He stands in front of the illegal installation in Lift 14 that keeps not getting cleared despite it not being regulation.
The lift doors have long since closed behind him.
He should remove it.
It’s probably a fire hazard.
He doesn’t move.
He should order maintenance to remove it.
He doesn’t activate his comm.
The doors open behind him, the voices of several of his men spilling into the lift. They cut off when the lift reveals him. He hears the faint sound of plastoid rubbing against fabric, then the doors close again and he’s once again left alone.
He should have Waxer and Boil dismantle it. They built it, after all.
He never should have allowed it in the first place. Patron Sith, really, what were they thinking, what were they. Why. Why did he.
Cody stares at the ridiculous, stupid little altar, sitting on the floor surrounded by painted bits of plastoid, pretty rocks, flimsi folded into shapes and other pathetic, desperate, hopefilled little offerings the crew of the venator have left here, the stupid, useless kriffing altar and the stupid, useless listening bug he’s reasoned with and pleaded with and threatened, and.
His lungs stutter, and the mic can probably pick up how wet his breath sounds, how shaky, how like a sob he’s trying to choke down and that’s choking him right back, but it doesn’t matter; no one is listening to that recording anymore anyway, he’s gone, he’s gone, gone, gone, and Cody. He just.
"I just want my friend back.”
He adds oblations of his own in the shape of drops of salt water.
Nothing happens. The galaxy, or the Force, or whatever, doesn’t care, and the man who did isn’t listening anymore.
Cody is alone.
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I think... in many ways, I really just want to feel loved, but I'm scared of accepting it, and scared of feelings I feel like I "can't control" so I end up taking an overly analytical approach and overjustifying things like natural curiosity to myself by calling things "just scientific fascination" and "morbid curiosity" (because in my mind, things I feel I am not "allowed to" experience, be curious about, or consider, seem like they're taboo, hence 'morbid'). I can't really fault others for thinking that's messed up. I've definitely ruined chances at receiving any sort of care and/or love in the past by not only pushing people away in delusional self-sabotage states, but also by treating people like equations or research projects. I sort of hate admitting to myself that I DON'T know or understand everything, and that doing so is impossible no matter how much I like knowing things, especially since my inability to just trust and take what people tell me at face value is in juxtaposition with that desire for knowledge and thorough understanding. It is actually me and my own doubt of people that drives me into over-questioning everything I DO know.
I also am terrible at paying attention to others. I know this. I forget that other people are, well, people, and that they won't know how much I care about them unless I express it and KEEP expressing it. Not just verbally but with things like asking people how they are doing- assuming they'll just tell me if they want me to know is something I do, but I know very well how easy it is to feel like a burden and close your troubles away from others in fear of being "too much" to deal with. I've reflected on this, and my unhealthy manner of expressing fondness and trust for others being that I'm far too quick to traumadump and talk about myself, in the past, but I've not been making nearly enough progress on it.
I think, I seek and crave for too much clarity without offering any myself, that has driven people away from me in the past, and it's purely my own flaws causing it.
Maybe with another year or two of reflecting, I will be able to handle something like a qppr without it falling apart because of my aloofness and inability to pay enough attention to others. Perhaps in half a decade, I could consider a romantic relationship, if I've made any progress with all that + trauma work, by then.
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Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.3
[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.4][Pt.5][Pt.6][Pt.7]
“Aquaman.” Batman swept into the room, beelining straight for the suddenly apprehensive Atlantean king.
“Batman. What can I do for you?”
“Phantom. Does he pay taxes?”
“Pardon?”
Batman makes a low noise that had Aquaman’s danger senses buzzing.
“Does Phantom have to pay taxes. Towards Atlantis.”
“No…? Why?”
“He wanted money, in exchange for… information, of a delicate sort,” Batman said, diplomatically avoiding the topic of Phantom bargaining for the identities of corpses in exchange for a measly $100 dollars per identity. Like a flea market dealer, that one was.
“You encountered Phantom again?” Aquaman perked up.
“Yes. Gotham’s bay is… polluted.” Batman paused. “With victims. Of murder.”
The entire area quieted as heads turned towards the Dark Knight.
“Yes, I am… distantly aware of Gotham’s waters.” By that, Aquaman gets green around the gills whenever he turns his awareness in that direction. There’s a reason he doesn’t enter Gotham, and the Dark Knight’s ban is only half of that reason. “Ah, but you’re correct. For what purpose would Phantom need mortal currency?”
“Hn.”
“Maybe he needs some stuff?” Flash zipped to a stop next to Batman, feet tapping as he dug into the pile of snacks cradled in his arms. “Us mortals are always coming up with new things, maybe he wants to try some games or something?”
Batman tilted his head down, seriously considering Flash’s suggestion. “It’s plausible.”
“Barry, Barry, Barry. He’s old as hell, right? He probably wants to try the new booze!”
“Hal, my man!” Flash fist bumped Green Lantern, who came up. “You’re back! What happened to John?”
“Dunno. He got called somewhere that way,” Green Lantern waved a vague hand towards the left. “Had to deal with a politician or something from that area.” He shrugged, swinging an arm over Barry’s shoulders to put him in a headlock and stealing a chip.
“Huh. Anyways, would our mortal alcohol even work on a demi-god or something?”
“We should ask!” Hal turned towards Batman. “You should ask if he wants to go for a drink, spooky!”
“He’s a child.”
“He’s been around for more than a millennia, Bats.”
“Informational gathering, right, Hal?” Flashgot out of the headlock, quickly munching on his snacks to stop Green Lantern from stealing them.
“Totally. Yup.”
“…Fine.”
“Wait, are we just gonna ignore that Gotham’s waters are full of bodies?”
“Yes.”
——
“What?” Danny asked, mind half on the bags he’s dragging out of the water and the other half on the essay he has to submit in about four hours.
“Green Lantern wanted to invite you out for a drink.”
Danny turned to the stoic Gotham knight, who had his wrist computer out to log the bodies’ info the moment Danny gave him the information. Some of them even told Danny who murdered them, so Batman could start building cases with solid leads.
Danny’s only twenty. He’s not legal yet but he doesn’t want to give any clues to who he is. How is he supposed to…
Ah!
“Can’t.” Danny shrugged. “I’m not legal. I died when I was fourteen so…” Danny trailed off, speechless at the drowned puppy face Batman was giving him. What the fuck.
“Anyways, fork over my payment.”
Batman wordlessly hands him a wad of hundreds.
“What do you need cash for?” Batman suddenly asked.
“Huh? Isn’t it obvious?” Danny tucked it in. “Material things, obviously. I need a blanket,” because holy shit, Gotham is damn cold this time of year. “Anyways, see you same time next week, litterer.”
“I don’t litter.”
“Tell that to the batarangs I found under the water,” Danny grumbled. “But I’ll stop calling you that if you get a signature from Poison Ivy. I have a friend who loves her.”
“An alive friend?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, weatherboy?”
Danny snickered and disappeared. He’s gotta cram that essay.
——
“There’s a possibility Phantom might be homeless.”
“Batman, I mean this in the nicest way, but for the love of Atlantis, please stop giving me headaches. It’s time like these I wish I stayed a lighthouse keeper.”
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@misassumed | " here I am, not sure if you should take a chance " ( for 4 ambrosius from ballister @ misassumed 👀👀👀 )
✧˚ · . so much (for) stardust - fall out boy
---
It's the past that defines the future.
As loathsome as that mentality may be in given contexts, so long as it reigns over literally the entire world, no amount of active fighting against it will make the world suddenly spin in the other direction. Fix your own mentality and still watch society around you collapse on the heaps of corpses it itself had put there, while all you can do is stand beside it and watch all the signs that had hinted to this outcome be trampled on like the voices of the innocent in a never-ending stampede.
Ambrosius is stuck in the very middle of it.
He's got voices of upbringing, his own name muttered in awe in his ears until they ring and threaten to bleed, his own face smiling so very self-assured, a beam of light, of hope, splattered on any campaign that will hold him.
He's more face than he is himself, he's more a slogan than he is a voice, he's more a symbol than he is a man, and he's all of those things willingly, he's all of those things because too long has he been told that it was and always will be the right thing to do.
He is what he is.
But according to that logic... he never should have fallen in love with Ballister, should he?
Even now while his fists clench and unclench, skin and familiar plates clanking against his bones so uncomfortably as though he'd finally woken up and realized he'd stolen the Ambrosious of this world and stuffed an impostor into it, whatever he is without any of the glitz and glamour and obedience, Ambrosius wonders...
If he is what he is... then Ballister is what he is, too.
Then Ballister should be all that they've been told him to be for all their lives.
But he's not, he's so much more, he's the only fruit tree to have grown on these soils that don't look chromatic, painted over by Alice from white to red, the only rose to have naturally grown in such a desirable colour.
He wishes he could answer easily.
He wishes there were an easy answer.
He wishes he could reach for it if there were. He wonders, could he, if he saw it?
Is the 'right choice' easier to take than he'd assumed?
And if so, which one is it?
"Bal," a breath of a name, a thousand confessions and a million implorations in a single syllable. His hand lifts, reaches out, more hesitant than half-hearted, unsure of how big the distance between them has grown at this point.
"I've always been on your side. You know that. That doesn't have... If... If you just came back and..."
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