#and when i say there are more nuggets of gold hidden in there I FUCKING MEAN IT
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Everyone likes to shit on Season 3 but did you know that Orla has the fastest flat-Earther-to-round-Earther conversion rate of any living human being
No but seriously, next to Oprah's "fuck the critics" spiel in the Season 2 premiere, this is the best jab in the entire franchise thus far
...Do anti-vaxxers in Season 4 next you fuckers, I dare you
#i need to mine episodes for the season 3 “odd squad needs you” ads actually because none of my copies have them#and when i say there are more nuggets of gold hidden in there I FUCKING MEAN IT#i love how they did this with orla too b/c it ABSOLUTELY checks out for her#season 4 better bring the REAL fuckin' shit and pull NO fuckin' punches...do your worst bbc#odd squad pbs kids#odd squad#odd squad season 3#odd squad mobile unit
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ROYAL ASSASSIN ABRIDGED: PART ONE
My friend Razz wants to understand my shitposting about Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy, but they don’t want to actually have to read the books, so I’m summarizing it for them (and you)!
When we last left Fitzy-Fitz, it was a really fucking long time ago, sorry, I stopped going to church and learned to chainsmoke (and this book is LONG, I mean it’s LOOOOOOONG, so I kept avoiding getting started on Abridging it, lmao).
You can brush up on the frankly insane amount of different characters here at the Royal Assassin Cast of Characters post, or find the links to the rest of the Farseer Trilogy Abridged series here at this link here.
-
Fitz awakens one fine October morning in a bed at Jhaampe hospital, where he's been recovering from being poisoned and poisoned and bludgeoned and kicked and drowned. At first he was having eighty seizures a day, but now that it's down to only twenty-five seizures a day, he and Burrich figure it's high time for the two of them to skedaddle before they get snowed in.
Then, exactly like that scene in Attack on Titan where Eren reaches for a spoon and accidentally turns into a Titan, Fitz drops a spoon and accidentally turns into a seizure. It's a lot less cool. He wakes up hours later back in the same damn hospital bed with Jonqui the King's Sister and now healer sitting beside him.
"This sucks," he whines.
"Time heals all wounds, Pull-Out Fail," Jonqui says sagely.
"Shut the fuck up. I'm fifteen and obviously know a lot more than you about healing, and I've decided I'm never going to get better."
Burrich strides healthily into the room with a swanky new skunk stripe in his hair where his skull was recently cracked open. "What-ho, Lil Accident, are you ready to go back to Buckkeep?"
"No. Everybody's gonna make fun of me. You go back without me."
"So long as you wear that collar," Burrich says solemnly, "I must follow you."
Fitz touches the black collar with the word DADDY on it in gold letters. "The way you followed my father?"
"Yes."
"Was it like, a sex thing?"
Burrich, who has enough hidden piercings to set off a metal detector at twenty paces, asks, "Are we going back to Buckkeep or what? I'm getting kind of bored sitting here watching you do the Harlem Shake."
"Also, I heard that Molly's candle shop was foreclosed on and she had to go live with relatives in a town that's about to be raided by Vikings," The Fool says from under the bed.
"Gosh, I wish I could talk to King Shrewd or the Fool or find out what's happening to Molly," Fitz sighs, then sits up as the room fills with the wavy lines and harp glissando of a dream sequence.
"Wake up, King Shrewd," the Fool says. He's sitting on a chair, not under the bed or in a hay bale for once, and Fitz finds it extremely disturbing.
"Fool? What are you doing here?"
"Oh, King Shrewd and not Fitz, I have to be here because you're sick and old," the Fool fools. "Here, let me fluff your pillows and feed you soup."
"This is so weird," Shrewd-Fitz says. "I feel like... oh, the Skill line is ringing. What? Vikings are viking Siltbay so late in the fall?"
"You know, it's creepy when you talk to yourself like that," the Fool mutters.
But Shitz (Shrewd-Fitz) is already on a Skill video call, watching the Red-Ship Raiders pulling up onto the coast. Vikings run through the town, viking everything in sight. The raiders are wading through blood up to their knees, people are running around headless and on fire, it's awful. The raiders aren't even stealing anything-- they're just wrecking stuff, which anyone who's been to a Raiders game can attest to (go Cowboys).
"Fool," Shitz says. "You can see the future, right?"
"This is a weird time to reveal that particular nugget of information, but sure. Let's see... ah, yes. I see a bard who can't fucking read the room trying to find a rhyme for 'dismembered child.' That is not something Jaydee made up, it's a real line from the book."
"Thank you, Fool, that's extremely fucked up," Shitz says. "Oh wait, who's this on the video call... It's Molly! Oh SHIT, it's Molly and Vikings are going to vike her!"
But Molly wasn't called Molly Nosebleed as a kid because she's a trembling little violet. A Viking tries to vike her and she stabs him to death, whirls around and shouts "WHO WANTS SOME, MOTHERFUCKERS?!"
Then a house falls on her.
"Oh god, oh fuck," Shitz says, panicking. "Fool, use your future vision and tell me if Molly's okay!"
"A bunch of women died in a bunch of horrible ways," the Fool says. "Do you want me to list them?"
"No," Shitz says, and so the Fool doesn't spend two pages describing the graphic sexual assault, murder, and maiming of a bunch of townsfolk. Shitz sits back in his bed. "Run off and let Verity know Siltbay is being viked."
Ever loyal, the Fool cartwheels down the stairs. Then Shitz sighs and says, "Man, being old sucks."
"Yes it does, so quit your fucking whining about your little seizures and come home," Shrewd says, and ends the Skill call.
The next morning, Fitz-Fitz packs up his stuff and heads out with Burrich and Hands to make the long boring trip back to Buckkeep.
The return to Buckkeep sucks especially hard because they have to take the 99 instead of the I-5 like last time, and Fitz is getting carsick. Along the way they keep having to stay in incredibly sketch Super 8s, which wouldn't be that bad (free soap and free weird smells!) but Burrich and Hands overhear someone standing out in the hallway talking loudly on their phone about how much King Shrewd fucking sucks.
"Yeah he keeps raising taxes to 'defend our country' or whatever but Vikings are still viking the beach towns as much as they want," had said the Buckboi in the hallway. "You know who rules, though, Prince Regal!"
"What towns did Buckboi say were viked?" Fitz asks.
"A town no one cares about," Hands answers solemnly, "and the one where Molly had a house fall on her."
After that incident, Burrich decides that they're gonna make the rest of the trip using surface streets and driving through people's yards. "If Regal finds out you're out here, he'll send someone to kill you," Burrich explains. "Verity's definitely not gonna protect you."
"Is that because he consistently sees me as a tool first and a family member and human being second?"
"Look," Hands interrupts. "I see Buckkeep-shaped lights in the distance."
They ride up to the gates, which are guarded by a kid who was born a thousand years too early to be the squeaky-voiced teen working at the drive-thru. “Halt,” he squeaks. “Who the fuck are you?“
Burrich scoffs. ”Who the fuck are YOU?“
”I asked you first!“
”I asked you sec—“
”All right, all right, who's holding up the line?“
The last book had a rich and exhausting cast of random extras murmuring in the background, but this one used all of their budget on talking CGI wolves, so they had to fire most of them and give almost all of their lines to Blade, The Guard Captain. His job is to appear at important moments and say things like 'hear, hear!' and 'how big WAS she?' “Holy shit, it's Burrich! Twitter said you and Chivalry's Post Nut Regret were dead!”
“It's called X now,” Fitz says, emerging dramatically from the shadows.
“Oh.” Blade says, while four of the other guards die of secondhand embarrassment. “H-hi, Chivalry's Pos... I mean... Fitz. You uh. Did you have a nice trip? Hey, you... did something with your hair, it looks... it looks good!”
“Prince Regal was going around telling everyone I was dead, wasn't he,” Fitz says flatly.
“Sometimes I can still hear his voice,“ Regal sighs from somewhere in the castle.
”What? No. What?? No! What?! No!“ Blade laughs as six more guards thud to the ground. ”No, of course not! It was just, you know, like, you know. YOU know. You know. I didn't really believe you were dead, I did retweet the link Regal posted but I commented with 'big if true,' so it wasn't really...”
Fitz smiles. “Ho ho ho, Captain, don't worry your sweet little tits about it. Everyone falls victim to misinformation from time to time, and I accept the apology I assume you were about to provide me. Do carry about your business.”
Halfway up to the stables, Burrich pulls Fitz aside. “Listen, Lil Accident, we're not at Grandma's house anymore,” he hisses. “You can't talk to people like you matter or Regal's gonna get his panties in a knot about it.”
“And then he'll choke me,” Fitz agrees.
“What?”
“With his knotted up panties.“
”I'm also still alive,“ Hands offers after a long silence. ”Fitz, you're too weak and pathetic to wax your own horse, let me do it.“
”But...“
”Come on, Fitz, let Hands, my new favorite child, take care of the important work.“ Burrich takes Fitz's arm. ”Now go on up to the castle, that collar is making everybody question their sexuality.“
”What's a sexuality?“ Fitz asks, just before he's shoved into the castle, screen door banging behind him.
Inside, Fitz looks around and notices that the place looks cleaner than it had before he'd left on the world's worst road trip. All the beer cans and ash trays have been cleaned up, someone's taken down the band posters and put up tasteful watercolors of succulents, and the 'NICE COCK' that had been scrawled above the toilet has been replaced with 'live laugh love.'
”Wrow,“ muses Fitz as he passes a sign on Verity's door that reads 'IF THE WARSHIP'S A-ROCKIN', DON'T COME A-KNOCKIN'. ”I'm kinda gonna miss the crusty sock smell. Good thing my room still reeks like teenaged boy.“
#rote#robin hobb#fitzchivalry farseer#ra abridged#this one's a little rough but I promise I'll warm up
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Kinktober Day 3. Deep Sea Desires : Oviposition | Bakugou
Day 3: Oviposition
Title: Deep Sea Desires
Pairing: Bakugou x F!Reader
Count: 3.6k
Summary: You save a guy on the beach. Little did you know that would open your eyes to a whole world you never knew existed.
Warnings: Noncon, kidnapping, manipulation, forced breeding, oviposition, drowning
Note: man, did I spend so long trying to make tumblr accept my gif for this one ^^; Well, here we are! Also, thanks for all of the support! My inboxes are open~
There was something so beautiful about the ocean.
For as long as you could remember, your family had always called you a child of the sea. If they couldn’t find you, it was likely you were down in the sea foam. From a young age you were more comfortable in the rolling waves than on land. Whether it was being one with the waves, traversing the sandy beaches, or bathing in the sunset, it didn’t matter.
Years have gone by and your fascination has never wavered. Even after your family passed on, this was still your home.
Even now, you found yourself returning to the sandy beaches. In your stress, it never failed to calm you down.
Making your way to the secret alcove always allowed you a peace of mind. No one knew where your little cave resided. From there, you had direct access to the ocean, and the solitude away from wandering eyes of the beaches behind your home.
Today was no different. One hard breakup led to you rushing back to the comfort of your ocean.
What you didn’t expect was the body residing inside your cave.
When you finally slipped into the hidden alcove, a startled gasp left you.
A rather large man with blonde hair looked as if he had washed up on the beach, unconscious. When the water pulled away from his body, you could see a large gash in his shoulder, as if he had been speared. Blood soaked the sand beneath him.
“Oh my god!”
You rush over, hauling your bag off your shoulders. You always kept a med kit and snacks with you just in case of something like this.
Kneeling next to the man, you immediately place your hand in front of his mouth to feel for breathing. A sigh of relief floods you. At least he was still alive.
You pull your jacket off of your shoulders and quickly drop it over his nude waste, respectfully not looking at his rather large package.
Inspecting the wound, you grimace. The skin was ripped in a way that only a spear could have done so. Cleaning the wound as best as you can, you begin prepping the line to stitch him up. Not without poking yourself first. Sucking off the blood from your finger, you start. Making quick work to not disturb the man, you work diligently to stitch up the gash. His skin is so cold...
By the time you finish, the afternoon sun has sunk to a beautiful sunset. You let out a sigh, sitting back to examine your thorough work when you notice his eyes are on you. You flinch.
Vermillion eyes appear to be examining your face. They suck your breath away.
How long had he been watching you? Why didn’t he say anything? He hadn’t even flinched.
“I just finished patching you up… how did you get here? What happened to you?”
A grunt from low in his chest has your skin crawling. He uses his arm that’s okay to push himself up into a sitting position, his face directly in front of yours now. His eyes narrow.
You can feel your heart rate pick up. He’s so close, you can feel the warmth of his breath as it washes over your face.
“I’m… y/n.” You say softly. “What’s your name?”
The scowl on his face loosens just barely, as if he recognized the name. His eyes roam around the cave.
“Whoa, sir? You don’t want to move too much! You might rip the stitches.” You touch his arm hesitantly.
In an instant he turns, his arm gripping the wrist of your hand that touched him. His eyes seem to glow as he glares hard at you.
“Oh.”
It takes a second too long to realize he’s hurting you. Fear crawls up your spine as you try to pull your wrist out of his hold. His hand is huge, you realize, and he’s strong too. He doesn’t even budge as you try to yank yourself away.
A small tch sound comes from him as he lets you go. Before you can blink, he’s standing up and walking towards the mouth of the cave. You avert your eyes as your jacket drops to the sand beneath his feet. What a great ass…
Then, he just vanishes into the water.
You scrub your eyes. You’re sure you watched him walk out of the cave. Then a large wave crashed over the sand and he was just… gone.
What the fuck?
~.~.~.~
Despite the scare in the cave, you find yourself returning daily. Maybe it was in hopes of seeing the blond stranger again, maybe it was to try and tell yourself that really happened.
Besides, everytime you return to the cave, a new and pretty shell and stones appear. It’s almost as if the sea was offering you gifts. Who were you to refuse such pretty things? Today was no different. There was a perfectly round and smooth piece of gold about the size of a quarter.
Still, part of you misses the stranger. You couldn’t say why, but it was as if you’ve met him before?
Shaking that thought from your mind, you lay down in the sand, eyes watching the light from the ocean reflect off the roof of the cave. You hold onto the piece of gold in your left hand, the same one with a bruise from the stranger. It was cool to the touch.
Your eyes begin to drift closed with the water caressing your legs.
When you rouse from your sleep, it’s easy to notice a few things before you open your eyes. Even with a foggy mind you can tell something’s off.
Firstly, your body is chilled to the bone. The sun has made its descent, leaving you to the chill of the ocean’s water at night.
Second, your legs feel like they’re being pinned in place by something heavy and slick, all the way up to your hips.
Lastly, warm air seems to be rushing over your face.
Forcing your eyes to open, it takes them a moment to adjust to the darkness. In the darkness you can see glowing vermillion eyes.
Gasping, you try to yank yourself away from the blond who is laying on top of you. He’s braced on his arms next to your head, looking down at you.
“Finally.” He growls softly. His voice is too gravely to sound human. It’s jarring, enchanting.
You can’t move, and your eyes look down to see why. Your breath hitches when you see what has your legs pinned in place. You freeze, and stop moving completely.
Where his waist should be is a tail. A tail. A giant, dark vermillion tail.
Wonderment fills you. “A mer.”
Something akin to a cocky smirk covers his face. His razor sharp shark-like teeth glimmer in the moonlight as he nods. For some reason your earlier panic subsides as you take a close look at his face.
Your eyes glance down to his shoulder, no longer having any stitches. That’s strange. The only remnants of the wound is a faint white scar. Your hand trails up and runs over the white line. “How?”
“Healed.” He grunts out. You drop your hand down by the side of your head, amazed. That’s when it hits you. All of the shells. “Wait. Have you been leaving all of the shells for me?”
One of his hands moves, laying over top yours which lays vacant near your head. His palm presses into yours, and you can feel the cold of the gold piece pressed between your hands.
“You accept?” His voice gravels.
“The coin? Um. Yes. It’s very pretty.”
Something changes in his face. His eyes dilate. His breathing changes. It’s almost like his whole body shudders in excitement.
The rational part of your brain is screaming at you. You should probably be afraid of this man with razor sharp teeth and extreme strength, who you probably shouldn’t accept anything from. The other part of you is so transfixed with him, though, as if this was the world you belonged to.
Chilled by the waves lapping at your legs, brushing up to your hips, it takes you a moment to realize his hand grips yours with the coin in it. Not only grips it, but begins to tug on it as he shuffles back into the water.
“Whoa, where are we going?” You stumble, being pulled into the frigid water.
Your limbs lock up as he pulls you towards the mouth of the cave where the water is to your chest when standing.
Instead of using words, he makes a sound akin to a seal bark before yanking you into the water under the moonlight.
Gasping, you force your head to stay above water, all while he begins to drag you farther from the land.
He comes to a stop, pulling you close enough to wrap his free hand around your waist, eyes analyzing your face. The cave is much too far for you to try and swim back to now, with your body seizing from the cold. Shivers wrack every inch of skin as you press into the mer.
“Where are you taking me?”
His grin comes back. Instead of answering, you feel him wrap your hands around his neck, his wrapping around your waist as he nudges your legs to wrap around him. “Take a deep breath.”
You barely have enough time to before he launches the two of you under water. The rapid change in pressure makes you press your head against the mer, eyes shut tightly, the salt water rushing around you. You’re rapidly losing your breath. Panic rears up in your chest, sharp and choking. Your chest is already aching from the lack of air, and you’re not able to thrash against the mer as you’re dragged farther down. You’re so disoriented that you’re honestly not even sure what direction you’re going anymore; the salt burns your eyes when you try to open them, and everything is so dark that you can’t see anyways.
For a moment everything goes dizzy. This is how you die, clutching a golden nugget as a mythical creature drags you to the depths of the ocean.
~.~.~.~
Consciousness returns to you slowly and painfully.
The first thing you register is the soreness in your chest and ribs. Every deep breath is an effort, and it feels as if your lungs are actually catching fire. You inhale sharply, which only leads to you sputtering in pain. When you finally crack your eyes open, you think you’ve gone blind, the darkness refusing to fade even with your eyes no longer closed.
When you push yourself up into a seated position, it’s easy to feel that you’ve been sprawled on the wet, rocky floor of a cave. You move your head slowly to try and take in your surroundings. That’s when the darkness gives way to a glimmering blue light all around you. Bioluminescent algae offers a slight glow, and your breath gets caught at the absolute beauty of it all.
You’re sprawled on a ledge of the cave, the other half of it submerged in the most beautiful clear water you’ve ever seen. Beneath the clear water is a depth of pure darkness; it makes you shudder as fear clouds your brain again.
Regardless, you’re still alive, and the relief at still being alive fights the growing sense of unease in your mind. You can’t see an entrance to the cave, which means you have to be in an oxygen pocket somewhere far under the surface of the ocean.
A splash to the left of you practically makes you leap. You whip your head to the side to see where that noise comes from, and part of you relaxes when you see those glowing vermillion eyes. They seem even brighter from down here. You can only barely make out the top of his blond hair, his nose and everything else submerged in the endless water.
“Y/N”.
You jump at your name, the voice echoing in the cave. It’s like the water carried his voice. Instead of gravel, it was smooth and silky, making you shiver at how pleasant it was. You go to run your hands over your arms and realize the gold piece is still wrapped firmly in your hands.
“You said my name…”
“Katsuki.”
“Katsuki?” As you say his name, the sound of water rippling catches your attention, and you watch him. His body smoothly cuts through the water until his body is perched against the front of the rock.
A pleasant rumble from him distracts you, making it feel like a nice, pleasant hum echoes in your mind.
His hand, with extra long talons that you did not notice before, wraps around your ankle and pulls you closer to him.
“Where are we?” You mumble, your words suddenly feeling heavy in your mouth.
His eyes, which were still dilated greatly, turn from your legs to your gaze. “My home. Our home.”
You blink. “I’m sorry, what?”
A soft growl escapes him as he pulls his upper half out of the water far too gracefully for someone with a body like his. He lays his torso across you, his hands gripping at your waist as his nose rubs across your stomach. “You accepted my mating advances. The gifts, our blood mixing, accepting my personal token.”
Your jaw drops. You inhale so sharly that you nearly choke all over again. “I- excuse me? No. I don’t. I don’t want this- get off me!”
His chest rumbles as he nips at your hip, making you gasp and instinctively roll your hips.
“You can’t even let go of the coin,” he chuckles, his vermillion eyes latching onto yours. “It’s already starting to take effect.”
You’re not sure what he means by that, but when you feel his chest rumble again, a pleasant haze fills your mind. The heat in your blood hurts.
“Let me show you.” Katsuki leans in.
The kiss is clumsy at first, your head far too hazy and distracted. That is until you feel the stark difference between the two of you. Your body is beginning to heat up like an inferno has entered your bloodstream, and he’s cool and soft.
He pulls away from the kiss, leaving you blinking stupidly after him. He pushes your shoulders till your back is pressed into the mossy ground underneath you, and it’s so soft.
“So fucking warm,” he coos, nuzzling your throat, and running his tongue along your pulsepoint. His hands skim your sides, the claws dragging just enough to make you shudder against his chest.
His clawed hands drag up to your wet tshirt. “Stop, please.” An amused chuckle leaves his lips. Even to your own ears you sound pathetic.
His fingers tug irritably at your clothes. In his frustration, he decides to forcefully remove them, his nails easily cut through the fabric, and the wet material is yanked away from you. Followed quickly after is your shorts.
Katsuki wastes no time in exploring your soft skin, his thumbs rolling your nipples. You gasp, and can’t help but grind your hips up into him where he’s pressed in between your legs. Katsuki laughs a breathless, snarling laugh before grinding back into you, the base of his tail just under where his human half ends. He’s gripping you by the hips, grinding against you. You can’t help but twitch your hips back against his scales when he hums against your pulse point.
He slides further down your body, easily prying your legs apart. Almost all resistance is gone from you now as the fire consumes you within. “You smell good.”
He doesn’t wait for a response, burying his face between your thighs and inhaling your scent. Your hands cover your face, but don’t make any effort to pull away. His tongue is a cool salve to the heat burning you up.
When his tongue starts to prod at your clit, your whole body jerks in surprise. His tongue is cool, and it ebbs some of the heat pulsing in your veins. He pins your hips in place, his noises vibrating against your dripping pussy.
He hums loudly, licking at your slit. His tongue finds your clit, and he sucks it so eagerly, your back arches completely off the ground. You gasp, writhing in place. Your noises only encourage him, and he’s obscene with how vigorously he eats you out.
“I wonder if you’re this hot inside, too.” He murmurs.
“Oh god.” You whimper as your head swims with pleasure. You need more.
Katsuki drags himself back up to your face, chuckling before he presses his mouth to yours again.
That’s when you feel it. There’s a bump in his tail where it presses against your cunt, about where a man’s penis should be. It moves slowly, grinding into you. Then, all at once, the tip of his penis pushes out from a slit you hadn’t seen, rubbing along your folds and your stomach.
Your breath hitches when his tail grinds between your legs. Your knees fall open wider, your head swimming with heat and pleasure. He hums again as he gives languid licks along the ridges of your neck. “I’m going to mate you now.”
A moment of clarity hits you then, just briefly. “No, wait! I don’t want this. Stop -”
You gasp as the tip of Katsuki’s dick presses into you. Your eyes glance down as the slide of his dick stretches you open.
He moans long and low as he clutches your hips. Any semblance of moving slow vanishes instantly as he snaps his hips into you, bottoming out completely. You’re full.
Your vision goes white from pain and pleasure. Katsuki’s dick is big, the textured scales of his tail pressed flush against you. He pants into your neck, flexing his hips.
He pulls his hips back only to slide back in, smooth and fast. Your toes curl as your breath escapes you. His eyes are half-lidded, locked onto your face. He holds your hand that is still clutching his gold coin, and sets a brutally fast and hard pace. His rhythm is smooth, hitting so deep inside of you that it renders you completely speechless.
Breathless moans roll from you as the sound of slapping and grunts fill the cave.
“You’re so fucking warm,” he grunts out. “Gonna fill you with pups.”
His cock rubs that perfect spot inside of you, it has you hurtling near the edge. The coil is twisting so fast, you’re barely holding on.
Katsuki pushes so hard forwards, all you can do is whimper as his cockhead kisses your cervix. He snarls, his teeth latching onto your pulsepoint just shy of ripping your skin. The pain tips you over the edge. Your body convulses as pain and pleasure make your eyes roll, gasping as you rut into him.
His body goes taut as he pins you beneath him. You whimper as his cock presses past your cervix, burying deep inside your womb. That’s when you feel something else pushing into your entrance, slipping into your stretched pussy.
Eggs. You choke on a moan as they grind past your g-spot. Crying out due to the overstimulation only makes Katsuki hold you tighter, allowing the eggs to travel all the way until they plop into your womb. You cry out, cumming again at the sudden pleasure that shakes you to your core.
He lets out a deep grunt as he rocks his hips against you, two more eggs pushing past your barrier.
“Oh fuck, oh. Katsuki-” you babble mindlessly. The burn in your veins finally disappears, leaving you shaking in the aftermath of your orgams.
Katsuki gently rubs your stomach, making you cum again. He hums softly, satisfied, as his hips roll against you again with too much force. Blackness dots your vision as you feel the dizziness return to your head.
Finally, his cock twitches inside of you as cold cum fills you up, shooting directly into your womb with the eggs. He pulls out slowly, causing your whole body to shudder at the feeling.
Your hand presses against the bulge of your stomach that he’s rubbing gently, fondly.
“Pretty mate,” he coos, kissing your lips gently.
Exhaustion crashes over you instantly.
“Why did it hurt so much?” You croak softly.
His grin turns cheeky. “You can’t expect to raise a litter of sea pups on land, can you?”
Katsuki drags your limp body into the soothing cold water. You press yourself into his arms, seeking comfort. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the King of the Mer needs a Queen of the Mer.” He rolls his eyes, although his amusement is clear as day as he holds you close. “Soon, you’ll be just like me. A mer who can walk on land.”
Is that why he didn’t have a tail when you first saw him?
“Stop thinking.” Katsuki rubs your stomach again, making your whole body shiver as his hum lulls you towards the darkness. “It’s time to sleep. The change is a long one.”
You hum, drifting off to sleep as he drags you under the surface of the water.
#kinktober 2020#awkwardskinktober#bnha x reader#bakugou smut#bakugou x reader#mermaid bakugou#TW : forced#tw : noncon#tw : dubcon#tw : oviposition#tw : breeding#tw : drowning#awkwards kinktober
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Kiss In The Kitchen
hiii okay so I have a couple one shots hidden away in drafts that I’m not 100% in love with but i enjoyed writing at the time so I thought I might as well share them :) Here’s the first...
You couldn’t be prouder of Fine Line and all you want to do is support and congratulate him, even if it means ignoring the insecurities one song strikes in you.
4k Words
At first, you listened to it (almost) alone, Harry's large headphones covering your ears as his new album played for you - you'd heard bits and pieces of it over the last year but never every song in it's finalised form. The second time you listened to the album you quickly adored was at its release party; a contrast setting to the quiet of the Saturday sun sneaking into your bedroom with Harry's earnest gaze set on you as you spoil yourself in his words - you could almost forget the album was written entirely about the woman Harry devoted all his love to before you'd met, it felt so private between the two of you. You'd visited the studio several times, lending your own advice when Harry met droughts of no inspiration and begged for your musical experience; You'd been in several small bands in your formative years, playing bass or drums, but had paused that particular pastime to focus on the reality of your career - writing took time in this industry, supporting yourself whilst avoiding the well of tabloid work was tricky, so far you'd managed to find little nuggets of gold in genuine, thought-provoking magazines and had begun to make a name for yourself, something you'd doubted possible in the harder of times.
You'd chosen to keep your lyrical advice to yourself when Harry called to you for help, however. You knew who this album was about, it was clear it wasn't you and that was fine. You didn't expect Harry to dedicate a whole album about you after 11 months together, all of which dating after he began writing it.
In private, sat on your bed and grinning up at him as his music played to you and you only - you were proud. You'd accepted the difficulties that might come with listening to your partner's rawest emotions for a past lover and had come to the conclusion that you'd appreciate his work simply because of how much he'd put into it and how well it'd all come together.
That was easy in private. It's slightly harder to remind yourself to separate the songs playing loudly all around you in the busy L.A club from all the not so hidden meanings behind them. Everyone Harry had met within the last few years of his solo career and long before that had come to celebrate with him. Busting bodies filled the large room, many already taking advantage of the bar. Almost everyone found themselves, slightly slurring, by Harry's side at one point of the night to tell him how beautiful Fine Line was, and the topics of each song didn't seem to go unnoticed either.
As you made your own rounds, you overheard the loud discussions about the mix of provocative, solemn and affectionate themes. Some of the group were apparently too drunk to see Harry's current girlfriend standing by as they cheered on his yearning and passion for his previous one.
It only got worse with press. You were still unbelievably proud of course, but Harry had to do a lot of press. Each interviewer cut straight to the elephant in the album. Camille was discussed, if not named by Harry, at length. You adored hearing Harry speak about his own personal growth and becoming comfortable in himself - but for every question about identity and fashion, came three about the clear sexual undertones and soulmate ideologies.
You were rational in your discomfort. You listened to Adore You and your other stand out favourites when you wrote, you understood and trusted that Harry had moved on, you'd been together for almost a year and he's told you weeks before then when you were just new friends that he knew he was ready again after months of working on himself.
You just couldn't deal with one song.
Breaking up and having sex you could deal with, you could enjoy the final work. They were normal things that people went through and wrote about. But the first sign of love? The sweet, endearing start of a relationship that he was so clearly ardent about - as if his feeling were a lot fresher than you'd imagine for a relationship that started and ended months ago.
Sunflower Vol.6 was beautiful, but as hard as you tried, you couldn't just see it objectively. You felt it so concentrated, and it hurt like fucking hell.
- - -
"Do we have any mango?" Harry calls from the kitchen, the click of the fridge opening quietly behind him. "Never mind found it!"
You smile at his domestic charm as you work on you most recent piece; it's been taking up a lot of time, creeping into your weekend which hadn't gone unnoticed by Harry as he had returned from the morning run you usually went on as a couple. A few moments later, after the loud whirring of the blender stopped, a pinky-orange smoothie is placed beside you and kiss pressed to the side of your head.
"When're you gon'a be done?" He murmurs against your ear, curls flopping down onto your own.
He's just finished his last week of press, ending with Howard Stern who seemed eager to remind Harry, constantly, of all the women he could have. You weren't particularly public yet so you couldn't really blame him for assuming Harry would be starting a new relationship soon. It just added to the frustration you'd been careful not to disclose over the long period of promo for the album.
"I wanna finish this today so we're both free after we fly back, I'jus need a little time alone, yeah?" A low grumble and a "yeah" was the only response he gave and he removes himself to the other side of the big living room to lay down on the sofa and slurp his breakfast.
Your deadline is Monday but tomorrow morning you're flying back to London and driving up to Holmes Chapel to spend time with Harry's family before he was away on tour for months so you were eager to be free from work.
Hours tick by, you're stuck in the spiral of the final edit. There were a few words that you couldn't quite tweak how you wanted them, as always. You got up to make lunch.
As you pass through the living room you expect to see Harry's body sprawled across the sofa napping, but only a bundle of throw blankets lay where he had been. His journal sits abandoned on the side table, propped open by a loose pen. You can see the scribbling of new song ideas and the beginnings of a poem, smiling to yourself you walk through to the kitchen - still no Harry.
Humming to yourself you open the fridge door, moving your hips slightly as you retrieve all the ingredients of a sandwich for you and Harry. Domestic moments like these were hard to come by in the midst of album releases and pre-tour prep, but you're looking forwards to the month ahead of you. No doubt you'll need some alone time after a week at his mother's house so you're being careful not to take any assignments for the rest of the month to make room for as many simple moments like this as possible once you're back in your London home.
Over the rustle of the bread packet and the crunch the lettuce made as you slice it, you can hear Harry's voice approaching from down the hall.
"Well thanks, mate-yeah..yeah we've gotta get drinks sometime it's been too long." He has the smile on his face that tells you it was another old friend calling to congratulate him on his album, probably a fellow musician from the early days.
Harry makes his way to your side, watching as you layer food into your sandwiches and steals a shred of lettuce. You can hear the other voice now - a clear English drawl you recognise as Ed. You've met a couple times and he's one of the most genuine men you've met, you much prefer him over some of the industry people Harry has to mingle with.
"Oh, dude and the mushrooms!" You giggle as you hear Ed laugh down the line at Harry. "I can't say I didn't guess something was up."
"Thanks, man - like what?" Harry chuckles back, sneaking more sandwich scraps as you slice a knife through them and dish them up.
"Um, the whole end of sunflower - are you really gonna do that live?" At the mention of the song, you feel your shoulders tense slightly. You're really trying to be a good girlfriend and support Harry - but that song just hits different, you trust Harry's love but you can't help but wonder if he has any feelings left over for Camille...
"If I have to!" Harry continues to joke, not noticing your discomfort or at least not mentioning it."Look, Ed, I gotta go but it was great talking to you"...
Harry's voice drones into the background as you take your plate and make your way back to your laptop, huffing as you're reminded of your own frustrations with yourself; he told you months ago that he's moved on, why can't you just believe him?
You can hear a quiet goodbye from Harry as he sets his phone down on the sofa and sits across from you at the table. Your laptop is still acting as a barrier between the two of you. You type at the keys, trying to look busy as you write and rewrite the same line over and over, sighing - you save and close the file and set your laptop aside.
"Not going how you want?" Harry asks.
"No, it is just...there's a bit I can't get to work. I just want to get this over with already." Harry thinks about what you've said for a moment before getting up and leaving the room - he comes back a moment later, setting a glass of water bedside your lunch and kissing your temple.
"Take a break love, you've been working all week you deserve it." He hums against your hair. "And thank you for lunch."
He's so sweet and chipper, smiling at you as he takes his plate out to the kitchen and returns to perch across the table from you, hand wavering over his journal as you finish your lunch.
He worries about you a lot. Normally over you working too much and not taking time for yourself or the amount of pressure, you put on yourself being overwhelming. It was in his nature to worry you remind yourself, you're trying hard to push past the hurt you can't quite let go of and the last thing you'd ever want was for him to feel bad about what he'd written so you'd managed to keep it under wraps. There was no need for him to be suspicious.
- - -
Your alarm goes off at 5am. Your flight is in 3 hours.
"Turn it off." You grumble, burying your head deeper into your pillow. The mattress dips underneath you when Harry turns, the duvet shifts as he slips his hand under and wraps his arms around you. "S'too early."
"I know." You love how Harry's voice sounds in the morning - rough with a soft edge. It's one of the first things you fell in love with; the extra degree or two the morning adds to his embrace, he's always quick to loop his arms around your middle if they've come undone in the night. His untamed and often tangled curls bristle against the back of your neck and there'll be a few moments of warm even breaths against your ear before he bounces up. He's very much a morning person.
"I'm getting in the shower y/n, I'll be out in a sec - get up yeah?" You mumble a slightly coherent response as he leaves the room, a towel draped over his bare shoulder.
Following a few moments of deliberation, you sit up. Unplugging your phone from where it lay on your bedside table, you check your notifications. Sure you'll be up in time, you open twitter.
Unsurprisingly, nothing much is happening. You scroll through a few messages from the day before until you come across a video of Harry being interviewed, he's wearing the thick red cardigan he recently bought so it must've been from this week.
You click play to see him smiling tiredly at the interviewer - you remember this day, you'd stayed up later than planned watching old toy story reruns then he'd been running around frantically getting ready the next morning. You lazily watch him answer a few frequently repeated questions until he's asked about the stages of romantic relationships that inspired certain songs. You expect the usual questions about songs like Adore You and Watermelon Sugar but instead, the interviewer takes a turn and seemingly voices all the concerns floating around your head;
"And one of my personal favourites: Sunflower vol.6, really captures the first realisation of love in a relationship, what lead you to write that song in particular, did you write from experience?"
"Thank you, yeah..I think that first really overpowering part of a relationship when two people are just starting to have these intimate, lovestruck moments together stuck with me and I-" You turn your phone off sharply. Your mind is spiralling with insecurities enough on its own without Harry himself describing how he first felt about his ex-girlfriend.
You sit against the headboard, mulling over the topic that has clouded your mind the past few days. You don't hear the shower turn off down the hall as you let out an angry grumble - it feels so shit and mean of you to be this way and you just want the clarity you had before this all happened.
"What's wrong love?" You look up to see Harry standing at the end of the bed. His hair is dripping onto his shoulders and he's wrapped a light pink towel around his waist loosely, concern contoured his face as he peers down at your huddled form.
"Jus' tired." You crawl forwards to climb out of bed, kissing Harry's cheek lightly as he stood unconvinced before heading to your wardrobe. "Honestly, I'm good."
"Okay..what's the time?"
"Uhhum-" You mutter as you riffle through a pile of sweaters. "5.30ish I think..check my phone"
You slip on a comfy pair of jeans and socks before you walk into the hall on your way to make you both coffee, there's a long pause from the bedroom before Harry calls down to you - 5.42am.
- - -
By the time the plane takes off, you're almost asleep again.
- - -
It's 7pm LA time when you step out the taxi delivering you home to your London house. It's almost 2 am here so despite your lack of tiredness you shuffle through the door behind Harry.
All your heavy luggage is left in the entryway as you climb the stairs up to your bedroom, eager to be done with jet lag and normal again by the morning.
You've made the mistake of sleeping the first 3 hours of the flight and now find yourself wide awake under the soft covers of you and Harry's bed. He always falls asleep as soon as he hits the pillow, and with how quiet he's been all day you assume he's already tired. Between your early napping and him being engrossed in the book he was currently reading - there hadn't been much conversation between you on the flight over. As you snuggle further into the covers you realise things have been a little different these past few days, maybe being so caught up in your own head with work and worries of your own you haven't noticed but there's definitely been a...distance. You're just not sure which of it is creating it.
The next morning you wake to the radio playing from a few rooms away. Sitting up you look around the room; your suitcases are still downstairs by the look of it and Harry's side of the bed has been slept in and now deserted.
"Harry?" You call out. There's some kind of foggy sadness seeping around you as you hear no reply. Maybe you're just tired but you feel you might start sobbing any minute - it's a desperate feeling that you're not quite sure how to quench.
"Harry.." You call again as you climb out the bed, slipping a large jumper on over your head, pulling the braids you'd plaited for the flight that had come undone and frizzy with sleep, over your shoulders. "Love?"
There's still no response and you're now on the final step of the long staircase. You walk quickly through the house towards a quiet humming you can just about make out. You must have gathered speed in your anxious mission to find Harry because as you enter the kitchen you slam hard into the doorway as you reach out to balance yourself.
The movement in his peripheral makes Harry turn his head, slipping the bulky headphones off his ears and slipping his phone into his pocket. He'd previously been slumped against the kitchen counter, lost in thought as he skimmed through his phone, forgetting the kettle as it boiled beside him.
"Love- oh, careful." He chuckles slightly before he takes in your expression. You must have started crying by now because he rushes quickly towards you. "Woah- woah what's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?"
The arm that had taken the full brunt of the doorway was now being carefully examined by Harry as his eyes scan you, searching for any harm. His hand comes to wipe at the few glossy tears on your cheek before he gently asks his question again.
"No I-I was calling for you..." You reply, equally confused as him by the whole situation.
"I didn't hear you love I'm sorry, what happened?" He's placed your arm back by your side now although his hands lingers around yours.
"...Nothing."
"Y/n, please just tell me. What's wrong?" He persists.
"No, I mean - nothing happened I just..." You mumble, how were you supposed to explain that when you woke up you felt terrifyingly alone and just needed to find him...to remind yourself that everything you'd let conspire in your head wasn't really happening.
"Y/n, I know something's up..the last week has been really busy I know but if something's wrong please just tell me, okay?" You think about it for a second before blurting out-
"Would you tell me if you still loved her?"
This doesn't seem to be at he was expecting, or you for that matter. The situation was uncomfortable - hearing your boyfriend sing about how intensely he loved Camille and how badly losing her broke him, but it was just music. You don't realise until you ask him the awkward question, just how much it had been bothering, or scaring you.
"What?"
"I just mean...Okay shit I don't mean that at all I'm just tired and I woke up and you weren't there and I just needed to find you I-"
"Is this what's been upsetting you?" His words aren't spoken forcefully, more...sadly. "T-this is what the phone call and the yesterday morning and...oh God the whole fucking flight! That's what you were thinking?"
"What phone call, what do you mean?" You don't know if he's angry at you or not, his hands are in his hair and he's got the mad look in his eyes that tells you he's either about to shout or cry.
"With Ed. As soon as he mentioned the album you left the room and, and! Yesterday, you were angry about something and then I checked the time and your phone opened on some video about the album and come on...you can't say everything was okay on the flight...we barely talked...we've barely talked at all this week." You're decided that the crying is a lot worse than the shouting. There's something cathartic that comes from shouting back at someone who's just as angry as you - but crying back at someone who's just as confused and upset? It makes you feel all twisted and uncomfortable.
"No..no Harry that's not it-"
"Y/n don't lie I-"
"It's not. I love your album and I'm so, so proud of you, and of everything you did to make it and I understand the importance of your relationship with Camille," Harry's huffing now, his fingers are tangled further in his hair and he's leaned up against the door frame close opposite you. "-This album is all about that time in your life and that's fine...Harry I love it, honestly, the album isn't anything to do with anything-"
"You just asked me if I still loved her!" He exclaims, staring wide-eyed back at you. "I don't give a shit about the album right now, you can hate it, okay? That's okay? But you asked me if I still love her...Y/n look at me."
Your eyes, tightly fixed on the kitchen tiles, tilt up to see his face. His eyes are red and splotchy and his hands reach out to hold you as he speaks again.
"I don't love her, I haven't in a long, long time. I had the ideas for all the songs about her before I even met you, you okay..you're the person I love and...I thought you knew that?" He sighs, hesitant before he starts again. "I thought you trusted me."
There's another pause between you as you mull your next thoughts over.
"I do."
He shakes his head, teary and angry.
"No you don't, if you did you wouldn't have asked-"
"It's just that fucking song!" You snap, you take a sharp breath in and swallow the lump in your throat - "I know that you don't love her, I know it but, when I listen to you sing - and talk, telling people about this wonderful honeymoon romance that even after years you remember so vividly and, and that means so much to you,I..."
"Track 9?" Harry questions, seemingly understanding everything you've just rambled. "Sun- oh baby no it's not..."
"I'm sorry I...It's a great song I just, whenever I hear it I'm reminded of how much you must have felt for her and, and remembered all this time to write about...what?" Harry's smiling now, he seems to be relived for some reason. His eyes are brighter, clearing slightly and he chuckles slightly.
"It's all my fault, I'm so sorry lovie I should have told you.." He scrambles. "I, I was embarrassed when I wrote it because we'd only just started dating and then you heard it a couple weeks later and it was too soon to tell you and then I just...didn't. I thought maybe you'd figured it out."
"What do you mean?"
"It's about...us."
"You told me you didn't write any about me though..."
"No, I said I hadn't written any you were going to see anytime soon...and that was, awhile ago." He smiles slightly, squeezing your hand in his. "There's another one about you actually too,"
"Harry you, you wrote it about us.." Harry hums a confirmation, bowing his head to press a kiss to your cheek. "I thought...what else did you write!"
Harry laughs now, catching your lips with his as you both feel each other relax - the tension and discomfort seeping away as you realise the reality of everything you'd worried yourself over in the last week.
You pull away, one hand on his chest and the other fiddling with the curls at the back of his head.
"Seriously what else did you write-"
"I'm not telling." He beams, leaning down against the firm push you send to his chest.
"I swear if you wrote a song about our sex life I-"
"Shhhh!" He presses a mocking finger to your lips to quiet you. "We better be going, don't wanna be late."
With that, he leaves the kitchen, you can hear his heavy steps rushing up the stairs and soon the house is quiet and the air around you is settled again.
There's a subtle hum of the shower upstairs that intrudes but nonetheless, the clarity's back.
#harry styles one shot#harry styles fic#harry styles fine line#fine line fic#harry styles#harry styles sunflower vol.6#harry styles writing#idk what to tag i haven't been on here in YEARS#oop#well i guess that's it
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The prompt I thought of is technically a songfic, so I don't know if it's something you're comfortable with...but I recently listened to Tom Odell's 'Another Love' again and it kinda made me think of Magnus
Hi! Thank you for this prompt! It was very exciting to work with and I love this song, so I had A LOT of ideas and eventually settled for one: the hanahaki disease. You can read on AO3 here. Hope you’ll like it!
How to wield hearts
I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care
Magnus wears his heart on his sleeve, a weak pulse hidden in frilly fabric. It’s not like he has anything to lose anymore. It doesn’t matter, not that Alec cares anyway. Magnus left his aching heart in the eighteenth century and there is no breezing through the years to get it back. He wouldn’t walk in his past self’s steps anyway, because Magnus so desperately wishes he had kept his heart someplace safe, in Alec’s calloused hands perhaps. Shadowhunters know how to wield hearts, their most precious possession, the only weapon they possess and that could turn against them.
But it's so cold and I don't know where
Magnus’ withered heart remains somewhere in his chest, dark and frozen in the winter night that saw it break. It drifts away in a sea of regrets, and sharp memories like shards stab at the emptiness, as if Magnus would ever forget. There is nothing more consuming than absence, and Magnus desperately looks into himself for a sliver of golden light, even a tinge of that love he used to carry. He finds nothing, but the inkling that Alec should have been it.
I brought you daffodils in a pretty string
It came in gold nuggets, flower petals he drowns in once again. Magnus never knew what to make of the daffodils, spent too long admiring them, longing and wistful. An immortal’s life is long indeed, and he didn’t believe he’d live to meet his soulmate. Now that he’s come face to face with Alec, he cannot believe he pulled the daffodils out centuries ago. He weaved the stems into flower crowns and gifted them to his lover, and now Magnus has nothing to show, can only hope that Alec believes him when he says he cares. He wants to, so much.
But they won't flower like they did last spring
The flowers don’t bloom. Magnus’ spring has come and gone, like his first love, and he can’t be it for Alec. He would turn lead into gold for Alec, but Magnus’ gold is splattered with blood, ancient, and ever so cold. He hides shirt sleeves splattered with blood like skeletons, and fears the lie shows in the distant shine of jewelry. For all his glitter, Magnus is nothing but the shadow of gold now. Magnus is not it.
And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright
Magnus yearns to be. He craves the taste of Alec’s lips and wishes he could breathe the shadowhunter in and soak up the light that shines through the cracks of Alec’s armor. Alec is hurting too, Magnus knows, and the shadowhunter feels like a tin soldier, setting himself on fire to keep Magnus warm. Magnus burns out for him too, yet there is nothing for Alec to find, but his petals torn loose, drained of life.
I'm just so tired to share my nights
Magnus spends countless nights in the company of misery, a restless presence he hates, but prefers to loneliness. He deserves it. He was greedy, and now that his soulmate comes along, there is nothing to share but grief. Magnus resents himself for his mistakes. Alec’s pain is his own, and Magnus almost regrets Alec didn’t fall in love with someone else, because he could remove the stems too then, and lose the ability to love Magnus altogether. Magnus doesn’t deserve Alec’s love anyway, and he wants to spare Alec the pain, but the shadowhunter is determined to love Magnus, to love enough for the two of them.
I wanna cry and I wanna love
Magnus doesn’t feel anything, and he wants nothing more than to cry, and to love Alec. How fortunate would Magnus have been, too. Alec brings him in relentlessly and embraces him in a silver glow, the moon watching over him at night. Magnus wants the passion and the aggravation, but he can’t even hate himself anymore, because it’s so close to love.
But all my tears have been used up
He has no tears left to cry. Magnus had plenty enough time to mourn, and there is nothing to grieve either when you lose the ability to feel such things. Sometimes he dreams that his tears would bring the flowers back to life, and they’ll rise and bloom, to love Alec just this once. What a privilege it would have been, to love the shadowhunter, yet Magnus can’t even shed a tear for him.
On another love, another love
He loved Camille, once. He loved her again and again, until he suffocated on the daffodils, and the stems had to be surgically removed. Alec won’t even love somebody else to spare himself the pain of a partner like Magnus, loveless and unfaithful, because he couldn’t wait another year, even less another decade, to meet his soulmate. Magnus couldn’t wait, but he couldn’t even die either. He has always wanted to live, but what’s life when all he can feel is loss?
And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight
Magnus’ ire takes over when Alec is hurt, and sometimes he hopes that it’s enough. Alec must feel it, Alec must understand that there is so much Magnus feels, except for love. Yet, Alec is hurting because of him, burns himself on the magnitude of Magnus’ repressed feelings. Magnus’ will to fight flickers and dies then, because it feels like he’s lashing out at the wrong person. What is there to fight but himself anyway?
But my hand's been broken, one too many times
Alec bites the hands that feed him and struggles so ruthlessly against people that it shoves them back to the depth of an ocean of feelings, resentment left untold. It also breaks what’s left of Magnus’ withered heart. He goes under, and can’t come up to breathe. How can Magnus prove that he cares, when he can barely swim?
So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude
He speaks instead, and he speaks out of turn to let Alec know how he feels. If Magnus can’t convince Alec, then maybe he can push the shadowhunter away. Alec doesn’t deserve the pain, and Magnus has no qualms about sparing Alec if he can’t feel anything, can’t love Alec properly.
Words they always win, but I know I'll lose
Actions speak louder than words, and Alec sees through Magnus’ ruse. Alec only heeds Magnus’ words when he speaks of fondness, or caring so much it hurts. Magnus’ broken promises and whispered pleas bring Alec closer than ever when night recedes and gives way to the first lights of dawn. Magnus blames himself for failing Alec yet again, and the night falls again.
And I'd sing a song, that'd be just ours
He longs to give his withered heart to Alec. Magnus yearns for it so much, but what is there to give? Still life, and so little to share but specks of dust and crumbling leaves, the layers of the man Magnus used to be. Magnus gave up on his heart long ago, when it brought flowers to the wrong person and choked on petals like golden chips. He can’t even say the words to his soulmate now. Alec feels like everything that could have been, but Magnus feels nothing.
But I sang 'em all to another heart
Magnus thought he could make his heart sing another name, Camille’s. It was another time, and another love, not the right kind of love, nor the right kind of person. Magnus’ heart can’t sing anymore. There is nothing but silence, and Magnus’ thoughts, rushing to his lips to flow in a never ending stream of repressed feelings. Alec listens, patient, and reads everything left unsaid, that flickers on Magnus’ face and echoes in everything Magnus does. Alec understands then, and Alec believes in the meaning of his silence. There is nothing to be said.
And I wanna cry, I wanna learn to love
Magnus learns that caring feels a lot like loving.
#shadowhunters#malec#pearfectly fine to ask#autopromo#fanfiction#hanahaki disease#song fic#soulmate au
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Prompt: modern au (?) Gin wants to ask Sanji out, but he has to go through Zeff first
let me preface this with a HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIN I LOVE YOU!!!! and a thank you for the request!
Now, onto the story! Also read it here on ao3!
what you do for love
Gin has broken into a great many places. Some were worth it! Some were not. Some had the security of Fort Knox, and others were like an open door. He’s done it across the coast from east to west, but never, never, has he found a place so hard to get into like the Baratie.
And this time he isn’t even doing it for fucking Krieg!
It’s for Sanji.
Whom he likes, very much, and would like to invite on a date, thank you very much.
It’s not happening – different schools, Sanji has work, Gin has a job, Sanji’s taking down governments with his own gang, there’s never a time to get to him.
So Gin decided to ask him out at Sanji’s work.
Only… Gin had forgotten that the Baratie wasn’t only Sanji’s workplace… but his home. Where his dad and pseudo big brothers lived.
The first time he walked in to ask, he was met with Zeff, smaller than Gin but twice as muscular with a mean kick despite only having one leg. Zeff had given him a once over, taking in Gin’s leather jacket, tattoos, bandana and flyer to next month’s fight arena and promptly… did nothing, except give Gin a warm meal.
(It wasn’t the first time, nor the last.)
Until that is, Gin went up to go talk to Sanji.
Then Zeff swept his feet out from under him and sent him flying out the door, laughing.
From his place on the sidewalk, hidden by the high storefront windows, Gin heard Sanji asking “What was that,” and Zeff brushing him off.
Surely a fluke, Gin foolishly thought.
Only to find that the second time he went in, Carne was there, waiting with a strong hand to lift Gin by his collar and drag him out to the back-door entryway and throw him into the ground outside.
“Bye,” Gin could see Carne mouthing, mischief in his eye, followed by a swear.
Fuck off! Gin wanted to scream back but decided to rest in the ground instead, contemplating his failure.
Why, he thought, why.
He tried again, and again, and again. Zeff kicked him out the window with a first aid, kick, did a round of combat with flying kicks, gave him a warm meal then had Patty and Carne throw him onto the shallow beach outside.
Gin didn’t get it, because each time Zeff had this look that he approved of Gin, which, what.
Why was he kicking him out then?
Dads were weird as fucking hell.
After the seventh time this happened, Gin decided to get a little smarter, which leads to the current situation: breaking into the Baratie.
Which, as previously mentioned, is hard as hell.
He doesn’t want to get to the money, so he’s thankfully avoided the more dubious traps, but he’s tapping on what he assumes to be Sanji’s window and it’s not opening.
He questions why he thought this was a good idea, then remembers that Sanji did the same thing last year because he wanted to ask what food Gin wanted for his birthday, so this is just him returning the favor.
The windows finally opening, thank fuck, he was scaling the gutter for this.
“Hey, San-” That’s not Sanji.
That’s Zeff.
“Shit.” Gin says out loud and isn’t fast enough to dodge the kick that smacks him into sliding down the gutter.
Fuck.
Zeff gives him a wave, throws down and ice pack, and leaves.
Should have known Red Leg Zeff wouldn’t let anyone near his home without his permission. Hell, even the gang members follow his lead.
Gin sighs, staring up at the window which apparently isn’t Sanji’s, and decides he’s not being smart enough.
Or maybe, he thinks, staring at the straw-hatted jolly roger emblazoned in graffiti on the side of the building, I’m not being crazy enough.
-
Gin’s phone was destroyed in a fight two weeks back, half of his troubles with talking to Sanji, but that also means he has to track down the Straw Hats in person.
It’s not the most difficult task though – just look for the biggest commotion and you’re sure to find at least one Straw Hat in the fray.
Gin turns the corner, swearing to find a Straw Hat tonight, and runs smack into the Straw Hat, who is sprinting and holding a bag of what looks to be… meat themed jewelry? Gold? Gold nuggets but chicken nuggets? Gin can’t tell and doesn’t want to ask, but takes the opportunity anyway.
(The world always had a way to fall exactly into Luffy’s whims, and Gin supposes that if this must be happening it’s a sign of hope.)
“Straw hat!” Gin shouts, snatching out a hand and dragging Luffy into the alley corner.
“Bandana Guy!” Luffy says happily as Smoker rushes by the alley entrance. “What’s up? Sanji misses you!”
Gin lets a dopey smile bleed onto his face before speaking. “Yeah, I miss him to which is why I need your help right? I need you to bring your crew into the Baratie tomorrow, around sixish, and cause a ruckus so I can ask Sanji out, alright? Zeff and the others keep kicking me out.”
“They do that to you too? Shishishi! Sanji’s dad says I’m not allowed there without superpowers.”
“I think you mean supervision, anyway, will you be there?”
“Party at the Baratie tomorrow night, got it!”
That’s as close as Gin is going to get with Straw Hat, so he lets them go.
Time to get ready for action.
-
Gin should have expected this. He really should have expected this.
This being the Strawhat’s starting the ‘party’ whenever they feel like it, which is not six which was planned but five.
Gin sighs.
Whatever.
He can make this work.
Gin walks into the Baratie and, for once, is not immediately accosted by members of the Baratie’s staff.
Straw-hat can’t follow a plan but at least he can cause a ruckus. Gin looks to the left where the swordsman is balancing bottles of beer on his swords to raucous cheering, and steps to the right.
And then Gin spots him. Sanji, coming out of the kitchen, laughing and smiling the way he’s only prone to do around his crew (and Gin, on occasion.)
He’s not talking to anybody, just enjoying the chaos, which means this is Gin’s chance.
His only chance.
There’s a flash of yellow in his vision, accompanied by two flashes of white, and Gin knows he has to move fast if he wants to beat Zeff and Carne and Patty.
Gin runs, jumping over smashed glass and dodging around rushing waiters, all the while shouting “SANJI!”
Zeff trips him but he manages to turn into a roll, and comes up standing right in front of Sanji.
“Sanji!” He says again, out of breath but with a smile on his face, offering the carefully folded but now crumpled flyer in his hand. “Would you – would you like to go with me to Red Line’s Battle Arena on the twenty-third… as a date? If your family doesn’t kill me first?”
Sanji’s staring at him, and he hopes he hasn’t said the wrong thing. He had thought the date out perfectly, it was something they both enjoyed, food provided, near the sea, he had tickets to the booth seating so it wasn’t as chaotic as usual and –
Sanji cuts off his internal monologue with a smile. “Yes. I’d love to.”
Gin practically faints only managing to keep himself upright through sheer determination. He doesn’t know what to say after this, hadn’t really thought that far but—
“FINALLY!”
“Brat smartened up at last.”
“Now we can tease ‘em both at once! Boss, can we kick them both out?”
“Not until the party’s over. But yes. Eventually.”
“HELL YEAH!”
Gin is lost at the commotion coming from the chef’s around him, who have now stopped attacking him and started cheering for him.
Like… what?
Sanji takes pity on him. “They’ve been teasing me for months about you, trying to get me to ask you out. You stopped showing up so…”
“Oh. That was because your family kicked me out when I was trying to ask you out. Its been going on for a month. Tried banging on your window and everything but they literally kicked me out.”
“Oh.” Sanji starts snickering.
“Yeah.” Gin says to his boyfriends(?) apparent mirth at the situation.
Sanji snorts one last time before turning to his family and screeching. Gin swears there’s fire coming off of him as he yells “WHAT THE HELL YOU SHITTTY BASTARDS!? WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU KICKING HIM OUT? WHY ARE YOU THIS STUPID THIS COULD HAVE BEEN DONE AGES AGO AND-“
“It’s cause we like ya!”
“Yeah! We have to tease you!”
“Making up for that time you kicked me in the face.”
“And me! And the time you met the Straw Hat Brat!”
“Yeah!”
Zeff cuts in through the shouting. “Eggplant, you’re a bit short on the braincells. Had to make sure this brat was good enough to replace the ones you’ve lost. He passes. Welcome to the family brat, we got cake in the back. Straw Hat told us to throw a party, and I’m sure Sanji mentioned that it was your birthday today. Eat up.”
Gin gets a caked shoved in his hand and a hug from Sanji in a matter of seconds, followed by approving nods from the rest of the Baratie Staff as the Straw Hat pirates cause chaos in the background.
He’s bewildered. Confused. Bamboozled. Any other word to describe this feeling. Sanji just laughs at his face.
“They’re always like this,” he explains. “When Luffy first invited me to join his crew they thought pretending that they hated my food was a good way to make me leave and chase some dreams. You can see how well that turned out, but that’s just how they are. Hazing the new guy and me, at every. Single. Opportunity. Ugh.” Sanji’s complaining, but Gin can tell he loves this place.
“I can see that,” He says, and watches how Sanji smiles so brilliantly. “You want to escape this mess?”
Sanji laughs. “Definitely. Happy birthday, Gin.” He places a kiss on Gin’s cheek and strolls out the back door, waiting for him.
Gin smiles in return. “Thanks, Sanji.”
Zeff nods one last time behind his back before turning away.
Gin has finally passed the Baratie Bar of approval.
Thank God. That was exhausting.
#whirlywhat#whirlyanswers#whirlywrites#op#one piece#opau#might add this to my other op au lol#HAPPY BDAY GIN ILY#gin#ginsan#sanji#zeff#luffy#monkey d. luffy#red leg zeff#carne#patty#writing#fanfiction#ao3#opfic
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love is...
a/n: everything i dreamed of with the right person. this is a WIP that i’ll be adding onto whenever i have new ideas!! just bc love is alot of things and there are many concepts that i adore. ❤️
love is walking your dog on a Saturday morning no matter how tired you are.
There was no explanation as to how Luke and Quinn fell in love with one another, it just happened. They were like two peas in a pod, puzzle pieces that fit perfectly with one another. Maybe they had their dogs to thank, but neither of them would ever admit that.
The pair met each other on a Saturday morning, where Luke was dragging Petunia on a walk while Quinn was being dragged by Bowie. The park was quiet seeing that it was only 8AM, but Quinn had to get the energy out of Bowie or she’d never have a moment of peace during the day. Luke and Petunia on the other hand, they didn’t have a reason to be at the park but up till today, Luke was thankful that he was.
“Oh come on Bowie, don’t shove your face into her ass” Quinn tugged on the leash, pulling her German Shepard towards her.
“S’alright, I don’t think she’d mind having a new friend. Isn’t that right, Petunia.” Luke cupped the face of his dog, planting a kiss on the top of her head. Quinn smiled at him, then releasing the tug that she had on Bowie. He ruffled the top of Bowie’s head, earning a bunch of kisses from the large dog.
“I’m Luke.”
“I’m Quinn.” They shook hands like normal strangers but it was no doubt that they noticed the beauty of the other person - Quinn saw the way Luke’s eyes shone under the light, and he saw how Quinn’s smile was brighter than the sun. They let both their dogs off the leash, allowing them to get to know each other as their parents interacted. Little did any of them know that the two dogs would become best friends, just like their parents did.
It’s like the warmth of the sun rays hitting your skin
They were out on a hike again, this time without their dogs. The afternoon sun beating down on the pair mercilessly as they hiked uphill. Her hand was intertwined with his, the skin to skin contact was sweaty, but comforting. It had only been three months since they started going out with each other, a month since they shared their first ‘I love you’ and two weeks since she met his best friends. Everything seemed to be going at top speed, but it all felt right to Luke, like things had fallen into place and he was finally seeing light again. Quinn enjoyed these moments with him as well, getting to know Luke for who he was off-stage, as a normal human being.
It took them three hours to reach the end of the trail, the magnificent view of LA right below their feet. Luke had his hand around her shoulder, Quinn’s arms wrapped around his waist as they took in the sight. They always stood like this at the end of their hikes - just to take in the view and bask in the sun. They talked about their lives while they hiked, what they had missed before they found each other. Quinn told him about her massive family, her boring 9 to 5 job, her favourite food, and anything she could think of. Luke told her about his extraordinary job as a musician, the travelling and his bandmates who he called his brothers.
They’d drive to either of their homes, dogs bounding at them when they entered. Quinn would dance while she cooked, and Luke would hum softly to the tunes while admiring his girl. They would kiss more than cook, often times causing a scene with their food.
“Luke! The pasta!” Water was overflowing out of the pot due to their lack of attention to it. She’d panic but Luke would laugh it off, saying how they should order takeout the next time. Though throughout the rest of their relationship, no one ever recalled them ordering takeout.
It is midnight driving with no destination
“You sure we should leave the dogs alone at this hour?” Quinn questioned as she put on her sneakers, Luke grabbing both their jackets in his hand.
“They’d be fine, they’re both well trained. Besides, they’re probably tired out after hanging out with each other the entire day.” Quinn still had her worries, but she wouldn’t pass off an opportunity to be with \ Luke, so off they went. They were driving on the somewhat quiet streets of Downtown LA, no destination in mind. Just soft music playing and talking about the little things in life. Quinn had a bag of McDonalds on her lap, feeding fries to Luke two at a time as he drove onto a street that up to the hills. He stopped at a random parking lot, one with a view of the skyline and they both got out of the car to sit on the hood. She was snuggled in his arms, fries and chicken nuggets devoured a long time ago.
“Quinn?” She hummed in response.
“Do you want to get married?” He looked down at her. Her head was resting on his chest, a soft smile graced her lips.
“Are you proposing right now?”
“No, but I would like to in the near future.” She sat up so her eyes met his. He watched as her hands grazed his cheeks, across his lips and along his jaw before she leaned in to press her soft lips against his. She smiled into the kiss, just like always because it felt good, she felt happy.
“I would love to marry you, Luke Hemmings.”
But love is also ugly
“Don’t you dare put this on me, Quinn.”
“Put this on you? Fuck, who was the one who walked into the house all somber and moody? Who was the one that snapped at me when all I did was ask how you were?” He could see the fire in Quinn’s eyes, the anger bubbling in her chest.
“I don’t need you breathing down my neck every second of the day!”
“I’m not doing that!”
“Fuck!” Luke swiped his hands across the kitchen island, throwing the beer bottle to the floor. Quinn’s eyes widened as she took a step back, wrapping her arms around her torso. The dinner she spent the afternoon cooking was now long forgotten, sitting ice cold on the dining table. She looked at Luke who had his hands gripping the counter top so tightly, his eyes squeezed shut as he breathed. Quinn put her hand atop Luke’s, stroking it softly. She already had her keys in her pocket, hoodie over her T-shirt and Bowie’s leash in her hand.
"I-I should go."
"Don't." Luke said barely over a whisper.
And you have to realise, it’s not always 50/50.
Quinn approaches him slowly, hand resting on his back. She hears him sob, tears dripping onto the counter top. Her touch brings him back to reality, pulls him out of those thoughts and his grip loosens from the table. She takes this chance to move him so his body faces hers.
"Don't go" He chokes out. Quinn could feel her heart physically break from the sound of his words. She cups his face in her hands so their eyes meet.
"Okay, I'm not leaving. I'm here." He leans his head on her shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around her waist. She tries to take as much of his 6’3” body into her tiny frame, rubbing circles on his back. She lets him cry his heart out, and babble incoherent words.
"I just want to love you in the way you deserve." Luke pulls away first, wiping the tears that stained his cheeks.
"Baby, you are doing that. You’ve always done that.”
"No, not on days like this. I can't give you what you deserve when I'm like this." His head is now hung low, back pressed to the kitchen sink behind him. She approaches him, hands intertwined with his. Quinn kisses his knuckles softly and brings his hands to her chest.
“You can, and you always have. Lu, you’ve given me your everything the past eight months we’ve been together. You’re human and it’s impossible to always give me the same amount of affection and love every day, you need to understand that. This is life - we give, we take and somewhere along the way we might lose some; but that doesn’t make me love you any less.”
Through it all, love is crazy and it works, especially between the right people.
Quinn bounces on her feet as she’s stood in the arrival hall of the airport, a huge sign in her hand that reads ‘I’m looking for Quinn Barker’s Boyfriend!’ In neon yellow against a black background. She spots his tall figure a mile away, head of curls hidden under a hoodie with his large suitcases in tow. He was too engrossed in a conversation with Michael that he nearly misses her. Thankfully, his brothers had long noticed her striking sign, a smirk forming on their face once Luke noticed her.
It felt like a scene from the movies when his eyes locked with hers. She was running towards him and he opened his arms for her to crash straight into him. Tears of joy filled both their eyes, finally being able to hold the other person after being apart for six months. Quinn grinned as she pulled away, reaching into her jacket pocket to take out a black velvet box.
“I have something for you.” She mumbles. Luke looks at her in surprise - is that box what he thinks it is? She opens it, and in it holds two gold rings. His smile grew even wider and her face was starting to hurt from the permanent grin on her face as well.
“You made me wait too damn long, Lu. So I’m gonna ask you - will you marry me?” He kisses her passionately at her words, murmuring a ‘yes’ as their lips moved. Luke picks her up from the floor to spin her around. Quinn squeals as her feet lifts off the ground, laughing and smiling like the idiot that she is. When he puts her down, she takes his ring and slips it on for him as he does for her.
“You’re crazy, future Mrs Hemmings.”
“Crazy for you, my love.”
#5sos#5 seconds of summer#5 seconds of summer fic#5 second of summer imagines#luke hemmings#luke hemmings fic#luke hemmings imagine#michael clifford#michael clifford fic#michael clifford imagines#calum hood#calum hood fics#calum hood imagines#ashton irwin#ashton irwin fic#ashton irwin imagine
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hello everyone! this is rylan (27, she/her, gmt+2) here to introduce you to the lil nugget of fucked up-itude that is freddie dawson! + more info, wanted connections. / @redridgeimp
name: fredericke ann dawson
nicknames: freddie, fred, st. fred
age: 33
ethnicity: white
gender/pronouns: cis female, she/her
sexual/romantic orientation: bisexual/biromantic
been in red ridge for: five years
occupation: bartender at st. peter’s
affiliation: none
positive traits: nurturing, clever, good spirited, humorous, wise, motherly, diligent, quiet, loyal, protective.
negative traits: closed off, impulsive, proud, resentful, self-deprecating, bitter, frightened.
BIOGRAPHY —
(WARNINGS for depression, death, abuse / domestic abuse, violence, underage sex, prostitution, child abandonment).
“why’d you get so obsessed with that word, freddie? who told you about saints?”
“grandpa did, he said he’s named after st. peter”.
“and why do you care?”
“‘cause he said saints do good things. i wanna be a saint, too”.
“why on earth would you want that?”
“‘cause, ma — i wanna save everyone”.
—
there’s a lifetime from that moment to now. she can remember it, but it comes in flashes, a hazy hue of desert gold — she remembers the girl she was, bright-eyed and restless, never shying away from the trail of a question. prying, relentless: the whole world could be simplified to reasons and whys, and she would hunt them the whole day long, out in the dust storms like the wind, not even it could dare question her spirits. whatever happened to that girl? dull, watered down: erased, and her own has been the hand rubbing her existence off her own life.
el paso, texas, 2002. she couldn’t tell how it happened, or when it began — surely that summer of eighteen years ago must have played its part. her mother losing her job (too tired, too tired all the time: too sad to see a doctor, too weak to even get out of bed anymore), bills piling up. her older sister trying hard to keep things afloat with an underpaid gig at the laundry, but it’s not enough. it’s never enough. one day grandpa comes home and he’s making math in his head, calculating how much longer they can survive if he sells the farm, the truck, the horse. that night freddie asks, how come their dad’s not around? he could provide, he could help them? grandpa grows colder then, gaze darker than the clouds gathering on the horizon: i’ll burn this place to the ground before he sets foot in here.
that side of the family, either way, is cunning and insidious, and it comes knocking at the door, offering business, a way to salvage the farm. it is victor, freddie’s uncle, who brings the offering: grandpa throws him out in spite, and freddie watches it all while she’s sitting on the fence outside, skin burning gold from the sun, dust sticking to her like glitter. you’re pretty, victor says: you might be your family’s only chance, you know? she doesn’t (can’t) understand, but she’ll walk any way that can save grandpa, his horse, her mother’s strength, her sister’s dreams of becoming a nurse.
turns out the way is a dark and winding one, one where she has to suck up the terror when a man touches her skin and she has to say yes, please, more, i’ll be anything you want, the key to unlocking all the dark and sick desires you’ve buried in there and can’t speak to anyone, not your wife, not your daughter, not your mother: give them to me, she whispers, let the darkness out. at night she takes hour-long showers to try and rub the darkness off of her, and it won’t come off, it never does — but grandpa didn’t have to sell the farm, and even if he was against her getting a job (said she’d be a waitress, don’t worry pops, i got it), the day he realized he wouldn’t have to sell the horse he smiled: it felt like the gates of heaven themselves would open.
she hates her job, but doesn’t mind the company. they make her work in a dismissed motel, along with girls about her age and her damage, and there is an unspoken bond of loyalty between them — the guys, too, when they’re guarding the doors they smile at them as fondly as they would their sisters (but they wouldn’t let their sisters in a place like this, no). there’s carl, who never speaks but smiles at fred each time he sees her. there’s billy, drives her home every night before victor can volunteer. there’s sonja, who teaches her how to punch a man’s throat when he gets too handsy. there’s a sense of family, while her own begins unraveling around the suspicion that something dark is going on.
el paso, texas, 2005. the farm is saved, but mom’s not getting any better. depression sucks her up, little by little, and she drifts away more or less peacefully, doesn’t dare oppose resistance — she dies a morning of october, and neither of her daughters can speak of it. grandpa has to put down the horse a week later. she’d thought she’d saved everyone —— how come the darkness still won’t leave?
she grows sadder, dark as the clouds that won’t seem to leave their town alone. she finds an unexpected shoulder to cry on in the person of johnny, billy’s cousin and yet another one of victor’s men: johnny’s sweet, he makes her laugh. he begins driving her home at night instead of billy (his cousin’s not happy, she can see this: but he nods his agreement anyway and doesn’t protest, he can’t, johnny’s older and wiser and he’s still just a kid). the rest of it is as old and predictable as it gets: he says he’ll make an honest woman out of her, she retorts there needs to be an honest man for that to happen to begin with. they laugh, they kiss, they promise — five years later, she’s twenty-five and married, almost happy. almost.
el paso, texas, 2006. she wants to leave her job. johnny said he can’t stand the thought of someone touching her where he should, and she tries: but victor won’t have it, no, did you think it was a temporary gig? come on girl, you’re smarter than that. he’s filthy, he humiliates her — beats her just to prove he can, he owns her. she comes home with bruises and johnny’s angry: if you couldn’t quit, he says, it’s because you didn’t really want t. his bruises are added to victor’s, perfectly symmetrical blooms to decorate her skin. she begins cracking, her very essence tearing at the seams — she was trying so hard to save everyone, how the fuck is she gonna save herself now?
billy comes over sometimes. his commitments to what he likes to call “street things” keep him out of the motel now, but he needs to check on her — she makes up excuses to keep away, hide the signs. says she’s got a bad cold one day, the other she’s just not feeling. one day he’s got enough and forces her to open the door: a busted lip, both her eyes grown purple with the blows. his anger is scalding hot but she manages to calm him down — it’s okay, she says, he just gets angry sometimes. i’ll find a way out of it somehow. he leaves in a hurry, never shows up again: the unspoken fear in her mind, that he’s gone and done something terrible he’ll regret, almost brings a relief to her sore mind. perhaps he’s killed him, she thinks. perhaps i’m free.
johnny comes back and it’s business as usual. she tells herself she’s gotta be strong, gotta leave this town, gotta make it out alive. she packs a bag and leaves it hidden under the bed, but when she looks at the door she sees the world with johnny’s face, ready to eat her up, chew her out, over and over. it’s the day police comes knocking at her door that the world drags her out — in the person of detective jake graham, investigating the disappearance of william ‘billy’ dickinson — part of a much bigger investigation, that sooner leads to the arrest of victor rosce and most of his men (johnny included). she’s on her own: and when the detective figures out she needs help, he makes the way for a new life in red ridge, nevada. beaten, broken, ashamed, she says goodbye to texas; to freddie dickinson; to the comfortable shelter of her fear.
red ridge, nevada, 2015. red ridge ain’t much of an afterlife, but it works. they take her to a women’s shelter and bit by bit she puts her pieces back together. badly held in place, like a broken teacup taped back together — but it works. azul, the director of the shelter, turns out to be the family she’s missing — she finds a sense of home in the shelter, a new purpose behind the counter of st. peter’s, serving drinks for those who are heading for a fight at rogues’. like a gatekeeper, like st. peter himself: such a stark contrast from the hell she just left.
heaven is short-lived, and hell comes knocking back at the door. it appears in the shape of two parallel lines on a pregnancy test: johnny’s seed, rooted in her womb, giving way to evil like himself. she wants to throw up, hopes somehow that’ll rid her of this curse — her vision blinded, her ears are ringing. in fear, she turns to the only place she knows can provide comfort, or advice, or any sort of guidance while she has no fucking clue how to fix this: back home, to her sister.
el paso, texas, 2016. grandpa’s dying, angie says. old age catching up to him, so all he does is lie in his bed all day and ask for movies to be played continuously on his tv. it’s an odd family they recreate now, the nurse, the dying man and the pregnant sister. there is a soft, mournful balance found, until one night victor shows up demanding to see her and when angie claims freddie isn’t there he has his men beat her grandpa, thrash the house just to get the point across: he can. he owns her.
she sits by her grandpa’s deathbed that night and weeps. i’m sorry, pops, i’m so sorry: i tried so hard to be a saint, to save everyone. perhaps he’s just exhaling, but it sounds like he’s laughing. child, he says, saints always die either virgins or martyrs. you fucked up the first — now you just gotta pray you’re good enough for the latter.
somewhere between texas and nevada, 2016. grandpa dies two weeks later, and freddie’s not there. right after victor’s visit, angie gave her money just to get her away from them, and bring her trouble with her — grandpa dies a week before her baby’s born, taken out of her and delivered into a nurse’s hands without so much as a goodbye. they ask, would you like to see your baby? freddie turns and pretends she didn’t hear. wherever the baby will end up, it’s gotta be a better fate than the child of a martyr.
red ridge, nevada, 2017. red ridge felt like a home. for a hot second, it felt like things could start over again. she ends up in it again — in the thick of a burning town, trying to make her way through people that do not belong to her, desperately looking for something to hold on to. a year has passed since she last set foot in town, but st. peter’s has been waiting for her; the same arrangement of unfinished business, too. little by little, in red ridge, she begins putting herself back together.
CURRENTLY fred is a bartender at st. peter’s, occasionally lends a hand to azul evangelista for the women’s shelter, is in a committed relationship with detective jake graham. her uncle, her husband and most of their gang are in jail after the investigation jake led back in 2015. she hasn’t heard from her sister ever since leaving el paso. her baby was given up for adoption and she never learned anything more about them — nor does she plan to.
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The Misadventures of Fanty and Pitch Black---Chap. Four
The room he appeared in happened to be a living room of a different person's, and in the distance he could hear the furious typing on a computer keyboard. The living room was simple, yet Pitch had an immediate drawing to it. Must be the black painted bookshelves. They held many thick books as well as encyclopedias that looked ancient, but more than just decoration. The floor was of dark wood, and a nice TV sat below a big window, shining light into the airy room. Pitch walked a bit towards the room with the typing sound, noticing many pictures hung up on walls as well as certificates and photos of movie characters. The walls in the entire flat were a rich purple, and he passed a small room used as a kitchen with a mini fridge and a small elegant table in the middle, with three, mahogany chairs. They looked quite comfortable.
"I like this person's taste in a home. Nice and cozy." Pitch mumbled to himself, ducking into another room with the same purple walls and wooden flooring. This room was obviously a bedroom, judging by the quilted bed in the corner of the room near the curtained window. There were multiple rugs of eggplant purple and dark brown, fuzzy beneath his feet. He looked up at the light fixture, feeling the fan turn slowly. He was surprised to see a poster up there of a man that looked almost like him, but in tight jeans and a white t-shirt, and looked soaked in water. Pitch made a face, feeling really strange at that familiar face, before turning to the person that sat in a black swivel chair at the wooden desk.
He nearly jumped back noticing the girl was staring right at him, unafraid.
This strange girl wore light blue jeans, a fitted t-shirt, and glasses. Her purple hair framed her face and almost reached her hips. The girl did not smile, just stared at him with mild interest. Pitch moved to the right, then slowly to the left, and once he noticed her eyes were following his movements, he felt both relieved and shocked.
"So another freak can see me." Pitch breathed, not looking away from her. Let's see if she'll react like Fanty does.
The girl merely scoffed, looked him up and down, and said with a smirk on her face, "Please, go look in a mirror."
Pitch felt his non-existent eyebrows rise upwards. Now that was bold, even against a Boogeyman.
"Do you know who I am?" Pitch demanded, taking a step towards this new girl.
"Do you know who I am, Boogeyman?" the girl raised a brow teasingly, "I'm Queen of the Universe, and everyone-including you-are my loyal subjects. Now bow before me."
Pitch couldn't help but crack a toothy grin, and his smile was contagious, for it caused this girl to silently laugh as she got up from her sleek desk. She brushed some hair back before turning towards Pitch with a curious smile on her face. Pitch eyed her, smirking.
"I like you." He said lowly, causing the girl to have a quick blush before shaking it off. She was a tough-nugget like that.
"That's a relief." She said, craning her neck to look at her ceiling poster of her favorite singer, Koz. Pitch felt his upper lip curl. He didn't want to look at that doppelganger poster up there.
"May I ask your name?" Pitch asked, folding his hands behind his back.
The girl stuck out a hand, and Pitch slowly shook it. "I'm Mystic Hawk. I'm one of Fanty's friends," she noticed the look on Pitch's face, "Yes, we heard the ruckus down there. It was hard to ignore it. Did Emma really shoot you with a Nerf gun?"
"She did indeed."
That sent Mystic into cahoots. She clutched at her stomach while holding up a finger to make him wait. She finally sighed, took off her glasses, wiped them, and then put them back on, still giggling. "Wait, so she really shot you in the butt? We all heard a high pitched scream, but we knew even Emma can't make a noise like that! You sounded like a cat in heat when you scream."
"I do not!" Pitch protested, but Mystic was already laughing once more, having the need to sit down in order not to pee her pants. The last time she peed her pants laughing was when she and Drago caught Fanty in the middle of dancing to Boogey Wonderland in nothing but her underwear, a button up, and no, not socks, but swim flippers while holding a pink hairbrush. Just the memory of that hilarious moment made her laugh harder.
Pitch frowned, not finding anything amusing at all. So without another word, he disappeared and reappeared into another apartment. This one, literally screamed pink. It slightly scared him. There was graffiti all over the walls, and surprisingly, none of them had written profanity like he's seen in the cities. His favorite one was a long tag that had the word 'fuck' stretched around the base of this brick building, so it looked like a good long 'fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck'. He laughed for days.
Heh…good long fuck. That sounds kinky. His mind snickered, and Pitch growled for that annoying voice to stop.
A giant flat screen TV hung on the wall with the most colorful and large graffiti, and comfortable looking black leather couches surrounded the living room with stylish pillows. The kitchen was enormous, with a fully prepared table with the whole shebang, including fire truck red candles and glassware. He had to admit it, this person was extremely brave to decorate their home like this funky. If he lived here, his eyes would hurt after three hours from the pink walls.
"Hey, you mind? I'm about to leave." A friendly voice came.
Pitch looked at the direction of where he assumed an office was, and there before him stood Star with her shining brown hair tucked into a high ponytail, and thick black sunglasses that hid her big, emerald eyes. She donned light green leggings and a white tutu with green glitter on it, had at least four wooden bracelets on her left arm and had lavender colored nails. Her lime green t-shirt had big, bubbly yellow letters that simply said 'Hey' and she donned a brown leather jacket for the afternoon, windy chill.
"Good God, you're like a grown Sophie Bennett." Pitch blurted, not guilty of it at all.
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. I really shouldn't be surprised Fanty has strange friends now, but I still am." Pitch shrugged nonchalantly, "You go out like that every day?"
"Yep. And no judging, because you can't talk. Take a look in the mirror before you walk down the street," Star winked as she passed him with her stylish gait, "such a shame a good-looking bod is hidden under a black tarp."
"-!? It's a robe!" Pitch protested, folding his V-neck closed a bit more and pulling his leg forward to hide his crotch. He felt naked, and it wasn't a good feeling.
"Don't kill anyone, or I'll feed you cupcakes until you explode all over the walls." Star casually said, picking up her car keys and pocketbook.
"I'll end up like your graffiti. Hopefully I'm not going to end up as written profanity." Pitch muttered, but sneered as Star grinned, showing her pearly whites.
Once Star left with Drago and Pitch was on his own again, he wandered and meandered to his heart's content. He had to admit, he was starting to grow a fondness for this building. He found Drago's apartment, and it was mostly cluttered and decorated with beautiful antiques and rustic décor. There was a cherry wood desk in the corner of her room with a well-working computer, and piles of papers and archives filled up all the nooks and crannies of that desk. The bookshelves were organized as can be, though. Pitch had to say, he liked the kitchen the best. He didn't know how a Hobbit themed kitchen would be pulled off so well! The apartment, besides clutter, gave off a feeling of homey comfort, and it made Pitch linger a little longer than the others. Well, he would have stuck around if it wasn't for this mangy puppy that was black with gold cheeks and paws that kept yapping up a storm at him and tugging on his robe with his teeth. The last thing Pitch needed was worn-and-torn clothing. So after frightening the puppy by making a growling noise and baring his teeth, he slunked into a shadow and reappeared in yet another room.
Now, you would expect the whole 'let's describe the décor and what the place looks like because the writer is stalling', but no, the first thing Pitch noticed immediately was that, yes, the occupant of this newly found apartment was waiting for him. She lurked right at the darkest spot in her home, which was right behind a painted rocking chair with dark floral pillows. Just as Pitch emerged, the girl shrieked and gave him a good whack with a rolled up People magazine. Pitch yelped and clutched his ear, his hearing thudding a bit before he shook his head.
"What in devil's name-?!" he started, glaring at the girl.
"Fanty warned me you're sneaking around here! Really? Breaking and entering people's apartments? Shouldn't you just knock!? You scared the living daylights out of me!" Xion scolded, shaking her rolled up magazine at him.
"Good, I prefer the dark rather than daylight. Who the hell are you?" Pitch muttered, rubbing the back of his head.
"I'm Xion Five. Now can you please leave? I've got business to do." Xion dropped her magazine as she crossed over to the purple and black striped couches and sitting down.
Before Pitch could ask what she was so busy with that she must ignore a guest, she un-paused an anime movie called Howls' Moving Castle. Pitch gave her a look. "Ah yes, movie watching is serious business. Don't mind me, I'll just be leaving."
"Before you go, you could have some of those strawberry and vanilla cupcakes Star left for me. They have gummy bears on them, they're really good." Xion said, not tearing her eyes away from the screen.
Pitch made a face, but then felt his face fall into shock as he saw the open room used as a display room and an office space. There was a polished desk with a super thin, black laptop and silver mouse, dark bookcases much like the ones in Mystic's apartment, but other than that, he was amazed at the homemade costumes and weaponry that hung on walls and were on mannequins. Some looked like dark Lolita dresses, others looked Elven-like, and some looked like royal mages or even frilly princess stuff. He guessed the clothing was inspired by the anime Xion watched. He especially liked the steampunk jumpsuit with the dark red goggles. Apparently she painted those goggles herself, from what it looked like up close. On the walls hung homemade weapons from anime shows as well, like throwing knives, hammers, magic wands, even giant things like shepherd's crooks, staffs and a scythe that he absolutely wanted to steal, except it was light purple with stars on it.
Wow, she really has a talent in making this sort of stuff, Pitch thought, peering at a neon blue wig that almost reached the floor, so that's why she called it 'business.'
After content goodbyes, Pitch finally met Lil Angel, who was Fanty's neighbor that took care of the Bennett children. Pitch couldn't help but keep her at bay since she was affiliated with those children, but he had to admit she was a very eccentric and friendly person much like Fanty and her friends as well. He only had a peek of her apartment, which was very modern and had many things that were light purple but also light blue, yellow and red. The fuzzy floor was white, and the walls were a cream color that complimented the comfortably sized kitchen that looked as if a batter explosion occurred with fireworks of icing. He also met Angel's pet kitten, Oreo, that seemed instantly attracted to his face so it leaped out of Angel's arms and hugged Pitch's face like a starfish, it's claws digging into his ears.
Pitch gruffly removed the kitten from his face as if it were a leech. It had quite a grip on his face! He held it out to stare at it, holding it by the back of the neck. Maybe if he scared it, the kitten would pee all over Angel's carpet. That'd be funny.
"Boo." Pitch growled.
Angel waited with baited breath, knowing Pitch was trying to make the kitten have a potty mess. But instead of what they thought would happen, the kitten merely mewled and somehow detached itself from Pitch's hand and star-fished his face again, purring into his cheek and nuzzling his nose.
"This is by far the strangest kitten I've ever met." Pitch said seriously, looking at Angel who was trying not to burst out laughing.
"Oreo can be a little lovable. The last dog that tried to chase her ended up getting snuggled so much it ran away from Oreo itself. You should've been there. It was both cute and funny to watch." Angel said, plucking Oreo off his face finally and giving his head a gentle scratch.
"…Was the dog black?" Pitch asked, feeling a smirk threaten at his lips.
Angel thought for a minute, before nodding. "It had a red collar on and bright blue eyes."
"Yeah, I remember giving a nightmare to that dog. Apparently Oreo instilled a fear of kittens in him."
That made Angel burst out laughing, and Pitch truly felt accomplished for making someone laugh once more.
By the time Pitch got back to Fanty's apartment, the strange girl was already lying upside-down on the couch, boredly watching the shadows for Pitch's arrival. It was kind of hard to swallow a turkey and tomato sandwich upside-down.
Pitch raised a brow at Fanty, unamused. "What?"
"Well? Were they cool, or were they cool?"
"…You teens creep me out worse than Tooth's feelings for Jack." Pitch hissed under his breath, folding his arms in a pout.
"OOOOOOH DO I DETECT A CRUSH?! JEALOUSY?!" Fanty beamed, flipping upright and tossing her sandwich on the coffee table, "Wait…Tooth? Jack? Who're they?"
Pitch gagged, feeling a baby barf almost float up his esophagus. "Ew, on Tooth? You're sick."
"Who the hell is Tooth?!"
"You sure you're not the jealous one?" Pitch grinned, and Fanty blushed a bright red. "OW!"
Note to self: Fanty's got quite the fist.
"Tell me who Tooth and Jack are or I'll instill fear into you!" Fanty threatened, making her fingers dance in the air as if she were to summon dark magic.
Pitch laughed rather loudly, still keeling over from when she punched him in the gut. "That only works for me, Fanty. Like this,"
He grabbed her neck and shoved her to the couch, causing her to gasp and clutch at his wrist, her eyes widening in shock at his sudden movement. He kneeled right in front of her, his face just mere inches from hers with an acidic snarl on his mouth. His eyes burned a bright gold, that literally flashed danger. Fanty started to breathe heavily, scared out of her shorts that he was going to hurt her.
"Tell me your fears or you'll see them brought to life." He growled, almost like an angry wolf.
Fanty panicked, forgetting that he was just setting an example of how to really threaten someone. He didn't mean to scare her like that, he was only trying to teach her how to really threaten someone. But he was over the top, and he realized that only seconds before Fanty spilled.
"I'm afraid of heights! I'm afraid of spiders and big fish and I'm afraid of bugs with stingers, and I'm afraid of-!" she cried out.
Pitch slammed a hand against her mouth to stop her, and Fanty saw the worry flash across his eyes. It scared her even more. It scared her so much she nearly wet herself. He looked so startled, so honestly worried that it actually worked and that she was so close to confessing…
But before Pitch could apologize, the door was burst open with a strong kick, and they both heard two voices scream, "HY-YAHH!"
Pitch bolted up, and Fanty turned around to see Mystic and Xion standing with tightened fists, giving death glares at Pitch. Fanty furrowed her eyebrows and shouted, "IDIOT! Look at the door! You busted a crack in it! Mr. Joyce will kill me!"
"DIS BASTARD HERE!" Xion pointed at Pitch, who cursed under his breath as he took three baby steps back.
"Was he hurting you, Fanty?! We received a distress call that sounded like you confessing your fears and we're here to kick BUTT!" Mystic said strongly, cracking her knuckles to prove her strength.
"I wasn't meaning-!" Pitch started, but Fanty stood up on the couch and waved her arms.
"He didn't mean to! He was showing me an example of how to properly threat someone. It's okay, guys. Thanks for the concern, though." Fanty finished with a promising smile.
Xion and Mystic were suspicious, and gave Pitch a doubtful look before closing the door tightly. Fanty and Pitch could still hear them walk down the hall and discuss about fixing the dent they kicked into the door. She smiled to herself before looking at Pitch with an apologetic smile. He breathed a sigh of relief before plopping himself onto a cushioned chair, and put one foot up onto the footrest to really let himself relax.
"That was way too close." Pitch sighed, rubbing his tired face.
"Is it just me or were you just scared of my friends?" Fanty folded her arms with a smug little face on her lips.
Pitch gave her a knowing look before chuckling. "Everyone is afraid of something…I learned the hard way…"
Fanty noticed his eyes turn silver, misty with memories that made his smile fall and for a second, look…remorseful. Her dark brown eyebrows crinkled in worry as she sat on the floor in front of him, watching with pure rapture. How do his eyes do that? She wondered, resting her head in her hand, I wish I could change mine from brown to blue.
"You're lucky you have protective friends like that. I don't have any." Pitch said quite truthfully.
Fanty shrugged, knowing very well why he doesn't have many. She has heard of some sort of war he lost, and she knew from the start that he was apparently a bad egg, but no details whatsoever.
"I'm sure you do. You just haven't found them, yet. You could be my friend if you want." Fanty offered, smiling at the idea.
Pitch scoffed, "With a human? Hun, I am an immortal being that instills fear into every living thing, and I do this as a duty here on earth. It isn't an occupation where I get paid."
"Racist." Fanty pouted, folding her arms like a child, "Then why do you try to drill fear in others?"
Pitch didn't miss a beat. His eyes returned to the fiery gold Fanty was starting to get used to, and he hissed his answer, an answer full of history and angst, "To be believed in. That's what all the spirits do on this planet. They are cursed with the life of immortality and with a purpose, and if that purpose isn't fulfilled properly, they die."
"Wait, whoa, back up!" Fanty held up her hands, "There are other people like you out there?"
"Hardly people," Pitch said, leaning closer to her, "just call them what they are. Beings. Spirits. Guardians." He snarled at the word in spite.
"You monologued about them once, but then I shut you up with a pillow. All I know is that it's Jamie Bennett's fault as well as Jack Frost. Isn't he just an expression?"
Pitch thought for a second, looking away from her earnest eyes. And after some time…he grinned evilly.
"Yes…yes, Fanty. He's just an expression. He doesn't exist at all. But Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and-"
"The Easter Bunny and Sandman do?!" Fanty exclaimed, excitement ringing in her voice.
Pitch curtly nodded, "But they brought me pain. I ruled the very era of the Dark Ages, and they brought me to the shadows at the Earth's core. I tried regaining what once was mine, but I lost the battle yet again. I was so close to gaining a victory, but that stupid child Jamie-"
"Jamie's not stupid," Fanty said, shaking her head vigorously, "He's a smart kid with a big heart. And I know Jack Frost exists because a, he talks about him 24/7, and b, you are a terrible liar."
Pitch stuck out his lower lip, angry at being so carefully read. Fanty continued that she did believe his story, just that maybe there was a better way to be believed in without parents and children hating him. He couldn't help it, he was the Boogeyman for crying out loud!
But there was something Pitch left out in his story. He didn't tell her how his belief was very thin, like the width of a string. But when Fanty spilled some of her fears to him, he felt that string grow stronger, become more durable and thicker. He learned that though kids were the easiest targets for fear, the teenagers have the strongest and most powerful fears. They're trickier to harbor and snag onto, but they're long lasting and can be a better resource than just petty children.
And Pitch liked a good challenge.
Leave a review, follow, favorite, I dunno, bookmark this on yo favorites bar on the internet or something. :D Have a great day/night!
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Rest In Peace: Chapter Eight
Title: Rest In Peace
Chapter: 8
Summary: A part of Faithless Fairy Tale, a more in depth look at how they brought Laura back to life. Appearance of old faces, creation of new ones and if you’re looking for canon, it left a long, long time ago. If you squint you might be able to see some pieces from the book.
“Fear no more, says the heart...” -Virginia Woolf
+
Mad Sweeney pushes himself up off the floor, pissed for several reasons, top three being the fact he has just face fucked the floor, that Laura had ruined what was turning out to be a fan-fucking-tastic dirty dream and worst of all, he was clearly sporting a stiffy.
“Fuck you, dead girl, I was sleeping!”
“Yeah, and now you aren't. Come on, get up and get dressed, ginger bitch. We have a long drive back.”
That gets his attention, “Back where?”
“Back to Indiana. To find Anubis and Ibris. I have questions and I want them to answer them. I mean. Odin is dead now, so even if they had a deal it should be fine to just ask what it was.”
“You sure that's smart? They might take one gander ‘atcha and decide your trial period of second life is over. I might not be able to pluck that coin outta you, but Anubis might.”
“Then I will do a lot more than smack his hand if he tries.”
Sweeney gives out a dry chuckle, he doesn’t deny that he kind of wants to see it. An ancient god of death getting slapped silly by little Laura Moon. It was a painful experience, that he was familiar with but that didn't mean he had sympathy for anyone else who was on the receiving end of it.
(More so if he thought they deserved it)
“Fine, give a man some fucking privacy to get dressed.”
Laura looks down her nose at him, still on the floor, hidden by the bed.
“You got a boner, don't you.”
He feels his fucking ears burn, “Out!”
She leaves, but he is distinctly aware of her smug knowing smile.
He most certainly does not jack off to that same smug smile at all.
+
They decide to take one of Ostar's cars. It's the least fancy and brightly colored of her harem of cars, just a black SUV that has tinted windows and enough space for Sweeney’s long legs, so it's possible she'll never even notice or care. They argue for hours on who gets to drive it before a light bulb bursts right above his head, proving soundly that his luck is still fucking shit and they're more likely to survive if she drives.
Before they leave, Sweeney hunts down one of Ostara's many fluffy friends and picks it up by the scruff of the neck to bring the rabbit to his face.
“Oi, tell your old lady we'll bring the car back after we've paid a little visit to Anubis.”
The rabbit’s black nose twitches and Sweeney rolls his eyes.
“If anything happens to the fuckin' car you can have Shadow fuckin' Moon be the one to fuckin' pay for it. Its his damned dead, asshole wife!”
“Ex- asshole wife.” Laura calls out, climbing into the driver's seat.
Sweeney drops the rabbit, “Whatever, call it alimony then.”
“I had a better paying job than Shadow and owned a house, if anyone is paying alimony it would be me.” She says as he gets into the passenger side and she adjusts the car seat. Bringing it up as close as she can to the wheel. Meanwhile, he rummages through the bag at his feet that he brought, until he finds a stack of air fresheners.
He unwraps three lemon shaped ones and throws them in her lap. Laura looks down at them with a sneer while shoving on a pair of sunglasses.
“Really.”
“Shadow might not care for lemon scented you, but I sure as hell pick it over molding corpse.”
+
The first few hours of their drive isn't bad. Its not like they aren't used to sharing small spaces for impossibly long distances. This time she has the ability to aim all the air conditioners in her direction while he keeps the seat warmer on his side on high.
It also helps that he brought a blanket and a very pink fuzzy hat.
“Not a fuckin’ word outta of you dead girl.” He pulls it on and crosses his arms like a grumpy child. As if she was the one who made him wear it.
Laura keeps her face carefully blank, “I didn't say any thing.”
“You were thinkin' it.”
She struggles to hide the uptick of her lips.
“You do look pretty in pink.”
“Fuck you, dead bitch.”
“Fuck you back, Suibhne.”
+
“I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter ‘C'.”
“It better be cat.”
“It ain't.” Sweeney says with a delighted smirk.
Laura slams her feet on the brakes and Sweeney hits the dashboard with enough force to warrant a crunch.
“You’re an asshole, dead girl.” He hisses at her. Blood from his busted nose runs down his face and into his beard. She grins and continues their little game.
“I spy with my dead eye, something that begins with the letter D.”
Sweeney sniffs wetly, but then after a beat of silence asks, “Is it dickhead?”
“Bingo.”
+
The drive goes by faster than before. Probably because the SUV is naturally more efficient than an old ice cream truck, it helps too that neither of them need to stop for much. At most it’s a quick bathroom break, but Sweeney isn't the type of man who cares where he pisses so more often than not its just the side of the road.
On one such occasion, Laura gets out too just to stretch her limbs. There is a hint of stiffness in her that makes her worried that rigor mortis is a real possibility if she doesn't keep moving. It makes sense as much as it doesn't, her body moves but her insides don't.
There's no blood, every vein clogged and more than one of her organs stapled shut. Twice in some, while others are completely missing. Making her feel like a doll with no stuffing, nothing keeping her together but a gold coin and thread.
Except when she kissed Shadow and felt her heart beat…
Except when she touched Sweeney and felt her blood race…
Above her, a bird cries out. Laura covers her eyes to better see it fly over head. It circles twice, enough for her to fear it might be a damned vulture before it lands atop the car's hood and she realizes its far too small.
It's a hawk, and it opens its mouth to yell at her.
“What the fuck is this.” Sweeney comes up behind her, smoking and glaring at the bird as it continues it’s angry squawking. “What’d you do to piss it off?”
“Why do you think I did anything?”
“I might have shit luck, but even I’d still bet on those odds, darlin.”
“Go!” A new voice shouts.
“…Did that bird just tell me to go?” Laura questions, mostly at the bird.
“There you have it. Even the local wildlife is telling you to piss off.”
The hawk spreads its wings and lets out a sharp gutted cry; could be anger or indignation, fuck it could be a happy sound. All Laura ever owned was cats, she knows fuck all about birds.
“Go with!”
Laura has been having a really weird after life, all things considering, so stopping to talk to a hawk on the side of the road is just…well it is what it is. Fucking weird, but she does it.
“You…want to come with?”
The bird ruffled its feathers, puffed up and started earnestly bopping it's head. Laura shrugs and opens the passenger door, but quick as a lightning , Sweeney is pushing her hand aside and crawling in.
“I call FUCKIN' shot gun, the talking chicken nugget can sit in the fuckin' back.”
Laura slams the door closed, Hard enough to catch the tall idiot by the elbow and moves to open the back door instead. Gesturing to the bird to get in.
“Sure you want a lift? I mean you've got wings and this idiot never shuts the fuck up. I know which one I'd choose.”
The hawk flies into the back.
“Great.” She closes the door and walks back to the driver side. Mad Sweeney is glued to the radio, the bird is perched on the seat. Every now and then picking at something between it's claws and chewing.
“So, a dead woman, an unlucky leprechaun and a talking bird go on a road trip. Set up for a good joke, right?” She says, strapping herself in.
“And by good joke. You mean fuckin' awful, right?”
A new voice from the back pipes up, “Actually, I'm a God.”
Both of them scream in reply.
+
The bird who is not a bird at all, sits casually and as both Laura and Sweeney spit and sputter out curses in shock.
“Fuckin hell! Give a fella some sort of fuckin' warning you trickster asshole!” Sweeney puts a hand to his chest, where his heart is trying to escape his ribs. He will die of a damn heart attack before the end of this trip. He can feel it in his bones.
“Normally I wouldn't agree with him for anything, but holy shit yeah.” Laura looks at the man. He's handsome, dark skinned and naked. Really, really naked. “Also…maybe clothes? I’d like to at least know your name before I know what your balls look like.”
Sweeney glances back. Regrets it instantly.
“At least cup yourself, lad. This ain't our fuckin' car and I ain't paying to clean your dick sweat from it.” He tells the guy but there is no reaction from him. No shame.
Mad Sweeney looks harder at the man and sighs. He knows that look.
“Oh fuck me…” He glares at the dead woman beside him. “You just had to do it, didn't ya. You just had to let the bird in.”
“He asked!”
“He is fuckin' mad as shit! LOOK INTO HIS FUCKIN' EYES, WOMAN. HE IS BATTY AS A FUCK-” Sweeney glanced back to point, only to find he couldn't, “..he is a fuckin’ bird again. Fuck.” The hawk was back and blinking at them both. “Why the fuck is he a bird again?”
Laura shrugged, “How would I know? Maybe all your stupid yelling scared him.”
The hawk flapped it's wings.
Sweeney glared, “You’ll have a lot more to fear from me than the tone of my voice if you don't fuckin' change back, you mad feathery fuck, and tell us what the fuck you want.”
There is no pop, no dazzle of magic. Just one moment there was a bird, the next the man was back.
“I'm not scared of you.” The man says simply.
Before Sweeney can fling himself into the back and start a fight, Laura catches him by the shoulder.
“Stop trying to fight naked bird boy. I do not have the energy to properly workshop all the insults I could make from it right this second. And I'd really like to give it my all, so maybe hold off?”
“He wouldn't win.” The man says, as if stating a fact and nothing else.
“Wanna fuckin bet, bird brains?”
The man tilts his head, either confused by the insult or Mad Sweeney in general. Either way, Laura clocks the blankness in his eyes and acknowledges that whoever he is, he isn't playing with a full deck.
“Hey, so. Hello. I'm Laura.”
“I know.”
Taken slight aback, she waits for him to continue. When he doesn’t, she pushes on. “Any chance you can tell me your name or perhaps the reason why you suddenly decided to join us?”
The man blinks at her, processing for a long time before answering.
“I am called Horus. I know you are going to my brothers. I wish to come with.”
“…Okay.” Laura accepts this best she can. Horus as far as she can tell, is also an Egyptian god. So that makes sense…at least in the context of where he is traveling to. “Still gotta wonder. Wouldn't flying as bird be quicker?”
Horus doesn't answer, only looks at her with mournful dark eyes. Laura is shocked to see a second later a tear runs down his dark cheek.
“Hey, listen its fine. You can come with.” She awkwardly attempts to back track. She isn’t good with people, and knows it. But so far this God hasn’t done anything to her except ask for a lift and within seconds she has made him cry. That's a record even for her.
“Shit. There is probably some shitty karma coming my way now isn't there? For making some innocent god cry?”
“Ain't you, dead girl.” Sweeney tells her, voice lowered. He hands the weeping god his blanket and even an opened pack of peanuts. Which seems to cheer Horus up considerably. As he quickly stops crying and starts to pop them into his mouth to chew. “Chances are he has been a bird so long, everything up there is scrambled eggs. Doubt he remembers what his brothers look like let alone what street they live on.”
He knows, after all, just how little it takes to lose your mind. What it's like to be a bird and lose everything that you were and not even notice until its too late. The ability to turn back into a man fades every time you take flight, that's what they don't tell you.
Even now, sometimes he has days he wishes he could spread his wings and take off. Leave everything behind, just to feel the wind and the air hold him again, to be free and light as only a bird can be.
“But he knew who I was. Knew I was headed to them…”
Horus, having finished all his treats, leans towards them.
“The ravens told me.”
Laura glances at Sweeney, who growls and bangs his fist against his knee. “Okay, does that mean something or is that crazy bird code?”
“Huginn and Muninn. Odin's pet ravens. They've been following us for so long, I sort of forgot. Figured with Odin dead they'd fuck off. Either they've gained a sense of self or someone else has given a job to the lil bastards to keep tracking us.”
Horus frowns, “They were always meant to leave him. Even he knew that. If they work for someone new, it was always meant to be.”
Horus holds out his hand. And it takes a second for Sweeney to realize he wants a treat. With a heavy roll of his eyes, he bends to pull out another bag of snacks from his bagged horde. He pops it open and hands it over, watching in disgruntled amazement as the god upends it all into his mouth at once.
Laura starts the car and pulls it back onto the road. She doesn't exactly remember the way to the funeral home, other than a vague general direction she should head to and can only hope there is a sign for their business when they reach the state.
“So, Odin has a few minions still roaming about. Does it matter?”
“Does it matter she asks,” Mad Sweeney repeats, voice mocking. “Of course it fuckin matters. You, dead girl, killed him. In front of a group of holy witnesses at that. Now Shadow and Miss Spring might not say anything, but you can bet Media and Techdick will. I have no doubt they were watching from afar.”
There had been too much going on, afterwards to notice for sure, but Laura didn't doubt it.
“Never mind what feathery dumb and dumber are up to, by now there will probably be a whole new war gearing up. All against the dead girl who decided to go highlander on their big man. Fuck, there's no telling if they're teaming up or not either, old gods and new.” He chuckles, “Ain't nothing brings people together like a common enemy.”
Laura frowns, “I don't know why you're laughing. If they come after me, you're just as fucked.”
“Aye. Not much changed for me then is it?”
Laura stays silent, he's been eerily right for most things and she hates the idea he might be right about this.
>
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How about promp 6 whit UF Grillby?
he was kind.
you knew that from the start. even though he didn’t speak much, and came off as rude and perverted, you knew deep down, he had a heart of gold.it’s a shame he never showed it, but it was understandable, seeing as he grew up in harsh conditions. so you never said anything of it, even if he went above and beyond just to help.
but this time, you couldn’t bother him.
you’d just had gotten kicked out from your much too impatient aunt who you were staying over at as you attended university. she’d kept saying how lazy you were, and did nothing to help around the house, although you did, but she was just out and about being..well, your aunt. she always was kind of closed off from the rest of your family, only coming to events she deemed as “important”. whether it be christmas dinner, or even just showing up out of nowhere just to “hang with the family”. those times you were almost positive is when she was kicked out from her own apartment, but she always found a way to weasel back in.you didn’t want to stay with her, but you didn’t really have a choice since her apartment was just oh so conveniently close to one of the few and only universities that accepted you. so you went and stayed with her, with prompting from your parents and siblings of course. you knew they always wanted you out of the house.
but she got drunk. she got mad. and now you had nowhere to go.
you were just standing in the street, holding a large bag that didn’t seem too heavy at first, but would become progressively a dead weight before you knew it. the sun was setting, and the people that passed you were becoming more and more scarce.
you needed someplace to go, soon if not now. so you just started walking off into a meaningless direction.
you didn’t know if you did on purpose or not, or maybe your feet just took you there subconsciously, but you found yourself standing in front of the bright purple neon sign that easily and fancily spelled out, “Grillby’s”.
you couldn’t bother him, you shouldn’t.
the bell by the door rang, signalling to the bartender and really everyone else that you entered the quaint establishment. the place smelled like alcohol, monster alcohol. it always had that little tinge of magic that you’ve started to recognized. you walked up to the bar, and took a seat by the counter. grillby’s as a whole was actually pretty small, but it just looked so damn fancy that made it a popular attraction for people who wanted to experience “magic” and “monsters”. the purple flamesman grinned when seeing you enter in, immediately walking up to you to serve you.
“Hey there, Sweet Thing.”
he winked behind his sunglasses (that you always found funny for him to wear), causing you to blush faintly as you put your back to the side of your legs.
“Hi, Grillby. Could I have my usual?”
“Sure thing.”
he nodded, swiftly going back to the kitchen to quickly prepare it. you then let out a sigh, fidgeting with the strap of your bag. where would you go to stay the night? how would you pay for it? hell, how would you even pay for your order right now?you looked inside the back and zipped open one of the inner pockets. it revealed a few crumpled 5 and 1 dollar bills, and some pretty old looking coins nearly hidden in the corners of the pocket.
5..10..15.. 20…
22 dollars and 18 cents. that….wasn’t enough to even stay at a crappy motel. you sighed, closing up your bag as you returned to fidgeting with the strap of it.maybe you could sell your clothes..? but who would even buy it at such short notice? what were you seriously going to do? you really screwed up this time. you should’ve just stayed at home and got a job at the nearest mcronald’s-
“Here’s your order. Flameburger with fries on the side, didn’t forget the non-alcoholic monster magic drink~”
he says as-a-matter-of-factly as if proud for remembering it exactly. your mouth was already watering when seeing the finest burger on the menu, prepared flawlessly and served beautifully in front of you.
you were seriously going to be broke after this one meal. why’d you go to grillby’s of all places?
he must’ve noticed your hesitance, since you’d already be near half-way the burger by now.
“Toots, aren’t ya going ta start eating? Or have you just remembered that you’ve forgot your wallet….again?”
shit, he was right. your wallet had at least a couple hundred dollars. why’d you forget that of all things? you just looked away embarrassed, slowly nodding. he didn’t really seem surprised, just chuckling.
“Heh if ya keep doing that, you might as well start a tab like Sans. But even he pays it once in a while. Probably cause I force ‘im to, otherwise he’d try to avoid it. Like he doesn’t already.”
he laughed more, but it was really to himself, since you just winced ever so slightly at his comment. the ever-growing worry of being homeless and broke just sitting like a pit to your stomach, eating up any appetite you had left.he just clamped his mouth shut when he noticed your expression, looking worried, but he tried to hide it behind his glasses. he just paused for a moment, before slowly starting to speak as if saying each word with a deep and careful thought process behind it.
“…What..is wrong..? ..You look like…you’ve got something heavy..on your mind.”
he gently laid his hand on top of yours, to get your attention, but to also reassure you in a small way. you just bit your lip and looked away. he thought over his words, before realizing and mouthing a soft, “Oh.” he looked away as well, thinking carefully.
“You know…I could always…let you have this.. on the house. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
he smiled in another attempt to reassure you, but you still didn’t look at him, and slowly shook your head. you couldn’t let him do that. because…
“You’ve already done so much for me… I wouldn’t want you to lose anything, especially something as important as money.”
you were thankful for his offer, and extremely tempted to take it, but he already did so much for you. he never admitted anything, but you knew it was him who payed off your school debt. it was him who made sure you never went hungry, usually by not telling you when you’d forget or accidentally give him the wrong amount for the bill to your food, oftentimes, giving him much too little than the actual price. but when you mentioned it the next time you went over, he always said you paid the right amount. and you were nearly positive, it was him who was paying off your aunt’s debt as well so that both of you could live in that crappy old apartment with ease. you shouldn’t have taken anything from him, and certainly not anything more. you owed him enough as is.
what broke you off from your thought process and caught your attention was when he started laughing loudly, almost to the point of obnoxiousness. you just stared at him in surprise. it took him a while, but he eventually calmed down from laughing so hard.
“Oh Ho Sweetheart, didn’t you know? G here is a fuck ton of money. Seriously, you humans would pay so much for little nuggets of gold that we monsters use as currency. That’s why now, I don’t gotta care too much about my financial situation, cause I promise ya, I’m well off with money to spare. And besides, even if I wasn’t I don’t mind paying just a little bit for a pretty little thing like you.”
he grinned that devilish grin of his, causing you to blush again. he always knew your weak points of flusterment.
“But, but-!”
“No ‘buts’, and don’t worry ‘bout it. I want to do this for ya.”
he smiled again, but it was softer and more genuine. which, did make your blush darken. you started to reconsider your options. he said that he wanted to help, so maybe…maybe if just this once, you could rely on someone to help you…? would it be worth the risk..? you slowly looked up at him with hopeful eyes, causing his smile to slightly falter as he looked a bit confused as to what was exactly on your mind.
just this once, you promised yourself.
“I…need a place to stay.”
you blurted out, already fumbling over your words as you tried to explain your situation. and he was kind.
but this wouldn’t be the only time.
because he was kind.
#whoops#got carried away#these should be short#but i keep thinking of many different things i want to add#goody goody gumdrops#still taking these prompts#might do a little post that says i won't later#but it probably won't get too far to that point#but hey#you never know#imagine#word prompt#underfell#grillby#fellby#long post#underfell grillby#woa imagine
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“Perfect,” by Ed Sheeran
The least perfect song in the world. This shit is fucking awful. It’s bad enough that I have found it necessary to present evidence that Ed Sheeran may have been put under the spell of a powerful sea witch.
Let’s dive right into this unholy mess of unexamined emotional hellscape. Buckle up, kids.
I found a love for me
Darling just dive right in
And follow my lead
Why are you diving, Ed? Stop mixing metaphors, are you ballroom dancing underwater? Are you waltzing through a swamp? Why are you wearing scuba gear to this tango meetup? ED WHAT IS GOING ON? I am worried.
But before we clarify what’s going on, who are you speaking to? “I found a love for me” is not something you say to your smoochiepie, but then you’re addressing “Darling” and instructing her to dive into your shitty mixed metaphors. Are you singing to us, the audience, or your love that you found? Are you telling a story or serenading your lady friend? Ed, this kind of shit is why you are so goddamn easy to mock.
Well I found a girl beautiful and sweet
I never knew you were the someone waiting for me
'Cause we were just kids when we fell in love
Not knowing what it was
I will not give you up this time
I’m coming up to speed here, my befreckled carrot chunk. Let me translate: you had a crush on this chick, she didn’t like you much, and then you got rich and she was like “welp, gotta survive somehow” and is now swallowing her pride and marrying a guy with a giant jungle cat tattoo on his chest because it means she won’t have to work anymore? Cool, glad I’m reading between the lines. Gold digger, redheaded nugget, it’s a warm-toned match made in heaven.
But here is where Ed Sheeran starts to do the thing that sends me into a feminist rage spiral: nothing about this woman is at all about her as an individual, but it is definitely about him as an individual. It’s one of those “Nice Guy (TM)” things that I hate: the dude here gets to have autonomy and his own story is central to the narrative, while simultaneously, his comfort, pleasure, and gaze are prioritized.
He found a girl? No, he did not. She existed all along, he didn’t do a goddamn thing. People are not hidden fucking treasures, Ed.
She was the someone waiting for him? No, she was doing her thing, Ed. And then you came along (again). You really think she was waiting for you any more than you were waiting for her? I mean, you weren’t, you totally sing songs about boinking other ladies. You both just met at a convenient time and were like “I guess you’ll do.” Stop making this sound like she actually held out for you. She didn’t.
You were just kids when you fell in love? AS OPPOSED TO WHEN, ED? YOU WERE BORN IN 1991. YOU HAD TO GROW INTO THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS, PAL. And we know nothing about when this chick fell in love with you. Hindsight is 2020, my sweet little baby child crooner.
Let me put on my therapist hat, my little tattooed gnome. When/why did you “give it up?” I’m curious. Tell us more about that. No? Not wanting to talk about how you likely acted like a bit of an ass to this woman? Okay, let’s keep going.
Can we talk about this one thing, though? Your phrasing is odd. Like, your syntax is fucking horrid, but points to your own self-centered brand of narcissism that has become your trademark. You are the one dancing in the dark, and you have her between your arms while dancing. Not only is this just weird, because the subject/object relationship separates you both, but you’re not even saying that you’re dancing together. You’re dancing, and she’s an accessory placed between your arms. It also sort of sounds like you’re in the 8th grade and dancing like a mummy -- you know, the way kids sort of hold their arms out and sway during slow songs? If they didn’t have each other, they would look like mummies. Are you mummy-dancing with your love, Ed? Or are you just writing lyrics that center around you as the primary figure and place your partner as a peripheral accessory object that is described in terms of her physical relationship to your body parts? Isn’t the point of dancing like that about togetherness, like “we were dancing together” or even using a transitive verb to at least link the activity between you two. Nope, dancing in the dark, and she was an accessory. Like a flashlight or a bolo tie.
I know, I know. I’m so pedantic. And you’re singing about your experience, from your point of view. You’re right -- and I’m not saying you shouldn’t think or sing or say this crap. You can do all those things. And I can judge the living shit out of you for it, because you come off as a selfish, childish, manbaby.
Moving right along...
But darling, just kiss me slow, your heart is all I own
And in your eyes you're holding mine
Ed, you’ve got to cool it with the weird possessiveness shit. But this has given me a great mental picture of her eyes growing tiny hands and ripping Ed’s eyes out of his head while they (the eyes growing the hands) scream “MIIIIINE.” Oh Ed, the beautiful images you paint with your lyrics. Never change.
Baby, I'm dancing in the dark with you between my arms
Barefoot on the grass, listening to our favorite song
When you said you looked a mess, I whispered underneath my breath
But you heard it, darling, you look perfect tonight
See, this shit? This is gold. This is why I have a tumblr dedicated almost entirely to the shameful pile of lyrical poop that is Ed Sheeran’s discography. Let’s break down everything that’s wrong with this fucking terrible refrain that we will be subjected to repeatedly, over and over, on our traffic-laden commute thanks to Top 40 radio’s obsession with Ginny Weasley’s favorite saccharine leprechaun. #magicallypernicious #unluckycharms
She said she looked like shit because a. she thought so or b. she’s thirsty AF. And you’re like “you look perfect tonight.” I mean, that’s sweet, but also, WTF were you doing barefoot in grass with your favorite song playing? Were you camping? Was this a date? Did you tell her that this OBVIOUSLY PREVIOUSLY ORCHESTRATED EVENT was happening? Did you give her a chance to, like, make sure she put her anti-humidity spray in her hair before you took her out to some swampy field and put on whatever her favorite song is? What is her favorite song, Ed? Do you sing it? I didn’t think so. NEXT VERSE!
Well I found a woman, stronger than anyone I know
She shares my dreams, I hope that someday I'll share her home
I found a love, to carry more than just my secrets
To carry love, to carry children of our own
I swear to fuck, Sheeran. Stop.
Every goddamn time I hear this verse, I just cringe. My whole entire body just shrinks up into a massive, painful, muscle-spasming cringe. Part of it is that melodramatic way you sing it, really going to town on the microphone when you sing about “carrying children,” that makes me hope for the cleansing tide of early-onset alzheimers to wash away the memory of ever hearing this goddamn line being belted through the speakers of my Toyota.
And I get it, you were like “hey I’m a lyrical genius, did you know that the word ‘carry’ can be used as the verb when describing someone bearing and/or transporting a physical or emotional load AND being pregnant with a baby? Cool, man, you figured that out and had her carry secrets AND your future spawn, because you are that ~*deep*~ to be like “I can use the same verb to describe keeping secrets and popping out some progeny!”
Do you only value her strength because it’s useful to you??? Way to be. This is why we still need feminism. You are framing this all about what this person can do for you. She can carry your secrets for you! She can have your baby for you! She can be strong for you! As previously established, you are disorganized and have a hard time delegating, but seriously, nobody needs to bear this fucking burden. You’re just like “Fuck her own stuff, fuck how strong she’s needed to be while I behaved badly toward her!” (Reminder: you apparently gave it up and left her for a bit; see verse 1 because you know I keep my receipts).
And really? To carry MORE than just your secrets? Like, that’s already a fucking load to bear and now you’re going to weigh your ladyfriend down like a pack mule with the rest of your fucking baggage? Way to be a gentleman. Grow a pair of gingernuts and figure your shit out, son.
By the way, what secrets are you keeping? Like, big secrets? Like “Dick Cheney would waterboard you to get at them” secrets? Or just, like, whatever you did at music camp when you were 11 and played a little too much truth or dare? You know what, forget I asked, the idea of combining enhanced interrogation with Ed Sheeran’s pre-pubescent truth-or-dare behavior is making me want to bleach my mind’s eye. Carry on, my wayward son.
What dreams of yours does she share, Ed? I know it’s a figure of speech, but last night I had a dream that in the middle of an international cuisine tasting conference, I was tasked with butchering an octopus in a college dorm room and ended up having sex with Ursula the Sea Witch, so I wouldn’t wish my dreams on anyone.
And sharing her home, Ed? Is this your nod to feminism, like oh, despite singing about her as an accessory, I’m going to acknowledge her earning potential and, in this version of the narrative, make sure you know it’s her home. The wage gap doesn’t exist, she’ll be the one to get us a home, I’m progressive! Or are you implying that she’ll be a homemaker? Either way, this is not a good look, Ed.
We are still kids, but we're so in love
Fighting against all odds
How the fuck don’t you realize that I keep my goddamn receipts? You referenced how you were kids back then (see verse 1 above and my joke about being born in 1991, buddy) and now you’re like “WE’RE STILL CRAZY KIDS!” Sweetie, buddy, pal, my guy, the lack of continuity here is astounding, I mean how the fuck are you making so much goddamn money off of these truly awful songs?
I know we'll be alright this time
Darling, just hold my hand
Be my girl, I'll be your man
Nabokov already wrote this novel. You know, that whole “light of my life, fire of my loins, I’m dead when she leaves me” book? Yes? No? Okay, look it up later.
I see my future in your eyes.
Plot Twist: Ed Sheeran is in love with Lolita, but Lolita is an immortal and ageless sea witch. IS THIS WHY HE WAS DIVING RIGHT IN?
It doesn’t matter if her name takes a trip of three steps down the tongue if she steals your voice. How’s that for lyricism?
I have faith in what I see
Now I know I have met an angel in person
And she looks perfect
I don't deserve this
Okay, I was wrong. This entire song is about his complicated relationship with a sea witch who has cast a spell. If you sing it in a minor key, this shit is really ominous. I have faith in the truth that I see now before me, she has revealed her true identity and it is terrible, please make it stop, I see the horrors for what they are now! It’s the angel of death, I have seen her in person and I don’t deserve this torture! She is perfect in her wrath and I must pray now and praise her while recanting my douchebaggery, I am now crying for help in this field as my love has revealed herself as a mirror into my own terror, and I am but a shapeless narrator without an audience, screaming into the void! Is this why she holds your eyes in hers? Is this why she shares your dreams, because she can see inside of your soul and reflect your own desires back at you until you’re blinded and crazed by your own self-centered bullshit? Is the sea witch using the Mirror of Erised as a shield to protect herself from your bullshit?
We’re worried, Ed.
You look perfect tonight
For fuck’s sake, Ed.
#magicallypernicious#luckycharms#ed sheeran#edsheeran#snark#humbert humbert#lolita#seawitch#sea witch#thispartyjusttookaturnforthedouche#gingernut#weasley#garden gnome#nabokov#yes i have an english degree#what can you do with a BA in English#song#singing#lyrics#horror#fanfic references#this entire post is basically fanfic#i didn't take my meds today#self callout#selfcare#redheaded#redhead#dolores#misandry lullabye#misandry
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Death Debts (Jaydick) Part 1/2
For Jaydick week: day 7 Talons/Court of the Owls. Part 1/2.
A/N: Think of this as a rougher first version, there are still some revisions to come before it gets posted to AO3 (so feel free to hang on till then) but this is me, diving in to hit jaydick week. This part is 15k. Theres is possibly another 5/6k more in the last part. Bloody hell this was supposed to be a oneshot.
Having his own prisoner was never in Jason’s plan to get the hell back to his own universe. Having that personal prisoner be a Dick Grayson, a screwed up Talon obsessed with his (un)death?
Oh yeah, Jason was having so much fun.
Helmet torn off, Jason scrubbed at his face, peering at the screen in front of him. No amount of blinking could ease the white screen light that burnt against his eyes. No amount of blinking could change the results on the stolen laptop screen either.
The data didn’t lie. Meteorology activity in the place Jason had woken up, electrical disturbances, blackouts… the whole package. And damn it all if Jason wasn't too familiar with what that meant.
He’d universe hopped again.
Jason shifted in his chair.
Fucking metas. Sure, for a couple of vain moments after the blast of green light, Jason had thought he’d just been knocked out. A hope that gutted out when Jason’s nearby safe house was occupied by a young family, then his second safe house was home to five cats and an old man. The final straw had been the disappearance of all his emergency stashes around town.
It was blind luck he'd found this apartment, an empty penthouse apartment, dust collecting on every surface, but a macbook hidden under the bed.
There were only two outcomes that could get him home. One, that the Batman here was just as crazy prepared as his and had worked with Zantana on the Bat Universe-Corrector (god damn Bruce and his naming abilities). or that two, someone from his universe noticed he was gone, linked it to the meta and then… somehow found their way to him.
Shit and fuck.
“Who are you?”
Jason jerked, falling off the chair and into an easy crouch, hands snapping up his guns by his sides and aiming them straight at the voice.
But only one person stood there and Jason breathed out a giddy laugh, relief knocking through him. For a second he thought it was the meta.
“Thank fuck its only you.” Jason said easily, eying his visitor up on reflex, “Nice getup.”
And it was.
Armour platted, ribbed in gold feather like patterns, high collar and weapons accessible from any angle he wanted to grab them. It wasn’t really what Jason had pegged as Dick’s style, way too cool for him and too many weapons, but hey, different universes, different Dicks. Jason might even like this one better.
But there was something about the armour…
“A bit too much like the Talons don’t you think Dickie?” Jason asked with a notched brow.
Dick stood there, half-wreathed in shadows, face pale and warping down in a frown. He paused, statue still, and Jason felt a prick of unease at the back of his neck, his warning signs kicking off as the blank staring continued.
“What, you don’t recognise me?” Jason tried with a grimace, great maybe in this universe Bruce had left him in the gutter-
Dick moved.
He whirled, spinning, a whistling metallic song as blades materialised in Dick’s grasp. Their sharpened points flashing straight at Jason’s jugular.
It was only instinct, moves drilled in Jason’s DNA, that saved him. Jason lunged backwards, feeling the brush of wind as a blade skimmed past, then grabbed forward as soon as he was able, seizing the armed hand. But Dick was fast, and already another knife from his other hand was slicing up and Jason had to release him to knock it off course. There a microscopic hole in Dick's attack and Jason used it, barreling forward and taking Dick to the ground.
Shit. Dick didn’t just look like a Talon.
Dick hit the ground hard, armour creaking as he didn’t stay down, twisting as if to push himself upright again. Jason didn’t let him, pressing his weight fully Dick, struggling to keep Dick’s rotating wrists from snapping free from his hands.
“Look I don’t want to fight you.” Jason spoke quickly because heck, maybe he was still Dick under that Talon garb, maybe he just needed proof, “Your name is Dick Grayson, you come from the Flying Graysons and-“
An inhuman screech tore its way out of Dick’s lungs, and Jason was bucked off, pushed to the side and Dick rolled on top of him, blades raised high. Death reflected in everyone of those glittering daggers, and Jason moved quickly, he jabbed forward, heel of the palm straight into Dick’s exposed stomach, and when Dick dived down with the blades he was off balanced. Off balanced enough, Jason could force his arms wide as they came hurtling down.
One blade imbedded into the floor beside Jason's ear, reverberating hard. The other almost caught his shoulder, and Jason could feel it pressing against his jacket. And fuck it all, if this continued, Jason was going to die again. He wasn’t a match for this Dick, and Jason knew it instantly. He needed Dick distracted. Luckily-
“When you were very young your parents died in an accident-“ Jason spoke light and fast, desperate to find the word that could be his opening.
There had to be some weakness, some similarity in Dick between Jason's universe and this one.
Dick’s face twisted like there wasn't, like nothing Jason could say would break him. In fact, they made him look more murderous.
“You’re dead.” Dick spat, back arching high like a hissing cat, hands still locked on the dagger handles either side of Jason’s head, “You’re dead-“
Arguably true, at least in the past tense.
But Jason didn’t really want to debate semantics when Dick was distracted.
Instead Jason took his distraction, cuffed Dick under the chin - it wasn’t a good move, Jason didn’t have any power from that angle- but it disorientated Dick enough, Jason could launch up, toppling Dick to the side. Jason went with him as Dick hit the ground, rolling so his legs locked against Dick’s and pressed an elbow tight down his windpipe.
Dick lashed out, jolting and jerking against the hold, but he was unsettled, unbalanced and quickly loosing air.
Jason clung on, ignoring the pain from Dick’s nails as he sunk them deep into Jason’s arm, but finally, finally, Dick went loose. His eyes rolled back in his skull as he passed out.
He held for a long breath, then Jason pulled back quickly, pressing two fingers to Dick’s pulse to check he was just out and not dead. Cause yeah, Jason didn’t want that on his conscience. Even if it wasn’t the Dick he knew. Even if this Dick was totally and utterly a Talon.
Who had certainly killed some one before if that attack was anything to go by.
A strong pulse beat under his fingers and Jason released a fearful breath. Then, aching all over Jason collapsed to the side, huffing out at the ceiling.
“I already hate this world.” Jason muttered to the ceiling.
-=-
Jason was nursing an icepack to his head, a bandaged arm and a hell of a grudge when Dick finally roused again. And when he woke up, it was freaky.
One moment Dick was shifting against the rope, small unconscious twitches, just enough noise Jason had time to look up when Dick’s eyes sprung open and his entire body tensed. It was as if some sort of live wire ran under his skin and it had just been flicked on.
Dick’s eyes snapped to him. Nothing in his gaze but wild instinct.
Jason glared at him, icepack pressed firmly to his head.
Dick’s eyes shot around the rest of the room, then his eyes slipped a bit, relaxed a bit, and Jason was met with the cool disinterested gaze that was so… talon like it made Jason flinch. It looked so out of place on Dick.
How he had ever thought this was His Dick.
And wow that sentence never sounded right.
“That was clever of you.” Dick spoke finally, words a manufactured drawl.
It was a spoken like a threat.Which was clever of him because yeah, Jason had ropes and chains and handcuffs on Dick so managing to sound threatening while bound like roasting hog? Impressive.
Not that Jason would give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
Dick flexed lightly, visibly testing the bonds, and tilted his head. Jason was dead confident in his tying skills, but seeing that movement didn’t stop a small fission of alarm to go chasing down his spine.
“Cloning or advanced mask…” Dick rolled the words in his mouth, “Doesn’t matter. Jason Todd were sentenced by the court. You will die.”
That was a good little information nugget. Jason in this reality had been sentenced by the court. Go this universe’s him. Jason hadn’t accomplished that back home, maybe he would have if the Joker hadn’t gotten to him. Also sounded like this universe’s Jason definitely did die with that death sentence. Which. Least the universes were consistent.
Fuck the universes.
“That’s nice.” Jason said, insincere as he could manage, “Charming really Dickie. Don’t really care.”
Dick twitched a bit in the ropes and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
“You have been sentenced to die by the Court.” Dick said again, like a terse reminder.
“But Mr Bird Fetish,” Jason rest his head in his hand, let his words drag like an unimpressed school kid, “I actually don’t give a fuck about your court right now? Like honest to god that is the last thing I care about at this moment.”
Seriously Jason had a list of Things He Cared About. Right now, Evil Talons Brainwashing Dickie was not even on the list. As far as Jason was concerned that was someone else’s problem. More important on the list were matters like, well, you know, getting back to his own freaking universe. Finding Batman before any other former family members wanted to reveal their own tragic universe counterparts.
Jason had to just remind himself: this wasn’t his shit.
Talon Dick just stared at him, narrowed eyes and creepy as all hell, “You were sentenced by the court. You will die.”
Jason sighed. Yup so not going down that route but-
“I thought I was already dead.” Jason reminded Dick.
Dick’s shoulders jerked, like a whipcord of tension had snapped across them, and then Dick’s head tilted and his eyes widened.
“You were.” Dick spoke clear and even, factual, “But the sentence still stands.”
Jason took a moment to process that. Definitely fuck the universes. Then he stood, dusting off his pants, and drawing the ice off his head with a wince.
“So I have to die twice. Wow that sucks. What did I do to piss you off?” He shrugged, brushing off the thought, he was not going to get bogged down, he wasn’t, “But don’t care, doesn’t matter, more important stuff to do.”
All true. Jason had a fact finding mission to run. He needed a Batman, a Bat Universe Corrector. So Bruce Wayne was going to be his port of call and Jason didn’t need a fancy bat cave computer to find out details about Bruce Wayme. Jason dismissed Dick with a wave, grabbing his stolen laptop and setting up camp on the couch, legs chucked up on the table.
So if Jason Todd had died, and Dick Grayson was a Talon, it really made Jason curious to see what the hell had happened with Bruce. Probably more of a nutcase. Likely more of a nutcase.
Jason opened Google, but like a niggling fly, buzzing around his head, he could feel Dick’s stare drilling into the side of his head.
“What? I’m sure as hell not letting you go so you can grab some buddies and come back – also Dick, your buddies used to be Tim, Damian and Babs not Talons.” Jason played it light and glib, ignored the tiny pit of dread that had opened up his gut about what the heck had happened to them here if Jason and Dick…, “your standards have gone.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Dick said, “They will still find you and-“
“Kill me, wow you don’t say.”
Bruce Wayne. Plugged into Google. Enter and Jason was blinked at the billions of results that filled the screen, flicked over to News and-
Now, this universe was officially the worst.
Bruce Wayne had been missing for ten years since the Wayne Manor Fire. A fire that had started under ‘mysterious circumstances’. No body had been found.
Another quick search and. The Batman sightings were either very old or very odd. Given the existence of Talons… it wasn’t hard to work out what had probably happened.
Jason clenched his fists.
No. This wasn’t his universe. That wasn’t Bruce. Just like that wasn’t Dick tied up across the room. Just like he was still alive and not killed by the Court. Okay. He released his fists, found the cold rationality in him.
The Batcave had been fire proof. And Bruce’s equipment wouldn’t have just vanished with the old man’s death. Alfred was still listed in a sentence as still alive so he’d have them, and Jason would bet anything he’d have gone to the nearest ‘family’ member. So Jason just had to find out where who that was, if there was anyone, and if not, just had a track a unremarkable old man in Gotham’s swarming population.
So yes, maybe this bit would have been easier on a Bat computer. Damn it all.
-=-
Jason had a lead and a 3 am start didn’t seem so bad when he was getting out of apartment had thus far only had disappointments, computer work and near murder for him. He shut the computer with some vigour and turned his gaze on Dick.
“Stay.” Jason told him, setting his hood back over his head, and managed an extra dose of patronisation, “Good Talon.”
Dick narrowed his eyes, “You have been sentenc-“
Jason closed the door quickly, cutting out the inevitable and rolled his eyes. Imaginative this new Dick was not. But then no one had ever accused Court Brainwashing of being the secret to creativity.
Actually Jason didn’t know anyone who’d come back from brainwashing. The thought made Jason hesitate for a moment, pushed up on to the rail, grapple out.
No, Jason reminded himself harshly, this wasn’t his world.
Jason threw himself into the air, grabbing on to the next roof top and hauling himself up and started running again, jumping and leaping over the next roof.
He kept an eye on the streets below, in case different reality meant different street names. But fourth connected to Fifth connected to Old Donell’s to Grey’s, and it was all so familiar. Too Familiar, Jason faltered briefly when it came to make the turn, his feet urging him up toward Ghost’s Corner, near where his old old safe house was, but Jason hadn’t come for that, and his safe house wasn’t in this universe. Instead, Jason made the sharp turn.
Gradually the buildings started to grow higher. Sleeker looking structures took place from crumbling brownstones, and drunk stragglers thinned on the streets below.
It had taken thirty minutes on the sky high route Jason had taken, slower than the cars below, but it gave Jason a good lay of the land around one of the city’s tallest skyscrapers and his target.
Jason crouched a block from it, the tall financial building he was on required some scaling and it wasn’t even two thirds the height of the apartment block next to it. If he wanted to get up to the penthouse of that place Jason was going to have grapple that high balcony and even that was beyond risky. Through his magnifying lenses he could see that fine red line sensor barely noticeably under the edge of the windows and the railing.
Someone that paranoid in a penthouse would probably have pressure sensors.
Add to that, if this was the home of who Jason thought it was? There was bound to be fifty more terrifying surprises.
Jason swallowed.
He was going to have to do it anyway. Set off the sensors, try not killed and then bargain for the piece of equipment he needed. Hopefully, he had it. He was the most likely of everyone in this wretched universe.
Fucking screwed up timeline.
Jason readied himself, reposition himself to a proper crouch and getting ready to leap over the gap when something sharp and cold touched against his neck, finding the very bare crease between hood and neck armour.
Knife or sword, it hissed as it rubbed under the hood.
“Explain your presence.” A voice demanded, sharp and sudden.
Didn’t even need to jump, his meeting had come to him. Jason almost laughed, then quickly decided against as he felt the sword still. Placating, Jason raised his hands, and turned his head slightly, just so he could catch a glimpse of this universe’s Damian Wayne.
Something akin to revulsion and regret twisted in Jason’s stomach at the sight of him. Damian was wearing dark armour, complete with mask, that looked near identical to what Batman wore, but tailored so carefully, and so disturbingly to his small frame. It just made what Jason knew about this Damian feel all the more terrible.
“Speak or I’ll take your head.” Damian’s words were no mere threat.
This was an Assassin and Jason had to treat him as such if he wanted to survive.
“Not here to fight.” Jason said keeping his words light and damn him, quick, “Just to propose a trade.”
Because if he was right, then this world’s Damian had never known Jason before he was killed off - and even if he recognised Jason it wouldn’t be a great trust boost since Jason should have been dead. But, if Jason could get him to agree with a trade… Jason could get the device he needed, and he could trade on the information that was more common knowledge in his world than was here. Like, for instance, the Court of Owls.
Damian could be very business minded and Jason had placed his bets on that.
“A trade?” Damian asked, a touch of archness melded with the cold in his voice, and the sword wasn’t moving, “You were going to break into my home were you not?”
“Look…” Jason trailed off suddenly unsure, he didn’t know if Damian went as Batman or not, and if he used Damian… but surely he’d know that Jason would know his name considering the location… ugh, it was too much so Jason avoided the nouns all together, “I have information on the Court of Owls. Put up as many defences as you like, but you’d like to know what I’m going to say.”
There was a tiny breath from behind him and Jason knew that his hunch was right. He had him.
“And what did you want in return?” Damian’s voice did not give away anything.
Ah the tricky bit.
“To borrow some of your equipment.”
“Which equipment, and how do you know I have it?” Harder, more suspicious.
For all Damian knew, Jason sounded like he was probably looking to make a nuclear bomb.
Jason smiled tightly under his hood, well, the nuclear bomb would be easier than trying to dimension hop.
“You are wearing his old armour -almost,” Which was better than saying you probably inherited it from your dead father, “and I’m not looking for anything weaponizable. More. Scientific.”
“Odd request.” Damian said finally.
Right then Jason’s knees were really started to hurt from the constant crouch.
“You would not even believe my story.” Jason joked lowly, “But the info will be worth it and you can supervise me every step of the way with the device.”
“Assuming I have it.” Damian offered lightly.
This time Jason did move, twisting so he could face that creepy bat-like mask and stare up at him.
“Well.” Jason said dryly, “I’m gonna need to check that you do have what I’m looking for before I tell you anything.”
Damian hummed, a low mocking note.
“Tell me exactly what it is, and I will tell you if I have it then.”
Would Damian help a dimension stuck stranger or just his universe’s stranger? Would he even believe Jason if he’d never gotten to the wacky space-magic part of the Robin internship? What if Bruce didn’t even have it in this universe? Too risky.
“Not that I don’t trust you.” Jason couldn’t help but say, sarcasm dripping from each note, “But I’ll need to see it with my own eyes.”
“What?” Damian asked archly, “Let you wander through all my belongings? That’s not particularly tempting.”
“Yet… if you want the information.” Jason dangled.
Damian laughed, mirthlessly.
“You are in no position to bargain. I have what you want and you have, I’m assuming, no other way of getting it. You will tell me the info, and then and only then will I get you the item you are after and only if I approve of you having it.”
That succinctly put Jason well and truly in a bind. Fuck.
“That involves a lot of faith from my part.” Jason sniped.
Damian smiled, thin-lipped, “You’ll have to trust me won’t you?”
Son of a-
“I think not.” Jason returned dryly.
Damian shrugged.
“Come back at 8pm, and we’ll do this in more comfort in the apartment.” Damian looked at him with something disturbingly predatorily for someone who was half of Jason’s height, “I need to set up my defences.”
Why did it suddenly felt like Damian was going to kill him tomorrow?
Well, this Damian hadn’t had Dick’s or Bruce’s no-killing regime but according to Jason’s research he still had Alfred.
Military trained Alfred.
“Sure, sounds peachy.” Jason agreed, thinly, because there was no choice.
He was going to wear so much extra armour tomorrow. Which fuck- he didn’t actually have because it was all back in the wrong universe.
“Good.” Damian pulled his sword back with a flourish, “Now you were leaving.”
Damian jerked his head at the side, at the hundred foot drop and the closest grappling building out of range. Jason lips pursed, cause, yeah, Damian was so fucking funny.
“Yeah, I was.” Jason sneered, stretching upright, and god, he swore his knees creaked up on the way.
He wasn’t that old, but jeeze, did it feel it then.
Damian was smiling that awful half-smile like he knew how uncomfortable that had been and Jason really wanted to wipe that expression off his face.
Because Jason was a truly an amazing human being, he didn’t. Instead, Jason pulled himself up to his full height and felt some sort of valediction in the fact that yeah, he was still taller than the brat. Damian’s smile dampened a bit like he noticed this too, and that right there, was a perfect farewell.
Jason gave him a jaunty salute, “See you tomorrow Mini Dark and Brooding.”
Damian frowned but Jason took a leap off the roof before he could respond.
He flew through the air, actually making use of his grapples of the way back, looping a long winding track around fourth and fifth until he was sure his black shadow was left behind before he dropped down onto an alley and waited a little more.
All clear and Jason finished his way back to his… stolen apartment. Or something. Whatever the owners hadn’t come home so either it was someone Dick had killed and… done something with the bodies, or they were on holidays. Either way the bills were overdue and everything in the fridges and cupboards was off. So until otherwise, home was were you left your bound Talon prisoners.
Jason cracked the door open, stifling a yawn beneath his fist and kicked it close behind him.
“You miss me Dickie?” Jason called through the apartment, “You’re probably hungry so I should bag a couple of mice for you and a hunk of piz-“
There was a creak and then something whistled through the air and Jason jerked to the ground, narrowly missing a kitchen knife. A kitchen knife currently imbedded dead into the door behind him.
Oh. Fucking-
Jason looked up and saw Dick come charging at him, hands still bound but another kitchen knife in his grip. How the heck-
Jason rolled onto his feet and and jumped back at the slash, then stepped quickly to the side at a stab, and grabbed the handle of the knife when Dick went to swing it a him again.
“You have been sentenced.” Dick gritted out, “And you will-.”
“How did you even get out??” Jason hissed between his teeth as he tried to overpower Dick for the knife.
Dick was strong though, too strong and that was leading nowhere, then Dick’s eyes flashed and there was a leg around Jason’s middle and he hit the ground hard with Dick right on top of him.
As if he was mocking Jason’s earlier take down of him. Fuck there was Dick’s warped sense of humour still in there.
The jerk had loosened Jason’s grip on the knife, and Dick yanked it totally out of his grasp, slashing the inside of Jason’s hand in the process and fuck that hurt- but Jason didn’t have the time to think because Dick had the knife raised in the air pointed right at Jason’s jugular.
“Die.” Dick whispered.
Dick started to bring the knife down and Jason’s eyes jerked wide and he reacted, whipping his forearm up to hit Dick’s chest and rolling them with a jerk of his hips.
“No thanks.” Jason bit out, insincere as he could.
Dick hissed, inhuman and terrifying as they rolled, the knife clattering out of his hands and rolling across the floor. Jason quickly gripped the handcuffs still locking Dick’s wrists together and held them pinned on the ground but Talon Dick played dirty and threw up a knee to hit right between Jason’s legs.
Jason bit hard down his lip and thanked god he had been wearing a cup that day. Still he’d been expecting a Damian sized hit, not a Dick sized one.
Before Dick could try that trick again, Jason knocked an elbow against Dick’s middle, winding him, and rolled them again so he could get a decent leg lock on him.
Dick thrashed against his hold but it was too tight, too strong for him to do anything but wiggle.
“You’re trapped-“ Jason started, going for the old logic route.
Dick cut that idea pretty fast.
“And you’re dead. You are dead.” Dick cursed, seeming more human than he had the entire time.
He was really hung on the idea.
“Yeah well, the court may have killed-“
“I killed you.” Dick spat out and all of Jason’s organs shrivelled up in his body, “I held your teenage body down as it stopped struggling in your pool of blood and they didn’t let me forget it. They made me kill you and they let me keep that memory so you are dead.”
Dick had-
In this universe Dick had killed him.
“People don’t always stay dead.” Jason said, but it was numb, a reflexive retort Jason had used in so many situations.
It felt numb. Jason felt numb. Trying to imagine the bundle of cheer and brooding Jason had known as the young Dick, the sweet Dick Grayson, killing him when Jason had still been a ungainly kid-
It was like a switch had been pulled somewhere in Dick’s head. The Talon froze, body stilling against Jason’s grip. Which was just as well because Jason couldn't feel his own hands too well at that moment.
“They do.” He breathed, and Jason had basically released his hold on Dick but Dick wasn’t moving, hadn’t used the extra space, “They do unless-”
Then Dick just went dead in his arms. Muscles loosing all their tension and relaxing sudden and hard, his head lolling back. Like he’d been switched off.
Jason reflexively checked his pulse, feeling it under his hand. It was like Dick had fainted but his eyes were wide open, still blinking slowly, and his chest was still moving.
Slowly Jason released him.
Dick stayed down.
“Are you…” Jason started.
Dick didn’t move.
This was his chance, the pragmatic side of Jason insisted and he moved.
Jason quickly got up, dragging him back over and tying him to the chair again, doubling the rope, tightening the handcuffs.
Dick just stared into space.
Jason sat back for a moment, staring at him. It was as if he had fallen into some sort of trance.
He had killed Jason. In this reality Dick had killed Jason.
Jason’s stomach flipped strangely and he felt cold and hot all at once, skin prickling.
-=-
Jason couldn’t sleep.
He sat staring wide awake, staring at ceiling, thinking of the boy that would probably try and kill him that night. About the the man across the room who apparently already had. Really made Jason wonder about what Tim, Steph and Cass had gotten up to. If they had plans to kill him too.
At the moment that wouldn’t surprise him.
Still it wasn’t him that Dick had killed, and he wasn’t the Dick that Jason knew.
Jason rolled over to his side , grabbing the pillow and clenching his fingers in to it.
It all wasn’t his problem, none of this was. It didn’t matter how much shit this universe had gotten into because it wasn’t Jason’s responsibility.
But-
But.
The wood floor creaked under Jason’s steps, echoing and making his presence known to about everyone in the apartment block as he made his way across the room.
Jason didn’t know what drew him there, didn’t really think too much about it, but Dick was still bound, bells added on, still safely locked away.
Dic- no- The talon was staring at the ground, eyes blinking, eyes shifting across the floor boards like the most intense staring contest. Clearly he’d gotten back from… whatever the fuck kind of state he’d been in. The Talon’s fingers fluttered at his sides, not trying to escape, but just – moving. Like there was a keyboard Jason’ couldn’t see.
He must have heard Jason, how could he not with that noise and with his training, but Dick just continued.
“What happened to you.” Jason asked, blunt and point blank, falling back to lean against the wall.
Dick’s eyes shot up to him and there was a strange sort of caution in his expression.
“I am loyal to the Court.”
Jason arched a brow.
“Yeah, no, not what I asked.” Jason replied dryly.
Dick’s head titled, and he looked strangely lizard like in the low light. All dark shadows and narrowed eyes.
“Isn’t it?” Dick drawled, “I know what you are.”
Okay this was totally not the conversation Jason was trying to have. Jason frowned.
“You do.” Jason repeated, a little slowly.
For some reason, Jason doubted that he was going to say Dimension-hopper next.
Dick looked away back to the ground, but his gaze was still on the same spot in the middle of the room, and he looked oddly… subservient.
“I am loyal to the court.” Dick repeated, and this time it sounded almost prayer like, “I am their talon in the dark, their weapon in the night.”
Creepy.
Also unhelpful.
“Great.” Jason opined lightly, “So I guess then you are never getting out of those ropes.”
A muscle in Dick’s face twitched.
“If that is what the court requires of me.” Dick said, low, “I live and die at their leisure.”
Dick thought-
“Woa there.” Jason blurted, standing up, “I’m not with the court.”
Dick didn’t look up, kept his head down. Like he didn’t believe him.
“I’m not.” Jason repeated, “I mean no way in hell would I ever join that creepy gang of shadow elitists-“
Vaguely Jason thought he should have stopped talking, should be using this knowledge to his advantage and boy he needed some advantage in this world. But it was too many shades of wrong.
Dick looked up, slow as molasses, something strange in his expression.
“You’re alive.” Dick said like it was his own death sentence.
Jason raised his hands, “Yes but that was a different universe and had to do Ras Al Ghul and a secret society and a Lazarus pit and maybe the world or universe or something being punched but I don’t-“
Dick’s expression could have been the textbook definition of disbelief.
Jason sighed explosively, “It’s true!”
“Its what you remember?” Dick queried lightly, not outright denial, but there was something odd about the way he asked.
“Yes!” Jason agreed, and maybe, maybe they were getting somewhere.
Dick’s expression shuttered off and he looked away.
“They can change memories.” He said, and he sounded bitter.
Arguing with a wall had probably a better success rate.
“Look I don’t care,” Jason dusted his hands in the air, “Believe what you want.”
Jason turned on his heel and threw himself on the couch, rolling to show Dick his back. It was childish and a little foolish, he knew, but the act gave Jason the tiniest bit of satisfaction.
He remembered only when he hit his borrowed bed again what he had wanted to ask Dick in the first place.
Didn’t move.
-=-
Jason dropped an energy bar on Dick’s lap the evening, didn’t say a word and didn’t look when Dick bowed his head his direction. He had more important things to worry about, but Jason still hid the kitchen knives and locked the door from both sides.
It was stupid, because Jason now held no illusions that Dick was at all trapped in that apartment, but still. Just in case.
He felt distracted on the way to Damian’s penthouse, thoughts drifting back to Dick, regardless of what he did. That was dangerous, Jason knew, because he was about to enter a high stakes Poker game with one of this universe’s most dangerous kids.
Fun times ahead.
Damian was standing out on the balcony , arms crossed and mask pushed back. Jason stepped unevenly on the rooftop when he saw that, saw the blatant disregard for his identity but Damian didn’t flinch, didn’t rush to put it on when Jason landed.
Deliberate.
Damian smiled at him, and it was the sort of smile Jason thought crocodiles had.
“Good Morning.” Damian said with a all-encompassing gesture, “Come inside for refreshments.”
Jason hopped down from the balustrade, eyeing Damian.
“Sure why not,” Jason said with a shrug, and copied Damian’s gesture at the door with as much mockery as he could manage, “After all I hate to be murdered outside.”
Damian smirked, looked him up and down and hummed.
“Funny, I thought you were already dead.”
And Damian swept inside, without even a look behind him, showing Jason his back without any hesitation.
Jason froze, watching him go, because Damian couldn’t know, he couldn’t. Jason reached up and brushed his hood to be sure it was all still opague, but it was fine and… and Jason had dawdled out here too long. He swallowed hard and forced his legs to move.
Inside the Penthouse was just as lush as outside. Big marble spaces, with white furniture and gold trimmings everywhere. Damian sat at the head of the long wooden table in the centre of the space, files at his fingertips, a coffee at his elbow and one placed across at the seat to the left side.
Jason could read so much into that placing, but he inside decided to focus on the fact that the coffee was steaming. The Damian he knew, couldn’t boil water, couldn’t make coffee, so assuming this one was the same, meant Alfred was definitely around.
It was a bit silly, but that made Jason feel a little less like he was going to be murdered. Also made his heart feel a little bit lighter but Jason was ignoring that.
Only a little less. Damian was still here, in this room, unsupervised.
“If you are going to insist on standing there, doing nothing, then I think any future deal we will have will be off.” Damian offered dryly.
Jason grimaced under his hood.
“Call it healthy suspicion.” Jason opted, and strolled over the table, wanting to take his time in getting there, “I mean yesterday was swords at throats, today its coffee…”
“Yesterday you were a stranger.” And Damian looked far too smug.
“And today?”
“I…” Damian paused, for effect like the little drama queen he was, “know more.”
“Do you now.” Jason said, mouth on auto pilot.
The seat was pulled out to the left of Damian, and Jason slotted in easily, but instead of sitting on the chair like Damian obviously intended, he turned at the last moment, sat on the table instead, body angled toward Damian. Predictably Damian’s face twitched.
“I do. But if you want to be coy about it, by all means, we can come back to that later.” Damian stood up, no longer dwarfed up Jason, “What is your proposal.”
How did he know and what. Jason had no idea but-
“As I said, simple, info for the lending of some equipment.”
“How do you know I have this equipment?” Damian asked, and it wasn’t a question, Damian just wanted to confirm what Jason already knew.
Jason leant back a bit, hand on the table behind him and watched Damian closely.
“Because it was part of Batman’s old equipment.”
Damian didn’t so much as flinch.
He had to know Jason was connected somehow. Narrowed down the list of people he thought Jason was then.
“Not very specific.” Damian said simply.
“What I need is very specific. Scientific, you could say.” Jason rolled the last word, he couldn’t reveal his hand, not yet, caution was the wiser move.
“You mentioned. And assuming I had whatever it was,” Damian hand-waved lightly, “How am I supposed to find a scientific specific something, I’m sure there would be a great many items that would meet that description in such a collection.”
And here was the next part of the gamble.
“You’re not. I am.” Jason kept his voice level, “You take me to Batman’s old equipment and I’ll know it on sight.”
Damian arched a brow, took his coffee cup off the table and sipped at it. Taking the moments to ponder, to think, when really Jason was sure, so sure Damian had already made his mind up.
“You must be very sure of what information you have-“
“What I have will be worth it.” Jason injected lazily.
“-and it will require great deal of trust.” Damian continued easily, “Especially someone that’s seen me without my mask, and is still wearing theirs.”
Jason smiled thin-lipped, tapped the hood.
“Sorry, this stays on.”
Damian sighed, like he was such a bother.
“Well if that’s it-“ Damian said slowly, clearly looking to close this up.
He needed some bait.
“I know Batman, Bruce Wayne, was killed by a Talon and I know the Court.” Jason injected, stating what he thought Damian suspected.
Damian froze, and something twitched in his face. Quietly he pulled his hands together and met Jason’s eyes.
“Do you have proof.” Damian said, short, succinct.
But his face was white.
Shocked.
Jason knew it like a kick in the ribs, Damian hadn’t really known Bruce had been killed by the court. The news had made it seem like Damian had been searching for Bruce, but Jason had been so sure that Damian know he was already dead. Particularly if Alfred was here.
And yeah, Jason totally felt like the world’s biggest jerk right then. It hadn’t been hard to piece together that Damian had been looking for his father. Easy to find out about Bruce’s death as a second hand comment from Dick more focused on Jason’s own murder.
Damian however.
Hell, it hurt Jason to think of.
What Damian must be thinking-
He had to get home.
“If you want more, we need to have a deal.” Jason said, and god he was going to be the nicest person in the fucking world to make up to Damian for this (even if it wasn’t his Damian).
He was such an absolute shit right then.
Damian looked young, so young, face suddenly vacant and staring at the ground. It was obvious he trusted the words - but why-
Then Damian looked up, his face a mask of cold indifference that started to shatter the moment Damian put it on.
“Yes, now leave.” Damian demanded, voice trembling.
He felt like something awful, something rotting scrapped on the floor and not worthy of anything, but Jason left, pretended not hear the shattering of ceramic as he launched himself off the rails.
-=-
Dick was exactly where Jason left him that evening. Folded over his chair, staring emptily at the ground. The power bar left unopened on his lap. They both knew Dick could at least get one hand free. But he hadn’t even tried.
Jason rolled his eyes, dropping the hood on the table with more force than he probably should have considering the explosives Jason still had in it. But screw it, he felt like shit, if he blew himself up in his carelessness he probably would have deserved it.
And Jason had even less time for Dick’s dramatics.
“So that’s your plan now?” Jason asked, annoyed more than anything else, “Just starve yourself?”
“I live and die at the Court’s pleasure.” Dick said, low, and subservient.
“Well then, eat cause the Court hasn’t issued your death sentence recently.” Jason snipped and hit the crouch, slumping hard against the pillows.
Guilt kicked in when Jason landed, and he managed to ignore it for one sullen moment. Then he sighed, and rolled over and stared at Dick, still bound, still looking sadly at the ground.
Fuck him.
Jason stood up, with knowing he was going to regret every moment of this, grabbed his combat knife from its sheath and cut through Dick’s binds. Dick didn’t immediately jump up, or try to grabble the knife off him and shank him - which was good- but he didn’t really do anything else either. Instead he just sat there as the ropes fell to the ground around him.
Jason stepped back, hands on hips and waited.
“Well.”
Dick glanced up, blinking foggily.
Jason sighed harder.
“Go on, get up, I’m sure your bursting to pee I’ve had you tied up for a full day.”
Dick just continued to stare at him.
“I’m not holding your hand, get up.” Jason said and pushed at Dick’s shoulder.
Dick was blank.
And yeah, this was the bit Jason didn’t want to do.
“Okay, fine, the court brought me back, and they have instructed me to keep you alive and with me.” Jason said, insincere as possible and Jason knew no one in their right mind would believe him.
Then again, Dick clearly was not in his right mind. His gaze sharpened and he rose.
“I live and die at the court’s commands.” He said, almost sounding relieved.
Jason pointed him in the direction of the bathroom and Dick moved off, not shutting the door behind him of fucking course, but at least he washed his hands afterwards and came back. He didn’t even look at the window or door.
Then Dick stood at attention next to him, and Jason threw the power bar at him and grabbed the phone.
After the day he had, he needed pizza and beer. He had a card he’d pick pocketed off Damian, because Jason went full asshole, he went all the way, and was fully intending to use it.
Dick did and said nothing, waiting on Jason with a eerie sort of satisfaction on his face that Jason couldn’t bear to look at.
-=-
At some point after the beer and pizza and another draining circular conversation with Dick, Jason had fallen asleep. A fact that only became apparent when Jason was blinking sleep out of his eyes and the sunlight was sitting just right on his eyeballs.
“Eulfh” Jason said, unintelligently and sun blind as he pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the couch only to have them whack straight into Dick’s bended knees.
Dick? What was Dick?
Dick, Talon Dick, and Jason jolted back, recoiling his legs onto the couch, adrenaline pumping hard and fast. But Dick didn’t move after him, didn’t pull a knife, just tilted his head and watched him.
Or rather Jason thought, kept watching him.
With the same fascination he’d had last night.
Jason groaned, dragging a hand down his face because yeah, thats right.
“Please tell me you didn’t stand there watching me sleep all night.” Jason muttered into his palm.
“I…” Dick faltered, and Jason peaked out from behind his fingers because huh, that was different, and then Dick frown and shook himself, “No. I didn’t.”
It sounded like a lie. But it was an odd thing to lie about for someone that confessed to killing this universe’s younger Jason without a bead of sweat. Jason shut his eyes wearily.
God. It was too much five minutes after waking.
He chose to forgo breakfast in favour of two cups of instant coffee, and with a look at the clock with a clearer head, he knew Damian was expecting him sooner rather than later. He moved past Dick, who chosen to perch himself on the back of a ratty sofa watching Jason move about the kitchen, and stopped himself.
He was relatively sure Dick was not going to kill him, yesterday had proven Dick was sure he was a court member or another Talon or something regardless of what Jason himself thought. He was less sure on if Dick would leave or not to get in contact with the actual Court. Cause Jason knew that regardless of what Dick thought, the Court would think Jason Todd, dead teen come back to life, would be more ‘actual risk we need to remove’ rather than ‘yay new team member’ like it was to Dick.
“You aren’t going to leave are you?” Jason asked, and winced because god, what a weak way of wording it.
Dick blinked slowly, “There is no need to.”
And it sounded honest. But.
“I’m going to have to tie you up. Er.” Jason said awkwardly, “Because I can’t risk-“
Dick didn’t even looked phased, which yeah more than a little disturbing, just got up, moved over to his chair and sat down, arms behind his back.
“Anything for the court.” Dick said, like a prayer, and Jason tied him up quickly thinking about the million the ways he was going to say sorry to his universe’s Dick when he got back.
Or maybe he’d just buy him an enormous chocolate butt and leave it on his doorstep. That might work too.
He left before he could think about it any further.
Of course, once he left Dick, Jason thoughts turned to Damian, and when they turned to Damian they turned to the way Jason had broke his heart at telling him his father that he had spent the majority of his life looking for was already in the ground.
Oh yeah, this universe was so fun.
Damian wasn’t waiting for him at the door this time, nor was he hovering on the adjacent rooftop with a sword waiting for Jason. No, instead Jason landed, unmet on Damian’s balcony and was forced to awkwardly knock on the balcony door.
Damian opened it.
He wasn’t in his semi-batman garb, he wasn’t dressed like a rich princeling with daggers up his sleeve. No. This time Damian was dressed in dark stealth like clothes, loose and made to blend in.
“Hi.” Jason said shortly, “Are you-“
Damian looked at him, blankly, turned leaving the door open, and walked inside. There wasn’t anything else to do, so Jason followed. Damian took them to the dinner room, and where yesterday had been clean surfaces was today organised chaos. Newspaper cuttings, hand-written letters, photos, all arranged across every inch of the long table.
It wasn’t the work of one night, Jason saw instantly, it was the work of years. Too much information, too many likely and different sources given away by the tells of all the varying forms, the fluctuating quality from a blood stained napkin to official police reports.
In the mess, Jason saw Bruce’s name repeated over and over, both in alias and in truth.
God.
“Explain.” Damian said, short and sharp and when Jason flinched up, Damian was staring at him, “I can work out of some it, but… I can’t grasp it all. You said you had information. Explain what happened.”
Damian had dark circles under his eyes, eyelashes were still clumped from tears, and Jason felt wretched all over again. Damian didn’t deserve this, not in any universe, but Jason? He couldn’t help him. Not long-term. He couldn’t stay.
“First.” Jason tasted the words, bitter in his mouth, “We need a deal. What I’m after, for the intel..” Jason said finally.
Damian’s expressed shuttered further and yes, Jason was a bastard, an utter bastard.
“We do not have time for that.” Damian said, slow and poisonous, “I’ve detected…an opening. What you need I have and I can guarantee that, your information is worth less the more time passes.”
An opening. Oh. Hell.
“You can’t go after the Court.” The words fell out before Jason could stop them, high with disbelief.
The corners of Damian’s eyes tightened, “That is none of your concern.”
Jason snorted, “Oh no of course not. Why should I care when it’ll be my information that gets you killed.”
“Exactly.” Damian agreed, the little snot nosed punk, “Now are you going to give me the intel or I am going to have cancel our deal.”
God. Damn It.
Jason pressed his hand against his hood, wishing for once he didn’t have it on so he could pinch the bridge of his nose because fuck his life.
“Look. I think you need to talk to someone.” Alfred, god, Alfred had better be the same in this universe ready to talk some sense into Damian, “If you go in there swinging, you are just going to get yourself and anyone remotely connected with you killed.”
Damian’s eyes were steel.
“Too much time has passed since his… death and in that time the Court has been growing, unchecked, wilder, more ambitious. More Talons roam the night, unmolested, and that cannot stand.” Damian swallowed, shoulders stiffening at his sides and grit out, “I will not let it stand.”
He spoke with an elegance all too familiar to Jason, one that was Talia all over, more so than his world’s Damian. But the stubborn pig headed ambition? Clearly there was a gene for that because that had to be from Bruce.
Damian was going after the Court. With or without Jason and without a Batclan behind him.
Fuck, this wasn’t Jason’s universe. It shouldn’t matter-
“Ok, new deal.” Jason said almost groaning, “I will provide you with intel and I will accompany you as a partner on your raids. Given that you will give me the device I want before the week is out, and that you will get the fucking Justice League when you see you are over your head.”
Damian smiled, and it felt like Jason had just fallen into the world’s biggest trap.
“I can tolerate that.” Damian told him, righteous all over, then without even pretending to seem unprepared for the situation, laughed right ahead, “Tomorrow we begin. The opening I have spotted is where I tracked a Talon to-“
Fuck it all, Jason was going to have get more info out of Dick wasn’t he?
-=-
Dick hadn’t untied himself, hadn’t done anything since Jason had left and Jason felt his insides jumble a bit at the way that Dick fucking didn’t even seem annoyed that he’d been tied up all morning. Everything was so darn wrong, and Jason tried to ignore that particular thought when Dick left to relieve himself.
When Dick returned, perching him absently on the sofa in the best vantage point of the room - which yeah Jason had noticed but he seemed more in wary alert than about to take out Jason - Jason decided pull another particular bandaid. He sat himself on the kitchen stool, swinging around to face Dick put his hands on his knees.
“Right, its time to talk Dickie.”
Dick blinked at him, unfazed, and god it made Jason want to see what he could do to phase him.
“What does the Court require?” Dick asked, easy as breathing.
“The Court,” Jason said with a grimace, and yeah Dick didn’t even seem to react to that either, “Needs to know what you know about the Court.”
Anyone with half a brain could figure out there was something wrong with that statement. But by the looks of Dick’s easy nod, he didn’t have half a brain left.
“Of course.” Dick said.
Well. Jason thought, that was easy. He’d almost thought that might have been the phrase that had triggered something in Dick, like, oh, say, Jason actually wasn’t the Court. Maybe that would have backed up the fifty times Jason had told him he wasn’t the court, and the insincere way he said he was now.
But apparently not.
How screwed was Dick’s head?
“Where is your base?” Jason asked.
Dick frowned, tilting his head, “My Base?”
Terminology maybe.
“Where do you go after to a mission, where do you sleep,” Jason waved a hand, when Dick’s face was still blank, “Er, where do you hang your claws at night?”
“After a mission I return to where I woke, there I either am given in a new mission or I am… stored.” Dick said the last word strangely and Jason stared.
“Stored.” Jason prompted, but he didn’t want to know, he really-
Dick looked at him, curiously head cocked as if seeing something Jason couldn’t, “A room, off a main corridor and I mostly wait. I’m not to be frozen, not yet, my missions are too successful, and the waking is too slow but sometimes it still happens. Between inactivity.”
They froze him. Or kept him locked up in a room. Jason glanced down having to shut his eyes for a moment, but Dick kept speaking.
“The Freezing tube is small, and the process quick, but its tight, and the waking is…” Dick trailed off.
Sweat broke out on Jason’s hands, his mind dancing on the image of a closed in tube, a tight box under the ground. Every breath he made sucking what little oxygen there was and-
Jason forced his eyes open. Dick was staring at him now, and Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that Dick looked… fascinated.
“Where.” Jason asked, voice rough.
“Past the main hall-“ Dick started but Jason broke in.
“No, where is this place, where is the compound?”
“I…” Dick frowned, “I know where but I can’t… The Court… I can’t…”
Dick’s hands were stretching out and back and Dick’s face was tightening, his frown deepening to sharp lines. Mental conditioning. Of course, Jason wasn’t surprised.
“Okay, don’t worry about that.” Jason dismissed quickly, and Dick’s face eased back into its expressionless resting face, “Could you lead me, a Court member, there?”
“Of course.” Dick said without hesitation.
Well. That was something.
Jason paused, as an idea hit him, he looked around the apartment.
“How long have you visited here?” Jason said slowly, because this place wasn’t just abandoned, not a top storey apartment even if it was a dodgy neighbourhood.
Dick actually smiled, looking over Jason’s shoulder.
“Sometimes after a mission I’d return here, store things.” His expression shuttered to something vacant again, “The owners had threatened the Court. They were sentenced to die.”
And die, they did. Jason had no doubt. It made sense why Dick had run into him that day. Still everything in the apartment was old, older than a couple of years. The papers on the coffee table were yellowed, and the old food in the fridge was puddles of mush.
“How long have you been working for them.” Jason asked.
“Time has no meaning.” Dick replied, back to eerily empty, “I live and die at the court’s command”
The question, Jason had already answered through his research, as scattered as he was. He picked up old papers that talked of a Robin before Jason, and the legal documents for Bruce Wayne looking after a ward named Dick Grayson, then the ward had vanished, unmentioned by papers except a sad missing child report. A year, at least on Jason’s timeline, before young Jason had entered the picture.
Then Talon Dick had killed Robin Jason at age fifteen and Bruce Wayne had gone ‘missing’ two years later.
And Jason didn’t want to ask that question, didn’t want to go down that path. He’d already put together the most likely outcome but he didn’t want to-
It wasn’t his universe, he reminded himself harshly.
But none of that seemed to matter anymore.
“Did you…” Jason asked and stopped, swallowed, forced himself, “Did you-“
“I killed you.” Dick said, and Jason’s voice died again, despite the fact he knew this, hew knew this and it wasn’t the question Jason needed to ask-
Dick’s expression was soft around the edges, something torn about the way he slowly slipped to his feet. Jason couldn’t look away.
“Order of the Court was to kill Jason Todd and I did.” Dick said, voice caught in a whisper, looking like that day he’d thrashed and thrashed until he stilled and barely moved again.
“Why.” Jason asked, unable to stop.
Because he’d been a kid-
“Bruce Wayne was a threat. He needed…” Dick said with a breath and his eyes danced down, danced away and Jason knew guilt when he saw it, “And I needed a lesson.”
He’d said that before.
“What did you do?” Jason had stood, barely registering his stool toppling over behind him.
Dick shifted to his back foot, face creasing, and unlike the confusion before, the lines were deeper, the edges pulled, and Dick’s hands pressed hard into his legs either side.
“I failed the court.” Dick said, “I live and die by the Court’s commands and I failed the Court I must be taught, I must be improved. I failed the Court so I must learn-“
“Dick.” Jason interrupted.
“I live to serve the Court. I die by their wishes. But they did not wish me death for my failures, they wished me to learn-“
“Dick!” Jason yelled and he reached forward, grabbing Dick’s shoulders.
Instantly Dick spun, eyes wide, and grabbed Jason’s shoulders and pushed all his weight onto Jason. Jason wasn’t expecting it, and he toppled back, Dick’s not inconsiderable weight pushing him back but before he could hit the ground, Dick moved, and they twisted to land on their sides and the room echoed with a bang.
Jason gritted his teeth, instantly pulling his arms up to break Dick’s hold -
But Dick had let him go, was already crouching low, staring out the window that-
Yeah, that was a bullet hole through the glass that had definitely not been there this morning. Jason’s eyes tracked that trajectory and saw the wall which had been behind Jason’s head moments prior, with a single bullet hole.
Sniper. Shit.
Jason got quickly up to a crouch, reaching in to pull out his combat knife strapped to his thigh, found the holster empty, and saw the glint in Dick’s hand, and instead quickly pulled out his boot knife instead. Dick wasn’t actively attacking him at present so Jason had deemed it a worry-later problem.
Current problem was a sniper.
Jason kept low, moving to the kitchen, to his guns, when two consecutive shots rang out. There was a crack of wood breaking but Jason quickly glanced back to Dick saw Dick unharmed but tense, and Jason knew he was certainly not hit, so why-
Then the window in the kitchen smashed open and the living room window exploded inward.
Jason just managed to roll to the side, to avoid a knife swipe and a follow up jab and Jason sprung to his feet, swinging out, but his arm was blocked by a forearm to his forearm, so Jason grabbed that arm, and ducked the follow up swing and spun his attacker over his shoulder and on to the ground.
Jason had just enough time to appreciate that yes, yes that in fact was a Talon, and this time with a face Jason didn’t recognise, and also oh shit, that was a Talon, and now Dick was armed too, he would swap sides and join the living room Talon and this Talon, and this time Jason might actually die again.
Then his thoughts were back on the fight as the Talon surged to his feet and slashed fast and hard at Jason. Jason ducked and weaved, blocking what with arms, and let the Talon drive him back into the kitchen and away from the other two. There was a minute gap in the Talon’s defences and Jason drive his knife forward in his own upward slash. He only skimmed the armour, but his knife caught the edge the Goggles of the Talon leaving the woman temporarily half-blind and Jason took his chance, kicked at the Talon’s head, landing a decent blow and then kept his momentum going and spun and ducked into a sweeping kick that had the Talon falling down and actually landing hard this time.
Jason glanced up quickly ready for the next attack from someone else, but instead there was only Dick running toward him, glinting knife in hand and Jason swore.
He lurched back, bringing his knife to a good defensible position, but Dick was fast too fast and Jason had moment to truly appreciate what an idiot he’d been trusting Dick with that knife, when Dick swung down his blade and-
And stabbed it right into the rising Talon’s eye. The Talon who had a blade a whisper of breath over the artery in Jason’s leg.
The Talon gurgled, then collapsed, knife spinning out of his control and away from Jason’s leg, and it was just Jason, squatting in the kitchen splattered with blood, a dead Talon at his feet and Dick hovering close enough to touch.
Dick slowly pulled back and Jason saw the blood he didn’t see earlier, the dark sprays of it on Dick’s armour, and the hand just visible around the corner.
“Well that… was unexpected.” Jason said, as level as he could, and then cause apparently he had a death wish, “You said I was sentenced to die.”
Dick moved, slick and stable, pulling himself up in a loose easy stance, eyes flicking across the windows.
“And die you did.” Dick said, cool as a cucumber with blood dripping down his blade, “The courts orders were to stay with you.”
Well the court orders Jason had lied about.
“Yes.” Jason said, stupidly. Because fuck, he didn’t actually expect it to remain like that in a combat situation.
Dick’s gaze flicked back over Jason’s head, to the living room and back.
“We need to move. I have a couple of other places, not known by others.” Dick said, all business.
“Yeah. Okay.” Jason said pulling himself upright, brain buzzing, mouth moving on autopilot, “Shame this hole was really becoming home.”
The biggest lie he’d ever told, but Jason looked up to Dick’s face, because Jason hasn't been the one storing things here for years, not little knick-nacks, not coming back here again and again…
Dick was looking right at him, “There are more important things.”
It felt like double-speak, and Jason stared at him for a moment, a moment too long because Dick turned, back a shifting wall of armour between them.
“Right.” Jason said, and his throat felt dry.
He needed to get out of this universe.
-=-
Damian's lead was a block of abandoned apartments, scheduled for a demolition last year that had never came. It hardly screamed Court of Owls to Jason as he inspected it with a dry eye crouched next to the mini-batman. The Court of Owls he remembered from his universe were rich snobs, mansions were their sort of thing. Jason could even dimly recall Alfred mentioning an underground lair, a labyrinth where Bruce had been captive. This, with its crumbling brick work and shattered windows, boarded doors, didn’t really look that sort of establishment.
“You sure?” Jason asked, keeping to the shadows.
Damian finished typing on a small computer, folding it away in his back pocket. He glanced over at Jason, white lensed eyes narrowing.
“Its not the Court.” Damian said with a sniff, “There were only four guards inside. Hired guns running high end narcotics. Cops en route.”
Wait.
“What do you mean ‘were’.” Jason asked.
“Were.” Damian repeated like Jason was an idiot, “As in, there were four guards but since I’ve disabled them there are now no guards. I’ve already looked inside but since you are the resident expert-”
“Jesus fuck.” Jason hissed, standing up stiffly because god damn it, “And what if it hadn’t been just four guards.”
Damian blinked at him, a stupid smug smile curling to life on his lips and damn Jason just wanted to wipe that look off his face, “Then I would have dealt with it.”
“And what if it had been the entire court you had just dropped in it? How exactly were you planning to get out then huh? I wasn’t here!” Jason waved an arm down at Damian’s stupid outfit, “I’m sure your ‘good’ and all but these people killed Batman and you had no backup-“
“I had backup.” Damian interrupted, smile faltering a bit at the mention of Batman.
Cocky, brash, fuck that was all too familiar. Jason had almost had this exact conversation before, only from the other side.
God. Was he turning into Bruce then??
“Alfred does not count-“ Fuck. Jason cut himself off but it wasn’t fast enough.
Not fast enough at all, Jason should have swallowed the damn sentence down because Damian straightened, eyes too bright and smile stretching wide. Just like Jason had just confirmed a theory. Fuck it. Damian had to know now.
“You really are pathetic at this cloak and dagger stuff, Hood.” Damian’s voice dripped with success, “Just give it up already.”
“Look. Kid.” Jason gritted out, ignoring Damian’s last comment entirely, it was safer that way, “If we are working together, that means we are working together. We scout, we go in together, or I just don’t tell you shit.”
“This output was from my intel.” Damian crossed his arms, “And if you withhold on me, I withhold on you.”
Fucking. Hell.
Jason pushed out a breath, and paced an angry line across the roof. Fucking hell, how had Dick been partnered to Damian without going crazy??? How?? Jason forced himself to a stop and glowered as best as he could through his helmet. Sure Damian couldn’t see it but it did make Jason feel fractionally better.
“Ok. Look, maybe you don’t trust me-” Jason started.
“You are still hooded.” Damian interrupted with a lazy shrug.
“But I reiterate.” Jason raised his voice a little louder, “If we are working together, we work together. I can hold myself in a fight, I’ve lasted against Talons before and clearly I need what you have.”
Damian shifted, arms crossed, mask warping as he moved through emotions Jason couldn’t quite name.
“I am aware of your fighting prowess.” Damian said, as if it was some great allowance, “And I suppose because of your expertise in the Talons means I would have a greater advantage in the field.”
Yes, Damian would. And a bigger advantage than he knew. Because his universe of not Jason was personally invested in not adding Damian's death to his conscience. The kid was a jerk, but there was a heart in there somewhere. Perhaps buried deep underneath the condescension and the pig-headed arrogance.
"Thank you for that grand and great compliment." Jason couldn't help but respond, words drenched in sarcasm.
"Your welcome." Damian, the brat, took it sincerely, "Now this was my lead. What are you going to add to this partnership?"
Partnership. The word gave Jason a terrifying vision of his future, playing the wayward Robin to Damian's mini Batman. And damn he needed to go home before that ever happened.
“I need to do some final confirmations." Jason said, "Be ready tomorrow night, midnight.”
Final confirmations being finding Dick’s hideout and checking there were enough Talons around to get Damian to admit they needed the Justice League. Then getting the device, and then getting the hell out of Dodge.
Hopefully.
-=-
Dick’s new safe-house was a cold, magazine-looking apartment in the Westend. Owned by a woman who worked more overseas than she did in Gotham and only came back, like clockwork at the end of each month. Dick had sworn it was unknown by the Court, found only by him on accident when he murdered a man nearby. Which was a another fun fact about Dick's terrible life.
Jason was due to meet Dick there after his little catch up with Damian, but, four buildings away, Jason swung to a stop. His neck prickled.
Dick's apartment scraped into view around the office building. No lights, no movement, nothing obvious about Jason's location about life. Unsurpising as Dick did tend to live in one spot in the dark but...
Something in the very edge of Jason's vision moved and Jason ducked under the rooftop ledge. He held, still and steady as he could, his hands pressing tight over his guns, a kick of adrenaline surfing high in his veins. Then, gradual as a glacier, he edged up, risking a glance over the ledge.
A figure was leaping high in the air between buildings, caught for a breath in the glare of neon billboard. Then they landed on the office building, two across from Jason, and slipped like water off the edge, effortlessly disappearing down the fifty story height. The shadow glinted with a gold edging that was all too familiar.
Talon.
Fuck. Dick.
Jason tensed, rising to his feet. Dick was in that apartment he-
A hand flattened over his mouth, yanking him backwards and Jason kicked off the ground, intending to tilt their weight backwards but the figure who grasped him just stumbled back, retreating until they fell under the shadow ventilation unit and Jason twisted-viciously, turning, gun raised close between them-
“Jason.” Dick breathed, goggled eyes over Jason’s shoulder, “Don’t. Move.”
Jason had listened to orders for years, and just like that, the old training came back and Jason froze. They were close, Jason’s gun between their chests the only thing in between them. So close Jason could see the flecks of grey in Dick’s irises as his eyes flicked behind him. So close Jason could see an old scar nicking across Dick’s jugular, so eerily similar to Jason’s own. So close Jason could feel Dick’s tension wind up, like a coiled spring mounting.
The city glare reflected on Dick’s goggles darkened for a short, heart stealing moment and Jason’s hand tightened around his gun.
Jason imagined being caught. Imagined a hundred Talons finding them. Imagined Dick finally turning.
But then the glare returned, and Dick’s eyes tracked over Jason’s other shoulder.
They stayed, pinned together for another eight breaths, each feeling longer and longer, until Dick nodded, a slight jerk of the head and slipped out between Jason and the shaft. Dick poised, head twitching each direction then darted out.
Jason followed, close to Dick’s heels as he dared, down from the rooftops and sticking close to the sides of the old buildings. They stayed close to fire escapes and stopped at any movement above them.
Twice they stopped for an stray cat. Once for a rat in an alley.
Twenty minutes later Dick stopped in a Church roof, ducking behind a gargoyle. A familiar gargoyle and Jason bit down a misplaced sense of relief. Familiarity was not safety. Not by a long shot. A lesson he’d learn a long time before Bruce.
“So. They have clearly marked out all your former kill spots.” Jason told him, because it was obvious that they would have, it was stupid mistake of Jason to assume they wouldn’t have.
First rule of decretive work, work out where the criminal knew, where they had been before.
Dick’s head tilted, and despite nearly twenty minutes of flat out parkour, his breaths were even, “The rebel faction is larger than I anticipated.”
Large enough to be the entire Court. Jesus fuck Jason was literally skating an inch from death with these lies.
“Yes.” Jason said, tried for once to put some sincerity into it, “We can trust no one.”
Dick’s eyes fixed on him, and for a moment Jason thought that this, after all the bald faced lies he had given, that the only lie he’d put effort into had backfired. Jason shifted his weight to hind foot.
“You can trust me.” Dick said, and bowed his head, “I live and die by the Court, I serve-“
Nup. Still skating an inch from death then.
“Dick. I know.” Jason broke in, not wanting to spend more time reliving those fun vows, changed the topic entirely. “You told me once that you could lead me, a Court Member, to the place where the Court was storing you?”
Those sort of sentences had been why Jason had been so blaze with lies before.
Dick’s head rose, and his face had stilled, the faint brushes of expression he’d had before, cleaned off. It was funny to realise just how much Dick expressed himself now, after a only a couple of days in Jason's company.
“Yes. I can.” Dick’s eyes dropped down Jason, to his guns, to Jason’s waist where his swords were still clipped, his mouth tightened, “We will not survive a confrontation.”
That could have been a subtle insult to Jason’s fighting skills, or a general comment about the number of Talons. Jason couldn’t help but think it was a combination of the two and he frowned.
“I don’t want a confrontation.” Jason heard the sour note in his voice and continued, rougher, “We need intel, I want to stake it out, and since we currently have no safe house and no place to be…”
Cause when fate closed a door, or when Jason fucking locked himself in, he broke a window out.
“You are too loud, too obvious.” Dick decided, the most forthright thing Jason had heard yet from him, “Stay behind me, follow my footsteps.”
Just like Jason had been doing for the first half of his life. Fuck. Also-
“Fuck you I’m-“ Jason started and Dick’s mouth did something, flicked out wide, like-
A smile. Dick, Talon Dick, was smiling. His face lighting up like Dick’s, like Jason’s universe Dick. And fuck it all, Dick looked-
“Fuck you.” Jason continued, had to continue, clip his mouth shut, before he said something stupid.
He turned away, a strange feeling in his chest, hollow and too full all at once, and didn’t even get the chance to push it down entirely until Dick’s hand was hitting his shoulder, thumb pressing into his muscle.
“Follow me.” Dick said, and there was now that mirth in his voice as he added, “Softly.”
Jason groaned to himself as he followed Dick off the Church. Because save him, Talon Dick had found his sense of Dickish humour.
-=-
Of all places, Dick lead them to a series of low office buildings, right on the edge of the Docks. Four large old squat buildings, pushed between two warehouses made with a flat roofs and clear, almost painfully clear, rooftop entrances. Certainly not the mansion with the underground labyrinth Jason had been expecting, but then again, that mansion had been for the Court. This was just where they dumped their playthings.
“Here?” Jason questioned, low in the apartment they’d broken into.
Dick glanced at him, and pulled something from his pocket, he straightened it, flicking it forth until it extended, like a telescope. He took a quick look through it, adjusted the view and offered it over, careful to keep the angle the same.
“Here.” Dick confirmed.
Jason glanced through the telescope, it was angled at the a section of wall just jutting out from the warehouse. However, that was not what Jason saw through the telescope. Instead of wall, there was a small series of ledges, leading up to a small landing and a door. At that current moment a Talon was climbing the ledge. Jason pulled the glass away, the Talon disappeared and Jason was back to looking at a boring old wall. It even managed to look brighter as the sunlight slipped across it from the East.
Clever.
“Any other entrances?” Jason asked, offering the scope back.
“Three.” Dick folded the scope away, “The storm water drain, the right warehouse has an entrance and grate on the centre roof. The warehouse is filled with workers loyal to court. The grate is techically an entrance, however its electrified and netted with lasers and I've never seen anyone come in that way. If you wanted to be the first you'd have to be a lot thinner.”
Humour. Again. Dick turned to him, as if waiting for the response his witty remark had got him. Jason pressed the corners of his mouth down flat.
“And I’m guessing the storm water drain…”
Dick sighed, like Jason was missing out on his wit the magnanimous gift it was, “fingerprint recognition before a guarded entrance.”
“They have their own power generator?” Jason asked, casting another eye over the offices.
Normally accessing a target meant sweeping around it, checking records and dates and times of people leaving. They didn’t have the time, not if every moment they spent out on the streets meant the Talons were closer to finding Dick, closer to working out who and what had happened and they couldn’t risk circling the building on foot. It had only been a gut instinct and Dick’s timely arrival that had saved Jason from another conflict before, Talons were too quiet, too subtle.
Even Dick, in this screwed up universe, was softer and faster than Jason could have ever remembered him. Perhaps not as physically strong. But knives never needed more strength to part flesh.
“I am…” Dick seemed to struggle, “A generator I don’t…”
Another one of those few unanswerable questions.
“All good Dick.” Jason brushed off, because they would if they were any good.
And the Court was.
And all Jason had to do now was show Damian that they needed the Justice League and then get the Universe Hopper and-
“Have you seen enough?” Dick asked.
Dick.
Jason forced a tight smile, “Not quite, we’ve gotta take the scenic route out.”
Dick arched a brow. But waved a hand to gesture Jason forward and followed him out.
-=-
Jason’s boots hit Damian’s apartment at 11:00pm, the balcony doors opened and Damian sitting at the long table, sipping at a drink. He glanced up at Jason, not a hint of surprise on his face and gestured to the seat beside him.
“Drink, Hood?” Damian offered, swiping at something on his tablet.
“You’re a bit young to be offering me that, don’t you think?” Jason snorted, and took the offered seat.
There was another tablet on the table and Jason picked it, up, gratified to see it was all ready unlocked, and a map of Gotham lay at his fingertips, he zoomed in on the docks, and icons over each building popped up. Jason resisted the urge to snort, it was a mobile friendly batcomputer for the discerning Gen Z Batling. Good to see Damian was typical regardless of the universe.
“The drink offer was for tea or coffee, not any alcoholic beverages Mr… Hood.”
Alfred. Jason tore his eyes up, to the now open door on the right, and there was Alfred. He looked older in this universe, grief wearing deep circles under his eyes, a hunch in his normally straight back and the bones in hands were pronounced as he held his own cup, sipping from it slowly.
“Hi…” Jason darted a quick look at Damian, who cocked a brow at him, sitting back, and since Jason had already stuffed that secret, “Alfred.”
Alfred’s mouth thinned, and he eyed Jason steadily, as if attempting to peer through Jason’s hood from half a room away.
“I do not believe we are acquainted?” Alfred’s voice was all distrust curled in British indifference.
“We aren’t.” Jason turned back, pointed as he could, to his tablet.
The silence road in the room, high and uncomfortable as Jason pulled up the specs, playing oblivious to the looks Damian and Alfred clearly passed between each other. Then, abruptly, Damian snorted, pulling his own tablet to him, the same office blocks that Jason was looking at already on them.
“So then, I guess your research was successful. This is their hideout?”
The specs on the screen were the blueprints from the council, the latest one, renovations done in 97, had a layout that was as labrinyth-esque as office blocks could go. And a layout that completely contracted the blue prints dated two years earlier, and an exterior that hadn’t matched up visually with what Jason had seen.
“This is more of a Talon storage point. Their weapon hanger really.” Jason cast his eyes up, found them meeting Alfred’s, “If you go after the court, I want you to see all the resources brought down upon you.”
“Yes, yes and so I’d give up, you’d call the Justice League, and you get out with your device.” Damian rolled his eyes, “Your plan is terribly transparent. But there is a flaw with your plan, I’m assuming to test their resources you were planning to get them to react to something, which would inevitably increase their awareness and ruin any surprise we would have had when we go for the Court itself.”
Damian would have been correct. Had Jason not appeared in this bloody universe.
“You are not going to get them by surprise.” Jason winced, thankful his expression was hidden, “The Court is already on alert.”
“Oh really?” Damian’s voice was flat, “Did a Talon go AWOL?”
Jason had known Damian would hear of the scuffle with the Talons. They’d left the bodies in the floor of the apartment after a loud fight that the neighbours would have called in. But Damian had said AWOL, not dead, and there was no way, no way at all that he could have known about Dick.
Still Damian looked too confident, too knowing.
“The point is,” avoiding the question was as good as admitting it, but there were no good options left to Jason, “That the Court is alert and checking their strength and now is the only time we can blame some one else.”
That was what surprised Damian.
“Blame the AWOL Talon?” Damian shot a fire quick glance to the tablet and then to the Jason, eyes narrowing, “Explain your plan.”
“You’ve still got the motorcycles?” Jason pulled back to the larger layout of the Docks, “I'm going to need to borrow them and a couple of other gadgets.”
"To do what exactly?" Damian pressed again.
-=-
Dick’s armour was on the smaller side, but a cache of hidden buckles and straps meant that it still fit. It was tight, breathing in deep was hard, but the ensemble was light, easy to move in. Too light, Jason had doubts about the armoured nature of the outfit but. Hopefully he wouldn’t need that.
According to Dick the storm water drain was recorded for five miles either direction before the hidden entrance. So, by now, surely, they would have picked up on him, coming from the East.
But Jason’s only company in the tunnel remained the sloshing of his own footsteps, and the squeaking of distant rats.
Jason pressed on, shoulders back stiff and soldier like as he’d seen Dick do. Mimicking Dick’s movements were easy, Talon Dick had Dick’s liquid grace, one that Jason studied for years, that was broken up with a military stiffness that wasn’t unlike the SAS training Jason had endured in his rebirth training sessions.
The tunnel sloped around a corner, and the entrance came into sight. It was innocuous, a bit like a service door, round, vault-like door with a rusty looking keypad beside it. No obvious cameras, no high tech gadgets sticking out, just a very smooth looking job.
Jason went up to the key, and scraped his fingers carefully around the outside of the lock. The lock came up, like a flap, just like Dick had said, and the fingerprint pad stuck out.
Pulling a glove, Jason pressed his finger down. The silicone fingerprint over the top read quick and clean, flashing green and the door popped softly, and Jason flipped his gloves back on.
He cracked the door, glancing inside, hand pressing to the inside rim of the entrance.
There was a corridor, dark and long leading to a staircase, lit by warehouse styled long lights. Doors bracketed the corridor, every five metres or so, keypads and folders outside each one.
A shadow peeled off near the wall, and Jason held still as a tall, willow-like Talon prowled for him.
“Who do you serve?”
Jason ducked his head, held his hand to his chest, “The Court, I live and die by the Court’s-“
A finger ended with a savage looking metal claw, pressed under his chin and Jason’s hands dropped to his sides as he let the Talon bring his head up. He grasped the knife hilts at his side, and held perfectly still.
The Talon’s goggles were clear, and Jason saw the grey dead looking eyes inside.
“Who are you?”
“A Talon, a weapon in the night, a whisperer following the Court’s commands.”
The claw pressed deeper, pricking with pain.
“Who are you?” The Talon asked again, and there was a flicker of movement down the hallway.
Well. Jason had been expecting to get farther, but…
“A talon.” Jason breathed, hand firming around the handle of his dagger, “A weapon-“
With one hand he grasped the Talon’s arm, yanking down from his neck. The other plunged up, slotting in deep between the Talon’s ribs, just deep enough to risk a puncture of a lung if he pulled it out.
Then Jason shoved him back and it might have been shock, or may have been Jason had nicked something else but the Talon fell like a stone, hands at the dagger, mouth still open. Jason did not have the time to see him land, the darkness was moving, Talons materialising, glittering with blades.
Jason ran. He skidded to the door, ducking low, four blades flying over head, and dropped the flash bang and sprinted.
For a moment the drain lit up behind him, bright as daylight, every scrum line obvious on the wall, the rats scuttling away, and Jason’s exit two metres away and the next it was pitch dark.
And in the darkness, the sounds of boots moving in the water filled the air.
It was a blind grab to find the ladder, and Jason scrambled up, shoving up and driving right into comparatively bright street. He hauled himself up, nearly clearing it when his leg spasmed.
There was no time to think, Jason hauled the rest of himself out, saw the knife imbedded in his calf, pulled it out, tossed it to the side and slid the manhole cover back over.
He hurried to his feet, each step awaking the injury in a fissure of iron-hot pain, but he made the corner before he heard the manhole cover clatter open. Another corner, leading to a small alley and there, in glorious metal was Damian’s bike.
Jason flicked out the key, and hit the gas as soon as he was able. He rocketed out of the alley, three Talon divings for him at the entrance, their fingers scraping ineffectually across Jason’s back and the motorbike’s case, and Jason hit the street hard, skidding around to the major street in view.
His right arm jerked forward and a starburst of pain bloomed in his shoulder, radiating down his entire arm like a hot poker shoving through his veins, shocks vibrating through his hand.
“God damn Talons” Jason hissed out, barely seeing the road under him, the turn and traffic coming up, “Fuck.”
The bike wobbled beneath him but Jason clung on hard with his left, pushing the turn to right and breaking neatly between two oncoming cars. The cleaner, two cars in Jason’s sight and he pressed down as hard as he could, hearing the bike turbo’s whine high and thready underneath him.
“I’m fine. Totally fucking fine.” Jason tried to steady his breaths, but in each inhale it felt as it something was punching him down, pushing the air out.
He needed to access the damage. Fuck.
He pushed south, until the buildings were larger, flasher. Then with a flick in the mirrors he pulled hard into a alley.
As soon as he’d slowed enough, Jason glanced over his shoulder
There was a knife in his shoulder, almost in his armpit, blood trickling down in steady waves. Jason plucked his right hand from the motorbike, and attempted to curl his hands. His right hand twitched, and the fiery breath of pain licked right up his arm localised in a tight ball at the knife.
“Just Fantastic. Exactly what I needed.” Jason squeezed his eyes out.
The knife had hit a nerve. Jason needed to pull it out before it severed it. But. He needed to pull it out in a way that also wouldn’t server it.
Fuck.
“Right. This is fine.” Jason pulled out his empty knife sheath, unclipping it, and sticking the rubber in his mouth.
He bit down hard, the bitter taste of grease hanging in his mouth, and curved his right shoulder in as far as he could manage, and reached with his left hand. He touched the knife, a firm a hold as he could manage.
It flared, deep down to his bones and Jason bit down into the sheath hard. He imagined for a tenuous moment his arm sliced off, and surely, surely, that would be less painful. But the pain didn't stop, didn't end, and Jason's grip tightened.
“Right.” Jason muttered, blurred words with the sheath.
And he pulled.
The whiteness flooded back in, pain like fire igniting in his shoulder and his arm and then the ground raced towards him, the heavy motorcycle bearing him down.
Great, Jason thought, absent and foolish as he slipped, dying in alley, his life was so glamorous.
He was out before he hit the ground, the knife clattering from his hand.
#jaydick#jaydick week#jason todd#dick grayson#aoida fic#dear lord i tried so hard to finish this and I nearly did#four-ish more scenes to write#def not happy with the editing here so WILL ATTACK before a03 posting#talon!dick#fanfic
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I started paying real attention to music in 1989. I was at summer camp and I taped two U2 albums, War and Unforgettable Fire, on someone’s boombox that had two cassette players so you could make tape copies (also, later on that same summer, I bought The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry, my first purchased cassette). I was 14 years old. I listened to Unforgettable Fire a lot, War not so much (I got into that album much later) but at the time I gravitated towards The Cure more. It isn’t until Achtung Baby (an album that, over 25 years later, still gets tons of play in my home) that I fell in love. Every U2 album released since then has, on first listen, been a letdown. They’ll never make Achtung Baby again. It is a messy, beautiful, dark, noisy masterpiece. Let’s do the post AB rundown: Zooropa has a few classics but also has many (too many) throwaway tracks. Pop is admirable in its bold attempt at, basically, anti-pop pop, but I still can’t make up my mind about whether or not it’s any good (I like it, though I spent years unable to stand it). All That You Can’t Leave Behind was well received because it basically wasn’t Pop, but it’s a bland album that has very few keepers (I’m a guy who cannot stand Elevation, but there’s no denying Beautiful Day is great). How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is a great late U2 offering (what a great album title!) and while it’s uneven – especially in the back half – it has some truly amazing songs and renewed my faith that the band was capable of greatness. Then they release No Line On The Horizon, which is their worst album by a mile. It opens AMAZINGLY well, the first few moments of the title track are a burst of great, noisy guitar and really dynamic singing and everything works so goddamn well and then they shit the bed with a chorus that stops the momentum of the song dead. The album never recuperates. It has songs that range from “it’s ok, I guess” to “awful”. I love this band, but there you have it. Here’s the funny thing, though: that album is bookended by the release of two U2 classic singles: Window In The Sky, a fantastic single released in 2006 that was never on any album, and the powerful Invisible, released in 2014 as a single and later showing up as a hidden song on the deluxe edition of their next album, Songs Of Innocence. Again, both of these tracks are top of the shelve U2. Just when you think that’s it, they’re out of ideas; they give you a nugget of gold to prove you wrong. This brings us to Songs Of Innocence, and album best described as fine. It has some good songs, no classics, and a few throwaways on the b side. So the post Achtung Baby U2 is a band that is easy to love (they keep coming up with great singles) and easy to be let down by (other than Atomic Bomb – which comes closest to being a fully great album - most of those albums are good to great EPs padded up to long players with a handful of disposable tracks…)
And this all leads us to Songs Of Experience, their best, most even album since Achtung Baby. Not as good as AB, but what a relief to hear a U2 album with no skippable tracks. Not a one. The quality varies, they’re not all classics, but there’s nothing on here that makes me ashamed of liking that band (I’m looking at you, Stand Up Comedy). So let’s have at it, shall we?
It’s earnest. I think that’s what I like the most about it. It wears it all on its sleeve. It’s fragile and vulnerable and scared and angry and in love and thankful and happy and romantic and loving. So it’s cheesy. It’s corny. Three songs have the word “love” in the title. There’s a lot of talk about the power of love all over these songs. To me that’s a good thing. I like cheesy, my friends know this. Show me a teen movie third act victorious prom scene and I will cry, guaranteed. So I’m fine with someone one belting out that Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way. You, however, might not be. This is my review. Go be cynical somewhere else.
Another thing that will maybe put some people off is how clean and safe the album is. This is a white glove album. Nothing here will upset anyone. U2 have done stuff in the past that, umm, flustered some folks (I won’t get into any of that here, this is about the music) so I think they had a very strong desire to please. That being said, this is superb, efficient song writing. So let’s talk about the songs. All of them. Yes, this will be that type of review.
The album opener is called Love Is All We Have Left. It’s great. It reminds me of Unforgettable Fire era U2, more specifically its B side. It’s a subdued, short song (under three minutes) with no drums and no guitar (unless it’s heavily filtered and I didn’t recognize it as such). Just strings, voice and studio fidgiting. It’s lovely and earnest and full of grace. Maybe it’s cheesy. It’s a fantastic start to the album. It also has the only weird, out of left feel move on the entire album: on the second verse the voice is auto-tuned. I love it. It feels a little like Bon-Iver, maybe. It works, and when the voice returns to swoon us into its chorus, it’s all the more effective. Might not be everyone’s cup of tea, though.
That is followed by Lights Of Home, which is kind of part Rolling Stones, part White Stripes, with a great gospel bridge at the end. Simple chords with no showy effects. I think it would have fit nicely on Rattle And Hum, an album I really like. The Haim sisters are on this track. I really like the gospel bit.
You’re The Best Thing About me is the weakest song on the album, but it has such a great, catchy and infectious chorus that I can’t skip it. I’m just not crazy about how it starts, but I like everything after those first 30 seconds. There’s a lovely bit of The Edge singing (who, by the way, does stellar backing vocal almost throughout the album) towards the end, something about someone needing to be loved quietly, which I think is beautiful.
Get Out Of Your Own Way is stadium-sized U2. A big, Beautiful Day-style anthem full of hooks that, like some other songs on this album, could be faulted with trying a little too hard, but I like that. It’s better than not trying at all (and in U2’s defence it has never felt, in 40+ years of making music, like they didn’t care about the music they are making. These guys try, like, all the damn time). That song ends (and the next one starts) with a powerful guest spot by Kendrik Lamar. I’m just mentioning this. Maybe you like him? He’s there.
American Soul is GREAT. I loooove how that song starts: Kendrik Lamar says what he has to say and then some big, fat, dirty chords are banged out of a guitar, it feels like White Stripes again, with the drum pounding in time. Just two chords. Bam-Bam. Then silence. Then two more. BAM-BAM. Then two more again. Then the song takes off. An angry, anti-Trump, pro-refugee, pro America (the inspiring, idea of America, not the travesty of that dream that’s on the news every fucking day). That song is the first of two songs that borrow from Songs Of Innocence. In this case the chorus is taken straight from a bridge in the song Volcano. It is used better here, in a song that is better than Volcano. This happens again on the album closer, we’ll get to that in a bit.
Summer Of Love is a great little diddy, with a beautiful vocal melody and simple chords stripped once again of the big fat pedals effects that The Edge is normally so fond of. The song is great, it never goes for epicness, it never tries to be more than what it is. Just a lovely little song. Well written, everyone in the band understanding where this thing needs to go (this is true of the entire album: it is played by a band whose members are all on the same page about tone and feeling and purpose, it shows). I have a criticism, though. In the middle of the song there is a switch. It’s good. The guitar becomes a bit distorted (just a bit, calm down) and the vocals become more dramatic for a bit and then the song returns to its status quo in a formidable bit of manoeuvering and strings come in and it’s all good, but that initial switch is a bit weird. It feels like another song was tacked onto the one you’re listening to. It’s a rushed bit of mixing. But that doesn’t kill the song, it’s just a transition that maybe could’ve been smoother. Or maybe that’s how they want this to sound, who am I to judge?
Red Flag day is one of the stand-out tracks from the album (certainly from the A side – the B-side of this album is unbelievably strong). This song sounds like War-era U2. It feels rebellious and youthful. The guitar and bass hooks are so fucking good. Very propulsive. Again, very simple chords, very little effects. Just good song writing.
I love the next song so much, but some people won’t stomach it I think. It’s called The Showman (Little More Better) and it sounds like early Beatles. For real. It’s a light, insanely catchy little pop gem that hasn’t failed to put a smile on my face since my first listen. Maybe U2 aren’t supposed to do Beatles-type songs, but here I am, glad that they did.
The Little Things That Give You Away is a highlight for me. It could fit on Achtung Baby (after So Cruel or something). It starts off slow and builds up to one of the most classic, chill-inducing U2 moments on the album. It starts like something on Unforgettable Fire, with vague (but beautiful) echo-y guitar melodies that support the gorgeous vocal work. The chorus is achingly melancholic, and the final bridge builds and builds until you realize your feet aren’t touching the ground anymore. Definitely a keeper.
Landlady is a love letter from Bono to his wife. It has a classic U2-sounding guitar, think Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree, a lovely vocal melody, and a lot of respect, love and gratitude. It’s another one that doesn’t strive for big anthemic swells of melody, it is content to just be as beautiful as possible. What is interesting is that they could have easily made that song bigger, the final third begs to escalate, but the restraint is more powerful.
The Blackout is another rocker like American Soul. It is very much Adam Clayton’s song (the bass is so good). It has a good sing-along chorus but everytime you get back to the verse the song shines more. It’s fist-pumping, feet-stomping rock and roll. They have been trying to write that song for a long time, it seems (what with the Vertigos, the Get On Your Boots and so on) and here it feels like they know what they have is special.
Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way, the penultimate song on the record, will test you. It is really, sublimely cheesy. I like it a lot. I find that there is something defiant in being so boldly hopeful in these difficult times, to place all you have on the unstoppable, all-consuming urgency of love. The song is filled with gorgeous melodies, but there is, in particular, a chant that happens towards the end of the song that is so joyful, so buoyantly optimistic in the face of adversity, that it lifts the entire thing a mile into the sky. This is, once again, really big U2.
The album closes with 13 (There Is A Light). This is the second song to borrow from Songs Of Innocence, this time they re-purpose the entire chorus of Song For Someone, and once again I believe the end result is more powerful. This song mirrors the tone of the album opener. It is more atmospheric, with Bono quietly crooning to a slow subtle emotional build that pays off in beauty but not flamboyance. The song never gets big, it gets softly magnificent. Its restraint is resplendent. It’s a perfect way to end the album.
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Can you do this old Prompt: Tony mpreg –> After Civil War (-movie) Tony has a one night stand and ends up pregnant, he’s far too much focused on his high risk pregnancy to care about the avengers legal troubles. Vision and Rhodey overing,and more tony mpreg.
ANON HOW DID YOU KNOW!!! Day and night I think about Post CACW Tony not giving a single fuck about Team Cap, his only concern going to his child(ren). I literally could not stop thinking about this and i had to write something. I hope you like it.
“Mr. Stark?” The Doctor was leaning over him, trying tocapture his wandering attention span.
Weakly, almost like his brain couldn’t put together thesounds to respond, “Yeah, I’m listening.” He wasn’t. The doctor went back toexplaining the ‘next steps’ as they were putting it. But Tony was stuck atstart.
Pregnant. Henever thought that word would be directed at him. He was careful, he took everystep into making sure this wouldn’t happen. Condoms, birth control but stillhere he was. Sitting, alone with the only doctor he could trust enough to examhim.
Dr. Michael Oddman (and boy did he live up to the last name)was someone that Tony had stumbled across years ago. It took a real long timefor Tony to be comfortable with the man, but Doc never changed just smiled thatsame goofy smile and told Tony if he was good he’d get a lollipop. Aside fromhis out-there personality Dr. Oddman was a great doctor and has been able to keepup with Tony and his own out-there personality for the past decade or so.
“You’re not listening to me Mr. Stark and I was going tothrow in a sticker with your lollipop today.” Dr. Oddman sighed and shook hishead at the omega. “Honestly I don’t know why I bother to explain anything, I’llmake sure to send all the correct information about the next steps of yourpregnancy to Ms. FRIDAY.”
Dr. Oddman was shuffling papers on his desk when Tony finallyseemed to come out of his shock a little bit. “Doc what do I do?”
“That’s for you and your alpha to figure out….” The betadoctor scribbled down a few more annotations and then turned around to face hismost loyal patient. Looking at the omega the doctor jumped and then quicklymoved to bring the younger man into his arms. Tears were streaming down thebillionaires face, eyes wide open and looking lost.
“I don’t,” He choked back a sob, “I don’t know.”
“Know what Mr. Stark?” The doctor was shocked, all the timesthe omega came to him, whether it was reluctantly or barely conscious andheavily injured, he never saw Mr.Stark shed a tear.
“The alpha, I was upset, drunk. Hooked up with a randomstranger, I don’t even know their name.”
Dr. Oddman just pulled the disheveled omega closer, rubbinghis trembling back while he shed silent tears into his doctor’s coat. “It’s goingto be okay Mr. Stark, we’ll figure this out. I promise.”
When Dr. Oddman made a promise, he kept that promise. True tohis word the doctor helped him figure everything out. When Dr. Oddman’s shift endedthat night he ventured to Mr. Stark’s San Francisco condo, where the omegawould stay when he was recuperating or needed to see his primary doctor. Acouple years ago Dr. Oddman had moved to San Francisco when he got offered a positionhe could turn down. When he told his patients about his move most were sad tosee him go but wished him the best of luck. When Mr. Stark found out, he boughta condo within walking distance of his job.
So that’s where the doctor went, together with the help ofFRIDAY they got to work. They set up a doctor’s schedule for Mr. Stark and showedthe man a few trusted doctors that he would have to see throughout hispregnancy. Laying out the basics of his new diet (which was very strict due tohis health issues, arc reactor damage was not good for baby conception), someexercises that he should start now to help with his ankles and back furtherdown the road.
It was a lot to take in but Tony was feeling a lot betterthan he had when the news was broken to him.
Later that night after Dr. Oddman had gone home in search ofsome much needed rest and he had his next four steps planned out and FRIDAYlooking into someone high rated parenting books, Tony laid in bed. Curled tightaround his stomach, one hand gently rubbing over his still flat stomach Tonywhispered into the dark of his bedroom, “We’re going to be okay.”
Months later hidden in the depths of Wakanda, a team of felonsraged on.
“I can’t believe! A year, a full fucking year we’ve been hereand Stark hasn’t done a damn thing to bring us home.”
“Clint please…”
“No Cap, this is bullshit. We’ve been here a year and are nocloser to going home than we were three months ago. I would have thought thatwe would have been home months ago, yet it’s a year and not a single thing hasbeen done to get us back to the US.” Clint was furious, he was missing precioustime with his kids and wife, he hasn’t even been able to communicate with themoutside of a few letters he was able to get to the with T’Challa’s help. Scottfelt the same, although he was feeling less anger than the archer.
“I hate to say it Cap but I miss being state side, Wakanda’snice and all but I feel like were just sitting pretty in a fancy cell.” Sam wasright, The UN was still out for them, arrest warrants out for all of them afterGermany and him breaking the team out of the raft. During their time away Stevehad tried to reach out to Tony but he never heard anything from the other man.
T’Challa was an amazing host, keeping them safe in hismansion while also trying his hardest to clear their names without rising anysuspicions. One night he had pulled Steve aside and admitted that short of somesort of disaster that without Tony’s help, he didn’t think he’d ever be able toget them home.
For months the UN argued and debated on what to do about theRogue Avengers. Some wanted their blood, others were trying to be practical.
“Without Iron Man we need other supers to help protect us.”
“They are nothing but criminals, why let them off so easily?”
“We need a defense in the case of another event such as NewYork.”
“They deserve to rot in jail cells for the ignorance and destruction.”
“I’m not sure if I or my people would feel safer at the handsof the Rogue Avengers.”
“After all that I’ve seen I’d rather put my trust and safetyin the hands of Iron Man.”
“Iron Man isn’t here, who do we have?”
“We could work out a deal with the Rogue Avengers, or reachout to Mr. Stark.”
“Where isTony Stark?”
And there it is. The million dollar question everyone wantsanswered. Where is the superhero Iron Man?
A few miles of the shores of Lake Eire, a baby cried in thearms of his mother.
“Aw baby,” Tony Stark, the man everyone was looking forgently lifted his 3 month old baby boy into his arms. Bouncing and rocking therestless pup in the cradle of his arms. “Shh, hush now little one.” The omegarocked back and forth, his pup held tight against his chest, gently rocking himand cooing to calm his cries. When his baby started to calm he brought him awayfrom his face so he could see those pudgy cheeks. Hazel eyes that flashed goldwhen the sun caught them just right stared up into the geniuses eyes.
“There you are,” He gazed adoringly at his child. Littlehands waved about and the little tatter tot gurgled at his mother happily. “Comeon nugget, the stars shine bright tonight.”
Happy gurgles and breathy sounds seemed to agree with him sohe made his way to the second floor back deck that was just outside hisbedroom. Outside Tony stood under the dark night skin that shined bright withhundreds of stars. To most the sky would have been breath taking but to Tonynothing compared to the little bundle of life in his arms.
That night, the stars shined bright, glittering in greetingas if the universe was speaking to them, whispering with the cool breeze.
Because the universe knew, Julien Edwin Stark was going to be okay.
Comments and Likes mean the world to me. Thank You!
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part time lover x 2
2 || take care
“Are we cooking lunch, ordering food, or going out before we hit the road?” Lita asks as she puts the finishing touches on packing Demetria’s bag, and I shrug.
I could go for food, but the thing about going with a toddler is kind of tricky. All of the three choices are sensible, but, will she even eat anything? We shared a tub of yogurt a little while ago, and she ate all of her breakfast… she might not even be hungry.
But if she is, is it worth going out for? Will she get distracted and want to talk more than she wants to pay attention to the food in front of her? Will she want something, and then, when me and Lita food comes, ignore her food in order to eat off of our plates like she always does? As a matter of fact, we always end up sharing anyway. Even if I know her order and Lita’s order by heart, they always end up on my plate.
I know my daughter though. At the end of the day, she probably doesn’t want to go anywhere. She never really does on the last day we have to spend together. She tends to just be up under me, and doesn’t want to leave my side, or Lita’s, really. We just huddle, hover, and be there.
It can’t hurt to ask though.
Nine times out of ten though, if we ask her, we’ll either be eating chicken nuggets, or Papa Diablo’s pizza. Which is fine, even if Daddy wants Chinese and Mama won’t care because she’ll eat anything, really.
“I wanted to go get some Chinese, but… what you think, Meme? What are we eating?” I ask as I secure the last purple barrette onto the end of the second of the two french braids I put in her hair. I’m always on daddy duty with no complaints.
“You done, Daddy? I wanna see,” I pass her the Barbie themed mirror and she smiles at her reflection.
“What’s for lunch, Meme?”
She shrugs softly just like I do, but then turns around and goes, “Daddy, I want pizza.”
I’m not surprised. I watch Lita laugh before going back into the stack of circulars on the living room table to find the Papa Diablo’s circular.
“Pizza it is then. Go make sure your bed is fixed and all of your toys you’re taking with you are packed up, please.” She hops down from the stool and goes back into the bedroom we designated as hers for when she’s out here, and I watch Lita motion for me to come over as I clear the kitchen island counter of hair accessories.
“You goin’ to this?” She motions towards a flyer for a R&B Karaoke night that Luke is hosting tonight, and I almost forgot about it.
“Yeah, I almost forgot. I gotta figure out what I’m wearing,” I sit next to her, and she puts her foot in my lap. I make my fingers spiderwalk up her long, smooth legs and ignore the fact that she’s set to leave in a couple of hours.
“Don’t wear that leather vest and them boots either, you ain’t a member of Jodeci.” Lita teased, and I laughed.
“That was last time, damn. I dunno. Might just channel my inner Ronnie Devoe and go as Bel Biv Devoe,” I muse, and Lita laughs.
“Kenny gon’ be Mike Bivins again?” She asks, which immediately causes me to bust out into laughter. Kenny got one role as Michael Bivins -- did damned good in it, and it took him months to break character. I know he wouldn’t mind doing it again.
“You know he’ll be hype to put that damned character back into use. Fuck yeah. We’re doing it. I gotta call Max, he’s gonna be our Ralph. I’ma make sure you get the videos and pictures too.” I smile, hype about it as I pull my phone out of my pocket and begin correlating the plans, while she smiles at me and starts to complain softly about missing everything, which makes me sit my phone down.
“You don’t have to. You still haven’t figured out anything?” I ask, as she shrugs her shoulders.
The plan was simple, at first. She would graduate with her associate’s degree, transfer to USC, and when we graduated, we’d be married. Very simple, but, we don’t seem to go on the path of conventional milestones.
We had a lot of turbulent drama, we had a kid, and we fell apart… only to quickly make sure we would always stay true to each other, even when we couldn’t fully have each other. So, the desire to get back with each other started to become more and more important, but, the ease of the situation was long gone.
Somewhere along the line that spiraled into, okay, but where’s Demetria’s going to go to school? Where are we going to live? Off-campus living and commuting will make it a little harder to get around with a kid. We need to find her a good daycare, too… and a bunch of other things that made sense. She was worried, but for good reason, and all of her worries put a pause into progressing something I initially assumed to be hella easy, but it turned out to be anything but.
“I know we can find a nice apartment easily, but it’s the other factors that we need to finalize. Give me until Thanksgiving. I’ll have something then,” She insists, and I purse my lps together. It’s not that far off, but shittt….
Now, I’m going to be sitting up, rushing that time to get here even more.
“Shit, If we could stay here that would be nice, but it’s too ducked off. You're right though, we’ll figure something out. So.. does that mean you and Meme are coming up here for Thanksgiving?” I ask, those plans not really being confirmed either.
I had Thanksgiving last year, and we shared Christmas. I get Demetria for Winter Break this year, and Thanksgiving is always either here or there, a few times, both places. Demetria loves the scenery of the car rides back and forth, and now, with my job at Gold’s Gym and a couple of coaching gigs, I definitely make enough to keep my tank filled to make the trip.
“Yeah, I think we will. I wanna see how Monica’s gonna do in the kitchen anyway,” She says, and I immediately wince.
“Oooh shit. I didn’t even think about that. Mo can’t cook.” I laughed more at Monica’s impending misfortune than anything if she really showed her face.
Internally, I also winced because fuuuuuuck. For a woman who really tried her damnest to try and fit in, I knew if my Momma and lil’ sister didn’t give her hell immediately, my cousins and aunties would, and that would be before Lita even got up to cook.
It’s a production in my family when it comes to holidays, and I know damned well Mo ain’t ready. I didn’t even think about how much of a setup it sounded like it was shaping up to be. Oh well. Lita starts talking about how it’s going to be a hot ass mess, like she can read my mind.
I get distracted in the drama that is Bad Girls Club on the screen, and kinda tune her out, until she grabs my face, and pulls it back towards her.
“You better quit zoning out on me,” She demands, and I smile.
I just don’t wanna amp her up. If Monica does come, I know it’s going to be a shit storm. And I don’t have to think too hard to know that she’s definitely going to make sure nothing stands in the way of her coming.
“I’m not, I’m also sitting here thinking about how it’s gonna end up..” I start, and she shakes her head at me.
“She was a damned good mother, she was my professor, she was… a murderer,” My head whips towards the TV in slow motion as I hear a familiar voice, and look at the face of death staring back at me as a mugshot.
I freeze.
For a minute, everything feels like is happening in slow motion.
“Anya Jones was just your average, hard working mother who would do anything to make sure her teenage daughters were able to live the best life possible. But, a hidden past life ripped everything Anya knew away from her, including her daughter and husband, who was left for dead…” The promo for the next episode of Snapped starts to play, and I push my tongue into my cheek as Lita quickly starts to dig into the couch for the remote.
“Shit.”
“I didn’t think it would have the promos up for this so soon,” I quietly admitted as Lita pressed her lips together, and looked over at me.
“This is the first time I’ve seen them on TV, actually. Do you wanna-”
“You don’t have to stop watching what you’re watching boo. It’s cool.” I tell her, and she looks a little defeated before she nods, and then switches positions so she can lean her head on my chest.
It’s quiet now, and the mood’s kinda fucked up...
We don’t talk about Anya Jones. We just don’t, because, there’s not going to be anything good to say about her. Lita’s Mom is the she who must not be named in our shared households. Five years ago, she started down the path that would ruin not only the lives of her two daughters, and her husband, but would ripple into my life, my parents’ life, and the life of my then unborn daughter as well.
I can tell you how it all got kicked off, but I can’t tell you what happened following the climax. At least, not in my own words. It’s been four years since I lost a chunk of my short term memories. It’s been four years since what everyone just brushes off as the most traumatic event of my life, but… I’m here.
The events that went down four years ago really changed everything I knew to make sense to me. It’s been four years since Lita left to go to New Mexico, a place where I thought she’d never return from. It’s been four long years since my then girlfriend disappeared in the middle of our sophomore year, after a life changing situation for the both of us.
But, that’s behind us now.
I’m just glad I’m still here. In the process of things falling apart, there was chaos, there was a lot of fighting, and there was murder and attempted murder as well. I almost died in a car accident that caused a head injury for me, and Lita’s Dad damned near lost the usage of his legs. That I do remember. Anything immediately after that, it’s like I’ve mentally blocked out the events that happened from my memory. I ended up with memory loss brought on by psychological trauma, which gave me a case of short-term amnesia, among other things.
But, I do remember that that accident was worth getting into. We needed to get to the hospital. I remember that. I just didn’t think we would end up in the hospital, because Anya was trying to kill not just her husband, but me too.
On the night Demetria was born, she almost lost her Daddy and her Papi, as she calls him, but I’m glad the both of us survived. I get pissed off every time I’m reminded about how I missed the birth of my first born child. It was almost a fair trade; my life for my daughter’s, but in the end, I just ended up sacrificing a large majority of my memories instead.
I remember bits and pieces of what happened that prior to and following month, but not everything. I’m not too out of sync when it comes to someone else telling me their version of what happened, but who knows which one is really the truth?
All I know for a fact is these three things: Lita’s going to be back for good after the semester ends, I’m here for a reason, and soon, I’ll feel as complete as I used to, once I figure out everything that really happened to me.
For a long time, the woman sitting next to me, talking to our daughter about customizing the Pizza we’re gonna have for lunch, was unreachable to me. There’s a lot of twists and turns in our story together, with bits and pieces still being unpacked to this very damned day. The most constant part of every version of the narrative pins her mama as the big bad in all of this -- that I know is factual without anyone having to back that up.
I haven’t seen Anya Jones since I googled her name and had the story confirmed that was told to me about how she had been caught up in a scandal, ran away from Los Angeles with her oldest daughter and her then unknowingly pregnant teenage daughter in tow, and how she tried to kill me and her husband when we set out to go and rescue her.
Dealing with Lita has been the reason for what I can say was definitely the most traumatic, most straight out of a lifetime movie moment I’ve had in my entire life. And being able to barely remember an accurate account that wasn’t written by a journalist, covered and dissected on someone’s blog, featured on an episode of Snapped that I declined to participate in, or churned through a rumor mill… fucking kills me.
To this day, yes, I have trust issues.
I only trust in the woman sitting next to me, and less people that I can count on my two hands put together. I’m paranoid sometimes. I have separation anxiety when it comes to her, but I’ve gotten a handle on that. I’ve learned how not to let the distance overwhelm me. I have trauma induced PTSD -- there’s a laundry list of things wrong with Demetri, but that’s why I need my anchors, and I know she’s the heaviest one I have on my side. It’s been four years and I don’t know what to believe -- anyone could be lying to me, really -- but with her here by my side, I know there’s less of a chance of that happening to me.
That’s why I know I need to do whatever I need to do in order to make sure she stays. I could watch the episode when it premieres, and I will. I want to. I just didn’t realize it was this close to airing, because I remember them shooting it; I remember keeping Demetria while Lita and her Dad did the recorded portions for it around this time last year. I declined to take a part in it.
But, I’m going to watch it. I know it’ll help, and my therapist can agree that it will, if it doesn’t get too damned triggering in the wrong kind of ways. I’m hoping it will. I’m hoping that means I’ll be one step closer to being able to really answer, What Happened To You?
I wish I knew everything. It feels more like I’m imagining a story that someone told me - which very well may be the case. But, I know I don’t want to spend the summer obsessing over it.
I have to start small though. I’m one step closer to having Lita and my baby girl back, and that’s enough, for now…
I just don’t know how long it’s going to last.
“Stop crying,” I instruct Demetria for the fifth time in the last couple of hours. She just woke up from a nap, and even though she’s eating cold pizza before she climbs into her seat in the back of Lita’s Jeep, there are tears streaming down her face.
“You’re gonna see me again for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year,” I remind her as she smiles softly and I wipe her face. She smells like pepperoni and baby, and I don’t want to let her go, but I have to.
“I love you Daddy,” She squeezes the fuck out of my neck, and I hold her just as tightly. I smile as I put her into her booster seat and kiss the top of her head.
“I love you too, Meme.” I close the door, and round around the back to close the cargo door.
Lita’s still standing on the outside, staring at me. I stretch my hands out for her to fill the space and she laughs and slowly approaches me to fill the space. I slide my hands down her back and grip her ass as I hold her close to me, and kiss the top of her head, then her cheeks on both sides, and then her lips.
“I’ma be expecting a call six hours in,” I wrap my arms around her back, and she laughs into my neck.
“I’ma be glad when you won’t have to anymore. I’ve been talking to Juliani, trying to come up with a plan. I’ll keep you posted…” She softly says as I mumble soft sounds of agreement, but I don’t want to let her go, either.
“Please behave yourself at this party tonight,” She starts, and I exhale softly. “It won’t be long before we’re together again, but I’m not trying to wake up to no surprises..” Lita sternly insists, and I laugh into the mess of curls on top of her head as she hugs me a little tighter.
“One of us has to let the other go, Meech.” She utters, and I scoff softly. This is the hardest part.
“Okay,” I hear her, but I don’t. She lets me go after another long kiss, and then a long exhale.
“I love you,” She thumps me in the forehead and I laugh, and I know she’s trying to break the tension that always comes with a goodbye, and I appreciate her for it.
“I love you too, ya’ll be safe. Call me.” I instruct as she nods and it takes a minute before she starts up and pulls off, blasting Q’s latest as she heads out.
It takes me a couple of minutes before walking back to my own car, and just sitting in it. I get a little paranoid about driving. I have to check the backseat a couple of times, check to make sure there’s nothing tracking my path, or nothing out of the ordinary.
Once I’m satisfied, I get into the car just to sit in it, really.
It doesn’t take long for my phone to start ringing though, and with it being off of Do Not Disturb, I debate answering the Facetime call from Monica. I’ve missed six calls and have seven ‘call me’ texts that seem to have sobered up in comparison to how she filled my damned inbox last night. She’s not going off of Do Not Disturb, though.
Monica does the most to get my attention when we’re in off mode, and I hate it. She comments on all of my instagram photos. Sends me posts on Facebook Messenger, or writes on my wall -- but she can’t now, because she’s been blocked for a good two months now. I just haven’t cared enough to block her anywhere else just yet. She tweets me, filling my mentions with emoji eyes, or she favorites random tweets of mines, or just DMs me with pointless shit.
I see all of it, and ignore it.
It’s not going to change anything though. It’s fucking annoying, but even though I’m just sitting here, I won’t call her, which I know would get her to stop. She doesn’t want to really hear about my weekend. She doesn’t want me to twist the knife deeper into her side, knowing whatever I say about Lita and I will immediately make her annoyed and aggravated due to jealousy and whatever the fuck’s wrong with her.
And, thankfully, or really, as we get closer and closer to Thanksgiving, unfortunately for her, she doesn’t know about Demetria, and I know that will kill her. More and more, I’m not really wanting to use that kind of information to put a true end to Monica’s persistent attempts to get all of me, but… I’m thinking about it. Trying to wean her off of me? Harder than I thought.
She’ll be home to annoy me soon, so, instead of hitting her up and possibly falling right into a trap, I opt to head home, and hope she hasn’t made it back yet.
It takes roughly twenty seven minutes in LA traffic to get home. I pull up to the student housing building known as The Trojan Lofts and try my hardest to see if Monica’s windows are open and her curtains are drawn back. I can see her windows when I drive into the parking lot, and thankfully for me, they’re dropped and the windows are closed, meaning, she’s not there....
Hopefully.
I can only cross my fingers and brace myself for when she confronts me, because I know it’s going to be a motherfucker. I’m not really in the mood to argue over dumb shit either, so, whatever she’s constantly hitting me up about, I’d rather not really deal with it unless it’s quick and painless.
Making my way towards the building, I press my lips together as I see other people in the midst of departing and coming back home, anxious to get midterms over with so they could have another tiny break of freedom before finals pop up. I definitely understand the rush. I smile at a few faces, and get asked about my weekend as I get my mail from the designated box. I bite down on my bottom lip as my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out and see who it is, and exhale softly, knowing it’s not Lita, but someone just as familiar.
Kierra Rogers: How as the weekend with the wife and kid?
I smile as I look around the lobby, and spot her sitting in the sitting area designated for guests. Instead of going up, I walk in her direction and sit across from her, and accept the hug she gives me. When we pull apart, her eyebrow is up, and I’m smiling.
“It was okay, but, I’m ready for a major distraction tonight.” I respond as I slide my phone back in my pocket, and she smiles.
Kierra’s special to me. Whereas everyone knows Lita has my heart, mind, body, and soul, sometimes, we bump heads, we spiral out, and we go on breaks. I still get my daughter, I still love her mother, and, I understand the frustration of being twelve hours apart and wanting other things to keep us busy -- I don’t fault her for that. There have been others for her, and there have been others for me, but, I’ve always been open and honest with them, and with Lita about them, and I never allow myself to fall in love, or be put in a position to where I can’t walk away.
I didn’t think the separation was going to get us like it did, but in the beginning, it was hard as hell to figure out a medium. We were still in High School after the dust settled, and, until senior year, I wasn’t driving anymore. We attempted the long distance thing, but, it was just too much for the two of us, with so many other issues at the time to stick it out.
Honestly, it got so bad at one point that Lita had another boyfriend, and me, well… I had Kierra, who I met during my junior year of High School. As high school came to an end and I went off to college, Kierra was a student at USC as well, friends first, before anything else. While me and Lita were still trying to figure out the best methods to stay together, and Kierra found the occasional boyfriend, I also managed to get my hoe phase out of my system. But, out of the four girls that I really fucked with heavily, Kierra was the most permanent fixture.
“Monica’s been looking for you,” She smirks a little, making the corners of her lips rise knowingly as I wedge my tongue in my cheek.
“She’s back already?” I ask, and Kierra shakes her head.
“Nah, but she’s been texting me in the group chat, being fucking annoying about you not going to Sacramento with her and everyone else.” Kierra rolled her eyes as she slid her phone my way, and I clucked my tongue at Monica’s almost frantic inquiries about wanting to talk to me when she got home but not knowing what to say or how to say it, and, it being easier to do if I came with them.
“I didn’t make any promises to go to Sacramento though,” I tell Kierra, who lives across the hall from me, and also opted out of the road trip to Sacramento with Monica, our other roommate Noelle, my other best friends, Queenie and Jacob, to shoot episodes of Queenie’s online web series.
“She thinks you should have. What the fuck did you do now?” Kierra questions, and I shrug. Honestly, you never really know with Mo’s ass, so, I guess I’ll figure it out when she comes back.
“Ain’t no tellin’ with her, and you and I both know this. But, enough about that, you coming to The Den tonight, right?” I ask, and Kierra smiles.
“Me and Erykah are gonna be Sherane and Sydney,” She says, and I groan softly.
“How long has Erykah been back, and why hasn’t she called me?” I ask, curious about Kierra’s best friend, and sometimes, a third party in our situationship.
“Not long, and, I don’t know. I mean, I do know, she has a girlfriend now, so... looks like you won’t be fucking that,” Kierra says, and I laugh softly as I watch the lobby begin to fill with familiar faces that I know are following Quentin, another one of my best friends, home to kick off the party tonight.
“Yeah, well, neither will you. But yo, I’m about to catch up with Q… come pregame with us before we go, alright? Gimme some love,” I pick Kierra up from her seat as I hug her, and grip her ass in my palms. She pushes me upside the head and promises that she will, and that’s all I need to get out of the slump.
It’s loud in the lobby now. Quentin James is home and has brought a couple of familiar faces with him, who hug and smile at me as I dap him up, and stare back out of the wide windows that show the parking lot.
“They ain’t back yet,” He laughs, and I twist my mouth up. “I know you’re looking for Mo’s crazy ass, but she ain’t out there. I did, however, scoop Jayde up for you…”
His head motions back towards the door and the girls carrying overnight bags as they follow us towards the elevator. I’m quiet, while Q smiles like he’s offering me a million dollar prize, and I exhale softly as my dick twitches when Jayde hugs me. I’m thankful for the distraction, for real.
This is honestly the only way I know I won’t spend all night constantly ignoring everyone around me with my head stuck in the screen of my phone, and he knows that too. Lita knows it too, and, I know he’s asked for permission for a setup of this magnitude just to keep her in the loop too. There was a time in which she uses to wake up to a lot of surprises all over social media, but we’re better than that now.
I still cluck my tongue when I get a text from her, and she questions:
LOML: Jayde, Kierra, and Erykah? Lmfao. And Mo too? You better wake up in your bed and not anyone else’s, I’m not fucking playing with you…
Just tryna get some head and head don’t count right?
LOML: Better be just that… I’m about to bring back the group chat, on that note.
I wince a little. It’s been a while since anyone’s responded in the group chat Lita started after the whole, “I’m up here to meet all your side chicks,” pop up visit from freshman year. I’m all for peaceful, meet in the middle, mediums until she comes home to me for good, but she’s not for the shit tonight, and I wonder what she knows that I don’t.
As we get off the elevator, my phone buzzes, and I notice Jayde look down at hers, and then meet my eyes. I shrug my shoulder gently as we walk into the unit, and everyone immediately goes into getting comfortable and leaving me and Q to linger around the door, just watching.
“This gon’ be a long, strokeless night.” I groan as Q laughs and shakes his head.
“You know your limits, Meech. Just don’t have Lita ready to hop on I-40 to come and beat your ass tonight.” Quentin winked at me, and I pushed him in the chest.
“When you gon’ stop giving me shit about that? That was one time,” I stress as he laughs.
“And with the way tonight is set up… it might be a second one. You better go pray,” Q insists as Jayde pulls off her hoodie, and we both shake our head in appreciation of her frame.
“‘Cause you’re damned sure gonna need it…”
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