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lexosaurus · 3 years

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Invisobang: Morge pt 2

It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming...a corpse was found in the woods.

Or, Amity Park's local cadaver dog trainer was walking her dog in the woods when they discovered a little surprise waiting for them six feet under.

Pairings: none WC: 9886 read on: [ao3] part 2 of 2, read: [part 1]

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some amazing accompanying art by @ghostkiin

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“It’s like you’re not even trying!” Plasmius barked, throwing Danny an exaggerated yawn while blocking the ectoblasts thrown his way. “Really, Daniel, you were always woefully incapable compared to me, but this is just abysmal, even for you.”

Danny gritted his teeth and glared back, allowing his glowing eyes to glare to toxic levels. Plasmius picked the wrong week to try to steal blueprints from Fentonworks.

“What, are you going to hit me with a little ectoblast again?”

“Oh I’ll show you an ectoblast,” Danny growled, charging ectoplasm in his palms so concentrated that the green glowed a fierce white. He flung his hands out, releasing the energy with a venomous, “eat shit, Fruitloop!”

But just like the rest of his life, his attack was uncontrolled, wild. It flew several feet to Vlad’s side, nailing a road sign and burning it like acid until there was nothing left.

Plasmius grinned at its charred remains. “Was that supposed to hit me? My, Daniel, I’m quaking in my boots!”

Danny felt his aura increase.

This week had already been shitty enough, even without Vlad’s help. He felt like his brain was trapped in a hailstorm, with constant unavoidable attacks pelting him from all sides. His core was a ball of energy and anxiety, not allowing him to sleep or eat or even breathe without the constant fear about his body and how it was being messed with and he needed to protect it and how he’d failed so miserably at protecting it and now his secret was going to be revealed and he was screwed.

“Well? I’m waiting! Tick tock, Little Badger!”

Ancients, Vlad was such an asshole.

“Shut UP!” Danny yelled, releasing his ghostly wail.

Just as a pink blast slapped him across the face, sending him flying into a brick building.

Plasmius tisked, flying nonchalantly towards him. “We can’t have you using that particular power, now can we? Not while you’re so obviously in control of yourself.”

“Fuck off.”

The older ghost smirked and brushed dust off his red and white cape. “Teenagers. Always so hormonal. What, did a girl at school reject you?”

“What are you talking about?” Danny launched himself back in the air and powered an ice blast. “You know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t care what you have to say.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t,” Vlad said, releasing a plasmius blast just before Danny released his own. The pink blast travelled across the air like a bullet, punching Danny in the gut and sending him crashing back into the building.

Meanwhile, Danny’s ice blast flew a foot above Vlad’s head, webbing itself into a tree and coating the branches with thick icicles.

Danny tried to push himself back onto his shaky feet, only to be pushed back down yet again by another plasmius blast.

Brick tumbled onto his head, coating his vision with dust. His body ached, and his neck was sore from the whiplash.

From his clouded vision, a glowing white figure with red eyes and gaudy horn-like spikes for hair hovered closer to him.

“My, my. You really are out of sorts today,” Plasmius said. “This is almost too easy. I could just take you out right here and go take your parents’ entire spectre speeder straight from your lab.

“What do you even need a spectre speeder for? You can fly,” Danny asked, rubbing a lump from his skull.

“A simple minded teenager such as yourself couldn’t possibly understand my reasons.”

Anger flared through Danny. He gripped some wreckage next to him and forced himself back onto his feet. His legs shook and he felt something wet drip down his calf.

Great, he was bleeding. Just add that to the list of reasons as to why this week was the worst.

“Shut up. I won’t let you do that.”

“Oh?” Plasmius powered a pink blast in each hand. “Then prove it.”

Danny tried, but with each attempted blast, kick, or punch, it seemed like Plasmius was one step ahead of him.

And worse, it felt like he was reveling in the power trip.

A burn here, a kick there—everywhere Danny looked, there was Vlad, glowing fist at the ready. It reminded him of the first time he’d encountered Vlad, back at the mansion. Having Vlad so openly destroy him had been shameful.

Danny collapsed onto the pavement, heaving, his entire body searing in pain.

Plasmius paused to survey him up and down with suspicious eyes. Finally, just as Danny was one breath away from turning invisible out of sheer discomfort, did the ghost finally open his mouth. “Alright, spit it out.”

Anxiety gripped Danny’s stomach. “What are you talking about?”

“Something’s troubling you enough to make you pathetically weak. It’s honestly embarrassing. I can’t stand here watching my future ward make a fool of himself any longer.”

“I’m not moving in with you, creep,” Danny bit back.

“That’s what you think. No matter, tell your dear old uncle what’s troubling you.”

“Go play in traffic.”

Plasmius’ eyes narrowed. “I’d nearly forgotten what a brat you are. Now tell me before I take methods into my own hands.”

Danny sighed, and attempted to stand. But the moment his foot touched the ground, a sharp pain shot up his shin. He hissed, and lowered himself back to the pavement.

“Well? I don’t have all day.”

“It’s nothing,” Danny grumbled, glaring at the pavement. He felt small under Plasmius’ critical gaze. “Nothing at all.”

“It’s obviously something,” Plasmius said, landing in front of Danny. “Now quit wasting my time and tell me what it is before I—”

“Then why don’t you leave? If I’m just wasting your precious time, then go home! It’s not like you even care about me anyways.”

Vlad leaned in, flaring his aura. “In case it’s not clear to your simple teenage brain, your actions represent the both of us. You fuck up, I have to pay the consequences.”

“Who says this is even about ghost stuff?” Danny hissed. “For all you know, I got in a fight with Jazz.”

Vlad scoffed. “Do you seriously believe me to be that stupid? Of course it’s about your identity! Why else would your core be acting so wildly if its Obsession weren’t at stake?”

Danny flinched.

“You did something, and I want to know what it is so I can determine if I need to run damage control on you or not before you blow this for all of us.”

“It’s...” Danny felt his aura pull back. “It’s about...you know…”

“I can assure you I do not know.”

“I...I might have…the police may have found...it…’

Plasmius sighed and rubbed his forehead with his hand. “What did they find?”

“My—my, uh...body?”

“You mean your identity?” Plasmius’ eyes widened.

“Not exactly.” Danny felt his face burn. “You know...the body I left when I...after the accident.”

Plasmius reacted instantly. He shot up, glancing around, before grabbing Danny and pulling him through a hastily erected portal.

Danny felt his body squeeze through the portal and then seconds later, he was in Vlad’s study. The ghost threw Danny on his loveseat and heightened his aura. His brows creased, and his eyes glowed a dangerous shade of red. “What exactly do you mean when you say the police found your deceased body? How did this happen? What the hell did you do?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Danny cried indignantly. “They found it with their freakish police dog! I swear I buried it deep in the ground.”

“Well not deep enough, apparently!” Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Of all the stupid, childish things you could do!”

“It wasn’t my fault!”

Vlad ripped his hands away from his face, his eyes snapping back to Danny. He took a step closer to the teen, his eyes narrowing until a red glow peaked underneath. “Then whose fault would it be exactly, hmm? What, is this yet another piece of blame you’re going to cast upon my shoulders? Me, the halfa who has managed to keep this a well kept secret for over twenty years when you apparently can’t even manage to keep it to yourself for one?”

Danny let his own ghostly strength shine through his eyes. “Quit acting like I invited them all over. I didn’t, it was a coincidence. A mistake.”

“Oh, goodness me!” Vlad let out a sardonic laugh. “I guess when the Ghost Investigative Ward appear at my doorstep in a month, I’ll just tell them it was all a mistake. That’s sure to turn them right around!”

“Shut up.”

“No I will not.” Vlad’s face set back into a scowl. “You have proven yourself to be a liability again and again, and every single time it’s me who has to clean up your little messes. Messes that you don’t seem to realize could be the end of our kind!”

Anxiety shot through Danny’s stomach. He gripped the arm rests of the chair, squeezing them so tightly he heard the faint sounds of cracking in the wood.

“And now you mean to tell me that the police have your rotting, ectoplasm-drenched inhuman corpse in their possession?” Vlad yelled. “And you’re really trying to argue with me that it was just a simple mistake?”

Danny’s shaking hand slipped, tearing off a chunk of the armchair. It clattering to the floor. “I don’t—I didn’t mean for this to happen. I don’t…”

Vlad closed his eyes, but Danny could still see the wisps of red shimmering through his eyelids. “No, of course you didn’t. But that doesn’t mean we can let them keep it.”

“I’ve tried.” His voice cracked. “I keep trying to convince them to stop, but they won’t—”

“What, you actually thought they’d listen to you? A ghost? My boy, I know you were dim, but this is truly extraordinary.”

Danny sniffed, keeping his head down. He felt like an egg boiling over, the yolk just one jolt away from breaking.

“No…” Plasmius hummed. “What we need is to take it back by force.”

“We can’t, they have the whole morgue under a shield. We can get in as ghosts, and it’d look too suspicious if we showed up as humans.”

“Unfortunately, you may be right about us appearing as humans. We can’t do that. But,” Plasmius’ tone shifted, “one thing we can do is break the shield.”

Danny froze. He gazed questioningly up at the older ghost, who was facing the window with a renewed sense of determination. “Break the shield? How? We can’t touch it!”

“No, but the shield doesn’t exist on its own. It has to be generated from somewhere, doesn’t it? Do you see? We break the device, we break the shield.”

Danny wasn’t following, and he was sure his face betrayed that much.

“Listen, Little Badger. Ghosts cannot touch the shield or the device, but who says—oh I don’t know—maybe a collapsed ceiling might do the trick? Some torn cables, perhaps? After all, with no energy supply, how could it possibly generate the power necessary to produce a shield?”

Danny felt his eyes widen. Something icy settled in his gut. When he spoke, his voice was hollow. “You want to destroy the building.”

“Well I certainly wouldn’t be so crude, but perhaps a few colleagues of mine might be swayed—”

“No.” Danny stood automatically.

Vlad’s head snapped over to him. “No?”

He could feel Vlad’s confusion, and it blended with his own. Deep down, he knew he needed to stop at nothing to get his body back, but collapsing the building? Putting others in danger?

Putting his remains in danger of ruin?

What if something happened? What if a brick fell on his skull? What if a spike tore his abdomen in half?

No, he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t worth the risk.

This was wrong.

“We can’t,” Danny choked out. “You’ll hurt it.”

“I don’t think you understand, Little Badger,” Vlad hissed, leaning down.

Danny could feel the heat of his red eyes on his skull.

“With the position you’ve put us both in? You don’t get to decide what happens to your corpse now.”

“No, Vlad. I’m serious. You can’t—”

“And so am I.” Plasmius straightened, and his aura tinted to a dangerous pink. “You’ve put us at risk one time too many. Now I’m taking things into my own hands. And no amount of scary eyes is going to sway me.”

In one motion, Vlad ripped open a portal and pushed Danny through. Before he could blink, he was back in the damp alley they’d just been in.

“Good day, Danny Phantom.”

Plasmius shut the portal, and Danny was alone.

---

“Thank you for taking the time to come talk to us about this,” Mark said, opening the conference room door for the consultant before him. “This case is unfortunately a bit out of my expertise, and the lab results are even more perplexing. Hopefully you’ll be able to parse through the documents much easier than I.”

Dr. Maddie Fenton, dressed in her typical turquoise lab attire, stepped through the door and took a seat at the table. “Of course, I’m always happy to help Amity’s law enforcement protect its citizens against ghosts.”

“Well,” Mark pulled out a chair for himself, placing the manila folders against the table. “This is actually a bit more complex.”

“Oh?” Dr. Fenton reached for the folders.

“To bring you up to speed, I mentioned on the phone that we needed your assistance with a murder case involving a ghost. But there’s a bit more to it.”

She opened the folder and leafed through the files.

“The truth is the body we uncovered we believe to be Phantom’s body.”

Dr. Fenton paused, her eyebrows shooting up. She glanced up at Mark. “That’s a rather serious case. What evidence do you have to support that?”

“Well…” Mark started. “When we uncovered the body, Phantom appeared above it, and was acting rather erratically. Like a cornered animal, almost.”

“He felt threatened.”

“Right.” He nodded. “But it’s more than that. When we ran forensics on the body, we found that all our lab results were corrupted with ectoplasm. Ectoplasm that when we ran the ectosignature for, turned out to be Phantom’s.”

Dr. Fenton looked back down at the files. “That’s highly unusual.”

“Well we were hoping you’d be able to piece this all together.” Mark gestured to the files.

“I see…” Dr. Fenton’s voice trailed off. Her eyes scanned the page, hungrily soaking up each word. The silence stretched on for a few minutes as Mark awaited her opinion.

Contacting the Fentons had been something Mark had been pushing off for as long as possible. The Fentons were loud, boisterous, and not at all known for their professionalism nor tact.

But it was either they contact the Fentons or the Ghost Investigation Ward. And despite Phantom’s cold demeanor towards the detectives, Mark still had hope that perhaps he could gain the teen ghost’s trust. And to do that, the GiW could not be anywhere near the station.

Of the duo, Maddie Fenton seemed the most level-headed. And it had just been Mark’s luck that of the pair, she was the one with a doctorate in ectobiology. Which meant that it was perfectly understandable when Mark had requested that she alone come into the station to review the files.

“We’re trying to keep this on the down-low. If Phantom feels like we’re going to turn him over to the government, he’ll clam up. As it stands we’re only barely getting information out of him.”

“Well, I wouldn’t trust anything he says anyway,” she said, not looking up from the paper. “He’ll do whatever possible to keep himself safe. Ghosts are products of their Obsessions, and Phantom is no different. If he feels like this investigation is going to come in the way of him being able to feed into his Obsession, then he’ll do anything to stop that from happening. No matter who he hurts in the process.”

Mark felt a shudder creep up his spine. “Do you think he could be lying about this being his body? Maybe he could have been the one to kill this boy and is trying to cover it up?”

“Hmm…no, that doesn’t seem likely given the labs. And besides, it would be highly unusual for Phantom to be summoned to a body that wasn’t his. Although…” Dr. Fenton mused. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.”

“Like what?”

“Well, when an animal dies near a cluster of ambient ectoplasm, their body runs the risk of forming a ghost. However, there must be a significant final moment for the neural pathways in the brain to bond with the ectoplasm. That moment translates into an Obsession, which forms the core that the ghost then forms around. If a human dies peacefully, there’s nothing to work with. But if the human dies violently, or if they die with unfinished business, that gives the ambient ectoplasm something to charge with.”

Mark nodded politely, not seeing where this was going. This was all common knowledge for the people of Amity, and Mark had certainly seen enough of the Fentons’ public speeches to understand these basics.

“The ambient ectoplasm comes from the electrical connections in the brain, unrelated to what’s happening in the body. It’s why a human can be paralyzed from the waist-down, but still form a ghost with functioning legs. Do you see what I’m saying?”

Mark nodded, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not seeing how this relates to Phantom specifically?”

“There’s no real reason that Phantom’s human body should have been corrupted by ectoplasm. In fact, there’s never been a case of a human body with an ectosignature embedded in its cells. It’s virtually impossible, in fact. Living cells are completely incompatible with ectoplasm.”

Mark stared down at his own copy of the reports, his mind reeling. “You’ve never seen this before?”

“Not in my twenty years in this field.”

“Do you have any idea what could have caused this?”

Dr. Fenton pursed her lips. “There’s one...it would explain a lot about him actually. Human experimentation.”

Oh.

Shit.

“You don’t think…” Mark’s voice trailed off, his tongue incapable of finishing the sentence. To think that some sick individual would even attempt such a thing.

“It’s the only logical explanation here.” Dr. Fenton gestured at her folder. “Or at least, the only one I can piece together given this information. Phantom would have had to have died after interacting with an intense amount of ecto-technology. Technology with the power to chemically alter every cell in his living body just before finishing him off with electrocution. Of course, it’s just a theory. Only Phantom knows the truth.”

“Right.” He could hardly process what was being said. “But he won’t tell us the truth.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. Ghosts run a different social hierarchy than humans, theirs is far more simple. It’s entirely based on strength. The stronger the ghost, the better they protect their haunt, the more respect they’re given within ghost culture. If Phantom shows weakness, then the other ghosts can use that to dethrone him as the human world’s great protector.”

“But we’re not ghosts.”

“But he is.” Dr. Fenton cocked her head. “This explains other things too. Like the fact that Phantom, a relatively new ghost, is already a level seven on the ectoplasm power scale.”

“I assume that’s unusual.”

“Quite. It would have had to require an extremely intense death at the very least. But human experimentation with ectoplasm, feelling your body reject itself from the inside out, every strand of DNA being corrupted by the essence of death—that’s not an end I’d wish on my worst enemies.”

“And now we have his corpse. Phantom’s going to feel incredibly threatened. He’s bound to lash out.”

Dr. Fenton nodded gravely. “Then you better wrap this investigation up quickly, because Phantom is still a young ghost. He’s impatient, like a child. The longer you take to solve this case, the more unstable he’ll get. And I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end when he finally snaps.”

---

A dull unease panged at Danny’s core. It was calling to him, trying to goad him to his corpse.

Trouble, trouble, trouble, it seemed to whisper.

But he ignored it, just like he’d been ignoring it all this time. Because no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get past the shields, he couldn’t get back to his corpse.

He was powerless. Alone.

Scared.

He tried to focus on his math worksheet, but the numbers blurred together and he couldn’t remember what eight times seven was. He had a calculator, but it was in his bag and he couldn’t remember what pocket he’d shoved it into, or even if he’d remembered to put it in his bag last night after staring blankly at the homework assignment for an hour without lifting his pencil even once.

No, his calculator was probably still on his desk at home.

Trouble, trouble, trouble.

The voices were louder now, and the pull was more desperate.

His throat hurt, and for a moment he was convinced his lungs were collapsing before he remembered that he’d forgotten to release the air trapped in his lungs and he couldn’t remember when he’d stopped breathing.

“Danny?” Mr. Falluca said from the front of the room. “Is everything alright?”

He commanded his head to nod, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded. Maybe he did. He couldn’t check, he couldn’t lift his eyes from the desk.

The voices were too loud.

The dull pang wasn’t so dull anymore.

Trouble, trouble, go now, go now.

The pang was solidifying, taking shape. It was becoming sharper, more urgent.

Go now, go now, go now.

The pokes turned into pricks, threatening to rupture his organs, sending needles down the nerves in his arms and legs. A headache sparked before his eyes and his vision swam.

The voices attacked him from all angles, and fingers brushed against his skin, tugging the sleeves of his shirt towards the window, the ceiling, the wall, the door— anywhere so long as it was away from here. Outside. To the morgue.

Go to the morgue.

Ignore it, be strong. Just ignore it and it’ll go away.

Go now.

No.

Go now, go now, GO NOW.

No, he couldn’t.

The pinpricks finally morphed into one sharp, icy cold knife.

It stabbed his core.

Go now.

He stood from his chair, knocking it back.

Vaguely, he could hear the alarmed cries of his classmates, but he ignored them.

The only thing that mattered was his body. His corpse.

Protect.

A hand grabbed his arm, yanking him back, but he could feel the warmth of the human blood running under its veins and he couldn’t be bothered with human problems right now. Not when he was in danger.

He phased through the grip, and ran out of the classroom. He sprinted down the hall, tearing open the familiar looking door and transforming and taking off into the sky nearly as soon as the sun brushed his skin.

This was different than all the other times his core had tried to coax him to his corpse. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong. His body was in danger, and he needed to save it.

He heard an explosion in the distance, and he increased his speed, feeling his eyes sting as the cool air slapped against his corneas. The world blurred, but it was okay. His core was guiding him now, not his eyes. He didn’t need to see, he just needed to close off and follow his ghostly instincts.

“That’s right!” A deep voice yelled from across the way.

Danny pulled to a halt, blinking the sting from his vision.

Then a boulder flew past his body, hitting the wall of a disturbingly familiar building.

His core yelled in protest. The body was in danger. His body.

“You thought a pesky shield could keep me out? Me, Skulker, the Ghost Zone’s greatest hunter? I’ll show you!”

Ice filled his veins, freezing his aura and building in power around his hands.

Skulker hoisted a parked motorcycle from the edge of the street into the air. “Take this!” he yelled, hurling it into the air.

It was heading straight for the door. It was going to break it, it might break the window, it could damage the body.

An icicle stabbed his core, and before Danny could blink, his hands were raised and jagged blue ice was shooting from his palms, catching the motorcycle in midair and pinning it to the street.

“What is the meaning of this?” Skulker roared, whipping around. His eyes locked on Danny and his confusion melted from this face only to be replaced by a triumphant smirk. “Well hello there, ghost child.”

Danny’s palms burned an even brighter blue. “ Leave,” he hissed, the Ghost Speak slipping off his tongue like butter.

Skulker’s grin widened. “It seems I’ve touched a nerve. Fear not, child, I’m just here to procure your pelt. Well, your other pelt.”

He flashed his aura in a showcase of power that would send most ghosts running for the hills. “Leave.”

A look of contempt replaced the humor on Skulker’s face. His eyes narrowed, and his voice lowered. “I don’t take orders from you, child.”

There was a natural balancing act between his human brain and ghost core, one that ensured that neither half of him was in full control one hundred percent of the time. No matter how human he was, his core still lingered in the background, and no matter how ghost he was, his human brain still kept tabs on his movements.

But now, as Danny watched Skulker rip a slab of concrete from the ground, he felt something snap inside of him.

“Then I have no choice.”

Green overtook his vision, and Danny Fenton simply disappeared.

Time passed—or it didn’t—in swirls of blue and green. If he looked out, he could see the power released from his gloves, he could see the mix of ectoplasm and ice that he was hurling at Skulker, to protect the building, to protect his body, to protect himself from Plasmius.

That vindictive, lonely asshole.

Who was Plasmius to encroach on what was his?

There were flashing lights around him, but Danny paid them no mind. The only thing that mattered was protecting his body.

Protect his haunt.

Protect his people.

Protect.

He could feel the newly pointed teeth pinch his gums, and the ghostly wisps of his hair fizzle around him. But oddly these changes didn’t worry him, instead they made him feel safe, secure. Like a child clinging onto their blanket.

He launched another barrage of attacks at Skulker, tearing holes through his armor. Panic struck Skulker’s features, and all Danny could think of was, ‘good.’ If Skulker wanted to try to claim dominance over his body, then he would suffer tenfold.

And just before he was about to launch a blast at Skulker that was sure to disintegrate his armor, an amplified voice behind him called out, “PHANTOM!”

Danny flinched, his power leaking out of its concentrated ball.

Weak.

“Phantom, stand down!”

Not a chance.

“We have the area surrounded. Stand down or we’ll be forced to shoot.”

“Better listen to your human puppets,” Skulker said, his voice too shaken to sound mocking. “I know when I’ve been bested.”

It took everything in Danny’s power to not launch himself over to Skulker and tear off his head. “You tried to steal my body.”

“That’s a fight between you and Plasmius.”

“Don’t try to get out of this.”

“Phantom,” Detective Johnson said. “Final warning. Stand down.”

Ectoplasm surged throughout his body. “Make me.”

Multiple events happened at once. Skulker motioned to leave just as Danny raised his arms, blistering white light moments away from release. Then, pain seared through his torso.

Danny yelped, jerking his hand back and releasing the ectoblast somewhere off into the sky. He fell back and hit the ecto-shield, sending electrical warnings through his bones.

Memories of the portal, of the thousands of volts of electricity, of the feeling of his bones and muscles and tissues and cells being ripped apart and stitched back together flashed before his eyes. It was too much, all too much too soon too present. He tried blasting the portal but his gloves were splattered with green and oh no, not good, not good.

He was dying, wasn’t he?

Again.

Would he have a second body?

His vision tilted, and finally he managed to rip himself away from the shield. He collapsed onto the cement and stared up at the sky, chest heaving.

He was paralyzed. He knew he had fingers, toes, arms, legs—but they didn’t work. He couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t fly.

He was dying.

“Phantom?” Johnson’s cautious voice sounded from somewhere off to the side. “Sit up, let’s talk through this.”

There was a pregnant pause, and then Danny finally managed to blink. The world snapped back into focus, and his surroundings came with it. He looked down at his torso to see a little hole in his side of his suit surrounded by a trickle of green.

“What—?” Danny gasped.

“I’m gonna put the gun down, okay?” Johnson said. “I just wanna talk.”

“No.” Danny slowly pushed himself up. He surveyed the damage along the walls, the falling bricks on the sidewalk, the shattered windows and bent door. “No, no, no.”

His body wasn’t safe. Not anymore.

“Phantom, come on. Work with me here.”

But he couldn’t. That detective and his partner were just human, they didn’t understand. This was his body and Vlad knew about it and was trying to take matters into his own hands no matter the cost to Danny.

This was a disaster. He shouldn’t have told Vlad anything. He was so stupid for thinking Vlad could help him. He should have known, should have known.

“Phantom.”

“No.”

The cloak of invisibility covered his body, and he shot up into the sky.

Towards the city.

He needed to end this.

---

Sarah felt the chill first.

“You have to stop,” Phantom’s voice echoed behind her.

She sighed and put down her pencil. “Phantom, I thought I explained this already. The police can’t—”

“I don’t care about the police!”

The room grew cold.

“I don’t...ugh!” Phantom floated around her desk, clutching his forehead with one hand and his chest with the other. Mark had just called her with a warning, saying that Phantom was unstable. Looking at the ghost now, Sarah had to agree.

Phantom looked awful.

Dark circles pooled under his eyes, his hair stuck up in all directions, and his face lacked the green blush that normally sat below his skin. His jumpsuit was burned and dried ectoplasm crusted around the torn edges. He looked every bit the image of someone quickly coming undone.

Except this wasn’t just some random person, this was a powerful ghost. This was someone who could easily kill anyone who wronged him.

Or who he felt wronged him.

Deep down, Sarah knew Phantom wasn’t a violent ghost. It didn’t line up with his ghostly Obsession, or the theorized one anyway. But this was his corpse they were dealing with, it was an extension of himself.

Sarah had never confronted a ghost who had lost possession of their corpse. She’d never dealt with a ghost who willingly protected the shield that kept him away from his body if only to make sure it stayed safe. She’d never seen Phantom look so rattled.

At this point, there was no telling what he was capable of.

“Phantom,” she tried cautiously. “You need to calm down.”

“No, you need to tell your buddies to call off this investigation!”

“You know I can’t do that. I have no control over the department, and even if I did, we need to follow the law.”

His eyes flashed dangerously. “Why, because I’m a ghost? Because my words mean nothing because I’m not human? I’m telling you that I don’t want to press any charges, I don’t get why that’s not good enough!”

The room grew even colder.

“We’ve been over this. Please, Phantom, sit down—”

“No!” he snapped. “I’ve been telling you guys since the beginning that this was a bad idea, that people are going to get hurt! And no, nobody listened to me because I’m a fucking ghost! And now look, the building was attacked! My body was attacked! Do you—” his voice cracked, and the glow on his eyes wobbled. He drifted closer to her. “Do you even understand? Do you get how dangerous this is? Do you understand the people you guys have pissed off? Who you’re playing with now?”

Sarah took a deep breath. Even as a human, the power Phantom was emitting was palpable. “What people? You mean the ghost who attacked the morgue?”

“Not him. He—he’s just a lacky. Just following orders.” He let out a bitter laugh, running his hand over his forehead and smearing green across his skin. “You guys have no idea, you really don’t…”

Dread crept up Sarah’s spine. If what Mark was saying was true, then this could run deeper than they thought. “Explain it to me.”

“I’m…” He glanced up, looking ill. “I’m not…normal. For a ghost, I mean. I can’t explain it. I really can’t. But the other ghosts...they consider me a liability. And now that you guys have my—my body, they’re afraid.”

“Why are they afraid?”

“Because…” His brow furrowed. “I can’t—I can’t…”

She tilted her head, watching the ghost choke on his words. “Can’t, or won’t?”

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll stop at nothing till they get my body back. They’ll kill everyone in that building if it means nobody finds out my secret.”

What secret? Sarah wanted to scream, but she held back.

“Phantom,” Sarah lowered her tone. “Are they the reason you’ve been so afraid of us finding out the truth? Have they threatened you in any way?”

“No!” He backed up in shock. “I—I mean, sort of? Listen, it’s not because of him—them, I promise. It’s more complicated than that. He’s just protecting me, you know? If my secret gets out, that would put them all in danger, but it would put me in even more danger. I wouldn’t...I’d have to leave. I’d be on the run.”

“Why?”

“It’s so messed up.”

“Then tell me.”

She already knew. She just needed him to confirm it for her.

He looked to her, his bright green eyes seemingly desperate for help. But he shook his head. “I can’t do this.”

“Wait—”

But he was already gone.

---

“I’ve never seen him look so scared,” Abrams said.

“So you think he’s right.” Crowley took a long swig of his coffee, “Course you do.”

“It makes sense,” Abrams insisted. “Why else would Phantom be so terrified of people finding the truth?”

“Oh gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because he’s a teen who was playing with electrical equipment he wasn’t supposed to be near and even in death doesn’t want to get in trouble for it!”

“Yes but how would that explain all the ectoplasm in his DNA? That doesn’t come from just any electric shock.”

“Who knows,” Crowley said. “The Fentons have always been crackpots. Always have had ludicrous theories. Now suddenly when it’s convenient, you’re all running to their side?”

Mark rolled his eyes. “We’re not running to their side.”

“Then what do you call this?” Crowley gestured to the duo. “Sure looks like it to me.”

“You have to admit that it makes sense,” Mark said. “I mean, get real. Doesn’t any of this smell fishy to you?”

Crowley slapped his empty coffee mug on the table. “You know what smells fishy to me? The Fentons are the only known ecto-scientists in this whole damn city, the only people who have lab-grade ecto-equipment in Amity Park, and suddenly right when they were getting into some financial trouble, Phantom appears out of nowhere from a death that reeks of forced ecto-contamination. That smells fishy to me.”

Mark paused, but then shook his head. “If that were true, then why would Dr. Fenton even offer human experimentation as a possibility?”

“To gloat? Gain our trust? Test our intelligence?” Crowley threw his hands up. “Who knows? They’re crazy!”

“So you think we need to investigate them?” Mark asked.

“I’d be a damn shit detective if I didn’t. They have the means and motive to create a ghost like Phantom. It’s just like Maddie said.”

“I think he’s right,” Abrams said, nibbling on her bagel. “If this is actually a case of ecto-experimentation, then the Fentons should be on the list of suspects.”

“Finally, some common sense around here. Just about the only case of common sense these days…” Crowley grumbled.

Mark chose to ignore that comment, instead checking his phone. No notifications, damn. The entire department had been on high alert for Phantom ever since the attack on the morgue. Mark was just relieved that the new and improved ecto-guns had finally been issued that morning. If not for the updated technology, that incident likely would have ended far less smoothly.

Not that it really ended smoothly. Phantom had yet again escaped Mark’s clutches, free to run off and break into Sarah’s home.

Guilt clawed at Mark’s stomach, but he pushed it back. Phantom was a slippery ghost, one that had escaped all levels of ghost hunters from the Fentons, to the Ghost Investigation Ward. Mark knew it would take a lot more than a few words of peace and one ecto-gun to stop that kind of raw power.

“What do we even know about the Fentons?” Abrams asked.

“They’re ghost hunters and mostly make weapons now, but before that they dabbled in all sorts of ecto-based technology. The husband, Jack, is the engineer and the wife, Maddie, is the biologist. They have two kids, Jasmine and Daniel. Jasmine, or ‘Jazz’ is supposedly top of her class, likely to graduate valedictorian, while Daniel’s something else. Bad grades, skips class, all around a bit of a loner,” Crowley said, regurgitating information like he was reading a case file.

Mark glanced at his colleague, giving him an impressed smirk. “Did your homework early, eh?”

“I told you, something aint right here,” Crowley said.

“And? What do you think?” Mark asked.

“What I think is that I’m shocked their house is even coded to have a lab inside. I’d like to know whose ass they kissed to give them that permit.”

Abrams snorted. “Jesus, Jacob.”

“What? I’m right!”

“Fine, whatever,” Mark stood, collecting his empty coffee cup and paper plate. “I godda head home, my sister’s visiting this weekend.”

“Alright, tell Susan I said hello. And say hi to her little demon child too.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “She’s four.”

“What, four year olds can’t be demons? I should know, I had two of them.”

Abrams swiped her empty wrapper and tossed it in the trash. “Yeah, I have to feed Atlas. I’ll see you both next week.”

“Take care!”

---

“Well at least we know Phantom didn’t change anything about his facial structure when he became a ghost.” Crowley’s small eyes swiveled between the photo of Phantom in one hand and the new sketch rendition of his human identity.

Mark grunted and stared at his own copy of the photo.

The corpse had been too decomposed to be able to distinguish a face, and ghosts often change their appearance in death. Sure, Phantom looked like a regular human, but it was impossible to know that for a fact.

Fortunately, modern research and re-composition was advanced enough that they didn’t have to wonder for long. Especially with this being such a high-profile case for the city.

And as it turned out, aside from the hair, Phantom really didn’t look all too different when he was alive. He had the same sharp nose, the same angular chin, the same boyish face. The only thing that was different was his hair and presumably his eye color, although that was still a mystery due to the corrupted DNA.

Even though there was little change to Phantom’s appearance, seeing the black haired, brown eyed human boy staring back at Mark was rather shocking, if he were being honest. There was something off putting about seeing this enigma quite literally brought back to life. It took away that edge of lore that the heroic town enigma had.

Now Phantom wasn’t some wild mystery. He was just...a kid.

“This really is something,” Crowley said. “Guess we should put it to good use.”

Mark sighed, turning his attention back to his desktop. Sifting through missing person’s reports was never exactly a fun way to start the morning.

“You think you can handle it, rookie?” Crowley asked.

“Yeah, I got it. I’ll let you know if I find anything interesting.”

Crowley let the photographs drop to his side. “Alright, I’m going to continue doing some digging on our suspects.”

“Good luck.”

“And you.”

The work was tedious and depressing. Face after face of missing minors flickered across his screen. It was almost too hard to believe that Phantom was a part of this list.

Caucasian. Black hair. Eye color unknown. Five foot five.

That was all they had on Phantom. For all they knew, he could have been from another city entirely.

But hopefully Mark would find a hit, at least one kid from Amity who fit the profile.

And in fact, there were a few...sort of. Four teens who had black hair and were about five foot five. But none of them looked quite like Phantom.

Which meant Mark had to widen his search.

How wonderful.

He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms out wide. It was nearly lunchtime now and he felt like he’d gotten no further than where he was before. Mark stood from his chair, feeling a bit defeated. Hopefully Crowley would’ve had better luck on the suspect list than Mark.

He strolled over to Crowley’s desk, only to find the desk empty. Crowley had likely already left for lunch, the bastard hadn’t even bothered to grab Mark on the way.

Not that Mark could really blame him. He doubted Crowley wanted to use his lunch break to talk about the case after the tedious research they both had spent their mornings doing.

Mark dug his phone out of his pocket, intent on sending the older detective an update, when he stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, a familiar face stared up at him.

Mark slowly lowered the device and crept toward the desk, as if his mere presence would disintegrate the paper on his desk.

Inside Fentonworks: the Fenton family’s home-grown anti-ghost business!

It was an article printed from some online magazine that Mark didn’t recognize. Slapped on the cover of the page, just under the title, was a photo of a family of four beaming, waving at the camera. One of the members was a young boy—about Phantom’s age—with black hair in almost the same haircut as Phantom, with that crooked smile that Phantom had been caught adorning all too many times.

Waving at the camera.

Skinny, short for a boy, son to two ecto-science parents who fill their basement with dangerous high-voltage and easily combustible ecto-technology.

His name was listed as Daniel.

Mark glanced at the two images in his hand, and then looked at the article below him.

Holy shit.

No. There was no way. Crowley had been suspicious of them, and he had good reason to include them on his suspect list, but this kid was alive. He wasn’t missing, he wasn’t dead, he was standing right there.

It just wasn’t possible.

His apple watch pinged, alerting him of a ghost attack nearby.

Mark hurried back to his desk, swiping his coat off his chair.

This was impossible.

The police sketch and the copy of the article pressed against his fist.

Phantom was a ghost. Ghosts will do anything to protect themselves. They would lie, cheat, and manipulate humans in order to stay on top.

Mark was just seeing things.

There was no way that this was him.

He beelined for the door, tucking the papers into his pants pocket.

It wasn’t possible.

The drive there was short, and the fight even shorter. It had just been the Box Ghost, so nothing that Phantom couldn’t handle. The ghost gave his little song and dance, captured the ghost, and waved brightly to the crowd. But Mark could see right through it, right past all the cracks in his façade.

Phantom was losing it.

And Mark could end this.

“Phantom!” Mark called out through his cupped hands.

The ghost flinched, his cheery face replaced with a scowl instantly.

“Another time,” he said.

But Mark didn’t have another time. He needed to know now.

Because Phantom could end this insane proposition. He could laugh heartlessly at the mere mention that he was this random living child. He was Phantom, protector of Amity Park, not some human experiment.

Not some impossibility.

Not some kid who’s been dead for a year and only pretending to be human for his family.

Not the greatest act of manipulation from a ghost that Mark had ever seen.

Mark yanked the papers from his pocket and unfolded them with shaking fingers. He held them up hastily, knowing that they were too far away for normal human eyes.

But this was Phantom. He wasn’t human.

Mark saw the exact moment that Phantom recognized the photos. The ghost’s eyes widened, his face paled, his aura dimmed. Then, in the blink of an eye, the ghost vanished.

Mark was right.

---

The air was thick, tense. Phantom slumped in his armchair, his body the equivalent of a white flag. Even so, his eyes were bright, charged with nervous energy.

He was terrified.

Atlas must have sensed this, because the dog had decided to break away from being Sarah’s shadow to lay against the ghost’s feet.

“I don’t know where to start,” Phantom admitted after a few tense beats of silence.

“The beginning, maybe,” Jacob said.

Phantom looked sick at the suggestion, but relented. “You’re right. Yeah...I…” he glanced up at the two detectives and Sarah seated across the coffee table on her dull green couch. Phantom had appeared in her kitchen not even an hour ago, looking like he’d just seen the personification of death itself.

And instantly, Sarah knew.

She’d tried to coax him to let her bring him to the station so he could come clean there, but he refused. He said the information was too sensitive and he didn’t trust the station to not have cameras recording every angle of every room.

And so they settled on her living room instead. Mark and Jacob arrived, seeming none too surprised by the arrangement, and more than willing to follow Phantom’s direction if it meant they would finally get the truth.

Which Phantom didn’t seem remotely ready to give.

“I guess…” He tried again, closing his eyes. There was another tense moment of silence before a pair of white rings appeared around Phantom’s waist, traveling up his body and leaving behind a skinny black haired teenager.

Phantom cautiously opened his eyes. And, to Sarah’s surprise, they were blue.

“You’re Daniel Fenton,” Mark said.

She heard Jacob suck in a breath.

“Yes. I’m Danny Fenton.” Without the echo, his voice sounded much closer, much more down to earth than Phantom’s. “And a year ago, I was in an accident.”

His voice, like the rest of him, seemed softer without the powerful aura of Phantom behind it. If Sarah had passed him on the street, she wouldn’t have blinked twice. Gone was the cocky personality, the perfect posture, the floating white hair, the bright, determined expression. Gone was the jumpsuit, the logo, the strong voice that seemed like it could project for a mile, the banter, the confidence.

It was just a kid. A kid with baggy jeans, dirty shoes, and a plain shirt. He didn’t seem lithe, he looked weak. The green undertone to his skin was replaced with red, and his shoulders hunched in a way Sarah had never seen on Phantom before.

“What happened?” Mark asked.

“When my parents first completed their interdimensional ghost portal, it didn’t work. I decided to—it was my fault. I just decided to go in it. I don’t know why.” He looked up to the ceiling. “It was a stupid idea. The portal was plugged in, but there was a switch inside that wasn’t turned on, and I tripped over a wire and turned it on. From the inside.”

Sarah felt a pang in her chest. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah. It was,” Phantom agreed. “And then I guess the portal stabilized the connection between Amity Park and the Ghost Zone, because ghosts started appearing in town. So I decided that if it was my fault that they were here, I was going to protect the town. And that’s what I’ve done.”

That’s his Obsession, Sarah realized. It’s protection.

“Why not come out with it?” Jacob asked. “Why bury your body? Why still try to pass as a human?”

Phantom’s head fell into his hands. “I didn’t know what else to do! It—I...you have to understand, my parents would never understand. They think all ghosts are evil. I couldn’t just come out and tell them what happened, they’d kill me!”

“So you decided it was safer to play human,” Jacob said.

“Yeah. I guess I did. Especially since...I sort of still am?” He lifted his head and stuck out his wrist. “I still have a pulse.”

No one moved.

“You’re shitting me,” Jacob guffawed.

“No, I’m being serious. The portal killed me, but then it brought me back to life. Except by then my body was already altered from the ecto-electricity, so the working theory is that I exist in this sort of limbo state between dead and alive. Hence why…” He transformed into Phantom and then back to Fenton. “Hence why I have two forms.”

“And the body,” Mark said. “The coroner report said it only weighed a little over half the weight of a normal body due to all the ectoplasm. But if you’re half alive, how would you have a body?”

Danny shrugged. “I don’t know? To be honest, that day was such a nightmare that I’ve mostly blocked it out.”

Mark finally reached over and took the boy’s wrist. He pressed two fingers against the skin and waited.

“Damn.” His eyes widened. “It’s actually there.”

“No way,” Jacob said, leaning over to take Phantom’s wrist. A few seconds passed before he was joining Mark’s reaction. “It is there.”

“I know.” Phantom tucked his arm back to his chest. “I don’t understand it. I have a heart and also a ghost core. I can feel it all the time, even as a human. I have human thoughts and feelings and ghostly instincts playing constantly.”

As confusing and morbid as this was, it made sense in a sort of twisted way that Sarah only reserved for the rambling logic of her paranoid, senior grandmother. It explained why Phantom, a ghost, would willingly risk himself day in and day out over the safety of humans. Phantom was a ghost who was driven to protect his home, and he was also a human who wanted to look after those he loved.

He was truly Schrödinger’s cat. Dead and alive inside his little box, his little town, with no one able to measure him.

“That’s the thing that sets you apart from the ghosts,” Sarah said, tapping her knee with her finger. “That day when you came to my house saying that you were different, this is what you were talking about. You also said it would be dangerous if this information got out.”

The question was implied, and Phantom seemed to pick up on it, judging by his grimace.

“You weren’t talking about your parents.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“So then who is it? Who was trying to destroy the morgue? Who are you hiding from?”

Danny crossed his arms and glared at the floor. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said bitterly. “The government. GiW, all of them. Think of what they’d do if they knew someone could be both dead and alive at the same time.”

“Well fuck the lot of them,” Jacob said.

“Yeah,” Danny agreed.

“And the ghost who was trying to take down the morgue?” Mark pressed.

“I…” Danny’s eyes shifted. “I can’t say. It’s a ghost thing. All the ghosts in the Zone know about me, they call me a halfa. Half alive, half dead. Honestly, I don’t think it took much convincing for them to want to protect me.”

“But you were fighting against them,” Jacob countered. “If they were really trying to protect you, then why not go along with them?”

Danny opened and closed his mouth, the words seemingly stuck in his throat. Words from Maddie’s ecto-biology papers fluttered across Sarah’s eyes, about how ghosts were evil, they were liars, they’d say and do anything to keep themselves safe.

But as Danny let out a defeated sigh, his arms uncrossing to dangle at his side, Sarah couldn’t help but see the face of a scared teen who was just doing his best.

“It’s a ghost thing,” he finally said. “I didn’t like what they were doing because...because I needed to protect my body. If the building collapsed, it would have gotten damaged.”

Sarah blinked, and her and Mark exchanged a glance.

“I see,” Mark said carefully. “So if there was a plan to recover your...body...safely, you would have gone along with it?”

“I don’t know. Ghosts are weird, they all have their own agenda. I’d rather if it were just...left alone. In the ground. Untouched. Like it had been.”

They were silent for a moment, and Sarah watched as Jacob and Mark stared at each other in silent conversation. One that only partners could properly understand.

Finally, Jacob relented. “Okay, here’s the deal. Say I go talk with Chief Davis and he agrees to keep your identity secret. In exchange, all you’d have to do for us is tell your parents.”

For a moment, Sarah thought Phantom was going to bolt out of the armchair.

“Why?”

“Because you’re screwing around putting your life in danger every day, kid,” Jacob said. “Not to mention, your parents’ house is a walking minefield for you. You godda protect yourself.”

“I protect myself just fine.”

“Doesn’t dismiss the fact that you’re running off getting in fights every day with ghosts, and then coming home to a house littered with ecto-weapons that could kill you. You know, all the way.”

“My parents will kill me if they find out though,” Danny said darkly. “You don’t know them.”

“Which is why you won’t be alone. Crowley and I will be there with you. And I know a woman in CPS who can keep this on the down low too. We won’t let anything happen, promise,” Mark said.

Phantom glanced between them, his wide blue eyes betraying just how fearful he was. “You promise?”

“Yeah kid, we got your back.”

---

“It’s going way better than I thought,” Danny said, throwing the stick up the path.

Atlas didn’t hesitate, bounding after the object with an enthusiasm rivaled by no one.

“I’m glad,” Sarah said. “You deserve a safe place to go home to.”

Danny cocked his head. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

Getting to know Danny these past few weeks was surreal. For a year now, Sarah had a set mental image of who Phantom was. The hero, the great protector, the thrill-seeker.

But now, as she got to know the quiet yet snarky kid who went to school and stressed over his math exams just like any other teen would, she’d gotten to appreciate the person that Danny truly was, the person he became when he wasn’t trying to hide his ghostly persona or playing the larger-than-life character.

Atlas pranced back, the stick held high like an Olympic medal.

“Good boy!” Danny praised.

At Sarah’s nonverbal command, Atlas dropped the stick in front of Danny, who was more than happy to pick it up and hurl ahead of the dirt path again.

“It’s weird. It’s almost like...I don’t know, it’s just kind of relieving? To not need to hide? Like don’t get me wrong, my parents are still kinda weird about it. I still don’t really use any of my powers at home because I just don’t think I’m ready. But the other day I used intangibility to get a cup out of the cabinet instead of just opening the cabinet door, and my mom didn’t even say anything. I remember back when I first got my powers and I couldn't figure out how to work them. I spent so long trying to hide any weirdness, and to think that now I can just do stuff and nobody cares.” A blissful smile dressed Danny’s lips. “It’s just nice, is all.”

“I bet,” Sarah said. “Must be a huge weight off your shoulders. And your sister’s okay with it?”

“Oh yeah. My sister actually already knew about it.”

“You’re kidding. Really?”

Danny threw the stick again. “Yeah, but I already knew about that. She told me a few months ago. But she’s been really helpful at home with trying to get everyone on the same page.”

“That’s good.”

“And my dad’s already been begging to take me out to the field with him.”

“Have you taken him up on it?”

“No. Not yet.”

Sarah peered cautiously over to him. “Why not?”

“I dunno.” Danny’s eyes tracked Atlas’ triumphant return from the woods. “It just seems a bit weird still. And besides, it would be kinda odd if my parents went from trying to kill me to suddenly Phantom’s new best friend overnight. For now they’ve agreed to a public truce.”

Ah yes, the truce. That had been all over the news when the Fenton’s announced it, citing new research into ghost psychology that showed instances of benevolent ghosts. The news had rocked the city, some calling the duo crazy, while others praising them for their growth.

Even though Phantom and the Fenton couple were still in the growing pains of their new truce, no one could deny how much more smoothly ghost fights had gotten since it began. There was less property damage, less citizen’s hurt, and overall the process seemed far more professional than it ever had.

“I’ve noticed a change,” Sarah said. “I really think it’s for the best.”

“So do I. Even though it’s still kinda weird.”

“It’ll get easier, just give it time.”

Atlas dropped the stick, apparently distracted by some scent on a bush. He stopped to sniff the plant before wandering behind it, his nose glued to the ground.

“Wait, Atlas—” Danny started, watching as Atlas disappeared into the foliage.

Hearing his name, the dog leapt back onto the trail and over to Danny, who paused to scratch him behind his ear. “Good boy.”

Sarah grinned down at the duo.

Who knew a cadaver dog and a half dead kid could make such a good pair?

---

Thanks for reading!

#danny phantom #my writing #morge #invisobang #invisobang 2021

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specialagentlokitty · 3 years

Text

Lisa cuddy x reader - other life

Hi x could I request Lisa cuddy x reader where the reader is on houses team and they have a crush on cuddy. With them ending up together please! Thank you and no worries if you don’t want to <3 - Anon💜

You couldn’t help looking at her as she walked past. You thought you were being sneaky but apparently not because Cameron smiled as she slid next to you.

“Does Cuddy scare you?” She asked.

You jumped slightly, shaking your head you awkwardly looked away as you quickly gathered some files from the desk to take back to the office and go over.

��Then whyd you stare at her?” She asked next.

You avoided the question and tried to leave the conversation but apparently your friend was having non of it because she followed you.

Suddenly a gasp left her mouth, she jogged in front of you and blocked the door to the office.

“You have a crush on her?!” She whisper yelled.

“No...” you mumbled.

“Oh you so do.” She teased.

You hid your face between the files and gently kicked her in the shin.

“Please don’t tell anyone!”

“I won’t, your secrete is safe with me.” She laughed.

You smiled sweetly and made you way into the office, sitting at the table with Chase and Foremen as you split the files between them all.

Cameron made sure whenever Cuddy walked past that you knew, she would nudge you, or call your name.

A few weeks had passed, and you were called in from a day off, so when you rocked up all clad in leather, and a bikers helmet under your arm everyone was stunned to say the least.

“Looks like our sweet innocent (Y/N) has a bad side.” House chuckled.

“Damn, I didnt think this would be how you dressed outside of work. Looking good (Y/N)!” Chase smiled.

You awkwardly looked away and mumbled a Thanks before glancing at them again.

“So... Uhm.. What’s up anyways..?”

“We just needed you to fill in some missing paperwork.” Cuddy smiled.

She looked as if she was trying hard not to look at you, but when you glanced to her, she was peering at you from the corner of her eyes.

She grabbed a few papers from the reception desk and turned her back towards you.

“It won’t take long, they’re in my office.”

You nodded and trailed behind her, catching the wink that Cameron sent you way.

Following behind your boss, you gently closed the doors behind you, and set you helmet on the floor, stripping yourself of your leather jacket, you revealed a white vest with faint red stains dotted on it.

Cuddy watched you as you neatly folded the jacket, setting it on the floor with your helmet.

You had a full sleeve tattoo, roses and thorns that went from your elbow to your wrist.

“I wasn’t aware you had tattoos.” She said.

You quickly spun round, hiding your arm behind your back.

“Sorry! I know the hospital doesn’t approve of tattoos, it’s why I try to hide it.” You mumbled.

“May I have a look?” She asked.

You blushed a little and nodded your head, walking over you held your arm out to her.

She carefully held it making your skin tingle a little where she touched. She slowly inspected the work of art on your skin before letting your arm go.

“It’s a beautiful work, if you don’t mind try keep it away while at work.”

“Of course, thank you.”

She smiled and handed you some papers and a pen.

“It isn’t much at all, I’ve noted where you need to fill in.”

“Thank you... sorry to trouble you...”

“Not at all (Y/N).”

You knelt at her desk to start filling in your missing work.

While doing that, Cuddy tried to keep her eyes from you but she couldn’t. She was intrigued by this new side of you.

“May I asked what you were doing before you came here?”

“I was in a rally, we gather on the track and race.” You replied softly.

“I see. It seems like a rather... extreme sport for someone of your personality.”

You smiled up at her as you stood, sliding the paper and pen back over.

“It is, but I really enjoy it. They guys are some good friends of mine.”

You headed over and pulled your jacket back on, you went to zip it up but you were stopped by Cuddy suddenly in front of you. Pointing to the stains on your vest.

“Is That why there’s blood on your clothes?” She asked concerned.

“Sometimes landings are hard to stick.” She grinned sheepishly.

She frowned but never said anything, just allowed you to zip the jacket up and tuck the helmet under your arm.

“I mean... if it’ll make you feel better you can come watch some time...”

You were expecting her to say no, but as always you wanted her to say yes. You wanted to spend time with her, and for her to see your favourite thing in the world.

“That is inappropriate.”

“Sorry...”

You went to leave, but she quickly grabbed your arm making you stop. A sly smile on her face.

“Just don’t let anyone find out, okay?”

“Of course! I’ll text the address I’ll be there all day.”

You gave her a small wave and jogged out with a huge smile on your face.

Hours had passed, and you were laid on the floor, covered in dirt and oil as you tinkered with a bike in the garage.

“Hey kid, there’s a guest for you!” A biker called.

“Huh!?”

You shot up, head smacking off the bike, you groaned and stood up, heading over to the counter you grabbed a clean rag and pressed it to the sore spot, making your way outside.

To your surprise, Cuddy was stood there dressed in casual clothing.

“Cuddy! Sorry I completely got carried away!”

“It’s alright, and it’s Lisa outside of work. Are you okay?” She asked pointing to your head.

“Yeah... I think so...”

You took the rag away, there was a little blood on it but not muched so your shrugged, cleaning the oil from your hands you tossed it behind you.

“What would you like to see first?” you asked.

“Preferably a band aid on that cut.”

You grinned a little and nodded, leading her into the bar, you headed to the back to search for some.

“You can order, it’s on my tab.”

“Thanks.”

You pulled out the medical box and set it on the bar, grabbing what you needed you put it back.

“Again?” A man sighed.

“Sorry Jax...” you sighed.

“Be more carefully idiot. And get your lady a drink, don’t be rude!”

You raised your hands, leaving the medical supplies you turned to Cuddy.

“The man has spoken, what can I get you?”

“How about a beer.” She smiled.

“Ah, a beer for the hard working lady.”

You whipped one out and opened it, sliding it over to her, you made your own drink and friend around.

Cuddy motioned for you to sit next to her so you walked around and sat at the bar.

She grabbed an antibacterial wipe and opened it, bringing it up to your head.

“It’s gonna sting.”

She pressed it on and you hissed slightly, but allowed her to clean the wound. When she was done she grabbed the bandaid and gently covered the small cut.

“Thanks...” you said shyly.

She smiled and you guys drank for a bit before you showered her around.

“This is the garage, it’s where we store bikes that don’t work. Some are for parts others are being fixed up.”

“You were working in here, right?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’m fixing up a bike for my friends kid. He died a few months ago, and wanted his daughter to have his bike.”

Cuddy looked at you staring at the half put together bike in sadness.

She teached out, taking your hand in hers ah laced your fingers together.

“You’re a good person. That’s really sweet of you.”

You gave her a pained smile and turned around, pain melting away into happiness as you led her out and back into the bar.

“This was pretty fun. It’s nice to see what you’re like outside of work, it’s definitely a huge shock.”

“Yeah, most people never guess this is my other life.” You laughed.

She laughed and looked at you, leaning forward she pressed a kiss to your cheek and pulled back. Whether it was real or if she drank too much you didn’t know, and you didn’t wanna know either.

“Can we do this again sometime?” She asked.

“I’d love that Lisa.” You smiled

#house md #house md x reader #house md imagine #Lisa cuddy #Lisa cuddy x reader #Lisa cuddy x you #Lisa cuddy imagine

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donaidk · 3 years

Text

Marcus Armstrong - Almost Home I.

In advance: This is getting a Part 2 for sure. I don’t want to leave it here, but at the same time I felt like it would be really long if I left it in one piece. Turns out I have a whole lot of inspiration for Marcus fics right now. 😂 I also wanna let everyone, who’s waiting for their request, know that uni is starting next week for me. It means less free time, but I will make sure to finish every one of them in the next week or so, and then focus on all the series I started. There’s gonna be slower updates to them, but I’ll make sore to have one or two per week at least. Hopefully they won’t try to kill us in the starting weeks and I will finish up the Lando one so I could start posting that every week and just add some parts from the others to the queue 😊

Thank you Anon for requesting this one though, and sorry for the wait. Hope you will enjoy it and as it’s almost the next day here, have a really happy start to your Friday everyone 🧡

Kind of Taglist: @mickschumcher, @art-gp

Title Song | Masterlist | Taglist/Queue | Request

With the Australian GP knocking on the door Melbourne filled up with tourists and fans even more than usual. The first time I got to witness it in 2017 was actually scary in a way for someone who didn’t know the city well yet. Getting from one part of the city to another was a hard task already, and all the shouting and crazy fans weren’t of much help when I tried to get some usable info out of them so I could finally get to my destination and get off the streets. It almost held me back from choosing Melbourne’s university, but I had to remind myself that it was just once a year and I shouldn't give up my plans because of it. Melbourne was beautiful and their schools were highly rated, giving me everything for a stable future. Luckily I was never disappointed by my choices as it was easy to get used to the life here and I even found some new friends who helped me every time I felt homesick. It wasn’t the worst usually, as I was truly content with how my life was going, but sometimes it just hit me out of nowhere and in those moments they were always there for me.

It was now the third year when we lived through the race weekend, meaning we finally had a working schedule with which we still followed our usual plans but stayed out of the bigger crowds. Although we were in the middle of the semester we always found time to enjoy the still warm weather and spend most of our free time outside. Usually our choice was the beach for the afternoons as even though it was packed until noon, the tourists never stayed for long. We usually arrived in the late afternoon and stayed well after the sun went down, and the temperature went down a little finally. The water usually stayed comfortable until later in the evening making it bearable for almost a whole 24 hours if you weren’t squeamish. Even if you were after spending a few weeks at the beach, everyone got used to it.

As soon as everyone finished with their lectures we got our things together and took the 5 minutes walk down to the beach. We had a favourite spot which was luckily never taken when we got down there. For a few minutes we just sat down, talking about our weeks. I shared a dorm room with two other girls, but we had a few friends who had their own apartments or lived with their family a bit farther away from our university. We usually had one or two days every week to catch up with them as in between lectures we were either too tired or didn’t have the time to do so. But most of the afternoons were ours fully and we used it the best we could to relax but still use that time to make memories for the few years we’re spending together. We could say it’s gonna stay the same after we graduate but everyone knew we would move to different countries as soon as we weren’t connected to Australia. Even I planned to go home, although I enjoyed living here and getting to be independent without my family behind my back.

“ Are you coming? ” One of the girls asked me, as they were already walking down to the water, while I was still standing around our towels with my phone in my hand. I was in the middle debating which sunset photo I should post from my gallery, but her voice made me look up.

“ Just a second. I’ll catch up. ” I smiled at her before looking back down at my screen. In the end my finger finally tapped the posting button and I pushed it aside while I got the sundress off that was on over my bikini.

Right before I would have ran after the girls, the device was back in my hands so I could check that the picture uploaded without a problem. A smile got on my face when I saw a reaction from one of my family members but as soon as it showed the whole list of the people who looked at my story, it faded away. For the past few months whenever I posted something he was always there in the first few seconds or at least minutes. I couldn’t understand what changed that he showed up in my life again, but I didn't really want to give him space in my thoughts either. It has been almost 4 years since we last talked and could call each other best friends, but I wasn’t about to take the first step and message him after he forgot about me until now. I just dropped my phone back into my bag, closing it and then caught up with my friends so they could make me forget about him again.

We spent quite some time in the water, swimming a few laps back and forth before just standing around and enjoying the last rays of sunshine while we chatted away. My thoughts were already in a different direction thanks to all the different topics that came up between us. Sometimes it was harder to make me forget time and time again, but turns out today I only needed some distraction and everything was set for an enjoyable night. With the sun completely off the sky the temperature dropped quickly and it was getting a bit chilly for my liking in just a few minutes. When it was truly uncomfortable I gave up and walked back to the shore, sitting down on my own blanket and draping my towel around my shoulders. It immediately brought enough warmth over my body that I stopped shivering and could wait for them until they would get cold too. Until then I just went onto my phone to go through some posts of my friends. Sometimes I looked up to check on them just so they wouldn’t leave me out of something. One of those times I saw a person coming my way and although I didn’t mind too much attention to it, when he continued and there was no one else in my close proximity I felt like he might be coming to me. In the end I was right as he turned right towards me and then stopped just a few steps away from our blankets.

“ Never thought you would exchange our lovely and perfect red stars for ugly white ones. ” He spoke up and I could recognise the voice even though his face was almost unseeable thanks to him standing with his back towards the moon. My jaw dropped immediately and I felt like I grew roots into the ground as I couldn’t move my body. “ If you want me to fuck off, just tell me. It’s okay. I just thought we could maybe talk, and from the pictures I saw that you’re here. Hoped you didn’t go home yet so I could catch you and... ” He started rambling but I was quick to finally push myself up and hug him immediately. I always imagined our reunion with me being angry at him, but somehow I couldn’t get myself to feel that way now that he was standing right in front of me.

“ You idiot. ” I told him not leaving any space for questions and I could feel as he finally relaxed and hugged me back. “ The biggest in the whole world. ” I added with a sigh, closing my eyes as my brain started functioning again and I had an urge to kick his shin at least.

“ I can live with that. ” Marcus let out a laugh and I could feel as my heart jumped a little at the sound. It was something that always reminded me of our home and spending every possible second together. “ I’m sorry for disappearing. ” He let out a sigh, letting go of me only when we realised my wet bathing suit soaked his shirt, although even he didn’t care about it for too long.

“ What are you doing here? I thought F2 wasn't coming here. ” I asked him confused, knowing that we wouldn’t be in this situation if he traveled here for one of the races in the past two years. “ Not like I’m complaining, but I can hardly believe my own eyes and senses. ” I shook my head a little before looking up at him again. He changed, quite a bit since we last met and even though I saw pictures of him it was different in a face-to-face situation.

“ Ferrari invited a few of us so we could gather some experience. The speed I accepted the offer with might have raised some eyebrows. ” Marcus hid his face in his palm, making me chuckle as I could see the situation unfold in front of my eyes like I was there. “ Thought I would DM you and ask if you wanted to meet up maybe. But I realized it would be better offline. ” I had to roll my eyes at his first idea although I knew he wasn’t lying and it for sure went through his brain as a real possibility.

“ You’re lucky you didn’t. I would have blocked you forever I think. My plan was connecting my fist with your face if we ever meet again, right until you showed up here. ” I shook my head with a smile, as I wasn’t proud of what I wanted to do to him. “ I was really angry when you just stopped talking to me. I tried so hard to reach you, but it felt like you didn’t even exist anymore even though they were talking about you almost every week. ” I sighed, sitting back down and leaving enough space for him too.

“ Would have been deserved actually. ” His fingers scratched at the nape of his neck and I could see the tint of purple traveling up his neck. I watched him as he sat down, pulling his legs up and resting his arms onto them. “ I really am sorry. For a part everything got busy with all the training, races and studying, but at the same time I know damn well a message here and there should have been possible. I messed up, everything. ” His eyes shined even in the minimal light of the moon, and I could get myself to look away. Even feeling the burning stares on my back from my friends didn’t get me to turn around.

“ I won’t say that it’s okay, but I accept your apology. How could I not. ” I let out a breath that I realized was still stuck in me since the initial surprise took over my body. “ It feels like we didn’t even skip over like 3 years of each other’s life. Only difference is that you’re finally taller than me, but the baby face’s still there. ” My hand went up to his cheek to pat it gently like my grandma did for him all the time when he came over for lunch. He always hated it but knew that it was a gesture of love from her and a way to show Marcus that she considered him part of our family.

“ Yeah, I guess it’s going to stay forever. ” Marcus huffed, moving his head back a little to avoid my attack, although he failed miserably. “ I almost forgot, congrats for uni. I remember how hard you were studying to get in. Everyone home was ecstatic when I told them about it. ” His hand slapped his forehead, making me laugh with his expression at the slight stinging he caused himself.

“ Thank you, but it’s nothing compared to your second place last year. ” I shrugged a little but as soon as his lips pulled into a slight smirk my eyes rolled on their own. “ Surprise, surprise, I followed your career. Just as much as you followed my life for the past few months. ” I poked him in the ribs with my finger, making him wince for a second before we both started laughing at the little sound he made.

“ Fair. I still hate how Instagram shows who opened your stories. ” He shook his head a little and both of our heads turned towards the water when we realized the background chatting was getting closer and closer to where we were sitting. They were just a few meters away when my eyes landed on their figures and I sensed when Marcus stood up from next to me, making me push myself up too.

I didn’t feel too anxious about him meeting my other friends, although I knew what this meant for my evening at the dorm with them. They would have an immense amount of questions both about him and us, even though I already mentioned him when we were bringing up our past. A few of them even knew about my past feelings about him and how him reappearing on my socials played with my emotions, but they only saw a few photos of him. This was another level and I knew he would be the topic for at least the next week between us, for one reason or another. Depends on how we get on from this point and if we manage to keep in contact when they have to fly away again.

“ Oh, I knew it wasn’t just my imagination. I told you someone was coming here. ” My roommate spoke up as soon as they got close enough to make us out from the darkness. “ You’re Marcus, right? ” She stepped right in front of him, reaching her hand out while introducing herself. I always admired her boldness even in front of strangers.

“ Yes, although I didn’t know so many people knew me from here. ” Marcus let out an uneasy chuckle, looking at me a bit concerned. I just shook my head dismissively, almost telling him that it was just a ‘Girl group’ thing. Relief washed over me though that I didn’t share a lot about him, behind his back.

I watched from the sideline as everyone introduced themselves to him and for a second it felt domestic as all of them shot me a concerned glance towards me. It felt like they would pounce at him if they saw that I was uncomfortable in his presence. While it made me feel loved in a way, I also didn’t want them to really chip on the situation. It was something that better dealt with in private as I felt like we had to talk lots of things through to get back to the friendship we left behind years ago. This wasn’t the setting for a conversation like that.

“ We should probably get home before it gets really late. School won’t wait in the morning. ” I spoke up before any of them could start questioning him. We would never be able to get going then. “ Maybe we can catch up sometime before the race? I’m sure you will have enough to do during the weekend. ” I turned back towards Marcus who looked just as relieved as I did seconds ago.

“ Yeah, that would be better. Maybe lunch, or a coffee in the afternoon? Whenever you’re free of course. ” He nodded a little, still glancing at the girls who were either packing up or staring him down behind me.

“ I’m up for either of those. Surprise me. ” I grinned at him, feeling the pull on my arm when everyone was ready. “ Is your number the same? ” I asked him, already taking a step back, but waiting for his answers.

“ Yes. Never changed. ” Marcus nodded again, a little smile playing on his lips at the idea that we’re going to meet up again probably. At least I hoped so. Why else would he stalk me down and come up to me for a chat?

“ I’m gonna text you in the morning when’s my last lecture. We can meet up after that. ” I told them, before turning around with one last wave and catching up to my group. I could only hope that they would at least let me sleep before the questions start pouring out of them all at once.

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans are Space Orcs, “Martial Arts.”

Had this lined up for today based on two requested ideas given to me by readers. I hope you like it and have a great day!

“I think you’re really going to like this.”

“So I assume it involves beating the ever-loving shit out of someone.”

Adam grinned, “Exactly.”

Sunny cheered and Krill sighed, “Why do you two always insist on having the most violent pastimes.”

“I promise today is ALSO educational. Now stop being a stick in the mud. I am sure you will find use for yourself today.”

Krill sighed but allowed them to continue on. The Admiral was wearing a duffel bag over one shoulder, and the tennis shoes he was wearing, alone with the shots suggested that he intended to participate in some sort of physical activity. The same shades of blue light flickered over his prosthetic leg and those that licked over hers, and even from here, he could hear the soft whirring of the machine.

Sunny craned her neck at the city around them trying to figure out where they were being taken, and neither of them figured it out until the admiral cut right and shouldered open the door to a large building.

Stepping inside they were greeted with a waft of warm, humid air. The ground under their feet was squishy, made of some sort of synthetic material, and all around the room humans in various stages of physical activity dominated the landscape.

The predominant sound was that of flesh impacting padded bags as humans -- both bare knuckled -- and wearing padded gloves punched and kicked and violently strove to beat the ever loving shit out of inanimate hanging objects. Krill wanted in surprise and -- what would have been horror if he wasn’t so used to being appalled-- as two humans sparred together in a ring lined with three large ropes.

They were padded, with gloves and face masks and helmets of some sort, but that gave them free reign to punch and kick each other silly, until one of the humans grabbed the other by the arm and flipped backwards throwing them both to the ground with a violent thud.

Across the room, humans wearing strange white uniforms tied with colorful belts moved in synchronization to the call of a master. He'd punch and then kick and then block venting air by way of shouts.

Sunny turned in a tight circle, her eyes wide as they fell on another padded platform, this time in an octagonal shape, and bounded by a chain link energy cage.

Inside two women were roused to blood, fighting with nothing but barely padded gloves and the clothes on their back.

One of the women managed to throw the other to the ground and for a second they were a mass of tangled limbs before she had her arms around the other’s neck squeezing tight. Krill stepped forward but a sharp tap on the arm of one woman to the other caused the winner to let go, and the fighters to return to their feet, one rubbing her soar neck..

“What is this place?” Sunny asked, in absolute awe

Adam grinned, “This, my fine friend is what humans call a dojo. Not exactly sure where the word comes from per say, but I am pretty sure it originated in asia more than two thousand years ago and basically means a location where people train in the art of hand to hand combat.

Sunny turned her head again eyes wide as another two men grappled each other to the floor hands gripping onto each other’s uniforms tugging and pulling and trying to swipe with their feet.

“It all looks so… different.”

Adam nodded, “That's because it is. There are hundreds of different fighting systems developed by humanity over the years, sort of like how you have different spear stances in your culture fire versus water, accept these ones work on different principals.

He motioned to the square ring, “Boxing for instance focuses a lot of its attention on punches specifically. Historically the rules required that you couldn't use elbows knees or kicks, and your punches had to land above the belt, or at least that’s what I remember. He turned to point at the other side of the room where the men and women in white were still busy in their forms. Stuff like Karate Kung Fu and others are sort of more about forms and techniques. I would say that that sort of fighting is more of a philosophy or a way of life than anything, and very ancient.”

He then turned to look at the two men still wrestling on the floor, “Then there is Jiu Jitsu, a form of combat that relies on submission and grappling. USe the weakness of an enemies body against them, use their weight, use the weakness of their wrists and elbows and knees and neck. Jiu Jitsu is likely to always end up on the ground. It is similar to wrestling, though wrestling requires than you pin the other person’s shoulders to the ground.

Krill turned to look at Sunny’s face and would have rolled his eyes at the giddy expression she had if it weren't for his inability to actually roll his eyes.

“Why are there so many types?’

Adam paused tapping his chin, “Well, humanity has always been working to find a system that works best. In many cases it started with a philosophy of some kind. IN certain cases it was poise, or focus or any number of things. Monks dedicated their entire lives to the mastery and perfection of a single art of combat. In a way it was almost like meditation that could be used in times of need. Some martial arts required steal or quick movement which spawned stuff like Ninjitsu and still live son in spots like parkour despite it not being a combat sport.”

He lend them further into the room, “A lot of them spawned out of the fact that humans just love to fight, we love to see who is physically better. It made it’s way to the olympics, and then into popular culture. Wrestling, while a great athletic endeavor was just as much a theater production as it was anything else and requires an understanding between two parties to put on the most dramatic show possible.”

He walked over a few feet pausing before the octagon, “Then someone had the idea of what would happen if you put the different martial arts up against each other in a contest of who is better hence Mixed Martial Arts fought in an octagon just like this. At first practitioners of one discipline were pitted against each other to see who was better.” He rested his hand against one of the braces, “In the end it ended up weeding out a lot of the older forms of martial arts which were more a form of art than actual fighting. Philosophy wasn’t exactly helpful in the octagon, and many of the flashier forms, while they looked cool in practice turned out to be impractical in the ring.

He dropped his bag to the floor, reaching in to take out a pair of gloves, “The idea became that the more brutal straight to the point contact sports were most superior.”

Sunny crossed her arms, “So what is it, which martial art is more superior?”

Adam grinned, “That’s the catch… all of them are.”

“What do you mean.”

“All of them are assuming you put them together. Fighters that were well versed in multiple styles of fighting were the most victorious.” he fell into a standard human fighting posture feet shoulder width one foot before the other hands up and loose before his face neck down, “If you can punch like a boxer, Kick like a Muay Thai fighter, grapple like a Jiu Jitsu master and put all of it together, you may have more than a chance of winning.” he patted the side of the cage, “The general consensus is that the best kind of fighting is one that doesnt just take focus from one discipline, it is someone who can take the best things from all the disciplines and put them together all at once.”

Sunny looked on rather hungrily at the ring.

“Let’s do it.”

He grinned back, “I thought you might be interested.

Krill just shook his head and backed away, leave it to the drev and the human to find one of the most dangerous pastimes in the world. Who would have thought that philosophy could span a better way to kick the shit out of someone.

Kril Turned his head to look around the room and was surprised at all the thighs he saw. He may not have agreed with the martial arts necessarily, but there was something to be said about the variety, and the sort of human that came out of it. The men and women he could see practicing were, without a doubt some of the fittest humans he had ever laid eyes on, and he spent his time with a crew that wasn’t likely to shirt their physical health.

Men and women alike glistened with lean muscle sharp and prominent against their sweat glazed skin. Hands punched bags over and over and over again. In certain cases he watched as men and women kicked wooden poles repeatedly ramming their shins against the unforgiving surface their faces barely showing any hint of pain,

The feats of acrobatics which they managed, and the way they utilized their center of gravity was astonishing. He saw a five foot woman throw a two hundred pound man over her head simply by throwing herself to her back and kicking the other man over.

While weight and size seemed to matter to some degree there were a few humans here who didn’t seem to care.

Sunny and Adam were on the other side of the room Adam explaining the idea of kinetic linking to sunny, how by moving your body, you could force the power from your feet, all the way up through your legs hips and back and into a single punch making it more powerful.

Krill could see, on a physiological standpoint where that was true.

He even watched for a few sessions as Sunny and Adam went a few rounds Adam winning a surprising amount of times for someone who was so small, but often using the techniques that Krill was seeing around the room.

It was only after they had taken a break and were gearing up to go again that Krill noticed another human walk onto the floor. He was an older human, the pigment having faded from his hair long ago, bleaching him silver. Despite that, the man had the body of someone half his age, lean and sinuous, veins crawling up his arms like the vines of a tree.

Adam was just pulling on his gloves when the man stepped up.

“Excuse me, son.”

Adam lifted his head standing when the man approached, “Can I help you.”

The man set down his bag. Based on his voice, the man was clearly an older gentlemen though Krill had trouble guessing. Either way he had the opinion that this guy probably should take it easier than this palace suggested.

“I hate to ask, but My sparring partner is sick today, and I was wondering if you might consider a round or two. You look spry enough.”

Adam blinked in surprise but then shrugged, “Yeah sure I guess.” The way his ione eye traveled over the man suggested he was having the same thoughts as krill. He seemed like he was a bit too old to be doing something like this. Krill worried that he could potential break or tear something , but no one said a word as the man set down his bag and took a few minutes to stretch.

Krill was a bit more than surprised at the flexibility of the old man who managed a full split in both directions after warming up.

Adam seemed a little less sure of himself upon seeing that.

He definitely could not do that.

The old guy’s face was lined with delicate wrinkles through the skin, the body becoming less taught with age, but when the two of them hopped up into the ring, the older man seemed just as energetic as Adam, which seemed surprising.

No matter though, as old as he was, he would probably tire pretty easily.

“What do you say, no crotch shots and no eye gouging.” Adam announced and the old man agreed as they moved into position.

Krill and Sunny came to the side of the cage to watch as the two men squared off.

Adam kept his hands a bit relaxed, still guarded but not too concerned.

The older man didn’t keeping tight and low as they circled for a bit.

“You’ll want to keep up your guard, son.” The man chided, and adam smiled but pulled his hands in tighter.

Krill tapped his fingers.

Sunny smirked as if she knew something he didn’t

They exchanged a few blows, Adam going eas and the old guy, well being old and slow as Krill had expected. Adam’s guard began to drop again, and then all of a sudden out of absolutely nowhere there was a sharp blur of motion and a loud THWACK.

Adam hit the ground hard dazed and confused as the old man stood over him.

Sunny ohhhhed in absolute glee.

Krill hissed in pain.

Adam had just been round kicked to the head.

“I told you to keep your guard up.” The old man said, reaching down a hand to help Adam to his feet, “probably also a good idea not to underestimate senior citizens.”

Adam rubbed his head, “Ok, ok I deserved that. Let's go another round.”

“You sure, you got your memory jogged kind of hard there.”

Adam shook himself and squared back up, his guard tight this time, “bring it on grandpa.”

The old man smiled and fell back into his stance. This time Adam was not smoking, and his expression was hard as he stared at the old man. Adam came forward with a jab which the man blocked and they exchanged a few punches catching each other only grazing blows as they hit.

Adam got a kick to the upper leg,, the old man took a body shot that should have downed him, but by the staggering way Adam moved to the side suggested he had kicked something as hard as a brick wall.

The old man moved forward and the two of them were suddenly head to head, hands gripping shoulders, fingers digging into shirts, before any of them knew what happened Adam was thrown to the ground his wrist held tightly in the other man’s hands,

He tried to get up but the old man leaped down after him throwing his legs over Adams chest and positioning his elbow over his hips.

He arched his back subtly which had Adam tapping one of his legs frantically.

He let go and the two disengaged.

Sunny cheered.

Adam rubbed his elbow, “Armbar?”

The old man smiled, “I’m old boy, not an invalid.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, “I can see that. How about another round.”

With a teasing smile the old human winked a grey eye, “Only if you want to get beat again.”

Adam snorted, “yeah not so sure about that.” he squared up, “Besides, today’s early bird special is on a knuckle sandwich.”

The old man wiggled his head mockingly, “Oh a wise guy eh.”

Once Upon a time Krill would have assumed they were being aggressive in their words, but the cadence and the smiles on their faces assured him that, despite their actions, this was a friendly fight.

And how strange it was to see someone like the old man holding up so well against someone less than twice his age. By all rights Adam should have beaten him easily, but this old human despite his looks was more than what he appeared. Krill was going to have to do some more research on human aging processes, for there was something he felt he was missing.

The two had squared up again, dancing around in a circle as they came in repeatedly for attacks. Adam tried to get the upper hand with a sudden flurry of blows but the old man weathered it using precision to his advantage with precis body shots that had Adam packing off huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf.

At some point Adam did something neither of them had ever see, grabbing the man under his arms and turning, flipping the man over the fulcrum of his hips and sending him flowing into the ground. Adam jumped after trying to claim full mount but the old man somehow flipped him to the side and reversed it catching Adam around the back of the neck with a forearm.

The flat of his forearm went across Adam’s throat, his legs wrapped around his middle, and his opposite hand grabbed onto his wrist. As he squeezed, he also elongated his body..

Krill stepped forward hand out afraid the man was going to pop his cervical spine apart until Adam tapped falling to the ground with a grunt.

“Ok ok, ONE more time.” Adam said wobbling to his feet

The old man followed after grinning, “Whatever you say.”

This last fight went much like the one before it. An exchange up top and a sudden move onto the ground, though this time the man trapped adam using his legs, thighs constricting around the side of his neck.

Adam was still breathing just fine, until his body slumped to the side.

Krill leaped forward in shock and confusion thinking that the man had somehow injured his neck, killed him. But almost as soon as the man let go Adam twitched and then sat up looking groggy.

“What the.”

“You were supposed to tap before passing out.”

Adam rubbed his head, “Was that a triangle choke… didn’t even feel like I was choking.”

Krill stormed forward, “What happened! Adam are you alright. Do I need to call the police.”

Adam waved him off, “It was a blood choke krill, he temporarily cut off blood supply to my brain, no big deal.”

“No big deal!” Krill shreakied, “How is it having blood in your brain NOT a big deal.’

Sunny cheered with glee behind Krill’s protests leaping up into the ring and towards the old man, “Can you teach me.”

The old man seemed surprised, but agreed and glanced oer at Adam, “Someone needs some extra lessons anyway.”

Adam snorted and rolled his eyes but otherwise took it with good humor.

Krill sat fuming in the corner.

Humans, frigging humans always finding ways to hurt themselves. Crushing each other’s windpipes and cutting off carotid arteries, and bending joints that weren't supposed to be bent, and all for what because it was FUN to look STRONGER. He couldn't believe this.

Stupid

Stupid humans.

He was going to have to tell someone. He was going to have to rant.

He was…..

Probably going to write an academic paper, though he was going to be angry while doing it.

#humans are insane #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia

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pl-panda · 4 years

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The vines that bind us - Chapter 6

Chapter 1 || Previous || NEXT

Elevator took her all the way to the highest floor. When she exited, the floor was back to perfect condition and several more plants were awaiting her. She promised them silently to check on them soon and went to the main office. She knocked several times on the doors, but nobody answered. Hesitantly, she pushed the doors open, but no one was in the office. After double-checking with security, it turned out that Tim Drake did not show to work. She sighed. Looks like more work for her… Just like Nathalie said.

“Didn’t you cause enough drama…” Lila never got a chance to end that sentence, because Mari delivered a straight one strong enough to send her flying several feet back before she came crashing down. Blood pouring from her nose.

The girl was about to launch herself at the liar and pound her into the ground when two strong arms grabbed her. She noticed the characteristic spikes on the sides of black gloves and stated to trash around. “Let me go you overgrown furry!” She screamed. “I will mix her face with the concrete until it’s nice and even!”

She tried to wiggle herself out of his grip. Most of the class surrounded Lila and were trying to help her. It only served to irate Mari more. She kicked her leg back, hitting Batman’s shin. It was finally enough to let her go. The girl fell down... right into the embrace of Chloe and Adrien who managed to get to her on time. The two blondes hugged her tightly.

“There. It’s alright Goldie. You got her good. Rest.” The girl cooed and pressed her best friend to her chest, muffling the sobbing. Adrien was just silently there and hugged them both. When Batman tried to approach again, the boy sent him an angry glare. The warning was clear and the vigilante didn’t really need anything from the girl right now.

After a bit, Mari fell asleep in their embrace. The stress finally caught up to her and she couldn’t hold exhaustion at bay any longer. Chloe easily picked her up and started to walk toward a taxi that was conveniently parked nearby, waiting for them.

“What!?” Angry Alya looked from Lila who was now being cared for by a pair of paramedics. She turned to Commissioner Gordon who was discussing something with Batman. “You!”

The policeman looked at her curiously. Alya continued her shouting. “You’re letting her go just like that? She just assaulted Lila! She might’ve ruined her modeling career! Arrest her!”

“Miss.” Gordon shook his head. “These are some of the braves men and women in Gotham, but I doubt any of them would dare to try and arrest her right now. They don’t get paid enough.”

“What?!” Several kids started to protest, but Gordon just ignored them and directed Harvey to start taking statements. He wasn’t paid enough to deal with these brats.

--------

Bruce sighed as he exited the Batmobile. Almost immediately, he was swarmed by the rest of his family. Jason and Dick practically carried him, still in the suit, to the movie room.

“Now, Ladies and Gents, we have some of the greatest shows for you. We call it… The Demon Trashing!”

What followed was a clip taken from monitoring in the anteroom of the CEO office in Wayne Tower. He watched as Damian, dressed in civilian clothing, and carrying a simple ninjato on his back entered the room. He walked around for a moment before knocking on the main office doors, but whatever answer he got seemed to have irritated him given the scowl that formed on his face. He walked over to the PA’s desk that stood there, but no one was here. After a short moment, one could see the elevator doors open again and a small girl in a smart outfit walked in. Damian dashed to the shadows before she had a chance to notice him.

Bruce resisted the urge to facepalm. He could already see where this was going.

When the girl started to walk to the desk, his son suddenly reappeared with the sword drawn. He pressed the blade to her neck. From the angle, it was impossible to see either of them expressions. The man did not expect his son to kill a civilian for trespassing, but the amount of glee on Jason’s and Dick’s faces was suggesting that his headache hadn’t really started.

The girl suddenly grabbed the blade and pushed it away. Damian, probably acting on instinct, tried to cut her, but she just walked out of the way and disarmed his son before knocking him out. There was a short skip to when Jason and Dick entered the room. The small girl was clearly very much irritated with them from the start and when she reached her limits, she used a pencil as a projectile to open the elevator doors.

A small smirk made its way to Bruce’s face when he saw her storm past his three sons, carrying the ninjato through a tissue. The video ended with Damian waking up.

“And that’s how Drake’s new PA trashed a certain Demon Spawn. I swear, she could probably give Luthor’s bodyguard a run for her money when it comes to being a badass” Jason commented on the silent video in his typical fashion.

“Tt. She stole my sword.” Damian huffed.

“You mean the sword she later used to stab Riddler’s man before disarming him?”

“I still consider the best part of today when she called B. an overgrown furry,” Dick said trying to hold back on laugher.

“Wait. I have a new personal assistant?” Tim asked half-awake.

“Yeah. She was supposed to be an intern, but apparently, Sarah hired her on the spot and quit.”

“Oh… Cool.” Tim said and took a swing from his gargantuan cup.

“Did you manage to pull the video of her taking down Riddler?” Bruce asked.

“The cameras malfunctioned before she even entered.”

“It was me,” Tim confessed. “I was still in my office when the alarm sounded. I keep a separate copy of my suit in a hidden compartment. To save time I dressed there, but I had to disable the CCTV…”

“Yeah yeah. Whatever.” Jason shut him up. “I also got the part when Damian’s eyes roll back as my new screensaver.”

“Tt. You’re lucky I don’t have my sword.”

“Don’t think you’re getting it back any time soon,” Bruce said in a stern tone and sighed. “What exactly do we know about her?”

“She is from Gotham, but she lives in Paris for some years. She said she was practicing martial arts since she was five.” Dick started

“She is also one bada…”

Jason was interrupted by Alfred, who entered the room with a plate full of cookies and tea. “A young woman just called. She asked me to forward a message to young master Damian.”

“Tt. What is it?”

“I quote. ‘Good luck getting your sword back now. Police took it as evidence. Suck it, Wayne.’ I believe the woman was young miss Chloe Bourgeoise.”

Dick, Jason, and Tim were literally rolling on the floor laughing. Bruce just facepalmed.

“No, you can’t break into the evidence room. You might jeopardize the whole investigation if you taint the evidence.” Bruce said in an exasperated tone.

----------

It was late after midnight (or even early morning, depends on your definition) when the vigilantes returned from the patrol, only to meet Tim and Barbara working on something on Batcomputer in tandem. Whatever it was, they were completely devoted to it since neither realized they had company until Bruce made a coughing sound.

“Not now.”

“What exactly are you doing?” The father inside Bruce resisted the urge to force-feed Tim some sleeping meds.

“We’re doing the background check,” Barbara said while typing frantically.

“On my new personal assistant.” The boy supplied.

“oh?” Bruce raised an eyebrow.

“Like… from what we found she is either the worst bitch on the block or strongest badass around.”

“Langauge master Tim.” Alfred scolded him.

“Sorry. But like seriously! There are so many contradictions.”

“Check this out.” She pulled out a scan of a letter. It was largely creased, but still perfectly readable. “Her adopted parents one day disappeared, leaving her everything they owed sans some of their clothes. It was like they packed and left.”

“You suspect a foul play?”

“I’m not sure. The investigation was a joke and so was the follow-up proceeding. The interesting part is the custody battle that followed.”

“Jagged freaking Stone and Parisian Mayor.” Tim interrupted Babs. “It ended with a compromise that Jagged was lawfully named her uncle and Mayor became her guardian. She was the one who suggested it.”

“How can one be lawfully named someone’s uncle?”

“Apparently one can in France. Or they just made some concessions to a celebrity. Seen weirder things.” He shrugged. “She was also his designer for years now. You remember that mysterious MDC?”

“The one you used to fawn over?” Bruce asked.

“She is brilliant so sue me.” The boy huffed. “Also, it stands for Marigold Désign et Création. She runs an internet boutique where she takes commissions from both commoners and celebrities.”

“What does it have to do with anything?”

“I’m getting to that. Gee.”

“Maybe I will get there?” Babs tried to take over. “She’s been working part-time as a babysitter to get funds to buy materials for new clothes and received nothing but praise. She also became a class representative. A successful one at that. She also holds the national championship in U-17 Mechastrike.”

“How is that important exactly?”

“You wanted to know everything about her B., so we are giving you everything.” Tim sassed

“Just… get to the important parts.” He shook his head. What did he do to deserve this?

“Fine. Her school records are a mess. Skipping that they wouldn’t hold to any official inspection, they straight-up contradict each other.” Tim waved his hand in some undefined gesture. “On one hand, she receives nothing but praise from the teachers, but at the same time, there are multiple bullying reports and even several assaults in here. Most of them were met with harsh punishments.” Tim opened a separate file. “Too harsh according to the school charter.”

“It didn’t help that the letter from her parents also mentioned these kinds of things.” Babs chimed in, trying to regain control of the tale. Bruce just gave an exasperated sigh. He just gave up and allowed them to solve it, mentally already cataloging the information.

“Except! There were statements from several people that contradicted this. Especially Chloe Bourgeois. She said, ‘Puh-lease! Mari is the kindest doormat in the world. I was mean to her for years and she still welcomed me back with open arms.’ Given her track record, I’m inclined to believe it.”

“There was also this Drama, capital ‘D’, with MDC stealing designs. Several tabloids caught the wind of it and it even led to the police investigation. Only after Jagged Stone intervened, the thing quickly shut up.”

“Now onto the juicy parts!” Babs smiled.

“And that was what? An introduction?”

“Yup. She has a certified black belt in two different martial arts, is a master gymnast, has an IQ of over 130 and owns two separate businesses in Paris.” She quickly read. “As we mentioned, she is the honorary lawful niece of Jagged Stone, but also designed for Clara Nightingale, Nadia Chamack, worked with Gabriel Agreste, was offered an internship from Audrey Bourgeois before she became her ward. She was seen hanging out with Kagami Tsurugi, world-renowned fencer, and Luka Couffaine, the rising star under Jagged Stone’s tutelage.”

“That was fast.” Tim summarised.

“Yeah. Also, she was adopted some nine years ago. She originally comes from Gotham.”

“Do we know her biological parents?” Bruce asked, getting serious.

“That’s where it gets juicy. When I tried to pull out her adoption files, the computer shut down to avoid detection. There is some serious encryption on it. Probably due to who her father is. We got some of it. She described her mother as ‘wearing an outfit that showed more skin than her beachwear’, so we suspect she was a prostitute.”

“Hm… It’s not unheard of. You say she was with her mother until she was eight?”

“Between seven and nine the file said.”

“Hm… Do you think she is a threat?”

“No. But I have a different question. Why didn’t the league investigate Paris’ supervillain?”

“We were made aware of him only recently, after what our satellites mistook for Poison Ivy attack,” Batman said in an irritated tone. The fact that there was a supervillain running around for close to four years completely undetected grated on his nerves. “Diana Prince has been investigating for some time now. She has it under control.”

“The only problem I see is that she is only sixteen,” Barbara pointed.

“I mean I’m barely seventeen and I ran this company for two years now. And don’t act high and mighty. You started playing Batgirl at fifteen.”

“Played?!” She screamed.

“You wore a hoodie and carnival mask at first.”

This quickly developed into an insults contest until Bruce finally had enough. He just shook his head and left. Alfred silently followed him, carrying a plate of sandwiches.

-----

The next morning, Mari woke up in her bed, with Chloe and her curled together in a mess of limbs and clothes. Of course, she panicked and jumped up, waking the blonde.

“Honestly, Goldie, five more minutes. I need my beauty sleep!” She murmured.

“Um… Why are we in one bed?”

“Because you fell asleep hugging me yesterday and refused to let go at any point. I swear I wanted to get a crowbar. Ridiculous!”

“Sorry…” Mari gave her a sheepish smile.

“None of that! You ruined Lila’s face in one punch. Adrien texted me that in the end she lost seven teeth and will require plastic surgery for her nose not to look like a mashed potato.”

“No…!” Her eyes widened.

“Yup.” Chloe grinned, popping the ‘p’.

“That’s awful! I can already imagine how much the class will hate me now! And the employees that saw this! There were cameras there!”

“Some people actually applauded you. It could be also because you called Batman an overgrown Furry though…” Chloe’s voice wandered off. Mari collapsed onto the bed, head buried in the pillows.

“Kill me…”

“Can I kill you with hugs?”

“Fine…”

When the panicking bluenette finally calmed down, Chloe got her to sit down and showed her the headlines.

Brave WE employee saves dozens of lives!

A hero without a suit!

Civilian stopped Riddler!

Personal Assistant takes down a dangerous criminal!

They were all overly positive and showed much support. Only one tried to vilify her based on Lila’s comment and her being punched, but it quoted Ladyblog as a reliable source, so it was dismissed. The majority of the comments were also positive. The ‘overgrown Furry’ was already trending too.

Only one of the articles contained the list of names of people killed in the attack.

Ted Black - a security guard, put himself between the bullet and another employee Sigfried Osborne - a security guard, died when he tried to stop them from entering Molly Bishop - a PR specialist, called the police when she thought the guards were busy Heidi Dickson - a security guard, killed in crossfire Craig Lloyd - an HR employee, wrestled the gun from one of the henchmen before he was shot in the back. Ethel Arson - A lawyer, killed in crossfire Christian Thorn - a security guard, shot two of the riddler’s henchmen in defense of a group of hostages.

Their room had several live plants on the rail. Mari walked to them and allowed her powers to flow. Slowly, the flowers bloomed. She picked seven beautiful flowers and put them on the table.

“Mari… I’m sure they will understand if you don’t come to work today…” Chloe placed a hand on her best friend’s shoulder.

“No… No. I won’t be scared into hiding by Riddler of all people.” She said with determination and some coldness in her voice. She stood up and walked to her suitcase. From there, she gathered a different outfit. Now she would wear a red shirt, a black blazer with the Ladybug logo on her right breast, a black pencil skirt, and black leather ballet shoes (she still hated heels). But the greatest change was her hair and eyes. She let go of her twin pigtails and allowed her wavy hair to run free. It was no longer black, instead turning dark blue with purple highlights. Her eyes also changed. Her bluebell eyes also changed. The iridescent green she used to suppress was now mixed with the normal eye color, giving an entrancing effect that was hard to stop looking at.

“It’s time to rock this place.” She smiled at her best friend.

------- (Play ‘Confident’ by Demi Lovato) --------

Marigold and Chloe entered the Wayne Enterprises in full stride. Flashing her pass, she got them through control without the queue or checking, much to the shock of the class (who still had no idea Mari was now technically their boss). Adrien showed the girls thumbs up. Lila was seething, but neither Chloe nor Marigold paid her any mind and guards didn’t let her follow them and straight-up kicked her to the back of the queue.

Mari gave a nod to the receptionist, but they didn’t slow down. Elevator was about to close, but one of the employees held it for her. Once they entered, she quickly checked her tablet and the to-do list she had for that day. First stop: PR. Chloe was going to HR to receive a new mentor after… the previous day.

When she entered the Public Relations department, Mari didn’t stop to chat with the employee that looked at her in awe. Her goal was the department’s head office and that’s where she would go. Gently knocking on the doors before entering, she pushed the doors. While she was smiling kindly, her whole posture screamed professional.

“Hello. Mr. Drake will need the Friday press conference plan adjusted in response to what happened yesterday. There needs to be a mention of the event, as we won’t want to sound too detached. The press would tear us apart. Some gesture to show the public that we care…”

“Maybe a memory board in the lobby? And perhaps schedule Mr. Drake to visit each of the families somewhere next week?”

“I think it will be okay…” For a short moment, Mari allowed her confidence to drop, but she quickly gathered herself and made a note in her calendar.

“If that’s all…”

“I will also need a press statement no later than by lunch.” She said quickly. “Make it a priority and forward it to me to read before you post it.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The man smiled. Mari was about to leave when he spoke again. “And thank you for yesterday. Many people owe you their lives.”

She stopped in her tracks, unable to say a word. Finally, she regained her composure. “Thank you. I… I’m coping.”

As she left the office toward the elevator, Lila and Alya, who were interning in that department, tried to speak with her, but she didn’t even spare them a glance. Alya tried to grab her, but she was stopped by one of the older employees. As the elevator doors closed, Mari could see the girls receive a serious scolding. A grin made its way onto her face. Lila and Alya would have a really hard life for the next two months. Especially if she had anything to say about it.

Her next stop was the security office. She entered it with a neutral expression, but it lasted only maybe five steps from the elevator. She didn’t tear up. She was a Gothamite inside. Right as one walked out of the elevator, there was a small bar, behind which a board was filled with pictures. Some looked really old, black and white or even sepia, while some others were high-quality and new. Roughly half of them were the clean pictures one would attach to a resume. The other half were profile pictures from social media. Or a photo that was taken in the forest. One was even a detailed drawing of a person. There were maybe fifty of them in total.

“It’s a reminder. Guards who lost their lives since the founding of WE” An older man said. “Silas Wayne started the tradition after he served in the Great War. You’re here for something miss?”

“Oh… Yes. The security on Friday press conference. We must increase it by about fifty percent. And make sure that only those with invites can enter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her.

“Um…” Mari suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault.” He said in a comforting voice.

“Thank you, sir.” She allowed a weak smile to enter her face before she left. Only two more stops.

The elevator next took her to the Legal Department. She had many things that needed to be done here. Chloe met her as soon as she exited the elevator. Mari managed to regain her professional posture and once more emanated the aura of confidence. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up, but she was determined to show that she was okay.

“I already forwarded your requests. At first, Madame McKinsley was reluctant, but apparently, our entrance is already the top corporate gossip. Good job Mari-bear.”

“Good. Thanks, Chlo. Now get back to work before someone sees me get friendly with an intern. I have a plan.” Before they separated, Marigold let a smile ghost her face. “One more thing. You’re free to unleash the foxes of war.”

Chloe lit up at that. Her whole demeanor changed to almost beaming light. She immediately started planning. Mari left her to the devious scheming and instead went to McKinsley office. The head of the Legal Department was a middle-aged woman with short, slightly graying brown hair and no-nonsense composure.

“Miss Bourgeoise informed me of your visit. I already had several documents prepared, but I will need clarification on several things.” She offered the young PA a chair, but Mari refused with a shake of her head. She opened her tablet and started to go through the list.

“First of all, the video that caused the attack was leaked by an intern. What actions exactly can be undertaken in response?”

“There are several options. We could terminate their contract entirely, but as it’s their first offense, it could’ve been seen as too harsh. It would also require to terminate all internships.” The woman was clearly unamused by the situation. Mari just raised her eyebrow and gave her a quizzing look.

“I’m not sure who in their right mind wrote their contracts, but when I track them down they are gonna get their ass demoted to toilet cleaner. It’s one big mess.”

“Don’t I know it…” Mari deadpanned. “So, other options?”

“We can move them between departments, so having them demoted to Toilet cleaners could also work, but it’s not exactly a legal punishment. The fact that it was Riddler really threw a wrench in any legal proceeding as he is clinically insane and the video was not directly calling him out and only speaking about him. I could give you the legal mumbo-jumbo, but the gist is that they are somewhat protected.”

“What about revoking their privileges?”

“Take that to HR.”

“Will do. Now, about the next matter.”

“It was much easier. She can’t do anything to you, not even forward the bill. You were in shock and there are several recordings showing her taunting you. If she pushes it, she will lose. You’re a public hero right now. Good job by the way.”

“I was only doing what had to be done.” Mari brushed it, doing her best to keep a professional face.

“Sure…” It was clear that McKinsley did not believe her.

“Now about the last thing?”

“Ah. The slander. I already directed it to our French and Italian departments, but it’s slow-going. That witch made it an international case. It will definitely bite her, but we have to be patient.”

“Brilliant. Thank you for your time.” Mari left the room with a grin on her face. Now onto the HR.

As she strode through the floor, people turned their heads to look at her. In the killing outfit, she looked older than she was and the aura of confidence and professionalism made her seem like a powerful woman. They had no idea just how powerful she was, but the way she carried herself was enough to make them shake in their shoes.

----

When the doors of the elevator opened, Juleka and Rose were waiting for her. Both looked furious. Before either got a chance to say anything though, Marigold silenced them with a murderous glare that took away their voice. She strode past them looking fabulous. Any other employee removed themselves from her path to avoid her ire. The rumors were already circulating and the fact that she took down Riddler before Batman even arrived did wonder to her image.

“Hello. I had an appointment.” She said when she entered the head of the department office.

“Yes. Miss Dupain-Cheng. I was told you forwarded a list of topics, but an intern lost it.”

“Was this intern from my class?” She asked in a cold voice.

“Um… Yes actually.” The woman said after checking a small post-it.

“Then it was probably sabotage.” Mari spat the words. “I asked to have a list of possible punishments in regards to the newest intern group prepared. Two of them were responsible for the leak. Sadly, as one of them is the class representative, she is quite popular.”

“Ah. Well…”

“First of all, both Alya Cesaire and Lila Rossi are to have all possible privileges revoked for breaking the rules. They leaked or were involved in the leak of video. Neither of them is to be handed anything more important than refilling a stapler or bringing someone coffee, to ensure they are no further threat to this company. They will also receive an official warning and an entry to their acts. They are also restricted to the lower floors. If possible, I want their access to electronic devices restricted. Maybe assign them a pager each so it doesn’t negatively impact their work.”

“Hm… I will see what can be done, Ma’am.” The woman replied, already going through her notes.

“Good. Onto the next business, while it pains me to do it so fast, we need to hire more security as soon as possible. But make sure to triple check their backgrounds.”

“Understandable.”

“And the last thing. Why was Damian Wayne allowed to bring a ninjato into the building?”

“There is actually no restriction on bringing swords ma’am. We’re trying to fix it, but we’ve been blocked at every turn even when Mr. Wayne was the CEO.”

“And whose permission is needed?” Mari allowed a small grin.

“Yours would do. Sarah was always too stuck up to even leave her desk unless forced so she didn’t care that much.”

“Consider my permission granted. Forward the paperwork to me.”

“And if Mr. Drake disagrees?”

“He can try.” She said coldly, remembering how close she came to being cut in half.

“Oh…”

“Last thing. When is the top floor scheduled for repairs?”

“It should be done already. It was made to withstand an assault from a much larger force, so we only had to replace the furniture. Following the instructions that were left, we repotted the plants into bigger and more decorative pots. As per your request, we added some more plants.”

“Thank you. Plants always calm me down.”

“I prefer cat pictures.” She pointed at the wall where a cheesy calendar with a cat giving her thumbs-up was hanged. It took all of Marigold’s willpower not to burst into laugher at the image of Chat Noir posing for such a calendar.

“Good. Thank you.” With that, she left. This time, Rose and Juleka did not try anything. They were too terrified of her.

----

#maribat au #maribat #marinette dupain cheng #redeemed!chloe #Good!Adrien Agreste #Batman #miraculous lb #miraculous ladybug #Miracuolous #DC #mlb x dc #Mother!Ivy

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chazz-anova · 2 years

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ranting

man i had someone from the fandom randomly stop talking to me after i thought we were kinda tight, then someone they're friends with randomly blocked me with no warning which is fine like you're allowed to block whoever you want i'm not the tumblr police but like damn it makes me wonder what i did??? like i stay in my lane i certainly don't think i'm doing anything that warrants all of that but maybe i'm oblivious to whatever i'm doing lmao?????

also all of my tumblr friends were giving each other random christmas gifts like art and edits and all sorts of stuff and i just hate that my brain won't stop fucking throwing that in my face. like OH MY GOD IT'S OKAY PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO LOVE ME MOST!!!!!! i guess it's just like damn i make mbs for people and icons and shit RANDOMLY but it stings a little i guess that i just don't cross people's minds like that. man. typing that realization like lowkey just hurt a lil!!!!!!! can someone come like kick me in the shins i need the distraction

#bro #if tumblr deletes my read more one more fucking time #mist appears

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fiction-allows · 3 years

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Washington Square (Laurel/Hardy, 4800 words, PG-13)

For @theempressar and @stanxollie - a little Valentine from me to you! mostly fluffy L&H fic. thank you for all the fun we’ve had :D

warnings: PG-13 for a paragraph of noncon, period typical language and conceptions of gender, flexes the grittier style of their early works

This was inspired by stanxollie’s great retelling of Why Girls Love Sailors, where the drag queen gets the guy in the end. :p I hope you enjoy. question mark.

It was closing time when he stumbled on the kerb and took a dive off his heels. He laughed it off and quickly flashed the green silk hem of his dress up over his bloomers, to give the drunks a little show - all part of the joke, keep walking. He didn’t want their sweaty hands on his silk. He didn't need help, he needed shoes that fit - he climbed to his feet, righted his ringlet wig that had slouched over his eyes - he needed hat pins, too; a box didn't last long when all the jennies he lived with helped themselves. He straightened himself up and squared his shoulders. Fierce. It was only three in the morning. What was he going to do with himself?

He had a dime in his pocket. Maury hadn't paid his talent up, and wouldn't until next week.

He wasn’t talent, anyway. He was incidental entertainment, called on when one of the girls was too drunk to perform. The rest of the time he was hanging around the tables, cracking jokes and flouncing. When the molls wanted to use the powder room, he escorted them and kept them laughing.

It wasn’t exactly a career, was it, Stanny boy?

Maybe he should find something, someone, anything, anywhere else. The city bit shit in the winter. He could go to Union Station and talk his way onto a handsome dame’s ticket, headed for California. He could stow himself in a bunk, bundle up and sleep, and stay there until they crossed the Rockies.

He tripped again, which brought the daydreams to a halt. Stan pulled his fur wrap tighter around his bare shoulders and took serious stock. He had enough for breakfast if he didn't eat tonight. He could get warm if he went to the train station. He couldn't go home, it was Lonnie's night to use the room for sheepshead. She’d be good for dinner tomorrow. His stomach told him that was worth a night in the cold.

He straggled behind the foot traffic down the sidewalk toward State. He stopped to bum a cigarette from Lady Godiva, who answered to Herbert during the workweek, and they stood under the dark coffee shop’s awning exchanging a few pleasantries about the weather, shoes, who’d been locked up in yesterday night’s raid on the park.

“Never do it in the bushes,” Lady Godiva said sagely, and Stan nodded with equal sagacity, and his wig slipped down over his eyes again.

Godiva reached into her velvet purse. “Honey, here.”

Now he had a dime and a few bobby pins in his pocket. He was about to move on, when Lady Godiva gave him another nod. “Honey - there.”

Stan turned to look. A big man had come up the street, contra-traffic. The slight weave in his step said he'd been turned out from one of the other night clubs. He had stopped when he heard Stan and the Lady talking, and was examining some graffiti on the side of the brick building with intense interest.

Some background might help: Lady Godiva was the world’s foremost expert on the identification and classification of men and males who wanted something and were willing to pay for it.

Not that this fellow was easy to miss: Towertown was full of girls in trousers and boys in skirts, big boned frames in dainty dresses and elfin gals with impeccable Windsor knots, and he was planted on the sidewalk in a white sailor's uniform like a bull moose in the headlights. A bull moose trying to make itself look like part of the furniture. He had looked up insouciant in the dictionary, but accidentally read the entry for awkward.

Background, part two: Lady Godiva was good at matching fighters by their weight class. She knew exactly how hopeless Stan was at the game - but this one was a nice soft target. A practice dummy, if you will.

Stan, in a completely inarticulate way, had reached the same conclusion. The guy must weigh eighteen stone if he was an ounce, but he was trying to look smaller than he was in his white uniform. His age was hard to pin down, because he looked travelled, but not even the side profile could hide the baby fullness of his face.

To Stan, he looked like an absolute lamb.

Someone else would take advantage in a minute. There was Esme, poised outside the walk-up to her john’s apartment, watching the dispersing crowds go by. She was clocking the lamb too. She caught Stan’s eye, gave him a sly smile, and the race was on.

Stan moved to head her off. He stepped into the man’s shadow, and touched the blue-braided sleeve of his jacket.

"You lost, baby?” Stan asked.

The big boy jumped. He turned away from the public art and glanced Stan up and down. Then again, a double-take that Stan didn’t take personal. An awkward, innocent fluster of hands, fingers, a scrunched nervous grin, followed the mad goggling yo-yo of his eyes. "I seem to have t-taken a wrong turn."

He stuttered. He had weeping willows and southern charm in his voice. He was a little drunk. Oh, honey.

“Where’re you headed?” Stan laid his hand flat on the man’s arm. Behind them, Esme hissed and faded back into the night.

The man was suddenly mannequin-like with uncertainty. “Not far.”

“Then I’ll walk you,” Stan decided for them both. “What’s your name?”

“Oliver.”

Stan smiled, twined Oliver’s arm with his. “Are you from around here, Oliver?”

“My room’s on Division Street.”

“Originally,” Stan clarified, as he gently pulled Oliver to get him moving up the sidewalk. Stan felt a rush of heat from him as Oliver blushed.

“Georgia,” Oliver said quietly.

“Georgia. Peaches. Wonderful. Don’t look at them.” A hail of whistles as they turned the corner, some of Esme’s mates. It wasn’t often that Stan hooked such a big one. Stan stuck out his tongue behind Oliver’s back. More jeers. He crushed Oliver’s arm against his ribs and drew him away northeast.

It was only a few blocks, but the crowds thinned out fast as they left Washington Square. The nightlife faded to sniffing junkies and unlucky panhandlers, and the sidewalk was empty by the time they reached the four-story boarding house Oliver was calling home.

“Well… here’s mine,” Oliver said, feebly.

ROOMS FOR RENT - LONG TERM, said the optimistic sign propped on the window ledge of the ground floor. The place looked fleabitten, like it had mange. But Stan looked enviously at the glowing windows. They were nearer the lake and the wind picked up an extra bite off the water, and he was losing feeling in his toes. Then he looked at Oliver, whose arm was still in his.

The moment to clinch or cut loose had arrived. There was an awkward pause, because neither of them knew exactly what happened next, when it was a bloke from Georgia and a bloke in a dress.

“Do you want to come in?” Oliver asked. His tone was smoother, now that the walk had cleared his head.

Stan smiled dumbly. He was feeling shy. He had come this far, hadn’t he? Come on, Stan, say something. But he was frozen, and it wasn’t the temperature. “I...”

“You don’t have to,” Oliver said, with a painfully gallant smile.

He sounded relieved. And Stan felt hurt, and suddenly piercingly lonely, which broke the impasse just a moment too late. The opportunity had closed in his face while he was tongue-tied.

Oliver extracted his arm, then stuck out his hand for a shake. “Take care, then.”

Stan reached for his hand, feeling all at once like he wanted to cry. The night was dark and… big. He nodded miserably and took Oliver’s hand.

Oliver winced as their bare palms touched. “What are you, cold blooded? Some kind of salamander? Why are you so cold?”

“I don’t -” Stan stammered.

“Where’s your place?” Oliver demanded.

Another gawping shrug, as Stan tried to make sense of the sudden veer in the conversation. It was like Oliver had dropped him in a bottle and spun it. “Can’t go there,” Stan said helplessly.

“What? Why not? You know what - forget it. Get in here.” Oliver shooed him up the steps and to the door, and pounded on it.

Stan panicked. “Wait, what do we tell -”

“You tell him you’re my sister from Savannah.”

Stan had a minute to get into character before the landlord answered. He grunted when Stan fluttered his eyelashes and claimed to be a sister from Savannah, but he let them in, and harrumphed back to bed without comment.

And that is how they ended up in a room no bigger than a very small room, with a bed, a cupboard, a stand and basin, and Oliver’s work clothes inexpertly washed and hung to dry over the light fixtures and radiator. He was using a pair of his long johns as a sort of makeshift shade over the room’s single drooping window. There was a palpable draft about shin-height due to the sagging window frame, like wading through ankle-biting ghosts.

Oliver sprung into action playing host, scooping his grease-splattered overalls off the radiator to let some warm air into the room, hiding his underpants by kicking them under the bed, and then he offered to take Stan’s wrap, and Stan let him take it and hang it, like the most pathetic garland in the world, on the hook on the back of the door.

“Won’t you sit down?” Oliver asked with exaggerated politeness, indicating the bed.

Stan sat, crossed his legs, brushed down his silky dress, subtly hiked it up a few inches on the upstroke.

“What about you?” Stan asked, with a put-on high-pitched giggle and wiggle.

Oliver was undoing his neckerchief. He glanced at Stan in the mirror propped above the wash basin. “I’m fine. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“The floor?” Stan asked, in his babygirl voice.

“You take the bed. Bathroom’s down the hall. Don’t steal my money, will you? If you’re good, I’ll buy you breakfast tomorrow.”

Stan’s legs uncrossed, his heeled foot fell to the floorboards with a shocked little stomp. “You brought me up here to… sleep?” He forgot the pitch of his voice in his surprise.

“It’s miserable out there,” Oliver said. He slid his collar stay out, dropped it on the stand, and started on his top button. “Throw me one of them pillows, will ya?”

Stan hopped off the bed. He grabbed a pillow, and handed it to Oliver. Oliver fluffed it between his big hands, then dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor.

“I’ll wrinkle my dress if I sleep in it,” Stan said. The femme was back, and she was distressed. He clutched at his neckline in dismay.

Oliver’s eyebrows knit together. He raised one slightly as he appraised Stan. “You do one nice thing,” he groused, though his heart wasn’t in it. “There’s a clean nightshirt in the cupboard. You can borrow it.”

Stan opened the cupboard and grabbed it. He excused himself to the bathroom down the hall.

When he returned, heels and wig in hand, dress over his arm, clad in an entire circus tent’s worth of nightshirt that billowed around him like topsails, Oliver was prone on the floor, head on the pillow, one of the blankets primly tucked over him. Looked for all the world like he really meant to spend the night right there. His eyes were closed. Could he already be asleep?

Stan crept into the room quiet as a mouse.

“It occurs to me I didn’t catch your name,” Oliver said. He wasn’t asleep at all.

“Stan,” Stan said, flatly. He had shed the girl with the wig and heels. He supposed a man was better suited if this was a set-up to a murder. He placed his shoes on the floor, hung the wig next to his wrap, and stole a hanger to keep his dress looking tidy in the cupboard overnight.

Oliver was watching him through slitted eyes. Stan knew he must look a sight with his short unkempt hair, the five o’clock shadow on his cheeks, the huge nightshirt with sleeves that slipped down to his fingertips. He smiled apologetically. “Sometimes you take a lady home, and you get something else.”

“Nice to meet you, Stan,” Oliver said. “Go to sleep.”

Stan crawled into bed. He flailed and paddled in the huge nightgown, and finally found his hands again to pull the covers up. He looked at Oliver again, on the floor in the draft, and he shivered in commiseration. He cleared his throat. “You know, it’s foolish to sleep on the floor. You’ll catch your death.”

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t be stupid, come up here.”

Was that a chatter of Oliver’s teeth? Oliver grunted, threw an arm over his eyes as if that would shut Stan up.

“I promise no funny business,” Stan insisted. He was getting worried. He couldn’t possibly go to sleep himself if Oliver slept on the floor. The thought of it made him utterly miserable. Tears pricked his eyes. “Please don’t catch your death.”

The arm came away from Oliver’s eyes, and his expression was that of a man who has ended up in an enclosure at the zoo - not the lion enclosure, or the gorilla enclosure, but perhaps the penguin enclosure, and they’re pecking at his knees. “You’re a weird one, aren’t you.”

Stan nodded honestly, still fighting tears.

Oliver sat up. Then he held out his hand, and felt the ice cold draft flowing in from the window.

He gathered up his pillow and blanket and threw them at Stan on the bed. “Move over.”

Stan swam through his nightshirt toward the wall, and Oliver heaved himself onto the mattress. They settled, an elbow apart, after a little burrowing and tug of war over the coverlet. Silence ticked by for a few moments, as they both got used to the sensation. The weight pulling at both sides of the mattress, their body heat starting to pool together under the covers.

Stan sniffed away the last of his tears. He folded his hands over the coverlet in satisfaction. “There. Isn’t this better.”

“Who lets you out on your own?” Oliver asked in disbelief. But he already sounded sleepy.

Stan was fading fast, too. He yawned. “It’s Lonnie’s night to use the flat for sheepshead.”

“Sheepshead.” Oliver snorted.

“Goodnight, Ollie.”

He heard a breathy chuckle. Oliver - Ollie - liked it. “Goodnight, Stan.”

* * *

Stan fell to sleep and commenced a light snore, cocooned in Ollie's nightshirt. Oliver crossed his arms under the bedclothes and tried to ignore the predicament. Stan had still been wearing his - her pantyhose, and her hose-clad toes were scratching at his shin. She hadn't scrubbed all the perfume off. There was a flowers-and-musk scent trapped with their heat in the blankets.

Oliver, my boy, you need to get a hold of yourself. You wouldn't take advantage of a lady.

Whatever Stan was, exactly.

Adrift, it seemed to Oliver.

He kicked Stan’s foot back toward his side of the bed, blew the air from his nose and closed his eyes.

* * *

The sun was shining cheerfully through the union suit when they woke up. At breakfast, Ollie watched Stan pack away a pound of home fries, four eggs, two rounds of bacon and a stack of pancakes. He ate like he hadn’t been fed in a month.

He was a pretty normal fella over the breakfast table, even in the dress. Well - not fully normal, the way he put sugar on his eggs, but Ollie let it slide. He was funny, and he thought Ollie was funny, which tickled Ollie right in the cockles of his pride.

Stan listened with rapt interest when Ollie talked about the merchant marines and where he had been, and the convoys during the War. He got that doe-eyed look that dames did when Ollie got on the subject (though Ollie neglected to tell him he had, in fact, been a cook), which also tickled Ollie in a way he couldn’t explain. It made him want to flex his arms and look big.

Three stacks of pancakes between them later, Ollie paid the check and they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"I have to report," Ollie said. "You might want to head home and ah -" He swiped his cheeks and chin with his palm.

Stan nodded. His whiskers needed sanding. The waitress had stared at him a little.

Ollie was staring at him, too. His eyes were sparkling.

“Come to Maury’s some time,” Stan said. “You can see me work. I’ll be there every night this week.”

“I’d like that,” Ollie said, but Stan couldn’t tell if it was a punt or a promise.

Ollie tipped his hat. “See you around, doll," he said.

Stan flashed him an angelic smile.

* * *

No Ollie on Wednesday. No Ollie on Thursday. Not that Stan was anticipating. His tips were suffering, though; he wasn’t quite as funny when he was distracted. The mobsters didn’t trust a freak who wasn’t also a clown, and their girls didn’t like a downer. It was hard to be charming when every bigger guy who walked in the place sent a little jolt from his scalp down to his knees. But they always were too - something. Too rich, too crude, too repressed or too married. Their greatest crime, of course, is that none of them were Ollie.

Monday came again, and Maury didn’t pay him, even when he filled in for Bernadette a few times over the weekend.

He needed money to eat, though. And for a ticket out of here, since it looked like he was back on his own.

Best way to make a quick buck? Well, Lady Godiva could tell you.

It started civilly enough on Tuesday night in the alley behind the club. The dumpsters made for convivial surroundings, and the romance was palpable as the rats scurried away from their twirling feet and the single bulb above the back door fizzled in its socket. The man was sweaty with beer and wanted to dance, sort of a swaying grabbing twisting motion - suddenly Stan had his chin elbows and knees up against the brick wall of the alley, and a hairy steel beam of a forearm across the back of his neck. Stan protested, with a giggle that was high with alarm. That big body ground against his and he ground into the dirty bricks. He clawed a little to get some purchase to shove back.

“Hey, wait, wait,” he protested, and that got him dragged around to face the guy, who didn’t look very keen on waiting.

A few things went through Stan’s mind. One, he didn’t want to be here. Two, he wished he wasn’t. Three, his heels gave him a little extra height but the guy still had half a head on him, and four, this large drunk man was going to be shocked in a minute if his hand kept going - and that is a very specific kind of fear, the fear of being found out by an angry grasping hand in the dark. It vitalizes.

Stan struck back at him and gave a shout.

And like a miracle, he heard an answering "Hey!"

It might have been an angel. It was a big voice, if not very deep - but it was alarm enough to get the hand out from under his skirt.

Stan took the opportunity to use a knee, and the man folded up like an ironing board.

Stan looked up and there was -

Ollie's shoulders filled the alley almost wall to wall as he came toward them. He swept the scene, the man crouched on the ground retching, Stan’s disarray and his heaving chest.

His hand stretched out to Stan. "Come along - he can’t hurt you - well done."

Stan took the offered hand and stepped over the gasping, sputtering heap. He slipped by between Ollie's double-breasted jacket and the brick wall, and heard Ollie give the guy a kick for good measure.

On the sidewalk, Ollie brushed off his mink and repositioned it on Stan's shoulders. There was a run in his hose from the scrapes on his knees. His mascara was smudged up like two black batwing eyes. Ollie pressed his handkerchief into Stan's hand so he could clean himself up.

"Did he hurt you?"

Stan shook his head.

"Good. I'd go back and kill him." Ollie removed his coat because it was the gallant thing to do, and draped it around Stan’s shoulders.

"Where have you been?" Stan asked. He didn’t want the coat - he was still hot from adrenaline, and mad at Ollie for abandoning him - but he grabbed it and pulled it tight around him all the same.

"What? Oh - they sent me to Omaha to pick up a load. Just got back into town tonight."

Ollie looked so perfectly, sweetly innocent. Completely guileless. Just concerned for his friend, and very handsome in his dark suit.

"Oh," Stan said.

"I’m sorry I didn’t make your show. I left a note at the boardinghouse."

"Oh," Stan said again.

Ollie's voice was very gentle. "Were you waiting for me?"

Stan nodded.

"I'm here now. Come on, let me walk you home."

Stan folded the kerchief shakily. ' 'I can't. Sheep-"

"Sheepshead, I know."

They ended up back at the boarding house, together, Stan with his face scrubbed clean, snuggled in the crook of his arm sleeping soundly, as Ollie propped a book on his chest and read in the pink and orange glow of the jewel-papered lamp.

This was nice, Ollie thought, looking away from the book to the window. Snow was hissing against the glass like an angry cat, but it was warm, Stan was snoring softly. It was nice.

Stan exhaled, blowing the pages of Ollie’s book, sending him back some pages. Ollie thumbed forward to his place. Stan exhaled again. They fluttered back. And so on. Eventually, Ollie turned out the light and went to sleep.

* * *

They had fun. Stan left Maury’s club and found a job at a boutique, giving all of the broad-shouldered ladies and theydies advice and helping them find the right fit. Ollie put in for a couple months of shore leave, and for a while it was easy street. Sometimes they played darts, drank beer, argued, rode the L until they were sober enough to remember their stop. They went to the lake front and laid on the grass and teased the stone lions in front of the art institute.

Sometimes Stan slipped on his little black dress and his heels and made Ollie prove he deserved him. Those were the days Ollie turned into a gentleman. Doors opened as if by magic, never an inconvenience to be seen. Kisses on his knuckles as if they were perfect, delicate strings of pearls, a hand possessively on his swishless hips as if to say, I got you.

I get you.

Stan took Ollie to his first drag ball. Ollie was a hit in his best suit. He was easy to like and even easier to love. On the floor he lead with such a light-footed agility that Stan sometimes had trouble keeping up, and every one of the drag queens tried to budge in for their turn. It was a matter of feminine pride, wasn’t it, to try to ride the bull. Stan let them play, because at the end of the night, it was always him and Ollie. Stan belonged here, and Ollie belonged to him.

And the clock ticked on. The stuttering from the Stock Exchange, so far away, became a rumble, became an avalanche. Towertown - like Greenwich, Times Square, like Camden, like babylon Berlin - was a dream, a fleeting Camelot that couldn't last. The crackdowns on public disease - of the flesh and of the spirit - closed the fairyland clubs and scattered the communes. The dreamer was stirring. The pendulum swung to the right, picking up momentum as the glory of glitz-and-jazz became hunger and want. Markets crashed and the soil turned to dust.

They skipped out of Chicago when Ollie’s shore leave was up. They tramped through the upper midwest on the bus routes, St Paul, Fargo, Duluth, as far as Bismark and back again to Cleveland, and then all the way out west to California. The horizons were dark, the faces in the street were drawn. Shangri-La faded into sopping wet socks, holes in their jackets, and odd jobs.

History lurched from the sickly sleepwalk of hunger into a waking nightmare of war machines and atomic death, into bodies piled in camps and on the streets of Stalingrad and the tide lines of Normandy, and souls suddenly unmade by a flash in the sky. All this played out in the papers as he and Ollie scraped and saved and wandered the home front. Stan’s youth faded, too, he wilted and widened and wrinkled, and the only grace was his ill-fitting jacket hid some of it even from himself.

* * *

1955. They lived. They saw the war end, the men come home, and the prefab suburbs start stamping across the landscape. Eisenhower and his administration drew big bold lines across the nation and decided to pay for them with a gasoline tax. The commies took up residence under American beds, and the homosexuals fell back to the closets for self-preservation. They were good days for the nuclear family and a straightjacket for everyone else.

Speaking of straightjackets - in the new atmosphere, Stan felt more and more like he needed one.

The suit had never fit exactly right, but sometimes, it didn't fit at all. Then - in secret - he opened his battered case and pulled out the things he kept under the false bottom, fake gems and wrinkled velvet, and tried to breathe free, if only for a moment, in a strictured world.

He tried to keep it private, so as not to embarrass Ollie, not to shame him in front of his friends. America was bestride the world, the least Stan could do was keep up appearances in their little sphere of the second-hand antique shop (VERY OLD THINGS - Laurel and Hardy --- Proprietors).

They had dinner tonight with some of Ollie’s new friends from the local Charitable Brothers lodge. He had been strangled for air all day… he didn’t want to go there looking like this, with his suit coat and shirt and the trousers that Ollie had pressed so nicely. It wasn’t… him. The thought of playing that masquerade all night… he was tired, he couldn’t do it.

He held up the dress.

It was hopelessly out of fashion now. It smelled like he had packed everything from shoe polish to ham sandwiches on top of it. But he smoothed it out, put the stiff wrap around his shoulders, shook the last drops of perfume from the vial and dabbed them behind his ears. He strung the pearls around his neck and smiled at himself in the mirror.

The pearls had lost their lustre, and his teeth showed another twenty-some years of coffee and cigarettes when he smiled. The smile quickly faded.

"Are you ready yet?" Ollie demanded, barging heavily into the bedroom, hat on his head and impatient.

He stopped short when he saw how Stan was gazing at the mirror, the haunted look in his eyes.

Ollie took off his hat.

"I'm sorry -" Stan looked at the old bag in the mirror. "I'll change."

Ollie crossed the room and stood behind him, gazing over his shoulder into the glass. "Why? You look wonderful."

Stan snorted.

Ollie reached for his hand, pulled on it to turn Stan toward him. "As beautiful as the day I met you." He kissed Stan's knuckles with a bow and flourish. Returned Stan's hand to his side. Then spun one finger in the air. "Turn around, I'll do you up."

Stan put a hand over his mouth as Ollie's fingers crept down his back, then pulled the edges of the dress together and slipped the buttons into their holes. One by one, up his spine until the clasp at his collar, and Ollie put his hands on Stan's shoulders.

"Don't cry," Ollie said, gently.

Stan dropped his hand. He was grinning. He spun and hugged Ollie to him tight. He reached up to grasp his chin, turned his face, and give him a firm kiss on the cheek.

Ollie kissed his forehead. "There you are. Come on, we'll be late.

* * *

Shuffle the cards. Masculine, feminine, man, woman, Mars, Venus, two houses and a trench and barbed wire and the guard towers of convention in between. He lived in no-one's land in between, bombarded from both sides - and then Ollie had stumbled across him, stuck his head over the lip of the trench and called him doll, eyes sparkling. He recognized a fellow outcast, a fellow question without an answer.

They got out of the cab.

Stan felt warm lips catch the cool metal of his dangling earring against his neck, and he shuddered. Ollie's hand squeezed his. It didn't matter if people stared. Let them.

“Who’s this?”

Ollie’s hand on the small of his back. "This is my wife." No shame and no joke. Daring the world to doubt it.

#don't like don't read etc

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b-else-writes · 3 years

Text

the tiger shark and the sun

New chapter posted for my Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender-RebelCaptain fusion AU! Feat: Jyn calls Obi Wan an old fart, Jyn tells Luke and Leia to stop being melodramatic about becoming evil, dragons, and me ranting about the “evil sexy matriarchy” fantasy trope.

Read on AO3 | Read from start

Pairings: Jyn/Cassian, minor Han/Leia and Baze/Chirrut, random minor background pairings

Rating: T

Summary: Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender fusion AU. The Fire Nation, under Fire Lord Palpatine and Lord Vader, has been at War with the world for the last twenty years. When Jyn Erso lands on his doorstep the day Cassian, last southern waterbender, is assigned to protect the Avatar, she seems just another obstacle in ending the War. An obstacle he would willingly remove. For exiled firebender Jyn, the Avatar is her last way home - and to her hostaged father, never mind her own conscience. But as their paths keep crossing, and the Avatar needs all help in saving the world, Jyn and Cassian find they are more alike than they ever thought possible.

Snippet under the cut!

Jyn woke with a start, rapidly trying to figure out where she was. She was lying on a straw mattress in a stone room. The early morning light filtered in through a low window. On the ceiling were carvings of circling sky bisons.

Slowly, her memory returned. Jyn sat up, taking in the small room in Hynestia, the Western Air City. Cassian and Kay were nowhere in sight. He had removed her bracers and her boots sometime after she’d fallen asleep, and left then. But there was a dent on the mattress from where he’d been. She could still smell him – and his horrible lizard – and she gave herself a moment to imagine a world where someone like her…

She hastily shoved the thought aside. Another, more pressing concern than her unrequited feelings had emerged. She was supposed to teach. Jyn buckled on her bracers and slid her boots on quickly. She combed her fingers through her hair, repining the bun, and set about finding Enfys.

It took her a surprisingly short time to get around: the entire city seemed to have been developed and built for easy accessibility, with lifts, railings, and maps everywhere. Enfys, after she’d shown Jyn her room, had said she was going to the temple. Jyn found her and Luke curled up on the temple floor, fast asleep.

Jyn crouched and poked her. “Wake up!” she hissed.

Enfys groaned, red braids falling in her face. “Jyn, it’s only dawn…”

“Enfys, I need your help.” Luke made a noise but continued to snore. Jyn pursed her lips. “I’ll make you those wheat pancakes with dates and honey you love,” she said in her sweetest voice.

Enfys cracked one eye open. “We don’t have honey or dates.”

“I brought a jar as a peace offering,” she admitted. There was a pause. With a groan, Enfys extricated herself from Luke’s arms, pulling her cape on. Luke made a little grumble and rolled over. Jyn refrained from commenting as Enfys trailed after her to the central atrium. Enfys was perfectly liable to turn it right back on her.

As Jyn got the ingredients out from her satchel on the war balloon, Enfys asked, “So, what’s the issue?”

Swallowing her pride, “How did you teach the twins?”

There was another long pause. “You didn’t think this through at all, did you?” Enfys said, covering her mouth with her hand. Jyn glared. “I’m not laughing, I’m not!”

“I hate you,” Jyn said, swatting the date jar away from Enfys’ grip.

“No, you don’t,” Enfys said happily, dipping one finger in the honey jar and licking it. Jyn crouched to light the cookfire. It took a moment for the flame to appear on her fingertips. She frowned, but Enfys continued to speak, refocusing her attention. “Well, for me it was simple – I just followed how I was taught by my mother and aunts and elders. I already had a lesson plan ingrained in me.”

Jyn shook her head, feeling her pulse race, though it had been a decade since Master Jorus had backhanded her to perform better. “That…is not going to work.”

Enfys’ face clouded over. She stood from her perch and began to help Jyn, brushing her hands against hers. “Well, then, start simple. Like how to produce fire. And go from there. Basic punches and blocks, you do that a lot, don’t you?”

“They’re called fire fists.”

“My mistake,” Enfys said, her eyes sparkling with mirth, “Fire fists and fire kicks and fiery-ness and aallll that.”

Jyn bit back a smile, extending the plate with honey-drizzled wheat pancakes. “For her highness, the Queen of Mon Cala.”

Enfys immediately grabbed it, digging in with a moan of delight. “One of the few things from the Fire Nation worth saving,” she said, her mouth full of food.

“What’s the rest?”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” Enfys said easily, making Jyn grin. As Baze and Chirrut came in, Enfys added, “Just remember to be patient.”

“I am a beacon of patience.”

Enfys laughed. “I meant with yourself, Jyn. You’re doing something new and difficult. So be kind to yourself as you figure it out.”

She sighed, resting her head against her best friend’s shoulder. “And yet you won’t share your portion with me?” she asked, fighting down her own rising panic.

“You’re impossible,” Enfys laughed, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Now eat up for your first big lesson, Master Jyn.”

Jyn stretched and popped out her muscles. She, Luke, and Leia stood in a beautiful courtyard of cream and white clay and wood. She imagined it must have been a communal space when Hynestia had still housed Air Nomads. She didn’t like dwelling on that too long. She could still feel…something clinging to the place. Fire child, they whispered, stroking her face and hair, this is what your people did.

She would have preferred pure hatred, but she felt that was not their way. It would have been easier than guilt. Especially when she saw the sadness in Enfys’ eyes.

Jyn focused back on the twins. Both wore expressions of trepidation, Leia in particular throwing her suspicious looks. Jyn tried not to take it too personally. “Have either of you ever firebent before?”

They exchanged a look. “Once,” Luke said, shifting a little, “We… we burnt Cassian by accident.”

Multiple statements immediately became clear in Jyn’s head. She pushed aside her own empathy for Cassian – and her instinctive urge to get angry on his behalf. Cassian held no grudge about it. Patiently, she said, “Most firebenders accidentally burn themselves or others when they’re starting out as children. It’s…normal.

“Alright then, let’s see what fire you can produce,” she said, folding her hands behind her back. Keep patient. Don’t be like Master Jorus. Don’t be what the Air Nomads know you could be. The summer heat touched the scars on her arms.

Exchanging another uneasy glance, the twins sank into a low hot-squat, good form, and punched.

A puff of smoke came out.

“That’s it?” Leia glared. Jyn resisted the very powerful urge to groan. “Let me demonstrate,” she said. Her muscle memory was so honed that Jyn didn’t even need to think. She sank and punched, sleeves billowing.

She produced a tiny gasp of flame.

Leia began clapping. Jyn scowled. “Don’t patronize, you know what it’s supposed to look like,” she grumbled. Jyn punched again. She slid into various forms, again and again. Only wisps of flame. “What in the…”

“Maybe you were never as good as you thought you were,” Leia said, grinning slightly.

“Oh, you’re hilarious,” Jyn snapped, trying in vain to produce more flame.

“Maybe it’s the altitude?” Luke suggested, though he didn’t look convinced. Jyn stared at her hands. Her inner flame felt cold and dull in her chest, despite the sunlight pouring over her skin. Sól, give me power, she thought, but none came.

Her firebending was gone. Somewhere, she could feel Master Jorus laughing.

The group sat around the cookfire, eating and chatting. The summer days were long, Chirrut knew. He could still feel heat despite the dinner hour. Baze had passed him his bowl, their fingers brushing. He smiled, gripping Baze’s fingers momentarily and grounding them both.

He heard Jyn clear her throat to speak. “There’s…a problem. I’ve lost my firebending. Well, not lost…but it’s weaker now and I can’t figure it.”

Chirrut considered as he munched. Bending was inherently spiritual, something that many had now forgotten, preferring to use as a blunt instrument. Jyn had never struck him before as someone who wanted to look within herself.

“Maybe it’s because you changed sides,” Cassian spoke up. Chirrut’s seismic sense could feel Jyn immediately perk up and orient towards him. Oh, young love. “Your firebending used to come from anger and desperation. Now you have none.”

“So, what? We piss Erso off?” Han asked, poking Erso with his sword butt.

Jyn kicked him in the shin. “Cut that out! It’s not an option.”

“What you need is a new source,” Chirrut said. “And by that, I mean an old one. The original. For earthbending, the first earthbenders were the badgermoles. When I was young, I ran away and hid in a cave. A blind child was better off gone.”

He still remembered the pain and fear as he had fled Jedha’s orphanage, stumbling through the crowds of people out into the scorching, shifting ground he had learnt was sand. Finding his way into the Catacombs. Surrounding by the dead, as he imagined he would soon become.

The Spirits had other plans. There had been a great crunch of rock, and a soft, wet snout had nosed him. They had recognized him as one of their own. “The badgermoles are also born blind. I learnt earthbending as an extension of my senses. Earthbending is not a martial art – it is a way of interacting and moving through the world, and that is the form I taught Luke and Leia.”

The wonder he had felt as he began to feel the world expanding outwards beneath his palms and feet. The grubs and creatures that lurked beneath the desert sand. The hardy plants that nourished from the earth. The secret oases. The possibilities that had exploded to him. His only regret was that it was no help to non-benders and other benders, but Chirrut was nothing if not stubborn. He had tried to help them too, as a Guardian of the Whills.

“Firebending isn’t like that,” Jyn said quietly, standing up and pacing.

“But surely you must know who the original firebenders were,” Enfys said, “I learnt from my Tribe, but the first airbenders were the sky bison. That’s influenced our bending to use gliders to fly, to our culture!”

Jyn walked over to Chirrut. He felt the same turmoil of his childhood self, in her. “It won’t work. The first firebenders were the dragons, and they’re extinct. There’s no other way.”

Baze squeezed Jyn’s hand. “There is always another way.”

Jyn was silent for a moment. When she spoke, he felt the vibrations. There is something she is concealing. “We’re not far from the island of Dathomir. The witches of Dathomir were said to be the first to learn firebending from the Dragons. They were killed off thousands of years ago. You still hear stories, but there’s no proof their society still exists. We might find something. Otherwise…”

“Sometimes the shadows of the past can be felt by the present,” Chirrut said. Several of the group shifted uncomfortably.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Luke said, “Han, can we borrow the Falcon?”

keep reading

#rebelcaptain #rogue one #jyn x erso #star wars #jyn erso #cassian andor #atla #au: atla #zutara #my fic

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vanillann · 4 years

Text

cupid’s aim (sirius black x f!reader)

this was going to be on my wattpad but i thought it might do better up here, so we’ll see!!

word count: 1.3k

cupid’s aim masterlist

prologue

"Do they look like they are in love?"

"I can't tell Black, your greasy hair is in the way."

A small gasp echoed the broom cabinet Sirius and I stood in, his wide eyes burning into my skull. The only light that flooded the cabinets was from the small crack in the door, the perfect line of sight to watch Remus and Myles Wilcox flirt.

Or at least hopefully flirting.

"I washed my hair this morning Bennett, I used vanilla shampoo," Sirius whispered-yelled in my ear, taking a small bit of hair and dangling it in my face.

"I'm going to kill you."

"They would catch you."

"Did you forget my best friend is Cherry Brown?"

I kept my hands on either side of the crack while turning to look at the boy over the man 's shoulder. The small crack of light shone across one of his eyes and half his mouth, almost something out of a piece of art.

"You're right, I'm so sorry my queen."

Sirius bowed his head to him, lifting his head back up to bang it on the top of the cabinet. I jumped, turning back to the two boys flirting barely a few feet away from us. They didn't seem to react, still carry on a conversation like before.

"Black if you don't get your-"

I gasped this time as I walked Myles fingers delicately placed a small yellow flower behind Remus' ear, the shit eating smirk on his face showed that whatever they were talking about had to be flirty.

"Did he punch him?"

I let my hand fill behind me, feeling around until I found Sirius tie. I dragged his face to hover right over my shoulder, moving my head slightly so he could see the scene before me.

"Godric (Y/N), I think we actually did something."

Sirius turned his head, his nose bumping against mine as he looked at me with his grey eyes. They held pure awe as they burned into my own, the iris of his eye was blown impeccably and his thin lips were parted somewhat.

"We got good aim Black."

"Huh?"

I rolled my eyes and his eyebrow lifted, pushing him slightly so I was looking back out the small crack again.

"You seduced me for your spot back!"

I kick my leg back, my small flats running into his shin. As soon as I began pulling my foot back to the spot on the wooden floor I felt two hands wrap around my ankle.

"Nope."

He pulled back, hard. I felt my front crash onto the floor causing brooms to fall on top of Sirius and I, splinters from the floor and the brooms breaking my skin.

"Oh shit'" Sirius' small laughs filled the cabinet, his deep voice made everything sound breathy.

"Sleep with one eye open tonight Black, Cherry is really good at breaking into things."

I heard the door of the cabinet swing open, light flooding my back while I hid my face in my arm .

Please don't be Remus, please don't be Remus.

"You didn't tell me you two were shagging!"

I looked up to see James Potter looking at us both with such wide eyes his glasses were slowly falling to the tip of his nose.

"We aren't Prongs," Sirius stepped from the small shape, finally allowing me to untangle myself from the brooms laid across my back.

"We were spying on Remus."

I felt a few brooms lift off my back, enough wait was gone so I could turn to my side. Sirius stood beside me, passing brooms to James while pulling more from off me.

"Why? Does Remus hate us now?"

James looked between Sirius and I panicked, dropping the few brooms that were held in his grip.

"No, we set him up with Myles Wilcox," Sirius set the few brooms against the door and held a hand out for me, my hand easily slipping into his and he pulled me from the floor of the broom closet.

"Oh, well how'd it go?"

"Fabulous if I do say so myself."

"And she does say so herself," Sirius grabbed my shoulders and did a jumpy little dance from behind me.

He likes to call it his "I'm right and you aren't" dance.

"Well isn't that a miracle, I didn't even know they liked each other," James picked up the few brooms on the floor and shoved them into the broom closet messily.

"We didn't either, we're just really good at seeing the signs."

Sirius reaching his hand from my shoulder from beside me, his hand out waiting for a high-five, which I happily gave.

"Imagine if you were both professionals," James started walking backward, the Great Hall quickly filling up for dinner for the night.

"We'd be rich."

We all slipped into the Great Hall, I quickly departed and left for the Ravenclaw table. Amira sat at the end of the long table with a pile of papers laid before her.

"Mi?"

"(Y/N)!"

She bounced in her seat slightly, he curled following suit as she looked up at me with a large smile.

"What's with the papers?"

I took the seat across from her, picking up a paper but she quickly reached across and grabbing the paper from my hands.

"I got out that stupid writer block."

She looked back down at her journal and carried on writing, her food pushed to the other side of the table.

"Mi you gotta eat."

"I can do that when I'm dead," she waved me off and continued the dramatic writing spell she had fallen into.

"You actually can't Mi, that's the whole point."

She didn't even acknowledge my words, her pen gliding across the page with ease as she wrote about the world within her brain.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the plant, shoving a fork full of mash potatoes and grabbing a napkin with the other hand. I kicked Mi in the shin, causing her to look up at me while one hand went to rub her shin.

"Say ah."

Mi rolled her eyes but did it anyways, looking at me with her best version of her mad face. I moved the fork to her mouth, her quickly swallowing the food and picking back up the pen and writing.

"Fuck that."

I looked to my right, Cherry long black hair caught my eye as she huffed from beside me.

"What happened to you?"

"That boy from the other night though he would tell me what I can and can't wear. Hell he decided he didn't wanna wear a condom so I can wear my mini skirts.

Cherry turned, diving her legs under the table and picking from Mi plate. Her green and silver scarf made her stand out against the Ravenclaw colors but no one paid no mind, this happened a lot more than most like to say.

"Why are you spoon feeding Amira?"

"She refuses to eat unless and until she grows an extra arm so she can write, so she grew an extra arm."

Cherry smirked and turned to me, wrapping her two arms around my shoulders.

"We wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you."

I laughed and carefully pushed Cherry off, picking up more food on the fork and shoving it at Mi.

"I was inspired by (Y/N) and Sirius' little plan to write a story like mythology but not mythology," Amira spoke as she took the few peas that were on the fork.

"Oh yeah, how did that go by the way?"

"Fabulous, Sirius and I would make perfect cupid's," I smiled proudly at both the girls while grabbing a few fruit from the plate and popping them into my mouth.

"Well if you both need another person's life to play with, I'm free this week," Cherry plucked a grape from my finger and shoved it in inbetween her red lips.

"James Potter probably always had that spot filled."

Mi and Cherry looked at one another at the same time before nodding. I suddenly realized how many people needed some guidance.

Maybe Sirius and I could be that guidance?

"Guys, I think you're onto something."

peermanent hp tag list:

@siriusmaraudeers @marauder-exe @haphazardhufflepuff

sirius black tag list:

@coldlilheart @inkhearthes

#harry potter x reader #james potter #remus lupin #sirius black #fred weasley #george weasley #harry potter #hermione granger #ron weasley #draco malfoy #sirius black x y/n #sirius black x you #sirius black x reader

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vampirequeenoffan · 4 years

Text

Intrusive

IDK, just a DP drabble that seized me by the hands and forced me to write it. I haven’t re-read or edited lmao so it’s probably Real Bad but I have other shit to be doing so imma just dump it here, sorry to yalls eyeballs

Tucker pokes him in the shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Danny groans. He’s got his arm slung over his eyes and he’s upside-down on the couch; legs hooked over the back and back pressed into the cushions. It’s not exactly the world’s most comfortable position, but if he eases off the gravity a little it doesn’t actually hurt. Besides, the discomfort is grounding, pulling his brain away from itself and back into the physical world.

“Ghost bullshit,” he grunts at Tucker. He doesn’t bother uncovering his eyes. He doesn’t really even need to, not the way he is right now, with Tucker picked out so neon in his mind that he can almost taste his presence. He doesn’t use his eyes to “see” when his friend sits down beside him, leaning his elbow on the back of the couch and drawing his legs up off the floor.

“That sucks,” Tucker says.

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you wanna?” he asks. “Tell me, I mean. Get it out of your brain.”

Danny contemplates that for a moment, falling so still he nearly forgets to breathe. Then his lungs start complaining, reminding him that he is very much still in human mode, thanks, and that he does need air for more than just vibrating his vocal chords.

Danny sighs.

“Urges,” he says. One-word response.

He still can’t see Tucker, but he can “see” him nod. He’s such a pleasantly warm shade in Danny’s mind right now, a color he can’t describe because humans can’t perceive it. Danny could look at it forever.

“One of the fighting ones again?” Tucker asks. Danny shakes his head.

“I wanna put you in a box.”

It’s a testament to their relationship that Tucker doesn’t freak out about that sentence and all that it could imply. Instead he just pauses, purses his lips in the way that Danny can only vaguely “see” (a slight variation in his color, dipping almost orange on the spectrum), and drums his fingers against the back of the couch.

“Like. . . a coffin?” he asks, tone casual. More casual than it probably should be for the subject matter.

“Not really,” Danny says. “I mean, it’s not not a coffin either, but it isn’t specifically one. My brain just. . . really wants you and Sam to be tucked away somewhere safe where no one else can touch you and I can guard you forever. And ever.”

He pauses.

“And ever.”

Tucker nods, the motion burning brightly in Danny’s mind.

“Creepy,” he comments.

Danny groans again.

“I hate my brain.”

“So do I, you’re not special,” Sam calls from the other room. Danny’s itching under his skin with the urge to go grab her, despite how the walls in between them don’t dampen the “sight” of her in his mind. He presses his arm a little harder down over his eyes, as if that could block out her luminous smear across his consciousness.

“We’re having a private conversation,” Tucker yells back at her. “Me and Danny are bonding. Get your self-depreciation out of here!”

“Then stop talking so loudly, idiots!” Sam says. She’s crouched on the ground, rifling through what Danny knows is a box despite neither seeing nor “seeing” it. It shouldn’t take her that much longer to find Dead Teacher iii, and then she’ll be back in the room. Danny has to keep repeating that to himself.

Tucker reaches down and pokes his shoulder again.

“It’s really bugging you, huh,” he says. “That she’s in the other room.”

“How can you tell?” Danny asks. He hasn’t moved, hasn’t acted on any of his instincts. For all intents and purposes Tucker should just see a normal teenager lying sprawled out next to him, albeit in a somewhat awkward position.

Tucker shrugs. His shoulders bleed color behind them in an echo of the movement.

“Your teeth. They’re always pretty sharp, but right now they look like you could bite your own lip off. You’re not kissing anyone for a while, by the way,” he adds.

Danny’s groan borders on a whine this time.

“My ghost half is ruining my life,” he complains.

Tucker snorts and pokes him again, this time on the cheek. The warmth of his skin, of his presence in Danny’s mind, make Danny shiver. He wants so badly to bundle Tucker up in his arms and never let go.

“Is it just us right now?” Tucker asks. “Do you wanna box up anyone else?”

Danny hesitates, turning that thought over in his head.

“. . .no,” he ultimately concludes, “Not really. My brain’s got my house categorized as safe and mine and that’s where my family is right now, so they’re fine. And Val– well. Val is Val. I’ve always got conflicting feelings there.”

“It would be nice if those cancelled out, huh,” Tucker muses. Danny’s complained about this to him before. Fight and Protect fluctuate in his mind from moment to moment when it comes to Valerie and The Red Huntress, and the overlap when they’re both at their strongest can nearly give Danny a migraine. In the same way he can have a panic attack while in the middle of a depressive episode, he can very much want to swaddle Val in bubble wrap while also wanting to stab her.

“Well,” Sam says, straightening up and starting to (yes!) return to the room, “We can’t do a box, but we were already going to cuddle pile on the couch.”

“I still can’t get over you saying cuddle,” Tucker says.

“There’s nothing more hardcore than cuddling,” Sam huffs as she flops down on Danny’s other side. Her arm swings as she makes to throw what Danny assumes is the DVD box at Tucker, and Danny’s hands shoot up to snag it out of the air before it can strike his friend.

There’s a moment of silence. Danny opens his eyes. It’s weird seeing the world around him and “seeing” on top of it, part of why he’d covered his face in the first place. His brain just isn’t meant to process that much visual information at once, the same way his brain isn’t actually wired to “see.” He tries to focus on what’s real, on the actual light bouncing off his friends and into his retinas, and blinks away the glowing smear that isn’t even on the visual spectrum. He’s holding Dead Teacher iii in his hands, and he stares at the cheesy cover art with the single-minded focus of a guy recalibrating his eyes.

“Ah,” Sam says. “That bad, huh?”

Danny lets go of the DVD and it lands on his face. It hurts, but not that much.

Tucker sighs and grabs the case, standing up and moving to pop the DVD into the player. Danny, with a herculean effort, manages to not grab his ankle on the way by and drag him bodily back onto the couch.

Sam stretches, her long pale fingers tangling together overhead, physical form barely more present in Danny’s mind than the glow of her presence. Then she drops her hands and lays down, plopping her head onto his stomach and peering up into his very-close face. Danny can pick out every sun-starved freckle-that-could on her face, inherited from her parents and dampened by lifestyle choices. In the summer, when even the extra-strength sunscreen Sam slathers on can’t fight back her love for the outdoors, those freckles darken and bloom like constellations in the night sky.

The weight of her head against his stomach smooths some of Danny’s anxiety. She’s here. She’s real. She’s alive. She’s safe. She’s his.

She isn’t, of course. Tucker isn’t either. No one, on this planet or off of it, belongs to anyone, least of all Danny. And Danny knows this, believes it with the same certainty and maybe even the same part of his brain that knows that the earth goes around the sun, but that doesn’t get rid of his ghost-lizard brain chattering away in the back of his consciousness.

There’s the hum of the DVD player starting to spin the disk, then the previews begin behind Danny’s head. Tucker sits back down and, with Sam taking up the real estate on Danny’s abdomen, hooks an arm under one of the legs thrown over the back of the couch. He drags Danny’s limb closer and starts using it like a headrest, cheek pressing against Danny’s shin.

“You guys–” Danny’s voice breaks off. Finally, the anxiety that’s been buzzing at the back of his mind for the past hour and a half is tapering off, soothed by his proximity and contact with those he wants to protect. It’s such a relief that Danny could almost cry. But. . .

“You guys don’t have to be that close if you don’t want,” he says. Because it’s true. Sam and Tucker are under no obligation to play along with his ghost brain, no obligation to surrender to whatever weird instincts Danny has jammed into his consciousness. Danny has no right to ask them to, and he doesn’t. Not ever. They can make their own choices, and he refuses to become the kind of monster who would try to take their free will from them. They’re his friends, not his property, and he’s never going to forget that.

“Danny,” Sam says, “Shut up. The movie’s starting.”

“Yeah, man,” Tucker chimes in, “We were gonna do this anyway. Let us know when your brain’s calmed down enough to be upright, okay? I want popcorn later and there’s no way we’re gonna be able to integrate a bowl into this mess.”

Danny kicks his foot lightly, jostling his leg in Tucker’s hold and bumping his head, but he’s smiling. His friends are here. They’re alive. They’re watching a dumb movie from a dumb series they love and hate in equal measure.

And Danny’s happy.

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Tucker Foley #Sam Manson #Eternal Trio #kinda #I use the term friend a bunch but there's also the implication that They All Be Smoochin #sooooo #Posessive behavior #intrusive thoughts #Ghost Bullshit functioning like anxiety #IDK this is probably super poorly written and I might delete it later but #whatever!

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lihikainanea · 4 years

Note

No hate because I don't mean to offend it's just I've always been told otherwise and I'd like your input. Genuinely, how do you fight against a grown man that's twice your size when you're so small??? Like could you throw Bill around for example? I just don't understand how that works. I've always been told that no matter how strong a woman is, if a man twice her size takes her on she'll lose. And that martial arts won't win against a guy who street fights and you need to defend yourself.

No offence taken, bubs. I get this question a lot, and I’m always happy to explain these things to people who ask out of genuine curiosity. For people who ask out of arrogance (ie: usually dudes), I tend to prefer a more demonstrative approach.

There are a few things that make this whole “martial arts is useless against people bigger and stronger than you” thing a total misconception, so let’s outline some of them.

1) Martial arts is never about strength or force. Well, not your own anyway. The concept of martial arts was created with one very, very obvious thing in mind: That you will usually get attacked by someone bigger and stronger than you. I can’t speak for all martial arts, but as a kyokushinkai, I can tell you how we train and what we believe. Martial arts is not about your strength, or your force--but rather, it is about using your opponent’s strength and force against them. Have you ever thrown a punch at the air? I’m talking a real punch, one with your whole body weight--ever throw a haymaker like that at absolutely nothing? Let me tell you what happens: you go flying. More specifically, you pitch forward at the waist, you lean your upper body forward, you step into it as you try to regain your balance--and then your body’s natural inclination to counter that weight kicks in, and you lean back to try and regain your centre.

Now, imagine that as you throw that punch, the person in front of you just hooks a hand behind your shoulder and guides you even more into the direction you were already catapulting yourself in. Then imagine as your body is pitching forward from your own force, all of that forward momentum driving into one sole place--imagine the person in front of you just raises a knee, sinks it into your gut. All of this--every modicum of it--is your own force. Not theirs.

Additionally, there are also spots on the body where you can cause maximum damage with minimum efforts--these are called pressure points, most people don’t have more than a basic understanding of them, and they are a bitch. There are a lot of them in a lot of easy to reach places, and none of them require much more than a tap. Take your fingers--your index and your middle finger--and put them on the spot under your earlobe, right where your jaw connects to your skull. Push down there--that’s pretty sensitive, right? Now look at your hand, where your thumb connects to your wrist. Tuck your thumb into your palm.

If you tap someone on either side where their jaw connects, with that bony part of your hand--and you have a solid 5cm of space here, so you can miss and still be fine--you will knock them out. Every single time.

How this is applicable to the argument: People tend to think of fighting as a Rock’Em Sock’Em game. You stand in front and you punch each other. If that’s how fighting worked, then punch for punch--yeah, a dude who is 6′4 and 240lbs is stronger than me. But martial artists are craftier than that--and if I know that I won’t win the brute force game, then I don’t play the brute force game. After 12 years of training, I have 238975854569 other games that he doesn’t.

So yes, I could throw Bill around. But the whole point is--I would never have to. Strength would be his fight, because he’s a big dude. If I know my strength won’t win, then I won’t fight that way.

2) Speed and accuracy

Again, I can only speak as a kyokushinkai. But something that we emphasized was that there was a need, when you train, to constantly be uncomfortable. Are we throwing punches? Okay great, here put a weighted belt on only one side of your body and also these rubber bands on your wrist are connected to a guy behind you who will pull your hand back every time you try to throw it forward. Are we practicing defending against surprise attacks, or accuracy? Great, here kick this tiny ping pong ball using only this part of your foot, and wear a blindfold while you’re at it.

12 years of this.

I will reiterate that standing in front of a dude, square on, throwing timed punches--I will lose. He will be stronger than me. But thankfully, that’s...not ever how a fight works.

What allows me to win against a guy of that size is my speed, and my accuracy. Let me tell you a little something about how people punch: people don’t know how to punch. Their features pinch in their face, and their neck tightens. An arm is drawn back--way back--and usually, the leading foot is raised just a tad, on the heel, so it’s just the ball of the foot on the ground. The fist comes through the air in a circular arc, reaching to connect to the side of your face as the person steps forward. The punch’s natural progression is from one of your shoulders to the other--if you can imagine that pathway. The entire thing is circular, it is energy-consuming, but more than that--it’s predictable.

I have spent 12 years getting punched by men stronger than me, who were trained to punch. Men who spent 20 years training to punch. I don’t see those coming, for a few reasons: they’re too fast, but mostly, we have been trained to not “give away” our strikes. Our faces don’t twitch anymore. We give no indication that a punch is coming, until we’ve actually punched you. There’s no wind up. There’s no arc. There’s no shift in weight--it is a direct line, and it is immediate. And devastating. We punch to break cinder blocks. Your face is not as strong as a cinderblock.

Fighting these dudes who give nothing away, I can say that in a street fight against someone--things are moving in slow motion for me. And I can confirm this, because I’ve been jumped twice in my life. Everything the opponent did, it looked like he was moving through molasses. I recognized the sudden tensing in his facial features (as competitors, do you know where we look when we fight? At the hollow of the neck on our opponent. Because of the involuntary way it clenches when they’re about to throw a strike.) I saw the arm wind back--way the fuck back. It gave me a half a second--but that’s a half a second head start, and that’s all the time I need. I can deflect. I can stop. I can strike back.

How this is applicable to the argument: Strength and force don’t even come to the party when an opponent is faster than you, because you can’t exude force against something that you can’t grab or strike. You also can’t exude force against something that strikes you right as you’re attempting to strike it.

And because we train so much on accuracy, it means that I can hit the spot that I mean to hit, with the force I mean to hit it with, under most circumstances. Including on a moving, erratic, unpredictable target. And if I miss, then I have the reflexes fast enough to strike something that was just made available to me in my miss. Example: I go to strike a groin, and he covers? Most men have an incredibly fast reflex to cover their groin. That’s fine, because it means that his hands just went down to block my strike. And when his hands go down, you know what he’s not protecting?

His head. Off with it.

(it’s also important to note that the first thing we are ever taught to protect, is our head. This is so deeply engrained in us. And the number one thing that people always punch for, is the head. When you spend 12 years protecting it against 5th degree black belts, believe me some drunk dude in a bar is not even going to get close to it without dying first.)

3) Tolerance for pain

I mentioned before that if you have never gotten punched before, it is an incredibly jarring experience. You panic. You freeze. Your knees give out. You maybe scream, you probably start to cry, you get really freaked out. There’s so many things that play on the brain in those situations--that you’re in danger, that you’re under attack, that you don’t know what to do, that the punch caused some serious damage, that you’re in pain, that somebody tried to hurt you. All of these things are terrifying, and they’re a very natural panic response to the situation.

Over the course of 12 years, I have gotten punched and kicked at full force--my face, my stomach, my chest, my head--millions of times. Millions. It doesn’t incite panic anymore, but it sure does incite rage.

Kyokushinkai go through various exercises to numb ourselves to pain. We punch telephone books covered in burlap, to kill the nerve endings in our knuckles. When we’re past that, we move onto concrete. We whack our shins with baseball bats to break down the microfibres in the bone, so they’ll not only grow back stronger--but they’ll grow back numb. We stand there, and we let the entire class punch us. Kick us. We don’t block--we absorb it. In kyokushin tournaments, if you show pain, you automatically lose. That means that if I take a kick to the head and I grimace, if I grunt or suck in a breath or otherwise show any emotion--I forfeit the fight. Immediately.

All of this takes the shock value out of experiencing pain, and more importantly, it re-programs your brain to replace it with something else. We have been, essentially, reprogrammed. That’s the only word I can think of for this. The normal brain is programmed that when you get punched, you feel pain. The kyokunshinkai brain is programmed that when you get punched, you feel fucking blind rage.

How this is applicable to the argument: He might be stronger, and he might land the hit. But I have been punched much harder by men who have been trained to use their bodies as weapons. I have submitted my body to that for 12 years. So he may land the hit. But it won’t hurt me, because for 12 years, I have been through worse. And if he lands the hit, refer to item 2 on how I can still win. Most people throw the punch thinking it will end the fight. It’s rather shocking when you throw the punch and a harder one lands on you 2 seconds later.

4) We understand body mechanics.

This is kind of all of the points rolled into one. Martial artists have an innate understanding of pressure points, how to manipulate them, but more than that--we understand how the body moves. We understand actions, and counter-actions. We understand involuntary muscle twitches. We understand the ebb and flow, the sway, the centre lines. Gravity.

Up top I mentioned that in competition, we stare at the other person’s throat when we fight. This is not only because it’s one of the places where your peripheral vision is most effective (you can see all movement in their arms and legs), but because the body basically gives involuntary muscle twitches there before any other movement is made. If something there twitches, then something is about to come flying at your head.

But we also understand that for anybody who hasn’t been trained, a contortion of the facial features precedes strike. It’s a running joke amongst martial artists, this idea that “a punch comes from your face.” It does. there is always a constriction of the facial features before a strike.

We understand the body mechanics of a poorly thrown punch. We understand that to get more force, people will swing back, shift their weight to their back leg before pitching forward, planting their front leg, swinging their arm way behind them as their gravity shifts to the front and they launch it. A martial artist would look at this situation, and manipulate it.

So when the dude shifts his weight onto his back leg and draws his arm back--you break his back leg. Chop it down like a fucking tree, which is easy to do when his weight is on it. Or you let him throw the punch, and you move--just a slight toss to the side, guide his arm where it was going anyway if you want to, and with a little downward momentum this guy is eating pavement. And again, it’s his own momentum. You’re just nudging him to where he was already going.

As martial artists we understand centrelines and counterbalance. We understand that sometimes you need to swing things up to have enough momentum to bring them down (a double collar grab), we understand that you need to oppose the force to gain enough momentum to go with the force (a double wrist grab on you that turns into a forearm lock on them).

How this is applicable to the argument: if I could hone in on something here, and it’s only because it’s something that took me a long time to learn: we understand how to force someone to fight our fight. For years and years I would adapt to someone else’s fight. If he was a garbage truck on the mats, standing there and pounding on me, I would morph into a garbage truck too and just stand there, take it, and punch back--instead of working my angles, getting off his centre, not giving him the access to get into a punching rhythm. And against a big tall dude, a big strong dude--no, I can’t reach his head.

But I can make his head come to me.

You learn that a groin kick will lower an opponent’s hands, and it will buckle their knees in protection. Cause them to crouch. You learn that a well positioned punch low on the abdomen--say, the bladder--will fold a person in half, which brings their head much closer to you. You learn to get what you want. You want the back leg? You put yours forward. Offer it up. You hand it to them on a silver platter and let them believe they have it. You want the ribs? You throw up high, so their hands come up. You want the groin? You give them your hands. Because essentially--they don’t have your hands. You have theirs, and then bullseye.

Which brings me to my fifth and final point....

5) Adaptability.

As martial artists, we have options. We have a lot of options. We like options. We don’t believe in one fight. We don’t believe you’re ever really stuck. But we do believe in something else, that is very dear to us. A philosophy, of sorts, and it goes like this:

Every single part of me is a weapon and every single part of you is a target.

We know how to use what’s left, we know how to use what’s available. If you have one of my hands, I have 3 other weapons I can strike you with. If I kick for your groin and I miss or you block, I now know that your head is unprotected and you’re hunched over. It means I can knock you out, it means I can reach and literally rip your ears off (sorry kids, self-defence is nasty). If I throw a punch for your solar plexus and you move, I can hit you from any angle within a 5 foot radius because that’s how I’ve been trained. If you break my leg, then I’ll remember that time that I broke my leg in competition and I still finished the fight, because I know that my adrenaline is so far off the charts that I still have a good 20 minutes before I’ll feel the pain.

If I kick and you block, I know how to throw another 3 kicks before my foot lands--all at different areas of the body. If I punch and you block, I know how to punch another 6 times and kick another 3 and one of them is bound to land, and hurt you.

How this is applicable to the argument: Everybody’s got a plan ‘til they get punched in the face. Most people start a brawl with some semblance of a plan in mind--even if that plan is just “I’m gonna throw this punch that this fucker won’t ever see coming and knock him the fuck out.”

Martial artists don’t have a plan. Martial artists wait until you reveal your plan, and then we just make sure we don’t let you carry through with it. I hope this helps shed some light, bubs <3

#void journal #Leilani babbles #martial arts

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