anything.

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#fanfiction #danny phantom #danny phantom/jason todd #danny's daycare #dp x dc #dead on main #dick grayson #damian wayne

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mstarcreates · 3 months ago

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At the request of @novabombbastic I have another snippet of the other Destiny AU I’m working on called Past Lives. As a refresher, this is an AU where Sundance does not die and Uldren takes Cayde prisoner instead.

This is the opening scene:

Those eyes. He’ll never forget those eyes. They burned and smoldered like the heart of a dying star, and Cayde was certain they’d be etched somewhere in the deepest recesses of his memory drives. Oh, how they blazed like with the fire of a thousand suns as they bore down on him with white-hot hatred from the other end of his own gun.

So, so much hatred.

“Any last words?” Uldren asked from the other side of the barrel, face half hidden in the shadow of his hood.

And still, Cayde blurted out the dumbest thing he’d probably ever said in his long life as a Guardian. He’d said a lot of shit too.

He figured he was dead anyway, might as well seal the deal. “How’s your sister?”

Then there was nothing inside those eyes. They were cold…disinterested even, as a shot rang out from the Ace of Spades.

****

“How’s your sister?” The words echoed in his mind as he started to come to, vision wavering for a moment until his orbital processors began to make sense of the blurry shapes around him. It was mostly dark, wherever he was at.

It didn’t take him long to surmise that he was in a cell of some kind, the walls made of old brick stones. The bed, if it could even be called that, was a bare mattress about as thick as a few pieces of flat wooden planks stacked together. It appeared to be filthy too, likely having been dragged out from some abandoned part of the EDZ.

There was a sink on one wall that was mostly rusted, water leaking in a steady dripdripdrip from what was left of the faucet. A cracked mirror hung above it along with one lonely fluorescent light that was bolted haphazardly to the wall. The poor thing was flickering and buzzing with what little power it still had remaining. It was barely even managing to stay on, let alone providing any actual light source to speak of.

Sundance appeared before him from her hiding place in subspace, scanning him for any other injuries. She must’ve just rezzed him. He hated the feeling of being freshly revived, it made his wiring all fuzzy and his mouth feel like it was full of old mothballs. But right now, he mostly hated it because his metal skull still felt like it was splitting in two.

Cayde groaned as he sat up, putting his head in his hands as he spoke. “Sundance…where are we?”

“Unclear,” She answered hesitantly, “Sort of.”

“What kind of answer is ‘sort of’?” He looked up at her, the Ghost’s shell dropping a little as if she didn’t want to tell him.

“Prince Uldren has taken us prisoner…but I’m not entirely sure where we’re at.”

“So call for help! The Vanguard, Petra—hell call everyone!”

“I can’t…” Sundance turned away from him, her shell spinning around as she contemplated the best way to break the bad news to him. “I tried, Cayde, I’m unable to reach anyone. I even attempted to transmat us out of here. I don’t know what Uldren did to us—to me…But I can’t do anything except heal you. Even my connection to the Light feels…weaker here.”

“Outstanding,” Cayde grumbled, he knew it wasn’t her fault. Hell, he was lucky to still have her. She had barely blinked away before that sniper…no he couldn’t go there. Couldn’t bring himself to think about how things would have ended without his Sundance, without his Light.

He would be six feet under. That’s all there was to it. He held his hand out and Sundance placed herself into his palm, her warmth settling deep into his circuitry somewhere. Cayde let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He wasn’t sure what was next or how to move forward from here. But he knew one thing for certain:

He wasn’t going to let that Awoken Bastard Prince get the best of him.

Cayde was patient. He could wait it out.

He would find an opportunity to escape, and then bring the full fury of the Vanguard down on Uldren Sov once and for all.

#destiny uldren #destiny cayde #destiny 2 #destiny fanfiction #cayde 6 #destiny the game #writing #lost in the sauce #send help

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demiclar · 11 days ago

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Bold Endings

Destcember Day 7 - Bold Endings - Ao3

Glint and Ghost talk after their discussion with Micha, Eva, Ophiuchus and the other Ghosts.

-----

“I’m…sorry I wasn’t more open during our talk earlier,” Ghost says, his voice low as he and Glint hover at the edge of the Tower.

Their Guardians are somewhere behind them, on a secluded platform sharing a bottle of wine on a couch, close enough that they lean into one another. It’s a rare day off for their Guardians, in the middle of the Festival of the Lost, it was all Glint and Ghost could do to convince them to take some time off, but they seem to be making the most of it. Glint can feel the warmth spreading through Crow through their bond, radiating from the heat of the wine in his gut and the feel of the Guardian pressed against his side, their legs resting atop his as they lean back, Crow’s feet kicked up on the low table before them.

Ghost and Glint had found them after they’d left Eva and Micha earlier. Speaking with the other Ghosts had been nice, but draining, and Glint can’t help but think Ghost didn’t say everything he needed to. It will take time, they both know that, but he also knows there’s some things Ghost will only say around friends. Being the Ghost of the Traveler’s chosen certainly comes with its challenges, that much Glint is sure of, not to mention everything he’s been through because of it.

“It’s alright,” Glint promises, nudging his shell against Ghost’s. The comfort isn’t only for Ghost’s benefit, though he knows his friend has come to appreciate the touches from the way he presses his shell back into Glint’s when they touch. Glint likes to think the growing familiarity between the four of them is a comfort to all of them. He already cares for the Guardian a great deal, having accompanied them on plenty of missions before, and he knows Crow would always look out for Ghost if he needed it, his Guardian’s protectiveness clear as day since Ghost sacrificed himself to kill the Witness and they all realized how dire the consequences they faced could be.

“No one there expected you to say anything you weren’t ready for,” Glint says. He and Ghost watch as a ship departs the Tower hangar, slowly fading into a streak of light in the sky. “I certainly didn’t.”

“I know, I just…” he pulls in what looks to be a deep breath, his shell expanding, then closing once more as he pushes out the artificial sigh. Ghosts can’t breathe, but Glint hopes the movement grounds Ghost the same way it does for his Guardian when he lets out a heavy sigh. “I know I should probably talk about it more. I know I shouldn’t keep it all locked up.”

Glint waits, staying close to Ghost, offering him his presence and his silence, patience and time for Ghost to formulate his words, to think and parse out what he wants to say, but after a long moment of waiting, Ghost only stares at the streak of the fading ship in the sky.

“It’s strange,” he murmurs.

“What is?”

“My death. Thinking of it as a tragedy. Micha said—I’d never thought—” he shakes his shell around his frame, softly so he only brushes Glint’s fins with his own. “I hadn’t thought of my death as a tragedy. It just felt necessary.”

“That makes sense,” Glint agrees, and when he steals a glance back at Crow and the Guardian, Ghost’s eye follows. They look together at their Guardians, pressed together nearly from head to toe, their conversation low enough that Glint can’t quite make it out. He watches Crow laugh softly, his head turned to the side so Glint can see his profile, his nose wrinkled just slightly, his teeth bared in a grin. “I think I would feel the same way if Crow were ever in that kind of danger. Protecting him feels like what I’m meant to do. Not tragic, but necessary,” Glint says, looking back at Ghost. His gaze tracks over his own Guardian as they slip the wine bottle from Crow’s hand and take a sip, then drop their head onto his shoulder, smiling up at him. “But your death was a tragedy, the way the Witness hurt you—”

“I know,” Ghost’s voice is brittle enough that Glint breaks off immediately. He only felt briefly what it was like to be held in the Witness’s grasp. He doesn’t know what kind of scars Ghost still bears from feeling it so repeatedly, over and over again, another impossible sacrifice he bore for them. Ghost’s shell trembles in the air beside him and Glint presses his own into it. He wants to apologize, but even doing so feels like dragging the topic back up when he should let it lie. Ghost presses his shell back into Glint’s, and they’re so close Glint can feel his Light, tense and flighty, breathing in the contact of Glint’s own.

“Sometimes Crow asks me to keep a scar or two of his when I revive him after a hard battle,” Glint says after a long minute of silence. He knows Ghost does the same thing for his Guardian. He knows from the patchwork of scars Crow likes to kiss over the Guardian's body, the new ones he’s noticed whenever he’s around the Guardian while they wear their sleep clothes. “I think it helps him think about what he’s been through, to validate it. Is it hard when your shell doesn’t have anything like that?”

“Sometimes I think so,” Ghost admits, “but other times I’m glad I don’t. Sometimes it’s hard enough having to carry around the memory of it happening.”

He watches Ghost look over at him, his eye tracking over Glint’s shell, considering.

“I never asked you where your scar came from.” There’s a small scrape towards the inside of Glint’s shell, close to his center eye, a gouge in the paint of his shell, revealing the metal below it. Glint feels his shell shift around him, holding the fin that bears the mark a little further from his core.

“It came from Spider, when he put the bomb into my shell.”

Glint remembers the terror of that moment, both his and Crow’s, the fear of being paralyzed and the suffocating, nauseating anxiety that came afterwards, wondering if at any moment, that bomb might go off and destroy him, whether Spider chose it or not. He remembers the way Crow wept after the bomb was finally removed, once they’d made it to the City and the explosive was carefully disarmed and dismantled in a lab. He remembers being sealed away in a vacuum chamber while a technician operated on him in an oxygen starved environment, just in case. He remembers the Praxic technology that held his shell open and his fins still. The look on Crow’s face, distorted through glass. He remembers what it was like when he was finally free of it, when he and Crow were finally alone and Crow’s tears finally fell, his hands cradling Glint close to his chest.

Glint closes his eye for a moment, pushing the memories from his mind before he looks at Ghost again.

Ghost nods in recognition of his words, though he doesn’t hold Glint’s gaze. “I’m sorry I haven’t asked you much about it. If you wanted to talk about it–”

“It’s okay,” Glint promises. “You’re going through a lot.” He’s not here to talk about his own traumas, it’s Ghost that needs help right now.

“I know,” Ghost says, meeting Glint’s eye again, “but it couldn’t have been easy.”

Glint tilts his shell to the side. “I don’t think any of our lives have ever been easy.”

“Maybe,” Ghost allows. “It used to be easier, before the Red War.” He looks back at his Guardian. “That was the first time I ever really thought I’d lose them. It feels like everything changed after that.”

Glint remembers the Red War from the suffocating feeling of being robbed of his Light, and the terrible, terrifying indecision of whether or not to return to the Traveler and the Last City, to offer his aid and risk being close to the danger or to stay and wait until the threat had passed, and wonder if it ever would.

“Have you ever talked to your Guardian about any of this?” Glint asks him. “Crow and I sometimes have a hard time, but I think it helps. We were only able to get through what Spider did to us by going through it together.”

“Not all of it.” Ghost’s eye looks out towards the city again, his shell tight around his frame. “I had a list, once, of things I wanted to say to them. I’ve tried talking about it more but,” he shakes his shell again. “They think I’m a hero for what I did, for sacrificing myself, but I’m not. They do so much for the city and for humanity but when we were fighting the Witness, I didn’t think about what destroying it would do for humanity and for the system, I was only thinking of them. I just wanted them to be safe, and I think it hurt them having to be the one to channel their Light through me. I couldn’t stop them from knowing how painful it was.”

Glint might not have been with Ghost when he sacrificed himself to kill the Witness, but he watched beside Crow when they poured over the footage of the final battle, first with the Vanguard and again on their own. He’d heard Ghost’s agonized screams, the way he’d howled when the Guardian channeled their Light through him. He can’t imagine what something like that would do to Crow. It was always clear that Ghost wouldn’t have lasted much longer even if he hadn’t sacrificed himself, but he can’t imagine the pain the Guardian must feel to have any relationship to his death, to have been the one to cause it, even if it wasn't their fault.

“Maybe it would help them to talk about it, too,” Glint suggests, and Ghost stares towards the Guardians again, where his Guardian’s head rests, tucked against Crow’s neck.

It’s not like the Guardian escaped the Witness without scars. Ghost dealt the final blow but Glint knows they’d have had a long recovery ahead of them had he not come back to them. The scars they received from the battle still linger on their skin, darker than the rest, like the moment without Light was enough to permanently etch them into the Guardian’s skin. He’s seen what Ghost’s death has done to them beyond the physical, too. The first few nights after the Witness’s defeat, they spent wrapped in Crow’s embrace, more than once jerking out of sleep with tears wetting their pillow. On one of their rougher nights, after they and Crow struggled to reach sleep, overtired and exhausted the Guardian had woken from a fitful sleep and fell quickly into rough, aching sobs, cradling their Ghost to their chest while they’d cried. Glint remembers the way he’d pressed himself into the Guardian’s cheek, Crow cradling them in his arms.

“I don’t know if I can–” Ghost breaks off and Glint nudges his shell against his friend’s.

“That’s okay,” Glint promises. “You don’t have to, not if you’re not ready.”

“I don’t know if I ever will be ready,” Ghost tells him. He turns away from the Guardians again, looking out towards the city once more. From the pain in Ghost’s tone, Glint almost wants to call his Guardian over, to ask them to hold him, to comfort him, but maybe that isn’t what Ghost needs. Glint has been through enough, seen enough, talked with Micha and Eva enough to know that it will take time for Ghost to come to terms with anything that’s happened to him, but it doesn’t make the time in between any easier. It almost hurts worse knowing there’s nothing he can offer him that will make it any better.

“That’s okay, too,” Glint says, and Ghost’s shell shudders against his when he lets out another trembling artificial sigh. From behind him, he can almost feel Crow’s eyes on him, his awareness pulled to their bond as his Guardian looks back at him from the couch he and he Guardian sit on. He can feel the warmth Crow sends down the bond to him, reassurance and well-wishes, the promise that he is there and that whatever Glint and Ghost are going through, Crow and the Guardian will be with them. He sends his own warmth back to Crow along their bond and tries to muster it up, to imbue his Light with it as he leans his shell a little further into Ghost’s.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk, too.” Glint watches the ships gliding through the City airspace, the line of lights formed up in the traffic pattern that will bring them into the Tower hangar, Guardians coming home for the night. He pulls himself and Ghost into the present, offering them a hint of something grounding. “It’s okay if all you want to do is stay right here, and we don’t have to talk at all unless you want to.”

Ghost’s next breath comes a little easier, his shell a little more relaxed when he presses into Glint, into his space and his touch. He looks out over the city, his shell drooping around his frame. “Thank you,” he says quietly, and Glint stays with him for as long as he needs.

#destiny 2 #destcember #demiclar's destcember 2024 #destcember2024 #demiwrites #destiny game #destiny fanfiction #destiny ghost #destiny glint #the final shape

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creativia10 · 2 years ago

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Hexside Starts and Locker Haunts

Hunter is looking forward to attending Hexside where he can see most of his friends. He didn't expect his new ghostly guardian to look out for him while there.

Warnings: reference to past child abuse

Let me know if I've missed anything

Word count: 3215

Notes: This is going to be the second one of a series about Hunter and Ghost Caleb. I really like this concept. I don't know how many works this series will have yet.

Hunter could hardly believe this was happening. He was going to go to Hexside and learn alongside other kids his age. Including his friends. Well, hopefully he would that was. Apparently, he had to take a placement exam, where enrollment wasn’t guaranteed. At least, not when he wasn’t a full witch like most of the students would be. He knew Luz had to deal with that, they’d talked about it.

He needed to know two spells on his own in order to not be placed at the lowest level in the school, the baby class. He only had one ability on his own, the teleportation and flash step from Flapjack. He couldn’t even use the glyphs that Luz had been able to. Ever since Belos possessed the titan and the battle ended, the glyphs hadn’t seemed to work. He didn’t really understand why. He had a feeling Luz would know more about that, as she seemed to.

He could do more with his artificial staff though, which he would have to start using again. Part of him didn’t want to, but it might be his only option if he wanted to go to this school. And he did.

He didn’t understand why this presentation was like a show for himself on the stage before the principal. He could appreciate the showmanship though. At least, he could have if he wasn’t so nervous.

Darius stood backstage giving him encouraging hand gestures. Darius has been there for Hunter now. More than just giving him somewhere to stay, which Hunter appreciated. It did seem like Darius was stepping into more of a guardian role for Hunter now. If the check-in after Hunter went on his own, the day Belos was defeated, said anything. Still, Hunter wasn’t quite used to a safe guardian who only had his best interests in mind. So, Hunter was having a hard time believing that was going to be the case. For now, he could just accept that Darius was safe and there for him. And really, that said a lot there.

Hunter had his artificial staff off to the side, easy to reach backstage, in case he did need to grab it. He wanted to try on his own first though.

Hunter took a deep breath and walked onto the stage.

“Hey, Principal Bump,” He said a bit awkwardly. Bump’s face was a bit hard to read, but he just nodded in response.

“Yes. G- uh, what is your actual name again?”

“Hunter,” He said.

Hunter’s eyes were drawn to a flash he caught from the back row of the seats. Odd, Hunter was sure it was just supposed to be the three of them in there for this exam.

Hunter’s attention was brought back to the conversation though.

“Yes, Hunter. Given your history in the emperor’s coven-“

Hunter couldn’t help but wince at that.

“-I’m well aware you have the magical abilities to be able to attend here.”

“…right.”

Of course, not everyone knew he was a powerless witch on his own. Only his friends knew that, and he didn’t exactly want everyone to know.

“So by all means, show me what you’d like. To give me an idea where to place you.”

Hunter took a deep breath and then flash-stepped to the side. He also teleported up into the air and then quickly back down, as his staff wasn’t in his grasp to catch him.

“Does that count as two?” Hunter asked.

Bump scratched his chin.

“Hmm, I’m not sure. Is there anything else?”

Hunter hesitated and then walked to the side to grab his staff.

“Well, if I may ask this not leave here, not really without my staff. As the glyphs don’t work anymore.”

Bump blinked.

“What, really? But many have seen you use powers. And you have,” He gestured to Hunter’s ears. Hunter reached to touch one on instinct.

“Uh, yeah. I’m a powerless witch, or I was. Belos gave me this artificial magic staff to be able to use magic abilities.”

Bump hmmed.

“I see.”

“But with it, I can do this!” Hunter held his staff up, making sure not to point it at anyone, and let the staff build up an energy blast at the end.

“I can also move earth with it.”

Bump nodded.

“Well, you have certainly shown you’re magically capable before, considering. Although, you may have some limitations with what tracks you can take though.”

Hunter sighed. “Yeah, I figured as much. I can live with that.”

“Very well. With this in mind, I welcome you to Hexside School of Magic and Demonics.”

Hunter smiled and bowed to him.

“Thank you sir.”

Bump raised his hand.

“That’s not necessary. I’ll let you look over the tracks before you start classes. Let me know if you’ll need any help testing out which ones you are able to do.”

Darius asked Hunter if he was okay while they on their way back home from the entrance exam.

Hunter shot him a confused look.

“Why do you ask? I got what I wanted. I can go to Hexside.”

Darius hmmed.

“I know, but some topics got brought up in there that I could tell you weren’t thrilled about.”

Hunter sighed and shrugged.

“I don’t know. I mean, it was bound to come up. Of course, I’m going to have to consider that I’m fundamentally different from other witches. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. At least I’m able to go to that school at all. Gosh, I need to be able to see my friends there.”

Darius nodded.

“Know that you can talk to me though, alright?”

Hunter hesitated. Trust was a hard thing. He was not used to opening up at all.

“I appreciate that,” Hunter said.

Darius pursed his lips, probably seeing how that was a non-answer. Hunter didn’t know if he was ready yet though. Maybe he could focus on one thing at a time. And at that point, it was figuring out his tracks at Hexside. He was used to working hard, so surely doing so for classes of his own choice would be better. Right?

Hunter was surprised that he came to the school his first day with so much trepidation. More than he had the first time he came onto the Hexside campus. Maybe because then he had a mission as the golden guard. And a lot of false confidence for some reason. But this time, he was just Hunter. Not even a full witch. Entering a building of normal witches and demons around his age. Which was something he was very much not used to. It was actually a bit overwhelming.

So he stood there for a moment just staring forward as students milled about the campus.

“Hey, Hunter. Are you alright?” Darius asked. He hadn’t left yet. Hunter took a deep breath. He didn’t know the answer to that. But he didn’t want to worry the other.

He did want this. He just didn’t feel fully prepared.

“Hunter!” Several voices shouted.

Hunter glanced over and his shoulders relaxed some as he saw his friends. Gus, Willow, and Amity made their way over.

Darius shot him a smile.

“I’ll see you later Hunter. Let me know if you need anything?”

Hunter nodded at Darius with a smile, before the other left.

Gus and Willow immediately hugged him.

“You’re finally here!” Gus exclaimed. He let out little illusion fireworks in celebration.

“Yeah, I know right?” Hunter said.

“It’ll be great to have you on the Emerald Entrails flyer derby team full time!” Willow cheered.

Hunter smiled at that.

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that.”

They chattered a bit more as they headed into the school. Being among familiar faces did wonders to help Hunter feel more at ease. It was a great reminder of why he wanted to go there in the first place, even if he was different.

A flash of light would be harder to see in the daytime outside. Hunter had a good sense of when someone was looking at him though. That had developed from moments with Belos. Sometimes he didn’t know when his uncle was understanding or in a bad mood, and he needed to be on guard.

But there are a lot of people at school there. He tried to reassure himself that it’s possible it was nothing. He was new after all, and some did know he was the golden guard. Maybe it had been a passing glance. There was a difference between one look and being watched though. Hunter could usually feel it, but that was likely no magic though. Just an instinctive intuition, or maybe even paranoia.

Still, he looked around, not seeing anyone.

“Hunter?” Willow asked. “Is everything alright?”

Hunter turned back to his friend group.

“Yeah, I think so,” He said.

She didn’t seem convinced, but let the conversation continue. Hunter couldn’t shake the feeling though.

Hunter went into Principal Bump’s office first, as he was told to. So he could choose his tracks and get to class.

He had been doing a lot of thinking about this. Yet still, he looked over the choices. He understood why Luz had a hard time choosing. Unlike her though, he probably couldn’t do all of them.

Potions was easy to tick off. It was the easiest for a low or nonmagical person to learn.

Beastkeeping. He liked palisman, so maybe he would like working with other magical creatures too. Construction seemed to be the closest to what he could use the earth-moving abilities for.

He pondered Healing, it was an ability he would like to know how to do.

“Can I add more later?” Hunter asked.

Bump thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Yes. With the new addition of multiple tracks learning, many students have been adding more tracks later.”

Hunter nodded. He held off on that one for then, since he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to do that. Illusion was also a no.

He supposed plants could be similar to earth, but he had moved the ground itself more, not so much growth.

He was almost good with his three tracks, but then he paused on the oracle one. He had read up a bit about that. He was less interested in knowing the future, as it was hard to think about that when you didn’t know how long you’d live. But the pamphlet had said those on the oracle track communed with spirits. He wanted to understand more about that world given recent events. He could at least learn more about the spirits. Besides, he was pretty sure that moment with the ghost of Caleb wasn’t going to be a one-time thing. Even if he wasn’t sure when he would see the other again.

So, he had decided on four tracks for then.

Hunter was surprised he hadn’t seen his friends in classes yet. He supposed they did have different track focuses, and the ones he chose didn’t overlap, but still. There had to be some classes everyone took. He hoped they would have some in common.

Anyways, there was something in the schedule called a break? That was not something he expected. When he trained to become the golden guard, his learning was pretty intensive. He didn’t quite understand why there was a break, and so early. It had only been a few hours. Still, he wasn’t going to complain about the chance to see his friends some more if he had time. He was still figuring out the layout of the school.

As he walked through the halls, he walked past a group of students with a girl in the middle who looked familiar. Boscha he thought? She had been that pseudo-leader when the students hid out at Hexside during the Collector’s games. He hadn’t been able to catch everything that happened. He thought Amity had managed to convince her to go against Kikimora who had been taking over though.

So, that in itself could have meant she was an ally. But the Isles were no longer in emergency mode, at least not in the same way. He had heard his friends talk about this girl before. She was a bully. So it was probably best to steer clear of her. At least, that’s what he tried to do.

He was starting to wish he had asked even more about what to prepare for at this school. He caught her looking him up and down before she scoffed.

“Wow, someone’s a bit ambitious. Try hard much?”

Hunter rolled his eyes and kept going. Honestly, many students were taking multiple tracks now.

“Hey!” She exclaimed. “Don’t ignore me!”

Great. She was an attention hog as well. She then walked over to him and started following him.

“Who do you think you are? You’re not the golden guard anymore, nothing special about you now.”

Hunter paused and turned to her.

“How did you know about that?”

Boscha rolled her eyes and smirked.

“Oh, please. Word goes around fast here.”

He really hoped that didn’t extend to other parts about him.

“So you won’t be able to get away with stuff like before. This is Hexside, my school.”

“Oh please, you’re just a student here,” He said.

Boscha laughed. “Did you ever think about why I was the leader when everyone hid out at the school? People listen to me. And ignoring me isn’t gonna fly.”

“Why do you care if I give you attention? You don’t even know me. If you had as many fans as you imply, there would be no reason to make a scene at me walking past you.”

She glared at him and clenched her fists at that.

“Because you’re not just anyone. Most students here know their place by now, but you’re new. I can’t have you think you’re better than me. I’m most popular for a reason. The losers need to stay down. Especially half-witches.”

Hunter’s eyes widened at that last part and took a step back.

“What?” He asked.

She put her hands on her hips and smirked at him again.

“What, you think I didn’t notice your limited use of magic? And that you always have a staff with you now, even when it’s not a palisman.”

Hunter pulled his artificial staff slightly behind his back.

“Why were you even watching me for that?” He asked.

“I look out for the important things. Such as threats and the wastes of magic that need to be avoided.”

Just after she said that, a nearby locker door swung out and banged her in the face.

“Ow!” She cried out, stepping back and holding her face.

Hunter startled and looked on in surprised.

Boscha continued to hold her face, but glared out and looked around.

“Okay, who did that!?”

Some students fled at her yell. Hunter looked around, but he couldn’t tell. He hadn’t seen any spell-casting circles. His friends didn’t seem to be in the vicinity either.

Just then, he saw another flash at the end of the hallway. Okay, that couldn’t be a coincidence.

A faded figure formed the silhouette of a familiar man for a moment. The figure then drifted around the corner of the hallway. Hunter sped walk in that direction right away.

“Hey!” He heard Boscha shout behind him, but Hunter ignored her. He went around the corner to a subsection of the hallway off to the side away from things.

The ghost of Caleb reformed to appear as he had when Hunter first saw him. Hunter stared for a moment.

“You found a way to follow me,” Hunter said.

Caleb nodded, “I can’t exactly say I understand why. Perhaps I was able to attach myself to you when my former reason for haunting died. Or it could be because that staff is from the castle.”

Hunter glanced to his staff at the mention then back to Caleb.

“You slammed that locker door into Boscha’s face.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I said I would look after you. I wanted to protect you.”

Hunter huffed.

“I wasn’t in any real danger. She’s just a brat.”

Caleb hmmed.

“Perhaps. Doesn’t mean you have to deal with that.”

“I’ve been through worse,” Hunter said.

Caleb sighed. “I know. Trust me, I know. I don’t have to like any of it though.”

“So what, you’re just going to try to throw things at anyone who gives me a hard time? I don’t need that.”

“Do you know what you need?”

“Maybe not to be coddled!”

Calen floated back some.

“I don’t think one instance of retaliating against a bully counts as being coddled. She had no reason to be like that to you.”

“I mean, yeah. Of course she didn’t have a good reason. But I don’t need you to do that.”

“I know. I wanted to. She was annoying me.”

Hunter huffed. “Yeah, she was definitely annoying.”

“See?”

“How often are you going to do something like that?”

Caleb shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Because, if that becomes commonplace, someone is going to figure out I have a ghost haunting me.”

“Well, it’s more watching over you than haunting. Are you expecting this type of thing to happen often?”

Hunter opened his mouth and then paused. He didn’t really know what to expect if he was being honest. Caleb seemed to sense that. He smiled.

“Well, then I’m definitely not going to stop.”

“Caleb!”

“My brother caused irreversible damage to this world for years. It’s the least I can do.”

“You are not responsible for his actions.”

“I know,” Caleb said. He looked sad now.

“But if I can do something good in spirit after my brother cut my life tragically short, then I want to be able to.”

It was hard to argue against that. Not like Hunter didn’t appreciate this ghostly ancestor wanting to look out for him. He just wasn’t sure if he deserved it. Especially over something like a mean girl. His life hadn’t even been in danger or anything.

“I suppose that’s fair…” Hunter started. He wasn’t really sure what to tell the other. Could a ghost be reasoned with? It’s not like it would do much harm. Hopefully. This was still new to Hunter, so he wasn’t sure what to expect.

Before he could say anything else,

“Hunter!”

Hunter turned to see his friends running towards him. Hunter turned back to Caleb, or where he had been. Caleb had disappeared again. Hunter sighed.

He still had questions about this whole thing. Like, why did the ghost keep disappearing on him like that?

The school bell rang signaling that the break was over. Other students around started to head to their next classes.

His friends were talking over each other. They mentioned how they heard something happened with Boscha. Concerned that he ran away after. He walked with them to start heading to his next class as well. He tried to answer their questions, without mentioning Caleb. He was honestly still in a bit of a daze over what had happened. He was really dealing with a ghost now even with everything else going on? Well, at least Caleb was a nice ghost, but still. He didn’t know anything about this stuff. He supposed he was going to find out.

#Ghost Caleb and Hunter #the owl house #toh #toh spoilers #toh hunter #toh fanfic #caleb wittebane #darius toh #principal bump

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eliotqueliot · 2 years ago

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After the Scarlatti Web

For the May 29 prompt: Bed Sharing, for @duckprintspress May Trope Mayhem

Fandom: The Magicians (TV)

Relationship: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh

Tags: Sharing a Bed, queliot, Insomnia, References to Depression, Fear, Falling In Love, Best Friends, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together

Summary: Quentin’s afraid to sleep. Eliot wants to help.

This story takes place following the end of 1x04, “The World in the Walls,” right after Quentin wakes up from being trapped in his own mind by Julia in the Scarlatti Web.

Warnings for canon-typical language. The first 1k is up on tumblr, but the whole story is on AO3; link at the end.

--------------

Eliot handed Quentin a brandy. Q glanced at him as their fingers brushed, but didn’t pull away. Instead he looked at Eliot as though he was some sort of lifeline.

Eliot reseated himself on the back of the couch beside Quentin and reached out to pet his hair again, but this time it was more than a quick pat. “How are you, Q? Really?”

“A little freaked out?”

“Understandable. If I get my hands on that hedge bitch—”

Quentin shivered. He pulled Eliot’s hand off his head—but then he just held onto Eliot’s wrist for a minute. “God, no. Just let her be. I hate what she did—”

“You almost died, Quentin,” Eliot spat out. “There was a very good chance you were never going to wake up.”

“But I don’t blame her for being mad. I should have told the dean she had magic, like she wanted.”

“That doesn’t excuse—”

A smile ghosted over Quentin’s lips. “No, but maybe they would have mind-wiped her again? Before she could do anything stupid?”

It surprised a laugh out of Eliot. “God, I hope it takes next time.”

“Same.” Quentin drank his brandy. Eliot crossed around and sat next to him.

“What was it like in the mind-prison? How did you get out?” God, I was so worried, Quentin. His heart still hadn’t calmed the fuck down. The flood of relief was making him giddy, possibly stupid, because—he wanted to tell Quentin what he’d realized. How his heart dropped the moment they’d found Q unresponsive in the back of that closet. The moment he realized just how much he loved Quentin.

“It was my worst nightmare. I got committed.” Quentin tipped the tumbler, downing the rest in one go, and God, he didn’t recommend that, but Eliot reached for the glass instinctively. But Quentin shook his head to a refill. “You know, Eliot, you were there? Probably the one bright spot in the whole damned place.”

“Really?” Eliot’s aplomb was no match for this sudden surge of happiness. Inescapable: I love Quentin. Oh God, I’m head over heels. So that’s what it means… Fuck, he was in trouble.

Quentin sighed and flopped back against the cushions. “The funny thing is… I slept for what, ten hours? Thirteen? But I’ve never been so tired in my life. I feel like I’ve been running for, like, a month. Only…sleeping right now? I can’t even. Would I ever wake up? Is it bad that I’m so tired I almost don’t care?”

Eliot took Q’s hand and stood decisively. “Come with me, Quentin.”

“El, I have to go to class.”

“They can excuse you for one day. After this? They can excuse you for a month. You almost died, Quentin. And their famous methods of dealing with former students and warding against hedge magic didn’t work.”

But halfway up the stairs, Quentin sighed heavily and just stopped walking. “I’m not sure I ever want to sleep again, to be honest.”

“I can watch over you, Q. If you’re worried about it.” Always. I’ll always be there for you, Q. “It’s no trouble.” Oh, I can think of so many ways to help you sleep… Sternly, he told his brain to settle down.

“My guardian angel?” Despite the cheeky smile, Quentin looked so tired, so serious. “Thank you, El. But—I’ll let you know? Right now I need to get my books and just—make it to class. So I don’t get mind-wiped too.”

“Don’t worry, Q. I’m not going to let that happen.” Eliot helped Q gather his books, tucked his tag back in his shirt collar, smoothed Q’s hair, and had just enough time to grab him a water bottle before Q rushed out the door.

Eliot had class himself, and plans with Margo, but he tried to keep an eye out for Q. Quentin didn’t come back till late after dinner—apparently having a serious meeting with Dean Fogg, among other things. Eliot put a plate together for him—heard all about it while Quentin ate, even though there was a previously scheduled party to attend to. When Quentin pushed back his chair and announced he was going to crash, Eliot followed him upstairs to make sure he had strong enough wards to keep out the noise of the party, before wishing him a peaceful sleep.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay? I don’t mind. I have plenty of homework. I can sit up and read,” Eliot found himself babbling. “Make sure nothing happens. Keep up the sound wards.”

Quentin just smiled tiredly and waved at the bed. “It’s okay. I’m so wiped I could sleep through anything at this point. But I appreciate it.”

Then he closed the door.

Eliot just stood there for a moment. The way his heart surged out of his chest, still on the other side of that door, with Quentin…felt like an out-of-body experience.

The next morning, Eliot got up early to make Quentin breakfast before class. Quentin dragged himself downstairs just in time, clearly struggling.

Q talked to him, but he seemed subdued, his chatter coming more slowly than usual. While he moved about the kitchen, Eliot snuck worried glances at Q. Each time, he found Q sitting there, slumped in the chair, his usually eloquent hands flat on the table like fallen birds.

When he set the plate of scrambled eggs on toast in front of his favorite nerd, Eliot murmured, “Are you okay?”

“I didn’t sleep all night, El. I mean, I tried, okay? But I guess I’m kind of afraid to? Every time I close my eyes, they pop back open after a few minutes. What if I never wake up? I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to sleep again,” he repeated his fears more forcefully—this time backed by experience. He looked up at Eliot miserably.

Eliot soothed a hand between his shoulders. “You probably got enough sleep for a while, Q.” “And now I’m going to fall asleep in class and flunk out and be mindwiped,” Q fretted.

#may trope mayhem #duck prints press #eliot waugh #quentin coldwater #queliot #quentin x eliot #the magicians #queliot fanfic

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kuzann · 2 years ago

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Guardian Moons AU: Team Flare Overview

Gonna add more to my silly Perfectworldshipping AU cause folks in the Discord were excited about it. So here’s more info on Team Flare in this AU! First post about the AU is here with general information on it. This post is kind of a work in progress since I’m sure I’ll think of stuff after posting and have to add it lol.

---

Main Mission & Recruitment

Lysandre founded Team Flare so he could have backup in the form of like-minded individuals for his alien-hunting endeavors. Are they gonna do anything bad to the aliens if they find them? Nope, they just want to know about them. They have a whole database of confirmed aliens, disproved aliens, and common hoaxes to watch out for, most of it accessible to the public so they can be aware too. If said aliens turn out to be a threat to Earth then they’d work to stop them, but otherwise they’re just out for knowledge and sniffing out hoaxes. The hoax debunking is important to helping normal folks feel safe when they sleep at night, so it’s also pretty important to Team Flare too.

Though it starts as being strictly about discovering aliens and uncovering associated hoaxes, Team Flare eventually branches out to pretty much all things paranormal. It’s partly because aliens/paranormal stuff just naturally overlaps, and also because some of grunts were able to win Lysandre over by talking to him about their paranormal special interests and he got excited. Team Flare divisions have special names when they deal with a specific topic and special uniforms: for example Spectral Flare is for ghost stuff, and they look pretty goth and have black and purple uniforms.

Anyone can join Team Flare as long as they’re a good team player and treat others with respect, thinking aliens and the paranormal are cool is just a bonus. It’s high-diversity as a result of this, with members from all manner of social strata and categories mingling together and vibing over their shared interest in the paranormal--or just having fun watching coworkers be passionate about said topic while enjoying the good pay and working conditions.

The Ultimate Weapon

Upon discovering the Ultimate Weapon’s existence, Lysandre decides that it must be destroyed in order to keep it from falling into the wrong hands and makes this Team Flare’s main mission. They keep this mission under wraps so the public won’t panic about such a horrible thing existing and so they can hopefully get rid of it before any shady organizations get any ideas about what to do with it. The plan is to get it to the surface and destroy it there, since detonating it underground could cause unanticipated collateral damage if there are undetected fault lines nearby that could cause earthquakes, so Team Flare is stockpiling energy sources on top of their typical work a bit like in canon but without the harming Pokemon part.

The protags get hints that something’s up as they help Team Flare with various other and related projects and are eventually told about the plan because they’ve earned enough trust with Lysandre and the team and they’re chosen students of Sycamore’s. Luckily they arrive just in time to help out when things go sideways during the finale too.

Unfortunately and unbeknownst to Lysandre until the very end, his discovering the weapon at all is in part a ploy by AZ to get someone else to do the hard work of raising it so he can move in at the last minute and seize it before it gets destroyed. Which he does. As Team Flare prepares to bring up the Ultimate Weapon and destroy it, AZ and his followers assault their base and are able to take control of it after AZ incapacitates most of Team Flare’s members.

Science Division

The lead science squad of Team Flare have varying degrees of enthusiasm for the organization’s mission, depending on who you ask. Xerosic is here strictly for the good pay and the science and as long as he has those he’s happy. Aliana, Bryony, Celosia, and Mable, meanwhile, are big paranormal fans and they enjoy making gadgets to help Team Flare and going on missions.

Main Base

The main base is under the Lysandre Cafe, with the cafe itself being open to the public. There are regulars outside of Team Flare members(and Sycamore) who go there just to listen to the interesting gossip. Hex maniacs and psychics really like hanging out there, and they’re even a potential source of information on potential incidents that Team Flare pays attention to; anyone who is able to pass on accurate information gets free food and drink in return.

#Perfectworldshipping #Team Flare #Pokemon #Lysandre

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midori-laboratories · 2 years ago

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Ashes In The Fall - Chapter 19: Paradise City IV

Book 2 of the Calendula Chronicles

Resident evil, Wesker X OC

Story Summary: Marigold Ashford escaped the mansion, only to face new incarceration with a familiar jailor. She may yet have to make a deal with the devil, if she can unearth what this Faustian bargain would cost her.

There is always something left to lose.

Chapter summary: Marigold takes an opportunity to place a secure call.

Seventeen years, and Poppy Turner (née Higgins) was still walking the perimeter of the estate. The Lady had left her the property in trust when she had left in the event of her…disappearance. The document had been co-signed by Alexander Ashford back in 1976, and no lawyer Spencer hired seemed particularly enthused about breaching a trust that was backed up by surprisingly alert, armed farmers.

Umbrella had managed to slip onto the property once or twice. They’d sent people to quietly enquire in the village about the nature of the estate. None came away with any satisfactory answers, and several learned entirely too much about the bloodlines of their neighbour’s sheep.

They found things that they seemed to be expecting. The ranges, bordering on public parkland, were left fallow, and allowed to be ‘discovered’. Just enough to confirm their expectations. After a year or so, Umbrella had seemed to lose interest.

Those who had lived on the estate were built cottages along the main road. Luther took it upon himself to train up a few livestock guardian puppies from a nearby flock, and regularly take them around the moors. Teaching them the lay of the land. The growing animals quickly found that there was refuge in the old priory, though it was never home. They’d rousted more than a few schoolchildren looking for ghosts in that wild and lonely moor.

Years ago, Marigold had planted roses in the priory at Poppy’s gentle prodding to get out of the house. She’d done so clumsily, a twenty-year-old heiress wilting under the weight of her own grief, cutting up her hands in the process. The Lady had not thought twice about it at the time; her cuts closed quickly, and the dirt washed away. The blood that had found their way into the roots though…

The roses had developed a strange life of their own. They seemed to lean toward those who had come under Lady Ashford’s influence, but lash out when under threat. The thorns they bore were sharper and longer than those Luther had kept up at the house, despite their sharing the same source. And if an intruder came…

Well. There was a reason it was better to keep outsiders clear of the place than to deal with a body. Marigold had long taken an old-world view of her condition, and the damned garden seemed determined to follow suit.

Sometimes Poppy walked the paths alone, her rifle open and loaded over her crooked arm. Sometimes Luther accompanied her. As the years passed, their children began to accompany them, never quite understanding the weight of the secret, but tickled that their family had a Secret Garden of their own to protect.

In the early 1990s, Umbrella’s interest had briefly flared once again. It seemed that Umbrella was treating the estate as an intelligence training exercise. The dogs, second-generation guardians, alerted them to the incursion, and Luther had taken a few potshots at a man creeping through the woods. That was the closest to real peril they had even got. Poppy had immediately got on the line to the youngest Lord Ashford, who had been finishing his studies in London back then. Afterward, no one else from the company had tried to break in.

Had they understood that the machinery of the Umbrella Corporation had grown to such an extent that they considered the matter of the Ashford estate a useless relic, they might have relaxed. As it stood, Poppy began to check in with Rockfort every few months - not to Lord Ashford directly, but with Harman, the old butler. Harman, who had attended the family back when it had been whole, and had departed with Alexander all those years ago.

Harman, who watched the garden grow from offshoots started in the priory, brought during Lady Ashford’s final visit. Harman had other priorities, of course. But his loyalty was sealed to the family as much as hers was. He watched as she watched, and waited.

They lived their lives. Their children began to grow up. They waited.

Then…the roses began to wake up.

It had been a subtle thing, starting late that summer. They had seemed….restless, almost. The dogs had whined nervously and refused to enter the priory, even though they had established their own safe corner, and it had always been a safe place to devour any rabbits they caught. Poppy’s blood ran cold at the sight.

She had called old Harman at Rockfort the next morning, off-schedule. Harman had been cagey, but he confirmed the same. Marigold had understood what she was doing more when she had planted the offshoot at the house, and it had bloomed under mindful care in a private garden.

Harman had seemed extremely nervous. Shaken. After more than a decade of watching Lord Ashford sink under the weight of the family legacy, something was happening.

That’s when she knew.

Lady Ashford, Marigold, somehow, was back. Escaped from whatever prison they had concocted over in America. As the weeks dragged in with no official word, Poppy’s daughter began to find news articles on the Internet about the strange murders that had been occurring in Raccoon City since the spring on the internet, and the disaster at Spencer Mansion.

Their concern only deepened. Something had gone terribly wrong, and Marigold had not -or could not - safely reach out on her own.

All they could do was wait.

----------

6:12 a.m.

Down, down down. Into the maelstrom, Marigold sank.

She’d been right. This was no place for serenity. The force that was rapidly consuming William Birkin was made of territorial rage. He, it, would have swatted her away with a vast sea of violence, costing her precious time to recenter and try again when his guard was up.

Oh, she was so very, very glad she was up here, and Birkin was securely locked behind steel and stone down there while she attempted this. There was no way she’d survive a direct encounter.

The experiences in the forest were nothing in comparison. Running into Marcus had been a confusing, fragmented, oily mess of a mind, one that she had just barely managed to ward off in her shocked state.

Wesker had initially maintained his distance, although that had been partially out of caution. Now, she could hardly trust that norm would be maintained, what with his increasing boldness. The scent of the T-virus had been getting stronger on him as well, now that she thought of it. Whether that was her influence, her increasing sensitivity, or simply the virus itself embedding itself deeper was both a question and a consequence she’d have to examine later.

Annette’s words, payment for a chance to maintain a dead zone within the NEST, rang out in her memory. You may wish you’d never woken up before long. I can’t imagine a more dangerous person alive holding your leash. The words had been bitter, but the sentiment was sincere.

This was like Sonnetroppe…were Sonnetroppe built on a foundation of steroids and cocaine. That high, piercing sensation heightened unbearably until she slammed into the gibbering remnants of William’s mind. All of the roiling, pent-up emotions of the last twenty years of his career were feeding into the virus. All he cared about was hunting down those who had wronged him…except that now included any human that he came across.

And what he was doing to them…nausea rose in Marigold. She swallowed hard, and slammed into him again.

Annette had better be ready for this, Marigold thought to herself. At the monster, she focused her will into a cold spike. That’s right, you little pissant. The real threat is in your head, not out there. Too bad for you that they didn’t let you play with the specimen, isn’t it? What was left of William roared in pain, and Marigold snarled back at him, focusing that current of stay the hell down anew.

----------

In the office, Ada had lingered at the doorway when the still form of Marigold snarled quietly in her chair, and began to issue a quiet stream of somewhat archaic yet utterly filthy threats. Or Welsh. Possibly both. Her head had fallen forward. In the amber light of the streetlamps outside, Ada could spy the top of a blackening bruise peeking out the back of the woman’s collar. Was that a….

Ada blinked, then turned on her heel, muttering “nope,” under her breath, over and over again. She still had more than enough time on the clock to retrieve the plans from the library. Whatever bioweapon fuckery was happening in there was something that didn’t need her input for a good…eighteen minutes more.

If Ada got out of the city alive, she’d have to corner the other woman for a good, long talk.

----------

Marigold’s mind continued to strike down against the mutating creature like an open fist, slamming down with all of the pain and rage she had been siphoning off over the last several weeks as she had gone into survival mode. All of the uncertainty, all of the sense of being made prey to entitled bastards with too much time on their hands. Annette’s words to her, not half an hour earlier, rang out in her memory.

The strength behind the G-Virus was obscene. It was taking all of her focus and energy just to contain it, even as it began to quiet and cower under blows it could not source. The mind bucked and lashed wildly at her like a bull, threatening to break her grip over and over again. But it was newborn. Inexperienced.

Marigold, on the other hand, had been teaching herself to temper her strength for decades. Now that she was going to the wall, it felt like she had been wearing lead weights all her life, and they had just been lifted.

The minutes passed. The alarm on Marigold’s wrist beeped, just once. Her lip curled, just a little, and she went in for the kill.

Below, the remnants of William Birkin cowered against the wall, temporarily visited by an emotion that should have been obliterated by now: pure, reptilian fear. Some little predator (PLACIDIA), striking at him from within his own mind. They had refused to let her return to her own territory, and now she was striking at him from what he had claimed in absolute sovereignty as his. Little floating creature, sleeping creature, now made of nightmares and hate and ambushing PAIN.

Without a solid enemy to fight, William’s will began to falter, and it crept into a nearby lab where he had already implanted several nearby scientists. Their bodies lay strewn about him, ignored as he searched desperately for shelter.

That entity, the nightmare, reared back once more and drove a spike of PAIN through William’s skull. You like tests, don’t you William? The voice cooed at him. Let’s run one.

‘William’ screamed, then passed out.

----------

Devon, England (six hours ahead)

Poppy stumbled in the middle of the path during her midday walk, eyes going wide with shock. Luther, bless him, caught her arm. If it weren’t for the walking stick in her other hand, they both would have tumbled on the well-concealed moorland path.

Poppy

She knew that voice, would always know it. Poppy made a noise between a gasp and a cry. Luther stilled, like he had heard a faraway voice on the wind.

The voice sounded distraught. Strained. Lady Marigold was a woman of iron will by necessity. The last time she had been so clearly distraught was…

The time she had come home from Romania. When something terrible - she’d never told any of them the details - had been set in her path by Lord Spencer, and the Lady’s heart had been closed to that family friend forever.

Poppy, I got out, but they followed me he followed me

The Lady had indeed been freed from her imprisonment and was genuinely in distress. There was a strange sharp energy **backing **the words. It reminded her of a radio, like someone breaking into a modern heavy metal piece with a news report, but using the shrill music to buoy its own signal.

I think he’s coming for them Poppy they’re alive I don’t understand but

Luther met Poppy’s eye, and she shook her head. She wanted to deny the words. The anguish in them narrowed the subjects to only two people. If this were true…she wanted to deny it.

But Marigold had been missing for almost two decades, and this felt like a stolen moment, this little, horrified message. Marigold was always prone to dramatics, absolutely, but she never lied outright. Even when she withheld information - and that was a regular occurrence- she’d been honest with her that she was doing it. Poppy had no idea that Marigold could even send this far - she could barely manage to do it across the property before.

“She doesn’t have her medication,” She said, numb, reaching for the first thing that made sense, as if any of this could ever in this damned Shakespearean diorama. If Luther produced a skull from his pocket right now and started addressing it as the missing Lady, she’d very well lose her mind -

Teig O’Kane

And just like that, her mind cleared, the moment ended. The pair remained frozen for a long moment before Poppy levered herself back up to full height. They stared at eachother.

“Teig O’Kane?” Poppy echoed in a baffled voice. “Where have I heard that?”

Luther groaned. “It’s an old Irish fairy tale. A boy’s forced by the good folk to carry a corpse on his back until he can find a churchyard to bury it under. The old family loved their riddles.” He tucked Poppy’s hand under his elbow. “Come on,” he grumbled. “I’ve got to get a shovel from the cottage shed, and maybe a few of the lads.” He started walking again, towing Poppy gently along. “Whatever she’s pointed you at is buried under the flagstones of the damned priory, and somebody’s got to calm the bloody flowers for long enough to get the stones up.”

----------

Marigold snapped back to her surroundings, just in time to catch a book being lobbed at her face in one hand.

Ada stood in the doorway, looking bemused…and not a little wary. “Twenty minutes,” She reminded.

Marigold grinned, partly out of adrenaline-fuelled relief and partly in triumph. “Twenty minutes.” The look on her face must have been manic, as the balance of Ada’s expression shifted hard towards wary.

“Do I even want to know?” Ada asked.

Marigold actually snorted - something her instructors had worked hard to groom out of her in her youth - but her face relaxed as her heartbeat began to finally slow. “You have to report something, don’t you?” She tried to push herself to her feet, then wobbled as her legs refused to hold her. “I think I need a minute. That…cost.”

“What did?” Ada’s curiosity was getting the better of her.

Beating the absolute shit out of William Birkin, she thought, keeping the thought small and tight, aimed at Ada alone. Was this what it felt like to be drunk? It had been so long, but it might have been.

Aloud, she said, “There’s an outbreak below. The whole area around the station is radiating with it. If I get into the details right now, we’ll lose too much time. I needed to see if I could contain…the worst one.” A term finally came to her. “I think I’m a little punch-drunk.” She covered the giggle chasing those words with a hand.

Ada continued to stare. Finally, she spoke. “An outbreak. Beneath us.”

Marigold rapidly lost her sense of mirth. “Yes. There’s been one building in the city anyhow, but this is gasoline on a campfire.”

Ada glanced back, then down. “Fucking Birkins.”

“If it makes you feel better, I think I just kicked the absolute shite out of what’s left of him,” Marigold offered. “I owed him that much. I…pay my debts.” She held Ada’s eye on that last part, then tried to stand again, managing to keep her feet this time. “I’d appreciate not being named a vindictive bitch in your report, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate. That’s hardly even news.”

Ada stared at her, then allowed a slow smile. “If I get out of here alive, I think we should be friends.”

Marigold, now weary and riding the last of her adrenaline, smiled back.

#ashes in the fall #calendula chronicles #marigold ashford #albert wesker x oc #resident evil fanfiction

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thebitterflamingo · 2 years ago

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Lila dies but she doesn’t stay that way. She just so happens to be copying Klaus’ powers at the time of the incident. Too bad she doesn’t recover as fast as him though. Diego grieves. ☂️🔪

{set sometime during season 3 in Hotel Oblivion}

==========

It was exactly like loosing Patch.

It wasn’t at all like loosing Patch.

Patch was all work while Lila was all play. Both did what they thought was right, just in different ways. Both hated Diego almost as much as they loved him.

Both died because Diego was too weak to save them.

He sucks in a breath.

It wasn’t just Lila he was loosing either. Diego tries really hard not to think about the baby.

Lila lies in a puddle of blood on the hotel’s cursed floor and Diego tries really fucking hard not to think about the baby.

Then Lila gasps.

At first Diego thinks his mind is playing a cruel trick because what else is he supposed to think? However, that theory is quickly quashed when the others stir around him. They heard her too.

Lila chooses that moment to sit bolt upright, causing Viktor, the closest to her, to visibly jump.

Five, near Diego, also jumps (though his involves a few blue sparks he quickly quashes).

“Well that’s a fucking trip!” Lila exclaims, spitting a mouthfull of blood. Her teeth are red, but no more gore escapes her lips. There’d been so much of it when she first went down.

“God is a little shit. Mind catching me up?” Lila continues unperturbed.

Five recovers quickly. “I’d say it’s a pleasure to have you back with us, Lila, but that’d be a lie.” He says the words dryly, but there’s no real venom. He’s reciting from a recycled script. All of their brains are buffering at this point, though as usual, Five is quicker than the rest of them.

“She was copying Klaus’ powers, Diego,” he states, still staring at Lila. Maybe he directs it towards him because he thinks he‘s the slowest. It’s not at all because Diego has been staring blankly this entire time. Five certainly wouldn’t say anything out of concern.

“Diego?” Lila says, uncertain, like Diego is the one sitting in a puddle of his own blood and not her.

All the blood is hers.

It stains Diego’s shirt, his hands, his heart. It’ll never wash out. He can hear Lila’s response. It’s just bleach and hydrogen peroxide, Diego, and blood stains come right out!

He’s going to throw up.

Hands are on his arms then, still a bit too cold, and Lila’s face fills his vision.

“Hey, I’m right here,” she says gruffly. Uncomfortably. She was never one for comfort. (Or maybe that’s the blood still clogging her throat). Diego swallows.

“I’m right here,” she repeats. “See? Good as new.” She removes her hands from Diego’s arms to run them over her own. Her arms settle loosely across her stomach after, her shoulders hunched.

And that should make it all better, huh? To see her unharmed should discount her death. The collapse of Diego’s world only a temporary apocalypse, like the ones before. Like Klaus’s death. Like Klaus’s deaths.

Those had affected him too, though Klaus’s nonchalance and Stanley’s guilt had ushered him past it.

“What took you so long?” he finally croaks out.

They’d been in the damn lobby for thirty minutes, each in various states of disarray. Lila’s death had broken something in each of them, even if none were as attached as Diego.

Diego hadn’t been able to work up the courage to face the bloodstained body or the hotel guardian that had made her that way. Neither had his siblings, either out of respect or a similar fear. He knew the blood hadn’t scared Five, but something in Diego’s face had sent Five into the contemplative silence he’d maintained until Lila rejoined the world, a silent sentry by Diego’s side.

“Practice,” Five again answers for Lila as well as Klaus this time. And Diego does not have the time or energy to deal with the implications of that statement. His brother’s skeletons are a discussion for another day, when Diego doesn’t feel like a ghost himself.

Lila huffs. “It was still faster than Klaus’s first time.”

“How do you know?” Klaus whins, indignant.

Lila smirks. “God told me.”

Klaus pouts. “You’re right, she is a little shit.”

Lila laughs, and though she is no longer copying Klaus’s powers, the sound brings Diego back to the land of the living. He still isn’t alright. Maybe, probably none of them are, but they are alive. They’re together. It’ll do for now.

Diego suddenly pulls Lila into his arms, trying to ignore her slightly pained huff as he does so. “Welcome back,” Diego says into her hair, both of their tense bodies relaxing against each other.

“Good to be back,” she whispers into his chest. “Now get off of me you big softy!” She pushes him away but her eyes hold his as the once still room slowly stirs to life around them.

Somewhere, their father plots. Nearby, Five plans. And distantly, clanking steps tell Diego there’s a guardian to kill.

Just because Lila is back doesn’t mean Diego isn’t going to exact some well deserved justice.

#umbrella academy #umbrella academy fanfic #fanfic #season 3 #lila pitts #diego hargreeves #five hargreeves #hotel oblivion #klaus hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #whump #angst #Lila dies #but not really cause she copied Klaus’s powers #Diego is big sad #plot bunny #writing practice

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breadwithdumideas · 4 months ago

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Since no-one asked, now everyone has to deal with this, sorry :3

So, my theory is that Mrs. Afton divorced William because he obsessed over his work, and she took Elizabeth with her because she didn’t see him as a suitable guardian. This would explain the empty room in fnaf 4 without her having died (which would be inexplicable because the animatronic that killed her was very advanced and he would’ve had a motive to make those, which would mean he was already killing from before, which would disprove the theory that her death was what incited him to kill). Before anyone says “but why didn’t she take the other two with her?” And to that I say, it’s kinda hard to find a place to live while caring for three kids, and even harder finding a job that would allow her to be home a lot to take care of them. So she took Elizabeth, thinking of going back to get them later. After the divorce, William spirals into his work even more and has even less time to care for his kids. This leads to Michael scaring CC and making fun of him. William makes him the bear and all the things that happen in the fnaf 4 mini games happens, and CC gets chomped. I say this was because of engineering problems since the technology for them was fairly new (this happened in 1983 and the first animatronic in history was made in 1961, so only 22 years apart). Since Henry was the one that made the animatronic, William blames him for his son’s death and he kills Emily in revenge. He gets a taste for the thrill of murder and ends up going insane and killing the original 5 kids. At this point, both Elizabeth and Mike are still alive. He makes the fnaf sl animatronics to make the killing more efficient. One of these kills Elizabeth, as we know. After that, it’s the whole “spring locked by the ghosts of the kids” and all that. Then Mike goes to search for his sister, gets scooped and dies. I’m not sure what would have happened to Mrs. Afton, but she’d probably be alive, and Ballora is just a recreation with artificially made memories. Anyways, all the other games happen, they all get burned in the fire in fnaf 6. And blah blah blah. Now, in sb, I could maybe agree with part of Matt Patt’s theory on it, but only on the part where maybe Mike’s soul is in Galmrock Freddy, but not about Gregory. I don’t have any theories on the sb and the dlc (sb ruin), I just had some things on the way the family members die.

As to why CC’s fredbear says “remember what you saw”, I would claim that to be sort of dream theory. Since he’s a child, he could have seen someone putting on one of the spring lock suits and thinking they’d died. Another possible reason could be that he saw someone wearing the fredbear suit and the spring lock went off, killing the employee while he was watching, which would explain his fear specifically toward fredbear. And the nightmares could have been made by the illusion disks his dad made and was testing out with him(shittiest dad of the year ya’ll), which made him even more afraid.

But anyways, what do I know? I’m just an obsessed fan who spends too much time thinking up possible theories and no-one to talk to about them because my parents would look at me weird and if I did a PowerPoint on this I wouldn’t have anyone to show it to. Hope you guys found my madness entertaining :3

Can someone ask me about my theory on fnaf’s timeline? I’m genuinely bored and I feel the need to tell someone, but I’m pretty sure my gf is asleep and I don’t wanna bother her or my friends :)

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

Note

Wei Wuxian{s obsessions get redirected to healing at a young age. He is still a chaos gremlin.

ao3

Untamed

“Do you know what they say about you,” Wen Qing said.

She did not make it a question, but Wei Wuxian beamed at her anyway, pretending he hadn’t heard.

“Do they say things about me, Wen-jiejie?” he asked. “Lil old me? But I’m just a humble healer –”

“They say you’re a demonic cultivator.”

“…they say I’m a what.”

“Mm,” Wen Qing said. “You see, apparently someone overheard some conversation that involved your plans to resurrect the dead.”

“Resurrect the – I was exaggerating! I’m a doctor! Everyone always makes that sort of claim about the really good doctors, saying that they’re so talented that they can raise the dead! No one takes it seriously.”

“Well, apparently they do, when it’s you,” Wen Qing said. “Find a way to deal with it, will you?”

“Well, fuck,” Wei Wuxian said. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Hi there,” Wei Wuxian said, beaming. “You’re Mistress Wen, right?”

“…right,” Wen Qing said, squinting at the kid in front of her. He looked like he was of age with her little brother – he was wearing Jiang sect colors, but he definitely wasn’t Jiang Cheng, who she’d seen before. “And you are…?”

“Jiang Sect’s Wei Wuxian! I’m new!”

Ah, Sect Leader Jiang’s ward. Wen Qing had heard about him – his mother was the famous Cangse Sanren, his father a former Jiang sect servant, and they’d gone off and died before Wen Qing had a chance to ask them all the questions she had about the immortal mountain and what exactly it meant to be immortal. From a biological perspective, of course.

“A pleasure to meet you, young master,” she said politely, wondering what he wanted from her. Their ages were just a bit too distant for an actual acquaintance – for the best, really, or else her uncle and guardian, Wen Ruohan, might get ideas about marriage alliances. “What can I help you with?”

“You wrote an essay on improving common surgical procedures! I want to ask you questions about it!”

“You read that?” Wen Qing asked, surprised. She’d come to the discussion conference on the strength of that essay, which had been widely praised by doctors in the Wen sect, and she’d braced herself for having to fight for someone to talk to about it here – she knew she was young, and female, and a Wen, and none of those were things that made conversing with her peers in the medical world any easier.

She certainly hadn’t expected some snot-nosed brat to approach herabout it.

“Sure did!” Wei Wuxian chirped. “I told Uncle Jiang that it was amazing! I wanna learn to be a doctor, too!”

Uncle Jiang, Wei Qing thought. Amazing.

She could work with that.

“So I have some questions about some of your questions these past few years,” Wei Wuxian said, sitting next to Wen Qing in the back mountain of the Cloud Recesses. “And now that I have you in person, I’m not so easy to ignore. You know that, right?”

Wen Qing rolled her eyes at him.

“No, but seriously! What sort of problem are you trying to cure? The symptoms you mention in your letters are diverse as anything: headaches, qi deviations, excess yin energy…”

“It’s a long story,” Wen Qing said. “Also, secret. Like I’ve already told you.”

“I can’t help diagnose anything without full information,” he pointed out, irritatingly correct. “Much less help you come up with a course of treatment. Can’t you rely on my discretion as a doctor?”

“If I could, do you think I still wouldn’t have told you?” she snapped. “I’m not an idiot, and you’re brilliant. But I have orders not to spill anything about this, and I can’t disobey them.”

“All right,” Wei Wuxian said agreeably. Too agreeably. “Does this have anything to do with the ghost puppets the Lan sect ran into recently?”

Well, fuck.

“Better question,” he said, and Wen Qing braced herself. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Yin metal’?”

“Well, fuck,” she blurted out, and his smirk said everything it needed to.

“I can fix shijie,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m a doctor.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t respond. He hadn’t been responding at all – typical trauma response, really. Wei Wuxian had taken his pulse a couple of times, not liking what he’d found; he knew Jiang Cheng was awake in there, but who even knew what he was capable of doing right now. Nothing sensible, that was for sure.

Wei Wuxian didn’t dare let him out of his sight.

He didn’t dare let either of them out of his sight – but Jiang Yanli had never been strong, her health always poor, and all this running in the rain without rest was wearing her down. Her fever was sign enough of that. If Wei Wuxian wasn’t as able a hand at acupuncture as he was, he would’ve needed to go to the market to buy medicine, and maybe he would’ve run into the Wen sect, ruining everything. They were being hunted, their tracks being closely trailed, their every move predicted in advance…

“I have an idea,” Wei Wuxian said suddenly, it coming to him in a burst of inspiration. “They’re expecting us to go to Meishan Yu or somewhere like that, right? To one of our allies? Let’s do the exact opposite of that!”

Jiang Cheng blinked at him, the entire process taking at least two minutes.

“Sometimes the most dangerous place is the safest,” Wei Wuxian added helpfully.

“…are you talking about Wen Qing?” Jiang Cheng asked. “Are you serious?”

Wei Wuxian was too busy celebrating the fact that Jiang Cheng was talking again to bother with his incredulity. It wouldn’t last – Wei Wuxian had talked him into plenty of stupider things before, and things involving Wen Qing had always been a particularly easy sell, given that Jiang Cheng had always had the most obvious crush on her.

“Less complaining,” he said. “More packing up. We’re going!”

“Obviously you’re not going anywhere,” Wei Wuxian said. “Jiang Cheng! You can’t just turn them away! Don’t you remember, Wen Qing and Wen Ning sheltered us when we escaped from the Wen sect!”

“I know that,” Jiang Cheng said, blushing bright red. “Even when you got your stupid self captured by the Wen sect, Wen Ning got us your location – do you think I don’t know that?”

“Not just that, he talked them into throwing me into the Burial Mounds instead of executing me directly,” Wei Wuxian said. “Right after I snapped the meridians in Wen Zhuliu’s arm – hard to be the Core Melting Hand without those, am I right? I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d just impaled me on a pole right then and there!”

“I know, I know! You’ve said it often enough! But we can’ttake them into the Jiang sect – do you know what that would do to morale? We’re fighting a war here.”

“It’s fine,” Wen Qing said. “I understand entirely. We’ll make our way on our own…”

“Don’t be stupid,” Wei Wuxian told her. “Jiang Cheng, let’s take them as prisoners of war.”

“What?!”

“I’m serious! We can put them to work. You can’t tell me that morale wouldn’t improve having a doctor of Wen Qing’s caliber on side!”

“Having experienced what the two of you call a bedside manner, I’m not so sure about that…”

“It’s unnecessary,” Wen Qing said. “We don’t need help. I just need to find Wen Ning; I can do the rest myself.”

Wei Wuxian turned and glared at Jiang Cheng.

“…prisoners of war it is,” he said, yielding. “And I’ll have people search for him, okay?”

“Tell me you didn’t actually revive Wen Ning from the dead, Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng shouted.

“I didn’t!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “I swear!”

“Then why does everyone think that you did?!”

“It’s a mistake! An innocent mistake! I swear!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I’m going to smash your skulls together,” Wen Qing said sweetly. “And you’re both going to deserve it.”

“Mostly him!”

“Hey!”

“No, he’s right,” Wen Qing said to Wei Wuxian. “Mostly you, Yiling Patriarch.”

Wei Wuxian put his head in his hands and groaned.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #wen qing #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics

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call-me-honkie · 3 years ago

Text

Measure of a Hero

Also on AO3. Season of the Haunted spoilers!

The Guardian struggles to maintain the tempo at which their heroic lifestyle demands, and Ghost notices.

Left. Right. Left. Right. This was the Guardian’s mantra.

Their feet shuffled lazily, dangerously, propelled only by the momentum of walking itself. Their sandy eyes were trained forward. Their face, which had dripped sweat all day, felt cracked and dry now. Drought-like. Deserted, like the dunes of Mars.

The day was packed with overgrown fungus, Scorn, Nightmares, and Calus. The Guardian had gone on longer, more grueling patrols than that, so the exhaustion was frustratingly illogical. They could deal with Scorn; bullets and Light never failed them. Nightmares may have bothered the Guardian a mere couple years prior, when their heart was nothing but rage and grief, but now they could choke down their cutting words. And Calus… His booming voice resounded in their mind like an acoustic chamber, about protein slurry and baths, war beasts and Ghaul, opulence and admiration.

The Guardian shivered violently and didn’t bother to suppress it. If they tried, it would disrupt their rhythm.

Left. Right.

Only that rhythm kept them upright.

Left. Right.

“Guardian?” A white shell flashed in front of them.

And if anything were to disrupt it, they would fall.

Left. Right.

“Guardian!”

Stars burst before they realized they’d pitched forward and hit concrete.

“Guardian, what in the Light—are you—” Their Ghost stumbled over his words, as if shuffling through a script for the correct response.

A small noise came out of the back of the Guardian’s throat—they didn’t bother to suppress that either—while they pushed themselves off the ground with robotic clumsiness. Wet slid down their mouth and dribbled off their chin.

Ghost’s hesitation wasn’t pity, but it resembled it. “Are you… alright?”

They were fine, the Guardian insisted, trying to wipe away the wetness on their mouth and chin but smearing it instead. They didn’t know why their breathing became more ragged with each second. They were fine, they were fine, they were fine.

Ghost paused, unblinking, weighing each repetition. “I don’t think you’re fine,” he said finally.

The Guardian and Ghost stared at each other. They wanted to straighten their back and offer some cool-headed platitudes, but that stoic, legendary hero was far out of their reach now. They didn’t know why. They just didn’t know.

“And I don’t think you’ve been fine for a long time,” Ghost added slowly.

Something inside cracked open as hard and fast as their face on the concrete. Ghost was already nuzzled in the crook of their shoulder when their breathing hitched, and when the body-shaking sobbing started.

They gaped and choked on their crying for a different reason with every passing second. They had done so much. Their Light should have been snuffed out long ago. They avenged Eris and all of those who fell in the Great Disaster by killing Crota, when they barely knew what a Hive was. And Oryx, who had Taken worlds—they didn’t falter in killing him because they hadn’t understood the enormity of his crown. Did the Vanguard keep the gravity of Oryx’s power from them on purpose? The Guardian was the first of a new generation of Iron Lords, responsible for bearing the weight and setting precedents, when they did not have even a decade of experience. Yet for all their strength, they could not kill Ghaul, twice; the City only “won” thanks to the Traveler. Rasputin, Osiris, Cayde-6, the Barons, Uldren Sov, Eramis… Savathun.

A strangled, garbled noise came from their throat. Next, they would undoubtedly be the spear thrown haphazardly at the Witness’ heart at the very tempo they had walked to. And the Witness would break them before they came close.

“I’m here,” Ghost whispered. “I’m still here.”

The Guardian remembered the neural symbiosis between them and wondered if his words were a comfort, a response to thoughts shot down the symbiotic line, or both.

The Guardian continued to cry while Ghost remained fiercely nestled in their shoulder in the narrow hall. Minutes later, the Guardian got out an apology. They shouldn’t have flooded the symbiosis with a deluge of… this.

“You never have to apologize for this,” Ghost said, floating sternly in front of them, but quickly softening his tone, “I want you to tell me things. The neural symbiosis makes it easier to understand each other, but it doesn’t replace explicit communication.”

They apologized again for their frigidity.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.” Ghost sighed. “You’re quiet, but I know your communication styles. It just gets hard when you hide your feelings. And I know you’ve been hiding your feelings.”

The Guardian put their head in their hands wearily. They really tried to be strong. They tried to be the exemplar the City needed, the soldier the Vanguard wanted, and the Guardian that Ghost deserved. To fall into the clashing rhythms of all their roles.

Ghost sighed again. “Oh, Guardian…” He nuzzled their shoulder again. If he were human, he would be hugging them.

The Guardian realized the vulnerability of their confession and the back of their neck got hot. As if to deflect the discomfort, they smeared the wetness on their face more. They didn’t know why this was happening now.

“To be honest,” Ghost murmured, “I’m glad. Well, I’m not glad you’re not feeling well. But I’m glad we had this talk, and… well, if you went on like this forever with no emotional aftershock, I think I’d worry the Darkness was taking away your humanity.” Ghost tried to sound bright, but the Guardian knew he was only half-joking.

The Guardian only nodded, biting back another apology. They felt empty, but a light, freeing sort of empty. The crying left their throat raw, but they managed a gravelly, Thank you. You know, for being my Ghost.

“I love you,” Ghost said.

They loved him, too.

“And you’re going to love me even more when I tell you that I put in a double order of ramen for you before we even left the hangar.” He spun his shell proudly. “Your favorite, too. You’re welcome.” He floated closer and whispered, “But, uh, completely unrelated to the ramen I ordered without your knowledge… Do you have ten Glimmer?”

The Guardian managed a voiceless chuckle, standing sluggishly. Yes, they indeed had ten Glimmer he could “borrow” for his unrelated-to-ramen reason.

“Then let’s get you cleaned up so we can eat it hot,” Ghost chirped. “Well, you know what I mean by ‘we.’” He sighed. “I wish I had a mouth.” They swore Ghost beamed at his own joke and they chuckled again, forgetting all about their left-right mantra.

#destiny 2 #season of the haunted #fanfiction #Ghost and Guardian #Ghost and YW #Ghost Destiny #Young Wolf #Guardian Destiny #hurt/comfort #is it possible for angst to be self indulgent?#cause if it is #then this is definitely self indulgent lmfao #im a sap okay

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demiclar · 2 years ago

Text

Class Warfare

Class Warfare - Ao3

Osiris comes to the defense of his new Ghost.

(This fic exists in an AU I was playing around with over the summer where Fynch bonds with Osiris as his new Ghost after the events of The Witch Queen. Hope you enjoy it!)

Destcember Day 2 - Class Warfare

------

Fynch was immediately taken with the Eliksni of the Last City. Osiris noticed it instantly. After Osiris woke and was healed thanks to the combined efforts of his new Ghost and the Kell of the House of Light, he was quick to notice how drawn Fynch was to the House. They visited the Eliksni quarter often. Osiris was still healing both in mind and body—though Fynch did make the latter a great deal easier—and he found it eased some of the stressors that plagued his mind to be among the House of Light, to help them as they had helped him.

Saint was similarly drawn to the Eliksni quarter, as were Crow and Glint. Osiris could understand why. Even with the difficulty surrounding his first impression to the House of Light, they’d become a steadfast support for Saint in the difficult months that had followed, dealing with Savathûn’s deception and Osiris’ comatose state, Mithrax and the others had been there for Saint in a way few others could. It was only natural that he would remain close to them even after Osiris woke, but what surprised Osiris was the attachment the other members of his little flock had to the quarter.

Geppetto’s feelings were closely related to Saint’s, and to Osiris’ own. The House of Light had taken care of her and her Guardian during a dark time, the Eliksni also had a way of seeing Ghosts as their own beings, not so tightly coupled with their Guardian partners as some of the people of the city seemed to believe. Crow’s attachment was similarly understandable. The Eliksni had been both protectors and abusers to Crow in his lifetime. Spider had been his captor on the Shore, and that certainly introduced a layer of tension into their time in the Eliksni quarter, but many of his men had worked to shield Crow from his brutality in the same way he had tried to protect them. Of the group of them, he had the best hold on the language, and could often be seen speaking among them in both English and Eliksni.

Glint and Fynch offered a new perspective, however. Even bonded with Osiris, Fynch still found the Tower and the Guardians within to be unreceptive to him. Whenever they ventured in, Fynch would conceal himself within Osiris’ light, the feeling of being unwelcome creeping down their bond from Fynch’s side. Osiris did his best to reassure the Ghost, but as long as the Ghost still bore his chitin shell and green eye, the Guardians would not forget who he’d once pledged himself to.

At first, the Eliksni of the House of Light had given him similar looks. It had taken the explanation of who Fynch was—Osiris’ Ghost, but more specifically one of the key players in the defeat of Savathûn—for their suspicion to be replaced by trust. Once it was, Fynch had relaxed into their company. The feelings of discomfort, of being unwelcome or different had gradually lessened, until Osiris could no longer feel them through the bond that linked them together. Glint, he realized, had a similar experience. Among other Guardians and Ghosts, there were still those that felt Crow should not have been revived, that Uldren Sov did not deserve the Traveler’s blessing, and that Glint had betrayed the Tower and the City by bestowing it upon Crow. The Eliksni quarter offered them both an escape from the creeping class warfare that deemed them both as different, or evil, agents of Darkness and ill will to the Traveler.

Unfortunately, it was never completely safe.

Osiris was on his knees, his hands in the cool earth, his knees cushioned on a foam panel as he tended the garden beside a number of Eliskni and human workers. Crow was at his side, picking weeds from the dirt around the growing plants. He was immersed in his work, relaxed in the domesticity of his task when he felt a pinprick of Light from the other side of the quarter. He lifted his head on instinct, only for an overwhelming sense of fear to pour down the bond between himself and his Ghost.

It was so intense it was nauseating, and Osiris drove his fingers into the damp Earth as he shuddered at the sensation, stimuli pouring into his being. Fynch suddenly reached for him with utter desperation Osiris had never felt before, sending his every perception down the bond as he tried to bring them close together.

“Please!” Osiris heard his Ghost saying. “You don’t understand! I’m not one of them, I helped the Guardian fight her, I–”

He saw the flash of an armored Guardian looming above him, felt the clench of a fist around his body—around Fynch’s body. Distantly, Osiris felt Crow’s hand on his shoulder, but his focus had moved into his Light.

Osiris reached for his Ghost, fought to pull him back from the being inducing such fear in him, to draw him into his Light and protect him the way he needed to, but something held Fynch in place. Paracausal power wrapped around Fynch’s shell and rallied, but Osiris would not lose another Ghost, certainly not like this.

His own Light roared in response, and Osiris was on his feet in an instant, crossing the Eliksni quarter at a sprint.

“I helped save Osiris! The Guardian, the Young Wolf, they trust me, please—”

Osiris could find his Ghost without his senses. He needed no sight to guide him, he didn’t need the sound of his cries, the nauseating fear was enough, the power of the Light that linked them together. Osiris ran.

He spotted the Guardian in front of him, sunlight reflecting blindingly off of his armor, a Titan held Fynch aloft in his fist, paracausal power dripping from his fingers and holding Osiris’ Ghost in a vise grip.

“Let him go!” Osiris felt his own Light surge in him, it rallied in defense of his Ghost, to fight tooth and nail if need be, but at the sight of him, the Titan balked.

The instant the grip of the Titan’s power lessened around Fynch, the Ghost broke free of his fingers, hurtling towards Osiris. He paused before the Titan, his Light raging through his veins, Crow just a step behind. Osiris cupped Fynch in a palm for a moment, looking him over to confirm what he was feeling with his Light—that the Ghost was scared, but unharmed—before he guided him behind him. He could feel through their bond when Crow’s fingers brushed over Fynch, protectively pulling the Ghost close.

Osiris didn’t remember what he said to the Titan. By the time the words of anger and reprimand were out of his mouth, Saint and Mithrax were at his side and they were beginning to draw a crowd of onlookers. The Titan left the Eliksni quarter without delay, and Osiris coaxed his raging Light to calm. When he finally turned round, he found Fynch cradled in Crow’s hand, pressed to his collarbone, wrapped in the warmth of the Hunter’s Light. Saint’s hand settled on Osiris’ shoulder. Crow met his gaze with worried eyes.

“Fynch.”

His Ghost turned to face him, his shell drawn close around him.

“I–I’m sorry.” He stammered, “I didn’t mean to–”

Osiris reached out a hand. His movements telegraphed through their bond, he drew his Ghost close, cradling him in his hands with warmth rather than aggression.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He lifted Fynch to press his forehead to his Ghost’s frame, even when the prongs of his shell were hard and sharp against his skin. “That Guardian should not have touched you.”

“But I look like–”

“It doesn’t matter.” Osiris cut in. He pulled back enough to look Fynch in the eye. “You’ve more than earned your place here. You deserve to live in peace.”

“But I–”

“Fynch.” It was Crow who interrupted him this time, setting a hand on Osiris’s shoulder and stepping close until he, Osiris, and Saint formed a protective little circle around the Ghost. He cupped his hand around Osiris’, holding Fynch in an open grip. “It doesn’t matter what you look like.”

Fynch’s shell seemed to droop around him, and he gave them a small nod. He pressed himself into Osiris and Crow’s hands.

“Thank you.” He murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Osiris leaned forward to press a kiss to his shell. The Hive chitin was rough against his skin, but the Ghost had never had an ounce of malintent towards him. He wreathed their bond in affection and care and felt Fynch sink into his touch, gratitude coupled with exhaustion shuddering out of Fynch’s side of the bond.

Osiris held him close. “No apologies.”

#destiny 2 #destiny game #destiny fanfiction #destcember2022 #destcember #destiny osiris #destiny crow #destiny fynch #destiny season of plunder #demiwrites

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damonalbarn · 3 years ago

Note

Hey I was wondering if you knew the article that Justine spoke about suzi in?!

It was in The Guardian in 2000. Here you go:

Sweet revenge

In the mid 90s, Justine Frischmann and Damon Albarn were the First Couple of Britpop. Then he used a Blur album to rake over their break-up, while she languished in obscurity amid rumours of heroin addiction. Now she's back with a new album, and it's her turn to exorcise her demons.

Caroline Sullivan

Friday March 24, 2000

As Alison Moyet once said, it's hard to write a decent song when you're happy. Rock bands thrive on romantic turmoil in their private lives, without which they would be reduced to padding out lyrics with football scores and the weather.

Thus it was for Blur's Damon Albarn in mid-1998 when he sat down to write what would become the 13 album. His eight-year relationship with Justine Frischmann of the chart-topping Elastica, whom he once described as **"the only person who's ever been completely necessary to me" **had just ended, at her instigation. Pained and humiliated, he decided to exact revenge by exposing their most intimate details to public scrutiny.

The outcome? Embarrassment for Frischmann, a number one album for Blur and a bit of a result for Albarn.

Break-up albums are by definition both embittered and yearning - in the case of Marvin Gaye's vindictive Here, My Dear, they're just plain nasty - but 13 got more up-close and personal than could be considered gentlemanly. Albarn portrayed his former partner as neurotic, even slipping apparent drug references into the single Tender: "Tender is the ghost, the ghost I love the most/Hiding from the sun, waiting for the night to come". Frischmann was the ghost, supposedly, who was on the verge of being consumed by what one music paper euphemistically called "the darkness at the heart of Elastica".

Frischmann's response can be found on a song called The Way I Like It, which appears on Elastica's first album in five years, The Menace (out next month): "Well, I'm living all right and I'm doing okay/Had a lover who was made of sand, and the wind blew him away".

This is unlikely to be her last word on the subject. As she ambivalently begins her first round of interviews since 1996, she's finding that everyone has the same three questions. Why did Elastica nearly sabotage a promising career by taking so long to follow up their million-selling debut? Had Frischmann taken leave of her senses when she walked out on Mr Britpop? And what about the drug rumours?

"One journalist said to me, 'Dahling, I heard you were on heroin - Mahvelous!' " she says with some amusement. "Drugs are around, but I'm not that interested and never have been, although there have been elements of party animal in my band. The rumours are a lot to do with rock'n'roll mythology, where people want to believe you're having a more exciting time than you are."

The only drugs on her person today, as she perches on the edge of an armchair in her publicist's north London living room, are Marlboro Lights. Her other indulgences are two cups of herbal tea and a Cadbury's Flake cupcake, which she nibbles with well-bred pleasure. Her dark eyes are clear, and her long, tanned body is a testament to the virtues of a daily swim in a pool near her Notting Hill home. Only Elastica know whether they really succumbed to heroin and hedonism after their self-titled debut made them more famous than they'd ever expected to be, but if they did, Frischmann, 30, seems little the worse for it.

Given the current predominance of damnable boy bands, the Britpop mid-90s are beginning to seem like a halcyon period for English music. It was a time when the underground went overground, and a self-described "little punk band" like Elastica could sell 80,000 albums in a week.

More than a few loser guitar groups saw Britpop as a licence to print money, but Elastica, led with cool elan by the androgynous Frischmann, were one of its gems. The Blur connection was a marketing godsend (Frischmann and Albarn met on the London indie circuit, she as guitarist in an early line-up of Suede and girlfriend of frontman Brett Anderson, he as a cherubic baggy hopeful), yet the spiky-haired Elastica LP embodied that euphoric time like nothing else.

Frischmann, guitarist Donna Matthews, drummer Justin Welch and bassist Annie Holland were unprepared for the album soaring to number one in its first week. When they signed their record deal, Frischmann, whose great-grandfather was a conductor of the Tsar's orchestra at the Summer Palace in Byelorussia, was five years into an architecture degree at London University. A liberal north London Jewish upbringing - her engineer father built the Oxford Street landmark Centrepoint - had instilled expectations of success, but the reality of being photographed in the supermarket and having her rubbish stolen was a shock. Fiercely independent, she also resented her unsought role as half of Britpop's First Couple.

There was more. Two of Frischmann's musical heroes, The Stranglers and Wire, decided that two Elastica songs were suspiciously similar to two of their own tracks, and won royalties. Meanwhile, there were malicious rumours that Albarn had done much of the work on the record. He hadn't, but he did find Justine's success in America, where she was substantially out-selling Blur, hard to endure.

"It was very hard for him to deal with and he's very confrontational," she says, with the flattering openness of someone who prefers interviews to be more like conversations. She admits she often says too much, but in an era of image control and spin, her honesty makes her a one-off. Not that she's likely to land herself in it too badly - she possesses the intellectual ammunition to look after herself, which must have been instrumental in attracting two of rock's more articulate stars, Albarn and Anderson.

She's been accused of being a professional rock girlfriend, though it was probably they who were lucky to get her. She spent the cab ride over reading the Sylvia Plath letters in Monday's Guardian, and muses on the irony of the poet's subjugating herself to Ted Hughes when she was the more gifted. (Her new boyfriend, by the way, is an unknown photographer, "though that'll probably change, because men seem to get famous when I go out with them".)

"I reacted the way a lot of women do, by being passive," she continues. "He put a lot of pressure on me to give up Elastica. He said, 'You don't want to be in a band, you want to settle down and have kids.' " In so many words? "In so many words. He kept putting on pressure till I started to believe him." She adds bemusedly: "I've met his new girlfriend, and one of the first things she said was that he wanted her to give up travelling with her work to stay home with the baby [Missy, born last autumn]. I'm surprised he's got away with being thought of as a nice person for so long."

After 18 months, during which they did seven American and three Japanese tours, Elastica came off the road to record company demands for an immediate second album. Annie Holland's response was to quit the group, while Donna Matthews became renowned for hard partying on the nocturnal west London scene. They lethargically recorded some demos, but their heart wasn't in it. By 1997, when a second album should have been ready to go, Frischmann and Matthews were barely speaking, and there was nothing useable down on tape.

Holland's replacement, Sheila Chipperfield (of the circus Chipperfields), was deemed not good enough and left by mutual consent. By 1998, their continued lack of productivity was being likened to the Stone Roses' lengthy and ultimately self-destructive holiday between their first and second LPs.

"I didn't think Elastica were going to continue at that point, and we did kinda split up," she says, absently stroking her publicist's cat. Frischmann is a cat person; she's owned a tabby called Benjamin since she was 10. "Unconditional love," she coos. The pet's place in her life is so assured that prospective boyfriends are subjected to his feline scrutiny before she'll go out with them.

On top of everything else, in early 1998 her relationship with Albarn was in trouble. Frischmann retains enough of the indie ethic to detest the phenomenon of celebrity couples, and was dismayed when they became one. "I really hated the tabloid interest, and I went out of my way not to be photographed with him. Only about three pictures of us together exist, I think. In many ways, I think the media interest broke us up, because it made me feel the relationship was quite ugly, and I had to get away from it. There were other factors, too, obviously, because we were together for eight years, and I finally felt it was better the devil you didn't know, really."

Albarn's ego seems to have been severely undermined by having a girlfriend who was nearly as successful as he was, and something of a sex symbol to boot. Despite adopting a resolutely boyish T-shirt-and-jeans uniform, she's thoroughly feminine, a mix that got her voted fifth most fanciable woman in a lesbian magazine.

"I'm completely heterosexual, so I didn't know how to take that. It scares the shit out of me, the idea of being with a girl. I'm glad I've narrowed it down to half the people in the world."

She seems to view Albarn with indulgent exasperation these days, simultaneously praising his intelligence ("The Gallaghers just couldn't compete") and ticking off his flaws. "Damon adores being in the press, and sees all press as good press. He orchestrated that rivalry thing with Oasis. He really wanted kids, and I didn't feel our relationship was stable enough. He was a naughty boy, and he wasn't the right person to have kids with. I had this cathartic moment..."

At which point they split up. Albarn wrote 13 and then met Suzi Winstanley, an artist. "She was pregnant within three months," Justine observes wickedly.

Of the acclaimed 13, she's tactful, describing several songs as "really lovely". She studies her cigarette for a while before adding, "but I'm cynical about selling a record on the back of our relationship". But you're doing the same now. "It's true, but at the time I had no right of reply."

Elastica finally pulled themselves together last year, just as the music industry was about to write them off (their American label had already "very kindly let us go", as she puts it). Holland rejoined, Matthews went to Wales to sort out her life and the band banged out an EP and played the Reading Festival. Things came together quickly after that. They spent the last £10,000 of the recording budget on re-recording a dozen tracks, finishing the album, after years of procrastinating, in six weeks. They've called it The Menace "because that's what it was like to make".

It's dark and resolutely uncommercial - all wrong for 2000's pop-oriented climate. It's unlikely to match the success of the first one, which is fine with them. Call it (though Justine doesn't) their White Album. Its 70s punk aesthetic brings to mind angry girls such as the Slits and the Au Pairs, although the defining mood isn't anger so much as catharsis. None of the songs is specifically about Albarn, she claims. "The dark feeling is due to the sense of isolation, tasting success and getting frightened by it. I was questioning whether I wanted to be in a band any more, and there was no one I could ask for advice. Getting success and everything you ever dreamed about is hard to handle, and makes you question everything."

She's better prepared for success, if it comes again, this time. Already the privacy-preserving barriers are in place. The next interview of the day is with Time Out magazine, which wants a list of her favourite restaurants. "I'm not telling them where I eat," she says reflexively. "I'm gonna lie."

#questions #damon albarn #justine frischmann #blur #elastica

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k-l-bryan · 3 years ago

Text

After Epilogue

*Crow x Young Wolf (wrote them vague, so readers can visualize their own Guardians), set shortly after the end of the Epilogue mission. I hope you enjoy it.*

“I thought . . .”

Ghost, who had been floating lazily over his Guardian’s shoulder as they kept an eye on the Eliksni camp from a hidden vantage point at Ikora’s request, turned to look at them. He knew how hard it was for his Guardian to express themselves, so he waited in patient silence for them to continue.

“I thought the Vex invasion was when I was going to die.”

Oh! Oh . . . Ghost’s shell quivered slightly as he thought back to their discovery in the Corridor’s of Time and Saint’s accompanying eulogy. The thought of loosing his Guardian gave him an unpleasant feeling. He supposed it would be comparable to what people called heartbreak. He only hoped that when that terrible day came; no matter how close or far away it was, that he would go out with them; like Sundance did with Cayde.

The shudder wasn’t missed by the Guardian, who gave him a small, sad smile and reached up to cup him in their hands. They guided him down gently out of the air and placed a kiss atop one of his fins before nestling him into their collar.

“I’m glad you didn’t” Ghost replied quietly, expanding and contracting his shell a few times, like a cat stretching before making itself comfortable. “And I hope that day is a long, long way off.”

The Guardian didn’t reply to that, and as Ghost turned his core to look up at them, he could tell by their expression that they felt the opposite was true. As they sat and continued their silent vigil, Ghost found himself wishing Crow was there. Almost everyone who knew his Guardian knew them as the legendary Young Wolf; Hero of the Red War. They didn’t see the tired person behind all the titles and accolades, the person who seemed to always have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Crow did though. Crow saw them as his friend who he got drunk with and made fun of their awful cooking skills.

“What are you thinking about?” Wolf asked after a long period of silence, broken by the occasional howl of wind or smattering of distant chatter.

“Just, how I wish you had someone here to talk to . . . like another Guardian,” Ghost said tactfully, his optics glowing a little.

“Another Guardian meaning Crow?” Wolf replied, more as a statement than a question. “I’ve told you Ghost, he’s already dealing with a lot. I can’t pile about my gra-”

“I know you like him,” Ghost interjected and Wolf shifted, obviously embarrassed. “You should talk to him, not just about your feelings, but about seeing your grave too. Going through this alone . . . I’ve seen the toll it’s been taking on you.”

Wolf was about to reply when the sounding of someone clearing their throat startled them and they turned quickly to see Crow standing there with a bag of what smelled like takeout, the Hunter looking equally if not more embarrassed than Wolf felt.

“Sooo . . . sounds like we missed quite the commotion,” Glint said as he materialised over Crow’s shoulder in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness before adding. “We headed back as soon as we got word of the attack.”

“Sorry we weren’t back in time,” Crow said, sounding more than a little disappointed in himself as he sat down beside Wolf and started unpacking the plastic bag; arranging white containers of food between them. “How bad were the casualties?”

“. . . Not as bad as they could have been, but any loss of life is too much,” Wolf replied with a sigh as they picked up a container and opened it to investigate the contents. “And with Osiris missing, it seems we can’t catch a break.”

Wolf and Crow talked for a while about the attack while very obviously avoiding the earlier overheard conversation, and how they might help Saint in his search for Osiris, before there was a lul in conversation and the two fell into a comfortable silence. Ghost and Glint shared a knowing look before turning to their Guardians.

“We’re going to head down to the camp, see if there’s any way for us to help” Ghost stated before Glint added. “Even if it’s just entertaining the hatchlings. They’ve gotten very good at chasing us.”

With no further discussion, the two Ghosts flew off, leaving Wolf and Crow to their own devices.

“So . . .” Crow started awkwardly. “About what Ghost said before, about you liking me . . .”

“I would’ve told you eventually,” Wolf replied quietly, focusing on the partially eaten noodles in their container. “I’m not good with expressing myself, and after loosing Cayde I . . . guess I just pushed down any sort of romantic feelings to avoid feeling that sort of hurt again.”

“I, feel the same way about you,” Crow admitted after a moment. “At first, I thought what I felt was because you were one of the first people to be kind to me after I’d encountered so much hate; my first true friend. Then I met more people and they were kind to me too, but I didn’t feel the same towards them as I did you.”

Wolf was momentarily stunned, more surprised by the Hunter’s admission than they had been by any of the craziness they’d encountered over the last seven years, before they tentatively reached out and took Crow’s hand in theirs, lacing their fingers together with a small smile. Crow squeezed their hand and returned a smile of his own, but Wolf could tell he wanted to ask about what else he’d overheard . . . so they told him everything; starting with the Sundial and ending with the messages from Quaria or Savathun in the Vex collective.

“Thankyou for telling me,” Crow said after taking some time to process everything. “Do you, think what you saw can be changed?”

“I want to say yes, but I feel like my death defending the City is going to be one of those things that Osiris called a fixed point; something that always happens no matter what you do to try and change it,” Wolf replied. “And if that’s the case, I’m not going to waste time worrying about it, I’m going to focus my time and energy into making sure we’re ready for the Witch Queen.”

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