The Wayne doll house
Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.
The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.
It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.
There was nothing there when he went back.
-
The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.
The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.
So civilian it was.
Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.
"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."
"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.
"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."
Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.
"I think.... I would be best for that."
The team stared.
"Batsy?"
Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.
"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."
"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."
"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."
Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.
"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."
Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."
"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"
"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."
For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.
"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."
"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"
"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.
Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.
"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."
-
"Alien?"
"No."
"Reanimated corpse?"
"No."
"Uh... Demon?"
"Hm. No."
"You're not just a meta human, are you?"
"No."
"Vampire?"
"No."
"Robot??"
"No."
"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"
"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.
"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."
"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."
Flash groaned again.
-
Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!
'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.
So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.
With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.
"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."
The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.
He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.
The click of the door jerked his head up.
Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.
Flash screamed.
Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing
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Total Drama Psycho Noah AU, before Alejandro knew the truth, Noah would sometimes cuddle to the charmer while sleeping... Alejandro was amused and fond by this... But when Alejandro learns about Noah's true crazy colors and the sleeping Noah cuddles into Alejandro again, Alejandro is trying NOT to freak out! 😴
Wait no you're so right. Noah's sleep cuddling habit would've been seen as innocuous throughout the whole series, especially in World Tour when their sleeping arrangements were so cramped. Of course he'd always end up practically gluing himself to the nearest person in his sleep- who would usually ended up being Owen or sometimes Alejandro, as they were the two people Noah tolerated enough to spend most of his time with.
But as soon as everyone on the jet becomes aware that he's not nearly as harmless as he's portrayed himself to be? When he intentionally shows himself to be a threat to their safety/wellbeings?
Well, suddenly his "cute little quirk" has turned into a very volatile situation.
-
What is Alejandro supposed to do when he wakes up in the Economy cabin, not even twenty four hours after the London challenge, and finds everyone's fearful eyes trained on him. How is he supposed to react when he feels the familiar weight of the dangerous, downright vicious person they'd all watched snap someone's arms like uncooked spaghetti, draped over him like a blanket?
Especially when they all know that a Noah who's woken up before he's ready is cranky. And that was the Noah from before, who was apparently keeping a tight leash on his wilder instincts- now that he's given up on holding himself back, who knows how he'd respond to being woken up?
Oh wait. They all know how he'd respond- and it involves a lot of bloodshed.
He's trapped; waking up Noah is a guaranteed death sentence, and any movement could be enough to stir the other from his precarious slumber.
And the others know it too. Tyler and Duncan watch him like a hawk, their faces palid with pity and terror, though they thankfully remain just as muted as Alejandro himself. It's unnerving, being held under the terror-shrunk gazes of the two, but not nearly as unnerving as the soft steady breathing of the deranged bookworm sleeping on top of him.
For a moment, there's a tentative silence that hovers between the three of them like a sheet of ice over a frozen lake.
So of course, Owen's boisterous entrance to the cabin shatters it.
"Hey guys, Chef's serving breakfast in the-! Oh, did I interrupt something?"
Noah stirs from his sleep, and Alejandro's breath becomes an inmate in the prison of his lungs. He'd doomed.
"Wuzza'? Is it ch'llenge time?" The bookworm slurs, one hand wiping at his sleep-crusted eyes as the other finds purchase against Alejandro's shoulder. Noah pulls himself into a sitting position, his body subconsciously curling itself towards the nearest heat source- which just so happens to be Alejandro's terror stilled form- and the Spaniard in question internally prays to whatever God is listening that he'll somehow evade the psycho's inevitable ire when he realises that Alejandro is, in fact, not a pillow.
After a trepid second of inaction, Noah hums inquisitively against the warm mass beneath him, and blinks tired eyes up towards Alejandro's ashen face. A moment of incomprehension passes. Then another. And then realisation flickers over the bookworm's features like a dying ember.
Alejandro is so fucked.
Noah's face solidifies into something blank and unreadable- the complete lack of discernible emotion in is expression is almost eldritch in its uncanniness- and the latino doesn't know if its more or less unnerving than the unhinged, crooked smile he's graced the cast with yesterday. But then, unexpectedly, Noah wordlessly slides himself off of Alejandro's lap.
No broken arms. No stab wounds. Not even a threat against his person.
...What?
"Uh. Sorry for sleeping on you, I guess." The cynic says off-handedly, in his customary sardonic drawl, before he steps over to Owen and calmly asks what the blonde oaf was so excited about.
What?!
"It... is no problem, mi amigo." Alejandro chokes out, displacing the stationary air in his lungs.
Where is the vicious psychopath from last night? Why is Noah acting so... normal? Was his display of instability a fever dream or something?
No, both Tyler and Duncan shoot Alejandro matching looks of bewilderment from their seat on the adjacent bench. What happened last night was real, regardless of Noah's current docility.
Owen and Noah's conversation filters off into nothing, and the Archvillain spares a glance towards the pair. Only to find the both of them staring back at him, grinning; Owen's face scrunching up into his usual friendly smile, and Noah's smug smirk rapidly morphing into that same too-wide snarl he'd adorned on the bus- are those fucking fangs?!
"You make a pretty good pillow, Al."
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cw blood, death, and long rambles below:
luca's death from being caught in the crossfire of his fight with nai... vash trying to stop their bleeding (he fails), so he dazedly carries them in his arms to find help (to home? it's far, too far, but maybe if he runs fast enough to find someone..)
hearing luca repeatedly saying it's cold and it hurts, and the only thing he can do is apologise until they stop their hiccups and pleas—and then it's just silence.
(why he continues trudging forward on the sand for help, he doesn't know. he just wants them back, anyone would do.)
knives taking away luca's body because he found something 'interesting' (for conrad as a gift, he thinks) and vash who's barely standing on one leg desperately chasing after them (he fails, again) and comes back home empty-handed with not even a body to bury...
(it's as if they'd never existed in the first place. they're gone. they're not coming back.)
just thinking how flawed luca is because they've expected and accepted they should be forgotten and hated since it's well deserved of them. have you not known their past? how selfish and inconsiderate they are their whole life?
they thought it was an obvious answer, so they always assumed vash would hate them once they died, and vash hates that (not them; but their assumptions. never them).
I think luca unknowingly insisting their beliefs on him makes him do the complete opposite. now vash still wears their sunglasses out of spite, as proof that he's not going to forget them (aka an unconventional keepsake)
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