#hannah writes
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Narinder's built a love with Lambert that stays, and even though it's difficult for him to quiet his fears about that, it's easy to fall for them over and over again.
Five times Lambert makes Narinder smile in private, and one time they make him cry in public.
#hannah's rambles#cult of the lamb#narilamb#cotl#Hannah writes#i promISE IM WORKING ON RISEN/FALLEN I JUST NEEDED TO GET SOME ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP NARILAMB OUTTA MY SYSTEM
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okay maybe the new kits aren’t that bad 👀
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i didn't find my love, but i still made it this far without it.
pairing ; miguel o'hara x gn!spider!reader
words ; 1432
summary ; in every dimension you are loved dearly by all, and in every dimension, miguel gets you killed.
tags ; angst, mentions of death (reader dies... a lot), miguel is a stalker (with good intentions), allusions to comic!miguel, mentions of cheating, y/n isn't used, gender neutral pronouns
han's note ; i wrote this with my self-insert spidersona spiderette in mind lol but i tried to make reader as vague as possible <3 also i haven't written in a while and it shows. title is an ethel cain lyric. stream preacher's daughter.
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The first time he had seen you, you were wearing a lab coat and helping him with his genetic tests at the Alchemax headquarters; the second time, your face was broadcasted on an “in memoriam” video on New York’s biggest news channel; and the third was you in your Spider suit, swinging around NYC. He never thought he’d see that face again.
The glow of orange screens burned into his vision, the beginnings of a migraine brewing behind his eyes. Miguel’s eyes narrowed at the screen, watching as you take down a villain in your dimension. You moved with grace, tying the villain up in your webs with ease, before turning them into the police. He mentally noted some skills that you could work on, like becoming more aware of the blindspot you had on your left side or cutting back on the quick quips that riled up the villain even more. Nevertheless, he hummed in approval, clicking off the video. He was in view of another window this time; you as you exited your apartment’s back window in your Spider suit. He gritted his teeth; you treated your job as Earth-799’s Spider-Person with such carelessness, such negligence. Yes, you had a good skill set that could become great with more work, more practice, but the indifference you had about concealing your identity irked him. Your mask only covered half your face, for God’s sake, and your hair wasn’t covered at all. Was this a game to you?
“You’re going to tear a chunk of that desk off again,” Lyla said, flickering above his shoulder. He grunted, looking down to see the talons extended from the pads of his fingers sinking into the material of the desk. He quickly yanked his hands off the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. Lyla looked him up and down, grinning mischievously. “You should just let them join already, instead of stalking them.”
“I’m not stalking them,” he retorted, closing out the window.
“Right right right,” Lyla responded. “What’s this then?” She snapped her fingers, and videos and videos of you pop into view; you shaking hands with Captain Stacy; you swinging around your Earth’s New York City; you enjoying your morning coffee on your balcony; you. You. You—
“You have a problem dude.”
“It’s not like that,” Miguel said, a growl seeping into his words. “I’m just… making sure they are safe.”
“You could make them safer if you just let them join~”
“No.” Miguel rubbed his temples, glancing up to stare at you on the monitor.
Lyla tsked, checking her nails as if she was in dire need of a manicure. “How could I forget you had this self-loathing, cynical nature about you. Shielding them from yourself is just going to drive the both of us insane.”
“Lyla,” Miguel said, “activate ‘do not disturb’ mode.”
“Whatever, stalker.” With a roll of her eyes, Lyla flickered out of view, leaving Miguel alone. With only you.
His eyes are drawn to an advertisement in the background of one of the videos. You, in your Spider suit, advertising some energy drink on a giant screen in the middle of Times Square. Another screen showed you advertising some sort of athletic wear, and he could see someone dressed in your suit down below, taking pictures with tourists. Sure, Spider-People in almost every dimension take on advertisements, sell merchandise, and sign autographs. But everyone loved you, everyone wanted to get close to you. You even got J. Jonah Jameson to soften up to you with your cushy job as editor of The Daily Bugle.
In every dimension, everyone admired you, adored you, even. You were cherished by all.
And in every dimension, Miguel was the cause of your death.
Miguel gritted his teeth, a fang threatening to break the skin of his lip. The flood of incoming memories was doing nothing to dull the pain behind his eyes, and he slammed a fist into one of the monitors, watching as it flickered once, and all of the orange screens turned to black.
He held his head in his hand, mind drifting to the first dimension he had found you in. His dimension.
Absolutely intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, you joined Alchemax as an intern with the goal of being a top geneticist, like himself. As you moved up in the ranks, you became a member of Miguel’s team, tracked to design a serum that could allow anyone to gain superpowers. Miguel viewed you as a vital member of his team; obedient without needing to be, kind and optimistic despite the workload assigned to them all, and one to watch. With your brains and work ethic, you would have been at the top of Alchemax in no time.
Would have. It all went wrong, and it was his fault. You and him were both against using felons as test subjects for the serums, but it was out of both of your hands. You were only supposed to take the blood of the man they had injected with the serum, with Miguel monitoring the screen from outside the room. It happened instantaneously. The man in the hospital bed reacted negatively to the serum, growing the legs of a spider in seconds and grabbing you by the throat. Miguel watched in horror as the man wrapped his spider legs around your neck, slamming you over and over again against the cool tile walls.
The next thing he remembered was security gunning the man down, and him cradling you in his arms.
That was the first of the tragedies that plagued his life. When he decided to abandon his dimension for another one, one where he wasn’t afflicted by the role of Spider-Man, he was not expecting to find a dimension where he and you had a family together. For a split second, he imagined a world where he had taken you up on the offer of having a drink after work, if he answered those silly pictures you sent him more often. A world where the two of you had a family, and he didn’t have to take one over.
That thought collapsed when he saw what became of you in this new world. Miguel—this version of himself—didn’t love you. Not like he should have. After years of marriage, you discovered his lies, his deceit, his cheating. You seperated from him immediately, moving into your sister’s place as you began divorce and custody proceedings. Then, one night, while you were driving to your old apartment to pick up Gabriella, you were struck by a drunk driver.
You, this dimension’s favored meteorologist, were mourned for weeks. News channels across New York showed your face and aired your best segments in memoriam. New York City’s treasured weather forecaster, dead at the hands of a drunk driver, leaving behind a devastated husband and daughter. Even in this dimension, you were loved by all.
Miguel had killed you twice, and didn’t even know the second time. If that version of him hadn’t been so despicable, hadn’t thrown away something so precious, then you wouldn’t have been driving that night. It was his fault.
So when he saw that dimension’s Miguel be gunned down, what was he to do? Leave Gabriella to be an orphan? He couldn’t do that. Not to you. She’d be loved by a regretful father, and your memory would be kept alive until he died.
How naive he was.
“Earth to Miguel,” a voice chimed. Miguel stopped his self-inflicted mental torture to glare at Lyla.
“I thought I put you on ‘do not disturb’.”
“Have you not seen your watch blinking? Anomaly detected on Earth-799. Jess needs backup.”
His breath hitched, eyes trailing down to his Gizmo where he found several missed calls from Jess. “Send Hobie,” he said, voice lacking emotion. The thought of seeing you face to face made his stomach churn.
“He’s not available,” Lyla replied, pushing her heart shaped sunglasses up.
“Then send Peter B.,” he said, annoyance seeping into his voice.
“He’s in a ‘Daddy and Me’ class; he sent pictures, wanna see?” Lyla asked, pulling out her phone.
“No!” Miguel snapped, rubbing his forehead. “Send Ben, send Lego Peter, send Pav! Send anyone but me.”
Lyla tutted, shaking her head. “No one is available. Jess needs you, Miguel.”
Miguel cursed under his breath, his holographic mask suddenly covering his face. He tapped a few buttons on his Gizmo, eyes squinting at the brightness of the portal that opened next to his workstation. He took a step into the portal, praying that this time would be different.
#miguel o'hara x reader#miguel o'hara#atsv miguel#spiderman 2099#into the spider verse#atsv#atsv x reader#miguel o'hara fanfiction#hannah writes
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WHOO HOO ECTO-IMPLOSION!! I was honored to get to step in to write for the incredible artwork done by @praetoring! They're such a talented artist, and their art was truly inspiring!! I'll be reblogging it myself, but definitely go check it out here and share the love with them!!
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“This would be so much easier if you opened up, Daniel.”
Danny huffs and scrapes the heel of his scruffy shoe on the thin carpet. “It’s Danny. And I told you before. There’s nothing to open up about.”
Dr. Bell leans forward and laces his fingers underneath his chin. Danny’s seen the critical glint in his eye before, in the other psychiatrists who have come before him. He wonders if it’s something they teach in medical school. Maybe they make it a graduation requirement.
“I’m here to help you. We all are,” Dr. Bell says, his honey brown eyes trained on Danny. “You’re here because you have people who care about you. They want to see you get better.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint, but there’s nothing to get better from.”
Dr. Bell’s eyes crease into a sad sort of smile. “There’s a term for that, you know. When a patient believes their problems aren’t a problem. ‘Ego-syntonic’ is what we call it.”
“Why would I care what it’s called?”
“Thought you might like to know.” The doctor shrugs. “You seem like the inquisitive type.”
A silence befalls the two, broken only by the gentle ticking of the antique cuckoo clock on the wall. Danny scrapes his heel on the ground again.
He doesn’t like the quiet. It leaves room for too much to sneak through. Too many chances for something to slip through the cracks.
But he doesn’t speak.
It’s a lose-lose situation, really. He can stay quiet and run that risk, or he can talk and have to deal with all this. Again.
He shuffles and crosses his arms.
Dr. Bell sighs. “You do know why you’re here right now, yes?”
Danny doesn’t answer at first. His gaze is focused out the window now, at a point on the horizon. The sun is glaring down, melting the slushy snow and causing the air to shimmer. It’s a mesmerizing sight, he decides.
“Daniel. Danny. Look at me.”
Danny grits his teeth, but obeys. Still, his eyes continue to drift back outside.
There’s another look in Dr. Bell’s eyes. One that Danny also knows well. The same reproachful, pitying look given to him by the students in the halls at school, the cashiers at the grocery store, the dozens of professionals he’s been forced to talk to. The same look accompanied by low whispers and unrelenting rumors.
Danny knows he should be used to them by now, but he still can’t help but lash out at them. Every time. Even if it’s in his own head.
Dr. Bell tilts his head thoughtfully. “Why did you throw those meds away, Danny?”
Danny bristles. He can still hear the flushing toilet and his sister’s shouts of disbelief. The angry lecture from his parents. It’s not pretty.
Somehow, he’d never thought about the consequences of getting caught.
“Maybe if you listened to me,” he snaps, “you’d understand that they’re useless.”
“If we need to adjust the dosage, or if we need to try anoth-”
“No, just - I don’t need them!” His heart is beginning to race. He’s getting himself worked up again, and he knows it can only lead to disaster, but he can’t really help it. “I don’t need them, because nothing’s wrong!”
Dr. Bell’s brow furrows. “How long have you been tossing them?”
“Does it matter? I don’t need them, end of story.”
“Danny.” His name is spoken with a sort of sternness really only matched by his English teacher. It’s enough to make him shut his mouth and slowly sit back in his seat. Had he even realized he’d started to lean forward?
His heart doesn’t quiet, though. It pounds away in his chest, faster and faster. Something tingles in the back of his head.
He scrapes his heel again.
The doctor finally looks away and pinches the bridge of his nose. It pushes his glasses askew. “This is serious. You can’t simply decide to stop taking these meds because you think you don’t need them. That’s dangerous… to you.”
Danny doesn’t need to be a genius to hear the unspoken message in Dr. Bell’s words. Dangerous to you and the people around you.
Jazz would scold him for jumping to that conclusion. He can imagine just what she’d say. People with psychotic disorders are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it, she’d say in that presumptuous, know-it-all voice she dons any time she gets to talking about psychology.
Danny knows better though. Statistics might say one thing. They don’t change what people think, though.
Another shimmer outside the window catches his eye. He hones in on it immediately.
This one is different. He knows it. He can feel it.
Shit.
Dr. Bell is still speaking. “Please, Danny. You don’t want to end up back in the hospital again. You’ve been managing your symptoms for a while now. You don’t want to throw that all away.”
But Danny isn’t hearing him. Not even the thinly veiled threat of the hospital breaks his concentration.
(Somewhere in the back of his mind, though, he wonders if psychiatrists are supposed to be this blunt. All of the others before this one always danced around the issue so delicately.)
(He sort of appreciates the bluntness, for once. It’s a refreshing change.)
No, his focus is devoted to that point on the horizon, where the shimmer is waving precariously in the air, taking on a new shape and growing stronger.
Really, he wishes it had waited until this appointment was over.
Then again, he’s really the one to blame for it, isn’t he?
“We can only do so much. Myself, your parents, your teachers… I know it’s difficult, and I know you’ve been through a lot, but we can’t do all the work for you. You have to be willing to step up and take care of yourself.”
Danny’s heart is throbbing painfully now. He can feel the potent hum of something buzzing just under his skin, making his leg bounce and his fingers dig into his torn jeans. His eyes remain stubbornly trained out the window.
But this time he’s heard Dr. Bell’s words. Specifically that last bit. And he has some words of his own.
It’s perfect timing, thankfully.
He stands up abruptly, so forcefully it knocks over his chair. “Thanks, but no thanks, doc. You may think I’m just throwing away my life or whatever, but I know myself better than you do. And for the record, I am taking care of myself. I’m taking care of more than myself, actually. So - and I’ll only say this once - kindly go to hell.”
Before Dr. Bell has the chance to respond, Danny sweeps out of the office.
No one sees him exit the building.
____________________________________________________________
One year, seven months, twenty-one days, and forty-six minutes.
That’s how long it’s been since the first crack.
It shouldn’t have been possible. His parents said so themselves. With the portal destroyed, the veil between worlds was never torn. Reality remained intact, thus preventing any leakage.
That’s what they thought anyway.
But Danny knows the truth. He’s the only one that does.
He was there when it happened, after all.
____________________________________________________________
The next morning has Jazz hovering over his shoulder, watching him like a hawk.
“Go on,” she says, nodding to the pills in his open hand. “Take them.”
Danny doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares at the pills with disdain. Mom had been sure to make certain that he’d have them for this morning. Pharmacies work much faster with an impassioned Fenton breathing down their necks.
Either that, or maybe they’ve heard the rumors about him too.
Jazz huffs and throws her hands in the air. “Honestly, Danny, I don’t understand what the big deal is. They’re not gonna kill you.”
Danny tilts his head. He could probably make a decent argument as to why yes, taking these pills could end up with him dead, but he holds his tongue.
He can feel his heart begin to pulse a little faster. His focus immediately redirects to his breathing.
Inhale Io Europa Ganymede.
Exhale Callisto Amalthea Himalia.
Inhale Elara Pasiphae Sinope.
Exhale Lysithea Carme Ananke.
Jupiter has 95 moons. Danny knows all their names by heart. It became especially easy to memorize them when he discovered they make for a wonderful mantra to time his breathing to.
And Jazz wanted to accuse him of not paying attention in therapy.
Except she’s still staring at him with murder in her eyes. “You’re not going anywhere until you take those. And no, I will not vouch for you with Lancer if you make us late.”
His eyes flick up to hers for the briefest of moments. He doesn’t maintain the eye contact - it’s too hard to look at the disappointment in her eyes - but it’s long enough for him to spot something else within them. He can’t quite believe it, though.
Is that… helplessness?
Conflicting feelings war within him. On one hand, he wants to snap at her, tell her to mind her own business and quit worrying about him. She’s been on his back for the better part of the past year and a half. How has she not learned that no amount of nagging is going to “fix” him?
But on the other hand, his heart pangs for his sister. After all, she’s been dealing with the effects of his… condition for that year and a half now, whether she’s wanted to or not. He knows his problems are not self-contained; they inevitably twist their way into the lives of everyone he comes into contact with. No one has been in closer contact with him than Jazz.
In a way, he sort of hates himself for it. Or maybe he hates the universe for putting him into this position. Either way, he hates it.
Yet he still can’t take the pills. He doesn’t know what sort of effect they’ll have on him, but he’s not eager to find out, either.
Danny sighs and his shoulders slump. “Fine,” he says, his voice clipped. “Whatever.”
He makes a show of tossing them in his mouth and taking a big gulp of water. Even after he swallows, Jazz still eyes him critically.
“Open up,” she demands, though her voice is gentler. Obediently, he opens and lifts his tongue to show her his empty mouth.
She nods curtly, but Danny can see the tension drain from her face and body. The sight is somewhat strangely satisfying. “Thank you. Now was that so bad?”
Danny shakes his head.
“That’s what I thought. Now come on, I really don’t want to be late.”
“You go ahead,” he says. “Sam and Tucker wanted to walk with me today.”
Jazz raises an eyebrow. The gears are turning in her head, Danny knows, as she tries to pick the reason apart. Looks for a flaw.
A year and a half of lying through his teeth has earned him such a lack of trust.
But he shrugs half-heartedly. He’s already taken the pills, hasn’t he?
Jazz seems to reach this conclusion. “Alright,” she says slowly. She bends down to pick up her bag, but her eyes stay glued to him. “But if you try anything funny…”
“What would I even try?”
“Just -” she cuts herself off and draws in a breath. “I’m not trying to be the bad guy, Danny. I just… I worry. You’re my little brother, you know?”
His heart pangs again. “I know.”
The hint of a smile graces the corners of her lips. She plants a kiss into his hair. There’s a weight to it though, one that holds the strain of all the heated arguments, all the angry and despaired tears, all the failed pleading and promising, everything that’s happened in the past year and a half.
Even if her melancholy hadn’t draped itself around his shoulders, he would’ve known.
Still, when she pulls away, he offers her his own small smile. She leaves the house without another word.
It’s only after he hears the door close behind her that he bolts to the bathroom.
____________________________________________________________
He had tried to explain what was happening to him, after the portal exploded on him. He tried to explain the strange feelings in his body, the impossible things he was seeing.
The doctors (and his sister) immediately wrote off his complaints as residual trauma from the accident. You’re lucky to even be alive, they would tell him. It’s expected that you’d be having problems adjusting.
(Lucky to be alive. That’s what they said. That’s what everyone said.)
(If only he believed that statement was true.)
(And not about the “lucky” part.)
His parents, of course, had been intrigued at first. Perhaps it was because of some delirious hope after the destruction of their magnum opus, but they at least listened to him. There had been some skepticism, especially as it became clearer and clearer that there was no proof to Danny’s claims, but they stayed patient.
Until Jazz found out about the questions they were asking him. She had given them a lecture of her own for “encouraging his delusions” before “accidentally” dropping it to the therapist during a family counseling session.
His parents, disappointed as they had been, agreed to back off.
Leaving him alone to fix a problem no one believed was real.
____________________________________________________________
Danny’s head feels like dead weight as he lifts it from the toilet. He flushes it before he can look down and make himself sick all over again.
God, what has he come to?
The bitter taste of the half-digested pills burns at his tongue. Still, he chooses to fall back against the wall, breathing heavily and letting his eyes flutter closed.
His heart pounds in his chest. It had started even as he had been running to the bathroom. He silently berates himself for allowing it to happen. And although part of him has already resigned himself to the inevitable consequence, part of him still desperately latches onto the list of moons he knows so well.
Leda Thebe Adrastea.
Something potent and volatile pulses in the air. He can feel it seep through his skin and into his muscles and bones. It only makes his heart race faster, especially as the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and goosebumps coat his arms.
He’s had a year and a half to get used to the sensation, but it catches him off guard every time. Like something is tearing itself apart inside him.
Or maybe like he’s being torn apart.
Metis, Themisto…
Danny curls in on himself. Pressure builds in his chest. Something he has no human words for storms inside him in a relentless whirlwind. He can feel the need for release, though whether that’s him begging for a reprieve or the force inside him demanding to be freed, he can never tell. Perhaps it’s both.
… Callirrhoe…
The sizzling snaps of something electric are audible in the air, concentrated somewhere behind the shower curtain. He holds his head in a death grip and his heart beats fast - impossibly fast.
So fast it might as well be stopped.
Something cold writhes its way into his throat, stirring his stomach into nausea all over again. He can’t swallow it down. He’s forced to open his mouth in a gasp and stare in dismay as pale, blue mist pours from his lips.
But he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. The demand from the force within has become intolerable. Like always, he’s left wondering if it’ll be too much for his tiny mortal body to handle.
Unfortunately for him, he knows he’ll be able to handle it.
With a guttural cry, the energy erupts in him.
He’s never sure what exactly happens next. He’s always been too overwhelmed by whatever it is to see or understand. All he knows is the thunderbolt of something electric, something powerful being unleashed into him. Or maybe it’s clawing its way out of him.
Memories of blinding green light and an explosion that leaves his ears ringing rip through him.
That’s probably always the worst part.
And then, right as he’s sure he’ll disintegrate into nothing more than dust, it stops. In a single deafening clap, it stops.
Slowly, Danny peels his eyes open. The death grip loosens and his legs and arms begin to unfold. The tension, however, does not leave his body. Every human instinct of his whispers at him furiously to stay alert. Be prepared. Flee from the danger.
But a different set of instincts has clamored its way forward too. Instincts that are far from human. Instincts that draw him up from the floor and towards the bathtub.
A toxic green glow pulses behind the shower curtain.
____________________________________________________________
It hadn’t taken long for the rumors to start spreading. Amity Park is, after all, a sleepy little suburb. Its residents will take their drama where they can get it.
Did you hear about the ghost hunters’ son? they’d whisper. Did you hear about the crazy Fenton kid?
Speculations ranged far and wide. Even after the portal’s explosion became common knowledge, people would throw out wild theory after wild theory.
I heard he ate a bunch of ectoplasm and it’s poisoned him.
Well, I heard the radiation from all those experiments finally got to him.
Are you kidding? Those loony Fentons obviously started experimenting on him.
Comments like that last one always stung the worst.
If he’d been a social pariah before, he was even more of one after the accident.
And it definitely didn’t help that the accident left him with a slew of… “side effects.” Ones that really got everyone talking.
____________________________________________________________
Danny nearly tears the curtain off the rod as he rips it to the side.
Sure enough, right in the middle of the bathtub, a rancid green crack shimmers in the air.
“Go away,” he growls. There’s something ethereal about his voice now, something that makes it reverberate against the walls and fill the air with static. Something fueled by the anger and frustration in his bones.
Something - or someone - is trying to press their way through the crack. Even if it hadn’t been visibly apparent, Danny can feel it in his chest. It’s causing a distinct pressure that throbs out of sync with his heart. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least.
A different kind of static drifts through the portal. That would be the response, Danny gathers. Somehow, despite the lack of any English words - or any words, period - he knows exactly what’s being said. Or a rough idea, at least.
“No,” he snaps. A crack of electricity snaps in time with his voice. “You’re not coming through. Go away.”
He wishes the intruder would just leave him alone. The sooner he’s able to calm down, the sooner the crack will fade. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.
This time, when static drifts through the portal, there are the low undertones of something that can maybe be interpreted as language. Danny listens closely.
“This is my world.” He’s attempting to make himself sound as threatening as possible, allowing the anger and the fierce instinct to possess to bubble over into his demeanor. His blood is running cold, and he knows if he were to look in the mirror right now, he’d be met with not his eyes, but an otherworldly glow that mimics the color of the crack down to a tee. “This is my haunt. You’re not welcome.”
He’s still not exactly sure what a haunt is, and he’s not sure why the thought of this being his haunt makes his stomach flutter with both anxiety and excitement, but he’s dealt with this problem long enough to know how to speak their language.
“Let me through,” a voice hisses from inside the crack, muddied by the accompanying static. “I only wish to help you.”
Danny scoffs. “Yeah, right. Like any of you have ever actually wanted to help me before.” His eyes narrow, and now he can feel a cold crackle gathering behind them. “So you’d better leave now, because you won’t like it if I have to make you.”
“And just how do you intend to ‘make’ me leave, halfling?”
There’s that word again. The one that sends a buzz straight down Danny’s spine and causes something in his chest to leap. The one they’ve all been calling him for the past year and a half.
Halfling.
What exactly that means, he still doesn’t know.
“I’ve gotten rid of plenty of you before,” he says, low and dangerous. “I can just as easily get rid of you.”
The pressure in his chest increases sharply as a shadowy figure presses right up against the crack. Foggy bits of the figure begin to slip through the crack. “Perhaps you are as powerful as they say.” The voice becomes clearer. “Perhaps your words have merit. Somehow, I doubt that.”
Danny growls again, and his hands ball into fists. He swings madly at the little tendrils of fog. They dissipate under his touch, and the intruder hisses.
“You are making a grave mistake, child. It is not wise to reject my aid.”
“Sure. I’m sure your ‘aid’ involves all sorts of terrorizing and wreaking havoc and stuff. Exactly the kind of help I need.” He grunts as the intruder attempts to shove their way through again, and it feels like someone has thrown a cinderblock into his chest. Still, he stands his ground. “This place is mine, and if you think I’m just gonna let you come in and run rampant, then you have another thing coming.”
Despite his best efforts, more and more foggy bits leak through the crack. The static in the air pulses, and he gets the vague notion that he’s being laughed at. “Such strong words from such an insolent boy. This is the great halfling child I was told so much about?”
“You know, you’re not exactly doing much to help your case.”
“Hmm. Then maybe I’ll simply make you my offer.”
“Not. Interested.” His hands are tingling. Is it from coming into contact with the intruder? Or from something else? He can’t tell. “You can take your offer and -”
“I can teach you how to seal the rifts.”
Now that makes Danny falter.
____________________________________________________________
It only took about a month for Danny to realize it was him that was responsible for the cracks.
They didn’t start out as anything big. Barely shimmers or disturbances in the air, when he’d get worked up or nervous or upset. Nothing big enough for anything to fit through, of course.
But enough to get him to notice.
In retrospect, it did make some sense. His parents’ portal had opened up on top of him. Or maybe even opened up in him. Of course, it was bound to leave some lasting metaphysical effects.
He just hadn’t expected to learn that he was the portal’s replacement.
It was sometime right then, a month or so after the accident, that Sam had campaigned and succeeded to revise the school lunch menu. The resulting argument between her and Tucker had gotten him so anxious that it resulted in his largest crack yet. One that was big enough to allow something through.
One that was big enough to allow one of the ghosts on the other side to slip through.
____________________________________________________________
The thought is tantalizing. It’s been so long, relying on his ability to rein in his anger and anxiety to force the cracks to fade. It’s a task much easier said than done.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easier, more reliable way of closing them? Of keeping the ghosts out of his territory? Of stopping things before they could cause too many problems?
The intruder must sense his hesitation, because they give another forceful push. Danny, wrapped up in his own thoughts, is caught off guard by the move, and he gasps in shock as he squeezes his eyes shut and reels backwards.
It’s enough of an opening for the ghost to slide the rest of the way through.
Danny can feel its presence. There’s something… musty about it. Like the way it feels when he goes into the attic and sees all of his and Jazz’s old baby stuff packed away. Or when he’s forced to use one of the particularly “well-loved” copies of textbooks at school. He’s not sure whether to be put off by it or intrigued.
But it does feel foreign. More foreign than the presence of most other ghosts he’s encountered.
He opens his eyes.
Endless red eyes bore into his.
He reels again.
“Who the hell are you?” he hisses. Static crackles under his voice again.
The figure simply floats there, mostly hidden underneath a cloak. Those awful red eyes shine like beacons from the shadows created by the hood. Oddly enough, they make it harder to see the figure’s face. If they actually have one. Danny’s seen more than one faceless ghost before.
“Believe it or not, I do truly wish to help you,” the ghost says. Its voice is smooth and masculine, and when it speaks, Danny is flooded with a wave of that same musty energy. Something about it feels old. Timeless.
It’s not reassuring in the slightest.
The words themselves are not reassuring either. Faces supplant the shadow under the hood - his parents’, Dr. Bell’s, Jazz’s. The phrase is one that Danny is intimately familiar with, and he immediately bristles.
“I don’t need your help,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “And I still don’t believe you actually want to help.”
Danny can’t see the figure’s face, of course, but somehow, he can tell that the ghost is smiling at him. The kind of smile adults give children who don’t know any better. “And why don’t you believe that?” the ghost asks, unperturbed by his petulance.
Danny throws his arms in the air before crossing them even tighter across his chest. “Because that’s all you ghosts do! You invade my home and start trying to stir up trouble, and then I have to chase you down and shove you back through before you hurt something. Or someone.”
“Such hasty conclusions to draw.” The ghost clucks its tongue disapprovingly. “That won’t do at all.”
Danny’s blood boils cold and the glow from his eyes is bright enough to reflect on the ghost in front of him. He raises his fists. “Go. Now.”
The ghost sighs, as if it’s bored of the conversation already. A hand thrusts out from underneath the cloak, aimed toward the crack. Danny’s eyes widen as a blue glow surrounds the ghost’s hand, then the crack. The crack shudders.
And it begins to mend itself.
Something inside Danny shifts as the crack seals itself. He feels like he can breathe a little easier, like his heart isn’t being pushed against as much.
But the ghost is still there, in his bathroom. And now that the crack is gone, the full force of the ghost’s presence is surrounding Danny.
Danny sees the glint of sharp teeth as the ghost grins. “I don’t think I will go,” it says.
Danny’s not sure whether to be amazed, terrified, or infuriated. Or maybe some combination of the three. On one hand, this ghost just proved its ability to seal the cracks. Maybe even the ability to teach him how to do it himself. If Danny possesses that ability.
On the other hand, though, Danny doesn’t take too kindly to ghosts intruding in his world and asserting themselves.
He’s the boss here.
That instinct, the instinct to own and possess and keep his territory, wins out easily. It’s too overwhelming, and Danny doesn’t really have the energy to try and fight it.
Besides, he figures, if he can get himself worked up enough, he can create another crack to shove this ghost back through.
So with a roar of anger, Danny lunges at the ghosts and swings his fists with all his might.
The moment he comes into contact with the ghost, something changes.
And green fire explodes to life around his hands.
____________________________________________________________
The cracks weren’t the only side effect of the portal’s explosion.
Danny never understood what was happening to him. In all honesty, he’s still not sure if he completely understands. What he knew and what he knows, though, is that something within him began to shift.
He began to shift.
Why did the cold winter air seem to embrace him? Why did the night sky whisper to him with offers of belonging? Why did he find himself seeing new colors and new lights out of the corners of his eyes?
He tried to explain it to his friends, his family, his doctors. The former took some interest, but lost it quickly with nothing to back it up. The latter only used it as evidence for his diagnosis.
It didn’t help when things got more serious, after Sam changed the lunch menu and he’d had to beat back the ghost he’d accidentally summoned. He found himself drawn to some of the most random places in town - behind the dumpsters at the Nasty Burger, the top of Lookout Hill, the architecture section in the public library. Why those places, he didn’t know. All he knew was that the air in those places felt… different. Thinner, maybe. Like he could poke through it if he found the right place.
He learned to start staying away from those places.
It was worse when he started to be drawn to places that had a much more sinister aura. Like the time when he found himself standing on the side of the road at the site of a bad car wreck, watching as EMTs soberly placed a sheet over a broken body. Or when he ended up standing in the doorway of the hospice center in town as a family with red eyes and tears aplenty quietly shuffled their way out.
It gave even more reason for people to stay away from him. He smells like death, they’d say. He figured they were probably close enough to being right.
And that wasn’t counting the other side effects.
____________________________________________________________
Danny screams.
In an instant, he’s pushed the ghost back from him and scampered away, staring in horror at his burning hands. Many things have happened to him in the past year and a half, but his hands spontaneously catching on fire has not been one of them.
“Interesting,” he can hear the ghost saying, but he doesn’t truly register it. His focus is entirely on the green fire.
It’s only after a few seconds that he starts to wonder why it doesn’t hurt.
He’s heard stories, of course. About how with serious burns, they can destroy nerves before you can register the pain. He himself still has a few destroyed nerves from the explosion. He wonders if that’s what’s happening to him now. It would explain why he’s in such shock, unable to do anything to actually put out the fire.
And then he finally processes three very important things.
One: the fire is green. Not normal fire by any means.
Two: he can’t see any damage to his hands, even as the fire burns. And it doesn’t move any farther than his wrists.
Three: he can feel something. It’s not heat. His hands tingle, but not painfully. Rather, it feels like he’s dunked his hands into a bowl of ice water. Or like snow has wrapped around them.
His eyes snap up to the ghost. “What the hell did you do to me?” he shouts. His voice shakes with panic.
The ghost is as placid as ever. It holds a gloved hand up towards its chin. Danny hates feeling like the subject of some twisted experiment.
“That power has always been within you, young halfling,” it says. It could be Danny’s imagination, but he thinks he hears something akin to wonder in the ghost’s voice. “It would seem that my presence has simply accelerated your discovery of this power.”
Danny opens his mouth, but words escape him. His eyes drift back down to his hands, still lit up.
He shouldn’t be quite so stunned. This isn’t the first time something distinctly supernatural has happened to his body. Memories of arms and legs glitching out of sight and feet slipping through the ground swarm him in a rush.
He still doesn’t know why those things happen, or what they mean.
They scare him.
But he’ll never admit it. Not that he can. These occurrences would be written off as delusions.
The ghost leans down and approaches Danny. Although he’s already pressed flush against the wall, he tries to sink further into it. “Stay away from me!” As he shouts, the fire around his hands flares brighter.
The ghost’s eyes briefly flick to the fire before settling back on Danny. “Relax,” it says. “You are overreacting.” It tilts its head, and Danny sees the glint of teeth again. “Are all humans this… emotionally fragile?”
“I’m about to show you fragile,” Danny growls.
“Hmm. There’s that attitude again.” The ghost sighs. “In all truthfulness, though, you do need to relax. You will never gain control if you are continually losing it, child.”
“That makes zero sense. And how am I supposed to relax when you’re invading my home?”
“Because you are foolish,” the ghost says plainly. Danny wants to throw another punch, but the idea of another freaky thing happening if he touches the ghost keeps his behavior under control. “You are too focused on the external. You must focus on the internal.”
“Well, maybe I could ‘focus on the internal’ if you’d just leave me alone!”
A rush of that musty energy presses Danny into the wall. “You would be wise to listen to me, halfling. I am one of the very few beings that truly does wish to help you. Without my aid, you will leave yourself vulnerable to every single one of the threats behind the veil.” The ghost pauses. “Yourself… and your haunt.”
Danny’s anger falters.
The ghost continues. “What you have seen thus far is but a taste of the threats that wait for you. Everything you have faced up until this point will seem like child’s play compared to what you will face. Your only hope to defend yourself is to listen to me.”
Danny wants to stay angry. He wants to stay feisty and impudent. This is just another intruder after all. One of the many he’s had to beat back to wherever they came from.
But as he stares helplessly into the ghost’s gaze, he can’t help but feel as though he is being pierced down to his very soul. Embedded within those deep red eyes is the afterimage of every star that’s burned itself to death, from the beginning of time to the end. The infinite void of eternity. The promise of planets yet to be created, cosmic dust yet to settle, things that will happen long after the Earth’s Sun has gone supernova and extinguished any trace of life.
Danny cries out. His head snaps backward, breaking the connection to the ghost’s eyes. He pants for breath he didn’t know he’d been lacking.
He gets the impression that perhaps this isn’t just another intruder.
“Who… are you?” he asks again, this time with caution.
The ghost blinks once. “I can be your greatest ally, or I can be your greatest enemy. I am prepared to be both. Whichever one I am rests in your hands.” He nods down to the green flames still licking Danny’s hands.
Danny’s breath hitches. The way this ghost talks, the way it carries itself, he can tell the ghost knows far more than he does. Far more. He’s not sure if the threats of dangers yet to come are valid or not.
But while he asserts his ability to take care of anything thrown at him, he knows the fear in his gut says otherwise.
His fists clench. He grits his teeth. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes. Why do there have to be more threats? Why can’t these ghosts just leave him alone? Why him? Why did all this happen to him? Why must he face this alone?
The questions swarm him like angry hornets. They make it hard for him to think clearly.
His heart begins to race.
“N-no, please,” he gasps. “Not again.”
“You must relax,” the ghost reiterates. “Your abilities are tied to your emotions, as are the abilities of all ghosts. In this case, if you wish to calm the ability, you must first calm yourself, halfling.”
Danny’s stomach turns at the ghost’s words. There’s a hidden implication within them, one that Danny can’t quite put his finger on. He’s sure he does not like it, though.
“I can’t just… calm down,” he says. It’s the truth. Even a year and a half of intense therapy and psychiatric treatment hasn’t taught him how to simply shut off his emotions.
The ghost hums and puts a hand to its chin again. “How is it you humans deal with such strange matters?” He shakes his head before Danny can respond. “No matter. I can assist you by using my power to influence yours, but you must trust me to touch you again.”
Danny’s head whips back and forth wildly. “Because it went so well the last time I touched you?” he says. He hates the note of panic he can hear in his voice.
“That was, as you call it, a fluke. As I said, the power was always within you. My influence has simply brought forth that power early.”
“And how do you know it won’t happen again?”
Teeth flash underneath the hood of the cloak. “I have far more control over my abilities than you, boy. Rest assured I will be able to control something as simple as this.”
Danny’s heart thumps loudly. The ghost extends a hand towards him, and Danny instinctively flinches away from it. He can already feel the ghost’s presence beginning to press up against him again, and it only makes him more anxious.
But…
But.
There’s something different about it now.
Something that reminds him of his mother gently kissing his brow while putting a bandage on his scraped knee. Something that reminds him of his father’s bear hugs that wrap him up in a safe cocoon. Something that reminds him of the weighted blanket Jazz got him last year for Christmas, in an attempt to provide him with something to help with his leftover trauma from the accident.
“Stop it,” he says, but there’s no weight behind his words. “I didn’t… say you could… influence me.” Because as much as he hates to admit it, the ghost’s presence is affecting him. He can feel it in his heartbeat, in his breathing, as they both begin to slow.
He’s lucky he looks up in time to see the ghost’s eyes widen for the briefest of seconds. “You can already feel me?” it asks. Fascination dances behind its words, and Danny feels like he’s a being watched like a zoo animal again.
“Yes, now can you please… stop it?” Danny chances looking into the ghost’s eyes again. “I-I’ll calm down or whatever, just… please…”
To his surprise, the pressure against his chest lessens, and the vague notions of safety dissipate. The ghost floats backward a foot or two.
He feels like he can breathe again.
It’s strange, he thinks to himself. How he seems to calm much easier without the ghost’s… influence. Maybe it’s the feeling of regaining some control over the situation. Maybe it’s because he feels less like he has to defend his territory.
He looks up at the ghost. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
He’s surprised to realize he means it.
The flames die out.
____________________________________________________________
Once Danny figured out exactly what was happening within him to trigger the cracks, he tried desperately to keep it from happening at all costs.
Some tactics worked better than others. Timing his breath to the list of Jupiter’s moons was one. His therapist had been thrilled to hear that he’d taken her advice.
He tried journaling, at the encouragement of another of his therapists and his sister. It worked a bit at first. It gave him a place to vent about the ghosts and everything happening with them without running the risk of being scolded for “giving into his delusions.” It quickly lost whatever effectiveness it had, though.
Eventually, he simply tried to shut his emotions off. He tried to become uncaring, unmoved. Tried not to let everyone’s harsh words get to him as much.
That failed miserably.
Then again, so did every other tactic he tried.
At some point, they all failed. The cracks were inevitable.
They always would be.
____________________________________________________________
The ghost, for what it’s worth, keeps true to its promise to teach him how to close the cracks.
Ironically, though, it involves traveling through yet another crack.
It’s not Danny who opens it. The ghost waves its hand, and another hole in reality sparks to life inside his bathtub. The ghost’s crack is far neater than Danny’s - smoother, larger, not jagged like the forked branches of lightning.
Danny watches, and he can’t help but be in awe. The simplicity with which the ghost opened it blows him away.
“Can it really be that easy?” he asks. The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop himself. Immediately, he regrets it. His goal isn’t to learn how to create the things. He just needs to know how to stop them.
At the same time, the idea of being able to open the cracks without devolving into near panic, without feeling like his body is being ripped in two…
It’s enticing.
“With patience and precision, yes.” The ghost tilts its head at Danny. “Two things you severely lack, halfling.”
Anger flares in Danny. Somehow, he manages to wrangle it down to a simmer.
“Let’s go,” the ghost says. If it felt Danny’s silent outburst, it does not indicate so.
“Go where?” Danny asks. Realization hits him a moment later. “Through it?”
“Going above it or around it would hardly do us any good.”
Danny balks. “I - can’t you just show me here? Why do we have to go through?”
The ghost is silent for a long moment. It stares unblinking at Danny. “If you wish to stay here,” it says, low and dark, “the consequences of doing so will rest on your head.”
Danny doesn’t need his sister’s intelligence to understand what the ghost is getting at now.
“Alright, fine, I get it, it might get messy,” he concedes. “But… do we really have to go through it still?”
“You’re fearful.” It’s not a question.
Danny reflexively puffs his chest up. “I’m not afraid,” he fires back.
It’s a lie.
He wonders if the ghost knows it.
The ghost hums. “If it helps, this portal simply leads to another location here in your human world. You do not need to enter my world. Not yet.”
Danny’s head snaps towards the crack at hearing the last of the ghost’s words. “Not yet?”
He doesn’t like those implications.
“I grow weary of your refusal to cooperate, child,” the ghost says with a sigh. “You will enter this portal if you wish to learn how to close the cracks and defend yourself. If you do not, I can assure you of the hardships you will try and fail to face.”
“Okay! Okay. Just… stop being so… doomer. I get the idea already.”
“Then by all means…” The ghost sweeps an arm out towards the crack with a cheeky bow.
Reluctantly, Danny steps into the bathtub to stand before the crack. It’s the same vibrant green as the one earlier, as all the ones that had come before it. He can’t see what lies on the other side through the swirling green void.
Slowly, he reaches out and puts his hand through.
The sensation is… surprisingly pleasant. His hand meets empty air on the other side, but at the thin point where his forearm is split between two locations, where the crack touches his skin, he’s met with energy.
It’s pure and it’s raw. It’s electric. It’s invigorating and nothing like Danny has ever felt before. Standing here, in the glow of the crack through reality, he feels like he’s finally on solid ground. Like he’s found the thing that sings to him and his heart, rather than brutalizes it. Fear flushes from his body.
It’s all in such stark contrast to everything the cracks have brought him thus far. For a year and a half, it’s been oppressive. Looming over his head. Threatening to seize his heart and his breath.
But now?
He feels like he can do anything.
And that’s just with his arm partway through.
Without another thought, Danny leaps through the crack.
It’s every bit as exhilarating as he’d hoped.
____________________________________________________________
In the months after the explosion, Danny often found himself spiraling into existential trains of thought. One does not simply go through a near-death experience without having a bit of existentialism on the side.
His therapists took this to mean he had lost his sense of identity as part of his trauma. It’s okay to feel like you’ve lost yourself, they’d tell him. Like you don’t know who you are anymore.
They would sit him down and force him through exercise after exercise, trying to identify his sense of self, the traits he felt like he embodied, everything that made Danny, Danny.
Who am I?
It was the question the therapists challenged him to ponder, time after time. Only you can answer that question for yourself, Danny.
He wanted to scream every time he was made to fill out another chart. Or outline who he thought he was. Or draw up things to symbolize himself. The question of who he was wasn’t the cause of his existential spirals. He already knew who he was.
Mostly, anyway.
No, it was a different question that plagued him time after time. After every crack, every encounter with a ghost, every unexplainable sight or sound he came across.
What am I?
A year and a half later, he still doesn’t know.
____________________________________________________________
Danny trips over his feet as he exits the crack.
He’s still breathless from the sheer euphoria from the experience. His body shakes from the overwhelming feeling of power coursing through his veins. He wants to laugh, or maybe cry. Maybe both.
Where has this been for the past year and half? How could he have gone so long without experiencing something like this?
He turns around to face the crack. In an instant, he’s up against it once more, trying to savor any last dredges of the energy that he can.
He realizes that this is the closest he’s ever been to one of the cracks. He’s stayed away from them like a plague, only getting close enough to shove ghosts back through. Their presence has always weighed heavily on him, but now Danny wonders if that’s really the case.
No, something heavy has always accompanied the cracks. But… are the cracks themselves responsible for the pressure in his chest?
For the first time, he’s starting to think he’s had it wrong.
There’s a tingle in his chest, then a push, then pressure. This is the feeling he’s far more familiar with. Knowing what it heralds, he steps to the side. A moment later, the cloaked ghost makes its way through the crack.
“There,” it says once fully on this side of it. “Was that so bad?”
Danny opens his mouth. His instinct is to gush about it, to tell the ghost that it was the farthest thing from “bad.”
Those haunting red eyes turn on him, and the words die on Danny’s tongue.
He huffs and kicks at the ground. “It wasn’t terrible,” he mutters quietly.
They’re on a dirt road, somewhere rural. Fields dormant for the winter sprawl out on either side of the road. A lone set of electrical lines runs along the side of the road. He can’t see any buildings around.
“Wait, where are we?” he asks, trepidation in his voice. Belatedly, he wonders if blindly trusting a very powerful ghost was smart.
“Not far,” the ghost responds. It does not elaborate. Instead, it seals the crack they’ve just come through with a lazy wave of its hand.
The second time witnessing it is just as mesmerizing as the first.
“Why do we have to come all the way to the middle of nowhere to do this? Seriously, why couldn’t you just show me back home?”
The ghost hums. It stares at the horizon, unfocused. “There are things you have yet to understand, halfling. You will learn in time.”
Danny grits his teeth. “Listen, you said you wanted to help me. So quit being all creepy-cryptic and help me.”
“I do not take well to people making demands of me,” the ghost says sharply. A cold breeze rustles the dead leaves on the road and in the fields. “We will operate on my schedule. A halfling child will not dictate it to me.”
Though he doesn’t know why or how, Danny’s instincts scream at him to rise to meet the challenge. To tell the ghost that it may want to operate on its own schedule, but this is Danny’s territory. That it can’t simply wander in and out of his world as it pleases and act as though it is in charge.
It takes every ounce of self-control he can muster to tamper those instincts.
He’s none too eager for the ghost to get mad at him again.
“What do I do then?” he grumbles.
The ghost floats to Danny’s side. “To learn how to control the cracks, you must first learn to take notice of the world around you.” It sweeps its arm out. “Tell me what you see here.”
“What? I don’t… there’s nothing to notice. What does this have to do with anything?”
“If you do not notice anything by looking, then notice by seeing.”
“That literally makes zero sense!”
The ghost ignores Danny’s outburst this time. “You can already see more than other humans,” it says tiredly. As though it’s explained this to him hundreds of times already. “But you ignore it. You ignore the world around you to maintain little more than an illusion.”
Danny’s stomach does a little ballet. The ghost… isn’t wrong. The glimpses of colors he has no human words for, the way his eyes are drawn to seemingly invisible movements, the dancing lights always in the corners of his eyes, they are all things he knows he can see that others can’t.
He hates it.
“Maybe ignoring it is better,” he retorts. There’s some fire in his words, but not much.
“Better for who? For those around you? For you? The answer is neither. How can you wish to protect your haunt when you turn a blind eye to that which supposedly threatens it?”
“As long as it stays on their side of the crack, it’s fine.” Even as he speaks, Danny realizes he’s losing confidence in his words. It’s terrifying.
“Naive child,” the ghost mutters. Disgust taints its words. Or is that…
… disappointment?
Danny doesn’t have time to figure it out. The ghost continues speaking.
“Nothing is ever black and white. There is never such a thing as two absolute sides.” It picks up a single dry leaf and twirls it in its hand. “Everything begins, and everything ends. What happens in between is in shades of gray.”
Danny’s head is beginning to spin. “In English please?”
The ghost sighs. “You expect life and death to remain two very distinct sides, never touching one another. This is shortsightedness.” It lets the leaf go. It drifts away on a breeze. “Life and death intermingle closer than you can ever imagine.”
Danny’s breath catches in his throat. “Life and… death?”
“Of course.” The ghost’s eyes turn on him. “What did you expect this to be about?”
“I… I don’t…” Danny’s tongue feels thick in his mouth suddenly. Words choke up in his throat, and he can’t get them out.
Before the portal accident, ghosts were a thing of fantasy. Simply his parents’ crackpot ravings. The accident proved those crackpot ravings to be real. As real as anything else. Despite the dozens of people telling him he’s hallucinating, or that he’s psychotic, he knows this is all real.
He can feel it, deep within him.
But for as real as he knows ghosts and their world are, he’s never had to consider why they exist. Where they truly come from.
Something flutters in his chest, and he can’t decide if it’s his heart or something else.
Human. Ghost.
Life. Death.
And him, somehow wrapped up in it all.
He thinks he might throw up for the second time that day.
The ghost is apparently unbothered by Danny’s newest existential crisis. “What you consider to be my world is in constant contact with what you consider to be yours. And yours is in constant contact with mine. They influence each other. They exist within one another. They are inseparable, woven into each other.”
It floats over to one of the electrical poles. There’s nothing remarkable about it. “You must be able to see this coalescence if you ever wish to understand the intricacies of things as complex as portals. So, halfling…” It pauses to run a hand down the pole.
“Tell me what you see.”
Danny is at a loss. Maybe his brain is finally starting to catch up with everything that has happened in the last couple of hours. Maybe he’s finally becoming overwhelmed by all this. Ghosts wanting to help him, a strange awakening of powers slumbering inside him, everything traveling through the crack had fed him…
… talks of life and death…
He wants this to be a nightmare. He wants to wake up. He wants to go back to a few hours ago - no, yesterday - no, last month - no, a year and a half ago, and pretend this doesn’t exist.
His heart beats faster.
Io Europa Ganymede
“I don’t see anything,” Danny insists, even as inhuman colors and glowing lights creep into his vision.
“What do you see, halfling?”
“I think I’m done,” he tries. “I - I can’t…”
Can’t what? Can’t try? Can’t see?
Callisto, Almathea, Himalia
Can’t… breathe?
His heart races.
“You must see.”
“I don’t want to,” he gasps. Static is filling the air, and he doesn’t know if he can catch his breath. Why can’t he catch his breath? He should be able to catch his breath.
What am I?
The dirt road groans, and dust stirs.
Elara… Pasiphae…
“Please…” His knees shake and the air around him sizzles and the glowing lights are looking at him.
“You must see, halfling.”
He can feel the crack building inside him. It wants out. It pounds against his chest and strangles his heart.
Where is his pulse?
What am I?
The dirt road groans louder.
Sinope…
Even without a mirror, Danny can feel the cold burn in his eyes. Knows they are blazing toxic green. The same green as the lights staring at him.
The… ghosts staring at him.
One of them prods at the pole the ghost floats beside. Like it’s pointing.
Carvings begin to appear on the pole, in the same inhuman colors he can’t name. They’re shoddy, messily carved, and clearly not English. Symbols of lines and swoops and dots.
Danny can read them.
“We see you,” they say.
“No…” he groans. Hands fly up to grip his head, and the glow from his eyes give the illusion of the fire that had consumed those hands not twenty minutes earlier.
He can’t feel his heart anymore.
What am I?
“You see now,” the ghost says. It is unblinking and stoic in the face of Danny’s crisis.
In a last fit of desperation, as he claws for anything to pull him out of this, Danny latches on to the fleeting thrill of crossing through the crack. He tries to remember how it felt. How wonderful it was to feel empowered for once. How the energy seemed to embrace him, not work against him.
How he felt like he could do anything.
He latches on, expecting it to offer relief to his crying body. He wants it to bring him back down to Earth, ground him where cracks and seemingly invisible ghosts and strange words and life and death cannot get to him.
Much to his dismay, it seems to have the opposite effect. His body remembers how it felt to hold that energy.
And now…
What am I?
… it wants more.
The ghost is in front of him once more. When did it get there?
Danny can’t scream as the ghost lifts a hand towards his chest. He’s long since lost the ability to breathe.
“And now, the final touch,” the ghost murmurs. It presses a single finger in the center of Danny’s chest.
And everything explodes in a blinding white light.
____________________________________________________________
At one of his follow-up appointments, shortly after the explosion, Danny finally worked up the courage to ask something that had been plaguing him since he’d woken up in the hospital.
How bad was it? he had asked the doctor. How close was I to…
The doctor had refused to look him in the eye. You’re a very lucky boy, Danny, was all she would say.
He never did find out how close he came to death’s door that day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the light clears, Danny opens his eyes.
Something has changed. Something is wrong.
Something is very, very wrong.
He clutches his chest, trying to feel his heart, but it feels as though a snowball has taken residence where it should be. It pulses, but not at a frequency he is familiar with. It’s almost as though he can hear it pulse rather than feel it.
It’s unnaturally bright. He looks down and chokes back a sob of surprise to see his body wrapped in a gentle glow.
What am I?
Trembling, he raises his left arm. How he remembers that it’s that one, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.
He pulls back the sleeve of the black hoodie (why is it black, he’s never owned a black hoodie) and stares in silent horror at the grotesque display of lightning that runs up his arm and disappears back into the hoodie.
It’s when bangs of snow white fall in front of his eyes that he collapses to the ground.
“No,” he whimpers. His voice echoes with static stronger than it ever has. “Please, God, no.”
What am I?
“Astounding.”
Danny’s head snaps up to look at the ghost. He falters when he realizes he can see the ghost’s features now, clear as day even though its face remains partially shrouded in shadow. Those damning red eyes - one marred by a scar - twinkle at him with fascination.
“What did you do to me?” he croaks. “I can’t… I’m not…”
“As I told you, halfling,” the ghost says. Its gentle, knowing smile sends chills down Danny’s spine and sets alarm bells ringing in his head. “Life and death must meet somewhere.”
It bends down to Danny’s level. “As it would seem, you are that somewhere.”
A strangled sob escapes Danny’s throat.
“Congratulations, Danny.” It sweeps its arm out, a staff in hand. Another crack spirals into existence, accompanied by the haunting echoes of ticking clocks. “You have learned all you need to from me.”
Without another word, it disappears into the crack. The crack closes with the toll of a bell.
Tears prickle at Danny’s eyes. He can only turn and look down the dirt road, at the product of his creation.
A green crack splits the road in two, as far as Danny can see.
Danny falls against the ground and cries.
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༻¨*:· 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐓 ·:*¨༺
༻¨*:· summary ·:*¨༺
you hate remus lupin, and he hates you. what happens when you get stuck in a lift together?
༻¨*:· notes ·:*¨༺
𖦹 WEDDING!!!!!
𖦹 enemies to ??
𖦹 fem!reader
𖦹 oh. em. gee.
𖦹 i did not proofread this bc i'm lazy ⎝(ˊᗜˋ)⎠
༻¨*:· word count ·:*¨༺
𖦹 1.7k
prologue / IOU << pt. 11 -- wedding >> epilogue
༻¨*:· 𝐖𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 ·:*¨༺
Your hands are flittering around, messing with your hair for the fifth time in the past three minutes, and you sigh. It just won't look nice, you decide. Then, there's a knock on your door, and you frantically grab everything you need and stuff it into your purse. You open the door to see Remus in a suit. He looks beautiful, and you watch him blush as you tell him.
"Well, I think you look positively lovely today." He says, now watching as you get flustered.
"What are you? A proper lad?" You deflect.
"Your hair looks nice."
"Really? I've been fussing with it this whole morning," You huff, "I feel like whenever I need it to behave, it never does."
"It looks beautiful."
"Thank you," You gleam.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
Harry is the ring bearer. He doesn't understand what's happening as he walks down the aisle playing with the ring, but he's happy when everybody claps for him—giggling and hiding his face in his hands.
Marlene and Dorcas say their vows, and you feel like crying.
"They're so in love," You whisper to Remus, who looks at you and smiles.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
You nod.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
You get a little tipsy at the reception, laughing so much that you snort at Remus's bad jokes.
Amongst your laughing, he becomes quiet, staring at you with adoration.
"Would you like to dance with me?"
His hands are holding onto your waist, and your feet are stumbling and tripping all over his.
"You're bad at this," Remus mumbles.
"I'm drunk," You mumble back.
"I'm positive you'd be just as bad sober."
You laugh for the umpteenth time that night.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
You can't quite recall what Remus has said as you stumble into the lift, but you giggle like it's the funniest thing you've ever heard.
"Y'know," You mumble, hiding your face in his arm, "I don't think I'd mind getting stuck with you in this lift again."
His face flushes a bright red, "Yeah?"
"I like you lots, Remus."
"I like you lots, too." He whispers.
You wobble as you walk to your door, and your dreams come true when Remus steadies you—holding you around your waist—pulling you closer to him.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"Remus!" You whine, looking at him with those sad eyes—bottom lip jutted out.
"Yes, m'love?" He murmurs.
"Can't take my shoes off," You look down at your strappy heels, then back to him, "Will you do it?"
He gets down on one knee, and your mind flashes through hundreds of different scenarios, all ending with you in his arms.
You shake your head, hoping that will rid the thoughts. He just looks up at you and smiles—it doesn't help.
"C'mon, love," He whispers, guiding you to the bathroom.
"Where are we going?" You slur.
"Bathroom, to take your makeup off."
"You're so sweet," You give him a dopey smile with tired eyes.
"Anything for my favorite girl."
You hum.
Favorite girl. The words ring in your ears over and over until Remus calls your name.
"Hm?"
He lets out a breathy laugh, "I asked where your makeup remover is."
You instruct him on how to remove your makeup, eyes flickering down to his lips every now and then—his are doing the same.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"What clothes do you wear to bed?" He asks in the bedroom.
"Bed clothes, duh." You smile, all giddy and lovely, and Remus can't take it.
"Yeah? And which clothes would that be?"
"Y'know," You put your arms around his neck, mimicking the dancing from earlier in the night, "The ones I sleep in," You bite your bottom lip, trying to hide your smile. It doesn't work.
He holds your waist, "M'love," His forehead touches yours, "You need to tell me which clothes you wear to bed."
You ignore his pleading, "You have nice lips," You mumble.
"Yeah? So do you."
You hide your face in his shoulder—cheeks getting warmer by the second.
"C'mon, pretty girl," He whispers, "Look at me."
You shake your head, ruffling your hair in the process.
"Why not, baby?"
Your whole body goes hot, "Why should I?"
"Can I kiss you?" His voice is soft and low and needy.
You look at him, "Please."
"You're so pretty," He mumbles so closely that you can feel his breath on your lips.
"You're prettier," You whisper back.
"Not possible." And then his lips are on yours, and it's dizzying and electrifying; it's everything you've ever wanted.
You feel him smile, and you smile back—teeth hitting teeth, and you laugh, pulling away from him.
"I like you so much, Remus." You whisper.
"I like you so much, too." He whispers back, "Now, which clothes are your bed clothes?"
You laugh, "I'll get them."
"Don't fall on your way there."
"Ha! I won't," But you almost trip on the pile of clothes in front of your dresser, and you can hear Remus let out a breathy laugh from the doorway.
"Shut up!"
"I literally said nothing."
"You laughed at me," You whine, making your way to the bathroom to change.
"I did no such thing," He denies.
"Sure." You emphasize the 'u' as you stumble around, trying to put your bottoms on.
"Be careful in there!" He calls with a smile on his face.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"Stay?" You ask Remus as he leaves.
He laughs a little, "Love, the couch is too small for me."
"You can," You slightly shrug, "Stay in my bed with me. If you want."
"I don't have any clothes to wear," He frowns.
"Just sleep like this." You answer like the solution is right in front of him.
"Baby, I'm wearing slacks."
"Then take them off," You shrug, "Easy peasy."
"I'd just be in my boxers. Plus, I have this shirt on."
"It seems like you're looking for plenty of reasons to leave. You don't have to stay." The remark comes off as soft and wounded rather than snarky, like you intended.
"No, I can stay, pretty girl."
"You keep calling me that," You whisper, "Do you really think I'm pretty?"
"I wouldn't lie about something like that, my lovely girl."
He's drunk on the smile you give him, and he can't help but kiss you again.
As he strips, you can't help but watch how the silver cast of the moon reflects on his scars. They gleam, and you find it twisted that he has them—that the moon causes them but makes them so beautiful.
He stands up, now only in his boxers, "Take a picture. It'll last longer."
Your face gets warm, "Sorry."
"I was only joking. No need to feel bad, m'love."
"You're just so pretty."
"Did I ever tell you flattery works on me?" He smiles, leaning down to kiss you once again.
"No, but I just had a feeling," You smile like a little kid on Christmas day. All giddy and full of excitement.
You roll onto the bed in a fit of giggles. Remus watches in amusement; he's never seen you so joyful.
After you're done rolling over to your side of your bed, you're tangled up in your blanket—neither of you are quite sure how it happened. Helping you unravel yourself, Remus tucks you in before laying on the other side of the bed.
You snuggle into his chest, "G'night, Remus." You mutter.
"Goodnight, my love. Sweet dreams," He whispers back.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
When you wake up, you and Remus are entangled in one another. Your legs are sandwiched together. His hand has slid up your arm—his other is going numb as it lies under your weight. One of your hands is wrapped around his torso, and your second one has found the nape of his head—fingers interlaced in his hair.
"Remus," You whisper against his neck, "Remus, wake up."
His response is a soft snore; you can't help but think this is domestic bliss. You and your lover waking up on a lazy Sunday morning, and you would kiss up his neck, lips finding his jaw.
"Remus," You try a little louder this time.
"Mmm," He mumbles, "Y/n?"
His eyes slowly open, sandman dust clinging to his lovely lashes.
"'Tis me," You whisper.
"We should get up."
"I don't want to," You whine.
"C'mon, love. Let's get up." He begins to detangle himself from you, and you immediately miss his warmth.
"Why?"
Remus leans down and kisses the pout right off your lips, "'Cos," He mutters, "It's time for breakfast."
"Breakfast?" You gleam.
"Mhm," He smiles.
"Where?"
"That diner you like."
You gasp, "Tina's diner?"
"That one." He smiles.
You walk to the lift, hand in hand with Remus.
He kisses you once you enter, and you can't help but smile.
"Remus?"
"Y/n?"
You get shy, looking at the ground, "Will you... be my boyfriend?" You shrug a little like the question's a casual one. And in some ways, it is. His heart has been yours since the start, and he's no longer scared to admit it.
"Yes. I will."
You and Remus decide not to tell anybody right now. Marlene and Dorcas have just been hitched, after all. It wouldn't be right to take away their spotlight.
You walk into the diner with him, and it's not suspicious for the two of you to be arriving together—you live in the same building. So the group has grown accustomed to you walking in with Remus, smiles on both of your faces as you reminisce about something stupid one of you has said on the way over.
But this time, there's something different. Everyone can sense the shift in the atmosphere. You're a little too close to Remus, and you're glowing. There's no stupid laughter to accompany a stupid joke that Remus never ends up telling.
Marlene smiles, leaning back in her chair, "How's the happy couple?"
You stop dead in your tracks, "Hm?"
"My lovely wife asked how the happy couple was," Dorcas speaks up.
"Shouldn't we be asking you that?" Remus asks with a quirked brow as he helps you into your seat.
"You two are dating!" Sirius yells—he couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Dating!" James sings, "You two are dating!"
Lily can't help but participate in the childish fun as she sings, "Remus and y/n sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
Remus is stark red, but you're laughing, and you look so carefree that Remus can't help but laugh.
"We're dating!" You confirm.
"We're dating." You repeat, softer.
WE'RE DATING AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEBDFIHSBFAJBNEFK
#hannah writes#remus lupin#remus lupin x reader#remus lupin fanfiction#remus x reader#remus lupin x y/n#remus lupin x you#remus lupin x yn#remus lupin fanfic#young remus lupin#remus lupin angst#remus lupin fic#remus lupin fluff#remus lupin x reader fluff#༻¨*:· 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐓 ·:*¨༺#remus lupin x fem!reader
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If you’re feeling down, I can feel you up
alex/henry | teen | 7K (complete)
British Bake Off @BritishBakeOff
Our star baker of the week was the brilliant Fatima! She excelled in all three challenges causing even Paul’s eyebrows to move a few inches up his forehead #GBBO
Henry @henrymcfox
replying to @BritishBakeOff
Congrats Fatima well deserved. Felt a bit sorry for Alex his chocolate hedgehog was adorable.
Pez @auntiepezza
replying to @henrymcfox
Face card isn’t a category Henry. Fatima was the clear winner in the BAKING show
OR Alex is a contestant on Bake Off and Henry can't stop tweeting about him.
read more
#hannah writes#rwrb#rwrb movie#rwrb fic#red white and royal blue#red white and royal blue fic#firstprince#henry fox mountchristen windsor#prince henry#alex claremont diaz#firstprince fic
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Tease Tidbit Tuesday
Tagged by @thewolvesof1998 💖
A little something that’s just hanging out in my phone’s notes app based on Tommy’s line from Bobby begins - Having the scars impresses women, getting ‘em freaks ‘em out.
“Tommy?”
“I, uh, got Eddie’s message.” He waves the hand holding his phone. “What happened? What…is he, is he okay?”
And Bobby must see something in his face, because he stands, claps a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. And Tommy feels, suddenly, about 10 years younger again.
“First time on the other side of it, huh?”
And Tommy’s lost guys on the job, he’s had colleagues who’ve ended up in hospitals after calls, same as any of them. But this is different, those weren’t guys who’s plush lips he’d felt beneath his own, who’s blue eyes he’d watched blink open in wonder.
“Guess so.” He conceded, shifting his eyes to the side at the admission that this isn’t the same, that this is something more, out of habit more than actual concern for what he’d see in Bobby’s face.
“He’s going to be fine.” Bobby says, voice calm and authoritative, and it soothes a little bit of the swirling something inside of him. “Shard of wood ripped up his forearm pretty good, but no deeper damage.”
Tagging anyone who sees this and wants to share anything, but also if you do want to be tagged in these things pretty please let me know ☺️
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10.03 Soul Survivor
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This one isn’t for the faint-of-heart it’s for the ones with the demons in their heads and the monsters in their beds. It’s for every person who has ever painted on a smile while parts of them died. The old Taylor may have long been ‘dead’ but this time it was close to true. Her lips had turned a violent blue underneath the glitter. Some noticed, some didn’t, we all still bought a ticket.
Breakdown, rebound to the edge, this time actually jumping off the ledge. Only to land in a secret garden handbuilt, a healing done not by a saviour or by an angel (read: future traitor) but by the one who all along healed herself and came out strong.
Another extract from my review of 'The Tortured Poets Department' which you can read here
#taylor swift#hannahs writing#hannah writes#music with hannah#the tortured poets department#ttpd#hannah reviews ttpd#swifties#the eras tour
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Young Royals (TV 2021)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Simon Eriksson/Wilhelm
Characters: Simon Eriksson, Wilhelm (Young Royals)
Additional Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Blindfolds, Rimming, Oral Sex, Hand Jobs, light cum play, Ass to Mouth, Kink Discovery
Summary:
Wille puts on a blindfold and lets Simon do what he wants. Simon wants to use his tongue.
-- --
Day 14 & 15 of Kinktober in July: Rimming & Blindfolds
#wilmon#wilmon fic#young royals fic#smut! is anyone surprised?#kinktober in july#or like technically august i guess#hannah writes
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alessia russo masterlist
fics
fitting in
i'll always look after you part 1 / part 2
five times you almost say i love you and one time you do
too in love to think straight
is it cool that i said all that?
chocolate chip cookies
birthday present (18+) part 1 / part 2
blurbs
don't go
soft and sweet
official
sweet dreams
headcanons
nsfw thoughts
#hannah writes#alessia russo#woso x reader#woso#woso fanfics#woso imagine#alessia russo x reader smut#alessia russo x reader#alessia russo imagine#alessia russo fanfic
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end of the line, we finally reached the edge after all this time.
pairing ; miguel o'hara x gn!spider!reader
words ; 2472
summary ; miguel finds himself face-to-face with you—or a dark, twisted version of you.
tags ; angst, reader has hypnosis powers, reader is described with hair long enough to pull, no use of y/n, gender neutral pronouns/use of second person, i kinda don't know how symbiotes work
han's note ; still written with my spidersona in mind but it is very vague still! i recommend reading part one "i didn't find my love, but i still made it this far without it" because it wont make much sense without it. title is still an ethel cain lyric <3
part one
;
As Miguel stepped outside of the portal, he was greeted by you. Not physically, but with your mask covered face plastered on every surface available. It seemed like this Earth—Earth-799—was on track to become similar to his own, with megacorporations feeding advertisements to consumers wherever they looked, influencing them to buy things out of indulgence and not necessity. He wondered, were you a pawn of these capitalists, or were you playing their game right alongside them? He looked around the city, trying to find Jess, but his vision was blocked by either electronic screens or holograms of you advertising some product.
This was his own personal nightmare.
“Jess,” he said to his Gizmo, “where are you?”
A tiny hologram of Jess appeared from his Gizmo, looking rightfully pissed off. “Why did it take you so long to show up?”
“Don't worry about it,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Meet me on top of Stark Coffee on Lexington and 3rd. I’ll fill you in when I see you.” With that, the call ended, and Miguel was left just alone with your smiling face at every angle.
In an instant, Miguel began swinging throughout your New York City, careful not to attract too much attention. The sun was beginning to set, and the twinkling lights of the buildings and advertisements were illuminated off his blue suit. He hoped this would go by quickly, smoothly. Catch the anomaly, return back home. He wouldn’t have to see your face in person, and he definitely wouldn’t have to set foot on this Earth centered around you again. Miguel considered himself rational, and logically, never meeting you again would be a guarantee that your life would continue on, unchanged. He flew with ease, managing to find the rooftop of Stark Coffee in no time at all. Jess stood, arms crossed and face with the beginning signs of bruises. He’d have to send her to the infirmary for a quick check up.
“Are you okay?” Miguel said, landing on his feet and walking over to Jess; he gave her a once over, noticing a few tears in her suit. Miguel tssked, shaking his head. “You need to be more careful.”
“Fine,” Jess said, annoyance in her tone. “Maybe next time, backup will come quicker.”
“Good,” he said, ignoring her quick remark and looking across the rooftop and to the streets below. “What are we looking at here? Where’s the anomaly?”
Jess taps onto her Gizmo, pulling up information about whatever she had been chasing prior to his arrival. “According to Lyla, it's a symbiote from Earth-901220; it’s attached itself to this Earth’s Spidey. They’re incredibly slippery, as you can tell.”
Miguel’s jaw clenched underneath his mask. So much for not seeing you face-to-face. How could this have possibly happened without him noticing? “How long has it been attached?”
“A little under 12 hours.”
“Good, should be easy to detach then, where did you—”
“You brought a friend!” Miguel’s head snapped to the sound of the voice that rang out in the air. He hadn’t heard that voice in person in a long, long time—yet, there was a darkness twisted into it, something chilling, an effect of the symbiote. Standing on the edge of the rooftop, you looked him up and down. Your once red and white Spider-Suit was now tainted black, absorbed by the symbiote. You tilted your head, smiling wildly and showing fangs that rivaled his, and the black mask covering only your eyes crinkled with your smile. “He looks scary,” you teased. “Sorry you had to call for backup,” you said to Jess, “your ego must be bruised.”
She sneered. “Listen, if you just come with us, we can get that thing off of you.”
You crossed your arms over your chest, laughing. “This thing has been the best thing to happen to me in such a long time,” you extend your arms out like wings and tilt your head back, feeling the breeze in your hair. “I haven’t felt this free in so, so long.”
“Enough of this,” Miguel snapped. “You’re coming with us. Now.”
Slowly, you moved your head back toward Miguel, staring at him with dark, unrecognizable eyes and resting your arms back on your sides. You hmmed, as if in deep contemplation. “No. I don’t think I will.” With that, you fell backwards off the roof.
Miguel rushed to the edge, looking around. You were nowhere to be seen. “God damn it!” He turned toward Jess. “Go after them on your bike, I’ll be in the air.”
Miguel leaped off the roof, talons digging into the brick roof for more momentum. He shot neon orange webs out of his forearms, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of your black suit against the illuminated lights of the inner city. Miguel held firmly onto the web-line as he glided across the city, finally catching a glimpse of you haphazardly webbing away, destroying the electronic screens with your face on them as you went.
Miguel followed the trail of destroyed advertisements, calling your name as he etched closer. “Stop!” He yelled, getting close enough to you to grab onto your loose hair.
You yelped from the pain, losing your momentum and falling on top of a taxi cab. “Asshole!” You cried out, back stinking momentarily as you got back to your feet. The driver of the cab jumped out of the cab, yelling profanities, and all you did was point to the blue-and-red suited man chasing after you. “His fault!”
You made a mad dash away from Miguel, running across hoods of cars and cabs as you shoot another web out of your wrist, gaining enough speed to make a pendulum out of yourself. Your web-line attaches onto a nearby billboard, and you propel yourself forward as you maneuver through the city streets.
Miguel cursed to himself; you were incredibly limber, able to move through this labyrinth of skyscrapers. This is what Miguel hated about traveling to new dimensions—even though it was the same city as his own, the buildings were different; the landmarks were different; everything was different. You had a general sense of where you were going, him on the other hand, he had no idea.
What Miguel did know, however, were your weaknesses. All that time he spent, analyzing your skills and weaknesses, gave him leverage you did not have on him. Judging by what he was seeing now, the symbiote was amplifying your skills, not improving them. That must mean that the same skills you lack were ever present, and Miguel had plans on exploiting them.
He watched as you landed on top of a rooftop to catch your breath, stopping midswing to land on the rooftop next to it. Hiding from your view, he watched as you wiped sweat from your forehead, looking around for signs of him or Jess. Miguel scoffed at your expression; you seemed disappointed. You liked this game of cat and mouse. Too bad he was about to end it.
As you were getting ready to launch your web again, Miguel leaped into action, taking advantage of the blindspot you had on your left side. You yelped as he grabbed onto your waist, rolling the two of you over a few times before finally pinning your wrists above your head.
“No fair,” you said, shifting in his grip. “I was having fun.”
Miguel ignored you. “Jess,” he said into his Gizmo, “I got them.”
“On it,” Jess replied, the roar of her bike engine in the back, “tracking your location.”
“You’re the boss, right?” You asked from underneath him.
He grunted, tightening the grip on your wrist. What he needed to do was sink his teeth in your neck, paralyzing you like any other anomaly; but he didn’t know the effect of his venom on another Spider-Person, and the thought of hurting you scared him.
“Can you take your mask off?” You asked. “I wanna see the man who captured me.”
“No.”
“Why?” You asked, tilting your head up at him. “Are you ugly?”
He scoffed. “Quite the opposite.”
“Ohh I see, you’re just a tease.” You grinned, a fang poking out of your lip. “Come on, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine. How’s that?”
Miguel hesitated. Everything in him was telling him to ignore them, to web them up and get them back to HQ as quickly as possible, but… he hadn’t seen your face in such a long time. If he could just humor you, once, he could see you in person again. Everything he wished against an hour before. The last image of your face was beaten to a bloody pulp, and he would like to erase that memory.
With a sigh, Miguel nodded, his holographic mask dissipating to reveal his face.
You ooo’d. “Handsome,” you said. “My turn.” In an instant, the symbiote acting as your mask crawled off your face and onto your suit below, uncovering your face to the man pinning you down.
His gaze softened as he took in your features. There was a new scar next to your eyebrow, the mole on your face was on the opposite side, and your eyes were a slightly different color, but it was you. The one he lost, all those years ago.
“Weird reaction,” you said with a quirked eyebrow. “I’ll keep that reaction in my back pocket for later, though.” You looked up at where his large hand still had your wrists pinned down. “This was fun and all, but I’m kinda over it, so…” You looked back at him, staring into his red eyes. “You’re going to let me go now.”
For some reason, Miguel couldn’t break eye contact with you. Your words flooded him with warmth, and all the signals in his brain were turning off one by one. “Let you… go?”
You nodded, smiling softly. “Let me go.”
He did what he was told, his hand released your wrists. As he climbed off you, he made no move to recapture you as he sat on the rooftop, dazed by your words.
“Bye boss man,” you said, as the symbiote mask crawled back on your face. “Tell the cute biker girl I said bye too!”
With that, you propelled yourself off the rooftop, and Miguel sat stumped, entirely confused. After a second, he regained his senses. What the fuck. What the fuck? He didn’t have time to question whether or not that was the symbiote or part of your Spider powers. He immediately called Jess. “Don’t look them in the eyes,” he said, swinging off the rooftop as his mask appeared back on his face. “They have some sort of hypnosis power.”
“I’m assuming they got away?” Jess said over the sound of traffic. “Because I’m looking at them right now.”
Miguel spotted Jess’ bike up ahead, swerving around traffic to get to the symbiote-ridden Spidey wreaking havoc across New York City. “Unintentionally,” he said, making his way toward the two of them.
“Right,” Jess said, as she sped up her bike. She used a nearby ramp to propel her bike upward enough to meet you at the lower height of your swing, hitting you with her bike. You stumbled in mid air, somersaulting before webbing yourself to the nearest building you could find. With a glare towards her, you shot your web at a traffic light, using all your strength to bring it down. In seconds, a collision of cars blocked her path toward you. “You should make sure no one is hurt! You are Spider-Woman, after all.” You called out to Jess, swinging away from the mess you created.
“You deal with that!” Miguel said into his Gizmo. “I got them this time.” He was sure of it too; he wasn’t going to let you make a fool of him again.
Miguel moved hastily, zipping past the waves of people filming the chase on their smartphones and watches. You swung from building from building, using your Spider-Sense to detect the best course to deter the masked man following behind you. You laughed maniacally, enjoying the thrill of being chased, doing spins and twirls as if you were playing some sort of game.
The laughing stopped and was replaced with a grunt of pain as you suddenly glitched, blocks of colors and shapes cutting your web-line mid swing, a reminder that the symbiote that had claimed you was not part of this dimension.
You came crashing down, smashing face first on an electronic billboard advertising some sort of cherry flavored vodka. You slowly slumped down on the catwalk, unmoving as Miguel landed next to you.
He paused, blood running cold. He hoped—prayed—that you would move, that he didn’t just kill you again. When he saw you stir, he felt himself let out a sigh of relief.
Meekly, you sat up, turning on your knees to face him. “I’m gonna feel that in the morning,” you said, rubbing your head. “I bet it will feel like a hangover,” you said, pointing to the billboard and laughing weakly. “Get it?”
“That’s funny,” Miguel said plainly, before using his webs to tie you up. He knelt down, holographic mask coming off so this time, he really could paralyze you. He couldn’t risk you using that power again. His hand found purchase in your hair, yanking your head to the side to expose your neck. His fangs sunk in, and his venom seeped in, ready to attack your veins.
Your eyes widened at the feeling of fangs piercing you, but your lids fluttered lowly as the venom enacted almost immediately. “Didn’t want this…” You said quietly. “Thought I could be… someone else. Not Spider…” You couldn’t finish your words, your head slumping down as your body went still.
Miguel caught you in his arms as you keeled over just as Jess landed on the railing.
“Told you they were slippery,” Jess said, shaking her head. “They gonna be okay?”
“Should be,” Miguel said, looking down at you. He recalled the last time he held you in his arms, right after you had been murdered. He shook the thought out of his head. “I didn’t use enough venom to cause any lasting effects, but that means it should wear off soon. Ready the portal, we’ll get this symbiote off somewhere safe.”
Jess looked at your unmoving body with concern, before tapping a few buttons on her Gizmo.
The yellow portal opened at once, and Miguel scooped you up. He looked down at your features one last time, a thousand questions and fears flooding his head at once. Now wasn’t the time to ponder, or question whether or not taking you with them would be bad for everyone. Right now, his focus was on saving your life. Without a second thought, Miguel stepped into the portal, reluctant to show you his world.
#miguel o'hara x reader#miguel o'hara#miguel o'hara fanfiction#atsv miguel#atsv#atsv x reader#across the spiderverse#spiderman 2099#spiderman 2099 x reader#hannah writes#its almost 2am... i got dnd in the morning... god help us all
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Valerie had always found the Guys in White a bit bothersome – butting themselves into situations they had no business being involved in – but she never felt particularly threatened by them. She knew they were aware of her and her vigilante gig, but, in general, they stayed away from her and let her do her thing.
That was, until they led her into a van and carted her away to their facility.
They had no reason to be there, in the park. It had just been the Box Ghost, and in retrospect, he wasn't even doing anything other than being a nuisance. Phantom hadn't even been there. Still, the moment she'd touched down after securing him away in her containment device, two agents practically materialized from nowhere and demanded – or, as they put it, requested – that she come with them immediately.
She had said something along the lines of "okay," but there had definitely been an intended follow-up to that "okay." Unfortunately for her, there hadn't been much time for her to protest though before one of the agents cuffed her and practically dragged her into a windowless, white van. It took more self-restraint than she would've liked to bite her tongue and keep from lashing out at them for being treated like some criminal. These guys were feds. She didn't really want them on her case more than they already appeared to be.
One goon jumped into the driver's seat while the other sat her down in the back and slipped something over her helmet that made the world go dark and quiet. "For security reasons," he assured her.
It did nothing to calm her nerves. She'd read about these kinds of special masks before. They were supposedly used by agencies like the CIA and the FBI to transport prisoners, specially designed to block out all vision and hearing. She didn't appreciate being treated like a prisoner when she hadn't done anything wrong (as far as she knew), and she didn't hesitate to voice her displeasure.
She was only met with the sound of her wildly thumping heart echoing in her ears.
Valerie didn't have the best internal clock, but it had to have been at least 20 or 30 minutes before the van came to a stop and her babysitter lifted the mask from her head. Blinding light flooded her vision, and she tinted her visor immediately. After being in the dark for so long, the light was disorienting, to say the least (the fact that the garage was stark white didn't help matters much). The full tint at least helped alleviate some of that.
No wonder they wear sunglasses all the time, she thought.
She was handed off to a third agent, who barely gave her a warning before setting off into the facility proper. They walked no more than a hundred yards before coming to a security checkpoint. The agent swiped her badge and easily stepped through the detector before the security guard turned to Valerie.
"You'll need to remove your suit," he said. "Visitors are not permitted to have weapons in the facility."
Her alarm bells had been going off ever since the GIW had appeared back in the park, but they started ringing at full volume after hearing that. Being without her weapons was one thing, but her suit entirely? That thought was unsettling.
It was deluded of her to think she had anything resembling a secret identity around them. They were government, after all. The minute she'd debuted herself, they'd probably poured a number of resources into finding out who she was. They probably had fingers in many areas of her life. If she didn't comply, they could ruin her life far worse than any ghost ever had. The thought was terrifying, and Valerie Gray didn't do terrified.
Even still, having her suit and helmet on was comforting. For one thing, the armor was fairly strong; should worst come to worst, she could at least defend herself and be protected, but it was more than that. With her helmet on, she could pretend they didn't know anything, that she was just some faceless vigilante. In the back of her mind, she knew it didn't matter in the long run, but it still.
It felt nice to pretend.
She pressed a button on her gauntlet, and a hum reverberated through the suit as it entered standby mode. "There. I deactivated everything," she told the guard, deciding not to mention certain features that couldn't be deactivated. "The suit is staying on, though."
"That won't cut it, miss," the guard said with a shake of his head. "Zero tolerance policy."
"No, I mean like I can't take it off. It won't deactivate while it senses an ectoplasmic presence in the area." Was it a lie? Absolutely. She just hoped it was believable enough for it to slide.
The guard opened his mouth to protest, but the agent cut him off. "Leave it," she said. "We're on a tight schedule. We need to get her to O, now."
If O was the same Agent O that was the co-commander of the Amity Park squadron, then Valerie was really not looking forward to this. She didn't have much time to think about it though before the guard ushered her through the detector and handed her a temporary badge. The agent grabbed her by the handcuffs' connector and led her down the corridor, into the heart of the facility.
Her own heart raced so fast, she was sure it would jump out of her chest.
The facility ended up being more of a labyrinth than she'd been expecting. They wound through endless hallways with white linoleum, stark walls, and bright, fluorescent lighting. She tried to study the route they were taking, searching for any identifying characteristics on the walls and doors- cameras, room numbers, anything really - but the task was much easier said than done. Everything was bare and unmarked. No signs on the doors, no markers, nothing.
How did the agent even know where they were going?
As they continued, she got fidgety. She wanted to pull out a gun and tinker with it or something. Although her father was less than happy about it, poking around her weapons when she was agitated was something along the lines of a coping mechanism for her. It helped take her mind off things with the added bonus of learning more about her technology, sometimes not even on purpose.
Right after her breakup with Danny, she'd been messing around with her ecto-rifle so much that she'd accidentally increased its firing speed two-fold. She'd immediately done the same to the rest of her weapons.
Calling up a weapon probably wasn't the best idea, though. Even though they were technically powerless at the moment, the agent probably wouldn't take too kindly to her fiddling with a gun, and causing trouble probably wouldn’t end too well for her in a place like this. As much as she hated it, she needed to keep quiet and compliant for the time being.
Without anything physical to distract her, her thoughts began escalating. Why did Agent O want to see her so bad? Why go through the trouble of tracking her down and giving her the prisoner treatment and everything? Had she seriously done something wrong?
She couldn't think of anything she might've done that would've offended them. In fact, she hadn't been doing as much as of late, period. Ghosts were showing up with less frequency than they had when she first started, and the ghosts that did decide to show up tended to be hard-hitters who were specifically looking to pick a fight with Phantom. In other words, she hadn't had as much hunting to do recently.
As much as she enjoyed hunting, though, she had to admit the relief was welcome. She’d managed to swing an A- on the last chemistry exam, and her essay for Mr. Lancer was coming along nicely. She’d been able to hang out with Star a bit more, and she’d even gotten to sit and have a pleasant conversation with Danny while waiting for her dad to pick her up from work. Dad was much more pleased with how her life was looking, to say the least.
Oh God, how am I gonna explain this all to Daddy?
The question frayed her nerves so much that she almost collided with her escort, who'd stopped suddenly. A door stood in front of them, unmarked just like every other one she'd seen so far. The agent didn't say a word as she pulled it open. Valerie couldn't see her eyes behind the sunglasses, and she couldn’t read any sort of emotion on the agent’s face.
She couldn't help but wonder if there was a different, darker reason for wearing them.
She only hesitated a moment more before entering the bare room. It was no less white and lit than the hallways she'd just come from. There was no furniture; a door and a large, frosted glass window took up most of the back wall. Some sort of interrogation window, maybe one of those fancy, one-way mirror things, she figured.
The only other thing in the room was the man who apparently was so desperate to see her, Agent O. He was tapping at something on a tablet, but he looked up when he heard her enter. A smile bloomed on his face, but there was no warmth behind it. "Hello, Valerie," he greeted.
It took a great deal of her willpower to resist the urge to flinch at the use of her name. It had been coming, of course, but at least she’d been able to pretend she was just some faceless vigilante before.
She silently thanked herself for tinting her visor. It did a wonderful job hiding her true emotions.
"Thank you for coming in today," Agent O continued. He seemed oblivious to her worry. "We apologize for the lack of notice, but this situation was completely unprecedented. We believe it may require your certain… expertise. There wasn't much time for formalities or contacting you to set up an appointment."
Valerie crossed her arms indignantly, her fiery stubbornness reigniting despite the nerves. "It's not like I had much choice," she grumbled.
"Yes, well, as I said, this is a situation of sensitive and urgent nature. We couldn't afford to waste time going through niceties," he said, unfazed by her displeasure.
"What could be so urgent that you need to track me down personally and practically kidnap me?" Valerie deadpanned.
If possible, Agent O's face hardened just slightly. "I will remind you, Valerie, that you came with us willingly. There was no kidnapping involved."
Valerie opened her mouth to protest, but stopped before she said anything. It could maybe be argued that she hadn’t consented to being jerked around and cuffed and hooded and carted off, but at the same time, she technically had agreed to come with the agents, as coercive and unofficial as it had been. There wasn't much she could do with that to peg them.
He raised one eyebrow, seemingly waiting for her to object. When it didn’t come, though, he continued speaking.
"Some interesting information has recently come to light about a certain ghost. Information that some of our scientists are having difficulty wrapping their minds around. We believe your more… intimate knowledge of the ghosts of Amity Park may be of value to us," he said, scrolling on his tablet. The glare of the screen reflected off his dark sunglasses lenses.
She resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about how a teenager knew more than a whole team of adults whose lives were dedicated to this sort of thing. Instead, she asked, "And what sort of help do you think I could be?"
The corners of Agent O's mouth twitched upwards. "What do you know about ghosts with human identities?"
That made her freeze.
Her encounter with Danny Phantom's cousin and Vlad had only been a few weeks ago, and she'd spent those past weeks agonizing over what had happened and the implications. It was hard enough knowing that these sort of ghost-human hybrids - or whatever they were - existed, and then she had to go and discover that the man she trusted had been using her this entire time.
She’d been desperate to talk about it with someone, but no one knew of her secret identity. The Fentons may have known something about the subject, but they could be overbearing at times. And there was no way she could talk to her father, who still didn't fully approve of her ghost hunting. He would flip a lid if he knew the truth.
She’d nearly spilled everything to Danny when they’d talked the other day. It made sense, in retrospect; he was the person she trusted the most outside of her dad, and he was just so easy to talk to. The idea of just telling him about her ghost hunting had crossed her mind more than once, but the fear of endangering him and getting him hurt - physically or emotionally - was too strong.
Especially now knowing how dangerous Vlad truly was.
Really, at the end of the day, there was one person she knew had the answers and could maybe help her process through it, but there's no way she'd admit she needed his help in a million years.
And so despite her mental turbulence, she’d resolved to hold her tongue. It was probably for the best, anyway. She had a distinct feeling she was never supposed to know about this ghost-human thing in the first place, and a part of her wished she'd never found out at all.
On top of it all, she still wasn't even sure how to feel about the idea of these kinds of ghosts, the ones with human attributes. She'd hated ghosts vehemently for so long, it was difficult for her to think they could be anything but trouble. Dani, of course, had proven her wrong (with a little encouragement), and her cousin had made a good point that it wasn't just the fact that they were ghosts, they were humans too, but just how far did that go? Goodness wasn't an issue with Dani, but Vlad was clearly a monster of a person.
She didn't feel any remorse for him.
Still, something held her back. She hated to admit it, but Phantom had hit the nail on the head that night: she had no problems with destroying ghosts, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy a human, even if they weren't fully human. As long as there was some human there, they couldn't be all that awful, right? But such logic countered her long-held beliefs.
It gave her a headache just trying to reconcile the two. Most days, she avoided thinking about it. It wasn't her problem, it shouldn't be her problem. And yet she was standing here, having been dragged into it again.
Without moving her head, she glanced towards the window. Was it possible they really found another ghost that was also human? Or did they get to Dani? The thought of that little girl being held captive in this facility caused her stomach to drop.
A chill ran down her spine as she wondered if it could be Vlad behind that window. She didn't think she could stomach the idea of facing him right now. She'd strategically avoided meeting with him these past few weeks for that exact purpose. And if the Guys in White could get their hands on a powerful ghost like Vlad… She wasn't sure how to feel about that.
She forced herself to calm down. Agent O had said ghosts with human identities. That didn't necessarily mean that it was one of these hybrid type ghosts. It could be a ghost like Spectra, who disguised herself as a human therapist, or Ember McLain, who posed as a pop star.
Actually, in retrospect, there were several ghosts who'd pulled one over on the people of Amity Park, and they'd all had a number of tells that should've given their identities away. Maybe they just wanted to talk to her about this sort of thing. She knew enough about ghosts and their interactions with humans to spot their tells. This was information she could easily give to the Guys in White and be done.
Agent O was watching her carefully. She was taking a long time to answer his question, and she knew he was getting suspicious. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Well, Amity Park has had a lot of ghosts that have posed as humans to try and get to us. It's a fairly common tactic, and overall, people have gotten better at finding them, but – "
He waved her words away. "Yes, we know all about them. I'm talking about human identities on a deeper level. Possibly to the point where they may not be as ghostly as they seem."
Once again, she had to use all her willpower to avoid cursing out loud. Stay calm, think logically, she told herself. She couldn't afford to screw up here. She didn't want them knowing she knew way more than she should. She couldn’t have them knowing she knew more than she should.
It was every possibility that it was just some random person behind that window with some obscure connections to ghost activity, or maybe some dumb ghost trying to be cool that ended up getting captured. It was very possible that she could walk away from this without revealing anything.
Well, she hadn’t participated in middle school theater for nothing. Knitting her eyebrows together (despite the fact Agent O couldn't see her face) and putting on her most innocent voice, she said, "I'm not quite sure I'm following you."
Agent O turned back to his tablet. "Valerie, you're a smart girl.Think about it: what if there was a specific breed of ghost that could disguise itself beyond the poor masquerades we've seen so far? One that could take on the physical attributes of a human in order to hide?” He broke into a smile. “This may not even be a matter of disguising, either. This could mean the existence of interspecies hybrids with humans, something unheard of throughout history."
He scrolled and tapped until he found what he was looking for, turning the tablet around to show her. She wasn't much of a scientist, so she wasn't quite sure what she was looking at, but she could definitely see a strand of DNA in the diagram, although there was something off about it. Parts of it were discolored and disfigured.
"This is from a sample taken from a ghost's bodily ectoplasm right after a fight in Amity Park,” he explained as she studied the diagram. “Needless to say, we were quite surprised to find actual DNA in the ghost's proverbial blood, considering ghosts are held to not have DNA. Ectoplasm has never been able to retain the same DNA structure that a human can. Maybe that’s why we were even more excited to find that parts of the DNA we found made up genomes resembling that of a human's.”
The diagram and the agent's explanation suddenly made the situation even more real to her. Once again, her mind drifted back to Dani and Vlad. Was this what their ectoplasm looked like? Or even their human blood? Swimming with the genes of a human and the traits of a ghost? And just how many others were out there with this same type of ectoplasm?
She glanced up at Agent O. "How can someone be human and ghost at the same time? It's like being dead and alive at the same time."
He frowned. "We're not entirely sure. Our scientists are still working on their analysis of the ectoplasm and working through their theories. That's not entirely important right now, though. What is important is that it is possible. Just think of the implications."
She was, in fact, thinking of the implications. The thought that there could be more of these kinds of ghosts nauseated her only because she relentlessly shot at just about every single ghost she came across. She couldn't stand thinking that she'd come close to accidentally destroying a human being, part ghost or not.
For the sake of the situation, however, she pushed those thoughts away. Instead, she said, "You mean there could be ghosts hiding under our very noses and we wouldn't know about it?"
He nodded. "Exactly. But think beyond just that. This could be used to our advantage! A military weapon, far more advanced than any technology on the market right now. A soldier able to sneak up on the enemy without being noticed, one who can't be touched by bullets, and be able to take them out with his bare hands. If we can learn to replicate this," he said, shaking the tablet and splitting his face into a wicked grin, "our army would be unstoppable."
Her stomach churned. "Isn't that kind of illegal?" she asked weakly, hoping her voice wasn’t betraying her. "Taking people and doing that to them?"
Agent O’s eyes grew dark and hungry. "Forgive me for sounding brash, but it would give purpose to some of the more… undesirables."
She wanted to run out of the room right then and there. Feelings of ghosts aside, taking innocent (or even not-so-innocent) people like that and forcing them to turn into some strange half-human creature and then conscripting them to fight in the army against their will… It was sickening. Horrifying, really. She couldn't believe these words were coming from the mouth of an American government agent.
She wouldn't let that happen. Not on her watch.
She took a few deep breaths to calm her anger and her twisted stomach. "I hope you know I'm not here to do your dirty work for you," she bit back at him.
Again, he was unfazed by her outrage. "We're not asking you to do anything like that, Valerie. That's our job. However, you'll be doing a great service to your country today either way. You'll help us get to where we need to be."
"How so?" She really didn't want to hear whatever he had in store for her.
"The ghost we found is being extremely uncooperative. It refuses to tell us anything, even after multiple attempts at eliciting information," he said.
The suggestions of torture weren't lost on her, and it only fueled her anger. If this ghost truly was part human, then these guys really were breaking the law.
But they were federal government. Didn’t they basically get to decide the law?
"You've encountered this ghost before during your time in Amity Park," Agent O continued. Somehow, she wasn't surprised, though her heart sank just a little more. "We believe that a familiar face may be able to… persuade the ghost to give us our information and reveal to us its human identity. We want you to go in there and get us what we need."
She'd figured as much. He was right when he said she wouldn't be doing the dirty work of beginning to replicate the mutation and experimenting and all that, but she was practically doing just that by agreeing to interrogating whatever ghost they had.
"What if I don't want to?" she asked. There was no sense in drawing this into a long thing, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
He fixed her with a look. "You don't want to make this difficult on you and your family, Valerie. We're only asking one simple task of you."
Oh, hell no. He did not get to threaten her father like that. She’d take this entire facility down with her bare hands before she let them use him as a bargaining chip like that.
And yet there wasn't much choice for her. She couldn't put Dad in that position.
She deflated. The victorious look in the agent's eyes bothered her to no end. "Fine. I'll do it. But you better not even so much as look at my father or I'll tear you - all of you apart." She felt stupid saying it. The threat sounded foolish and hollow, even to her. Still though, he nodded, satisfied.
"Who is this ghost you have anyway?" she asked with a sigh.
"Ah," he said, turning to his tablet once more. "I'll show you." He tapped a couple of buttons and the frosted glass of the window became clear.
Valerie's knees almost buckled when she saw the ghost bound to a metal chair.
A shock of white hair. A logo plastered around her city. Alien green eyes burning with terror.
Her face burned red under her mask. Whether it was from anger or shame, she couldn't tell. Something inside of her was paralyzed to the point where she could only hear white noise echoing in her head. She was only vaguely aware of Agent O watching her carefully, but she didn't exactly care at the moment.
She had to get in there and talk to him.
But even as she walked through the door and met Danny Phantom's horrified gaze, she wondered how she was going to make it through this.
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Danny liked to think of himself as a brave guy. Since starting this superhero gig, he'd gotten into some terrifying situations. Watching his family explode at his own hands was pretty bad. Or almost dying as he tried to keep the most powerful ghost in existence locked up. Or even that time Sam almost killed him for accidentally letting Cujo use her favorite skirt as a toilet. He'd survived all of those and bounced back from them fairly easily.
He had to admit to himself, though, that he'd never been this scared in his life.
As quietly as he could, so as not to get the attention of the two agents assigned to guard him, he tested his bonds for what had to be the tenth time. They still held fast against his hands and ankles.
He didn't like having his hands tied behind him. Every survival instinct that came with his ghostliness screamed that it left his torso very vulnerable to an attack. Not only that, but the hands were what he could defend himself best with. There was a good reason that hands behind the back was a universal sign of surrender and submissiveness in ghost body language, something he’d learned over time. You couldn't fire an attack at someone from behind your back, and you were leaving yourself open to your opponent. You were putting yourself at the mercy of the other.
It was an instinct and an implication he couldn't ignore, especially because the Guys in White were the kind of people who wouldn't hesitate to put a scalpel to him. Thankfully, they hadn't gotten that desperate yet.
Trying to break my hand, electrocution, psychological warfare, he thought dryly, but no vivisection at least. Or would it be dissection?
Admittedly, it was getting harder and harder to keep his mouth shut, in more ways than one. The more stressed out he got, the snarkier he got. It was a defense mechanism, Jazz once told him. An attempt to mask his anxiety and fright using humor and sarcasm, apparently.
He wasn't sure if he believed her (or any of her psychobabble about him), but if it was true, it was definitely working to hide how he really felt. Of course, his sass just antagonized the agents interrogating him and made them push harder.
But it was also getting harder to keep quiet about the information they wanted. Namely, his secret. He had no idea how they figured it out, but they kept telling him they had proof of his human half. That revelation itself almost shut him down right then and there, but he vehemently denied the accusation. His identity was his most carefully guarded secret, and he would not let it go without a fight.
No one ever said it wasn’t tiring work, trying to keep Phantom and Fenton as separate as possible. Thankfully, they hadn't mentioned anything about Danny Fenton yet, but they hinted that they knew he had some sort of human form. Part of the torture had been to get him to change into his human form, in fact.
The fact that they didn't know too many of the details about the whole half-ghost thing was somewhat reassuring, and it helped him stay quiet. The less they knew, the better, and he wasn't about to add to their arsenal. He was sure they had a bunch of science nerds foaming at the mouth trying to work out more, but that process would take more time than him spilling the beans.
If he had to stay here and endure to keep the secret, then so be it. He couldn't put Dani in danger like that. And he hated to admit it, but he couldn't even put Vlad in danger like that. As much as he hated the guy, betraying him like that went against every single one of his moral codes.
And so he sat in the chair with his arms and wrists growing sorer by the minute, terrified out of his mind. Agent O, the guy who had been doing the bulk of the interrogation so far, had left a while ago without explanation. It had to have been at least an hour since he left, Danny figured, but he'd lost track of time a long while back.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the door opened. Danny straightened, expecting to meet Agent O and face him with more tenacity than before.
What he didn't expect was for Valerie Gray to march in and slap him across the face.
He could only stare at her, flabbergasted, as she jabbed a finger into his chest. "You dirty liar," she growled, the sound of her voice distorted by her helmet. "All this time, and you've been lying to me since day one."
Danny's heart sank. They had to have told her. She probably put two and two together already, given what he'd told her about half-ghosts during their encounter with Dani. He'd hoped that experience had warmed her up to him a little bit, but any progress he'd made with her had just been undone in an instant.
She was taking the revelation far worse than he'd hoped.
Agent O had entered the room silently and was standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. He watched the two teenagers with mild interest, but his face was mostly unreadable.
Valerie turned to him. "I need to have a minute with him alone," she said, her voice hard. "We need to have a heart-to-heart."
"Anything you have to say to it can be said in front of us, Valerie," Agent O replied calmly. “We’re all on the same side here.”
I’m not, he wanted to sass back, but he managed to keep himself quiet.
"No," she said. "This is personal. You knew that when you brought me in here. If you want me to do this, then you leave us alone. No guards, no cameras, no nothing. This is just between me and him."
Danny watched the argument unfold. It would make sense that these goons would want to be a part of whatever happened in here, but he didn't understand why Valerie was being insistent on not having them around. Normally he'd think she didn't care whether they saw or not. Especially if she was as mad at him as she seemed.
Agent O was also watching Valerie intently. "We need a way to record the information you're getting for us," he said. The calm in his voice annoyed Danny just as much as he knew it drove Valerie crazy. "You're asking us to simply take your word for what happens in here."
"What, you think I'm gonna lie to you?" Valerie retorted. She turned back to face Danny, and a chill ran down his spine. Seeing her like this, with her mask so dark and anger radiating from her body like her own mini aura, was haunting. "There's no way I'm gonna lie to protect him."
His heart shattered.
He shouldn't have been surprised, but it still hurt more than any physical torture to hear the girl who once said she'd give up ghost hunting for him say that to his face.
She looked at Agent O again and pointed to her helmet. "I have recording equipment set up in this thing. If you guys are so desperate for your information, I'll give it to you after I'm done if anything interesting happens, if my word isn’t good enough for you."
Agent O considered this, all while still staring her down. As hurt as he was, Danny sat in awe at the way she refused to back down to this man, both in argument and in her body language. It was one of the many things about her that caught his attention. Too bad in this case, like many others, this steadfastness was being used against him.
After what felt like an eternity, the agent nodded. "Alright. You can have it your way. But we'll expect you to submit to a full debrief afterwards, including surrendering that helmet."
"Deal," Valerie said, a little too eagerly for Danny's tastes, and she stuck out a hand for Agent O to shake. He took it, and Danny saw the muscles in his hands tense as he squeezed the hand harder than he probably should. Valerie, however, still did not waver.
After realizing that she wasn't going to show any sign of discomfort, he let go of her hand and pulled up the tablet by his side. He tapped a couple of buttons, and Danny saw the tiny blinking red light in the corner of the room die down. "Cameras and audio have been disabled," Agent O said. He turned to Danny's babysitters and waved them out of the room.
Before he exited and closed the door, he gave Valerie a pointed look. "Remember who you're doing this for," he told her darkly, and he shut the door, leaving Valerie and Danny alone.
Danny was taken aback by the tone the agent had used on her. "Valerie, are they threatening you?" he asked. It was the first thing he'd said to her since she'd come in.
Apparently speaking had been a mistake. She whirled on him with an accusatory finger jabbed into his chest, saying, "Don't act like you care about me, Phantom!" Her voice had suddenly grown hoarse and cracked. "You don't care about anything except your own hide!"
So he was Phantom. He couldn't exactly tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. "Look, I know how this all seems to you," he said, trying to keep his voice as calm and placating as possible without seeming condescending, "but I never meant to hurt anyone, especially you. Can't you see that?"
To his surprise, she yanked off her helmet and dropped it with a clatter. His heart and core both sunk to the floor when he saw just how upset she was. Her face was pink and blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot. There were actual tear stains on her cheeks.
In all the time he'd known her, he'd never seen Valerie Gray cry.
"Just because you may not have meant to hurt me doesn't mean you didn't," she said, the heat in her voice unmistakable. "All this time I've been hunting you down, and you didn't think it was important enough to tell me?"
"In my defense," he began, a little miffed by her arrogance, "it isn't exactly something I go around telling everybody, you know? Especially people who are always yelling about how much they hate me. Sorry if I didn't think you'd handle it all that well."
If possible, Valerie looked even more hurt. "You seriously think I would hurt a human? Who do you think I am?"
"I didn't know if you would care about the human more than you hated the ghost," Danny snapped. He hated having to explain himself to her like this. Under these circumstances. He’d never been great at knowing the right things to say in these sorts of conversations, and it was even more difficult to figure out what to say under pressure like this.
"So that's it then? I'm just some heartless monster who resorts to shooting first, no matter what?"
Danny didn't answer. He knew she wouldn't shoot. The Valerie he knew would care. She'd be upset, but she'd try to be reasonable and talk it out before making any rash decisions.
Of course, that was the Valerie that Danny Fenton knew, and as of now, she still didn't know about that. The Valerie that Danny Phantom knew was a ruthless hunter, capable of being reasoned with, but only in extreme circumstances.
He took a deep breath. "The issue is that I really don't know you all that well," he said, avoiding her eyes. At this point, every word that was coming out of his mouth was a lie, and he knew it would come back and bite him in the butt. But what else could he do? "Basically every time we’ve come across each other, it’s ended with you having a gun pointing at me. That doesn't exactly invite much confidence."
"But I helped you with your cousin," she countered.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He hated what he was about to say. "Yeah, but even when you found out about who she was, you had no problem turning her over to Vlad. I had to convince you to go back and help me rescue her."
She was quiet for a long time, her lips pressed into a thin line. Another tear trickled down her cheek, but she made no move to wipe it away. "That was when I trusted him."
That was… unexpected. "What are you talking about?"
"I found out he's been lying to me this whole time, too," she said quietly. "Just like you, apparently."
He felt a pit growing in his stomach. There was no way this was gonna end well, but he had to know. "You're gonna have to be more specific."
She started pacing in front of him, slowly. "I went back, after you and Dani left. I heard him talking to his AI of Mrs. Fenton. I saw him transform." She stopped abruptly and looked at him. "But I'm sure you knew all this, right?"
Danny found himself reeling. After all the lengths Vlad went to in order to protect his identity, after their conversation about their stalemate, and she found out that easily? It seemed impossible. Vlad had always been the untouchable type.
"And now to find out that you've been lying to me too, about the exact same thing!" Valerie was still saying. "Don't you understand? How that feels?" She scoffed. "Never mind. What am I saying? Of course you don't. You only care about yourself."
He hadn't caught up to what she was saying to process her accusation. His brain was still stuck on the Vlad revelation, and rightfully so. The things Vlad could do to her if he knew his secret was blown…
It was less about saving his own hide at this point. He knew his own secret was toast. But Vlad was a powerful man, and Valerie was nothing but a disposable pawn to him. He'd made her into who she was; he could do the same to another unsuspecting victim. She could be removed from the picture easily. The thought sent a horrifying chill down Danny's spine.
"Does he know that you know?" he demanded.
She furrowed her brow. "Does who know? About you?"
"No, Vlad! Does he know you found out about him?"
She opened her mouth, probably with some biting comment on her tongue, but she left it hanging open. In the days to come, Danny would wonder what came over her or what caused her to change, but he saw her soften before his very eyes, just ever so slightly. Maybe it was the desperation in his voice, or her own realization of the danger, or even just exhaustion.
Whatever happened, though, her eyebrows lifted and the creases near her eyes smoothed out just a little bit. The angry gleam in her eyes died down to a skeptic glare, still heated but with a little less fire. "No," she said slowly, watching him carefully.
He released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He didn't miss how Valerie's eyes shot down to watch his chest deflate, but he tried to ignore it. "Good. You can't let him know that you know."
The hardened, angry look returned just as fast as it had disappeared. "I know that! I'm not stupid," she retorted. It may have just been his imagination or some sort of delirious hope, but her voice sounded a little less harsh than it did when she'd been ranting a moment ago. "Besides, this is about you, not him. I mean, you lied to me about both of you anyway. And you probably would've lied to me about Dani too if you could've."
"I was trying to protect you," he said, and he instantly regretted it. He hated having to be on the defensive like this, especially when it came to verbal arguments. He tended to get too caught up in the moment and make stupid comments like that one. Ghost fighting was so much easier; no tactful arguments involved, just good old physical fighting with a snarky quip thrown in every now and then.
He braced himself for the tirade coming his way. She was sticking him with one of her worst death glares.
"Protect me?" she seethed. "I don't need protecting. I don't need protecting from anything. And even if I did, I especially don't need protecting from you of all people. That would be like – like you holding a gun to my head and telling me that you're taking care of me. You say you were trying to protect me? Well look where we're sitting right now! Tell me how stellar of a protector you are now."
He hesitated. She was right. For all that he'd done to shield her from the complicated underlying truth, he'd failed. Failed miserably, at that. Here he was, tied to a chair with his secret identity hanging on by a thread, and there she was, driving herself crazy with all the new information she was being forced to deal with. Neither of them were in a favorable position.
It killed him so much to have to see her like this. It only served as a bitter reminder of his inability to protect her, whether she wanted the protection or not.
"You… you're right," he said, bowing his head. "I did a sorry job of it. And you're your own person. You're capable of defending yourself. I can't control you, or what other people do, or anything. I couldn't stop either of us from ending up here, and I couldn't stop you from finding out about Vlad and Dani. I just wanted you to be able to live as normal as possible and not have to deal with all of… this."
She barked a hollowl laugh. "Putting aside the fact that I refuse to believe you care about me whatsoever, normal hasn't been a thing for me ever since you showed up."
"It's not like I asked for this either, Val," he said. His mouth was beginning to get ahead of his brain, but he couldn't stop the words from coming out. "I haven't had normal for a long time either. I've had to deal with this stuff since day one, ever since I became what I am. I just figured there was no sense in both of us having to deal with it."
"That's not your decision to make!" she shouted. She cupped her mouth with her hand, pausing a moment before speaking again. "This is why I can't trust you! You literally just went on and on about how I'm my own person and you can't control me, but you talk about deciding what I should and shouldn't know. Every other word that comes out of your mouth is some sort of lie or trick, and you expect me to be able to trust you? Or believe that you actually have my best interests at heart or something?"
This conversation was going absolutely swell, he decided. All he was doing was talking himself into a hole. He needed to convince her that he was on her side. Whether or not he got out of here, he needed her to know that he never meant her any harm. Even back when he hated her.
She wasn't going to listen to anything Phantom had to say, that much was clear. She was too hurt and angry. But he still had one last card to play and use to break through to her.
The only issue was he had no clue whether revealing himself as Fenton would make things better or worse, especially now.
She was staring out the one-way window. He watched her reflection carefully. Her arms were crossed over her chest and her shoulders were creeping forward and up towards her ears. As angry as she was presenting herself and as loud as she generally was, this was the smallest he'd ever seen her.
"The worst part is that I did start to believe in you for a moment there," she said after a long time. Danny looked up in surprise, taken aback by the admission, but he kept his mouth shut. He needed to hear more.
Sighing, she continued, "Everything that happened with Dani shook me, alright? And it wasn't just finding out about her and Vlad. You were almost the weirdest thing about that night. The way that all you could focus on was saving your cousin when I was ready to rip into you. You were just so determined to save that little girl that you didn't care what happened to you. And I saw you when she disintegrated. You just… you seemed absolutely devastated. And then after all that, you stayed behind to keep up your end of the deal. You just willingly offered yourself up to me. I think I was so surprised that I just let you go. I didn't know what else to do.
"And I kept thinking about it, too. I had no clue what to make of it. It went against everything I knew and believed about you and other ghosts. For a while there, I started to think that maybe you hadn't been lying to me; that maybe you really were different from the rest and that you did care."
She shut her eyes. "And now come to find out that you were lying to me the whole time. About who you were and everything. When they showed me you sitting here… I didn't know what to think. It felt like I'd just been stabbed in the back. It was just… I felt betrayed, alright? So betrayed. More than I had with Vlad. I have no idea why, but it felt like I was maybe beginning to understand only for it to turn out you were just playing me the whole time."
He didn't understand why she was being so transparent with him. It was very out of character. Even when they'd dated and she was talking to someone she actually liked, she'd never talked about her feelings in this way.
"I never lied to you about being different," he said slowly. "Obviously, I'm not like the rest of the ghosts. But I never lied about caring for you either. That's the different part of me."
She looked at him through the reflection in the mirror. Her back was still towards him. "Yeah, well, being part human doesn't suddenly make you a saint."
There was a pause, and then, "And what's all this with caring about me and protecting me and stuff? You sure didn't seem to care that much when I first met you. Why would you want to put so much effort into me and then not even tell me the truth?"
The answer was on his lips. He wanted to tell her so badly. He wanted to tell her how much he really did care for her, how much it hurt him seeing her like this, maybe even how he sometimes wished they'd never stopped dating. He wanted to change back and spill his heart out to her and beg for her forgiveness.
It would be so easy. The transformation was like blinking. He could do it without even thinking. With no one watching except for her, all the cameras off and her helmet face down on the ground. He could make it happen.
And yet he couldn't. Shame of his cowardice burned at his face. Any response he could've given her got caught in his throat. He didn't have the words to explain to her. Only his actions could show her, but he was still too scared to even do that.
Do you really even trust her then?
When he didn't answer, Valerie turned to him with an eyebrow raised. "Well?"
He couldn't meet her eyes. "Please don't make me answer that," he said in little more than a whisper.
Through his bangs, he could see the emotions tumble across her face. Surprise, anger, realization, solemnity – they all flashed across in a moment. It was easy enough to tell that her brain was hard at work, trying to reconcile his answer with a suitable explanation. He only felt more dismayed when she finally settled on hurt again.
"I know you, don't I?" she asked.
It almost wasn't a question. He knew that she already knew the answer. She needed to hear it from him, to confirm or deny it. He knew that she didn't want it to be real. She wanted him to tell her that she was wrong, that he was just some random kid she didn't even know existed.
And yet, he'd run out of lies to tell. His silence was answer enough.
"Oh my God," she muttered, burying her face in her hands. "Oh my God, I do. I know you. You're probably someone I sit in class with every day and I've been trying to kill you…"
The sudden turn toward self-blame snapped Danny out of his guilt. "Don't even start with that. Look, you were right. It is my fault for not telling you, okay? I should've just come out with it at the very beginning and put a stop to it before it came to this." Once again, he found himself unable to stop talking even after having been silent a moment ago. "I should've told everyone at the very beginning. I shouldn't have tried to keep it a secret."
He couldn't help but think of his parents. He was supposed to have been home hours ago. Even if he was out late at night, he was usually home for dinner if he didn't have other plans. At this rate, he wouldn't be home for a long time. They'd be worried sick about him.
It would've almost been easier if they knew.
Valerie, clever as she was, didn't miss the implications. "Does anyone else know?" she asked. Her voice was softening just a little. Still very much distressed and hurt, but not as bitter as it had been. Maybe the mini-revelation that they knew each other outside of ghost hunting had made it a little more real to her.
He took a breath. "Most of the ghosts know. Vlad does, obviously," he answered honestly. "Humans?" He shrugged as best as he could, trying to keep it a little casual. "Not many. Only a few." He didn't want to give her too many details. He wanted to hang on to his identity for however long he could.
Valerie pressed her back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. "Do they know, like, who you are?"
Numbly, Danny nodded. He almost didn't have the energy to lie anymore. The exhaustion from the whole situation – getting captured, being 'interrogated,' dealing with Valerie – it was suddenly beginning to take a toll on him. He just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and sleep for a week and forget that everything was falling apart at the seams.
The silence stretched on. Valerie, arms wrapped around her legs and chin resting on her knees, stared at a spot on the opposite wall. Danny watched her as discreetly as he could, desperately wanting to know what she was thinking. At least she's not yelling anymore, he thought.
Of course, the silence was almost worse to deal with than her anger.
He wondered what the Guys in White were doing. He wondered if someone was on the other side of the mirror, watching the conversation play out to make sure they got the info they wanted. He wondered about the scientists that were probably frantically analyzing his DNA. Did they know what they would be condemning him to if they discovered the truth?
And what was Valerie going to do? Her helmet was still on the ground, face down. He assumed she never turned the recording equipment on; she was the kind of person who would want the answers for herself before even thinking about sharing them with someone else, especially someone like the Guys in White. As far as he knew, she didn't particularly care about siding with them, so to speak.
But they wouldn't take this sort of insubordination sitting down. The last thing Agent O had said echoed in his mind. They had something over her, some sort of blackmail maybe. Maybe it was her identity. Maybe it was her dad.
He shut his eyes. He was assuming that she was going to side with him on this. After all the hurt and anger she'd shown, how could he expect that of her? There was every possibility she would walk out of this room and spill the beans.
And yet she hadn't said anything about Dani. Or Vlad. She'd gone out of her way to protect Dani once she found out she was innocent. At the same time, she was clearly furious with Vlad and no doubt wanted to get him for what he'd done for her. In the end, it all depended on whether she believed in his good intentions or not.
Basically, he had no idea what she would do.
He took a deep breath. Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Do you want to know?"
Their eyes met. Hers were filled with an emotion he couldn't comprehend. He couldn't imagine the turmoil she was facing, having these kinds of revelations thrown on her so suddenly. It hadn't even been that long since they rescued Dani. He'd at least had a little more time to deal with these sorts of things, and he'd had Sam and Tucker (and Jazz, later on) to help him through it. She didn't have any sort of support system, not even her dad.
Suddenly, her expression steeled. She stood up and walked around to the back of his chair. It took him completely by surprise; he craned his neck to try and see her. "What are you doing?"
She didn't answer. He heard the telltale hum of a laser, and he immediately flinched. The pain didn't come, however. Instead, the bonds around his wrists suddenly fell away. He immediately brought his hands back around and massaged his sore wrists.
She circled back around. "Valerie, seriously, wha-" he began to ask, but he was cut off when she knelt down and used the laser in her gauntlet to cut through the bonds around his ankles.
For a moment, he couldn't even speak. She looked down at her boots, unable to look him in the eye. "You hurt me. A lot. You can't really change that, and I don't know if I'll be able to forgive you, at least for a while. I need time to think and go through it and stuff, but we don't really have that right now," she said, fidgeting with her gauntlet. She took a breath before continuing. "Even though part of me still wants to strangle you for lying to me, I kind of get it. I think. I don't know. But either way, these guys don't have the best of intentions, for you and for a lot of other people. I can't be a part of that. I just… can't."
Danny frowned. "What do you mean a lot of other people?"
She shook her head. "The specifics don't matter. You just gotta get rid of whatever they've got on you before they start doing something we'll regret."
It wouldn't be too difficult, he figured. The Guys in White had their security and all, but their scientists weren't known for their intimidation or defense. It would be a little tough to get over to their department (what with phase-proof walls and cameras designed to sense invisible ghosts), but if he turned human and then turned invisible, it might be enough to fool the cameras. As far as he knew, they only started tracking when they detected a certain amount of ectoplasm.
And Tucker had been able to hack into their network before. That had taken a while, and they might've updated their security since then, but Tucker was a whiz. He could get in, delete anything necessary, and get out without being noticed.
"Wait a minute, what about you?" he asked, the thought hitting him like a brick wall. "They were threatening you earlier; they're not gonna be very happy when they find out you freed me."
She kicked one of the shackles that had been around his ankles. "I didn't cut it in exactly a straight line. I'll tell them you broke through or something and that you shorted my helmet. I was lying about the recording stuff anyway," she admitted. "I'll say I couldn't fight back because I had to deactivate all my weapons and they wouldn't come back on in time. They'll believe me. They'll be mad, but they'll believe me. They already hate you enough anyway."
Danny grimaced. He hadn't thought that far ahead; he'd been more focused on Valerie and getting out of here. If the two of them really were able to pull this off, then the Guys in White would be gunning after both of them harder than ever. They could get rid of DNA, they could delete data, but they couldn't erase minds. He'd have to be on his guard even more.
And Valerie would have to be on her guard as well. She claimed they'd believe her, but he knew agents like O would still be suspicious. They'd watch her carefully. Not to mention the fact that she still had to pretend she didn't know anything about Vlad…
It wasn't fair. She hadn't done anything to deserve any of this. Burdened with all of this pressure, having to keep all these secrets, constantly having to worry about her life and her father's.
Sam would tell him he was being ridiculous. He had to deal with those sorts of things, too, she'd say, and arguably on a larger scale in some circumstances, but as he watched her face become more resolute with a sad solemnity, he couldn't help but wonder what would've happened if he'd been able to stop that dumb ghost dog all that time ago.
His crime was playing around his parent's portal and releasing all those new threats into his world. He was paying that price. Her crime had been nothing other than being a normal girl.
No wonder she hated him so much.
"And you're… you're okay with this?" he asked hesitantly.
Valerie rolled her tongue in her mouth. "I don't know. I'm sure I'll wake up in the morning and regret this. But…" she trailed off. He recognized the look on her face. She was thinking something, but she refused to say it out loud. She didn't want to admit whatever it was to him.
He saved her the awkward silence. "You're a good person, Val. Your heart is in the right place, I'm sure. It isn't fair that you got all this dumped on you so suddenly. I'm just really grateful you're willing to do this for me."
"Yeah, well," she said. She blew out a long breath. "You seriously owe me one after this."
He hadn't realized he made up his mind until she said that. "I'll tell you. Uh, my identity, that is," he said quickly before he could second guess himself. His core fluttered and his stomach turned over and he could feel the ectoplasm rushing through his veins, but he felt sure that it was the right thing to do. "You deserve at least that much."
That earned him a look. She studied him for a moment before shaking her head. "No. Not right now. They're gonna question me about whatever happened in here. At least I can truthfully claim ignorance then. They'll know if I'm lying about your identity." Danny considered that, and he had to admit she had a point.
His heart warmed at the thought that she would lie to protect him.
"Besides," she continued, "it's hard enough finding out that I know you for real. I don't think I can handle putting a name and face to that fact right now." The words came out stunted, like it was too difficult for her to say out loud. "I guess it's like maybe if I don't know the whole truth, I can pretend the rest of the truth isn't real. Or that it's not as close to home. Ignorance is bliss and all."
Danny nodded. He knew he shouldn't be surprised – he thought she'd be demanding him to reveal himself by now – but her motives were understandable. It was odd, seeing her thinking things through like this and not jumping to conclusions or anger like she tended to do when it came to ghost stuff, but it was also incredibly encouraging. He almost wished he could show Sam and Tucker as proof that she could change.
She started to turn away, but he caught her hand. Her mouth opened, undoubtedly to tell him off, but she stopped herself. Danny hesitated a moment before saying, "Whenever you're ready then, okay? I'll tell you." She watched him with analytical, green eyes, and he instinctively looked away. "Besides, you might figure it out on your own or something."
Valerie didn't say anything, instead choosing to pull her wrist from his loose grip. From her belt, she pulled off a stick-like weapon. She pointed it toward her side and clicked a button, causing electricity to spark up the sides and hover dangerously over her suit.
Danny was taken aback. "Wait, what are you doing?"
"Not everything was deactivated," she told him, staring at a spot on the wall behind him. If she was worried about the electricity three inches away from her, she didn't show it. "Just chill, alright? It's only set to stun, and it won't be that bad since I'm human. The important thing is the effects are similar to ecto-electrocution, so they'll just think you jumped me and knocked me out."
His mouth opened and closed like a fish. Things were suddenly moving way too fast for him to fully process, but he could at least process the gist of what she was saying. "I'm not gonna stand here and let you hurt yourself!" he protested.
She glared at him, but the corners of her lips twitched upward into a slight smirk. "You don't get to tell me what to do, Phantom," she said.
Before he had time to say anything else, she closed her eyes and inhaled, steeling herself for what she was about to do. In one quick motion, she pressed the stick into her side. Electricity scattered across her suit.
Danny reached out, but he couldn't find it in himself to say anything or even grab the stick away. He could only watch in dismay as her body shook with the shock, her curly hair becoming even frizzier and her teeth clacking together as they buzzed. It was only a couple of seconds before she dropped to the floor, unconscious.
He couldn't help but stare at her limp body. Every instinct was screaming at him to scoop her up and take her with him, but he gritted his teeth and took in one slow breath. He had to trust she knew what she was doing. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, she’d told him, and he'd witnessed it firsthand. She'd be okay.
And if, for some reason, she wasn't…
"I'll come back for you," he promised her, more for his sake than anything.
Pushing away all thoughts of her, he swiped the taser-stick off the ground and set off in search of the research wing.
#danny phantom#danny phantom valerie#valerie gray#gray ghost#sort of#hannah writes#danny phantom fanfic#yeah yeah i know im not done with dannymay#but who doesnt love reading val and danny having Feelings
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༻¨*:· 𝐈’𝐌 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐘 ·:*¨༺
༻¨*:· summary ·:*¨༺
you have feelings for remus, he's dating someone else
༻¨*:· notes ·:*¨༺
𖦹 implied that reader has a period
𖦹 fem!reader (she/her pronouns)
𖦹 a-a-a-angst
𖦹 sad
𖦹 unrequited love
𖦹 im sorry
𖦹 BIG THANKS TO @ay0nha FOR HELPING ME WITH THIS CONCEPT
𖦹 i did not proofread this bc i'm lazy ⎝(ˊᗜˋ)⎠
༻¨*:· word count ·:*¨༺
𖦹 736
Thalia giggles at something Remus said for the fifth time in ten minutes—that's one giggle every two minutes. You stare daggers at her as the sweet, sticky sound bubbles out her mouth like boiling water. Warm and soothing and everything your wheezing laughs weren't.
Your eyes shoot to Sirius as he kicks your leg from beneath the table. "What?" You mouth with a harsh stare.
"You look like you're about to kill her," He mouths back with raised brows.
You only roll your eyes in return.
Somewhere between the seventh and the tenth giggle, you decide to leave. You can't bear seeing how Remus looks at her with such adoration.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"What was yesterday about?" Sirius asks at breakfast.
You feign innocence, "What are you talking about?"
"You looked like you were about to choke out goldie locks. Jealous she's spending time with Remus?" He suggests.
"Ha!" You bark out, "Jealous. What a funny concept. You know, Sirius, you should consider a comedy career."
But Sirius is not laughing—he's looking at you with those eyes you've seen far too many times now. You saw them when he asked if you cheated on your charms test when you were twelve. You saw them when he asked if you were an animagus when you were fifteen. You saw them when he asked if your date with that boy from Ravenclaw went well. You've seen them every time you've lied to him. You see them now.
"Fuck you," You mutter—he catches it anyway.
"Tell him."
"There's nothing to tell, Sirius."
He only shakes his head in return.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
You feel a wave of sadness crash over you when you see Thalia at Remus's side once again. You're supposed to be there. That's your spot, you think.
Thalia looks to see who's entered the common room, and she flashes you a warm smile, waving her hand in a signal for you to sit with your friends.
You shake your head, and she raises an eyebrow in suspicion. You point to your stomach, "Period," You mouth. She nods in understanding.
Then, you catch Sirius's eye. He stares in disappointment as you walk away.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
"Has anyone seen y/n?" Remus asks at breakfast—you've been avoiding him.
"I just saw her in the halls on the way here," Frank speaks up, "She said she was going to the library."
"I'm going to look for her." He stands up, then turns to Thalia, "See you soon, love." James pretends to throw up when he kisses her cheek.
"I just saw you being sweet on Evans, mate. Don't act all high and mighty," Sirius chips in.
But you're not in the library, and you're not at any of your usual spots.
. • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆
It's been days since Remus has spoken to you, and he's only growing more restless.
"Every time I see her, she runs away," He sighs.
"I'm sorry, my love," Thalia frowns, rubbing Remus's back.
"I'm gonna go for a smoke," He stands up and leaves the common room.
Remus goes to the courtyard—it's your guys' smoking place. He finds you there, head in your hands.
"Y/n?" He asks, and you look at him with shocked eyes, like the idea of him talking to you—seeing you—was preposterous.
"You're avoiding me," Remus says, finally cornering you.
"No, I'm not." You deny, standing up.
"Oh, come on, y/n. Do you think me that daft? I can tell you're avoiding me. Why?"
You take a deep breath, willing tears not to fall, "Because of her."
"Who?"
'You're clueless,' You think.
"Thalia."
"What about her? You don't like her?"
And you can hear the fear in his voice—the fear that his best friend doesn't approve of the one he loves.
"She's amazing, Remus." Your voice wavers, and then it dawns on Remus. His face falls, and you know it's over.
"I'm sorry," He rushes out, "I'm so sorry."
And that's when the tears fall, "Don't be sorry, Remus."
"I'm sorry," He repeats, and you catch on to the look in his eyes.
"Don't pity me, Remus."
"I don't!" He argues, "I'm just... I'm sorry."
"I wish you could love me," You whisper, looking into his eyes, heart breaking even more as you see their unshed tears.
"I do love you," He insists, "Just not in the way you need me to."
"Why?" You cry, "Why can't you just love me?"
"I— I wish I had a reason."
"It's okay, Remus."
"I'm sorry."
thank you so much for reading, lovely!
mutuals: @queerpumpkinnn @whenjasfallsinlove @woahlifehitsyahuh @ell0ra-br3kk3r @esperisdrunkinwonderland @remuslovebot @reysdriver @tired-of-lying-in-the-sunshine @thesunandstarss @inkluvs @prongsio @ay0nha @angry-little-frog @starlit-epiphany @starstruckwillows @starsval @whennyxfallsinlove @depressedbutartsy @dancinglikeaballerina @ghostlyfleur @hob1e-br0wn @justpjostufff @knaveism @lovers-tunnel @zvdvdlvr @vinniethepanini @vampieteeth @baker-coded @meredarling @maddipoof
#remus lupin fanfic#remus#remus lupin#young remus lupin#remus lupin fanfiction#remus x reader#remus x you#remus x y/n#remus x yn#remus lupin angst#sp1rit realm#hannah writes#remus lupin imagine#remus lupin x f!reader#remus lupin x reader#remus lupin x you#remus lupin x y/n
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Kiss me underneath the mistletoe
alex/henry | explicit | 33K (complete)
“And tell them the best bit,” Pez said, excitement clearly visible on his face as he looked around at their little group gathered at a table in the far corner of the bar.
Henry placed his head in his hand and groaned loudly. “No.” He said, his words came out muffled and barely cohesive. He could practically feel Nora and June lean closer towards him in search of the story behind his actions.
He had the worst friends who didn’t care for his sanity whatsoever.
“Come on Hen.” Pez slipped a hand around his shoulder and tugged Henry’s body closer towards him so he was half sitting in Pez's lap while his hands flailed around as he tried to keep himself from falling head-first into the hard surface of the table.
“I told them I have a boyfriend.”
OR when Henry lies to his family about having a boyfriend he doesn't expect for said boyfriend to get an invite to Christmas. Luckily Alex is far too happy to volunteer as his fake boyfriend which wouldn't be a problem if Henry wasn't head over heels for him.
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#rwrb fic#firstprince#red white and royal blue#prince henry#henry fox mountchristen windsor#alex claremont diaz#firstprince fic#rwrb#hannah writes
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Fuck It Friday
Tagged by @dangerpronebuddie 💖
I’ve mainly been trying to add words to my big bang fic this week and can’t share any of that so here’s some random little bucktommy that might go nowhere…who knows…
He didn’t mean it any kind of way. Things were still too new, too wonderfully, refreshingly, tentatively new for him to be deliberately trying anything they hadn’t talked about first. But he couldn’t miss the way Evan’s breath stuttered, the way his eyes widened just for an instant. He hadn’t meant to start anything, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to finish it now he knew it existed. Just, not quite yet.
Evan moved to tug his hand out of Tommy’s grip.
“Hey, no. None of that. Let me finish.”
A gentle squeeze of his fingers, a kiss brushed across his temple, and Evan relaxed again.
“That’s it, being so good for me.”
The hitch of breath again. Oh this really was going to be fun once he let himself get going.
Tagging anyone who sees this and wants to share anything, but also if you do want to be tagged in these things pretty please let me know ☺️
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