#yo bro hear me out... do u have a name for this au cause i feel weird not tagging it with a name lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

just-some-random-blogger · 3 years

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Death By Bagel

NCT Culinary Student!Mark Lee x Fashion Design Student!Reader Summary: Mark makes a cake cause he's realized he can't lose you to some f-boy. Word Count: 3k+ Warnings: Fluff, childhood au, college au, slowish burn, slight cursing, reallllly fluffy, some broksi-dude action, typos sksksksks, etc.

R E Q U E S T my friend: mark lee, slow burn, friends to lovers

A/N: I wrote a fic that already had like 1k+ word then I LOST IT (i think i deleted it) thus this. It took me 10 years to write this msmsmkskskks. PLEASE TUMBLR IS MESSING WITH ME AND MIXED UP THE ORDER OF SOME OF THE DIALOGUE

“As a doctor, I don’t think you should be doing that,” Mark says, not even bothering to look at his patient seated rudely on the floor. Oop, he’s lying down now.

Mark huffs and looks up from the clay block he was molding on his tray, “YOU’RE SO UNPROFESSIONAL!”

Mark’s mother nearly spits out her coffee upon hearing the words of his five-year-old son. Her husband snorts, “He got that from you.”

The woman throws a look at the man and was supposed to give a snarky retort, up until the sound of the doorbell ringing. She grins from ear-to-ear and dashes to get the door.

When she comes back to the living room, she’s accompanies by another woman and a tiny version of her.

“Markie! Say hello to your Auntie!” Mark’s mom calls.

Mark from the carpeted floor looks up and blinks, examining the stranger-woman and its human-ling. Mark turns to his father who was sat on the couch and receives a nod of approval almost. Mark purses his lips and waves at the woman.

The woman waves back and then crouches down to the little girl, “Baby, say hello to Mark.”

Unwilling, she shakes her head.

“Aw come on, baby. Don’t be shy. Mark over there is a really sweet boy. I knew him when he was in his mommy’s tummy, just like Mark’s mom knew you when you were in mine. You’re the same age so you’ll get along just fine.”

With the unnecessary explanation that gave no justification to the scene whatsoever out of the way, the girl was fooled into peeping up, “Hi, Mark.”

“Hello,” Mark says, not particularly interested, as his patient was still in the midst of dying in his office. He turned to his stuffed toy called Mr. Lion and attempted to stand him up once more.

At this point, the girl makes her way to Mark.

“We’ll be back in two hours, honey. Keep an eye on the children,” Mrs. Lee tells his husband who had been occupied with TV the entire time.

“Yeah. I got this,” he smiles to his wife then goes back to watching.

The bumble bee clad figure sat down to Mark in blue and watched him play.

Mark ignored her for a few seconds, needing to assert all efforts on standing that dumb toy up. Once successful, Mark turns to her, “Do you play doctors?”

Mark was then met with the same lack on enthusiasm. She hums, “I like playing baker doctor.”

All at once, Mark gasps, “ME TOO!”

It was unbeknownst to the children it was oddly specific and the chance of this happening was pretty slim.

And in a blink of an eye, excited giggles erupt in the room, as if they had been having so much fun before this scene. It was here and there the two would become best friends to the very end.

... so I guess it means the reckoning is upon us.

“MARK LEE I SWEAR TO THE FU--” “WHAT! WHAT!?” Mark laughs.

"YOU ATE MY BAGEL! AGAIN!" I growl in a loud whisper, throwing the wrapper at him and his flat head before he could think to dodge it while he annoyingly laughs.

"I asked if I could have it though!" he says, fully knowing his sins.

I glared at him and say lowly, "I thought you were referring to my notes, bread for brains."

Mark snorts loud enough for our teacher to wake up from his nap. Once the class notices, we all pretend to be doing something productive and Mark plays it off with a cough.

"Mr. Lee." Mr. Kim says sternly, clicking his tongue, blinking his eyes rapidly.

Mark finishes coughing and turns to our seated professor, "Yes sir."

"Don't go to school if you're sick and going to cause a racket with your coughing."

Mark nods firmly and Mr. Kim closes his eyes again, mumbling, "page 65 is due tomorrow."

The entire class grumbles. Mark beside me scoffs and makes a face, "Yeah, yeah, Doyoung."

I turn to him and elbow his side.

"Whatever," Mark shakes his head, "professor bunny-teeth won't hear me."

Once class ended, we both get our things and head out for lunch. We walk to our canteen, fussing over assignments, deciding we should do it together later in our mutually free period.

I groan and narow your eyes at him as we have an argument over how he hasn't finished the essay for English, "That's not the point."

"Yo Mark!" a voice calls from afar. Mark and I turn, looking for the voice, and I spot the dimpled senior, Jung Jaehyun, in a table with the rest of his squad.

I nudge Mark and point at the pale guy seated by the corner.

Mark throws him a smile and waves. I follow closely behind him as he walks over to the table. "We're going to sit with them?" I say in some sort of gasp.

"Yeah." Mark replies simply, not bothering to turn to me, "they're cool."

I knit my brows at that and nod, "Yeah I know. But I'm not cute today."

Mark stops in his tracks and throws me a confused look, "what?"

"I didn't put any make-up on today, also I'm pretty sure there's a visible stain somewhere on my jacket, I just don't remember where."

Mark scrunches his face up again, even more confused. "What? How do you... forget a stai-- that's not the point. Why do you wanna look cute today?" He scoffs and continues lowly, "hardly as if you ever look cute."

I let out an annoyed groan and punch Mark's shoulder. "Like when you panicked when Seulgi came over and asked for notes."

Mark openes his mouth, "That is so not the same! Jaehyun's a fuck bo-"

"Just shut up already," I snap and shove him forward so he'd continue walking. "Let's not keep him waiting," I add and mumble, "also I know. Dong Sicheng however is very cute."

Mark chuckles, "he's dated every girl on the dance team."

"Okay, maybe not that cute."

"Ya, Mark," Jaehyun grins and greets the said person with a high-five and chest bump. He turns to me and speaks my name with a smile. I smile back politely and wave.

I'm about to sit next to Sicheng, but Mark shoves me and so I end up sitting on the other side of the bench table with Jaehyun. I turn to Jaehyun with a small, non-awkward smile and shoot Mark a glare. He seems unbothered though.

"So, you up for a round later?" Jaehyun asks Mark.

Mark talks over me, "you know it, dude."

Jaehyun flashes his dimple smile all the stupid girls fall for. I'm only half falling for it cause I'm only half stupid. He raises his brows, "you bought the dough, right?"

This makes me knit my brows.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really did this time," Mark mumbles quickly. "It's my turn anyway."

Jaehyun gives an off look, "that's literally what you said last time bro."

"Yo, no for real. It's in my bag, if you wanna check."

Jaehyun shakes his head when Mark begins to scramble for it, "no, Lee, it's good. We wouldn't want you friend to get dirty."

Is it just me or do you feel slimey all of a sudden?

Jaehyun then gives me a somewhat, somehow sincere smile, "so. I hear you're in fashion design."

I give a soft chuckle, "yeah. That's me."

"I could tell from a mile away. Mark looks horrible next to your getup."

I look down at my sweater and ripped jeans. Mark exclaims in protest, "shut the hell up, Jae."

I give a soft smile at Jaehyun, "don't know where that comes from but thanks I guess."

Jaehyun chuckles, "I'm kidding," he eyes Mark, "I saw your Fashion Design pin on your bag when you sat down."

"Oooohhhh, haha, okay, that makes sense."

"Ya, Jeff," Sicheng calls for Jaehyun, "it's almost time."

Jaehyun turns to his friend and nods. He turns back to me and Mark, "well, it's nice to meet you. Mark won't put a sock in it even if I beg. See you around, fashionista."

He stands and slaps Mark's back, "see ya later, broski."

"Yeah, bruh," Mark replies.

Once it's just Mark and I, I snap at him and blurt out in a whisper yell, "YOU'RE ON BROSKI LEVEL WITH JUNG JAEHYUN?!"

Mark gives me a weird face, "bruh, I think he calls the principal broski, for real."

I smack Mark, making him whine, "you know what I'm talking about, Mark! And what, are you doing drugs?!?"

He shakes his head in confusion, "Wait, what!? Who the hell told you that?"

"Uhhhhh you were talking about dough and showing up later. Sounds like you owe him money for drugs, Mark."

"??? In what universe did we even mention drugs?? Does this," he slaps his face, "look like a face of a drug addict to you?"

"A gullible idiot maybe."

Mark's jaw drops, "oh wow, okay. I'm done with this conversation." He proceeds to stand attempt to walk away. I scoff, "not on my watch bitch."

Like the true idiot that he is, Mark begins to legit run away from me, like a criminal who stole my cookies. It's embarrassing that he, a man much taller than I, could not even outrun me. I suppose I should be grateful, but this just fortifies my thoughts of him being an idiot even more.

But okay... I wasn't actually expecting this... like... Mark and Jaehyun... like... actually baking bread after school with dough Mark premade at home. Also, uh, Jaehyun looks super cute in an apron that I'm having a mental breakdown. And what's new, so does Mark.

"I can't believe you thought I was a drug dealer," Jaehyun says in a soft pout as he rolls out dough on the marble counter of his friggin large kitchen in his friggin large house. Like dang, I knew he was rich, but he's like Rich™ Rich. Rich with a golden diamond encrusted Rolex watch rich that's in a glass display rich-- wtf.

Mark wheezes in his telltale high pitched laugh as he opens a pack of unsweetened chocolate pellets, "she thought dough was some sort of metaphor or something."

"Cute," they say at the same time. Mark turns to Jaehyun in slight surprise and Jaehyun turns to me. I roll my eyes, though I feel my neck burn. I avert my attention to the scene I was sketching on my pad, Jaehyun and Mark baking croissants. I clear my throat, "I'm just making use of the single braincell between us, cause if he doesn't die falling down the stairs, he's gonna pull some idiotic stuff like baking with Jung Jaehyun."

Oddly, it's Mark that reacts to that with a, "hey!"

Jaehyun rubs his chin on his shoulder, "I also can't believe you think so little of me.'

I break a sweat but decide to answer honestly, "... ... ... You have a reputation."

"Of being a fuck boy?"

Mark loudly transfers the chocolates into a metal bowl, making the two of us snap at him. Mark makes a face, "oh gosh, sorry."

Jaehyun sighs, "well. I admit I get around, but that's only because I get dumped every time."

I raise a brow.

Jaehyun purses his lips, "nah, let's not make this weird. The croissants will be flat."

"Dude," Mark turns to him, "that's literally only because you messed up the recipe."

Jaehyun grits his teeth, "no. It's because Kun's a little teacher's pet and sabotaged me so he could get the best grade."

"No, but like Kun is really nice, he helped me with the fold techinique."

Jaehyun scoffs, "He stole me vanilla extract, Mark. Who does that?!"

"No, listen, he's cool, like, for real--"

"No, you listen, he's a little shit and--"

The two begin to bicker like a married couple, and I begin to draw inspiration form the scene to design some random sketches of wedding dresses.

I look back to the two and still can't get over the fact that I learned Jaehyun was a culinary arts major with my best friend, and that I was currently in the Jung's boojie home because I thought Mark was buying drugs from him. Not what I was expecting at all my day to go like, but I'm not mad this is how it went.

"No, no, no, no," Jaehyun says. He turns to me and points, "let's just get an outside opinion. Babe, what's your favorite color?"

"BABE?!" Mark barks.

I take a moment to reply. I blink slowly, "uhh... pink?"

Jaehyun bites his lower lip and claps his flour covered hands, "Right. Pink croissants it is."

Mark shoots him a glare and turns to me, back to Jaehyun, "she has a name."

Jaehyun nods, "yeah, and she wants pink croissants."

Mark makes a face and Jaehyun examines it, chuckling under his breath. "Wah, you two are something, huh."

No one really responds.

We began to always eat lunch with Jaehyun and his friends. It's funny cause I realized Jaehyun, although I still firmly believed he was out to get nasty with every other girl he sees, he was actually just like Mark. A total loser with a love for cooking.

"Hey," Mark says with a snippy tone.

I give him a look and suddenly receive a paper bag to my face. Mark sits on his chair next to me, as per usual. I smell the thing before I realize what it is. It's a freshly baked bagel. I perk up and smile, "Aw, you baked me a bagel?"

Mark raises his upper lip, "no. Jaehyun did."

I knit my brows, "what? Why?"

Mark narrows his brows, "do you, like, like him?"

I give him a look. I take a bite of the bagel, making Mark look at me in disbelief. I answer, "You do know I only hang with him cause you do, right?"

"Then why'd you eat the bagel then?"

"Uh, a number of reasons. 1) it's a bagel, 2) free food, 3) I'm starving, 4) it smells amazingggg."

Mark does a face, "fair. I've been meaning to ask how he does his seasoning for a while now too." He releases a breath, "and anyway, I'm pretty sure he made a bagel cause I told him you liked them. Never talking about you to him anymore though."

I look at him, "why do you talk about me so much to him anyway?"

"Uh because you're amazing," Mark says instinctively.

I feel my heart skip at that. I coo and place my hands on my chest, "wait that's really sweet."

Mark looks at me. His face begin to shift, "too bad it's a lie- haha."

I give him a look and rebut, "jerk."

"Loser."

As quickly as I found out about Jaehyun being Mark's friend, that's about as quickly as I found out he didn't like hanging out with him anymore. It's kind of a shame I never got to go back to his boojie house.

There was this one encounter I had with Jaehyun though... which was a little weird, not gonna lie.

He was waiting for me outside my Tailoring class, smiling and waving when he saw me. I Reluctantly reciprocated and walked over to him.

He releases a breath, "I've been waiting for about 20 minutes for you. I didn't know when your class would end."

I raise my brows, "you could have asked?"

"Well I would need your number for that, and that would have ruined the surprise," he pulled out a brown paper bag, reminiscing the same one Mark chucked at my face.

"I made you two this time," he smiles.

I take a moment to reply, "you don't have to make me bagels, Jaehyun."

He grabs my hand, "yeah, but I want something out of ya," he places the bagels in my hand. He proceeds to lead us off and we begin to walk down the hall.

Truth be told, it's a little scary that his ulterior motive is up in the air. Jaehyun places his hands in his pockets, "I like your dress, by the way."

I smile, "thanks. I made it."

He smiles and nods, "right. That makes sense as to why it suits you well."

I can't help but blush at that, and simultaneously feel conscious when I realize a bunch of girls in my course are looking at me and Jaehyun as we strut down the hall.

"So, what did you want, Jaehyun?"

"Well, I clearly wanted to ask you out."

"..."

Jaehyun smiles and give a soft laugh, "is it so ground breaking?"

"... Uh..."

He sniggers, "hey, you can say no. I mean I hope you don't but you can." Jaehyun leans in and raises his hands, "I won't like it, but a man should take rejection from a lady well."

I turn to him as he straightens up. I turn to the bagels he made me and bring it back to him. He laughs, "no, I made them for you really. It's not poisoned, in fact it's made with love."

I visibly react to that, which makes Jaehyun wheeze. I can't help but laugh back, "that was hella tacky."

"Worth a shot though," he says. "Good luck with Mark."

I look at him with silence and he chuckles, "ya, you can't fool me."

I'm about to retort but then Jaehyun gets called by one of the frats dudes I identify as Johnny Seo. Jaehyun does a curtsy and clicks his tongue, "see ya later babez."

"You know, I would have said yes if you didn't do stuff like that."

Jaehyun purses his lips, "no you wouldn't."

I shrug, "worth a shot though."

Jaehyun places a hand on his chest, dramatically calling, "Uh, rejection hurts, man."

Yeah, I never went to Jaehyun's boojie house ever again.

Silver lining though was Mark's dorm smelled equally as nice because of all the food he cooks, although it came with a whiff of axe body spray from his roommate, Lucas. It's cool though, he was almost never around for me to smell it in its whole intensity.

"Aite," Mark calls from his side of the dorm. I perk up from the two seater dining table they had and turn to Mark who was covering the cake he was making for his finals.

"Don't, like, peek, okay. I want you to see the cake all at once and give me your honest reaction to it. Please, like, all my lives kinda depend on it."

"How many lives do you have?"

"9, I'm pretty sure."

I stand from my seat, "not you faking your life as a cat, but get it I guess."

Mark raises a hand at me as I walk over, "can you not, I'm high-key panicking right now."

"Over what? You literally made a box of donuts for your midterms and it looked better than Misty Mreme! I'm sure your cake is hot."

"It was in the minifridge for a day. I mean it barely fit cause of all of Lucas' mountain dew."

I groan, "just show me it, Mark Lee!"

Mark whined and dashes over to me, grabbing my shoulders, "okay, but like, don't be mean about it. I swear, I might cry."

I give a sound and fake cough, "it's ugly."

Mark doesn't respond to that particular jab, "I'm serioussss. Please be kind, okay?"

I look at Mark's nervous face and give a soft pout, "Markie, please, not that I think it would be ugly, but I promise you don't have to be nervous about my reaction."

He isn't soothed by that, but he does release a sigh, "okay. So for context, Mr. Moon wanted the cake to be one or two tiers, but I went with one, cause there aint no way I'm going to the other side of the campus to freeze a two tiered cake. Then, the theme was something from your childhood, so, I, uh, thought this was fitting. The exam is 60 percent decoration, 40 percent taste by the way."

Mark gives me a hesitant look, but steps way for me to see it. I then see a heart shaped, medium sized cake in my favorite pastel pink color. By the top there's a little boy on the floor playing with a toy oven set and little girl in a bumble bee dress, holding a stethoscope. At the bottom of the cake, there were jelly letters spelling out, "I like you."

I cup my cheeks at the sight of it and feel my eyes start to well at the sentiment.

Wait... was this really happening?

Mark heaves in and out, "okay, so like when Jaehyun began to like hit on you, that sucked pretty hard because he's known for getting girls and I thought maybe he'd get you too and I got panicky. Anyway, I....... have liked you since we were kids... And... I know you probably don't feel the same way but I have to try, you know.... Yolo."

My feel my tears retract from what I hear. I rub my eyes. I turn to Mark and find his nervous face. "Did you just say yolo in your confession, Mark?"

He looks like he's about to throw up.

I can't help but chuckle and pout, "dude..."

I prolong the moment. Mark gets even more nervous as he repeats softly, "dude..."

"We could have dated in grade school all this time."

It takes a moment to register in his head.

Like, a really long moment.

I sigh, "Mark! I like you too, dummy."

He freezes and blinks. His face begins to burn. He breaks into a soft smile, "nice."

I break into a laugh.

"... Uh... So... Can I like... Kiss you?"

I snort and feel my own cheeks begin to burn, "I think you should refrigerate your cake first."

Mark snaps out of this trance, "oh shoot, you-" I give him a quick peck on the lips.

He is dumbfounded.

I feel butterflies go wild in my stomach.

"I'll wait over there for when you've fixed that."

Mark watches as I walk away, "yooo.... That's not fair though."

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taehoneys · 4 years

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Bad Guy | JJK ft. KTH (M)

A certain video circulates the school after your big mistake and you never do mistakes, but you did this time… a big one: J e o n J u n g k o o k

— Pairing: Jungkook x Reader ft. Taehyung

— Genre: Drama

— AU(s): College!AU Fratboy!AU

— Warnings: Fingering, Oral, choking, all kinds of sex, okay? Oh, and sometimes it's unprotected.

— Word Count: 4.6k

— Note: This is the first actual fic that I will post to Tumblr! I’m nervous/excited. I hope you enjoy it.

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01; I'm the Bad Guy

Jeon Jungkook.

You’d be lying if you said you haven’t heard that name before. Of course you have… The campus was big, but rumors had it that Jeon Jungkook was bigger. Harder, better, faster, stronger weren’t just four words Jungkook was known for saying, they were four words he was praised for delivering. Oh how girls would die to squirm under Jungkook’s touch, to be taken to a place only he could take you, and he knew that. Jungkook knew he had girls at the palm of his hand (which is how he got himself in the palm of theirs).

Every single one of them too. He wanted to give every girl a chance, which is why he never gave anyone a second taste. “What about the others?” He would justify himself, “I have to be fair.” Which is why Jungkook was not only a bad guy, but a bad idea. Especially if you were going to fall in love that easy, Jeez. I guess it’s just easier for everyone to hope they could be the one to change him. Which explains why many girls flock to his frat parties just for the chance to be plucked from the crowd.

Sex is one hell of a drug. Be careful who you give it to, Jeon. Many would show up, but few were given a special invitation. One meant that you were basically good enough for him and would let you bypass the long line stretching outside the house. The reason it was so long wasn’t just because of the girls, but also because of all the eager (and horny) guys trying to get in to be an unlucky girl’s shoulder to cry on or their drunk one night stand.

But they had to be cautious of their choice.

The Beta Tau Sigma frat house was nicknamed “The Fratican” which fit perfectly because it was run like a total monarchy with Jungkook as the head. On the contrary, there was nothing holy about Jungkook. He only held as much influence as the pope in that house. You see, no one was allowed to ever touch the girls that Jungkook had set his eyes on. It was as serious as being banned permanently from the house and even being kicked out of the brotherhood; After all, bros before hoes (unless, you were Mr. Jeon Jungkook).

So yes, you’ve heard more than enough of Jungkook to decide you didn’t like him at all. Which explains how you ended up with an invite in your hands this morning after your Economics lecture, the course you happened to share with Jungkook. Every time Jungkook attempted to answer a question and it was wrong, you would immediately correct him from the other side of the room, and Jungkook almost got every question wrong.

“Name one of the explanations for the law of demand.” The teacher directed the question at Jungkook, giving him a chance to redeem himself after the last few failures.

Jungkook tapped his pencil against the desk, indicating he was already pissed off from getting the previous questions wrong.

“Umm, okay…Number of consumers ? More people want a product so demand all moves up?”

Your hand immediately shot up causing Jungkook to drop his pencil, and shut his eyes in annoyance as he bit down hard on his lip.

The teacher smiled your way and gave you permission to explain your answer with a nod.

“That doesn’t explain the law of demand. That’s just one of the shifters of demand. Law of demand is the relationship price has on quantity of demand. So for example, the law of diminishing marginal utility is one of the reasons for the downward curve of demand. As more people get a taste of a product, their satisfaction is sure to diminish. So people will only demand more of the product at a cheaper price.”

Jungkook narrowed his eyes at you, catching a bit of what you were trying to tell him.

“Oh I get it now. Kind of like Income effect. You know, where a product is only worth desiring because it’s cheap and easy for the poorer people to get.”

You had a feeling you guys weren’t talking about supply and demand anymore by the way Jungkook kept his eyes narrowed onto you. You just narrowed yours back.

“Well, I’m more than amazed to see two students passionately debating in my class for once. However—to sum things up—Your first answer was wrong Jungkook and Y/N was correct, but I’m glad that she was able to straighten that all out for you. Now remember class assignment 2-4…. ”

With a “hmph” you close your notebook and start to pack up, completely satisfied. All the while, you know Jungkook is staring at you. When you look his way, he’s got his jaw clenched and the grip on his pencil is so tight that the vein on his arm has become prominent. By the looks of it, If you were any closer, you were sure he’d chuck it at you.

You thought that that the battle zone would only limit itself to the lecture hall, but as soon as everyone started leaving you caught Jungkook throwing himself over the lecture seats until he was in the row you were in, heading your way. You cursed at the long line preventing you from making a quick escape. Just when you were at the exit, Jungkook had made it right to your side. You held your breath, waiting for him to say something to you, but he didn’t. Instead, he bumped harshly against your shoulder before pushing past you. Seriously?

It wasn’t until you were hanging in the quad with your friends that you received the invite.

Jungkook was across the quad at first. He was crowded among his frat brothers, guys that wanted to be them and girls that wanted to do them. He wasn’t paying attention to them though because his eyes were drilling into yours. You struck a nerve inside him in the lecture hall. Were you trying to get noticed by him? Was that it? No, you clearly didn’t like him. But you didn’t even know him and he never did anything to you. All you knew were whatever rumors circulated around campus about him. So whatever happened to common courtesy?

Pushing past everyone (and earning an eyebrow raise from his best friend, Taehyung), he walked straight your way. Taehyung watched, stretching the gum in his mouth until he was able to blow a bubble. Once it popped, he pushed off the edge of the wall and followed Jungkook over, curious to why he was heading over towards those in Gamma Psi Alpha. Gamma Psi Alpha wasn’t a social fraternity like Beta Tau Sigma. They were a professional co-ed fraternity. Scratch that: They were an elite, professional fraternity.

Jungkook stopped right in front of you and your other friends. Taehyung and the rest lined up beside him. This caused everyone to fall silent as the tension built up with the meeting of the fraternities. Jungkook’s eyes carefully scanned your other friends, reading the three letters on some of their shirts before settling back onto you.

‘Oh, you’re a good girl, aren’t you?“

He threw the invitation to your friend group as a joke. All because you got on his bad side. "Be a little less boring and let loose, why don’t you?” He whispered into your ear hotly before storming away with his posse. It angered you, entirely. The way he assumed that you didn’t know how to have fun and that you were this goody two-shoes who followed every rule just because you were a little smart? Or did he assume that any girl that didn’t want him was just as uninteresting as their disinterest for him? Oh, you were going to this party. And you were planning to show him that he was the one beneath you.

So how did you end up beneath him?

Why were you letting him hover over you? Undressing you, button by button? Caressing your sides and gripping your thighs? And what exactly was making the room spin? Was it the alcohol or the way his tongue ran up the side of your ear as his fingers worked their way inside you?

The moans wanted to come out of your mouth, but you wouldn’t let them. You had to bite down hard on your lip as your hand traveled down to wrap around Jungkook’s wrist, your mind and your body conflicted. He raised an eyebrow at you because for a second he thought you wanted to stop. Yet he didn’t, so he quickly inserted his second digit into you. As he scissored his fingers apart, your grip would loosen more and more.

You hated the way he was looking at you. Head tilted and chin up, but eyes down and dangerous. It was the spark that started the fire inside of you and by the way his lips curled into a cocky grin, he knew that.

His fingers started rubbing your warmth and his mouth watered as his fingers coated with your wetness. “Such a pretty little cunt.” Jungkook panted slightly as his fingers rubbed faster into you, causing you to lift your hips in an attempt to have them deeper into you. You cursed yourself for acting so desperate and so willing. Pressing your lips tightly together, you kept your whines within. The least you could do for yourself was not give him the satisfaction of hearing the way he drove you crazy.

“C'mon give me something.” Jungkook growled, leaning over you slightly as he began to thrust his fingers into you harshly. You gasped loudly and you jerked upright to grab onto his flexed bicep in an attempt to slow him down. It only made him pump faster into you as he challenged you with his eyes.

“J-Jung-” Your breath hitched inside your throat as you drew up your eyes to meet his.

He leaned in close to your face, tilting his head as his nose brushed against yours. “Hmm? What is it, good girl?”

You frowned, but before you could even open your mouth to give him lip, Jungkook’s thumb began to lazily play with your clit as his fingers returned to rub you, making you’re body under his control again.

“F-Fuck!” You fell back onto your back and let out all the moans you’ve kept trapped inside of you. Fuck Jungkook and fuck Jungkook. You were supposed to fuck him up good not fuck him real good. You reach for the pillow on the bed and cover your face to scream into it because Jungkook was using two hands and he was using them to make a mess out of you.

Jungkook didn’t like that though. He angrily yanked the pillow from your grip and growled, “I want to fucking hear you…because I’m about to make you beg, good girl.”

You rolled your head over, gripping onto the sheets, completely flushed as Jungkook played with you. With each strum of Jungkook’s thumb against your clit, you would buck your hips into the air.

The pleasure was building inside of you and you felt like you couldn’t take it anymore. “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!” you chanted as you gripped onto the bed sheets tighter. You felt your muscles tensing and you sat straight up immediately, pulling Jungkook’s face close to yours as you stared at him, flushed and flustered to the core.

His mouth parted and he released an unstable breath as he continued to pump his fingers into you— harder and faster. You were about to kiss him, but chose the safer alternative to bury your face against his neck as you let out one long moan, giving into the pressure and pleasure exploding within you. Until you came back from the clouds, you rode his slender fingers out.

Only then did you realize where exactly you two had stumbled into. You had somehow made it all the way up to his room, not even far enough to cancel out the music or stop the bass from vibrating though the walls. Although, Jungkook had attempted to drown it out with his own music coming from the smart speaker on his nightstand. The only lighting available in the room came from the LED strip bordering his ceiling. It allowed you to see just enough of Jungkook in this moment. This crazy moment.

You slowly opened your eyes, still trying to catch your breath, to see that Jungkook was merely centimeters away. His fringe fell over his eyes and all you could see was his mouth which twitched into a big, tipsy grin. “You’re so fucking sexy.” He tugged on his bottom lip and tipped his head back before he stopped leaning over you. You’re eyes dropped down to watch his hands, which hooked at the hem of your panties still hanging around your thighs and pulled them down to your ankles. You looked up at Jungkook and he cocked an eyebrow at you, letting you know that up next was your move and your choice.

You kicked them off with your other foot and then looked back at him. Jungkook then wasted no time in pushing you to lay down on your back, letting you then watch as he yanked the shirt over his head, his hair ruffling back down to place after it was completely off. His hands quickly worked at his belt before unbuttoning his jeans and then pulling them down slightly to reveal his bulge.

Just staring at it was enough to tell you the rumors weren’t just rumors. He grabbed your hand and guided it to the hem of his boxers. You nervously bit your lip as you slowly started to tug them down, not ready to confirm the rumors yourself. When you pulled them down far enough, his hard-on sprung out of his boxers, revealing not only that it was ready, but that it was aching. You weren’t going to lie, You had seen dicks his size before, but his girth outshines them all (or maybe he was just that turned on by you?).

You licked your lips and quickly got on your knees. You pushed all your hair over one shoulder before wrapping your hand around his member. Jungkook let out a long “shiiiit” at the sight as he pulled down his boxers and pants further, giving you room to make it as sloppy and messy as your heart desired.

You licked your lips before taking him into your mouth, your tongue laying flat as it traveled underneath his penis. You made sure to rub your tongue against him every time you took him out of your mouth. Humming, you let him know you were more than pleased to get a taste of him. Jungkook leaned back on his hands, rolling his head back as you started to let your tongue explore every bit of him, swirling and swirling.

You took a peek up at him and one look was all it took for you to know that the way you were performing fellatio was driving him insane. Jungkook had his bottom lip nipped between his teeth to gate his moans. With every raise of his hips, he inserted himself further into your mouth and you took it. In fact, you took him even deeper down your throat, finally earning a “F-fuck!” from Jungkook.

Jungkook fell completely on his back, fixing his legs straight out from underneath him where he was able to kick off his jeans completely. Running his hand through his hair, he combed back the waves to get a little cool relief.

This time that you put his dick back into your mouth, you hallow your cheeks and bob your head up and down, moving the foreskin to his pleasure. Jungkook hisses and his hand immediately shoots up to grip your hair tightly. Purring, you let him know how much you enjoy the rough treatment. It gave you confidence to continue; which you do steadily, trying not to mess up the rhythm you have going because all the “Ah"s coming from Jungkook turn you on more.

Jungkook wasn’t afraid to be vocal. He just wanted you to work for the grunts and moans, but now that he let out a few, he just let them all rush out. They came in tiny grunts at first, but as you continued stroking his dick with your mouth, he couldn’t help but let out whines and mewls. It drove you absolutely crazy and you felt wet all over again. With one long hiss, Jungkook pulled you back by your hair, making you look at him.

You ran your tongue across your swollen lips, slowly. It directed his attention to your mouth and he became entranced by it, bringing you up for a closer look. You gladly crawled over him, never breaking the eye contact coming form his sultry eyes. He dropped his gaze back down to your lips, but you didn’t dare move closer to him. Not even when he brushed his nose against yours, his very breath tickling your lips as he picked up his head to bring his own closer.

Yet, he didn’t kiss you and you weren’t going to kiss him either. It was like he wanted you to dive in for the kiss, just so he can cockily reply "no kissing allowed” and he definitely wasn’t going to kiss you first because that would make him seem too compliant. So, instead, he smirked as his lips ghostly brushed against yours, traveling across your cheek until his head abruptly fell back onto the pillow because you had just guided his dick inside of you.

The feeling of fucking finally spread to your core as you sunk down his dick, his dick burrowing further and further, stretching you out as it struggled to entire deep into your warmth. You scrunch up your face as you throb from the pain, afraid to take him too suddenly. “You’re so fucking tight,” Jungkook groans as he throws his head back. You whine slightly, pushing your hips down so his dick can burrow entirely in your warmth. You weren’t a virgin, he was just meaty. The pain quickly fades and you feel flutters inside your stomach, pleased with how full you felt. It caused you to clench a couple times around his cock. The feeling itself good enough to make you forget to move (which a quick slap to the ass from Jungkook’s impatient ass fixed).

“Fuck, it’s soo thick,” You complimented him as you began to glide yourself up and down his glorious length. “How can I take all of it?”

Jungkook’s mouth parted, his hands firmly grabbing your hips to support you as you rode him. “Keep talking like that.” Jungkook ordered, making you recognize that dirty talk was a turn on to him.

You weren’t one for dirty talk, but something about Jungkook made you want to tell him how much you were enjoying him being inside you. “Fuck, It’s sooo good, you’re so good…mm I want you to fuck me good… make me cum aaallll over this good cock,” You moaned the words as you gyrated your hips up and down. Jungkook’s eyes darkened and he slapped your ass, earning a yelp from you.

“Such dirty words coming from such a good girl~” Jungkook grabs your hips and starts meeting you halfway, rapidly thrusting.

“Oh fuck!” You still so Jungkook can take over momentarily, his hips snapping up against yours as his dick forces deeper and deeper. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” You chant, losing air. Jungkook had no intention of slowing down and you didn’t really want him to. He was pounding into you over and over and you were starting to come apart. If he didn’t stop, he was going to break you. Your hands fall onto his chest, needing support from his forceful entries.

“Shit,” He curses as he breathes heavy. The heat was rising between you two so much that Jungkook started to slow down, the sweat on his forehead letting you know he had exhausted himself, so you pick up where he left off.

“Mmm,” You let out satisfied sighs each time you sink back so Jungkook’s dick strikes you center again and again. Leaning more over him, you move your hands to rest on the bed. This allows you to have more control of your ass, bouncing it up and down so much that Jungkook can’t help but wrap his strong arm around your thigh. He sets his hand on your ass and grips onto it so he can pull you into him with each ride.

“You feel so fucking good. Oh, fuck. You’re pussy’s so tight.” Jungkook compliments you and you reward him by gripping onto the headboard so you could bounce on his dick. Bringing down your hips, You smile with pleasure, lolling your head to the side as you land on his dick in the perfect spot. You like this position because it also gives Jungkook a view of himself disappearing inside you. Jungkook grunts, mesmerized with watching how his entire length can’t fit inside you.

Getting a bit tired, you decide to rest your hands back onto the bed, throwing it back to his dick, the bed creaking louder with your fast pace. “Ohhh…” You sigh pleasurably as you continue to work on getting Jungkook to his climax. You didn’t know if he was close or not, but you could care less at this point. Jungkook just felt that fucking good inside of you. So you were more than happy to meet him halfway in his thrusts, this tingling sensation coursing through you. By the way Jungkook’s grip tightened on your ass, you were doing a good job in getting him to orgasm.

“Oh fuck~” Jungkook grinned briefly, eyes closing as he was overcome with bliss. Your continuous sharp inhales were pushing him to the edge and he had to wrap his other arm around you, completely wrapping his arms around your ass so the thrusts were smaller, but remained deeper.

“Be a good girl and don’t cum when I haven’t cum,” Jungkook grunts as he stares up at you, chest heaving. You nod your head and keep moving fast against him, tired but eager to unravel him. He continues to breathe heavy as you keep moving fast against him, your inhales become shorter and shorter apart while his grunts become deeper.

“Just a little more, not yet.” Jungkook growled.

You started to whine, already wanting to find your release before his. “Fuck, I’m going to-” You’re breath hitches and you gasp, clenching around him uncontrollably, vision filling with tiny moving dots.

“Fuck,” He hisses as he helps you ride him out during your orgasm. Just as you gravitated back, Jungkook surprised you by quickly thrusting back into you. This time, his breathing was getting louder and more intense. Every “fuck” out of his mouth revealing how desperate he was for his own release.

You moan loudly for him. Every thrust grows rougher and desperate, your breasts bouncing for Jungkook’s gratification. He concentrates on how you look: your baby hair curled from the sweat on your forehead, eyes shut, and mouth agape. It’s a beautiful sight for him and it doesn’t take him much before he feels the surge and immediately shouts, “Get off!”

He pulls your hips up and takes his dick out of you to then shoot out ribbons of cum. Every pulse of his cock shoots it out further, accidentally aiming at your face. Mouth open and tongue out, you attempt to catch some of it and with the help of Jungkook directing his nut into your mouth, you do.

He tilts his head back and grits his teeth as he contains the grunts, until finally he’s done and it’s just you two breathing heavily in the room. You don’t wait long enough for things to get awkward and you quickly get off of him to then sit on the bed. You hear him reach over to his nightstand where he opens the drawer to take out a couple of baby wipes. You mentally roll your eyes because of course he’s prepared. He hands you a couple and you take them to wipe yourself before sitting back on the bed where you tuck your hair behind your ear as you stare at your clothes on the floor. It’s hot, like really hot in the room and you dread putting your clothes back on, but what other choice did you have?

You stand, accidentally stumbling into the nightstand. “Shit,” you mutter as you try to gain enough balance to pick up your clothes from the floor. The whole time, you could feel Jungkook’s eyes on you, but you don’t dare look his way, concentrating on only the task of putting your clothes back on.

“You didn’t kiss me,” Jungkook clicks his tongue. Peaking at him, you see he’s comfortably in bed, hands behind his head with only his boxers put back on.

“Why would I?” You roll your eyes at him as you button up your pants.

“Most girls would try.” Jungkook throws a playful grin your way.

Try. So you were correct in assuming that Jungkook didn’t allow kissing. That wasn’t the only word that caught your attention though. You glide your tongue over your teeth before shrugging his way, “Well, I’m not like most girls. All I wanted was a good fuck and I got it.”

You didn’t mean to default back to being a bitch towards Jungkook, but what he said was just so cocky. By saying “most girls” he basically viewed you as one of his girls. So seeing his face fall after your snarky remark was a bit satisfying. You may have crawled into his bed like the other girls, but you weren’t going to try and get more out of it like the others probably begged to.

Grabbing your keys from the nightstand, you turned to him with a little wave, “So don’t worry. I won’t be making this mistake again, Bad guy.”

His eyebrows twitched, coming together into a frown, and the way he cocked his head told you a confusing thought had entered his mind. Though, before he could say anything else, you left his room, diving back through the crowd until you were completely out of his frat house, vowing to never enter again and do the same mistake, because that’s what Jungkook was—a mistake.

As you walked to your car, you tried to make sense of Jungkook’s expression. Was he actually hurt by what you said? Maybe you were just feeling bad for no reason. After all, it’s Jungkook you were talking about and it was you we were talking about. You two were very different. The fraternities you were in were an example of that. Jungkook cared about blasting his years at college parties and creating a social reputation. You cared about your academic record and your respected reputation. In the end, Jungkook was right. You were nothing more than a good girl.

And you will always be a good girl…

Before opening your car door, you turned to look over your shoulder. You draw up your eyes to the window on the second floor where you catch the shadows of two people behind the curtain. The gentle breeze does you a favor and moves the curtain briefly, enough for you to see the two people wrapped around each other in the room. You roll your eyes and get into your car.

… and you guess Jeon Jungkook will always be a bad guy.

__________________________

Note: Wow, what a chapter! It took me like 4 days to write this, but I hope it was a thick chapter /WINK/ Let me know.

NEXT CHAPTER >

#Jungkook Smut #BTS smut #Jeon Jungkook #Jungkookxreader #jeon jeongguk #fratboy!jk #fratboy jungkook #college au #jungkook college au #jungkook fanfic #jungkookff #taehoneys

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passport-guardian-benrey · 4 years

Text

How Comic met Fresh

Comic' backstory basically, throughout this Comic is refered to as Ralz, because the name change didn't happen yet

My friend helped with like half of this

Enjoy!

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Ralz teleported away from his bullies, his skull bleeding from a crack they made, he looked around, panicked.

Fresh was wandering in Classic's AU just across the bridge near Snowdin looking for chaos to cause when the damaged skeleton teleported in.

"Hey yo you look like you're not from around here little homeskillet, wassup?!" Fresh grinned at Ralz for a moment then paused. "Yo, you know your sauce is leaking bro?"

Ralz looked at him and backed away. He's really scared, he looks like someone or even multiple people attacked him. His eyesockets are filled with tears.

Fresh halted, his glasses changed to read "woah," and held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Heyyyy. Yo, no need ta be spooked bro. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You uhh.. You hurt brah? Ya lookin' like you might need help or somethin my dude."

Ralz is shaking, he managed to slightly nod. Tears are running down his cheekbones alongside blood on one side.

"Uhhh ok ok umm... What do ya want me to do? I mean to be honest brah, I don't know how to help."

". . . h-head . . ." Ralz is in pain. He looks like a child, maybe 10 years old. He's small, weak and fragile, he's barely standing.

"Ok yeah.. Gotta stop that business from leakin. Hold up. I got this, check it."

Fresh takes his jacket off and starts tearing it into strips. he then approaches Ralz slowly, holding out the torn strips of fabric.

"Can I?"

Ralz slightly nodded, he's looking at Fresh.

Fresh used his ruined jacket to bandage up Ralz's head. It was oddly colorful for your usual bandages and a little tight but it definitely did the job.

Fresh looked Ralz up and down and let out a low whistle. "You got Jacked. Up. What even happened to you bro?"

" . . . b-bullies . . .th-they b-beat m-me up . . ." Ralz is trying to calm down, everything hurts him.

Fresh frowned and his glasses changed to "un-rad."

"Bullies? That's whaaaack bruh. ... So uhh what next? Wait, food helps you guys heal, right?" Fresh pulls out his inventory and rummages through it. Ralz is looking at him, waiting.

Fresh pulls out a carton of eggs and holds it out for Ralz with a triumphant grin.

Ralz looks at him, confused.

Fresh looks at Ralz, confused too "Not a fan of eggs brah?"

" . . . r-raw eggs a-aren't g-good . . ."

"Oh... I thought they totes were super healthy." Fresh without warning drops the carton of eggs and begins sifting through his inventory again.

Ralz doesn't say anything, He's still not entirely calmed down.

"Hah!" Fresh pulls a box of gushers from his inventory. "This is food... It's good too." He rips open a packet and hands it to Ralz.

Ralz took the packet and quietly began to eat the gushers.

"Good, right?" Fresh smiled at Ralz. The small skeleton just nodded.

"Well that's as bout as much as I know how to help ya with on my own broski." He held out his hand for Ralz to take.

"Can you trust me?"

Ralz looked at him, thought for a second and took Fresh' hand. Fresh chuckled.

"Probably a bad choice bro." and suddenly they were teleported to a different AU. They arrived in a dimly lit workshop with beakers and blueprints scattered about haphazardly. There was a skeleton slumped over a worktable snoring softly.

Ralz looked around, curiously.

Fresh walked up to the slumped over skeleton and shook his shoulder. The skeleton woke up with a start and rubbed at his face "C'mon couldn't you let me slee- F-FUNK!"

Fresh chuckled "Yo mind your manners Sci, there's kids present."

"I thought I told you not to come in here again, last time you contaminated everything and broke- wait kids?" Sci looked around and spotted Ralz, his eyes widening in alarm.

Ralz is nervous, he looked at Sci. He's slightly shaking.

Sci looks to Fresh angrily "Did you do this?!"

"Nah man, nah. Dunno what happened 'zactly... They said somethin about bullies but that's all I got." Fresh flicked Sci's glasses "Take a chill pill dude I just want ya to help me fix this little homeslice up."

Sci ajusted his glasses and gave Ralz a nervous glance. He switched to a low whisper Ralz couldn't hear. "Why? So you ca-"

Fresh interrupted Sci leaning in close, a dark aura radiating off of him. "Don't worry about it bro."

Sci gulped and nodded. He looked to Ralz and stood up. "Hey. they call me Science Sans, Sci for short... You are?"

"R-Ralz"

"Nice to meet you Ralz." Sci smiled warmly at him.

"Lol I totes didn't think to ask their name."

Sci shot Fresh a look and approached Ralz slowly. "Can I check that head wound of yours?"

Ralz nodded slightly, He's hurt in many different places too.

Fresh distractedly picked at his braces and Sci pulled out a chair for Ralz to sit in.

"Sit, please."

Ralz sat down on the chair.

Sci carefully unwrapped the impromptu jacket bandage and visibly winced at the damage underneath. "Sh-SHIZZ, this is bad."

Fresh looked up at the two of them.

Ralz is still shaking, He's scared and cold, a tear rolled down his cheekbone. He's still looking at Sci.

Fresh frowned and started digging through his inventory again while Sci frantically pulled out some antibacterial wipes and began gently cleaning around Ralz's head injury.

"This might sting, I'm sorry..." Sci said.

Fresh blipped behind Ralz and draped something around his shoulders.

"You were lookin a little too chill there dude..."

It was a soft blanket with neon squiggles and shapes on a dark background.

Ralz wrapped the blanket tighter around himself, "Th-thank you"

"S'nothin..." Fresh turned to Sci who was now applying something to the cut to get the bleeding to subside.

"Yooooo can I do anything to help?"

Sci looked at Fresh distrustfully.

"Maybe, if you promise to listen. because last time I-"

"I got it, I got it. Seriously, take a chill pill dawg."

Sci gave Fresh one more sharp look and nodded. "Ok."

With Sci's instruction Fresh began cleaning up Ralz's other injuries while Sci used healing magic on his skull.

Ralz is silent, He's just looking between them, sometimes reacting to the stinging and pain, He's behaving well.

"You're doin so good kid, don't worry we're almost done patching ya up." Sci gave Ralz a sympathetic smile.

He handed Fresh bandages and instructed him on how to properly use them and turned back to Ralz.

"We're mostly done here, but your glasses look busted. I can fix you up a new pair if you'd like."

"y-you can do that? i don't w-want t-to c-cause problems . . . o-only if it's o-okay . . ." Ralz is mostly calm now.

Sci laughed "I've busted mine more times than i can count. Had to figure ways to easily replace them before. " He adjusted said glasses on his nasal ridge.

"I might be able to figure out your prescription with your broken ones, it really wouldn't be too much trouble."

"A-alright" Ralz looked around the workshop.

Sci took his glasses and left the room, leaving Fresh, who had been mostly silent besides the occasional question for Sci, to continue bandaging up what was left of the major damage on Ralz.

Fresh was diligently following Sci's instruction, carefully and firmly wrapping some major scrapes and cuts on Ralz's shin when he spoke up.

"Yo... So I've been wonderin... What happened exactly? And like... Why'd they go and funk you up like this brah?"

Fresh looked up at Ralz, his expression pensive and his glasses displaying "??????"

"b-because I'm weird . . . I look weird . . ." Ralz is sad, he curled up a bit

"i was going back home from school, it was the only day my parents couldn't pick me up . . . so I was going home alone . . . and this one older kid with his group of friends attacked me . . . just because of the way i look . . ." His eyesockets are filled with tears again.

"That's super whack bro. There's not a funking thing wrong with the way you look." Fresh's mouth was pressed in a displeased thin line.

"black isn't a normal color for skeletons . . ."

Fresh shook his head and moved on to bandaging up one of Ralz's ankles.

"There's nothing wrong with you, or what color ya are. Just 'cause it's not as common in that AU don't mean jack.... Diversity is a good thing yo, what if there was only one kind of skeletons? All carbon copies and junk. It'd be mad boring all up in here." Fresh looked up at Ralz the same dark aura from earlier emanating from him.

"I'd like to see them come at me for bein different bro. Show them what I think of bulling." Then as quick as a switch the aura was gone, Fresh beaming at Ralz.

"Don't worry little homeskillet, you don't gotta worry about them again."

"but I would have to see them again when I go back to school . . ."

"Nahhh man you got options, you could come live with me if ya wanted."

"Really?" Ralz looked at Fresh.

"Heck yeah brah!" Fresh flashes a charming grin at Ralz. "And if ya ever wanna go back, you just say the word my dude."

"alright" Ralz smiled at him.

"Nice! I needed a buddy." Fresh chuckles.

"hm?" Ralz slightly tilted his skull to the side.

Just then Sci entered holding a new pair of glasses for Ralz.

"Had to replace the frames... But lucky you I had a similar style as yours already. Why don't you try these on and tell me how they feel." Sci made his way over to the two and handed Ralz the glasses with a smile.

Ralz put on the glasses and looked around, "It's great! Thank you" He's smiling.

Fresh stood up, done bandaging, and Sci nodded.

"Perfect." Sci pulled a small medicine bottle from his lab coat and handed it to Ralz. "This should help expedite the healing process, just follow the instructions on the bottle aaaaand you should be good to go. I'm- I'm sorry though.. I don't know if that crack to your skull will ever heal properly.."

Fresh looked at Sci, surprised. "It won't?"

"I mean I'm not positive... But..." Sci trailed off into uncomfortable silence.

"it's okay i guess . . ."

"Pshhhh It'll just make ya look cooler, no worries brah." Fresh waved a dismissive hand.

"Before you go.." Sci raised a finger "Are you gonna be ok? If you're getting bullied I can-"

Fresh clapped him on the shoulder, interrupting Sci. "It's all good bro, I got 'im."

Sci looked nervously from Fresh to Ralz.

The small skeleton curiously tilted his head to the side.

"Well ok then..." Sci sweats "Guess I better get back to my nap. Oh! Wait first..."

Sci hurried over to his desk and messed around in a drawer, his back to them for a second.

He turned around holding a pill bottle and handed it to Ralz. "For pain, you probably can't feel it too much right now thanks to the healing but your headaches gonna be killer tomorrow..."

Ralz nodded and took the pill bottle.

Sci nervously looked at Fresh and hugged Ralz without warning. He stealthily slipped a note in Ralz's pocket. "It was nice meeting you... Be safe." Sci said a little intensely.

"it was nice meeting you too"

"Wow Sci, brah... You never hug me like that..."

"That's because you always destroy my lab!" Sci snapped at Fresh.

Fresh raised his hands in surrender with a chuckle "'Aight then." He turned to Ralz and held out his hand. "In that case, let's bounce."

Ralz took Fresh' hand with a slight smile.

Sci gave them a halfhearted wave and the two disappeared with a fresh poof, reappearing in an obnoxiously 90's disaster area of livingroom.

Furniture that were just large cushioned shapes, an overly fluffy neon rug on dark flooring loud colorful walls with skateboards, tastefully framed pictures of Furbies and such hung up. A cluttered coffee table with things like tamagotchis, worms on a string, and a spilled over container of slime.

The whole place was littered with various odds and ends and Furbies strewn about everywhere.

"Welcome to my crib" Fresh said with a grand wave. "Mi casa es su casa."

Ralz is looking around, curiously.

"First things first I'mma get you some fly new digs, because your wardrobe is looking heckin whack right now." Fresh looked Ralz up and down.

"You're kinda small... But I think I gotchu. Hold up, be right back my dude." Fresh backed out of the room shooting finger guns "Careful of the Furbies, they get weird around newcomers. But make yourself at home dawg."

Ralz sits down and just waits for Fresh.

There's a loud thud in the other room and a rubber duck noise.

Ralz ignored the noise and looked at the note he got from Sci.

In barely legible chicken scratch it read "He's not a normal skeleton kid. Not sure what exactly it is, but there's something weird about him. DON'T TRUST HIM."

Ralz frowned and put the note back into his pocket.

Fresh skidded into the room sporting a new jacket and an armful of clothes. "YO!" Fresh dumped the clothes in Ralz's lap "Try these on for size homedawg."

Ralz tried on the clothes, the size is good, a bit too loose but it's okay.

Fresh grinned at Ralz "Ayyyyy lookin good, baggy is in ya know." Fresh's glasses flashed the words "fly af" for a moment.

Ralz smiled at him "you didn't tell me your name"

"Oh! You're right." Fresh laughs. "Call me FRESH!" There's a little fanfare and confetti pops from out of nowhere. "And I can already tell we're gonna be the tightest homies."

Ralz giggled, he's smiling "Probably"

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noeliareads · 5 years

Text

haunted haus.

Haunted House AU

Pairing: Mark Lee x female reader

Genre: comedy and a bit of angst

Warnings: If you don’t like clowns or scary things, just be careful (I don’t like them either)

It is mid October, your friends drag you to a haunted house, much to your dismay. You don’t mind them, they were a bit overrated this time of year. The problem? They left you alone after the first 5 minutes. Mark and his friends, Johnny and Doyoung went to the Haunted House as well. Mark being dragged along as his punishment for losing a bet.

»»————-————-««

“Yo, yo, yo.” Mark stuttered. “Johnny?” He asked, looking to his left. “Doyoung?” Looking to his right.

Mark walked carefully thought the haunted house. His friends had left him alone, as per usual. He didn’t even want to go to the damn house. He had lost a bet against Johnny. Because of that, they drove an hour to go to the house in order to torture Mark. Now, Mark was alone. Just like the gif

“Fuck Dean!” You mutter angrily. “Fuck JJ!”

You pulled your trench coat closer to your body as if it was going to protect you from the demons and monsters. “It’s just people w- MASKS!” You shriek as something pulled on your ankle. You speed walk to the next room. Cringing, from a thick, watery substance on the door handle. It was paint, red paint. Ugh.

Mark was about to shit his pants, literally. He was terrified. The hallway was dark, lights flickering slightly. Mist covered the floor and spikes adored the wall, spikes covered in what seemed like blood. Mark suddenly felt claustrophobic, walking sideways and occasionally rotating surveying his surroundings.

You were going around in circles, never finding the exit. The haunted house was an old abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town. Rumors were that the housekeeper murdered the whole family in order to marry the husband, whom she had a secret affair with. The husband managed to get away and crazed with bloodshed, she killed herself with child, damning the whole family line. The other story, the more believable one consisted in that this was the family countryside house and that the family never reclaimed the land, too immersed in their wealth.

Walking into a hallway with flickering light, you hoped to finally find the exit. You thought you saw a figure coming your way but in here, it could be anything. The lights began to flicker at higher intensity, somehow making it seem darker and spookier than it already was and you could hear faintly, laughter, manic laughter.

Mark saw Pennywise, Penny-fucking-Wise. As in the clown. Bone white face, dead eyes, a balding large head with puffy red-orange sideburns. Red lines coming from the edges of his mouth, going in a vertical line to his eyebrows. Mark did what anyone would do. Mark screamed, a high pitch scream. Sorta like the one when he and Johnny reacted to their part in Superhuman but frightened

“AH! OH MY GOD!” He screeched. He stumbled backwards and collided into something, someone. Both figures screamed. Pennywise’s face appeared once more causing Mark to jump and cling on to dear life to the person he bumped in to.

This random person clinged onto you for dear life. His arms were around your neck and one of his legs was hooked up around your waist. I repeat. Hooked. Up. Around. Your. Waist. Well, what a compromising position. When the lights stopped flickering and the laughter faded, the guy lifted his head quickly. He saw you and immediately pulled away. Both of your faces heated up at the sudden realization that you were strangers and you just shared a very intimate but frightened hug?

“Shit.” You breathed out. Still spooked from the scare and the fact that the guy was attractive and a big scaredy cat.

“Yoo I am soo sorry!” He said. He wiped invisible dust from your coat just a you noticed a big, red handprint on his beige coat.

“Uh oh.” You whisper, eyes wide. He looks down and grimaces.

“It’s ok.” Mark says, just as someone scares the shit out of him, again.

“Sweet baby Jesus.” You wail as Mark clings to you again, breaking your eardrums in the process.

Laughter echoed throughout the hallway as two other guys appeared in front of you. One of them couldn’t stop laughing. His laugh breathy and contagious.

“Bro you should’ve seen your face!” The tall one exclaimed. The other guy beside him just smiled, amused. The boy, Mark, quickly let you go. You debated leaving the hallway...

“Yooo!” Mark whined, stomping his right foot on the ground. “What the fuck?!”

The tall boy grabbed Mark’s shoulders and squeezed them. ‘It was fun.’ he said. Mark didn’t consider this fun. As soon as they arrived to the mansion they ran away leaving him alone!

“No it wasn’t!” You started walking backwards as they continued to argue. Just as you turned your back someone called you.

“Oi!” You kept walking. “Murder girl!”

“Excuse me?” You said incredulously as you walked back to where they were, hands on your hips. Not realizing you stained yourself as well. Tall boy just smiled. The one who bulldozed you looked at you with an apologetic look on his face.

“Yeah, Mark here has a huge blood stain on his coat.” Ah, his name is Mark.

“It’s not blood.” You roll your eyes.

“Then what is it?” Tall one countered back. Mark quietly said ‘Johnny stop.’ You heard that.

“There was red paint on a doorknob.” You simple say, not wanting to dive into more conversation. “Look.” I said'. “I'm sorry. I can pay for dry cleaning if that’s the issue.” Mark quickly intervened.

“Yo, no like it’s my fault anyway. I did touch you without your permission.” Mmm, gentleman. “Anyways...” He said, staring at Johnny and the other whom you never caught the name of. “We should leave.” Just as he said that, your phone started vibrating like crazy.

Caller ID: Dean

“Where the fuck are you, Dean?” Dean laughed and just told you to go outside. “Outside my ass.” You mutter. How do I get out?

“Doyoung and I know how to leave.” Johnny piped in examining your perplexed features. You looked at all three boys and sighed. They were your only option. You waved your hands motioning them to lead the way. As you waved your way through the maze that was the haunted house, you unconsciously moved closer to Mark. He was walking a few steps behind Johnny and Doyoung, occasionally glancing at you. Ears burning red, whenever you caught him.

Then. It happened. YOU WERE OUT. You ran out, relieved. You pushed the boys aside as you ran past them and flung yourself on the ground. “FRESH AIR!” You breathe out. You could hear the familiar snickering of a particular someone. You look up, eyes narrowing.

“Dean.” You say, softly, deadly. Dean’s eyes widened as he stumbled back. He slowly took 2 steps back and started running. You were right on his tail. He couldn’t outrun you. Dean never exercised and you were on the track team in college.

You didn’t notice how Mark and his friends followed you two with their gazes.

“Mark.” Johnny said, nudging him. “You gotta get her number.”

“If you want it why don’t you ask for it.” He retorted. Johnny snickered.

“It’s for you stupid.” Mark looked at the ground, his ears…. You know the drill, were red.

You came back, barely panting with an annoyed Dean by your side.

“Sorry, my best friend is dumb.” You say smiling. Johnny nudged Mark and Mark stepped on his large foot, discreetly.

“We should get going.” Mark blurted out. Doyoung looked at him, confused. You just smile and nod.

“We should too. But, before you go...” You grabbed your phone from your coat pocket and held it in front of Mark. “Can I have your number?”

Yes my dudes. I will end it here!

Hope you enjoyed it!

I am currently VERY ill but I managed to finish it and probably will not go to class because I really don’t think my classmates would like me distracting them with my sneezing and blowing my nose….

@hunscatattoo (found one)

@kaffeinic (i miss u)

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walkineternity · 5 years

Text

Day 3: Delirium

(The Umbrella Academy x Sandman)

Klaus knew he was in trouble.

He had overdosed again. He tried to stay clean, for Ben and Vanya, for his other siblings, and for Dave. He so very much wanted to see Dave.

But. He tried, okay. Tried so very fucking hard, and everyone was so focussed on Vanya that his efforts weren’t exactly…supported. Ben, of course, knew. And Klaus was grateful to have him. And he didn’t really blame everyone for not paying attention to him. They never really did that in the first place, unless he was causing trouble. And this time, it was because Vanya had nearly ended the world and he got that. He really did. He was trying to be there for them.

But. He was an addict, okay. He can admit that. And…it was so hard to stay clean. He was so fucking high right now. He was so fucking sick right now. And Ben was yelling at him again.

“Fuck! I can’t do this again, Klaus! You were doing so well! Fuck! I can’t even pick up the phone to call the ambulance can I! No! You are going to die in this alleyway and then I’m going to have nobody to talk to and, and, and you can’t leave me alone! Please, Klaus, please! Shit, okay, I’m going to try and get help, okay? I’m going to try.”

Klaus felt himself drift. Ben was still talking, but then suddenly everything was quiet. He didn’t really get how he could still hear Ben with all the drugs in his system, but the other spirits had quieted down. And now, finally, Ben was gone too. He was going to die alone. Like he fucking deserved. His eyes shut, closing over tears that never fell and let the fog take him…

Next thing he knew there was something licking his face. Okay, still alive. Still dying. Probably. He opened his eyes.

Well. Where was he? This wasn’t the alleyway anymore. Maybe he wasn’t dying and he was already dead. But this wasn’t heaven. This was…he wasn’t sure. There were explosions of colours and shapes twisting in and out of existence and he felt simultaneously the highest he’s ever been and stone cold sober. He felt like he was awake and dreaming at the same time.

And in the midst of all this madness, there was a rather ordinary looking dog, who was licking his face.

“Well, hey there, boy. You wouldn’t happen to know the way back to reality now, would you?”

He didn’t know what to expect at this point. And yet it still startled him when the dog stopped licking his face and spoke back. “Ah. You’re awake. Good. You don’t taste very good.”

Klaus frowned. “Actually, I’m a snack. A delicious- wait. I’m…awake.” He sits up and looks around. Nothing was solid. There was no up and no down and he had no clue what he was sitting on because reality kept changing. Okay, he was definitely going crazy. “I don’t think I’m awake.”

“Hm. Well. In a manner of speaking. And in another, you’re dead.”

“Huh.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Well, I’ve been dead before. And really, I was asking for it anyways.”

The dog tilted its head, considering him, “I should be more specific. You’re only mostly dead, this time. This isn’t Death’s realm, but her sister’s.”

“…mostly dead? What am I? The man in black now?” Klaus hadn’t seen the movie until his teens, when he was homeless and couch-surfing. Or rather bed-surfing. And old lover had the movie on VHS.

“I don’t know what that means.” The dog huffed and then said, “I’m Barnabas, by the way. Not that you asked.”

“Aw, what an adorable name!” Klaus tried to pet him, but Barnabas looked mildly offended and ducked his head away. He looked like he was about to say something snippy when a bunch of brightly coloured fish swam past his head. Klaus had been trying to ignore his surroundings for the sake of his own sanity, but this caught his attention.

And then the…strangest voice followed after. “Ohhh, fishies! Come back here! …Hi, Barnabas!” He couldn’t really describe it. He could understand it, and for the most part it sounded like a young women’s voice, but something was distinctly…otherworldly. The voice sounded how this world looked. Chaotic, ever-changing, pitches and stresses in all the wrong places. It would have been called musical, if it wasn’t so discordant.

And then a figure stepped out of the swirls of colours and then he realised that nothing was ever going to make sense in here. She was colourful herself. Rainbow hair cut in an odd style. Two different coloured eyes and the oddest combination of clothes.

Though, honestly, he couldn’t say anything about his clothes. Currently, he was sporting the same outfit he wore in the real world and, frankly, wasn’t to off from this figure’s choice of clothes.

Well, at least they had something in common. “Nice shoes,” he tries.

The woman (girl? Young lady?) was talking to the dog and the fish, but turned to him at the sound of his voice. She drifted closer and peered down at him.

“Well, hello there, traveler. You seem a little lost.”

Klaus shrugged. She giggled. “Welllll, I suppose that’s, uh, that’s what you call life, now, isn’t it? Just a little bit lost and a lot bit lost! Go-ing on Forever!”

Barnabas came a bit closer to her, to sit beside her, not quite touching, but close. Like he meant to offer her comfort. She absentmindedly scratched his ears, but still didn’t look away from Klaus. Oh, was he supposed to offer a reply?

“Well, I’m hoping that’s not the case. I’ve been trying, lately, you see, to settle down a bit. Stay clean and, y’know, be there for my family. Try to…have a home, a proper one.” His voice grew more unsure as he continued to speak.

She was staring at him as he spoke, but not in his eyes. Just looking there briefly and then looking at his shirt and then his hair. Listening, but just couldn’t keep completely still. As she did, her nail polish changed colour and her ears changed shape and the rainbow in her hair shifted. This whole place was topsy-turvy. Strange how a talking dog named Barnabas was the sanest thing in here.

She looked back up briefly into his eyes and then down at her feet. “It’s Nice to do things for fa-mi-ly. I have many Siblings too. I like to help them sometimes. You said I have nice shoes. Would you like to wear them? We can trade!”

“Um.” Klaus wasn’t really sure what to say. “I don’t think our feet are the same size?”

She frowned. “Oh, what does that matter? Its just for fuunnn. C’mon!” And she proceeded to take off her shoes. Which, were just as colourful as her hair. Rainbow boots that had really neat buckles shaped like the fish that swam around their heads.

His were a solid black heel, stolen from Allison. They pinched his toes, not being the proper size, but they made his legs look gorgeous.

Allison probably wasn’t going to be happy to learn her shoes were traded away, but then again, she probably wasn’t going to be happy with him either way. If he ever made it back, that is.

He decided he should probably say all that out loud, and then he did, because they really weren’t his shoes, but the girl in front of him just sat down to better take of her shoes. “Oh, you’ll get out of Here eventu-ally. I like you, but you’re not mine to keep.” She finally managed to pull off both her boots. She was wearing mismatched socks, but those seemed to vanish. “And your family is just worried about you. If your sssister is mad, it’s only because she cares. You should ask them for help.”

He shrugged and easily kicked off his own shoes, accidently kicking it too close to Barnabas. The dog just looked long-suffering.

“They just think I’m useless and crazy. Well, maybe not Ben, but I’m not exactly doing my best there, y’know? He deserves to follow someone else around. Someone who won’t disappoint him again.”

The girl hummed. “They say I’m crazzzzy too. But that’s alright. Mad-ness isn’t always a Bad thing….it helps when I know too much. Sometimes its nice to have a break from san-i-ty.” Here she started to slip on the heels and gestured at the boots, so Klaus grabbed one and put it on, stamping a little to get his heel in. Huh. Perfect fit. She continued, “And just because I’m mad, doesn’t mean my siblings don’t care about me. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. We aallll make mistakes, even Beings such as us, even little ones such as you, and we…oh, shoot, Barnabas! What’s the word? The- the Big one.”

She glanced around as if the word she was looking for would suddenly appear. “You know. When the butterflies are iiiinn your body instead of outside them. Like stepping off the edge of a cliff, but knowing there is Someone to catch you, or for you to catch them.”

Barnabas opened his mouth to say something, but she snapped her fingers (which made Klaus do a doubletake when the snap sound created visual shockwaves of colour, like they were in some sort of comic book), and then said, “Oh! Love! It’s lo-ve. We all love each other the same. They loved me when I was Delight, and they still love me as Delirium. I mean, look at Bar-na-bas!” She gestured with a heel in her hand. The dog sat a little straighter. “He was a gift to me from one of my bro-thers, to care and look afterrr me, and we’ve become such good friends! Destruction cares in his own way, and I know your siblings do too. You just got-ta….gotta ask, okay?”

Barnabas smiled slightly. It looked a bit weird on a dog, but it seemed gentle. “I think we are the very best friends, my dear Delirium.”

She put the other heel on and bounced up onto them, smiling at them both, at the world around them, at the tiny fish swimming above her head. The black of the heels swirled with spots of colour, but mostly stayed the same.

Klaus finished doing up the buckles on both shoes and stood up too. He reached a hand up and the fish swam through his fingers and around his arm. The rainbow shoes felt warm and comfortable on his feet. He felt a bit giddy. He gave her a big grin and said, “Yeah. Okay. Sure. If I ever manage to get out of here, I’ll ask. Why not!”

She gave him a grin in return. To match. Though hers stretched a little too far on her face. Still friendly, but not exactly a human smile. Her eyes changed colours too, but never the same colours at the same time. A fish swam in front of her face and this distracted her from him.

“Well, how do I get out of here anyways? Not that I don’t mind your company, I should be getting back to the real world.”

She looked back at him and seemed to startle a little bit. “Ohhhh, what were we talking about?”

He blinked and looked at her and then looked at Barnabas, who said to her, in a reassuring manner, “It wasn’t important. Klaus was leaving soon anyways.”

“Hm. My he-ad hurts. Was I talking Rightly again? That always Hurts.”

“Yes, Delirium, but you don’t have to anymore. Why don’t we help Klaus go home and then play with the fish?”

Klaus frowned at Barnabas in confusion. Delirium laughed joyfully and said, “Well, hell yeah! There’s only a few swimming around, buuuut I can make more!” She proceeded to spin around and do exactly that.

Barnabas sidled closer to Klaus and said, “She does that, sometimes.”

“What? Forgets?”

“No. Remembers. The advice she gave you? How coherent she spoke? Does not happen often. You should take heed. The knowledge she has…is vast. So vast that it seems to…hurt her. Now, it’s time for you to go.” He didn’t say this roughly, but there was a sadness when he spoke.

“Thanks,” Klaus said, heartfelt. “And thank her for me, too, even if she doesn’t remember.”

Delirium wandered back over with a great many more fish swimming around, some bigger than others. Some so small he could barely see in the swirl of colours and shapes. “Oh yes! You!” She tapped him firmly on the forehead and said, “Say the magic words!”

“Um, please-”

“Wrong, so wrong. Try again.” And here she clicked her new heels three times.

Klaus couldn’t help it. He laughed. He saw that movie too. And then he copied her action and said the “magic” words, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no pla-”

And then he was in an ambulance, the paramedic’s expression triumphant and relieved. Ben, hovering over him on the other side, looked similar.

“Klaus, don’t ever do that to me again. You are so lucky there was this goth lady around. Apparently, you aren’t the only one that can speak to the dead. She was pretty Zen about the whole thing. Said it wasn’t your time and managed to find a nearby payphone. She didn’t even ask why I couldn’t call the ambulance myself!”

Ben sounded a bit hysterical. The paramedic seemed to be chattering away as he checked Klaus’ vitals. Klaus felt himself tearing up. He could still feel the drugs in his system. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I can’t do this-”

“C’mon, Klaus! I know you’re stronger- what about Dave-”

“No, shit, Ben, just- I can’t do this alone, okay? I-I really need. I need help. I want to stay clean. Please. I just- please. I can’t do this alone.”

The paramedic wasn’t paying attention to his babble, too focussed on actually keeping him alive, but Ben was listening intently. He tried to lay his hand on Klaus’ shoulder, but his hand passed through. Klaus shivered. Ben looked disappointed, but not surprised. He settled for leaning over, close to Klaus’ face, and said, “Never, Klaus. I’m here, okay. And the others…we’ll ask for help from them too. We’re all trying to be a family, right? And….and whatever you need.”

Klaus felt tears in his eyes and with a rough voice he said, “Thank you, Ben. I always knew you were my favourite brother.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but a smile tugged the corner of his lips. “Oh, please. I’ll remember that next time you say that to any of our other siblings.”

“Why would Allison or Vanya be my favourite brother?”

“Fuck off, you know what I meant.” Okay, definitely a smile now.

And then Ben happened to glance at his feet. “Klaus, where the hell did you get those?”

Klaus looked at his feet and saw that he wasn’t wearing Allison’s heels, but rainbow boots. Huh. So not a drug-induced dream.

“Klaus?”

“I’ve been thinking, Ben.”

“Oh no. I didn’t know you could do that.” He gestured at the boots. “Are you not going to answer?”

Klaus ignored him and stared at the boots. “I’ve been wondering if they might allow aquariums in rehab.”

Ben stared at him a little. But he was also long used to Klaus saying weird stuff. “Well. If we manage to use some of dad’s fortune for rehab, they’ll allow us as many fish as we want. If…if that’s what you wanted the aquarium for.”

It was…so fucking nice to hear Ben using “us” and “we” like that. He knew Ben was stuck with him, but it felt…. like he wasn’t alone. That Ben meant it. That he was going to have help this time, from the whole family. And if they used dear old dad’s money…well. That would be icing on the cake. Petty? Yes. Deserved, even beyond the grave? Hell yes. He’s glad that he didn’t have another visit from him. He doesn’t think he could stand anymore revelations or disappointment from him. He’d take a bizarre realm of multi-coloured girls and fish and talking dogs any day.

Though, he really didn’t want to go back any time soon. Being mostly dead was exhausting.

“Yeah, Ben, fish. Lots of colourful fish.” His voice sounded further away, like hearing himself through a long tunnel. Klaus could feel his eyes droop closed.

Ben laughed softly. “Anything you need, Klaus. Have some nice dreams for me, will you?” Klaus’ eyes were closed, but for a flash, he thought he saw someone above him. He couldn’t see features, just a strange helmet and black robes. A pale hand sprinkled shining dust onto him. Onto his closed eyes. And then the figure was gone.

And he swore, right before he drifted off to sleep, that he felt Ben’s hand on his shoulder. But then again, it could have just been his imagination.

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kariachi · 6 years

Text

Oh look, more commission work! This time a daemon au rewrite of the Static Shock two-parter ‘A League of Their Own’, as purchased by @thenixkat. And holy shit is it a long one.

“Batman, Raven, how goes the security check?” Turning away from Hawkgirl, Raven huffed, rearranging her wings and hunching over on her perch.

“All six levels of the stasis field are intact,” Batman answered, carefully ignoring his daemon. There was no reason to risk getting her ranting now when he’d be hearing all about how she hated that name and would rather be Batcrow for the millionth time later anyway.

“Thank fuck.”

“Onthar!” Fur on end, the alien daemon hopped up onto the control panel beside Batman’s, tails wrapping around himself as he stared passed Hawkgirl at the chunk of hardware floating in a tube in the middle of the room. There was something ominous about the Brainiac symbol emblazoned on it.

“It creeps me out,” he continued, as if his other half hadn’t said anything, “having them here.” Hawkgirl hummed agreement as she reached out to stroke him.

“Better here, where we can keep them contained, then out in the galaxy.” Still she followed his gaze. It creeped her out too, creeped all of them out. Even Batman, if what Onthar said Raven said was true. “How much of them do you think is in there?”

“Too much.” The other hero rose out of his chair like there weren’t joints to move beneath the cape, his daemon stepping off the back of the chair and onto his shoulder as he did. “Brainiac is a regenerative program, and while we can’t be sure his daemon is as well we have to assume the worst. Both intelligent viruses that will never die.” He spared them a glance before turning his attention back to the mass of circuits and steel. “There’s wisdom in the saying ‘keep your enemies close’, but there are times I wouldn’t mind sending Brainiac down the nearest black hole.”

“Well, it would certainly save us the room.”

“Onthar!”

Any argument that may have come up was averted by a series of high, squeaking barks followed quickly by the Watchtower’s alarm system blaring. Within seconds Flash and Flicker were darting through the room.

“Need everyone in the control room, we’ve got a problem!”

“What going on?”

“You tell us-”

“The sensors are going haywire, but we haven’t been able to spot anything.” Man and daemon were both checking everything they could think of, from close and long range scanners to all the cameras, at speeds all but nobody could reach. So fast that it was only moments until

“There!” The video feeds suddenly stop changing as Hawkgirl pointed at one of the displays, Onthar’s eyes going wide at the shimmering line in the void headed their way.

“Shields up, Flick, now!” The prairie dog was a blur as she followed orders, darting about the appropriate panel before tucking herself in Riezen’s tentacled grip as Hawkgirl’s explanation rang out.

“Cosmic super string, they pack more energy than a solar flare! Brace for collision!”

Sound advice. Unlike a solar flare this string packed a serious punch, rattling the Watchtower as it passed over it. The humans and Hawkgirl were knocked to the ground, Flash and Flicker hissing as the force of the impact threw them to the edges of their bond. Onthar was only just able to catch one of Hawkgirl’s feathers in his teeth, keeping them close enough for her to drag him into her arms, and Raven launched herself into the air with a squawk of alarm, landing by the side of hers as soon as it was safe to, whistling concern and nuzzling his cheek. The control panels sparked and flashed, thuds and thunks could be heard from inside. The only things seemingly unaffected were Riezen, suctioned to the control panel and with Flicker still tightly grasped, and J’onn, who had put his intangibility to good use.

“Our energy core is drained,” he said once everything stopped shaking, he and his daemon both immediately going to work checking the systems. They and everyone else politely ignored Flash and Flicker coming back together in a blur.

“What about the back-up?” Batman asked. Unlike Flash and Hawkgirl, who continued to hold Onthar close to her as she flew up to check the reserves, he didn’t reach out for his daemon, but those observant enough would have noticed a tilt to his head in her direction. A silent reassurance in light of her worries.

“We have some reserves left,” Hawkgirl said, “but not much.”

“Definitely not enough to power the whole of the station,” Onthar continued, “we’ll have to stick to the important stuff until we recharge.”

“That may want to be now.” Riezen moved forwards and tapped a tentacle against the forwards display. “Our orbit is decaying.”

“The super string knocked us off course.” J’onn looked back at the rest of them, “We’re heading for the stratosphere, and it would take all our reserve power and more to move back into position.” Concern shot across Flash’s face and he shot forward, Flicker still clasped in his arms.

“If we run around the power core at super speed, we could generate enough static electricity-”

“No,” Batman said, “you could damage the core. But I do know somebody who could get us out of this, if we can reach him in time.” He stepped up to the control panel, pressing buttons until news feed of a young teen, clearly a super, came up on the screen.

Raven whistled her approval.

Meanwhile, back in the Brainiac Containment Room, a program suddenly found itself with a little more room to stretch it’s metaphorical legs. And, brushing it’s consciousness across it’s more infamous companion’s, it did so with relish.

On the security monitor, a flashing series of letters- F A I L U R E- stopped, vanished, and were replaced.

Systems Operational.

“We’re fucked.”

“Jolt, I swear to God-”

Technically there were villains talking, but they weren’t actually listening. It was the normal posturing, it happened every time, the only information you could gain was names and motivations, which they already knew. So instead, while Puff and Hotstreak talked shit, Static, Gear, and their daemons were focusing on the important things. Things such as how they were already sore, were thankful the fourth pair of the team wasn’t anybody more threatening than Carmen Dillo and Noel, and how to not give Cam the satisfaction of being right about dying.

“So, bro,” Gear said, as Hotstreak asserted their invincibility while he and Puff’s daemons circled the lot like vultures, “who do we go for first?”

“The police.” Puff seemed to take pleasure in their concern- which was well deserved given the heroes were vastly outnumbered by people who could do some serious damage, and Noel- given the smile on her face as she stepped forward.

“Ladies first.” She formed an orb of gas between her hands, pulled back to throw and-

And was blown back by a sudden red twister that slowed to reveal the proud figures of the Flash and Flicker.

“You know something sweetie, you’ve got an odor problem.”

Flicker’s quiet, admonishing “Flash” went mostly unnoticed under Puff’s furious cry. Slipping easily into her more gaseous state she rose to join Gust in the air, the coati giving a squeaky, grunting warcry as he swung low to lob his own attack at the heroes. Flash wasted no time though, spinning his arm to create a vortex that flung the attack, the daemon, and the young woman over the heads of their team and straight into the side of the brick building beyond, much to the other villains’ concern. Surprisingly Carmen was the first to react, turning to the heroes with a snarl on his face for just a moment before suddenly curling in on himself, just in time to be shielded from Hawkgirl coming in from the side. One swing of her mace sent him flying into Onyx and the both of them crashing into the brickwork mere feet from Puff, the sound of falling rubble serving to cover Jet’s cry of pain as her bond with Onyx was stretched and she scuttled for him at top speed, wedging herself under his arm as far as she could. Carmen unrolled across the larger Bang Baby’s back with a groan and a distinctly displeased look as his daemon bounded for him with a shriek and began to frantically inspect him for major harm.

“If I knew Static was friends with the Justice League,” he said, “I wouldn’t have joined you boneheads. Not even to do laundry.” Hotstreak, through all this, actually managed to seem worried about the situation, though that didn’t last long. About as long as it took for Stella to land heavily on his shoulder, wings and crest already spread and flaming even before he lit up himself. An intimidating scene, and one cut very short by the newly arrived Batman with the help of a grenade canister of extinguishing foam.

All in all, a very short fight. Maybe a minute and a half.

“Yo, how come you never told us you were down with these big dogs?” Gear and Socket both had their mouths gaping with shock, the wolf’s ears pressed back.

“Cause, it’s, a secret,” Jolt haltingly replied, she and Static carrying a very similar look themselves.

“So secret even we didn’t know… Yo, Batman,” Slowly Static and Jolt landed as the renowned hero approached them, “thanks for the help but, don’t you guys have a galaxy to save or something?” It just, didn’t make sense why the Justice League would send some of their to people to come, what? Help a few newbies put away some comparatively minor crooks?

“We need your help, Static, Jolt.” Okay, now things made even less sense. Static could practically feel the fur on the back of Jolt’s neck trying to stick up and could taste electricity jumping between her ears and fake antlers.

“Say what?” This had to be a joke of some sort. Batman didn’t do jokes, but, surely there was a first time for everything.

“We need you to come to the Watchtower.”

“The Watchtower? Up there?” He still was struggling to believe it, pointing as he spoke- “That one?” This wasn’t a joke was it? The Justice League needed his help and wanted him to come to the Watchtower. He could feel a grin begin splitting his face and Jolt started making a high-pitched, excited noise at his side.

“Ooo ooo! Can we come too?!” Gear looked just as hyped as he came down to join them on the ground, and Socket was too excited to both with a slow descent, instead thudding down to the asphalt with his tail going a mile a minute.

“Can we please? Please?!”

“This isn’t a field trip,” Hawkgirl noted, walking over with Onthar and looking at Gear and Socket like, well, like they were overly excited teenagers. Which managed to curb their enthusiasm for about three-quarters of a second before they started back up.

“Please, oh please!”

“You can stuff us in the stowaway bin!”

“And when we get up there, we’ll stand in a corner!”

“You can pick which one!” By which point Gear was halfway to puppy-eyes and Socket had reached maximum puppy-eye, lying on his belly with his tail wagging and staring up at Onthar like he was God. The older daemon laughed.

“Alright, alright, you can come.” The look Hawkgirl shot him was unimpressed at best, but like any pair they had a lifetime of practice ignoring each other’s disapproval and he was downright smug when Batman stepped in.

“Come on, we need to move fast,” he said, and with a friendly croak from Raven on top of it, well, that was that.

“Cooool…” It was a quartet of voices, all with the exact same degree of awe. Static and Gear both looked like they couldn’t wait to get their hands on, well, everything. Jolt scrambled her way up Socket’s side to get a better view of it all. It was just, amazing. They’d all thought about it, had their pipe dreams about getting to come up to the League’s Watchtower, but they’d never actually expected to ever see inside. It was as amazing as they’d imagined.

“We’ve made it to geek heaven,” Gear said, reaching out to stroke Socket’s ear as they crossed the doorway, all four beelining for the various control panels and monitors. “Look! It’s some sort’ve multiphasic monitoring system! I’ll bet it can pick up any broadcast signal on Earth!” As soon as he began to rub his hands together Jolt was up on Socket’s head, forepaws on the control panel as they inspected it. This, unfortunately, left her in the perfect position to the surprised by J’onn rising up out of the panel, Riezen chuckling from where they’d gone unnoticed by the monitors as she tumbled back down the wolf daemon’s side, landing on her feet in a mess of sparks.

“I’ve got the power conduits all set for Static, I’ll see you in the control room.” And just like he’d came the Martian was gone, his daemon rolling down to the floor and making their way with surprising speed across the room. It was a sight to behold- no matter how many times you saw them on TV, you just were never prepared to watch the love child of an octopus, a nautilus, and a slug make their way passed your feet.

“Okay… I still don’t understand,” Static said, shaking his head to clear out the strange image, “what’s going on?”

“We were hit by a cosmic anomaly, it drained the Watchtower’s central powercore,” Batman explained as he and Hawkgirl lead them after Riezen, “we need you to recharge it for us.”

“Recharge the station?”

“Us?”

“Don’t you guys have jumper cables?” They were honored of course, but, really? This was Batman speaking, shouldn’t he have had back-up generators in place? That weren’t teenagers?

J’onn was waiting for them in the main control room, his daemon perched on his shoulder.

“These conduits lead straight to the power core at the center of the Watchtower,” he said, “here’s where you can feed in your energy.” All in all the whole thing was, surprisingly underwhelming, now that they had a ‘why’.

“Some grand adventure,” Static muttered. Jolt didn’t even bother with muttering.

“Do I look like the Energizer Bunny to you people?” Static had too much of her in him to flinch like Gear and Socket did, but it still was nice to hear Raven immediately start chuckling. Supposedly she wasn’t the talkative sort, but at least she had a sense of humor. Batman, on the other hand…

“One way to look at is,” he said in a tone of voice they recognized from their parents and occasionally Sharon and Asher, “you’re preventing the station from crashing down somewhere on Earth. Quite possibly Dakota.” Well, when he put it that way. Static pulled down his goggles and Jolt hopped up to wedge herself into the space available.

“We’ll just get on charging the station, huh?”

“Good idea.”

It wasn’t the most entertaining job around, how’s that? All Static and Jolt were doing was expending as many calories as possible in the most boring way possible while Gear and Socket hung out in a corner specially chosen by Hawkgirl. There was the brief ‘excitement’ of finally reaching enough power to re-establish the satellite’s orbit, which went by with minimal fanfare, but for the most part nothing happened until Gear chose the worst time to try to get a photo. Before he could even make a real attempt he was in mid-air, surrounded by a green glow while Socket stood at alert below him, hackles raised as he glared at the brindled dog beside Green Lantern.

“Easy, GL.” Flash and Flicker quickly came to the rescue, Flash going to Green Lantern’s side while Flicker took position between the canine daemons. “Sparky’s buddy.” Gear was spared a Look before he was placed down gently and his camera returned to him, though Lauretta continued to give Socket a hard stare for several seconds before following after her human with a blunt

“No pictures.”

“Alright Static,” Batman said, clearly unfazed by what had gone down, to nobody’s surprise, “now that Green Lantern’s back, he can take it from here.”

“Good,” Static said, notably tired as he backed away, his gloves smoking, “I feel like a grilled patty.” Jolt didn’t even manage that much, just to slide out of the section of wall with a groan and shuffle her way after her other half. Gear and Socket automatically rose to meet them, the wolf loping forward to nuzzle Jolt.

“Come on, small fry.” She halfheartedly kicked at him, but then quickly let him stick his head under her belly so she draped across his neck.

“We don’t have to go yet, do we?” Gear said when he reached Static’s side. “So far I’ve only seen one corner of the room!” They certainly hoped not, the electrical pair was exhausted and hungry. Which didn’t even make sense for Jolt, she was a daemon, the didn’t even need to eat! But she was starving just as much as Static was, which only made her more aggravated when a blaring alarm began assaulting her poor ears.

“It’s Nivelus II,” Hawkgirl said, attention fully on the monitor in front of her, “there’s an asteroid swarm heading for their planet.”

“That would take all of us to deal with,” Riezen added as the League members grouped together around Hawkgirl. Flash frowned.

“Well, there goes our afternoon.” The younger set of heroes all looked at each other. There were a lot of things they were prepared to deal with, fighting crime in Dakota pretty much required flexibility, but asteroid swarms were not on their resumes. Hawkgirl seemed to realize this.

“What about them?” she asked.

“The Watchtower isn’t fully recharged, they’ll have to stay here, just in case.” For the first time since their meeting she didn’t look annoyed, instead she was visibly concerned as she watched Batman walk away with Raven pecking at one of the ears of his cowl.

“Alone?” That was anything but a problem for them, the idea of being alone in the Watchtower was enough to perk even Jolt up, and the fact the rest of the Justice League seemed cool with it only helped.

“As long as they don’t touch anything, they should be fine.”

“Yeah, you guys are old enough to stay home by yourselves, right?” The teens’ faces split into grins.

“Right!”

“Definitely!” Hawkgirl didn’t look convinced, and in fact neither did some of the daemons, but they didn’t push any further. Instead Onthar crossed some of the distance between the groups and leveled them with a firm look.

“The cafeteria is down the hall, fourth door on the right,” he said, just before Lauretta came up behind him.

“Don’t touch anything, behave yourselves, and stay safe.” The boys nodded vigorously, and Socket did his best equivalent to a salute.

“Yes ma’am!”

“The cheap stuff, I cannot believe-”

“You’ve been whining about this for thirty minutes.”

“It’s not even bad.”

“That’s not the point, the point is that nobody who owns their own satellite should have a freezer full of cheap pizza. They did this to spite us.” There were groans all around.

“They did not do this to spite us.”

“No, they clearly did.” Richie shook his head, tearing into his pizza only a hair more ravenously than his friends as Virgil dropped his face into his hands and Abe continued the ongoing argument.

“Cam, Sharon, where did they even get the attitude, man?” Not even bothering to look up, Virgil raised a finger knowingly.

“Gran.”

“Ahh.” He took another large bite. “Ya know, I hope the League doesn’t mind us raiding the fridge.” Virgil chuckled, dropping his feet down off the table- just barely missing Abe, likely on instinct alone- and grabbing up his plate.

“Hey, we’re growing superheroes,” he said as he headed for the sink, “and Cam and I just spent every calorie we’ve ever earned charging up this place.”

“We have earned this pizza,” the jackrabbit added, her own slice jealously guarded from the menfolk- she knew Richie and Abe, “even if it is cheap.”

“You really need to-” Virgil went quiet, freezing as the screen in front of him wavered, showing something that almost had looked like some sort’ve face…. He turned back to the others. “Did you see that?”

“See what?” Richie was fully engrossed in his pizza, and Abe was just as bad. Well, at least his daemon had been paying attention, her ears straight up and back tense.

“There was a face looking at us, on the screen. It didn’t look human.” Richie and Abe scoffed in unison.

“Big deal. We just spent the day with a Martian and a Thanagarian.”

At which point more alarms started going.

Immediately Richie’s feet were off the table and his hand was in Abe’s fur, while Cam catapulted herself into Virgil’s arms.

“This cannot be good.” And it wasn’t. Within heartbeats of the alarm starting the outer door began to open, leading directly into the dark vacuum of space. The only good news was that the chairs and table were bolted to the floor, meaning that when things began to be sucked out into space Virgil and Richie could latch onto the nearest seats and Abe could hook himself around the table’s leg. The biggest risk was to Cam, clenched tight against Virgil’s chest with one arm while he tried to keep them from flying off with the other. She did the first thing that came to mind, trying to use her powers to force the doors to shut again, only to fail. Richie nearly lost his grip and Abe, in response, began to whine.

“Cam, get the cabinets!” Ears perking at Virgil’s request, she quickly found the ones he was talking about and took aim, electricity arcing between her ears and antlers. A burst of power had the screws coming free, leaving the cabinet to be dragged across the room and, being taller than the door, block it enough to lessen the pull of the vacuum. As soon as the force wasn’t enough to drag them away the quartet leapt to their feet and bolted for the door, Virgil and Richie clamping their daemons between themselves and the walls for their own safety. But this door wouldn’t shut either, no matter how many times Virgil slammed on the appropriate button.

“One sec, we can maybe override the controls!” Immediately BacPac was on the job, plugging into a nearby control panel, and not a second too soon as the cabinet finally gave way. The shutting of the doors, and with them the arrival of safety, finally, came with a mass of relieved groans.

“Ya know,” Virgil said, slumping against the wall, “I think I’ve lost my appetite.” Richie nodded.

“Yeah, me too.”

“For now,” Abe scoffed, and the others couldn’t help a tiny, relieved chuckle.

“Yeah, for now.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, we don’t wanna make the J League mad.” Gear paused in his typing to look at Static and Jolt. “You saw how Hawknose swung that mace!”

“I think she’ll live.” Socket’s voice had had a distinct growl to it ever since they’d escaped the cafeteria and he now was pacing back and forth between the others and the door like, well, a caged wolf. They’d set up shop in the nearest room with access to the Tower’s systems, with no care as to actual purpose, hoping to find information.

“All I want,” Static said, Jolt back in his arms again, “is to know why this place almost killed us.”

“First, they use us as battery power, then the cheap pizza, now this- I’m lodging a formal complaint.”

“You do that, Small Fry.” Somehow the quartet managed to become tenser when the door opened, something that didn’t go away when all that entered was a robot pushing a vacuum cleaner. If anything, that seemed to make Socket more aggravated, in true canine fashion, and Jolt even growled when it grew a brush and started trying to clean off her and Static.

“Relax Jolt, it’s just a cleaning bot,” he said, stroking her, even when she scoffed.

“You act like we weren’t just almost killed by a pair of malicious doors.”

“They weren’t malicious, just suspicious.”

“Six of one, half dozen of the other, look.” Everyone turned to Richie and the screen in front of him, letting the robot putter halfway out the door unnoticed. “The stations firewalls are expanding. Like something’s taken over and locking everybody else out.” Pointedly ignoring the quiet “yay, the station is evil” from his personal peanut gallery, Static eyed the displays on view.

“Can you isolate whatever it is?” With hardly a nod Gear went to work, typing away as Static and Jolt watched on. Meanwhile, Socket returned to his pacing, taking note of the robot that hadn’t quite left. Especially the way it seemed to deactivate as the firewall display became smaller.

“It’s slippery, but I think I’ve got it. The League files have it ID’d, a virus called… Brainiac?” A green face, vaguely familiar, appeared on the screen.

“That’s the face from the cafeteria!” Static clutched his daemon tighter. “But what’s it doing in the League’s system?”

“Correction. Our system. I’ve been growing exponentially ever since we sent the Justice League away.” If the words hadn’t been creepy and ominous enough on their own, the monotone in which they were spoken would easily have done the job. A computer putting words together, that was all. Instinctively Gear tried to reach out for Socket.

“What?”

“I summoned them away with a false distress call. When you are disposed of, the last human infestation will be gone from the Watchtower, then I will-”

There was what could only be called a roar behind them.

Static and Gear spun on their heels, eyes blowing wide at the sight of the robot from before flailing, the brush replaced with a buzzsaw of all things. Socket was latched onto that arm, snarling and using the powers granted him by his Settled form- bone-crushing teeth and the stamina to hold onto an elk until it gave up- to keep it away from the rest of the team. They could only watch the events unfold, unable to help for fear of catching Socket in the crossfire, nobody breathing until with one final swing the wolf was lobbed across the room. Socket hit the opposing wall with a yipe in the same instant Gear collapsed to the ground, breath knocked out of him by the twang of distance across their bond. Not a snap, but still further apart than they should ever have been.

“Socket!” Brainiac watched impassively as Gear rose enough to launch himself towards his daemon and Jolt leapt to the floor to face the threat head-on with Static.

“Be quick, Del.”

“Of course.” Somehow the voice from the robot was worse, like Brainiac’s but, vaguely distorted. Nobody noticed Brainiac’s face phase out, Static and Jolt focused entirely on the fight. Namely, in blasting the cleaning-bot into three separate pieces. It was surprisingly easy, just one combined hit to the less-than-nimble machine had done it, but then the voice had tutted at them from the room’s speakers and a panel had opened, releasing a number of ambulatory cables that would’ve caught them up had they both not been sparking like ball lightning out of pure worry and protectiveness. Really they’d felt about ready to take on the world alone, they may have had to with their partners temporarily unavailable, but alas they weren’t quite that good. Another panel had opened in the floor and up had risen another, larger, more clearly offensive robot. A solid blast knocked it back and into the wall, but it just got right back up like nothing had happened at all. So, they’d gone directly to Plan B.

Drag Gear and Socket to their feet and run like Hell was on their heels. Which it seemed to be, with the voices echoing through the halls.

“There is nothing you can do.”

“And no point in trying to hide.”

“Control room? Maybe we can get a distress call out?”

“As good a bet as any!”

Sudden static broke the silence of the ship’s cockpit (well, the near silence of the ship’s cockpit, but everyone was politely ignoring Raven, Flicker, and Onthar’s gossiping). It was difficult to make out, a weak and bumpy signal that sounded like Gear right up until a boost from Green Lantern’s ring proved it to be the teen. Worried and with his daemon half in his lap.

“Distress call fake! Repeat- distress call faked! Brainiac loose in-” with a bark Socket vaulted Gear’s lap and disappeared off screen, followed closely by the boy as his eyes went wide calling “Static! Volt, look out!”

The message cut out there.

For the briefest of moments the ship was silent, reeking of dread, concern, horror, before nine spines stiffened as one. Without a word they banked towards home, every face grimly serious, Riezen flashing warning colors, fur and feathers both on end.

“If they’ve hurt so much as a single hair on those children I will flush them down a black hole myself!”

“The launch bays aren’t responding, we can’t get in.” Such simple words, yet the tension in the ship bumped up several levels at the speaking of them. It bumped up several more levels when Brainiac showed himself in a flashy light show on the outside of the base. Thirty-two minutes, it had taken them thirty-two minutes to get back (less than it should have, but really, what was frying the engines if it meant they could save the kids and defeat Brainiac?) How has he gotten this much control so quickly? How long had he been in control? How much had he taken over already when they left?

Could they have prevented this?

Hawkgirl and Onthar had been in their spacesuits for fifteen minutes, and as soon as Brainiac showed his face they, Green Lantern, and Lauretta undid their seatbelts and headed for the exit. Not that there was much they could do, immediately the Watchtowers outer defenses were turned on them and the ship, but at least they had to try.

“I can’t connect to any of the systems inside,” Batman said, not showing the same worry they knew he felt from the way Raven loomed on his shoulder, “Brainiac has completely cut us off. But maybe I can still reach Static and Gear.” Precious seconds passed.

“Static, Gear, come in, what is your situation?”

…

“Static, Gear?”

“Let’s just say there’s room for improvement!”

They were caught. Or, well, Static and Gear were caught. Socket and Jolt were trying to get them free, but it was hard when the robot slowly squeezing your people to death was that many times your size and kept trying to step on you. Mostly what it meant was they were dodging while Jolt occasionally blasted the thing and Socket tried to figure out if he could disable it. Unfortunately, they were starting to get annoying.

“It’s time to get rid of you pests,” the robot- Del, Brainiac had called it Del- said, clamping down harder on the boys. For a moment it looked like Jolt was going to start launching herself headfirst at it out of desperation- nothing she did was stopping it and if she hit any harder she might hurt her own- before Socket snatched her up in his teeth and out of the way of a foot.

“Found it,” he whispered, “distraction, now!” And well, what else was she to do but listen? In two bounds she’d scrambled her way onto Del’s head, sparking and bouncing and refusing to be shaken off. She caught brief glimpses of Socket, the browns, greys, teals of his disguise and costume, but couldn’t get a solid look until he leapt away from the thing and howled for her. She kicked off it’s head and landed beside him, swearing to herself she’d later take a moment to worry about the golden Dust drifting from his claws and teeth, and turned to see a discarded panel and an expanse of freshly uninsulated wiring. The pair grinned together.

“Fry it.”

And in a flash of arcing electricity she did.

The machine collapsed, clamping hands reflexively opening and shutting, dropping their boys to the floor where the two daemons rushed to them. In a flurry of limbs they got to their feet and started running, not caring where they went as long as it was away from whatever the viruses decided to throw at them next.

“Batman, you still there?” Rarely were the League so happy to hear someone else’s voice on their lines. Especially since they’d now managed to regain access to the security cameras.

“I’ve located your position, you’re heading straight for the central power core. You need to shut it down.”

“How are we gonna do that?!”

“You need to drain the core this time, and absorb it’s energy.”

“Oh thank fuck, we really could use it back about now!” Batman ignored the young daemon’s comment, and the way Flash, Flicker, and Raven were snickering at it.

“I’ve been jamming our communications so he won’t know our plan, and now the Justice League is going to provide a major distraction. So get going. Over and out.”

“I’m going to assume this is it,” Socket said as they approached a massive door that certainly looked important.

“I hope so,” Virgil said. Removing BacPac from his perch, Gear set him on the wall next to a nearby control panel where he began to force access. And apparently it worked, the doors opened, exposing a massive glass tower surging with electricity. Static and Jolt breathed deep as they approached it, rolling their shoulders. “Keep BacPac plugged in, just in case.”

“Will do.” With a quiet whine, Socket propped himself up on the wall with his forepaws so he could whisper back and forth with his.

“We could-”

“That could work-”

“It would work-”

The conversation went quick, and it had to because before Static and Jolt could get started a pair of cables burst down the hallway, nearly knocking Gear and Socket over, and wrapping the electrical pair tight. A ‘Plan B’ was definitely required as Brainiac reappeared and began to monologue.

“I am everywhere, I am everything, you cannot defeat us-” Who knows for certain whether the virus planned to continue further than that, as that was the point when music started playing through the Tower’s speakers. Villain and heroes alike stopped to level a firm look at the pair in the hall.

“Really, Gear?! Really?!”

“Perfect time!” The supergenius was grinning a toothy one to match his daemon’s. “One song downloaded 100 million times!”

“Let’s see just how good their memory is!”

Not good enough, apparently, as quickly Brainiac began to flicker, words becoming choppy and hard to understand as he lagged and skipped, he and Del losing enough control to release Static and Jolt, who immediately set to work taking back the power they’d put into the satellite in a hail of green sparks.

“N-n-n-n-no! I c-c-c-c-caaaaaaannot be defeated I am B-b-b-b-b-raaaaaiiiiiniac-ac-ac-ac! One d-d-day I will-ill-ill be b-back-”

Too many crises solved for one day, the set soon found themselves back on Earth, out behind their base surrounded by smiling Justice League members.

“You did well, both of you,” which, so far, from Hawkgirl, was some pretty major praise. Still, this was the Justice League. And it was only one little assault by Brainiac.

“All in a day’s work for us superheroes, right?” The League’s looks were fond as J’onn responded to Static.

“Do not make light of your accomplishments, this was a very serious matter.”

“Yeah.” Flash ruffled their hair, or as well as he could given Gear’s helmet, while Flicker rubbed herself against Jolt and Socket’s legs. “You dweebs saved the world today.” Dakota’s Finest shared a relatively long look. They, had not realized it was quite that serious.

“So, when I’m looking for work this summer, can I put that on my resume?” Both teens looked hopeful, though apparently for very different reasons.

“All I want,” Gear said, “is just one picture, just so I can believe this happened in the morning.” Socket, again, immediately busted out the puppy-eyes, and again the League didn’t seem impressed. Until Onthar strolled forward, that is.

“Just be sure to get my good side, kid.”

Virgil and Cam left for home first, to nobody’s surprise. Richie and Abe weren’t terribly fond of home and both tended to get caught up in their own shit. So there was no shock when they were left alone, nor when they took another half hour or so to get their things together. No, that came when a shocked yipe and thud rang through the gas station, Richie spinning away from his computer to see his daemon too still on the pile of blankets he’d claimed his own, their favorite invention downright looming over him.

“Abe? BacPac? What’s wrong?!” Richie took a step forward, brow creased with his concern as BacPac turned to face him.

When the machine pounced, it’s eye glowed a familiar green…

~~~~~

5 Days Later…

~~~~~

“We’re sorry, we don’t know what’s been going on with them.” It was a bit of a relief to see Isaac worried, meant they weren’t the only ones to notice Richie and Abe had been, weird, the past several days.

“Well, they’re up,” Mrs Foley said as she left her son’s room and joined her daemon on the stairs, reaching out to compulsively toy with the wolfdog’s fur. “They’re still acting strange, but they’re up.” She huffed a little laugh. “If Richie’s appetite wasn’t getting worse, I’d be considering calling a professional.” They all forced laughter at that. If nothing else, as long as Richie was eating they could assume the two weren’t dying or something. Even if they’d suddenly stopped going on patrol, and begun spending less and less time at school, and basically were seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth.

There was a reason Virgil and Cam had come over to walk them to school rather than waiting to meet up on the way.

“We’ll see if we can find out what’s up,” Cam said as the young pair headed up the stairs, Virgil offering a warm smile that Mrs Foley returned.

“Thank you, we’d greatly appreciate it. Just…” She trailed off, only to have Isaac pick up the sentence.

“Don’t push them? If you could?” Well, that was an odd request in the circumstances, but they shrugged it off.

“Sure thing.”

“Thank you, Virgil.”

The scene they walked into was almost normal, Richie getting dressed, Abe packing their bookbag, but it wasn’t right. There was no smile when Virgil called Richie’s name, no wagging tail when Cam leapt playfully at Abe. Their expressions were flat and disinterested. Their movements were, off. It was disconcerting.

“Hey, you okay man?” Virgil ran a hand through his locks as he spoke. This wasn’t like them, and he and Cam really were concerned. Richie’s face remained inexpressive.

“Never better.” Even his voice was distant, cold. Like he didn’t want to be there talking to his bestfriend of all people. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, you haven’t been on patrol lately-”

“You missed school yesterday-”

“You sleep in all the time now-”

“And hygiene is suddenly completely lost on you.” As she said it Cam took a knot in Abe’s fur between her teeth and pulled. The wolf didn’t even seem to notice besides looking down at her with a long, slow blink.

“We’ve been, preoccupied,” Richie said.

“With what?” What could they be preoccupied with that would have them skipping school, but not telling Virgil and Cam about it? “You know you can tell us anything.”

“Are you upset, are you sick,” Cam added, placing her forepaws on Abe’s leg, “did you hit your head when Del threw you? We’re your friends, we want to help.”

For a brief moment there was almost emotion in Richie’s face- wide eyes, open mouth, a flash of teeth- before he shut down again. Abe rose smoothly to his feet and shoved the bookbag into his hand, almost herding him out the door without so much as a backwards glance at Virgil and Cam.

“Come along, we’re late.”

Lunch had been disappointing the past few days, especially for Wally- who could easily go through seven or eight meals a day. The last pizza had vanished, nobody had bothered to restock, and so they were stuck with more mediocre fare. More specifically he was stuck with a Lean Cuisine, which really defeated the purpose of his meals, but they were all that was left. The only plus was that Effie didn’t seem to mind, strewn out on her back on the table, chewing away at a noodle and happily meeping as he scratched her belly. It was a charmingly domestic scene that unfortunately wasn’t built to last.

“Flash, Flicker, we have a job for you.” In a blur the food was gone- probably using more calories than they gained back in the process- and they were standing at alert, Flicker sat at Lauretta’s feet for a brief nuzzle.

“What do you need, GL,” Wally said with a smile that Green Lantern returned to a lesser degree.

“Turns out nobody checked Gear’s computer before we took the kids back home, we need you to track him down and scan it. He plugged it into the systems a lot while Brainiac had control and we want to make sure he didn’t spread in there.” He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Flash. “Batman got a picture off the security cameras.”

“Huh,” Flash said as he gave it a look, kneeling so Flicker could also see the image of two teens and their daemons stuffing their faces at the table they’d just left, “that solves the case of the missing pizza.” Rising again with a grin, he saluted. “We’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!”

Really it wasn’t all that difficult to find Gear and Socket. There were a lot of people in Dakota, but they had super speed on their side and it wasn’t as if there were a lot of people with wolves out there. All they’d need to do was check every short-haired blond with a wolf by their side that they saw, which was an incredibly short list. Sure there was the brief flirting detour- which earned Flash a nip on the calf from his daemon- but in the end it took them less than half an hour to find a blond with a wolf, and while said daemon was stark white instead of Socket’s browns and greys the face on the human matched perfectly. Or, well, mostly perfectly.

“Gear, we’ve been looking all over for you!”

“What do you want?” The expressions were distant, Gear��s face a little long, Socket’s steps a little too even, and the tone of the young hero’s voice…

“Gee, nice to see you too.” Flicker skirted around to Flash’s other side as he spoke, away from the wolf and the homemade scooter. “Slow down, I need to see that computer of yours.”

One quick, sharp glance their way and Gear turned to pull off into the nearest alley, Socket coming up behind him and just, stopping. No slowing. They both looked at the older hero pair with cold expressions far from the puppy-like excitement of just days before.

“What for?” The whole situation was putting off bad vibes, but Flicker and Flash pushed through with welcoming smiles. These weren’t bad kids, maybe they were just having a rough day. Socket certainly didn’t seem in the best shape, and it didn’t look like Gear had bothered to shave. Best to continue being their friendly selves.

“We just need to look at it,” Flicker said. “Check and make sure there’s no bits of Brainiac hiding out in there.” The kids shared a look before Gear responded.

“We don’t have it with us.”

“Then we’ll go get it,” Flash responded, smile growing wider, “fastest pair alive, remember?” The fact it took time for Gear to respond, that he almost looked like he might be eyeing them, was worrying, but finally he and his turned to leave the alley.

“Follow us.”

“Who do you think would lose their minds first, Raven or Lauretta?”

“I think that’d be about tied.” Flash kicked a soda can towards a corner. “So, computer?”

“BacPac is around here somewhere…” The fact his tone was still that of neutral disinterest remained creepy, but the boy was looking around. Flash chuckled at him as Flicker settled in next to a stationary Socket.

“You should get a utility belt, Batman can always find everything.” The prairie dog laughed.

“Yeah, you boys should’ve seen, one time he-” With a squeak she was cut off as suddenly large jaws clamped around her middle, a sound only overshadowed by Flash’s shout of alarm as he was also trapped in the sudden grasp of a machine. Immediately both went into flight mode, Flicker trembling as hard as she could manage with sharp canine teeth digging into her sides as Flash spun and dashed about the room.

“Get this thing off!” he cried as he slammed into tire racks, desks, cabinets, walls, anything to try to shake BacPac loose. Nothing worked. Flicker stayed trapped and Flash’s attempted were ended with a cable suddenly binding itself around his legs. His daemon gave a high-pitched whine as he collapsed against a table. “Get me out of this!”

It looked, for a second, like there might be hope. Emotion came to Gear’s face, fear and concern, and he opened his mouth only for vicious teeth to snap and his eyes to flash yellow before that cold look fell back over him. He and Socket’s eyes both began to glow green as he loomed over Flash.

“There is no way out, Flash. No one escapes from Brainiac.”

“Holy shit...”

“Either they threw one hell of a party without us or an earthquake hit.”

Richie and Abe had disappeared at lunch, again. It was getting old, and even more worrying, but they were still trying to hold out hope, had crossed their fingers that they would find them here at the base this time. But no, all there was was a massive mess. Broken furniture, debris strewn about, it looked like a tornado had gone through, and for all Virgil’s quips both of their immediate thoughts were that their security, little that it was, had been breached. Worse, that Richie and Abe might have been there at the time.

“Richie? Abe?”

“You guys here?”

“No.” Both teens jumped, immediately glad they’d changed before coming here as they lit up with sparks and took a defensive stance. “Easy, Sparky, we’re on your side.” The sight of the Caped Crusader didn’t really help much, they were not in the mood for, pretty much anything really, but Raven’s friendly whistle and the whirling yip Onthar gave as more of the League followed the hero into the building did.

“Batman,” Static sighed, “we didn’t expect to be seeing you guys again so soon. If you came for the party, I’m thinking it’s over.” It was clear from the looks on their faces the visit wasn’t nearly that social.

“Your friends are missing,” Hawkgirl said, “and so are ours.”

“Flash and Flicker came down here a few hours ago,” Green Lantern continued, “to take a look at Gear’s computer. We haven’t heard from him since.”

“It’s very suspicious.”

“Wait.” Jolt stepped forward cautiously, ears swiveling. Logically there wouldn’t be any enemies here while the League was, just there was still plenty of jackrabbit to her. “What would they want with BacPac?”

“We wanted to be sure Brainiac didn’t stowaway in it during his takeover of the Tower,” Riezen said. “It was supposed to be a quick scan, maybe a wipe if he had, nothing that would take so long.”

“And now they’re both missing…” Static didn’t like where this was going, and from the sparks starting to come off Jolt’s ears neither did she. If Brainiac had stowed away in BacPac then- He shook his head. “Hold up, let me try to get ahold of Gear. He’s been kidnapped before, the two could be unrelated.” He pulled out his shockvox, waving it slightly for the League to see with a proud smile. They were mostly unimpressed, though Onthar did pretend and who could really tell with Raven’s cowl.

“Call him, Static,” Jolt said and he nodded.

“Yeah.”

It took too long for Gear to respond, long enough to set them on edge, and when he did respond he, he didn’t sound right.

“What is it, Static?” The annoyance was actually an improvement on what they’d been dealing with, but something wasn’t- they could understand, but the words clearly weren’t forming right.

“The Justice League’s here and they need to see BacPac. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We’re at the abandoned steelmill, working on a special project, you should come see.” Static shared a discomforted look with Jolt, and then shot it at the League.

“Focus Gear. League? Here? They need to look at BacPac.”

“BacPac is with me. Come meet us here, all of you.” There were a lot of instincts battling in Static at that. On the one hand, he was worried about his friend and wanted to make certain Gear and Socket were alright. On the other, he’d been a hero long enough and read enough comic books to know this couldn’t end well. One look at Jolt made it clear she, unsurprisingly, felt the same. But when he looked to Batman, a silent plea for advice, the more experienced hero nodded.

“Okay. We’ll be right over.”

The steel mill was eerily dark but not dusty, like someone had gone through the trouble of wiping everything down, but not the trouble of getting the electricity turned back on. What was even more odd was that Static and Jolt could taste the electricity in the walls even as Green Lantern and Lauretta lit the way. Why would they be working in a dark building? Why clean it so thoroughly but not bother to turn on the lights? The questions and the green glow left the walk through the mill feeling ominous, each glowing piece of scrap metal and strange shadow raising the tension until, by the time they entered the main work floor, Static was done.

“Okay, somebody needs to flip a switch,” he said, sending a bolt of electricity through the nearest light fixture and immediately wishing he hadn’t. As the lights came on they revealed massive amounts of towering machinery, fancier than anything he’d ever seen Gear build before and with none of the little flairs Socket insisted on including. Like somebody had taken the control rooms and shipyards of their favorite scifi series and combined them into a working whole. His stomach twisted.

“We are fucked, we are fucked, we are fucked,” Jolt muttered, paranoia thriving under the view as she pressed herself against his leg.

“There’s no way a high schooler made this,” Lauretta said, a growl to her words. They could almost feel everybody’s hackles raise. Even Batman sounded tense as he gave the group a “Stay alert”, Raven tense on his shoulders.

“Hey guys.” It was a surprise nobody jumped when Flash blurred onto the scene, all smiles and with his daemon a few heartbeats behind. “Miss me?”

“Where have you been?” Green Lantern was the first to move forward, followed closely by Onthar. Attention would’ve shown the daemons’ focuses differing from their people’s.

“With Richie and his computer.” Jolt shoved against Static’s legs with all her strength, which wasn’t much, but enough to get him shuffling backwards. He hissed a quick “What’s wrong?” down to her, but she didn’t respond, merely continued to stare towards-

“Flick?” Onthar was the first of the daemons to openly speak, inching closer to his friend. “Are you alright?” Now that they looked, she didn’t seem to be. She was there and whole, no Dust drifting away, but her eyes were, almost like she was dead. “Flicker?”

Flash grinned, eyes glowing green, and in a blur everything seemed to stop. Static couldn’t see, or hear, or feel. It was like he’d suddenly found himself in a mass of cotton. Isolated in himself. The moment was brief, but when the ‘cotton’ fell away he still found himself disoriented.

“What just happened?” he asked aloud and was filled with dread when the only answer was a quiet groan from Jolt as she shook her head clear. The League was just, standing there around them, the heroes like statues even as he waved a hand in front of Batman to get a reaction, their daemons dead eyed, like zombies.

“I don’t like this, Virg…” Nodding slowly, he scooped her up into his arms, eyes never leaving the adults.

“I gotta agree, Cammy…”

“Static.” The familiar voices- and that just made it worse, the plural- made the stones in their stomachs grow heavier as they spun to see figures come out of the shadows that couldn’t have been- Those were Richie’s clothes, and the white paws were familiar, but it couldn’t be them. “Your natural electrical field short-circuited my mind-control disks.” Jolt accepted the connection and made the jump first, power arcing between her ears and antlers as she leapt back down to the floor with a growl.

“Brainiac.”

The figures stepped into the light and any hope that may have been left vanished. The daemon was clearly Abraham, the wolf’s white fur a unique trait in Dakota that made him identifiable even with the steel paneling that had taken up large portions of his body and the ominous green glow of his eyes. Richie though, if it hadn’t been for the clothes, the wolf, the fact they’d known him since second grade, they wouldn’t have recognized him. The same paneling covered most of his face, but what was left included a muzzle of all things, short though it was, and a thick mass of fur, that still weren’t as scary as the glowy eyes were.

“Richie!”

“Abe!”

“What did you do to them?!” They continued to come forward, as Static joined his daemon in sparking.

“Your friends are completely under our control.” Richie’s voice was no longer there, replaced entirely by Brainiac’s, and it only served to make them spark more.

“I thought we wiped you out!”

“You delayed the inevitable,” Del, in Abe’s body, said, “we still intend to digitize the information on this planet, and then destroy it.”

They were so close, this close, to attacking. To destroying the pair once and for all for threatening their home, invading their friends. But, they couldn’t. It didn’t look it but this was Richie, this was Abe, their friends, and innocent victims in this. They couldn’t fight them. They couldn’t.

“Richie, Abe, guys you’ve got to fight this!” It all made sense now, the sudden change, the impassivity, and those brief flashes of almost something.

“You’ve been trying, haven’t you? You can do it, we know you can!” And for a glorious moment they could, their eyes clearing- Abe’s to his normal grey and Richie’s to a vibrant yellow. Whimpering, Abe forced a step forward, uttering a single “Cammy” before Del brought him back to heel with a sharp whine, settling back into position as if nothing had happened.

“Virgil-” Richie fared better, managing to drop his face into clawed hands. “Con-control. Control! Control!” Static grinned, even as Jolt pressed herself against him. This was where their hopes lay.

“That’s it Richie!”

“You can do it!”

“C-Con-” There was a visible struggle as Brainiac wrested for control, hope blossoming into horror as Richie suddenly struck out, driving teeth as large and sharp as Abe’s into his own shoulder. It was a terrible sight, him tearing a chunk out of his own flesh, but it seemed to work. He managed to turn back to them, mouth ringed and filled with blood, and growl out “-ote! Control! Get!” before the virus drove him back.

“Brainiac?” Del spared it’s partner a glance as he returned to position, expression as neutral as ever, eyes glowing their evil green.

“It is under control,” he said, then pointed at the young heroes. “Justice League, destroy them.”

Never before had Static and Jolt been so clearly man and soul as when the Justice League turned and began to close in on them, eyes widening in unison as they backed away, matching step for step.

“Who, us? Hold on guys, we don’t wanna have to hurt you,” Virgil quipped, slipping a hand behind his back when they gave no indication of having so much as heard him.

“Guess it sounded as lame to them as it did to me.”

“Hush you.” They stepped back onto the freshly dropped Static Saucer as one, flying up in a trail of sparks and just avoiding Flash. A strong blast took out one of the building’s skylights, giving them a path to freedom, or at least to more space to maneuver. Unfortunately taking to the air wasn’t enough to avoid members of the League and Hawkgirl was quickly on their tail, Onthar draped dully around her shoulders like a weird mink.

“Do you have a license for that mace?”

“Static!”

“Listen, I’ll stop quipping-” He took a sharp dive just as Jolt leapt skywards and grinned when Hawkgirl followed him, leaving her open to an attack from his daemon right on that control disc. While the hero stopped and regained her bearings, he was swinging back up to catch Jolt. “-when you stop being a pessimist.”

“What happened,” Hawkgirl asked, raising a hand to touch Onthar as he groaned back to the land of the living.

“No time,” Jolt answered, “we can short out the control discs on you guys. Help us get the rest?” The older pair looked down, where the rest of the League team was gathering. Onthar hissed.

“Of course.”

With a nod the pairs dove into the fray. Hawkgirl beelined for Batman, knocking away batarangs with her mace until they were close enough for Jolt to leap into view, shocking his control disc like she had Hawkgirl’s before, a maneuver that brought them close enough for Onthar to pounce on Flicker, drawing out an instinctive protectiveness that distracted Flash enough for Static to strike. But of course it couldn’t remain that simple. J’onn and Green Lantern were next, both capable of flight and more than up to the job of chasing as Static and Hawkgirl scooped their daemons back up and rose higher and higher.

“J’onn and Riezen can handle Green Lantern with ease,” Hawkgirl said, swooping under Static to avoid a blast of energy, “but we need to get them first.” Easier said than done. They didn’t doubt they could do it, just a solid shock like the rest since he couldn’t go intangible without dropping his daemon to their deaths, but they couldn’t get a clear shot with Green Lantern alongside him…

“See if you can get Lauretta to stay in place,” Jolt said, “tether them!” Hawkgirl and Onthar shared a look, then a nod, and dropped away. They didn’t bother to watch and see what they tried, instead making a sharp turn and dive, hoping to get cover between them and Green Lantern. Between the pairs the plan seemed to work, the blasts of energy stopped coming and soon it was just them and J’onn.

Now it was easy. Static hit the brakes and put out a sparking hand and the Martian practically ran right into them. J’onn shook his head clear as Riezen’s color returned.

“Static…”

“We need your help,” by now Jolt was all sparks all the time, “we need to get Green Lantern contained so we can free him from Brainiac’s control.” J’onn nodded, and Riezen flashed a series of deep colors.

“Leave that,” the mollusk daemon said, “to me.”

It was actually surprisingly easy. The rest of the League’s daemons had piled onto Lauretta, who didn’t have enough mind to her in the moment to shake them off, which left Green Lantern safely stuck close to the ground. All Static and Jolt had needed to do was distract him for the four or five seconds it took for Riezen to get close to his fellow daemon and use his own mental powers to lull her to sleep. They’d been left staring as their hero collapsed into J’onn and Hawkgirl’s arms.

“Do you guys do housecalls?”

Once everyone was back together, safe, sane, and awake, the group found themselves on top of a warehouse near the steel mill. It seemed the best place to regroup, and keep an eye on the enemy.

“While I was under Brainiac’s mindcontrol,” J’onn said, Riezen curled along the hollow of this throat, all the daemons were sticking extra close right not, “I tried to make telepathic contact with Gear. All I could hear was one word, ‘control’, being repeated over and over.”

“That’s what he said to us too,” Static said, “he must be trying to tell us something. Like how to stop Brainiac.”

“He said ‘control’,” Jolt added, “and ‘get’, and something else that was hard to make out.”

“That’s not exactly a lot to go on,” Hawkgirl said, and they both had to admit she was right. But…

“It’s better than nothing.” It was, they just needed to figure out what he was trying to say, but the League gave them a hard look.

“Meanwhile,” Batman said, in a tone that implied it wasn’t really a ‘meanwhile’ at all, “we need to stop Brainiac at all costs.” Raven tugged at his cowl with a hiss and Jolt came forward.

“Except Richie and Abe,” she said, in a ‘that is final’ tone she learned from Mr Hawkin’s Emily. Green Lantern met her step for step, regret in his eye.

“We’ll do everything we can, but-” Jolt stomped her foot, sparking.

“Except. Richie. And. A-”

The steel mill exploded. First the windows burst out in a flash of flame, then the building itself collapsed to reveal a mass of metal. A ship, with trailing tentacles, rising up out of the rubble. It was in the shape of Brainiac’s head. They could all only watch as it rose up, up, and the eyes began to glow a green that would probably never stop sickening them, releasing a beam in which two of the other warehouses simply vanished.

“See what we mean, kids?” Lauretta said. “This is bigger than one pair.”

This was, something else. The Big Bang had been a disaster, but at least it had been- at least you’d known it had happened. You could look around Dakota and see evidence of it, go to the docks and there was still scars. With this, with this everything was just, gone. Vanished like it’d never even been there. Before they’d needed to figure out how to stop Brainiac, how to save their friends and the world, but as the speedsters ran to survey the damage as it happened and Batman called on the Javelin the need became frantic.

“Come on, Cam, we’re smart, we can figure this! It had an ‘o’!”

“And ‘o’ and something, a ‘t’ maybe? God, Abe will never let us live this down…”

“It’s Richie’s fault for growing a muzzle when we needed to understand him. ‘O’, ‘t’, ‘o’, ote-” Light bulb. “Remote!” Jolt just about jumped out of her skin where they were knelt, paying no mind to Flash and Flicker’s return, twisting in the air in relief.

“‘Get the remote control’, of course, we’re morons!”

“I blame videogames.” Virgil leapt to his feet with a grin, turning to the League as they headed onto their ship. “Guys! Guys, we figured it out! We know how to stop Brainiac!” Which, if nothing else, got their attention.

“How,” Batman asked, and they could’ve sworn Raven was beaming from his shoulder, which only encouraged them.

“If Brainiac’s based in BacPac, then if we get his remote control we can shut him- and Brainiac- down!”

“We need to go back to our base, it’s probably there!” The League shared a look among themselves, though not a disapproving one, and Green Lantern stepped forward.

“It’s a better plan than we’ve got,” he said and Batman nodded alongside him.

“Flash, Flicker, go find the remote-”

“It’ll be white, all sleek and shit, green buttons.”

“-you two, get in the ship.”

The view wasn’t any better from the air. There didn’t really appear to be any rhyme or reason to the order in which Brainiac was digitizing things- unless maybe he had a phone book and was doing it alphabetically- which meant that there were just, empty spaces where things had once stood. Blank spots in the city that screamed Wrong to them as they passed. Static kept a tight grip on BacPac’s remote, his arm secure around Jolt as she huddled in his lap. Both were making themselves watch. They were heroes, this was their city, they had to.

“I’m thinking,” Lauretta said, “the eyes are probably the weak spot.” Flash and Flicker scoffed as one.

“Maybe if they blink, right now they don’t look too inviting.” The dog daemon and hers gave them a look, and Green Lantern’s grip tightened on the controls.

“Hold on.” Just about everybody on the ship stopped breathing at that point, because the most courageous man on Earth flew them directly into one of the digitizing beams. He and Lauretta put up a ring-powered shield around them as the ship faded away, but that didn’t help all that much given how clearly they were struggling to keep it up. All in all, there ended up being hardly enough time for a “Brace for impact” from Hawkgirl before they were colliding with one of the ship’s eyes, crashing through and landing in a pile of debris inside.

“Lauretta, sweetie,” Flicker said as they all gathered their bearings, “next time you two have a plan, warn us first, please-thank.” Batman and Raven were, of course, the first to be right as rain, immediately taking charge.

“We need to find the control room,” he said and almost before he was done Flash and Flicker were off, leaving the rest of them to all sigh in that ‘why do we love them’ way everyone is familiar with and follow behind. They were fast, but not all that difficult to find, especially when they got blasted out of a room towards the end of a hallway.

“So?” Flash nodded as he got back to his feet, the rest of the group crowding around him.

“Control room.” And apparently either Brainiac or Del was inside, because as he said it robots in Brainiac’s image began to, form out of the walls? It was strange and some of them were getting stuck and Static couldn’t help giggling, knowing when he heard Jolt do so as well they were picturing the same thing.

Ebon stuck in a wall.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Static,” Batman said, grabbing his arm just long enough to tug him towards the door. “Come on!” With the other watching their backs, and Raven swooping down on any robot who got too close with sharp claws and vicious warcroaks, Batman blasted their way inside.

The boys weren’t there. Instead there were two massive robots, one humanoid wearing BacPac, clearly Brainiac from that ugly-ass face, and one a mass of tentacles and arms, likely Del. They stood on a platform on the opposite end of the room, a screen before them displaying the chaos they were wrecking on Dakota. Before the quartet could act, the pair turned to them, eyes glowing, and tentacle cables reached down for them from the ceiling. Static, Batman, and Jolt were easily caught, the tentacles snatching the remote from Static’s hands and passing it off to Brainiac. Raven avoided the assault, but the distance between her partner and the robots was too great for it to be of us.

“Foolish humans, you are in our house now.” Static and Jolt both snarled as they struggled, the daemon’s ears swiveling frantically.

“Where’s Richie and Abe?!” Please be alright, please be alright-

“With us.”

“They see everything, know everything.” As the robots spoke, they opened, revealing familiar forms strapped inside. Both were barely conscious, Richie was still a mass of fur and his own blood, but they were alive.

“Richie,” Static called out, “shut him down! Hit the remote!” And he tried, baring sharp teeth with a groan and attempting to swipe his claws in the right direction, but it was to no avail. He went limp again with a whine that Abe mirrored.

“Unfortunately for you,” Brainiac said, closing himself back up, “he can do nothing. No one can. Especially after I destroy this.” He raised the remote and Static took his chance. Small target, no time to aim, just instinct, skill, and electricity’s tendency to head for other sources. Fingers crossed…

It was a direct hit.

A surge went through the remote and immediately the control panel began to spark and flash, as did the robots’ eyes. It was a mess of light and energy, the tentacles dropping their captives to the floor just before everything final stopped and Brainiac and Del, stiff as mannequins, fell.

Virgil and Cam didn’t wait, as soon as the robots started to go they were on their feet and running forward, the League close behind. They didn’t really notice what was going on with them, just that Flash suddenly passed Virgil by, making quick work of the mass of metal that had been Brainiac while the daemons and J’onn ripped into Del. The boy and jackrabbit were practically latched to their friends’ sides as soon as they were revealed, out cold, reeking of ozone, but alive. There was a whirring noise and unintelligible babbling as Hawkgirl lifted Richie free, the fur and muzzle already beginning to fade away, and Batman began shedding his cape to make a sling for Abe.

“Brainiac is rebooting,” he said, “we have to act fast.”

“We’ll take it from here!” J’onn was already tearing up chunks of metal. Green Lantern and Lauretta beginning to blast away. “You get the children out!”

And so they did, those that could fly hauling those that could not and leaving the four to do as much damage as they could before escaping, allowing the ship to crash and explode in the bay.

Richie was awake, bandaged, and not covered in fur, laying on his back on a table they’d set up in the gas station with J’onn’s hands on either side of his head. Abe was in a similar position, from a canine perspective, laid beside the bed where Richie could reach him, Riezen’s tentacles on his shoulders and hips. The main difference between the two being that while Virgil was hovering a few feet away to avoid touching anybody’s daemons, Cam had set herself up right by Abe’s side and spent every moment she could grooming him with the help of Onthar.

“I sense nothing of Brainiac within him, Richie should be fine.”

“And Abe as well.”

“Well thank fuck.” Rolling his eyes at his daemon, though he agreed with every syllable, Virgil grinned.

“Hey, while you’re in there, can you tell me where he left my Lil’ Romeo cd?” J’onn smiled back.

“It seems he gave it back to you last month.”

“Hah!” Richie said, grinning back as he rolled himself off the table, “told ya!” He dropped to the floor immediately, pulling Abe’s head into his lap- forcing Cam to move on to the wolf’s hind leg- and turning to look towards the other side of the room. “What about BacPac?”

“We’re running one final check,” Hawkgirl said, “just to be sure Brainiac is out of his system.”

“You’ll have to reprogram your robot, but he should be okay.” Richie chewed his lip as Batman said it, toying with one of Abe’s ears as he whined and buried his head against his belly.

“Listen, um, I wanted to thank everyone for saving us.” Abe fidgeted.

“We’re not sure what to say…”

“Hey, it’s nothing less than you would’ve done for us, right?” Flash grinned as well, and Flicker squeaked an agreement from under his arm.

“We’re very proud of you, you know.” All four teens jumped at those first words any of them had ever heard out of Raven. The crow hopped over to join them as Batman came closer, starting in on preening the younger daemons. “All of you. Over the last week you’ve proven yourselves to be brave, strong, smart, and loyal.”

“Yeah,” Green Lantern chimed in, “for rookies you’ve done well. But we can tell, you’re gonna be handfuls when you join the League.” Static and Richie perked at the words, eyes going wide. Their daemons were a little too preoccupied with the fact Raven was still talking (“Really, taking down Brainiac and Del twice, at your ages, you did very good-”) to do the same, but their ears swiveled in the right direction.

“I’m sorry, when we join the league?” Virgil was grinning like a cat in the milk jar and Richie like a fox in a chicken coop. The adults chuckled, and Flash clapped Static on the shoulder while Batman handed BacPac back to his rightful owner.

“Anything is possible. When you’re older.”

“And of course we’ll be replacing Richie’s shirts so don’t you worry about that-” Closing his eyes, Batman sighed.

“Are you finished, Raven?” His daemon gave him the side eye before flying back to her spot on his shoulder to tug on his cowl.

“No, I am not,” she said, then turned back to the children as Abe and Cam took their places between their boys, “if you kids need anything, anything at all, you let us know. Alright?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Definitely.” Batman sighed again and shook his head before smiling at the quartet.

“Goodbye, and be careful,” he said, then turned to follow his team out and away like nothing had even happened. The building fell quiet, the young heroes basking in their relief, their hero worship, hopes for the future. Camilla was the one to break the silence.

“So,” she said, “I think we may have been adopted by The Raven.” Abe nodded, and Virgil and Richie shared a look over their heads. With a smile and a chuckle, Virgil shrugged.

“Well, weirder things have happened lately.”

#fanfic #static shock #daemon au #richie foley #virgil hawkins #brainiac #half the justice league i ain't tagging all their asses here #also richie is a werewolf because nix likes those #you don't have to like the story but i spent four days and nix spent too much money on it so you dan well better read it #commisionwork #achi does commissionwork

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