#if so then here is some wild ent-wife
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Blackthorn shepherd moving her herd to a sunny place, for character design challenge ♡
Blackthorn berries taste so sour/bitter that it makes your mouth numb...so I made this character a little bit...sour looking :D
acrylic, poca marker, and ink on yellow paper ♡
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Dollar Bin #11:
Graham Nash's Wild Tales
Graham Nash is the Malvolio of the Dollar Bin. In case Shakespeare's 12th Night is not instantly at your fingertips, here's the run down: Nash/Malvolio spends his existence/the play looking down on all the drunk David Crosbys/Sir Tobys around him. He thinks he's an equal to the geniuses about him (Joni Mitchell is his Viola; Neil Young his Feste) and he's a competitor with the biggest dope in history (Stephen Stills, of course / the Duke Orsino).
Malvolio winds up cross-gartered in yellow tights, sure he's the star of the play. In actuality he's the laughing stock.
Malvolio = Nash. Check them out.
But Wild Tales has more potential than anything else in Nash's oeuvre. Here's a list of why this album should not suck:
The cover photo, taken by the omnipresent Joel Bernstein, gives us hope that this is a concept record about Middle Earth with Nash playing the role of Tom Bombadil's willowy, spaced out neighbor. Look, he even has a book about Ents!
2. The back cover's art is by Joni Mitchell. She must have, inexplicably, still liked Nash on some level. And she sings on one track. Surely, this album cannot suck!
3. Ben Keith is all over this record. Keith is, of course, central to the Fellowship of the Young. He, Briggs, Poncho, Whitten and Nils helped Neil sneak in and out of Mordor time and time again. If Ben Keith plays on a Dollar Bin record, buy it.
4. Joe Yankee plays on this record. (That's Neil Young's nom de plume in the early 70's. Soon Neil would settle on Bernard Shakey instead.) Again, how can this record not be good?
5. This record is from 73. In 71, when Nash put out his first solo record, Nash had reason to think we all wanted to see him in the yellow tights. Deja Vu was fresh, Mitchell had recently tolerated him as a boyfriend and he was the only relatively handsome guy in the world's biggest band. Just check them out.
Listed left to right, there they are in 71: Neil looks like he forgot to do his middle school math homework yet again and teacher will be mad; Greg Reeves looks like he refuses to do any homework, ever; he is working up a mustache instead; Crosby stands before them all proudly, the assistant middle school Gym coach the girls all know to avoid; Stills is a mouth-breather repeating a grade: he wants to do the homework, but knows not how; Dallas Taylor still eats paste.
And then there's Nash behind them all: in 71 Graham clearly thought he was a studly chick-magnet, ready to date multiple high school cheerleaders and make them all cry; plus when he sings "very, very, very fine house" it sounds like he's actually wearing yellow tights, prancing about, praising Jove. Listening to solo music by the guy in 71 seems like a bad idea.
But by 73 Nash should have gained a little perspective. CSN&Y were toast, Mitchell and Young were making timeless music without him and even Stills refused to put his own name on Nash's records (he's listed as Harry Halex on Wild Tales: Stephen Stills not only sucks, he also can't think up fun or even pronounceable fake names. Let me suggest one for you Stephen: Richard Stroker; his friends call him Dick).
And so Nash should have approached Wild Tales like it was his Gettysburg: it was time to charge the enemy screaming, bayonet out. Nash had everything to lose, everything to gain.
Instead, the album is... okay. Side 1 starts with strong promise: Young's rhythm section regulars Johnny Barbata and Tim Drummond lay down a muddy vibe while David Lindley impersonates Neil nicely. Please inform my wife that Lindley's recent look is my new one:
The problem, frankly, is Nash's voice. He always wants us to believe Wild Tales are about to be told but he always sings like he's hawking Cinnamon Toast Crunch during Saturday morning cartoon hour. Stop sounding happy Graham! We hauled this out of the Dollar Bin because we want Acid, Booze and Ass, Needles, Guns and Grass. We do not want laughs.
Prison Song is a highlight, though. The melody swings, Lindley provides swashbuckling mandolin fills and, while I'm not convinced that all the pot dealers then in prison were assuaged by the knowledge that Graham felt for them deeply, I can get behind this song.
But Side 1 ends with two tracks that show what we are missing out on. When Ben Keith wasn't making this record in 73 he was installing street signs in Neil Young's Ditch, making Tonight's the Night. There are echoes of that effervescent vibe in the Nash songs You'll Never Be the Same and, especially, And So it Goes. Young is credited with acoustic piano on the later song, an instrument he plays plenty of on Tonight. And I'm gonna argue right here that Neil plays the electric rhythm guitar as well on this song; if it's not him, it's Ben Keith. And so, musically, the track is a big deal compared to everything else on this record.
But then there's the chorus:
Well there's one thing to try,
Everybody knows.
Music gets you high,
Everybody grows.
And so it goes.
First of all, no one wants to think about Graham sporting a boner during this, or any, song. So that growing line has got to go.
Secondly, listen to the chorus's vocals, and this song sounds like I'm Waiting For My Man rewritten as a Subway commercial. It's now entitled I'm Waiting For My Ham.
Jonathan Richman, who I love, knows better than to try to cover Leonard Cohen. I know not to attend an open casting call for SI's Swimsuit Edition.
But Nash has no idea. He thinks he can rock a two piece; he thinks he is Leonard Cohen. No wonder Neil pretends to be Joe Yankee on the credits.
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The album's second side is dull and unmemorable. Joni Mitchell clearly fell asleep while waiting to be cued for her paltry vocals on Another Sleep Song. She sounds disinterested at best.
Last Spring Nash foisted himself back into our consciousness. Stories appeared in the New Yorker, NPR, all over. After Crosby's death, Nash basically insisted that Crosby's last words had been "you're my hero Graham" or something along those lines. In actuality, Crosby's thoughts on Nash for the last decade had been, basically, you ruined my life; eat a sweet one.
At the same time, Nash made a pathetic effort to jump start SN&Y by praising Stills and claiming that Crosby forgave Young at the end. In fact, Crosby had told Neil more than a few times to eat a whole bunch of sweet ones. But no dice Graham: Neil responded to Nash's press push by reuniting with Stills for a benefit show and not inviting Nash. Man, that's low, Neil. Stephen Stills sucks.
Finally, Nash gloried in those same interviews about his love life. After 40 years of marital bliss, he'd recently dumped his wife and took up with a woman younger than most of his kids. The dude is 81, six months younger than my dad.
Someone get me a woody Allen sized bucket. I'm about to throw up; it seems I drank too many Wild Tales.
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Do you love angst, trashiness and playboys redeemed and suffering for love?
OK, cdrama current landscape is like a desert after a nuclear strike but that doesn’t mean I cannot dig into the past when CCP was less interested in micromanaging entertainment unless it actually tried to get into politics (did you know that at one point there was a period drama! airing on TV! on which the leading role of Empress Cixi was played by a Japanese actress! And the world did not end! It’s wild how far c-ent has come and not in a good way; that frog has been boiling for a long time.)
Anyway, I present to you Four Women Conflict/Love Tribulations, a drama from 2011 starring Ady An, a huge fave, as a woman with the worst luck ever, Feng Shao Feng as a playboy who meets her because he’s being paid to seduce her but falls desperately for real, and her first love played by Mickey He. Taking place in the early years of the 20th century, misery for all, but so good!
Meet our heroine, as beautiful as she’s tormented. In ep 1 alone: her newly widowed stepmother sold her barely pubescent self into a brothel. But it’s OK because her childhood love rescued her and burned her stepmom to a crisp. A fast forward and she's a maid in some house and it doesn't look too horrific, so we'll see. Except the husband fancies her and the wife's reaction is "you can do anything you like outside but don't seduce the maids inside the house." Charming. Except he's still after her so she's ordered to be whipped by the jealous wife. Who then marries her off to some ugly moron with zero willpower or brain. It gets better as she gets raped by her former master on her wedding night (who bullies her husband into letting him). And the raping thing turns into a systemic thing. This is all in ep 1,none of it would be allowed now. I am not saying abuse is a great thing but this all a hell of a lot more realistic fate for a beautiful lower class woman than the dim sugar confections try to show us nowadays.
When we finally meet the hero, he's having sex with a married woman. While being married himself, and not to her. On the grounds of a Buddhist monastery. Once again none of this would fly nowadays.
Meet heroine’s childhood love and stepmom crisper, played by young and scrumptious Mickey He (sexy demon dad in L&R). On brand, when we first meet heroine's childhood love as an adult, he's rescuing a bunch of women who've been captured by slavers.
By any laws of sanity, I should be shipping heroine with her childhood love and I do, madly, but I ship her with the hero also! I have no idea why but maybe because even though I know in real life, a playboy will just give you a bad case of STDs and will never reform, it's so satisfying to watch the whole 'playboy redeemed by/suffering for/madly in love' scenario on screen. Plus, he's about the only character who appears to have an fun in this, and God knows, poor heroine needs someone who can show her some fun and also knows what he's doing in bed, too.
And here is where the plot gets going. We see playboy spread his love/STDs to another lady, a very rich one this time. After playboy and a rich banker lady finish banging, they have the following convo as interpreted by me:
Playboy: So, about that loan for my business? I mean, if you need more persuading, I can go all night.
Friend-with-benefits/his moneylender: OK, loan. Fine. You get the loan the day you seduce Du Lanyun.
Playboy: Am I supposed to know who she is? And since when are you pimping for me? Do you want a threesome or something? Are you into girl-on-girl action? Where do I sign up?
Friend-with-benefits: Look, you are the only guy with a spoken part who's not in love with Ady An. We must remedy this pronto or else the universe will be destroyed. Also, my best friend's husband is cheating on my friend with her. Yeah, Lanyun has no interest in the guy, who apparently raped her and made her life hell, but sure, let's lash out at the victim.
Playboy: I feel the sudden need of meeting a beautiful and pure woman who will redeem me and put me through hell in the name of love. Otherwise, where will this drama be?
Friend-with-benefits: I promise I won't be jealous. This isn't an ironic foreshadowing, no siree. Oh, and her first love is Mickey He.
Playboy: It's fun to see in how many dramas I can steal a woman's heart from Mickey He. I am in!
Friend-with-benefits: And speaking of "in"...the bed is right there and I was never able to resist going for seconds.
Playboy: If you close your eyes, I'll take you to heaven (actual quote, guys! Well, I suppose it's good to have self-confidence).
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🏳️🌈 Rec post!! A queer film + a queer TV series from Hong Kong ~
1) Twilight’s Kiss (叔·叔) (Dir. Ray Yeung 楊曜愷; 2019)
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Twilight’s Kiss offers a very realistic depiction of two elderly, in-the-closet gays in Hong Kong, who have dedicated their lives building a conventional family before unexpectedly falling in love with each other. It is a quiet film, and the romance is told in the same subtle manner as love is expressed (and not expressed) in their generation. The actors were phenomenal at playing regular Hong Kong men of their age (Pak mentioned he “came to Hong Kong”, ie, he was a refugee from Mao’s China, as the vast majority of his demographics was), which added to the resonance of the story ~ they could’ve been anyone, and anyone could’ve been them.
The director of the film, Ray Yeung, is an openly gay man.
(Long review: Hollywood Reporter)
Streaming link to film (with English subtitles; pls ignore and close the pop-up window)
2) Ossan’s Love (大叔的愛) (2021)
The unlikely (and hilarious) love triangle between Muk (Left), Tin (Center) and KK (Right) in Ossan’s Love.
For those who found the name familiar, it’s because the series is a (faithful) remake of the popular 2018 Japanese series of the same name. The Hong Kong version is longer (15 episodes; ~ 40 min each) compared to the Japanese original, and its mood is cheerier, sweeter, and also ... more BL, with the lead characters Tin (Haruta in the original) and Muk (Maki in the original) played by two idols, Edan Lui 呂爵安 and Anson Lo 盧瀚霆, from the very popular local boy band MIRROR.
(Being idols didn’t prevent them from kissing. Not in Hong Kong, 2021.)
(Yes, they kissed, and hugged and fought and bantered...)
Ossan’s Love is culturally significant in that it became the first gay drama to be aired primetime in Hong Kong, and by extension, in China. Beloved by the locals, it was also very much discussed—hk-queers expressed their (surprised) joy that finally, they got to see a respectful, dignified presentation of who they are and how they love. More importantly, they got to see HKers, older generations included, glued to the TV for their kind of love story, rooting for the lead male characters to get together.
This signifies a broader acceptance of LGBT+ in the city than previously assumed; this is very important and comforting to the community in June, 2021, when the future of LGBT+ rights in the city is very uncertain. After the 2019 protests, pro-democracy leaders have been arrested and jailed in large numbers; newspaper that advocated for freedom has been shut down. Meanwhile, during the airing of Ossan’s Love , the (in)famous pro-Beijing politician, Junius Ho, claimed the series to have violated the city’s much feared, much abused National Security Law—the law that officially aims to catch “traitors”, but has been used as a “catch-all” excuse to arrest political dissidents and suppress the freedoms of the city. Ho was of sufficient prominence that his words could draw the attention of officials who have been sent from across the mainland-HK border to do Beijing’s bidding.
Also, Ossan’s Love was produced not by the powerful, once popular TVB (local TV station), which, with Chinese investors becoming its major shareholders like many other HK press and media companies, has become very pro-Beijing and conservative. The series was produced by ViuTV, a much smaller station preferred by young, pro-democracy Hong Kongers ... which means the future of the series, of its stars (MIRROR’s members are once-contestants of a ViuTV talent show), of even the station itself is also uncertain.
Hence, I’m recommending Ossan’s Love now ... even if the official version doesn’t have the best English subtitles. The full series is on Youtube (links below); the soundtrack is in Cantonese and (Traditional) Chinese subtitles are available, but English is only available via Youtube’s built-in Auto-Translate function.
For those who would like to catch a short scene of two cute HK boys in love, the last 5 minutes of Ep 11 would be a nice place to watch. You can see how comfortable these two bandmates were with each other—Edan (Tin) had played two supporting roles before this series, while Anson (Muk) had never acted before. Edan and Anson have claimed that being close friends in RL meant their intimate scenes were easy to film (BTW, Anson is gay, Edan isn’t).
Edan Lui (Left) & Anson Lo (Right), Harper's Bazaar HK, May 2021. Edan was a uni student before joining hk-ent. Anson was a dance instructor.
(You can also see why, when I watched the Gg + Dd Happy Camp episode very, very early on in my turtlehood, I assumed Gg and Dd would have ample opportunities to work together again, to play and be happy in front of the camera ... just like how I remembered on-screen couples from my days in HK—the couples, the CPs of the time, would collaborate repeatedly after having demonstrated chemistry and become commercial success—in film and TV projects, in variety shows, in awards ceremonies as presenting guests etc etc. This multi-project collaboration was, and still is, viewed as a Very Good Thing, and not only for commercial reasons. The inter-personal fate (緣份) to play on-screen couples repeatedly, per the tradition of HK-ent, is something of a blessing, talked about as a small-scale version of having the destiny, the luck to be together across multiple lives, multiple incarnations. Actors treasure this kind of collaboration and the HK audience celebrates it, regardless of the marital status of the actors in RL. Entertainment news dedicate articles about it.)
(There’s actually an example of that in Ossan’s Love: Kenny Wong 黃德斌, the actor who played the titular Ossan, KK, and Rachel Kan 簡慕華, who played his wife Francesca, had already played husband and wife three times before. Rachel had retired from acting in 2017 and moved to Canada; she told reporters that she returned to shoot Ossan’s Love primarily so that she could play Kenny’s wife again).
* Below is a small warning for Ossan’s Love ~ *
The humour of Ossan’s Love is often wild and zany, especially where it adapts from the Japanese original. Some of it, i-fandomers may find uncomfortable. Notably, the titular Ossan (Japanese, meaning “Older Man”) was Tin and Muk’s boss; and he and Darren, another superior of Tin and Muk, were also part of the romantic story line.
One can argue, therefore, that Ossan’s Love contains a *very* “Me Too” situation; however, this is also why I find Ossan’s Love interesting beyond being a Chinese-speaking gay drama—it is clear that the production team of this series meant no disrespect, and from the series’ reception, it’s also clear that hk-queers and other more progressive members among the audience didn’t see disrespect in the product. This series therefore offers a glimpse to the answers of some questions I’ve had: how does Hong Kong of 2021 translate respect for queers (as well as for older men and women) into day-to-day words and actions? How do these culturally-specific habits in speech and behaviour compare to the norms in, for example, the United States (that I’m familiar with)?
“Political incorrectness” was also found in some of Tin’s internal monologue. However, I thought, perhaps, that was why the series has proven to be disarming to the general audience both in HK and Japan, places with a tradition of homophobia stemming often not from malice, but from ignorance, from sex being considered taboo for so much of the places’ history. Tin, as someone who haven’t seemed to have spared a thought about homosexuality before the story had taken place, spoke the minds of the audiences who aren’t familiar with homosexuality. Muk, meanwhile, presented the perspective of someone who already understood what being gay was and wasn’t about. Tin, therefore, led the audience towards Muk and his views step by step, all the while without being judgemental—how could he be? He was one of them too during his journey. He was the student, and he was also the protagonist who everyone—and I mean everyone—loved (in a rather funny manner :D). 🌈
(Long review: BLwatcher)
Links to Ossan’s Love, official version uploaded by ViuTV:
EP 1
EP 2
EP 3
EP 4
EP 5
EP 6
EP 7
EP 8
EP 9
EP 10
EP 11
EP 12
EP 13
EP 14
EP 15
ETA 2021/09/16: Streaming with English subtitles is available here.
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west
Elwing’s Fourteen The Company of Elwing, or;
Desperate-Cornered-Queens-Falling-In-the-Sea Solidarity, or;
A True Tale of the Last Days of Númenor, as Never Recorded In Official Chronicles, Because While Some of the Valar Were Definitely Looking the Other Way or Even Aiding And Abetting, No One Thinks It Was All of Them, So the Truth Might Get Some People in Potentially a Lot of Trouble
The Regrets of Elwing Dioriel; ~TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER~; The Team; A Folkloric Interlude; Expectation Management is Very Important; Proposed Wild Celebrimbor Chase; High Elves Do Not Like Fetters; The Skulk of the Ents; Pay It Forward(?); Four Elves in a Submarine; Rómenna; Armenelos Time;
CONTINUED
In the Very Last Days of Númenor (Really This Time)
Aftermath I
West
Sauron goes back to Númenor. He honestly isn't even surprised to see what happened to the temple, but he still slaughters all the remaining priests for failing to prevent it.
He sees, now, that all this was an evacuation campaign.
He thinks it was to escape from him.
He thinks this is a safe place to recover from the nasty burns from the decoy ring.
Ar-Pharazôn for his part finds his wife gone, his palace ransacked, his temple ruined, and his sorcerer disfigured, and vows swift revenge on the Valar. The Armament sails NOW.
*
Before they circle around north, Elwing and Amarië and Finrod and Celebrimbor call back the ships that lie ruined under and around the Bay of Rómenna. They won't last more than five years, but Númenor won't be here then. If more people come seeking to flee they'll find ships to bear them.
All of them have to sit down after that. Celebrimbor just straight-up passes out. Finrod dozes off on Amarië's shoulder.
Elwing gets Voronwë to help her up topside so she can look back at Númenor as long as she can.
There's no saving the land of the gift, but she wants to remember it — not just for Elros's sake but for Amandil's, and Míriel's, and every child she stole from both their parents and certain doom.
For Elrond's sake, someday.
*
The penguin-ship gets back to Avallónë well before the reduced armada gets anywhere near. They make sure the four refugees are safely with the healers and that the healers know to be discreet for the moment, and then they scatter.
Curumeldis makes sure the penguin-ship workshops are prepared for rough seas, and goes home to her parents. She says she was doing some dubiously permissible reconnaissance by penguin-ship.
How do they feel about Ankle-Pull as a name for it? No? It's too complicated a story to explain.
*
Finduilas's parents live on Tol Eressëa, strenuously avoiding any leadership responsibilities. She convinces them to host Celebrimbor (not hard) and Caranthir (very hard).
"I know you don't get along, and he's very… abrasive, and I can't explain what's been going on, but Celebrimbor — Celebrimbor needs rest and to be out of the public eye, and I think it would be better if he felt safe, and Caranthir will help with that."
She's prepared to invoke Finrod's name, but Orodreth reluctantly agrees. Everyone knows there's a good reason the returned sons of Fëanor have been so protective of their nephew, and if it's gotten worse somehow…
Caranthir makes an effort to be less abrasive.
He and Orodreth even end up bonding — a little — over how much they don't want to engage in political or military leadership ever again.
Finduilas finds Celebrimbor alone, staring out a window at the forest, and lingers in the doorway.
"I know I don't — I can't really understand." Because Túrin always meant well. None of the ruin he brought was on purpose. And she's not sure Celebrimbor's heart is in the same sort of tangle that hers was. "But I can listen, if you want to talk about it."
"…Maybe."
*
Inwistië goes home to Alqualondë to stay with her family.
They are glad she's with them for these uncertain times.
They are not so glad that she refuses to explain anything whatsoever about where she has been, what she has been doing, or how she acquired an intensely loyal pelican friend — but they're used to it.
*
Finrod and Amarië return to tell Finarfin the thing he definitely did not want to know about ended well.
They find him somewhat closer than expected, as the Noldor are putting together an impressive-looking if fragile "decoy Tirion" at the eastern end of the Calacirya.
"Being ordered to withdraw rather than defend has people a little... We needed something to do. If anyone asks this is to ensure we have enough time to evacuate actual Tirion."
"Is that taller than the actual palace?" Amarië wonders.
"Yes, but I wouldn't go inside. Or too close to it outside. Findekáno and Irissë were not focusing on stability."
"I smell blasting powder," Finrod says.
"If people are putting in traps it's due to a miscommunication," Finarfin replies piously. He frowns at them. "I'd ask what you wanted to work on but I think both of you should go straight home, you look exhausted."
"He is, but I'm fine," Amarië says, then fails to suppress a yawn.
*
Ambarussa find Nerdanel also working on decoy Tirion. Specifically she's overseeing the placement of a "plaza" which will when triggered drop all the occupants into a pit.
(There is an argument going on ten feet away about whether or not spikes should have been included in the pit.)
(It's not clear from listening whether they have been.)
"There you are," Nerdanel says. "Where did you go? And Caranthir?"
(She never stopped loving them, but it will take a while longer until she can trust them. They understand.)
"He's on Tol Eressëa with Celebrimbor, don't worry."
"We shouldn't tell you where we went, just yet, I'm not sure when we can, but — it was a good thing. We did a good thing."
"We hope we can tell Maedhros about it, someday. We think he'll laugh."
*
Voronwë and Elenwë go to Idril and Tuor, to explain what Elenwë required Voronwë's help with so urgently.
Voronwë tells them almost everything.
Idril hoped it might be something of the sort; Tuor hadn't dared to. He weeps with relief.
(Tuor has loved Númenor for its own sake, and more for the sake of his own long-lost kin, but he loves it most for Eärendil, who might have liked to live there and never even got to visit. At least Eärendil can know that his wife and his family did what they could.)
(At least Tuor can know that the Valar he has faith in did not all forsake Númenor's people even when they forsook Númenor.
"There is one more thing," Voronwë says finally. "But I thought Lady Elenwë might wish to explain her direct involvement herself."
He certainly doesn't wish to.
"Her what?"
(Idril really doesn't know why she's surprised. Her mother married into the House of Finwë despite ample warning of what she was getting herself into. This wasn't actually much wilder a thing to do.)
*
Beleg insists upon escorting Elwing safely to her tower.
He could report to Dior and Nimloth — not everything, but explain he was helping Elwing with a risky endeavor they will have to ask her about if they want to know more. He will, eventually.
But he's going to be pretty busy for a while making sure the non-wild animals find good homes and the wild ones find the right biomes.
It's a tiny fraction of the ones sent to Middle-earth, but there's still quite a bit to do.
Mablung finds him not long after. "There you are. What the hell did Princess Elwing have you doing all this time? We were— Are those kittens?"
"…No," says Beleg, whose arms are full of kittens.
*
Amandil sails East. His mission West did not go as he had hoped, but far better than he expected. He's done what he can do.
And his little cousin Míriel is safe and here, and forgives him for giving up on her.
He couldn't save Númenor, but he's so grateful. He's so grateful.
*
The first thing Elwing has to do is mediate between the birds who have lived around her tower for a long time and the birds who have just now followed her from Númenor. The former of course have seniority, but the latter are not unreasonably proud of having risked their lives spying for her. And of course most of them are seabirds and almost as contentious by nature as the Noldor.
They're still not completely happy when Vingilótë arrives and they are obliged to get themselves out of the way.
Eärendil walks in, picks her up, and whirls her around. "You are incredibly wonderful."
"It was a group effort," Elwing says. "And we didn't save everyone."
She thinks they could have borrowed all Alqualondë's ships and still not have had the space to save everyone.
"No, but you saved at least fifty times as many as the Faithful alone would have," Eärendil replies.
"Most of it wasn't me—"
"You brought them together."
"…Yes. I did do that."
("Though I do have to ask — I'm certainly not criticizing since Celebrimbor was crucial, but does this mean we're forgiving…?")
("No, it means we're abiding them. …I think I could, though. Forgive them. Someday.")
*
Ar-Pharazôn and (what there is of) his Great Armament sail west, and land on Aman, and strike inland.
(They do not get any farther than Decoy Tirion.)
The Valar appeal to Iluvatar.
The army is destroyed (along with any evidence of miscommunication-inspired traps they may have encountered in Decoy Tirion).
Númenor drowns.
The world is changed.
(AO3)
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UPDATED Masterpost of Obscure Lord of the Rings Adaptations
Edit: added a couple more super-obscure ones people told me about, AND a link to the soundtrack of the old Finnish musical adaptation
Note: this is just a masterpost of *Lord of the Rings* adaptations-- versions of the story about Frodo and the Fellowship going off to defeat Sauron.
This list will not include obscure Hobbit adaptations, or obscure Slmarillion-inspired stuff, or adaptations that don’t follow either story (ex. video games like Shadow of Mordor.)
Animated Adaptations:
Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings (the first true film adaptation of Lord of the Rings! was Peter Jackson’s first intro to the story and inspired a lot of his version. This movie was actually a financial success when it came out, even though reviews were Mixed, and were definitely Mixed for a reason)
Rankin-bass’s Return of the King (made-for-tv movie that is both a sequel to Rankin-bass’s Hobbit, but also a spiritual sequel to Ralph Bakshi’s LOTR)
Live action adaptations:
Hobitit-- a Finnish Miniseries based on a successful stage adaptation that had been produced years earlier! It had a shoestring budget, and is an amazing disaster.
Stage Adaptations:
The Lord of the Rings Musical (official soundtrack, YouTube playlist)
The Lord of the Rings Musical (audio-only full recording)
The OTHER even more obscure English Lord of the Rings musical, the Cincinnati LOTR musical. (This apparently existed, but I have trouble finding any information about it online. It might be Lost to Time.)
The popular 1980 Finnish Stage Adaptation, the Ryhmatteatteri adaptation that Hobitit was based on. Here’s a playlist of songs from it-- they’re all based on poems from the book, so if you don’t speak Finnish you can google-translate the titles/lyrics to figure out which is which. One of my favorite songs, the duet of the ent and ent-wife, isn’t included on the playlist for some reaoson-- but here it is!:
youtube
A 2018 Finnish Stage Adaptation, the Turun Kaupunginteatteri adaptation (@erdariel made me aware of this! Here’s a link they sent to a behind-the-scenes video, tho I’m not sure if this is for the modern one or for the old one I just mentioned in the previous bulletpoint. there haS to be a recording of this online somewhere bc it’s so recent, but I can’t find it.)
Radio Dramas
Important: Radio Dramas are not audiobooks, they actually are adaptations, like plays! I am slow on the uptake so I didn’t know that until a year ago
The 1980 BBC Radio Drama: (I love it and it stars Ian Holm AKA Peter Jackson Bilbo as Frodo!)
The 1979 American radio adaptation (I haven’t listened to this yet! I don’t know much about it, just that it’s apparently not as good as the BBC one. Also let me know if you can find a better link!)
The Slovakian Radio Drama (@flutelorelai made me aware of this! Has jamming tunes, and is apparently really good aND very close to the book. However idk if there are any versions with English subtitles)
The 1950 Radio Drama (the only adaptation Tolkien lived to witness and utterly hate-- has been lost to time)
A wild-sounding Russian radio drama @venwe told me about:
Video Game Adaptations:
LOTR Online-- a free-to-play open-world online game that takes place during the events of LOTR, where your OC occasionally gets to interact with the main characters/storyline.
LEGO Lord of the Rings
The film-tie in games that are not as good as LEGO Lord of the Rings
Ok but actually, this is my blind spot. If anyone knows any obscure video game adaptations of Lord of the Rings-- not things like Shadow of Mordor that have their own story, but video games that specifically adapt the story of Frodo taking the Ring to Mordor-- feel free to add on!!
Parodies:
Fellowship! The Musical soundtrack playlist (parody musical based on Peter Jackson’s fellowship of the Ring-- I haven’t listened to it yet, so I have no idea what it’s like. Also if anyone knows where to find a full recording/bootleg of it., feel free to add that!!!)
Bored of the Rings: a parody book by the Harvard Lamppon
LORD OF THE BEANS (Veggietales Lord of the Rings-- I’ve never seen it but I feel like people would kill me if I didn’t put this on here. Thanks to @coolnerdynursingstudent for the link.)
An Australian musical parody @recidivist-reader told me about:
A Russian fanmade parody of the PJ movies an anon told me about (I still haven’t seen it):
Misc
Johan de Meiji’s Lord of the Rings symphony (symphony inspired by Lord of the Rings)
#lotr#overthinkinglotr#bakshi film#hobitit#rankin-bass rotk#lotr musical#WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE#feel free to add more obscure adaptations!#or more info about the adaptations I didn't know where to find!
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Chapter One: New Home, New Friends, and Lots of Boxes To Unpack.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four (Coming Soon)
Content Warnings: Food [DM or send an ask for something to be tagged]
Words: 2037
Editors: Aqua (@duckswithbucks)
Taglist: @fandom-nerd-girl555 @justmeandmygayships
Notes: Here’s the first chapter! My goal is to upload once a week, but I’m not sure how that’ll go.
The young pixie stared up at the house, a bright smile on his face. His parents stood beside him, similar smiles on their faces. The family was glowing with excitement for their new life in Brookside— a new life free of the disapproval and fear that had chased them in Worshire.
“Patton, can you help your father with the boxes?” The feral pixie nodded, heading to the truck that carried the last of their possessions. The big furniture had been moved last week, so now it was just… everything else. The family was definitely going to be spending the day moving boxes. It wasn’t ideal, but they could explore the town once there were actually sheets on the beds.
By midday, all the essentials were done. Dinner was in the fridge, ready to be eaten. Patton and his father, Geoni, were sitting at the table, reviewing their packing lists, and crossing off boxes. Patton’s mother, Julia, was pacing around anxiously, checking her phone every few minutes.
“Mom, what’s bugging you now?”
“Oh! Dear,” she laid a hand on her son’s shoulder, “Patton, and Geo, dear, I’ve been talking with the family next door— they’re quite a lovely family—and I wanted to ask: would you be alright with them coming for dinner?”
Patton shrugged, “I don’t mind.”
“I see no problem with it,” said Geoni matter-of-factly, “It’s the fae one, yes?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Ah, then I’d love to meet them! Tell them we’ll make sure to have a lovely dinner prepared, I’ll make stew. They aren’t feral, are they?” Julia shook her head and began to type on her phone.
“Well, it’ll be nice to meet the neighbors. If you don’t mind, I have to deal with some personal items, call me if you need me.” Geoni nodded, rising from his chair to his full height.
“Come down in half an hour, will you? I’ll need some help with the stew.” Patton nodded before grabbing a box with his name and rushing upstairs.
Patton had already spent a lot of time in this room, deciding where everything would go. Still it seemed foreign. Already the dresser, bed, and a side table had been put in, but other than that, it was bland and empty. The walls had at least been painted a sky blue, the pixie’s favorite color.
He set to work putting up pictures of memories, posters of shows he watched, and decorating with nostalgic pieces of art and trophies he’d won as a child in various competitions. He managed to get through a good part of the box before his father called him down to help with the stew.
It was a pretty simple recipe, but it always got a ton of compliments. Geoni was an excellent chef, and was almost always in charge of cooking when there were guests. Patton didn’t share his father’s talents, but he could at least do things like chop onions and pass spices without messing up.
Pretty soon the table was ready with a steaming pot of stew in the middle, and just in time, as the doorbell rang.
“Patton, can you get that?” Said Geoni, who was putting ice in the glasses. The feral pixie nodded, rushing to the door. He opened it with a smile.
“Hello!” The family at the door was dressed in fine, dark clothing. Each with a yellow emblem of two snakes circling each other on their chest. There was a tall, serious man, a young-looking woman, who wore a warm smile, and a teenager with messy, shoulder length red hair. They all wore dark hats.
“Hello,” the man stepped forward, and Patton could see well trimmed red hair peek out from his hat, he extended a hand covered in a black glove to Patton, and the feral pixie took it.
“I’m Patton, Patton Talisman. It’s a pleasure to meet you, why don’t you come in?” The pixie stopped back, making way for the family to stroll in. Once they were all inside, Patton shut the door.
“I’m Ilani Sepentes, or Charity. This is my husband Hanson, or Disguise. And my son, Janus, or Deceit.” said the woman.
“Oh, ha, I’m Morality. I’m not quite used to using my fae name.”
“Ah yes, not every circle uses it quite that often.”
“Why don’t you come sit down, dinner’s already made.”
“Ah! Janus, be a dear and grab the pie from the car, I nearly forgot.”
The young fae nodded and rushed out to the car, coming back a few moments later as the parents were setting down to the table.
“Oh,” Julia took the pie, “How lovely, I’ll put it on the counter.”
“It was the least we could do to welcome you to our town. My son made it though, so thank him.”
“Ah, yes.” Julia stepped forward, “Janus, was it?”
“Yes.” He smiled, extending a gloved hand. Patton noticed that the son’s gloves were yellow, rather than the black of the mother and father.
“Thank you so much, why don’t you all take a seat.”
The meal started in awkward silence. The Talisman family was shy of the Sepentes [AN: it’s pronounced sep-ENT-ess], and didn’t really know how to start the conversation. Thankfully, Ilani spoke first.
“Me and my husband, if you haven’t heard already, are the leaders of the circle. If you didn’t live next door we’d probably be here anyway.”
Julia dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before speaking. “It’s lovely to meet you, then. I was considering asking about the leader anyway.” She paused, for a moment, apparently concentrating hard. “I probably should have figured that out, as you know, this is the Sepentes… pixie… circle.”
Ilani laughed. “Yes, our family has been running this circle for centuries now.”
“Say, do you host monthly meetings?” Asked Geoni, wiping the blood of his food from his hands.
“We host them the first and second Monday of the month at nine at night.”
“Well then, me and my son will have to show up!” Said Patton’s father with a smile.
“What, you’re wife’s not up to it?” Said Hanson snidely.
“Dear! Be respectful.” She sighed. “My husband was not raised in a welcoming circle so… he can be rude about things.”
Julia nodded. “Well, at least you aren’t going to ban my husband and son from attending pixie circle and basically threatening to kill me if Geoni doesn’t get a divorce and kill his son.”
“Oh god, did that happen?” Ilani’s mouth hung open.
“More or less. It’s why we moved, that and the manics.” She gestured to Patton, who gave an awkward wave.
Ilani nodded understandingly. Hanson huffed, and grudgingly said “My apologies, ma’am.”
The rest of the dinner went well, most with Ilani, Geoni, and Julia chatting happily, talking about Brookside and the Talisman’s experiences in Worshire. Patton made the occasional remark, but stayed mostly quiet, casting glances at Janus and his imposing father.
“What grade are you in?” Asked the son softly, turning towards Patton. The cat pixie looked up, and turned towards the other as well.
“I’m a freshman, I’m transferring into the high school mid year,” he paused, “I’m a little nervous to be honest.”
Janus smiled, “Nothing to be worried about. I’m a freshman too, and I have friends in freshman year. There’s Virgil--he’s a shadow elf-- and Remus, he’s human.”
“You're really friends with humans?”
“I’d figure you’d get it, you know, since your mom is one.”
“Ha, yeah, I guess. I’ve just always been told not to be friends with humans, in case they find you, you know.”
“That’s fair I guess. Human or not, do you want to meet them? It’d be nice to start off your life in a new town with some friends.”
“Yeah, I guess that's good.”
“Cool, you can hang out with us sometime before school starts maybe?”
“Sure.” Patton smiled. He was nervous, as he didn’t really have friends in his old town. The life of a fae with a human parent, I guess. After everyone had eaten, Patton was charged with cleaning up and bringing out the pie. The jovial chatter between the three adults continued, with Hanson even jumping in a bit.
“Is everyone done with dessert?” asked Julia.
Positive murmurs rose around the table.
“Alright. Patton, why don’t you talk with Janus and clean up? The adults want to talk in the living room.” The feral pixie nodded as the four adults headed into the sparse living room, which had yet to be decorated.
“So what do you do here in Brookside?” Said Patton, gathering the dishes. Janus stood, picking up the rest of the pie.
“Oh, you know. The woods are pretty fun to walk around in. There’s a couple of ice cream shops. Me and the boys go roller skating once a month.”
“‘You and the boys’?” Patton chuckled.
“Yeah, ha. I’m friends with Remus and Virgil, but those two also bring along Roman and sometimes Logan, although I think they just feel bad for Logan.”
Patton smiled. “What are Remus and Virgil like?”
“Well you’ll meet them,” Janus pulled some ceran wrap out of the cupboard and began wrapping up the pie, “But I guess I should warn you. Virgil is nice, but he’s really anxious and shy, it’ll take you a bit to get close to him. When you first meet him though, and he doesn’t say a single word and just mopes in the corner, well, he looks like he’s ready to shoot you dead. Heh, he prolly could. Remus is… the exact opposite. He’s got this gorgeous face, I mean like gorgeous. He looks all sweet and kind and… he is nothing like that, lord. He’s got a very… wild imagination.”
“How long have you all known each other?”
“Well me and Virgil have been friends for a few years, seeing as we’re both fae, but Remus we met freshman year.”
Patton began wiping down the table, “So, your parents run the circle. What’s that like?”
Janus paused, seemingly thinking. “It’s alright I guess. It does mean I have to go to every single god damn meeting.”
“Language!”
Janus smiled, “Wow, what vulgar language I just used, oh golly,” he snickered, “Sorry, I’ll try not to curse.”
Patton smiled satisfactorily.
“But yeah, it’s not much except for the professional stuff. And I mean, if my older sister doesn’t take over, I’ll have to run it. I’m gonna have some place in leadership either way, but at least if she takes over I won’t be full time. She’s a lot more suited anyway. And I mean it’s not like my parents are close to retirement any-- sorry for rambling, ha.”
“It’s alright,” Patton smiled. “Wanna go upstairs? I think we’re bugging the adults.”
“Sure.”
The two headed up the stairs into Patton’s room, still only partially decorated. Janus looked around, smiling at the decorations already up. “I’m almost done with this room, just have a bit more to do.” The feral pixie placed the box on his bed, and Janus took a seat.
“This…” Patton pulled out a poster, “Is my favorite band. They aren’t together anymore but, I still like them. You can find their music on the web though.” The poster had a painting of a wolf on it and said ‘Timber at Dawn’.
“Wow, that’s nice.”
“Yeah, I have CDs of three of their albums, and records of all of them. My record player broke though.” The feral pixie took the records and stashed them before preparing to hand the poster.
“I have a record player, you can come to my house sometime and we can listen to them.”
“Really?” Patton smiled excitedly. It’d been nearly a year since he’d been able to listen to those albums.
“Yeah.”
The two spent the next hour chatting while Patton decorated his room. They talked about music, and clothing, and a dozen other meaningless things. They barely noticed any time had passed before Hanson was calling Janus to come down to leave.
“I’ll walk you out, but uh, do you want my number.”
“I would have forgotten. Trade numbers?”
The two entered their numbers into the other’s phones before rushing down the stairs. The group exchanged goodbyes, and soon the house was quiet again. Patton slept well last night, excited for a new life in Brookside.
#yo seff original#ts deceit#deceit sanders#ts janus#janus sanders#ts patton#patton sanders#ts morality#morality sanders#patton#thomas sanders#sanders sides#ts sides#fanfiction
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Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Additional Tags: Resurrected Jason Is Found By Poison Ivy AU, Dom/sub Undertones, Vines, Bondage, Breathplay, Basically what it’s like falling in love after you’d already fallen into love, feat. soft JayBru
There’s something to be said about punching your way out of your own coffin, scared out of your mind and not remembering a single damn thing. It's a living hell in every sense of the word, and all in all having Poison Ivy knock him out after she found him wandering around was probably as good an outcome he could have hoped for.
Or, what happens when Jason's return is less a traumatic ordeal in the Pit and more a gentle blossoming under Pamela's careful care, and he finds himself looking at Bruce and thinking, yes.
Take care of yourselves, and please hang in there as best you can.
Fic on tumblr under the cut.
There’s something to be said about punching your way out of your own coffin, scared out of your mind and not remembering a single damn thing aside from a vague sense of there being a place you needed to return to. It’s hell on your hands, for one; he kept finding splinters in his palms for days afterwards. It’s hell on the head, what with the pounding, the complete lack of any memories, the then-dead-now-alive situation, and all in all having Poison Ivy knock him out with some sleeping pollen after she found him rampaging through the botanical gardens in the dead of night was probably as good an end to the day as he could have hoped for.
Pamela’s a lot of frightening, fantastic things. One of those things is that she has a tendency to be unflinchingly kind to scrappy little weedy things trying desperately to survive, and he certainly was a weedy thing that night, freshly pushed out through the earth. He doesn’t remember much from the first 48 hours; just remembers fear and terror and rage, a burst of something sweet-smelling spreading across his face, and then being cared for by careful steady hands that kept him cool and watered and fed.
He recovers in body but not in memory, and decides to just keep helping Pam out, fuzzy on everything except that Gotham is where he needs to be. He doesn’t have any powers aside from being pretty strong and athletic, and while he’d like to think he’s a damn good kisser he can’t literally brainwash people with his skills; trying to keep up with a bit of a mystical botanist almost-villain is really hard when their skill levels are so mismatched.
Pam never seems to mind though, just laughs his concerns off and tells him some vague bullshit about how plants don’t need to do anything more than just be to be good and important and necessary, and that’s all he needs to worry about.
Life at the overridden jungle-esque townhouse that is Casa Isley is pretty simple and extremely pleasant, even in the early days when he was mostly mute and spent most of his time sitting by the window in the living room, face to the sun, eyes closed. She leaves him to recuperate and find his centre and find the sun in the daytime, and at night they bomb massive multinational corporations that profit from the destruction of the rainforests, and it’s a good hearty living. Something doesn’t feel entirely right about a purely vegetarian diet, but the things Pam can do with lentils and roasted squash, Jesus. On the work front, she calls him ‘Sting’ when they’re out, even though he has issues with sharing a name with an elderly pop star, but it’s better than getting called ‘Netty’ instead of nettles, so he goes along with it.
Almost a year in and he thinks he’s gotten the hang of the concept of just being, that he’s found where he can live and grow, that it’s fine that in an absence of a name they both seem to have settled on “Dan” because it’s short for ‘dandelion’, before the Mrs. shows up all of a sudden in a flurry of colour and chaos, takes one look at him, and starts screaming “Robin!!!”
-
It comes down to this;
“You know I don’t like to look at men’s faces,” Pam tells Harley with mild irritation, even as flowers keep popping up all throughout the house at the absolute pleasure the doctor is feeling at having her wife home for the first time in most of a year.
If they FaceTime each other, he’s never gotten to see it, and if they don’t, he has no idea how they survive that sharp bite of absence. It rings awful loud in his stupid head, and he doesn’t even know what it is he’s missing.
“I know, pumpkin, it’s one of your defining features.” Harley hasn’t stopped laughing once in the past hour, through the fracas of him reacting badly to being screeched at and Pam getting everyone wrapped up neatly in vines while she went to put the kettle on. Harley’s still got vines running all over her, and the whole mass of them seem delighted. “Been wonderin’ who they were talkin’ ‘bout, when they said you picked up a new sidekick who’s some guy that prob’ly wouldn’t know his poppies from his pansies, and now I see you got yourself a zombie baby bird!”
He tries not to snap the handle of the dainty teacup he’s holding. 'Robin' feels closer, closer than ‘Sting’ and ‘Dan’, but still not quite right. “Do you know if I got a family waiting for me somewhere?”
Harley grins. “A whole freakin’ flock of ‘em, buddy. Any terror of the night you see out here in Gotham, they’re gonna take one good look at you and they’re gonna know! Look for a strong jawline or crazy good hair, it’s a giveaway for all of yous. Seriously, Pammy, I can’t believe your little sidekick and you haven’t run into B yet.”
“He’s still new, I wasn’t going to take him out on anything high-level, Harley,” Pamela tells her archly. “But Dandy, it’s up to you. What do you say we hit up a bank or a dozen and see if anybody who swings by recognises you?”
It's not hard to say yes to potentially unraveling his past.
That night they go out in threes, Harley and Poison Ivy looking dashing as all hell while he skulks in the background, trying to stay clear of all the shameless makeouts. He feels deeply uncool in his sweats and his safety goggles with leaves stuck on, but he couldn't really knock up anything that looks half as good as their costumes, so it is what it is, urgh. The plan is easy enough; target the City Bank and just hang around until a Bat or a Bird swings by, and ask if they know who he is. At Harley’s insistence, he’s left the bandanna he usually wears to cover his face at home, because she swears that they’re going to need a peep at his jawline, like a chin’s just as good as a fingerprint.
He doesn’t actually think it’s going to work, as he jumps from giant plant to giant plant to stick some explosives to the vault doors. He’s probably just some man who died in some excruciatingly normal way, and the strangest thing about him is just that he came back, somehow.
He’s probably nobody special.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise when they’re met by an entire battalion of masked vigilantes, held off by Ivy and every inch of chlorophyll in a mile-wide radius, but the fighting is interrupted by Harley whistling to catch everybody’s attention, and then very loudly going “Ta-dah!!” as she presents him, like he’s something grand and important.
He feels extremely put on the spot. He feels like an unasked-for baby picture flashed to acquaintances; inexplicably precious to Harley and astonishingly anti-climactic for literally everyone else. “No one’s gonna know who I am,” he hissed at her, frustration bleeding into his voice.
Of course, everybody does.
-
The custody battle between Batman and his many, many associates versus Poison Ivy and her wife was vicious and surprisingly bloodless. He can’t remember the number of times he gets abducted and re-abducted. In the course of two months he: gets taken out to an all-night cafe by a man in black-and-blue who seems anxious and keen to pretend he isn’t; has a costumed girl with wild blonde hair ask if he might consider giving her driving lessons, because B is shit; gets accosted by a boy with floppy hair who got real annoyed that Jason’s phone is an ancient thing with a keypad and everything, unhackable in every sense of the word.
In his defense, when Pam can send him a shopping list via leaves and he just needs to shout at the closest potted plant to remind her she’s supposed to get take-out on the way home tonight, a phone’s not really super necessary.
Pam and Harley become increasingly retaliatory after all the kidnapping attempts; he’s been followed by oak trees dragging themselves along the pavement like underpaid Ents, and Harley’s singular ability to show up when everybody least expects her means many a (family?) reunion gets broken up by a glitter bomb and Harley dragging him back, “‘cos Pammy’s gonna be real mad if I lost you. You accidentally buy real bacon instead a’ imitation one time, and your wife gets to hold that over you for f’ever, and you gotta take it kid, just ‘cos you love her, god.”
It’s a hectic couple of months.
He knows the Bat and Bird people know who he is, and that they worry about telling him the truth while he’s still living with Pam, who’s a designated villain, but right now it’s a lot easier to pick the side of the woman who found him when he was at his worst and helped him find his feet and screw his head back on straight than it is to believe a pack of vigilantes who stalk him and refuse to tell him his name.
Batman’s the worst of the lot; massive and hulking and lineless when he wants to intimidate a deeply-unmoved Poison Ivy in a fight, but furtive and silent and impossible to see when he’s on the fire escape right outside his room.
At first, he’d thought that the Batman was just straight-up creeping on him in his sleep, and he’d started cultivating a window box of cacti that he was slowly coaching into listening to him and taking instructions. Prolonged contact with Ivy and all the pheromones and secret magic that seeps out of her gives everyone in her vicinity a bit of plant magic, and where Pam’s mailman has gone from killing three succulents within the space of a week many years ago to becoming an award-winning pumpkin cultivator this last fall, Jason’s begun to be able to nudge and ask plants for help.
The cacti let him know that if Batman’s stalking him, it’s really fucking weird stalking. The Bat doesn’t peer through the window, never tries to climb in and get into close contact, makes no move to survey the lay of the land and liberate him. It’s really fucking weird, the cacti say. On random nights, at least twice a week, the Bat climbs up the creaky, ancient wrought-iron ladder in complete silence, and apparently he just sits there, back to the room, face to the world.
Some nights where everything feels a little off, Jason just lies in bed and stares at the black mass and wonders what he’s done to make him so important to Batman, and if the feeling’s returned.
He figures out somewhere along the way that the Bat’s standing guard over him. He figures it out because Pam tells him, with an exasperated tone of voice that informs him that this is why she finds men so damn intolerable. “He’s worried about you, and he hasn’t tried to do anything more than just creep around, so I thought I’d leave him to you.”
That’s where it (re)starts.
A week after that little conversation with Pam, he swaps out half the cacti for clumps of herbs in the window box instead. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to ward against the Bat anymore, and there’s something really freakin’ nice about his room smelling like rosemary when Gotham’s hit with her usual summer heatwave, dramatically transforming from a grubby city into a grubbier swamp. A week after that he starts leaving out lemonade for the man, because Pamela did a damn fine job instilling within him the urge to make sure to regularly water those things that need regular watering. A week after that, he starts unilaterally talking about what it’s like to be an apprentice horticulturalist climbing the corporate ladder, and how his trainer is extremely impressed with how even their most dire cases return to life under his green thumbs. There’s a course on technical botanical watercolours coming up, for staff only, and he’s fucking hyped. The Bat responds in quiet hums and grunts, and even the occasional word, but Jason and his plants collectively agree that the man is listening, intently even.
A week after that, Batman tells him that he’s Jason Todd, the name clicks like a neck breaking, and he’s on the ground screaming-screaming-screaming as everything comes pouring back, soothed and tinted green by Poison Ivy’s fundamentally restorative magic hanging heavy in the air.
When he comes to, Harley’s trying to knock Bruce’s stupid head off with her ridiculous mallet, and Jason sees at least 4 Venus flytraps manifesting, big enough to eat any man as Pamela checks his pulse. Bruce is dodging and ducking and weaving, but he doesn’t raise a hand to fight back. He just keeps staring and staring and staring at Jason, and that’s the culmination of the world’s most chaotic resurrection arc.
There’s a second round of flying batarangs and pollen bombs when Jason’s brought up to speed on the status of things (i.e. the Joker and his damn fucking state of being alive) and he tells his family (both sets of them) that he’s going to keep on being an apprentice horticulturalist and an apprentice Sting(ing Nettle), with Bruce accusing Poison Ivy of brainwashing him and Pam scoffing and telling Bruce that Jason doesn’t even like women, which, come on, why’s a man gotta get outed like this?
He loves everyone involved in this whole screaming mess, but for people who don’t actually have a claim to any part of him, it is wild how entitled both Batman and Poison Ivy feel to him. That’s the thing with growth, right? You might need to give a sapling a lot of support to help it get its bearings, but when it’s off, it’s off.
Jason’s grown up enough to know who he is and where he stands, and it might have taken well over a year post-resurrection to get to this point, but he’s tall and strong enough to stand up and get the sun himself, thanks.
This is how the custody battle ends;
Jason tells both Pam and Bruce that neither of them are actually his parents, and moves out to a shitty little flat close to Crime Alley. His house is chock-a-block full of plants; there’s always cereal in the cupboards for when Dick or Harley visit; the window is left unadorned for quick access by night-time crimefighters; he upgrades to a legitimate smartphone and joins several iterations of family group chats; and
he’s careful to pick a flat that has a fire escape right outside his bedroom. It’s a weird thing to have as ‘required’ when apartment-hunting, but the thought of Bruce trying to be a barrier between Jason and this whole awful world where he couldn’t before makes him feel some sort of way, and some sort of way is enough of a motivation. Bruce reminds him of himself fresh out of the ground; struggling to find his footing but trying desperately to carry on nonetheless. An extra 75 bucks a month is worth setting up space with plenty of sun for that, surely.
He puts a pitcher of lemonade instead of a bird feeder out a couple of months after moving in, when he’s nice and settled. When he pokes his head out and finds an empty jug the next morning, his aloe plant checks in with him to make sure that he’s cool with having a black wraith standing guard outside in the night.
Jason is.
A week after that he starts chatting at Bruce while he folds 2 weeks’ worth of laundry, and a week after that he starts joining Bruce on the fire escape.
Sometimes they don’t talk much at all because contact is what they actually, desperately need, and that’s the start of a different sort of resurrection.
-
The thing is, Bruce probably thinks he’s being super sneaky and discreet, but he really, really isn’t. Even if Jason didn’t have every plant in the tri-state area snitching on Bruce to him, it’s pretty clear that ‘Sting’s’ outfit has been getting upgraded. The goggles with the leaves haphazardly glued onto them suddenly have night-vision, and don’t even crack when Jason gets slammed into the side of a building face-first one night. His sweats look exactly the same, except they’re now three pounds heavier and are shockingly bulletproof. He even finds a long-sleeved shirt with a stylised ‘S’ shaped like a thorn in a gorgeous hunter green, and it makes him laugh like a complete idiot to imagine Bruce at the Manor, Windows Paint open as he brainstorms a new not-flying-vertebrate-related symbol.
He’s happier to wear a ratty shirt and a leather jacket out for nightwork, though. Jason’s working with Ivy, but that’s mostly because he just likes Pam; for every dirty corporate pig they almost kill, they spend as much time squatting in the woods somewhere eating vege tacos. He’s not anxious to become a new vigilante, especially not one under somebody else’s purview. Call him a coward, but as far as dead-end careers go, being Robin was, uh. Rough.
So he dresses in athleisure-meets-leather and mostly wears his special Sting shirt when the weather’s awful and Bruce still refuses to come inside for some reheated pizza. The shirt’s a little oversized, the lining is obscenely soft and warm, and it’s also waterproof, so in many ways it’s exactly perfect.
It’s on a shitty Gotham fall day, where it’s gone dark way too early and the rain comes down hard and somehow colder than fucking snow, when the milkweeds that Mrs. Faure three floors down grows in her window box yell up to say the Bat’s coming but he doesn’t seem well.
Delicacy and nuance are difficult things to pass along in the language of flowers, and ‘unwell’ could mean anything from a bit of a cough to literally on the verge of death, so Jason prepares accordingly. He shrugs into his armoured shirt and sweats, gets the gun out (because no matter what Pam says, it’s mighty helpful for a fledgling plant sorcerer to have something as fast as a speeding bullet, thanks) and finds his fully-stocked medkit. By the time Bruce is pounding on his window, Jason’s ready to handle everything up to and including a raging elephant.
Instead, it’s just Bruce with a massive gash in his side, mania in his eyes. Bruce looks Jason up and down and up and down, like he can’t quite believe his eyes, and struggles through the windowsill, almost crushing Jason’s carefully-cultivated wildgrass windowbox. “Jason,” he shouts, which is a clearer sign than anything else that he’s out of it, clearer even than a hole where the rest of an abdomen should be. “Jason, are you okay?” He lands on the floor, slips in a pile of dirty clothes and his own blood, and keeps struggling to head towards Jason.
Jason’s stunned one second, and shoving wads of gauze into the gaping wound the next. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” he says for lack of brainpower to think of anything better, communing with All Plants Ever and being informed by a god (or possibly Pam) that cacti have blood-clotting properties. Powers heightened in an emergency, his succulents step up to the plate and grow to enormous proportions, allowing Jason to rip off a stem, crush it to mush, and plug Bruce up. “What the hell happened?”
Bruce doesn’t seem to hear him, more concerned with checking Jason over, trying to take his pulse through the gauntlets. Whatever he sees seems to be enough for him, and he abruptly staggers back, back towards the window. “You’re alive, you’re fine, it’s fine,” Bruce says to himself like he’s trying to believe it, as he tries to take his leave.
That’s not going to happen, of course. An obliging spider plant hanging by the window grows big enough to wrap its leaves around Bruce and draw him to a standstill, and Jason’s already hauling Bruce to the bed. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, B? You’re lying the hell down while I call Alfred. Jesus, you’re a mess.”
“The wound is minor, I can lose another 15% of my blood volume without affecting my performance,” says the man currently outfoxed by some grass. “I just needed to make sure you were unharmed. There’s a fight I need to get back to.”
“Yeah, ‘course there is,” said Jason, completely unmoved. The cactus pulp seems to be doing its job, and the blood’s gone spectacularly gross and clumpy, but if that’s a Killer Croc bite infection’s going to be a bigger bitch than blood volume loss. He fires off a text to Alfred, then pauses. “Hang on, who’re you fighting, and where? Where’s your backup, anyways?”
Bruce is now sat on Jason’s bed, looking longingly at the fire escape. “It’s some sort of coordinated effort to set the city on fire.” He pauses, because they’re both looking out the window at the heavy rain and thinking, really? “We’re keeping on top of it, but that’s not going to last if I don’t stop Killer Croc and the Penguin from ganging up.”
“Uh huh, cool. Where were they, again?”
“Flooding out the hospital on 8th and Faber. Jason, I have to go -”
“Nope,” Jason tells him flatly, having sent a message along to Pam for a favour (at 8th and Faber). “You’re gonna wait till Alfie comes by to pick you up, and then I’m gonna go out and help mop up the mess.” He grabs the closest clean-looking shirt, and flicks a carbon fiber ear. “Open, I need to clean up your face and check for a concussion. What’re you doing here anyways?”
Bruce unlocks the cowl and pushes it off, and he looks about as rundown as usual, which is good. Jason wets his shirt with the plant spritzer that’s eternally on his bedside table, and rubs the dirt and debris off of Bruce’s face as he waits for a response that’s slow in coming.
“Penguin said that the Joker was rampaging across Crime Alley. It was just a distraction, but it worked,” Bruce says, sounding a little offended. “I was already heading this way by the time Dick radioed to say he’s got Joker contained with help from the Titans. I just. Wanted to check in with you.”
“Christ,” Jason swears, feeling that standard mix of irritation and mind-boggling fondness flood his brain in response to Bruce's blunt Bruce-ness. “You’re such an idiot. I shouldn’t be your first priority, B!”
Bruce just stares at him, shockingly calm for a man missing a lot of blood and bone. “Then what number priority are you supposed to be, Jay?”
There’s not much Jason can reply to that. For all the existential angst and the occasional roar of rage he feels towards Bruce, if he heard that something had gone terribly wrong with Bruce, anything short of god-level power would struggle to keep him away.
Sometimes when he thinks back to his resurrection, he wonders if he’d woken up in part because there’s an internal mechanism that kept worrying at him after his death, going What the fuck’s going to happen to the big guy with you gone, fuck, get up, get up, get UP!
Aw, hell. Pam was kind of a dick but also absolutely right when she said he’s got no interest in women, and to be fair his interest in men is pretty extremely limited too.
Bruce seems to take his silence as permission to go off and do something dumbfuck again, staggering up and surging towards the window, and in a moment of reactionary panic Jason grabs him by the cowl, tugs him back, and kisses him.
(“10 out of 10 times you’ll get your man,” Poison Ivy had told him as she rubbed at her lips with a wet wipe, CEO to an oil fracking company in a dead faint at her feet. “I can’t tell you how to know when your pheromones are strong enough for it to work work, but you’ll know when the time comes. Just keep disinfectant handy, because I have never met a man whose mouth was not a cesspit. No offense.”
Some offense taken, thanks, because he knows she’s kissed Batman before, and only a deeply ungenerous soul would describe the feeling of Bruce falling under your thrall as a ‘cesspit’.)
Bruce passes out in under 2 seconds flat, fall cushioned by a monstera coming in clutch. Jason looks down at him, thinks about what it means that the man with the most indomitable will in the whole stupid fucking world got taken out by a poison kiss, and screams “Fuuuuuuuuuuck!” until Alfred breaks in with a gun in each hand, asking if Masters Jason and Bruce are quite all right.
-
Jason is an absolute mess when he goes for Ladies’ Night with Pam and Harley, as repayment for services rendered on that shitty, bloody night a couple of weeks ago now. Pam picks a beer garden because this late in the year it’s cold enough that they have the outdoors to themselves, and none of them really feel give a shit in the weather (Jason's got The Shirt on, after all).
First round of apple ciders and a giant bowl of piping hot cheesy nachos delivered, Harley tucks in with her customary gusto in the face of hot snack foods, while Pam just stares at Jason like she knows something.
Of course she does, Jason thinks bitterly. Pam’s a Higher Power, and he’d be damn surprised if his houseplants haven’t already ratted him out to her. “What?” he snarls, trying to fend off an uncomfortable conversation by being a bit of a dick.
It doesn’t work; if anything both women just look more amused. “What’s eatin’ you, Jay?” Harley says around a mouthful of nachos. “You and Pammy are makin’ eyes and not lettin’ me join in, which, by the way, dick move. Just spit it out already.”
Pam’s barely holding in her laughter at this point. “She’s right, Jason. Just lay it on us.”
Oh, lord, Dr. Pamela Isley really just did wink at him, oh my god.
“It wasn’t anything, okay! It was just a knock-out kiss, you kiss like a hundred people a month, it doesn’t mean anything.” He can control the blush, just barely, but that’s thanks to Bruce’s training, and thinking about training Bruce is Extremely Counterproductive, fuck.
Harley’s just openly applauding at this point, clearly deeply entertained. “Awwww, you laid a wet one on Big B, huh? Can’t blame you, jeezus, the thighs on that man.” She sighs, eyes going distant. “Plus! He was plenty nice to me after the break with Mr. J, and he sent us some real sweet weddin’ gifts, didn’t he, Pammy?”
Pam nods, still radiating amusement. “A waffle iron and sandwich press for Harley, and several endangered species of begonias that haven’t been successfully propagated in captivity for me. The man has beautiful penmanship.”
He does, Jason almost says, which really clearly highlights just how damn moony he is at this point in time. “We’re not… like that. He wouldn’t want that with me, okay, so can we just drop it?” He miserably drains his mug of cider, and wishes it was something with a lot more kick instead.
They kind of fall into a maudlin little lull, before Harley breaks the pause. “Hang on, hang on. Why wouldn’t he want you, kid, you’re plenty good-lookin’. Did you even try to seduce the guy? Get him some top-notch chocolates and roses for valentine? If Pam could stick her neck out and one-hit K.O. Mr. J to win me over, how’re you just sittin’ there all sad-like and giving up before you even made one grand gesture?”
Times like these Jason is sharply reminded that while Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are usually rated Quirky Second-Class Villains by virtue of misogyny, they’ve both haunted and infected and protected Gotham for years and years and years, have PhDs, are weirdly unflappable and immoveable, and are in a loving, committed relationship. Times like these they catch him coming and going.
He knows that him being under Bruce’s care before he died makes for an awkward power dynamic that’s likely to stick in Bruce’s craw, even if it doesn’t really affect Jason’s intentions towards the man. He knows that it might break their slowly recovering relationship, might drive Bruce away, might shove a wedge in between him and the Bat family.
He knows all this, but fair play to Harley, he doesn’t know that Bruce is definitely, definitely going to shoot him down. He also doesn’t know what would happen if he sincerely makes an effort to make clear that he wants to be the steadying hand at Bruce’s back, the cacti pulp healing a festering wound, the window he clambers through when he’s in a blind panic.
“Ah, fuck,” he sighs, reaching over to steal Harley’s full glass, taking a deep swig of the sweet, fizzy cider. “I really fuckin’ hate it when you’re the one talking the most sense, Harl. If and when he breaks my heart, you two are responsible for wining and dining me for the rest of my depressing, shitty life, okay?”
“I’ll drink to that!” Harley toasts him, grabbing Pam’s glass to clink against Jason’s. “Go for it, kid. If anyone’s gonna make love grow in the barren ass desert of Big B’s moody edgy heart, it’s gonna be Pam or a Pam-adjacent. Grab that man by the balls, zombie bird!”
The rest of the night is filled by increasingly drunken plans to woo a man who can’t be wooed, and the brainstorming felt like it was going well to a bunch of tipsy dumbasses. How it ends, is that Jason wakes up the next morning in a hedge, head pounding and pocket filled with 5 napkins covered in incomprehensible scribbles and 3 separate iterations of a hairy cock-and-balls in lipstick.
Pretty tame, for Ladies' Night.
-
Life continues as normal after that. He gets needled by Pam and Harley for dragging his feet, but every time he opens his mouth to say something he imagines losing quiet time on his balcony with B, spiked lemonade resting between them. The kiss doesn’t get brought up, but there’s an almost literal itch on his lips whenever Jason looks at Bruce and the desire to take him and keep him rises up to his throat, and that’s just life now, apparently.
It’s a holding pattern that breaks unexpectedly one day, over the phone. Bruce almost never calls him, but they’ve taken to getting takeout whenever there’s enough of a lull in the night patrol to warrant a meal break for Batman, and sometimes there’s a call to check in on the general consensus re: Greek or Turkish food for supper.
His phone rings when he’s almost out of his flat, and Jason swears. He somehow hadn’t thought about Bruce tonight, not when Bruce hadn’t been around for the last anniversary. He answers, and tries not to sound like anything unusual is going on. “Hey, B, what’s up?”
“Jason. I am parked in front of that Chinese takeout by the greengrocer’s that sells lemongrass by the pound. Do you want the same dumplings you got last time?”
Be still my stupid fucking heart, it’s deeply uncool to mildly lose your mind when the man you’re deeply into remembers your takeaway order. “Sounds great, B, but listen. I have some stuff going on tonight, so I won’t be around to meet you. Sorry.”
Jason hopes and hopes and hopes that Bruce will just leave it, just take it as it is, but-
“There’s no significant criminal activity tonight, and none of Harley or Ivy’s usual targets are in the city. What’s going on?”
“Just a meetup with the two of ‘em, no big deal, B, nothing to worry about, it’s nothing,” Jason says, desperately trying to be cool.
Of course, it makes it worse.
“Jason, if you are in an emergency situation and a hostile is in the same room with you, say ‘I might go for the soup dumplings tonight’. I’m on my way.”
It’s rapidly spinning out of control, and Jason figures that if the gun’s about to go off he might as well pull the trigger. “You can’t, B, because I’m going out with Pam to get black-out drunk tonight ‘cos it’s the anniversary of me coming out of the ground, and if Ivy’s not near me I keep thinking I’m gonna get buried again. Do you understand why I have to cancel dinner now?”
He sounds harsh, he knows he sounds harsh, but something about the anniversary throws him back 6 feet underground, and Pam’s the only one who makes him feel safe when he’s got soil on the mind.
Bruce takes an eternity to respond to that, and when he does it’s just a quiet, helpless “Jaybird,” and Jason’s trying not to burst into tears right now, aaaah.
“It’s not the same as it was before. I’m not the same as I was before, B, and this is one of those things. You wanna hear another buck-wild thing, something new post-death and equally horrifying?” He hears his mouth, but doesn’t remember authorising any of these words.
“You can tell me anything, Jason. You can ask me for anything,” Bruce promises him, voice heavy and serious and trembling 'round the edges, clearly not reading the damned room.
Ah, he can’t stop the slightly hysterical laughter as he forces himself up and out of the flat, keen to get to Pam’s place before it’s fully dark. “The brand new thing, B, is that I’m pretty sure dying and coming back to life and living on my own kinda made me fall in love with you, and I kissed you and I liked it, and I just really, really want you to feel it back.” He sighs, and blinks his eyes dry. “But that’s a me problem, okay, and I’ve got a handle on it. I just….” Just want you to want me back, he doesn’t say, because it’s not ‘foist your problems onto Bruce who is quite often less equipped to handle problems than anyone gives him credit for’ day, contrary to how Gotham lives her fucking life. “I just need to cancel dinner,” he says instead, tired and dull.
“Jason,” he hears Bruce’s shock clear in his voice, and he just can’t take it. “Jason, I-”
He hangs up, because there’s a time and a place to deal with everything, and the time and the place to deal with Bruce’s rejection is not right here and right now.
Christ, no wonder some people become supervillains because of love; shit drives a man madder even than his resurrection.
-
Harley leaves on a big Birds of Prey mission to absolutely murder a gang of child traffickers the day after Jason’s anniversary, and she comes back a whole 4 months later with little more than a couple of chipped teeth, a line of stitches up her back, and a pet dingo.
Jason’s at Pam’s for lunch when she bursts through the door yelling “Honey, I’m home!” with zero irony, and he doesn’t even get to say hi, hello, before she takes one look at him and his myriad of hickeys and the mussed hair of a man getting lovingly laid on the regular, and screams “Robin, you sly freakin’ dog!”
Jason tries to vault to freedom and away from this mortifying encounter, jumping for an open window, but massive vines catch him by the waist, and he resigns himself to his terrible, terrible fate. “Hey, Harley,” he tells her, and prepares for the most excruciating lunchtime of his life.
-
“Jason, stop!” Bruce calls out, even though he’s suspended upside down, limbs spread apart by coiling vines thicker than his wrist. “I know you don’t want to do this! Let me down; whatever’s happened to you, I can help.”
Jason moves out from behind the long, sweeping fronds of a palm, green-tinted and mostly nude. “That’s where you’re wrong, B,” he says, stepping closer to caress Bruce’s jaw, scratching at barely-there stubble with nails sharper than thorns. “This is the truest me you’re ever gonna get.” He licks his lips, partly for effect, partly to check his pheromone levels. God, he almost doses himself up, and it’s a delight to imagine what will happen to Bruce when he gets a taste.
“Stop, no, I don’t want this-!”
Too late. Jason holds Bruce steady as he kisses him, messy and with teeth. He bites on Bruce’s lips till he bleeds, brushes tongue against tongue, scratches welts into the fine skin of his cheeks, and doesn’t stop until he can feel Bruce panting and writhing under his hands, breathing coming in quicker and quicker. “Now you do, B,” Jason tells him, gently tugging the cowl off.
The fingerprint scanner on the master lock still recognises his prints, oh, god.
Bruce looks dazed, more out of it even than when he’s concussed. Pupils blown wide, he clearly struggles to focus on Jason, and he doesn’t do much more than growl when he’s unmasked.
He’s a sight, and it makes Jason giddy all at once. “God, B,” Jason says, “I know what you want, I know better’n you.” He presses another kiss to Bruce’s mouth, lets it linger and lets it soak. “I’m going to take care of you. Gonna take care of you right here in the greenhouse, right where Alfie might just come by if he figures he needs some herbs.” He moves a hand to Bruce’s chest, feels it heaving underneath the armour. “Anyone could walk in and see you like this, and you’d thank me for that, thank me for showing you off, wouldn’t you?”
Bruce tries to mount a protest, tries to struggle as Jason pulls his gauntlets off one at a time, leaving sharp bites all over Bruce’s hands, lingering on his pulse, on his scars. Bruce tries to stop the full-body shivers, but the most urgent feeling assaulting him is a sharp thrill at being seen like this, vulnerable and completely under Jason’s thrall. He grasps on to a vine with his left hand, and holds on.
By the time Jason has Bruce maneuvered onto his back, still suspended by the vines but bare-chested now, Bruce is sunk. There’s a haze over everything, and he’s drowning under the strength of Jason’s powers, the muggy heat of the greenhouse, the forced capitulation in bondage. It’s been years and years and years since he had last been this pliant and helpless, and it burns him up inside that he has no choice in this, that when Jason puts his mouth to him, sets his teeth against Bruce’s collarbone and bites, all he feels is dumb pleasure.
“That’s it,” Jason whispers against skin, “go down, take what I’m giving you.” A thought sends vines curling around Bruce’s pants, tugging them down, baring him to the open quiet of the greenhouse. “You’re a good boy; you scowl and struggle, act like a big Bat man, but this ,” emphasised by a squeeze of Bruce’s cock, “this is what you need .” A kiss to a navel, a bite at a hip, a hickey on an inner thigh. “Trussed up and spread out, just for me.”
The words rock the dreamy state a little; Bruce doesn’t and has never equated anything about his pleasure to a need. There are far too many important things to legitimately need for him to ever prioritise his desires, and it takes him out of it. Bruce doesn’t need this , it’s just a ploy to let Jason’s poison sink in deeper! He starts to struggle, realising that he’s completely undressed now, Jason’s idle hands drawing little welts up and down his thighs. “That’s not true,” he snarls, trying to free his hands. “Let me go!”
A thin vine wraps around Bruce’s throat in a threat, and Jason digs his claws into a bare belly. “And what part of it’s untrue, B?” With his other hand, he leisurely strokes Bruce’s hard cock, slick with sap. “This?” He squeezes, a shade too hard. “You even notice that you’ve been trembling this whole time? Poor Bruce, I don’t think you even mean half the shit that comes out your mouth.” A slight gesture, and the vine around Bruce’s neck twines once, twice, and snakes into his mouth, filling it completely. “There, I’ve taken care of your lying for you. Shouldn’t you thank me?”
In a fit of desperation, Bruce squeezes once around the vine that’s trapped his right hand, putting all his strength into it, hoping it’ll work, hoping…
Jason just laughs. “Good enough, I guess.” The claws pull away, and he starts jerking Bruce off faster, delighting in the little twitches in the hips and thighs that not even the great Bat can contain. “Let’s fill you up a little more, yeah?”
Bruce groans around the vine that starts fucking his throat, tries to pretend that it’s from revulsion, that the lack of control doesn’t just make him harder and dizzier.
Nothing could stop him from groaning when he feels a curious prod at his hole, slick with sap and too cool to be human. The vine works its way in, slow and ceaseless, and by the time Jason finally gets it to stop Bruce struggles to do anything more than just gasp and bite down, teeth glancing uselessly off the vine in his mouth.
“You’re fine,” Jason soothes him, rubbing absently at Bruce’s stuffed throat. “You love this, I can tell. How’s about we get you off, B, and we can experiment more with your limits?” At that, Jason moves his hand down to curiously press on where skin is stretched taut around a wrist-thick vine, and the sensation, the threat of more has Bruce convulsing, squeezing down hard on the vines around his hands.
Jason pauses his hands for a moment at that, head cocked like he’s trying to hear something through the plants, but soon enough he’s rubbing his thumb against Bruce’s hole, thorny nails retracted and gone, just a point of warmth where Bruce cannot take any more.
“C’mon, B,” Jason coaxes him, grip tight around his cock, wicked sharp thumbnail teasing the cockhead with every pass. “Give me what I want, so I can give you what you want, yeah?”
The capacity to think about what he wants has long since escaped Bruce; all he knows is that Jason is asking him for something, and this deep under all he wants to do is give Jason what he wants. His body seizes tight, his breathing is far too fast, and the only real thing in the world is Jason holding him, round the neck and the limbs and his cock, and it’s overwhelming to the point of madness.
Without warning and without preamble, Jason pushes his thumb in and up, and Bruce is screaming as he comes all over himself, all over Jason’s hand.
“Oh, baby,” he hears Jason murmuring all soft and awed. Bruce doesn’t have the ability to think about how Jason sounds, because Jason doesn’t stop.
Bruce loses all he has left of himself and passes out some time around the third finger that Jason pushes in, choked and completely, utterly full-up, echoes of praise following him on his way out.
-
Romance is dead, and Bruce Wayne killed it.
Afterglow happens to other people, and Jason hates and envies all of them. He just gets a debrief, and it took weeks just to negotiate it into a proper conversation instead of a deeply alarming Powerpoint presentation. It took a couple more weeks on top of that to get Bruce to relent to a spot of naked cuddling during what counts as aftercare for Batman, though for that fight Jason had been willing to go all-in and wait Bruce the hell out because sometimes (often! times!) Bruce really doesn’t know best.
So no using the board room in the Cave, no projectors, yes bare skin. It’s fertilizer for the soul, bitch.
They're huddled together in a bed of moss, which is soft and springy but also unfortunately, worryingly damp. To keep dry and warm, Bruce is wrapped up in his cape and cradled in Jason’s lap, clear of the ground. At least, he’s as cradled as a man can be when a man is over 6 feet of battle-hardened muscle.
God help him, Jason thinks it’s fucking cute to see Bruce bare but for his cape, face serious, datapad in hand to do a play-by-play of their most recent scene. Nothing about his life now seems like a reasonable progression from him clawing his way out of a coffin, it’s a pretty giant leap even from the first night he found Bruce out on his stoop and started to think about more, but as Pam would (cryptically) say, plant-willing, all things are possible.
Jason gives Bruce the few minutes he needs to find his centre and record what he wants to keep, and occupies his time with an extra thousand or so sharp-toothed hickeys dug into taut shoulders. “Lemme know when you’re ready for a breakdown, B,” he says, mouth full of skin. A grapevine verdant with fruit manifests nearby, and he starts feeding Bruce some grapes to fend off Bruce’s almost instinctive desire to knock back coffee after exertion. The day he can figure out how to make hydrangeas fetch him a sandwich, he'll finally ascend to his rightful place as Best Dom in the World.
To be fair, he might already be, since he has a lap full of fucked-pliant Bruce.
“Overall, this was a very satisfying scene,” Bruce says matter-of-factly, as though he’s not still buck-naked and loose-limbed, head doing its level best to burrow under Jason’s chin despite the extreme lack of free real estate. “I believe in a few weeks’ time, we’ll be able to meet your target of dual-penetration in the same orifice.”
God. Sexiness has just now been murdered, also struck down by Bruce Wayne.
“B, we have definitely talked about using the word ‘orifice’, c’mon, stop fucking with me.” He tries to jog his knee and it goes absolutely nowhere, because Bruce is heavy enough that Jason hasn’t actually felt his feet in a while. “But I definitely noticed that you were all gorgeous and relaxed and loose. I’m gonna get to fuck you alongside a vine in no time.” Jason noses at the side of Bruce’s head, nudges him into a kiss. “You did so fuckin’ well, Bruce.”
That does the trick, as Jason knew it would. Bruce shudders in his hold, still far gone enough that praise goes straight to his head and out his limbs, and add another tick for that Best Dom in the world award, because Jason doesn’t even tease him about it. “Anything else? Used lianas this time instead of grapevines, how’re your allergies?” Jason’s already checked, of course, and there were no red welts on Bruce’s limbs, but a good horticulturalist knows that not all issues are visible.
Get you a case of root rot, and a plant that looks completely alright today could be completely dead the day after. For a whole host of reasons, Jason’s going to keep a careful hand and eye on Bruce; this is part of his duty of care.
Almost on cue, Bruce holds his hand up right to Jason’s face, showcasing a gorgeous rash-free bruise starting up around his wrist.
Jason kisses it.
“Lianas work. And three squeezes for red, one squeeze for green is a good system, especially with you checking in so often.” Bruce pauses for a moment, an internal struggle in a lifetime of internal struggles. Jason gives him space and time, and is sweetly, sweetly repaid with “I felt safe.”
Damn right you should, Jason thinks and carefully doesn’t say, but the grapevine’s sprouting grapes like its life depends on it, and little wildflowers are pushing up through their mossy blanket. Goddamn, discreet he ain’t. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, voice a little rough. “Don’t go soft on me though, big guy. Anything I did wrong?”
“Just the one,” Bruce says, missing Jason’s little scrape of emotion as he puts aside the datapad and sprawls across Jason’s body. With the debrief out of his system, it’s now time for a restorative nap. In Jason’s apartment with the plants doing their best to look as lush as they would in a greenhouse, he’s safe and he doesn’t need to get up and get dressed and get away as soon as possible. “The dirty talk could do with some work. I might need you, Jay, but I don’t need this.” He pulls the cape up over his head, because if he’s going to sleep he’s going to do in pitch darkness, thanks. “It’s just a want,” he gets out in a tired growl, already halfway asleep. “I just want it, with you.”
And Bruce is out like a light, already softly snoring, and Jason just has to sit there and endure, because he just wants to scream and also maybe take Bruce under again after that bitch of a confession.
Instead, he squirms and gets the vines to help him into a slightly more comfortable recline without jostling Bruce, and plans out just how hideously smug he’s going to be the next night out with Pam and Harley.
(The answer is Very Extremely Smug, thanks!!)
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a/n: it’s been a mentally and emotionally grueling fucking year, and i just want to write stories where people love each other and they’re at least a little happy _(:3」∠)_ jesus, what a year (lemon, it’s fucking june)
#jason todd#bruce wayne#jaybru#batman#harleen quinzel#pamela isley#poison ivy#harlivy#whale writing#kinkmeme fill#i think i spent as much time formatting and spellchecking as i did on writing the fill itself god#i sure do like me some slow-build burst of dumb fluorishing love#it's been a shitty ole year#let's just try to hang in there#c'mon now
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Okay how about this I’m always lookin for cpop groups to stan so why don’t you tell me about ur faves
you have no idea what you have unleashed!! but i will gladly take the offer and rant about my ult group TANGRAM i was gonna do ONER too but this post got too long and tangram was more important i tried to introduce the members but the descriptions just became random thoughts and tiny rants lmao sorry i love them a lot, i also added all songs i think and their reality shows pls love them they deserve it :(
members: (basic member info here)
Qiu Zhixie (Frankie), oldest of the group, absolute vocal king and isn’t shy about it, parent of the group, loves his 5 children but is also done with them, language king!! his english is really good, says he also speaks spanish and japanese but there isn’t as much proof lmao, was in codename contra with yu bin, basically the perfect husband everyone wants to marry him, has tumblr???? says he doesn’t use it but we don’t believe him!! (i literally have a video of him telling me ‘tuMBLR? we doN’t uSe THat HEre!!’), songwriter!!!!!!!!!!!!!, old man and knows it but the members still wont let him forget, they bully him a lot bc they love him so much, has this one burberry shirt he wears all the time?? we lowkey want to burn it??
Lin Chaoze (Richard bc the chinese 理查德 li cha de sounds like his name), TINY GOD!!, lies about his height just like ji li but we still love him, looks tiny but is actually pretty tall wtf, dance KING!!, God of Dance Zhang Yixing even praised him!!, on ip he constantly helped people, is the reason why both tangram;s and all the teams he was ever on in ip’s choreos were that good and in sync, leader and parent of the group, also absolutely done with his children but would die for them, maotong is his favourite child and spoils him a lot, very insecure about his singing but has a beautiful voice, looks like a complete baby but on stage he… fuck god he’s so sexy on stage!, that’s why we sad off stage = chaoze, on stage = richard, really strict teacher, literally sees every little mistake it’s wild, most popular member!, really sassy and dramatic we love that!
Bei Honglin (Air) yes his english name is Air, yes he is still my ult i know he’s that powerful, aNOTHER VOCAL KING!! has a high singing voice but his speaking voice is really low?? seksi, completely underappreciated i swear to god he has like 5 fans???, the sWEETEST boy alive, cares so much about his fans he bought us ice cream in chengdu bc it was so hot sOBS, also went to make cheesecake to give it to people on his birthday event, and he and his mom bought my friend coffee when she went to see him on the airport at 5am and she was the only one there it was wild, together with zhixie he forms ΒΔΒΞ and they make food unboxing videos and theyre so funny jgklgjd, absolute sWEETEST MOST POWERFUL smile, i s2g i stanned chaoze without a doubt until bhl smiled at me ONCE and boom he was my ult wtf??, also nose crafted by the gods!! this man is perfect i swear, also i call him Jesus Oppa for reasons he would kill me if i posted said reasons, he also reads all his dms, comments and mentions on weibo and instagram!!,OH also auditioned for rap of china twice, first time he got told he doesn’t ‘look’ like a rapper?? is it bc he looks too pretty? bc he looks like an entire boyfriend??, n e way watch this stage, OH HE ALSO WRITES LYRICS FOR THEIR SONGS!!!!, super super super grateful for everything bc he knows he’s the least popular (he thought nobody was going to show up to his birthday event), crybaby (chaoze is too tbh), highkey in love with chaoze literally looks at him with heart eyes all the time, also loves his mom so much it’s so cute, i can talk about him for years so i’ll stop here pls love honglin
Li Ruotian (Kai), d e m o n, everyone’s bias wrecker, i heard he didn’t prepare anything when he auditioned so he just read a poem and got into the company???, pretty boy reading a poem exactly what banana ent needed!, he’s really really dumb and so funny wtf, his soft rap in Stay with you is the reason i am alive, lots of people end up stanning tgm just bc of this man’s face??, therefore he deserves the title visual of the group, really annoying but everyone loves him anyway, also actor!!, he’s gonna be on a period drama i think??, extra dangerous bc he has d-… dimples
Jiang Jingzuo (S???? according to this is banana lmao, we’ve decided it stands for sexy), another dance god!, also nice voice, we were all surprised he got some of ldh’s lines but god he deserves them, sweetest cheekies uwu baby, tries to looks like a cool dude but is baby, is done with everyone but also joins in their antics???, promised a love shot dance cover but i still haven’t seen it jingzuo where is it???????, also martial arts, don’t piss him off!!, made the entire room dirty during his ip intro video with his broom it was hilarious, niCE ARMS, also have i mentioned his cheeks????????, really really hot, will come for you when you least expect it
Gao Maotong, god where do i start with this one??, baby of the group, an absolute meSS!!, super smart got like crazy high grades on his gaokao even tho he didn’t go to school since ip but just locked himself up at home to study for three months?? (that’s why a lot of recent stages are without him), guess that’s why his head is so big…, got into a super good university, so like he’s crazy smart but says he leaves his brain at home when he goes to work, so i can say he only has 1 braincell, he once licked a rock and took a frying pan everywhere???, dumbest funniest boy alive everyone loves him a lot, lies about his height too bc he’s so freaking tall??, aka his name suits him tall maotong, wants to stop growing poor baby give some of your toll to chaoze he needs it, gamer nerd, god there’s this one part where qzx bit him bc he wouldn’t stop gaming to plan their germany trip with him even though qzx was going back to taiwan soon gfkdljdf, OH uh yes he’s a rapper! and a really good dancer!!, basically every fan has adopted him, although there’s one person in his gc who says she’s his daughter lmaooo, really cute teethsies he’s really insecure about :(
Predebut they were Trainee18, there were also You Zhangjing and Lin Yanjun, they debuted with nine percent and are solo now, pls check them out bhl and qzx wrote this song for yzj and it’s amazing. Lu Dinghao left the group, i cannot explain why without ranting for 7 years + he doesn’t deserve that attention.
Songs:
Rock The Show (predebut with Trainee18), absolute BOP (lyrics, MV)
Radiant - single, debut song, basically a love song for the fans, cried when i first heard it, always makes my heart beat faster (lyrics - performance - home made MV lmao)
Focus - single, big fat bop, horrible super flashy mv (lyrics - MV - performance - dance practice (my fave tgm video))
Stay with You - single, absolutely gorgeous, might be their best song, lots of drama with the mv it was super sad i won’t add the mv, this song alwyas makes me happy tho(lyrics - performance)
Deja You - single, written for their company’s concert, the beginning is hilarious but it’s a good song (lyrics - performance)
The Painting from a Dream- super soft weird song, great to fall asleep to?? (lyrics)
Rush Forward - OST, really happy song?, didnt like it at first but now i do (lyrics)
Lyrics of love - for a charity event (lyrics - mv)
The Me Then, The Me Now - with you zhangjing, lin yanjun and my wife qiang dongyue, for their company concert (lyrics)
Lin Chaoze - Break it (lyrics - mv - performance)
Bei Honglin - Chasing Dreams OST (lyrics - mv)
Reality Shows:
Korea Trip - trip to korea after elimination IP (no chaoze)(PLAYLIST ENG SUBS)
Sawadikap Banana - predebut Tangram on vacation in thailand (PLAYLIST ENG SUBS)
Guten Guten Banana - TANGRAM trip to Hamburg for an event + You Zhangjing and Lin Yanjun for several episodes(PLAYLIST ENG SUBS)
This is Banana - preparation for the company concert so with other banana artists(PLAYLIST ENG SUBS)
Other subbed videos: TangramSUBS, BananaTeamSubs 1 / 2,
#please love them they deserve it#i swear they are the sweetest boys especially babe :(((#ask#xueyangg#if anyone ends up loving them plS COME TALK TO ME ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THAM
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“Tasting Forever”
{I am so excited - and more than a bit nervous too! - to present my first offering for the CSSNS Event. It’s a vampire!Killian au one shot that puts him in the role of vamp P.I. Mick St. John on tv’s short - lived dreams series “Moonlight”. I tried to work in echoes of episodes and events from that show as well as characters and lines from “Once” and our beloved duo as well. I tried very hard to make it still understood and enjoyable even if you never watched “Moonlight” though, and hopefully I was successful. Emma is an internet reporter in this story, just as Beth was on the show, but you’ll notice she’s Emma Nolan instead of Swan, because in this AU she got to grow up with David and Snow as her parents.}
** Don’t forget to feast your eyes on, and then send love to, @wingedlioness for her amazing artwork on this!! I simply adore the pictures she created (one is here at the top - a cover art of sorts - one is within the story at the scene it depicts, and one is at the end)!! They’re all brilliant and more than I could have expected. I can’t get over how much I love having pictures to go with my story!!***
Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4
“Tasting Forever”
By: @snowbellewells
Strange the thoughts to spin through one’s mind when the sand finally reaches the bottom of the hourglass. It might have taken longer to reach this moment for him – he was a survivor after all – but all the same, with the scenes of childhood, disjointed bits of conversation and half-forgotten past decisions aimlessly circling the drain of his immortal existence, Killian Jones understood with stark clarity that though he’d had years – ages – more than most, his time still managed to come to an end when he least expected… and just when he had finally found what made all that unnatural long life worth living.
If anyone had told him he would end up in some rundown, deserted, fleabag motel in the desert, convulsing and frantic for blood, sitting in a bathtub full of ice on the frail thread of hope that he could forestall the half-transformed state that heat and prolonged sunlight had put him in, it would have seemed ridiculously unbelievable. There was perhaps some painful irony in the fact that the ice around him was now melted, though the blood thirst tormenting him had not slaked, and that he who had long ago been a naval officer would now meet his end in some form of water. He had once dreamed of glory in that sort of end while still a young human man with a head full of hopes for battle and honorable sacrifice. It was also more than a little ironic that he was once again risking life and limb to save an innocent, just as he had all those years before…
Twenty-three years ago,
August 1995
It was long past closing time, so late it was nearer to early morning, and he had long since sent Ruby, his secretary, home for the night – or more likely out dancing, if he knew her. Private Investigator Killian Jones sat at the desk in his agency office in the dark, nursing a tumbler of rum and pondering the liquid flow of time. The wind’s melancholy howl outside the windows, which currently needed repair (the whole building but a half step above a dump) rattled the panes and whistled through every possible crack and crevice. His pose still and languid, the dark-haired detective appeared lazily at ease, stretched back in his chair, reclined with his crossed feet atop the messy surface of his desk, but anyone who would mistake the casual stance for unpreparedness or vulnerability would surely experience the coiled lightning thrumming just beneath the calm exterior, always alert and poised to strike.
Sighing, Jones brought his feet back to the floor to sit up, leaning forward to pour more of his chosen tonic in his glass from the open bottle at his elbow. Staring into the amber depths, he had been reflecting, as only a vampire who has seen it all, more than he’d even wished to, and still frustratingly ached for his lost humanity despite the pain it brought, can. It was then that the black, wild night had brought the case that changed everything knocking at his door.
His mind’s eye could still see the shattered young couple dripping rain in the entryway, huddled together, eyes wide and frantic but still with determined resolve in their posture and words.
“We heard you can find missing persons,” the man had stated bluntly, his desperation obviously trumping grace and niceties. “That you’re the best…” he’d swallowed hard; Killian still saw the reflexive movement in his mind’s eye as clear as if it had happened only yesterday, “…that you’ve found people no one else could…that have been given up for lost.”
“Aye,” Killian had allowed, “that’s true.” He gave little else away, yet; merely acknowledged the claim without confirmation or denial. Attesting to it led to questions about how he could be so good – and that was one thing no one would believe if he did tell. Instead, Killian merely watched his two guests, now gingerly seated before him in his office, taking stock of just who they were and sussing out their intentions.
Their five-year-old daughter had been taken. Simply vanished from her bed two nights ago and no trace of her had turned up since. The police had been no real help, though they had tried: questioning their neighbors, canvassing their quiet suburb, putting out APBs and searching their house for any traces of evidence. The woman, dark black hair making her skin look even paler and dressed in such prim pastels that Killian would have laid money on her being a nursery school teacher in her daily life, moved forward then, grasping his forearm beseechingly in a grip much stronger than he would have expected her capable. Her eyes were wide and pleading, filled with an emotion he could only label as ‘hope’ – however misplaced it seemed in that instance, and as foreign as the concept was to him personally.
“Please, Detective…” she’d paused, drawing a shaky breath before she pressed on, “Mr. Jones, I know that none of our neighbors did this. Our Emma didn’t just run away or wander off. She’s only five – she hasn’t ever even spent the night away from us. There was nothing wrong. She was perfectly fine when we went to bed that night. Something we can’t explain has happened to her, and we need to fix it. You’re our last hope.”
Even after all the years that have come between, Killian could still picture that look in the woman’s eyes, so anxious to believe it wasn’t too late, that her daughter wasn’t lost to her forever – dead, maimed, or whatever other horrible statistic Killian had known all too well was probably true. The woman’s green gaze had beseeched him, and his stomach still swooped down toward his knees at the thought that they had been pinning their final shred of faith on him – and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted it.
The broad-shouldered husband had stepped forward once more after his wife’s impassioned plea, gathering her against his sturdy side and wrapping his arm protectively around her shoulders as they began to shake with unheard tears. His eyes were steely, intent, and though Killian Jones could see he was just as frantic to locate his child, he wasn’t going to beg yet. Holding it together for his wife seemed to be anchoring him for the moment. Though with a deep growl low in his throat, Jones knew, as sure as he lived – or didn’t, actually – that if he refused to help this couple, the little girl’s father would go charging out into the night in search of her, bare knuckled and ready to face the monsters that hid in the midnight gloom. Knowing all too well what really did go bump in the night, long resigned to the fact that he was one of those creatures, Killian was also well aware that this noble father would fail in his quest; what he would face in some dark alley or dank cellar at his search’s end would most likely not be flesh and blood. Killian could sense that much already. Letting them go without taking their case would be as good as signing this man – this David Nolan’s - death warrant.
He slammed the tumbler still clutched in his hand down upon the surface of his scratched, pockmarked desk and stood fluidly, already cursing himself for a fool, taking on trouble he didn’t need. The movement was so sudden that the couple before him jerked back slightly in surprise, and the PI winced internally, reminding himself to be more careful about letting his inhuman speed and grace show through so obviously. Trouble was right – in more ways than one.
The shadows stretched longer in the dingy, dimly-lit office as he forced himself to move with a normal casualty he didn’t feel to straighten out the leather jacket he tossed over the back of his chair hours before and slide his arms into it, then popped the collar high along his neck in the style that had reigned decades ago, when he’d last been truly alive. He’d told them then that he would take the case, but there was no time to lose. He asked to visit their home, see their little girl’s room, which the Nolans had quickly agreed to. He knew the police had already been there, but, he explained as they drove, he might see something they had missed which could give him a starting point.
What he hadn’t said aloud, but had already felt as foreboding under his skin, was that he would know – he’d feel it, smell it, perhaps even gain supernatural vision of it – once he stood in the space, if the kidnapper was the sort of sinister being he feared, one of those like him... a vampire.
Killian’s half-stupor and his flood of memories was broken abruptly by an urgent knocking on the rickety door of the stained, decrepit bathroom he’d shut himself within. Panic flooded his system, as well as the thirsty need still thrumming through his veins, growing continually harder to ignore. Cursing himself for a fool at not being aware enough to slip the chain into the lock across the door when he’d entered, Killian knew there was really nothing stopping the young woman he’d been charged with protecting from entering into more danger than she was in already, more peril than she could possibly comprehend.
“Mr. Jones?” her voice called out through the questionable barrier, naive concern in its tone. “Are you alright in there?” She hesitated for a moment when her temporary protector didn’t respond, waiting outside as he’d asked, but as the silence stretched, she seemed unable to leave this person who had been kind to her if she could help him. “You really didn’t look well before…and, um, I know it’s not much…but I brought some more ice.”
Despite the entire room between them, Killian could hear the blood pulsing in her veins, could practically taste the sweetness of it on his tongue, a feeding the only thing that could truly restore him in as dire a state as he had slipped into. Her heartbeat, and the tiny, softer one of her unborn child – the one they’d just been discussing her naming after her Sean, the baby’s murdered father, when the trouble began – was so loud in his head that it felt as if it were pounding against his skull. His sharp fangs had already partially descended from his gums, the predator inside knowing the needed elixir was right there, just beyond its grasp, and Killian practically shook with the effort to hold himself still in the frigid water. ‘I will not hurt them’, his repeated mantra whispered over his lips once more, a constant vow. If Ashley would just stay outside until help came, if she’d just wait on the other side of the door…
“Okay, Mr. Jones, you’re really worrying me now,” he heard her determined young voice warn, and he was already shaking his head ‘no’, trying to string together a coherent response to stall her further, when she added, “I’m coming in.” The door swung open wide, banging against the scarred wall behind it as Ashley Herman, the witness he’d been meant to bring back to town safely, came through, lugging a 10 gallon bucket of ice with both hands.
Killian tried to close his eyes, to feign sleep, anything to hold back his ravenous instincts. Yet, his stillness only seemed to concern the plucky mother-to-be further. She managed – barely – to lift the heavy bucket high enough to dump it over the side into the large tub with the mix of melted water and ice cubes already floating there. But as she leaned over him, intent on her task, and quite probably trying to ascertain if he was still breathing, the beast inside of him had to look.
Her neck was right there, practically offered up for the slavering monster he was grappling to contain. Her jugular stood out like a beacon, beating its life-giving rhythm in some enticing Morse code he couldn’t ignore. Jerking back against the porcelain behind him, Killian clawed desperately, calling on everything in him not to lunge forward and take the restorative sustenance needed, to drain her until there was nothing left.
His eyes flew open wide in his panic, and at his sudden movement, Ashley’s own slid up to meet them; only for her to scream and stumble backwards, dropping the bucket and then tripping over it to fall on her rump, still scrambling away.
Killian had known the hunger in his eyes would be visible, changing them to an unearthly stare that even humans recognized was not natural, but were usually too late to flee from once seen. Though the reaction hurt somewhere on the edges of his awareness – it would never stop aching that he hadn’t wanted this – he tried to use Ashley’s fear to push her to safety. Fear gripped him even tighter as he felt his tense muscles start to raise him from the tub, anxious for the nourishment nearly within his grasp.
She was shaking her head in disbelief, her whole body trembling. “You…what…I don’t understand…” pouring nonsensically from her quivering lips.
“Get out!” Killian ordered, louder and harsher than he had meant, but without time to explain. She needed to move, put that door back between them immediately; her life and his sanity depended on it. “Now! Out!” he repeated, practically yelling. “Call Emma Nolan again. Make sure she’s on her way!” he panted, not sure what else to say to make his charge obey, only how imperative it was that she do so before he lost himself completely. “She’ll make sure you’re safe,” he said with a bit more control when he saw Ashley finally pick herself up and pass through the open door, closing it again behind her. “She’ll take care of you, Ashley. Just don’t come in here again.”
He could hear her panicked breath and sniffled tears through the cheap walls and hated himself that extra bit more for frightening her so. Sinking lower in the chilling bath, Killian forced himself to stay still, to cling to the small thread of himself still holding sway of his baser instincts. It mattered little now that he had never wanted Emma to see this side of him bared either – had wanted to remain that kind, if somewhat secretive, guardian she’d long viewed him as, to perhaps even know what it would be like for the friendship they enjoyed to deepen, to feel the overwhelming warmth in his long-empty chest at what could perhaps be even more between them as well.
Once Emma saw him like this, all of that would be over. Yet, he couldn’t let it matter. He knew she had suspicions that he hid a secret; she was smart and curious. He had doubt she had dug into every slip-up he had ever made in front of her, but he didn’t think she had unearthed what he was truly hiding. Still, she was just practical enough, just brave and compassionate enough, for him to trust that when she arrived, she would get Ashley out of there to safety. That was most important, not his thwarted hopes or what might have been. If Emma would also have some way to help him, he would certainly be grateful, but he couldn’t bring himself to expect it of her.
All he could really do was repeat to himself, ‘Hang on, help is coming,’ and rein his body in from violence he could never take back. Either he would recover, or this would be the death of him, but he couldn’t afford to focus on anything beyond his immediate concern for his charge, so he did it with gritted teeth and clenched muscles braced for catastrophe, fighting back the tragic end he should have always known was inevitable.
If he could stave off attack just a little longer, and none of the people he cared for were hurt, he would be satisfied. The damage to his own heart – just like his cursed, immortal soul – be damned. His blue eyes, long gone the strange vampiric pale that truly made him look undead, slid closed, and for a time, he knew no more.
Twenty-three years ago
Fire…burning, melting…and animal, guttural screams. The flames were seemingly everywhere, surrounding him on all sides and closing in as he sought out the tiny, blonde-headed child. He spotted her curled into herself, trying to be as small as possible, to be invisible, backed into a corner of the room beneath the window. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, only her feet sticking out from beneath the hem of the long, ridiculously ruffled white nightgown Milah had put her in – some poor sacrificial lamb of a stolen child to fix all that was broken between them.
Though there was no time to waste, the entire old house was about to go up in the raging inferno their supernatural brawl had begun, Killian stepped as carefully as he dared over to the shaking little girl. Her face was hidden in her crossed arms rested on her knees, but he knew she registered his presence at the tiny whimper which escaped her and the way she burrowed her face even deeper. Something inside him shriveled and fell apart at the fear of him she showed. He hadn’t asked for this grotesque parody of the family he could never have; would have never contemplated this travesty as a solution. But, as with the whole waking nightmare of his marriage, his wife turning him into a vampire and his life ever since, his choice didn’t seem to matter in the slightest.
All he could do now was try to bring this innocent out of the wreckage as unscathed as possible, back to the parents who were sick with worry for her and missing her desperately. He didn’t want to frighten her, to traumatize her any further by forcing her to safety, but they were running out of time.
“Emma…” he crooned softly, kneeling before her with his hand held out palm up, not touching or crowding her, but appealing for her attention. “That’s your name, right? I know this whole night has been scary. It’s alright if you’re still scared; I was afraid too. But your mom and dad sent me to find you,” he breathed a tiny sigh of relief when one slit of a bright, intelligent green eye peeped out at him, as if gauging whether or not to believe his word. “They hired me to bring you back to them if I could. We just have to get out of here quickly, and then I’ll take you straight to your mom and dad…”
Waiting anxiously, he tried not to flinch at the hot sparks leaping and crackling almost close enough to singe his back or the smoke stinging his eyes. Killian would snatch her up and get her out to save her life regardless, but he could have cheered aloud when she finally raised her head enough to look at him fully and whispered, “Promise?”
“Aye, sweetheart,” he murmured gently, letting a bit of the lilt in his voice that he knew to be soothing show further. “I promise.”
Little Emma Nolan ever so slowly sat up straight, unwound her arms from around her knees and then placed her tiny, delicate hand in his. Without wasting another second, Killian scooped her into his arms, whisked her from the flames, the creak of collapsing timber, and the death howl of his first love – staked, incapacitated, unable to hurt anyone ever again – and carried her home.
“Killian!” a terrified cry of his name and a frenzied smack to his face brought him reeling back out of the past. His muscles still frozen in the death grip he had maintained on the edges of the bath released at last, and he slid, spluttering, beneath the water for a moment until he was hauled up again by the soaking collar of his shirt. “Speak to me, Jones,” her voice was commanding, harsh with apprehension and worry. “You better not be dead.” The first thing he registered beyond her speaking was that blond halo of her hair as she leaned over the tub to peer at him intently.
‘Emma,’ his mind whispered in unquenchable relief. ‘She made it in time.’ Or at least he hoped so – judging by how weak and unfocused he still felt, and the lack of carnage and blood in the room around him, it would seem his pregnant ward was still safe and he had managed just enough restraint.
And yet, he still needed to feed – so desperately that he could barely see Emma before him through the fuzzy glaze over his vision. His skin felt stretched beyond endurance – dry and paper thin though he literally rested in a pool of water – as if it and he were about to disintegrate to dust. And despite it all, the veins pulsing blood through Emma’s body were so clear and vividly tempting that he could hardly focus on anything else, his tongue peeking out as it traced over his sharp fangs unconsciously, in an action beyond his control.
To his complete shock, Emma did not appear disgusted or frightened, or even terribly surprised, as she knelt before him studying the strange, pale look of his bloodthirsty vampiric eyes, the protruding fangs, and the full extent of the power he hid beneath his carefully normal surface. A part of him had half-expected to be struck down in his weakened state once she arrived; had accepted the fact that it would be best even, safest for all of them. However, what he found in her face, studying him with sympathy and another emotion that he couldn’t quite read, was none of the justice and retribution he had expected.
“Don’t you look at me like that, Killian Jones,” she finally breathed out huskily, inexplicably reaching forward to swipe a bit of his dark hair wetly plastered to his forehead back toward his temple, a melancholy wistfulness on her face. “You’re not the only one around here who’s good at research and a little detective work, you know.”
Killian merely waited, no words or even sense of what his response to that should be in his mind.
“I started to put two and two together a while ago,” she continued, with a scoffing chuckle and wry half-smile, “though probably not nearly as soon as I should have. You’re a vampire…aren’t you?”
He nodded, barely, still half-paralyzed with atrophy from holding himself so rigid for so long and practically lethargic from his thwarted hunger. “Aye,” his words rasped clumsily from heavy lips, “but before you…”
Then she did smile fully, even if there was still sadness in her gaze. “Hush,” she interrupted and stopped him cold as she leaned even closer to press her fingertips to his mouth. “You don’t need to explain it all now. Though I do wish you had felt you could tell me… That isn’t important at the moment. What matters is that you’re famished, aren’t you? Will feeding be enough to fix it? You’ll be fine again once you get some blood… right?”
Stunned once more, Killian could only bob his head in the affirmative, his reasons and perception impaired. He couldn’t quite fathom what was happening, barely hearing her decide, “Well, okay then,” and blow out a steadying breath. His mind was still struggling to catch up until he realized that Emma was gathering her hair to sweep it all over her shoulder and pulling down her sweater until her neck and whole shoulder were bared to his gaze, clearly offering herself to him in the best way she knew how.
Killian jerked back to full awareness – ashamed, panicked, and struggling to explain that he couldn’t feed from her. He could hurt her, he could drink too much, and he had vowed to himself long ago not to do such a thing to her. She might never look at him the same way afterwards, and it would destroy everything between them. “No lass,” he whispered, averting his eyes and barely containing the new, heady rush of need – of want – that flooded his senses and every pore at the sight of her creamy, delectable skin on display for his perusal. “I – I can’t…please…”
“You can,” she argued back, her chin tilted up with determined challenge, eyes crackling at him even as her voice pleaded. “You may not want to hurt me, but you don’t have time for any other options. I don’t know much about what’s going on, but that much is obvious. Please, Killian…let me do this… I want to.”
His eyes flew up to meet hers – uncertainty warring with hope and disbelief in a dizzying tangle. “You do?” he asked, astounded.
“Yes,” she reiterated, nodding fervently and letting her hand cradle the side of his face tenderly. “You can’t die, alright?” Her voice faltered a bit at that, unshed tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. “I need you. I know you feel like you have to protect me, not the other way around, but how many times have you rescued me since we’ve met?” She stumbled over the words sheepishly, but pressed on. “Please…just let me save you this time.”
Killian finally nodded his assent wearily; he didn’t have the strength to fight her, and how could he turn down this chance to taste her, to bond them in a way he couldn’t have fathomed ever receiving? Even if he should continue to resist, it was simply beyond his ability.
Reaching out tentatively, his movements still disjointed and shaky, Killian ignored the Heaven of her neck, afraid he wouldn’t be able to pull back when necessary if he bit her there, and instead softly wrapped his fingers around her wrist, pulling her arm gently toward his mouth.
Emma drew in a tight breath, as if steeling herself somehow, possibly hoping to avoid an upsetting reaction if it hurt. He paused, her arm suspended between them, but he ignored the pulsing vein there which would save his life, and for a moment, simply stroked her palm tenderly, his gaze not leaving her eyes, but searching their green depths. “Emma...are you certain about this?”
She looked back at him with equal focus, arching an eyebrow in the no-nonsense, almost sarcastic way that she had which he could never help but love. “If it’s do this or you’ll die, then yeah, I’m absolutely sure,” she replied sturdily, a firm, no-nonsense bob of her head echoing the words. She didn’t say anymore, just bit her lower lip nervously, making herself look younger and a tiny bit fragile in spite of her resolve.
It prompted Killian to reach out, in spite of the clumsy nature of his movements and his urgent need, to brush a strand of her hair back over her shoulder with the rest, and then, for only a second, to cup her face in his large hand, thinking he would never have an opportunity afterward. When her eyes focused on him once more, he said resignedly. “I’ll try to be careful, but…at some point…you may have to stop me.”
She nodded, and then he could truly wait no longer. He could feel the capillaries and veins within beginning to dry up and wither, knew that if a vampire got much further into this stage – even if their existence continued, they might not fully recover. Anymore hesitation and he could well make Emma’s offering senseless. Let the chips fall where they might, he would have to hope she wasn’t appalled and didn’t turn from him when this moment had passed.
He bent his dark, shaggy head over her wrist, drawing in one long, savoring breath before baring his fangs and diving in. Emma jerked slightly in his grasp as the sharp teeth pierced her skin, and though Killian knew the reaction was involuntary, it hurt him that he had knowingly caused her pain. However, in seconds her blood had reached his tongue, and the bliss that erupted on his senses was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Lost in her essence, he was overcome and all else faded away.
Emma meanwhile, hissed through her teeth at the sharp, sudden sting of the initial bite, but fought mightily for a second not to grab her arm back protectively, knowing that Kilian would stop and let himself die if she pulled away or fought. It was a fleeting pain anyway, as almost immediately after a strange shift began to take place. A tingling warmth and an out-of-body awareness seeped through her limbs. Emma closed her eyes, relishing the fact that she could feel Killian’s desire, his need, and the fulfillment that she was providing, echoed back and into her system as well.
It was powerful, thrilling, and more than a bit intoxicating. Though she knew logically that she had to be careful; she couldn’t help but allow the heady euphoria that seemed to awaken every nerve ending to envelop her as well. She had never felt so alive, so free, and yet so connected to another person. There were no words for it as she surrendered to the sensation…
Twenty-three years ago…
As she gave into the deluge of feelings and memory, more and more glimpses seeped into Emma’s mind and pulled her under. It was as though she were five years old again - cowering in that immense, suffocating darkness - lost in midnight blackness which had never felt so complete before or since.
Her mind recaptured the tight grip of almost clawed, inescapable hands snatching her from her bedroom, and the firm grasp of arms wrapped around her small, quivering frame like bands of iron. She been grabbed in an instant, blinking awake amidst pitch, overwhelming night, before she was awake enough to cry out, or even understand what was happening to her.
The monster who had taken her wavered in her conscious - a vague impression of long, dark hair, horrible, unhinged, almost red eyes, and sharp teeth. There had been a dim, unfamiliar attic room in an old house she didn’t know, and she could recall vividly trying to make herself as small as possible - hopefully invisible - in the corner against the wall once the creature had left her alone. After that, there was fire - flames dancing all around her and almost transfixing her vision. She had wanted to flee, known there was danger, but been afraid to move, to be noticed once more by the not-human who had stolen her.
Then, in a horrible rush and flurry of movement, there had been two of them fighting and clawing, leaping and crashing across the room with horrible growls and gnashing of teeth. It had been almost too fast for her small, uncomprehending eyes to follow, illuminated and then obscured by leaping tongues of flames and flickering shadows.
Until as soon as it had begun, the tumult ceased. With one last unearthly shriek, the sounds of struggled ended, and Emma had glimpsed a different dark form moving cautiously toward her through the fire. Eventually, the shady newcomer had knelt before her and coaxed her to take his hand. Though she had been shaking with fright and sensed the unnatural strength in this being too, something convinced her that this one meant her no harm.
He hadn’t pushed her, but waited for her to allow his touch before gathering her in his hold and taking her away from the darkness and fear. She didn’t remember all the facial features of this dark sort of guardian angel (as she continued for years to think of him affectionately) only piercing blue eyes - the bluest her child’s gaze had ever seen - gone almost black at the edges with some sort of intensity she couldn’t fathom.
Against all odds and all she had been through that night, Emma had felt safe again, wrapped up in that tight hold, almost like the comforting strength she found in her daddy’s arms. It was a similar sort of solidity, if less bulky than Papa’s, and she had laid her tiny head on his shoulder, the tremors shaking her whole body finally beginning to subside. She’d fallen into an exhausted slumber, and when she’d awakened, the bearer of those limitless blue eyes was gone; she was back with her mama and papa.
Emma returned to the present and the shabby desert motel where she had found Killian near death, with a gasp, starting up from the slump she’d collapsed in over the side of the porcelain bathtub. Killian was calling her name urgently, the worry evident in his tense voice as he leaned over her, but seemed strangely reluctant to make physical contact.
“Emma, can you hear me?!? Please - say something!” he cried, and Emma blinked, gathering her bearings and realizing that she must have let Killian drink from her for too long, awash in remembrance and sensation, and passed into a swoon of sorts, like some damsel in a fairy tale. She could hear the self-recrimination and blame in his voice as he urged her back into awareness, and as she straightened more fully, wincing at the tenderness in her arm, Emma fully looked up at Killian Jones - sometimes protector, long held friend and occasional partner in solving crimes, the man she found incredibly hard to resist and often caught herself wondering about romantically, what it might feel like to kiss his lips, to have him hold her against that firm, muscled chest - she met his eyes and suddenly knew why the blue had always seemed so comfortingly familiar, so engulfing and safe. They were the same eyes that haunted her half-remembered reveries of the Savior who had returned her home years ago, who had found a shivering, petrified little girl and put her world right again.
It all made sense now - how he had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the crime scene on the first case she’d reported for BuzzWire - materializing at her elbow to guide and protect every step of the way, no matter how much she’d grumbled about not needing his help at first. Emma could suddenly see as clearly as if she were reading Killian’s mind, retracing all the steps and thoughts that led him on the way ever since that fateful night her parents first sent him to her aid. From then on, over all the weeks, months, years since… he had clearly made that lost little girl - her - his personal mission. Her life had been touched by evil and darkness because of him (or so she could all too easily see him believing); her brilliant light nearly snuffed out. It had become his purpose not to allow it extinguished.
With new clarity, Emma realized that he had never been far from where he could watch over her and come to her rescue; moreover, he had continued looking after her since their formal meeting and becoming friends and partners; waiting in the wings, just in case she ever needed him…
Shaking her head dazedly, dumbfounded by the shocking revelation, “But - but you never said… I never knew… You’ve been looking out for me… on purpose… all this time?”
Killian’s eyes tried to slide away from hers, down to the frigid water and his drenched clothes, to the mottled tile floor, anywhere but back to meet her stunned gaze. He shook his head angrily, nearly biting out the words in gruff frustration, “Aye, I did...and all to nearly drain your life away in saving my own.”
The horror-stricken expression marring his handsome dark brow when Emma finally reached forward, placing a hand under his chin to force his eyes up to hers again spoke of such bitter judgement and self-loathing that quick tears started in her eyes unbidden. She didn’t know what to say, how to respond, only that she wanted to wipe that feeling, that pain from his face forever.
He tried to pull away again, blurting out, “Emma, please, just leave me! Take Ashley, get her back to safety, and leave this all behind. I nearly killed you! I can’t...If I’d… I could never forgive myself if anything else happened to you because of me.” With that outburst, his unsteadiness seemed to subside - either her lifesblood in his system doing its job to restore him, or his sheer resolve powering him on, but Killian shot to his feet in a smooth, superhumanly quick flash, stepping dripping wet to the long ago discolored floor before turning to level her with a stare that could freeze the liquid yet flowing through her veins. “I was kidding myself to ever think I was keeping you safe, that I could be near someone so good! I’m a cursed being, and I’ll only ever bring danger to your door, Emma. You need to stay away from me.”
He turned his back, shoulders slumped in defeat and waiting in stony silence. Emma could only presume he expected her to walk out, to leave him behind for her own good, but she could no more do that than leave behind a piece of herself. She might have been much too long in the dark, slow to realize just how entwined they were - and had always been - but she did know now, and she wouldn’t be pulling away. She didn’t want to.
Instead, she rose from her crouch by the tub, and though she wobbled for a second, her head light and clearly not as unaffected as she’d have liked to pretend, moved quietly to stand just behind him. Mere inches were all that were left between them when she reached out her hand tentatively, hardly daring to breathe as she laid a light touch on his tensed back, hoping to provide some sort of comfort, some assurance that she was still there with him, despite his fear.
A ripple shuddered through his frame; she felt the shaking under his skin before he turned once more to face her, drawing in a ragged breath as his eyes beseeched her, raw in their bright, tormented anguish, pleading as clearly as if he had spoken aloud, even before he rasped out a question. “Why, Emma? What would keep you here?” His eyes fell once more, another shiver coursing through him. “I’m not worth it.”
“Hey...hey,” she soothed, voice pitched quietly, as if speaking to a startled animal. “Killian, look at me. We’re alright, okay? That just isn’t true. You’re worth…” she swallowed hard, the magnitude of it only now truly understood and hitting her at full force. “You’re worth so much more than you’re giving yourself credit for. You’ve found me worthwhile all this time. Can’t I feel the same about you?”
Emma tried to make the last question a bit playful, otherwise overwhelmed and out-of-her-depth, she was trying to make Killian see that he wasn’t the monster he deemed himself. He could never be that in her eyes. She had seen a real monster long ago, and had survived it only thanks to him. Fighting her natural aversion to emotional speeches or sharing her feelings, she gave her newly recognized hero a lopsided grin and a shrug of her shoulders, as if to ask, ‘What are you gonna do?’ and added, “Just face it, Jones. You’re stuck with me.”
His intense stare bore into her for interminable minutes, likely searching her deep, all the way down to her soul. Finally, he seemed to come to some sort of decision, blowing out a breath and shaking his head with resigned humor. “Too stubborn for your own good,” he murmured under his breath before offering her what Emma would almost unbelievably call a hopeful smile that dazzled her beyond all measure, and then stating aloud. “You really are a tough lass, aren’t you?”
Blinking back the rogue tears that she had somehow managed not to let fall, Emma beamed at him in spite of how dire things had been mere moments ago. “You better believe it,” she affirmed, proud that her voice was almost completely steady.
“Well then,” he continued to smile back, gently cupping her face with his solid hand, gazing at her in warm admiration and what she had to feel was a bit of awed surprise as well. “Let’s see about getting you and Miss Hermann back to civilization in one piece, shall we?” He dipped his head before looking up at her in question once more, as if having to make certain, “That is, if you’re still determined to stay with me.”
Planting a hand on her hip and giving him an obstinate, challenging look, Emma arched her brow at that last bit so eloquently that Killian flushed sheepishly.
“Right, of course,” he mumbled. Then, before stepping away, he drew even closer still, pulling her in slowly to press his forehead to hers fervently. “Then at least let me say this… Thank you. Not just for overlooking my loss of control, or giving me another chance despite knowing what I am, though both of those mean more than I can express… but thank you for saving my soul. For nigh on two decades now, you’ve given me meaning, a reason to exist. I am in your debt, Love. Truly.”
Emma tilted her head to study him after that heartfelt speech, and then mischief stole across her bright features before she responded airily. “I don’t know, Jones. I think there might be a more tactile expression of your gratitude in order.” She lifted her face to him knowingly, smile with tempting expectation as she traced the tip of her tongue across her upper lip, so quickly he could have almost missed it if he hadn’t been unbearably focused on her precious face. “You may have the prettiest words of anyone I’ve ever met,” she teased, though her voice was soft now, almost breathless, “but is that really all your life is worth to you?”
Killian was reading her signals loud and clear, his eyebrows nearly rising into his hairline at her obvious anticipation. The air between them had been so fraught and tense with all that had happened that her attempt to lighten the mood was much appreciated, though he could not simply ignore the very real desire rushing through him to take her up on her clear offer either. It seemed he had dreamed of kissing this glorious firestorm of a woman for so long, all the while holding back, convinced that doing so would spell the end for them instead of the beginning, that the permission to follow his instinct, the realization that Emma wished for the very same thing was exhilarating.
Surging forward with a guttural moan of pleasure reverberating low in his throat, Killian could wait no longer to finally kiss this woman who had enchanted him years ago, capturing his heart as she challenged him and made him a part of the world again. Tracing her lips briefly with his tongue, her salty skin and soft, inviting mouth exquisite in its flavor, he pressed forward, catching her up and overwhelming her in the best of ways, causing them to stumble backwards into the support of the nearest wall. His hands delved into her golden hair, running his fingers through the silk of it as he had long ached to do, and he could only shiver and nearly growl out his muffled approval when she pressed further into him in return, clinging to his shoulders in abandon and holding on tightly to stay on her feet against his dizzying onslaught and give back every bit as good.
Panting and lightheaded when they finally parted just a hair's breadth in order to breathe, Emma smiled up at him with a look of flushed awe that warmed his cold, undead body from the tips of his ears to the ends of his toes. He would never know what she had seen in him to make her stay instead of running to safety while she had the chance. No matter how she protested, he would never find himself worthy of the devotion of a woman like her, but Killian knew in that moment he would spend the rest of his immortal life endeavoring to do so - just as he had for the years he had spent as her self-appointed guardian.
A knock on the door just then startled them both into jumping apart like two awkward teenagers caught red handed. “Guys? Are you alright in there?” Ashley’s voice, equal parts nervous, curious, and healthily annoyed, asked them through the door into the rest of the suite. “If we could get out of here some time this century, that’d be great. This place really kinda gives me the creeps…”
Emma snorted a held back giggle through her nose at the younger woman’s words. A fetching blush rapidly spread across her cheeks, down her neck, and disappeared into her shirt collar, and Killian couldn’t help but find her even more lovely when flustered, especially since he had been the one to make her so. “Yep! We’re coming!” she managed to call out breathily to their witness, moving to straighten her rumpled appearance just a bit and trying to make her hair look less disheveled from his hands.
It wasn’t long after that they were ready to leave their seedy hideout and begin the journey back to civilization from the burning desert. Killian looked back once more just before closing the door on the ramshackle room. Mere hours ago he’d been certain he was meeting his end, the running for his and Ashley’s lives over and their time lost, and now it seemed that forever once more stretched out ahead. They would find their way home safely; he no longer had any doubt.
#cssns#cs au oneshot ff#moonlight au#vampire PI Killian#reporter Emma#i'm so excited to finally put this out there#and a lot nervous too#but @wingedlioness and her art are amazing!!!
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"10 SUGGESTIONS FOR SELF RESPECT." a poem for: November 22, 2019 (Friday)
"TO HONOR, TO RESPECT THE DIVERSE PARTS OF YOU,"
Is an awesome, old task; perhaps, your "duty" too.
NotTakingYourselfTooSeriously is a good place to start;
So, summation: [FROM HAPPY GOOD HUMOR DON'T PART], (pause)
But These 10 (?) "Commandments" MIGHT be a good "guide,"
If seen "from above" or from some diff er ent side:
The reason thereAre 10 makesTHEM "reasonably complete:"
(1) [RESPECT YOUR JUDGMENTS], for you won't meet,
ANYONEwhoCan take better care of yourSELF;
And Don'tMAKEyourselfRELY on the "items" on "your shelf,"
In "The Room of Your Life,"
And that (even) includes your wife;
Just: (2) [DEPEND MAINLY ON YOU], (pause)
And you'll see yourself through;
And (3) [SING OF THINGS HELPFUL & GLAD],
Or you're liable to hear words both vile and sad;
Every day's "sacred," so (4) [USE YOUR TIME WELL,
AND GET A LITTLE REST], and this I will tell:
Try using your time to bless life around "here;"
Let your burdens be light, by not courting fear.
(5) [RESPECT BOTH NURTURING & DISCIPLINED PARTS YOU POSSESS], To insure you a little balance, so your life's not a mess;
(6) [DON'T DISREGARD ANY PARTS OF YOU]; they all have their place;
(7) [DO "YOUR BEST" TO KEEP PROMISES], and you'll have a happy face;
(8) [BE HAPPILY GENEROUS]; take from your reserves, BUT give you some back;
And (9) [DON'T BE TOO SERIOUS], be "sincere," so you won't lack,
THAT you know, "warm, fuzzy feeling" that comes from life with a little charm.
You're human, but TRY to be helpful and warm,
And (10) (pretty much) [LEAVE OTHERS TO HAVE & DO WHAT THEY WANT],
For, various "friends" go for "home runs;" some just strike out; some bunt;
Some naturally(?) wear base caps and chat up a storm,
But all parts of you have their "comfortable norm,"
And can bend just a little, but (please) don't force 'em to break,
By ATTEMPTING these suggestions TOO hard. Oops, here'sAnother: (11) [A "NICE" LIFE PLEASE MAKE]; and, whoops: (12) [PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK]; thus, congratulate "The Entire Array," Of wild, crazy attributes you might display each day.
fin <3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQfF84ackMM
And, oh, yeah: (13) [A REAL GOOD ANSWER TO ANY QUESTIONS THAT YOU'VE GOT, IS: (whisper) "I DUNNO; (long pause) I'LL CONSIDER IT, WHILE SITTIN' ON THE POT."]
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Hi! Once you get this you have to say five things you like about yourself, publicly, then send this to 10 of your favorite followers (non-negotiable) SPREAD POSITIVITY! ❤
Hrrm, I think this has come at a good time, as I'm coming off of one of my antidepressants and having a very hard time right now. 1. I can survive! I was diagnosed with severe depression since I was 18 and sought help for the first time, I kind of feel I was born that way. I've come off some pretty strong drugs, and am in the thick of it now. I've also had a very strange two years health-wise; freak injuries, surgery followed by sepsis and a handful of GI bleeds, with a few stays in the hospital. 2. I have a degree in nursing. Before kids I worked for five years on an acute surgical ward including reconstructive plastics, ENT/head and neck, and some wild general surgery. I also did rural nursing and ran emergency rooms and nursing homes. 3. I'm a wife and mother! My husband and I went through fertility treatment that failed. Though my heritage, we were able to adopt our daughter at birth. And two years after her, we were blessed with a five week old son. I am able to stay home and raise them, until this fall anyway, when our guy goes to kindergarten. 4. I am a self taught makeup artist. I started with just doing my makeup and have moved on to face painting, and hope to get into sfx. I really should post some of my work here. 5. I am Canadian! I survive in a winter climate that's is regularly colder than mars, can drive dangerous conditions, and can outdoor like a beast. Thank you so much @spectaculacular-sammy I needed this so much!
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