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collecting-stories · 4 years ago

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Dear John - John B Routledge

Request: can i request dear john by taylor swift with John B

A/N: I love this song so much, I think it always gets over looked as just another breakup song but it really is deeper than that.

TS Anthology Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

_ . ◦ ⭐︎:*.☾.*:⭐︎◦∙._

Maybe the ocean should’ve given away the temperate feeling that cascaded over you as you stepped off the ferry, or maybe you should’ve known that the Outer Banks wouldn’t feel like home any longer. Either way, the warning signs were ignored as you stood on the dock hands clutching onto the straps of your backpack, that familiar feeling settling into the pit of your stomach. The feeling that had haunted you for a year, a long, excruciating year, of nothing but emptiness. And if it wasn’t for Pope graduating you thought, you wouldn’t be here at all.

“I’m going to fall!” You’re voice felt like it echoed in the darkness as you climbed out of the window and onto the roof with John B, your hand gripping onto his.

“You’re not gonna fall, I’ve got you.” He promised, pulling you as your knees found ground, collapsing against him. “See?”

“I see,” you laughed, leaning into the space between the two of you to kiss him.

The sun was just rising and he’d woken you up, insisting that the two of you watch the morning sky together. You had stayed up late with him the night before because he couldn’t sleep, plagued by nightmares of his father out at sea, and had practically begged you to come over and ease them. Exhausted yourself, though feeling guilty instantly for thinking you’d rather sleep, you had snuck out of the house and gone to the chateau.

“Hey,” he nudged you when you leaned your head on his shoulder, “stay awake.”

“I am,” you promised.

“No, you’re falling asleep. I want you to see this.”

“I am, I promise.” You repeated, blinking back sleep to watch the sun.

The road back down the cut to the Chateau was etched into your memory. A recent hurricane had taken down the tree you always thought was shaped like an arm, reaching out to grip passers by in terror, dragging them back to the woods. It was cut up in pieces now, lying on the shoulder, defeated by the storm and then again by men with chainsaws determined not to let some old tree stand between them and the rest of the island.

You steadied your breathing as you drew closer, heart pounding in your chest as your mind did it’s best to conjure up images of John B. You couldn’t help yourself. You had gotten so far away that you told yourself you forgot what he looked like, what his town looked like, and yet each landmark seemed to jump out at you along the way, familiar to you, however changed. You wondered how much of that would be true of John B. If he too was familiar but changed and in what ways? A new coat of paint, like the Wreck, just a fresh color covering up all the disappointment and manipulation. Or would he be like the ghost tree, cut down and pushed aside, had he retired his condescension and his snark.

“No, of course not,” you swore, holding your phone against your ear as you sat up on your bed, trying to apply enough pressure to the heating pad on your stomach, “I just don’t feel good, JB, the last thing I wanna do is go out tonight.”

It wasn’t technically your anniversary, that had been three days prior, when John B was busy with ‘stuff’ as he so eloquently put it and couldn’t get together. He’d promised to make it up to you and tonight he had intended to fulfill that promise, which might’ve been fine if you weren’t laid up in bed with ginger ale and saltines, trying to keep anything down.

“Oh well, I’m sorry that the last thing you wanna do tonight is spend time with me!” He snapped and you could hear the sound of things being slammed around.

“That’s not what I said!” You snapped. You were exhausted, the stomach bug had kept you unable to relax for the entirety of the day and all you were really hoping for was a little relief now.

“Look whatever, you’re still pressed about not spending the actual day together but I rearranged my whole day just to go out tonight!”

You knew it was a lie, it wasn’t even a necessarily good one. But still, the anger in his voice would’ve made you get up and go out if you didn’t think you could puke at any given moment. “I’m not upset about the other day,” you promised, “I know you had work.” You replied, “I’m really sick though John B, ask Pope, he’ll tell you.” You just wanted him off your back and for a split second you failed to realize that telling him Pope knew you were sick would only send him into a tailspin.

“Ask Pope?” John B repeated, “should I call him or do you just wanna slide the phone over…maybe he could do a fake sick voice too?”

“He’s not here!” You snapped, frustrated and a little more confident since he wasn’t physically in your room, just a disembodied voice on a phone. “He came by earlier cause I called Heyward’s for groceries. God, what is your problem today?”

“My problem is that my girlfriend is unappreciative of the fact that I had other shit to do and I put it aside to take you out.”

“I’m sick!” You practically yelled it, hanging up the phone and throwing it across the room before pulling your blankets over your head and closing your eyes. The phone rang again, ten more times in total but you ignored the calls, trying to get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow John B would be feeling different, better.

You pulled off the road and down the dirt driveway that Big John had always sworn he was going to pave. It had never happened, mostly because saying things and doing them were not actions easily connected in either of the Routledge’s minds. You parked behind an older Subaru that you recognised as Kiara’s, a ‘save the turtles’ bumper sticker on display near the license plate.

There were other cars, some familiar to you, like Luke Maybank’s truck, no doubt driven over by JJ, or Sarah’s SUV, but there were other cars you didn’t recognise. Ones that belonged to people you didn’t know well enough or know at all. You cut the engine but didn’t open the door, sitting there in the yard just staring at the house. Could you do this? Could you walk back in there? Would the parts of you that had taken so long to reconstruct, the pieces that you had to reassemble into some new version of a past you, survive inside that place?

It had been some months, years really, since you had run. Not so long that you had erased all the bad memories but long enough that they no longer played on a loop in your mind. John B wasn’t your only example of love, just the worst one.

The car door felt heavy when you shut it though not so much as the screen door on the porch of the chateau. It was Sarah who answered when you knocked, graduation gift tucked securely under your arm. She hugged you, looking a little more tired than you remembered and you wondered how much of a place you had to step in and say something. Was she there yet? That desperate place where she would listen because this wasn’t what she remembered wanting.

“How’re you?” You had never been mad at Sarah. Everyone always acted like you were, they scarcely talked about her, as if you were waiting for the chance to villainize her. In actuality, you liked Sarah, she was too good for this.

“Good,” her smile strained, “we didn’t think you’d make it.”

“I promised Pope I’d be at his graduation.” You replied, stepping inside with her. Pope looked up at the sound of his name, smiling at you, “I never break a promise.”

You stood there in the Chateau, eyes cast just to the side of John B as he tried to explain some trip to Chapel Hill that he took. You stared down the picture of his mom, smiling, and wondered if Big John was the same sort of man his son had become. Had she left because she was selfish or because she wanted her freedom back?

“…and I needed to get into the college to see the paper-“ he kept going, overfilling the story with details you didn’t think actually mattered at all.

“So what’s your point?” You tried again to get him there. Maybe it was the after effects of being sick but the exhaustion that you’d been feeling for the past year and a half had crept into your bones and settled there, wrapping you up like a blanket. You had no other way to explain yourself other than to say that you felt done. Done with this conversation, with his roundabout way of telling you something you didn’t want to hear, as if he got brownie points for ‘breaking the news’ delicately.

“Sarah and I kissed.” John B replied.

“Oh.” What emotion did he want you to have, which did he think you were still capable of mustering?

“I don’t love you anymore, I don’t think I ever did.”

You had to agree, really. You hoped he didn’t, at least, because if this was the way John B loved people, by draining them of any kind of life at all, you hated yourself even more for hanging on.

“Oh my god!” Kiara hugged you next, followed by Pope. John B was by the table, you had seen him immediately, waited for the ache but it didn’t come. He was watching you though, as if he was assessing the damage. “You look good,” Kiara said, “happy.

“Yeah,” you nodded, smiling, “I am.”

The house was just a house after all, just walls put together and not a prison. And John B was just a boy.

Taglist: @heavenlymama @vindictive-hearts @alexa-playafricabytoto @dontjinx-it @randomficsandshit @niamhobrien @strangerthanfanfiction713 @tovvaa @freckled-and-daydreaming @harleylynn @bibliophilewednesday @dpaccione @bolaurel @poguestyleskye @beautyandthebleh @under-a-canyon-moon @mysterious-adventurer @minigranger @obxsummer

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spiltscribbles · 5 years ago

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Notes: One Reblog is worth a thousand stars <3.-

The grandiose brownstone on the upper west side is filled to the brim with guests that Ronan barely recognizes, platters of foods he doesn’t remember ordering, and rounds of drinks he thanks God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost above that never seem to run out.

“Lynch, old boy,” a faintly familiar, boyishly attractive brunette calls from where he’s standing with three other nondescript fucks that Ronan eventually realizes are all from his old preparatory days at Aglionby.

“Wentworth,” Ronan greets with as much welcome as he can muster— a negative four point two on the Gansey scale of charm, but hey, what’s a guy to do. “I presume you’re enjoying yourself?”

“Thoroughly,” he assures with a coquettish little wink that Ronan completely ignores.

“Let me know if that ever changes,” he directs the question to the group as a whole so that Wentworth doesn’t get any bright ideas.

“How’s Declan?” The shortest one asks, all plastered smiles and heaps of blonde hair.

“He’s enjoying DC, says that Matthew is getting on with all his courses.”

“Smart of him to get out of Henrietta,” another of the foursome interjects with a swig of his iced white. “With Greywaren here and all the trouble he’s stirring up.”

“Come now,” Wentworth chides with a dismissing wave of the hand. “Greywaren is who’s keeping us safe from the trouble and all these awful villains. “Wouldn’t you agree Lynch?”

Ronan feels the slightest uptick to his pulse, but doesn’t let anything show, just gives a placid smile and blasé shrug to his shoulder.

“I make it a point not to mingle with politics.”

“Smart chap,” the third one smirks. “Couldn’t tell you how many times the boys on the board told me to keep my trap shut on it.”

Queue round of polite chuckles that Ronan doesn’t partake in.

“You know what isn’t controversial? A donation to the arts.” Ronan tells him.

“A wily one too,” Wentworth laughs. “Well you’ve convinced us Lynch, we’d be happy to help whatever inner city project or museum renovation you’ve got going on.”

“I’ll send Blue over to take the checks,” he tips his glass to them before continuing on strolling through the throng of blank faces, exchanging pleasantries and volleying nods of recognition as if it’s an olympic sport.

Ronan hates every fucking minute of it.

“Poor sour patch,” Blue, five foot nothing and unappreciative of any sort of bullshit, mock croons at him once he finally reaches the foursome, clucking her tongue all the while.

Ronan bares his teeth at her, swats away the hand she’s using to pinch his cheek with a hiss of, “Hop off.”

Blue only laughs ebulliently.

“I fucking hate you.”

“No way to speak to your guests,” Henry toots on Blue’s behalf. “After all, you were just elected Henrietta’s most eligible bachelor, wouldn’t wanna ruin that image with your surly attitude.”

“What would you know Cheng? I sure as fuck don’t remember your name on the list.”

With a role of the eyes, Henry just shoos him away. “Never any bite, I swear.”

“He strolls off to take a call on his pretentious bluetooth, while Noah passes Ronan a fresh flute of the Prosecco.

“You don’t have to keep up the charade you know,” Gansey tells him, popping an appetizer with to many vowels and too little alcohol for Ronan to ever really bother remembering the name of into his mouth. “It’s not as if, ahem. People would ever be made privy to your particular gifts.”

He means the gifts Ronan had inherited from Niall, the ability to dream things and even people and occasionally places into existence. He means the fact that despite the way Ronan dawns a costume with a raven on the chest, he’s in all actuality a dreamer. He dreams his weapons, his vehicles, his everything to use against the bad guys and vigilantes that roam the streets of Henrietta, their city, their home. And some of the things he dreams Declan takes it upon himself to study, to replicate, to cell for the endless fortunes the Lynch name has always been known for. The millions upon millions that Ronan grew up unaware to how his father, a scoundrel and drunk most days, and absent the rest of them, had ever been able to earn.

No, but Ronan still loves him, adores the memory and the man. Niall gave everything to Ronan and he’s going to respect everything Niall planned out, everything he wrote in his will.

“It’s what my father would’ve wanted, complete secrecy,” says Ronan, doubtless.

“Even with the solitude,” asks Gansey, cutting to the heart of his worries with none of his usual attentiveness. Finally tired of beating around the bush like the Gansey way dictates.

Ronan’s about to snarl something back that he’s not proud of, something nasty and vicious and unnecessarily cruel. Maybe about Gansey’s pretentious upbringing, probably something about his tireless efforts to find out what’s caused this explosion of superheroes and super villains in the last half century, definitely also about his piece of shit haircut that makes him look like a douchebag congressman. But Blue must sense it because she interrupts him before Ronan could even part his lips.

“All we’re saying is that we know you’ve got your priorities, but you deserve someone to come home too.”

“It’s so cute that you care,” Ronan snorts, doesn’t mention how this place isn’t home, that it can never stack up to The Barns.

Ronan doesn’t want to build a life here.

“I only care because every group needs the weirdly brooding, emo friend,” Blue says causticly.

Ronan cuffs her on the back of the head and she kicks him in turn.

“Hey tall, dark, and handsome,” Henry calls, abruptly returning with a slight franticness to his gaze. “No time for the juvenile squabbling, there’s a robbery on Appleton and they’re in dyer need of a certain masked hero.”

Ronan remembers the sun kissed skies and tumbling grasslands that painted the landscape of The Barns, his childhood manner, his oasis away from the bustling folks and raucous traffic of the city that the Lynch’s spent a majority of their year trapped within. He remembers the iridescent rosebuds that scattered the front yard and the strawberry fields he’d run through, frolicking with a giggling Matthew and occasionally a surly Declan if Ronan had nudged him outdoors by stealing one of his books or hats or whatever proper, grown up thing he was insistent on mastering for that week.

Most of all, he remembers the way Niall would card an indulgent hand through Ronan’s dark mop of locks while they tread around the trails as he divulged to his middle son all the magical wonders and whimsical secrets of this world, a doting smile on his face while regaling to Ronan stories about brave Irish warriors and lands unexplored, and things unimagined. A dreamer father showing his dreamer child— his favorite child— all the possibilities in his grasp.

“There’s nothing outside your reach Ronan my boy,” Niall, dark haired and sharp jawed and everything Ronan idealized, had boomed in his deep baritone. “You could do anything as long as you can imagine it, dream it. Omnium rum principia parva sunt.”

“The beginnings of all things are small,” Ronan, pint sized and open faced and infallibly kind hearted, had beamed up to his father, pleased that the Latin courses Niall had insisted upon were sticking.

“Oy, attaboy,” Niall had crowed, swinging on his shoulder a laughing Ronan, a Ronan who believed in the untarnished truth of his father’s words.

But then Ronan hit sixteen, and Niall was murdered and the Barns were sanctioned from anyone visiting and everything had fallen apart in a matter of days.

The BMW hums beneath his grasp as Ronan sores through the streets of Henrietta, blanketed in darkness and buzzing with danger.

“It’s at the Sheffield’s lake house,” Gansey patches in through the minuscule communication device Henry had created for them to use. “They’re big supporters of mothers campaign.”

“Oh how darling,” Ronan says in a deadpan. “We should invite them over for high tea, less we look gauche.”

“I’ll ignore the sarcasm due to this being a stressful situation and all,” Gansey harrumphs from the other end. “Noah will be there taking pictures for the paper and Henry’s sending over the address right now. Stay safe.”

“always am.”

“Now we both know that isn’t true.”

Ronan screeches to a stop in front of one of the more posh houses the city has to offer— all high gates and wide partitions and a fountain of a baby angel spitting out water while balancing on one foot— greeted by a middle aged woman in pink chiffon raving to a fearful looking officer about hooligans and dirty thugs and irreplaceable diamonds handed down to her through generations. Though Ronan doesn’t bother to stop and listen to her sulking once he catches the barest trace of a yellow cape slinking into the shadows out of sight.

He pounces.

“Fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds,” the dude in a yellow cape tsks (all the while sporting the world’s most infuriating half grin that Ronan can’t help but appreciate if only for the esthetic) once Ronan finally catches up to him on the edge of the woods skirting against the water. He’s smaller than Ronan, but not by much, and agile as all get out if those amateur parkour stunts weren’t just an illusion. “getting rusty are we? It’s been a while since Henrietta’s seen anything more than a chump vigilante I suppose?”

His voice is low but has got this almost musical cadence to it. Ronan would’ve sworn he was a local if the subtle drawl was anything to go by.

“And who, pray tell, the fuck are you,” Ronan snarls out, stepping closer with his most menacing glower.

The guy in yellow and red just snorts, unimpressed, while he leaps backwards onto a tree branch… But no, it’s like the tree branch was waiting for him. No not even that, like it reached out for him to hop on, like he was the sun and the tree was responding to his very presence.

“Unimportant, but I know who you are Greywaren.”

“NO fuck, everyone knows me,” Ronan spits.

“Not the real you,” he counters. “But that’s why I’m here.”

Ronan is over the small talk, even if the guy’s got an admittedly attractive voice, he taps on the heels of the shoes he had dreamt and begins to shoot upwards, but the messed up thing is that the guy seems to have been expecting it, and with just a flick of the wrist another branch swings out and smacks Ronan down like a pesky fly.

“What. The. Fuck.” Ronan manages out with labored breaths as he stands back up.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a real let down Mr Greywaren, because you sure are,” Yellow Cape says with a faux yawn, stretching out to his full six feet while still standing on the branch. He looks like the fucking Fairy Folk in the storybooks Matthew had once insisted Ronan read to him before bed. “Well I’d love to stay and chat but I better get out of your hair and get some bank for my buck.”

“I’ll show you where to shove your buck.”

“Scandalous,” yellow cape sniffs, bored sounding. “ oh and before I forget, Greenmantle sends their hellos.”

In an instance everything freezes.

That word.

Greenmantle.

Flashes of blood and darkness and Niall’s too pale face accented by a wretched slash to his forehead.

The name carved in blood.

Greenmantle.

Ronan’s veins turn to ice and his chest contracts, and by the time he comes to yellow cape is already gone and Ronan is awash with the sorts of memories he ordinarily keeps securely locked away.

“Greenmantle, are you sure he said that precise name?” Henry asks for the umpteenth time since Ronan came back empty handed and with a major life revelation the night of the Sheffield robbery.

“Yes Cheng,” Ronan seethes, tugs on the tie that feels like it’s choking him.

“You look insane,” Blue toots, goes on her tiptoes to adjust it once more. “Now let’s just take deep breaths, being in public and all.”

Ronan still isn’t sure just how Gansey had convinced them all to attend the Tribune’s annual fundraiser, only remembering a lot of “getting on the insides” and “copious amounts of alcohol,s” thrown around, and a couple, “you get to tease uppity know it alls who trash the Greywaren for a living,” sprinkled on top just for good measure.

But still, Ronan hates it.

“So he’s back then, finishing off what he started.” Noah surmises.

“Did we ever truly know what exactly he wanted? Erm, aside from the Lynch family’s demise.”

Ronan glares and Henry just winces, apologetic.

“Noah you think you can get anymore intel on Greenmantle possibly leaving Boston? That was last where we tracked him, right?” Blue asks, head cocked.

“I’m on it,” Noah says while literally pulling out his phone and wandering off to a discrete corner to do whatever it is that he does that gets invasively detailed reports on literally anyone with a social security number.

“Let’s cut the conversation there, Gansey’s coming with that delicious looking friend of his,” Henry warns, causing Blue and Ronan to turn around at the same time to catch on a beaming Gansey promenading towards them with decidedly less sunny company. Company with sea glass eyes and effortlessly ruffled hair that falls unevenly on the left side of his forehead and cheekbones that can literally cut timber.

“Ronan, you’re gonna catch flies,” blue goads, shit eating grin on her face and something like amusement etched into Gansey’s own all the way across the aisle, as if he knows exactly what she had said. Leave it to those freaks to create the world’s first telepathic connection out of the power of their gross as love.

“You’re fired from both my friendship and your job,” Is all Ronan tells her, tries to look distracted by anyone that isn’t the literal incarnation of Prince Philip walking ever nearer… Erm shut the fuck up, Ronan only knows that certain prince because of Matthew when he went through his Disney phase… And well, Arora really liked those sorts of cartoons when she was bringing up her boys.

Gansey dives down to kiss Blue just as soon as they came close enough, and Henry bugged off to go flirt up some poor soul on the catering staff, which leaves it so he and Adam have got some semblance of privacy… Which Ronan doesn’t care about at all.

“Lynch,” Adam says, mouth curled ever so slightly, giving him a thin lipped smile. “How’s it going.”

“My life is a fucking summer day,” Ronan replies with probably too much glaring.

“So that nasty looking bruise on your jaw?”

“For the esthetic.”

“Think you missed bad ass and landed on kid who gets too many nose bleeds during gym class.”

“Know that look from experience Parrish?”

He shrugs, unaffected.

“I was always captain, so can’t say so.”

“Cocky little fuck,” Ronan hisses, making it so Adam’s face finally brightens ten fold and he lets out a breathy— blink and you’ll miss it— laugh. He’s got these insane dimples that never fail to make Ronan’s stomach tie itself into knots, and makes it so his heart stutter with pleasure and always, always fuels him to try and make them pop out just one more time…. But erm, that means nothing. Whatever Blue or Gansey, or Noah— Especially Henry— Whatever they say whatever stupid little ticks his body goes through, it means nothing towards what he feels for Adam. Which for the record, at best, is irritated exasperation veiled with a thin layer of indifferent acquaintanceship, considering Gansey has regarded the bloke as a brother since their first night as roommates back in college.

“You wanna grab a drink or will it hurt too much with the injury and all?”

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll make it so your shitting teeth for the next month.”

“Kinky.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Ronan’s doomed.

“So far the pattern seems to be wealthy, careless and dumb,” Blue says from where she’s hanging upside-down on the couch in Ronan’s den that’s been commandeered for any Greywaren business.

“You just read that off of Parrish’s article in the Tribune this week,” Henry toots, flipping through the aforementioned news report about who’s been labeled as The Magician.

“He’s a smart cookie,” Blue relents, having always been partial to Parrish since first meeting him years ago at one of the ridiculous “family dinners,” Gansey holds every Friday evening, instead of doing something more par for the course for adults their age, namely getting blackout drunk and dancing at sleazy clubs. (

Gansey had just stepped into Monmouth , blasé as all get out with Adam only a few feet behind him, and had gestured his way with the introduction. “This’s Adam, he’s a genius reporter and a great man. Even’s got a photo of him and Lois Lane pinned to his desk at the Tribune.”

Adam in turn smiled self deprecatingly, his cheeks flushed prettily. “She spoke at a rally our freshman year, just got lucky I suppose.”

“Oh my God! I love her!” Blue had squawked, eyes bright. “She’s right between Wonder Woman and Angela Davis on my wall of inspirational women.”

“Some wall,” Adam said wryly.

“I thought that was a wall of ladies you wouldn’t mind pegging,” Ronan had interrupted just to be a shit.

“Lynch, I’m not afraid to kill in cold blood.”

If that interaction hadn’t scared Adam off, Ronan supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that nothing had, that now he’s as internal to this little ragtag crew of Henriettas saving graces as any of them, even if he doesn’t have the slightest clue of their night gigs.

“We could ask him about the Magician,” Gansey offers, lips pursed and hopeful glint to his big, caff like eyes. Ronan knows that he— that all of them— hate lying to Adam, to evade his questions and avoid his calls whenever things are particularly insane, but it’s better this way. If it was up to Ronan none of them would be stuck in this dangerous business. Gansey is here because he had been brought up with Ronan, quite literally brothers in everything but blood. He knew what Niall was, what Ronan is. He knows the importance of the Barns and the danger of Greenmantle, Ronan couldn’t have lied to him about this if he tried. Noah was already privy to the forces of good and evil warring it out in this seemingly inconsequential city right out of DC, had been the one to approach Ronan as Greywaren first, to cultivate a bond that soon transformed into a partnership and now friendship. Henry’s family worked to provide the pieces for the technology that the original dreamer wanted replicated, for Niall, and it only made sense that when Niall had ever so unceremoniously past the mantel off to Ronan, that Seondeok did the same for Henry.

To this day Ronan isn’t quite sure how Blue squirmed her way into everything, only that she’s the daughter of a well renowned psychic that they consulted with once on a case, and she had right then, chin tipped high and a deeply embedded resilience in her gaze, had informed them all that she’d be joining their efforts. A few years later, falling in love with Gansey and officially hired to lead all knew projects for Lynch Charity, in between, Ronan can’t imagine doing all this without her scrappy self.

But that’s all besides the point. Ronan never wants to be the cause of them hurting, them in danger. He’s seen what could happen to someone if they take one wrong move, saw it splayed out with Niall’s blood and matted hair and sickly pillar that still haunts Ronan’s nightmares most nights.

Ronan’s gonna prevent that from ever happening again to anyone he loves, even if that means he has to prevent any of the aforementioned teammates from joining his chases, or if it means he has to lie to Adam’s face. To pretend as if he doesn’t see the way Adam’s begun barricading himself from them bit by bit, well aware that there’s something dividing them all from him.

Ronan would rather see Adam furious at him, than never getting to see the particular shade of forget me not blue that colors his irises, ever again.

The choice is simple.

“No.” He tells Gansey, not leaving an ounce of room for rebuttal.

“He’s a Pulitzer Prize nominated Journalist Ronan, in layman’s terms that means he’s great at figuring things out,” Gansey says with the worn patience of someone who’s hashed out this argument a thousand times before. “It’s improbable that he hasn’t already begun suspecting the truth already.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“I’m sure he could handle himself.”

“No,” Ronan repeats, voice resounding.

“Okay, no time,” Noah cuts in shortly, fingers tapping an agitated staccato against the keyboard of his desktop. “There’s a robbery on Madison Avenue and people are saying it’s our little, yellow caped friend.”

“Stay safe,” Gansey says— like he always does— and Ronan says that he will, like he always does— and the tension between them breaks, for now at the very least, like it always does.

Ronan’s day job, as Declan had once oh so kindly put it, is to stay pretty and give a good face to the brand. “You’re a shit and I know that, but maybe if no one has to talk to you and just sees that you’ve got the same smile as Dad did, they won’t find out for themselves.” Declan had earned a swift right hook for that one, but was probably expecting it considering the dodge and the lecture on anger management he had suffered Ronan through for the next hour.

All this to say, Ronan doesn’t really have a day job. He occasionally visits The Barns— never crossing the threshold but just looking from afar at all he’s fighting to get back— Other times, if he’s not nursing a hangover or injury from the night before, Ronan would drive out to Dc and pull Matthew from classes to get lunch and maybe catch a movie. Though more often than not, Ronan ends up at one of the numerous Lynch owned real-estates, specifically the one where the entire top floor is rented out by the second largest paper in the fucking tri-state area. The fact that a majority of his friends happen to work there is pure coincidence and it would be slanderous to allude otherwise.

“You enjoy our company,” Noah taunts, camera dangling from his neck and face split with a bright smile.

“Fuck you.”

“You do though,” he beams, impervious.

“Noah I swear to fucking God.”

“Ah, so the prodigal son has returned,” Adam, looking like a fucking professional in his button down and tie, greets one particular Thursday afternoon when Ronan shows up for the first time that week. It’s been a difficult one for him, with the news that Greenmantle is most certainly not in Boston anymore, but also undetectable anywhere else on the continental United States, coupled with the series of robberies from more and more of the city’s wealthiest, surely by no other than that fucking yellow cape— The Magician— It’s just been really fucking exhausting.

Ronan will go to his grave before admitting that just catching sight of Adam here, now… It kind of makes him breathe a little easier, even if there’s a cut right under Adam’s chin and his stance is woven with a certain fatigue one can only recognize with experience.

He suddenly remembers talking to one of Adam’s old school friends, a petite blonde who looked at an oblivious Adam with hearts in her eyes. He members her telling him just how Adam had lost the hearing in his left ear, how it was merely a tipping point from a long building cycle of abuse. Ronan thinks of how gutted he feels looking at how haggard Adam looks right now, and can’t imagine knowing him back when fucking Robert Parrish was still apart of his life.

But he shakes that all off, offers Adam a snide half grin like he’’s probably expecting.

“Missed me sugar dumpling,” Ronan jeers in an overdone accent to mock Adam’s subtle one, vowels rounded and snatching away the g.

“It was quieter,” is all Adam says, and if Ronan doesn’t know better he would’ve taken that as a compliment teetering on flirtatious instead of one of Adam’s deadpan observations.

And oh, that’s interesting.

“I’ve always been known for my stimulating conversational skills,” Ronan nods sagely, leaning against Adam’s desk with his arms wrapped across his chest, enjoying it probably a little too much how Adam’s peering up at him with his bright eyes through his spider leg lashes.

Sometimes, just sometimes— just when Adam looks at him like Ronan could be the brightest part of his day— Ronan feels like he’s standing on the precipice of something with him, something that makes his chest stutter and stomach tumble itself into knots. Like Adam’s air and Ronan’s finally breathing. But also that’s a ridiculous notion because in all the years they’ve known each other Adam’s never made a move, not one that Ronan could discern at least, and he just needs to not fall into some ridiculous folly.

“Oh I’m sure,” he snorts.

“You wanna grab lunch? Leo’s having a half off if you buy two sale.”

“I don’t eat gluten.”

“I saw you scarf down a bowl of pasta at the mayor’s shitty dinner literally last weekend,” Ronan accuses, incredulous and only slightly affronted.

“Fine,” Adam breathes out. “Then I don’t eat gluten that’s meant to distract me from my work.”

“Fuck off.”

“Can’t do that either.”

Ronan seriously thinks he might hate Adam, if it wasn’t for the fact that he most certainly does not.

“You don’t have to like work yourself ragged just to prove a point you know, just because you’re the newest print journalist doesn’t mean you’re the least talented.” Ronan tells him, gruff sounding and avoiding his gaze at all costs. “That’s obviously Tad.”

Adam stays quiet for too long, so Ronan braces himself and turns around, not expecting Adam to be pinning Ronan with a one eyed squint, like he’s sizing him up. Like Ronan’s some sort of jigsaw puzzle he can never quite figure out.

“Kay, let’s go,” he says, slow and cautious as he shuts his laptop and slinks on his jacket. Ronan is only partially surprised that he actually listened, usually it takes a whole lot more cross looks and prodding at and about ten times more profanities for Adam to even consider stop working on some new story or the other that he’s particularly passionate about.

“Good,” Ronan huffs in as flat of a tone he can muster. “But I fucking hate subs so we’re not going to Leo’s.”

Adam sighs, long suffering. “You were born to be contrary Lynch.”

“’S what Declan says, but he doesn’t know shit.”

“As opposed to you? Oh great arbiter of all knowledge.” Adam retorts, making it so Ronan’s mouth dips into a small, reluctant smile.

“Precisely.”

Their eyes connect at that moment, ice blues boring into a twilight night sky sparkling with kisses of starlight. Ronan can hear his heart beat in his ears and his throat lodge with emotions he can’t place quite yet.

It’s Adam who breaks it, averting his gaze and clearing his throat, adjusting his papers on the desk just to make it as seemingly natural as possible.

“Mexican, Mexican’s never bad. And hey I get a chance to hear you fail at rolling your Rs.”

Ronan glowers.

“Piss off.”

So they go, Ronan orders a meat stuffed burrito and Adam orders the special and Ronan doesn’t talk about all the gluten Adam’s eating and they most definitely do not talk about what may or may not have past between them.

It’s fine. It’s normal. He’s good.

Ronan’s got a lot of other shit to be worrying about without this maybe something he’s been harboring for Adam since before they even really knew each other, and it shouldn’t change just because Adam seems to be finally joining him in this strange little dance, stumbling together around this tiny flame that may or may not have sparked to life.

It’s fine. it’s normal. He’s good.

“I’m figuring out who Greywaren is,” Adam answers Ronan’s inquiry on what story’s got him so on edge and everything freezes over.

It’s not fine. It’s not normal. And Ronan is sure as fuck not good.

“He’s swung onto Hamilton Boulevard,” Blue tells Ronan, almost frantic, through the headphone set.

Ronan finally gets the fucking Magician in eye sight, watching as he slips into the maze of downtown apartments.

“Good, no fucking trees,” Ronan hisses while swerving off the road and chasing after him by foot, eventually landing on a rooftop. It’s the sixth encounter they’ve had in as many weeks so Ronan thinks he’s finally starting to ware him down, or at least beginning to figure out his arsenal of techniques. He knows that the moment he lands on that roof The Magician will just leap to the next one and the one after that until he finally loses Ronan in the dust.

But this time the Magician doesn’t know about the little pouch of a Ronan Lynch original that’s clacking around on his belt.

“Isn’t there more important shit you should be chasing after?” The Magician growls out, leaping to the next roof in the row and rolling his landing— smooth fuck.

“Isn’t there better ways you can be earning money besides stealing it?” Ronan counters, right on his tale.

“Like those old farts would miss’m,” The Magician scoffs, thin lips pinched into an infuriatingly attractive pout. “There are kids starving in this city, you know that Greywaren?”

“So what? You some fucking reincarnation of Robin Hood?” Ronan spits out.

“He was a fictional character, so that’d be impossible,” The Magician pivots around so quickly that Ronan is caught off guard, especially when he pulls out a bow and arrow and shoots it with deadly precision, tearing Ronan’s cape right off and sticking it to the wall behind them.

“But the bow is a favorite of mine.”

Ronan clenches his teeth in frustration.

“Look I don’t give a fuck about you getting your jollies from stealing from old, rich fucks. Not really.”

“Then why the hell do you keep pursuing me?” The Magician charges, never flinching from his stance or losing his aim directed right at Ronan’s chest.

“Greenmantle,” he grits out, like broken glass ripping his throat to shreds and piercing his tongue and lips as it escapes in a fury of blood and guts and abandonment. “You said that name when we first met.”

“Yeah, and so what?”

“What do you mean so what!” Ronan bellows, hates how this vigilante fuck is so blasé about the one person that makes it feel like Ronan’s insides are burning up and dying right alongside everything else when Niall had past. With his mother and the Barns and the memories and the ease of just existing to exist instead of searching for some existential meaning behind it all. “How do you even know Greenmantle?”

The Magician just shrugs, for the first time in all the weeks he’s been clashing against Ronan his face betrays his typical impassivity and actually looks cautious, curious— unsure.

“Greenmantle’s the one who asked me to figure out who you are, paid me like a ridiculous sum of money for it.”

“And why do you think Greenmantle wants me so badly!”

“Fuck if I know, some blood feud between the wealthy and powerful. I don’t care, it’s not my business.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan steps closer, but the Magician remains stock-still, weapon poised to be wielded. “I know it was you who stopped that armed robbery last weekend at the bank, and you saved that bus collision with your creepy voodoo one with the trees, powers.”

This time the Magician’s lips curl into acute disapproval, he’s irritated by Ronan calling him out. Ronan thinks that it should be disconcerting that he could get so much from a simple reading of his mouth, but also it’s the only feature he can see on his face, so it isn’t that creepily invested.

“I don’t put people in danger, just steal from the oblivious and wealthy.”

“You’re not a bad guy,” Ronan surmises, has known that for a while now. “Don’t get mixed up in Greenmantle’s shit. They’re bad people, really bad.”

The magician sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, flickers his focus to something right above Ronan’s shoulder, like he was considering his words in a meaningful kind of way.

“How do I know that you’re not just lying to me. That Greenmantle isn’t justified for whatever slight you’ve done to them.”

“There’s a reason why you haven’t really tried figuring me out, you don’t want to help them.” Ronan needles.

“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”

“It’s true, you feel it. you know they aren’t safe.”

“Tell me why I should trust you,” is all the Magician says, waspish.

Ronan wants to shout, to pull out his hair and just scream. He wants to tell the Magician that he didn’t commit some sort of fucking obscene offense to’m, that Greenmantle just knows what he can do and wants to control it, control him. But Ronan’s suddenly too tired and too frustrated and too so many things that he can’t even fathom parsing out the right words to convince him. Instead, Ronan just picks out one of the seeds in his pouch and throws it into the Magician’s sandy hair, ducking when the first arrow is released.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Why can’t you fucking just listen to me!” Ronan says instead of answering. “Greenmantle is fucking evil.”

“You missed anyways douche,” the Magician snarls out, pulling another arrow from his sheath.

Ronan lets out a little, dark laugh at that, standing up to his full height. “Haven’t you ever heard that the beginnings of all things are small?”

The Magician’s face goes very flat, completely unimpressed.

“Now who’s speaking in shitty voodoo riddles?”

Fuck, Ronan hates how much he enjoys waging words with him.

“It’s not voodoo,” Ronan says in an admittedly cryptic voice.

“What the fuck!” The magician suddenly balks. Ronan reckons it’s because of the ropes knitting themselves around him over frustration about his comment.

“You won’t listen, so I’m turning you in.”

“Screw you!” he yells, face bright with feeling.

“Jail’s better than if you accidentally get on Greenmantle’s bad side,” Ronan informs him magnanimously, dark head tilted in an admittedly Declan way.

“You are such a piece of shit.”

“Could say the same to you sweetheart,” Ronan sniffs, is taken aback at the unexpected prickling to his side.

“What—“

He looks up to find the Magician tearing through the ropes that look like they’ve been completely unwound. He looks a bit closer to find the hundreds of small spikes prickling its circumference.

“Is that—“

“A pine,” Magician scoffs, lets out a new round to pierce into Ronan’s side with a mere snap of his finger.

“How the fuck can you even do that!”

The Magician doesn’t answer, just bolts over to Ronan with a swift kick to the opposite side from the needles, rendering him defenseless, and runs off just as soon as the sirens come within hearing distance. All Ronan could do is watch the night swallow him whole.

Ronan is bothered and disgruntled and pissed off— even more than usual. It’s why he’s sulking in a dark corner, peevish as all get out, while there’s like a hundred guests invading his family home in the city, here to celebrate Declan’s thirtieth and also probably just to make Ronan hate life that bit more.

He can’t believe he let the Magician go that easily, and now that he is actually mad at Ronan who knows what he’ll do now to actually figure him out, bring’m to Greenmantle just so they could finish the job and kill off all the Lynch dreamers.

“Fuck.”

“Language,” a far too familiar voice reproofs with no heat, making Ronan jolt back to watch as Adam strolls towards him.

“You’re here?” Ronan says, floundered as he stares at the way his shoulders move just right in that blazer. God he’s beautiful.

“You should really consider asking Gansey for a job, your observational skills are truly top notch,” Adam says in a decidedly sardonic tone.

“Asshole,” Ronan huffs, excepting the drink Adam offers him.

“You seemed in a funk all week, thought you’d need the moral support for a party literally meant to celebrate your brother.”

Ronan looks away, tries not to look so gleeful that Adam came here specifically— solely— to cheer up Ronan.

“You thought I’d want your company over any of these pricks,” Ronan says just to keep up pretenses— Admittedly a bit to afraid of the outcome if he starts to let them slide and just begins to babble out loud all the stupid thoughts clamoring in his mouth and chest and mind whenever around Adam. The way his chest blooms with something splendid and the blossoms taking shelter in his ribcage. Though Adam seems to be having completely contradictory thoughts, because all he does is shrug— almost defiant.

“I thought you’d like my company yes,” he says blithely, as if he were reading a weather forecast or some shit.

“Whatever,” Ronan says instead of telling him he’s right. But Adam takes it as is with a diffident little smile and stepping that much nearer, good ear tipped towards Ronan.

“You wanna get out of the crowd? Show me around this place?”

Ronan does not swallow down, not for any particular reason at least, like how maybe to the untrained ear that could’ve past as a come on.

That is not a thing that happens! He’s not some Bella Swan type swooning over a cute boy he’s pretty sure is the one. That’s not happening! Ronan is not doing that!

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Adam’s answering smile is radiant. And Ronan fucking hates himself for even knowing that word.

“It’s huge…. Ah erm, your house I mean,” Adam coughs a little and Ronan’s absolutely ecstatic for the turning tables.

“Dad use to say that if we weren’t at our palace we still should live like kings, and my mom just indulged all his stupid whims,” Ronan explains, wistful.

“The Barns,” Adam says, slow and cautious, probably knowing that it’s a touchy subject but still curious. “That’s your palace, right?”

“Mmhmm,” Ronan nods, stops in front of a mantel underscoring a risibly large portrait of Niall and Arora, the pair of them juxtaposing completely but still both so etherial that it would be preposterous to ever imagine one without the other.

Beautiful and rugged. golden and dark. careless and careful.

Ronan feels a sudden, acute pang to his chest. Jesus Christ does he miss them.

“They’re beautiful,” Adam marvels, pinky touching the side of Ronan’s hand ever so tenderly from besides him. “You look exactly like your father.”

“Yeah… I’ve been told that.”

They stand there, in the silence, for a little longer— Ronan isn’t quite sure how much time past, a minute or hour, but it feels quiet. For the first time Ronan feels quiet and at peace when he looks at this portrait, and he isn’t sure if it’s a good sign that he’s finally starting to mend, or a bad one that says Greenmantle will soon cause him to join them on the other side.

Eventually, Ronan turns over— apologetic— To Adam, is surprised when he finds him staring with intense interest on the words carved into the frame.

“Omnium rum principia parva sunt,” Ronan reads out loud. “It means—“

“The beginnings of all things are small,” Adam says, mechanically, disbelievingly, confusedly.

“You know the quote then,” Ronan asks, is struck dumb when Adam’s ordinarily bright and methodical eyes flicker to him as if in a trance.

“No, not really. Just heard of it recently.”

Ronan nods, it being answer enough. “You wanna meet Chainsaw?”

“Chainsaw?” Adam repeats, finally appearing to come to his own again.

Ronan cocks his head, silently telling Adam to follow suit, and he does.

“It’s a bird…”

“She’s a raven,” Ronan huffs. “Now who’s got wicked observational skills?”

Adam’s face goes a bit pale, looking excruciatingly uncomfortable as he just nods along to Ronan, not even bothering to snipe back.

“Yeah sure, of course she is.”

He finishes feeding Chainsaw and leads Adam back to his nearby room, pretending his skin isn’t squirming with anticipation.

“Is this how you court all your dates?” Adam asks, teasing unassuming all at once, a masterpiece of contradictions Ronan could spend an eon trying to parse out and wouldn’t grow tired.

“Is that what this is?” Ronan asks, tentative while sitting down besides him on the bed.

“Dunno,” Adam shrugs. “’S what I wanted it to be, reckoned you weren’t gonna make a move for another five years.”

Ronan’s face goes blotchy, and Adam’s laugh is something musical.

“You’re enjoying this.” Ronan huffs.

“You’re precious,” Adam preens, cupping Ronan’s cheek in earnest and slanting his lips against Ronan’s own, and suddenly all the muted grays of this poor substitute of The barns transform to vivid, screaming color. It’s slow and cautious at first but melts into something more, something so much more. It feels like nights racing in the BMW, and days running around the Barns as a kid, wild and free. It feels like sun kissed skies and when his cold fingers begin to thaw at the fire place. It feels like remembering and discovering and just knowing.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for like a year,” Adam admits, bashful, once they finally part, hot tendrils of breath skirting against Ronan’s lips and soft hands caressing his cheeks.

“Try. Like. three of them.” Ronan counters, punctuating his words with a kiss to Adam’s collar bone, the hinge of his jaw, the tops of his cheekbones.

He can do this, Adam wants him to do this. This is a thing that they’re doing.

“Jesus Ronan,” Adam says in an almost wine, snaking his hands beneath Ronan’’s shirt and splaying out his fingers greedily. “That’s like since we met?”

“I know.”

Adam swoops down so that their lips are moving against each other once more, and everything feels golden.

But it all goes to an abrupt halt when he feels Adam’s long fingers skimming his still bruised side and he sucks in a breath.

“Still tender,” he winces.

Adam pulls back, as if he’s been scorched.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Ronan assures, only a bit pissy that the kissing has stopped— he liked the kissing. “Just a little sore spot.” His shirt rises up enough to give Adam a clear view of the still healing spot, is confused when his face goes a sickly green and he pulls away even further.

“What’s up Parrish?” Ronan asks, sitting up right alongside him.

“That… That looks like a kick. A hard one.”

Ronan kinks up his brows, teasing.

“So I swung back to bad ass or still a nerd with nose bleeds?”

“That’s a kick,” is all Adam repeats, like he’s gone mad.

“Yeah Parrish, I got in a fight. Don’t sweat, it comes with the territory of buzz cuts and leather jackets. Wouldn’t expect you to know Mr All America.”

“A fight,” Adam says, slow and confounded. His lips moving around the words and his face still blanched, a decidedly unhealthy hue spreading across his soft features.

“Parrish you okay?”

“I gotta— I gotta go.” He says, scrambling off the bed and straightening his clothes. Ronan feels distinctly like being left high and dry.

“Now? You have to leave now?”

“Yes, now. Immediately.”

“Okay… Gimme a minute to find my keys, I’ll drive you back to yours.”

“I want to walk,” Adam declines, already racing out the door.

“Woah, did I do something wrong?”

“No, nothing,” Adam says, face being tugged into a whole array of emotions before landing on a dangerously blank expression that Ronan’s never been able to read for shit.

Adam goes and Ronan’s confused and the house is still filled with fucking annoying ass guests.

“You’re upset,” Blue says, blunt as ever.

“You’re annoying,” Ronan counters, snappish.

“It’s gotta due with Adam doesn’t it,” She charges, hands flying to her hips and looking more like Maura than Ronan could’ve ever expected.”’S why he’s called in sick to work for the past week and you’ve been more crass than usual.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan hisses, doesn’t look away from where they’re perched atop one of the higher buildings of Henrietta, perfect view to both its polished corners and seedy underbelly.

“I’m right, aren’t I,” Blue presses, but Ronan doesn’t bother to engage. “Just admit it!”

“So what if you are?”

“God, you both are such idiots.”

Ronan flips her the bird only just catching a flash of yellow ducking into an alleyway.

“Not the fuck today,” he hisses out morosely. “Call me on the bee,” he tells Blue before pouncing down and chasing after him.

He doesn’t hear her respond, doesn’t really hear anything. He only comes back to focus when the alleyway ends and he’s looking at The Magician standing rigid in front of St Agnes.

“You’re a dreamer,” He says with no fanfare, not accusing but not happy about it either.

“Wh—“

“”s why Greenmantle wants you.”

“Not exactly Nancy Drew,” Ronan mutters out, circling him cautiously.

“He killed your father, he’s the one who sent the hit on Niall.”

In an instance everything goes red, Ronan’s ears roaring with unadulterated fury.

Like a bullet, Ronan tackles into The Magician, hand wrapped around his neck and noses brushing against each other.

“how the fuck do you know that name,” he asks with heavy breaths.

“Greenmantle killed your father and he wants to kill you next because of some sort of vendetta against the Lynches.” Yellow cape manages out, barely breathing with Ronan’s hand still clasped tightly around his neck.

“Tell me how you know the name Niall?” He barks out, squeezing even harder. Though Ronan is confused when the magician doesn’t even try fighting back.

“I know you Ronan, it’s me.”

Everything stutters to a stop, and Ronan’s grasp begins to subside.

“You know my name? How do you know my name?”

“Because it’s me, It’s Adam.”

The world’s gone inside out, and flipped upside down and Ronan’s let go of the Magician— of Adam— and is across the yard once more, stunned silent as he watches as the Magician sheds off the yellow mask to reveal a familiar mop of sandy hair and night blue eyes and a tiny little dent over his top lip that Ronan’s never asked about but has always wondered if it had to do with the way he holds himself with caution strung into his stance. And absolutely nothing makes sense at all.

“Ad—Adam,” he balks.

“It’s a long story,” is all he says, completely glum.

“When did you— How did you—“

“Only the other night when we were in your room,” his cheeks go a fetching red at the memory and Ronan yearns to go back to that moment of tranquility before all of this. “I couldn’t believe it, but when I finally figured it out, it all made sense.”

“How— How did you.”

“Look Ronan— Or, erm … Greywaren, there’s no time to explain any of this right now.”

“Why the hell not,” Ronan snarls, tries to feel an appropriate amount of fear, but hates how he’ll probably always feel safe and secure when around fucking Adam Parrish, no matter who he’s dressed as.

“The Greenmantle you know, Colin, he’s dead.” Ronan balks, but Adam just steamrolls over it, continues on speaking with clipped words and a franticness Ronan doesn’t understand quite yet.”it’s his wife you need to worry about, Piper. She’s the one who hired me and has been looking for you, she wants to avenge him like some sort of Harley Quin esthetic.”

“I have no fucking idea what you’re saying.” Ronan informs him grimly.

“You don’t need to understand, just dream.” Adam tells him, thrusts out a manilla envelope to him and waits for Ronan to open it up and read its contents.

“Excuse me?”

“Read it. memorize it, Dream it.” Adam tells him.

“You want me to frame Greenmantle for some pretty heinous shit.”

“You want her taken out, don’t you,” Adam charges.

“How do you know I can even create this shit in my head?” Ronan asks, brows furrowed.

“I have faith,” Adam says with a seriousness etched into his features Ronan’s never seen. “And you’ve got fuel.”

“fuel?”

“Shit won’t be safe until she’s gone, if you ask me, I reckon that’s all your dad intended, for you and your brothers to be safe. I reckon that’s why he barred you guys from the Barns in the first place. Piper’s been there like a thousand times, the dream energy at The Barns is heavy, like a ley line all it’s own. But when the dangers gone, you can make it your palace again.”

“That’s detailed,” Ronan says slowly, still so totally confused.

“I’ve had a week to figure it all out, and this’s the only full proof plan I’ve got.” Adam tells him.

Ronan bores his eyes into Adam’s own, finds something he recognizes as quintessentially Adam Parrish in them, and feels that quiet again he did a week ago at Declan’s birthday party.

He feels sure.

“Okay, I’ll play along.”

“Good,” the ends of Adam’s lips curve up into a smile and Ronan feels like he’s finally gotten the answer right.

They’re back sitting side by side on Adam’s desk, a newspaper in Ronan’s grasp announcing the arrest of Piper Greenmantle.

“You’re preening,” Adam mildly notes.

“I feel…. Free,” Ronan says, far too vulnerable for such a open place.

“I’m glad,” Adam says, voice shimmering with sincerity as he stands up. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, that you’ll always feel that.”

Ronan eyes him, confused.

“Sounds like a goodbye to me,” Ronan accuses, and Adam just shrugs.

“I’ve made a mess of everything, you almost got hurt, seriously hurt.”

“You didn’t know,” Ronan contends.

“I was flippant,” Adam corrects. “But she’s gone now, and you’re going to be safe, so it feels like the right point for me to maybe start fresh too.”

“No,” Ronan says.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a good guy Adam, and that’s more than most people. People either suck or are awful… You’re not, you’re good.”

Adam frowns.

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not,” Ronan stands up, wraps a hand around one of Adam’s slender wrists. “You’re good and you’re bold and you’re a genius and if it weren’t for you I’d probably still be running around terrified that Greenmantle would come back to finish me off. Thank you for giving me the chance not to be afraid of that anymore… Thank you for that.”

“Of course Lynch,”

Ronan swallows down, trying his hardest not to avert his gaze.

“So stay Parrish. Stay and let’s start shit over together.”

Adam doesn’t answer in so many words, instead just inclines his head forwards and kisses Ronan within an inch of his life.

Ronan likes that answer a whole hell of a lot more.

#PYNCH #RONAN LYNCH #ADAM PARRISH #THE RAVEN CYCLE #Spilled Ink #I'm a hot mess #It's Gucci I Know #SPILT INK

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bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

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LOL sorry not sorry, I don’t care how annoying or repetitive it makes me sound, when it comes to Dick and Jason’s relationship when they were younger, I am a broken record on eternal repeat and can’t stop won’t stop.

Like, if there’s an even slightly tangential place for me to reference “bee tee dubs, Dick didn’t hate Jason, there is literally no canon of that, Dick was literally written making a point to put aside his resentment towards Bruce for Jason’s sake. After Jason’s origin was rebooted to the stealing the tires story, and his first encounter with Dick being rebooted to the druglab teamup, Dick made a point to give him his blessing and Robin costume and phone number and offer of being there so Jason could have a family relationship that didn’t depend on Bruce, had nothing to do with Bruce, like he literally stood there and gave him advice about how he knows how Bruce is better than anyone, and that not talking about stuff is Bruce’s problem but that doesn’t mean Jason had to make it his, so gimme a call whenever Bruce is being a pain - and yet even in fanfics that reference this exact story and even the part about Dick giving him his phone number, they all go on to write about how Jason tried calling but Dick never picked up, because yeah like it really matches ANY characterization of Dick Grayson to say he already went to the effort of extending that hand to his replacement only to then just end up ghosting the kid, please.

Even Bruce recognized all that as an actual effort on Dick’s part, with the last panel of that issue being Creeper!Batdad spying on his two boys bonding together and saying “Thank you, Dick” even though neither of them could hear it. And just like the Nightwing: Year One retcon that revised yet again the specifics of how Dick was fired, became Nightwing, Jason was taken in and made Robin, and Dick and Jason met for the first time (and ended the story yet again on good terms, like they were literally teasing each other)....like these stories only retconned the hows and whens of Jason becoming Robin and Dick becoming Nightwing and how they first met. And they were flashbacks. Because Jason’s rebooted origin story was written fourteen issues before the issue he died.

There wasn’t time to chronologically show any other interactions between Dick and Jason in that short a time frame, especially when the next Titans story took Dick offworld until after Jason had already died. So unless you wanna go with the idea that Jason actually at most was Robin for a few months and ignore every other story with him as Robin that was then just supposed to be read as being set after Batman #416/Nightwing: Year One.....its made fairly clear that even without us being actually shown on panel the first time Jason called Dick or Dick reached out to him again, whichever it was....I mean, one of those two definitely happened. Because otherwise you’re suggesting that Batman #416 or Nightwing: Year One were literally the ONLY times Jason and Dick even interacted, period.....because that’s the timeline.

Every which way you look at New Earth continuity, those issues were of Dick and Jason’s FIRST encounter, and so saying this never led to any kind of bonding between them after that because Dick didn’t pick up or Jason died before he could use the number....like, it basically implies that Dick and Jason only met once the entire time Jason lived with Bruce and was Robin, and has there ever been any interaction between them after Under The Red Hood that suggests these are two guys who literally only met ONCE and once only, and only knew each other by reputation before that?

Nope. Because the issues that have them interacting as brothers are all still canon, the events within them are canon, and thus that relationship between them is canon. They’re just supposed to be read as having happened AFTER Dick and Jason met in the new retconned ways of Batman #416 or Nightwing: Year One....hence why the former opened with the caption: One Year Ago, and the latter was similarly just meant to retcon the specifics of their first meeting.

But it literally doesn’t work to acknowledge Jason saying to Tim that he was a Titan too once, in reference to the two stories he teamed up with them, and then act like the parts where Dick was the complete and total opposite of an aloof, bitter asshole to him just....somehow got cut out of that story.

Its literally only fanfic that insisted on that interpretation of Dick and Jason pre-Death in the Family, (well, at least before someone told Scott Lobdell about it, I’d guess, lol, because like....I bet more than anything he just heard that fanon take and figured it made sense and ran with it because he thinks the only way for Jason to be a bad ass is if he’s hard and broody and isolated and alone, and he obviously can’t be that if his family like, loves him lfashiofhalfsh, don’t be ridiculous.”)

Anyway. Its not like I feel like everyone needs to be a Dick Grayson fan or agree he’s the best Robin or most important or even feel a need to make comparisons or rank the brothers at all.....but given that the experience of seeing a character you relate to be condemned for shit they didn’t do or unappreciated for stuff they did do IS such a hugely relatable experience and that’s WHY its such a huge fanfic trope......like, that one particular thing is always gonna be the thing in Batfamily fandom that always just makes me RAAAAAH with thwarted rage over my inability to make a mind ray gizmo that makes everyone share my opinions and nobody else’s. Knew I should have paid more fucking attention it science class.

You can write dynamics and characters any way you want, nobody’s saying you can’t, but just....when you then make a point to use actual canon to back up your takes on Jason and Tim, but revert to this fanon in order to prop up the two of them as misunderstood and unappreciated by Dick and thus they’re totally right to view his attempts to hug them or express affection as him overcompensating and feeling guilty about being an asshole before....like...

Bah. Its just really annoying to consistently see the one and only character in the Batfamily who makes a point to regularly express affection for his family and his desire for them to be more like a family....like, rewritten as this pompous douchebag that has never understood them and that’s why they’re totally justified in being written as treating him (who btw, a shit ton of his fans DO like and relate to and project upon due to his being a canon rape survivor)...like when they end up treating his attempts to show physical affection in stories like its a VIOLATION that they want no part of and he’s yet even more of an asshole for never getting this.....when there’s over a decade of comics full of Dick physically showing his affection for Tim and Tim very much appreciating it....just like Dick did the same with Jason when he was Robin, and Jason, again, was shown appreciating it, not treating it as a refusal to respect his boundaries.

That more than anything is what bugs.

Anyway. LOL. Yeah wtf, this is literally just me thinking out loud as usual, and I stg the actual inception of this post was just me rereading TNTT #31 again today and then immediately after going to read some fic which was a Mistake as winning bingo and getting three fics in a row with a line about how like....Jason resents Dick trying to hug him on his birthday because its clear to him Dick is just overcompensating for having been an asshole to him when they were younger and like....sigh. Epic, eternal forever sigh. Oh, fandom. Why. Whyyyyyyyy.

I just....I defy anyone to look at this scan and tell me how they see anything remotely along the lines of Dick resenting Jason for replacing him and being an asshole to him because of it or at least just aloof, and Jason resenting Dick because he was aware of this and never got the approval or recognition from Dick that he wanted and needed. And again, whenever you offhandedly reference Jason having been a Titan in pre-Reboot continuity....this is what you’re referencing, meaning you’re literally saying that THIS happened every bit as much as Batman #416.

(Btw, the trouble Dick references as Jason and the Titans bailing him out of, was them rescuing him from being kidnapped and brainwashed yet again by the Church of Blood, and it revealed that they’d secretly been controlling him for over a year before that. So....its in the actual literal aftermath of THAT, that Dick offers to take the fall with Bruce to keep Jason out of trouble, and selling all that as though it was Dick’s fault. Which....sounds like pretty consistent Dick Grayson characterization to me...just saying).

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theguardiansseries · 6 years ago

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From the Beginning Chapter 8

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Summary: Danny Fenton was a simple, sixteen-year-old teenager who loved fast food, video games, and getting a B on surprise pop quizzes. He’s also the half-ghost teenage hero Danny Phantom who defends Amity Park from ghost attacks on a daily basis. Somehow, the ghost attacks make a lot more sense than crushes, friendships, and falling in love with someone he is definitely not supposed to be falling in love with. It was a lot easier to separate Phantom and Fenton before, but now it’s getting harder the more he learns about himself. Just who was he? The dorky son of scientists who loved the stars or the hero that protected the town. He’s starting to feel like he won’t like the answer. (Iambic Prose) (Prequel to Guardians and Partial Show Rewrite)

<<First Chapter>> <<Last Chapter>> <<Next Chapter>>

Chapter Eight

“I think a threat that’s stronger than Pariah is about to wake up.” It sounded silly when he said it out loud, but Danny had been thinking on this for a while now and it was the only thing that seemed to make sense after his walk around Pariah’s Keep.

“What- Wait, what?” Sam looked surprised and even scared, almost, before her expression dropped and her eyes narrowed. “What kind of a threat?”

“I don’t- A threat.” It sounded stupid, but it all lined up! Danny had been seeing the signs for weeks and he hadn’t even realized what he was staring at until it was almost too late - almost. “Sammy, you have to trust me on this one.”

“Uh huh. Why do you think we’re about to face a threat, Danny? And give me an exact reason, not a ghost sense sort of reason.”

“None of the ghosts have attacked in almost two weeks!” Alright, Sam’s groan was unappreciated and wildly unhelpful. “C’mon, Tuck, back me up here. You think it’s weird, don’t you?” Maybe he was exaggerating a little with it being a Pariah level threat, but it was weird.

“Yeah. Weird.” While Tucker gave strange responses sometimes, that was weird even by their standards. He usually never shut up, but thinking about it, Tucker had been weirdly silent during lunch this time.

“Tucker? You alright, buddy?” The three were in the cafeteria, so Danny had been a little concerned with eating before his food was stolen or shoved down his shirt, but now that he was looking, Tucker had a lot of papers and notebooks out. “Okay, last I checked February wasn’t even over yet. What’s with the finals level studying?”

“It’s not studying.” Tucker was staring down at a packet of papers with utter seriousness, food completely abandoned and ignored beside him. It was, Danny decided, absolutely terrifying. “It’s for the student council elections coming up.”

Danny didn’t even get to open his mouth before Sam was kicking him, which, alright, he probably deserved that considering he hadn’t even known that his best friend was running for student elections. “Cool- Cool. That’s cool. Uh, refresh my memory, which position are you going for?” Because if Tucker was aiming for President, then he had quite the depressing news.

“Vice president. In this school, the VP always is the one behind the big changes. The jocks can fight for the figurehead position all they want, but I know what I’m doing.”

“Never doubted you for a second, buddy.” At least he had done his research, this year. “So, uh, what kind of plans you have in mind? Hopefully nothing that will end up with a changed lunch menu.”

“Hey! We agreed to never speak of that moment again! Nothing I did or said as a freshman can be held against me and you know it.” Sam glared at him and Danny knew without any doubt that she could kill him anytime she pleased.

“Right, right, so, uh, student council. Vice president. You wanna… talk about it?” That’s what supportive friends did, right? Talk about student politics?

“You have time for it?” All three of them seemed to realize how harsh that was at the same time since Danny winced the same moment as Tucker and Sam. “Sorry- Sorry, that was… Sorry, man.”

“Yeah, no, hey, I get it. I haven’t exactly been around the past few weeks like I should have been.” It had been one crazy thing after another, it seemed, but things were settling down, now. “The ghosts haven’t been by in almost two weeks, though, so I think I’m good on time for the moment.”

“Oh… Right! Well, uh, so first-” The next few words were drowned out by the ringing of the school bell, Tucker looking disgruntled as Sam hid a laugh behind her napkin.

“Raincheck?” Danny grinned, happy when he saw Tucker give a grudging one of his own. “We can talk about it after school. Gaming party at yours?”

“You know it.” Sharing a quick fist bump with the both of them, Danny helped Tucker gather a backpack’s worth of paper as Tucker looked like he tried to stop himself from smiling too widely. “Just you wait, man, I have so many ideas on how to keep this place from becoming hell- Oh! I had a few ideas about our, uh, club.”

“Club? Tuck, we don’t-” Oh. Oh! “Right! The club.” Ghost hunting was a club now, then. Great. “Uh, sure- Yeah. That sounds great.”

A little gaming time with Tucker while talking about their lives sounded like something that was long overdue.

Unfortunately, the ghosts never stayed quiet for long. What was supposed to be a fun night of gaming turned into six hours of fighting off Technus and his latest plan to use the Gamestop in the mall to take over the internet. It was six hours of his life that he was never going to get back, but he figured he could at least make it up to Tucker by taking him to the mall that, thanks to ‘Phantom,’ was still there.

Of course, it would have been better if Desiree hadn’t shown up and started granting wishes by the fountains. One would think that the town of Amity Park would have learned not to wish for things out loud, but four hours of hell proved otherwise. Danny was still trying to figure out who wished for walls to be made of jello. He would kick their ass, if he ever figured it out, that was for sure.

After that it was the Lunch Lady causing a riot at one of the local soup kitchens, Ember trying to enslave a group of teenagers in the park, the Box Ghost taking over the post office, and Johnny and Kitty having a fight that almost destroyed an entire city block.

Finally, though, March was here and things were calming down once again. “Tucker- Hey! Tucker! Wait up!” Student elections for next year’s positions weren’t going to be voted on until late April so Danny had plenty of time to listen to Tucker’s plans and help him out with campaigning and all of that. It would be easier, of course, if Tucker would slow down and wait for him. “Hey, so, I was thinking that today-”

“You could leave me behind and go off and hunt ghosts on your own? Yeah, sounds perfect, Danny, let’s do that.” It wasn’t the words that hurt so much as the way Tucker sounded so bitter. “Here, you can even get a head start. I’ll go home, and you can stand here and wait for the next ghost attack, which should be in, oh, ten minutes? Five, maybe?”

“Okay, no gaming marathon today, then.” Danny shook his head, trying to find out where the bitter attitude was coming from and finding himself unable to. He knew it had been a rough few weeks, but it wasn’t like any of that was Danny’s fault. “Okay, right, I’ll bite, what the hell? I mean, I know I’ve been busy-”

“Busy?” Tucker near knocked Danny over with how fast he turned around. “No, busy would be dealing with the ghosts and then coming to talk to me afterwards. You’ve been a jerk-”

“I’ve been a jerk? You’ve been avoiding me all day when I’ve been trying to catch up to you so we can talk. And I’m sorry, since when am I considered a jerk for taking care of threats that no one else can?”

“No one else- Do you even realize- Do you even see us?! All of this - everything - is all your fault! And you’re too much of a stubborn jerk to even see that!”

“My… And just what, Tucker, is my fault?” None of this was his fault! How was any of this his fault? He had his own stuff to deal with, too, and by the time the fights ended these days, he was too tired to do much more than to make it home and collapse.

What Tucker thought was his fault was something Danny didn’t get to hear. Instead he heard a high-pitched whine, saw Tucker look shocked and scared, and then he felt nothing but pain. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before he saw black.

“Greetings, prey… I had a feeling that my weapons wouldn’t trigger that little detection power of yours.”

“Oh, God, of course it’s you.” Danny’s ears were still ringing, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and sand, but he had enough sense to recognize Skulker’s voice when he heard it. “And here I thought you finally chased the wrong prey and got your suit destroyed or something.”

“Unfortunately for you, that is not the case. No, whelp… You see, I’ve decided that it was high time that we bring our little hunt to new grounds.” Right, Skulker was just going on with his dramatics. That gave Danny at least five good minutes to figure out where the hell he was and why he felt so awful.

The second one he could probably blame on whatever Skulker had used to knock him out. He remembered electricity, just barely, and that was enough. Skulker had probably gone to Technus to have his weapons upgraded, the jerk.

Okay, okay. Focus. He had been leaving school and- Tuck. Tucker. Right. Well, even if they were fighting, he was still sure that Tucker would call Sam and Jazz and some rescue attempt would be put together. At least, that was what he thought until he heard a familiar groan beside him.

“My brains… feel like oatmeal.” Pushing himself up faster than he should have, Danny’s vision swam as he stared down at where Tucker was lying down next to him.

“Ah, yes. I even brought along a friend of yours for our hunt today. I couldn’t have him running to tell others and interrupt our hunt too soon, now could I?”

“Skulker, the second I can see straight I am going to punch you in your face!” Of all the things to happen of course Tucker would be trapped alongside him! Sam, at least, could have kept pace with him, but Tucker? Depending on where they were, they might just be doomed.

“Maybe once you might have been able to, whelp, but I have the home field advantage.” The… The home field advantage? Stomach feeling like it had been taken out of him and dropped off a skyscraper, Danny shot his gaze up towards the sky and saw nothing except green. Green meant that they were in the Ghost Zone, but Skulker wouldn’t be so smug if it was just that. “Now, since I like to give my prey a sporting chance, I’ll give you a ten-minute head start.”

Feeling a tug to his wrist, Danny’s gaze snapped over to where Tucker was looking shocked and scared, eyes wide as he stared at the handcuffs that chained them together. This, Danny realized, just became a lot more difficult.

“Oh, and did I mention your ten minutes began when you awoke?” Skulker’s smug, satisfied words had Danny scrambling to his feet, fighting the wave of dizziness that swept over him as he grabbed Tucker’s arm and pulled him along as he started to run.

“Danny! Do you even know where we’re going?!” Tucker’s shouts only had Danny pulling them along faster, because the sooner they got away from Skulker, the better.

“I think that as long as we’re running away from the crazy mecha suit, then it doesn’t really matter,” Danny yelled back, eyes wide as he tried not to run them into any trees. He had caught glimpses of a forest in the Ghost Zone once before, but since when had there been a jungle? Were they at Skulker’s island or lair or whatever it was?

“And how do we know we’re not gonna just wind up going in circles!” Feeling a jerk on his arm as Tucker tripped over something, Danny swore as he slowed down enough to make sure Tucker didn’t fall before pulling him along again. “Ow- Danny!”

“Just shut up and run, Tuck. We wouldn’t even be in this mess if you hadn’t been acting like a jerk-”

“You’re blaming me for this?!” Tucker stopped again, and Danny grunted as he felt a sharp tug to his wrist where the handcuff was locked around him. He was starting to hate these handcuffs and he couldn’t wait to punch Skulker in the face for this. “This is your fault, dude.”

“My fault? It’s my fault that you’ve been ignoring me for the last few days?” Seeing the other ready to reply, Danny sharply shook his head the same time he pulled on the chain of the handcuffs. “We don’t have time for this. Just shut up and I’ll fly us out of here.”

Danny let himself relax before he was triggering his change into his ghost half, except there were no rings - or anything else. Trying again, Danny swallowed as, again, nothing happened. “Oh no.”

“Oh no?” Tucker frowned, crossing his arms and bringing Danny’s own arm with him. “Why are you saying oh no?” Changing wasn’t working, nor was flying, or intangibility, invisibility, ectoblasts, or anything else.

“We might have a problem,” Danny finally admitted, looking to the handcuffs and realizing for the first time that they were glowing. “Scratch that, we definitely have a problem.”

Tucker followed his gaze after a moment and it seemed to click at once considering the loud swear he let out. “This thing stops your ghost powers?”

“Seems to be the case,” Danny hissed, fingers scrabbling against the cuff on his wrist. He almost started swearing when it didn’t even budge. “Okay- Okay, just- Don’t panic. Just follow me-”

“And who put you in charge?” Tucker looked even more defensive than before as he took a step forward, poking at Danny’s chest, and, seriously? “This is my life on the line, too, you know! Why do you get to make all the decisions?”

“Can we not do this right now?” Danny frowned, batting Tucker’s hand away. “Look, I get it, you’re pissed I don’t get to spend time with you anymore, but we need to get out of here before Skulker tries to skin us or something. As for the other thing, I get to be in charge because I know about ghost things.”

“And I don’t?” Instead of his words reassuring Tucker, the other only seemed to be getting even angrier. As great as it was that they were finally talking, now was really not the time. “Dude, I’ve been right here the entire time! You don’t even see me, but we’ve been learning all of this stuff at the same time! The same pace!”

“Where is this even coming from?!” Danny finally shouted back, not caring that their ten minutes were probably up and Skulker was on the hunt for them. Skulker was the last thing he was worried about, right now. “It’s only recently that we’ve been fighting like this-”

“Recent?” Tucker’s voice was whisper soft before he was yelling again, looking angrier and angrier with each word. “Recent- It’s always been like this! You’ve always been so damn prideful and full of yourself and it’s gotten worse ever since you became ‘Phantom.’ You think you’re above everything!”

For a second, Danny could only stare at his best friend in shock. Then the shock ended and anger set in. “Above- You have no idea what I go through!” They could never understand. Tucker and Sam could never understand what it was like to be half-ghost. They saw him, but they didn’t see the aftermath. They never saw. “I’m trying to be ‘in charge’ because I, at least, know about all these damn ghost things-”

“And I don’t?!” They were the same words, but this time Tucker screamed them as if Danny had just stabbed him. “I’ve been right here this entire time and learning it all the same time as you! I’ve been here the whole time and you don’t even see me! I’m nothing but the tech guy to you!”

“At least you know what you are!” The words exploded out of him, Danny certain that his powers would have already been reacting if they hadn’t been suppressed. “I don’t even know if I’m alive anymore some days-!” Danny’s words died in his throat as he saw green energy that was speeding towards them.

Their ten minutes were definitely up, and Danny realized in that moment how loud they had been screaming. He then realized that while these weapons could hurt ghosts, this was technology that could kill humans, and it was flying right for Tucker’s back and no-

Danny was moving before his brain could make the decision, hands grabbing Tucker by the arm and back of the neck before he was spinning them around to switch places. He then immediately pushed them towards the ground. The blast of energy felt like fire against his skin as it seared across his back, gritted teeth feeling like they would break as he suppressed a scream and hit the ground a second after Tucker.

He didn’t give himself time to recover, instead dragging the two of them up before running through the jungle again, trying not to focus on how Skulker’s laugh boomed all around them. Danny knew Tucker was trying to say something, but Danny ignored it until he was skidding into a cave opening, knowing the hiding spot was only temporary.

“-alright?!” Tucker’s whisper shouting finally sunk in, Danny blinking as he looked over to see Tucker was staring at him with wide, wet eyes and shaking hands. “Dude- Dude, you pretty much just took a bullet for me.”

Staring at him for a minute, Danny finally shrugged and tried for a grin, “I can handle stuff like that.” Tucker couldn’t. Danny was stronger against these types of things even in his human form.

“But- We were fighting. We were fighting and you still- Ow! Hey!” Watching Tucker clutch the back of his head where Danny had just hit him, Danny gave a mock glare.

“Dude, do you seriously think that I would let you get hurt just because we’re fighting?” Danny was definitely pissed at Tucker and he had the urge to drop him off a small hill or something, but even at their worst he would never want Tucker hurt, let alone killed. “Idiot.”

Hearing leaves rustling, Danny jerked them further into the cave, biting his lip at the wave of pain from his back even as he pulled Tucker down to the ground and into the shadows. The two were utterly silent and still as the rustling leaves slowly moved away before they disappeared altogether.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Danny finally said, looking to Tucker and giving him a nudge. “Any ideas, VP?” There was a long moment where Danny thought Tucker was going to make a thing of it before he looked away with a grudging smile.

“Elections aren’t until April, you know,” Tucker said quietly, Danny beyond grateful that they weren’t the type to go into feelings. “Sorry. I-”

“Nope, no, nuh-uh, we don’t have time to deal with emotions. You’ve been a jerk and I’ve been an arrogant asshole or something and got carried away and forgot to tell you that we’re a team, and you’re not just backup.”

“I’ve been a jealous asshole,” Tucker finally corrected, looking suspiciously emotional. “And you’ve been a prideful prick who doesn’t like to take suggestions.” Ah, much better. “You think I would have learned the first time about being jealous.”

The memory of Desiree and her powers sent a shudder through Danny and Tucker both, especially as they remembered the end result. While ‘Tucker Phantom’ hadn’t been bad at first, it had showed Danny that he could get as wrapped up in himself as anyone else. Had he really started slipping that easily, again?

“I haven’t exactly given you reason not to be,” Danny finally said, sitting up slowly and trying not to show how much his back was hurting him. Tucker probably knew, anyways, judging by his wince. “Tuck… I didn’t think I had to say it because I thought you knew, you idiot.”

“As always, you’re full of such affectionate nicknames,” Tucker grumbled, peeking his head out of the cave. “Looks clear, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had Technus rig up some kind of spying system.”

“Yeah, but Tucker, look, man, I’m trying to emotionally connect, here.” At the look on Tucker’s face, Danny did his best not to laugh. “I’m serious. You’re not just tech support.”

“Yeah, yeah, man, I know, we’re friends and I’m part of the team and-”

“We’re not friends.” Danny let Tucker’s shocked silence sit for a moment before he grinned, giving him a nudge. “We’re brothers, aren’t we?”

“Oh my god you almost gave me a heart attack.” Even as Tucker dramatically clutched his chest, Danny could see the way his eyes were getting wet. He knew his own were the same, so at least they had mutually assured destruction. “This conversation never happened.”

“What conversation? Seriously, though, please tell me you have a plan or something, because otherwise we’re kind of screwed.”

“I don’t know how to get these cuffs off, but I do have something.” Watching as Tucker twisted and squirmed around, Danny shook his head as the teen finally got his backpack open from where it was stuck on one arm.

“Tell me that you’re not about to pull out some plot device to save the day or whatever. I know our lives have gotten kind of crazy, Tuck, but-” A Fenton Thermos was being waved in front of him. A Fenton Thermos that was black and green. “Whoa. Dude, what…?”

“I told you I’ve been working on our ghost stuff, too. This is one of the things I was trying to show you, dude.” The Thermos, which looked a lot less like a thermos these days, was the same size as the old ones, but had a metal plate that had a circular pattern to it covering the top instead of the lid it used to have. “It’s like one of those cool sci-fi kinds of openings, you know? You just a press button, this opens up like a circle thing, and boom, you have a ghost capturing ray.”

“Tuck, you’re a genius.” Taking the Thermos, Danny’s grin got even wider as he thought about how much work must have gone into something like this. “You’re my favorite.”

“Sweet. I’d tell Sam, but I don’t know if the satisfaction would be worth both of our deaths,” Tucker laughed, falling silent the same time Danny did. A branch had snapped not far off from where they were sitting. “Wanna take that thing for a test drive?”

“Tuck, you read my mind.” Danny grinned as the two of them stood back up, Danny realizing in that moment that Tucker really had been through it all with him. As Skulker stepped out of the foliage, Danny’s grin grew wider. This was going to be fun.

“I was wondering when you would be back! Honestly, you could at least give warning if you’re going to disappear for weeks on… end.” Ghostwriter stared at him and Danny could see the exact moment that he registered Danny’s back was bleeding and he was chained to Tucker. “This one must be Tucker, I presume?”

“Oh, cool, you do talk about us!” Tucker’s voice was a cheerful little chirp as he stuck his hand out. “Yo. I’m Tucker Foley, Danny’s best-friend-slash-brother. You must be the ghostly book nerd he won’t shut up about.”

“You’re going to make me regret bringing you here, aren’t you,” Danny grumbled, reluctantly amused when Ghostwriter cautiously shook Tucker’s hand. “So, uh, hey, do you know how to lockpick handcuffs?”

“I do, actually, yes.” Oh, cool. That made this easier. Danny also knew what he was asking Ghostwriter about next time he visited. “I take it those handcuffs were not a choice, then.”

“Why- Why would you think it was a choice?” Danny was grateful that Tucker looked just as horrified, but Ghostwriter only looked amused as he opened the door properly for them.

“Who am I to judge another’s preferences? Come on, then. It shouldn’t take me long. I take it that’s been cancelling out your abilities?”

“Yeah, Skulker’s a dick,” Danny nodded, pulling Tucker into the library and using the handcuff like a leash when it looked like Tucker was about to run off to explore. “Do you have bandages, too?”

“Goodness, you’re certainly high maintenance,” Ghostwriter sighed, looking amused instead of concerned, thank God. Danny was good enough with all the concern he already got. “I should have something.”

“So, hey, you know, you could totally go digital and get rid of half these books - maybe free up some space, even. I mean, paper copies aren’t really efficient.”

Ghostwriter, after faltering in his steps and looking back, gave Tucker the dirtiest look that could ever be imagined, Danny breaking and starting to laugh when Tucker only beamed back before going in depth about the advantage of technology over books. It was good to have things back to normal.

Danny couldn’t wait until they got even better, though.

#danny phantom #guardians series #from the beginning #ftb chapters #iambic prose

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another-chorus-girl · 7 years ago

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‘Ghosts of Phantoms past’ An Erik House drabble

So this is in part a “Christmas Carol” parody and a request for @sparklyerik especially. Like my other Erik house drabbles this is not necessarily in the canon so you don’t have to read this to know what’s going on in the story-however I still would appreciate if you’d read it :)

Merry Christmas!

Everywhere the eye could see was coated in a blanket of snow. In the city lights gimmered and twinkled, carols of old were sung on this winter's night. Even within the house, where several masked masters of music, Christmas' effect on everyone was infectious. All throughout the house, everyone seemed quite harmoniously at ease.

All but one that is.

Erik was more than happy keeping himself shut in. Not that anyone would bother with him. Each passing day he felt the ever more alone and rejected. Even despite the others efforts to raise his spirits. And Christmas, a time spent with family and companions felt all the more sickening to him, a harsh reminder that he was alone.

"You realise you especially are more than welcome to join us?" Crawford suggested to him that Christmas Eve. "We all know what it's like, you don't need to shut yourself away."

"While touching, that's quite easy for you to say." Erik scowled, barely looking up from his latest composition penned in messy red handwriting. "There's hardly a moment of solitude on your floor. Barely anyone pays me mind with you and your boys present."

Crawford paused, "Is this about Christine?"

"Let's not discuss her."

"Sarah said she tried to get here, but the storm outside was just too-"

"Enough!" Erik raised his voice, his temper flaring. "Not even Christine wants to see me, she needn't have her friends make up some lie to feed me."

"Monsieur please-"

"Just go. I'd rather immerse myself in my work."

With a sigh, the older Merik nodded not wanting to push too hard.

Going up the steps to the main floor, his mismatch eyes gave a warning glare to Gerik, whom coming down the stairwell nearly ran right into him.

"Now what?!" Erik growled, slamming his hands down in frustration on the keys in front of him that moaned in a bellowed protest.

Though a little nervously Gerik smiled, "Just wanted to bring you something a thank you and to say Merry Christmas."

"What reason have you to be merry?

"What right have you to be so dismal?" Gerik smirked, understanding that the older man could be get into such sour moods, but in the very least attempted to lighten his spirit.

Erik raised a brow behind his mask at the parcel in Gerik's black gloved hand that he nudged closer to him.

"I appreciate all you've been doing for me," The film adapted man said, "So much that I've been writing a new score, and I wanted you to be the first to read it. We could go up to the main parlour? Destler is suppose to have it's use right now but he and Winslow are out. And what with it being Christmas-"

"Humbug to this whole nonsensical season."

Gerik frowned, "Christmas a humbug? You don't mean that."

"Not tonight boy," Erik grumbled. "You should just go and join the others. Keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine."

"But you don't seem to keep it."

"Let me leave it alone then. Much good has it ever done you." Gerik nodded, "In the past I have regarded it as just that. But this year, Christmas being a kind, charitable time, I feel like I'm actually a part of it for once."

The film adapted man smiled noting to himself his pleasant surprise that Kerik-while pretended to be just as cynical about the whole holiday shoved an intricately wrapped box into his hands just moments ago upstairs. Gerik was puzzled by Erik's sneer. He was never this cross

"Is something the matter?"

"Like you should care? Why should anybody?"

He frowned, "We wouldn't be here without you."

Erik shook his head, "What recognition do I get for it? I'm just lost in obscurity, just like the ghostly facade I've taken."

Gerik looked down at his boots, Erik heaved a heavy sigh.

"Please. Please I don't want to argue with you. Your gesture is kind, but I need to be left alone. I'm rather use to it."

"Is there no way of changing your mind?" Gerik called one last time, concerned for his mentor."

Erik shooed Gerik off with the wave of a skeletal hand, "Good afternoon."

The world had looked past him and let his story be lost to the ages. He had no interest in enjoying any sort of festivity feeling unwanted and irrelevant.

Having spent the remainder of the evening composing, Erik leaned back. Returning to reality his energy felt drained. Rest and sustenance he even still neglected. Tonight however, he felt this pull for both. Perhaps something as basic as a bowl of porridge and just a few hours rest was the break he needed and then he could continue. Perhaps by the time he awoke and began his music once more, this trivial holiday would be over. The masked man hated the reminder of how alone and unappreciated he felt about his existence. -- Erik's head shot up hearing something behind him. Whipping around, he saw no one. Shaking his head, he dismissed it as nothing more than a rat scuttle. While Kerik's feline was an outstanding mouser snuffing out many stray vermin, some unfortunately slipped inside the house from time to time-likely coming from Jerik's dumpster.

Resting his head back down he just barely felt the hand that hesitantly reached out and touched his shoulder. Tired glowing eyes opened at half mast.

He stared back at a pair of dark grey eyes behind a cloth mask.

"Lerik? What is the meaning of this?" Erik questioned, the opposite man not even phased that he was not wearing a mask to conceal his death's head like appearance.

He could see Lerik begin making hand gestures and shook his head.

"Oh for the love of Faust write it down!" Erik scowled. He was unwelcoming to Lerik, but he and Crawford knew well to schedule their meetings well in advance. And certainly not at midnight-granted at this time the men would be composing rather than resting.

But rather than reach for a piece of parchment he shook his head, as Erik noted he could hear a muffled noise escape Lerik from behind the mask.

Erik blinked, was Lerik trying to speak? How was that possible.

"I mastered pantomime, but do know how to communicate," A low voice uttered from beneath the cloth.

Erik's eyes were wide in surprise, "You've never spoken...I must be hallucinating."

"You do not believe in me? Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because the littlest thing can affect them, I don't doubt you exist but this cannot possibly be real."

Lerik merely clasped his hands together and stared down with him.

Erik spoke cautiously, "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

"Man of worldly mind do you believe in me or not?" Lerik sounded rather impatient.

"I do....I must. I cannot remain ignorant." This didn't feel like some poor excuse for trickery, what reason would he even have to do so.

"Then hear me monsieur, for my time is nearly gone."

"Tell me then?"

"Tonight, you will be haunted by three spirits"

"Spirits? Is this a jest?" Erik snorted, despite seeing this strange occurrence was still sceptical

"Expect the first, when the bell tolls one."

Erik shook his head, "The Opera Ghost being haunted by spirits of his own? Now really that's just-"

But when he turned back to face Lerik, he was nowhere to be seen. Erik was left alone in the dark.

The house was deftly silent, the clock chime signifying it was exactly one o'clock. Erik's brow furrowed hearing the chime. He was by nature a very light sleeper, but still rather groggy as he awoke. Slouching up to a sitting position in the coffin, his golden eyes glanced around, piercing the darkness.

He scoffed, "Spirits, absolute nonsense."

But as he began to sink back down into the silk lining, he noticed a light out of the corner of his eye.

The light was coming from the next room.

"Really now," Erik growled, getting out of the coffin and made for the sitting room. Wrapping a deep red robe over his nightwear, and making good to reapply his mask, the recluse skulked down to the main room. He found the light source to be one of the candelabras.

But no one was in the room.

Removing the black mask-lacking a proper mouthpiece-Erik reached for the candelabra, blowing out the tiny flames when he heard steps.

Slamming the candle holder down he placed his mask back on and sprinted toward the steps. They sounded as though they came from the stairwell and were going up.

"Kerik if this is more of your tomfoolery I will string you up by-" Erik exclaimed, not necessarily caring whom he woke on the first floor. But his threat was cut short noticing the parlour's fireplace was lit.

But more so whom was hovering their hands over the fire for sought out warmth.

"Y-You..." Erik mumbled, hardly believing what or whom he saw.

The man, much shorter and with a healthier build to the skeletal man, turned noticing him. Well dressed in a grey suit, his hair slightly curled but well kept as was his moustache, smiled back at Erik. His glasses seem to gleam in the fire's light.

"Been quite awhile hasn't it?" Leroux noted.

"I don't understand." Erik was puzzled and his mouth would appear agape similarly to a fish if he were not wearing his mask. "Gaston, how can you? You're-?"

"Quite a lovely home you've made for yourself here. But really my boy it's absolutely freezing in here."

"How and why are you here?" Erik asked, "You died over a hundred years ago."

"A hundred and ten actually, but I appreciate you've been keeping track."

"I don't understand how this can be?"

Glancing up at the grandfather clock adjacent from his, Leroux nodded, "It's one o'clock on the dot. I'm here for you Erik."

"So you're some sort of ghost?"

Leroux laughed, "Must sound quite funny coming from you, yes? I'm a ghost of the past of sorts I suppose."

"Long past?"

"Well your past that is."

The man held a hand out, "Come along,"

Erik's golden eyes stared from the offered hand to Gaston's dark eyes.

"Where are we going?" He asked.

"Back," He answered.

Erik heaved a hard sigh, not liking the idea of uncertainty. But in this man he always put trust in. Upon taking Leroux's hand Erik gasped feeling a swirling sensation overcome him, as if he were being violently spun around.

Opening his glowing eyes they were no longer in the dimly lit parlour, or the house for that matter.

Erik gaped upon seeing the angelic statues of gilt copper and bronze atop Palais Garnier rooftop. He walked towards the edge, overlooking the busy Parisian streets, people looking more like ants from where they stood going about their lives.

"I'm home?" He said no louder than a whisper.

Gaston nodded, "In a manner of speaking."

Leading them down from the roof, Erik soon heard more sounds. Music.

He stopped, tugging on Gaston's sleeve. "Wait, someone will see us. No one need discover me."

"Trust me son, we're certainly out of sight." Gesturing for the skeletal man to follow, Erik did so as they came up to a door leading into one of the private boxes.

"Does any of this look familiar?" Leroux asked, pushing his glasses up.

"Of course it does," Erik couldn't help but say as-a-matter-of-factly. "This is after all MY private box."

Stepping into Box 5, his golden eyes glanced down at the stage before them.

He remembered this performance. While it wasn't a particular favourite, Erik had no scathing problem with the opera.

But still he remembered this day all too well. The screams and sounds of panic gave way as the counterweights fell toward the fourth tier seats.

"One dead and several others injured because of that," Erik mused, "I remember"

"Calm before the storm, hm?" Leroux noted, "The chandelier itself you brought down would do even more damage."

The scene seemed to melt away as Parisian's fled or scrambled to find help.

"Now where are we?" Erik paused, "Wait a moment I know where."

He could see a familiar black and grey cloaked figure seated by an organ, playing his life's work.

Lerik barely registered Mary's advance on him from behind. But his head shot up, a look of horror on his now revealed face, his skin tight and nose sunken in. Several screams and gasps were heard all around them as people whom could not see or acknowledge Erik or Gaston ran passed. Others who ran in as opposed to out tended to the frightened women whom had fainted at the grotesque sight before they're eyes.

"And still the world fears my face," Erik grimaced. "As if anyone could possibly show me anything but disgust."

Leroux shook his head. "I think you assume too quickly. The world constantly revolves and changes. " Reaching into his pocket, he glanced down at the watch in his hand.

"Speaking of time, it seems mine is running short."

Erik turned, his normally cold glaring eyes filling with sorrow and regret.

"Gaston forgive me. I'm a poor excuse for being your last legacy."

Shaking his head, the journalist disagreed.

"I wouldn't say that at all son," Leroux smiled, "My other works wouldn't have even been picked up had it not been for you."

"But no one bothered with me for so long."

"Your story is one that the masses were not ready for right away. It just took them some time to come around." Patting Erik's shoulder Leroux walked past.

"Just remember what I said when the next chime comes around."

In a swirling haze, Erik glanced back around for any sign of Gaston. But the long since passed journalist was gone and the masked man was alone in his chambers.

The clock chimed once more. Erik was unroused by this ring.

Rather what caused his eyes to pop open was the bellow of a pipe organ.

"By Apollo! What the hell is happening?!" Erik yelled, getting up and sprinting into his sitting room.

It was his organ being played no doubt, catching sight of the culprit whom had their back to him.

Erik scowled, noting the slick wig and multi ranging tones of blue and gold on the man's evening robe.

"Whichever one you are," He started, unsure which Merik he was talking to, "I don't know why you feel the need to play down here when you have a perfectly fine set upstairs. But I will give you to the count of dix to remove yourself from my room monsieur."

Turning around, Erik was puzzled to see it was Karimloo. What business exactly did the two have?

The West End Merik nodded. "You must have expected Crawford right? You two talk more than you would with me. But I suppose while he contributes to this that the ghost of your present must be a modern face. Or at least my good half."

Erik narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean my present?"

Standing up, Karimloo approached him, both men almost at equal standing height.

"Take my arm, I'll show you." The Merik said.

Erik shook his head, "This is insane."

Karimloo sighed, "Just touch my robe, you'll see."

"Fine fine then." Thin, bony hands grasped Karimloo's clothed wrist. Erik shut his eyes tight feeling that whirling sensation again, trying to will it away. But like last time the feeling quickly left as it began.

Looking around, Erik noted they were on a busy street, this time around however the people passing by-and through them for that matter-were of more modern dress.

"Now where are we?" He asked.

"London, on Haymarket to be precise," Glancing around. "I think I'm a little underdressed."

As Karimloo removed his robe, revealing his impeccable tailcoat suit, Erik looked around.

"Why?"

"We should go inside first, we're already late."

Leading them in, Erik's gaze softened.

"I know where we are now..." He mused, the two men entering the dark auditorium where hundreds of seats were absolutely filled.

"Looks like we'll have to stand," Karimloo observed.

The orchestra became louder and the tune changing ever so slightly as candles rose and two figures sailed into view on a gondola.

"And in this labyrinth, where night is blind.

The Phantom of the Opera is there/here, inside your/my mind!"

Erik smiled, watching the soprano be lifted up out of the boat.

"Your present is quite extensive as you can see." Karimloo indicated.

Erik felt as though his ears were deceiving him. The more he listened, the more the voice seemed to change.

He had seen and heard Crawford playing the organ just a moment ago, but the tenor's tune had changed. This time he could swear he heard Jones now. But once more it changed again, it seemed to be every Merik all at once after the other. Karrie, Wilkinson, Carpenter, Joback. All different, but still one and the same.

"Over thirty one years worth of voices for your music." Karimloo smiled. "And just listen."

Erik felt the thunderous applause rumble all around him, beating against his ears like drums. The theatre melted away but looked quite similar to the one they were standing in.

More voices as the Meriks' of Broadway sang. The skeletal man could hear Panaro, Lewis, Gaines, and even more. It seemed to be every time he blinked it was a new face-so to speak-and another powerful voice, most tenor but even those that were baritone. The music of the night coming to life before Erik's eyes and ears.

"It seems my time is over now. The opera is done, the last notes have been played." He heard Karimloo say, but turning to where he heard the Merik's voice he saw no one. Hearing only a light chuckle fade away into the wind.

Erik looked around, wondering just where he'd gone. While the chill of the cold was not something he was easily susceptible to. But given it was the dead of winter's night and he was adorned in his nightwear alone left him in fending off the bitter cold wind.

Turning around, he felt that invasive feeling that the masked man was being watched. Turning, Erik was met with a cloaked figure standing mere steps away, slowly walking closer to him.

Erik snorted, "Trying to be a regular Don Juan with that cloak Karimloo?"

But the figure didn't answer him and simply stood before him. Behind the full mask he raised a brow, something didn't feel the same. It wasn't Karimloo under the hood whoever this was was taller-and seemed tower even over him.

And there was a feeling of uncertainty about this figure. As if they foretold something yet to come.

"Who are you?" He asked "You're here for me as well arn't you?"

The black hooded figure said nothing. It raised a hand for him to take.

Erik had been use to how this works well enough by now. But he felt unnerved taking this spectral beings hand-it was cold as ice even more so than his own waxy skin.

The feeling spinning and tumbling overcame him once more. Erik opened his golden eyes to another city street. More busy people, living day to day lives. It looked as though they were in Paris again, but certainly not the 1880s again.

"Spirit?" Erik asked, not certain if this truly was a ghost or not. "Where have you taken us?"

The cloaked figure gestured to a theatre house. Not quite as extravagant as Palais Garnier but with a similar air of sophistication.

Erik blinked looking up at the listing with a familiar poster attached.

'Fantôme de l'Opéra Sièges disponibles pour la performance de ce soir Aujourd'hui à 2h30 et à 7h30'

He shook his head, "I don't understand. There was a fire and it-"

He turned, "What year is it spirit?"

This had to be further on in the future. What else had happened?

The figure tugged on his arm, pulling Erik back. The venue and place changing once again.

"I think it's going to be good!" He heard one voice say. He and his cloaked companion were standing just outside another theatre, although this facility was much more digital and domestic.

Behind the corner Erik eavesdropped on the conversation.

"I don't know, you saw what they did with the Mummy." Another voice said unconvinced.

"They made up for that though! The first one is always a flop. And I mean it's going to be more like the original story!"

"So not the half mask? Maybe Universal really is giving us what we want."

From around the corner he could hear a clicking noise. Peering over-his dark dress and mask still concealing him in the shadows-Erik spied one of the girls holding one of those 'smartphone' contraptions.

'So excited to see Phantom on the big screen again! <3' He could see the post read on the illuminated screen.

"What are they on about?" Turning to the hooded figure he asked. "Is this really possible? This future can't possibly be? After all this time I'm still remembered?"

Still silent, Erik clenched his fists and finally his hands flew up to the hood. "Who are you?!"

But lifting it, Erik found himself staring back at another full mask similar to his own, piercing golden eyes staring right into his. But he could tell nothing more about this masked stranger.

His vision felt blurred, the affects of all this too overwhelming for his aged heart as Erik felt his knees go weak.

With a start Erik rose from his coffin, a bony hand clenched over his chest. He panted for breath, a cold sweat racked his body. Looking around, he was in his basement dwelling. Nothing was out of place, no intrusive guests.

Was it real? Was it all a dream?

Creeping upstairs, so perplexed at the night that may or may not have happened, he nearly ran into the child playing chase with Soot through the parlour.

"Oh! I'm sorry sir!" Gustauve apologised. Mr. Y came wheeling around the corner.

"Gustauve! You should be more-" He paused noticing Erik's presence. "I'm sorry about him Monsieur Fantome, a careless accident?"

But rather than stare daggers at he and the boy as expected, the golden glow of his eyes softened, smiling from behind the full mask.

"Easily forgiven. Tell me something, what day is today?"

"Today?" Y asked back.

"It's Christmas Day!" Gustauve chirped in happily.

"Christmas Day, the spirits did it all in one night?" Erik mumbled, "Though of course they can. They can do anything they like. Erik should have expected as much"

"Monsieur? Are you quite alright?" The boy asked puzzled

Erik smiled behind his mask at Gustauve gesturing to Mr.Y, "A delightful child you have there,"

Stunned, Y actually blinked. "Are you sure you're not feeling unwell?"

"On the contrary, feeling in exceptionally good health today." Walking past them, Erik made his way upstairs.

Only halfway up the stairs and he could hear the carols being sung in the Meriks parlour.

"O holy night the stars are brightly shining It is the night of our dear Savior's birth Long lay the world in sin and error pining Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth"

Erik slinked in around the corner, Cherik and Jones seated together on one of the sofas gaped seeing him enter silently.

Panaro faltered in tune spying him as well, a few of the other also bumbling with their notes.

Turning to the disturbance, Crawford's mismatch eyes blinked.

"Monsieur?" He asked, "I had thought after yesterday that-"

But Erik shook his head. "If...If you'll have me I'd love to join you for today?"

The older Merik laughed, trying to keep it down so as it did not come off as a cackle-attempting to kick the old habit.

"If we'll have you? Of course! It would be an honour. Although I suppose if you'd rather not a carol we can-"

"Nonsense! Continue please," He urged. He glanced back at the doorway, noticing Gerik walk through. "I'll join in with you all in a moment."

As the Meriks' picked up where they left off, he tapped Gerik on the back. The film adapted man was shocked to say the least.

"I didn't expect to see you here?" Gerik asked.

Erik held out for him sheet music.

"It's quite a lovely piece. Daresay I'm rather proud that in a way I helped you compose this." Erik nodded to him.

Gerik's shoulders sank and he smiled, touched that he'd finally crafted something worthy of Erik's ear.

The full masked man gestured to the organ bench. "Care to listen?"

Nodding eagerly the two sat down, Erik's poised long fingers pressing gentle upon the keys. The parlour falling into eventual silence as they listened, glancing over their shoulders the Meriks' easily picked up on the tune and began to sing.

Erik let a smile grace his thin lips, he turned hearing a light clap behind him. He felt as those his eyes deceived him, seeing a bob of long blonde hair and glee filled eyes as deep blue as the ocean.

"Christine?" He asked, feeling as though he could weep.

"The storm last night cleared up," She smiled, "Sierra asked Fraser if they stop my way and retrieve me on the way here. I'm so sorry if you were upset that I could not come last night, I so wanted to."

He clasped her delicate small hand in his, leaning his head against her fingers he felt himself shaken.

“My dear,” He asked, “If it’s not too much, could you sing?”

Christine’s kind smile gleamed from ear to ear on her kind face, “I would be delighted to.”

In the midst of such blissful harmony, Erik didn't quite feel so alone.

Here we go!

-Throughout the story I scattered and paraphrased some lines and quotes from “A Christmas Carol” naturally.

-Lon Chaney parents were both deaf and due to this he was raised learning the art of pantomime

- The original incident that inspired the chandelier crash in Gaston Leroux’s novel and the adaptations following this was during a performance of the opera Helle' at the Palais Garnier in 1896 when two counterweights for the chandelier fell and collapsed onto the fourth row, killing one woman and injuring several others.

-When Lon Chaney’s film was shown to audience members for the first time, it was reported that patrons were screaming, running out of the theatre and fainting at the sight of the deformity upon the Phantom being unmasked.

-Mary of course being Mary Philbin, Lerik’s Christine in the 1925 film.

-in October 2017 ALW’s PotO was suppose to be performed at the Mogador theatre in Paris, but due to a fire it was sadly cancelled and never performed.

-The reference to Phantom on the big screen is to the unmade film by Universal Studios, as they are attempted to create a cinematic ‘Dark Universe’ for the classic movie monsters including the Phantom of the Opera. ‘The Mummy’ is the first instalment already released starring Tom Cruise but so far is a cinematic flop and leaving the question of whether or not a reboot movie of Phantom will still happen.

-Moreso a tidbit, several previous Phantom actors including Jones, Crawford, and Panaro just to name a few have recorded their own versions of ‘O Holy Night’ sung.

#Erik house AU #Erik #Lerik #Merik #PotO #phantom #Christmas #Christmas Carol

33 notes · View notes

skyedestiny · 8 years ago

Note

68, with dealer's choice of characters

Oho~, dealer’s choice, you say! Now this is interesting.

“Please don’t leave again.”

This was actually really difficult from the get-go, because it dealt with picking people who I thought: 1. this could apply to, and 2. this would be said by. Or at least expressed by.

For whatever reason, this prompt seems to pull me to Yoongi. Not something I’m unappreciative of. I look up to Yoongi a lot, as his battles with depression and anxiety, and how he has powered through them and works on continuing to consistently inspires me. I relate to him and aspire to, one day, come to a place like the one he has. So it was just a matter, then, of who I feel would say such a thing, as spoken in the prompt, or would express such a thing. It felt only natural to go with our resident “@hyung” caregiver, and our sunshiney half of Sope. This is yoonminseok.

(AO3 link)

He was better.

He really was. This was truly not denial. There was no doubting that Yoongi had gotten better in terms of how his depression and social anxiety affected him. At times it seemed like it wasn’t even there, nowadays. Like it was a thing so distant in the past that, maybe, he’d never even suffered from it in the first place.

It was still there, though. Every now and then it would act up. His thoughts would turn into a garbled river of words. Years of practice of upholding a calm demeanor had taught him how to use that demeanor as a facade. Fake it ‘til you make it. Eventually, his insides would match his outsides and he’d be okay.

That was how things usually went, at least, in the case of the anxiety. One of the good things about being in a group of seven members was that you could zone out for a little during appearances, let your consciousness drift for just long enough to steady your heart and mind and no one would really notice. Even during performances, as long as you knew your part well enough (and a solo wasn’t coming up).

It’d been a long time since the river of words had been this bad, though. Today, it flowed rapidly, crashed Yoongi’s heart up against the rocks. He’d noticed, before it got too terrible, that this was worse than normal and excused himself. Now he was warring with himself over whether that was the right idea or not.

He was alone, now, and near hyperventilating.

He wasn’t really sure where he was going when he began to walk. He just knew that he had to get away from all sound, from all people. Every little thing was spiking into his senses like a needle, and halfway to wherever it was he was going, he was breathing haggardly, almost stumbling, nauseated and exhausted but feeling so energized in all the wrong ways that it felt like a scream could bubble out of him at any moment. (It was either going to be a scream or vomit.)

No. No, no, no. Why? Why now?

They had been just about to launch into rehearsals for a show. Why did his anxiety have to kick in now?

Eventually, he collapsed. He didn’t fall, but Yoongi let himself fold in on himself. He scrunched in a corner, hidden by something he could barely make out at this point, and pulled his knees to his chest, leaned on the slab of the wall to his left.

He closed his eyes, put one hand to his chest.

Please calm down. Please calm down. He looked aggrieved, frustrated with himself and desperate.

He barely heard the door open when it did.

No, no, please, go away.

He didn’t want anyone seeing him like this. He needed time to reign himself back in. Yoongi kept his eyes closed as if this would stop him from being seen just as well as it would stop him from seeing.

There wasn’t really anything that could disguise his labored breaths, though, and the new footsteps in the room came closer until they stopped short.

Silence for a moment. As if the figure who’d entered the space had only been a specter who’d now vanished.

Then, a voice. “Yah, it’s me. I found him.” Hoseok’s voice.

More footsteps, and then the sound of ruffling clothes, incredibly close. “Hyung, hey.” Hoseok’s voice was gentle, quiet. So was the hand that landed on Yoongi’s shoulder and rubbed at it. Yoongi was surprised that he didn’t flinch at the gesture. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be alright, hyung. Breathe. I’m here. It’s only me.”

Yoongi opened his eyes, one at a time, as if he only had enough energy for that. “Seo-.. Hoseok-ah.” He swallowed. He was trying for an authoritative tone. His current breathless state didn’t really allow for that, though.

God he looked terrible. Yoongi was flushed and paler than usual, and swaying even though he was sitting. Hoseok had been lucky to find him. He figured he might’ve gone back to the waiting room.

It was empty now, all the staff members having migrated to a place that was closer to the stage to allow for quick changes and on-the-go reapplications of makeup.

Damn it, Hoseok had known something was up when Yoongi had excused himself suddenly. The way he’d said he’d had to leave had been uncharacteristically timid. Yoongi was usually quiet, but this time the softness of his voice had been laden with apprehension, a lack of focus, as if he’d been called away by someone for something urgent and scary.

He was lucky to find him as soon as he did.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hoseok cautioned, foreseeing what Yoongi was going to attempt to demand of him.

Yoongi glowered in response, but only for a second. Eventually, he retreated, working his throat and leaning his head back into the cold wall. It was soothing and numbing and right now he just didn’t have enough energy to argue.

The truth was, he wasn’t really mad. This was embarrassing, humiliating. But part of Yoongi was glad for Hoseok’s presence, for the fact that Hoseok wouldn’t let Yoongi push him away.

Hoseok’s hand left his shoulder, and Yoongi no longer felt the younger’s gaze on him. So he turned towards his dongsaeng. Hoseok was on his phone, typing something.

“What are you doing?” Yoongi asked, his voice hoarse. There was something vulnerable about his curiosity.

“Texting Jimin.” Hoseok didn’t look up to speak. His fingers continued to glide across the device. “He was worried about you too.”

The elder rapper tried for a frustrated sigh. But it just ended up sounding tired and breathless. Like he’d used air that he couldn’t really afford to waste. “I didn’t even want you here,” Yoongi whined. Any other day, these words would be paired with a teasing lilt or a tone so dry it couldn’t possibly be serious. Right now, they sounded desperate. That was probably better because these words were serious. “I don’t want that kid to see me like this.”

Hoseok didn’t take what he said to offense, though. He knew this all had to feel like a sharp blow to Yoongi’s pride. Being seen in such a state, disheveled and completely apart, and having to be taken care of by those younger than him. But Hoseok also knew that Yoongi needed this. “Shh.” He also knew Yoongi was in no state to get further agitated. He’d noticed his hyung’s breath picking up again and knew that it was time to interrupt the flow, so as to stop any oncoming anxiety right in its tracks.

His hand cupped the back of his hyung’s neck in a move that was meant to steal focus and supply comfort in equal measures.

Yoongi stopped cold, his breath seeming to catch.

Quiet lingered for only a moment as Hoseok waited for Yoongi to regulate. And then, he said, “What do you think he’s going to do?

A good point. What did Yoongi think was going to happen? The only people seeing him would be Jimin and Hoseok. Neither of them would mock him. Neither of them would hold this against him.

Still, this issue wouldn’t leave him alone. That this was shameful. He’d thought he was past these sorts of breakdowns. And eventually, he murmured out his thoughts, his deep voice almost an uncharacteristic whimper. But it was too low to be sure. “I’m supposed to be the hyung.”

Hoseok’s heart-shaped lips pursed into a frown, his brows pulling together. His hand moved, to the intersection between neck and shoulder. He massaged gently. “Well, let us temporarily take on the role now.” He gave a half-shrug of his own shoulder as if the concept and solution were simple. “In name only.”

Before Yoongi had the chance to think up a response, the door flew open. “Hyung!” Jimin’s steps were fast, almost panicked. And restrained, as if his normal stride at this speed would be too much for the room to take. It was the complete opposite of how Hoseok had entered.

Speaking of Hoseok, he whipped around to face Jimin, his gaze stern and admonishing. “Yah, Park Jimin!” he said. “Shhh!”

Jimin addressed him and, at the same time, ignored his criticism, standing tall and panting as if unfazed and having come here after a jog. “Is he alright?”

“I’m fine,” said Yoongi, tone with a bit of bite in it. “I can talk for myself and I don’t need quiet. I’m not a fragile glass vase.”

This had, perhaps, the opposite of the desired effect. Struck by Yoongi’s words and tone, both younger men fell silent. A water bottle was passed from Jimin to Yoongi, and from there, not a sound transpired except for the cap being twisted off and the water sloshing as Yoongi put his head back to drink.

Instantly, he felt better. Physically, at least. The wall and empty room had helped to cool his skin and now the water had helped to cool off the rest of him. But he was left with a twinge of guilt from having lost his temper.

Yoongi couldn’t meet either’s gaze. He was left with the urge to apologize but had no idea how. So the silence remained unbroken.

Hoseok’s eyes had settled on his hyung’s. And Jimin’s shifted meaningfully between Yoongi and Hoseok, casting the younger of the two a look that seemed well-meaningly conspiratorial, as if they were communicating without words.

“You look better,” Hoseok eventually noted. “You’ve got color back in your face.” Slowly, a smile rose to Hoseok’s lips, stretching at the corners ‘til his dimples showed. “You scared me for a minute there. You were so pale that I thought you were a ghost.”

A slow grin rose to Jimin’s lips as well, as if cuing in on some silent joke. “Don’t be silly, hyung, he’s always been a ghost. The makeup noonas just do him up so that he looks alive to the rest of us. Haven’t you noticed?”

Hoseok leaned back on his hands, casting Jimin a look of mock disbelief. “Oh, really? Which one of us is Haley Joel Osment in this scenario?”

“We all see him, hyung.” Jimin said it as if that should have been obvious. “The world is Haley Joel Osment.”

Hoseok’s laughter. “That is terrifying!”

Jimin’s giggles.

Yoongi looked over just in time to see Jimin’s expression pull into a faked look of seriousness and fright, eyes turning to saucers as the grin fell from his lips. “We all see dead people.”

Pulling a face, Hoseok snickered and spoke through laughter, rocking in his spot from the sheer force of his mirth. “Your English pronunciation is still awful.”

But this playful jab only had Jimin exploding into laughter. “Shut up!” He aims a sharp shove at his elder.

“Yah, what do you think you’re doing with that tiny hand?!”

“I’m hitting my horse-faced hyung!”

“Such disrespect - that’s your Haley Joel Osment-faced hyung.”

“You two are ridiculous.” The words were rumbled with a shake of Yoongi’s head, but it was impossible to miss the elder’s smile. Much as he tried to stop it from reaching his face.

“What are you complaining about?” asked Hoseok with a jut of his chin. “You’re Bruce Willis, you get the best deal out of any of us.”

“Well that’s just natural,” said Yoongi, voice more powerful now as he turned to Jimin and Hoseok and tried for a serious expression. Still, his smile would not be repressed. “I’m the best-looking out of all of us.”

“He stands above the Haley Joel Osments of the world!” Hoseok expounded as Jimin laughed.

The three spent some more time laughing and teasing. Eventually, they were able to head back to the stage. Needless to say, they were a little late. But all the members could tell that what Hoseok and Jimin had been off doing had been important.

Their rehearsal, consequently, was rushed, which made things difficult, but they made it through. Yoongi never offered an apology, mainly because he didn’t know how, but Jimin and Hoseok did everything they could to assure one wasn’t needed.

It took some time for him to be able to even verbally thank the two for their help. But there wasn’t a time before that point that that thanks was ever not felt.

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